Isaac spoke up during her pause. “Christ, Lilli. That’s awful. But I don’t understand why you’re after Ray.”
“Because he fucked with my ride. He got those men killed. And he got away with it.”
Isaac stared, his eyes hot. Lilli wished she could know his thoughts. “That’s a fucked up accusation. You better know it’s true.”
“I know it’s true. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now.” She stood. “Fuck the beer. I need tequila. You?” Isaac nodded slowly, and she took their empty bottles and went into the kitchen to pour a couple of tall glasses of Patrón. She came back, handed him his glass and sat down exactly as she had before. Isaac hadn’t moved.
After a sip from her glass, she started again. “Lopez, my crew chief, told me that he’d seen Hobson around my copter a couple of times shortly before the mission. He said he’d mentioned it in his testimony, but Hobson must have had some reason queued up, because it didn’t make any waves. But a few months after I was stateside, Lopez got in touch. This was before I was fully into this gig, so getting in touch wasn’t so hard. He’d just rotated out, and Hobson got wasted at the party and confessed to Lopez that he’d sabotaged my engine and then fixed it before the Chief got to it. Would’ve been easy to undo what he’d done. He knew he’d be in charge of the investigation—he was senior pilot after me, so he’d be OIC.”
For the first time, Isaac interrupted. “OIC?”
“Office in Charge. The perfect fucking crime. In charge of the investigation, in charge of the report.”
“Why didn’t Lopez report what Ray told him?”
Their glasses were empty. Lilli got up and brought the tequila in from the kitchen and refilled them. “A drunk utterance about a closed file? A confession that would tear the battalion apart? It would go nowhere but up Lopez’s ass. He did the right thing. The only way for justice to work here is off the books.”
“Lilli, you’re telling me that Ray let a whole squad of men die because he didn’t like you. That’s a special kind of crazy. I know this man.”
“I don’t think he expected the mission to be so dire when he fucked with Donna. I don’t even know if he was trying to ruin my career so spectacularly. For all I know, he was just fucking with me. His favorite pastime. Doesn’t matter. What he did got men killed. He doesn’t walk away from that.” The story told, she had a moment to understand something. “Are you saying you don’t believe me?”
He didn’t hesitate. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m trying to get my head around what you’ve told me, though. I need to make the pieces fit.”
“No, you don’t. This is my thing, not yours.”
“You’re wrong, Lilli. This is someone I’ve known most of my life. This is my brother’s brother. A friend of the club. Baby, he’s under club protection. You understand what I’m saying to you?”
She thought she did, and it broke her heart. She stood and took his glass from him. “You’re saying you’re my enemy now. Get out, Isaac.” She turned and walked into the kitchen and put the empty glasses in the sink.
Then he was behind her, his hand on her shoulder, turning her roughly around. “No. You got it wrong. I’m not your enemy. That’s the last fuckin’ thing I want. But I have to take this to the club.” He lifted her onto the counter before she had a chance to resist.
The tequila was stirring her sadness and anger into a particular kind of heat, and she could feel her hands shaking with it. She needed Isaac to get out of here. “Then we are enemies. That’s a confidence you can’t break, Isaac. I’ll kill you before I let you. It’s not just me on the line here.”
He wrapped his hand around her ponytail until his fist was against the back of her head. She swung at him, but he caught her fist in his other hand. “You need to trust me, Lilli. You need to let me work this. If you kill Ray while he’s under our protection, the club will kill you. I won’t be able to stop that. Let me work this. Let me figure it out. Let me help you.”
Isaac was panting, his face only inches from hers; Lilli could feel his breath against her cheek and ear. She was furious, but she was also wet and almost writhing with need. She pushed at him with her free hand, trying to make room to get her leg up and kick him, but he sensed her intent and knocked her leg away, spreading her wide and settling his hips against hers. Oh, fuck. He pulled hard on her hair, forcing her head back, and then his lips were on her throat, sucking. Gasping, she thrust against him, not even sure herself if she was trying to push him off or just grind on him. She was trying to remember that he was fucking everything up and threatening to put people who trusted her at risk, but the scent of him. The feel of his denim-clad legs against her bare ones, his hands holding her forcefully . . . fucking tequila.
“Let go of me.”
She knew Isaac wasn’t feeling the booze the way she was; she’d seen plenty of evidence of his impressive tolerance. But something was on him. His gaze was all but scorching her. “Fight me.”
“What?”
“I want you to fight me. C’mon, Sport. You’ve been trying to hit me since I got here. Fight me now.”
They weren’t done. They were in big trouble. Everything they’d found together was in jeopardy. Hell, it was probably already over. There was a good chance that one of them would kill the other soon. And he wanted a rough fuck?
But Lilli could feel the hot steel of his erection against her pelvis. Her heart was pounding in her head, and the crotch of her shorts was soaked.
She head-butted him.
“Christ!” Staggering back, he dropped his hold on her fist and put his hand to his forehead. He still had his hand wound in her ponytail, and he’d wrenched her head around when he backed up, but she swung with her just-freed right and punched him in the face. That made him let go of her completely, and she jumped off the counter and backed out of the kitchen.
He charged at her and reached for her arm, but she spun out of his way. She noticed that he was trying to contain her, not hit her. That answered her question of whether this was a fight or foreplay, and she adjusted her defense, ignoring the opening he’d given her. He lunged at her again, and she let him catch her arm. He yanked it behind her back and dragged her against his chest. When he slammed his mouth on hers, she bit his lip, tasting blood.
“Ah! Damn!” He reared back, licking his wounded lip. He reached for her free hand, but she spun again, eluding him and breaking his hold on her other arm as well. She backed up as he came for her. He was grinning wildly. “You are a hot-ass little bitch, you know that? I’m gonna fuck you into next week.”
He grabbed her arm again and swung her around so that she was facing away from him. She tried to spin, but he caught her other arm, too. He’d acquired a keen understanding of her flexibility in the weeks they’d been together, and he folded both arms behind her, holding them tight against her back with one large fist. Then he shoved her over the back of the couch. With his free hand, he tore her hiking shorts and underwear down, letting them drop around her ankles. Then his rough fingers were pushing between her legs from behind, shoving into her. “Jesus fuck, baby, you’re always so damn wet for me. I love how you love it rough like this.”
Needing more from him, she struggled against his hold, and he pushed her arms up higher on her back. “You’re gonna have to wait, Sport. I’m not done here.”
Then his fingers were on her clit. He was rubbing hard on her, almost violently, and she was ready to come almost immediately. She cried out, “God, yeah! Fuck, Isaac, fuck!”
Then his fingers were gone, and she could hear him opening his belt and jeans with one hand. He hadn’t let go of her arms. She was losing feeling in them, but she didn’t care. She needed to get fucked, and now. Her bigger concern was how he was going to get a condom on one-handed. She turned her head. “Condom?”
Leaning over her, his mouth against her ear and his cock hot and hard against her ass, he said, “Don’t need one.” He stood back up, and his hand was between her legs again, insid
e her, then dragging along her cleft, wetting her. When he pushed his fingers—at least two—firmly past her anus, she gasped and bucked, so close to orgasm she thought the unmet need might actually kill her.
He bent over her back again, his fingers pumping and flexing in her, and he rumbled in her ear. “You like that, baby? You want me to fuck your ass?”
“Yes! Fuck! Please, Isaac, I need to come!” She bucked against his fingers, trying to get enough stimulation to get over. Then his fingers were gone again, and his cock was filling her core. He thrust several times—too many times, taking too much risk without a condom, but she was in a frenzy now, millimeters or milliseconds or whatever measurement was appropriate from the edge of her climax, and she couldn’t find breath to stop him—and then he was out and pushing into her ass. He didn’t go slow this time; this time he just pushed right in, and it was intense and just over the tipping point of pain. She screamed. And then she was coming, her whole body, even her voice, pulsing with it. He hadn’t even moved inside her yet.
She heard him whisper, “Oh my God, baby. God, that’s so tight. God. God.” But he didn’t come. When she was done, he pulled out of her, fast and completely hard, making her scream again in pleasurepain.
Isaac released her arms then and picked her up, carrying her down the hall to the bedroom. He threw her on the bed and dropped down on top of her, claiming her mouth in a ferocious kiss. She kissed him back just as hard, sucking the blood from his lip where she’d bitten him. He growled and pushed back onto his knees, fetching a condom from his wallet. She’d lost her shorts and underwear in the living room, so she spread her bare legs wide and waited for him.
When he was wrapped, he entered her powerfully, fast and to the hilt, making her arch off the bed at the deep fullness of him inside her. Damn, she’d never felt anything like him.
His eyes were intent on hers. “Fucking you is like nothing I’ve known before, baby. You fit me like you were made for me. I can feel you everywhere.”
Pounding away inside her, he yanked her t-shirt and bra up, exposing her breasts. He shifted back to his knees, pulling her partway onto his lap, and worked her nipples the way she liked. He’d known from the first time just what she wanted. Firm pressure. He pulled and pinched just right, until she was bucking on him, feeling another wave of ecstasy mounting.
“Suck me, Isaac. I want your mouth.” He growled and gathered her into his arms. She arched backward over his hold, giving him access, and his mouth latched onto her breast like a starving babe. “Harder. Harder. Oh, fuck, yeah.” She drove her hips down on him, taking him as deep into her core as she could, holding him as tightly as she could, striving, striving. He groaned loudly, clutching her closely, and bit down on her breast as he came. The feel of his cock pulsing inside her and his teeth bearing down on her sent her over, too, and she sank her nails into his shoulders as she screamed again.
When they could relax, Isaac laid her tenderly down and eased out of her. He got up from the bed and dealt with the condom. Then he stripped—he’d even still had his boots on—and returned to her. He helped her out of her t-shirt and bra and pulled her close to rest her back on his chest.
They were quiet, regrouping together. Lilli felt calmer than she thought she would, after the conversation they’d had—the one they were still in the middle of, in fact. Then, out of the blue, Isaac said. “I’m bringing you to the clubhouse. You and I are going to talk to Showdown. He’s the brother I trust most; he’s the one I go to for advice. We need a head that’s not so deep in this. Because Lilli, I am not fuckin’ losing you. We will find a way out of the mess. I need you to trust me, baby. Please.”
Lilli was tired. She knew she shouldn’t. All of her training, her loyalty, everything told her that it was wrong to bring in anybody else, much less a whole motorcycle club. The greatest risk to a mission like hers was the people who knew about it. The risk increased exponentially with each person. What she should do is eliminate the threat.
What she would do is what Isaac asked. She wanted him. If there was a way that she could keep him, then she’d take the risk and trust him. She sent up a little prayer to a god she’d stopped believing in when she buried her father, asking that if she was wrong, others didn’t pay the price with her.
She shifted on his chest so that she could see his face—his gorgeous face that she’d come to love so much, with his astute green eyes. She ran her finger along the scar across his cheek. “Okay. But tell me where he is.”
“Wyatt and Ray are off on a deep woods camping trip. He’s out of reach, but he’ll be back in a couple of weeks. You don’t have to go anywhere, Sport. He’s still around.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Isaac parked in front of the clubhouse, and Lilli and he dismounted. Damn, he loved riding with her wrapped around him. Even with all the shit going down, what he really wanted to do right now was pull her back into the nearest dorm room and fuck the sense out of her. Again. He couldn’t, of course; the kind of trouble they had wouldn’t wait any longer. But when she took off the helmet that was now hers and ran a hand to smooth her ponytail, he couldn’t resist dragging her up against his body and kissing her until he felt her almost sag into his embrace.
He had to fix this. He had to find a way to clear a path for Lilli to do what she needed to do with Ray. He believed her story; the first thing he’d known about her was that she was honest—even while she was secretive, she managed to be honest. So he had no doubt that Ray had done the fucking awful thing that she said he’d done. Isaac wanted him dead for fucking with Lilli; he needed no other provocation than that. But it was the squad of lost soldiers that he knew could turn the club to her side. Against one of their own. Because Wyatt? Wyatt would never turn on Ray.
Wyatt was the older brother. They’d grown up in a tough house, with a hard father and a weak mother. A lot like Isaac’s house—and not so few other houses in this part of the world. Country life could be hard and austere. Men worked until they were bone weary and drenched in sweat. Then they drank and thought about how they had to do it again the next day. Then they went home angry and spoiling for trouble.
What was different about Ray and Wyatt, though, was that Ray had trouble keeping out of their father’s way. He never seemed to learn when to lie low. Sometimes, it seemed like Ray took pains to provoke their dad. And then Wyatt would step between them and take the brunt. Wyatt always took the brunt. He was offered a football scholarship to Nebraska, but he wouldn’t leave Ray behind, so he turned it down. Ray went to college instead, going ROTC.
Wyatt worked the family farm with his father and lived in a little cottage he built on the property, some short distance from the main farmhouse he’d grown up in. Ray had been in the service for sixteen years, but he’d come home, what, a year or so ago? He’d moved into a ramshackle hut a couple of towns away and kept mostly to himself, making money doing odd jobs as they came up, but mainly letting Wyatt take care of him, seeing to it he had groceries and whatever else he needed. Isaac had only seen him a few times, when Wyatt dragged him to Friday nights to try to get him to have fun. Ray had gotten very weird and twitchy. Everyone assumed it was something that happened in the war. Now Isaac knew that was true.
He took Lilli’s hand and headed to the door. Almost everyone was here; work shifts had recently ended, and the Horde always came together for a couple of drinks, at least, before those who had families went back to them. So Isaac knew he was about to create a stir. Most of the Horde had met Lilli and seen her with Isaac, but it had been at least fifteen years since he’d walked into the clubhouse with a woman. He brought her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. She smiled at him.
“It’s gonna be okay, Sport. We’re gonna work this.”
She huffed dryly, not quite a laugh. “One way or another, yeah. We are.”
No. Not one way or another. There was only one way. With them on the same goddamn side. He would not lose her. He never thought to have this; he never thought h
e wanted it. But he had it, this love, this binding with another soul, and he was not giving it up. Fuck no. He would not betray her.
He could not betray his club, though, either. These men, their families, this town—all his responsibility, and he would never shirk it. So there was only one way. The club had to believe her, and they had to agree that Ray deserved to die.
He gave Lilli’s hand a squeeze and opened the clubhouse door.
When they walked in, heads turned as usual, to see and greet their president. But when they saw Lilli, the room got quiet. Horde, girls, and hangers-on, literally everyone in the room eventually was watching Isaac walk through the room they called the Hall. He turned to see that Lilli was smiling slightly, looking confident. But she was also holding his hand just a tad more tightly. He squeezed back and decided that they wouldn’t walk straight through and get to business. Showdown was at the bar; Isaac led Lilli there. The Horde who’d met her nodded cordially or lifted their drinks her way. Slowly, people turned back to what they were doing.
Rover was working behind the bar. When he wasn’t around, people helped themselves, but he knew he was expected to serve if he was in the Hall. Now, he came straight up to Isaac.
“Just a couple of Buds, Rove.” Rover nodded and turned to the bar fridge. Still holding Lilli’s hand, Isaac leaned toward Show. “After this drink, we need to talk.” Show gave him a quizzical look, but nodded and took a pull from his own beer. Rover brought their beers; when Lilli took hers with a bright smile and a softly spoken thanks, she turned to lean her back against the bar. Isaac watched her as she took in the Hall. Her expression took on a rapt cast as her eyes fell on the far corner of the room. He realized what she was seeing and turned around himself to look.
For the most part, the Hall looked like a giant rec room where a bunch of mostly uncouth men hung out. The bar, which was a big, ugly thing with tufted orange vinyl up the sides (and for which Isaac was not in any way responsible—it predated him by decades) and stools upholstered with the same orange vinyl; a large pool table with a blue felt top; a couple of arcade video games and an old pinball machine; several big leather couches and chairs arranged in front of an 80-inch TV mounted on the wall; and a few four-top tables and chairs. The wall décor was lighted beer signs, bike posters, sexy pinups, an oversized bulletin board covered in snapshots, and a wall of framed certificates and plaques of town appreciation. The walls were cheaply paneled, the concrete floor covered in peeling, cracked linoleum. Everything well used, nothing remarkable.
Move the Sun (Signal Bend Series) Page 17