Spider. Is that this guy’s name? It fits with the other names Dee has mentioned before, like Snake and Diesel. I’m missing something. Something big I’m supposed to understand.
“It seems we have a thief working for us, Arson,” Spider says, carrying me further into the room.
Pip shuts the door to the room, and when he turns his back to me, I catch a glimpse of the back of his leather vest. There are patches there, but the one in the middle catches my attention. It’s a large image of a skull with horns, coupled with a gun on either side. Devil’s Outlaws MC is stenciled across the middle in flaming cursive.
Devil’s Outlaws. That’s the name Monica used for the bikers who were in their meeting. Everything about that patch is dangerous and wicked and sends a weird mix of fear and curiosity through me.
Glancing down at Spider’s back, I see the same patch on his vest, only at my angle, it’s upside down.
What have I gotten myself into?
Pip locks the door and stands there, as if waiting for something.
“I figure we’ll deal with her infraction here before I decide what to do with her,” Spider says.
There it is again, that threat to deal with me.
The man Spider called Arson laughs as if Spider told a joke.
“Put me down!” I snap, kicking my legs.
Spider drops me from his shoulder and plops me down onto the platform. My backside stings.
“Ow!” I glare at him and he smirks, touching me under the chin. I tear my face away, and he chuckles. I’d kick him, but he still has that gun. “Is that really necessary?”
“Why are you talking, thief?”
Ugh. I hate the way he uses that word, as if that’s all I am. I feel guilty enough as it is.
“You got yourself a mouthy one,” Spidy,” Arson says, sounding delighted.
I glance at a chair to my left and barely have a second to take in Arson’s wild waves of blond hair and his square jaw before I realize he, Pip and Spider are not the only ones in the room.
I whip my head around, looking over each of my shoulders.
There are two other men sitting on the other side of the platform. They both look as fierce and intimidating as Spider. One has dark black hair dusted with grey. The other has short, brown curls and an earring in the shape of a dagger hanging from one ear. Both look within a few years of Spider’s age, late thirties to early forties.
They’re all wearing the same sleeveless leather vests as Spider, but with different patches sewn on the breasts. All have tattoos everywhere I look.
Monica was right, they are all hot. Even Pip is nice looking, but in a much younger way.
“All right, beat it, kid,” Spider says with a look back at Pip. “Go fuck your girl. Time for the men to take care of business.”
I do a double take, thrown by the astounding ease with which he discusses sex.
“No complaints here, sir.” Pip leaves, shutting the door behind him.
“Striker,” Spider says.
“Got it.” A chair creaks and the guy with the dagger in his ear—Striker, I guess—comes over and locks the door before returning to his seat.
For real? That “kid” just left me in here to these animals?
“Now,” Spider says, crossing his powerful arms and pinning me with a cool stare. “Care to tell me why you decided it was a good idea to steal from us?”
No. If I tell him that, for all I know, he might send me back to the Colony. Or it could put people there in danger. I have friends there. My parents. I can’t tell him.
“What are you going to do to me?” I can’t keep my voice from shaking.
Spider’s eyes rake over my curves, the swell of my breasts, the flare of my hips. He uncrosses his arms and closes the space between us with a predatory slowness before running one hand up my leg.
The feel of his rough, calloused palm on my skin causes instant heat to flare over every inch of me.
In the Colony, it’s forbidden for a woman to allow any man other than her husband to touch her. If she allows it, she’s seen as a whore. Outrage and shame scald my cheeks.
It’s the bolt of excitement shocking through me that makes me flinch as if his hand is on fire.
Amusement flashes in his eyes. His hand tightens on my thigh, his fingers pinching it until it almost hurts. The intimacy, the roughness in his touch makes me feel violated, as if he’s touched somewhere private, somewhere secret in me.
“Get off!” I snarl, trying to pry his hand away.
Again, the urge to avoid looking him the face tries to kick in, and I force it down. He’d only see it as a weakness.
“I don’t think she likes you very much, Spider,” Striker says with an alarming casualness.
“That’s all right. It’s more exciting for me. I like a challenge.” Spider’s big hand wraps around my dark curls slowly before he yanks my head back hard enough that the sting makes me cry out. He puts his face in mine.
“Are you forgetting who has the gun, thief?” he growls in a low, dangerous voice.
He’s right, in my fear, I had forgotten. I go limp in his grip, shutting out the pain in my scalp. I can’t understand why, but the pain is going right between my legs, producing an ache I’ve only felt when I was alone in my room, thinking thoughts I’d end up in isolation for if I acted on them.
Heaven help me, he’s a criminal and a monster. I shouldn’t be attracted to this guy, but everything he does makes my skin hum with awareness of him. Shame eats at me, heating my cheeks and I tear my eyes away, focusing on his chest.
Until the feel of his warm breath on my forehead brings my head up.
Spider’s beautiful lips hover an inch from mine, close enough to cause mine to tingle with the heat of them.
“You stole from us,” he growls darkly. “No one steals from the Devil’s Outlaws. People get killed for less. You’ll pay, but you should consider yourself lucky if it isn’t with your life.”
It shouldn’t shock me that these men kill people. He already told me he has no issue with using his gun on me, but his words ratchet up my fear nonetheless.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
“You’d kill me for what was in that jar?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Why did you take the money?”
I look away. “I…I needed to get out of town.”
He jerks my chin up so that I have to look right into his cold, pitiless eyes. “I promise you we are a lot more dangerous than whoever you were running from. Who’d you piss off?”
I say nothing.
“Whoever they are, they must be bad news if you thought it was a good idea to piss off an MC.”
“I… I didn’t know.”
“What?”
“I didn’t…” I take a steadying breath, feeling naïve and dumb. “I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know what you were.”
Spider makes a noise that sounds like disbelief.
The other men chuckle.
“The bitch is lying, Spider.” A new voice speaks up behind me—the third man in the room. “Just kill her ass.”
“Shut it, Reaper.” His brows knit as he searches my face. I can see it in his eyes, he’s trying to figure out if I’m really that stupid. He releases me and steps back. “Strip.”