Lazarus (The Henchmen MC Book 7)

by Jessica Gadziala

  Of which I was about to have many.

  That was the thought that pulled me fully awake, dredging my brain of the final threads of blissful unconscious where I was blessed with dreams I never could remember- no matter what battle my subconscious mind might have been fighting.

  My mouth was opening to let out a grumble when I felt a sensation that might have been the source of my wake-up call- fingers drifting lazily up and down my belly, stroking the sensitive undersides of my breasts, making me aware that my nipples were already hardened with desire and my sex was already slick and needy.

  My gaze drifted down my body, finding Lazarus' wide hand, criss-crossed with scars from all his years using his fists as a means to make ends meet. Some were translucent and white, others red and vivid still. There were fresh cuts as well- scabbed over already from the fight the night before, likely to lead to more memories of pain on his skin.

  I followed the length of his strong forearm, even in lazy exploration, the muscles corded and strong, over his chest, up his neck, then finally landing on his face.

  "What time is it?"

  "Nine," he supplied, the calloused palm of his hand closing around the soft swell of my breast.

  "What time do you have to leave?" I asked, belly clenching at the very idea of him having to go.

  Too soon, my heart said.

  We've only known each other a few days, my brain reasoned.

  Somehow, it felt so much longer. It felt like weeks, months, a lifetime.

  "I have ten minutes," he said, making my heart sink. "And it takes five to drive there," he added, smirk devilish and my sex clenched hard in anticipation, knowing what he was insinuating.

  It was hardly the span of a breath before his hands were at my hips, rolling me onto my stomach as he reached past me into the nightstand, quickly protecting us then moving to straddle both my legs, his hard cock pressing against my ass then toward my slit, stroking over it once and hitting the clit. Before that sensation could even spark through my system, he slammed inside me- hard, deep.

  The sheets muffled my cry, something Lazarus was not fond of, judging by how his hand went into my hair and yanked until I arched upward.

  Then he fucked me.

  And it was hard and fast and rough and wild and before I could even enjoy the feeling of it building, my orgasm slammed through my hardly-awake system, making me cry out his name as he slammed deep, jerked upward hard enough to give me a delicious little pinch, then came with my name on his lips.

  "Two fucking days," he grumbled, sliding out of me slowly, the bed shifting under his weight. I had thought he left me but then I felt his lips press a kiss into the left side of my behind, making a silly, girlish, goofy smile spread far enough to hurt my cheeks before I heard him move into the bathroom, shutting the door.

  Two fucking days.

  My brain added: only.

  But it was hardly a consolation.

  I heard the water running and rolled onto my back in time to watch him walk in from the bathroom. Disappointment was a plummeting sensation inside when I realized he wasn't naked like I had expected, but already in jeans and a white tee.

  His head ducked to the side, his eyes soft and appraising as he sat down beside me on the mattress, reaching out to do his thing, meaning run his finger down my jaw and then stroke down the cleft in my chin.

  "I don't want to leave you," he admitted, making my belly flip-flop, perhaps liking that way more than I should have.

  I forced a smile, the motion required genuine work and even then, I know it didn't even come close to reaching my eyes. "I'll be fine," I assured him, not fully believing it myself, but knowing if I stayed inside his place, I had a better chance than at my own.

  His gaze dipped, roamed over me in a way that seemed somehow both sweet and possessive, making me acutely aware of my nudity but for the first time, maybe completely unbothered by it.

  "How are you feeling?"

  God, he was so good.

  Way, way too good for me.

  "You don't have time to have a therapy session with me," I told him, giving him a smile that was more convincing. "Your brothers are waiting for you."

  "They're happy for the delay. Their brains must be sledgehammers this morning. Tell me," he demanded.

  How was I?

  Emotionally? Confused, excited, almost painfully happy, and so incredibly scared that it was a physical weight on my chest.

  Physically?

  "A little achy," I told him. "Muscle aches are the biggest problem it seems."

  He nodded at that, eyes almost invasive, boring into me, trying to read my secrets. "Don't be surprised if it gets worse when you're alone. You'll have nothing but your thoughts to drive you crazy. Don't think of it as regression if your stomach gets torn up again or you get the shakes or you are cold or hot or restless. It's all normal. It's all part of the process. Me being around has been a good distraction, but eventually all of this was going to come up anyway."

  "I'm not going to go and..." I started, only to be cut off when his finger pressed into my lips.

  "Don't make promises," he said, his voice almost pleading. "Shit happens in recovery and I don't want you feeling guilt or pressure on top of what you're already dealing with. Do that cheesy thing they always talk about," he went on, smile wry, "and take it a day at a time. I don't have much around here, but there's the TV and some books, including some NA books in the living room. Plenty of food to cook."

  "It's just too days," I insisted, finding myself in the strange position of needing to comfort him, realizing how much that meant because if I had to comfort him, it meant he genuinely cared about what I might go through while he was gone.

  It was an altogether too nice feeling, like sand warmed from the sun on a cool spring beach- like I used to feel in my childhood when my mother would bring us, insisting that the best time for the beach wasn't in the summer, but the off-seasons, when it was big and vast and intimidating and wildly beautiful, not covered in umbrellas and beach towels and old bottle caps.

  It was comforting.

  Familiar.

  "I know," he agreed, leaning down to plant a kiss between my breasts. Then he got off the bed and went into the other room, coming back with a cell. "I got this," he told me, handing me what was clearly a burner. "I didn't think it was good for you to have your own cell back yet in case you have contacts that might be too tempting. But I don't like you being without something. My number is programmed as is the compound. Only Reeve and Renny are there, but if you need them, they will come. I also added the number for Hailstorm and Penny's cell. You two seemed to get along. All the women are up at Hailstorm for some downtime and training. If you get bored or you don't feel like you can trust yourself, I told them you might call."

  "Lazarus, I..."

  "I didn't tell them," he cut me off. "About your detoxing. It's none of their business unless you want to tell them. I just said you would be here all by yourself and you might get bored and want to come up. That's it."

  "Okay." I scrolled through the contacts before looking back up at him. "Thank you."

  His smile went a little heated at that. "You can thank me with that sweet mouth when I get back in two days," he told me going to his bedroom door where a leather jacket was hanging from a hook.

  "Lazarus," I called when I thought he was going to leave me with just that.

  "Yeah, sweetheart?" he asked, turning back, his head cocked to the side.

  "Wear a helmet."

  "What?" His brows drew together; his smile went a little confused.

  "Last night when we went to Hex and after... you didn't wear a helmet. Wear a helmet," I implored, folding upward, my knees going to my chest, my arms around my legs, and resting my chin on my knees.

  "You're worried about me, huh?" There was pure masculine delight at the idea, making his shoulders move back and his chest widen.

  "Yes." It was a strange thing to admit, making me feel a little vulnerable. But the smile
he gave me was blinding and worth the discomfort at admitting I cared about his well-being.

  "I like that," he said, nodding.

  "Promise." I didn't even care that I was being demanding, a little nagging. I wanted his brains in his head and his body in one piece so he could come back to me. Maybe that was selfish, but somehow I was okay with that.

  "I promise, sweetheart. I'll even try to stick to the speed limit," he moved out with that, not wanting to draw out the goodbye which was proving painful enough for me. "I'll call you when we stop," he added and the door closed. The sound seemed to reverberate through my chest. My hand went up and rubbed there, not wanting to admit how much it was hurting to say goodbye.

  Too soon, my heart.

  Two days, my head.

  Neither of those were a comfort as I climbed up the bed and yanked the covers over my head, moving into his spot that smelled comfortingly of him and, despite not thinking it was possible with everything I needed to think about, drifting off to sleep.

  I woke up restless, as I perhaps had been expecting. It was how I used to feel when my mom was in the hospital, when I could do nothing for her. The adrenaline and uselessness had me pacing up and down the hall, hands clenching and releasing, needing a release for the extra energy.

  I climbed out of the bed, showered, took some Advil, went through a morning routine, but instead of going into my own clothing pile, my hand reached for the knobs on his dresser, pulling it open and reaching inside for one of his worn, soft white tees and slipping it on. No one would see me. No one would be there to judge me for being such a sap, such a girl about everything.

  The TV held no relief from my swirling thoughts and anxious body. I jumped back up, pacing for a long minute before going into the kitchen, pulling half of the contents of the refrigerator out and stacking it in a haphazard pile on the table.

  Then I went ahead and peeled and chopped, comforted by the familiar sensations, glad to have something that kept my hands busy.

  Unfortunately, it did not stop the swirling-the endless cyclone of thoughts that had been the reason I first reached for those pills in anything other than the pain in my back- just to have a couple minutes of not being driven half-crazy by my own mind.

  And after six months of numbing it all, pushing it all away, each singular thought raced forward, fighting for attention, crashing into one another and trying to make me focus on them. There was my mother's sickness, my father's infidelity, my sister's selfishness, my own almost blinding grief that was enough to nearly bring me to my knees after being able to numb it for so long.

  Beyond that, there was, perhaps for the first time, the truth about what I had done to myself, to my life.

  I had dived into bottles of pills after bottles of pills.

  I had barely come up for air.

  Because the air was toxic. It was full of truths, truths I didn't want to face. If I tried to breathe it in, it choked me.

  And as I stood in Lazarus' kitchen stirring soup on the stove, there was nothing I could do to filter it, to make it easier to take in.

  I was a drug addict.

  I had taken a coward's way out.

  I had stopped fighting.

  I had chosen to numb everything, to try to pretend nothing bothered me, to be invincible.

  Where had that gotten me?

  Wrapped up with Chris and Sunny and their boss.

  Literally sicker than I had ever been in my life.

  And for what?

  The pain was still there. The grief was a stitch sewn into my very fabric. It would always be a part of me. The only way for it to be less tight, less abrasive to my touch was to wear it, to wash it, to learn to live with it until it loosened its hold, until its threads softened. It would take time, like all things.

  It was its own kind of recovery.

  And it was one I couldn't hide from anymore.

  I had a strong feeling that the next several months were going to be full of triumphant highs and devastating lows. Recovery wasn't a linear path. It wasn't like getting the drugs out of my system fixed everything. It changed the physical dependence on the pills, but it had no impact on the mental addiction.

  I remembered my grandfather saying when I was a kid that the hardest part about quitting smoking for him was not kicking the nicotine, but the habits. After dinner, he always went out on the porch for a smoke. When he drove in the car, he rolled down the window and smoked all the way to work. On lunch breaks, in the middle of the night when he got up to use the bathroom, and especially when he was stressed. He said that was the hardest part- figuring out what to do in place of those things.

  After dinner, he helped my grandmother do dishes. On the way to work, he chewed gum. On lunch breaks, he made sure he ate inside so he couldn't give into the urge. He said the hardest part was figuring out how to cope with the stress though. It was when he always gave in and had a smoke. It took him years to completely be off the cigarettes.

  He died six months after that.

  Me, I had the mental addiction. I knew there would be moments when I was down and couldn't see the light anymore where it would take a lot of strength to not find some pills- to not refill a prescription.

  On top of that, though, I was still in a way, wrapped up in the lifestyle. I had no idea how to untangle myself from the situation I found myself in. And until that was handled, I was in a very suspended pattern.

  I had no idea what was going to happen when I eventually had to face up my demons.

  I had no idea what it would mean to have to come clean to Lazarus.

  I took a scoopful of soup and sat down in the living room, eyes scanning over the pages of one of Lazarus' NA books, trying to find some hidden wisdom, trying to find strength in the words of people who went through it before me.

  But I found little comfort and a lot of frustration so I put the book back and my bowl down and went back into the bedroom, restlessly flicking through channels on TV, trying to find anything to catch my attention and keep the thoughts from assaulting me all at once.

  But there was no stopping them.

  And out of all of them, the worst was somehow what Lazarus would think of me when he finally knew the truth, when he saw all my ugly. Would he still want to roll up his sleeves and put the work in? Or would he finally decide I was too big a project, that I needed to be stripped and gutted and rebuilt anew?

  At that thought, the soup that had settled like warm comfort in my belly rolled and I had to fly up off the bed and barely made it in time.

  It was the same way for lunch.

  And then dinner.

  Don't be surprised if it gets worse when you're alone. You'll have nothing but your thoughts to drive you crazy. Don't think of it as regression if your stomach gets torn up again or you get the shakes or you are cold or hot or restless. It's all normal. It's all part of the process. Me being around has been a good distraction, but eventually all of this was going to come up anyway.

  That was what he had said.

  And I guess it was proving right.

  I pulled on heavier layers and crawled back into the bed, surprised maybe more than I should have been when the tears stung at the backs of my eyes then started streaming down my cheeks before I could even try to fight them.

  It was like a dam had cracked somewhere deep inside.

  And there was no stopping it. No repairing the damage.

  It all just had to drain out.

  So it did.

  The pillow was wet enough for me to have to turn it when my tear-swollen eyes proved too heavy to keep open anymore and I drifted into a restless sleep.

  --

  I didn't wake up slowly, drifting toward consciousness.

  One second I was out cold, the next, fully awake and staring up at Lazarus' ceiling, my heart pumping a little hard in my chest, making it so that I could feel it in my throat, reminding me that while I might not remember my dreams, that they could still have impact.

  I climbed up, feeling m
y heavy limbs, aching intensified either because I was too conscious of it or because of my inactivity.

  Coffee.

  I needed about a gallon of coffee.

  Maybe the caffeine fix would help me feel more human.

  "So this is where you've been hiding."

  A sliver of ice stabbed deep into my heart, freezing out any good that had been growing there, reminding me that there was nowhere safe for me.

  I turned around so fast that the room spun for a second, making my hand slam down on the table, the glass salt and pepper shakers clicking together.

  But as soon as my vision cleared, I not only saw the source of the voice, but Chris and Sunny as well.

  "It really didn't take too much legwork either," Mitchell went on. They were an intimidating group- all in slacks and dark button-ups, all with shining watches wrapped around their wrists, all with my future in their hands. "Your little Henchmen saving the day really made this easy for us. Saw him leaving this morning."

  I was no hero.

  I was nothing compared to the three of them.

  I turned and ran toward the door.

  If there was a sound, I didn't hear it over the whooshing of my heartbeat in my ears.

  I had my fingers on the chain, ready to slide it, when a hand slammed down between my shoulder blades, slamming my entire body against the unyielding door. A sharp pain exploded across my cheekbone as it collided, making my vision go white for a second as a yelp burst from my lips.

  His hand moved up my back and into the hair at the base of my neck, curling in in a way that was becoming familiar with me- but there was nothing teasingly erotic about it. When Sunny pulled, he did it to cause the highest level of pain possible. The sting seemed to take over my entire scalp, making my eyes water. He yanked back then slammed forward, this time making my eye socket battle the door, losing yet again. The swelling sensation was almost immediate as his body pressed into mine. His breath was warm in my ear. "Don't even fucking think about screaming," he demanded, yanking my hair again. "Understood?"

  My head jerked as much as the grip on my hair would allow, making him take a step back.