Brax (5 page)

Chapter Seven

Brax

Blood rage clouded my vision, turning everything around me
red. Nicole’s lips were moving but no sound reached my ears. I saw that filthy
prick’s hand come down hard on her shoulder and everything got real clear, real
fast.

I got between her and the asshole. Fucking Hodges. His eyes
went wide as he looked up at me. Yeah. I get that a lot. They see my size. They
see the fury in my eyes. Sometimes that’s all it takes. This time though,
I
needed more.

“You bothering this lady?”

I had him by the shirt collar and pushed him against the red
brick wall under the blinking green neon shamrock sign. Hodges’s face turned
green and yellow from the light of it.

“We’re just having a conversation.” He puffed his chest out,
growing bolder and dumber by the minute. He wasn’t wearing his cut and I think
he realized the folly of that choice. If he had been, I wouldn’t be able to say
this was some misunderstanding, that I didn’t know who he was. But I was
wearing mine so there’d be no question how this might go down.

Keeping one hand on him, I looked over my shoulder at Nicole.
Her mouth still gaped open and I hoped she’d be able to function. I should have
known she was made of stronger stuff than most. “You done talking?” I asked
her.

“I am,” she said and that steel I was starting to love made
her eyes flash.

“Well, there you have it,” I said, turning back to the
asshole. He was pissed to the point of white rage. A muscle in his jaw trembled
and I knew it would only take a flinch from me and I could send him over the
edge. He thought he was a fighter, this fuck nut. A part of me hoped he’d try
something. But he was smarter than he looked by a hair. A very thin hair.

He put his hands up and plastered on a grin. “We good?”

“Well, that depends on you. You finished with your little
business trip? You’ve got a long drive ahead of you so you’d better get
started.”

That was as direct a reference to his association with the Red
Brigands as I could probably dare to make. I pushed him further into the wall
as I let him go. I had to bite the inside of my fucking mouth to keep from
saying anything more about his club or Indiana. Again. Let this just seem like
a misunderstanding for now. I’d given him the out if he was smart enough to take
it. This was just personal so far, nothing that would have to involve either
club. At least, not yet.

He nodded and straightened his shirt. I saw the handle of his
Nine sticking out of his waistband. It took everything in me not to bounce his
head off the damn brick for bringing it into my town. Jesus. Just two minutes
ago, he’d had his filthy fucking hands on Nicole and a piece where he could
reach it.

He shot a smirk toward Nicole and I think it was in him to say
something else to her, but then he saw the look in my eyes and did his second
smart thing in the span of thirty seconds. He stepped around her and kept on
walking.

I ran a hand through my hair, tearing at the ends of it as I
stood in that parking lot. Nicole stepped forward and started to say something,
but I couldn’t hear it. Not yet. When I looked down and met her eyes, she got
it.

“Let’s go,” I said. My bike was parked at an angle in front of
the bar. I pulled my helmet and tossed it to her. Her eyes widened, but she
caught it like a football, clutching it to her chest.

“Wear it,” I said, amazed that I could even put two words
together. “Toss me your keys and I’ll send one of my guys back later for your
car.” She hesitated, testing how far she could push me maybe. But, she
recognized the stone cold look in my eyes and threw her keys to me underhanded.
I raised a hand and caught them. Blood still roared in my ears and the urge to
smash my fist against the brick wall made my body quake. She dropped her hip
and pursed her lips together. I think it was in her to argue, but maybe she knew
how that might go down. My hands clenched into fists at my sides as I
fantasized about throwing her over my shoulder caveman style and hauling her
ass out of there. I can’t help that I stiffened just thinking about it. Maybe
that’s what she needed. A nice smack on the ass to punctuate my point.

Dammit,
I swear this woman knew just what I was thinking.
Her eyes flashed dark with an answering challenge. But she slid the helmet on, stepped
around me, and straddled the back of my bike.

I got on in front of her and damn near lost my mind when she
pressed her chest against my back and circled her arms around my waist. She’d
done the same thing fifteen years ago and it had affected me exactly the same
way. Only then, she’d balked when I slammed the gas down and revved the engine.
That night, she’d changed her mind or lost her nerve and told me maybe some
other time.

Well, that time was now. I felt Nicole squeeze her thighs
against me when I tore off from the curb and sped through the intersection. I
made a sharp turn toward the freeway on-ramp then let the throttle out. It was
as if the traffic understood my fury and got the hell out of the way. This time
of day, the road should have been packed, bumper to bumper. But right now, it
was just me, the bike, and Nicole’s luscious thighs pressing against me as I
drove with the fury of hell.

I felt her stiffen when I whizzed past the exit leading to
The
Den
. That was too public. There’d be too many questioning stares. And I
wanted her alone for the things I had to say. I made the turn down the winding
road leading to my place. Pavement turned to gravel, and then to dirt. Woods
closed in around us as I zoomed up the pine-dotted hill to the cabin I’d built
high atop of it.

She was still gasping for air when I cut the engine. I didn’t
know if it was from the speed of the ride or the view. It still took my breath
away sometimes too. I’d built the house log-cabin style with huge pine beams. I
had a two-story deck overlooking the pond and huge walls of glass on the north
side of the house, so I could see the woods from all sides. I’d built it for
myself, but everyone else had started calling this place
The Wolf Lodge.
Usually I had two or three prospects or hangers-on crashing with me, but
everyone had cleared out this week. With Colt and Kellan gone, we needed all
hands on deck up at
The Den
and at the gym.

Nicole peeled off the helmet and hung it over my handlebars.
She put a hand to her cheek as she took in the house. Something warmed inside
of me as I watched her.

“Is this . . . yours?”

God, how could she do that? One minute I wanted to throttle
her and throw her over my knee, the next I just wanted to scoop her up and
press her close to me. Right now, though, throttling seemed like the better
idea.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

I crossed the distance between us and my fingers twitched with
the urge to shake her. I wouldn’t put my hands on her though. No fucking way.
Whatever else happened with the dickhead back at the bar, he’d scared her. I
just hoped it had been enough to make her see sense now.

That fire flashed in her eyes and she crossed her arms in
front of her. “You already know the answer to that. And if you brought me out
here to lecture me, you can save your breath.”

“Save my breath!” I sputtered out the words, struggling to
control the rage that simmered along with them. “Save my breath, she says. What
do you think might have happened if I hadn’t gotten to you in time?”

She cocked her head. I became aware of her long legs beneath
her ridiculous Easter-egg-colored green coat. She was probably still wearing
the pink dress from the ice cream shop. While part of it stirred that teenage
fantasy I carried with me, it came with a new flash of horror knowing she’d
waltzed into
The Shires
like that.

“Jesus, you might as well have just painted a bullseye on your
forehead, Nicole.”

The wind kicked up making the pine trees sway. Strands of
Nicole’s hair lifted and blew around her face where they weren’t tucked into
the bun at the top of her head. As pissed as I was, I wanted to reach out and
gently pull the rest of it loose. I wanted to do anything that would let me
touch her. But she stood there, cold as ice except for that flinty fury in her
eyes. She pulled the ends of her little coat tighter across her chest. Without
thinking, I slid my leather cut off my shoulders and wrapped it around her
shoulders. We weren’t in full spring yet, and the temperature dropped twenty
degrees to nearly freezing as soon as the sun went down.

Nicole shivered and tilted her chin up to meet my eyes; I
could see hers start to glisten. My fingers brushed against her cheek and her
skin felt like ice.

“Jesus, you’re freezing. Let’s get you inside.”

She reached up and brushed a finger beneath her eyelid but turned
her face before I could see whether a tear had fallen. I wanted to put my arm
around her, but she stood with her back rod straight and her chin high. She
wasn’t ready for me to touch her yet. I led her into the house.

Her eyes widened when she took in the great room. I had an
open floor plan, the glass giving the illusion of invisible walls in front of
the expanse of green forest surrounding the house.  She walked toward the glass
while I lit a quick fire in the fireplace. Her mouth dropped open as she saw
the elk and moose heads I had mounted above the mantle.

With my cut still wrapped around her shoulders, she sank into
one of the brown leather couches in front of the fire and let the flickering
warmth reach her. She patted the space next to her, urging me to sit down. I
was still too keyed up to do that. I rubbed my fingers hard across my chin and
paced in front of the hearth.

“You know how fucking dangerous it was for you to walk into
that back there? Do you?”

“Brax . . .”

I turned on her and held up a hand. She clamped her mouth shut
but set her chin at a confrontational angle with her eyebrows raised.

“No. I mean it. You’re a smart girl but that was unbelievably
stupid. What the hell do you think your brother Doug is really involved with?”

Her nostrils flared and she glowered at me. “You wouldn’t help
me! It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since you stormed out of my shop. And
yet, here you are again. You want to be involved enough to tell me what to do,
but not enough to be of actual use to me.”

I don’t know what the hell happened inside of me, but
something snapped. As she looked at me with those cold eyes all I could see was
the image of Daryl Hodges’s filthy fucking hands all over her. Then I imagined
all of the things that could have happened if I hadn’t gotten to her in time.
It was Ricky who called me. Thank God I’d been close. Hodges had that look
about him I knew too well. It was the same look that stared back at me in the
mirror when I used to get ready to do my club’s dirty work.

Nicole shifted on the couch. I don’t know. I think she might
have started to get up to leave. But that white cloud of rage and fear filled
my brain along with the images I couldn’t drive out. I saw her. A bullet in the
back of her brain. Pleading with me with wide, fear-filled eyes as she begged
Hodges to stop. But it only fueled his rage even more. I saw his fat-fingered
fist as he bunched the lapels of her green coat and threw her to the ground.

In some back corner of my brain, I knew those things didn’t happen.
Sure. They could have. And what I really saw were flashes of my own memory. Of things
I’d done. Nicole’s face seemed superimposed on every dirtbag I’d had to bring
mayhem to. I’d never hurt a woman. God, I’d never hurt
her.
I’d never
hurt anyone who wasn’t as bad as I was or worse and that was how I got through
each and every fucking day since. But that was me. Hodges was Hodges. And he
could have taken Nicole away from me before I got the chance to have her again.

Then I was on my knees in front of her, caging her with my
arms I clawed at the couch cushions on either side of her knees. “What were you
thinking? What the
fuck
were you thinking? Do you know how bad that
could have got? He
knew
you, didn’t he? Probably knew your name before
you told it to him. Guys like him have one goal. Get the payment. Send the
message.”

She flinched but didn’t shrink away from me. She raised a hand
and her fingers fluttered near my face for an instant, then she closed her fist
and brought it back into her lap. She was afraid. Afraid of me. I let her see
something in my eyes. The Enforcer. The Monster.

A single tear fell from her left eye and she looked toward the
ceiling. “Brax, they’re going to kill him.” It was a question and a conclusion.
Her voice grew thick with emotion as she said it.

Yeah. She’d been stupid. Reckless. But she’d gone to that bar
in desperation right after I turned my back on her.

“They’re going to kill him. And that man knew who I was. You
were right. So it doesn’t matter whether I went into that crap hole bar or not.
If I hadn’t, he would have come found me anyway. Right?”

A shudder went through me and I clenched my jaw hard enough I
saw stars for an instant. I wanted to tell her she was wrong. That everything
would be all right. Except I couldn’t. If Doug Ridley had the Red Brigands
after him, she was right. They’d use her to get to him eventually. That club
broke rules most never would. Family and women were supposed to be off limits.