Fighter: The Devil's Highwaymen Nomads #4

by Claire C. Riley

  “Care to tell me what the fuck is going on?” he growled out. “And who the fuck this is?”

  I opened my mouth to answer him when Penny shook out from the prospect’s grip and came toward me, her golden eyes sucking me in like they were a vortex.

  “I need your help.” She said it like it was perfectly normal to come into the clubhouse of a rival club and ask for help from the man that had kidnapped and tortured you.

  A man that was supposed to have killed you.

  I’d let her walk away because she made the air I breathed clean again. Because it was the right thing to do. Because with Penny it wasn’t just her fear that turned me on, that made my dick hard and my heart pound.

  It was her.

  All of her.

  And now she was here and everyone knew that I’d lied.

  I was dead once Hardy saw her alive, and if I didn’t get her the fuck out of there, then so was she. I’d never get to say goodbye to Battle. And she’d never get to live the life she deserved.

  And yet as she stood there, eyes blazing, chest heaving, and her hands on her hips as she stared at me expectantly, I found that I couldn’t say no to her.

  “What do you need?” I asked, because fuck me if I couldn’t help her one last time.

  I was a dead man anyway; at least I’d die doing something good with my miserable existence.

  ~ 20 ~

  Penny

  48 hours earlier

  “You must know something,” my daddy roared, slamming his fisted hand on the table in front of him. “You must have seen something.”

  The beautiful face of the man who had taken me, the Devil’s Highwaymen member, flashed in my mind. Those cold, dark eyes devoid of love and compassion burning into mine as he punished me. I swallowed and shook my head.

  “I didn’t. I was blindfolded. I was bound,” I replied with strength, holding my bruised wrists up for him to see, hoping he didn’t see through my burning lie. “I didn’t see anything.”

  My father’s face filled with even more fury. “Fucking useless, just like your cunt mother.” He sat back down in his chair, his attention turning to Solomon, his VP. “You better fucking find me something. I know it was those fuckers the Highwaymen, and they’re not getting away with this shit. Taking my daughter? Embarrassing me like that.” He shook his head, his gaze going to me again. “This club’s a laughing stock because of you, Penny. Get out of my sight.” His expression was full of disgust for me.

  Disgust because he’d raised me better, taught me better. I knew better than to get taken. I knew to be safe, safer than I had been.

  If only he knew how unsafe I had been in recent months.

  “We’re partying later, celebrating your return,” he sneered. “Make sure you’re looking more presentable.” He looked me up and down and shook his head.

  I nodded, angry, hurtful words burning in the back of my throat. Words I’d never say to him. “Okay,” I replied instead, swallowing down the resentment I felt toward him.

  I was a strong, independent woman until I was near my father. Then I was a little girl cowering from the force of his anger.

  I left his office and headed through the clubhouse to find Scratch to give me a ride home. I hadn’t seen my car since the night I’d been taken. I loved that car, it was one of the only things I truly loved in this world, and yet the only thing on my mind was him. His hands wrapped around my throat, his fingers and tongue inside me, his eyes blazing with need and desire.

  “Penny!” Ruby called as she peeled herself away from Cheeto, her old man.

  She wrapped her arms around me, pulling me into a tight hug.

  “I know you’re not a hugger, but I am, and I’ve been so worried about you!” She squeezed me tighter before letting go and looking into my face. “Are you okay?” Her gaze moved over me, checking me for injuries.

  “I’m fine. Hungry, tired, but fine.”

  My father was still shouting inside his office and both Ruby and I turned to look, watching as he picked something up and threw it across the room.

  “Nothing’s changed round here then,” I sighed.

  “He’s been worried about you,” Ruby replied, and I turned to look at her in disbelief. “He has! But you know what he’s like. He’s not good at showing his emotions—not unless it’s anger.” She shrugged. “He’s had every man out looking for you since the day you were taken. Barely slept, barely ate. You’re his little girl, Penny, always.”

  I frowned at Ruby and she responded with another shrug.

  “These men are all the same; they have the emotional range of an orange.”

  I forced a smile, but it fell quickly. I just didn’t feel like smiling at the moment. I felt lost instead of at home among these men and women. It was my club as much as my father’s. They were my family, yet I felt like an outsider. Mostly, though, I couldn’t stand the taste of betrayal on the tip of my tongue. I knew who had taken me—who was responsible.

  It wasn’t like I was in love with him or anything, but the thought of my father going after him and hurting him—torturing him, killing him…it made my stomach flip and the knots inside me tighten. I owed that man nothing, and yet I wanted to protect him for some reason. Who my kidnapper was was my secret and I wanted to keep it that way. Conspiracy and backstabbing were at the heart of my father’s club, and he took his vengeance out on those who worked against him. If he found out about the Highwaymen, there would be war. Death and blood would be on my hands, spilling through my fingers like molten lava.

  Ruby glanced back at Cheeto before pulling me to one side. “So seriously,” she said on a whisper, “you really have no idea who it was? No clue at all?”

  I liked Ruby—trusted her, even. We’d been friends for a long time, way before she hooked up with Cheeto. We told each other everything, kept each other’s secrets, but in that moment I felt alone at the realization that her loyalty was more to my father and Cheeto than to me.

  I shouldn’t have cared. I’d had people use me before—befriend me to get access to the club.

  Yet something had changed. I had changed, and the sting of betrayal flashed across my arms like I’d been burned.

  “I have no idea,” I lied again.

  “You didn’t see anything at all? Not a tattoo or a piece of paper, nothing?” she pressed, and I shook my head at her.

  I held her gaze, my shoulders back and my chin high and her eyes narrowed. “I wish I had,” I replied, my jaw tight.

  Her smile fell and she let out a sigh. “Okay then. If you remember anything, you know you can trust me.”

  “You’ll be the first to hear if I remember anything, Ruby,” I answered. We both knew in that moment that I was lying. More worryingly, we both knew that I couldn’t trust her.

  Her chin raised and she pursed her lips before taking a step back from me. “I hope so, Penny. Your daddy’s after blood and he won’t stop until he gets it.” She turned on her heel and headed back to Cheeto.

  I headed for the door, feeling everyone’s gazes burning into my back as I left the clubhouse. Scratch was waiting outside on his bike for me. He was a good man, we’d fooled around once when I turned sixteen and he was nineteen, but it hadn’t worked out between us. My father had had other ideas about who was a suitable old man for me, and it wasn’t Scratch.

  “You ready to roll?” he asked, pulling his shades from his cut and putting them on, the sight of the grisly scars down his face making my stomach ache like usual.

  The scars were my fault.

  Scratch wasn’t the one for me, my daddy had said, and when I’d argued, he’d asked me what I liked about him. “He’s kind,” I’d innocently replied, “and he’s handsome.”

  Daddy had taken his good looks later that day and Scratch had been promoted to enforcer.

  Scratch was still a good man, but he wasn’t a kind one. My daddy had made sure that I had known all the things Scratch did on his jobs, and none of them were ever kind again.

  An
d the scars down his face? They became my daddy’s trademark for anyone that went up against him.

  “Yes.” I climbed on behind him, wrapping my arms around his middle. He smelled good, like leather and masculinity. He was familiar and safe. I used to love that smell, desperate to fill the whole inside me with this man, but I realized that now I was craving a new scent.

  I was craving him, the Highwayman. Or maybe not him exactly, but the freedom that he had, and in some ways, had given me. He’d opened up the box inside of me that I’d kept tightly locked, and there was no way to screw the lid back on now it had been opened. I closed my eyes as Scratch started the bikes engine and we pulled out of the clubhouse grounds, and thought about him; the smell of weed that hung around him. The woody deodorant that he used. His heavy scent of trees and nature that clung to his skin. The taste of his sweat under my tongue.

  My obsession with Scratch was over. Now I had a new obsession, a new man to desire, to lust after. To hold the what-ifs in my heart for.

  A man I hated and yet desired.

  A man I despised and yet wanted.

  A man I wanted to forget and yet couldn’t stop thinking about.

  We pulled up outside my apartment and Scratch followed me inside. Everything was as it had been, and yet everything was different. I was different. I’d always been a fighter, strong-willed, angry, full of rage. But since coming home I had felt softer. Femininity had settled in my bones where the rage used to live.

  Instead of wanting to fight and kick and scream, I wanted to touch and kiss and bite. I wanted a gentler connection to the world around me. To myself, even.

  “Do you want a drink?” I asked Scratch, my gaze still roving around my home like I was lost. Like these weren’t my things, and I had no place being here.

  “Water would be good,” he replied.

  I nodded and headed to the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and grabbing some bottles of water for us both. Even the food and drink inside didn’t feel like mine. I guess it wasn’t; it was whatever one of the prospects bought for me. Daddy never let me go anywhere on my own. I didn’t live a normal life. Barring sneaking out to watch old black and white movies and secretly studying nursing, I lived under the club’s protection, my daddy’s rule. People bought my food, took me places. Hell, most of my clothes had been bought by the club women.

  I realized with sudden force that I was more of a prisoner in my own home, with my own family, than I ever had been with the Highwayman.

  The only thing I had that was mine was my nursing course. It was the only freedom I had. The only place I was truly me. What were the chances I’d be able to continue now? That daddy wouldn’t keep an even tighter leash on me than before.

  “You don’t seem like yourself,” Scratch said, unscrewing the lid of his water and taking a long drink. I watched his throat bob as his lips wrapped around the bottle and he drank. There was a time once when I would have watched him swallowing that water with desire flooding my system. The connection between us had been strong, but he’d never touched me or gotten close since the day my father had cut his face wide open.

  I shrugged. “Being kidnapped will do that to a girl.”

  I put my bottle down and turned to stare out the window, watching the cars below driving past, the people walking by my building. Everyone was free to come and go as they pleased. To do what they wanted. To be what they wanted. To be with who they wanted. Everyone but me.

  I swallowed, hating the Highwaymen even more for making me realize how caged I really was. I mean, I’d always known, but now I knew. I realized the full extent of it, and how this was how it would always be.

  The air shifted behind me and I realized that Scratch had come up behind me. I turned, finding him close. He was tall and I craned my neck to look up into his face. He looked deep in thought, the two angry red scars running down from his hairline right down his cheeks and to his chin like red war paint. His arms were by his sides and his throat bobbed as he continued to stare down at me.

  “I was worried about you,” he confided, his voice deep and husky.

  I quirked a smile. “You know I can handle myself.”

  His closeness made my heart speed up, and I wondered for a moment if he was going to kiss me when his arms came up. I’d wanted him to for as far back as I could remember. I’d wanted him to stand up to my father, to demand that I be his. He never had, and strangely, now the thought frightened me more than my daddy’s rage ever did.

  He dropped his hands back to his sides and nodded at me, his eyes burning intently. He opened his mouth to say something and then closed it without speaking.

  “What?” I asked quickly, thirsty for his words.

  He shook his head and dragged a hand over his mouth. “Nothing.”

  “Liar,” I teased.

  I had to know.

  “You just seem… different,” he admitted, his gray eyes watching me with curiosity.

  I shrugged. “I guess I am different. A lot has happened.”

  He nodded in agreement. “I better get back.”

  He turned from me and I watched his retreating back. I bit down on my lip, my own curiosity piquing. I had to know, I realized. I had to know if what we’d once had was still there. Or if the Highwaymen had changed me for good, irrevocably shaped me into someone new. I wanted to go back to the woman I had been, because the new woman was a stranger. I didn’t know who she was.

  “Scratch?” I called his name like I’d done a hundred times before, but this time there was something more in it. There was an unspoken question, and he must have heard it because he turned back with a small frown.

  I took a step toward him, closing the already small space, and he put his hands up to my shoulders and shook his head in warning.

  “Don’t.”

  I paused, unsure, uncertain, but unafraid. I reached up on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his shoulders. My hand gripped the back of his wide neck, his muscles tense, and I pulled his head down to mine as I leaned up and placed my lips on his.

  I kissed him and he breathed hard against my lips as he fought himself before finally giving in. Scratch’s hands slid down my body to my waist and he picked me up and sat me on the kitchen counter before spreading my legs, his hard body filling the space.

  His tongue pushed past my lips and I opened to him, giving him full access to my mouth, to my tongue, and I kissed him back hungrily, desperate to feel the connection we’d once shared.

  His hard cock ground up against me and I moaned into his mouth as he tugged at my clothes. My hands slid down his chest, pushing his cut from his arms, and he let go of me briefly to let it fall to the kitchen floor before gripping the hem of his T-shirt and pulling it up and over his head.

  His chest was harder and more muscular than I remembered. And where it was once smooth, now tattoos and scars were etched into his skin. Yet his chest wasn’t as hard as the Highwayman’s. His scars weren’t as deep as the Highwayman’s, or as in abundance as his. I ran my hands up and down his body, marveling in him, pushing away the time when my hands had touched my dark angel, my monster, my Devil.

  “Off,” he grunted, pulling at my T-shirt before lifting it over my head. His mouth moved down my body, finding its way to my breasts where he pulled my bra down, freeing them and then trapping them once more with his hands and his mouth. My hands were in his hair, tugging on it as he sucked on my pebbled nipple and ground himself against me.

  I threw my head back, my eyes closed as I moaned into the empty air, needing him, needing this, needing anything to make me feel normal again. Needing something, someone to rid me of the shadow the Devil had cast over my soul. Scratch’s hands moved to my jeans, unbuttoning them, and I allowed him to lift me up so he could pull them down over my ass, dragging them down my legs before grabbing his own zipper.

  His eyes met mine, lust and heat and everything in between filling them. “You sure?” he grunted, dragging a hand over his short beard.

  I stared up at
Scratch, my best friend—hell, my only real friend—and I wanted to say yes. I wanted to give myself to him so that no one else could have it. In some ways, my virginity had always been his to take. But in that moment I knew I couldn’t go through with it, despite wanting to. Our moment was lost now, swallowed whole by the Highwayman’s touch.

  My head and heart collided inside me, warring with my emotions.

  Scratch’s breaths were coming hot and heavy and he leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on my lips. “It’s okay,” he said against them.

  “It’s not,” I replied, my voice wobbling as I struggled to control my emotions.

  And it wasn’t okay, because Scratch didn’t realize why I wouldn’t sleep with him.

  Why I couldn’t.

  The Highwayman may have been the Devil, a monster in many ways, but he was also my dark angel. He’d taken me, kept me, and freed me all in the same breath.

  “I’m sorry,” I said against Scratch’s mouth, my eyes squeezing closed to stop the tears from falling. “I wish I could.”

  I was so messed up.

  So incredibly broken.

  “Is it him? The man who took you—did he take it? Is that it?” He sounded angry for me, and I wanted to soothe that anger away but knew that I couldn’t. “Did he take it?”

  Did he take it? The statement was laughable. The way people talked about my virginity like it was theirs to trade with one another.

  “Did he hurt you, Penny?” he said, sounding even angrier.

  Had the Highwayman hurt me?

  The question was laughable.

  Yes, he’d hurt me, but that wasn’t the problem. In fact, that was the opposite of the problem. Because the Highwayman’s idea of pain and suffering, of torture, had been my idea of heaven.

  “No,” I replied, because lying was easier than admitting the truth. I’d liked the pain. I’d enjoyed it, got off on it. “I’m just…messed up.”

  Scratch pressed his forehead to mine and kissed the bridge of my nose before pulling away from me. He grabbed his clothes from the floor and redressed before leaning in and hooking a hand around the back of my head.