Page 68 of Karma

I chuckle, finding it amazing that I can still laugh after all that. It feels good. “I usually am. He’s not a bad guy. He just wants everyone to think he is. And he’s good at playing the part.”

“Well, he sure fooled us,” Grim says, sounding skeptical. He takes his arm from around my shoulders. “But I think it’s time to stop talking about Joker now.”

He slides his hand under my t-shirt, brushing his callused hand over my stomach as he pulls it up. The sparks of lust it causes fire away at the darkness left by our conversation. I take my shirt off but stop him when he clutches my belt buckle while already nuzzling my neck.

“You know how you like to hold me down when we’re fucking?” I ask. “I don’t like that.”

Most of the blood has now drained from my brain to my cock. That’s probably why I thought it’d be a good idea to bring this up now. Or maybe it’s all the honesty flying around. Or maybe it’s just because he was talking shit about Joker.

He stops kissing me but keeps his hand on my belt. It was probably a bad idea to stop him from doing what he wanted. I’m sick of talking too.

“You know why I do that?” he asks hoarsely, his blue laser eyes burning straight into my brain.

“Yeah, I do. It’s so I won’t move away from you,” I say. “But it just makes me want to kill you.”

He freezes for a split second, his eyes still burning, but they’re hard like ice now. Then he slides his hand up my stomach again, leaving goosebumps in his wake. So maybe I didn’t fuck this up. “I’m sorry to hear that. I just want you to feel good.”

“I know, that’s why I let it happen,” I say, hoping there’s still a way to backtrack from this hard conversation.

“You’re right, I do it to stop you from moving. But not in the way you think.”

Oh, this is gonna be good.

He leans down, his hot breath on my neck making me shiver. “It’s because I can’t get enough of you. And I never want to be far from you.”

I gasp at that, the thousand sarcastic comebacks to whatever he came up with gone like so many soap bubbles.

Karma climbs into my lap and hugs us both. “Aww, I like this so much. I love you both.”

And she proceeds to kiss us both on the cheek. I suppose I could say I feel the same way. It’d be the truth.

But instead I say, “So you’re coming with me tomorrow?”

Which is basically the same thing as saying I love them.

“Yeah, we’re coming,” Grim says and Karma nods and I don’t remember being this happy, ever. Which given the past few weeks with them, is saying a lot.

Now I just gotta convince Joker this is happening. Which might not be the easiest thing in the world. But that’s tomorrow’s problem. Right now, all I gotta do is show them how much I love them both too, even if I can’t say it yet.

35

Grim

Scorpio didn’t even ask how we knew about the girl. Almost like he was glad we found out. Almost like he wanted us to stop it.

But I’ll leave that kind of deductive, intuitive thinking to Karma. I’m a practical guy, that’s how I make sense of the world.

We spent the night and most of the morning together, but he’s been near Joker since early afternoon, only speaking to us long enough to tell us he cleared it with Joker and that we’re coming with them when they leave. After they abduct the girl. Didn’t say where we’re going. Told us to be ready to ride the moment word comes through, which could be anytime tonight.

The sun is setting and we’re packing up the room. The rest of the Forsaken Outlaws will be here before the morning. Karma is dragging her feet, packing her bags up with such care that I know it’s time the two of us had a talk about all this too.

“Ivy and Poison will be here by midnight,” I tell her. “And Toxic, Fatal, and Zero should make it by the morning. Indigo and Rage are still a couple of days out.”

She tosses a sweater she just spent the last five minutes folding into her bag like a piece of trash.

“And then we’ll all be gathered to witness Joker reduce a poor innocent girl to a piece of meat,” she says through gritted teeth. “Great.”

I walk over to her and take her shaking hands in mine.

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