behind, talking quietly to each other. They’re looking at something on Rat’s phone.
At the bike, Spider takes up his helmet and slips it onto my head, buckling the chinstrap. Maybe it’s because of everything that’s happened in the last few hours, or maybe the heat of the sun is getting to me, but the solidness of the helmet and the leather strap he pulls snug makes me feel oddly secure, protected.
“You are far too much trouble,” he whispers, running his thumb possessively over my lips. “You’ll pay for this later.”
Fixed on my mouth, his eyes turn to pools of blue lust, his voice throaty with desire that makes it clear how he intends to make me pay.
I stare at him, incredulous. “Seriously? You’re going to punish me for being kidnapped?”
“Who was he?”
I click my teeth. “I told you, I don’t know.”
“Did he say anything to you before we showed up?”
“He didn’t say much.” I snap my fingers. “Except when he first dragged me inside there. He said, ‘I’m not surprised you’re so much trouble if he has a thing for you.’”
“He, meaning me.”
“Yeah. I assumed he was one of the Satan’s Bastards.” I wince saying the second word. “I assumed he was talking about you. Oh, and then he said, ‘He’ll be here soon.’ I thought he meant the other MC’s president was coming to pay you back for killing his brother.”
But since he wasn’t talking about the Bastards, who was he talking about? Who else could be after me?
“He? He’ll be here soon? That’s exactly what he said?”
“Yes.”
“He who?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
He searches my face, his brows down. “I still think you’re lying.”
“Why?”
Rat and Striker mount up, and Spider follows suit.
“Call it a hunch,” he says. “I’ll get it out of you eventually.”
I gulp, hating how the threat in his tone scares me as much as it makes my sex tighten. “How?”
“However I have to. Get on.”
I sigh and climb on behind him. When my butt hits the seat, the wallet hidden there presses against my skin, a reminder of my plan, and the danger I’m in if he finds out about it.
It doesn’t matter how much he affects me. I just saw him blow a man’s face off, and he spent hours torturing me in a cell. He’s threatened to kill me more times than I can count, and I know if I cross him the wrong way, he’ll make it happen. Plus, Sarah is still out there. I have to get away from him. Somehow.
Spider stares out at the café below. “This was…” He stops and shakes his head, silent.
“What?” I press. “Spider, if you think you know who he was working for, please tell me. If someone’s after me, I need to know.”
Saying nothing, he finds my hands behind him and yanks my arms around his waist. Then he starts up his bike, not for the first time ending the conversation.
I already have the Colony hunting me, Spider has the Satan’s Bastards gunning for him, and now there is this new unnamed danger to worry about. I can’t help feeling as if threats are closing in on all sides.
As we ride off into the desert, my head spins with a million questions. Questions that, if Spider knows the answers to, he isn’t going to answer them any time soon.
5
Defying the Devil
“Fuck. Striker, you shit.” Spider lets out a string of curses, rounding away from Striker’s broken down bike.
The motorcycle sits in the middle of a garage off the 93 with a mechanic looking over it and babbling about the busted engine. The mechanical jargon sounds like gobbledygook to me.
I could find some excuse to pull the guy aside and ask for his help, but Spider already warned me to keep my mouth shut on the way in here. He’s not going to let me get the guy alone.
Before we’d gone in to talk to mechanic, Spider had borrowed a shirt from Striker’s bag, giving it to me to cover up. The shirt is huge, swimming almost to my knees, which keeps the mechanic from seeing the evidence of Spider’s twisted depravity on my chest and stomach.
“How long will the take to fix?” Spider growls at the mechanic.
The balding man’s thick grey mustache twitches and he tenses. I have the distinct impression he’s stopping himself from taking a step back from the huge biker. “A couple of hours. Th-there’s a restaurant across the road if you want to grab a bite while you wait.”