About Rage

Rage  

Callan

Avery

Callan

Avery

Callan

Avery

In the Wind

Coming Soon - Revenge

Pesky Legal Stuff

About Rage

Every war is fought between brothers

Knowing outlaw biker Callan Tilley is about to be murdered by another member of the Thunder Gypsies MC, Avery Watkins calls the police. But not all cops in Thunder Valley operate on the right side of the law, and saving Callan could cost Avery her life.

Callan has had a soft spot for the shy waitress from the first time he set eyes on her back in high school and is certain she was the one who called 911. That means she's as good as dead once the gang traces the call back to the bar where Avery works.

His plan to save them both? Steal a secret stash of the club's money, grab Avery and get the hell out of town. It might work, too, if the ATF, FBI, DEA and every other alphabet-soup agency in law enforcement were not on the hunt for a Gypsy willing to turn on the MC.

********************

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Rage  

Maybe making the 911 call was stupid, but that’s just me -- stupid Avery Watkins. My dad will tell you it’s true, only he’s more likely to say I’m a dumb cunt, followed by “just like your mother.” Only she’s a dead dumb cunt and has been for ten years. My high school teachers and the guidance counselor, Miss Rawley, will back up his opinion, only they prefer to sugarcoat it with nicer wording like “inattentive” and “doesn’t apply herself.”

I doubt any of those ladies at Thunder Valley High could have applied themselves any better at school if they had grown up with a drunk dad making them fetch beers and light cigarettes until two in the morning, and then find it impossible to fall asleep because there was no telling if the old man would wake up and light his own smoke before promptly passing out with a burning cigarette hanging from his lips. I’m doubly sure none of them ever applied themselves after emptying puke buckets for the last three months of their mother’s life as the alcohol abuse finally finished her slow suicide of the last two decades.

But that’s all water under the bridge, more or less. I finished high school on time a good five years ago and I work two jobs in a town were a lot of people can’t even find one. I’m a server three mornings a week at the truck stop by the interstate and I fetch beers and light cigarettes for drunks who aren’t my dad four nights a week at a bar called Freya’s.

Not a lot to lose, is it? Maybe that’s why I thought nothing about making the call when I overheard that the Thunder Gypsies, the local motorcycle gang, were about to kill one of their own members. It didn’t hurt that the soon-to-be dead Gypsy was Callan Tilley, someone always one grade up from me since I first noticed him when I was in fifth grade.

I was bringing four beers and a whisky to the back room at Freya’s when I heard the low-voiced execution order.

“We have to take Callan out. He’s turning into his dad and brothers.”

I almost dropped my tray of drinks but somehow managed to round the table like I hadn’t heard a word of what they were saying. The speaker was “Little Red,” the club’s vice-president. His father, not one of the four men at the table, was Big Red and had been the Gypsies’ president since Callan’s father was sent to prison for thirty years on some kind of racketeering charge.

Placing the drinks on the table, I did the mental math. Six years had passed since the cops slapped the cuffs on the elder Tilley. Callan had been a senior in high school and less than three years would pass before he was the last Tilley in Thunder Valley, one brother dead and the other in federal prison for the murder.

Manslaughter, not murder.

A waitress, not a lawyer, I didn’t understand the difference or how the prosecutor had made a case against Lincoln Tilley without a body. But everyone in town seemed to agree that Lincoln had killed his older brother Boone. Everyone but Callan -- and maybe me.

Placing the whisky and beer Little Red had ordered in front of him, I felt the brush of his knuckle against my knee. My stomach lurched to the opposite side of my body. I was damn near invisible to everyone at Freya’s and the rest of Thunder Valley, but Little Red always made a point of touching me. He did it out of sight or in a manner his Gypsy brothers wouldn’t notice, but then he made a point of catching my gaze to let me know the contact had been intentional.

Little Red downed the whisky then slammed the shot glass against the table. He wrapped one hand around the beer bottle and pointed it at Weaver, so named because everyone thought he was a basket case. Really, he was a crank monkey, the circuits in his brain fried by years of drug abuse. He was the only other Gypsy Callan’s age, but the two men were worlds apart. Callan, like the rest of the Tilley men, treated his body like a temple. Good food, plenty of activity, no drugs, no hard alcohol, and only the occasional beer as best as I could tell.

“You down with it happening?” Little Red asked Weaver as he continued pointing his bottle at the man.

I couldn’t believe the Gypsies were continuing the conversation while I was at the table serving their drinks. But if they thought I hadn’t heard the beginning, then they likely figured I wouldn’t put two and two together when Callan wound up dead.

Weaver offered Little Red a dopey smile, whatever drugs he’d taken earlier and the two rounds of alcohol I’d already delivered to the table clearly having an effect on the muscles of Weaver’s face.

“Whatever the club needs, brother.” He tried to tap his bottle against Little Red’s and missed.

Little Red looked at the two other Gypsies at the table. Both men nodded, their gazes more serious than Weaver could manage.

“Good.” Little Red reached out and snagged my elbow before I could leave. He looked at the men. “Because Bolo is back from Atlanta tonight.”

My lungs seized in my chest and I had to force myself not to gasp to restart them. Had Red just said Bolo would kill Callan tonight? I wanted to run from the table, find a quiet corner and whip out my cell phone. Only I didn’t have Callan’s number and Red still gripped my arm.

He brushed his thumb softly against my inner elbow. “Bring us all a round of whiskeys, baby. We’re celebrating.”

Tears threatened to well in my eyes, but I forced them down. Not only did I have to figure out some way to get a message to Callan before Bolo found him, but I also had to figure out this “baby” shit with Red and the way he had openly caressed me. And I had to do both without Red knowing or feeling insulted. I’d seen more than once what happened to women who crossed him or his dad.

Skin crawling from the sustained contact with the biker, I nodded and extracted my arm from his grasp. “Four whiskeys coming up.”

With the Gypsies at one of the backroom’s three tables, the other two tables were empty. I practically ran from the room and ignored my four stations on the south wall of Freya’s main room. I blew past the pool tables, deaf to the slurred “honey, bring me another,” from one of my regulars. Every patron in the bar could have been yelling drink orders at me and I wouldn’t have heard a single word. My heart beat too heavily, the blood it pushed through my veins pulsing too loudly for other sounds to penetrate.

Down the narrow hall I went to the only refuge a woman could find inside Freya’s -- the restroom. After making sure the door latched properly, I pulled my cheap pre-paid cell phone from my waitressing apron. With no Internet on the phone, I went old school and dialed information.

A recorded voice asked me for city and name.

“Thunder Valley, Callan Tilley,” I whispered, my gaze on the sliver of space between the bottom of the bathroom door and the floor to make sure no one had followed me down the hall.

“I’m sorry,” the mechanical voice prompted. “I didn’t get that. Please try again.”

“Thunder Valley, Callan Tilley, ” I said just a little louder.

“I’m sorry...”

I waited, eyes closed, blood continuing to rush past my ears in a thick roar, for the machine to tell me whether I wasn’t loud enough or that Callan had an unlisted number.

“There’s no listing for that number,” the voice finished. “Would you like to try another listing?”

I hung up. My stomach see-sawed from too many emotions rolling through me and the permanent stink of vomit and piss that no amount of bleach or other disinfectants could wash out of the floor and walls of Freya’s bathrooms. Moving toward the sink, I reached up and pushed at the bottom of the rectangle of glass that served as a window. Like those in any other bar, the bathroom window was built high and was too small to crawl out of unless you were a toddler. But if I stood on my tiptoes, I could just catch a whiff of slightly fresher air.

The window faced the back of Freya’s but on the opposite side of where the dumpster and recycling bins were placed. There were a few parking spots for the employees who actually had a car. Patrons were supposed to park out front, but the rules didn’t apply to the Gypsies.

Little Red could have sat bare-assed on Freya’s face and she wouldn’t have whispered a single complaint. Mostly they parked out front like everyone else, kind of like marking their territory. But sometimes one or more of them parked behind the joint. That usually meant they were lying low, either from the cops, another club or their woman.

So hearing the throttle of a motorcycle behind Freya’s as I stuck my nose to the open window didn’t surprise me. The sputtering cough of that throttle, however, hit me like a knife sinking into my already troubled gut. Only one bike in the Gypsies cavalcade sounded that bad -- Bolo’s. I knew it by heart, just like I knew the sound of Little Red’s and Callan’s bikes. I knew Bolo’s because, as the club’s sergeant-at-arms and thus its enforcer, he scared the living daylights out of me. I knew Red’s because he made my skin crawl in other ways and I knew Callan’s because--

Well, because I’m stupid for him and have been since my freshman year of high school. Stupid Avery Watkins who can’t keep enough of her tips and wages from her drunken father so that she can move the hell away from Thunder Valley. Stupid Avery Watkins who has one foot on the toilet in Freya’s bathroom so she can peek out at a killer to see if he’s already wiping blood from his hands.

Arms shaking as I hoisted myself just a little higher, I saw Bolo shut down his bike and climb off. It was too dark where he stood to see the state of his clothes, whether there were any dark spots that weren’t grease from the bike or his last meal.

I dropped to the floor, my brain running circles inside my skull. I couldn’t call Callan to warn him. I had to find him and do it in person -- but I didn’t have a car. And my dad, if he was sober enough to remember, wouldn’t be at Freya’s to pick me up until midnight. Even then, he wouldn’t hand over the keys to his truck when he’d never taught me to drive.

If I wanted to find Callan and warn him, it would be on foot. And I couldn’t start with Little Red at Freya’s, especially not now that he seemed ready to ramp up the attention he threw my way.

Trying to figure out how I was going to make it through the next three hours of my shift, I reached for the door handle. My hand froze as I heard another bike pull in behind the bar. My eyes drifted shut, a tear escaping each as I recognized the smooth running engine of Callan’s bike.

Flipping the bathroom light off, I grabbed hold of the window ledge once more, put a foot on the toilet and pushed up so that I could see both men. My heart froze when I did.

Callan was backing his bike into a spot. Bolo appeared to be waiting for him in a good natured way, one buddy standing by so the two could walk into their favorite bar side by side. But I knew that wasn’t the case -- not just because of what I had overheard but by the way Bolo’s hand kept drifting to his back waistband.

The bottom hem of his black leather vest with its Gypsies patch lifted, showing me the dull silver flash of metal. A knife maybe, or more likely a gun. Bolo wasn’t stupid or crazy enough to go after the taller, stronger Callan with a knife. Bolo would be eating his own steel if he tried.

“Been looking for you,” Bolo shouted above the open throttle of Callan’s bike. “We need to hit the clubhouse for a talk.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. If Callan went to the clubhouse with Bolo, he was dead.

Revving the engine on his bike, Callan seemed to study the other Gypsy. “Thirsty, need a drink first.”

Callan moved to shut off the engine on his bike, but Bolo stepped forward and put his hand over that of the younger man.

“No drink.” He ordered, his voice taking on the stern tone befitting his rank as the club’s enforcer. “Besides, your girl ain’t in tonight.”

Blood rushed back to my face. Callan had a girl? Great -- maybe she should be the one spying from the bathroom and trying to figure out how to save his stupid ass from his so-called motorcycle brothers.

“Don’t have a girl,” Callan said and flung Bolo’s hand off his own to give the bike’s motor another rev.

Bolo looked over his shoulder, the angle of his head making me feel like he was staring at the bathroom’s small window with me behind it instead of just the back of Freya’s bar. He gave a little shrug but didn’t drop the argument.

“Not what Little Red says.”

“Red needs to worry about his own dick.” Callan moved once more to shut off the bike, only to have Bolo stop him again.

Ninety-nine-point-ninety-nine percent of the time, Callan looked like he wouldn’t hurt a fly despite the outlaw vest and steel-toed boots that could crack a human skull with one kick. But even in the low light behind the bar, I could see anger slow crawling across his features as Bolo blocked him a second time.

“Four brothers inside,” Callan said, his voice a tight knot. “If you’re calling Church, seems we’re riding a little light.”

Bolo dropped his hands to his sides for a second before he turned his open palms toward Callan and gave a full-bodied shrug. Seeing the false gesture of peacefulness, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. Either Bolo was going to sweet talk Callan back to the clubhouse or somewhere along the side of the road where he could kill him without witnesses or a deadly fight was going to erupt before they left Freya’s parking lot.

I dropped to the floor, pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911 as I crouched down so I wouldn’t be talking near the open window. Cupping my hand around my mouth and the speaker, I waited for dispatch to answer.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Murder!” The word blurted from me as soon as she finished the question. “Freya’s, out back. The Gypsies--”

“Calm down, miss.”

I heard the crackle of the dispatcher reaching one of the patrol units on their radio. She told them a disturbance was in progress at the bar.

“Murder,” I repeated. “M-U-R-D-E-R, not a fucking disturbance! The Gypsies are going to kill Callan Tilley, you dumb--”

I sucked in a calming breath. I needed the woman on the other end to be my friend, to send the cops here as fast as their super-charged cruisers would carry them.

“Please,” I whispered, glad for the throbbing vibrations of Callan’s bike to cover my voice. “If they don’t kill him here, they’ll do it at the clubhouse or on the ride back. But it’s happening tonight.”

“Who is this?” the operator asked.

I could tell by her tone that she had filled in the other half of “dumb” and didn’t give a rat’s ass that someone was about to die. But, before I could think about answering her question, I heard the patrol car’s response and the excitement in the responding officer’s voice. He gave his coordinates, the location less than half a mile away.

That was all I needed to know. I snapped the phone shut, ending the call as I opened the bathroom door. If I wanted to live, I had to be back in the thick of the bar, slinging drinks when the sirens started or when Bolo proved he was as stupid as molasses is slow and shot Callan behind Freya’s.

Halfway down the hall, Little Red stepped into view. His lips did a smirking dance as he walked up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. His head dropped to a conspiratorial angle and he smiled at me, the air issuing past his open lips rank with the smell of beer, whiskey and cigarettes.

“You’re late with the drinks, darling.” He brought his mouth closer to my ear, making my skin feel like I had a colony of ants crawling along my neck. “Now, what are we going to do about that, hmm?”

“I’ll bring them right away.” I promised, swallowing hard while I tried my damnedest not to look repulsed or give away the fact that I had just called the cops on him and his gang. Either sin committed against the vice-president of the Thunder Gypsies would earn me at least a beating.

“That doesn’t fix them being late, does it?” His hands moved halfway down my arms and then he jerked me closer.

His groin pushed against mine and I was half a heartbeat away from freaking out when I heard the sirens in the distance. Little Red heard them, too. He released me immediately, as if the police were on their way for his sickening, but minor, molestation of my flesh.

Panic flashed across his face as his hands moved over his belt line and pockets. He bent quickly, his search for contraband continuing as he fingered the inside edge of his boots. Straightening, his gaze raked my body and then he jerked a thumb down the hallway toward the main room and the serving station beyond.

“Get me those whiskeys.” He turned, his head twisting so he could look back at me. “Teaching you to move faster will have to wait.”

I nodded, something else entirely racing through my mind.

Fine by me, asshole.

Squashing the urge to collapse against the wall in relief, I followed after Little Red, the flashing lights of the patrol car lighting up the front of the bar as the cruiser pulled into the parking lot.

********************

A surreal, low-key circus erupted with the arrival of the police. Act one was Callan roaring through the front parking lot on his modified Harley as soon as the red and blue lights breached the dark behind the building. Thinking they had a rabbit to chase, the cops took off after him.

Seeing Callan leave with the cops in pursuit, Little Red, Weaver, and the other two Gypsies from the back room barreled past me on their way to the front door. Bolo pushed into the bar at the same moment, his face a furious red and both hands clenched.

“Fucker kicked my bike over and took off!” Bolo uncurled one big hand long enough to grab the edge of Little Red’s vest and shake him. “He fucking knew what was going down!”

With the second act in full swing, the rest of the bar’s patrons and all of its staff looked for someplace to hide because a fight between the Gypsies’ vice-president and its sergeant-at-arms seemed certain.

Little Red clapped his hands around Bolo’s head. “Don’t be paranoid, brother. Maybe Last Drop was carrying something he couldn’t have the cops find on him and that’s why he ran. He doesn’t know shit because no one in the club or out would cross us like that.”

“No.” Bolo shook Little Red’s hands away. His whole body vibrated with energy as he growled at his vice-president. “That pussy won’t carry a piece and you know he doesn’t have so much as a joint on him. I’m telling you he fucking knows!”

My hands balled into fists. I forced them to straighten then shoved them into the pockets of my apron as I edged my way toward the serving station. The way they were talking about Callan pissed me off. I found “Last Drop,” the club nickname for him because he was his father’s youngest, insulting. Callan Tilley was more man than all five of the Gypsies standing in front of me were combined. And to suggest he was a coward because he wouldn’t carry drugs or a gun was all kinds of messed up coming from someone who was trying to lure a “brother” back to the clubhouse so he could kill him.

Bolo and Little Red were the cowards and I wanted to tell them as much -- walk my stupid ass right up to them, shake my fist under their noses and call each out as the piece of shit he was.

I didn’t. Even if everyone thinks I’m stupid, no one has claimed I’m suicidal. I kept my head down until the Gypsies left the bar. With a smile plastered on my face, I kept working my shift, stopping only when a second patrol car showed up and started asking questions.

Hoping they wouldn’t recognize my voice, I spoke in soft tones. A guilty sweat covered my top lip and brow even though I had taken the battery out of my phone and stashed it behind the bar. The police stayed about half an hour, questioning every female in the place until dispatch radioed and said there was a three-car accident on the interstate.

Two hours later, I climbed into the cab of my dad’s rusted pick-up, my chest heavy with the knowledge that the last Tilley brother was gone from Thunder Valley. At least I hoped Bolo was right and Callan knew he couldn’t go back to the clubhouse or any other place he might run into a Gypsy. But the only way to make sure was to find Callan and tell him Little Red had an execution order out on him.

“Lots of squawking on the scanner tonight,” my dad announced as I drew the seat belt across my chest.

“Yeah.” The truck was about fifteen years too old for anything on it to be automatic, so I reached around to push down the lock on my door. Then I rolled down the window a little for relief from the smell of beer and cigarettes.

He hadn’t put the truck in gear yet. I knew when I turned back, his eyes would be on me. Meeting his gaze, I shrugged. “Some pile-up on the interstate.”

“I was talking about the bar.” His gaze narrowed and then his mouth imitated the motion until it was a thin, angry line I knew too well. “Sounds like the cops were questioning just the whores.”

Wow!

My eyebrows shot halfway up my face. I knew better than to leave them there and I forced them down, another fake smile shaping my mouth. “Questioning the whores and me, dad.”

“Only whores work in bars.”

Okay. I guess that made him my pimp since he claimed most of my money.

I took a deep breath, my sensitive nose trying to gauge just how many beers had passed his lips before he remembered he had to pick me up from work. Anything after seven and he’d turn violent in a heartbeat. Since all I smelled was beer without the bitter mix of bile, I figured he was at four cans. Any less and his grip on the wheel would have been tighter.

Upping the wattage on my smile, I nodded at the insult but didn’t let it slide. “Only whores and me.”

“Don’t get mouthy.” He glared at me before putting the truck in gear and slowly pulling forward. “You didn’t call the cops on them bikers, did you?”

“Don’t have the minutes on my phone to waste,” I answered.

He let the topic drop. Toeing a few empty cans out of the way, I made room for my feet on the truck’s floor and rolled the window down a little further. The act reminded me of being stuck in the bathroom at Freya’s, my nose to the window first so I didn’t have to smell the stench and then because I had to know what was going on between Bolo and Callan. The sense of deja vu between my actions at the bar and in the truck was so strong, I could have sworn I heard Callan’s bike in the distance.

My heart skipping a beat, I checked the side mirror then discreetly looked through the cab’s back window. I didn’t see headlights and the sound of a motorcycle’s open throttle faded like the ghost it was.

“Anything else on the scanner?” I asked, trying to get my mind off the phantom sounds of Callan’s bike and maybe learn from my dad whether the police had caught up with him.

He grunted, one hand reaching into his shirt pocket to fish out his pack of cigarettes. I reached forward and pressed the cigarette lighter for him like a good daughter would.

“Just them cars on the freeway and the shit at the bar.” He plucked a cigarette from the pack and put it between his lips. Making a show of counting how many cigarettes were left, he waited until the lighter popped before he returned the pack to his pocket.

“Do we need to stop on the way home?” I asked, already knowing the answer. He wanted me to buy him another pack and probably more beer. As drunk as he wasn’t, he had to be out of alcohol at home.

Exhaling, he picked at a loose fleck of tobacco that had fallen on his lip. “Could use some ciggies and a twelve.”

“Sure, I’ll run in and get them.” I tried to keep the disappointment from my voice at the familiar exchange. I hated that I had to work two jobs to help keep him in alcohol and tobacco, hated it more knowing that if I didn’t volunteer the money, he’d find another way to get it out of me. Like Callan, I needed to get the hell out of Thunder Valley, but I didn’t have a ride.

Callan...

Thinking about my dad and my own sorry situation, I had lost sight of the bigger picture for a second. Looking out the window and feigning disinterest, I tried to pull a little more information from my old man before I resorted to any direct questions.

“Hey, didn’t the cops chase one of the bikers, tonight?”

“Didn’t catch him,” he answered before giving the knob on the stereo a hard twist. Country music blared over the truck’s tinny speakers, telling me any further conversation between us was unwelcome.

Fine with me. I stayed silent until we stopped at the Kwik-Shop, where I dashed inside for the cigarettes, a twelve-pack of beer and a gallon of milk. Knowing all the city and county cops stopped at the little convenience store for the free coffee and fountain drinks the owner offered police, I tried to chat up the guy behind the counter.

My dad gave an impatient honk of the truck’s horn before I could get anywhere with the clerk. I hustled back to the vehicle, my face a bland mask that hid my irritation.

Five minutes later, the truck pulled into the driveway of our crumbling two-story house. Carrying the milk, beer and cigarettes, I got out of the truck and waited by the front door. Just as they did every night my dad picked me up, my cheeks burned with shame. I didn’t have keys to the house I lived in. I used to -- when my mother was alive and my dad didn’t much care whether or not I made it home from school. He took the keys away about a month after she died. He left for work after I left for school and I waited on the front porch, through snow, rain or sunshine until he got home. The only thing that changed after high school was that I had two jobs and he lost his.

“You didn’t do the dishes before you left.” He slid the key into the doorknob, twisted it then stepped inside, his thin frame blocking me from entering. “Or take out the trash.”

“Right.” Holding back tears, I forced myself not to blink because I knew they would fall and he’d score his second victory of the night. I shifted the twelve-pack to my other hip. “Let me get these in the fridge and then I’ll take care of the kitchen.”

Granting my carefully phrased plea to enter the house, my dad stepped to the side. Just before the door slammed shut behind me, I thought I heard the beckoning hum of a distant motorcycle. I shook my head, flinging the foolish notion like drops of water after a cold shower.

There was no bike. Even if my ears hadn’t been playing tricks on me, the bike wasn’t the one I wanted. Deep down, I knew -- the last Tilley brother had left Thunder Valley and there was no way I could follow.

Callan

Avery Watkins lived seven blocks from the high school we had attended as teenagers. I stashed my bike across the street from the school where nothing but acres of woods ran until the tree line broke onto the interstate. I used the trees as cover for three blocks as I traveled on foot to reach her house. For the last four blocks, I stuck to the streets with busted out lights.

Exhausted, my body fought me every step of the way. Tired as I was, I had to force myself not to run the distance from the school to Avery’s house. I told myself she was still alive, that the Gypsies were too busy hunting me down to realize someone at the bar had called the cops on them. If we were lucky, morning would come and go before they figured out they had a snitch. Hell, it had taken me three hours to piece together what must have happened. And I still didn’t have the puzzle completely solved.

I just knew that, if there was an angel in Thunder Valley looking out for me, she had red hair and sky blue eyes.

And I couldn’t leave her to face the wrath of the Gypsies once they managed to get a copy of the 911 call that must have been made. They’d hear her sweet voice and Little Red would know it was her from the first recorded word out of her mouth. He’d been sniffing after Avery the last six months, only my warning to him that I wouldn’t let her be drawn into the Gypsies forcing him to back off.

Hell, if I was okay with Avery being a biker’s old lady, she would be mine.

Approaching her house, I rubbed at my eyes and tried not to think of her that way. I was here to offer her a ride out of town and enough money to start her life someplace new. Someplace without me or any of the baggage I came with.

Seeing the lights on in her house at one in the morning, I stashed a bag I had carried with me then settled beneath the branches of a dying peach tree that ran along the border between her yard and the next one over. I hoped like hell there wasn’t a dog in either house that would start barking and alert the whole neighborhood to my presence. I needed to talk to Avery tonight. We needed to get out of Thunder Valley before the sun came up. Both our lives depended on it.

Knotting one hand in my hair, I watched Avery clean the kitchen and wondered if I could convince her to leave with me. It’s not like we were friends even though we’d lived in the same small town our entire lives and been only one grade apart. I hadn’t noticed her until high school and who knows if she noticed me back then or now beyond what beer to bring me at Freya’s or how I liked my eggs at the diner. She probably had no clue that I only ate at that dive or drank at the bar when I knew it was her shift.

Then again, maybe she did and the quiet way she had about her was a mask for the disdain she felt about the Gypsies and, by extension, the disdain she felt for me. I couldn’t blame her. The MC wasn’t started as an outlaw club, but it had devolved to a group of one-percenters who hadn’t found a crime they weren’t willing to commit. That had happened slowly as Big Red moved up through the ranks to become the secretary-treasurer first and then the vice-president while my dad was still a free man.

As best as I could piece together, he roped in a few Gypsies for protection runs -- legitimate goods at first, but no one realized Big Red had put the squeeze on the companies, threatening the shipments with breakdowns and beat downs on their routes if they didn’t pay up. Then it was moving stolen goods, then drugs and guns.

I started to pace beneath the tree, grateful for the branches’ dark shadows that sheltered me from the moonlight. I didn’t need to spend the pre-dawn hours ruminating how my family’s life had spiraled into hell because of Big Red or how, knowing what a piece of shit the man was, I had nevertheless become a full-patch member of the Gypsies to keep protection on my brother and dad in prison. I just needed to acknowledge that these were issues I’d have to get past with Avery if I wanted her to trust me or believe I could keep her safe long enough for her to start over.

An extra body in the kitchen distracted me from my thoughts. I looked over to find that Avery’s dad, Joe, had joined her. Not to help her clean -- that would be too much work for the old bastard. By the unsteady gait, I figured he was there to grab another beer from the refrigerator. I checked the time on the big wall clock behind his head to see that less than fifteen minutes had passed since Avery took a cold one to him.

Reaching into the refrigerator, Joe pulled out a beer, popping the tab and slamming half the contents down his throat before the door finished closing. Turning, he leaned against the refrigerator. All his weight seemed to rest against the appliance as he watched Avery work.

Her posture had changed from a relaxed fatigue to alert and on edge. Two feet away from her in the small kitchen, Joe put the beer to his mouth, his lips moving in speech before he took another sip. Avery reached into her pocket and took some money out. Placing it on the counter without looking at her father, she went back to cleaning the dishes. She hadn’t spoken to the old man since he entered the room.

I closed my eyes, tried to let the black behind my eyelids wash down the anger rising up inside me. Instinctively, I knew what would come next. The signs were there. Long sleeves on hot days, the occasional scarf knotted around her neck when she was not the kind of woman who added flare to her outfits. If anything, Avery Watkins tried to be invisible.

Chest growing too tight to breathe, I opened my eyes.

Joe had his hand around Avery’s throat, just enough strength in his drunken arms to spin her. Her back hit the refrigerator door and then her head bounced hard against its surface. I stepped away from the tree and into the exposed area of the driveway, only Joe’s truck sheltering me from being seen by anyone out so late.

Somewhere in the few steps I’d taken, my hands had gnarled into fists. They started shaking as the old man’s free hand -- the one he wasn’t using to choke his daughter with -- went under Avery’s shirt. I staggered from the truck to the side door, losing sight of Avery and what Joe was doing to her as I slid the blade of my buck knife between the door and its frame. The old wood gave way with a quiet groan masked by Joe’s yelling.

You don’t keep money from me, you dumb cunt!

My lips pressed tightly together, my teeth threatening to penetrate the flesh. I wanted to bellow from the doorway, to roar at the old man to get his fucking hands off her. But if he knew I was there, his fate was sealed. I hadn’t killed a man, not yet. But it wouldn’t take much for me to kill Joe Watkins.

I don’t care if you got it down your bra or up your snatch -- it’s my money!

Yeah, I could kill him for that alone. If he saw me tonight, he was a dead man. But I didn’t want Avery to see me coldblooded or in a rage. If I murdered Joe Watkins, she would be too terrified to leave with me.

The door between the kitchen and dining room slammed and I heard a small sob break from Avery’s throat. I eased into the dining room from the dark hall and silently pushed the kitchen door open. She stood with her back to me, her shaking hands once again busy with the dishes and beer cans littering the counter.

I crept closer, not wanting to startle her but knowing she might scream when she saw me. As near as I was, I could smell a mix of her flowery scent and the stale sweat and beer of Joe from how he had his hands on her. It was blasphemous for those two smells to mingle.

She hadn’t stopped crying. Her rough breathing and the clatter of dishes and flatware as she rinsed the soap off camouflaged my footsteps and the rustle of my clothing. Without thinking, I quickly reached around and clamped my hand over her mouth.

I expected at least a small struggle, but the knife surprised me.

Avery

Back to dole out more abuse, my dad covered my mouth with his hand, his body behind me. Fresh tears stung my eyes and blurred my vision. It was too much -- the words he’d said earlier, the way my throat still hurt from how he’d held me against the refrigerator, or the way his knuckles had grazed the underside of my breast as he rooted around the bottom band of my bra for my tip money. On top of all that, I felt more alone in Thunder Valley than I had since my mother died, maybe even lonelier. Callan was gone, without knowing or caring what I’d done for him.

Every last drop of poison I’d ingested over my life bubbled like acid to the surface of my skin, the hiss and pop rising in a chorus of NO! No, I would not allow the old man to touch me again. No more punches, no hair pulling or slaps or pushing my face into a cushion until I passed out.

No!

My hands searched in blind fear through the water in front of me until my fingers closed around the handle of a steak knife. God help me, I wanted a bigger knife -- one like the carving knife with its long blade and sharp point, but that was in the cutlery block a good three feet out of arm’s reach.

The steak knife would have to do. I jerked it from the water, quickly transferred it to my right hand and flipped it so the tip pointed at me. Before I could jab at my father’s arm, he captured my wrist.

“Damn it, Avery,” a masculine voice growled low in my ear. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

My fingers went numb, either from Callan’s hard grip or the realization that it was him.

Crap, I’d almost stabbed him!

The knife dropped into the sink. I started to shake, my body’s reaction as violent and exaggerated as if I’d had gallons of ice water dumped on me or fallen in the lake mid-winter.

Removing his hand from my mouth, Callan spun me then wrapped his arms around me. He pushed my face against his chest, muffling any chance I had of screaming had I wanted to.

“Just listen to me,” he whispered. “If you don’t like what I’m saying, I’ll go.”

I nodded against his chest, his hand still pinning my head to his body. He relaxed slightly, his fingers knotting in my hair as a precaution. The decrease in his tension didn’t stop my shaking. If anything, I shook harder.

Callan probably had the entire Gypsy horde out looking for him and he was in my house.

Why?

“Shh,” he soothed. He released his light grip on my hair to run both hands over my back.

I pressed closer to him. I clutched at his t-shirt. I tried to say something, to ask him why he was there, but my lips quivered too much to shape the words and I knew I couldn’t control the volume of my voice. Anything I said would come out as a shout and potentially draw my dad into the room if he was still conscious.

Callan grabbed my face and forced me to look at him. “I would never hurt you. But if he comes in here, he’s dead. So you have to calm down.”

I nodded again, still not trusting myself to speak. Rage burned in Callan’s eyes, showing me the danger to my dad’s life was real. My cheeks burned as it dawned on me why Callan was threatening to kill him.

“You saw?” I whispered.

“Saw...yeah.” His hands gripped my head a little tighter, scaring me for a second before he dropped them to his side. “Heard him, too.”

His gaze cut toward the kitchen door. Seeing the anger that heated his skin and narrowed his face, I had a moment’s vision of Callan grabbing the carving knife from the block and going into the front room. He was at the tipping point of losing it, the assault he had witnessed just one component of a day that would send anyone else over the edge.

Reaching up, I placed my palms flat against his massive chest. “Forget him. Tell me why you’re here.”

His eyes softened when he looked back at me. His mouth opened, then closed in reconsideration. I could see him talking to himself inside his head, maybe rehearsing what he wanted to say to me.

“Please,” I prodded, my hands lightly rubbing at his chest. My body had stopped vibrating but the tension of needing to hear why he was standing in my kitchen would quickly prove too much for me to bear. I could feel my body starting to wind up again, the violent shaking just a few seconds away if he didn’t speak. “Tell me.”

Callan backed up a few feet, pulling me with him so that we were out of view of the windows and door into the dining room.

“You called the cops out to Freya’s, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” I gripped the collar of his shirt, wanted to rip it from him to ease my frustration. If this was just a “thank you and good-bye,” I might take the steak knife to him after all. When he said nothing, I pounded one impotent fist against his shoulder. “Bolo was going to kill you. I heard Little Red talking to Weaver and the others. He said ‘We have to take Callan out,’ and that Bolo was back from Atlanta to take care of it.”

“If they don’t know it’s you already, they will soon,” he warned. “They’ll get someone in the sheriff’s office to make a copy of the 911 call. Little Red is hot enough for you that he won’t have any problem recognizing your voice.”

I blushed at the reference to Red. There was only one man in Thunder Valley I wanted hot for me and he was standing right in front of me, his body like a granite mountain and his brain almost as dense.

“Yeah, they’ll know it’s me,” I acknowledged.

His gaze went wide, like I was the dolt in the room. “You know what they’ll do to you, don’t you?”

Wanting to hide my fear, I looked down at the sliver of space between our bodies. “Kill me, I guess.”

“If you’re lucky, that’s all they’ll do.” Grabbing my shoulders, he pushed me further away from him until at least a foot of space separated us. Then he cupped the underside of my chin and forced me to look up at him.

A gaze as green as a country meadow danced with so much light I couldn’t keep looking. I squeezed my eyes together, fresh tears spilling from their corners. “Yeah, they’ll do more than kill me, but I had to call.”

“I know. You don’t have it in you to let someone get hurt if you can stop it.”

I shook my head. The confession might be stupid, certainly I’d regret it later, but right then I had to tell him. “I don’t think I’m that good a person, Callan. I wasn’t protecting just anybody -- I was protecting you.”

There, it was out. He could make of it what he would.

He reeled me toward him, his hands suddenly on my waist and pulling me fast and hard. My body crashed into his and then he had his fingers threaded through my hair, controlling the tilt of my head as his mouth covered mine. His tongue, when he sought to part my lips, met with no resistance. I opened to him, surged up, licked in return when he stopped to allow me a short breath.

I wanted to devour him in that kitchen, to take him in small and big chunks, my legs and arms wrapped around him. Ragged moans raced past my lips and into his until he had to spin me around and clamp his hand over my mouth once more to silence me.

He lifted me onto the counter, his hips pushing my knees apart. “You’re coming with me. Now.”

From the front room, my father bellowed.

“Bring me another beer, girl!”

Callan tensed against me, his body moving like he was throwing it on a live grenade and I was the explosive. Knowing it was my turn to calm him down, I wrapped my legs around his waist. I sheltered his ear with one hand as I bellowed in return.

“On my way.” Lowering my hand, I brushed my cheek against Callan’s rougher one and whispered, “He’ll pass out before he can finish it. And then we’ll leave.”

A growl vibrated through Callan’s throat, but he didn’t forbid me from taking another beer out to my dad. Cautiously, I pushed him from me and stared into his face. The gaze was fierce, but I couldn’t tell if the passion burning through them was anger or something carnal. Moisture flooded between my thighs and I knew what I wanted it to be -- pure, unadulterated lust.

He’d opened just enough room between our bodies that I could slide to the floor, my breasts and thighs rubbing against him on my way down. One of those moans I had shoved down his throat earlier bubbled back at me and I had to hide my smile. If I didn’t know better, I would think Callan, like Little Red, had been nursing a case of the hots for me.

I broke the seal on the refrigerator and reached in for a cold beer. In the hour we’d been home, my dad had already plowed through five cans. When I backed up, it was into the hard body of Callan Tilley. A sharp thrill raced through me and I wondered how the hell I could have mistaken him for my father when he first clamped a hand around my mouth.

“If he touches you--” Callan warned.

“I know,” I answered softly. “He’s dead.”

**********

I took the beer out to my dad. He couldn’t keep his eyes open. I handed the can to him, the tab already popped. He pulled it slowly to his mouth, his eyebrows lifting like they were attached to his top lip and that was the only way he could get his mouth open enough to pour anything into it. He slurped some in, swallowed, then let out an exaggerated sigh as he melted into the ratty old recliner he’d had since before I was born.

“I’m sorry about what I said.” He pushed the beer can between his thighs so it wouldn’t spill, and then he patted aimlessly near his chest for the pocket holding his cigarettes.

“I know,” I answered and leaned forward to pluck a cigarette from the pack. Knowing he was too drunk to light it on his own, I struck a match and puffed on the end a few times before handing it to him. “I’m gonna throw on a jacket so I can take the trash out.”

If he hadn’t been two sheets to the wind, he would have wondered why I wanted a jacket when the temperature hadn’t dropped below sixty all month. Instead, he nodded as if it made perfect sense. Surprising me, he captured my wrist and gave my arm a little jiggle.

“You’re a good girl, Avery.” Letting go of my wrist, he reached for his beer. “Not at all like your mom.”

I thought I was done crying for the night, but fresh tears swam along the bottom rim of my eyes and threatened to escape. He rollercoastered like this depending on where he was in his drinking cycle. Before tomorrow afternoon rolled around, I would once again be a worthless bitch.

My head bounced in acknowledgement while I searched for my voice. “I know, dad.”

I fled upstairs as quietly as I could. No dummy, Freya made all her waitresses wear yoga pants on duty. No skirts, no jeans, just a well-hugged and high lifted ass that left nothing to the imagination. I stripped them off, shoved a clean pair in my backpack and slid on some jeans and a worn pair of low-heeled boots I’d purchased second hand. I slid a denim jacket over my t-shirt, tossed a few more tees into the bag, a pair of slip-ons, some panties and one bra, although I had so little up top I could get by without one. On my way into the bathroom, I stepped into my dad’s room. He’d trashed my room any number of times to see if I had hidden any cash. He never thought to check his own room, didn’t know about the loose board under his dresser or how the little space beneath held almost eight hundred dollars of my money.

One hairbrush, toothbrush and a tube of paste later and I was downstairs.

I peeked around the corner to find my dad passed out, his body miraculously upright in the chair. The cigarette I had lit for him five minutes earlier hung from his lips. Without him puffing on it, it had a few more minutes of life before it died out. I crossed the room, my backpack over one shoulder. I leaned forward, ready to gently remove the cigarette so I wouldn’t wake him and have to explain the bag.

My hand hovered, waiting for me to decide whether I would take the cigarette and extinguish it or let it burn down. I dropped my hand to my side and turned, unsurprised to find Callan watching me. Like my hand, he’d been waiting to see whether I would protect the old man from himself one last time. Seeing that I hadn’t, approval lit his gaze and he gave a small jerk of his head toward the hallway that led to the side door and the driveway beyond it.

Outside, I waited to see which direction he would take, but he opened the truck door for me.

“Climb in.” He waited while I obeyed, then softly shut the door. Instead of walking directly to the driver side, he went to the trashcan next to the back of the house, lifted the lid and scooped out a grocery store bag. He peeled the bag off to reveal another store bag wrapped around what looked like a brick.

“Put this in your backpack.” He opened the driver-side door and handed the bag across to me. “Then get behind the wheel and put it in neutral.”

Not asking what the bag contained, I did as I was told. My heart thumped hard against the back of my ribcage as I zipped my backpack shut. The brick was about six inches high and as wide and long as a dollar bill. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t drugs and the idea made me nervous.

“This old heap can’t be trusted to go more than five miles at a time,” I warned as I scooted along the bench seat.

“Only taking it a few blocks,” he answered then nodded at the gearshift. “Get it in neutral then steer while I push it out of the drive. I want the front facing Monroe Street.”

Mashing my lips together, I forced the memory up of how to work the transmission. No one had been willing to teach me and I only knew a little from watching my dad and a couple of YouTube videos I had dug up while using one of the computers at the library.

Stepping on the brake pedal with my right foot and the clutch with my left, I coaxed the gearshift into the spot I figured was neutral. Not only was it dark inside the pick-up, but the letters on the knob had worn off long ago. I just knew that when my dad picked me up from work, he never turned the truck off because half the time it would take an hour and a lot of tinkering and swearing under the hood for him to get it started again.

Standing at the front of the truck, Callan chuckled. “Take your foot off the brake, Avery.”

Heat fanned across my cheeks, making me glad that the inside of the cab was darker than where Callan stood and he likely couldn’t see the embarrassment coloring my face. Slowly, I eased off the center pedal. The weight of the truck and the driveway’s incline did the rest. The truck started to quickly roll toward the street.

My eyes went so big as the truck picked up speed that I couldn’t focus for a second. Then I heard the pounding of Callan’s boots on the drive and him laughing as he gave me directions.

“Counter-clockwise, baby girl.”

I jerked the wheel a hard left, almost panicking as the back wheel hit the curb and the truck bounced hard. Now I was on the street. The incline was even steeper and it only took a second before the truck started rolling forward in the new direction.

“Brake, Avery!” Callan’s hard whisper held no anger, just an urgency for me to act.

I slammed my foot on the brake pedal, my body bouncing forward so that my chest hit the steering wheel. On my left, Callan opened the door. I looked at him, my mouth open as wide as my eyes. A grin stretched across the entire bottom half of his face.

“Keep your right foot on the brake and push down the clutch with your left.” He waited for me to do so then reached across my lap and pulled the gearshift all the way left then up. “Now slide that sweet ass over so I can drive.”

I stared at him another few seconds, my referenced ass and everything around it growing warm at the compliment. Seeing that I had become incapable of movement, Callan licked at his bottom lip. His eyes crinkled in a smile while his hands gave me an assist.

“Seriously, baby, we have to limit our exposure out here.”

I nodded and scampered to my right, mentally scolding myself for being stupid. Even if Callan rendered me dumbstruck with a single smile or warm chuckle, I had to get it under control. We were in the truck and running away because an outlaw group of bikers wanted us dead. If I didn’t stop forgetting that fact, I would get both of us killed.

Still outside the truck with the door open, Callan gave the vehicle a little nudge then jumped in as it started to roll. He waited until we were a few houses down from mine, then turned the key over. I held my breath, waiting to find out if this would be the five in ten times it turned over or the five in ten it stalled out.

The engine rumbled to life like a rheumatic dragon. I exhaled, a small laugh of relief bursting from me. Callan’s hand landed on my knee long enough to give it a quick squeeze and then we were on our way to where he’d stashed his Harley.

**********

We drove until we hit the outskirts of Atlanta, the last two hours without a stop. By the time we found a cheap hotel that didn’t ask for any identification, just cash, I wasn’t sure I could walk to the room on my own. Somehow, I managed to stumble after Callan, my body bouncing almost as much as my bag slung over his shoulder.

Stepping inside the room, he flipped the light on then proceeded to close the curtains that opened onto the parking lot. I followed him in, rubbing at my eyes and looking fondly at the bed. I hadn’t been to sleep since seven the previous morning and the lumpy mattress looked as good as a needle would to a junkie.

I expected Callan to be just as tired, but he slammed the door, locked it then pushed me against the wall. Suddenly, I was afraid. My mind raced through the last few hours, searching for something I might have done to piss him off. I couldn’t think of anything, but my brain turned on its survival auto-pilot and the words came out before I could consider the need to say them.

“I’m sorry, Callan!”

His brow furrowed but he didn’t back away. He was all the way against me, the muscles that had been flexing beneath my hands for the last twelve hours as he drove the bike suddenly tight and unyielding. His gaze narrowed.

“What are you sorry for, Avery?”

I sucked a breath in. He didn’t sound angry, but then I didn’t have a lot of experience with an angry Callan Tilley. Even at Freya’s with the other Gypsies riding his ass, he’d never lost his cool. Only last night at my house had I seen the rage he was capable of and, even then, he had kept a tight rein on it.

“For whatever I did wrong,” I stuttered.

He nodded and then his mouth puckered in a weird little smile. Unshouldering my backpack, he tossed it between the two beds then settled more of his weight against my chest.

“What you did wrong,” he explained, “was ride my back like you were dry fucking me for the last six hundred miles, baby.”

“Oh...” My mouth retained the shape of my answer and, before I knew it, Callan kissed me. He moved more slowly than that first kiss in my father’s kitchen and his hands ventured lower and harder than they had earlier.

“Dry fucking is fun, baby, but it’s just the warm up for the real thing.” He squeezed at my mound, the teasing pressure releasing a flood of juices from deep inside me. He let go to run his hands over my hips, a heavy sigh vibrating through his chest. “You can’t ride in those tight little yoga pants Freya makes you wear, but, damn, I’ve fantasized so many times about peeling them off you.”

My head bobbed as warm air staggered past my lips. “I can put them back on.”

He smiled down at me, his green gaze glittering as our shadows danced on the wall behind me. “You think I’m that patient, baby?”

I didn’t have to think my way through the question at all, his eyes and the hungry way he bit his lip told me everything. I shook my head just as he unthreaded the button on my jeans. He pulled the zipper down then forced his hands inside, his palm flat against each hip.

I took a ragged breath in as I realized this was really going to happen. Callan Tilley was going to strip me naked and...

The thought snagged inside my head. I didn’t want to think or care about whether this would be lovemaking or raw sex. We were on the run and any feelings we might have been nursing before yesterday we had kept to ourselves. Not once in all my fantasies of Callan had I forced the word “love” past his lips. He was an outlaw, even if he wasn’t anything like the other outlaws I had encountered. Keeping that word buried had kept me safe, not only from Callan but from my own need to please those I loved, or had once loved, at any cost. If I let that word in now, I would be powerless and I didn’t know if I could trust Callan beyond the next few hours or days.

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pushed against him, my body cresting upwards as I sought his ear and gently bit at the lobe. “Fuck me, Callan.”

A groan shuddered through him and then he threw my arms off his body and spun me to my right. The dresser stood just a few feet from the doorway and he bent me over it. My jeans and panties were around my knees a second later.

My stomach lurched at just how ready Callan was to bend me over and take me. Even with the words I had used to encourage him, I expected something slower.

He dropped to his knees, his breath curling along my exposed labia. With my flesh burning for his touch, the air felt cool and I jerked when it hit me.

“Baby, you’re so wet.” His fingers traced a line down each hip, his hand never venturing toward the dripping center of which he spoke. He already had my knees weak from wanting him, but he traced a line along their backs, the gentle touch more than enough to make them bend.

When my bottom dipped down, I knew why he had done it -- to bring my wet lips closer to his. I heard him inhale, then felt just the tip of his nose as it brushed against the red, silken hairs covering my sex. His mouth touched me at last, but not where I wanted.

He planted a kiss at the top of each thigh, just below the fold where they joined my bottom. I shifted my legs, hoping I could take a wider stance, but the jeans and panties around my knees kept my legs close together.

“Impatient,” he teased.

I snorted. “This coming from a man who couldn’t wait while I changed into different pants!”

He kissed me again, both sides and just a little higher and closer to the center. “That’s before you let me see this, Avery.”

The back of his fingertips brushed the wet hairs, the flesh beneath so sensitive that I tightened immediately. Pinching my swollen labia, he separated them and blew softly against the melting flesh they had shielded from his view.

“This isn’t something a man should rush.” He punctuated his words with an open kiss against my sex, his lips wide and his tongue questing. The tongue found my hole while one of his thumbs found my clit. Gently rubbing that hard spine, Callan pushed his tongue into me as far as it would go. Firmly embedded, it began to wiggle.

What was left of my sanity popped like kernels in a microwave.

Grabbing the edges of the dresser, I pressed my face hard against the cool surface of the wood. I needed to scream, the pleasure was that great. I’d only had my own hand before this, my attempts frustrated as often as not because I didn’t want to be alone.

I had wanted Callan those nights I touched myself, and now I had him.

“Please,” I begged. I’d never heard a sound so plaintive or genuine pass my lips. I would beg him as much as it took to get him to finish, to make me orgasm and then fill me with his cock.

His tongue retreated and he returned to kissing at the periphery of my aching cunt. His hands moved down my body to help me out of the jeans and my bottom clothing. Then he had me spread my legs wide. I wondered then whether he would stand and unzip his own jeans, but he wasn’t done teasing me.

One thumb pushed inside my pussy. With his own legs spread to where he all but sat on the ground, he angled his face up, allowing his tongue to flick and slurp along my clit. I moaned another plea and he just chuckled at me.

“I’ve never been a fast eater, baby.”

My cheeks heated at the joke. He really was eating me, making a full meal, his teeth nibbling at the tender, swollen labia before his tongue would return to tracing a hard line up and down my clit. Keeping his thumb hold on my cunt, he made sure I couldn’t move or control the encounter. He made me his to devour and he was taking his sweet time, bringing me to the edge, measuring my gasps and moans and how hard and often my pussy tensed before he backed off, softly laughing at my wailing need.

My release ungranted, Callan stood. I waited, certain he would take me now, that I would hear the slide of his zipper any second. Instead, he scooped me up like a rag doll and took me to the bed furthest from the door. He placed me sitting at the edge. Taking a spot between my open legs, he drew my denim jacket down just enough to trap my arms against my sides.

His mouth covered most of one breast, the t-shirt and bra blocking the contact of our flesh but not the sensation. He bit, lightly, and brought my nipple to full attention. I squirmed against him, trying to free my arms while I rubbed my wet pussy against his chest. Our clothes grew saturated, my t-shirt from his sucking at my breast through the fabric and his shirt from the heavy flow of my juices as he made me want him more and more.

When his hands finally went down to his jeans to unfasten them, I impatiently stripped my jacket off and reached for the bottom hem of my t-shirt to pull it over my head. He stopped me with a growl and the upward, predatory slant of his gaze.

I blinked, eyes watering with frustration. He wasn’t done teasing me -- not by a long shot.

Callan stood, lifting me off the bed and molding my legs around his waist. His damn jeans were still on and the cotton briefs beneath, but I could feel the fat top knob of his erection poking at my sex.

“Is that sweet pussy going to drool all over my underwear, baby?”

I whimpered. If he kept talking like that, I would flood the damn carpet before he allowed my climax.

Chewing lightly at my neck, he slid one hand under the back of my t-shirt and unhooked my bra before he braced both arms around me for support.

“Take this shit off now,” he commanded.

All I had left were the t-shirt and bra. I stripped them away, my body completely naked while he had only removed his jacket and unzipped his jeans.

He shifted me higher up his body, my legs hugging his torso. My pussy pressed hard against the top of his abdominal muscles while my breasts heaved level with his face. He captured one nipple and tugged at it with his teeth.

“Baby, I don’t know how to fuck other than rough,” he warned.

My eyes rolled back in my head at all the possibilities his words conjured.

“I can handle it,” I whispered. My whole life had been rough, why should sex be any different? I knew whatever Callan did, I would enjoy it. Every nerve ending in my body was wide awake and screaming for more. There was no way I wouldn’t like what he was about to do.

His hand maneuvered under my bottom to push down his jeans and briefs far enough to free the head of his cock. He nestled the fat tip against the entrance to my cunt, his strong grip preventing me from pushing down onto him.

“Let’s find out if you really can.” He breathed the challenge into my ear then placed me gently on the bed.

Knowing my gaze was locked on his lower body, Callan made a show of exposing the entire length of his cock before he stripped his t-shirt off. I licked my lips as more moisture pulsed from my cunt to wet the bedspread beneath me.

The Gypsies might call him Last Drop, but the women that hung out at Freya’s and the Gypsy clubhouse had another nickname for Callan Tilley.

The Tube.

“Let me see you again.” He moved his legs as he spoke, prodding my knees apart then using his hands to make sure I had my thighs spread wide. His gaze felt fierce upon my skin as he studied my wet pussy. With one thumb on my clit, he started a gentle exploration of the hole below. Two fingers in, a twist, a curling withdrawal. “How many men have you let in here, Avery?”

His tone was possessive without being accusatory.

“I haven’t,” I answered. I wasn’t ashamed to admit it, not with the way he looked at me. I knew then my virginity wasn’t because I was undesirable to most men. I was invisible because I wanted to be -- but not with Callan. He could see what I tried to hide and I didn’t want to hide from him anymore.

“Didn’t think so,” he said and dropped to his knees.

Seeing his cock disappear beneath the line of the mattress, I growled my frustration at him. “What are you doing? I want you in me!”

A cocky grin shaped his lips into the sexiest smile I’d ever seen.

“I told you, baby girl, I’m a slow eater.” His lips parted but he didn’t place them against me. Instead, he slipped two fingers inside once more. “And I need this sweet pussy wet and stretched before I sink my cock into it.”

“Wet isn’t a problem,” I groaned, relaxing into the mattress and telling my brain to let Callan fuck me exactly as he wanted to fuck me.

“But tight is,” he agreed and slid a third finger in before his mouth descended to cover the rest of my sex.

My fingers crept to my thighs then onto his head, their direction navigated by the need centered between my legs. I wanted to hold him tight to me, but his hair was too short to effectively knot my fingers in. But I could push and rub at his scalp, my hips lifting and squirming as he sucked at my clit and fucked his fingers deeper into my cunt. I froze, trembled, collapsed then tightened all over again.

He buried his digits down to the base knuckle, flexing to make them feel a whole lot thicker than just three wide. He twisted, the pads pushing up on some spot I could never hope to reach on my own. My pussy suctioned around him, wet joining with tight so that I could hear the slurp of my own juices as he pushed in and out.

“Callan...” I let the points of my nails dig at the back of his head, my threat that of a clawless kitten. Screams, unmistakably erotic, began to leave my throat. My torso convulsed in slow rolling waves as he kept me right at the edge of release.

Out came three fingers, in went four. Any more and his whole hand would be inside me.

“Yes, Callan, please,” I moaned. “Please let me come so you can fuck me.”

His assent rumbled from his mouth to my clit. He sucked harder, flexed wider, pushed deeper. I brought my legs up, my heels digging into the small of his back. I couldn’t imagine so much pleasure rolled into one moment, one heartbeat.

I exploded. I whipped my hands up to my face, my nails dragging at my bottom lip. My upper body tried to roll on my side in escape but Callan held on, forcing me to ride the crest of my orgasm, his mouth and fingers still lashing against and inside me.

“Callan!” Tears rolled down my cheek -- too much pleasure turned to joy that turned to salt I could taste on my tongue.

Relenting, he released me and quickly stripped the rest of his clothes away. One arm cradling me, he lifted my body until I was center of the mattress and then he forced my legs apart and settled between them.

“You come like a banshee in the rain, baby. All wet and screaming,” he teased as he positioned his cock to enter me. “Are you ready to come again?”

“Yes,” I whispered, throat raw from my cries of pleasure. “I need you in me. I need you to make it real.”

“It sure sounded real.” He pressed his chest against mine, flattening my breasts until I didn’t think I could draw another breath.

“Real for you.” I ran my hands over the thick-muscled arms that could lift and control me so easily, then down to the powerful muscles of his thighs and ass. “I want it to be real for you, to have you wet and screaming.”

He still wasn’t in me, his hand positioned between us and blocking my attempts to wiggle onto his cock. I couldn’t understand why he would hold back. Doubt crept in. Had I done something wrong?

“Don’t you want me?” My lips quivered with the question. He shushed me in answer, his mouth moving over the skin of my shoulder and neck in a whisper of kisses. “Please, Callan -- do you want me?”

“More than anything, Avery.” His weight lifted until he supported his body on one arm and could look at me. Shadows darkened his gaze. I didn’t know if it was the light in the room or if it was his mood and I had somehow placed those shadows inside him.

“But what you said is right.” His hand stroked at and in my pussy, making sure I stayed lubricated and stretched. “Taking you, filling you...it makes it real. I thought I could get you someplace safe, give you half the money I took from the Gypsies and let you walk out of my life because you’ll be better off without me.”

I shook my head. Years of watching him from afar and I hadn’t known until that moment how badly I had always wanted to be a part of Callan’s life.

“You’re not dumping me somewhere,” I told him. My whole life, I wasn’t sure I had ever had someone who loved me. Maybe my mother in small increments of time, rare seconds stolen between shots of booze and cigarettes.

Not that Callan loved me, but he seemed to care for me, had risked his life staying in Thunder Valley to get me out. And concern over my well-being was definitely more than I had ever had from one person. It was too rare a thing for someone like me to just let it go, to hop off his bike in some town, accept a pat on the ass and walk into a train station with half a brick of hundreds.

“You’re not,” I repeated when he continued to penetrate me with just his fingers.

“This is something that can only be taken once,” he whispered against my throat.

“I’m pretty sure you already took it.” A harsh laugh erupted from me. He’d been four fingers inside me, all the way up to where his palm started. And it wasn’t like there was some mythical shield in place. Eighth grade biology had set us all straight on that fact.

“I pleasured you with my hands and mouth, baby.” He paused to suck just below my ear before biting at the lobe. “It’s different with my cock.”

I chewed at my bottom lip to keep from arguing. Callan was too big and strong for me to roll him onto his back and impale my cunt on his erection, riding him until he changed his mind and joined his efforts with mine.

“I’m going in bare.” He slid down until he could tongue one nipple. “And even if I wasn’t, there is always the risk you could wind up with a baby.”

I released the lungful of hot air I’d been holding in to keep from climaxing as he continued to tease my pussy. “You’re wrong.”

Not about the risk of a baby, just about everything else -- even if my brain was too clouded with need to know what those other things were. I just knew he was wrong, that he had to be in me and soon.

“Avery, it’s the first time you’re willing to risk changing your life forever.”

That was too much! I slapped the only part of him I could get a bead on -- his cheek. Red flushed to the surface of his skin, its outline shaped like my center three fingers. His teeth took firmer hold of my nipple in warning.

“My life changed forever yesterday, Callan Tilley.” I pushed at his head, ignoring the warning of his teeth against my flesh. He either needed to fuck me or get the fuck off of me. “Even if you do discard me someplace along the road, you’re always going to be a part of my future, baby or not.”

He disengaged from my breast, his body surfing up mine until we were face to face. He didn’t look mad, just dead serious.

“I’m trying not to be selfish, Avery.” The words were a growl, the kind of growl a dog makes just before it bites.

A rush of adrenaline shot through me. I blinked, not caring that the tears sliding down my cheeks made me look weak. My lips and tongue worked at something I couldn’t say.

He kissed me soft on the mouth. “I want to be in you.”

Another kiss, a little harder than the first.

“I wanted to take you to my senior prom, was going to ask you even though you were a grade younger and I’d never said a single word to you, but...”

I nodded. His life had been thrown in turmoil his senior year. His dad had been arrested and convicted during the school year. That was just the beginning of the end for the Tilleys in Thunder Valley.

In mute apology, I ran my fingers softly against the fading red on his cheek. I trailed them over his chin until I reached the tattoo on his neck. A winged skull covered his Adam’s apple. Lincoln and his dead brother, Boone, had a similar tattoo. They had gotten it after their father was sent away.

Instead of a tuxedo for prom, he had received this mark of loss, this twisted sign that freedom came only in death.

“Baby...” He shifted and I felt the head of his erection pushing at my gate. “I wanted to throw you on my bike the first time I saw you working at Freya’s.”

He started to push in, my body yielding with mutual need.

“Take you home and whip your daddy’s ass for letting you work at a bar full of bikers and drug dealers.”

I blinked, more tears wetting my face and obscuring my vision. I rubbed at my eyes. I wanted to watch his face, didn’t want to miss seeing the emotion I could hear in his voice. Straining my head up, I kissed him as I pressed my thighs against the solid muscles of his ass. My arms tangled around his shoulders.

“We’re here now,” I whispered, desperate for the fat crown to slip all the way inside me. I was exposed, opened as wide as I could go but he had to be the one to sink into me, to surrender.

His lips skimmed across my cheek to find my mouth. “I won’t fuck you, Avery.”

It took me a second to realize what he was saying. He hadn’t retreated, I could still feel just the tip of the broad head wedging me open. But he wanted me to know exactly what this was between us -- or what he thought it was.

“Not fucking,” I agreed and squeezed his shoulders. “I don’t want you to fuck me, either. But I do want you in me, Callan. I want to be filled by--”

He pushed in and I thought my chest would explode. I gave a soft cry, not of pain although it hurt a little to have him stretching me so suddenly. The cry was an acknowledgement of the word I couldn’t say and that he didn’t want to hear just yet.

Callan mashed his lips against mine, robbing me of any chance of speech. His hips began to move, the head of his cock dragging heavily through me. I gasped for air, greedy for a lungful but accepting the small sip of oxygen he allowed me before the kiss continued, his tongue sweeping through my mouth with the same hard, questing nature of his cock. The bed started to creak as Callan’s pace increased. I could feel my climax building as my muscles knotted around the shaft and fat head.

“Yes...” My nails scratched lines down his back and my vision began to collapse, a grey circle crowding its edges. “Yes, Callan...”

“No,” he teased, slowing down. Remaining inside me, he raised his torso, pushed his legs under mine and settled onto his heels. His hands wrapped around my thighs to hold me open as he stared down at where his cock disappeared into my pussy.

“You’re going to have a hard time riding tomorrow, baby girl.” He chewed at his bottom lip as he slowly fucked back and forth inside me. The big head bullied my flesh as it dipped, retreated then slammed back in to batter the opening of my cervix. Slow again, his hips rolling to move a gentler circle inside me.

He hit a spot, the swollen tip almost backed entirely out of me, and I cried out.

“There?” He rasped.

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t open my eyes to look at him in approval, could only grit my teeth and nod like a fiend.

A small roll, a little dip. I sucked air in, refusing to release a single molecule of it until I climaxed. I would need it to scream his name.

His hand left my leg to tease at my clit. He teased me inside and out, the pleasure almost enough to turn my flesh inside out. My nails clawed at the bedspread. Another breath in. I could feel my face purpling.

His fingers moved a little faster, up and down my clit while the head of his cock battered a small circle just inside me, keeping the mouth of my cunt stretched as wide as it would go. I jerked, inhaled my last breath and cried out.

“Callan!”

He rammed into me at my scream, his arms coming under me to lift me up and impale me on his long, thick cock. He bit at my throat and the top of my shoulder as my body whipped along his shaft. I was coming, the contractions running through me making him feel even bigger as my cunt narrowed rhythmically.

Callan panted, his fingertips pressing hard against my spine. I couldn’t tell if I was even breathing. Surely I had to be. The mindless moans coming from me needed oxygen to take shape, needed my throat to squeeze them into sounds. But the only squeezing I was aware of, the only pulse of life I felt, was between my legs, my pussy contorting around Callan, milking him for that first jet of his release while my orgasm continued to roll through me.

He seized and I felt it -- just his cock moving as he held his breath. A violent jerk tugged at my pussy. Another one and then I resumed my bouncing to wring another thick string of cum from him. My hands wrapped around the side of his head and squeezed as I reached the very top of my climax and plummeted, my mind shattering when I hit the bottom.

“Baby?”

I opened my eyes to find a soft smile playing along Callan’s mouth. I smiled back, the endorphins in my body making my face feel drugged and floppy. He rolled his lips, massaging my back for a few seconds before he said anything more.

“You’re never getting rid of me after this.”

Callan

The red display on the alarm clock read a few minutes past two when I smelled the intruder. He just might have been the quietest son of a bitch I’ll ever encounter, but his stink gave him away before he could place the gun to my head and pull the trigger.

I grabbed the hand holding the gun and shouted a warning to Avery.

“Get down!”

The return silence lasted long enough for me to fear that I had slept through his hurting her, but then I heard Avery’s small cry of surprise and felt the mattress move as she slid onto the floor. My free hand found the collar of my attacker and I rolled onto my side after she had cleared the bed.

Despite the leverage he had standing over me, the man was too scrawny to resist. Now I had him on his back and the leverage was all mine. Holding him down, I squeezed at his wrist and prayed he didn’t release a round into the wall. At the moment, I didn’t care who was on the other side, I just didn’t want a gunshot drawing the police to our room.

“Let go or I’ll break your fucking wrist,” I hissed.

The bedside lamp came on. Part of me realized Avery must have hit the wall switch, but I kept my concentration on the man beneath me. He hadn’t released the gun, so I squeezed harder, pouring every ounce of strength my arm possessed into my grip.

A sick, wet snap rewarded my efforts and the gun fell onto the pillow. He started to scream from the broken wrist. I covered his mouth with one hand and reached for the gun with the other. My heart hammered inside my chest. I tried to calm it, but the pounding wouldn’t slow down.

I looked at the man’s face but didn’t recognize him. This fucker had been ready to kill us and he wasn’t even a Gypsy!

I swallowed a ball of oxygen, felt it travel in a clump down my throat and waited for it to feed my brain. When it did, I looked around the room in the feeble light cast by the cheap lamp. Avery stood at the edge of the bed, her eyes wide, the pupils almost nonexistent from fear. I glanced over my shoulder at the door.

“Lock the door, baby.”

Terrified or not, she didn’t hesitate. Fear wasn’t going to freeze my girl. Under pressure, her brain worked better than mine because she thought to check the other side of the door. Outside, a key hung from the lock. She removed it, locked the door and hurried back to the bed, her hand in a tight fist around the key.

The man still screamed behind my palm, my hand only lightly muffling the sound. “Get me a pillow,” I barked.

Again, she didn’t hesitate. She whipped a pillow from the other bed and placed it over his face. I slid my hand away and she pushed down, keeping him quiet while I shifted position. When I was sitting on his chest, I took control of the pillow.

Instinct brought my gun hand up, the barrel of the cheap, compact 380 denting the fabric and stuffing beneath it.

Avery lightly touched my shoulder. “You can’t kill him. The clerk knows our faces.”

I nodded angrily at the key she held in her hand. “You mean the clerk who sold us out?”

“We don’t know if he threatened her -- or whether she’s calling the police right now.”

Blood drained from my face like air leaving a popped balloon. Avery was right. The clerk might not even be alive. The piece of shit squirming beneath me for his life could have killed her. Or she was alive and the cops were on their way...

Or she sold us out and deserved a bullet in the brain to keep her from testifying.

Whatever the truth was, I didn’t have time to find out. Lifting the pillow, I slammed my fist with the gun in my hand against the man’s head, knocking him out.

“Grab my knife,” I ordered.

Avery reached into my boot and unfolded the three-inch blade I carried. She swallowed and then she looked at me, an ugly suspicion clouding her gaze. She wasn’t certain I would listen to her and let the man live.

“Cut up the shower curtain. I need strips so I can bind him.”

Relief brought color back to her cheeks as she ran for the bathroom. I took the man’s limp form and started dragging him after her. I studied him as I put him into position, his arms wrapped around the base of the toilet.

He had a leather vest on, a prospect’s patch on the front and the top rocker for Cain’s Disciples on the back. I shook my head at the stupidity of it -- his and mine. He had been stupid enough to believe he could sneak into the hotel room and execute me on his own, maybe because the Gypsies had spread the kill order to other clubs or maybe to speed along his probation period by taking out a Gypsy in Disciples’ territory.

As for my own stupidity, I almost choked on it. I didn’t think I would be recognized so far away without my colors. Just me, some shades, a nice bike and a beautiful girl on the back of it. Nothing to recognize -- except for the bike.

Frankenstein

I had picked that as the bike’s name for more than one reason. A modified Harley, the front came from a Suzuki 750, with a Harley Fat Bob slotted aluminum wheel that I had shaved about an inch of hub material from so it would fit between the front forks. The headlamp cowl was from a V-Rod and I had put a hinged V-Rod airbox cover over the gas tank.

Like the fictional Frankenstein, the modifications had been made from a graveyard of parts. But I had also painted the body a midnight blue and handcrafted chrome lightning bolts that ran along the sides and over the airbox cover. The lightning bolts complimented the bike’s name and the bolts on the Thunder Gypsies’ patch.

There wasn’t another bike like it in the southern United States, and I received comments and envious looks wherever I rode. So it was fucking stupid that I hadn’t stopped once we had half a dozen hours between us and Thunder Valley and done something to disguise the bike. I certainly should have, but part of me was running scared and the other part was controlled by my dick and the soft body pressed against my back.

I had fucked up and almost gotten both of us killed for it.

Growling, I finished binding the Disciple’s hands and feet. Since I didn’t want him screaming and I didn’t want a dead body, I wet a washcloth and shoved it in his mouth before tying a strip of the shower curtain around it. I wanted to do more, not to keep him in place but to hurt him. Only I didn’t have the time to bash his head against the toilet bowl until I felt better and I didn’t want Avery to see me do it.

If I wanted to keep her, I couldn’t be the monster Big Red and the club had been trying to fashion me into for the last three years. I had to be the man my father and brothers raised me to be. Even if they were likely out of my life forever.

Avery

Callan hustled me out of the hotel room. We couldn’t just hop on the bike and ride out of the hotel’s single drive. Not with the cops potentially on the way and the loyalty of the clerk in question. Callan pushed his bike up the steep embankment on our side of the parking lot. As early as it was, there was no traffic on the other side of the small hill.

He hadn’t spoken to me since telling me to cut up the shower curtain. Everything since then was communicated in grunts, curt nods and hard stares. I didn’t challenge him on it. I could see the tension that possessed his entire body. I could feel the sick shake of adrenaline that still infected my limbs and knew he had at least as much of the chemical pumping through his blood.

With the bike finally on the curb, I climbed on behind him and tried to hide the tremble in my hands as I fastened the helmet on my head. We had come up from Central Florida and had planned on heading north east from Atlanta until we got too close to the Washington DC area with its massive amount of surveillance.

I didn’t have a clue whether that was still the plan until we hit the onramp of I-85. We stayed on the freeway until Greenville. In Greenville, we stopped at a mom and pop grocery store. Callan had me stay near the front of the store, positioned at a magazine rack where I could look out on the parking lot while remaining relatively hidden. Once he had cleared checkout and we were back outside, we crossed the small shopping plaza to a hardware store. This time, he kept me with him while he picked up black spray paint and some kind of metal filler. The last thing he did before we left the plaza and Greenville was pry the chrome lightning bolts off the bike and toss them in a dumpster.

From Greenville, we took back roads, our direction more or less parallel to the interstate while avoiding it. He had filled the holes from the discarded bolts with the metal filler. The container stated a drying time of ninety minutes. We were a few minutes beyond that hour and a half when we stopped again, this time at a little roadside park commemorating some dead war hero.

With me off the bike and holding my backpack and the store bags, Callan pushed the motorcycle into the trees until we couldn’t see the park and its buildings. Finding a small clearing, he put a flat rock under the kickstand and grabbed the bag from the hardware store.

Shaking the can of spray paint, he nodded at the other bag. “You should eat.”

They were the first words to come out of his mouth since Atlanta and it bugged me. Someone had a gun to his head a few hours ago and he’d almost killed the man because of it. We left that man gagged with his hands tied behind the base of a toilet. And all Callan could say was that I should eat.

I didn’t need him to tell me something my own stomach was perfectly capable of communicating.

“So should you,” I replied, my throat almost too tight for speech.

He glared at me for a second then turned to the bike. He tucked the garbage bag around the front of the seat and began spraying. Midnight blue turned to black. I gave up trying to stare a hole in his back and sat down against a tree.

Opening the grocery bag, my eyes landed first on a bottle of water. I pulled that out, cracked the seal and took a long drink before returning to the bag. My stomach sank at the next two items to draw my attention -- a box of hair dye and a pair of scissors. A deep brown, I knew the dye couldn’t be for Callan. He already had dark hair.

“It has to be done, Avery.”

I looked up to find that he had finished painting the bike and was standing over me as I stared blankly into the grocery bag. Bending down, he grabbed a second water bottle and two packs of tuna and crackers. He took the bag from me, tossing it behind him so that it landed next to the bike. Sitting next to me, he opened one of the tuna tins and handed it to me.

“Stop staring at the bag and eat,” he ordered.

I dipped a cracker into the meat and brought it to my numb lips.

“Baby, I could dye your hair vomit green and cut it an inch short and you would still be so beautiful it makes my body hurt.” Placing a finger against my hand, he gently guided the cracker into my mouth. “So stop worrying about how you’re going to look and get some fuel in you.”

I crushed the cracker inside my mouth then swallowed, shaking my head as I did so. “It’s not about vanity.”

His mouth quirked to one side, but he didn’t ask me why I didn’t want my hair cut or dyed. He probably knew my answer might change his mind.

Tears sprang to my eyes and I pushed the rest of my food at him.

Grumbling something about a crying woman, Callan pulled me into his arms. “Okay, tell me what it’s about.”

“No, it’s stupid.” I tried to wiggle off his lap but he wouldn’t let me.

“If it’s making you cry, I want to know.” He gathered my hair around one side of my neck. Kissing one cheek, he tenderly wiped a tear from the other side of my face.

I melted into his arms and wrapped my own around his shoulders as I angled my face upwards in search of his mouth. I couldn’t believe he actually wanted to know why I was crying instead of trying to bully me into stopping. Not that Callan was a jerk, just that I couldn’t recall ever seeing a man react to a woman’s tears with anything other than derision or violence.

My father had backhanded my mother the times he caught her crying, the old cliché falling from his lips every time.

I’ll give you something to cry about, bitch.

That wasn’t Callan. In between kisses, he coaxed me into telling him. “Come on, baby girl. Why does the idea make you sad?”

“Mama would brush my hair, sometimes for hours.” I buried my face against his neck to hide from his watchful eyes. “It was the only way she would touch me, and just my hair. If she wanted me to move, she would use the brush to guide me.”

It sounded awful, like maybe my own mother thought I was contaminated, but I couldn’t think of it that way. “She would tell me stories when she brushed my hair -- about a fairy princess trapped in the mortal world and that the only way the princess could visit her people was with magic potions that put her to sleep.”

Callan smoothed his hand up and down my back, the soft, repetitive gesture hypnotically calming me. “She was an alcoholic, your mom?”

I nodded, my tears lubricating the skin of his neck. “She said every time the princess visited fairyland, she tried to find a way to go back forever and bring her half-human daughter with her. But the other fairies said humans are beasts and wouldn’t allow it. So the princess had to stay in the human world because she couldn’t leave her daughter behind.”

“But then the magic potions killed her, didn’t they?” Callan asked gently.

I sobbed into his jacket. Yes. The potions had killed the princess and they had done it slowly. In the end, she left her daughter alone in the mortal world anyway.

Callan opened up a small space between us. Cupping my chin, he made me look at him. Slowly, he kissed the tears that kept falling and then my mouth, both of our lips salty. Taking a second, he stripped his jacket off and placed it on the ground, then guided me onto my back.

He kept kissing me, everything soft and slow. I moved against him, the direction and thrust of my hips becoming more obvious as my arousal grew. One hand wrapped in my hair, Callan pushed his other hand beneath the band of my jeans and panties. He didn’t stop kissing me as his fingers parted my labia and began to stroke my clit.

With the gap between my jeans and my flesh almost nonexistent, he had to keep his strokes short. I whimpered, wanting both of us naked and to have Callan thrusting into me.

“Come for me, baby.” He bit at my bottom lip, his finger and thumb pinching my clit between hard rubs.

As if his words alone could command my orgasm, I began jerking beneath him. He kept rubbing and pinching until I went limp. Then he brought his hand up to cup my face.

“I’m not trying to take you to fairyland, Avery.” He ran his thumb against my lower lip. The scent of my juices on his flesh coaxed a fresh burst of cream from my pussy. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”

I blinked slowly then nodded. Right then, my mind was a million miles away from the bag with its dye and scissors. Callan had just wrung one hell of a climax from me and I wanted to return the favor.

I palmed his cock, my cheeks coloring as I asked, “What about you?”

Laughing, he shook his head at me and eased onto his knees. “One thing is for certain. You’ll always blush like a redhead, baby.”

“We’ll worry about me later.” He stood and retrieved the bag. “Right now, let’s get your hair short enough you can cover all of it with the helmet.”

Pouting because I didn’t have his cock in me, I sat up and wiggled out of my jacket then brought the length of my hair behind my back. Returning to sit behind me, Callan took the first few snips.

I felt the weight of almost a foot of hair fall away from my head, the loss momentarily making me dizzy.

“We’ll dye it at the hotel tonight.” He placed the hair he had just cut in my lap and kissed me on the cheek. “This way the clerk won’t see you come in as a redhead and leave as a brunette.”

“Okay,” I whispered and started fashioning the cut hair into a braid. “Are we still heading toward DC?”

“Yeah, I want to hit Allenwood,” he agreed, more severed hair falling around my shoulders as he continued working the scissors. “Then decide where we go from there.”

“Isn’t that where Lincoln is?” Lincoln had allegedly killed their brother Boone as part of a gun trafficking operation across state lines and I knew Allenwood had a federal maximum security prison.

“Yeah.” The answer came as little more than a grunt. “He didn’t kill Boone.”

“I know.”

The scissors stopped moving. I turned to look at Callan. He quirked one brow at me and I repeated what I had just said. “I know -- it’s enough for me that you believe. We can find the proof together.”

“Fuck if I haven’t tried.” He pushed the blades of the scissors into the ground then started to dust the loose hair from my shoulders with his hand. “I wouldn’t have been a Gypsy if it wasn’t for trying to find proof and keep Lincoln and dad safe in prison.”

He must have seen the question lurking in my gaze because I didn’t understand what he was saying. I only knew a little about their dad’s case. He had owned a custom bike shop and had founded the Gypsies for local motorcycle enthusiasts, including Big Red. When the Feds brought charges against him, they claimed the shop was fencing stolen bikes and shipping drugs inside legitimate orders. Big Red, as the shop’s assistant manager, had been indicted, too, but the charges didn’t stick -- not after a prosecution witness pinned it all on Dylan Tilley.

“It’s complicated,” he continued. “Lincoln and Boone were already Gypsies when dad was convicted. I know they suspected Big Red of using dad as a shield and they couldn’t dig around his business if they left the Gypsies. Plus, Red told them he knew people in prison who would make sure no one messed with dad if they stayed in the club and helped with certain club business.”

“And if they didn’t?” I asked.

“Red never threatened that his jailhouse friends would hurt my father,” Callan answered. “But the implication was there. And it wasn’t anything illegal that he wanted them to do. Even when dad was in charge, the Gypsies provided security details for truckers and a few events as a way to pay for the hangout. That’s all Red gave them to do.”

His gaze dropped between us as his cheeks started to heat. “Not at all what he ordered me to do -- I had two protection costs instead of the one Boone and Lincoln were splitting.”

His words hung in the air like a confession. I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around his neck.

“I don’t care what you’ve done,” I said right before I kissed him.

Callan

Avery stood in the bathroom of the Charlottesville hotel room we had rented for the night. Dressed only in a t-shirt and panties, she held the scissors in her hand, trying to salvage something fashionable from the hatchet job I’d done out in the woods. A dark chestnut with auburn highlights replaced the deep red she could naturally claim.

She turned to find me staring at her. The bright blue eyes, always beautiful, contrasted starkly with the new hair color and I felt my dick swell. The redhead of my fantasies had always had an innocent quality to her. Maybe it was knowing just how snugly Avery fit around my cock or that she liked to dig her nails in my back when she came, but the brunette in front of me had a smokier, deeper sex appeal.

“How does it look?”

For the first time since I showed up at her father’s house, she seemed to be studying my face for some kind of lie. I would have laughed at the idea but it took me a few seconds to find my voice. “A little punk rock,” I answered.

Her shoulders lifted in a lazy shrug before she dropped the scissors onto the sink. “Punk works.”

It was a La Femme Nikita kind of punk, dangerous with the laser-like blue gaze. My cock crept a few more inches up my stomach as I waited impatiently while she bagged any evidence that she had dyed or cut her hair in the bathroom.

The wait became more than I could handle and I growled at her. “Baby, come here.”

She looked at me, her gaze wide and her lips parting in what I hoped was arousal. Even with the attack that morning weighing on my mind, Avery’s presence had kept me in a near constant state of need.

“Come here,” I repeated when a few seconds passed and she hadn’t moved a step closer. I studied her face as she obeyed, her pace slow and seemingly hesitant. I wondered if she still wanted me or if the violence I had almost committed that morning had finally sunk in, making her think I was no better than the men we were running from.

Certainly I’d acted like an ass before we reached the park. And that was before I’d literally cut one of her last, and clearly fondest, links to her mother. But she had climaxed at the end of my fingers, cupped my dick and offered herself to me on the forest floor. I still ached from putting aside my need. Maybe if I had fucked her then, she wouldn’t be so slow to approach me at this moment.

Coming to a stop between my spread legs, Avery placed a hand on each of my shoulders. Her body shook and I couldn’t surmise why. I mashed my lips, wondering once more if she now feared me. I looked into the blue eyes. Something dark skittered across her gaze.

“You’re shaking,” I said. She closed her eyes long enough to bob her head a few times in acknowledgement.

“Why?” I asked.

“You wanted to get rid of me yesterday, even before that Disciple showed up.” Her mouth quivered in a way that simultaneously pulled at my cock and squeezed at something deep inside my chest.

“You wanted me to be safe,” she continued.

“And then I told you that you’re never getting rid of me, baby.” Was she afraid I had changed my mind or was she hoping I had?

I shook my head, my frustration grinding at me almost as hard as the blood pulsing through my cock. I didn’t really know how to deal with a girl like Avery. She wasn’t like the girls that hung out at the Gypsy clubhouse or Freya’s bar, their pussies available to any cock that wanted to fill them. After all the things I had done to Avery the night before, she had fucking blushed when she palmed my jeans-covered dick out in the woods.

I didn’t know how much of the gentle suitor I had in me, if at all.

“Spread your legs,” I growled.

A surprised gasp escaped her but she complied. Her nails dug at my shoulders as I pushed the gusset of her panties to one side. My chest tight with need and the possibility of her rejecting me, I slid a finger between her labia.

Wet -- just how I wanted her.

I licked my lips, the beastly part of my brain wanting to consume every last inch of her.

“Baby, sometimes I’m going to want to fuck you. Nothing sweet about it.” I looked up to find the blue eyes innocent once more. “Like right now. I want to boss this hot little pussy until you scream for mercy. I want to fuck you so hard you’re nothing but mindless whimpers and a tight, wet hole.”

The tremble that had gripped her before returned full force. Her knees would have knocked together if my hand hadn’t kept her legs separated. The shaking drew my attention to her face and the lips she kept wetting with her tongue. She absolutely couldn’t control the energy running through her right then.

But I could.

I pushed three fingers into Avery, my free hand knotting the bottom hem of her t-shirt to keep her trapped in front of me. Her nipples pushed against the fabric, each hard bud swollen bigger than I could imagine. I nipped at one through the material as my hand fucked deeper into her pussy.

“I will kill anyone who tries to take you away from me,” I told her. She pressed her breasts closer to my face. Her arms wrapped around my head as if she would smother me to her chest. The shaking hadn’t stopped and I knew it wouldn’t until I made her come a few times.

I freed my head from her embrace and stared hard into the blue eyes. “I will maim any man who so much as thinks he can touch you. Your body and everything that comes with it is mine.”

It was a crap way to tell her I loved her, but I didn’t know any other way to say it. I half didn’t want to admit the sentiment to myself. Everyone I loved was either dead or in prison. And I had failed them, losing the protection the Gypsies offered without finding the evidence to free Lincoln and my father or avenge Boone’s death.

I couldn’t tolerate the idea of ever letting Avery down. And if I loved her, it seemed likely I would do just that.

“Tell me you understand, baby.” I tugged hard at her clit, wanting to hurt her just a little for the way she had my guts all twisted into thick knots that would never come untied. “Tell me.”

“I’m yours,” she said, her voice cracking down the center of her reply.

“All of you,” I growled.

“Yes,” she whispered. “All of me.”

I couldn’t take any more of the sweet trembling or the way her cunt wept from my touch. I pushed her stomach-first onto the mattress, one hand pressing down on her back to keep her in place while the other freed my cock.

With her panties pushed to the side, I entered her hard and fast from behind. “You’re going to come for me when I fuck you like this.”

“Yes.”

The way the moan escaped her as a hiss, I knew she was just as aroused as I was. My cock sluiced through her, her pussy making wet, sucking sounds as I pounded deeper. I had told her last night she would be riding sore. This time I would make certain that every bounce in the road tomorrow made her achy and wet.

“My pussy.” I chewed at her throat, my hand forcing its way between her body and the mattress to scratch lightly against her clit. “My sweet, tight cunt, open and ready when I want it.”

She whimpered, her ass and thigh muscles working to ride my cock.

“Tell me, Avery,” I demanded, my hips lifting and pressing so that my cock traveled a long, hard line inside her.

“Your cunt,” she gasped.

She had one cheek pressed against the mattress and her eyes rolled up. Her pussy danced around my cock, squeezing and sucking, her interior so lubricated it slurped with her need to come.

“Your cunt, just yours,” she cried again. “Coming no matter how you take me...”

My chest felt like she’d just stuck her fist through it. I pressed harder against her back, my strokes coming quicker and more fiercely even as my lips traveled gently against her throat. “That’s right, baby. I want your pussy to be in heat for me. But I promise -- I’ll earn it.”

Her bottom lip quivered. The muscles deep inside her coiled around my shaft, the contractions running so strongly through them I felt like she had her fingers wrapped around me and was tugging the shaft and head with sharp jerks.

Our breathing spiraled out of control, the raspy whispers we spoke in drowned out by the wet slap of my flesh against hers. Her fingers clawed at the bedding. Her knees came up, the way they were spread giving her just enough leverage that she could push against me, her ass moving in a tight bounce.

Raw, sensual, I couldn’t believe I had Avery beneath me, her body humbled in submission as I slammed roughly into her. A convulsion rippled through her, starting at her waist, rattling her chest and then shaking her shoulders violently.

I spilled into her, my hips freezing but my hands gripping her sweet ass to wildly pull and push her the length of my dick. Her pussy kept squeezing, the contractions coming so close together it was one constant vise sucking at my cock. Another long spurt left me and then I pulled from her, dragging her into my arms as I collapsed onto the bed.

**********

I woke with the flavor of Avery still on my lips. The lingering taste of her juices made me hungry for more. With her exhausted body cradled in my arms, I slid one hand beneath the blanket that covered us. Gently, I probed between her labia. Her body heat had kept liquid the cream we spilled into and against one another through the night. I rubbed some of it along her clit, my body tense as she slowly became alert to what I was doing.

When her eyes flickered open, I pressed my lips to hers. She stretched, her mound filling my palm as she arched upwards. The night behind us had alternated between tender and rough, my approach depending on which direction I took her. From behind, I let my animal loose. But face-to-face and she subdued me with those blue eyes.

My fingers knotted in the short hair. I had a moment’s regret that I had cut it before I had the chance to see those long red tresses spilling around my stomach as she teased my aching cock with her sweet lips. But then I remembered why I had to cut it.

To protect her.

My chest tightened at the idea of losing her, of how that scumbag prospect had gotten the jump on me at the last hotel. I kissed her again, my chest relaxing when her tongue slipped past my lips to lick at the edge of my teeth. The little gesture made me want to sink into her, slow fucking her until she melted in another puddle of satisfaction.

Breaking the kiss, I looked at the cheap clock on the scarred nightstand next to the bed. We’d stayed up late, slept late and now only thirty minutes remained until checkout. That wasn’t nearly enough time to do everything I wanted to do to Avery’s sweetly yielding flesh.

I rolled to my side, smiling at her whimpered protest. Damn, after so many years fantasizing about her, it felt amazing to know she wanted me just as badly as I wanted her.

“Patience, baby girl.” I reached for my jeans and sat up. “Just going to zip down to the front desk and buy us a little more time. You think they have breakfast set up?”

Avery snorted. “The room doesn’t even have a phone.”

Her nails gently scratched along the side of my stomach, my gut clenching as she hit a ticklish spot. She was different from the other women I’d been with in every way. The nails were her own and unpainted, her touch unpracticed but captivating. I wanted her to touch me, wanted to be gentle beneath her fingers and lips. I never wanted to rush exploring her or being explored by her.

I slid my t-shirt over my head then bent down for a parting kiss. The way she submitted, her skin glowing and blue eyes luminous, I wanted to crawl back under the covers.

Breaking the kiss, I growled. Standing, I slid my knife into my back pocket then checked the gun on the nightstand. “Safety is on, baby. You remember what I showed you?”

“Yes.”

She answered with a whisper She didn’t like the gun, but we were only two days out of Thunder Valley. Virginia had its own chapter of Gypsies, although I’d stayed west of Richmond to reduce the chance we’d run into anyone who would recognize me. Then there was the sketchy nature of the little fleabag hotel we had checked into for the night to worry about.

“I’ll just be a few minutes, baby,” I promised, stealing another kiss before I had to leave.

Avery

They caught me in the bathroom as I pulled my panties up and turned to flush the toilet. Two men that I wouldn’t have guessed were law enforcement, but they had badges.

And guns...

The bathroom door splintered inward. My high-pitched scream cut through both men shouting, “DEA! Get down on the floor!”

They didn’t give me time to comply. One yanked my arm, tossing me stomach first onto the bed and twisting the limb behind me. He held me down while the other, bald and with a beard that looked like it belonged on an outlaw and not a cop, quickly searched the room. When he turned to pick up my backpack, I saw the gun that Callan had left on the nightstand tucked into the back of his pants.

Baldie unzipped my bag, reached in and pulled out the brick of hundreds Callan had taken from the Gypsy clubhouse. Bringing it close to his face, he drew a deep breath and let out a whoop.

“I fucking love the smell of money!”

His partner, holding me down, drew a similarly deep breath, only he had his nose pressed against my hair. His hands worked between us to cuff my wrists and then he slid down my body. Another hard inhalation and he groaned.

“How much you want to bet that little shit has been fucking this bitch all night?”

They didn’t look like cops, didn’t sound like them either.

“Where’s Callan?” Fear squeezed at my throat, the words little more than a croaking sound, but Baldie understood me anyway.

“Bleeding and cuffed in our car, sugar.” He nodded at his partner, who had both hands on my ass, his head still distressingly close to my body. “Get some pants on her.”

“Not yet,” the other answered as Baldie grabbed mine and Callan’s jackets and my shoes. “We have plenty of time.”

Baldie dropped my backpack and the other items he’d picked up. Another bolt of fear shot through me like lightning. These men, DEA agents or not, were going to rape me.

Surprising me, Baldie pulled his gun out, chambered a round and pointed it at the man behind me. “You really think Little Red is going to be happy to find out you had your dick in her?”

I pressed my face to the mattress, a sob breaking from my chest as I saw my future ahead of me. Little Red, maybe the whole damn club, using my body and Callan beaten and probably dead before they finished with me.

Baldie laughed. “That’s right, sugar. You might want to rest up on the ride back to Georgia. You’re about to become a very busy whore.”

Not trusting me with his partner, Baldie tossed my bag at the man. “Bring the car up to the door.”

When we were alone, he came around the bed to stand behind me. I felt the barrel of his gun push my panties to one side and then its cold tip pushed between my labia.

“Look at me, bitch.”

I did.

Nothing lived in his dark gaze as he warned me. “I’m getting your pants on and gagging you. Do anything to attract attention and you’re gonna spend a long time dying. Understand?”

I nodded. He returned the nod then brought the gun to his lips. My stomach lurched as his tongue darted out to lick my juices from the metal.

“I sure hope Little Red leaves some for me, sugar.”

**********

Baldie hauled me out of the hotel room in a surreal version of a perp walk, handcuffed with my jacket over my head so anyone watching wouldn’t see the cloth he’d shoved into my mouth to prevent me from screaming. I was roughly shoved inside the car. The door slammed shut behind me then I heard the front passenger door shut. The vehicle accelerated, tires squealing as we left the hotel parking lot.

Baldie reached into the back seat and pulled the jacket from my head. He had to pry my face in his direction to remove the gag as I searched for Callan. With the gag out, I jerked my head back and looked to my left.

“He’s quite a fighter,” Baldie chuckled. “Usually you slam a gun into a man’s face, you just have to do it once and he’s out.”

I could see by the blood and swelling that they had hit Callan several times. I worried over the fact he remained unconscious. Had the blows been too many? Too hard?

“Hey, how many times did you hit the fucker,” Baldie asked as he lightly slapped his partner’s arm with the back of his hand. “I think it was three from me. He sure as hell didn’t expect it.”

“Twice,” the driver answered, a nostalgic smile lifting the side of his face that I could see. “That’s when the desk clerk started screaming because I broke his nose and it got really bloody.”

I eased a foot in Callan’s direction and brushed it lightly against his leg to see if there was any response. Nothing. He was out cold, only the clogged breathing and shallow lift of his chest letting me know he lived.

Trying not to cry, I looked out the tinted windows of the car. Callan and I had traveled side roads into town and it looked like we were being returned to Thunder Valley the same way. Maybe if I got them talking, I could figure something out that didn’t end with Callan and me dead.

“Are you really DEA?” I asked.

“Five more years and I’ll be collecting a federal pension, sugar.” Baldie turned in his seat to look at me. He jabbed a thumb in the driver’s direction. “Sprankle, here, he’s got ten to go but I don’t think he’s gonna make it after I’m gone. Too sloppy.”

“Don’t fucking use my name,” Sprankle growled. “Talk about motherfucking, sloppy assed...”

Baldie pulled a face, his eyes rolling to one side as he opened his mouth wide. When he finished mocking his partner’s reaction, he jerked his head in my direction. “Sugar here is as good as dead. Except Little Red wants to fuck her first.”

Sprankle snorted. “That dick better share. Bringing him back this bitch, over a hundred grand of his money and lover boy.”

Next to me, Callan began to stir. Baldie spotted the movement and reached into the back seat to slap at Callan’s knee. “Speaking of lover boy, looks like he’s finally coming around.”

Sprankle tensed and shot a glance in the rearview mirror. “We need to stop and shove his ass in the trunk. If we hadn’t blitzed him like we did--”

“Don’t be a pussy. He’s cuffed and Big Red wants him alive,” Baldie said. “Old man is scared shitless the kid figured things out and has evidence to back it up.”

He stopped talking long enough to crack his knuckles. “Going to be an interesting interrogation.”

“We can put one of the seats down,” Sprankle argued. “Asshole won’t overheat or die from fumes, but he’ll be out of sight. Windows aren’t so dark they’ll keep someone from seeing his fucked up face.”

Next to me, Callan started coughing. He leaned forward, spitting blood on the floor. His shoulder twitched and it took me a second to realize he was trying to hide his hands. I saw the knife he had used to pry the lightning bolts off his bike. The blade was closed. It would make an audible click when it opened and even more noise if he planned on trying to break the lock on his handcuffs.

I leaned toward the center of the front seat, both shielding him from their view and trying to serve as a distraction.

“Big Red is lying about why he wants Callan brought back alive.” It was a bluff, and I didn’t think it would work to get them to turn the car around, but if Callan was going to get his handcuffs off, I had to do something to divert their attention. “He wants the know where the rest of the cash is.”

The car swerved as Sprankle stopped staring at the road long enough to shoot me a hard glance. “What cash?”

I nodded at my backpack on the front passenger floor. “Nine more bricks, just like that.”

“Bitch is bluffing.” Baldie twisted in his seat to grab me by the hair. “If Red was missing another nine-hundred-k, he would have had us sit outside the little shit’s hotel until he could claim him on his own.”

He flung me back against the seat. “Like that stupid fuck would ever have that much cash anyway.”

I risked a glance at Callan but he seemed to have collapsed into the corner. Neither man paid attention to him.

Sprankle still wanted to talk about the money. “What if she’s telling the truth?”

“Then we get a bigger cut, but, I’m telling you,” Baldie growled. “The bitch is lying.”

“Listen,” Sprankle argued. “We need to pull over, shove his dumb ass in the trunk. Then we can work her over a little, find out if she’s trying to play us.”

He lifted his hands from the steering wheel for a second before slamming them back down. “C’mon, we’re talking about a million fucking dollars!”

I let out a shaky breath, my attention half on the argument taking place in the front seat and half on Callan. The way he was breathing scared me. Deep raspy sounds mixed with clogged, sputtering coughs came from him. His eyes had rolled up into his head. His shoulders shook.

“Fuck me if he’s going to last that long,” Baldie said, staring at Callan. “There’s a turnout coming up, you better pull over.”

A sound came out of Callan that made me think of a death rattle. A sob broke from me in response and Baldie screamed at Sprankle to pull into the turnout.

“Not time for you to die, chief,” Baldie said, his hand on the door handle as the car rolled to a stop. “Not yet.”

Intent on getting out of the car, he wasn’t looking at Callan. Neither was Sprankle. Callan lunged forward, each hand shooting in a different direction. He wrapped his left arm around the headrest and Sprankle’s throat as his right hand buried the blade of the knife in Baldie’s throat. He pulled it out, buried it a second time, arterial blood squirting from the first wound.

The seatbelt restraining him, Sprankle tried to unholster his gun. Callan jabbed the knife in Sprankle’s right eye. Sprankle’s jaw went slack and he stopped struggling, stopped moving at all.

Bile erupted in my mouth, not from the dead or dying cops in the front seat but as I saw what Callan had done to get one hand uncuffed. He had cut along his thumb, down near his wrist. The blood had served as a lubricant and the severed tendons had made slipping out of the cuff easier.

The weird breathing, the shoulder shaking -- it had all been part of mutilating his hand to give us a chance at escape.

One handed, he stripped the guns from the men’s holsters, tossed one in the backseat and kept the other as he exited the car. I scooted across the bench seat, following him out of the vehicle.

“Who cuffed you?” he barked.

“The driver.”

Callan rifled through the dead man’s pockets until he came up with the handcuff key. I turned my back to him, wincing in sympathy as he fumbled to unlock it. With my hands free, he directed me to the other side of the car as he wrapped his arms around Sprankle’s body.

“We need to dump these...” Seeing how I hesitated, he stopped. “Baby? Are you with me?”

I nodded and opened the passenger side door. We looked at each other over the dead men.

“They would have let Big Red kill us--”

“I know,” I interrupted. He didn’t have to justify killing them, not to me. “Let’s get them into the woods before someone else decides--”

Half out of the car with Baldie’s body, I jerked my head up at a faint whirring sound that was growing louder.

“Chopper.” I heard the air leave Callan for a second, then he shook off whatever feeling had gripped him. “Nothing to do with us. Just shove him back in and we’ll wait until they pass over.”

He stuffed Sprankle’s body behind the wheel and shut the door. Staggering as he walked, he rounded the vehicle to help me with the heavier body I wrestled with. Looking at his hand, I didn’t know how Callan remained on his feet. I wanted to faint and it wasn’t my blood or severed tendons.

The whirring turned into the swooping sound of a giant mechanical bird. We both looked up, any hope that the helicopter was just flying over vanishing as it came into view. Dark blue, it had ATF stamped in big block letters on its tail. The side door was open, two men in tactical gear each holding a rifle aimed in our direction.

“Out of the frying pan,” Callan started. His right hand grabbed my elbow and I had a moment’s impression that he planned on our bolting into the woods behind us.

“I need time to figure a way out of this--”

I laughed, the sound bordering on hysterical. “You need a doctor.”

Without the helicopter hovering over us and the rifles targeting our heads, we might have made it back on the road. But Callan couldn’t see out of one eye. The cuts on his face had reopened from the exertion and I knew his head had to feel like a cherry bomb had exploded inside his skull.

The last chance to break for the woods was cut off as a van swept into the turnout, its tires screeching as it came to a stop. The side door flew open and bodies poured out, all of them screaming for us to put our hands on the car’s roof.

They threw Callan to the ground. I heard his grunt of pain, but he didn’t say anything, not even when they wrenched his left hand behind his back.

“What the fuck?”

I stared at the ATF agent trying to cuff Callan.

“I’m gonna need cable ties,” he shouted. “He’s about to lose his thumb.”

Fresh bile coated my taste buds. The tears I’d been holding back started rolling down my cheeks. Through my blurred vision, I saw another vehicle pull to a stop behind the van. A woman, somewhere in her early fifties, exited from the front passenger seat. All the agents from the van stopped talking to watch her walk around Sprankle’s car.

“Both dead?” she asked the agent who had opened Sprankle’s door.

He nodded and showed her the blade Callan had used to kill the men.

She smiled, the gesture sending a chill down my spine. This woman wasn’t someone’s grandmother who spent her Sundays baking cookies, even if she did. Seeing the quiet satisfaction on her face as she looked over the dead DEA agents, I wasn’t sure whether we had escaped one set of dirty cops just to get grabbed by a bigger group of them.

The woman straightened and turned to us. Her gaze swept coldly over me before she looked at Callan. “Get him a doctor. No pain meds. I need him lucid when I talk to him.”

She stepped over Callan, then gestured for the other agents to load us into the van.

“We’ll use the local sheriff’s office,” she said, returning to her car like she was leaving last night’s garbage on the side of the road. “Have the doctor meet us there.”

**********

A little over two hours later, I was yanked from the jail cell the ATF had parked me in to a room some ten feet by ten feet. There was a cheap conference table in the middle and bolts on the floor with chains attached to them. The agent retrieving me shoved me into a plastic chair and secured one of the chains to my cuffs.

By that time, I knew the lead agent’s name was Gloria McCready and she was as cold a bitch as they came. She had stood outside my cell telling me about the drug and accessory to murder charges she was having drawn up against me.

I hadn’t yet invoked my right to an attorney, but I didn’t take the bait of her threats. She was too much like the useless counselors back in school, always trying to scold and threaten me into more regular attendance and completed homework when they didn’t have a fucking clue what the real facts were.

Same gray hair, same polyester skirt suit in dark colors with their low-heel dress shoes. Same holier-than-thou attitude.

I waited, chained in place, for about fifteen minutes before McCready entered. She carried a thick file and had some new guy in a suit trailing after her like a puppy. He waited for her to sit, but she slammed the file down and started pacing the floor.

I watched the act, wondering what came next when the door opened and they brought Callan in. His face looked better -- marginally. About half the swelling had gone down and he had stitches above his left brow and along the cheek on the same side. His left hand was bandaged, both hands secured in front of him with cable ties.

The guard placed Callan in the chair next to me with the same force he had used on me. Maybe the rough handling was because of the dead DEA agents or maybe the ATF just wanted us to know who was in charge. Like the cuffs didn’t tell us that already.

McCready’s gaze moved from me to Callan. She smiled, her eyebrows lifting with the phony gesture. “I wanted your girlfriend to be here when you sell her out.”

“You’re boring me,” Callan told her. “Get on with it.”

A small thrill ran through me at his insolence. I remembered all the times I had wanted to talk back -- to my teachers, my father, the manager at the diner I waitressed at and Freya. I had always been afraid to rock the boat. I’d witnessed from an early age what my father did to my mother when she talked back.

Callan didn’t know that kind of fear. I wasn’t sure he knew any kind of fear.

McCready looked at me, her brows crawling higher. “I’m trying to discuss whether you’re even alive next week and I’m boring him. You should choose your lovers more carefully, my dear.”

I shrugged, but my chest drew a little tighter. The dark glittering in McCready’s gaze told me she could read the tension running through my body.

Callan said nothing, just drilled a hole through the woman with his hard stare.

She blinked first. “You’re a lot like your brother, Mister Tilley. Lincoln wouldn’t listen to me either.”

He brought his hands up and placed them on the table. Next to McCready, the man scooted his chair half a foot from the table. The gesture provoked a smile in Callan. A few hours ago, he had been handcuffed and bloodied in the back seat of a Crown Victoria, the only destination given an early grave. Now the men who had put him in that vehicle were dead. The man in the suit knew that and Callan scared the shit out of him.

Not McCready. She didn’t flinch, but her gaze remained frozen on Callan’s hands even as he started talking.

“That fuck driving the car testified at Lincoln’s trial.”

McCready looked at the man next to her. He nodded. She flicked her hand at the revelation. “What’s your point?”

“He’s on Big Red’s payroll. Both of them were.”

McCready folded her arms across her chest, her expression dripping with an oily smugness that made me want to retch. “Tell me something I don’t know?”

That stopped Callan for a second. He gave a short shake of his head then laughed. “That’s good enough to get Lincoln a retrial.”

“How does that keep Miss Watkins alive when I drop her back in Thunder Valley to face charges for stealing her father’s truck?” Taking a piece of paper from the folder, McCready pushed it between us. “Or do you care more about your brother’s freedom than your own or Avery’s life?”

I glanced at the paper. It was a photocopy of a complaint with the Thunder Valley police department. My father’s drunken scrawl cut through the signature line.

She shoved more papers in front of us. First, she showed us a statement from one of the ATF agents on the scene reporting how the brick of money in my backpack had tested positive for trace narcotics, indicating that it had recently been used in the drug trade. The second was another agent report, this one detailing how he had seen me from his position in the helicopter trying to stuff Baldie’s body back into the car.

“If the Gypsies let Avery live, we’ll indict her on federal drug charges and accessory to the murder of two federal agents.” McCready took the pages back before I could finish reading. “You might get off on the murders, but you either have to claim the drug money or admit to stealing it.”

Callan’s right hand clenched into a fist. He forced it straight, breath leaving his body in a slow, long stream as he fought for control. Callan looked at the man, glaring until the guy started to wiggle uncomfortably.

“Let me guess, you’re the prosecutor this bitch is keeping on a short chain?”

The man blinked, his uncertainty in how to answer evident in the grimace he pulled. McCready laughed, but the sound was thin.

“Mr. Jennings is with the U.S. Attorneys office,” she confirmed. She leaned forward and winked at Callan. “No chain, just a shock collar and a remote.”

Jennings took her reply as his cue to start talking. He had carried a briefcase with him into the room and he popped its locks. “The federal government is willing to grant both of you immunity in exchange for your testimony and assistance in investigating the criminal organization known as the Thunder Gypsies Motorcycle Club.”

The attorney nodded in my direction. “Full immunity for Miss Watkins on the federal charges and we have assurances from the county prosecutor that there will be no charges on the vehicle theft.”

My face started to heat in anger. This was American justice? This sadistic woman with a badge and her pet attorney were the good guys? Sprankle and his partner were dead in self-defense. The Gypsies had no legal claim to the drug money and weren’t about to press charges for its theft. About the only thing they genuinely had me on was my father’s car. But none of that mattered. I wasn’t an heiress with trust money to fund my defense, and I couldn’t imagine the Gypsies letting me live long enough to go to trial if the feds returned me to Thunder Valley.

But I didn’t have information McCready wanted. The only criminals I could inform on were the dead DEA agents.

“And Lincoln?” Callan asked.

I looked at Callan, only a little surprised he hadn’t asked about his own immunity.

Jennings started to answer, but McCready interrupted. “I’m reaching out to Lincoln based on today’s developments. Right now, we only have papers for you and Miss Watkins. Lincoln will have to cut his own deal.”

I looked at Callan, his expression unreadable. Would he push McCready for more? Did he have anything to bargain with?

“What’s it going to be, Mr. Tilley?” Her mouth shaped a superior smile, as if she knew the answer before Callan did. “Your brother or your lover?”

In the Wind

Four months later, I was waitressing at a small truck stop in western Oklahoma. I had a new name and a new social security number. The salary from the truck stop and the meager tips helped pay for a one-bedroom apartment not far from work, which was lucky because there wasn’t enough money left at the end of the month to think about a car payment or even a used beater. At least not yet.

Pushing the button for the elevator in my apartment building for the third time without the call light displaying, I pressed my forehead against the brick wall and let the cold emanating from it seep into my skin. Two waitresses had called in sick, leaving me to cover more than twice my usual number of tables. Beat to hell didn’t begin to describe how I felt.

“Elevator’s out again,” I mumbled and turned toward the open staircase and the two flights of stairs I would have to climb.

Hands wrapped around my waist, halting me. “You look exhausted, baby.”

“Nancy and Chloe were out,” I said, relaxing into Callan’s chest for a moment’s respite. “Didn’t get lunch, but I’m a full hundred ahead on tips from all the extra tables I had to cover.”

I felt him bend slightly and then my feet were off the floor as he scooped me up. I buried my face against his neck. “If you just got engine grease on my uniform--”

“Small price to pay to get your sweet butt hauled up two flights, baby.”

I pushed at his chest, unsuccessfully coaxing him to put me down. I might have had a busier than usual day, but it didn’t compare to his lugging parts and semi-truck tires around in the garage affixed to the diner.

“Put me down, Drew,” I said, using the new name witness protection had given him.

He growled at the name’s use and hugged me tighter to his broad chest. “Don’t argue, baby girl. You’ll thank me later when my cock’s in you and you’re not too tired to ride it.”

My cheeks started to burn and I looked around his shoulder to make sure we were alone as he ascended the stairs. Even though I couldn’t see anyone, I still whispered my retort.

“I’m never going to be too tired to ride you.”

“That’s my girl.” He gave me a squeeze then stopped talking as he focused on the remaining steps in front of him.

Reaching our apartment, he put me down and opened the door. “After you, Mrs. Connolly.”

The name was fake, the marriage was real. We had insisted on a small ceremony before joining witness protection. It had occurred on the sixth floor of a federal building, my time as Avery Tilley lasting little more than an hour before we had new identities.

Callan shut the door and set all three locks and the chain in place. With his hands on my hips, he slow walked me toward the bathroom. “Why don’t you take a soak while I get dinner started.”

I turned to look at him over my shoulder, eyeing him with the kind of suspicion only a wife could possess. “You weren’t flirting with anyone today, were you?”

Not that he didn’t help with dinner or the rest of the apartment on a regular basis. I just wanted to tease him for being so considerate. There were days when I felt like I didn’t deserve him and other days when I knew I didn’t. I just hoped Callan didn’t figure it out.

“Never, baby.” He turned my body then pushed me gently against the wall. He raised his left hand to stroke my cheek. His thumb had healed from the surgery, but the scar would always be there -- a reminder that Callan Tilley kept his promises.

He brought his mouth to mine, my lips opening to the gentle exploration of his tongue.

“First dinner,” he teased, ending the kiss. “Then dessert. These legs are going to be wrapped around my shoulders.”

Finding the hem of my waitressing dress, he lifted it to caress my thighs. “I want you soft and pliant.”

I nodded, the space between my thighs growing moist in anticipation.

“Good,” he turned me back in the direction of the bathroom and lightly slapped my ass before walking away. “You’ve got about forty minutes before I’m ready to feed you.”

I took thirty-five and emerged with just my bathrobe covering me. The apartment was too small for a dining area, so Callan had placed our plates and glasses on the coffee table. I went to sit next to him on the couch, but he pulled me onto his lap.

Feeling a little weepy around the eyes, I pressed my face against his neck.

“Don’t cry, woman,” he lightly joked, but I knew he felt my tears harder than I did.

“I’m not crying,” I teased in return. “I’m just afraid to look at what you came up with in the kitchen.”

“Remind me to spank you later.” Leaning forward, he picked up one of the plates and balanced it on my knee.

The smell of breaded salmon and asparagus tips clawed at my stomach, reminding me I hadn’t eaten since the two slices of peanut butter on toast I’d had that morning. I picked up the fork and brought the first mouthful to Callan’s lips. When he shook his head, refusing, I took a bite.

“Mmm...” My eyes closed in satisfaction. When I opened them, he wiggled an asparagus tip in front of me. I took a bite then maneuvered another piece of salmon onto my fork and offered it to him. This time, he accepted.

We worked our way a nibble at a time through the contents of both plates, my bottom snugly planted on his lap throughout the meal. Finished, he held me to him, his hand stealthily finding its way under my robe.

The tears that had threatened earlier sprung full force at his gentle touching. He shushed me, but that didn’t stop my crying.

“I love you, baby,” Callan whispered against my throat.

I slugged his shoulder. It had taken him a month after our marriage before he actually said such words. I had spoken them at least a dozen times by then, always feeling guilty after they left my mouth because I knew he wasn’t ready to utter them in return. I could have waited forever -- I already knew he loved me from when he answered that bitch McCready’s question.

Your brother or your lover...

Without hesitation, he had stared the ATF agent down and ordered her to take the handcuffs off me. When she complied, he ordered her and Jennings from the room. With the cable ties still around his wrists, Callan had lifted his arms over my head to loosely hug me.

We’ll do this together, baby. You and me.

On the couch in our little apartment with its secondhand furnishings, Callan nudged me with his nose. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m happy.” I whispered my answer, afraid some outside force would knock on the door the instant I admitted my joy and take everything away, whether it was a Gypsy, some government agency or another dirty cop.

He tilted my head up so that I had to look at him. “And being happy scares you?”

I nodded. Hell, after my father and being invisible most of my life, even compliments scared me. Being happy, loved and cared for terrified me. As working poor as we were in witness protection, I’d never had so much to lose in my life.

“Scares me, too,” he confessed.

Callan wasn’t the type of man to cry, but I could see deep emotion shimmering in his gaze.

“How do you keep from going crazy with it?” I needed to know. Some days I felt one kind word or kiss away from the loony bin. That in itself seemed certifiable.

Softly smiling, he eased me onto the cushion, stood and offered me his hands. “Let me show you.”

It wasn’t an answer -- or maybe it was.

I let him lead me into the bedroom and watched in silence as he pulled back the thin quilt covering the mattress. He stripped his t-shirt off then turned his attention to my robe. Slowly, he peeled the fabric off my shoulders and down my arms to expose my breasts.

Taking a seat on the bed, he pulled me so that I stood between his spread legs. His hands cupped my breasts as his mouth slowly advanced on one nipple. My head dipped backwards as his tongue touched the tight bud. My arms curled around Callan’s head, hugging him to my chest.

His fingers found their way between my pressed thighs. He took short, curling strokes against my clit, his tongue moving in the same pattern between small bites to my breast. The sensations had me straining on tiptoe to ease his access. My breathing became erratic, signaling how close he already had me to climax.

“Not yet, love.” He turned, taking me with him so that my back was against the mattress. He finished removing my robe, the fabric finding its way to the floor as he settled between my open thighs.

Pinching my lower lips apart, he started to gently suckle at my clit. The tenderness he exhibited had fresh tears coating my cheeks. He had told me, back in Charlottesville, that sometimes he would take me roughly, but every night since our arrest it had been this loving intimacy.

As if each night might be our last together, he wanted me to know how thoroughly loved I was. And, no matter how much it had thrilled me that long ago night, I didn’t need the roughness, just the strength that was always present.

Reaching down, I caressed the scar on his left hand. “Do you think we can ever have children?”

The thought had been pushing at me all week, as if the happiness I felt couldn’t be spent on just one person without overwhelming Callan with my need.

His mouth moved along my hip, kissing the sensitive hollow on one side before moving to its twin on the opposite hip. For a few seconds, I thought he hadn’t heard me or didn’t want to hurt me with the answer. Moving back to my mound, he kissed the top split then looked at me.

“Yeah, baby. I think we can. When every last Gypsy is dead.”

He lowered his head, not waiting to see my reaction. I nodded even as his tongue began to explore deep inside my sex. I knew it wasn’t an idle answer or one meant to delay an inevitable denial. We were in the wind at that moment, gathering our bearings while McCready and her cohorts kept a watchful eye on us and prosecutors built the rest of their case against the motorcycle club. But Callan would carry through with the threat. He would do it not just for me and our future, but for his brothers and his father.

“Baby, that wasn’t supposed to make you cry.”

I wrapped my fingers around the back of his head and tugged him upward. “I want you in me. Please, Callan.”

He surfed up the bed, his arms pushing between my body and the mattress so that he could hold me tightly against him as his cock slowly sank into me. He nuzzled my neck, whispering sweet somethings as his hips took up a slow rhythm. I could feel him hard and moving inside me. My knees hugged his hips and my breath came in wet gasps of pleasure.

Callan wrapped one hand around my chin, forcing my mouth open. He kissed me, deep and twirling as his hips circled more tightly against me. Need whipped through me and my hands found his back. Fresh marks appeared beside fading ones as I dragged my nails against his flesh to keep from screaming.

Stopping the kiss, he panted against my ear, letting me know he was close.

Together, baby. You and me...

I lifted against him one last time, the scream finally breaking from my throat as I came. He had repeated the words many times since leaving that interrogation room. He said it when we discussed how we would get out of Oklahoma, how we wouldn’t abandon his brother or father, and how we would get to the point where we could stop looking over our shoulders. He said it at times like this when our bodies were melded together, the many repetitions etching the promise in my flesh and in my bones.

Together baby. You and me.

Coming Soon - Revenge

Shay Ripley will do anything to get revenge against the motorcycle club that killed her family. Determined to infiltrate the Thunder Gypsies, she offers up her body to any outlaw biker willing to take her. But one man sees through the hard exterior to the innocent young woman beneath.

Lincoln Tilley is searching for more than revenge. Newly released from prison, he has once again donned a Thunder Gypsy vest as a full-patch member to find his missing brother and free his father. He doesn’t have time to play the hero for a woman he just met. But if he doesn’t claim Shay as his, every last Gypsy will use and abuse her before her secret is finally revealed and she pays for her treachery with her life.

**********

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Pesky Legal Stuff

Copyright © 2014 by Christa Wick

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. All persons and entities are fictional (or used fictitiously). Not for sale to libraries. No lending outside distributor (e.g. Kindle/Nook) terms of service. Otherwise, re-distributing, lending, or reading this e-book without first purchasing a license to do so is illegal and subject to heavy fines. Also, I will find and smother you.

Table of Contents

About Rage

Rage

Callan

Avery

Callan

Avery

Callan

Avery

In the Wind

Coming Soon - Revenge

Pesky Legal Stuff