Devil's Angels Boxed Set: Bikers and Alpha Bad Boy Erotic Romance (31 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

It was a little past two in the morning and the bar was all but dead. No patrons turned their way as Kat and her men pulled Solomon and Billy into the back room and locked the door. It was a biker bar; the men had seen plenty worse.

Kat nodded toward the round table and chairs in the middle of the room. “Put ‘em in the chairs.”

The back room of the bar was cramped, smelly, and cold, but it served its purpose. This was where they had their private meetings, where only the higher-ups were allowed. Kat couldn’t remember when she’d first been invited to the back room, but she knew that when the members had started looking to Jamison
and
her for answers, she’d transformed from member to leader.

And now president,
Kat reminded herself as all eyes turned to her. Pulling out a chair for herself, Kat propped her legs up on the table and leaned back, trying to assess the situation rationally through eyes clouded by sleep.

Taking a deep breath around a wide yawn, Kat said, “I want you both to explain what’s going on.”

Billy looked about ready to pee himself, while Solomon had a sardonic smirk on his face. It was crazy to see them look so similar, but act so differently. While Billy was wet behind the ears and tried to play it off with bravado, Solomon was a hardened criminal, a man who’d earned his scars through blood, sweat, and tears. It was the difference between a boy and a man.

“I-I killed Jamison,” Billy stammered as sweat and tears streaked his face.

Kat swung her head to look at the kid at the same moment Solomon backhanded Billy and sent him flying from the chair onto the floor. Everyone was quiet, stunned as they looked at Solomon’s calm face and Billy’s shocked, wide eyes staring up at him.

“Y-you hit me,” Billy whispered, shocked and hurt.

Solomon turned to Kat, ignoring the kid and the three hulking Free Guns in the room with them. “Call off your dogs, Kit-Kat, and let’s talk.”

Tense seconds stretched into minutes as Kat regarded Solomon through half-lowered lids.
I know it’s not a good idea, but…
Where Solomon was concerned, rationality flew out the window.

“Out. All of you.”

Four heads turned toward her, and as many jaws dropped.

“But Kat…”

“You heard the lady,” Solomon snickered, giving Kat a burning look.

“Kat, don’t let him–”

“How many of you think Solomon or Billy did it?” Kat interrupted, as she took her feet off the table and planted them firmly on the floor.

Looking every member in the eye, Kat raised a questioning eyebrow. “Seriously, who thinks these guys murdered Jamison?”

John, Dominic, and Joseph all looked at each other, then at Kat, and finally at Solomon and Billy. Solomon lounged in a chair, completely at ease, while Billy remained on the floor, a hand covering his swollen cheek. A few more seconds of awkward deliberation and the men shook their heads.

John stroked the back of his neck and regarded Kat. “I don’t think they did it.”A murmur of agreement came from the other two men.

Thought so
. Kat had known early on that Solomon wasn’t the killer, but he’d been willing to take the blame, surrender his life because it would have made them all sleep better. For her part, Kat had been willing to put down an innocent man, a man whom her most trusted guys didn’t even think it was guilty.

Pushing away from her chair, Kat turned her back on the group and steeled her voice. “When I asked if anyone thought Solomon Parker was innocent, I got silence,” she stretched out the word, forced it through her teeth. “Fucking silence.”

In a whirl of black leather, Kat spun around and slammed her fists into the table, tears shining in the corners of her eyes. Every man flinched except for Solomon, who didn’t twitch a muscle.

“I’d been ready to kill a man tonight, stain my soul with his blood–” she paused and looked at Solomon, things she couldn’t say shining in her eyes. “Leave. Get the fuck out.”

Her most trusted men—no, —
she’d
—almost sold her soul to the Devil. And for what? It all seemed meaningless now. A man’s life for a motorcycle club. How the hell did than even itself out?

Scuffling shoes and the click of a lock were the only indications that the men had gone, and the silence meant they’d taken Billy with them. Kat held her body stiff as she heard Solomon’s chair scrape against the wood floor. When he touched her, she flinched.

It wasn’t a harsh touch, he didn’t grab her. His fingers were soft on her arm. But Kat would have liked it if he’d been rough, if he'd gotten angry, if he screamed and hit her. She would have been able to call it even, or at least she would have felt a little less bad about almost taking his life. But that wasn’t how Solomon Parker worked.

Another gentle caress on her arm made her flinch even harder. “Don’t touch me!” Kat lashed out as tears streamed from her eyes.

Strong arms closed around her like a steel embrace, and Kat raged on. “Don’t touch me!”

She screamed the words, anger and despair making her voice hoarse. She thrashed in his arms as he held her, kicked and clawed in an attempt to get away. She couldn’t handle him being gentle; treating her like porcelain when she’d nearly killed him. It was too much.

His calm rainwater eyes met hers, and in her own chaos she found a safe place. Though it shouldn’t have been safe. Solomon Parker wasn’t a safe man, he was dangerous and seductive.

“Get angry at me!” Kat pleaded, her anger calming down. “Rage at me! Hit me! Just don’t–don’t try to protect me. Please.”

I can’t.
Kat hated herself. She’d been hiding it, sugarcoating it, calling it by a different name, but she’d been the one with the gun, the one with her finger on the trigger. What had made her think that it was life or death? No one had held a gun to her head and made her choose. It had all been her decisions, her own actions, and she knew that she alone would have to face the consequences.

“I’m so sorry,” Kat sobbed, finally lowering her defenses and doing something she hadn’t done in years: apologize.

Through bleary eyes, she watched Solomon. Watched him smile gently at her. “Shh. It’s okay, Kit-Kat.”

The sun was beginning to come up, rays shining through slits in the roof. But Kat knew she wouldn’t care. She was drained, exhausted.

“I’m so sorry,” She whispered again, ashamed as the world began to tilt, taking on a grayish hue.

Kat couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept, the last time she’d eaten. It had been a grueling day followed by a traumatic night–and that was just for her. She could only imagine what Solomon had gone through, what she’d put him through.

He wasn’t a murderer, and neither was she. And yet they’d played their roles because neither of them had thought there was a way out.

“I forgive you, Kit-Kat,” Solomon whispered against her hair, the words half-smothered.

She didn’t deserve it, Kat knew. But it helped her release the pain in her head and in her heart. Darkness surrounded her, pulling her in, pulling her deep. In the moment before exhaustion claimed her, Kat knew that she’d been an idiot, knew that Solomon’s life couldn’t be measured by her, knew that only God had that power.

CHAPTER SIX

Jamison’s funeral was quiet but crowded. Every biker in the Free Guns was there, along with a few other members of neighboring Clubs who’d known Jamison. Mindy was a nervous wreck, crying and screaming, sobbing on the nearest shoulder, which at this moment happened to be Kat’s.

Patting Mindy’s back, Kat was at a loss, so she decided to say nothing. It turns out Jamison hadn’t been murdered. No, he’d just been stupid, hiding his drinking from Mindy. And none of the Free Guns had tried to stop him because he was their leader. Jamison’s death had come as a shock to Mindy, but not to anyone else.

Kat had learned the truth two days ago, the morning after the incident with Billy and Solomon’s near-execution in the grove. Solomon had carried her home from the bar and tucked her into her bed. She’d been comfortably wrapped in his arms when her phone rang: Mindy was at the police station, and she’d wanted Kat to come down for moral support. “I’ll be right back,” Kat had said to Solomon as she tugged on some clothes. “Don’t leave.”

Mindy had discovered that her husband had never stopped drinking. The police had told her and Mindy that Jamison had died because he’d been drinking and driving and not looking where he was going. No one had tampered with his bike. There wasn’t some big conspiracy behind the incident, it had all been an accident.

From the police station, Kat had returned home mentally and physically exhausted, only to find an empty house, a new lock on the door Solomon had broken, and a note saying he’d be back soon.

All this had happened two days ago. Kat couldn’t blame Solomon for running away; she’d nearly killed him because of…an accident, because people had needed to blame someone for an accident.

Kat mentally sighed at the lives that had been destroyed by Jamison’s recklessness. Worst of all, Kat knew that a little part of everyone blamed themselves for Jamison’s untimely demise. Kat could see it in every drawn face, in the silent tears sliding down reddened cheeks, in the white knuckles and clenched fists of almost every Free Gun.

Casting her eye around the funeral, Kat knew what they all were thinking, what she herself was thinking:
Why didn’t I stop him?
Kat had been asking herself this question as she’d ridden with Mindy to the funeral and climbed the hill to the gravesite. They’d all seen it, the destruction the booze was causing him. They should’ve stopped him long before it got to the point where he’d gotten on his bike and ridden drunk.

Kat shook her head and drew back her dark thoughts. Her mother had been an alcoholic, and for the longest time, and by the tender age of ten, Kat was blaming herself mercilessly for her mother’s death by alcohol poisoning:
I should have been a better daughter. I should have tried to help, tried to take the bottle away from her
.

It took a long time for Kat to realize that her mother’s death was not her fault, and, as hard as it was to admit now. Neither was Jamison’s. People made their own choices, walked their own paths. People are born alone and they die alone. It was just the way of the world.

Kat knew there were things she could have done, small things to help, but at the end of the day, Jamison had made his choice and walked his own path.

“Thank you for coming,” The pastor ended as Jamison’s closed casket was lowered into the grave, the sound of metal grating against metal making Kat wince.

Arms wrapped around Mindy. Kat stood watching as flowers and other mementos were thrown into the open grave. A black pot on a neighboring hill caught her eye, and Kat looked up to see Solomon Parker. The man stood about a hundred feet away, dressed in conservative black, his hair pulled back and his shoulder resting on the trunk of a tree. Sunglasses covered his eyes and made him look mysterious, dangerous.

Kat didn’t need the reminder. She knew better than anyone that Solomon Parker wasn’t safe. The man didn’t play by society’s rules, didn’t flinch in the face of death, or claim to be something he wasn’t. Kat didn’t doubt that whatever path Solomon parker walked would be one he made himself, carved from a broken heart, blood, and strength. It was just the man he was.

“Kat,” John gently tapped her shoulder, his face just as drawn and tight as the rest of the funeral goers, “I’ll take Mindy up.”

Nodding, Kat turned Mindy over to John and watched him practically carry her to the edge of the grave. Turning away from the scene, Kat picked up her black stilettos from the mushy grass and started to walk toward Solomon. A few feet away from him, she tripped on the wet grass and tumbled forward. But before she could hit the mud, he was there, picking her up and swinging her in his arms and out of the grass.

“You gotta be careful, Kit-Kat,” Solomon’s husky voice washed over her, settling in her gut like the harsh burn of her favorite whisky.

He was supposed to be gone, supposed to have disappeared like a thief in the night. Solomon Parker wasn’t supposed to be at Jamison’s funeral, picking her up like she was some virginal princess and he was some dashing knight. It just didn’t work that way.

“What are you doing here?” Kat frowned when he didn’t immediately put her down on the gravel road, and her frown only deepened when she saw a shiny black SUV only a few yards away.

“Your place isn’t here anymore, Kat. You know that,” Solomon evaded her question and instead began to carry her toward the SUV, his black shoes crunching in the gravel.

Kat narrowed her eyes at him and squirmed anxiously in his arms. “Put me down, Solomon!”

“No.”

Blowing out a frustrated breath, Kat decided not to fight him on the issue. One thing she’d learned about Solomon in the few days they’d been together was that fighting with him was like fighting with a rock, she just wouldn’t win.

Kat waited to be put down. It wasn’t as if she had qualms about being carried by a big, strong, sexy man, but this was Solomon Parker. The man was trouble in all caps, and should have been born with a caution sign burned onto his forehead. “Why are you here?”

Solomon just quirked his lips, irritating Kat all the more. Here they were at a funeral—Jamison’s funeral—and he was laughing like he hadn’t almost been killed because people thought he had tampered with Jamison’s bike. The man shouldn’t have been laughing; if anything, he should have stayed far away and left the members to grieve for Jamison.

“I’m here for you, Kat,” Solomon said in a clear voice, like he wasn’t saying something extremely serious.

“Well that’s too damn bad, because I don’t want you,” Kat growled as he placed her in the SUV and then climbed in after her. Kat immediately made a grab for the door handle, ready to leap out of the vehicle, when the doors locked. A second later, Solomon closed the door on his side.

Solomon turned to face her, and the car’s surprisingly roomy backseat shrunk to half its size in a heartbeat. The man didn’t dominate a space, he claimed it. “Don’t lie, Kit-Kat. You’re not very good at it.”

Tense seconds passed as Solomon stared at her, making no move toward or away from her. Kat knew what he was doing. He was waiting for her to break, waiting for her to give in to him–to
them
, and accept whatever was between them.

For a brief span of time she’d thought he was a murderer, but she’d still slept with him, still rocked his world and given in to the crazy attraction between them. And for an even briefer span of time, Solomon had thought she’d murdered Jamison, but even that hadn’t kept them from sleeping together. No, it seemed that murderers or not, they were still tied together. It was strange how badly Kat still wanted him, after all they’d been through, after all they’d done to each other.

Up until that point, they’d had sex: raw, intense, animalistic sex. But Kat realized what he was asking for now, what he was about to do. They weren’t about to have sex, they were about to make love. It was in Solomon’s eyes, in the way his gaze caressed her body through the black dress she wore. Solomon wasn’t just looking at her like a piece of ass, but rather in that way she’d seen few times before.

Kat had suspected that he loved her, thought that he was going to say it a few times before, but he never had, and the look had faded away. But now, looking into the blue irises of his eyes, she saw the truth, saw everything he was going to say. Not a short-term commitment thing. Permanence was written in Solomon’s eyes.

“Do you love me?” The question burst from her lips suddenly, the words tripping over themselves.

Solomon was on her in a heartbeat, fingers clutching at her hips, ripping the fabric of her dress. Hard lips claimed her. His tongue invaded her mouth in a hot, wet glide. Kat heard something else rip: Solomon’s shirt as she clawed at it, wanting to feel his skin against hers.

This was so like the other times had been, harsh need and explosive attraction slammed into the both of them. But there was something more, something right beneath the surface, seeping into their souls.

Kat was afraid to name it, afraid that once she did there would be no going back. For the last nine years, one thing had mattered to her: the Free Guns MC. That was it. What Solomon was asking her to do, what her heart was asking her to do, was something she’d never done before. Kat didn’t put her faith, trust, or anything else in one person. Life had a way of snatching them away, and Kat couldn’t lose another person she cared about.

“I can’t... love you,” Kat whispered around a kiss.

Warm leather caressed her back as Solomon’s fingers ran past her inner thighs and pushed aside her panties. Thick, callused fingers stroked her lips, causing Kat to arch her back with pleasure. Sensation shot through her as Solomon pushed a finger inside of her, curved it, and began stroking her g-spot.

“Yes you can, Kit-Kat,” Solomon whispered as his teeth closed around one of the buttons of her blouse and tugged hard, ripping the dress down the front.

Kat shook her head back and forth, denying his claim over her. Solomon just chuckled and flicked his tongue over her bra-covered nipple, finger still flirting with her g-spot.

Kat was on the edge, riding hard, just waiting to fall over. She needed it. Needed the release, that feeling of crashing, exploding with—against—Solomon. Words jumbled in her mind as her thoughts became incoherent, just impressions moving around in her mind.

Need. Want. Fuck. Yes.
It was maddening.

“I’m… so close,” Kat moaned, writhing on the leather of the back seat, eyes shut tight and seeing stars.

Solomon’s voice was rough, like he’d drunk something and it had burned his throat. “Say it, Kat. Say it and I’ll break you.”

Break me
. He’d said something similar before, the first time they’d had sex. Kat still remembered it, his promise. “The minute I stop calling you Kit-Kat is the minute I break you.”

The thought was tempting. Kat knew that she wanted him to break her, knew that at that moment, she’d give him anything he wanted if he just let her come. The words were on the tip of her tongue, her reason was out the window.

“I love—"

“Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

The words brought her crashing back down. It hurt. She wanted Solomon so bad, wanted everything he was prepared to give her. Not just his dick, but his life, his heart. That was what he was offering with every stroke, every lick. She knew that.

Kat knew that if she said the words now she would no longer be president of the Free Guns, there was just too much bad blood there. She also knew that if she said the words, Solomon wouldn’t let her go. Three simple words would change her entire life and leave her future in Solomon’s hands.

Three little words changed everything.

Kat took a breath, paused, and stayed on the cusp of orgasm. This was it, make or break. “I love you.”

A thick, hard dick replaced Solomon’s fingers as he thrust into her so hard Kat knew she wouldn’t be able to walk out of the car. But he’d carry her, be with her, always. “I love you too, Kat.”