Devil's Fall: Dust Bowl Devils MC (25 page)

“What?” They stopped in front of his bike. “You knew the guy?”

“Yeah, we both did.” Bill was shaking his head as he spoke. “Gunner bashed that guy’s face in half a year back. Rockwell. He was an officer back then. Guess he’s still pissed.”

“Full circle,” she mumbled. “He said it all came full circle.”

“Superstitious bastard. It happened right around here.” He cursed one more time before finally swinging a leg over his bike, nodding behind him for her to get on.

“Will he be okay, Bill?” she asked, rubbing her arms. He was the last person she wanted to be there with, the last person she wanted to ride with. He hated her; he wanted to tear them apart. But she had no one else.

“No doubt. I’ve seen him get shot and stand back up.”

She didn’t need to know the details of that at the moment.

Just pull through.
Bill roared up the street, following the path of the ambulance. He wasn’t as wild of a driver as Gunner but he caught up to the emergency vehicle all the same.
Be okay. I can take care of you, now. Nothing else matters.
The contracts were signed. The club wasn’t after her any longer. The danger was supposed to be over. They were supposed to be in the clear.

Just make it, Gunner.
Maybe it was bad luck as he seemed to think, but it couldn’t be a permanent affliction. She refused to believe it. Luck could be changed. She swore to herself that she would change it for him.
Stay with me.

Time passed in a haze of pain that only gradually lifted as one day turned to night, turned to day and so on. “You’re lucky to be alive,” the doctors told him. He didn’t believe them. Life was a curse and he deserved to keep suffering through it.

That changed during visiting hours when Senna came to see him, lighting up his gray world with one of her rare smiles - the secret ones that she let no one else see. She spoke to him as much as he would tolerate. Bill had delivered her cut of the money and she told him about the car she’d bought. “Not a minivan,” she gleefully described. The club was searching for Rockwell to deliver their own justice. He didn’t like the sound of that - it was justice that had been delivered upon him. They were even in his eyes, and he told her as much.

When he fell into brooding silences, she quieted down and kissed him. The incident had reminded him of why she couldn’t stay. How stupid he’d been to imagine that they had any sort of future together. He led a dangerous life, he had enemies, men who wanted him dead, who would harm her to get to him. Rockwell almost had - he’d tried to drive the knife into her knee to get her out of his way. Gunner shuddered when he remembered how close of a call it had been.

The doctors were pleased with his progress and sent him home after four days. They were no longer confined to the clubhouse - something had finally changed Bill’s attitude towards Senna. But Gunner needed more assistance than she could give and so they moved him to Nomad’s home instead.

Despite his rapid recovery, he still wasn’t well enough to make it to Alvarez’s funeral. Senna and Nomad went in his place.

“It was a lovely service,” she reported when they returned, kissing him on the cheek. “Rosa sends her love.”

She cooked. She helped him change his bandages, helped him stand, helped him shower. He could barely look at her. “Please talk to me,” she’d whisper, and he could only turn away.

She bantered with his father and Lily, sitting around the dinner table, drinking beer and playing cards.

“Nomad wanted me actually
in
the club for a hot minute, once upon a time,” Lily told her, laughing.

“I thought it was a boys-only thing,” Senna said. She kept trying to catch Gunner’s eye, but he pretended to concentrate on the cards in his hand.

“It is,” Lily said.

Nomad frowned. “We had a woman once. Back in the seventies.”

“Was she as pretty as Lily, though?” Senna asked.

“Ugliest bitch I’ve ever seen. Big, too. Bigger than me. She could’ve squashed me like a beetle.” He looked between the two women’s incredulous faces. “It’s a sad day when the oldest man in the club is the most progressive.”

“It’s not progressive, it’s fucking stupid,” Gunner said, slamming down his cards. “What if she’d gotten hurt? How would you have felt, then?”

“She’d already gotten hurt,” Nomad said, “More than once, need I remind you.” Gunner flinched. He had foggy memories of his own aggressive tactics hitting on the poor woman over a decade ago, before she’d met Nomad. He’d just arrived home from overseas and had been existing in a constant haze of drugs and violence. He remembered little, but he knew he hadn’t been very nice. “Maybe it’s up to her to decide how much danger she wants to take on. I’m not her parent, I can’t just send her to her room or send her away because something bad might happen.”

They weren’t talking about Lily anymore.

Senna cornered him later while he was bare-chested in the bathroom. Her voice came from close to the floor, as if she’d sat down against the door outside. “Remember when you seduced me while I dyed my hair?”

He looked at himself in the mirror. Tired, bruised. He’d looked better back then. It hadn’t been all that long but it felt like ages had passed. “I remember,” he said. “Right after I dragged you off the road and tried to shoot you.”

“You never would have done it and you know it. Do you remember the other thing you said?”

“I say a lot.”

“About riding this thing out until it wrecks us?”

He gripped the edge of the sink. “I’m feeling pretty wrecked right now, honey.”

“I know.” He heard her stand. “Let me in. I’m sticking around one way or another. Nomad says they’ll let me use a room at the clubhouse. I’d rather stay with you but you have to stop pushing me away.”

He turned and opened the door. She stood there looking pretty wrecked herself - eyes red-rimmed, black hair uncombed. He spotted hints of her honey-colored roots starting to grow in.

He gestured at his side, where the gauze covered the wound high on his chest. It had been a very close call - any deeper and it probably would have ended him. It was healing now, and though it ached, he’d regained most of his normal range of motion. “This could have happened to you. He was going after you to get past to me.”

“Yeah?” she asked. “And he failed. What’s your point? My bus to LA could crash. Another of my father’s clients could track me down and be even less reasonable. Lightening happens. Where should I go?”

“I know all that. Those things aren’t the same.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I couldn’t take it if you were hurt because of
me.
I’ve got a lot of bad shit coming my way. A lot to answer for.”

She stepped closer, sliding her hands around his waist. He gripped the sink behind him tighter. “Are you talking about karma?”

“Sort of. I guess.” He didn’t really know. He just knew the universe would make him answer for being a shitty person, a shitty friend. Everything always caught up eventually.

“We can work on that together,” she said. She rested her head on his shoulder and he couldn’t help turning and breathing her in. “We can try to re-balance it if that’s what you want.” She kissed his jaw. “Let me love you, Gunner. I’ll let you love me. Maybe more bad shit will happen, but bad shit always happens anyway. You deserve a little good in your life, too.”

“Do I?”

“You were never going to shoot me. You went through a lot to keep me safe. That has to count for something.” Her hands traced his waistband as her lips met his neck. He could feel his resolve cracking - not that he ever had much resolve to begin with. His instincts and his impulses screamed, “take her.”
It would be so easy to give in
.

She suddenly took a step back. "You forget. You aren't the only one hurting here, Gunner. I've lost everything. A stack of cash won't bring my father back, bastard that he was. He was still my family. It won't make Dawn give a shit about me. It won't simply buy back the life I had."

It was true. He hadn't forgotten but he hadn't been thinking about what she'd been through. Sure, he didn't know what it was like to grow up with all the things she'd had - security, luxury. But he didn't know what it was like to have it all torn away, either. She must have been scared. She looked scared right then - afraid of losing him.

It was that vulnerable look that finally broke through. The first time he'd seen it when he'd touched her at the hotel, he'd run for the hills.

A lot had changed since then. Hell, everything had changed.

He meant to kiss her gently but it was impossible to be gentle when he wanted her so badly, when everything he'd been trying to hold back was finally let loose.

She sighed his name as their lips clashed. He couldn't lift her like he wanted to, so he held her shoulders and walked her backwards from the bathroom, across the hall into the bedroom. He kicked the door shut behind him.

Pain flared in his side as he sat her down and leaned over her. "Shh," she said as his face twisted, "Lie down. Let me take care of you."

"Keep talking," he said, stretching out on hid back. His heart was racing, and not just because of his wound. He was giving in and it scared him. She stopped in the middle of unbuttoning his jeans.

"You look miserable," she said. "Just tell me what's wrong. Please."

The words fell out in a rush. "You make me so goddamn happy I could die and I don't deserve it. Something horrible is going to happen to end this. Losing you scares the shit out of me."

Slowly, a smile spread across her face. One of those quiet ones that she reserved just for him. "You are by far the most honest man I know," she said, leaning down and kissing him for it. "And more in touch with your feelings than I am."

He frowned. She made him should like a damn girl when she put it that way. "Not exactly the most glowing endorsement."

"It is," she said, her hands working his pants open again. "I always know where I stand." He lifted so she could remove his jeans. With her palm against his swelling cock, she smiled again. "You love me and you're scared. It's okay. I'm scared, too." She kicked off her own jeans as she watched his face, making sure he was watching her and still listening.

He licked his lips. He knew what she was saying was important, but their pants were off. He longed to be inside her but watching her swing a leg over and straddle his waist, he wanted to taste her, too. He wanted to make her come, cry out, scream his name.

Every day.

Always.

He grasped her ass, squeezing her flesh and drawing her towards him. "You love me," he said, stating it, not asking. He knew it was true but it was still hard to believe.

She nodded, moving forward on her knees until she was above his chest. He slid a finger through her soft folds, drawing forth her wet heat, spreading it before plunging it inside. She squirmed above him.

"I thought I was going to take care of you," she said, a touch breathless.

"I want to watch you come," he said, grinding the heel of his hand against her. "I promised I'd make you come every day, remember? I've got a few days to make up for."

She bit her lip as she moved against him. "Say it, first."

"Say what?"

"Tell me to stay with you." Her hands smoothed his hair, then gripped it tight. "Tell me not to leave."

"Don't leave. Never leave." He lifted his head and laved her between her legs with his tongue, drawing it across her clit. Her moan was her reply, and it was all he needed.

Maybe some this horrible shit had to happen to bring us together
. The club banishing him, her sister being where she was, drawing her out to them in her time of need. He believed in bad luck - it wasn't a huge leap to believe there could be a touch of good mixed up in it all.

He dragged his tongue over her clit over and over until she came, gushing and bucking around his thrusting fingers. He watched in awe as she threw her head back in ecstasy.

He chuckled to himself. "What is it?" She asked.

"There was a time I thought if I fucked you once or twice it would get you out of my system."

She grinned, moving back along his body to position herself over his cock. He groaned when she gripped his erection. "Still think that?" She lowered herself onto him with a rapturous look. He was sure his expression was no different as she enveloped him. All of him. "Am I out of your system now?"