Outlaw's Salvation (A Viper’s Bite MC Novel Book 2): A Bad Boy MC Romance (Viper's Bite MC)

by Lena Bourne

  “When will you sleep?”

  “I can go a couple of days without it,” he says. “After that, I’ll figure something out. Though I’d prefer it, if you just came back to my place instead.”

  She frowns, and I’m fully expecting her to start yelling at me now. But she doesn’t.

  She looks past me down the street, her face relaxing. “Seems you weren’t lying about my sister being sick after all. So for her sake, I’ll stay with you until she gets here. Not that there’s any need for it.”

  How can she still be so fucking naive? There’s plenty to worry about here. Like the cartel for one thing. They like to abduct US tourists for ransom. And then there’s just regular psychos trolling around for unsuspecting, scantily-dressed girls.

  “You don’t want to get kidnapped again. I’ve seen what happens to girls abducted around here, and it’s not nice.” She turns to me sharply, the calmness gone from her face, her eyes very wide. I can actually hear her breathing hard and we’re on a noisy sidewalk. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to scare her this bad. And I’d blame the fact that I haven’t slept all night, but I constantly do dumb shit like say the wrong thing at the wrong time. But it’s true. I’ve seen it and I don’t even want to remember, let alone see it again. And above all, I don’t want Samantha to ever experience it again.

  “What did you see?” she asks, eyeing me warily.

  “Bad shit,” I say, since there’s no going back now. “I’m sure Shade is like a pussycat compared to these cartel assholes. Now let’s go get some coffee or something.” I’d prefer to just go back to my place and sleep, but that fear in her eyes will probably need some time to pass. I turn to start walking, but she grips my arm to stop me.

  “There was this…this Mexican guy…a client,” she says in a shaky voice, her eyes growing even wider. “He said… he said, he’d like to buy me…and then he’d, ummm, this is so sick…he’d cut off my arms and legs and just use me as a sex toy.” She’s shaking now, her grip on my arm painful. “Is that what you saw?”

  I’m getting sick just thinking about that. “No, and if I had, I’d kill everyone involved, starting with the girl.”

  Her eyes are even wider now, and I think her grip is bruising my bone by now, so clearly I just compounded her terror by saying yet another stupid thing. But that’s exactly what I’d do.

  “Good,” she says very firmly, and releases my arm. “I think he was just saying it to scare me anyway. He got off on me being afraid more than anything else, I think. I mean stuff like that, it doesn’t really happen in real life, right?”

  Hell, I’m pretty sure it might. But I’m sure as shit not gonna tell her that.

  “I doubt it,” I say instead.

  I know she’s not satisfied with my answer, I can read it off her face. But I can also read that she absolutely doesn’t want to remember any more of that ordeal, and I’d rather she didn’t have to. I don’t know at which point during the last three days we spent together she stopped being just an incredibly hot woman I picked up and became someone I care about. But I do. And the only two things that are completely clear to me right now is that I never want her to look this scared again, and that I started this relationship completely wrong, and now it’s all fucked up.

  “How about that coffee and some lunch?” I ask in an effort to change the subject. “There’s a vegan place just down the street here. They probably serve some raw food.”

  She gives me a look that’s something between surprise, wonder and sadness for some reason. But then she smiles. “Nah, let’s just get some real food.”

  SAMANTHA

  He doesn’t say anything as we walk. Brett doesn’t talk a lot, but he listens. I can’t believe he remembered what I told him about my raw food diet. But I’m not ready to forgive him just yet.

  He leads the way to a chipped wooden door in an alley off the main boulevard, with a hand painted sign hanging over it on a rusty chain announcing it as a restaurant. I’m sure it’s just as dingy inside, so I don’t even want to enter the place, let alone eat there. But the door opens into a lovely space that’s almost right on the beach. The cross draft makes the interior quite cool too, which is a nice change from the humid heat outside.

  The place is about half full, and the smell of spices, tortillas and meat is mixing in the air in a mouth watering combination. We sit at a table right by the wide open French windows. The menu is in Spanish, but I understand enough to order.

  “What are you having?” he asks, shutting his menu and looking at a tiny waitress waiting by our table with a pad and a pen.

  “A margarita to start with,” I say shutting my menu too. “And then the chimichanga.”

  She jots it down along with his order, which takes a lot longer to rattle off.

  “You don’t think it’s too early to start drinking?” he asks, once the waitress leaves.

  “Are you serious? You ordered a beer.” My thoughts are still all messed up from the memory of that sick Mexican client, and I can’t wait to get a drink in me. Or five.

  He shrugs. “Yeah, I did. But I was asking you.”

  For some reason, it doesn’t bother me that he’s getting in my business like this. It’s actually nice that he’s worrying about me. Maybe it’s those big brown eyes of his. Or maybe it’s his curly hair, which is softer than it has any right to be.

  “I’m on vacation, and I drink when I want,” I say just as my margarita arrives. I take a long sip to prove my point.

  “Lucky you,” he muses and gulps down his whole beer in one go.

  “Oh my God,” I can’t help but exclaim. “And you were just giving me lessons on when I can drink?”

  He chuckles at that, wiping the beer foam off his mustache. “I’m a big guy. Besides I was charged with taking care of you, and I’m just taking a holistic approach.”

  “That’s not the word you were looking for,” I say, leaning back and crossing my arms over my chest. “But I get it. And you’re just charged with keeping bad guys away from me, not anything else. Just so we’re clear, I’m only sticking around so my sister won’t worry about me.”

  “Really? You sure?” He’s looking at me like he thinks I’m lying.

  He’s right. Because I do still want his arms holding me down, his lips on mine, his cock inside me. But that’ll only complicate everything going forward. Just like it did with Randy, who’s still sending me texts daily asking why I just ran out on him. He thought we had something. I didn’t. And I thought I made that clear. Randy wasn’t even a thoughtful lover. He tried, but not very hard. Brett is different. It’s not even that he’s a thoughtful lover, he takes what he wants and what he needs. But he just makes love to me with such passionate abandon that I get swept up in it too. A couple of days of that really wasn’t enough. I’d like to see what other tricks he has to offer. But it’s better I don’t. I’d just be leading him on at this point. I wanted to get laid by a stranger. I thought I was getting laid by a stranger. But it turns out he isn’t. So now I’ll have to find some other stranger. I’m not looking for anything more than sex. I have no more than that to give. I’ve been trying to explain that to Randy unsuccessfully, and I don’t want to get into another situation where I have to do the same.

  “Well? Are you sure?” he asks, making me realize I’ve just been sitting here processing all that and not saying anything.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” I finally answer his question.

  “That took awhile, but OK,” he says, smirking.

  Our food arrives, so I don’t bother replying, just dig right in.

  He does the same, and we eat in silence for awhile. And it’s infuriating that he keeps waiting for me to start the conversations. But the silence isn’t exactly unpleasant either.

  “Just so I know,” I say once we’re almost done with our food. “If I hadn’t agreed to let you babysit me, and I didn’t go back home to LA, would you really spend the whole time following me around?”

  He shrugs,
takes his time chewing his food, until I’m almost ready to yell at him again.

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean, you would’ve come around eventually, right?”

  “Fat chance,” I say. “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

  His eyes turn very serious. “I didn’t lie to you. I just withheld information. There’s a difference.”

  “Vital information. And it’s a very small difference,” I counter. “But I guess I can’t blame you. I mean with everything you heard about me, how could you resist, right?”

  He’s about to take another mouthful of his food, but he sets down his fork instead, looks like he’s about to say something, but then just picks up his beer and finishes it off. It’s his third bottle. I’m on my third margarita too, which is probably why I’m bringing all this up again. It’s not like he can give me an answer I’ll be happy with.

  “Well?” I persist, since I do want an answer.

  He’s signaling the waitress for another beer, and flashes me a sideways glance.

  “To be perfectly honest, I wanted you before I even knew who you were,” he finally says.

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  “It was your legs. I saw them before I saw most of your face,” he clarifies without needing to be asked. “I’m a sucker for nice long legs, and yours are pretty much perfect as far as that goes. But judging by that constipated look on your face, that was not the right thing to say.”

  The waitress comes over, sets his beer in front of him, and starts clearing our plates.

  “I’ll have another margarita,” I tell her, completely not sure what to say to him.

  “Look, I’m sorry for what happened to you, and that you think I used you,” he says, running his hand through his hair. “I didn’t see it that way, and I still don’t, but if you think I did, then I apologize. It wasn’t my intention.”

  The jumbled mess in my head is not even forming into coherent thoughts, let alone words I could say. I’m not used to guys being this honest with me, or this forthcoming about their real intentions. I’m used to getting treated like a dumb slut they tricked into sleeping with them from beginning to end. The way I act has everything to do with it, I know that, but I acted no different with Brett. And I think it’s just that most guys can’t understand the idea of a woman only wanting casual sex. It doesn’t jive with what they’ve been taught by their moms and society at large, so they dismiss it out of hand. But casual sex is all I’m after, and I’m not dumb, or getting tricked into it.

  “With the way you kept ripping on Tommy, I figured I had no chance with you, if you knew I was his friend, and doing him a favor approaching you,” he concludes, taking another long swallow of beer.

  “You didn’t,” I answer, since he’s absolutely right about that. I’d have sent him packing the moment he mentioned it. “How can you even still be friends with him? I mean, isn’t what he did…going to the cops and all that…isn’t that the worst thing someone in your world can do?”

  His face goes very dark. It’s like a shadow heralding a monumental storm just passed over the sun. “Yeah, you’re absolutely right about that. But it’s for me to worry about, not you.”

  Even his voice is dark, clearly letting me know I should drop this subject, but that’s not my way. I don’t get intimidated. “So why are we here then?”

  “Tommy’s been my friend for a long time,” he says. “He had his reasons, and I get that. Even if I don’t agree with what he did.”

  The silence now is charged, but the brunt of it isn’t directed at me. I won’t ask him about any of that ever again. It’s an issue, that much is clear. I also know that I wouldn’t be sitting here having this argument if Tommy hadn’t done what he did.

  “And just for the record, all my relationships started pretty much exactly like how we started out,” he finally says much more lightly. “So I don’t think any less of you because of it.”

  “And how long did those last?” I ask sarcastically, sipping on my fresh margarita.

  “It varied, but not very long, on the whole,” he says, something very stony settling on his face.

  “Why are we talking about relationships anyway?” I say, pulling my wallet out of my purse. “I don’t do relationships.”

  It’s the alcohol talking. I steer clear of the R word in any context, and there was no need for this conversation to even go there.

  He leans back and empties his bottle of beer. “I just thought I’d put that out there.”

  He’s playing it down, but I don’t think he was just joking.

  “And I just wanted to clear that up, so you don’t think whatever happens between us after today is leading to a relationship.”

  He nods slowly with a serious face. “Nothing will happen between us after today.”

  For some reason that rejection feels like a physical blow.

  “Unless you want it to,” he adds, smiling faintly. “I’ll wait for you to make the first move. I won’t disrespect you again. ”

  “Disrespect me?” I have no idea where this is coming from. I wanted some mindless, baggage-free fun, I didn’t want respect.

  “Well, isn’t that the reason why you blew up last night? And why you keep biting my head off today. You felt like I was disrespecting you,” he says, that tiny smile still playing on his lips. “See, I had a lot of time to think last night, while making sure you didn’t disappear into the night.”

  His choice of words makes goose bumps erupt on my arms despite the heat. I cross my arms tightly around my chest to hide them. “And that’s what you came up with? Respect?”

  He doesn’t like my mocking tone, that much is clear from the expression on his face. Neither do I. But come on, respect? That’s just such bullshit. Let’s see how long that resolve of his lasts. I sure as hell won’t be coming on to him again. Or ask him to fuck me. What does he want me to do? Beg? It’s all him from now on. Respect? Please.

  “Yes,” he says. “So I won’t be touching you again until you ask me to.”

  Yeah, we’ll see about that. But I don’t say it. Though I think he can read it off my face just fine.

  The waitress takes her time coming over after I wave to her, but he won’t let me pay for the meal like I intended to, I don’t even get a say in the matter.

  “I want to go swimming,” I announce as soon as the waitress leaves with his money.

  He gets up slowly, groaning. “I’d rather just go home for a little siesta.”

  “Oh come on, they even have a bouncy castle in the water, and look, a trampoline,” I say, pointing at those two things floating in the sea. “Let’s go try them out, it’ll be fun.”

  “No,” he says.

  “Why?” Most guys get on board with this excited little girl routine right away. Even the cool and collected ones. It appeals to that protective reflex all guys seem to have. But it’s having no effect on Brett. Less then twenty-four hours ago he was all over me. Where the hell is he hiding that passion now?

  “Because I’m not ten,” he says sternly, but smiles right after, shaking his head, probably at the shocked expression that I know is plastered all over my face. “Quit fooling around, Samantha.”

  “Nope. I’m here to have some fun,” I say and practically skip across the deck and onto the sand.

  I know he’s following, I can feel his presence right behind me. And I know he’s checking me out as I lose my shorts and tank by the water. I feel that too. His look burns hotter than the sun. And I’m really curious how long his newfound respect of me will actually last.

  BRETT

  She didn’t like me telling her I won’t be having any more sex with her, unless she wants to. I didn’t like telling her that either. All I really wanted to do all through lunch was lean over the table and kiss her. Have her sit in my lap and not all the way across the table. And right now, as she slowly applies sunscreen onto her long legs, all I want to do is go help her. It’s what she wants too, if those coy sideways looks are anything to go by.
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  And it’s fucking hard not to. The fact that I know exactly what she tastes like, what she smells like, how she feels in my arms, makes it even harder.

  But I meant what I said. Not until she asks. I won’t have her accusing me of taking advantage ever again. It was never my intention and never will be. I already started this all wrong, but from here on out, I won’t be making any more mistakes. She’s trying so hard to find something they took away from her by making her a whore, and I won’t be the guy to make that worse. It might not be respect, maybe I was wrong about that. But it’s something in that general area.

  I won’t find out today either, since this beach outing will have to be cut short. My phone’s been ringing on and off since this morning. The cartel has another job for me. But they can wait a little longer. I won’t touch her, not yet, anyway, but I can look. And even that’s enough to dull the edge of what I’ll likely be doing tonight.

  Chapter Eight

  SAMANTHA

  “We have to go now,” he says, looming over me, his body casting a shadow over half of mine.

  “But I still have to tan my back for awhile,” I say. “And then I want to go for another swim. That trampoline is so much fun. You have to try it.”

  He shakes his head. “No I don’t, and there’s no time for you to either. I have to go work now.”

  “Work?” I sit up and push my sunglasses onto the top of my head. “Well, I’ll just wait for you here.”

  “It’ll probably take all night,” he says, his voice very distant and level, a total opposite of the excited shrieks and laughter around us. “You said you’ll come with me, so let’s go.”

  I could argue with him about it, and a part of me wants to. I also want to work some more on chipping away at his newfound respect of me. It’s been almost two hours since we came to the beach, and I couldn’t even get him to take off his shirt, let alone join me in the sun in that time. But there’s something so serious, so desolate, so brittle in his voice, that I start getting dressed instead. I don’t even know why I care, but he sounds like he might break if I don’t do as I promised and go home with him. I’d prefer it if we were going there to kiss and fuck, but I don’t think he’s in the mood for me to try steering things in that direction. Maybe I’ll just make my play tonight, after he comes back from where ever he has to go.