by S. E. Jakes
“I don’t like him,” he said now.
I glanced up at him. “Guess we’ve got something in common.”
His hand went around my throat, holding me but not squeezing. I tried to tamp my temper down, because this could get really fucking bad. “We have nothing in goddamned common. I don’t work for lowlifes.”
I nodded. Stared at him. Maybe if I just agreed, he’d let go. Or maybe Ryker could just magically fucking appear. Like any time now.
“You still stealing cars?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Fuckin’ wiseass.” He did squeeze my neck, and I tried not to struggle because he’d just get off on that. “What the fuck kind of trouble you bringing to Havoc?”
“You can ask Ryker.”
“I’m askin’ you.”
“You really want . . . to know?” I managed.
He smiled. “Yeah, I really do, Rush.”
I closed my eyes and pictured what I planned. Just like those Special Forces guys taught me. And then I executed my plan.
The big guy ended up rolling away, howling in pain, which was good. The other two attacked me, wrestled me to the ground, but after a few minutes of fighting, I managed to get one of their necks between my knees while I was holding the guy trying to punch me by the throat.
He got in a couple of shots, until I got annoyed enough to land a solid right hook. His nose spurted blood, but before he could do anything, he was gone. Someone was grabbing at me, attempting to pry my legs off the other guy’s neck.
I kept fighting until I realized it was Ryker trying to pull me away. I let him, getting to my feet and surveying what was going on around me.
The biggest guy was up, talking to Sweet and pointing at me. The other two were still kind of rolling around on the ground.
Ryker grabbed my shoulder and shook me to get my attention. “What the fuck, Sean?”
“What the fuck, Sean?” I echoed. “How about, ‘Are you okay, Sean?’ Or ‘I’m sorry I ditched you and left you alone on my big bad MC compound, Sean.’ Those assholes jumped me. I didn’t realize that as a guest of yours I was supposed to let myself get rolled by all the inhabitants of Asshole Island.”
Ryker’s jaw clenched, working overtime. I tugged away from him, because fuck no, I wouldn’t take the blame for this.
It was then I noticed Sweet busy giving me the once-over, an angry glare on his face. Then he started to close in on me.
I stood my ground, because fuck that.
“What the fuck are you trying to do?” he demanded.
“Defend. Myself.”
“You’re a guest of Ryker’s. You’re making him look bad.”
I wanted to tell him that I wasn’t going to do anything to hurt Ryker, that I knew, deep down, that he was the one who’d end up hurting me. Havoc equaled family. Ryker’s family. Another family that wouldn’t accept me.
“Sorry. I’ll let them beat the shit out of me for no reason next time. Maybe you should create a handbook for your guests so they know these things.”
“You got a smart mouth on you, kid.” Sweet tried to corner me, but I sidestepped. I’d let Ryker pin me down, but no one else. My hands fisted, but I knew I couldn’t touch him.
“I’ve got a big fucking problem,” Sweet growled. “Get the fuck out of my face before I show you how big it is.”
It took everything I had to let him talk to me like that, to walk away. Because even though Noah might be an asshole, he’d never stand around and let anyone talk to me like that. But Ryker? What the fuck was he doing?
I started walking back to his house. Because from there I could at least call a cab and wait at the bottom of the hill. I felt him walking right behind me, because the motherfucker was still silent as hell.
We got to his porch before he grabbed for me and turned me around, but he didn’t pin me. I clenched my jaw and my fists, and he stared at me. Finally, he asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m great,” I snarled.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Then why the fuck did you ask if I was all right if you knew I wasn’t?” I demanded.
“Calm down and—”
“I’m tired of being calm. Tired of being treated like your bitch by your fellow MCers.” I walked away from him. “I’m not staying here anymore.”
“The hell you’re not.”
“You don’t fucking own me,” I muttered under my breath, unaware of how close he was.
It wasn’t until I ended up with my back against the wall, his body pinned to mine that I noticed how upset he looked. “I’ll kill them for fucking with you.”
And that’s when I realized that this was going to be a bigger problem than I’d originally thought. Bigger, and way different.
e was still holding me up, but before I could tell him that we both needed to calm the fuck down—that I didn’t want to put him in the position where he had to choose between me or his Havoc brothers—a bike backfired in the distance. It echoed through the hills, and I knew, in my rational mind, that’s exactly what it was, that’s all it was. But everything was jumbling, and when I blinked, I wasn’t in Havoc anymore. I was in Iraq and the backfiring was gunfire, and it wasn’t stopping.
I don’t know how long I stood there frozen, but eventually I became aware of Ryker talking to me. Telling me everything was going to be all right. Touching me . . .
“Don’t. Just fucking don’t.” I pushed at him, hard. Both palms to his chest. He stumbled back, more from surprise than anything.
I don’t know when he’d let me down, but my feet were firmly on the deck.
“Sean . . .”
“Don’t.” It was the only thing I could say. If I attempted anything more, the whole truth would come out. About why last night had me all fucked up and why the porn bothered me. About how I didn’t belong here, or anywhere. How all of this was a mistake. How I was coming between Ryker and his MC after less than twenty-four hours in Havoc.
“Let me take you home,” he said.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. And I wouldn’t ask if it was because he thought that was what I wanted, or if it was what Sweet wanted. Because really, I didn’t want to know.
Instead, I climbed into his truck—he didn’t even attempt the bike—and he took me home. We didn’t speak on the hour-long drive. When we pulled into my driveway, I saw that my truck was back. Noah had come through on that. Maybe he’d even called, but I hadn’t checked my messages.
I walked into the house, aware Ryker was behind me. I wanted him to leave, but the only way to accomplish that was to pretend I was completely fine. I’d done this dance before, with Noah, with Linc, with a therapist or two in Iraq. I knew how to play the game.
There was a rose on the floor next to my bedside table. I hadn’t seen it when I woke yesterday afternoon without him—Christ, that seemed like a lifetime ago.
I picked it up and twirled it in between my fingers. The thorns caught on my fingertips, and I was bleeding, but I didn’t care.
“The flowers again?” he asked, and God, I felt stupid—again—as stupid as I did when he’d first started sending the roses to me. “You really don’t remember anything about that first night?”
I didn’t want to remember, because remembering would’ve forced me to come to terms with the fact that I’d fallen for Ryker, that he hadn’t simply been fucking me. No, he’d been wooing me, courting me, playing my own game, turning the tables to beat me at it. And I’d never been so glad to lose in my motherfucking life.
“I remember some things,” I admitted. Like his head between my legs, milking me until my balls tightened. Me, shooting so goddamned hard I figured I’d broken something. The first time he’d entered me was maybe the fourth time I’d been fucked in my life and that was saying something, since I’d had a lot of sex. “I don’t know why you sent the flowers. I thought you were making fun of me.”
I guess I still did. Even after I knew about the rose on his hand and especially a
fter today, when I realized that, despite his threatening to hurt his Havoc brothers, I knew where his loyalties had to lie. Then again, mine kept right on lying with Noah, so I was just as bad.
Ryker frowned. “You came back over to me at the end of the night. You’d been drinking. Dancing. Pulling your usual shit, even after you propositioned me. And then you danced for me. Afterwards, you told me you were leaving, but before you did, you put your arms around my neck.”
“Don’t tell me.” I closed my eyes and willed myself to remember. In a second, I was back inside the bar, my arms around Ryker, and he was teasing me, asking, “Is this you still playing hard to get?”
I was warm inside, from the alcohol, from being this close to Ryker. “Yeah. So don’t disappoint me. I’m a romantic at heart.”
“That so?”
“What’s romance to you?”
“Flowers.”
“What kind, Sean?”
“Roses.”
“Why’s that?”
“The first car I ever stole, there was a Grateful Dead sticker with red roses. When I stole the car, American Beauty was playing. Roses—and songs from the Dead—still make me hard.”
Now, I said, “I can’t believe you . . . fuck.” I turned away from him, buried my face in the pillow.
“Sean . . . what’s wrong?” His voice was quiet.
“Please just . . . fuck. Just go.” My voice was hoarse. I closed my eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I didn’t want to talk about anything. I didn’t want someone—anyone—knowing me that well at all, and the worst part of it was, I’d let him in on it. It was my fucking fault, and I’d fucked everything up. Again.
I felt the mattress shift as he got up, and I thought he’d left. Until he said, “The thorns.”
I straightened at the sound of his voice. Stared at my fingertips that had been cut by the thorns moments before. When I dared to turn around, I saw he was at the door.
“I get it, Sean. I get the thorns.” Then he was gone, shutting the door behind him. I curled on the mattress, blanket wrapped around me, watching mindless TV until I was bleary. I didn’t want to sleep. Couldn’t, because I knew the nightmare would come.
The nightmare always started out the same. I was in the car—the ’88 Porsche 959—and Billy was next to me. We were going at least ninety, because forcing a car like that to go slower was a goddamned crime. There was some disco crap playing on the radio—Billy loved it and claimed it was from the eighties, so I let that slide.
He pointed to a turnoff, and I followed his direction. When I made the left, past and present melded and there was no more road. Just desert. Miles and miles of sand everywhere, and I looked at Billy, but he was singing along to the radio, not caring.
The car wasn’t handling well. I shifted and tried to get her moving, but the sand was trapping the wheels, clogging the engine. Billy refused to close his window and I tasted the sand. It made my eyes gritty.
“Billy, we’ve got to get the fuck out of here,” I told him. “We’ve been here before. It’s not good.”
“Rush, relax.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “You can turn around if you want, but I don’t think you can go back. You’re not supposed to go backwards.”
I was going to try. Dammit, I was going to try my best. Four months in this godforsaken desert and I’d learned more than I’d ever wanted to know about death and dying. Every day was a new explosion, a new lesson in firearms and hidden mines and roadside bombs.
I put the car in reverse, but it went nowhere. I turned, a wide arc, and realized that the desert behind us had disappeared. Everything had disappeared.
I got out then, tried to stare at the horizon, but the darkness was falling fast.
I heard the shots crack in the darkness. Two of them, sharp and sure, and I yelled at Billy to get down. Until I realized he’d run right in front of me, and the shots had gone straight through him.
He turned around and shrugged. “Can’t go back, Rush. Keep moving forward.”
I reached for him, but he disappeared. He was gone and in his place was the porn studio, where I’d sucked a dick for money, because I’d been given no other choice. I was on my knees and there was no sand, no Iraq.
No Billy.
I must’ve been screaming in my sleep, because Ryker was talking to me. Telling me I was okay. Telling me, “Open your fucking eyes.”
And that’s when I realized he’d never actually left me. “I don’t think you’re supposed to curse at someone having a nightmare,” I muttered when I finally pulled myself out of it. “Besides, I wasn’t screaming that loud.”
He stared down at me, his face etched in concern. I blew out a shaky breath. He brushed the hair from my forehead. “I’ll be right back. You’ll be okay for a second?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” He never made me feel stupid—that was all me. He never made me feel like anything less than a man, and I wasn’t sure how he did it.
I heard the water running, and then he was leading me into the bathroom, putting me in the big tub I never used, and I leaned back against him and I relaxed in the warm water. With his big arms wrapped around me.
It was the first time the intricacies of the roses that wound into his forearms really registered. I traced them with a fingertip and swear I could feel him smiling behind me, that now he gets it smile.
Jesus. “Ryk, I . . .”
“Relax, Sean. You had a rough week. Just please put your head back and fucking relax. You deserve it.”
No reproach or anger. I turned and somehow curled against him in that tub, and I don’t really remember him taking me out, drying me, putting me to bed. I do know that I slept through till morning and when I woke, he was gone, but there was a single red rose by the bedside. A new one. I stared at it and at the heavy brown thorns that someone could easily overlook while reaching for the beauty.
Ryker’d risked all of that, for me. Worked his way around, all the way up to the rose . . . and I’d closed up, refused to fucking open.
I blinked, and I was fifteen again. I’d just escaped that studio where the guy had made me blow him in front of the camera and then threw money at me like I was a fucking dog. I took it, because he fucking owed me. Because I had nothing else to live on. My mom had split the month before—Dad had been in jail for years by that point, and there was nothing left. I was a week away from getting kicked out of the apartment. I’d already been to juvie and gotten out two months later than I was supposed to.
My mom had introduced me to these men who ran the porn studio where she’d worked months earlier, but I’d refused to work with them. I wasn’t planning on going back there ever, but I’d been forced to because of the asshole who made the sex tape, so I could beg for it to be taken down. Shaken, hating myself for what I’d had to do, I ran into a group of guys who looked like they were breaking into a car. Instead of calling the police, I’d hidden and watched them expertly pick the lock, pull some wires, and start the car.
I hadn’t realized one of the guys had doubled around behind me. It’d been Al. He was coming after me, ready to shut me up, threaten me for what I’d seen, and I’d tried to reason with him. “I don’t want to call the police. I want to learn to do that.”
“Why’s that?”
“I never want to owe anyone anything ever again.” My voice must’ve been so fierce, because his countenance changed. The tough guy look was replaced by something I didn’t recognize, and then he shifted back and said, “Then let’s go.”
“Where?”
“You really want to learn, first rule is to shut up and follow orders.”
And I had. I’d gotten into his truck and he’d taken me back to the chop shop. The stolen car was already there and loud music was playing. Guys were drinking and laughing and talking shit. There were women there too, but they weren’t part of the ring—they hung out to keep the guys company.
I’d never wanted to fucking owe anyone anything. I’d worke
d hard at that. And now, I’d fucking blown it because I’d let this shit go too far. Because I owed Ryker.
“I don’t want to owe Ryker anything,” I said fiercely, like I had to hear the words out loud in order to completely convince myself.
“You don’t owe me a damned thing, Sean,” Ryker growled, and I wasn’t sure when he’d come back. “Don’t you dare think of me that way.”
I stared up at him. The easy thing to do would’ve been to say, I don’t and Please hold me, and let it all go. But I couldn’t. There was too much stress and need and fear inside of me to do anything but say, “I want you to leave,” and actually mean it, more for his own good than for mine.
Because then he didn’t have to make a choice between me or his MC guys. I’d made it. And Jesus, I knew I was fucked up when it came to love, but until that moment, I hadn’t realized how bad I was at it.
When I looked up again, Ryker was gone. For good, it appeared. No more late-night visits. No more roses. For a solid week, nothing. For a solid week, I tried to get my shit together. And failed.
he nightmares came back every single time I closed my eyes. Not just about Billy and the Army, but Ryker was bringing up some other issues for me. The whole porn thing . . . fuck. I knew Ryker well enough not to believe anyone was being forced but . . .
I shivered. I’d woken in a sweat, and just sat for a while in the dark in bed, the TV flickering, hating that a memory could still have so much power over me. My arms were wrapped around my shins, legs drawn to my chest. The person who I’d want to call—to comfort me—brought this on. So I couldn’t call him.
Well, I could, but I’d have to explain, so . . . no.
So then I picked up the phone and dialed the familiar digits.
Noah picked up on the first ring. “Rush, you all right?”
I’d woken him. “Yeah. No.”
He sighed. “Dreams?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, but my throat was tight. The panic closed in, its slippery tentacles choking me. Noah spoke to me in that low voice—when I was lucid, I called it his mental patient voice—telling me about the good old days that, at the time, we didn’t realize were the good old days.