She broke away again, her lips plump and swollen from his kiss. “I should go … I was just leaving…”
Deeper. Rougher.
He slid one hand through her hair, tugged her head back, and held her still as he fed off her hidden desire. Her hands came up, pressed against his chest. Holt tensed, thinking she would push him away. Instead, her arms wrapped around his neck and she pulled him closer, straining upward as she kissed him back with a passion that belied her words. She wasn’t leaving. Not now.
Not ever.
Holt backed up to the couch, pulled her down with him until she straddled his lap, her knees on either side of his hips, the curve of her sex pressed tight against his aching shaft. One hand on her nape, holding her to him, the other around her waist, he plundered her mouth, brutalizing her lips as his need spilled out in a deep groan. His cock strained painfully against his fly, and his fingers tightened against her ass, her jeans rough against his fingers as he rocked his hips, grinding against her pussy.
“Oh God, Holt. You’re so hard,” she breathed. “So rough. I like it. I want more. Give me more.”
His control began to slip, his kisses became deeper, harder, his hands on her body tighter, clutching. Rough. Wild. Good for the skanky bitches he met at the clubs, or the club whores who knew what he liked and were happy to give it. Not good for a woman whom he was beginning to suspect didn’t know what the hell kind of box she’d just opened.
Fuck me.
“Darlin’,” he gritted his teeth, released his grip on her body. “Last chance. Unless you want to take this further, you’d better get off my lap. It’s been a long fucking time…”
“Not as long as me.” She pulled away, her face flushed, lips pink and swollen. “Maurice and I were waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” He cupped her breast in his palm, gently squeezed the soft weight, brushed his thumb over her nipple peaked beneath her clothes. She moaned and leaned forward, pressing her breast into his hand. What man could lie beside this woman night after night and not want to fuck her multiple times?
“I guess … for things to be right. Serious. But they never were, and after awhile it just stopped being an issue.”
“Sex isn’t an issue, darlin’. Not for a man. And not if he’s got a beautiful, curvy woman like you lying beside him in the bed. Only issue is how many times he’s gonna make you come and how loud he’s gonna make you scream.”
A smile tugged her lips. “More compliments.”
He slid his hand under her shirt and flicked the catch of her bra. “Not saying it to be nice. Saying it so you know how this is gonna play out, if that’s what you want.”
Her breath caught when he pushed her bra up and stroked a finger along the curve of her breast. So soft. So warm.
“I don’t know if this is what I want. I just broke up with Maurice. You’re a biker. And you’re injured. Maybe it’s not right.”
He brushed his lips over hers. “Then why are you still sitting on my lap?”
* * *
The roar of a motorcycle shattered the silence.
Naiya slid off Holt’s lap, her heart pounding now for a different reason. Holt ran for the window. “Jesus H Christ. How the fuck do they keep finding us?” He saw her reach for her bag and shook his head. “Leave it, darlin’. We gotta run.”
“We’ll have no clothes, no food. And your cut…” Heart racing, Naiya grabbed the backpack and shoved Holt’s cut inside. Then she raced to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water and a few apples. As an afterthought, she grabbed a kitchen knife. Not that she would ever stab anyone, but it was good to be prepared.
“Leave the fucking cut. I’m done with the Sinners.” Holt holstered his gun and tugged on his shoes. “Whatever is missing, we’ll have to wing it.”
“The whole winging it thing is starting to get to me.” Naiya fastened her bra and slid the backpack over her shoulders. “Ever since meeting you I’ve been more impulsive than I’ve ever been in my life.”
“Gimme the pack.” Holt held out his hand.
“You’re barely able to walk, much less run.” She tightened the shoulder straps. “You don’t need the added burden of the pack.”
Holt scowled. “Pack. Now. I’ll not have a woman carrying anything for me that I can carry myself.”
“Seriously?” Naiya clipped the chest strap above her breasts. “This isn’t the Stone Age. I go to the gym. I work out. What’s the point of lifting weights if I don’t use my muscles?”
“What muscles?” Holt stalked toward her, his hand outstretched. “You’re small. Soft.”
“Statistically speaking, men are generally stronger than women,” Naiya said. “However, right now, given your current condition, I suspect I have more stamina than you, and you’ll need all your energy just to keep up with me. As a result, it makes sense for me to keep the backpack and for you to get your ass in gear.”
“Christ. Gimme the damn pack!”
The cabin vibrated with the rumble of motorcycles, and Naiya’s heart drummed in her chest. She yanked open the back door and looked over her shoulder. “Come and get it.”
She took off down the path leading into the forest, Holt close on her heels, shouting directions as they pounded their way along the dirt trail. She heard the high-pitched rev of an engine and caught her breath.
“They’re coming down the trail on their bikes. We’ll never outrun them.”
Holt passed her at a run, reached back, and grabbed her hand. “I walked the trails when we got here. A couple of them are too narrow for their bikes. This way.”
Chest heaving, she ran behind him, struggling to keep up with his long strides. If this was Holt injured, she couldn’t imagine how fast he could go if he were well.
The rumble of bikes vibrated through the forest, silencing the birds. Holt veered off the main path to an overgrown trail, barely visible through the underbrush. After fifty feet, the trail angled down, and Naiya stumbled, dropped to her knees in the dirt.
“Up.” Holt yanked her arm, and pulled her up. Sweat soaked her back beneath her pack, dripping off her forehead as she stumbled behind him. Every breath burned in her lungs. Although she ran three or four mornings a week, she had never run like this—full on, flat out, every muscle in her body straining—it almost made a joke out of her morning jog. Part of her thrilled at being pushed to her limit, and yet this wasn’t recreation. She knew what was waiting for her back at the Black Jack clubhouse and she couldn’t go through it again.
She kept her head down and followed Holt’s feet, stepping where he stepped, jumping when he jumped. Despite his injuries, he kept up a good pace, although he was breathing as hard as she was.
Holt skidded to a stop when they reached the lake at the end of the trail. “Boat launch.” He pointed along the shore.
Naiya groaned, wavered on her feet. “I don’t think—”
Holt unclipped the strap across her chest and tugged the pack off her shoulders, heaving in his breaths. His hair was plastered to his face, his face red with exertion. “Go.”
“You can’t…”
He shoved her gently toward the dock. “Go, Naiya.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll hold them off.”
Damn stupid man. Clearly, he couldn’t go on, and he was planning to sacrifice himself after she’d gone to so much trouble to save him. She put an arm around his waist and braced herself to take his weight. “I’m not going without you.”
Holt looked down at her, and his lips quirked, amused. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you.”
“Even if it might cost you your freedom?”
Naiya shrugged. “The bikers I know would either have abandoned me or taken advantage of me in the same situation. But here you are.”
“Maybe I’m using you,” he said softly.
“I thought of that.” She took a step, urged him forward. “I make good bait if you want to lure Viper out of his den. But even if you are using me to get to him, I have a vested interest in the outcome, and so do you. But more than getting Viper off my back, I want you to have your revenge. That’s why I drugged you at the motel. You deserve justice, Holt, and even I can see that you won’t get that from the law.” She tugged on his shirt. “Now come on. We don’t have time for all this talking.”
He stared at her like she was some kind of exotic creature, wondrous and curious at the same time. Uncomfortable beneath his scrutiny, she jogged ahead, only to feel his hand clasp hers. He picked up the pace, tugging her forward, where only a few moments ago she thought she’d be supporting him.
“I’m not worth that kind of loyalty,” he said as they raced along the beach to the boat launch. “But you are safe with me.”
Warmth curled in her belly, spread out to her fingers. Maurice wasn’t the protective type. He explained away his reluctance to walk her home at night, or meet her at the bus stop in the dark, as a dislike for the antiquated conventions of chivalry. In fact, he claimed to be honoring her feminist beliefs by lying on the couch watching sports when she came to visit at night, overcoming his primitive urges to protect his woman and mark his territory. He was a modern man of modern times no longer ruled by biology. Of course it made logical sense, and yet a tiny, betraying part of her wished he would put an arm around her and beat back the shadows of the night.
They hit the boat launch at a run and turned into the parking lot, the acrid diesel fumes overpowering the fresh pine-scented air.
“Let’s check if that one’s open.” Holt gestured to an SUV on the far side of the lot. The empty trailer attached to the hitch suggested the owner was out on his boat, but when Naiya looked out over the water, there was no one in sight.
“You’re going to steal a vehicle?” She pulled up short, stared at him aghast.
“You wanna live? You gotta take risks. You gotta be prepared to break some rules.” He scanned the beach behind them, checking for pursuit. “I think we’re clear for a bit. Their bikes won’t make it down the beach, and there’s no way they’ll leave them behind. There’s nothing more important to a biker than his ride.”
“Not even having to face Viper’s wrath?”
Holt shook his head. “A biker is nothing without his bike. They’ll have to backtrack and come after us on the main road. That means we need wheels to put some distance between us. We’ll dump the vehicle at the nearest service station and pick up something else.”
“I’ll never get a job if I have a criminal record, Holt. The security checks they do for crime labs…”
“I’ll do the driving, and I’ll take the rap if it comes to it, darlin’.”
Just like he’d done for his sister. He may have been an outlaw, but at heart, he was a good man.
“I’ll tell them I kidnapped you to lure Viper out of hiding.” He ran toward the vehicle and Naiya followed behind him.
“I couldn’t let you…”
“Survival,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
His words were like a punch to the gut. She’d survived those first few years living with her mom by doing what it took to keep safe, whether than meant breaking into empty houses to find a place to sleep at night, or lying to teachers about why she wanted to stay after school. But after that night with Viper, survival had given way to fear—fear of winding up back in Viper’s clutches, fear of becoming like her mom, fear of breaking any rule in case she was dragged so far down she couldn’t get up. She had set about controlling every aspect of her life so she didn’t have anything to fear, and yet fear was the one thing she couldn’t control.
She’d been afraid to live. But right now she had to make a choice. Live or die.
Holt stepped toward the vehicle, and Naiya’s training kicked in, making the decision for her. “Don’t touch it. Your prints will be all over it. And take off your shoes. They’ll be able to trace everywhere you’ve been from the dirt in the treads, and they’ll be able to tell your height and weight, unusual aspects to your gait, whether you walked or ran…”
Holt laughed and wrapped his hand in his shirt before rounding the vehicle to the driver side door. “Very useful skills. You’d be an asset to the club.”
She opened her mouth to tell him she hadn’t spent all those years in school to wind up right back where she’d started, when a hand wrapped around her neck.
“Look what we got here. Viper’s new bitch.”
Her breath caught when the cold barrel of a gun pressed against her temple. She didn’t have to turn around to see who had found her. She knew the voice of Viper’s second in command, remembered every detail of his sharp, angular features, pale skin and thin slash of a mouth. But more than his face, she remembered the enormous cruel power of his muscular body. That night in the clubhouse, Leo had been one of the men who held her down.
“Yo, Sinner,” he shouted as he pulled her away from the vehicle. “Look what I caught.”
Holt looked up, and his face tightened. He whipped out his gun and stalked toward them, his gaze fixed on Naiya and not the Black Jack behind her.
“That’s far enough.” Leo shouted when Holt was only a few yards away. “Put down the weapon and maybe I’ll let you watch me fuck this bitch before I put you to ground.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Naiya snapped. “I belong to Viper. You can’t touch me.”
Leo smashed the butt of his gun against her head. Naiya’s vision blurred and pain lanced through her skull.
“What the fuck, little mouse?” he murmured in her ear. “Never heard you mouth off before. I liked you better when you were quiet, hiding in the bedroom at your momma’s place, thinking no one could see you. Except with that body and that sweet face, we all saw you. Only reason you didn’t get to taste a whole lotta Black Jack dick is ’cause Viper laid claim to you. Told us all your virgin pussy belonged to him and he was gonna have it when you turned fifteen. That’s why he sent Jeff to get you on your fucking birthday.”
No.
She couldn’t imagine Jeff bringing her to the clubhouse knowing what Viper planned to do. Viper’s son had no love for his father. For the first few years after her grandmother died, she had hung out with Jeff and his sister, Arianne, and the other Black Jack club brats at the clubhouse when her mother was off on road trips with whatever biker she was sleeping with at the time. Although Jeff had turned to drugs after Arianne left the clubhouse, he’d always been friendly and kind to Naiya. She had no reason to doubt his motives when he called her up on her fifteenth birthday to invite her to a clubhouse party. Alone at home, and feeling sorry for herself, she’d made the mistake of accepting the invitation despite her misgivings.