Never Have an Outlaw's Baby: Deadly Pistols MC Romance (Outlaw Love) (44 page)

Sabrina had both her hands clenched tight in her lap when I came back with our drinks. I passed her the shot glass and raised mine.

“To better times, babe. They're coming. Sure as you uncle's bones are going into the fucking ground.”

I was about to knock the shit back when she reached for my thigh. Her fingernails pinched so hard into my skin it was like a goddamned miniature bear trap. The surprise almost caused me to drop the shit on the floor.

“What the fuck?” I growled.

“Wait. Not yet. There's something I need to know before we do this...something Uncle Gioulio told me. Don't drink yet.”

I looked at her without saying shit. The girl was rattled, couldn't make up her damned mind. Long as she started talking, I'd let her. Maybe the horse piss in my glass would taste an iota better when she threw off whatever was on her chest.

“You keep looking at my coat. It's more than a family heirloom.” She looked down, staring at the crap in her own glass, giving it a little stir, collecting her words. “My Uncle showed me some pictures. It was from the night my mother died. She got run over – somebody flattened her to the ground. Until the other night, he let me think it was an accident, even though I suspected something more all along. He showed me the man who ran her down and killed her in cold blood.”

Oh, fuck. My mind started spinning a million miles an hour, ready to split right through my skull and launch to the fucking moon. I knew who she was gonna name before it was outta her wicked fucking mouth.

“It was your father, Boris Ivankov. Don't deny it wasn't,” she said coldly. “Uncle showed me the pictures. He...he had your eyes. I know Gioulio wasn't lying about this.”

She looked at me like my baby blues were gonna turn her to stone. Fuck!

I turned away in disgust, throwing my shot glass on the floor. It shattered and sent a million little shards in all directions. I wished like hell that sound was enough to wring the neck of whatever demon fate cooked up in our pasts to fuck up our present.

The whole damned cosmos wanted to keep us apart. It was a travesty, a fucking atrocity, when we were
so
fucking good together. No, I wasn't just talking about being balls deep inside her, throttling her perfect pussy 'til she shook from head to toe. We worked because we were one and the goddamned same, two lost worlds who'd been fucked over by their own blood too many times to count.

No, dammit. If this was what had her all knotted up, I'd untie everything, every dark rope keeping us apart. I turned around, ready to reach up to the ceiling and salute the entire universe with both my middle fingers.

“My old man fucked up. He told me it was the worst mistake of his life, running that poor woman down. He had bad intel – same shit I did when I tried to blow your uncle to kingdom come with all his degenerate buddies. Your mother wasn't the fucking target.” Volcanic air pumped through my lungs. I stepped closer, grabbing for her hands, forcing her to set the small shot glass between her knees.

“Christ, babe. Don't tell me you believe that motherfucker if he told you my old man ran down your ma on purpose?” Shit. One look at her eyes said that was exactly what she believed. “Fuck. You gotta be kidding me! He had no reason for targeting your mother – none. It's not the way we do shit, and we never will. We go after the bastards who fuck us over, the demons who deserve to die. Nobody else.”

“Why should I believe you!?” She cracked. She tried to rip her hands away from me, but I held on like an ogre, unwilling to let her go 'til I took a wrecking ball to the bastard's lies. “God damn it! Every time I hear something from one side, the other's always got another version. I wanted to believe you, Anton. I trusted you. Then my Uncle took out the bug you left in my fucking purse, and I couldn't.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck...

The confession went through my eardrum and blew my brain apart. If it wasn't for seeing hate and confusion flashing in her eyes right in front of me, I would've marched out, tracked down my damned brothers, and finished the ass kicking we'd started earlier in the great hall.

“It wasn't my idea, babe. I fought the fucking thing tooth and nail. Daniel and Lev...they wouldn't let you leave without having some way to see what was going on. D told me it'd only help keep tabs on you in case something bad happened. Well, we both know it didn't do shit – and now I know why!”

Fuck. This time, my brother's wise ideas had screwed us hard. They'd fucked over the trust I'd built with this girl, stained this crazy thing we had with blood and venom.

“You're not even sorry,” she said, lowering her eyes. Why the hell wouldn't she stop looking at that fucking drink?

“You're dead wrong. There's a lot of shit I regret because without it sticking to me, everything would be ten times easier for everybody. I regret being hitched to this family, son of a bastard just like me. He killed for cred and money and – yeah – he made mistakes. I regret coming along years later and using you to get to the last Italian motherfucker we've got to take down in the windy city. Fuck, you can believe me or not, but I
really
regret compromising with my asshole brothers and letting them slip that shit into your luggage. If it was up to me, it never would've fucking happened. I'm sorry.”

Her eyes flitted up, distrusting and dark. I didn't give a shit right then if she hated my ass worse than her dickhead uncle. I wasn't gonna let her.

I'd spun her around and made her fall for me before, and I could do it again. I'd never been the kinda bastard to talk about love in words. All the red hot fucking we'd squeezed into those days did the talking for me before, but now I had to make my damned tongue work, make her realize I wasn't a total dipshit.

I
knew
how bad I'd fucked up by going along with my brothers' plan. It wrecked what we'd built as well as taking Gioulio down.

“My old man died with regrets too. I already told you, he never stopped beating himself bloody over that night. I remember it then. I was just getting deeper into the biz. He stumbled through the door all fucked up on pills and drink, screaming about the woman who wasn't supposed to be there.

“It was supposed to be some bitch named Mercedes. This French whore with a love for good shoes and riding your uncle's dick back before he needed the blue shit to get it up. She was his partner for awhile before she fucked off back to Paris. Built one helluva gun trade on our turf, and my old man was ready to break the truce to tear her down.

“She was supposed to be there. Bitch was a creature of habit. She'd have her drinks and hit the outlets, harder with Christmas coming. Guess your uncle introduced her to the good old American holiday frenzy, and my old man was determined to make it a fatal weakness.

“Thing is, the sly bitch must've seen it coming. She was still in the bar after my old man did the dirty deed. He fucking saw her smiling at him through the window, right before he sped off and rolled over the woman he'd just crushed into the ground. He panicked. He fucked up
bad.
”

Sabrina swallowed. Hard. Neither of us were there, but I could only imagine how bad it hurt to imagine her mother's bones cracking underneath the tires.

“Don't,” she whispered, harsh, holding back tears.

“I'm done talking about that night. We never found the French bitch. She set your ma up, and my old man died with a stinking suspicion Gioulio knew about it too. They had some kinda fallout not long after that sent her scurrying overseas like a fucking rat in flight.

“I'm telling you the truth, Sabrina. I know, you've got all the reason in the world to wonder whether or not I'm feeding you more bullshit. I could offer to trot out more files. Whatever the fuck your uncle showed you, we got our records too. I'm not gonna bother because I need you to hear me out. I need you to listen, babe.”

“What do you think I'm doing?” She sassed. Her cheeks were red, flush with shame and anger.

She was still talking, responding to me. That was something.

I hit the floor and kneeled. I didn't even feel my balls tighten up and try to crawl up my guts. This girl was the first one who'd put me on my knees, and I didn't feel bad about it because she was worth it.

Had to have her.
Had to.

Letting her spit in my face and walk away wasn't an option if I wanted to keep my sanity intact, regardless of whatever the hell happened with finishing her uncle. Shit, I'd let her slam those long nails into my fucking eyeballs and rip them outta my sockets if it would make this better. I'd bleed for her, bleed myself dry.

I was obsessed. A totally whacked out junkie for her voice, her laugh, her touch. A frothing, craven jackal for claiming her, mounting her, fucking her. Hearing how she screamed with my tongue between her legs, or clenching around my dick was like rock and roll blasting from the heavens.

I couldn't live without that music. Couldn't live without her.

Growling, I grabbed her by the knees, sloshing out a little bit of that shot she was holding. She quickly snatched it up, held it higher on her lap, just looking and looking, waiting for me to convince her.

Fuck. Okay.

“Just keep your mouth shut and listen to me for a fucking minute. I gotta say this. I already told you about all the shit I regret, all the things my old man died with hanging onto his black heart. All the danger, all the killing, all the assholes I've broken apart with my own bare hands...”

I sucked in a deep breath, remembering fifty different fuckers I'd killed one way or another over the years, including the twenty bastards who'd died in the blast at Club Duce. Their blood was sacrificial. It brought me here, step by ugly step, straight towards the greatest beauty of my life. My missing piece.

“They're all worth it 'cause they led me to the one thing I've ever crashed into that I'll never regret. It's right here in front of me. It's you, babe. You, you, only
you.
”

I grabbed her legs and squeezed them tight. Fuck, I wanted to hold on forever, cling to what was mine and always would be.

Love or hate, heaven or hell, sin or sweetness.

I had to look up. Had to find out right fucking now if ripping out my heart and offering it up was enough, or if her bastard uncle had truly poisoned her against me forever.

Her eyes were softer. There was love there, heat bouncing through a sadness I couldn't understand. Maybe she was overwhelmed.

I stood up, pulling her with me. My brain analyzed every little syllable and cadence when she spoke.

“Anton, please...”

“Please what? Kiss and make up the way we should've the second you got here?” I pressed my lips to hers, testing and urgent, craving her to kiss me back and really want it.

She did. Fuck, she melted, twining her tongue with mine, and it was absolutely beautiful. My hands ran up and down the mangled fabric wrapped around her, a relic of the dirty secret that almost cost us this forever.

“Babe, come on. I love you, and that's enough. You shouldn't be wearing this thing.” I pulled.

She absentmindedly passed the liquor carefully back and forth in her hands, turning while I gently drew the coat off around her. There was that hot fucking body again. My dick saw red and wanted to nest right against the crack of her sweet ass, rubbing 'til her pants came off, but I checked his greedy shit.

This was our moment to right wrongs and put the bloody, evil shit behind us. There'd be plenty of time for fucking her brains out soon, and when we did it was gonna be dynamite.

“Take it off,” I said. We both paused and listened as it fell to the ground in a heavy lump. “Your uncle's gonna pay for what he fucking did to you. He killed your old man and your ma, and he tried to make you kill me too, didn't he?”

She shuddered when I said the last part, almost like it was true. What the fuck? She hadn't really come here to put a dagger in my throat, had she?

I turned her around. She was melting again, her face cracking and breaking. With one arm, I slammed her against my chest, pulling her arms around me.

“It's gonna be okay. Soon as the motherfucker who caused this shit's dealt with, we're gonna give that thing a proper burial. Frame it or make something outta it. A reminder that all the death and hell that's come between us is
over
, babe. It's past. It's done because I say it is. I'm gonna fill that hole in your heart the same fucking way I love filling up your body.”

She kissed me, smiling as our lips pressed.

Finally. There she was. The Sabrina I'd been looking for all along, the dark haired babe I missed who lit my blood on fire and turned my dick to steel.

Oh, fuck. She tasted so soft, so wet, so warm. So irrevocably
mine.

I couldn't hold the lust storm off forever. Soon as she was breathing regularly again and drying those eyes, I'd throw her down on the bed just a few feet away and fuck her seven ways to Sunday. And then seven more after that.

Shit, we'd go seven hundred fucking ways 'til the end of time with all the ways I needed her body hitched to mine.

A happy growl tore my throat like thunder. I broke away, sweeping one hand low to her ass, rubbing my stubble over her snowy neck.

“God damn, you're hot. I'm gonna blow the fuck up if I don't get something in me to cool off.” I reached for the little shot still dangling in her fingers.

Had the fucking thing pressed to my lips before she let out an earsplitting scream. Both her hands clawed at my arm, trying to force it down.

“Stop it, Anton! No, no, no, no, no...you can't drink, you can't drink that stuff!”

Was this some kinda fucked up game? Smiling, I fought her, wheeling her around. We crashed down on the bed in chaos, and I was laughing as she tried to fight that shitty alcohol outta my hand. By some miracle, I hadn't spilled the damned thing.

Now, Sabrina was right on top of me. Right where I fucking wanted her, except with a lot less clothing.

I fought her and she went at me like a mad dog. The whole thing only lasted ten seconds before I had the cool glass pressed to my lips.

“Anton!” She screamed my name, twisted in my arms, and then rammed her little face against mine.