Finding Kyle

  I actually expect Kyle to say something at this point in the way of a warning, because she's my friend and I assume he'd be a little protective of her. I'll, of course, read her the riot act later, but it will fall on deaf ears as it always does.

  But Kyle doesn't say a word. Instead, he reaches into his back pocket for his wallet as he asks me, "You about ready to go?"

  "Um, yeah," I say guardedly as I sneak a quick glance at Miranda.

  She shoots me a small shrug, and then looks over at Kyle. "What's your rush, big guy?"

  Kyle slides from the booth, grabs the check the waitress had left about fifteen minutes ago after we'd eaten and were enjoying more coffee, and then holds his hand out to me. I take it, and he pulls me from the booth as he grins down at Miranda. "Appreciate you letting me in on that little secret that Jane was lusting after my body," he tells her with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. "She's been a little shy with me so far in bed, and I think now is the perfect opportunity to let her explore a bit."

  "You... you..." I sputter with embarrassment as I yank my hand away from his. "You did not just say that to her."

  Miranda, at this point, is laughing, clearly enjoying my torment. I'm not anywhere as sexually liberated as Miranda is, and I tend to let my partner lead. Now, granted, a flush of excitement went through me when he said I was going to get to explore, but I didn't want him to make a billboard announcement about it.

  "Come on, Jane," Kyle says huskily as he takes my hand again and brings it up to his lips. He grazes the back of my knuckles, and I realize my perception may be wrong about bikers. I can totally imagine Kyle in a biker gang, but that soft kiss on my knuckles was not in the slightest bit out of place.

  I kept my swooning sigh internalized, and I gladly let him lead me out of Tillie's Shiny Diner and back to his house.

  CHAPTER 24

  Kyle

  "You had to know I'd find you," I tell the man who stares at me with terror from where he's lying on the floor. One eye is already purple and swollen shut. There's a cut on his left cheekbone that's bleeding profusely and the area along his jawbone is swollen. My knuckles on my right hand are shredded from the repeated blows I delivered but, unfortunately for him, I'm just getting started.

  "Please," he begs, a bubble of blood forming on his lips. "Not in front of them."

  I shake my head slowly, denying his words as I look down at him. "It has to be in front of them. Otherwise, the lesson won't be appreciated."

  A strangled sob sounds behind me, but I don't bother looking. I already know I'd see his wife and son huddled together on the linoleum floor of their kitchen that's now splattered with his blood.

  "He's just a little boy." The man begs me, hoping to appeal to any bit of humanity within me.

  I reach my arm backward without taking my eyes off the man. My hand is immediately filled with the smooth wood of a baseball bat that's passed to me from one of my brothers. Zeke ordered me to impart this particular message, but I didn't ride alone tonight. He wanted witnesses along to make sure I did the job and did it right.

  "And now, that little boy is going to watch his daddy pay the consequences for double crossing Zeke," I tell him quietly. "Consider it a learning lesson for him. It will probably even save him some pain of his own in the future because it will teach him that you keep your word."

  The man coughs and more blood bubbles from his mouth because his ribs took a pounding from my boots as well.

  He wheezes and, as I raise the bat, I hear his little boy start to cry. The man raises his hands defensively and begs one more time, "Please."

  It falls on deaf ears as I bring the bat down hard on his kneecap. The man shrieks, and his wife starts to cry piteously. I don't turn to look at her. Instead, I mark my target for his other knee and bring the bat down hard. The man screams again, clutching at his knees with bloody foam frothing out of his mouth.

  "Learned your lesson yet?" I yell as I bend over him.

  "Yes," he moans as he curls inward. "Yes, yes, yes."

  It sounds genuine to me, but I know every detail of this will be relayed to Zeke, so I'm nowhere near able to quit. I'm expected to make this painful, but more than that... I'm expected to truly prove my loyalty to the club.

  I raise the bat and bring it down again, this time against the man's ribs. His back arches, and then he curls inward again, trying to shield himself as best he can as I rain down blow after blow upon him.

  Sweat is pouring down my face from my efforts, and my Mission brothers behind me are egging me on harder. I only stop swinging the bat when he loses consciousness.

  The kitchen goes silent, and I wipe my forehead on my sleeve. I drop the bat on the floor behind the man I just beat to a pulp, perhaps even killed. I'm satisfied that it will get me full privileges into Mayhem's Mission.

  It's just a job, I tell myself. I have to do this for the greater good. I'm doing this to bring this club down.

  I turn away from the carnage to walk out of the kitchen, my eyes sliding past the wife and son still huddled on the floor, knowing I won't be able to bear looking at them.

  Just as my boot hits the threshold of the doorway that leads out, I hear the small, terrified voice of the little boy ask, "Did you kill my daddy?"

  Bile roils within my stomach, rises quickly up my throat, and, for a brief moment, I think I may compromise this whole undercover operation by spewing vomit all over. Instead, I swallow it down, harden my heart, and turn to look at the little boy. His brown eyes swimming with tears, he looks at me pleadingly to tell him that it will all be okay.

  I shrug my shoulders. "Not sure, kid. Maybe I did."

  I vaguely hear the wife's sobs, but I'll never forget the way that little boy looks at me, tears now spilling down his cheeks. Eyes accusing me, hating me... fuck, I don't know what they're doing, but to me, they're condemning me.

  Turning my back on the little boy, his sobbing mother, and the carnage I created, I walk out of the house and resign myself that if I hadn't before, I'd just earned my one-way ticket to hell no matter if this mission is ultimately successful or not.

  My body flies straight up on the bed, a silent scream held still in my throat. I'm frozen for a moment, not disoriented but completely still immersed in the memory.

  A soft hand touches my back, and Jane sits up in bed beside me. "Kyle... what's wrong?"

  I shake my head and give a little cough to loosen my vocal cords. Still, I'm practically croaking when I tell her, "Nothing."

  "You're soaking wet," she murmurs, her hand sliding up to my shoulder. She shifts in the bed, comes to her knees, and brings her palm to my forehead. "You're not running a fever though."

  Jane is naked in front of me in the moonlight, her breasts full, her stomach flat, her hips rounded. I should want to push her down onto the bed and fuck away my misery, but all I want to do is bury my head in her chest and cry.

  Jane's hands come to palm my face as she leans in to whisper, "Baby... what's wrong?"

  I shake my head again, and my voice is a little clearer when I admit, "Bad dream."

  She tilts her head. While I can't exactly see the depth of the sympathy she has in her eyes, I can feel it when her arms come around my shoulders and she presses her body into mine, locking herself in tight. I've never needed consolation before. Shunned it, actually.

  But with no shame in me, I band my arms around her and pull her down into my lap. My face goes into her neck, and we just hold onto each other for an infinitely long time. Her naked skin on mine, the sweet scent of her hair, and the even more delicious scent of us combined together.

  My heart rate slows and the image of that little boy finally disappears.

  Finally, Jane's fingers slide up, and she massages my scalp gently as she observes with blunt honesty, "This isn't like you, Kyle."

  "What's that?" I mumble into her neck, but knowing damn well what she means.

  "Being vulnerable," she says simply and doesn't elaborate. She doesn't need to. She hit the n
ail on the head, and I also know Jane well enough to know that she won't belabor her observation either. She's the type who wouldn't want to embarrass me for what I'd perceive as a weakness. She won't push at me to know what woke me up in a sweat, and she won't seek details unless I give her some reason to believe I want to share them.

  So she just lets me hold her in silence.

  She leaves it up to me what to do.

  She opens the cage to the restless, dangerously disturbed animal, and she waits to see if it will walk out and take a little bit of freedom.

  I pull Jane back down into the bed, rolling so we come to rest on our sides, facing each other. Before she settles fully, I throw an arm back and lean toward the lamp so I can turn it on. When I roll back to Jane, her eyes are squinted slightly as she adjusts to the light, but with absolute acceptance in her gaze for whatever I want to give her in this moment.

  It's not much, but I want to give her something.

  Scooting close to her, I slide a hand over her waist and hold her there lightly. I don't pull her into me because we're going to talk and I want to see her face.

  Her gaze is trusting and patient.

  "My life... before I came here," I begin with all the vagueness in the world. "It was brutal."

  Jane's fingertips come to the skull tattoo on my chest and stroke the ink. It confirms to me that she suspected what little I'm getting ready to share.

  "I've done things that are heinous," I tell her. "Unforgivable, really. If you knew who I was, Jane, you'd despise me. You'd be disgusted, and you would never look at me the same way again."

  "Not possible," she whispers in disbelief.

  I won't debate it with her. I'm never going to give her details because I don't want her to have the same nightmares that I do. But after my talk with Joe today, when he called me while I was enjoying a normal breakfast date with a woman who I've come to care more about than I ever thought was possible, I knew it was time I had to move on.

  Joe's information wasn't clear or overly revealing. He'd advised me that nothing had been found to believe my location had been compromised by the ATF server breach. This was heartening. However--and there was always a 'however'--the few members of Mayhem's Mission who had been previously clamoring to explore plea deals in exchange for testimony have now all of a sudden clammed up. Not just one or two of them. Every single one who was in a plea deal negotiation suddenly put the brakes on everything.

  This was suspicious.

  This was more concerning than a breach into the ATF server.

  This meant that those men who were running scared and wanted to avoid decades behind bars with a plea deal were now suddenly feeling confident.

  And Joe's concern was that if they were feeling confident, that probably meant I'd been found.

  Now it's time for me to pave the beginning of the roadway that will lead me out of here. I knew tonight would be my last night with Jane, and I spent the last several hours making love to her until we fell into an exhausted sleep not long ago.

  I guess my nightmare was an internal sign from my consciousness that I needed to start my break.

  Rolling Jane to her back, I settle myself between her legs. While I hold most of my weight off her, I give her enough of it so that we're touching everywhere possible that we can for now.

  I give her a soft kiss and rub my nose briefly against hers. When I lift up, I look into her beautiful green eyes and I give it to her straight. "I'm sorry I can't be completely honest with you about who I am. You know me so much better than anyone, and yet, you don't know all the important things."

  "Kyle," Jane says with such sweet empathy that my chest starts to ache.

  I shake my head, silently letting her know that she needs to hear me out. "I'm leaving--"

  "No," she says adamantly, cutting me off as her eyes flash with defiance.

  "Jane... baby... I have to," I cajole.

  I expect her to argue, cry, lament, plead, beg, and negotiate with me.

  Instead, her head lifts from the pillow, one hand goes to the back of my head, and she pulls me to her for a kiss. A hot, wet, passionate kiss full of desperation and need.

  I don't resist.

  This I cannot resist.

  Jane ensures this conversation is put on hold as her other hand slips between our bodies and she grabs onto my cock, which had already started to harden when her lips touched mine.

  Jane shifts her hips, widens her legs a bit, and strokes me swiftly. My body reacts, and I groan into her mouth.

  She kisses me like she's never done before, pouring every bit of passion laced with misery over my declaration that I'm leaving. I try to pull my head up, just so I can look into her eyes and see how badly she's broken despite what she's doing to my cock right now.

  But Jane isn't having any of it. Her fingers grip into the muscles of my neck, and she shifts again, tilting her hips under me. With a rough tug of her other hand, she pulls my dick right to her entrance and rubs the tip of me through her wetness.

  "Christ, Jane," I growl into her mouth, because that felt goddamn amazing. Her soft skin against mine with nothing in between, a sensation I've never felt before. My head swims with confusion and my body rages with lust. I manage to grit out, "Let me get a condom on, honey."

  Her answer is to kiss me harder, growling into my mouth and pulling me into her. I slide a fraction of an inch in, and, for a moment, my heart actually stops beating as I take it all in.

  Jane desperate to make our bond closer.

  My need to separate from her.

  The unbelievable feeling of having every single barrier between our bodies removed, even if I'm keeping one firmly in place around who I really am.

  "Please," Jane begs as she pulls slightly back from my mouth. "Fuck me, Kyle. Right now."

  I want to tell her it won't change anything, but because I'm selfish and I want this memory of her more than anything, I give into my basic urges and fall deeply into Jane's body.

  One push.

  A surging force into all that sweetness.

  Totally claiming, although it could never be a permanent one.

  She's the best thing I've ever felt in my entire fucking life. For a second, I think I might actually have been forgiven by God for all my sins since I've been given the most perfect gift I'll ever receive.

  CHAPTER 25

  Jane

  My fists clench in hard anger as I stomp across the dewy grass of my front yard, leaving the grass of Kyle's behind me. Just half an hour ago, Kyle and I shared something I've never given to another man--my unprotected body. I know it was a first for him because he told me so after we'd come down from the high of what I felt was the most euphoric lovemaking I had ever experienced in my life, and would probably never experience again. Kyle knew I was on the pill as he'd seen them in my bathroom. For some reason, despite the fact he's held a huge part of himself in reserve from me, I trusted him not to hurt me and never had a qualm about taking him inside me without a condom.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  To think that experience would change anything with him.

  I was desperate, no doubt. He said he was leaving and it was imminent. I was grasping at straws, literally grasping his dick and trying anything I could to make him understand he simply couldn't leave me behind.

  I thought for sure... just absolutely for sure, that while he was inside of me, moving so slowly and whispering words he'd never said to me before, that it would be okay. That he realized I was more important than wherever it was he felt he had to go.

  I was so wrong.

  As my foot hits my first front porch step with what feels like the force of a sonic boom, I can feel my anger continue to rise rather than dissipate as I put distance between us.

  A half an hour ago, I'd been thrown from the summit of Mount Hopeful down into the abyss of Crushed Dreams. And Kyle was the one who threw me down there.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid to have ever believed he could give me more than what he'd pro
mised me.

  I had orgasmed twice before Kyle joined me, and it was so beautiful and so deeply intimate that I felt completely fulfilled. There were several long moments that he stayed inside of me, holding me tight and running his lips along my shoulder and jaw. It was all going to be okay.

  I stomp up the remaining steps of my porch and throw a viciously angry look over my shoulder at Kyle's house, which is ablaze with lights.

  He's packing up his stuff, after all, and needs to see what he's doing.

  That's right.

  Kyle pulled out of my body and, with his semen leaking out of me, told me that he was leaving right then.

  He told me I had to leave his house so he could pack.

  He told me he wasn't going to discuss it when I tried to question him.

  He wouldn't even look at me as we dressed.

  And most humiliating of all was the light kiss he gave me on top of my head right before he said, "Trust me on this, Jane. This is what's best for you."

  Stupid, stupid, stupid for ever having given an ounce of my heart to him.

  That was it for me. I tore myself away from him and ran out of his house. He called after me, but I didn't stop, because I never wanted to see him again as long as I lived.

  I'm so proud of myself that not a single teardrop has fallen, and I expect that's because I'm so mad that my body is shutting down. I angrily jam my house key in the lock and storm into my house, intent on perhaps throwing some glass items and easing my frustrations that way.

  Instead, a large hand clamps over my mouth. A jolt of fear rips through me so forcefully that every bit of anger and betrayal I'd been feeling toward Kyle immediately vanishes.

  A gun appears before my eyes, and my intruder says to me, "I'm going to move my hand from your mouth, but if you scream, shout, or do anything contrary to what I tell you to do, I'm going to put a bullet in your brain. Got me?"

  I nod my head furiously, despite the fact I seem to be paralyzed in terror. I can't fathom someone in my house with a gun. I have nothing of value here except... myself.

  Immediately, tears fill my eyes and start to leak down my cheeks as he removes his hand from my mouth. His hand goes to my shoulder and he turns me to him. It's dark and I can't make out much except he's large. I don't know if I can fight him off, especially since he has a gun.