Never Have an Outlaw's Baby (Deadly Pistols MC #3)(21)

*

The next few weeks should've been a total nightmare. Instead, they'd become a dream.

All thanks to him. Joker.

The bastard who'd taken over my head for three long years roared in, wooed me, and conquered my life.

He came to me every other night since our first beneath the stars. I'd climb on his bike with a grin, feeling my heart skipping a dozen beats per minute. He'd introduce me to half a dozen new secret spots around Seddon I hadn't known before.

Now, I knew them like his body, intimately acquainted with every single one of them when we were naked and horizontal in the tall grasses, the broken down barns, the little nook next to the stream.

That last place, he'd held me up in the air the entire time we f*cked, banging me into the boulders behind us each time he thrust deep.

It should've hurt, being flung around like a ragdoll, but of course it didn't.

Basically, the story of this whole insane romance between us. Assuming you could call motorcycle rides, doe eyes, and hard sex any kind of love story.

What should've been agony became delight.

Pain turned into pleasure.

Risk blossomed from barren fear into a beautiful certainty.

Forbidden? Impossible?

All of the above, plus so much more.

Nothing about us should've worked, especially at this awful crossroads in my life. But it did, damn it.

We were working, hooking up for more than just a f*ck. I truly believed we had more to ourselves than sheet soaking sex.

He was exactly what I needed when I left mama's place forever, watching as the sheriff and the moving crew from the bank moved in and roped off the place where I'd grown up.

Joker helped me christen my new apartment the very first night, throwing me down on the mattress between the boxes.

I sucked his cock on the worn floor, practicing everything he'd taught me. Then he slipped between my legs, fisted my hair, and covered my mouth with his free hand.

I bit him to keep from screaming, just shy of making my new neighbors hate me on day one.

Three weeks blurred by in a blissful storm.

He went back to Knoxville, satisfied he'd finished whatever he'd come here to do with his brother.

I didn't ask. He didn't tell.

“Club business,” he'd growl, whenever I got too close to wondering what he did on that bike without me. “We'll talk about anything in the f*ckin' world, babe, except for that.”

I wasn't stupid. I knew he did bad, illegal things because he wore that patch. Busted up bigger bastards than him when they asked for it, and earned his money by the sweat of his mystery.

Hell, I'd known it from day one, that first kiss we'd shared when I was just a stupid kid.

Both the Taylor boys were bad news. But to me, he was the best I'd ever gotten, and I wasn't going to let it slip away without giving it a chance.

Joker kept coming, making the long drive down from eastern Tennessee, usually just for me.

One weekend, Piece came with him. Both of them were here to handle more of that growl-worthy club business that always put me on edge, however much I tried to pretend it didn't exist.

I'd just started working at the drugstore in town when he picked me up. Even through the noise and at least forty feet to the lot, I heard his motorcycle.

Who knew that harsh sound could make a girl smile every damned time?

Then he was there, in front of me.

When this man walked into a room, everything came to a screeching stop. Customers and other employees froze and stared, watching him swagger in between the registers, decked out in dark leather covered in his fearsome patches like a modern day knight.

“Babe, hurry the f*ck up and finish your shift,” he growled. “I'm taking you out tonight.”

I looked at the old woman I'd been ringing up apologetically. Surprisingly, she smiled and shot me a wink, readjusting her glasses. I ran her credit card and scooped her stuff into a plastic bag.

“My, he's a big one,” she said, looking at my man like a piece of meat.

Seriously? I blinked, gingerly lifting the bag and passing it into her hands.

“Get out of here and have some fun, girl,” the granny said with a smile. “Men like this don't come around except once in a blood moon.”

She was gone. Thankfully, there hadn't been anyone else behind her, so I turned to Joker.

He'd been giving me that arrogant, hungry look the whole time, the one that pulled at my nipples like an invisible set of clamps. Mercy.

“Did you hear that?” I asked. “Blood moon? What's she talking about?”

“Sounded like blue moon to me.” He shrugged. “Fuck if I know, beautiful. Old spinster's too damned smart for her own good. You heard the woman. Punch the f*ck out and let's go.”

Smiling, I sighed and looked over his head, staring at the huge clock mounted on the wall. I had about three more minutes left, but it probably wouldn't hurt to close up a little early.

We passed a rack of cheap tabloids on the way out, filled with the brain candy everyone reads in waiting rooms. Yes, stories about the royal family renting a spare room to Elvis, or how Martians are behind rigging the next election.

One of the magazines had a huge red moon on it. That made me stop and stare, scanning it for a second.

PROPHECY! The headline screamed. Will you survive the next blood moon, or crash and burn?