by Lynn Burke
“Wait. Michelle’s ex is Harlon Flanders?”
“You fucking heard me.”
“The fuck? And you said he escaped?”
“Don’t know how the fuck he managed, but yeah. I’m taking all of your employees if I can. The Thompson twins, too.”
“That’s fine—whatever you need, we’ve got your back, Vig.”
“I’ve got a few more calls to make, but I need you to call Ryker and fill him in for me.” I hung up without a goodbye and rang Devil, needing to be caught up on the security we had set in place at the acreage in Maine. While there wasn’t a chain link fence around the property like we had at the club, it was far enough away to protect the other patched members and their old ladies if shit went down.
Of course Devil had the entire camp set up with security cameras from every angle except inside the cabins. I put him on full-time watch dog, telling him to grab another brother as backup.
I called Stone next, Warden’s top sentry for his security firm, and he agreed to come along, leaving Giada at home.
Bag in hand, I thumped down the stairs in my unlaced boots. “Call Greed, Sin, Hammer, and Crow,” I told Stone. “Tell them to get their asses to the club, too.”
“They coming along with us?”
“Yep. Warden, Ryker, and Devil have the club.”
“Gotcha. I’ll bring my gear. Food?” Always the level-headed, prepared one, Stone.
“We’ll meet up at the club and grab shit on the way. I want to be out of town by seven, latest.”
“You got it.”
Shoving my cell in my back pocket, I let out a few curses. I’d found fucking heaven, and shit had to go down. I knew it’d been too damn quiet.
I didn’t doubt Flanders’ connections. As the Sergeant at Arms of the Demented Demons MC, the fucker had gotten away with taking out two of the Vegas Vipers eight or so years earlier in a shootout. The clubs had always been combative, but that loss of life had cemented a rivalry that’d only calmed in the couple of years prior to their being taken down by the FBI.
“Fucking cocksuckers.” I tossed my bag in the back of my truck and pulled out of the driveway, ripping around the corner, and slamming it back into park in Mila’s driveway a few seconds later.
Devon yanked open the door as I stalked up the front walkway. Fear had his face pale and eyes wide, and I pulled him in for a quick squeeze the second I got through the doorway. “You okay, Dill?”
“Yeah.”
“Got your shit packed?”
“Yes, sir.”
I clasped his shoulder and moved back towards the hallway, hearing Mila scrambling in her bedroom. She pulled clothes from her bottom drawer, but I didn’t take the time to admire her fine backside. As though she felt my presence, she jerked upright and spun. Hair and eyes wild, her shoulders slumped and she let out a half-sob as her gaze landed on me.
Two steps took me into her personal space, and I pulled her up into my arms, burying my face in her hair. “Gonna be okay, wildcat. I got you.”
She sniffed, her body trembling, and I know she fought for calm to keep from freaking Devon out even more.
“Where we going?” Devon asked from behind me.
“Warden’s old lady has a camp up in Maine. We’re meeting a couple of brothers at the club and taking off from there. The place is tight with security, and it’s not a place too many people know about. We’ll be safe there.”
Devon let out a heavy exhale. “What do you need me to do, Vigil?”
“Just get your shit and your ass in my truck.”
“Okay.”
I leaned back from Mila, holding her face in my palms. Wetness coated her eyes, making them glow a golden brown, and I swiped the tear tracks from her cheeks with my thumbs. “I won’t let him anywhere near Devon.”
She nodded, a trembling smile lifting her lips the slightest bit. “I know.”
I kissed her forehead, allowing myself a moment to linger, breathing in her sweetness. “Let’s go, wildcat.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mila
I sat curled in Vigil’s front seat, arms wrapped around my upturned legs. Silence filled the cab, but a non-stop thumping sounded in my ears. I couldn’t calm my racing heart. The only time I’d been able to breathe had been when Vigil wrapped his arms around me in my bedroom and I cried. That feeling of safety hadn’t ever been so real, and I realized that I did trust him, fully.
Vigil hadn’t once taken advantage of me or Devon, and he was willing to put his life, his brothers’ lives in danger in order to protect us.
My throat tightened again as I considered my son on the seat behind me, and the two trucks following on our tail. We’d been at the Vipers club for less than ten minutes waiting for the others who he’d asked to come along with us.
Stone, Greed, and Sin were all in the security business, employees for Warden, Vigil’s enforcer. Hammer and Crow were two blond giants, construction workers with shoulders and breadth to rival Vigil. Coldness lay in all five sets of eyes, unsmiling lips and stern countenances enough to make any person quake.
Devon drank it in, even smiling, the little turd.
I didn’t want the MC lifestyle for him, and gave him stern looks of my own while trying to pal it up with the bikers.
Ricky hadn’t been around, or at least that I could tell—Vigil didn’t introduce us to anyone beyond the five coming along north with us. We shot up Route 95 a few minutes before seven, Hammer and his twin brother Crow stopping over the New Hampshire border to grab a “shit ton” of groceries at Vigil’s order.
While I still worried at my fingernails, chewing them to the quick, I knew the ways of an MC when someone fell under their protection. I also knew what it meant when a patched member claimed a woman.
I was good and truly fucked, my life no longer my own, and while fear clawed at my gut that I might be making a mistake, I took comfort in the fact I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Devon would be safe. Safer than any marshal of the Witness Protection Agency could keep him.
No law constrained Vigil and his club. No letter that needed to be followed. They would punch, stab, or shoot first and ask questions later, leaving little chance for danger to befall us.
I heaved a heavy sigh and tipped my head back, closing my eyes even as guilt over putting them all at risk churned my stomach.
Vigil entwined his fingers through mine, and I put my feet on the floor, clasping his hand in both mine atop my lap.
“Thank you,” I whispered without opening my eyes.
“Anything for you,” he whispered back and squeezed my fingers.
Flutters drowned out the worry eating at my mind for a brief moment, and I turned my head against the rest to look at him. He stared straight ahead, face set, a slight furrow still denting his brow. Leaning forward slightly, Vigil seemed to think he could get into Maine before his truck would.
I bit back my smirk and turned to find Devon staring out the smaller window behind Vigil. Such a trooper, that kid. He’d been to hell and back a few times over, and I wanted nothing more than a quiet, normal life for him.
Maybe someday we could have that.
My focus slipped to Vigil again, and I soaked in the strength of him, as though our clasped hands was all I needed to find comfort.
“What’s the camp like?” Devon asked.
Vigil glanced out the rearview mirror before answering. “A couple of bunk houses. One main one for eating and shit. Over a hundred acres of woods out in the middle of nowhere, tucked up against a big lake.”
“Will we all stay together?”
“There’s two bedrooms in the main house—it’s mostly an open concept living and dining area for the entire club,” Vigil said. “We’ll stay there, and the others will take the bunk houses on either side.”
“I’ll stay with the guys,” Devon said.
“No you won’t,
” I stated with finality. “You’re sticking close to me. I don’t want you out of my sight.”
Devon frowned at me, but not out of anger, and I could feel Vigil’s stare on my face.
“What?” I asked, angling to face Vigil, my tone pissy.
He turned his attention back on the road. “I understand you’re scared and uptight, but you need to try to relax a little.”
“It’s called helicopter mom syndrome,” Devon muttered from the backseat, and I shot him a glare. “What? You’re damn good at it.”
“Devon,” I said, my tone stern, “this isn’t a go out and ride your bike through the neighborhood kind of thing.”
“Just trying to give you some space, Mom. Sheesh.”
“I don’t need space,” I snapped, my stomach churning. “What I need is for you to just listen and not question orders!”
“That sounds familiar,” he muttered, crossing his arms and staring out the window again.
I snapped my mouth shut at the retort that rose as his words lit to truthful light inside my head.
“Treat him as a sensitive being rather than one without feelings,” Vigil said, his voice low, and I swallowed against the damn tightness in my throat—again.
Vigil had barked more than a dozen orders while at the club, and his brothers had burst into action without a single complaint. No threats, no raised voices, or back talk, and they didn’t do so out of fear like I’d spent the previous ten years watching—and experiencing.
His brothers respected his leadership. They weren’t just loyal, but family in a way Harlon’s club hadn’t been.
There was no need for verbal or physical abuse when respect reigned.
“Sorry, Dev,” I whispered past the lump in my throat. “Vigil’s right—and so are you. You have every right to feelings and desires outside what I want for you. Just know I have your best interest at heart.”
“I know, Mom.” He offered a crooked smile that let me know he forgave me for acting like my ex.
I sat back in my seat, facing forward, and Vigil squeezed my fingers.
****
We settled into the house’s main bedroom while Devon shacked up with Stone, Greed, and Sin. The twins showed up about an hour later with enough groceries to feed a damn army, and I set to putting everything away in the huge kitchen to keep my hands occupied.
Hammer slapped some burgers on an outside grill, and I managed to force one down along with some store-bought red bliss potato salad.
Stacy Pritt never tried calling me when I didn’t reach out to him like I said I would. Not that I truly cared, but I decided to send a text letting him know we’d gone to a private camp in Maine for a while.
His simple, “OK” texted reply sent Vigil on a muttering rant about the asshole he’d gone to school with, the one who’d bullied him when they’d been kids. Devon eyed Vigil—then me—and I wondered as he quickly glanced away if my son knew something I didn’t.
We sat by a campfire when the sun went down, and I indulged in a s’more while Devon packed away three, the scent of the fire’s smoke and crackling embers soothing me enough to sit back in my chair. Although tension still clung to me and Vigil, the others were able to kick back entirely, joking with my son and treating him like one of their own.
I appreciated the curbing of swear words, but emotional exhaustion would have kept me from caring regardless.
“Tired?” Vigil murmured against the top of my hair.
I sat beside him in a folding chair, leaning against his shoulder, a heavy sweatshirt keeping the cool air off my back. “Yeah, a little.”
“We can head into bed if you want.”
The thought of a soft bed and Vigil’s naked body sparked life between my thighs. I hadn’t gotten a chance to take him in hand the night before, and the idea of doing so perked me up more than expected, all things considered. “Sounds good,” I said, hoping the husk in my voice sounded more like tiredness than horny siren.
He took my hand and stood, pulling me along with him. “Dill’s in your care, Stone.”
Stone peered at me from across the fire, rather than Vigil. “I’ll take care of him, Mila.”
I found myself smiling, trusting yet another man I hardly knew. “I know.”
“Won’t let these two corrupt him, either,” he said, backhanding Greed’s chest and nodding his head at Sin on his other side. Both men swore under their breath, backhanding his shoulders at the same time, but all three chuckled rather than get into a full-on smack down like Demons would have done.
“I appreciate it.” I turned toward my son, wishing for a hug and kiss, but nodded when he winked at me. “Sleep tight, baby.”
He tossed me a mock salute like I’d seen Vigil do a few times, and actually laughing lightly, I turned to follow Vigil into the dark, every step closer to privacy kicking up my pulse.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Vigil
I had every intention of stripping down and just holding Mila, but the second she crawled beneath the blankets to join me, she disappeared beneath, her hands and mouth attacking my chubbed dick.
“Goddamn, wildcat.” I clenched my jaw, tipped my head back, and tangled my fists in her hair.
She murmured her appreciation over my swelling dick between her lips, and I fought to keep from bucking upward, letting her explore and see what I was packing just like she’d wanted to do the night before.
“Thought you were tired,” I said through gritted teeth as hers scraped up over my length with the perfect amount of bite. She had fucking teeth, alright. Thank fuck.
“Mmm.” She popped off me and tossed back the covers, her dark hair a wild mess, her pupils eating at the chestnut ring around them. “My emotions have had it, but I only got a taste of you last night—not nearly enough.”
I groaned a curse as she wrapped her lips around me again, taking me deep to the point I hit the back of her throat. Her hands took over below, slowly jacking me while she lathed with her tongue, swirling up over the head and back down.
“Fuck.” I couldn’t tear my gaze off her curtain of hair, her hollowed out cheeks—and when she lifted her gaze, I damn near came. Lust. Fucking adoration. Satisfaction. Fuck, I’d never seen a woman look so goddamn sexy while sucking my dick.
Unable to help myself, I nudged upward when she sank down my length, gagging her. I held her head still and did it again, growling like the fucking beast inside me wanting loose. Wasn’t about to abuse her mouth like I’d done her ass the night before, though.
On the verge of blowing my load, I yanked her up over my body. “Fuck me,” I ordered and claimed her mouth.
She shifted and did as told, slowly pressing back onto my dick, stuffing herself full to the goddamn hilt after a few shifts of her hips. A shudder rippled through her, and she moaned into my mouth. Holding still fucking hurt, but I tensed like a goddamn wooden board, unmoving except for my hands in her hair and my mouth on hers.
My fucking wildcat rode me like a sweet little pussy cat for all of thirty seconds before the claws came out. She scratched me with the fingernails she’d chewed ragged, her teeth snagging hold of my lower lip and pulling while she ground against my pelvis.
Fuck, yes.
I couldn’t fucking breathe without smelling her—tasting her. Mila overloaded every sense, taking ownership of every inch of me, my heart and fucking head included.
Her breath hitched against my lips, and she let out a husky moan, her pussy clamping down around me.
I flipped us over and pounded into her, chasing the tingles brewing in my balls. Every grunt buried me deeper, every clutch of her heels at my ass pulled me tighter. Face buried in her neck, I bound my arms around her like a vise and gave her everything. Every inch. Every heartbeat I had—I wanted her to have it all.
“Vigil,” she groaned, and came again, creaming all over my dick and dripping off my balls.
I f
ucking exploded, trying to bury deeper, flexing my ass to tunnel straight through to her heart.
She clutched at me long after my dick stopped spurting against her womb, and I lazily rand my tongue along her lips, tasting the saltiness of her jawline and neck.
“I need a shower,” she muttered, and I pulled out, but didn’t let her go, snuggling her ass against my groin.
“No.”