Ink: Devil’s Nightmare MC

by Bourne, Lena

  “Alright, here’s the plan,” he says to me. “As I understand the situation, you have unresolved grudges with them over what they did to your woman this morning, and for what they did to your father and the men in your uncle’s MC. Hawk’ll find out where they are, then you, Ice and a couple of the others will go there and you’ll start a fight. Ace will help them out. How many guys do you want with you?”

  “I could take those two on my own, so Ice and me will be plenty,” I say. “And they like to go to The Nowhere on their own to prove how tough they are. They’re constantly trying to prove that, because they never do.”

  Too much talking again. I should just let him speak.

  “Alright, we won’t strike until we have them somewhere alone,” he says. “You can go now. But Ink, not a word of this to anyone.”

  He glares at me and I nod, swallowing hard.

  “That includes your brother and your woman,” he adds, and I nod again, more like I mean it this time.

  “And stay reachable at all times,” he adds. “That means you pick up the phone even while you’re fucking, and you’re ready to ride at all times.”

  I hope I’m not blushing like a little girl right now, but I’m afraid I am. Tank and Ice’s harsh laughter clearly suggests so, anyway.

  “Got it. At all times and no matter what, I pick up the phone,” I say, thanking the heavens my voice isn’t all shrill and girly too. “I won’t let you down again,” I add, because I mean it and I need him to know it.

  No one laughs this time.

  “I’m counting on it,” Cross tells me then dismisses me again with a curt nod.

  A part of me wants to stay right here, close to call and ready to do what he needs done by me the moment it happens. I meant what I said. I won’t let him down again.

  But he doesn’t really expect me to go that far in proving my loyalty, and the rest of me needs to see Julie. To hold her, kiss her, and make her believe I’ll never let her down again either.

  25

  Julie

  All day, I’ve been trying so hard to not think about being in danger, or my dad being in danger, or Ink being in danger, or his mom, that my mind has pretty much been blank. Two of the men Ink’s brother sent to watch over us are in the kitchen, talking loud and gruff as they eat. Two more are outside. We’re safe here. No one’s come looking for us and there’s been no word that they might or that anyone’s been attacked or hurt. There’s been no word from Ink either, which is the main thing I’m trying to avoid thinking about. If I think about it then I’ll get angry at him, and after how scared I was for him this morning, I don’t want to be angry at him anymore.

  His mom quickly caught on that we’ve had a fight without me having to tell her outright. She doesn’t know I was in the process of leaving him forever this morning, but I’m more than happy to keep that to myself forever. She didn’t ask any questions. All she said on the topic was, “He means well, but he’s bad at showing it. He’s always been like that. But I know he loves you very much.”

  I nodded and didn’t respond, because I already know that. In my heart of hearts I’ve always known it. All my thinking that he’s been lying to me about loving me was just a way to disengage from him, a way to find the strength to leave the pain behind. It was never something I truly believed.

  When the sound of a bike starts growing louder outside, then stops abruptly in front of the house I don’t think much of it. MC members have been coming and going all day, some to relieve our guards, some just to see how Ink’s mom was doing. Most of them ignored me. This one’s probably here to relieve that one guy who’s been here all day. It’s been a long day. It’s almost time for the sun to set.

  But my heart still starts beating faster as the sound of boots thudding against the wooden porch floor reach us. Josie sits up straight on the sofa where we’ve been watching TV all afternoon and looks over her shoulder at the door. There’s an expectant look on her face, but fear is plain on it too, and her breaths are coming fast and shallow. I know what she’s thinking. This could be a guard change, it could be a social visit, or it could be someone coming to tell us that the worst has happened. That someone’s dead. That Ink is dead. I’m suddenly not sure if I’m breathing at all.

  The door opens and Ink’s standing there. He glances and nods at his mom, but then his eyes fix on me, swallowing me, pulling me closer, inviting me into his arms, making me his. I can hardly resist running to him, it’s taking all I have to do it, and I’m not even sure why I am resisting. His mom lets out a relieved breath I’m sure she’s been holding, stands up and mutters something about letting the two of us talk before going into the kitchen.

  The silence and distance between us is filled to the brink with all the things I want to say to him, need to say to him. But mostly it’s filled with my love for him. Anger is just a whisper at the edge of my thoughts. So is fear. I stand up slowly, though I’m not sure I’m going to walk to him just yet.

  “Hi, Julie,” he says, smiling sheepishly. So simple. So effective. Why does he have this pull on me? Why is every time I see him exactly like the first time I fell in love with him? The first time I knew I could love him forever. Is it the same for him? How can it be, if he keeps abandoning me?

  “You didn’t call,” I blurt out, not really sure if I mean today, or before.

  “Wanna go for a ride?” he asks instead of acknowledging my question.

  A ride? Another thing that’s so simple and so effective. It’s the perfect way to ease me away from being angry back to just loving him. And he knows that. He knows it very well.

  “We should talk,” I say.

  He nods. “Yeah, I know. We will.”

  I hurt him the last time we saw each other. He’s trying to hide it, but I see it in his stance and in his eyes. There’s a tinge of doubt in them that I haven’t seen in years and years, not since the very beginning of our relationship. Not since the first time I told him I loved him. He wants to close the distance between us and hug me, but he thinks maybe he shouldn’t, that maybe I’ll push him away if he tries. I get all that from his stance, and shame over how I acted the last time I saw him, over how I rejected the ring, fills me to the point of choking. Along with regret. And anger. And a thousand other feelings that don’t mix well together. Like love. So much pure love.

  “A ride would be nice,” I say and start walking towards him.

  Nice is an understatement. A ride would be perfect, and in this moment I know we both know it.

  We can talk, we will talk, but right now we don’t have to. We just have to be together and feel the love we share. That’s always been enough. I forgot that. No, I didn’t forget. I tried to ignore it and pretend it wasn’t the truth. Now I have to stop pretending, I have to remember all the love we have and could have, before words cut it down again.

  * * *

  As always, I feel windswept and brand new after our ride, my thoughts clean and clear, unburdened by anything except the truth of our love I feel deep in my heart. The only truth I should know. We’ve stopped on a wild cliff overlooking the ocean. We sat down close together and just watched the shimmering water before us for a long time. First the setting sun colored it in a glorious, but busy pattern of red and yellow, orange and purple, white and blue that no human mind can ever recreate exactly. It’s still light out, but it won’t be for long. The sea is grey now, but still reflecting the last of the day’s light. Once the moon rises the rippling waves will shine silver all the way from here to the horizon. We haven’t spoken yet.

  I know he’s sorry, I know he doesn’t want to be anywhere else but here with me, I feel all that, and I know he wants to tell me so, but he’s afraid I’ll tell him what I told him the last time. I won’t, though my anger at him is still clinging to the shadowy edges of my mind, and my resolve to leave him and everything else behind isn’t gone yet. It’s faded and distant, but still almost as strong as when I made the decision to leave. If I speak, all that will come out. I don’t wa
nt that to happen just yet.

  Yes. A voice in my mind keeps saying. Once I become aware of it, I also know what it is—the answer to his question, to his proposal. But it’s too early to say that, far too early.

  “How can I ever really trust you again?” I ask, my voice hoarse from disuse. If my question surprised him, it doesn’t show on his face, or in his deep green eyes. I can see the forest in them, that beautiful green and calm place that I had hoped to visit and get lost in again and again on the road to the future that would last forever and be all our own.

  He takes a while to answer my question. There is no good answer, and we both know that. “I know I haven’t exactly given you much reason to trust me. Not lately, anyway.”

  He pauses and I figure it’s to take a breath and get his thoughts in order to speak, but it also helps the meaning behind the words he has already spoken take root in my mind. Not lately, no, but before I trusted he’d be by my side forever and that trust never wavered. Even after the initial whirlwind of being in love lessened in intensity, I always knew he was mine just as deeply as I knew I’d always be his.

  He clears his throat, his eyes growing sharper and clearer. “First, I left you to try and save my family. Then I left you again to answer to my new family. I didn’t have much of a choice in either of those things, but the only thing all of that showed me is that you are my true family. It’s not that I took you for granted. It’s that I believed you’d always be there.” His voice cracks, his eyes turning very soft all of a sudden, the green in them running like a deep, wild river. He’s not just telling me this, he’s also asking my forgiveness, begging me to understand. “Julie, if I could take back all I did to hurt you, I would. And I understand if you want to be done with me, I deserve it. I’ll never be OK with it, and I’ll never stop regretting the things I did to cause it, but I’ll let you go, if that’s what you want.”

  Only he can talk about leaving me and still make it sound—make it feel—like he’ll never leave me, no matter what. His words cut deep into my already wounded heart until I realized that. Then it mended.

  Maybe we’ve said enough. Maybe we don’t really need to talk. Maybe we just need to let our love flow and envelop us. Words can’t really describe it anyway.

  “I’ll give you one more chance,” I say sternly, and he narrows his eyes at me, sensing there’s more to it than that. There is.

  “I’ll probably give you even more chances after that,” I add more softly. “Because families are forever and families forgive. So you better work harder not to hurt me again, if you really don’t want to do that, and if all you said isn’t just words. Because it really hurts bad when you leave me.”

  The soft smile on his lips is calming the river in his eyes, warming it, inviting me to take a dip. He doesn’t say anything, just kisses me, locking his lips on mine in that perfect fit that is us, and I realize he’s been waiting to kiss me for a long time, probably since we saw each other last, maybe since before, way before. I’ve been waiting too. Hoping and wishing and dreaming about it, and this kiss is the answer to all that, and so much better than the best dream.

  It starts out deep and wild, since it’s the product of the burning passion we have for each other that’s been kept in check for too long. But soon it becomes more delicate, reflecting the love we found at the other side of all that wild passion. The love that will never fade, didn’t fade even after I spent a year wishing and praying it finally would.

  The kiss soon turns to more. We’re in a spot where few people come. It’s one of our secret spots, one of the ones we discovered long ago, when our passion still burned brighter than even our love, and it was best we weren’t seen together around town. We couldn’t stay apart for long though, so we found places where we wouldn’t be seen.

  I help him take off his t-shirt, and he helps me out of mine. Then my jeans button gives him trouble after he has no problem unbuckling the belt of his. I giggle and stand to do it myself, peeling them off slowly, basking in the passionate hunger in his eyes as he watches me undress. That look is hotter than the midday sun, but it doesn’t burn. It just feeds the flames of our passion until they’re so high they obscure everything else.

  I take off my bra and panties slowly too. By then, his cock is rock hard and pulsing, and I want to taste it, but I want him inside me more. I straddle his hips and push him down to the ground, the flames of passion in his eyes growing hotter, more dangerous. We’re in the throes of it now, in the deep, hot center of our love and our connection. Yes, it’s a dangerous place. But only because it is stronger and more important than anything else. I wouldn’t leave it for anything right now. I can’t believe I ever thought I could.

  I dig my nails into the hard muscles of his chest as his cock slides into me, hitting all the right spots inside me on the first pass. More to come. More hunger, more passion, more bliss. This epicenter of the burning love we share goes deeper yet, and as his thrusts get faster and more urgent, it opens, pulling everything I am in.

  We blend together here, him thrusting, me receiving, the world swirling around us in a whirlwind of colors, sounds, sights, scents and textures as we become one. All is just passion. The one we make, the one that shapes us, the center and core of our love.

  We’re both consumed by it as we race to the climax, to the very center of it. I need to feel it all, I need to feel the absolute full scope of our passion and love now, yet it keeps retreating into the depths, always just out of my reach. That’s how deep our love goes.

  But soon the bliss and pure pleasure of our joining, of my search for the deepest depth of our love is too much for my mind and my body to handle. Waves upon hot waves of my orgasm hit me, licking my skin, soaking my soul, lapping against me hot and wild, yet perfect in all their fury.

  We’re both breathing hard, floating on the slowly receding waves of the love that’s engulfing us now that the flames of passion are spent. Just like always. Just like it was always meant to be.

  I’m lying on top of him, no part of my body pressing against the gravelly, rocky ground beneath us. He’d took that discomfort for us like he always did, wouldn’t dream of it being the other way around. I’ll clean the pebbles off his back later, and I’ll kiss the dents I know they made in his skin, making everything better.

  His phone starts ringing, startling us both. It’s the far end of twilight, and the wind blowing in from the ocean is suddenly very cold.

  “I have to get that,” he says and reaches for the phone, bringing it to his ear, with no more explanation to me than that.

  “Yeah, I’ll be there,” he tells whoever called and hangs up.

  He’s looking at me very seriously, but that’s determination in his eyes, not apology. Regret too. But not remorse.

  “There’s something I have to do for my MC tonight,” he says, sitting up with me in his arms and letting me sit in his lap until I decide to stand up on my own. What if I don’t? What if I try to stop him from leaving me with my body?

  “This is something I have to do, Julie,” he says softly, like he heard me speak the questions. Regret is still strong in his voice, but so is determination.

  I take a deep breath, stiffening to speak, but he chuckles faintly to interrupt, and locks eyes with me until I’m entirely in his grasp, body, soul and mind.

  “I know what you’re gonna say, and I know you’re angry right now,” he says. “But I heard what you said before. I know you gave me your heart to keep safe and I will. I swear it.”

  He listened and he understood. I already knew he did, but having it confirmed in words always helps.

  “Answering that call and leaving right now is me doing exactly that,” he adds. “Do you understand?”

  I kiss him softly, because, yes, I do understand, but words often fail me, and I don’t want them to now.

  “Yes,” I whisper the word that’s been on my mind all evening. No, it’s been on my mind longer than that…ever since he asked me to be his wife yesterday.

/>   When he comes back from wherever he has to go tonight, I’ll tell him that’s the question I was actually answering.

  26

  Ink

  I dropped Julie off at my mom’s where a couple of guys from my uncle’s MC are still keeping watch. She’ll be as safe as she can be there.

  My heart froze and damn near shattered when I saw her get a suitcase from her car. Those weren’t just angry, cold words she flung at me when we spoke in the parking lot of her place. She meant them, and she planned to leave town. Leave me behind. That’s what I drove her to. She’s always had my heart. When she gave me hers before, I didn’t tell her that, mostly because I was sure she already knows it. But now I’m not so sure she does. I mean, she was leaving town. But I meant what I told her and I mean it even harder now. I’ll never willingly hurt her again.

  There was no time to talk about any of that, so I just carried her suitcase to the porch then kissed her, nodded at the guys watching us, then waited until she was safely inside before riding off. I’m gonna meet whatever Cross has planned head on, hoping it won’t prove to be a thing that will break Julie’s heart. My own is safely with her, so I’ll do whatever it takes to get back to her. I’ll do anything it takes.

  * * *

  Julie

  The house is quiet and dark as I enter, but a looming shadow in the living room grunts a hello at me, the fright making my heart race in my throat, before I realize he’s one of the guys who are here to keep me safe. My breathing is almost back to normal once I reach the upstairs landing.

  “Is everything alright?” Josie asks behind me, scaring me for the second time tonight.

  She’s standing in the open doorway of her bedroom, which was closed a second ago when I passed it.

  I nod, then clear my throat to speak, since I know she wants more information than that. “I think so. Ink didn’t say much, but he’s sure we don’t have anything to worry about, that we’re safe.”