by J. M. Walker
“I didn’t know any better. I was young and stupid.”
“But now you’re not.”
“What are you trying to tell me, Angel? That you won’t hurt me like him? That whatever this is between us could get serious? You want to spend your life with me?” I wasn’t trying to be a bitch, but I didn’t want him to fall for me, and I knew I couldn’t resist him. His touch. His words. Him. Angel was my new addiction.
“Where is this coming from? I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. I can’t predict the future but I know I want this.” He waved a hand between us. “I’m having fun. We are having fun.”
I nodded, scrubbing a hand down my face and turned onto my side. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Me too, baby.” He kissed my cheek, wrapping his arm around my waist, and pulled me tight against his warm body. “I won’t hurt you. I know you don’t trust me yet, but I will prove to you that I want nothing but your happiness. I will show you that you can have more in life. If that means not being with me, then that’s fine. I just want you to be happy.”
A lonely tear escaped. I believed him. Every word he had said. But I couldn’t control this urge inside me that begged me to run away. To protect myself. To hole up somewhere and just be alone. “Why do you care if I’m happy?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked, thrown aback at my question.
“We haven’t known each other for that long, Angel,” I reminded him.
“And you think that matters? My parents died when I was a child. I was in the system until I turned eighteen and joined the military instantly. I’ve never loved anyone. I don’t even remember loving my mom and dad. Do I love my brothers? I care for them and would lay my life on the line for them but I have no fucking idea if I love them. You want to know why? Because I don’t know how to. Is that what you wanted to hear, Jay? You want to hear that I’m fucked up? My feelings are a mess and even more so now that I’ve met you.” He rose from the couch and righted his pants.
“Angel.” I sat up, wrapping the blanket around me. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Well, I don’t know what you want from me, either,” he shouted, spinning to face me.
“So what are we doing then?” I cried. “Just fucking? Because I don’t know about you but I’m cool with that.”
“Well, I’m not,” he admitted. “I don’t want anyone else touching you. Your fucking pussy is mine. You got me?”
“Yeah, well, the same could be said for you.” Crossing my arms under my chest, I lifted my chin defiantly. “Your cock is mine, baby.”
“And it will stay yours because no woman can do to me what you can.”
Well, doesn’t that make me feel all sorts of special? “What do you want out of this?”
He sighed, grabbing the blanket from my hands. “I want you.” He pulled me to my feet, letting the fabric drop to the ground. “That’s it.” He kissed me softly on the mouth. “We’ll worry about the rest later.”
EIGHTEEN
Jay
ANGEL HAD SPENT the night reminding me exactly what I did to him. How his length became hard at the mere sound of my moans. How his breathing deepened at my touch. How his eyes brightened with lust and desire at the mention of how wet my core was.
His words rang true in my mind. I was falling for him. Hard and fast. But I couldn’t let him know. I couldn’t let him see the affection I had for him in my eyes. I knew he wasn’t stupid, though. What he did for a living would prove that it would be hard to keep my feelings from him. He was trained to read people. I had seen enough movies to know that.
Angel wasn’t Tyler. He wasn’t a monster. He wasn’t the bastard I had fallen in love with.
“I don’t know how to love.” Angel’s words broke my heart.
I sighed. I sure knew how to pick them.
He was beautiful in the way he had expressed his feelings through the use of his body. I felt the same. God, did I ever feel the same. Maybe more. Thoughts of him were constant. I felt him when I wasn’t with him. I craved him in ways I never knew was possible.
Angel stirred beside me. His brows furrowed, his face grim and pained.
“Baby,” I said gently, touching his cheek.
He jumped, his eyes snapping open.
“You’re fine,” I told him, coaxing the fear of the nightmare out of him.
“Jay,” he whispered, hugging me against him.
“You’re fine,” I repeated, rubbing his back.
“Shit.” With a shaky hand, he pushed it through his hair. “I haven’t had a nightmare in a while.”
“Knocks the breath out of you, doesn’t it?” I cupped his cheek, brushing my thumb over his full bottom lip.
“Yeah. It fucking does.” He didn’t ask how I understood. He just rested his head in the crook of my neck and fell back asleep.
That. That was what I needed. What I had been craving my whole life. I was in a rut. Going through the motions of day-to-day life when I knew it wasn’t enough.
“What are we doing, Angel?” I asked, kissing his forehead. What if I couldn’t love him? What if Tyler had fucked me up so bad that I didn’t know how to love again? Tears welled in my eyes. Life was unfair. The one time I wanted to fall in love, the one time I had met a man who cared more about me than himself, I was scared to open up. I was terrified to give him all of me.
Maybe he wouldn’t like what he saw. I rolled out from under Angel, laying on my stomach and stretched my arms out under the pillow.
His arm wrapped around my waist, his hand rubbing up and down my back in small circles. Warm lips caressed my skin, placing light pecks here and there.
My heart sped up, a lump burning in my throat at the sweet contact. “What time is it?” I asked, trying to play it cool.
“Time to just feel.” The deep vibrato of his voice pushed its way into my soul. It was like silky chocolate, smooth and vibrant with its taste.
“Feelings hurt,” I told him. I slid out of his grip, rising from the bed, and got dressed. The clothes helped against the vulnerability I felt since meeting him weeks ago.
“What are you doing?” Angel asked, sitting up in bed.
“I should go.” I turned back toward him, regretting it instantly.
The early morning light shone between the curtains, casting a soft glow on Angel’s tanned skin. His muscles rippled with each breath. Scars marred his torso, begging for me to brush my fingertips against each and every mark.
“Baby, you know you don’t want to leave.”
“No. I don’t. But I have to go back to the club. I have shit to do. I’m not letting Tyler stop me from finding those girls or my sister. I need some sort of closure.” I was surprised at myself. Confessing my feelings to him threw me off. I didn’t like it. One dark stare and I revealed all.
“If you need any help, any at all, Vice-One is here for you. I am here for you.” He inched to the edge of the bed, reaching his hands out for me.
Placing my hands in his, I sighed at the contact. “Thank you.”
“I mean it, Jay. I know what these bastards are capable of.” He kissed my knuckles.
“I need all the help I can get,” I said, stepping between his knees.
“Can I see you again?”
“Yes,” I said without any hesitation at all.
“Good.” A wicked grin spread on his face. “Now let me give you a goodbye kiss.”
And he did. For the next hour.
***
(Angel)
“There has to be something we can do,” I told Vega, wrapping tape around my wrist.
“You couldn’t find shit about my niece,” he grumbled. “What makes you think you can find out something about your girl’s sister?”
“We need more time.” I rose to my feet. “It’s not our fucking fault they attacked us. They knew we were there.”
“That’s impossible.” He shook his head.
“Nothing’s impossible when it comes to this job.” I poin
ted at him. “You of all people should know that. Someone knew we were going to be there.” I didn’t know how. Even before all of that shit went down, a sickening feeling had taken up permanent residence in my stomach. None of it made sense.
“We can’t save everyone, Angel,” he muttered.
“But you want us to do everything we can to save your niece,” I added, rising to my full height.
“Yes.” He looked away. “I will do whatever it takes to get her back.”
“What about my girl’s sister? I will do everything I can to get her back. Dead or alive. Doesn’t fucking matter,” I insisted. Jay needed closure, and I would do everything in my power to give that to her. She may have been pushing me away. She may have been trying to convince herself that she wasn’t falling for me. It didn’t matter, either way, I wanted her happy.
“If you go against orders, this time you will be put on leave and not come back,” he ground out, meeting me with his dark stare.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” My fists clenched at my sides. “What would you do if it was your wife’s sister? Your daughter? Huh? Would you choose someone more important? How can you decide that? No one person is more important than the other. Put me on leave. Fire me. I’ll fucking resign my commission if I have to. I don’t give a shit. But I will find her.”
He nodded once. “Good.”
I shook my head. “Excuse me?”
“That’s good,” he repeated, turning on his heel.
“Wait. What the hell just happened?” I asked, stopping him.
“I wanted to make sure you were passionate about this.”
“I’m not following.”
Vega clapped a hand on my shoulder. “I know you’ve had a hard upbringing, Angel. I wanted to make sure you were choosing to do something for someone else and not just yourself. Now, piece of advice.”
“Uh…” I stuttered like a dumbass.
“Go tell her you love her before it’s too late.”
Fucking A.
***
(Jay)
The moment I arrived at the clubhouse, I had assumed the girls would be on me. Demanding where I went the night before. Needing to know how I was. How I felt. What I was fucking thinking. I loved them. My sisters were my life but they were women. They loved to talk. But I couldn’t talk to them. I couldn’t tell them that there was a darkness inside of me that became light since meeting Angel. I couldn’t tell them I had changed since my sister left. Max noticed but she never said anything. A part of me wished she would.
“We’re in here, boss,” Max said, peeking her head out of the office.
I nodded, making my way toward her. The time had come. Would I tell them everything I had wanted to? No. Because I was a little bitch and I was fucking scared.
“Hi,” I said softly, closing the door behind me.
A round of greetings circled the table.
“Now, before we begin, I have a couple rules. No asking about Angel and me. Vice-One is here to fix up our club and hang out. I’m sure you’ve met them already. I consider them friends, but what goes on behind closed doors, I can’t talk about yet.” There, I said it. Sort of. “We will talk about Dante’s Kings.” I pushed away from the door. “Give me your thoughts.”
“I think there’s a mole,” Brogan answered first.
“Excuse me?” My gaze snapped to hers. “How do you figure?”
“Something seems off. I have no idea,” she shrugged.
“Why do you think there’s a mole, Brogan?” She had me wondering if maybe she was correct. Especially when Meeka hadn’t commented at all. She just sat there solemnly, her gaze on her lap.
“How else would the Kings know anything about Vice-One? I know they have connections but we hardly know them ourselves,” Brogan explained. “Someone has to be telling them something.”
That was true except for the fact that I knew Angel. God, do I ever know him! His body. His scent. His taste. A burning heat spread between my legs, causing me to squirm in my chair.
Fucking Angel.
I cleared my throat. “Vice-One is looking for the same thing we are: the men and women who are taking these girls. I know some of them are junkies, some of them people won’t miss, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not cleaning the streets when murder is involved.” My heart sped up, my voice rising. “Meeka, can you talk to your FBI contact and see if they can pull some strings to set up a curfew?”
“I mentioned that already, and they said that more girls have to disappear before they’ll consider it,” she said quickly.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“More girls have to die?”
Max and Brogan went back and forth with their outbursts, but I just sat there, staring at nothing. More girls had to disappear. Who came up with this shit?
“What else did they say?” I asked Meeka, interrupting the ranting.
“They said we have no grounds to search out the girls ourselves. If we take this into our own hands and an accident happens, we are held accountable.” She sighed. “Basically, we won’t have any protection.”
“This isn’t right,” Max snapped, slamming her small fist on the table.
“No.” I sat back in the chair. “It’s not. But there’s nothing we can do. So, we’ll just have to deal with this on our own and make sure no one finds out.”
Max and Brogan agreed.
Meeka nodded slowly. A twinkle flashed in her gaze, the corners of her lips twitching.
Interesting.
But I knew if we did have a mole, that information would get out and if it did, it would be from one of the three women sitting in front of me. I trusted Max with everything in me. Brogan went with the flow. And Meeka? She was desperate. I didn’t know for what, but something told me that she was the mole. I just prayed she had just cause.
I didn’t want to have to kill my sister.
NINETEEN
Jay
THE OPEN ROAD was my absolute solace. It gave me the room to think. To stew over life. To wonder where I had gone wrong. Would everything still be the same if Violet were around? What would she think of me now?
The fresh air whipped around me. My fingers gripped the handlebars in a vice-like grip, wishing I could drive straight into the ground.
While I continued to drive, a blur caught my attention. A deep rumble pounded through me, sliding down my spine. My gaze landed on a large group of bikers I had never seen before. Five bikes led the pack in a V-formation. They wore leather cuts, dark sunglasses hid their eyes, and bandanas covered their faces. They gave off an air of authority. The large group of bikers, who I assumed were men, drove past me. The leader of the group nodded my way before disappearing behind me. My heart jumped. I had no idea who they were, never seeing them before in my life. Five bikers, followed by ten more. Another motorcycle club. And even I was scared of them.
I shook it off, ignoring the unease they had caused.
After the meeting with my sisters, nothing changed. I still didn’t trust Meeka, and a part of me felt guilty over it. The question of why I kept her in our club bounced in my mind. She was good at what she did. She was the calm one of our little group, and even though we didn’t see eye to eye on certain things, she kept us grounded. I wished I could trust her. I just prayed that there was a reason for her secrets. Max and Brogan were still upset. And I just sat there. Like a lump.
What the hell was wrong with me that I couldn’t put my foot down and demand answers like I used to? If it were a year before, Meeka would have been long gone. Even if she had valid reasons, I wouldn’t have put up with that shit.
“God, help me,” I said to no one. Not like anyone would listen anyway. I was alone in the world, as selfish as that sounded. I needed my sister. She would understand. She would force me to smarten up, shaking some sense into me.
“Jay, girl, you are beautiful. You got this. You have a gorgeous man at your beck and call. You are the president of a motorcycle club. You have people who lov
e you,” Violet’s voice slid into my mind.
Tears burned my eyes, sliding down my cheeks, and rolled off my chin. “Fuck.” I pulled over by the base of a cliff. Propping up my bike, I fell to my knees before the panic attack set in. I took deep, cleansing breaths, waiting it out.
“Help…me…”
My head snapped up at the soft sound.
“Help,” the voice said again, stronger this time.
It was a woman’s voice. “Hello?” I called out, but there was no one in sight.
“Please.” A cough. “Help.”
“Can you keep talking?” I asked, following the sound of the voice. “I can’t find you.” My palms became sweaty. My heart raced.
“Please. Help.”
“I’m coming.” I circled around the cliff, my gaze zeroing in on a limp body lying on the ground. I rushed to her side. The woman’s eyes were closed. Her clothes torn, blood marring her pale skin. Dirt and debris matted her hair. “I’m here,” I told her, touching her cheek.
Her eyes popped open. “I knew you would come. You couldn’t resist.”
“Excuse me?” Her voice. So strong and sure. Not weak like a moment before. I went to ask what the hell was going on when a sharp pain erupted at the back of my head. My vision faded, but not before I saw the evil sneer on the woman’s face.
TWENTY
Jay
HOLY HELL, MY head hurt. An intense shooting pain forced my eyes open. I gasped, swallowing some dust, and coughed. Rolling over onto my stomach, I realized I was still by the cliff but by that time I was alone.
That woman. Her eyes. Bright blue, but they showcased an unexplainable amount of evil I had never seen before. The satisfaction that adorned her face when someone hit me made me sick to my stomach. Why knock me out and leave? Were they making a point? Was it the same bastards who had been taking the girls?
I needed to get home. Pushing to my feet, I slowly made my way around the cliff to find my bike—missing. My stomach sunk. It had been a gift from my grandfather. Oh, that meant fucking war.