Resurrection (The Lone Riders MC Series Book 3) (12 page)

She slid a hand around the back of his neck, fanning her fingers out, sliding them up into his short hair, her mouth almost touching his as she spoke. ‘Until I can’t fucking walk.’

‘Lie down,’ he whispered, his hands on her hips pushing her gently backwards.

She did as he instructed, lying back on the bike, her head up by the handlebars, her fingers gripping them as he straddled her, his dick once more ready and waiting to find its way home.

She threw her head back and gave in to the ride, biting down on her lip as his hands pushed her thighs further apart, his fingers touching her, sliding up and down, each and every touch making her wetter, she could feel it almost spilling out of her onto the bike seat. Arching her back she moaned quietly as he plunged his fingers inside, most of his hand slipping easily into her and she couldn’t help but react to that, knowing he was touching her so deep, so fully, so intimately. It was like nothing she’d ever felt before, and he was so gentle, so careful. He was touching parts of her even she’d never reach, and that was fine, that was good, that was what she wanted because this man was everything to her. She lost him, she might as well give up because without him she didn’t exist. So if all they could snatch were moments like this; crazy, dangerous hours in their own secret place then she’d take that. For now. Because it wasn’t going to be forever. He’d come back to her, properly, one day soon and then they had the rest of their lives to give over to days like this; to start a family, be together. They had the rest of their lives.

She gasped as he unexpectedly pulled his hand out of her, but she kept her eyes closed, the anticipation of what he’d do next turning her on so much she felt close to exploding. Her thighs were throbbing, her breasts aching for him to touch them, her stomach turning somersaults usually reserved for teenagers on first dates.

He gently stroked her inner thighs, giving them another tiny push apart before he pulled her wide open, just looking at her, taking in every inch of her, both inside and out, he was that in love with her. An all-consuming, overwhelming love that he hadn’t even known could exist, until he’d suddenly been faced with the prospect of never seeing her again.

Taking hold of her hips he lifted them up slightly, plunging his dick back inside her, pounding into her like his life depended on it, but then he slowed down, aware that fast, hard thrusts were only going to lessen the time he spent with her; spent here, inside her incredible, tight body. He was home, he was safe, he was the man he wanted to be, making love to the woman he wanted to be with, for the rest of his flawed and fucked-up life. And as he once more came hard and heavy, flooding her body with everything he had, he knew, one way or another, that one last battle line had just been drawn – he wasn’t going to lose Mia Rose. He wasn’t going to walk away from her, no matter what Sol told him he had to do. Whatever it took, he wasn’t letting her go. Whatever it took…

Sixteen

‘Mia around?’ Kip asked, leaning back against the pool table.

‘Last time I saw her she was over by the garage, talking to Jesse.’ Luca potted his shot and stood up straight, eyeing Kip warily.

‘Why do you always look at me like that whenever I mention Mia?’

‘Because I think you’re up to something. Where’d you get to this afternoon anyway?’

‘Sorry, when did it become law for me to tell you every move I make?’

‘Things are on a knife-edge right now, Kip. And if you’re going off-script with anything…’

‘I need to talk to Mia.’ Kip spoke slowly, a determined edge to his tone. Luca had no right questioning him like this. What fucking business was it of his where he’d been all afternoon? It wasn’t like Coby had called church or anything.

‘I told you. She’s outside.’

Kip turned to go, killing any more of that conversation dead.

‘We heard anything from Ben yet?’

Kip swung back around, narrowing his eyes as he stared at Luca. ‘Not yet. Not as far as I know, anyway.
 
But I’m probably the last person he’d contact. Ask Coby. He’ll know more than me.’

‘We should’ve heard something by now,’ Luca went on, leaning back over the pool table, lining up his cue for the next shot. ‘Coby’s getting edgy, what with the wedding just a few days away.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe relying on Ben Salter to do anything was a mistake.’

‘You’re never gonna trust the guy.’ Luca potted the ball and laid his cue down, folding his arms as he looked at Kip. ‘But he’s one of us now. Might be time you started getting used to that.’

‘Yeah. Maybe.’ Kip walked away, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it banging against his ribs. Carrie was outside, waiting in the coffee shop across the street, and he feared that if he left her there too long she’d lose her nerve. She hadn’t wanted to come inside the compound, and he hadn’t wanted to force her. Getting her this close; getting her to talk to Mia at all had been a big enough ask. Now he just had to get Mia to listen.

Heading outside he saw her, leaning against her bike, laughing at something Jesse was saying, and for a few seconds he just stood back and watched her, wishing it would get easier, but it still hurt. He still wanted her in ways that couldn’t ever happen, so this – protecting her from something, some
one
, that could hurt her, that was all he could do now. Protect her.

He walked over to her and Jesse, his heart unable to stop itself from beating even harder as she looked at him over her shoulder, throwing him the biggest smile. ‘Hey, big bro.’

Kip smiled back, ignoring the ache in his chest her greeting had caused. ‘Hey, beautiful. Listen, you busy right now?’

She shrugged. ‘Not really, no. Just been bothering Jesse here. Asking him too many questions about maintenance for this new bike of mine. Want to try and do it myself, instead of asking you guys for help all the time.’

‘Bothering me is something you haven’t been doing.’ Jesse grinned, wiping his hands on an oil-stained cloth. ‘In fact, you can come bother me any time you like.’

‘You flirting with me, Jesse?’ Mia fluttered her eyelashes at him in an act of fake coyness.

‘In my dreams, baby. But I’m not messing with another brother’s girl.’ He threw a bigger grin in her direction, accompanying it with a wink. ‘Don’t mean to say I can’t enjoy those dreams, though, huh?’

‘As long as you don’t talk in your sleep.’ She pulled herself away from the bike, walking over to Jesse and tugging gently on the collar of his overall, biting down on her lip as she spoke. ‘I’d hate to see what your old lady would do if she knew you were thinking about me and you, up against the wall, right here…’

‘Jesus Christ, Mia…’ Jesse groaned, dropping the cloth on the floor as she ran her hand quickly over his unexpected hard-on.

She smiled, backing away from him, returning his wink, and Kip felt his heart break all over again, because he couldn’t even join in with the flirting – the games that were played around here, even they were off-limits. He was family. And he wished with all of his heart that he wasn’t.

‘Sorry, Kip. You asked if I was busy…?’

She seemed happier than he’d seen her in a while, it was hard to miss. She had a glow about her, an aura, almost, surrounding her. And he had no idea why, considering all the shit that was going on, but looking at her like this; she was so beautiful, when she was happy. And he was about to turn that happiness on its head. He was about to cause her pain; he was going to hurt her. But only because he loved her. And it had to be done. Before Ben got the chance to hurt her more.

‘I think he’s after some brother/sister bonding time,’ Jesse said, turning his attention back to the bike he was working on.

Mia gave Kip a questioning look. ‘You want us to spend some time together, huh?’

He felt his stomach nosedive. Yeah. He wanted to spend some time together. He wanted to spend all the time in the fucking world with her. He just wished the circumstances were different. ‘Nothing else happening right now.’ Kip shrugged, trying to keep it all casual.

‘OK.’ Her tone was bright, cheerful. Trusting. ‘Come on, then. What you got planned?’

Breaking her heart, that’s what. Breaking her beautiful heart.

***

‘You can’t tell them he’s here.’ Sol stretched his long legs out in front of him, taking a swig from a bottle of beer.

‘They’re already suspicious,’ Ben said, leaning forward, clasping his hands between his knees.

‘That’s the reason they sent you here, I know,’ Sol sighed, throwing his head back and staring up at the sky. ‘They want to know where Shane is. They want to know if we’re the ones hiding him.’ He fixed his brother with a dark look. ‘Well, we are.’ He shrugged. ‘But if they already know that…’

‘I said they suspect. They sent me here to find out for sure.’ It was pointless, in Ben’s eyes, to pretend there was any other reason why he’d come back to the Dark Angels. Sol knew why, his father knew why; the latter just hadn’t said as much. And Ben knew Coby wasn’t stupid enough to think anyone would believe he’d come back here purely because he wanted to prove his loyalty to his father. That was the last thing Ben had any intention of doing. He had no loyalty towards his father. None at all, not even a glimmer. But Sol – he was another matter. Sol was a man Ben had always looked up to, despite their differences growing up, because there’d been many. They’d fought, disagreed, threatened one another with random acts of violence that had never amounted to anything other than harsh words and a few thrown punches, but underneath it all, Ben had always loved Sol. He’d always sought the approval of his older brother, which was why the thought of Sol blaming him for Marianna’s death had hurt so much. The thought of never being able to see his brother again, the thought of Sol hating him, it had torn Ben apart, for all those years. And now – now he had a chance to really bond with his brother, because only now did Ben realize just how much he’d missed him. But then there was Mia. The Lone Riders. Could he really go against a club that had given him a new life? The club that had given him the woman he was crazy about?

‘You listening to me, Ben?’

Ben looked up, quickly shaking himself back to the here and now. ‘Yeah. Yeah, sorry…’

‘Something on your mind, bro?’

‘’No. Everything’s fine.’

‘I meant it, y’know.’ Sol took another swig of beer. ‘You can’t go back there.’

‘But isn’t that gonna make them even more suspicious that something’s going on?’

‘Hey, brother, it’s no secret we’re after whipping their asses. They know that’s gonna happen. They just don’t know when we’re gonna strike.’

‘And me quite obviously turning traitor is gonna help things, is it? Isn’t that only gonna accelerate the whole fucking situation?’

Sol grinned, draining the last of his beer and handing the empty bottle to a passing blonde in skin-tight jeans and T-shirt, whacking her ass as she left, an action she didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. ‘Getting them all worked up is exactly what we want. Let them start to feel paranoid, it’ll only weaken their ranks.’

Ben sighed, bowing his head. He needed to see Mia so bad, and he would. Soon. He’d see her, and nobody would know because when he’d vowed to not let her go, he’d meant it. Somehow, when all this was over, he was going to be with her. But right now, he had no idea how that was going to happen. He just needed to see her, to fuck away all the shit that was happening.

‘You’re distracted, Ben.’

He looked up, meeting his brother’s eyes. ‘This is a fucking mess, Sol. I’m just trying to get my head around it all, OK?’

‘You’re not thinking about showing them any kind of loyalty now, are you?’ Sol’s tone carried more than a hint of warning. ‘You’ve been patched into their club for all of five minutes. You were
born
a Dark Angel, brother. Don’t you ever forget that.’

Ben said nothing, bowing his head again.

‘Oh, I get it. This is all to do with the girl, huh?’

Ben’s head shot up. ‘Don’t bring Mia into this.’

Sol leaned forward. ‘But she’s the reason you got yourself patched-in.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘You gonna tell me I’m wrong?’

‘I fell in love. And you more than anyone must know how it feels to have that person you care about more than anything ripped away from you.’

‘Marianna was a cheating, lying bitch, Ben. In the end I wasn’t even sorry she’d gone. I cared more about the betrayal of our father than I did about losing her.’

Ben just stared at his brother, suddenly remembering how cold he could really be, when pushed.

‘How long you been fucking her?’

‘Jesus, Sol…’

‘How long, Ben?’

‘A few weeks.’

Sol’s laugh was loud, verging on maniacal. ‘A few weeks? Jesus, brother, grow some balls and walk the fuck away. It’s not like you’re married to her.’

Ben felt a rage start to rise inside him, memories of how the brother he undeniably loved could also piss him off big style.

‘You in love, huh?’ Sol mocked, lighting up a cigarette.

‘Shut the fuck up, Sol.’

‘Hey, come on, bro, I’m just messing with you. But, come on! A few
 
weeks… Just forget her. I mean, look around you. You could have any fucking woman you want, any one of them. You click your fingers, they’ll come running. Forget the beautiful Mia Rose. She’s a link to the Lone Riders, and you can’t have her no more, you hear me? She’s history. And in a few short days, that’s exactly what the Lone Riders are gonna be, too.’

***

Mia looked at the woman sitting at the table, nervously playing with the coffee shop’s laminated menu.

‘What’s happening here, Kip?’

‘There’s someone I think you should speak to.’

‘Why?’

Kip stopped and turned around, gently taking Mia’s hand in his. ‘Her name’s Carrie. She used to be engaged, to Ben, back in the days when he was a Dark Angel.’

Mia frowned, confusion washing over her in waves. What the hell was going on? ‘I don’t understand. Why… why do you want me to talk to Ben’s ex-fiancé?’

‘Did you even know he’d been engaged?’ Kip asked, determined this was going to go the way he needed it to go.

Mia shook her head.

‘He didn’t tell you, huh?’

‘No,’ she whispered, looking back over at the woman, who was still fiddling with the corner of the menu, an almost vacant expression on her pretty face. ‘But, to be fair, Kip, I didn’t ask.’

‘There are a lot of things Ben didn’t tell you, Mia. About his past.’

She looked up into his eyes. ‘I know all about what happened with his father.’

‘Did you know he used to beat his fiancée?’

Mia felt her heart almost shudder to a stop. ‘No.’ She shook her head, so vigorously it sent her hair flying. ‘You’re lying, Kip. You’re fucking lying.
You
can’t have me, but you don’t want anyone else to have me either, so you’re lying…’

‘Listen, Mia… Listen to me!’ He gripped her hand tighter, determined she wasn’t going to walk away from this. ‘I’m not lying, I promise you. But you need to listen to her, OK? Please. You really need to listen to her.’

The only thing Mia was aware of was the sound of blood pumping through her veins, pounding away inside her head like a doom-laden drumbeat.

‘What you went through with Lennie, you can’t go there again, Mia. You don’t deserve that.’

‘Ben’s different.’ She could feel herself almost drifting away from this situation. Maybe becoming detached was the only way to deal with it. ‘He’s different, Kip. Ben loves me.’

‘Lennie loved you, remember? And look what
he
was capable of.’

She looked over Kip’s shoulder, at the woman still sitting at the table. She was now looking back at Mia, her eyes wide, a nervous expression clouding her features. But there was something about her that was almost drawing Mia to her. Would listening to what she had to say hurt? Maybe not. But whether she believed her, she had yet to see.