Break Me Open (Desert Wraiths MC) Read online

  That was it. I didn’t know how old this girl was. Why she was in the rough side of town that night.

  Why she was here with me.

  Oh, I’d have dragged her here if I needed to to keep her safe, but she didn’t put up an ounce of fight . I didn’t take her to be dumb, and as nice as we’d felt together, I didn’t flatter myself to think it was my looks that had won her over. What reason did a girl like that have to trust me?

  I eased myself off the bed and gathered her clothes off the puke green carpeting. This room wasn’t exactly the most romantic of places but this wasn’t exactly a first date either. I set them down on the coffee table next to her purse. I hesitated, then began rifling through.

  I needed knowledge to keep her safe.

  Yeah, right.

  She barely had more than a pocketbook in there. A few things of makeup, keys. A phone, which I turned off, just in case Nico had a hook up with the Sheriff’s office too. I unzipped a side compartment and found a picture of her much younger and standing between a couple who had joint custody of the features one her face. Parents, no doubt. Were they nearby? Looking for their baby girl right this moment. I flipped through her wallet, but nothing more in there. Not even a receipt.

  She was her own sort of ghost.

  Her backpack sat by the door and I restocked the purse and went to that. There were a few papers in there, coursework, but mostly clothes. I zipped it up, softly.

  Not soft enough. The air in the room shifted subtly.

  “See anything you like?”

  Her voice shivered down my spine. I turned around and saw her propped up from the pillow. The blanket had slunk down and her breasts floated out in the open.

  “Sorry,” I said, mesmerized.

  “For what?”

  “Checking your things, it’s habit.”

  “Is that a military habit?” she asked, calm, curious.

  “Not strictly,” I said. “But getting your hand on intel was often half the work in special ops.”

  “Oh,” she said. “So it used to be your job to go commando?”

  Her eyes wandered down my body, and she smiled slyly.

  I had to follow the gaze to realize I was still nude. “I’ll put something on,” I said.

  “Why would you do that?”

  The words stood more invitation than question. I felt any hesitation harden out of my center, and I strode to the bed. I scooped her up, pressed my lips to hers and spread her apart at once.

  She gasped, arched under my grip like I had drugged her. I found her center and pressed in with my fingers.

  “Oh,” her voice crumbled. My breathing went taut. I didn’t want to play, I needed to be in her. I found the wetness of her with my cock and slid in easy.

  We groaned together like a metal joint crumbling. Any doubt slid away as I slipped deeper and deeper. Her eyes shone up urgent as if I were far away and she needed to bring me closer into her world.

  “I’m coming baby,” I whispered softly into her ear. She encircled me with those long creamy legs and my words felt like an omen. One touch and this girl was reducing me to a puddle.

  I eased my pace and pressed my face down on hers. Her lips parted as easily as her legs. My tongue twirled around hers warm and sweet, and we danced in her mouth. The soft wet noises of our kisses blended with the slick of my thrusts into her.

  The flame rose in my body again. Not a firecracker popping off this time, but a slow burn. A forest fire, spreading from my center to my thighs and biceps and mouth. I moved into her harder, rose her legs higher so I could explore her depths. She pushed my mouth off hers and moaned into my ear. The sound felt like a siren, a red alert in the night and I pushed myself as hard as I could go. The flames roared now, the smoke churning above us. She bit into my neck and clawed across my back. She wanted to rip me open, spill me out. She would get there. She had already done it in every way but physical. But I was gonna get her first when it came to that.

  I rolled myself deep into her, and felt her crumble under my lust.

  “Oh, Ghost,” she said, as if the life were leaving her. Her entire body fought me as she bucked over and over in my grasp, a soft wail of a sigh leaking out of her. She kissed my ear and my heat finally consumed me. My center broke and I groaned like a falling tree, pumping and shooting down.

  I collapsed around her, and lay in the pool of our gathered sweat between us. She eased me off and we stared into each other again. She looked dazed, but not tired.

  “How many times can we do that?” she asked.

  “No law against it far as I know,” I said.

  “I mean, physically, “ she said. “How many times?”

  I wondered what she was asking. How much practice I had? How messed up my system was?

  Or just how much I could take of her.

  “As many as you want, baby,” I said, wiping her forehead clear.

  “I think I need energy first,” she said. Her stomach rumbled on cue.

  “Not a bad idea,” I said.

  We got up, wiped down with towels and got dressed. We weren’t going to smell great, but our scents were deep on each other, and I liked how they mingled on her skin. Possessing her sweetness.

  Did it matter if she possessed me too? I didn’t know what I wanted from her yet, but I wanted her.

  There was a burger joint across the street. We walked across the cracked and empty parking lot, hands apart, breathing in the silence of the night. I felt myself tense up as we crossed the road, but there wasn’t even a car around to hit us, never mind any other threats.

  Inside, she stood in line in front. “Tell me what you want,” she said. “I’ll pay.”

  “Was the sex that good?”

  She smiled that sleek hidden smile. “It was. This one’s for saving my life, but I’ll owe you another for that.”

  I smiled and took her under my arm. “Baby, we are more than even on all counts. And legally that means, it’s my treat.”

  Before she could argue I thrust ahead of her and started talking to the guy at the counter. He was younger, smaller but he looked at me with bored eyes. Caught me off guard a little and it took me a second to realize I expected a reaction. Boredom was not what my body usually earned.

  Katie had them seeing a different side of me just by virtue of her presence.

  I ordered cheeseburger meals for the two of us and paid. Katie had already gone off to fill up on ketchup and grab a booth. I walked over with the baskets, suddenly nervous as a teenager, wondering what to say on a date. I sat the tray down though and she dug in. My appetite roared at seeing this other sort of hunger from her and I tore through my burger in record time.

  I started working on fries and Katie finished up and looked at me. She took a tug of soda, her eyes never leaving my face and I could feel something coming.

  “Is it just my body?” she asked.

  This was not what I expected. “What?”

  “Is that the only reason you’re protecting me? To get inside me?”

  “Of course not.”

  She chewed thoughtfully on a fry. “I mean, I’m a threat to your club right? I don’t know what today was about exactly, but it had to do with what I saw that night. Everything comes from that.”

  I tried to argue, but I didn’t have much practice arguing against the truth. I shut my mouth.

  She nodded. “Everything. Even that day you came to my house for help. That was kinda my fault too right?”

  “That would have happened whether you were there or not.”

  “So is today because of that? Is that why you’re protecting me?”

  “It’s not just that,” I said. “I’m keeping you safe because…you didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Not a good answer. She scowled, shoved some more fries and looked out the window. “It’s ok, you know. I’m into to you too. It’s ok for us to just be here with each other and hide for a bit. But the only thing I’m missing out on is a couple days of classes. Why would you risk ja
il time to protect a girl who can get your club in trouble? Why go against your own club?”

  “It’s… It’s because of the way you look at me,” I said.

  She returned her gaze to me, composed. She knew what I meant. I wasn’t talking about just her looks. It was the way she had looked at me that night. Even in the depths of my wrath, she hadn’t just seen a monster to fear. She had seen me as a “someone”. Someone she didn’t want to look away from. My eyes were the ones that shone in the night, but it took hers to see my reflection. To see that I might be more than the sum of my past.

  Or maybe she was just used to ghosts.

  I struggled to put that all into words, to explain, but she nodded, apparently satisfied. “ So that’s it,” she said. “That’s enough to get you to betray your club?”

  “They’re not exactly the brothers I picked,” I said. “And I didn’t exactly betray them.”

  Not exactly helping them either though, that much I had to admit.

  “Do you know what you plan to do with me?” she asked.

  “No. Do you know what you want?” I asked.

  “Well, I’d rather not die.”

  “Yeah, that’s about as far as I’ve gotten too.”

  “Other than that though, no, I don’t. I don’t know your world. But I trust you.”

  She sighed, but not in surrender. Relief. She perked up a bit with a smile.

  “I’ll figure it out,” I said, to her as well as me. “Just give it some time.”

  She nodded. “So until then…”

  I saw the longing cross her face again, felt the deep draw in me mirror it. Goddamn, this food really was just fuel.

  “In the meantime, back to our routine?” I asked.

  She nodded urgently.

  We tossed the trash and I led her by the shoulder back across the lonely parking lot into the dim warmth of our room.

  We went another two full sessions, with only a short wordless space in between. Afterwards, we showered together and the heat and the slickness of her body brought me back into her for a third time.

  When we got back to bed I was so tired that my brain barely worked. The last shot in the shower had blown through my reserves and no food was going to restore them.

  I drifted into sleep, my face buried in her damp. I wondered, as my thoughts decomposed for the night, how it would be to wake up tomorrow, and find that my life had started just now. Just here with her.

  It sounded pretty fine indeed.

  When I woke, the curtain was glowing with daylight and Ghost was gone. I panicked, and shot to the window, but remembered the chopper wasn’t in view. His jacket was still here. I saw that, and my heart slowed, cause no way he’d leave that. Even if he had decided to abandon his club, it would have been for me. Why leave us both behind?

  Cause he’s gotten what he wants from both of us.

  No, I didn’t buy that.

  The a/c rattled to life and hit my face with cold chemical air. I stood in the blast until I started shivering and was forced away. I sat swinging my legs at the edge of the bed. The jacket pretty much summed up the contents of this room. Just his clothes, my clothes, and oh yeah, another change of clothes for me.

  Not exactly the best toolkit to come up with a plan.

  I lay flat on the rumpled sheets. Last night had been such a fun frenzy. I’d never been nearly abducted. I’d never been taken by a guy before. Two firsts out with one night, both pretty out of the blue.

  What now though? Something about Ghost made me feel safe with him around, but his answer from last night wasn’t enough with the light showing me how dingy the place we were staying in was. This was just a rest stop. What do we now?

  I stared at the bumpy ceiling listening to pops and groans in the wall and asked myself follow-ups.

  Where exactly do we stand? And who am I standing with?

  The door jamb rattled and I covered myself with sheets. Ghost stepped in wearing nothing but his dark jeans and a sheen of sweat. My insides tugged at the sight of him, glistening in the doorway. He shut the door and sat heaving softly at the table by the a/c.

  “No trouble right?” I asked.

  “Just a run,” he said.

  “It’s really cooking out there.” The air that had come in with Ghost had been enough to thaw me out.

  Ghost just shrugged. “I was designed for this.”

  I looked over the form that I knew so well by now. Even if I took out my own personal opinion on his body, he was clearly in peak condition. I’d seen race horse with more flab.

  But that wasn’t what he meant, was it? It was the eyes, and the modifications, and a whole host of other secrets he kept close.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Sudden lack of memory?” he asked.

  “I really mean it, Ghost, Bryan, whatever. Who are you and where did you come from?”

  “Not the right questions,” he said. “Cause I really am Bryan White, and as for where I’m from? A little town called Gilsner.”

  He looked a little amused. If he was lying there’d be no way for me to tell, but it made sense. Only a son of Gilsner would stay in this town. I didn’t remember him from school or anything, but the city had been big enough to host more than one not long ago.

  “So what’s the right question?” I asked.

  “Are you sure you can you trust me?”

  “Are you asking?” I said.

  “No. I’m saying that’s your real question.”

  “It’s not. I already said I did.” He was VP of his club, so why would he find my faith in him so surprising? “How about this? If you’re from Gilsner and you left, then why are you back?”

  “That’s a better question ,” he said. “The answer? I got nowhere else to go.”

  “Tired of the military?”

  He rapped a hand aimlessly on the table. “More like the other way around.”

  “They kicked you out?”

  “Dishonorable discharge.”

  His eyes shone right at mine, searching for my reaction. The words didn’t mean all that much though. I didn’t know how people were supposed to leave the army, but I had seen desperate veterans try to use strays to get access to painkillers and other meds at the veterinary hospital. If that was the result of dishonorable discharge, then there wasn’t any honor to it on either side.

  “Was that why you took up with your , uh, what was the name of the club?” I should know this, given they were currently trying to kill me.

  “The Desert Wraiths. Yeah, they were the only ones who took me in.” He looked distant. “Only ones who had use for a killer.”

  “I don’t think you’re a killer.”

  Ghost got more than a chuckle out of that. “You’ve seen me kill.”

  “And you’ve seen me shoot you full of drugs. It doesn’t make me a doctor.”

  “I suppose it’s true I’m not a licensed killer,” he said. “Well, not anymore.”

  “Have you killed before?” My heart raced even as I asked. “I mean for the Desert Wraiths.”

  “I’ve shot back when people were shooting at us,” he said. “Did I kill? Don’t know. Never checked. Given the way those shots lined up in my sights though, I’d guess so.”

  “What else do you do for your club?” I asked.

  “You want a confession?” He clasped his hands, bowed his head. “I have dealt drugs, used drugs, sold weapons, stolen, beaten, ripped off and cheated. I have done the things I needed to without question. Without care.”

  He had a little smile on at the start, but it had gone flat by the end. “You did all this for the club?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you want to do these things?”

  “Honestly. I didn’t care.”

  “You were ok with everything they did.”

  “Not all of it. I didn’t stand for dumb shit. No wanton murder. No rape.”

  “But the first time you actually fought against your own club was last night?”
r />   “More or less.”

  He looked at me earnest, as if I were supposed to tell him what that meant. I kind of did see though how his path had led him to the Desert Wraiths and why he had stayed so long with such apathy. I could see the aimlessness which had carried him along, the lack of desire to change your path. I knew that feeling. In a way it had brought us both here. But I couldn’t tell us where it led anymore than he could.

  “How long will your club look for us?” I asked. “Will they ever let us just be?”

  “Not anytime soon. The feds actually are in town you know.”

  “Oh.”

  “So...” he looked torn. “We can’t go back there anytime soon.”

  My skin prickled with bumps. I tugged my sheets tighter. “What do you mean by soon?”

  “A month, at least. If the investigation dies down, I can smooth Rico’s feathers, maybe. Police will probably still want to talk to you though, so I don’t know. Maybe longer than a month.”

  My mouth opened, ready for the anger to come pouring out of me, but I actually felt calm hearing an option cut off. Life could not go back to normal. Or what had passed for normal these past couple weeks. I remembered the way those guns had felt as they fired, dropping heat and clips right by my ears. I remember the sight of that ugly barrel on the freeway trying to find my life. If that was what waited, then he was right. It wasn’t safe to go back.

  Ghost watched me think it through, but I got the sense he had more to say about something else and I knew what. If we couldn’t go back, then we would have to keep running.

  Run.

  Now I felt that anger and it took me a couple moments to place it. Ghost watched and waited patiently and I got the sense he could read the turmoil right off my face.

  When my parents had died, I had hid in my house for months, and hid within myself for…. Well, until now really. Now, here comes another tragedy, and I was going to take it one step further. I was going to run? Not even run, but be whisked away. Was that who I was? Had I wakened up from my darkness to just be a girl who couldn’t face what the world had to offer?

  “I’m sorry,” Ghost said.

  I felt the tension squeezing on my face, and wondered how ugly I must look. “It’s not your fault,” I said. “I’m glad actually.”