Axe scrambled to play catch up with what had just gone down between them. There was nothing gentle in him. His demons made him dangerous. He knew that from experience. He could only bottle them up for so long before they exploded. Tonight they had made Angel the inadvertent object of their fury. And now she was getting ready to sign up for another dream-phase blitz attack?
“Is flirting with death a thing for you?” he asked without a sliver of humor.
“You’re not the only person in the world who’s seen shit. Now get on that couch and tell me what happened. I need my beauty sleep.”
He wasn’t sure why he returned to sit on the couch, and he sure as hell had no idea why his mouth started moving, relating an abridged version of the night his parents died. Angel had that effect on him. All he knew was that he followed her voice and somewhere deep down, it was easier to do that with her. Somewhere along the line, he closed his eyes. The last thing he was fully aware of was a blanket getting thrown over his legs and chest before he zoned out.
For the first time in his life, Axe woke up and was not terrified out of his ever-loving mind. He blinked up at the cracked, water-stained ceiling. Yes, this was still the sofa, but at the moment, his head was not on the pillow. No, he was resting his head on Angel’s lap. How did she manage to get over here while he slept? Did he even want to move? She must have had the most awkward and uncomfortable last few hours of rest to have fallen asleep sitting up with his big, heavy noggin weighing her down. And now, he was probably about to wake her up just by raising his head. That alone made it a morning of firsts.
Axe smirked at the thought. Fuck, everything was starting off backward today. He rubbed his eyes, and noticed that he wasn’t jittery or off-kilter as he usually was on mornings. Taking a chance, he carefully lifted off Angel’s lap to sit up. She didn’t stir, so he got up, stretched, and went to the bathroom feeling not too shabby. As he stepped into the shower, he had to acknowledge the obvious truth. There was only one reasonable explanation for his first good night sleep in ages, and it had everything to do with the woman on the other side of this closed bathroom door. It didn’t help that all this hot water slicking over his skin only made him ache for her to be in here with him again, with her sweet warmth wrapped around him.
Axe huffed out a breath, blowing a blast of shower water from his lips. Was this how it was going to be now? Would his body and mind live on completely independently of his own control, utterly connected to Angel, submitting to this force between them? The idea scared the hell out of him. One small part of his brain was tempted to jump into that crappy minivan, get to his bike, and ride until this place was a distant memory. Not his bear, though. His inner animal was not going anywhere without Angel. She was not just any smoking hot curvy woman—she was his.
Stepping out of the shower, he toweled himself off and brushed his teeth. They had a few hours’ drive ahead of them. While he got dressed, he ticked off reasons in his head why it wasn’t a good idea to kiss her on the forehead before he left to get them breakfast. Then he dismissed the idea altogether. Smiling, he jotted down a short note on the motel scratch pad on the night table in case Angel woke up, slid on his leather cut, and left.
Fuck, he was getting soft. Angel’s suggestion about counseling was starting to sound real smart, if only to get over this newer, weaker, more pathetic side of him, instead of addressing his childhood trauma.
14
Angel
Angel woke up to the sensation of pins and needles all the way from her thighs down to her toes. She opened her eyes. Right. She was the one who had made the idiot move by resting Axe’s head on her lap as he dozed off on the sofa. He wasn’t resting on her anymore, but she could barely feel her legs right now. With a yawn and a stretch of her arms, she leaned forward to check whether Axe was in the bathroom. Nope. The place was way too quiet. Assuming he was outside stretching his legs or something, she pushed off the sofa and did a half-limp tiptoe duck walk on her numb legs to grab a change of clothes from her bag.
She noticed his note on the nightstand and rolled her eyes at the three rules he added to the bottom. Like she would open the door for a stranger, take a phone call, or use the handgun he left in the side drawer for anything other than self-preservation.
Shaking her head, she found a fresh pair of underwear, a t-shirt and some jeans, and got into the bathroom. After taking her sweet time to shower, get dressed and organize the room a bit, she was bored. She paced back and forth on the dingy carpet, combing her fingers through her hair to keep her hands busy. What was she supposed to do with herself now that Axe was off doing his badass biker meets tortured soul meets white knight thing? She wondered how he felt after getting that tragically horrific story from his childhood off his chest.
That reminded her to take a closer look at how much damage he had done to her neck. She headed back to the tiny bathroom mirror and popped up on her tiptoes. Okay, so there was redness and bruising. She looked like she either had a run-in with an abusive boyfriend, or had a one-night stand with someone who was really into giving hickeys. Or with someone who got off from choking the crap out of a sexual partner until said partner was within an inch of his or her life. She had been with all three types at one time or another. Got the t-shirts and wasn’t ever going back down that road.
This mark on her neck was different.
Even if she and Axe weren’t anything more than casual partners and fugitives from mutual would-be attackers, he was different. He was honest. And he gave a damn. She could actually see them becoming close friends after all this hiding out drama was over.
Friends with a heck of a lot of benefits.
While she was in the bathroom, she gave herself something to do. Looping up her hair into a nearly perfect fishtail braid, she snapped a hairband around it and returned to the bed. Time still ticked away and no Axe. She found the handgun he’d left in the drawer. This was not the first time she’d held a firearm, but she didn’t like them at all. With a quick test of the safety and examination of the clip, she put it on the counter beside Axe’s note. Boredom was a hell of a dangerous thing. She found her cell phone and cursed. No sim card. She started scheming. Although Axe had disabled it, she could still swipe it on, put in her password and see a few numbers from her contact list. She looked at the motel phone. A call to her job couldn’t hurt. And to her neighbors to see how her dogs were doing.
Before Angel could scroll through her contact list, she noticed some movement out of the corner of her eye. Her head snapped to the front door. Someone had slipped a folded sheet of paper under the door. If this were a decent hotel and they were about to check out, she would have thought nothing of it. The four and five-star hotel chains customarily slipped a paper copy of departing hotel patrons’ final bill under their door as a rule. Here at a seedy low-end dive motel, though, that document had to be something else.
For a second, she didn’t want to know. Her stomach dropped. Maybe the message was for Axe, but even if it were, the implications would affect both of them. Perhaps the panthers had figured out where they were. She tilted her head to one side in confusion. What kind of dumbass idea was her oxygen-deprived brain coming up with? No murder-loving pursuer would be so courteous and amateur as to leave a note instead of breaking down the door to finish the job. Unless this was a warning from someone on their side.
Angel didn’t dare take the chance opening the door to look around outside. Hustling over there, she secured the door chain lock, yanked up the paper and scurried back to the bed within arm’s reach of the Glock. She scanned the fancy custom letterhead centered at the top of the page. This was the motel’s letterhead? It was elegant for such a dump. She shrugged one shoulder and kept reading. The gist of the note was that their credit card didn’t go through for the room payment and the owner was demanding cash now or they would have to leave in less than an hour before he called the police.
Except Axe did not look like the type of guy who flashed plastic around to pay for
seedy motels. He was sure to have paid in cash last night. None of this made any sense. Either way, this note gave her the chills. If Axe didn’t walk in that door within ten minutes, she would pack her shit and find somewhere else to go before whoever came back. She thought about phoning Axe, but she didn’t have his number. That in itself spoke volumes.
She wondered whether the note was a ploy to get them out of the hotel room. If it were, the motel owner must have been involved. Or maybe he was threatened.
Christ! This paranoid line of thinking was driving her insane.
Convincing herself it was nothing at all, she crumpled the note into a ball and threw it across the room. She waited for what felt like forever until she figured out no one was going to knock on the door—or smash it down with a battering ram. Still, every time she heard a sound outside, she went on high alert and clutched her fingers around the gun.
The doorknob rattled.
“Angel, it’s me.” Thank God it was Axe. “If you’ve got the gun out, lower it now and don’t shoot me in the face, okay?”
“Coming,” she called out, blowing out a breath as she opened the door. “I’m so glad you’re back. What took you so long?”
“Good morning.” Axe came through the door and shut it with a decisive click. He handed her a cup of coffee from the cardboard tray he was carrying and took a seat on the sofa. “Rounding up breakfast took a while,” he told her, stuffing his hand into the brown paper bag he had also brought in.
“Okay. By any chance, did you see anyone leaving the parking lot, or anything weird, or maybe even dangerous?”
He stopped dead, halfway through biting into a glazed donut. Only his eyes moved up to lock with hers.
“What happened?” he asked, with his mouth full and his lip still covered in crumbs.
“I don’t know.” Angel put down her coffee and brought over the crumpled note.
Axe read it quickly. He wiped his mouth and stood up. “Grab your stuff. We’re leaving.”
He shoved his things into his satchel as Angel picked up her already packed bag at the side of the bed. She put the safety on the Glock and passed it to him with the muzzle facing down. She followed him out the front door into the waiting minivan, which Axe promptly started and calmly drove out of the motel parking. All she could do was dart her eyes around the roads and squint to check the passenger side rear view mirror for whether anyone was following them.
They didn’t even take the coffee.
Not that she could eat or drink at a time like this.
15
Axe
Axe drove into the dark parking lot and cut the minivan engine.
Angel put her hand on the door handle. “I’ll get us a room,” she huffed, only looking at him for a split second.
“No. You stay with the van. Do you mind telling me why you’re upset this time?”
She glared at him. “We haven’t stopped for eight hours, and dammit, I know we’ve been driving in a weird circular pattern for at least six of those. On what part of the planet is that kind of bladder control expectation okay?”
“It’s called staying off the main roads, honey. And you could have peed behind those bushes.”
“Yeah, right. Look, it’s easier if I stand and wait,” she announced. She jumped out of the minivan and stormed off to wait on the pavement.
“You should know how sexy you look when you’re ticked off,” Axe teased, eyes trained on her ass, already picturing what he imagined would be some more scorching hot nights on the road with her.
Getting out, he headed over to the motel registration desk. This wasn’t any old place. Well yes, it was another shithole, but he had picked this particular shithole for a reason. After he paid and got his keys, he stepped around back and pulled out his phone. It was time to check in with Silas and determine what this new development with the panthers meant. Silas probably had no idea he had gone this far. Axe had to wonder whether the Panther’s Arizona Chapter President, Kit Reese, was in the dark too. Axe rolled his shoulders, absently listening to the ring over the end of the line.
“Yo, brother,” Silas answered. “What’s going down? No one’s heard from you all day.”
“I ran into some more trouble. Before I get into it, let me ask, has anything changed for our deal with Kit Reese?”
“Changed how?”
Axe gave Silas the update on the note slipped under the door, and on his suspicion that they were still being followed.
“Motherfucker,” Silas shouted. “I thought we were done with this bullshit. Are you sure it was Kit’s people?”
“The pricks who attacked us at the library were panthers for sure, but you’re right that I didn’t recognize any of them. Fuck, I should have checked the plates.”
“I did.” Angel had probably seen him come around to the side of the building. She stood there with her arms folded. “What?” she asked defensively. “I need to go. Stat. So what if I followed you?”
Axe shook his head. “You were supposed to stay with the car. Just tell me what you saw.”
“Well, I noticed the plates, and I think I remember the first few letters and numbers. I would have had the entire thing on my phone if you didn’t smash my sim card,” she grumbled.
“Hang on, Si,” Axe said, motioning to Angel. “Did you notice whether it was Nevada or Arizona plates?”
“Neither,” she disclosed. “But if I tell you which state it was, can we stay somewhere nicer?”
“Not a chance. Tell me what state,” he ordered.
Angel scowled, scrunching up her nose at him. “It was Louisiana, all right?” she answered, sticking her hand out. “Now, give me that room key before I have an accident.”
“Did you get that, Si?” Axe spoke into the phone again, distractedly placing the key in Angel’s hand. He slowly headed back to the vehicle.
“Got it. It doesn’t sound like Kit’s people.”
“True,” Axe agreed. “But who? The only connection to Louisiana is Molly’s old boyfriend, I think,” Axe suggested about Molly Davenport, Tate’s old lady. “But that dude had nothing to do with the panthers.”
“There may be more to it than that. Cindy mentioned that Molly’s family lived out there when her father was killed.”
“I remember. Tate and I were there when your mom told us about it too. Mr. Davenport was sniffing around for details on reversing the shifter gene. It’s a myth, probably. What I don’t get is why they would want to get to me, let alone take Angel.”
“Who knows,” Silas muttered, sounding perplexed. “I’ll get Dean on it, and while he’s checking it out, I’ll have a talk with Kit.”
“Sounds good.”
“What about you? Are you okay?”
Axe croaked out a laugh. “Me against a few shitty panther shifters? Hell yeah, I’m all right.”
“Good. Where are you?”
“That place.”
“Hang on. Did you say what I think you just said?”
“I did.”
“Crap. Do you need us to take care of anything while you’re going awol with your old lady to be?” Silas kept up the goddamned goading, but now he was also more focused on their words. “I figured it had to be some real good pussy to get you to ignore everything else here, especially that clearance.”
“Yeah well, keep your mind on your old lady’s parts, not Angel’s,” Axe grumbled. “I think I’ve got everything covered. Any other updates?”
“No. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I have any answers. Call in every couple of days, as usual.”
“Will do. Hey Prez, hang on a second.” Axe noticed a sound in the background, something in the quality of the phone connection, rather than anything that was going on over on Si’s end of the line. The clicking triggered a few sudden flashes of images in his mind, and all of a sudden he knew exactly why he had come to this particular motel. “Prez?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell VV to hang on ten,” he said, pronouncing every word and lett
er carefully. “Did you get that?”
“Got it. Godspeed, brother.”
Axe hung up and turned to face Angel again. She must have gone inside and used the bathroom, because she was a lot less jittery now than a few minutes ago. Shoving his phone into his pocket, he went to greet the problem head on.
“Hey, what’s going on?” she asked. “You don’t look too thrilled—”
“Get inside. Right now,” he said firmly, releasing a threatening growl from the back of his throat so she would not dare to question him now.
She didn’t say a word.
Axe hurried with her across the parking lot, and quickly grabbed their bags out of the back seat of the van. Returning to their room, he got inside and shut the door behind him. He took the hotel room key and examined it in his hand, looking back and forth from the key to Angel. She was not ready for what was about to happen. He dragged her bag off his shoulder and stepped in front of her again.
“It smells like mold and orange juice in here,” Angel said, surveyed the dump, which was worse than the last place. She scrunched up her nose and gave Axe a face. “Maybe we should find somewhere else?”
That was when Axe held her arm and spun her around to face him.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she shouted. “I was going to take a goddamned shower!”
Bruised MC Bear (Beartooth Brotherhood MC Book 3) Page 9