5. GUNNER
Chapter five
GUNNER
The engine kept coming.
I stayed back from the front window while gravel cracked beneath tires somewhere beyond the trees, pistol low beside my thigh and every bit of warmth from kissing Myla gone beneath the instinct that had kept me alive for years.
Behind me, she disappeared into the hallway without arguing. That told me more about how scared she was than anything she could have said.
An old green Ford finally appeared through the trees, and recognition hit before it rolled fully into the clearing.
“Fuck.”
My cousin Ben climbed out carrying two grocery bags, saw me standing armed on the porch and stopped so fast one of the bags swung into his leg.
“Well, shit. Saw the truck and thought somebody had broken in.”
“Would’ve been quieter.”
His usual grin started, then disappeared when he got a proper look at me. Ben knew me well enough to recognize when questions weren’t going to get answered, but before I could send him away, a floorboard creaked behind me.
Myla stepped into the doorway with the pistol I’d given her held low beside her thigh.
She was wearing my black shirt again, the cotton loose over her jeans and her hair falling around the fading bruising on her face. Seeing her standing inside a house that had belonged to Ray caught me somewhere strange, too close to something domestic for a woman I’d known barely a day.
Ben looked at her, then at me, eyebrows climbing.
“Don’t,” I warned.
He raised one hand. “Was gonna say hello.”
Myla came farther onto the porch. “Apparently I’m the thing everyone has to pretend they didn’t see.”
Ben laughed and introduced himself, though I caught his eyes flick toward the bruising on her cheek before good sense kept him from asking what happened.
I told him to leave the groceries and forget he’d seen my truck.
That wiped the amusement from his face.
“You need the family kept away?”
“For a while.”
Ben studied me, then nodded. No questions about why I was armed, who Myla was or why I’d suddenly started using a place I barely visited.
That was why I trusted him.
I watched his truck disappear before going back inside and locking the door.
Myla was waiting near the kitchen.
“So much for nobody knowing about this place.”
“Nobody in the club knows.”
“Ben knows you’re here now, and anyone who saw him turn onto this road knows somebody’s using the house.”
She wasn’t accusing me; she was laying out the same facts I would have.
“We move after dark,” I said. “Leaving straight behind him makes us easier to spot, so we let things settle first.”
“And where exactly are we going?”
“I’ll figure that out.”
Myla gave me a look. “That answer is becoming alarmingly common.”
“It worked last night.”
“Until your cousin arrived with groceries.”
I glanced toward the bags. “Next place, I’ll account for surprise bacon.”
That got the smile I wanted, but it faded when she looked toward the window.
“This keeps happening because of me.”
I crossed the kitchen until only a few feet separated us.
“No, sweetheart. Rafe’s the problem. Ghost is the problem. The fuckers who put a knife in your side are the problem. You showing up bleeding doesn’t make any of this your fault.”
Something softened in her face.
“That almost sounded nice.”
“Don’t spread it around.”
Her smile returned briefly, but there was one conversation I couldn’t keep putting off.
“Before we move, I need the rest.”
Her shoulders tightened.
“I’ve told you what I know.”
“You’ve told me some of it.”
I didn’t crowd her. I already understood that pressure only made Myla grip harder, whether it was a weapon or a secret, but if there was something else that could bring Rafe to the next place I took her, I needed to know before we moved.
The kitchen went quiet.
Finally, she exhaled.
“There’s another copy.”
I straightened.
“Of the drive?”
“Not exactly. There’s a recording. Rafe is clear on it, but the person he’s talking to isn’t. The other voice is muffled, although someone who already knows him might recognize it.”
Every thought I’d had about Ben disappeared.
“You recorded Ghost?”
“Maybe.”
That one word changed everything.
Myla had been sitting on the closest thing we had to an identity, which also made her more dangerous to Rafe than I had realized.
“Where is it?”
Her mouth closed.
I almost laughed. “Should’ve known that part wouldn’t be easy.”
“If Ghost is one of yours, giving the recording to the wrong person gets me killed.”
“I ain’t Ghost.”
“You know that. I don’t.”
The words landed harder than I expected because there wasn’t accusation in them, only experience.
Myla had trusted people before. Every time, somebody had made her pay for it.
“I don’t want it to be you,” she added quietly.
“Why?”
She looked almost irritated that I made her answer.
“Because I slept last night.”
That stopped me.
She told me how long it had been since she slept properly, how motel engines and footsteps in hallways dragged her awake, how sometimes fear woke her even when nothing was there. Last night had been different because she knew I was outside the bedroom door.
“Somehow that was enough,” she said.
Something tightened beneath my ribs.
“I don’t want to find out I was wrong about you too.”
I crossed the remaining space slowly and brushed a loose strand of hair away from her bruised cheek.
“You ain’t wrong.”
Her eyes closed briefly beneath my touch.
“I’m not gonna tell you to trust me because I say you should. You’ve known me a day. That’d be fucking stupid. If you give me something, I want it because you decided I earned it.”
Myla studied me before reaching beneath my shirt she was wearing and pulling out the flash drive.
When she placed it in my palm, her fingers stayed against mine.
“I’m giving you this, but I’m not ready to give you the recording. If you show the drive to anyone, I’m there. If Knox decides I’m lying and starts trying to take control, I’m gone. And if you find something on it you don’t understand, you ask me before deciding I’m involved.”
The last condition told me more than the others.
Something on that drive could make us question her.
I closed my fingers around it.
“You’ve got my word.”
Her hand caught my wrist before I could pull away.
“Everyone calls you Gunner.”
“Yeah.”
“What did your mother call you?”
That question slipped through defenses I hadn’t realized were still up.
Nobody outside family had used my real name regularly in years. The Army turned Grant into Gunner, and the club made sure it stuck.
“Grant.”
Her fingers tightened.
“Grant.”
Hearing it from her felt too personal and too fucking good.
“Grant Johns. Figure if you’re trusting me with something that can get you killed, you should probably know the name on my birth certificate.”
Myla looked at me like the name mattered.
Maybe because it did.
Gunner belonged to the club. Gunner planned routes, watched doors and put bullets where they needed to go.
Grant was the kid in Ray’s photograph.
The man who sometimes got lonely.
Myla stepped closer.
“I like Grant.”
“Most people don’t use it.”
“Maybe I’m not most people.”
“No, sweetheart. You really fucking ain’t.”
Her gaze dropped to my mouth.
“Kiss me.”
I put the drive on the counter and slid my hand around the back of her neck.
The kiss started slow, but we’d already spent too long circling each other for it to stay that way. Myla pushed her hands beneath my shirt, and when her palms spread over my stomach, every bit of restraint I had left started slipping.
I kissed her harder.
She tasted like coffee and the cheap toothpaste from Ray’s bathroom, and when I moved my mouth along her jaw, her fingers tightened at the back of my neck.
“Don’t disappear into your head now,” she murmured.
That was all I needed.
I lifted her carefully, one arm beneath her thighs and the other around her back so I didn’t put pressure on the injury. Her legs wrapped around my waist, bringing her close enough that my control took another hit before I carried her into the living room and lowered her onto the couch.
Sunlight caught in her hair while my black shirt fell open around her, showing the edge of her bra and the bruising along one side.
She was fucking beautiful.
Not because of the damage and not despite it.
Because people had spent years trying to frighten her into becoming smaller, and she still fought back.
I crouched between her knees.
“You still want this?”
Her gaze held mine.
“Yes, Grant.”
Fuck.
I kissed her again, slower this time, letting my hands move beneath the shirt and across warm skin while she relaxed beneath me. I eased the fabric from her shoulders and kissed around the fingertip bruises left there, refusing to give the men who made them any more of her than they already had.
“You don’t have to be so careful,” she whispered.
“Yeah, I do.”
“I’m not made of glass.”
“I know, sweetheart. Glass breaks easy. You don’t.”
Her expression shifted before she pulled me up and kissed me with enough feeling that the moment stopped being only about sex.
I opened her bra, taking my time when she let me look, then lowered my mouth to one breast while my hand moved down over her stomach.
The soft sounds she made told me more than questions would have.
I listened.
By the time I eased her jeans down, she was breathing faster and watching me with none of the hesitation she’d carried the night before.
My hand traveled slowly along the inside of her thigh before slipping beneath her underwear. She was already wet, her body responding immediately when I circled her clit and then slid two fingers inside her.
I learned her instead of making her explain herself.
The pressure that made her hips lift.
The angle that tightened her fingers around my arm.
The movement that made my real name break from her lips.
When she came, she pulled me down against her and held on while the tremors moved through her.
I kissed her until her breathing began to settle.
Then her hand moved over the front of my jeans.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
Myla smiled.
“There you are.”
“You keep doing that and I ain’t gonna have much patience left.”
“Maybe I don’t want patience.”
There was no teasing in her face now.
She reached for my jeans herself.
I let her.
There was something about giving her control over the pace that mattered more than I could explain.
I stripped quickly, and when her eyes dropped, they widened.
“The piercing.”
I smiled. “Knew you’d notice.”
“How was I supposed to miss it?”
The barbell beneath the head of my cock caught the light, and the interest on her face nearly ruined me before she even touched me.
I caught the back of her neck and kissed her while I reached for the condom in my wallet.
When I moved between her thighs, I didn’t need another conversation.
I looked at her.
Myla pulled me down and whispered against my mouth, “I want you, Grant.”
That was enough.
I pushed into her slowly, stopping when her breath caught before easing deeper as her body relaxed around me. The piercing dragged against her in a way that made her eyes close.
A quiet laugh escaped her.
“Okay. I understand the piercing now.”
I laughed against her mouth, then started moving.
The old couch creaked beneath us as Myla wrapped a leg around my waist and drew me closer, meeting each thrust until the careful rhythm stopped being enough for either of us. I kept my weight away from her injured side while her nails dragged over my back and her hips lifted to take me deeper.
When I changed the angle, her whole body reacted.
So I stayed there.
Her breathing broke apart while my hand slipped between us and found her clit again. A few strokes later, she came around me with my name against my neck, and that finished whatever control I had left.
I buried myself deep and followed her over.
For a long while afterward, neither of us moved.
Myla’s fingers traced lazily along the back of my neck while I listened to our breathing settle and tried not to think too hard about how little any of this felt casual.
Eventually I checked the dressing along her side.
The stitches had held.
No fresh blood.
She caught me looking.
“You really can’t help taking care of people, can you?”
“Ain’t people.”
Her brows pulled together.
I sighed. “That came out wrong. I don’t do this with everybody.”
“Who do you do it with?”
“My club. Family.”
“And me?”
That one was harder.
I brushed my thumb over her cheek.
“Apparently.”
The kiss she gave me after that was softer than anything before it.
After I dealt with the condom and pulled my jeans back on, I covered her with an old blanket and sat beside her. Myla curled into my side, legs over mine, while the flash drive sat on the kitchen counter and everything waiting outside the house pressed closer again.
Ghost was still out there.
Rafe was still hunting her.
We still had to leave after dark.
“Grant?”
I looked down.
I liked hearing my name from her far too much.
“The recording is in a storage unit about thirty miles from here. I rented it under another name six weeks ago. The original is on a memory card in a lockbox, along with copies of documents that aren’t on the drive.”
That was bigger than anything she had given me yet.
“You’re ready to go get it?”
“I’m ready to take you.”
I tightened my fingers around hers.
“Why now?”
Myla looked at me.
“Because you gave me Grant.”
Something in my chest went tight.
“And because you stopped being Gunner for a little while.”
I understood what she meant.
Gunner was the patch, the weapon and the man people called when something ugly needed handling.
Grant was harder to hand over.
She had noticed anyway.
I pressed my mouth to her forehead.
“Then tonight we get your recording.”
Myla settled against me again, and for the first time since she came through our gates, I had the drive, the location of the missing evidence and enough of her trust that she had given me something more valuable than either.
Somewhere out there, Rafe Maddox still thought Myla Hyde was a frightened woman he could keep hunting until she ran out of places to hide.
He didn’t know her very fucking well.
And he sure as hell didn’t know me.