by Rie Warren
I shook my head at her, husking out, “No worries, cher.”
The other men looked hungry for my blood, hoping it sprayed across the walls covered in faded, peeling, velvet embossed wallpaper like an old-time saloon.
No second thoughts.
No holding back.
I shut my eyes just before pulling the trigger a second time. The moment the chamber turned I swallowed down a mouthful of bile.
Chapter Seven
Ragin’ Cajun
THE EMPTY CLICK ECHOED throughout the hushed room.
I coolly handed the gun back to Venom even though I still wanted to puke my guts out. Whistles and shouts and hollers rose to the rafters. Blaize tore free from Burn and Kouto. When I opened my arms, she flew straight into my embrace.
“You’re alive,” she whispered.
“Shhh.” Dipping my head, I kissed her long and hard, my tongue slicing into her mouth where slick heat pulled me deeper.
In that moment she wasn’t my superior. She wasn’t a fantasy. She was my partner. And I was alive.
Blaize returned the kiss with licks and murmurs and her hands tightening in my hair.
I pulled back, roaring, “Drinks on me!”
Rowdy shouts filled the bar. Chants of Storm Storm Storm!
Women strolled back into the dingy room. The tunes started up. Solomon shot his head inside, nodding over and over.
I vaguely heard him saying, “Fantôme. Hmmph. Old Sol ain’t stupid.”
“C’mere, Solomon. Lemme get you a drink.” I beckoned him forward.
Turning his head, he spat sideways out the door. “You know I don’t drink dem spirits, boy.”
The door shut behind him, enclosing the chaos inside.
Venom pushed a glass of el cheapo swill into my hand. “Lucky sumbitch. Always was.” He held out his hand for a firm shake I returned. “I’ll be watching you.”
I drank back the stinging alcohol, all too aware of Blaize right next to me, her curves pressed against my bare chest. “And I’m ready to follow your orders, Prez.”
Not.
Someone brought out the cocaine. Rounds of shots were drilled back. The center of the room cleared for dancing. Dim corners multiplied with couples getting half naked and fucking in plain sight.
I accepted fist bumps and backslaps while Blaize was given wide berth by the cherries. The dudes had no problem getting a little too close to her, though.
I didn’t worry, too much.
But I was on my guard. Anyone so much as leered at her the wrong way and I’d gouge their fucking eyeballs out with my knife.
Fuck too much exposure or getting made.
When everyone was feeling loosey-goosey and high on blow, I found Venom. He sat in a back booth, white powder dusting his nostrils.
“One more thing.” I sat down across from him. “VP? That’s mine.”
He lounged back with glassy eyes that still pierced me. “That right?” He pinched his nose then took a long drink of beer. “Got someone standin’ in your way.”
“Who?”
Venom pistol-pointed his index finger at a bulky bear of a man with a giant mustache to go with his giant brown beard. “Lennox.”
“Like the heavyweight champ?”
“’S’right.”
So, Lennox it was. Lennox the lummox. Looked like a lumberjack, without the ax. But he did have a machete. Nice. Kouto’s trend was catching. Just like marriage was with my crew.
“That fuck there?” I asked.
Eh, what the hell. What was one more scar on my body? Nothing, when I needed to fully implant myself in the MC to make sure Blaize stayed safe.
“He fought his way into the Legion.” Venom pushed up from the booth, whistling with two fingers in his mouth.
All heads shot around toward him.
“Yeah? Well I fought my way into the veep seat a long time ago. Ready to do it again,” I boasted loud and proud.
“Lennox! You willin’ to fight for your right as VP?” Venom shouted.
YEAHHHH! Men and women punched forward, forming a fighting ring.
The usual testosterone-edged-high skyrocketed to the next level of fight or fuck-you-up club due to copious amounts of snow snorted and drinks slung back.
Lennox looked me over, his mouth downturned. He stripped off his shirt and bulged his muscles, showing off recent angry red welts and black-blue bruises mottling what flesh could be seen between the full torso tat.
“Got some fight left in me tonight.” He swung his long, heavy arms, baring a grin that showed a mouthful of gold.
Blaize sidled up to me. “You have more balls than you know what to do with.”
“Got that right. And I’mma prove it to you later.” I winked at her before pulling off all my weapons.
“Bare knuckles. That’s the only rule,” Venom, the disreputable referee, announced.
Bets changed hands in flashes of crumpled bills all stowed behind the bar with Kouto keeping track.
But that dude with the frosty stare and the black beard—he watched everything like a fucking PMC, a paid-for professional.
Stay frosty.
“Ding fucking ding ding!” Burn announced from the sidelines.
Lennox came at me. The first punch I let him land blistered my jaw. The second one? Probably bruised ribs.
I ducked and rolled away from his next combination, coming up behind him. With a left-right, left-right fist switch, I pounded Lennox’s kidneys.
He curled over. “Fuuuck!”
Leaping away, I waited for him to roll around, my fingers lifted to taunt him forward.
Didn’t have to wait long for him to charge—I wasn’t a small man by any means, but Lennox was a goddamn bull.
I took his glancing blow on my chin. “You’re fuckin’ slow, couillon. Might wanna take up Zumba.”
Hoots and hollers and more money laid on the bar top.
Lennox caught me around the neck.
I head-butted him with full force and swept my leg behind his. “Good thing you like gold so much because you’re gonna need a new set of teeth by the time I’m done with you.”
When he back-splatted to the floor, I pounced on top of him. King of the Fucking Mountain Man.
Wrapping his arms around me, he gator-rolled me across the floor. Stools, chairs, tables toppled over and feet scurried out of our path.
Lennox rammed his fist against my mouth. I spat blood into his face, blinding him. He jerked back, and I jumped to my feet.
My boot connected with his meaty midsection while he flopped like a fish on the floor. Again. And again. Leaning down, I roared, yanking him upright. Every one of my punches nailed him, precise and powerful.
Finding a second wind, Lennox drove his fist into my sore ribs.
I spun around, dizzy as shit.
“Get ’im, Storm!”
“Turn him into sausage, Lennox!”
“I say we just kill Storm now.”
“Why bother? He’s goin’ down.”
The comments filtered in through my ringing ears, and I swayed on my feet.
Lennox looked like pulverized meat, barely able to focus on me. Fucker still managed to knock me fucking hard on the side of my head, though.
I grabbed him around the waist and pile-drived him on top of the bar. Bottles, glasses, and ashtrays shattered all over the floor.
Lennox went down with them.
I bloodied my knuckles on his face, watching his swollen lips flap. I ground his face into the shards of broken glass, listening to the flesh burst open.
Gripping his head in both hands, I twisted his neck to the breaking point. “If you don’t want me to kill you, you better tag out now.”
His hand slapped to the floor.
One.
Two.
Three.
I slammed his head back, and he passed out.
Game Fuckin’ Over.
Wiping an arm across my face, I got to my unsteady feet. “Guess that means I’m veep again.”
&n
bsp; I held my hand out. Blaize passed me my weapons.
I re-sheathed and re-holstered everything. Then, shaking sweaty hair out of my eyes, I stood above laid-out Lennox and opened my arms wide.
“Any other contenders?” I asked.
Tense silence rode through the MC, all eyes swerving between me—bloody and bruised—and Venom—coked out of his skull but still standing.
“VP is yours, cous.” Venom gave his blessing.
“My old room available?” I would not weave on my feet even though my entire body felt like a badly abused punching bag.
I was about fuckin’ ready for this day to end already.
Venom shoved his head outside. “Sol, Storm needs a room!”
Slinging my shirt into the waist of my leathers, I met Sol at the door, my knees almost buckling. “Hold up. Gotta grab our shit. Just keep an eye on Blaize for a minute?”
Barely able to see straight, I grabbed our gear from my bike and reentered Thunder Road with the shotgun slung across my shoulder.
When I caught up with Sol and Blaize, I patted him on the back. “Lead the way, my man.”
With Solomon ahead, Blaize and I followed up the stairs that backed down to the barroom.
“Keep that broad on a leash!” Burn shouted after us.
“No doubt. And a collar with my name on it,” I called down the stairs.
On the first landing, Sol opened the door of the third room. The biggest room. My old room.
“Was Lenny’s, but seems it’s empty now,” he said.
“Lenny?” I peered inside.
“Dat dude you left as a blood puddle downstairs.”
“He was one of the bad ones?”
“Sho nuff he wadn’t one of the good ones.”
Solomon was a Legion institution. One of the good ones. He cooked up the chow, turned a blind eye to the criminal activity. But he wasn’t stupid, not by a long shot. He knew every detail, every shady undertaking, every single bad habit of the Legion brethren. And he kept quiet about it all.
Why?
Because he had nothing else. No one else. Not anymore. His service in the ’Nam war had almost killed him. He’d rarely spoken to me about the fields of landmines. The poisoned, perfectly placed punji stick traps. The rice fields and ambushes. Agent Orange. The dirty tactics that had stolen his life, his wife, his family when he’d come home and turned to the demon drink.
The Blood Legion—specifically Angel’s dad, also a Vietnam War vet—had taken Solomon in. Given him a home.
Every man needed that.
Even me, although I still ran from it like my ass was on fire. Because to love was to put other people in danger.
When I turned from Sol to survey my old room, I had serious second thoughts about his goodness.
“What the fuck did Lennox do to my room?”
The place was a fucking pigsty from the unmade bed and stained mattress to the piles of dirty plates and the pyramids of empty bottles, the dusty surfaces and rank-looking clothes.
Blaize appeared less than impressed. Probably trying not to plug her nose at the noxious smell of stale weed, old alcohol, and musty sweat and sex.
“Just get your old lady to clean it up tomorrow.” Solomon laughed as he shuffled back down the landing.
Blaize slammed the door behind him. She took several deep breaths. Probably trying to swallow her gorge.
When she rounded on me, her pretty blue eyes narrowed. “Now that we’re alone, I think we better get one thing straight, Nash.”
Chapter Eight
Battle Wounds and the Biker Babe
“AW. WHY YOU WANNA be like that, cher? Can’t you see I’m hurtin’ here?” Retreating as Blaize advanced, I wore a loose grin on my lips.
Maybe the bashes I’d taken to my head made me dizzy. But I doubted it. The closer Blaize came in that sinful biker vixen get-up, the more my pulse ramped up. The woman was seriously sexy any given day. Put her in a bitch-takes-no-shit professional suit and I was salivating. Dressed in head-to-toe, fuck-me-on-your-Harley leather and I was a major fan. Despite my battle wounds, I was revved up and ready to fuck.
“The cher thing has to stop.” Blaize stomped in front of me, her voice taking on that lethal low, about-to-lash-out tone.
Hip swing, finger point, strut strut strut.
Seemed Blaize had already forgotten I was in charge. I’d remind her later. For now I merely smirked.
“Yeah? Can call you beb or sexy if you prefer.” I backed up against the wall beside the nearest floor to ceiling window.
“You’re getting into character far too easily.” She slid close enough I could smell her—the woman, the perfume, her shiny dark red hair.
“Part of the job.”
“Was Nikki part of the last job too?”
“Fuck.” I shook my head, hanging my thumbs in the low waist of my leathers. “You really wanna get into that now?”
Blaize aimed her gaze away.
Chucking her under the chin, I brought her face to mine. “Why’d you sign up for this detail? You have to know how I feel about you, Blaize.” Like I was a drowning man whenever I got near her and she was the only chance for a lungful of oxygen.
Her lips. Her warmth. Her body. Beneath mine.
Like my skin was on fire and no amount of water could put out the flames.
She coiled away from me, rolling back her shoulders. “How you feel is none of my concern and has nothing to do with this op, and you know that.”
A frustrated laugh blew from my lips, and I winched my head on my neck. “Merde. You know there’s no place to escape from me now, yeah? You get that if I can’t have you I’m gonna have someone else.”
“You won’t break cover.”
“Legion dudes are notoriously promiscuous. Ain’t no one gonna hold it against me if I sink my cock into another honey.”
“Another honey?” Her heated words were like a slap across the face. “This mission is not about your cock, Storm. It’s about intel. About putting the Legion into a grave, RIP,” she hissed.
“I have needs.”
“Fuck your needs. You have a job. And I’m your superior.”
“Not in this instance. Not in public.”
“We are not in public right now.”
“I’ll ask you again. Knowing I want you, Blaize, want to fuck you, why did you volunteer?” I loomed over her, need stretching my skin tight. “You’re the smartest person I know, bar none. Playing dumb isn’t part of your repertoire. Never has been.”
She spun away, kicked her foot, sending a pile of seedy XXX magazines flying. “I can get in with the women of Legion. Get close to them. Something you can’t do unless you fuck them.”
From behind, I slid my hands up her arms to her shoulders. “Would that bother you? ’Cause right now I can’t get a read on you, and I’m usually an ace profiler.”
Blaize whirled around, shaking her head. She denied-denied-denied without taking a single breath. All the while standing too close, breathing too fast.
“There’s no way we could work, Storm. Or should I call you Nash? Yes, I’m aware you look at me like something you’re starving for. But it’d be foolish to put my job on the line for someone like you.”
I pressed two fingers against her lips. Her heat spilled across my body, and she stopped shouting.
“Someone like me?” I asked.
“A player with easy pussy on the brain.”
“There’s no way in hell I think you’re easy.” I dropped my eyes. “You’re a hard act to follow, Blaize. And I only want you.”
“Don’t. Don’t say that,” she hushed.
Raising my hands between us, I touched her cheeks. “What? That I want you?” I exhaled a curse. “Been beating my head on the desk, beating off over you for so goddamn long I feel like I’m dying for just one single taste.”
Her breath skipped out in shudder-stops that hit my throat as she stepped in closer.
“You’re bleeding.” Her hand slipped from my
eyebrow—the one already scarred—to my cheek to my bare chest.
Now that she mentioned it, my cheekbone did twinge a little. I’d taken my fair share of hits, but I’d definitely rained down the pain, too. A few cuts and bruises compared to taking a long dirt nap way before my time went in the win column for me.
My skin shivered wherever she touched, chills rising on my flesh. When her knuckles brushed a nipple, her fingertips trailing through the black hair on my chest, I grabbed her wrist.
“You’re getting awfully close for someone who wants to be my old lady in name only, cher.”
Blaize pulled away.
I stood still, closing my eyes, unclenching my hands. When I was reasonably sure I could control my dick, knowing I’d be spending this night and many more with Blaize in the same goddamn room, I opened my eyelids.
Blaize was foraging through her pack.
Making my way to the far door, I said, “We can clean up in here.”
I opened the connecting bathroom door. And quickly shut it on the scene of what had to be some sort of crime.
A misdemeanor in slobbiness? A capital crime in sloth?
Jesus.
I stuck my arm in far enough to flush the crapper.
I couldn’t open the door all the way due to dirty clothes and damp towels cluttering the floor. And the shower? Probably cockroach heaven and marijuana roach hotel. The bowels of hell. The ashtray of Hades . . .
Blaize looked over at me as I cleared my throat and wiped my streaming eyes.
“Or maybe not,” I said. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”
“It can’t be that bad.” Sauntering over, Blaize ducked her head inside the toxic waste zone before I could stop her. And came out gagging. “Oh my God!”
Falling together, we laughed.
We laughed.
Hadn’t done that with a chick. Ever.
Her arms hugged around my waist, and I circled her in my embrace. I kept it light, too taken with the way small bubbles of giggles trailed from her lips and caressed the skin of my neck.
We laughed until our voices grew hoarse. Until Blaize sighed and yawned, relaxing against me. Until awareness of the proximity of our bodies became a bold promise, a dangerous thing she’d said was totally off the table.