Scorched

by Jadyn Chase

  His features softened, but he didn’t smile. He got suddenly serious like I’d never seen him before. “I ain’t never gonna leave you, chica. I’m with you until the end. Understand that right now. They’re gonna have to drag me away tomorrow night, ‘cuz I sure as fuck ain’t leaving of my own free will. I can promise you that.”

  All of a sudden, I couldn’t keep my hands off him. I needed him more than my own life. I collapsed against his powerful shoulder and closed my eyes to the immaculate safety of his arm around me. He pulled me into his embrace where I didn’t have to think anymore.

  He gave me one quick hug and pushed me upright. “Here.” He shoved his phone into my hands. “Call Mario and ask him to release you. He’ll probably say no, but at least give it a shot. It can’t hurt.”

  I stared down at the phone. Mario. He was a stickler for the rules if anyone was. Then again, he was a man of honor. Diego broke the rules more than anyone else when he raised his hand against a woman. Mario knew that. Maybe I could convince him.

  Cisco got up and went back to the table. He stood with his back to me. That was my cue. This was my show. I took a grip on the phone and dialed Amelia’s number. I got her dad’s number from her and punched it into the phone. My hands trembled holding it to my ear.

  A rumbly bass voice answered on the other end. “Mario Salazar speaking.”

  I swallowed hard to get my throat working. “Hóla, Mario. It’s me, Isabel Williams, Diego’s…..” I broke off. What could I say to explain?

  He saved me. “Hello, Isabel. I hear you’re out of the area.”

  “Yes, Sir, I am, and I think you know why.”

  “I do know why,” he rumbled. “I was sorry to hear about it. I want you to understand we’re taking the situation very seriously.”

  “That’s interesting, Mario. You knew about the situation for five months and you never took it seriously before.” I heard my voice rising against my will to restrain it, but I’d passed the limit of caring. If I offended him, that was nothing compared to what he and his people allowed to happen to me.

  “I understand you’re upset, Isabel,” he went on. “I can only assure you that we will handle the situation as soon as you come back. That is the most important matter at the moment.”

  “It’s not as important as my life,” I fired back. “I hope you understand why I feel that way, Mario. Diego tried to kill me the other night and he’s tried twice more to kill me since then. I can only assume that, as soon as I come back to La Muerta, he’ll try again. I’m asking you to release me.”

  “I can’t do that as long as you’re under Los Diablos’ protection,” he countered. “You have to come back to La Muerta and go through the proper channels. That’s the only way any of us can be released. We have procedures for this. You would have to go through them even without this situation with Diego. I hope you can appreciate my position on this.”

  My heart sank. His voice told me he would never budge. The more I argued, the less inclined he would be to give in. I understood these bikers too well. He would only dig his heels and turn a deaf ear to my pleas.

  “I can promise you this, Isabel,” he continued. “You will not be given back to Diego when you return. You have my solemn word on that. We’ll find another place for you to live while you go through the steps to secure your release.”

  I sighed and my eyes sank closed. “Thank you, Mario. That means a lot to me.”

  “Goodnight, Isabel,” he replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He hung up. The phone went dead in my hand. That was the end of it. I had to go back. I had to go through God knows how many more months of dithering around with La Muerta before they would release me. At least he didn’t intend to give me back to Diego. At least he had some honor.

  Cisco appeared at my side. “What did he say?”

  I looked up. The Boss was gone. Cisco and I were all alone in the big deserted warehouse.

  My stomach turned. I tossed the phone into his lap and swiveled away. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t face the world. Mario offered me my last hope and now that was gone, too.

  Cisco didn’t move. He just sat there with his hand resting on my knee. He really knew how to be there when someone needed him. He knew when to talk and when to keep silent. This was the lowest point of my life and I wouldn’t want anyone else with me to face this.

  I stared down into a pit of black anguish from which I would never escape. It consumed my life and left no trace of light or hope for me to cling to. I would rather be dead.

  Somewhere in the timeless void of losing myself, he slid his hand behind my neck and tugged me toward him. He didn’t make me speak or look at him. I couldn’t bear that right now.

  I sank down and pillowed my head on his lap. He traced his fingers through my hair in a mindless repetition that somehow made everything okay. As long as he was still here, nothing could harm me.

  “How did you know?” Was that my voice speaking? I didn’t recognize it.

  He relaxed back on the couch, but he didn’t stop petting my hair. “Teresa gave it away. She has those cheekbones. She looks Mexican. I suspected when I found out she was your sister, but I didn’t really know for sure until you said it out loud.”

  I burrowed lower into his lap. I wanted to shrink into a dust speck where no one could see me. So he knew already and he didn’t say. He stood there and let his Boss bitch him out in front of everyone and he didn’t tell. It was my secret and he left it with me.

  This was my secret, too. No one in La Muerta would ever know what happened to me in Los Diablos. I would carry the truth with me until I got out. He told me I could pay him back by getting free. That was the least I could do for him.

  He sat there like that for hours. I fell asleep toward dawn. When I woke up, he lay behind me on the couch with his arms wrapped around me. He always held me like that in his bed, but now we were on a couch in a warehouse.

  I didn’t move, but he sighed in his sleep. His biceps tightened around me and he nuzzled into my hair from behind. That familiar sensation excited me. I loved him so much and I never even got a chance to tell him.

  His breath grated in his throat and his abs clenched to drive his hips into my ass. He broke the surface of sleep and the dreamy bliss of arousal swept through him. I sensed it all through my back. Even after only a few days with him, I understood him better than most people I’d known all my life.

  I followed the inevitable rise of desire tensing him all over. His body stiffened against me. He shifted his arms lower across my stomach to draw my pelvis back. I arched to rub my ass against his prick. He felt so fucking good back there. He turned me on like I couldn’t believe.

  I loved him. Those words kept repeating in my brain and they drove me into rabid lust beyond anything I ever experienced before. My channel ached for him. My skin tingled for his touch.

  His hot breath breezed on my neck. It stood all the tiny hairs on end and sent shivers down my spine. God, I needed him so bad! Just one more time. Please, God, just give me this one more time.

  He stroked up my chest and massaged my breasts through my shirt. I rotated my hips against his cock in open desire. I wanted to back up to him, to feel him filling me with his manhood and driving me to the stars.

  His fingers dallied down my stomach to my belly and farther down to the nexus between my legs. My crotch throbbed for him, and when he dug his fingers into my slit, I moaned in ragged ecstasy. I plunged down hard on his hand in between shoving my ass back on to his bulging spike.

  His teeth sank into my neck and elicited a quaking cry from my throat. I couldn’t keep silent in the wake of this torrential tremor tearing me apart. I clawed at his thighs and his arms in desperate fury to touch all of him at once.

  He scooped one mighty hand up my neck and cupped my jaw. He tilted my head back and rested it on his muscular shoulder. He pinned me between his hand around my throat and the other one tickling me to climax between my legs.

  My
delicious juices oozed into my panties and I cried out for him again and again. His iron frame made a perfect bulwark against which I could hurl myself. I could destroy myself in him and find peace.

  Quick as lightning, he dove inside my pants. His fingers plowed my petals apart and pierced my spongy opening to the core. I whined in aching need on one cresting wave after another. My honey coated his hand and filled the warehouse with perfume.

  He snarled in my ear between gritted teeth. “Cum for me, baby. That’s right. Let me hear you cum.”

  I screamed out loud. He made me so fucking hot I couldn’t bear it. He made me climax over and over like that, and he hadn’t even undressed me yet.

  The minute that thought crossed my mind, he left off fingering me long enough to tear my shorts open. He jerked them down to reveal my ass. Oh, sweet Jesus, yes. Oh, please, yes.

  He left them around my knees and went to work on his own jeans. He kicked them around his ankles and moved in on me hard as a rock. His pulsating prick touched my ass. Oh, fuck. Oh my God, fuck yes.

  His shaft touched the wetness all around my slit and smoothed the way inside. He held his breath and nosed into my swollen fissure. That slight touch rocketed me to the stars all over again.

  His thick member broke my flesh apart and I lost track of whether I was climaxing or not. I floated in a hazy sea of bliss and heavenly ecstasy the like of which I never experienced before.

  His hips bumped my ass as his brutal cock punctured my recesses. He slipped his hand back around to my crotch and fingered my soft tissues while he pumped into me from behind.

  He knocked me to a sodden limp rag riding the never-ending pulsations rippling through me. His thrusts shattered my ass and jolted my being to pieces with every devastating stroke. I couldn’t function. I couldn’t comprehend everything happening to me. My mind shut down and I stared straight in front of me at nothing.

  Suddenly, Cisco snatched a fistful of my hair. He wrenched my head back and nailed his cock in hard. My back arched and his nob struck the sweetest spot inside my body. I screamed in agonized release, climaxing on every vicious blow.

  His voice floated into my ear, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I could only understand the overpowering reality of it all. He had me. He owned me. He possessed me and made me complete, more complete than I could ever be without him.

  12

  Francisco

  I held Isabel’s hand and surveyed a long line of bikers stretched from one side of the field to the other. They all wore identical regalia with white bandanas and white insignia on their uniforms. They kept their shades on, even though it was well past dark. Floodlights lit up the baseball diamond, but no one was playing games tonight.

  Isabel adjusted her hand in mine. That slight movement made me realize I was crushing her fingers in a death grip. I forced myself to lighten up, but the tension wouldn’t leave me alone.

  Los Diablos formed ranks on the opposite side of the baseball field, all decked out in our own red insignia. Everyone in sight carried shotguns and assault rifles—everyone except Isabel, that is.

  That fucktard Diego stood right next to his Boss near the dugout. His mouth twisted in a grimace behind his glasses and his jaw kept clenching over and over. If anyone in this tea party lost control of his trigger finger, it was bound to be that asshole.

  My stomach fluttered in agitation, but Isabel stood like a rock. She kept her eyes glued to Diego and his Boss. She never wavered. She even lost awareness of me. Her focus narrowed to a pinprick to cut out everything else.

  At some unseen signal, Roman strode forward. Carlos accompanied him on his right hand with me on his left. I kept a firm grip on Isabel. If this all went pear-shaped in a big hurry, at least I knew I had her near me. At least I could defend her.

  Mario, Diego, and one of his other lieutenants advanced at the same time. The seven of us met at the pitcher’s mound and all six men took off their shades. Now we could all see each other’s eyes. We could all measure each other up and down.

  Diego’s features quivered all over. Tension raced in all directions under his skin, but I guess that’s what comes of being a boozehound who can’t hold his liquor. He was probably drunk right now.

  Mario and Roman eyed each other and Roman nodded. “Good to see you again. I hope you and la familia are all well.”

  “They’re all in good health. Thank you for inquiring,” Mario returned. “I’m glad to see so many of your brothers are well, too.”

  Roman nodded. None of this meant a thing.

  Mario examined at Isabel. The bruises still discolored her face, but her eyes told a different story. She gave Mario only a passing glance before she returned her attention to Diego.

  He scowled at her and his lips twitched. His eyebrows danced up and down in uncontrolled jiggles. The corners around his eyes kept jumping this way and that. He shrugged his shoulders and bobbed his head from side to side. He couldn’t keep still. Maybe Mario insisted he sober up for the meeting and he was having a mild case of the DTs right here in front of God and everybody. I wouldn’t be surprised.

  Mario broke the silence. “If everyone’s happy with the situation, we’ll just take Isabel and be on our merry way—unless you have any other business to attend to.”

  “No,” Roman replied. “We don’t have any other business. You’re welcome to take Isabel home.” He started to turn away and stopped. “Oh—one thing. Those patrols you sent to show themselves along our boundary? Don’t let me see them within sight of my territory again. If I do see them again, I’ll set up snipers to take them out at long range. That’s all.”

  He turned his back on Mario—a blatant sign of disrespect. He strolled back to the Los Diablos ranks and took his old place. He swiveled around and stuck his shades on his nose in another bald-faced display of contempt for Mario and all of La Muerta.

  He left Carlos and me alone with Isabel to face down the whole club by ourselves. Carlos propped a shotgun on his hip, but that wouldn’t do much if push came to shove. I screwed my heels into the sod and prepared for the coming Apocalypse.

  Without so much as a word of introduction, Diego darted out a hand and seized Isabel by the wrist. He jerked her toward him. “Get over here, you stupid fucking bitch! This is all your fault. You better believe I’m gonna teach you a lesson when we get home.”

  Isabel stumbled and her hand tore out of my grasp. I tried to recover and get a hold of her. “Hold your horses, vato.”

  Diego smacked my hand away. “You stay out of this. This is my woman, not yours. Now I’m taking her back where she belongs and she won’t ever see you again.”

  He rounded on Isabel. Before anyone could stop him, he raised his hand and dealt her a stinging slap across the face, right across the ugly bruises.

  “Get in line, bitch!” he snarled. “What the fuck is the matter with you, running to the enemy like that? Didn’t I teach you any manners yet? Shit, you’ll never learn.”

  He closed his hand into a fist and smashed her down hard. She crumpled at his feet and flung her arms over her head for protection. “Mario!” she screamed. “You promised!”

  I didn’t understand what she meant, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to stand around and watch him pulverize her all over again. No fucking way. Not on my watch.

  I lunged forward spitting mad. I made a grab for Diego’s arm swinging back for another punch. “Don’t you dare!” I bellowed. “Don’t even think about it.”

  All the others moved in at once—all except Mario. Carlos rushed to my side and caught me. He tried to wrestle me back. At the same moment, Mario’s other retainer barreled forward. He whipped the shotgun off his shoulder and crammed the barrel in my face. The slide made its menacing chunk-chunk sound when he racked the slug into the chamber.

  A palpable wave of electricity crackled across the field. Every man in sight leveled his gun at the pitcher’s mound. How did I know it would come down to this? How did I see this coming?

  D
iego roared in my face. “You fucking son of a…..!”

  He never got the words out. Isabel jumped to her feet between us. Before I could stop her, she shoved her tiny hand into my vest and yanked out my sidearm. She whirled around, jammed the barrel into Diego’s forehead, and pulled the trigger.

  The gun barked. I watched the slide crawl back in slow motion. The empty brass casing sailed through the air and Diego’s head whiplashed back on his neck. A cloud of atomized droplets sprayed into the blazing light.

  Diego stared up at the starry sky. His face went blank and he toppled backward on a silent arc to nothing.

  Before he even hit the ground, Isabel swung around and trained the gun on Mario. He, his retainer, and Carlos staggered to get away from her, but I couldn’t move. Was that really the Isabel I knew? How did she get so deadly? When did she make up her mind she was never going back to La Muerta? When did she decide she would rather die on the field than leave me?

  Why couldn’t I be the one to make that decision? Why did she have to turn out to be a thousand times braver than I could ever be? Christ, I loved her! I never loved anyone this much before and only she had the spine to throw down and fight for it.

  Beyond her hair whipping in my face, the La Muerta line erupted out of their colors. It started with one man directly in front of me. He burst upwards and ceased to be a black dot of leather and steel.

  Another three launched. Then the whole club shifted en masse. They exploded out of their skins to become a seething horde of white dragons strutting and screeching and beating their wings.

  Their gleaming red eyes weaved against the night sky above the bleachers. The floodlights reflected prismatic colors on their blanched scales. They flailed their razor heads to the heavens and narrowed their gleaming eyes on their enemies.

  A thunderous roar answered them behind me. I didn’t have to turn around to know what I would see. Los Diablos wouldn’t stand around facing a bunch of dragons in their human forms. I lost sight of Carlos. That meant he was back there, too, pumping his wings and smoldering in dragon fury.