Thunderclap (Steel Infidels MC) (Bad Boy Romance) (Steel Infidels Series Book 4)

by Burke, Dez

  His breath is ragged in my ear. I know he’s holding back and desperately trying to keep things under control. My hips will be bruised tomorrow where his fingers are gripping me so tight. I can’t repress a shudder and a long, lengthy groan when his hand moves to cup my breast and rub the nipple with his thumb.

  “Hearing you moan when I touch you is my favorite sound,” he says. “I will never grow tired of hearing it.” He continues to thrust inside me, his throat filled with growls.

  When my climax hits, I’m moaning so loud the neighbors a block down can hear. I don’t care. My body tenses and begins to shudder as the orgasm ripples through me in waves. Sam holds me up as I almost collapse against the wall, my body shivering. He rains kisses down my neck as I pant for breath.

  I can feel him swelling inside me. I know he is close. His thrusts grow choppy, erratic, and then he groans, pushing in further. He buries his face against my shoulder while his body cums in release.

  We don’t move for a long time. I just stand there shaken to the core with his arms wrapped under my breasts and his breath fanning the back of my neck. After what feels like forever, I feel him gently pull out of me.

  Instead of stepping back and moving away like I expect him to, his muscular arms tighten around my waist. He folds me into the warmth of his body and I never want to move.

  “For God’s sake, Lila,” he murmurs hoarsely. “Say something.”

  I feel his heart hammering wildly against my back.

  I’m afraid to look at him because I can’t bear what I’ll see in his eyes. The disappointment in me, all of the pain I’ve caused.

  I turn around slowly in his arms and reach up to cup his face in my hands. Our eyes meet and my heart shatters in a million jagged pieces.

  The twinkle in his beautiful blue eyes is gone. All that’s left is a deep anguish that I put there. I’m devastated by the raw emotion in his eyes.

  The pain is too much to bear.

  God forgive me.

  I’ve broken Sam.

  The one man that means everything to me.

  How am I ever going to make this right?

  “Listen to me,” I say, holding his face so he can’t look away. “I’m going to fix this. I’ve already erased all the evidence from the tapes. I’ll make sure this all goes away with the ATF. Don’t give up on us. I can make things right.”

  “You can do that?” he asks doubtfully. “How is that even possible?”

  “It’s already done. I’m a hacker with friends who know how to do things like this.”

  I can see in his eyes that he doesn’t believe me yet, but he wants to. His face is taut with tension.

  “I begged for you because I love you,” I say. “I’ll scream your name until my voice is hoarse if you need to hear it. Whatever it takes for you to trust me again. Just tell me what you need for me to do.”

  He stands there quietly looking down at me while his mind tries to work out whether to believe me or not. I hold my breath and wait, almost afraid to push him too far. This is something he needs to decide for himself. I can’t make him trust me.

  Conflicting emotions flash across his face.

  Words aren’t going to be enough. Sam needs more so he’ll understand how deep and lasting my feelings are for him.

  “Come with me,” I say.

  I take his hand and pull him toward my bedroom.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sam

  I want to trust Lila and believe everything she’s saying. And yet Flint’s voice keeps ringing in my head, “Don’t trust her.”

  Her house is filled with boxes of evidence against the MC, and she expects me to believe that she can make it all go away with a snap of her fingers. She has to be lying to me still.

  But why?

  There’s no point in keeping up the charade any longer.

  Maybe she’s afraid of me.

  After all, I pointed a gun at her when she walked in the door. I didn’t mean to scare the shit out of her. I didn’t know who might be walking through the door, so I was prepared for anything. It didn’t occur to me that she might think I was planning to harm her.

  I could never hurt Lila and would protect her with my own life if my brothers tried to.

  Now she’s looking up at me with those big green eyes and saying she loves me. Right after I fucked her up against the wall and made her beg for the experience.

  There’s nothing to say she’s not playing me now. She’s certainly capable of it. She’s proven that a million times over.

  My insides are being shredded.

  And yet my cock is already rock hard again with an insatiable thirst for her.

  Will I never get my fill of this woman? Why can’t I fuck her out of my system like every other girl I’ve ever met?

  She’s tripped me up, and I honest to God don’t know what to do.

  I love her desperately and I am completely, totally fucked.

  Everything in me says she loves me too. But if I’m wrong, my whole family and the MC are going down with me.

  I can’t take the chance. Too much is at stake.

  Don’t trust her.

  She reaches for my hand.

  “Come with me,” she says.

  Fuck!

  Why can’t I ever resist her?

  I follow her into the bedroom.

  When we reach the edge of the bed, she pushes me down and I let her take the lead. I’m waiting and watching for a sign. Anything that tells me this is real.

  I wish I knew exactly what I am looking for. I won’t know until I see it.

  “Why are you still wearing clothes?” she tries to tease as if I’m not freaking out.

  She pushes my shirt up high on my chest and begins kissing her way down my abdomen. I inhale sharply when she reaches the top of my jeans. Without saying a word, she loosens them and slides them off, followed by my boots.

  I hold my breath as she nuzzles her way back up my thigh.

  My gut tells me she wouldn’t slide my cock into her mouth if she didn’t mean it. My head reminds me that she made a move for her gun when she found me in her house.

  When she moves between my legs and runs her tongue along my balls, I grab her head with both hands.

  That’s it.

  I can’t take this anymore. I’m going insane trying to figure her out. I have to know right now where her head is at.

  One way or the other.

  “Lila, wait,” I say.

  I pull her head up. She blinks at me in confusion.

  No wonder, since I just stopped what was most likely going to be a life-altering blowjob.

  “You don’t want me to?” she asks.

  Of course I want her to.

  “I hid your gun under the pillow when I was in here earlier,” I say. “I’m going to hand it to you so you can put it away safely.”

  Giving her a loaded gun might turn out to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

  I don’t care.

  If she’s only fucking me because she’s scared, I want to know.

  The only way I’ll know for sure is if I give her back total control of the situation. Even if things turn out bad for me and she calls the cops, at least then I’ll know the truth. Anything would be better than this uncertainty.

  The not knowing is making me insane.

  “You stuck a loaded gun under my pillow?” she asks in alarm. “Be careful and put it on the side table.”

  She starts to lower her head back down.

  “Lila! Please. Take the fucking gun.”

  Sitting up, she gives me a long look.

  “Okay, okay. Calm down and hand it to me.”

  I slide my hand under the pillow beside me and pull out the gun. Pointing it away from us both, I place it firmly in her hand.

  Now’s her chance.

  I’m completely at her mercy like I’ve been this whole damn time.

  From the very first day, I’ve been in way over my head.

  Now or nev
er.

  She holds the gun in her hands.

  “What do you think I’m going to do now?” she says. Her eyes fill with tears. “Say it, Sam. Tell me honestly. What will I do? Am I going to hold this loaded gun on you and call the cops?”

  I look at her face and I know the truth.

  Lila loves me, and we’ll get through this somehow together.

  I reach up and rub my knuckles along her cheek. With my thumb, I wipe away a tear threatening to spill out of the corner of her eye.

  “You’re going to unload that damn gun and put it away. That’s what you’re going to do.”

  She nods and blinking back her tears, takes the clip out of the gun. Sliding off the bed, she walks to the dresser on the other side of the room and sticks the gun in a drawer.

  By the time the drawer slams shut, I’m already across the room and right behind her. I whip her around and wrap my arms tightly around her, pulling her close against my chest.

  “Sam! What are you doing?”

  I tilt her face up and capture her soft lips in a deep, searching kiss. After a long minute, I pull back and touch my forehead to hers.

  “You love me,” I say.

  Her eyes immediately fill with tears again that quickly flow out of the corners.

  “You believe me?” she answers.

  “Don’t cry,” I say, rubbing away the tears with my thumbs. “Everything is going to be okay. We’re both in a hell of a mess, but we’ll get through it together. We’ll figure this out. I love you, Lila. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

  She sniffles and wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know. I have so many things to explain to you.”

  “We can talk about all of it later,” I say. “Right now I need to make long, sweet love to my girl so I can calm the fuck down. For the last hour, my heart has been racing out of my chest. I may be getting ready to have one of those heart attacks you keep warning me about. And then I need to call Flint.”

  She smiles up at me through her tears.

  “Is that what we’re doing now? Making love?”

  I scoop her up in my arms and carry her back to the bed.

  “It’s what we were always doing, sweetheart. You just weren’t paying attention.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lila

  I slide out of bed quietly so I won’t wake Sam. Even dead asleep, he looks exhausted. I’m sure I do too. Neither of us has slept much since the day I left him.

  Even now, I can’t take time to sleep. First thing in the morning, I’ll need to return to the office with all of the tapes. I won’t be satisfied with them until I go over the doctored evidence quickly one last time.

  I can’t afford any mistakes. Erik’s work is flawless, but all it will take is one glitch in a tape to blow this whole thing wide open.

  The truth is I won’t be able to rest until the investigation is closed. The thought of Sam being arrested and taken away from me is unbearable. There’s nothing I won’t do to keep that from happening.

  I shower quickly and then head to my computer room to keep working.

  My worst fear is that I’ll miss something on the tapes. A few extra days’ time would help tremendously. While I’m watching the tapes, I start working out in my mind how I’m going to convince my boss to close the investigation. I’ll need to play it cool. Act like it’s nothing personal. That my time spent with the Steel Infidels was nothing more than a big waste of agency resources.

  I also need to start planning my exit strategy. It’s not like I can go in Monday morning, suggest to my boss that Operation Thunderclap be closed down, and then turn in my resignation.

  This is the time to be careful and methodical. No one can suspect anything is amiss. I wonder how long I’ll need to stay at the agency before I can leave without drawing suspicion. A few weeks at least. Weeks that will feel like a lifetime while I’m separated from Sam.

  I can do whatever it takes to pull this off.

  All of our futures depend on it.

  Sam slips up behind me in the dark room and slides his hands down my arms.

  “So this is what you do?” he asks, leaning over my shoulder. “I’m impressed. This is quite an operation you’ve got going here.”

  I reach up to stroke his arm and then lay my head against it.

  “Pull up a chair,” I say. “I’ll show you what I’m doing with the tapes.”

  He drags a rolling chair over and leans forward so he can see the screen.

  I cue up the videotape. “Here is what the original surveillance tape looks like.” I play him a few minutes of the video footage showing the transactions in the back alley. “And here is what it looks like now.” The tape shows Sam stepping out the back door of the shop, walking over to dump a bag of trash in the dumpster, then an empty motionless alley for the remainder of the tape.

  “Wow! How did you do that?” he asks.

  “I called in help. An old friend who can do anything. Erik and his team spent almost two days here cleaning the tapes up for me.”

  “Erik?’ he asks, with more than a hint of jealousy in his voice.

  I reach over to rub his leg.

  “Don’t even go there,” I say. “You never have to worry about me even looking at another man. Not going to happen. You’ll always be more than enough man for me.”

  “Is he the older man you were involved with when you were caught hacking?”

  “You know about that?” I ask in surprise. “How long have you known? How did you find out?”

  Sam doesn’t answer.

  “You’d better tell me,” I say.

  He takes my hand in his and grips it tight. “We’ve known since the beginning. One of Flint’s contacts alerted us about the ATF investigation the day after we met on the mountain.”

  My heart starts pounding and blood rushes to my face.

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  Insecurity and doubt starts creeping into my mind. I thought Sam found out about me when he broke into my apartment. He’s known this entire time? My mind starts going back over every minute we spent together. I’m afraid again.

  I try to pull my hand away. Sam holds it tighter.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” he says. “I won’t let you pull away from me now.”

  “What was your plan if you knew who I was?”

  He still can’t look me in the eye.

  “To let you get close to me and feed you false information. We were trying to minimize the damage you might do.”

  “So all the time we spent together was fake?” I ask.

  I’m inexplicably about to cry again. Why am I always crying now? I never cry.

  He brushes my hair back from my face and tucks it behind my ear.

  “You tell me, sweetheart,” he says. “Did it feel fake to you? Because it sure as hell never felt that way to me. Nothing ever felt as real to me as what we have.”

  Reaching over, he grabs me and slides me over into his lap. Wrapping his big arms around me, he cradles me like a tiny child.

  “Come here where I can hold you,” he says. “I can tell that you’re freaking out. You’re afraid that I played you. That I don’t love you and that the bottom is going to fall out any second.”

  I nod and bury my face into his warm neck. That’s exactly how I feel.

  “I know because I’ve felt that way for weeks,” he says. “I didn’t mean to fall for you. I certainly didn’t want to. I’ve always been a player, you probably know that. And I was absolutely sure that I could handle you. Whatever it took to keep my family and the MC safe.”

  I think back to the first morning at the diner.

  “You already knew the morning we had breakfast together?”

  He sighs and kisses my hair.

  “Yes, I knew, and I wanted you even then. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t want you. Then along the way, things changed. I went from physically wanting you to needing you in my
life. Something happened the day of the basketball game. I looked over and saw you sitting with my family. I knew right then that I wanted to keep you in my life forever. I kept thinking about how a future could be for us. With a house and kids. That’s why I tattooed the infinity circle on your ass with our names. I wanted a forever after with you. The tattoo was my way of showing you our future.”

  I wipe my eyes. Damn! I can’t stop crying.

  “The tattoo was the most wonderful thing I’ve ever been given.”

  “Every day at work, all I could think about was hurrying back to you at night,” he says. “You were on my mind all the time. And then when I woke up that morning and you were gone, I went berserk. Completely out of my head. I couldn’t believe that you left me without saying goodbye.”

  I curl my fingers tightly in his hair.

  “I won’t leave you ever again,” I say. “I promise.”

  “I’m glad to hear that because there’s something else I need to tell you. You’re going to be mad, but I don’t want any more secrets between us.”

  I lean back to look up at him. He’s dead serious. I’m afraid to ask.

  “What did you do?”

  “Remember the night when you were a little tipsy and I tucked you into bed?”

  I nod.

  “I went looking through your cabinet for some aspirin and I saw your birth control pills.”

  I don’t have a clue as to where this is going. I’m surprised he recognized what they were.

  “So I punched out the pill for that day and threw it away,” he says in a rush of words. “I knew you might not miss it because of the tequila.”

  “Why on earth would you do something crazy like that?”

  He slides his hand down to rest on my stomach.

  “I wasn’t thinking straight and...I wanted to get you pregnant. That’s why. You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

  I let out a surprised laugh. “I don’t even know what to say. If you knew I was an undercover ATF agent, why would you want to get me pregnant?”

  He shrugs. “I love kids and I love you, so...”

  “There has to be more to it than that.”

  He reaches up and rubs my bottom lip with his thumb.