Arsen

by Kathryn Thomas

  “There’re four rooms right down the hall,” Zane said as he entered the main room, never slowing as he continued past.

  Arsen slowly pulled out of the kiss then chuckled softly. It wasn’t the first time they’d been caught making out in the clubhouse. “What do you think? Should we use one?” he breathed.

  “No. I’m saving you for later.” She smiled as she licked her lips, enjoying the lingering warmth of his kiss. She slipped under his arm and wondered if they shouldn’t do that someday, make love in the clubhouse, just for the experience.

  “I’m getting ready to go,” he said, his cock already hard in anticipation of them getting home and the two torrid kisses.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” she said as she sat down again. “I want to finish this thing for Rain Forest. I shouldn’t be more than a half-hour or so.”

  He nodded. She had been lobbying for new products, and the first new scent in two years, Rain Forest, was ready. He had made up small samples of various scents, and after Quinn had tested them on the women of the club, she’d gone to a mall and done a blind sample, giving away small vials of their products. When Rain Forest won out as the favorite scent, she had him tweak the formulation, then she’d done the same test again with five variations of the same scent. There had been one clear winner, and they were making a ton of the scented salts for sale right now. If it sold, they would scale up the run to their normal five-ton batch.

  He smiled and nodded. “I’ll start dinner.”

  “Something light. I don’t want to feel full later.”

  He nodded then bent to kiss her again. “Burritos?”

  “With that lime chicken you make?” The first meal he fed her, when he brought her home, still held a special place in her heart.

  “If you like.”

  She kissed him this time. “I like.”

  She watched him as he turned and swaggered out of the clubhouse. “Mm-mmm-mmm,” she muttered to herself then dragged her attention back to what she was doing.

  ***

  Thirty minutes later she pulled her new CTS V into the garage. Arsen’s old car had been a total loss. Not only had it been shot up, but the engine was scrapped. Rather than fix the car, they’d dumped the car in the desert, waited a few days, then reported it stolen. The police had found the car quickly enough, and he’d filed an insurance claim. The insurance hadn’t been pleased, but they’d finally paid it.

  He’d let her pick out anything she wanted, so long as it was a GM or Ford, wanting another American car. She quickly settled on another Cadillac like the one he had before. It was his car, titled in his name, but she thought of it as hers. She loved the car and kept it spotless.

  As the garage rumbled down, she entered the kitchen. The chicken was sizzling in the skillet, but Arsen was nowhere to be seen. With a frown she moved deeper into the house, finding him sitting on the bed. Beside him were several pictures of him with Holly, or Holly alone.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she placed her purse in the armoire.

  “Nothing,” he said as he slipped a picture from the frame he had been looking at, and added it to the pile.

  “It looks like something,” she said quietly as she sat down beside him.

  He added the empty frame to the other four that were lying on the bed behind him.

  “I thought it was time to do something with these.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said quietly.

  He shrugged, then picked up the photos from the bed and arranged them neatly. “I know. But it’s time.” He opened the bottom drawer of his bedside table and slid the pictures into it and close it. “That’s a past life. I have a new life now.”

  “She’s part of you, Arsen. She always will be. I’m not trying to replace her.”

  He smiled and pulled her to him for a quick kiss. “I know, but I think it’s time to fill these frames with some new memories, don’t you?”

  She smiled as he pulled back from the kiss. “If you’re sure.”

  He smiled. He’d never been so sure of anything in his life.

  THE END

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  BONUS BOOK – CRUSH

  Chapter One

  Sierra Mora’s eyes rolled in her head like a frightened deer as the Glock 26 pressed under her jaw.

  “Drop it,” the man pressing his weapon to her jaw said calmly, as if directing a child to put down a rock.

  “Can’t do it, Son,” the other man said, his weapon out and pointed at them. Chief Phelps, the lone lawman in Gallup Nevada, may be nearly seventy, but his gun was steady as he stood in his shooter’s crouch.

  “What the fuck is he doing back here?” another of the five men snarled. All their weapons were out and pointed at the lawman, save the man holding her. “He’s already fucking been here! He was here and gone an hour ago!”

  “Yeah, well, sorry to bust up your little party boys, but let Sierra go and nobody has to get hurt,” Phelps said, his voice calm and reassuring. Wenton Phelps had retired from the Barstow PD several years before, but decided retirement didn’t suit him. Gallup was looking for a new chief of police and he decided that being the lone peace officer in a one-horse town sounded like just the job for him. Thirty-two years on the Barstow police department and he’d never once drawn his weapon in anger and, now, on the job in Gallup fucking Nevada less than two years and he was in a standoff with five gunmen with a hostage. What a fucking way to die, he said to himself.

  “I don’t know! Just get the fucking money!” the man snarled, tightening his grip on Sierra. This is so fucked up! It wasn’t supposed to be this way! The Death Valley Motorcycle Club had been staking out the grocery for a week, watching for patterns. The store was busy in the morning and then later in the afternoon, but there was a lull in the middle of the day. The cop always showed up about eleven-thirty, never later than twelve, and left fifteen minutes later with a sandwich and a drink. That was their window, after the cop left, when there would be the fewest witnesses and the greatest likelihood of success. But today, of all days, the fucking cop had to forget something causing him to return unexpectedly.

  “What are we going to do here, Boss?” another man asked, being careful not to call Colt by his name. They had stripped themselves of their colors, pulled pantyhose over their heads to disguise their faces, and were wearing surgical gloves. They would leave no physical evidence, but a first name was a clue to their identity. There was nothing to link them to the DVMC, so long as they could get out of there.

  “Just get the money,” Colt said over his shoulder. “We stick to the plan.”

  “Looks like your plan is busted, Son. Just put your weapon down.” Phelps said his voice low and steady. The last thing he wanted was to escalate the situation by being overly aggressive in a hostage situation. That only gets people killed.

  “The way I see it, Bacon, is there are five of us and one of you. Plus, there are some innocent people in here. I never intended to hurt these people, and I know you don’t want to see them hurt. So what we’re going to do is take what we came for and you’re going to put your gun down and let us walk out.”

  “Not going to happen,” Phelps replied, his voice still slow and non-threatening.

  “Sure it is,” Colt said confidently, buying time for the guys to get the money from the safe in the back. “Otherwise you are going to be responsible for a lot of bloodshed. Maybe you don’t care if you get shot, dying the hero and all, but if shooting starts, can you guarantee somebody else isn’t going to get hurt? What about Chiquita here? You think you can pick me off before I blow her head off?”

  Sierra whimpered in fear but stood perfectly still, her hands gripping the arm around her neck in terror.

  Phelps licked his lips, the only outward sign of the stress he was feeling. He was in a bad spot
, that much was sure. He could call for backup, but it might be twenty minutes or more before County arrived. There was no way this standoff would last that long. “Look, Son, you don’t want to do this. Murder is a bad rap.”

  “I’m not going to murder anyone, not so long as you cooperate. Hurry the fuck up!” he roared to his men.

  “She won’t open the safe!” a voice called from the back.

  “Then shoot her in the knee!”

  “Never mind,” the voice called again. “She had a change of heart.”

  “This is almost over,” Colt said to Phelps again. “All you have to do is let us walk out. This place is probably insured. What better witness than the Chief of Police? Do the smart thing. Be a hero… a live hero.”

  “Wenton, please,” Sierra whimpered. “They’ll kill us all.”

  Phelps licked his lips again. He liked Sierra. She was sweet and hardworking, not to mention gorgeous, and he didn’t want to see anything happen to her. “I can’t let them take you, Sierra,” Phelps said softly. “I couldn’t live with myself if I let them walk out and something happens to you.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to her, Wenton, is it? Once we are out of town I’ll let her go.”

  “Why should I believe you?” Phelps asked.

  “Because, as you said, murder is a bad rap. I don’t need that kind of heat coming down on our heads. Rape either. But if we start shooting the place up, I might as well kill everyone and take my chances, right? No witnesses that way. But it doesn’t have to go down like that.”

  Colt looked away as the two men returned from the back, a plastic grocery bag bulging with money. “Clean out the registers,” he ordered. “Chief, we’re almost done here. It’s time to make up your mind.”

  “Wenton, please. Just let them go,” Sierra begged again.

  “What about you?”

  “They said they wouldn’t hurt me. You have your wife and kids, and grandkids! Think about them! Please, Wenton! Don’t make them hurt me!”

  Phelps licked his lips again. His thoughts had been spinning, trying to think of a way out, of a way to save Sierra and stop the robbery, but everything he came up with ended in either a bloody shoot-out… or letting them walk away.

  “You won’t hurt her?”

  Colt smiled. “You have my word as a gentleman thief. As soon as we are out of town I will dump her on the side of the road and she can walk back.”

  It stuck in his craw, but Phelps finally raised his weapon and put his hands up in surrender. The other man, the one who had stayed with Colt to keep his weapon on the Chief, quickly stepped forward and took his service revolver. Phelps flinched as the man snatched his weapon from his hand, expecting the thug to at least smack him around a little.

  “Relax, Chief,” the man said as he took the weapon. “You made the right decision.”

  Another of the men appeared from the hardware aisle with a big role of duct tape, slitting open the package with his knife. “Let’s go. You’re almost out of this.”

  “Let me go, please!” Sierra begged. “You don’t need me anymore. Please, let me go. You can tie me up in the back with Wenton and Barbara. Please!”

  “Sierra, is it?” Colt asked, loosening his grip on the woman and pulling the weapon from under her chin. He’d never killed anyone before and he was glad he didn’t have to today. Especially someone who looked like this woman. That would have been a tragic waste.

  “Yes. Please, let me go!”

  “Can’t do it, Sierra, not yet. Sorry. But I won’t hurt you, I promise. This is fucked up and I want a little extra insurance until we get out of town. Just in case.”

  Sierra swallowed hard. For a man who a moment ago held a gun to her head, he didn’t act like he wanted to hurt her. When Chief Phelps had shown up, she was certain they were all going to die in a hail of gunfire, but the tall, muscular, man who held her hadn’t hurt her and convinced Wenton to let them go. Maybe he would keep his word and allow her to live after all.

  “You won’t hurt me?”

  “No. Not if you don’t give me a reason to. Just do what I say and everything will be okay. Got it?”

  She nodded. “And you’ll let me go?”

  “I’ll let you go.” The other four men gathered around them. “Let’s roll,” Colt said, turning Sierra and leading her out. He held her close, using her body and his to hide the fact that there was a gun in her back.

  She wanted to run so she gave her arm a test tug to see if she could break free. His grip, though gentle, was like steel. She looked around, hoping to see someone, someone she could call for help, but the parking lot was deserted. She watched as he jerked his head at the idling Chevy Tahoe with the seal of Gallup on the door and the word Police underneath. Two wicked looking knives appeared in the men’s hands, knives that went easily into the sidewalls of the tires. A third man opened the door and, after a quick look around, pulled the shotgun from the mount. He turned the truck off then pumped the shells out of the gun before using the stock to smash the radio and computer, returning the gun to its rack when he was done.

  “The Chief is going to be pissed when he gets loose.” The man who smashed the radio chucked as he locked the door before drawing back and heaving the keys onto the roof of the grocery.

  “Wenton and Barabra are okay? You didn’t hurt them?” Colt asked.

  Two of the men laughed. “Only their pride.”

  “What did you do?” Colt asked, picking up on their tone.

  The two men began to laugh harder. “We taped them together, that’s all,” one man said.

  “Very close together,” the second added as they approached five motorcycles.

  “What did you do?” Colt repeated.

  “We, uh, taped them in a compromising position.”

  “How? And why?” Colt asked.

  “Because we could and because we thought it was funny. You should see the office. Full of pictures with bible verses and shit…and she tried to witness to us. Told us Jesus would forgive us if we would just ask him to. They are still dressed, but we taped them together so they look like they are fucking.”

  “Yeah,” the other man added, his grin growing larger. “I got turned on just doing it.”

  Despite her fear, Sierra smiled. Barbara Candill, owner of Candill’s Grocery, was the most uptight woman Sierra had ever met. She was nice enough, but she often wondered how Barbara and Ernie Candill could have two grown kids when she was so prudish and condescending. The raciest magazines for sale in the store was Good Housekeeping and she made sure Sierra kept her shirt buttoned so there wasn’t even a hint of cleavage visible. She was probably more upset about her embarrassing situation than being robbed.

  Colt chuckled. “Goddamnit. What is it with you two?”

  “Hey, we have to have out fun when we can.”

  Colt chuckled again then turned to his captive as the other men began to load the saddlebags on the bikes with the cash. “Sierra, I’m going to blindfold you now so you can’t see where we go, okay? There is nothing to worry about. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

  She felt a rush of fresh fear as he tucked the weapon into his belt and pulled a deadly looking knife. Before she could react, he slid the knife into his shirt and cut off a length of fabric before returning the knife to its sheath and handing the cloth to another man.

  Colt mounted up. “Get on behind me and hang on tight.” Once she was on the bike, he nodded to the man with the cloth. “Do it.”

  With those two words, her world went black.

  The moment Sierra’s eyes were covered, the men pulled the hose from their heads, uncovered their colors, and started their bikes. It seemed like forever, with the cop walking in on them as he did, but as Colt glanced at his watch, he realized they were still in and out in under ten minutes. Not bad for a fucked up heist like this one, he thought.

  The cop had stepped into the store just as they were getting organized. They had already pulled their weapons to intimidate anyone inside
, and had announced their intentions. At that point they were committed to seeing it through and he’d done the only thing he could think of, pulling the first person he could get his hands on to his chest and putting the gun to her head.

  The cop was good; he would give him that. He’d taken in the situation almost instantly, and pulled his weapon, but hadn’t fired. Fortunately he was a good cop and could tell Colt was telling him the truth when he said he didn’t want to hurt anyone. Killing people wasn’t his style. As the cop pointed out, murder was a bad business. He had plans for his life, and pulling a long stretch in prison for murder wasn’t part of them. They had managed extract themselves from a nasty circumstance without spilling blood, but they were going to have to avoid Gallup for a while. Chief Phelps wasn’t going to see the same humor in his situation that his men did.