BULLET: Lords of Carnage MC Page 17

  When I come back out into the main room of the clubhouse, Bullet immediately catches my eye and comes striding over to me. “I was looking for you,” he frowns. His face still has that concerned look he’s been wearing for the past couple of hours.

  “I just went to change and freshen up,” I explain.

  He nods. “You about ready to head out, then?”

  I suppress a wave of disappointment. I’m guessing his plan is to take me home. Which means this might be over. But I’m not going to ask him about it, or beg him to spend the night with me. He helped me, and then I helped him. That might be the extent of it. And if it is, that’s just something I’ll have to accept.

  “Sure,” I say in a small voice. “I’ll go get my stuff.”

  Once we’re outside, I pull my backpack over both shoulders and climb onto Bullet’s bike behind him. As he starts the engine, I wrap my arms around his torso. I breathe him in, closing my eyes at how familiar and heady the scent of him is. Soon we’re flying down the highway, toward a chapter of my life that suddenly seems like more of a blank page than ever.

  We’ve been riding a few minutes when suddenly Bullet lets out a loud curse. “Goddamnit!” he shouts into the wind.

  Startled, I shift in my seat and lean forward a little. “What is it?”

  But he doesn’t answer. Instead, he pulls off the road onto the gravel shoulder and stops the bike. He cuts the engine, and, not knowing what else to do, I climb off.

  “Bullet…” I begin in a worried voice as he swings his leg over the bike, but he cuts me off.

  “I’m not gonna put this off one more damn minute,” he growls. He reaches up and grasps me by both shoulders. “Six, I’m so fucking sorry. Because of me, you could have gotten killed earlier today. I will never fucking forgive myself for putting you in that kind of danger.”

  “Don’t do that, Bullet. We’ve already been through this,” I counter. “You tried to stop me. But short of actually locking me away in a room, you weren’t going to talk me out of it. You saved me from Flash’s enemies. And I helped you get to your stepfather. We’re even.” I search his gorgeous, tormented face. “Please stop apologizing,” I beg. “I wanted to do it. I don’t regret a thing.” I pause. “I meant what I said earlier. I’d do it all again. I would have done anything to help you.”

  Bullet’s eyes lock on mine. “You know I killed him.”

  I nod. “I know. And I also know you wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t have a reason.”

  “You’re right.” He leans against the bike, sitting down on the seat, and pulls me to him. “And it’s about time I explain to you what that reason was. You deserve that much.”

  And so he does.

  He tells me about his mom. About her horrific death, and how he’s spent years looking for his stepfather to make him pay for it. I listen in horror, my heart aching with pain, as Bullet tells me everything. His anger, and sorrow, and guilt. The dreams of vengeance that drove him for so long. The blackness that ate at his soul.

  “It kept me from ever getting close to anyone else.” He stares at me, eyes deep and dark with emotion. “Until you.”

  My heart starts to ricochet in my chest.

  “Until me,” I whisper, hardly wanting to let myself believe my ears.

  “Yes. Until you,” he murmurs, drawing me close. “Until I met this blond spitfire at a tattoo parlor, who was even more closed off than I was. Somewhere along the line, I got so caught up in getting you to loosen up around me that I forgot to keep myself walled off from you.

  I pull in a ragged breath. “You were pretty persistent,” I risk.

  “There was just something about you I couldn’t stay away from. Something in your eyes that pulled me to you. Until I was bound and determined to get past all those walls you kept throwing up to protect yourself. You pulled me out of myself.” He pauses. “By the time I figured out what was going on, I was too far gone. That’s part of the reason I stopped you from changing the eye on the hellhound tattoo.”

  By now I’m trying like hell not to start crying. “I don’t get what you mean,” I manage to say, shaking my head.

  Bullet reaches up with one hand and gently touches my non-bruised cheek. “I wanted the hellhound in the first place because it’s a symbol of vengeance,” he tells me. “A symbol of the revenge that was driving me to find Ellis. To make him pay for what he had done.” He pauses, frowning slightly. “There you were, putting ink on me that you didn’t know the meaning of. The only truly good, innocent thing in my life. And then, when you messed up his eye and made it a heart… Fuck, I dunno. It was weird. It felt right somehow. Like it wasn’t a mistake after all, since it was you who put it there. Maybe it was a glimmer of something more in my life. Something better. A window to the other side.”

  He bends down and gives me a soft kiss on my forehead. “I fuckin’ love that you’re the one who put that ink on me, Six. That little heart, that no one will ever know is there, except me and you? It means something. It means the end of the bad chapters in both of our lives. And the beginning of something new for us. Together.”

  My heart is racing. This is so much more than I expected — so much more than I had hoped for — that I feel a little dizzy. “I never would have pegged you for a romantic,” I tell him, shell-shocked

  “Neither would I, babe,” he chuckles. “Believe me. But you’ve changed me.”

  “I think you’ve changed me, too,” I breathe as he pulls me against him. We stay like that, my face against his warm, solid chest, breathing in the cooling air of nightfall. I know already that this is a moment that will remain etched in my memory, probably for the rest of my life.

  After a moment, Bullet clears his throat.

  “So, I know people are starting to call you Stacia now,” he rumbles. “But if it’s okay with you, I think I’m gonna keep callin’ you Six.”

  I pull away to look up at his face. His eyes are twinkling.

  “Why?” I ask him.

  “Because. It reminds me of something.”

  I snort and roll my eyes. “Okay, really? Way to ruin the romantic moment. Just so you know, Bullet, you’ve given me a lot more than six orgasms by now.”

  “Believe me, I’m well aware,” he murmurs. “But that’s not exactly it. There’s one time in particular that stands out. It was number six, as a matter of fact. But not for the reason you think.”

  “Why then?” I ask, amused. “Or should I be afraid to ask?”

  “It’s because that was the night I realized I wasn’t ready to let you go after six orgasms. Or six days. Or even six months.” He leans down and brushes his lips with mine. “I think that was the night I started fallin’ head over heels in love with you.”

  For a few seconds I’m speechless with astonishment.

  “What did you say?” I finally manage to whisper.

  “You heard me. I’m in love with you. You’ve always been mine, Stacia. Since the day I first saw you at Rebel Ink.” Bullet brushes my hair aside and kisses the rose tattoo on my neck. I suppress a moan at the contact of his lips on my skin. “You were sexy, and sassy, and closed off as hell. Thorny, tough, and beautiful. Just like this rose. You were made for me. And I’m pretty sure you know it, too.”

  My throat starts to ache as a sob bubbles up, but it comes out as a happy laugh instead. “Oh, you do, do you?” I tease, tears spilling out of my eyes before I can stop them.

  Bullet reaches up with a thumb and brushes them off my cheek. “Don’t fight it, babe. It’s stronger than either one of us, lord knows.”

  “That’s my middle name,” I blurt out.

  “What?” He furrows his brow, confused.

  “Rose is my middle name,” I say, reaching up to touch the spot where the flower adorns my skin. It feels so good to tell him this. To tell him about things no one else knows but me, and now him.

  “I got this tattoo after I ran away for the first time,” I explain. “After I stopped using my real name, I still wanted some connection to it. So that I wouldn’t feel like I was disappearing, you know? But I couldn’t get a tattoo that said ‘Stacia’. It would have been too risky. And besides, who tattoos their own name on their body?” I lean into Bullet, savoring the warmth of him, the solid strength of his arms around me. “So I chose a rose instead. It was like a private joke between me and myself — a secret that only I knew. My message to myself that I was still me. It gave me hope that someday I’d be able to be me again.”

  “And here you are,” Bullet murmurs. “You again. My Mystery Girl isn’t a mystery anymore. My Stacia Rose.”

  His lips cover mine. I kiss him back. Desperately, fervently, madly. Because he’s right.

  I’m done running. I’m done fighting. I’m not a mystery anymore. And I am his. All his.

  I’m staying in Tanner Springs, with Bullet. And as our tongues dance, I’m sure he can hear the word ringing in my head, pumping through my heart. Through every vein and every cell in my body.

  Yes. Yes!

  The sound of a honking horn startles us, breaking us apart. As I open my eyes, a pickup truck flies by us on the highway, the wind wake from its passing lifting my hair from my shoulders. From the rolled-down windows, a couple of male voices catcall and hoot at us. An arm shoots out and waves a cowboy hat, as its owner shouts something that I can’t quite make out.

  “I think they told us to get a room,” I murmur, blushing.

  “I got a better idea,” Bullet chuckles. He gives me one more long, dizzying kiss, then lets go of me.

  “Oh yeah?”

  He straddles the bike, then winks at me and motions for me to get on. “Yeah. My place.”

  Epilogue

  Bullet

  Several months later

  “Oh, wait!” Six c
ries, turning back toward the car. “We almost forgot the flowers!”

  I watch as she runs over to where we’ve parked, at the edge of the small gravel alley. She’s wearing a modest black dress I’ve never seen on her before, and an understated pair of ballet flats. Even in that, she looks gorgeous, and sexy as hell. Just like always.

  I had picked Six up at the end of her shift at Rebel Ink this afternoon to drive down here to the cemetery. She insisted that we stop back home first so she could change into something ‘more appropriate’ than what she wore to work. I almost told her not to bother. After all, the dead aren’t around anymore to judge. But truth be told, I’m kind of touched she’s taking this so seriously.

  Six comes back with the flowers — a colorful bouquet of spring blooms and daisies she picked out at the florist. The two of us walk together toward the plot, with me leading the way. I’ve only been here once before, but I still remember exactly where it is.

  I come to a stop in front of the simple, unremarkable square grave stone that marks my mother’s final resting place. Six moves to stand next to me, and I take her hand. I watch as she silently reads the simple inscription: Carol Ann Lamarr.

  “Thank you for bringing me here,” Six whispers.

  “Thanks for wanting to come.”

  “I wish I could have met her.”

  I pause for a second, contemplating how to answer.

  “The drugs had taken over most of who she was,” I say slowly. “If you’d met her toward the end, you probably wouldn’t have liked her much. But the mom I remember from when I was a little kid was funny and nice. Spontaneous. She’d be cooking dinner, and all of a sudden, she’d turn on the radio and make me start dancing with her to whatever song was playing.”

  I smile at the memory, wondering where it came from. It’s been years since I’ve thought about the way my mother was early on. The good mom. The one who loved me more than she loved drugs and booze. The one who tried like hell to get by in the world — to get us both a better life, before life wore her out.

  I feel Six’s eyes on me. “What else do you remember about her?” she asks.

  I think for a moment. “Her favorite color was green. She loved German chocolate cake. She made me breakfast for dinner whenever I asked for it.”

  “That’s sweet. She sounds like a good person. A good mother.”

  I nod, as a painful, unexpected lump forms in my throat.

  “Yeah,” I say gruffly. “She was.”

  We stay for a little while like that, Six’s small hand resting in mine. I tell her some of the other things I remember about my mother. And then, we stop talking, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I’m not a praying man, but even so, I find myself talking to my mom in my head. I tell her I’m sorry I didn’t manage to get her away from Ellis. I tell her about Six, and how somehow she found a tiny crack in my black heart, and pried it open to let the sun shine in.

  I tell her I’ve learned that sometimes, two damaged people can find each other and heal together.

  Eventually, Six kneels down and gently places the bouquet of flowers in front of the grave stone. “Goodbye, Ms. Lamarr,” she says in a quiet voice.

  Bye, Mom, I say in my head. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop your demons from catching up with you. But I’ll do my best to help Six help her own mom. And I’ll give you the only second chance I can. I’ll remember you the way you were before the drugs took you. The best version of you will live on in my memory.

  And I won’t let that version die. I promise.

  In the end, Six decided she couldn’t keep the jewels.

  An associate of our club checked them out, and confirmed that none of them were registered. Tweak couldn’t find any records of thefts from the past ten years that matched the description of them, either. There was no way to find out who they came from, and no way to give them back.

  But even though Six was in the clear, she still didn’t want the money she could make from them.

  “Turning them in to the police doesn’t make any sense, darlin’,” I told her when we talked it over. “They’ll just sit on a shelf somewhere. Or more likely, some crooked cop will take them for himself and sell them.”

  “I know,” she admitted. “But I don’t feel right profiting from them, either. I’d always know whatever money we got was tainted.”

  So, the envelope with the diamonds, emeralds, and topaz sat in the bottom of my gun safe for a couple of months, while Six tried to decide what to do with them.

  Eventually, a solution came to her on its own.

  One night, as the two of us were lying on the couch after a marathon session of sex, Six’s cell phone rang. It was her mom. She was crying, and desperate, and she told Six that she was out of money, sick, and needed help getting sober once and for all. She begged Six to come see her, and to help her find a program that could get her off the booze.

  She and her mom talked for over an hour, while I just sat and held her. At first, Six’s voice was flat, guarded. But after a while, I heard it start to soften. Every so often, a tear would slip down one of her cheeks.

  By the time Six hung up, she was full-on crying. She turned to me, her eyes shiny and bright, and gave me a tremulous smile full of hope.

  “I know what the jewels are for now,” she whispered.

  Six used the money from selling the jewels to check her mom into a three-month-long inpatient rehab program. When she got out, she moved here to Tanner Springs, into Six’s apartment — to be away from her triggers, and close to her only daughter.

  And Six moved into my place with me.

  Her mom’s been out of rehab for about two months now. So far, it seems to be taking.

  Six started working full time as a tattoo artist at Rebel Ink around the same time her mom went into rehab. She’s quickly become one of the most popular and asked-for artists in the shop. I’m fucking proud of her. But even more important than that, it means she’s gonna stick around for a while. Which makes me happy as hell.

  And there’s one more sign of that. One she just showed me tonight.

  When we get back to our place after visiting the cemetery, Six sinks down on the couch and removes her shoes. “Oh, man,” Six moans as she massages one of her feet. “My feet are killing me, as is my neck.” She rocks her head from side to side and does a few circles with her shoulders. “It’s amazing how hard on your body doing ink can be.”

  “Well, you better get over it and start making my dinner, woman,” I joke.

  Six just snorts and shoots me a look. “Good damn thing you aren’t serious right now.”

  “Not at all. Wanna order pizza or something?”

  “How about that Mexican place that delivers? I’d love some pork tacos. “

  “Done.”

  I place the call and order an obscene fuckin’ amount of grub. Just after I hang up, Six pulls herself up off the couch. “I’m going to go take a quick shower before the food gets here.”

  “You want company?”

  Six starts to nod, but then frowns. “Someone should probably wait for the delivery guy,” she says, looking regretful.

  I shrug. “That doesn’t stop me from coming in and watching.”

  But strangely, Six purses her lips instead of agreeing. “Um, how about I take a rain check? By the way, I have a surprise for you a little later.”

  “A surprise, eh?” She nods, and the coy look in her eyes makes me instantly hard. “I hope it’s what I think it is.”

  “You’ll just have to find out,” she teases me.

  Six goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. “Don’t come in!” she says in a muffled yell as I hear the shower start. It’s weird, and I’d almost be worried if I didn’t know Six so well by now. Instead I just shrug and go grab a beer, then settle in to wait for the food to get here.

  About ten minutes later, the door opens and she comes out in a pair of yoga pants and one of my shirts. Her hair is up in a loose mess on top of her head, a few tendrils falling around her face. The sight of her sends a lightning bolt straight to my dick. But before I can act on it, the doorbell rings, and the food arrives.

  We eat dinner sitting on the couch. I pull up a stupid TV series we’ve been watching, but we never actually press play because we’re too busy talking and getting caught up with each other’s days before we drove out to the cemetery. I tell her how Gunner and Thorn convinced Tweak some random-ass bruise he’s got on his arm means he’s probably got testicular cancer. Six snorts with laughter until she’s afraid food’s going to come out her nose. She tells me about a couple of lovebirds barely out of high school who came in to get matching tattoos with each other’s initials and a heart. Chance tried to talk them out of it, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer. In the end, though, the boy got so freaked out by the sight of the tattoo gun that he passed out cold. So their skin remains unmarred for the time being.