by Voss, Deja
“You do all the heavy lifting for me, Azalea. You are always thinking of everything, even when you don’t know it. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I don’t think about it that way. I guess maybe it’s just because the last few months have felt so right, so natural. Sure, we haven’t had a ton of time to ourselves to just dedicate to our relationship, but the more I’m with him, the more I love him. I know he’s doing the best he can every day. It would be selfish of me to ask more from him right now.
“I love you so much, I just don’t know how else to show you,” he says.
“You show me every day, Hank. You put a roof over my head, and food on the table. You don’t care if I work at the bar. You’re faithful to me. You always come to bed at night. I never have to worry where you are or who you’re screwing. You make me feel safe. It’s amazing.”
I hop on my new old bike, and it feels so right. It feels just like the one I used to have. I’m excited to see if it rides just like it, too. I rev the engine as he opens the garage door and slowly glide out into the parking lot next to his bike.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
“Somewhere where I can put this thing to work,” I laugh. He just shakes his head. Apparently he doesn’t know who he’s dealing with here. If my daddy taught me anything at all, it’s that respect will go a long way when you’re staring down something you fear. I know motorcycles inside and out, I respect what they’re capable of, and I like to walk that line between safe and scary. As soon as we get off the highway and start twisting through the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, I plan on doing just that.
I let my mind go to the happiest place I know, that place where I am completely free from the bondage of this world, where I can just be free. Nobody is chasing me, nobody is using me, and nobody wants me dead. Except now, this place isn’t just me. It’s Hank. It’s Jesse. It’s the three of us together just living our lives.
The wind on my face and the sun on my back makes me feel so alive, but now I have so much more to live for.
We ride until the sun starts to go down, ride til we’re nearly out of gas. We pull back into the shop and hook the trailer up to the truck so we can park our bikes in it and ride back home together.
“I was serious about what I said.” I lick my lips and pull him close before he can pull the garage door shut. “I mean, we have this whole place to ourselves. What do you say we take advantage of that?”
He’s already pulling my shirt up over my head as he pushes me inside the garage. He closes the door and we are in total darkness, my eyes blinking furiously before just giving in to the idea that I can’t even see my hand in front of my face. He picks me up by the back of my thighs, his mouth hungrily exploring mine with his tongue as he slowly carries me across the concrete floor.
“You’re so sexy,” he whispers in my ear, his hands roughly groping at my jean shorts, tugging them down to the floor. “Do you know how hard you make me? Everything about you drives me insane.”
I can feel his erection through his jeans, pressing into my thigh. I feel my back pressing against the tool bench behind me; his fingers pull my panties aside, exploring my folds.
“You’re dripping,” he growls, circling around the outside of my clit the way that drives me insane.
“You make me this way, Hank,” I moan, pulling his shirt off over his head and digging my fingernails in his back. “You are the only man who’s ever turned me on like this before.”
“What about old whatshisname?” he asks, slipping a finger inside me, my back arching into the wall.
“You really get off on this interrogation thing, don’t you?”
He slides another finger inside me, hooking it in just the perfect way that he’s got me by the g-spot, and I wouldn’t run away even if I could.
“I don’t even think about old whatshisname anymore,” I say, my breath choppy. “He’s dead. He’s not coming back. That part of my life is over.”
Here in the pitch blackness of the garage, his callused hands raking over my skin, squeezing my flesh in any way he wants, I can’t see anything, my mind blank. I try to picture Harold, try to imagine what I ever saw in him, but all I can focus on is the way Hank is swirling his tongue around my nipples, pulling them into hardened peaks with his mouth.
“You promise?” he whispers in my ear, his voice deep and gravelly, his hand on my throat a little less than delicately. I love when he’s so turned on that he isn’t afraid to be rough with me, because underneath it all, there’s this loving tenderness I’ve grown to see in him. I gulp and nod, reaching for his jeans, unbuttoning them with a fierce need to feel him inside me right now.
I came here a grief-stricken maniac, scared of my own shadow, trying to reinvent myself in a place that felt more like home than anywhere I’d ever been. I wanted nothing more than to avenge Harold’s death. I wanted to see my father and brother pay for their sins. As the months go by, though, all I want is to let that part of me die. Let them live in their own world and I’ll stay here in mine. My life is perfect, I have everything I need, and the sexiest man I’ve ever known is about to give me exactly what I want.
“Say it,” he insists, his grip tightening as he presses into my swollen clit with his thumb. I’m about to explode.
“I only love you,” I cry out. “You’re the only man I care about.”
“You’re going to be my old lady now? No more of this taking it slow and figuring things out?”
“Yes!” I scream.
“And you’re going to marry me and spend the rest of your life with me?”
Sure, I’m the queen of inappropriate proposals, but something about this feels so right. He knows me. He gets me. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Plus, he’s got me in a position where it’d be stupid for me to refuse.
“Of course,” I say. “Yes. I want to marry you.”
I don’t know if I’m crying because I’m so happy, or I’m crying because I’m so frustrated, but he presses his lips to mine as he rubs my clit just the right way, and I explode, cumming on his hand as he catches my moans in his mouth.
He slips his rock-hard cock inside me, and I feel like I’m going to pass out. The way he’s thrusting in and out of my dripping pussy, sending waves of orgasms through me, all I can do is just hang there, digging my nails into the flesh of his back as he fills me.
“I want to feel you cum inside me,” I plead. I want it all. I want to spend the rest of my life with him, I want to give him my body, and I want him to know that I’m not kidding.
He throws his head back and grips my ass tight, holding me onto his cock, spraying his hot seed inside me as he groans.
Then he kisses me, so softly, so sweetly. I can’t see his face it’s so dark, but I can tell he’s smiling.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get you a ring,” he says, catching his breath. “I will.”
“You got me a bike. I’ll take that over a ring any day.”
“You’re perfect,” he says, hugging me close to his body. He reaches down to pull up his jeans and pulls his cell phone out of his pocket to use the flashlight while I gather up my clothes off the floor. It begins to ring, and he picks it up and starts to laugh.
“Yeah, it’s just us. We’re leaving now.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask when he hangs up the phone.
“Nothing. Tank’s got video cameras in here that have motion sensors that let him know if something’s going on after hours.”
I cover my breasts with my hands and start to laugh. “Thank God we left the lights out. You really do think of everything.”
Three Years Ago
Stacy
“I think they’re on to something,” I say nervously as I glide the bright pink lip gloss over my lips. “I have a really bad feeling.”
Now that I know he’s not really one of us, not really a true Debaser, watching him put on his leather cut kind of makes me gag. I’d never tell him. Maybe I’m just being crazy, or maybe I’m just s
tressed out because I feel like everything I do or say to both him and the club are a constant test of my loyalty, but I hate seeing him in it. It’s unnatural. It’s a fraud.
“Now why would you say that?” he asks, grabbing my wrist hard enough that I try to jerk away from him. It seems like, as the days go by, he gets rougher and rougher around the edges. I don’t know if it’s because he’s got me by the balls, but he’s been fucking every stray slut he can get his hands on and slapping me around like I’m some kind of woman who would tolerate such a thing. The only reason why I am tolerating it is because I value my freedom. He says he has to, says it’s part of his undercover deal and that it makes things more realistic, but I don’t know what’s real and what’s fake anymore. “The only way they would know something was up is if someone said something.”
I know exactly who he thinks that someone is by the tone of his voice.
I also know I haven’t said one fucking word. Lord knows it’s been hard. I hate turning my back on my family, not just because I know they’ll kill me if they ever find out I knew, but because they’re my family. They brought me up. I might not have the perfect life, but it’s good enough.
I’m in too deep for my own good now, though. All I can do is live for the moment, hoping that I put my trust in the right person, hoping that when all this settles, Mark and I will have that perfect life.
“You know I didn’t say anything, shit, you have me under twenty-four seven surveillance. I feel like a damn prisoner,” I say. “I didn’t even do anything wrong. I’m just the daughter. It’s not fair.”
“You’re an accomplice. You know that. I’m sorry, Azalea,” he says. “It’s just how it has to be right now. Things are going to get better.”
“I just have a bad feeling.” I do. Something in my gut is telling me that this sit-down we’re having with my dad today isn’t to talk about wedding plans. Something in my gut makes me think this is a setup.
“Relax,” he says, pulling me close to his body, kissing me on the forehead. “It’s sweet that you worry about me.”
I wish that was the only thing I was worried about. Him, me, my family, we’re all tangled up in this together. If one of those dominoes gets tipped, we’re all going down together. I put the finishing touches on my make-up and toss on a long-sleeved t-shirt to cover the handprints on my arm.
We walk into the clubhouse, his arm around my waist. There’s nobody around but my brother, Tim, and my dad. They’re sitting at a table, a jar of moonshine in the middle, sipping from their glasses nonchalantly, both smiling at us as we walk through the door.
Something isn’t right. Surely Mark is picking up on it. He’s been patched in long enough to know the way the blinds are drawn at just that angle, the way the music is so loud your eardrums damn near shatter; something is going down. Maybe it’s his undercover training, but he just pulls up a stool to the table and sits down, acting like it’s just another day in the life.
My father motions for me to sit down, too, and I realize I’m pacing back and forth.
“Harry,” my father says, flashing his sneer of a smile, that sneer that makes me think he’s about to go in for the kill, “you know, we’ve been giving some thought to giving you a promotion. You’ve been a Debaser for what, ten years now?”
“Give or take, Prez,” he says, squeezing my knee under the table. Maybe I was just being dramatic. Maybe he’s about to move up in rank. That would be a good cause for all this secrecy, and even though I’ve never been called in to a meeting like this, it would make sense because I’m about to be his wife.
My brother starts laughing like the jackass he is, chuckling so hard he starts to snort. “So have you been working with the FBI that whole time, or did they offer you a deal somewhere in the middle of all this?”
He lets go of my knee and stands up from the table, putting his hands up in the air.
“Woah, woah,” he says. “You’re making some wild assumptions there, Mike.”
“Don’t talk to my son like that,” my father says, pulling his pistol from his lap, pointing it directly at him. “He’s the only good kid I got left.”
“Daddy!” I squeal, as he presses his pistol to my forehead. “What are you talking about?” I thought I would be more afraid given the situation, but my body is in shock. I try to fake some tears, but I saw this coming a mile away.
“She doesn’t know anything, Bob,” Mark says. “Get the fucking gun off of her.”
“You know, Mark, if you would’ve just kept your head down and stayed under the radar, I wouldn’t have had to dig into your past. Instead, you had to be trying to pull rank moves in the gang and fucking my only daughter. Who the fuck do you think you are?”
I sigh a breath of release as he takes the gun out of my face and points it at Mark, who’s just standing there with his hands in the air, calm and collected.
“I know you’re going to kill me,” Mark says. “Just leave her alone. She doesn’t know anything. This was all me. And if it’s any consolation, I wasn’t just fucking your daughter. I love her. I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”
“Well you’re gonna get your wish,” my dad says, nudging my brother in the side. My brother pulls out his pistol and points it at me. “You two will get to spend eternity in hell together you, fucking traitors.”
“Dad! Tim!” I shout, my heart pounding faster and faster. I put my hands up to cover my face, as if that’ll protect me from a bullet with my name on it. “I didn’t do anything!”
“Well, you’re definitely going to hell, Azalea,” my father says. “You’d think your last words would be ‘Jesus save my soul,’ not some bullshit lie to your father. What happened to honor thy parents? You think the FBI are the only ones who know how to bug a house?”
“I’m sorry,” I plead. “I was trying to protect you. He promised he wasn’t out to get you guys. He just needed to use us to get more information.”
“I thought I raised you better than that. If you would’ve just come to me like a good girl, we wouldn’t be in this position right now. You’re no worse than this piece of shit.” He cocks his gun and the sound of the explosion nearly sends me flying, even though I braced myself for it. I feel his blood on my bare skin, and glance over my shoulder at his lifeless body on the floor, the hole in his head. He can’t keep me safe now.
He never could.
“Do it, Tim,” my father says, and as much as I want to try and run away, I’m pretty sure that praying is probably the better choice. My father is right. I do need to make things right with God as fast as possible.
The sound of sirens fills the barroom, louder than the blaring music. How closely were we being watched this whole time. I hear my brother’s gun go off, but I feel nothing. He falls to the ground with a loud scream.
The fucker shot himself in the leg.
My dad is busying himself, wiping fingerprints off guns and hiding evidence, creating his perfect crime scene.
“I’ll deal with you later,” he growls, sprinting for the back door.
I take one last look at my dead fiancé on the ground, one last look at my brother writhing on the floor.
“Thank you, Lord!” I shout to no one in particular. I run to the secret side door. This place is filled with them. I don’t want to be standing here like a deer in headlights when the police bust in.
“Yea, officer,” I hear my brother shout. “I was the one who called you. This man broke in and attacked me. Shot me in the leg. I need help.”
That sneaky fucker, I think.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now, my mind being pulled in a million directions. I want to throw myself to the ground and cry, grieve the death of the man I love, grieve the death of the life I know, but I don’t have time for that right now. Right now, I need to get the fuck out of town.
Chapter 26
Goob:
Everything is the same, the same as it’s been for the last few months: the way I feel about her, the routine we�
�ve gotten into, the fact that I would do anything for this woman. But everything is changed, too, knowing that she’s going to be my wife.
Her past is far behind her, and even though Jesse is a constant reminder of mine, he’s the only good thing that came of those years of misery, all those years of getting clean and fucking up over and over again.
The summer is drawing to a close, and Azalea and I have been putting as many miles as possible on the bikes, getting ready to park them for a cold snowy winter up here on the mountain. Jesse will be going to preschool in the fall, which really makes me happy. I didn’t have that opportunity when I was a kid; there was nobody who could take me. I want him to have all the things I never had growing up. I want him to have something more normal than violence, club drama, and uncertainty.
He’s been sleeping in his bed all through the night without much incident, although I hear the pitter-patter of his feet when Azalea gets home from a late night at work. He loves her so much, I let them have that time together, even though I want nothing more than to drag her to bed and wrap my body around hers, holding her close until my alarm goes off. At the end of the day, she always ends up in my bed anyway, our bed. There’s enough love in this house to go around.
My alarm clock starts blaring, the loud siren jolting me awake. She snaps her eyes open and smiles at me before pulling the covers up over her head.
“I’m sorry, babe,” I say, smoothing my hand over the small of her back.
“Don’t be,” she groans. “I need to get up anyway. I want to take Jesse school clothes shopping today. He’s growing like a freaking weed.”
Everything is so perfect, but there’s still something off. There’s something I have been putting off doing, not knowing the right way to approach the situation. We’ve talked about it ever since I got the paternity test back, but both agreed that adding more chaos into Jesse’s life might upset him.