Guns & Burning Rubber: The Iron Brotherhood series (11 page)

“Kara, I wanted to say-”

“I said, stop talking!” she insisted, pushing down harder, making the man groan and cut off his next sentence.  “God, I shouldn’t have let this happen!”

The words were spilling out of her, now, and Kara couldn’t stop, even as she felt more and more coursing up from deep inside of her.  “It’s all my fault,” she went on, feeling tears starting to well up at the sides of her eyes.  “I never should have tried to trade you to Alicia like that - I was just trying to do what was best for my case, but it’s not the thing that matters most!  And now, I went and threw that away, when she was planning on betraying me the whole time-”

“Kara!”  That made her pause - it wasn’t Cross speaking, but Gimli, behind her.

She glanced back, and the man had pulled himself up into a sitting position, leaning back against the railing of the general store.  He was keeping pressure on his own wound, but he looked better - at least in the moonlight.  “Kara, he doesn’t care about you picking the case over him - he came because he wanted to rescue you, to keep you safe!” Gimli went on.

The man must have seen Kara’s eyes widen, because he chuckled.  “Yeah, he told me about how you’re an FBI agent in disguise.  Honestly, I never would have guessed, and I almost didn’t believe him.  But FBI agent or not, you’re still a friend of the Brotherhood, and when he announced that he was coming to rescue you, well, I couldn’t let him go single-handedly, could I?  Although if I hadn’t done anything, I expect he would have tried to storm the whole place himself, like a damn one man army.”

Kara stared at Gimli for a second, and then looked back down at Cross, her eyes wide.

The man on the ground in front of her smiled a little, but then coughed from the effort.  The cough sounded deep, an unhealthy hacking in his chest.  “Like Alicia could ever tear me away from you,” he rasped.

For a minute, the FBI agent couldn’t speak.  She just stared down at this man, slowly dying in front of her, who had attempted to storm an entire house of armed opponents, just to rescue her.  To rescue a woman on the enemy’s side, a woman who had repeatedly spurned his advances and had even tried to sell him out to further her own ends.

Cross might be a criminal, she suddenly thought to herself, but he had definitely been the one who had performed most honorably in this whole encounter.

And now he was dying, and there was nothing that she could do!

Kara put her hands back on Cross’s wound, trying to press down, trying to keep him alive through sheer force of will.  “God damn you,” she whispered, bending foward over the man to keep her weight on him.

The man coughed again, but he was still smiling.  “Love you too,” he whispered back.

In the distance, a new sound caught Kara’s ear.  At first, she wasn’t sure if she was merely hallucinating it, but as the sound grew louder, it became clear that it was real.  The siren of an ambulance was ringing out, growing closer!

New hope flooded through her veins.  She bent forward, leaning down and pressing her lips up against Cross’s, not caring about the little trickle of blood on the side of his mouth.  “Just hold on a little longer,” she promised.  “You can do it, I know you can!”

This time, the man didn’t respond.  But Kara insisted that he was staying conscious, that he was merely saving his strength.  He had to make it.

He had to.

She needed him to live.

As she bent over him, waiting for the ambulance to arrive and praying that it would make it in time, one last thought suddenly entered Kara’s mind.

Five two seven two.  That had been the combination to Cross’s phone, the sequence to unlock it. 

On a keypad, that spelled out K-A-R-A.  It was her name.

Now, she couldn’t hold back tears any longer.  They poured down her cheeks in a steady stream, dripping down onto Cross’s face as she kissed him, holding his wound as it kept on seeping out his lifeblood.

The case was over.

But Kara wasn’t sure that she’d come out on top.

When Christopher Rhodes, better known by his nickname as Cross, opened his eyes, all he could see was white.

He blinked a couple of times, trying to figure out what was going on.  He couldn’t see anything aside from whiteness, and he could feel the light brush of loose clothing against his skin.  Was he dead?  Was this some sort of Heaven?

He played with the idea that he was dead for a moment, but soon decided that it couldn’t be true.

For one thing, he was still feeling a significant amount of pain, mainly radiating up from his abdomen, and he didn’t think that there would be pain in Heaven.

Second, and more telling, he didn’t believe for a moment that, even with his more recent actions, he was likely to be welcomed at the Pearly Gates upon arrival.

He opened up his eyes again, this time straining to resolve some of the details in the whiteness.  He was horizontal, he soon figured out, and he was laying on something soft that seemed to make a faint noise whenever he tried to move.

Slowly, grimacing a bit as the injury in his stomach complained, he tried to pull himself up a little, to raise up to a sitting position.  But before he had more than cleared the back of the softness beneath him, a hand reached out of nowhere, pressing him back down by pushing gently but firmly on his chest.

“Here, let me help you,” said a gentle, feminine voice, one that he faintly recognized.  A moment later, Cross felt the bed lift beneath him, raising him up a bit and gently bending his body at the waist.

He recognized that voice, although it sounded off.  There was a note of hardness, of determination, missing from it.  Instead of hard determination, the voice seemed to have picked up an extra helping of soft kindness.  It was quite odd.

He was already feeling tired, but he still kept his eyes opened, and turned his head a little to gaze at Agent Sybil as she sat beside him.  “Hi, Kara,” he said, his voice faint but steady.  “How’s tricks?”

“You ass,” she said, not unkindly, smiling back at him.  “You nearly died, you know that?  What the hell were you thinking, not saying anything about being shot until we had ridden all that way?”

“It wasn’t safe.  Besides, I made it, didn’t I?”

“The doctors say that you were a coin flip away from dying,” she chastised him.  “You didn’t even have to be there at all!  I’m trained for this sort of thing - I could have gotten out!”

Cross didn’t reply, but he made sure that the woman saw him roll his eyes.

“I totally could have!  I already fought my way free, and had an assault rifle ready to-” Kara abruptly cut off, her jaw clicking shut as she realized that perhaps this wasn’t the best time for such a conversation.  “Look, I’m just happy that you’re alive.”

Staring up at the woman, Cross felt a familiar longing welling up inside of him, a desire to leap up and pull the woman down on top of him so he could kiss her, smell her, injuries be damned.  “How’s the case?” he asked, hoping to distract himself from this urge.

Kara smiled a little, although her eyes looked wistful.  “All wrapped up!” she announced, perhaps a little too brightly.  “Once the doctors had you, I called in the location of the house, and we had strike teams with boots down in the hour.”

“And you got them?”

“Most of them came back into the house after we left, taking inventory of what might have been stolen or destroyed.”  Kara’s smile at this looked a bit more genuine.  “When the team surrounded the house, they literally scooped them all up.”

“That’s great!  You got them all!”

“Well, all except one.”  A brief frown swept across Kara’s face.  “That bitch got away.”

“Alicia?”

“That’s the one.”  For a moment longer, Kara frowned, but then she smiled as her eyes once again focused back on Cross.  “But we’ve got her location out with an APB, and we’ll catch her sooner or later.  But the Hellraisers, as a gang, are pretty much dismantled.”

“Congratulations,” Cross said warmly, and meant it. 

Kara basked a little in his praise.  “Thanks.  I got a great commendation for it, and several media interviews.  Rogers, my boss, was especially thrilled.”

Cross nodded, smiling up at her, not letting himself think ahead.  And so her next words threw him for a loop.

“So he was especially crushed to hear my next decision,” Kara finished.

“Your next decision?” Cross repeated.  “What’s that?”

“Well, as I explained to Rogers, I met a man on this case who was incredibly helpful to cracking everything wide open, who was injured while helping to rescue me and save my life,” Kara continued, a little twinkle in her eyes.  “And after all that he did for me, I owed it to him to take a few weeks off and make sure that he had a successful recovery.”

Inside Cross’s ches, he felt a little bird of hope spread its wings wide as Kara smiled down at him.  “That’s mighty nice of you,” he said, unable to keep a matching smile off of his face.  “But won’t that hurt your career, taking that time away?”

Kara shrugged.  “Eh, fuck worrying about that,” she replied, waving a hand in dismissal.  “That’s not what matters most.”

And then, before Cross could say another word, the woman bent forward and planted her lips on his.

The kiss, although chaste and cautious at first, quickly filled them both with heat.  Cross lifted his hands and, not caring about the tubes attached to his veins at the wrists, wrapped them around the woman to pull her close.  He felt her body press against his through the thin hospital gown that covered his body.  His stomach protested in pain, but he didn’t care, didn’t even flinch.

She was in his arms, now, a delicious and wonderful handful, delightful as she squirmed to put her own hands around his neck.  “We’re going to really push you for physical therapy,” she whispered into his ear, giving his earlobe a nibble as he kissed her on the neck and she wriggled in happiness.  “We need you up to full physical performance as fast as possible.”

For several minutes, they didn’t speak any more, just kissing and exploring each other’s bodies, at least as best they could in the hospital bed.  This time, Kara was far more forward than she’d been before, seemingly uncaring about the possibility of anyone else entering as she ran her hands down beneath the hospital gown.  She steered clear of his stitches, but nowhere else was off limits.

The woman’s hands slid down, running over his sides and in across his thighs, and Cross squirmed a little.  This was amazing, but he still couldn’t just give in.  His treacherous mind kept on raising questions, refusing to just go with the flow.

“Listen, though, what about long term?” he asked finally, just spitting out the question that had been plaguing his mind.  “I know you didn’t think that this would work-”

Kara shut him up with another kiss.  “Why not?” she asked, leaning back a little to stare into his eyes.

“Well, we’re very different people, aren’t we?  I mean, you’re still an FBI agent, even if you’re on vacation, and I’m still an outlaw, even if you did get us immunity in exchange for working with you.”

The woman on his lap nodded, but didn’t seem put off at all by this.  “Those sound like pretty extenuating circumstances for both of us,” she whispered back, her hands still wandering towards very illicit places.

His reaction to her wandering hands was making it very hard for Cross to focus.  “What about after your vacation ends, or when the Brotherhood wants my help for some illegal venture?” he insisted, still trying to get his thought out.  “I just can’t see it working out for the long term-”

“That can come later,” Kara cut in, her hand curling around him as he felt himself stiffening.  God, she was doing a great job of distracting him!  And the further she went, the tougher it was for him to hold out.  He wanted her so badly, he almost couldn’t breathe.  “And besides, that doesn’t have to define who we are, does it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I don’t have to be an FBI agent forever,” she whispered, scooting back a little to rest down on his thighs, just below his hips.  He glanced down, and couldn’t help noticing that, instead of her standard outfit, she was wearing a jean mini-skirt.  It wasn’t quite as short as the scandalous outfit she had been wearing when he rescued her from the Hellraisers, but it was close.  “And you might decide to retire from the Brotherhood at some point.”

“I don’t know if I will-”

“Or, perhaps, it would be best for us to both keep our jobs, but keep on working together,” Kara went on, her fingers now slowly tugging his hospital gown up towards his waist, uncovering his legs beneath her.  She wiggled her butt back and forth on top of him.  Cross dropped his eyes down - and suddenly caught a glimpse up her skirt. 

His mouth dropped open in shock, any response of his dying in his throat unspoken.  Beneath her skirt’s cover, Kara wasn’t wearing any underwear!  He could see every bit of her, on display as she rocked back and forth against him…

“We did work pretty well together,” he managed, raising his eyes up to stare in shock at this woman, suddenly so forward.

“And there are certainly going to be other crimes committed by motorcycle clubs,” she went on, her tone a throaty whisper that contrasted with the content of her words.  “It would be great to have a deep, intimate connection with someone on the inside.”

The woman had now managed to get his thin gown up to his waist, and was scooting forward up on him, rubbing him against her opening as she rocked back and forth.  Her intentions were unmistakable.  Cross swallowed, licking suddenly dry lips.  “Here?  In the hospital?” he whispered.

“I know your phone code,” Kara whispered back to him.  “Think of this as my way of saying thank you for rescuing me.”

Even though he couldn’t believe what was about to happen, even though this felt amazingly good, Cross still couldn’t keep his smart-ass mouth shut.  “I think it might take even more than this,” he said, the words slipping out of his mouth before he could grab them back.

Kara’s smile grew wider, even as she slid forward, rising up onto him.  “Trust me, this is just the beginning,” she replied back to him, her words punctuated by a sharp gasp as she parted for him, a gasp echoed by Cross a moment later as he felt her wrap wetly around his length.

The woman rocked back and forth, clearly not in any hurry, enjoying taking things slow.  “Don’t want to tax you too much,” she murmured to him, as she rocked her hips back and forth, letting him in and out.  “You’re weak and frail, now.”

Cross narrowed his eyes up at the woman.  “You know, maybe this vacation is a good thing,” he shot back.  “Gives me time to try and pull that FBI stick out of your ass.”

Kara opened her mouth to reply, but her words dissolved into a gasp of her own as Cross grabbed her ass from behind with both hands, pulling her down further onto him until their hips pressed together.  “We’ll have to see,” she managed to get out.

“See what?”

“See who’s stronger,” she told him, opening her eyes and smiling even as she gasped and shivered in pleasure from the feeling of him deep inside of her, his thick length pushing all her internal buttons.  “Who’s going to give in first?  Are you gonna go straight-”

“-or can I corrupt you?” Cross finished, picking up on her thought.

Both of the two lovers grinned at each other, each confident that they were stronger.

After a second, though, Cross decided that this battle of the wills could come later.  For now, he should just focus on the task at hand.

And soon, they were both gasping out, their lips pressed fiercely against each other to keep in their cries of pleasure as, together, they celebrated being alive - and in love.

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