Chapter 3

3

STELLA

W ith what my dad had written about Connor, I assumed the man would also be in his fifties. The last thing I expected was to find a guy who was in his late thirties and sexy as all get-out. At six-foot-two, with tanned skin, black ink peeking out of the collar of the T-shirt stretched over his muscular chest, dark hair, a close-cropped beard, and piercing green eyes, he could easily grace the cover of any biker magazine. Their circulation would go up because women would clear the shelves every day.

His deep, raspy voice only added to the allure. Even when I thought he’d been throwing me out of his office the moment I arrived, the sound had sent a sensual shiver down my spine.

He oozed confidence and commanded a room, which made sense considering the president patch on his leather vest. I didn’t know much about motorcycle clubs, but it was easy to see why he was the man who led this one.

My dad had nailed how unwelcoming Connor would be when I got here. But what nobody could have ever guessed—even me—was my reaction to him. Dad was in enough trouble to send me across three states to find this man, and instead of asking him about the contents of the letter Dad had written him, I sat here wondering what Connor would look like naked. And how his lips would feel pressed against mine. Especially if both of us had stripped off our clothes. “ Kibaszottul koncentrálj .”

Connor’s head jerked up. “You speak Hungarian?”

Nodding, I snorted. “And French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Farsi, and a touch of Mandarin.” I called myself ten types of idiot when I wanted to preen at the impressed expression on his face. “I learned Spanish first and picked it up so quickly that it became a game between my dad and me to see how many I could master. Which came in handy when I got to college because it made it easy to pick linguistics as my major.” My face heated a little when I admitted, “But I’ve found that Hungarian is the safest if I’m going to swear, especially the f-word because it’s rare to run across someone else who speaks it.”

He studied me for a moment, then tilted his head and asked, “Why do you need to focus?”

Although he’d recognized the language, I hadn’t expected him to understand exactly what I’d said. I most definitely wasn’t going to explain that I was distracted by his hotness and the fact that I'd never been so attracted to a man before…or any man. So I went with, “Because my dad is in danger. Or at least I assume he is. We need to figure out what to do to help him.”

“ We aren’t going to do anything.” He tapped his finger against the letter my dad had written him. “I’m going to handle this.”

Narrowing my eyes, I opened my mouth to argue with him, but I already knew it wouldn’t do me any good. Gritting my teeth, I glared at him as I got to my feet. It figured that the first guy to bring my dormant libido to life was a giant jerk. “Fine, then I guess I’ll be going.”

“Going?” he echoed, cocking his head to the side, his expression unreadable.

“I drove for ten hours to drop that letter off to you. Now that I’ve completed the errand my dad sent me on, I need to find somewhere to crash for the night.” And to figure out how I’d find my dad without Connor’s help since I didn’t see him sharing his letter—or the contents of that digital key—with me.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he disagreed, standing and stalking around his desk. When he got close, I caught his gaze sweeping down my body, making my nipples pebble.

Cursing my body’s reaction to him, I asked, “Why not? You just said there wasn’t anything for me to do because you’re going to take care of it all. Right?”

“Your dad asked me to protect you, so you’ll stay your ass right here.”

My anger deflated at his words. I should’ve assumed that Dad had told him to keep me safe. He’d even hinted at it in his letter to me. Dropping back down onto the couch cushion, I whispered, “Nothing is more important to him than making sure I’m safe.”

“And I’m not gonna let anything happen to you,” Connor vowed, determination shining from his green orbs.

“I respect that, but his safety is important to me, too.” Language was my thing, but I struggled with finding the right words to explain how difficult it would be for me to sit on my butt while my dad was in danger. “I’m not sure if I could live with myself if he died because you were too busy watching over me to help him.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. Spent eight years as an intelligence officer and six as the prez for the Hounds.” He crouched down in front of me until we were at eye level with each other. “I’m damn good at multitasking, even when shit’s gone sideways.”

“The Hounds of Hellfire?” My gaze drifted to his leather vest, then the gorgeous dog on the floor next to his desk. “That’s why you named him Cerberus?”

He nodded. “Seemed fitting.”

I felt his nearness on a deep level that had nothing to do with how close he was to me and everything about my feminine awareness of the man himself. Pressing my thighs together to ease the ache in my core, I took a deep breath. That turned out to be a mistake because his woodsy scent filled my nostrils, making me even more conscious of the chemistry between us.

I’d finally met someone who might be worth dropping my walls for—assuming he felt the same—but the timing was awful. The last thing I wanted to do was pull Connor’s attention from what was important—finding my dad.

Before my thoughts went to dark places that would only amp up my worry, an interruption I needed came in the form of the guy who’d walked me inside the compound.

Rapping his knuckles against the door, he opened it just far enough to poke his head inside. Connor twisted his way and growled, “What?”

“Just checking that you’re both alive, Prez.” His lips curved into a smirk. “It was awfully quiet in here.”

I stifled a giggle at the lethal look Connor shot his way. Neither man knew enough about me to realize I could do a fair bit of damage, thanks to the training my dad had insisted on. Even with my gun still in the trunk of my SUV, I was a threat. An underestimated one due to my size…and the tears I’d used to get past the gate.

“We’re fine,” Connor grunted as he straightened to his full height. “Stella and I have come to an understanding. She’s going to stay with us while I track down her dad and the bastards who burned him.”

That wasn’t quite how I would put it, but he wasn’t too far off. I was more than willing to take a back seat if that was what it took to keep my dad safe. “Now that we’ve got that settled, the sooner I’m shown to my room, the quicker you can get to it.”

“You know where to put her, Blaze.”

I didn’t understand the meaningful look that accompanied Connor’s words. Not until Blaze led me through the clubhouse and into a house attached to the back.

The place was a lot homier than I expected for a motorcycle club, although the room we’d walked past looked as though it had been plucked from a biker movie. Stools with black leather saddle seats and gleaming chrome legs lined the dark wood counter of a long bar, and there had to be at least a hundred bottles of alcohol on the shelves behind it.

The giant recreation area across from the bar had the same vibe, with black leather couches along the walls, a pool table in the middle, and several big-screen televisions. It was much easier to picture the guys in Connor’s club hanging out in that space than this home. But there was no denying this was where he lived, not with his scent thick in the bedroom Blaze led me to.

After he left—with a promise that someone would grab my stuff from my SUV—I padded into the attached bathroom. I took in the full laundry hamper and men’s toiletries occupying the counter, and it finally dawned on me. There would be no distancing myself from Connor. Not when he had put me in his bedroom.