Outlaw's Bride (5 page)

I didn't let her finish.

Five seconds later, she was up against the wall, my lips covering her mouth. I couldn't wait to start humping her bare cunt before I snapped off my belt and pushed down my pants.

“Roman!” she groaned, soon as I brushed her clit, breaking the kiss. “Holy shit.”

Yeah. Holy shit.

I barely had time to stoop down to my pocket for a condom. I had to get the fuck inside this chick, before my balls exploded, before the booze in my system stopped clouding my brain long enough to think.

I couldn't fuck her if I felt the guilt tugging at my heart. And just thinking about the guilt at all pissed me the fuck off.

Sally and me weren't shit. Fuck, she didn't even write me once while I was in the pen, and seeing her show up without telling me what the hell she really wanted poured salt in the gashes she'd left behind.

No woman's got any business doing that shit to me. And the only way they'd get away with it was if I let 'em.

I had to put a stop to it by fucking myself blind. I had to get back in the game, get my cock good and wet, pump my loads into a pussy or two that didn't mean shit to me, and never would.

Thank fuck for Twinkie.

Snarling, I grabbed her pig tails, jerking her head up over my shoulder while I slid inside her. My hips hit auto-pilot as soon as her hot cunt swallowed me up.

Surprisingly tight for a whore. It would do, and I'd do her, use her pussy to medicate myself for the  night with a little help from Doctor Jack.

I pistoned hard and fast, feeling the fire building in my balls. It took her a minute to fully process the fact that I was fucking her. Yeah, me, the six foot five, totally silent asshole who never had one night with a whore in this clubhouse in all the weeks he'd been home.

Her fingernails wrapped around my shoulders, just below the blades, digging in little by little. These girls were used to getting fucked. Showing them new tricks wasn't easy.

Fuck if I didn't make her come, though. Maybe she blew her gasket on the novelty of fucking me, or maybe it was because I was just that goddamned good.

She moaned my name a couple more times, sucked at my throat, making me growl like a demon in her ear while my hips went berserk. Her ass slapped the wall over and over, and I seriously wondered if I'd put her butt through the goddamned sheetrock.

Didn't stop me. Didn't make me give up a single second. It'd take a raging bull to stop me after this, buried balls deep, the first cunt I'd had in almost two fucking years. The first one I had since...

Sally.

Her name crackled into my fucked up brain like a phantom, ruining it just as Twinkie's pussy tightened like a rubber band around my cock.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She convulsed. I couldn't hold back. I pinned her down, straining the wall worse than ever, listening to her breath hitch while my balls throbbed, ready for release.

I came into the condom, trying like hell to squeeze the rage outta my body. But it wouldn't fucking leave. She'd buried it too fucking deep, and emptying my nuts in this whore wasn't doing shit except scratching a temporary itch.

Damn if I didn't scratch it raw. My body slapped hers against the wall 'til I couldn't see, couldn't feel anything except the wave of fire, hate, and frustration rippling through me, but never leaving me as easy as the seed flowing into that sheath wrapped around my length.

Fuck me.

Her hips were still trembling against mine when I pulled out. I let go, watching her sink to the floor, knocked into a sex coma.

Okay, maybe there was a little pride in that. Just not enough to scrub the dirt from my skull.

“Get up,” I growled. “Clean up in the bathroom and get the fuck out. I need to sleep.”

“Wait, what? You don't want me spending the night?” Those big blue eyes made me wanna punch the wall.

Cruel fucking reminders. That was exactly what they were, dark gems telling me she'd never be the chick I really wanted wrapped around my dick, even if they had a few things in common.

“You heard me. Go.” Grabbing her pants off the floor, I threw them at her, and pointed to the small bathroom attached to my room.

She pouted. I watched her turn around and pull up her panties, then the torn jeans she always wore around the clubhouse.

That hollow feeling hit me as I eyeballed her all the way to the door. Before closing it, she shot me one last pitiful look, as if to say
asshole
and
is this it?
all at once.

“Yeah, it's fucking it,” I growled back quietly, once the door clicked shut. “That's all I've got to give. You're just another fuck. Everything she should've been too.”

I walked to my bathroom and ripped the small door underneath the sink open. There was a third of amber whiskey left in the bottle there. I popped the cap and guzzled it, relived there was still some sweet fire in this world that could numb the bullshit.

Maybe I fucked up giving Sally the cold shoulder. She definitely did keeping her distance for two goddamned years, when every fucking day was a struggle to watch my back and stay breathing.

Prison doesn't give a man do-overs. You either play it careful, work the gangs inside, and avoid the bloodthirsty fucks who wanna shank your guts in the shower, or you leave in a body bag.

I walked out without a scratch. I'd never had much use for all that touchy-feely bullshit about emotional trauma, but damn if I couldn't feel the damage underneath my skin. Prickly, savage, and relentless.

I had to let go. I needed to get the fuck on with my own life. I understood crazy, and being obsessed with Sally was fucking it.

Staying wrapped up in some chick I had a messy fling with almost two years ago was nothing short of downright
loco.
I didn't give a shit how many empty whores I'd fuck, how many bottles of Jack I'd suck down, or how many times I'd feel my dick twitching with a hunger that wouldn't be satisfied by anything less than Sally's hot cunt tucked around it.

I'd screw my head on straight and serve this club. The Grizzlies MC marked the beginning and the end of my entire life, and pouring all my focus into it hadn't failed me yet.

The show had to go on. I'd fight like hell for my brothers before I fought for her after she stabbed me in the back.

And if spilling more cartel blood wouldn't silence the stir crazy ache in my veins, then I'd sure as shit find something that would. Crawling back to the woman I was dead set on walking away from forever wasn't an option.

“S
ally! Turn that damned thing off!” I barely heard Norman shouting over the tractor's rumble.

It wasn't until he ran right in front of me that I slammed on the breaks.

Jesus.
The machine snorted, jerking to a stop less than a foot away from him – too damned close for comfort.

My cousin just grinned like we were playing a game of bumper cars and waved. “Come on. Get off that thing. We need to talk.”

I hoped to God he wasn't going to ride me about coming out here an hour late again – especially when I'd been up with Caleb half the night. My rambunctious baby still woke up at the craziest times. This past year, I'd forgotten what it was like to sleep through a solid eight hours, much less a whole night.

We didn't have time for petty arguments. Harvest was just around the corner, and soon we'd be prepping, packaging everything we could for the market, and then winterizing the place.

“What's up?”

The smile on my cousin's face melted. Crap, now I knew something was wrong. He was rarely this serious, and whatever had him ruffled probably didn't involve me dragging my feet on too little sleep.

“Norm? Is something going on?” I prodded him when he didn't answer.

“It's Greg, our rodeo boy. You know how he spends a lot of time out camping in Modoch?”

Of course. I didn't understand what the hell he was getting at with our best guy, unless...
oh god.

My stomach dropped about a thousand feet. Had he screwed off too much? Did my cousin want to fire him?

Surely, he wouldn't be that crazy. It wasn't like Greg lit the field on fire or something. We'd be sunk without his cattle experience.

I couldn't take the suspense. I had to take him down from disaster.

I shot Norm a cold look and pursed my lips. “Don't tell me – you want him out? What's he done?”

Norman cocked his head. “Nah, it's nothing like that. The kid's doing a wonderful job when he's actually punching the clock.”

“Then?”

“It's what he's seen up there that I'm interested in. The kid's been seeing lots of crap flying at night. Foreign guys prowling around, burying shit in the forests. Those parks are arid and sparse, let me tell you, but they make damned good hiding places because they're so isolated. If he hadn't been up there, I wouldn't have known how to make heads or tails of anything.”

“Huh?” Confusion fogged my brain. “I don't get it. What's that got to do with our farm?”

Norman shot me a stern glance, tight lipped as ever. “Walk with me.”

I had no choice but to follow him. He acted like he was sitting on the biggest secret in the world, and something about that turned my stomach into knots.

We got in the truck – the same clunker still chugging away after Roman's repair that fateful summer so long ago – and drove down the narrow path leading to our property's edge. We hardly ever came out here.

The fields were no good for growing or grazing past a certain point. This was dead land, and we'd never had the time or resources to till it up and revive it.

“There!” He hit the brake, and the truck jerked to a stop next to a dusty field full of brittle weeds. Norman rolled down the window and stuck his hand out, pointing furiously at the ground, right where it formed a ditch between the rusted barbed wire and the no man's land beyond.

I strain in my seat to sit up, scanning the ground. When I saw it, I felt like I'd taken a turn down Weird Street.

Something resembling a trap door laid in the ground, covered only by a thin layer of sandy Redding dust.

“What the hell?” I popped the door and clambered out, crossing the road, approaching the strange compartment I'd never seen before.

It shouldn't have been there. It shouldn't have been
real.

Norm couldn't reach me before I crouched on the ground and ripped it open. I had to jerk hard, tugging with both hands, until the pressure holding it shut gave.

The cavern below was surprisingly deep. Dark, too. My eyes needed a few seconds to adjust, peering through the cobwebs and dust.

I didn't see anything obviously dangerous. It should've been a relief, but it wasn't. I reached in, feeling around. The pit was deep, about the right dimensions for a grave, and my arm burned before my fingers brushed the ground.

I slid forward, digging my toes into the earth for support. Deeper, deeper...both hands touched something, got a hold, and pulled. I jerked myself up with a small box, and the rattle inside it said it wasn't empty.

“Shit! Be careful!” Norm must've said it about five times. “You're gonna fall in.”

I ignored him.

About a minute later, the contents were sprawled out in a small circle around me.

Old, wrinkled pages torn from an atlas. A sturdy hunting knife. A simple flip phone from the early 2000s, and it looked worn enough to really be that old too. A small booklet was taped to the map. I pulled it off and thumbed through it, seeing a few basic phrases in English and Spanish.

All of them were things like
hands up, down on the ground, don't move, don't make me shoot.
If I had to guess, I'd say it came from the Mexican military, judging by the big blocky text and sharp looking crests on the front and back.

Of course, there was no good reason for legitimate soldiers to be out here in northern California. Everything here was too fresh to be a time capsule, and too weird to be anything official. The only thing that made sense turned my blood to ice.

Cartel.
Nothing else made sense.

“Sally, Christ! Be careful with that junk.” Norman panted. “Greg already showed me everything this morning. There's no guns or grenades in there, but hell, it'd be nice if you gave me a chance to tell you.”

“Sorry, Norm.” I looked up. “What's the deal? You're acting like you want to leave this crap in the ground, on
our
property.”

My cousin shook his head, his salt and pepper hair bobbing in the summer breeze. “You're damned right I do. This stuff could've been hiding underneath our noses for months. We don't know if or when the owners are coming back. What do you think they'll do if they realize we've been screwing around with their stuff?”

Damn.
My heart beat five times faster when his words sunk in.

Jesus, if this was what it looked like, the cartel on the prowl, then our farm wasn't safe anymore. I'd read enough brutal stories to know what happened to anyone who got in their way, or just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Whoever buried this crap out here wanted to keep it a secret. I didn't know much about the criminal underworld, but I understood men who killed and smuggled for a living would do
anything
to stay in the shadows.

They wouldn't hesitate to hurt me, Norm, or – God forbid – my Caleb. I thought about shadows descending on his crib late one night, all while a dark hand smothered me, pulled me away from my son, an ice cold knife pressed to my throat.

Jesus, no. I can't let it happen. I won't.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I boxed up everything, and then pushed the crap back into the spider hole. I flipped the door shut, listening to the loud
bang
as it hit the frame.

Norm threw his hands up. “Dammit, Sally, you've gotta be more careful than that! Just looking at that stuff might tip somebody off. We've been poking our noses where we shouldn't, and if those bastards find out...”

He didn't need to say it, and he knew it. We'd both imaged about a dozen brutal possibilities by now.

“I'm just following your example, cousin. You said yourself you'd looked in there before I did. Maybe you should take your own advice before you decide to get up my ass.”