My feet shuffle back a step, in a moment of boldness that is nothing like me. Just enough that my shoulder brushes his chest.
I shrug, feeling his warmth on my skin from the movement, even through my sweatshirt. “Life, I guess.”
He hums, the vibrations from his chest rumbling against my arm, shooting into my own body. “If you could have any Christmas wish this year, what would it be?”
A Christmas wish? I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever wished for anything for Christmas. Not since I was a young child, at least. I know gifts and wishes are unattainable. Not anything I’d actually ever receive, so why even wish for it? It’s just a waste of time.
“I don’t know. Nothing.”
I can feel his frown. I can sense his displeasure in how grinchy I am. I can’t help it, it’s just how I’ve been brought up, I guess.
“Come on, Iris. One wish for Christmas. What would it be? A fucking pony?”
I turn around, a harsh glare instantly hitting my features. “I’m not a baby,” I snap, not sure where my balls are coming from. Yes, maybe he’s being a snarky fucking dick for his comment. I’m not the kid with the bouncy curls. I don’t want a fucking pony. But speaking up? I rarely do it to anyone.
“Then tell me what you want,” he implores, his dark gaze heavy on mine. It entraps me, keeps me locked in the mixture of pine and smoke and nothing—nothing at all—could ever release me from this prison.
Maybe I don’t want to be released.
“I want a new life,” I breathe, his eyes breaking the walls down, even when I don’t want them to. He doesn’t deserve to know the deep parts of me. No one does. I keep them locked away, only letting them out at night when I’m alone in my room. When I can wither away and wish for things that’ll never come true. But when I’m in front of people, I keep the guard high, and I never, never show weakness.
But somehow, Lynx breaks everything down with just one look.
“I want to live where I’m wanted. I want someone to look at me and tell me they want me to be there. I want to love and love back. I want fucking Christmas to actually be a holiday and not just another day. I want…” I take a breath, realizing I shouldn’t have drank so quickly, because I’m verbally spewing emotions to a man who probably thinks I’m batshit. “I don’t want to survive anymore. I just want to live. Like really live.”
He stares down at me, his face a mixture of irritation and unease. He doesn’t know how to take my words, and I don’t know why I ever expected he should.
“Sorry. I don’t know why I said all that shit.” I shake my head, self-consciousness creeping up my neck and into my face. I can feel the heat, the redness blotching across my skin. “Wow, that’s embarrassing.” I step away from him, but his hand snaps down, wrapping around my wrist.
“You said that shit because you mean it. Don’t ever feel bad or embarrassed for being you, Iris. Anyone that makes you feel that way deserves a bullet in the brain.”
A nervous chuckle breaks from my throat. “Okay.”
“Come here. Let me show you something.” His hand drops from my wrist, and he steps away from me, turning around and walking toward a room in the back. I follow him, because his hold over me feels unbreakable at this point. My interest is piqued with this man. Unfortunately, a sliver of infatuation is burning beneath the surface, one that can never be uncovered.
Most of all by Violet.
He steps into a dark room, slapping on the light. A large table, banged, bruised, and cut in various places stretches from one wall to the next. Seven chairs sit around it, with a wooden mallet at the end. Almost like a judge’s quarters, though I know it can’t be.
This is a motorcycle club.
“What is this?” Confusion twists my lips. What is he trying to tell me?
“This place that you stand in is a place my father built. After he passed, this club fell into my hands. Our lives are either built with money or dirt. We’re either raised in good or evil. We choose the path of right or wrong. There is no in between. But the good thing about being young is, you can still choose your path. Shit might stink in the dirt, but that doesn’t mean you don’t end up walking the path of money. You might go to sleep at night feeling wrong, but one day, everything will be right. Christmas has never been a thing? Well, when you grow up, make it the biggest fucking production of your entire life.”
He walks around the table, his corded forearms tensing as his fingers brush the rough surface. “I could’ve let this place burn to dust after my father died. I could’ve made my own path. But instead, I built something stronger than it’s ever been. The dreams and wishes that I always wanted, I made it happen, because I knew I could.” He ends at the head of the table, his hand gliding over the mallet. Lifting his eyes, they lock right on mine. “Take that fucking Christmas wish and make it happen, Iris. Don’t let your shitty life take you down with it.”
I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to laugh. I want to do so many things as my chest swells with a sensation I’m unfamiliar with and my eyes fill with tears. So many fucking emotions are swirling inside me that I can’t do anything besides walk around the table toward him. His eyes narrow as I get closer, his fingers wrapping around the mallet and squeezing tight, the knuckles whitening from the strain.
“What the hell are you doin’?”
“Why are you saying these things to me?” I whisper. Why does he care? Why does he waste his breath on a child who he’s never met?
What is this connection?
“Because you deserve to hear them.”
My hand lifts, my fingers barely touching the leather across his chest. “No one has ever said these words to me before. No one has ever cared enough to speak them.”
His eyes narrow. “Your home life pretty shitty, I take it?”
I nod. There isn’t much else to say about it.
He exhales, whiskey combined with smoke blowing my hair across my face. My hand heats where it lay lightly against his chest, and I want to curl my fingers against the rock-hardness of it, feel the muscles tense and his heart pound against my palm.
“People hitting you?”
I shake my head, and he mumbles under his breath. I can’t hear the words, but I can feel the vibration.
I take a step closer.
“What’re you doin’?” he asks me.
I don’t have an answer, because even I don’t understand what I’m doing. He’s older than me. Mid-thirties, I would guess. Too old for my seventeen-year-old self. But it doesn’t stop the emotions I’m feeling. It doesn’t stop how connected I feel to him after just one conversation.
“I don’t know.”
“You have to stop, Iris.”
Maybe I’m drunk, or maybe I’m just high on his words, but I can’t stop myself as I push up on my toes, leaning forward. It still doesn’t make me tall enough, though. My mouth barely hovers over his chin and lower lip, but his head is already tilted down, so I brush my lips against his scruff, my top lip soft against his bottom one that’s rough and dry but so fucking plump.
I whimper.
He tears himself from me, his hands going to my biceps, squeezing tight as he holds me at arm’s length. “No. Fuck no, Iris. What the fuck are you doing?”