Vipers Run (10 page)

I was quiet on the ride back to Cage's. Rocco didn't press for conversation, just put the music on loud enough to drown out my thoughts for the short trip. He walked me up, made sure I got into the apartment all right. I took a shower and was just pulling on a flannel shirt of Cage's I'd found when I heard him come into the apartment.

I practically ran out there, in my bra and underwear and my shirt unbuttoned, only thinking that he could've brought someone back here with him, when it was too late. He stared at me and I pulled the shirt around me, because my nudity was distracting him and the way he watched me was distracting me. We had our own fight to finish, dammit.

“Are you all right?”

“Do I not look all right?” he asked. He had a day's worth of stubble on his cheeks. A cut above his eyebrow that had been stitched. His hands
looked like they'd gone a few rounds, but other than that . . . No, he looked
good
.

“Did they arrest you?”

“They tried.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Means you shouldn't ask questions that will get you in trouble later, if it ever comes down to that.”

The protection thing again.

“You don't have to keep holding your shirt closed like that,” he said. I moved to button it and he snorted. “You want to tell me what's going on?”

“Nothing. Except you go out and fight and come home and the first thing you worry about is the fact that my shirt is open.”

He shrugged. Smiled. “You look cute.”

“Cute, huh?”

“Still pissed?”

“Yes. Actually, more than I was before.”

“Why? Because I want to take care of you?”

“Well, you can't keep taking care of me any way you see fit.”

“Why not?” Cage demanded. “Fucking hell, woman, why the fuck not? It's all I want to do. It's exactly what I will do, and you're not stopping me, so you might as well stop fighting this battle and pick another.”

“Why? So I can lose that one too?” I crossed my arms and stared at him.

“There are some battles you can most definitely win, Calla. Battles you like. Battles that leave you screaming my name and coming so hard you'll swear you won't see straight.”

“Try me.”

“Try you?” he echoed. “You've already tried me tonight, with your dancing.”

I swallowed hard, because that's exactly what I'd been doing. And he'd known it. The game I'd played had worked, and I'd both lost and won.

He advanced, picking me up so I was slung over his shoulder, and that's when I realized I might've pushed this battle thing a little too far. Because even though I might win a battle, he was about to win the whole goddamned war.

I was on the couch, the shirt sliding back to my shoulders, his hand down my underwear and on my sex. I was helpless, impaled on his fingers as he explored me leisurely. I couldn't sit still, but I didn't want to hump his hand. But that's exactly what I ended up doing, especially after his mouth sucked one of my nipples through the thin cotton. He jerked the fabric up with his teeth, ripped my bra off and caught the nipple lightly between his teeth, flicking the end with his tongue as his fingers made me wetter than I'd ever been.

I arched against him and tried to squirm away at the same time, but he wasn't letting me escape. The biggest part of me didn't want that either.

My belly tightened, my voice thready as I moaned his name, and he knew he had me. He knew it, caught me in his gaze as surely as his hands made me his. My body responded to him in a way it would for no one else. I'd been sure it would happen that way, but now that it was actually happening, it made me want to beg him to just hurry up and fuck me.

But his hand set a leisurely pace, like he was teaching me a lesson about control. “I know you wanted to pay me back for the video. But having you sit there and stroke yourself for me, that would let you distance yourself from me. And I don't want distance between us, baby, you got that?”

“Yes,” I managed, threw my head back as my sex contracted around his fingers, wet, slick and needy.

“I've got you, Calla. I told you that from the beginning. I've got you.” He looked down at his hand and back up at me and—fuck, it was so dirty . . . and I was going to come.

“Cage, I—”

“Go ahead and come,” he said casually and my body betrayed me by following the
command immediately. The air sucked out of my lungs with the intensity of the pleasure that followed, a long string of contractions that tortured me in the best way possible.

“I'm going to fuck you tonight, more times than you can count. I'll fuck every last bit of worry out of you, because when you're with me, I don't want any worry running through your mind.”

“Cage, Jesus . . .”

“I know you like dirty talk, Calla. Don't try to deny it to me.”

I wouldn't. Couldn't.

“I'm going to taste you now,” he warned as he threw one of my legs over his shoulders and bent in to grab my clit between his lips. He sucked hard, then licked my slit slowly, probing inside. He flattened the bundle of nerves with his tongue, then speared me with it, hard, sending me into a shattering, all-consuming orgasm.

“Stop,” I told him, but he was still licking me, sucking me, tasting me. He watched me too, and I realized I really couldn't do anything but enjoy him. This was all about me. I was safe. Pleasured. Cared for.

It was the most primal pairing I'd ever had, one I never thought I'd be able to enjoy. I was
used to being the aggressor, picking out men who were a little afraid of me, picked exactly for that reason, so I didn't have to be afraid of them.

I was so afraid of Cage, but for reasons that captured my heart and not my fear. And as I lay on the couch, he moved up over my body, nuzzling my neck.

“Talk to me,” he said.

I didn't want to tell him that everything balled up inside of me, that I didn't know where I belonged—but I told him exactly that.

He took me fiercely, rolled me underneath the weight of his body and said, “You belong with me. You belong to me.”

And strangely, the thought of being owned comforted me instead of scaring me. “Do you belong to me too?” I asked.

“Is that what you want?”

I nodded and he smiled. The pull to him was indescribable. There wasn't a chance of denying it, or a reason to do so. No, the attraction was as palpable and obvious as the sun. If we touched, we imploded, for better or worse.

I don't know why connections happen, but this one took me by surprise—and by the throat—and wouldn't let go. I didn't want it to, no matter how bad or hard it got, no matter how scared or unsure I became at times.

Like now.

It would become all of those things, but I'd been through both bad and hard and I'd come out the other side. And I was prepared for whatever happened between me and Cage to destroy me. Destroy Cage. Destroy both of us.

But we'd been joined.

“You hear me, Calla? Mine,” he emphasized as he drove his cock inside of me, reminding me whose I was, of who I was. Cage's girl. And that's what I'd wanted.

Taking the consequences was simply a part of that.

Maybe I'd fallen too fast and too hard for my dangerous man. He was in my blood—and that need had always been there too. I couldn't deny it. But it would cost me. It would cost us
both.

The next evening, Cage went out on his own. He'd spent the whole day with me, and I didn't press when he told me he had more club business to attend to. He didn't look happy about it, so I assumed it wasn't another night at the bar.

I waited up for him—because I was worried. Because I missed him. And when he came home around three in the morning, I had to force myself not to run out to greet him. I waited in bed until he came in. And he didn't look surprised to see me awake.

There was a bruise on his cheek and his hand was scraped along his knuckles, and that did get me up and out of bed. “Cage . . .”

“You told me you'd rather fight than run,” was all he said.

“Who did you fight?”

He sat heavily on the edge of the bed, still not talking. I went to the bathroom, got a washcloth and washed his cuts. Stripped him out of his shirts. Bent to take off his boots. He shifted to get out of his jeans and I paused to admire his long, lean body.

Whatever had happened tonight was bothering his soul more than his body.

I grabbed him a cold soda. He guzzled it. Told me, “You're acting like an old lady.”

“I'm acting the way you should when you care about someone,” I corrected. But I still smiled at the “old lady” thing. “Am I allowed to ask questions?”

He motioned to the bed and I climbed in. He followed, tucked in next to me, then said, “They're bringing drugs right into Skulls. To the fucking high school—and tonight we stopped them.”

“The Heathens?”

“Gotta be. They're using some low-level dealers to do their dirty work.”

“Do the Heathens know you're back here?”

“Yeah. And word will spread more after tonight.” He paused. “I'm sorry, Calla, but I can't hide forever.”

“I don't want you to.”

He shook his head. “If they succeed in getting the drugs in here, Skulls won't survive. I won't let that happen.”

He sounded so fierce. So protective. Because he'd grown up here. Preacher had too, and although the town didn't love the Vipers MC, tonight Cage had stopped the Heathens from selling meth to a group of high school kids. He'd saved lives tonight, and I wished the town could know that.

“Go off to war. Come home . . . still a war. Same goddamned war I've been fighting for what feels like forever.”

I knew all about those kinds of wars. “I wish I could fix it for you.”

“You are, babe. Just coming home to you like this . . . you have no idea what it helps to fix.”

The MC men weren't angels. I was pretty sure that the Vipers garage was a front for a chop shop—one of my mom's boyfriends stole cars, so I was pretty familiar. No, none of these guys would ever be accused of being an angel.

But tonight, it appeared they'd won a battle.

* * *

Several days later, we'd fallen into a predictable, if not comfortable, pattern. Often I'd stay in while Cage conducted club business, and then we'd go out—sometimes to dinner and sometimes to the bar—and I gradually began to meet all the men and women of Vipers.

But even though Cage had claimed me, I didn't have true “old lady” status. Because even
though we'd given up the whole pretense of me not owning him and him not owning me, the fact was, I was in hiding here.

I'd planned on calling Tenn that afternoon, because I needed to hear a familiar voice from someone who semiknew me. But Cage and I ended up heading to the clubhouse for an afternoon barbecue, which stretched out to early evening. The men were fixing their bikes and running around after small kids, and the women were handing out plates of food, and it all looked so normal, like we could be anywhere in America. Anywhere where there were lots of leather jackets. And patches. And tattoos of snakes and reapers and skulls with knives through them.

Still, this gave me a chance to see a different side of the club, to see the guys being gentle with their kids and their women—everything was softer, albeit still rowdy.

I was sitting on the back steps with Cage standing next to me when an olive-skinned woman dressed in black pants and a crisp white shirt under her blazer jacket came around the corner. It was warm out for such an outfit, but I noticed the holster that ran along her side when she moved.

“Cop,” Cage said under his breath at the same moment she chose to focus directly on me.

“How can I help you, Detective Flores?” Cage asked.

“You're just the man I was looking for. You, and Calla Bradley.”

How did she know me? And by that last name? It's not like I'd registered at the post office, and I was pretty sure the MC hadn't announced my name in the local police blotter.

Cage stared steadily at Detective Flores, and I told her, “It's Benson, not Bradley.”

“But your father is Jameson Bradley, correct?”

“What's this about?” I asked, and Cage's hand went to my shoulder.

She made a note on her open pad as a tall black man came around behind her. “My partner and I need to speak with you. We could do it here or down at the precinct, if that would be more comfortable for you.”

“I thought you needed to speak with me,” Cage said.

“I'll get to you,” she said with a curt smile.

“She being charged with something?” Preacher asked. I hadn't seen him come up to her.

She looked up at him, unsurprised, and said, “No.”

“Then you can ask her the questions here and she can decide if she wants to answer them or
not. All within her rights, correct? Or did you forget about that whole innocent-until-proven-guilty rule?” Cage said.

Flores's mouth jerked to the left in a vicious smirk. “Right. I'm supposed to believe that anyone associated with this MC can have the word ‘innocent' attached to their name.”

“Calla's not attached to the MC,” Cage said, and although I knew why he was saying so, it still made me wither. He stood next to me, not touching me, and God, I wanted this over with.

“How do you even know who I am?” I asked.

“I have my sources,” she said, and I swore Cage growled next to me.

Was that source the Heathens? What the hell? “Can you tell me what you came here to say?”

Flores motioned to Cage. “We'd like to speak to her alone.”

“I'd like a lot of goddamned things, but that's not happening,” he replied.

Preacher hadn't made a move to leave either.

I put my hands under my thighs, because I wasn't sure if they'd stop shaking or not.

Flores continued paging through her pad, no doubt trying to see how nervous I'd get while I was waiting. Bernie used to say that the most nervous people were often the most innocent. If
that was the case, I was the most innocent person ever.

“Miss Benson, where were you on Wednesday night?”

“I was out with Cage.”

Flores's gaze never left mine. “Where was that?”

“The bar—Wally's.”

“Ah, the MC bar. Let me guess—you've got an alibi all night.”

She was being so sarcastic and Cage's tone matched hers when he said, “That's right.”

“What time did you arrive?”

“Why don't you check with the owner?” Cage suggested. “She was at the door.”

“Why can't Miss Benson answer the question?” Flores shot back.

Instinctively, I knew I was supposed to lie. Because we'd gotten there late. Because of the fight. Because I didn't go home with Cage and there were hours unaccounted for. “We got there around eight. We left after ten. Maybe eleven.”

“And then?”

The MC must've been rubbing off on me, because I relaxed, glanced up at Cage and smiled. “We took a ride. And there were no witnesses to that.”

Flores's expression grew tight, even more so
when Cage said, “I'm sure we could find someone, babe. You were pretty loud.”

I bit back a laugh, because I really didn't want to piss off the police. “What happened Wednesday night?”

Flores flipped her pad closed. “We'll be checking your alibi with the bartenders, of course.”

My alibi? I went to say something but Cage's stony look stopped me.

Flores smiled and then said to Preacher, “Why don't you show me around your chop shop?”

“Shop's not open to the public. Just where we fix our bikes, Detective,” Preacher said easily.

“I've never bought that bullshit, Preacher.”

Preacher shrugged. “Don't know what to tell you. But all these bikes? They're my club members'.”

“Your gang members' bikes.”

“We're not a gang. We're a club. And I don't see you producing a search warrant.” Preacher was unruffled, and I guessed this happened pretty regularly. Because even I didn't believe what Preacher was selling, but I had to admit, there was zero hard, cold evidence to prove the existence of a chop shop. “If we're done here, you're interrupting a family barbecue.”

She snorted, and her partner, who'd been silent until then, simply said, “We'll be back.”

“You always fucking are,” Cage muttered.

I let them walk away, waited for Cage to sit next to me. Waited for him to say something about my alibi, the fact that I'd lied to the police for him. But he didn't.

Instead, he said, “They always hassle us.”

I glanced at him and his expression was guarded still. “I take it you don't like the police.”

“I like them well enough when they're not bothering us because of our club association,” he said. “The old detectives . . . they were good to us. My record's clean, Calla. I even had to prove myself when I enlisted, because of my MC status, and the cop who vouched for me was a former gang member from LA turned police officer.”

“What did you do in the Army?”

He grinned a little. “I learned how to build bombs, but I can also disable them.”

“There's a metaphor there.”

He relaxed against me. “I thought Flores might be asking questions about your brother,” he admitted.

I tensed up. “What about him?”

“I went to pay him a visit the night she's talking about. He wasn't there. I went back last night. Place looked like it'd been cleaned up—although his stuff's still there. I figured maybe
someone took care of him already, which is no loss to you.”

It wasn't, but the fact that Detective Flores was sniffing around wasn't good. “How did you know where to find him?”

Cage didn't answer me. Wouldn't or couldn't—I guessed it didn't matter. But my head started to throb a little bit. The party moved inside the clubhouse and I noticed that moms were taking their kids home. The majority of the women who stayed were old ladies, but there were a few mamas there with the single guys, as Amelia had pointed them out to me. They were nice enough, once they knew I was with Cage, but I knew not to trust them.

“Can we get out of here?” I asked him now.

“Sure. My jacket's inside. Come on.”

I had to use the bathroom anyway, so I followed him in. He stopped to talk to Preacher for a second and I continued walking toward the bar area so I could go through to his room. My mind was swirling. I was thinking about Ned, wondering if I could have a normal life here. I couldn't say yes completely, no matter how well the past week had gone. But I was trusting Cage more and more each day, so I'd been willing to make it work.

I was so focused on getting to Cage's that I
almost missed it. I'm not sure how, since there were wolf whistles and cheering, and when I stopped dead in my tracks, Cage nearly ran me over.

“Babe, what?” He put his hands on my shoulders but I was immovable, staring at the scene in front of me. I'd seen men and women looking like they were going at it in the bar, but this was different.

There was a woman—one of the young mamas that Amelia had warned me about—sitting on the pool table, her legs spread, and a man kneeling with his head between them. People watched and cheered as she cried out.

“S'all right, babe. Slim just got out of the Navy. Six months on a sub,” Cage explained. And that was fine—I could understand, even deal with it. But not the way the other men eyed her, men I'd sat and talked with. They were getting closer, a few with their hands on their crotches.

“What's going to happen to her?” I asked.

“Whatever Slim wants,” he answered back.

“He'd share her?”

“She's not his old lady. She knew what she was in for.”

“Jesus, Cage.” I turned and tried to push past him. His grip was like iron. I tried one of the moves on him that I'd learned living with Tenn,
and he practically howled but wouldn't let go of me. “Goddammit, he said that would work on anyone.”

“Anyone but me, Calla. Why don't you believe me when I tell you I'm not letting you go?”

He didn't seem to care that we were in public, and no one cared that I was actively fighting him. We were in the clubhouse and this was expected even and, for the most part, ignored by the other men unless there was a gang bang involved . . .

I stopped. Pulled away. Twisted in his arms and he was backing away, his hands out.

Trigger much, Calla?

“Please . . . I have to get out of here.” I heard the woman's cries now—of pleasure, it seemed, but the crowd was chanting and I couldn't watch, couldn't be here.

“Calla—”

“What if that was me!” I yelled finally, and he froze against me. Then he picked me up and carried me out of there, out into the parking lot. He didn't say a word, just strapped the helmet on me, climbed onto the bike and waited for me to do the same. And then he drove away from the madness happening inside Vipers and he took me to his apartment.