Devil's Fall: Dust Bowl Devils MC (13 page)

He's trying to kill me after all.
A delicious heat roiled through her in waves as Gunner's tongue found her clit and stroked it in time with his plunging fingers. She was so turned on and so wrecked with need that it almost hurt. What was it about him that did this to her?

The screaming of the alarms jolted her back to reality. Something was burning in the tiny apartment. "Gunner!" Was that her voice, so high and so desperate? She could see the damn smoke coiling up to the ceiling. "Oh, shit… wait…" She tried to will her fingers to release his hair but she was too weak.

He growled against her pussy, the vibrations making her toes curl.
So close
. But it wasn't enough. It wouldn't be enough until he fucked her. Her body screamed with pure animal need for that ancient dance.

The blaring alarms meant that tango would have to wait.

"So close, fuck..." He gave her what she needed, somehow reading her, applying more pressure without breaking the rhythm they'd built.

She came just as the sprinklers burst to life. Her fluids soaked his hand as they sputtered, spat, and finally sprayed the entire apartment. It cooled her skin as her orgasm convulsed through her. Gunner had withdrawn and left her all too quickly, but what was she thinking, she needed to move, too. Still twinging with aftershocks, she rose from the bed to see him pulling on a pair of jeans. He pointed at her shorts where he'd left them on the bed.

By the time she'd managed to get them on over her trembling legs, he had her bags in his hand and was opening the front door. The last dying wisps of black smoke followed then out.

The eggs. Those damn eggs
.

She was afraid he would be furious but surprised to discover he was laughing as soon as they stumbled outside. “What about all your stuff?” she asked as they reached his motorcycle. He’d thrown his cut on over his bare chest but otherwise hadn’t retrieved a single thing.

He shrugged and leaned back against the bike. “Wasn’t my stuff. It’s one of those already furnished deals. This was supposed to be temporary.”

“Oh?” She was more interested in his muscular chest and the dark ink that decorated it. She hadn’t gotten a good look at it before, but now… she pushed his leather vest open further for a look.

“Yeah. Devil’s headquarters actually isn’t around here. The strip club’s just a place the VP owns on the side.” She traced the red and black lines of a skull in chains.

“Headquarters?” she mumbled, “What are you, a business?”

“Naw. We
do
business.”

“I’ll bet.”

His hand clamped around her wrist. She looked up in surprise. “Let’s not talk about the club.”

She nodded. He released her just as more people began filtering out of the building. “Is the fire spreading?” she asked. She’d thought the sprinklers would take care of it; she’d never imagined they might burn the whole place down.

“Doubt it. The sprinklers probably set off more alarms, though,” he said. He pulled a shirt from one of his motorcycle’s bags and threw it on under his cut. The sight of his bare torso disappearing beneath the fabric made her fingers itch to peel it away and touch him again.
Better not. We might cause a car accident this time. Or a tornado.
She giggled to herself, and he smiled. “Okay, I definitely didn’t take you for the giggling type.”

“I used to have a sense of humor,” she said, frowning.

“And?”

“I don’t know.” She hitched one shoulder in a lazy shrug. “I think after everything that happened with my dad, I sort of thought nothing could be funny again. After everything he did… and now that he’d dead….” She blew out a breath. With all the threats, the running, fleeing across the country, then the shooting and everything since, she hadn’t been able to grieve at all.
Not that the old bastard deserves much.
Still, he was her father, and now he was gone. Just because they’d had a lousy relationship didn’t mean it wasn’t sad.

"I get it," he said, then nodded towards the bike. "May as well hit the road."

"You aren't too tired?" She climbed on after him, snapping his helmet beneath her chin.

"Not yet. We'll make a pit stop or two." He revved the engine. "Hold on." She knew better, now, and wrapped her arms tight around his waist. Everything he did, he did fast and hard - everything from punching Colin, to making her come, to peeling out of a parking lot. He had an explosive energy that reminded her at times of her family, her father - but with none of the manipulation, none of the deceit, none of the all-consuming ambition that had eventually torn the family apart.

Gunner was just Gunner and made no claims otherwise. It was refreshing after so many years of playing polite around her father and his type. It almost made her want to stick around, if it wasn’t for all the danger she was in.
Maybe big cities, big money, big names aren’t for me after all. I never did quite fit in.
She did fit there on the bike, though, wrapped around Gunner’s back.
A little too well.

◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙◙

The highway disappeared beneath them as they sped further and further away. The small town gave way to trees that seemed to have no end in sight.
He did say six hours, I think. Damn
. As they drove for miles while the sun sank lower and lower, she wondered how he managed to keep going. After all the excitement of the day, the fear, the adrenaline, she was exhausted herself. And she wasn't even doing the driving.

She shifted around on the seat to try and restore some life to her tired brain and sleeping legs. The sun had fully disappeared and the sky was gray with the dying light.

Finally he turned from the highway and swerved down an exit ramp.

Thank God
. It had been about two hours, according to her watch. She was beginning to feel stiff all over.
This sure isn't as easy as being chauffeured in a taxi.

He pulled to a stop in front of a tiny diner. "You shouldn't squirm around like that," he said. "Just tap my arm if you need a break." Inside, they were pointed towards one of the four booths by a smiling, grandmotherly waitress.

"I didn't need to stop, I was just getting a little stiff."

"Reason enough." He thanked the waitress as he took the menus from her and passed one to Senna.

"Coffee?" the woman asked, and both nodded.

Once the waitress walked off, he leaned out of the booth and turned away as he listened to messages left on his phone.
Not more bad news, I hope.

"You'll love this," he said, holding the phone away for a moment. "That suit got a look inside the room and found Jupiter still untying himself."

Senna barked a short laugh. "I can't believe he came looking for me after what you did to him."

"Must mean his boss scares him more than I do." He cracked his knuckles. "I'll fix that next time I see him."

“Did Jupiter tell him anything?”

“Just to go fuck himself.”

The waitress returned and took their orders - burgers, because they seemed the safest in such a run-down place - and Gunner turned his attention back to his phone.

He didn't like whatever he heard in the next message. His face visibly paled. One moment he was holding it to his ear; the next he'd hung up and slid it down the table away from him as if scalded.

"What is it?" She asked, her stomach sinking. He looked like he was going to be sick.

He shook his head.

She didn't want to pry but he was scaring her. "Is it something I should be worried about?"

"No. It has nothing to do with you." His tone was completely changed - low and flat.

They ate in silence. He eyed his phone as if it was going to jump up and bite him.
Something happened. Something bad
. He'd had that same look on his face back at the hotel before she'd kissed it away - that hollow expression, as if he wasn't even there.

It scared her. Not that she knew him so well, but it didn't seem like him at all.

He finished eating before her, and he pushed his wallet across the table. "Take your time," he said, "Get dessert. I need to deal with this." He gestured at the phone before snatching it up and heading outside.

"Everything okay, honey?" the waitress asked. It was a long moment before Senna could peel her eyes from the door.

"Yeah. Thanks." She tried to relax back into the seat. "What kind of pie do you have?"

She didn't really want it, but it seemed like Gunner needed some space just then. So she ate the blueberry pie - decent, though she could barely taste it - and checked her email on her phone. Another threat. Nothing new. From some address that was just a string of nonsense numbers and letters, it simply said, “We know where you are.”

Is this how that Colin guy found me? It's a new phone but could they get access to my location through my email?
It was paranoid and ridiculous to imagine, but they’d had to do something pretty drastic to find someone who was only paying with cash on the way across the country.

Finally, she couldn't make herself stall anymore. She paid the old woman and with her heart thudding, stepped outside to find him.

He was leaning back against his bike and smoking a cigarette, staring out ahead of him at nothing.

"Hey," she said, careful to keep her tone neutral. She didn’t want to spook him and get him more upset.

He flicked the cigarette away and didn't look at her. "Ready?"

He drove as if they were fleeing. He drove like the devil on his vest was nipping at his heels. He took the highway's curves so fast she could have touched the asphalt as they banked. She was tempted to signal him and ask him to stop - they were going much too fast. The engine’s roar was deafening. She clung to him for dear life and clenched her jaw, hard.
What the heck is he doing? Are we in this much of a rush?
He was so tensed up that she felt like she was hanging onto a block of stone.
What the hell is going on?

Her chest constricted as she realized he was screaming.

He pulled over onto to the side of the road a moment later. She climbed off her seat after him; he tried to set down the kickstand with his foot but after missing twice, he let the bike fall into the grass at the side of the road and walked away, tearing a pack of cigarettes from his pocket with shaking hands.

"Where are you going?" she called at his back.

"Taking a piss." He turned away from the road and disappeared into the darkness between the trees, branches crashing as he went.

She rubbed her arms - it was a warm night, but they were covered in goosebumps.
What the hell happened?
Something was terribly wrong - it has been all over his face when he'd returned for her at the motel and she’d caught a few glimpses of it since then. It wasn't any of her business, but their intense physical attraction was making it difficult to remember that he was practically a stranger. All she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him and soothe all those troubles away, whatever they were.

Son of a bitch. I'm falling for a biker.

The road was dark. The bike's headlights were out, and as clouds drifted across the sky, they began to blot out the moon. "Gunner?" she called tentatively. She was a city girl - she didn't know what sorts of animals lived out here or how likely they were to attack. She began to imagine the eyes of predators all around. Maybe she could bluff her way out of a confrontation with an angry human by keeping her cool, but a hungry animal was a different story. "Gunner?"

She stepped away from the road, aiming her feet in the direction he'd gone. It was darker between the trees and she could barely see far enough in front of her to avoid walking into branches. "Please don't leave me alone out here," she called, praying no animal with big teeth would take that as a cry of distress.
Though I suppose it is.

She put her nose to the air, catching hints of cigarette smoke and leather, but she couldn't discern where.

Finally, he spoke, somewhere off to her right. "I'm here." She turned and could see the light as he took a drag of his cigarette, casting an orange glow over his stricken face. She remained where she was, wary of his mood.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

His face contorted into a rictus of pain and he slammed the tree before him with a fist.

A sane woman would have run. She would have taken the bike and risked crashing it to get away from him - an armed man on the edge; nearly a stranger, definitely violent and probably a criminal.

Senna was certain she'd lost her mind as she crossed the space between them and wrapped her arms around his waist.
Our troubles are mingling and breeding more troubles but it looks like neither of us are letting go anytime soon.

"You can tell me," she whispered as she listened to the sound of his racing heart and sharp breaths.

Finally he reached around her back and held her tight against him.

"Is it something to do with me?" she asked again, "Or that shooting I heard?"
And saw
. It made her nauseous to think about, so she pushed the thought away. The memory would just have to haunt her later.