Chapter 21
Makhi
This isn’t working.
Byrdie is walking away. She’s not getting pissed at me or even wanting to talk.
She’s shutting me out when I thought I gave her no room to maneuver.
“Byrdie!” I call, trailing her down the road.
“You’re just trying to get in my head,” she calls back without looking. “This is the right way back.”
“No, it’s not,” I call out, letting her hear my amusement.
“Yes, it—”
Pop.
Gravel skitters on the ground inches beside her, and she stops, angling her head to look. From her profile, she’s frowning. “What was—”
I tackle her.
She grunts and cries out as I cover her body with mine.
“What are you doing?” She presses her hands on my chest and tries to shove me off her while scowling up at me.
“Stop moving.”
“But I—”
Pop.
I flinch as it comes dangerously close to my left shoulder.
Her face turns stark white.
“What is that?” she whispers.
Someone is shooting at us.
I twist around to look up the mountain, but I can’t spot anyone. The ravine is on our left, and we can’t afford to stay on this road. We’re sitting ducks.
“Makhi, is someone shooting at us?”
Pop.
I roll us to the left, just avoiding the dust blowing up at the spot where we were lying.
Keeping a tight hold of her, I keep rolling across the road and toward the bushes on the side.
My thick leather jacket and jeans protect most of my skin, but when my jacket rises, I wince as gravel digs into my side.
With my arms wrapped tight around Byrdie, who is only wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, I hope this ground isn’t tearing up her skin.
We tumble over the side of the road, fall about a foot, and I grunt as we land in a bush. Batting aside leaves and branches, I wiggle about a bit, turning so I have Byrdie tucked under me in case whoever was shooting down at us follows.
Wedged under a prickly bush on the side of the road, I keep still.
Above us, there is silence.
Byrdie stares up at me, eyes wide with fear.
Reaching behind me, I yank my cell phone from my back pocket, relieved I have it and the screen didn’t crack from all this rolling around. A faint jingle means I didn't lose my bike keys. Something else to be thankful for.
I dial a number from memory and tuck my cell phone against my ear.
“What?” Vonn snaps.
He’s had good reason to be pissed at me lately. I’ve been pushing his buttons more than usual, and he’s sick of it.
“I’m with Byrdie,” I say, holding her gaze as she lies quiet and still beneath me. With my left hand on the ground beside her head, I’m not in danger of crushing her with my body. “I took her out for a ride, and someone is taking potshots at us.”
“Where?” he demands.
I feel his alertness stretch down the phone line. No one else can go from a state of relaxation to 100% focused and ready to go to war like Vonn.
“The road out of town. We’re about forty minutes down it. My bike is on the side, and I rolled us into a bush.” I avoid Byrdie’s gaze as I admit something I’d rather she didn’t know. “I could ride us back, but I have to be in front, and I can’t protect her.”
“Stay where you are. I’m on my way.”
He hangs up before I can, and I set my phone down on the ground beside my head with the ringer off and vibration on. If someone comes after us, I want it close and quiet.
Byrdie’s eyes are full of fear.
“It’s okay,” I reassure her. “We’ll be okay.”
I can tell she doesn’t believe me when her expression doesn’t change.
“Is it the mayor? Did you see who it was?”
“I didn’t see anyone. It could have been him, though,” I say vaguely.
It wasn’t him. The mayor has had plenty of time to take potshots at us anytime we left the Gabriel Mansion.
He wants what Nash has. He doesn’t want Nash dead because there’s no guarantee that Nash hasn’t willed his fortune to someone else, and that Otto, Nash’s attorney, doesn’t have a copy of that will.
This isn’t the mayor. Whoever was taking potshots wasn’t aiming at me.
They were aiming at Byrdie, and I can only think of one person who would want her dead.
“It was Jeremiah.” Panicked, her breath starts to race. “Wasn’t it?”
“We don’t know that.”
“Yes, we do.” Her eyes slide past me, up to the road I rolled us down, and to a danger that could be lurking up there. “I have to go.”
“Don’t be stupid. Go where?” I snap at her, her panic pissing me off because there’s nothing I can do to silence it.
Nothing I say is making her feel any safer, and it’s making me feel so useless.
“He was asking about you,” she whispers, staring up at a danger she can’t see. “When he brought me back to the compound, he asked about the men I was living with, and I knew he would kill you if he could.”
“No one is going to—”
I grunt as she tries to wiggle out from under me.
“Stop!”
“I have to go up there or he will kill you.”
“You’re not going anywhere. Stop wriggling.”
“He’ll kill you if he finds me with you. I should just—”
I kiss her.
Her panic is only growing. Talking isn’t working. Arguing is doing less than nothing. So I fucking kiss her and hope she doesn’t knee me in the balls.
But she’s frozen, and her eyes, wide with shock as she stares up at me, slowly close when I angle my head. Her lips are soft, her breath sweet and slightly tart from the strawberries she had with the pancakes Nance made for breakfast. I frame her beautiful face as I deepen the kiss.
Her soft, breathy moan breaks something inside me.
Nope. Not the moan. It’s when she arches under me, her body needy and hungry.
Fuck.
As I lift the bottom half of my body from hers, I take far too much pleasure in her soft whimper of complaint. I shove her sweatpants down, fight with my pants, and nearly have a painful accident involving my balls when I don’t take as much care with my zipper as I should.
But it’s down, my pants undone. I test her wetness with one finger and curse again at how tight and wet she is. Her body stretches around me, trying to hold me inside her. Damn. I won’t last long inside her.
Pulling my finger out of her, I brace myself over her for a hard and fast ride. “Legs around me,” I order her in an urgent whisper.
I have one coherent thought before I slide inside her: Vonn is going to fucking kill me for doing this here.
The thought is… exciting.
More exciting than it has a right to be.
In public, inches from the road, Byrdie beneath me, eyes closed, chin lifted, biting down on her luscious lip to swallow her moan.
I fuck her hard and fast, conscious this is neither the time nor place. And I claim her mouth, barely breaking away to drag in gulps of air. I want to possess every inch of her. Want her to scream my name. But not here.
Another time.
This is about putting out the fire I lit inside her and in me.
Her pussy ripples around me. I break the kiss with a muffled groan, clamp my hands around her hips, and pick up the pace as she bucks and lets out a strangled moan.
She climaxes around me, tight as a fist around my dick.
I slam into her, press my face against her throat, and let out a groan as I fill her with cum.
For a good long while, neither of us moves.
She’s quiet under me as my cock softens inside her.
Guilt seeps in. We shouldn’t have done this on the ground, and in a fucking bush; she deserves so much better than this. Especially from me, when I fucked up and hurt her so badly before.
I don’t want to lift my head. I’m fucking terrified to look down into her face and see nothing but regret.
“Well,” she says, voice relatively steady after our quick, hard fuck. “That was new.”
There’s enough amusement in her voice that I choke out a laugh, lift my head and peer down at her.
Her cheeks are flushed, lips moist and so kissable, I can’t help but claim them again.
“Did I hurt you?” I break the kiss to ask her.
She shakes her head. “I’m okay. Someone could have shot you.”
I drop a kiss on her forehead. “Yeah, well. I’d have been inside you, and there are worse ways for a guy to go.”
She smiles up at me, cheeks pink, and I’m not sure if she wants to laugh or shove me again.
Before she can do either, the purr of an approaching car’s engine wipes the smile from both our faces.
I put my finger to her lips, so she knows to be quiet.
There’s no need. She’s frozen and silent beneath me.
Moving slowly, but quietly, I strangle my groan as I pull out of her, wanting to stay right where I am.
I tug up my jeans, quickly doing up my zipper as she slides her sweatpants up over her hips. When I glance at my cell phone, there are no missed calls or texts from Vonn.
If that’s Vonn, he floored it to get here as fast as he did. If it’s not Vonn, we’re in big fucking trouble if whoever it is decides to wander down here to investigate.
“Nash?”
My shoulders relax at the sound of Vonn’s voice, and Byrdie starts breathing again.
“Come on, beautiful,” I tell her, stuffing my phone in my pocket and snagging her hand.
Leading the way through the prickly bush and up the side of the road, I tuck her behind when she moves to walk beside me. She’s not in danger anymore. Vonn wouldn’t be calling me out if it weren’t safe, but this new protectiveness over her refuses to let her go up first. Just in case.
As we scramble onto the road, I pull Byrdie up behind me, keeping my body between her and any potential threat.
Vonn stands near my bike, his truck parked on the side of the road. He’s not wearing a coat, and his black t-shirt is untucked. I have a feeling I know exactly what he has at the back of his jeans. Since his gun isn’t in his hand, we must be out of danger.
He looks at me, then at Byrdie when she steps beside me, and rubs a hand over his face. “Tell me you didn’t do what I think you were doing down there?”
I didn’t realize how disheveled my clothes were or that I hadn’t zipped up my fly all the way. Byrdie looks equally disheveled. Of course Vonn was going to put two and two together and get four.
Byrdie’s cheeks turn pink, and she looks away.
I don’t say a word. I’m not about to admit to anything when Vonn has a gun tucked in the waistband of his jeans. I’d be hanging myself.
“Do you know how reckless that was?” he snaps, confirming I was right to keep my mouth shut. He glares at me. “Of course you did. You probably got off on it.”
“I—”
He shakes his head as if he’s sick of me. “I looked around. There’s no sign of your shooter. There was a perch up there.” He points up the road. “The only thing there now are tire marks. Whoever it was is long gone.”
“It was Jeremiah or his acolytes,” Byrdie says.
“Maybe,” Vonn says vaguely. “Let’s get back to the house. Nash has been busy.”
“Doing what?” I ask, leading Byrdie to my bike.
Vonn cuts me off and snags Byrdie’s free hand. “She’s coming in my truck. Whoever it was might have gone, but I’m not exposing her to more danger than I have to.”
I’m fast becoming addicted to having Byrdie wrapped around me on my bike. But Vonn is right to be concerned.
I kiss Byrdie. “I’ll see you back at the house. Can you take the spare helmet with you?”
She nods and takes it when I press it into her hand.
Vonn opens the passenger door, she slides in, and as he slams her door shut, I stuff my helmet on my head and pull my keys from my back pocket. I lift the kickstand and direct my bike toward the house.
Scowling, Byrdie rolls down her window when she sees the direction my bike is facing. “You said that wasn’t the right way back.”
If she saw the grin my helmet obscured, she’d climb out of that truck and knee me in the balls. “I did say that, didn’t I?” I say with a cheerful wave.
Grumbling, she snaps her seatbelt on, muttering, “Asshole.”
Vonn, in the driver’s seat, looks briefly surprised by her curse, but it just makes me grin wider as I start the engine and race them back to the house. Vonn won’t see it as a race, but that won’t stop me from crowing when I win.
I brought Byrdie out here to talk. Not just about the worrying habit she has of disappearing into her head, sometimes for hours at a time. About the way I hurt her, and how I can make things right.
None of that happened. We didn’t talk, and even though we had sex and she didn’t regret it, things aren’t close to being resolved between us.