Force: Blacktop Sinners MC (22 page)

He eyed her and flinched at the blood pulling at the corner of her split lip as well as torn and dirtied shirt she was wearing. Her long blonde hair was tangled, and there was an anxiety and wariness in her gorgeous eyes that hadn’t been there before. He stilled but finally dropped the other man, giving him a swift kick in the ribs for good measure and gratified when they crunched.

“You get to live, bastard. Consider yourself lucky and enjoy life in the pen up at Butner.”

Tess sighed and wrapped her arms around his neck and then buried her nose in the crook there. She felt amazing, and already he couldn’t wait to get her home. Hopefully they could work out their different lifestyles, hopefully she wasn’t too mad at him for all that had befallen her. They just had to be able to work out everything. He couldn’t live without her and these last two days had proven in.

“God, you’re alive.”

“I’m shocked you are,” she said, still pushing into his side. “I thought they’d make Swiss cheese out of you.”

“Well, we might have had some special back up,” he said, squeezing her shoulder and just so glad she was there and whole. Whatever else had happened, they could work through that, could do their best to help her heal. At least he’d gotten there before anything terrible and irrevocable had happened.

Wait, he had, hadn’t he?

Reaching out, he stroked her cheek. “Did he?”

“No, no one did, and you stopped him. It’s fine. I just want to go home and is your back up a cop by any chance?”

He winked back at her beautiful and gold-flecked hazel eyes. “There is definitely a Lt. Jimenez who wants to see you badly. He’s probably going to tear me apart as soon as this raid is over for getting you into any trouble.”

“Well, to be fair, Lizzy encouraged us too.”

He chuckled and kissed her lips, loving the softness there even if the bitter taste of copper dug fresh into him, reminded him how much he had failed her. “Everything’s going to be okay now.”

She sighed and he felt her shiver in his arms as she looked down at the bloody mess who had once been her attacker. “I hope so. I really do.”

“Then I love a damn happy ending, don’t you, Grinder?” Trent asked.

His voice came out sibilant and wheezing like the snake he was. Of course, that could be due to how few teeth he had left from all his meth use. Stupid bastard had always been a fan of sampling his wares. It made him a poor decision maker, just like when he came up with whatever harebrained scheme he’d had in order to try double crossing the Sinners and killing Spike originally. Anyone who wasn’t high as a damn kite and tweaking would never have come up with such a suicidal and downright dangerous plan.

He shoved Tess behind him automatically and stilled, his body going completely rigid, when he spied the gun trained on him. “Don’t hurt her. You wanted me and my crew. We’re here, and you can get all the revenge on me that you want.”

He cocked the hammer on the trigger and trained it firmly on Derek’s chest. “Oh, I’m taking a two-for-one. You’ve fucked up all my operations. The extra men you brought in have destroyed my crew. I think at least ten of them are lying in pools of their own damn blood. So if I’m going to hell, then I’m taking you and your worthless sweet butt with me.”

Derek twitched his fingers and bounced on the balls of his feet. If he rushed forward, he might be able to get enough momentum to take down Trent. If the other man shot him, then he at least might fall forward and two hundred plus pounds of enforcer would keep the tweaker locked to that floor, no doubt.

Tess must have realized what he was thinking, even from the way he was positioned on his feet. She reached over and squeezed his shoulder. Leaning up, she hissed in his ear. “Don’t you dare think about it.”

He wasn’t thinking; Derek would call it more distinctly acting on instinct. He started to rush, and there was a loud bang. Automatically, he reached down to feel his abdomen, to see if there was a pool of blood already welling up through his shirt. When he pulled his hand back to his face, Derek was shocked to see that it was free from blood. Looking back to Trent, he watched the other man fall to his knees, an eerie groan escaping out from his lips. Moving his eyes lower, he noticed that there was crimson staining the front of his shirt.

Confused, Derek looked around and breathed out a sigh of relief when he saw that Jimenez and two of his officers were storming into the room. The lieutenant was checking his clip and then shoving his gun into his holster. Derek knew now whom he owed his life to, and he wondered if it ate the officer up to know he’d saved a man he clearly would rather see behind bars if not six feet under. Frankly, Derek didn’t care about other debts or feuds, about the different sides of the law they were usually on. He was alive, and that meant that Tess, too, would live to see another day.

Jimenez could do anything he wanted as long as Tess Everhart continued to draw breath on this earth, and that was just the way it was.

He reached out his hand and offered it to Jimenez. The officer hesitated before shaking it. Then Tess moved over and flung herself into his arms. “God, thank you, Ricardo. You’re the best.”

“Anything for you, dear one, anything for you. Now, let’s get you to the hospital so that Lizzy can bless you out too.”

Chapter Thirty Seven

“I’m out, Spike,” he said, and the words felt more final than anything from last night’s blood bath.

Trent was far from the only high ranking Death’s Head Crew board member to meet his maker. Their club was far more destroyed than Los Lobos had been, and now the Blacktop Sinners were the only gang around for counties.

It was best for all of them.

Even if this past week had been hell for the club and for him, even if Spike and Smitty were going to have to struggle to still ferret out the traitor, the club had come out on top. The Sinners had eradicated a threat, and now any other upstart clubs would whisper in fear and hesitation about the example of the Death’s Head Crew the same way that they now whispered about Los Lobos. Plus, he’d kept his word and to his code of honor. Both the woman he loved and his president were safe. That was what every enforcer hoped for.

But Tess couldn’t stay safe, not when she was leverage to get to him. Other sweet butt…maybe it wouldn’t bother him as much, but they could usually hold their own in a fight. It wasn’t the same when the girl in question was a good girl, one who was a kindly nurse by day and who couldn’t hold her own. Not that Tess hadn’t clearly kept her wits about her in the middle of this mess. Clearly she had, but she deserved better, and he wanted to go straight.

Spike considered him, his ice blue eyes narrowing back at Derek. “You’re just back in the fold.”

Derek wanted to say something snarky, to insist that it hadn’t been his choice to be thrown out of the fold to start with. That was suicidal. His president and Smitty both were on good terms with him; only a fool like Trent Lachlan would stoke the ire of the toughest bastards this side of Charlotte.

Instead, he opted for something more neutral. He slipped off his new cut, the jacket that didn’t even have new patches on it, the one that had replaced what he’d lost in the accident. He folded it up neatly and handed it to Smitty. The other man frowned, his beady eyes seeming to cloud up with regret.

He should regret everything. After all, he’d been fast to want to have him tarred and feathered, hadn’t he?

It was just a sign. His time with the Sinners was over, and he had found someone who was worth lavishing his time and attention on, someone who loved him back.

“I can’t stay. I love Tess, and she won’t stand for this. Besides, being with me almost got her killed. I can’t stand to do this anymore, I just can’t.”

Spike considered that and pushed stringy black hair back from his face. “You’ve been with us for a decade. Grinder, do you really think you’re made to run some tiny bike shop or what? You going to take orders as a grease monkey for
Pep Boys
? We’re bigger than that, better than that.”

“I know, but how you feel about Trixie? I feel that way about her but a hundred times over. Can you get that, Spike? I think I’ve been on the wrong side of the law since I was thrown in juvie at fifteen. Maybe I just want to try it straight for a while, see what the whole hubbub about that is. Maybe it’s harder than it looks.”

“It’s boring, kid. You have to be at someone else’s beck and call, shine the shoes of whatever poindexter you end up working for. It’s completely worthless,” Smitty added, adjusting his belly over his belt buckle.

Derek shook his head. “You’re beholden to someone, no matter what, whether it’s here or at the Walmart. I just choose to be beholden to Tess, to be who she needs.”

Spike nodded and then, surprising Derek a lot, by stood and reached over to shake his hand. He spit a bit of chewing tobacco into the spittoon by his chair. That ruined any Hallmark aspects to the moment. “Sad to see you go. I know that Bones and Bullet will try, Ron too, but there’s no one who enforces like you. Your whole plan was a stroke of brilliance, and we could use a sight more of that here with the Sinners.”

“Maybe just learn to trust and bend a bit more, Spike,” he conceded.

His mentor nodded. “Maybe we do. Good luck to you, Grinder…I mean, Derek, and I hope it works out for you.”

Smitty followed suit and shook his hand. “I still think you’re nuts for
wanting
the regular nine-to-five bullshit, but if that’s what you think you have to try, well, there’s always a cut and a bike ready for you here at the roadhouse. In a year or a dozen, if you want back with us, then you’re more than free to have it.”

He nodded but kept his expression schooled to neutral as well. He never wanted to insult anyone, but he couldn’t afford to think too hard on the offer. He was going to be an honest man from now on, and he didn’t need the Sinners’ tempting offer. In his mind, Derek was going to live the right kind of life, the life of a man who deserved Tess, and there was no going back.

***

There was a knock on the door of her duplex.

Tess wasn’t sure what to do about that. She could hear Derek calling out through the door, and she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say to him. She’d been thrilled to see him storming in---alive no less---when everything had gotten so scary back at the warehouse two days ago. But then she’d been blessed out by Lizzy and Ricardo, been told how crazy life with Derek was. Last night she’d had nightmares all night, woken up screaming as memories of Digger and his rancid breath played over her mind.

But she loved him.

She knew that now, and Jason had always said she never learned to bend, to forgive. Derek had come for her and that sure as Hell meant something.

She eased open the door and offered him a reassuring smile. Her lips quivered, and her face felt like rubber; she wasn’t sure if that was conveying anything more than the anxiety and confusion rushing through her.

“You don’t have more clean up and planning to do with the Sinners? I expect your meth trade is about to double and probably more street corners for pimping out girls from too.”

He nodded and ran a hand through his short, trimmed beard. “I feel like I earned that.”

“I can’t condone what you do. I just can’t.”

He sighed but stood standing on the other side of the threshold, and Tess realized he was being polite enough to wait for a formal invitation. She just wasn’t sure that it should be offered. She wasn’t a criminal, and his associations had almost gotten her killed. It was a pain her parents had suffered through once before. She could never run the chance that they’d bury a second child, never again.

Still, she owed him a chance to say goodbye. He may have gotten her into trouble, but he still saved her life. That mattered to her too.

“Come in, ‘Grinder.’”

He shook his head and stepped into her living room. It was then that she noticed he wasn’t wearing his newer leather jacket. She frowned back at him. “Where did your stuff go?”

“Stuff?”

“Your jacket? Shouldn’t you be proclaiming your Sinner pride?” Her voice came out as bitter, no matter how hard she tried to force enthusiasm and support into it.

He stilled but sat down on her sofa. “I quit today. I’m going to start working for the local salvage yard and at one of the legitimate shops in town.”

She felt her jaw drop, and it was suddenly hard to remember the damn English language. That didn’t sound possible. It sounded like everything she’d ever wanted and hoped she’d hear from him. But that didn’t seem real because he’d defended his role as enforcer so vehemently and talked about how much he loved his brotherhood.

“What? But all your friends? What about the board or Ron or any of it?”

He shook his head and took both of her hands in his. They were huge and engulfed hers easily. She blushed, thinking of what other huge things of his that she’d missed. Derek continued, his breath warm on her cheeks. “They were everything I had before I met you. I can’t give up what we have, and I know the only way to keep you is to go legit. Besides, those bastards at the Crew almost killed you. I wouldn’t ever want to see that again. I’d beat myself senseless before I let that come to pass.”

“But you can’t mean it. You were so…they’re everything you know.”

“And they’re criminals, and I saw how you looked at me two days ago, how shocked you were with what I did to that guy who touched you.”

“It was a shock, but you didn’t kill him.”

“I didn’t kill anyone in the raid. You’ve already gotten to me,” he said, his voice gruff and yet she could hear the admiration in it. “I was acting like a probie or something, taking all these non-kill shots.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“Maybe surprised. I’ve changed so much, and you’re a huge reason for that, but there’s still a side to me that can be violent. I’m so sorry for that.”

“And he was trying to…you saw what he was trying to do. I understand that anger, but I know how important family is to you. I can’t ask you to give up all your brothers.”

“You’re not asking for that. I’m
giving
it to you. It’s not even just about you. It’s about both of us. They hung me out to dry, came after the woman I loved, and were supposed to be family. Family wouldn’t do that; rules be damned. Hell, I love you, but I’m also curious. I only know me as the outlaw; maybe there’s an honest man in here waiting to break out.”

She smiled genuinely, a wave of relief washing over her. She moved over to sit on his lap and let his strong arms wrap over her shoulders. Tess loved feeling the stubble of his beard against her cheek, and she loved the smell of him, both his aftershave and the muskiness that was all Derek. She could lose herself in his arms forever.

“So you’re going to be an honest man?”

“Yes, you’ve definitely made an honest man of me, Tess Everhart.”

She smirked back at him. “What if I want you to make a very dishonest woman of me, though?”

He frowned back at her, and she kissed him, her tongue plundering his mouth, her lips hungry and eager as they explored his own. She was grinding into him a bit, her hips flush against his even through the denim of both their jeans. Tess could feel heat flare through her belly, and she mewled already, even as she grew wet and ready for the contact with him that she’d missed, for his caress.

It had been one of the things she’d focused on so steadily to help her deal with the fear and isolation while trapped in her cell.

He was working fast, helping to slip her t-shirt off of her, and she obliged by shimming out of it as well as from her bra. Her nipples were exposed to him then, rigid peaks that had were a dusky rose before him. His eyes were like liquid pools of heat staring back at her, and his nostrils flared as he eyed her with approval. She took one hand and trailed her fingers gracefully down the valley between her soft mounds.

“Do anything you want to me, Derek. I love you.”

“Love you too, Tess, so much,” he said.

Then his mouth was on her left nipple, suckling at it with a voracious intensity that left her back bowing toward him and her body shivering with need. His hand dipped low, already undoing the button of her jeans. Tess knew exactly what she wanted from him. She dropped a sofa pillow to the floor and laid out on it. It was difficult to slip out of her jeans, as if the traitorous denim didn’t want to come off, as if tangling on her legs was some conspiracy to deny her everything she needed.

Derek was standing above her. He’d stripped off his own clothes as she finally got the jeans off from her body. He made short work of undoing the foil packet and then slid it over his length. She licked her lips at the sight of his erection, springing full and free from his dark curls at the apex of his thighs. He was still the largest man she’d ever been with, and she never thought anyone could fill her the same way, could leave her as satiated.

He leaned over her now, crawling over her body on his knees and elbows, and Tess relished the proximity of him, the feel of his heft over her. She felt his cock teasing the lips of her labia, and she shuddered underneath his touch. His mouth was on her own, so soft and yet mixed with the tickling of his stubble.