Repo (The Henchmen MC Book 4) (18 page)

It felt like it went on forever, but was probably only seconds before his hands moved back up and slid around my lower belly, pulling me backward against his chest. Above us, the downpour became a trickle, the rain clouds slowly moving on to other pastures. My head tilted back to rest on his shoulder and his face moved into the crook of my neck. The was a long pause where he was just holding me, both of us lost in the silent perfection of the moment, before Repo finally spoke and washed it away.

"We won't get this again."

"Get what?" I asked, feeling a small guard move back up over my heart, horrified that I had let it slide down for even a moment.

"This. Privacy. No one sniffing around, no one to give a fuck what we do with our personal lives. This is the first and last time."

I closed my eyes against the crippling truth of that statement, swallowing hard against the bitter taste in my mouth.

It was time to stop letting myself be, well, me.

It was time for Maze to make an appearance.

"Works for me," I said, shrugging a little as I pulled away. "We had an itch; we scratched it. We can move on now," I added as I moved off toward my sopping wet puddle of clothes and slipped into my panties. I had just pulled my tee over my head when Repo's hand snagged my wrist as I lifted my hands to free my hair from my shirt. He used it to turn me roughly.

"What the fuck, Maze?"

"What?" I asked, jerking my wrist from his and pulling out my hair, reaching for his arm and slipping the band off his wrist to tie it all back up.

On a sigh, he reached for his pants, turning away from me as he jumped into them, tying off the condom and wrapping it up in his still-discarded boxer briefs. I took the opportunity to shimmy back into my pants, balling up my bra and shoving it into my back pocket. It would be impossible to try to get the damn thing on with damp skin. Repo snagged his shirt, squeezed it out, and stuffed it into his waistband and I really, really wished he would put it on. Trying to keep my defenses (and libido) in check with him half-naked in front of me was going to be a challenge.

"Are we heading back?" I asked, feeling squirmy with the silent awkwardness between us.

"Maze..." he said, shaking his head as he stepped into his boots.

"What?" I asked, careful to keep my tone hollow.

"Oh, fuck this," he growled, storming over toward me, both his hands going to the sides of my face and using it to hold me still as his lips claimed mine, hard, angry, crushing. I stayed resistant for all of two seconds before I melted against him, my hands grabbing him at the biceps as my tongue pressed forward to tease his. He pulled back just as suddenly as he pulled me in, his hands still crushing into my face. "You want to bullshit everyone else and make them think you're all barbed wire and steel, go right the fuck ahead. But you can't fool me so stop fucking trying."

With that, he pushed me back a step, turned, grabbed his boxers and guns off the ground, then started moving toward the tree line we had entered the range through.

Not having much of a choice, I slid into my boots and rushed to follow, keeping a safe couple of yards between us at all times.

We made it back to the bikes a while later, both of us mostly dry and the heat was starting to bear down on us, making me miserable once again. Well, the heat and the reality of getting a taste of Repo only to know it was the only one I would get, making me miserable.

Repo pulled his tee out of his waistband, wiped my seat then his own before slipping it back on. Even pissed at me, he was still sweet.

The bastard.

We made it back to the compound. We both parked and Repo tore off before I could even get off my bike.

With a shrug that I didn't feel, I made my way inside and down to the basement, planning to grab a change of clothes and going to take a long, cold shower, praying that would settle my frazzled nerves.

That was the plan until I heard footsteps behind me and I turned to find Renny standing there, hands tucked into his front pockets, his normally carefree face looking uncharacteristically serious.

"What's up, Renny?" I asked, dropping my hand with my fresh clothes to my side.

"Why the fuck are you getting called dozens of times from K.C.E Boxing?"

Shit.

Shitshitshit.

Twelve

Repo

The drive back to the compound, quite frankly, sucked.

I was wet and dirty and hot.

But it had absolutely nothing to do with any of those things.

Oh, no.

It did, however, have every God damn thing to do with a hazel-eyed, purple-haired, spitfire who had shown me more of her softness back in that field. Whoever Maze really was, it wasn't the hardened badass she worked so hard at portraying herself as. The badass, she was a mask, a defense mechanism, big nasty thorns to protect the soft, delicate flower.

Being with her, kissing, holding, being inside her, it had been the best experience I'd had in a miserably long amount of time.

And I had no idea what the fuck to do with that information.

"You fucked her, didn't you?" Cash's easy voice asked as I walked into my room, causing me to stop short for a second.

"Did you seriously break into my room?" I asked, shaking my head.

"Yeah. Now stop trying to change the subject. You fucked her, right? I mean, I think we all knew it was gonna happen after the car incident."

In my chest, my heart started thrumming in a sickening beat. "Car incident?" I repeated.

"Fuck off," Cash laughed, crossing his arms over his chest while an easy grin spread on his face. "Steamed windows and you come out of it grumpy as all fuck? We've all been teenagers with blue balls before, Repo."

"Reign knew it was her?" I asked past the lump in my throat over him possibly knowing I had disobeyed a direct order.

"Repo, man, come on. Reign might be a lot of things, but he's not stupid. I think when he told you to keep your dick in your pants, he knew damn well that wasn't going to happen. Especially not when you're stuck with her night and day, always on her case. Hate can make a great aphrodisiac. And today when you got stuck with her, taking her out to that field no doubt..."

"Fuck," I said, shaking my head as I sank down at the foot of my bed. "I screwed up."

"Like I said, Reign knew you couldn't have..."

"But I should have been able to," I objected. "It was an order. What the fuck does that make me that I disobeyed it?"

"Fucking human? A pain in the ass biker like the rest of us. We have all done something that Reign wouldn't like before."

"Not me."

"Well," Cash broke in and I could hear the smile in his voice, "that's not so true anymore, huh?" I brought my hand up to my face, raking it across my brow. "Christ, Repo, chill the fuck out. It's not a big deal."

"Yeah, sure."

"Unless," Cash broke in, his teasing tone making me stiffen.

"Unless what?"

"Unless you have feelings for her that might get in the way of your assignment."

"Don't be ridiculous," I rolled my eyes at him.

It wasn't a lie. Not exactly.

Because it
was
ridiculous to have feelings for her.

But, that being said, there was no denying that they were there.

I didn't know exactly what they were, but they were something, something more than what they were supposed to be: probate to member, boss to subordinate.

"Wouldn't be the first time one of us ended up with a woman over something we first thought was ridiculous."

Yeah, well, that was the fucking truth.

Reign and Summer got together after she escaped the people who had held her captive and tortured her. He protected her. He fought for her. The whole thing was insane.

Then Cash and the leader of fucking Hailstorm got together. Hell, if someone would have told me that Cash, shameless manwhore, would end up with anyone, I would have said that was ridiculous. Let alone the female leader of a bunch of lawless men and women.

And Wolf and Janie, yeah, who the fuck wouldn't think it was ridiculous that a man who could barely rub five words together would end up with a woman who was never lacking something to say?

But it was different.

"Yeah, man. But none of you were in charge of literally making your womens' lives hell and killing their dreams."

"Yeah, I can see that complicating things," Cash said, moving to sit down at the other end of the bed.

"She can barely bring herself to look at me half the time she hates me so much."

"I think you underestimate her capability for understanding. She knows you don't want to screw things up for her."

"And she thinks it's pathetic of me that I can't say no to something that I am adamantly against."

Cash sighed. "I don't know what to tell you, Repo. The situation is fucked. Eventually, she's gonna be on her ass and she's going to resent you for that. But I think you underestimate how forgiving women can be if you make it worth their while."

"You have met Maze, right?" I asked, turning to look at him with a smirk.

"You've met Lo, right?" he countered. "And Janie? And Alex? Fuck, even Summer can be a stubborn pain in the ass at times. They're all strong and take-no-prisoners. And me, Reign, Wolf, and Breaker ain't ever been boy scouts. We fuck up. We stick our feet in our mouths. We piss them off. But they forgive us. You know... after they hand our asses to us. But, hell, all that conflict makes for some fan-fucking-tastic make-up sex so you won't hear us complaining."

"I'm sure there is a point in there somewhere," I mused, shaking my head at him.

"The point is, man the fuck up. You got a job to do, do it. You got a woman you don't want to lose in the process, fucking make that clear to her. She'll be pissed. She'll resent it. She'll take all that out on you, but you'll deserve it and you'll take it on the chin and then, when all is said and done and this is over, you can make it up to her."

"You make that shit sound easy and you fucking know it won't be."

"No," he said, standing, slamming a hand into my shoulder hard enough to make me lurch forward slightly, "but it'll be worth it, don't you think?" he asked as he let himself into the hall, closing my door with a click.

Fact of the matter was, it felt premature to decide if it would be worth it.

I didn't know much about Maze. Out of all the probates, she was the most tight-lipped about her life before prospecting. True, Duke and Renny weren't exactly big talkers about their lives before either, but we knew their stories. I knew their ghosts, their demons, their reasons for their guards. I didn't have that advantage with Maze. I didn't know anything about her upbringing, about what led her to seek out inclusion in a biker club instead of being a normal person. It wasn't a move that made sense for a normal, well-adjusted person. So what had she been through to send her our way?

That being said, I was under the belief that what someone came from meant a hell of a lot less than what they became.

If our pasts really defined us, I was a vicious, violent, horrifying, soulless mutilator and murderer.

True, I'd done that shit.

But that wasn't who I was.

Who I was was the person who never wanted to be that way again.

Aside from the nightmares it gave me and therefore my perpetually tired mind and body, it had very little weight on my daily life.

I felt the same way about Maze.

I didn't particularly need to know what made her into a stubborn, hardass, trash-talking, sarcastic, determined, but also sweet and soft and vulnerable person. I didn't need to know how she learned to fight and shoot and ride a bike. All I needed to know was that was who she was. She was all those things. She was smart and capable. She was guarded for reasons she had that I didn't need to know to understand.

It didn't matter what her favorite color was.

It didn't matter what her earliest childhood memory was.

It didn't matter if she thought tomatoes and avocados were too squishy and disgusting to eat.

What mattered was the woman I worked beside and trained beside and spent time with daily.

And that woman? Yeah, I was thinking she might be worth all the hassle.

Sure, some day, I'd like to know all the other shit. But I wasn't delusional enough to believe she would offer up that kind of personal information to a man who could and would need to use it against her.

Fact of the matter was, I needed to be in it for the long game if I wanted more than a fuck in a field. Though, that fuck in the field was easily the best fuck of my life. It was raw and primal and just fucking... honest. That was what it was. There were no guards between us, no lies, no nothing but bodies enjoying bodies, just the acknowledgment of the connection between us.

So if I wanted a chance of a repeat, I needed to stop playing the tug-of-war with Maze and be upfront. I needed to tell her how it was. I was planning on getting her kicked out, but that didn't change the fact that I wanted a shot with her.