Risking It All: A Hellfire Riders MC Romance (The Motorcycle Clubs Book 14) (7 page)

Jack freezes against me, his face ashen. “You’re crying?”

Throat a burning knot, I can’t reply. Bleak torment flattens his dark gaze.

“Did I hurt you again?”

Not like he thinks. This wasn’t his fault. It was mine.

I shake my head and whisper, “Just go.”

His throat works before he nods. His fingers slide forward, cupping my face, sweeping his thumbs across my wet cheeks. “I’ll give you space. But we’re not done.”

Because he’ll want the five nights still owed him. A painful breath shudders through my chest. “I told you I’m backing out—”

“Not the bet.” His head lowers, his firm mouth tasting my trembling lips. “You and me. Not done.”

“We are,” I say but it’s like shooting at a steel wall. Nothing gets through.

Jack kisses me again. Then he goes, and tears out another piece. The biggest piece. Leaving me so empty, I can’t even cry.

And there’s not a fucking drop to drink in this whole damn place.

Jack

About a year after I killed my father, the shrink at the children’s home sat me down. My eye was throbbing, as I was sporting a hell of a shiner. My lip had been split the day before and I could taste the blood every time I ran my tongue over the swelling. I don’t remember who laid into me that time. A lot of the boys did. I was already bigger than most of them, but I didn’t fight back. I figured I was just getting what was coming to me—and a busted lip felt a hell of a lot better than the rotted shit in my chest.

Not that I ever thought of it like that. Not until the shrink sat me down and told me I was using one pain to deal with another—and that I needed to find a different way to deal before I destroyed myself. His solution was for me to focus on one task at a time. Sometimes that task was just getting from one class to the next. And if someone tried to stop me from completing my task, maybe by jumping me in the showers, I needed to shove that obstacle out of the way and keep on going. I just had to be careful about how hard I shoved.

That shrink’s way of dealing helped. Helped until I found other ways to deal.

I haven’t needed to deal at all in a while. There’s hurt inked all over my skin, but putting it there helped me put it away. I don’t hate myself or brood over the past. I don’t fucking cry over my shitty childhood. It made me who I am—a fucked up bastard who kills too easily and who takes what he gets. Either I started out wired wrong or something in me broke along the way, I don’t know. Don’t much care, either.

But now the rotted shit is back in my chest, and I’m dealing in that old way: focusing on a task. The first was gathering up my things and heading out Lily’s door. It was the hardest walk I ever took—and her front porch was as far as I got before starting my second task. While Lily’s hurting and vulnerable, I’ll keep her safe through the night.

Tomorrow I’ll deal with the knowledge that she might be hurting because I shoved too hard. I fucked up our very first night, making her follow through on the bet. Knowing that, I made her follow through again. Six more nights. I thought she was all in, dragging me to bed by my cock.

Then she ended up crying.

Crying.
I rub my chest, trying to massage away the pain, but the rotted ache is just growing. Because Lily was crying and she pulled out of a bet.

Backing down.

She doesn’t do that. She doesn’t fucking
do
that. She gets up on her feet and fights harder. So whatever it was that hit her must have hit hard. So hard she hurts too much to get up again.

I didn’t know anything could do that.

My cell buzzes and lights up. Message from Stone. Nothing unexpected. I reply and set the phone on the wooden rail surrounding Lily’s porch. More calls will soon be coming in.

Maybe they started coming in to her, too. I hear her feet on the stairs, then Lily comes through her front door—and stops short, seeing me. Pain twists harder in my chest. Her eyes are red, her face pale. She’s in a T-shirt and jeans, but no kutte, and the keys to her truck are in her hand.

“Jack?” Leaving the door open, she comes at me. “What the fuck are you doing?”

She’s looking and sounding pissed now. But most likely still hurting.

That’s how she deals.

“Watching your place,” I tell her. “Croc wants me to join the Hangmen. Said he might use you to persuade me.”

Full lips parting, she stares at me, then looks out down the street as if searching for the enemy in the dark. “You think he will?”

“Maybe.” The Hangmen carry through on their threats. Mostly so that anyone else who might think about turning the Hangmen down will change their minds.

My phone buzzes again. The prez this time, or I’d have ignored the text. I reply and when I set it aside, she’s frowning at me.

“Why didn’t you give me a heads-up earlier?”

Because I keep fucking up. “I planned to in the morning. I figured if you knew how they were looking at you as if you were my property, you wouldn’t let me touch you again.”

That makes her draw in a sharp breath, like she’s taken a blow. She averts her face, looking down the street again. It’s late, and quiet. The only sounds are the crickets and the distant wail of a fire truck siren.

After a second, she says, “I don’t give a fuck what the Hangmen think.”

I know. “It isn’t just the Hangmen.”

She swings back around to look at me as my phone lights. Gunner. I ignore it.

“It’s everyone,” I tell her. “Even the Riders. I’m fucking you so they think you belong to me.”

Her lips twist in a bitter smile. “That misconception’s easy enough to fix. All they have to do is to come here and look around.”

“At what?”

“Exactly,” she says like it hurts, and before I can ask what the fuck she means by that, my cell buzzes again and she snarls, “Who the hell is blowing up your phone?”

Stone again. “The brothers. My garage is burning down.”

“Your garage…” She blinks like she’s sure she didn’t hear that right. “What?”

“Croc wanted the business, too. Then said he’ll use me as an example of the consequences of saying no.”

“Jack.” All at once she moves in close, gripping the edges of my kutte and giving me a little shake. “Are you all right? What the hell are you still doing here?”

What’s the point of being there? “Watching it burn won’t change that it’s burning. And I don’t give a shit if it does. It’s all insured. Everything important’s stored off site and since I knew it might be coming, this afternoon I cleared out everything else I don’t want any inspectors finding.”

She gapes at me. “You knew he’d do this?”

“Croc as much as said he would.”

“Then why the hell weren’t you there to kick their asses if they showed up? I can handle myself here.”

“I know you can.” I rub my chest again. Jesus, this fucking ache. “But I’d have missed a night with you. And I only have…
had
...six left.”

Her breath catches. She stares at me, her eyes searching mine.

“Jesus, Jack,” she finally whispers. “You’re so fucked up.”

“Yes.” But not about this. My priorities here are exactly what they should be. I glance down at her keys. “Where were you headed? I’ll tag along, watch your back. Croc might be using the fire as a distraction to pull me away from you.”

She looks at her keys like she forgot they were in her hand and laughs, a real laugh, low and husky. “I was going to head to the Wolf Den and get drunk off my ass. But since they burned down your place, let’s kick Hangmen ass instead.”

“No.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “No?”

“We’ll wait until the Barracks. Saturday.”

“Shit.” She blows air through clenched teeth. “I guess the boss wants you to wait?”

I shake my head. “He gave me the go-ahead.”

“But you’re holding back? Jack, they burned down your
home
.”

No. A home is where you belong. “It’s just a place to sleep.”

She stares at me again, the flint gray of her eyes sparking. Abruptly she turns and heads into her house, but she’s only gone a second, returning with her kutte. “Let’s head out to your place anyway. You don’t give a shit but the other brothers will. You’ll need to talk them down.”

A task that’ll go right along with protecting her, as long as she stays at my side tonight.

One task at a time. Tonight, tomorrow. But there’s one more important than any other: persuading Lily that we’re not over.

Even if it takes forever.

• • •

Lily

I believe Jack really doesn’t give a shit about his shop or his apartment, but something’s whacked him hard. I’ve never seen him like this—but I’ve seen something like it before, in soldiers who were one of the few to survive a firefight or an ambush. Like there’s so much hurt boiling inside they just shut down until they can deal with it.

The intersection’s crowded with emergency vehicles flashing their lights. We stop behind a deputy’s patrol car angled across the street. Even from this distance, the heat’s like standing in front of an open oven.

A handful of Riders are already here, with more riding in. Jack goes to talk to the fire crew. I wait with the brothers and it’s me they’re coming to, asking how Jack’s doing and what the fuck is going down and I realize that Jack was right—they
do
think I belong to him.

But he was only partly right. The brothers wouldn’t approach an old lady like this. They’d offer their sympathy, make sure she had anything she needed. Then they’d go to the brother to see how he’s doing and how he wants to handle what comes next.

The way they’re coming to me now…it’s because they also think
he
belongs to
me
.

Maybe he does. Something knocked the shit out of him. It wasn’t the news that his place was burning.

But it might have been me, telling him to go.

Maybe. It’s a small hope. A stupid one.

But falling in love is pretty stupid, too, so I’m building up a good track record.

I watch Jack make his way back. The fire is behind him, his face in shadow, like he’s walking out of the hell inked onto his chest. Closer, I see that some of the glassy expression has receded, and the intensity is returning to his dark eyes again. Coming back from whatever knocked him down.

He bumps fists with Gunner and Stone, who says, “We’re ready to go to war for you, man.”

Jack’s gaze sweeps over the other Riders, all of them nodding and as eager as I am to bust some fucking heads.

“Go home.” He deflates the anticipation with a few words. “Save it for Saturday.”

That doesn’t sit well with anyone. But before he became the club’s warlord, Jack served as our veep for years, and the only man whose word carries more weight is the prez’s. No one’s arguing with him.

He looks to me. “You going home or to the Den?”

“The Den.” Not to get drunk now but because I don’t know what’s coming next. But I think he’s coming with me. I look to the fire again. “Will they be able to salvage anything? Any of your tools? Clothes?”

“No. But I put some things in storage.”

“Then let’s hit that first.”

He straddles his bike. “I don’t need anything tonight, Lily.”

“Well, we’re not busy kicking ass. So you have any other plans?”

“No.” The light from the fire throws harsh shadows over his features. “They fell through.”

Because he’d planned to be in bed with me. My throat tightens. He let his place burn just to have a night with me.

There’s so much hope wrapped up in knowing that. And so much fear. I don’t know how to deal with either. So I do what I always do.

I get on my bike and ride.

• • •

The storage facility is a twenty-four hour place up in Bend. A thirty-minute ride, with Jack at my side all the way. Long enough to turn Croc’s threat over in my head a few times.

Jack’s unit is as big as a two-car garage, with an overhead door wide enough to back a truck into. Jack unlocks the standard swinging door instead. I follow him though as he flips on the light. Though the space is almost packed full there’s not much to see. Neatly stacked crates. A big vehicle covered by a bigger canvas tarp. Jack heads for the south corner, where garment bags hang from a rolling clothes rack. He grabs an empty duffel from a shelf.

“Croc screwed up by burning your place.” Which just sounds like bluster, so I add, “Where was he getting his info about the Riders from? Val. So Croc thinks we’re safe targets.”

“Safe?” Jack grunts like that’s the dumbest thing he ever heard. “That’s because Val doesn’t know shit.”

“About you? No.” But that’s not what I meant. “I mean safe because Val will tell him you don’t have any friends in the club, and there’s still brothers who resent my being patched in. So Croc thinks when the other brothers are weighing his threats against their loyalty to you or me, they’ll cave instead of having our backs. He’s thinking our club is just like his. So he believes that he can burn your place down or that he can beat the shit out of me and no one will really care. But the brothers are ready to go to fucking war for you. They even would for me.”

“
Even
would?” Frowning, he zips up the duffel. “What’s that mean?”

“Just what I said. That if Croc had come after me instead of your shop, they’d have my back.”

“No.” He tosses the bag to the concrete floor and his dark gaze zeroes in on me. “You said ‘even me.’ Like they’d have less reason.”

“Some of them do. C’mon, Jack. There’s a lot of brothers who are uneasy with you but not one would say you don’t belong in the club. And all of them would say that I’ve earned my place, sure. But there’s also some who’d say I still don’t belong, and a beating from the Hangmen would just be what was coming to me for overstepping. ‘What’s she expect, putting herself out like that? Does she think it’s not going to come back and knock her on her ass?’ That’s what they’d say. Hell, that’s what my mom would say, and I know some of them think the same way. And it doesn’t escape my attention that the others Croc threatened today are the brothers who had some problem with my joining the Riders. So if it
had
been me instead of your garage, well…” I shrug. “He thought they’d still look after their own asses first, come Saturday. But they won’t.”

Though his jaw has hardened to granite, Jack doesn’t argue when I finish. Because he’s a lot of things, but he’s not blind. So he only says quietly, “You belong.”

Fuck. That wasn’t what I expected and my chest suddenly squeezes in so tight, I think I might cry again. Swallowing hard, I nod and lock that shit away. But the laugh I come up with is watery and strained, and my voice isn’t nearly as even as I’d like. “As hard as I fought to get in, I fucking hope so.”

My body stills as he moves in, big hand cupping my jaw. His thumb slides over my cheek, his eyes dark and bleak. Remembering those damn tears. But he doesn’t bring them up. Instead he turns away, rubbing the center of his chest like there’s something there that hurts him.

“You need any ammo?” he asks.

I shake my head, breath shuddering as I watch him head down a narrow aisle between stacks of crates. I bet he has a catalog of every item in each crate. He’s obsessive that way. Everything in its place.