HIS BRANDED BRIDE: Steel Devils MC

by Sophia Gray

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Monday morning seemed almost normal. I had awoken early and gotten dressed for work like normal people. It hadn’t been easy to get my job back after being on leave for so long, but I let the manager’s sympathy play in my favor. He understood grief, having lost a wife the year before, and was willing to give me an equal position to the one I had vacated months before.

  Of course, the morning of my arrival was filled with well wishes from my prior coworkers who all wanted to personally extend their condolences. There were the few thrill seekers bold enough to try to wiggle the lurid details of my father’s murder out of me, but they were given a quick brush off and sent on their way. I had no time for their ilk.

  Settled into my office, I buried myself in work, putting my life back on track the only way I knew how. It seemed like the day crawled by with the tedious accounting of various local businesses laid out in front of me, but finally it was lunchtime and eventually, time to go home. I eagerly closed up my office and made my way downstairs to head home to my quiet little suburb where I could drown my discontent in a few glasses of merlot and go to bed.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  My head whirled around at the sound of his voice and my anger immediately flared. How dare he accost me in the parking garage of my employer. Something was going to have to be done. He was quick to note my anger, immediately trying to calm me.

  “Hold on, spitfire. Don’t get all red in the face at me again. I am not here as your enemy.”

  “What are you here as, then, Samuel? Or do you prefer to still go by Jack Knife?”

  “I kind of liked being Jack Knife for a while, in all honestly. He was a real badass. Not quite the same lurking about town in an expensive suit and looking over my shoulder.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Look, I know about you and D. So does Jeremiah. Why do you think he was so keen to get what he could out of you before you completely clammed up on him? I came here as a friend. No matter what you think of me, I enjoyed the brief amount of time we had together.”

  “Fucking. You mean you enjoyed fucking me.”

  “I won’t deny that I did, but that’s not all there was to it. You were different than the others. I told you, I felt like I was with my own kind. Those girls there, you know how they are, who they are. Their only goal in life is to get by, make some money on their back or their knees and ease their pain with a string of sexual encounters, drugs and alcohol. Even though I knew you were fucking me for information, I also knew why and I admired you for it.”

  “Cut the bullshit, Samuel. Why did you come here?”

  “I don’t know if you are still involved with D, but you need to get a message to him. I’m a dead man. I can’t. They are going to make a move soon. Take this envelope home with you and read through it, then destroy it. It has everything you need to know in it. Make sure you warn D before it is too late.”

  “You want to save him? Why?”

  “Let’s just say you aren’t the only one who understands D and what he is really about. He’s not a monster, Janessa. No matter what anyone, even he, might tell you. He has a good heart. He’s hurt people, but I can’t name one person he ever hurt who didn’t deserve it, and he’s helped a lot more than he’s harmed.”

  “Yeah? You think his best friend deserved it? Zach deserved to die?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Janessa, you weren’t there. Who do you think the witness to it was? Perhaps Zach didn’t deserve to die. Maybe no one really does, but I believe that we reap what we sow. Zach certainly did himself no favors and it was him or D. You can’t judge that kind of decision unless you are the one making it.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Here. Take this.”

  He handed me the envelope and disappeared into a darker part of the garage as I climbed into my car and drove home. It was all I could do not to stop and read what was in the envelope before I got home, but I didn’t dare. I felt an overwhelming sense of foreboding like I’d never felt before and just needed to get somewhere to feel safe. Home was my only sanctuary at the moment.

  Inside the house, I locked the doors and sat on the sofa, carefully opening the envelope and reading its contents. It took a few minutes for the information it contained to really sink in, but it finally did. I read it again and digested it as best I could. When I was done, I took a deep breath and stared into space. D was in trouble and I didn’t know how I could stop it, but I knew I had to try.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “What are you doing here? You aren’t welcome.”

  “Is that any way to treat an old friend?”

  I stood looking at D as if his words didn’t hurt me, as if I had every right to walk into his casino as anyone else did. Of course, I had made sure I reassumed my previous appearance prior to taking a cab over. The wig I wore was a bit itchy and I found that the contacts annoyed me after not having worn them for so long, but it was a small price to pay. I liked the idea of being able to change my appearance quickly if anything went far off the rails for me.

  “I’m not fucking playing with you, Janessa. You don’t belong here.”

  “It’s a casino. Anyone with a handful of bills belongs here.”

  “I own this casino. It is at my discretion who gets removed. I don’t need a reason to have you ejected.”

  “That what you are going to do then, D? You going to call your goons and have them manhandle me out the front door?”

  “I don’t need any goons to accomplish that. I’m perfectly capable of removing you myself.”

  “Then do it.”

  He glared at me for a moment. I could see his anger dance in his eyes, but there was something else there too. Perhaps it was just what I wanted to believe, but I thought he missed me. I wondered how deep that longing went. Was it just a physical ache or was it something more?

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he growled, reaching out to grab me by the arm and hauling me away, but not in the direction of the exit. He was taking me to his office instead. I pretended to resist a bit, but his hand was firm and he just kept carting me past the curious eyes of other members and guests. I doubted seeing D being rough with someone was something they hadn’t seen before. He shoved me into the office and stepped in behind me, locking the door behind us.

  “It’s really nice to see you again too, D,” I said sarcastically.

  “What the fuck do you want, Janessa? You shouldn’t be here. I’ve got my hands full without any more of your bullshit.”

  “I just wanted to get out for a while, and I missed this place. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Other than the fact that it is complete and utter horse shit?”

  “It is not. Why do you always think the worst of people?”

  “I don’t think the worst of people. I see the worst in them. They rarely prove me wrong.”

  “You are way too tense and paranoid.”

  I was caught completely off guard as he came charging back around his desk toward me and pushed me against the wall, hitting the drywall behind my head with a fist. He was furious. Way too furious at just seeing me and my toying with him a bit. More importantly, he was scaring me. It was a side of D that I had heard about, but had never really seen firsthand.

  “I am going to ask you once again, Janessa. What are you doing here?”

  “I…I missed you.”

  “Once again, horse shit.”

  “It is not horse shit! Why do you assume that I could just cut off my feelings for you, and not want to be with you anymore? No matter what horrible things you say to me, I believe that you do care about me. Maybe you don’t really love me. I don’t even know if you understand the meaning of the word. What I know is that I have missed you every day that I was away from you and wanted to see you, to see that you are okay.”

  “Well, here you go, then, Janessa. I’m okay. You’ve seen me. Now, go.”

  “That
is all you have to say to me after all this time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you noticed anything, D?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the fact that you haven’t been arrested for anything I might have told the DEA about you? Like none of your boys have been arrested for anything? I’ve protected you.”

  “Protected me? More likely that you had nothing to tell them they could prove.”

  “You think so little of me. Why?”

  “Why? Do you really have to ask that? You came here to take me down. I let my thinking get clouded by you, let it slide. I’m still letting it slide. I should have never trusted you.”

  “You are wrong about that. It seems to me that I’m really the only person you can trust these days.”

  “Think what you will. I don’t have time for games with you, Janessa. I’ll call you a cab.”

  “I know about Zach.”

  His face turned a shade of gray as all the color drained from it. I saw the anger fade, replaced with something I couldn’t quite discern. Pain? Confusion? Whatever it was, it shut him down just long enough to give me the upper hand.

  “You don’t know anything.”

  “That is where you are wrong. I know everything.”

  “Not possible. No one knows that story, no one who is around to tell it.”

  “I know that you chose to live. I know you killed someone you deemed a brother in order to save yourself. I understand that you had no choice. It was one of you or both of you. Is that why you are so afraid to get close to me? Is that what you fear most? Having to choose between yourself and someone you care about again?”

  “Shut up! Shut up!”

  The gray was quickly replaced by flaming red skin. I had hit a nerve, one he didn’t like to admit he even possessed.

  “Why, D? You don’t want to hear the truth? You’d rather stuff that part of yourself down into some deep, dark recess where it can’t cause you conflict or doubt? If you love no one, then you can’t be hurt emotionally. Is that it? Is that why I had to go?”

  “Goddamnit, Janessa! Why can’t you just leave well enough alone?”

  “Why did you come to my house the day I was moving, D? What did you come there to say?”

  “I didn’t come there to say any fucking thing. I just came to make sure you got out of there okay.”

  “You sure about that?”

  D pulled away from me, looking me up and down. I could see his indecision clearly now, but just for a few moments. Then it was gone and his lips were on mine, searching my mouth hungrily with his tongue. I didn’t resist. I wanted him. No matter what he was or wasn’t, I needed to feel him again. Besides, it fell right into my plans. I just hadn’t been sure I could pull it off.

  His hands fumbled with my clothes, pulling my sheer Lycra dress over my head to reveal that I wore nothing underneath but the thigh high boots that previously rose just short of the hem. Pulling me away from the wall, he pushed me forward across his desk, holding me down with one hand. I could hear him unbuckling his belt behind me. My heart raced with anticipation of how he would feel inside of me.

  “God,” he moaned as he sank deep inside of me, his cock throbbing against my pussy walls. I felt like a long lost lover being reunited with the man she loved. The interlude was briefly clouded by the thought, but it dissipated as he drove into me hard and fast, erasing everything from my mind but how incredible he felt pounding into me so roughly.

  I felt his hands on my waist as he pulled me back onto him again and again, taking what he wanted from me as if I wasn’t giving it freely. Beads of perspiration covered our bodies as our centers met with increasing vigor. I never wanted it to end, my body aching for every inch of him to be inside of me forever.

  My legs trembled as I clawed at the desk beneath me, shattering into a million pieces with an orgasm so intense it left me weak, but it was only the tip of a quickly melting iceberg that broke off piece by piece and exploded throughout my being as I squealed and writhed beneath him, not caring who might hear me beyond his office doors.

  “That’s it, keep cumming. I’ve missed the way you seize and shake when I make you cum,” he growled, leaning forward to sink his teeth into my back. I felt battered, bruised, and somewhat used, but I loved it. I loved every single fucking moment of it.

  I let out another high-pitched utterance, mostly unintelligible as I came again, this time so forcefully that I thought I might push his massive cock free of me, but he only ground further into me, rotating his hips to create a tsunami of orgasm that flooded his cock and ran down his balls.

  “My turn,” he growled, burying himself to the hilt and unleashing a flood inside of me.

  We lay there, collapsed against one another in the aftermath of our coupling for a few moments before he stood, releasing me from my pinned down position across his desk. I quietly walked over to where my dress lay on the floor and slipped it over my head, pulling it down and smoothing it against my damp skin. Looking him in the eye, I bid my emotions to stay buried as deep as I could manage them.

  “Thanks. I’ve gotten what I really came here for. I’ll go now.”

  The look on his face was one of confusion and perhaps a bit of hurt, but it was how I needed for him to feel. I needed for him to feel like I just wanted him physically and held no misguided notions that he and I might be anything more than that. Turning toward the door, I opened it and walked out.

  “Hello, Janessa. How are you doing?” Simon asked as I passed by where he was sitting with several other members of the club. Two were on the list of members who were out to roll D from his position, so I was well aware that Simon was only there to monitor them, learn what he could. I looked at him as if looking right through him and responded.

  “Suitably fucked.”

  His eyebrows raised as his eyes drifted toward the doorway, where I was quite certain D was standing and watching me walk out, though I refused to look back and see for sure.

  “See you next time, then.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I walked on, my head and shoulders held high, and made my way out to the sidewalk to hail a cab. As I slid into the back of a black sedan meant for the high rollers of the club, I was afforded a view of the front entrance of the casino and could just barely make out the figures of Simon and D standing inside the large glass panels that enclosed the front lobby. I looked away as I gave the driver my address and never looked back, though tears streamed down my face.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I let a few days pass without contacting D. I knew he would not contact me. It was a matter of pride. I had not gone there to seduce him in order to get him back. I had done it to show him that I could be as cold and unfeeling as he. He needed to see me as being just as ruthless as he, and being able to have sex with him on his terms and then walking away as if it meant nothing was the only way I could think of to get that in quick results.

  Of course, I didn’t have the luxury of letting things lie for too long. I was running out of time. Thanks to Samuel, I now knew exactly who was after D and when they intended to take him down. It had been carefully laid out for me in the documents I had been provided. The DEA was choosing to ignore it, let the lesser members do their dirty work by taking D down permanently. Then, they would move in on those who intended to take his place before they could gain strength and bring the club to its knees.

  Initially, I had still questioned Samuel’s motives for giving me the information. It was a huge risk for him. Why would he care about what happened to D? I knew what he had told me, but I had my doubts. The paranoid part of me had to wonder if it wasn’t a set up, but for what purpose? In the end, I had accepted that he truly just didn’t believe D deserved what was to come. I doubted he had expected I would take matters into my own hands. I was sure he had just thought I would warn D and stay out of it. He was wrong.

  I looked at my watch. Almost time to go home. I was grateful. My job had become a thorn in my side since my
return. Whereas before I had enjoyed crunching numbers, found solace in burying myself in dollar signs and decimals, I now found it tedious. I longed to be free of my keyboard and the four walls that held me prisoner for eight hours each day. I would stay there for now, but soon I’d have to find something that suited my changing spirit.

  Making my way out to the garage, I was once again surprised to find myself cornered by Samuel Robinson near my car. He looked distraught, perhaps even angry.