Move the Sun (Signal Bend Series) (21 page)

“Ray is dead anyway, vote or not. I’m ready to take that risk to save retaliation on Lilli, yes. Right now.”

Show’s eyes went wide at that, and he turned to Lilli. “You think you could give us a couple minutes, Lilli?”

Isaac was having none of that.
“No. She stays. Say it.”

“Alright then. You’ve known this girl what, three weeks? A
month? And you’re ready to risk the club—the whole damn town—for her? Isaac, that’s your dick thinking.”

Suddenly, Isaac forgot that Show’s job was plain speaking, saying the hard shit and keeping Isaac level. He flipped straight into rage and started to stand, his whole body tense. But Lilli held the arm
he still had on her thigh, keeping him in place, and she spoke, her focus intent on Show.

“Look.
I understand. You don’t know me. What I’m going to do will affect your club, and cause a member pain. Ray is dead, that’s not negotiable. An entire squad was gunned down. Their bodies were mutilated, they were burned, and then they were hung from a wall to taunt us. All that happened because Hobson didn’t want a woman—me—as his superior. That son of a bitch is dead. I’m sorry if that hurts the club, and I understand you’ll do what you have to do. Hell, I won’t even fight retaliation, if that’s the way it goes.”

Isaac jump
ed at that and grabbed her arm—what the fuck did she think she was saying?!—but she ignored him and went on. “There’s no way I can get you proof. I have only the word of an ally I won’t pull farther into this. But here’s this: get Hobson drunk. He confessed directly to my friend when he was drunk. See if he’ll do it again. From what Isaac says, he’s a screwy mess, anyway. And I can wait a bit to try to do this as cleanly as I can.”

Show considered her; Lilli held his eyes steadily. “You’re a badass little beauty, aren’t you?
You’ve got sense, too.” He turned to Isaac. “I think she’s right, Isaac. We wait. We see if we can get Ray to talk. Then we take it to the club. It’s CJ and Victor we can get on board, I think. Either or both of them. They’re vets. This thing Ray did? They’ll want him dead, too. With Ray fessin’ up, though, we might get everybody but Wyatt. That’s my advice.”

Isaac had another idea, too. But he was angry now and done with advice. He needed to calm down
. He nodded tersely to Show, who got the message, patted Lilli’s knee, and left without another word.

When Show was gone, Isaac got up from the couch and paced the room.
He was livid, and he needed to get control. Why was he so angry? Because Lilli had basically said once Ray was dead she didn’t care if she lived or died? Yes. Because Show had insulted
the fuck
out of her and him? Yes. Because he was right—to keep Lilli safe, Isaac was ready to blow his club up if he had to?

Yes. No.
Goddammit. He couldn’t fucking
do
that. Too many people were counting on him. He clutched the tall back of his leather desk chair and sent it wheeling hard across the room to crash into the metal filing cabinet.

“Isaac.”

He turned to Lilli, who was still sitting on the couch, looking calm. “Baby, I’m sorry. It’s not as bad as it looks. We’ll work it, I promise.”

She stood and walked to him. She was so goddamn beautiful,
her long, dark ponytail over her shoulder, her jeans snug on her hips but not too tight to restrict their sway, just the barest inch of perfect belly peeking out from under her t-shirt. She stopped right in front of him and took his hands in hers, easing them from the fists he hadn’t realized he was clenching.

“There’s a plan. It’s the best plan we’ve got
, I think. Whether it works or not, we won’t know until Hobson is back. That means we have two weeks, right? So let’s set it aside. It might be the last two weeks we’ve got.”

“No way, Lilli. No way. It’ll work. Has to.” He couldn’t even contemplate what she was suggesting could happen in two weeks.

“Okay, then. We’ll have more time. But just in case, let’s take
this
time. Okay?” She put a hand on his cheek, stroking her fingers through his beard. It was a frequent caress, and it calmed him. He leaned into her hand.

“You can do that?”

She smiled. “Sure. You learn that on the front lines, love. Don’t take out an advance on trouble.”

He looked into her eyes. To call them grey was insufficient, but he had no better word. He’d tried to think of a metaphor for the color, but had failed. The best he’d come up with was the color of the sky on an overcast day, but he’d be damned if he said something so
florid out loud. They were beautiful. Bright. They glittered when she smiled. “God, I love you, Sport.”

“And I love you.” She grabbed his belt buckle and pulled it loose. “Show me how you love me.”

He’d been hard since she put her hand on his face. Now, he chuckled and opened her jeans. “You want it sweet?” Their sex earlier had been rough and intense.

“You know I don’t.” She had his jeans open, and she slid her hands along his hips and around to grab his ass. Their sex was loud, and he didn’t relish the thought of
everybody out in the Hall hearing them. It had never stopped him before, but Lilli was different.

Then her hand came around to cup his sack and give him a squeeze.
She shifted her hand to his cock. “Oh, damn, you’re so hard,” she whispered, her forehead on his chest. “I love your cock so much.”

Isaac figured the soundproofing in the office walls was good enough.

He lifted her face and kissed her, his tongue plunging into her mouth, tracing her teeth and tongue. She snaked her arms around his neck and raised up high on her toes. Nothing—nothing—felt like her body against his. He wanted their clothes off. All of them.

“I want you naked.” Even to him, his voice sounded like a growl. She stepped back from him with a little siren’s smile and pulled her t-shirt over her head, dropping it to the floor with a wink. He went to the door and locked it; when he turned around, she had her boots off and was shimmying out of her jeans.
He stripped as fast as he could, barely taking the time to hang his kutte over his chair.

When she was wearing nothing but a black
lacy thong, her breasts bare and beautiful, her nipples hard with desire for him, he stopped her. “Leave it. I’ll get it.” She unhooked her thumbs from the thin strings across her hips and stood waiting.

Finally rid of his clothes, her strode to her and pulled her close, taking a second to feel the
satin of her bare skin on his coarse body. He pulled the band from her hair, and she shook it loose, the silky tresses brushing over his arms on her back, making him groan. He brought them to the floor.

She wanted it rough; she always wanted it rough. But Isaac found that he was too overwhelmed by love and too haunted by the fear of losing
her to be anything but sweet right now, to this woman who’d found a place in his heart he hadn’t known was there. He kissed her, holding her close, his hands all over her, but gently, soothing. He slid her thong slowly down her legs, kissing a path to her ankles as he went. Then he pulled himself back up along her writhing body and thrust his hand between her legs to find her wet and ready, as she always was for him. He rubbed lightly over her clit, gently between her folds.

She bucked and moaned, frustrated. “Isaac, come on.”

He bent down and kissed her breast, flicking his tongue softly over the hard bud of her nipple. His mouth on her skin, he said, “No, baby. Let me go easy. Easy is good, too.” Pushing up onto his knees, he reached for his jeans and grabbed a condom. After it was on, he shifted to lie over her and press into her, slowly inching his cock as deep as he could get. She arched her back, and her eyes rolled up. She moved hard under him, flexing. He brought a leg up to rest on her thigh, pinning her. “Hey, no. We’re goin’ slow. I want to savor you.”

“On the floor of your office, we’re going slow?” She huffed and struggled some more.

Isaac liked a rough fuck, too—in fact, he was surprised at his need now to be sweet—but Lilli’s resistance to his tenderness was beginning to seem strange. He caught her head in his hands and peered down into her eyes. “Baby, there a problem?”

She stilled and stared back; then,
she surprised him with a chuckle. He felt it around his cock, so deep inside her. “No. I’m sorry. Habit.” He didn’t understand, so he furrowed his brow. She continued, “Self-protection, I guess. Don’t make love. It’s like a rule I had for myself.”

He brushed his fingers over her cheekbones. “Had?”

The look she gave him then, limpid and warm, swelled his heart. “Yeah, had.”

“Good.” He moved slowly inside her,
holding her eyes with his. She wrapped her arms around his back and her legs around his waist, clasping him tightly to her, and, for the first time, they made love.

Even sweet, though, h
e still made her scream.

~oOo~

Isaac and Show watched Kenyon Berry and Marcus Grant, Berry’s right hand, drive off the Horde lot. Isaac’s brain was buzzing. He turned to Show; any lingering anger he’d felt about the conversation with Lilli they’d had the day before had been blown away by Kenyon’s visit.

Though still backing the Horde, Kenyon was suspending traffic on this pipelin
e, diverting resources elsewhere until the pressure from Ellis was down. Ellis was making a hard push in St. Louis, too, fully annexing the Northside Knights and looking to eliminate the Underdawgs entirely. St. Louis was open war. Kenyon’s point—a good one—was that the risk was too great for the Horde and Signal Bend, too, to keep moving product into such volatile turf. But St. Louis and points east of it represented substantially more than half the revenue the cookers, and thus the Horde, and thus the town, brought in. To the west, they had Springfield, Joplin and Tulsa. Losing St. Louis would cripple them.

That wasn’t even the worst news. His attempts to take over Signal Bend through legal channels thwarted thus far by the Horde’s success at ke
eping Mac Evans distracted and vulnerable property owners strong enough to resist, Ellis had apparently decided to use force instead. He was bringing the war to them. The Northsiders were recruiting like crazy, swelling their ranks. Kenyon’s intel was that they were looking to move on Signal Bend physically, drive people out. Kenyon thought they had maybe a few months before there was a turf war on the lazy streets of Signal Bend, and the enemy was bigger, stronger and richer—by orders of magnitude.

Show spoke up first. “How we handling this, boss?”

It was clear to Isaac. Nigh on impossible, but clear. “Straight on. Only way. We’re gonna need the whole town on the beam, if we have any chance. We have a little time, though. Kenyon’ll keep us apprised. First thing, we need to start guard shifts. Get men patrolling town, farm roads, all of it. We’re gonna need volunteers, and they’re gonna need some training and setup.”

Showdown nodded slowly.
“We need weapons. These assholes won’t be coming in with hunting rifles and shotguns. We don’t have the scratch to arm people.”

That was how Tulsa and Joplin could help—
and it would keep them away from the heat, too, as they wanted. “I’ll get with Becker and Dandy. Tulsa’s running guns; I’ll get a family discount. And I’m calling Sam. Time to call in a marker with The Scorpions.” They’d done an array of favors for the international MC over the years and had never needed to call in one. Now it looked like they might need them all at once.

“You bring them in, they might bring heat from law with them. Their brand of outlaw is high profile.
Not like our penny ante shit.”

“Can’t be helped.
We’re not letting the Northsiders fuckin’ burn us out.” With that, Isaac turned on his heel and stalked back into the clubhouse.  Everything was going to hell at once.

INTERLUDE
: 2011

Lilli slid the keycard in and opened the door to her room at the Residence Inn. Home, such as it was. She been back stateside for three months, out of the service for three weeks. No job, no home, no family. Her father had had a generous life insurance policy and had left her everything, and it had all been earning interest while she was in the service, so she wouldn’t need to work. She would hate to use that money, but she couldn’t imagine joining the world again. She figured she’d just stay put.

Fuck it all.

When the incident report came back, and Big Donna checked out clean, Lilli fought it. She’d fought hard, at first. If Donna wasn’t malfunctioning, that meant Lilli had gotten her men killed. Okada. Miller. Scarpone. And eight other men. It had taken them more than a day to get clear and recover their bodies. Twenty-nine hours seeing their burned, hacked remains hanging from a wall.

And she’d done it. Chief had checked Donna out himself. Lilli didn’t understand what went wrong, how she could have felt trouble if there had been none. Maybe they were right. Maybe she’d lost her nerve and had some kind of weird attack.
She’d gotten her men killed.

So just fuck it all.

The light on her room phone was blinking. She ignored it; probably the front desk or housekeeping, or something. There was no one who’d call her.

Around 3am, she finally checked, just to get the damn blinking light to stop. She didn’t sleep much, but that light was getting in the way of even her slim shot at it.

It wasn’t an internal call. The message was terse. “Ms. Accardo, you can still be of service to your country. Please call.”
Ms.
Accardo. God, that sucked. She recognized the area code and exchange on the number as DC, but not Pentagon.

She erased it and blew it off. Every day for a week, the same
male voice left the same message one time. On the eighth day, there was a knock at the door to her suite.

A week after that, she was in training to work with the NSA.