Chapter 16
MASON
We were getting married tonight.
Whether she hated me for it or not.
That thought kept punching through my skull as we rolled out from the line shack with the whole damn desert at our backs and Vegas waiting like a neon dare on the horizon.
Sienna sat beside me in Dolores, wrapped in my jacket, knees pressed together, hands twisting so tight in her lap her knuckles had gone white.
She hadn’t said much since she’d agreed.
That worried me more than if she’d screamed, cursed, threatened to stab me, or demanded I pull over so she could run back into the desert on foot. All of that, I could handle. That was fire. That was Sienna.
This pale, twitchy silence?
This was shock.
Every few minutes, she blinked hard like she was waking up into the nightmare all over again. Her foot bounced against the floorboard. Her fingers twitched. Her breathing kept catching, sharp little pulls of air she tried to hide by looking out the window.
I kept one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around the back of her neck, thumb moving slow under the fall of her hair. Not enough to trap her. Just enough to remind her she wasn’t alone.
And maybe enough to remind myself she was still here.
Alive.
Breathing.
Mine to protect, if not mine any other way.
The club rode around us in a loose formation, bikes in front, trucks behind, headlights cutting through the dark.
Tank had a prospect monitoring police channels.
River had been on the phone with some lawyer who sounded expensive enough to scare judges.
Edge kept throwing looks at us from the passenger seat of the truck ahead, probably waiting for Sienna to bolt.
Hell, I was waiting for it too.
She was going to back out.
The fear lodged under my ribs like a knife. Every mile closer to Vegas made it sharper. I could see the thought running across her face even when she tried to hide it. Marriage. Wife. Husband. Old lady. My name attached to hers.
Too much, too fast, too insane.
Except there wasn’t another move. Not tonight. Not with the Oakleys already circling. Not with dirty cops and cartel muscle and dead men cooling in the desert dirt. She needed a wall between her and them, and if that wall had to be me, my ring, my patch, my last name?
Fine.
I’d be the damn wall.
Sienna’s hand jerked in her lap again.
I glanced over. “Baby.”
Her head turned slowly. “Do not baby me.”
Good. There she was.
I let my mouth curve. “You know, you’re gonna make one hell of a bride.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“Prettiest bride Vegas has ever seen.”
“Mason.”
“I’m serious.” I leaned into it because she needed distraction more than she needed gentle right now. Gentle would make her think. Thinking would make her panic. “Beautiful bride. Sexy bride. Mean little science bride with blood on her sleeve and murder in her eyes.”
Her palm cracked across my bicep hard enough to sting.
From the truck ahead, Edge’s head whipped around. Then he burst out laughing so hard his shoulders shook.
Tank’s voice came through the open window. “She hit him!”
“Good!” River yelled from somewhere behind us. “Man needs it!”
Sienna pointed at me, cheeks finally getting some color back. “This is a marriage in name only.”
I held up one hand. “Noted.”
“You are not getting into my bed.”
The entire convoy lost its mind.
Bikes revved. Someone wolf-whistled. Edge leaned halfway out of the truck window like the idiot had a death wish and hollered, “That’s what they all say!”
River bellowed, “Twenty says he breaks her in a week!”
Sienna spun toward the window. “Breaks me?”
Tank laughed so hard his truck swerved a foot before he corrected. “Poor choice of words, brother!”
“Fine,” River shouted. “Twenty says she lets him in the bed in a week.”
“Forty-eight hours,” Edge called. “Look at him. He’s one rejected kiss away from chewing through drywall.”
I flipped him off out the window.
Sienna sat up straighter, indignant enough to forget she was terrified for three whole seconds. “You’re betting on him? Please. I’m the one with self-control here. You should be betting on me and how long I can hold out.”
“Oh, I like her odds,” Tank said.
“She’s stubborn,” Edge agreed. “But he’s pathetic.”
“I am armed,” I reminded him.
Sienna folded her arms. “Put me down for a month.”
The men howled.
“A month?” River yelled. “Baby girl, that man has been looking at you like oxygen since the arroyo.”
Her chin lifted. “Then he can suffocate.”
God help me, I laughed.
She shot me a look, but the corner of her mouth twitched before she could stop it.
That tiny twitch hit me harder than it should’ve.
I’d take her mad. I’d take her mouthy. I’d take her throwing punches and threats and impossible conditions at my head all night long if it meant she stopped looking like she was about to shatter.
But two minutes later, the color drained out of her again.
Her hands started shaking harder.
I saw her press them between her knees. Saw her swallow once. Twice. Saw the way her eyes fixed on nothing through the windshield.
The laughter died in my chest.
“Pulling off,” I said into the radio.
Tank’s voice crackled back. “Problem?”
“Package store.”
A pause.
Then Edge, because of course, said, “Brother, this is either the best or worst wedding plan I’ve ever heard.”
Sienna blinked at me. “What are you doing?”
“Getting you something for your nerves.”
“I don’t need anything for my nerves.”
“Your knee is bouncing hard enough to shake the transmission.”
“It is not.”
“Sienna.”
She glared at me, but her lower lip trembled, and that just about did me in.
The package store sat off a cracked exit ramp beside a gas station and a motel that charged by the hour whether it admitted it or not. The sign buzzed yellow and red. CHEAP LIQUOR. COLD BEER. SLOTS. WEDDING SPECIALS.
Vegas before Vegas.
I parked Dolores near the door. The bikes rolled in around us, engines rumbling low like guard dogs.
Sienna looked at the building. “This place looks like where bachelor parties go to get food poisoning.”
“You hungry?”
“No.”
“Then we’re safe.”
She hugged my jacket tighter around herself. “I’m not drunk-marrying you.”
“You’re not drunk. You’re shaking.” I softened my voice. “There’s a difference.”
Her eyes flashed to mine, and under all that fire was fear so raw it made me want to put my fist through the windshield.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered.
The words were so quiet I almost missed them.
My hand tightened around the keys. For a second, all the jokes, all the noise, all the filthy bets outside disappeared.
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m doing the knowing for both of us right now.”
Her throat worked.
“I’m not asking you for forever tonight,” I said. “I’m asking you to survive the next twelve hours. That’s it. Twelve hours. We get the paper. We get you protected. Then you can hate me somewhere with better locks.”
“I already hate you.”
My mouth tugged. “Good. Then nothing changes.”
I went inside before she could see how badly my hands wanted to shake too.
The place smelled like stale beer, old cigarettes, and bad decisions. I grabbed the first bottle that looked like it wouldn’t peel paint off the hood of Dolores, paid cash, and came back out with a brown paper bag tucked under my arm.
Sienna eyed it like it was a snake. “What is that?”
“Medicine.”
“That better not be tequila.”
“I’m not trying to kill you.”
I slid into the driver’s seat and pulled the bottle free.
Her face went blank. “Is that vanilla vodka?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
I looked at the bottle. Looked at her. Realized too late I had no good answer.
“I don’t know. Club girls like it.”
Silence.
Dead, immediate, lethal silence.
Edge made a choking sound from outside the driver’s window. Tank turned his whole body away like he was removing himself from the blast radius. River started laughing before Sienna even spoke.
She slowly turned her head toward me.
“You call me your future wife,” she said, each word precise enough to cut skin, “then buy me club girl vodka?”
The parking lot erupted.
Men bent over laughing. A prospect slapped the hood of the truck. Edge wheezed, “He’s dead. He is actually dead.”
I shut my eyes for half a second. “That came out wrong.”
“Oh, did it?”
“I meant it’s sweet.”
“I know what vanilla vodka is, Mason. I’ve lived among humans.”
River was still laughing. “Man’s married ten minutes in his head and already sleeping outside.”
“We’re not married yet,” Sienna snapped.
“Keep talking like that, brother,” Tank called, “and you won’t be.”
I pointed at all of them. “Everybody shut the hell up.”
Nobody shut the hell up.
Sienna reached for the bottle, but her hand shook so badly her fingers clipped mine instead of the glass. She froze. I froze with her.
There it was again.
The fear.
Not attitude. Not anger. Not the mouth she used like armor.
Fear.
I wrapped my hand around hers before she could pull away and kept my voice low. “Let me.”
“I can drink by myself.”
“I know you can.”
“Then give it to me.”
I didn’t.
Her eyes snapped to mine.
I held her gaze and lifted the bottle. “One swallow. It’ll take the edge off your nerves.”
“Mason—”
“One. Then you can call me an idiot again.”
“You are an idiot.”
“There we go.”
Her lips parted, probably to insult me harder, but I tipped the bottle gently against them before she could. Not forcing. Not pushing. Just steadying what she couldn’t steady herself.
She took a swallow.
Then she gagged.
I pulled the bottle back, biting down hard on a grin because laughing would probably get me stabbed. “Good?”
“That tastes like a cupcake committed a felony.”
Edge slapped the side of the truck. “Romantic!”
Sienna coughed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I hate all of you.”
“Another,” I said.
“No.”
“Baby.”
“No, future husband.”
That word should not have hit me like it did.
Future husband.
It went through my chest like a brand.