He had begun to feel the heavy press of death upon him. It was a weight, a crushing. He was a man of mayhem, had the patch to prove it, but now he also had the devil breathing down his neck, forsaken angels falling to the wayside, and the reaper waiting at the end of the road. He was running out of tarmac.
They all were - full-throttle wide-open screaming down the highway and not a single one of them seemed to give a damn.
Meeting with White had gone so unfuckingbelievably bad. Off the charts bad. Automatic death sentence for cop killing, do not pass go do not collect $200. And take a regular beat down in the brig for it, and even the Nazis wouldn't want you for all the trouble you're worth, the heat you'd bring. Might as well peel your shirt off, bare your breast, and take a sharpened toothbrush handle straight to the heart.
In the two weeks since Tara's murder, he had only had one moment in which he could breathe, could distract himself, and that moment had been the minutes he had spent in the parking garage with Jarry.
To have Althea walk into the temp Clubhouse wanting answers to the cold-blooded gunning down of uniforms while his shoulders were breaking with guilt, responsibility, and his head spinning from the downward trajectory of his life, the existence of the club, was almost more than he could bear. And then, a hand grenade.
He hadn't even hesitated. Brothers in arms, and this woman. He plowed straight at her, had her body beneath his before a breath could be taken, shielding her, exposing every raw nerve of his body.
Outside, sirens and flashing lights, ambulances, Charming residents, and the battered Sons. She was shell-shocked, he could see that clearly. He was past all that himself. Wondered when he had grown a skin of armor, encased his mind in the helmet of warrior, and swagger-walked through the valley of death. He breathed out hard. Inhaled. Breathed out again and made the choice. He stepped up beside her.
She was shook. To the core. And something in this open-heartedness reached out to him. The humanity. He was made loyal, fierce, and protective. And suddenly she was calling all of those things out in him, just with the broken bend of her shoulder towards him, the tilt of her face, the upturned eyes, and the slight quiver in the bow of her upper lip. He could not look away. But he narrowed his eyes and brought consciousness into the next few moments. With great deliberation he stepped across the divide, right up against her, she was so much smaller than she appeared. He guided her back to her car, his voice firm and refusing to be swayed. She hesitated, speechless. He did not, the forward propulsion of his decision to walk away from the mess of his life. Pulling his gloves off one finger at a time. She acquiesced and he opened the door of her cruiser for her, then slowly walked around the front and climbed into the driver's side. She was still and mute.
She had become the wild animal and he the tamer.
He kept his senses honed and sharp. To close his eyes for even a moment would be to feel her body beneath his, the exploding world showering glass and brick down upon them. The end of times, choking on mortar dust and gunpowder. Her shoulders pressing up against his chest, the fine and trembling line of her spinal column a grounding wire for him. The adrenalin rush had hit him square in the solar plexus, right above the span of her shoulder blades, and became a bolt of electricity down the length of his cock. He knew in that moment that he would be in her bed, he would take her from behind, he would lean over her back and wrap her in his arms, bend her head back and reach for her mouth with his own mouth.
He reached across for her hand. Desperately in need of flesh on flesh contact, the warmth of her living blood just beneath the surface of her skin, the rounded curves of her knuckles, the bones that made up her skeleton.
"I need," she began and he knew exactly what she needed.
He nodded. She directed him with small movements of her free hand. He turned down a side street. He could see her roll her lips between her teeth, quieting herself. He turned down another street and they were in old town, he slowed and pulled the car up to a small bungalow. He parked, handed her the keys and got out of the car, walking around to her side and opening the door. He held out his hand and she reached for it, letting him pull her to standing. With her fingers tangled in his own, she led him beneath the yellow light of the street lamps, up the wide front steps to the porch, her hand an anchor tethering him to the world, holding him fast. She keyed open the front door with one hand, led him inside and he was on her.
She had her shoulders against the back of the door and flat-palming it beside her head, he slammed it closed, then pressed the long hard length of his body against the thin feminine shape of her. She arched up into him. The light was small and shadows of grey filled the corners of the ceiling and the floor. They were kissing, his tongue deep inside her mouth, tasting her teeth, her breath, his name.
"I'm bleeding," she told him, pulling her face away from his, her hands coming up to hold the sides of his head, fingers feeding into his ears.
"What?" he nearly screamed.
"Not like that," she said shaking her head, rolling her forehead against his.
He looked at her from beneath his lowered brows. "Tha' don't matter none to me."
She nodded and led their way out of the room, down a hallway and into a bedroom. She switched on a bedside lamp, the shade draped in a silk shawl, the light softened and surprising in the handsome space of her room. She tossed back the heavy bedding, and turned to him.
He felt her hands on his belt, tugging the leather through the buckle, fast fingers working the button fly of his jeans. He growled and reached for her clothing, she toed out of her boots, pressed the uniform pants off her slim hips, stepping out of them, and crouched low. Her head was pressed against his belly, his hands on the balls of her shoulders, and he watched her tug the tampon free and toss it into a trash can in the far corner. Then she stood and he reached down for the backs of her knees, coaxing her to trust his strength, she lifted her legs, wrapping them around his hips. Lighter than she looked, finely made. He lowered her to the mattress, still in his boots, she still in her dress blue shirt. With a deliberate movement, all thrusting and taut thighs he was inside her. The hot wet warmth of her body flooded through him, heating his own blood inside his veins, his heart pumping it to a fevered point. He was panting, searching out her mouth again. She was moaning, pliant in his arms.
He closed his eyes and willed everything except for her, the moment, the feel of her exquisite body, to fall away from him.
He slowed the frantic pace they had both set, controlling her with both hands on her jutting hipbones. Grinding his own hips to a slow completion, waiting for her. Her head fell back and he brought his lips to the smooth skin just below her ear, biting hard into the juncture of her jaw and throat and she came with a strangled gasp.
Slowly she lowered her knees, her thighs falling open around him, her body boneless, his arms wrapped all the way around her waist. With an unbearable reluctance he let her go but she didn't go far, turning and snuggling up beneath his arm, her head on his chest.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Later, they rose together, stripping off the rest of their clothing and in the shower she washed the dried, black blood off his body and he watched it turn glistening red again as it ran down the drain.