Hard As Steel: A Hard Ink/Raven Riders Crossover (1001 Dark Nights) (12 page)

“Lana took the bullet meant for me and bled out in my arms. Last thing she said to me…” Ike shook his head as pain bloomed in his jaw from how tight he clenched it. “…was that she was pregnant with our baby. I killed two people that day, two people I was supposed to protect,” he rushed out. So he’d failed as a man and a father, as a lover and a protector. And it had cost the only person he’d ever loved
everything
.

“Ike,” Jess whispered, pulling her chair closer to him.

He held up a hand, stopping her. He didn’t want compassion from her. Or from anyone. He hadn’t deserved it then and sure as fuck didn’t now.

But there was more Jess needed to know. “I wanted to kill Aaron with my bare hands. But I was too fucking scared. Coward that I was, I ran instead. Eventually, I met up with the Ravens, and Dare took me in. Ike Young’s not even my real goddamned name.”

Jess went to her knees in front of him and pushed her body between his thighs. It was too close, too intimate, too damn much for Ike to handle. She grasped his face in her hands. “You were a kid and your father and brother were criminals. If I didn’t cause my father’s death, you didn’t cause Lana’s.” Her thumbs stroked his cheeks. “Ike, I’m so sorry.”

“You’re not hearing what I’m saying,” he said, knocking away her hands, anger boiling up inside him. Jesus, the pain of Lana’s death and his failure was still so fucking sharp.

But Jess didn’t back off. Instead, she pushed herself closer. “I hear you loud and clear. You and Lana were both victims of a horrible situation.”

“I wasn’t any goddamned victim,” he bit out, shoving his chair back and springing to his feet.

Slowly, Jess stood.

“I was weak and stupid and a fucking coward. And Lana paid for it with her life. I didn’t even get her vengeance,” he yelled, pacing between the dining area and living room. Fucking hell, there wasn’t enough air in here. Not with his words echoing around the cabin. Not with Jess staring at him.

“Yes, you did,” Jess said, her voice rising. “You survived. You didn’t give in to what your father wanted. You got free,” she said, walking closer, and a little closer still. “Living life on your terms is the sweetest vengeance of all, and you did it without making a seventeen-year-old kid bear the awful weight of murder.”

Ike glared. He was going to lose his freaking mind. He really was. “Aaron fucking
deserved
to die.”

“Of course he did,” Jess said, her expression fierce. “But you deserved to live without the guilt of killing someone more.”

“I did fucking kill someone!” he roared.

She shook her head. “No, you didn’t.”

Jess’s words, her defense of him, her compassion—Jesus, they hurt. They picked at messy scars and painful scabs inside him. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t stand still. He couldn’t bear the weight of the vulnerability. And he didn’t want to examine the why of it too closely—because while it’d been hard to tell this story to Dare and Doc, Ike hadn’t felt this damn exposed with them. “You’re wrong.”

“Ike—”

“Just stop,” he said, his chest so tight he had to gasp for air. “You’re not listening to me. You’re not hearing me.” And not just about Lana, either. Jess was looking at him with so much damn emotion in her eyes that he could barely meet them. He had to
make
her hear him. He had to make her
understand
. Telling her the greatest shame of his life wasn’t doing the job on Jess he needed it to do, so he was going to have to be more blunt. He gestured with his hand between them. “You and I?” Ike shook his head and ignored the burning pain in his chest. “We’ll never be anything more than this. Relationships aren’t my thing anyway, and definitely not with a woman always in so much damn trouble.” He was the world’s biggest asshole, he knew he was, especially as hurt flashed across her face. “And last night? That was just fucking, just scratching an itch. So whatever you think it meant, Jessica? It didn’t. Not even a little. Not to me.”

Chapter 11

With a raw, jagged hole in her chest where her heart used to be, Jess watched Ike storm out the front door.

How the
hell
had that conversation gone so badly so fast? Why had he lashed out at her like that? What did she say that was so wrong?

His words echoed in her brain, doing more and more damage as they sank in. She’d been nothing more to him than scratching an itch? As if she’d just been a series of holes to get him off and nothing more.

Fuck. Him.

Jess fisted her hands as anger crashed over her head like a violent wave. You know what? Let him go. She wasn’t chasing after his ass, not when he was being such a gigantic freaking douchebag. He didn’t want a relationship with her? Fine. It wasn’t like she’d pressured him for one. And it wasn’t like she’d started shit between them last night anyway. That had been all him.

But to say being with her had meant absolutely nothing? That didn’t just negate what they’d shared, it negated their friendship, too. No friend talked to or looked at you that way.
With friends like that…
She chuffed out a humorous laugh. Exactly.

Except,
fuck
, his words were absolutely slicing up her insides. That he could say shit like that after she’d opened up with him
hurt
. Jeremy was the only other person in her life now who knew what had happened. And now Ike. And it felt like he’d thrown all of it right back in her face.

Not that she planned on letting him see even a single drop of blood.

A half hour later, Jess had cleaned up dinner all without smashing anything, which seemed like some kind of a victory.

Ike still hadn’t returned.

Through the open window over the sink, she heard loud, angry heavy metal music coming from the garage, along with an alarming number of crashes and bangs. Jess had no idea what the hell Ike was doing out there, but if he needed a time-out in the corner for a while, she wasn’t going to talk him out of it.

Three hours later, she was sitting in the dark on the couch staring at the front door. Knees pulled up to her chest and chin resting on folded arms, Jess’s head was a hot mess of sadness and anger and memories. And she got angrier with every hour that Ike stayed outside.

By the time she nuked a Hot Pocket for dinner the next evening, Jess was exhausted and strung-out and downright livid.

If anyone was responsible for changing their relationship, it wasn’t her. She’d handled her shit.
He
was the one giving her the silent treatment after tearing her head off—and her heart out.

Standing at the kitchen counter, she’d just pulled a pepperoni out of her sandwich when the front door flew open. She didn’t look up as she popped the saucy morsel into her mouth.

“Get your things together. We’ve leaving,” Ike said as he clomped toward the bathroom.

Jess took another bite. Chewed. Savored. Swallowed.

Ike stopped outside the bathroom door. “Did you hear me?”

“I’m eating,” Jess said. Okay, it was childish, but she had to admit she took pleasure from defying him. There was no way he wouldn’t know she’d be ten kinds of curious about
why
they were leaving, so if he couldn’t talk to her like a normal person, she wasn’t going to listen.

He marched up to the kitchen counter, and she felt his gaze on her face almost as if it were a physical caress.

She took his challenge and looked him right in the eyes, working hard to make sure her face showed nothing but a careful, carefree blasé. “I’ll be done in a few.”

He looked at her for a long moment, long enough for her to see he was doing the careful blasé thing, too. “I want us out of here as soon as possible. The team has set up a meeting tomorrow with the assholes who ruined their military careers and attacked Hard Ink, and I want the extra protection the Ravens’ compound will afford while all that’s going down. Just in case.”

Jess’s insides went on an uncomfortable loop-the-loop at hearing what was about to happen and knowing what kind of danger that likely posed for Nick and his team. But all she said was, “Okay. I’ll be ready in ten.” After all, it wasn’t like she had much to pack.

He gave her a single tight nod, and then turned on his heel and disappeared into the bathroom.

Ridiculously, tears chose that moment to threaten. All night and all day, she’d sat dry-eyed, too mad to let herself cry. She stared up at the ceiling and blinked the urge away—no way was she giving in to the urge in front of him. Frankly, she didn’t want to give into it at all.

Before Ike emerged from the bathroom, Jess rushed to the loft to stuff all her clothes in her duffel. Downstairs again, she waited until he came out and gathered her toiletries in the bathroom. And then she was ready.

“Got everything?” he asked, a bag of his own hanging from his shoulder.

“Yup.” She followed him out the front door. His bike sat in the sun by the front porch, and she had the weirdest moment of déjà vu. In so many ways, the scene was the mirror image of when they’d arrived almost a week before. In reality, so much had changed.

Ike handed her a helmet, stowed their bags, and mounted the bike. The engine growled to life, the sound cutting through the springtime air. Jess got on behind him, and then they were off. Heading out of the long driveway, turning onto the curving mountain road, and riding to another place she’d never before been—the home of the Raven Riders Motorcycle Club.

* * * *

Normally, being in the saddle of his bike cleared Ike’s head and fed his soul. Not today. Not when he’d purposely hurt the person he cared about most in this world, and the only woman he’d developed any feelings for since Lana.

Because he was a fucking coward.

Ike leaned into the turns and sped up on the straightaways as they made their way over the mountain, the bike cutting through the warm evening air. Jess’s hands grasped lightly at Ike’s waist, though she didn’t wrap herself around him the way she had on the way out of Baltimore last week. The distance between them felt like a steel bar sitting on his shoulders, making it hard to breathe, hard to even sit upright.

But he couldn’t blame her for erecting a wall between them. After all, he’d handed her the bricks and taught her how to build the goddamned thing—right after he’d thrown so much hurtful bullshit right in her face.

Around a bend in the road, the Ravens’ compound came into view. It was a huge piece of property—pushing 300 acres if Ike recalled correctly, and it could be accessed from two directions—the front, public entrance that led to the Green Valley Speedway, and the rear, private entrance that led more directly to the large clubhouse building, the chop shop, and the cottages. The latter was the heart of the Ravens’ MC.

Ike took them around to the private entrance since they were meeting Bunny, Doc, and Rodeo at the clubhouse for dinner and staying there for the night. Most of the Ravens were in Baltimore helping Nick’s team, but some of the Old Timers from Doc’s generation who couldn’t much ride anymore and some of the newer and prospective members had stayed behind. In case the shit hit the fan, those extra hands were better than nothing. Ike felt more secure having Jess behind the Ravens’ guarded walls until the fight in Baltimore played out.

And, frankly, it was probably better for both him and Jess to be surrounded by other people given how badly Ike had fucked things up—and to keep him from fucking them up even more.

He’d hated staying out of the house the previous night, but he’d been too raw, too angry, too torn apart—about so many things. And he didn’t know how to make any of it right. Jess’s easy acceptance, forgiveness, and understanding of what he’d done to Lana had been so fucking hard to take. Because Ike had none of those things for himself, and that made him want Jess—and want everything she had to give—even more than he already did.

And, Jesus, he did. He wanted Jess. Not just in his bed, although that had been fucking fantastic. He wanted her in his arms. By his side.

But Ike…Ike was fucking terrified that he’d let himself fall…only to have it all ripped away again.

It made him realize that he’d been living half a life since the day Lana died—closed off, not taking chances, not feeling half of what he should. Which meant he’d wasted so much time. But he didn’t know how to change, how to put the past behind him, how to fucking man-up.

And now he’d screwed things up with Jess royally. But, what did he know? Maybe it was better that way. For her.

Ike banked the bike onto the mountain road that led to the private entrance. You could tell when you hit Ravens’ property, because the road narrowed and signs told you to turn the fuck around. Ike rolled up to a card reader with a mounted camera. They might be bikers, but they had some tech where it counted—and security was definitely one of those areas. He slipped his card into the slot and waited while the gate slid open.

When he had enough room, Ike shot through the breach and followed the road a short distance to where it opened up into a large parking lot. It was weird seeing it so empty of bikes and cars when it was usually hopping. The chop shop across the lot appeared quiet, too. Ike parked in one of the spaces right in front of the clubhouse, a long two-story, brown brick building with a front porch that ran the length of it. Back in the day it had apparently been some kind of mountain inn, and now it housed the club’s main social spaces, a kitchen and mess, their meeting room, a workout room, and some rooms upstairs where people could crash or fuck or otherwise find some privacy.

“This is it,” Ike said over his shoulder.

“Okay,” Jess said, dismounting the bike. Without looking at him, she handed him her helmet. As she took in their surroundings, Ike couldn’t help but run his gaze over her. Tall black boots. Tight black jeans. A slinky, see-through red shirt that had a wide neck prone to sliding off one shoulder or the other, and a tight black tank revealing a lot of cleavage underneath.

The dark purple and red of the hickey was visible depending on how she moved her hair.

God, he felt like such a shit.