by Jayne Blue
Both seemed like death.
I chose to climb onto his bike. Any moment that I wasn’t being murdered was a moment in my favor, I decided.
“What are you going to do?”
“Sorry, Kade.” With that, Benz unleashed a punch to Kade’s face. He staggered backward.
Benz got on his bike in one quick motion and then gunned it. I looked behind me to see Kade waving. Like he’d expected to get hit. Like it was no big deal. It was a punch that would have sent anyone else to dreamland. These men were all fierce and I’d basically chosen to go in against them naked. My stupidity was horrifying.
“What are you doing? Where are we going?” I asked Benz as we sped into the darkness.
“I’m saving your ass, even though you were willing to fry mine,” Benz yelled over his shoulder.
I had no idea what was coming next or where he was driving us.
He was saving me. Or at least it seemed that way.
The man I’d been so quick to turn into the cops was helping me. I honestly didn’t know why or if he’d change his mind on the dime. But I realized I’d bungled my way into a mess.
But maybe, just maybe, I’d also found the one good man in The Dark Saints. Benz was not who I thought and he was not his father’s son.
I hoped that meant I was going to figure my way out of this alive.
We rode into the night and didn’t stop. I held on. Benz was defying his club. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know if a person could come back from that.
The amount of shit I didn’t know had nearly gotten me killed and I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
16
Benz
This was territory I’d never been in before. But the minute Bear told me to kill Jen, something snapped. There was no way I could hurt her.
The lying bitch had fucked up my entire life.
And I still wanted her.
The idea of me or anyone else hurting her made me physically ill. I didn’t know if it was that way with love or… what the fuck? I just knew it wasn’t happening. And I knew I had to get her out of there.
Beyond me just not being able to do it, there was also the bonehead idea that killing a cop, or whatever she was, would blowback on my club in a major way.
Bear was wrong when he thought killing Jen was a solution to the current problem.
I’d brought up the idea of a vote. I knew if the other members heard me out, they’d see that killing Jen wasn’t the answer. That cop killing would bring hellfire down on the club.
But Bear wasn’t having it. He didn’t see her as anything but a complication that had fucked up his Bear Trap.
I’d questioned his orders. I did that after I’d also fucked up a deal that he’d carefully structured.
Bear wasn’t patient with dissent and Bear did not like surprises.
He was looking to end a bad night quickly. And he was testing my loyalty.
And my loyalty snapped. That test I’d aced a million times before I was now failing on an epic scale.
I felt Jen holding on behind me. I wanted to tell her she was safe. But it wasn’t wise. If I didn’t straighten this out, she wasn’t safe.
Bear could get this done without me. I had to buy us time.
Kade knew exactly why I’d hit him. He could go in and tell Bear I was off the rails and mean it.
I ran through the available options. Maybe Mama Bear could calm the situation down. But, when threatened, I’d seen her protect her man and the club with the brutal efficiency of the toughest of The Saints. Was she my enemy on this or a friend?
I didn’t know. This was new territory for me in every way.
I’d never defied Bear or the club. My only hope was that it hadn’t gone to a vote. Yes, I had made a move against Bear, but not the whole MC.
Of course, if I’d seen anyone defy Bear, I’d do what was needed to take them down. I could expect the same from my brothers. Nowhere near Port Azrael was safe for either of us right now.
Jen held on as we rode for nearly two hours. I had a destination in mind. A campground I’d bugged out to before. Only Axle knew that I’d come to this place. I prayed Axle had forgotten about it.
Bo would be on the road, too. That would be another issue that slowed everyone down in pursuing me. Maybe.
I hoped they were worried about Bo first and me second, but I had no way to know.
The campground was the kind where you plugged in an RV or could rent a one room cabin. I didn’t have an RV on hand, so cabin it was.
But I wouldn’t be renting tonight. I’d be crashing.
I knew from experience that the desk clerk was gone overnight. We’d be out of here in a day, two tops.
I drove in a circle around the lake that served as the center of the campgrounds.
There was a stretch of sites that looked vacant. There were no RVs or minivans plugged into any of the outlets. This would have to do.
We needed to disappear for a night and this was the best I could think of.
“Come on.”
Jen looked like a wild animal. She had no reason to think this was going to end anyway but with her death.
She looked like she might bolt or scream in that first moment when she climbed off the bike. I decided not to take the chance of either happening. Even if she screamed, I thought we were remote enough for it not to make a difference.
But if she ran? I didn’t want to be chasing her through the woods in the dark.
So I scooped her up and covered her mouth again. She kicked and punched and I took the blows. She was no match for me size wise. She was ferocious, no doubt, but I got her into the cabin and closed the door behind us.
She scrambled to the corner and hunched there warily.
“If you’re going to do it, do it”. She spat the words out at me.
“Do what?”
“What your club ordered. I’m not going anywhere else. I’m done. Kill me now and bury me out there. Whatever.” I realized what I must have looked like to her.
Gigantic, tattooed, bearded, and pissed off. I was all those things.
She couldn’t see that I was frantic to save her, not hurt her.
I took a breath. I had to get her to trust me, or she’d keep shooting herself in the foot. I needed a beat to think through what she’d done.
What I’d done.
I walked slowly to the corner where she was hunched, holding her knees. I looked into her eyes. They were rimmed in red.
I crouched down so I was eye to eye with her.
“I am furious with you. I don’t trust your lying ass as far as I could throw you. You put my club, the cops, and me in danger today by meddling in something you know nothing about.”
“You’re a fucking drug dealer and so are they. I know enough.”
“If you’d shut up and calm down you’d learn that we were trying to do the opposite.”
“What?”
“Letting the small timers come in, sell a little, start to feel comfortable. We were trying to get the bigger dealer and serve him up to the cops.”
“Sounds like a great story to tell a lawyer. I’m going to be missed, you know. Someone will look for me.” She said it, but looked a little unsure of herself, like she was at least considering what I was saying to her.
“Well, you won’t be found. At least not right now.” I saw her take in a breath.
She probably thought I was going to bury her out here. She’d been brave and brash up to that moment, but now something cracked. A sharp intake of breath at my words pushed her over.
A tear rolled down her cheek. It was completely out of place for what we’d been through in the last few hours, but my instinct was to reach out to brush away her tear.
She flinched as my hand approached.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You said you were furious. You’re supposed to kill me.”
“I’m not going to do it.”
She let that sink in a minute. I
watched her try to process it.
“Why?” she finally asked.
“Because… shit.” I stopped short of saying what had become a living thing inside my chest. I stopped short of the real reason I’d done this.
I knew exactly why I’d defied Bear.
I loved this woman. I had no explanation for it. And I also had no choice. It was about as stupid as it got, falling for her, but there it was in my head. The answer was I loved her.
I was one-thousand percent certain if given the chance she’d shoot me or turn me into the cops. I couldn’t do the same to her. I wouldn’t. Even though I had been ordered to by my Prez.
“Because shit?” she said. I stayed there, crouched in front of her. She was staring back at me and it was too much.
I stood up. I wasn’t ready to tell her what I was feeling and she sure as shit wasn’t ready to hear it. All she needed to know was that she better stay put and that running would get her killed.
“I’m not going to hurt you, but I’m not going to let you hurt yourself either, so we’re stuck here together.”
“Hurt myself? I’m not fucking suicidal.” I didn’t blame her for being confused as hell. I was too.
“I mean by running. I’m not going to hurt you. But you need to know, that right now you’ve got a long list of enemies.”
“What?”
“My Prez just ordered you dead and you are also responsible for putting two drug traffickers in jail.”
“Oh, terrible of me.”
“You remember when I said they’re small time? They have a big time boss and you’re messing with his shit.”
“That’s exactly what you said your club was going to do anyway.”
“Yeah? Your MC gonna have your back?”
“I, uh, they sort of know I was here, investigating… sort of.” That sounded like a lie to me. She wanted me to think there was someone waiting for her. I suspected there wasn’t.
“You’re supposed to be copying old newspapers, not nearly getting the local police killed. So right now, you need me.”
She seemed to shrink a little in the corner. Normally, being mean was part of the way I got shit done. I didn’t like being mean to her. But I had to be sure she stayed put so I had a second to think.
Jen curled into a tight ball and put her head down on her knees. I wanted to reach out and pick her up. I wanted to tell her that it was all okay, but it wasn’t.
I also needed a moment to think.
I stood up and looked out the cabin’s window. It was dark now and luckily it looked very deserted. Maybe I’d have one night to think. But only one night.
I paced a little and let Jen have her space, such as was possible in the tiny cabin.
I had a few provisions in my bag and that would have to be dinner. It was in my bug out bag; everyone in The Saints had one. Cash, a backup piece, a black cell phone, those were required. But I always had a little more. I never thought I’d be running from The Saints though. I always thought I’d be running because they ordered it. Right now, Bo was in that position.
After a while, Jen looked up.
“Benz?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
Suddenly her look of fear was replaced with something else.
I exhaled.
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath since I’d taken her away from the MC.
17
Jen
I lurched forward into Benz’s arms. The idea that he’d defied the only family he’d ever known to save me was profound.
He’d made a sacrifice in an instant, without hesitation. And he’d done it after discovering I had lied to him.
My world shifted on its axis at that moment. I had everyone categorized as a good guy or bad guy. The Dark Saints were bad and I was good.
Except it was all wrong.
I felt stupid and naïve. I’d seen this man basically burn his own house down around him for me.
I put his face in my hands and looked into his eyes. There was pain there. He’d seen so much more than I had. He’d done so much more. We were connected by violence in our past, but tenderness when we were together.
He was a beautiful soul and I had almost missed it.
I kissed his brow.
“Thank you.” It was a whisper.
I brushed his hair through my hand and sat on his lap. It was like I was really looking at him for the first time. Really touching him. The tough exterior. The violent life. It had shielded me from the man. And I wanted the man.
I felt starved for him. I couldn’t stop kissing him. I had to touch all of him.
“You don’t have to...”
“Shh. I have to love you,” I said and the word love came out easily.
“Thank God,” he said and he pressed his lips to mine.
It was a slow deep kiss that was a shadow of the hot as hell kisses we’d shared. I wanted the kiss to go on and on, and it did, in its way.
I pushed his leather away and he pulled my shirt over my head. I wanted nothing between us. I wanted everything he had.
Benz slid the straps of my bra down and raked his fingers over my nipples. Then his mouth trapped one and teased it with his tongue. He reached behind me and unhooked my bra. It was so good being so free. Benz used his mouth and his hands to torture my sensitive nipples.
We were on the floor and I didn’t care; we could have been on the moon for all I knew. A flurry of kisses and hands and I was bared to him.
He cradled me in his arms and let his mouth run from my neck to my belly. I wrapped my body around his. I was desperate to be closer.
I put my hands on his chest and marveled at it. His body was all hard edges and heat. My skin against his produced a chemical reaction. It sent my blood racing and put me in the moment like nothing ever had in my life. There was no MC. There was no family history to avenge. There was no worry about proving myself.
It was only Benz’s hands on my body, his lips on my lips. It was so right that it seemed more real than anything else that came before it.
“Benz, make love to me.”
“Yes, baby.” He kissed me again and it took my breath away. He leaned me back and hovered over me for a moment.
“I can’t go back after this. This is different,” he said.
“I know.” And I did know.
Something was happening between us that was more than a hookup. It was more than the wild sex we’d had before. We were opening to each other and connecting on a level that was new.
He wasn’t just fucking me, nor I him, and he gave me a second to understand it. He gave me a heartbeat or two to accept or reject it.
I’d been confused, afraid, and convinced of things in rapid succession since I’d come to Port Az. But with Benz, there was clarity. Beautiful clarity in how we made each other feel.
Slowly I felt his hard sex at mine.
I was so open and ready it was almost too much to hold onto. I pushed my bone to his bone, my heat to his heat, and I gasped.
“SO good,” he whispered in my ear. He was feeling this too.
“Yes,” I said.
His rhythm was slow and, with each stroke, I felt a tension build in me that needed release. He took me to the edge and then pulled me back, over and over.
I held on to him with my whole body. I gripped his powerful back. I reveled in the sensation. His pace quickened and the seductive attention, the control he’d lavished on me, started to unhinge.
His own body was getting from me what I was getting from him. I was slammed to the floor harder each time and I felt a powerful release ignite from my toes up through my core.
I screamed, “Benz!”
He felt me hitting the peak of pleasure, and he drove into me over and over.
Benz made a guttural sound that was part agony, part animal. His orgasm rocked me again and I felt another crest with him.
He held me so tightly, for a moment I couldn’t see or breathe. We undulated together, slow
ly, in a glow of something primal.
I didn’t want to break the spell. But I had to gasp for air.
“Here, here.” He flipped us like he’d done before and I was now on his chest. I took in a breath of air. I was amazed at being able to breathe. That I was here still, alive, and it was because he’d sacrificed something dear to him.
I closed my eyes.
“Wow.” That was all I could come up with.
“No one’s going to lay a hand on you. That’s my promise. No one,” he declared and I felt him shower kisses on the top of my head. He stroked my arms with his fingers.
“Benz. You went against your brothers for me. I don’t understand all of what that means. I don’t really understand your club. I thought one thing, but it was something else. I just want you to know that I do know you’re sacrificing for me. And I just…”
“Shh. Let’s just lay here and be,” he said and was right.
My mind had been going a mile a minute for so long that I’d forgotten how to just be. If I ever knew.
Benz produced a thin blanket from somewhere and covered us. He seemed fine on the hard floor and made his body a place where I could lay down and rest.
I don’t know how many hours went by, but dawn had broken when I woke up again. I was curled up on the bed. Benz had moved me and I hadn’t stirred.
Where was Benz? I looked around. I had a small stab of panic. Had he left? Why had he left?
I looked around and saw his things. I would have heard his bike if he’d ridden off, for sure. Then the door opened.
He was there, white t-shirt, well-worn jeans, a bag of groceries in one hand, and two coffees in the other.
“Good morning,” I said and he set the bag down and came over to the bed with the coffee.
“I’ve never seen you in the morning. You look so beautiful.” I covered my face. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like at this point. “No, really. Careful, this is still hot.”
“Thank you.” I knew he was looking at me, almost studying me. I tried not to blush or shrink away.
The coffee tasted good and did the job of helping me shake the sleep off.
“I think that was the best sleep of my life.” It was true. It couldn’t have been more than a few hours, but it was deep, satisfying sleep.