by Brook Wilder
She shattered around me, clenching me tightly as I pumped into her, the flood dousing me in wet warmth. I was right on the tip of my own orgasm, her sounds driving me crazy. The sound of our bodies hitting together drove me faster, and I groaned as I let go, her cries mingling with mine.
She fell against me, and I rubbed her back, our bodies sticking together in the nighttime heat. This was fucking crazy.
I loved it.
“I believe the last time we had a blanket,” I said after a few minutes, my fingers drifting down her back.
She giggled against my chest, and I let out a breath.
“You are going to have grass in your ass.”
“That’s not the only place,” I said, feeling the hard ground under me. “It was well worth it.”
She propped her chin up on my chest and looked at me, the flush of her orgasm still shining in her eyes.
“This thing...”
“…is not wrong,” I finished for her, touching her nose. “It wasn’t wrong then and it’s not wrong now.”
“I know,” she blew out a breath. “But what are we going to do, Zack? I’m a cop. You are a biker outlaw. We can’t possibly carry on a relationship and not get in each other’s way.”
“Don’t think about it,” I said, tangling my hand in her hair.
She was saying all the right things. There were complications with us being together this time around, but I refused to think about them right now. Syd was here with me, and I wanted to savor in the moment.
“Tell me something.”
“What?” she asked, her fingers tapping on my chest.
“Anything,” I said, wanting to keep this going. I knew the moment we left this clearing this would be gone, and I didn’t want to leave. “Do you still like mayonnaise on your fries?”
She laughed.
“Of course, I do. Do you still like hot sauce on your burger?”
I grinned.
“You know it. Puts a kick on the meat.”’
She shook her head, her eyes dancing with laughter.
“I swear, you are going to rot out your gut, Zack, by doing that.”
I gave her a shrug.
“That was what attracted you to me in the first place.”
“You wish,” Sydney said.
I grinned, thinking about our first date. She hadn’t thought I would come, and I hadn’t thought I would have as much fun as I had.
***
“Oh, come on! Are you serious?”
I glanced at her in the passenger seat, taking in her jeans and top. There was nothing sexy about it, but I was holy turned on, wondering what color underwear she was wearing.
“I’m serious as a heart attack. I’ve never been.”
She eyed me.
“Then you must go tonight. I can teach you.”
Bowling was not the plans I had in mind. Hell, I hadn’t even thought about anything but how she was going to thank me for starting her car that day, this date her way of showing her appreciation.
A thousand thoughts had run through my mind, but none of them were good and wholesome as she looked right now.
“Seriously.”
“What?” she smirked, crossing her arms over her chest. “Are you too scared that it might mess up your bad boy image?”
Leave it to the goody two-shoes to call me out.
“Fine. I’m not scared. Do your worst.”
And she had. For hours she cajoled me into bowling, my throw improving to where I could at least knock down one or two pins. At first, I had felt like a damn fool, but Sydney had this way about making me feel comfortable, and I found myself looking forward to her celebrations as she spanked me in each game.
“See, wasn’t that fun?” she said breathlessly as we turned in our shoes and I paid for the games. “I told you.”
“Alright you did,” I answered as we walked out of the alley. Reaching over, I grabbed her hand, wrapping mine around it. “It wasn’t bad.”
She squeezed my hand back, giving me a soft smile.
“I promise it will get more fun the more you do it.”
“Only if you do it with me,” I said, surprising myself. “I don’t want this to be the only date between us, Sydney.”
We approached the truck, and I trapped her against the door, my hand sliding down to her hip.
“Tell me you want more.”
Her eyes widened.
“W-what do you mean?”
“This,” I answered, sliding my hand up her side.
God, she had more curves under that shirt than I had thought.
Her breath hitched in her throat, and I leaned forward, brushing my lips across hers. She tasted like the cherry coke she had ordered at the counter.
“You’re fucking gorgeous.”
She slammed her hands into my chest and caught me off balance. I stumbled back a few feet.
“What the hell?”
“Listen,” she said, her voice wavering. “I’m not that type of girl. I’m sorry if you thought I was.”
“Easy,” I said, holding up my hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Then it hit me.
“That was your first kiss, wasn’t it?”
Her cheeks burned, and I felt a surge of pride. She had never been kissed. I was dealing with a complete virgin.
“Hey,” I said, walking back toward her until I could tip her chin upward. “Don’t be embarrassed. I think it’s pretty fucking awesome.”
She had never been touched. I was going to be the first.
But I would have to go slower than normal. She wasn’t the sort of girl I was used to, who took over before you could even do so. Sydney was a clean slate, and I was going to be written all over her before she even realized it.
“Are you sure?” she finally said, searching my eyes.
My chest tightened as I saw the uncertainty in their depths, some of my earlier thoughts fading away. I didn’t want to hurt her. She shouldn’t even be associated with me. I was trash, with no future, and she was… hell, she was perfect.
“I promise. Can I try again?”
She nodded, and I felt nerves kick in as I lowered my head. Her first kiss had to be perfect.
***
“Hey, where did you go?”
I blinked out of the memory, seeing Sydney staring back at me.
“I was thinking about our first date.”
She flushed.
“You mean our first kiss.”
I nodded, my arm tightening on her waist.
“I was scared shitless to know I could screw it up.”
“No, you weren’t. You were only hoping to get in my pants that night.”
Maybe at one time, but if she only knew how much she had changed me that night…
“And look where we ended up.”
Sydney slapped at my chest and pulled herself up, the white of her bandage catching my eye as she searched for her clothes.
“Did I hurt you?” I asked, feeling like an ass for taking advantage of her tonight.
She had to be hurting.
She looked at me, before following my eyes, her mouth curving into a smile.
“No, I’m fine.”
I pushed off the ground, swatting at my back to remove the grass before pulling up my jeans. This night had turned out better than I had hoped, though I wanted nothing more than to take Syd back to my place and fuck her all night long.
I could never get enough.
“So,” Sydney said as she worked her shirt over her head. “Where does this leave us, Zack?”
I slid my shirt over my chest and walked toward her, capturing her in my arms.
“It leaves us right where we want to be. I won’t ask to move in, yet.”
She let out a nervous laugh, and I knew she was struggling with this. Hell, I was too, a thousand things running through my mind as to how this could go wrong. We were two different people in two different worlds, and no amount of love was going to catch that.
<
br /> But as I looked down at her, capturing her lips with mine, I knew I was willing to try.
I wasn’t giving her up again.
***
The rag tasted like oil and day-old body sweat, numbing her tongue and making her want to gag. She had attempted to work on the rag, to get it to loosen so she could get it out of her mouth, but so far the knot hadn’t budged.
Neither had the ones at her hands or her feet, cutting into her skin and rubbing it raw. Hayley Travis let out a sound of frustration, not allowing the tears to fall. She was done crying.
She was a Travis, and Travis’s didn’t cry.
The door opened, and the light flickered overhead, momentarily blinding her. She didn’t know how long she had been in the building, how many hours had gone by. Probably more like days. Ever since she had been pulled out of her car and thrown into the dirty van that had brought her here, her sense of time had been off.
That, and the building had no windows. It was just a concrete shed, cool inside from the insulated bricks. Twice a day she was untied and blindfolded, taken to a bathroom where she was allowed to do her business. The first day she had attempted to find a weapon, but unless she was going to tear the toilet out there was nothing to help her.
She was by herself.
“How are you today?”
Hayley’s eyes focused on the face, something familiar about him. He was one of her father’s bikers; which one, she didn’t know. She imagined that, if he removed his shirt, she would see the tattoo of the Devil’s Horsemen, which was far more concerning to her than anything else.
Her father was being betrayed.
“Oh, I guess you can’t speak right now. Well that’s alright. I imagine you haven’t found anything exciting in this building to entertain yourself with.”
She glared at him, not even uttering a word behind the rag. She had only tried once to fight back, rewarded with a bruise on her jaw and pain for hours.
He lowered himself in front of her, his hand touching her knee, and she flinched against his touch. A thousand things had run through her mind of what he might do to her, rape being one of them.
But today was the first day he had touched her.
“Don’t worry,” he chuckled, seeing her revulsion. “As much as I would love to fuck you until you submitted to me, that isn’t the plan. I’ll let you in a little secret, Hayley. My plan is to ruin your father. You are just my insurance that he will go down the wrong path and never expect that one of his own would be the person that would turn against him.”
He removed his hand and ran them both through his graying hair.
“You see, I want to be the leader of the DHMC. They have grown soft under your father’s rein, and I want us to be the premier club in this shit-hole town. He’s holding us back from our potential, and when the cartel kills him I will assume the power and control of the club. Then we will turn into the Devils that we are named after.”
Hayley felt like vomiting. Her father was no angel, but he didn’t like for the club to be involved in anything illegal or immoral. She had heard things about the cartel, what they did to women and those that they sold into sex slavery. Her father had stayed away from them, not wanting to start a war, but this dude was going to force his hand.
All because he thought the cartel had her.
She wanted to scream and cry, kick at him, and make him feel some of this pain in her chest, but she forced herself to sit there, glaring at him. He would die, and she would make sure that her face was the last thing he saw as she drove the knife into his black heart.
After all, she was a Travis.
Chapter Thirteen
Sydney
I fidgeted as I sat in the chief’s office, waiting for him to arrive. I knew why he had called me to the office, the summons coming via text message, and while I was nervous about the encounter, I knew I hadn’t been in the wrong.
Sighing, I leaned back in one of the chairs, my thoughts on the night before. Oh, how I should be embarrassed that I’d had sex in a field!
With Zack.
And fully enjoyed it.
This was clearly going to complicate things between us, my feelings stuck between this being reality and whether I was destined for another heartbreak. He had said many things to me last night, hinting that he had been in love with me before my world blew up and I was left alone. He didn’t want that to happen again.
But could we co-exist the way our lives were now? I was a cop. He was, by all accounts, a criminal. We weren’t meant to be together.
I rubbed a hand over my face, my mind drifting back to the previous night. Something had made us find our way to each other again. The sex last night… it had been incredible, however brief it had been. I had never felt so alive, so complete, as I had with Zack. He knew me inside and out, and though the years had separated us, I felt like some of those feelings, some of those emotions were still there.
And knowing that he had my initials tattooed on his chest… That was… well, I couldn’t even describe that. It meant he hadn’t forgotten me. It meant he hadn’t abandoned me.
It meant I meant something to him, something very important.
And when I had dropped him off at the clubhouse, I hadn’t wanted to leave. On the outside, we were still cop and biker to everyone that was looking.
But in that one brief moment, we were just Sydney and Zack again, two oddballs that should have never experienced anything together like we had, either now or then. I still felt like that young girl riding in his truck, experiencing my first taste at love with a guy I should have known better than to be with. Was it the same for Zack? He had told me yes, but given our history, I was somewhat afraid to believe him.
What if he broke my heart again?
I wouldn’t be able to stay. I had already been embarrassed once before, but for it to happen a second time…? I would either have to leave or he would end up dead, his body buried where no one would ever find it.
I couldn’t go through that again.
“You idiot,” I whispered to myself, glancing around to make sure no one was watching me.
I shouldn’t have slept with Zack. I shouldn’t have gone down that path, opening my heart to him while knowing what we were dealing with right now. This wasn’t high school anymore. This wasn’t just Zack and Syd. This was real life, and we both had responsibilities that could not be avoided just because we wanted to continue our relationship.
Oh, why did this have to be so complicated?
“Warren.”
I jumped to my feet as the chief entered, an envelope in his hand. I had fully expected to see the station’s lawyer follow him, but there was no one else behind him as he shut the door, motioning for me to sit down.
I did so, swallowing my emotions as he took his position behind his desk, placing the envelope on its scarred surface. For a moment he just looked at me, assessing me under his bushy eyebrows with a hard stare that made me want to crawl into my body and hide from him. When he had summoned me that morning, I knew I would be grilled about my involvement in the shooting the day before. I hadn’t reported that I had fired my weapon, but there was a nagging feeling inside that made me think that was what I was there for.
After all, I had been the one to make the anonymous call about the body in the desert.
“Sydney,” he started, folding his hands in front of him. “You know I why I hired you on?”
I shook my head.
“I do not, sir.”
“Because you were willing to face your demons straight on,” he answered roughly. “I doubt there would be many people that would come back to Cibolo after what you went through, to help the people that ridiculed you. That takes some balls, and I knew you were going to be good for this department.”
“T-thank you sir,” I stammered, surprised.
Since my return, we hadn’t talked much about my past, me not wanting to focus on the bad things that had happened here. I had wanted to make a difference in my hometow
n. Well, and a tiny piece of me had wanted to show those that had turned their back on me that I was much more than what they had thought. I wasn’t the girl they had labeled as a ‘biker slut’ or ‘whore’, the one they had laughed about when I walked down the street, the one that had endured a miserable month of her senior year only because I refused to go away and hide from them.