Never Have an Outlaw's Baby: Deadly Pistols MC Romance (Outlaw Love) (7 page)

Sometime later, he rolled off me. We both sucked the sweetest tasting air ever into our lungs, staring up at the star scape rolling by above.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?” I asked, tilting my face toward him.

“Not half as pretty as the shit happening down here on the ground,” he growled, so convincing I thought he was serious.

I slapped him on the chest with my hand and laughed. “Oh, come on. Stop. We've already done the deed, Joker. You don't have to keep saying that stuff.”

“Don't fuckin' have to, but I will, babe. It's true. All of it.” He wrapped his arms around me, pulled me onto his chest, cupping my ass with one hand. He squeezed.

“You know, you're kind of a dick, but so far...I don't regret this,” I said, mulling over my words. “I was afraid I would, as soon as it was all over.”

“Over?” He quirked an eyebrow. “We ain't half done fuckin' tonight, babe. I'm thinking I won't be done even then, neither.”

“No?” I said, surprised.

“Nah. Piece and me are gonna be held up here in town for the next few weeks, staying at Grandpa's place. Club business,” he growled darkly. “Sure I'll find some time to slip away for more enjoyable shit. Now that my favorite watering hole's gone bust, I'm gonna need more than just knocking back shots at home.”

I laughed, squealing playfully as he tightened his hold on me.

His words were enough to make me want to put the brakes on, to keep my hopes checked before they soared like rockets. Except that glint in his hazel eyes...I couldn't ignore it.

It was a bright, honest shine. One that meant everything he'd said, his need for more than one night at a deep, primal level beyond any speech.

“Why don't you help me move while you're here? Assuming you can spare an evening, of course,” I said, giving him a sharp look. “I need to be out of mama's place before the bank comes next Friday.”

“Sure. Where you going next?”

“Little apartment on the edge of Seddon. I scrounged up just enough for a deposit and some new furniture. It'll do, until I can find another gig. Maybe I'll just take something easy like ringing folks up or stocking shelves, then wait for another opening at a bar.”

“You really wanna do retail your whole damned life?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

My smile melted. No, of course I didn't, but it was just about the only good option I had in this tumbleweed town, pummeled by a crap economy.

“We can't all just ride off into the sunset and make our money other ways,” I told him, shaking my head. “Christ, Joker. If you're about to offer me some kind of strip job or worse, don't even go there. I don't want it.”

He stiffened underneath me, tightening his hold on my back. I laid a finger on his chest, giving him one firm tap, right across the winged skull darkening his skin.

“I want
you,
Jackson. Not the club. Whatever else is happening between us, that's as far as it goes.”

“Babe, don't be fuckin' stupid,” he said, following the kiss I'd laid on his chest with one on my forehead. “You think I want any of my brothers seeing you naked, then I'm gonna think I truly fucked your brains out. I want you happy, square with your money. If you ain't finding shit here for work, you oughta look elsewhere.”

“Where? Like Knoxville?”

He smiled, cocky and sly as ever. “Something like that. Helluva a lot more opportunities out there than Seddon. Even more in the Tri-Cities, not too far over.”

I didn't answer him then. There wasn't anything to say when my brain was still processing, overwhelmed by everything that had happened tonight.

So, I just buried my face in his chest, freely breathing that scent I'd remembered for three terrible years.

Maybe I'd have to move, if it kept him a little closer, and paid me, too. I'd wanted to put down roots in this town because it was all I knew, but it wasn't working out that way.

Here, the ground was barren.

Not that I'd be making any fly decisions tonight.

All the misery of mama, poverty, and the bar hadn't turned me into a fool. We'd just see how well the next few weeks went.

By the end of them, if he wasn't just playing me – a very
huge
if – then maybe it'd be time to think about finding somewhere new.

His fingers pinched my ass, causing me to look up. That mischievous smirk on his lips turned into a hungry one.

His hand slipped down, pushed between my legs, and pulled them apart like he owned them.

Tonight, I suppose he did.

He jerked me up, moved me over him, until I was straddling his cock, already rock hard.

“Enough fuckin' around with the future, Summertime. We've got the whole damned night ahead, and I'd rather hear you screaming than giving me shit any time. You've got nothing to worry about, long as you're in these arms.”

One push of his hands on my ass cheeks lowered me on his cock. Then I couldn't think about anything at all except how good, how right, how incredible he felt deep inside me.

* * *

T
he next few
weeks should've been a total nightmare. Instead, they'd become a dream.

All thanks to him. Joker.

The bastard who'd taken over my head for three long years roared in, wooed me, and conquered my life.

He came to me every other night since our first beneath the stars. I'd climb on his bike with a grin, feeling my heart skipping a dozen beats per minute. He'd introduce me to half a dozen new secret spots around Seddon I hadn't known before.

Now, I knew them like his body, intimately acquainted with every single one of them when we were naked and horizontal in the tall grasses, the broken down barns, the little nook next to the stream.

That last place, he'd held me up in the air the entire time we fucked, banging me into the boulders behind us each time he thrust deep.

It should've hurt, being flung around like a ragdoll, but of course it didn't.

Basically, the story of this whole insane romance between us. Assuming you could call motorcycle rides, doe eyes, and hard sex any kind of love story.

What should've been agony became delight.

Pain turned into pleasure.

Risk blossomed from barren fear into a beautiful certainty.

Forbidden? Impossible?

All of the above, plus so much more.

Nothing
about us should've worked, especially at this awful crossroads in my life. But it did, damn it.

We were working, hooking up for more than just a fuck. I truly believed we had more to ourselves than sheet soaking sex.

He was exactly what I needed when I left mama's place forever, watching as the sheriff and the moving crew from the bank moved in and roped off the place where I'd grown up.

Joker helped me christen my new apartment the very first night, throwing me down on the mattress between the boxes.

I sucked his cock on the worn floor, practicing everything he'd taught me. Then he slipped between my legs, fisted my hair, and covered my mouth with his free hand.

I bit him to keep from screaming, just shy of making my new neighbors hate me on day one.

Three weeks blurred by in a blissful storm.

He went back to Knoxville, satisfied he'd finished whatever he'd come here to do with his brother.

I didn't ask. He didn't tell.

“Club business,” he'd growl, whenever I got too close to wondering what he did on that bike without me. “We'll talk about anything in the fuckin' world, babe, except for that.”

I wasn't stupid. I knew he did bad, illegal things because he wore that patch. Busted up bigger bastards than him when they asked for it, and earned his money by the sweat of his mystery.

Hell, I'd known it from day one, that first kiss we'd shared when I was just a stupid kid.

Both the Taylor boys were bad news. But to me, he was the best I'd ever gotten, and I wasn't going to let it slip away without giving it a chance.

Joker kept coming, making the long drive down from eastern Tennessee, usually just for me.

One weekend, Piece came with him. Both of them were here to handle more of that growl-worthy
club business
that always put me on edge, however much I tried to pretend it didn't exist.

I'd just started working at the drugstore in town when he picked me up. Even through the noise and at least forty feet to the lot, I heard his motorcycle.

Who knew that harsh sound could make a girl smile every damned time?

Then he was there, in front of me.

When this man walked into a room, everything came to a screeching stop. Customers and other employees froze and stared, watching him swagger in between the registers, decked out in dark leather covered in his fearsome patches like a modern day knight.

“Babe, hurry the fuck up and finish your shift,” he growled. “I'm taking you out tonight.”

I looked at the old woman I'd been ringing up apologetically. Surprisingly, she smiled and shot me a wink, readjusting her glasses. I ran her credit card and scooped her stuff into a plastic bag.

“My, he's a big one,” she said, looking at my man like a piece of meat.

Seriously?
I blinked, gingerly lifting the bag and passing it into her hands.

“Get out of here and have some fun, girl,” the granny said with a smile. “Men like this don't come around except once in a blood moon.”

She was gone. Thankfully, there hadn't been anyone else behind her, so I turned to Joker.

He'd been giving me that arrogant, hungry look the whole time, the one that pulled at my nipples like an invisible set of clamps.
Mercy.

“Did you hear that?” I asked. “Blood moon? What's she talking about?”

“Sounded like blue moon to me.” He shrugged. “Fuck if I know, beautiful. Old spinster's too damned smart for her own good. You heard the woman. Punch the fuck out and let's go.”

Smiling, I sighed and looked over his head, staring at the huge clock mounted on the wall. I had about three more minutes left, but it probably wouldn't hurt to close up a little early.

We passed a rack of cheap tabloids on the way out, filled with the brain candy everyone reads in waiting rooms. Yes, stories about the royal family renting a spare room to Elvis, or how Martians are behind rigging the next election.

One of the magazines had a huge red moon on it. That made me stop and stare, scanning it for a second.

PROPHECY!
The headline screamed.
Will you survive the next blood moon, or crash and burn?

So, that was where she'd gotten it. I kept walking, following him out to his bike, inwardly laughing off the creepy coincidence. The old lady had to have seen them on her way out, too, and maybe she'd slipped up when she meant to say “blue moon.” Just like Joker said.

Out here, the moon hung big and brilliant red in the sky. Even Joker stopped for a second to stare up at it, whistling into the darkness.

“Fuck me with a bottle. Ain't ever seen a big, red bastard like that hanging in the sky for years. Maybe never.” He turned to me with a wicked smile on his face. “Might be the end of the world tonight, babe. We'd better fuck like rabbits.”

“Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes, locking my hands tight around his powerful waist, resting my chin on his shoulder so I had a perfect angle to whisper into his ear. “Is that how you celebrate the end? We were going to do that anyway, right?”

“Damned straight,” he growled, reaching behind us for a second to squeeze my thigh.

My pulse quickened. Blood moon or not, we were getting into some seriously sexy mischief tonight.

Yeah. If only things had gone down that way.

When we took off down the road, I didn't know I was living the last happy moments of my life. It took me a few more weeks to realize how deadly, ominous, and hungry that evil moon in the sky really was.

* * *

“
J
oker
, no! Their lights are on – this place isn't abandoned at all!” Giggling, I flattened my hands on his chest, pushing desperately. “We can't do it here with people around.”

He'd already buried me underneath him, staring down at me with that feral gleam in his hazel eyes. “Fuck if I care. You can bury your face in my palm again if you want so Farmer Jones don't hear you screaming.”