by Paula Cox
He pulled back just a little bit from her, his fingers still moving deep inside of her.
“Show me how you like it,” he said, his voice low and rough.
“Oh God,” she murmured, and she was too tired to argue or to feel embarrassed. She took two fingers and pressed them down onto her clit, firm and hard, a little higher than where he’d been. She moved faster than he had been, feeling a bright red blush flood her cheeks, and feeling the roiling pleasure begin to curl into a tight little ball in the pit of her stomach.
“Yeah, baby,” he whispered, pressing one quick, hard kiss to her fingers. She felt the beginning of the peak, and trusting her instincts, turned her fingers so that they were presented to him, glistening and soaking. He groaned with something that sounded like pure pleasure, and sucked them into his mouth, hard and fierce, as he curled his fingers hard inside of her and pulled.
Lola felt like she’d burst into flames. Somewhere else, she could hear a low, gasping moan escaping her throat. She could feel her hips bucking, riding his hand like she’d ridden his cock earlier, and she knew without question that she wanted to inhabit this moment forever. His fingers curled up in her, his tongue licking every drop of her wetness off her fingers while he moaned and suckled and a second peak came, hard on the heels of the first, and that time she screamed. She clawed at his back, pulling at him, and he climbed her body, pressing soft kisses into her as he kept up that slow, steady pull with his fingers, dragging every last drop of pleasure out of her until she finally collapsed into stardust, her body pulsing around his fingers in fitful convulsions that sent shivers through her entire self.
When her eyes opened, he was there, stroking small circles over the softness of her belly and smiling.
“You went away for a little bit, there,” he said, his voice gentle and teasing. His eyes were so kind. How could a man with such vicious tattoos be so incredibly kind?
“I did,” she murmured back, rolling over on her side, towards him. He obliged by wrapping his arms around her, cuddling her gently into his chest. It felt delicious, sweet, incredibly warm and precious.
“Rest for a little bit,” he said. “I’ll keep an eye on you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Plus, there’s guards outside. Horse has us covered. Rest. Tomorrow will probably be just as long.”
“Okay.” She let her eyes close as she dropped slowly into the relaxation, and let it pull her down into sleep.
***
Gunner held himself perfectly still until he was sure Lola’s breathing had evened out, and she was falling gently into sleep. He’d gone off like a rocket when she’d leaned forward, dropping her breasts into his hands, and then pinned him down to the bed. He’d been tempted to flip her over, press her into the mattress with his weight, and fuck her until she saw stars, but he’d been doing this for her, not for him. She’d given him exactly what he needed earlier. This time was for her. To take her mind off what they’d seen.
Now that it was over, now that she was asleep, and he was alone with his thoughts, he was having trouble shaking the image of Billy’s head separated from his body. He couldn’t decide what the hell was going on. An attack against the Breed, or an attack against him in particular? From the Vipers or from a third party? There were too many options, and until he could narrow them down, at least a little, he didn’t know how to move forward.
And his baby girl, along with the woman he trusted to look after that child, were out there somewhere. God, he hoped they were still out there. He couldn’t even let the thought drift all the way through his mind of what would happen if he saw them the same way Billy had been. He needed them both back, safe and healthy.
He looked at Lola as she lay on the bed, her face relaxed and calm. He’d never seen a woman come as hard, as completely, as she had when she was riding him. He’d thought she might come apart entirely, the way she was heaving and surging on top of him. He’d felt so honored, holding her as she sagged throughout.
It was selfish to wish she’d stayed away. He still felt himself wanting it.
He slipped carefully out of bed, making sure not to disturb her. He pulled the covers gently up over her shoulders, watching her roll over gently and snuggle into them with a smile on her sleeping face, and then he pulled on his boxers and left the bedroom.
After he’d put her back on the bike, he’d followed Horse’s directions to the letter. He’d driven through the back roads of town, navigating through the absolute edges of Viper territory until he got to one of the safe houses that Horse had set up, years ago. It’d been a long time since the Breed had been involved in any direct, serious conflicts, but in Horse’s mind, that wasn’t the same as it being impossible. Besides, many of the full-timers were in the club because there weren’t too many other members of society that wanted anything to do with them. At least the Breed didn’t sell drugs or weapons. For a lot of the patched members, they’d done their time for offenses that should have been minor but were treated differently because of the color of their skin or the shallowness of their pockets. Getting a job once, you had to check the box marked YES for felon, which wasn’t an easy task. Gunner and Horse hired anyone who knew their way around a garage and promised to stay clean of hard drugs. They created a society for the people who’d been pushed out to the edges.
But sometimes shit went down, and for better or worse, they were the kind of people that the law tended to look to first. They were the ones who were more likely to be dragged in for a crime when the police needed to make it look like they were taking action, even though there were no leads, and nothing was happening. It looked good, and how could they even fight back? From a cold-hearted point of view, he could understand the choice.
He didn’t like it.
He didn’t like that he was dragging Lola into this world. At the time, the only thing he’d been able to think of was to take her away from the school — keep her close to him so that she couldn’t make things worse. Now, things were a thousand times worse than he’d even anticipated, even considered, and this innocent woman was stuck in this with him. If something happened to her or Grace or Laurel —
No. He couldn’t think that way. Nothing was going to happen to any of them. Somehow, he would get all four of them out of this — together and alive. No, he didn’t know how yet, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that he was a determined son of a bitch, and he would figure it out. He had to.
His phone rang. He glanced at it in surprise. He’d left it on the charger out in the living room, but it was the spare, the one no one had the number to except for Horse and Laurel, and Horse would be calling him on the landline, not the cell. The number on it was one he didn’t know … There was absolutely nothing good that was going to come from answering this call.
He picked up the phone anyway. “Hello?”
He heard harsh breathing that sounded, somehow, feminine. “Gunn? Gunner? Is that you?”
His heart started slamming in his chest, so hard that he thought it was going to tear through his skin and rip a hole in his shirt. “Laurel? Are you okay? Are you hurt.”
“Gunner.” She sounded completely panicked, her voice high and thread-like, sounding on the verge of panic. “Gunner, it’s me. It’s Laurel.”
His entire body twisted with the need to hold her and protect her from whatever was happening. She sounded so much like Sam, and he didn’t want to be thinking about Sam right now. “I know, sweetheart. I hear you. Where are you? Are you okay?”
There was the sound of flesh on flesh, and then a sharp cry from his sister-in-law. A harsh, masculine voice was on the phone. Gunner felt his hands tighten, the knuckles of his free hand creaking, the one holding the phone sounding like it might begin to stress the metal frame. He forced himself to take one breath. Just one. And then he could kill the stupid shit who had decided to hurt his family.
“You know who this is,” the voice said.
“Funny thing,” Gunner said, struggling t
o keep back the snarl. “I don’t have a fucking clue since this is the first time I’ve heard from you all day.”
“Come to the Vipers club. Pay the toll. You get in, you get the woman back. You do anything else, and I’ll kill her. You fucking hear me, you piece of shit?”
Gunner managed to keep his hand on the phone relatively relaxed, but the one down by his side was clenched so tight it was shaking. “You ever see that Taken movie, the one with Liam Neeson?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He was shocked by how quiet and calm he sounded. Maybe to someone else he would sound like a man about to do a deep dive with an AK-57, but compared to the chaos in his heart, his voice and his mind were calm and placid. “The thing about that movie is that he gave you warnings. He told scum like you that he was coming. What he was going to do. Bro, I’m going to tell you this. There isn’t going to be a warning for you. You hear me?”
There was a moment of almost eerie silence, and then a spat curse. “Come to the Vipers clubhouse. Pay the toll, and she’s yours. And it doesn’t have to get messy.”
“It’s already messy,” Gunner said and disconnected the call. He looked through the doorway, and Lola sleeping placidly in the bed, and then he shook his head, tired. He wanted to curl up and sleep. He wanted to keep his promise to Lola that he would personally watch over her and keep her safe. But he wanted Laurel and Grace safe and home. And he didn’t know her well enough to wake her and trust that she could handle whatever came next.
The guards outside would have to be enough. He took himself out to the bike and started it again.
Chapter Thirteen
His heart thrummed in his chest like a strummed guitar string as Gunner stepped out of the townhouse. Across the street, two of the Breed members sat in an older pickup truck, keeping an eye on the safe house. It wasn’t the subtlest solution in the world, but they also weren’t a secret goddamn organization. The whole situation was pretty far out of their arena at this point.
He needed to get a message to Horse, but the person on the phone had been painfully clear that if he reached out to anyone, he’d be hurting Laurel. He wouldn’t take that risk… at least not in any way that was likely to be seen. Yes, there was a chance that the safe house was being watched, but if that were the case, it was game over in so many ways. He needed to trust someone over something, or he might as well give up.
He tapped on the window and waited while it rolled down. Ryan, a young white man who kept his hair buzzed Marine short, gave him a curious look.
“Just stepping out for some groceries,” he said. And held his breath, hoping that Ryan would remember the passphrase Horse had set. And that it had nothing to do with groceries. The safe house was well stocked with non-perishables. Someone was always here, bringing a fling for a night or spending a few days in a business suit, making the house look like it was a basic short term rental situation, not affiliated at all with the Breed.
It took a second, and then Ryan nodded. “Understood,” he said.
It was the best Gunner could hope for. He stepped away as Ryan rolled up the window. His heart was still thrumming as he walked to his bike and straddled the seat. He looked back at the safe house one more time, trying to convince himself he was doing the right thing. He wasn’t sure at all. Shouldn’t the right thing feel better than this?
He twisted the ignition, put the bike into gear, and pulled out.
***
Gunner had known where the Red Vipers’ clubhouse was his entire life. It had always been a place of which he was aware. As a kid, it had been a place to avoid unless he wanted to head farther down the dark road he was already on. As an adult, it had been the symbol of what he and the Breed were trying to build — and what they had to avoid in order to make it happen. He had spent a substantial portion of his life defining himself in opposition to the Red Vipers.
So, seeing the burnt out husk of the clubhouse as he drove up to it was an odd experience. He was twisted between surprise, gratitude, and horror. What in the world had happened? The Vipers and the Breed had existed in quiet tension since the end of World War II. Those vets had come home and founded two clubs for the men who couldn’t seem to find their way back into the rows of pretty houses with picket fences and jobs that needed ties. Who didn’t feel like themselves unless the wind was in their faces and they knew they could pick up stakes and move whenever they needed to.
Whatever flames had taken the building under had been put out, and there wasn’t much left but rubble and the bare bones of the old warehouse. There wasn’t much heat coming from the building anymore. The fire department had come and gone, leaving the area taped off and barricaded. The street lights gave him some visibility, but not a lot. He parked his bike and dismounted, then just stood, staring at the wreckage of the old clubhouse.
He wanted to pull out his phone and try to find some news coverage, see if anyone had any idea what had happened. If they were thinking arson, it seemed unlikely the building would be unguarded, but how much effort would the cops put into figuring out what had happened to a bunch of thugs? He knew how he and his kind were thought of in the civilized world. It was part of why he’d become so reluctant to bring Lola any further into this than she already was.
He stared at the building and thought about how he could disentangle her from this web. Was there any way? Or was the game already over? Was she already a target?
“Is that you?”
The quiet, feminine voice behind him made him spin on his heel. A small woman was standing under the streetlight, her arms wrapped tightly around her narrow frame. It took him a moment to remember her name — Naveena Sen. She’d been a year behind him in high school, and while they had never been friendly, they’d nodded at each other across many different classrooms. Her parents had immigrated from India by way of England, but she’d been born here.
“Naveena,” he said.
“Gunner Grisham,” she said. He could hear a waver in her voice, a kind of ragged edge that made him think she’d been awake for hours longer than she should have been. She took a few steps toward him, and he could see that the makeup under her eyes had run; she had probably been crying. Her long, curly brown hair was tangled. That was all he’d noticed before she flew at him.
He braced himself for a slap, but he didn’t expect a solid punch to the stomach. She knocked the wind out of him, and he folded over in a gasp, his stomach aching and his diaphragm paralyzed for a moment.
“What the hell,” he managed to wheeze out as he put down one hand to keep himself from falling to the ground. Naveena was standing over him, her hands in tight, white-knuckled fists, but she didn’t look like she was about to hit him again. Yet.
“This is your fault,” she said, and he could hear the tears crackling in her voice now. “This is all your goddamned fault. You and your stupid Breed.”
There was a weird moment in his head where he wasn’t entirely sure if she was insulting the club or him personally, and then the air made a more coherent path back to his brain, and he managed to wake up a little more. “I don’t know what happened here, but the Breed had nothing to do with it.”
She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed. It took nothing to push him over, and Naveena had a lot more than nothing backing her up. He landed on his ass, and as much as he hated to admit it, it was a little easier to breathe down there; he should have done this sooner.
“Who the fuck else would be messing with the Vipers? I stayed here because it was safe, you piece of shit. The Vipers are too strong to have enemies so the only ones fucking with them would be you. You and your stupid club.”
Her words were not making any sense to him. He tried to pull himself back together. “Naveena, I’m sorry, it’s been a really shitty couple of days. I don’t know who burned you guys out, but it wasn’t us. Or if it was, I didn’t sign off on it, and I’ll do my damnedest to hang up whoever did. What happened? Can you tell me?”
She was quiet for a lo
ng moment, and he wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. He wouldn’t put it past her to hit him again or drag him up to his feet. Sitting down across from him didn’t make a lot of sense, but when her head sank down into her shaking hands, it made a little more sense. He worked on getting his breath back, and then reaching out carefully, touching her shoulder. She shook off his touch, but she looked up at him.
“I wasn’t here,” she said. She didn’t look at him, directing her gaze over his shoulder. “I was at work. Someone threw a bottle through the window, straight into the — Well, it doesn’t matter now. But there was an explosion. A few people got out. Some didn’t. The cops — the cops don’t believe that it was an attack. They say that we must have done it ourselves.”