Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men 5)

Nova: Oh, babe, don’t think I’m not hard right fuckin’ now lookin’ at all that’s you. Ridin’ a Harley with a hard-on is fuckin’ uncomfortable, so I’m gonna go think about grandmas knittin’ sweaters or some shit before we ride out again. Stay safe, and I’ll see ya tonight.

Lila: xoxo

I stared at the hugs and kisses for a long minute after a sent it, regretting my enthusiasm a bit. It was easy to forget myself with Nova, to act as naturally as I usually did.

But everything had changed with the addition of sex to our friendship, and I was already at a distinct power disadvantage.

He was older, significantly more experienced, and the sexiest man in Entrance, if not the entire country.

And he knew I’d once had a crush on him. So I had to be careful.

I was just grateful he didn’t know I’d been unconquerably in love with him since I was thirteen.

I needed every advantage I could get in this wicked game we were playing, so I wasn’t surprised when I opened the door for Bat, and his eyes went wide with awe.

“Wow, Li, you got a hot breakfast date or somethin’?”

I grinned at him, striking a pose with my hand on my hip and my leg extended in my suede boots. I was rocking a patterned dress with a slit that opened in the front running from mid-thigh to my feet, and what little fabric there was for the top just barely clung to the full rise of my breasts from a strap tied behind my neck. My hair was in messy waves with little braids done up here and there, woven with sprigs of daisies I’d plucked from the little, overrun garden behind Nova’s shop.

“Nova’s Flower Child, huh?” Bat said after taking another look at me, his eyes shrewd and mouth pressed into a line. “You’re bein’ careful, yeah?”

“Yeah, Bat,” I said with a grin, because I was being as careful as I could be given I’d willing signed up for eventual heartbreak. “Sweet of you to care, though.”

“Always,” he pledged in that way the brothers had of casually offering their loyalty to their loved ones like it was only natural.

It wasn’t natural.

It was sublime.

That was the magic of bikers. They were rough-hewn men, ruled by chaos, and claimed by the road, but for the right people, their people, they would lay down their lives with a smile if it meant their loved ones wouldn’t suffer.

There was so much power in love like that that, it was no wonder I’d always wanted it for myself.

A bone deep love with its own gravitational pull like Harleigh Rose had with Lion Danner, Cress’d had with King, and Loulou had with Zeus.

My smile suddenly felt wooden on my face, but luckily Bat was already turning to walk down the wrought iron stairs leading to the street where his black and chrome bike was parked.

I almost ran smack into him when he stopped abruptly beside the bike and faced me, his handsome, stern face conflicted.

“Please, don’t feel like you have to give me a lecture on Nova,” I hastened to say. “I know he’s called Casanova for a reason, okay? I’m not totally naïve.”

His smile was twisted and sharp like heat warped metal. “Not gonna say shit about it. You do you, girl. God knows I don’t have any right to judge. No…what I wanted to say is about your brother, Dane.”

Immediately, my heart arrested, caught in the amber trap of his words. “What?” I breathed.

He grimaced and ran a hand through his ink black hair. “I know it was a while back you asked me, but I did end up reachin’ out to my buddy at the National Research Council about Dane. He told me they were already actively investigatin’ his death.”

“What? How can that be after so many years?” My heart was hammering against my ribs, threatening to crack through and fall to the ground like a flailing fish.

“Well, it’s unusual, but apparently, they gotta tip that he and a few of the members from his unit who went missin’ might be tied up in a sex traffickin’ ring they’ve linked to some ports in Canada.”

I blinked at Bat as he split into two then three different people. He reached out to steady me as I wobbled. “Are you saying they suspect Dane is some kind of…villain now? That he didn’t die eleven years ago, he just…joined some fucked up terrorist cell?”

Bat sighed heavily and took a firmer grip on my arm to draw me close, hands to my shoulders, knees bent to look me in the eye. Vaguely, I noted how strikingly handsome he was, all that black hair, rich obsidian tattoos, and milky, unblemished skin. He had black eyes so dark I couldn’t discern the pupil from the iris.