Bound: Minutemen MC (10 page)

“I’ll make sure everyone keeps an eye on her,” Dirk said, eager to keep them on the subject at hand and steer Stephan’s thoughts away from pitch-black memories. “I’ll increase surveillance.”

Stephan nodded. “Good. Thank you.” He tucked the book under his arm and stood. “Good night, Dirk.”

“Good night.”

Dirk watched him go, and then he turned back to the fire. He stared into the flames and thought of Camilla. He wasn’t falling for her, but her fire sure was everywhere around him. And he could not escape it.

Chapter 15: Prisoner

The moon was full that night in the California Mojave Desert. Camilla Hernandez watched it from the window of her bedroom in the Minutemen MC’s headquarters. Eleven days later, she still had some trouble wrapping her mind around her situation. Try as she might, she still couldn’t believe her own stupidity. How had she, a fairly expert investigative reporter, ended up here?

If only she had trusted her gut instincts regarding the good faith (or lack thereof) of one Tobias Alvarez, ex-convict and self-proclaimed Tar Mongols MC repentant, she wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead, she had told herself that if Kurt Davis, who had a good thirty years’ experience over her, thought of Alvarez as a reliable source, then that must be the case.

But Tobias had betrayed her and had been prepared to deliver her into the hands of his ruthless gang when the Minutemen stopped their mad race through the desert. They had told her they were keeping her safe from the inevitable repercussions that would come once the Tar Mongols found out that Tobias was dead and that she was in California to work on a story that would expose the MC, but they had essentially kidnapped her. She wasn’t allowed to leave the headquarters. Ever. Sure, they treated her well, and she had everything she might need—including a library for recreational reading—but for all that, it was a golden cage.

Camilla was getting antsy. The Tar Mongols had yet to make a move, and Stephan Walker, the Minutemen’s formidable president, simply refused to let her go until Herman Ruiz and his men did. It didn’t take Camilla long to figure out that she had just become a pawn in the ongoing war between the two gangs. It was a role that didn’t fit her, but at the same time, she knew that an escape attempt would not be taken lightly. In fact, it would likely cause her to lose the few privileges she had. Instead, she kept quiet and tried to lay as low as possible.

The fact that Dirk was suddenly and inexplicably distant also didn’t help. She paused in her musings. Every time she thought of him, she couldn’t suppress a shiver—a sort of electric jolt—made of excitement and fear—that ran down her spine. Dirk Coleman wasn’t just the Minutemen’s vice-president, but he also happened to be the most formidable man Camilla had ever met. Yet, it wasn’t just that. At the age of thirty-five—exactly the same age as Camilla—he was probably the youngest man to be second-in-command within the hierarchy of a powerful motorcycle club. It wasn’t even the fact that, at thirty-five years old, Dirk had a couple of tours in Afghanistan with the Marines under his belt. It wasn’t even his intimidating, razor-sharp intellect, which he cultivated by reading everything and anything from William Shakespeare to Noam Chomsky.

It was the fact that, despite the scar on the left side of his face and other marks scattered all over his body, he looked like a Greek god. And he kissed and touched and moved like one, too. Dirk’s touch was fiery hot on Camilla’s skin. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel it. She could feel his lips leaving paths on her flesh and his powerful cock as it entered her. She could feel his hips thrust. She could feel the strong muscles of his back flexing underneath her fingertips.

She could feel it all, even though it had been a while since she had last experienced it. Dirk had put a wall up between them, and she couldn’t figure out why. His nightly visits had stopped, and when he talked to her now, there was a distance there that had not existed before. Camilla couldn’t explain it. She missed Dirk’s visits terribly; they had been the only thing that had prevented her from going insane.

She shook her head at herself in the darkness of the room. As always, her longing for Dirk brought on mixed feelings of inexplicable fondness and self-deprecation. Was she really falling for this man? Was sex with him really the proper thing to think about, given her present circumstances? Here she was, stuck in the middle of the California desert, with no means to contact anyone back in New York and no end to her imprisonment in sight, and all she seemed to be able to worry about was why her crazy sexual affair with the MC’s VP was over.

She jumped when the door opened and he strode in. Dirk. He stood outlined by the light streaming in from the corridor, a towering figure made up of lithe but oh-so-powerful muscles.

“What are you doing?” he asked, watching in confusion as she stood by the window in a dark room.

Camilla shrugged. She tried her best not to let her excitement show. She felt a surge of relief at having him in her room, but she hid that, too. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said.

Dirk nodded curtly. “Good.”

Fire stirred within Camilla’s loins at that simple word, at the promise those four letters held.

“We need to go.”

She blinked when his next words registered. “What?”

“You heard me,” Dirk said, clipped. “Grab your things and let’s head out.”

Camilla frowned. “Head where?” she asked, wary. Could he finally have come to his senses? Was he finally letting her go?

“Somewhere safer.”

Camilla’s confusion mounted. “As safe as New York?” she ventured.

Dirk grinned in the semidarkness. “Sorry, darling. Not yet.”

Camilla scowled. She felt her hopes crumble. Over the past eleven days, she had been training herself not to let her delusions get the best of her, but it was still hard not to hope when signals were given. She bit hard down on her lip to keep her frustration in, and she began to gather her things in her duffel bag under Dirk’s watchful eye.

“There,” she said, hoisting the bag over her shoulder. “I’m ready. Where are we going? And most importantly,
why
are we going there? I thought the MC’s headquarters was the safest place on Earth.” Try as she might, she couldn’t quite conceal the derisive note in her voice.

If he heard it, however—and she knew that he had, because she had yet to see anything escape Dirk’s notice—he decided to ignore it.

“There’s one place that’s safer,” he said, as he ushered her out of the room.

He grabbed her wrist and tugged, pulling her along behind him. There was an urgency in his stride that alarmed her.

“Can you at least tell me what’s going on?” she asked, as she did her best to keep up.

“They’re coming.”

Camilla felt her insides grow cold. “Who’s coming?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“The Tar Mongols.”

***

Once again, Camilla found herself riding through the desert on the back of a motorcycle. It was Dirk’s this time, and at the very least, her hands weren’t tied and there wasn’t a hood on her head—something which she considered a huge improvement from her very first ride with Tobias Alvarez.

Dirk drove like a maniac, and yet Camilla somehow felt safe. She didn’t worry about the possibility that they might have an accident, because she knew he would never let them crash. There was something free-spirited about him as he drove his beloved Harley through the moonlit desert. Dirk was a hard man, a man who had been toughened by life and the countless fights he had taken part in—whether in the military or with the Minutemen. Yet, here, on his bike, in the middle of nowhere with the freezing desert wind blowing through his brown hair, he looked almost carefree. He looked invincible, and that was the reason why Camilla felt like nothing could happen to her.

She didn’t know how long they rode, just the two of them, so as not to attract unwanted attention. Eventually, they came to a building in the desert, on the outskirts of the mountains. It was a house. It was flat, long, and fairly large. It was well kept and gorgeous in its own way. The blinking red light of security cameras installed under the roof followed their approach like watchful, twinkling eyes in the darkness.

Dirk drove up to the garage attached to the left side of the house, and the door rolled open for him after he pressed a button on a small remote control he dug out of the pocket of his leather jacket. He led the bike inside and hit another button, and the garage door rolled shut again. Lights came on automatically, and Camilla took in the orderly garage, with tools and a work desk that would be the envy of any expert mechanic out there.

Dirk dismounted, and Camilla had to suppress a protest at the loss of his warm back against her chest.

“You can get off too, you know?” he said with an amused grin.

Camilla did so promptly, trying not to fall off the Harley-Davidson that she found so unbelievably high for her. She set unsteady feet on the ground and threw one more look around. The garage was large enough that it also hosted a military jeep, perfect for moving around in the tricky terrain of the Mojave Desert.

“What is this place?” Camilla asked.

“It’s my house.” 

She looked at Dirk sharply. “Your house?” she repeated, surprised.

Dirk nodded. “Most of the boys are actually based in Northburg, in the town itself,” he explained. “But I like the quiet, so I built my home out here.”

“You
built
this?”

“Well, no, I had it built. Obviously.”

Camilla stared at him. She felt stupid for asking, but the thing was that Dirk Coleman had proven himself to be such a remarkable, unpredictable man, that she wasn’t quite sure there was anything he couldn’t do.

“And I’m here because…?” she said after a moment.

“I told you,” Dirk said. “This is the safest place I know of.”

“But I don’t understand. If the Tar Mongols are coming to your headquarters, shouldn’t you be there? Aren’t the others in danger?”

Dirk’s blue eyes darkened momentarily. “Stephan’s orders,” he said, and he couldn’t hide the note of displeasure in his voice that told Camilla that he did not agree with his president’s orders at all. “Besides, the others know how to handle the Tar Mongols.”

Camilla watched him intently. “How do you even know they’re coming?”

Dirk arched an eyebrow at her. “Seriously?” he said. “You expect me to give up Minutemen intelligence?”

Camilla rolled her eyes in frustration and was barely able to suppress a snort. “I told you time and time again, I couldn’t care less about Minutemen intelligence. I’m not interested in writing a story on
your
MC.”

“So you say,” Dirk said.

There was a smirk on his lips, and Camilla couldn’t decide whether he really believed her to be dangerous, or whether he was just enjoying riling her up. It was probably a combination of the two.

“Come on,” Dirk said. “I’ll give you a tour.”

“Hold on,” Camilla said, planting her feet firmly on the garage floor. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me just how long I am supposed to stay here.”

Dirk stared at her. “As long as necessary.”

Camilla’s jaw twitched. “I’m getting pretty tired of being your prisoner, Dirk.”

“You’re not a prisoner,” he said. “We’re protecting you.”

He really seemed to believe that, which was why Camilla heaved a sigh and decided that she’d best keep her questions for later; there was no way she was getting any answers tonight, just like she had not been able to get any answers up until now.

“Come on,” Dirk said. “I’ll give you a tour. Well, a partial tour.”

Camilla narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “What do you mean a
partial
tour?”

“You don’t really expect me to give you full access to my house, do you?”

“What?”

“You’ll be restricted to a few areas.”

Camilla glared openly at him. “And you insist on telling me I’m not your prisoner?”

Dirk laughed. “Believe me, darling, you’re not. I don’t bring prisoners to my home, and they’re generally treated much worse than we are treating you.”