Devil's Sins

by Naomi West

  Again? Wow!

  Then I can’t think. This one is far deeper than the last. It completely captivates me. Every single part of my body is buzzing with electric pleasure. I let out a series of gasps, one after the other. Steamy heat fills right up to my neck and down to my toes. I curl my toes, close my eyes, see nothing but the orgasm. Hot, red, blazing. His cock grinding inside of me, pushing harder because my pussy is getting tighter. His cock slamming right into the center of me. I empty myself on him, squirting hard, unable to stop myself. All I know is this moment of release.

  “Fuck,” he groans as he comes, hunching over and biting onto my shoulder.

  For a while we just stay like that. Then he sits down and we both get dressed.

  “Another drink?” he asks, grinning at me.

  I smile at him. There’s no after-sex awkwardness, like there was in college.

  “Sure,” I reply.

  4

  Cage

  Boulder is wider than his little brother. He has the same shaggy hair as Jax, though. His is longer, falling down to his shoulders in greasy strands. His face is tough. He has two different-colored eyes, one blue and the other green. He wears a thumb ring with our sigil on it, made especially.

  “These fucking bastards,” he snarls, pacing up and down behind his desk.

  Jax and I stand on the other side of the office, waiting.

  “This Arvin Hatter, this prick. These Bloody Talons. Who the fuck do they think they are, fellas? They think they can just roll in here and burn down one of our bars and … I’m sick’n fucking tired of these …” He drops into his seat, interlocking his fingers.

  “I want you to go’n search the place. I sent the authorities away. You’ll have the place to yourselves. I’ve got Gunner down there now, making sure some kid don’t mess it up.” He laughs grimly. “Mess it up more’n it already has been.”

  “You should put us in charge of hunting these bastards,” Jax says. He turns to me.

  I shrug. “Boulder’s the president.”

  Boulder sighs. He looks at his little brother, shaking his head. “What do you think I’m doing, dammit?”

  “You could send anyone to the bar. Set us loose. Give us some men. We’ll end this Hatter bastard by the end of the day.”

  Boulder and I exchange a grimace. We both know how crazy Jax can get about shit like this. If he had his way, we’d gather every brother and wage an all-out war against the Bloody Talons.

  “It hasn’t come to that yet,” Boulder mutters, clicking his neck from side to side. “Listen. I give you some men, which means taking the brothers off our businesses, the Bloody Talons’ll just hit those businesses next. I am sending you after them. The life isn’t all gunfights and fun, Jax. You know that.”

  Jax turns away, teeth gritted. “You don’t need to explain the damn life to me.”

  “Wouldn’t your mom be proud, fellas? Seeing her little boys get on so well.”

  Boulder grins. “Fuck you, Cage.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “We should send a fucking army after these bastards.”

  I clap Jax on the shoulder. “We will, all right? But right now, the boss has given us his orders. I reckon we ought to go’n carry them out.”

  He looks at his older brother. “Yeah, I reckon you’re right.”

  Jax and I go outside. He stops near our bikes, staring at me. “You could’ve backed me up in there, goddamn.”

  “Don’t be a fuckin’ baby, Jax. He’s the boss. And he’s right. The fuck are we supposed to do? Let them burn everything we’ve got going here? This is how we catch them, right here.”

  “Call me a baby again, Cage.”

  “And what?”

  We stand off against each other. Then he smiles. I grin. We laugh.

  “You’re a prick, Cage.”

  “Yeah, I think you’ve said that before.”

  We ride out to the bar. It’s on the other side of town, right near where the mountains are the most clear. There’s an eerie feeling around the bar. It’s burnt-out, some of the walls caved in. The grass around it is scorched, too. A loose bit of metal whines as it swings back and forth in the wind. We head in and pick over the waste with our leather gloves.

  “You ever wonder how porn stars do it?” Jax asks as we flip over a heavy piece of wood.

  “What?” I breathe, when we drop it.

  “I mean, how the fuck do they do it? Pretend that they like it’n shit.”

  “I don’t know.” Jax is always thinking of stuff like this. Stuff that wouldn’t even occur to me. “I reckon they get paid. Get paid and you can do anything.”

  “Yeah,” Jax mutters, but he doesn’t sound convinced. A while later he says, “I reckon I’m gonna propose to my girl soon.”

  “Lacey?”

  “Well-fucking-done.” He grunts out a laugh. “You finally remembered her name.”

  “Are you on your period or somethin’, Jax?”

  He laughs. “I’ll gut you, Cage. I’ll gut you like a fish.” We’re kneeling down behind the bar amidst the broken glass. We scoop up big handfuls of glass and search underneath it for a clue, anything. “I don’t know how I’m gonna do it yet. I tried searching it online but it all seemed pretty damn cheesy. Maybe I’ll just ask her.”

  “I reckon it’ll be fine,” I mutter.

  Jax grins at me. “You hate this shit, don’t you? Talking about marrying a lady. You’ve never even had an old lady. What’d you reckon, Cage? If the world was gonna end tomorrow, reckon you’d have it in you to propose to a lady?”

  “Yeah,” I say, surprising both of us.

  “Eh?” He turns to me. “Shit, really? Who? One of the club girls?”

  I turn away from him, rooting around under the bar. Wishing I hadn’t said anything. Jax is probably the only fella in the club who talks about stuff like this. It’s part of the reason I like him so much. He doesn’t put up a front for anybody. He doesn’t get embarrassed. He can take a joke without wanting to go into the parking lot’n fight. Not that fighting in the parking lot is a bad thing.

  “Cage?” he barks. “I’m talking to you, man.”

  “Yeah, I heard.”

  “So …”

  “So what?” I growl. “We’re working, Jax.”

  “Are you fuckin’ kidding me? You can’t search’n talk?”

  “How much porn do you watch, anyway? Thinking of shit like that.”

  Trying to change the subject.

  Jax pretends I didn’t speak. “Who is it?” he asks simply.

  Pushing down the urge to grunt at him, I carry on with the search.

  “I’m not gonna leave this,” Jax says a moment later. “So either you tell me, or you shoot me when I get too damn annoying.”

  “I reckon that point has passed.”

  We both laugh.

  “Do you really wanna know? Goddamn.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  So I tell him. I tell him about the girl I met a week and a half ago. I don’t go into too much detail. I tell him I haven’t spoken to her since. I don’t tell him that I’ve been thinking of her nonstop since we left that booth. I don’t tell him that I hear her moans in my dreams.

  “A reporter? Shit.”

  “She didn’t get a damn thing from me,” I tell him.

  “I know, Cage. Nobody’d ever question your loyalty to the club.”

  “Damn right.”

  “But a week’n a half … Why haven’t you seen her again?”

  “Just ’cause you’re getting married and all that shit, it doesn’t mean I have to.”

  “I didn’t say it did.”

  “Let’s just work, Jax.”

  We go on in silence for ten-some minutes. But once Jax gets a thing like this in his head, he can’t let it drop. He’s like a dog with a chew toy.

  “I don’t understand you, Cage.”

  “Yeah, well, I reckon I don’t understand myself either. What is this, eh? Some fuckin’ therapy session?”
<
br />   “If you met a girl and you actually fuckin’ like her, why wouldn’t you see her again? That makes no damn sense to me.”

  “Since when is my private life your business?”

  He shrugs casually. “I’m not saying it is, but there’s the problem. I don’t reckon you’ve got a private life.”

  “I’m a club man,” I agree.

  “Most folks have a private life.”

  I let out a groan. I’d hit him if I didn’t like the annoying bastard so much. And he’s a brother.

  “Look. Maybe one day, if I felt right, I’d get married, all right? Maybe I’d do all that bullshit, walk down the aisle, whatever. But …” I make a noise that’s something between a growl and a sigh. “I don’t wanna talk about this shit.”

  “You’re my brother, Cage. As much as Boulder is.”

  “Okay …”

  I stand up. Nothing under the bar. I go into the back room, hoping Jax won’t follow me.

  He does.

  “I bet this girl’s been on your mind, eh?” He grins at me. “I bet she’s been chasing you around at night. Women’re like that. I was like you, once. Maybe not as extreme. I didn’t give a damn about women. You remember.”

  “Yeah, I liked you a helluva lot more back then.”

  “Fuck you. I didn’t think I could care about a lady. Then I met Lacey.”

  “I’m happy for you.”

  “I don’t want you to be one of those sad fucks who turn eighty and there’s nobody there to celebrate it with them.”

  “I don’t plan on living to eighty, Jax. So there’s not a problem there.”

  “I’m right though, eh? You’ve been thinking about her?”

  I wheel on him. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about her. I’ve been thinking about her every damn day since we last saw each other. It don’t make any damn sense, though. ’Cause I don’t even know her. We drank. We fucked. We talked a little. Not much. How does that make sense? Why the fuck can’t I get her outta my head? It’s been two weeks, near enough. You’d reckon that’d be enough time.” I stop, realizing I’m shaking as I stand over Jax. I turn away, disgusted with him. Disgusted with myself.

  I’m showing too much emotion. A man’s feeling ought to be buried deep down inside where it can’t bother him.

  “So call her,” Jax says, smiling. The little prick.

  “Maybe I will. If I say that, will you shut the fuck up about it?”

  “Yeah, all right.”

  Thankfully, he drops it. But I don’t drop it. All this talking has only made her even more real in my mind. It’s like I can feel her. She’s so hot, dammit. It’d be easier if she wasn’t so sexy. If the sex wasn’t the best of my life. The way she grabbed onto the edge of the table … that’s what keeps chasing me around at night. Just her hands. Her delicate but somehow strong hands. Grabbing onto the table as she rocked back and forth on my cock.

  Finding the note breaks my train of thought. Thank fuck for that.

  “Jax.” I pick it up. It’s a business card, but the printed details have burned away. All that remains is half an address and a time, handwritten. It’s probably a drug meet, a gun trade, something like that. The address looks like it’s up the river some, if the three-quarters zip code is anything to go by.

  “Stupid pricks.” He laughs. “Let me have a look.”

  I hand it to him.

  “Might be the old Fergusson warehouse. You know, the fella with all the hats? He’s still got a bunch of them down there, last I heard. Even if his …”

  “The Hatter’s going to a warehouse full of hats?” I shake my head. “This Arvin must be a real melodramatic piece of shit.”

  “Let’s just be glad his men are fucking amateurs.”

  He hands it to me. I put it in my pocket. I’ll burn it later. It’s not like I’m going to forget the address.

  “What’d you reckon?” he asks. “Shall we search the rest?”

  I nod. “Maybe they’re even more amateur, eh? Might as well check.”

  We go over the rest of the bar, but find nothing.

  “I’ll let Boulder know,” Jax says. “I reckon it’s best if we keep this shit off the phones, even the burners. Maybe this Hatter bastard is listening.”

  “Good idea.”

  We go outside. Gunner pulls up in his car. He jumps out, red-faced. Gunner’s one of the older fellas, but he looks fierce as hell. His wrinkled head is bald and one eye is milky and white from his illness. He waves a hand at us. “I need to borrow a bike, fellas. Boss wants me to do some scouting. I could drive back across town, but …”

  “Take mine,” I offer. “But hurt her and we’ll have words.”

  He nods. We exchange keys. He rides away.

  Jax and I are just standing near the wreckage, about to leave, when another car pulls up. I turn.

  My mouth falls open stupidly.

  It’s Scarlett, looking as sexy as ever. Notebook poking out of her cleavage. We meet eyes. Her face turns red.

  5

  Scarlett

  When I pull up into the lot and see Cage standing there with another man, my mind goes back to Krissy. Before I came down here, she was complaining at me, like she’s been doing all week.

  “Are you seriously going to some burnt-out wreck, Scarlett?”

  “I seriously am,” I told her.

  “But anything could happen! You even said yourself the authorities just abandoned it. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”

  “But that’s just it, Krissy. It does seem odd to me. That’s why I have to go.”

  I could tell she didn’t understand. It was in the way she rolled her eyes at me. She wants me to leave the problems of the world to the world. She wants me to keep my nose out, basically. But I can’t do that. What I didn’t expect was for this to be the ‘anything’ that could happen.

  Cage’s mouth falls open. He forcefully closes it a moment later. I just sit in the car, dumbstruck. But after a second, another sensation captures me. Lust. Burning lust. It flares through me like wildfire. I bite down on my lip, remembering the sex. Not that I’ve forgotten it since we parted ways. It comes back to me constantly, especially his hands grabbing my ass. I was sore for two days afterwards. No man has ever grabbed my ass like that.

  His friend says something; Cage nods. He gets on his motorbike and rides away, leaving us.

  Eventually, Cage walks toward the car. He does not look happy.

  I take my notebook from my cleavage and climb from the car.

  “What the hell is this?” he growls.

  I take a step back, hands raised. “Excuse me?” I snap. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

  “What the hell are you doing?” he snarls, ignoring my question. “Have you got some sort of damn death wish, Scarlett? You can’t just roll up to places like this. This is club business. It’s no place for civilians.”

  “Is that why you sent the police away?” I take the pen from the spine of the notebook, poising it.

  He half laughs, half grunts. Then he snatches the notebook from my hand and slides it into his jacket pocket.

  “Hey!” I leap at him. He puts out one arm, blocking me. I struggle. But his arm is solid. It’s like a thick tree branch. I batter it with my hands. He just stares at me. “Give it back!”

  “No damn way.” He walks back toward the parking lot. It’s charred black in places. The grass between the lot and the building has burned away.

  “Cage!” I hiss. “Cage!”

  He spins on me. His mouth is twisted. His dark green eyes stray to my cleavage, though. I just threw on a tank top and some shorts. I’ve got jeans and gloves and a long-sleeved sweater in the trunk. My plan was to change. It’s too hot today to drive here in an outfit like that. His eyes burn into my cleavage, the strap of my pink bra showing.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” I tell him. “And give me my notebook back.”

  “I’m pretty sure I told you to drop this.” He leans against his car, folds his arms. S
tares at me. “I’m fuckin’ certain, in fact. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself mixed up in. This isn’t a place for ladies. Especially ladies who aren’t in the life. There could’ve been some bad men waiting here for you, Scarlett. You’d be dead right now.”

  “There is a bad man!” I yell. I make for his pocket.

  He slides easily out of my way.

  “You’re a jerk!”

  “Maybe I am. But you’re not getting this notebook back.”

  “It’s a new one, anyway!” I laugh madly. “There’s nothing in it!”

  He takes it from his pocket, flipping through the pages. Returns it to his pocket. “Then you won’t mind if I keep it.”

  “Why are you such an asshole?” I run right up to him, stopping so close I feel his breath on my forehead. It tickles me. It makes me remember. A week and a half is not a long time. But it is if every moment, waking or not, Cage mocks me from my mind. Turns me on. Once, I woke with my hands between my legs. In the dream, it was his tongue.

  “Maybe I don’t much like the idea of seeing your brains all over the ground, eh? Don’t see how that makes me an asshole.”

  I stand on my tiptoes. I can almost look him in the eye. “You don’t own me, Cage. You haven’t even called me … So what the hell do you care if I get myself in trouble? We’re strangers.”

  That odd look flits over his face again. It’s the same one he had when I asked him who Isaac was. It’s emotion, I realize after a moment. He hides it well. But when it shows, it’s brilliant. Like a painting. Real and gritty.

  “I don’t wanna see you hurt. You don’t have to fuckin’ pick it apart. Do you wanna get hurt, Scarlett? I know what I’m doing here. You don’t. Just stop with this bullshit. Go home.”

  “No!” I move even closer. Our lips are close. He’s shaking. I’m shaking. Whether in anger or something else, I don’t know. I don’t think he does either. “I’m not leaving, so you might as well go on with your day. Weren’t you going? Don’t let me stop you. I’ve got another notebook in the car, anyway.”