by Meli Raine
I know I shouldn’t complain. And yet...I have a right to live the life I want to live.
And that life doesn’t involve living under Jeff’s thumb.
I think about the money at the bar, in the tampon machine. I’m so close. Another few weeks and I’ll have just enough for a one-way bus ticket and my share of the security deposit plus first month’s rent to share the apartment with Marissa and her roommates. She told me how much to bring, and that she’d help me get in, try to help me find a job in Los Angeles.
The nightmare is fading. My bones aren’t shaking any more, and I’m not chilled. The faceless man is the worst part. How can you overcome your deepest fears if you literally can’t “face” them?
I pull my knees up under the covers and hug them, eyes away from the wallpaper and looking out the window. Dirt has coated the outside but I can still see the inky sky. The moon is waning a tiny bit every night. Chase is out there, somewhere, under the same moon as me.
I wish he would come and visit. Closing my eyes, I think about how his touch felt against my skin. Instead of remembering the nightmare, I’ll fantasize about his touch. His lips on mine were like heaven. His face was like seeing everything I’ve ever wanted in one human being right in front of me, too good to be true.
And yet he is true.
A strong wind rattles my window outside, making me look.
Tap!
I frown. That sounds weird. My body doesn’t want to get out from under the covers. Even though I know it’s silly, I’m terrified that if I step on the ground, something under the bed will grab my ankle. Like the faceless tree man from my nightmare.
“Allie!” says a voice I know so well.
“Chase?” I say, scrambling out of bed, no longer worried about the boogeyman I imagine under the bed. I rush to the window and look down to find him, staring up at me with a big, wild grin on his face.
Heaven.
“Come down here and see me before I scale your house and come into your bedroom,” he shouts.
The thought makes my heart skitter and my lips tingle.
“My stepfather! Shhh! He’ll hear you!” Anxiety goes to full throttle throughout my body, making me feel like my skin will explode from fear. Jeff’s going to kill Chase.
“He’s gone!” Chase shouts. We live so far away from anyone else that I don’t worry about neighbors hearing. Jeff’s the only one I worry about, and if he’s gone, that means—
I’m completely alone with Chase.
“How do you know he’s gone?” I use a normal tone of voice now and lean out through my open window, grinning back. My hair falls over my face, the way it would if I were kissing him in bed.
I shiver as desire rushes to my belly at the thought.
“His car’s not here,” Chase answers. “God, you look so gorgeous like that.”
I reach up to touch my hair, feeling it tangled. “Like what?”
“Like you just got out of bed,” he says with a leer.
“I did just get out of bed,” I say with a laugh, my chest turning hot. Are we flirting? Is this what flirting feels like? I don’t know. No one has ever done more than hit on me before. Being hooted at or having your ass pinched at the bar isn’t exactly the same as this.
“Then keep on getting out of bed, Allie, and get your pretty face down here!” Chase waves me on. He doesn’t have to ask twice. I run outside in bare feet, my pajamas glued to my body from the sweat of the hot night and my frantic nightmare.
His eyes rake over my body as I slow down and stop, feet away from him, a light breeze blowing across my damp body. My nipples perk up and tighten, and my core does, too. An unfamiliar warmth spreads between my legs and I feel naked.
Chase studies me like I’m the only woman he’s ever seen, eyes hungry and wanting everything he looks at. We’re suspended in time right now, completely alone in the desert. In the distance, a coyote howls, the mournful sound somehow comforting. The stars are big and so bright in the sky tonight, the moon gives us enough light to see each other, yet respects the stars, too. They need to shine.
Sometimes you need your turn to be noticed.
Chase is noticing me.
He walks toward me, hips jaunty as they move, my eyes fixed on his belt buckle. He’s dusty from riding his bike, and he hasn’t shaved in days. I’ve missed him. I miss him. I miss his touch so much I’m vibrating with need, every inch of skin craving him.
An invisible forcefield separates us, my clothing chilling me. My desire makes me so hot I think I’ll burst into flame and engulf Chase.
And then.
One step.
Two.
Three.
Oh, Chase.
His fingers are on my jaw, pulling my face up for a kiss, his hands around my waist, splayed flat against the small of my back. He wrenches me closer, as if he needs every part of my body to touch every part of his. The hard line of muscles along his legs and torso fit against my soft curves.
“You are so divine,” he murmurs against my mouth. The taste of mint and musk on his lips makes me sigh inside, like a release. Like I can breathe for the first time in my life, and I melt into his arms. He holds me up as his tongue explores, sliding along my teeth, dancing with my own as he says ‘hello’ so intimately, so beautifully.
My hands. I don’t know what to do with them. I’m so overwhelmed by the newness of being kissed like this. So thoroughly you would think he was surveying a new land, claiming it for himself. If that’s what he’s doing with each caress, with those hungry hands that now touch my ass, pulling my pelvis against his and making it very clear that he likes me—wants me—then he can claim me. Own me.
Take me.
I’m so ready and wanting and he’s here. Warm and hot and oh, so Chase. I’m not the kind of girl who does this. Kisses a strange guy, much less one who is in a motorcycle gang that controls drug dealing territories! A rush of shock pulses through me. What am I doing?
Chase’s hand slides up the side of my body, fingers tickling the edge of my breast. I gasp, instantly wet between my legs, the feeling so lurid and unexpected. I want to touch him everywhere, to feel his power, to have him use it with my body so I can feel powerful, too. Feel safe. Protected.
Wanted.
“God, you’re so amazing, Allie,” Chase whispers. “Calm during the bar fight, determined to stay cool through it all. You didn’t back down against your stepdad, and you’re—” He pauses, his thumb stroking the soft, inner skin of my elbow, moving up to my jaw. Those light brown eyes with hints of yellow and topaz are fixated on me. Pupils thick and wide, dilated like a wild cat with its eye on prey.
I’m Chase’s prey. He’s hunting me, and now he’s caught me.
I pull him down to my mouth, aggressive and bold. The Allie I’ve been for eighteen years needs to change, and I’m so close to living my real life. Not this one, the life I didn’t choose.
And now I’m choosing Chase. One touch, one stroke, one kiss at a time.
I am free in his arms.
“You’re the most compelling person I’ve ever met in my entire life,” Chase says, finishing his thought.
“You barely know me,” I say, suddenly shy.
“I know everything I need to know,” he says in a low, smoky voice. His hardness presses into my belly and that moist warmth fills my nether regions, making me crave skin-to-skin contact. I think about my mussed bed upstairs and feel my face blush bright. I want a different kind of sweaty sleep, the kind where our bodies slip together like seals, where skin touches skin in frantic need, desire the only map we need to explore each other’s body.
Our eyes meet and his widen, then narrow. He sees my thoughts. He reads my mind. The palm cradling my ass clenches and his fingers tighten.
Chase takes my mouth with a roughness that wasn’t there seconds ago. Urgent and frenzied, he pushes so hard I wonder if I’ll have bruises along my lip line in the morning. I don’t care, though, because I push right back. Needy and craving more of
his taste, his fingers, his skin against mine, I block out all the ways I know I’m supposed to act and I give in to what I feel.
A groan pours out of the back of Chase’s throat as I grind against him, my belly pulling up along the rigid, thick shaft that runs under his jeans. I’ve never touched a man there before. Never seen one naked. It’s not for lack of interest, I just...never have.
Now, though, I can’t wait.
Chase takes my hand as if he’s reading my mind and he opens my palm, settling it along the thick length of him.
“This is how much I want you, Allie.” He kisses me, a wet, slow tango with our mouths that makes me stroke him, wondering if I’m doing it right.
The growl that vibrates in my mouth as Chase freezes tells me I am doing all right. His hand finds my breast, my t-shirt still stuck to me from sweat and heat. My turn to moan as his thumb tweaks my nipple.
Moving so fast—from first kiss to first touch like this—it feels so wrong. So dirty. Too promiscuous. A wave of self-consciousness hits me like a sudden rainburst in the desert, unexpected and completely out of character with everything else. I stiffen, and Chase’s hand stops.
“Too much, isn’t it?” He pulls back, an apology in his eyes. He takes two steps backward, completely severing the connection of our bodies.
I’m so cold. Suddenly, I’m an iceberg.
A shaking hand runs through his messy waves, and he looks like a teen boy on his first date, all aw shucks and nervous.
“I’m sorry, Allie. I shouldn’t come on so strong. That’s wrong of me,” he says, his voice gentle. His eyes aren’t tender, though. They’re on alert, completely focused on me, and his gaze travels down my entire body.
He’s warming me up with just his look.
“It’s okay.” Finding my voice is harder than you’d think. “It really is,” I say, sighing. “I...I like it.” I’m so afraid this is it, that he’s stopped for good and that I’ll never, ever feel those hands on my body again, those lips on mine, that tongue teaching me how holy a kiss can be.
“You do?” His voice is deep and low, like a man who wants something and quickly realizes there’s a strong chance he can get it.
“I do.” Oh! The wedding words. I turn three shades of pink as I make the connection in my mind, and Chase smiles, laughter carrying on the wind.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he adds, eyes twinkling. His fingers flex and he shifts his hips, looking up at the stars and away from me.
“No, no, I didn’t mean...I wouldn’t presume...I...” Stammering and yammering, I can’t shut up, protesting that I wasn’t thinking about marrying him, for goodness sake. Who marries a drug dealing motorcycle club vice president?
“You wouldn’t marry someone like me, you mean,” he spits out. I flinch. Can he read my mind? We seem more deeply connected than either of us ever realized.
“I didn’t mean it that way, Chase. Really!” The world begins to spin and the happy moon suddenly turns sinister. How did this wonderful night become so bad, so fast? Are we arguing? This feels like an argument. I’ve never argued with a guy before, and it feels awful. Like I did something wrong and I have no idea what, but will do anything to fix it. All I want is for Chase to pull me into his arms again but instead Chase’s eyes go cold.
What just happened?
“You have a thing against MC?”
“What’s MC?”
He snorts and kicks the dirt. “Motorcycle club.”
“Oh, um...” The question catches me off guard, and butterflies live in my stomach by the thousands now. The night air feels like it is brushing against every part of my skin where Chase just touched me and is erasing all the amazing feelings we just shared. My body is screaming, my brain’s on fire and somehow, I’ve offended him.
Way to go, Allie.
“No! I would totally marry you!” I insist, eyes filling with tears from confusion.
“You would?” He makes a snorting sound, a laugh. “I don’t recall asking.”
My turn to pull back. I feel like I’ve been stung. Am I just a joke to him? Is he acting like he’s hurt just to get me to say stuff so he can embarrass me? In high school the jocks would do that sometimes. Pick a shy girl and ask her to the homecoming dance, then make fun of her when she said yes. Is that what Chase is doing here? Playing a game of monkey-in-the-middle with my heart?
“Now you’re making fun of me?” I force my voice to go as cold as I can. My heart feels like someone is picking it up and dribbling it like a basketball inside my chest. Chase is looking at me with a face that I can’t read, and it hurts so much.
Because seconds ago that same face was brushing up against mine, our bodies creating a whole new world. And now I’m standing on one side of an ocean and he’s on the other. It’s like the world cracked in half and we can’t put it back together again.
All over my silly comment.
I don’t like this. I don’t like feeling naked in front of him, like my heart’s just sitting there, exposed, and he can step on it any time he pleases. I turn away to go back in the house and crawl under the covers, hide away from everything and become a turtle again. In my shell, where no one can hurt me.
Maybe Jeff’s right. Maybe I shouldn’t ever leave. Maybe this is where I’m meant to be, living the same life as everyone else. Los Angeles is a silly dream for people too stupid to realize it’s just a dream. Who am I to think I can make it big as an actress? That’s a dream for women who aren’t rejected by men who’ve just kissed them.
Chapter Seven
“Good night, Chase,” I call back over my shoulder as I twist on my bare heel and start to run into the house.
A hot hand wraps around my wrist and I fall backward. His comforting arms are around me, keeping me upright. I fight to get out of his grasp because I feel so stupid. Did I really think this was someone I could be special with? He’s just toying with me.
“Leave me alone,” I rasp as the tears take over my throat, drowning me in salty sorrow.
“Never.” He lets go of my wrist, though. “I can’t stop thinking about you, and I’m sorry for what I just said. If you don’t want to be with me because you think I’m a dirty biker—”
I cut him off with an open-mouthed gasp, grabbing his eyes with mine. I don’t care that I’m crying and he can see it. “That’s not what I said! I would never think that about you!”
“But I am, Allie,” he says with a sigh, plunking down on a bench next to the house. “That’s all I am. A dirty biker whose gang deals drugs and whose father wants him to be the next leader.”
He’s so sad. His eyebrows turn down and his eyes look at the dirt, away from me. In the dark night it’s like he’s sitting in a confessional booth in a Catholic church, giving his confession. I sit next to him but don’t touch him.
With the back of my hand I wipe away my tears. “You don’t have to live the life your dad picked out for you,” I whisper.
He just grunts.
“No, really,” I insist. “What do you want? Who do you want to be, Chase?” Tentative, I reach for his hand to pat it, a comforting gesture. Something you do when you’re with someone you know really well.
“I don’t want to be the vice president of the Atlas Club, that’s for sure.”
He squeezes my hand. I keep it there. It’s where it’s meant to be, for now.
Chase’s eyes are filled with pain and hope as he turns his head and looks at me, He tilts his head to the left, a pensive look aimed solely at me as his eyes search my face. “And I don’t want to deal drugs anymore. I never wanted to. My old man made me. Said I was nothing more than a biker, and born and bred for the open road.”
“Is that true?” I ask it on purpose, with a challenge in my voice.
“Hell, no!” Chase snaps, looking at me like I’m nuts.
“Then do whatever you want to do. What would you do if you didn’t have to be the VP of Atlas?”
That shy grin re-appears, the look of a boyish, sweet
er Chase. He blinks rapidly and clears his throat, twice. “I’d be a stunt man. In the movies. In—”
“Los Angeles,” we say in unison.
“Don’t tell me you want to be a stunt man there, too,” Chase says slowly, looking at me like I’m a little bit crazy.
I laugh and squeeze his fingers. It feels so natural, like we’re meant to sit outside my house and hold hands after an argument at three in the morning.
“No. An actress,” I say, suddenly alarmed. Marissa’s the only person I’ve said that to. Ever. My mom died before I knew what I wanted in life, and telling Jeff would be the kiss of death. Mom worked as a nurse’s aide her whole life when she wasn’t helping him run the bar, but said she always wished she could be a make up artist. Smiled at the thought, a wistful look that makes me cry now. She never got to pursue her dream.
I still can try.
Saying it to Chase makes it seem more real. It is more real, because sitting with him I feel like I can do anything. Like I’m more free than I ever knew was possible.
His eyes glow in the night as he looks at me, hand tightly clasping mine. He takes a long, slow, deep breath, the thin cotton of his t-shirt bunching as he lets the air out, his thigh rubbing against mine as he scoots closer to me and puts his arm around my shoulders.
“That’s better,” he says softly.
“Yes, it is,” I say before I can stop myself.
“Actress, huh?” He looks at me in a new way, narrowing his eyes, tilting his head, and evaluating me in a fresh light. “You ever acted before?”
“In high school plays,” I say with a shrug. “It’s not much, but I figure everyone has to start somewhere.”
He smiles, the joy in his face so dazzling it’s like the sun just came up out of nowhere. How can someone so big and dangerous, so scary-looking and brutal also have this softer, warmer side?