Outlaw's Kiss

by Nicole Snow

  It all came down to conscience. Fang didn't have one – some devil had ripped it outta him and chewed it up ages ago – but did the rest of the club? We were about to find out.

  The column slowed when we roared onto the unpaved road, heading for the forest clearing. They were parked by the trees. Legions waiting for us.

  Even my eyes bugged out when I saw how many Grizzlies Fang brought to cover his ass. Fuck, he must've had half the Tacoma and Portland charters, plus more brothers from Idaho. Basically, every able bodied man who wasn't busy getting killed down south by the cartel's raiders.

  Shit. There must've been a hundred guys to our fifteen, possibly more, and he was fully surrounded. Protected.

  Blaze and Blackjack stopped a few feet away, undaunted by the huge army facing them. I pulled up next to them and Rabid did too. My brother looked nervous as shit, keeping his hands on the redhead 'til she pulled away forcefully.

  My eyes scanned the guys next to Fang and Crack. Fuck, they were supposed to do the exchange here!

  Where the fuck was she? Where'd he put my girl? My heart forced adrenaline loaded waves into my blood. I shook, sweated, rubbed the nine millimeter in my belt.

  Easy, I told myself. They'll see that shit and hit you between the eyes before you take a single step forward if you make a dumb move.

  She's gotta be here somewhere. He wouldn't have left her at the clubhouse with nobody there on guard duty.

  I counted all the bastards who'd stuck with him from my club. Rough, Gnaw, Pitbull, Chubb...five more prospects past them. No, they were all there. That meant Missy had to be with them, tucked back in the crowd, maybe bound up in one of their fucking trucks.

  Blackjack looked at me and nodded. I walked with him and Blaze. Christa moved up several steps behind me. Rabid had to hang back, or else there'd be more guys on the other side coming to meet us besides Fang and Crack.

  Nobody wanted that shit. More brothers eyeball-to-eyeball meant more danger.

  “What the hell's this?” Fang grunted, stopping in the middle. “I asked for the video, the rats, and a confession. Didn't ask to see this fucking bitch again.”

  He spat at the ground. Blaze grabbed the small black package underneath one arm and threw it on the ground.

  “Here, asshole. Five copies. There's the master, plus the fucking camera it was shot on. That's everything.”

  Fang reached down and picked it up, grinning on his way up. He looked at me, and then at Blackjack.

  “Okay. Let's go, boys. We've got a nice trial ready out back with all your brothers. Promise we'll make it quick, just as soon as one of you fucks tells us straight up where that video came from.”

  Trial. Right. Never heard the shallow graves he probably had waiting in the woods called that before.

  I looked him in the eye and reached for the redhead, grabbing her hand. “I shot that fucking video,” I said loudly, making sure everybody could hear.

  “You never ordered the hit. The bastard was just a fucking freak trying to fuck my old lady's little sis. I killed him. I framed you. I fucked up.”

  Fang let out an angry laugh. “Damned right you did, kid! Hmmm, I suppose that's confession enough, but I'm still gonna want it on camera before we decide how to end this. Didn't think you'd give it up so easy.”

  He licked his lips. Fucker had murder written all over them.

  I smiled. “That's because I thought this was all harder and more complicated than it really is. I didn't see all the evidence of the shit you've done right underneath my nose.”

  “What fucking evidence?”

  I reached behind me and grabbed her, holding her in front of my chest. Christa flinched once, but then stood still, staring at the monster through her swollen eyes.

  “This. Take a good, long look, everybody. This is why we turned on national! This is why we'll never follow this motherfucker, as long as he's Prez!” I was screaming.

  Crack looked at me in a stupor, and Fang's eyes darkened. Didn't think it was possible for him to beam more hate, but he sure as fuck did. My hands loosened near her belly, holding on tight, ready to throw her down as soon as he let the demon inside him off its chain.

  “This is what our Prez does. He rips innocent girls to pieces. He kills anybody who disagrees with that shit, frames 'em as rats. He's too fucking busy fattening his own wallet off the blood this club's spilled to inspire us, and that's exactly why the cartel's running over our bodies. We beat 'em by being better than vermin. Right now, this club's just as brutal. Just as fucked up. Is that what you wanted for the Grizzlies MC when you put on that patch?”

  Silence. A long, tense, fiery quiet.

  The surprise on Fang's face shrank, slow and vicious, turning into volcanic anger. His hand flew to his hip, surprisingly spry for a man his age. I had exactly one second to throw Christa to the ground and keep her there while he fired.

  The gunshot echoed loud over the horizon. I waited for more, holding my breath, wondering if we were all about to die.

  “Shit!” Blaze cursed.

  I rolled, looked up, and saw the hole in Blackjack's thigh. He hit the ground, clenching his leg, blood pooling between his fingers. Fuck! Fang missed us, and hit the only man worth serving in this fucking club instead.

  One 'shit' spoken, and about a thousand more to go. Only way to describe the situation.

  Blackjack clenched his leg harder, a sinister smile on his face. Blaze crouched with his gun, and everybody in our crew behind us locked and loaded. I was reaching for my own sidearm, ready to blow Crack's fucking head off.

  Except I didn't have to. The bastard's skull exploded before he could draw on me, and it came from behind him.

  Fang spun, stunned silence twisting the sneer on his face. The huge throng of Grizzlies serving him had their guns drawn on each other. Another shot exploded. Another guy went down, one of Fang's men.

  Total fucking chaos.

  The guys who'd decided they didn't want any part of serving the asshole hit the dirt. Some ran toward us, only to be mowed down by the bastards staying loyal. They were brutal fucks, men like Serial, who loved everything Fang did to drive this club into the ground, hungry for more of it to satisfy their sadistic urges.

  I struggled to stay down, protecting Christa, but I had to see what the fuck was going on. All that mattered to us was numbers. If enough of them mutinied, especially in this storm, we had a chance.

  Looking to my other side, I saw Blackjack keeping focus, pressing both hands tight to his wound. Blaze had his gun trained on Fang, who was high-tailing it back to the guys he had left.

  Shit! The Devils' Prez emptied his clip and one hit the bastard in the leg. Fang dropped, grunted, and started to crawl. He was on the ground, roughing his way forward, when several goons ran toward him and picked him up.

  Our guys were pouring past me now. Rabid leaned down to me, reaching for the woman's hand.

  “Let her go, bro. I got her. Need to get her to the rear.”

  I nodded. Good. Now, I was free to go, following the long push toward the woods, where lots of vehicles were abandoned in all the commotion.

  “Missy! Missy!” I screamed her name when I got closer, looking all over for anything bigger than a bike, or maybe a pit where they'd thrown her for the exchange.

  Nothing. More shots rang out around me, and several brothers wrestled on the ground, Grizzlies and the odd Devil doing close combat.

  A dead eyed fuck popped out of the trees and lunged with his dagger drawn. I blew his head off and went forward, forward, heading for the place where I'd seen them dragging Fang.

  No fucking way was he getting away alive. Not today.

  Someone tugged on the back of my cut. I spun, pressed my gun to his head, and felt my heart stick in my throat when I saw it was Blackjack, struggling to upright.

  “Christ! You should've stayed back. What the fuck's going on?”

  “Keep going, son,” he growled. “Don't fucking worry about me. I can't rest until I see hi
m dead. We have to find him.”

  I nodded. The gunfire was dying down around us, and I was relieved to see mutineers and Devils standing around prisoners, gathering the fucks together who'd thrown down their arms.

  Blackjack hung close to me. We walked through the trees, and I cleared a path for him through the brush. Almost tripped on a dead man with a hole through his chest. Shit, it was one of the bastards who'd grabbed Fang. He had to be somewhere.

  I heard him before we caught up through the brush. He'd rolled through the weeds toward a shitty little pond, and he was holding his leg, screaming at the asshole who'd gone with him.

  “Come on! Keep fucking moving. We can't stop. We've gotta get outta here.”

  The man groaned. I saw he was bleeding out from a hole in his stomach, barely even conscious. The soon-to-be-dead Prez was still berating the poor bastard. Suddenly, Fang pulled his gun, pressed it to the man's temple, and fired.

  “Fucking useless! All of you! This is what I get for thirty fuckin' years of glory? I made this club. It was all me – me! And now you bastards are tearing it to pieces, turning over like snakes and cowards, ruining everything I gave you...”

  I told Blackjack to hang back and pushed through the weeds first. He fired at the weeds I rustled, and a new emotion I'd never seen entered his eyes: fear.

  Arctic terror. And it was goddamned beautiful.

  Two bullets buried themselves in the mud, dangerously close to my leg. I kept going. His gun was clicking on empty by the time I stood over him.

  Blackjack pushed his way to my side, breathing a little heavier than before. Both our guns were trained on him. I got ready to squeeze the trigger first and take flak later. Blackjack deserved the kill almost as much as me, but no fucking way was I letting someone else hand Fang his one way ticket to hell.

  “Don't!” Fang roared, throwing a hand up, as if he still had a choice. “We can figure something out. Take my patch, drain my money, ship my ass to Alaska...you can't fucking kill me. You know I built this thing from my bare hands, Blackjack. I built you!”

  “You built yourself a tower of shit, Fang,” the old man said. “There was a time when we needed a man like you in charge. Not anymore. You spilled too much blood, carved too much flesh. It's no wonder we've got wolves at our gates.”

  “You want to live?” I stepped up, pressing my gun to his temple. He nodded, shifting his evil head against my gun. “Then tell me where you've got her. Where's my old lady?”

  Fang licked his lips. “There's a van parked about a mile from here. Nobody in it but her, tied up and gagged in the trunk. I was gonna send my guys to get her if you hadn't fucked me over...but I knew you would. I knew it. I keep my fucking word. Always. Do you, Brass?”

  I looked at Blackjack. He nodded.

  “You do the honors, son.”

  “No. But I'm gonna say thanks for being honest just once in your life,” I growled to Fang.

  He was shaking. I pulled the gun back, stuck it in my holster, and brought out my knife. Let him feel a second of misplaced relief before I let him see it. The fear in the ex-Prez's eyes swelled, and then it was just a reflection of murder.

  I did everything he threatened to do to my girl, piece by fucking piece. Blackjack watched for five grisly minutes before I finally slammed my blade into Fang's skull.

  When it was over, I cut away his patch, and threw one arm over the old man, helping him struggle back through the brush.

  “Put me down,” he said, as soon as we saw the Devils and our crew again. “They'll take it from here. Go. Go find your woman.”

  I didn't need to be told twice.

  I found the worn blue van parked off a little service road, right where the asshole indicated. All my muscles tensed up as I approached the trunk.

  A man never knows what he'll find in the back of a car in this world. If the lying bastard hurt her, killed her, then I'd run right back into the woods and dismember his ass all over again. What little was left to slice and dice, anyway. Shit, if he'd lied to me, I'd learn the darkest black magic I could to make sure his soul suffered worse in Satan's care than it already deserved.

  I shook my head, pushing away the fucked up thoughts. The glass was dirty and I couldn't see inside. There was no sign of anyone screaming or banging within.

  My hand caught the handle and pulled. It was unlocked, and it popped open with a whoosh.

  Fuck. There she was. Gagged, red eyed, balled up in the tiny space next to some old oil bottles, her hands and feet bound. But she was alive.

  Missy tried to scream through the dirty rag in her mouth when she saw me. I threw myself in, pulling her into my arms, reaching for the same knife I'd just used to send Fang to justice. I cut her bindings first, then sliced carefully past her hair, ripping away the shitty cloth blocking her sweet lips.

  “Baby girl.” I said it softly, just as she sucked in a huge breath and started to cry.

  I flattened her on my chest, stroking the soft brown hair I was damned lucky to feel once again. I wondered how the hell it always stayed magnificent, sexy, even when she'd just been on a round trip through Hades.

  “The asshole's dead. So are all the shits who did this to you. It's over, babe. There's nothing left for you to fear.”

  “Brass.” She croaked my name and I helped pivot her face up to mine. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I had to do the right thing. I didn't realize saving her and putting myself on the line would hurt you, hurt Jackie.”

  She shuddered. Her face scrunched up and I thought the waterworks were gonna keep flowing, but she caught herself at the last second, drawing in a deep breath.

  “I'm a screwed up mess. I thought I was strong, but I cracked in there.” She gestured to the van. “They left me bound up, and then I heard the gunshots...look at me. I'm a fucking mess.”

  “Quiet, babe,” I growled, a little more angrily than I intended. She blinked. “It's okay to scream and scratch the ground when some fuck keeps you under the gun. You're doing what comes natural. But I want you to listen real fucking close and get this through your head.”

  She tensed up in my arms. I clenched her tighter. No fucking way was I letting her slip away before I drilled it into her pretty skull.

  “You're my fucking mess. You're my old lady. I own you, babe, now 'til the last day I'm alive and breathing on this rock. If you think freaking out or showing me you're scared and hurt's gonna drive me away, think again. Open up your head and make sure you're thinking at all, if that's what's running through your sweet head.” I paused, inhaling her delicious scent, pressing my forehead to hers. “I love you, Missy. I don't say that shit easy – I never fucking said it to anyone 'til you came along. Not even Shelly. My love's a wrecking ball and it only swings one way once it gets going. You got it? You're mine, babe, mine to love and only mine, whether you're howling underneath me in bed or walking into mine fields to save some chick.”

  When I pulled my face away from her, she was trembling a little, but I knew it wasn't fear. She was fucking overwhelmed. And that was okay. Long as she was full of the same crazy thing I had ticking for her in my chest, I didn't give a damn.

  I was about to start walking her back when she pinched her hands around me, feeling me up right there in the forest, raking her nails down my back like she couldn't believe I was real. Fuck me if I didn't get goosebumps singeing my skin while my dick swelled in my dirty pants.

  “Babe, we need to get the fuck –“

  She flung her face forward, crushing her lips against mine before I could say another word. And I mean really pressed them tight in the hungriest kiss I'd ever had with a chick in my entire life. It sucked all the hot air right outta my lungs, shocked me through my skull, lit my fucking blood on fire.

  Then I couldn't think about anything at all except this incredible kiss. My brain knew it was better than sex, though my cock would've protested that with all his might.

  We kissed for what felt like an hour out there in the wilderness,
the wind blowing small wafts of burned flesh and blood toward us every so often. Shit, the club was gonna be cleaning up this mess for days, hopefully before any badges figured out who left a small battlefield behind.

  None of that mattered. It was as distant as the damned moon. I just focused on her taste, her smell, swirling my tongue around hers.

  Didn't matter how many times I took what was mine. It never got old, and it never would. She was like a perfect fruit that stayed ripe, waiting for my mouth, waiting for me to own her flesh the best way I knew how.

  “I love you, Jordan,” she said, after a small eternity locking lips. “You know I'm not going anywhere as long as you keep giving me chances. I can't promise I won't screw up again...my life's got a lot of work left to straighten it out. And Jackie – God! Where is she?”

  I smiled. “Shelly's bringing her down with a rental as soon as we sound the all clear. Should be here tomorrow now that we've cleaned house. The Devils won't be hanging too long. They'll be itching to get home as fast as they can, rather than clean up our fucking mess.”

  “Wow. You've really thought of everything, haven't you?” She quirked an eyebrow.

  “No way, babe. I've got a lot of shit on my plate. I've still gotta find a place for us to settle down. Maybe book a nice long getaway to Vegas or Reno. We've all got a lot to clear outta our heads. Best way I know how is drinking, fucking, and gambling.” She cocked her head, looking at me like the crazy bastard I was. “All right. We can throw in a mud bath massage thing or two at the spa. Whatever you girls like.”

  “Jerk.” She punched my arm playfully, wiping the last salty remnants outta her eyes.

  I shrugged, starting to walk her toward my bike. Had to take the furthest loop possible to keep her away from the savage scene left near the woods.

  “It's what I do. And I'm gonna keep jerking your sweet ass around, every way that's good for you, as long as you call me your old man.”

  “I guess I'd better get used to it,” she mused. “This is what I got myself into. And there's no way I'd ever want out.”

  I grinned. Next thing on the list after settling club business was getting her a proper brand. Fuck, she'd look hot as hell wearing my name on her back in leather, and somewhere on her skin to boot.