by Jadyn Chase
“I wasn’t planning to,” he replied. “I was going to wait for you here.”
I looked left and right along the street.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Do you want me to come in?”
I glanced over my shoulder toward the hospital entrance. “It’s just that…..you said we should be on the lookout for Diego.”
“He’s not likely to come after you in a public place like this.” He must have seen the stricken expression on my face. He changed his tone. “But I can come in if you want me to.”
He removed the keys from the ignition and slung his long leg over the seat. He strolled at my side walking into the lobby.
I asked the front desk and found out Teresa’s room. We rode the elevator to the Post-Operative Ward and I peered into her room.
She sat up in bed reading a magazine. Her eyes popped when she saw me. “Hey! I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
I rushed into her arms. “Thank goodness you’re all right. Was it bad?”
“Not too bad. They say the bullet just nicked the lung. It’s no big deal.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed. I couldn’t stop drinking her in with my eyes. “I’m so sorry this happened. I feel awful for bringing Diego down on your head.”
She clasped my hand. “This was not your fault. You could have been killed. I’m glad you got away.”
I waved toward the door. “You remember Francisco? He’s the one who called the ambulance.”
Cisco wandered into the room, but he hesitated to come too close to the bed. He nodded at Teresa. “I’m glad you’re okay. You were a mess at the house.”
She raised her face to gaze at him. “I remember. I remember you telling me to lie still while you called 911. Your voice comforted me. I knew everything was going to work out as long as you were there.”
He closed his eyes and gave a small smile. Teresa turned back to me. “Now tell me what’s going on. What are you going to do about this asshole? You can’t keep running from him for the rest of your life. You have to do something.”
“Yeah, I know. I was going to call the leader of his club and tell him I want to leave. He’ll call Diego off.”
Teresa made a face. “You can’t count on that. He might insist that you go back to Diego, or else Diego might ignore it. He might be so bent on punishing you for leaving that he doesn’t stop. What are you going to do then?”
I glanced over at Francisco for help. I half-hoped he would jump in and reassure Teresa that he would take care of me, that I had nothing to worry about as long as he was around. He didn’t say that, though.
Instead, he scowled down at her chart where it hung from the end of the bed. He didn’t appear to hear our conversation at all.
I patted Teresa’s arm. “You don’t worry about me. You concentrate on healing up. I’ll handle my own life.”
“That’s the problem,” she countered. “You don’t handle it.”
Just then, a bevy of nurses bustled in. They crowded around Teresa and one of them gave me that patronizing smile all nurses must practice in front of the mirror when they start nursing school.
“We’re moving her down to the General Ward. That’s good news, isn’t it? It means you’re not in danger anymore. You just have to get better. Then you can go home.”
They shunted me to the side and unlocked the wheels under her bed. In a second, they pushed her out of the room.
Teresa waved to me between their arms. “See you later, Isabel. Come visit me tomorrow if you can.”
“I will.” I waved after her. “Take care of yourself.”
A moment later, they left Cisco and me alone in the room. My shoulders slumped. “I guess we can go now.” He didn’t answer. I looked over to see him frowning at me. “What?”
“Why didn’t you tell me she was your sister?” he asked. “Why did you say she was just your friend?”
I blinked. “How did you find out?”
“She has you listed as her next of kin. Her name is Teresa Williams and her next of kin is Isabel Williams. Why did you lie to me?”
I cringed. I just said it. I never thought telling a harmless little fib like that would end up meaning so much between me and him.
I rubbed my fingers together in agitation. “I’m sorry, Cisco. I shouldn’t have lied. I never thought I would see you again. I thought you would drop me off at Teresa’s house and that would be the end of it. I didn’t know…..I didn’t think….”
He clenched his jaw and his eyes darkened. “Is there anything else you’re hiding from me that I should know about?”
I opened my mouth. Should I tell him what I just found out about my mother? Did it really matter in the end? He didn’t really need to know that, did he?
At that moment, all the nurses filed back into the room. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave. We need to clean this room and get it ready for the next patient. There’s a visitor’s lounge at the end of the hall. You can talk there.”
Cisco squared his shoulders and stormed off the ward. He barged to the elevator and jabbed the button. Should I follow him? Should I intrude on his life any more after all he did for me?
I rode to the lobby. I should just say goodbye and let him go his own way. He didn’t need to deal with my problems. He had his own life to lead.
I would have let him go a lot sooner, but he didn’t stop. His long steps carried him through the lobby to the parking lot. He walked so fast I had to race to keep up with him. He didn’t look sideways at me until he got on his bike. Then he put on his shades and I lost sight of his eyes behind the glass.
I hung back on the sidewalk. This was my chance to say thank you and goodbye and watch him drive out of my life once and for all. My throat hurt at the prospect, but I’d made up my mind.
He scanned the parking lot. I did the same, and that was when I noticed a man dressed all in black leather with dark shades sitting on a Harley across the street. I couldn’t recognize him from here, but my blood ran cold.
Cisco jerked his head back. “Get on.”
I didn’t wait to be told twice. I took the seat and held on while he fired up the bike and thundered away. The wind stung my eyes and I bent to hide in the shelter of his neck.
The next instant, the world vanished in a thunderous storm of chrome and steel. The surroundings blurred and I curled into a small, fragile ball against his back. I didn’t need to be anywhere else. I didn’t need to solve the world’s problems as long as I was with him.
I didn’t see where he was going, and I didn’t care. Streets and trees and houses whizzed past. What difference did it make? As long as he wasn’t dropping me off and saying Adiós, I didn’t mind where we went.
After a while, he slowed down. The bike bounced and I looked up to realize we were nowhere near the city. My heart flipped. What was he doing?
He parked the hog in an out-of-the-way parking lot with a few other cars in it. He dismounted and took off his sunglasses. A stab of fear gripped my insides. “Where are we?”
“We’re going for a walk,” he announced and set off through the trees.
He followed a trail into nothing. I couldn’t see anything beyond the foliage. Was he going to cap my ass and leave my body to rot where no one could find it?
In a few minutes, the dusty path started to climb. He didn’t look over his shoulder to ask how I was or whether I wanted to go for a walk. He just headed off into the wilderness without a word.
I kept casting wary glances behind me. I couldn’t get back to the city if I tried. I mean, I could hitchhike, I suppose, if push came to shove. If I really thought he meant to do me harm, I ought to turn around and make a run for it right now. Cisco wouldn’t hurt me, though. Would he?
After almost an hour of walking, he broke out of the trees. The trail meandered along a curved ridge and ended at a bare overlook high above the city. A lone wooden bench gave a sweeping view of LA far away. The flat blue ocean stretched to the far horizon.
My
jaw dropped at the sight. “Wow!”
“Not bad, huh?” He stretched himself out on the bench. His enormous arms and legs took up almost all of it. “I love it up here. I come up here all the time. It helps me clear my thoughts.”
I couldn’t stop staring at the countryside rolling away as far as the eye could see. “This is amazing.”
“You’re the first person I’ve ever brought up here,” he remarked.
I spun around to gape at him. “Really?”
He looked away and chewed the inside of his cheek. “I’m sorry I snapped at you at the hospital. That was out of line.”
I started to say, “It’s okay,” but he cut me off.
“It’s not okay,” he barked. “You had no reason to tell me she was your sister. I guess I just never thought until then that you would have any reason to hide anything from me. I mean, why shouldn’t you hide it from me? What am I? I’m a Diablo and you’re La Muerta. Of course you wouldn’t tell me.”
“It’s not that,” I began.
He didn’t hear me. “I didn’t realize I felt that way about you. I thought…. Well, I don’t know what I thought, but it certainly wasn’t that.”
Without thinking, I sank onto the bench next to him. “I’m sorry I lied to you about it. I shouldn’t have. I should have told you the truth. I didn’t think of it, either, until after the fact, but I realize now that I should have trusted you.”
“You have no reason to trust me,” he countered. “We’re enemies.”
“We’re not enemies!” I gasped. “God, please don’t say that. You’re the one person in this world who isn’t my enemy.”
He indulged in a little smile, but it lacked the sunshine of his usual expression. “It’s nice of you to say so.”
I took a grip on myself. “There’s something else I haven’t told you, but I’m not sure if I should.”
“Don’t,” he snapped. “Don’t tell me anything.”
“Why not?”
“Because as soon as we go back to the city my Boss will tell me to hand you over to La Muerta and I’ll never see you again. Anything you tell me now will only make it harder later.”
I cocked my head to one side. “Make what harder?”
He scanned the coastline to its farthest edge. He compressed his lips and narrowed his eyes. His brows shadowed his features so I couldn’t make out what he was thinking.
“Cisco?” I asked. “It would make what harder?”
“This.” Faster than I could think, he whipped around and leaned toward me. He slipped one giant hand against my cheek and kissed me.
I froze to my seat. Did he just…..? What was he….? Was he trying to make this harder than it already was?
That was what he was trying to tell me. I already knew I felt that way about him, but I never let myself fathom that he could feel that way about me, too.
Before I knew what was happening, his lips seeped their intoxicating heat into my brain. I couldn’t pull away even as a voice screamed at me not to let this happen. He was right. This would only make it harder to part later on and he couldn’t possibly expect to do anything else.
He couldn’t want someone like me. I was too damaged. He would want someone as glowing and fun-loving as himself. I couldn’t give him that and he could have any woman he wanted. He only had to snap his fingers and any woman would melt at his feet—just like I was doing right now.
His other hand materialized on my other cheek and my soul caved to the overpowering emotion tearing me apart. How could I feel so much for him so soon? How could I face the world without him?
As quickly as it started, he pulled away. He took those blissful hands away from my skin and left me cold and dead. He trained his flinty gaze on the horizon and his body closed off from me, never to open again. “We better be getting back. Come on.”
I never even got a chance to admire the view.
8
Francisco
I never should have kissed her. I should let her go. Didn’t I say it would make it harder? Well, it did. It made it astronomically harder to drive back to LA with her holding onto me from behind knowing I would have to send her back to La Muerta any minute now.
I didn’t want to send her back. I didn’t want to ever let her go. I wanted to pull over to the side of the road and….
Holy shit, what was I doing? I was pulling over to the side of the road. I was switching off the motor and turning around to kiss her again. For fuck’s sake, Cisco, get a grip.
I couldn’t get a grip, though, and I couldn’t stop kissing her. My guts went on fire at the taste of her tongue in my mouth and her sweet fingers threading into my hair. Her delicate frame felt so light and beautiful in my arms when I lifted her off the seat and hugged her against my chest.
Her intense green eyes blazed within inches of my nose. She panted her fragrant breath into my nose and small whimpering squeaks of passion escaped her when I squeezed her too hard.
I wanted to tear her clothes off right there and then. I wanted to vent all this heat on her in a torrent of cruel delight, but I couldn’t do that.
I commanded myself to put her down, to stop kissing her before it was too late. That was the problem. It was already too late. It was too late when I found her on the street that night. It was too late when she took my clothes off. It was too late when I kissed her and it was too late when she put her arms around me riding on the back of my bike.
Fuck, she felt good! I put my arms around many girls, some of them platonic and some of them not so platonic. None of them felt like this. None of them made me so blistering hard so fast. None of them floated before my eyes in a dream of forgotten desires I couldn’t resist.
I stroked my hand softly down her cheek to her neck. Her lips sagged open in a hot, wet, cocktail of lust and aching grief. Why did I have to find this girl only to discover that she belonged to another man, another club? Why couldn’t she be mine?
My prick hurt inside my pants. It throbbed with blood screaming to get out and into her where her softness would soothe away all my pain. Her joints liquefied in my arms. She collapsed in my embrace when I crushed her to me. Her eyes drifted closed in a haze of bliss.
With a heroic effort, I put her down and turned around. I forced myself to kick the bike into gear and drive. Just keep driving, Cisco. Nothing could happen as long I kept driving.
That wasn’t true, either. When I drove, she put her arms around me. She breathed into my shirt from behind—that scorching, delicious breath that suggested so many screaming climaxes on the end of my shaft.
I had to fight with every ounce of my strength not to turn around again. If I did that, I was lost.
I had to drive her to the warehouse and turn her over to El Jefe. No other course of action made sense right now. I had to turn my back on her this instant. It might be difficult, but it would be a damn sight easier than the alternative.
Halfway back to town, I stopped to gas up at a station. I kept my shades on. Isabel stood out of the way. She combed her wind-tumbled hair to one side. The sun glowed on her skin. Her eyes sparkled in a way I hadn’t noticed before. She was coming back to life. She no longer resembled a caged animal ready to bite someone’s arm off for daring to touch her.
If I could ignore the bruises on her face, she looked almost happy. A homeless guy stopped to talk to her about something and she smiled at him. She even laughed at something he said.
When she caught me watching her, that smile faded, but only slightly. Her eyes darted to my face in a mysterious questioning way that inquired what I was really thinking. Why couldn’t I laugh and joke with her the way I did with every other girl on the planet?
This was no joke. Every other girl was a joke. I could put my arms around them. I could dance with them. I could even let them rub their bodies against me on the dance floor. It was all fun and games. This was no game. This was serious business.
As long as I stood across the gas station from her, I could imagine I had enough distance t
o think rationally about the situation. The instant I mounted my ride and she got behind me, the minute she spread her legs to surround my hips and put her slender arms around my middle, I lost it.
The bike vibrated between my legs like a woman in the throes of ecstasy. It made me harder than I could ever remember being, but it wasn’t the bike. It was her. Her body sizzled with desire behind me. It radiated into my being. I couldn’t ignore it.
If I dropped her off and drove out of her life without tasting that heavenly ambrosia, I would never forgive myself. I would spend the rest of my life wondering what it could have been like.
If I did go there, I would probably never stop dreaming about her. I would forever hold her up as the standard all other women had to meet. I could never love anyone if I didn’t feel this way about them.
We approached town. The buildings got denser, but I couldn’t go through with it. Something happened to me on that ride. I couldn’t come to the end of it until I completed …. whatever it was I had to complete. A secret obstacle stood in my way and prevented me from taking the streets I intended to take.
I veered off toward the park. Did she know? Did her cells infect me with the command to do it? Would she run away screaming if I tried? I didn’t care. This situation couldn’t possibly get any worse.
I found a side road that wound into the trees. I steered along it to a gully that dropped off the side. I lowered the bike into it and shut off the motor.
I didn’t give myself an instant to hesitate. I had to do this. I didn’t want to. The universe demanded that I do it.
I whipped around and seized her in my arms. I planted my mouth against hers to silence any protest, from her but more so from me. Once I kissed her, the rest unfolded of its own accord.
I pulled her around onto my lap. Her legs slotted over me and I settled her on my hips devouring her mouth for all I was worth. I needed this. I needed her. I needed it all right now if I hoped to survive the rest of the day.
