The MC President's Forsaken Wife (Zara and Knox) novel Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Locke

I don’t usually notice women when I walk into a room. I register them, sure, the same way that I register everything else – positions, exits, tensions brewing beneath conversation, who’s armed, who’s nervous, who’s lying – but that kind of awareness is functional So when something cuts through that discipline before I’ve even taken three steps inside the clubhouse, I take note of it.

I let my attention do what it always does, travel slow and steady, taking in the room in pieces I clock Brick by the wall, Hawk at the bar, Mayhem pacing just enough to tell me something’s on his mind… and then it catches.

On her.

For one rare, dangerous second, my brain stops giving a fuck about anything else

She’s standing at the bar beside Jade Callahan, one hip angled casually against the wood as she listens to something being said to her, and there’s nothing forced about her presence. nothing carefully arranged or attention-seeking. And she’s also truly, breathtakingly beautiful in all the ways that speak to me.

Curves beneath a loose sweater that somehow makes me more aware of them instead of less, the line of her waist narrowing into hips I immediately know would fit perfectly beneath my hands. Dark curls spilling over her shoulders in thick, unruly waves that drag my attention toward thoughts I have no business having, thoughts involving those curls wrapped tightly around my fist while that sinful mouth parts beneath mine.

Jesus Christ.

I stop myself immediately… or at least I try to. But the thoughts carry on anyway, hot and sharp and entirely too fucking vivid. Then she turns slightly, and I see her face properly for the first time.

That’s when it gets dangerous.

Because she has Cobra’s eyes. Black and sharp, the kind that should look cold. They don’t, though. Instead, they look like black glass heated from within, like something that shouldn’t burn but does anyway, something that holds its own kind of danger.

I know exactly who she is before anyone says her name. Cobra’s daughter. Mayhem’s little sister. Knox McVale’s wife.

Chapter 20

GIANT

That last part should end this before it starts; instead, I keep looking. That’s the mistake Then she looks at me, but not accidentally, not curiously. Directly.

The connection hits like violence. Immediate and clean, sharp enough that something low in my chest tightens before I can stop it, because there’s no hesitation in her gaze, no uncertainty, none of the careful politeness that people usually throw at me.

She just looks at me. And somehow, impossibly, it feels like being recognized.

The noise of the clubhouse dulls beneath the slow, dangerous pulse suddenly moving through my bloodstream. Music fades, conversation disappears. All I’m aware of is her standing across the room looking at me like she feels this too.

And Christ, that’s the part that gets under my skin. She feels it.

Most women would’ve looked away by now. There’s usually a flicker of caution eventually, some instinctive understanding that holding eye contact too long with a man like me is a bad fucking idea.

But Zara McVale doesn’t give me that. She meets my eyes. Holds them. Answers them.

Fuck.

I should break eye contact immediately, I know that. Men like me don’t stare at married women, especially not women tied this deeply to club politics. There are lines for a reason.

I force myself to look away first because if I don’t, I already know I’ll walk toward her, and that would be a very fucking bad idea. I move toward Cobra instead, taking the beer someone hands me, but I can still feel her attention on me like heat between my shoulder blades.

Persistent. Pulling.

It shouldn’t affect me this much. Nothing affects me this much anymore.

That part of me died years ago somewhere between blood and money and all the brutal compromises men like me make to survive this life. We don’t get softness, we don’t get attachment. We sure as hell don’t get struck speechless by women standing across clubhouses looking at us like they already know exactly how dangerous we are.

And still… I feel her. Every fucking second.

I barely hear half of what Cobra’s saying because my awareness keeps drifting back toward the bar against my own will, toward the woman currently dismantling my concentration without saying a single fucking word.

Then I make the mistake of looking at her again.

2.4

Sapte 20

Christ.

She’s still watching me.

Claim

Something dark moves through my whole body at the sight of it, slow enough to feel almost unfamiliar. Hunger and curiosity twist together into desires dangerous enough that I immediately hate myself for them:

What those dark eyes look like blown wide with pleasure, while my hand tightens around her throat just enough to remind her who’s in control.

What kind of noises a woman like Zara makes when she finally lets go, and lets a man take her for his own savage pleasure.

How she looks when she comes, fucked against a wall, head thrown back, pinned and helpless, clawing at my shoulders.

The fantasies arrive hot and immediate, erotic enough to piss me off because I don’t do this. I don’t stand in crowded rooms fantasizing about women I haven’t touched, and I especially don’t do it with women married to men I know. But there’s something about her that bypasses every instinct that I’ve spent years sharpening into survival.

And all I can think is what a fucking waste.

Not because she’s beautiful, but because she’s extraordinary. You can see it in her eyes, in the intelligence simmering beneath the surface, in the way she holds herself like she’s already survived things nobody’s noticed. A woman like that shouldn’t belong to a man like Knox Fucking McVale.

The thought settles hard inside my chest before I can stop it:

Mine.

The word lands like a gunshot in my head – possessive, primal, wrong before I remind myself that Zara McVale is off-limits in every possible way.

If I were smart, I’d leave this room right now, before whatever the fuck this is gets any worse but then Zara’s gaze drops briefly to my mouth before lifting back to my eyes again, and every rational thought that I have burns to ash instantly.

God help me. I think I’ve just met the woman capable of destroying me

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