The Devil's Due (11 page)

I nearly let go, nearly followed that tiniest of pleasures straight over the precipice and into the abyss that was growing deeper and more unfathomable the more he tortured me. But he sensed what his words had done to me and removed his fingers from my clit.

I moaned out, my whole body on fire. “Please,” I gasped.

“What did I tell you?”

“I have to listen to what you say!” I was whining now, like a child.

“Good. Now bend over.”

He pushed me roughly forward and my cheek slammed into the mirror. I spread my legs in anticipation and was rewarded with the rough thrust of his cock as he put it inside of me where it belonged.

Grabbing my shoulders, he took up a punishing rhythm. My head rocked back and forth like a ragdoll. My clit was on fire from the slap of his balls against my skin.

“Please?” I begged.

He only growled in response. I scrabbled my feet against the tile floor, unable to find purchase as his thrust lifted me clear into the air. I pinwheeled my arms wildly, seeking to brace myself against the wall, but he caught my arms behind my back.

Twisting them up, he used my own arms as a brace to fuck me harder. I was immobilized, completely at his mercy, completely for his pleasure. The last shreds of my ego fell away and I lost all thought.

“Now,” he roared.

The sudden release of his words unleashed the torrent that had been rising inside of me. The sensations that had been held back on his orders broke free from their dam, crashing forth in a flood of ecstasy so forceful that my sight dimmed. It crashed and retreated, crashed and retreated like ocean waves on the stormy shore. I screamed on and on, wordless, unthinking.

From somewhere outside of myself, I felt his taut muscles bunch and gather. He surged upward with a thrust so powerful I was sure I would be split in two. His body vibrated with wordless spasms as he came over and over. He thrust out the last dying shudders as my own waves receded until we were spent.

I closed my eyes. The exhaustion of this day was taking hold. My body, numb with shock and the receding turmoil of my orgasm, was still for the first time today. He had taken my terror and rage and turned it into something else entirely. He had taken control, had taken the weight of me onto his broad shoulders. It was the second time he had rescued me today.

Embracing me from behind, Cade lifted me up from my uncomfortable perch on the sink and gently set me down on my feet. He kissed my shoulder, pulling away and I felt the emptiness inside of me.

“I wish you could stay in there,” I purred.

He rumbled a low laugh. “How would we ride?”

I smiled and turned to kiss him. “I’ll just sit across your lap. We can let the bike do the work for us.”

“Mmm,” he brushed his lips across mine. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Why not?” I stood on my toes, flinging my arms around his shoulders. I felt renewed. I also wanted to be fucked again. I kissed his neck; right where it met his broad shoulder, then licked the fine sheen of sweat from his skin. “We could ride that way forever, ‘cause I’m yours now.”

HIs playful manner retreated. “Not quite yet.”

“But you said.” I smiled playfully. “I heard you.”

He sighed. “I keep trying to tell you. This thing you want—to ride with the Devils—it’s not as easy as you think.”

“What do you mean?”

“You already saw what we do to the women who ride with us. That happened to you...”

“You warned me. I didn’t listen.” I shut down the part of my brain that wanted to dwell on the eyes on me during my initiation. “It’s behind us.”

“It isn’t. Now you have to be approved by the president of the whole club. And Lainey, if he doesn’t like you... that’s it. We’re done. I have to cut you off right there. No more ties. No protection. You’ll be alone in a strange city where you don’t know anyone.”

I swallowed. I had already been in a strange city. If he hadn’t been there to protect me... I didn’t want to think about that.

“Well then,” I said brightly. “I’ll just have to be certain he likes me.”

Cade looked like I had punched him in the gut.

“What?” I asked, crestfallen.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“I need to know what I should do here, Cade.”

The stricken look on his face was at odds with the words coming from his mouth. “You do whatever feels right for you, Lainey-girl.”

I blinked. “It feels right for me to be with you,” I protested.

He nodded and smiled sadly. “I hope you continue to feel that way.” He looked down, suddenly bashful, and the sight made me want to laugh out loud. My huge biker, embarrassed. “I like you, Lainey-girl.”

I touched his face. “I like you too, Cade.”

He smiled again.

“So, how should I deal with Moloch?” I pressed.

“Moloch is...” Cade dropped his voice. Then he thought even better of it and turned on the water full blast. He put his lips close to my ear, but I still had to strain to hear him say:

“I’m hearing things. Things I don’t like. But...” He trailed off for a second and I rested my head on his chest. “But I don’t know. I can’t be sure. And he’s our leader.”

“You don’t like him.”

“I’ve been... away. I can’t say for sure.”

I pushed back from him, frustrated. “Why are you being so cagey?”

Fury blazed in his eyes for a moment, then died away. “Because, Lainey-girl. I can’t trust anything until I see it with my own eyes. Rumors and gossip and all that bullshit—that only gets you in trouble.”

“Well, tell me the rumors.”

He sighed. “There are some guys—good guys, brothers through and through. They tell me things are changing. The club ain’t what it was. And that’s ‘cause of Moloch. They want...” He trailed off again. “They want me to do something about it.”

“Do you want to do something?”

“Like I said, I don’t know what I haven’t seen with my own eyes.”

“Why do they want
you
to do something? Why can’t they?”

He grimaced, and fury flooded back into his face. He turned from me and stalked away, as far as he could in the tiny bathroom.

“Don’t be asking so many questions,” he growled. “You may hear an answer you don’t like.”

I clamped my mouth shut, but couldn’t hold back. I was irritated. It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t telling me something—something very important. Something vital to my understanding of my new life and the new challenge that lay ahead. He was keeping me in the dark deliberately.

But I couldn’t think of what to say to him. My thoughts were a confused jumble of fear and exhaustion.

I must have been lost in thought, because the next thing I knew, he was at my side. I jumped to see him there as if nothing had happened. He was looking at me the way he had before, lovingly and slightly amused. I regarded him warily.

He caught my wrist and brought my fingers to his lips. “We have to ride now.”

“Clothes, Cade,” I said carefully, looking down at my tattered bra and filthy skirt. “I need clothes.” I needed to buy time to think.

He grimaced. “Wait here.”

I chewed nervously at my shredded fingernails while he was gone, taking stock of the danger I was in. I could go back. I could leave right now and use a pay phone to call Cora. It would be a scandal, but she would help.

I touched my cheek. She would cluck over me and then take me right back to Darryl. I would go right back to the shitty little life I had sacrificed so much to escape. But this time, Darryl would know I had defied him. I shuddered to think of the punishments he would dream up.

I didn’t know what lay ahead of me. But I knew what I was in for if I returned to Flint Springs. The devil I knew versus the devil I didn’t.

I took a deep breath and made my choice.

I would rather dance with the devils I didn’t know.

Cade knocked lightly on the locked bathroom door and I let him in. He handed me a dark green bundle.

“Truck stops are short on clothes in your size,” he explained.

I unfurled a t-shirt the size of a bed sheet and broke out laughing. Emblazoned across the front in crude typeface were the words, “Hide Your Chick, I’ve Got a Semi.”

“Brilliant,” I laughed. “How am I supposed to wear this? It’s a tent.”

“Relax, I got you covered.” He whipped out a package of hair ties that still had the price tag on it. With deft fingers, he looped several of them together. “Put it on,” he said, looking quite pleased with himself.

The neck hole was so wide the t-shirt puddled effortlessly over my head and fell all the way to my knees. Cade looped his creation around my waist, tying off the chain of hair ties into a makeshift belt that pulled the t-shirt in at the waist.

I looked in the mirror and laughed hysterically to see myself in the world’s weirdest, most inappropriate dress.

“I’m a trendsetter!” I sang out, striking a runway model pose.

Cade bent to kiss my bare shoulder as it peeked out of the neck hole. “Here, your hair keeps blowing into my face.” He broke open another package and began running a hairbrush through my tangled, knotted hair. He was so gentle and careful that I closed my eyes in bliss.

Working the tangles out piece by piece, he teased out the knots and began smoothing it back from my face. I felt a tug and opened my eyes to see my huge, imposing biker deftly plaiting my hair into a tight braid. He must have seen my stunned look in the mirror.

“We have to learn how to tie knots,” he muttered gruffly, and I suppressed my smile.

“There, how’s that?” he asked, stepping back appraisingly.

I looked in the mirror. Without the curtain of hair hanging in my face, I felt unprotected. I could see the bruises and cuts and all the puffiness around my eyes from my tears. Without my hair in my face, I was forced to look at myself as I was.

My wide-set blue eyes were red-rimmed and frightened. My lips were swollen and bruised. I was dancing with the devil of my own will, and I needed to face that fact head on.

“Better,” I replied, squaring my shoulders. “Let’s ride.”

As we roared out of the truck stop, the rest of the gang followed behind. I wrapped my arms around Cade and sighed. I didn’t know where he was taking me, but I was glad to be with him on that road.

W
e rode through the night, stopping only to refuel along a dark stretch of highway. The gas station shone from afar like a blazing sun on the horizon, but when we reached the pumps, it was only a bored attendant who greeted us.

I stepped off the back of the bike to stretch and shivered in spite of myself.

Cade saw immediately. “You cold?” he asked.

“A little,” I grimaced. The sleeves of the t-shirt dress didn’t quite make it past my elbows and the wide neck left me exposed to the wind.

Immediately, Cade was at my side, draping his leather jacket across my shoulders. “Well, shit,” he grumbled, “I’m an asshole. Here.”

I smiled up at him. “Won’t you get cold?”

“I got you wrapped around me,” he said simply.

The shock of his sudden sweetness brought a tear to my eye. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.” I chirped, trying not to let things get too sappy.

“Don’t get used to it,” he said as he smiled, watching the gallons tick by on the pump.

I shrugged my shoulders into the sleeves. The jacket swallowed me whole and was still warm from Cade’s heat. I nuzzled down into it, smelling that leather infused with his scent. I was surrounded by that intriguing smell of honey that clung to my tongue and made my whole body feel kissed.

Nearly drunk on his scent, I climbed back onto the bike and wrapped my arms around his waist. I had to roll the sleeves up to reveal my small hands.

He looked down at them, secure around his waist, and paused. For the briefest of moments he touched them, covering them with his massive hand in a protective gesture.

Then he kicked the hog to life and we sped back onto the highway.

The lonely darkness of the empty road faded like the stars as we reached the outskirts of Puerto de Fuego at dawn. The vast stretches of scrub gave way to feed stores and rolling ranches.

In a few short miles, we emerged into the far suburbs that ringed the city. Highway exits snaked into former farmland now turned into a playground for the rich. Ahead of us lay the steel and chrome of Puerto de Fuego, too far off still to be anything more than a glint on the western horizon. But out here it was all stone and brick.

Purple light glinted off the windows of the rich houses in the hills above the highway. We were going too fast for me to get a good look, though I craned my neck to its limit. I wanted to spy on those people and see their lives. What did rich people do? What did big city people do?

For the first time in my life, I was able to see the kinds of houses I had only ever seen on TV. I saw wide expanses of green lawns, greener than I had ever seen in my life. They were rolling, park-like, carved straight out of the desert. And they all were lavishly irrigated at the expense of people downriver. It was always the poor that suffered, it seemed.

As the Devils roared into a tight formation, the few cars already on the road parted to make way for us. We moved through the sea of traffic like we were Moses in one of Cora’s stories.