Blood Secrets: Fallen Motorcycle Club Page 2

  “I’ll waste her and we can go.” Fuck. The girl was nothing to me, but I didn’t want to see her brains sprayed out over the sand.

  “What did she do?” Buying time should have been my middle name, because I was spinning shit faster than a spider. I had nothing to say—if Manuel had sanctioned her murder, I doubted I’d be able to get her out of the villa alive anyway.

  “She’s a threat to the cartel, Flash.” I lost my cool then and started laughing. It rolled out of me like helium from a balloon and I let him see just how crazy he sounded. I didn’t even have to see her face—which was kissing the sand—to know she wasn’t a threat. “A threat to the Deleons? Are you fucking kidding me? She’s probably still in school. Jesus, San, she’s just a kid.”

  His face wavered and the hand with the gun relaxed. I felt my stomach loosen and took a step toward him. Whether or not I was willing to throw myself at San and disarm him was a question I couldn’t answer, but I wanted the option. Of course, taking it meant that Manuel would kill me and the girl before going after my brothers. So I opted to try to talk him down.

  “Can’t let her go now, Flash. She saw the villa.”

  I sighed, not looking forward to the bullshit this little rescue mission was going to put me through. “I’ll talk to Manuel. You know The Fallen don’t go in for this bullshit, San. Where are you from, kid?”

  She didn’t answer for a minute and I wanted to clench my fists with frustration. Didn’t she know that I was her only ticket out of here?

  “I asked you a question.” I put a hard edge on my voice; if she was more scared of me than San, she might develop a spine.

  “Ca-California.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m on vacation at…at Two Palms Resort.”

  “See, San, she’s just a fucking scared kid who’s spending time at a resort. Girl, are you going to say shit to anyone?”

  “N-No.” Her body was shaking and the absurd urge to comfort her ripped through me. I put up a wall to stop it. Three things in life I didn’t do: betray The Fallen, snort coke, and give a fuck about women who weren’t related to me. Rosaline asked me to save her, I reminded myself. That was the only reason I was here—because of Rosaline, who might as well have been a distant aunt.

  “Get up.” She obeyed, her arms pushing down so that her body rose. Judiciously keeping my eyes from her tits, I studied her face. Unsteadily, she placed her feet on the ground and then rose from a crouch, looking into my eyes and lifting her chin in quiet defiance.

  Holy shit. Her eyes were deep, shimmering green. The entire world seemed to shrink to a pinpoint and then rapidly expand as I stared into them.

  I didn’t know it then, but the girl was going to destroy me.

  Emily

  “I’m taking the girl.” I still couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses, but I knew Flash wasn’t playing games. The bastard who grabbed me must have known it too, because he backed up a few steps before the biker strode forward and took me by my arm.

  I winced. The kidnapper hadn’t been gentle and I knew my limb would be ringed with bruises by the morning. Flash must have noticed, because his grip immediately loosened and I felt some of the tension trickle out of my body. Whatever else he was, this man wasn’t taking pleasure from my pain.

  “Where are her clothes?”

  “What?” Santiago stepped forward and I cringed. I didn’t want him anywhere near me. Though anger was fueling me, there was still fear burning under it, pooling in every one of the bruises he’d put on my body. My skin was sensitive where the biker held it, despite the unexpected gentleness of his touch, because the sun’s glare had kissed it with a slight burn. All week, I’d laid out on the beach slathered in sunscreen, but this morning I’d reasoned that I didn’t need it.

  Wrong, Emily.

  “Her clothes. Why isn’t she wearing clothes?”

  “I stripped her at the villa,” he said, a whine coating every word. “Dad wanted to make sure that she wasn’t wearing a wire.”

  “I’m sure he was very concerned,” said Flash, sardonic and disbelieving. He was right, of course. The man in the white suit hardly seemed concerned about me, and he knew as well as I did that no wire was worn. All he wanted was to get back to his game and to get his dragon-chasing son off his back. Remembering the way a sour feeling had settled in my stomach when he told Santiago to get rid of me, I shuddered.

  My life wasn’t much, but I wanted the opportunity to live it.

  “Why is everyone giving me shit about this?” Santiago dropped his arms to his sides and pouted like an overgrown child. Maybe I should have been less scared of him, but seeing a man with the emotional control of a kindergartener holding a gun didn’t exactly reassure me. His face was harsh with the sun setting behind him, creating shadows below his cheekbones.

  His emaciated figure reminded me of my uncle. I wondered whether I would ever see the old man again.

  “I’m not giving you shit.” Flash’s voice changed so that it was softer, gentler. Coaxing. He obviously had experience talking people down. That makes two of us. I’d tried to reason with Santiago from the moment he’d pushed me out of the van onto the sand of the dune, but it hadn’t worked. He’d just called me a whore and gripped my hair tight enough that I could feel strands pulling away from my scalp.

  “She’s dangerous,” he insisted, but his voice shook like he wasn’t as sure as he had been.

  “Where did you find her?”

  “Downtown. Right where she was supposed to be. We were tipped off…” He glanced at me with a confused look on his face. “Dad can explain it. But she knew me, Flash. She stared right at me.”

  I hadn’t even noticed him before he grabbed me.

  “What were you doing at the market? Were you meeting someone?” Flash’s tone warned me to be as conciliatory as he was. I looked down at my feet in the sand and resisted the urge to cover my skin. The setting sun still shot the last of its rays over the desert and I could feel them prickle on my flesh. For an hour before he’d drawn the gun to shoot me, Santiago had ranted at me, blaming me for his failures. None of it made sense, but I was grateful for it now that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. If he’d shot me in the first five minutes, all Flash would have found was a corpse.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, soft words slipping out like water from my cracked lips. “I wasn’t meeting anyone. I was just looking for something to send home to my boyfriend.”

  “Why did you stare at Santiago?” Flash’s hand tightened imperceptibly on my arm.

  “He’s—he’s a handsome man.” The words sounded sincere, but it made me sick to speak them. It was like trying desperately to keep down medicine when you’re already ill, and it left the same bad taste in my mouth. But no words were worth more than my life.

  “See? She’s just a dumb kid.” Flash and Santiago laughed together as the wind picked up and more sand blew around us. Unwilling to raise my arms and draw attention to myself, I couldn’t prevent it from abrading my skin and drying out my eyes, even though I closed them quickly.

  “Come on,” Flash said, pulling me toward his bike. “Let’s get home, clear shit up with your dad and do the deal. I need to get back to The Fallen.”

  He ushered me to his bike, sat down and pulled me on behind him. “Hold on tight,” he said, his words almost lost in the whip of the wind around us. I nodded and wrapped my arms around his torso, knotting my fingers against the hard metal of his jacket zipper. From our left, Santiago watched us mount the Harley, then stepped into his van and took off for the villa, kicking up sand in his wake.

  “Thank you,” I whispered, pressing my body against his and speaking directly into his ear as he started the engine. Flash stiffened, but didn’t reply.

  My ass vibrated on the leather seat as the motorcycle rumbled over the sand-swept road that led back to the lighted villa in the encroaching darkness. Flash didn’t hurry. He navigated his bike gently over the bumps and cracks in
the road. Since I needed time to process what had happened, I was grateful.

  I was also kind of aroused.

  Despite the dark day I’d had, I couldn’t deny my physical response to the man who’d saved me—though whether I’d make it home was still very much in question. For now, though, my nipples brushed the smooth leather and rough patches on the back of his jacket, moving against them as the bike bobbed up and down. I couldn’t read them without moving away, and it didn’t seem likely that I’d be able to in the dim light anyway. So I tucked my thighs against the soft fabric of his jeans, leaned my face against his shoulder and let him drive me out of the desert.

  By the time the guard opened the gate and Flash drove the bike up the winding road, I was shaking. The combination of night wind and sunburned skin wasn’t doing much for my internal thermostat. My rescuer turned to look at me after I climbed off the bike on unsteady legs.

  “Are you doing okay?”

  I laughed in a harsh burst. “Better than an hour ago.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Emily. Emily Daniels.”

  “Don’t talk unless you’re directly questioned. Don’t look anyone in the eyes. Try to disappear.” His head was tilted toward me while he issued instructions. He didn’t look to see whether I intended to obey. Obviously he was a man who expected obedience.

  In this, at least, I intended to give it to him.

  “Here.” He took off his jacket and laid it over the chrome handlebars, then pulled off his vest and put it on top of the jacket. Reaching for the hem of his white t-shirt, he pulled it over his head and I fought to keep my jaw closed.

  Flash was the sexiest man I’d ever seen.

  After a lifetime spent around pale, soft men and too-thin junkies, it was a shock to my system to see the hard, muscled chest of a real man. No speckled youth here. No. Flash was all sinew and lean grace as the shirt skimmed over his tanned body. Once it was in his hands, he offered it to me. I chided myself for wanting to reach out and run my fingers down his chest to the beginning of his happy trail above the button of his jeans.

  “Pull this on. We’ll get you some clothes once we’re out of here.” He slid his vest and jacket back on, then walked up the stairs. I could read the patch now: The Fallen Motorcycle Club.

  Since our height difference was at least a foot, the t-shirt covered all the parts of me that I wanted to keep to myself. Well, mostly to myself. I thought about the tattoo that wrapped around Flash’s arm and over his chest, wondering what it would look like if he was above me in bed, pounding in to me while I wrapped my legs around him and—.

  No. This wasn’t the time for my schoolgirl fantasies about a man that I’d never get to have. Even if he was the sexiest person I’d seen in my life. Even if he had walked up to a madman and insisted on freeing me.

  I ran a hand through my hair and felt the grit of the sand against my fingers. Not having access to a mirror meant I had no idea how bruised I was, but I could feel swelling on my face and tenderness throughout my body. Flash waited at the top of the stairs, then put his hand at the small of my back. The gesture radiated throughout my body and gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, everything would work out.

  If I made it out of this alive, I was going to grab my purse from the resort, kiss Mexico goodbye and head home to California. Working for my uncle was better than this, even if only a little.

  Flash

  We were fucked.

  When the girl leaned her entire body against mine and put her mouth close enough to my ear that she almost kissed it, I got an erection the size of Montana. Clenching my thighs together, I ignored her lush body and its heat against my back while we made our way out of the desert. Her perky tits pressed against my jacket when she molded her body to mine, obeying my order to hold on tight.

  If they were giving out awards for self-control, I’d get first fucking place.

  A worse time to lust after a woman didn’t exist and, if it did, I’d never been in it. No matter what Manuel said, I was going to get her out of the compound and to safety before I beat it back home to The Fallen and took whatever punishment the club deemed necessary for getting involved and putting us in the spotlight with the cartel.

  It wasn’t like any of The Fallen were actually scared of Manuel or the rest of his thugs. When Rafael, Manuel’s brother, was still alive, we did a nice little business with them running cocaine over the border. My father and Rafael had been good friends for years—the man was nothing but intelligent and kind. He ruled the Deleon Cartel with an iron fist, not falling prey to the greed and vice that brought down so many others. In the last twenty years, we’d worked the whole operation out neat and tidy so that there was barely a risk anymore on either side.

  Then Rafael got sick real fast more than a year ago. He called Dad and Piston, the president of The Fallen, to say goodbye and then he was gone. Unlike other cartels that chose leaders based on seniority and strength, the Deleon Cartel held to blood—so Manuel took over. He wasn’t the kind of man you’d trust with a brother’s life, but Piston said he was good enough to do business with. Truth was, I didn’t want to lose the money we got for running coke, either. So even though I’d have personally backed away when shit changed, I went with the club’s vote.

  Hell, I would have gone with any vote The Fallen made. The road is long and we are few, but we are one.

  Watching my t-shirt slide down the girl’s golden body disappointed me in a sick way. Here she was, fresh from almost being murdered and probably terrified, and I was lusting after her like a horny old man. It had been years since I’d seen a body that nice; displayed in the soft lights of the patio, she was firm with full tits and a curvy hips. Her little pink nipples were hard and begging for my mouth—but it wasn’t the time or the place.

  Or the right woman.

  Still, my hand gravitated to her back when she finally caught up with me on the stairs. Her nerves were palpable and it would’ve been better for both of us if she was calm, cool, collected. Manuel would smell fear and pounce like a hungry tiger, taking her out before she had a chance to blink those big green eyes that sent a shockwave straight through my chest. Maybe I shouldn’t have cared; maybe it would have been better if I’d told Rosaline there was nothing I could do, talked to Manuel and left right away.

  But here we were.

  Santiago had arrived ahead of us and was sitting next to his father, their heads bent together. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so I cleared my throat to let them know I was there, wishing I’d had time to eavesdrop. Two pairs of brown eyes looked up, took me in and then zeroed in on the girl.

  “Didn’t know you planned to have Santiago at our unscheduled meeting,” Manuel said, his words slow as molasses. I’d shown up days early and he wasn’t happy when I walked through the door. I wasn’t fooling him now, either. The old man knew that I’d gone out there for something other than retrieving his good-for-nothing son and dragging him in here for a quick talk about how to handle the increased volume being pumped out of Columbia.

  “Piston thought it was a good idea to get him prepped. You want him to take over the operation after you, right?” Piston didn’t think it was a good idea to have Santiago do anything. He agreed with me that the man was a bomb just waiting for an activation code, but we’d deal with that later. Right now, what mattered was getting the girl out and sending her far away from Manuel.

  The cartel leader nodded, but the shrewd look didn’t leave his eyes. Silently, we agreed that each of us was aware of the subterfuge. We weren’t going to hash it out in front of the unstable man whose fingers twitched and fluttered nervously in his lap. I’d never been more glad that my father kept me away from chemicals. We deal, but we don’t indulge.

  “We need to get her out of here so we can talk business.” Manuel pressed a button on his smartphone and moments later a man in a dark suit walked through the door.

  “What are you going to do with her?” His smile grew when I asked the questi
on, and I silently cursed my big mouth. Caring about whether she lived or died gave him power over me that he didn’t deserve. Power I didn’t want to give up.

  “She was here. She shouldn’t have been here.” The veneer of sorrow he wore like a mask wasn’t fooling me. “She’ll have to go back to the desert.” There was something else to this, but digging wasn’t going to get me and the girl out alive.

  Emily jerked at the words, and I knew then that she could speak Spanish. Her movement was small enough to be imperceptible to anyone who wasn’t in contact with her body, and a warm sense of approval rolled over me. I liked that she wasn’t a weeping mess on the floor. I’d seen too many women get frantic over shit that barely mattered. That, I couldn’t do anything with. This girl’s calm demeanor meant she still had a shot.

  “It’s a shame to waste her,” I said, and Manuel smiled. Now I was speaking his language. “She’s got legs like a fucking runway model.” I reached down and grabbed her ass, raking her body with a hot stare designed to let Manuel see what I wanted from her. “What if I take her off your hands?”

  “Too dangerous. You can’t keep the woman forever.”

  “Not forever,” I said, “but come on man. Look at this bitch. Let me have a night with her before you waste her.” I made sure to keep my tone full of respect. When his smile widened, I winced on the inside and maintained a straight face.

  “What do I get out of your night?”

  “I’ll reduce our cut.” Fuck, Piston’s going to rip my head off. “Instead of 40 percent, give us 35.”

  “You’d take a five percent cut for a little pussy?” Right when I thought he’d say no, his expression changed. Manuel liked money, and cutting the take by five percent would give him a lot more green.