by Isabel Wroth
Ripley’s spoon clattered in the bowl again, only this time from shock.
“Didn’t know they were married.” Gage was grinning like a fool now. “They’re not married. She got his brand? Then why’s he on the phone busting your balls? Now Prez, me? Stirring shit up? It’s like you don’t know me at all. I would never do that. Sure, sure. No prob. See you at the house.”
Gage was laughing when he hung up, seriously amused by the fact that Saint was calling another club president and…busting his balls. Because of her.
“Do not think you made more of it than it was.” Gage said as he continued to laugh, “Not at all. So let me see if I get this straight, yeah? You want Saint to communicate better with you and stop making you feel like some cheap blow up sex toy.”
“What are you, the biker equivalent of Dr. Ruth?” she accused with a huff.
Gage winked at her. “Naw, just smarter than I look. Don’t tell anyone. I have a rep for being a womanizing asshole. You love him?”
Ripley spluttered, coughed, squirmed in her seat in an effort to not think about what Gage was asking her. She had to give him credit, Gage was patient. He just stared her down and waited. Ripley wasn’t sure she wanted to answer that. It felt too personal, too intense to even think about.
She settled for saying, “I’d be okay if the next woman who went down on him was a shark.”
Gage’s gut busting laughter drew every female eye in the café.
When he got a hold of himself, he wiped tears out of his eyes and leaned towards her again. Looking for all the world like he really did want to help.
“Saint’s going to show up in about ten minutes.”
“I highly doubt that. You didn’t say you were with me, or where you were.”
Gage looked at her like she was adorable. “Lady? We call Nasa, Mr. Universe, for a reason that does not involve vaseline, spray tans, or thongs. Saint called my Prez, Ryker called me. I’ll bet you twenty bucks Nasa was tracing the call to get a bead on my phone. Also, the hostess over there just took a call and came into the dining room to look around. Looked at you, nodded and went back to her station.”
Surely Saint wasn’t that pissed off, that he’d go to such trouble to find her.
Was he?
To her discomfort, Gage wasn’t done.
“I did overstep, I knew it when I rolled up at your house. So one of two things is gonna happen. Saint is going to come blowing in here like a bear with a pinecone up his ass and do a little more knuckle dragging. If he does, you should take that as honest to god proof you’re not just a piece of ass to him.
“You can go with him and hear him out, take a risk that he’s gonna tell you some shit you don’t want to hear, or he’ll say everything you need to hear, mean it, and you’ll make up. Or he won’t come and you’ll know without a doubt he’s a dickhead who only wants you for sex. If he doesn’t show, you can get back on my bike and we’ll just ride.”
Ripley took a deep breath, stomach in knots all of the sudden. She didn’t know what to do. She was half tempted to demand they go for that ride, right now. If she was being honest, she was afraid if Saint did come, what he would say. Or maybe more afraid of what he wouldn’t.
“Got one more thing to say,” Ripley looked up from the perusal of her melted ice cream. Into Gage’s kind eyes and held her breath. Bracing. “Despite all the shit he’s done, he’s a good guy, and I can one hundred percent guarantee you mean more to him than just sex.”
Just like Gage predicted, in under ten minutes, Saint came blowing into the café like a bear with a pine cone up his ass. Totally pegged that one, right down to the constipated look of rage on Saint’s face. Gage gave her a wink and leaned back in his chair, assuming the expression of a bored playboy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
An unrepentant playboy.
Gone was the completely understanding, kind, friendly man who had just spent the last few hours being her proverbial shoulder to cry on. Ripley just felt like she’d done something wrong. She knew she hadn’t, but the look Saint slashed her with made her feel that way.
“Let’s go, Ripley.”
She shivered at his tone. The soft, dangerously growled command, noticing the other diners staring. Sensing no doubt the trouble potentially brewing, and this was definitely not a biker bar where it was commonplace for a brawl to go down. After having been so kind to her, she did not want Gage to get a face full of Saint’s fist. So, Ripley nervously took the hand Saint held out, not missing the satisfaction flash in Gage’s eyes.
“Your crew isn’t the only one who knows how to hide bodies. I want you to remember that, next time you come near Ripley.” Saint’s growl was made more intimidating by the fact that he didn’t raise his voice. He was almost whispering, staring down at Gage with what she assumed was murderous thoughts.
It was a truly frightening side to him she hadn’t seen. She opened her mouth to tell him to stop it, but Gage wasn’t scared or intimidated at all.
“Sure, Saint. I’ll do that.”
Ripley felt like she was about to become a fire hydrant between the two of them. She took a deep breath and smiled at her lunch date, ignoring how Saint growled again. “Thank you very much for lunch, and the ride, Gage. I appreciate it.”
Gage shook his head at her, zooming his hand through the air like an airplane. “Class, Lady. All the way. You’re welcome. You should tell your boyfriend to nut up and buy you flowers.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Saint practically drug her out of the café to where his bike was parked. She worried for a minute he would do something like kick Gage’s bike over, staring at it the way he was. Thankfully he didn’t, swinging his leg over his own motorcycle and glared at her from behind his sunglasses.
“Guess I don’t need to explain how this works.” he bit out, shoving a second helmet at her.
Ripley sighed, put the helmet on and climbed on behind him, holding on tight in case he was going to be an asshole and take off at warp speed. He actually surprised her with how careful he was. She couldn’t help comparing this ride to the one she’d had with Gage.
It was ten times better, and not just because she felt more comfortable with Saint. Each time he stopped at a light, he put his feet out to balance the bike and curled his hand around her calf.
The way that Roar did with Ever.
The way Raid did with Athena.
He let go when the light turned green, but not before giving her leg a gentle squeeze. Her eyes filled almost instantly. Not wanting him to see evidence of it later, Ripley turned her face into the wind to let them dry up. Saint pulled into her driveway and held her hand to help her balance as she got off.
For some reason, her body wasn’t running as high on adrenaline this time. Maybe due to the fact that she’d burned it all off earlier, or maybe because she’d been going somewhere with someone she didn’t know well. Or maybe, she just trusted Saint more than she thought she did.
Even when he was about to boil over.
“Keys.” he demanded tersely.
It took her two seconds to decide to give them over instead of telling him no. Figuring he wasn’t going to go for her telling him to leave this time. Saint snatched the keys out of her hands and set his palm on her waist, half guiding, half pushing her towards the porch.
He shoved the door open roughly, glaring at her until she moved past him and into the living room. She pulled her shoes off on the way in and discarded the idea of changing clothes. She did not want to even think of getting near her bedroom right now.
“Saint, I’m really not-”
“Save it. You had your say last night, now it’s my turn.” he growled, interrupting her from trying to brush him off. He shoved his hands through his dark hair while he started to pace back and forth in front of her. She glanced at his boots, kind of glad the rug in the hall wasn’t expensive, because Saint’s shit kickers were leaving dirt smudges behind in his wake.
“You are the most beautiful thing I�
�ve ever seen in my life. And you were right last night, I was pissed as fuck because you weren’t wearing that sexy dress and those shoes for me. Said shit I shouldn’t have and I hurt you. I’m sorry for that, believe me, I am. But you can’t look like that, be all over some other guy, blow me off with some bullshit text, and not expect me to lose my fuckin mind!”
Saint made a perfectly good apology into the second most hurtful thing he’d yet said to her.
“I was not all over anyone!”
He whirled on her, pulled her up on her toes and got nose to nose with her. “Did you accept drinks from Gage and his boys last night at the bar?”
“Ever, Athena and I did, yes.”
“Ever and Athena have their old man’s brand. Gage wouldn’t touch either of them with a ten foot pole. But you? Princess, he’d pick you up and fuck you in a heartbeat. Evident I think, by the fact he showed up here at your house to take you out.”
Ripley ground her teeth together to keep from screaming again, forcing herself to take a deep breath, to speak in as even a tone as possible
“As I plainly stated to Gage and his friends, I was not there to be picked up, or fucked. I was there celebrating the opening of my business with my friends. As for lunch, you don’t get to say who I do and don’t go out with. Gage was not hitting on me, or trying to get in my pants, he was being nice. I don’t understand your problem, Saint.”
A muscle in his jaw flexed while he studied her face. “You cannot be this oblivious.”
“Oh my god!”
Ripley shoved out of his hold, stomped into the living room, and threw herself down on the couch. Scowling at him, forcing herself to let him get it all out so she could say she’d listened. At this rate though, she had fulfilled her own stupid decision to hear him out, and her feelings on his behavior had not changed. Not one bit. She was done with this. Done with him.
“I’ve got to get back to work. I don’t have time to cover everything right now, so I’ll pick the most important things. Make no fuckin mistake, Ripley, we’re talking it all over next week when I get back. First, I don’t leave you while you’re sleeping because I don’t want to stay, believe me. I want to stay more than I should, and if you wake up and look at me with your eyes all soft after we’ve gone at it, I’m toast. It was never, never, my intention to make you feel dirty or like I was just using you.”
“Saint-”
“You’re mine, Ripley. And that means you do not get on another man’s fucking bike and go riding off with him. Especially not a mother fucking Praetorian!” his voice had gotten progressively louder and louder until he was roaring at her.
Oh, hell no.“Saint-”
He spun on her and leaned down, his hands fisted in the gray leather of her couch on either side of her shoulders so he was caging her between his arms. Giving her no room to scoot back or to mistake how pissed he was.
“That was mine, Ripley. Your first ride was mine and you gave it to another man.”
A muscle above her eye twitched. Retrospectively, she had much preferred riding behind Saint. However, he was making it sound like she’d slept with Gage. That riding with Gage was on that level, like she’d cheated on him.
“You’re making it sound like I slept with him. Is that how important my first time on a motorcycle is to you?” she clarified, not wanting to make any mistakes or assumptions.
He snapped at her sarcastically, “Yeah. It sure as shit is, Ripley.”
“How long have you been in and out of my bed?” she asked quietly. Glad she had finally started to move into a state of emotional numbness. The state where she didn’t turn into a blubbering fool because the man she loved was saying all the right things guaranteed to break what was left of her heart.
He honest to god, growled. “Do not change the subject!”
“How. Long?”
He blinked at her tone, the quietness of it. Tilted his head to really get a good look at her expression. “Few months.”
A few months. Well, technically he was not wrong. In the eighteen or so months since that first time they’d had sex, consecutively, they had slept together maybe a total of three months worth of consolidated nights together.
“How many opportunities did I have to ride with you? How many times did I ask?” Saint didn’t respond right away. Didn’t do anything except blink and stare at her. So she kept going. “I thought you were being considerate because my modus operandi is to wear dresses and skirts. Heels. I wore jeans and boots a total of two times. Hoping that if I wore the right thing, you’d say yes. But you told me you liked my skirts better and offered me a beer because we were at a gathering. When I said no, you took me right upstairs to fuck.
“I have zero complaints about the sex itself. No lie, you are literally the best I have ever had. But the rest? Everything else? The rest sucks, Saint. So you be mad about me going for my first ride with Gage. Fine.
“I’m sorry you feel like I cheated on you and our nonexistent relationship. That I gave away my first time on a motorcycle to someone else. But I asked you repeatedly to take me, and if it was truly so important to you, you wouldn’t have blown me off. You’ve had your say, so please go back to work, and feel free to fuck off.”
He stared back at her for the longest time, making Ripley wonder if her rebuttal had lost some potency due to her having delivered it while sitting down. It seemed like people didn’t take you seriously unless you were on your feet, but she honestly didn’t know if she had the strength to stand up straight and be strong right now.
“I’ll be back in a few days. I’ll take some time off and we’ll fix this. I promise. Before I go, I need to make one thing perfectly clear.”
Ripley didn’t say anything or interrupt him, because obviously in that stretch of silence, he had chosen not to hear her. Shit was absolutely laid to rest between them. He’d just killed it, leaving nothing to fix.
“You do not ever get on another man’s bike. You got a problem with me, with us, you do not take that shit outside the club. You don’t know Gage. You don’t know what he does for his people. You don’t go there. You want detailed reasons why, I’ll tell you when I get back. Can you give me that?”
Morbidly, her curiosity got the better of her. “One question.”
Saint stood up and threw a hand up her way, “Shoot.”
“How was my decision to stop texting you the clue that something was wrong?”
Saint had the audacity to smile at her, clearly thinking she was on her way to forgiving him. Inadvertently making it clear he thought she was bluffing.
“It was the last one you sent. Asking me why you bothered to text me at all if I never responded anyway. Then nothing. No goofy memes, no funny pictures, nothing to let me know you were thinking about me. Since the day after we started sleeping together, no more than three days have gone by without you texting me. Then you go radio silent for over a week? Something was wrong.”
His answer made her sink even deeper into that numb place most people went to when their brain short circuited from something akin to grieving.
“What?”
Ripley shook her head and looked down at her lap, not sure she could bear to look at him anymore. “I guess I’m just wondering how you noticed the length of time I was able to go before giving in to text you. Yet you didn’t notice how I was feeling when we were together. You’re not a mind reader, I know that, but you’ve proved time and again how observant you are.”
She heard the breath he took to respond, right as his phone started to ring. He ignored it, reaching out to gently grab her chin, making her look up at him.
“Talk, Ripley. Don’t look away.”
She chose to stare at the space between his eyebrows, rather than risk looking in his eyes. “I don’t have anything more to say.”
He waited for a heartbeat, searching her face intently, as though waiting for her to maybe find something to tell him. But there was nothing. No use in pretending otherwise, and even if there was, he wasn’t go
ing to hear her.
“Alright. I’ll be back soon, princess.”
“Right.” she murmured. Woodenly letting him press a quick kiss to her lips, leaving her to stare at the empty space where he had been, as he walked out the door.
*****
It had been six weeks since Saint had walked out, unsurprisingly, he hadn’t contacted her once.
He didn’t show up at her house in the middle of the night.
He didn’t send any prospects to ride by her shop.
He didn’t send Ever in to gather intel.
And as Ripley hadn’t heard from or seen Gage since their friendly lunch date, she assumed he had either taken Saint’s warning to stay away from her to heart. Or, Gage felt he had paid whatever debt he owed Saint, and gone about his business.
About ten to fifty times a day, Ripley found herself with her fingers on the text window automatically to send Saint something funny. As soon as she caught herself doing it, she nearly threw her phone across the room, furious with herself for even contemplating the attempt. It didn’t help that other than a few hair appointments here and there, and a few photo sessions, business was slowing down.
Meaning Ripley had all the time in the world to stew and replay their last encounter. She had managed to avoid it this entire time, but Ripley dreaded the conversation she was going to have to get through with Ever. Dreaded another long ass crying jag and having the meddling, sweet, good intentions of her friend screw up her chili for the foreseeable future.
Ever had been trying to get her to talk about that day Gage had come over and taken Ripley to lunch, but Ripley just could not bring herself to revisit any of that day’s drama.
Ripley had just posted a Facebook ad for a pre-emptive Halloween themed photo session when the bell over the door rang. Forcing a smile on her face, she looked up to find a man pushing through the doors of her day spa. It pissed her off how she immediately found herself comparing the guy to Saint.