Page 23 of Brother In Arms

Chapter 7

Rush

I called Dray who sent out Data, of all people. I frowned and asked, “You sure you’re up for this?”

“What? Hell, no. I’m waiting on Zeb. In the meantime, I’ve been asked to go over this place and work up its surveillance and security options.

“Ah, makes sense.”

“You doin’ alright?” he asked and I nodded.

“Yeah, wasn’t no thang.” Data came up the steps and we clasped hands, arm wrestling style and pulled each other in to tap shoulders.

“Is she okay?” he asked low.

“Likes to pretend she’s tough, she’s handling it.” I nodded, and worried a little that it wasn’t in hers or my best interests to be keeping secrets like that.

“Cool, Zeb should be here any minute, I’ve got my piece and I ain’t afraid to use it. Why don’t you go ahead and head back to the club, man? You’ve probably had a longer day than any of us.”

“Yeah, you can get gone when I get here in the morning. I’m glad they paired you off with someone more familiar with hand to hand. You’d have to shoot a motherfucker and we don’t want blood spilled if we can avoid it.”

“Too bad the bad guys disagree,” he observed and I shook my head.

“Sometimes I miss the days when we brought the pain first.”

Data made a face, “I don’t. Not around here anyways… It was some bad shit. Dragon used to tear pages from the cartel playbooks on ruthlessness. Reaver was still halfway using back then and his freak was way worse.”

I kind of wondered about that and so I asked, “What’d they do?”

“Reaver wanted to see if he could successfully skin a man alive. Turns out they die of shock first, but Dragon? You know he’s resourceful and can find a use for anything. The guy who was causing problems? Opened up his front door to get the Sunday paper to find dude’s skin nailed to it. Was all over the papers, of course, not like they could prove anything…”

“Damn, that is some cartel level shit. Actually, I think that may be worse than anything I’ve heard of the cartel’s doing.” I shuddered.

“I know, right? What’s it say that Duracell is in the running for more fucked up than Reaver?”

I barked a laugh, “Hayden’s mellowed Reaver’s ass out by quite a bit, the way I understand it.”

Data looked a little wistful at that and nodded, “Just hope they work their shit out and that they can hang onto each other, it’s good to see Reave genuinely happy for once.”

“Trouble in paradise?”

“Don’t think Hayden’s quite forgiven Reave for leaving her like that, all those months her thinkin’ he was dead? Not many relationships can come back from that.”

I nodded, “I hear you. Anyways, I should get going.”

“Yeah, man. See you in the morning.”

“Yeah, see you in a few hours.”

I went back to the club, the ride only half as good without Bailey’s sexy body pressed against my back. I’d had women on the back of my bike before, but somehow, this had been different. Maybe it was because our chemistry was off the fucking charts. Things were good the couple of times we’d come together and let all the other shit fall away. I liked who she was when I was in her.

Hell, I decided I liked our little verbal sparring matches after today, too. The heat index on what we’d shared in that barn was off the fucking charts and damn if I didn’t want more of it. I think our battle of wits just made it that much better, which wasn’t that some shit?

I took the bike around the paved track and parked closer to the outbuilding that housed my room. I gave my woodshop a longing glance. I didn’t feel right if I went too long without crafting something and the last time I’d worked with any wood had been to rebuild that fence, which almost didn’t count.

When I went through the door at one end of the long hall, all I could think about was Bailey’s fine ass and how it fit perfectly inside the curve of my body as I’d pounded that pussy. Yeah, I needed more of her body which meant, I needed to come clean to Dragon and Dray that we’d been doin’ the nasty. I didn’t want to betray her trust, I meant it, we could try and pretend what happened in the barn didn’t… but there was an operative word in there; try.

I don’t think either of us could or would forget. The first time in the back of the bar all those weeks ago was seriously supposed to be a one-time thing, but today? Today had been living proof that it wasn’t going to be just once, or twice. We were just that damn good together, at least in the bedroom. I didn’t know how it would go outside the bedroom but I was definitely hatching a plan or two as to how to try. The girl could lie with her mouth, but not her face, and those eyes of hers said that all the nastiness she’d been putting up was just some kind of front. She didn’t really believe a lot of what she was saying, she was struggling inside with a lot of shit, and she didn’t know who she could trust, but she could trust me.

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