Reckless Road

by Christine Feehan

  “She’s forgiven me.” He didn’t want Anat to think Zyah was at fault. She wasn’t. Not in any way.

  Player detested these kinds of conversations. He was too restless to stay still in spite of the fact that when he moved around too much, it brought on a migraine. He had to admit, his head was much better—good enough for him to get on his bike and ride the hell away from temptation. He didn’t have illusions when he was awake. Or nightmares.

  “She’s too damn good for a man like me.” He told the truth. Straight up. What was the point of trying to beat around the bush? Anat had some kind of built-in radar for bullshit anyway. “She’s a good woman.”

  Anat shook her head. “Hearing you talk this way makes me sad for you, Player. I thought you were more of a man than that. What you’re saying to me is nothing but an excuse. An old one. Anyone can make such an excuse. Everyone has a past. Something bad that happened to shape who we are. Some more than others.”

  “You have no idea.”

  She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “In the end, it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t because it is in the past. We can only choose to go forward. We can’t change what’s behind us. What was done to us by others, by our parents, by anyone. Even what we did. It is done. We have to live with it. Our responsibility is to move forward and do the best we can, be the best we can.”

  “Nothing is that simple.”

  “Of course it isn’t, and yet it really is, Player. Life is very short. You have the choice to decide whether or not you’re going to blame your past for refusing to take chances. You have to push yourself to become different, to change with the years and grow and learn. No one says it’s easy, but it’s what people do. That’s what we all do. At least most of us. We try. We work at it. We’re never perfect and we make mistakes, but they’re our mistakes and we own those mistakes, and then we have to let them go so we can move on and grow more. That’s just life.”

  Player forced a smile even as he shook his head. “People have these maps their parents gave them. Or grandparents. Or someone. I don’t have anything like that. I don’t know the first thing about a relationship. Not one damn thing, Anat. That would be letting her in for a lifetime of hurt.”

  Anat sighed again. “Perhaps, Player, but then my Zyah knows quite a bit about relationships. She knows what love is, even if you don’t. She is open to learning all the time. You’ve closed yourself off. Where you could have learned from her, you have shut yourself off from happiness. She should back away from the relationship, Player, and I was wrong to push to save it. I see something in you, just as she did. That matters little when you don’t see it in yourself. Using your past as an excuse to stand still is still an excuse to be a coward, Player. I never would have believed that of you. No one can change your life but you. No one can save you but you.”

  Had anyone else called him a coward, Player might have resorted to violence, but he just stood there in shock, wincing at her condemnation. Absorbing every word.

  The door between the garage and the kitchen opened and closed. “Mama Anat? I’m home, safe and sound. Savage and Destroyer escorted me home and scared everyone off just by looking at them.” There was genuine amusement in Zyah’s voice.

  The sound of her laughter always opened up something soft and unexpected in Player he hadn’t realized was in him. He’d thought every part of him was hard, completely closed off to anything human, but somehow Zyah had found a way into that one little piece that was still vulnerable.

  “We’re in here, Zyah. In the bedroom,” Anat called, joy in her voice. “Perhaps you’re right, Player. My Zyah deserves a man willing to fight for her. If you don’t think she’s worth fighting for, then you certainly are not that man.”

  Player opened his mouth to protest. Anat was deliberately misunderstanding him. Zyah was worth fighting for. He had never, not once, implied she wasn’t. Zyah rushed into the room, graceful, her dancer’s body flowing with energy, dark eyes bright, her hair thick and shiny even in the dimmer lights Anat had by the bedside.

  “Did you have a good day, Mama Anat? It was so beautiful outside, I hope you were able to go out. Player, did you take her outside on the back patio?”

  It was one of the few times Zyah addressed him directly unless they were sitting in bed with the lights off. The moment she did speak, the moment she looked at him, her eyes meeting his, he tasted her in his mouth. That perfect blend of subtle jasmine and a rich green floral mimosa. His tongue would forever know that very distinctive cinnamic-honey flavor edged with a cassis-raspberry facet. He wouldn’t have even known what those flavors were had it not been for Alena’s cooking abilities. She had schooled them all in various spices.

  “We spent a couple of hours in the sun, although I made certain we were careful. She wanted to lie out in her bathing suit,” Player said. “I told her it was too soon for that. And there was this man coming around, a Dwayne River. He showed up with an armload of flowers and suddenly she was all about suntanning in her altogether.”

  “Player!” Two spots of color appeared on Anat’s cheeks. “I did not. I just said I didn’t like tan lines. I wanted to put on a bathing suit. And only for an hour. We were out there longer, but I didn’t stay in my suit the entire time.”

  “Mama Anat! You did go in your altogether.” Zyah deliberately misunderstood, her eyes wide with laughter. “A few flowers from that man and you’re back to being a cat woman. I told you sunbathing in the nude was out for a while.”

  Anat made her trilling sound, the one Zyah loved from her childhood.

  “Wait,” Savage said, crowding into the bedroom behind her. He stuck his head in the room, keeping his body behind the door frame. “You really went out sunbathing in the nude because of some man named Dwayne River? Has Code looked into him? We need to have him investigated. He could be a total con man. Or a serial killer. Anat, you’re too trusting. Beautiful women are always too trusting. Look at your granddaughter.”

  “That’s true,” Maestro agreed. “Zyah’s way too trusting.”

  Anat laughed. “All of you are awful. Leave poor Dwayne alone. He’s very nice. He visited me for a little while, but not while I was sunbathing. He makes me laugh. Not nearly the way all of you do. Serial killer?” She rolled her eyes.

  “You never know,” Savage said. “The nicest-looking men usually are the ones that fool you. The ones with bald heads and scars usually are good ones. They come around, and you should just feed them, Anat.”

  Zyah watched her grandmother’s face light up again as she continued laughing. She really loved hearing that laugh. These men. Torpedo Ink. They charmed her. They should be the last ones to be charming, but they were. Both women could see past the dark, swirling violence surrounding them. Sometimes, as in Savage’s case, it was so dark it was nearly impenetrable, but then suddenly, like now, there would be that small little path that led straight to his soul and they both could see the beauty of the man. It ran deep. No one else could see it. He couldn’t see it. But they could. Zyah had come to care for the men. Anat had as well.

  She looked up at Player’s face, and her entire body stilled. Every cell in her body responded to him. His blue eyes were fixed on her. Piercing. Speculative. He was looking at her in a way he hadn’t for the last few weeks. It was both exhilarating and frightening.

  She forced her attention back to her grandmother and Savage. She couldn’t let herself think about Player. Even if he changed his mind. What would be the point? He wanted sex. Off-the-charts sex, but that never lasted long, and she wanted to be loved. And he needed her. That wasn’t the same thing as loving her. She knew what real love was. Player didn’t.

  “Did you really sunbathe, Anat? That might have been too long for you, all joking aside,” Savage said. “I don’t like the idea of you getting a sunburn or hurting your leg.”

  He sounded protective. That was one trait the members of Torpedo Ink—i
ncluding Player—seemed to have in common. Zyah liked them for that as well.

  “I did sunbathe for an hour. The sun is very healing. Player made certain I didn’t jar my leg. He’s very strong.”

  Savage made a perfect replica of Anat’s trilling sound. Perfect. It didn’t sound like a mocking mimic. It sounded as if he had been born and bred in her village. “Don’t tell him he’s strong. He already thinks he’s good-looking.”

  Anat sent Player her lovely grandmother smile. “He is good-looking.”

  Maestro groaned. “Now you’ve gone and done it. We won’t hear the end of it.”

  Savage ignored the byplay. “I think it was smart to sunbathe. Anything to get that healing going. Did Player take off the bandage around his head? Maybe he’ll get his brains back. Got any fresh cookies?” Savage added, getting to his main agenda.

  “Since I was the one making the cookies,” Player said, “no, there aren’t any. At least for you. Stick around for a little while. I’m heading out for a ride.”

  He’d told Anat he was leaving. Now he wasn’t so certain. With Zyah’s scent surrounding him, with her taste in his mouth and breathing her into his lungs, it wasn’t so easy to just walk away from her. He didn’t dare look at the older woman. She would know she’d gotten to him with her reprimand—and she had. He’d never quite looked at things the way she’d laid them out to him. He had a lot to think about, and he thought better on his bike.

  Zyah whirled around to face him. She all but planted her body directly in front of his. “What do you mean you’re going out for a ride?”

  He shrugged casually, pressing his fingers deep into his thigh to keep from tucking stray strands of her dark, flyaway hair behind her ear. “I haven’t been out for a while, and I need to ride. I get restless. I’ll just be gone a short while.”

  “Steele said you shouldn’t try it yet, Player. I heard you ask him last night.” She lifted her chin at him, daring him to call her out for eavesdropping.

  In the last few days, he’d offered to exchange rooms dozens of times, but she said it was too much trouble. Hell, he wanted—even needed—to get out of her bedroom; she was everywhere inside those walls. It was silly, really, to want to exchange rooms, since she came into the bedroom every night. She had to when he had nightmares, when the illusions started and then reality blended with illusion and he was building bombs he’d never seen before. It was just that things in that room that were sacred to her bothered him. Really bothered him.

  He’d spent a great deal of time after he’d taken Anat out in the sun, over two hours, just sitting on the bed, staring at the picture her grandfather had drawn for her grandmother. It was truly a work of art. There was no question about it. The man had painstakingly drawn out every line, and it must have taken him months to complete the work.

  Every time Player looked at the masterpiece, it gave him a headache. The worst part about it was that he felt compelled to look. Zyah talked about it all the time. There was love in her voice when she did. She spoke about the love between Anat and her husband, Horus. There was the signature falcon rising from the drawing, and Zyah had explained that Horus meant “falcon” and that the bird was often drawn into his things.

  Maybe it was because Zyah had such a history of family that Player disliked the charcoal image so much. His own father had allowed Sorbacov to murder his mother right in front of him and sold his son to be used by pedophiles and trained as an assassin.

  Yeah, Player detested that charcoal drawing. He looked at it and saw something else. It actually hurt his eyes and made his head pound and feel like it was coming apart worse than ever. At times, he would rearrange those lines, the wings and whorls, making them into other, much more lethal things, because his mind was really fucked up like that. Worse, there was her father’s beloved frame.

  Player loved his Harley. He loved music. And he loved wood. He had an affinity for it. When he touched the surface of any type of wood, alive or not, he felt the roots going all the way to the earth, deep, connecting him. He could almost hear whispers of the past in the wood. He liked the stories the various types of wood told him. Touching the frame around the picture Zyah’s grandfather had drawn, he’d expected to feel love along with the stories from the tree’s native land. He didn’t feel love at all in that frame, other than the places Zyah had touched. The frame felt sinister and threatening. Even more than the drawing, he found the frame disturbing, but he had no idea why.

  “Player.” Zyah’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Steele said you shouldn’t ride yet.” She was insistent. “Your migraines are too severe and they come on too fast.”

  “Steele said it wasn’t a good idea for me to ride, but he didn’t say not to,” he corrected as gently as possible.

  She was upset, and that was the last thing he expected or wanted. He’d planned on leaving, but now he wanted the time to think. If she was this upset just at the thought of him riding his motorcycle, she was bound to really be upset if he left her house altogether. At least he hoped she would be.

  “He said if a migraine came on, you could have balance issues.” Her hands went to her hips. Her lips pressed together ominously.

  The problem with her belligerent stance was, he found it sexy. Her voice was too smoky, far too sinful and sexy for her to sound as if she was lecturing him. Player also had a very vivid image in his head of those lips wrapped around his cock, which sent that part of his anatomy into a frenzy of activity. Shit. That wasn’t good. Not with them being in her grandmother’s room. He lifted a hand to Anat and slid back into the shadows, inching toward the door.

  “A short ride, Zyah. I just need to clear my head a little.” He began moving again, edging around her, trying to make certain there was no body contact. If he made it to the open road, he could decide if he was going to leave for good or not.

  “Wait a minute. Destroyer, can you stay with my grandmother, make certain she’s safe? I’m going with you, Player.”

  Player’s heart stuttered. He put his hand over his chest and pressed hard. “Baby, you can’t do that. You just got home from work and you’re tired.” He forced his voice to be gentle, to not dictate. She couldn’t ride with him on the motorcycle. It was far too dangerous for either of them, and not in the way she was thinking. She’d resisted every time he’d tried to get her back in the bed with him, and he knew she was trying hard to save herself. He was trying just as hard to save her.

  “No, Player.” She glanced back at her grandmother, placed a hand on his chest and put pressure on him, so either he had to move backward or she would walk right into his arms.

  Player had no problem with taking her into his arms, but not there. Not with her grandmother looking on, or Maestro or Savage, for that matter. What was between them was private and intimate in a way he didn’t want anyone else to see. Their connection didn’t just strip him naked and make him completely vulnerable, it did the same to Zyah as well. He wasn’t allowing that, not even in front of his brothers. He let her walk him backward out of the room.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  Her tone was low. Musical. It vibrated through his body, sending little electrical charges right through his veins straight to his groin. Her hand was still on his chest, and he doubted she was even aware of it, but he was. The heat of it seared him through the material of the tee he was wearing. Her head was thrown back, and more of that thick hair of hers had come loose, so untamable, just like she was.

  “I need to breathe,” he answered honestly. “My head is coming apart, and being so fuckin’ close to you, breathing you in night and day, is turning me inside out.” He caught her hand and slid it down his body to the front of his jeans. “I’ve got to just take a breather, babe. Ride along the highway.”

  She should have pulled her hand away, but she didn’t. She just looked straight into his eyes while her palm curled over his heavy erection. While she
pressed harder and rubbed a caress over him.

  “Don’t you think it’s doing the same thing to me? I’m breathing you in too.” There was an ache in her voice. “Neither one of us knows why you’re continuing to get migraines, Player, but you can’t take chances. I don’t know why you keep going back to building that bomb, but the last time, that bomb was too real. I saw it. It wasn’t filled with some kind of soda, Player. It was real.”

  He had to think. Clear his head. He had to make choices, and one of them was to talk to Czar. He had to let him know the truth about his illusions and what happened when things went wrong. How they were going wrong now. Worse, he had to tell Czar about the things Zyah knew about him. About the club. About his brothers and sisters. He wanted to pound his fists into the wall until they bled. He wanted to pound his cock into Zyah’s body until he stopped hurting so damned bad and he could think with a clear mind.

  “You think I don’t know that? How dangerous I am to you? To your grandmother? To my club? My head is so damn fucked up and I can’t stop what’s happening to me.”

  “I can,” Zyah hissed, for the first time sounding angry. Not loud. Not belligerent. Her voice was still musical, but it took on the tones of an older instrument, a crumhorn. “Not Steele, none of your brothers or sisters. Not a doctor. They can’t heal you or stop what’s happening. I can do that. I’ve been doing it. You’re almost there, and you’re not going to mess it up.”

  She pulled her hand out from under his, away from his pulsing cock, and turned away from him, but not before he caught the glitter of liquid in her eyes. His heart stuttered.

  “Zyah. I swear to you, I know my limitations. I wasn’t going on some suicide run.” Even to himself, his voice didn’t sound sure, because he hadn’t been so certain. He was a danger to her. To her grandmother, to everyone he cared about. He was the most fucked-up human being on the planet.

  He’d learned to build bombs, several different types, but none like the one he’d been building over and over. He was getting good at putting that unknown bomb together. Fast too. He knew the parts now. The order. He was getting faster and faster while the shadowy figure timed him with that pocket watch.