Devil’s Game (Reapers MC #3)(39)
Author: Joanna Wylde

After a few minutes, I managed to pull myself up. Em was sitting against the wall, calmly smoking my joint, gun propped up on her knee. Would’ve been kind of sexy if I had even the slightest capacity for anything but excruciating pain in my groin.

On the bright side, I didn’t have to worry about an inconvenient hard-on for once.

“Oh, I’m thinking about doing something even more fun,” Em said sweetly. “It’s so sweet to see you rolling around in pain that I’m reconsidering shooting you.”

She lifted the pistol and pointed it straight at me.

Fuck. I had seriously misjudged this situation. She held my gaze for long seconds, taking another slow drag and blowing out a smoke ring. A f**king smoke ring. Somewhere in the back of my head, I heard the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly playing.

Liam “Hunter” Blake was about to be shot dead by a cliche.

Then Em burst out laughing. “The look on your face right now is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I’m never letting you scare me again.”

I sagged in relief as she let her weapon drop, then held the joint out to me. I sucked it down, hoping to kill some of my adrenaline.

“You’re a scary little bitch when you want to be,” I muttered. “Christ, Em. You need to stop playing with guns.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” she said. “So tell me whatever it was you came here to say.”

I shook my head slowly, trying to think. Kind of hard to focus between the pain, the adrenaline, and the weird, surreal sense of pride I felt in her.

She’d make an amazingly unholy old lady.

“Toke’s in protective custody in the Clackamas County Jail right now,” I said slowly. “Nobody’s talked to him. I guess if the Reapers made contact, they aren’t telling us. They have a lot more to lose than we do.”

“How about your friends?” she asked. “The ones he shot up?”

“All good. I mean, they definitely got hurt, and Clutch has some rehab ahead of him. Your guy did a number on him—”

“Not my guy,” she broke in. “He sliced me open, remember?”

Oh, I remembered. I’d never forget the sight of her half naked, her fantastic tits right in front of me just begging to be touched. My dick twitched and I shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position. That was good news . . . Glad to know all the plumbing still worked.

“So what happened between the clubs?” she asked. “Truce in effect again?”

“Yup,” I said. “Picnic and Burke hammered it out. I don’t know what you told your dad, but he helped push it through. Good news for all of us. Means we can get back to riding and living instead of fighting with each other. You see a Jack, you don’t need to be scared of him.”

“Yeah, that is good news.”

Silence fell between us, and Em scooted a little closer to pass me the joint. Slowly I relaxed, considering Em’s little demonstration of force. I still felt the occasional twinge of pain, but the more I thought about it, the funnier the situation was.

“You f**king kicked me in the balls,” I said, looking up at the sky.

“Yup. Enjoyed it, too.”

“Maybe you don’t realize this, but usually people try pretty hard not to piss me off. Bad things happen when I get pissed off.”

“Bad things happen when I get pissed off, too. You might want to remember that.”

I snorted, a reluctant smile crossing my face. We sat in silence for a while longer, the evening air just cool enough that I wished I had a blanket. Or Em’s warm body up against mine. After a while I scooted down, lying back in the grass and looking up at the stars. For once I wasn’t totally preoccupied with sex around her, which was kind of nice.

“It’s really pretty out here,” I said finally. “You’re lucky you grew up in a place like this.”

I heard her moving, and then she was lying in the grass next to me. Not too close—we weren’t touching. But close enough I could smell that unique, flowery scent that seemed to follow her everywhere.

“Where did you grow up?” she asked.

“Hell,” I said shortly.

Silence fell again.

“I miss you, Em.”

She didn’t answer. I yawned as something dark flew over us, followed by a second shadow.

“What are those?” I asked.

“Bats.”

“No shit?”

She laughed.

“Yeah, I’m lying to you about the bats, Liam.”

Christ, I loved hearing my name from her lips. Without thinking, I reached out and caught her, pulling her over and into me. She stiffened.

“Relax,” I whispered. “You’re safe.”

She pulled away for an instant, then sighed and nestled her head against my shoulder, slowly relaxing. Just holding her in the darkness kicked ass.

“You know, you were wrong about something,” she said after a while.

“What’s that?”

“I’d make a shitty old lady.”

“How do you figure?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Well, among other things, I have a habit of warning my club’s enemies so they can get away before they’re killed,” she said slowly. “You won’t tell anyone about that, will you? Dad would never forgive me.”

“Of course not,” I said, my voice firm. “You saved my f**kin’ life. I wouldn’t do that to you. Hell, I don’t want to do anything to hurt you. Should’ve stayed away tonight, but I wanted you to know it was all over.”

Bullshit. I wanted to see her. Touch her. Smell her hair.

“It’s hard to know what you’d do,” Em said. “You taught me an important lesson—you can’t trust guys you meet online, remember?”

I winced.

“Yeah, about that . . . I’m sorry. It was a dick move.”

“But you were cool with romancing me and using me to manipulate my father in the first place?”

“Well, to be fair I did it to get laid, too. Wasn’t all business.”

She gave a little snort. Not an angry snort, more of a snuffly, surprised laugh that caught her off guard.

“Are you going to erase those pictures?” she asked, finally, her voice sobering. “I don’t want them out there. You owe me—I saved your ass, I saved Skid, and I saved this precious truce of yours.”

She made a good point. But there was no way I’d erase those pictures. Fuckin’ crown jewels in my spank bank.