Maybe he should ask Blythe and shock the holy hell out of her, not that much shocked her. She’d taken Czar back and taken the entire club in as if she were a mother hen. He had to admit he actually felt affection and admiration for her when he thought he was long past real emotion. Blythe and her troubled children. He could relate to them—unfortunately for them.
He walked with the older woman for another block, listening to her chatter on about her adorable granddaughter. When she paused and he had no choice but to fill the silence with words, he talked about his darling “nieces” and “nephews.” He supposed it wasn’t a lie. They didn’t have to be related by birth. All members of Torpedo Ink were his brethren. That meant their children were part of his life, right? That was how it worked in his world whether it did or not in the “normal” world.
Movement caught his eye as he turned the corner with a little wave at the woman, who went straight. A white dress with flowers all over it. Not just any dress. A fuckin’ sundress like women wore in old movies. She was across the street, standing in the sunlight, and she might as well have been wearing a halo. She looked so beautiful she took his breath away. He actually stopped walking right there on the sidewalk to stare at her—which was fucking nuts because he was on a job.
The top of the dress was fitted, and its wearer had amazing tits. They filled out the material of the sundress to perfection, pushing against the bodice as if seeking freedom. The front of the dress was tight but gathered around the cleavage line. His palms itched to tug down that fitted camisole and free those mouthwatering tits. His mouth actually salivated. He would stand behind her and slowly pull the material free until the bodice was under those soft curves and her tits spilled into his hands.
She had a face most men would fight and die for—at least him. High cheekbones. Large eyes. A mouth made for kissing. Lips to wrap around a man’s cock. Just like that his fucking dick reacted. On the street. Looking at a fully clothed woman. The proverbial girl next door. What the hell?
He dropped his hand over the front of his jeans, just to make sure he wasn’t having some kind of a hallucination. He was shocked when nothing ever shocked him anymore. He didn’t have natural erections. That had been beat out of him a long time ago. There was nothing whatsoever normal about him and sex. Nothing.
He forced his hand away from his jeans and took another long look at the woman. Her rib cage and waist were narrow, accentuated by the tight bodice. The skirt flared out, drawing attention to her legs. She had gorgeous legs. He could almost feel them wrapped around him. Hell if his erection was going away anytime soon, not when he was having fantasies like that about her.
She hesitated at the crosswalk but then turned to walk back toward a man who seemed to be calling out to her. He thought he was a breast man, but the way her perfect ass swayed with that white floral skirt was enough to change his mind.
Her hair glowed in the sun, so shiny it hurt his eyes. Dark, cascading down her back, it was thick and just wild enough to ruin that good-girl vibe she had going on. She shook her head at something the man said to her and started to turn away, back toward the street. The man, dressed in an impeccable suit, grabbed her arm and jerked her back to him.
Ice felt it then. The glacier. That blue well deep inside him, glacier cold, so cold it burned. Need was there—the need to kill. It was . . . overwhelming. It swept over him like a tidal wave, yet deep inside he was frozen. He took a step toward the edge of the sidewalk. Cars rushed by, but he hardly noticed them. Time had tunneled. Pulled him into a cold, dark place he was all too familiar with.
A whistle pierced through the glacier, the sound causing a long, jagged crack to penetrate that deep, dense blue. That note shook him out of his head, and Ice glanced away from the couple. His twin, parallel to him, was already at the crosswalk and headed toward him with the green light. Shit. He’d just made the biggest ass of himself in the history of mankind. His brother was already as worried as hell, and this little episode wasn’t going to take any pressure off.
Their quarry was a good block ahead of them. Storm had dropped back to cover him. He gestured toward them and started walking. He couldn’t help stealing a glance at the couple. She continued to shake her head. The suit was angry, glaring at her. Making demands. She refused. Good for her. Money didn’t make up for lack of character. He should know. He had more money than he knew what to do with, but character? Not so much.
“What the fuck?” Storm hissed, falling into step beside him. “We can’t lose them.”
They picked up the pace, winding through the crowd to catch up with the two men they followed.
“I wasn’t planning on losing them,” Ice muttered, pulling his cap down farther to shadow his face. “I knew you were on them.”
“A woman? You almost blow this hunt over a woman? You need to get laid, Ice, we can pick up a dozen women when we get this thing done.”
Ice looked at his brother for the first time, letting him see how close he was to losing his shit.
Storm scowled and shook his head. “You go, I go. That was the deal we made.”
“We were seven years old when we made that deal,” Ice reminded quietly. He risked another look at their prey. They were separated by quite a few people. One group of tourists kept stopping in the middle of the sidewalk, and the crowd flowed around them. Because they were close and looked alike, Ice slowed the pace again, staying behind the photograph-crazy sightseers. “Neither of us thought we’d live to see ten.”
“You go, I go. That’s the deal,” Storm insisted.
“Why do you have to be so damn fuckin’ stubborn?” Ice asked, keeping his voice low.
“I’ve always followed your lead, and that’s what you’d do,” Storm answered with a careless shrug of his shoulders.
Ice couldn’t argue with that. He would have done the same. “Don’t know, Storm, I’m getting to the point I could be dangerous to everyone.”
“Savage is dangerous to everyone, not you. You always choose the right thing to do whether or not you want to do it. Dying isn’t the right thing. We’ve had this conversation multiple times now. You’re in a bad patch. We both get them. Fortunately, not at the same time.”
That much was true, but damn it to hell, he didn’t want to go out hurting innocents, and he thought more and more about just killing a bunch of fucking pedophiles in public. Lining them up and mowing them down. Sometimes he dreamt about it. He couldn’t seem to get any relief anymore. Not from booze. Not from women and not from hunting the bastards who stole and violated children.
Mostly, he detested that the men in front of him were upstanding citizens. They had money and prestige, just like the others in the ring Code had discovered online. Auctioning children. They were accepted in society, but he wasn’t. He never would be. Never. He was a biker. In a club. Those riding with him were his family, and he would fight and die for them. For his colors. He would never be accepted by society, but they invited monsters into their homes and allowed them around their children because they were dressed properly and they didn’t say fuck in front of anyone. They just did it behind everyone’s back—with children.