Wrath (12 page)

“And how do you plan to do that?”

Strike’s smile spread suddenly and it was nearly as unpleasant as Hawk’s.  “By using you for bait.”

None of us seemed pleased with that idea.  Work was work, though. 

“What’s in it for us?” Thrash asked bluntly.  He had come over quietly, backing Rage up.

“You help me, I’ll help you find Bones.” The fucker looked far too pleased as he dropped the name.

I didn’t know who the hell Bones was, but I could tell by the flash in Rage’s eyes that he considered the offer a good one.

“You got information on him?” Rage asked.

Strike answered carefully.  “Not yet, but I could put my resources on it.  Your resources in exchange for mine.  Fair trade.”

Nothing was a fair trade when it came to the Mob.  The Mob always came out on top in one way or another.  But Rage – and the rest of the MC – obviously wanted this “Bones” guy pretty bad.  And I doubted it had anything to do with a pat on the back and round of drinks. 

“We’ll have a think and vote.”

It wasn’t an outright refusal, so Strike seemed happy.  He nodded to Rage.  Hawk reached out to shake Thrash’s hand.  Thrash took it, but he looked like he’d rather pull out his piece and make that Irish lunatic back the fuck up.

Strike was all smooth words.  “Nice riding with you boys.  Hope we do it again soon.”

And then, just like that, they took off, leaving the club with a lot to think on.

I looked around, recognizing that there was a lot of shit that I didn’t know anything about.  Serious shit.

I needed to have a conversation with Rage.  If I was going to any sort of long term help here, I had to know exactly what the fuck was going on.  A debrief.

I approached Rage just as Layla entered into the club.  Before I could get his attention, she grabbed ahold of Rage, pulling him into her body.  They fell into deep in conversation, but it didn’t seem like the kind lover’s shared.

No.  She was worried.  She took one look at me and I knew what it was about.

Emma
.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Mick went to check on her at the bar for lunch.  Kat said she never showed.”

Fuck
.  What had that girl gotten herself into?

“I got it.”

“You want me to come with?” Rage asked.

I shook my head.

“No, man.  I’ll find her.  But when I’m back you and me need to sit down and have a chat.”

Rage nodded. “And Wrath?” he called as I turned to leave. “Later on I wanna hear what you’ve done to that Indian. That baby can fly!”

I nodded stiffly to him, too distracted to really enjoy the praise. Rage just threw out his hand and told me to get going. He got it.

As I stormed out into the lot, I clenched my teeth and started thinking.

I had let Emma borrow my car this morning for school.  Where would she have gone besides that?

To see her mother, of course.

Aidan

My face didn’t relax until I caught sight of Emma walking out of the entrance of the mental ward.

She noticed me, surprise rippling across her face.  I leaned against
my
car and waited while she crossed the lot towards me. 

She’d ‘borrowed’ my car without asking, and I wasn’t thrilled with that.  I knew she’d take care of it, but I’d had to get a ride to catch up.  She had turned her phone off, so there had been no way to let her know I was waiting for her. 

I’d been waiting almost an hour. 

“Hey!” Her eyes searched the lot.  It was like my Chieftain was a pet and she wanted to cuddle the damned thing.  It was weird as hell and almost funny.

“How did you get here?” she asked.

“Kat and I headed up in her car.  I punched it the whole way up.”  What should’ve taken two and a half hours had only taken an hour and some change.  I’d been worried about her.

“Jesus, Aidan.  You didn’t need to do that.”

Yes.  I did.  I was worried as hell.  But I just clenched my jaw and kept my eyes on her feet.  There was no point arguing with her.  I was exactly where I intended to be.  I was here and she was safe, and that was all there was to it.

“What about Kat?  Is she okay?”

That made me snort, the corner of my mouth creasing with humor.  “I was surprised she didn’t shit her pants.”  I’d spotted her gripping the ‘oh shit’ bar more than once.

“I can’t believe she let you drive her car at all.”  Emma still didn’t know what to make of me, so she stood there, her arms crossed, her eyes cloudy.  I was surprised to find that I couldn’t read them.

“She already gone?”

I nodded.  Kat had given me a shaky hug when we spotted my car, and then she had headed back to the club.  She had a business to run.

“Get in.”  I opened the passenger side door and waited.  She slunk, giving me a rebellious look.

She wasn’t sorry for what she’d done at all.

I waited until I was situated in the driver’s seat before turning to her.  “What in the hell were you thinking?”

She didn’t answer.

I turned it on, revved it up, and started down the road.  I wasn’t going to demand her answer.  Hell.  I wasn’t even going to talk to her if she wasn’t going to open up to me. 

I gripped the wheel harder.

“I had to come up here, Aidan.  I had to see her.”

“Why?”

“I wanted her to tell him to stop.”

“And you thought what, exactly?  That your mother’s pimp would listen to her?  That he would just stop putting dead animals in the mail because you asked nicely?”

She glared at me.  It was a good look on her.  Made her eyes crackle and her brows lower.  It was dangerous to bait a woman for fun, but Emma was kinda hot when she was annoyed.

“She isn’t talking to Samuel.  She cut him off.”

I eyed her then shook my head.  “You don’t know that for sure, Emma.”

“Actually, I believe her.”

“And how many times has that worked for you?  How many times has she used you?  Played you?”  I snarled the words.  I didn’t care who the woman was, she almost fucking sold her own daughter.  I had no respect for someone like that, and I’d never trust her.

People like that didn’t change.  I’d learned that the hard way too many times in my life.

“You don’t know her –”

“And you don’t either, Emma.  You said she changed.  That stuff messes you up for life.  And she’s sick.”

The horror on her face was dawning slowly but surely, and I rushed to make her see sense.  

“She’s been locked up for how many years?  Look at you.  You said you wouldn’t go crawling back.”

“Fuck you.  I know exactly what I am doing.  Let me make my own fucking decisions, Aidan.” 

She spit the words at me, and I pulled the car right the fuck over.

We were on a country road, the only route to the interstate.

“What?  You wanna take off without telling anyone where you are going, take my car, and just drive all over the fucking state, then you cry about how
I
need to trust
you
?”  I barked the words, then I grabbed her and pulled her to my body. 

I needed to touch her.  I was tired of giving her space.  Letting her explain herself.  She made the most sense when I was in her, and damn it, I wanted her to come to her senses.  Preferably after she came on me.

“You expect me not to worry about you?  I hate to break it to you, darlin’, but this is the deal.  You want this.  You get all of this.”  I whispered the last words into her mouth before I claimed it. 

I stripped off her top and her skirt, relishing her as she pressed against me in just her underwear and bra. Damn, she was so fucking sexy.

I could never get enough.

I took what I wanted from her, my kiss hard and unapologetic, my lips bruising hers as I shoved my tongue in her mouth, pulling her panties down and dragging her against me. She unclipped her own bra and pulled it off, her breasts tumbling out of them, mesmerizing me.

No. Not this time.

I was in charge.  I was in control, and none of her shit was gonna fly.

She needed to give a little.  Instead, she backed off, her brow furrowed, her lips swollen. 

She wasn’t fighting me off her.  She wasn’t mad.  She just wasn’t done speaking, and I wanted her to shut the hell up.  Enough thinking.  We both wanted it.  I could feel the heat emanating from between her legs against me.

Fuck
, could I feel it.

“Aidan, I  –”

I didn’t let her finish her sentence.  Another deep kiss shut her mouth as I pushed my hands up her front, grabbing her breasts.  My thumbs ran over both her nipples.  It made her moan and grind against me.  Just like that.  I knew her body already.  Knew what I could do.  Knew how to get what I wanted, and make her cry out for me.  I felt like a god.

And I laid down the law. 

“You don’t fucking leave without letting someone know.  You got a drug dealer sending you dead animals.  So you don’t fucking go into stupid shit like this alone.  You feel me?” 

I pressed her chin up and eyed her until she let out a shuddering breath.  But she still didn’t say yes.

I kissed her chin and then dipped down and bit her neck gently, my teeth sinking into her flesh until she squealed and wriggled in my lap.

I slipped one hand down her skirt and into her panties, gliding along her wetness.  “I feel you, darlin’.  Say yes.”

I was weaving a spell of want, and I knew it.  “Is that what you are pissed about?”  she asked softly, looking into my eyes.  “That I won’t obey you?” 

It was as if she hadn’t quite made her mind whether she liked that idea or not.  The heat in her had subsided suddenly.

Nothing for it but to sort this shit out.

I grunted and tried to calm myself down enough to figure out how to answer. 

“It isn’t about obedience.”  How to put this?

I was pissed.  I was worried.  Hell, I was scared shitless something bad would happen to her.  And that she’d just given whoever was harassing her exactly what he wanted: a reaction.

I’d seen men like that, before the army.  Even one or two while I was in the service.  Some men goaded because they couldn’t stand being ignored.  They were mean when you shut them out.  They were worse when you reacted.  And it didn’t matter the reaction.  Run, fight, shrink or storm.  It just fed their ego, made them worse.

I didn’t believe in monsters, but people like that made me wonder.

“You don’t put yourself in danger,” I told her, gripping her hips and holding her still.  She wasn’t squirming, but it got her attention.  “Let me go there for you.  Hell, I’ll take it all on, but don’t you fucking put yourself in jeopardy.  I need to know you’re safe.” 

That, she heard. 

“Okay,” she whispered, pushing her hair behind her ear.  She looked ridiculously cute when she did that, and I felt my body tighten again.  We had to stop talking during all this.  This shit hurt.

I growled, the threat more real than she realized.  “I should beat your ass for this little stunt.”

She just grinned, glancing down at my bulging crotch.  “But you won’t.”  She unzipped my pants.  “I’m too much fun.” 

And with that, she fluttered her lashes at me and crawled right the fuck on my cock.

“Don’t push me.”  I tried to say.  I’m not sure what the hell came out of my mouth though, because she was sliding that wet pussy along every throbbing inch of me. 

She, apparently, could still think.  Her eyes widened, “You really were scared.  Worried about me.”

I swallowed.  “No shit.”

I really needed to distract her again, but she was doing such a damned good job, squeezing the length of me with those sweet little netherlips, I was actually afraid to move.

“Oh, Aidan.”  The way she breathed that last word made me hard as fuck.  I nearly came right there. 

I was deeply grateful that the Chevelle models had been built like miniature houses.  There was more than enough room for her to sit on me, and more than enough to do what I was trying so hard not to do.

That backseat was looking really fucking tempting.

“Darlin’, if you keep that up I’m going to explode right here, and that’s gonna make it a little less fun to get you home.”  I was dead fucking serious.  She was having way too much fun at my expense here.

“Maybe that’s what I want,” she teased, rubbing her wet self against me again delicately. 

Fuck.  How did she have this much patience?

“Or, maybe I want you to take me in the backseat,” she suggested, her voice a low growl in my ear.  “Right here.  Right now.”

I eyed her.  When she got like this, she became a completely different woman, her eyes filled with lust, her mind like a cat batting a mouse – till she ate it without apology.

I growled back, grinding my teeth against the image that thought conjured.  I remembered what her mouth could do. 

I fought to make sense.  Games were fun, but they weren’t “sure.”

“I can’t fucking concentrate, Emma.  Are you telling me you want me to fuck you here – in broad daylight?”

“No,” she chirped, rewarding the effort.  “
I
want to fuck
you
.  I want to ride you right here on the side of the road – in broad daylight where anyone could see us.  I want to make you cry out like you made me scream last night.  I want to make you beg
me
for more.”

Holy fucking shit
.

“Fuck yes,” I groaned.  The irony of my saying that just then passed me by completely, but it was, apparently, the right thing to say.

I was going to have her.  All of her.

Right here on the side of the road in broad fucking daylight.

Fuck the consequences.