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to say my family was cursed, but if you looked at the long line of disappointments, I don’t know if you’d agree or not. Or maybe you’d simply say it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. And maybe it was, but I wasn’t planning on getting near any dangerous man to find out. I’d already done it with that phone call, fallen in love with a dying, dangerous man who stole my heart in ten minutes and would never let it go.
    Or maybe I was just protecting myself. To let Cage walk away seemed like a foolish, selfish thing to do when I’d been given a second chance with him.
    I’d already fallen too fast—completely, ridiculously, head-spinningly fast—and there was no escape from it. But I couldn’t shake from my mind one notion that my mother ingrained in me.
    You take a man’s money, you give him power.
    And I was never giving the only thing I had away. And that was why I’d never touched the settlement money from Jeffrey Harris’s family.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tenn come back into the room. I glanced over at him, then gave Cage a hard stare. “I’ll go with you. For protection. Obviously, there’s a connection between us. I’ll share your bed, but I’m not yoursto order around. You don’t own me, Cage. No one ever will.”
    Cage stared. Tenn gave a low whistle, but, smart man that he was, said nothing.
    Cage was either very stupid or very brave, because he did speak. “In or out of bed?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou said you’re not mine to order around—is that in or out of bed?”
    I swallowed hard, hated the thrill that went through me at the thought of Cage and bed. “Neither.”
    He shook his head slowly. “You can think that it’ll end there, sweetheart. But the MC doesn’t work like that. I don’t work like that. It’s a different world, like nothing you’ve ever been involved in before. It’s going to blow your mind. I’m as goddamned possessive as I know you are. You want to go in thinking we’ll play this fast and loose, make it a casual thing—you try it.”
    â€œYou’re saying it’s not going to work?”
    â€œI’m saying that my MC doesn’t fuck its way through women like you. They’ll be hands-off because of me. Every MC woman wants the opposite of what you just said. Every guy too, if he’s not too stupid to admit it.”
    â€œDo you?”
    â€œI’m here, aren’t I?”
    â€œI can’t tell if that’s guilt.”
    â€œI don’t fuck who I pity.” His harsh language, self-absorbedness all clenched in my belly, fueling the already big ball of want. “So if I don’t own you, then you don’t own me? You can handle that?”
    Behind me, Tenn cursed, a warning, and I had to stand my ground. “I can.”
    I’d just lied to him, and it wasn’t the first time.

Chapter 9
    Calla was still packing when Cage heard the unmistakable roar of tricked-out bikes breaking the quiet of the North Carolina night.
    Tenn stilled. “That’s not Tals.”
    Definitely not. “Heathens.” They rigged their bikes loud and obnoxious, and their enforcers were rigged the loudest. “I wasn’t followed.”
    â€œCould’ve been info in Bernie’s office on me. Could just be that they followed her here and they were biding their time, waiting for you,” Tenn said as he drew the blinds, then looked through the side.
    â€œNow you say that?”
    â€œNot like I saw Heathens hanging around the beach. I think I would’ve noticed.”
    â€œSome of them aren’t as sloppy as the others.” He listened again. “They’re three blocks away.”
    â€œYou scare me with that shit.”
    Hell, this’d been his bread and butter. Still would be, if Preacher would take him back in.
    Tenn glanced at him. “You gotta go.”
    â€œI’m