Bad Boy Criminal: The Novel (11 page)

T
he Rio Grande Nature Center
, a state park outside of Albuquerque, housed a large, circular building for tourists to visit, but we had missed its hours of operation already—and besides, we were no tourists. The expansive Rio Grande sprawled through the middle of the refuge, dark and shimmering beneath the open sky. Ash was right…New Mexico did have a wider sky than all the other states.

I was beginning to really fall in love with the unfettered nature of the motorcycle. It wasn’t just about the rush of the wind on the road. The lack of bulk enabled us to travel through the park almost as freely as a couple on any other kind of bike. He parked her behind a fringe of bushes and we climbed off to investigate our surroundings.

The park was entirely empty now, and night had fully fallen. Stars were sprayed in a milky swath overhead, and the moon lit the sandy earth at our feet, turning the park into a land as silvery as the Sea of Tranquility itself.

I dropped my backpack and opened it, unraveling the thin but soft and plush camping blanket from within and fanning it into the air, letting it drape elegantly in front of a thick forked tree.

“See? That’s why you need a woman around,” Ash said from behind me. “I was just going to sleep in the dirt if you weren’t here.”

“Hey, no argument here,” I said, standing up and shimmying out of my jeans. I glanced at Ash as I slid my feet from the denim, and caught him staring breathlessly at my upturned hindquarters. “Who says you don’t need a woman?”

“Lots of my Hell’s Ransom brothers say that,” Ash replied, whipping his shirt over his head.

I stood up straight and began unbuttoning my top, my eyes never leaving him. “And I’m sure they lead very rich and fulfilling lives,” I replied, quirking an eyebrow at him thoughtfully. I could see that his member strained powerfully against the tight denim of his own jeans, making the erection not only painfully acute, but painfully obvious. “Why don’t you come over here?” I suggested huskily, positioning myself in the middle of the forked trunk of the tree to support my weight. I let my legs lull open provocatively, and Ash seemed to half-fall, and half-fly, up against me.

His fingers bound together in my hair and yanked my head back, pulling my mouth open wider for the ravishment of his tongue. I reeled with electric anticipation as he jammed one hand hurriedly down the crotch of my panties, his rough and calloused fingers raking in a circular motion over my engorged clit. I moaned and bucked against his hand as it left my nub behind, and two fingers traveled lower, sliding into me and pumping.

“Jesus Christ,” he exclaimed, “I’ve been waiting for this way too long.” He unzipped his jeans and unsheathed his cock from within—a curvaceous and broad instrument—stroking it passionately directly toward my breasts.

“No, no, no,” I whispered, shoving him away. Though it saddened me to lose that hand in my panties, I was invigorated at the prospect of providing Ash with some oral pleasure. He was right. We had been waiting for this way too long.

I clambered down onto my knees and took him greedily and completely into my mouth and down my throat. He tasted of salt and beads of pre-cum. I pumped at the remainder of his length with my free hand, as my other went to work his tightening balls. I listened to the rhythm of his gasping breath and knew that it wouldn’t be long before his load came streaming, relieved at long last—but he dug his fist into my hair and forced my mouth to depart from his unit.

“What—?” Suffice it to say, no man had ever done that before.

“I’m not waiting another night,” he growled, pulling me to my feet, still gripping me by my hair. He shoved me backwards against the tree trunk, tangling his fingers in my panties and wrenching them to one side. I didn’t care if he tore them into pieces, frankly.

His hot manhood, thick and trembling with power, pushed into me vigorously, suddenly, and I yelped from the sheer shock and pleasure, my face pressed into the bark of the tree and my fingernails clawing down its trunk. He looped an arm beneath the back of my knee and cocked my thigh upward, jamming it into the forked tree for balance so that I was open wide for him.

His free hand migrated between my legs again and moved frantically over my clitoris once more; I bit my lip and bore down against his thrusts. Orgasm culminated as heavily as a summer storm in my pussy.

“Oh, shit, Izz,” Ash groaned, the fingers from his right hand digging deep into the meat of my thigh.

“Do you have—do you have a—”

The swirling cloud at the base of my spine, thick and wet and filled with agonizing near-relief, tipped and snapped, bringing my thighs to a tremble and my voice to an illegible yodel through the treetops. I clawed at the bark and bucked against Ash, forgetting everything, the entire world around us, my conscious mind blinking out.

“Oh, yeah,” Ash groaned, moving in perfect rhythm with me. “Oh, fuck…fuck…
fuck, yes!
” He uttered one drawn-out, loud call, and I felt his manhood twitch and disburse its seed—heavily and deeply—into me. My muscles immediately relaxed, and I found myself draped wetly over the fork in the tree trunk, while Ash’s member, still rigid but softening, lingered within me, spouting the last of its juice.

Ash slouched against my back, and I felt that he, too, was slick with sweat.

“Condom,” I panted, too satisfied to bring my voice above the same husky whisper that began this mess.

“What?” Ash panted back.

“Do you have a condom,” I reiterated, finally completing the sentence I had been trying to get out earlier.

I
zzy
and I had collapsed into a tangle of limbs after our marathon lovemaking—twice more after the first, each lengthier than the last—and my mind was a million miles away. You would think that, after emptying out my insides, up to the final fizzling neuron in my fucking brain, we would be able to just sink into an inky slumber.

But no. No such luck. My thoughts rocketed along like a bike on the highway, and Izzy’s must have been charging right alongside mine, because she didn’t close her eyes, either.

“What are you thinking about?” I wondered, then almost winced. I hated that question…and now here I was, asking it. But she was being so quiet, and I felt as if I knew her. She didn’t seem like the type of girl to be laying there, thinking nothing at all…especially after everything we’d just done. Our bodies reeked of each other.

“Nothing,” she replied: quick, short, and too breezy. A lie. But I couldn’t tell her so.

I only needed to wait a lapse of a few seconds before she cleared her throat.

“Well,” Izzy amended. “I was thinking about the future.”

“Women,” I murmured, smiling with mild amusement.

“It’s just—” Izzy hesitated. “Where do we go after this, you know? What’s the point—if we’re just going to Mexico? And then…then what?”

I grimaced. It was a fair question, and I had been planning to part ways with her in Juarez. Hell, I’d been planning to part ways with her back in Boulder, too. “I don’t know what the future holds for you, Izz,” I confessed, allowing my eyes to find hers. She was peering up at me so timidly, like a woodland creature begging to not be hunted. “But I have a plan for myself—and if you want to be a part of that—I guess you could try.”

Her gaze broke from mine. “That’s encouraging,” she muttered sarcastically.

“What did you want, a ring?” I asked. “Izzy, I’m going to clear my name. I have to. Do you think you’re the only one who wants a life? The only one who wants to come back from Mexico, between the two of us? Because you’re not. Jade’s got the evidence in Juarez. I’m going to get it, and the courts will have to honor an appeal, and…and everything is going to work out.” I knew that was a touch too dismissive for reality—Agents Harrison and Carson were hot on my trail; I couldn’t even tell if it was personal, or if they were just really fucking good at their jobs. Either way, ADX Florence loomed in that future Izz had just been asking about. But I couldn’t give up hope. “And—then—if you wanted to be a part of…my life,” I went on awkwardly, “well, I’d be around, I guess. And not just me. I’m not the only one fighting for my freedom out here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“You mean those men on motorcycles, I guess?”

“The Hell’s Ransom members.” Hearing them called ‘those men on motorcycles’ was somewhere between painful and hilarious. “My brothers. You don’t—well—most people don’t understand the kind of bond a motorcycle club forms with its members.”

“Then why don’t you explain it to me? Who are these men to you?”

“They started out as friends; my brother, Dominic, he’s their president,” I explained. It all seemed like ancient history to me now, and explaining it had become foreign. I never felt the need to explain it before. “And then…I became a striker. That’s almost an initiate. It’s more like—someone the club thinks is decent. Maybe, maybe good enough to be one of them…someday. And then, they started talking about taking me in, officially. The entire process…Jesus.” I sucked in a breath as I contemplated my past with Hell’s Ransom. I hadn’t realized how much of my world they had occupied. “It took about three years, from start to finish—and that’s considered fast, you know, in our world.”

“Our world,” she parroted, almost in jest.

“We do have our own world,” I emphasized to her. “Our own laws, even.”

“You’re probably not supposed to have your very own laws,” Izzy countered.

I knew she was just being cute, at least in part, but I slanted a critical look in her direction nevertheless. “You wouldn’t understand,” I said. “You’re too innocent.” At this, she lapsed off into silence, and I felt a pang of remorse. “It’s what I love about you,” I added. Still, she didn’t respond.

“That jacket you were wearing the afternoon we met,” she mentioned lightly. “That was your Hell’s Ransom jacket, wasn’t it?”

“Take it with me everywhere I go,” I said. “Never wash my color. Every thread tells a story.”

“Even the bloody ones.”

“Especially the bloody ones.”

There was a beat of silence, and then she asked, “Can I see it?”

Argh, but I was so comfortable. “Why do you need to see it?” I wondered.

“I never realized how important it was to you.” Her fingers traced a tantalizing pattern on my chest, attempting to convince me to get up. “Can I see it or what? Is it a super-secret jacket now?”

I sighed and heaved myself away from her body, realizing that her request wasn’t going to resolve itself. I extracted the jacket from the back of the motorcycle and draped it over Izzy’s lap for her inspection.

“Kind of dirty,” she murmured, running her fingers over the Hell’s Ransom patch.

“Thank you,” I boasted.

“What’s this one?” she wondered, fingering the small red patch which read “1%er” on the arm.

I sucked in a breath, awkward, and forged ahead. “Well…motorcycle clubs generally aren’t…outlaws,” I told her gingerly. “They wear patches that say 99%er to symbolize this. But—”

I didn’t need to explain any further. Isabelle rolled her eyes in understanding and shook her head at me. “You’re an outlaw,” she muttered. “I get it.”

“Well…” How to explain the delicate matter of the difference between decision-making and a lifestyle choice? Because, if the question was, “Do you enjoy the likelihood of spending your best years in jail?” then the answer was an emphatic, even desperate, no. But had I lived in a manner conducive to imprisonment up until now?

Maybe.

But…I hadn’t had any reason to stop before, either. I’d never had a reason to really want a future.

And I still don’t,
I reminded myself stiffly. We had started this road trip with my explicit intention that I would sleep with Isabelle, and use her to insulate my risks, and for her old man’s truck, but then, it would be over. We would part ways after crossing the border. That was all it was supposed to be; I wasn’t supposed to change.

“I’m going to clear my name,” I promised her softly. “I’m going to.”

But the sound of her soft breath came peeling up from the crook of my shoulder, where she was fast asleep beneath half a splash of chestnut hair.

I
was
loose and satisfied under the morning sun, waking slowly in a tangle of blankets and colorful man limbs.

“Hey,” Ash murmured, watching me from beneath a low dusting of lashes.

“Good morning.”

“Morning, doll.”

Part of me was really dismayed at our every interaction—because I knew it was only a few more hours between Albuquerque and Juarez. Once he reached Jade, he wouldn’t have any use for me anymore, and we would be finished. So, no matter how appreciative his gazes became, would it ever really matter?

“Gorgeous view,” Ash went on, indicating the glimmering sprawl of greenish-brown river beyond our blanket, as well as my own body, clad solely in a bra, a blouse half removed, and some cotton panties. “I wish we could just stay.”

I fought the temptation to roll my eyes. Words, words, words.

“Yeah, that would be nice,” I pouted, pulling myself tiredly to a stand. “But you’ve got to get to Juarez, don’t you? Jade’s waiting.”

Ash watched me for a moment, almost bewildered, and then agreed, “Yeah…yeah, she is. I guess we had better get going after all.”

It only took a few minutes for us to shove our meager possessions into the right places, and I then straddled the back of the motorcycle and wrapped my arms around his waist. All too soon, the engine was revving, and we were tearing off through Rio Grande Nature Center, like a couple of tourists who had had our fill of the scenery.

M
aybe I would get
a motorcycle after getting back to Boulder.

The thought should have filled me with excitement, but I found that it only made me grim. Having a motorcycle without Ash alongside me seemed like an empty, hopeful gesture toward a possible future I never had—never even came close to having.

But God, I did love the wind roaring over my body as we tore down the New Mexico highway. Ash must’ve been feeling bold; we were so close to the border, and we had our fake identification all ready to go. From there, it wouldn’t be far to Juarez, and then, it would all be over. Deep down inside, Ash was probably already thinking and feeling like a free man.

I decided to shunt these thoughts—“the future,” and all it could have been, but wouldn’t be—from my mind. I would just enjoy the scenery, and the smell of leather, and hugging Ash’s body. It was easier to just let it all go.

Signs for the border. Three hours. Then two hours.

“Gonna get off at Las Cruces and stretch my legs!” Ash yelled back to me.

“Okay!” I returned, and the motorcycle drifted to the right and pulled down one of the last exits between us and the border. We moved down the lane with such lackadaisical speed, an observer would be tempted to believe that we were locals—much less escaped fugitives.

“I know Las Cruces,” Ash informed me, taking another right and heading deeper into the city.

“You just know the whole world, don’t you?” I wondered, thinking over the road trip: all the back roads and bars weren’t things one would expect a casual traveler to readily find.

“That’s the life of a biker,” Ash replied. “If you’re not traveling a few thousand miles a year, you’re just a weekend warrior—and Hell’s Ransom doesn’t have room for the hobbyists.” He winked over his shoulder at me. “There’s a firing range downtown.” He turned again, this time left. “To tell the honest truth, the closer we get to that border, the more nervous I feel. Would you mind if we stopped and squeezed off a few rounds?”

“Hells, no,” I said in his ear. “I could use the release myself.”

La Casa de Pistolas was a small, in-door firing range, where we were fitted with goggles, helmets, and vests before being allowed to practice with some targets. I rented a cute little piece, but Ash didn’t need to rent anything. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t know where the money was coming from, but people seemed to be just throwing it at him in his time of need—and I didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad sign.

“Why don’t you try it out with my gun?” Ash asked. He’d seen me riddle the poster with bullets, many of them trained around the chest. “I want you to get used to the way it handles.”

“Why?” I wondered, genuinely confused. It wasn’t like I was going to be some kind of a fixture in his adventures. We might as well have gotten around to admitting that fact sooner, and saved ourselves the heartache of yearning for something incompatible with our lifestyles.

“Because—for a handgun, it’s surprisingly heavy.” He wore a glare on his face, as if he didn’t like being forced to question exactly why he was letting himself get so close to me. “We might end up needing it. You never know, all right?”

My eyebrow quirked, but I held my doubts at bay—verbally, anyway. “All right,” I said. “Let’s see it, then. Hand it over.” He put the safety on my rental and holstered it, passing his handgun into my grip. It looked new. Figures.

He wrapped his hands around mine, incidentally sealing our bodies together from fingertip to toe. “Now, you have to steel yourself for the kick; it’s going to sing through your bones, and hurt a little bit,” he advised. “If you’re not ready for it, the gun’s going to get thrown right out of your hands.”

Steel yourself for the kick; it’s going to sing through your bones.
He could’ve been talking about the first time I ever laid eyes on him.
If you’re not ready for it, the gun’s going to get thrown right out of your hands.

“I’m ready for it,” I breathed.

We squeezed the trigger together, and the shock of impact did rocket backward, but I had already planted my feet and squared my shoulders against it. I felt Ash squeeze me tighter—but that could’ve been because of anything.

“Right through the heart,” he whispered into my ear. “Crack shot.”

I twisted to peer over my shoulder at him, and found him staring down at me, too, rather than at the poster in front of us.

W
e stayed
at the firing range for over an hour before finally returning our gear and the rented gun at the front desk. I felt drained and elated, just like I had after our three bouts of lovemaking the night before. He was right; squeezing that trigger was good for stress.

He had just passed me my helmet, and I was on the verge of straddling his red bike, when he called out to me. “Hey, babe.” I hesitated and propped the helmet against my hip, turning to look at him. “I want you to…” He winced and came up to the bike, standing closer to me, and leaned on the leather seat, peering up and letting me be the taller one. His emerald eyes were so close…it made me sad to think that it was almost over. But I knew I needed to push those girlish thoughts away. “I want you to memorize the number on my new burner phone,” he finished in an uncomfortable rush. “And I want you to memorize Jade’s number, too.”

“Jade’s number?” Now I was a little doubtful.

“And Dom’s number. And Xander’s number.”

“How many numbers do you think my brain can hold?” I half-joked.

“If you could just practice with me…for a few minutes… It would put my mind at ease,” he said.

I cocked my head and frowned at him. “Why?” I had to ask.

Ash frowned. “In case anything happens to you,” he said. “I want you to be able to contact one of us for help.”

The comment immediately brought more questions to the surface. Did he think that something was going to happen to me? With the exception of our run-in with the Valiant over in Moab, the road trip had almost been uneventful; well, and that little road block set up on the interstate at the Utah border, but Ash had let them get a big tip by using his ATM card in Bluff. We hadn’t seen any sign of them, or the Valiant, since.

Another question his request brought to the surface was this: He cared? He cared enough about a roadside companion that he would actually let her know the intimate details from his friends and family—their phone numbers? Memorized?

“Fine,” I said, not wanting to press him on the matter and embarrass myself by forcing him to confess to me that it was a liability issue. If anything happened to me, after all…he would be in more danger with the feds.

We straddled his bike across from one another for twenty minutes, reciting numbers I just couldn’t get right.

“I’ll have to sleep on it,” I said. “I need time to be able to remember. You can’t memorize anything in just a few minutes. Anyway—shouldn’t you be in a hurry, Ash? We’re only an hour and a half from Juarez. And then, you wanna stop just a few minutes from border patrol, and…go to a shooting range? And work on my memory skills? This close to being over, and you want—”

Ash grimaced. “Maybe I wanted to just spend some more time,” he grumbled, his eyes averted from mine. “But I guess you’re right. Might as well get it over with.” He took a deep breath and turned from me, straddling the seat in the right way.

I joined him, feeling suddenly cold, as if I’d said the wrong thing and I knew it. Had I actually…hurt him?

And here I had been, thinking that he couldn’t be hurt.