I held on to strength and common sense and reminded myself every time my mind had even flirted with the idea of wavering.
But the love written on her face right now was the kind of genuine caring I could never resist. Intimate gestures like those weren’t scripted; they were as much a part of who a person was as the veins threading through them. The instinctual comfort she offered came from a good heart. Seeing this side of her, when there was no one watching, no one to impress—fucking hell—it did shit to me on the inside I didn’t want to admit.
She compelled me to waver for the first real time since I made a silent promise to this town and the people I loved here to protect them from everything…even me.
The smallest of the three girls who’d taken Mayhem out, struggled to get up while the others yanked on her hands and arms to help. Once they made it onto their skates again, Mayhem bounded to her feet effortlessly, no pinch of pain flitting over her face.
Guess that rib felt a hell of a lot better.
So much better she guided them straight into another lap around the floor.
Anyone else would have had the kids take five after a spill like that, but not Mayhem.
Of course, not Mayhem.
If she didn’t sweep those little girls right into another lap, the one who fell may never go back out there again. Mayhem gave her the gift of faith. It would leave a mark.
Mayhem left her mark.
Apparently, she left indelible touches everywhere. Banked Track. The Shipwreck. Here.
Inside me.
She met my eyes, the startled confusion on her face just moments before now shrouded in curiosity.
I was pretty sure if I looked in a mirror, I’d find curiosity on my face too.
We stumbled into this tentative dance with one another, both of us shit at hiding our mutual dangerous interest.
One of us better learn how to put on the brakes. Mayhem didn’t look like she braked for anything—and despite years of discipline where I’d mastered caution, I didn’t want to either.
Shit.
When she turned her attention on the girls again, I let myself watch her despite the Guinness World Record list of reasons why I shouldn’t. Off the clock and off the track she had a softness in her and fuck if I could tear my eyes away.
Acid-washed jeans hugged round hips that moved along with the music pumping through the room. A new song because Jackson had mercy on our souls and dialed back that teenybopper pop playlist. This one, soft and catchy, had Mayhem's brood of beginners mimicking her movements, swaying more with their arms than hips, but their attention off their skates, the hero worship evident with their toothy grins.
The rips in the material stretched across her thighs gave a tantalizing glimpse of the tattoos running up her skin. Covered from the side of her neck, down her arms, over her fingers, and along her thigh made me wonder how many tattoos lay hidden in between.
What was she trying to hide with so much ink?
Or—what was she trying to tell?
I wanted to search over her body and study them all. Graze over them with my fingertips, trace them with my tongue. Memorize their taste with my mouth.
I wanted to know what each permanent piece of ink etched into her porcelain skin meant to her. What it said about the woman inside. The girl she’d been before her mother died. The girl she became after. The woman who battled demons on the track and wrangled unruly old men with comfortable affection and humor.
Turning the corner, her back to me now, I swallowed hard.
Worse than the rips on the front of her jeans was the one across the back of her thigh, just a couple inches under the curve of her round ass.
My blood stirred, surging hot and heavy through my veins, burning me up from the inside out as my body reacted to the baggy sweater determined to hang off her shoulder.
With her hair up in a ponytail and bandana, the tattoo stretching over her back and climbing to the base of her neck lay exposed.
Bastard that I was, I took full advantage.
Her flesh just begged for a series of sensual bites.
All of a sudden joking around with Jackson about popping bone didn’t seem so funny.
Blinking away the connection, I searched for a polar vortex to sweep through and knock me down a few degrees. I glanced over and caught sight of Wes Myers, a fixture in this town who knew everybody after spending two decades as an ER nurse at the local hospital. He sat at the table with a couple of boys sporting shitty moods etched over their defiant little baby faces.
My mother’s corner table.
And there it was, the blast of cold to spank my ass before seeping into my bones.
The boys kept stealing glances at the floor, their skeptical faces morphing into rapt interest the longer they stared.
They didn’t look like they were in trouble with the way Wes reclined back in his seat, an unbothered look on his face. If anything, they looked like they wanted to be out there, but something held them back.
“Hey, man, you’re still here, huh?” Jackson nudged my arm with his elbow. “I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised since you spotted Maze,” Jackson said, earning a warning glare from me.
“Don’t read anything into it, Jackson.” The guy looked all too happy to be gloating in the gossip seeping from every corner of Galloway Bay. Just whose side was he on anyway?
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, rocking on his heels and just one step away from a jaunty whistle that might make me throat punch him.
“Does she come in here a lot?” I’m a fucking idiot. Hands down, the dumbest shit on the planet.
