A Sinful Vow: Inked Angels MC (11 page)

Croak’s tone took me by surprise, but it also pissed me off. “It ain’t that fucking easy!” I yelled. “This shit doesn’t happen right away, and you know that. It takes time for her to open up. She’s not gonna rat on her fucking brother just because some ugly mug tells her ‘I do.’”

“That’s no fucking excuse, kiddo,” Croak said. “Lobo and the Diablos have been up to some mysterious shit. They’re really making me uneasy, but the cartel council is being too cautious to do a damn thing about it. You’re gonna get some people killed if you keep going soft, the way you’ve been doing. What’s the deal? Is the bitch just working your cock too good for you to care about your brothers anymore?”

I knew he was goading me, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t let anyone talk to me like that. “Fuck you, Croak. I’ve never cared about a bitch, and I sure as hell am not about to start caring about this one.”

But I knew I was lying.

I’d felt that head-to-toe warmth rising in me from the second I’d kissed her on the beach. All the fucking had only stoked it higher, and now it was burning in me, too hard to ignore. I was in deep with the girl.

How could I have let this happen? I’d never once even come close to falling for a girl before. They’d all been interchangeable—blonde or brunette, curvy or skinny, it hadn’t ever mattered to me before. They were just a hole to fill when I needed it.

But this one was different. This one wasn’t like the rest at all. For Chrissake, I’d taken a goddamn bullet for her before we’d ever done anything more than kiss. I’d tolerated her fuckstick of a brother threatening to assault me. I’d even said “I do,” and God knew that I’d never planned on getting myself into anything as goddamn stupid as a marriage.

But all that had happened—the bullet, Luke, the marriage. And now I was plowing into this girl and letting myself catch feelings for her. I didn’t have any idea who I was anymore.

This was trouble.

Just then, in the bathroom, I heard the shower shut off.

“Listen,” I said into the phone. “I didn’t forget the goddamn job. I’ll get the info we need, alright? Don’t fucking bother me about it again.” I hung up before he could answer, eager to get off the phone before Olivia heard anything.

Olivia walked out, toweling off her hair. For fuck’s sake, even after multiple days of endless banging, her naked, gleaming body still made me go rock hard.

“What was that, babe?” she asked. I cursed inwardly.

“Eh?” I mumbled, pretending not to know what she meant.

“Were you talking to someone? I thought I heard voices arguing,” she said.

“Nah, wasn’t anyone here. You must’ve gotten your head fucked silly,” I grinned like a coyote, hoping to diffuse the situation.

“Wonder whose fault
that
would be,” she teased, coming to sit on my lap. I groaned as her bare mound began to gyrate on my leg. She leaned forward, smelling like heaven, and whispered into my ear, “And I wonder how I could get that person to fuck my head silly again, if you know what I mean,” as she nibbled and ran her tongue around my neck.

“You’re un-fucking-believable,” I said. It was the truth—every part of me knew it, including that annoying fucking voice in my head. I was falling for the broad, right as I needed to be keeping my distance.

Fuck. This was
definitely
trouble.

* * *

I’d cooked some food from the kitchen. Olivia and I sat at the table, talking about the years we’d lived next door to each other.

“You used to stare at me every day when I walked past your house!” she exclaimed, laughing.

I scowled. “I was just picturing what you’d look like bent over in front of me,” I said.

She did that cute giggle of hers, the one that sent flames racing over my skin. “You’re like a broken record,” she told me, “never thinking about anything but sex.”

“Well, when I’m staring at a body like that, how the fuck am I supposed to resist?”

She giggled again. The sound of it killed me every time. It ignited that turbulent fucking dynamic in my head—the break-her-and-protect-her conundrum. All I wanted to do was keep her as mine forever, tucked away from any other asshole who thought he’d lay a hand on her. And at the same time, it made me want to push her body to the point of shattering, just to tease out another high-pitched scream of delight.

“It’s too bad your brother always hated me,” I ventured. “We could’ve started this years ago.”

Olivia wrinkled her nose. “Well, Luke’s a little overprotective, so it’s hard to blame him.”

I waved a hand, dismissing her interpretation. “He’s a little fucking crazy is what he is,” I said. “Can’t believe they made him a goddamn president.”

“Easy,” she said, “he’s still my brother, and I love him, whether or not you like him.”

“He fucking shot me! Or did you forget about that?”

“Of course I didn’t forget about it!” she protested. I could see her starting to get angry, but I had no choice other than to continue. “But he’s not crazy.”

“He sure ain’t sane, and he shouldn’t be a president. That’s a fact.”

“Blaze, shut up.” Her eyes sparkled with attitude.

“Listen, Liv,” I said, laying my fork down on my plate. “I know you think he’s a good guy. But I have to ask you something.”

She raised an eyebrow, curious. “What is it?”

“Is he crazy enough to do something like, eh, I don’t know…” I trailed off, unsure of how to go about broaching the situation without setting off alarms that might get the MC into an all-out internal war.

“Something like what?” she asked icily.

“Actually, no, never mind. Forget I said anything.” She had gotten venomous too quickly. I knew it wouldn’t end well if I kept pressing.

“No, finish your thought,” she said, her voice all steel now. “Tell me what you want to know.”

I didn’t know what else to do besides finish what I’d started. I thought of Croak on the phone, telling me I was going to get my brothers killed if I didn’t get the inside scoop out of Liv. I hesitated before I asked my question.

“Would he double-cross the club? I know he thinks Lobo and the Diablos got a bad rap from the cartel council. Would he be crazy enough to try to partner with them?”

At first, I couldn’t tell what she thought. It was quiet for a moment…too quiet. The silence between us began to drip with poison.

Then she lashed out and slapped me across the face, nails bared.

I stood up from the table in shock as blood dripped onto my plate. Silverware went clattering to the floor. I was steaming fucking mad. I couldn’t believe she’d just fucking hit me. I knew she wasn’t gonna be happy with the question, but this was way fucking out of line.

“Are you out of your motherfucking mind?” I said to her. “No one hits me without getting punished for it. I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re my wife.”

Olivia grabbed a knife from the table and dropped into a fighting stance. Her face was snarled in anger.“And I don’t give a fuck who you are—husband or whatever. Don’t you ever dare insult my brother to me again, or accuse him of being a traitor. I may not look that tough, but I won’t hesitate to use this on you.” She waved the knife back and forth, looking exactly like her brother had at the wedding—batshit insane.

What the fuck was going on? Was she in on it with him? She had to know what was going on, otherwise all this made no sense.

Her reaction told me everything I needed to know. “He is, isn’t he?” I roared. “He’s a fucking traitor and you know exactly what he’s up to! Tell me! You know, don’t you?”

God, I’d been so fucking stupid. This whole time I thought I was firmly in control.
You absolute idiot
, I told myself.
You’ve been thinking you’re the man, that just because this bitch is letting you fuck her, that you really have made her yours. She’s been playing you from the start. You’re the one who’s been getting railed. You’re the sucker.

The world was spinning. I was angry, confused, and just so fucking dumb. I stumbled and knocked the table over. Plates crashed everywhere and broke into pieces. The pitcher of water cascaded onto the ground. I didn’t care—it was too late to care, too late to stop anything.

I would’ve bet my goddamn cut that this was exactly what Luke had planned the whole time: let the marriage lure Houston into thinking everything was all gravy now, that we’d squashed the conflict and put years of animosity to bed. Of course we fucking hadn’t. Croak had been suspicious, and rightly so, because Luke was way too much of a power-hungry son of a bitch to just submit and let that be the end of things.

No, Luke wanted to own it all. All of Austin, all of Texas, all of the goddamn country, probably, if we gave him the chance.

“Stay the fuck away from me,” Olivia warned, still flailing wildly with the knife. “Don’t take another step closer.”

“You’ve known the whole fucking time,” I accused. “You played me. You lied from the very fucking start.”

Olivia waggled backwards, knife held firmly in her fist, as she slid slowly towards the door.

All I could picture was her face, looking up at me in the lingerie shop. “Do you like it?”
she’d asked. Of course I had. So many years spent watching her walk home every day, those books pressed up against her chest so that her breasts spilled over the top.

She’d been so innocent. But she wasn’t. She was a backstabber, a fucking double agent if ever there was one. And I was the target. Lure me out, pull the wool over my eyes, fuck me into complacency.

I’d traded my brothers’ lives for a little bit of pussy. Who knew what Luke was planning? Who knew what he had in store for them? It wasn’t going to be pretty. I’d seen his face that night he shot me in the thigh, like I was some street dog he was teaching a lesson. I’d seen his psychotic eyes that day at the wedding, when he tried to gut me like a fish right in the church. He had no morals, nothing holding him back. No loyalty to the skull.

I had to get her to tell me what he was doing. I’d already wasted days when I could have been getting intel, critical information that would keep my brothers safe.

Guilt racked me in waves. I had to make up for lost time. I jumped towards Liv, trying to impose myself between her and the door so she couldn’t get away.

But she ducked under my outstretched arms and ran out before I could get a chance to stop her.

My whole world had started to crumble. I’d lost my wife and my brothers in one fell swoop, and it was all my fault.

I sprinted down the driveway after Olivia, trying fruitlessly to catch her. She disappeared around the corner by the gate, towards where the main road swooped in to the villa grounds.

My boots pounded the dust, raising clouds where I ran. I coughed, trying to clear the flying dirt from my lungs.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Where would she go? I wondered if this had all been planned. Let her fool me, then extract her before I can find anything out. I didn’t think I’d ever forgive myself for being such a fucking fool.

I whipped around the gate she’d ran through and found myself staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Easy there,
compadre
,” snarled the motherfucker holding it. He was a big, fat son of a bitch, sweating his ass off in the Mexican heat. He wiped a towel across his bald head. I could see the Inked Angels patch sewn into the shoulder of his cut.

One of Luke’s boys.

“Give me the fucking girl,” I barked back. “Or I’ll beat your fucking skull in.”