“Can I get you anything?” Ironside asked.

 

“No,” Peyton replied, not looking up.

 

He looked at the broken woman sitting at his kitchen table, staring at the floor. He’d put Whiteshirt to the task of finding someplace to take the women and Dolch to the cleaning up the mess, then hustled Peyton out of the clubhouse.

 

He didn’t know what to do for her. It seemed all the life had gone out of her, as if her reason for living was gone. “What happened wasn’t your fault,” he tried again.

 

“Okay.”

 

He frowned, trying to figure out how to reach her. “There’s no way you could have stopped what happened.”

 

“If I hadn’t taken her out of the room, like Whiteshirt ordered, she couldn’t have taken that guy’s gun. If I hadn’t wanted to stay in the Saracens’ clubhouse so I could keep fucking, we would have left the next morning. If I hadn’t wanted to get fucked by some bikers, we wouldn’t have been picked up by the Saracens. If I wasn’t such a slut, I wouldn’t be willing to sleep with every swinging dick I meet and I wouldn’t have dragged her to the party in the first place. So, yeah, there’s nothing I could have done to prevent what happened.”

 

He grimaced at her self-condemnation. “She didn’t have to do what you wanted.”

 

“She always did what I wanted. If she didn’t, I kept yapping at her, like one of those little fucking dogs, until she gave in.”

 

He nodded. Peyton was the strong one, Melissa the weak. Without Peyton’s strength, she hadn’t been able to cope when life got tough, so she ended it rather than face it. “How did you know her?”

 

Tears began to leak out of her eyes. “High school. Some girls were pushing her around in the bathroom, and she was just taking it, kind of shrunk in on herself. It pissed me off. So I bloodied one chick’s nose and got her out of there. After that, nobody messed with her anymore. She was one of the few girls in school who actually liked me.” Peyton coughed out a sob. “I told her if she stuck with me, nothing would happen to her.”

 

He pulled her to her feet and into his embrace. “You can’t protect someone forever,” he murmured. “Eventually they have to stand on their own.”

 

“She was doing better,” she whispered, her head in his chest. “She was opening up more. She was always bringing home these guys who seemed nice, but they were using her. The passive aggressive types that make me want to puke. I would put her wise to what they were doing, then they would get all pissy, leave her, and it would break her heart. I wanted her to have a taste of the wild side, to forget all that touchy feely shit and just fuck for a while, to see what real men were like.” She paused. “I started dragging her to parties and shit. That’s how we ended up with the guys we were living with. She said she didn’t like it, but I wouldn’t listen…because I liked it. Now she’d dead, because I’m such a slut. That should have been me that was initiated, not her. She didn’t deserve that.”

 

“Don’t say things like that.”

 

“Why? It’s true,” she said softly. “I come into a bar you’re in, I beat the shit out of your old lady, then a few hours later, I’m fucking you. If that isn’t a slut, I don’t know what is.”

 

“Honey wasn’t, and never has been, my old lady. I wanted you that night.”

 

“Do you know how many men I’ve slept with?”

 

“No more than the women I have.”

 

“That doesn’t make it right.”

 

“It doesn’t make it wrong either.” He tipped her face up so she had to look at him. “There’s nothing wrong with living life.”

 

She held his eyes a moment then looked away. She felt like part of her died with the gunshot an hour earlier, the best part of her, and she felt hollow inside, as if there was something missing.

 

“Because of me, Melissa will never have that chance.”

 

***

 

“Are you ready for bed?” Ironside asked several hours later. Peyton had alternately silently stared at the walls or wept quietly, and he felt totally helpless. He hoped after a night’s sleep she could begin to cope with her friend’s death.

 

“Yeah, I guess.”

 

“Do you want to sleep in the guest room?”

 

“No. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

 

He nodded and held his hand out. She offered him a small smile and took it, allowing him to pull her to her feet and guided her back to his bedroom. She had no more clothes, her few things still at Andrew’s house, so she would have to wear the blood-splattered shirt again tomorrow. The spots had been small, and she’d given the shirt a good scrubbing and gotten most of the stain out, but the faint pink dots still served as a reminder.

 

She showered, standing under the water. She’d cleaned the blood from her face before leaving the clubhouse, but she still scrubbed thoroughly several times even though she knew the stain she was trying to remove wasn’t on the outside.

 

After she finished he hopped in for a quick shower, hurrying because Peyton had used most of the hot water. He dried himself, brushed his teeth, and exited the bathroom, turning off the lights.

 

As he settled into the bed, she rolled into his arms. He wrapped her up and held her close and tight. “What happened to her?” she whispered.

 

“Dolch took her to Ellison Funeral Home. She was cremated. We have an arrangement with them.”

 

Peyton nodded, her head resting on his chest. She’d learned a lot about how outlaw clubs operated in the past six weeks and understood that’s how it had to be. It couldn’t be reported because that would lead to questions, questions the Knights couldn’t answer. Whiteshirt had called earlier and, after he had explained their circumstances and made a sizeable donation, Matt Talbot for Women had agreed to take the women into their drug recovery program.

 

“I wish…” she began then gasped as she tried not to cry.

 

He tightened her embrace slightly. “I know. Shhh…I told you before, you can’t protect her from herself. She’d given up. Nothing you could have done would have prevented her from killing herself if she really wanted to.”

 

“But if she could have gotten some help.”

 

“You told her you were going to help her, but she did it anyway. I know it’s hard, but you have to let her go and accept you did all you could.”

 

“I don’t know how. She’s been my best friend, my only friend, for almost ten years.”

 

“You let her go a little bit at a time.”

 

She lay still and quiet, thinking. “I want to leave tomorrow.”

 

He nodded slowly. He knew it was coming but he could feel the disappointment like a bitter taste in his mouth. “I’ll buy you a plane ticket anyplace you want to go.”

 

She nodded. “Florida. Melissa wanted to go to Florida.”

 

“Florida it is.”

 

She lay quiet a moment then rose to kiss him slowly. He was a good man and she wished she had hooked up with the Knights instead of the Saracens. She was certain if she had, Melissa would still be alive. She pulled back from the kiss. He kissed her, but she could sense him holding back.

 

“I want you,” she whispered, wanting, needing, to feel his touch, wanting to fill that empty place inside, hoping he could remove some of her pain.

 

He rolled her over and pinned her to the bed with his weight. “Are you sure?” he asked, watching her eyes.

 

“Yes,” she said softly, drawing his lips down to hers.

 

They kissed leisurely for many long moments, the blast furnace-like heat of their first two encounters missing, replaced with a glowing warmth that helped ease her pain. He pulled back from her lips, kissing lower, under her jaw and down to her breasts before stopping long enough to take the condom from his nightstand and put it on. Taking her lips again, he moved between her legs and slowly entered her.

 

He kissed her gently, wrapping her up in his embrace as he took her with slow, easy, strokes. It was exactly what she needed, this tender giving of himself as he kissed her softly and caressed her face, comforting her with the most intimate of human touches. She held him tight, pulling his head down so he wouldn’t see her cry, her eyes closed as she held him.

 

He almost missed the tears leaking from her eyes as she pulled his head down. She obviously didn’t want him to see her crying so he made no mention of it, holding her until her desperate embrace relaxed. He raised his head and dried her cheeks with his lips, driving into her a bit harder and faster.

 

She again pulled his head down, the warmth of his breath on her neck comforting somehow, the pleasure of him moving inside her pulling her thoughts from her loss.

 

She continued to hold his head down as he drove into her harder, then harder still, his breath coming in harsh pants. She released her hold on his head and he looked up as she placed her hands against the headboard, her face twisted in sweet agony as she pushed hard, her back arcing as she gasped then groaned hard and deep. Her face twisting in rapture as she strained through her orgasm was one of the most erotic things he’d ever seen a woman do.

 

Her orgasm rolled over her, slow and deep as he pounded into her, his arms tight at her side, his hand holding her head as his lips found hers. She threw her arms around him and drew him down tighter as she kissed him deeply, her hand sliding from his back to his head to hold him into the kiss. She moaned as they devoured each other, her orgasm swelling again as his cock plunged into her again and again in never-ending pleasure.

 

He grunted as he pushed in deep, holding himself there as his climax took him, then exhaled slowly, their lips never parting. They drank their fill from the other’s lips before he slowly pulled back to look into her eyes. He’d taken several women in the month since she walked into the bar and into his life, but none made him feel like she did. He watched her eyes as he began to thrust slowly again, his lips returning to hers.

 

She watched his eyes, a chill passing through her on seeing the tenderness there, tenderness she’d never saw in a lover’s eyes before. He was a hard fucking beast of a man, a sexual animal, one who could fuck her like nobody before him, but he was proving now he could also be gentle and caring when he wanted to be, and she smiled an instant before his lips took hers.

 

***

 

Ironside jerked awake as Whiteshirt’s ringtone played. He rolled to his side, holding Peyton to him, as he reached for the phone.

 

“Ironside,” he said softly.

 

“Ironside! Whiteshirt. We’re being hit everywhere! The Saracens, they hit five bars and all three strip clubs.”

 

“Fuck. How many dead?”

 

“Seventy-two at last count. Sixty-one customers and employees, the rest brothers and girls.”

 

“Those fucks,” he snarled quietly. The Saracens were violating the most basic rule: no targeting civilians.

 

“The police are on the scenes now. We’re going to have to let this play. There’s no way we can cover this up. But there’s more. They left a note at each place. It said ‘Arabian Motel. Turn over Peyton Haase or this is only a taste.’”

 

Peyton lay quiet, feigning sleep as she listened to Whiteshirt’s voice on the phone. More deaths, more blood on her hands.

 

“Don’t interfere. Let the cops handle it,” Ironside said. “We can’t stop it anyway, so let’s get them on our side. Show them the note and tell them why it was left, and that Peyton found out her friend was being held at the Arabian and forced to service men. We got her out, along with all the other women.”

 

“Are you sure that’s wise? They’re going to know the Saracens didn’t just let us waltz in there and take their girls.”

 

“What else can we do? We’ll come off as good Samaritans, and without bodies, they can’t prove we killed anyone.”

 

“We could give them Peyton.”

 

Ironside was silent for a moment. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

 

“Ironside, she isn’t one of us! She’s a Saracen! If one of our girls stabbed us in the back, we’d want her back, too.”

 

“This isn’t the same thing.”

 

“It is!”

 

“It isn’t! Peyton was never a Saracen; she was just trying to get her friend out. She’s leaving town tomorrow.”

 

“And if the Saracens keeping hitting us?”

 

“Make no mistake, they’ve declared unrestricted war with this and we’re going to deal with them. As soon as the heat dies down, we’re going to go for their throat, but it has nothing to do with Peyton.”

 

“Why are you protecting her at the expense of the club? Explain it to me!”

 

“I’m not protecting her at the expense of the club. I’m carrying through with the deal we made. We agreed to get her out of town if she would feed us information. She did her part. We have to do ours…or does your word mean nothing to you?”

 

“I never gave her my word,” Whiteshirt growled.

 

“I gave her mine, and I speak for the club.”

 

There was a long pause. “I think you’re making another big mistake, but at least she’ll be out of town and I won’t have to worry about that security risk anymore.”