Page 10 of The Devil's Pair

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Jolene Angeles gazed out the cabin window at the lush green of the Rockies, falling in love with them all over again. She was a pretty recent arrival to Colorado – after being born and raised in New Mexico – and a big part of the draw to the state had been the mountains. Years of looking at them in photos had justcemented her belief that the Rockies were the most breathtaking backdrop for a life,anylife at all. So when Jo had been looking to get the hell away from her physically and emotionally abusive husband, Brian, she’d gone looking for accounting jobs in Denver.

Coming to work for The Road Devils motorcycle club had been, without a doubt, the craziestandthe best decision that she’d made in recent years, maybe in her entire life. From the word go, she’d been welcomed and respected, treated better by a bunch of rough-and -ready bikers than she had been by her own husband.

She’d escaped her marriage one weekend while Brian was away at a law conference, just packed a backpack and a single suitcase, rented a car and pointed the wheels east and away from the hell that had become her new normal. Stopping in Nebraska for an overnight stay had started with meeting Zeke ‘Silver’ Bennett in a bar, and had ended with her leaping into her first-ever one-night-stand.

That encounter with Silver had shaken Jo to her absolute core, and in more ways than one. He wasn’t the first man that she’d ever slept with, obviously, but hewasthe first to truly show her what her body was capable of, to show her what pleasure a man’s body could give her.

But it wasn't just the physical and sexual equivalent of an atom bomb that had left such an impact on Jo. It was the intoxicating mixture of tenderness and passion that Silver had shown her: being taken against a wall with abandon and trust was something that she hadneverexperienced before, most certainly not with Brian. Silver’s touch had awakened something within her that she had thought was long,longgone…he’d brought her fully back to herself in a single night of lust and desire and need.

Then she’d woken up the next morning and he was gone. All that had remained of their shared night was an indentation in his pillow, and the faint scent of rose bubble bath from the previous night’s wild, abandoned frolics in the massive tub.

That had hurt, to be sure, but Jo had gamely shaken it off as she packed up all of her earthly possessions in her rental car, and made her way to Denver. After one interview with Wolf Connor, the sexiest-slash-scariest man she’d ever met in the flesh, she’d accepted the job offer on the spot – all the while totally unaware that Silver was a fully patched-in member of The Road Devils MC.

It had been one hell of a shock when he’d turned up the next day to meet the new accountant, and realized that the one-night-stand that he’d taken off on a few states over was actually standing in front of him. It had been rough – it had actually beenhellish– between them for a while. But Jo and Silver had worked it all out, they’d opened up and been honest, and rediscovered each other while fully clothed. It had been nothing but a revelation to them that the sizzling sexual chemistry between them, in many ways, took second place to the fact that they reallyreallyliked each other.

Jo had built a whole new life in Denver, firstdespiteSilver’s resolved ambushes and then resolutelywithhim, and she’d been happy. Deeply, truly happy.

Then one night Brian returned. Just strolled on up to her cute little house, knocked on the door and stupidly, she’d opened it, thinking it was the pizza delivery guy. What followed was about ninety minutes of sheer hell on earth, five thousand, four hundred seconds of pure, shrieking terror: she had thought she was going to die, no doubt and no hope. That had been soul-destroyingly terrifying – and the feeling somehow managed to ratchet up several levels when Silver showed up, just dropping by to surprise Jo after returning from his road-trip.

At gunpoint, Brian had forced her to talk to Silver through the door, and she knew – she justknew– that if she gave herself away at all, Brian would blast a bullet through the wood, killing the unsuspecting Silver where he stood.

She was utterly convinced that she was going to die that night, but Silver didn’t have to join her as she was brutally yanked off this mortal coil. So through the door, she’d called Silver ‘Zeke’ – his non-MC name that he never used anymore – and for the first time, she told Silver that she loved him. Then hoping against hope that he’d received her coded message, she listened to him turn and walk away, leaving her in a living nightmare. In those seconds, Jo realized that even if Silver hadn’t caught on that she was in trouble, at least he knew how she felt about him. She would leave this world telling the pure, shining truth to the man that she loved.

Thankfully, he’d known that something was very,verywrong, and so he crept into the house through the back door. To that day, Jo couldn’t imagine the scene that he’d stepped into: her on her bed, trapped under Brian, beaten and bloody, snarling and spitting at him, defying him one last time and with her last breaths.

From there, things got a bit hazy in Jo’s memory. Vaguely, she remembered Silver pulling Brian off of her; as if in a dream, she remembered the men fighting (though Silver had had the advantage from the word go, partly thanks to the element of surprise, partly because he towered over Brian, partly due to his black belt in karate). At some point, Jo had picked up Brian’s gun, and this is where things snapped back into sharp focus:

I shot him. I shot him three times, as he knelt in front of me and begged and blubbered for his vile, pathetic life. I blew his face off even as he wailed for mercy.

As always when she told herselfI shot him, Jo probed her feelings, hard and deep and unforgiving. And as always, shedidn’t regret killing Brian. Not at all. Shedid, however, feel guilt for other reasons. Namely, the fact that she had dragged The Road Devils into her murder and its aftermath.

Silver. Wolf. Scars. Ice. Viking. Cain. Jo knew for certain that the six of them had been directly involved in disposing of her husband’s blown-apart body, and then initiating a CIA-worthy coverup. She didn’t know the details – Wolf had seen tothatdamn quick – but she knew that because of those tough, hard men, Brian had disappeared, as surely as if he’d never even been.

Oh, she knew that the MC had a shady, questionable past, so she was sure that this wasn’t their first body dump. But still… this one was a direct result ofheractions. It was because ofherthat they’d been put in the position of hiding a bunch of bloody evidence.

Evidence of whatshe’ddone.

She felt guilt about that, and no matter how often Silver told her that the guys were OK with it, that they’d do it again a hundred times over if it meant that she was safe and breathing, shestillfelt guilty.

She figured that she always would.

This is my penance.

She heard a noise behind her now, and she turned from the strong, beautiful mountains to see a strong, sexy mountain of a man standing there. He studied her for a few seconds, those clear, shimmering eyes as astonishing to her now as they had been that first night in the bar. Shestillcouldn’t believe that a patch of moonlight had left its heavenly home and just decided to take up permanent residence on a human face, but there it was. Therehewas.

Blond and silver, broad and muscular and bearded, always bringing a strange, rough grace and power to even the simplest of movements: shutting a door, crossing a room, talking topeople, removing his jacket to show dark tattoos the length of both arms. Ridiculously square jaw, chiselled cheekbones, full lips.

Silver Bennett. My personal filthy fantasy brought to life, as I live and breathe.

“Hey, angel,” he said in that rough voice that was somehow the safestandmost dangerous thing she’d ever heard. “You OK?”

She cocked her head at him, gave him a smile. “You want the truth?”

“Yeah. Always.” He put his cell phone in his jeans pocket, came closer. When he took her in his arms, Jo let herself fall into that body, with its muscles and grooves and ridges; she always felt like she was home when she was up against Silver. “So, are you? OK?”

“Better.”

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