Never Kiss an Outlaw: Deadly Pistols MC Romance (Outlaw Love) (21 page)

“Yeah, Prez. Already told you. Everything between me and this girl, it's real. She ain't just another casual fuck. Believe me, brother, I can get that shit anywhere. You've seen me over the years. I've been a fuck and dump machine. I've been a bastard. I was waiting for the right one to come along. Didn't have a thing to care about except this patch 'til you threw her into my life.”

Dust stroked his chin, rubbing his fingers across the gray slivers in his dark stubble. “Damn, brother. I want to believe you. I really do.”

I held his gaze while I threw my arms around Cora, dragged her tight into my chest. The blade dropped from her hands and hit the floor with a grating crinkle.

Thank fuck. Crisis averted.

“Believe it, Prez. Swear on all my colors, on my oath to this club. If I ever hurt this girl, don't worry about taking off my cock and balls. You can fuckin' gut me. I'll hand you the knife to do it, too.”

I cupped her chin and kissed her. Made sure he was watching every little way I looked at her, feeling the heat in my lips when I crushed them down on hers.

Cora's eyes closed, her lids fluttering, swept up in the raw, wicked storm of the moment. We kissed for a small eternity before I heard him clear his throat.

“Here's what we're gonna do,” he said, waiting 'til I broke the kiss and looked at him. “I'm gonna take you on your word, and hold you to it. You keep her safe, Firefly. Treat her right. You're damned right about this shit being as serious as the oath you swore to your patch. Consequences are just as dire too – you go rat on her, you die.”

We locked eyes. He came closer, stopping a few paces away, serious as a snake eyeballing a rabbit.

“This wouldn't be such a big fucking deal if she were just any pussy. We know damned well she ain't. This girl, she deserves better, more than my buddy gave her before he blew his brains out. You're gonna give it to her, gonna make her smile, or I'll skin you alive from the dick on up.”

Deal.
I nodded, loosening my grip, walking over to him. “Hear you loud and clear, Prez. Cora's part of me, ever since I made her my old lady. Gonna make her my wife. Just as soon as she's ready to wear that ring on her finger permanently.”

“Baby, I already am,” she whispered. “It's never coming off.”

My damned head almost did a 360, I whipped it toward her so fast. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I wasn't last week, but now...it's real. I know it is. When this all blows over, we're going to have a real wedding. We'll be together. Forever, Firefly.”

“You hear that, Prez? I'm gonna be the happiest bastard in the world.”

We kissed again. I could sense the Prez shaking his damned head the entire time. When I finally took my mouth off hers, he picked up his blade and looked at me.

“Get the prospects out here to watch her. Need you to come with me. Intel says the Torches are winding their way through Georgia right now, heading our way. We'll need everything lined up to blow their heads off when they get here. Wouldn't dream of doing it without my Enforcer on the job.”

“Cap'n, you got it. Let's ride.”

* * * *

H
urt like hell saying goodbye. It'd only be for twenty-four hours, maybe several days if Lady Luck decided to be a real bitch to me and the club. Tin and Lion would do great watching the house, yeah, but it should've been me protecting her.

Didn't like turning over control to them. No fuckin' way.

Too bad the Prez and I were the only boys with military combat experience behind us. He'd done his time in the merchant fleet, even fought pirates or some shit before he'd taken the club over when his old man passed the torch.

The Cap'n name stuck around for good reason. I rode behind him, taking the twists and turns through the Smokies in the rain.

Thunder clapped above us. The damned deluge soaked both of us, right through our cuts.

And I loved it. This was the shit I lived for before Cora, and it still got my blood pumping about half as hot as she did.

I'd ride these mountains wild 'til the day I died. Rain, sleet, or even snow. Out here, on the open road, a man was free. His heart strummed along with the engine hurling us through nature. His very life growled in his skin and didn't quit when his bike tore straight over God's green earth.

Speaking of which, everything was becoming a whole lot greener now. Spring was in full swing, making the forests so lush it was almost blinding. Soon, we'd be feeling the humid steam of summer.

Fuck, boy, you'll be a married man by then. Living your first summer as a biker, a bastard, and a husband.

I gripped my bike's handlebars harder as I followed Dust off the curvy exit leading toward Knoxville. Couldn't stop grinning like a goddamned fool, wondering why it had taken this many years to make the future look so bright.

* * * *

“F
lash bangs!” I called out.

“Check.”

“Fresh clips?”

“Check.”

“Bayonets mounted on those fuckin' guns?”

“Yeah, Firefly, they're – aw, shit.” Sixty spat at the ground and held his rifle up.

I yanked it outta his hands and saw it was missing the blade on the end. “This is why we drill,” I growled, walking it over to the big storage lockers where we kept our gear.

If my years in Afghanistan taught me anything about war, it was that you could always beat the other bastards if you were better at killing shit than they were. And all too often
better
meant
organized.

I reached for one of the big dagger shaped bayonets and clipped it to the gun. “Never know when you're gonna exhaust your ammo. If some prick gets the jump, you can tear his fuckin' head off before he does it to you first.”

Sixty nodded as I shoved the rifle into his arms. “We're ready, Firefly. Nobody's getting an edge on this club.”

“Correction, nobody's getting an edge on us if we've got one so big and sharp it'll cut their hands off at the fuckin' stumps.”

Next to him, Crawl chuckled, cleaning his gun. I spun around, giving him the same look my old drill sergeant used to give me.

“Keep going, Chuckles. I'll have you cleaning and polishing all this shit if you think this is a damned joke. Get serious.”

Being Enforcer wasn't just about making sure the weapons were lined up and the bikes were tuned to carry us into battle in the blink of an eye. I also made sure these boys remembered what they were getting into, reinforcing the chain of command.

This life wasn't all about riding, brotherhood, and partying. Every man who'd ever worn the one-percenter diamond on his cut knew we earned it down to the last drop of blood, sweat, and tears.

“Listen to the man,” Skin piped up, laying out a group of fresh nines on a cart. “Numbers only go so far here, and he knows the math better than I do when we've got a rival club out for blood.”

I walked over, inspecting the handguns, ready to slap him on the back. He'd been a better brother since I brought Cora into my life.

Shit, I finally understood everything Skinny boy had gone through with Meg. I respected the hell outta that.

Ready for a brotherly slap, my palm stopped in mid-air when I heard Bingo start barking out back. The big dog always let out a few yips when the Veep was around, but this time it sounded urgent, angry, grinding into a growl a second later.

“The fuck?” Skin started moving as quick as me, and soon the others were behind us.

I slammed the door going out back to our makeshift shooting range with both hands. Damned thing blew open, just in time to see Bingo tearing the shit out of some poor motherfucker's leg.

The stranger rolled on the ground, screaming bloody murder, something black and plastic squeezed in his fist. “Get off, off, off, for the love of fuck!”

Veep came rushing out from the opposite direction. I tackled him first, but Joker wasn't far behind, pulling on his dog's collar to ease him away.

“It's all good, boy. We'll take it from here,” he growled, and then he was next to me, his blade drawn and poised against the bastard's throat.

“How'd you get in here? You with the Torches?” I pulled him by the flannel jacket he had on, shaking the sonofabitch with all my might before I smashed him into the ground again. “Answer me, you piece of shit!”

“What's going on out here?” Prez came walking up a second later, his fists tense at his sides. “Shit,” he said, soon as he saw the shitshow in front of us.

“Don't know, Prez. Bingo caught him wandering in, sneaking around out back. He's got himself a present.” I pried the object outta his hands while Joker put the knife near his wrist, scaring him so shitless he let it go without a fight.

“Christ. It's a fuckin' switch. This motherfucker was rigging up our clubhouse!” I lost my shit.

Coming after Cora, after my brothers, after the place that'd always be home...I pushed him into the dirt and punched his smug face 'til I saw blood smearing my knuckles.

Took the entire crew screaming to make me back off, just short of leaving the bones in his face a broken mess.

“Who. The. Fuck. Sent. You?!” I roared, throwing him into the ground like a goddamned ragdoll, over and over. Didn't stop 'til I heard the fucker trying to gurgle some words through the teeth I'd knocked out.

“Assholesss,” he slurred like a snake. “You're done. All of you.”

“Other way around, shit stain.” Veep pushed his knife against the bastard's belly, and ripped it upward, slicing through the shirt he had on underneath the open jacket.

If he had a Torches tattoo, that shit would be coming off, inch by brutal inch. We'd take ourselves a fuckin' trophy before we put lead in his skull and buried him deep in Smoky Mountain soil.

His chest was clean, except for some shitty looking lantern with a skull inside it, like something a skater kid would wear. I pulled his shaggy blonde hair, jerking his head so hard I could hear his spine creak.

“Better start talking, asshole. Or else Joker here's gonna take your tongue first. You've gotta be a fuckin' prospect if you're not wearing their ink.”

The bastard laughed. Prez just stood over us, watching, his eyes fixed on the asshole's chest. Then the Veep pushed his knife against his throat, ready to start peeling skin.

“He ain't gonna tell us shit unless we make him. I say we get serious, before we're wasting our fucking time. He already upset my dog!”

The knife flipped around in the Veep's hand. Crazy brother was about to let it sink in, somewhere in the man's face, when Dust kicked it outta his hand.

“Hold it, Joker – no! Should've seen it fucking sooner. He's Irish. Muddy Bray Clan. Took me a minute to remember where the fuck I'd seen that shitty ink job before.”

“So what?” I growled, my eyes searching the Prez's.

“So, we kill him, or fuck him up too bad, we'll have the Torches and all this asshole's hitman brothers after us. And you'd better believe they've got an easy road to Knoxville, straight through Charleston or Norfolk. These bastards got themselves a little monopoly going on all the shipyards east side. I remember that shit from my Navy days.”

Fuck.
Goddamn, I hated it when he talked sense.

Not as much as Joker, though, who still looked at the fuckhead like he wanted to skin him alive. Losing the knife didn't matter, he'd have done it with his bare hands if the Prez wasn't holding him back.

I moved outta the way reluctantly, watching as our leader put his boot down on the bastard's chest. “How much they paying you?” Dust asked, murder in his voice. “We'll double it.”

Asshole started laughing again before he answered. “Your little piss trickle of a club? Come on, mate. Everybody across the Atlantic knows the Deadly Pistols have been broke for years – anyone who's heard of you, anyway.”

“Skin – go to the vault and grab a stack,” Prez ordered, grinding his boot deeper against the man's sternum while we waited.

Skinny boy moved fast. Came running back in a minute or less with at least ten big clutched in his hands, two fat, crumpled stacks of cold cash.

“We ain't broke no more,” I said, taking the money from him and shoving it in the fucker's face while his big green eyes bugged out. “Start talking, or you're going home with nothing more than a few broken ribs and bruises to show for it.”

“I'll need more than this, lad,” the man said.

More?!
Wrong fuckin' answer.

My fist went straight into his guts and kept going, reaching underneath his ribs, stopping just short of cracking a couple more. Punched so hard I bruised organs.

I stood up, watching him writhe. Dust nodded, suppressing a smug smile, and he took over the space I'd just vacated, leaning over the bastard with his frigid gray eyes.

“My old man did plenty of biz with the Irish back in the day. We can do it again, but not if we're gonna get ourselves off on the wrong foot. Be a sport and tell me about the Torches' plan.”

“No more blows to the gut, mate. Promise me that,” mafia man growled, his words a harsh rattle.

“Sorry,
mate.
” Dust growled the last word. “Don't make promises I can't keep. I'll make sure you're able to speak clearly for the next few minutes as a sign of good faith. Where's yours?”

“All right, you bloody fucking bastards,” Irish said, staring at the money in my fists. I wanted to finish beating the fuck outta him with it, drown it in his blood. “They'll be here soon. Torches hired me to sneak in and rig up your place, then blow the charges when I got the call that they're coming into town. Maybe it would've killed a couple of you up front, who knows. Definitely would've sent your men scurrying like vermin, scared, straight into their trap.”

Dust wasn't looking at him anymore. He crouched next to the mobster, looking bored, and slowly pulled out his pipe. He lit it, taking a good, long pull before he said anything else.

“Fuckin' amateurs,” the Prez rumbled.

Sixty grinned. Joker and I shared the same dark glance.

“Tell you what, Irish, we'll keep your phone and send you on a ride back to your chaps in the Carolinas or Virginia or wherever the fuck. You'll get half of what my boy Firefly's holding. Take a few hundred to lick your wounds, and give the rest to your bosses. Tell 'em there's plenty more where that came from, long as you cut the Torches out of your deals tomorrow.”