by Dahlia West
She was tense, confused for a moment. Her whole body was rigid. “Emilio?”
His head hit the pillow next to her own. “Sleep, muñeca,” he ordered. “We’re both about to pass out.” His large hand cupped her breast. This time he didn’t tease. He simply held her, casually, like they’d slept together a hundred times.
Again she was struck by how much more comfortable he was with her body than she was. Like it had always been his.
“Emilio?”
He groaned. This time, though, it wasn’t sexy. “Turn off that brain, Ava.”
“You said I was yours,” she whispered. Her heart picked up speed again. She held her breath.
“Did I?”
Ava froze. He didn’t remember?
He shifted behind her, getting more comfortable. “Why wouldn’t I?” he finally said.
She didn’t know how to answer.
He sighed. “Ava, you’re definitely mine, but if you don’t shut the fuck up and go to sleep, I’m going to strangle you. Or sleep on the couch.” He squeezed her breast, not hard, but still firmly. His lips found her ear again. “Do you want me to sleep on the couch?”
Again unable to speak, she shook her head curtly.
“I can’t tell if that’s a yes or a no. So, since it’s my bed and you’re my girl, I’m going to go sleep.” He leaned in and kissed the side of her head. “Good night, Ava.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ava awoke in the morning and immediately felt something was missing—or someone. She turned her head to find Emilio’s side of the bed empty, if he had a side. She much preferred the way he held her, fit himself to her back so perfectly, like the bed was actually too big.
She closed her eyes for just a moment, imagining him there anyway. She smelled his scent on the sheets but, more importantly— coffee.
Stifling a groan, she dragged herself out of bed and gathered her clothes. Her cell phone showed half a dozen messages last night and even a few voicemails. All from Clint, so who gave a shit, really? He’d caused her enough problems last night.
Ava wiggled into her panties and T-shirt and set off down the hall toward salvation. Whether that was the coffee Emilio was making or Emilio himself, she wasn’t quite sure. But she was here now and she didn’t want to be anywhere else.
In fact, she was perfectly fine pretending nothing (and no one) else existed.
She turned the corner to find him in the kitchen, looking as hot as ever in a pair of jeans but no shirt or shoes. Once again she took note of his caramel skin and wanted nothing more than to cover it in ink—and hickeys.
He set a steaming cup onto the table as she slid into an empty seat. The curtains were pulled back on the sliding glass door and it was already a bright, sunny morning outside.
Ava wished it was midnight all over again.
He poured himself a cup and lowered himself next to her. She thought about last night, about being his Ava. She wanted him to say it again.
But instead he said just the opposite.
“We made a mistake last night,” he told her.
Ava froze, coffee cup in hand. She stared at him.
“It can’t happen again.”
Tears pricked behind her eyes. How could this keep happening to her? And why did she care? She knew better than to care, damn it.
“I fucked up, Ava. We were in the moment and I didn’t have my head on straight.”
She squared her shoulders, anger rising in her chest. “I—”
“Could’ve gotten pregnant,” he finished. “Hell, for all we know you might be pregnant.” He set his own cup down and looked her straight in the eye. “The thing is, at the time, I’m not entirely sure I cared.”
It was like a bomb had dropped.
Ava leaned back in her chair. Well... damn, she thought. She couldn’t think of anything more profound to say about that, so she kept her mouth shut.
Emilio’s expression turned dark. “I asked you to trust me and then I violated that trust. That can’t happen again. This thing between us, it’s real and it’s powerful and it’s new to me, too, but we have to get a handle on it.”
“Get a handle on it,” she repeated numbly. She was barely over the part where he almost wanted a baby with her.
The corner of his mouth tugged up. “Seems impossible to me, too, but we have to give it an honest effort.” He leaned back in his own chair and assessed her for a moment. “So, you need to get your own head on straight.”
“Me?”
“There’s two of us here. And there were two people in that bed last night. You may be trying to play catch-up with me, but you’re eighteen and you’re sure as shit not stupid. Or a biker bunny. You’re the girl; you choose.”
Ava’s brows knitted together. “Choose?”
“Condoms. It’s up to you. I want to be inside you, every time. Raw, bare, natural. And it’s never been like that for me. Not before you.”
Ava already felt her belly heating up at his words.
“But if you’re not ready for me like that, then I’ll wrap it up. For now. And pills. I’d feel better if you were on them. My cock wants you carrying my seed, but thankfully my brain’s winning out.”
Ava’s head was spinning. Raw, pills, cock, seed. She blew out a long breath and looked at him.
Emilio merely shrugged. “The cock wants what it wants,” he said by way of explanation.
She snorted. “I thought it was the heart. The heart wants what the heart wants.”
He shrugged again. “Well, you don’t have a cock, least of all my cock, so you don’t know what you do to it when you’re around. And my heart’s already winning that race, Ava.”
The dam finally broke and she couldn’t handle any more. She swept her half-empty cup off the table, stood up, and walked into the kitchen to get away from him. She turned on the tap and rinsed out the dark liquid. If she thought that was enough to get away from him, she was wrong. She felt him come up behind her.
His hands came down on her hips. As always, his mouth hovered just inches from her ear. Her body vibrated like a live wire.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’ll give you some time to catch up to me.”
Ava shook her head. “You don’t love me, Emilio.”
“Maybe not just yet, but I’m closer to the finish line than you,” he argued lightly.
She set down the cup and turned to him. “We’ve had sex three times, Emilio. That’s it. Just three times. And maybe it was good but it was only three times.”
He grabbed her chin and forced her gaze to his. “One, it was more than good and you damn well know it,” he countered. “And two, sex isn’t love, muñeca. Don’t confuse them.”
She tried to move out of his hold but couldn’t. “That’s insane.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “So, I crash and burn in a race, crack up my spine, and can’t get it up anymore? And you’d just, what, ride off into the sunset with some other guy?”
Her cheeks flared and her eyes widened. Was that what he thought of her? “No!” she snapped. “No, I wouldn’t do that. I would never...”
“Yeah, okay,” he replied, nodding. “So, sex isn’t love, Ava. Don’t get them twisted up. If you’d open up a little bit more, let me in on what’s going on inside that head of yours, we could cross that line together. But I’ll wait for you to catch up.”
Ava stepped onto his driveway still bewildered at his earlier words. Did he love her? No, but he was close. And though she wouldn’t admit it to him, she was closer than she’d like to be. Unfortunately, it was one finish line she couldn’t race him to.
It wasn’t worth the risk.
She pulled on her helmet and fired up her Honda. She took it slow, though, down the streets of the sleepy neighborhood. She refused to picture herself living here, with these small but well-tended lawns and pickups parked in nearly every driveway.
It would have been nice, though.
She headed across town toward her own neighborhood, takin
g the highway through downtown. As she passed the now-closed Stark Ink, a bike rolled out from the alley. Ava glanced at it, out of instinct alone. It was a Harley, but that alone didn’t mean anything.
Rapid City was a Harley town.
As she slowed for the light, she took another quick glance. The guy had on a button-down denim T-shirt, no cut. On his way to work, probably. The light ahead changed from yellow to red and Ava inched up to the crosswalk, resting both feet on the concrete.
She felt the rumble of the bike behind her, though it seemed impossibly loud, even through her helmet. She checked the mirror to see that he’d been joined by another rider. They were staggered in the lane, just behind her.
From what she could tell, the second rider sported no cut, either. But for some reason that fact no longer comforted her. Her hands tightened on the handlebars of her own bike. Her leather-clad fingers slid over the throttle. The urge to flee bubbled up inside her. Unreasonable yet unmanageable at the same time.
She shifted her weight subtly on the seat, trying not to telegraph her intentions. She watched as a delivery truck crept into the intersection to cross in front of her. Behind it, an impatient driver behind the wheel of a Toyota followed too closely. Why he was anxious to get to a desk job was beyond her.
From a dead stop, balance would be an issue. If she put even one foot up now, the riders behind her would know what she was about. Ava waited, stomach roiling, heart pounding, not even sure what she was about to do or why.
This “job” for the Buzzards had made her fucking paranoid. Which explained why Hook and his boys were always so intense. Ava couldn’t imagine what she’d be like after six months of this, or a year. That wasn’t a person she wanted to face in the mirror.
The Toyota was finally in front of her and Ava checked the oncoming traffic one last time, without moving her head. Judging it clear, she slammed her hand down on the throttle, leaving her feet on the ground.
The Honda roared forward, the front wheel lifting off the ground a bit—though it was entirely unintentional.
Ava threw her weight forward to keep her front end down and the tire firmly on the pavement. She jerked the front wheel hard to the left and dodged the Toyota’s rear bumper. To her left, a large pickup truck was just entering the intersection.
She heard the squeal of tires as he hit his brakes. A horn blasted at her. The Toyota stopped, too, probably wondering if the honking was for him.
As Ava crossed the first lane and darted out into the second, she risked a look back. One of the bikers had managed to follow her through, but the other hadn’t been ready. He was stuck between the truck and the import, gunning his engine.
There was only one rider behind her, but it was enough to confirm that her suspicions had been right. They’d been waiting for her at the shop. In another couple of hours she would have been there. So would Adam. Hell, Jonah was there now, asleep upstairs unless he was at the gym.
Ava prayed that her meathead brother was throwing punches in a ring across town instead of squaring off against a biker gang.
She shot through the intersection, emerging on the other side, and had the Honda already up to third. Her own engine raged as she ground the gears, not as smooth as it could have been but she was weaving through traffic on both sides.
The Harley behind her was larger, less agile, and though he’d made it through the intersection, he couldn’t go any farther. Ava darted in and out between cars that were crawling at a snail’s pace this early in the morning. At the next intersection she turned sharply and down a side street, out of view of the biker she’d left behind.
She burned rubber in a maze of alleys and parking garages that she knew almost by heart. She knew no one was following her but it didn’t make her feel any better. Right now she had to get home. As fast as she could. She had to check on Pop and Adam.
She’d park at Sienna’s house and cut through the shared back yard. No one would know she was home. Throw some clothes in a bag and get across the state line as quickly as possible. She’d call from the road. No idea what she’d say or how she’d explain.
She blinked away tears as she entered her neighborhood and slowed at the church. The playground was empty this early in the morning. Suddenly Ava wished she was six years old again, swinging as high as she could, determined to jump off, farther than either Adam or Dalton ever could. She missed those days terribly, when all that seemed important was being faster than everyone else.
She turned toward Sienna’s and away from home. Behind her, she heard a familiar rumble. Without bothering to look, she laid on the gas again, but didn’t get far. Ahead of her, from both directions, a swarm of deep black and shiny chrome converged.
She put her foot down and spun the bike, revving the back wheel to accelerate her 180. Behind her, though, the scene was the same. Her heart sank. Within seconds she was completely surrounded; no way out, nothing left to do.
Ava Stark, it seemed, had just had her wings clipped by the Badlands Buzzards.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The warehouse was cool and dark but it didn’t feel like a refuge, not with half a dozen bikers filling it. Ava looked around and realized Clint wasn’t even there. Not that he’d try to rescue her, but not even seeing one familiar face was unsettling.
Hook and Haze were standing off to one side, conversing heatedly, but she couldn’t hear them—not over the sound of her bike being taken apart.
Ava watched in horror and disbelief as two men set about stripping down her Honda. They already had the seat off and were disconnecting the gas tank.
This wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind when she’d offered Clint the keys.
There was no one to turn to, she realized, as she gazed about; no one to ask for help or to even find out what the hell was happening. Hook had made it clear she was supposed to ride with them, but no one had said a word to her after that.
In a few short moments, she’d realize she would have preferred it that way.
Hook and Haze came to some kind of agreement or something because they both stopped talking at the same time. Then both of them turned to her and she fought the urge to back away slowly.
Someone was behind her, between her and the door. There was nowhere to go. As if he sensed her desire to flee, the man behind her snorted at her. “Nowhere to go, bitch.”
Ava didn’t reply.
Hook sauntered forward, taking his eyes off her long enough to look to his friend. He was grinning, but it looked somehow feral and not at all comforting. “Nah,” he told the other man. “She’s not a bitch, are you, Ava?”
Ava still didn’t know what to say, had no idea what game they were playing. She kept her mouth shut.
Hook stopped in front of her. He was a full head taller than she was, though not as large as Haze who came up next to him. Ava had never felt so small in her life.
“Nah,” Hook repeated. “She ain’t a bitch.” He squinted at her. “Bitches come when they’re called.”
Ava licked her lips nervously. “I—I just did a run!” she reminded him. “And I can’t go all the time. Not every single day! My brother would—”
“Oh, we know all about Adam,” Hook told her. “We’ve had some nice, long conversations with him in the past.”
Ava shook her head, not believing a word of it.
Hook ignored her protests. “Know your brother Dalton, too. Now there was a man who could party.”
The guy behind her laughed. “Not no more. Now he’s pussy-whipped. All straight and narrow.”
Hook clucked his tongue. “I don’t know, man. I don’t know any pussy that’s good enough to turn civilian for. Do you?”
“Nope,” came the voice from behind her.
Hook turned his head slightly. “What about you, Haze? Know a woman who sucks dick good enough to make you wanna go out and get a day job?”
A long moment passed between the two men and even Ava could feel the tension. Haze didn’t answer and eventually Hook turned
back to her. He slid his phone out of his pocket and held it up. He tapped the screen with a greasy finger. “I mean, she’s okay looking,” he declared as a picture of Zoey popped up in full color.
A scream caught in Ava’s throat.
“Got nice, big tits,” he observed. “Probably breastfeeds that little brat of hers. Does she breastfeed, Ava? Does she pop them titties out at the dinner table?”
“Milk, does a body good.” Someone laughed.
Hook smiled widely as he cycled through pictures of Zoey. Ava recognized the park. It was near the house, across the street from the church. She was with DJ in all the photos. They’d been taken recently. Yesterday, for all Ava knew. She shook with fear, terrified of the idea that someone from this group, one of these nasty bastards, had gotten so close to them, apparently without Zoey even being aware of the danger.
“Yeah,” Hook decided. “Bet she does.” He looked up from the screen, cold, dark eyes boring right into Ava. “We know all about your family. All about the Starks.” He brought up a photo of the wedding.
Bile rose in Ava’s throat.
“I won’t lie, Ava. I was a little bit offended that we weren’t invited.” He finally slid the phone back into his pocket. “But business is business and never mix business with pleasure—right, Haze?”
Haze remained silent.
“Anyway, we got another run for you,” Hook told Ava. “A big one. The big one. But we won’t be ready until late tonight.” He jerked his chin to the side, toward her ruined bike. Go get yourself some beauty rest and be back here tonight.”
He leaned closer, too close as far as Ava was concerned. “You tell anyone, you call the cops between now and then, we’re gonna pay your sweet sisters-in-law a visit.” His hand slid down to his crotch.
Ava felt lightheaded.
“We’re all a little hot for teacher.”
“Not me,” said the guy guarding the door. “I want the mommy.”
Hook snorted. “You would, Bones. Bet you fucked your own mom. More’n once.”
One of the mechanics looked up from Ava’s Honda. “Bet her pussy’s real loose from popping out that kid. Bet she could take two dicks in there.”
