by Jayne Blue
“I love you too,” she whispered. I already knew, but she never said it before. She’d been afraid, holding back. God, I’d wanted to hear it. Now that I had, fear spread through me like shards of ice down my spine.
“Maura …”
“Shhh. No more talking. You didn’t lose me. You’re not going to. For the first time in my life, maybe I don’t mind not being in control. You showed me that.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “You’re in control, baby. Since the second you walked into that bar. You’ve had a lock on my heart.”
She leaned down and kissed me. She tasted so sweet. Her little tongue darted out. I wanted to spread her wide and taste all of her. Before morning came, I would. Over and over again.
The timing couldn’t be worse for either of us. There could be no doubt now where the threat came from. The Hellz Rebels were pushing us to war. We couldn’t let Judd’s murder stand. It demanded a body count or we would lose our hold on Green Bluff and the entire west coast. Innocent people would die if that happened. The cartels would move in. I should let her go. If I really loved her …
“Angel, she whispered. “Never play poker. You’d suck at it. Everything you’re thinking is written all over your face.”
I snapped at the air, wolfish. Maura gasped, turned on. I leaned forward, pushing her gently until she lay on her back. I hovered over her. “What am I thinking now?” I asked.
She bit her bottom lip. I didn’t give her a chance to answer. I curved three fingers and edged them to her slick opening. She moaned and rose to me as I slid them in, finding her so hot, so wet, so open for me. I laughed.
“And I know what you’re thinking,” I said.
“No fair,” she said. “That’s cheating.”
I slid out of my jeans. Maura put her hands above her head, stretching her body long. Oh, I wanted to fuck her brains out tonight. I would. For now though, I wanted to take my time. I just wanted to slide inside of her and stay there. Heaven was falling asleep with her heat wrapped around me. She gasped and thrust her hips up as I found my way home.
I didn’t use anything. It was foolish, maybe. Reckless, for sure. But there in the dark, I wanted nothing between us.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, reading my thoughts. “I want this. Angel, I need this.”
And so I plunged into her, riding her just as hard as my Harley. Maura’s body responded to mine, rising to meet me. She was so wet. So ready. She came almost at once as I picked up the rhythm. She gushed all around me, driving me mad with lust.
Then it was my turn. I couldn’t be gentle but my baby took it all. I would not lose her. I would keep her safe and warm and filled with me. I loved her. She loved me. Everything else could fall away.
I lost count of how many times I took her that night. We fell asleep draped over each other, slick with sweat. She smelled so damn good as she lightly snored against me. I slept soundly, without the nightmares.
A roar of thunder jolted me awake. A shout. The sound of breaking glass. I tumbled out of bed, reaching for my jeans and pulling on my boots. Instinct kicked in and I grabbed my holster.
Trouble. It was coming for us.
“Get downstairs!” Charlie’s voice cut through me. A few seconds later, someone pounded on the door.
“Maura!” She was still deeply asleep, lying face down on the bed. I shook her shoulder. Her eyelids fluttered. I grabbed a t-shirt off the floor and threw it at her. “Come on,” I said. “Something’s up.”
She was about to ask me what it was. I was about to tell her I didn’t know. Then I saw.
Smoke poured beneath the bedroom door. I ran to the window. I saw two dark vans pull away. Sly was already running out into the yard. He had Scarlett with him. Dex came next. He had Ava over his shoulder, caveman style. She was kicking her legs and screaming about going back in.
“Fire!” Maura screamed. “My God! The place is on fire!”
An explosion rocked the whole building. The kitchen maybe. I heard screams and shouts, the sound of running feet. I ran to the door. The knob burned my hand.
“No!” Maura shouted. “We can’t go out that way.”
She was right. I grabbed a chair and threw it through the window. Glass shattered all over the bed. It was a two-story drop. We had no other choice.
“Come on,” I said. “Give me your hands. I’ll lower you down. You’ll only drop a few feet.”
“I’m not leaving you behind!” she yelled, covering her mouth as she coughed out smoke.
“I’ll jump right after.”
I understood Dex. He would get his Ava to safety, no matter what. I would do the same for Maura. Before she could protest, I grabbed her and pushed her through the window. There were shouts from down below as I lowered her as far as I could.
Then I let go.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maura
Ava held me back. I sat in the open bay of one of the ambulances, taking hits off an oxygen mask. When I tried to make a break for it, she got two EMTs to stand in my way.
“Ava, I have to know,” I said, pulling the mask away. “He said he’d be right behind me.”
“And you’re going to let the firefighters do their job. I also don’t really feel like having Angel rip my head off when he finds out I let you out of my sight. You took in a lot of smoke. You need to get checked out at the hospital.”
Panic rose again. Angel was there. Then he wasn’t. He promised he’d follow me. I landed hard, but nothing broke. I just had a small cut on my foot from landing on a shard of glass. I’d stumbled forward and turned, expecting Angel to land just behind me. He never came. Fire exploded out of the window beneath Angel’s on the ground floor. My ears still rang. I tried to get to him. I screamed his name. Then strong arms pulled me away from the building.
Columns of flame ate every part of the Wolf Den as the firefighters tried to put it out. If the wind shifted, the woods behind the building were at risk. In the dry heat we’d had over the last few weeks, I knew they would worry this could set off a massive wildfire. I only cared about one thing.
My Angel.
“Will you at least go see what you can find out?” I begged Ava. “Ava, if he didn’t come out of there. He’s gone.” The tears I’d been trying to hold back burst forth.
Oh God. No. I couldn’t lose him. At Judd’s wake, I’d had this premonition. Angel’s cut seemed superimposed on Judd’s. It was Angel’s face grinning at me from that poster-sized photo, the chrome of his Harley glinting in the sun.
No. It couldn’t be. I’d just found him.
Just like Gator … My mother’s words haunted me. She’d say she told me so.
Then I was on my feet. Ava looked back at the building. Someone called the EMTs. For one brief second, there was no one standing in my way. The world was chaos. Club members weaved in and out, finding their loved ones. Three pumper trucks worked to contain the blaze. Ambulances. Sirens. Cop cars. I walked through a nightmare. For the rest of my life, these images would haunt my dreams.
If Angel hadn’t woken me. If he hadn’t made me jump. He saved me. He kept his promises. Then there was the one he refused to make.
Promise me you’ll be careful. Promise me nothing will happen to you.
No. No. No.
I’ll be right behind you.
Something broke in me. Shouts reached me. Ava ran after me. Dex was at her side. They would try to push me back. But I had to see. I had to know.
Two firefighters burst out of the front of the building. Radios squawked all around. “Pull back! Pull back!” They gestured with their arms. Their circle widened.
Then, with one ear-deafening groan, the whole building seemed to swell and lurch. My vision wavered through the smoke. Rough hands grabbed me, tackling me, throwing me to the ground.
The Wolf Den was gone. It collapsed in a fiery heap. One giant column of flame shot up into the sky.
“Angel!” I screamed. He was still in there. My heart ripped out of me. I tried t
o crawl forward, out of my mind with grief. I kicked at the arms holding me back.
Something finally cut through. My name shouted over and over. I rolled to my back. The arms caging me loosened. Soot blackened his face, making his blue eyes pierce through.
“Baby,” Angel whispered. “Where are you going?”
I choked on a sob, blinking wildly. Was I dreaming? No. His arms were solid and warm. Blood trickled down his temple. His clothes were torn.
“Angel?”
Somehow, we both found our feet. Ava and three paramedics came running. Staggering forward, we made it back to one of the ambulances. Ava slapped another mask on me as two of the paramedics managed to muscle Angel onto a stretcher. He gripped my hand.
“Sorry,” he said, coughing. “Had to take a little detour on the way out.”
“You’re okay? You’re alive?”
Still coughing, Angel gave me a thumbs up as the men checked his vitals.
“Enough,” Ava said. “Get him out of here. Get them both out of here. You two were in that building the longest.”
“I’m not leaving him,” I said.
Ava nodded. “I don’t care. You keep that mask on. You do everything Brody and Dave say. Everything. I’ll be right behind you. Climb in.”
Angel settled once he realized I was getting in the ambulance with him. He was singed, battered, bloodied. But he was whole. He was alive. His grip was strong as he squeezed my hand. He pulled his own oxygen mask away long enough for me to lean down and give him a kiss.
“Tell me the truth,” Angel said. He sat up in his hospital bed. He took five stitches in his forehead. He had an oxygen tube under his nose and an IV in his arm. He might be a little rougher around the edges, but he was given a clean bill of health. We both were.
“Angel, I don’t know. I think everyone got out. But I was so worried about you I didn’t do a head count.”
He started pulling tubes. Now I knew how Ava felt. I hit the nurse call button when he wasn’t looking.
“Angel, stop. There’s nothing you can do from right here. Sly and Dex are handling things. I saw Switch, Big John, Tiny, Charlie. I saw the prospects. Josh and Curtis. The rest, I’m not sure.”
He smashed his head against the pillow and squeezed his eyes shut. I understood the helpless feeling going through him.
“We didn’t see it coming. How the fuck didn’t we see it coming?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “It was a fire. Nobody knows how it started.”
Angel’s eyes darkened. They’d cleaned him up, but he still had streaks of soot across his cheeks and forearms. It made him look more brutal and fierce than I’d ever seen him. It looked like war paint.
The curtain drew back and Sly stepped in. I turned. He locked eyes with me. I gave him a subtle nod. Angel was okay. We were both okay.
“Sly?” Angel said, panic rising in his voice.
“It’s okay,” Sly said. His voice was cold and dark. A muscle jumped in his jaw. Behind him, just beyond the curtain, I saw his wife Scarlett pacing the hall with her cell phone in her ear.
“Everybody got out,” Sly said. Angel sank back into the pillows, relief washing over him. “The Den’s gone. Most of our bikes went up when the building did.”
“What do we know?” Angel asked, his expression solemn. I held his hand. He squeezed mine. Sly’s gaze flicked to me.
“You’re my client,” I said. “And this concerns me too. I was there.”
Sly let out a hard breath. “Josh saw two vans pull away from the lot. There was an explosion in the kitchen. It’ll take a couple of days for confirmation, but it looks like a homemade bomb, positioned just right. Don’t know if it was there and detonated with a remote, or lobbed in through a window. Security cameras should tell us some once we download the footage. Hopefully enough of it backed up to the cloud before the building went up. For now though, we assume this was deliberate. We go to ground.”
Scarlett called to Sly. He looked over his shoulder and nodded. “You okay here?” he asked. “You two took the worst of it. I’ve got everybody else going to safe houses. But I’ve got men stationed on every floor of the hospital. Deputies are here too.”
“We’re okay here,” Angel said. “You go do what you gotta do.”
The two men seemed to be transmitting unspoken messages to each other. They were talking in a code they’d developed between them. The men of the Great Wolves M.C. This was Armageddon, but they already seemed to have a plan. It sent a chill through me. But when Sly left, I was glad to have Angel to myself again.
“I love you,” I said, kissing his hand. “When I thought you …”
Angel pulled his hand away. His face hardened, his jaw tightened. “It’s no good, Maura,” he said.
Silence fell like dead weight between us. His words sank in. “Don’t,” I said.
“I have to,” he said. “What happened tonight? It could get worse before it gets better. This was the Hellz Rebels or it was the cartel. Probably both. They crossed a line. We had our families at the Den. They’re not going to stop coming. I love you, Maura. But I can’t risk you again. I gotta give you an out.”
His words thundered through me. They say your life flashes before your eyes when you face death and danger. Twice in the last twenty-four hours, my life had been at risk. I didn’t see scenes from my childhood then. I did now. My life flashed in front of me as my heart took the risk.
“I don’t want it,” I said. “I’m not looking for an out. I said I love you. I’ve never said that to anyone else. I’ve spent my whole life trying to play it safe. I made all the right decisions. I’ve tried to make something of myself and break the patterns I grew up with. But you know what? I was fooling myself. I was afraid of taking a single risk. You think you’ve put my life in danger. You haven’t. Not you. You gave me life, in a way. I’m not walking away. I plan to hold you to your promises. You said you’d never let anything happen to me. Well, you haven’t. And you’re stuck with me, Angel.”
I sat on the bed beside him. His eyes glistened. “You’re crazy,” he said. “You know that? This is what you want?”
“You’re what I want,” I said. “I thought I lost you. Do you hear me? And I’m not naive. Your life is dangerous. I know what happened tonight and what may happen tomorrow. But my life is dangerous too. There are no guarantees for either of us. But ... you’re my guardian angel, babe. That’s a permanent gig.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I knew what I was saying. What I was asking. So did he. With my eyes wide open, I’d take this risk. Because Angel was worth it. What’s more? I was worth it too.
“I love you,” he said. “Come here, you crazy lady.”
He held me close. He became my world. I kissed him. It was hard, desperate. He started a different kind of fire within me with just his touch. He had burned my world to the ground and made it new. Whatever came next, I knew we could face it head-on. Together.
“I love you,” he whispered. “But I can’t do this halfway. Every part of me is saying I should find a way to make you go. That you’ll be safer.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I’m safer with you. But you’re safer with me too. And I don’t want to do this halfway either.”
He leaned back, touching my face. “You know what I’m asking?”
I nodded. “I do. And I’ll say that as many times as you need me to. No matter what the question. I want to be your wife, Angel. I’m not going anywhere.”
“When you marry me,” he said, his lips forming a grim line. “You marry the club. And, Maura, the club just burned to the ground.”
I shook my head. “A building burned to the ground. Sly will rebuild it. Even better. As far as the club, we can rebuild that too. I want to be a part of it. I want you to be a part of me. You already are, baby.”
His kisses were everywhere. Machines started beeping as his leads shifted. I didn’t care. I wanted ... needed to touch him. I needed to seal my vow with a kiss. Later, he’d put a ri
ng on my finger and I’d cherish that too.
“It’ll be okay,” I said. “I know it. I feel it.”
“I feel it too,” Angel said. “God help us both. I do. And I will keep you safe. I swore it once. I’ll swear it a thousand times.”
“My guardian angel,” I whispered. “You’re the only person who’s never let me down. I plan to hold you to that.”
His smile lit my soul. “You are one crazy, incredible chick. You know that? But you’re mine. I told myself that the day I met you.”
Ava burst through the curtains, drawn by the sound of Angel’s monitors. Dex was right behind her, looking stoic. “What the hell?” she asked. She started pulling on wires and reconnecting things.
“What’s gotten into you?” Ava said. “Could you two just for once do what you’re told?” She looked up. Her husband was quaking with silent laughter.
“What?” Ava said. I was blushing. I sat in Angel’s lap. He squeezed my ass and winked at Dex.
“Well,” Dex said. “Your timing is ... uh ... interesting. But congratulations. We’ve been hoping you could talk some sense into Angel and take him off the market.”
“What?” Ava said again. When she looked at me, she knew. She rolled her eyes and smiled.
“Well, I don’t know what you did to deserve her, Angel,” she said. “Whatever it is, I suggest you keep doing it.”
When he squeezed my ass this time, I squealed and felt a blush color my cheeks. “I plan to,” Angel said.
He kissed me once again and I knew I was finally home.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Angel
Maura was right. The club wasn’t the Wolf Den. It was the men sitting around this table in the basement of Sly and Scarlett’s newly built home in Green Bluff. In the two weeks since the bombing at the Den, Sly looked like he’d aged ten years. Scarlett stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder.
“You let me know if you need anything else,” she said.