Dixon's Resurrection (Hell Raiders MC Book 2)

by Lowe, Aden

  She made a little sound, between a whimper and a moan, something uniquely her, and her arms slipped up around his shoulders. When she opened for him, Dix wanted to simply devour her, but fear restrained him. He'd waited an eternity for that moment and he wasn't about to get carried away and take more than she was willing to give.

  Georgie pressed closer and her fingers laced into his hair as she took the lead. Small teeth trapped his lip for her to tease for an instant before the erotic velvet of her tongue slid along his. Nothing else existed for him, nothing but her sweet body curved to his, and the flames she sent racing along his veins to consume him.

  "Oh, sorry!"

  Dix could have happily strangled the woman, one of the wait staff, because Georgie pushed away as if she'd been burnt. She mumbled something and let her hair fall forward to conceal her face again, and hurried away.

  He sighed and shook his head when the woman stood still, gawking at him. The jerk in him made him grin and adjust his erection while she looked on. Damn idiot. Acted like she'd never seen people kissing before. Satisfied he'd made his point, he stalked away to follow Georgie and try to repair whatever damage was done.

  Of course the moment he started to make a little progress with her, something would come up to destroy whatever headway he'd gained. Just the way his damn life worked.

  Behind the bar, she busily worked at wiping things down, keeping her face turned away from the few patrons sitting there. Was she trying to hide evidence of his kisses? Or her tears? He rounded the bar and took a seat at his usual spot and watched and waited.

  A few seats down the bar, a stranger sipped at a soda and looked around. Something about the guy rubbed Dix the wrong way at first sight and he'd learned through long experience to listen to his gut feelings about people. He might have grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth, but that hadn't protected him from the bad shit in life. Not by a long sight. So he paid close attention to the stranger.

  The guy almost looked familiar but he couldn't be sure. So much of his youth has passed in a drug-fueled haze he'd forgotten far more than he remembered. Not much chance of anyone from his past showing up in Stags Leap though. Half the country separated him from the home he hoped to never see again. But still, the sense of familiarity about the guy nagged at him.

  One of the other girls came out of the kitchen and Georgie stopped her and they spoke quietly for a minute, then Georgie turned to him. "Hey, Dix? If you give me a half hour, I'd like to go do what you suggested a few minutes ago."

  "Just let me know when you're ready." Now how the hell was he supposed to know what she meant? Whatever it was, she evidently preferred no one else know. Fine with him.

  She nodded and went back to what she'd been doing.

  The stranger down the bar cleared his throat and looked squarely at Dix. Flashes of memories played behind his eyes, but nothing he could put his finger on.

  "Dix? Andrew Dixon? From Pheonix?"

  Dix's heart stopped, then fell like a brick to land on his feet. What the fuck?

  "That's you, ain't it? Man, I been looking for you all over the country. Ya moms said you might be in hillbilly country." The speech pattern rang a giant bell in Dix's memory.

  His heart sank even further, to somewhere under the floor. Fuck. Just fuck. Dix shook his head and reminded himself to mimic the local accent heavily. "Nah, man, you got the wrong dude. I been here my whole life."

  The motherfucker representing the kind of trouble he'd prayed to never have to face grinned at him, spooky silvery eyes glittering. "You don't have to lie to me, man. I left the Church too. Not in as flashy a way as you did, but I'm out of it. That's why I've been looking for you."

  Blood thundering through his brain, Dix stood and moved closer to the fucker, careful to keep his movements under control. Otherwise, he'd kill the guy for daring to speak to him. "Look. I left. End of story. Now leave." Glancing away for an instant, he caught Georgie watching him carefully in the bar mirror.

  "You remember me, man. I'm Strafer. I never did you wrong." The half-whining hustle tone turned into a crushing memory.

  Candlelight flickered on hooded figures swaying in time to a chant. Eerie silence fell while cold sweat trickled between Dix's shoulder blades. Belial's voice seemed to be everywhere, crawling over them, probing, seeking weakness. Dix held his breath and tried to make himself as small as possible.

  Someone struck the gong and the circle opened to admit two more figures, one robed, one naked, and immediately closed around them. At the center, the robed person shoved the naked one roughly to his knees.

  Strafer's half-whine, the tone he used when he was playing someone, mixed with fake-sounding sobs. "Belial, you know me. I never did you wrong."

  "Judgement has been passed." A third figure separated from the circle and stood over the kneeling Strafer and raised a whip. The air whistled through the multiple lashes as the man brought it down hard on Strafer's bare flesh. Over and over.

  Dix returned to the present with that same cold sweat trickling down his back and his heart ready to jump out of his chest. Yeah, he remembered Strafer all right. The bloodied, wailing mess the guy became before he finished his atonement was indelibly stamped on Dix's mind.

  He pushed the old terror away and concentrated on the new. If Strafer actually left the Church, there was a damn good chance Belial had him followed. A chill settled at the base of his spine. Belial's last words to him had been a vow of revenge as the Marshals led him away.

  Dix shook his head a little. "Whatever bullshit you're selling, Strafer, I ain't buying. Get out of here and forget you ever saw me."

  What the hell could he do to make sure no one else found him? Here he'd just talked Georgie out of running from past mistakes, and just like that, in the blink of an eye, Fate decided to toss his own past back in his face. Too bad the stuff he needed to run from was a whole lot meaner than some nudie pictures. Still, he couldn't justify telling her to face her demons when he wanted to run from his own. Best to stand and face it like a man.

  "Ain't nobody followed me, man." Strafer's hustle quickly reached the point of irritating the piss out of Dix.

  "Whatever. Just get the hell on out of here."

  "That's just it, man, I can't. I'm out of money and got nowhere to go. Let me crash with you a day or two while I figure something out." And there it was. The catch.

  "I knew it. Look, I got fifty bucks. That'll get you out of here and you can figure something out somewhere else." Dix took his wallet out.

  "I ain't looking for no hand-out. And I'm tired. Let me crash a couple days and I'll be gone." More whining mixed in.

  The thought of how Kellen and the other Hell Raiders would react if he brought the little hustler to the clubhouse almost tempted him. "Nah, man, you can't crash with me. I don't have any space and I have roommates."

  Strafer kept on, claiming he'd stay out of the way and didn't take up much space. No matter what Dix said, he kept on insisting with the endurance of Detroit steel, a tactic designed to wear down whatever objections a mark might raise.

  Dix's already thin patience quickly turned threadbare. Georgie kept glancing over, but beyond offering Strafer a refill, stayed away. Finally, she finished up and lifted a hand in his direction. "Look, Strafer, beyond some gas money, I can't help you." He slid the fifty bucks down the bar. "I have shit to do now. I don't want to see you hanging around here." With a wave to Georgie signaling her to head out the back, he started for the exit.

  Chapter Three

  Georgie waited for Dix by the Staff Entrance at the rear of Rita's Rattlesnake. Part of her wanted to believe he might actually be able to help her get those stupid pictures taken down. She needed her ass kicked for even buying Mason's line of bullshit about being a model in the first place. But since she'd fallen for it, she should have kicked his damn ass when she caught him cheating on her with another underage girl.

  Dix finally came around the corner and she fell in beside him as he led the way toward
his bike. He seemed preoccupied so she held off asking about the strange guy inside. The dude seemed like a sleaze-ball, so she'd given the bartender a heads up to keep an eye on him.

  They reached his bike and he watched like a starving wolf as she tied her hair into a braid so it wouldn't be a tangled mess when they reached the Hell Raiders house. The intensity of his kiss earlier surprised her. He was always sweet, and hot as sin to look at, but the chemistry never seemed to be there on her side. The desperate, almost feral, expression he wore at the moment sent her pulse racing and changed up the equation. How the hell had she missed that side of him?

  "Okay, ready." Damn, she sounded like some kind of breathless schoolgirl after her first kiss or something.

  He nodded and swung onto the bike, momentarily distracting her with a view of worn denim over hard muscle before he patted the seat behind him. The whole bike thing worried her a little. Despite all the girls at the Rattlesnake practically foaming at the mouth to climb up behind a Raider, Georgie had kept her distance. Not many things in life intimidated her, but big, rough tattooed guys on motorcycles apparently did. Her heart went to her throat every time she saw them thunder through town.

  Pulse racing, she slipped her leg over and sort of hopped to the seat. The shock of sudden proximity with his broad back kicked her pulse up another gear. Her breath caught as one big hand landed on her knee and slid down, but he just grasped her ankle and drew her foot to the peg. His fingers didn't even linger like she wished they would.

  Muscles rippled as he started the bike and rolled them off the parking lot. The bike's movement startled her a little and Georgie made an embarrassing grab for Dix's waist. He paused at the edge of the lot long enough to pull her arms close around him and spread her palms flat across his belly.

  "You might want to hold on." Dix grinned over his shoulder and slid her hands down to his belt. "I won't bite until you ask me to." The hungry wolf in him showed again to send a shiver down her spine.

  Georgie took a deep breath and gave herself over the experience. The opportunity to lay her cheek against his shoulder and just enjoy it wasn't likely to be on her regular schedule. Dix wasn't the sort to stick with one woman. Maybe she should just stop thinking about it and enjoy what he so clearly offered—a quick, hot fling that would leave her wanting more. It was the wanting more part that worried her. Because suddenly, the need to move him out of her friendly guy at the bar zone and into the possible love interest zone seemed really important.

  His scent didn't help things at all. No pretty colognes for Dix. He smelled like a mixture of soap, leather, the engines he worked on and warm male. Combined with the feel of all those muscles up close and personal, his scent made heat pool in her lower belly.

  It even made her just a little sorry she'd split his lip a couple weeks ago. Of course, that was totally justified. A surprise comment about her hair when she was already unhappy with having to wear it down just wasn't the best way to put her in a good mood.

  They rolled out of Stags Leap and the sound of the bike's engine throbbed low in the humid air hanging between the walls of dense forest surrounding the narrow road. The rest of the world fell behind as the sound and the woods insulated them. Georgie wouldn't mind spending the day that way, entirely free of worry and responsibility. She closed her eyes and let it carry her away.

  A blast from a car horn ripped the feeling of peace away. Instinct prevailed and she peered over her shoulder for a glimpse of a crappy old beater practically riding the rear tire. She suddenly realized they were going far faster than the posted speed limit. How could she have missed that much of an increase? Had Dix already been aware of the car? Of course, he'd have seen it in his mirrors.

  Georgie didn't realize she was biting her lip until she tasted blood. Her attention stayed on the car sticking tight with them. The horn blasted again, and made her jump and clutch at Dix's waist.

  The driver took the car halfway into the other lane and it surged forward, nearly alongside them. To Georgie's horror, it swerved sharply toward them and the intention behind the whole thing became crystal clear to her. Whoever drove that car intended to run them off the road. Dix edged the bike over and accelerated more to avoid the impending crash.

  The car came up beside them again and Georgie looked hard, trying to catch a decent glimpse of the driver, but the dark-tinted windows offered up only scant clues. At least she was fairly certain the person behind the wheel was male.

  Rather than wait for them to make another try, Dix moved one arm, but she couldn't see what he might be doing. Then the muzzle of a handgun appeared over his left bicep.

  The gun roared and Georgie barely managed to squeeze her eyes shut before he shot again. Tires screeched and a horn blared. When she opened her eyes, both the car and the gun were gone and they were rocketing along a deserted stretch of road.

  He slowed a little, but they were still far beyond the legal speed limit. "You okay?" The question yelled over his shoulder surprised her.

  "I'm okay. Who was that?"

  "Some idiot kid, I guess." He lifted his shoulders in a quick half-shrug. Apparently the subject was closed, at least for the moment.

  The next few miles passed too quickly and he slowed and leaned into a dirt lane. Georgie assumed it led to the Hell Raiders club house. Broad meadows spread to each side of the lane, gone fallow and overgrown. They rolled through a small copse of trees and into a slightly bowl-shaped valley.

  A huge house that looked as if it had been added on to many times stood on a rise to the right, surrounded with a confusing assortment of motorcycles. Barns and other outbuildings sprawled around the side of the valley in a haphazard scramble.

  Georgie looked around with interest, surprised at the level of activity on a weekday afternoon. One man mowed the lawn, sipping beer and steering the riding mower in a crosshatch pattern. Another hammered nails into a porch step. One had a partially disassembled bike spread around him under a big silver maple.

  Dix slowed and rode up to the side of the house and parked next to two other bikes. A whole flock of butterflies took flight in Georgie's belly. The Hell Raiders at the Rattlesnake was one thing. There, she had her guns and her gadgets to keep them under control. But coming onto their turf, practically unarmed? Entirely different matter.

  She took a deep breath as he shut the engine off, and slid to shift her weight to her foot.

  He turned to look over his shoulder. "Hey, Georgie, don't worry. It'll be okay." The smile he gave her would put an angel to shame.

  Oh, boy. "I hope you're right." She climbed the rest of the way off and stood aside, a little weak-kneed, while he did the same.

  "I am." He reached down and took her hand. "Come on, let's see if Kellen has a minute." He led her toward the front porch.

  For the first time, she noticed how big his hands were, and how her own compared. The callused palm dwarfed hers, yet for all the potential power there, his touch remained gentle. When was the last time a man held her hand? Probably a boy she'd liked back in high school. It might seem like something a far younger guy would do, but the way his long fingers curled around hers made her feel safe and protected.

  He paused at the front porch steps. "Hey Ryker, how's it going?"

  The shirtless, tattooed man bent over the steps hammering a nail into a new tread straightened. "It'll be good when I get this fucking step fixed right. Whoever made the stringers had no clue how to use a square or level." Pale eyes flicked over Georgie but he made no comment. He motioned for them to continue up onto the porch and bent back to his job as soon as they passed.

  Shade from the extended roof kept the porch dark, and it took Georgie's eyes a moment to adjust. An older man, hair gone nearly white, sat in a rocking chair not far from the door and whittled. From the shavings on his jeans and scattered under and around his chair, he'd been there all day, just endlessly cutting bits away from sticks.

  The man grinned as they drew near. "Kid, who you bring to see me?"

>   "Hey, Badger, this is the elusive Georgie you've heard so much about." Dix gave her another of those heart-melting smiles. "We need to talk to Kellen. He around?"

  The man's eyebrows rose. "So, you're the Georgie who split the kid's lip a while back?" He shook his head and made tsking sound. "I don't know, Kid, I'd say you got your hands full. Georgie-Girl, he's a good boy and you've had him tied up in knots a while now. You be good to him." Just like that, he turned back to his whittling, apparently dismissing them.

  What had the old man meant about having Dix tied up in knots? Of course she knew he'd had a bit of a crush on her off and on, but that was a passing thing, she figured. The question would have to wait, though, since Dix pulled the screen door open and ushered her inside.

  She didn't know what she'd expected of a biker gang clubhouse, but the big room filled with sofas and chairs in a dozen little seating areas was not it. The walls were a warm honey beige and paintings that looked like originals hung here and there, along with mounted deer heads, and framed concert posters. Two vast televisions also hung at opposite ends of the room. A patchwork of area rugs broke up the hardwood floors, and one wall held a massive fireplace. A gallery of framed images flanked the fireplace and made Georgie itch to get closer and look at them all. And over the fireplace, an actual motorcycle, probably an antique, had been somehow suspended.

  Georgie stared around with wide eyes, not missing the bar that occupied a broad section of wall between two doors. Everything looked clean, too, which shocked her. Maybe she'd thought the bikers lived like pigs and a nasty frat house or something, but the homey atmosphere was far from that.

  Dix led her toward a sofa in front of one of the televisions where two bikers, the ones she'd heard called Fabio and Crank, sat playing video games. "Kellen in the office?" He paused long enough for one of them to wave and nod before he started toward a hallway that led deeper into the clubhouse. He tapped at the first door and waited for a reply before opening it and leading her inside.