by V. Theia
How could she have gotten so carried away like that after she swore she was not getting involved with men and especially men like him ever again.
The kind of man who just takes you over.
Ruby was done with that.
“Not how I wanted our first kiss to end, Rubes.” He was breathing like he’d been running for days. Seeing the lust clear in those hooded eyes flashing at her. He wants her and for a crazy second when she wasn’t thinking at all, she wanted him, too. So, fucking much, heat walloped through her spine, how long had it been since she was wanted in that way?
Crazy. For fuck's sake.
"Did I make you all wet and worked up, Ruby?" lips brushed and it brought her out of her sexually inducing bubble, using a hand she pushed his chest.
His eyes were amazing. Dark pools of emerald.
Full of sex and want.
"You think a lot of your technique if you assume I'm easy enough to be turned on that quick by a few lip smacks. It’s my constitutional right to kiss and stop kissing who I want, pal." She tried to sound sarcastic, really, she did, only it came out breathy.
Not buying it he smirked. "Let me check and I'll lick my soaked fingers clean afterward."
"Inappropriate." Skin heated. Thank god for her mother's Dominican heritage that there were no outward signs of her blushing. Except, maybe he’d made her a jittery wreck with a few dirty words. Dirty words she’d loved.
"Has it turned you on? Tell me and I'll stop asking how wet your pussy is."
"Christ. Stop. You have diarrhoea of the mouth, Preacher. I let you kiss me. Now goodnight, I gotta close the bar. We mortals like to sleep."
She knew what he tasted like now. If only she could have gone the rest of her life and not known that little detail, the feel of his lips remained even putting space between them.
And her pussy twanged. Damp and wanting.
For a devil, he tasted pretty much like how she imagines heaven is; Perfect.
Damn him.
He didn’t respond, just stared at her with wet lips. The wetness from her mouth.
“Do you feel better now you got that out of the way? You can move on to your waitress crew.”
“No. I feel worse.”
Her eyes narrowed. Offended. Not that she wanted him to love kissing her, it wasn’t that, she insisted vehemently, but no woman wants her kisses to be repulsive.
She had to ask. “My kiss made you sick?”
“Yes. You should do it again and give me the cure.”
Ruby wouldn't grin. “Nice try. Now get gone.”
Preacher laughed and dipped down as if to kiss her. She braced waiting for those lips again. Her eyes fluttered. And the big bastard whispered instead. “Come to the party. I’ll give you all the kisses you could ever want, beautiful.”
Her narrowed eyes watched his retreating broad back until he’d left.
Bastard. Definitely not going anywhere near that Renegade Souls party.
Nope. Never.
A second later.
What would she even wear?
She had Preacher on the brain.
The filthy manwhore knew how to kiss.
Ruby really needed to hate him. Or just not to desire him, because frankly, thank you cheap red wine, for the drunk honesty, that biker was bad news and she'd had all the bad news she could swallow. He could take his Momoa voice and his thick dick and just … stand far over there, so she couldn’t smell him. So much bad news.
How much could one person take in a lifetime and not go stark raving mad?
Her parents. Bad news. Her sister. Bad news. Ex-boyfriend's epic bad news. Community college, waste of time. Most every job she'd ever had bad news in one form or another, and not to forget the cherry on the shittiest of life sundae so far, the creepo el-creepo guy from the cabin.
Ruby shuddered and swallowed the last of the boxed wine she'd had in the fridge. The less thought about him the better because she was in two minds whether to believe it happened or she had had one of her rape fantasies again.
Yep, she was one of those women. With a drunken grimace, she toasted the empty room. "To perverts." It wasn't though she wanted to be raped for real, she wasn't that shitfaced. She'd seen that BDSM movie, hated the books, loved Jamie Dornan, she liked the idea of forced play, of dominance, of someone holding her down and taking what he wanted from her body, all with her permission.
What happened at the mountain cabin had been ... had been ... she'd done a good deed for a stranger and paid for it. But it wasn’t just revulsion and humiliation that she felt. There was something even worse underneath it all that plagued her if she dared let it in.
Something ugly but undeniable.
You got off on it.
"Not by fucking choice," she said aloud. Her body in starvation mode would eat its own muscle fat, similar in survival mode, it had reacted without her mind engaged.
It didn't count.
It didn't.
It wasn’t one of her consensual rape fantasises, she hadn’t asked him to be callous and cruel, that man had taken something not given freely because he was a predator.
Picture her telling that to her next boyfriend, just what any relationship needed. She snorted, took another big gulp, the inexpensive wine tasted like paint but it had a forty percent alcohol, whatever got her drunk fastest for cheapest was a win in her frugal book.
Preacher man.
Why couldn't she stop thinking of that big lothario?
He fucked anything walking. So, it was no compliment he wanted to fuck her now. "Probably gone through every woman twice over." She rolled her eyes. And now she was tagged in.
Now there was a pervert.
I bet he'd give you anything sexual you wanted. A little-wicked voice whispered, the same dark voice that held all her secrets.
I just bet he would.
She bet he fucked the same way he kissed. With force and purpose, he’d sucked on her top lip until it was fat with blood. What did his climax taste like? How soft and demanding were his lips in the throes? Questions barraged her mind, all questions she had no fucking business thinking of, but there they were.
Preacher appeared to be the kind of man who would be down for anything.
She'd seen him screw a girl once, out in the parking lot between two cars, the girl moaning like a banshee in heat, Preacher had barely made a sound as Ruby halted by her car, transfixed by the motion of his hips pounding the girl from behind, his big hands resting on the top of someone's car as he'd given the woman a good seeing to.
It couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes, a fast fuck, and once he'd gone inside the bar, leaving the woman to drive off after telling him how good it was, Ruby was left dumbfounded, keys in hand, forgetting she had been about to go home, her breath chopped in and out, flushed, and ... fuck ... she'd been so aroused.
Looking at Preacher after that hadn't been the same, she avoided serving him as much as possible, watched him secretly when he was unaware, her gaze hungry just for a glance even against her own logic, usually when he was sat at a table with his boys, saw more than once him going into the bathroom with one of the bar waitresses, the same result, the girl would come out all glassy eyed and smiles, a softness in her hips as she swayed for the rest of the evening. Ruby told herself it could be drugs they were sharing, but there was nothing narcotic about the guy as he walked out of the bathrooms, nope, he looked like he'd just got fucked, loose in the torso, his gait all sexual, he walked fluidly for a big guy.
He was such bad news and she needed to stay away from him.
She would. Draining the last dregs from the already empty box of wine she trudged off to bed. Even drunk she was responsible knowing she had to get up early tomorrow.
Dreams of kissing a hot possessive biker plagued her.
Several nights later Ruby woke to the sound of rain pattering against the window in her bedroom, she groaned and wished for more time, just an hour would do to catch up on much-needed sleep. No luck there.
Nor was the job front. She’d scoured every want ad in town, each one was a bust, she couldn’t even get a part-time job as a pot washer at Jake’s wine and dine. Now that was just depressing, too qualified to wash fucking dishes. Shoot her now.
She didn’t have fragile feelings, but that stung.
She could wash the hell out of those dishes. And for ten dollars an hour, they would have been sparkling. Bastards.
Another day and no closer to that extra pay check and rent was due, plus the direct payment she had set up with Rita’s bank would bounce if she didn’t replace the money in the next week. Sorry, sissy, I needed groceries, you know, those things to help me live. Rita wouldn’t understand. As much as she loved her baby half-sister she was about as entitled as they came, if she saw past the end of her own nose it would be a miracle. It came to a point you had to stop blaming your shitty upbringing for the self-centred human being you were and take responsibility for how you treated people. It was never Rita’s fault, rather than her environment, or her very long list of boyfriends who all treated her appallingly.
Both sisters were a product of their environment and yet it was only Ruby who gave a fuck about not trampling on her goddamn family in order to get her own way.
Burrowing her head into the warm pillow with a blustery sigh. She needed to see Sebastian. She could make things right in her mind if she could see him.
What with finding a new job, she had to push it down her list of things to do.
But Sebastian was never far from her mind. It was her reason for everything. It was why she tried so hard, pushed herself and placed her trust in people who didn’t deserve it.
Trust was a beautiful myth. You get fed enough lies to choke a horse it all becomes white noise along the way, the loch ness monster and the abominable snowman, something you raise a brow to but ultimately don't drink the Kool-Aid. Trust was a thing of the past for Ruby. Stupid people sucking her dry. I’ll pay you back, Ruby. I’m sorry it won’t happen again, Ruby. It’s the last time, Ruby. All fucking lies, and because she was a family pleaser, wanting to keep the peace, she let them walk their lies into her life even when it choked her.
Pander. Coddle. Enable.
And repeat.
She was a fricking pushover and knew it. But what could she do? Let her sister get kicked out of her place? See her starving in a shelter somewhere? If she didn’t help Rita, who would? Not that dumb freeloader boyfriend of hers. Dwayne was more interested in scoring weed that he was about putting food on the table. Why would he need to worry about that when idiot Ruby was always an open wallet? Rita called and cried for money, Ruby sent her it. Those two were onto a good thing.
But for all the lies forced down Ruby’s throat, her most lethal were I love you. She was a person who needed to be needed, she wasn’t ashamed of that, it was just part of her makeup, her mother was the same way before the booze and drugs took over, she equated neediness with love. And her family took advantage of that. Rita, anyway.
Her brother not so much, but they had a weird relationship ever since the father they shared went to prison, she hadn’t been in contact in forever, her brother told Ruby a million times to scrape off the users once and for all. And when she hadn’t, well it was clear her brother had done some scraping of his own. Oh, well.
Besides, he wasn’t related to Rita, her brother would never allow blackmail in his life. he was likely to shoot first and not ask questions later.
Trust was something fluid.
And so was time management, apparently. How in the crap was she always running late, no matter when she set her clock for? Okay, so she liked to snooze it six or seven times, but who didn't? and why invent a snooze button if it wasn’t to use?
Ruby lived a poor lifestyle, but always knew she was made to be a lady of leisure.
And only sometimes during this week was spent thinking about Preacher and that hot kiss. Fricking wicked kissing manwhore.
Her heart picking up speed whenever she saw the distinctive black and white emblem on the back of a leather jacket. But he’d never come back into the bar that week.
He’d obviously taken her brush off. Good. That was good.
She still thought about him far too much for her own liking. So, what, he could kiss well, so could a million other men who were far better suited to Ruby.
No bikers. No outlaws and definitely no one who was even remotely attracted to danger.
She was aiming for an easy life, not one spent with her anxiety in her throat.
Pushing that deadly monster out of her mind she rolled herself out of bed, cursing the air as blue as she felt, the chill in the air made her walk faster through her four-room apartment. The thing was no bigger than a shoebox and cost more than Buckingham palace probably, but as of now, it was still hers. Next month when it came to paying the rent, it might not be.
Ruby flipped on the coffee maker, its familiar gurgle of water working through its system something she looked forward to, so sad really, while she quickly showered, and slipped into jeans and a long sleeve Wonder Woman shirt, wearing minimal makeup, she clipped her hair back at her nape to keep it tidy and out of face. Frizzy curls were the bane of her life, but some mornings she just couldn’t face taming it with a flat iron.
“I’m finding a new job today,” she said with conviction. “Or a fucking sugar daddy with one foot in his grave and a dick that doesn’t work.”
Joking aside, where the hell was Hugh Hefner?
The universe took one giant piss on Ruby a bit later stepping out into the rain and finding her car wouldn’t start.
Not just dead. But may it rest in peace.
“Thanks a lot, God. I knew you hated me. I miss several hundred Sunday services and this is how you get even, thanks a bunch.” She wouldn’t cry. Tears were for the weak and those who had time to squeeze out a tear, and the moment Ruby declared herself weak she might as well lie down in the dirt and die alongside her car. She popped the hood, slid out, slamming the door with force. No goddamn idea what she was looking at as she poked and twiddled things in the engine, for all she knew she was making it a thousand times worse. “Why won’t you work, you piece of crummy crud? Don't I give you the good gas?” Rain soaked her already frizzing hair. Great. Seriously. Great.
Her apartment block located on a nearby main road leading into town. Not ideal for noise pollution and the odd road rage accident, but it was cheap; her favorite word.
“Is everything okay down there, Ruby?” She looked up to the apartment on the right. Mrs. Kenner leaning over the balcony in her bright pink housecoat. She was the oldest resident in the block, with a mane of shocking purple hair in a tight perm, and had eight cats at the last count. Ruby saw her future when she looked at sweet old Mrs. Kenner. She waved, rain pelting her in the face. “I’m fine, Mrs. K. Just my car decided she needed a nap.”
“Oh dear. Well, get yourself back inside, dearest, it’s coming down an awful lot.”
Mmhm. I know, I’m standing in it.
It was as if the universe kept tossing these shitty things in her path and Ruby, dumb as a rock, picked them up. Ohh, for me? thank you.
With three prospective jobs to inquire about before her shift began in a few hours, Ruby was up that proverbial shit creek. She didn’t know what to do.
And then.
A roar of a million engines turned the corner, she swerved out from under the hood of her car, not like she knew what the hell she was looking for, as far as she could see all was connected as it should be. She expected her second-hand mint green Toyota Sienna 2009 to last a while longer, at least until the end of the year when her finances would hopefully be staggering back to their feet, but sure she was about to hold a funeral service for the old girl. Kicking the tire, she ignored the procession of Renegade Souls motorcycles speeding by. Only the noise of their engines didn’t disappear into the distance, they grew closer, she turned again, to see the bike in front doing a U-turn in the middle of the fucking road. Crazy a
ss. Stupid bikers thinking they owned the town. Only they kind of did. At least, they had their illegal fingers in most businesses, not that she took much notice, but people in the bar talked when they were drunk. Half of the town adored the RS MC and the other half, well, they were never complimentary but scared with their harsh bitching.
An angry man always spoke the truth when he was drunk. Rider and his crew had a lot of secret enemies out there, if he wasn’t already aware.
The bike in front, a huge beast of a thing headed back this way, she frowned as it pulled into the carport, each bike following suit until all ten of them parked in front of her. Preacher, that giant appealing monster, pulled in closest, if she didn’t already know it was him, the tightness in her breasts would have been a clue.
“Hey, Ruby.” Called one of them and she squinted to see it was Jed. She flashed him a grin. For an old guy in his seventies he was still pretty cute. “Hi, Jed. You should get out of this rain, only idiots come out in this.” He laughed and agreed.
“Having car troubles, beautiful?” That sandpaper-rough voice grated over her nerve endings sending fire between her legs. She refused to let him see he affected her.
“It’s dead.”
“Let me take a look at it.” He threw a leg over his bike and climbed off, taking two steps towards her, pushing his whole body under the hood, she shuffled back out of his way, saw ten pairs of eyes all grinning at her. Lord, if she was into bikers they sure would be affecting her underwear, all decked out in leather, denim and naughty smirks.
The clean scent of Preacher hunched over her girlie green car drew her attention. “I told you, she’s dead.”
“Maybe. I can have one of the boys take a look back at the shop.”
“No. That’s...no that’s okay.” Embarrassed to say she didn’t have the cash for that. “I can do without it for now.”
“Ruby, let me have a look. Do you need to be somewhere?” His gaze swept down her, landed on her heeled boots and came back up her body much slower until she felt like he'd touched every nook and cranny. She swallowed.