by Lana Grayson
I didn’t practice Catholicism, but no wonder half the world revered a virgin. If I believed in anything but hell, last night was my one conversion to change my ways and lead a life where I might have a chance to be fucked like that again.
I just needed to find the little vixen and toss her in my bed. I told her the first day her brothers brought her to me that she’d be mine. I had a length of rope in the closet and bungee cords packed away. Either would work. I’d strip her down, strap her to the mattress, and then she’d learn the rules.
She didn’t leave without my permission. Ever.
A pulsing cock clouded my thoughts more than a concussion or gunfight.
Being used screwed with my head more.
The little diva exposed herself, grinded against me, kissed with wide-eyes and touched with trembling hands. She didn’t offer herself to me. I didn’t give her the choice. Her clothes ripped off and her legs tossed in the air. I needed one thing and one thing only last night, and that was pounding my way inside her until I couldn’t hear her squeals over the squeaking of the bed and the slamming of the headboard.
So why was I the confused one?
The kid wasn’t a virgin, but she fucked like it was her first time. Like it was her first taste of pleasure, and the shock of it all dominated me under her revelation.
That wasn’t sex. It wasn’t fucking, and it wasn’t just animal lust.
Rose seized a control I didn’t know existed.
But I didn’t feel like someone’s bitch.
I might have grabbed her. Tossed her on her belly, shoved her ass in the air, and taken everything back. Her body. Her wetness. Her aggression. Had it been any other woman, I would have. I had the cock, I made the rules.
Except Rose didn’t need those rules. She knew I could do it. I knew I could do it. I hadn’t hurt her.
But someone else did.
And I wouldn’t rest until I found the son of a bitch and killed him with my bare hands.
My phone blinked too many ones. I stared at the time. The little diva stole both my night and morning. I had no idea what time she gasped her last orgasm, but she succeeded in doing what so many of my enemies wanted. For a while, I was dead to the world. I’d kill to feel that way again.
It wouldn’t take very long.
A cold shower didn’t do shit for my hard-on. My own conscience did that dirty work for me. I washed her apple scent away, dressed, and stared at my face in the mirror.
It wasn’t like I ever held my own gaze for that long, but at least I still had the balls to try. Sex offered a different confidence. I might have accepted a reflection wielding a gun or concealed with a ski mask, but an imagined glimpse of me holding Rose? That shame burned more than laying down a bike on summer asphalt.
We fucked because we were almost killed, and the adrenaline was a more powerful aphrodisiac than any alcohol or little blue pills. But the only reason Ex pressed his gun into my head was because someone in my club, one of my crew, let it happen.
I had to find out who, one way or another.
And I’d need more than a shower to wipe the grime off me when I was done.
I took one of Anathema’s trucks home. My address technically hadn’t changed since I was a kid. After my mom whored herself to the first suit who happened to wave a five digit credit limit under her nose, she cleared out. My old man got his head blown off ten years back in a drug deal gone bad.
After clearing out the nest of Haitians who pocketed his cut, wallet, and shoved his body in the river, I inherited an estate and all the broken windows, stolen copper pipes, and wood paneling I wanted.
Two blocks away, Brew, Keep, and Blade ran their day-to-days. I didn’t remember Rose much when she was a kid. Bud wasn’t allowed outside. Didn’t blame them. The perverts in that neighborhood might have stolen and traded any of her favors for half a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes.
Ten years changed things. Their house burned to the ground in some drug related, Keep fuck-up.
My house pushed its own daisies. And roses. And whatever else I paid the gardener two-fifty a month to grow.
The green trim around the windows bothered me, but the decorator assured me it blended with the neighborhood ambiance. And the hardwood floors would return my investment ten-fold.
I owned a pretty little piece of property with three bedrooms, a finished basement, and a backyard that could lose a toddler. A perfect cover for any rookie Fed looking to stick their dick where it didn’t belong. Even better to store the stuff that didn’t fit in Pixie. The furniture not yellowed by smoke. The clothing not stained with blood.
It was the kind of place Rose would like.
A gun to the head was less dangerous than a thought like that.
I didn’t like the hollow sound of my boots against the barren halls. A whitewashed fence and happy humming little sprinkler system fooled the neighbors, but it wasn’t like my life lended itself to filling any empty frames on the walls.
Rose wanted to get out of Anathema. She begged for it. Cried about it. Suffered through it.
My quiet slice of suburbia would have castrated me if I stayed any longer.
I tightened my hold on the relic I gathered from the attic storage. As much as I hated to do it, even baby bunnies needed pushed from the nest. She wanted out. It’d never happen. She was as much sun-lit kitchenette as I was. Anathema controlled her life and the heat between her legs.
I reminded myself that everything I did was for the good of the club.
Still felt like shit for doing it.
I loaded the present in the truck and returned to Pixie without gunfire or being followed. The first time in a while. Almost seemed lonely. At least it let my concussion fester without cracking anything else open. I shouldered the case and pushed through Pixie. The jute-box came alive with music. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who fed the machine quarters.
Rose curled in the corner booth of the bar with her laptop. Fully-dressed, but I wasn’t the only one hoping for a repeat performance of her idiocy at Sorceress. Fortunately, Keep kept most of the men in check.
Gold nursed a beer and a broken nose at the bar while two prospects mopped the floor under a brother’s muddy boots. Rose didn’t look up when I entered. Her cheeks pinked. Bright. I had earned that flush last night. In more places than just her face.
I ignored Keep’s question and stalked to Rose’s table. She did her best to stare at her screen and not me.
Dancing on the bar and shouting I got fucked might have been less subtle.
“Here.” I thumped the guitar case on the table. Rose flinched, but her eyes brightened as she examined the tell-tale shape of the present. “Got you something.”
She didn’t try to hide her smile. Her eyes warmed, and she stared at me instead of the case.
“A guitar?” She asked. “Where—?”
“Belonged to my old man. Didn’t do anyone good in storage. You take it.”
Her grin sliced through me fiercer than any rusted shiv. She leapt up and gripped the case. Her fingers stilled over the latches.
“You realize I haven’t had the best luck with guitars lately?”
I edged deeper into the booth, stretching out against the seat. “Then you better take good fucking care of this one. It’s an antique.”
I had no idea if it was or not. Fuck if I knew anything about guitars or music. Majors belonged in the army, minors underground shoveling coal, and accidentals happened when someone didn’t clean their gun right.
My father thought he was better at music than he was, and he bought the best. Rose squealed as she pulled the instrument from the velvet. The soft golden wood blended perfectly with the gentle curls of her hair, tumbling over her shoulder.
“Thorne, this is...” Her smile turned into a grimace as she strummed a note. “Really out of tune.”
I’d break the damn thing. “Fine, I’ll take it back.”
“No, no!” She jerked the guitar away. “I can fix i
t. It’ll just take a few minutes.”
“Think it’ll work?”
She strummed again. “It has a great sound.”
I shrugged.
“Don’t you hear it? That’s a really warm note.”
“Sure.”
“No, listen.”
She twisted a fret and held my gaze. The note plucked under her expert hand. Hated to tell her, but unless it revved like 1500 CCs of raw power, I wasn’t going to pick up on any subtleties. I knew what I liked, and I knew what I didn’t. The guitar plinked, but that wasn’t what I wanted. Rose singing, Rose whispering my name, Rose moaning. That was a sound I’d pay good money to hear again.
Unfortunately, I didn’t know how much longer I could ensure she’d be prancing around Pixie and not screaming in one of Ex’s warehouses. That fear kicked my ass on Exorcist’s behalf. I’d have thought I was going soft if Rose’s excited smile hadn’t got me harder than I had been last night. I checked over my shoulder. Keep kept a wary watch from the bar. I had no idea where the fuck Brew went. Probably for the best. Brew had a sober head on his shoulders. I doubted he’d like what I was about to do to his sister.
“Are you sure you want me to have it?” Rose asked.
“Don’t you want it?”
“Yes!” She clutched the guitar close. “It’s a lovely instrument. I just...don’t you want to keep it? Why are you giving it to me?”
Loaded fucking question, and I stared down the barrel of the gun. No. Cannon. A smile like hers and a night like the last would make me cocoon inside a goddamned turret. I shrugged, and it appeased her. But it did nothing for me.
Why did I give her a guitar?
Christ.
Because I wanted to go to hell, and killing myself wasn’t quick enough. The kid loved music. She sang like an angel, fucked like a demon, and spent every waking minute obsessing over separating her two halves to free herself.
She wanted to sing. She needed a guitar. To anyone else in the bar it was a ball-less act of charity. A way to make up for tossing her ass on my bike and terrifying her to safety.
Except I wanted to get closer to her. I needed to get closer to her. I couldn’t smoke out the rat on my own. No amount of blood, violence, or threat was going to intimidate men as hard as me.
But a little sister could learn everything I needed, smile and laugh and charm a brother, and then deliver him right into my waiting hand for me to rip out his bleeding heart.
She had to trust me first.
Rose strummed the guitar again, fixing another fret. She giggled at the horrible note and apologized like it somehow mattered to me.
She thought it did.
Fuck.
She already trusted me. The guitar was just the cherry on top I already stole from the kid. I saved her life. Fucked her. Offered her gifts.
Christ, in MC terms, that was about as serious as a year-long relationship and taking a vacation with our parents.
Except I didn’t think Rose wanted to go visit her Daddy anytime soon, and trusting me was as dangerous as leaving her with Exorcist.
“I might need to get some new strings,” she said.
“Whatever you want.”
“Really?”
“It’s just a couple strings.”
Rose’s fingers tangled in the frets. She avoided my gaze and continued tuning.
“It’s more than that.” She bit her lip, plumping it out like she meant to seduce me right there in front of the rest of the club. Rose didn’t try it, but it wasn’t like an audience stopped anyone in Anathema before. “Thank you, Thorne.”
I smirked before I could prevent it.
Didn’t know how I managed staying awake this long without a shot. Gun or drink. I flagged down Keep for something—anything—from the bar. The scruff on my chin grew in overnight. If nothing else I’d shave and aim for an artery.
The diva being happy made me suicidal. That was fucked up. But Christ. I wasn’t a monster. Of course I wanted her to be happy. She was cute. Sweet. Had hips that wiggled with the best dancers in Sorceress and the guts to hotwire a stolen motorcycle to save that ass on her own. A woman like that deserved a beat-up guitar and sex that left her voice smoky and rough.
Even an untuned guitar in her hands sounded better than half of the shit in the jukebox. She quietly hummed and winked. The next song popped on. Something Rolling Stones. She played the solo by ear, earning applause from one of the prospects. I pointed him back to his mop.
The minutes passed. She didn’t ignore me. She just forgot I was there.
I had her every attention last night, but I lost it in a three chord progression. She loved the six string as much as I loved six loaded chambers.
Rose buried herself within the guitar. Tuned the instrument to the exclusion of all else. I understood intensity. I understood passion and the need to do what needed to be done. I’d break a perfect girl’s heart as a sacrifice to my own obsession. I understood why I was so fucked up. But no one, not even Rose’s brothers, thought to find out what happened to her.
I wished I hadn’t guessed.
Rose deliberately ignored Keep. He offered me a shot glass of everything and anything amber he stocked behind the shelves, and then he got lost. About the best thing I could say about the man lately.
“Last night...” I said.
Rose paled. She strummed a bad note. She flinched, but she pretended to shrug. Like the sound didn’t matter. Like it hadn’t killed her in imperfection.
I clenched my jaw. “I didn’t use anything.”
The implication held in the air. Rose glanced at me. She didn’t get it.
“Any protection.”
“Oh.” She swallowed. Her fingers tickled over the strings. “That’s okay.”
I tilted my head. I was smarter than that with women. Usually I discarded them with the condom. Rose fiddled with the guitar and started another song.
“No, it’s not,” I said. “I don’t want it to be a problem.”
“It won’t be.”
I waited. She did too. The guitar twanged.
It wouldn’t survive the afternoon.
“Maybe you’re remembering what happened last night a little differently.”
Rose flushed. She whispered, checking over my shoulder to ensure Keep didn’t listen from the bar.
“I’m on the pill.”
“You’re on the...” I leaned away. “Why the hell are you on the pill?”
“What?”
I held her gaze. “You were a virgin.”
She didn’t blink. “I didn’t think I had to explain women’s anatomy to you.”
“I’m all ears, sweetheart.”
“It does other things. I’ve been on it for a long time, okay? Lots of girls are, even if they’re...”
“Virgins.”
“Y—yeah.”
The encore smile faded from her lips. She doubled her efforts on the guitar. I couldn’t hear the notes. The blood rushing in my ears muffled everything but the roar of my rage.
I had no doubt she considered herself a virgin, but neither of us were idiots. I counted the hours she had been gone, kidnapped by Ex. She didn’t say anything about what happened, but he beat her up pretty good. Tore her dress. Left her terrified.
It’d be a pleasure to finally kill that son of a bitch, but it’d take all my willpower to not immediately follow him to hell so I could torture him for all eternity.
“You didn’t bleed.”
I don’t know why I said it. Why I felt like cutting her open just to gut out her nightmares. I did it anyway. Wasn’t like it’d be the worst thing I did to her.
“I didn’t...bleed?” Rose gripped the guitar until her fingers turned white. I didn’t get any blood on my cock last night, but I’d get plenty on my table when she sliced her hand on the guitar strings. “Are you serious?”
“I just thought—”
“A lot of girls don’t...” The embarrassment choked her. “I didn’t realize you’d want to t
oss the sheets out the window and declare your victory like some medieval king.”
“It’s not that.”
“Look, some girls break their hym—” She blushed a furious crimson. “You can lose it horseback riding or playing a sport or, I don’t know, riding on the back of a motorcycle for all your teenage years.”
“So that’s what happened?”
“What else would have happened?”
I didn’t speak.
Neither did she.
Rose cracked first. It wasn’t the victory I wanted. She wound tight and looked for any excuse to dodge my gaze and skip out of the booth. She could run or cry, but neither would get her very far.
I wasn’t used to people lying to me. Especially women.
But when did I ever let a woman close enough to care what the hell she said, even if it was a lie?
My temper was not something Rose should’ve fucked with.
And Rose was not a girl anyone, ever, should have hurt. That privilege belonged to me, and, if I had it my way, I’d be the only one to destroy her.
“Are you going to play or not?” I tossed my drink back.
Rose slowly untangled her fingers from the strings. “Do you want me to?”
“Liked what I heard at your gig.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” I shifted in the booth. “Play now. Second showing for Keep.”
Her eyes narrowed on her brother. He pushed another beer toward Gold. If Rose could have shattered the bottle with her stare, Keep would have been shredded.
“He doesn’t deserve it,” she said. “But I’ll play a song for you. Any requests?”
The smile returned. I didn’t realize how much I feared I lost it until she flashed the timid smirk at me again. My heart hardened more than my cock.
“You need to forgive him.”
The strings squealed under her hand.
“Forgive him?” She spoke a little too loudly. Her cheeks flared, but not in shame. “He skipped my gig to get high, then almost OD’d while I was kidnapped. Why would I ever forgive him?”
She had a point. If everything in Anathema hadn’t depended on her patching things over with her traitor, junkie brother, I’d have agreed.
“He’s your brother,” I said. “Brew too. Neither of them wanted anything bad to happen to you.”