When he fell into brooding silences, she quieted down and kissed him. The incident had reminded him of why she couldn’t stay. How stupid he’d been to imagine that they had any sort of future together. He led a dangerous life, he had enemies, men who wanted him dead, who would harm her to get to him. Rockwell almost had - he’d tried to drive the knife into her knee to get her out of his way. Gunner shuddered when he remembered how close of a call it had been.
The doctors were pleased with his progress and sent him home after four days. They were no longer confined to the clubhouse - something had finally changed Bill’s attitude towards Senna. But Gunner needed more assistance than she could give and so they moved him to Nomad’s home instead.
Despite his rapid recovery, he still wasn’t well enough to make it to Alvarez’s funeral. Senna and Nomad went in his place.
“It was a lovely service,” she reported when they returned, kissing him on the cheek. “Rosa sends her love.”
She cooked. She helped him change his bandages, helped him stand, helped him shower. He could barely look at her. “Please talk to me,” she’d whisper, and he could only turn away.
She bantered with his father and Lily, sitting around the dinner table, drinking beer and playing cards.
“Nomad wanted me actually in the club for a hot minute, once upon a time,” Lily told her, laughing.
“I thought it was a boys-only thing,” Senna said. She kept trying to catch Gunner’s eye, but he pretended to concentrate on the cards in his hand.
“It is,” Lily said.
Nomad frowned. “We had a woman once. Back in the seventies.”
“Was she as pretty as Lily, though?” Senna asked.
“Ugliest bitch I’ve ever seen. Big, too. Bigger than me. She could’ve squashed me like a beetle.” He looked between the two women’s incredulous faces. “It’s a sad day when the oldest man in the club is the most progressive.”
“It’s not progressive, it’s fucking stupid,” Gunner said, slamming down his cards. “What if she’d gotten hurt? How would you have felt, then?”
“She’d already gotten hurt,” Nomad said, “More than once, need I remind you.” Gunner flinched. He had foggy memories of his own aggressive tactics hitting on the poor woman over a decade ago, before she’d met Nomad. He’d just arrived home from overseas and had been existing in a constant haze of drugs and violence. He remembered little, but he knew he hadn’t been very nice. “Maybe it’s up to her to decide how much danger she wants to take on. I’m not her parent, I can’t just send her to her room or send her away because something bad might happen.”
They weren’t talking about Lily anymore.
Senna cornered him later while he was bare-chested in the bathroom. Her voice came from close to the floor, as if she’d sat down against the door outside. “Remember when you seduced me while I dyed my hair?”
He looked at himself in the mirror. Tired, bruised. He’d looked better back then. It hadn’t been all that long but it felt like ages had passed. “I remember,” he said. “Right after I dragged you off the road and tried to shoot you.”
“You never would have done it and you know it. Do you remember the other thing you said?”
“I say a lot.”
“About riding this thing out until it wrecks us?”
He gripped the edge of the sink. “I’m feeling pretty wrecked right now, honey.”
“I know.” He heard her stand. “Let me in. I’m sticking around one way or another. Nomad says they’ll let me use a room at the clubhouse. I’d rather stay with you but you have to stop pushing me away.”
He turned and opened the door. She stood there looking pretty wrecked herself - eyes red-rimmed, black hair uncombed. He spotted hints of her honey-colored roots starting to grow in.
He gestured at his side, where the gauze covered the wound high on his chest. It had been a very close call - any deeper and it probably would have ended him. It was healing now, and though it ached, he’d regained most of his normal range of motion. “This could have happened to you. He was going after you to get past to me.”
“Yeah?” she asked. “And he failed. What’s your point? My bus to LA could crash. Another of my father’s clients could track me down and be even less reasonable. Lightening happens. Where should I go?”
“I know all that. Those things aren’t the same.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I couldn’t take it if you were hurt because of me. I’ve got a lot of bad shit coming my way. A lot to answer for.”
She stepped closer, sliding her hands around his waist. He gripped the sink behind him tighter. “Are you talking about karma?”
“Sort of. I guess.” He didn’t really know. He just knew the universe would make him answer for being a shitty person, a shitty friend. Everything always caught up eventually.
“We can work on that together,” she said. She rested her head on his shoulder and he couldn’t help turning and breathing her in. “We can try to re-balance it if that’s what you want.” She kissed his jaw. “Let me love you, Gunner. I’ll let you love me. Maybe more bad shit will happen, but bad shit always happens anyway. You deserve a little good in your life, too.”
“Do I?”
“You were never going to shoot me. You went through a lot to keep me safe. That has to count for something.” Her hands traced his waistband as her lips met his neck. He could feel his resolve cracking - not that he ever had much resolve to begin with. His instincts and his impulses screamed, “take her.” It would be so easy to give in.
She suddenly took a step back. "You forget. You aren't the only one hurting here, Gunner. I've lost everything. A stack of cash won't bring my father back, bastard that he was. He was still my family. It won't make Dawn give a shit about me. It won't simply buy back the life I had."
It was true. He hadn't forgotten but he hadn't been thinking about what she'd been through. Sure, he didn't know what it was like to grow up with all the things she'd had - security, luxury. But he didn't know what it was like to have it all torn away, either. She must have been scared. She looked scared right then - afraid of losing him.
It was that vulnerable look that finally broke through. The first time he'd seen it when he'd touched her at the hotel, he'd run for the hills.
A lot had changed since then. Hell, everything had changed.
He meant to kiss her gently but it was impossible to be gentle when he wanted her so badly, when everything he'd been trying to hold back was finally let loose.
She sighed his name as their lips clashed. He couldn't lift her like he wanted to, so he held her shoulders and walked her backwards from the bathroom, across the hall into the bedroom. He kicked the door shut behind him.
Pain flared in his side as he sat her down and leaned over her. "Shh," she said as his face twisted, "Lie down. Let me take care of you."
"Keep talking," he said, stretching out on hid back. His heart was racing, and not just because of his wound. He was giving in and it scared him. She stopped in the middle of unbuttoning his jeans.
"You look miserable," she said. "Just tell me what's wrong. Please."
The words fell out in a rush. "You make me so goddamn happy I could die and I don't deserve it. Something horrible is going to happen to end this. Losing you scares the shit out of me."
Slowly, a smile spread across her face. One of those quiet ones that she reserved just for him. "You are by far the most honest man I know," she said, leaning down and kissing him for it. "And more in touch with your feelings than I am."
He frowned. She made him should like a damn girl when she put it that way. "Not exactly the most glowing endorsement."
"It is," she said, her hands working his pants open again. "I always know where I stand." He lifted so she could remove his jeans. With her palm against his swelling cock, she smiled again. "You love me and you're scared. It's okay. I'm scared, too." She kicked off her own jeans as she watched his face, making sure he was watching her and still listening.
Every day.
Always.
He grasped her ass, squeezing her flesh and drawing her towards him. "You love me," he said, stating it, not asking. He knew it was true but it was still hard to believe.
She nodded, moving forward on her knees until she was above his chest. He slid a finger through her soft folds, drawing forth her wet heat, spreading it before plunging it inside. She squirmed above him.
"I thought I was going to take care of you," she said, a touch breathless.
"I want to watch you come," he said, grinding the heel of his hand against her. "I promised I'd make you come every day, remember? I've got a few days to make up for."
She bit her lip as she moved against him. "Say it, first."
"Say what?"
"Tell me to stay with you." Her hands smoothed his hair, then gripped it tight. "Tell me not to leave."
"Don't leave. Never leave." He lifted his head and laved her between her legs with his tongue, drawing it across her clit. Her moan was her reply, and it was all he needed.
Maybe some this horrible shit had to happen to bring us together. The club banishing him, her sister being where she was, drawing her out to them in her time of need. He believed in bad luck - it wasn't a huge leap to believe there could be a touch of good mixed up in it all.
He dragged his tongue over her clit over and over until she came, gushing and bucking around his thrusting fingers. He watched in awe as she threw her head back in ecstasy.
He chuckled to himself. "What is it?" She asked.
"There was a time I thought if I fucked you once or twice it would get you out of my system."
She grinned, moving back along his body to position herself over his cock. He groaned when she gripped his erection. "Still think that?" She lowered herself onto him with a rapturous look. He was sure his expression was no different as she enveloped him. All of him. "Am I out of your system now?"
"Never," he growled, thrusting up into her. The pain in his side was nothing beside the euphoria of being joined with her. "Never. You're mine."
"For as long as I'm here."
"Always." It was a promise. He swore it upon his tags, upon his bell, upon every talisman of luck he'd ever carried. He swore it upon his memory of Alvarez. He didn't think he'd ever be able to remember his friend without sadness, but he clung to what Rosa had instructed him to do. “You go be with that girl. It’s what he once wanted for himself. If he can’t have it, then you go have it for him.”
He would. He'd said that he would, and he was a man of his word.
“It’s safe to leave.”
She’d been waiting for this day. Dreading it. Hoping for it. Dreading it again.
She sat next to Nomad in front of the bonfire as it spit sparks into the night sky. It was nearly winter but still warm enough for barbecues with an extra sweater or two.
“Did you hear me, girly?”
“I heard you.” She stared down at the tattoo on the back of her hand. The one that marked her as property of the Dust Bowl Devils. Gunner’s. He smiled at her from across the fire where he stood speaking with Irish and a few Eagles whose names she hadn’t learned yet. Whatever. She smiled back. She’d inherited Gunner’s distrust of those men, though he’d been less vocal about it of late.
Dawn was around that evening as well. They still weren’t on the most sisterly terms, but they were both working on it. They were both trying.
Nomad shook his head. “You changed the hell out of him. That boy was on his way to either prison or an early grave.”
“He changed me, too. You just didn’t know me before.”
“Well?” Nomad asked, prodding her arm. “What of it? Where’s that bus go, anyway?”
She pulled the ticket from her wallet. She’d kept it there after all this time. Most of the words were faded, now, and hell, the damn thing was probably expired. “LA,” she said. “Though I was considering Mexico after that.”
He chuckled. “Heard you’re starting school soon?”
“Not starting. Finishing.” Her credits had miraculously transferred. Colin’s boss’s reach hadn’t been as long or as destructive as she’d feared. That or they really had stopped caring about her after she’d sold her portion of the company. The only threats she received anymore were online, and vague enough to be ignored. Not that Gunner didn’t have them investigated anyway. Now they’d slowed to a trickle.
“He’s gonna be anxious while you’re away.”
“He’ll have you and Lily. And the club. And Rosa.” The woman was in attendance that evening. Bill of all people was keeping her company at the moment. She had a fragile appearance, a paleness, a look that spoke profound loss. But watching Senna and Gunner together brought a spark of life to her eyes, and Senna had caught glimpses of a quick wit and a spine of steel. It seemed as if the club had adopted her, though no one said anything about a tattoo. Senna decided she’d suggest it to Rosa later, just to make her laugh.
“He’ll miss you.”
“Yeah, but he gets to mock me and call me ‘college girl’ again.”
The school was a few hours away - not too far to see each other often, but too far for a daily commute. She’d rent an apartment when the spring semester started, and he’d stay behind with the club and with his new job at the garage. And his criminal activities. She hated to think that her father’s deceptions had long-lasting effects on her, but they had. She had a hard time trusting people; she found it impossible to stop second-guessing what they said, looking for their second face, waiting for the lie.
But Gunner was no liar.
Maybe that’s why it was so easy to trust him, crook or criminal or whatever he was. She trusted him and she loved him and escape was not an option. She was his.
With a wide grin, she leaned forward and fed the ticket into the flames.
Britten is an independent young author in NYC. Born with a love of words, the city, and animals, she grew up in an ever-growing pile of books. She’s mastered the art of cell phone typing and has more pets than her landlord needs to know about. When she’s not writing, she’s running. When she’s not running, she’s drinking every new beer she can get her hands on.
She can confirm that stereotypes about Catholic schoolgirls are true. Having been one herself, she’s still in recovery. Don’t tell her mom.
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Or continue turning the pages for more…
OLD MAN’S RIDE - A Dust Bowl Devils MC novella
He chuckled as he zipped his pants. “Not until you beg for it. And I didn’t say you were allowed to beg yet.”
Stubborn, hot-headed Lily only had three options - get married, get on her back, or get the hell out of town. The local MC makes the rules, and they rule the town. She chooses to leave. Nobody tells her what to do. Nobody bosses her around.
Until she meets Nomad. He’s the former president of the Dust Bowl Devils. When he offers her a ride to LA, she jumps onto the back of his bike without looking back. But he’s got a different sort of ride in mind…
Warning: This 20,000+ word novella contains explicit language and graphic adult content.
DEVIL’S GIRL - A Dust Bowl Devils MC novel
Ivy is a biker bitch who doesn’t take life seriously. When the members of the Dust Bowl Devils get a little too rough, she laughs and brushes it off. When he
r competition with the new girl in town turns dirty, she finds the whole thing amusing. And when the president of the club warns her to be careful, that their rivals are out for trouble and blood, she nods and smiles and has another drink.
Until Theo. The mysterious biker from the East Coast chapter is big, badass, and handsome as all hell. Their undeniable attraction is no laughing matter; she refuses to be pushed away, blissfully unaware of the dangerous mission that puts him and anyone near him in jeopardy.
He’s there to hunt down two new members of the Devils’ rival club. They’re the sort of men that make the Devils look downright wholesome. Ivy thought she knew a world of sex, drugs, and violence, but when she falls into their hands, she quickly learns that she’s only dabbled.
Will Theo and the Devils come for her, or will they back down in the face of a club that’s taken a far more dark and ruthless turn?
Rivalry, friendship, love violence passion - this full-length novel also contains explicit language and graphic adult content. It is suitable for mature readers only.
ROAD’S END - an Apocalypse Riders novella
He takes her captive, claiming it’s to keep her safe. But she knows what happens to women when civilization crumbles.
Josie was fading away. Living in isolation in a dead city, she can feel her mind crumbling just like the buildings around her.
Devil's Fall: Dust Bowl Devils MC Page 17
