Chaos series by Kristen Ashley

“Right, hang tight, I’ll be there.”

“Uh… thanks, Shy.”

“Anytime, Tab. Yeah?”

He waited, and it felt like years before she whispered, “Yeah.”

He disconnected, pulled on his last boot, and stood, tugging on his tee as he turned to his bed. One of the women was up on an elbow and blinking at him. The other was still out.

As he found his knife in the nightstand and shoved the sheath into his belt, he ordered, “Get her ass up. Both of you need to get dressed and get gone.” He reached into the nightstand and grabbed his gun, shoving it into the back waistband of his jeans and pulling his tee over it. “You got fifteen minutes to get out. You’re not gone by the time I get back, I will not be happy.”

“Sure thing, babe,” the awake one muttered. She lifted a hand to shove at the hip of her friend.

Jesus.

Slicing a glance through them he knew he was done. Some of the brothers, a lot older than him, enjoyed as much as they could get, however that came, and they didn’t limit it to two pieces of ass.

He’d had that ride and often.

It hit him right then it went nowhere.

He’d never, not once, walked up to a woman who looked lost without him and became found the second she saw him. Who leaned into him the minute he touched her. Who made him laugh so hard, his head jerked back with it. Whose mouth he could take and the world melted away for him just as he made that same shit happen for her.

And he would not get that if he kept this shit up.

He jogged through the Compound to his bike and rode with his cell in his hand.

She texted, I’m okay, and Shy took in a calming breath and turned his eyes back to the road.

She texted again. This time, I’m still okay, and, getting closer to her, Shy felt his jaw begin to relax.

A few minutes later she texted again. This time it was I’m still okay but this bathroom is seriously gross.

When Shy got that, after his eyes went back to the road, he was flat-out smiling.

She kept texting her ongoing condition of okay, with a running commentary of how much she disliked her current location, until he was outside the house. He turned off his bike and scanned. Lights on in a front room, another one beaming from a small window at the opposite side at the back. The bathroom.

He bent his head to the phone and texted, Outside, baby.

Seconds later he saw a bare foot coming out the small window and another one, then legs. He kicked down the stand, swung off his bike, and jogged through the dark up the side of the house.

He caught her legs and tugged her out the rest of the way, putting her on her feet.

She tipped her head back to him, her face pale in the dark.

“Thanks,” she said softly.

He, unfortunately, did not have all night to look in her shadowed but beautiful face. He had no idea what he was dealing with. He had to get them out of there.

He took her hand and muttered, “Let’s go.”

She nodded and jogged beside him, her hand in his, her shoes dangling from her other hand. He swung on his bike, she swung on behind him. A child born to the life, she wrapped her arms around him without hesitation.

He felt her tits pressed to his back and closed his eyes.

Then he opened them and asked, “Where you wanna go?”

“I need a drink,” she replied.

“Bar or Compound?” he offered, knowing what she’d pick. She never came to the Compound anymore.

“Compound,” she surprised him by answering.

Thank Christ he kicked those bitches out. He just hoped they followed orders.

He rode to the Compound, parked outside, and felt the loss when she pulled away and swung off. He lifted a hand to hold her steady as she bent to slide on her heels, then he took her hand and walked her into the Compound.

Luckily, it was deserted. Hopefully, his room was too. He didn’t need one of those bitches wandering out and f**king Tab’s night even worse.

“Grab a stool, babe. I’ll get you a drink,” he muttered, shifting her hand and arm out to lead her to the outside of the bar while he moved inside.

Tabby, he noted, took direction. She rounded the curve of the bar and took a stool.

Shy moved around the back of it and asked, “What’re you drinking?”

“What gets you drunk the fastest?” she asked back, and he stopped, turned, put his hands on the bar and locked eyes on her.

“What kind of trouble did I pull you out of?” he asked quietly.

“None, now that I’m out that window,” she answered quietly.

“You know those people?” he asked.

She shrugged and looked down at her hands on the bar. “An old friend. High school. Just her. The others…” She trailed off on another shrug.

Shy looked at her hands.

They were visibly shaking.

“Tequila,” he stated, and her eyes came to his.

“What?”

“Gets you drunk fast.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

He grabbed the bottle and put it in front of her.

She looked down at it then up at him, and her head tipped to the side when he didn’t move.

“Glasses?” she prompted.

He tagged the bottle, unscrewed the top, lifted it to his lips and took a pull. When he was done, he dropped his arm and extended it to her.

“You can’t get drunk fast, you’re f**kin’ with glasses,” he informed her.

The tip of her tongue came out to wet her upper lip and Jesus, he forgot how cute that was.

Luckily, she took his mind off her tongue when she took the bottle, stared at it a beat then put it to her lips and threw back a slug.

The bottle came down with Tabby spluttering and Shy reached for it.

Through a grin, he advised, “You may be drinking direct, sugar, but you still gotta drink smart.”

“Right,” she breathed out like her throat was on fire.

He put the bottle to his lips and took another drag before he put it to the bar.

Tabby wrapped her hand around it, lifted it, and sucked some back, but this time she did it smart and her hand with the bottle came down slowly, although she was still breathing kind of heavy.

When she recovered, he leaned into his forearms on the bar and asked softly, “You wanna talk?”

“No,” she answered sharply, her eyes narrowing, the sorrow shifting through them slicing through his gut. She lifted the bottle, took another drink before locking her gaze with his. “I don’t wanna talk. I don’t wanna share my feelings. I don’t wanna get it out. I wanna get drunk.”

She didn’t leave any lines to read through, she said it plain, so he gave her that out.