by Zoey Parker
Vince got in behind me, but this time, there was nothing sexual about it. I had the vague sense that he wanted to make sure I didn’t pass out or hurt myself somehow. I let him wash me gently, tenderly. I thought more than once how wonderful he was. He acted like coming to my rescue was just another day at the office, nothing more. He had no idea what he’d done for me. Sure, he’d saved me physically, but he’d also given me something to believe it. I was his, forever. How could I want to be with anybody else after this?
When he stood, after bending to wash my legs and feet, I leaned against him. I wanted to put my arms around his shoulders, but the pain wouldn’t let me. Instead, I put my hands on his chest. I felt his strong, sure heartbeat beneath my palm and closed my eyes. I’d never felt safer in my life.
We didn’t need to speak. We understood what the other was thinking without using words. We stood under the spray, Vince gently stroking my back, for a long time. Eventually, his touch grew more demanding. At first, I thought there was no way I’d rouse to him. Not after everything I’d been through. Something about him changed my mind, however. He had that effect on me. Soon I was melting into him, sighing as his hand went lower and lower on every down stroke.
Rather than take me there, as he had earlier, he stepped out of the shower and held out a hand for me. He wrapped me in a cozy towel before we walked to the bedroom together. There, he dried me carefully. I’d never felt so cherished in all my life. Who would have thought a man like him could be so tender? I lovingly ran my fingers through his dark, wet hair. His face was very serious. He wanted to be sure I was taken care of.
Then, he sat on the bed and pulled me between his legs. For a moment, he sat with his arms around my waist, his head against my belly. I held him there, stroking the back of his head. Again, we didn’t need words to communicate everything we were feeling. I knew he had been afraid for me. He was relieved to have me back with him.
Then his face turned toward my body, and his mouth grazed my skin. I came alive at his touch, the feeling of his lips on me. He skimmed my curves with the tips of his fingers, from shoulder to hip, leaving goosebumps in his wake.
He grasped my hips, turning me, seating me on the bed. Then he lowered me back, leaning over me. I gave in easily, wanting him, needing the comfort of his arms after the nightmare of the day. He kissed me slowly, solemnly, driving away the fear and pain. All that was left was pleasure. He sucked my bottom lip between his, making me moan.
His mouth traveled down my neck to my chest. I held his head in my hands, sighing, encouraging him to keep going. Now that he had lit my flame, I wanted him to burn me up with it. I wanted nothing but him. Wetness and an almost painful ache bloomed between my legs as he drove me higher with his lingering kisses to my breasts, stomach, navel.
I writhed, arching my back when he worshiped me. But it wasn’t enough. I needed all of him.
I spread my legs, inviting him inside. “Please…” I whispered, pulling him up toward me from where he lingered between my thighs. “I need you.”
He crawled back up, lowering his body over mine. He was so strong, muscles bulging. He would kill anybody who came between the two of us. He’d already killed for me, I was sure. All the thought did was turn me on more, and I reached up to meet his lips with mine.
I felt him pressing against me, and I reached down to guide him. He thrust forward slowly, almost achingly slow. I sighed with satisfaction when he was finally inside me.
We made love. Every sound from him, every movement, was like joy blossoming inside me. I couldn’t get enough of him—his smell, his taste, the look in his eyes. I stared into them as he moved, brushing my mouth over his, smiling. This was it. All I would ever need.
His thrusts grew stronger. I threw my head back and moaned, eyes closed, wishing it never had to end. Every time he connected with me, I cried out a little louder.
I turned my head from side to side, unable to take the pleasure. It was almost unbearably sweet. I ran my hands over his arms, and he took one of my hands in his. He held it between our chests as he drove himself into me, slowly, gently.
We sped up, moving together. My hips rose to meet his thrusts. He buried his face in my neck, groaning. The friction built and built. I pulled him closer with my legs, gripping him tight. The tension in my core got bigger and tighter, and I moved closer to the edge…
“Wake up!”
I jumped, startled. My heart raced. I blinked hard, trying to get my bearings.
Someone had their face up close to mine. “Shit, thought she was dead,” he muttered, laughing. The man behind him laughed, too.
I shook my head, confused. Where was I? I’d just been…with Vince…
No. My heart clenched, then broke. I’d just been dreaming. That was all. I was still tied up, still at the mercy of the Wolves. In particular, the man crouching in front of me. He was missing two teeth, and his breath reeked of booze and cigarettes. A tear rolled down my cheek. It had been a dream. Nobody came for me.
“Alex would be pissed if she died on us,” he said, grinning. “Especially if we didn’t get a chance to have a little fun with her first.”
The terror had to be plain on my face, since he and the guy behind him broke up in raucous, drunken laughter. He stood, moving away from me. I thanked God for small favors. Still, both of them looked me up and down before leaving, closing the door behind them.
I screamed from behind my gag. I screamed and screamed until my voice broke and the tears choked me. I hoped they all died.
I closed my eyes, praying to go back to my dream. But it was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Vince
I looked out at them, waiting for a response. I hoped they could forgive me for what I was about to do.
Axel stepped forward. “You’re so full of shit.”
My mouth gaped open. That was the last thing I expected to hear. Were they that pissed at me?
He grinned and continued. “Do you really think we would let you go through with this all by yourself?”
Frankie joined him. “Stop bein’ stupid. We’ve got your back. No way you’re goin’ in there alone.”
I looked at all of them, from one to the other. They all nodded in unison. “What do you mean?”
“We mean you’re our leader. You’ll always be our leader. It doesn’t matter what that asshole York wants. He can’t just take your place because he says so.” Frankie came to me, slapping me on the back. “We’re gonna get him. And we’re gonna make those sons of bitches pay for what they did to us.”
“How? Did you come up with something?”
“Fuck yeah, we came up with somethin’!” Frankie laughed, slapping my back again. “What’d you think we were in there so long for?”
“Listen, the Wolves might have more men than we do, but we have more firepower. That includes explosives.” Ralph led me to the game room, where a set of blueprints stretched across the table. They’d put away the cards pretty quickly, I noticed. I guessed when desperate times called, they could step up in a hurry.
“How the hell did you get your hands on these?” I looked around, wondering who did it.
“We’ve had them for years. Rex got a hold of ’em back in the day. We never had to use ’em before now.”
I looked them over. “This was from back when it was a warehouse,” I said.
“Right, but they haven’t made any renovations the way we did. Besides, if we planted explosives around the outside…”
“That’s what you wanna do?” I looked around the table. “You wanna blow them the fuck up?”
They nodded. Every man in the club. “The vote was unanimous,” Chip said. “But if the president wants to veto it…that’s your call, and your right.”
I looked at the blueprints, then back up at them. “Hell no. I want this. For our guys. For our club.” I didn’t mention Erica, not wanting to piss anybody off. I didn’t know how they felt about her, since she sort of got us into a lot of this.
> Axel cleared his throat. “Don’t forget Erica. She’s one of us now. This is for her, too.” The rest of the club agreed.
I didn’t know what to say, so I stayed silent. I could only look at them in gratitude before getting on with business.
“How much C-4 we got?” I looked up at Ralph, the demolitions expert.
“Enough to take them down easy.” He pointed to the places along the outside of the warehouse where the explosives would be set up. “I’ll want three guys on this with me.”
“All right. The main goal is to take it all out,” I said. “Everything. All of them. Are you all ready to do this?”
“Fuck yeah,” Frankie spat. “I can’t wait to see them go up.”
I nodded. “They’ll all be there if Erica’s there. York’s not stupid. He’ll want the place guarded, big-time. They have at least thirty, forty guys. He’s expecting me, but he’s not expecting me alone. He knows I’ll bring some of you with me—I’d be stupid not to, since I wanna make sure Erica’s safe.”
I thought it through. “While I’m inside, you’ll be setting up the explosives outside. How long do you think it will take?”
Ralph shrugged. “That, I don’t know. Depends on how many of them are guarding the outside of the clubhouse.”
“Right. So the explosives should be set in place before I go in. I’ll only go when everything’s ready. You’ll start the timer when I’m inside.”
I heard a few whistles from my guys. “Shit, Vince. I don’t know. That’s pretty risky.” If Frankie thought so, it had to be. I wouldn’t back down.
“I know, but it’s the only way I’ll be sure how much time I have. What’s the point of getting Erica out of there if half the club follows me out and misses the explosion? I want them all in there. Every one of them. It’ll be up to me to get her out quietly. I want it timed just right.” I looked around the room. Their jaws were tight. So was mine. “I think ten minutes should be enough.”
“Oh, shit, come on. Fifteen, at least,” Ralph said.
I thought about it. “All right. Fifteen. We’ll just have to hope nobody goes in to check on her after she’s gone.” I looked at the blueprints again. With my finger, I traced a trail. “I’ll go in through the front, here. This is their lounge area, if you can call it that.” I grimaced, remembering how disgusting the place had been when I was there earlier. “I doubt they’d have her there. Maybe in one of these other rooms.” I circled them with my finger. “I’ll ask to see her first, make sure she’s all right. Then, I’ll ask to see York privately. He’ll love the chance to get me alone. Then…I’ll take care of him.”
That was all I had to say. The guys knew what I meant. My blood was boiling so hot, I looked forward to the chance.
“That’ll leave me with enough time to get Erica out of there. The only thing that bothers me is finding a way to get out without everybody seeing us.” I looked at the blueprints, trying to find a side door. “Here’s a back door, but I remember seeing it when I went there—so it’s visible from the middle of the main room. Fuck.”
“You want us to cover you?”
“I don’t know. That’s pretty risky. You could be up against three dozen guys.”
“We have twice the guns. We’ll be all right.”
I thought hard about it. “No. I want you all as far away from there as possible. If I cut it too close, no sense in having you all blown up. If they see us, I’ll send Erica out and tell her to run like hell.”
Nobody looked happy with the plan. I sure as hell wasn’t happy with it either. But it was the best we could do. At that point, I didn’t care as long as we could destroy the Wolves.
If I had to go down with them, that was the way it had to be. It would be one hell of an explosion either way.
###
The clubhouse was a beehive. I gave everyone a half hour to get their shit in order before we left. There was an unspoken intensity in all of us. The girls felt it, too. Of course. They knew what we were doing. They’d been there when the plan came together.
Frankie and Axel pulled out every firearm we could feasibly carry. I couldn’t take one in with me—they’d confiscate it in a minute. It would only mean a waste of a gun that could be used by another one of my guys. I didn’t wanna go in to see York empty-handed, though.
I had to kill him. There was no other way to go. The explosion wouldn’t be enough. I wanted to do it up close and personal, but quietly. I didn’t want him to scream and bring company.
After thirty minutes we gathered in the lounge, our faces identical—jaws clenched, murder in our eyes. It was time to settle the score once and for all. The odds were some of us wouldn’t make it back. None of them seemed to mind. We were all focused together on the goal.
Brett and the girls poured shots, handing them out to us. I looked at all of them. The only family I knew.
“Let’s do this,” I said. We raised our glasses, then tossed back the whiskey before filing out. I wasn’t sure what we would find, but at least I knew I wouldn’t be going there alone. I had my brothers by my side.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Erica
I wondered when Vince was going to come for me.
It wasn’t a matter of wondering if. I knew he would, even though I didn’t want him to. The thought of him putting himself on the line for me was more than I wanted to consider. And he wouldn’t come alone. I knew that, too. He’d have backup. They might have been making a plan even as I sat there tied to a chair, feeling as though my arms were about to fall off and wishing they would if it would mean an end to the constant ache.
I heard a lot of noise around me, mostly coming from the other side of the door Onyx had disappeared through. That had to be their lounge. What the hell was this room? A trash heap from the looks of it. It was horrible. I half expected to see roaches and rats crawling over everything.
The other door, the one Alexander went through, was likely to his office. There was no noise coming from in there. I wondered what he could be doing. Gloating? Making big plans for what he would do once he’d won? Taking a nap? I had no idea. All I knew was I didn’t like the silence. And I didn’t like being left alone—although, given my choice between being alone and being with the rowdy, drunken bunch just behind the door, solitude sounded good.
The door opened. I caught my breath. Onyx. I wondered for a minute why he wasn’t out there with the Wolves, laughing it up. Then I realized he wasn’t one of them. He didn’t fit in. This wasn’t a victory for him.
He didn’t look at me, sitting by the closed door instead. He slouched in his chair, looking at his boots. Not looking at me. I’d been thinking a lot about him since he kidnapped me. Mainly, I wondered what his end game was. Or hadn’t he thought it through?
I moved my head, fighting against the gag over my mouth. I wanted to talk to him, to get him to understand what he’d done and how he could still turn it around if he’d only let me go. If he did, Vince might spare his life. I couldn’t speak for him, of course, but I would stand up for Onyx after it all blew over. If only he would let me go.
Otherwise, what did he expect? If Alexander got what he wanted, his club would absorb the Fury Riders. They had to know by then what he’d done. They would never accept him. They might even want him dead. He’d be without a club, without his family. It was over for him.
At first, he’d probably thought he’d get away with it. Then I came along and forced his hand. He couldn’t betray them in secret anymore because I had him on the memory card. I remembered walking into the office earlier that morning—had it really only been that morning? So much had happened since then. He was in there, and he looked guilty. Had he been trying to pull the card out of the camera? I bet he was. All the while, the entire time I was there, he’d known what I had there. No wonder I had the feeling he didn’t like me.
I twisted my head from side to side, looking at him plaintively. I tried to stay his name over the strip of cloth between my lips. He acted like I wasn’t th
ere. I cried out louder.
“Why are you wasting your energy?” he muttered.
Please, I tried to say. Please, please, please. It didn’t sound like anything but a bunch of groaning, but it seemed to get through to him. He glared at me.
“It would have worked if it hadn’t been for you. Alexander was looking to make a deal with the club. He wanted to share the drug traffic, then slowly move it all over to the Wolves. Vince might have gone for it, too. He didn’t wanna be in the drug business anymore. And I would get a cut—a big cut, since I was supposed to be the go-between. And you fucked it up.”
I shook my head vehemently. It wasn’t my fault.
“Why did you have to be there? What were you doing? I saw you before Harrison went after you. I knew you had to have me on the camera. Then I saw Vince pull up on his bike.” His eyes narrowed. “I knew he wouldn’t let you go. It was personal for him since the guy he was fighting was a Wolf. Then, when I saw the way he looked at you, back at the clubhouse…I knew he wanted you. That was it. He was too involved.”