Wanted: Devil Dogs MC (9 page)

Isabel can’t help but start at every noise she hears, because any of them could herald the arrival of Wesley. She tries to distract herself with the accounts report in front of her. But no matter which way she works them, she can’t seem to make the incomings outweigh the outgoings. In other words, the boarding house is still losing more than it is making, month on month, and nothing she does seems to make any difference.

Feeling her mood darken, she shuts her laptop firmly, drumming the tips of her fingers impatiently on the lid. She looks at the time on her cell again, for about the hundredth time to find it’s only three minutes later than it had been when she’d last checked it. Where is he? He’s usually back by now.

Fear grips her, making her feel like her stomach is twisting and turning. She wonders if she’ll ever get used to the feeling or if she even wants to. The sensation of impending disaster isn’t one she would wish on anybody.

Wesley had told her what he is, the kind of people he is involved in. She hadn’t gotten into this, whatever this is, with her eyes closed. He’d made it very clear that he is dangerous, that she is in danger just by the virtue of being involved with him. She thought that was a little over-dramatic on his part, but she’d kept quiet as it had been clear he had believed it. But the fear that she is feeling wasn’t for herself. It’s for him.

Over the past week, they had lapsed into a kind of routine. Although ‘routine’ implies something boring, something you do over and over again to the point where it’s just an automatic reaction. She hasn’t reached that point with him; she wonders if she ever will. Everything about him is the opposite of routine and dull. When she is with him something comes alive inside of her that she hadn’t even realized had been dead before.

Their particular ritual involves her lying in bed next to Wesley while he gets a call from another member of the Devil Dogs, giving him instructions. He never tells her where he is going or exactly what those instructions are. The less she knows about it the better, he’d told her. She waits up for him until the early hours of the morning, her insomnia not allowing her much sleep at the best of times. He comes back bloody and bashed and she proceeds to patch him up, doing her best not to ask any questions about what he had done or why. Sometimes she is more successful than others at keeping her natural curiosity under lock and key.

She smiles to herself at the memory of the night before, the way Wesley had stopped her questions by kissing her thoroughly, in a way that made her pulse race and her knees go weak. She squirms in her seat, marveling at how she can be so turned on just by the thought of him and those lips of his and what he can do with them.

They haven’t put a label on what they are, but Isabel knows she’s in real danger with this man. He makes her feel things she never thought possible. He makes her want to wake up with his arms still wrapped around her, pulling her close, protecting her. Not once has she considered sneaking out of the bedroom before he wakes, as had been her MO before him. For the first time in her life, she doesn’t want an uncomplicated relationship. She wants more and that, in itself, is enough to worry her.

Her best friend Jamie had laughed when Isabel told her how she was feeling.

“You know, you’re the only woman I know who worries about wanting more than just a one night stand!” Isabel could hear her friend shaking her head all the way from New York.

“Remind me never to call you when I need advice.” Isabel’s grumbling was good-natured, as it always is with Jamie. She couldn’t remember them ever having an actual argument.

“Aww, come on now, Issy, you know I love you really.” Isabel could imagine the pout on Jamie’s pretty, angelic face as she said the words. “Besides, I know you better than anyone and I can tell you’re holding out on me. So what is it you’re not telling me?”

Isabel cursed her friend’s talent for seeking out truth like a missile. Jamie wasn’t wrong; there was something she hadn’t told her, the big breaking news that Wesley was involved in a criminal biker gang. Isabel wasn’t sure if she’d kept that particular nugget of information from her friend because Wesley had warned her of the dangers of sharing the information with anyone, not just for him but for whomever he shared it with, as well, or because she didn’t want to hear what Jamie’s inevitable reaction would be.

Despite the fact that Jamie is the wild one out of the two of them, she isn’t stupid. If she knew the truth, she would be telling her best friend exactly what Isabel knows to be right: she should stay away from Wesley, that it’s one thing to have a crush on a bad boy, but it’s a whole different kettle of fish to be dating a criminal.

Dating – is that even what they are doing? Their relationship hasn’t left the confines of the boarding house; in fact it has barely left the bedroom. In front of the other tenants they make sure to keep things as they always have been so nobody will suspect what goes on behind closed doors at night. Wesley is ferociously private, a fact she was finding more and more frustrating as time went on, so it isn’t a stretch for him to keep things secret. It is harder for her, because being around him, seeing him and not being able to touch him, to kiss him is about as difficult as keeping a starving man away from a feast.

“Nothing, Jamie, really it’s nothing.” She huffed a sigh, knowing full well Jamie wouldn’t let her evasion slide. “I guess I’m just wondering how long this thing can really last for. I mean, he’s a tenant. He’s not going to be around forever and when he decides to leave, what happens?” She didn’t voice the unspoken question that was on her lips, about what happens to her when he packs up his things and goes. But she didn’t need to say it; Jamie already knew Isabel’s fears.

“There’s no such thing as a sure thing, Issy.” Jamie sighed deeply as if she wished what she was saying wasn’t a universal truth despite all evidence to the contrary. “No one knows how long any relationship is going to last. All you can do is decide if you’re willing to run with it for as far as it’ll go and deal with the consequences when you get there.” Her friend’s logic was infuriatingly infallible as always. “You know, happy endings do exist – people fall in love, get married, have babies. It happens.”

“Really? Who does it happen to, Jamie?” Isabel didn’t even try to temper her frustration.

“It happens everyday, Issy. It could happen to you, too.” Jamie paused, a signal to Isabel that she was going to say something that was going to be hard to hear. “You deserve to be happy, Issy. Not everybody leaves.”

The words were harder to accept than they should have been. Isabel had waved Jamie’s concern away, telling her she knew that and she would call her soon. It was only after she hung up that Isabel drew in a shuddering breath. Not everybody leaves. But the two people who should have always been there – her mother and her father – they’d both gone and they’d left her all alone. It wasn’t a great batting average.

As if the very thought is enough to summon him, Isabel hears the sound of a key turning in the lock, followed by the stealthy padding of a man who is used to sneaking around. He needs to be able to keep himself off the radar to be able to do the bloody work the Dogs pay him for. Isabel pushes the thought out of her mind before she can dwell on it.
The man had been a Marine, for Christ’s sake
, she reminds herself. It’s not that strange that he should know how to be silent.

In just a few seconds she’s out of the office and facing him in the entrance hall. Her breath catches in her throat at the sight of him, and not just because of the way he makes her feel. Even though tonight he’s not in as bad shape as she’s seen him, he’s still a little hunched over, his hand clutched to his side in pain.

“Wes.” The word is barely a whisper on her lips but it’s full of longing and pain on his behalf.

He reaches his hand out to her and, in a moment, she’s in his arms. He holds her close, breathing in the scent of her hair and she buries her face in his shoulder, reassuring herself that he’s there, that he’s come back in one piece.

“I’m all right. I’m okay, Bel.” His nickname for her is soft on his lips. “But I may not be if you keep squeezing the life out of me.”

She hurriedly steps back, dropping her arms, giving him a worried look as he laughs at the seriousness on her face. “Ha ha. Very funny.” She crosses her arms, her green eyes narrowed in a way that tells him she thinks he’s anything but. “If you’ve broken a rib, you won’t be laughing so hard.” She moves to lead the way into the kitchen, which had become her triage center, but he catches hold of her hand, pulling her towards him again. She doesn’t resist him, doesn’t even try, as his hands find their way into her curly hair and his lips settle on hers, proprietorially, as if there is no other way things can be.

Isabel sighs as he deepens the kiss, his tongue thrusting insistently into her mouth, tasting her, suckling her lips until she feels like she might come right there and then, just from the exquisiteness of the kiss. Her palms run along his stubbled cheek, enjoying the scraping sensation in contrast with the softness of his lips.

They’re both breathless, their eyes filled with lust when the kiss ends. It takes a few moments for Isabel to recover her equanimity. She notices the way his hand has gone to his side again, almost involuntarily as soon as he’s released her.

“Come inside so I can take a look.” She leads him into the kitchen and it’s not lost on her the way he sits down so gingerly. There’s no doubt in her mind he’s in pain.

“It’s not broken.” His voice comes out through gritted teeth as she lifts his shirt up, exposing what is already turning into a pretty impressive-looking bruise.

She gives him a withering look that would have a lesser man quaking in his boots. “And you would know that from your previous experience as a doctor?”

“I’ve broken ribs before. It hurt a hell of a lot more than this.” His words coming from anyone else would sound like pure bravado, but Isabel knows that from his time in the Corps he has taken more than a few hard knocks.

Isabel ignores him, resuming her gentle exploration of the injury with her fingers, noting the way he seems to be trying to make his breathing as shallow as possible. When she’s satisfied with her inspection she motions for him take his shirt off. “It’s not broken.” She hates to admit he was right but that’s preferable to him being seriously hurt. “But you’ll have a helluva bruise there tomorrow. I’ll wrap it to stop you moving too much.”

Wesley lifts his shirt over his head, wincing as he discards it on the floor. Isabel feels her heart rate quicken, licking her lips at the thought of his body on top of hers. Their eyes meet and Wesley smiles, knowingly. She can tell from the way his pupils are dilated that his thoughts are running along the same lines as hers.

“If you keep looking at me like that, Bel, we’re going to be in danger of christening the kitchen floor.” His husky voice sends a shiver down her spine and she has to force herself to snap out of it.

“You’re not that irresistible you know, Wesley Raeburn.” She gives him a look that’s probably made less effective by the way her thoughts have a habit of being plastered all over her face.

“No, but you are.” His voice is a low growl and, in a heartbeat, he has grabbed her waist and is pulling her down to sit on his lap.

She lets out an excited giggle. He nuzzles at her neck, his hand, skating over her breasts through her thin camisole top. She relaxes into his touch for a few moments before reason comes flooding back and her eyes fly open. “Not here, Wes. We can’t.”

Wes raises an eyebrow, looking down at her as if he doesn’t believe her. Her voice is husky but there’s no mistaking her tone, she’s not kidding around. He releases her, holding his hands up in surrender. “All right, but you’re going to have to make this quick if you don’t expect me to try to persuade you differently.”

Isabel shakes her head at the wicked gleam in his dark eyes, busying herself with her first aid kit and proceeding to wrap his chest in the last of the bandages. They’ve gotten through almost all of her mother’s extensive first aid supplies in a week and she doesn’t even say what it is he is doing every night to need medical attention more often than not. That should be enough to tell her there is something that isn’t right about this whole situation between them. It isn’t that she doesn’t see it; it’s more like she doesn’t want to.

“Seems like tonight was tough.” She avoids looking at the expression on his face as she broaches the subject she’s not supposed to talk about. “But I guess I should count myself lucky that you didn’t come back with a gunshot wound for me to sew up.” Wes remains silent, impassive, and the fact that he’s not willing to take the bait riles her. “So how many were you up against this time? Five? Ten? Twenty?”

Wes holds up his hand, motioning for her to stop. “Isabel.” The warning tone in his voice is clear but it’s not enough to stop her; she’s on a roll now.

“What will it take? Are you just not going to be satisfied until you’re in such a state that I can’t take care of you? What happens if you end up in a coma or worse?” She doesn’t say the word, she can’t. ‘Dead’ seems so final and such a poor descriptor of the absence that it creates.

He stands up, suddenly seeming to take up all the space in the room. “Isabel, that’s enough.” His voice is commanding and she can see he’s angry. She’d poked the bear and the bear had finally poked back.

She looks up at him and, suddenly all the oxygen seems to have been sucked out of the room. She looks into his eyes and feels all the energy and anger seep out of her. “It’s just…” She pauses until she feels like she’s got her emotions more under control. “It’s just it’s hard to see you do this to yourself night after night.”

Wes’s expression softens and, wordlessly, he holds his arms open to her and she walks into them, burying her head against his chest as he strokes her hair, murmuring words of comfort. She relaxes into him, letting the sense of security she feels whenever she’s in his arms wash over her. For a few moments, nothing can hurt her. She feels like, together, they can face anything.

Gently, he pushes her back so he can take a good look at her face. His thumb runs over the apple of her cheek as he squints are her, critically. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

She shrugs, noncommittally, which tells him all he needs to know. Wesley knows about her insomnia. He doesn’t have to be a genius to have noticed, bearing in mind they’ve spent every night since that first one together. He doesn’t give her the useless advice she’s had before from well-intentioned tenants: that she should count sheep or drink hot milk before bed. It would be pointless if he had anyway; she’s tried them all, nothing works. Well, almost nothing.

It doesn’t take long for him to squirrel out of her the reason for her lack of sleep since her mother had died. “You been cooking the books again?” He nods vaguely towards her office.

“I wish there was enough in them to be able to cook!” She strives for humor but neither of them laughs. Isabel had told Wesley about the financial trouble the boarding house is in; there didn’t seem to be any reason not to tell him. After all, they share things that are far more intimate than their bank balances.

But what he doesn’t know is that her sleeplessness has gotten even worse recently, that the circles under her eyes are darkening. And it’s not just because of the unpaid bills and the general state of disrepair of the house, although that would be enough to keep most people awake night after night. It is because of him. Every night she worries it will be the night he doesn’t come back. But she can’t tell him that, not only because she doesn’t have any intention of sharing exactly how she feels about him, but because no matter how much she worries it’s not going to change anything. He will still be who he is, doing the work he does, putting himself in dangerous situations night after night.

Wesley takes a deep breath, as if he’s steeling himself for something he knows is going to be tough. Isabel looks up at him, hoping this isn’t going to be the moment when he tells her he’s leaving.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.” He takes a small step away from her and motions for her to sit down.

Isabel throws him a suspicious look but does as he’s directed. “That sounds ominous.” She keeps her tone light, but it does nothing to allay the choked up feeling she’s starting to get in her throat. The ‘we need to talk’ opener was never a good sign in her experience. But usually she isn’t the one on the receiving end; this is a whole new world for her.

Instead of taking the seat next to her, Wesley starts to pace up and down, wearing a hole in the kitchen’s original Victorian oak wood flooring.

“I know things haven’t been easy for you since your mom died, and I know that, at the moment, pretty much every cent counts.” He looks to her for verification and she nods mutely. This isn’t the way that she imagined the conversation going. Absently, he rubs at the dark stubble on his chin, a habit Isabel has come to learn is linked with frustration. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that I really appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me. And in my line of work I make a pretty decent packet of extra money. So I’d like to say thank you.”

He buries his hand in his back pocket. Isabel looks up at him quizzically, but he studiously avoids eye contact with her. He pulls out rolls of bills and holds them out for her to take. She blinks, hard, trying to figure out what it is she’s looking at. It doesn’t take more than a quick glance for her to realize he’s probably holding close to a thousand dollars in cash in his hands.

“This is my way of saying thank you.” His voice is gruff, but his eyes are gentle. He actually looks nervous and it would be adorable if Isabel didn’t feel her anger already starting to rise. “Take it.”

Poor guy, he really couldn’t look more uncomfortable, but it’s too late, Isabel has already slid out of her chair and is standing toe to toe with him. She pushes the money he’s still holding in his hand away, letting it fall onto the kitchen table, a disgusted expression on her face. “You want to pay me for…” She can’t even bring herself to say the word, she’s so mad. “I don’t know who you think I am, Wes, but I can tell you that I’m most definitely
not
a whore who charges by the hour. Now that may be the only kind of woman that you’re familiar with, but that’s not me.”

She spins on her heel, needing to get as far away from him as possible before she actually becomes physically violent. Her mind is reeling from what’s just happened. Her entire perception of Wesley has changed in the space of a minute. How could she have been so wrong about him? How could she be hung up on a guy who thinks it is normal and okay to offer to pay her for sex? The heat of her anger does something to temper the bitter taste of disappointment in her mouth, but it’s nowhere near enough to stop the hurting.

“Hold on a damn second.” Wesley’s hand is on her arm before she’s even stepped two feet away and he turns her around, gently but firmly.

“Let go of me, Wes. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say to me. I think you’ve done enough for one night, don’t you?” Her green eyes flash at him and she tries to yank her arm away from his grip, but to no avail.

Of all the expressions she expects to see from him in the face of her anger, amusement is not one of them. “You know, you really are beautiful when you’re mad, Bel.”

“This is funny to you?” Her mouth gapes at him in shock, wondering if an alien has come down from space and replaced the Wesley she thought she knew with someone completely different. “What is your malfunction?” He shakes his head at her, looking down at his feet, but not fast enough for her to miss the smile he tries to hide. “Well, I’m glad to provide you with some light entertainment after your evening’s activities, but I really do have better things to do, so if you’ll just let me go.”

She struggles, snatching her arm away when she feels him relax his grip. He makes a calming gesture with his hands. His whole posture is much the same as if you were calming a wild horse. “Just settle down now, Bel. You may be beautiful when you’re angry, but I’ve had a long night and I’m not going to chase you all over the house.” He looks at her pointedly and motions towards the chair that she had vacated. “Sit.”

Her eyebrows go up so high it’s a wonder they don’t end up as part of her hairline. “Sit? So I’m a dog now?” She crosses her arms over her chest, shaking her head in disbelief at the audacity of the man in front of her. If this is the real Wesley, he must be one hell of an actor. She isn’t exactly the naïve, trusting type but he’s still managed to fool her into thinking he really cares.

“Would you sit down in the damn, chair, Isabel, and shut your mouth for just a minute?” The thinly veiled frustration in his voice is enough to have her behind hitting the seat without even realizing what she is doing. “Thank you.” He nods in satisfaction, starting to pace in front of her yet again.

“Why would you think I see you as a whore?” The way he has cut straight to the chase leaves Isabel groping for words. “Have I ever made you feel like that? Have I ever given you any indication I think of you in that way?”

His dark eyes are full of sincerity and, behind the frustration on his face, Isabel sees something else, something that makes her doubt herself; she sees hurt. “No.” Her response is quiet, but the volume doesn’t make it any less true. He has only ever treated her with the utmost respect. She has no evidence to say otherwise.

“Well, I guess at least that’s something.” Wesley seems to be talking more to himself than her. He sighs heavily, looking over at the wad of bills that he’d let fall onto the kitchen table. “The money wasn’t for sex, Isabel. Whatever you may think of me, I can promise I’ve never had to pay for it.”

Isabel feels her chest tighten at the mere thought of him in bed with someone else, but she pushes that emotion away. “Why pay when you can get it for free, right?” She shrugs as if to show how little she’s bothered, but she’s never been all that good at bluffing.

Wesley looks like he’s chewing on a load of nails as he looks at her. “No one likes a smart Alec, Isabel. You’re lucky I don’t take you over my knee and spank that out of you.”

Isabel feels her insides clench at the thought, her body betraying her with him as it always does. “I’d like to see you try.” Her voice doesn’t hold any of the venom that she had been shooting for. Instead it sounds husky, almost like an invitation.

“I bet you would.” He grins wickedly at her and Isabel’s silky pajama top does nothing to hide the way her nipples have hardened almost on his command.

“If the money isn’t for sex, what are you thanking me for, exactly? As far as I remember, you are paying me rent for the pleasure of staying here.” She motions expansively at the house.

“It’s for patching me up.” His words knock the smart responses out of her. “It’s for being here every night when I come back, bleeding and bruised. It’s for helping me, when you don’t have to.”

Isabel can’t feel more stupid about the way she had reacted to him offering her the money. She’d behaved like a child, jumping to the worst possible conclusion she could come up with. But that doesn’t change what she was going to do. She makes her way over to the table, picks up the cash and holds it out towards him. “It’s a sweet gesture, Wes. But I can’t take your money.” She shakes her head, knowing she’s passing up the opportunity to give herself a couple more decent nights’ sleep without having to worry about the pile of bills sitting on her desk. But she knows she can’t take it.

“Why?” His arms remain crossed over his chest. He stares at her, his eyes seeing down into the depths of her soul, but he makes no move to take the bills from her.

“Because money is never just money. It comes with attachments and compromises. It’s never just a thank you; there’s always more to it than that.” She shrugs, as if it is that simple. “Besides, things aren’t so bad that I have to take charity. I don’t need to depend on the kindness of strangers quite yet.” Her stab at humor doesn’t do anything to change the amazed expression on his face.