27. Crank
27
CRANK
The sight of our girl laying down heavy fire on a bunch of paper targets is one of the hottest things I've seen in my fucking life. Her accuracy leaves a bit to be desired, but she's got the spirit of a goddamn executioner, half roaring, half laughing all the way. Behind her, Bonnie's keeping an eye on her, and feeding her ammo when she needs it. It's not as good as sex, but I know exactly how fucking freeing it can be to just stand there and shoot at stuff for a while.
“Looking good,” Poe notes with a little laugh. “The recoil makes her ass bounce kinda nice, too.”
He's not wrong. Fuck, standing here and watching her jiggle while she goes all mini-Rambo might be my new favorite hobby.
“I thought she didn't do guns,” Savage notes, though he doesn't sound like he minds. He smiles as his eyes follow her progress.
“Guessing Bonnie put her on gun therapy.” I nod my head in Bonnie's direction. “I hear she’s been dragging Jessica and Anne back here for lessons, too.”
“Not a bad idea,” Poe says with a nod. “If they’re going to be here, they should know how to defend themselves.”
I don’t fucking like the idea of Paige or any of the women having to shoot to survive, but realistically I know he’s not wrong. Given the wild spread on the target wall, I don't think we need to worry about our day jobs quite yet, but she's not doing bad for a first timer. “Sure, but let’s make sure the gun is out of reach when we tell her what’s going on.”
We wait until she runs out of ammo, then I tap Bonnie on the shoulder. “Hey, can we borrow our girl?”
She gives us a sharp look, then turns to Paige. “I don't know. Can they?”
Paige returns it to the tray. “Yeah, I guess so. I’d ask if it’s good news, but it’s never good news.”
Poe grimaces. “It's not great.”
“Right. Guess I have to go. Thank you, Bonnie. It was really nice meeting you.”
“Don't worry about cleanup, I got it. A pleasure. If you stick around, I'll keep teaching you. You, me, Jessica… it'll be fun.” She grins while she checks over the gun and makes sure all the ammo is out. “And we have an ice cream date, remember?”
“I will, thanks!” Paige smiles as she hooks arms with Poe and Savage, walking between them. “You know, that actually did feel really good.”
“Just wait, your arm’s going to be fucking sore tomorrow, but yeah Bonnie's good people. She struggled when General was taken out, but having Anne around has given her a whole new life. She hasn’t had the easiest time, and she can be a flaming bitch sometimes, but you can trust her to have your back.” Savage hesitates, something I've never seen him do. “Listen, things might get rough tomorrow. Fabbri's threatening war if we don't bring you in along with the money.”
“What!?” She stops so suddenly, the guys accidentally drag her with them a moment before they stop too. “You said you weren't handing me over. What's going on?”
“No,” Savage denies, quickly. “We're not handing you in. Fuck. No. We promised to keep you safe and we’ll fucking follow through.”
“Exactly,” I agree.
“There's a 'but' coming, isn't there?” Paige's voice quavers.
“We have to play this carefully. The money is theirs, and our best chance at keeping things from escalating is taking his claim seriously. If we had more time, we could push him to find out why he gives a shit about you being there, but he’s demanding we meet tomorrow morning. I don’t fucking like it but Hellfire needs to do what’s best for the club, and that involves you.” Savage opens the door into the officer quarters and holds it for her. “You might have to talk to him, but you're gonna have us there the whole fucking time, and handing you over isn’t on anyone’s option list. Not even Hellfire’s. He's a hard motherfucker, but he's got principles.” He opens the door to his quarters, letting us in.
Paige hesitates a moment before she steps inside. “Be honest with me. What are the chances of something going horribly wrong?”
I hate this shit. I yank her close and kiss her. She freezes, and then kisses me back with a tiny sigh. I drop my hands to the small of her back and hold her against me while I slip my tongue into her mouth. Fuck, she's soft, and perfect.
But then she pushes me away, disengaging. “No. You can't just distract me like that. This is my life we’re talking about.”
“We're not fucking letting him kill you,” Savage snarls. “You want to know chances? Chances are that he only gave a shit about you to start because of the money, and now he’s noticed that we don’t want to turn you over and he wants to use you to piss us off. It’s all about saving face with them. Fabbri wants to show that he can set the terms. If we go, hand over the money and let him feel like he’s the bigger man, he’ll back off.”
Paige nods, but she doesn't exactly look reassured. “But you don’t know that for sure.”
This time, it's Poe who puts his arms around her from behind and pulls her in, kissing the top of her head and nuzzling into her hair. “No, nobody knows exactly what will happen. That's why you hired us, remember? We’ll take care of the bogeymen.”
“Hired.” She rolls her eyes. “You knew from the start that I’d have to hand over the money.”
“You’ll just have to find some other way to pay us back,” I tease. “Might take a while. Years even.”
She leans into Poe. “Years? I’ll have the laundry to take care of, if that's even salvageable, and you guys will go off on your next adventure and forget all about me. I want the scary part to be over, but I’m not ready to go back to the real world.”
I shake my head. “Forget about you? Why the fuck would we do that?”
Savage looks caught between being frustrated and straight up pissed. “You really think we’d be doing all this for anyone? Kitten, think about it. You’ve been here long enough to know we don’t need to go through this much trouble just to get laid. Right now our only goal is keeping you safe and mitigating the damage with the Fabbris. After that, what the four of us decide to do is up to us. I wouldn’t fucking blame you if you walked away. Shit, it would probably be the smarter choice.”
I glare at him. “Like fuck it is.”
Poe trails his fingers down the side of her neck. “A million dollars is a lot of cash, but like you said, we knew from the jump that it had strings attached. I wouldn’t turn it down if it ends up that putting Stefano in the ground and giving the Fabbris the middle finger is our best option, but it’s never been about the fucking money. It's about you.”
“Stop creating problems in your head. You're our million bucks, not that bag.”
She swallows hard, then sniffles. “I just don't understand why?—”
This time it's Savage who kisses her.
“You can't just kiss me every time you think that?—”
Poe tilts her head back so he can lock lips with her from behind.
“No, seriously! I?—”
My turn again. I fucking love the feel of her lips, the pure softness of her. She feels so good in my hands, and she’s tastes like fucking heaven.
She places both palms on my chest and gives me a surprisingly strong shove. I let her push me away. For now. “Seriously! No!” She ducks out of Poe’s arms and holds up her finger at Savage who's moving in again. “Bad bikers, stay!”
“Is that supposed to work on us?” I ask with a laugh.
She pauses, picking her words. “So even if there's no money, and even if this situation resolves itself and you're not quote unquote, working for me, anymore… You’re saying maybe we can see where this goes?”
We exchange glances, and there's not even a hint of hesitation before we nod. Let’s do this. I capture her chin and tilt her my way. “Baby, the only way you're getting rid of us is if you choose to walk away and tell us not to follow.”
And then she's the one who's kissing me, before moving on to Poe and Savage.
I eye the door to Savage's bedroom. “This should probably be celebrated somehow, right?”
Paige smiles but it’s a little wistful. “Planning for forever when we might only have one night?”
“Eat, drink and be merry, right?” Poe says. “Shit, Paige. You need to grab life and live it because nobody is ever guaranteed tomorrow.”
She traps her lower lip in her teeth, and it's the sexiest fucking thing.
“You seem confused. Let us show you.” Savage sweeps her right up in his arms.
She looks past him towards the bedroom door, then nods. “Okay.”