by Evelyn Glass
“No,” Dad says, looking sternly at Secret Service. “No, he did not. You, go and get a paramedic.”
The crowd begins to disperse and I lead Roma to the stage, sit him down, leaning him against it. He smiles up at me, reaches out his hands for my face. I sit next to him and we hold each other.
“You came back for me,” I say.
“Are you glad I did?” he asks.
I bring his hand to my lips and kiss it softly. “I wished for it,” I say.
Dad leans down beside us. “Where’s your ring?” he says.
I smile at Roma. “He couldn’t afford one. But he did make a special purchase to win me.”
Roma grins.
Dad shakes his head, bemused, and a moment later the paramedic is weaving through the crowd.
Chapter Forty-Five
Roma
“Getting tired, Mrs. Roma?” I laugh, as Felicity pants beside me.
“Mrs. Roma.” Felicity grins, blowing air from red cheeks.
It’s been one month since the shooting, since Mr. Black died, and in that time Felicity and I have barely been apart. We stayed in the States for around a week, in an apartment I rented just for privacy. We did nothing but make love and order in food and watch movies. It was only a week, but it felt like a year compressed down into seven days. We made love five times a day until we were both tired and spent. Felicity tended to my wounds and we fell deeper in love until the bloodshed seemed like a distant memory.
Now, we’re back in France, finishing the backpacking holiday for our honeymoon.
“You need to get a second name,” she says.
“Never had need of one before you,” I reply.
She punches me playfully in the shoulder. “Well, you do now.”
The sun is high in the sky, bathing down upon us, as we walk past the street beside which we first made love. Felicity wanders over to it and touches the dents I made when I punched it. “They’re deep,” she says. “I don’t think many men are so strong to leave deep gashes in trees, Roma.”
I shrug. “I was just angry, is all.”
I join her at the tree, wrap my arms around her waist, press my crotch into her. She turns and kisses me on the lips. Passion explodes between us and we make love, right there, under the sunlight and in view of the village. When we’re done and we’re both smiling like fools, we make out way down the hill and to Bear’s cottage.
Felicity and I gasp in unison when we see Bear, hefting a load of bricks on his shoulder, shirtless with sweat pouring down him. His gaze snaps up when he sees us and he drops the bricks. They thud to the earth and in four large steps he’s on us. He envelops both of us in a wide embrace.
“You stink, man.” I laugh, patting him on the back.
The cottage is a quarter-built, the remains in a large pile beside it.
Felicity rests her head on Bear’s shoulder. My heart warms at that, the warmth of a man seeing his father and wife forming a father-daughter relationship.
“I’m damn glad to see you both,” Bear says, stepping back and grinning. “Damn glad, you have no idea.” He pats me on the shoulder. “Hear you did it for Mr. Black.”
I nod. “That’s behind us now,” I say. I wrap my arm around Felicity’s shoulders and she leans into me. “They beat me bloody, damn near killed me, but Felicity saved me.”
“Is that so?” Bear smiles. “Bet there’s a tale in that.”
He leads us to a pile of bricks, which form a sort of primitive campsite and we all sit down under the sunlight. I take bottles of water and sandwiches from my bag and hand them out. Felicity and I tell Bear what happened after he left. When we’re done, Bear’s grin couldn’t be wider.
“So you saved him by making him your husband? Smart, girl, smart.”
“We didn’t expect to see you here,” Felicity says.
“I heard about Mr. Black, reckoned no bastard’d be coming after me now, so I thought, why not? Aye, oh, by the way, Roma, that man whose pick-up you stole, you’re square. Gave him three-thousand euros and he forgot the whole thing.”
I reach into my pocket and take out the money, make to hand it to Bear. He closes my fingers over it with his giant paw. “I said I sorted it. You’re married. You need to hold onto your money.”
I nod and put the money back into my pocket.
Chapter Forty-Six
Felicity
I hope. That is what I do. I hope and I hope. But this is the first time in my life when I feel like I’ve arrived. I’m not hoping for anything anymore. We’re here; I’m living it.
We sit in the sun, tired and relaxed, and then I turn to Roma. The wounds on his face have healed and he looks stronger and more capable than ever. I think of all the sweet, close moments we’ve shared over this past month, all the times we’ve made love, and tingles move over my skin. If this isn’t love, I think, I don’t know what is.
“So you’re not officially married, eh?” Bear says.
“Not officially, no,” Roma says. “What’s that smile about?”
Bear is grinning ear to ear. “I’m ordained,” he says. “The village over the hill did it. I’ve already married a few people. I can do you two, if you like, make it official.”
Roma turns to me, a question in his blue eyes. A blue which is now brighter, full of life and love, the blue of a changed man. I don’t answer with words. Instead, I climb to my feet, walk to where he sits, and drop onto his lap, splitting my legs over his waist. I lean down and kiss him passionately on the lips. Bear turns away, shielding his eyes.
“I’m not seeing a thing,” he laughs. “But I’ll take that as a yes.”
“What do you think?” I say, when the kiss is over. Our bodies are alive to each other.
“I think we should stay here and help Bear rebuild, build something up instead of breaking it down. And I think we should get married tomorrow morning, at dawn.”
He brings his hands up my back, gripping me hard, and I’ve never felt more secure.
“That sounds good to me,” I smile.
We kiss again and Roma lifts me to my feet, standing up.
“I love you more than anything, Felicity,” he says.
He kneels down, takes a daisy from the grass, and wraps it into a ring. He does this with tenderness. Then he slips the daisy onto my finger.
“I love you, too.”
Our kiss is long, hot, perfect.
THE END
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HER BUYER: Paulito Angels MC
By Evelyn Glass
HE BOUGHT MY BODY. HE CLAIMED MY HEART.
But there can be no happy ending with a monster like him.
I woke up, half-naked, in the worst place I’d ever been:
On an auction stage, on sale to a faceless crowd of hungry men.
And they were hungry for ME.
Stripped down and cuffed tight, there’s nowhere for me to go.
But then HE barges in.
The man I’ve been hunting for years.
Every time I thought I had him locked away for good, he finds a way to slip out.
He’s a ghost, a tease, a menace.
And now, he’s about to be my buyer.
I should hate him, shouldn’t I?
The criminal who claims he owns me now.
And I do hate him – mostly.
But that’s not the whole truth.
Because my brain wants to be free.
But my body wants to stay chained to his bed forever.
Chapter One
I peeled my eyes open, one at a time, and immediately closed them again. Jesus. Where the fuck was I?
I felt as though I had a hangover– the worst fucking hangover of my life, that was. My head was pounding, my stomach was churning, and I could barely lift my head off the ground without
it swimming so much I thought I might hurl there and then.
I closed my eyes again, and drew in a few sharp breaths through my nose, trying to center myself. How had I ended up here? I groped around in my mind for the last thing I could remember before now. My brain ached as I tried to stretch my memory that far back, and I furrowed my brow at the pain.
I had been on patrol. That was all I remembered. Not in a particularly bad part of town, but I had been out on the streets. Nothing was odd– it was just me, out on the street, same as every night. Had I gone out and got drunk afterwards and just forgotten about it? Maybe I’d been spiked…no, I could remember vaguely thinking about what I was going to watch when I got back to my apartment. I hadn’t made any plans for after my shift. I was looking forward to getting home, peeling off my uniform, and slipping into my sweats with a takeout.
I finally managed to open my eyes and look around—it was dark wherever I was, dark enough that I couldn’t make out my surroundings. As my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I realized with a creeping sense of dread that I wasn’t in my apartment.
I pushed myself upright, ignoring the pain that swirled through my head. I glanced around, trying to find something I recognized. The room was small, with no windows and exposed brick walls. It looked like some kind of cell, but not the kind that I might throw someone in for a misdemeanor—no, this was different. I couldn’t place it. I was lying on a small bench at the corner of the room, the wood digging into my back. I braced against the walls to help myself sit up, then swung my legs around to place them on the floor. The rough wood of the bench dug into the backs of my thighs. Which didn’t make sense, I was wearing pants. Except I wasn’t. What the hell was I wearing?
It certainly wasn’t the uniform I’d left the house in earlier that night– or, fuck, was it even the same night anymore? I had no idea how much time had passed, how long it had been since my eyes drifted shut and my memory gave out. I was dressed in—well, I couldn’t exactly call it a dress. That would be a disservice to dresses everywhere. No, this was more a handful of fabric scraps draped across my body—I could hardly make out the color in the darkness, but they appeared to be a deep, blood red hue. Appropriate. I tugged at the fabric as best I could, trying to cover a little more of my body, but it was futile. I was completely exposed. When I was wearing my uniform, I felt powerful, in–control, safe—but now, I wanted to retract into myself, to vanish completely under these pathetic strips of fabric.
I still couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on, but it was becoming increasingly clear that it was bad, bad news. I heard stories like this before—of women, waking up with no memory of where they came from and dressed in skimpy outfits that they’d never laid eyes on before. They rarely ended up with a happily–ever–after.
Suddenly, a door at the other side of the room burst open. I jumped and pulled myself to my feet, wobbling as I tried to stand. My feet were bare, and the rough concrete floor was cold against my soles. I tried to remember my training, dragging to mind what little I could remember of my hand–to–hand combat classes—it had been a long time since I’d needed to use them, thank God, but I lifted my fists as best I could and held them up in the most threatening manner I could, given the circumstances.
“Oh, you’re up,” a man’s voice cut through the darkness. I had to have been sedated at some point; my head was swimming painfully and I was having trouble keeping my eyes open now that I was upright. Who had done this to me? And why? And this guy seemed surprised that I was awake…what, had they intended to keep me out for longer? Or worse?
I swung for him, but instead of making contact, I simply staggered forward and found myself falling into his arms. I felt his grubby hands on my bare shoulders and shuddered at his touch, trying to pull myself free uselessly. I didn’t have an ounce of strength in my body, and he let out a small, mirthless laugh as I tried to get him off me.
“Hey, you’re a lot feistier than the rest of them normally are,” he remarked. He was a big guy, and he smelled like dirty sweat and stale whiskey. My scalp prickled with panic. The rest of them? How many of us were there? Or…how many of us had there been?
“Come on, they’re waiting for you out there,” he tightened his grip on my arm and dragged towards a door. I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again, forcing myself to take in my surroundings like I’d been trained to do. The walls were pale grey, lined with a series of dirty metal doors like the one that had trapped me inside that awful room. At the end of the hall, however, something caught my eye: a door made of carefully polished wood, that seemed to glow in the flickering fluorescent light. That was where we were headed; why had they put so much effort into making that one door look nice, when the rest of this place looked like a prison? I tried once more to tug my arm from the man’s grip, but it was as though the sedatives had sapped every ounce of strength from my body. What the hell had they given me? We reached the door, and man paused for a moment, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear and re–adjusting my dress. I arched away from him, frowning, and my heart began to pound. I might not have known what was going on, but I could be fucking sure that it wasn’t good news.
Chapter Two
I had never been to that place before—but as it turned out, it was as though it had been charmed in my favor before I even walked through the door.
One of my old contacts had invited me out. Taylor, a friend of mine from back in high school who had sponsored me with the Paulito Angels motorcycle club. We kept in hazy contact, but I always hit him up when I needed a new place to get my card–game on. Eventually, all the bars and clubs I frequented would grow tired of me sweeping the place of cash every time I went in, and I needed a new challenge. Taylor promised me that these guys were the best, and I hadn’t bothered to ask if anything about this place was legal.
Not that I gave much of a shit. As long as the booze was cheap and the playing was good, I was happy to while away the rest of the night doing nothing much whatsoever. Not to mention the fact that the couple of scantily clad women who had been hired to serve us for the night had slowly been gravitating their way towards me since I walked in the door. I could tell it was pissing off Ian, who sat opposite me, clutching a handful of cards to his chest as though they contained the secrets to the universe. He screwed up his face in annoyance, peering over at my winnings and frowning heavily.
“You sure this guy’s on the up–and–up?” Ian demanded of Friedrich, the asshole club owner, who seemed more interested in getting his hands all over the chicks sitting on either side of me. I could tell that he desperately wanted me to be a cheating piece of shit, but had to admit that I was just that damn good. He shrugged apologetically at Ian.
“Seems so, my man.”
I felt one of the girl’s hands tiptoeing along my shoulder and down my back; I glanced over at her, and she flashed me a dazzling smile. I felt my cock twitch with interest at the thought of getting both of them back to my apartment and out of those cumbersome dresses, but I quickly pushed the thought from my mind. I needed to keep my head in the game, because if I lost this shit now, I wouldn’t be able to pay my bar tab. And I had a feeling that the guys here wouldn’t be so keen on me putting it on credit.
Suddenly, my attention was drawn by the sound of the buzz in the bar dropping away to almost nothing. That couldn’t be good. My head snapped up, and I wished I hadn’t left my piece at home. It wasn’t like I wanted to use it, but in in places like this, you could never be sure. Friedrich had approached a staging area in the bar, pausing for a moment as everyone turned to pay him the attention he so clearly thought that he deserved. I placed my cards face down on the table, and reached for my scotch. This should be interested. What was this going to be, a cabaret night?
“Thank you all for joining us this evening,” he remarked, sweeping his hand out across the entire room to encompass the two dozen or so people who were sitting in the dingy dim half–light of this place. “I know some of you have been waiting all ni
ght for this moment, so here she is…tonight’s biggest prize.”
I glanced around; a couple of people were whispering to each other, and I could tell that whatever was about to happen was a big deal. I tightened my grip on my glass protectively, and shrugged off the two chicks sitting either side of me as I leaned forward to take in the local color. I had no idea what to expect next—and when it happened, I had to admit that never in a million years would I have guessed what was about to go down.
A polished wooden door opened at the back of the staging area, and Friedrich stepped aside to allow for a couple of people to emerge. The first was a man, a real goon of a guy, thickly built and with a brow that practically entered the room before he did. And behind him—a woman. A woman I knew all too well.
“Well, gentlemen, we have a treat for you tonight,” Friedrich remarked as he swept his eyes up and down the woman standing to his right. He grabbed her arm and pulled her in close to him, and my mind raced as I tried to figure out what I should do next.