by R. J. Lewis
I kissed him, suddenly conflicted with myself. Ashamed that he tasted too good to stop. I was nearing the edge, a line that, if crossed, would keep me rooted beneath him, accepting what he was giving me. Could I let that happen? Could I cross that line and discover true pleasure? Who would I be if I did? All that defiance gone in the blink of an eye to become the submissive woman I had always loathed to be. I was battling with these thoughts, torn between pleasure and who I was. I couldn’t decide. I couldn’t choose…
Then I did it.
Jesus, hell, oh fuck, I did it.
Without thinking, I’d stretched my arm out and wrapped my fingers around the handle. My whole body went rigid the second I did it. My heart was in my throat, the terror slamming into me like a brick wall. He knew I’d grabbed it the second it happened. He pulled his head away, staring down at me with arctic eyes as I raised the blade to his neck. I was panting beneath him, trembling as I pressed the blade into his skin.
“W-what happens if I just kill you?” I stuttered out breathlessly. “This will all be over, won’t it?”
His face was blank. Like a switch, the lust was gone in an instant.
I expected him to pull back, but it frightened me that he wasn’t moving at all. He just stared at me, waiting. I glanced down at the tip of the blade pointing into his jugular. My hand was shaking. I was jumpy, anticipating him to grab my arm or retaliate, but still, he did nothing.
“Shit,” I cursed, anxious, tears burning my vision. I didn’t know what I was doing. I felt sick to my stomach with nerves.
The silence that followed was thick and consuming. I was still trapped beneath him, aware that all I had to do was cut into him quickly. I envisioned him bleeding out. I thought of how I would escape once he died, though I knew it wouldn’t end well with me either. This had been impulsive and juvenile. I’d reacted on opportunity than logic, but I couldn’t drop the blade. I kept it there, staring at him, hating him for putting me here in the first place. I shook harder with unbridled nerves.
Suddenly, he pressed his neck against the blade. It cut into his skin, bleeding him. My eyes widened in shock as he looked at me coldly. I pulled the blade back before it continued cutting into him, but he leaned further into it, the tendrils of his hair hitting my face now as he glared at me, his eyes growing colder and fiercer.
“Do it.”
Those two small words spoken by him shook my entire world. I froze, spots forming in my vision, the shock of his perfect English felt like ice ravaging my body. I couldn’t breathe for a moment. I blinked rapidly, the realization slowly settling. Slowly, slowly, slowly.
Then I felt it. This red-hot rage cutting through me.
This whole time?
This whole time.
THIS WHOLE TIME HE HAD PLAYED ME!
“You fucker –”
He grabbed my wrist before I could finish and threw my hand down. I gripped the blade in it tighter, refusing to let go. My free hand came up to hit him, but he effortlessly grabbed that too and threw it down above my head. I tried squirming my legs, but the weight of his body was crushing me, immobilizing me. I wanted to scream at him to let go of me, but I was so consumed with rage, I ended up seething in silence, glaring back at him, feeling strangely…betrayed that he’d strung me along. To pretend he couldn’t understand me while I’d…oh god, while I had opened up to him thinking he understood nothing.
“Why?” I forced out through my disdain, rattled by him. “For what purpose?”
It was terrifying how quick he could shut himself down. The glare was long gone, along with his erection. Looking almost bored again, he slid his hand up mine and effortlessly tore the blade from my grasp. With ease, he closed it and placed it back into his belt. The blood from his cut dripped down his neck, looking deeper than I thought. He was careless about it, like it didn’t bother him in the slightest. It was unsettling.
I had spoken, and he didn’t even look at me. Something had switched off in him, more so than normal. Ignoring my existence, he climbed off me, releasing me entirely. Even though he was no longer touching me, I still felt the weight of his body all around me, and I couldn’t move.
He grabbed his shirt and stood up, his front visible to me now. The moonlight hit his skin, all the tattoos on his chest I’d strained to see before now perfectly visible to me. A red dragon on his upper left chest, then thin looking branches on the other side of his chest, bearing at the end of every branch what looked like dates. The tattoos were very well done. Detailed elegantly and intricate enough to make me pause and take it in. These meant something to him. Just beneath the numbers, there was a large word in bold ink along his ribcage, reading HONOUR, though it looked evidently riddled with scars. That was the last word I expected to see etched on him.
It didn’t end from there. He turned his back to me to slide his shirt on, and I caught the large tattoo on his upper back I’d first spotted. Of the animal. An animal I now recognized. It was a face of a jackal, snarling. A black-backed jackal. One I was very familiar with seeing back in the city on the backs of leather jackets that were worn by countless…bikers.
“You’re a biker,” I murmured in disbelief.
And then all at once it made sense. His look. His…name.
I sat up slowly, coming to grips with the realization as I looked him over, bewildered. I’d never felt so confused in my life. The bikers were bad news. They were the one thing my father loathed the most. He never made deals with them. Said they were the devil and they’d stab you in the back the second you let your guard down.
“Are you going to kill me?” I asked, the vulnerability taking over me now as I realized my predicament. I was with a stone-cold killer. This wasn’t a man from my world who sent his muscle to do the dirty work. This man did his own dirty work. He could turn his emotions off in a split second. That could mean he was unpredictable. He might choke me to death, and there I was this whole time, goading him.
He slowly turned to me, his void eyes taking me in slowly. I shook, my breaths coming faster as every second stretched on like an eternity.
“No,” he finally replied.
I was too rattled to respond, and he was done with me anyway. He didn’t look at me again as he strode to the door, getting ready to lock me back in. Surprisingly enough, I yearned the jail if it meant there was a barrier between us for another night.
He slammed it shut behind him, leaving me alone just as rain started spattering the roof, filling the room with the scent of jungle. I licked my lips once…and then again, tasting him, horrified the taste of monster made my insides warm.
Fifteen
Logan
Reaper stormed out of the hut, looking like he needed a cigarette. Really fucking bad. The kind of bad that made Logan want a cigarette too, and he didn’t even smoke.
You knew shit had gone bad when Reaper burst out of a room wanting a cigarette. It meant he was angry. Logan felt Reaper was temperamental as it was, what with his past and all. He understood him. He’d been there to watch the fall.
It was pretty fucked up the way it went down.
Jesus, no, it was bad. Yeah, it was really fucking bad. Logan still shuddered when he recalled the look on Reaper’s face when he returned to the clubhouse the night Sara ran off.
She’d ran off after lying to him. He thought she was his.
Jesus, no, yeah, he didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to relive the pain. The way he stopped breathing when he walked into the room. The way his shoulders shook. Reaper never cried. Well, Logan had never seen him cry, but that was the first time he’d seen Reaper close to crying.
He couldn’t imagine that kind of heartbreak, which was why Logan just liked to fuck, no strings attached; the kind of fuck-you-and-your-ability-to-break-his-heart-no-thank-you-he-will-pass kind of fuck. Those were the best kind of fucks.
Then Reaper made a show of disappearing. Logan guessed – and he was damn good at guesstimating – that he didn’t want to live with the pity.
The club life was over for him. He would never be able to put the past behind him because everyone would be thinking about it in the back of their minds.
And because of Sara – fucking hell, Sara, what were you thinking? – Reaper left and Edge took over the club. Logan wasn’t even a fan of Edge. Well, he was alright, he supposed. He shrugged, just thinking about it. Edge was Edge. A brute. Good leadership, but just not Reaper. With Reaper, you got that nostalgia, like, yeah, this was the dude I had memories with and, holy shit, remember when we killed that guy with a Hatchimal kind of nostalgia.
But now he was meandering with his thoughts, digging up the past a little too much and doing what Reaper would loathe him to do – and that was pity the poor fuck.
So, okay, it was kind of like déjà vu right now. Except, well, it was different. But still the same. If that made sense.
Christy perked up the second she saw him. This sad little pup just never took a fucking hint. She was about to stand up from her chair when Logan grabbed her roughly by the arm and shook his head at her. She gave him the stink eye, ripping her hand from his grasp.
“He ain’t in the mood to reject you, Christy,” Logan said. “Maybe some other time.”
“Fuck you, Logan,” she barked back.
Now Christy was another delusional story altogether. He didn’t get her, for real. She had a hit on her head – something to do with fucking a druggie who owed a debt to some bad guys. Honestly, Logan couldn’t be fucking bothered recalling that. It wasn’t interesting enough. No nostalgia whatsoever. Just an annoying time taking in a girl who liked to victimize herself until Reaper basically told her to fuck off or be a big girl.
She chose to be a big girl.
Now she was watching Reaper with concern, noticing his off demeanour. She saw the way he paced, the anger rolling off him in waves. He was not in the mood to be fucked with. With fists clenched, he stopped in the back of Olivia’s hut, hitting his head on the wall of it. He didn’t move like that for a while.
“What the hell did she do to wind him up like this?” she said, angrily.
“She’s got a mouth on her,” Logan explained. “I tried warning Reaper about her. I don’t understand why he was so fucking set on taking her. He knew what he was getting into.”
He could have just fucking squashed the Dillinger family. That was a strategic move that would have made sense, but Reaper was adamant he wasn’t going to do that. Reaper had mysterious reasons for everything; Logan was used to it.
Christy shrugged. “She talked back, sure, but I didn’t think she was that bad.”
“Look, she has a rep for talking back, and you don’t do that shit in her world. You just don’t. I just…I didn’t think it was gonna be that bad. I thought Reaper could handle it. I mean, if he can handle my fucking mouth, surely he could hack hers.”
Christy scoffed. “He didn’t even seem interested in her, Logan.”
Logan chuckled mildly. “You don’t know Reaper. He’s good at keeping shit to himself.”
He’d done it with Sara. And God, even thinking her name felt like a violation to Reaper. But no one was even aware of his determination for that girl until she showed up at the clubhouse on the back of his bike. He had a nice bike, on that note. Wow, that bike…
Anyway, yeah, this was like déjà vu all over again, except…this girl was challenging. She had a serious attitude, whereas Sara had been reserved and deceptive from the start.
He pushed away from her hut and stormed off, disappearing to no doubt calm himself down. But Logan knew he’d be back. He’d be sitting at Olivia’s door, arms crossed, watching the night hours bleed by.
Like he’d been doing every night.
Sixteen
Liv
The sound of a car engine was heard, waking me up from a restless sleep. I’d spent the night reliving the knife moment, wondering what the hell had come over me. What chance would I have had to kill him in the first place? More harrowing than that, though, was the way he effortlessly leaned into it, completely unaffected by the pain.
Very deep down, I felt like an asshole too. Like I’d…betrayed him? The shock in his eyes made my heart hurt. Which was totally fucked because I was the one kidnapped here! Plus, he played me. Like I was a goddamn toy.
I heard the gate opening, and the car approached, growing louder. Curious, I hurried off the bed, hoping to catch a glimpse of it. I looked out, relieved to see it was in view. It was the same jeep I’d come here in. It stopped a short distance away and the engine turned off. With no sunlight streaming through the trees, I couldn’t see anyone through the windshield. The sky was still overcast, more rain on the horizon.
Moments later, Reaper appeared. My spine tingled at just the sight of him. My fucking body needed to stop reacting to this asshole. He stopped in front of the car, waiting. God, he looked good waiting, didn’t he? Jerk. The doors flew open and two men stepped out. One was Andres, looking the same in his cargo pants and dark top. The other stepped out wearing a suit and –
Oh my god.
I gasped, grabbing at the bars, recognizing him instantly.
Shane.
My bodyguard.
My father figure.
Sixteen years of Shane in my life, every single day. I’d never been apart this long from him. I almost cried. I squeezed the bars tight, fighting the urge to scream for him. He was here for me, I knew it. Christy appeared at their side, and I wondered if she was translating too and pretending Reaper was ignorant of the language. It would have made the blow a lot easier knowing I wasn’t the only one.
They walked in my direction. Shane looked ragged. His usual slicked back white hair was messier than it had ever been. His grey suit was wrinkled and stained. He must have had an equally stimulating time on the plane, I figured, especially if Logan was the one flying it. Though I knew he hadn’t because I had seen him around.
I stepped back as they approached the cabin, and I waited with jittery nerves by the door for him to come through. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Was my sentence over? Was he here to remove me from this shithole?
When the door opened, Reaper came through first. I took a large step back, intimidated by his presence, still raw as ever about last night – so much so, my eyes immediately found the cut I’d inflicted on him. He hadn’t even cleaned it up. It was there, dried blood and all. It was strange he’d just left it like that. What the fuck was wrong with him? What was wrong with me, too, because my heart beat faster? This fucking body of mine needed a pounding.
I swallowed when he looked at me, the darkness in his eyes was present as ever. I went still for a split second, partly afraid and partly embarrassed, unable to face him because of the way I behaved last night. We’d had an intimate moment, something I was ashamed enough about as it was, but the parts that followed were more cringe-filled. So, yeah, it was a tense second, but the moment I saw Shane following him, my walls dropped, and I flew to him, hugging him.
“Shane!” I cried, squeezing him tight, ignoring Reaper and using Shane as my shield. I’d never hugged this man with so much feeling the entire sixteen years he’d looked after me. He was surprised, hugging me back regardless that it was out character for me. He always had this faint smell about him. Of cigar smoke and mint. It used to make me feel safe. I didn’t feel it this time, not when the large figure was still looming close-by, that fucking cut dried and unclean, humiliating me. The fuck was wrong with him to not clean it up? Honestly. Why? It took two fucking seconds to wipe away.
“Are you alright?” Shane asked, drawing my attention back to him and not that man with the dried cut.
Being around a familiar face brought tears to my eyes. I swallowed hard, nodding once. When he pulled away, he looked me over, his baggy blue eyes appearing concerned and…horrified.
“You look feral,” he noted.
I was conscious more than ever of the shirt I was wearing, the buttons mostly gone, my bra in perfect view and the lack of pants on me. Jesus, this was disas
trous. I did look feral. I closed the shirt and crossed my arms over it, trying to reclaim some form of modesty, which I was failing. My throat felt like it was closing when I replied weakly, “I’m fine.”
“This looks like it’s been an ordeal for you.”
“I’m alright.”
“Why are you dressed in a man’s shirt? And why isn’t it buttoned?”
I sighed. “Honestly, Shane, you don’t want to know.”
“Does your shirt even have buttons?”
“That’s the last of your worries right now.”
“Then this hasn’t been easy.”
I didn’t care to talk about it. “Sonja?”
He looked at me for a moment, figuring out my question, and then it dawned on him. He nodded once. “She’s alright. We found her in the limo, still asleep.”
Now I was really fighting back the tears. Thank God. I had suspected she would be, but I needed that confirmation. I missed her so much.
“We need to talk,” Shane said.
“We are talking.”
“No, I mean, not small talk, Liv, but a long talk.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but Reaper’s presence returned as ever, hanging in the air. He moved to a corner of the room next to the window, staring at us with an apple in one hand and a blade in another. Unbelievable. He slid the blade around the apple, cutting a long ribbon of the skin. Christy was MIA, which was good. I didn’t want her around to pretend to translate.
Shane followed my gaze. “Don’t expect any privacy, Liv.”
I went dark. “You know he understands everything we say, right? He’s lying about the language barrier. I bet his little lapdog of his knows it too.”
His brows came together, and he looked at me with bewilderment. “What are you talking about, Liv?”