by Cross,Lexi
The only problem was he wouldn’t let me leave until I gave him the information he wanted. He wanted to know who threatened me. I didn’t want to tell him, naturally—it would mean admitting what a mess I’d made of things. I didn’t want him to think I needed him. I didn’t.
Or so I told myself.
“Why are you so damned stubborn? Why not tell me what’s going on with you? If you’re in trouble, I wanna help you.”
“Why? I thought you hated me.”
“Call it nostalgia.” He grinned. “I have a soft spot for women who fuck me over and leave me hanging.”
“You’ve been studying poetry while we’ve been apart. That’s nice.” He smirked.
“Stop playing around. Tell me.” His voice was softer than it had been earlier—he knew how to get through to me, and it wasn’t by talking to me like a naughty child. It was tempting, the thought of handing my problems over to him. He could take care of me. From the looks of his apartment, he had plenty of money.
I chewed the inside of my mouth, debating. What would it hurt? I was a mess. He might as well know it.
“He was a leg breaker.”
“What did you do?” He nearly leaped to his feet. “Tell me you didn’t get mixed up with a loan shark.”
“What do you think?”
“Jess! Holy fuck! Remember what happened to Little Bill?” I remembered all too well. They’d called him Little Bill because he was the smallest guy in the club. Sort of the club mascot, really. Everybody took care of him like a kid brother. I remembered thinking how different it was, seeing a softer side of the rough, gritty MC members. They weren’t called Vipers for nothing.
And yet Little Bill’s gambling problem was bigger than any of them could handle. He’d gone to a loan shark—twice, actually. He’d gotten in way deeper than he could manage. Eventually, they’d found him in a ditch, a bullet in his head. They’d beaten him within an inch of his life beforehand, of course. Why not make him suffer even more before killing him? Savages.
I shivered, trying to hide it from him. “I remember Little Bill. I’ll never forget it.”
“But you went to one of those bastards anyway?”
“I didn’t have a choice, Grayson.” I stood, facing him. Granted, he was a good six inches taller than me, but I could make every one of my five feet, five inches count when I wanted to. “My heat was cut. My power was going to be next, and then the water.”
“What happened to you? When did it get so bad?”
“I lost my job, okay? Times are tough. Maybe not for you, but those of us on the right side of the law are in trouble.”
He sneered. “I’m not the one who needs a loan shark.”
“Whatever. Anyway, that’s the story. I’m in over my head. That was only the first time somebody came after me.”
“Jesus. And here I was, thinking you were so smart.”
If I were smart, I never would have married you, jerk. “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you were wrong.”
“How much do you owe?” His voice was softer, more serious.
I looked away. “I started with five thousand. I missed the first payment a week ago. Now it’s…gosh, I don’t even know. More than that.”
“Holy shit, Jess.” He drew himself up, puffing out his chest. I knew what was coming. “I’ll take care of them.”
I rolled my eyes. He was still so predictable. “No, you won’t. I’ll take care of it on my own.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m totally serious! I don’t need you to take care of me anymore!”
“I’m the guy who pulled that son of a bitch off you, right? I think you do need me.”
“I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it for seven years.”
“Oh, you’re doing a great job. Over your head like this, owing all that money to loan sharks.” He scoffed, shaking his head. I could’ve hit him. I wished I could get away with it.
“Just leave me alone, okay? Like I said, I didn’t ask for your help. Let me go.” I tried to push my way past him, determined to make it to the door. He stopped me, though, catching me by the arm. He pulled me back to him, nearly twisting my arm behind my back. I squirmed, crying out.
“Let me go, Grayson.”
“No. Not until you admit you need me. What we had is still there. Isn’t it? Don’t you feel it? You can’t fight it, just like you couldn’t fight it then. That’s why you had to run away from me.” His face was so close to mine, his eyes boring holes into me. It felt like he could see right into my brain. There was no hiding anything from him. He knew me.
“Stop this. I don’t want this.”
“When are you gonna quit lying to yourself, Jess? Life can be so much easier. All you have to do is let it be that way. Let go. Let me take care of you.”
“Let go of me. That’s all I want you to do, Grayson.”
“No. That’s not what you want.” He pulled me even closer, and my heart nearly burst from my chest when our bodies touched. He terrified me, enraged me…excited me.
Chapter Five
Grayson
I hadn’t planned on it, but when she tried to get past me, all I could do was try to stop her. Once I grabbed her, everything came back. Every memory together. All the nights in bed, the mornings. The time on the back of my bike. The night we got married. Everything.
I felt her pulse racing in her wrist, then when I pulled her to me, and her chest pressed into my body. She was on fire for me, just like she used to be. I knew she couldn’t forget me just like that. She felt what was between us. She couldn’t ignore it, just like I couldn’t.
I used my free hand to stroke the side of her face, then pulled it closer to mine. She didn’t fight me. When I crushed my lips against hers, she didn’t fight that, either.
I was hard in seconds, almost as soon as I felt her soft, firm, familiar lips under mine. It was like coming home—it sounded corny, but it was true. Like part of me was back. I held her face still, held her arm behind her back, felt her tits pressed against me. She whimpered when my tongue pried her mouth open. The need to take her, right there, raced through my veins like fire. I had to have her. I had to make her mine again.
No. I pulled back, my cock and every other part of me besides my brain screaming in rage. My body wanted her more than it ever wanted anything or anybody, but it couldn’t happen. I wouldn’t be able to let go of her again if I had her. I was a strong man. I could do almost anything. That would’ve been too much.
Her face was flushed, her chocolate eyes half-closed. She breathed hard through open lips. Her chest rose and fell, tits going up and down. I let her go so I could shove my hands in my pockets. If they were in my pockets, I couldn’t touch her.
“I have to go,” she whispered raggedly.
“Don’t. It’s not safe for you if they know where you live.”
I saw something cross her face—she looked even more scared than she had before. Terrified, more like. Her eyes went wide. She forgot all about the kiss, just like that.
“No, I really have to go. Right now.” She shoved her arms into her coat and raced for the door.
“Think about this, Jess. You wanna take this chance?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“At least take my cell number. In case you ever need help.” She paused, looking up at me. “Please. I’ll feel a lot better if I know you can call me when you need me.”
“Okay.” She pulled out her phone. I watched her enter my number in her contacts. Then she left, running down the hall with her phone still in her hand. I heard her talking to a taxi dispatcher.
I thought about following her for a minute there. I didn’t like the idea of her going home alone like that. I kinda wanted to know where she lived, too. I couldn’t help wanting to watch her. It killed me, knowing she was in danger. Loan sharks weren’t people. They didn’t play by any rules but their own. They wouldn’t care that she was a woman. It didn’t matter. I had seen a lot of dirty,
nasty shit in my time. A woman was just as easy to kill. Easier, even. And a loan shark would do it.
“Fuck.” I punched the brick wall just inside the door. My knuckles stung, but I didn’t feel any better for doing it. I had to hit something else. I closed the door and went to the little home gym in one of my spare rooms.
I took off my shoes, jeans, shirt, and went to work on the heavy bag in my boxer briefs. The first contact with the bag felt good. The next one felt even better. Jab, jab, kick. Kick. Jab, jab. I went harder, faster, grunting every time I hit the bag. I worked until sweat dripped from me and puddled on the floor. I worked until I could hardly lift my arms anymore. I wanted to keep going, still. I wanted to kill the bastard who tried to hurt what was mine.
What used to be mine.
I had to stop, bending at the waist with my hands on my knees, breathing hard. It wasn’t easy, doing that with a beer sloshing around in my stomach. Or all the thoughts going through my head.
What were the odds of finding her again like that? If I had left the clubhouse a minute earlier or later, or if I had waited in traffic another thirty seconds before I turned to take the detour, I would have missed what was happening. I wouldn’t have been there in time to save Jess. I might have gone for the rest of my life not knowing what happened to her. Or why she left.
That wasn’t totally true. I had always known why she left. She was right—the reason was in her letter. I didn’t wanna believe it then, and it was still hard to swallow. I didn’t like to think it was all my fault. She was afraid of me, the club. She left because she knew I would never leave them. She was right about that. I wouldn’t have.
I was young and stupid back then. Not that I would leave them seven years later, but I would’ve tried to work it out with her. Or maybe I wouldn’t have. I knew how hard life was without her—if I didn’t know it, I might not have fought to keep her. I might’ve been hardheaded. I might’ve told her to go fuck herself. Who could say?
I went to the kitchen, still sweating, to get a bottle of water. Leave it to her to show up when I had a million other things on my mind. The club was busier than ever, and it was the first night I actually went home after a day at the clubhouse in a week. Another thing that almost went in another direction—I could have stayed overnight again. She would be lying in the gutter somewhere, and I would be fucking around at the clubhouse.
I didn’t stop thinking about her while I was in the shower, either—anything but. I jerked off thinking about her. That kiss…nothing changed. We were still the same people, and that heat between us wasn’t dead. Far from it. I had a feeling she would’ve let me take her if I’d tried. I was too strong for that. I wouldn’t let her back into my life so easy. Or ever.
But her body…pressed against me…making me think of that night on the bike. We had gone all the way out to the beach, an hour ride. That’s how desperate we were to be alone. It seemed like we always had somebody up our asses in those days. Her parents, the club, especially the guys higher up in the club who were so much older and wiser than me. We sneaked off, and I’d parked on an empty, secluded part of the beach, behind a bunch of big rocks. Nobody could see us. She’d sat in front of me, skirt up around her waist, and rode me until we both moaned so loud we’d scared off a bunch of seagulls.
“Shit,” I groaned, coming when I remembered the way it felt inside her. Holding her tits, watching them bounce up and down in my hands while she bounced on my cock. She was always up for anything back then.
Would it still feel the same way, after so long? I would probably never know. She didn’t want anything to do with me still. After all that time. I cleaned myself up and got out of the shower stall, in a bad mood even after I worked out and jerked off. Nothing would make me feel any better, I guessed.
I sacked out on the couch in a pair of sweats, turning on the TV. I needed to numb out somehow. At times like that, I wished I did drugs or drank heavy. I could have run away if I did that. I could have gotten away from my thoughts.
I picked up my phone, instead.
“Whaddya want?” Tony, my best friend and second in command, sounded drunk.
“I leave you in charge for the night, and you get wasted,” I joked.
“That’s why you’re calling? To check up on me?
“No. Christ. Calm down. I wanted to tell you what just happened tonight.”
“What is it?” He sounded clearer, more sober. Men like us were used to jumping into action on a dime.
“Go someplace quieter.” The background noise made it sound like they were having a party there without me.
“I’ll go to your office.” I waited for him to shut the door. I heard it click. “Okay. What’s up?”
I took a deep breath. “I found Jess.”
A pause. Then, “Get the fuck out.”
“No, brother, I’m serious.”
“Holy shit. Where?” I gave him the story and told him about her problem with the loan sharks. “Oh, shit. Just like Little Billy.”
“I told her that, too. It didn’t faze her.”
“I think it did. She was always trying to play it cool, you know? Like she was better than us. We all knew that wasn’t true.” He snorted. I wasn’t sure he was right. Didn’t I use to feel like she was better, too? I used to ask myself all the time what she was doing with a man like me. At first, I’d told myself she wanted the excitement. Good girls always wanted a bad boy, just to see what it felt like for a little while. It was never serious for them. That’s how I thought it would be with her. It wasn’t.
“What are you gonna do?” he asked.
“I don’t know if I should do anything. She’s stuck on taking care of this herself.”
“Sounds like her,” he said, and I heard a laugh in his voice. “She doesn’t know what she’s into, does she?”
“No. She doesn’t. She wouldn’t tell me who she was dealing with, either. It could be anybody. I mean, how many of these assholes are in the city? Hundreds?”
“Shit. We can do some digging. Ask around. I’ll get the guys started on it, if you want.”
I thought about it for a second. Did I wanna get myself wrapped up in her again? It meant risking everything, since she already took almost everything from me years earlier. “Yeah. Do that. I’ll do my own looking, too. Thanks.”
“Sure.” I heard a loud noise, like a crashing sound.
“I swear to God, I better not show up tomorrow and see you ruined my clubhouse.”
“Your clubhouse.” He snorted. “See ya later, prez.”
I tossed the phone beside me, then put my head in my hands. Jess. Why did she have to come back into my life, just when things were good?
I became president of the club when I was twenty-five, three years earlier. The youngest leader in club history. Things were pretty hectic then, and the destruction that had started around the time Jess left got so bad we lost five key members in an all-out war with another club who had wanted our action in a deal with a drug cartel. Axel, the president back then, had gotten greedy. Over the years he did everything he could for more power, more money. It got us all into a ton of bad shit, including a war. When he died, I moved up. It had been a tough transition, stepping into power when everything was up in the air like that.
There had been a lot of blood to clean up, and a lot of old wounds to heal. I thought I’d done a pretty good job of it, as young and inexperienced as I was. I did my best. The fact was, even if I pretended it didn’t bother me, I hated the club’s direction. I didn’t wanna wake up every morning wondering if it was my last morning, but that was honest-to-God the way it used to feel. That was a tough time for me—I whored my way around, drinking every night in case it was my last night.
With Jess back, the memory of waking up one day wishing I could find her was clearer than ever. I had been dreaming of her. Telling her I was sorry I fucked everything up. She had forgiven me, and we’d decided to make a life together outside the club. It was the only time I ever even thought of a
nything but the Vipers. When I opened my eyes, I thought how much I wanted to see her one more time, so I could tell her everything I never got to say.
She had never left my head, not for a minute. Every once in a while I’d make a decision and wonder what she would think of it. Or I would beat a guy until he was practically dead, and her face would come into my mind. I would know she’d hate me for doing it, and I’d hate myself. It wasn’t easy, carrying her around like that. It had gotten to the point where I had to force myself to try to forget her, or else I would hesitate at the wrong time and get myself killed.