Page 2 of Crush's Fall

Lucifer looked up from his dead friend and gave a nod. “Since I’m assuming the only way you made it up here is because the others downstairs are dead, yeah.”

“You assume correctly,” Ranger replied from behind Crush and to her left.

“Might as well finish them off,” Dragon commented, and raised his gun to aim.

Crush saw Dragon’s finger shift to the trigger, and her heart stopped.“Stop,”she growled, surprised by the vehemence in her voice. Sure, she used that tone with her members to re-establish her dominance sometimes, but she rarely used it with the Howlers. They weren’t hers to dominate.

Dragon turned and looked at her. “What?” He looked like he was annoyed with her, but he listened.

“We can’t kill him… until we know…”Think, Crush! Fucking think!“Until we know what he knows, we shouldn’t kill him. He might know something Axle can use. We can always kill him later.”

“Well, golly-gee,” Lucifer commented on a chuckle, “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said about me.”

Crush shot him a glare. “Shut the fuck up before I rethink what I just said.” He wasn’t helping her out, and it annoyed her that she felt some type of connection to him. She had no problem taking that out on him, which wasn’t great for him since there were still at least two guns pointed in his direction.

Dragon huffed out a sigh and rolled his eyes. “Fine. But you’re in charge of securing him. I gotta go check on Pike.”

“You need help?” Ranger asked. She knew he wasn’t insinuating that she couldn’t handle it. He was just offering a helping hand, the same helping hand he’d offer one of his club brothers. It was about respect and family. Crush appreciated that.

“Got any rope on ya to tie his hands?”

Ranger grinned. “Never go on a reconnaissance mission without it.”

She snorted a laugh. “Tie his hands, will ya? Then I’ll take over.”

“You got it.” Ranger did just that, while also warning, “I know you Hell’s Dogs think you can overpower women because you’re big and bad, but just a heads up, this woman won’t claw your eyes out. She’ll cut your balls off in your sleep because you fucking snored.”

Crush bit back the laugh and gave Lucifer a saccharine smile. As much as Ranger was a jokester and was prone to exaggeration, he was being straight up at that moment. She was a female tiger shifter, after all. They weren’t known for their patience or tolerance, but they were known for dragging their prey up into trees to feast.

Crush never intended to fall in love. After her literal crush on Axle Weber and the resulting embarrassment when he shot her down, she vowed to herself that she would never allow herself to develop feelings for another man ever again. Yet here she was… in love. Yup, she fell in love… with theenemyno less. Her brother, Bullet, was going to put a bullet in her brain when he realized what she did. Not a literal bullet. He would just angrily annoy her until she wanted to put a bullet in her own brain just to stop the irritation. Like she could help it that the man was so pretty.

And hewaspretty. Oh, so pretty.Yum.

Lucifer had dark brown, almost black hair that was cut almost to his scalp on the sides but long enough on top to run her fingers through, and maybe get a grip. He had chocolate brown eyes, a full beard of a few inches, and a mustache, but the hair on his face was trimmed and groomed. She guessed he brushed and conditioned the hair on his chin more than he did the hair on his head. That hair surrounded hard but full lips that tempted her almost as much as the eight pack she suspected he had under that torn, stained t-shirt. Yeah, the man was pretty.

His name was Lucifer, though. Really. His MC brothers named himLucifer,if the patch on his cut was anything to go by. No way in hell was she calling him that. She’d have to find out his real name. He had yet to hand over that information, but she was the president of her own MC, and they had ways of finding information.

Okay. Fine. She wasn’treallyin love. She was in lust. She wasn’t ready to vow a lifetime to the man, but she would sit on his face and give that beauty of a beard a ride or twelve.

Now, how was she going to keep him alive long enough for them to fulfill that dream? Axle, along with the rest of his club, and probably most of hers, was going to want him dead. He was a member of the club who kidnapped, raped, and threatened to murder their family members. A member of his club wanted to take a member of her club away for gods knew what type of abuse.

Lucifer wasn’t innocent. She knew that. He might have been involved in all of that, even if he was only a prospect at the time, but something about him told her he could be trusted. She just didn’t know how to explain that to the rest of them without having to answer the questions.

Fucking questions.

Why would you trust him? Is it your gut or your heart talking? Is it your heart or your vagina talking? Have you lost your mind? Can’t you find pretty dick somewhere else?

Always with the questions.

Answer —My tiger told me so.Yup. Being a tiger shifter was cool until her tiger did shit like tell her the enemy was their next prey and not in the track-and-kill category. More like the track-seduce-fuck category.

Yeah, that would go over great with her brother. Hey, Bull. You think you could not kill the man who was part of the club that raped Axle’s youngest brother, kidnapped three of our family members, threatened to kill all of them, and wanted to kidnap another member? Why? Oh, my tiger wants to fuck him.

Maybe hewouldput a bullet in her brain. All of that ran through her head as she walked him out with her gun pointed at his back, after they made a stop on the first floor to do some quick clean-up. Crossing the driveway to the van, she was relieved to see that everyone else had cleared out. She was surprised and a bit unnerved that Lucifer hadn’t even tried to run, but she just put it down as he knew there was no making it out of there without them tracking him down or killing him. Once at the van, she had switched out the rope for handcuffs and cuffed him to the metal bar that ran along the inner wall.

“I like the look on your face,” Lucifer uttered with a smirk. “You want to look? I’m at your mercy. You could… look or… touch or… do whatever you want to me.” His smirk grew into a heat-filled smile. He looked over at his bound hands cuffed to a bar in the back of the van, then back over at her. “Not that I would fight it, anyway.”

Crush ground her teeth together and tried her best to stop the blush from gracing her cheeks, but she wasn’t successful. “I have no idea what look you’re talking about.”

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