Page 82 of Tick Tock, Boom!

“I’m not that girl anymore,” I whispered. “I’m not young anymore.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he said, kissing my temple. "I’m not that man either. We’ve both been through hell, Kitten. The difference is, I want to come out of it with you."

I swallowed the lump in my throat, burying my face in his chest. I didn’t trust him. Not completely. But my heart still beat for him like it always had. And as his hand continued to stroke my body, as his warmth surrounded me, I realized something terrifying.

“I love you,” I murmured against his chest and tensed against him.

“I never stopped loving you, Kitten. Not once.”

I eased into him, my hands wrapping around him in a tight hug as I felt safe and truly loved for the first time in years.

CROAK

The Louisiana air stuck to my skin. It was humid, thick, and ripe with something rotten underneath. I hated this town. It reeked of blood and ghosts, but that didn’t bother me. I’d left bigger skeletons behind. Ghosts were nothing compared to the shit I carried with me. It was the smell of Bastards that annoyed me.

They called me Croak. I was considered a Nomad for the Bloody Scorpions although I wasn’t loyal to anybody. Since I’d arrived, they’d had me doing all the dirty work. I didn’t really get along with anyone, so I kept to myself.

Trust me, it was better that way.

It was probably because they all knew I was a murderer. Not that I cared what label people slapped on me, long as they said it with respect, or fear. Either worked just fine. I suppose what I had done, gained me some respect.

Nevada was dust in my rearview. Blood on the floor of a pretty suburban home still probably haunted some poor local cop, no doubt. They’d found pieces of the scene, bits left behind. A blood-soaked carpet. A shoe. No bodies. Just enough to make people wonder. A neighbor swore she saw a motorcycle parked outside the night it all went down.

Shame. That guy should have never tried to steal from the Bloody Scorpions. And it was also a shame his family walked in right as I put a bullet in his head. His kid shouldn’t have come at me with that bat. He went down with one sharp knife blow, digging through the main artery on his neck.

A bloody fucking mess.

Then there was the wife and daughter. Fuck. No one told them to be so fucking pretty, especially the girl. I’d had fun with her, my cock buried as I her pussy tightened around it just as I choked the life out of her. Her bitch mother got on my nerves. I finished off inside her and then put a bullet in the back of her head.

But that was then. And I’d moved on.

Here in New Orleans, I kept my head down just enough not to attract heat, but not so low anyone mistook me for weak. That was the trick of survival in the Scorpions. Walk the razor’s edge between invisible and feared. Keep your blade sharp, your lies sharper, and make damn sure nobody gets close enough to see how broken you really are.

I’d just left Brewer, the current President of the Bloody Scorpions, and the old bastard was wasting oxygen. He was weak and too old. Too fucking cautious. Sitting on his leather throne like he was untouchable, when half the club whispered about his time coming to an end. The man still clung to his patch like it meant something in this new world, while I was out here doing the dirty work, keeping the blood flowing.

What pissed me off more was hearing that Tadeo Reyes was being considered for the title next. That slick motherfucker and his pet lapdog Cesar Dominguez. Always playing clean. Always kissing Brewer’s ass. But I’d deal with them later. At the moment, I had more personal matters to tend to.

I lit a cigarette outside a shitty dive bar off Decatur, leaned on my bike, and watched the street whereshelived.

Natalia Ramirez.

The one who didn’t know her place yet. The one who needed to be taught who she belonged to.

I’d been watching her for weeks, always from the shadows. Close enough to see the soft sway of her ass under those tight little scrubs. Close enough to fantasize about her lips wrapped around something other than a smile. She didn’t know what I was capable of. Not yet.

“Gnash,” I grunted at the dumbass prospect beside me. He looked like a drowned rat, all wiry limbs and jittery hands. Louisiana local with a New Orleans drawl so thick half the time I didn’t understand a goddamn word he said.

“Y’uh?” he mumbled, slouching against the fence.

“See that house?”

“Y’uh,” he mumbled again.

“That pretty little nurse lives there. She’s going to be my Old Lady.”

He blinked, confused. “Are you sure? Cause I heard she was fuckin’ one of them Bastards, boss. The Tick Tock one. Big, mean lookin’ motherfucker.”

I turned slow, letting my stare drill through him. “Tick Tock,” I repeated with venom. “Sarge at Arms, yeah, I know him. What have you heard?”

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