Thrash (14 page)

17

Oh my god…

I buried my face into the crook of his shoulder and savored the lingering warmth of my orgasm. A smile twitched at the corners of my lips, hidden from the rest of the world.

I couldn’t believe I just did that
in front of
DeMarcus.

It had made sense at the time. I’d felt so powerful, so… alive.

I didn’t regret it. It had been glorious and… I squirmed a bit. It had been hot as hell. I had enjoyed taunting him in my own way. But it was the way he had watched me…

His raw lust and rigid self-control as I touched myself hadn’t surprised me. Some men liked that sort of thing. What had amazed me was the sincere interest in his eyes as my fingers had wandered.

He hadn’t just wanted me to play with myself – it had mattered to him that I felt powerful and beautiful while I did it. He considered it important that I truly enjoyed myself.

And he mattered to me, too.

Something about the combination of it all had gotten me so excited. He had said to touch myself, and suddenly my own fingers had felt like fire against my wetness.

I looked up and kissed the underside of his jaw.

Thrash knew exactly what he was doing.

I pressed my nose into the curve of his throat and wished I had finished undressing him. I had expected him to… well, I had expected a lot of things. What I had not expected was to enjoy his voyeurism so much.

Now I lay there beside him, naked against his clothed body. The vest was gone. The pants were still unzipped and I could feel that he was still hard. But there was something so intimate about this. About my throbbing body and flushed cheeks against the cotton of his shirt and the rough denim of those jeans.

I felt exhilarated.

“Nora, we need to talk.”

The words were trouble enough. The look in his eyes flat out worried me. I suddenly had to fight the urge to pull the blankets around me.

“Did I do something?” I asked, my heart racing.

I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to yell. I was going to be strong, no matter what it was, no matter what he said. But my heart was pounding awfully.

He looked confused. “What? No. Not at all baby. I just, I wanna know what page we are on. I wanna know if you’ll be my girl.” His lips quirked into that lopsided smile, just the hint of a dimple coming out on the left side. Like he was nervous and trying not to be.

“I, I’d like that,” I answered slowly. I really would like it, if he meant it. I had been pretty sure I already was his girl. He didn’t need to ask, not really.

“I don’t know if you will. Being in this club requires a lot of shit from you, from us. Stuff I hate to put you through. And we’ve had a rough run of luck lately. You… You might be asked to do things you don’t want to do.”

“Things I don’t want to do…” I repeated his words back to him, each passing through my lips softer and softer. “What do you mean?”

My voice sounded so calm. But my thoughts were skipping and sputtering.

“It’s club business.” He was just floundering for words. I knew it. But he’d leave it at that if I let him.

I wasn’t going to leave it at that.

“Club business,” I repeated back, my tone distant, cold even.

The look he gave me made it clear he wouldn’t let me push him around. But he did hear me. And he did explain, in as much as he could.

“There’s a war going on, Nora. And I might have a chance to help end it.”

I rubbed a finger over the bed, picking idly at the blanket. “How dangerous is it?”

“Very.”

“Will you be alone?”

He hooked one of my curls with his finger and played with it. His brows were drawn together tightly. “I don’t know yet,” he answered. “Probably.”

“Oh…”

“I might need your help.”

I stared at him. My insides were writhing. I was scared. But some part of me had shut down. Gone cold. I wasn’t blowing him off. I was dealing with the situation the only way I knew how. I asked questions. Because I was really confused.

I was an artist. He was talking about a bikers’ war. What could I do?

“What would you need from me?”

“I need you to stick with me.”

I nodded. Well, that was good because I intended to.

“We’re having a meeting today. We’ll be talking about what we plan to do. I want you to be there, consider it before you decide if you want to be with me. I won’t play games with you, I promise. That’s not my shit. But I want to know where we stand before I go further.”

His eyes were so deep, so serious. I knew he was telling me the truth. I respected him for it.

“No games?” I’d love that. A world without bullshit. I’d grown up in a closed system with its own silent code of conduct. I had always been violating it, not to be defiant, but by mistake – just by being myself. So I had left it.

I’d hoped to make a space for me to just be myself, take care of myself, and I’d been working hard for it. Now I wanted Thrash to be a part of that, too. And the club, because it was part of him. It was becoming part of me, too. I liked the people. I liked the place. The mural was starting to feel personal to me.

I definitely didn’t want a bunch of silly mind games getting in the way of something I wanted.

So I was happy when Thrash nodded and said, “No games. If you want this, I’ll give you everything I can. All of me. But I warn you, shit won’t be easy. We have enemies breathing down our necks right now, and games we have to play with them. But we never play them with each other.”

“That’s good.” I understood high stakes better than he gave me credit for. I had never had them spelled out to me this openly, but I respected him for telling me like it was. “I want this,” I said steadily.

“Okay then.” He stood and rooted around through his dresser, pulling out a pair of PJ pants, an undershirt and baggy tee. “Here. Till your clothes are clean.”

“Would you have left me here naked if I’d decided to leave?” I teased gently.

It was dark humor, but he seemed to get it.

He leaned down and kissed me, pulling away reluctantly. “Never.” His lips quirked wryly. “I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that.”

I grinned in spite of myself, watching him zipping up his jeans with regret.

He truly was a beautiful man. He had a tight, thick waist and narrow hips. I was thin in some places and petite, but I had wide hips for my build. As I slipped into the pants he had given me, I discovered that I didn’t even have to tie the drawstring. The t-shirt was big on me, comfortable. And the undershirt helped diminish the outline of my nipples. If I caught a chill, there wouldn’t be anything for it. But something was better than nothing.

When I was done, I slid my arms up under his, tracing my fingers over his pectorals. They were smooth, dense and meaty under the cotton, as though he worked out. I had smelled an exercise room down one of the halls but I hadn’t seen it yet. I couldn’t miss what his efforts there had made of him, though.

He really kept himself in shape.

“Did you dress me for fun, or was there a reason?” I murmured in his ear.

He shook his head, taking my hand and kissing it. “We have a special church meeting to attend.”

“Both of us?” I was surprised.

“You, me, Cullen, Aidan, and Layla. The inner circle.”

“The women are allowed?” I asked.

“They are. This time.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because we have a plan, and it involves all of us.”

All of us…

He clenched his jaw, the lines of musculature down his neck standing out. He was sexy, even when he was anxious.

So the boys wanted their ladies involved in something. Somehow, I had a feeling this was going to change everything.

* * *

“You want him to
what
?” I asked, my voice climbing high as I looked around the room.

Everyone seemed on board with Thrash’s plan. Everyone but me.

I didn’t mean to be so blunt, but I had just told the man that I wanted to be with him, that I wanted to be his girl. Now I was in this room, and Thrash was telling me that he was going to put his life at risk by going undercover.

Undercover
. It sounded a little ridiculous, but I was terrified, too.

I had never studied criminal justice, but somehow I doubted there was a high success rate for people who went undercover. There were too many things that could go wrong.

“Look, I feel the same way that you do about this, Nora. Really, I do –” Rage started.

I interrupted him, frantic. “No, you don’t!”

Thrash’s face had become stoic and I knew I was crossing a line, but for the first time in a long while, I couldn’t compose myself. I couldn’t shut down or be analytical about this.

What we had was too new, too important to me, to just stand there and nod dutifully.

Rage looked like he was working hard to keep his patience – for Thrash’s sake if not for mine.

“Thrash is my right hand man,” he said. “We grew up together. I don’t like the risks here either. But if we don’t do something, Bones is going to find a way to kill all of us. Bones is trying to kill us. He’s not going to just stop. Do you understand?”

“But –”

“
Do you understand, Nora
?” The tone of his voice took my breath away, shut me up. I understood, but it hurt. It hurt horribly.

Rage meant every word he was saying. He was worried, the lines etched in his face showed it.

Layla came up beside me and squeezed my hand, her face ashen but steady. She hadn’t known either, then.

As for Emma, her mouth was hanging open.

She spoke up first, taking up offense for me at a moment when I could barely think.

“So, you’re sending your right hand man to Bones?” she asked. “I never met the guy, but he’d be a real idiot not to ask Thrash to tell him everything you’ve been up to.” She took a stand behind me, but she wasn’t asking just for my sake. Her man had done a lot of work for the club in the last few months. He’d taken a lot of risks. And I’d seen how Emma dealt with the danger he put himself in.

She didn’t want this falling apart, either. Layla’s hands had drifted to her belly with worry. None of us liked this.

We stood there, a line of unhappy female faces. I had support when I needed it. I wasn’t sure how much it would help if Thrash died. I couldn’t even think about that.

Thrash had to step in to back Rage. “Let me worry about that. I know how to talk my way around Bones.”

“Talk your way around -?” My voice was so cold and sharp, I didn’t even recognize it as my own. My mother’s maybe, but not mine. I’d never been so angry in my life. It plummeted into toxic sweetness so fast Thrash actually took a step back.

“Are you some sort of double-o-seven in your spare time, DeMarcus? Should I be worried?” I said as if the answer didn’t matter, but my eyes teared up, undermining my anger. I had never liked crying. I knew it made me look weak. But I couldn’t stop the tears completely. My nose grew red and my eyes raw, and I had to blink hard and look away to keep from gushing like a five-year-old with a grubby knee.

The tears softened Thrash’s voice. They didn’t affect his resolve at all. “Nora, I told you, no games. It’s why I wanted to have you here. Why I wanted to tell you exactly what we are planning. If this is serious, you have a right to know. I trust you, Nora. Should I?”

Those eyes were almost pleading – almost but not quite. He’d live on if I said no, but it wouldn’t be much of a life.

Seeing something like that in a man’s eyes shook me up badly.

DeMarcus loved me. I wasn’t sure if it would last, but right now, I knew it like I knew I was a woman. That man loved me. He needed me.

And god in a heaven, I needed him.

“Yes. You can trust me.”

“Good.” That was all he said. Rage had to pick up the rest. But the relief in Thrash’s face didn’t make me feel any better.

I didn’t cry again though.

Rage cleared his throat and tapped on the table to regain our collective attention.

“So the way this works is this: we need someone to transmit messages for us. A woman.”

“A woman?” Layla repeated mildly. It was hard to tell if she was being helpful or becoming irritated. Rage opened his mouth and shut it.

So Wrath filled in the rest. “A cellphone would be too dangerous. Bones can track that if he knows the right people. And even if he doesn’t, it’s too easy to overhear a conversation. A woman, though, that’s much easier to slip in.” Aidan looked at me from across the table.

“Me?” I asked, shocked. “How? Why?”

“Because no one will suspect you,” Thrash explained. His voice had gone a little dull, but he looked me in the eye when he said it.

So that was what he was afraid of. The women might not have known about this plan, but Thrash had. I would even bet that he came up with it himself.