Inflamed: A Shadow Riders MC

by Kiki Leach

  As he tried getting up, Tiny latched onto his knee and swung a fist into the back of his leg, forcing him to drop back down to the ground. As River landed on his knees, Tiny jumped on top of him and snapped his arm around his neck, squeezing so tight that he felt his own goddamn arms going numb. River, who could feel himself turning blue as the air clogged in his lungs, jammed an elbow into Tiny's stomach, then balled his fist and jammed it straight into Tiny's bloody nose. Tiny fell back grabbing his face and rolled over to his back. River jumped to his feet and as Tiny tried getting up again, he dropped the heel of his boot in the center of his throat, and pushed down as hard as he could until he heard something snap, though he wasn't sure if it was something inside his heel, or inside of Tiny's neck.

  As Tiny gasped for air and started turning colors, River pulled his foot back and jammed his heel into the ground to get rid of the tiny bits of skin that had been imbedded from Tiny's throat. But River felt no sympathy for what he had done, absolutely no remorse for nearly destroying the man who had spent nearly half his entire lifetime attempting to do the same to him. When Tiny rolled to his side again and grabbed his throat, River dropped down to a squat and rolled him over on his back and stared straight into his callous eyes and blood soaked face. He bent down to make sure he could be seen, grit his teeth and swallowed hard, stopping himself from doing what he really wanted, which was spitting directly into his face or his mouth and making that motherfucker swallow every drop in sufferance.

  "I don't give a goddamn flyin' fuck what that old man says," River told him, referring to Wolf. "You are the goddamn motherfuckin' enemy and always half been, long before I joined up. And you don't deserve this club any more than we deserve you bein' part of it and continuin' to fuck things up with your bullshit and flat out hatred, motherfucker. So I'm here to tell you that you are fuckin' out," he said. "Every goddamn fuckin' thing you ever stood for is done."

  He hopped back up to his feet and went over to Tiny's jacket, then reached into the back pocket of his jeans and ripped out his knife. He flipped Tiny's jacket over and with complete ease, slammed the tip of the knife against the leather and ripped it along the rim of the Shadow Riders insignia, which was a bike that had been set on fire. After making a complete circle, he ripped the insignia from the jacket and tossed it on the floor. Then he flipped the jacket back over, and with his fingers this time, tore into the leather and ripped off the SHADOW RIDERS, CBC label, tossing it to the floor as well. He stuffed his knife back into his pocket and with the jacket in his hand, walked back over to Tiny, who was still struggling to catch his breath.

  "You are fuckin' done, asshole," River said again. He wiped his hands of Tiny's blood with the jacket and looked between Blue and Snake, and nodded. "Get over here and stand him up." Blue and Snake looked over at each other, then looked over at Wolf, who nodded in reluctant approval. They each walked over and dragged Tiny up to his feet and forced him to stand in front of River. He held up the jacket for him to see the holes, then draped it around his shoulders. "These motherfuckers are gonna make sure that there's not a single goddamn trace of you left inside this place, or any trace of this place left inside of you," he said. "Right along with the rest of these dead assholes."

  "VP?" asked Blue. "I love and respect the shit outta you, brother. I always fuckin' have and you know that shit. But I can't be part of takin' this motherfucker out like that. Even if he is who the fuck he is and always has been--"

  "You ain't takin' him out like nothin', asshole," snapped River. "But you ARE takin’ him the fuck outta this goddamn club, you’re gonna strip him the fuck down to nothin' but a fuckin’ skirt in the same way we did Styx's old man, and you’re gonna make fuckin’ sure that all this shit on his body is gonna be removed. ‘Cause he don’t represent us, and never fuckin’ did. I don't give a fuck if you burn the shit off -- I don't give a fuck if it's fuckin’ tased." He moved further into Tiny's space. "And you’re gonna make good and goddamn sure that when he’s found by some random motherfucker in his own piss, blood and shit, he fuckin’ knows it. Killin’ him sure as fuck doesn’t satisfy me as much as knowin’ that you snatched his balls from his cock, tied ‘em up tight in a glass jar and set ‘em up in a place that he’ll never be able to find again.” He grinned. “Normally I’d be the one doin’ the snippin’, but I got more important shit to get to tonight, like that sweet, sweet brown pussy, asshole. Sweetest goddamn pussy you’d ever fuckin’ know, or you wouldn’t. ‘Cause it’s the kind your piece of shit goddamn tongue would never be good enough to fuckin' taste; the kind that shriveled up old cock of yours would never be good enough to feel, or fuck."

  "As if I'd touch that bitch with a goddamn ten foot pole, asshole," he spat.

  River grinned knowingly and bobbed his head. "Yeah... Yeah the fuck you would. Smack an age on her that'd get your ass sent to prison for the rest of your goddamn, piece of shit, worthless life and yeah, the fuck you would." He glanced over at Blue, who nodded at him, then shuffled over to the bar and grabbed his jacket. "We align with the Stark Bastards in takin' that asshole Ricky down for good. We don't bring anybody else into this shit outside of them, Miami and Orlando."

  "You sure you can really trust this motherfucker again?" asked Blue as he nodded over at Laz. "He rolled with us tonight, but he was still your own goddamn prospect who bailed out before we could even patch him in."

  "Don't matter," snapped River. "I trust him a helluva lot more than the sick fuck you got holdin' up in your goddamn arms. And unlike the load of these dead assholes currently takin' up space around here, I trust that he's with us, even if it's just for the sake of his own bitch's pussy--"

  "I ain't approved of this shit," said Wolf. "Any of it. That goddamn gavel--"

  "Fuck that goddamn gavel, old man." River turned to Wolf and leaned his head. He made a face and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't really give a fuck WHAT you approve of anymore or the way in which you choose to fuckin' approve it. It's clear as shit that you ain't got the club's best interest at heart, or any of the rest of us that ain't that asshole bastard" -- he pointed back at Tiny -- "and it's been that fuckin' way for years. So until the fuck you do, and realize that he ain't the only motherfucker you should be carin' about, I'm takin' over. Save for that patch on the front of your goddamn cut, you ain't acted like a leader of this club since long before that goddamn fire broke out eight years ago. The only way the Shadow Riders are gonna be salvaged even remotely is if somebody else takes the fuckin' reigns and as VP, guess that shit's just gonna have to fall to my shoulders now."

  "Not if I cut those shoulders in half, son."

  "After what the fuck I just did to your boy back here, I sure as fuck would like to see you try," he told him. "Sure as fuck would." He whirled back around to Blue. "By the way, Slim's fine, physically speakin’," he said. "Son of a bitch just won't be a goddamn member of this club anymore. Not for the shit stunt he pulled in sendin' that asshole Eightball in his place to stay with Mia." He stared down Wolf, who didn't make another move or speak another word to him in response, and shook his head just before exiting the club and slamming that door behind him.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  When I walked through the front door of River's house, everything about it felt completely different, almost empty. It was as if nothing was the same, and not just because of what I had seen at the club earlier in the night, not just because of what he and the other brothers had done to the Dragons or because of what happened to Courtney. It was everything all at once and so much of nothing all at the same damn time. I hated that in that moment, his house no longer felt like a home, no longer felt like that comforting place of solace and refuge for me and my child; and it wasn't because I didn't want it to feel that way; it was because after tonight, I didn't think it could anymore.

  After closing the door and tossing my keys on the couch, I spotted River's jacket draped across the chair in the kitchen. I removed my sweater and headed inside to see if he was in there, and when I realized
that he wasn't, I headed back down to his bedroom and pushed back on the partially opened door.

  "River?" I called out. When he didn't answer, I stepped inside and immediately heard the water flowing from the shower. My eyes searched the room for any semblance of recognition and when they fell to the floor, I saw his bloodstained shoes, shirt and pants. Hesitantly, I walked over and bent down to grab the shirt; and as I held it in my hand and stared at the blood soaked into literally every inch of the fabric, I wondered if it had belonged to just one person or to every single member who was probably still laying dead on the floor of the clubhouse.

  "Babe?"

  I turned to the bathroom and nearly choked on the air I had sucked in when I saw River standing there, dripping wet from his hair straight down to his feet. He was leaning against the frame of the door with his large hand pressed hard against it as the other rested alongside his waist. And to top it all off, he was completely naked. The minute my eyes fell down to his cock, my breathing became all but inaudible. Everything about him was as glorious as ever, just like I knew it always would be. But in spite of that, I was still so determined not to let it overrule my way of thinking, or take away from what I felt I needed to say to him and what I was sure he needed to hear from me tonight.

  "Um." I turned from him and dropped his shirt back down to the floor.

  I heard his bare feet move across the carpet and felt the air shift behind me as he bent down to pick up his clothes and tossed them into the hamper. And then I felt him as he slid his strong, muscled arms around my waist and pressed his wet body against mine.

  I stopped breathing completely.

  "Baby," he murmured. My heart ached. It was squeezing so tight inside my chest and pressing so damn hard against my ribs that I thought it might actually burst right through them. "Babe." He grunted and flattened his hands against my stomach, then slid one of them underneath my shirt. Once his skin was on mine, burning and nearly slicing me in half, it felt as if I had almost lost all self-control. "You saw Avery tonight?" he asked me, his low voice rough, yet tender all at the same damn time. God, this was the man I loved. This was the man I knew had my heart in his hands, and even as I tried to steal it back from him, he'd never let it go without a fight. "Babe," he said again.

  I turned my head at an angle and nodded. "Yes. She's not all that happy about going up to a 'safe house' in Montana of all places. Or having to leave without me, but--"

  "You told her it wouldn't be for long, right?" he said. He drew his lips around the edge of my ear, lightly sucked on my skin, and I gulped. My sex reacted to him, becoming slick and heavy, and I hated myself for being so vulnerable to it, and to him, so damn easily. "Tell her that'd we'd come and get her as soon as we could -- that this shit's only temporary?"

  We. We. We.

  The more he said it like that, as if there was no other way around it, the more nervous I became.

  "That's what..." I swallowed again as his fingers dipped even harder into my skin, squeezing me so hard that if I wasn't fully aroused would probably cause me intense pain over pleasure. It was becoming more and more difficult to concentrate on the reason I had even come back to him in the first place; it was becoming more and more difficult to let myself say 'no'. "It's what I really want to talk to you about, Jacob." I tried like hell to steady my voice despite it shaking like crazy the more he shoved himself against me.

  He moved his face into my hair and inhaled. "Shit, you smell good. Just like fuckin' always."

  "It's the shampoo I used while I was in the shower," I told him.

  "What kind is it?" he asked me. "What flavor?"

  God.

  "I don't know," I replied. I inhaled, then exhaled as slowly as I could to keep from quivering against him. "Strawberry or cherry or something."

  "Sweet fuckin' flavors, baby." He moved his hand even further up inside my shirt and brushed his fingers across my nipple through my bra. I almost fell back into him as the sensation of it made me heady, but he held me up. "Babe." He dropped his other hand to the front of my skirt and wrapped his fingers around my thigh, pressing them so hard into my flesh again that I flinched.

  "River, I..." I stopped when I felt his fingers sliding up between my legs. God, I wanted him there, I wanted him there so badly even though I knew, I knew what his being there again would actually mean for the both of us. "I..." Using his middle finger, he slid my panties to the side and stroked my opening. My head dipped back and fell to his shoulder as he finally slid it up inside of me.

  "Jesus," he said, his voice gruff as he shoved his mouth against my ear again. "I was hopin' like shit but wasn't actually expectin' you to be so goddamn wet for me already, baby." He slid another finger in, and then another, and moved them in and out of me until my muscles clinched around them.

  "River." I started rocking against his hand despite my mind telling me to stop. My body wouldn't listen, my heart didn't want to. "Oh, God, River." The pull to him was so terribly strong that breaking it almost felt like going against every law of gravity and nature that God Himself had put forth in front of us.

  "Fuck, baby, yeah." He groaned. And before I knew what the hell was even happening, he removed my panties and shoved them down to the floor. And then he spun me around and dipped his hands beneath my skirt to wrap them around my behind. As quickly as he could do anything, he lifted me up from the floor and carried me over to his bed.

  "River--"

  "Baby." He placed me down on my back and wagged the tip of his cock against my opening -- stroking it up and down, and up and down, knowing how much the feel of it made me absolutely crazy.

  God, I wanted him inside me. So damn deep inside me so much that suddenly what happened at the club seemed to no longer matter or even exist; suddenly what I saw in his eyes and felt in his hands as he caressed every inch of my body was something I no longer feared.

  Until...

  "I need to feel you swellin' around my cock again, babe," he told me. "After every goddamn thing that went down tonight, I need to fuckin' know that you're still mine."

  And despite still being so heavily aroused by him, so heavily attracted and entranced... so completely and deliciously in love with this man, I pulled back and lowered my legs to the bed. I stared up into his face and gently stroked his hair, then tilted my head and flashed a soft but sad smile. "That's just it," I told him. "I don't think I can be anymore." I paused and watched his face harden. "I don't think I can be yours anymore."

  I closed my legs to him and sat up on the bed. He took a few steps back from me and stared into my face with deep confusion. I got up from the bed and crossed over to the bathroom, reached inside and pulled out a large towel for him to wrap around himself. He stared down at my hand for a few seconds before finally taking it and covering himself.

  "I don't think I belong here with you," I said. "Not anymore." He glared. "And I'm not..." I stopped and placed a hand over my chest to keep from hyperventilating. "I realized that after what happened tonight, that what I saw and what I've done prior to it... I'm not as strong as I thought I was, or as strong as you thought I was. And I'm sure as hell not as strong as you need me to be in order to be at your side like the rest of those women." I tucked my hair behind my ears and lifted my head. He crossed his arms and stared even harder at me, as if through his eyes he was trying to get even the tiniest peek into my soul to see if I was telling him the entire truth about how I felt. And when he finally saw it and realized, he peered. "When you pointed around the room and told them all without saying a single word that they needed to search the club for bugs, Candy and Miranda and even your mother knew exactly what the hell to do and where to search. And they knew exactly how to react the minute those bullets started flying across the room. Had it not been for Courtney falling on top of me, I would've probably just stood there, stupid and frozen like a damn block of ice."

  His breaths shortened as he pushed his brows together; he dropped his arms and tightened his grip around his towel. "What th
e fuck are you tryin' to say?"

  I pressed my hands together and raised them to my face, resting them against my mouth to keep my lips from trembling. "I'm saying that I don't think I can be in your world anymore, River," I whispered. "I thought I could even before all of this started and when you were so damn stubborn to even tell me how you felt, but it's been clear since then that I just don't fit. Not a single part of me fits inside what you've got here. I'm... I'm like a square peg you're trying to force inside of a circle and I just don't think that I can be forced fit into it anymore."

  He moved closer to me, glowering and shaking his head. "I don't give a fuck if you don't think that you fit into my world, not when I know that your place in life is right the fuck at my side--"

  "That's just it," I told him as I backed even further away from him. Being too close to him meant even further doom for me and we both knew it which is why he couldn't seem to stay away. "I don't belong at your side. I don't belong with a man like you, I'm not -- I'm not a biker bitch or old lady material. I can talk the talk, but I can't walk that line for shit. And you knew it the minute you saw me. I could see it in your eyes when I made that remark about your shower being covered in cum the day I came to you for help. Something like that coming from someone like me wasn't the norm and you knew it even if you wanted me then." I moved over to his door and turned my eyes up to keep any and every tear from escaping this time. "I thought that I could make it work, that I could just suck it all up and be this woman that you want and need me to be for you, but the truth is that I can't."

  "The truth is that you don't fuckin' want to."

  I spun back around to him and soured. "All I've been doing from the beginning is trying to do just that," I shot back. "I've been trying and here for you and for myself and for my child--"

  "Then you should KEEP fuckin' tryin!" he snapped back. "Nobody ever said this shit with me and with us was gonna be fuckin' easy, darlin'. But even so, I never fuckin' asked you to be anybody but who the fuck you already are. Never once since you been here, babe, have I asked you to be any goddamn body else."