Knight (67 page)

The kid feared my bike more than she feared me.

More than she feared whatever the hell just happened between Anathema and The Coup.

I didn’t know what fucked her up that bad.

The past week pointed enough guns between her baby bunny eyes to kick off a gang war in the middle of her forehead.

She got kidnapped. Roughed up. Nearly set on fucking fire.

And instead of panicking because she showcased her perfect tits to a bar loaded with meth-head bikers and psychopaths with hard-ons for blood, she shrunk inside Scotch’s jacket and searched the parking lot for another ride home.

“Luke took his bike.” I pushed my helmet at her. “Don’t even think about hotwiring Lyn’s car.”

Rose didn’t have sleeves to hide her emotions. She zipped the borrowed jacket up to her neck and tried to look tough without meeting my gaze.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I won’t drop you.”

She eased onto my bike. “I said I’ll be
fine
.”

If she weren’t half-naked and fighting with a scrap of plaid better suited for a napkin than skirt, I would have taught the kitten a lesson about hissing.

Then again, whatever happened the last time she shared a bike rattled her head to toe.

She squeezed in close to me and shuddered. Not in a good way. Not like how she shivered against my lap in the club. Not like when she wiggled her little hips until I didn’t care how many bullets loaded into my brain. The blood wasn’t there anyway.

Rage and lust combined into a deadly frustration. I had been one jerked trigger away from ending the goddamned madness and seizing my vengeance against Exorcist. His death was a bigger fantasy than what slickened inside Rose’s panties.

But he was gone.

And Rose remained.

It shouldn’t have pissed me off. And her safety shouldn’t have felt better than the gun butting against Exorcist’s ugly head.

Fuck. I needed a hot shower and twenty minutes to jerk myself back into this dimension.

Instead, she tucked up behind me and gripped my cut tight enough to press her entire body against mine. I couldn’t feel her tightened nipples against my vest, but I imagined how her legs spread around me. How the little white panties pressed against my waist.

God damn, the damage she’d do with those panties.

She danced on me. Smiled. Sighed.

Grinded
those sweet hips with a combination baby-girl innocence and goddess lust. She tempted the devil, and I’d ruin her to discover if she had any other talents besides a delicate voice, the predisposition for trouble, and back-talking the one man who’d either deliver her to safety or fuck her into hell.

Except she trembled behind me on the bike. She lowered her head onto my shoulder and squeezed my chest.

She let Exorcist get away.

I let Exorcist get away.

I’d do anything to keep him from hurting her.

“You remember how to pack?” I grunted.

Brew and Keep watched us. The flare of Keep’s engine scared the hell out of her, and she scooted even closer to my body. Last thing I needed was her freaking out around a bend. She’d kill us if Exorcist ambushed Anathema on the 9.

“Rose, trust me.”

“I said
I’m fine
.”

Brew rolled up beside us. “You used to ride with Dad all the time.”

Her body stiffened. My cut crushed inside her palms. Brew didn’t notice. I did, and I knew better than to knock her away from the only thing steadying her.

“I didn’t like it then either. You never noticed.” Rose eyed her brother. “Thorne, I want to leave.”

Brew frowned. Keep shrugged. None of this passive-aggressive bullshit belonged in the fucking club. She bitched at Brew for reasons that hadn’t cleared her own head, and whatever temper tantrum she pitted against her brothers wasn’t getting me any closer to the answers I needed.

Someone set me up.

Exorcist took a shot. Failed. But it wouldn’t be the last time he tried to fill my teeth with lead.

I needed to know who betrayed me. I needed to know why. And most importantly, I needed to know when Ex would fucking try again.

I needed Rose. Sweet and innocent and feeding me information my dick hadn’t given her an opportunity to find yet. If I wanted to figure out how Keep was fucking over Anathema, punishing my Sergeant At Arms and Secretary for beating the brat out of their little sister wouldn’t make my search any easier.

Rose’s stress fueled me with an adrenaline rush that fucked with my head. I needed to hit something. Break some bones. Bloody a nose and squeeze a trigger under a chin.

If I wasn’t careful, I’d feed off her panic and aim for her brothers. While stomping Keep’s junkie head against the sidewalk until he confessed would be my own cloudless heaven, it wasn’t the right time.

I had to get Rose to safety, away from the neon-pink glow of Sorceress’s parking lot. Ex wouldn’t try to hit me again. Rose wasn’t that lucky.

“Hold on,” I ordered. My voice startled her. Made her more of a squeezing liability. I didn’t need her panic, the scratches on my bike, or the guilt of killing the kid on the highway. I patted her leg. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

Was that the only fucking word she knew? 

Jesus Christ. I didn’t care how great her tits were or how many times she was nearly killed in the last hour. Exorcist fucked with me, and they used her to let him escape. Now the damn diva wanted to test me?

Fine
.

I’d show her
fine
.

We roared out of the parking lot, and I throttled the bike through the red line and into a quick, punishing turn immediately outside the club. Rose squealed, and her nails dug into my skin.

Those
were the kitten scratches I wanted.

The roads emptied this late at night. All the better for a good ride. A
fast
ride. The type of speed that punished the highway under our tires and threatened the sleeping neighborhoods with the scream of our engines.

Rose tightened her grip. Either she instinctually knew to move with me, or she wasn’t ready to settle the score between her and the rushing pavement. She kept her mouth shut though. The silence grated my spine.

Her little body bumped against mine over the road, and she clutched me tight enough to bruise. I hit the highway nearing triple digits, and the kid didn’t even make a sound.

What the fuck was wrong with her?  Did she
want
to die? 

Between pissing off her brothers, getting her ass kidnapped, and tempting fate’s cock with her little strip tease, she was lucky the devil hadn’t popped her off yet.

Brew and Keep normally rolled at my side, but they kept closer than normal. As if they watched out for Rose.

She didn’t care. She held on to me on
my
bike. Slept in my bed. Ran to
me
.

What a goddamned mistake she made.

I regretted our speed. It shortened our ride. Less time to enjoy her trembling body pressed against my back. Her fists digging into my cut. The squeeze of her fear against my control of the bike. I owned the road. Punished the asphalt. Dominated the bike and any around me who dared to rebel against my authority on the highway.

No cruiser ever caught me. No car outran me. And no scared little diva clinging to my strength would ever stop me.

We rumbled to Pixie without bloodshed. It wasn’t the relief I was looking for—not for the rage ripping through my veins, the pounding headache clipping my breath, or the pooling blood in my cock which wanted nothing more than to sheath between Rose’s pouting lips once again. I parked behind the safety of the security fence, but I let the bike rumble.

The diva didn’t jump off while it ran hot.

She wiggled against me, finding her balance between my body and the bike. She pushed off, tumbling to the ground.

Her skirt flew up. Lyn dressed her authentically. The white panties covered her, but what lingered beneath tempted me beyond control. She kicked the gravel as she forced herself to her feet. Brew and Keep reached for her. She shoved them both away and chucked the helmet at me.

I wasn’t ready for the string of profanity. She sounded just like Blade.

Usually, that type of disrespect ended with a smack across the smart mouth.

This time, I wanted nothing more than to smack a smart ass.

“What the hell were you doing?” Keep shouted after Rose, but she rushed her little plaid ass into the bar before anyone else got a good look. “You could have killed her.”

And his fucking betrayal wouldn’t end with her bleeding out on the street somewhere?  I sneered, pushing him away with just the shadow of my rage.

“Don’t you ever question me.”

“That’s my sister,” Keep snarled.

“Might be time to start thinking of your brothers instead.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I glanced to Brew. He didn’t have the artificial courage swirling in his veins like Keep.

“Clean yourself up.” I pushed Keep out of my way. “And don’t worry about your sister tonight. I’ll make sure she’s tucked in.”

Neither Darnell liked that. I waited for the attack, for the knife at my throat or the gun at my head. What better time for the traitor to turn than when I threatened his baby sister with a hard cock and every ill-intention that came with it?

Keep swore. Brew didn’t make a move.

I didn’t know what was worse. That someone would betray their club, their brothers, the very ink in their blood and the patch on their back, or that they’d trade their sister’s safety while they reaped the benefits.

But what benefits? 

Drugs? 

Money?

What the hell did Exorcist offer a traitor that I couldn’t give my crew? It didn’t make sense for either to turn. Then again, a strung-out ex-junkie rolling in heroine, meth, and whatever else he used to dirty his body wasn’t a logical man.

But his habit endangered Rose.

I let the door to Pixie slam behind me. My boots rattled the stairs under my steps. She’d know I was coming for her. I wondered if she’d hide. If she’d run into the bathroom and cower locked away like she did last night when her memory terrified her.

I wondered why my cock liked the image of her running scared.

And why my mind tore itself apart at the thought of the kid shaking in fear.

She didn’t lock the door. I’d have kicked it down anyway. The door swung open.

The slap to my cheek was her last fucking mistake.

I grabbed her hand and twisted. She crumpled to her knees. Wasn’t like I was about to break her wrist, but she stared up at me like I would. The baby-bunny eyes widened.

The black and bitter poison of my self-loathing sludged through me. I let her go.

Rose stumbled away. Her skirt covered nothing. She either asked to be taught some respect or she begged to be thrown back on the bed. She needed both.

Deserved none of it.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” I asked. “Rough ride?”

“Why?” Rose hesitantly crawled to her feet. Either she planned on running away or hitting me. Didn’t matter which one she chose. “I
trusted
you.”

“Were you scared?

“What the hell do you think?”

She missed her chance to run. I closed in on her, breathing wild. I stared down at the girl quaking in a leather jacket three sizes too big for her.

She was too goddamned beautiful for any of this.

“Were. You. Scared.”

“
Yes
! I was scared!”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why does it even matter to you?”

Good fucking question. It was one an HMO of therapists, a confessional full of priests, and a dose of LSD would have a hell of a time answering.

She stared at me, chest heaving, every bit of her panicking. She would have screamed if anyone was fool enough to help her.

But who would help her? Rescue her? No one would listen to the little diva this time.

I hated myself for it.

I hated her every caught breath. The way her princess pink lips paled. How she backed away from me, toward the bed, and not because she was ready to let me rip off that ridiculous skirt. It pissed me off, and I strode forward to catch her before any other stupid ideas flittered through her head.

“You don’t get to be scared anymore,” I said.

Rose laughed, too breathy and pitchy for someone as practiced as her. “I don’t
get
to be?”

“No.”

“Well, too bad. I’m pretty fucking scared right now.”

I loomed over her. Rose stared up. She smelled of the road, the outdoors, of leather, and of perfect crisp apple that watered my mouth to taste her. My shadow fell over her. I’d darken even more before I was done.

“I can’t guarantee you aren’t in danger.” I regretted speaking the word so near to her. “But I will
never
, ever hurt you.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because I fucked up. You were right about me. I failed you, and it’s eating me alive.” The words stung. I wanted nothing more than to flay the demon off my flesh for that mistake. “It won’t happen again. You will be safe. You have my word.”

Rose’s eyes watered. I braced for her to run.

She leapt at me instead. Tossed her arms over my neck.

Fucking kissed me like a woman belonging in Sorceress and as desperately as a girl finding her prince charming.

I wasn’t a prince.

I didn’t know the meaning of the word charming.

If she expected me to slay a dragon and jam a glass slipper on her foot, Rose was fucked in more ways than one.

I wasn’t the hero she needed. Or the stately protector. I was the sword. The edge of chaos and the siphon of blood. I crushed. I maimed. I raided.

I took.

If she wanted a knight-in-shining armor, Rose was already lost. What help could I offer? I’d only terrify her.

I wasn’t Prince Charming.

I was the Warlord. The Cursed. The Anathema.

And she was the trophy of my endless conquests.

Rose had no idea what to expect from me. She couldn’t handle my strength. My ferocity. She might have twisted on my lap like a little ballerina, but nothing prepared her for the hell I’d unleash upon her body. I promised Heaven, but what I needed was straight torment. Hot. Fierce. Unyielding. I’d break her, right her, and shatter her again if only to prove exactly what I needed.