“Look, if he can’t take me, I’m walking. You can’t keep me prisoner. I need the scrolls. Not only to see if I can find something in them to help my mother, but to ensure their safety,” she explained. I could hear Voodoo talking to her in an insistent but calm tone.
“Too bad. Bye, big brother,” she said sweetly before ending the call and holding my phone out to me. “So, are you giving me a ride, or am I walking?”
“You really think I can’t keep you here?” I asked with a huffed laugh. “You can’t walk all the way back downtown.”
“Wanna try me?” she asked with an arched brow. Some second sense told me she would find a way. Also, I had no idea if she could use her magnified magic shit to incapacitate me. That would piss me off, because then I wouldn’t be able to do jack shit to try to protect her if something happened.
Fucking hell.
I heaved a sigh. “Where the fuck is it?”
The smile she gave me was brilliant and had my dick lurching in my jeans. That was enough to remind me of everything that had transpired. All the way around I was fucked—with a capitalF.
Voodoo was going to kill me. I would be disobeying his direct order to stay where we were. I had no idea if this supposed prophecy was real—though her magnified power obviously happened. That couldn’t be denied. Also, if those crazy-ass people were waiting for her somewhere, how was I going to protect her? Not that the alpha male in me wasn’t pounding on his chest and saying I would do anything for her—which I needed to analyze later—but I was a realist. I wasn’t going to let something happen to her due to my inflated ego.
She told me where we needed to go. I plugged the address into my phone and realized it was maybe an hour or so from where we were. Too far for her to walk, but on the bike, it was nothing. Maybe we could make it there and back before he knew we were gone.
“I need to pee,” she announced. She went inside, did her business, and came back out. While she did that, I pissed on the dried grass.
“You’re going to need a change of clothes,” I murmured to myself, thinking out loud. Shit, I would too. My bag with my change of clothes was at the hotel, with my cut. I seriously felt naked without it.
My phone rang. Inwardly, I groaned when I saw who it was. “Yeah, Voodoo?”
“What the fuck is going on? She didnothang up on me!”
“Oh, but she did.”
I quickly explained the situation and reminded him to get my cut from the safe and my shit from the room if he hadn’t already.
“You’re good. I already secured your shit. Motherfucker,” he cursed. “Let me call Venom. Just give me about thirty minutes or so. We’re trying to come up with a way to get her mother out of the hospital without raising an alarm. If she’s that sick, they aren’t going to want to happily discharge her.”
“Roger that,” I agreed, and he was gone.
“Let’s head back into this little town and see if there’s anywhere we can get some clothes. You can’t keep riding on my bike in a fucking skirt,” I grumbled.
“Thank you!” she excitedly replied. “I think I saw just the place as we passed through the first night.”
“I’m surprised,” I drily admitted. “It was dark as fuck, and most of the time you had your face buried in my back.” I’d felt every move she’d made behind me, but I didn’t want to admit that, so instead of answering, I went inside and opened the side roll-up door. After I backed my bike out, I motioned for her to climb on. I handed my helmet over my shoulder and waited while she put it on.
Once she nodded that she was ready, I gently hit the throttle. Besides not knowing how loose the gravel was, I didn’t want her to fall off. If it was possible, I was more protective of her than I’d been before. It was fucking insane.
We exited the property, ensuring the gate was secure. It was a few short minutes to the town, and I was vigilant the entire way. She tapped my shoulder to point at a western store, and I parked in front.
“Holy crap, it got cold!” she said with a shudder.
“I offered you my coat,” I reminded her, and she rolled her eyes.
“You only have short sleeves on, and I have a sweater. But you know, I might’ve been able to conjure up clean clothes and more food for us,” she offered after climbing off and removing her helmet. A smirk curved her pretty lips. She stared down at me as I still sat on my bike.
“Yeah, and if not, we wouldn’t have had dick shit,” I grumbled, and her smile grew.
“And that would be a damn shame,” she wickedly whispered, then teased me by running her tongue along her lower lip, causing my cock to jump to attention. Dirty clothes, tangled hair, and no makeup looked good on her. She was damn near perfection exactly the way she was.
“Jesus. I created a monster. Let’s go see what they have in here,” I muttered. “I’m not dressing like a fucking hick.”
“Country clothes are actually pretty hip nowadays. Don’t knock it until you see what’s there,” she said with a snort before her laughter rang out as we entered, which drew the attention of the few people that were in the store. Though I would’ve rather kept us unobtrusive, I couldn’t fault them—it was a melodic and captivating sound.
Surprisingly, she picked out a couple pairs of jeans, two long-sleeve shirts, a hoodie, a denim jacket, socks, and a pair of boots. Then she started on me. The T-shirts I grabbed, she plucked from my hands and swapped them for some soft long-sleeve waffle-weave shirts. Next she put my no-name jeans back on the small table, checked the size, and grabbed some trendy distressed-looking ones. She eyed me a moment, then a black pair of square-toes and boot socks were her final additions.