“Are you staring at me, Katydid?” Hunter asks, those beautiful green eyes slowly opening.
“Maybe. Good morning, sleepyhead.”
He stretches and I feel his body move against mine. “Morning, sweetness,” he says, his hand coming to my neck and holding it while his thumb moves back and forth along my jaw. “Have I told you that I love you?”
“I can’t remember,” I joke, kissing his chest.
“I love you, Katydid. So fucking much.”
“I love you too, Hunter.” I stare into his eyes and let my fingers tangle into his hair.
“You ready to go back to Kentucky today, baby?” he asks, and I feel a moment of fear run through me before I push it aside.
“You really think Bethie will be okay?”
His face goes serious for a minute and his finger combs through my hair. He stares off into the distance before coming back to me.
“Skull has a lot of anger to work through, and it might not be pretty for a while. I promise you that he will love his daughter and be good to her.”
My muscles tense up and the fear returns. “But he won’t be to my sister?”
“They have to work it out, Katie. It’s their life. I can promise you that he won’t hurt her, at least not physically.”
“That’s not reassuring, Hunter.”
“I can’t offer you an answer to something I don’t know, sweetness. We just have to have faith. I know that the way I love you tells me that you and I are forever. No matter what comes up I’d move Heaven and Earth to keep you, to keep what we have.”
“I feel the same.”
“So, do you really think Skull and Beth won’t fight to find what they had?”
“Maybe. If the anger doesn’t…”
He puts his finger to my lips. “We can’t do it for them, sweetness. You be there for your sister. That’s all you can do.”
“Then I guess I’m ready to go back to Kentucky… well… after?”
“After?” he asks with a smile.
“I thought I’d be a good girlfriend and serve you breakfast in bed.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Mmm… Hmm…” I moan, rolling over on my back and looking over at him with a lazy smile.
“And what am I having for breakfast?” Hunter asks unnecessarily, because he’s already rolling over and sliding between my legs.
“Me,” I tell him, spreading myself open to give him more room, my hands reaching behind me to hold onto the bedpost, my eyes closing as I feel his tongue slide against my clit.
He’s right. I’d do anything to keep what we have together. I’m never letting him go. I hope Beth and Skull get even half of the love I feel in my heart for Hunter.
“I’m never letting you go, Hunter,” I tell him, because I can’t keep the words inside. “I love you.”
“I love you too, sweetness,” he murmurs against my pussy as his fingers thrust inside of me. “You’re my forever,” I hear him say before his tongue dives back in.
He’s right. What we have is forever. He’s my forever, too.
Sabre drives me to a small airfield about an hour away from the hotel. In that time, he doesn’t talk to me, and neither does Latch who rides beside him. They barely even look at me.
I feel so ostracized. Dirty. I’m missing Gabby. Since she’s been born, I’ve never been away from her. The longest has been an hour while I ran to the store. Will I get to see her before he turns me over to Colin? The thought of never seeing Gabby again crushes me. I can’t stop the tears. They haven’t stopped since the minute I walked out of the hotel and Skull grabbed me.
“Hello there, mi puta esposa,” he’d snarled. The coldness in his voice as he grabbed me when I went to get the stuff out of Katie’s jeep will be something that sticks with me until the day I die, which I guess won’t be that long once Colin gets me, so I should be grateful for that at least.
There’s no talking when we stop, or when I’m pulled onto the small airplane and pushed into a tiny bathroom. Not one word is exchanged. The only sound is that of the door as it locks behind me. The room is dark. I just sit there, doing my best to not give into the fear that swamps me. I’m terrified of the dark, too. It’s one of the things grandfather used to his advantage during my hell in France. I can feel the chill bumps spread over my body and I hug myself close, trying not to give into the panic. Instead, I close my eyes and picture Skull and Gabby together. I don’t understand it. He pushed me away from him, but there’s no mistaking the love I saw coming from him when he was holding Gabby. Gabby will have his love. If I have to die, then at least I can go knowing that. And maybe… maybe if Torch and Katie work out, she will be able to help care for her. That’s good. That’s really good. Gabby adores her aunt. She’s young. She’ll barely miss me. I feel my way to the floor and slide down against the wall, curling into myself. I feel safer against the wall. Nothing can come at me.
* * *
I don’t know how much time passes before the door opens. I’m so lost in my panic that I didn’t even notice we landed. At first, the bright light that shines in hurts my eyes. I blink, trying to adjust, but before I get a chance to, someone grabs my wrist and pulls me out of the room. I struggle to stand. My knees scrape against the hard metal door frame. I don’t know this person. His jacket reads: “prospect”. I guess I don’t warrant a full-fledged member of the club at this point. I’m dying to ask where he’s taking me, but it probably doesn’t matter.
No one talks to me as I’m pulled off the plane and towards the main building. The property used to be an old airfield, from the looks of it. Minutes later, I’m being taken through the club. I ignore all the eyes I can feel on me, even though I’m dying of embarrassment. He takes me to the area where the members have bedrooms. I’m not taken to Skull’s room, though. The man pushes me into a room and slams the door. I sit on the bed, afraid to touch anything. I must sit there for an hour. I feel like I’m going to go insane. Is this part of Skull’s torture? Make me wait for my death? Or is it Colin who’s just dragging his feet?
My heart is in my chest when Skull enters. How can I think he looks amazing and dread seeing him at the same time?
“Where’s Gabby?”
“She’s being cared for,” he answers. “That’s all you need to know.”
His voice is colder than I can ever remember it.
“Don’t I get to see her before you send me to Colin?” I know my voice sounds pleading. I can’t help it. The thought of never getting to touch my child again…
Skull stops, his dark eyes looking over me, and I feel like the dirt underneath his fingernails.
“I’m not turning you over to Colin. He wants you too much. I hate him almost as much as I do you, mi esposa. Why would I do anything that gives him pleasure?”
“You’re not giving me away? Well, if you’re not doing that, then... What are you going to do with me?” I ask him, my brain so stressed out that I’m having trouble piecing any of it together.
“That answer is easy. Whatever the fuck I want. Here’s your food. I must get back to mi hija,” he says lifelessly, leaving a plate of food on the dresser.
“Whose room is this?” I ask, not wanting to be alone again, even if it means having someone who obviously hates me in the room with me.
“Pistol’s. It seemed fitting, one traitor for another,” he shrugs, his voice trailing off.
“I’m not a traitor. I only ever tried to save you—”
“We see things differently,” he says, walking towards the door. He’s almost out before I can find my nerve to speak again.
“Can I see my daughter?”
“Maybe I should make you wait years, like you did to me. Maybe you will never see her again. Haven’t made up my mind.”
My body shakes from the unexpected reply. “You can’t… You can’t just take her from me!”
“I can do whatever the hell I want, Beth. You’re in my home. My rules.”
“Skull, don’t do this. I
f you do this, we’ll never be able to work together to raise our daughter.”
“I’ll be raising my daughter,” he says coldly, and fear slides through me at his announcement.
“You can’t mean to keep me away from Gabby.”
“Why not? You didn’t have a problem keeping her away from me.”
“I tried! I thought you wanted us away from you, Skull! I tried to make it back to you!”
“You never would have been away from me if you had told me everything from the beginning. I never would have had a traitor in my ranks. You never would have taken my child away from me,” he adds, and with each statement, he advances on me until finally I’m backed up against the wall and there’s nowhere for me to go. He wraps his hands around my neck, exerting enough pressure that I think he might choke me. My eyes go wide and I’m afraid to move. This is not the man I remember. This Skull, he’s cold, hard, and deadly. This Skull is full of hate, and it’s all directed at me.
He leans in close, his breath filtering out against my ear and down my neck. It sends shivers through me, a mixture of fear and need. “If you had told me the truth, my beautiful tigresa, none of this would have happened.”
“I did it to protect you.”
The pressure on my throat increases until the air refuses to come. My hands go to his in reflex. His black eyes are shining with emotion, but instead of the love or need I’ve dreamed of seeing there, they are full of anger.
“Instead, you made me a tramposo! You had me cheat on our wedding vows!” His hands clench before letting off the pressure. I take the air back into my lungs, but concentrate on his words.
“We were never married!” I scream out, not wanting to think of Skull with another woman, the idea nearly gutting me. Doesn’t he know how much it cost me to let him go? Doesn’t he care that I tried to protect him and keep him safe? How did this get to be all my fault? I’ve been without him for years, too, and I didn’t go to another man. I didn’t even think about it.
“We never will be, now. I would not have you now even if you begged me, Beth. Me das asco,” he hurls at me. He doesn’t know I’ve learned Spanish since I’ve been gone, or he doesn’t care. Probably the latter. But I know. I know, and his words still any fight I have inside of me.
I disgust him. As he walks off, slamming the door and locking it, I sink to the floor and do what I’ve done all day.
I cry.
I close the door on Beth’s cries. Her tears won’t do her any good. I’m not the man I was. I will never be him again. I go to the nursery to check on Gabriella. Gabriella. She named mi hija after my mom. Was that just a trick, too? A card she could play when her back was against the wall?
Gabriella is sleeping in her crib. My daughter. My hands shake as I reach out to brush a stray curl from her forehead.
“She’s beautiful,” Annie says, coming up behind me.
Sabre and Latch brought her here to keep her safe, but to also help me make sure Gabriella is taken care of when I can’t be with her. I wasn’t grandstanding talking to Beth. I have so much anger at her right now that I want to punish her. I want her to hurt like I hurt. Like she made me hurt.
“Si. She reminds me of mi madre.”
“She looks just like you.”
I smile at the words as pride slides through me. She does. She looks like me. It feels good having that acknowledged.
“Did you put the monitor in my room?” I ask her.
“Yes, just like you asked. But I’ll be here until Sabre and Latch get back with Lucy.”
“Thank you, Annie. You are a diamante among inmundo perlas,” I tell her, but I don’t wait around for a reply. Instead, I leave and head out of the building.
I make my way to the club’s garage. Once inside, I open the trapdoor to the basement. I climb down into it and turn on the light. Standing in front of me chained from the ceiling by his hands and dangling a good two feet from the floor is Pistol. His face is a bloody mess, swollen beyond recognition. His knees have been taped and semi-repaired by Dr. Torres. She’s a fucking hot piece of work. Why couldn’t I have fallen for someone like her? Hot sex, uncomplicated… if only I could feel any of that beyond the pain I feel right now.
The florescent fixture buzzes and then clicks before lighting all the way. Pistol is naked. He’s missing most of his toes now, and his ass has been cut by a mixture of my knife, broken bottles, and other objects. I figured, if he’s going to fuck with me, I might as well show him how to take it like a man. Blood has run and dried down his legs. His ribs are purple, but nowhere near as scary-looking as it was last week. I know a couple are broken, but he’s still breathing, so they must have not punctured a lung.
I stand there watching him, taping my hands up. I think he opens an eye. It’s such a fucking mess, who could be sure?
“Mátame,” Pistol says, the word coming out barely more than a soft whisper. I might not have heard it, except he begs for the same thing every time. It’s monotonous. He should figure out by now that he dies when I’m done, not before. Now that my hands are taped, I circle his body.
“I met mi hija tonight, cabron. The hija you helped steal from me,” I growl, slamming my fist into his rib. “The hija who is two and does not even know who I am,” I tell him, pummeling him again and again. “The hija I never would have known existed if you had gotten your way,” I add.
I pound into him over and over, each time telling him I know what he tried to do. I don’t stop. I go a little too far when blood spews from his mouth and his body heaves with the force it takes for him to gasp. The thought of not having him to take my anger out on again is what makes me stop. I use my hands to stop his body from spinning listlessly. I tear the tape from my hands and go to recline against the wall, watching as the blood trails down his neck to his chest, and right there, just below his collarbone, I see it: a bit of unmarked, unblemished skin. That can’t happen. I use the phone on the wall, hit speaker, and dial the number.
“Yeah?”
“I need you again.”
“When I said I would help you out, I didn’t know I would be keeping a man alive just so you could kill him,” Teena’s voice comes over the phone.
“Are you coming or not?”
“I’ll be there.”
“I’ll be waiting,” I tell her, ending the call.
I light a cigarette, letting the smoke circle around me.
“Dejame morir,” Pistol wheezes, more blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth.
Let me die. How many times did I pray for that very thing? Ask God for that very same thing? How many times did it go unanswered? Not as many as Pistol’s will. That, I can promise.
“Not tonight, carbon, not tonight.” I take my cigarette and, finding that one untouched spot around his collarbone, I push the lighted end of the cigarette to it and curl my nose at the smell of burning flesh. Pistol barely moves, this pain hardly detectable under the deluge of other pain he endures. That thought brings me a very small sliver of peace—for now.
No. He will not die tonight. He will not die until I can breathe again.
THE End . . . For now
Look for Conquered, The final book
in the trilogy, April 2016
Turn the page for all the pretty extras, including a previously released novella of Sabre, Latch, and Annie—Craved—containing an all new epilogue. Did you ever wonder what Skull’s reaction was after meeting with Colin? And where did the recording Beth talked about come from? Read on! Also included is a sample of some great new book coming out by brand-spanking new author Becca Taylor!
Craved
By: Jordan Marie
Annabelle
Some men defy description.
I deal with books. I know every adjective in the English language and I can’t describe Sabre.
He’s a biker with a filthy mouth and a dirty mind and he sets me on fire.
I’ve lived in the shadows my whole life, afraid to see what is beyond my own little corner of the wor
ld.
Sabre makes me step outside my safe zone.
He makes me crave…more.
Sabre
Annie is everything I shouldn’t want.
From that uptight dress to the hair she wears in a damn bun, down to those black rimmed glasses. We don’t fit. A librarian and a biker, and if that’s not cliché enough, she has cats!
I should run.
I’m not going to. One taste and I only want more.
There’s a tiger hiding behind that uptight prude disguise she’s wearing and once I get my teeth into her…
I’m never letting go.
Chapter 1
Sabre
Sometimes you just have to say screw it and jump in. Life’s too fucking short for regrets.
It’s happened to my brothers before—so, I know it can. That thunderbolt feeling that strikes you with just one look. I just never fucking expected it to happen to me. I’m the most jaded motherfucker to walk the face of the Earth. There’s a reason I wound up a member of the Devil’s Blaze Motorcycle Club. I don’t fucking deal well with rules, I don’t deal well with people, and I don’t like living life the way some other fucker tells me I should. So, the fact that I’m standing here in the middle of a fucking street in the small, sleepy town of Slade, Kentucky, panting after some uptight bitch, knocks me on my ass.
It’s August for fuck’s sake and one of the hottest months ever on record. It’s easily a hundred and two out here and this bitch is wearing a long-sleeved, gray dress that comes up to her damn chin and some kind of fancy nylon tights on her legs under that. About the only thing that looks like she dressed for the weather is the tight little bun she’s pulled her white-gold hair into and, fuck me, that looks painful. The thing is, despite how stupid the outfit is, it is sexy as hell. The dress hugs curves that go on for fucking miles. Tits that would more than fill my hands, and legs…fuck, those legs were made to wrap around a man. Hell, those pointy-heeled shoes she has on, alone, make my dick stand up and take notice.
Burned: Devil's Blaze MC Book 2 Page 21