by Ada Stone
The bathroom door was open and I could see already that Tyler was gone.
The gag lay on the floor next to the cord I’d used to tie him up. I sighed a little in disappointment, but found myself not too concerned with the whole thing. He wouldn’t be back. Not ever. And if he did show up, well, I’d just kill him like I should have before.
“He’s gone,” Susanna whispered, and I couldn’t tell if there was fright or relief in her voice. Maybe she knew what my intentions had been the entire time.
I put my arms around her shoulders and held her close. “It’s alright. He won’t be back. He’ll never show his face in the city again, not so long as I’m there.”
She said nothing after that, just let me hold her.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Susanna
It was only another hour’s drive back to the city, plus a little extra to get to Alexei’s apartment. I would have maybe argued about going to his place instead of mine, but I was exhausted. It had been a long night, a long day, and a long week before that. Besides, if I were really being honest with myself, I didn’t want to argue.
I wanted to go home with him.
But as we headed towards his apartment, pulling into a lower level garage beneath the building, I found a little bit of dread and sadness working its way through me. I didn’t just want to come home with Alexei tonight; I wanted to go home with him every night. I wanted more from him than just a one-night stand, and I was sure I had made myself pretty clear about that.
I had told him I loved him, more than anything, and while he’d been sweet and held me—even as he killed Jason and my brother—he hadn’t returned the sentiment. That knowledge burned inside me, twisting my insides, torturing me.
I didn’t know what I would do when he tried to let me down gently, told me that, while he clearly wanted something to do with the baby, he didn’t feel that way about me.
He parked his car and I let out a sigh of relief. I was ready to be out of the car and into bed. I closed my eyes for a moment, leaning my head back against the leather interior, just taking a moment to breathe in and out. A moment later, my door opened, Alexei holding it and offering me his free hand.
I blinked at him, but offered a shy smile as I let him help me up out of the car. Still holding my hand, he took me to the elevator which led to his floor. On the ride up, he kept his arm around me protectively—or possessively? —until the elevator dinged and the doors opened. Then he escorted me inside.
Plopping me down on the comfortable couch, I thought I could sleep right then and there. As though sensing my thoughts, Alexei told me, “Don’t go to sleep, not yet. We need to get you checked out, make sure you’re alright. Then you can lay down.”
Though it was difficult, I forced myself to stay seated up right, waiting for him as he headed into the bathroom. My mind flashed to when he’d taken me in the shower. I’d still been a little sore from our first time together—my first time ever—but I’d relished his touch, been eager for it even. He’d been both demanding and sweetly tender.
I didn’t know that sex would feel like that, both rough and soft at the same time.
Alexei came back with peroxide, bandages, an ice pack, and a glass of water along with two little white pills. I eyed them suspiciously, but he only smirked at me.
“Aspirin,” he explained.
I laughed a little at myself, then remembered again how my throat was sore and scratchy. I gingerly touched my neck, wincing as I imagined how bad it must look. How there were probably marks where Jason had tried to choke me.
Alexei’s eyes turned dark. “The aspirin will help. Here.”
He gave me the water and the pills, and I swallowed, though it was difficult going down. Still, I knew he was right.
“I’ll make you some tea in a little bit. The water’s boiling now. It’ll help with the soreness.”
Before I could tell him I was fine or even try to protest, he fixed me with a pointed look as though letting me know that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Not on this. So I remained silent and did as he said.
Using a cotton ball and peroxide, he cleaned up the small cuts that I’d managed to get throughout the night. Mostly from my struggle with Tyler, I was sure, but I didn’t want to think about that. I looked down at my lap, my face burning. It had been a lot to take in and I wasn’t sure how I was going to cope when Alexei was out of my life.
When he finished, putting up the peroxide and the cotton balls, the tea kettle whistled. He went up to get it and I knew that it was time for me to go. He’d been so kind to me, but I couldn’t take this, not his sweetness and then him breaking my heart. It would just make it hurt all the more.
So I stood. I made it halfway to the door, telling him, “I should probably go. I’ll call a cab and—”
But in what felt like two smooth strides he was in front of me, blocking the door. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Uh, home. You’ve been really kind, but I should—”
Again, he interrupted me. “Susanna, you are home. Don’t be an idiot.”
My eyebrows shot up at that, my eyes widening. “You mean...?”
He let out a small sigh, but a smile tugged at his lips as he pulled me into his strong arms. “I mean that I love you and I’m going to marry you, Susanna. You belong to me. I thought I told you that already.”
I bit my lip, daring to hope. Could he really? Could he love me like that? And then I remembered, the baby. Was this really about me or did he just want to be a daddy bad enough to put up with a little extra baggage like the mother?
Hesitant, not sure I wanted to know the answer, I let out a whoosh of air and asked the question that lingered on the tip of my tongue, “But… is it me you love? Or is this all just because of the baby?”
I held my breath, worried, terrified of his answer, but when his eyes darkened and he jerked me to him tightly, pressing me solidly against his chest, I released that breath and a moment later, I couldn’t breathe at all.
His lips were fused to mine, drinking me in. All the passion in the world was contained in that one kiss, fire shooting through me, embracing me, consuming me. My skin was alight with everything he was feeling—feelings that mirrored my own—and I knew without a doubt that he loved me. Loved me for me and nothing else.
I felt as though I could drown in him, consumed by passion.
This was it. Here was where I was meant to be, where I would spend the rest of my life. In Alexei’s arms.
THE END
Don’t stop now! Keep reading for a sneak preview of my MC romance, CHAINED TO THE OUTLAW
Chapter One
Nick
They let me out with a pair of blue jeans, a clean white shirt, a pair of loafers, and twenty bucks. And maybe some of them meant it when they told me, “Keep your nose clean, kid. I don’t want to see you back here.” Except I wasn’t a kid and I wasn’t about to keep my nose clean. Maybe I would feel worse about my plans after getting out of the slammer if I hadn’t lost it all when I went in. It was a short stint, all things considered, but not short enough for me to let bygones be bygones.
After all, five years was a long time to a man who went in at twenty-three.
I didn’t know what I was expecting when I walked out of the gates that had been closed to me for years now, but certainly something more exciting than the same damn bus that had dropped me off here. “We’ll drop you off anywhere,” they told me, though anywhere was a relative term. What they meant was, “We’ll drop you off at your choice of the three closest major cities, all of which happen to be about fifty miles max.” Granted, I should have been grateful for even that.
No one was coming to pick me up.
So I got on the bus with my starched jeans and my clean shirt and the loafers that were uglier than shit. I sat down and didn’t make conversation, didn’t ask questions, or tell the driver or the three other guys sitting with me what I’d be doing when I got out. All I did was sit and kept my head
down, because inside I was boiling.
Five years ago, I had it all planned out. I had my life set—maybe not by other people’s standards, but I was that strange breed of man who couldn’t walk the straight and narrow path—my girl picked out, and enough earned friends to make a life and a living all at once. And then I was hit. Like a ton of bricks on my head, my entire world came crashing down and when things went from bad to worse, and I found myself clinging desperately to what I had left, and I lost that, too.
Once upon a time, I led Heaven’s Wrath. Like demon riders from hell, we were a force to be reckoned with. There were only a few meager lines we didn’t cross—mostly prostitution and anything to do with kids below eighteen—but the rest was fair game.
Heaven’s Wrath was my baby, built up from the ground. It started with me and a motorcycle when I was just seventeen, and by the time I was twenty, I had a half dozen decent guys. We were hellions and proud of it. Drugs, arms, boosting, didn’t matter what to us, we delved. At the time, I was under some sort of strange, youthful illusion that we were invincible. Like we couldn’t be touched. It fueled me and when we continued to grow, it was easier and easier to believe.
Then it happened. Five years wasted.
I clenched my hands against the stiff fabric of my jeans and focused on breathing, concentrated on how I was out, how I would make things right. No, not right. It couldn’t be made right again, not now, but I could get revenge. I could make things even.
And that started in a very particular place with a very particular person.
I sat back and forced myself to relax. I needed cool precision to make things work for me. If I was going to be a hothead, I’d lose track of myself and end up falling for the same tricks that screwed me over the first time.
Love? I could almost laugh at the concept now. What a joke.
It was still early enough in the morning that the heat hadn’t started to overtake me, but it was the end of June and fixing to be July in mere days. Already I could feel the coolness of night slipping away as the sun slowly rose higher and higher along the horizon. For one ridiculous moment I longed for the concrete cell that had been home for years now. I shook the thought away forcibly—I wouldn’t be one of those guys, the ones who couldn’t adjust to the real world again—but couldn’t deny that things would be difficult on the outside. Getting back on my feet, well, it would take time and patience, some determination.
Luckily, I had all of those things in spades.
Sinking lower into my chair, I tried to make myself nap. Not because I was tired, but because it was going to be hot soon and because it would be another forty-five minutes before we got anywhere, and I didn’t think I could wait like that for what was to come.
Patience was one of the few—maybe the only—virtues I had, but that didn’t mean I liked waiting. I could be patient when I had to be, and especially when I was actively doing something, but just sitting here on a bus? Not so much.
I didn’t sleep, despite my attempts, and ended up running through the same shit I always did in my cell.
Sal Davis.
There were few men in this world who hated me more than Sal Davis, and thanks to his latest attempt at revenge—successful, I would think—the feeling was more than mutual. If you asked me to pinpoint the moment where Sal and I became enemies, or the catalyst that started it, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. But I could list the moment we butted heads and the times when I was sure I would have to tear him apart or him me just to bring some sort of closure to the anger that was forged so solidly between us.
Sal was the leader of a rival motorcycle club. Not that the idea could have been his own, I was sure, because he’d been a nobody when I first met him. Even more of a nobody than I was.
I shoved him into the fence, anger fueling me. I was too young, too stupid, to think that this was school property and if we got caught fighting, we’d be expelled. And then where would we be?
But Sal knew just how to get to me and the bastard was even grinning as blood gushed from his nose. Some of it dipped onto his lips and it grossed me out when he licked it, though I wouldn’t let him see that. Sal would use anything he could against me.
“The hell’s your problem anyway?” I asked him angrily, my hands still fisted in his shirt, holding him against the chain link fence that separated the currently empty playground from the dilapidated road that would eventually lead to downtown.
Sal attempted a shrug, which looked awkward and sort of dumb since I had him pinned, but his smile was smug. Like this was all part of his plan. Hell, it probably was.
“I ain’t got a problem, Nicky boy,” he taunted. He was grinning, but there was something flashing in his eyes. Like he was pissed off. Like he hadn’t just called my mom a fantastic lay. Okay, step-mom; my birth mom was in prison for the next ten to fifteen. But still, it was the principle of the thing.
I felt my face redden with anger. At sixteen, life was pretty hard in general. At sixteen at a public school where everyone knew you fit into the lowest income bracket and your mom was a psycho drug dealer locked up, well, it got harder.
Which was usually why Sal and I got along. Even when we didn’t, we had some sort of unspoken agreement that we’d, be there for each other or some other dumb shit. But then my step-mom moved in and the world shifted. She wasn’t all that great, kind of a lush actually, but she was something.
But Sal didn’t like it. He was always ragging on her and I felt like it was my job or something to defend her, even though Sal was usually saying something honest about her.
“If you ain’t got a problem, then maybe you should stop letting your mouth make one for you,” I told him, and released one of my hands from his shirt so I could pull it back. And just before the impact of my fist on his face—again—I told him, “And shut the fuck up about my mother!”
The bus came to a stop and I moved to get off. One other guy did, too, but we barely even looked at each other as we single filed our way off that damn bus, both just relieved to be back in the city and away from that damn place.
When the bus rumbled away behind me, I spared a last thought to my boyhood friendship with Sal. Had that been the moment? Had it been my then step-mom who had started this rivalry between us? I didn’t know, and at that point, I decided I didn’t care.
By now, the Florida heat was starting to waft in and I tried to stay cool despite it, heading for the overhang of a bus stop to at least stand in the shade while I decided my next move. I had plans, yes, but the specifics from this point to the next point were a little shaky at the moment.
After all, it was hard to have much of a plan when there was only twenty bucks in your pocket and you weren’t sure which of your steadfast, loyal buddies was still steadfast and loyal.
I frowned. On the corner, I saw a payphone. It was ratty and so old that I half expected someone to just wrap crime scene tape around it and call it dead, but the cord didn’t look cut so I suspected it might still work.
Which meant I needed change.
Up the street was a diner that looked about as ratty as the payphone. I didn’t know how good any of the food would taste, but seeing as how I’d been eating the slop they served us in prison, I reckoned it wouldn’t upset me too much whatever the cost. And it looked cheap.
I could get change and a meal, two birds with one stone.
So I headed over there, hunching my shoulders up, wary of the passing strangers who were probably harmless, probably just on their way to work or school or to catch the bus, but it didn’t matter. I was still in defense mode, determined to protect what was mine up until the end. Whenever that would be.
I wouldn’t throw myself under the bus for anyone; I’d already learned that, in the end, you could only trust yourself.
Jerking open the door to the diner, I headed inside, my nose assaulted with the smells of cooking meat and spices and all the other things that came with real food. My stomach growled and my mouth watered. It didn’t matter if this was
complete crap and didn’t live up to the health code; it smelled like a slice of heaven.
Glancing around, I spotted a seat towards the back where there was another exit. I headed over towards it and slid into the booth, grabbing one of the menus stashed at the side of the table.
I’d only just begun scanning through the menu items—everything sounded good, all of it different and familiar all at once—when the waitress came over. She was wearing the most unflattering shade of teal that I’d ever seen, but without it, she was probably pretty. She looked petite, with flared hips and slightly smaller than average breasts. Her heart-shaped face made her cute and her curly up do made her almost retro.