Blow Out (Steel Veins Book 1) Read online

  “I know. My bar is going to need quite a bit of work.” Muse frowned. A subtle severity crept into her features, but only for a moment before it was replaced by her sympathetic smile. “Poor dear. It’s okay. You’re safe. That’s over now.”

  I desperately wanted to believe her.

  The conversation became lighter and easier as I finished breakfast. We were even able to joke a little bit. It felt like I was having tea with a friend I hadn’t seen in forever, and that was such a good feeling. Maybe it was going to be okay after all.

  I even managed to not think about Remy, at least for a little while.

  She said that the nearest town was an hour drive and that she’d be able to bring me there in a few days when she picked up groceries for the hotel. The thought of being stuck out here that long twisted my organs into knots, but Muse promised to put me to work cleaning the rooms.

  “No one ever looks twice at the maids,” she said before handing me a little sign-up cash. When I was abducted, I didn’t have anything with me—no phone, money, or ID. It felt good to stuff something into my pockets again.

  Something other than a stolen paring knife.

  Although Mercy didn’t know for certain, she figured that the bikers would probably be gone tomorrow regardless. Most of them had civilian jobs and had to be back home for the work week. If I just kept my head down for another day or so, I’d be fine.

  “Excuse me a moment, Little Bird. I can’t have an employee wearing soggy clothes.” Mercy winked at me and waved down one of her girls who walked by. They talked over by the concierge desk as I finished my tea.

  I’d never cleaned rooms before, aside from my own, but it couldn’t be that difficult.

  Mercy came back with a housekeeping outfit—a pair of khakis and a brown, collared shirt—then took me to a room to shower and change.

  The clothes didn’t fit well, but they were dry, and at this point, that was all I cared about. When I had cleaned myself up, I met my new “mentor” one floor up in the middle of cleaning a particularly trashed room.

  Gloria was the woman’s name. She was a Latina in her late fifties who didn’t speak a word of English. My pitiful high school Spanish was seriously put to the test, but Gloria was all warm smiles.

  I struggled through sentences, outright butchering words until I was so flustered I ended up acting out the points I was trying to make. Gloria nodded emphatically, and before long, we worked out a system.

  “Mira. Mira,” she repeated. She’d hold up a finger and then make the vacuuming motion then run off to the bathroom where she would hold up a second finger and feign scrubbing.

  I watched the way she cleaned first; then she watched me to make sure I was doing it thoroughly enough. The woman was efficient and clearly took some measure of pride in her work.

  Not being able to speak my language didn’t stop the wonderful woman from making simple jokes about smelly customers that even I was able to understand. She’d plug her nose and wave away the fake stench, and then she would laugh and laugh, which in turn made me laugh. I wasn’t laughing at her; I was laughing with her.

  Gloria had a little radio with her that played cheerful salsa music and used the melody to dance around the room as she cleaned. She swept, dusted, mopped, and made the bed, which I immediately had to touch because it was so perfect. She was quick to playfully slap my hand and make a tsk sound as she waggled one finger back and forth.

  My smile beamed as I backed away, apologizing.

  She palmed her forehead and gave me an exaggerated sigh before bumping me with her butt and dancing back to work.

  Gloria seemed to have this boundless joy within her. I loved it. It was the first time during all this insanity that I felt a sincere level of comfort—like I’d just woken up from an extremely lurid nightmare. It was all so delightfully mundane.

  It was so nice to see someone so full of life in a miserable place like this. Begrudgingly, it gave me a little hope that, yes, this would all be over soon and, yes, everything would be okay.

  Almost through the first room, Gloria’s seemingly fixed, pleasant smile eroded, and her dancing stopped.

  A figure leaned in the doorway. It was Remy, and immediately my pulse began to quicken.

  His presence alone seemed to drain the light from the room.

  “¿Qué quieres? Estamos trabajando.” Gloria protectively stepped between me and Remy.

  Seeing Remy there was a stark reminder that my normal wasn’t here. It felt like someone sucked the very air from my lungs. He wore his black denim pants and a dark gray, collared shirt with the buttons undone. His sculpted, naked chest beneath the loose fabric sent tingles down my thighs. His red-rimmed eyes and lazy posture spoke volumes to what was probably a severe hangover.

  “Sal un momento. Necesito hablar con Star.”

  Remy knew Spanish?

  “No. Ella está trabajando y no tiene tiempo para desperdiciar con motociclistas.” Gloria sounded really defensive. I could tell she was trying to protect me.

  “Después de todo, el cliente siempre tiene la razón. Y ahora soy el cliente.” Remy pulled out a hundred-dollar bill.

  Gloria turned back to me with upturned eyes, looking worried.

  I gave her a weak smile and nodded to her that it was okay. She was such a nice woman.

  “Diez minutos.” She regarded Remy with the eyes of a mother bear facing down a hunter then slapped away his outstretched hand. “No quiero tu asqueroso dinero. Dáselo a la chica.” Gloria brushed past him with a considerable amount of disdain.

  Just before she stepped out of the room, she tapped her wrist and held up both hands, fingers stretched wide. I was pretty sure she was telling me she’d be back in ten minutes.

  Remy took me in with his tired eyes for a long moment before advancing.

  If my face hadn’t betrayed my worry, my legs certainly did because before I knew, my butt hit the wall behind me. I was finished retreating, apparently. He didn’t say a word, just kept coming.

  I wasn’t willing to let him drag me away, at least not without a fight. “Stay back!” I dug the knife out of my pocket and slashed at him.

  Remy smirked and sauntered forward. He was completely unfazed, even after the long, shallow slice I carved into his chest. With startling dexterity, he grabbed my wrist and discarded the knife as if he was removing a child’s plaything. Then he bound my arms to my sides.

  A thin line of red appeared on his chest, but he didn’t seem to care.

  Those piercing brown eyes, so dark they might as well have been black, tore through me with laser precision.

  I was paralyzed by his grip and hypnotized in his gaze.

  Yet, he said nothing.

  After an agonizing silence, he leaned in, the long stubble from his chin grazing across my cheek. Goose bumps ran down my spine. His hot breath prickled my ear as he finally spoke. “Don’t trust Muse.”

  His throaty voice rumbled into my ear then worked its way through my entire body as a full shiver. I lit up at the points we connected, growing hot. His knee on my outer thigh, his bicep pressed into my breast. The heat that emanated off him was almost enough to make me swoon. Damn this man and what he could do to me.

  “She helped me.” All the strength I had left poured from me to keep my voice from cracking.

  Remy hadn’t showered yet; his scent was thick and manly. I should’ve been repulsed, but I drank it in. My eyes closed, and I let it—him—permeate me. He reeked of raw, carnal masculinity.

  Thankfully, I couldn’t smell her on him.

  “Then why did she send one of her girls to fetch Top for you?” Remy whispered.

  My heart smashed into the back of my teeth. Nausea bubbled inside of me. The horrible pressure of Top’s hand greasily sliding down my clit crept back into my muscles. It was a third-degree burn in my mind. Panic shot through me with such urgency that I started shaking.

  Please no! Not him, not again!

  “Relax,” Remy said. “I took care of
it.”

  “Oh my God.” First, it was frenzied horror, then the betrayal. Mercy—that raging cunt! “Muse… how could she? She fed me, clothed me.... She gave me this job!”

  “Simple economics. Top is Muse’s best customer.” Remy drifted away to lock eyes with me again. He released one of my arms to hold up that hundred he’d tried to give Gloria. Bill in hand, Remy dragged his fingers between my tits. One of the two things I didn’t get from Muse was a bra. “The customer always gets what he wants.”

  Through the strained fabric of the work shirt, I could feel the meandering path of his calloused fingertips in explicit detail. His cracked, uneven nails took over when he hit the waistband of my khakis. I lost myself in that descending sting. Remy abandoned the folded money in the tighter part of my waistband, but ever lower did his fingers venture.

  Panties were the other thing I didn’t get from Muse, not that it would’ve mattered. Through my prickles, I felt him slide between my lips to gently flick the tip of my clit.

  “Last night, I had the strangest dream, and this morning when I woke up in my room, I began to wonder. Was that girl with the glasses really a dream?” He turned his hand around.

  I bit my lip, forcing my eyes closed.

  “And what it sounded like when she moaned for me?” His weathered fingertips, rapidly getting wetter, explored the outside of my pussy, tracing every ridge, every curve.

  I wouldn’t give him what he was after. I’d die before I moaned for him. Unfortunately, I felt an unstoppable, deathly urge swelling inside me. I bit harder.

  “What I wouldn’t give to hear that sound.” He toyed with me.

  I couldn’t—no! I wouldn’t open my eyes. I knew he was watching me. Reading me. I could see his cruel eyes burning through my eyelids. I wanted to feel him inside of me, even just his fingers. I wanted it more than the food this morning. More than dry clothes. More than every fucking indie graphic novel. More than the goddamn Merrimack River.

  More than my entire, boring, fucking, NORMAL life.

  Sirens? Like a distant bobbing raft in my sea of lust, I overheard the noise. Definitely sirens. I must have heard them before Remy did, so when my eyes fluttered open, I witnessed the drastic change in his features.

  His eyes shot wide open, every hint of a dull hangover vanishing. That sensual haze burned away, leaving only a glare of abject anger in its charred remains.

  Seeing that look in his eyes… I had never been more terrified in my entire life.

  “Please tell me you were not stupid enough to have called the fucking cops!” he demanded. His voice was a calm lake hiding a seething volcano.

  “I… I….” All my strength left my body.

  His hand rocketed out of my pants, wrapped around my throat, and slammed me into the wall with brutal force. I could smell myself on him. “Tell me!” he erupted.

  Oh my God, Remy was going to kill me. I was going to die smelling my own pussy. But as quick as it happened, his hand disappeared.

  He broke away and checked the window. Red and blue lights from two cruisers streamed into the main lot, then circled around back to the biker’s lot. “You are making it so goddamn difficult to keep you alive!” He snatched my steak knife and roughly slapped it into my hand. “Hold onto this. You will need it.”

  And with that, Remy dashed out of the room.

  Chapter Ten

  Remy

  I tore down the hall with the callousness of a charging rhino. I threw a shoulder into the hotel guests who didn’t get the fuck out of my way quickly enough.

  With every footfall, my brain told me to stop. To let this play out as it should. I didn’t owe Star anything. She was nothing to me but just another disposable piece of ass that littered the breakdown lane of my road to hell.

  Except that I knew her name.

  Star.

  It shined too brightly in my mind. There was something behind those defiant, hazel eyes that, as much as I pushed away, always pushed back. She was an infuriating pain in my ass, a persistent ache that was always on my mind. An itch in the back of my brain that I just couldn’t scratch.

  And yeah, I couldn’t kid myself. She looked a hell of a lot like Maria. Personality-wise, they were radically different.

  Ride. Fight. Fuck. There was a beauty in that simplicity.

  I was a bad man; I could accept that. These were the decisions I’d made. The stones I’d cast. No one had any expectations as to the kind of man I was —just a long dick and a smoking gun, and I was damn good with both.

  No one better.

  There’d always been a curtain of darkness draped over my soul, but with Star... I could feel pinpricks form in that black fabric. Star’s innocence and fiery defiance threatened to unravel me as I raced through those halls.

  I had to get out there before Top or Star were completely fucked.

  Before I knew it, the barroom door loomed before me, forcing my brain to warn my body to slow down. If I threw my shoulder into it while running at a full tilt, the damn door was likely to explode right off the hinges.

  Fuck it. I sped up instead.

  That door would be just one more thing I’d have to square up with Muse later. My lip curled at the thought of her selling Star out without so much of a thought otherwise. Muse and I would have a lot to talk about.

  I barreled in like a battering ram.

  Cries of surprise rang out from those who were already awake, and the thunderous clap of the door woke everyone who wasn’t. Guns snapped up at me from nearly every direction but were quickly lowered when they realized I wasn’t a SWAT team storming the place. In all honesty, that was a pretty stupid decision to make, especially with tensions running so high. I was lucky no one shot me by accident.

  I couldn’t help but smile at that.

  I fucking loved to make an entrance.

  The barroom had turned into a fucking armory. Our stash of reserve weapons was dumped unceremoniously across the bar—shotguns, pistols, rifles, bats, knives. More tools of death were littered atop that shattered glass and booze-strewn mahogany slab than was locked up at the local police department.

  Good.

  If the uneasy tolerance between us and the pigs went ass over teakettle, we were going to need every last piece of this hardware.

  “Where’s Top?” Breathing heavily from the run, I scanned the room, but didn’t see the big, bald bastard anywhere. Was he still passed out?

  “Entertaining our new friends.” Crutch cocked his head outside. He was the only one who didn’t look like old shit warmed over.

  Fuck! I should’ve gotten here faster. I massaged a painful side-stitch out of my ribs from the abrupt jog and immediately made my way for the biker’s door. I needed to cut back on the cigarettes.

  I had to get out there before the cops let slip that it was Star who called them. If Top had any reason to suspect her, he would walk back inside and break her in half. I’d come too far to let that happen.

  “Top told us to wait inside!” Crutch called out after me, quickly loading his shotgun.

  “He just doesn’t want guns outside.” I slowed enough to whistle to Tee, then tossed him my handgun.

  Tee shot me an annoyed glare because my piece was already sailing toward him when he looked up.

  The cops would be looking for any reason to open up on us, so I had to make damn sure I wasn’t showing up strapped. Part of me always fantasized about going out in hail of gunfire with the police.

  But not today.

  “—many of these bikes belong to the Steel Veins?” I caught the deputy’s question, mid-conversation with Top. It didn’t sound like they explained why they were here yet, which was good. I wouldn’t have to backpedal.

  “Stop!” Another deputy cried out, anxious at my sudden arrival. “Stay right where you are!”

  “Easy, easy. Just grabbing some aspirin outta my bike. That’s still legal, right?” I slowly walked up beside Top with my arms spread wide and shirt pulled up so they could see I wasn’t
carrying anything. It took a herculean effort to suppress the shit-eating grin at how nervous I made these boys in blue.

  Four deputies eyed me as I came to a stop next to my brother. Two of them were out of arm’s reach from us, and the other two were further back, using their car doors as shields just in case things got hairy. The two in the back had their guns drawn but lowered. These kiddos might’ve been rookies, but they knew who we were and knew it was best not to fuck around.

  Infamy made it even harder not to smile.

  “I told everyone to stay inside,” Top growled at me in a low voice too low for the others to hear.

  “You know how I get if I haven’t had my coffee yet.” I shrugged. “Besides as your VP, I couldn’t let you have all the fun.”

  “The fuck happened to your chest?” The deputy closest to us asked. Fresh from training, he was so green I could swear grass was about to sprout from him any second.

  “Cut myself shaving,” I stated matter-of-factly. I’d completely forgotten about that ragged little love scratch from Star—long but shallow, requiring no stitches. If she hated me so much, she could’ve really carved me up with that paring knife, but she didn’t.

  Why was that?

  That lusty memory of her up against the wall caused an avalanche of others—the way her skin felt as I dragged my fingers down her stomach, the heat from her pussy scorching the back of my hand when I—

  Not now. I cleared the whole hot mess that was Star from my mind. As much as I loved making cops squirm, I didn’t feel like explaining a raging erection.

  “You shave your chest?” The suspicion was blatantly apparent.

  “The ladies love it, Deputy Dog.” I buttoned up the shirt and smirked. “You should try it.”

  “Why are you here?” Top interjected, looking at the deputy, quickly growing irritated.