Oh, God.
“Listen. You don’t really want to do this,” I warn him.
“I do, and I can guarantee you that I’ll make you want it too,” he says, and yeah, that pretty much seals his fate.
No one is making me want shit.
I bring my elbow back and slam it into his abdomen. I stick my ass hard into him while he’s bent down. My hands go up behind my head to lock around the back of his neck and I use the force of my body and his motion to propel him over my head. Really, my self-defense instructor would be proud. He falls to the ground in a puff of dust, looking up at me like he can’t believe what I just did. I use that same foot to slam down on his crotch, grinding the steel-toe so damned heavily, I figure his balls might burst. He cries out, which brings me a small level of joy. He’s curled into a ball now, but I know he’ll get up quick, and because Torch has my clothes and took away the weapons I normally carry, I’ve got to move fast. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I run—well, mostly hobble—to the big rig. I climb up on the driver’s side. The key is still in it. I can drive a six speed dually; surely this can’t be that much different, right? Luckily, it’s old-school; no fancy push-buttons, so I’m not completely lost. I’m ridiculously helpless at backing up anything with a trailer, even my jeep, so I cut the wheel deep and pray. I manage to only side swipe the back end of one car before I complete my turn, then go back onto the road. I won’t be able to drive this for long because soon, I’m sure the cops will be on my ass. Still, if I can manage ten minutes, that should get me on the freeway and off to the next exit. Hopefully I can find another ride, or else a less conspicuous car to hijack. It takes some gear-grinding, and each time I have to use the clutch, my foot screams in agony. Despite it all, I find my groove and get the hell out of dodge.
Today is not starting off well. Then, I notice the trucker’s cellphone on the dash, and smile. Maybe it’s getting better.
“What the fuck do you mean you lost her??” Skull screams over the phone, and when I say scream, I actually mean it’s more like a cold, monotone question that’s meant to leave the person he’s talking to dead. That’d be me.
I just had to break it to him that Katie got away. I questioned the diner and found out what route that trucker normally takes. The waitress helped me where the others just looked at me like I was insane. The waitress made it clear that she’d like to nurse me back to health—especially my damned cock—and it pisses me off that the fucker crawled up and hid! My cock has always been a shower, strutting his magnificent self like a proud peacock and demanding the ladies’ eyes. The last two months, he’s changed somewhat. Nothing interested him—until Katie. But never in my life has he revolted when a woman reached out to pet him. Shit! That crap has got to change. Maybe they have electroshock therapy for your dick. I could get that desperate.
“Are you listening to me asshole?”
Shit, Skull. I don’t think he’d like to hear me say no. “I am, boss,” I lie. “I promise you, I got this. I already have her hunted down. I’m heading there now,” I assure him, and yeah, I’m lying out of my ass. I know a general vicinity though, and really, how hard can it be to hide a yellow eighteen-wheeler? Shit.
“You better, motherfucker. If I lose my chance to grab ahold of Beth—I mean, my daughter—I will end you. Entiéndeme?”
“I got it, boss. I’ll have her by nightfall.”
He hangs up, and I hope like hell I do have her, because if I don’t, I wouldn’t put it past Skull to come down here and hunt down Katie himself. I still have the urge to protect her and that’s fucked up. But boss isn’t thinking clearly. He might say this is to get his daughter, but I know it’s to get Beth. He wants his daughter, I don’t doubt that for a second. But… Beth. He wants Beth. What the fuck he’s going to do with her when he gets her all depends on exactly what the fuck caused her to run in the first place.
The damn jeep is sucking fumes, so I decide to take the next exit. Just another fucking reason to hate cages. If I was on my bike, I’d have already eaten up the interstate. I make a right towards the Shell station, groaning at the backed up traffic. There must have been a wreck. Hopefully I don’t run out of gas while I’m waiting for it to thin out; that’d be the fucking cherry on top of the shit pile that has been my day. My knuckles are bruised, I’ve got a headache from hell, and my fucking ribs are sore. Motherfuckers must have kicked me while I was out.
Traffic slowly starts moving. There’s a policeman directing all the traffic into one lane. As I get closer, I can see why, and I feel a moment of complete and utter fucking joy. There, surrounded by cops in the far lane, is an eighteen-wheeler. Not just any eighteen-wheeler, but a fucking bright yellow one.
I negotiate Katie’s jeep to the median and jump out to see what kind of fucking mess she’s gotten into now, because I have no doubt that she’s in the middle of whatever it is.
“What’s going on here?” I ask.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to return to your vehicle. We’re trying to prevent traffic from being backed up.”
“Oh, I hear ya. It’s just that at the Waffle King in Brownville, that very fucking truck was there, and I saw its driver force a woman into the truck with him. I tried to tell the police there. They wanted me to come in and make a report. I did, but I don’t know if they did anything about it.”
“Shit. You’re kidding me!” The officer goes off running to one of the other men there. I walk closer, expecting to get a glimpse of Katie, but I don’t see her anywhere.
“There wasn’t a woman in the truck?” I call out, and I try not to let my inner fear free. Shit, if she got herself hurt by pulling her damn stunt…
“There wasn’t anyone here,” the officer answers. “Witnesses say they saw a brunette limp out of the truck and start walking towards Casey. They reported her limping heavily and looking like she’d been in a fight.”
“David! We don’t release details of the case,” another cop says, which is kind of stupid, though probably a hundred percent true—and smart. Dumbass. For all he knows, I could be the owner of the truck.
I need to find Katie. Shit. I hope she’s okay. I start to turn away when I hear one of the cops yell.
“Hey! Sarge! Dispatch just got a call from the Angel Drop Motel, said some woman stole his rig.”
“Have one of the men go to the motel and get this guy. Tell them to treat him like a suspect. We have a witness who said this guy might have kidnapped a woman over in Brownville.”
And cue my time to leave. As much as I want to make sure that trucker gets his ass sewn up, if I have to stay around and be the motherfucker to help do it, Katie will get away. I back away until I’m out of sight, then jump in my jeep and drive off. I take the back road and hold my breath until I find a little mom-and-pop gas station and fill up. There’s been no sign of Katie. I might have picked the wrong route. I thought driving on this back road would be the way to go, but—
I stop when I see her. She’s limping hard, walking along the side of the road. My heart squeezes in my chest.
Motherfucking raindrops in Hell! Until this moment, I refused to acknowledge the fear I felt when I saw the eighteen-wheeler abandoned and Katie nowhere to be found. I didn’t fully believe that she had stolen the damn thing. Jesus.
I pull up beside her. The window is already down. It’s an older model jeep, so the windows zip. How she could like such a thing is beyond me. “Get in,” I order, and my voice might rival Skull’s in being cold right now.
Did I break a freaking mirror? I don’t think I’ve ever had such a continuous run of bad luck, and considering I spent most of my life being a prisoner of my father and grandfather, that’s saying something! When I think someone is finally offering me a ride, only to find Torch sitting in my jeep, I want to scream.
I look around, trying to figure out how I can get away.
“You even think about it, Katie, and so help me God, I will make sure you regret it. I have a headache from fucking hell afte
r getting my skull bashed in by that magazine rack, and I’m not gonna put up with anymore of your shit.”
I want to at least make a run for it, but with the agony in my leg, I know it wouldn’t do any good. “I hate you,” I grumble, then get up in the jeep. My leg protests even that small feat, and I grimace from the pain.
“The feeling is starting to be mutual,” he growls, then makes a hard U-turn, squealing my tires.
I grab ahold of the dashboard, trying to brace myself. “Will you slow down? This isn’t the Daytona Speedway!”
“Shut up, Katie.”
I don’t respond. Something about the tone of his voice tells me it wouldn’t be wise to prod him. I’ve survived knowing how far I can go. I haven’t always listened to the warning in my head, but I’m still here. I guess I should trust my instincts. Instead of going off on him like I want, I sit quietly and rub my leg. It’s cramping and I’ve been without any type of medication for a couple days. The pain is intense.
“Are you even listening to me?” asks Torch, jarring me out of my thoughts.
“I thought you told me to shut up,” I respond.
“I asked what’s wrong with your leg?”
“It hurts.”
“Jesus, does everything have to be like pulling teeth with you?”
“I’m sorry I’m not more accommodating to the man who is intent on taking away the freedom it took my whole life to gain.”
That makes him go silent. Good. He can chew on that for a little while.
“Sweetness, I know you don’t believe me, but we aren’t going to hurt you.”
“You might not be planning on it, but you will.”
“Skull deserves to see his child, Katie. Beth and he need to talk.”
“He doesn’t deserve shit. He lost that chance when he turned his back on her when she almost died. She needed him there. He decided to send her money and a nice goodbye note with a picture of him and his new woman.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just let it go. Nothing I tell you will make you change your mind.”
“Skull would never do that, Katie. Jesus Christ, I don’t think the man has been with a woman since Beth’s been gone.”
“Yeah, I’m buying that.”
“I’m telling you it’s the truth. I mean, there might have been a few while he was grieving and drunk off his ass, but there’s been no one he’s bothered having a repeat performance with.”
“Oh well, that makes it all better.”
“What the fuck did you expect? He thought she was dead! He thought he killed her!”
“And I’m saying he knew better! I’m saying that while Beth was delivering her daughter, she almost died. I called to let him know that she needed him, and one of your brothers hung up on me!” I’m watching his face the entire time, so I see the exact moment when his face changes. “Oh my God. It was you. You’re the fucker who hung up on me that night!”
“We thought she was dead,” he says. “We thought—”
“I know what you thought. I know exactly what you thought.”
“Katie…”
“You and your brother both thought you could send Bethie a goodbye package that would rip out her heart and a hundred thousand thrown in the mix and you’d be done with us.”
“I’m telling you, Skull didn’t do that.”
“And I’m telling you, I was there so I know he did.”
“I give up. I can’t win with you. While you’re sitting over there being a bitch and being mad at the world, Katie, why don’t you ask yourself one question? Why don’t you ask yourself why, if Skull was in such a hurry to get rid of Beth and his child a couple of years ago, he would even bother trying to find them now? And while you’re puzzling over that one, why don’t you remember who the fuckers are that have given you and Beth so much trouble from day one. Because I think if you remember that, you might discover that person has never been a member of the Devil’s Blaze.”
I stare at the window and ignore him, or at least I’m trying to appear that way. The problem is, he’s making sense. Could the package have not been from Skull? Does it even matter? The picture in it, Bethie confirmed, was Skull. I lay my head against the window of the jeep and close my eyes. I’m tired of thinking. I’m tired of fighting—at least for now.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” I whisper to Katie as I’m picking her up in my arms. She’s been sleeping all evening. I woke her up so we could grab some drive-thru. She ate, then went back out.
I’ve been driving for the last five hours in silence. By rights, we should almost be home, but Skull told me to drag my feet and that’s what I’m doing, which explains why we’re only halfway through the state of Oklahoma instead of in Missouri. He thinks Beth will follow her sister. He’s so sure of it, he’s planning on meeting us when we cross over into Missouri.
I have mixed feeling about it all. I don’t want my time with Katie to end. As pissed off as I was at the stunt she pulled today, the relief I felt when I found her was different for me. Profound, even. I’m a lover of women. All women. I just don’t believe in monogamy, or that it’s even possible. Katie pulls strings inside of me I didn’t know were there. I’m not tired of her. Not even a little bit. Instead, I keep remembering our night together and I fucking want more. It could be just sex, but the thing is, I enjoy just talking to her and spending time with her almost as much as the sex, and that shit right there, that has never fucking happened. That has to mean something, right? I don’t know what it means, but I do know it makes me curious.
As I watch her stretch, her shirt pulling taut over her breasts and that sweet little noise that escapes her lips, I know it’s more than that. Katie is different. Fuck me running. She’s got a hold on me and I’m starting to wonder if I’m ever going to get free.
I pick her up in my arms and something settles inside of me. She’s made for my arms. She fits. It’s sudden, but I feel it in my fucking blood. The same blood she heats. I made fun of Sabre, Latch, and Skull. Called them pussy-whipped and a million other things, but fuck me if it’s not starting to sink in that I might be trapped and just as hard and as quick as they were. The scariest thing about that shit isn’t the thought of being tied down with one woman my whole life. Fuck, no. That’s how far her claws are in me. The scary thing is how Katie will react when Skull gets Beth in his clutches again, because my brother is fucked up.
I’m not even sure what he’s going to do.
I checked into the Ken’s Bargain Motel before I went back to collect Katie. It’s a small, out of the way motel where there are five rooms attached to the main office all in succession, one right after the other. I asked for the room on the end out of habit. I don’t need Katie screaming and alerting the front office, either. She’s given me a big enough headache as it is.
I carry her inside and put her on the bed. With all of the shifting and moving around, she finally wakes up. She stretches her hands above her head, yawning. She probably has no idea how fucking sexy she looks right now. At least my dick is waking up and appreciating the fact.
“What time is it?”
“Late. We’ll bed down for the night and get up early in the morning.”
She scrunches up her nose and combs her fingers through her hair while yawning again, but not quietly. I’m freaking smiling over that. I was right; I’m going down just like my brothers were. Shit, and within just a couple of days. I might have fallen quicker than they did.
“I need a shower,” she mumbles, looking around the room, probably for an escape route. How the hell did I get here? What happened to the good ol’ days when I wanted rid of a woman and they were crying, wanting to stay?
“Fine, but let’s hurry. I’m killed,” I tell her, yanking off my shirt.
“I meant me, as in singular.”
“Sweetness, after the merry chase you’ve sent me on, you’re not moving two feet away from me. We either shower together or we don’t shower. The choice is yours.”
“But I’m dusty and sore.”
“Then we shower.”
“Hunter, I can still feel his hands on me. Please? Chain me to the shower somehow, I don’t care, but I want a shower and I want it alone.”
Mother-fucking-Hellfire! “He put his hands on you?”
She jumps. I don’t know if it’s from the tone in my voice or the look on my face. Both, probably. I’m going to hunt that bastard down and cut his balls out with a rusty spoon and feed them to the motherfucker before I do the world a favor and put a bullet between his eyes.
“My boobs and ass,” she answers. “He was definitely an ass man. Can I please wash without you watching? I promise to be on my best behavior. Scouts honor.”
“Sweetness, I doubt you were ever a scout.”
“Please, Hunter?”
I’m starting to see differences in Katie. When she’s sweet and more honest with me, she uses my real name, and I doubt she even realizes the change—but I do. I’m a card player from way back and it’s good to know that I’m learning Katie’s tells.
“Let’s go. You look too tired to do much running anyways,” I tell her.
She slides off the bed with a groan. “You have no idea,” she whispers, but it breaks off in a cry when she tries to put pressure on her leg. She nearly crumbles to the floor before I make it to her side and hold her in my arms.
“Sweetness?” I question, unsure of what happened.
“I’m fine,” she whispers, but we both know it’s not true. I put my finger under her chin so I can see her eyes. At the sight of her tears, I know it’s no longer me just worrying. I’ve fallen under this woman’s spell, hard. I sunk just as hard and just as fast as my brothers. “Motherfucking-son-of-a-whoremonger!”
“Did you just say, whoremonger?” her quiet voice whispers and she’s trying to smile, but I see the tightness in her face and she still has tears falling.
I hadn’t realized I said it out loud. “I have a habit of adding flair to my cursing. I like to think of myself like the Batman and Robin of cursing. It makes it more fun.”
Burned: Devil's Blaze MC Book 2 Page 11