by Raven Dark
Shit, where the hell are Cal and Badger? I don’t hear their car at all.
“Bring it here.” Sinclair’s order takes all my focus.
His man walks back to his own black car. He takes a suitcase out of it, tosses it onto Sinclair’s hood and opens it. From here, it’s hard to see what he’s doing, but the movements of his hands suggest he’s put the memory card into what is obviously a laptop, and he’s typing.
While his man works, Sinclair nods toward Gar’s car. “Bring her out.”
“Not a chance, asshole. Take it and go.”
“What do you think you are, some kind of white fucking knight? Are you going to damage our relationship over a whore?”
“Vicious can get his weapons from someone else,” Gar snaps.
My jaw drops. So that’s how they know him? He’s the club’s gun supplier? That explains why Sinclair hasn’t tried to shoot Gar. He won’t kill his source of income unless he has to.
“All the videos are here, boss,” Sinclair’s guy says. He takes out the memory card and hands it to him.
“Look at the phone,” Gar orders. “Your proof is right there.”
“I already know who stole it. That girl’s been dealt with.”
Sasha. He killed her. My stomach does a horrible flip. I didn’t like her, but I didn’t want her dead.
“Then why the fuck are we still here, Max?”
“You think I’d let you go after you saw that footage?”
“I saw nothing I didn’t already know about you, Max. I already know you’re a sick fuck.”
“I’m not letting you or her leave. Not after you’ve seen that.”
“You think I care about the fucking bitch on that footage? A girl stupid enough to get involved with you?”
He’s talking about the girl Sinclair killed in that video.
“Toss your weapons and bring Blue to me.”
Gar pulls out and tosses two of his guns.
“I know you like your firearms. Toss the other one.”
Gar bends down and tosses the one from his boot. Sinclair’s man shuts the laptop and collects the firearms.
Where is the other gun? I was sure Badger had given him four. Sinclair still has his gun in his hand.
With barely a nod from Sinclair, his man pulls a gun from a holster under his blazer. I scream as he fires and the gunshot goes off.
Gar rolls and the shot hits the dirt where he’d been standing, sending up a cloud of dust.
Sinclair is suddenly on top of Gar before he can stand. He points his gun at him. “You’re just a stupid caveman, aren’t you, boy?”
Gar jerks his shoulders up, and in one move, pulls something out from under the back of his cut. It’s a gun. He points it at Sinclair’s face.
“Not quite.”
Sinclair’s face loses its color.
The gun goes off.
I jerk my head aside, but not before a splash of red fills my vision. There’s the unmistakable thump of a human body hitting the ground.
Gar knifes to his feet. Sinclair’s man rushes at him with his own gun raised.
“Gar!” I scream.
I didn’t need to warn him.
Tires squeal. Cal’s vehicle skids up to Gar. Badger points a gun out the window. There’s a pop and a flash. The man drops.
My own breathing fills my ears. I’m trying desperately not to be sick.
Only when the back door opens and I’m outside the car in Gar’s arms do I feel relief sweep over me. It’s over.
“Gar…” I’m sobbing, shaking, clutching at him.
He squeezes me close. He’s kissing me all over, or maybe I’m kissing him. It’s all a blur. He holds me close and rocks me, crooning in my ear. “You’re safe, baby. It’s done. It’s all over.”
I nod mutely. “You’re okay. I thought…I was so afraid I’d lose you.”
“I know. I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere. Come on, we gotta get out of here.” He picks me up in his arms, carrying me around the car to the passenger’s side while he calls out to Cal. “Cal, take care of that shit once we’re gone, will you?” He nods to the bodies in the dirt.
Cal has already gotten out of the car. He pulls that huge blade out of his trench coat. He’s making his way toward Sinclair, but he pauses, watching Gar put me in the car.
“Oh, my God.” I swallow. “Is he going to…”
“You wanted to know what I did for a living, Sandra.” Cal whirls the blade. “This is what I do.”
I close my eyes and bury my face in Gar’s neck when he gets in beside me and shuts the door.
Miles away from Tanner Lake, he pulls the car off to the side of the road and cups my nape. Our breaths mingle. I breathe in the scent of him, letting it ground me. Still trembling, I close my eyes, losing myself in him.
Tears fall down my cheeks, and I can’t stop them. “God, you could have died.”
“I didn’t. I’m here, baby. I’m always here.” He wipes my tears away and then kisses the wetness from my cheeks.
“I’m sorry. I keep falling apart around you.”
“That’s all right, sweetheart. Fall apart anytime you want to, ’cause you know what?”
I sniffle. “What?”
He kisses my lips hard, then whispers in my ear, “I’ll always be here to put you back together again.”
I give a broken laugh and hold him tight. It’s a laugh full of warmth and happiness, and a whole heart full of something I never thought I’d ever feel again until I met him—love.
13
Something So Much Better
We arrive back at the clubhouse a little before noon.
Gar carries me upstairs in companionable silence. It seems there’s something that’s wrapped itself around us, a closeness that transcends whatever I felt between us up until now, and makes the need for words unnecessary. We take a long, hot shower together, and he wraps me in a towel, carrying me to his bedroom. However much I hated being carried by him when we first met, I love it now. His arms make me feel protected and cherished, and for the first time, I can see why it’s in so many romances.
“Let’s get you in my bed, sweetheart.” He kicks his door open with his foot.
“But it’s the middle of the day.” I smile at him.
“I don’t care. You already know how I get after a good fight. I need to fuck you.”
I sigh dramatically. “God, you’re such a barbarian.”
He snorts. “For you, fuck, yeah. But you love it.”
“You’re right. I totally do.”
He lays me in his bed and slips in behind me, pressing my back against his chest and running his palms over my arms, driving away the last of the cold from the shower. He smells wonderful, like masculine soap and his own unique scent.
“You all right?” he whispers in my ear.
The tenderness in his voice makes my throat tighten. Especially after what I saw him do at Tanner Lake, the warmth and gentleness floors me. It makes me love him even more.
I turn my head, gazing up at him. “Surprisingly, yeah. I am.”
“You aren’t scared of me? Of what I did?”
Because he killed a man, I realize.
“I guess I should be, but I’m not. What is it you told me when I told you I was a stripper?”
He quirks a brow.
“You did what you had to do. Gar, I can’t believe what you’ve done for me. Nothing I can say will ever be enough.”
“You don’t have to say a word, sweetheart. I already know.”
“That I love you?”
He nods and drops a kiss on my shoulder.
“You made me fall so damn hard for you so fast, Gar. How did you do that?”
“It’s a gift.” His eyes dance.
“Wow. Arrogant much?”
He grins. “It’s not arrogant if it’s true.”
“God, how are you so hot?”
He growls hungrily and turns me onto my back. His lips find mine, and I groan, tilting my head bac
k, letting my tongue mate greedily with his.
Every stroke of his tongue intensifies the ache already starting between my legs. He flicks his tongue between my lips, hot, wicked licks.
“Fuck, you make me crazy, Sandra.”
“Me too,” I rasp.
Everything he’s done tonight makes me wilder for him, makes me crazy in love until I can’t get enough of him.
His fingers slide between my legs, toying with my slicked clit. He growls his approval at the wetness there. “Spread your legs, sweetheart.”
I don’t need telling twice. I spread my knees, gliding my hand over his, encouraging him. Gar teases my core and then slips two fingers into me. I toss my head and buck my hips eagerly.
“Good girl. Let me watch you fuck my fingers, Sandra.”
I mewl and rock my hips, panting and loving every long, deep stroke. He eats my mouth, alternating between lapping at my lips and watching me fuck his touch. I flick my tongue out, tasting him, needing him.
“Don’t kiss me back. Just let me take your mouth. Just fuck my fingers nice and slow.”
Oh, God. A wild orgasm tries to rip through me, urging me to rock my hips and come on his touch, to devour his kiss. Somehow, I slow my hips and lie there, letting his tongue dart inside my mouth, teasing and sweeping hotly over my lips whenever he likes.
“Good girl,” he draws out. The praise goes right to my clit, which he’s started circling with his thumb. His tongue fucks my mouth slowly.
Shit, I’m gonna die.
“Gar, please, no more teasing. You’re killing me.”
“Tell me you love me, Sandra.”
“Oh, God. I love you, Gar. I love you!”
He rumbles in triumph. Then he lays over me, spreads my legs wide, and enters me in one hot, greedy thrust. I slap the headboard with my palms and arch my back, meeting his wild thrusts.
“You fuck like a wild woman, Sandra, I love it.” He bites my shoulder and I cry out, the flash of pain making me needier. I rock my hips frantically and toss my head.
“Shit, shit, shit, yes!”
He jerks my head back, cups my throat with his other hand, and swallows my cries.
“Jesus Christ, Sandra.” When his control snaps, he rears up, lifts my hips and fucks me viciously.
I’ve never wanted a man so much. I come hard, crashing over the edge, and then come again, right after. He grunts in pleasure, gives me three sharp thrusts, and spills into me.
After, we lie panting and spent in each other’s arms while Gar’s fingers trail slowly up and down my back. He brushes kisses on my forehead.
“Wow.” I nuzzle his neck. “Just wow.”
He chuckles. “You were extra crazy tonight.” He kisses my shoulder. “Any particular reason for that?” His tone teases.
“You know why.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“You saved my life. You were a sexy badass, okay?”
His shoulders shake. Then he locks his eyes with mine and he becomes serious. “Max was right about one thing. I am no fucking white knight. I’m not the Prince Charming you deserve.”
“I told you, I don’t want Prince Charming. Besides, you’re something much better than that.”
“And what would that be?”
“You’re everything I could ever want.” I sigh into his chest and hold him tight. “My big, scary monster of a man.”
He holds me like he’s never going to let me go. “Yeah. Always, baby. Always.”
Epilogue: When the Heart Changes
Two years later…
If there was one thing I was worried about after the night Gar faced off with Sinclair, it was how exactly my family would handle my relationship with him.
Nothing provided me with the answer so much as what happened on the night two years later when, after a day out, we arrived back at the clubhouse to a surprise guest.
Before I get to that, though, let’s back up a bit.
The day following the incident at Tanner Lake, my dad had showed up at the clubhouse, worried when I still hadn’t called him. I’d been trying to figure out how to explain all that had happened. When he’d seen that Gar and I were together, he hadn’t been thrilled. The sight of all the leather-clad bikers in their Hell’s Heathens patches and tattoos, men whom the town of Whiskey as a whole feared, clearly unsettled him.
Dad had been polite but stilted with Gar before pulling me aside and making his feelings known.
“Sandra,” he says, taking my arms gently with a heavy sigh. “What you choose to do with your life is your choice and yours alone. I think this is a mistake, but I can’t stop you.” He then hugs me. “If you ever need us, you call, okay?”
I can hear it in his voice. He’s sure Gar’s going to break my heart or worse, and he’s waiting for the inevitable, ready to step in at need.
“It’s going to work out, Dad.” Wishing I could change his mind about my man, and the club, I hug him back. “You’ll see.”
Then he’d left, and I’d felt like my heart was ready to shatter. I’d known it was asking too much for him to just accept Gar with open arms, but it still crushed me to think that he might never be okay with this.
Things hadn’t improved a few months later when I’d shown up to the house to pick up my things with a ring on my finger. Or when, a week after that, I’d showed up for a barbecue with Gar’s arm around me and my first tattoo, a small butterfly on my ankle.
Gar never told him, or my mother and brother, that he and the club had been watching over them during that whole ordeal with Sinclair, or that they’d done nothing short of save my family’s lives.
And so, the inevitable happened. Over the next few months, I rarely saw my family. My brother visited once in a while, the only one who came close to accepting the club. One day when he’d dropped by, Badger showed him the basement area where he did all his tech work, the area he called, “The Bat Cave.” When Kyle had left, he’d begrudgingly told me that it, and Badger, were “cool”.
It was a start.
Over the summer following the one in which I met Gar, Kyle stopped by often, working with the club’s mechanic, Boar, fixing up the bikes. Kyle had always loved mechanics, but Dad never let him near a socket wrench, not since he’d caused Dad’s car to break down after one of his repair jobs.
One afternoon when Boar was teaching Kyle how to repair a broken oil tank, I saw them drinking and laughing, both of them sprayed with oil. By now, Anne and Vicious had had their first child, Vicky, and my brother loved carrying the tiny bundle around, getting a kick out of his first chance to hold a baby. He watched with fascination while Barbie got another tattoo, completing one of her sleeves in the fall.
“Can I have one?” he asks Barber, the club’s doctor and tattoo artist.
“No way, kid.” Barber snorts a laugh, finishing up. “Your dad would have a fucking cow.”
“Aw, let him have it, Barb,” Devil says with a smile from his seat nearby. “It’ll do that perfect preppy image good.”
I giggle.
That was the closest Devil had ever come to having a conversation with Kyle.
I should have seen it coming. I should have known that Kyle’s slow acceptance of the club would soon lead to a much bigger surprise.
So, the on the night exactly two years after Gar had faced off with Sinclair, Kyle was supposed to drop by to play some new video game with the guys. I had my own surprise to show him, and of course, he was late.
“I wish my parents would come to see this little one,” I tell Gar as I pick the tiny, dark-haired bundle up from his crib beside mine and Gar’s bed. I hold my now two month old baby, Ripper, to my chest, cradling his head, which almost fits in my hand. We’d had a busy day out, but he didn’t seem to want to sleep after I’d put him down for a nap.
“They’ll come around, you’ll see. Your brother did.” He runs his huge palm over the baby’s soft head with such infinite gentleness that it baffles me and warms my heart.
“I hope
so. I can’t bring myself to go over there when I’m never sure they want us there.”
“Sandra?” Barbie calls from downstairs. “They’re here.”
They? I look at Gar, puzzled. Had Kyle decided to bring some of his teammates by, too?
Gar’s lips turn up with a knowing smirk.
I put one hand on my hip. “What did you do, Gar?” I drawl.
He shrugs. “Coming?”
I shake my head and follow him downstairs.
When I see who’s at the front door, I stop dead.
Kyle waves from the door with a big smile, patting the man at his side on the back.
“Daddy?”
My father strides in and pulls me into a hug. “Hey, sweetie. All right, let me see you, little man.” He winks at me and takes Ripper gently from my arms. He cradles the boy’s head just as gently as Gar did, smiling at him. “Hello there, little one. Say hi to Grandpa.”
“Daddy, what are you doing here?” I beam.
He squeezes my hand, his eye twinkling. Then he turns to Devil, who’s watching us from the bar. “You would be Devil, I’m guessing.”
“I am.” The Prez shakes his hand. “Marshal?”
“Yes. Kyle said you guys are in need of a lawyer.”
My jaw drops.
“Almost always,” Devil says, and both men laugh. “If you want the work, you’ll have more than you know what to do with, Mr. Marshal.”
I stare at Gar, who just shrugs and smiles. “How?” I mouth at him.
He winks.
My dad is still holding Ripper in his arms, cooing gently to the baby when he fusses. It makes for an interesting image, my dad in his custom black suit, soothing my baby while he talks to a bear of a tatted-up, scarred biker about getting him and his crew out of the club’s latest legal mishap.
It feels wonderful to see him all dressed up and working again, his face alight with his love of legal wrangling, eager to get his hands dirty for the first time since his heart attack.
When someone crosses the room to talk to Devil, my dad leans into me. “It took me a long time, I know. But these guys aren’t so bad.” He squeezes me close. “We’ll get your mother to come around eventually.”