Inked in Lies (The Fallen Men 5)

Take me, I wanted to say to her, but in a different, more profound way than I just had before.

Take me inside you like you’re forever inside of me and never fuckin’ leave.

But I didn’t say any of that. I just held the woman and the girl, my lover and my friend, the cornerstone of what family meant to me, and let those vicious, dangerous thoughts move silently through me. To give them voice wouldn’t do anyone any good.

Lila might have thought she loved me, but she couldn’t know.

She couldn’t know the things Meredith had or she wouldn’t love me either.

I’d let someone into that final frontier, that darkest, deepest corner of my soul once before.

The only thing that’d left me with was misery.

And a tattoo on my left bicep for the small life I’d lost ’cause I’d never been worthy of it in the first place.

NOVA

It was late, the moon a belated thought in the sky, slowly winkin’ out in the dawnin’ light of day. The party wasn’t over, but it’d mellow like wine left open on the counter. The crowd had thinned out as people hit the hay, went home, or found a quiet place to bang, but there were still people in the common area of the clubhouse even at five a.m.. Boner laid on the pool table with his jeans around his ankles, boxers barely hiked up over his ass, asleep between the legs of one of the biker bitches. Lab-Rat was smokin’ a fat blunt with half his body hangin’ out the window, the other propped up on top of a speaker spillin’ out The Eagles on low.

The rest of us––Bat, Harleigh Rose, Lion Danner, Zeus, Loulou, Cyclops, Tayline, and Priest––all sat collected on the leather couches at the front of the room shootin’ the shit when we had somethin’ to say, but otherwise just enjoyin’ the mellow comedown from a night of carousin’.

Lila sat beside me, not in the circle of my arms like I itched for, but close enough I could feel the warm length of her bare thigh through my jeans and catch a whiff of her floral scent.

I wasn’t a man who snuggled or committed public displays of affection, unless you counted sex, ’cause I was a fan of doin’ that in public, sure.

Huggin’, cuddlin’, or any of that shit?

Not for me.

Especially in the aftermath of sex that had rocked me like a hurricane, leavin’ me hollowed out and opened up to the elements, too exposed to weather any other kinda storm.

So I sat beside Lila and ignored the way her hand curled palm up on her thigh, a plucked flower outta water too long and dryin’ from neglect.

“You hear from Cress?” Harleigh Rose asked sleepily from her place tucked up under Lion’s arm.

“Yeah, said she needed more time, but she was feelin’ good. Thinkin’ she’ll wait ’til Harold Danner’s caged up for good,” Zeus said as he played with the ends of Loulou’s pale blonde hair.

“I was going to wait until tomorrow to bring it up,” Tayline said after sharin’ a look with Cy, who had her tucked up on his lap, strokin’ her hair like a kitten. “But I saw a man the other day…a man I remember from years ago when Cy and I first met. Z, you might remember, his name was Greg.”

The air in the room went electric.

“Yeah,” Z grunted. “Remember him, alright.”

Tay nodded, sucked her lower lip between her teeth then released it on a huff of breath. “Yeah, it’s hard to forget the face of the man who tried to sell me. So I’m pretty sure I saw him two days ago. He was outside City Hall.”

Outside City Hall meant he was talkin’ to Javier Ventura.

“They’re poachin’ local girls now,” Lion cut in. “The local PD is in fuckin’ disarray now that my father’s been outed, and they’ve got no hope of stoppin’ it. I’ve stepped in to help along with…” he paused, eyes skitterin’ over to Lila, “a friend on the inside.”

“Problem is, those fuck’s are tryin’ to land that shit at our door.” Zeus dislodged Lou with a kiss to her crown so he could get up and prowl, needin’ the space and movement to think ’cause he wasn’t the kinda guy who kept still. “There was a fuckin’ Vancouver news crew up here today interviewin’ that motherfucker, Javier, about the disappearances. Twenty bucks says we know exactly who that asshole pinned it on.”

“The Fallen,” Cy grunted. “We’ve had worst shit thrown at us, and none’a it’s stuck.”

“It’s gonna stick this time, we don’t get a handle on the problem,” Zeus promised darkly, strokin’ his beard. “Sent Ransom and Kodiak to do some recon tonight. The party’s as good an alibi as anythin’, they get busted.”

“Where to?” Lion asked.

“Wet Works Production and McNeil,” he said, the last referin’ to the biggest drug dealer operatin’ near Entrance. “Thinkin’ he’ll have a clue who’s gettin’ those girls hooked.”