Burn Down the Night

by M. O'Keefe

  My bisexuality, my kinky shit, my open mind, my lack of shame when it came to this stuff, my lack of judgment—it was a goddamn gift in a bleak life. It was a bright spot and I was grateful.

  My orgasm was coming for me with teeth and claws bared and I threw myself into it.

  “Fuck!” I moaned. “Oh, fuck yes!” My hips jerked, and the dresser banged back against the window behind me, rattling the blinds. I heard the dark rasp of his laughter, and everything burst. Everything shattered, revealing the brightness of me. The brilliance of me. Pleasure like a starburst transforming everything.

  I had to brace myself so I wouldn’t fall back into the window, or over onto the floor. My fingers stayed on my clit, drawing it out until it was almost painful. Until there was no other sensation to wring from my body.

  In the silent aftermath, I took a deep breath. And then another. Sweating and ragged, I glanced up and saw him, head thrown back, eyes closed, his cock in his fist, with spurts of come landing on his hand. Across his stomach. He looked pained and maybe he was with the concussion and bullet wound in his calf.

  Or maybe, like me, he was clinging so hard to a bright spot of pleasure, it hurt. That he made it hurt. Because somehow, hurt made it tolerable.

  Very suddenly, I didn’t want to be there anymore. I didn’t want to meet his eyes and see him, that hard blade of a man, undone by his own hand.

  God, how much easier would it have been if he’d just taken the show. Just accepted the act. Now I didn’t know what to do. I felt like my skin had been ripped off.

  I got off the dresser and left, my feet silent on the carpet. I slipped past him, within arm’s length—he could’ve grabbed me.

  Fuck, did I want him to grab me?

  If he grabbed me, what would happen? Would he strangle me like he did in the kitchen the other night, showing me in no uncertain terms that he was bigger and badder and stronger than me?

  Or would he put that hand between my legs? Rub the come from my orgasm over my body? Would he lick it off his fingers?

  My knees buckled.

  Which did I want?

  Jesus. This was a mess.

  Naked, I went into the other room and wished more than anything that I could leave. That I could grab my garbage-bag life, toss him the key to the handcuffs, and just leave.

  Because somehow, that moment—not touching, with our eyes closed and coming in the same room—that was the hottest, most authentic thing I’d been a part of in months.

  I thought of the waitress in a café outside of Cherokee, I thought of the way her feelings for me made me feel good. How I’d used her for those feelings. I’d fucked her so I could borrow her heart for a few minutes. I tried to make it even—that transaction. Her heart for my tongue. My fingers.

  However she wanted it, whenever she wanted it—I gave it to her. Just to feel good about making someone so…nice, so kind, feel good.

  There were no promises between us. I made it clear from the beginning that I would be leaving her and she said that was okay. She had no expectations. But then she did—and they’d felt…good. Because she was a good person and if she wanted me, maybe I was a good person, too.

  Even though I was a piece of shit and I knew it. I had been fucking her and buying bombs all at the same time.

  I gave her what she wanted to see. It was a show. Everything. All the time. A show.

  But Max…fucking, Max.

  I was not going down this road with him. I was not…opening myself up to this nonsense. This devastation.

  In the kitchen, in the bottom drawer, I grabbed the gun I’d had the night of the explosion.

  Chapter 11

  Max

  I did not expect the gun. When she came back in, wearing her cutoffs and a tank top, her hair a sweaty mess from the fucking she’d given herself, it took me a minute to see the gun. Its blunt, black barrel pointed at my head.

  Did I really think she wasn’t pretty before this?

  Oh God, I’d been so wrong.

  She was a fucking force of nature. Every other woman in the world looked like a child compared to her.

  And she was pissed right now, because I had pushed her. Because I had forced her to show me something she wanted to keep hidden. I could see that. But there was something else, too. Something dark and dangerous under all that pissed.

  And I recognized all of it. Dark and dangerous was my home. Dark and dangerous was the air I breathed.

  “You’re going to help me,” she said. “You’re going to call Lagan, and you’re going to set up a meeting. Or something. You’re going to find out where his fucked-up camp is and we’re going to get my sister back.”

  “Lagan isn’t telling anyone where that camp is, Joan. Zo tried, but Lagan gave him nothing. You were at that club for months. Why didn’t you follow him?”

  “I did, but he stayed at a hotel in Cherokee most of the time. When he did leave…I lost him in the backwoods.”

  “That’s on you, then.”

  “Fuck you, Max. He’ll tell you, he trusts you!”

  He did trust me, that was true. But that didn’t mean he was going to tell me.

  I wiped the come off my stomach and put my dick back in my underwear.

  “He will have gotten rid of all his phones. Changed all his numbers. There’s no way I can find him,” I told her.

  “You’re lying.”

  “You know I’m not. Think about it, Joan.”

  “Do you know what he does to them?” Her voice broke over the words. “His wives?”

  “I can guess.” I could guess all kinds of things. But a memory bobbed up from the other night in the back room of the strip club.

  You’re the only one I hurt, because that was what you needed.

  Lagan said that. To Joan.

  Fuck.

  She’d been one of Lagan’s wives. For a minute, pity swamped me, but I didn’t let her see it. Showing her pity would get me shot.

  “Whatever you’re guessing…it’s a thousand times worse,” she said.

  I had to look away. I made a big show of pulling the blankets up over my crotch.

  “If you were one of his wives, you know where the camp is.”

  “He moved after I left. He moves anytime anyone leaves.”

  That was smart. Lagan was insane. But he was the smart kind of insane.

  “Put the gun down, Joan. You’re not going to shoot me,” I said, forcing myself to be cold. “Neighbors, remember?”

  She cocked the gun. She fucking cocked it. The sound was stupid loud in this shitty room. Despite her level stare and the steadiness of her hands, I could feel the frenzy of her. She was coming undone and that could be really fucking dangerous for me.

  I shouldn’t have taken my cock out. I shouldn’t have demanded she stop her little stripper show and show me something real—but goddamn, I’d been living on the edge of a blade for months. Knowing the minute I went back to the club, I was going to die at some point. And having to pretend I didn’t see Rabbit’s intent in those beady eyes of his. Pretending that this thing with Lagan wasn’t going to blow up in all our faces. Pretending that what was left of my soul wasn’t getting poisoned by the deal I was orchestrating.

  Getting shot is what I get for wanting something real. Something honest.

  I should know better. Real things, authentic things—they weren’t for me. They didn’t belong in my world, with the criminals and the liars and the killers. We all walked around each other surrounded by bullshit so thick, it suffocated whoever we’d been before.

  “You’re going to have to shoot me, Joan. Because I can’t help you.”

  “You can,” she said. “You just won’t.”

  I just looked at her and she just looked at me over the barrel of that gun.

  The moment stretched, and I let out a slow breath because she wasn’t going to do it. The impulse was over. My relief did nothing to offset my being pissed.

  But she had me chained to a bed and stood just outside of my re
ach. So I couldn’t hurt her. I couldn’t punish her the way I would anyone that held a gun on me.

  At least not with my hands.

  Because this little tantrum with the gun—it wasn’t about her sister or my help. It was about me forcing her to show me something she wanted to keep hidden.

  “Was it so bad?” I asked, poking at that dark, emotional bruise I’d given her. Because I had a death wish, maybe. Because I was an asshole.

  “What?”

  “Coming for me.”

  She sucked in a deep breath, like I’d just punched her in the stomach.

  “It was nothing,” she lied.

  But then she lowered the gun, uncocked it and held it at her side like a pro.

  “I’m not unlocking you. Not yet.”

  “You’re going to have to sooner or later.”

  “I choose later.”

  “You can’t change my mind about this, Joan. I’m not getting involved with Lagan.”

  “I’ll find a way to change it,” she said.

  She walked out. Leaving me there, chained to a bed, wondering who was in control.

  —

  I woke up, I don’t know how much later, to find the redheaded aunt looking over me.

  Fern. The name came out of the fog.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked. I could see the resemblance between her and Joan. Tall, stacked, and eyes all full of “fuck you.”

  I liked her.

  “Like I need to take a shit. And I’d like a shower.”

  “I can arrange that for you.”

  I lifted the handcuffs. She lifted the key.

  I laughed. The second she unlocked me, I was out of here. I’d lock her up if I had to, but I was done with this place. Done with Joan and this mind-fuck control game we had going.

  I’d head back to Cherokee, find out what I could about Rabbit. I’d kill him and then…Well, at the moment, then was a blank space. I could fill it in later.

  But first I had to get Aunt Fern to let me out.

  Clearly, she saw something she didn’t like in my face, because she put the key back in her pocket.

  “What the fuck?” I demanded.

  “I took the bullet out of your leg. Mind if I look?” She gestured toward my foot.

  “Have at it,” I told her, watching her carefully. I could kick her in the teeth and knock her out, but there was no guarantee she’d fall within reach so I could get that key out of her pocket.

  She pressed the wound and I winced. Her eyes watched me carefully like I was telling her something with that wince.

  “I was shot,” I told her. “It hurts.”

  “I’ll bet. You want some painkillers?”

  I shook my head. I wanted to be clear. Crystal clear when I put my hands around Joan’s neck again.

  “Well,” she said, putting the blanket over my leg. “The wound is clean, there’s no infection, and the fever you had seems to be gone.”

  “Great. Make with the key.”

  “I’d like to look at your head.”

  “It’s fine.”

  She hummed in her throat.

  “Joan said you were an army nurse.”

  The club had a guy who took care of the big injuries that couldn’t go to a hospital. A doctor who had lost his license ‘cause he liked to fuck with the unconscious bodies of his female patients.

  Having someone like Fern would have been worlds better.

  “Two tours in Iraq.”

  “For family, you and Joan don’t seem that close.”

  “Yeah,” she laughed at me. “You’re an expert on normal family relations?”

  I almost laughed, too. “If I had to put money on it, I’d say she was raised by wolves.”

  Her eyes narrowed just a bit and I really had no clue why I was goading the woman with the key in her pocket. But whatever. I was pissed.

  “I could say the same about you.”

  Wasn’t that the truth.

  “What’s her name? Her real name?”

  “If she’s not telling you, I’m certainly not.”

  It was strange to realize Joan had someone. She was so alone in my eyes. So surrounded by barbed wire and land mines, it was kind of crazy to find out there was family she could go to.

  Family she could go to when she had a nearly-dead biker in the backseat of her car.

  Weird, but I had exactly the same kind of family. Useless in so many ways, but when it came to nearly-dead bikers, they proved useful.

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “She asked me if I knew a place where she could get a phone unlocked.”

  “What?” I asked, my stomach sinking into my wounded leg. I had not thought about my crappy burner phone. I’d totally forgotten about it. But if she had it, and she was getting it unlocked, she was walking down a deadly path.

  “She had a phone with a passcode and she needed to get around it. I told her Eric could do it.”

  It was my cellphone. I knew it. My burner. Lagan, if he was smart, and God knows the guy was, had probably ditched all his phones and changed all his numbers. But he would have kept my number. Because he had a plane full of uncut coke that he needed to sell and distribute. And I was that guy for him. We’d put months into this deal; he’d left all other distributers behind as our negotiations got more and more serious.

  Lagan would be desperate.

  And we had a relationship.

  And at the top end of this dirty fucking business—relationships meant something. They mattered.

  So, Lagan might have ditched his phones, but he wouldn’t have gotten rid of my number. He was waiting for me to reach out or he was waiting to reach out to me.

  My phone could connect all the dots.

  “So,” Fern said, pulling me back into this moment. “If I unlock you, what are you going to do?”

  “You scared?” I taunted her because I was edgy and pissed off and way sick of being locked up to the bed.

  And I did need the can.

  Her eyes glanced down my body, taking in my tattoos. All the scars. My life was visible on my skin—every hard inch of it.

  “I’d be an idiot not to be,” she said. “But you should know I’m the condo association president around here—”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Is that supposed to scare me?”

  “There are eyes on me,” she said. “And one of them is a security professional, former military, and he’s got connections all over the state.”

  I couldn’t give a shit about her security professional geriatric boyfriend. I had to get out of here and get to Joan before she unlocked that phone and started calling people. Started bringing the shitstorm right to our door.

  “Shower,” I said. “Bathroom. That’s all I want. And I swear I won’t do anything.”

  Fern undid the handcuffs and I lifted my arm to rub at my wrist. She jumped back at the motion, her body in a ready stance.

  I’d been in a lot of fights and the guys who fought back with any kind of effectiveness—they stood like that. On the balls of their feet, hands up ready to block. Eyes sharp.

  Fern was a fucking mystery. Just like her niece. I’d fallen in with witches.

  “Calm down,” I told her. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Yeah, something about you doesn’t seem entirely trustworthy.” Her eyes raked over my tattoos. Each one declared me a bad, bad man.

  I unsteadily got to my feet.

  “You need help?” she asked.

  “No. Where’s this phone guy?”

  “You wanted a shower?”

  “Shower later. Phone guy now.”

  “I’m not telling you.”

  I crowded her back against the wall, she hit me. A solid strike against my shoulder and a kick at the leg where I’d been shot. She made contact there, but I only winced and kept at her, pushing her into the corner, putting my hand against her chest, and grabbing her fist in my hand. She struggled and she was strong, but I had too much riding on this to play
fair with a woman.

  “This is not a game,” I told her.

  “You got that right.”

  “Joan is going to get herself in deep trouble. If you care about her at all, you’ll tell me where she went.”

  “I’m really supposed to believe you care about her?” Fern asked, like the idea was ludicrous.

  “I guess that means you don’t?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Yeah, you and Joan have a real family resemblance.” I gripped her purple shirt in my fist and thunked her back against the wall. Her eyes went wide.

  Yeah, yeah, I’m an asshole.

  “You want me to go knocking on every door in this place?” I asked. “You want me to put on my cut and start causing problems? Where is she?”

  Fern screwed her face up like she was about to spit on me, just as the door to the condo unit opened and we both heard Joan walk in.

  I pivoted, still holding her shirt in my hand and all but dragged her into the bathroom. I threw her off balance so she fell back against the wall, and as she slid to the floor between the toilet and the shower, I shut the door. I couldn’t lock it, but it gave me a few seconds to get to Joan before she could.

  I charged through the apartment, sparks on the edge of my vision. My leg was burning; Fern’s connected kick hurt worse now. Joan was at the door, the phone in her hand. For a second, she saw me and it was like she couldn’t believe it, and then she shoved the phone in her back pocket and started backing away from me.

  “Give it to me,” I said, my hand out. “I won’t hurt you.”

  “No can do,” she said, like she was trying to be funny.

  I grabbed her thin arms in my hands. I could feel her muscle and skin. Her living breathing strength. My thumb pressed into the soft tension on the inside of her elbow. That small bit of tendon and muscle. “Did you call him?”

  She tried to jerk away but I held on to her, tighter than I should.

  “Did you call him!” I yelled at her.

  “No,” she said, trying to hide her fear, but not quite able. “I didn’t. You have a lot of calls to a blocked number and I…I couldn’t call it back.”

  She’d tried, the stupid, suicidal bitch.

  Her eyes flickered over my shoulder and then narrowed. She leaned in, despite the pressure of my hands on her. Or maybe because. Maybe she leaned in so it hurt a little more.