Never Love An Outlaw (Deadly Pistols MC #1)(93)
I was the f*ckup. I'd accepted a bundle of miracle money I knew nothing about, and I'd landed us both here.
Jesus, if only I'd taken a fistful of money and woken Jackie up. We could've left that night while we sorted it out. We could've gotten away, stayed in a hotel, avoided all this. If only I'd stopped to think there'd be others after the fortune daddy left behind in vain.
Now, it was gone. Gone forever, just like any shred of hope that we wouldn't just move from one rung of hell to the next. And that was if we were lucky enough to get away from these monsters.
I was skeptical Brass had done anything more than delay what those rougher, darker men wanted to do to us in the basement. Why he'd decided to delay our doom, I couldn't figure out.
Did he really have a heart? Or was he just another demon, driven by something different than money and blood, but just as selfish?
The third evening, he came in carrying burgers and fries. I could've killed for something leafy and green, but my stomach was so empty and unsettled it wouldn't let me resist anything I shoved in my face. My stomach rumbled hard when I smelled the greasy, delicious food.
“Dinner,” he said, passing me a burger. “Try to finish it up fast because we got shit to do tonight.”
I raised an eyebrow, making sure Jackie got into her food first before I began to eat. She hadn't lost her appetite through all this by some miracle, but I wasn't taking any chances.
Little sis had me to look out for her now. Me, the big sister who'd failed to protect her, and nobody else.
“Yeah? What's that? Spraying us down with Febreze while we're rotting away in here?” A little more venom in my blood replaced the fear the big biker originally inspired every day.
He shook his head. “I'm taking you two to your new place. You've been cooped up in my room long enough. If you think it's been fun for me sleeping on the floor, you're a f*cking –“
He stopped just short of saying idiot. For some reason, the weird catch brought a sour smile to my lips. He was civil, in his own twisted way. But that wasn't saying much for men who had no manners whatsoever.
“How do we know this isn't another trick?” I said, biting into my cheeseburger.
“I don't play games, babe. If I was really gonna drive you out into the boonies and off you, I wouldn't be wasting money feeding your mouths.” He smoothed his face with one hand. “Yeah, on the other hand, I guess you don't know shit. That's the way it's gonna stay. You'll just have to take my word for it and be good while I drive you over.”
“We've had plenty of practice, mister,” Jackie chimed in, munching on a fry. “Behaving ourselves is all we've been doing here, in case you hadn't noticed.”
Brass gave my sister a dark, angry look, but held himself in check. He never lashed out at her, even on the few occasions when she'd insulted him to his face. That surprised me.
It was hard to imagine any decency among these men. With the others, I didn't think we'd be so lucky, but Brass...well, he put at least some limits on his explosive testosterone.
“Fucking finish up. We don't got all day. I'd rather get you girls outta here without dealing with the brothers.” He turned, removing his food from the bag and digging in.
I watched him chew. There was no way he could've been more than a few years older than me, somewhere in his mid-twenties. The hormones whistling through his veins did far more than make him act like a barbarian.
He dripped sex. He was raw. Masculine. Real in a way I didn't know a man could be.
When he came into the room, he commanded my attention. His gravity tilted my whole narrow world to his barrel chested center, his emerald eyes I feared had x-ray vision to see what I was really thinking.
I hated – no, loathed – admitting it, but if he wasn't holding us prisoner here, wearing that ferocious beast on his jacket, he definitely would've turned my head at any bar.
Not that I knew much about that. Taking care of dad and Jackie finished off what little social life I'd had as a young woman. But like any red blooded woman, big muscles and devilish ink drew my eyes, and Brass was all strength and edge, a living sculpture whose rogue looks were just the type to walk up and punch you in the face.
Bastard. I hated the little flash of heat that started low in my belly whenever I saw him, the fire that would've kept spreading down between my legs if I didn't look away. And I always did.
Avoiding him was all I had. I couldn't let him infect my mind.
We ate in silence until everyone was finished. He collected our trash and tossed it into a wastebin. We stood and followed him out into the smelly hallway. No matter how many times the door opened, my nose hadn't gotten used to the reeking tobacco and old whiskey that seeped out of everything.
My nerves shook when we walked through the bar, passing several tables with dark, savage looking men. They all stopped and eyeballed us. I could handle the ugly, lecherous looks, but my face burned with rage when their eyes ran up and down Jackie's body.
She stayed close to me, and I stayed even closer to Brass. Yeah, it was definitely bad when the devil I knew was a comfort against all these other demons.
As if sensing the unease, a rough hand reached for mine. I looked up in surprise as Brass took my hand. Refusing to fight it off was an even bigger surprise.
He led us past the bar and down another hall on the opposite side of the large building. We headed for an exit at the end that looked like it led into a big garage full of trucks and motorcycles. I could see them through the glass window in the door.