Convicted (Entangled Ignite) (8 page)

Her mouth opened, her breath little more than a whisper as he finally filled her to the hilt. So full. So incredibly full. Not just her body. His steady gaze never wavered from hers, reaching far deeper than the skin.

He can see me
, she realized, a half second later jolting from the ridiculousness of the thought. But the feeling didn’t go away. If anything it intensified as he settled, full length, above her. She’d thought this was what she wanted, but the vulnerability almost frightened her. Exposed. Open. Unable to hide anything from him.

Her hands tightened at his waist, but she couldn’t look away.

Silently, he began to move, all the while retaining her gaze, acknowledging he could see all the way into her, past every wall. Then he kissed her gently, slowing the storm long enough to gift her with something…pure.

She reeled back, shutting her eyes, trying to hide. It did no good. She could feel that purity in the way he held her. As if she were precious. Important. He wasn’t gentle, but he was…reverent, his lips and hands almost worshipful. She couldn’t bear it. She pulled at him, lifting into his thrusts, flexing around him to push him beyond control. Beyond thinking or patience or whatever it was he was doing. But when he did let go, pounding into her until she screamed through another, mind-scrambling orgasm, she still felt it.

So when he slept, she slipped from his bed and disappeared like the thief in the night she was, running from something she couldn’t explain.

Something she knew she didn’t deserve.

Chapter Six

Cade leaned back against the tree, watching the kids on the playground again, trying to keep the corners of his lips from curling upward. He could hear keys jangling. Not ringing or slapping. Gently jangling, the rhythm familiar as they swung and patted the gentle curve of a woman’s leather-covered hip over and over again.

Wouldn’t she just love that? Pissed as hell with her, but still happy to hear those keys because he knew they belonged to her.

He needed a goddamn lobotomy.

A booted foot nudged his leg none too gently. “Hurry up and take this coffee before I decide to kick you in the balls instead.”

He grunted at the feel of another pointed nudge. “What are you doing here?”

“Like I fucking know. You don’t answer your phone, texts. or your door. I should have given up on your ass ages ago.”

Did she really want to go there? After her little disappearing act from his bed? She’d been gone for weeks, goddammit. Refused his calls first. She’d even left the bar when he went to find her. Did she really think he’d be waiting when she finally needed something? Cade lifted his hat, knowing his scowl was dark enough to scare most reasonable people.

Too bad Trina Killian was the least reasonable person he’d ever known. She just frowned back, already opening her mouth to no doubt tell him off for shit he didn’t care about.

“Give me the goddamned coffee.”

“Nice to see you, too.” She slapped the cup into his palm. Without the lid, the hot fluid sloshed all over the place. Yup, she was still mad, too.

“Let me guess, you want to know where your guys are.” He shifted to make room for her. She sat her customary three feet away anyway. His mood soured more, reminded once again of all the sneaking around she did in order to visit him. Couldn’t have anyone guessing she’d been in bed with the cop, could she?

“No, I know where they are. Not sure
why
they’re in there, but I know where.”

He didn’t bother answering the unspoken question. These latest charges might hold onto Frank a little longer than the previous ones, but Cade knew the aggravated assault charge would get downgraded to simple assault, meaning yet another misdemeanor no one would enforce. The charges for his men—trading punches with local sheriffs when they came to arrest Frank—didn’t have much weight in the long run, either. Those would get reduced until the incident sounded like a football game instead of a full-out melee, complete with broken bones and bloodied faces. One day in county lockup was about all they could hope to get. In twenty-four hours, it’d be back to business as usual in Marketta.

“It’s been a long couple of days, okay? I haven’t slept or eaten, and I just got back from Corcoran and found out I had to drag my ass down here to bail everyone out. And according to the officer behind the desk over there, I can’t. No one’s giving me any information about why there was a riot in the goddamn street and I’ve had it up to here with your abused male pride bullshit. What the actual fuck happened around here?”

Seriously? She had no idea? “No one called you?” Not even Shana’s boy?

Well, no, he guessed that wouldn’t have happened.

“How bad are your hands this time?”

Cade looked down at his bruised knuckles, flexing them despite the soreness.

“Well, I guess I should just be grateful you’re not dead,” she grumbled in response to his non-answer. “Yet.”

“You come here just to spread your bad mood? ‘Cause there’s plenty of that already.”

His hands flexed again, the urge to grab her and taste her almost as violent as the desperation to shove her away. Why was she here? She’d gotten what she wanted and left as soon as the coast was clear. Did she really think he’d forget that?

She suddenly dug her heel into the ground like it had done something to make her mad before finally expelling a frustrated breath and jumping to her feet again. “Just tell me this. Are you
trying
to get killed? I’m only asking, you know, so I can celebrate for you when you finally pull it off.”

“I’m doing my job,” he answered mildly. She knew this. They had this conversation after every altercation.

“I thought you were here to keep people safe.” Yup, spitting mad. “I can’t believe you let Rick drag you into a brawl!”

“Rick didn’t drag me into anything. We went to arrest your boss. His men got aggressive.” Most of them had that reaction to Cade. Something about his size gave them the thought that pushing him showed off their courage. Three of them trying to knock him to the ground just proved their interest in losing teeth.

“You know they had to wire Cavuto’s jaw shut, right?”

“Did they?” There. That sounded almost like he cared.

She glared down at him, hands on her hips for a solid, irritated minute. “You are
such
an asshole.”

The feel of a genuine smile on his face was as much a surprise as the chuckle that escaped him.

“You think this is funny?” She tried to sound mad, but he could see the curve touching the corners of her lush mouth. Relief that he was acknowledging her again.

When she’d finally tried calling him after her disappearing act, he’d barely had the fortitude to turn her away. Thankfully, pride could give a man all kinds of strength. He’d managed three weeks of ignoring her, including her knocks at his window only because he knew she was going to apologize. While he could put up with a lot of her shit, he knew he couldn’t handle hearing her turn that night into something ugly. Into pity.

His smile faded and he looked down at his hands.

She sighed, getting him to glance her way while she dragged her fingers through her wild hair. “Wheels of Pain has been part if this town for over twenty years. It’s had time to dig real deep, you know?”

“You think we should just let them keep doing what they’re doing? Let them keep using this place to move cocaine and God knows what else into the country? Or maybe we should just let them keep terrorizing this town like it’s their own personal head?”

“Of course not. It wasn’t always like this, okay? It wasn’t so openly violent. It’s gotten completely out of hand under Frank’s control.”

“Like your uncle was much better? I’ve read the reports, Trina.”

“My uncle is a lot of things, but he kept his crew in control so the town wouldn’t turn on him. Frank doesn’t give a shit. He thinks he’s above it all and takes just about anyone who comes asking—the skeevier the better. The people in this town may not like what the club does, but the club also puts money in their pockets. Keeps food on their tables. Without it, Marketta dies and everyone here knows they’ll die
with
it.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m saying, you’re not going to clean things up without getting people to help you. They don’t
want
to live like this, they just don’t think they have options. What reason are you giving them to choose a side that takes food out of their children’s mouths? Right now, you’re just Rick’s scary henchman. Things like this fight, like the last five fights, the last ten… How are you supposed to protect people who don’t trust you? What are you doing to prove it’s worth the risk to help you?”

He hated that she had a point.

The size of Wheels of Pain was startlingly large, with thirty to forty of the men based in town at any given time. Since Marketta was the only spot off the mountain pass for miles, they got more than their share of truckers pulling speed hauls on top of that. Throw in the occasional rival biker gang traveling through, just for aggravation, and it was a damn powder keg.

Fights spilled out of the Katrina’s bar almost nightly. Women were hassled left and right, and the only ones busier than the sheriff’s department were the understaffed clinic employees, dealing with all the injuries. Since almost none of the arrests they made managed to stick past arraignment, frustration warred with futility on a regular basis.

Her hand flew out in an angry gesture that took in the entire spread of the town around them. “Until you come up with some way to replace what the townspeople lose when the club disappears, you’re going to keep getting nowhere, Wheels of Pain is the lesser evil compared with the mess in the sheriff’s department. At least people have an idea what to expect from them. But you…?”

But he was in Marketta for one reason and one reason only—to back Rick. He was not there to make cow eyes at a woman who had zero interest in him beyond sympathy. A woman whose sultry gait he had no business memorizing.

That spark he wished she didn’t light in him flared up in his gut. “What
about
me?”

It took a damn fool to find her beautiful while she bluntly delivered her answer. “You’re a time bomb. They’re worried you’ll lose your shit some night if they push the wrong button.”

He stilled, grinding his teeth. He’d picked that up, the way the men around town eyed each other when he came in with Rick on a patrol. He could care less what Wheels of Pain thought of him, but it was clear the rest of the town was as afraid of him as they were of the bikers. If what she was saying was true, probably even more scared.

She looked down briefly, her eyes closing as if reigning in temper. “You’re supposed to be the law, Cade. Not judge, jury, and executioner.”

“And what are
you
supposed to be, Trina?” He rose from his place on the ground, stepped toward her, but all she did was raise her chin and let those dark blue eyes of hers flash at him.

Another step, putting him close enough to smell her. Fresh and feminine, but not flowery. Enticing. Tempting. It made him want to bury his hands in that thick mane and hold her in place while he ground his mouth over hers. “Am I supposed to think you’re really the tough biker chick you want everyone here to believe you are? Or am I supposed to think you’re some kind of secret guardian angel because you swoop in to help Shana and her son every time they call?”

He wasn’t sure when she’d started backing up or even that he’d intimidated his way toward her, but she was up against the tree now, her entire body hidden from prying eyes by the wide trunk.

This was the true danger of her. She didn’t just make him feel when he didn’t want to. She could make him feel everything in a rage. Too much sensation, too much want, too much need. He didn’t want to kiss her, he wanted to devour her. Not sleep with her again. Not make love to her. No. He wanted to fuck her. Hard. Over and over again. Until the overload had passed and he could go back to…

Hell, he didn’t even know what.

At least before he’d come here, up in his cabin where the world was very small and close and silent, he’d known what he was. Accepted it, even if he didn’t understand what he’d become. Now, though, now he couldn’t find a foothold at all.

Her arms unfolded, hands finding purchase at his waist. Pulling him closer, until her hips practically cradled him, her body pressed against the full length of his. He put both hands on the trunk, kept himself from her by the smallest of margins.

Her breath was coming in fast little pants, brushing his lips and chin. He wanted it to be her mouth. Wanted her hands pulling at him desperately again. Furiously. Wanted her to want him as much as he wanted her.

The bark of the fir tree crunched under his grip.

“Or are you the kind who’d pity fuck a cop to get him wrapped around your finger?”

She didn’t flinch at his strangled whisper. “Pity has nothing to do with us. It never has.”

He wanted to believe that more than anything in the world.

“I’m not your father.” He’d done his research, wondering if she’d been telling him the truth. She was. Her father had stayed in Vietnam until the bitter end. Came home, married three years later. Katrina arrived three years after that, but her mother hadn’t survived her birth. David Killian’s life seemed to fall apart after that, leaving a trail of drunken disorderlies on his record. But he held on for his daughter. Eight years, anyway. Then he’d used his service pistol to blow his brains out while she was in school. “You’re not responsible for what happens to me. No more than for what happened to him.”

Her eyes widened, her mouth tightening with clear anger. “Don’t try psychoanalyzing me, Cade. It’s hypocritical.”

He let his fingertips graze her face, unable to keep from soothing the hurt he saw there. He felt the smoothness of her cheek, cool and firm. Strong from her steady smiles. Smiles he couldn’t decide if he should believe in or not.

“Then stop playing your games with me.”

Her fingers wrapped around his wrist, soothing the fiery heat that had taken hold of him and doing nothing to pull his touch away. “You’re not a game. You’re a risk. Not just to me, to yourself. You have to get a better hold of this.”

This
being his emotions, such as they were.

“You want to protect these people, protect me, but you can’t do that if they’re scared of you. The sheriff is a joke.
Someone
has to make a change. Give them something to believe in. To hope for.” Her low whisper lost none of its urgency, not when her gaze stroked his face like a caress he could feel over every inch of his skin. “Frank wants you out of his way. What he can’t control, he fears. What he fears, he destroys. It’s as simple as that.”

“And you? Are you afraid of me?” He had no business standing here like this with her. Touching her. Less than an inch from tasting her again. The hunger in him wouldn’t settle for just a taste, either.

But if she was afraid of him, it would break the few threads of self-respect he had left.

She shook her head slowly. “I’m afraid
for
you. There’s a very big difference.”

Yes, there was. It was the same fear he had for her, alone in that pack of murderers and thieves. His mind refused to accept she’d come from them, that she belonged there. “Come out of the club…”

Be with me instead.

He didn’t say it, but he knew she heard it all the same.

The same way he knew, from one heartbeat to the next, that she’d turn him down.

“Cade, I—”

He straightened away, the blood that had been flowing so hot and fast through his veins turning to ice. “I gotta go.”