Protection (Death Knights MC Series Book 1)

by Michelle Betham

“Us, Piper. Stop pretending you don’t want us to happen.”

  “I don’t, want us to happen.”

  He throws his head back in an obvious sign of exasperation. “Jesus fucking Christ…”

  I drop my gaze, focusing on my bare feet, the black nail polish I’m wearing dark and harsh against the white tiled floor.

  “It scares me, Logan.” I slowly look up and his eyes meet mine. “This, whatever it is; us. It scares me.”

  He moves closer, rests a hand on my hip, leans right in until his mouth lightly brushes the side of my neck. “I can smell him on you, Piper,” he whispers, his hand moving around until it cups my ass. “He just fucked you, huh?”

  “He’s my husband, Logan. He has every right to fuck me. You have none.”

  He pulls back slightly, looks right into my eyes and I have to take a deep breath to steady the rush of adrenaline now coursing through my veins. “Do you really want to live with his twisted shit forever, Piper?”

  “You know nothing about our life, Logan.”

  “I know enough, we all do. I know he likes to show you off like some prized toy, parade you around like a piece of meat we can all look at but, Jesus, we touch you…”

  He drops his head and steps back from me, sliding his hands into his pockets.

  “Logan?”

  He turns and walks away, I’m confused. And then he stops, turns around and comes back over to me, takes my hand and pushes me gently back against the wall, his eyes staring deep into mine. “I need you, Piper. Right now, I need you.”

  “Why?”

  “We talking reasons now?”

  His behavior’s a little strange this morning, and I’m still confused.

  “Y’see, it doesn’t matter whether we’ve fucked once or a hundred times, we stepped over that line. We’re over it, so let’s just…”

  I let go of his hand and push him away, he doesn’t get to call the shots. “You’re here to do a job, Logan. Just concentrate on that, OK?”

  “No. No, sweetheart, you don’t get to walk away from me, you don’t get to pretend that this isn’t real…”

  “This isn’t real, Logan! This, us, whatever the hell it is, it isn’t real. My marriage to Vanni is real, this shit with my father is real but us – that isn’t real.”

  “Jesus…”

  He leans back against the wall and closes his eyes, a deep, heavy sigh wracking his entire body and I watch as his shoulders sag and his head drops forward.

  “What’s happened, Logan?”

  He slowly shakes his head, keeping his eyes to the floor, his hands back in his pockets.

  “Logan?”

  I walk back over to him, gently cupping his cheek as I raise his head up, right up until his eyes meet mine.

  “She’s back, Piper.”

  I frown, because I’m still confused. “Who’s back?”

  “She just called, out of the blue, like she has every right to walk back into my life – like she never tore me apart…”

  He tries to drop his head again but I’m not letting him do that. “What did she want?”

  “I don’t know, I didn’t give her a chance to say much… She needs my help, that’s all I let her get out before I hung up.” His eyes suddenly harden, a coldness taking over that startles me a little. “Whatever she wants, Piper, it isn’t gonna happen. She has no right to ask me for shit, after what she did. I went through fucking hell to forget her, and I’m not going back there. I’m not doing that.”

  “OK… then you need to tell her that.”

  He shakes his head and takes my hand and gently backs me up against the counter, his forehead resting against mine. “I don’t need to tell her shit, Piper. I just need you.”

  “As what, Logan? A distraction?”

  “Yes, Piper, as a fucking distraction, I think we’ve already established that’s about as far as this is gonna go. I don’t want anything more than that, and you’re married to a man who’d cut my balls off with a blunt knife if he knew what we’d done. So a distraction is just fine by me.”

  “And if I don’t want that anymore?”

  “Thing is though, darlin’, you do. You want it, just as much as I do. We both got shit we need to forget, and we both got a way we can make that happen.”

  He slides a hand up under my skirt and tugs at the sides of my panties.

  “Now take ‘em off, baby.”

  I reach down and cover my hand with his, both of us pulling them down and I’ve stepped across that line again. Because he’s right. I need a distraction, too, from the fact I’m piling more complications on top of the ones that already exist. My world is becoming less and less stable, more dangerous by the day, and yet, all I want to do, right now, is let this man inside me. Let him take me away from everything I’m scared of; let him find his own escape, from the woman he really loves. I’m actually happy with him using me like this? Yeah, I am. ‘Cause I think I’m just using him, too.

  He lifts me up onto the counter and steps between my legs, and he’s in me in a heartbeat, every inch of him, filling me with his dangerous poison, and I’m taking him. I wrap my legs around him and I lean back, letting him fall even deeper into me as he tears off my T-shirt and bites on a nipple, causing me to cry out, but the pain is beautiful. It’s twisted and wrong but it’s beautiful.

  And then he pulls out of me, and that shocks me slightly, but it takes just a second for him to yank me down from the counter, turn me around and ram back into me from behind, his thrusts harsher and faster now. I grip the countertop and push my ass back against him as he pounds into me, his fingers digging into my flesh, his cries merging with mine as we both feel that climax start to creep its way in. And when it comes it’s brutal, intense, sweeping through my body with a white-hot force that fills my veins, warms my belly, it hurts. And even when it’s done he stays inside me, his fingers still gripping my hips as he pulls me up, both of us struggling to catch our breath, I feel like the whole room’s spinning.

  “We could run, Piper. Me and you, we could just run, get outta here, leave all this shit behind…”

  I let go of him and turn around to face him. “Don’t, Logan. Don’t do that.”

  He drags a hand back through his hair, and his expression tells me that, OK, yeah, what he said just then, he said it without even thinking. But now – now he’s thinking about it.

  “You’re reacting to a situation… it’s a knee-jerk reaction, that’s all it is, and it’s crazy.”

  “We could run, Piper. And now I’m serious. I’m fucking serious.”

  “You’re out of your fucking mind, that’s what you are.”

  I pull my T-shirt back on and head over to the French doors, yanking them open and walking out onto the terrace. And he follows, of course he does, he’s not going to let this drop now.

  “We’ve got ourselves into so much shit here, Piper, and if we…”

  “You scared, huh? All of a sudden you’re worried about what Vanni would do if he found out? So, what? You want to run, like a coward…?”

  He grabs my arm and pushes me back against the wall, and his eyes, the coldness is back, the hardness has taken over. “Don’t ever call me a coward, Piper, don’t fucking do that, because I have seen shit that will never leave me. Shit that haunts me every day and I didn’t run from that. I don’t run from anything.”

  “But you want to run from this.”

  He closes his eyes and lets go of my wrist, his head dropping as he steps back. It’s like someone flicked a switch, his whole demeanor’s changed in an instant.

  “We can’t go anywhere, Logan. We can’t. And I’ve run far enough, I can’t do it anymore, and besides, we both know what we have here. And it isn’t something worth taking that risk for.”

  He slowly raises his gaze, his eyes locking on mine. “Isn’t it?”

  Logan

  I can’t even explain the crap that’s coming out of my mouth right now, what the hell am I talking about? But the more I look at her, standing
there, all fucked up and beautiful – a beautiful mess, that’s what she is. A beautiful, dangerous, fucked up mess and I need her, for so many reasons I need her. And the look in her eyes – she wants me to go, I can see that so clearly, it’s written all over her face, but she knows I can’t go anywhere. I have to stay here, and that scares her, because I’ve just confused this messed-up scenario even more now.

  “You’re reacting to the fact your ex-girlfriend’s back, Logan…”

  “No, Piper, she isn’t back. She isn’t, her chances are all used up, honey, she’s done.”

  “No.” She shakes her head as she backs away, back inside. “No, she isn’t. You can’t see the look on your face, Logan, your eyes – they’re saying something completely different.”

  I frown, what the fuck is she talking about?”

  “You’ll see her. You’ll talk to her. And if she wants your help you’ll give it to her, because that’s the kind of man you are. Deep down inside you’re a good man, you just hide behind all this alpha male shit…”

  “Jesus…”

  “I’m a distraction, that’s all. You’re a distraction. But I’m not sure we should be distracted anymore, not right now, it’s too dangerous. We need to be focused, both of us. And this…” She drops her gaze, her body language almost defeated, and I don’t know what the fuck I’m feeling now. Before that bitch came back on the scene I thought – yeah. Maybe she’s right. Maybe this is something neither of us needs right now.

  “You’re wrong.”

  She lifts her head and looks at me. “Am I?”

  “I’m not a good man, Piper. Not anymore.”

  Twelve

  Piper

  “Pack a bag, darlin’.”

  I look up as Vanni comes back into the room. He’s been out in the hall talking to Logan for what’s felt like an age, and now he’s back, issuing orders, and I feel every kind of fear there is start to sweep over me. “Where are we going?”

  “The clubhouse. I’m putting us on lockdown.”

  “Lockdown?”

  “Your daddy’s men are moving in, Piper, so we need to start making this shit happen, OK? Go pack a bag. Now.”

  I almost run into the bedroom, grab a handful of clothes and toiletries and shove them into a holdall, pulling on my boots before I head back out to Vanni.

  “Good girl.”

  He looks at me, and once again he senses the silent fear I’m quite obviously expressing here.

  “This is just a precaution, Piper. ‘Cause we don’t need nothing else getting in the way of this job, this – you are my priority now, nothing else. Keeping you safe is all I care about, any other shit, I don’t need it. So we put our club on lockdown, and we concentrate on nothing but ending this game your daddy started.”

  I’m tired of feeling scared. I’m tired of feeling weak and vulnerable and the only thing I want is for this to be over. The only thing…?

  “Come here.”

  I throw my bag down on the floor and step into Vanni’s arms, feeling safe the second he wraps them around me, I didn’t feel safe in Logan’s arms. Not today. Today I felt afraid, terrified, because I knew the reason why I felt that way. I knew, and then I lied to him, and he thinks… No. I was right. I had to do that. I had to lie. For his sake as well as mine.

  “You eating properly?”

  Vanni’s question pulls me back to the here and now and I look at him, and I smile, he needs to see me smile. “Yes, and quit with the fussing, it doesn’t suit you.”

  “I just want to look after you, Piper. That’s what a good husband should do, look after his wife.”

  I stop myself from telling him I don’t need looking after, because I probably do, right now. I need that eye kept on me, I need Vanni to stick around, to stop myself from – I need Vanni, to stick around.

  “And you’re a good husband, OK?”

  “Good?”

  He raises an eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twists up into a smirk, and I can’t help but laugh. Yeah. Maybe everything could be all right, if I let him take control; if I stop trying to fuck it up. If I can keep my betrayal hidden.

  “The best.” I kiss him, my fingers gently brushing his rough jaw line. “And I’m done stroking your ego, biker boy. Let’s go. I can’t wait to spend all that time cooped up with Della and her band of biker bitches all trying to push me out.”

  “She gives you shit you give her twice as much back, baby. You got my permission on that one.”

  I look at him, and he shoots me the widest grin, and I kiss him again as he lifts me up and slams me back against the wall.

  “You got my permission for this, soldier?”

  “I don’t need it, baby girl.”

  I look into his eyes, wrapping my legs tight around him, the air around us filled with tension; hidden secrets and a dark possibility that he might not be able to keep all those promises he made me. But I can’t think like that, I have to trust him. I have to, and I have to put Logan Sandero to the back of my mind, once and for all.

  “No. No, you don’t.”

  I close my eyes and slide my fingers into his hair, and I lose myself in this man and his messed-up, twisted world. It’s the only one I know now. The only one I have. And it really isn’t all that different to the one he’s trying to save me from…

  Logan

  “What the fuck…?”

  “I thought there was less chance of you ignoring me if I saw you face-to-face.”

  “Get the fuck off my property, Reba.”

  “Logan, please, I really need your help…”

  “How the hell did you get my address?”

  I swear, I am gonna hunt down the pricks who thought it was OK to give out my private information to anyone who fucking asks.

  “I wouldn’t have come if this wasn’t important, please…”

  I shut the door, I’m not doing this, she isn’t doing this. But she’s not giving up, she hammers hard against the door I’ve just slammed in her face, Jesus! Crazy fucking bitch… She’s not giving me a choice here.

  “Just give me five minutes, Logan. Just five minutes. Please.”

  I step aside to let her in, even though every fiber of my being is telling me it’s the wrong thing to do.

  “You know what the worst of this is, Reba?”

  She looks at me, her wide gray eyes almost ridiculously innocent.

  “You never even said sorry. When you called me the other day; when you stood there just now, on my doorstep, asking for my help, you never said sorry, for everything you did. Everything you put me through.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “I don’t think you are. I think you’ve kidded yourself that after all this time I’ll have forgiven you, forgotten how it felt to have you throw every fucking thing we ever had right back in my face because you wanted to try something different…”

  “It wasn’t like that…”

  “What was it like, huh? For you? You were OK with just walking away, from our life? For what? How long did it last, Reba? You and him? Was he your forever man, your soul mate…?”

  “Two months, Logan. It lasted two months, then he went back to his wife.”

  I can’t stop the almost hysterical laugh from escaping, the irony’s too fucking much now. “Jesus… You got yourself a big old dose of karma right there, darlin’.”

  She leans back against the wall and slides her hands into the pockets of her jeans, dropping her gaze to the floor.

  “I made a mistake.”

  “Too late, Reba. You’re too late with the regret, too late with the fucking guilt.”

  She slowly looks back up at me, and there’s a hardness engrained in her face now that wasn’t there before. Has life dealt her a shit hand as a way of punishing her for crapping all over what we could’ve had? Do I really believe all that karma bullshit, in reality?

  “I came back, to try and talk to you, but your brother told me you’d joined up, been posted to the middle east… I tried, Logan.”


  “It was still too late, Reba. The second you let him stick his dick inside you it was too late. We were done.”

  “We could’ve worked through it…”

  I shake my head and walk away, into the kitchen, I need a drink. “What do you want, Reba? ‘Cause I really gotta be somewhere.”

  “And now you’re in a biker gang, right?”

  She follows me into the kitchen, leaning against the doorpost as she watches me pour myself a whiskey. And I don’t answer her, I don’t need to. I’m wearing my cut, it’s fucking obvious I’m in a biker gang.

  “The Death Knights…”

  I down the whiskey in one and turn around to face her. “What do you want, Reba?”

  “I loved you, Logan, I need you to know that. I still love you…”

  I let out a low chuckle, dropping my head, shaking it slowly, she’s unbelievable. “Yeah. You need to go now.”

  “And whatever you might think of me – whatever I did to you, please, please believe that I never meant to hurt you.”

  I raise my gaze and my eyes meet hers, and I’m trying so hard to keep mine cold and hard but she’s standing there, right in front of me, after all these years, and she’s just as beautiful as she was back then. More so. That dark hair that falls around her shoulders, those wide eyes and full lips, she drove me crazy, once. I can’t let her do that again. I can’t. I’m not that man anymore, remember? I’m not him. “Begging really doesn’t suit you, Reba.” I have to remember what she did, the way she could just walk away from us in the way that she did, like we’d never mattered. Like we’d never grown up together, shared a life before we’d even realized we were in love. I couldn’t do that, not even for a second. But she found it so fucking easy.

  “I just need you to listen to me, Logan. Please.”

  I lean back against the counter and cross my arms against my chest, she needs to know there’s a barrier here, she isn’t getting too close.

  “I got married, a few years ago.”

  “Congratulations.”

  She doesn’t miss the deadpan sarcasm that accompanies that one word, but the puppy-dog eyes and the fake hurt expression aren’t working with me.