Rogue (Dead Man's Ink #2) (20 page)

When her body stops shaking, Sophia looks up at me out of half-closed eyes and scowls. “I’m in serious trouble now, aren’t I?” she says breathlessly.
 

I laugh, and then I slap her thigh, which doesn’t seem to amuse her as much as it entertains me. “Oh, fuck yeah, girl. You have absolutely no idea what I get to do to you now. The only thing that will save you now is that tattoo we talked about.”

“No way! I am
not
getting tattooed.”

“We’ll see.” I crawl up her body, placing kisses on her hot, sweet-smelling skin. I’m practically planking over her when I reach her mouth.
 

“I think you should be inside me now,” she pants through our kisses.
 

The way she says it, the way those words sound coming from her full, biteable lips, almost makes me cave. I stay strong, though. “Sorry, sugar. You were a bad girl. Only good girls get what they want.”

I leave her there on the floor, naked and still panting.

FOURTEEN

REBEL

Cade’s not in the clubhouse. Normally after taking a girl up to my cabin for a couple of hours and then reappearing looking frustrated as fuck, I’d garner a few catcalls from the other Widow Makers, but tonight the mood is overly drunk and sombre. After Bron’s short and simple funeral, no one’s in the mood for jokes. They’re in the mood to get fucked up and fight.
 

Three chairs and one table have been smashed by the time I manage to make it across the clubhouse bar and up the back stairs to the handful of bedrooms we have set up there. No one lives here permanently. The Widow Makers have either chosen to live in town with their families, or they have rooms in the many outhouses that make up the compound. That’s probably why people think we’re some sort of fucking sex cult. Cade has a place above Dead Man’s Ink in town, but he won’t have gone back there tonight. Not without speaking to me first. He’ll be holed up in the one room that’s permanently reserved for him on the top floor, waiting to spill whatever bullshit lies Maria Rosa told him when I left the two of them alone.
 

I lay my fist against the last door on the right, not surprised when Cade opens it right away. He must have heard my boots coming down the corridor. A gift from the U.S. Marine Corp: the ability to hear a man sneaking up on you from a mile away.
 

Semper Fi.
 

My brother in arms looks absolutely exhausted. He steps back so I can enter the room, which is sparse and OCD neat. He claps me on the back, giving me a tired smile. “You look much better than you did before, man. I think you got out of there at the right time.”

“Did she say anything else?”

He shakes his head. “Nope. She did try and convince me to fuck her, though.”

“What is wrong with that woman? She gets shot and waterboarded, and in the next breath she’s trying to get you to stick your dick in her?” Cade gives me a rueful look that tells me it might have been worse than that. “Jesus. I don’t think I want to know,” I tell him.
 

“I’m sure you don’t. Come on. Let’s do this.” Cade knows where we have to go next. He knows what has to be
done
next, too. Raphael Dela Vega has polluted Widow Makers ground for too long already. I won’t have him here, freaking Sophia out, causing trouble amongst the club members. They know Hector Ramirez’s right hand man is in one of the holding cells underneath the barn. It won’t be long before someone’s suggesting we chop the motherfucker’s extremities off and send them back to Ramirez in ziplock baggies.
 

The guy has got to go. No way are we sending him back to his employer, though. No. No fucking way is that happening. If I’m honest, I’m all for the chopping off extremities and leaving them for Ramirez to find, the same way he did with poor Bronwyn, but we don’t have time for that. Gunshots fired? A convoy of strange, unlicensed, shot-to-hell black cars burning out of town, headed straight for us? It’s a goddamn miracle that Lowell woman isn’t hammering down the gates already. There was nothing to be done about him until dark, though. With a long range scope—paranoid perhaps, but a possibility—it would have been all too easy to spot a couple of guys wrestling with a noncompliant Mexican guy in broad daylight. Now we just have to hope that if Lowell is out there and she’s got people watching us, they don’t have heat imaging or night vision. If they do, we’re gonna be fucked.
 

There’s a goddamn riot unfolding in the bar downstairs as Cade and me sneak out the back. Normally I’d start knocking heads together, but it’s better for everyone involved if the guys continue raising hell here instead of following us. Outside, the desert air is cold and the sky is an explosion of stars.
 

Cade jogs across the courtyard—there’s still blood everywhere. I should make Maria Rosa come clean up her fucking mess before I even consider setting her free—and opens the barn door, slipping inside. He holds the door open for me, and then we’re shrouded in pitch-blackness. A pale yellow flame is struck into existence, which sends long fingers of narrow shadows stretching up to the barn rafters. Cade looks like some sort of horror movie character as he holds the tarnished zippo he’s lit up to his face.
 

“You want me to turn on the overheads?”
 

“No. Would only draw attention. Dark is better.”
 

I’m regretting my words two seconds later when Cade is falling over sideways, crashing into me, hissing under his breath. He goes down hard, almost taking me with him. The zippo skitters out of his hand, skidding across the roughcast concrete floor, though the flame remains lit, guttering and then strengthening again.
 

“What the hell, man?” I grab hold of Cade by the shoulder, trying to pull him up in the half dark. He grunts, and then there’s the sound…the sound of a second person moaning? What? No one else should be in here. No one else should even know we have people in the basement. My hand’s reaching for the gun in my waistband when Cade swears loudly.
 

“Fuck, no. Damn it, it’s fucking Carnie.”

“
Carnie
?”

There’s more moaning. Cade gets to his feet, moving his considerable bulk out of the way, and then I can see Carnie too in the meagre light being thrown off by the zippo. Sure enough, he’s flat out on his back, a two-inch long gash along his right temple. His eyelids flicker open, but even from here I can see his eyes themselves are not working properly, don’t seem to be focusing on the men standing over him.
 

“What happened?” Cade demands. “What the hell are you doing up here, passed out cold, man?” He shakes Carnie hard, which seems to do the trick.
 

“Uh…I was…fuck. I was…heading down to take some food to Mother and the other one. I opened the padlock on the hatch and he…he sprang out. He had a broken chair leg in his hands. He must have hit me over the head with it.”

When I first walked back into the clubhouse and Cade told me Ryan had been killed, it took me a beat to process what he was saying to me. Took me a minute or two to comprehend what he was telling me. Not so this time. As soon as the words are out of Carnie’s mouth, I’m in fight mode, already predicting what will come next. Dreading it with every fibre of my being.
 

I grab hold of Carnie by the collar of his cut, pulling him off the ground so my face is in his. “How long? How long ago?” I yell.
 

“I don’t…I don’t know. What time is it?” Carnie’s still struggling to string words together. Means he was probably hit over the head pretty hard. That also means he could have been out for a considerable amount of time, too. I let go of him and he drops to the ground like a sack of flour.
 

This cannot be happening. It just can’t. “
Fuck!
”

Cade draws his gun and sets his jaw. He knows what this means, too. Raphael Dela Vega is an unhinged bastard with no sense of self-preservation. He won’t have fled the compound. Not yet. He’s been fixated on one thing and one thing only for a long time now, and he won’t leave here until he’s gotten what he’s been dreaming about.
 

He has been dreaming about Sophia.

FIFTEEN

SOPHIA

When night falls over the desert, it suddenly feels like the world ceases to exist. Out there, beyond the lights and sounds of the compound, all drunken shouting and the furious roar of motorcycle engines, there’s nothing more than a sea of black ink and an endless void that stretches for as far as my mind can imagine in every direction. No, there are no roads or general stores. No dive bars, and no all-night diners. The compound feels so very isolated and alone. It kind of freaks me out.
 

My body is still humming from Rebel’s ministrations when I get up and draw the blinds on all the windows. God knows where he’s gone. I didn’t really get a chance to ask him before he fled the cabin, looking very pleased with himself. He knew exactly how cruel he was being when he decided not to stay and have sex with me. Can’t have been pleasant for him, either, but still… the guy is evil.
 

I’m grinning like a moron as I think this, though. Grinning so hard my face hurts. He’s turned me into some sort of pathetic teenager, which is ironic because I was never like this back then. In high school, I was driven by the need to excel in my schoolwork, and definitely not to pursue the attention of boys. And now here I am, turning my back on my studies in order to be with the most unsuitable person on the face of the planet.
 

But, in saying that, maybe he’s not the most unsuitable person. If just that one thing about him were different, he would be prime take-home-to-meet-the-parents material. He’s intelligent. He’s a gentleman (for the most part). He was in the army. He went to MIT, for fuck’s sake. But then the kicker…he’s also the head of a motorcycle gang. What would Mom and Dad say if they knew what I was doing right now? A pang of guilt sideswipes me out of nowhere as I really take on board what they probably believe has happened to me by now.
 

They have to believe I’ve been murdered.
 

There isn’t a way in this world they would ever believe I just decided not to come home when given the opportunity. So I mustn’t have had that opportunity. They must think I was stabbed or shot, or worse, that I was raped and beaten to death.

God, I am the worst person on the face of the planet to leave them wondering like this. My heart feels like a lead balloon sitting heavy in my chest as I find new, un-shredded clothes to put on.
 

I should call them. I should just stop being such a fucking coward, and I should tell them I’m okay, even if I end up hurting them by not going back to Seattle. Straight away. Not going back to Seattle
straight away
. I will have to go back at some point. Don’t I? I can’t hide here forever.
 

The t-shirt I’ve stolen from Rebel’s closet is clean and soft and smells deliciously of him as I pull it over my head. My moral compass starts spinning, then. Why can’t I stay here for a while? At least until everything with Ramirez dies down. I have excellent grades. I could always go back to college next year if I want to. There may even be a college in New Mexico that—
 

 
I can’t help but smile as I hear the cabin door creak open. He thought he was such a smart ass when he high-tailed it out of here, leaving me on the floor, needing so much more of him. And now look. He’s back within ten minutes, no doubt ready to teach me a lesson. I get half way through pulling the t-shirt over my head, but then there are hands on my hands, stilling me. I’m half naked, only my head and shoulders covered by the soft, dark material. Something about that is so kinky. I’m essentially blindfolded for all intents and purposes. He could do anything to me and I would never see it coming.
 

“So,” I say breathlessly. “You changed your mind. Will this be part of my punishment?”
 

“Mmm-hmm.”
 

His stubble grazes me across my shoulder blades, my skin immediately turning to goose bumps as he places his lips against the curve of my neck. Slowly, his hands travel from mine down my arms until they’re hovering just above my breasts. I want him to touch me. I want him to touch me so badly. I arch my back pressing my breasts upward, catching my breath in my throat, waiting for him to gently slide his palms downward, following the swell of my body.
 

However, when he does move his hands down, it’s not gently. He takes hold of my breasts, grabbing with rigid, calloused fingers, and then he squeezes so hard I’m momentarily blinded by the pain.
 

“Ahhhh! What…
what the fuck?
No! Stop!” For a second, through my confusion, I think that this is the real punishment Rebel was talking about and I am frightened. Very, very frightened. And then it hits me. There’s no way Rebel would ever handle my body like that. Like he hates it and he wants to hurt it. I may not have been with him for years and years, I may not know what his favorite color is, or what all of his childhood stories are, but I know he would never do that to me. Never in a million years.
 

Which means…

Terror is a living, breathing thing, snaking its way through my insides.
 

Oh, god, no…

Oh, god, no.

My whole body locks up tight when I hear the sound of very familiar, very evil laughter in my ear. “Oh, I knew you would have such a pretty little cunt. I knew you would love me pinching your perfect titties like this.”

Raphael.
 

Raphael is here, with his hands on me, touching me. Hurting me. I try to drag in a breath but it’s impossible. My ribcage feels like it’s in a vise and I’m never going to wriggle free. My brain eventually connects my difficulty to breathe with the fact that Raphael has wound one of his arms around my chest and is squeezing tightly.