by J. C. Emery
“You”—his deep voice comes out in a low growl, and he sucks in a breath—“fucked up.”
The commanding way he looms over me, the way his eyes come alive as he speaks, and the way he presses himself into me makes it hard to breathe. He’s so much man in this moment that it’s both exciting and intimidating. He’s still Jeremy, but he’s a Jeremy I’m not sure I know. This is Jeremy, the guy who’s prospecting for the club, not the cute teenage boy I usually see him as. And I fucking love it.
“I want to help,” I whisper.
He leans in and lowers his face to my neck where he sucks in a deep breath. “You should not be here,” his hisses into my ear.
“But I am,” I say stupidly. It’s the only thing I can think of with his face in my neck and his hot breath washing over my skin. I close my eyes, forcing myself to focus on why we’re here and not what my body wants to do. “I need your help.”
“You need me?” He holds his breath for a moment while he waits for my response.
“I need your help,” I correct. Quiet. We’re so freaking quiet. It’s making this moment private and weird all at the same time. “I have to find out who raped Mindy.”
His body goes completely still as my words register, and then he tenses and sucks in a deep breath. He grits his teeth as if he’s struggling to control himself. “Club business. We’re taking care of it. It’s fine.”
“Liar,” I say before I can stop myself. I hate that word, fine. “It’s not fine. Dad said it was fine when Scavo showed up at school, and he said it was fine when Holly moved in. He promised me we were safe, and then Mindy was raped.” Now my chest is rising and falling quickly, my heart rate is picking up, and I’m on the verge of tears. I hate how that word—fine—makes me react. Everything is so not fine.
“You’re safe,” he says, his voice softening just slightly.
“No, I’m not. None of us are.” My voice shakes.
He pulls his head back and looks me in the eye. “I will keep you safe.”
His words feel like a vow, like he really believes them. I’ll bet he does, but that’s the problem. They all think they can make that promise and keep it. I’ll bet Ryan made that promise to Alex, but then she was taken by her brother and beaten. I’ll bet Dad made that promise to Holly, but then she had to watch Mindy be violently raped. We’re all just sitting ducks.
“Whatever you’re doing here, you need to stop it,” he says. I give him a noncommittal sigh and continue looking in his eyes. I’m not going to stop what I’m doing, I can’t. He must sense this, because the fire in his eyes comes back and he’s back to looking at me blankly. I’m learning that this means he’s angry and maybe even a little scared. “I mean it, Cheyenne.”
“No,” I say loudly.
He removes his hand from the column and replaces the safety on his gun. He slides the gun into the back of his jeans and reaches around, grabbing me by my upper arms.
“You need to understand,” he barks loudly in my face. “You could get yourself killed.”
“I could get killed anyway!” I shout back. My arms ache as the adrenaline pumps through them, and my legs tingle with the desire to run. He’s not intimidating or scary now, just so freaking intense that it makes it hard to breathe.
“Either I’m going to have to show you how very bad of an idea it is for you to be poking into club business, or I’m going to let your father make you understand,” he screams. Veins pop out of the sides of his neck, and a blue line appears on his forehead. He’s snapping. I can see it.
“Do what you have to do, and I’ll do what I have to do,” I scream back.
The anger fuels me, pushing me to lose my temper. Still with his sunglasses in my hands, I shove against his chest to give myself some space. He steps back just one solitary step before reaching out and pulling on my arm. He spins me around with my arm behind my back and pushes me into the plaster behind me. His glasses, still in my hand, crack from the impact. The sky breaks with the crashing sound of thunder. Droplets of rain thump against the top of the covered porch. The welcome chaotic, rhythmic drumming provides a blanket of privacy over us, making me feel less exposed to the nosy neighbor next door.
“Are you going to listen to me now?” he says roughly in my ear.
“Are you?” I shoot back. “You don’t even know what information I have. I could help the club.”
“Last warning, Cheyenne.” His voice drops as his mouth falls to my ear, lips ghosting the shell.
I turn into his face, letting our cheeks touch as I whisper, “You need help. Admit it.”
He pulls back, but his grip on my arm is as strong as ever as he spins me around, pushing my face into the column. The warmth of his body disappears, and a cool wind picks up, chilling me. His hand slams down on my ass, pushing me forward.
I gasp, shocked and unsure how to respond. It’s just a moment before I struggle against him, but that only encourages him to bring his hand down to spank me again. I throw a leg back and kick him in the shins. Jeremy loses his grip on my arm, and I pull away, spin around, and lunge for him, swinging with an open hand. I make contact with his cheek. The force of my slap surprises me, and my flesh stings in response. He grabs me by my wrists. I pull away but lose my footing and pull us both to the brick pavers below. He lands on his butt. I’m falling backward when his strong arms yank me forward, bringing me down on top of him. He groans beneath me.
“You spanked me,” I say breathily, wholly incapable of focusing on anything else at the moment.
“You slapped me,” he responds on a ragged breath.
“But you actually spanked me,” I repeat, this time a little more forceful.
“I like your ass.” He sucks in a struggling breath.
I cast him a dirty look to find that my elbow is jabbing into his gut as I lie across him with my hip on top of his. It’s only my side that’s touching his front, but this feels more tender than when he was up in my room mauling me. Testing the waters, I shove my elbow deeper into his abdomen. He responds by scrunching his navy eyes shut and wincing, but he doesn’t move to stop me.
“This is for being a jerk,” I say and dig in as hard as I can. He kicks at the brick beneath him but still doesn’t stop me. “And for sleeping with my best friend when you know I like you. And for coming up here and fucking spanking me.”
“I deserve that,” he manages to say on a gasp. “You still like me?”
Forgetting all about the pressure I’m supposed to be applying to his stomach, I retract and demand, “Say it. Say you’re sorry and mean it, or I’ll figure out a way to crush your windpipe.”
He opens his eyes, and while they’re still red and swollen, like he’s been drinking and not sleeping very well, they’re still so very blue and so very deep. They’re one of the reasons I fell for him so hard and so fast. His eyes are absolutely gorgeous. I place my arm along his ribs and redistribute my weight so he can adequately breathe, but I don’t move off of him just in case he decides to be a dick again.
“I’m an asshole, okay?” he says. “I liked you, and I fucked it up. You made me mad, so I did what I always do. I shouldn’t have said shit about what happened at my party.”
It’s not an apology. Or maybe it is in a fucked up way, but it’s not enough. I don’t have the energy or time for halfhearted bullshit. He’s not sorry for what he did. He’s only sorry he threw it in my face.
“She was my best friend, and you could have been my boyfriend,” I say and shove my elbow into his gut again. His legs kick up as he hunches in and whines in pain. I stand and watch him recover from his fetal position to straighten out, suck in a large breath, and stand beside me.
“I was wrong,” he says. His face has fallen, and he looks sorrowful all right. It’s just not enough. Ian’s words ring in the back of my head, and I find the strength to not let him suck me into his web again.
You deserve good, so don’t settle for fucked up.
“I deserve better than that,” I say.
I could argue and tell him I’m taking my car home, but I don’t want to. I want him to try to show me that he can protect me, even if I know he can’t.
His phone beeps from his pocket, signaling that he’s got a text. It’s a little sad that I still remember the tones he has set for different notifications. He withdraws his hand from my cheek and pulls his phone out, reads the screen, curses, and sends a text back at a furious pace. I watch quietly as he curses again and makes a frustrated grunting sound.
“Let’s go,” he says as he takes my hand and drags me off the porch.
My hair and sweatshirt absorb the rain quickly, soaking me to the bone. I have to work to keep up as he pulls me toward his bike at a rapid speed. She’s drenched from the downpour, but she’s a trooper and will work just fine. He hands me his helmet, so I place it on my head and wait for him to climb onto the bike. He swings a leg over and starts her up quickly. Revving the engine, he pops up the kickstand, and I climb on, wrapping my arms tight around his waist. He’s without a helmet, which is hugely illegal in California, but nobody says shit to anybody in a cut around here. All it would do is earn them a headache to mess with the club. Still, I worry about him. Being on this bike with him feels like I’m home. I refuse to accept that has anything to do with Jeremy, but more to do with the bike itself. We speed away, passing my Bug on our way out. I don’t doubt that she will be returned to me soon.
Soon, we pull up the house, and the rain has stopped. Jeremy doesn’t even get the bike cut off before Dad’s outside and screaming at us. His deep, hysterical voice demands to know where we’ve been.
Jeremy coolly cuts off the bike. “Miss Priss’s car broke down. Had to pick her up.”
“You got shit to do, prospect,” Dad says.
Jeremy’s relaxed face hardens as does his entire body. I extract myself from him and his bike and take off his helmet. He puts the kickstand down and nods at Dad. “Yes, sir.”
“You tell me if my kid’s car breaks down. You wait for orders. You don’t go fucking missing on a job,” Dad screams a little too loudly. Our neighbors are cool as hell, but still. They know the club does some shit they probably wouldn’t approve of. At least, I can’t imagine they don’t, but that doesn’t mean we need to take out an ad on the highway to advertise it to everybody. “Get out of my fucking sight.”
I hand him the helmet and watch as he straps it on his head, gives the kickstand a shove, and then starts up the bike again and takes off all in a matter of moments. Jeremy’s gone, and I’m left with Dad, who’s pissed as fuck and wanting to know where I was that my car broke down. I could lie, but if he sends someone to get my car and it’s not where I said it was, I’ll be in even more trouble. So instead, I lie and say I have a friend who lives two doors down from the Jennings family. I don’t tell him that exactly, but I give him the address of my supposed friend’s house. His face pales and his breathing catches when I say the street name,
With a hard glare he points at me and says, “You’re not going over there again. I don’t give a fuck how good of friends you are with this bitch. No more. And especially not fucking again without a man on you.”
“Yes,” I say quickly. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
“Do you understand me, Cheyenne? It’s not safe. It’s really not safe. I’m not fucking playing with you.”
“Yes,” I snap and throw my hands up in the air. “I get it. I’m sorry!” I stomp off in the house and up to my room. Something about Dad’s reaction makes me feel weird about having been over there, like there’s something more that I’m missing. I just wish I weren’t so dense and I could actually put my finger on the missing piece of the puzzle already.
CHAPTER 17
February
14 months to Mancuso’s downfall
It’s been a few weeks since I last saw Jeremy. And it’s killing me. He sent me one text message on Valentine’s Day. I’ve probably brought that text up and stared at it a hundred times since. It still gives me butterflies every time I read it.
STILL THNKNG BOUT UR ASS.
It’s not mushy or romantic or anything, but it’s perfectly Jeremy. I’m the biggest freaking idiot on the planet because I’ve convinced myself that was his way of telling me to have a good Valentine’s Day. I never responded because by the time I could breathe again, it had been so long since he’d sent it. I didn’t know if it was too awkward to respond that late or if I should just not respond at all. I still don’t know if responding would have been better. He didn’t try to text me again, so now I bet he thinks I’m ignoring him.
I should be ignoring him like I’m ignoring Daniel, who for some reason is still trying to talk to me. Despite the fact that I’ve made it super clear that seeing him screw someone on a picnic table was enough for me, he won’t let it go. He just pretends that we’re fine. He says we have plans to go out next week, but that’s so not going to happen.
I got ahold of Alex’s cell number from Ryan’s phone the last time he was at the house. I thought I’d been really sly until he tracked me down and yelled at me. Apparently Alex freaked a little when she got crazy excited text messages from me and didn’t really trust that it was legit. He said something about not getting laid that night because, once she knew it was me and not some crazed killer, she and I spent the entire night texting back and forth. I’m working up to asking Dad to let me hang out with her, but he’s been on edge about something lately, and I know better than to ask for shit when he’s in a pissy mood. It doesn’t matter, because we’re on our way to being besties—once I can knock Nic out of the top spot—and after I decide whether or not to give Jeremy another chance, we might be able to double date.
The loneliness from losing Tracie is clearly getting to my brain. If I don’t find someone else to hang out with soon, I might start accompanying Grandma to her flower-lady meetings where they sit around and talk dirt and plants all day.
I have tried to keep myself busy with helping the club put away all the Christmas decorations Aunt Ruby put up. For the most part, the clubhouse isn’t a place I spend a lot of time at, but during the holiday season, Ruby makes sure the guys keep it mostly family friendly. With one charity run after another and all the visiting family members that seem to make it into town, the clubhouse becomes a hub of activity for all ages. Aunt Ruby is typically one hard-ass lady, but during holidays, she turns into a leather-clad biker version of Martha Stewart, just with a foul mouth and a mean right hook. But once New Year’s Eve comes around, apparently all the family joy fizzles from the place, and it turns into a whorehouse for dick-sucking sluts.
Shoving a broken Santa ornament into the plastic trash bag I’m holding, I force myself to take a deep breath. Being reminded of Chel and her oral skills is not helping me get over all the bad shit that went down with Jeremy. It’s just that the day Jeremy picked me up at the Jennings’ house, he seemed so angry and worried. And he let me elbow him and snap at him. I know enough that Forsaken—prospect or not—don’t let a chick do that unless they care about them. So he cares about me, but the question is by how much.
I’ve stowed myself away in the game room, which is set behind the main gathering room at the front of the clubhouse. I chose this room because of the large, worn pool table that serves as an expansive table top for organizing all this junk the guys call memorabilia. There is everything here from old beer cans to women’s lingerie to Santa hats. I think I even saw a used condom earlier, but I threw that entire box in the dumpster out back. I don’t even care what was in there.
I’m a good two hours into the project when I decide to give up. I didn’t technically volunteer to help clean up, it’s more like Dad grounded me for distracting Jeremy and this is my punishment. But I didn’t argue, and that should count for something, so it’s kind of like I volunteered.
The clubhouse is quiet righ
t now, with the guys all out doing God only knows what. Peeking around the corner, I double-check that I’m alone. When I’m confident I won’t get busted, I go for my best casual walk across the main room to the bar area and grab a cold beer from the fridge. I’m already grounded and expelled from school, so what can Dad really do to me at this point? Tell me I can’t see my friends? I mean, they’re all in school still, so it’s not like I get to see them much anyway. Still, I run back into the game room with the beer and use the bottle opener on my key ring to pop it open. I doubt Dad would let me keep it if he knew I had a bottle opener, but oh well. It’s not like he sets the best example. I take a sip of the beer and grimace. It tastes like total shit, but the guys drink it all the time, so maybe it’ll grow on me.
Hardened rubber claps against the concrete, growing louder with every step, in an unmistakable rhythm of a walk so distinctive that I already know it’s Jeremy. I shove the beer behind the box I was sorting pre-beer break. He rounds the corner at his usual gait, then slows, does a double take, and gives me the signature Forsaken chin nod. I sense his mood before I really see the expression on his face. I force my hands to start moving, organizing this crap so that I’m not as distracted with knowing that he’s here. Which is a feat in and of itself because he’s incredibly distracting, especially because he’s giving off these sullen vibes, like something’s wrong. He just keeps staring at me, and I’m doing everything I possibly can to ignore him.
It’s not working.
“Are you lost?” I ask.
He raises an eyebrow as he retorts, “I work here.”
“Right.” I haven’t forgotten that he has as much right to be here as I do, but I’m more than conflicted about being in the same room with him. I don’t want to like him, but I do. Enough to argue with him over just about anything. He likes to argue. He talks when he’s mad.