by Evelyn Glass
“What do you think?” I say, when the kiss is over. Our bodies are alive to each other.
“I think we should stay here and help Bear rebuild, build something up instead of breaking it down. And I think we should get married tomorrow morning, at dawn.”
He brings his hands up my back, gripping me hard, and I’ve never felt more secure.
“That sounds good to me,” I smile.
We kiss again and Roma lifts me to my feet, standing up.
“I love you more than anything, Felicity,” he says.
He kneels down, takes a daisy from the grass, and wraps it into a ring. He does this with tenderness. Then he slips the daisy onto my finger.
“I love you, too.”
Our kiss is long, hot, perfect.
THE END
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HER BUYER: Paulito Angels MC
By Evelyn Glass
HE BOUGHT MY BODY. HE CLAIMED MY HEART.
But there can be no happy ending with a monster like him.
I woke up, half-naked, in the worst place I’d ever been:
On an auction stage, on sale to a faceless crowd of hungry men.
And they were hungry for ME.
Stripped down and cuffed tight, there’s nowhere for me to go.
But then HE barges in.
The man I’ve been hunting for years.
Every time I thought I had him locked away for good, he finds a way to slip out.
He’s a ghost, a tease, a menace.
And now, he’s about to be my buyer.
I should hate him, shouldn’t I?
The criminal who claims he owns me now.
And I do hate him – mostly.
But that’s not the whole truth.
Because my brain wants to be free.
But my body wants to stay chained to his bed forever.
Chapter One
I peeled my eyes open, one at a time, and immediately closed them again. Jesus. Where the fuck was I?
I felt as though I had a hangover– the worst fucking hangover of my life, that was. My head was pounding, my stomach was churning, and I could barely lift my head off the ground without it swimming so much I thought I might hurl there and then.
I closed my eyes again, and drew in a few sharp breaths through my nose, trying to center myself. How had I ended up here? I groped around in my mind for the last thing I could remember before now. My brain ached as I tried to stretch my memory that far back, and I furrowed my brow at the pain.
I had been on patrol. That was all I remembered. Not in a particularly bad part of town, but I had been out on the streets. Nothing was odd– it was just me, out on the street, same as every night. Had I gone out and got drunk afterwards and just forgotten about it? Maybe I’d been spiked…no, I could remember vaguely thinking about what I was going to watch when I got back to my apartment. I hadn’t made any plans for after my shift. I was looking forward to getting home, peeling off my uniform, and slipping into my sweats with a takeout.
I finally managed to open my eyes and look around—it was dark wherever I was, dark enough that I couldn’t make out my surroundings. As my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I realized with a creeping sense of dread that I wasn’t in my apartment.
I pushed myself upright, ignoring the pain that swirled through my head. I glanced around, trying to find something I recognized. The room was small, with no windows and exposed brick walls. It looked like some kind of cell, but not the kind that I might throw someone in for a misdemeanor—no, this was different. I couldn’t place it. I was lying on a small bench at the corner of the room, the wood digging into my back. I braced against the walls to help myself sit up, then swung my legs around to place them on the floor. The rough wood of the bench dug into the backs of my thighs. Which didn’t make sense, I was wearing pants. Except I wasn’t. What the hell was I wearing?
It certainly wasn’t the uniform I’d left the house in earlier that night– or, fuck, was it even the same night anymore? I had no idea how much time had passed, how long it had been since my eyes drifted shut and my memory gave out. I was dressed in—well, I couldn’t exactly call it a dress. That would be a disservice to dresses everywhere. No, this was more a handful of fabric scraps draped across my body—I could hardly make out the color in the darkness, but they appeared to be a deep, blood red hue. Appropriate. I tugged at the fabric as best I could, trying to cover a little more of my body, but it was futile. I was completely exposed. When I was wearing my uniform, I felt powerful, in–control, safe—but now, I wanted to retract into myself, to vanish completely under these pathetic strips of fabric.
I still couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on, but it was becoming increasingly clear that it was bad, bad news. I heard stories like this before—of women, waking up with no memory of where they came from and dressed in skimpy outfits that they’d never laid eyes on before. They rarely ended up with a happily–ever–after.
Suddenly, a door at the other side of the room burst open. I jumped and pulled myself to my feet, wobbling as I tried to stand. My feet were bare, and the rough concrete floor was cold against my soles. I tried to remember my training, dragging to mind what little I could remember of my hand–to–hand combat classes—it had been a long time since I’d needed to use them, thank God, but I lifted my fists as best I could and held them up in the most threatening manner I could, given the circumstances.
“Oh, you’re up,” a man’s voice cut through the darkness. I had to have been sedated at some point; my head was swimming painfully and I was having trouble keeping my eyes open now that I was upright. Who had done this to me? And why? And this guy seemed surprised that I was awake…what, had they intended to keep me out for longer? Or worse?
I swung for him, but instead of making contact, I simply staggered forward and found myself falling into his arms. I felt his grubby hands on my bare shoulders and shuddered at his touch, trying to pull myself free uselessly. I didn’t have an ounce of strength in my body, and he let out a small, mirthless laugh as I tried to get him off me.
“Hey, you’re a lot feistier than the rest of them normally are,” he remarked. He was a big guy, and he smelled like dirty sweat and stale whiskey. My scalp prickled with panic. The rest of them? How many of us were there? Or…how many of us had there been?
“Come on, they’re waiting for you out there,” he tightened his grip on my arm and dragged towards a door. I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again, forcing myself to take in my surroundings like I’d been trained to do. The walls were pale grey, lined with a series of dirty metal doors like the one that had trapped me inside that awful room. At the end of the hall, however, something caught my eye: a door made of carefully polished wood, that seemed to glow in the flickering fluorescent light. That was where we were headed; why had they put so much effort into making that one door look nice, when the rest of this place looked like a prison? I tried once more to tug my arm from the man’s grip, but it was as though the sedatives had sapped every ounce of strength from my body. What the hell had they given me? We reached the door, and man paused for a moment, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear and re–adjusting my dress. I arched away from him, frowning, and my heart began to pound. I might not have known what was going on, but I could be fucking sure that it wasn’t good news.
Chapter Two
I had never been to that place before—but as it turned out, it was as though it had been charmed in my favor before I even walked through the door.
One of my old contacts had invited me out. Taylor, a friend of mine from back in high school who had sponsored me with the Paulito Angels motorcycle club. We kept in hazy contact, but I always hit him up when I needed a new place to get my card–game on. Eventually, all the bars and clubs I frequented
would grow tired of me sweeping the place of cash every time I went in, and I needed a new challenge. Taylor promised me that these guys were the best, and I hadn’t bothered to ask if anything about this place was legal.
Not that I gave much of a shit. As long as the booze was cheap and the playing was good, I was happy to while away the rest of the night doing nothing much whatsoever. Not to mention the fact that the couple of scantily clad women who had been hired to serve us for the night had slowly been gravitating their way towards me since I walked in the door. I could tell it was pissing off Ian, who sat opposite me, clutching a handful of cards to his chest as though they contained the secrets to the universe. He screwed up his face in annoyance, peering over at my winnings and frowning heavily.
“You sure this guy’s on the up–and–up?” Ian demanded of Friedrich, the asshole club owner, who seemed more interested in getting his hands all over the chicks sitting on either side of me. I could tell that he desperately wanted me to be a cheating piece of shit, but had to admit that I was just that damn good. He shrugged apologetically at Ian.
“Seems so, my man.”
I felt one of the girl’s hands tiptoeing along my shoulder and down my back; I glanced over at her, and she flashed me a dazzling smile. I felt my cock twitch with interest at the thought of getting both of them back to my apartment and out of those cumbersome dresses, but I quickly pushed the thought from my mind. I needed to keep my head in the game, because if I lost this shit now, I wouldn’t be able to pay my bar tab. And I had a feeling that the guys here wouldn’t be so keen on me putting it on credit.
Suddenly, my attention was drawn by the sound of the buzz in the bar dropping away to almost nothing. That couldn’t be good. My head snapped up, and I wished I hadn’t left my piece at home. It wasn’t like I wanted to use it, but in in places like this, you could never be sure. Friedrich had approached a staging area in the bar, pausing for a moment as everyone turned to pay him the attention he so clearly thought that he deserved. I placed my cards face down on the table, and reached for my scotch. This should be interested. What was this going to be, a cabaret night?
“Thank you all for joining us this evening,” he remarked, sweeping his hand out across the entire room to encompass the two dozen or so people who were sitting in the dingy dim half–light of this place. “I know some of you have been waiting all night for this moment, so here she is…tonight’s biggest prize.”
I glanced around; a couple of people were whispering to each other, and I could tell that whatever was about to happen was a big deal. I tightened my grip on my glass protectively, and shrugged off the two chicks sitting either side of me as I leaned forward to take in the local color. I had no idea what to expect next—and when it happened, I had to admit that never in a million years would I have guessed what was about to go down.
A polished wooden door opened at the back of the staging area, and Friedrich stepped aside to allow for a couple of people to emerge. The first was a man, a real goon of a guy, thickly built and with a brow that practically entered the room before he did. And behind him—a woman. A woman I knew all too well.
“Well, gentlemen, we have a treat for you tonight,” Friedrich remarked as he swept his eyes up and down the woman standing to his right. He grabbed her arm and pulled her in close to him, and my mind raced as I tried to figure out what I should do next.
That woman—that fucking woman—was the cop who had arrested me, not once, not twice, but three fucking times. And now, here she was, paraded about on stage before me in—I supposed some people would call it a dress, but to me, it looked like a collection of belts that barely covered her nipples, or the area between her thighs. I guess it would have been a more natural reaction for me to be delighted to see her in such a state of humiliation, but I could tell at once that something was seriously wrong.
“This is Angel,” Friedrich announced, an almost reverent tone to his voice. “And she’s a cop. We picked her up off the street earlier tonight, and now she’s here for one lucky man to use and, preferably, abuse…”
Angel tried to pull away from him, but something was holding her back. Her eyes looked glassy, and her movements were slow and lethargic, as though she was moving through honey. She slumped against Friedrich, who seemed all too happy to get her up close and personal. I shuddered at the sight of him with his hands on her; he had seemed like a creep from the second I’d walked in this door, but I guess I hadn’t vouched for him being quite this level of creep. I knew this kind of shit went down in clubs like this, but I had never seen it happen in person. Never hoped I would, either. I preferred my women willing and fully–conscious, but it seemed like I was in the minority as I looked around the room and saw the predatory glint in the eyes of the men surrounding me.
And she was a cop, too. I could be sure that almost everyone in this place had a bone to pick with the police that they would be all–too–happy to take out on her. The thought was grim as hell; this woman, plucked probably straight from the middle of her shift, becoming a punching bag for some asshole’s attitude towards the cops. She staggered again, and I wondered if she had any idea what was actually going on. She looked so out of it that I was astonished she could stand up straight. And then, of course, Friedrich decided that it was time to put on a show.
He gripped the shoulder strap of her deep red dress, the same strap that was covering a tiny sliver of her breast, and jerked it aside, exposing her. There was a murmur of appreciation around the room, until Angel shook his hand off and re–adjusted herself angrily. I could see a glimmer of rebellion in her eyes, the same glimmer she’d had the three times she’d taken me down. I knew I should have just sat back and left her to her fate—as long as she was off the streets and away from me then what did it matter, right? But as Friedrich went to expose her once again, I knew I couldn’t just sit aside and let it happen. I was an asshole, no doubt, but I wasn’t quite at the level of assholery where I could just watch this happen.
“So, what are the bids on Angel tonight?” Friedrich ran the back of his finger down her cheek, and she jerked away from him as if on impulse. The bidding began in earnest—a hundred, two hundred, a thousand, a thousand–five–hundred—it was so fast I could barely keep up with it. I looked down at the earnings that had been piling up on the table in front of me, and let out an internal sigh. Was I really going to give all of that up just to save a cop who had arrested me more times than anyone else? Apparently, I was. I slammed my hand down on the table, the drinks and the cash rattling loudly enough to catch the attention of everyone else in the room, and put in my bid.
Chapter Three
“Ten thousand.”
A voice cut across all the others, clear and crisp enough that even I could make it out. It cut through the haze of my sedation, and I managed to open my groggy eyes long enough to make out who had said it. And as soon as I laid my eyes on him, my heart stopped in my chest. Oh shit. Oh shit.
I knew that whoever had purchased me, it was going to be bad news. I wasn’t like the rest of the victims they paraded in and out of here; I was a representation of everything these guys hated the most, and I had no doubt that they wouldn’t hesitate to take that out on me if they got half a chance. But…had he known I was here? Because a coincidence of this size couldn’t have just happened.
I couldn’t fucking believe my eyes. God–fucking–dammit. Breaker Goldman.
I still hadn’t found out what his real name was, even after all the times I’d arrested and charged him for whatever bullshit he was attempting to pull off that week. Usually his crimes were petty enough that I never worked up the effort to actually hate him, but that didn’t matter. He was still a criminal, still someone who made my life and the life of the people living in this city substantially harder. I hadn’t tipped him for the kind of guy who would have out in a place like this, mind you; he always seemed too distracted with his own schemes to bother getting involved with someone this high up on the ladder. I reached out for t
he wall, looking for something to hold me up, and stumbled. The auctioneer reached out for me, and slipped a slimy arm around my waist. I shuddered at his touch. He reached over to the strap on the other side of my shoulder and eased it down my arm, letting it drop away till great swathes of my skin were exposed. I reached to pull it back up, but he slapped my hand away and turned me back towards the crowd.
“Are we sure no–one wants to bid any higher for this gorgeous piece of ass?”
I hated the way he was talking about me, as though I was nothing more than some object for these men to ogle at. Well, one of them would be doing a lot more than ogling soon enough. Even though I knew in the pit of my stomach what would come after I was sold, I was trying to ignore the creeping sense of dread that was overwhelming my system. I needed to keep my head straight, needed to stay in the game. I peered around the room, trying to make eye contact with one of the other dudes standing around and eyeing me. Maybe if I could flirt hard enough with one of them while I was standing here, they would outdo Breaker’s bid and take me instead. I knew whoever I ended up with would be the kind of monstrous asshole I did my best to keep off the streets, but Breaker…Breaker had a bone to pick with me. Several, in fact. And as my mind came back into consciousness, panic flooded my brain, lighting it up like a Christmas tree. I needed to find some way to make sure that he didn’t get his hands on me– and I had no idea how I was meant to do that.