A Sinful Vow: Inked Angels MC (15 page)

To the other side of me, I saw Cannon puking. The others were pale as ghosts. This was nothing you could be prepared for.

Between them, Luke had buried his face against his shoulder. “Make him watch,” snarled Lobo, stabbing a finger at him. The men next to Luke grabbed his head and forced his gaze upward, towards where Skull’s lifeless, dripping body was suspended.

“This could all be over so soon,” crooned Lobo. “I will end your life mercifully. Just tell me where the guns are.”

It took Luke several long seconds to gather his breath enough to speak. When he did, spit and blood flew from his mouth.

“Rot in hell, you son of a bitch.”

Lobo sighed, dropping his head like a parent disappointed in a misbehaving child. Then he shrugged and waved his fingers towards where the rest of the Inked Angels sat.

“Ay,
Dios
,” he bemoaned. “Very well. Next!”

The bloodshed had only just begun.

Chapter 8: Dancing with the Devil
Blaze

I watched the truck vanish into the distance. There was no way I’d be able to catch up to it, and even if I did, I was outnumbered and outgunned. To put it simply, I was up shit creek without a paddle.

But fuck it, Olivia wasn’t worth chasing anyway.

That whore. That absolute fucking whore. She didn’t deserve anything from me. Let her run away, back to her brother and his band of fucking backstabbers in Austin. It suited her to be with liars and traitors. That was what she was—nothing but a goddamn liar. I had no use for her. No use for a wife who led me around like a bull with a ring in his nose. I was a show pony for Luke, a distraction while he cooked up whatever idiot scheme he had in mind. He set her loose on me and she went to work, fucking me into a false sense of security.

I’d let her fool me into a state of dewy-eyed stupidity. Croak had suspected what was happening. He’d tried to wake me up, to keep me from falling into her trap, but it wasn’t good enough for me. No, I was far too stupid. Trust a bitch? Never again. Especially not her. I hoped she was dead.

Is that so?

I practically tore my hair out by the roots. Christ, if there was ever a time for that voice in my head to stay completely fucking silent, it was right now. The last thing in this world I wanted to hear was this simmering doubt, this whiny little insistence that I really did love Olivia.

For a brief moment, I wondered if it was true. We’d spent how many days wrapped up in each other, fucking and talking and opening up? It was unlike anything else I’d ever done. She’d coaxed these feelings out of me, this warmth that even now kept hanging around my fucking heart like some drunk asshole staying at the bar too long.

No, fuck that. I didn’t love her. I never had. She was not only dead to me, she was gone forever. As far as I was concerned, it was as if she’d never existed. I might as well get to work wiping her memory clean off the grid and go back to my life the way it was before any of this shitstorm had begun.

If only that were possible.

* * *

The ride back to Houston was hot, dusty, and furious. I put rubber to the road, flying past Mexican police without giving a single fuck if they took after me. They’d never catch me, not with the beast I was riding. Those poor suckers couldn’t stay with me even if they had a ten mile head start.

It felt good to fill the wind whip past me. I let myself pretend that all the shit of the last few weeks—everything since the wedding—went with it. Gone went the sound of Olivia screaming my name from the porch as I threw myself into her, exploding together. Gone went the days tangled in the bed sheets, moving with and in her for hours on end. Gone went the night on the beach when I’d first made her mine. Gone went the leather lingerie, the “Do you like it?” that still haunted me.

I left it all behind me in Mexico. Good fucking riddance.

I saw the border crossing swim into sight up ahead. Wheeling into the line of cars waiting for entry, I brooded, doing my damnedest not to think of her once. Gradually, I scooted forward, pulling up to the booth.

“Bringing anything across?” asked the border patrol official in a thick Texan accent.

“Just a whole lot of stupidity,” I told him.

The official looked up at me. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored aviators, wrapped in a gold wire frame.

“We all got some of that, son,” he said. “Welcome back to the States.”

I nodded and twisted the accelerator. My motorcycle shot forward in a cloud of exhaust, leaving the booth and the man behind.

The road was smoother on the other side of the crossing. As I drove, I drew closer to the sign pointing the way to Houston. It loomed large, a big green square outlined against the turquoise sky.

I didn’t even want to be in the same country as the bitch. The thought made me want to puke.

I pulled off to the side of the road and got off my bike. I needed to stretch my legs; eight hours straight in the saddle was enough to do one hell of a number on a man’s body. The sun beat down overhead, as consistent and relentless as any motherfucker in this life or the next.

Fucking sun. Fucking sky. This whole fucking world was a mess that never ended. You go after a girl, and her brother puts a bullet in your leg. Then, when a second chance comes around out of nowhere, she ends up being a manipulative traitor, only out to screw over you and the men you call your brothers.

I hated it all right then.

“Fuck you!” I screamed at the sky. On the far side of the road, a family of Mexicans carrying a wheelbarrow of goods into the border town looked up in surprise at my outburst.

“Aw, fuck you guys, too,” I mumbled. I let my arms fall by my side. The saddle had done a number on my body, but fuck, that girl had done a number on everything else. I was a wreck.

There were only two things a man like me knew to do when the world was going to shit and he needed some way to stop if from falling apart completely: drink and fuck.

I got on my bike, but instead of roaring home, I turned around and headed back into Mexico.

* * *

Twilight brought the little shanty town to life. It was a rundown shithole that lingered on the last few acres of Mexican soil, just enough space to let tourists exorcise all their vices before they went back into the United States. The town was brimming with bars and whorehouses, and cops knew better than to even bother interfering with all the fuckery that took place on a nightly basis.

I idled through town, the motor beneath me purring quietly as I turned corners and crossed intersections. I watched as weedy-looking American teenagers ducked into houses where hookers in lingerie danced in the window frames.

Everyone here just wanted to get their rocks off and go unnoticed. Given the way I was feeling, that was just fine with me. And if anyone wanted to try and fuck with me, well, let’s just say I wasn’t going to go out of my way to avoid a fight with some lippy motherfucker, either.

I parked my bike outside a saloon and walked in. It took only moments before I’d thrown back three shots of home brewed tequila. When in Mexico, right? But the liquor barely put a damper on the bee’s nest that was my brain. All I wanted was to shut it all down—radio silence upstairs, please and thank you.

It took another four shots before my thoughts actually began to quiet. With a warm, steady buzz building in the front of my head, I was able to start shunting Olivia and everything that had to do with her away into a locked mental cabinet that sat somewhere deep in the dustier corners of my skull. If I had any luck at all, I’d be able to keep her there forever, too.

Only a few of the booths in the joint were filled, and all the seats at the bar were empty, save for the one in which my sorry ass was currently deposited. The bartender stood a couple feet away, wiping down glasses and pouring me another shot whenever I raised a finger in his direction.

“She sure was one hell of a fuck, though,” I mumbled to myself, hardly realizing I was speaking out loud.

A warm voice spoke up from behind me. “Who was, baby? I know I am, but I don’t think you and I have had the pleasure before.”

I looked blearily over my shoulder. The drink was hitting me pretty hard already, but I saw that it was a curvaceous Hispanic broad with an ass that a lot of men would kill for. Her dress could barely keep her tits from spilling out, although I’m sure that that wasn’t unintentional. I looked at her face and saw plump, pink lips that were begging for special attention. Her tongue darted out and licked them, leaving behind a wet sheen that only increased my hunger.

I’d come back for pussy to cure my malaise, and this was exactly the remedy I was looking for.

The woman sat down next to me. She hiked the hem of her dress up well above her knees, so that a long expanse of creamy thigh was showing. I could just see the edge of her panties—bright pink lace. A thing like that deserved to get ripped right off.

She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “I’m Bella, baby, nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

Shit, I was already nearly ten shots deep, but even blind drunk, I could always recognize when a woman wanted to fuck.

“They call me Blaze,” I told her.

“I see why,” she said, throwing her hair back over one bare shoulder. “You’re hot as hell, darling. Let me get you another drink.” Bella whistled down the bar and gave the bartender a flirtatious wave. He sidled down.

“
Sí
?” he asked.

“Let’s get another couple tequilas. One for me and one for my new friend, Blaze,” she said.

The man nodded and produced a second glass from underneath the bar top. He set it down and filled up both our tumblers. Bella wrapped her manicured fingernails around it and held it up to clink against mine.

“To love in the air,” she said, smiling alluringly.

“To anything but that,” I replied, smug.

We touched our rims together and then threw back the shot. I sighed. It felt good to burn my throat with the stuff.

Bella reached out a hand and brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen over my forehead. “Something the matter, Blaze?”

“Not a damn thing,” I growled back. I was drunk and feeling low, but I still wasn’t some pussy getting ready to confess my troubles to some whore at a bar.

“Woman trouble, I’m betting,” she said knowingly. She nodded her head again, convinced she was right. “I know it when I see it.” Bella leaned in further and cupped a hand to whisper into my ear. “Come with me,” she said in a hushed voice. She let her lips brush against my ear. I felt my dick begin to harden in my pants. “I’ll take all that right off your mind.”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she plucked the glass from my hand and put it to rest gently on the bar top. She intertwined her fingers with mine and tugged me behind her.

I was drunk enough not to give a fuck. If this bitch wanted to fuck me, then I wasn’t going to resist. I wanted to wipe everything off my skull, go back to a clean slate. I had the alcohol I needed in my veins. All I needed was some pussy to complete the process.

I didn’t care if she was a hooker, a horny random, or anything in between. I’d have paid a million fucking dollars right then to slip my cock into a wet cunt. Anything to give a warm fucking goodbye to all thoughts of Olivia.

I followed her down the street and into a shabby apartment building a block or two away. We went up the rickety stairs and into a small room. When we stepped inside, she leaned back against the stucco wall and pulled me towards her.

Our lips met. Her kiss was sopping wet, and she used her tongue like a whip, thrashing against my teeth and mouth. One of her hands seized mine and brought it to her breasts, which she freed from the thin fabric of her dress. She used her other fingers to stroke at the bulge of my cock.

A drunken haze clouded all the sensation in my body. I wanted that; I wanted everything to fucking dissipate in a fog of pussy and liquor. Dead nerves, dead thoughts—fuck it all. I didn’t love any bitch. I never had. I never wanted to.

I know who you really are, Blaze.

Fuck that voice.

Bella wound her fingers in my belt loops and pulled me towards a chair. With a playful shove, she pushed me into it.

“Stay right there,” she said, running a lingering fingertip down the length of my dick. “I’ve got a surprise for you. I’ll be right back.” She turned and went behind a patterned dressing screen.

I stared dumbly at my hands. They sat in my lap, mute and stupid, like dead spiders. Then, rising up through my drunken buzz like a shout from the bottom of a well,
You loved her.

“Fuck you,” I whispered to myself.