by C. M. Owens
When my lips feel swollen and raw, he finally breaks the kiss, and I shiver a little when a soft spray of very cool water connects with my leg while he shifts to turn the shower off completely and steps out.
While he’s grabbing a couple of towels from the rack, I take the opportunity to admire his scarred back full of mysterious pain from his past, and try to digest what just happened between us, still feeling the undeniable chemistry surging through me. It’s never felt like that—connected, intense, overwhelming…consuming.
That’s the word I use most to describe the enigma of a man in front of me—consuming.
The burn scars on his legs are the most prominent reminders of what he must have gone through. All the scars couldn’t have happened at one time, which suggests a repeated pattern of abuse. Which is what leads me to believe those burns were intentional.
Someone was sick and twisted.
And at one point, Axle wasn’t strong enough to fight back.
My powers of deduction conclude it most likely happened when he was a vulnerable child. It’s the only explanation as to how someone was able to take on a man like Axle—he wasn’t a man yet.
I’d like to see that son of a bitch come after him today. And I’d like to watch as Axle slowly killed him. I’d stay in the room and make sure he stayed hydrated while he made the death last for days.
Axle turns and tosses me a towel, and I blink out of my thoughts as I frown at him.
“Get dressed. We’ll go investigate the trouble with your team,” he says flatly, as though what just happened between us didn’t happen at all.
I didn’t expect cuddling or anything, but…this is colder than I imagined, and it totally ices my after-sex buzz that was still crackling through me.
“Yes, sir,” I say under my breath, my eyes going down to my body as I start drying off.
There’s suddenly a shadow falling over me, and a finger goes under my chin, tilting my head back up. Cold, pale eyes stare into mine as though he’s trying to figure me out.
Again.
“You wanted it, so don’t act pissed now. I know you got yours,” he tells me with narrowed eyes.
Seriously?
“Sometimes, I want to slap you,” I tell him, jerking my head away from his touch as I shoulder my way past him, wrapping up in the towel. When my back is to him, I call over my shoulder, “And I’m not pissed about the hot sex. I’m pissed about the asshole who threw me a towel and pretended he felt nothing. Because it’s irritating as hell.”
With that, I walk out of the bathroom and go to angrily pull on my clothes. However, there’s a text that comes through on my phone, and I blow out a heavy breath when I read it.
Fuck this day.
CHAPTER 18
AXLE
I have no idea what the hell to do with her.
She’s pissed about what, exactly? Hell if I know. Not the sex—that much I know. Now I know, anyway.
Sex has always been cold and detached, a means to breaking things up with my hand and getting something soft around my dick. Never much else.
Club whores have been the status quo for me, and usually they have to get really drunk to take me on. And that’s after they’ve been told to. Never too many volunteers, considering the scars. And the fact they find me too rough—which Maya didn’t seem to mind. There’s also the small hitch of me killing that one girl.
Somehow, it always gets omitted that she was a thief and that she was about to be ran ragged for weeks before someone else killed her. On Herrin’s orders.
I just sped up the process and cut out a lot of her suffering. Motherfucking saint.
Maya? Maya wanted this. Hell, she’s wanted it since she saw me. No ulterior motives have been discovered yet, and there was no faking the way she reacted to me.
There’s no way to fake the way she kisses me.
There’s no way to fake how wet she gets just from my touch.
Hence the reason I have no idea what to fucking do with her.
Annoyed, I walk out of the bathroom after I’m finally dry, and leave the towel behind. But when I step into my bedroom, I see Maya staring down at her phone, her towel still wrapped around her firmly, and her face a blank mystery.
“What?” I ask her.
She jerks a little at the sound of my voice and puts her phone down.
“My team was killed last night,” she states emotionlessly. “Which means Lathan has wised up to the game. Or Phillip has. They may not know I’m here, but they’re aware that someone is definitely targeting them, and now they’re more prepared. Or our inside guy sold us out. I won’t know until I get ahold of Ingrid.”
“Ingrid?” That’s a name I haven’t heard.
“A Family head who has the inside man,” she tells me. “I sent her a message. Just waiting on her to send me one back.”
She drops the phone to the bed and moves to go start changing. The second her towel falls off, my eyes rake over her flawless skin, taking it in like I can’t get enough.
I’ve fought her as long as I could. But hell, I’m only human. And she’s as sexy as they come. It was inevitable that I was eventually going to take her.
What I wasn’t prepared for was how different it would be from anything I’ve had before. She fucking wanted me. Got off on me touching her. And called out my name when she came on my cock.
That’s still fucking with my head.
I’m not used to any of this.
Fucking girl.
She turns to face me as she tugs on a shirt without a bra, and she quickly shimmies into a pair of transparent black underwear.
“It happened when you were a child, didn’t it?” she asks, drawing my eyes away from her underwear and back up to her gaze.
I stiffen, not liking this conversation already. This story isn’t up for grabs.
“Why do you ask so many questions?”
“Because I like you and want to get to know you. It’s pretty common for people to do that when they have great sex. It’s better than throwing them a towel and pretending as though they felt nothing,” she volleys.
My eyebrow goes up as her eyes gleam with a challenging glint.
“It happened when I was a child,” I confirm, wondering why I’m telling her that at all.
“I figured the person had to get you at your most vulnerable age,” she says with a shrug, as though it’s no big deal. “No way would anyone be able to hurt you now.”
Again, I have no idea what to do with her.
I cross my arms over my chest, and her eyes flick up and down my body like she’s taking me in, hungrily.
When her eyes meet mine again, she asks, “What was your real name?”
Something inside me turns cold, and I turn, grabbing a pair of boxers to jerk on. I was planning on getting back inside her, since we aren’t going anywhere now, but the urge has now been shattered with the questions I hate.
“I don’t have a real name,” I answer, reaching for a shirt and angrily tugging it on as well.
“Everyone has a real name,” she says as though she’s confused.
As soon as my jeans are on, I pull on my boots, tying them quickly with my back turned to her.
“I need to update Drex on your situation.”
“Drex has nothing to do with my situation. Your crew is to stay out of it. I told you as a courtesy.”
I sometimes think I want to throttle her almost as much as I want to fuck her.
“Drex needs to know what’s going on in our town, so as a courtesy, I plan to inform him,” I bite out.
“Fine,” she says flippantly. “But your guys are not to get involved.”
Breathe, Axle. Just fucking breathe through the irritation.
I decide not speaking to her as I dress is the best course of action.
“Where did the name Axle come from?” she asks randomly when the silence stretches on.
She’s going to keep pressing for answers, but she’s not going to like anything she hears. Then,
if I see any fucking pity in her eyes, it’ll ruin whatever this is that she seems to feel for me.
I’m not sure if I want it ruined or not. Pity fucks are the worst. The damn girl is fucking with my head.
As I stand, she continues staring at me from her corner of the room, still wearing just those damn panties and a T-shirt that stops at her waist.
“The nurse gave me that name. It was the first thing that came to her, since her husband and son were working on building a car. They were greasing the new axle that day when she came into work,” I tell her, watching as her brow pinches in confusion.
I start walking for the door, but as soon as I reach for the handle, the too-inquisitive girl asks yet another motherfucking question.
“What nurse?”
“The one who was on call the night I was brought in for the burns on my legs.” I don’t mention it was the first time I’d ever been outside that house since I’d been taken there, and that it was a stroke of luck a neighbor heard me screaming. I also don’t tell her what happened that night. The night I was freed and fucked up the worst, all at the same time.
“Why would she need to give you a name? I’m just trying to understand this,” she tells me softly.
I hesitate, almost deciding not to answer.
Opening the door and not turning around, I quietly murmur, “Because until then, I was only referred to as the Demon’s Child.”
I hear her breath catch, and I never look back to see her eyes as I walk out, heading downstairs to find Drex and update him on Maya’s business situation.
Before I even reach the bottom of the staircase, Drex is already walking toward me, his eyes shifting toward the closed door of my room before finding mine again.
“Maya is the real deal,” he says quietly, glancing over his shoulder at the warehouse full of guys who have gathered for a ride today.
We’re getting back to basics, boosting morale and all that shit. Some of us joined this club because our lives were too fucked up, and no one else could understand us except for others who lived through their own twisted version of hell.
Some of the guys just joined because they liked to ride and raise some hell. So today, those guys are riding and raising hell, while the rest of us are hanging back to deal with the financial situation.
A financial situation that Maya is about to save our asses from.
“Thought you already assumed she checked out,” I tell him gruffly.
“I did assume it. Now I know it. Sledge has a friend in New York who rides with a different crew. They don’t know the names of some of the Family Heads, but they do know all the shit she’s told us is legit. That bomb and all. And the fact the Families have been too quiet, meaning they’re up to something. Another guy says Blackbird is a family operation, and they know for a fact a girl is running the show now. And the girl is a little…wacky.”
Definitely sounds like Maya.
“Still doesn’t explain how you know for sure it’s her,” I say, even though I know it’s her.
I’m not sure why, but I fucking trust her. She’s too genuine…too real. And it’s easy to tell from her haunted eyes and bizarre reactions to tense situations that she’s not exactly playing pretend.
She’s her own breed of fucked up. Just like the rest of us.
“The girl had twenty of Phillip’s men executed,” Drex says quietly. “Point-blank shots to the head after the bomb.”
I tense a little at that.
The fucking hell? Maya? I see her as…well, crazy. Not murderous.
“One of them was her boyfriend at the time,” he goes on, quieter still. “Apparently he was a spy for her brother and Phillip.”
I swallow a little harder on that. She mentioned loyalty upstairs. She didn’t mention why it was so important. I assumed it was because her brother betrayed her. She also mentioned guys weren’t strong enough for her. I took that as cowardly, not traitorous.
“That’s—we’re talking about Maya, right? You think she’s capable of killing a guy she was with?” I ask, unable to process that part of the story.
“Not directly, but she definitely issued the order. It was what kept anyone from assuming they were too weak to handle things after the sudden deaths of their parents. It was probably also the reason Blackbird became the head Family in charge of leading this war.”
He once again glances up toward the door, and I cross my arms over my chest.
“Still not sure how you know it’s definitely Maya.”
He looks back at me, eyes bland. “Because the girl who issued the order rolled in on roller skates, tall socks, short shorts, and had braided pigtails twisted in balls. Made her a little legendarily insane when she issued the order to kill them all and round up anyone else still in New York who sided with Phillip. Then she played a Spice Girls’ song directly after and skated around in circles while dancing to it, all while they put bullets in the heads of the guys. This reaction is what sent Phillip’s operation deep south.”
Definitely Maya.
Girl is just as fucking insane as we are. Possibly more so. In a different way, of course.
“The boyfriend was worked over for a few days before he was finally killed,” Drex goes on. “That’s apparently how they got their information that led to the trail here. It’s also how they turned someone in his crew. No one wants to fuck with the kids who’ve taken over. They’re all batshit fucking crazy, and they don’t care who knows it.”
Not sure why, but my lips twitch. I remember thinking the scared girl in my backseat was too sweet to hang with this club. Turns out, the scared girl was just a resident psycho who enjoys getting to live another day to wreak more havoc in the most bizarre of ways.
I quickly fill him in on the bad news Maya got, and he curses under his breath, trying not to draw attention to us. No one needs to see us frustrated or concerned right now.
The crew is still too fragile for another wave of problems so soon.
“It feels like we’re involved in this, even though she keeps promising we’re not,” Drex says, still keeping his tone too quiet to be overheard.
“Because we are involved. Have been since Phillip rolled into Halo,” I point out, feeling an inexplicable sense of defensiveness on Maya’s behalf. “At least we know it now. Herrin is involved too, but he’s completely unaware. That might be the only good thing that comes out of this. It’s not just Halo where Phillip is ciphering women. It’s Herrin’s town too, and if the feds somehow linked him to all this…”
I let the words trail off, planting the seed in Drex’s head. A slow smile spreads across his face when he gets it.
“Then Pop would go down with Phillip if the operation finally gets some federal attention. But what happens if it doesn’t get attention?”
“We set him up and let the cards fall however they fall,” I say with a shrug. “We’ve already made him look like a fed rat to a lot of different crews.”
He nods distractedly, as though he’s thinking it over. His gaze once again flicks up to the room’s closed door. I know it’s closed, because I keep looking over my shoulder every five seconds.
“How’s she taking the loss of her crew?” he asks me.
Apparently I’m a prick for not thinking about that. “I don’t know,” I answer tensely.
“Don’t piss off Blackbird,” he tells me pointedly. “You’re the only person in here she seems to give a damn about. We need her to survive so that we can get through this shit storm.”
“I’m not using her for survival purposes,” I say in a clipped tone that has his eyebrows raising and that stupid smile of his spreading.
“Alright then,” he says, still fucking smiling. “Then go do your thing. My bad.”
“You sound a lot like Drake when you talk and smile at the same damn time,” I grind out.
His smile only spreads. Bastard.
“The guys are going for a ride, but they’ll be back in a few days. We’re going to throw a party. Our morale game needs
to be strong,” he says, shifting the subject but not losing that damn grin.
“And?” I ask, wondering why the hell I care about a party. I always show up, but it’s not like I care to be there.
“And you should bring Maya. Let her get to know people.”
I tense again. “You mean some of the other guys?” My tone is flat, but for some reason, the fucker is grinning even bigger.
I’m going to kill him. Or at least remove his legs.
“I mean let her get a feel for the club. You know. In case she decides we’re worth letting survive and wants to continue to hang around. She’d make a nice old lady, and you could always clear out some of the furniture to give her more skating room.”
Ah. Got it. The dick is mocking me.
I turn around, flipping him off as he laughs to my back, and I stalk back to my room. When I fling open the door, I pause, once again finding myself in a stunned state.
Happens around Maya too often.
She’s singing along with a song on her phone while dancing like…a spaz? I’m not really sure if she’s dancing, considering I know she knows how to dance. Right now, she’s shaking her entire body like a wet dog, screaming the lyrics as loud as she can, and I shut the door behind me before anyone comes up to investigate the ear-brutality going on in my room.
Girls Just Want to Have Fun is apparently the song she’s trying to butcher. At least I think. She’s louder than the music.
And she’s still in her panties and T-shirt.
Scrubbing a hand over my face and groaning, I clear my throat loudly. Then realize the Thrashing Song Butcherer can’t hear that. So I walk over and press pause on her phone, killing the music.
She sings—or whatever that noise is called—for a minute longer before she seems to register the music is gone.
Her wild hair is shoved out of her face by one of her small hands, and she glances over at me, panting for air as the thrashing comes to an end.
“Care to tell me what the hell you’re doing? I thought you’d be a little more upset over your guys that you just lost.”
Drex saying that she had her boyfriend tortured and killed didn’t worry me until now. She just lost her crew, yet she’s jamming out like it’s the eighties and school’s out for summer.