“That must be painful.” I place my hand against his chest and slide it down towards his belt, but he catches it and moves it into my lap while shaking his head.

  “Part of my need for control is dictating when, where, and how you touch me.”

  “Does that mean I’m never allowed to touch you?”

  “I wouldn’t say never.” He traces his thumb over my bottom lip—once again with a gentleness he says he doesn’t possess. “I want to try something. Put your hands in your lap, fingers between your thighs.”

  I do as he says without question, my eyes glued to his.

  “Good girl.” Drak brings his other hand up and frames my face, bringing his mouth centimeters from mine. “Keep them there.”

  The first brush of his lips is soft and tender—damn near chaste—but when he runs the tip of his tongue along the seam of my mouth, I moan my need for more and he answers with a possessiveness I feel in my toes. Fingers tighten around my head, pulling me forward, his tongue plunging in to devour me. It kills me to not touch him, but I’m afraid if I fail this test—and believe me, this feels like a test—he’ll stop everything.

  “Mmmm,” Drak growls as he pulls back. “Fucking delicious.”

  “What is?” I whisper, my brain in a lusty haze.

  “You, babydoll. Your lips taste like strawberries.” His lids are half-closed, as if he too feels drunk from our kiss.

  “I want more.”

  “Yeah, I can tell by the way you’re squirming in my lap.”

  He’s right. I’m practically rubbing my thighs together, seeking that perfect friction to get myself going. If my jeans weren’t so tight, I’d be sliding my hand inside my panties to rub my clit. I haven’t been this worked up in a long time. “Do you not want more?”

  Drak pulls my jaw down and swipes his fingertip across my bottom lip, smearing lip gloss and saliva across my cheek. “Yes, I do.”

  “Maybe we should get a hotel?” I tentatively stick my tongue out, swirling his fingers and sucking them into my mouth. Or maybe he shoves them in, tempting and teasing me with things to come. Either way, I’m making him promises I want to keep as soon as possible.

  “Fuck me.” He pulls his fingers out and grips the back of my neck, pulling me forward for another scorching, panty-melting, breathtaking kiss. I lose all self-control, my fingers gripping his leather vest as I fumble to change positions and straddle his lap without breaking contact.

  Just as I feared, Drak grabs my hands, pulls them off his vest, and stops kissing me. He shakes his head slowly, tsking under his breath. “Bad girl. You’ll have to be punished for that.”

  “What’s the punishment?” I’ll take it now if it gets me what I want.

  He chuckles. “We’ll talk about it during the week. I assume you work at Ma’s Diner?”

  I nod. “Early Monday through Thursday, but we’re closed Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”

  He grins like a boy presented with a Christmas present. “Three-day weekend. That might give me enough time to do the things I want to do to you.”

  “Do I get a say in what you do to me?”

  His face turns serious. “Always. I’ll do nothing you don’t want me to do. We’ll talk about everything beforehand, every time, until we both know you are one hundred percent on board with it. This doesn’t work without clear and constant communication, Missy. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  Blowing out a breath and reaching underneath me to adjust his cock—oh god, that is all him—Drak leans back and looks over my shoulder at the horizon. “We missed the sunset.”

  Only now do I notice it’s dark enough to cast the sky in a light purple to a dark blue hue. “I guess we did.”

  “Do you want to catch a movie?” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me into his chest, seemingly content with sitting here for hours.

  “I have a better idea. Do you like pie?” I smile when he sucks in his breath and unwraps his arms, giving me space to push back and meet his eyes that travel down to my lap and back.

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “Ma makes the best pies within a hundred miles of Rizona. We have berry cobbler, key lime, chocolate cream, and country cinnamon apple baked fresh yesterday. Want a slice?”

  “That sounds like the perfect way to end a first date.” He smacks my ass again. “Let’s go.”

  We ride home and without input from me, Drak pulls right into the diner’s parking lot where a shiny new SUV and Jerry’s patrol car sit. The lights from the kitchen seep into the dining room through the pickup window separating the grill from the front counter.

  Drak shuts down the engine and puts the kickstand down as I pull off the helmet with a lot less grace and care than he showed me earlier. “Is there supposed to be anyone here this late at night?”

  I shake my head, already scrambling off the back of his motorcycle. “No. What the hell is Jerry doing here?”

  “Who is Jerry?” Drak’s voice deepens as he grabs my arm, keeping me from marching inside to demand answers.

  “My sister’s husband. He’s a local deputy sheriff, but I can’t imagine why he’s here.”

  Jerry comes out of the kitchen with two guys, Danny and Tony, that I’ve seen sniffing around for the last month. They come in to eat at least once a week and Danny’s constantly offering me a job. To do what, he won’t say. All eyes come to us in the parking lot through the big glass windows and although I can’t hear what they’re saying, I can tell Jerry is telling them he will handle this by the way he motions with his hands.

  “Hey Missy. What are you doing out?” Jerry says casually as he pushes through the front door.

  “What the hell, Jerry? Ma is going to have a heart attack when she finds out you’re using her kitchen without permission.” It takes me a second to realize that Drak is standing next to me and has his fingers slipped into the back of my jeans to hold me in place, much like Karden did to Sylvie yesterday.

  “Best you don’t tell her then, don’t you think?” Jerry, like the pain in the ass older brother he’s always been to me, quips back.

  “Hey Missy. You look good. Nice night, isn’t it?” Danny smiles at me while Tony glares at Drak.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Tony sneers.

  Drak tightens his grip on me but doesn’t answer him.

  “This is my man.” I spit out, although I have no idea why I felt the need to state that out loud. We haven’t had that talk. We’re nowhere near that talk, even if Drak gives off possessive vibes—the kind I want to bask in.

  “Man?” Danny’s smile falters.

  “Maplewood.” Tony motions with his hand at the patch on Drak’s vest. “We have friends there.”

  “Do you?” Drak finally speaks.

  “Oh yeah. We have friends everywhere.” Tony chucks Jerry on the shoulder, which sends a chill up my spine. “Isn’t that right, Deputy Tillman?”

  Jerry at least has the decency to look ashamed and casts his eyes to the ground.

  “Well, thanks for the tour of the kitchen. We learned a lot.” Tony pulls keys out of his pocket and walks toward the driver’s side of the SUV.

  Danny continues to stare, this time without the charming smile he normally flashes me. “When are you going to come work for me, Missy?”

  A low growl comes out of Drak beside me. “You need to leave.”

  Holding his hands up, Danny chuckles and walks to the passenger side of their ride. “Just offering the girl a job. She’s got assets and skills I can use.”

  “Motherfucker.” Drak hisses, his body ramrod straight and grip on me tight until they pull out of the parking lot, their taillights disappearing in the distance.

  “Dammit, Missy. What are you doing here?” Jerry rubs his head, something he does when he’s stressed. I’ve watched him do it every time Melanie has gone into labor, damn near rubbing bald spots in his closely cropped hair.

  “Oh Jerry. What are you mixed up in?” I shake my head and think of the tidbits Sylvie told me about the Lupino brothers, Marco and Merca, before she left Rizona. They were pressuring her to sell them the bar before it blew up last January, but they disappeared days before Doyle left town. We’ve all heard the sheriff is dirty, but I didn’t think my brother-in-law was too.

  “It’s nothing. Mind your business and I’ll handle it.”

  Drak lets go of my belt loops to rest his hand on the back of my neck. “Look man, I don’t know you, but this seems far from handled.”

  “Who are you?” Jerry waves a hand in his direction, his deputy badge shiny on his chest and his gun holstered at his side.

  “Like Missy said, I’m her man and I really don’t like what we walked in on here.”

  “Are you strapped?” I see Jerry’s critical eye come to life, the one he usually has when he’s not rattled. I’ve always thought he was a good cop, but now I don’t know what to think.

  “I’m always carrying. It’s under my vest, left side.”

  Jerry blows out a breath. “At least it’s concealed. Otherwise, I think they would have taken that as a challenge.”

  “Why? They’re clearly not threatened by your gun.” The insult flies off of Drak’s tongue so matter-of-factly that I’m stunned speechless.

  Jerry’s jaw clenches, but he says nothing. Then I notice the dark circles under his eyes and the bone tired sag of his shoulders. I thought it was because he was working extra shifts, but now I’m thinking it’s because of the additional stress he’s taken on. I wonder how much of his remodeled kitchen is from dirty money?

  I walk out of Drak’s possessive hold and approach my brother-in-law gently. “What’s going on, Jer? Why were they inside the diner?”

  “I’m trying to protect my family, Missy. That includes you and Ma.” Jerry shakes his head. “They’re interested in the empty storage room and the unused space in the basement. I’m doing my best to convince them it’s not a good place and that any of the abandoned stores would be better to use for their inventory, but they like the idea of hiding in plain sight. Push comes to shove, Ma’s going to have to turn a blind eye to the extra dry goods sitting on the shelves.”

  I shake my head. “She’ll never go for it, Jerry. You know that.”

  He closes his eyes. “The less she knows, the better.”

  “Does Melanie know?”

  “No.” He snaps, his eyes glowering with renewed vigor. “She can’t know about any of this.”

  Drak walks up behind me, closing the distance between us. “No bullshit, Jerry. Are Missy and Ma in danger by staying here?”

  He sighs, utterly defeated. “Currently? No. But if I can’t change their focus soon, I don’t know.”

  Chapter Seven

  Drak

  The next morning, after a few hours of restless sleep, I’m at work teaching a range safety course to a bunch of white collar millionaires who fancy the thrill of walking through a tactical shooting range killing bad guys and saving the concerned citizens of Whoville. Yes, I have twisted a favorite childhood Christmas story into a hostage negotiation / active shooter scenario for my amusement. Fun fact: the Grinch is not the bad guy.

  He wasn’t when I was a kid, either.

  Every two minutes I glance down at my phone, which I have face up on the table, praying Missy doesn’t text me with distressing news. It took everything within me to leave her last night, but she couldn’t skip out of work and come to Maplewood with me without telling Ma the truth, and that is simply something they can’t do. I only spent ten minutes with the woman, but I believe Missy and Jerry when they say she’ll meet the threat head-on with a flour dusted rolling pin in her hand. Apparently, she’s been Rizona’s matriarch since she was in her forties, and even though the town is dying around her, she refuses to abandon her post on the sinking ship.

  Fuck me. How am I going to protect my woman and the people she loves from seventy-five miles away while running my business, which is currently one man deep?

  Chadwick walks into the metal container that functions as a classroom and heads to the cinder block basement where I store a militia-worthy armory. I called him at first light and demanded he swing by as soon as possible. He’s wearing his border patrol uniform, an amused smile on his face when faced with six pampered white males strapping on bullet-proof vests.

  Are the vests necessary? Of course not. But it completes the illusion of going to battle against the consumer-driven Whos of Whoville. Considering the men assembled—none of whom are from Texas—are millionaires because of rampant consumerism, the entire situation is ironic.

  Hence Chadwick’s grin.

  “If you gentlemen could get acquainted with your firearms, I’ll be back in a few minutes with ammunition and we can get started.”

  I tilt my chin to Chadwick and we walk outside and across the parking lot to a cabin that functions as my office. As soon as we get inside, I spin on Chadwick and shake my head. “What’s the real deal with these drug runners taking over nowhere Texas?”

  “What?” his head snaps back, as if I’ve attacked him personally, and in some ways I wonder if I should. I hate to say that about one of my MC brothers, but after meeting a dirty deputy last night, I’m reminded how corrupt this world is and that no one can be trusted. “Is this about that chick in Rizona?”

  “Yeah, it is. I met the riff-raff last night and some not-so-veiled threats were made to include having friends here in Maplewood. Considering I also met a dirty cop, it has me wondering exactly how much is flying under our noses around here and why that is?”

  “Fuck you. You think I’m dirty?” Chadwick’s jaw tenses and his eyes flare with heat.

  I glance down at where his hand rests above his gun, my sidearm holstered slightly higher under my left bicep.

  He purposefully pulls his hands back and shows me his palms. “Fucking seriously?”

  I sigh. “I’m sorry, but I’m worried about my woman, who lives way too far away for me to protect. With no law enforcement there to rely on, I need to know exactly how bad the situation is and what we’re dealing with—here and there.”

  Chadwick leans his ass against my desk, his arms folded across his chest. “There’s a federal task force running it, so it’s above my pay grade. They call on us when they need backup or manning, but otherwise they don’t tell us a lot—at least not at my level. I do know there’s a nationwide network of trafficking—drugs, cash, and people. They’re buying up properties and embedding themselves into dying towns like sleeper cells, doing their best to stay under the radar. Occasionally someone isn’t compliant and they go missing, but it’s rare because dead or missing people with families get reported. They try to ingratiate themselves to people who need the cash and sometimes they push it by drying up any business they already have. That’s all I know.”

  “How can I protect Missy?”

  He shrugs. “Get her out of there.”

  “Fuck.” I run my hand down my face in frustration.

  “Look, man. I’ll ask some questions and come to church with what I’ve learned, but that’s the best I can do right now.” He looks up at the ceiling. “Actually, let me ask any of the guys closer to Rizona if they’ll do a few sweeps a few times a day, just to establish a presence.”

  “Border Patrol does that?”

  “We do all kinds of shit. We fall under Homeland Security, so our scope is wiggly.” He pushes off my desk and shrugs.

  “Wiggly is good.” I nod, my head deep in thought. Two days ago I barely knew Rizona existed, or that my woman—and make no doubt about it, she is mine—was living in perpetual danger. Maybe my inability to control the situation is working me up more than it should. Missy, outside of being surprised by her brother-in-law's potentially criminal side-hustle, isn’t concerned at all. That annoys me more than it should and when she comes to stay with me this weekend, she’s getting a crash course in gun handling and safety, as well as my hand on her ass. Not taking her personal safety seriously isn’t going to fly with me.

  As if she knows I’m thinking about her, a text message hits my phone.

  Hey you. Lunch rush is about to hit, but everything is fine, as usual. I’ll call you when we get done this afternoon.

  By the way, I’ve been thinking about our kiss all morning and wishing we could have continued last night. I’m sorry pie got messed up, but I promise to bring you some this weekend if we’re still on.

  💋

  I stifle a grin and slide my phone into my pocket.

  “Oh man. You have it bad,” Chadwick chuckles.

  “Shut up.” I open the door to my office with him on my heels, blinded by the hot Texas sun. “If I don’t see you beforehand, see you at church on Thursday.”

  “Yep. See you then.” Chadwick walks to his cruiser and is gone before I’m back inside the classroom to complete the group exercise for the day.

  Get ready, Mayor Maywho. We got something for your ass.

  Missy and I have video chatted every night. Everything appears to be calm in Rizona, so I have to believe Jerry has the local dirtbags under control. As it is, Missy says neither Danny nor Tony has been in the diner this week and she hasn’t seen either of them hanging around anywhere else either.

  I can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing.

  Our conversations have been more personal than I’m comfortable having, touching on our childhoods and my time in the system, but with Missy I feel almost safe talking about the good and bad times. Of course, I’ve spared her the truly awful moments between decent foster homes. No one needs to hear about the stuff childhood nightmares are made of, and honestly, I don’t want to rehash them.

  They are the past, and I believe she is my future.

  “Hey, man.” Chadwick walks into the clubhouse with a rolled up paper in his hand.

  “Hey.” I look up from the last text message Missy sent me saying she’d be leaving the house around five and should be in Maplewood no later than seven. I’ve already told Aldis, the Rebel Hearts MC President, that I’d be ducking out early if church runs late.

 

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