Tormented (Fallen Aces MC #3) Page 11

  “Still gettin’ around with your ass hangin’ out, Abbey-girl?”

  “Did you think I only did it for you?” I mock.

  “How long has it been, anyway?”

  I chuckle, shifting my gaze back to his disturbingly beautiful face. He expects me to know how many weeks he’s been in Cali and blurt it out, giving away the fact I’m still painfully aware of him. Yeah, I know how long it’s been, but I ain’t playing that game . . . yet.

  “No idea,” I answer, dealing the nonchalant card as I shrug my shoulders. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

  His eyes darken as he reaches out and places both his meaty paws on my ass cheeks. I force a smile as his fingers skim the hem of my cut-offs where it slices a line over the firm globes. I close my eyes briefly as memories of how good it felt last time his hands were on me come in thick and fast. His touch trails up my back, dipping in at my waist and pushing the hem of my tank up, exposing my flat stomach, as he brings his palms to rest below the swell of my breasts.

  Just a few more minutes and he’ll be done. You can do it.

  My fight or flight is going haywire. I need to get away, to place distance between us, but at the same time I’m disgusted by how easy it seems to keep my feet in place. Anyone else, and they’d be cradling a broken wrist for this, my go-to defense when unwanted hands get too close. But this isn’t just anyone—it’s Sawyer, and it seems that my body still doesn’t know how to lie.

  I want it.

  But I shouldn’t.

  He still wants me.

  And I should hate that.

  But I’m waiting to see what he does next.

  Too much at once, Abbey.

  “Still tellin’ the truth, I see,” he teases, swiping his thumbs over my pert nipples before letting go and stepping back.

  The sun lances across my face, forcing me to look down to save my eyes watering up. “You want to know why he sent me yet?” I draw a deep, equalizing breath.

  “Because you begged him to come?” God, he’s always been such an arrogant bastard.

  “Hardly.”

  He juts his chin forward, and his tongue peeks out, running along the ridge of his teeth. “What then?”

  “War is on, pretty boy.” I smile. “It’s time to take daddy down.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Sawyer

  The bitch does it on purpose, I’m fucking sure of it. Her hips pop to the left, the line of her cut-offs shifting as she leans her elbows on the top of the rough-cut bar and talks to Tap. His gaze lifts over her tanned shoulder, and he hardens those dark eyes on me, letting me know I need to shut it down.

  Never did listen, did you . . .?

  Fucker. I don’t need that masochistic asshole in my head getting mixed up in things this time. Look how that turned out before, for fuck’s sake. Always think you know best, you self-sabotaging—

  Settle down. Wouldn’t want you spooking the prey this early on . . . .

  Abbey reaches out for her drink, eyes on me, and wraps those long, slender fingers around the tumbler. She’s on the scotch. Interesting. Would have pegged her for one of those sugary premix girls. Never seen her with a drink in her hand before now.

  Do we get to play . . .?

  I shake my head clear and push off the wall I was leaning against with a grunt. Casting my gaze around the room I locate Tap now on the far side talking with two of the younger members. He’s been on a drive of late, looking for new blood to sponsor. Makes me think he knew a bit more about King’s choice to go to war than he let on.

  There’s no need to look at Abbey to know she watches as I cross the room. Her awareness is like fire, burning into me when we’re near. Asked her if she knew how long it had been since we’d last talked, and she blew me off with a bullshit denial. She knows. It’s written in the way her hand absently rests on her neck as I flash her a smile.

  “What you up to?” Tap asks, interrupting my play as I come to a stop beside him.

  The two younger guys have scarpered. Seems to be a common response when I appear.

  “Nothing at all, brother.”

  He looks cautiously across to Abbey and gives her a small nod. She drops her chin as though ashamed, and spins so her back is to us, leaning both elbows on the bar.

  “She’s got all the boys’ attention,” I say.

  “Yeah, she has. But it doesn’t mean a thing.” He regards me through narrowed eyes. “She’s still off-limits.”

  “So she says.” I frown, as does he.

  “When you leavin’?” Tap crosses his flannel-clad arms over his chest. The man looks like a lumberjack got lost and stumbled into the wrong neighborhood.

  “In the mornin’, I guess.” I pull my focus off Abbey and look Tap over. “What do you know about King’s plans?”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing. He was in the middle of somethin’ when I called just before. Said he’d ring me back later to talk about it.”

  “Why send Abbey, though?” I ask, eyeing her shift her weight between her feet.

  “Guess he thought you could use the company.”

  “Don’t sugarcoat it,” I say with a grin. “Babysitter, you mean. He doesn’t trust me to get there without findin’ trouble.”

  “Can you blame him?” Tap asks. “Hell, even I know you couldn’t make it without stirrin’ shit up somewhere along the way.” Tap smirks.

  I shake my head. “You assholes have got me pegged, huh?”

  “Better than you’d know. At least if Abbey’s with you, there’s somebody who can call for backup if you let your little buddy off the chain again.” He points to my head with a cocked eyebrow.

  “Brother,” I say with a slight chuckle, “if I let him out to play then a li’l thing like her wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  So glad we understand each other . . . .

  “Not that you’d hurt her.” Tap hardens his gaze on me, leaning in so his nose is mere inches from mine. “Would you.”

  Only what I’ve been trying to tell everyone—especially Hooch—for weeks now.

  I step back, removing Tap from my personal bubble. Anybody else getting that close up in my space, and I would have smashed a fist into their face hard enough to send the cartilage of their nose into their back teeth. But this is Tap: the man who made a quiet promise that he’d see me redeem myself, and the man who pulled a few strings to make things happen when I admitted I needed to return to work to feel myself again.

  I swing my attention back Abbey’s way, and growl as one of the prospects makes his move, bumping his hip against hers when he crowds her space. She jolts, taking a step sideways, her brow a hardened line.

  “Don’t you worry about her,” Tap says with humor in his tone. “Watch.” He jerks his chin her way, standing shoulder to shoulder with me.

  The prospect tries to throw an arm around her, but she ducks, leaving his limb to fall heavily at his side. Words are exchanged, her lips downturned at the corners as he tries to joke it off, given the cocky smirk on his as he talks, gesturing wildly with his hands. Beer sloshes out of the bottle he grips in the right, the left moving closer to her the more he spouts off.

  Her eyes track his every movement—the concentration, the planning and preparation written in her gaze.

  Interesting . . . .

  Indeed. Seems our Abbey isn’t as vulnerable as she once was. The fight’s always been in her, but when I left Lincoln five weeks ago, her first instinct was still to run, to hide, and to deny.

  Now she looks as though she’s planning how to kill him.

  Even more interesting . . .

  “Here comes the good bit,” Tap whispers, leaning in close as though this is some great conspiracy.

  The prospect shuts up, giving Abbey the side-eye while she takes a swig of her drink. She lowers the tumbler to the top of the bar, and then turns it between her hands; seemingly oblivious to the fact the prospect is now eyeing her ass. My fists clench, my chest a little tighter and my jaw a little harder. If she won�
�t let me have it, then no one gets it. Tap gently sets a hand on my forearm in warning. I grit my teeth painfully hard and try to focus instead on Abbey, rather than where that prospect fucker has his hungry stare.

  She hunches her shoulders and takes a deep breath, right at the same moment the guy swings out his left hand in a sweeping arc toward her butt.

  His hand connects.

  The slap of flesh on her backside echoes through my skull.

  I break skin on my palms with how tight my fists are.

  And then the best thing of all happens.

  Abbey stands rigid, her back snapping into a steel rod as she pulls her elbow back, the tumbler firm in her grasp, and hammers it down on the prospect’s head.

  Shock registers in his eyes.

  I chuckle.

  And then the worst thing of all happens.

  The little fucker wraps his hand around her throat and pushes her back so her spine arcs over the bar.

  Somewhere amidst the chaos Tap yells for him to be removed from the premises, a blur of black leather and silver accessories flashing in a morbid kaleidoscope before my eyes as I close the space between where I was and where I should have been all along. Tap has kept me to myself the past month for a fucking good reason, and it ain’t because I do well on my own.

  I just do worse in a crowd.

  Been a while since we’ve smelled blood . . .

  It’s been barely forty-eight hours, fucker.

  Long enough. My devil shrugs.

  “Head out back, Abbey,” I bark through gritted teeth. “Make yourself scarce.”

  The prospect whimpers with pain from the grip I have on his wrist. His fingers are limp, the pain incredible thanks to the precise pressure point I grind my thumb into.

  “Let go, man,” he complains. “I get the message.”

  Oh, no, my devil chuckles. I don’t think he does . . .

  Me either.

  “Your daddy never teach you any manners, boy?” I holler. “Or was he just as heavy-handed with your momma?”

  Abbey takes a couple of steps back, still in the fucking room.

  “I told you to leave,” I snap at her.

  The worry melts from her face and she hardens her brow. “You’re still not the boss of me, pretty boy.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  The prospect tries to wriggle his arm free while she’s got me distracted, so I crunch a little tighter.

  He yelps, his vocal chords breaking halfway through the sound and into silence.

  Abbey crosses her arms over her chest, dropping one shoulder so her head is cocked at a smartass angle. “Yeah.”

  “Come on, boy.” Tap reaches for the prospect. “You and me have got words to exchange.”

  I drop the kid’s wrist, smirking as he cradles it to his chest. He keeps his gaze trained on me, even as Tap sticks his fingers in the neck of the prospect’s cut and jerks downward, stripping the boy of his patch. “You can have this back when you’ve earned it.”

  Overreaction? Hardly. We might dance on the wrong side of the law, but touching a woman out of anger or violence is something that’s rarely tolerated.

  “You okay, Abbey-girl?”

  Her shoulders sag. “Yeah, pretty boy, I am.”

  “But?”

  “I could have handled him.” She shrugs. “You don’t need to sweep in and save me.”

  I chuckle, running a thick finger along the edge of the sticky bar. “Oh, baby, I ain’t savin’ nobody. But you already knew that.”

  She frowns, turning her body side on as she leans both elbows on the bar again. “Nothing’s changed, Sawyer.”

  “Hasn’t it?” Because it’s been five fucking weeks, and all I’ve thought about is her and that mysterious goddamn past. She can’t tell me she hasn’t been doing the same, thinking about what we started, even if just a little.

  Not everybody is as obsessive about things they can’t have as you are . . . .

  Abbey pops her ass to the side again, and I screw the heels of both hands into my eyes to try and shove that noisy fucker in my head in a box for the night. Once, just once, I’d love to have a good time without wondering whom I’ll be apologizing to the next day.

  “Something on your mind?” She sticks a black cocktail straw between her teeth and delicately chews on the end.

  I answer her cherry-red lips. “Always somethin’ on my mind, Abbey-girl.”

  She nods, seeming to think over something herself. “Have you thought about how you gonna do it?”

  The spark in her eyes has my chest doing funny fucking things. “Do what?”

  You know what she’s talking about . . .

  Fuck. Off.

  “Kill your father.” She twists her waist so that her perky little tits face me, but that butt still pops out behind. “I mean that’s what you’re going to do, right? Go back and kill your dad?”

  So many options . . .

  This is one thing I have to agree with my devil on: so many options. Where would I start? A little light torture? Maybe fuck him up with some drugs so he’s paralyzed but can feel every damn thing I do to him? Poetically finish him off in the same way he did Mom?

  “What would you suggest?” A mind as equally dark must harbor some delicious ideas.

  She smirks, pulling the straw from between her teeth. “Ad-lib.”

  “Huh?”

  “Make it up as you go along. If you plan it out beforehand, it kind of takes the fun away, don’t you think? I mean, you’ve already assumed how he’s going to react, so then when he does, it’s no fun.”

  Jesus. She’s seriously working on my moral obligation to not force women anymore. My hands are itching to pick her up and carry her to the nearest bed so I can fucking lay claim to this piece of work. “That so?” I manage to finally choke out. She keeps this murder talk up and I’ll have her down at the courthouse with a ring on her finger tomorrow.

  “Yep. Play it by ear. He squeals: do it again. He smiles: try the other foot.” She chuckles, the cutest fucking sound since . . . well, shit, since Dana sighing against my chest after I popped her cherry.

  You’re so weak . . .

  At least I have a heart, you black-souled motherfuc—

  “You okay?” Abbey straightens, turning her full attention on me. “You want some fresh air or something?”

  Lost her already . . .

  Shut up.

  Ever since moving to Cali, it’s as though the sunshine’s only fostered the growth of the fucker in my head. He’s always there. More than he’s ever been, tearing me down and making me weak.

  Not that it’s hard. You never could keep it together long enough . . . .

  “Sawyer?”

  Look at her . . . look at the pity in her eyes . . . .

  I back away, shaking my head as Abbey frowns. “You get any more trouble . . .”

  Like you? Ha ha ha . . .

  Fuck.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  She can’t see me, not when it’s like this. “No. Nothin’ wrong, girl.”

  That’s it, you pussy. Fucking run away again . . .

  I stare down at the floor, hands gripped tight to the hair above my temples as I sidestep Abbey and head out the front to the dark serenity of the yard. What kind of weak fuck am I? I can’t even look at her, see the sadness in her eyes, see the way she feels sorry for me.

  There’s nothing to feel sorry for. She didn’t do this.

  Fuck. Neither did I.

  He did.

  That soulless bastard who sired me fucking made me this way, and the time for him to pay can’t come soon enough.

  You’ll never be able to go through with it . . .

  EIGHTEEN

  Abbey

  His eyes clouded over. I’d say they went dark, but they didn’t. It was as though a normally translucent window fogged up, as though the fire inside became too hot to bear and he shut down. He stood saying nothing, just staring, for what felt like forever when in reality it was only
a couple of minutes. But still, that long of a break in conversation when the other person quite literally slips into some sort of catatonic state is forever.

  What’s wrong? Was it what I said about his dad? Shit, nobody is a stranger to how he feels about Carlos. The whole fucking club, all three states, know how much he wants him dead. I thought it might rile him up to talk about it, get the fuel burning, but damn . . . I think I broke him a little more than he already was.

  Way to go, Abbey. Wait until King hears that.

  What’s he been doing since he moved over here? Sure doesn’t seem like he’s healing. In all the time I’ve known him, watched him from close and afar, he’s never been this bad. It’s as though . . . I don’t know. How do you know when bad habits have gone too far and it’s time to call in the white coats?

  The annoying prospect from earlier moves in for the kill as Sawyer’s wide shoulders disappear out the entrance doors, barely visible over the mass of people that have slowly filled the large room the past hour. I lift a palm to the prospect’s face, stopping just shy of making impact with his confused mug, and push off the bar to follow Sawyer.

  Fuck, for all I know the prospect was on his way over to apologize after speaking with Tap. But right now I’ve got more pressing issues at hand.

  Pretty boy is running, but what from I can’t quite place. He made out that seeing me was what sent him into a frenzy, but I call bullshit. He kissed me once, and ground himself against me in a weak moment, that’s all. He’s not interested in me, otherwise he would have made the effort to call, visit . . . not even leave to begin with.

  At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself these past weeks.

  A little over a week after he left, I realized why it is I fought to keep quiet on my past. It wasn’t that I was scared to share my history; it was that I was worried if I did he wouldn’t want me anymore. That he’d look at me differently and that would be it, my chance with him, gone.

  It might have taken five weeks of solitude, and one very set-up reunion, but I’ve finally stopped lying to myself and listened to my heart.