Page 27 of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

8.

Gage

I owed my brothers a call. I owed Blood. After Liv and I decided to spend another couple days here in sunny Virginia Beach, after we managed to persuade ourselves to leave the bed and find something suitable for Liv to wear home, after making a stop at one of the pristine beaches around here and then grabbing a bite to eat, while she passed out back in the hotel room, I called Blood.

“Where’d you go?” he asks as his hello.

“I’m with Liv.”

Silence. Then, “Finally. She okay?”

“Some douchebag started fucking with her. Wouldn’t take her no, got a little rough.”

“You need me?” Blood. I feel his anger through the line. No matter their issues, he loves his sister.

“Not rough in that way, and she’s not ready to deal with the club yet. I’ve gotta go gently with this one, brother. I don’t, she’ll bolt.”

“Fuck. Yeah, I hear ya. God, my sister can be so stubborn. Everyone misses her; she needs to be with family. You sure you still want her? Don’t think she’ll ever give ya harmony.”

“I don’t need harmony, just need Liv. I got her, I got everything.”

“I’m an ass. Wasted so much time being pissed, too blind to see it.”

I walk over to the mini fridge and grab a beer, twist off the cap, then take a long, much-needed pull. He was an ass. My best friend should have known me better than to think I’d ever fuck over his sister. But like I told Liv, so long as he remembers I’m never gonna fuck her over, it’s water under the bridge.

“We stay good, I’ll never bring it up again,” I tell him, laying out the honesty. “But I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

“I’ll let the brothers know if you’d like.”

The day after next Liv and I make the drive back to her house. Tiny town, but she was right, I love it here. What I don’t love is the reason behind me having to be here.

We drive down the little main street—no, not little. We lived in Thornbriar, for Christ’s sake. Quaint. She drives past an old-fashioned nineteen-fifty style gas station I figure has to be the place she works.

She passes it, I pull in. Need to get the lay of the land. In my rearview, I watch Liv pull a u-ie after she saw me turn into the lot.

I’m already out of the truck before she pulls in. So I wait for her to jog up, tits bouncing from her wearing a string bikini under the tank top and shorts we bought her. Whether she likes it or not, my woman is pure biker.

I can’t wait to get home—her home—and get my hands on those tits, get my lips on those pink, pert nipples.

God, Liv is so sexy.

“What are you doing?” she asks, tearing me from thoughts of her tits.

“Need to check shit out.”

This store’s a trip. Rounded white milk glass globes over the pumps with the name Smitty’s painted on them in bold red letters. Talk about a step back in time. It hits me that back when the gas prices rose up above six dollars a gallon a few years back, he must have had a bitch of a time with pump and runs—until I get a better look and see that the pumps are newer, made to look old. Nineteen fifties pumps never had a pay-at-the-pump option.

The cameras I lock on to right away. Two pointing out to the pumps, one pointing at the door to the store.

A bell jingles overhead when I walk inside, holding the door open for Liv. An old man squints at me, but his eyes light up at the sight of Liv.

“What are you doing back, sweetheart? Thought I gave you time off for stalker behavior,” he says to her.

Liv actually laughs. I glare.

“Had some trouble the other day at the beach,” Liv admits. The old man’s back goes rigid.

“He hurt you?”

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