so pissed, I’d have laughed. I am so going to make her do that now. The woman is usually so pliant and submissive that when she suddenly fires back like this, it’s adorable. There’s a quiet strength in her that simultaneously makes me want to break her and respect her for it. It takes effort to keep from smiling, to offer her a deadpan stare that gives nothing.
“So you’re going to kill me now.” She straightens, defiant, as if facing the inevitable.
I hate that my answer isn’t an immediate and resounding yes. As the Devil’s Outlaw’s SAA, I’m supposed to defend the club against any threat. Maintaining the respect of the other members is tantamount, and that means I have to be ruthless with those who go against us. I have to be, and I am.
Three years ago, four years after I was promoted to Sergeant At Arms, a member of a rival club tried to steal a shipment of guns. Dragon caught him and handed him over to me, waiting for me to dole out retribution.
I did what had to be done. After I strung him up in the same cell where I’d held her, in the basement of Casper’s, I’d gutted him, let him bleed out, then buried him under six feet of sand miles from the clubhouse. It was brutal, but it was what was expected of me.
The Outlaws maintain the power we have because people know what happens when they piss us off. You don’t earn that kind of reputation by playing nice or going easy on anyone. Compassion is a weakness for a man in my position, and weakness is death. Were she anyone else, I’d have taken her out back and put a bullet in her skull.
And yet…
As much as I should be killing her for her actions, there is something about her that keeps me from doing so. It’s not because she saved Cap, and it isn’t because of the connection that somehow forged itself between us following that act, because this isn’t the first time I’ve spared her. She’s under my skin, but it’s more than that. Whatever it is, it makes me want to cut it out of me, and it makes me even more pissed at her for calling it up in me.
“I should kill you,” I whisper. I curl my hand around her nape, letting the power I have over her sink in. Then I let my tongue flick her ear, feel her delicious tremor in response. My cock jerks, and I almost push her to her knees and throat fuck her right there. “I should string your gorgeous body up and fuck your ass while I strangle you.”
“What will you do?” she grits out. Panic and anger burn in her eyes.
“Whatever I damn well please. I own you. You seem to keep forgetting that. I intend to drive the lesson home to the fullest.”
Her dark eyes go huge. Moisture pools in them. “How?” Her voice is hard, but it also cracks. I can see it in her eyes, see her watching the connection between us breathe its dying breath.
I drop my hand from her shoulder and step back, doing up my pants and belt. “We’ll deal with this later. Get dressed.”
Confusion makes her brows scrunch. Nervous hope fills her eyes. She can’t figure out what’s keeping me from killing her, and she’s daring to hope I’m not just waiting for a better time to end it.
She growls under her breath and fumbles her pants closed with shaking hands. Jerks her halter top over her breasts, hiding the perfect, pale mounds I was sucking on moments ago from view. Straightens Striker’s huge tee forcefully enough to tear the cloth.
She’s livid with me, but she’s probably even more angry at herself for getting caught with that wallet. The rage pounding off of her makes me rock hard. It’s going to take everything I have not to drag her to the bathroom and pound into her until she screams.
“Took you two long enough,” Striker says when we join him and Rat at the table. He and Rat are both eating plates of burgers and fries, sitting on one side of a booth.
I wait for Emma to slide in on the other side over to the window, and then join her. My Wildcat flicks a daggered look up at me as if she’d rather be anywhere else instead of crammed into a booth with me. She wipes her eyes, dashing away tears,