She stayed where she was as he took a step back but her legs were shaking so hard she almost feared they’d give out. She watched him in the mirror as he stripped off his clothes. Each piece of his sexy, hard flesh that he exposed caused a fresh rush of moisture between her thighs. When he was naked he stepped back up into her. She felt his cock up against her ass. It was throbbing and he took it in his hand and slapped her ass with it. She shivered. Then he used one of his strong legs to push hers apart, took her panties in his other hand and with one yank, ripped them off her body. Then once again with his cock in his hand, he used it to slap her, but this time he brought it up to slap against the lips of her pussy. An electric sensation tore through her body each time he did it, and she felt like she could almost have an orgasm without his even entering her.

Then he stopped slapping her with it and pressed the tip of it against her clit. “Oh, fuck!” she said in a shaky voice. “Oh, Dax.”

“What, baby? ‘Oh, Dax,’ what?”

“It feels so good.”

“What feels good?”

“Your hard dick, against my clit.”

“You want that dick inside your pussy?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Tell me.”

“I want it inside of me. I want you to put your dick in my pussy.”

“Tell me what you want me to do, Angel.”

“I want you to fuck me, Dax.”

“Beg me.”

“Please, Dax. Please fuck me.”

“Have you been with anyone else since you met me, Angel?”

“No!”

“Have you wanted anyone else?”

“No! Not for a second. All I want is you.”

“Why?” She hadn’t been prepared for that question. She had her eyes closed and she opened them. He was staring at her in the mirror. “Why?” he said again.

“Because I’m yours.”

“Because I said so?”

“Because I want to be yours!”

“Why?”

“Because I fucking love you! I’m in love with you!”

She’d barely gotten the second “you” out when he shoved his cock up inside of her. She gasped and he reached underneath her belly once more and pulled her back so that she was on her toes, her ass was in the air, and his cock was buried as deeply inside of her as it could go. She could feel the tip of it, bottoming out inside of her. He ground into her and she closed her eyes and moaned again. “Open your eyes, Angel.”

She did. They were filled with water. He was so hard, harder than he’d been with her so far, ever. He was pushing into her so hard and holding her so tightly that it hurt…but felt so fucking, insanely good at the same time. “I love you,” he said. She let out a big breath that she’d been holding. She definitely hadn’t expected that. “I fucking love you and I fucking could not take it if you left me, if you lied to me, or if you cheated on me. Understand?” She nodded. He slapped her ass, this time even harder. That one was going to leave a welt. “I said, do you understand me, Angel?”

“Yes. I understand.”

“Good.” Dax was finished talking then. He put both of his hands on her hips, and Angel had to use all the muscles in her arms to hold herself in place as he drove into her like a machine. She’d never been fucked so hard or so intensely. His body slammed into her repeatedly, each time pushing her forward and then pulling her back. She was suddenly coming all over his cock. She came so hard that she couldn’t breathe while it was happening, and she could feel it slowly dripping down the insides of her thighs. Dax reached down between her legs and slid a finger through it and said, “That’s what I’m talking about. That’s my girl.” Then with even more force he drilled into her until at last his body tensed and he dug his fingers into the flesh he was holding onto. She felt the heat of his come filling her up and mixing with the fluids running down her thighs. In a breathless voice, he said, “Say it one more time before you go.”

She didn’t need to ask what. “I love you, Dax.”

“I love you too,” he said, pulling back and sliding out of her. “And I don’t share what’s mine. Don’t forget.”

She used her hands to push her sore body up slightly so that she could look him in the eye in the mirror. “I won’t,” she said in a shaky voice.

Dax finally smiled.

* * *

Angel rushed into the meeting twenty minutes late. Dax left before she did to head out for the ranch, but she was still somewhat anxious that he’d decided to hang back and follow her somehow. She headed up the highway for ten miles toward Hartford before finally convincing herself that she wasn’t being followed, and turning around. Everyone was staring at her as she walked in. She grabbed a donut and cup of coffee before smiling and looking at Chris. “I’m sorry—I should have called to let you know I was running late.”

“It’s okay. How are you doing?”

“I’m okay. Thank you.” Everyone was looking at her with sympathy in their eyes except Kyle, who was looking down at the table in front of him, and Micah, who hadn’t looked at her since the funeral. He wanted her to go home with him afterwards, but she’d refused. She knew she needed to have the talk with him, to tell him once and for all that it was over…but she just hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. She was hoping that since he had to already know, he wouldn’t force her into saying it out loud. She doubted that, and she knew that wasn’t fair of her anyways. He deserved to have her look him in the eye, and he deserved an apology. She resolved to do it over the upcoming weekend. Dax had already told her he had to go out of town. He’d been evasive about where he was going, but she didn’t press. She needed the time to catch up with some things from her own life.

“Angel, there has been a new development that you need to know about.” Chris said. He and Kyle exchanged looks and then Kyle said:

“Mad Max is dead.”

“Oh, shit! How? Where? Last time I heard Dax mention him, he said he was in California.”

“He’s been in Connecticut for at least two weeks now,” Kyle said. “Dead.”

“Two weeks?”

“Yeah,” Chris said. “We got called out to a murder scene this morning. A homeless man found the body, called 911. After the D’s on call got a look at the patch on the guy’s vest, they called us.”

“He was still wearing his Skulls vest? I thought he was in hiding. This doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes even less sense than that,” Kyle said. “He wasn’t in a Skulls vest; he was in a Sinners vest. And…he was in a house owned by Grant Benning.”

Angel put the donut down. She’d suddenly lost her appetite. Even the coffee didn’t seem appealing any longer. Dax was going to go ballistic. “How did he die?”

“Hard to say just yet,” Kyle said. “We’re going to have to find his head first.”

“Excuse me?”

“The corpse was mutilated,” Chris said. “His head and hands were missing.”

“Oh, Jesus…”

“We sent a unit out to the ranch to pick up Dax Marshall. They’re bringing him in now.”

“What? Why? Dax didn’t kill Max, they were friends.” She heard the defensiveness in her own voice as she spoke. It was too late to take it back. Kyle looked disgusted, Micah was finally looking at her, angrily, and Chris had the same observant look on his face that he always had.

“We need to know who Max was hiding from and where. What his movements have been lately. What he was doing back in Connecticut if he’d left the state to hide out…”

“What he was doing in Grant Benning’s house,” she said. “Why isn’t Hawk being hauled in here?”

“Because we still haven’t located him,” Kyle said. “And if anyone knows what Max was doing back in town, it was your boyfriend.” She saw Micah wince out of the corner of her eye like he’d been slapped across the face. Chris finally looked less than calm and as she glared at her brother he said, “I mean, your ‘undercover’ boyfriend.”

“So if you brought Dax in, what are you all doing here? Who is interviewing him?”

“The FBI wanted to talk to him first.”

“What? What do they want with him?”

“They’re still trying to sort out this coin mess. We found out last night that the coins Miller was transporting are the same ones that were stolen in the armored truck heist five years ago. But…they’re not all there and Miller swears he doesn’t know where the rest of them are. He says this ‘Dan’ that set the whole thing up must have kept some for himself. The coins that are missing are worth a cool million at least.”

“Did he have a last name on ‘Dan’ or where we could find him?” Angel asked Chris.

“If he does, he’s not giving it up. I get the feeling he’s scared to death of this guy. It was probably a partnership of convenience, but I think Miller bit off more than he could chew by messing with these people. Anyways, the FBI is going to take that case off our hands, it’s their jurisdiction. As soon as they’re done with Marshall, Kyle and…”

“No!” Chris gave her a surprised look and Kyle jerked his head up and looked at her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. But Kyle can’t go. Kyle, did Dax see you at the ranch the other morning? Were you there?”

Chris looked at Kyle. Her brother was glaring at her. “I showed up when I heard it on the scanner, yes…to see if they needed help.”

“You were supposed to be home on bereavement,” Chris said.

“I know that,” Kyle said in disgust. “I was going stir crazy, so I went. Captain Banks made me turn right around and leave. I never contacted Dax Marshall.”

“But he saw you,” Angel said. “Didn’t he?”

“Angel, what’s this about?” Chris asked. Now that their father was gone, Chris seemed to have appointed himself mediator between Angel and Kyle.

“Dax is suspicious of me because he saw a cop that day who looks just like me.”

“Fuck,” Kyle mumbled underneath his breath. Now everyone at the table was staring at him, and Angel wished that she had waited to confront him after the meeting. She hadn’t meant to get him into trouble, just to remind him that blowing her cover might be as easy as Dax’s running into him one more time. He finally looked around at them all and said, “I can’t help my fucking DNA, can I?”

“You need to stay away from Dax Marshall. You’re not in on this interrogation today,” Chris said.

“Interrogation?” said Angel. “I thought you just wanted information on Mad Max.”

Chris looked at her and calmly but deliberately said:

“I’m beginning to wonder if maybe you need to stay away from him as well.”

Angel stood up, angrily. “I need all of you to listen to me! I am as much, if not more, a part of this team as all of you. I’ve been doing my job for months now. I’ve given you every piece of anything that I’ve gotten and none of it implicated Dax in any wrongdoing. So stop assuming that I’m doing something wrong or immoral simply because I have the audacity to speak out in defending an innocent man. I’m sick of it!” She looked at Kyle and then Micah, who was looking at Kyle and not her. “I’m sick of the accusatory glances and the things I know you’re all saying about me behind my back! I am a grown-ass woman. I’m a cop. I know what I’m doing, and don’t any of you forget that the only reason I even know Dax Marshall is because I was pulled off the streets and put directly into his path.” She grabbed her things off the table and looked at Chris. “Is there anything else?”

He shook his head. “Not right now.”

“Good. All of you have a nice day.” She turned on her heel and stormed out. She could feel them all staring at her as she went. Her only regret was that she hadn’t told them all to kiss her ass before she did.