Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 3) (2 page)

For some reason, that
got their attention. The bikers crowded closer, and I could smell the
tobacco, cheap beer, and sweat. Just like years ago, when my whole
life smelled that way.

“What kind of favor?”
the shortest one drawled.

“Well, you can all
take a step back and let me take my woman home.”

I glanced at Blue Eyes
just long enough to see her tilt her head quizzically. She could blow
this thing in two seconds. And if she did, I was cooked. Or at least
standing in some very hot water.

“How do we know she
belongs to you?”

“She’s not saying
she doesn’t,” I said. “Is she?”

We all looked at her.
She frowned, her frosty gaze locking with mine. I widened my eyes
slightly, hoping she’d get the message. Please, please let her be
able to read minds. Her virtue and my intact face depended on it.

Slowly, she shook her
head. A curtain of tawny hair spilled over her shoulder and she gave
me a slight smile that felt like a ray of fucking sunshine.
Get
it together, Drex. This is not the time.

“So if she’s your
woman, what’s she doing walking around like that?”

Hell of a good
question, and now I had to answer it. I kicked the toe of my boot
against a sidewalk crack and stalled. Cleared my throat, crossed my
arms, squinted at the horizon.
Think,
think.

“Well, I told her if
she was going to walk out, she could damn well leave what I bought
her. And I bought every stitch of clothing she’s got.” I
shrugged. It wasn’t great, but it would have to do.

The red-haired biker
looked at Blue Eyes and back at me. “Low blow,” he said. “But
you had to do it.”

“What can I say? She
hurt my feelings pretty bad.”

He shook his head in
sympathy. “Girl like that? I bet she worked you over.”

She scowled at him.
“How would you know?”

This girl and her
fucking temper. “Now, come on, baby,” I said, reaching for her
hand. “Can’t we just go home?”

“Home?” Her face
radiated disdain. “Where’s home?”

“You – you know
where home is, right?” I stammered.

“Actually, I don’t
have the first clue.”

Thanks to Blue Eyes and
her attitude, this thing was about to go off the rails. The only
thing I could think of was to reach out and grab her, good and tight.
With a gasp, she snapped her head up to look at me. Her lips were
trembling, her slim bare arms hot under my hands. Holy hell.

If her skin was this
overheated, what was it like between her legs? Inside her mouth?

I was about to find out
– about her mouth, anyway. Not that I was usually this forward, but
desperate times called for being a total aggressive asshole.

I yanked her against
me. She whimpered, a pretty, feminine sound that jolted me to the
core. I felt the soft roundness of her breasts as they crushed
against my chest, making my stomach muscles convulse sharply. Her
pelvis ground into mine, giving me the fastest and hardest erection
I’d ever had.

She dug ragged nails
into my shoulders and fixed me with a cold stare. “Get off me,”
she said through clenched white teeth.

I rolled my eyes and
tried sending her a telepathic message.
Think
it’ll be better with the bikers, lady? You may not know me from a
hole in the ground, but at least I shower.

The tip of her pink
tongue quivered over the corner of her mouth. Now I got it. She
wasn’t resisting because she wanted to. She just thought she
should. That’s what polite ladies did when they found themselves
enjoying something sexy and sinful.

I lowered my head and
took her lips in a rough, bruising kiss. It had been too long – my
whole life – since I’d wanted a woman like this. Pure,
I-don’t-care-who’s-watching lust. Damn the bikers and the heat. I
pushed my hungry tongue against hers, devouring her luscious mouth
until she responded with a moan that drove a stake through my
self-control.

She wrapped her arms
around my neck and clung to me, squirming her curvy hips –
those
hips again
-- in a little circle that seemed designed to
make me lose my mind.

“Whoa, boy,” the
red-haired biker said. “That’s one hell of a way to make up.”

“Get a room,”
another guy said. “And invite me.”

Blue Eyes pulled back
and blinked, licking her swollen lips with that sweet, candy-apple
tongue. Who needed a room? I was ready to tear off what was left of
her clothes and fuck her senseless over the nearest newspaper rack.

Five years ago I would
have done it.

As if I’d pinched her
ass, she swung out and slapped me across the cheek. With all her
might.
Ouch.

“Son-of-a-bitch,”
she spat out. “How dare you.”

The bikers watched in
stunned silence before bursting into laughter. “Glad you think it’s
funny,” I muttered. What a bratty, clueless little nightmare she
was. I should leave her here just to teach her a lesson.

Instead I grabbed her
by the wrist, gave the bikers a nod, and said, “Have a good
afternoon, gentlemen.”

Mouth pressed in a hard
line, I hauled her across the street. “Let go of me,” she hissed,
trying to wrench her arm free.

“No.”

She pulled as hard as
she could. “I mean it.”

“Yeah? So do I.”

I unlocked the truck
and tossed her into the passenger’s side. “Don’t even think
about getting out,” I said, and slammed the door.

I got in the other
side, started the engine, and turned on the A/C full blast. Only then
did I look at her, my chest heaving with fury and a fierce arousal I
couldn’t shake. Obviously I’d been working too much and not
getting blown enough. Otherwise, what was this ungrateful, rabidly
pissed-off bitch doing in my truck?

Whoever she was, she
was my responsibility now. Goddamnit.

After a long, tense
minute, I took a deep breath and wrestled my temper under control.
“Now that I’ve saved your half-naked ass from getting raped or
killed, you mind telling me what the hell you’re doing?”

“What
I’m
doing?”

Though she was still
angry, her voice sounded shaky. Now that I looked closely, she seemed
frail and in need of a good bath. Her hair was covered with fine red
dust. Her t-shirt was torn at the hem, like somebody’d grabbed it
when she tried to run away. She was somewhere between her mid and
late twenties, but there was something girlish about her, an alluring
innocence under all that explosive fire.

She wasn’t half as
tough as she pretended to be. I could see it in those gorgeous,
melancholy eyes.

“Listen,” I said in
the tone I normally reserved for abused mutts. “I’m sorry I had
to kiss you, but it was for your own good. I hope you know that.”

Her smirk told me more
than words ever could. “Right.”

“You didn’t seem to
mind it too much, until you slapped me, that is.”

“It happened too
fast,” she said.

“Tell me about it,”
I said, rubbing my cheek. “You hit hard, you know that?” I smiled
but she didn’t smile back. Her lips were trembling and her face was
drawn in spite of that golden tan.

I cleared my throat.
“Listen, uh – I have to ask. Did somebody hurt you?”

She stared at me,
unblinking. Eventually, she shrugged.

A slow chill crept
through me. I almost wished she were stoned or psychotic, something
that could explain this bizarre detour in my afternoon. But her face
was bright and alert, and she was practically looking through me with
those whip-smart eyes.

Whatever was up with
her, I couldn’t begin to guess what it was.

“Do you have any
water?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said,
taking the plastic bottle from the drink holder. “It’s probably
warm.”

“I don’t care.”
She unscrewed the cap and drained the rest in four swallows. Watching
her drink, it occurred to me that might have been walking in the heat
for hours.

“Thank you.” She
clutched the empty bottle so hard it collapsed in her hand. Her torn
nails bore traces of bright red nail polish.

“We can get more if
you’re still thirsty,” I said.

“Thanks. I’m okay.”

She caught her lower
lip between her teeth. Then a single tear trickled slowly down her
cheek, leaving a glistening trail in the dust on her skin. Somehow,
this woman could make even crying look pretty.

I resisted the urge to
catch the tear with my finger. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

She shook her head.
“Nothing.”

“Something’s the
matter and you’ve gotta tell me what it is.” Wherever this was
going, I was starting to get pretty damn curious.

“Well…I just need
to ask a question, that’s all.”

“Go ahead,” I said.
“Ask me anything.”

She blushed like a
little girl. “It might sound a little strange.”

Why was I not
surprised. “I can handle it. Just ask me, okay?”

She nodded slowly.
Swallowing hard, she stared at me with the most faraway eyes I’d
ever seen and said, “Are you my husband?”

It was the second time
I’d hit him in ten minutes, and this time I got him on the ear.

“I’m not going
anywhere with you! Pull over and let me out!”

He gripped my arm with
one hand and drove eighty miles an hour with the other. “I’ll let
you out when we get to the police station,” he said, glaring
straight ahead. “How’s that?”

All right. So he wasn’t
my husband.

Turning around and
seeing him for the first time – it was a jolt that had rocked me to
my soul. The way he’d kissed me, as if I were his long-lost love,
it was no wonder I’d started to hope. Maybe he was my answer, my
home, my memory.

But according to the
man in question, he was none of those things.

It was no surprise,
really. No man that tall, that built, that thick-haired and
hazel-eyed would be married to a woman in my pathetic condition.

“No cops,” I
begged. “Please.”

He quirked his
perfectly chiseled mouth. “You could have gotten us killed back
there. You won’t tell me your name or where you live, and for some
reason you think we walked down the aisle together. Sounds like a
matter for the authorities, don’t you think?”

“I wish you hadn’t
helped me,” I spat out. “I was doing fine on my own.”

He let out an
infuriating, dismissive laugh. “If that was fine, I’d hate to see
you on a bad day.”

“It’s bad now,” I
said. “Thanks to you.”

We sped under another
highway sign – Camino Real Drive, ¼ mile. Did I know that street?
I squinted my eyes shut and scoured my brain but it meant nothing to
me. It was just another place I’d never heard of.

“What do you have
against the police, anyway?” he asked, flashing his brights at the
car in front of him. “There a warrant out for you?”

I hadn’t thought of
that, but considering all the crap I’d pulled the last three days,
it was a definite possibility. “I don’t want to go, that’s
all.”

I tried to twist my
hand free but he was too strong. As much as I hated it, there was
something consoling about that powerful grip. It gave me a tiny sense
of security, a feeling of being grounded after days of panic and
fear.

“Too bad,” he
barked. “You’re going anyway.”

“Like hell I am. You
have no idea the kind of scene I can cause.”

“No idea? After that
bullshit with the Bandidos?”

“I was just getting
started.”

With a growl of
frustration, he whipped the wheel to the right, crossed two lanes of
traffic, and squealed to a stop in the breakdown lane. He stared out
the windshield, drawing in heavy breaths, before turning his narrowed
gaze to me.

“I tell you what,”
he said, dropping my hand into my lap. “I’ll take you wherever
you want to go. I don’t care how far it is. You just give me the
whole story, who you are and what you’re doing here.”

“I can’t.”

“Okay. Then you’ve
made your choice.” He put the gear shift back into drive.

“Wait,” I said,
grabbing his arm.

His bicep flexed, and
in my imagination I saw it naked – strong, blue-veined, and sexy.
Had he really been hard for me back at the bar, or was it just a
lonely illusion?

He glared at me until I
pulled my hand away and sat back. “I can’t give you the whole
story,” I said. “I don’t know what it is.”

“That’s not gonna
fly.”

“It’ll have to.”

We stared at each
other. His jaw clenched. He was probably one more pitiful excuse away
from throwing me out on my ass.

“Listen, lady,” he
said. “I’m just in town looking for somebody. Back home, I’m a
pretty busy guy. I don’t have time to play games with a girl who
won’t be straight with me. You got clothes somewhere? Somebody to
stay with?”

I hesitated, knowing
the truth would only make things worse. “Um…I don’t know.”

He dropped his head
back and groaned. Sunlight streamed through the back window and lit
up the mahogany undertones in his hair. My fingers twitched, aching
for one crazy instant to touch it.

“You sure know how to
stick to your guns,” he said.

I shrugged. “They’re
the only guns I’ve got.”

He clenched his fists
as if fighting to stay calm. “So, why do I have a feeling you’re
leaving some details out?”

“I’m not doing it
on purpose,” I said. “I promise.” The truck shook as a semi
roared by the window.

“You know, it’s
pretty easy to give basic information to a guy who just saved your
life. I’ll show you how it’s done, okay?” He widened his eyes
as if speaking to a child. “I live in Houston and my name is Drexel
Cougan. People call me Drex. I’m twenty-nine years old and I own
twelve billiards halls in Texas and Louisiana, about to open three
more. I was born in this crazy shithole of a town and almost didn’t
get out alive. I’d like to make sure I do this time.” He smiled,
showing perfect white teeth. “See? Not so hard, was it?”