Chapter 41: STEEL

Forty-One

STEEL

The night Steel discovers the Midnight SS clubhouse…

I have to keep this scrawny ass brat Joslin out of trouble – away from Nazis, away from my family. Away from everyone. I don't know what the fuck provokes me to save her life when the smartest thing to have done would be put two bullets in her head and toss her ass in the grave with the rest of them. But that's not what I do.

Instead, I toss her ass in the truck and drive out of there while she gives me this terrified look like she doesn't know if I plan on killing her or sending her ass to prison with me.

She doesn't know that I've been to prison. And I don't plan on going back. No fucking way.

I paid my debts for Gideon. We grew up like brothers and I couldn't let him go down for murder. But that was it. I saw shit that no sane man ought to see. I can't go back there. Doesn't matter what happens.

Joslin sits with her arms folded and her knees clutched to her stomach. I don't know how a grown ass woman can be as small as she is, but she is definitely a grown woman. She has a fully developed figure despite being petite. Fully-developed. And fully embedded in a world of criminal bikers.

How the fuck else did she get out here?

"We'll be out of the danger zone soon," I try to tell her reassuringly as we hit the main road. I don't need the GPS anymore once we get to the highway. I know exactly where we are and how to avoid detection. No one will guess a rival biker would be driving around in a truck. I suppose they had a point about that.

She gives me a withering look.

"I need to know what you were doing out there," I ask her. She shakes her head.

"Don't be a brat," I respond gruffly. "I saved your life and I just had to see half my fucking club headless in the desert. I need to know what you saw."

Her lower lip quivers and she ducks her head, a mass of black hair covering her face so I can't read her expression. Women. They always want to make a big deal of things at the worst times

"Okay," I tell her. "Don't talk."

I don't know how I'm going to survive this drive back to Oklahoma from the middle of the desert in Arizona with a woman sitting in absolute fucking silence. I reach over and open the glove compartment, ignoring her as she dramatically gasps and tucks her legs in closer. Touching this woman is the last thing on my fucking mind.

My fingers close around a metal flask. Fuck yes… I don't even know what's in it, but I can tell from the way the liquid sounds inside that it's damn good liquor. Or at least liquor. All liquor tastes damn good when the craving you have is strong enough. I pry it open, swerving a little bit, and pour as much as I can down my throat.

The flask jerks on its own and I cuss loud as liquor sprays everywhere. What the fuck? Joslin uses my moment of distraction to finish her extraction. She takes the flask, presses down the window and without a word – she throws away my liquor.

This crazy fucking woman throws away my liquor…

"HEY!" I scream. "WHAT THE FUCK!"

I grip the steering wheel tight with both hands, resisting the urge to smack the shit out of this woman.

"You shouldn't drink and drive."

"Is that right?" I grumble.

She doesn't answer. Heat rushes to my cheeks. To my ears. Everything hits me at once without the liquor to at least smooth some of the shit over. Bodies in the desert. Some gang of Nazi freaks. This woman… pretty enough to be a high-earning whore and she sure as fuck has a whore's attitude.

"I can't sit here in silence."

She doesn't look at me. Or speak. I look over at her. I guess she must be mixed race. Mostly black, though. Her skin is pretty dark. Not my type but… strangely pretty. I prefer women with curves most of the time but I don't know. Joslin has enough tits to fill my hands I guess…

Glaring at me, she covers her chest. Guess she doesn't like me looking over and speculating.

"If you had any sense of self-preservation, you would do something to keep me entertained," I grumble.

She turns on the radio. Static blasts through the car. We're in the middle of fucking nowhere. Ain't no goddamn radio. After a few seconds, she realizes the situation and shuts it off. Guess she has no problem with silence. I give her another stiff look.

"You know what I mean."

She glares at me. "Animal."

What the hell did this damn woman just say to me?

"I'm an animal for saving your fucking life now?"

"I'm…" she scowls. "It's not like you care."

"What?"

"I'm married. Well. I might be."

"What do you mean you might be?"

"I think I killed him."

I scoff in disbelief.

"You? I don't think so. Trying to scare me won't work, princess. We have a long drive ahead of us and the shit you put me through has me tense."

She shoots me another glare.

"I'm not lying."

Like fuck she isn't. I know women. They'll say just about anything to get out of sucking dick. My body tenses up at her obvious disrespect, demonstrated by that damned lie.

"Where's your wedding ring then?"

"I told you. I killed him. I obviously didn't keep the ring."

There's a little bite in that sentence. I grip the steering wheel tighter, incapable of pushing out the darkness rushing into my head and the need for immediate relief. If I have to stop myself from doing what I know I shouldn't, I have to keep her talking. Fuck, I have to keep myself talking.

"If you killed him, where is he then, huh? How the fuck did you end up in the middle of the desert like this?"

She looks at me through the dark eyes that identify her ethnicity as something other than fully black, despite that thick head of coiled and textured hair. Sunk beneath thick lids, they make her pretty facial features quite a bit softer. I run my tongue over my lower lip, failing to suppress the urges that come with looking at this woman's face.

"It's a long story."

"We got nothing but time, princess. So you better start talking or start sucking dick."

She wrinkles her nose. "I won't be doing either."

"Hm. We'll see about that."