by Evelyn Glass
He currently had her pinned against the wall in her bedroom, both of them naked and eager and fired up. Because that was the thing about Camilla—she fired him up. Dirk had been unconsciously waiting for a long time to find his fire again. He had his fist buried into her auburn hair and was kissing her passionately, and Camilla was letting herself be kissed and was returning his scorching hot touches with just as much fervent urgency. His hands were all over her, and her hands were all over him, fevered touches exploring each other’s body—which by now they knew so well—hungry mouths locked and eager tongues swirling.
Dirk slid a hand up her naked thigh, his fingertips digging into her flesh deep enough that he was probably going to create bruises. She didn’t seem to mind. He splayed a hot palm over her mons and began teasing her clitoris with his thumb, grinning when he heard her gasp in surprise and pleasure.
He cupped one of her breasts with his free hand, feeling the soft contours and pinching the nipple enough to sting but not to hurt. His mouth came into play soon after, leaving a hot trail of kisses and love bites down her throat and along her collarbone. He always tried to be careful and not leave any visible marks, but sometimes his enthusiasm just got the best of him. It was hard to keep himself in check with a woman as explosively sexy as Camilla.
She reached out to take his cock into his hand and began stroking him. Dirk growled and slapped her hand away. He was the one in control. He was the one taking the initiative. Camilla groaned in pleased frustration and laid her head back against the wall, looking up at him through eyes at half-mast with ecstasy. God, but I could come just from looking at her! he thought.
Dirk kept on touching and teasing and tantalizing until she was wet and hot enough that she felt ready to burst. Only then did he take her. He lifted up her thigh and wrapped her leg around his waist, and he took her. He didn’t indulge in any slow movements. This particular session wasn’t one for indulging; it was one for fire. It was one for fast movements, harsh gasps, and low, guttural moans. It was one for hip thrusting and neck biting.
Camilla welcomed him just as readily, just as wildly. She abandoned herself to their moment of all-consuming passion completely. She always did, and it was one of the many things about her that drove him absolutely crazy.
The orgasm was an explosion of white light that brought with it a short circuit of his brain. For a few, blissful moments, Dirk was unable to think of anything, feel anything, or experience anything that wasn’t the absolute ecstasy of his climax. Camilla came with him. They had been coming simultaneously for a while now, but neither of them was willing to stop and think about what that might mean.
Once they had both regained their bearings, Dirk put her back down and disentangled himself carefully. They got dressed in silence, but it wasn’t awkward. Their silences were never uncomfortable, and they never thought of asking themselves why.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said once he was ready to go and already halfway to the door.
Camilla nodded. If she felt like he was using her, she never said anything. Maybe she was using him, too. Dirk had no idea why, but the thought that that may be the case really pissed him off.
He didn’t feel like attempting sleep just yet, so he walked through the dark, silent house to the common room. He was looking for peace and quiet. He was looking to maybe read a book by the fireplace. He was not looking for a heart-to-heart, which was why he wasn’t all too happy to discover that he wasn’t the only insomniac in the household.
Stephan had preceded him and was reading a heavy tome on one of the brown leather armchairs by the fireplace. The flames and the reading lamp were the only sources of light in the otherwise pitch-black room.
Dirk advanced carefully. He knew that leaving now would arise suspicion and bring on questions; there was no way Stephan hadn’t noticed his presence. Stephan always noticed everything. It was unnatural and, quite frankly, exasperating.
He took a seat in the other armchair and stretched his legs out, sighing in contentment despite everything when the warmth of the fire spread over to hm.
Stephan looked up at him. “Good sex tonight?” he asked with a smirk.
Dirk grinned right back. Another infuriating thing about Stephan was that it didn’t matter how annoyed Dirk was, he could never stay mad at him for too long. “Good sex every night,” he said.
Stephan laughed. “I’ll bet. She looks like she knows what she’s doing.”
“Believe me, she does.”
Stephan picked up the bookmark from the small table between them and closed the book, which the now visible cover revealed to be a collection of short stories by Kafka. Stephan wasn’t one for easy reading, which suited Dirk just fine because he wasn’t either.
“The men have begun to talk,” he said. He didn’t seem mad about it.
Dirk frowned. “You think they know?”
Stephan arched a blond eyebrow. “Well, you’re being anything but subtle, my friend.”
Dirk smiled sheepishly. “I suppose I’m not.” He thought it over for a moment. “I suppose I should put an end to it then.” He didn’t like that notion. He didn’t like it at all.
“Why?” Stephan asked. He looked genuinely surprised.
“What do you mean?” Dirk said. “I can’t imagine anyone would be very happy that I’m having sex with our prisoner. It might undermine my authority in their eyes.”
Stephan stared at him. And then, out of nowhere, he burst out laughing.
Dirk scowled, surprised and even a little offended. “What?” he said, crossing his arms defensively over his chest.
“Are you kidding me?” Stephan said when he had composed himself enough that he could speak again. “You’re a fucking hero to everyone.”
Dirk blinked, taken aback. “I am?”
“Look, buddy,” Stephan was still chuckling, “I may be gay, but I ain’t blind. I can see just how desirable she is. She’s probably one of the most intriguing, beautiful women I’ve ever seen. And everyone else thinks so, too. They’re all jealous.”
“Oh.” Dirk couldn’t help the stupid, proud grin that came to his lips then. He was still a man, after all; he couldn’t help but feel proud of his conquest.
“Just don’t make a mystery of it, all right? Brag a little. Things are tense enough around here; we all could do with a good story.”
“You think?” Dirk asked.
“Oh, yeah. Besides,” Stephan said, stretching languidly, “all of your sneaking around is making the men feel alienated. It’s about the last thing we need, given our current situation.”
Dirk paused. He had not thought of it that way. He heaved a fake sigh. “Well then, if it’s for the good of the club, I’ll make the sacrifice and talk largely about my sexual prowess.”
Stephan grinned. “You do that.” He hesitated. “Still not falling for her, are you?”
Dirk rolled his eyes. “No, Stephan. I’m not falling for her.” Believe me, I’m doing everything I can to make sure that I don’t.
Stephan nodded. “Good.”
They sat in companionable silence for a while.
“Stephan?” Dirk called out after quite some time had passed.
“Hm?” Stephan replied distractedly, his hazel eyes staring deep into the fire, as if it contained the answers to each and every mystery of the universe.
“How much longer do you think this will go on?” Dirk looked over at him. “Surely Ruiz will be on the move soon.”
Stephan sighed heavily. He ran a hand tiredly across his face. “Beats me,” he admitted.
It wasn’t often that Stephan Walker admitted to not know what was going on, and every time that happened, it sent a chill down Dirk’s spine.
“It’s not like him,” Stephan said.
“No, it’s not,” Dirk agreed darkly.
“We should start keeping a sharper eye on your friend,” Stephan said after a moment.
Dirk frowned in confusion. “Why’s that?”
Stephan tu
rned his head to look at him. “She’s getting antsy.”
Dirk snorted. “Well, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah,” Stephan said. “And that’s exactly the point. If it were me, I would also be plotting my escape.”
Dirk stared at him. “Do you think she would be that stupid?”
Stephan shrugged. “Enforced confinement can make people do stupid things.”
His features darkened almost on their own accord, and Dirk did his best to keep his sympathy from showing. Stephan had spent months as a prisoner of the Taliban in Afghanistan. It had done dark things to his soul and spirit, and that darkness never left him.
“I’ll make sure everyone keeps an eye on her,” Dirk said, eager to keep them on the subject at hand and steer Stephan’s thoughts away from pitch-black memories. “I’ll increase surveillance.”
Stephan nodded. “Good. Thank you.” He tucked the book under his arm and stood. “Good night, Dirk.”
“Good night.”
Dirk watched him go, and then he turned back to the fire. He stared into the flames and thought of Camilla. He wasn’t falling for her, but her fire sure was everywhere around him. And he could not escape it.
Chapter 15
The moon was full that night in the California Mojave Desert. Camilla Hernandez watched it from the window of her bedroom in the Minutemen MC’s headquarters. Eleven days later, she still had some trouble wrapping her mind around her situation. Try as she might, she still couldn’t believe her own stupidity. How had she, a fairly expert investigative reporter, ended up here?
If only she had trusted her gut instincts regarding the good faith (or lack thereof) of one Tobias Alvarez, ex-convict and self-proclaimed Tar Mongols MC repentant, she wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead, she had told herself that if Kurt Davis, who had a good thirty years’ experience over her, thought of Alvarez as a reliable source, then that must be the case.
But Tobias had betrayed her and had been prepared to deliver her into the hands of his ruthless gang when the Minutemen stopped their mad race through the desert. They had told her they were keeping her safe from the inevitable repercussions that would come once the Tar Mongols found out that Tobias was dead and that she was in California to work on a story that would expose the MC, but they had essentially kidnapped her. She wasn’t allowed to leave the headquarters. Ever. Sure, they treated her well, and she had everything she might need—including a library for recreational reading—but for all that, it was a golden cage.
Camilla was getting antsy. The Tar Mongols had yet to make a move, and Stephan Walker, the Minutemen’s formidable president, simply refused to let her go until Herman Ruiz and his men did. It didn’t take Camilla long to figure out that she had just become a pawn in the ongoing war between the two gangs. It was a role that didn’t fit her, but at the same time, she knew that an escape attempt would not be taken lightly. In fact, it would likely cause her to lose the few privileges she had. Instead, she kept quiet and tried to lay as low as possible.
The fact that Dirk was suddenly and inexplicably distant also didn’t help. She paused in her musings. Every time she thought of him, she couldn’t suppress a shiver—a sort of electric jolt—made of excitement and fear—that ran down her spine. Dirk Coleman wasn’t just the Minutemen’s vice-president, but he also happened to be the most formidable man Camilla had ever met. Yet, it wasn’t just that. At the age of thirty-five—exactly the same age as Camilla—he was probably the youngest man to be second-in-command within the hierarchy of a powerful motorcycle club. It wasn’t even the fact that, at thirty-five years old, Dirk had a couple of tours in Afghanistan with the Marines under his belt. It wasn’t even his intimidating, razor-sharp intellect, which he cultivated by reading everything and anything from William Shakespeare to Noam Chomsky.
It was the fact that, despite the scar on the left side of his face and other marks scattered all over his body, he looked like a Greek god. And he kissed and touched and moved like one, too. Dirk’s touch was fiery hot on Camilla’s skin. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel it. She could feel his lips leaving paths on her flesh and his powerful cock as it entered her. She could feel his hips thrust. She could feel the strong muscles of his back flexing underneath her fingertips.
She could feel it all, even though it had been a while since she had last experienced it. Dirk had put a wall up between them, and she couldn’t figure out why. His nightly visits had stopped, and when he talked to her now, there was a distance there that had not existed before. Camilla couldn’t explain it. She missed Dirk’s visits terribly; they had been the only thing that had prevented her from going insane.
She shook her head at herself in the darkness of the room. As always, her longing for Dirk brought on mixed feelings of inexplicable fondness and self-deprecation. Was she really falling for this man? Was sex with him really the proper thing to think about, given her present circumstances? Here she was, stuck in the middle of the California desert, with no means to contact anyone back in New York and no end to her imprisonment in sight, and all she seemed to be able to worry about was why her crazy sexual affair with the MC’s VP was over.
She jumped when the door opened and he strode in. Dirk. He stood outlined by the light streaming in from the corridor, a towering figure made up of lithe but oh-so-powerful muscles.
“What are you doing?” he asked, watching in confusion as she stood by the window in a dark room.
Camilla shrugged. She tried her best not to let her excitement show. She felt a surge of relief at having him in her room, but she hid that, too. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
Dirk nodded curtly. “Good.”
Fire stirred within Camilla’s loins at that simple word, at the promise those four letters held.
“We need to go.”
She blinked when his next words registered. “What?”
“You heard me,” Dirk said, clipped. “Grab your things and let’s head out.”
Camilla frowned. “Head where?” she asked, wary. Could he finally have come to his senses? Was he finally letting her go?
“Somewhere safer.”
Camilla’s confusion mounted. “As safe as New York?” she ventured.
Dirk grinned in the semidarkness. “Sorry, darling. Not yet.”
Camilla scowled. She felt her hopes crumble. Over the past eleven days, she had been training herself not to let her delusions get the best of her, but it was still hard not to hope when signals were given. She bit hard down on her lip to keep her frustration in, and she began to gather her things in her duffel bag under Dirk’s watchful eye.
“There,” she said, hoisting the bag over her shoulder. “I’m ready. Where are we going? And most importantly, why are we going there? I thought the MC’s headquarters was the safest place on Earth.” Try as she might, she couldn’t quite conceal the derisive note in her voice.
If he heard it, however—and she knew that he had, because she had yet to see anything escape Dirk’s notice—he decided to ignore it.
“There’s one place that’s safer,” he said, as he ushered her out of the room.
He grabbed her wrist and tugged, pulling her along behind him. There was an urgency in his stride that alarmed her.
“Can you at least tell me what’s going on?” she asked, as she did her best to keep up.
“They’re coming.”
Camilla felt her insides grow cold. “Who’s coming?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
“The Tar Mongols.”
***
Once again, Camilla found herself riding through the desert on the back of a motorcycle. It was Dirk’s this time, and at the very least, her hands weren’t tied and there wasn’t a hood on her head—something which she considered a huge improvement from her very first ride with Tobias Alvarez.
Dirk drove like a maniac, and yet Camilla somehow felt safe. She didn’t worry about the possibility that they might have an accident, because she knew he would never let them crash
. There was something free-spirited about him as he drove his beloved Harley through the moonlit desert. Dirk was a hard man, a man who had been toughened by life and the countless fights he had taken part in—whether in the military or with the Minutemen. Yet, here, on his bike, in the middle of nowhere with the freezing desert wind blowing through his brown hair, he looked almost carefree. He looked invincible, and that was the reason why Camilla felt like nothing could happen to her.
She didn’t know how long they rode, just the two of them, so as not to attract unwanted attention. Eventually, they came to a building in the desert, on the outskirts of the mountains. It was a house. It was flat, long, and fairly large. It was well kept and gorgeous in its own way. The blinking red light of security cameras installed under the roof followed their approach like watchful, twinkling eyes in the darkness.
