Guns & Burning Rubber: The Iron Brotherhood series (5 page)

As for Cross, he was just an informant, nothing more.  He had been welcoming to her needs, but he’d gotten his own quid pro quo from their deal.  Kara was leaving the Iron Brotherhood out of her write-up, and that was more than what they deserved.

Clearly, Cross and Alicia already had a past together.  Even if Kara hadn’t ever met the man, he might have ended up back together with her.  And Kara had no claim to him.  She wasn’t giving anything up, and was coming out ahead in this play.

And yet, no matter how many times she proved this to herself, she couldn’t bring herself to accept it, to truly believe that this was a good move. 

It just felt wrong.

Eventually, despairing of her ability to convince her emotional side that her choice made logical sense, Kara gave up.  She would go back to the Iron Brotherhood’s house, change for tonight, and talk to Cross, she decided.  She’d explain things to him, and he would see the sense of things. 

Even if she couldn’t accept this course of events, Kara knew that it was just because of her annoying, frustrating crush on the biker.  But for him, with a past with Alicia, he would be happy to have a woman willing to go all the way. 

And once Cross agreed that this was the best choice, maybe she could convince herself.

#

But when Kara arrived back at the clubhouse of the Iron Brotherhood, she noticed that Cross’s big black Harley wasn’t parked out in the lot in front.  And when she stepped inside, she saw no sign of the man - not in any of the common areas, and not up in his bedroom, even though it was unlocked.

Returning back down the stairs, Kara spotted Pete - no, wait, that wasn’t his name after all, was it?  Jimmy? - sitting on the couch in the living room.  “Hey, have you seen Cross?” she called out to him.

Jimmy glanced up at her, shrugging his shoulders.  “Nah, he’s been out for a couple hours now,” he said, after a second’s thought.  “Think he said something about clearing his head.  I offered him some advice, since he always helps me out, but he just said he had to think through it on his own.”

Kara guessed that the man was struggling with whether to give up on helping her out, immunity agreement for the Iron Brotherhood be damned.  “Any idea when he might be back?” she asked.

All she got from Jimmy was another shrug.  “Great, thanks,” she said, not bothering to tone down her sarcasm.

This wasn’t helping.  Kara pulled out her phone and tried giving Cross a call, but she didn’t expect him to pick up, especially if he was riding.  Sure enough, the phone rang until, eventually, the voicemail kicked in.  Did Kara wish to leave a message?

She hung up, but then, as she wandered back upstairs to the bedrooms, she reconsidered and redialed the number.  “Cross, it’s me,” she said, still trying to decide on the right words to say.  “Listen, we need to talk.  I had to make an agreement with Alicia to get her to invite me into the Hellraisers’ party this evening, but I had to make a deal with her to get her to say yes.  And I agreed-”

For a moment, Kara’s voice stalled as her breath caught in her throat, as she remembered the deal.  Already, she had shifted over almost entirely to regret.  She could have found another way into the Hellraisers, she was now certain, one that didn’t involve selling out Cross, her…

Her what?  Friend?  Lover?  Contact?  Criminal informant?  Crush?  There were too many labels, all of them blending together inside her mind.

With an effort, Kara pulled herself back together.  “I might have made a stupid, nearsighted deal that I didn’t properly think out,” she finally said to the waiting answering machine.  “Call me back as soon as you get this - even if you’re mad at me.  Please.”

For a moment longer, Kara held up the phone, but she could think of nothing else to say.  She slowly lowered the electronic device from her ear, ending the call.

In Cross’s bedroom, Kara sat down on the bed, feeling it dip a bit as she landed on the well-used mattress.  She stayed upright for a minute, but then let herself flop back, landing with her head on the pillow.  She rolled over, pressing her face down into the soft cotton pillowcase.

For a moment, she just lay there.  Whenever she breathed in, Kara caught the faintest whiff of Cross’s scent, that faint but unmistakable manly musk that seemed to be an integral part of the man’s persona.  The smell was surprisingly comforting, and Kara pushed her face in deeper, sucking in a bit more of that smell. 

Her eyes closed as she focused on the smell.  It was actually quite comfortable, calming her down ever so slightly…

Kara didn’t open her eyes until she was jarred by the buzzing of her phone, still held in one hand, tucked underneath her pillow.  With a groan, she lifted herself up out of the soft pillow where she’d been resting, blinking her eyes as they struggled to open.  Had she fallen asleep?

The phone was still buzzing.  Was it Cross?  Kara’s heart leapt up in her chest as she blinked several more times, struggling to clear the fogginess from her eyes.

But when she looked down at the buzzing rectangle in her hand, she saw that it was Alicia, not Cross.  Ignoring the pang that shot through her chest, disappointment so keen that she could feel it like a literal punch, Kara hit “answer.”

“Hello?”

“Kara, it’s me,” Alicia said, without any other preamble.  “I’ve got the location of tonight’s party.  Got a pen handy?”

Kara fiddled around on the small desk pushed up against one wall of Cross’s bedroom until she dug out a ballpoint pen and some paper with a blank space to write, and then jotted down the address that Alicia read off to her. 

“I’ll see you there, probably around nine or so,” the woman said, once Kara had repeated back the address.  “No way you can miss it - big place, lots of lights, full of bikers fucking girls in public.  Bring a handle of booze with you, challenge a couple dudes to shots, and you’ll have no problem getting in.”

“Great,” Kara replied, feeling anything but great.

“Oh, and one more thing,” the woman added, before she hung up.  “After we talked, I gave Cross a call, told him about our deal.”  Kara could feel the other woman taking her time with this comment, savoring the words, as if she knew that each one was another sharp little dagger plunging into the undercover FBI agent.  “So don’t worry about having to explain things to him - he understands you perfectly.”

And with that, the insufferable woman hung up.  Probably a good thing she disconnected when she did - Kara was struggling for words filled with enough rage to express her hatred and frustration for her.

What a raging bitch!

But she had to focus on the mission.  It was most important.  Kara took a deep breath as she stood up, heading over to her small bag of clothes to find something that might be seen as slutty enough to get her into this party.  Taking a breath and focusing on her mission, on her career, always helped keep her calm and focused.

As she got dressed, however, she couldn’t help but notice that it wasn’t working quite as well as it usually did.

CHAPTER 7

A few hours later, Agent Kara Sybil was very quickly coming to understand why female bikers never wore skirts - not even tiny little mini skirts.

Hell, with the way the wind was blowing as she roared along, she might as well not be wearing anything, she thought, for once grateful for the darkness of these desert roads, far from civilization or street lights.

Back at the Iron Brotherhood’s clubhouse, the outfit she eventually picked out had looked great in the mirror on the back of Cross’s door.  Between the push-up bra, as tight as she could pull the straps, and the very low-cut top, she was practically spilling out the top of her outfit, putting miles of cleavage on display for anyone who glanced in her direction.  And the short little mini skirt that Kara found buried at the back of Cross’s closet did an admirable job of sticking to her, sliding up just enough with each step to suggest that the curve of her ass cheek was only millimeters away from slipping right out.  Plus, the tightness of the thin fabric also made it abundantly clear that she had nothing on underneath.

Of course, the FBI agent wasn’t planning on letting anyone at this party confirm that - but if she was going to sell herself as a slut, well, she wasn’t going to skimp on looking the part.

But although this outfit made her look like a sex goddess, especially when coupled with a pair of tall black leather boots that clung to the curves of her toned calves, it wasn’t even suited to running or much movement, much less riding a motorcycle.  With every single bump in the road, Kara was certain that the few remaining scraps of fabric were about to be ripped away, that she’d be the modern incarnation of the Lady Godiva, shooting down the highway naked on her metal horse.

The Harley hit another bump in the road, and Kara cursed out loud as she felt her chest rising and falling, trying to climb up out of its low enclosure.  She slapped a hand to her stomach, trying to hold everything in place.

Finally, she spotted the sign for the turn-off she had been watching for, and Kara let a sigh of relief escape her lips.  She let off the throttle, pulling in the clutch to let the motorcycle slow down as it slowly used up its momentum gliding off down the side road.

This road turned out to be a long driveway, leading up to a large house on top of a small hill.  The hill continued to rise a bit more behind the house, making the building appear to be snuggled up to the rocky outcrop.  It was the tallest structure around for several miles, and the analytical side of Kara’s brain couldn’t help noting that this structure would make a great defensible position.

But right now, it was obvious that the goal was to welcome people in, not to drive them out.  The entire house was brightly lit up, both inside and out, and even from the bottom of the driveway Kara could hear conversations, laughs, and cheers echoing out in all directions.  She caught the rumble of a motorcycle revving, accompanied by a distinctly feminine shriek of delight.

Kara spotted the outlines of several other motorcycles, parked off to one side, and she steered over to put her own chopper among them.  Gently squeezing the brakes to bring the machine to a stop, she put down a foot to catch the weight of the machine - and nearly slipped as she forgot for a moment to compensate for the heels on her boots.

Dammit, she cursed, as she struggled to catch the heavy bike.  Come on, Agent Sybil, get your head in the game!

Even though she hated to admit it, she was rattled.  Between Alicia’s comment that she’d already talked to Cross, plus his refusal to respond to her own message, left Kara feeling more and more certain that the bridge between her and Cross was well and truly burned.  No matter how much she wanted some part of it to still be intact, it was likely gone, and there’d be no way to get back any sort of connection.

Focus, Kara!  With her bike off and the keys stowed away inside the ridiculously tiny purse that Kara had also found in the back of Cross’s closet (how did a woman end up leaving their purse behind after sleeping with him, she wondered?), Kara headed up the path towards the house - pausing only to grab a clear plastic vodka bottle out of her saddlebag where it had been stowed next to the little purse.

Walking up the path towards the house, still hidden for the moment in shadow, Kara took a deep breath.  She felt even more naked than usual, not because she was dressed so provocatively, but because she’d been forced to leave her weapon back at the Iron Brotherhood house.  On this outfit, there was simply no place for her to hide the weapon. 

But as she came around the corner and up to the well-lit porch, Kara plastered a big, silly grin on her face, holding up the vodka bottle above her head like it was the Stanley Cup.  “Oh my god, who’s ready to get crazy!?” she trilled, trying to sound as valley girl as possible.

At the call, several other men glanced up, giving a cheer in response as they saw an already half-stumbling girl appearing, scantily clad and holding more liquor aloft.  “Let’s get this party started!” Kara called out, eliciting another cheer.

A couple men came over to her, one of them handing her a red cup filled with something that smelled like fruit punch.  Kara took a big gulp - and almost spat it out.  There was fruit punch, sure, but that cup had to be nearly fifty percent pure alcohol!

She kept it down, however, and gave the man who handed it to her a big grin and a clumsy wave of the red cup.  “Thank you - such a gentleman!” she announced, getting another chuckle.  Faced with a sloppy drunk girl putting her wares on display, these men would do anything to keep her attention.

Of course, Kara saw as she looked around, she was definitely not the only one.  The porch was full of big men, dressed in leather and sporting lots of hair, tattoos, and silver chains and rings, most of them flirting with or fondling girls who looked about half their age.  Several other girls were sitting on laps, and Kara saw one big, overweight man with both his hands shoved under the shirt of the girl perched on his lap, grinning as happily as a fox in a henhouse.  Another man was in a rocking chair, his head tossed back, either passed out from drinking or simply lost in sensation from the girl grinding down on his lap, putting most pole dancers to shame.

Alicia had at least come through on her promise to make sure that a party was in full swing.  This didn’t raise Kara’s opinion of her, but at least the woman hadn’t fully cheated her out of everything.