Knight (69 page)

She reached for me and I fell over her. My jeans scoured her thighs. She didn’t care. My cut pressed into her chest. She pulled me harder against her. Those wonderful hips rose, and she wrapped her legs over me.

Rose deserved a warm bed and a devoted lover. College and a gig and guitars. A bedroom not tucked within the upstairs of a bar. She deserved none of the nightmares she tried to hide.

But some things she’d never hide. Blood stained everything. It didn’t matter if it was drawn or if it wept from the body. Bleed enough, and even bunny-eyes and chestnut curls were lost to the shadow.

In that moment, her pain cleared. The blood faded. Rose gripped me like I was her damned savior as I delivered her deeper into the hell she tried to escape. I thrust into her as her voice sang my name. The sweetest damn melody reserved for her darkest tormentor. Her body trembled in beautiful agony.

It was more than a man could stand.

More than what could tempt a demon.

Exactly what someone needed to betray the unsheltered heart of someone who needed the most protection.

We came together, a pleasure I didn’t deserve. I lost myself, offering pump after pump of my seed inside a body too pure, too perfect for such intent. She encouraged. Whispered my name. Wrapped her legs tighter around me so I wouldn’t escape.

Like I had a choice.

Not with my damned conscience, not with my unyielding cock, and not with Rose whispering endless gratitude and lusted nonsense under my aching body.

I rolled away. Rose was on me again. Kissing. Murmuring. Touching. Begging.

The cut weighed heavy against my shoulders. I gritted my teeth and ripped it off. Rose shivered and sighed. She thought I stripped for her. To be closer to her. Warm against her.

Fucking compassionate.

I stripped for one reason and one reason only.

I’d fuck Rose without the shadow of Anathema over my body.

She had me until I put the vest back on. Then I’d betray her in the blood of one of her brothers.

And she’d be the one to deliver him to me.

I woke with an empty bed and a raging hard-on.

Both problems.

Both easily fixed.

Rose escaped from my bed without waking me. She was slicker in more ways than one. Normally, I’d be pissed if a woman crashed in my bed after I finished with her.

Every tensing, pulsing, furious muscle in my body wanted nothing more than for Rose to stay in my damned bed.

But she left.

Fucked me raw, sucked me dry, and seized every fucking drop from me during the night. Then, when I finally collapsed, she did it again.

I didn’t practice Catholicism, but no wonder half the world revered a virgin. If I believed in anything but hell, last night was my one conversion to change my ways and lead a life where I might have a chance to be fucked like that again.

I just needed to find the little vixen and toss her in my bed. I told her the first day her brothers brought her to me that she’d be mine. I had a length of rope in the closet and bungee cords packed away. Either would work. I’d strip her down, strap her to the mattress, and then she’d learn the rules.

She didn’t leave without my permission. Ever.

A pulsing cock clouded my thoughts more than a concussion or gunfight.

Being used screwed with my head more.

The little diva exposed herself, grinded against me, kissed with wide-eyes and touched with trembling hands. She didn’t offer herself to me. I didn’t give her the choice. Her clothes ripped off and her legs tossed in the air. I needed one thing and one thing only last night, and that was pounding my way inside her until I couldn’t hear her squeals over the squeaking of the bed and the slamming of the headboard.

So why was I the confused one?

The kid wasn’t a virgin, but she fucked like it was her first time. Like it was her first taste of pleasure, and the shock of it all dominated me under her revelation.

That wasn’t sex. It wasn’t fucking, and it wasn’t just animal lust.

Rose seized a control I didn’t know existed.

But I didn’t feel like someone’s bitch.

I might have grabbed her. Tossed her on her belly, shoved her ass in the air, and taken everything back. Her body. Her wetness. Her aggression. Had it been any other woman, I would have. I had the cock, I made the rules.

Except Rose didn’t need those rules. She knew I could do it. I knew I could do it. I hadn’t hurt her.

But someone else did.

And I wouldn’t rest until I found the son of a bitch and killed him with my bare hands.

My phone blinked too many ones. I stared at the time. The little diva stole both my night and morning. I had no idea what time she gasped her last orgasm, but she succeeded in doing what so many of my enemies wanted. For a while, I was dead to the world. I’d kill to feel that way again.

It wouldn’t take very long.

A cold shower didn’t do shit for my hard-on. My own conscience did that dirty work for me. I washed her apple scent away, dressed, and stared at my face in the mirror.

It wasn’t like I ever held my own gaze for that long, but at least I still had the balls to try. Sex offered a different confidence. I might have accepted a reflection wielding a gun or concealed with a ski mask, but an imagined glimpse of me holding Rose?  That shame burned more than laying down a bike on summer asphalt.

We fucked because we were almost killed, and the adrenaline was a more powerful aphrodisiac than any alcohol or little blue pills. But the only reason Ex pressed his gun into my head was because someone in my club, one of my crew, let it happen.

I had to find out who, one way or another.

And I’d need more than a shower to wipe the grime off me when I was done.

I took one of Anathema’s trucks home. My address technically hadn’t changed since I was a kid. After my mom whored herself to the first suit who happened to wave a five digit credit limit under her nose, she cleared out. My old man got his head blown off ten years back in a drug deal gone bad.

After clearing out the nest of Haitians who pocketed his cut, wallet, and shoved his body in the river, I inherited an estate and all the broken windows, stolen copper pipes, and wood paneling I wanted.

Two blocks away, Brew, Keep, and Blade ran their day-to-days. I didn’t remember Rose much when she was a kid. Bud wasn’t allowed outside. Didn’t blame them. The perverts in that neighborhood might have stolen and traded any of her favors for half a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes.

Ten years changed things. Their house burned to the ground in some drug related, Keep fuck-up.

My house pushed its own daisies. And roses. And whatever else I paid the gardener two-fifty a month to grow.

The green trim around the windows bothered me, but the decorator assured me it blended with the neighborhood
ambiance
. And the hardwood floors would return my investment ten-fold.

I owned a pretty little piece of property with three bedrooms, a finished basement, and a backyard that could lose a toddler. A perfect cover for any rookie Fed looking to stick their dick where it didn’t belong. Even better to store the stuff that didn’t fit in Pixie. The furniture not yellowed by smoke. The clothing not stained with blood.

It was the kind of place Rose would like.

A gun to the head was less dangerous than a thought like that.

I didn’t like the hollow sound of my boots against the barren halls. A whitewashed fence and happy humming little sprinkler system fooled the neighbors, but it wasn’t like my life lended itself to filling any empty frames on the walls.

Rose wanted to get out of Anathema. She begged for it. Cried about it. Suffered through it.

My quiet slice of suburbia would have castrated me if I stayed any longer.

I tightened my hold on the relic I gathered from the attic storage. As much as I hated to do it, even baby bunnies needed pushed from the nest. She wanted out. It’d never happen. She was as much sun-lit kitchenette as I was. Anathema controlled her life and the heat between her legs.

I reminded myself that
everything
I did was for the good of the club.

Still felt like shit for doing it.

I loaded the present in the truck and returned to Pixie without gunfire or being followed. The first time in a while. Almost seemed lonely. At least it let my concussion fester without cracking anything else open. I shouldered the case and pushed through Pixie. The jute-box came alive with music. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who fed the machine quarters.

Rose curled in the corner booth of the bar with her laptop. Fully-dressed, but I wasn’t the only one hoping for a repeat performance of her idiocy at Sorceress. Fortunately, Keep kept most of the men in check.

Gold nursed a beer and a broken nose at the bar while two prospects mopped the floor under a brother’s muddy boots. Rose didn’t look up when I entered. Her cheeks pinked. Bright. I had earned that flush last night. In more places than just her face.

I ignored Keep’s question and stalked to Rose’s table. She did her best to stare at her screen and not me.

Dancing on the bar and shouting
I got fucked
might have been less subtle.

“Here.” I thumped the guitar case on the table. Rose flinched, but her eyes brightened as she examined the tell-tale shape of the present. “Got you something.”

She didn’t try to hide her smile. Her eyes warmed, and she stared at me instead of the case.

“A guitar?” She asked. “Where—?”

“Belonged to my old man. Didn’t do anyone good in storage. You take it.”

Her grin sliced through me fiercer than any rusted shiv. She leapt up and gripped the case. Her fingers stilled over the latches.

“You realize I haven’t had the best luck with guitars lately?”

I edged deeper into the booth, stretching out against the seat. “Then you better take good fucking care of this one. It’s an antique.”

I had no idea if it was or not. Fuck if I knew anything about guitars or music. Majors belonged in the army, minors underground shoveling coal, and accidentals happened when someone didn’t clean their gun right.

My father thought he was better at music than he was, and he bought the best. Rose squealed as she pulled the instrument from the velvet. The soft golden wood blended perfectly with the gentle curls of her hair, tumbling over her shoulder.

“Thorne, this is...” Her smile turned into a grimace as she strummed a note. “Really out of tune.”

I’d break the damn thing. “Fine, I’ll take it back.”

“No, no!” She jerked the guitar away. “I can fix it. It’ll just take a few minutes.”

“Think it’ll work?”

She strummed again. “It has a great sound.”

I shrugged.

“Don’t you hear it?  That’s a really warm note.”

“Sure.”

“No, listen.”

She twisted a fret and held my gaze. The note plucked under her expert hand. Hated to tell her, but unless it revved like 1500 CCs of raw power, I wasn’t going to pick up on any subtleties. I knew what I liked, and I knew what I didn’t. The guitar plinked, but that wasn’t what I wanted. Rose singing, Rose whispering my name, Rose moaning. That was a sound I’d pay good money to hear again.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know how much longer I could ensure she’d be prancing around Pixie and not screaming in one of Ex’s warehouses. That fear kicked my ass on Exorcist’s behalf. I’d have thought I was going soft if Rose’s excited smile hadn’t got me harder than I had been last night. I checked over my shoulder. Keep kept a wary watch from the bar. I had no idea where the fuck Brew went. Probably for the best. Brew had a sober head on his shoulders. I doubted he’d like what I was about to do to his sister.

“Are you sure you want me to have it?” Rose asked.

“Don’t you want it?”

“Yes!” She clutched the guitar close. “It’s a lovely instrument. I just...don’t you want to keep it?  Why are you giving it to me?”

Loaded fucking question, and I stared down the barrel of the gun. No. Cannon. A smile like hers and a night like the last would make me cocoon inside a goddamned turret. I shrugged, and it appeased her. But it did nothing for me.

Why
did
I give her a guitar? 

Christ.

Because I wanted to go to hell, and killing myself wasn’t quick enough. The kid loved music. She sang like an angel, fucked like a demon, and spent every waking minute obsessing over separating her two halves to
free
herself.

She wanted to sing. She needed a guitar. To anyone else in the bar it was a ball-less act of charity. A way to make up for tossing her ass on my bike and terrifying her to safety.

Except I wanted to get closer to her. I
needed
to get closer to her. I couldn’t smoke out the rat on my own. No amount of blood, violence, or threat was going to intimidate men as hard as me.

But a little sister could learn everything I needed, smile and laugh and charm a brother, and then deliver him right into my waiting hand for me to rip out his bleeding heart.