Move the Sun (Signal Bend Series) (20 page)

She head-
butted him.

“Christ!” Stagge
ring back, he dropped his hold on her fist and put his hand to his forehead. He still had his hand wound in her ponytail, and he’d wrenched her head around when he backed up, but she swung with her just-freed right and punched him in the face. That made him let go of her completely, and she jumped off the counter and backed out of the kitchen.

He charged at her and reached for her arm, but she spun out of his way. She noticed that he was trying to contain her, not hit her. That answered her question of whether this was a fight or foreplay
, and she adjusted her defense, ignoring the opening he’d given her. He lunged at her again, and she let him catch her arm. He yanked it behind her back and dragged her against his chest. When he slammed his mouth on hers, she bit his lip, tasting blood.

“Ah! Damn!” He reared back, licking his wounded lip. He reached for her free hand, but she spun again, eluding him and bre
aking his hold on her other arm as well. She backed up as he came for her. He was grinning wildly. “You are a hot-ass little bitch, you know that? I’m gonna fuck you into next week.”

He grabbed her arm again and swung her around so that she was facing away from him. She tried to spin, but he caught her other arm, too. He’d acquired a keen understanding of her flexibility in the weeks they’d been together, and he folded both arms behind her, holding them tight against her back with one large fist. Then he shoved her over the back of the couch. With his free hand, he tore her hiking shorts and underwear down, letting them drop around her ankles. Then his rough fingers were pushing between her legs from behind, shoving into her. “Jesus fuck, baby, you’re always so damn wet for me. I love how you love it rough like this.”

Needing more from him, she struggled against his hold, and he pushed her arms up higher on her back. “You’re gonna have to wait, Sport. I’m not done here.”

Then his fingers were on her clit. He was rubbing hard on her, almost violently, and she
was ready to come almost immediately. She cried out, “God, yeah! Fuck, Isaac, fuck!”

Then his fingers were gone, and she could hear him opening his belt and jeans with one hand. He hadn’t let go of her arms. She was losing feeling in them, but she didn’t care.
She needed to get fucked, and now. Her bigger concern was how he was going to get a condom on one-handed. She turned her head. “Condom?”

Leaning over her, his mouth against her ear and his cock hot and hard against her ass, he said, “Don’t need one.” He stood back up, and his hand was between her legs again, inside her, then dragging along her cleft, wetting her. When he pushed
his fingers—at least two—firmly past her anus, she gasped and bucked, so close to orgasm she thought the unmet need might actually kill her.

He bent over her back again
, his fingers pumping and flexing in her, and he rumbled in her ear. “You like that, baby? You want me to fuck your ass?”

“Yes! Fuck! Please, Isaac, I need to come!” She bucked against his fingers, trying to get enough stimulation to get over. Then his fingers were gone
again, and his cock was filling her core. He thrust several times—too many times, taking too much risk without a condom, but she was in a frenzy now, millimeters or milliseconds or whatever measurement was appropriate from the edge of her climax, and she couldn’t find breath to stop him—and then he was out and pushing into her ass. He didn’t go slow this time; this time he just pushed right in, and it was intense and just over the tipping point of pain. She screamed. And then she was coming, her whole body, even her voice, pulsing with it. He hadn’t even moved inside her yet.

She heard him whisper, “Oh my God, baby. God, that’s so tight. God. God.” But he didn’t come. When she was done, he pulled out of her, fast and completely hard, making her scream again in pleasurepain.

Isaac released her arms then and picked her up, carrying her down the hall to the bedroom. He threw her on the bed and dropped down on top of her, claiming her mouth in a ferocious kiss. She kissed him back just as hard, sucking the blood from his lip where she’d bitten him. He growled and pushed back onto his knees, fetching a condom from his wallet. She’d lost her shorts and underwear in the living room, so she spread her bare legs wide and waited for him.

When he was wrapped, he entered her powerfully, fast and to the hilt, making her arch off the bed at the deep fullness of him inside her. Damn, she’d never felt anything like him.

His eyes were intent on hers. “Fucking you is like nothing I’ve known before, baby. You fit me like you were made for me. I can feel you everywhere.”

Pounding away inside her, he yanked her t-shirt and bra up, exposing her breasts. He shifted back to his knees, pulling her partway onto his lap, and worked her nipples the way she liked. He’d known
from the first time just what she wanted. Firm pressure. He pulled and pinched just right, until she was bucking on him, feeling another wave of ecstasy mounting.

“Suck me, Isaac. I want your mouth.” He growled and gathered her int
o his arms. She arched backward over his hold, giving him access, and his mouth latched onto her breast like a starving babe. “Harder. Harder. Oh, fuck, yeah.” She drove her hips down on him, taking him as deep into her core as she could, holding him as tightly as she could, striving, striving. He groaned loudly, clutching her closely, and bit down on her breast as he came. The feel of his cock pulsing inside her and his teeth bearing down on her sent her over, too, and she sank her nails into his shoulders as she screamed again.

When they could relax, Isaac laid her tenderly down and eased out of her. He got up from the bed and dealt with the condom. Then he stripped—he’d even still had his boots on—and returned to her. He help
ed her out of her t-shirt and bra and pulled her close to rest her back on his chest.

They were quiet, regrouping together. Lilli felt calmer than she thought she would, after the conversation they’d had—the one they were still in the middle of, in fact. Then, out of the blue, Isaac said. “I’m bringing you to the clubhouse. You and I are going to talk to Showdown
. He’s the brother I trust most; he’s the one I go to for advice. We need a head that’s not so deep in this. Because Lilli, I am not fuckin’ losing you. We will find a way out of the mess. I need you to trust me, baby. Please.”

Lilli was tired. She knew she shouldn’t. All of her training, her loyalty, everything told her that it was wrong to bring in anybody else, much less a whole motorcycle club. The greatest risk to a mission like hers was the people who knew about it. The risk increased exponentially with each person. What she should do is eliminate the threat.

What she
would
do is what Isaac asked. She wanted him. If there was a way that she could keep him, then she’d take the risk and trust him. She sent up a little prayer to a god she’d stopped believing in when she buried her father, asking that if she was wrong, others didn’t pay the price with her.

She shifted on his chest so that she could see his face—his gorgeous face that she’d come to love so much, with his astute green eyes. She ran her finger along the scar across his cheek. “Okay. But tell me where he is.”

“Wyatt and Ray are off on a deep woods camping trip. He’s out of reach, but he’ll be back in a couple of weeks. You don’t have to go anywhere, Sport. He’s still around.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Isaac parked in front of the clubhouse, and Lilli and he dismounted. Damn, he loved riding with her wrapped around him. Even with all the shit going down, what he really wanted to do right now was pull her back into the nearest dorm room and fuck the sense out of her. Again. He couldn’t, of course; the kind of trouble they had wouldn’t wait any longer. But when she took off the helmet that was now hers and ran a hand to smooth her ponytail, he couldn’t resist dragging her up against his body and kissing her until he felt her almost sag into his embrace.

He had to fix this. He had to find a way to clear a path for Lilli to do what she needed to do with Ray. He believed her story; the first thing he’d known about her was that she was honest—even while she was secretive, she managed to be honest. So he had no doubt that Ray had done the fucking awful thing that she said he’d done. Isaac wanted him dead for fucking with Lilli; he needed no other provocation than that. But it was the squad of lost soldiers that he knew could turn the club to her side. Against one of their own. Because Wyatt? Wyatt would never turn on Ray.

Wyatt was the older brother. They’d grown up in a tough house, with a hard father and a weak mother. A lot like Isaac’s house—and not so few other houses in this part of the world. Country life could be hard and austere. Men worked until they were bone weary and drenched in sweat. Then they drank and thought about how they had to do it again the next day. Then they went home angry and spoiling for trouble.

What was different about Ray and Wyatt, though, was that Ray had trouble keeping out of
their father’s way. He never seemed to learn when to lie low. Sometimes, it seemed like Ray took pains to
provoke
their dad. And then Wyatt would step between them and take the brunt. Wyatt always took the brunt. He was offered a football scholarship to Nebraska, but he wouldn’t leave Ray behind, so he turned it down. Ray went to college instead, going ROTC.

Wyatt worked the family farm with his father and lived in a little cottage he built on the property, some short distance from the main farmhouse he’d grown up in. Ray had been in the service for
sixteen years, but he’d come home, what, a year or so ago? He’d moved into a ramshackle hut a couple of towns away and kept mostly to himself, making money doing odd jobs as they came up, but mainly letting Wyatt take care of him, seeing to it he had groceries and whatever else he needed. Isaac had only seen him a few times, when Wyatt dragged him to Friday nights to try to get him to have fun. Ray had gotten very weird and twitchy. Everyone assumed it was something that happened in the war. Now Isaac knew that was true.

He took Lilli’s hand and headed to the door. Almost everyone was here; work shifts had recently ended, and the Horde always came together for a couple of drinks, at least, before those who had families went back to them. So Isaac knew he was about to create a stir. Most of the Horde had met Lilli and seen her with Isaac, but
it had been at least fifteen years since he’d walked into the clubhouse with a woman. He brought her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. She smiled at him.

“It’s gonna be okay, Sport. We’re gonna work this.”

She huffed dryly, not quite a laugh. “One way or another, yeah. We are.”

No. Not one way or another. There was only one way. With them on the same goddamn side. He would not lose her. He never thought to have this; he never thought he wanted it. But he had it, this love, this
binding
with another soul, and he was not giving it up. Fuck no. He would not betray her.

He could not betray his club, though, either. These men, their families, this town—all his responsibility, and he would never shirk it. So there was only one way. The club had to believe her, and they had to agree that Ray deserved to die.

He gave Lilli’s hand a squeeze and opened the clubhouse door.

When they walked in, heads turned as usual, to see and greet their president. But when they saw Lilli, the room got quiet. Horde, girls, and hangers-on, literally everyone in the room eventually was watching Isaac walk through the room they called the Hall. He turned to see that Lilli was smiling slightly, looking confident. But she was also holding his hand just a tad more tightly. He squeezed back and decided that they wouldn’t walk straight through and get to business. Showdown was at the bar; Isaac led Lilli there.
The Horde who’d met her nodded cordially or lifted their drinks her way. Slowly, people turned back to what they were doing.

Rover was working behind the bar. When he wasn’t around, people helped themselves, but he knew he was expected to serve
if he was in the Hall. Now, he came straight up to Isaac.

“Just a couple of Buds, Rove.” Rover nodded and turned to the bar fridge. Still holding Lilli’s hand, Isaac leaned toward Show.
“After this drink, we need to talk.” Show gave him a quizzical look, but nodded and took a pull from his own beer. Rover brought their beers; when Lilli took hers with a bright smile and a softly spoken thanks, she turned to lean her back against the bar. Isaac watched her as she took in the Hall. Her expression took on a rapt cast as her eyes fell on the far corner of the room. He realized what she was seeing and turned around himself to look.

For the most part, the Hall looked like a giant rec room
where a bunch of mostly uncouth men hung out. The bar, which was a big, ugly thing with tufted orange vinyl up the sides (and for which Isaac was not in any way responsible—it predated him by decades) and stools upholstered with the same orange vinyl; a large pool table with a blue felt top; a couple of arcade video games and an old pinball machine; several big leather couches and chairs arranged in front of an 80-inch TV mounted on the wall; and a few four-top tables and chairs. The wall décor was lighted beer signs, bike posters, sexy pinups, an oversized bulletin board covered in snapshots, and a wall of framed certificates and plaques of town appreciation. The walls were cheaply paneled, the concrete floor covered in peeling, cracked linoleum. Everything well used, nothing remarkable.

But in the corner Lilli was fixed on was a large chess set, the board itself the surface of a table. The pawns were each
five inches tall. The kings and queens, the largest pieces, were each ten inches tall. A game was in progress on the board. Isaac could tell that Lilli knew he’d made the set. He was pleased to see her rapt focus; he was proud of that work.

Chess sets were among the work he did that actually made him some
real money. Depending on the wood he used and the carving and turning choices he made, he could get hundreds of dollars for a set that took him a couple of days to make and less than a hundred bucks in materials. He’d once done a set on special order that had taken him a week of fairly focused work, and had netted him a couple grand. But the work Lilli was fixed on was a labor of love. Isaac considered it art. The pieces were turned in an abstract style, and no two pieces, not even the pawns, were identical. The woods he’d chosen were elaborately grained and burled, and he’d spent a very long time picking the right wood, the right orientation of grain, for each piece. He’d made the set over months, when he had time to just play in his shop. It had been a kind of therapy, started right after his father died, when he’d taken over the head of the table.

Lilli turned to him, “Jesus, Isaac. That’s beautiful.
Can I—?” She gestured her desire to take a closer look.

“Sure—that’s an actual game in progress, though, so it’d be good to leave the pieces where they are.” He went with her as she crossed the Hall.

“Who’s playing? You?” She brushed her fingers over the white queen, made of a perfect piece of spruce. She was a beauty; Isaac knew it—all spirals and latticing.

“Told you chess was my game. Show and I have one going pretty much all the time. None of these other assholes has the head for chess.” He said that loudly enough for the room to hear him, since he was giving them shit. A lot of the men were smart enough, he thought, but they were mostly the kinds of guys who liked their games loud and drenched in booze. Poker was their game. They all knew to keep their paws off the board, though.

Isaac moved behind Lilli and put his free hand on her hips. He kissed the base of her neck, and she leaned back into him. He knew what the room was seeing. He wasn’t touching her rhetorically, but he was glad of the message nonetheless. He kissed slowly up the sleek line of her neck, and she tipped her head to the side to give him full access. When he reached her ear, he whispered, “You play?”

She turned into his kiss, her head resting against his shoulder. “I know how the pieces move, but no, I’ve never really played.”

“You should, Sport. You’d be great at it. Your mind works the right way.” The shit with Ray rising again to the fore of his thoughts, Isaac pressed his lips to her temple. “C’mon, let’s talk to Show.” He put his bottle to his lips and drained it, then he took her hand and led her back. He nodded toward the office to Show, who drained his beer and came off his stool to follow them.

When the three got back to the office, Isaac led Lilli to the couch against the back wall and sat down next to her. Left with the choice to sit three on the couch, stand, or sit in Isaac’s desk chair, Show, after a quick pause, sat in the chair. That was okay with Isaac. He had no need to remind Show who was in charge, and he wanted to be close to Lilli.

“We got ourselves a problem, Show. I need you to hear Lilli out. Can’t leave this room, though. Stays between us three until we’re ready to do what we decide to do.” Without a word, Showdown nodded and turned to Lilli, waiting for her to say her piece. With an uncertain glance at Isaac, she did. She told the story almost exactly as she’d told him. Isaac got the sense that it was the only way she could tell it, almost as if she were reading back a transcription.

Isaac watched Show as Lilli spoke. His VP was
several years older than he, and the smartest man Isaac knew. He would have made a good president, too, but he was too smart to want it. Getting him to agree to be VP had taken Isaac a lot of effort. But from the time he was a teen, it was Show he could talk to, Show who had the right view on things. He was the kind of guy who sat back and saw everything. He wasn’t slow to act when action was needed, but he never acted simply for the sake of the action. He was quiet and thoughtful. He’d been in the club for a long time, and he’d seen some heavy shit, but he was content running the feed store and going home at night to his little house, and spending the evening with his wife and three daughters.

Isaac was thoughtful, too, and he worked hard to lead with his head and not his fists, but his temper was much hotter than Show’s, and when provoked, he did things like shove scissors into the hand of a shithead realtor. Said realtor was playing nice now, seemed like, after Show had talked him down and brought him Candy. Distract him with shiny things, indeed.

Now Show sat quietly and listened, never interrupting Lilli as she told the story all the way through to how she knew what Ray had done. Isaac saw his face change, from a look of curious interest, to much more rapt interest, to sympathy and shock, and finally to something Isaac couldn’t quite identify—or, rather, something Isaac had never found the apt word for. Show was running the scenarios.

Finally h
e focused on Lilli and said, “Pardon me for this, darlin’.” He turned to Isaac. “You believe it all, then? That’s heavy shit to throw down, not much evidence. I’m going to speak plainly and say it needs to be your brain doing the believing, and not some other part.”

Isaac would pulp any other man who suggested such a thing, but Show was doing his job. “No doubt, Show. At all.”

Showdown nodded. “Good enough for me. Won’t be good enough for the club, though. I don’t see it. Lilli’s new in town and doesn’t even know the whole club. Her word against a brother’s—won’t be enough.” He leaned toward Isaac. “Brother, you know that’s true. If she was with any other of us and brought this story here, you would need more.”

Lilli nodded and started to stand up. Isaac’s arm shot out almost without his realizing it, and he pinned her where she sat. He knew what she was thinking. “Easy, baby. We’re not done yet.
Wyatt and Ray are gone for two more weeks at least. Can’t do anything until then. We have time to work this.” To Show he said, “Her word and my faith in it is enough for you. Between you and me, it’ll be enough for Bart and Len, too. Don’t need a unanimous vote. Just need one more.”

Show sat back in the chair. “You’re talking about moving to kill a brother’s blood on a split vote. That could tear the club apart, right in the face of this Ellis shit.
You ready to take that risk?”