Vipers Run

by Stephanie Tyler

  “You’re in so much goddamned trouble, Calla.”

  “Good,” I told him. “Show me.”

  He laughed, a dark, rich sound that bit me with a hard shiver. I could lie and say it was the adrenaline of the ride, the promise of almost being caught . . . the fact that we’d made it safe and sound was what made me want to rip his clothes off. But I’d wanted to do it from the first moment I’d heard his voice.

  “You. Naked. You’ve already seen me.”

  “I’ve seen your dick,” I corrected.

  He pulled down his fly and put my hand on his cock. “I’ve been hard for you since I walked in. The bike ride made it worse.”

  I don’t think he expected me to stroke him, but I did. He stilled for a second, especially when I brought my thumb up to play with the piercing. And then he smiled and it told me that I was in trouble. The good kind. “Maybe you should get naked first.”

  He obviously had no problem with that. He pushed his jeans down and pulled his shirt off. “Gotta untie my boots,” he said.

  Reluctantly, I released him. He had the boots and jeans off and he was carrying me over to the couch, practically over his shoulder. He pulled open the couch bed with one hand and put me down.

  He hovered over me, completely naked. “Your turn.”

  He wasn’t right on me, wasn’t holding me down, and he wasn’t trying to strip me. He was watching me with a mixture of lust and concern, and while my heart tugged for what he was doing, I planned on wiping the concern right off.

  I sat up slightly and pulled my tank top off. Unhooked my bra as he watched, and made short work of my own jeans. For a long moment, he just stared at me, then murmured “Beautiful” and “Mine” before kissing my belly. His hands covered my breasts, my nipples tender to his rough touch. I arched beneath them, pushing them against him. I was so wet, my legs spread, hooked around one of his thighs as his cock drove into my belly.

  While at Tenn’s, I couldn’t fantasize about him. I was ruthless about cutting off my needs because I was certain that would curse us. Now, coming off my fast, I was starving, my core aching for him.

  The truth was, I hadn’t enjoyed sex before this. I pretended to, made myself have and take all the power because I thought it would soothe me. It just allowed me to stay in control.

  There was no control when I was with Cage—and no pretending either. He’d never allow it.

  But with him, I didn’t have to pretend anything. Not with his hands on me, leaving trails that were a combination of fire and ice—intoxicating, exhilarating . . . liberating.

  I’d come for him if he touched the right spot. Or anywhere close to it. And when his mouth closed on my nipple, my entire body writhed and I climaxed with a surprised, low moan.

  He simply sucked harder, rubbing my sex with his thigh. And then he prepared to take me over the edge again.

  “Have to taste you,” he told me, moving down between my legs, lifting my legs over his shoulders. I was completely open to him, and he licked along the seam of my sex, his tongue driving inside me. He held my thighs open as I threaded my fingers through his hair to keep him close.

  “Cage . . . please,” I whispered urgently, the need for release clawing through me like a fever. The second orgasm tore through me faster than I’d ever thought possible. But Cage didn’t stop, and even when I thought I couldn’t come again, I did.

  He watched my face the whole time. There was nothing sexier than that, knowing I was under his gaze, unable to escape his pleasure assault in so many ways.

  I’d dreamed about this, but my dreams were always a mix of heavy sadness at knowing what I couldn’t have. This was pure, unmitigated pleasure, and I reveled in it. I swore I still smelled the scent of adrenaline from his body—the outside air that enveloped us on the ride up to the cabin.

  And when I couldn’t take it any longer, he kissed his way up my belly and positioned himself over me.

  His hold was strong, but it wasn’t making me panic. No, exactly the opposite, because for the first time ever—in bed—I was safe. I sagged with relief against him and his grip grew more insistent. I didn’t think it would be possible to get closer to him, but that’s what I wanted.

  He could hurt me, really and truly, but his control was so finely tuned that he didn’t. It made me breathe out in wonder, enjoying the heavy weight of every part of his body on mine. His erection was pressing my belly . . . and then, when he moved down, it pressed against the tight, hot bundle of nerves between my legs.

  I shifted my hips to press back just as wantonly, murmured, “Please.”

  “I’ll please you, Calla.”

  I grabbed his shoulders, still dazed. “This is make-believe.”

  He pushed up into me, filling me. I gasped. “That feel real enough for you?”

  The man inside me became my world. And I was okay with that. More than okay with it.

  “Stop thinking,” he growled. “I want to make you forget.”

  As we rocked against each other, I knew for certain that I’d never forget him.

  Chapter 10

  “So much for not sharing my bed,” Cage murmured several hours later.

  “Technically, this is a couch.”

  “A pullout, making it a bed.”

  “There were extenuating circumstances,” I told him. “And I never said I wouldn’t share your bed—just that you couldn’t order me around.”

  “Right.” He didn’t look convinced at all. I wasn’t either, but I frowned and tugged the covers over me. “Pull those down, babe.”

  “No.” I paused. “I will if you check on Tenn.”

  “I can work with that.” He reached behind him and held up his phone. There was a photo of Tenn crouching next to two men in leather vests on the ground.

  “He showed them,” I murmured. Cage gave a small smile, put the phone down as he pulled the covers away from me. He covered me with his body instead, and I wrapped a leg around the back of his thigh. He had the heaters going—I’m guessing he didn’t use the fireplace because we were technically hiding. “What’s this place?”

  “Vipers owns it. We call it the Cabin of Secrets,” he said with zero irony. “When the club’s got an issue, guys come here. Admit stuff. Like a confessional, without the priest.”

  “And here I thought that was Tenn’s specialty.”

  “Tenn’s dealing with his own shit in his own way,” Cage explained.

  “You were in the Army together?”

  “We went through basic together. Ended up on different platoons for a while—that’s how I met his brother, Tals. Then Tals went to a different unit and Tenn and I served under Bernie.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, Calla. It’s mine. Can’t stop my past from hurting people. The harder I run, it seems like the easier they catch me.”

  “So stop running,” I told him. “What if we both stopped running and turned and fought instead?”

  “I’m afraid we’d just be fighting for the rest of our lives.”

  “I’d rather fight than run,” I admitted.

  * * *

  Later, I woke with a start, alone in bed under a warm blanket. I wound it around me as I looked around the darkened cabin.

  I caught sight of Cage. He was sitting in a chair by the window. The soft light made him look young. It didn’t hurt that I was looking at the unscarred side of his face, although I decided then and there I liked both sides together, because both sides made the man.

  “Hey,” he said without turning his head.

  “I didn’t think you noticed me.”

  “I notice everything about you, Calla.”

  It was odd to be shy around him after sex, and I still was, but I fought for boldness. “I would’ve shown your face on the tape. That was everything, the whole show.”

 
“That part of the show was just for you.” He gave a fleeting grin, and if it wasn’t so dark, maybe I would’ve seen a slight flush to his cheeks. “Half face is standard for shots like that. No pun intended. My scars wouldn’t have worked for everyone.”

  I moved close to him. He shifted on the chair, making room for me on his lap. Even if I’d wanted to refuse, he was tugging me down and I curled in his lap. “Are the Heathens the ones who did this to you?”

  Finally, he ground out, “Yes. Five of them.”

  Five. And Cage had been shot, stabbed and beaten severely. He’d be feeling those injuries for a long time to come. He rubbed his hand along his scarred neck, like he was revisiting the scene. He wasn’t self-conscious about the scars.

  His jaw clenched and his eyes snapped fire. I should’ve been scared enough of him to move away, because I knew what he was capable of surviving. I could only imagine what a fair fight would be like for him.

  “Why do you want to know this, Calla?”

  “Because you almost died. Because I think you’re taking me into the same world where this happened.”

  He clenched his jaw and then ground out, “Fair enough.”

  I had a feeling nothing that happened to Cage was fair.

  * * *

  With Calla in his lap, Cage told her how he’d gone to the underground garage with the promise of information. “I’ve been trying to get information I could use against the Heathens. They’ve been giving my club trouble for years, and I finally had a way to stop them. There was this guy who’d been working for the Heathens on and off, but he wasn’t a member. And he was easily flipped for the right price. So I met him and got what I needed.”

  “The numbers,” she said quietly.

  He nodded. “It wasn’t in my source’s best interest to tell the Heathens what was going on, and as far as I know, he’s still working for them and he’s been calling me too. I’m still trying to figure out how the Heathens found me, but I’ve never run from a fight before tonight.” From anyone or anything.

  “I consider tonight about saving me.”

  He brushed hair from her shoulder and nipped at the unmarred skin, reddening it a little. She ran a hand over his scarred cheek—it tingled every time she touched it, like she was bringing the nerves back to life.

  He leaned his head back and recalled that night. He’d been surrounded, and the fact that it was familiar faces only added to the warning bells that indicated he should’ve been up and out of there an hour before.

  He could still hear Troy’s voice.

  Dad says hi.

  Jesus, how he’d ended up with such a dick for a brother, he’d never know.

  He’d heard the sirens in the distance before he’d called Bernie’s phone. They’d scared Troy away—even though they’d known the ambulance was ten minutes out, Troy figured Cage would be dead by the time the EMTs found him. At that moment, lying on the cement floor, he’d been beyond pain, didn’t feel the coldness of the cement under his body as much as his entire body was cold. He’d blinked, but it hadn’t cleared the blurriness from his eyes. He saw the blood from his wound spreading under him rapidly.

  Shot and stabbed. His idiot brother was always one for overkill.

  You always knew you wouldn’t die in your bed peacefully. He’d known he wouldn’t live to any kind of ripe old age, but he’d lived longer than he’d expected to.

  But he didn’t let Calla in on any of that—his history with the Heathens wasn’t something he let out easily. Instead, he told her, “I just knew I had to hang on until the ambulance got there. I hung up on you because I had to crawl through the garage—I was all the way in the corner, behind a Dumpster. They might’ve missed me.”

  She stared at him. “I would’ve stayed on.”

  “I know that.”

  And he’d known he’d been potentially fucking up her life by giving her the intel, but choices were so limited. He couldn’t let the Heathens win. And he wouldn’t let the guy who’d put that pain in her voice win either.

  He’d crawled on his hands and knees out of the parking garage, and when he couldn’t crawl anymore, he’d commanded himself to keep going, ignoring the pain in his chest and the fact that he’d begun to wheeze. He’d been freezing by the time he’d heard screams and attracted attention from two older women coming to collect their car.

  One of them had pushed the hair out of his face and told him that he was going to be okay. She’d smelled like flowered perfume and her touch was such a mom’s touch, so much like his own mom before she’d gotten hooked on that shit. He’d closed his eyes and thought about her . . . and Calla . . . and Calla was his first thought when he’d opened them.

  He’d even said her name, and the nurse told him, “You haven’t shut up about her. She must be pretty special.”

  “She is,” he’d agreed, and then he’d done everything in his power to stay the hell away from her. And he told Calla all of that, then said, “I was in the hospital. I didn’t know Bernie died. Preach—Preacher Jones—he kept it from me because I wasn’t in any shape to deal with it. The second I woke up—”

  “You were in a coma?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did the Heathens find out you were still alive?”

  He glanced over at her. “When I called them and told them they’d have to try a hell of a lot harder than that.”

  She bit her lip, then ran a hand over his scars. “This isn’t going to be an easy ride.”

  “No one ever promised it would be.”

  “The Heathens know I’m with you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And Tenn said they know I worked with Bernie. That they’ll come after me in case I know something.”

  “They’re ruthless, Calla. I wish I could tell you otherwise. I didn’t think that they were already watching Bernie. I thought I was smarter . . . that I could do it on my own, without backup.” He stared at her eyes, and there was understanding there.

  “You didn’t want anyone else to get hurt,” she said quietly.

  He nodded. “And in the process, look what happened. I made you a target. For me, that’s normal. I was born with a bull’s-eye on my back.”

  “Can you use the information you got against the Heathens still? It’s not too late, is it?”

  “Never too late, babe. But I’ve got to be careful who I give the information to. Law enforcement and motorcycle clubs aren’t exactly on the best of terms.” He sighed. “In the meantime, I need to find a way to stop a few of the higher-ups in that club. And I don’t want to talk about the Heathens anymore.”

  It wasn’t fair to her at all—she had a right to ask all the goddamned questions she wanted to, even if he couldn’t give her the answers. But she looked at him, nodded and said, “I don’t either,” and he knew he was a goddamned goner.

  Chapter 11

  Cage took a long drink of his beer and I did the same when he shared it with me. I was warm and tingly inside already, so I didn’t need much else to help. I was untouchable here with Cage. I’d take it for however long it would last.

  “Storm’s coming,” he said. Until then, I hadn’t noticed the wind, but I quickly realized that the wind slammed the cabin doors. At any other time, the storm might’ve echoed the rising storm inside of me, but Cage eased the mind-numbing fear.

  “How far away from Skulls are we?”

  “Hours. Whole different world in these hills.”

  “Whose world?”

  “This is near Havoc territory,” he said.

  “Is that a metaphor?”

  “Another MC. Bad motherfuckers.” He handed me a beer.

  “So, not friendly, then?”

  “Better than the Heathens.”

  I took another long drink from the bottle. “That’s not very comforting.”

  “Not meant to be. Thi
s is dangerous shit.”

  “And here I thought you weren’t scared of anything.”

  His smile was easy. “Fear keeps you from being stupid, if you’re smart enough to see it.” His smile had been easy for a moment and then he turned serious. “The MC world . . . it’s nothing like you’ve seen.”

  “We had MC members come into my family’s bar.”

  “Seeing a couple of bikers in a random bar’s a lot different than living with an MC man,” he said, not unkindly, and I recalled the information Tenn had already provided me with. “But for the moment, I’ve ensured you’ve got no choice. You’re not safe without me, Calla, but that’s not the only reason I want you with me.”

  How he could admit that so openly amazed me. Cage stated it like an immutable law and I didn’t want any other choice but to believe him. And rather than delving further into that, I asked instead, “Did the Heathens follow you to Tenn’s?”

  His jaw tightened. “I think they were waiting there to see if I showed. They were still actively looking for you. They know Bernie, Tenn and I were in the Army together. Makes sense they’d stake us all out. Tenn said you didn’t leave the house, but I’m sure you went out on the back deck. Who knows if they saw you there and waited for me.” He paused. “You made a phone call from Tenn’s fax line.”

  “Do you think . . . Was that traced somehow?”

  “I don’t know, babe. I wouldn’t think they’d go that far but . . .”

  I steeled myself for the anger, but none came. “Then you know who I called.”

  “Yes.”

  I pulled the blanket tighter around me. “He’s my father.”

  “Did you tell him where you were? Or what happened?”

  “No. I didn’t want him to worry about me. I’m sorry.” I kept the rest to myself. “Do you think the Heathens were tracking me through my father’s calls?”

  “I wouldn’t think they’d be that smart to research who your dad was.”

  The thought of my father being in trouble because of me made my stomach turn. “Bernie was helping my dad. Maybe someone made the connection.”