by C. M. Marin
“Are you going to hurt me?” I ask him instead, though my heart already seems to know the answer to that question.
His smile dies in a flash, replaced by a frown deepening on his forehead as he closes the distance between us. “Of course not. Never,” he vows, and I believe him.
“Then why should I be scared?”
His grin forms back as he offers me his hand. “Come on, let’s get inside.”
I accept his hand gladly, loving the way he takes it like it’s natural. Like the first time he held it, I revel in his touch like a junkie sniffing their fix after an eternity of contrived abstinence. The feeling is still almost unreal. Just like his lips on mine felt yesterday.
It was like the person who was experiencing that kiss wasn’t me. Or maybe I pretended it wasn’t me accepting that kiss because I knew I should have stepped back sooner than I did. I just couldn’t let the warmth of it slip away from me. The sensuality of it, too. Because, God, that kiss. That man clearly has some practice under his belt. The way he delved his tongue into my mouth to assault mine matched perfectly the domineering aura piercing through the paradoxical relaxed attitude constantly rolling off him. Even though no part of him was touching me except for his lips, a fiery energy was building between us. It was building low in my belly, reminding me I was still a woman, but also reminding me I shouldn’t be doing that.
Maybe someday I’ll be able to close that very important chapter of my life where I should have walked down the aisle to a man I was supposed to love forever, but now is way too soon.
I only get out of my own head when Nate has already guided me inside this place I still don’t know if it’s his home. He called it his place, but after seeing all those bikes outside, I’m not sure.
The room we entered is large, and a bar runs along half the length of the wall on the right side. Across from it, couches are lined up against the opposite wall, some others are facing them, and four tables fill the center of the room. Silence is total even though several people are slouched on a couch or sitting at a table, watching TV, reading the paper, or eating breakfast. The only thing all of them have in common is their eyes set on Nate and me.
Staring.
Intently.
Okay.
I’m thankful when a guy breaks the heavy silence before the situation turns downright embarrassing. Though what he says makes no sense to me.
“Jesus, Mary, and dear Joseph, be careful and get your warmest coat, I think Hell just froze over us simple mortals,” he chuckles.
With his dark blond, slightly wavy hair and blue eyes, he looks more like a surfer than a biker.
Beside me, Nate grumbles something I can’t make out, and I still don’t get the guy’s joke despite it triggering a wave of chuckles around the room. Biker humor, maybe.
“A really good morning to you, love,” the guy adds, his playful gaze on me.
I wave an awkward hand to acknowledge everyone―still staring at me, by the way. Some of them mimic my gesture as some nod my way.
“Guys, this is Camryn, she’s with me,” he introduces me in a rather weird way, stressing the words with me.
I think they all can see that, since none of them have torn their eyes away from us.
“Melvin!” Nate shouts then, his attention steering to his right, and heavy steps keep my own on a door that opens quickly.
A tall, young guy with brown hair cut short and hazel eyes appears at the doorway. “Yeah, prez?”
Prez. Like president, I suppose. Nate is at the head of the club, then? For some reason, that makes me feel even safer.
“Bring Camryn a green tea,” he only says.
My eyes widen as the guy nods once and walks back before I could thank him.
“You could have said please,” I murmur to Nate, now feeling fully embarrassed.
“He’s a prospect, that’s his job,” he tells me like that’s a perfectly acceptable answer, which it’s not. But I don’t get the time to point out his rudeness. “You want to eat something? Melvin can cook you whatever you want. Or we’ve got cereals, or―”
“I’m just fine with the pancakes I ate not even half an hour ago, but thank you,” I stop him before he can enumerate every single breakfast option I have. “But I really want to know what this is all about, because you freaked me out back at the diner. No offense, but when you say that bikers have been following me, I find it hard to believe.”
Now that I feel safer, Nate’s conviction is back to make no sense at all and his worry back to sound irrational.
“Yet yesterday I already caught two Spiders watching you from across the street,” he tells me as he walks me to a table where two guys are sitting.
One is a twenty-something, bald guy with caramel skin and hazel eyes, and the other is an older guy with black hair and piercing green eyes. Both have a few tattoos drawn on their arms, though I don’t look at them long enough to know what they are. I’m glad Nate pulls out a chair for me to sit at the other side of the table, because those guys are seriously intimidating.
“And you can believe me, their eyes were on you, no one else,” he goes on.
He lowers himself on a chair across from me just as the surfer look-alike guy drawls, “That might only be because she’s hot.”
“Shut it,” he demands, tossing a deadly glare in the guy’s direction.
His voice comes out harder than I’ve heard it so far, and it surprises me so much it almost allows me to filter out his friend’s comment. But his expression softens as soon as it’s directed back at me.
“Don’t pay attention to him, Ben’s just a damn kid,” he explains about the surfer look-alike guy, apparently called Ben.
“Here,” a voice has me looking up just as that Melvin guy sets a steaming cup in front of me.
Smiling, I make up for Nate’s earlier bad manners. “Thank you, that’s really nice,” I tell him, and he flashes me a boyish grin before walking away.
A light chuckle escapes Nate, and I shoot him a disapproving look, which makes someone else chuckle. That Ben guy again, I think.
“Anyway, those Spiders guys, who are they?”
“Another club,” he answers. “And not a good one. The Royal Spiders MC.”
“So, there are good clubs and bad clubs?”
Trying to understand that kind of things when strange, possibly dangerous people might be following me is ridiculous, but that’s what I ask instinctively. I think that what I really want to know is whether Nate’s club could harm me in any way. The thing is, I don’t believe so. I don’t believe Nate would allow anyone, even his friends, to hurt me, but it’d still be nice to hear it.
“You could say that. And the Spiders are all psychos, to call it what it is,” Ben says, not sugar-coating the description.
“Jesus,” Nate mutters to himself before addressing me. “Not gonna lie, we’re not saints,” he admits, but then he answers the question I couldn’t ask bluntly. “But we don’t deal with drugs or guns, and we sure as fuck don’t hurt innocent people for the fun of it, which never bothered the Spiders. That’s why it’s important you think about what they might want from you.”
“There’s no need to think about it. I don’t even know who they are. I don’t know anything about them, or about any motorcycle club, for that matter.”
“But they are following you for a reason,” he insists, and I’m not sure I like the doubt clogging his redundant statement.
“I’m not lying. I don’t know them, Nate,” I say one more time and carry on as he’s about to say something. “Besides, again, no offense, but look around you. Don’t you think you’ve got more reasons to be followed? I mean, something tells me my teacher’s life is boring as hell compared to your we’re-not-saints one,” I borrow his own words.
“She’s got a point here, bro,” the guy with light brown skin says lazily before stuffing a bit of eggs into his mouth, not looking up from his plate.
“Thank you… I suppose,” I say slowly as I think at wha
t my last comment was.
The guy who seems to have quite an easy sense of humor―Ben―launches this time into a full laugh as his head hits the back of the couch he’s half-lying on, and a smile creeps up on my lips. He really is the total opposite of what you’d think a biker was supposed to be. He sounds more like he belongs to a group of hippies fighting for a world of peace and flowers than to a biker club.
“Can we keep her for a while? I like her.”
My smile grows as I ask Nate, “Is he really talking about me like I’m some sort of lobotomized doll unable to speak?”
“Yeah, I really like her,” Ben confirms with a smirk before Nate can open his mouth. “And sorry, love, force of habit.”
I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, and I’m not sure I want to.
“I hear you, Blane,” Nate finally retorts to the other guy who agreed with my opinion. “But you weren’t there. It’s her they had eyes on. Besides, either they’d drive all the way there to ambush me, or they wouldn’t at all.”
“Makes sense,” some shirtless and full of tattoos black-haired guy sitting on a couch at the back of the room, his feet lazily propped on a coffee table, approves. “Maybe them being there was a coincidence. Yesterday you said you never saw the guys,” he adds.
Yesterday? He talked to his friends about that yesterday?
“Jayce’s right,” the guy named Blane agrees with the shirtless guy. “You also said that since you go to Dona’s with your girly bike and without your cut, you most likely were just some guy to them.”
One side of his mouth twitches when he describes Nate’s bike, but overall his features don’t lose their severity. Out of all the men present, he’s irrefutably the most intimidating.
I let them discuss theories on their own because I wouldn’t know where to start, and I sip my tea as they exchange hypothetical explanations about why that club would be following me. Now that Nate quit being tense as though hell was ready to unleash on us at any minute, I’ve been able to loosen up myself. And honestly, this is out of proportion.
But when the beardy guy at our table suggests that my family could be linked to someone in that club, I leave my quiet state and set my cup back on the table. More loudly than I intended to, maybe. But that is out of line.
“My only family were my parents, and they weren’t involved in anything with any club, especially not one you describe as psychopaths,” I assure everyone here, my tone even harsher than the cup I slammed on the table.
For a short moment during which silence is thick around me, I think I might have gone too far talking to a man like him the way I did. I need to remember I’m not in front of a bunch of kids I teach fourth grade, but of probable criminals who could break my neck before I could push up and away from that chair. But they need to get that they don’t know anything about me, let alone my parents. My parents were simple, good people.
“I didn’t mean to disrespect them, I’m sorry,” beardy guy apologizes softly, which actually astounds me.
My eyes find him, and I just nod.
“I’m siding with you on this one, love,” Ben says, and he continues despite the glare Nate tosses his way once again. “I think the fuckers were there either for someone else such as Nate, or because they simply love the damn food, and happened to notice how hot you are. Simple as that.”
“Shut the fuck up about that,” Nate groans. “I swear you’ll end up taking over Melvin’s chores for a fucking month,” he threatens, and Ben’s face turns hilarious when he fakes horror at the idea of playing the role of this Melvin guy Nate called a prospect.
“Hey, let’s not get too wound up here. No need to resort to drastic measures, okay?”
When Nate snatches his eyes away from him, Ben’s expression twists back to a relaxed one as he winks at me, proving his fear was just an act.
“We’re just trying to figure this shit out, Cam,” Nate tells me.
“And thank you for that, really, but you’re wrong. There’s nothing they could possibly want from me. As I said, my life is just as plain as I am.”
He only stares at me for a long moment, but his eyes don’t trigger uneasiness in me. They stir up something entirely different. Something that undeniably makes me feel anything but plain under his stare. Something I hadn’t felt in more than a year. Or ever. I experienced these butterflies flying around in my stomach with only two men. Well, the first one was more of a boy, in high school, so he doesn’t really count. And then there was Colin. I felt them with him, though not before he even touched me. I can’t comprehend the frenzied way they jump around now. That’s new. New and beautifully pulsing life through my veins. That’s something I hadn’t felt in a year either.
I quit thinking about unforeseen wild butterflies when Nate stands up holding out his hand for me to take. “Come on,” he commands. “I’ll show you around.”
Ignoring the nonsensical reaction Nate’s presence sparks off in me, I follow him, eager to enter the world of a man that intrigued me from the moment he sat down at my table and ripped me out of memories that only reminded me of how alone I am in my own world.
Chapter 6
Nate
My brothers all gawked at me when I led Camryn away. Not that I offered them the satisfaction of glancing their way to tell them to fuck off with a purposeful glare, but their stunned gazes were so scorching on me that I could feel every one of them like a second skin. Then again, their eyes were on me from the moment I crossed the threshold with Camryn’s hand tightly secured in mine.
“Do you live here?” Camryn asks me once she took in the bare walls and basic furniture filling my bedroom.
The room has a reasonable size, but even I admit that its dominant gray shade isn’t the most joyous. It makes me wonder what her apartment in LA looks like. It must be luminous, maybe with pastel colors matching her sweetness.
“I have a house out of town, but I end up crashing here most nights since I usually hang out late with the guys.”
I’m not adding that when I fuck my sexual tension away with the girl of the day well into the night, I don’t feel like riding back home. And I sure as hell don’t bring any of those girls there.
Yeah, not saying that to her right now. Or ever.
She runs her fingers over the black sheets gathered in a messy pile at the bottom of the bed, appearing deep in thoughts.
“You’re lucky to have them. Your friends,” she then says out of the blue, and a tinge of this sadness I don’t like at all taints her voice. “You’re very close, that much is obvious.”
“They’re my family.”
She nods as though she figured that out already. “You’re lucky,” she repeats.
Though a smile emerges on her lips, it doesn’t obliterate the sharp longing in her voice. I hate that. It only reminds me of how lonely she’s been for too long, and though I haven’t witnessed it, all I want is to blow that feeling that has been hers to pieces by wrapping her up into my arms until she doesn’t remember what it feels like to be alone. I met her not even a week ago, but thinking of her hurting and seeing the vulnerability peeking through the smile she wears bravely awaken an overwhelming rush of protectiveness in me. Just as it awakens a bloodthirsty desire to hunt down any fuckers, Spiders or not, who could harm her.
Walking away from the door and meeting her beside my bed, I erase every inch of distance between us. Her head tips over as she looks up at me, and I speak. “I know you think the Spiders were tailing me, not you, but I have a bad feeling,” I tell her and pause before sighing and finally telling her, “I want you to stay here until I know for sure it got nothing to do with you.”
Her eyes widen with surprise, a reaction I expected, unlike the laugh that follows closely.
“Don’t see what’s funny,” I mumble.
She only answers when her outburst fades and let her do so. “You asked me to stay here, in your club, probably in your bedroom, because you have a bad feeling. That’s what’s funny. Nate, I couldn
’t say whether what you told me about owning repair shops was true or not―and I’m not sure I want to know right now―but regardless, I’m pretty sure your days are made of bad feelings.”
As I huff a breath of increasing frustration, I decide now isn’t the time to delve into the issue of my activities―legal or illegal. Until now, I admired how independent Camryn seemed to be. There’s not so much admiration in me right at this moment. She doesn’t see the danger that’s yet very real.
Before I can try to open her eyes to it, she goes on, “Look, I appreciate you worrying about me. Really, I mean it. But it’s not me they’re following. I can assure you I have nothing to do with these guys. I’m just some girl.”
A snort slips out of me just as my thumb goes to skim over the seam of her lips. I barely keep a groan locked up when they slightly part, like my grazing touch alone makes her crave more.
“I’ve met some girls, and you, Cam, are not one of them, believe me,” I assure her in a low voice, and her eyes stay glued to mine as she swallows hard. “And maybe you’re right, okay? I could be wrong about the Spiders. There’s a chance I am, I’m aware it’s a possibility. But stay anyway, just as a precaution.”
Even if that chance was insanely high, leaving her by herself in her house―a house that doesn’t have an alarm, moreover―wouldn’t be a risk I’d be willing to take.
“I can’t stay, no,” she doesn’t back down. “But…” She lets the word die on her tongue, her face twisting into a frown that doesn’t sit well.
“What? You remember something? About the Spiders?”
The irritation creeping up in her is clear as fucking day when she insists, “I told you I don’t know anything about them.”
After cursing myself, I’m about to promise her I didn’t mean to accuse her, but she goes on, annoyance already shifting into worry on her features. “But could you be in trouble? They would hurt you, wouldn’t they?”
My hand stills on her cheek and my thumb freezes on her chin as nothing, not even the smallest exhale of air, finds its way out of my mouth for a long while. It’s me she’s worried about? That’s… That’s a new one. Definitely a new one.