by Lena Bourne
Cross and Hawk share a look, then turn to Ace, who shrugs as though to say, Why not?
“Can we trust her this far?” Cross asks.
“Yes, I’m sure of it,” I say. “She hates them and they tried to kill her. She won’t betray us to them. And if she was gonna go to the cops, she would’ve by now, right?”
Hawk looks at Cross. “I’d rather have as much info as we can get for this job. It’s just pictures she’ll be looking at.”
“All right, as soon as this meeting is over, you’ll take her the photos,” Cross says.
Then him and Hawk continue to ask us questions about every little tiny detail about the town we spent the last two days watching. I’d rather be riding out to see Brenda, much rather. But I’m happy to sit here too, making sure that we’re doing everything we can to plan this job thoroughly so that we lose no more brothers to it.
Sunrise finds me on my bike, my hair wet from the shower I absolutely had to take before going to see Brenda, because I’m not at all sure how happy she’d be to see me smelling like I’ve just spent two days and nights lying in the dirt. In my saddlebags, I have two fat manila envelopes filled with photos I’m to show Brenda. One contains just the close-ups of the men, and the other a bunch of photos of the women too, which Hawk thought it’d be a good idea if she looked at too, just to rule out the possibility that the feds are using female agents. It’s pretty absurd if they are, given that the Sinners are a very man’s man kinda club, but Hawk was of the opinion we might as well check everything thoroughly.
The parking lot in front of the motel is empty when I ride up. I shouldn’t be leaving Brenda alone here day and night. It’s not a good place for a woman alone. Why the hell didn’t I think of that before?
It’s because I came here thinking just with my cock each and every time I’ve spent the night, and once I got that taken care of, all I could think about was the next time I could. She deserves better.
I knock on her door and she opens before I’m even done with it. She must’ve seen me coming, but that’s not happiness to see me on her face. Her eyes are shooting blue flames and her otherwise very nicely shaped, plump lips are an almost non-existent thin line.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I couldn’t call.”
She steps aside so I can enter, then slams the door once I’m inside. “What else is new?”
She stalks off and sits on the edge of the bed, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. I had every intention of kissing her the moment I saw her, and then taking those kisses to all those places we didn’t get to visit the last time I was here, but I feel like I’m taking another very cold shower under that fiery gaze of hers.
“I told you, I’m needed by my club right now,” I tell her. “I’d much rather be here with you all the time, but I can’t right now. How many times do I gotta explain that to you?”
“What would you say if I said I’m gonna take off? Go back to Vegas, see my mom, visit Stormi?” she snaps.
“If that’s what you want,” I say. “But I’d prefer it if you stayed, and then I’ll take you to do all those things as soon as I can.”
“I want to believe you, I really do, but at the end of the day, I’m all alone here, and you don’t even call me when you say you’re gonna,” she says.
I have no idea what more to say or how to convince her. I do know I absolutely do not want her to just disappear from here. I’m afraid I’ll never see her again if she leaves now.
I hold out the two envelopes I’m holding. “Could you look at these pictures and see if they’re all Sinners, that no one’s out of place?”
I’m pulling out the wad that’s just the guys, and what I look up at her face I very nearly take a step back from the cold anger on her face.
“You just came here to use me in more of your murdering schemes?” she snaps, speaking much too loudly given the thinness of the walls in this place. “That’s all you really care about, isn’t it? It’s not me at all, just what I can do for you?”
I drop both the envelopes, the photos flying everywhere, and close the distance between us, pulling her to her feet by her elbows, before I’m even fully aware of what I’m doing. Then I grab the back of her head and kiss her like I should’ve done the moment I walked in here. Like I should’ve never stopped the last night we were together. Like I’ve never kissed a woman before. Not even her.
I want her for her. And damn it, if words aren’t enough to show her that, then I’ll show her.
She fights me at first, her fists jabbing me in the chest as she tries to push me away. But she’s not trying very hard. And before long she slides her hands around my back and pulls me close, kissing me back just as eagerly, hungrily, and deeply as I’m kissing her. We’ve only been apart for two days, but it feels like an eternity and we have to make up for it right away. Not that we ever can.
Brenda
I woke up in the black darkness just before dawn, the time when the whole world sleeps the deep sleep. I couldn’t get back to sleep. All my past mistakes, bad choices, and fuck ups kept popping up in my mind, not least of which leading Josh to his death at the hands of the Sinners over a measly twenty grand split three ways. All because I chose him to take me away from Monarch and the Kings after I grew bored with the old man. Leaving my mom in a nasty, decrepit home because it was what I could afford easily and couldn’t bear to face her glassy-eyed stare each time I visited. I stopped visiting her long before I left. Chasing away my best friend in the whole world—Stormi—who after a lifetime of knowing me couldn’t even tell me to my face that she was leaving. Leaving me behind with the Sinners. Who tried to kill me because of it.
On and on like that my mind whirled, my thoughts stretching between guilt, remorse, regret, anger, and rage. Cycling endlessly. There was no place for love in all of that roiling pile of shit, yet the sweet current of soft flowing sweetness—the river knowing Colt showed me deep inside—was there constantly. Faint and vague, but clearly recognizable, clearly felt.
Despite it, I decided to leave. So when I saw him ride into the parking lot, I stifled the butterflies in my stomach and forced all the happiness from my heart, focusing only on how to send him packing in the swiftest way possible.
It was going according to plan.
I was saying my piece, successfully ignoring the growing alarm and pain in his eyes.
Then he kissed me.
Deep and hard, like a drowning man holding onto a raft that’s his last chance of survival.
Our survival.
I fight it. But there’s no standing against the soft, flowing river of sweetness as it starts rushing and rising, becoming a deep sea fed by his kiss, as his tongue joining mine, tying us together.
The waves rise and crash and wash away all the darkness that’s been plaguing me since early this morning, leaving only sweet, soft love behind. Only the need to enjoy this moment, this man, this tsunami of love and worry about nothing else exists as he tears off the shirt I wore to bed and lays me down on my back on sheets still warm and crumpled from my tossing and turning. They’re about to get even more crumpled, and I can’t wait.
I watch him remove his clothes, watch his perfect, strong, solid body come into view. By the time he finally joins me in bed, I’m so ready for more kisses that my whole body was tingling with the anticipation of that bliss.
He doesn’t disappoint, kissing me forehead to knees and everything in between before finally pulling down my panties and settling on my clit. The tingles of pleasure washing through me turn to sparks, then tiny flames as his tongue and lips and teeth bring me to the very edge of madness—the kind I wouldn’t mind enduring forever.
My whole body is still throbbing from the orgasm his lips gave me, my body still in throes of bliss, as he slides his massive cock into my pussy, causing the smoldering coals of the last flames of pleasure to rise high again and consume me in their searing licks as another orgasm ravages me. It’s so strong and powerful, I see nothing but flame and feel not
hing, but pleasure so raw and strong, I forget how to breathe.
He’s still thrusting into me as that red, hot pleasure subsides, his breaths jagged, his cock filling me to the hilt. I meet the thrusts with my own, offering all I am to him, ride him as he rides me, our need for each other, for the pleasure only the two of us can give each other, equal and balanced, and so vast it fills the entire world.
His groans grow faster, keeping time with his thrusts and I try to fight it, try to prolong this new rising wave of pleasure from consuming me, I can’t.
We come at the same time, him buried deep inside me, joined so seamlessly there’s no dividing line between my pleasure and his, my orgasm and his.
It lasts and lasts, the roiling sea of passion and lust and desire and love only very slowly receding to the softly flowing river that can erode all, even the darkest thoughts, even the most terrible mistake, even the most heinous acts.
He’s caressing my hair, sliding it back from my face and behind my ear as he hovers over me, leaning on one elbow. Tiny sparkling things, fairies quite possibly, are floating around us, encircling us. I don’t want to be anywhere but right here. I don’t think I ever did.
“I think I’m in love with you,” he whispers, the words entering not through my ears but directly through my heart, swelling the river of sweet softness, making it thick and opaque.
Never has a guy said that to me and meant it. He means it. I know it in every cell in my body.
“I love you too,” I whisper back.
Never have I meant those words when I spoke them. But I meant them with everything I am at this moment.
He leans down and kisses me, and the flickering, multicolored sparkles stay with me as I close my eyes, and fall back into the thick, warm river of sweetness, the river that is our love. I don’t even have to look to trust that it will catch me. Always.
Colt
The glaring, hot sun wakes me from the most pleasant nap I remember taking ever in my life. Brenda’s breathing deeply, her perfect chest rising and falling evenly, her long dark hair spread across the pillow like something out of a fairytale. I could just watch her sleep and be content.
But as things stand, my stomach’s constricting in panic and I’m afraid to check the time. I wasn’t supposed to take all day with this visit. I wasn’t even supposed to take half a day.
I check my watch, relieved that it’s only one PM. We still have a little time.
“Brenda,” I whisper right into her ear. “Wake up.”
She stirs and opens her eyes, looking confused and disoriented like a doe, her deep blue eyes innocent and sparkling.
“I should go soon,” I add.
All the innocence vanishes from her eyes as they narrow at me. She rises, cursing as her elbow snags a lock of her lock hair in her haste to be up and glaring at me.
“Just like that?” she asks.
“Can you look at the pictures first?” I ask, refusing to get sucked back into the conversation we started this visit with. I showed her and told her all that she needs to know about the way things are between us. She understood. We don’t need to waste any more of the little time we have arguing.
“Can you take me to lunch first?” she counters, her eyes still blazing, but in a softer way. She knows what I know. “Somewhere nice. I’m starving and I’m sick of this plain old room.”
Arguing would waste time. Time I’d rather spend looking at her face and talking about more pleasant things. Or just share a silence. Or eating. I could eat, all I had to eat for the last two days are sandwiches in various stages of going bad from being out in the heat.
“You got it,” I say and grin at her.
“Good,” she says and gives me one of those perfect smiles of her, the ones that are equal parts pure happiness and wicked desire, and I dare any man to stay cool and collected when faced with it. “But shower first.”
She leaps off the bed, takes my hand, and pulls me after her to the bathroom.
And once she starts lathering up my whole body, including my hair with her soft, deft hands, I lose all track of time again. And all desire to regain it. Ever. I lose all worry over how I’m gonna explain how long I took getting the info. What comes, comes. It is not now. It is not this perfect woman touching me in ways no woman has ever touched me, making me feel things I’ve never felt before. Things like wholeness, belonging, finding something you lost. Something without which life really is not worth living.
19
Colt
The late afternoon sun is beating at my back and blinding me through my rearview mirrors as I ride back to the bunker, with all the information I needed and more.
Brenda recognized every one of the guys and even wrote out their names and what they most likely did for the club after she found my own chicken-scratch handwriting wanting. Her words, not mine. But accurate.
She was more reluctant to tell me the women’s names but did so after I assured her that whatever happens, none of them will be harmed. We’re only after the men, the ones who would sell us all out to gain an advantage for themselves. Kill or be killed. That’s our world. That’s everyone’s world. It’s just more obvious in ours.
“I don’t enjoy it,” I told her. “But I’ll do what I must to protect what’s mine.”
She gave me a lingering, soft-eyed look when I said it, that seemed to last an eternity and more.
Then she told me the names and places of all the women, including the two that somehow didn’t make it onto the photos.
I’m confident now that this job won’t take more than a night. Maybe two. One for planning, one for execution.
And I told her as much, before I left, when she got all cold and prissy again, before melting into my arms as I kissed her goodbye and then waving me off from the doorway of the motel room.
It will take me a lifetime to figure out her mood shifts and what goes on behind those pretty, midnight-blue eyes of hers. And I’m more than willing to give it.
Brenda
I was of two minds as I let him go and watched him ride off, and they were at war with each other. Anger and frustration crashing against understanding and love. Love confessed. Love expressed. Love shown.
It won out.
The sheets were wonderfully crumpled and smelled of him as I lay down in the spot he woke me up earlier to still my racing heart and quell the last flames of my frustration at things being as they are. At having to wait for him.
Wait while he does murder.
Murder I assisted in by giving him the names of those who must die.
Those who killed Josh and tried to kill me too. In spirit, they almost succeeded. In body, Colt saved me.
And now he’s ridden off to get his revenge and mine. And mine. That’s all I need to know.
Mine and Josh’s and Stormi’s.
I bet she’s at home with her sister. Where else would she be? Especially since Ace is here.
Her home phone number is one I’ll never forget for as long as I live. I’ve dialed it at least five thousand times growing up. More rarely later as we started drifting apart, but my fingers don’t even falter as I dial it now.
“Hello,” she answers breathily. That’s how she always answered the phone, because she was always scared it’d be bad news about her sister, or her missing mother, or her old grandmother. Just as I was always scared it’d be bad news about my mom, or her sister, or Stormi herself. We found each other in fear and pain, connected through it, made bonds that can’t be severed by either distance or anger.
“It’s me,” I say.
She inhales deeply and holds her breath. “Brenda, are you OK? I’m so sorry for leaving the way I did. Did you get my note? Ace said you got out. That you’re OK. Why didn’t you call sooner? I’m so sorry.”
Typical Stormi. Talking a mile a minute and jumping all over the place.
“No. I’m sorry for being such a bitch to you,” I say. “I understand why you didn’t tell me you were leaving, I totally do—”
/> “I just had to get out…but they caught me before I got on the bus. They were gonna kill me and Ace, and I just prayed you got my note and escaped,” she says, my head spinning with all this new information and fear and horror it brings.
“A guy from Ace’s real MC got me out,” I say. “Just in time too, they were gonna have Crow kill me. You know, the scary, greasy-haired guy with the dead eyes? He was gonna cut me up.”
Her breath hitches in her throat. “Fuck! But you’re safe now?”
“Yes,” I say. “Safe and in love.”
I can hear her smile in the way she exhales. “Really? You? In all these years we’ve known each other, I never heard you say that.”
“Yes, really, me. His name is Colt, and he’s in the same MC as Ace, and there’s absolutely nothing I want from him except him,” I say and laugh and she laughs with me and for the first time in forever it seems, we have good news to share. A lifetime of it, if I’ll have any say in it. And I mean to have a say in it.
I hear the rumbling of a Harley outside, faint at first, but growing unmistakably louder.
“My man’s come back now,” I say with a wide grin on my face. “I gotta go. But I’ll call you back soon.”
“OK,” she says and something else which I don’t hear because I’ve already hung up as I rush to open the door.
Colt’s changed his mind about leaving me all alone here. Good. It was about time.
I was gonna tell him that to his face, but the words die on my tongue as I open the door. And come face to face with Monarch. His dark brown eyes are hard as steel and the grey in his beard and along his temples is more pronounced than I remember it. His face is angrier and scarier than I’ve ever seen it.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding, princess,” he says, the softness of his voice the complete opposite of the hate in his eyes.