Sure, it had worked out for them, but I had no faith it would for me. I was still proving myself, and I had a lot more on the line if LRV decided to cut me loose.
The sound of the blinker came just before he veered left into a jammed parking lot. Every spot, except for a few, was occupied with varying models of motorcycles.
“Don’t they care their bikes are getting wet?” I asked. It was the first thing I had said since we’d left LA, and it sounded ridiculous. In my defense, I only had Trey as a reference. He treated his bikes like they were human babies, and he loved them equally as much.
Ironically, it was one of those very bikes that had sent his world crashing, taking the love of his life away and forever changing him from the man he’d become. He and Tara had no hope when that deer came running across the road. Senseless tragedy. I was grateful Cannon chose to drive a beat-up pickup truck, because I couldn’t handle the constant concern if he were a biker.
Cannon looked at me with that half smirk that sent my blood thrumming. “Then bikers in Seattle would never leave their houses, Red.”
“This is true.”
“Have you ever been to a biker bar?”
“I have.” The night I volunteered to go looking for Trey after he went missing popped into my mind. Sure, I’d had Jack and Leila’s security with me, but nerves never came as I’d walked in searching for the fallen rock star.
Fury because of his disregard for anyone who cared about him was what had consumed me. It was right after his first spiral from using prescription drugs. I had just broken up with Matt, and something had me chasing Trey. Looking back, I had tried to fill the void I felt over an epic failure of a relationship. However, what Trey and I once shared wasn’t the answer, and I’d learned that the hard way. Mistaking infatuation for love was easy to do. And it was my experience in doing so that made me an authority on Cannon’s behavior toward me.
“You look nervous,” he said smugly.
“I’m not.” I was, but not because of the establishment. It was him that made me nervous. Either way, he didn’t look like he believed me.
“Okay, then let’s go,” he said before grabbing his guitar from the back and hopping out. When I jumped out right behind him before he could open my door, he merely shook his head and mumbled, “Stubborn.”
We scurried across the lot and into the packed bar. A few glanced our way as I followed him across the room. Wardrobe-wise, we fit right in. In his well-worn jeans, black laced-up boots, simple T-shirt, and that leather jacket I loved so much, Cannon looked hotter than a man had the right to look. My choice of equally worn jeans, knit top, leather boots, and a less weathered leather jacket served to help me blend.
“Well, if it isn’t Cannon Davis.”
Cannon grinned at the bartender when we approached. “Hey, Patch.”
“I heard you were playin’ tonight.” He pointed at the occupied tables. “Word got out.” They clapped hands in some sort of a secret handshake. His leather eye patch explained the name, while the leather vest displayed bulging muscles. “So how the fuck are you?”
“Great, man.” Cannon glanced down at me and placed a possessive hand on my back. “This is Lori.”
Patch leaned his large, tattooed torso on the worn bar. “Nice to meet you, Lori.”
“Same here.”
The one exposed eye slid over every inch of me. “You two a thing?”
“Working on it” came out of Cannon’s mouth as I shook my head.
“I can’t wait to see who wins this battle,” Patch said through a hearty chuckle. “To help my friend out, first round is on me.” He winked the good eye and filled two shot glasses with whiskey before grabbing two bottles of beer for us.
The familiar anger Cannon constantly spurred started to simmer as we sat on two stools closest to the stage. The bastard grinned when I threw him a stink-eye. “Oh, relax, Red. You need to be nice to me today.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s my birthday.”
Great… now I feel like shit. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I’m telling you now,” he quipped. His eyes held mine as he handed me one of the shots. “Cheers.” He tapped our glasses and downed his shot, holding the ocular tether between us. That was, until my eyes shifted to the way his throat worked a swallow and the way his tongue swiped over his lips when he placed the glass on the bar.
Shit.
“Happy birthday,” I muttered petulantly, drinking my shot and hoping the liquor would numb me a bit.
“Thank you.”
“I wish I knew. I would’ve gotten you something.”
He passed me one of the beers, taking the other for himself. I took a small sip just as he leaned closer. “There’s only one thing I want, Red. But if I tell you, then my wish won’t come true.” He remained a few inches away, debated during a pause, and then said, “Fuck it,” before closing the distance to graze his lips against mine.
“Cannon.”
“You can’t yell at me. It’s my birthday.”
“I don’t yell.” I pretended to be annoyed but failed to stop from smiling. “You’re such a child.”
“I assure you, I’m all man.”
Here we go.
Ignoring him, I glanced around the place as a distraction. It was hard to believe this crew would be into the soulful music Cannon played. But the easy relationship he had going with Patch gave truth to his claim that the bar was a regular gig.
When Patch moved on to serve someone else, a few patrons came over to greet Cannon. Each time, he introduced me to them by name, and each one was friendlier than the next. So many judged, feared even, the badass biker lifestyle, yet they were no different than the rockers I hung out with.
“Ready to play?” Patch’s gravelly voice asked. “I’ll make sure no one hits on your girlfriend.”
Cannon grinned at the miffed expression on my face while responding with a confident “I appreciate that.”
“No guarantee I won’t, though,” Patch said around a chortle.
“Stay away from my girlfriend,” Cannon ordered before kissing me once more… just as chastely, just as softly. Mortification hit when Patch’s laughter boomed above the chatter.
Cannon looked over his shoulder, catching me following him with my eyes as he strolled onto the small stage. Without a care in the world, he continued to watch me, while I continued to deal with the aftermath of his ministrations yet again.
For the next hour, the crowd was riveted with each song he sang. Just like them, I sat mesmerized by his skill. Once he’d strummed the last chord, a deep-rooted yearning had replaced my defiance.
By the time we left the bar, the weather had worsened to the point that you couldn’t see a damn thing a foot away.
I finally came back to my senses just as he pulled out of the lot. “You need to stop kissing me, Cannon.”
He sliced his narrowed gaze my way. “You need to stop pretending you don’t want me to, Red.”
“I don’t.”
“You’re a liar.”
“No, I’m not,” I argued, my anger unmistakable. “Damn you. Whatever you hope happens between us will not happen.” His clenched jaw and white-knuckled grip on the wheel should have shut me up. This wasn’t the time or place, and I needed him to focus on the road. But the pride in me and my bruised willpower caused my mouth to continue spewing what I’d been holding in. “If you can’t respect my wishes, you’re leaving me with no choice but to have you reassigned to another agent.” It was an empty threat, one that I wasn’t sure I could carry out… one that released his fury.
“Do it!” An involuntary flinch came at the level of his voice. “Go ahead. Walk away! That won’t change a fucking thing, Red. Except prove you’re a coward.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“For speaking my mind?” He kept twisting his head from the road to me, his expression getting more and more livid each time. “You can try and keep hiding behind your stupid job, b
ut the fact remains there is something between us that goes beyond a working relationship. If you can’t admit that, then you’re nothing but a farce who pretends to be someone she’s not.”
I was stunned into silence. There was much I wanted to say, but not one word of it found its way out of my mouth. It gave him the opportunity to drive an argument he’d clearly had bottled up for a long time now. “You keep blaming my age, my lack of experience for the way I’m acting. I blame you. I blame the way you came into my life and changed it. I never asked for you, and maybe part of me wishes I never met you. Because nothing will be the same again.” When he paused, the whirring of the wipers momentarily filled the void until he continued. “I want you, and I’m not afraid to admit it. That takes maturity you are so convinced I lack. Why don’t you own up to the fact you’re the immature one here? Pretending. Avoiding. Denying.” He slammed his fist against the wheel before spitting out, “Grow the fuck up, Red.”
I wasn’t expecting him to simply agree and let it go, but more so, I never expected the level of his anger. And still, he rendered me speechless… because every word he said was true.
“Fuck!” He steered the truck into a violent fishtail, sending us skidding off the road before it halted. The jolt forced me to slap the dashboard to keep from lurching toward it. A protective arm stopped me from flying forward, coming to my aid where the slackened seat belt had failed. “Are you okay?” His arm remained pressed against me as he searched my face during my wordless nod. Fear sent my heart pounding, my mind reeling from what could’ve just happened.
Another flash of lightning gave just the amount of light needed to see the massive tree lying across the road. The rain continued to come down sideways, and the wind was so fierce it rocked the cab of his truck with each gust.
Wordlessly, he jerked the wheel, turning us around and heading back the way we came until he pulled into the seedy motel we’d driven past only a minute earlier.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he aggressively shifted the gear into park.
“I’m not killing myself or you.” Without another word, he shoved open his door, causing pricks of rain to invade the dry space, before he slammed it shut. By the time he reached the front of his truck, he was already drenched. I watched him come for my door and yank it open. “Let’s go.”
The few seconds I hesitated after unbuckling my seat belt forced him to grab my waist and throw me over his shoulder.
“Cannon! Put me down!” Ignoring my protests, he kicked the door shut and sprinted across the short lot toward a dingy office. Once under the awning, he placed me down, his expression not any less enraged than before. With a hand on the door, I tugged on his other arm. “We can’t stay here.”
He leaned into me until our noses practically touched. “Here or the truck, your call.”
We were in a standoff, drenched, each seething for our own reasons. A huge crack of thunder rattled my already frayed nerves. The vehemence still coursing through him turned his golden-brown eyes into molten caramel, which agitated my aroused libido.
It was like the universe, my traitorous body, his unleashed desire all became an accomplice to him needing to prove a point while leaving me with no alternatives.
At my silence he yanked open the door and waited for me to walk through it.
Chapter 24
Lori
A crabby old lady didn’t even bother looking up when she pointed a bony finger toward the flickering candle on the counter. “We ain’t got no power, no cell, no phones.”
“We don’t care. Do you have vacancy?”
“Just tellin’ ya. One room left. Road out brought everyone scramblin’ for cover.”
“We’ll take it,” he said while fishing out his wallet from his back pocket.
“Cannon.”
He cut his angered glare at me. “What?” Through the incensed expression on his face I could still read all the things he’d voiced in the truck, a continuation of our argument, a fresh wound. Aggravating it now could backfire, forcing him to drive us somewhere else to escape the storm. If he truly thought I wanted to leave, then he would just to protect me… and I wouldn’t put him in that kind of danger.
The conflict I faced resulted in a nervous bite on my bottom lip. Seeing it softened his expression before he focused on the wallet in his hand. “How much?”
“Sixty-eight.” The woman took the cash from his hand and tossed a worn brass key on the counter. “Room 118.” She then pulled out a small lantern and a book of matches. “Here you go.”
Without even glancing down at me, he snatched the key, lamp and matches in one hand and my hand in the other. And without warning, he dragged me back out into the mess we’d run from to get to our room. Large drops of water stuck to my lashes and ran down my cheeks. I shivered, waiting for him to unlock the door. Once inside, the stale humid air only caused me to shiver harder as I glanced around the run-down hotel room that we’d be imprisoned in.
Cannon left the door open while fiddling with the only source of light we had. Finally, after a few tries, he managed to get the thing lit, and the dimness did little to hide how much of a dump the place was. I dared to move from the center of the room when he slammed the door shut and bolted it. The sound of the cylinder hitting the strike plate echoed around us.
The way I trembled had little to do with the chill that ran through me, but he still noticed. “You should take your jacket off. It’s making you colder.”
Having no choice, I listened to him, slowly slipping it off and arranging it on the back of a wooden chair. He did the same, throwing his on the dresser beside it. As he toed off his heavy boots, the way every stitch of his T-shirt and jeans clung to every nuance of his body sent my heart pounding from a new wave of nerves. The way he pushed his wet hair off his forehead made my pent-up desire flare.
No food, no water, no way to reach anyone, and I was stuck in this disgusting fleabag of a hotel with a man I had no business being stuck anywhere with. Helpless and trapped, I could only wonder who we could call anyway in the middle of nowhere. The road leading home was closed, and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it. We had no way of knowing when it would be reopened, at least not until the storm finally passed or daylight hit.
The wind continued to howl outside the drenched window. Flash after flash of lightning competed with crack after crack of reciprocating thunder. Somewhere in the distance, a siren sounded, probably an emergency waiting for aid.
When my body refused to stop trembling, Cannon silently walked into the bathroom and came out with a towel. My breathing halted as he gently wiped the moisture off my face, my neck, and then my hair. The entire time his warm eyes held mine. Gone was the anger, in its place a different kind of heat.
“Turn around,” he whispered.
I did as he asked. Maybe to escape him, more likely to stop him from seeing every sliver of my vulnerability. His large hand lifted my drenched hair as he laid the towel across my shoulders. But when he slid both arms around me, bringing his mouth next to my ear, escaping him became impossible.
“I’m sorry for the things I said.” His hold tightened and a warm puff of air hit my neck. “But I’m not sorry for the things I admitted.”
I had yet to say one word since uttering his name in the motel’s main office. I couldn’t even if I wanted to, because I was afraid what I needed to say wouldn’t be what flew out of my mouth. Since the day we’d met, he’d continued to chip away at the wall I’d built around my heart. And now he was just a few taps away from destroying it… along with my steely resolve.
By keeping my mouth shut, I couldn’t admit that I was guilty of every damn thing he accused me of… or admit I also wanted him. I couldn’t confess there wasn’t a moment in my day he wasn’t on my mind. He couldn’t know that, like him, I also regretted the way he’d barged into my life. I, too, felt that I was better off without him.
“I know you want me in the same way I want you and refuse to admit it,” he sa
id, reading my mind.
What he didn’t know was with each breath I took the sting deep in my chest was a constant reminder of my past discretions. And because of them, he could never be mine. The world he was about to become part of would make sure he belonged to them. The pressure to keep him in that world would make sure I allowed it. My place in his life was a professional one.
“The longer we fight this, the more it will fester.” One hand slid under my wet shirt, fingers spreading across the goose-pebbled skin of my stomach. The other claimed my dangling hand, entwining our fingers. “Your eyes tell me you feel the same.”
On his claim, I clenched them closed, wishing when I opened them this would be a bad dream. I wasn’t ready to have this conversation with him. And the circumstance we found ourselves in would no doubt challenge my strength. But with each minute that passed, it was harder to resist that side of him.
“Tell me you feel the same,” he whispered, his lips skimming the shell of my ear. “Tell me you want me.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“Does it matter?” I asked quietly, keeping my eyes closed to continue hiding from the truth.
“Not really. Either way, I won’t give up.”
“You have to.” I spun until we were nose to nose. “This won’t work, Cannon.”
“Why the fuck not?” Even though his words were harsh, his tone remained tender.
“Because I work for you. Because I’m too old for you.” The main reason needed to be said. It was now or never. “Because I won’t survive after you.”
“There won’t be an after me.”
“That’s an arrogant thing to say.”
“It’s what I believe.” He skimmed his hand over my cheek, his thumb across my quivering bottom lip. “I watched my mother move through life alone because she was afraid to love again. Pretending she was okay. This charade of yours is no different.”
“It’s my life,” I argued.
Liner Notes Page 17