Outcasts MC (Complete Series), page 38
It was because it was Victor, and I had always had feelings for him, since I had first known what it was to be a girl whose best friend was a guy. Not that things had to end up the way they had, but with Victor, it always felt like it was inevitable. How was I supposed to keep myself away from someone who was always kind, caring, and there for me?
Victor was patient with me; that was the most difficult thing about it. He and Otis both knew the kind of difficulty they could have if I kept my firewalls where they were, or if I strengthened them against Victor’s possible attack. But they left everything up to me. They let me know that they would be there to look out for me, to protect me, as needed, but they ultimately left the decision of what I was about to do up to me.
That alone gave me pause.
I wanted to help Victor. And his friends, and everyone else. But deep down, it was all for Victor. If he needed me to pull down my firewall or to guide him through it, or at least to be prepared for the fallout for when he found his own way through it, there was no question about it. I was going to help him out.
He was Victor, after all. And as much as I’d tried to push my feelings aside over the years, as much as I tried to tell myself that I was cool, collected, calm, rational, well, I knew exactly where I stood when it came to Victor. I knew exactly what I had always thought of when it came to him.
He was more than my best friend, and he always had been. He was Victor.
Once upon a time, I almost went to jail on his behalf. I wanted to be angry with him, to be angry with myself for letting him back into my life. But I never could be. There was a reason he had always been there. And hearing him declare he had feelings for me, that was no surprise, either.
I pressed my lips against his. We had been working toward this for over a decade. It wasn’t just the measure of lust I had felt the other night, pressed up against him in my kitchen. It wasn’t just a matter of friendship or fear or excitement or anything else.
It was the fact that he was always there for me, even when I expected I was going to have to do things on my own. It was the fact that he was Victor. And I was me.
He pushed me back down on the bare ground, and I wasn’t complaining, even though I knew that anybody could come across us here. He climbed on top of me, his fingers finding my breast and toying with the nipple through the flimsy fabric of my T-shirt, the nub making a sharp point against the soft shirt.
He nibbled at my lower lip before his mouth trailed lower, kisses pressed along the neckline of my shirt, a shirt I wished he would rip right off me, leaving me bare for the world to see. I felt too hot, consumed by prickles of passion, needy in a way I had never felt with anyone else. We might have just had sex the other day in my kitchen, but already it felt like it had been a lifetime and more. I couldn’t get enough of him, from the spicy scent of his aftershave to the calloused trails of his fingertips across my skin.
He slid a hand up underneath my shirt, his fingers caressing my stomach and making me shiver with the need for more. But even though he had to realize how badly I craved more, he kept things careful and chaste between us, his lips drawing obscene moans out of me but his fingers not doing anything more than to stroke goosebumps across my skin.
I wriggled beneath him, getting my hands on his belt and quickly undoing it, pushing his jeans and boxers down so that I could grab him in my tight fist. I gave him a few firm strokes, feeling the way he twitched against my palm, feeling the smooth slickness of precum beading against his tip.
He wanted this just as badly as I did. But he was letting me set the pace.
I shivered against him, reaching down between us and wiggling my way out of my jeans, tugging them down just enough that I could drag the head of his cock against my silken panties. I moaned, my back arching at the feeling of him nudging at my entrance through the thin material and repeated the motion. It was enough to get a groan out of him this time, spurring his fingers to clash with mine between my legs. He pushed my panties out of the way, and this time when I tugged him toward me, he slipped easily inside of my waiting hole.
He covered my mouth with his palm as I let out a muted cry of surprise, feeling him spearing into me. He kept his hand there for a moment, staring deep into my eyes as he rocked into me a few times in rapid succession. My head fell back, my eyes blinking up at the bright blue sky. I knew just how exposed we were, knew just how much we were playing with fire right now and testing our luck.
But I didn’t want him to stop. I never wanted him to stop.
I clung to him as he continued to rock into me, suspended in an endless moment of pleasure, overcome by my feelings for him. Whatever else that Victor and I had been, whatever else had happened between the two of us, he was here now, and he told me he was going to make sure I was safe. That he had feelings for me, that he had never wanted anything to come in the way of our friendship but that he had wanted this for just as long as I had.
It was shocking; it was scary; it was dangerous. But it was Victor, and I had always trusted him. Even when it almost cost me everything.
He brushed his fingertips against my cheek, and I could see something there in his eyes, something I had been ignoring there before. Something that echoed the same feelings I had for him. I wrapped my arms around him, tugging him closer, burying my face against his neck so that I wouldn’t say something I might regret. Victor let me have everything I needed, his hips slow and smooth against mine, twisting toward me on every thrust so that I could feel the fullness of his prick, the drag of his cock against my velvety folds.
He fucked me until I was breathless, until it felt like I couldn’t take anything more. And then he continued to fuck into me, stamping his mark on my soul in the same way that his mark was there on everything he had ever done on the computer. It was frightening, and it was dangerous, but I felt safe there in his arms. I felt safe with his body bearing mine back against the dirt.
Maybe that was stupid. Maybe I should be pushing him away, telling him no, reminding him that this was a bad idea. That we were no good for one another, that he could ruin my business or that I could jeopardize everything for him.
But neither of us made any sort of protests. We both knew we needed this.
He continued to slam into me, the movements growing in fervor even as his balls drew tighter and my belly burned with the heat of lust. He raked his nails down my side, the lines scorching with fiery passion, and in turn, I nudged his collar to the side and nipped at his skin, biting a mark next to the base of his throat, reminiscent of a dark tattoo.
We were still mostly clothed, but that did nothing to tame the level of intimacy I felt there, knowing he had feelings for me, knowing I had feelings for him—knowing that we were in this together, for the long run, no matter what. It was Victor and me, always, just like it had been since we were kids.
Whatever the consequences, my life was inextricably tangled up with his. It was about time I admitted it, for both of our sakes.
I gasped as Victor slammed into me again and again, his length almost too much for me to handle. He was hitting the very end of my hole, making me tremble with overstimulation as I came again and again, passion coalescing into a fiery pit of ecstasy that swallowed me up. I lost myself in his arms as he continued to use me for his own end.
At last, we were raw, sated, exhausted. He groaned and rolled away from me, half-heartedly tugging at his jeans, covering himself back up. I blinked up at the sky, a small smile curving across my lips as I contemplated the scenery.
God, it was just like being a teenager again, lost in Victor’s spell. Not that I had ever been this deep into it before. I had never let myself.
It made me wonder what was different now. I had spent the last seven years learning how to build better walls, but it seemed that no matter what walls I built—digital or otherwise—Victor was always going to find his way through them. I couldn’t find it in me to be mad, though.
All the same, as I tugged my jeans back up, doing up the button, and rolled into his side, I could feel myself shaking. If it were just a matter of letting down my walls for Victor, that would have been one thing. But this was something more. Something much more.
“You know guys like this better than I do,” I murmured, even though I knew this wasn’t the kind of post-coital, post-confessional talk he was probably looking for. “What are they going to do to me when they find out that my firewall wasn’t as unbreachable as I led them to believe?”
Victor’s arms tightened around me. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he promised me. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”
I sighed. “I wish I could believe that,” I said.
“You’d better believe it,” Victor growled. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Britt. I’m going to protect you.”
And even though I didn’t even know what we might be up against, even though I only felt this vague sense of dread, even though I was worried that Victor might be the undoing of the whole life that I had built, I believed him right then. If he said he was going to protect me, then I had to believe he would. If he said that no harm was going to come to me, I had to believe him.
It was Victor, after all. I had always trusted him, even when it almost ruined both of us.
17
Victor
I barely glanced up when Logan came into the clubhouse, I was so focused on what I was doing. Logan dropped into the chair next to me, his eyes on me. But my eyes stayed glued to the screen, even though I could practically feel his grin. “Looks like somebody made a breakthrough,” he said.
“Wasn’t so hard,” I admitted, glancing over at him. “Brittany’s on our side, so she took down her firewall; I didn’t have to go through it. So that just left the other set, and, well, those were the easy ones.” Could I have gotten through Brittany’s firewall eventually? I was sure of it. Although once she knew I was trying, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she ramped up the security on it, made things a real challenge for me. And she knew me just well enough that she could have really made things difficult.
But instead, the more we had talked about things the previous day, the surer I had been that she was on our side. She believed that McCree wasn’t a threat, and that the other guys were up to some terrible things. But most importantly, she believed me when I said I would protect her, whatever happened.
I agreed with Otis that it was still her choice. There would have been no hard feelings if she had declined to take down her firewalls. I knew just what was at stake for her. I knew just how scared she was, both of her former employers and of me.
I hated that she was so scared when it came to me. But I also knew that I didn’t have the best track record when it came to looking out for her. I wanted to spend the rest of my life fixing that.
I only hoped she realized.
But she had taken down the firewall, and that at least was a start. It let me get a good look at McCree’s files, and the more I saw, the surer I was that we were doing the right thing. Brittany was right; this guy was one of the good guys, unable to be bribed and straight as an arrow—something that you hardly ever found in politics these days.
What was more, it was obvious upon looking through his documents who he needed protection from. His own Secret Service detail. They were the ones after him. And I could tell that they were preparing to move, quickly. As soon as they found out that Brittany had taken down the firewall, I had no doubt that there would be trouble. Maybe for her, but especially for the representative. They would want him out of the way before any other lines of defense could be set up to protect him.
“What are you looking at right now?” Logan asked curiously, leaning over my shoulder.
“Campaign funding and other documents,” I informed him, not minding that he was looking over my shoulder. Maybe he would see something I missed. Never hurt to have a second pair of eyes on things. But more and more, I was becoming certain that this guy, Representative McCree, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that there was nothing fishy about his request for protection.
“Jesus, he’s practically bankrupted himself on campaigning,” Logan said in surprise, pointing to something on the screen. “That’s not a good sign for us getting paid.”
“No, but it sure is a good sign that he’s really after protection and not getting paid by someone to dispose of us,” I pointed out. “And besides, almost bankrupt for a politician means that he’s still got plenty to pay us with.” I paused. “In any case, even if it took him a while to pay us, don’t you sometimes want to be able to say we did the right thing? That a motorcycle club isn’t all that the stereotypes make us out to be?”
It was something I’d been struggling with, in some form or another, since Otis had first asked me to join the club when I was fresh out of juvie. I knew that not everything the club did was bad. I knew that the bad things we did were never done to good people. But all the same, I had been brought up believing that good people only do good things, and I had had a hard time fitting in with the club.
Brittany had been surprised when I told her that I was part of the MC. To be honest, there were still some mornings when I woke up and hardly believed it myself.
At the same time, though, these guys were my family. And a job was a job. I believed that McCree deserved our protection, and I believed that we could keep him safe, whatever the opposition might be. But if the club was against this, then I wouldn’t do anything else with the knowledge I had gained. There were other things I had to fight for in my life. More important things.
Brittany. I had to make sure she was safe, whatever happened with McCree.
Logan was nodding along with me, though. “Yeah, I mean, if he’s legitimately come to us for protection, then that’s what we do. We look out for him. You’re going to have to talk to Otis, though. See who he wants on this one. Probably a couple people if we’re worried. This could be a big thing.”
Fortunately, Otis came into the clubhouse just then. “We have to get Dax on him. And maybe Kane or someone as well. Now,” I said grimly, not bothering with preamble. Otis would know what I meant: that I had vetted the guy and that he was clean. “He really does need our help, I’m sure of it.”
I didn’t want to sound like I was bossing Otis around, because at the end of the day, it was his call. But I also knew from experience that he trusted me to make the decision and that he would roll with whatever I said to him unless he had some reason to contradict me. But if there was a reason he didn’t want us to tangle with McCree, he wouldn’t have assigned this to me in the first place.
Sure enough, Otis nodded at me. “I’ll make the call,” he said, disappearing back into his office. No questions asked, just like that. I always knew that Otis trusted me and my judgments, but the past couple of days, he had really shown me that, in ways that I never could have expected. He believed in me, no matter what.
I appreciated that.
I kept looking through information about the representative, though, even though we had already made the call on him. Logan continued watching me, not just the documents I was looking at. I glanced over at him, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah?” I asked, wondering if there was someone else that he needed me to track down.
He shook his head. “Just wondering what you’re going to do about your girlfriend now,” he said.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I said immediately. I might have admitted to Brittany that I had feelings for her, but we were far from being boyfriend and girlfriend. That would come with a whole new set of complications, ones I didn’t think either of us were prepared to deal with.
Logan frowned at me, holding up both of his hands. “Fine, not your girlfriend, then. But seriously, are you sure about that?”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, you don’t know Brittany like I do,” I finally said. Things might have been getting better between the two of us, but I could still sense a certain hesitation there, a certain level of worry and nervousness. “She doesn’t want to be involved with me. I could ruin her whole world.”
I nearly had.
Logan was frowning at me, though. “Sure, maybe you could,” he agreed. “But don’t you think she’s aware of that?” He shrugged. “You’re right; I don’t know her like you do. But she came here with you yesterday, and she took down whatever security stuff she had put into place that you couldn’t break through. She seemed like a pretty smart girl to me, and I have the feeling she knew what she was getting herself into, that she thought through all the consequences. And she still decided to risk her life for you.”
I was silent for a moment, staring down at my hands where they rested on the keyboard. I wanted to believe he was right. But at the same time, I was worried that the only reason Brittany had taken down her firewalls was that she knew I was going to get the information I wanted with or without her help. Better that she had me on her side for protection if things were going to go southward. Right?
On the other hand, I wasn’t sure that was entirely the truth. I remembered the way Brittany had opened up to me the previous day. I had told her I had feelings for her, and she had leaned in to kiss me. She wasn’t trying to manipulate me. She was just as helpless to keep away from me as I was helpless to keep away from her.
I wanted to think so anyway.
I thought about what Logan had said, about her risking her life for me. Would I have been able to get through to McCree’s documents without her computer and without her help? It definitely would have taken me more time. And that time might have proven crucial. While we dithered, deciding if we should help McCree or not, these guys, whoever they were, might have killed him or done whatever it was that they were planning on doing to make sure that he wasn’t a piece in the game anymore.
And if those guys had then found out that McCree had tried to hire us, that could have come back on the Outcasts as well. Brittany might not be a member of the club, but she had helped us all the same.
