Her voice echoed in his mind. “Anger’s my meat; I sup upon myself, and so shall starve with feeding.”
It was from Coriolanus. One of the many beautiful lines given to Volumnia, the soldier’s mother, a character Will found so strong; and one Eva rightly pointed out was as poisoned with rage as her son.
In that moment, standing over the man on the floor, Will had been fully prepared—eager—to end his life. All he could hear was the raging of the fire that took the bakery wailing in his ears, the greedy consuming sound of heat and death that haunted his nightmares. Somehow he could feel the heat on his skin like it was happening again, pulsing like a living thing, singeing the hair off his arms. And something deep in his brain told him all he had to do to put the fire out was pull the trigger. Pull the trigger, dig four graves in the meadow out back, and everything would be fine. It would be over. You would have your retribution.
But Eva burst through the fire in his mind like a phoenix, an unexpected invader he had no defense against. For the first time in a long time, Will had hesitated. He listened, like he was under a spell. He heard her over the fire, reciting Coriolanus to him, both a daydream and a distant memory come together to stop him.
Her voice was like a flashover, a rush of oxygen deliberately pushed into a fire to make it burn out quickly. Suddenly the fire was gone, and Will stood there, cold, wondering.
He didn’t remember telling them to leave. He was just suddenly aware of the weight of his unused handgun in his palm, and of the dark anger that started bubbling up in his gut.
You should have fucking killed them. You piece of shit coward. You should have killed them. You might never have a chance like that again. What about vengeance?
Will heard his name on the edge of his consciousness. He turned and saw Eva taking soft steps toward him in bare feet, her eyes wide and scared.
“Get away from me,” he growled.
Eva stopped and straightened. “Will…”
“Get away,” he said, turning from her. “I told you to stay in the fucking office.”
“Will, I…”
“You should have stayed in the office!” he yelled.
Charlie came out from behind the bar and behind Eva, putting his hands on her shoulders. His face was still a wide-eyed moon of shock. “Eva, c’mon.” He pulled on her gently. She fought him for a moment as she stared at Will, her mouth hanging open, wondering, asking without saying a word. Finally she let Charlie turn her away and lead her through the bar and out the back door.
Will dropped his head and closed his eyes. Fumbling, he put his handgun on the nearest upright table and rubbed his hands roughly over his face, tugging at his own hair, trying to get his body and his mind to reconnect with each other. He felt wetness on his cheeks and realized his eyes were leaking what must be stress tears, a byproduct of the chemical overload rushing through his brain.
You’re also a human, said some part of his mind.
He leaned hard on the table and hung his head. There was too much adrenaline in his veins to sit, but too little to actually hold him up straight.
He stood, propped against the table in a numb haze until Charlie came back in from outside without Eva. He came up to Will, but kept more distance than he usually did, and it did not go unnoticed. “That was…” said Charlie, trailing off.
Will sighed heavily. “That was a disaster.”
“A disaster?” said Charlie. He put one hand on his hips and ran the other one roughly through his brown hair. “Shit, we’re all still alive. I was going to say I can’t believe that worked. When you wanted me ready with that shotgun, I was… I thought for sure I was gonna have to watch someone die today.”
“You should’ve watched all of them die today,” said Will.
A look of quiet horror descended on Charlie’s face. “What?”
“I told Eva to stay in the office. I didn’t want her near this for a reason. I shouldn’t have hesitated. Now they’ll regroup and strike back harder. They’ll bring guns this time. They won’t make that mistake again.”
When he heard no response, Will looked up and saw an expression that said Charlie doubted him. He pushed himself up straight and took a few steps forward.
“So what are you suggesting?” Charlie asked when Will stopped in front of him.
Will thought a moment. “We have to hit them first.”
“What?”
“It’s our only choice,” said Will. Even as he said it, he didn’t fully believe himself, but the words kept pouring out of his mouth anyway. “They won’t see it coming, not now. We gather up a tactical arsenal and strike out at them first—get them to understand what’s going to keep happening if they don’t back off.”
“Christ,” said Charlie in a whisper. He looked behind him, as if making sure Eva wasn’t listening. “Will, you can’t be serious! I’m a fucking handyman, I’m not a soldier. I’d get my ass killed in a heartbeat!”
“I won’t let that happen,” said Will. “I’ll give you the training you need.”
Charlie shook his head and started shifting from foot to foot. “No, man, no… I don’t… I don’t like this.”
“Give me time to get the plan together,” said Will. “You’ll feel better when you can see it. This has to happen, Charlie. I have to protect her.”
“Protect her?” said Charlie.
Will froze, blinking. He hadn’t realized he’d said that. “I have to protect Eva.”
Charlie fell silent and looked hard at Will. He looked very much like he wanted to argue, but didn’t have the words, or the balls, to do it. Whatever the reason is fine with me, just keep your mouth shut.
“Might as well clean up the blood on the floor and open up for the day,” said Will as he swiped his handgun off the table and stuffed it into the holster under his shirt. He walked around Charlie. “They won’t be back for a while.”
Behind him, he could hear Charlie talking to himself, incredulous, shifting around in discomfort. Will didn’t care. He had another issue to attend to. He stalked out the back door and out into the meadow to look for Eva.
~ FOURTEEN ~
Eva sat in the cool shade of the forest meadow and absently picked flowers. She could hear Charlie’s and Will’s loud voices from the open back door of the bar. In her mind, the fight echoed and replayed over and over, like it was on a broken feedback loop. The whole thing couldn’t have lasted two minutes, and yet Eva felt ten years older than she had when it began, and in her head everything played in slow motion.
She could still see Will standing there, hovering over the unconscious man on the floor, the man he had already defeated. Among the books she had devoured in her life, Eva had read many from the great warriors and generals of history, including the fictional ones. She couldn’t remember a single honorable warrior who brought death to an enemy he had already defeated. It was a scorched-earth policy, the actions of a man full of rage, not of a cunning warrior only looking for victory. It was desperate.
Eva knew from the second she saw him that Will was dangerous, and now she had seen it first-hand on more than one occasion. He wanted so badly to kill that man—to kill all of them.
But he didn’t, said a voice in her head. He gave injuries that heal. Shallow cuts. Broken bones. Eva winced as the sound of that man’s arm cracking days before echoed in her mind. Up until that moment, he has gone out of his way not to kill anybody.
Will, the enigma. The warrior poet. Eva felt her heart twisting and breaking, trying to wind around the reality of him. Underneath her confusion was a sincere relief that she hadn’t had to watch anyone die today—not just her brother, or Will, but anyone. She wasn’t fierce like the heroines in her books, or like Will himself was. She didn’t want to watch someone die. And she didn’t want to watch someone kill.
Suddenly the forest wind was chilly rather than comforting on her skin. Eva picked herself up from the meadow and brushed off her dress, and then wandered back toward the house, away from the bar. She scuffle
d inside slowly and into her room, dropping down heavy on the edge of the mattress.
A few minutes must have gone by as she sat there, lost in the quiet, staring at the curtains in the breeze, because she went from hearing nothing but the leaves rustling in the trees to hearing the sharp rap of knuckles on the half-open door of her bedroom.
It startled her to find Will standing in the doorway. She swallowed and gave him a deep once-over, uninterested in interacting with the growling animal that had pushed her out of the bar. But something was soft and numb about him. Which Will is this?
“May I come in?” he said.
Eva didn’t answer. She lowered her head and stared at the hands fidgeting in her lap. Will waited a few polite seconds before he stepped inside anyway and sat on the bed next to her.
When his voice came out, it was that same honey-sweet quiet baritone she loved. “Are you all right?”
Eva rubbed her eyes. “Yes. I’m not hurt.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She let out an exasperated huff, a nervous half-laugh. “Well, then no, I’m not all right. I just watched you kick the shit out of men and almost kill one of them, so…”
“I didn’t want you to see that, Eva. I asked you—”
“I know, I know. ‘Stay in the office. Eva, just do what you’re told and everything will work out fine,’ ” she said, the words spilling out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I’m sick of hearing that. I’m sick of being a bystander in my own life. And if I had stayed in the office, you would have blown that guy away, right? So if you ask me, Will, it’s a damn good thing I didn’t listen to you.”
When she finished, she instantly felt lighter at getting those words out, yet still nervous as she waited for a reaction. Will fell quiet for a moment, and the room filled with the sound of her own nervous breathing and tears. When did I start crying?
Will reached over and wrapped one of his hands around both of hers. He squeezed them tightly until her anxious fidgeting stopped. The warmth of his hands against her skin was so enveloping that Eva let out a tired little groan under her breath at the sensation. Angry as she was, she couldn’t stop herself from clinging back, twisting her fingers in his.
“Why did you do that?” she asked in a teary whisper.
Will leaned until his head rested on top of hers. He said, “I have to protect you.”
Eva turned and made him look into her eyes. “You did protect me. You have every step. And you haven’t had to kill anybody yet to do it. There’s no reason to start now.”
“They’ll keep coming, Eva,” he said, his voice breaking. “They’ll keep coming, and I can’t let you die.” He dropped his forehead onto hers.
They grasped each other’s hands as if some unseen force would otherwise pull them apart. Eva felt an inexplicable and overwhelming rush of emotion crash into her as the sensation of Will’s touch pulsed against her stimulated skin.
“I don’t want you to die,” she said. “You’re running headfirst into battle with no armor, Will, don’t you see that? I know we just met, but I know this isn’t you. I know you’re a smarter warrior than this… this suicidal berserker that you are now.”
Will surprised her by giving her an enormous grin. “Of course you know what a berserker is.” He pulled one of his hands up to run through her hair and caress the side of her face. His touch made her feel electric, alive, and Eva nuzzled the side of her face into his palm. “Because you’re an incredible fucking woman that has no business understanding my world.”
Eva met his eyes, firm and sure. “If I haven’t shown you this already, Will, let me tell you again: you don’t get to control me. Not what I know, not what I understand, and not what I do.”
The tension between them quickly shifted to the most heated, sexual charge Eva had ever experienced. Will stared at her face, at her lips, hands clutching the side of her head as if he was trying to stop himself. But the fire built in his eyes and in a heartbeat his lips were against hers, devouring them hungrily.
Eva threw herself into his embrace, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and pulling him as close as she could get him. She moaned into his mouth as Will put his arms around her waist and pulled her even closer, lifting her up off the bed and into his arms. He held her hard against his lap for a few seconds as their tongues continued to wage their own battle for dominance, but then he threw her back onto the bed and crawled on top, both their legs dangling off the short end of the mattress.
Eva melted under the feel of his soft lips and the scratch of the scruff on his chin as he ran his mouth up and down her neck, across her collarbone, and down the small part of her chest that was exposed by the square-cut dress she wore. Her fingers slid through his hair, tightening their grip as one of his own grasped at her breast. His name escaped her lips softly and repeatedly as she felt his other one slide along her body until it passed the edge of her dress to land on the bare skin of her thigh. It didn’t pause for a moment before it dove right under the soft fabric until his palm landed straight against her panty covered pussy. His name turned into a moan of pleasure as his hand began to rub against her intensely.
Twisting under his expert touch, her mouth opened happily to suck in a finger he pressed against her lips. She smiled at the sound of his own groan when he felt her tongue swirl around his finger. As last time, nothing she did could take his focus away from what he was doing between his legs, though. He kept up his pressure with the other hand until she came, hard and screaming, wetness soaking the panties under his hand. Only once she came down from her bliss did Will gently strip the damp fabric from her legs, bending to take a few laps with his tongue before standing to undress himself.
Will pulled her to her feet with courtesy and told her to hold still while he ran a soft hand up her back, feeling for the zipper on her dress. He drew it down slowly, letting the fabric fall around her arms and off her like melted frosting. She stood before him fully exposed, and Will let out a soft sound of appreciation at the sight.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he said in a throaty whisper. He kissed her, lips swollen and red, just like her own. His strong hand held her jaw as they made out like teenagers, pressing his warm, naked flesh against hers. His pulsing erection slid between them and made her ache to be filled.
“I want you,” she whispered as he bit at the skin on her neck.
Will bit harder. “Tell me again.”
“I want you inside me now,” she said. “Please.”
Will covered her mouth with his own in a firm kiss, and then dipped her back down on the bed with careful arms, sliding her up and against him until she lay comfortably across the mattress. He bucked his hips against her as his legs slid between hers, positioning himself at her hot entrance. She knew he didn’t slip a condom on this time, but she didn’t care. The thought of feeling the bare skin of his cock slide into her, and the eruption of heat that would fill her at the end, only added to her excitement.
He pressed the head of his cock against her as his eyes shone down from above. “Tell me.”
“Fuck me, Will.”
He pushed inside of her in response, but only just. Eva writhed and tried to pull him further with her own hips, but he wouldn’t budge. Instead, he dipped his head to catch her lower lip into his mouth and sucked on it before repeating himself. “Tell me again.”
“Please fuck me, Will. I need your cock inside me so badly,” she begged, far too gone to disobey.
Will sighed with a smile and then answered with one firm thrust. His entire cock slid into her, and Eva wrapped her legs around his waist as she cried out in pure satisfaction. From the sounds of his dirty talk, Eva expected Will to give her another hard fuck, but he surprised her instead with his slow, deep thrusts. He took the time to inch his cock out of her nearly all the way before he pushed back in with firm pressure, not fast but hard, building them both to an intense orgasm. Will watched her face as he hovered over her, planting little kisses all along her j
aw and neck, ending back over her lips. Her pale skin lit up underneath the insistence of his touch.
She was getting close, grasping at him and drawing her nails against his back as he smothered her with another kiss. She was almost breathless when he finally moved his lips again, and not just from the kiss. “I’m going to come.”
Will kept his face next to hers as he pumped a little faster, but still with that same deliberate thrust, all the way out, then back in. Eva’s feet curled around his waist, helping to drive him even deeper into her core. His mouth hovered over hers, both breathless and panting, lips swollen.
“Come for me, Eva,” said Will. He tangled a hand in her hair and used it to leverage his thrust, pushing deeper than ever. Eva screamed in pleasure at the feeling of his cock driving into her, but it was his tongue licking along the edges of her neck that sent her over the edge. She came hard on his cock, wave after wave of rapture rippling through her body. It was so strong, she almost didn’t notice Will reach his own hot finale. He pushed deep inside her pussy with a finally powerful thrust and held himself there as he came, holding her face hard against his as he filled her insides with the heat of his own essence.
Retribution: A Motorcycle Club Romance Page 13