American Hellhound

by Lauren Gilley

  It was an anticipation that belonged to children, the heady rush of waiting tangled up with wanting, like the sleepless, beautiful tension of Christmas Eve. That’s all she could compare it to, the thundering build-up as he touched her and rutted purposefully against her. She was sore, and he wasn’t going to mount her, giving her a break, but his fingers stroked her until she was wet and wishing he would, soreness be damned.

  “Ghost,” she said again, just a whisper; his finger circled, and she came. Sparkle and starburst and so, so warm. Her body clenched, and she wished he was inside her after all, even though she knew it would have hurt.

  His hand found her hip again and he gripped hard, face buried in her hair. “Shit, shit–” he murmured, and wet heat spilled across her ass and the backs of her legs.

  They caught their breath a moment.

  Then Maggie laughed and said, “Good morning.”

  ~*~

  Ghost had a problem.

  Sure, he’d had a problem before, but this was a dangerous one. Before, he’d spent at least three nights a week at the clubhouse, spending more than he could afford on Rita and other babysitters. On those nights, he’d drink himself blind and stumble into a dorm bed with one, or two, or three groupies. He rarely remembered the debauched things that played out between the unwashed sheets. It wasn’t about pleasure, but about forgetting. The more he abused himself, the less time there was for remembering. And the less he remembered – the cruel line of Olivia’s mouth, cold fleeting touch of her hand; she’d never been warm, never – the better. The easier it was to push himself through the next day, holding on until the next sin.

  But Maggie. Maggie. He’d been stone-cold sober with her. And he didn’t have to try to forget when he was with her – what had come before ceased to exist when he laid hands on her. He collected details – bright spill of her hair across the pillow, breathy moan in his ear, soft thighs, soft mouth, and soft, wondrous eyes when he was inside her – and spent his days turning them over in his mind, rubbing them smooth as river stones, using them to weigh down the curling corners of his sanity.

  He felt like he’d been scrubbed inside and out with bleach. He felt clean. Purged of all the poison he’d pumped into his veins these past seven months. He imagined her skin emitted light, divine, bacteria-killing, shadow-chasing brightness. He was enthralled, there was no other word for it.

  And it was so, so wrong. The way he was tainting her. Sixteen, and a virgin, and he’d ruined her.

  But he couldn’t stop.

  And bless her heart, she didn’t seem to want him to.

  That morning, she’d smiled at him in his kitchen, holding a coffee mug stained with her dark lipstick; a smile that promised him things would sort themselves out, that there was an answer to this problem of his own making. He wanted to believe her, he really did, because right now he thought he’d rather kill someone than lose what he had.

  She’d packed him a lunch today. Like his mother had when he was little. Like Olivia never had – like a wife. He’d rolled up the paper bag into a cylinder and crammed it inside his cut for the ride to the clubhouse, jammed it in the back of the fridge, behind a jar of pickles, where no one would find it. He wished now that he hadn’t crumpled it, as he spread the contents across the picnic table. A sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil: roast beef, lettuce, tomato, Swiss cheese, brown mustard. She’d been shopping again. A granny smith apple, a granola bar with chocolate chips in it.

  It tasted like she cared about him a lot more than she should.

  “Hey,” Collier said, sliding onto the bench across from him. He was in his embroidered garage smock; he worked at Eddie’s during the day, his and Jackie’s living expenses more than the meager dealing-cash the club could provide. If Duane would consent to using this massive, overgrown piece of land for something profitable, Collier could have worked at a Lean Dogs-owned garage. But no. “You make that?”

  Ghost smirked and crammed half the sandwich in his mouth on one go. “Wha’ ‘oo you ‘ink?” he mumbled around it.

  Collier took a deep breath and looked like he worked hard not to sigh or make a face. “She’s your old lady, then?”

  Ghost swallowed with difficulty. “No.”

  “Then what is she? Your live-in maid?”

  “No.”

  This time the sigh slipped out. “Ghost.”

  Ghost raised a finger. “No. Don’t ‘Ghost’ me. It’s fine.”

  “What’s gonna happen when she has to go back home?”

  He took another aggressive bite of sandwich. The idea made him furious. Go home? To her bitch mother and spineless father? Where no one told her how gorgeous and good and wonderful she was? Where he couldn’t pull her down into his lap on the couch, and climb over her in bed? Unthinkable.

  But it was logical. And inevitable. Because he knew that what they were doing, playing house and pretending that it was normal, couldn’t last. Something would have to change.

  “I don’t–” Collier started, and the door flung open behind them, cutting him off.

  “Kenny, get in here.” Duane wasn’t a yeller. He never shouted, red in the face, veins popping in his temples. He didn’t have to.

  Years ago, Ghost had watched him confront a prospect about product that he was supposed to sell, and instead smoked. After the kid blubbered his confession in front of everyone, Duane put a hand on his shoulder and forced him down to his knees. “Please,” the prospect said, tears filling his eyes. Duane had unzipped his jeans, pulled his cock out, and pissed all over the boy’s face.

  There were so many ways to break a man. Ghost’s father had used his fists; his uncle was more creative.

  Ghost crammed the last bite of sandwich into his mouth and turned to face the man.

  Duane beckoned him with a hand.

  There was nothing to do but wave toward his lunch, a silent request for Collier to watch it, and follow.

  The clubhouse was cool and dim, sour-smelled, and trashed, like always. Duane seemed unbothered by this, stepping over a mess of spilled peanuts and a flurry of white cocktail napkins. Ghost was shocked they even had napkins, if he was honest.

  They bypassed the hall and headed for the office. Ghost’s stomach tightened when he realized what was about to happen.

  He lingered in the doorway, hand catching at the jamb, while Duane went around the desk, swung open the framed photo of the original London chapter that hung there, and spun the dial on the wall safe behind it.

  It was a big safe, lots of shelf space. Stash on the lower, cash on the upper.

  Duane ran a finger along the edge of the top shelf. “I was counting the money,” he said, voice untroubled. “And I came up two-hundred short.” He turned, shooting Ghost a deceptively mild look, finger still hooked on the shelf. Without inflection, he said, “Explain it to me.”

  Ghost swallowed. He wanted to lie. A dozen, half-believable fibs built in his throat, crowded together on his tongue. The truth could be a very dangerous thing when it came to Duane.

  But he had to tell it.

  “I took it. I had to pay Ma–” He caught himself. “It was personal. I’m sorry. I’ll replace it as soon as I can.”

  “The girl,” Duane said, and Ghost broke out in cold chills. “The one you gave the car to.” His eyes took on a frightening shine. “Heard she got picked up and you had to bail her out.”

  Duane had never met Maggie, and Ghost had been careful to never speak of her in his presence. The Monte Carlo was parked out back, sure, but Duane shouldn’t have known any of the details.

  Roman.

  Ghost’s hands curled into fists. “Yes,” he said, because the gig was up. And because he might be stupid, but he didn’t have a death wish: “It won’t happen again.”

  Duane let his hand fall to his side. He stepped away from the wall, turning back toward Ghost. A slow, nasty grin broke across his face.

  Ghost hated that smile; gooseflesh rippled down his arms.

  “I heard she’s just
a kid,” he said, leering now, enjoying himself. “Still in high school.”

  “Yeah, well…”

  Duane took another step. The desk was no longer between them. “What was it you called me? An old creeper?” He laughed, low and dark. “And look at you, ya hypocrite, neck-deep in underage pussy.”

  He took another step, bringing them eye-to-eye, and the smile abruptly fell off his face. His laughter died while the last chuckle still echoed off the close walls. The gleam in his dark eyes was bloodthirsty; Ghost could see his reflection in them, saw the tension in his own jaw and throat. He didn’t look frightened, exactly, but cornered. Staring into Duane’s eyes was like looking into a pond at night; no ripples, no sense of what lurked beneath. All you could see was yourself.

  “The difference between you and me,” Duane said. He had whiskey on his breath. “Is that my piece of ass is just a goddamn groupie.” One of those lost, fatherless, throwaway women without credibility or connections. Groupies knew what they were getting into, old before their time. “And yours is some rich little bitch who’s gonna go running to Daddy, or the cops, and who’s costing me money.”

  Maggie, in Duane’s eyes, was a liability.

  “I want to meet her,” he said, and Ghost’s stomach knotted up so tight he thought he’d lose his lunch. “Bring her tonight.”

  Ghost couldn’t breathe. He tried, unsuccessfully, to drag air into his lungs. “No.” Blame it on the lack of oxygen.

  The one-eyebrow lift was a family trait. Duane gave it to him now. “No?”

  “I mean.” Ghost scrambled. He felt sweat prickling along his hairline. “She’s busy, and the kid…”

  Duane smiled again, sharp canines, sharp edges. “Nah. Bring her.”

  And that was that.

  ~*~

  Maggie lost three days to suspension and she spent them throwing herself full-bore into the Teague household, pretending she wouldn’t ever have to go anywhere else. Three glorious days of no dirty looks, no snide comments, no disappointing anyone. Three days of Aidan’s laughter, and Ghost’s possessive touch, and playing house.

  And the sex. Oh, the sex. Unlike anything she’d ever imagined.

  But then school came back. She almost threw up in the parking lot that first morning, hanging out of Ghost’s truck, staring at the grit of the pavement below her and willing her stomach to settle. When she walked into the building, she held her head high and pretended she wasn’t about to vibrate out of her skin. When people looked at her – and they did – she refused to look away. And then, to her shock, they looked away. Students, teachers, even the janitor, Mr. Grossman, all averted their gazes before she did.

  As she went through that first day, her tension slowly bled away, and her incredulity mounted. She wasn’t mocked, laughed at, or scorned. At lunch, Rachel set her tray down beside hers with obvious hesitance. “Hey,” she said carefully.

  They were – all of them – afraid, she realized. She’d been accused of being a Lean Bitch, and she’d proven them right. Stephanie’s scabbed-over face served as living testament to her ferocity.

  Huh. She should have melted down sooner.

  As the days progressed, she caught the rustle of whispers behind her in the hall. The furtive, half-curious, half-appalled glances became commonplace. She was that girl now – the tainted one. Even Vince Fielding wouldn’t approach her, only stared glumly from the far sides of classrooms.

  She’d learned to expect all sorts of things from life, but this total rejection hadn’t been one of them up ‘til now.

  Her situation felt tenuous, though. It couldn’t hold, and she knew it, but she didn’t expect the next hit to come so soon.

  It was Friday, and she’d picked Aidan up from his after school program, stopped at Leroy’s, and was prepping a simple dinner of chicken and rice while he watched cartoons. Rather than disturb her, the domesticity of the scenario was a comfort. It wasn’t very domestic back home.

  Her mother could boil water, but that was the extent of her meager cooking skills. Their part-time housekeeper, though, wide and Ked’s-shod, always humming, always placid, had taught Maggie the ways of the kitchen when she was sick to death of dresses, and candy necklaces, and watching ballroom dance videos. The kitchen, with its heat, and delicious scents, and sizzle of the skillet, was the back of the house, the beating pulse behind all the cold, soulless parties she was dragged to up front. There were no fake smiles, or false pretenses, or plastic personalities in the kitchen. Food, and its meticulous preparation, had no room for lies.

  Just like there was no room for lies in Ghost’s small apartment. He was all jagged edges, and long-nursed heartache, and his home was tattered and dated, but it was honest, all of it. And she craved honesty liked narcotics.

  She smiled to herself when she heard the approaching rumble of his bike. She could almost count it down in her head now, the time it took him to park, walk up the stairs, and kick the mud off his boots. He was faster today, the door opening while she envisioned him halfway up the concrete stairs. He whirled in, shut the door quickly, and his eyes darted across the room, coming right to her face.

  Her cheerful greeting morphed into a careful, “Hi…”

  “We have a problem,” he said, and her stomach somersaulted.

  “O-okay.” She set down the canister of salt she’d been holding. “What kind of problem?”

  “Hi, Daddy,” Aidan said, and Ghost detoured, went to ruffle his curly hair on his way to the kitchen.

  “Hey, bud. You have a good day?”

  Aidan smiled up at him, quick, before he got sucked back into the TV. “Uh-huh.”

  Ghost gave him one last pat and came to the small island that separated the two rooms, leaning on it heavily, the can light above casting long shadows down his face. He looked wired and exhausted at the same time, dropping his forehead into his palm, blowing out a breath that sent stray rice grains rolling across the countertop.

  “Ghost,” Maggie prompted, pulse thumping in her ears. “Should I be worried?”

  In a rush, he said, “My uncle wants to meet you and he says you have to come to the party tonight at the clubhouse.”

  She took a breath. “Your uncle the president?”

  “My uncle the lecherous, gross, asshole, son of a bitch president, yeah.”

  Another breath. “That’s…a lot of adjectives.”

  “He deserves them, trust me.”

  She picked up the chicken package and put it back in the fridge. She figured it would need to wait until tomorrow. “What happens if we don’t go?” she asked when she turned back.

  He gave her a truly miserable look. “Not an option.”

  “Thought it was worth an ask.”

  ~*~

  Her suitcase was open on the bed – the made bed, an improvement she’d brought into his life – and she dug through it carefully, laying items out on the bedspread and considering them.

  Ghost was positive nothing she owned was outlaw MC party-appropriate. He was also positive they were going to be late enough to draw attention, and he was gritting his teeth to keep from rushing her. He knew she was nervous; her breath shivered between her lips on every exhale, too deep, too long. She was shaking; he could see goosebumps on her arms. This was the reason he’d wanted to show up early, if possible. Wanted to slide her into a dark corner, get a little whiskey in her to settle her nerves, situate himself so he shielded her from his “brothers” – he put quotes around the word in his mind – and block her view of all the depraved things that happened at every party.

  But she was taking so long.

  “Babe,” he prodded, trying not to sound as jittery as she did, as he felt.

  “I know, I know.” She put her hands on her hips and surveyed her possible outfits. She leaned forward and tugged on the hem of a long, blue skirt, the fabric thick but fluid. She’d paired it with a white tank top and sweater. “My jeans are in the wash. What do you think?” She lifted a hopeful look.

  Her eyes were
always hazel, but looked more blue, or green, or brown sometimes, depending on the light. Now, in his bedroom, they were a dark, rich blue. Summer skies at nightfall, the river at sunrise. Deep, and pure, and soothing. She hadn’t refused this party, hadn’t pointed out the fact that she wasn’t his old lady and wasn’t required to show up at the clubhouse on his arm. They weren’t a team, even though it felt like that now. But she was looking at him for an opinion, wanting to please him, going along with his insane biker bullshit.

  He loved her for that.

  Or maybe he just loved her, period.

  He’d let the guilt needle at him for weeks now, since he first kissed her outside Hiram’s, but it hit him now, slammed into him full force. This thing they were doing – that he was doing – pretending like he was her man, pretending he could keep her, that it would ever be seen as socially acceptable, the two of them together – could get her hurt. Get her killed. The one-percenter lifestyle wasn’t kind to women.

  “Mags,” he said, lump in his throat, and heard his voice catch.

  She took another of those shivery breaths. “What?”

  “I’m sorry.” Because that was a good place to start in this instance.

  Her brows went up.

  “My uncle wants to meet you because he thinks…thinks I’m…attached to you.” He didn’t tell her about the money. “And if…if I am, and you’re my…um, well, he doesn’t want anyone attached who might not have the best interests of the club at heart.” He winced; of course he wasn’t explaining this right. “The thing is…ah, shit.” He sighed. So much for delicacy. “There’s always lots of girls hanging around the club. A guy doesn’t have to go looking for company.”

  She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, but didn’t look away. She was brave like that.

  “So when a guy starts spending time with just one girl, it means something. The rule is that you don’t tell old ladies anything about club business. Bitches ride bitch, and that’s the way it’s always been. But Duane doesn’t trust me. So he wants to see you with his own eyes. Take your measure and see if you’re trustworthy.”