Page 40 of Texas Hold Em’ (The Devil’s Luck MC #3)

CARRIE

A single ice-blue eye stared unblinking at me. All around it was darkness so thick I could have sworn I’d fallen into a well of ink. The eye narrowed even though it was lidless, and a hollow laugh rang in my ears. I lifted my hands to cover them but found I didn’t have hands.

Where was I?

What was this place?

Surely, it wasn’t real.

The eye spoke.

“You broke our deal, sweetheart. Do you remember what I said? I have a bullet saved for you, Miss Hart. It’s all shiny and new, but it belongs in your skull. You should have killed him.”

My ears rang with Bates’s voice. It sounded like he was inside me. Desperate, I tried to escape the sheer nothingness all around me, but there was nowhere to go. Everywhere I turned I was met with more darkness and that single, penetrating, ruthless eye.

“You should have killed him.”

I tried to scream, but I had no mouth. No lungs. No tongue.

“You should have killed him.”

“You should have killed him.”

“You should have killed him. ”

I sat up drenched in sweat and rubbed at my eyes.

The darkness of the dream fell away and I peered around at Tex’s bedroom.

It was half past six in the morning. The sun was just beginning to rise, and deep orange light shone through the warehouse windows overhead.

I tilted my head back and gazed out at the sky as it slowly faded from dark blue, to purple, to blue.

Somewhere outside a bird sang his morning song.

It was just a dream. I brought my knees up to my chest, rested my forehead on them, and closed my eyes. Just a dream.

The battle at the landfill had been two nights ago.

Like all surreal things, it felt like it had never happened except for when we were around Jackson, who was still having a hard time with the giant hole in his side.

He’d been shot by Moss with a large caliber bullet from some sort of rifle, and the damage had been damn near impossible for Brody to repair in what little time he had to work with.

His fix had been messy, rushed, but effective, and he was able to stop the bleeding and patch Jackson up before things got too dicey.

Bates was in the wind.

Nobody had heard a peep about him, his daughter, or Moss. The three of them were gone, like smoke.

I hadn’t decided yet if that made me more nervous than knowing where they were. Bates wasn’t the sort of man to run from a fight, so I knew his absence meant his health was bad. Tex had either killed him or nearly killed him.

In time, we’d find out which was true, but I doubted the man was dead. Something told me we’d have to work harder to achieve that task. I sighed and tried to think about anything other than Bates’s eye and his voice in my dream.

If or when Bates returned, he’d be out for my blood. I’d be safer in Austin.

Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I looked over at Tex sleeping soundly beside me. He slept on his back, his face turned slightly away from me, his right hand resting on his bare chest. The blankets were down around his hips, showing off his cut stomach, muscular chest, and the cut of his hips.

He still had to wear a thin bandage over the gash in his hip where Caroline had grazed him with a bullet, but Brody told us the stiches would dissolve in a week or two, and he’d be good to go.

His ribs hadn’t bothered him as much this weekend because we’d taken it easy, but he was far from healed.

Every now and then if he twisted the wrong way or stood up too fast, he’d hiss in pain, and I’d be reminded of that terrible night when he’d died and I almost lost him.

Neither he nor Brody had yet to say a word about what really happened in this room that night.

I brought it up to Brody last night. We’d all been at Grant’s, as per usual. Suzie and Mason were out in the shop tinkering away on William’s bike, trying to get the repairs underway and fix the damage I’d done. Jackson and Sam weren’t there. They were home resting.

But the rest of us sat sipping beers, shooting the shit, pretending just for the night that we were safe and all was right with the world.

At one point I caught Brody alone in the kitchen, and I’d asked him what happened. How had they pulled it off when the defibrillator didn’t work?

Brody had gone quiet and refused to look at me. A good ten seconds passed before he finally looked me in the eye and told me not to ask him about it anymore. With that, he’d left me in the kitchen staring after him.

Whatever they’d done, it scarred them both.

Tex avoided the subject all together. One of these days I’d get it out of him, but it didn’t have to be today. Today, all I wanted to be was grateful.

So I curled back under the blankets and watched him sleep.

Twenty or so minutes slipped through my fingers as I lay there, watching his eyelids flicker in dreams. I hoped they were more pleasant than mine.

When he started to stir, I reached out and caressed his cheek, liking how the stubble on his jaw tickled my palm.

He hadn’t gotten around to shaving. Things had been too crazy.

I thought the facial hair suited him .

He opened his eyes as he rolled toward me. “Were you watching me again?”

“Watching you?” I scoffed. “Why would I? That sounds terribly boring.”

“I could feel your eyes on me, woman. They’re like lasers.”

“I was thinking.”

“About?”

“About what I’m going to do next.”

His brow furrowed. “Austin or Reno, you mean?”

I propped my head up with my chin in my hand. “I made up my mind.”

He sighed and put a hand on my hip. “It’s okay. I understand.”

Poor, foolish, silly man. “I choose Reno,” I said simply.

He blinked.

I grinned in earnest. “More importantly, I choose you.”

Tex rolled on top of me and pinned me beneath him. “Don’t play games with me.”

“No games. I want to stay.”

“You’d be giving up a lot. Too much. Your home, your badge, your family. With Bates still on the loose, you’ll have to tread lightly. Keep to small circles. Will it be enough for you?”

How could he not understand yet? He was everything to me. Not enough?

“I could have everything in the world, and if you weren’t in it?

It would never be enough,” I said. “You’re infuriating.

You smoke like a chimney. You’re stubborn as hell and nobody makes me as angry as you do.

But nobody fills me up the way you do, either.

I like who I am with you, Tex. I can be myself.

This is something rare between us. I can’t give it up.

Not for a badge, or a job, or anything.”

He searched my eyes as if looking for a lie, like he didn’t quite believe what I was saying.

Then he smiled and winked. “Nobody fills you up like I do, huh?”

I pushed at his chest and rolled my eyes. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I? Can’t you be serious for two minutes?”

“Can’t you lighten up for two minutes? ”

“Don’t turn things around on me.”

He wedged a knee between my thighs. “I know how to lighten you up. Or should I say, loosen you up.”

I giggled as he descended upon me. “Tex!”

“Don’t play coy.”

I tried to escape him, but he was too strong, and his kisses were too sweet. I let him run his lips all over me and he worked his way down the length of my stomach to settle between my legs. There, he held me down by my hips and swirled his tongue over me, tasting me, teasing me, torturing me.

I rolled my hips and ran my fingers through his hair as he worked.

His tongue set my veins on fire.

In the back of my mind, I knew that we still had a hell of a fight ahead of us. This thing with Bates wasn’t over, and Tex and I would have our part in the fight soon enough. Maybe we’d get lucky again. Maybe not.

Either way, having him for however long I was able to? It would be worth it. I had to believe that. When the fight came, we’d rise to it.

Until then, we’d kiss, fuck, and kiss some more. We’d fall deeper into each other. I’d learn all the things about him I didn’t already know, and I’d share all the parts of myself I’d never shared with anyone before. I’d let him in.

All the way in.

Tex eased two fingers inside me. My back arched and I cooed his name to the ceiling. He sealed his lips over my clit and suckled, pulling me into his lips and rolling his tongue over me. I was so sensitive. I whimpered and writhed until I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I came for him.

He leaned over me and I twisted around, reaching for the condom drawer. He chuckled as I passed it to him. I watched, hungry and empty, as he rolled it on his cock.

He dropped his hips to mine and pressed into me. I moaned.

“Fuck,” he growled. “So fucking tight baby.”

I clung to him. Pleaded for him to fuck me. To take me. To use me. Devour me .

He did. He fucked me mercilessly and then tenderly, stealing my breath before breathing it back into me. Cradling me and then pinning me down. He flipped me over and took me from behind, slapping my ass, pulling my hair, and whispering in my ear all the dirty things he wanted to do to me later.

“One of these nights, I’m going to take your ass,” he breathed, his breath hot against my neck, his fingers knotted in my hair.

I strained against the pleasure as he thrust inside me, deep and slow. “Take whatever you want. I’m yours.”

Tex ran a hand across my throat. “Anticipation is half the fun.”

I shuddered beneath him.

He left kisses on my neck where his hand had been and moved his lips to my ear. “I love you, baby.”

I smiled. “I love you too.”

He bucked hard, his cock filling me up. I cried out in pleasure as I broke, and his orgasm followed seconds behind mine.

We both fell apart, panting and smiling, and stared up at the ceiling.

I wondered if he had the same worries as me or if the constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop lifestyle had become normal for him.

I felt his eyes on me.

“Yes?” I asked.

“What are you thinking about?”

I licked my lips. Did he want the real answer?

I was thinking about how much time we had left and how it would all end.

I was thinking about Sam and Jackson and the secret baby in her belly that hardly a soul knew about.

I was thinking about the eye in my dream and the real-life man it belonged to, somewhere out there in the world, wishing me dead.

I rolled over to face Tex and smiled. “How lucky I am to be yours.”

He pulled me to him for sweet kisses that left me tingling and wanting him all over again. “I’m the lucky one. You’re sure that’s all?”

I nodded and ran a hand down his chest. “Well, there’s one other thing.”

“Yes?”

“Do you think Jackson will let me ride with the MC? ”

Tex rolled onto his back and laughed at the ceiling. “Don’t push your luck, Hart.”

I savored his laughter as it rolled through me and let it replace the echo of Bates’s voice.

You should have killed him.

I nodded toward the hall. “Join me in the shower?”

Tex grabbed my ass. “After I smoke.”

“Ah, of course. I’ll start the water. Don’t take too long.” I rolled out of bed and strode naked out of the room. “I need you.”