Page 27 of Blaze

“Oh, wow,” comes her breathless voice from just behind me. “This is amazing.”

Another surge of pride fills my chest and I cough, clearing the strange feeling away. I hold out my hand and she takes it, getting off the bike. I follow a moment later and take the helmet from her hands and rest it on the seat.

I busy myself pulling out a cooler from one of the saddle bags and, with a quick glance at Kennedy to make sure she isn’t looking, I tuck the SIG Sauer under the back of my shirt, in my waistband. No way I was going to have her pressed up against me and feeling a gun between her legs. If she’s with me, the only thing hard she’ll be feeling there is my cock.

Except I’m supposed to be protecting her. I can’t let my attraction distract me, especially if the Light Justicars are now involved. It’s only a matter of time before the assholes we ran out of the clubhouse figure out what we are and report back. It’s not like we make our true natures a secret.

“How’d you find this place?”

I turn back to her, cooler in hand, and pause. She’s at the edge of the water, back to me, her shoes already slipped off and presenting me with her sexy ass as she pulls her leggings up to just under her knees. My cock, already half-hard from the ride, goes rigid and I swear in my head. She just isn’t fair. And the fact that she doesn’t even realize how tempting she’s being makes it that much more difficult to control myself.

Kennedy stands and looks over her shoulder at me, reminding me she’d asked a question.

I stride forward, a bit deeper into the outcropping before dropping the cooler onto the ground.

“Sometimes we just need to let loose and run through the desert,” I say, my voice rough. From the interest on her face, she doesn’t realize why that’d be. She’s forgotten my true nature already, it seems. “One of those times, we found this little oasis. It’s a good place to come when the world gets too much.”

I didn’t tell her I was the one who found it, soon after we’d taken over Devil’s Haven—on a week-long bender when my own fucked-up memories got too heavy. It’s not like I own the place, most of us know about it and come here when we need to retreat. I’d been in full demon form, the flames that gave me my name raging and burning everything within five feet of me.

News had reached us from the region of Hell we’d left behind. My father had put a price on my head, promising wealth and rank for anyone who dragged me back to him so I could fulfill his fucked-up sense of duty.

I’ve no idea if the reward is still there, but I do know demons and other denizens stopped trying to collect after we kept killing anyone who tried.

I consider the small refuge from the way Kennedy might see it. It’s only this close that there’s any suggestion that water’s here. The pool of spring water is maybe ten feet across, and most of it is sheltered under the rocky outcropping. A small sliver of sandy dirt follows the edge into the shade, the opening too wide to be considered a cave and too open for any wildlife bigger than lizards and snakes to make a home of it. Rough sagebrush and other hardy plants crowd the water’s edge in the sun, with two parted breaks where things have pushed through to get a drink of the vital liquid.

Sitting on my ass, I unzip the cooler, hoping the prospect didn’t fuck up the food prep. There are a few women who stick around the clubhouse who help us out, even though they aren’t claimed by any of us, and it looks like the prospect was smart and went to one of them.

“Did you bring me on a picnic?” Kennedy’s voice sounds shocked, and I look up at her with a scowl.

“Do I look like some fancy fucker who goes on picnics?” I grunt out and gesture for her to sit before jerking out the food-filled containers.

She sits about a foot away from me, and I almost grab her by the hips and yank her closer. Instead, I shove a small, cold bottle of wine at her. She takes it before I let it drop to the ground, then studies its white label.

“What? Don’t like that kind?” I ask, setting out one of the Tartarus Taps beers next. “Don’t blame me, I didn’t pack it.”

I feel her gaze on me, but I focus on taking a lid off a container filled with cold slices of rare steak and set it between us.

“No, this is a good one,” she murmurs and then she helps me pull the lids off the other containers. One’s got cut-up strawberries, watermelons, kiwis, blueberries and pineapple. The other has cubes of cheese and at least half a baguette precut for us. Kennedy makes a sound as I scowl at the offerings, and when my gaze cuts to her, a laugh escapes those sweet lips of hers.

“You sure this isn’t a picnic?” she asks, those whiskey-honey eyes of her so bright compared to the blank sorrow I’d seen in them this morning.

I scowl harder, more for show than anything, as I use my keychain to pop the lid off my beer.

“Fuckin’ women and their picnics,” I grumble against the lip of the bottle before taking a long swallow. “Ya want the food or not, kitten?”

In response, she grins at me as she pinches a piece of steak between two fingers and eats it, her tongue darting out to catch the juice on her lower lip.

Fucking hellfire and damnation. My cock doesn’t need any more encouragement, and she doesn’t realize how much danger she’s in.

I bring my feet in, propping my arms on my raised knees, my beer hanging loosely in my fingers as I glare at the surface of the pool. I should never have brought Kennedy here. Should have dropped her off with Sydney or, better yet, with Lacy.

Kennedy stays quiet, shifting until she’s facing the pool, too, the food between us. I do my best to not look at her, but every time she takes a sip of wine straight from that bottle or picks up another piece of food and puts it between her lips, all I can do is grit my teeth and take another drink of beer.

Shit, I don’t even bother trying to eat. If I did and some romance movie shit like our hands brushing happened, my control would snap. I didn’t bring Kennedy out here to fuck her on the ground like some animal. But my cock sure as hell is wondering why not.

The light breeze ripples the surface of the water, the rough bushes rustling gently. I doubt she can hear it, but there are a few lizards skittering across the rocks around us and playful yips of coyote pups in the distance.

My sense of hearing is why I’m comfortable bringing Kennedy out here. I’ll hear anyone before they get within a thousand feet of us, no matter how good they think they are.

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