by Bourne, Lena
“I don’t want revenge, I don’t want to dwell on the past, I don’t want to wish I could change things no one can change, and I don’t want any more hate,” he says, somehow looking even deeper into my eyes, which helps with the pain his words caused in my heart. “The only thing I want is you. I want us. The way we used to be. Life is so fucking short, Julie, and so fucking meaningless when everything is said and done. You give meaning to my life. The only reason I came back here is to ask you whether you still feel that way about me too.”
“Yes, I do,” I whisper, touching his cheek, the words coming from somewhere deep inside me, much deeper than my rational mind. But I mean it. I mean it one hundred percent.
He leans down and kisses me, and I kiss him back, and that’s pretty much all it takes for us to be back in that time he wanted us to return to, the time of the way we used to be.
* * *
Ink
Going to San Diego is actually a very really good idea. It’s the last place where we were happy. Our hometown isn’t that. This is where I left her. But we might have to go even further than that. I wonder what she’s gonna say when I tell her that. Is she still gonna say yes to me when I do?
I didn’t call Hawk yesterday like I told him I would.
Now I don’t think I’m gonna at all. Thinking that fills me with rotten dread, so I don’t want to think about it, but I’ll have to face it sooner rather than later.
I don’t think I’m going back to the Devils.
I didn’t plan much past getting Julie to take me back. I did vaguely think I’ll just take her back to Pleasantville and pretend to Cross that I never left. But now that she’s given me a second chance, I don’t think I can do that. There’s no place for Julie in that world. And I don’t want her to know the kind of man I became with the Devils. I don’t want her to know I became a killer. It’s too dark and she’s too bright, but not bright enough to eclipse that darkness. I guess this was in the back of my mind the whole time I was planning to go find her, but it didn’t crystalize until I kissed her. Then I knew. Just me and her, that’s the way our story was supposed to play out. But the Devils won’t just let me go. That’s why we’ll have to disappear.
I don’t feel good about deserting my MC, not even close, but then again, I joined them when my head wasn’t in a good place. Even so, I gave a lot to the club and the brothers, I almost gave my life twice, and I certainly gave them a bit of my soul, but I took almost nothing from them. Doc patched me up a couple of times, but I saved Ace, and I saved Hawk’s woman, and I killed three of the four Russians that came to take her. I also had a few good conversations with Doc that steered me from the darkest parts of the path I was on. But I took almost nothing. Before I left, I figured I might have to ask them to smooth things over so Julie and me could spend the rest of our lives together, but I won’t have to do that if we just disappear.
Eventually I’ll have to tell her all that, but for now I’m just happy with her arms wrapped around my waist, her softness pressed against my back, the wind bringing the smell of the ocean, and nothing but the empty open road before us. It’s the start of another adventure for us, and I want it to last forever, the way we always planned.
We’re almost at the top of the hill where the entire majesty of the Pacific Ocean opens up. We rode this way hundreds of times while she went to school in San Diego, but today’s probably the last time we’ll be making this trip. We shouldn’t come back this way ever again. It’s safer for everyone that way. The Devils know where to find me around here, and her father knows where to find Julie.
I pull into the gravel lot atop the hill and stop near a food truck, which is permanently parked there, surrounded by wooden tables and benches.
“Imagine this place still being here,” I say as I take my helmet off.
She dismounts and takes her helmet off too. I was sure she’d thrown it away by now, but she kept it, and not even in some box in the basement, but right there in her bedroom closet. I was struck speechless when she pulled it out, feeling loved and happy and sad and angry with myself all at the same time. I felt unworthy of the depth of love she has for me, just like I’ve often done before. But I also made a silent promise to myself to do better by her from now on. Better than my best.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” she asks. “It’s always been popular and the view is amazing.”
This place is about half way to San Diego from our hometown, and we always stopped here whenever we rode by. She’s not wrong about it being popular. A couple of other bikers are here, but so are a few families and several couples.
I get a double cheeseburger and fries and onion rings, and I might get another serving of each when I’m done with this one, since I missed dinner last night, and the sandwich I made myself at Julie’s before we left didn’t go far. Julie just gets a coffee, saying it’s too hot to eat, but I know that’s not what’s messing up her appetite. She has things on her mind and they’re troubling her. We’re certainly not done talking, but I kinda hope she’ll refrain from starting another hard conversation until after I’ve eaten. I’d like to hold on to this memory of the way it used to be for a little longer.
“What would you do if I said no to you?” she asks when I’m about halfway done with my meal.
“I’d work real hard to convince you to change your mind,” I say in between bites.
“And if I still wouldn’t?” she asks. “Say I was engaged to someone else or something?”
I shrug and take another bite, then have trouble swallowing, because the thought of her being with anyone else just about froze my stomach. I wish I knew where she was going with this, but I don’t.
“I’m sure you had options,” I say, more gruffly than I meant to, but damn it, she can always get under my skin without even trying.
“Not really,” she says quietly. “I never had any other option.”
“What, other than me, you mean?” I ask, still too harshly. But what she just said is bullshit and we both know it. She could have any guy right here, right now, if she wanted to. Most of the husbands and boyfriends eating around are casting her lustful glances, despite their women being right there. She’s fucking gorgeous. And I’d fight any one of those guys for her, or all of them together, if they did more than look.
“Yeah,” she says, and most of my agitation just disappears. “What about you? I’m sure there were plenty girls after me for you.”
There’s no good way to answer this. If I say no, she’ll call me a liar, if I say yes, it’ll just be one more thing she hates me for, one more thing we have to overcome.
“I want honesty, Ink,” she adds.
I wish I could see her eyes, but those are like the darkest fucking shades in the world she’s wearing.
“None that I can even remember clearly,” I tell her, pushing the rest of my food away, because I’m done eating. “And none for awhile now.”
I have no idea how she’s taking this, because those damn shades cover not just her eyes, but half her face too, and she’s looking away from me besides.
“You’re the only one for me too,” I add. “That never changed, no matter what else happened between us.”
She pulls her shades off, looks me dead in the eyes and takes my hand, her eyes brimming with love and happiness. It’s one of those blink-of-an-eye one-eighty turns from anger to love that only she’s capable of, as far as I know.
“What are we going to do, Ink?” she asks and she sounds kinda desperate.
I shrug and smile and take her hand in both of mine.
“We’re gonna go to San Diego and have some fun,” I say. I could tell her about the rest of my plan right now, but it’s not the best time, and it’s a big plan.
“But what about what my father did to your family?” she asks. “We have to set it right.”
I shake my head and smile some more. “All we have to do right now is spend time together and make up for lost time. It’s the only thing I want to do. Everything and anything
else can wait. Can’t it?”
She nods, but I’m not sure I convinced her.
“Remember how much fun we used to have?” The look that crosses her eyes answers me that she does. Probably just as well as I do, maybe better.
“Let’s just do that then,” I urge.
She finally smiles. “OK, yes, let’s. I’d like that.”
I think she means it. I think she wants the same thing. But I’m not sure, and I don’t want to dwell on not knowing right now. Time will tell if we can ever go back to the way it was between us, and for now I’m willing to just let it pass. I’m willing to give it all the time I have.
A part of me does want revenge for what her family did to mine. My brother and my mother probably want it too. But I wasn’t lying to her when I told her I don’t. I wasn’t lying when I told her that all I want is her.
It’s time for us to get back on the road and leave as much of that crap behind us as we can.
9
Julie
“This is a nice hotel you chose,” he says as we walk into the hotel room. “Just a little impersonal though.”
He’s grinning at me when I turn from the window where I was adjusting the shades so all of the sea view would be visible.
I’m not great at taking criticism, never was, but I don’t want to start our stay here by snapping.
“You can pick a place next time,” I say, trying not to sound argumentative at all.
He hears it though, and grins even more mischievously. Then he drops the saddle bags filled with our things on the floor by the door and starts walking towards me, the crackling, electrically-charged air between us rising in intensity with each step he takes. Everything inside me and out is sparkling by the time he’s standing right next to me. By then, my whole body is locked on his with a magnetic pull nothing can break.
“I guess I’ll have to,” he says.
I know what he’s doing, he’s getting me riled up, getting me going, because he knows all about my inability to take criticism. He’s doing it to get my passion fired-up, but there’s no need, it’s already sky-high.
“I guess you’d better,” I say and move closer to him.
The compulsion to touch him is too strong to fight. I reach out and rest my hands against the sides of his stomach, a rush of that charged intensity in the air around us entering me through my fingertips, flooding my entire body like a wild river of pure white light. My life was always better when I was touching him and this proves it yet again.
Life was always better when I was kissing him too, and we’re clearly on the same page about that, because his lips find mine as soon as I look up.
It’s a perfect kiss, not too hard or too sweet, not too gentle or too rough, just the right amount of all those things, blended perfectly, making it so easy to get lost in it. One of his arms is around my waist, the other around my neck, his thumb pressing against it, and I’m not sure if the heartbeat I feel is his or mine. Not that it matters, not that it ever mattered. What’s his is mine, what’s mine is his, and that includes the heart too.
It’s an errant thought from the past. I’d think things like this all the time back when we were still planning on spending our forever together, but thinking it now pulls me out of the sweetness that is tasting him again after all this time.
He hurt me so much when he left.
Will I ever forgive him? Will I ever trust him again? Will I ever let myself get completely lost in him again, in the love we share, in the sweetness of his touch?
He’s sorry he left me, he never wanted to be without me and he wants to be with me now. I know that. I see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice when he talks about it, feel it in his touch and kisses. But that wall of my fear of getting hurt again is so damn thick. All those things are chipping away at it, but none of it penetrates it.
He felt me pull away and now he’s wondering what’s going on in my head. He’s looking deep into my eyes, trying to see what I’m thinking. My lips are tingling from the kiss he just ended and the heartbeat in his palm on my neck is still going strong. The thing that happened was the cold shower of the questions I couldn’t silence, not even while his arms were around me and mine around him. The two of us together, kissing, embracing, making love, used to be enough to stop all bad things from reaching us. He destroyed that when he abandoned me, and I don’t know if we’ll ever get it back.
“Let’s take a shower,” I say, dodging his unasked questions.
“Alright,” he says and steps aside, keeping his palm on my lower back to let me lead the way.
He knows I’m struggling with something, and he probably knows exactly what it is too, because he’s always been very good at knowing what’s on my mind. He always knew how to calm my doubts too. Sometimes I didn’t even have to tell him what was bothering me and he’d just know and fix it. I think that might be another thing that him leaving destroyed. He’s going to try and fix it all between us and so far, he’s doing a good job of it, but I still don’t know if he ever can. Not for a good long while yet.
“The room’s not much, but the bathroom’s great,” he says as I turn on the light and we enter.
He’s not wrong.
The bathroom is large, and there’s a tub and a spacious shower stall next to it. The walls and floor and the side of the tub are tiled in off-white marble, and there’s a long sink with two faucets beneath the huge mirror. I’m staring at our reflection in the mirror, and the sight of us together matches my fantasies of this very thing happening again so perfectly, I think I might be dreaming. I’m not just dreaming, which makes it so much better.
He leaves my side to turn on the tap in the shower, then comes back over and starts peeling off my tank top.
The intensity of want and need is still making the air between us thick and sparkling, but we’re far from conjuring up the presence of raw desire we shared yesterday in my bedroom. We’re getting there though.
I let him take off my shirt, then remove my jeans myself, before tugging on his belt buckle to help him with his.
Fake it till you make it. Not that I ever had to fake anything with Ink. Not how much I loved him, not how much I needed and enjoyed his touches and kisses and his cock inside me, not how much I wanted to give him my forever.
The thing I have to fake now is trying to pretend that the hurt he left behind when he abandoned me doesn’t bother me all that much, that it’s not all there is at times.
It’s hard to do that, because as much as I loved him, that’s how much I hated him for a while. I don’t think he can ever know that. I don’t think he’d understand, and I don’t think he’d be able to face or truly come to terms with my hatred. He’s tough in so many ways, but in this, in loving me and believing I love him back, he’s weak and vulnerable. Just being in his presence, the hatred I once felt is fast becoming a distant memory though, faded and retreating to the back of my mind, mist-like, almost as insubstantial as the steam rising from the running water in the shower. It has no real place here with us, so it’s going away.
I can see his vulnerability clearly in his eyes right now, as he gazes at my nakedness after I remove my bra and panties. It’s a look of passion and love, need and want, but there’s also that note of “I can’t believe I get to look at you and touch you,” in it. He’d say that to me sometimes, in the beginning, and it always made me feel so very special, like a queen or something. I told him I felt the same way about him, but I don’t know if he ever truly believed me.
I want him to believe it now. And that want is stronger than my fear of getting hurt again. A million times stronger.
So I take his hand and lead him under the jets and try not to think about anything but the feel of the water hitting my back and his closeness.
There’s no sponge but the shower gel provided by the hotel works up into a rich lather without it too, and I take my time washing his arms and his chest, concentrating on the feel of his muscles and sinews and hair on his soft, hot skin, trying to thin
k of nothing else but the task at hand.
He’s letting me do it, watching me, his gaze washing me better than any water or soap ever could. This is what I hoped and wished for. Exactly what I wanted while I spent days and weeks and months missing him. Now I have it back. Now it’s finally mine again.
I slowly move to wash the rest of him, each touch, each new territory I rediscover on his body making it easier not to think of anything else at all. I kneel slowly to wash his powerful thighs and calves, so lost in what I’m doing I just hear the sound of his voice, not the words he spoke when he speaks.
I look up but he doesn’t repeat himself, just helps me back up so we’re standing together again.
“Now you,” he says hoarsely and starts lathering the soap in his palms.
His hands are strong and calloused, but his touch is perfect, and I moan as he works the lather all over my breasts, not forgetting my nipples. He’s not as slow or gentle about making me clean as I was with him, but everywhere his hands pass they leave electric sparkles behind, and everything inside me is crackling and sparkling by the time his fingers find my clit. I want him and I need him and that’s all I know. That was always enough for me, and in this moment it is again.
But he likes to tease me, and that’s exactly what he’s doing now. He removes his hand and moves me beneath the jets to rinse off the soap.
“Want me to wash your hair?” he asks once I’m done rinsing. He’s already holding the bottle of the hotel shampoo and looking at me expectantly. I can hear it in his voice that he really wants to do it, so I hardly even think of how frizzy and wild my hair’s gonna get from the generic, soap-rich hotel shampoo, and I just nod, smile and turn my back so he can get started.