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hurt his heart so bad. Ten years had passed, but that span of time meant nothing. Nothing . He felt just as raw and broken as he’d been that night they’d ripped the Los Angeles patch off his kutte and taken his home away. The only home he’d ever had.
     
    How could that be? How could a decade just disappear? How could all that time not make things softer, easier to bear?
     
    She closed the door and took a step toward him—and he took one backward. If she came close, if she touched him, if he touched her, time would truly reverse. He could feel it. They’d end up back where they were the last time he’d laid eyes on her—him strung up in the shop and her screaming at her father to stop, to please stop, just stop.
     
    Faith’s mother holding her shoulders and making her see. Demon trying not to lose sight of her, knowing it was the end of them.
     
    The whole club watching it all go down.
     
    “Michael.” She took another step. He backed up again—and his calves hit the other side of the sectional. He was fucking trapped. Unless he turned tail and ran, he was trapped.
     
    And she kept coming, closing the distance between them. Ten feet, ten years.
     
    That was how it had always been between them—him trying to back away, knowing they were wrong, and her not letting him, knowing that he wanted what she did, knowing he wouldn’t be able to resist.
     
    But she’d been just a kid. He’d been a man. It didn’t matter whether they were five years apart in age or fifty. She’d been a kid, the daughter of one of his brothers. It had been on him to do the right thing, and he hadn’t.
     
    She stood right in front of him now, her expression tortured and afraid, mirroring what he felt in his own heart. Then she put her hands on his chest, and he realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He felt completely naked, exposed and bare. Her touch felt as intense as if she had lifted his very nerves in her hands, and his cock filled out immediately, so hard it ached. He knew it was obvious, tenting his sweatpants absurdly, but her eyes had not left his, and they still weren’t touching anywhere but her hands on his chest.
     
    “Michael.”
     
    He couldn’t remember if she’d said anything more than that one word since she’d walked in—which was one more word than he’d said. There were no words he could say.
     
    He’d been given the name Demon while he was still a Prospect, before he and Faith had crossed the point of no return, but she’d never called him anything but Michael. Since he’d last seen her, the only people who really ever called him Michael were legal types—lawyers and caseworkers and cops. He’d grown to cringe when he heard it, because it always meant some bureaucrat had his fist deep up Demon’s ass.
     
    When she said it, though—that was home. Oh, fuck.
     
    Her hands moved, sliding softly down and around his waist, leaving his nerves thrumming in a path behind her touch.
     
    He needed to get away. His heart was pounding so hard his vision vibrated, and the thoughts in his head were shrieking and clamoring in an indecipherable mob. He’d been right—at her touch, everything was back. Ten years were just gone. He felt exactly as he had then—confused and sorry, in pain and in love.
     
    Losing fucking everything.
     
    Wrong. All of it was so fucking wrong. He needed to get clear.
     
    Instead, he grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her.
     
    She opened to him immediately, molding her body to his, clutching him close so that his erection was pressed tightly to her belly. She whimpered, and the sound surrounded his heart and squeezed. He groaned and wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off the floor—she was so light, so little, and she felt exactly as he remembered, exactly right. His tongue explored her mouth, finding it perfectly familiar. God. God .
     
    He tasted salt on their tongues.
     
    She was crying.
     
    So was he.
     
    He set her back on the floor and pushed her