He caught her hand in his and said, “Pretending, huh?”
With a roll of her eyes, she pulled her hand free. “How can you flirt at a time like this?” She picked up an individually sealed packet of antibiotic ointment from the first aid kit and tried to rip it open. She tugged and twisted the packet, her eyes narrowing determinedly.
He took the packet from her and tore it open with his teeth. He handed it back to her and said, “Because it’s easier than dealing with the shit in my head.”
“Then talk to me. Why did you guys get into a fight?”
He clenched his jaw, not wanting to bring something so bleak into her beautiful world.
“Come on, Justin. Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than the ideas floating around in my head.” She began applying the ointment to his wound, her eyes flicking up to his, and said, “Spill it, Wicked.”
He watched her carefully cover the ointment with a bandage. “We went with the police to break up a dogfighting ring, and things got ugly.”
“Dogfighting ring?” The shock in her eyes was unmistakable. She looked at his arms and said, “Are those scratches from the dogs?”
He nodded. “And from the fencing on the property.”
“I hope you have a current tetanus shot. What about your leg? Is that from the dogs or the fence? And that bruise on your face?”
He gritted his teeth, hating to have to admit the rest of the truth, which she wouldn’t like, but he wasn’t about to hide any part of himself from anyone—especially her. “When the police went in the front door, they had the back door covered. But a couple of guys came out the cellar doors on the side of the house, and more from a shed in the back, and we went after them. Like I said, things got a little rough.”
Her brow wrinkled, conflicting emotions swimming in her beautiful eyes. “They were the ones running the dogfighting ring?”
He nodded.
“Then they deserve whatever they got.” Her voice softened as she said, “And the dogs?”
“We saved the ones we could.”
Sadness rose in her eyes, and she put her hand over his. “Some didn’t make it?” She looked regretfully at the table where his brothers and cousin were sitting and said, “I thought you guys were just…”
“Being reckless? Troublemakers?” He cocked a brow. “I’ve heard it all, Chloe. Nothing you say will shock me.”
“I’m sorry. I should know you better than to assume something like that. But there’s so much that I don’t know about you, I guess I filled in the blanks based on past experiences.”
“No shit, princess.” He turned his hand over, holding hers, and said, “I’ve been trying to fix that.”
Her eyes skirted nervously around them. She looked down at their joined hands, and he was sure she’d pull away. But she didn’t. She met his gaze again and said, “Do you want to take a walk and talk about it? Get it out of your system?”
“You sure you want to hear about this?” He was thankful for the opening she’d given him but wary about bringing her down. “It’s not pretty, Chloe.”
“Life rarely is.” She put away the first aid kit and shouldered her bag. “I should probably throw away this bloody stuff.”
He swept the trash into his hand and went behind the bar to throw it away. Chloe was looking at him so differently, he paused, taking an extra moment to soak in what it felt like to be looked at by her when she wasn’t struggling to hide behind her usual armor.
She raised her brows and said, “Are you coming, biker boy? Or do I need to find out the rest of the story from one of your brothers?”
“Like hell you will.” He had no idea how she’d done it, but he already felt a little better. He slung an arm over her shoulder as they headed for the door and said, “My road name is Maverick, sweet cheeks. Not biker boy.”
She flashed a sassy smile. “Biker boy is cuter.”
As he pushed the door open, he said, “Maverick is manlier. And trust me, baby, I’m all man.”
Chapter Eight
A COLD BREEZE swept across the parking lot as they locked Chloe’s bag in her trunk. She wrapped her arms around herself and said, “I should have brought a sweater.”
“I’ve got a sweatshirt.” They went to Justin’s motorcycle, where he retrieved his black zip-up sweatshirt from the saddlebag. He helped her put it on. It was about three sizes too big on her. “You look adorable.”
She rolled her eyes and pushed up the sleeves.
As they walked across the parking lot to the path that led to the beach, the ugliness of what he’d gone through seemed a little farther away. He knew that had more to do with Chloe than the fresh air. “Why do you roll your eyes when I compliment you?”
“I don’t know. Habit, I guess.”
“It’s time to break that habit. Every time you roll your eyes, I’m going to do something to remind you not to.”
“Here we go,” she said sarcastically. “Like what, smack my ass?”
He grinned. “That’s the best idea I’ve heard all night.”
“If you value your hand, you won’t try that.” She stopped at the edge of the beach to take off her sandals and said, “Aren’t you going to take off your boots?”
“No.”
“You’re going to walk on the beach in leather boots?”
“Yup.”
“Don’t you want to feel the sand between your toes?”
“You obviously want to get me naked, starting with my boots, so…” He tugged off his boots and socks and set them beside her sandals, and then he popped the button on his jeans.
“Justin!” She blushed a red streak and hurried down the path. He caught up to her in three long strides, and she said, “Are you done trying to get naked?”
“For now.”
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, but her smile told him she liked his sense of humor as much as he liked making her blush.
They made their way down to the water, and as they walked along the shore, she said, “Can I ask you about tonight?”
He was hoping she’d let it go. “Yeah,” he said tightly.
“Do you do that kind of thing a lot?”
“No. Thankfully there aren’t many dogfighting rings around here. This one was about an hour away.”
“Why did you guys go? Isn’t that what the police are for? Aren’t there shelters or groups that deal with that type of thing?”
“Situations like this are exactly what Gunner’s rescue is for.”
“Gunner?”
“Dwayne, sorry. Gunner is his road name.” Chloe and her friends had met Dwayne around the time they’d met Justin. Since they were outside of the biker community, they knew them by their given names. “Dwayne opened Wicked Animal Rescue because of this type of thing and because there are assholes out there who abuse the hell out of animals in other ways, too.”
“But aren’t there laws about animal abuse?”
“Yeah, and the police do all they can, but they can only go so far. Abusers know that. But the abusers don’t know what the hell to expect from a bunch of rough-looking bikers. When Gunner and a bunch of us guys show up at their house, they get scared, and that’s okay because their animals are goddamn scared, too. I know you don’t like violence, Chloe, but in those cases we usually don’t have to do much more than talk to get abusers to give up their animals. Tonight was a whole different ball game.” He stopped walking and looked out at the water, trying to calm the ire inside him. “We weren’t just dealing with some nutjob leaving his pet chained in the yard twenty-four hours a day, or a hoarder with seventeen cats. Dogfighting is a felony, and a vicious, short life for the animals. A lot of shelters don’t have the resources to help dogs that come from those environments. There are security risks involved. Dogfighting is a lucrative business, and the guys who run them have been known to try to steal the dogs back. Dwayne’s facilities are gated, with top-of-the-line security systems, and he and Baz live on site. Last year we picked up more than fifty dog
s from a single ring out in Plymouth, and it took months to get some of them ready for adoption. Most shelters would have no idea how to handle that.”
“Fifty? That’s terrible.”
“Yeah. That’s why Dwayne has the rescue, because he fucking cares. With the support of the Dark Knights, he and Baz have the resources to not only shelter dogs like the ones we picked up tonight, but to care for them medically and rehabilitate them so they can be adopted into families who will love them and treat them well. And tonight?” He scoffed, wishing he could have killed the men he’d rumbled with, and began pacing. “The conditions those dogs lived in makes me sick. They’re malnourished, chained to cages, covered in scars and festering wounds. Some had broken bones.” He swallowed against the venom eating away at him as he wore a path in the sand. “One of them is going to lose his eye. Half of his ear looked like it had been bitten off, and when I picked him up, I could feel his bones. I swear, Chloe, that dog put his arms on my shoulders like a kid, as if he wanted to stay there forever. We rescued thirteen dogs. One is pregnant, so I guess that’s a win if her pups survive. There was a dumpster full of dead dogs. Two of the dogs that were chained in the yard were dead when we got there, and another…” He looked away, clenching his teeth. “Another dog, the one they probably used as bait to train the fighters, died in my arms on the way to the rescue.”
“Oh, Justin…” She looked as tortured as he felt. “No wonder you guys look like you’d been to war.”
She reached for him, but he took a step back. “I can’t. I’m too mad, Chloe. I’m sorry. Those dogs know nothing but abuse. They’re in pain, and hungry. They should despise humans, but they still have love toward us. And they’re so fucking scared. You should see their eyes. But they’re not afraid of us. They’re taught to kill other dogs. It’s just so messed up and so fucking sad.”
He sank down to the sand and pulled his knees up, crossing his arms over them. He gazed out at the water, trying to focus on the sounds of the waves rolling up the shore, the pounding of blood through his ears, anything to drown out the memories. But nothing could erase the evil side of humanity he’d seen tonight.
Chloe sat down beside him and put her arm around him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Mean people suck,” she said softly. “What will happen to the people they arrested?”
“Hopefully the greedy bastards will go to jail for a long time. The cops think they will. Some people are so messed up, Chloe. They treat animals and people like throwaways, abusing and neglecting them without a second thought. You’ve got to be so careful. I know you think if a guy wears a tie, he’s got to be safe. But, baby, you just never know.”
“I know that.” She sat up and moved her arm from around him. “I owe you an apology, Justin. I didn’t grow up with normal parents, and because of the way I was raised, I misjudged you. I’m sorry. You’ve always been good to me, and I’m just scared shitless of making the same mistakes my mother made. Makes.” She went silent and pushed her fingers around in the sand.
Justin waited to see if she was going to say more, but she looked so sad, he said, “Hey, beautiful, where’d you go?”
Her eyes flicked up, and she said, “Nowhere.”
He turned toward her, though she was still facing the water, and he stretched one leg in front of her, the other behind. He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her side against his chest, and said, “Talk to me, Chloe. What mistakes are you afraid of making? What happened when you were growing up?”
“Let’s just say my mother had her sights set on finding a man rather than actually being a parent. I guess Serena and I were throwaway kids.”
“Aw, hell, babe. You were left to fend for yourself a lot?”
“All the time, from a very young age. My mother worked as a waitress—sometimes at restaurants, sometimes at bars. When she wasn’t working, she was either out hunting for a man or spending time with one. I practically raised Serena, which is why I’ve always been so protective of her. I made our meals, did our laundry, made sure she got to school on time. It was hard every minute of every day. My mother had me when she was only eighteen, so I get that she felt like she’d missed out on a lot. But she was never there. We were lucky that we had friends whose parents were good to us, like Drake Savage’s family. They offered us dinners, things like that. But while Serena was best friends with Drake’s sister, Mira, I always had my own group of friends. I knew if Serena was with the Savages, she was safe. But I just wanted to get away, you know? Away from the constant reminders of what we didn’t have and away from the embarrassment of our friends knowing that our mother sucked.”
“I know all about wanting to get away,” he said, hating that she’d been brought up that way. “What about your father?”
“I’ve never met him. My mother claims that me and Serena have the same father, but I don’t believe it. I’ve never seen pictures of my father, and she’s vague about what she was doing and where we lived when we were little. And look at me and Serena. Serena is short, curvy, and brunette. We look nothing alike. I’m pretty sure my mother got pregnant on purpose to try to keep my father around, and when that didn’t work, she probably tried to wrangle another man, Serena’s father, into marriage. But I have no proof of that, and it doesn’t matter. I’m thankful to have Serena as my sister no matter how we came to be.”
“So you’ve never had a father figure in your house?”
She shook her head. “But don’t worry. I’m not looking for a daddy replacement,” she said a little sharply.
“I wasn’t thinking that, Chloe. I was thinking that you were, as you said, Serena’s protector. You were essentially her mother and her father.”
“Pretty much. That’s one of the reasons I was looking for a certain type of man. I crave stability, Justin, and based on the rough guys my mother has always dated, I assumed my father was just like them. So I’ve looked for the opposite. But again, I don’t know anything about my father. The only thing I know for sure is that we lived in the house where my mother still lives by the time I was in kindergarten, because I remember coming off the bus and walking home. I can’t even tell you who babysat us back then. It seems like there was a new babysitter every other week, at least until I was eight, when our mother started leaving us alone.”
He knew all about being left alone, and it slayed him that she’d gone through that. “Did your mother bring men home with her?” he asked carefully, hoping to hell the answer was no.
“Yes, and we were always supposed to be on our best behavior.” Her voice rose an octave and she said, “Have to impress so-and-so. He could be the one.” In her normal voice, she said, “And they were always bikers or construction workers with wandering eyes, and…” Her face clouded with uneasiness.
He held her tighter, sickened by the thought of anyone hurting her. “Did they ever touch you and Serena?”
“Not Serena,” she said firmly. “I’d have given my life before allowing that to happen.”
His protective urges surged, and he gritted his teeth. “Christ, Chloe. What happened?”
She scoffed. “Which time?”
He closed his eyes, teeth clenched, heart hammering against his ribs, and tried to rein in the rage burning through him. But she didn’t need to see that rage, so he forced his eyes open and spoke as calmly as he could, which wasn’t very calmly at all. “Fucking hell. No wonder you’re afraid to date tough guys.”
“Once you’ve been cornered in a kitchen, on a couch, or you wake up to a stranger’s hands on you, it changes your perspective on things.”
“Holy fuck, baby.” He wanted to track down the fuckers who had touched her and rip them to shreds. He rested his forehead on the side of her head, telling himself that the anger he felt was nothing compared to whatever she’d gone through. “How old were you? What did you do?”
“I was about twelve when I was cornered. And let me tell you something—at that age, when a full-grown man is looming over you, it doesn’t matter if you know t
o kick him in the nuts or to scream. At least for me it didn’t, because I knew to do both of those things, but my mind went completely blank with fear. Thankfully, my mother came into the room, which enabled me to get away before he did more than paw at me and say crude things. But I made the mistake of running behind her, thinking she might actually protect me. I was crying, and I told her that he was saying things he shouldn’t and that he’d trapped me against the counter and touched me. But it was my word against his, and he said he was just talking to me and that I was acting out because I wanted my mother’s attention.”
“That motherfucker,” he ground out through gritted teeth. “What did your mother do?”
“She kind of laughed it off, so I grabbed Serena and locked us in my room.” Chloe shifted in his arms. “Justin, you’re holding me a little too tight.”
“Sorry.” He loosened his grip, but his muscles were corded tight, ready for a fight. “I want to kill that guy, and I’m sorry, babe, but I’d like to give your mother a piece of my mind, too.”
“Well, get in line. I had always known that she didn’t take care of us, but I never imagined she wouldn’t protect us. The silver lining on that dark cloud was that I learned from it. From that day on, I made it my mission to never be caught like a deer in the headlights again, or to need someone else to save me.”
And there it was, the history behind her independent streak.
“I watched self-defense videos and learned how to become more aware of my surroundings,” Chloe said. “I got tougher, and I’m positive that’s what kept me out of many bad situations, but not all of them.” She looked at him, her face pinched with bad memories, and said, “I haven’t told Serena or anyone else about any of this, and I don’t want her to know because she’ll just feel guilty for not being able to help me. I need to know you won’t say anything. Okay?”
A Little Bit Wicked (The Wickeds Page 10