All Chapters of Gentle Curves (Dangerous Curves 4): Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

She was determined to live, he saw now. Whatever had happened to her, whoever had done this to her – that thing and that person hadn’t broken her. Not even fucking close. In that smashed up, shattered body there was the spirit of an amazon, the heart of a lioness, the iron will of a warrior. Under all that damage was a woman who was holding on to life with both hands, holding on as tight and as hard as humanly possible. She was going to get through this – no fucking debate or discussion on this point. She was going to fight.And in that moment and just like that, Mac determined to fight with her.Fight for her.She blinked, and her eye changed. Now Mac saw pain and confusion and a silent plea. His heart squeezed at her vulnerability, and before he quite knew where he was, he had her small hand held gently in his massive one.“Hi,” he whispered, his voice low and husky. “Can you hear me?”She nodded, a tiny movement. She winced.“No,” he said. “Don’t move your head, OK?”She blinked ag

“I just am. I was born into the MC life, although I did everything I could to stay out of it. When I was eleven, I begged to move away and live in Colorado Springs, and my parents agreed. They were never very interested in raising me or Donovan, and so having one less brat around was cool with them. I lived with my alcoholic aunt, and she basically gave me a key to our walk-up in a crappy neighborhood, and left me to fend for myself. I took care of myself, mostly, from then on.”“So when you were eleven, you left your parents?”She shrugged. “More or less, yeah. Anyway, my Mom was a former hellion and prostitute who got knocked up by accident, and Dad never fully committed to her, but he marked her as his, kind of. His first and only real love has always been the club. Same with Donovan – as I’m sure you know. If you hang out at Curves and you know Matt Kingston, then you’ll know my brother well, I imagine.” Mac nodded. He’d had more than one run-in with her piece-of-shit brother at

He was silent, trying not to imagine what it had been like for her to stand there, waiting for those punches. Knowing that once one man had finished, another one was waiting to step up and take his turn. Even when she’d been down on the ground and bleeding and half-conscious, they’d have carried on hurting her. He hoped that at some point, Mirrie had just passed out, and found some peace in blackness. Even if she had, though, Mac was sure that she remembered a lot of her ordeal: he thought about the times that she’d woken up next to him, screaming and shaking. She’d never talked about it, but now he thought he knew what she’d been dreaming about.He stepped down hard on his rage, tried to stay focused. “And they’ve left you alone since then?”She looked away, and his stomach clenched. “Mirrie? They’ve kept their word, right?”She almost snorted. “They’re a criminal MC, Shane. A bunch of one-percenters. They’re not men of their word.”“So… what? They beat the crap out of you, and alm

“No,” she said, trying to fight down her panic. “No, you haven’t because if you had, you’d have heard the part about how they told me to never make contact with you again. Donovan specifically told me to never tell you any of what I just told you.”“So?”“So?” Mirrie raised her voice. “So if they are still watching me, then they’ll notice that you’re hanging around, right? And they’re going to figure that I’ve told you everything.”“Again, I say ‘so’?”“So?” Mirrie repeated. “So… they’ll kill you. Both of us.”“Maybe not,” Mac said. “Maybe this time we can stop that from happening.”“How?”Mac fell silent, his mind racing. He was thinking about his friend Aidan Carter, Gabriela Torres’ boyfriend and the bartender at Curves. Like Spider, Aidan had something on The Fallen Angels – or at least on one of them. Mac had no earthly clue what the hell it was, but it had been good enough to get the MC Vice-President to tell Aidan and Matt Kingston where Gabi had been buried alive. Maybe Mac co

He ate his beloved ice cream sundae, to hell with his diet, waited for her to start talking. With Mirrie, silence and patience were the only ways to go. Push her and she’d run; force her and she’d fight back. Best to let her begin when she was ready.Mirrie glanced up to see Neil calmly eating his ice cream. She smiled, suddenly realizing just how much she’d missed his steady presence. It was her fault, of course, that there was distance between them. First, she’d pulled back to avoid any conversations about Shane. Then Mirrie had taken on an AA member of her own to mentor, and she took her role as Naomi’s sponsor damn seriously… and it was a handy way to avoid Neil asking too many questions.Not anymore, though. No more walls, or lowered eyes, or evasive mumbled greetings. Mirrie was here, and she was afraid. Neil would do anything to help her, she knew. Still, despite her coldness. She bit her lip, ashamed of herself for avoiding this good, kind man for years, and then calling him w