Chapter 10
TEN
SILAS
This was the last thing I needed after a really bad day.
Chasing down a wildfire that blazed through the woods. Her energy torching every damned thing.
She was fuckin’ fast in those heeled boots. Still, it didn’t take me all that long to catch up to her.
My crew had cast me concerned glances when I’d come crashing out the main doors thirty seconds after her, no doubt wondering if they should jump in and help as she took a frantic jaunt into the woods.
I sent them all glares.
Stay the fuck where you are.
Told them she was off-limits, and I meant that in every regard.
No one was taking her down but me.
Wasn’t sure if I was going to take some sort of sick pleasure in it or if I absolutely abhorred it.
What I did know was I couldn’t stomach what was roiling from her volatile spirit.
The absolute fear that poured out of her.
Masked by that ferocious fight that she was.
“Brinley!” I gritted behind her.
I didn’t think she even heard my voice.
Not when she was in all-out panic mode.
Fuck.
What had she overheard that had sent her running like this?
The little sneak sniffing around outside the club’s Church door. No doubt, eavesdropping on the meeting I’d been having with my highest in command. My brothers. The men I trusted above anyone else.
Brinley cut through the woods, her breaths these haggard pants that jutted into the cool night air.
Distraught, she ran, hands out as she batted at the brush and branches that fought to keep her back.
She suddenly heaved some kind of relief, and I immediately knew what she was angling for.
The twelve-foot chain-link fence that lined this section of the property.
A section I’d been meaning to get replaced by the solid wall the rest of the perimeter was surrounded in.
Just my fucking luck that I hadn’t thought it a priority.
“Brinley!” I hollered again, voice the low sling of a command that she didn’t heed.
I couldn’t tell if she planned on scaling that fence or plowing right through it, but either way, I knew she was going to hurt herself trying to get beyond it.
Which was why I increased my speed.
Erasing the distance in three pounding steps before I reached out and wrapped my arms around her waist.
No question, it was the only way to stop her.
The momentum sent us toppling to the forest floor.
A scream tore out of her.
Nah, it wasn’t out of pain.
It was an eruption of hate.
Spite and animosity injected with a high dose of terror as she thrashed below me.
Her chest to the ground as I laid across her.
“No!” she cried. “You can’t do this. I won’t let you.”
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” I growled in her ear.
She only shrieked in some kind of rabid venom as she continued to fight against me.
That perfect fucking ass hugged in those jeans I figured she must have picked to drive me out of my ever-lovin’ mind bucked against my cock as she battled to get free.
I gritted my teeth, refusing the burn that ignited at the feel of her, my own breaths shallow as I grappled to grip her by the wrists.
I finally got hold of them, and I pinned them on either side of her head.
Woman staked face down on the ground below me.
“You asshole!” she seethed.
All that autumn hair was bunched in my face, and her delicious skin was slicked in a sheen of sweat.
The scent coming off her made me lightheaded.
Almonds, apples, and cream.
Sweet fucking poison.
Delirium-inducing.
That’s what I had to be.
Delirious.
Way she had me so spun up I didn’t know if I wanted to punish her or please her.
My weight pinned her down, and I angled closer to her ear, words coming low and rough. “Yeah. And you’re a little sneak. Told you that you weren’t doing anything but looking for trouble.”
Brinley gasped and spluttered like I was the one who wasn’t respecting the boundaries.
And one thing I demanded around here was respect.
I pressed her fists harder to the ground, letting the words slice through the disorder. “Told you what I expected of you. That while you’re here, you follow my rules. Told you that you weren’t to leave this property without my knowledge and an escort.”
I dipped in even closer, the warning cleaving like a blade. “Running included.”
The woman was a rage. So fucking hot it was a wonder I didn’t light up in flames.
“Fuck you, King.” She spat it as she thrashed.
A clear disparage to my position in the club.
I pressed myself harder against her.
I was inundated by an onslaught of lust.
I wondered if she felt it.
If she could sense it because a frenzy suddenly took her over, and she wheezed, “Let me go.”
It was there again.
The same terror that had riddled her when I’d had hold of her last night.
Hidden below the fury that incinerated the air.
It stirred my own rage. The kind that made me want to go on a rampage and find the exact culprit of the feral potency she possessed.
“You gonna run?”
“No.”
The second she said it, I surged back onto my knees, releasing her.
In that same second, she was on her feet and hurtling toward the fence.
Motherfucker.
Here we went again.
I jumped to mine, catching up to her the second those little hands were fisting in the metal to propel herself up.
I grabbed her and yanked her down.
In a flash, I had her spun around, and I took her hands and pinned them to the fence above her head.
Heat blistered in the space between us.
A fine line between loathing and desire.
Autumn eyes flashed. Sparking gold flames.
“Wildfire,” I gritted through clenched teeth. “You want to play with me? Test me?”
Brinley lifted that chin.
Fuck, she was stunning.
Every gorgeous angle of her face carved in fiery desperation.
“I won’t let you do this. I won’t.”
“And what exactly is it you think I’m going to do?”
My stomach soured when I asked it. Wishing I could sift around in her pretty little brain and discover what she was thinking and exactly what she’d overheard.
What would she think if she uncovered what her cum stain brother had her in?
Doubted she’d go running the way she was trying to do if she had even a dash of the details.
Her throat rolled and her chest heaved as something that looked a whole lot like vulnerability rushed up to the surface before that rage was swallowing it again.
I was fully aware that I was asking for all kinds of trouble of my own, but when she didn’t say anything, there was nothing I could do but lean in closer.
It was on the bare flecks remaining of my conscience to make her understand.
Probably didn’t need my lips grazing up her flushed cheek as I inclined toward her ear, but I couldn’t resist that, either.
“You go over that fence, you get dead.”
Figured the warning would hit her like blunt force trauma. That she’d realize what was at stake here.
What I didn’t expect was her sudden assault.
Brinley whipped up her knee and hit me full in the junk.
Pain blacked out my sight.
“Motherfuck.” It was a straight howl, and there was nothing I could do but double over in agony.
And there went that wildfire, scrambling up the side of the fence again.
That time when I ripped her down, I flung her around, cinched her hands tight to her sides, and wedged my knee between her thighs.
Fully caging her in.
A gasp ripped out of her, and Brinley arched.
And fuck, I was assailed with every atrocious thing I wanted to do to her.
Dip my dirty fingers into the fire that she was. Let her burn me up.
Urges of it hit me from all sides.
A sneak fucking attack.
It was obscene the way I wanted to peel her out of those jeans and show her exactly who was King.
Except she was suddenly pleading, “I don’t know what it is my brother owes you or what he did, but I’ll figure out how to repay you. Please, just…don’t hurt him. I know he’s an idiot, but I’ll fix it.”
My mind spun through her turbulent words.
There was no missing what she was leaving out crashing through her impetuous gaze.
She thought I was going to hurt her.
I might be the destroyer, but not in the way she was imagining.
My hands tightened around her wrists as I drew them up between us, and I gave her a good tug so she was plastered against me.
Autumn eyes went wide and wild.
Mouth parted on the remnants of the plea she’d released.
“If I wanted either of you dead, you’d already be that way.” The words were gravel.
Horrified surprise had her boots digging into the ground in an attempt to scramble away.
No question, she saw it plain. She knew right then and there exactly what I was capable of.
I didn’t release her. I only hauled her closer.
That tight body seared into mine.
I dipped in, inhaling a mouthful of hot apple pie.
Then I was gritting, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Unfortunately, the jury was still out on her brother.
There was a chance I was going to have to put that scum in the ground.
Phoenix was already planning it.
I pressed on, “Believe me when I tell you that you’re much safer on this side of that fence.”
We were lucky the disgusted disbelief that gusted from her didn’t vaporize the trees.
“And why would I trust you?” Brinley fumed it in the direction of my face.
My hands were so tight around her wrists they might as well have been shackles as I drew her knuckles up to my lips.
I whispered against them, hoping she’d fucking get the severity of what I was saying. “Because I’m the only thing you’ve got.”
Then I released her, dropping her hands like they were bricks.
Necessary considering if I kept touching her, whatever insanity I was feeling would crush me.
Hoping to fuck I got through to her, I turned on my heel and forced myself back through the woods, storming in the direction of the clubhouse.
Feeling the heat of that gaze once again scoring into my back.
Wondering when it would be that wildfire finally consumed me.