by Penny Dee
There was a light on inside. A soft glow of a lamp against the darkness of the windows. With military position we surrounded the cabin so there was nowhere for Martel to escape if he should try.
Once we were all in place, I stepped toward the door and reached for the doorknob.
To my surprise, it was unlocked.
It should’ve been my first red flag.
Martel was in hiding.
No one in hiding left their front door unlocked.
There also seemed to be a complete lack of bodyguards.
Although, he would probably only have two or three and they would be inside.
Yet, there was no movement. No sounds. The evening was quiet except for the occasional splash of a waterfowl scurrying across the pond.
Something wasn’t right.
I signaled for Cade and Chance to hang back as I entered the silent cabin.
It was empty. Settled and still. I glanced around, and that was when I saw it. The photo stuck into the wall with a knife. A photo of me. With the blade piercing my forehead.
Martel knew we were coming.
But how?
The thought hit me like a bolt out of the blue.
This is a set up.
“Everyone, get back!” I yelled as I raced for the door. “This is a trap—”
In seconds, the night went from silence to chaos as an explosion ripped the cabin apart and blew me across the porch and into the thick scrub where I landed with a heavy thud. The impact momentarily stunned me, and I saw a universe of stars as I struggled to get up. Embers and heat rained down me, but I couldn’t move. My brain was rattled, my lungs still vibrating with the shockwave. It was Chance and Cade who dragged me away from the roaring flames and heat.
“What the fuck is going on?” Caleb panted as he ran up to us with Animal and Yale close behind.
“Where’s Nitro?” I asked as Cade and Chance hauled me to my feet.
“I’m here,” he replied, running toward us.
All seven of us were okay.
“What happened in there?” Cade asked.
I told them about the picture stuck into the wall with the knife.
“Martel knew we were coming.” I drew in a deep breath and felt my lungs rattle. Coughing, I let my rage come to the surface as the dark emotions thumped through me. If I hadn’t gotten out of there when I did, I’d be dead. “This was a fucking set up.”
“You think Martel got to Everett?” Caleb asked.
“I’d bet my fucking life on it.”
“How?” Yale asked.
“Everett would’ve gotten to him after we found the girls in the truck. We already know Everett can be bought. And Martel certainly has the money to buy him.”
“Motherfucker,” Animal growled.
“You want to pay him a visit?” Chance asked.
“He’s a federal agent. We’re not going to touch him.” But I had things on him that the FBI would be very interested in receiving. Things that spanned years. Classified information. Secret recordings. A handwritten note with this goddamn address on it!
Let the FBI unravel Special Agent Guy Everett for now.
Because one day when he least expected it, I would be waiting for him.
And he would pay for his betrayal.
When the sound of approaching sirens cut into the night, we disappeared into the shadows once again, moving through the darkness until we reached our van parked a mile down the road.
Inside, I tried to calm my temper. But it was futile.
My lust for revenge was hotter than ever before.
Not only had I almost been killed tonight.
I had been betrayed, and that was almost as bad.
TAYLOR
The moment he walked through the door, I knew something bad had happened, and one look at the scrapes and bruises on his skin confirmed it. He was frustrated. Angry. Wherever he had been he had showered since because he smelled of soap and the delectable scent that was him. When he saw me, he kissed me, crushing me to his rock-hard chest.
But his energy was off. It was hard. Primal. Lacking in warmth.
I broke off the kiss and pushed him back. “What happened?”
But Bull brushed me off. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Instead, he yanked the belt of my robe and groaned when he saw the silky camisole I was wearing underneath. Without a word, he lifted me off my feet and slid me across the kitchen counter.
“Wait…” I said.
But he wasn’t interested in waiting, he stepped between my legs and held me against him, reaching between us to undo his belt.
“Bull…”
He pushed my legs farther apart, despite my resistance, and kissed me hard as he went to undo his zipper.
I shoved him back. “I said stop!”
Exasperated, he stepped back and ran a hand through his damp hair. “Goddammit…”
I slid off the counter and pulled my robe around me. “Noah is in bed and I don’t want him to walk in on this. Plus, something is wrong, and if you don’t want to tell me what it is, then that’s okay. But you don’t get to walk in here and take whatever it is out on me.”
“I’m not discussing club business with you.”
“Then maybe you should leave and come back when you’re ready to fuck me nice.”
His eyes blazed across at me and his jaw was tight. “Forgive me for thinking my girlfriend might be a little more understanding than this.”
His use of the word girlfriend jolted through me like a barreling freight train.
He turned and stalked toward the door as if he was going to walk right through the glass, but stopped abruptly when he reached it. He paused and exhaled harshly, his shoulders sagging, his energy shifting.
With a deep breath, his resistance broke.
“You know I don’t always work within the law.” His deep voice cut into the tight air between us.
When he turned around, I saw the vibrant anger burning in his eyes and I tightened my robe across my chest. “Yes, I know.”
There was a pause before he spoke again.
“There’s a hit out on me.”
His words sent a cold shiver through me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, someone wants me dead, and they’re paying someone else to make sure it happens.”
“A hitman?”
“Apparently.”
Goose bumps prickled my skin. “Are you sure?”
“I have reliable informants. They haven’t let me down yet.”
I struggled to swallow, the blood in my veins running cold. The moment was too surreal. My brain scurried to make sense of it.
“Are you okay?” I went to him, my mouth dry, my throat thick. “Who would do this?”
“Last year I made a pretty big enemy when a piece of shit drug dealer moved into our town. I told him he wasn’t welcome. When he didn’t take the warning seriously, we showed him what a mistake that was. But he retaliated and it got bloody.” He ran his hand over his head and turned away from me. “He disappeared before I could put a bullet in his head. But this morning we received some information about him. Good information. About where I could find him. And I thought that this was fucking finally it. I was going to end this motherfucker’s life and…” With his back still to me, he shook his head. “Somehow, the sonofabitch is always one step ahead.”
“Who is this man?” I asked, shakily.
“I’ve already told you too much.”
“Why won’t you tell me who he is?”
“Because I want to protect you from this.”
“But you can’t,” I said calmly despite my racing pulse. I stepped toward him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he calmed a little beneath my touch. “If you can’t tell me who he is, then tell me what he did. Why do you want to find him so bad?”
He swung around and my breath snagged in my throat when I saw the glowing hate in his eyes, and the simmering rage on his face. It was terrifying.
&nbs
p; Just thinking about his nemesis had the power to ignite his dark anger.
“Because that sonofabitch doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air that we do,” he seethed. “He is poison. A scourge. He’s a fucking parasite! And someone needs to take him out before he can inflict anymore damage.”
“But why does it have to be you? Look at what it’s doing to you.”
“Because that reptilian fuck came after me and my club. He went after Chastity. And goddammit, if anyone comes after my family, I’ll fucking destroy them!”
I took a step back, alarm spreading through me like fire. “He hurt Chastity?”
Bull explained how this man had sent one of his men to scare Chastity. He pretended to be a cop and pulled her over on an empty highway. He put his hands on her. Threatened her. Said he had a message to pass on to her uncle. But Chastity was a ballsy girl, she’d kneed him in the groin and handcuffed him to the stolen patrol car before he could do her anymore harm.
“He fucked with my family. So I burned his cocaine empire to the fucking ground.”
He went on to tell me how this man ordered his men to storm Chance and Cassidy’s wedding, and how Ruger had been seriously wounded protecting Chastity. How he’d died in surgery but miraculously survived against the odds.
“He won’t ever stop.” Bull’s lust for revenge radiated from him. “Unless I make him.”
I thought about Chastity, my friend, being caught alone on a deserted highway with a thug pretending to be a cop, and my blood began to boil. Then I thought about Ruger lying in a hospital bed on life support with three bullets in him, and how this mystery man had ordered his men to wreak havoc on the club, not caring who got hurt in the process, and I felt shaken.
I didn’t know.
I didn’t know any of this.
I went to Bull and wrapped my fingers around his big hands. Without words, I dragged them to my lips and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. His eyes softened as they searched mine. When he kissed me, it was tender and giving, intimate, with no rushed agitation, no desperate need to use sex as a way to release his anger.
His kiss became so much more. His touch purposeful and loving. He moved his lips to my jaw, lighting fires in me as he dragged them lower to my throat, his tongue sliding along the curve, the heat of his breath leaving me warm and flush. He held me by the arms, holding me to him, so close that I could feel the wild thunder of his heart.
“God, I need you,” he moaned, lifting his hands to cup my jaw. “I need you so goddamn much.”
The desperation in his voice turned me on, making the pulse between my legs grow to an almost excruciating need.
“Then have me,” I whispered, aching to feel him inside me.
With a growl, he lifted me up in his arms, and I wrapped my legs around his muscular body, enjoying the friction of his jeans rubbing against the flimsy fabric of my camisole as he walked us to my bedroom.
When he lowered me to my feet, his forehead dropped to mine. “What are you doing to me?” He breathed desperately. He pulled back to look me in the eye, and I saw the need in his. The need for me. The need for something other than his lust for revenge. “I don’t have a single rule left when it comes to you.”
My fingers laced around the nape of his neck. “Forget about him for tonight. Forget about everything.”
I stepped out of my camisole, loving the flare of heat in his eyes as he drank me in.
“Just be here with me,” I whispered, lovingly removing his clothes and feeling the excitement as his big body shivered against my touch.
Climbing onto the bed, I pulled him down to me and spent the rest of the night replacing his frustration and anger with ecstasy and pleasure.
TAYLOR
I didn’t see him for days. Since the cabin explosion, a somber mood had settled across the clubhouse. Something was brewing. Something big. But no one was saying anything.
Bull was gone from the clubhouse, a lot. He was nearly always out when I arrived for my shift, and usually didn’t return before I finished.
Away from him, I spent time with Noah, but he was rarely at home, preferring to hang with Luke and Shelby at Roberta’s. It left me with a lot of spare time to think over the things Bull had confessed to me the night of the explosion.
About the hit.
About the man who had ordered Chastity’s assault.
It made me feel sick.
Scared.
It made me want to tell him about my past.
About who I had been.
What I was running from.
Because he had let another wall down by opening up to me, and I felt like I should do the same.
But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
There was too much at stake.
I could lose Noah if I did.
When Bull finally rode his Harley into my driveway, I had missed him so much, I was ready to pounce. After days of not seeing him or being able to touch him, my body was tight with need, my head desperate for the distraction only he could give me.
“Fuck, I’ve missed how you feel,” he moaned, after I’d launched myself at him as he walked through the front door.
“I need you naked and in my bed,” I rasped against his lips.
He kissed me fiercely in response, but then broke away.
“Little bird, I’m dying to be in that tight little pussy of yours, but I desperately need a shower.”
I led him through the apartment to the bathroom attached to my bedroom. “Make it quick.”
I waited for him on the bed, my body tense and needy, my stomach knotted with excitement. I heard the shower turn off. Heard the glass door open and then close. Felt the warm flush of anticipation creep along my skin and an achy throb take up between my naked thighs. It had been days.
He appeared in the doorway. Naked and gleaming, his inky black hair damp.
I hungrily watched him approach the bed.
Bull dressed in his black clothes and wearing a cut was spectacular.
But Bull completely naked was something else altogether.
He was magnificent.
I raked my eyes up his body. It was thick with muscle and without an ounce of excess weight anywhere. Shoulders were wide. His chest was broad and cut like a sculpture. Abdominal muscles were deep grooves in his belly as he moved.
And his cock. Even soft, it was heavy and thick, and it swung as he came toward me.
My ravenous eyes swept over the flawless flesh and the tattoos that covered his arms and chest.
As he came closer, I noticed the notches tattooed over his hip bone. They seemed out of place in comparison to the intricate artwork of his other tattoos. They were darker, almost crude and amateurish. I swiped my thumb across them. One looked fresher than the others. I counted them. There were six in total.
“These are different than your other tattoos,” I said, my fingers brushing over his warm skin.
“Yes.”
“What do they represent?” I asked, fascinated by them.
But Bull pulled me to my feet so he could kiss me, in an attempt to draw my attention away from them.
“Things you don’t want to know about.”
But my inquisitive mind couldn’t let go. My fingertips skated down to them, my gaze following. Between us, he was growing hard.
“Are they people you lost?” My eyes slid up to his. “Or people you made disappear.”
A shadow darkened in his eyes as he searched my face, looking for a sign. Trying to gauge my reaction. “They’re a reminder,” he said.
“Of what?”
“Of who I am.”
He trembled beneath my touch as my thumb slid across the inked lines. When I lifted my eyes, I saw he was looking at me intently.
He was very still. “Is that okay?”
I held his burning gaze. “You never have to ask me that. I know who you are.”
With a groan, he took me swiftly. Flipping me over onto my knees and taking me from behind.
I gripped
my pillows, losing myself in his powerful thrusts and the thickness of him as he filled me. I thought about the tattoos on his hip. The notches. I thought about the hit. I thought about the night of the cabin explosion, and the crazy world I was falling further and further into.
Mental chaos and physical pleasure collided in me, and I clenched his cock with an impending orgasm.
But before I could let go, he pulled out and guided me onto my back, his thick cock glistening in his hand as he positioned me on the bed.
“I want to see your face when you come,” he breathed, biting back his orgasm. “I want to hear and see my name scream from your lips.”
He pressed himself to me, teasing me, making me shiver, before thrusting his heavy length back into me. And I gave him what he wanted, crying out his name as my orgasm shook me. Feeling me clench violently around him tipped him over the edge, and he let go with a mindless cry, the veins in his neck as thick as rope as he lost himself in ecstasy, and then collapsed onto me.
I barely got my breath back, and he was still inside me when he finally spoke.
“Be my date,” he said, panting against my lips, his heart still pounding fiercely from coming.
“Date?”
His use of the D-word caught me off guard.
“Yeah,” he said. “Be my plus one.”
My heart was a drum beat in my ears because Bull had just given me multiple orgasms and was now asking me on a fucking date.
He wasn’t just blurring the lines.
He was pouring gasoline all over them and setting them on fire.
“Where?”
“Maverick and Autumn’s wedding.”
“I’m already going.”
“I know. But I’m asking you to go with me.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Date.
The word held a lot of connotations.
And it would be a silent announcement to everyone who knew us. So far, Chastity was the only one who knew about us. And probably Ruger.
Me arriving on his arm was going to raise eyebrows.
I moved slightly, and his cock flinched inside me.
“Why?” I asked.
He grinned. “I should’ve known you were going to take some convincing.”
