Burning Daylight (A Devil's Cartel MC Series #2) - Skyla Madi Page 0,1

blew air between my lips. Judge was here, somewhere. Nature told me so. The frogs were quiet, and the crickets didn’t dare sing, so where’d he go? Then I heard it, the snap of a twig nearby. Gasping, I whirled on my heel and reached for my hip, as if I were carrying a gun. I wasn’t. I hadn’t carried a gun in a long time.

I saw the moonlight shine on the damp end of his gigantic boot first and watched his dark jeans absorb it as he stepped out of the undergrowth and onto the riverbank. The notorious DCMC skull on the chest of his shirt pulled my attention and I fought a shiver. Seeing the Devil’s Cartel insignia on paper was one thing…seeing it in real life, on the towering frame of the infamous Damon Judge, was another thing entirely. It was as if…as if it were alive, demanding I hand over my body and soul right here by the water’s edge.

“Lost, sweetheart?” he asked, his gravelly, demanding voice rumbling over the surface of my skin, eliciting goosebumps.

I swallowed hard and lifted my stare to his shadowed face. He was taller than I expected. I wasn’t a tiny woman. I was slightly above average in height and carried my fair share of excess fat around my belly, thighs, ass, and hips, but standing in front of Judge, I felt small.

Too small.

And worse, from his shadow, he’d stolen my courage and my voice. All I could do was stare at him like a mute, equal amounts of surprise and fear tangoing in my belly.

“Do you speak?” he demanded, impatience clipping his tone.

“I…”

The words I wanted to speak, the favors I wanted to ask, were on the tip of my tongue. I’d practiced it before bed more times than I prayed these last few months. Still, Judge rendered me speechless and I hadn’t even seen his face in the full light yet. I moistened my lips and swallowed again, then I straightened my shoulders and steeled my spine. “Yes, I speak.”

He stepped into the harsh moonlight, perfectly silent. His leather didn’t rub and the dry leaves under his boots didn’t crunch. Strangely, it scared me that a man his size could be so stealthy. What scared me more was the way his dark, ocean eyes, pursed lips, and chiseled jawline made my entire body clench. Even before tonight, I knew he was terrifying in the most beautiful way…but I wasn’t expecting his arresting appearance to freeze me on the spot. A heavy, dark curl of dread twisted down the length of my spine. When I first met my ex-husband, Elias Vergara, on a yacht in the Bahamas, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He consumed my entire being with an angry glance, a glance much like Judge’s. My ex was tall and athletic, had luscious locks the color of midnight rain, and at the age of thirty with a ticking biological clock, I was no match for his smooth, tanned skin, and eyes that glittered like black diamonds. Men who looked like Elias—men who looked like Judge—were bad news, and I had more bad news than I could swallow.

The click of a hammer being pulled on a handgun tugged me from my thoughts, and I flicked my attention to his large hand. I wasn’t afraid of guns. I’d lost count of how many I’ve stared down the barrel of.

“I need your help,” I said, my voice holding a fraction of the confidence it did in my head.

A gentle breeze blew by, moving thin strands of my burgundy hair out of my face. With it wafted his cologne, a rich, woodsy smell that kissed my nose and warmed my chest. I expected him to smell of blood, cigarettes, gunpowder, and B.O., but he didn’t. He didn’t smell like a criminal and, for some reason, that further cemented the fact he could help me.

“My help?” His full lips quirked and his eyes warmed, as if I said something amusing. Exhaling, he released the hammer of his gun and lowered it. “I don’t help people.”

He stuffed his gun into his waistband, then turned his back on me. I frowned. That’s it? He didn’t want to know what I needed his help for?

“I can pay you,” I shouted at his broad back, loud enough for him to hear, but not loud enough to stir the demonic skull on his back. I glanced nervously at it, at the upside-down crucifixes that flanked each side