A Sinful Vow: Inked Angels MC (6 page)

Croak merely looked at him. His eyes glinted.

I looked at Blaze on the stage. He had not yet looked at me. I couldn’t read his face or his posture. Like always, I had no way to know what he was thinking. Instead he stood, stoic and still, like a god carved out of marble.

I was still reeling from the sight. I thought back to the night in my driveway, how his hand had cupped against my hip and drew me into his body. How his smell seduced me, how his mouth sucked from me everything that I wanted to give up to him. The same tendrils of longing that had sprung up that night were winding through me again, down every nerve, like a heat wave that intensified with every passing second.

“My brother,” Croak finally said, “this is not a real marriage. No one here is fool enough to believe that these two are bound in love for eternity.” He looked at Blaze and me. I tried to catch Blaze’s eye, but he refused to look back.

What was going on inside that head?

Croak continued, “No, I’m not that dumb, and neither are you, brother. This is a symbol, the closest thing to a handshake that our two charters are gonna be able to consent to right now.”

Luke’s fists tightened further. I could see how badly he wanted that knife to be back in his hand.

“I can’t say for sure what kind of marriage it’ll be, though it sure as hell ain’t a proper one,” said Croak. “Maybe they’ll find something in each other worthwhile, or maybe they’ll hate each other’s guts. Maybe they’ll fuck, maybe not.. My point is that’s not the point. We need to bury the hatchet so that those rowdy Diablos fuckers to the south don’t look over at our side of the border and see us in disarray.”

The men in the audience nodded. Croak saw their energy and played it like a fiddle, stoking them into more and more of an uproar. Luke watched in silent rage.

“Is that what we want?” he asked, holding his hands high. The men on both sides of the aisle shook their heads angrily.

“Do we want to give up all the territory we’ve worked so hard to control?”

“No!” many yelled.

“Do we want to wake up to a knife in the back from a fucking cartel?”

“No!”

Croak turned back to Luke. “So you see, we’re between a rock and a hard place here, kiddo. The way I see it, we’ve got two choices: stay stubborn and die, or proceed with the affair we’ve got on hand today.” He gestured back and forth between Blaze and me.

It took all the effort in Luke’s entire body to grit out the syllables he spoke next.

“Fine,” he growled. “So be it.”

And then I was standing across from Blaze.

Five years had gone by since I’d last been in this position. Five long years of thinking back on the one brief moment we’d shared that night. Five years of disappointment, as every guy who’d ever tried anything with me failed to live up to the soaring heights that just one kiss from Blaze had taken me.

Five years. A very long time.

But this wasn’t a marriage, wasn’t a reunion, wasn’t anything like that. This was a prison sentence, and I planned to approach it exactly like that. Do my time, keep to myself, and get out. I sure as hell wasn’t trying to get fucked by the man locked in the cell with me.

The bikers assembled in the pews slowly fell to a hush. You could’ve heard a pin drop, it was so quiet. The tension from the fight had simmered down, but you could still tell that there was too much bad blood for everything to be truly nice and relaxed.

I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn’t real. After all, it wasn’t exactly a fairy tale wedding. I hoped that one day, when I got married for real, to someone I loved, that it would be a vast improvement over the knife-drawing, leather-clad, chain-smoking event that I was currently mired in.

The preacher, Steezy, cleared his throat and began to address the crowd.

“Folks, we’re all gathered here today for, well, for a couple different reasons, and they ain’t exactly the legit kind of reasons that usually accompany somethin’ like this.”

Blaze stared at me. His eyes were inscrutable. It was almost like he wasn’t seeing me at all, or like he was seeing straight through me. I didn’t know what I’d been hoping for. Joy? Excitement? At the very least, it would’ve been nice if the bastard acted like he knew who the hell I was.

Or did he not care? Maybe I was just another notch in his belt, some bitch he’d known once and forgotten about. I’m sure there had been many more after me, and I’m
definitely
sure he did a hell of a lot more than just kiss most of those girls. A guy like Blaze—tall, good-looking and he knew it, with swagger aplenty—would have more than his fair share of women swooning at his feet. There was a decent chance that I just wasn’t worth remembering to him.

But damn, I remembered him.

“We all know damn well the history that led us here. Lotsa blood spilled between brothers riding under the same patch, which just ain’t right, if you ask me. Time’s come to put all that behind us,” Steezy boomed. “This marriage right here, it ain’t really for these two at all. But we need them to stand up here and say all the things a couple that’s gettin’ hitched is supposed to say, for the good of the club.”

The crowd was still quiet. Blaze had not blinked.

“So, that brings us here. Let’s keep movin’ right along, and get into—”

“I remember that night,” Blaze interrupted. Steezy raised an eyebrow, but he stopped and let Blaze continue.

I wasn’t sure who Blaze was talking to, exactly. Was this for me? For Croak or Luke? For the whole church to hear?

“You know which night I’m talkin’ about. I see how you’re lookin’ at me now, and it’s the same way you was looking at me back then. You’re mine now, and I’m claiming you like I didn’t get a chance to do five years ago. You belong to me. That’s my vow.”

Blaze’s words sent me reeling. He was so hard to read, so dark and swirling all the time, that to hear him claim me as his property like that was like being sucked into his storm. I felt like I was churning within him, like he was swallowing me whole and I had no choice but to submit to it or be broken by it.

His hands tightened on mine. Everything he was saying flowed through me. It was a jolt to feel the intensity of his hunger. I wasn’t sure whether to be terrified or turned on. There was so much
man
to him. We had never had a chance to see where that kiss would have led.

Steezy spoke again. “Olivia Morris, do you accept Blaze as your husband? As your man, your claimant? Do you agree to love and serve him and his brood? Do you agree that you belong to his patch and to his name?”

He asked one last question.

“Do you agree that you are his?”

I swallowed heavily. The world was losing shape around me. I couldn’t handle everything that was happening all at once. It was too much, too fast. Blaze and Luke and Croak and the guns and the skulls and the motorcycle engines idling like wild animals outside.

There was only one thing left to say.

“I do.”

The second the words left my mouth, before Steezy could say anything else, Blaze tugged me forward. I almost fell into his arms, yanked against his warm body, which hummed with an intoxicating electricity. His mouth pressed against mine ferociously, hungrily, like he was drowning and I was the last air in the world.

His tongue shoved my lips apart and he explored along my teeth. The warmth of our tongues intermingling spread down my throat and stabbed spikes of heat between my legs. It was like that night five years ago and this morning were one and the same, like no time had passed—or like all that time had passed but it didn’t matter.

I felt everything exactly as I’d felt then, but now it was so much more; the longing, amplified by the time we lost, the fiery need.

But no. I couldn’t let myself submit to it. If I fell over the edge of letting this brute claim me, I would be left broken and Luke would lose everything. I knew that if Blaze truly claimed me like he said he would, then I wouldn’t be able to keep anything from him. One look at the scars that coursed over his neck was enough to know that he would stop at nothing if he thought I was lying to him. I had to stay separate; I had to keep the barrier.

So with the strongest mental shove I could muster, I locked it all away. I became cold. I broke the kiss and with a gentle, deceptive hand, guided his ear to my mouth. I whispered to him so no one else could hear, “Listen to me, Blaze, you son of a bitch. I’m not the girl you walked away from five years ago. I’m my own woman, and you do
not
control me. You will never control me. You will never own me. I don’t care what the marriage papers say. I. Am. Not. Yours.”

I pulled back and stared at his face, waiting for some reaction, any reaction. Would he explode? His hands were so capable of shattering me utterly. The way his pupils reached back forever and ever—there was depth to him, and I knew that in there lay violence.

But what he did next took me completely off guard.

He grinned.

The flash of white teeth was nothing like I’d been expecting. I had just laughed in the face of this whole silly tradition, of his club, of his president. I had basically told him he was nothing to me, and now he was laughing? It didn’t make sense.

With a brutal wrench, he jerked my ear next to his lips, so that this time I would listen to him. I tried to wriggle free, but he was too strong. I wasn’t going anywhere. His breath was heavy on my skin.

“Liv,” he said, “ I’m gonna take you out of this church, whether you like it or not, strap your ass down on my bike, and we are gonna go somewhere far away so that no one but me can hear you scream my name.”

My eyes were wide open in shock. He leaned back and laughed again. I hoped to God he couldn’t tell how wet I was beneath my wedding dress. My knees felt barely capable of supporting my weight anymore, and my whole body was screaming for me to fall, to fall right onto his cock.

I could see the thick outline of his manhood straining against the suit pants. It was yearning to be inside me, and my soaking wet pussy wanted exactly the same thing. I had no idea what would happen next, but I did know one thing for sure: this marriage was off to one hell of a start.

Chapter 4: Leather and Lace

One Hour Earlier

Blaze

Steezy, Ember, Croak, and I sat around a table, smoking and drinking. I was looking like a fool, all dolled up in a tux with a goddamn bow tie, while the rest of the boys had stuck to the usual boots and jeans. But hey, a wedding was a wedding, right? Gotta look the part. Even if it did mean the end of the brief but illustrious career I’d spent banging every halfway decent piece of ass that dared to strut around within the city limits.

Christ, my dick hurt already just thinking about all the pussy I was giving up.

“One broad for the rest of your life…” Ember kept belaboring the point over and over, cackling like a fuckin’ idiot to himself every time. This was too much.

I pulled out my knife and slammed it into the table top between his splayed fingers, mere centimeters from slicing off a couple inches of flesh and bone.

“Listen here, you son of a bitch,” I told him. “No more jokes about this shit. You shut your mouth and drink your whiskey like a good boy before I cram my goddamn boot down your throat. Are we clear?”

Ember grumbled, but eventually he sat back in his chair and said, “Yeah, yeah, you no-fun bastard. Can’t even take a joke.”

I sheathed my knife and resumed smoking. I wanted to show the boys that nothing was changing, but to be honest, I was having a pretty hard time keeping my hand from shaking. Even with a week to process the news, I couldn’t believe that I was about to be standing across the altar from Olivia Morris.

The shock was unsettling. I kept trying to tell myself,
Fuck it, you’re a man, you’ve had plenty of bitches as fine as her. You’re Blaze. Chicks come from miles away just to beg for the chance to fuck you. What’s one more broad?

But I was lying to myself. Olivia wasn’t just another broad. I’d left her right on the verge of fucking her brains out. I’d been so damn close to getting inside that tight pussy, only to get turned away by that scum fuck of a brother of hers. Shit, just thinking about how close I’d been made my dick leap in my pants.

And now I’d have her all to myself, tucked away in a room somewhere down in Mexico for the little honeymoon we had planned for after the wedding—if you could even call it that.

“Listen, are we all good on the plan?” Croak asked me.

“Yeah, of course. It ain’t that fuckin’ complicated,” I snapped back.

Croak raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, well, it’s important, so don’t go fucking it up,” he warned.

“How could I possibly do that?” I said. “I take her down to Mexico, away from her brother. Get into her head a little bit, see what she knows about anything that fucker might be cooking up, then once we got the , if there even is one, I bring her back home, drop her ass off, then I’m free and clear. Easy as that; any dumbass could do it. Literally anyone. Shit, you coulda just had Ember marry the bitch instead.”

Steezy laughed, while Ember shot me a dirty glare. Croak didn’t say anything, just nodded and kept smoking. Stone cold son of a bitch, that one.

“I don’t trust that brother of hers one bit,” Steezy said to all of us.

“You should,” said Croak. “He’s our only chance of keeping those fucking Diablos in their place. Frankly, we don’t have the manpower anymore to pin them below the border on our own. Not since the last big blow-up we had, back before the cartel council was established.”

“Yeah, but he is one slimy fuck,” retorted Steezy.

“Well, then you and our groom-to-be can start a goddamn
I Hate Luke Morris
club. Get matching t-shirts and everything. I don’t give a fuck what you think about him—this is my charter and I say we go through with this. If you have any questions about that, you can take ’em and shove ’em up your own ass.”

Croak drew on his cigarette, then stood up. His chair scraped against the floor.

“Time to go, boys,” he said, stubbing out the butt on the table. “We’ve got a wedding to attend.”

* * *

And then she was standing across from me, looking fine as all hell. The hysterics had died down. I couldn’t believe her dumbass brother had tried to pull a knife on me. If there was one fucker in this room I could kill, it would for sure be that bastard.

You know, the one who was about to become my brother-in-law. What a fucked up world we lived in.

I thought this would be easy. No bitch had ever gotten under my skin in all the years since I’d last seen Olivia, and I’d told myself over and over again that she wouldn’t be any different. They were all the same, weren’t they? Just a hole to fill when I was drunk and horny.

But this…this was harder than I’d anticipated. Goddamn, where was a shot of whiskey when a man needed one?

I couldn’t let her see any of this shit, of course. I had no respect for a man who looked weak in front of women. I was Blaze; I wasn’t no fucking pussy. I decided right then and there that I was going to take charge of this slut and break her. I would show her that she belonged to
me
now.

The second Steezy had said his bit, I made my move. I squeezed the hell out of her, grabbed that tight little ass, and shoved my tongue straight down her throat. This wasn’t gonna be anything like a storybook romance. This was an Inked Angels marriage, a Blaze marriage, and she needed to know how things would be from here on out.

It was cute when she whispered in my ear and tried to set the terms of this budding little relationship of ours. Adorable, really.

“I. Am. Not. Yours,” she’d hissed. I practically laughed in her face.

With a savage twist, I pulled her up. It was my time to talk.

“Liv,” I told her, “I’m gonna take you out of this church, whether you like it or not, strap your ass down on my bike, and we are gonna go somewhere far away so that no one but me can hear you scream my name.”

I leaned back to watch my words take effect. They hit her like a goddamn train, a waterfall or some shit like that—she didn’t even know where to start. I could see all the shit I needed to in that confused little mouth of hers.

Oh yeah, this girl would be learning several lessons tonight. How to come for her husband like a good little girl. How to suck my cock and swallow my load so she could earn that dick back inside of her hot pussy, right where it belonged—right where I belonged.

Oh, and she’d learn one more thing, too, starting right now. Olivia had started to turn away, but I grabbed her by the arm and spun her into me again. She hit my chest with a flustered “Oh,” and looked up in my eyes. I gave her the wildest grin I could muster and said, loud enough that her brother could hear from his seat in the first pew, “Practice saying my name, darling—you’ll be screaming it later.”

* * *

I felt nauseous as soon as we stepped out of the church. What the fuck was this shit? She was just another girl, so why the fuck did I feel so sick about everything I had said to her at the altar? I’d said exactly what I was supposed to say—told her she was mine. Told her I owned her. Told her that I was her husband and that she belonged to me, utterly and completely.

So what was going on inside me?

I know who you really are, Blaze.
That fucking little voice. I wished I could reach inside my own damn brain and strangle that son of a bitch. It had the most annoying habit of speaking up right when things were going according to plan.

I needed to hear some engine. I threw Olivia on the back of the bike. She landed with a soft exclamation, but she knew better than to say anything to me. I didn’t care what kind of tough act she was trying to put on. I had to break her; if for no other reason than just to silence that bitchy little voice in my head.

“Here’s what’s gonna happen,” I growled to her. “You and I, we’re gonna run a little errand. And then we’ve got a trip to take. You’re gonna do as I say, without a single question. I’m your husband now, and your only job is to obey me.”

“Listen here, you mean bastard,” she started to say back to me, but I ignored her and kicked the engine to life. It roared, then settled into a contented purr, loud enough to drown her out completely.

Perfect. I already had one voice annoying the living hell out of me, I sure as hell didn’t need another.

We ripped down the road, throttle wide open. I settled back, letting loose a loud sigh and working my jaw back and forth to dissipate some of the tension I’d built up during the ceremony.

Shit had come awfully close to blowing up in there. If Croak hadn’t been such a steely bastard, we might’ve ended up with a war on our hands—brothers gunning each other down inside a church. For fuck’s sake, Luke Morris would’ve put that blade in my chest without a second’s hesitation. Thank God for Steezy. And for Croak, too, even though that motherfucker really pissed me off more often than not.

But all that was behind us now. In front of me, there was only empty blacktop. It was exactly the cure I was looking for.

* * *

“You are out of your fucking mind,” Olivia shrieked. She stalked over to where I was sitting in a rickety wooden chair, the world’s biggest shit-eating grin smeared across my face. The salesman standing off to the side looked confused as all hell, but hey, who could blame him—the strappy leather lingerie he was holding in his hands wasn’t exactly the most frequently requested item in his store.

Liv looked like she wanted to slap me. I just kept that smile on full blast. I sure as hell wasn’t about to back down to a woman, wife or not. She was seething, though. I could practically see steam pouring out of her ears.

She was cute when she got angry. The flush rose high in her cheeks, and she jutted her hip out to one side. Goddamn, that ass looked delicious. It was begging for a manhandling.

“Look at me, for Christ’s sake,” she snapped. She threw one threatening finger at the salesman. “There’s no fucking way I’m putting that shit on. Not for anyone, but especially not for you.” She clenched her teeth, crossed her arms, and settled back, confident that she’d stand her ground.

And then I stood up.

I could see fear steal over her face as I rose. I’d always been a big son of a bitch, but standing next to her petite frame, I looked like a giant. I towered over her, and when I looked down into her face, blocking out the ceiling light, it was like a scene out of a fucking nightmare.

I took one hand and placed it on her throat. I wasn’t squeezing or anything, but she needed to know who was calling the shots here. The weight of my hand only reinforced the metallic edge of the words coming out of my mouth.

“No, Liv,” I spoke softly. I didn’t need to raise my voice or shout or curse. She could look in my eyes and see that I meant every word I said. “No, I think you’re going to do exactly what I’m telling you to do. You’re going to be a good, dutiful wife. You’re going to take that shit from our little friend over there…” the salesman gulped, scared just from being near me, “…and you’re gonna go into that changing room. You’re going to take off all your clothes, and after you do that, you’re going to put that thing on, and you’re going to come show me. Before you put it on, though, I want you to stand there naked and remember something: you are mine now. I want you to look over every inch of your body and pretend that my name is stamped all over you. I want you to look at that pretty little smile and think, ‘This is Blaze’s.’ I want you to look at that delicate, delicate little neck of yours and think, ‘This is Blaze’s.’ I want you to let your eyes wander all over those perky tits, that ass, that tight pussy you’ve got between your legs, and while you do, I want you to say the same thing to yourself, over and over. ‘This is Blaze’s.’”

I let my hand fall by my side. The salesman looked out of his mind with fear. He’d never seen a scene like this before, that was for certain. Olivia swallowed.

Almost like it was moving of its own accord, one of her hands flitted up and stroked my abs. Then she caught herself and jerked it back down. Inside my head, I smiled. This would be fun.