Fire & Dark (The Night Horde SoCal Book 3) by Susan Fanetti

of it searching for her brother. She’d ended up dragging a whole fucking MC into her family’s problems and had made an even bigger problem for them.
     
    As frustrated as she’d been that afternoon, being told to be quiet and meek and let the men handle things, as angry and determined as she’d been in the High Life, she’d also noticed and appreciated the way Connor had been attuned to her, keeping his position relative to hers all the time, shielding her. That attention had gotten him and his club into some trouble.
     
    But the most potent part of that whole fiasco had been the way he’d gone with it when she’d taken her gun back and pointed it at Raul’s head. Connor hadn’t tried to assert himself then, and he had yet to try to shove it down her throat that she’d been out of line. He’d simply adopted what she’d done into his plan, and he’d been impervious to Raul’s taunts about standing behind a woman. He’d let her lead.
     
    They’d managed to rescue Hugo fairly peacefully, at least in that moment. Now her brother was in the hospital, beaten half to death, but rescued. And Connor the Protective Biker was sitting in her living room.
     
    It had been a very long time since she’d had a man over whom she wouldn’t have already called a friend. Somebody she trusted to know her.
     
    This was her space, where she lived, in more than simply physical terms. Half her life was spent in the barn, but that was a different Pilar, or at least a particular side of her. That Pilar was a tough-ass bitch who talked smack with the boys and could sling an unconscious man over her shoulders and carry him out of a burning building. That wasn’t Pilar at all. That was Cordero.
     
    Here, she could be more than that. Or less; maybe it was less that she needed to be at home. She could be vulnerable. She could pretty up her furniture and talk to her plants. She could watch the telenovelas she loved. She could go out to get her hair and nails done, to get a massage, to shop for ridiculously fancy shoes she’d never wear. She could be a girl. She could be Pilar.
     
    She didn’t let many people see that person, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to show her to Connor. But she did like that he was here.
     
    She took the refilled glasses back out to the living room. Connor was on his phone; he turned to her and smiled as she brought him his drink.
     
    “Yeah, Dad. Makes sense. Okay. I’ll just see you tomorrow, then.” He ended the call and put his phone away. “Interesting day, huh?”
     
    When he took his glass, she said, “I can shoot, you know.”
     
    “I saw your stance. I believe you now. But then it was a variable, like Sherlock said. You gotta control the variables in a situation like that, as much as you can.” He took a drink of bourbon. She was still standing over him, sipping her drink, watching his throat move under his beard as he swallowed. With a curious look, he added, “You gonna stand there staring down at me? You want me to go?”
     
    “No.” She didn’t. And she didn’t like that she didn’t. It wasn’t booze or adrenaline or any of that making her horny. This guy right here, sitting on her sofa, big and brawny without being some he-man pig, was doing the job all on his own. She didn’t like the way she liked him.
     
    She put her knee on the sofa and straddled his lap.
     
    His smile at that was of the melty variety, and he opened his arms to make way. “Well, hello.”
     
    She sat down on his thighs and finished her drink, turning to set the glass on the table behind her. “Hi. This okay?”
     
    His smile lost no heat as he said, “I’m usually the one asking that question.”
     
    “Is that okay?”
     
    “Sure.” He finished his drink, and she took the glass from him and set it next to hers.
     
    “I’m up at five-thirty, and I have to be at work at seven. You can’t stay the night.”
     
    “Understood.” He slid his hands up the outside of her thighs and over