Just feelings.
But not now. Not after feeling her long legs wrapped around my body. Not after feeling the way her wrists fought against my hands. Not after the way she willingly parted those sweet thighs for me and allowed me to bring her to the precipice of pleasure. She listened to sweetly and moaned so deliciously, and all I wanted to do was keep her all to myself.
I wanted to lock her away in a tower made for her own pleasure and never leave her side.
But Calista’s touch ripped me back from reality, and I guided her into my apartment just as Gemma’s car rounded the corner and drove out of sight.
“What is it?” I asked as I shut the door behind me.
I was pissed. I was pissed she came here after I’d only seen her last night. I was pissed she’d risk fucking everything by coming here. I was pissed she felt like she held a position in my life to talk to Gemma that way, and I was pissed that she didn’t seem to give a fuck about any of it.
“For the record, don’t you ever just show up like this again,” I said.
“Well, figured you wanna know what I did,” she said.
“What the hell could’ve possibly transpired between last night and now?” I asked.
I saw Calista studying me, and I didn’t enjoy the look in her eye. In the times I’d been around her, it had always been the same. She’d come in, we’d lock lips, I’d fuck her around a bit. Then we’d settle into bed with some water, and she’d spill her fucking guts. Never had I seen her rake her eyes over me the way she was doing now. Never had I seen her try to clock me the way I’d always done with her.
And in an instant, I threw up every single wall I could think of.
“She means something to you, doesn’t she?” Calista asked.
“What do you know?” I asked.
“You’re pissed that I showed up and ruined your fun little morning, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I will throw you out into the fucking cold with fresh rings around your neck if you don’t tell me why the fuck you jeopardized everything coming here.”
I knew I was growling. I knew I was primal. But I was done playing her games. Calista was a dangerous woman involved with a dangerous man who had sunk her teeth in with a dangerous crowd. Yes, I promised to protect her… from being found out. I promised to make sure that club would never know it was her if she chose to walk away. But it was her that kept going back. It was her that kept refusing to walk away after her end of the deal was held up.
And that shit was on her.
“Huh,” Calista said, grinning. “Didn’t think you had it in you.”
“The hell does that mean?”
“Falling in love. It suits you, but not in the best way. Makes you weak,” she said.
I had to take deep breaths just to keep from yelling at her what I really thought of women like herself.
“What brought you to my doorstep, Calista?”
“Beast tried to kill me.”
I blinked for a second, trying to figure out what the hell that meant.
“Beast,” I said.
“Yep.”
“Your husband.”
“Uh huh,” she said.
“The President of The Devil Saints tried to kill you.”
“Last night,” she said.
I took a step back from her and studied her body. I didn’t see any new marks or stitches that would indicate she’d been attacked. I rounded around her body and allowed my hand to flutter lightly over her skin. There were no fractured or broken bones… at least none I could see or feel.
But then I removed my coat from her body to hang it up, and I found the evidence I had been looking for.
There was a massive piece of gauze across the top of her back. The bright red dress she was wearing dipped low on her back, which was obviously the asset she flaunted for work beside her massive tits. I tried to lift the gauze off her back, but she flinched, whipping around on her feet as pain ricocheted across her face.
“What happened?” I asked.
“He’s all out of options,” Calista said with tears in her eyes. “He knows I’m the mole and he’s coming unhinged.”
“Has he told you that?” I asked. “Has he told you he thinks you’re the mole.”
“Talon, he tried to plunge a knife into my back. This gash? It was because I ran before he could get me with it. Split my skin right open.”
“So you’re on the run,” I said. “And you came here.”
“I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” she said.
“So you came here and jeopardized everything?” I asked.
“Talon, I don’t have anyone,” she said.
“And I offered to help you with that! When we first made this deal, I told you I could get you and your daughter out. All you had to do was feed me information and then come with me, and when the job was done you went back! That’s on you, and you coming here jeopardizes an entirely new population of people that I won’t let you hurt.”
She broke down in the middle of my apartment, her face in her hands while she sobbed. I knew there was more to the story. I knew there was more than just The President coming unhinged. One of the things most clubs looked for in their leaders was mental stability.
That meant there had to be a trigger.
“Come here. Calm down. Come sit down.”
I took her arms and guided her all the way to my couch, allowing her subpar existence to taint the memory of Gemma I had instilled onto my couch.
I could already feel Gemma’s smell fading while the stench of Calista’s berry perfume soaked into the cushions.
“What was the trigger point?” I asked.
“Wh-... what?” Calista asked.
“What made your husband attack you? There must’ve been something.”
I watched her wipe her face, her makeup coming off in layers while she coated her arms in tears. I got up and got her a cool washcloth before I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, then I sat down beside her and wiped off her face.
“You have to talk with me if I’m gonna keep everyone safe,” I said.
“Like that woman who was here earlier?” she asked.
“Calista, look. I am not your savior. I am not your man. I am someone you are feeding information to, and in exchange, I told you I could get you out. Don’t misinterpret my kindness as anything other than just that… kindness.”
I watched her slowly nod her head, but I could tell she was dissatisfied with my answer.
“I was looking out the window after our encounter at the diner,” she said. “I went home and gave my husband the money, and he doted me on a job well done.”
“By home, you mean…?”
“The main clubhouse. The President and his family live there on the upper floor.”
“Okay, so you went home and gave him the money,” I said. “Then what?”
“He went downstairs to log it and put it in the safe. But when he came back up, he was furious. Rattling on about a sedan with tinted windows rolling by the clubhouse.”
“Oh, shit,” I said.
“I looked out the window just in time to see the black sedan rolling off. Talon, the fucking DEA was rolling past our clubhouse. Beast automatically thought they’d followed me. He went absolutely crazy. Started going on about how he couldn’t believe his wife would betray him like this. I’ve never seen him so wild and crazy, Talon. He fucking… h-h-he… he came at…”
Her sobs started up again, and I couldn’t help but pull her into my body. I could feel her shaking from her sobs while my fingertips danced along the gauze on her back. I steadied her enough to peel back the corner, peering in at the gash leaking underneath the pathetic excuse for a sterile piece of gauze.
It wasn’t even stitched up, and it needed to be.
“I just wanted to come by and let you know that they’re all on high alert now. Beast woke everyone up. The only reason I got away was because he had to leave to gather everyone. If the DEA is rolling by us, then they migh
t be by you… but if my husband is this out of his mind…”
“Then he’s coming for us,” I said.
Our history was scattered throughout The Devil Saint’s file. If the DEA felt the need to case their compound like that, there was no telling when they might come by ours. But worse, we could’ve been looking at another repeat of what happened six years ago.
And I wasn’t about to let that shit happen to my family again.
“Okay, Calista, I need you to listen closely to me. You ready?”
“Y-... yes,” she said.
“That gash needs to get looked at. It probably needs stitches, but at the very least it needs to be cleaned. Do you have a doctor The Devil Saints take you guys to?” I asked.
“Mhm.”
“Good. Go see whoever it is. Tell the doctor it was a run-in gone wrong with a client. The last thing you need is to piss off your husband more.”
“Okay,” she said. “But, where will I go from here?”
“Do you know where your daughter is?” I asked.
She shook her head ‘no,’ and it made me sick to my stomach. That’s why she kept going back. She had no idea where her daughter was or what was happening to her. I didn’t even think about the fact that her own fucking club would’ve been holding her own damn daughter for ransom.
“Fucking piece of shit,” I said.
“What?”
“Nothing. Listen. Here’s what you do: go back to Beast-”
“I can’t,” she said, sniffling.
“If you wanna find your daughter, you have to,” I said. “Go back to him and tell him this: that you left to do some casing of your own. Tell him the DEA is casing you guys because the drugs they found in the back of that truck were close to the same concentration of drugs being run over the Mexico border.”
“Wait, is that true?” she asked.
“Calista, it doesn’t fucking matter. The only thing I’m concerned about now is getting you and your daughter out. If Beast questions you about how you got that information, tell him you found one of the cars parked on the side of the road in town. You got scared of him, rode into town, found one of the cars parked, and decided to do some digging of your own.”
“He’ll… he’ll want proof,” she said.
“I’ve got your number, so you leave that to me. Okay? By the time you get back to your own territory, check your phone. The evidence you need will be there.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Because this was the deal, I made you, but it’s the last time I’ll try to execute it. After this, you’re on your own,” I said.
She nodded as I helped her off the couch, then I ushered her out the door quickly. I watched as she walked down to her car before she rode off into the distance. I ran over to my computer and scrambled for the thumb drive that housed all the information I just told her, then hooked it up to a Bluetooth cloud service to transfer the three-page files I needed to my phone. I messaged her the DEA file page on the drug breakdown, the routes the DEA was casing, and the file page explaining why then I shut everything down and pulled the battery out of my phone.
But I didn’t get the battery back in well before Hawk was calling me.
“Talon. We gotta talk.”
“What?” I asked.
“Mac’s getting nervous. Says there was a bit of a stir with The Devil Saints last night. Can you get into contact with that woman and find out what’s going on?” he asked.
“We just talked, and it’s bad. We need church. Now.”
Chapter 16
Gemma
Jace’s arm was around me while he escorted me back into the house. I just couldn’t stop crying. There were no sobs, and there were no hysterics, but the tears simply wouldn’t stop. It was like my body was discharging years and years of pent-up frustrations and sorrows and depressive episodes all because a dream was crushed.
A silly little dream I had no business indulging in.
Now, Jace was going to tell me that he told me so. I was going to have to tell him he was right. He was gonna beat the shit out of Talon, and I was going to be the reason, and what’s worse is that I still didn’t want him to.
Even after seeing Talon talk to and welcome that other woman into his home, I still didn’t want anything to happen to him.
Jace led me over to the kitchen table and sat me down. He pulled a chair up to me and took my hand, his eyes studying my face. I could tell he was trying to read me, trying to figure out where the fuck I had been last night. My mind was swirling and yet at a complete standstill. I just kept imagining her eyes. Those eyes that looked so devious and wanton. I could tell simply by the way she was standing next to Talon that he had taken her. Touched her. Kissed her and caressed her the way he had me.
And then I remembered her comment.
Her comment about my hickies.
“Gemma, where were you?” Jace asked.
“Can we eat?” I asked breathlessly. “I brought your favorite.”
“No. Tell me where you were. You told me you were coming home last night.”
“Please let’s just eat.”
My eyes were pleading with him while I tried to conceal my neck. I hadn’t looked in the mirror long enough to know where the hickies were, and I was desperate to know. They weren’t obvious now because if they had been Jace would’ve verbally raked at me until I told him who gave them to me. He sighed, relenting to my want, and as he disappeared down the hallway, I scurried for the bathroom.
I flipped on the light and was startled by my appearance in the mirror. My shirt was inside out, and my eyes were bloodshot. They were puffy and red, and my lip was bleeding from chewing on it so much. My hair was tousled and tangled, and my cheeks were streaked red with my tears. No wonder Jace hadn’t noticed the two massive hickies on either side of my neck.
He was too busy studying the fact that I looked like a complete wreck.
“Gemma! I got breakfast. And your purse. You need it?”
“Yeah. Could you hand it through the door of the bathroom?”
I heard his footsteps approach before he stopped at the door, but I could tell he was hesitating. I had some makeup in my bag I could use to cover these things up, but I needed Jace to give me my purse.
“Gemma, something’s wrong. Talk with me,” Jace said.
“Can I do that after I plug myself up? I’m cramping up a bit over here.”
“Oh. Shit. Sorry.”
He immediately handed me my purse without another word, and I sighed with relief.
“Let me get myself cleaned up, then I’ll talk. I promise,” I said.
I heard him walk away quickly while I dug around in my purse. I put my hair up and surveyed the damage, smiling about last night before I sighed. I knew I’d never been able to truly hate Talon. I’d never been able to fully write him off. The passion we’d shared on the nights we were together swallowed my memories whole. Never had I felt like that in the arms of a man before, but I had to face the facts.
Talon was who he was, and I had no right to change that.
But I wanted him. Every single part of me still craved him. His voice in my ear. His hands around my wrists. The orgasms he could barrel over my body, rendering me breathless. I shivered at the simple thought of last night, and I had to take deep breaths so I could cover up the marks he’d left behind.
Marks I wanted more of all over my body.
I covered them up well before I let my hair back down, then I washed my hands. I flushed the toilet just to make sure I could keep up the ruse with Jace, then I left and headed straight for the kitchen table. Jace had made a fresh pot of coffee to top of the ones I’d gotten for us, and I sighed before sitting down at the table. I knew Jace would continue pushing the subject.
I just had to come up with what to tell him.
On the ride home, I was angry. I was angry and hurt and dead set on telling Jace everything. I wanted to cry in the arms of my brother and have him comfort me during th
is dream-shattering moment in my life.
But seeing those marks and remembering how Talon made me feel… I didn’t wanna do it anymore.
I’m sure Talon had an explanation. A reason for why he would treat me the way he did and then accompany a woman like that into his apartment. There must’ve been a reason he would’ve been willing to talk to a woman like that instead of shooing her away and coming back to bed with me. I mean, it wasn’t like I’d woken up to him having sex with another woman. I’d woken up to him talking with another woman on his porch.
Who had his coat wrapped around her.
And her hands on his chest.
And her body close to his.
I could feel the jealous anger rising in my throat again. I slowly picked at my breakfast, trying my best to put on a game face. Jace was eyeing me with every bite he took, trying to figure out what the hell had happened to me.
Then, he struck up the conversation again.
“How was shopping?” he asked.
“Fruitless. Music shit’s expensive, even at an outlet store. I’ll need a job before I can buy any of that stuff.”
“If you need to borrow money, I’ve got you,” he said.
“No, no. I need to do this on my own. I gotta follow up with jobs today anyway. I haven’t heard back from anyone yet.”
“What did you do after shopping last night?”
“Just rode around town. Got some dinner.”
“Where’d you eat?” he asked.
“That diner place we always used to go to whenever Mom and Dad would piss us off. You remember it?”
“Shit, is that place still open?” he asked.
Honestly, I had no fucking clue, but I was going to roll with it if it got him off my case.
“Yep. Still kicking. The place is a dump, but the food is just as greasy as I remembered it.”
“Man. I haven’t been that far into town in a while. I remember the last time I went there. Dad was yelling’ at mom for some bullshit or whatever and he threw a bottle at her.”
“Was that the time she picked it up and threw it back at him?” I asked.
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