Something about the Red Aces MC stuck with me. Maybe not the entire club, but the President was a piece of shit.
Then again, I knew nothing of Winter and what she was hiding. For all I knew, she and Rocky were involved with something or someone and it came back to bite them in the ass.
“I’m going to ask something,” I finally said. “I’m the one protecting you and you cannot fuck with me.”
“Okay,” Winter said weakly.
“Did you have anything to do with Rocky’s death?”
There was silence.
Winter looked at me. “Directly or indirectly?”
“You know what I mean.”
“You think I killed him?”
“Answer my question.”
“What did Stoney say to you?”
“He made it pretty clear about something,” I said. “He seemed to describe you perfectly.”
Yeah, maybe I was testing Winter a little. Pushing her away from me, pushing her out of her comfort zone. She moved away from me, pushing against the car door. I thought she was going to try and bolt.
“He described me,” she said. “They all could. They all looked at me. Because of who I was.”
“Was?”
Winter stared forward. Her cheeks flushed. “Fine. I was a stripper, Tripp, okay? That’s how I met Rocky. That’s how I met the MC. I was a stripper.”
Now I was the one in shock.
Winter seemed too taken back and shy to take off her clothes. My eyes instantly moved up and down her body. My hands gripped tighter on the wheel. Thankfully we were on a straight road with no traffic, but I was playing a dangerous game by not paying attention to the road.
But… fuck the road.
I couldn’t stop picturing it now.
I had seen Winter in a towel already. The way her cleavage poured from the towel. Her hips pressing to the sides. The curve of her ass. Fuck, the way her hair was curly when wet.
And the whole MC was able to see that? They all paid for that?
Fuck me, I was completely jealous of everyone who ever saw Winter.
“I see you looking at me now,” she whispered. “Just like they all do. Is that what you want then? You think it’s unfair? You want to see me naked, Tripp?”
Yes. Yes, I fucking do.
I swallowed hard.
Winter grabbed the bottom of her shirt and lifted. I saw her bare stomach, a little roll of skin, hiding her belly button, driving me goddamn mad, because it meant she wasn’t obsessed with being supermodel thin or some fake bullshit.
I caught sight of her bra, her fingers going under her bra, and I grabbed for her wrist.
“Fucking stop!” I growled. “Christ.”
Winter put her shirt back down. She looked at me, her eyes glistening. “And to answer your question, I don’t know. I don’t know what me and Rocky were involved with or could have been involved with, okay?”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t know,” Winter said. “There was always something happening. Someone trying to come after the MC. They’d meet with other bikers, they’d meet with gangsters, they’d meet with men in suits.”
“What about you?” I asked. “What about your past?”
Winter fell silent.
So I hit the nail on the damn head.
Something from her past was creeping forward. Christ, maybe it had nothing to do with the Red Aces MC and that’s why Aldo sent me here.
I gripped the wheel even tighter, my mind making it impossible not to think about Winter naked. I shouldn’t have asked, poked, pried, or cared. That’s why I pushed her away last night, right? I just needed to keep her alive until Aldo called me to come back.
I didn’t speak to her for the rest of the ride back to her place.
When we got there, she hurried out of the car and ran to the door.
I watched her open the door and go inside.
That’s when I hurried after.
She opened the door without her key. And the door was supposed to be locked.
10.
(Winter)
I didn’t use my key.
That thought processed in my mind a second before I saw the place. The couch flipped over. The dining room table the same. Everything was touched, moved, some items broken.
Tripp flew up behind me. I turned just as he was there, his hands scooping me up. Maybe he expected to find someone in the place, but there wasn’t. It was just a clear message sent directly at me.
Tripp lifted me up, carried me a few steps, and then put me back down. He let me go and jumped back. His eyes scanned the room.
“Shit,” he said. “You shouldn’t have come in here.”
“What? It’s my house.”
“The door was unlocked. It’s a set up.”
“Nobody is here. I’m fine.”
Tripp gritted his teeth. He took out his gun and told me to stay near the front door and not to touch anything. I really wasn’t in any position to argue with him.
I watched Tripp walk through my house. He was unbelievably sexy with the way he moved, the way he held the gun, the instinctive look in his eye that screamed for survival. I trusted him more than I trusted anyone in the MC.
Tripp emerged from the bathroom and went into my bedroom.
It was the first time he’d been in there.
I bit my lip thinking about the way I put myself out there with him when I was drunk.
Typical Winter, right?
Tripp came out of my bedroom, shaking his head.