Warlord (Anathema Book 1) (27 page)

I rolled away. Rose
was on me again. Kissing. Murmuring. Touching. Begging.

The cut weighed
heavy against my shoulders. I gritted my teeth and ripped it off. Rose shivered
and sighed. She thought I stripped for her. To be closer to her. Warm against
her. Fucking compassionate.

I stripped for one
reason and one reason only.

I’d fuck Rose
without the shadow of Anathema over my body.

She had me until
I put the vest back on. Then I’d betray her in the blood of one of her
brothers.

And she’d be the
one to deliver him to me.

I woke with an
empty bed and a raging hard-on.

Both problems.

Both easily
fixed.

Rose escaped
from my bed without waking me. She was slicker in more ways than one. Normally,
I’d be pissed if a woman crashed in my bed after I finished with her.

Every tensing,
pulsing, furious muscle in my body wanted nothing more than for Rose to stay in
my damned bed. But she left. Fucked me raw, sucked me dry, and seized every
fucking drop from me during the night. Then, when I finally collapsed, she did
it again.

I didn’t
practice Catholicism, but no wonder half the world revered a virgin. If I
believed in anything but hell, last night was my one conversion to change my
ways and lead a life where I might have a chance to be fucked like that again.

I just needed to
find the little vixen. Toss her in my bed. I told her the first day her
brothers brought her to me that she’d be mine. I had a length of rope in the
closet and bungee cords packed away. Either would work. I’d strip her down,
strap her to the mattress, and then she’d learn the rules.

She didn’t leave
without my permission. Ever.

A pulsing cock
clouded my thoughts more than a concussion or gunfight.

Being used screwed
with my head more.

The little diva
exposed herself, grinded against me, kissed with wide-eyes and touched with
trembling hands. She didn’t offer herself to me. I didn’t give her the choice. Her
clothes ripped off and her legs tossed in the air. I needed one thing and one
thing only last night, and that was pounding my way inside her until I couldn’t
hear her squeals over the squeaking of the bed and the slamming of the
headboard.

So why was I the
confused one?

The kid wasn’t a
virgin, but she fucked like it was her first time. Like it was her first taste
of pleasure, and the shock of it all dominated me under her revelation. That
wasn’t sex. It wasn’t fucking, and it wasn’t just animal lust. Rose seized a
control I didn’t know existed.

But I didn’t
feel like someone’s bitch. I might have grabbed her. Tossed her on her belly,
shoved her ass in the air, and taken everything back. Her body. Her wetness. Her
aggression. Had it been any other woman, I would have. I had the cock, I made
the rules.

Except Rose
didn’t need those rules. She knew I could do it. I knew I could do it. I hadn’t
hurt her.

Someone else
did.

And I wouldn’t
rest until I found the son of a bitch and killed him with my bare hands.

My phone blinked
too many ones. I stared at the time. The little diva stole both my night and
morning. I had no idea what time she gasped her last orgasm, but she succeeded
in doing what so many of my enemies wanted. For a while, I was dead to the
world. I’d kill to feel that way again.

It wouldn’t take
very long.

A cold shower
didn’t do shit for my hard-on. My own conscious did that dirty work for me. I
washed her apple scent from me, dressed, and stared at my face in the mirror.

It wasn’t like I
ever held my own gaze for that long, but at least I still had the balls to try.
Sex offered a different confidence. I might have accepted a reflection wielding
a gun or concealed with a ski mask, but an imagined glimpse of me holding Rose? 
That shame burned more than laying down a bike on summer asphalt. We fucked
because we were almost killed. Again. And the only reason Ex pressed his gun
into my head was because someone in my club, one of my crew, let it happen.

I had to find
out who, one way or another.

And I’d need
more than a shower to wipe the grime off me when I was done.

I took one of Anathema’s
trucks home. My address technically hadn’t changed since I was a kid. After my
mom whored herself to the first suit who happened to wave a five digit credit limit
under her nose, she cleared out. My old man got his head blown off ten years
back in a drug deal gone bad. After clearing out the nest of Haitians who
pocketed his cut, wallet, and shoved his body in the river, I inherited an
estate and all the broken windows, stolen copper pipes, and wood paneling I wanted.

Two blocks away,
Brew, Keep, and Blade ran their day-to-days. I didn’t remember Rose much when
she was a kid. Bud wasn’t allowed outside. Didn’t blame them. The perverts in
that neighborhood might have stolen and traded any of her favors for half a
bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes.

Ten years changed
things. Their house burned to the ground in some drug related, Keep fuck up. My
house pushed its own daisies. And roses. And whatever else I paid the gardener
two-fifty a month to grow. The green trim around the windows bothered me, but
the decorator assured me it blended with the neighborhood
ambiance
. And
the hardwood floors would return my investment ten-fold.

I owned a pretty
little piece of property with three bedrooms, a finished basement, and a backyard
that could lose a toddler. A perfect cover for any rookie Fed looking to stick
their dick where it didn’t belong. Even better to store the stuff that didn’t
fit in Pixie. The furniture not yellowed by smoke. The clothing not stained
with blood.

It was the kind
of place Rose would like.

A gun to the
head was less dangerous than a thought like that.

I didn’t like
the hollow sound of my boots against the barren halls. A whitewashed fence and
happy humming little sprinkler system fooled the neighbors, but it wasn’t like
my life lended itself to filling any empty frames on the walls. Rose wanted to
get out of Anathema. She begged for it. Cried about it. Suffered through it.

My quiet slice
of suburbia would have castrated me if I stayed any longer. I tightened my hold
on the relic I gathered from the attic storage. As much as I hated to do it,
even baby bunnies needed pushed from the nest. She wanted out. It’d never
happen. She was as much sun-lit kitchenette as I was. Anathema controlled her
life and the heat between her legs.

I reminded
myself that
everything
I did was for the good of the club.

Still felt like
shit for doing it.

I loaded the
present in the truck and returned to Pixie without gunfire or being followed. The
first time in a while. Almost seemed lonely. At least it let my concussion
fester without cracking anything else open. I shouldered the case and pushed
through Pixie. The jute-box came alive with music. It didn’t take a genius to figure
out who fed the machine quarters.

Rose curled in
the corner booth of the bar with her laptop. Fully-dressed, but I wasn’t the
only one hoping for a repeat performance of her idiocy at Sorceress. Fortunately,
Keep kept most of the men in check. Gold nursed a beer and a broken nose at the
bar while two prospects mopped the floor under a brother’s muddy boots. Rose
didn’t look up when I entered. Her cheeks pinked. Bright. I had her that
flushed last night. In more places than just her face.

I ignored Keep’s
question and stalked to Rose’s table. She did her best to stare at her screen
and not me.

Dancing on the bar
and shouting
I got fucked
might have been less subtle.

“Here.” I
thumped the guitar case on the table. Rose flinched, but her eyes brightened as
she examined the tell-tale shape of the present. “Got you something.”

She didn’t try
to hide her smile. Her eyes warmed, and she stared at me instead of the case.

“A guitar?” She
asked. “Where—?”

“Belonged to my
old man. Didn’t do anyone good in storage. You take it.”

Her grin sliced
through me fiercer than any rusted shiv. She leapt up and gripped the case. Her
fingers stilled over the latches.

“You realize I
haven’t had the best luck with guitars lately?”

I edged deeper
into the booth, stretching out against the seat. “Then you better take good
fucking care of this one. It’s an antique.”

I had no idea if
it was or not. Fuck if I knew anything about guitars or music. Majors belonged
in the army, minors underground shoveling coal, and accidentals happened when
someone didn’t clean their gun right. My father thought he was better at music
than he was, and he bought the best. Rose squealed as she pulled the instrument
from the velvet. The soft golden wood blended perfectly with the gentle curls
of her hair, tumbling over her shoulder.

“Thorne, this
is...” Her smile turned into a grimace as she strummed a note. “Really out of
tune.”

I’d break the
damn thing. “Fine, I’ll take it back.”

“No, no!” She
jerked the guitar away. “I can fix it. It’ll just take a few minutes.”

“Think it’ll
work?”

She strummed
again. “It has a great sound.”

I shrugged.

“Don’t you hear
it?  It’s a really warm note.”

“Sure.”

“No, listen.”

She twisted a
fret and held my gaze. She plucked a note. Hated to tell her, but unless it
revved like 1500 CCs of raw power, I wasn’t going to pick up on any subtleties.
I knew what I liked, and I knew what I didn’t. The guitar plinked, but that
wasn’t what I wanted. Rose singing, Rose whispering my name, Rose moaning. That
was a sound I’d pay good money to hear again.

Unfortunately, I
didn’t know how much longer I could ensure she’d be prancing around Pixie and
not screaming in one of Ex’s warehouses. The thought kicked my ass on
Exorcist’s behalf. I’d have thought I was going soft if Rose’s excited smile
hadn’t got me harder than I had been last night. I checked over my shoulder. Keep
kept a wary watch from the bar. I had no idea where the fuck Brew went. Probably
for the best. Brew had a sober head on his shoulders. I doubted he’d like what
I was about to do to his sister.

“Are you sure
you want me to have it?” Rose asked.

“Don’t you want
it?”

“Yes!” She
clutched the guitar close. “It’s a lovely instrument. I just...don’t you want
to keep it?  Why are you giving it to me?”

Loaded fucking
question, and I stared down the barrel of the gun. No. Cannon. A smile like
hers and a night like the last would make me cocoon inside a goddamned turret. I
shrugged, and it appeased her. But it did nothing for me.

Why did I give
her a guitar?  Christ. Because I wanted to go to hell, and killing myself
wasn’t quick enough. The kid loved music. She sang like an angel, fucked like a
demon, and spent every waking minute obsessing over separating her two halves
to
free
herself.

She wanted to
sing. She needed a guitar. To anyone else in the bar it was a ball-less act of
charity. A way to make up for tossing her ass on my bike and terrifying her to
safety.

Except I wanted to
get closer to her. I needed to get closer to her. I couldn’t smoke out the rat
on my own. No amount of blood, violence, or threat was going to intimidate men
as hard as me.

But a little
sister could learn everything I needed, smile and laugh and charm a brother,
and then deliver him right into my waiting hand for me to rip out his bleeding
heart.

I just needed her
to trust me.

Rose strummed
the guitar again, fixing another fret. She giggled at the horrible note and
apologized like it somehow mattered to me.

She thought it
did.

Fuck.

I didn’t need to
do anything to get her to trust me. She already did. The guitar was just the
cherry on top I already stole from the kid. I saved her life. Fucked her. Offered
her gifts. Christ, in MC terms, that was about as serious as a year-long
relationship and taking a vacation with our parents. Except I didn’t think Rose
wanted to go visit her Daddy anytime soon, and trusting me was as dangerous as
leaving her with Exorcist.