Our first meeting in the bar in Reno, when I’d been a bitch.
Our second meeting at the bar at the motel. The sex we’d had in the very motel room I was now in, probably the very bed I was lying on.
The bike ride in the desert.
The painful conversation in the diner.
And then the sex in the desert safe house. Oh my God, that sex. I could remember every single sensation, every emotion, every taste, every spasm of ecstasy.
I lay back on the bed and put my hand inside my dress and touched myself.
The night in the safe house had burned me to the very core of my being. Even ten years later, the thought of it made my * wet. I let my finger slide over my clit as I thought about the orgasm Jackson had had inside me. He’d insisted on going skin to skin. No condom. He wanted his semen inside me. He knew it would lead to a son. And he was right.
My finger slid back and forth over my clit.
I thought about Jackson’s cock in my mouth. He’d slid it right to the very back of my throat. When he came, the throbbing terrified me. I thought he was going to explode. He’d poured so much semen into my throat I was afraid I’d choke, but I didn’t. I loved it. I’ll admit it. The sticky, metallic, hot mess he poured into my mouth was a gift. I swallowed every drop of it, and what I wouldn’t give to have the chance to do it again.
My finger slid inside my * and I began slipping it back and forth.
Then, to really make sure he owned me completely, to make sure that even if he disappeared from the face of the earth, which he did, I’d never forget him, he took me in the most shocking way of all. His plan had worked. It worked too well. I’d never be able to get past him. I still couldn’t imagine another man touching me.
I let my thumb touch my anus.
He’d put himself in there. It had shocked me, terrified me, and it had overcome me so utterly that I’d never be able to be anyone’s woman but his.
I pictured his face in my mind. I pictured the firm muscles of his chest, his powerful arms, his rock hard torso, his monstrous penis.
As my finger slid back and forth, in and out of my *, my thumb pressed against the tight muscle of my anus.
I cried out his name as I came.
“Jackson.”
“Jackson.”
“Jackson.”
Chapter 22
Jackson
TWELVE YEARS IS A LONG TIME TO BE A GHOST.
And it made it’s mark on me. I am not the man I was twelve years ago. I’m not the man who left Faith.
A million times I wanted to go back, but I couldn’t. Not until it was safe. One wrong move, one fuck up, and I would be putting her life in danger—and the boy’s. That was a risk I couldn’t take.
That meant taking out all twelve Lobos, one at a time.
Twelve years.
I’d never intended it to take so long, but once I started, there was no way to back out. If they got even a hint of what was going on, if they suspected for a second that the killings had anything to do with Faith, they’d track her down and kill her.
I knew how it had to be. I couldn’t come back, I couldn’t contact her, I couldn’t even contact the Brotherhood, until I’d fulfilled my part of the bargain.
And so, I spent twelve years killing twelve men.
I didn’t leave a single thing to chance. I didn’t go within a million miles of home until every last one of them was dead. Some of them were easy to get, some of them were difficult. But I got them all.
It cost me.
It cost me dearly.
It cost me the better part of my son’s childhood.
But it was finally time to return.
I was on a greyhound bus from Galveston to Los Angeles. I couldn’t believe I was actually on my way back after all this time. How would she react? Would she even want to see me?
I was numb, a shadow of the man I’d been. Killing takes its toll, it gets under your skin. There comes a point when you’re not even sure there’s anything left of the man you were. I’d been shot, stabbed, scarred, tortured. I was hardly recognizable. But I was finally done. All twelve Lobos were dead.
It was time for me to return to my woman and my son.
Galveston to LA is a long ride covering the length of the Mexican border. I was following the trail of the old pony express, which might be interesting to a historian, but to me, nothing was interesting except getting home to Faith.
I’m not the man you remember. I’m not the man who rode out from the safe house. That man was killed a thousand times over. Every time I killed another Lobo, another part of me died.