by Sophia Gray
Zelda.
I almost choked on my bite of hamburger as her name appeared in my head, a whisper. Instantly, I remembered all of the dark, sweaty nights we had together. I remembered the heat that always flared between us and the heavy flush of desire that would rush through me from only a single, smoldering glance from her.
Zelda Rivers was the kind of girl you gave it all up for. Until she wasn’t.
It had taken some time before I was allowed visitors. Something about being a “danger to society,” which seemed like complete bullshit given that I was twenty-three and already locked up. But they used every trick in the book to keep me from seeing the people I wanted to see most.
The people I loved the most.
But finally they agreed that I was allowed a visit. I had been hoping it would be a conjugal visit, but given that we weren’t married yet, I couldn’t really be surprised when there was a plate of six-inch glass between us. Even so, just seeing Zelda changed my whole fucking world.
She walked in looking every bit as beautiful as I’d ever seen her, even though her full, bruised-looking lips were tugged down in a frown and her large doe eyes looked just shy of tear-filled. I might have asked her what was wrong, but I was stupid and assumed that it was about me. That, like she was to me, I was the center of her world.
When she took a seat across from me, I couldn’t help but glance down at her full breasts. They were round and perky beneath the gray t-shirt she wore, something with a kitten on it that looked like it was pawing at her left tit. I wished she’d worn something a little more revealing since I wasn’t likely to get much in the way of sex for a while, but I appreciated her coming at all.
A lot of women wouldn’t have.
I motioned with my hand for her to pick up the phone so we could talk to one another through the glass, lifting up my own to show her. She nodded gingerly and picked it up, hesitating just before pressing it to her ear.
“Babe,” I said, it coming out almost as a breath, the longing clear in my tone, I knew. There was no hiding how much I wanted her, had always wanted her. “Fuck, it’s good to see you.”
She managed to break a smile across her face, but it was halfhearted and short-lived. Her lips parted, and I imagined the way she looked when she took my length down her throat, when she swallowed me whole until she choked around me. Then they snapped shut a moment later. She licked them—I imagined her licking me—then her eyes batted at me, then lowered. My fantasies were clouding my judgment, changing the way I interpreted her movements, her reactions. Maybe if I hadn’t been so desperate to touch her, I would have noticed how nervous she was and then maybe I would have seen it coming.
Instead, her words, when they finally came, hit me like a freight train and I was winded, wounded.
“I…I won’t be coming back to see you, Nester.” Her voice was just as sweet and airy as I’d ever remembered it. So much so that it took me a moment before I could put the words into context, to make sense of them.
I blinked at her dumbly. “What? Zelda, you don’t mean…what are you talking about?”
She let out a shuddering breath, refusing to look at me. “I’m sorry, Nester. I…I just can’t do it. I can’t…” She shook her head.
“Can’t do what? Can’t fucking do what?” I demanded hotly. I could feel my anger building, compounding on itself with each and every word that escaped her mouth. It came on like a hurricane, great and terrible, but with just enough warning that if you were smart, if you knew the area was prone to hurricanes, you might have time to get the fuck out before it hit.
“Please don’t make me say it, Nester,” she begged me, and I almost laughed.
She was going to beg me? To beg me for what? Should I make it easier on her? The words added insult to injury and it was almost enough that I wanted to stand up and throw my chair at the thick glass. I was sure suddenly that that was why it was there.
Glass to protect the weak and the faithless.
“Do what, Zelda?” I pressed, clenching tightly to the phone, grinding my teeth to try and keep hold of some of my anger before it spilled out all around me and they hauled me back to my cell. A cell where I would never again see the beautiful woman in front of me, apparently.
She clenched her eyes shut and I wanted to yell at her to open them, to not be a chickenshit, but I didn’t. I was too busy trying to keep my cool. She let out a breath and tried again. “I can’t stay with you anymore, Nester.”
I was beginning to hate the way she said my name. The way she kept saying my name. Like it was supposed to be some sort of soothing balm to ease the pain of the words she was throwing in my face.
Before I could say something spiteful and biting, she continued, as though now that she had begun it was all easier.
For her at least.
“I put up with the motorcycles and the leather jackets and the crazy guys you hung out with,” she said in a single breath, her eyes still shut, her cheeks flushing a beautiful shade of red that I only ever saw when she was writhing beneath me in pleasure, demanding dirty, wild things of me. Was this that same woman? “I put up with your late night antics and your drunken bar fights, but I can’t do this anymore.” She finally opened her eyes and gestured with her free hand to the room surrounding us. I thought her eyes looked glassy, shiny, but I didn’t care.
I was beyond caring at that point. What, she thought crying about it took away the sting? Crying about it made her not a shitty, ungrateful bitch? No, crying didn’t do any of that. It just reinforced what I was finally beginning to understand: she was weak and I was a fool.
“Zelda…” I managed to get out, but broke off, unable to say more.
But she was hardly done. “We’re through, Nester. I need stability in my life. How am I supposed to do that with someone who is in prison? I’ll tell you, Nester, I can’t. I just fucking can’t. I can’t and I won’t date a criminal, Nester. I won’t.”
There was a long pause of silence that filled the space between us. A silence that was filled with so much that was unspoken. Unspoken because I couldn’t pry my lips open with a crowbar. I couldn’t tell her that I’d fucked up, even though it wasn’t my fault, and that some part of me believed she deserved better. I couldn’t tell her any of that, though I should have, because I was so goddamned angry that it felt like a bitter black hole had formed in my chest, swallowing up the rest of who I was until even my screams would be sucked back in to the nothingness.
When it was clear that I would say nothing—maybe she was waiting for me to yell at her, maybe she was waiting for me to beg for her to stay—she finally got up. She opened her mouth once, maybe to say goodbye, but shut it without saying a word and then she turned and walked out of my life.
Forever.
“You gonna finish that cheeseburger, cutie?”
I glanced up from my plate to see the perky young waitress standing there again, batting her made up eyelashes at me. A sudden flash of anger surged through me and it took all I had to not lash out at her.
Damn women.
“I’m gonna take it to go,” I told her in a cool tone, sitting back in the booth. I’d very suddenly lost my appetite, though I knew that once my thoughts of Zelda passed, it’d return with a vengeance.
“I’ll grab you a to-go box and your ticket,” she told me, oblivious to my change in mood, and disappeared around the corner. I still watched her ass, but it was grudgingly and I wouldn’t admit it, but I was imagining that it was someone else’s anyway.
I chewed on my fries, having decided what I would do. I’d call up Jackson, since he was the one most likely to still do anything for me. I couldn’t say about the others, but Jackson had seen things through with me, thick and thin. If anyone was still hanging around, it was him. I thought about calling Gordon and Shank, but knew it was a lost cause. They’d been busted with me, but served only half the time, and I knew that as soon as they got out, they were in the wind.
I didn’t ask what they’d had to give
up to get a reduced sentence, but I could guess.
When the waitress came back, she handed me my box and my ticket, then winked at me one last time. I almost rolled my eyes at her, whatever physical urges I had mixing with my personal anger at the female half of the species until I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to fuck her without killing her, too. But when I glanced down at the ticket—I’d been, right, it was cheap—I saw that she’s scribbled a number down, too.
I frowned at it, but kept the number anyway. Maybe I wasn’t interested in any sort of relationship, but a good fuck might make me a little easier for everyone to deal with.
Going to the front to pay so that I could get change for the phone, I headed out and called Jackson. Within minutes, he picked me up. I’d crash at his place for a few days until I could get situated again and was pleased to find that he still had my Harley stashed right where I’d left it.
***
The Harley needed gas, but otherwise ran just fine. Thankfully, I had money stashed before I went to prison and Jackson was enough of an intelligent person to know that I would eventually be released from prison and if that money was gone, he was a dead man. So at least I wasn’t broke. Which was why I immediately put gas in my bike and went on the road.
It was just supposed to be a drive, because when you’ve been locked up for as long as I have, having a little freedom, like riding your own damn bike, went a long way. But as I spent the day driving—to old haunts, to restaurants where I got everything from more cheeseburgers to sea food—I found myself inevitably drift down that all too familiar drive.
I was headed there before I realized it, but I couldn’t lie to myself and say that I didn’t know what I was doing when I found myself hitting the hillside overlook that was almost right in Zelda’s back yard.
Pulling onto the overlook, I settled my bike and turned it off, going to look down into the neighborhood that would never be called the best, but certainly didn’t merit the title of worst. Zelda’s house was hers because she’d seen a foreclosure notice a couple of years back and decided to make a bid for it. She was in nursing school at the time. I figured she had to have finished by now, though now that we’d broken up and I’d been locked away, I didn’t know jack about her life, including whether or not this was actually her house anymore. She hadn’t had a lot of money when she got it, but was determined to not get stuck in the trap of noisy, distracting, party all night roommates, so she went the extra mile and got the house.
It was impressive, especially given that she was on part scholarship and working her way to pay for the rest. Zelda’d been a waitress. Just like the one whose number was shoved down into my pocket.
Pushing down thoughts of Zelda’s waitressing days and the number, I focused on the house. I knew I needed to confront Zelda. To talk to her and figure out why she would really let me go the way she did. Yes, I’d maybe put her through some tough times. It wasn’t always easy dating the leader of a motorcycle club. It meant the cops came knocking and snooping more than you would like, and it meant late nights and some shady characters sometimes, but she’d always known what I was. And she’d been ready for it. She’d gone with it whole hog without so much as batting an eyelash.
She was one tough cookie and it didn’t ring true to me that prison was enough of a deterrent for her.
No. Something else was going on.
I was about to get back on my bike and drive down there, mostly to demand a real reason from her, but maybe also to give my dick a workout, because whether I was angry and felt betrayed or not, I was still a man with needs. Needs that wanted to be met inside of her. But just as I was about to start up my bike, I saw the door to the little house open.
It was Zelda.
Even from here I could tell it was her. And I could tell she was just as fucking beautiful as the moment I laid eyes on her. Her long dark hair was pulled away from her face, shiny and thick like I remembered. It was harder to make out features from this distance, but I could see that her eyes were big and her lips were full and I could see that her breasts were clutched by a low cut shirt that was begging for attention.
I grew hard at the thought of doing things with her. Not for love, I reminded myself, because we were done. Whether she wanted me back or not, we were done. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t and wouldn’t have fun with her.
I started up my bike and was about to screech out onto the road again like a bat out of hell when I saw the motorcycle pull up. I frowned, because I couldn’t quite make out the logo on it, but I could see the flames and I could tell that they meant something. Like the burning wings on mine that marked me as a Berserker. He belonged to a club, I just couldn’t tell which one.
I saw the man pull off his helmet. I saw him walk up to her door. I saw him kiss her.
Then she pulled the door closed after him, but it was too late, because I’d realized what those flames meant and I knew whose bike that was. That was a Wicked Titans bike and that was their leader, Santos DeArma, riding it.
Chapter Two
Zelda
When Santos left, it was sort of a relief. I instantly felt guilty for feeling that way, but it was difficult not to. There was a very particular type of woman that Santos wanted and most of the time I was pretty sure that wasn’t me. In fact, I didn’t even know why he wanted me, because I was sure most of the time he didn’t like me. Maybe it was the excitement of a new girl—though I was hardly that anymore—or maybe it was just the thrill of the chase. After all, I’d given him a good run for his money.
I watched him drive away, staying at the door until I was sure he was gone. That was a quick lesson I’d learned with Santos: always be the waiting, doting girlfriend.
When I finally saw his taillights disappear around the curve, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Then I began to adjust. I tugged my hair out of the holder it had been in, letting it hang in thick waves down my back. It was hot against my neck, the summer night in full swing, but I didn’t care. I hated having my hair up, especially when I knew how important it was for Santos to have it up all the time.
I tossed it over my shoulder to shake it out a bit, then adjusted my shirt where he’d attempted to paw at it. Once again he’d pressed me, but again I’d told him, “Not tonight.” Thankfully, when his anger flashed, he’d merely gotten up to leave. Told me he’d be back tomorrow.
I sighed and forced myself to relax. Everything was fine.
Closing the door to my tiny house, I took a moment to give it back to myself. I went around the room and straightened things, moved them back from where Santos had picked them up and replanted them in awkward, unflattering places. Like my textbooks from nursing school. Useless now maybe, but still valuable even if it was only as somewhat bitter sweet memories of what I’d been working towards. Or like the candle with the little coin in it, the one that I refused to burn, because it had been a gift from…
Well, not that it mattered now anyway.
As I went around the house systematically straightening things up, I was surprised to hear a knock at the door. A knock and then a louder knock that quickly turned into a banging sound. Startled, I glanced over at the wall clock, frowning when I saw that it was just after ten at night. A little late for a visitor. I wondered if it wasn’t coming back for something—I didn’t think so, since I would have found whatever he’d left by now.
Heading to the door, I straightened myself up, flattening my too unruly hair and checking my lipstick in the mirror to make sure that it was still in place and not on my teeth. Santos liked a put together kind of girl and I had to work a little harder than I normally did to reach the type of perfection he was usually looking for.
When I was satisfied, I opened the door, fully prepared to find Santos—or at the very least one of his boys—on my door step. Instead, I nearly crumpled to the floor right then and there, my knees threatening to give way.
Nester Perry. My Nester.
He was tall, taller than I remembered.
He towered over me almost like a giant, and he was bigger in general, too, I thought. His shoulders seemed larger and his arms were bulkier, as though he’d spent the last five years working out.
Maybe he had, maybe that was what he’d done with his time in prison, throwing himself into push-ups and sit ups and calisthenics and whatever else he could. That sounded like Nester.
I tried not to think about those five years, what they must have done to him—what they had done to me—but as my eyes devoured him of their own accord, I couldn’t help but wonder. Had he had the tattoo of the snake wrapping around his bicep before he went in? What about the one that curled down his neck and disappeared into the neck of his shirt? Had his hands always been so large, so strong? Had his thick hair always been so dark? And his lips…were they always so full, so damn kissable?