Gemma Teller leaned against the shop wall, a cigarette burning low between her fingers, lips painted cherry-red, already smudged. She wasn't waiting. Gemma never waited. But she knew he'd come. And when he did, she'd make sure it felt like his idea.
Inside the garage, the clang of tools echoed, a few bikes idling in the back. Piney's deep laugh barked out over Clay's rougher voice, the two of them sharing beers and bullshit stories while the last light of day melted into night.
Gemma exhaled smoke slowly, letting it curl around her like a veil. Her tank top clung to her curves in all the right places, the black fabric soaked with sweat and gasoline. She was tired, tired of pretending she wasn't always on edge around him, tired of denying how her pulse jumped when he walked by like he owned the ground under his boots.
And then she felt it, the low rumble that wasn't from a bike. Her spine tingled before he even stepped into view.
John Teller.
His silhouette moved like a shadow, lean and rough, all swagger and war stories etched into muscle. The Reaper stretched across his cut like a warning, but it was the look in his eyes that made her thighs tighten. The slow, knowing smirk of a man who could ruin you with one hand and make you beg with the other.
Their eyes locked across the gravel. He didn't smile. Didn't need to.
She dropped the cigarette and crushed it beneath her heel.
"Thought you were still out on the run," she said, casual as ever, even as heat coiled low in her belly.
