I revved the engine and pulled out onto the street, heading south….
And then I slewed to a stop right in the middle of the street.
The guy behind me angrily honked his horn. I twisted around in the saddle and growled at him and he meekly held his hands up in apology.
I was thinking about Annabelle and how well I knew her. Everybody loves sunshine. Except Annabelle. She loved Haywood Falls, with its warm breezes and shady spots. But the further south you went, the hotter it got. In LA or even San Francisco, her gorgeous pale skin would fry.
I swung the bike around and roared north. And prayed I had it right.
37
Annabelle
I’d taken my sneakers off and was sitting with my feet up on the seat, hugging my knees and trying to thaw my soaked, numb toes with my hands.
“I hate rain. Don’t you hate rain?” asked the woman sitting next to me. She was painting her nails a violent shade of pink.
“Mmm,” I murmured noncommittally, staring out of the bus’s window. The rain matched my mood. But there was so much water streaming down the glass, it was difficult to see anything.
It didn’t matter. One road looked much like another. I figured one city would look much like another, too. And one cheap diner certainly looked much like another. That was the sort of place I’d need to waitress at: somewhere that was happy to pay me in cash, off the books. I wasn’t sure how far Volos’s reach extended but I wasn’t taking any chances. I’d try to stay completely off the radar. I’d even deliberately left my phone at Carrick’s house, in case Volos could somehow track it.
That wasn’t the only reason, though. Walking out on him had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. This way, he couldn’t call me and try to talk me round. I had to do this. It was the only way to put things right. I’d already put too many people in danger. I had to get the hell away.
“When we get to LA,” said the woman sitting next to me, “I’m gonna lie on the beach all day.”
“Mmm,” I muttered, not really listening. I rested my chin on my knees. It felt as if my heart was made of paper and someone was slowly, agonizingly, tearing it in two. Goodbye, Carrick.
38
Carrick
The rain was pounding down so hard that the road was actually running with it, the tires surrounded by a halo of spray as they cut through. A few times, I felt the steering go light. But I had to catch that bus. If I get her back, I swear I’ll tell her everything. Every last detail. She’d know me, poison and all.
Finally, I saw the bus’s lights up ahead. I powered past it and checked my mirror. Yep: Portland.
I slowed until the bus was dangerously close behind me. The driver honked his horn. “Pull over!” I yelled, gesturing wildly. “Stop the bus!”
The driver shook his head. He looked terrified.
That’s when I thought about what I looked like. A Hell’s Princes biker, riding up out of the near-darkness, yelling at him. No sane person would stop. Hell, he’d probably call the cops. Just for once, I wished I didn’t look so scary.
I dropped back so that I was alongside the driver’s window. “Please,” I yelled, as diplomatically as I could. “Emergency!”
I don’t know what did it. I don’t know if it was something in my voice, or if he just figured that no one would be dumb enough to be out there on a bike in those conditions, chasing down a bus without a damn good reason. But after several seconds, he slowed and pulled over. I pulled in behind him and then ran, bursting through the doors as soon as they scissored open. “Annabelle!” I yelled as I bounded up the steps. “Annabelle!”
I scanned the sea of curious faces. She wasn’t there.
She was on the bus to LA.
I felt my whole world disintegrate. I’d been frantic, desperate...but until that second, until that moment of actually losing her forever, I hadn’t realized just how deep she’d gotten. I hadn’t let myself admit that I had completely fallen for her.
And then I saw a cloud of copper hair rise from what I’d thought was an empty seat. She’d been hunched down low, out of sight. She stood, her eyes locked on me, but she didn’t speak. She waited for me to.
I swallowed. She was near the back of the bus and I was right at the front, so I had to speak up. “I’m sorry,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like my own. Deep, sure. Irish, of course. But it had lost some of the gruffness. I was open, now. Exposed. “I didn’t think...I’m not good at this fucking stuff.”
She just looked at me with those big, moss-green eyes, blinking back tears.
“I should have realized...it’s not your fault, okay?”
She squeezed past her seatmate and out into the aisle, but she didn’t walk towards me. “It is,” she said.
“It’s not! This is him, this is Volos. It’s on him, not you.”
She swallowed. “Ox—”
“We knew what we were getting into. We said we’d protect you and we will.” All around me, people were looking back and forth between us, following the conversation and trying to figure out what the hell we were talking about.
She sniffed. “If I go away, you won’t be in danger anymore. The club won’t be in danger.”
I started marching down the bus towards her, boots clumping on the metal. “If you go away, I can’t protect you. And I made a promise.”
She swallowed again as I reached her. Her voice caught. “Is that—Is that the only reason?”
I shook my head savagely. “I need you to stay...because I’m in love with you.” I pushed my fingers up her cheek and into her hair, leaving wet trails across her skin.
She took a big, shuddering breath. “I can’t love you if you won’t let me know you.”
I felt that black, oily sac of poison inside me throb and glisten. I’d been hiding it away from her, terrified I’d lose her if she saw it. And partially, I realized now, scared of how much it would hurt, to split it open. But if I didn’t do this, I was going to lose her for sure. And that would hurt way, way worse. I took her hand and knitted my fingers with hers. “You come back with me,” I promised, “And I’ll tell you every fucking thing.”
She looked up at me, eyes swimming...and nodded. And then we were kissing, raindrops falling from my hair and splashing onto her face. We brushed lips, tasted, then kissed hard and desperate, hands coming up to entwine in each other’s hair. The iron band that had been constricting around my chest since the hospital finally snapped and I could breathe again. I drunk her in in big, hungry gulps.
“If he’s local,” said the woman who’d been sitting next to Annabelle, “I can see why you put up with the rain. They don’t make ‘em like that in LA.”
Annabelle turned, flushed and grinned all at the same time. Then she bit her lip. “I hate to tell you this, but I think you’re on the wrong bus.”
39
Annabelle
When the slightly reproachful driver had opened up the luggage bays and I’d retrieved my bags, when I’d pressed a $10 bill into his palm for all the trouble and the bus had driven off, I turned to Carrick.
We were in the middle of nowhere, halfway between Haywood Falls and the next town, nothing but a two-lane road with thick greenery on each side of it. The rain, if anything, had gotten even heavier and we were both soaked. Volos was still out there somewhere, plotting against the club.
And I didn’t care about any of it. Carrick was in love with me. And I was—my whole chest lifted as I let myself think it for the first time—I was in love with him.
He grabbed me under the ass, hands squeezing the rain-soaked denim and the warm flesh beneath. Then he swung me up into the air and clasped me to him with my groin grinding against his abs. He started kissing the rain from my neck and then my bare shoulder, pushing my wet hair away and kissing up my cheek to my ear. I sighed and twisted, squirming against him as his lips laid trails of heat along my chilled skin. I kissed his forehead, his cheekbones, bent to kiss his jaw line. And finally, our mouths met and we kissed full on t
he lips.
It was even better than before. Raw and unrestrained because he wasn’t holding anything back, now. His lips, dripping with rain, hard and bold as he kissed mine, savage against my softness. The slight scratch of his stubble as we twisted and pressed, the brush of his tongue as he swept it across my lips.
His tongue pressed for entry and I welcomed him in, dancing with him, panting together as our bodies began to move in rhythm with the kiss. His hips began to rock and my thighs squeezed in response as my groin ground against the hardness of his body.
Cars were tearing past us, their headlights painting our bodies white. I was so caught up in it, I barely thought about the people watching us. But when a truck tore by only a few feet away, Carrick walked us off the side of the road and into the trees, where we’d be safe.
The next thing I knew, my ass hit something hard and Carrick was pressing between my legs, wedging me between him and whatever was behind me so that he could use his hands. I wriggled my shoulders and felt rough bark.
Carrick’s face was inches from mine. “I can’t wait,” he told me and that rich seam of Irish in his voice was like a ribbon of silver, whipping my mind and sending a deep rush of heat straight to my groin. “I need to have you right here.”
Then he was kissing me again, warm hands on my cheeks, lips coming down and owning me. I closed my eyes. Thunder rolled overhead as his hands slid down my body and found the hem of my soaked tank top. He dragged the wet fabric up over my breasts and then pushed the bra up to follow it. I began to pant as the cold, wet air hit my breasts, nipples standing out like pebbles. Then his warm hand and furnace-hot mouth captured one, fingers squeezing as his tongue lashed across my sensitive flesh. I cried out: every stroke of his tongue made me writhe against him, my breath hitching faster and faster.
He lifted his mouth for a second. “Jesus, you’ve got beautiful breasts,” he growled. His mouth took possession of the other one: long, hot sweeps across my aching nipple. My ass rasped against the tree, my back arching: I was almost climbing it, the feelings were so intense. He straightened up and his hard pecs rubbed against the slickened softness of my breasts. We kissed again, twisting and grinding. Rain poured down our faces but it couldn’t find a chink between us, we were so tightly locked together from lips to groin.
Then I felt his hands at the belt of my jeans. As he worked the buckle, my hands grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt and dragged it up his body, baring his abs and chest. I couldn’t get his cut off but I needed to feel his bare skin against mine. As soon as I pressed forward and his abs stroked my stomach, I went wild. My arms went around his waist and then rose, sliding over the muscles of his back, feeling the power there. I felt my jeans loosen and then his hand was going down between our bodies, scooping under the elastic of my panties—
Ah! Two fingers found my clit, gliding either side of it in an upside-down Y, teasing it, making me helplessly circle my hips. Then he was moving lower, down over my lips. I was already wet for him. He only had to rub once, twice and then...God! Two thick fingers spearing up into me, slow but unstoppable…. He began to pump me like that, growling in my ear. “You’re mine, Annabelle. Not just my lover but my fucking love.” The way he said love changed everything. In his accent, it became a whole new word, a new role. Not poetry and flowers but something hard and enduring, forged in fire and blood.
He drew back just enough that he could look into my eyes. “Say it.”
His fingers never stopped pumping me and I could feel myself tight and hot and God so wet around them. With every satiny push I caught my breath and squeezed my thighs together. I realized I was going to come, right there in the rain, up against a tree. “Your love,” I rasped.
His mouth went to my ear, his fingers driving faster, harder. I was grinding my ass against the tree now, the orgasm rushing towards me. “Forever.” Another foreign word. Forever, with his accent, wasn’t something said on a whim. Forever was a promise.
I panted. “Forever.”
He put his lips so close to mine I could feel every syllable. “I love you,” he told me. And kissed me just as I exploded. I clutched him tight, panting hard against his lips as I levered him against me as tightly as I could. I wanted to absorb him, to become one with him. I wanted to never stop feeling those rugged, warm shoulders under my hands. I felt myself spasm around his fingers as the orgasm rippled through me, my whole body rocking again and again until I slumped weakly, only my grip on his shoulders holding me up.
He looked down at my half-naked body. I could feel the bulge of his cock through his soaked jeans. He wanted me...but he must have come to the same conclusion I had: we couldn’t do it here. Even if we could make it work against the tree, my legs were so shaky I couldn’t hold myself up for long.
My solution would have been to get on his bike and ride back to his house. But Carrick wasn’t that patient.
He bent, put his shoulder into the crease of my hip and lifted me. I yelped as I was hoisted over his shoulder. Then he set off, carrying me deeper into the forest.
40
Annabelle
I hung upside-down, half-naked and panting. My tank top and bra were still under my armpits, my naked breasts pressed against the wet leather of his cut. My jeans and panties were at mid-thigh, my naked ass upturned to the sky as I bounced on his shoulder. Part of me was thinking things like, thank God there isn’t anyone around and I should tell him to put me down.
Part of me was thrilling to the feeling of being picked up and carried off, caveman style.
It was getting dark and, out here, that meant really dark. We were too far from the road for the streetlights or headlights to reach and the clouds meant there were was no moonlight. Were we even going to be able to find our way back to his bike?
Then he stopped. “This looks okay,” he muttered.
What does? Where are we? I couldn’t see anything. All I could see was the shadowy outline of his taut ass under his jeans and the gleaming silver of his chain belt. But we seemed to be moving into a clearing….
He slowly turned around so that I could see. I tossed my soaking hair out of my eyes and blinked through the rain.
It was a cabin, long since abandoned. One window was missing its glass and the roof sagged in one corner but it was mostly intact. And definitely drier than outside.
There was a flash of lightning and the rain pelted down even harder. That must have made up his mind because he turned to face front and marched through the door.
Inside, he still didn’t put me down. I twisted, getting an upside-down view of a kitchen, a living room and finally a bedroom. It must have been a holiday place where some family came each year, because it hadn’t been completely stripped of furniture. There were still couches and beds, even curtains at the windows, but it looked as though no one had been there in years. Probably, the bank repossessed it and then, when it sat unsold for years, it had been left to go derelict. That’s so sad….
Then Carrick was bending his knees and flipping me off his shoulder—
I landed with a whump on a big double bed. The mattress was dry—the roof was intact in here, at least. It was almost silent: we were too far from the road to hear the traffic. The only sound was the rain beating on the roof and my own fevered panting. I looked up...and saw Carrick slowly stripping off his cut.
Outside, in the rain, we’d both been desperate. Now we could take our time. He peeled off his soaked t-shirt, revealing those glorious washboard abs and the deep centerline that ran up his body.
“Take your clothes off.” That blend of scalding, molten Irish silver and the hard rock beneath it.
I swallowed. I’d never undressed for anyone before. At the motel, I knew he’d secretly watched my reflection as I changed, but this different. This was deliberately stripping off for my lover.
No. My love.
I knelt up on the bed and slowly peeled my sodden tank top the rest of the way off. Then I unhooked my bra and tossed it aside.
Car
rick said nothing. But his eyes gleamed in the darkness as he watched me.
As he stripped off his boots, I lay back on the bed and hooked down my jeans and panties, pushing the wet fabric down my legs and prying off my sneakers and socks at the same time, then letting the whole bundle fall beside the bed. Naked except for the shamrock necklace, I sat up, legs together and knees tipped over to one side. I watched as he pushed down his jeans and boxer briefs, his cock springing out as he released it.
“Lie back.” I’d known he sounded more Irish when he was angry. I hadn’t known, until now, that his accent thickened when he was really turned on. The hard ck of back was like ice shattering as it met the prow of an icebreaker, huge and unstoppable. I swallowed and lay back on my forearms, my feet towards him.
“Open your legs.”
I slid the soles of my feet along the mattress and spread. I could feel my wetness as I opened to him.
I heard the rubber sound of a condom going on and then he was climbing onto the bed, the mattress sinking as his knee pressed between my legs. He moved up over me and I gasped as the hot length of his cock hit my thigh.
It was almost completely dark in the cabin, now. My heart sped up: there was something about not being able to properly see him that made him seem even more dangerous and darkly exciting.
He shifted a little and the head of his cock nudged my folds. I caught my breath. I felt his hands plant on either side of my head, the size of him making the mattress flex. Then his head lowered between my breasts and I gasped as he kissed the soft skin between them and the necklace that hung there. The gold shamrock pressed into my skin, the metal silky smooth and so warm from my body that it felt like a part of me. Then he traced upward with his lips, following a path between my breasts and up my throat, tilting my head back. When he reached my lips, he stopped and stared down at me.
Outlaw's Promise Page 17
