Almost. He pulled back. "You have to stop me," he murmured on her lips. "I can't stop. You have to do it."

"I don't want to stop. I want to be with you. I want it so bad." She looped her arms around his neck, and he lifted her off the ground, clutching her close. They stood like that on the sidewalk, kissing deeply, Demon thinking of nothing at all anymore except his need, feeling her body touching his all the way to her feet. She felt right there. She fit with him.

She pulled back from their kiss and looked at him, panting, her lips glistening and her eyes sparkling in the streetlights. "We need to go someplace. Will you ride if I drive?"

He nodded and covered her mouth with his again.

Faith didn't drive far, just about ten minutes, to an empty parking lot on a bluff overlooking the coast. They didn't talk on the way; Demon looked out the pa.s.senger window and watched the pa.s.sing lights, trying to think and make a right choice, but knowing full well that that boat had sailed. He wasn't really drunk anymore. He was just tired of fighting his nature.

She killed the engine and leaned toward him immediately, shifting on the bench seat so that she was on her knees at his side. She took his face in her hands, the way he did when he kissed her. When she bent her head to his, he flinched back a fraction of an inch.

"Stop me. Please stop me."

"No," she whispered. "I don't want to stop. I think I'm in love with you."

Demon didn't know how that could be true, but he didn't care. Hearing this girl say those words sent a surge of powerful need through his blood, his muscles. He was done running. Taking over the kiss, demanding that it be more, he grabbed her, pulling her onto him. Then he rolled and laid her out on the seat and covered her with his body. Her legs came up and circled his hips, and he could feel her heat grinding against his, heedless of the layers of denim between them.

Groaning, feeling desperate and frantic, and fearful, too, he pushed her sweater up, and her bra, and covered her beautiful breast with his hand. She cried out an encouragement, a plea, and her own hands moved between them and worked the buckle on his belt.

He didn't stop. He couldn't.

You a.s.shole. You b.a.s.t.a.r.d. On the seat of her car. In a parking lot. It was her first time, you piece of s.h.i.t.

The thoughts and their loathing besieged him while his body still shook with the aftershocks of his finish, while she was staring up at him, her eyes wide and wet, her hands on his shoulders, digging into the hoodie he still wore.

He sat back in a rush and felt the cooling, wet stick of s.e.m.e.n on his belly. He looked at her, still lying on her back, her legs splayed, one bare and the other still in her jeans, and saw the wet on her belly, too, glimmering in the parking lot lights. He'd come all over her. Because he hadn't been able to control himself enough to put a condom on. He'd barely been able to pull out. Jesus. Aw, Jesus h.e.l.l.

She was noticing her sticky belly and looking for something to wipe up with. He yanked his hoodie over his head and handed it to her. It was February and cold for L.A., but his t-shirt would have to do. He deserved to be cold.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. G.o.d, G.o.d, I'm sorry." He opened the door and got the f.u.c.k out of the car, leaving his kutte behind, not even bothering to put his stupid d.i.c.k away.

"Michael! Michael, please! Please!"

At the plaintive sound of her voice, he pulled up short. What-he was going to top off the worst thing he'd ever done by leaving her alone, covered in his sc.u.m? f.u.c.k, he was worthless. Despairing, he raked his hands through his hair and over his face. He could smell her on his fingers. The image that scent evoked made him hurt with need and guilt.

He closed his jeans. Before he could open the door and get back in, though, she was out and running around Dante. She was crying and furious, and his face felt so f.u.c.king hot. Look how he'd hurt her. He couldn't see that, deal with that, so he dropped his eyes and stared at the gravel.

"You're ruining it! You jerk! You p.u.s.s.y! Don't ruin this! f.u.c.k! f.u.c.k you! f.u.c.k!" She shoved at him, sobbing. When he didn't react, she shoved at him again.

Then she just grabbed hold of his t-shirt and shook it.

Not knowing what else to do, and feeling like a wart on the a.s.s of a maggot, he put his arms around her and pulled her close. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it, any of it. I'm sorry."

"Stop it! Shut up!" she cried, her face wetting his chest. "Don't be sorry. I told you. It ruins everything."

He was sorry, but he was making it worse by saying so. He thought of something he could say. "I'm sorry for making you cry."

She was quiet for a moment, settling down. "Okay. You can be sorry for that."

That made him smile, and he kissed the top of her head. "What we did was okay?"

Her face moved softly on his chest as she nodded. "I liked it a lot. It was even better than I thought it would be."

"I didn't hurt you?"

"Uh-uh." She leaned back. "I just feel a little...stretched, maybe?"

The relief he felt to know that he hadn't hurt her weakened his knees. But it didn't mean that what they'd done was right. He'd had his patch a matter of hours, and he'd just f.u.c.ked the club SAA's underage daughter. He'd taken her virginity, in fact. There would be a huge price for that. There should be.

"I should get you home."

She grinned and shook her head. "I drove, remember? We go when I say so. Right now, I want to sit on the car and watch the ocean." Her eyes narrowed. "Please don't puss out."

He nodded, and they went and sat on the hood of her car. Demon put his arm around her and held her close. It felt good to take care of her, to keep her warm, to tuck her small body next to his as if he could keep her safe.

"Can I ask you something, Michael?" She didn't look at him, just stared out at the black night and water below.

"Yeah." He watched her profile.

"Why do you run?"

"What?"

"You kiss me like you do. You look at me sometimes like I'm dipped in chocolate. You gave me a cat. We just did what we did, and I felt like you liked it. Like you like me."

"I did. I do." More than that, he thought. But he didn't say it.

"Then why do you run?"

"You're just a kid." It was the best reason he had.

She scoffed. "Please. Maybe-maybe-that was true when we met. But now I'm seventeen and almost seven months. Connor boinked my friend Bethany a couple of weeks ago, and she turned eighteen last month. n.o.body had palpitations about that. Does some magical fairy come to girls' houses on their eighteenth birthday and make their t.w.a.ts ripe or something?"

Appalled and charmed by her take on the matter, Demon laughed. But his humor didn't last long. "Your father...he'll-"

"I know, I know." She heaved a big sigh. "G.o.d, my life sucks."

That p.i.s.sed him off, and he took his arm from her shoulders. The life she had-what he would have given to have had even a piece of a life like that. She was surrounded by people who loved her. The way everybody in the clubhouse doted on her-and G.o.d, the way Blue loved her and she loved him? Sometimes, he'd watch them, Faith smiling at her father, her father teasing her gently, calling her kitty cat, and his stomach would cramp. Was it envy he felt? No. There was hostility in envy that Demon didn't feel toward Faith.

What he felt when he saw the way she was loved, and the way she was so comfortable and a.s.sured in that love, was just...lack.

"That's f.u.c.ked up. Your life doesn't suck at all. You have a great life."

Instead of feeling guilty, she got p.i.s.sed right back. "What do you know about it?"

"I know you have a mom and dad who love you, and a house with your own room, and a car of your own, and you do pretty much what you want and have pretty much what you want. I know that much. Trust me-that isn't a life that sucks."

Her anger evaporated. "Okay. It's not always so great, though."

He couldn't stay mad, either. Not at her. "I know. Sorry I jumped down your throat. I'm just saying-could be worse."

"Yeah. It makes me sad that yours was."

He shrugged and put his arm back around her. "What do we do now?"

"You're not running?"

It was too late to run. "No. But Blue is going to take me apart when I tell him. Even if he doesn't kill me, I'll probably lose my patch." He tried to laugh, but the sound that came out was something different. "I don't even have the thing sewn on yet."

"Don't tell him. Not yet."

"You want to wait?" That was the wisest course. It made him feel sick, though, now, after he'd given in and knew what it was like to love her. He wasn't sure he could go back to avoiding her.

But she shook her head. "No. I don't want to wait. I just don't want to say anything."

"You want to sneak? To lie?" Demon was well acquainted with sneaking and lying-it was how he'd survived a lot of things he'd had to survive-but he didn't want to start his life in the club that way.

"Just until I'm eighteen. He'll still be p.i.s.sed then, but there'll be less he can do about it. I don't want you to get hurt-and I don't want you to lose your patch. I know what it means. But I don't want to not see you. If you want to be with me, then I want to be with you. I don't want to wait. We'll just have to be careful for a little while."

"Why? I'm no good. Why do you want this?"

Her smile was the sweetest thing he'd ever seen. "I told you. Because I love you, stupid. You are good, and I'm in love with you."

He believed her. He'd do anything for her.

Even betray a brother.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Faith had felt better once she got back home. Not really thinking it through, just knowing she couldn't leave him behind again, she'd brought Sly back with her. He'd ridden contently most of the way, curled on her lap, b.u.mping his head on her arm when he'd wanted to be stroked.

He'd been slow and suspicious when she'd set him down on the worn wood floor of her loft, but it was a big, wide-open s.p.a.ce with wide, long windows lining two whole walls, so he'd slunk around a while and then found a sill to camp on. She'd run out to the all-night market a couple of blocks down and brought back cat food. He'd dined in mismatched china bowls. All of her dishes were oddball flea market finds. She liked to make mismatched things match.

In the morning, she'd woken with her old cat curled up on her pillow with her, purring, his furry paw on her head, flexing his claws into her ear in a gentle, contented rhythm. She'd lain still and enjoyed that as long as she could.

Just having a shower with her own stuff and putting actual clothes on, her jewelry, doing her hair and makeup-just that made her feel more in control of herself, if not of the new circ.u.mstances of her life. Going to Madrone in the middle of the night in ratty sweats had been like going to battle without armor.

Now, though, she was back in the world she knew, out in her life, taking care of her business, and she felt strong again. Protected. A niggling thought had crept in the back door to suggest that she didn't have to return to Madrone, that her mother's problems were not her problems, that whatever she and Michael had had was old news and should stay that way, that she could just pretend the past couple of days had never happened and return to her regularly scheduled programming.

But that was impossible, too. She couldn't know what was going on and stay away. Her mother was cold and could be cruel, and Faith wasn't sure she deserved her love. But she couldn't leave that mess to Bibi. Bibi couldn't do everything.

And now that she'd seen Michael, she had to know.

So, dressed in one of her favorite outfits, wearing her very favorite studded combat boots, looking hot and feeling strong, Faith began to take the steps that would, if necessary, close up the life she'd built for herself, by herself, so she could go home to a place she'd never lived and take care of a mother who didn't want her.

She'd gone down to Slow Drips with her tablet to send and answer emails and try to make a couple of quick appointments. With that sort of boring, administrative work, she'd learned that she focused better away from home. She was more focused on the work she did at home, then, too, if it wasn't tainted by the gloom of business.

At home, she made her art-that was why she had the loft. She had a whole floor of an old warehouse that was in the middle of being refurbished into condos. Hers was still, for the most part, a warehouse, with some rudimentary refits for a kitchen and a bathroom. It was a rental, and she knew d.a.m.n well she wouldn't be able to afford to buy one of the condos when they got around to renovating her unit. But until then, she was getting a great rate and her landlord was pretty chill about her doing heavy-duty welding at home.

How she would manage to keep making art if she had to move to Madrone long-term, she didn't know. She had a couple of commissions, one of them huge. She would have to work that out. Somehow.

After she finished her emails and got back confirmations on two appointments, she packed up and ran some errands, walking around her neighborhood for as many of them as she could.

Venice Beach was both an L.A. neighborhood and its own unique little place. It was different from just about everywhere Faith had ever been, and she'd been to some interesting places. She'd traveled quite a bit, and she'd lived in the Haight in San Francisco for about eight years. But when she'd lived there, the Haight was becoming gentrified, full of gajillion-dollar Victorians and lofts. There had still been signs of its Flower Power heyday, but they were more museum pieces than neighborhood landmarks.

The same thing was happening to Venice-hence the precarious future of her awesomely rugged apartment-but more slowly, she thought, with more resistance from the locals. And the boardwalk continued to be a cornucopia of freakiness. She loved it.

What she knew of Madrone did not inspire in her any confidence that she could be happy in a life there, even without the specter of taking care of Margot. Faith pretty much thought the whole Inland Empire was an armpit. She didn't understand why the club had moved out of the eclectic bustle of L.A. to some rinky-d.i.n.k subdivision town.

Madrone was pretty, sitting between the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains, but it was pretty in a doctor's-office-waiting-room-print sort of way. Faith liked this kind of pretty. Venice Beach was pretty in an ugly way. Nothing matched, but everything belonged together. Like her sculptures. Like her.

She had a late lunch meeting with the director of the park that had commissioned the big piece she was making: a twenty-foot-long snake that would sit at the entrance to the new children's area and be suitable for climbing. She was working in four five-foot segments, and had most of the third segment finished.

It had been a nightmare to navigate the logistics of merging her style of art-using scavenged and salvaged metal parts-with the safety needs of what amounted to a big jungle gym. Rusty engine parts were sharp. Also rusty. Not so great on little hands and knees. But the park board loved the idea of recycled art and had been so taken with a piece she'd had installed in the courtyard of the Children's Hospital-two children flying a kite, one of them in a wheelchair-that they'd offered her the commission without even opening it up for applications. She would never have applied to a playground project.

She'd worked it out, but it took longer, because she had to file and seal the segments once they were created. She'd already asked for one extension. Now she'd had to ask for another. And she'd lied when she'd told the director that she needed only three more months.

There was no telling, at this point, whether she could finish it at all.

But she put that doubt out of her head and drove back home. Things would work out, one way or another. It was a pretty fair bet that whatever happened with the snake, the result wouldn't kill her. That was true for her mother, too. Probably. So she'd just keep on keeping on.

With that mentality, she parked Dante in her s.p.a.ce in the garage under her building, gathered up her few purchases, and headed to the door that led into the back stairwell of the building. There was an elevator, but it hadn't worked while she'd lived here, a victim of the construction happening on other floors.

The back door was locked. That was true almost half the time, but Faith's landlord had never gotten around to getting her a key for this door. So she huffed a sigh, shifted her canvas bags around to a more long-term hold, and walked through the garage street entrance and around the block to the front door.

Born to a biker and raised in an MC, Faith always noticed the motorcycles around her. She had strong opinions on just about every make, model, and iteration. She didn't ride herself-her father would never teach her, and after she'd left home it hadn't been a priority to learn-but the interest and knowledge was deeply ingrained, like it was coded into her genetics.

So she noticed the mammoth Harley V-Rod Muscle, a gorgeous, highly customized model, solid matte black with a big, fat rear tire, at least a 300, maybe even a 330. The thing looked like it had been ridden straight up from the fires of h.e.l.l.

No matter what had happened with her family, she was a biker's daughter. Faith felt a thrill just looking at that beautiful bike, a thrill so sharp it honestly made her a little wet.

Then she saw the art on the tank. Night Horde SoCal. A horse skeleton with a flaming mane and tail. And in script below: "Demon."

She stared at that tank and then turned and stared at the door into her building. Was he in there? For a long, breathless moment, she stood on the sidewalk, holding her bags, letting people pa.s.s by her, and stared.

Finally, she went in.