Lennox had never been too good at following rules. Except one: keeping his hands off his best friend. He’d already suffered too much loss. His parents, his friends, and now, thanks to an ambush by the Enforcers, his house. Jamie was important to him—he’d be damned if he lost her too.
He shifted his gaze from Jamie and Rylan, focusing instead on the back corner of the barn, which was stacked to the rafters with furniture and other random junk. The rest of the room had been cleared out and cleaned, the large space empty save for a couple of couches and an assortment of ratty old armchairs.
It was a far cry from the setup at the old place. Lennox didn’t want to depress Piper by admitting it, but he missed their house too. It was hard to consider any place “home” in the free land, but that cozy split-level had come damn close. He and Jamie had stumbled upon it after Enforcers ran them out of their camp on the coast. They’d fixed it up, scrubbed it down, and turned it into a place where other outlaws could come and bask in the little freedom they had left. Booze, sex, conversation. Simple joys, really, but thanks to the war that had devastated the globe forty years before, joy was hard to come by these days.
“I’m serious,” Piper insisted, and then her lips brushed the side of his neck. “The sexual tension is killing me.”
Lennox chuckled again. “Xander and Kade are in the lodge,” he told her. “I’m sure they’d be happy to help you relieve some tension.”
She sighed again, her fingers absently tracing the raven tattoo on his forearm. “You’re no fun, Lennox. You never want to entertain me.”
He reached out and tweaked a strand of her brown hair. “I’m not here to entertain you, love. I’m here to take care of you.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true.” Her voice softened. “And you’ve taken really good care of me, Len. I can never repay you for everything you’ve done.”
“Seeing you happy and safe is the only repayment I’ve ever wanted,” he said gruffly.
That got him another kiss—a loud smack on his cheek. “Ha, you’re such a softie. I don’t know why you bother acting like a badass all the time. Everyone can see right through you.”
He could have corrected her, pointed out that he didn’t act like a badass—he was a badass. He’d killed. He’d stolen. He’d betrayed people he’d cared about. Because that was what it meant to be an outlaw—you did everything in your power to survive.
Piper had never seen that side of him, the one that valued self-preservation above all else. He’d done his best to shield her from it, leaving her at home when he went out on supply runs, sending her away when he needed to put a bullet in someone’s head. He hoped to keep shielding her, but like with everything else in this world, he knew that was probably hoping for too much.
“Anyway, since you insist on being mean to me, I’m going to track down Kade,” she added, hopping off the couch. “Night, Lennox.”
“Night, love.”
As she headed for the door, he fought the urge to go with her, reminding himself that she would be fine trekking through the camp in the dark. She was armed, and Connor and his men had secured the hell out of the wilderness resort. The huge property was hidden in the mountains, rigged with motion sensors and explosives, and monitored by security cameras, which trumped all other luxuries. If the generator was low on fuel, Connor ordered everything else to be powered down—lights, heat, anything would be sacrificed to keep the security system operational.
Even so, it was hard for Lennox to accept that this place was truly safe. The Enforcers who policed the cities and searched the Colonies for outlaws were an ever-present threat, and one he never underestimated. Even when he was balls deep in a beautiful woman, he was still painfully aware that an Enforcer bullet could strike the back of his head at any moment. He just hoped those bastards had the decency to let him climax before they pulled the trigger.
“Rylan,” Connor called from the door. A second later, the camp leader strode into the barn with a scowl on his face.
Without missing a beat, Rylan untangled himself from Jamie, his scuffed boots hitting the barn floor as he rose to his full height.
Lennox was impressed by the way Connor’s men obeyed him on instinct. The man was a natural-born leader and protector, even if he was a prickly asshole a lot of the time. Lennox knew that if anything ever happened to him, Con would protect Jamie and the girls, no questions asked.
As Jamie’s companion abandoned her for his leader, Lennox saw a slight pout form on Jamie’s lips, but she didn’t voice a complaint. Con and his woman had been away from camp since dawn, and everyone had been on edge awaiting their return. The two of them had gone to see Reese, the leader of a small town several hours east, with whom both Connor and Lennox had a reluctant alliance.
Reese was unpredictable on good days and downright vindictive on bad ones, so Lennox never knew what to expect when he paid a visit to her self-proclaimed kingdom.