He leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine. “Because you don’t really want to run. And I make you feel something. Just like you make me feel something. So blame me if you want, but I know the truth. I know you want to stay. I know you want a home.”
His eyes bored into mine, daring me to dispute his statement. But the truth was, Colt saw past my words, past my weak arguments, and deep down he knew what I really needed.
He was giving me a way out. He’d shoulder the burden and say he’d made the choice for me.
But I was done hiding from life.
I was done living inside a box that constrained me and held nothing but misery. I reached out to stroke his cheek. He needed a shave. Colt always needed a shave.
“Why are we stopping here?” I asked.
He smiled as he turned his head to kiss my palm. “Best Mexican food in the city.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Best margaritas in the city too. Trust me, you’ll need tequila for this conversation.”
It was just past noon and all I’d had was coffee.
Coffee and fear.
The adrenaline dump and stress had drained me, and it took all of my willpower to climb out of Colt’s truck. It felt safe there, and I knew the moment we sat down at the restaurant Colt wasn’t going to hold anything back.
He took my hand and led me inside. I salivated immediately at the smell of tortillas and sizzling meat. A wave of hunger hit me hard and I wondered how I could possibly want to eat after what I’d just seen.
We followed the hostess to a booth and Colt took the seat across from me. “I’ll have a Dos Equis,” he said with a smile, refusing the menu from the waitress. “She’ll have a margarita on the rocks with salt and the cheese enchiladas.”
I glared at him, but didn’t protest.
The cute, curvy waitress eyed Colt one last time before disappearing. Maybe at another time I would’ve felt a spark of jealousy, but I’d had his fingers inside of me not even two hours ago. Not to mention Colt didn’t even spare her a glance.
It was the little things, I realized, that proved someone wasn’t full of shit. Colt told me I didn’t need to worry about him and other women, and I believed him. Not just because he’d told me to trust him, but because of that small action. It was like he didn’t even see her.
A few minutes later, the waitress returned with our drinks and a bowl of chips and salsa. I took a sip of the margarita. It was the perfect blend of tart and sweet and I couldn’t taste the tequila.
“Wow, yeah, this is dangerous,” I said to him.
“Yup.”
I set it aside and took a chip but didn’t eat it.
A glimpse of Richie’s burned corpse flashed before my eyes. “I don’t understand something,” I began.
He took a sip from his beer and waited for me to continue.
“Why did you come to Dive Bar with Zip that night? I’ve never seen bikers at Dive Bar. Did you have a hunch that Richie was into shady shit? Were you there to see if Dev showed up?”
“No. Like I said before: it was coincidence. You think I’d be beating the fuck out of some guy in the alley if I was there for Dev?”
“What do you think Richie got involved in?” I asked.
“Meth.”
“Why do you think it’s meth?”
“Look, biker clubs don’t get donations from church ladies and PTA moms. But they have to make money. That’s how their members take care of their families and the clubs keep operating. It’s complicated, but meth can be made in a homemade lab. You don’t need land in Columbia to grow crops or the cartels in Mexico to traffic shit from other countries through South America for you, and meth is highly addictive, so it’s an obvious thing for clubs to get involved in. You cook enough of that shit up in a lab with the muscle to protect it, and once it hits the street it’s an almost immediate return of pallets of cold, hard cash.”
I quickly downed the rest of my margarita, feeling my head grow buzzy. But it also gave me courage to ask him point blank, “What do the Blue Angels do for money?”
He stared at me long and hard. “I can’t tell you that. It’s for your own protection.”
“From the law, you mean?” I asked.
He nodded. “We don’t involve our women in our business. If cops get wind of something and question our women, they don’t know shit. None of them, and I mean that. Not one. It’s as much for their protection as it is ours. But make no mistake, the Blue Angels don’t live within the confines of the law.”
My breath hitched. I knew they were criminals—I knew I was falling for a criminal, but for Colt to admit it outright had me spinning.
The waitress sailed by with my steaming plate of enchiladas. Despite what we were discussing, my stomach rumbled in anticipation. She set the plate down in front of me.
“Another marg?” she asked me.
I shook my head.
“Another beer, sugar?” she asked Colt.
His eyes remained on me when he replied, “I’m fine, thanks.”
She wasn’t able to hold in her remorseful sigh. “Enjoy.” She left again, leaving us alone.
I picked up my fork and cut into the blue corn enchiladas. They were too hot to eat, so I waited.
“What’s going on in your head,” Colt asked.
“I’m trying to process what you just told me.”
He looked down at his hands. They were big, scarred, tatted. They’d gently cleaned my feet and brought my body to the heights of pleasure. But they were the hands of a delinquent.
“I’m president of the club, right?”
I nodded.
“I’ve got responsibilities. I shoulder the burdens. The choices I make—some of them are gonna weigh me down. There will be times I come to you. Times in the middle of the night when I gotta sink inside you, to get some of that light in a world of dark. I’m gonna need to turn to you in a way that a hard as fuck man turns to a woman. You won’t always understand and you won’t get answers. But I gotta know if it’s something you think you can handle. For the long haul. Because I’m in this. And I want to be in this with you. Not just because Dev is on your ass and your boss showed up dead. I’ve wanted you since that first night at Dive Bar and if shit had been different, I would’ve come back and let you know.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked, feeling the tequila buzz through my blood, making me heated.
“Was on a run out of town,” he explained. “I got back a few hours before you showed up on my garage steps. Didn’t like what I saw. Thought someone had put their hands on you.”
A slight smile appeared on my lips. “I wouldn’t stand for that, Colt.”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “I know that now. You’re feisty.”
“Does it ever get any easier?” I asked him.
“Does what ever get easier?”
“Knowing the people you love are in constant danger because of who you are and the life you’ve chosen to live?”
“I grew up this way. Grew up knowing what the Blue Angels were all about. It’s different for you.”
The blue corn enchiladas were finally cool enough to eat and my fork fell on them with purpose.
“Women and children are off limits,” he said when I’d put away half the plate and finally had to stop for breath.