Chapter 21
Snake
Holy shit, did she just call me ‘Snake’? I froze on the other end of the line as I heard something akin to a sniffle. Was Laiken crying? Holy shit, what the fuck was happening? My mind was spiraling dangerously out of control as all the balls I was juggling slowly began to hit the floor. There was no doubt in my mind that she had figured it out. Laiken had figured out I was part of The Road Rebels before I could distance myself enough from her.
Or worse, before I could tell her myself.
I stood back from the rest of the group as they made their way to the lodge. Mac looked back at me, throwing me a curious glance before they all made their way inside. I turned my back to the lodge as the silence on the other end of the line consumed me. She still wanted to talk? After the information she had just found out, she still wanted to meet up and talk?
I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. I could blow her off and block her number. That would certainly put distance between us. I could continue to push her away until she got the picture. But if she knew I was associated with The Road Rebels, then that meant she probably knew where our shop was. Where our lodge was.
Where our compound was.
“Snake?” Laiken asked. “Or should I call you Jace?”
My throat ran dry as I cleared it.
“I’m not sure if meeting up to talk’s a good idea, Laiken,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Come on. Don’t be stupid. You’ve never been stupid. If you don’t count last night at the bar,” I said.
“I wasn’t being stupid. I was being… desperate,” she said.
“You? Desperate? Who the hell are you and where the fuck is Laiken?” I asked.
“There are plenty of sides to me you haven’t seen. Most of them didn’t even arise until you threw me out of your life.”
“Are we really gonna travel down this road again? Because we’re definitely not meeting up if that’s the topic of conversation.”
“It’s not, trust me.”
I knew this was a bad idea. I knew that sitting down with Laiken would be dangerous. She could be luring me into a trap. She could be bugged or wired. She could be working directly alongside the DEA to take every single one of our asses down. When it came down to it, Laiken was a cop, and I was a criminal. It was her duty to put shitbags like me behind bars. I ran my hand down my face as I walked towards my bike, my body drawn to the idea of seeing her again while my mind screamed at me to hang up.
“This is really important, Jace,” Laiken said. “This goes beyond my job or your affiliation with… whoever. I need to speak with you. In person. I’ll even let you pat me down if it makes you feel better.”
“Might make you feel better,” I said, grinning.
“Can the jokes for another time.”
“So serious,” I said.
“You’re fucking right I am. I want answers, and if you don’t want to give them to me, then I’ve already proven to you what I can find if I dig hard enough.”
“Is that a threat?” I asked.
“It’s a promise,” she said.
I looked back at the lodge, and I could see the guys staring out at me. Going back in there and answering questions as to who the hell I was talking to didn’t sound all too pleasant. In fact, I would’ve rather slept on a bed of rusty nails than done that shit. So, I figured talking to Laiken wouldn’t be so bad after all.
At least she’d let me pat her down.
“All right,” I said. “Meet me at my place in thirty.”
“See you soon.”
I hopped on my bike and rode back to my house. I knew the guys were going to be pissed me with leaving, but I didn’t care. They told me to be back by nightfall, and the sun was still shining as bright as my pale ass. This would give me a chance to really size up Laiken. Pick her brain about what the police department knew about us. Who their targets were and what the hell they were going to be doing about The Devil Saints.
I could hold my answers for her until she gave me the answers I sought.
I pulled up to my house and unlocked the door. Laiken wasn’t there yet and it gave me time to think. I sat in one of the kitchen chairs as my mind raced, and slowly I started to second-guess myself. Should I come clean to her about everything? Or should I feed her lies to throw the cops off our tracks? Should I give her answers? Or should I continue to push her away? I knew I needed to keep pushing. To keep her away from all this shit. Gemma was already caught up in it, and I didn’t need another woman I loved getting caught up in the storm that was building over all of our heads.
But before I could settle on a decision, I heard a car pull up into the driveway.
I sat with my back straight as Laiken came through the door. She was dressed in her uniform, blue from head-to-toe. She looked phenomenal in it, with her wide hips and her broad shoulders. She made that shit look like a fucking fantasy, and I knew then and there what I had to do.
I had to keep pushing her away. It was the best thing I could do for her.
Even if she did have information on the case, I didn’t want her involved. If I fed her the wrong information and she went back to her captain with it, it would get her in trouble. Possibly thrown off the case altogether. That meant someone in her precinct would be clocking her every move to make sure she stayed off this shit. Between that and pushing her away from my end, she wouldn’t have any connection to any of this bullshit when it blew up in all of our faces.
And it would. It was just a matter of time.
She stood in front of me like she was sizing me up. I continued to sit in my chair as my eyes settled on her belt. She had a taser, a gun, some mase, and handcuffs. There were a few other things I couldn’t identify, but she was fucking packing. My eyes rode down her thighs, taking in their luscious girth as I searched for any hidden weapons on her person.
She had a gun sitting in an ankle holster and a knife in her right pocket.
“Ready?” she asked.
My eyes darted back up to hers as she held out her arms. She was asking me if I was ready to pat her down. She was serious about that? I felt a smirk tug on my cheeks as I rose up, my body looming over hers as our eyes connected. I knelt down in front of her and took the gun from her ankle. I leaned in and kissed it, and I could hear her scoff. I ran my hands up the insides of her thighs, taking in her warmth before she spread them for me.
“Get it over with, Snake,” she said.
My eyes locked hard on hers as my hand drifted over her pussy. She kept her breathing even, and her lips pulled into a thin line, but it was her eyes that betrayed her. That little twitch she got in her left eye every time I brushed against that perfect little spot.
I reached into her pocket and pulled out the knife before I tossed it onto my couch.
I wrapped my arms around her and gazed down her shirt. I could tell she was about to smack me, but I threw her stern gaze. She stopped her movements as I unclasped her belt, then tossed the entirety of it onto my couch.
“Are you wired?” I asked.
“Fuck no,” she said.
“Then you won’t mind if I check.”
I ran my hands up her back, and her eye twitched again. The warmth of her body was running away with me. I moved her body closer to mine and looked down her shirt again, admiring her luscious tits before she bucked into me. My hands slid to her stomach and pressed into her, slowly rising up her torso before I reached her tits. I squeezed them delicately, tenderly, and for a moment Laiken lost herself in the feeling as well.
Before she smacked my hands away.
“I don’t know, I thought I felt something,” I said as I reached for the buttons on her uniform.
“Enough of the games. Is that why they call you ‘Snake’?” she asked.
I took a step back from her and immediately threw up my guard. She was coming for blood when I had come with my armor off. She was ready to fight while I was ready to fall to my knees in front of her. But if a fight is what she was looking for, then a fight was what I was willing to give her.
It would be easier to push her away if I was angry with her anyway.
“Is that the question you want to start with?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “But this one is. Why the fuck is your picture posted at the police department under the name ‘Snake’?”
I studied her body fully, and it had been a while since I’d done that. There were moments during the times we dated where I had to read her like I did rival clubs. I took in the flare of her nostrils and the widening of her pupils. I took in the erect nipples that were poking just slightly through her shirt. I saw the way her chest was taking shallow breaths and how her fists were balled at her sides. Her shoulders were slightly hunched, and her knees weren’t quite locked out.
Laiken was readying herself not just for a verbal fight, but a physical one. She was poised just in case I attacked her. Just in case some precinct animal came jumping out at her, and she had to defend herself. It was confusing and new, for her to be this guarded with me.
But mostly, it hurt.
It hurt a place in my soul I hadn’t even thought about since my mother died.
“Do you think I’m going to hurt you?” I asked.
“You don’t get to be cryptic, and you don’t get to ask me questions. For months, I tried to get the truth out of you. For months, I tried to figure out what the fuck was going on. My obsession with you and what you were doing bordered on clinical, and now you’re going to give me the one thing I’ve been asking you for.”
“Answers,” I said.
“You’re damn fucking straight,” she spat.
“I actually think your prior question’s a good one to start with,” I said.
“I’m not playing games with you anymore, Jace,” she said.
“And neither am I. Now, are you ready for your answers or not?”
My entire plan was tossed out the window the moment I watched Laiken relax. Her body uncurled, and her fists unclenched. Her face softened, and her tits receded back into her body. She was no longer on high-alert. She was no longer afraid for her safety. She was simply standing there, vulnerable and hurt and betrayed.
And it was never my intention to make her feel that way.
I knew at that moment; I would tell her everything. No matter the consequence to me. I couldn’t hold my answers from her because that was going to get us nowhere. If I wanted Laiken’s trust and respect, I had to earn it. And if giving her the answers she sought was how I was going to get it, then I needed to come to terms with that.
I wasn’t in control of this situation. And in some ways, I don’t think I ever was. Maybe that was why I loved Laiken so much. Maybe that was why she stayed at the forefront of my dreams.
Because she was the only woman, I’d ever come across who wouldn’t allow me control.