Wild Card

  Jesse Bairnes was well known to Noah. A friend of Grandpop’s that Noah remembered.

  “They don’t like a lot of people,” Noah stated.

  “Specially those different from them,” Jesse said, his voice pitched low. “I have a friend, pure Irish. His son has lived in hell.” Jesse shook his head at that.

  In hell? Grant Malone?

  “How so?” Noah asked him.

  Jesse shook his head, his lined expression somber. “Lost his whole damned family,” he said, sighing. “Ever’ one of ’em. The militia only leaves him alone ’cause he keeps his head down, doesn’t try to do anything more than run his ranch, and killin’ him wouldn’t be enough for them. But they got nothing else to hurt him with now.” The old man shrugged. “Shame, it was.”

  Noah stared down at his beer. Jesse couldn’t be talking about the Malones.

  “How do they get the power to do this?” he murmured. “I’ve not heard much about them and I’ve made my rounds of Texas plenty of times.” Hell, he’d lived here, worked here, loved here. How hadn’t he known?

  “Quiet is always better.” Jesse shrugged. “They’re paranoid ’bout secrecy. The only ones that talk are the young dumb ones. They weed those out as they try to climb in the ranks. No one that cain’t keep their traps shut makes it to those hunts I hear they do.” Jesse turned back to him, his faded dark eyes somber. “They been huntin’ for years and no one cared till they killed some FBI agents. Now ain’t that a shame?”

  Noah nodded. “That’s a hell of a shame.”

  He finished his beer, completed his conversation with Jesse, and headed from the bar. The late-evening visits to the local watering hole were giving him a new insight into the changes that had been developing in his hometown. Or perhaps, more accurately, the underground intricacies that were finally showing themselves after decades.

  He was nearly certain now that the Black Collar Militia’s ranks were still small enough, here at least, that pinpointing one of them wasn’t going to be easy. That or they were hiding themselves better than he could have imagined.

  Though, after his search of Mike Conrad’s office, he knew at least one of the members. Black masks for the members, black collars for the victims. How the hell had he managed to keep his eyes closed to what was going on in his own hometown? This wasn’t a new organization. It was something that had been building, growing, for decades.

  An even better question, he told himself, was, how had he managed to miss what kind of a man Mike was through the years of their friendship? He had trusted the other man. Laughed with him, drank with him, and he hadn’t suspected. If someone had told him Mike was involved with a militia, he would have laughed at the thought.

  The militia wasn’t something new. Hell, there were plenty of militias with varying agendas all over the west, but few that were walking in the footsteps of this one.

  Late-night hunts for illegals. Kidnapping legal aliens and taking them into the canyons of the national park to torture and murder them.

  Their agenda was an atrocity to humanity.

  Leaving the bar, he almost paused. The second he stepped into the sultry, late-summer heat, he could feel his skin prickling.

  He almost grinned. The need to expend the energy raging through him was about to find an outlet. Evidently, someone didn’t like the questions he had been asking over the weeks. Or the people he was talking to. He didn’t tense, he didn’t do anything to overtly prepare his body for what was to come. He knew where it was, as though the pores of his skin were soaking in the danger lying in wait in the parking lot.

  Bullet or gang? Gun or knife?

  He couldn’t feel a scope on his head, that left other means. And oh, he would feel a scope on his head. He had learned well that feeling under Fuentes’s tutelage. Diego Fuentes had liked to play with his captives. The gun sighted on him, the bullet burying within inches of his head as he was chained to a wall, blindfolded, unable to avoid whatever was coming.

  Yeah, Noah knew the feel of gun sights. Just as he knew the scent of violence. And he was moving closer toward it.

  He was ready for the dark figure that jumped out at him. The knife barely grazed his bicep as he used his attacker’s momentum to jerk him to the side, break his arm, and pull the knife from his grip.

  Noah left him where he was lying and he gripped the knife, steel lying along his wrist as he lifted his arm, and braced himself.

  The shadows flowed from the darkness. Black masks, knives instead of guns.

  “You want to leave town, Blake,” one of the shadows rasped through the darkness as half a dozen darkened figures began to surround him.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Noah drawled. “I think I like this little town. Lots of excitement. I might stick around a while.”

  He let them surround him. He could feel it now, the blood surging through him, cold hard death filling him. He wouldn’t be taken again, never again. And he wouldn’t be defeated. Diego Fuentes hadn’t managed to break him and he would be damned if a few home-grown terrorists were going to get the best of him.

  “Sticking around could be bad for your health,” another informed him with a nasally accent.

  “Are you boys here to chat or to give me a good time?” He grinned back at them. “The odds are almost even. Let’s play.”

  “Six to one,” another said with a laugh. “You’re outnumbered, motherfucker.”

  And Noah chuckled. They had no idea, no clue what a killer he could be. But he knew. He knew, because he had been killing for far too many years before this little show-and-tell began.

  “Then come get me,” he invited them with a little flicking motion of his hands. “If you can.”

  They were good. The shuffle, the life-or-death dance that ensued spiked the adrenaline always ready to pour into him. He used it, felt the power feeding into his muscles as they came at him.

  Steel met steel. Noah kicked his attackers’ feet out from under them, jumped aside, and met the next. He didn’t kill them. He didn’t want them dead. He wanted them alive and bleeding. He wanted to know who to follow, who to suspect when it was over, and the bandages, the injuries, couldn’t be hidden.

  He wanted to leave witnesses and he wanted the bastards to remember what the hell they were dealing with.

  He buried the knife in one attacker’s thigh, stole another, and sliced across another man’s midriff. Cutting them a little here and there, relishing the feel of steel biting into flesh and the sound of grunts, painful cries, and the snap of bones when he could manage it.

  They were down from six to two. He stared back at the one facing him and smiled at the smell of blood.

  “Do you want to keep this up?” he asked the other man, staring into dark eyes, memorizing the curve of the face beneath the stretchy black mask. “Come on, asshole. I can slice and dice all night long.”

  He proved his point. He sliced a forearm, his knife bit through denim and cut a deep furrow across another thigh as he kicked out, brought down the bastard trying to blindside him. Noah stole his blade and buried it in the other man’s shoulder.

  “That’s going to hurt,” he said with a chuckle, jumping back and watching as the others limped away.

  The last one pulled a gun.

  Spinning, Noah jumped, buried his foot in the bastard’s stomach, gripped his wrist and twisted until the gun dropped to the ground.

  He took a blow to the kidney and grunted, his elbow slamming into the man’s throat. Bastards. They should have used the gun first.

  He followed the elbow to the throat with a fist to the man’s gut, knocked him backward and then watched as he turned tail and ran to join his little buddies. Headlights flashed in front of him as he rolled and lifted the gun from the gravel before jumping to his feet.

  Noah stepped back between several other vehicles, ducked, and watched the truck hauling his new buddies squeal out of sight.

  He breathed in deeply, flexed his shoulder, and knew his own aches and pains would show up s
oon. Hell, he hadn’t come out of the fight unscathed. He could feel the blood soaking his shoulder, arm, and side. Those knives had been razor sharp and there had been too many to avoid all at once.

  He grinned at the thought of that as he pulled his keys from his jeans and found the Harley. Checking it out, he didn’t take long to find the little device created to trigger a spark into the gas line. He would have been toast if that little baby had gone off.

  Unlocking a saddlebag, he slid it inside along with the handgun, checked out the cycle again then watched as Nicolas eased from the shadows at the back of the bar. His eyes met Noah’s for one long, telling moment.

  The big Russian had watched the fight, obviously. His gaze flickered over Noah.

  “You’re bleeding. Do you need a ride?” His voice was low as he approached Noah.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Nik inclined his head then and continued on to the four-wheel-drive pickup he was driving. At this point, they couldn’t afford to show an association. If Noah had been in danger of losing, Nik would have stepped forward. But not until then.

  Noah straddled the motorcycle and started the motor as he put it in gear and headed for the apartment.

  He could feel the blood trickling beneath his clothes, dampening them, and now he wished he’d killed at least one of the sons of bitches. Because they’d definitely messed up a hell of a plan for tonight. That of visiting his wife.

  That plan was about to be axed, and that just pissed him off. So maybe she could handle the sight of the blood, but she was going to demand answers. And answers weren’t something Noah was ready to give.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sabella waited. She watched the window, listened carefully through dinner, and by the time she heard the Harley’s hard throbbing purr pulling in behind the garage, she was furious.

  It was after midnight.

  She paced the living room, pausing at the windows and staring down at the garage apartment. There weren’t any lights on. What man didn’t turn on the lights when he arrived home?

  Except, her husband. Nathan hadn’t needed lights either.

  She was nervous and she couldn’t explain why. The more she stared down at the apartment the more the impulse to go down to him filled her.

  The sexual crisis was over, she told herself. She’d had him, she should be okay now. Except she wasn’t, and this wasn’t just about the sex. It was about the pounding in her head, pushing her to go to him, to check on him.

  Hell, he was over thirty, he didn’t need a keeper.

  He was thirty-four.

  She pressed her hands to her stomach, over the thin sleeveless T-shirt she wore. He was the same age as her husband.

  Sabella shook her head. She wasn’t going there and she wasn’t going to go down to that apartment to have sex with him either, she told herself as she slipped her sneakers on and tied them.

  Grabbing her keys from her purse, she left the house and within minutes she was pulling her little car in behind the garage.

  She had the key to the apartment in her hand. She shouldn’t just walk in on him, she told herself, even as she moved quickly up the back steps to the deck. After all, he could have brought a friend back with him. He could be busy. In the shower. Any number of things. But she jammed the key into the door, stepped inside, and before she could gasp found herself jerked inside, the door slamming closed as she was pushed against the wall.

  Dangerous, tense. The hard arm that lay across her neck was Noah’s, the almost feverish glitter in his navy blue eyes was predatory, intense.

  “Do you like living dangerously?” he asked her softly, his face too close to hers, his hard body, mostly naked, pressing into hers. “I’m not to desecrate that hallowed marriage bed of yours, but you can slip in here any time you please?”

  His voice was grating. It raked across her nerves, fired nerve synapses that triggered chills racing across her body as she stared up at him through the darkness.

  His arm slid from across her throat, but he didn’t release her. His hands gripped her hips and jerked her up to him, even as another gasp parted her lips.

  He wasn’t just mostly naked. He was naked. And hard. The full, pounding length of his cock pressed into her lower stomach as he watched her with heated, absorbed interest.

  “We needed to talk.” Her hands pressed against his shoulders, and it took only a second for awareness to seep into her brain.

  She felt the slight flinch as she pressed against him, as though the flesh were tender. He was damp, he’d obviously come from the shower, she could feel the water on his flesh, and something slick, perhaps remnants of soap. His hair was wet, his shadowed expression was harsh.

  “You’re hurt.” She pressed against his other shoulder. “Noah, what happened?”

  “Not yet,” he growled.

  “What do you mean not—” Yet.

  He stole the words with his kiss. His lips lowered to hers, took them, sipped at the curves, and a low, male groan of need rumbled in his throat.

  Parted lips tugged the lower curve, his tongue flicked over it as her own parted, to breathe she told herself. Just to breathe, not so that hot, hungry tongue could flick against them, taste her.

  She felt her heart rate spike.

  “Noah, are you okay?”

  “Later.” His lips sealed hers, slanted across them, and ate into her with hungry, heated demand.

  Sabella whimpered at the pleasure. She had lied to herself. She knew she had. She hadn’t come down here to inform him of anything, she had come for this.

  “Look at how you’re dressed,” he growled, his lips moving from hers to her jaw, her cheek. “Short little shorts.” His hand slid down her stomach to cup the wet heat between her thighs, beneath the silky stretch material of her shorts. “Snug little shirt.” And she hadn’t worn a bra. She sometimes slept in these clothes. They were thin and comfortable, too thin, because the heat of his palm against her mound was making her crazy.

  The heel of his hand rotated, pressed.

  “You’re hurt,” she gasped. “What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Noah . . .”

  “God, yes, say my name like that again,” he growled. “Tell me you want me, Sabella. Hot and wild, all over again. Pounding inside you, stretching that sweet, hot little pussy all around me.”

  Her breath caught. She could feel his blood beneath her hand, his naked cock through the layer of material separating them.

  “Noah, stop this. Are you bleeding?” She thought maybe she could smell a hint of blood.

  “No. Trust me. Just a scratch.” His teeth raked over her jaw and she shuddered at the sensation, like little tingles of electricity raking over her, through her.

  “What kind of scratch?” she moaned.

  “You can bandage me up.” His voice throbbed, became deeper, harder. “Later.”

  “Noah.” She breathed his name as she felt his hand move, sliding from between her thighs only to push beneath her shorts and panties to fill his hand with the swollen, wet flesh beneath.

  “You’re wet, Sabella.” His fingers tunneled into the slit, slid through the slick cream that gathered there. “Tell me you want me. Ask me to fuck you.”

  She was panting for breath. Pressed against the kitchen wall, all she could think about was feeling him inside her, around her.

  “I want your mouth on my dick again.”

  He shocked her with the blunt, naughty words. “I want to watch you going down on me, feel your mouth sucking the head of my cock again. God, it was so good, coming in your mouth like that, watching you love it.”

  His finger pierced inside her. One finger, sliding in deep, rasping over tender nerve endings, as the heel of his palm pressed and rotated against her clit.

  She was shaking. He was bleeding, he was hurt. She should be more concerned with forcing him to let her see what kind of damage he had done than she was with his finger, pumping, inside her.

  Her eyes closed
, her legs shifted wider, and a tremulous cry left her lips as he used his finger to drive her crazy. Sliding in slow and deep, his fingertip reaching high inside her, finding that spot, that one spot. And rubbing.

  “Noah. It’s so good.” She ground her head against the wall, felt her knees weakening. “It’s so good.”

  “So damned good,” he amended. “You’re wet and tight around my finger, Sabella. Do you want to come for me, baby? Do you want to make those sweet little sounds in your throat that hit my senses like wildfire just before you come for me? Do you want to come for me, baby? All over my fingers? Do you want to make me go crazy for just a taste of that sweet little pussy?”

  Oh God. Oh God. He shouldn’t talk to her like that. She could feel her moisture flowing, soaking his fingers, her hips moving as she thrust against his stroking fingertip.

  “Oh, now there’s a good girl,” he groaned. “Fuck my fingers, Sabella. Let me feel you come around them.”

  She whimpered. This was too wicked. It was too hot. She had never done anything like this, never heard words like that whispered from a man’s lips as he touched her.

  “Tell me,” he crooned in her ear. “Talk to me, baby. Tell me you want it. Beg me to fuck you with my fingers and I’ll give you another. I’ll push two fingers inside you. Wouldn’t you like that? Don’t you want to burn for me?”

  He couldn’t be serious? He wouldn’t be?

  “I could come just like this.” He nipped her ear, pressed his cock against her hip as she almost melted. “All I’d need is your sweet little voice talking me through it.”

  He licked the sensitive flesh beneath her ear, raked the flesh with his teeth.

  “This is crazy,” she moaned.

  “Tell me it’s hot,” he demanded, his breathing heavy, harsh in the stillness of the night.

  “Oh Noah, it’s so hot.” She felt the sensitive internal muscles clenching around him, felt the punch of sensation to her womb as the words tore from her lips.

  He jerked against her, his finger pressing deeper before pumping inside her in hard, desperate strokes.