Filthy Bastard by Madison Faye
Chapter Eleven
Nicole
The pancakes are fucking amazing.
I haven’t eaten food like this in forever, and I’m loving it. We’re across the road from the motel, sitting at this little fifties-style diner, in a fiberglass or melamine booth that even has one of those old mini-jukeboxes behind the ketchup and salt and pepper shakers. And across from me, looking like something straight out of a motorcycle fantasy or a Harley Davidson ad, is Killian.
We’re joking, feeding each other bits of our breakfast, and playing footsie under the table. And I don’t know what the fuck this is, but I like it. A lot. I mean, seriously, am I freaking falling for the criminal who abducted me?
…Maybe.
Seriously, this really might be Stockholm Syndrome at this point, and I truly don’t care. I might be broken, but if broken means this, then I never want to get fixed. I look at Killian, and I just feel safe. With him, I feel whole, and I feel alive.
Also, I might be addicted to sex with him, and if nothing else, I’m quite positive he’s truly ruined it for me for any other guy ever.
“What?”
I blink blushing as I realize I’ve been staring at him.
“Hmm?”
“You were staring, and I can see the wheels turning behind those pretty eyes of yours.”
I blush. “Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“Okay, fine, you got me. I was thinking about how to get the drop on you and run off to call the police to report the brute who abducted me and ravished me.”
“Ravished, huh?” he chuckles.
“Thoroughly,” I grin.
He growls.
“I could go for some more ravishing after breakfast, actually.”
I giggle as the blush creeps up my cheeks.
“Oh, could you?”
“Or right now, right here on this damn table,” he groans.
I look into his eyes, and I know he’s more serious than kidding, and damn is that hot. My pulse quickness, and a wetness blooms in the new panties he bought me.
“You’re insatiable, you know.”
Killian grins.
“So what’d did you tell your parents?”
“That the interview—” I shrug. “I was supposed to have this interview today—”
“At Harvard Law.”
I grin. “Stalker.”
He grins back.
“Well, I actually had it over a video call a week ago anyways. But I told them it went well.”
He chuckles. “So why were you at your dad’s place?”
I sigh. “I just didn’t want to be with them. It’s my mom’s birthday, which is always a total shit show, and she and my dad were fighting.” I roll my eyes. “He’s cheating on her, and she figured it out.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I snort. “I do not want to know how you know that.”
“I’m friends with the hooker he was seeing.”
I make a face, glaring at him, and he chuckles.
“A friend, princess, relax. As in, I paid her money to fill me in on your dad’s comings and goings. Trust me, that’s not my thing.”
I bite my lip, realizing how jealous and crazy I just sounded, but he reaches across the table and envelopes my hands in his huge ones. He picks them up and kisses my fingers, one by one, I blush.
“Well, my mom’s fucking the gardener, so, don’t feel too sad for her.”
He chuckles.
“Anyways, I told them the interview was great, but work needed me back in New York asap.”
I eye him.
“So why you?”
“Why me what?”
“How’d you get to be the one pulling this job… snatching my dad, I mean.”
He nods slowly. “I owe everything to the club, and my brothers are my family. With your dad putting them in jail for shit they didn’t do…” he frowns and looks away. “I couldn’t just let that go. Also, it…” he shakes his head. “Nevermind.”
“What?”
He smiles wryly. “It was my job because it settles some debts, too.”
I arch a brow. “Well that sounds juicy. What debts?”
Killian scowls. “Some shit went down a little while ago with another club’s President, and these guys are also getting harassed by your father. Me taking care of it was supposed to sort of settle the score.”
I grin. “So what’d you do?”
“It’s nothing, just a misunderstanding with their president.”
“Steal from him?”
“No, not really.”
“Fight?”
He smirks. “Yes and no.”
“You wronged him?”
“He thinks so.”
Suddenly, it hits me, and my mouth tightens as I see green.
“Is it a woman?” I say icily.
Killian’s lips curl at the corners, and he peers at me.
“Is that jealousy I sense?”
“No,” I mutter hastily, shoving some pancake in my mouth and pointedly looking away.
He smiles, shaking his head.
“There was a woman.”
Blind fury envelopes me, and I growl around my pancake.
“But,” he says quietly, his hands sliding over again to take mine. “It was a misunderstanding. She told her man that I slept with her.”
“Did you, mister ‘insatiable’?” I snap, feeling stupid even saying it.
Killian just grins.
“I like you jealous.”
“Yeah?” I mutter. “Why?”
“Because it’s sexy as fuck, that’s why,” he growls. “And no, I didn’t. Sleep with her, that is. I mean, I literally fell asleep in the same room as her, drunk as a skunk. But believe me, that was it.”
I look down into my coffee.
“Sorry,” I mumble. “That none of my—”
“I’m telling you anyways,” he purrs, squeezing my hands. “So, this gig was to settle that—”
He freezes as he turns to look out the window, and I frown.
“What?”
“Oh fuck.”
I follow his gaze, and suddenly, my heart skips a beat. Across the road, black SUVs and sedans are roaring into the motel parking lot, and men in suits who look a lot like the guys from last night are pouring out of them.
…And they’ve got guns.
The whole crew runs right for our room, and suddenly, I slam my hand over my mouth to cover the shriek as they start to just open fire, blasting away at the motel. The window to our room shatters, and the door is ripped off the hinges under the onslaught, and I’m staring in horror as I feel Killian’s hands grab me, pulling me from the booth.
“We’re going, now,” he growls.
“Wait, hang on.”
“Nicole, we need to—”
“We need to sit still,” I whisper. “If we make a scene and just rush out of here without paying and tear off on that loud bike, they’ll notice. So, sit.”
He narrows his eyes at me, a slight smirk on his face. And then, he sits, and steeples his hands in front of him.
“Go on.”
I swallow, biting my lip.
“We pay our bill, we hang out and finish our coffee, and we lay low. I mean we don’t have a car or anything, and the bike is still across the street. When they leave…”
He nods, smiling curiously at me.
“You’re pretty damn smart, you know.”
“I do know.”
He grins, and suddenly glances up as the waitress walks over to refill our coffees.
“We’ll take our check, thanks.”
A few minutes later, we watch the black cars drive off before we run back across the street. The motel is riddled with holes, and we can hear sirens wailing in the distance.
“Get on,” he growls, helping me climb on behind him. My arms wrap tight around his waist.
“How did they know we were here?”
“I don’t know,” he growls, shaking his head. “The car might’ve been tracked, but this bike has been sitting in Grey’s garage for two years, and we’re wearing new clothes.”
He frowns, and suddenly freezes.
“Shit, unless it’s our phones they’re tracking.”
I shake my head.
“That’s just in the movies.”
“Nicole—”
“No, I’m serious. Remember when the FBI was trying to sue Apple to break open an iPhone that belonged to a suspected bomber, because they, the freaking FBI couldn’t? You can’t just track someone’s phone without them knowing it, not without an app. And I think we’d both have noticed that.”
The sirens are getting louder, and he growls as he nods.
“Alright, we’re going to figure this out. For now, we gotta haul ass, right now.”
I nod and grip him tightly as he starts the bike with a thunderous roar. We skid out of the parking lot, barreling off down the road away from the motel and the sirens, and onto whatever the hell comes next.
