by Evelyn Glass
“Fine,” she finally relented.
Stephan arched an eyebrow in surprise. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” Camilla said through gritted teeth. It was making her blood boil to have to do this. “You have my word, Mr. Walker. I won’t pursue this story any longer.”
“I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting you to give in so easily.”
Camilla did snort out loud this time. “Believe me, this is anything but easy for me.” She met his eyes straight on. “So, do we have a deal?”
Stephan gave her a smile. He had a lovely smile, white and dimpled. Both he and Dirk looked like they belonged on the cover of a magazine—that is, minus the scars and the tattoos and the hard looks in their eyes. They were both young men. Dirk was in his thirties and Stephan couldn’t have been much older than forty. And that was perhaps the most striking thing about them—that men so young could already be so ruthless. That life could have already broken them so irreparably.
“We have a deal,” Stephan said, and he held out a hand.
Camilla shook it firmly. She had learned long ago the importance of a firm handshake. Stephan seemed to appreciate it, too, because he gave her a nod before finally releasing his hold.
“Now, Dirk will show you to your room. You’re welcome to stay here until we figure out a more comfortable solution. You’ll be safer here than anywhere else.”
“I suppose I should thank you,” Camilla said as she stood.
Stephan stood as well, and he looked at her curiously. “Why?”
“Most people would have just put a bullet in my brain and left it at that.”
“Well, Miss Walker,” Stephan winked, “I’m not most people.”
In spite of everything, Camilla couldn’t help but giving him a smile. “No,” she said. “I can see that.”
***
Dirk walked her to one of the spare bedrooms in silence. He seemed to have lost his earlier urge to force control upon her. He seemed to have forgotten all about the cell phone in Camilla’s panties. She wished she could say the same, but the damn thing was really starting to bother her down there.
“Here you go,” Dirk said darkly, opening the door to the bedroom.
Camilla walked inside. Like the other rooms of the house, this, too, was very clean and pleasantly furnished. It even featured a large window that let in plenty of sunlight. All in all, as far as prisons went, she figured she could have ended up with a lot worse.
She turned around to face Dirk. “Do you mind if I take the goddamn phone out of my underwear now?”
He stared at her. “Shit,” he said, and he seemed almost embarrassed about it. “I forgot all about that.”
Camilla arched an eyebrow. “I kind of figured. Well?” she asked. “Can I take it out?”
Another thing she had figured out over the past hour was that it was probably wiser not to defy Dirk. It might be a lot safer for the time being to let him believe that he was truly in control—which, as much as Camilla hated to admit it, was—in fact—the case.
“Yeah,” Dirk conceded. “Take it out.”
Camilla didn’t have to be told twice. She unzipped her pants and took the phone out of her panties. She handed it to him and she watched as he pocked it without thinking.
“You were looking a lot cheerier before we went in to see your boss,” she said.
“I guess I’m just wary,” he said, closing the door behind him and walking further into the room.
Camilla walked over to the armchair by the window and sat down. “What are you wary of?” she asked.
“You.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “Me?” It was the first time since their rocky first meeting that he admitted that she was worth keeping an eye on. It gave her an odd sense of satisfaction.
“I’m not entirely sure you told Stephan the truth,” Dirk said. “I’m not convinced you’ll let this story go.”
Shit. “I will,” Camilla said. “Look, Dirk, I may be a lot of things, but you said it yourself, I’m not stupid. I take my job very seriously, but I also don’t want to get myself killed. I want to be able to tell more stories, and it’s going to be hard to do it from the grave.”
She wasn’t lying about that. Yes, once she was back in New York, she would probably work with her boss to try to find a way to still tell the world about the Tar Mongols, but in the meanwhile, she had all the intention to cooperate and keep herself alive.
“I want to get out of here,” she said. “I want to go home. If it means that I’ll have to throw my notes in the trash and forget all about it, so be it.”
Dirk watched her carefully. “Really?” he said. “You would be able to do that? You would be able to just walk away?”
“I’m going to carry a weight on my conscience for pretty much the rest of my life,” Camilla admitted. “But yes, I would be able to do that. All reporters have one story they didn’t get to tell for whatever reason, the one that got away. I guess this is mine.”
Dirk studied her for a few more moments. His scrutiny was intense enough that she had to physically fight the urge to squirm. Eventually, however, he seemed satisfied with what he saw.
“I’ll make sure someone brings you books,” he said. “And maybe a DVD player. We don’t know how long you’ll have to be here, you might want to keep yourself entertained.”
“Aren’t you going to entertain me?”
Camilla shocked even herself with the words that tumbled out of her mouth. Still, she couldn’t help it. Indeed, there was no way of telling how long she would have to be there, and indeed the best form of entertainment she could think of was Dirk’s powerful, flawless body.
Dirk looked at her in surprise. “I was not expecting you to say that,” he admitted.
“Well, I have,” Camilla said. “What’s your answer?”
Dirk seemed to ponder over the matter for a moment or two, and then he crossed the distance between them with a few long strides. He placed one hand on each armrest and leaned in until Camilla was pinned underneath him.
“You don’t have to fret, princess,” he said huskily, so close that Camilla could feel his warm breath on her lips. “I’ll take care of you.”
Before she could reply, he captured her mouth in a hungry, fiery kiss that instantly left her wanting more.
Chapter 12
There was something about Camilla that made it utterly impossible for Dirk to stay away, no matter how hard he tried. Granted, he wasn’t trying very hard. One single sentence from her—and even though he liked to have everyone believe that he was always the one in charge, always the one who had the control—he was at her complete mercy. She didn’t have to know, of course, but he was pretty sure she could tell from just how quickly he responded to her invitation.
“Aren’t you going to entertain me?”
God, but she could get under his skin. Six little words from her, and in an instant he was getting hard.
He took her on that very armchair. They were a mess of hot, sweaty bodies and tangled limbs, hands roaming, tongues swirling. He was hopelessly, inescapably hot for her. And for some inexplicable reason, she seemed to be just as hot for him. Dirk couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it, but he was extremely glad that things were as they were.
He left her naked and panting on the armchair by the window, and he walked out of the room while she was still lost in the bliss of the afterglow. Once outside, he took a quick glance up and down the corridor before he adjusted himself underneath the thick fabric of his blue jeans.
It had been a quick encounter, but it had also been as furious as it had been fast. Dirk still felt both shaken and elated from it, still reeling with adrenaline and the rush of endorphins released by one of the most explosive orgasms he had ever had.
He walked into the common room and fetched himself a dark drought from the bar. He exchanged a few jokes and pleasantries with some of the others, and then he walked over to the table where Stephan was sitting, scribbling down in his notebook as he
so often did. He was kind of an artist, Stephan Walker. He drew and wrote and God knew what else.
Dirk thought about leaving him to it, but then he figured he needed the distraction. He needed to think about anything else that wasn’t the feel of Camilla’s curves underneath his fingertips. He needed to focus about something concrete that would anchor him and give him back some of the balance she robbed him of every time he let himself touch her.
He pulled out a chair and sat across from Stephan without waiting for an invite. He could do that; they shared that kind of bond. He knew it would just be the two of them now; the others generally tended not to disturb them when they sat together, whether they were talking about business or something else entirely. Perhaps that was just what Dirk needed to regain some form of control over his life—a chat with a friend who was not afraid to threaten him back into common sense.
“What are you drawing?” Dirk asked, as a means to get the conversation going.
“Oh, nothing much, just sketches.” Stephan shrugged and closed the notebook, but not before Dirk caught a glimpse of mountains and the meticulous design of a maple leaf. “How did it go with our guest?”
“I think she’ll settle in nicely,” Dirk said with a smirk. He took a long sip of the dark stout. “What did you think of her?”
“She’s a smart one, that’s for sure,” Stephan said. “Nothing more dangerous than a smart woman, let me tell ya. Not even an army of Herman Ruizes.”
“I got no trouble believing that,” Dirk admitted easily. “Do you think she meant what she said?”
“Which part?” Stephan asked with an amused grin.
Dirk did not smile. “Her part of the deal,” he said. “Do you think she’ll honor it?” The thought had plagued him ever since they’d had their little meeting earlier. If Camilla didn’t keep her promise, she was as good as dead. Dirk hated to admit it, but it wasn’t a thought that he found particularly pleasing. In fact, it horrified him.
Stephan thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think she fully intends to,” he said eventually. “But I think she will. She’s not stupid. She’ll soon come to the realization that coming back and keeping at this investigation would be suicide, and she doesn’t strike me as someone who’s in any hurry to die.”
Dirk could agree with that. In fact, Camilla was one of the most full-of-life people he had ever met. It was one of the things about her that attracted him. If he stopped to consider it, he couldn’t quite remember the last time he had felt any genuine appreciation for life at all. Rather, he couldn’t quite remember the last time he had felt any genuine appreciation for his life. Somewhere along the line, he had just stopped caring.
“Be careful with her,” Stephan said suddenly.
Dirk looked sharply up at him. “What are you talking about?”
This time, it was Stephan’s turn not to smile. He simply looked at Dirk with a serious expression on his face. “You heard me,” he said. “I saw the way you look at her. I saw the way she looks at you, too.”
Dirk cringed inwardly. Fuck. “Nothing’s going on, Stephan,” he hurried to reassure. “She’s a beautiful woman, that’s all.”
Stephan did offer him a small smile then. “Lying to me, Dirk? Really? Since when are you this stupid?”
Dirk did his best not to wince. Stephan’s almost unnatural ability to sniff out lies had come in handy to the club and saved all of their asses on more than one occasion, but it could also be a real pain in the ass.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it. “We’ve fucked a couple of times,” he admitted. “But you don’t have to worry, I’ll put a stop to it.”
“By all means, don’t.”
Dirk blinked, taken aback. “What did you say?”
“I said, don’t. God knows you need one or two good fucks in your life…or ten, for that matter.” Stephan winked. “I don’t care if you fuck her, Dirk. I care if you fall for her.”
Dirk snorted and almost choked on his beer as he took a sip. “Oh, come on,” he said, wiping his mouth with one hand. “You can’t possibly believe I’d ever do that.”
“Ah, Dirk, Dirk, Dirk.” Stephan shook his head fondly and gave him a smile brimming with genuine sympathy. “Falling for someone is not something you ‘do’—it’s something that happens. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “One moment you’re perfectly fine and the next you don’t know where the fuck you’re at in your life. It’s out of your control.”
For some reason, Dirk’s blood started to boil. He didn’t need anyone’s sympathy, and he sure as hell didn’t need any lessons on love—not even from Stephan Walker.
“Nothing’s out of my control,” he all but growled.
“This is,” Stephan said calmly. “Still, it’s not entirely without help. If you ever feel like you’re falling, you should pull back. Quick. As quick as you can. Take four or five cold showers and run for the hills. I really can’t have you falling in love with an investigative reporter.”
“I’m not going to—”
“Just promise you’ll do what I ask,” Stephan cut him off, not unkindly. “If it ever happens, you put as much distance between you and her as you possibly can. Women like that will ruin you. I need you to be thinking straight at all times.”
Dirk stared at him. He knew there was no point in arguing further, so he simply nodded. “I promise.”
***
Over the next few days, Dirk found himself unable to keep that promise. He didn’t fall for her, of course, but still he was unable to maintain that preemptive distance that he told himself he should begin to work on. Every night, he would slip into Camilla’s bedroom and claim her. Sometimes she did the sneaking around, which aroused him all the more, because it was riskier for her—and risk was something he had always found incredibly, irresistibly sexy.
Dirk really did try to stop, but she was an addiction he just couldn’t quit. Camilla’s body, he soon realized, was his siren’s call. He couldn’t resist her curves, no matter how hard he tried. More than once he caught himself almost wishing the Tar Mongols would attack just so that he would have something else to focus on, some other, healthier outlet for his energy.
But for some reason Herman Ruiz’s retaliation act was late in coming, and that was indeed something to think about. No one could explain it. The Tar Mongols weren’t usually known for strategic planning and waiting for the opportune moment. If their shared history was anything to go by, they should have been storming the clubhouse days ago. Instead, everything was quiet.
Dirk couldn’t say that he liked it. He had the sinking feeling that the storm was just around the corner, and he wished to God it would just hit already. This waiting for something to happen was taking its toll on the men’s nerves. A few of the MC members had even begun to suggest—secretly, of course, well out of Stephan’s earshot—that they should just take matters into their own hands, snatch up the reporter, and hand her over to Ruiz to do as he pleased.
“We should just put an end to this already,” the Sniper was saying one evening in his deep, hushed tones, as he sat with a few others at the bar.
They had not noticed Dirk walk in, and he watched in satisfaction as they paled when he made his presence known.
“If you boys have got something to say, you should just come out and say it.”
The men hesitated. They exchanged nervous glances.
Finally, Johnny said, “We think we should not put the club at risk for a woman we don’t even know.”
Secretly, Dirk thought he couldn’t blame them. Yet, he hated the thought of anything happening to Camilla—and why did he hate it? He didn’t know this woman either, not really. He knew he and Stephan were asking a lot of their men, especially considering what they had recently gone through at the hands of the Tar Mongols.
“She’s a reporter for TIME,” he said eloquently. “Do you want the press to descend on us and write about us as the people responsible for the death of one of their own? Can you imagine the s
candal? We’d be ruined.”
“No one has to know,” Duncan said. “I mean, who would ever know what had happened to her? And even if they found out, how would they link us to it? It’s not like we would be killing her ourselves.”
Dirk stifled an exasperated sigh. “There’ll be no giving anyone over to Herman Ruiz,” he said firmly. “Especially not a woman. And that’s final.”
“I don’t see why we should risk our lives for Stephan’s morals—”