“So, twenty minutes, right?” Blaze said to R.J.
“Yep,” he replied as he patted Blaze on the shoulder like some sort of pet.
I started shivering and shaking uncontrollably with each step R.J. took towards me. I didn’t know what he was going to do. I didn’t know if he was going to be gentle or rough or something in between. If I’d learned anything in the last week, it was that sex with complete strangers is never a good idea.
“You can go now, Blaze,” R.J. hissed.
I hadn’t noticed Blaze still standing in the doorway. I knew Blaze thought of me as his property, so I was a little surprised that he was so willing to share me. It seemed, however, that he was quite positive this was going to be his ticket into the Hell’s Highway Motorcycle Club. For whatever reason, he seemed hell bent on achieving that. And at any cost.
Blaze reluctantly left, and R.J. turned back and went to lock the door. He locked the bolt as well as the chain.
I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat and tried not to vomit.
“Are you okay?” R.J. asked as he turned back towards me. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”
I glanced up at him with big, scared eyes and said nothing. My teeth were beginning to chatter from the cool air gushing out of the window AC unit.
“Here,” R.J. said as he grabbed a comforter off the spare queen bed and threw it over me.
“Th-thank you,” I stuttered. I didn’t know what to think. He was being so kind. Maybe he was just trying to calm me down so I’d be a good lay? I had no idea what he was doing. For all I knew, he was just as manipulative and fucked up in the head as Blaze.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, and I instinctively jerked away from him. He placed his hands up in the air almost apologetically.
“Listen,” he said. “I’m not here to do anything to you.”
“Y-you’re not?” I asked. The tears that had started to form in my eyes were quickly beginning to dry up.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he said as his eyes traced the duct tape that was nearly cutting off the circulation to my hands.
I shook my head no and hung it low.
“Look at me,” I cried. “Do I look okay? I’m fucking tied to a bed with duct tape and being told I have to fuck a strange guy so the man who kidnapped me can get into your motorcycle club.”
The waterworks immediately turned back on and it was like a weight had been lifted. I couldn’t stop. The tears fell one after another. Saying those words and admitting the reality of the situation was freeing and depressing all at once. I didn’t even know if I could trust this guy, and I had just told him all of Blaze’s dirty secrets.
“When I saw you tonight at the bar, I could tell something was amiss,” he said. “The way Blaze wouldn’t let go of you. He fucking walked you to the bathroom. He was parading you around. Controlling you. And the entire time, you just hung your head like you were some slave.”
“I had to do whatever he wanted,” I said. “He threatened to put a bullet in my head if I didn’t.”
R.J. shook his head.
“I won’t pretend that I’m some angel,” R.J. stated, looking me directly into my eyes. “But I would never in a million years do to a woman what he’s done to you. You’re not cut out for the club life. You’re not cut out to be an Old Lady. You don’t fit in with us.”
I didn’t know where he was going with that, but I was listening intently.
“Blaze is a prick,” he continued. “We all know that. He shouldn’t have brought you into this or exposed you to this lifestyle. He’s a fucking moron for doing that.”
I nodded. I was truly at a loss for words. The president, the man with the most power in their little circle, was being kinder to me than anyone had been in a long time.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” he said. “And away from Blaze.”
“Are you serious?!” I said, a genuine smile spreading across my lips for the first time in days.
“Yes,” he said. He turned back towards the door, stood up, and looked out the windows. I assumed he was checking for Blaze.
He glanced down at his watch. “We don’t have much longer. Blaze is outside sitting in his truck. I’m sure he’s counting down the moments until he gets you back.”
R.J. walked back over to the bed and ripped the duct tape from my wrists, freeing me.
“He thinks you’re going to offer him full membership into the club,” I said.
“Ha,” R.J. laughed. “That will never happen in a million years.”
“Then why do you give him false hope?” I asked.
“He makes assumptions. Haven’t you figured that out yet?” R.J. replied. “He only hears what he wants.”
“Why does he want in your club so bad?” I asked.
“No clue,” he replied as he gently massaged my wrists. It was sweet and unexpected. “He’s been a hanger-on for the last year or so. He’s a little obsessed. A little unstable. A little bit of a loose cannon. We have no place for impulsivity and guys like him in the club.”
“Why don’t you just tell him?” I proposed. “Maybe he’ll move onto another club.”
“That’s where it gets complicated,” he said with a winced face. “He’s sort of my half-brother.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said. My jaw dropped to the floor.
“We’re not that close,” he said. “I hardly know him, but we just reconnected not too long ago, and I feel like I need to let him down easy. There’s no telling what he’ll do if you don’t reciprocate his feelings.”
“God, don’t I know it,” I lamented.
Suddenly there was a pounding at the door. It seemed rather aggressive and made me wonder if it was the police.
R.J. popped up and calmly strutted over to the door.
“It’s Blaze,” he mouthed to me. “I just need you to play along.”
I nodded, letting him know that I understood, as my heart raced. I mussed up my hair to give it that bedhead look and hid my body under the rumpled covers.
R.J. unlocked the door and let Blaze in.
“Twenty minutes are up,” Blaze said as he forced his way past R.J. His eyes landed right on me before surveying the room.
R.J. pretended to adjust his belt and pants.
“She pretty good or what?” Blaze asked, sticking his hand out for a high-five.
R.J. returned the juvenile gesture before straddling his hands on his hips and taking a wide stance. R.J. towered over Blaze, and I could tell Blaze sort of looked up to him. R.J. was like some sort of hero to Blaze, and it would make sense that he wanted nothing more to join his big brother’s gang.
“I’m going to need more time with her,” R.J. said.
“What do you mean?” Blaze asked. I could hear his breathing grow labored. He really didn’t want to let me out of his hands.
“I need to break her in some more,” R.J. replied. “I want to take her back to the house with me tonight.”
“No,” Blaze said. “Absolutely not.”
R.J. looked at me, and I looked back at him in shock. I thought for sure Blaze would do anything in the entire world to get into the club.
“It’s not a question,” R.J. said. “It’s an order.”
Blaze stood silent as he thought about it. He glanced over at me and I could just feel the jealousy oozing out of his pours. That or he was afraid he was going to get caught for kidnapping me. I truly believe he thought he could make me fall in love with him and that the kidnapping would be justified.
Blaze took a deep breath as his nostrils flared.
“Fine, whatever,” he said. “Bring her back by eight tomorrow morning. I don’t want a single scratch or bruise or cut anywhere on her.”
“Of course,” R.J. said.
I hesitated before slipping out from under the covers. It felt so weird to be walking around freely in front of Blaze. I went to the bathroom and changed into some clothes from my suitcase. I zipped it up and wheele
d it out to where the guys were standing.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Blaze asked me.
I shrugged. I had no idea what he was talking about.
“The suitcase stays here,” he said as he pointed to it. “Where do you think you’re going? On some little vacation?”
Oh, shit, I thought. I hoped I didn’t tip him off or make him suspicious.
I glanced up at R.J. who had sort of a cringed look on his face.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just wanted to be able to wear clean clothes in the morning.”
I hoped my lie sufficed, but I wasn’t sure.
“Don’t worry about all that,” Blaze said. He seemed annoyed, but I was pretty sure he bought it.
“Let’s go,” R.J. said to me. I could tell he didn’t want to waste another precious moment in Blaze’s company.
I slipped past Blaze, who grabbed me by my arm and whipped me around, jerking me hard. He pressed his mouth up to my ear.
“Don’t do anything stupid now,” he threatened me. “I mean it.”
He pulled his face towards mine and locked eyes with me, trying to show me that he meant business.
“I know,” I said back to him with shrugged shoulders. I was trying to make him think he still had power over me, but the truth was, I was now the one with the power. If only he knew.
I followed R.J. out to the parking lot where his shiny, black and chrome Harley-Davidson motorcycle waited for us. It was probably one of the nicest motorcycle’s I’d ever seen, and I wasn’t really even into those sorts of things.
He climbed on and started it up. The engine roared loudly then came to a loud, constant growl. I climbed on behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist.
We both glanced up at the hotel room and could clearly see Blaze watching from behind the pulled curtains. I hoped to God that was the last time I was ever going to see his face ever again.
CHAPTER 20
As the cool night air blew through my long, blonde hair, I knew I was riding to freedom. Every stop light, every stop sign, and every car we passed was just one step closer. I was sure that that time the next night I’d be sleeping in my own bed.
R.J. seemed to drive carefully with me on his bike. Blaze was always a bit of crazy driver, at least in his truck. I barely remembered the time I rode with him on his bike.
We pulled into a bit of a rundown little neighborhood and pulled up to a big, gentrified Victorian house. It looked like a typical party house you’d see in a college town or one of those massive old houses that people turned into 8-plexes.
“What’s this place?” I asked.
“This is the local chapter house,” he said as he parked his bike in the garage.
I noticed several more bikes parked out in the street in front of the house, each of them black and chrome and various sizes.
I followed R.J. out of the garage and onto a back deck. We entered through a back door into a kitchen that was lacking any sort of updates. The floors felt sticky under my shoes and the counters were covered in beer cans. It definitely looked and felt like a frat house.
“Gina, Candy, Tiffany,” R.J. called out as we walked through the kitchen, past the dining room, and into a gigantic living room filled with various, mismatched sofas and chairs.
The room was filled with a handful of rough-looking women who all glanced up at me with their eye lined eyes and teased hair. Most of them wore low cut shirts and way too much makeup. They didn’t look friendly at all.
I began to panic when I wondered if R.J. was really a pimp and had taken me from Blaze so that I could belong to him and be pimped out. It did seem too good to be true that he’d all of a sudden want to rescue some girl he didn’t even know.
I thought for sure I was going to have a panic attack right then and there. The walls were closing in and my breathing grew harder and harder.
“Why are you out of breath, honey?” one of the women asked. “You okay?”
“This is the girl I was telling you about,” R.J. said.
I knew it. I knew it. He was going to add me to his collection of prostitutes. Suddenly being tied up and ordered around by Blaze didn’t seem half as bad.
I suddenly began to cry. I fell to my knees in the process, not caring what they thought. I had lost all hope right then and there.
“Oh, honey,” one of the older women said as she came to my side and rubbed my back. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No, it’s not,” I cried. I looked up at her, and a confused look spread across her face as she exchanged looks with R.J.
R.J. looked doubly confused and let out a bit of a laugh.
“What do you mean, honey?” she asked. “We’re going to get you home.”
I immediately stopped crying and looked up at her.
“You are?” I asked.
I looked over at R.J. who had raised eyebrows as if to say, “See?”
“What did you think…?” the woman started to ask before she stopped.
I wasn’t going to tell them they all looked like a bunch of common prostitutes. Not when they were offering to help me. That would’ve been the worst thing I could’ve said.
I instantly felt bad for assuming they were anything but nice people as the woman helped me back to a standing position. The other women stared at me as awkward silence filled the air.
We could hear the drunken laughter and clinking bottles and beer cans outside on the front porch from some of the bikers.
“I’m Candy,” the woman said as she rubbed my back. She had to have been in her mid-forties. She had wrinkles all over her face, but her blue eyes were kind and gentle. She was very motherly.
“These women are going to see to it that you’re well taken care of tonight,” R.J. said. “In the morning, we’re going to run you over to the bus stop and put you on the first bus back home, wherever that is.”
“Thank you,” I said as I looked up into R.J.’s dark, mysterious yet kind eyes.
He nodded and walked off, leaving me there with the women in the living room.
“So you got mixed up with old Blaze, eh?” a redheaded woman asked. “I’m Gina.”
I rolled my eyes at the mention of his name. “I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe I fell for him.”
“He’s crazy I hear,” she said with a laugh. “Don’t worry, he’s been trying to find a nice girl to date for a while. They all end up seeing through him and it never works out.”
“You seem like a smart girl,” Candy said. “What made you fall for him?”
“I didn’t fall for him,” I clarified. “I fell for his act. He preyed on my loneliness and said all the right things. But when I wouldn’t agree to come back here with him, he kidnapped me.”
Candy covered her mouth and shook her head.
“What a fucking psychopath,” Gina said.
Tiffany, the younger blonde I presumed, stayed quiet. She just sort of stared at me from her chair in the corner, not saying a word.
“She’s shy. Don’t mind her,” Gina said as she noticed me looking Tiffany’s way. “If you were sticking around longer, I’m sure she’d warm up to you.”
“Wow,” I said with a laugh. “Shy and biker gang. You don’t hear that kind of a combination every day.”
“Here, have a seat,” Gina said as she stood up. “Are you hungry? I can make you a sandwich?”
My stomach began to rumble with the mention of food, and I’d realized I hadn’t eaten a whole lot that day.
“Oh, sure,” I said with wide eyes. “That’s so nice of you!”
Gina stood up and made her way to the kitchen. She returned several minutes later with a tuna salad sandwich with a side of plain potato chips.
“Slim pickings my dear,” she said. “Hope you like tuna.”
“Well if someone would go to the grocery store like they’re supposed to,” Candy teased. “We wouldn’t have such slim pickings.”
“Well if someone’s Old Man wouldn’t eat us out of house
and home, we wouldn’t have to go to the grocery store twenty times a week,” Gina razzed her back.
The women had a playful, friendly relationship it seemed. I liked them a lot in the short few minutes I’d known them.
I hated tuna, but I was so hungry I was willing to eat it. I took a bite of the cool tuna and mayo on white concoction and let the flavors fill my mouth. It felt good not to eat something covered in oils and grease, and since I was so hungry it actually didn’t taste that bad.
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