Losing Me, Finding You(76)

I watch Mireya explode like a caged panther set free, raking her nails across Walker's face, snatching the knife that she'd had earlier from where it had fallen on the bed and slashing it out, catching him across the chest. The two men that were holding her move forward and manage to grab her shoulders, drawing her back before she can do any real damage.

A shadow falls over me, and I look up to see Kent looming there, pale and ghastly and mean.

I'd been right about him: he is f*cked up from the inside out (pardon the language, but it's true).

“Kill me,” I tell him because I'm not going to let them rape me. I'm not going to let anyone rape me. I'd rather slit my own throat first. My body belongs to Austin and to me and that's it. I won't let anyone take it from me.

“No,” he says and he actually licks the knife. Licks it like he really is as much a vampire as he looks. “I don't think I'm going to be giving you the satisfaction, Miss Cross. Remember what I said: collateral.”

He reaches down; my eyes close; and in the door walks Austin Sparks.



Chapter 58

Ever hear that phrase, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?

Well, it's bullshit. Hell ain't got nothin' on a man who walks in and sees his woman on the floor with her throat cut, blood trailing down her neck and soaking into the fabric of her pretty pink pj's.

Gaine and Beck rush right by, and Kimmi disappears to find Margot, but me, I walk. I walk right up behind Kent Diamond, and I reach out and I grab his neck, sliding my arm around my President's throat and squeezing with every ounce of power that I've got left in my tired muscles.

He struggles and slashes his knife around, but let's face it, Kent has always been a little bit of a *, letting everyone else do the work for him all these years has made him soft. He doesn't put up much of a fight, and after a few moments, he's completely still. I drop his body to the floor and kick it aside, aware that there's movement going on around me but unable to give a shit about it.

“Amy,” I whisper as I sit down and pull her into my lap. “Fuck, sugar, I can't lose you yet. I only just got you.” I realize that there are six f*cking men in this room, six capable, experienced men, but they don't have Beck. I don't bother getting up to help and stay right where I am.

“Austin,” she says, reaching up to touch my face. “I'm fine.” She pokes at the hole in her own throat. “It's just a surface wound. They bleed a lot.” She pauses and swallows hard. I follow her eyes to the doorway where Kimmi stands with her pistol in one hand and her girlfriend's wrist tucked in the other. She doesn't shoot, but her eyes say she won't hesitate neither.

“Austin,” she tells me, puckering her lips angrily. “I say, f*ck that whole armed robbery bullshit. We're never going to get caught anyway. I'm taking a f*cking gun next time.” She keeps her hand aimed at Walker and his men as Beck systematically knocks them out, one by one.

Until he gets to Tray Walker, himself, of course and pauses to hand over his knife to Mireya, blunt end first. She looks at it and then over at me, and I glance away. This is her decision to make, and I'm not going to interfere or judge. That just ain't right. I keep my gaze focused on Amy.

“You sure as shit about that sugar?” She nods and then reaches her hands up to my face, grabbing me under the jaw and kissing me with her blood flecked lips, tasting me, pulling in and drowning me so deep into her that I'll never be able to escape, not even if I want to.

There are only three kinds of kisses in this world: secret ones that nobody sees, the fake ones that everybody sees, and the real ones that only two people see. This one was one of those and I'll be damned, but it rocked my friggin' world.



EPILOGUE

After Austin is sure that everyone's alright, that we're all going to live, he rallies us up and puts us on the road, taking our small group back to the main body of Triple M. Without stopping, they fall into line behind him, motorcycles purring and rumbling together in a wicked hot chorus that makes my blood sing almost as much as the man sitting in front of me, whose heart is beating in tune with mine.

Austin puts a song on the intercom and doesn't talk about what happened. Not until we've ridden through the night turned day turned night again. Only then, once he's put some space between us and what happened, does he pull us all into a parking garage, letting our group fade away into the background of a city that's bigger than any I've ever seen in person, with skyscrapers galore and roads that never sleep.

Once all the bikes are parked, everything is silent, like the cement walls around us are the edges of a bubble, keeping our small community contained, protected from the outside world and all the sounds that go with it.

“So you're a bank robber, huh?” I whisper as Austin takes off his helmet for the first time in nearly twenty-four hours. Even when we stopped for gas, he didn't remove it, not once. Not even when I finally remembered my poor friend, waiting in her gilded cage for me to come get her and told him about it. He didn't respond, but I did notice that our path changed a bit, wound back on highways heading Southeast, towards Christy, towards a place that last week, I called home, and today, is just another city.

I wait in tense anticipation for him to respond to me, to say anything at all.

“Yeah,” he responds, voice a little rough around the edges, a little hoarse from not speaking for so long. A lot sexy.