Page 8 of Twisted Road

He expected her to show him fear. Instead, she gave him a faint smile. “If you want to teach me some kind of lesson, you’ll have to do it when I’m capable of hearing you.”

That just pissed him off more. He couldn’t win with her. His fist tightened even more in her hair. “You don’t put yourself in danger like that. It wasn’t necessary.”

Her green eyes searched his, and for the first time she looked uncertain. Maybe hurt. She was beginning to realize he was truly pissed at her. She’d been too cold and in pain to understand he wasn’t kidding around with her. He could see the knowledge blossoming in her eyes.

“I thought it was.” She whispered her answer. He felt each word like fingers stroking over his cock. She was beat the hell up, had three different wounds, was cold as fuck, and all he was beginning to think about was fucking her.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t.”

“Okay, then.” Her long lashes came down, covering the green of her eyes.

He lowered her head to his chest, but this time she didn’t snuggle close. She was still in the same position, but there was tension in her body that hadn’t been there before. Earlier, she’d been wholly relaxed; now she was not.

Good. Maybe she’d listen to him when it came to her safety. He stroked a caress down the back of her head and felt her wince. She didn’t tell him to stop. She didn’t whimper or whine. How many others, men or women, would have gone through what she had and not been vocal about their discomfort?

He refused to feel guilty. He needed to get his point across to her. She was five foot nothing and weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. She had no business attacking men with a blow-dryer, let alone facing off with a man with a gun just so she could toss Keys a pair of scissors. The memory of those few seconds would haunt him for the rest of his life. He’d thought he’d lost her.

His fist tightened even more at the thought. A protest. A gut reaction. He was used to being in control of everything around him. He guarded Steele, the VP of Torpedo Ink, his club. He faced down members of other clubs easily. He had a reputation. His club counted on him when the going got rough, and he always came through. Because he had complete control.

It had taken a concentrated effort to get past Lyric’s reserve. She didn’t trust. Others didn’t see it. They thought they had a relationship with her, but like him, she gave a false impression of who she was. No one ever got beyond that first layer. Only Keys had.

He’d worked at it without knowing why, and he’d gotten the real woman. Sunshine and laughter. Shocking intelligence. She was amazing and could talk to him on any subject with ease. Every day he was away from her, even during his regular club duties, he found himself missing her. Wondering what she was up to. Worried some asshole would convince her to go out with him. She certainly got enough invitations.

He’d gotten her trust, and now he felt her withdrawal. Hell no. She wasn’t using his justified anger to drive a wedge between them. Unfortunately, he couldn’t confront her. She was exhausted and hurting. He didn’t have any painkillers to give her. The small first aid kit was mostly empty. It didn’t even have an aspirin in it.

He wrapped his arms around her, surrounding her with strength and safety. Very gently he massaged her back in a small circular motion. Each time he encountered one of those strange scars, he traced it with the pad of his finger. She had more on her front than her back, but she had them.

He found her arms and began to massage them as well. He couldn’t imagine how she’d managed to make that throw when her arms had been numb. He’d had enough prisoners and been one enough times to know what happened when arms were put the way hers had been. She hadn’t had enough time to fully get back feeling. He wasn’t certain how she’d done it, but she had. Determination, courage and sheer grit.

He felt the moment she drifted off. He didn’t want to take chances with her head wound, but he was every bit as tired as she was. It wouldn’t hurt to lay it down for a moment. He’d positioned her shoes and his boots on the floor below the heater. They would have to dry along with his jeans and hers. He sent up a small prayer that the heater would last long enough to get it done.

He made a list in his head of everything he would need to do before they abandoned the truck. He wished they could stay, use it as shelter, at least until Lyric was stronger, but he knew that would be suicide. They weren’t equipped to go head-to-head with the bosses of the clowns that attacked them.

He’d spent three months investigating the Headed for Hell club. Rumor had it that they used the mountains and caves to hide guns, drugs and trafficked victims. He was good at sniffing out corruption. He’d ridden into town with his partner, Destroyer, another Torpedo Ink member. Neither wore their colors and both felt naked without them. It had been a relief when Czar, their president, called them back, and they could slide into their cuts, wearing them like a second skin.

But he hadn’t stayed away. And he hadn’t told anyone where he went when he disappeared. He’d mentioned to his VP, Steele, that he was going to get a haircut once. He didn’t know why he kept returning, and he didn’t want to have to try to explain. Now Lyric was going to pay for that fuckup. His club would have been there in a heartbeat if he hadn’t already established a pattern of being gone a week or more at a time.

He’d missed something in the investigation. The Headed for Hell club must have identified him. It was possible. Two of the members of Headed for Hell had come one night to their roadhouse when Keys was playing with the band. They hadn’t stayed long, and neither club member acted as if they remembered him.

Torpedo Ink did their best to keep a low profile, but they did a lot of work for other clubs. They were considered a support club to the Diamondbacks, one of the largest clubs worldwide. When they’d first become Torpedo Ink in Diamondback territory, they’d had eighteen original members. They’d taken on two of Czar’s brothers and Destroyer. Then Rock earned his full patch.

A club in Trinity requested to be brought into Torpedo Ink. Like the entire Torpedo Ink club, those men had also gone to the schools in Russia and when they were cut loose, they had no way to integrate back into society. They had twenty-five members, all trained assassins. They were voted in, and just like that Torpedo Ink had a second chapter and had doubled in size.

A third club, Rampage out of the Sierra, had come to them asking for the same. Those men and women had been taken from their families and made into assets for Sorbacov in Russia. They were being thoroughly investigated. Czar didn’t fuck around. If anyone betrayed their club, they weren’t just thrown out, they were killed. Once in, there was no walking away. And that included their old ladies if those women knew anything about the club. That would put Lyric in further danger if he took her home…He shut that thought down.

Torpedo Ink didn’t play games. They went after traffickers and pedophiles, but that didn’t mean they were pure as driven snow. They didn’t even try to be. They were tough; they played for keeps. If they needed information, they knew how to extract it. Every member of their club was skilled in the art of killing.

Keys inhaled, taking in the odor of blood mixed with sweat, and a much fainter scent of strawberries. Lyric. He’d gotten her into a hell of a mess. They weren’t out of the woods yet. And if he convinced her to come home with him…There it was again, on repeat.

What the hell was he thinking? He wasn’t a one-woman man. He didn’t have it in him to tie himself to a woman. He didn’t do relationships. His fingers found Lyric’s hair again. He had no idea what to do with her. If they got out of this alive and he went home to Caspar, he couldn’t keep coming back on the pretense of a haircut. Not to mention, he’d pretty much gone through all the available women in town and the surrounding county. If anything, his pussy count had been higher than average, mostly because Lyric had him tied in knots. The thought of never seeing her again was unacceptable. He found himself swearing, wondering what the fuck he’d gotten himself into.

Keys wasn’t a dreamer. He wasn’t a man who had fantasies, yet he had them about Lyric. All the fuckin’ time. He dreamt of her at night and woke up so hard he thought he’d shatter. He wanted her every way he could have her. He’d even acknowledged that to himself a few times and then quickly shut that part of his brain down.

Lyric wasn’t a onetime fuck. He didn’t want that for her. More importantly, if he ever really lost control and took what he wanted from her, every instinct he had told him it would never be enough. She’d ruin his life. Ruin him. Destroy him.

He slid his hand down the slope of her back, memorizing the feel of her. Like silk. His palm cupped her right butt cheek. She had very firm muscles, a strong core from all the hiking and climbing she did, but there was that smooth, silky layer his rough palms stroked and caressed. Already, he thought of her as belonging to him; therefore, her body was his. If only it could be that simple.

“Stop grabbing my butt.”