by Paula Cox
Next to me, handcuffed to her chair, sits a middle-aged, motherly-looking woman. She’s about forty, but well kept, with a bob of brown hair and a painted face. She wears jeans, furry boots, and a gray sweater. She looks over to me just as I happened to look over to her.
“What’re you in for?” I ask.
She blushes and shakes her head.
“Let me guess,” I go on, just shooting the shit for the sake of it, otherwise I’ll go crazy waiting for Hope. “You’re a serial killer, right? They caught you buried elbow-deep in blood and guts.”
The woman shakes her head again. “Shoplifting,” she says quietly.
“And they handcuffed you? Goddamn.”
She nods shortly. “Serious offence, I guess,” she mutters.
“What’d you get?” I ask, all the while looking over the top of her head, toward the back door out of which Hope will soon walk. And then I’ll make it up to her, I think. And then I’ll make everything better.
“Just some shoes,” the woman says.
“They’ll probably just fine you,” I say.
“I’m not so sure. People take shoplifting pretty serious these days.”
I look down at her handcuffed hand, see that she is wearing a thick gold wedding band over a diamond engagement ring. “How long’ve you been married?” I ask, thinking: Where is she? Am I going to have to go in there? Bob better not be messing me around.
She smiles. “Eleven years this January,” she says.
“And your husband, has he ever fucked up, really badly?”
Her smile grows wider. “Yeah, a few times.”
“And you’re still with him? You still love him, I mean?”
She nods. “I do.”
“Then tell me, mystery shoplifter, what the hell did he do to make it up to you?”
She looks down at me like I’m a naïve kid, but I can’t complain. When it comes to stuff like this, I am a naïve kid.
“Don’t humiliate yourself. Be sorry, but don’t cry and beg. Don’t plead with her. She’ll never respect you again if you do that. Be sorry—but be a man.”
I shrug. “I would never cry and beg, anyway,” I mutter.
“But remember, whatever it is, she’ll be angry for a while. There’s no stopping that.”
A police officer—a young lad called Shaneus—approaches the woman. “Time to write you up, Miss Stone,” he says.
“Hey, Shane,” I call. “Do me a solid and let her go, will you?”
Both Shane and Miss Stone flinch. “What?” they say at the same time.
“You heard me. Let her go. She stole some shoes, for Christ’s sake. You know how it is. Bored wife and shoplifting. No big deal.” Hope emerges from the back office. I stand up and look Shaneus in the eye. “I’m serious. Let her go. Don’t write her up. I’m leaving now, but if I hear you wasted police time on a shoe stealer, Bob will hear about it.”
Shaneus nods, chagrined, but he unlocks Miss Stone’s handcuffs and waves toward the exit. “Go on, then.”
I sit on the edge of Hope’s bed, watching as she walks up and down the room, wringing her hands. She talks aloud, but I get the sense she’s talking as much to herself as she’s talking to me. Her mind is like a pinball tonight, bouncing from one point to the next, but I can’t blame her. Crazy shit like this might be the norm for the Satan’s Martyrs, but it’s not for Hope. She’s changed out of her hoodie and skirt into sweatpants and a baggy poncho-type blanket.
“You hurt me, bad, that’s the truth. Very, very bad.” From one end of the room to the other, she paces. Over and over. Up and down. I start to get a neck ache following her. “You don’t have any idea how much you hurt me, Killian. It was like being stabbed in the heart. I know that sounds melodramatic as hell, but that’s really how I felt. Don’t get me wrong, either. It wasn’t that I was single, or even that you’d left me. That was part of it, obviously. But it was the way you left me. I was defenseless. I literally could not do anything to defend myself. And everyone thought I did it. Even my own sister.”
She stops, panting heavily, and turns to me with her eyebrows raised in a startled expression. “My own sister,” she repeats. “Do you know how much that stung? Imagine if everyone thought you did something you didn’t even remember doing and Patrick called you a liar. How would you like that?”
“Not a lot,” I murmur, feeling under fire. Is that what relationship arguments are always like? I think. How does any man survive?
“No, exactly,” Hope says. “Not a lot. I feel strange, Killian, because I want to hold you and slap you at the same time.”
I open my arms. “Slap me then,” I say.
“What?” she shoots back, but the corners of her lips twitch, a nearly-smile.
“Slap me,” I repeat. “Go on. I deserve it. Slap me as hard as you can, pretty lady.”
“Don’t call me ‘pretty lady’!” Hope snaps. “We’re not even close to there yet.”
“That’s good,” I say, sitting up, bringing my face close to her. “Good, get angry. Get damn angry. Get so angry you can hardly hold it in. Slap me, pretty lady. Come on, pretty lady. Slap me.” I smirk at her, cocky. “Come on. Do it.”
“I will,” she warns. “And it won’t be a little lady slap, either. It’ll hurt.”
“Good!” I exclaim. I jump to my feet and close the gap, so that I’m standing right next to her, looking down at her. “Slap me!” I urge. “Do it, Hope! Slap me! Do it! Or are—”
Her hand makes a s-lap! against my cheek. I feel my skin go red, and then—s-lap! She hits me again, on the other cheek. She wasn’t lying; she’s hit me hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. I smirk down at her, nodding my approval. “Doesn’t that feel better, pretty lady?”
“Yeah,” she says, as though surprised. She slaps me again, again and again. I stumble backward with each slap until I fall onto the bed. She stands over me, hands raised, staring down into my eyes. “I hope it hurts,” she says. “I hope it really does.”
I bring my hand to my cheek, touch the tender flesh. “It does,” I promise. “It hurts really bad.”
“Good,” she says.
She aims her hand, and I brace myself for another slap. But then she lowers her hands to my face and touches my cheeks tenderly. “You were right,” she says. “That did make me feel better.”
I reach up and touch her hands, feel how small they are, how tiny compared to mine. “I told you it would,” I say.
Then I pull gently on her hands, pulling her toward me. I can’t yank her because her arm, though wrapped in a bandage beneath her sleeve, is still gouged with Lindsey’s fingernail marks. I pull on her hands so gently that she could quite easily pull away.
But she doesn’t.
She falls atop me. I collapse backward and she splits her legs over my waist. Then we kiss. We kiss and it’s like all the pain and the feeling of loss we’ve felt since the night on the boat pours out of us. Heat explodes in that small bedroom and we sink into each other, our tongues battling, our teeth smashing together, writhing, moaning.
Finally, she pulls away. “This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” she says, face as red as mine feels. Lips parted, tongue sticking out, pupils dilated, looking horny and happy and sexy.
“Of course not,” I say, smiling up at her.
“Oh, fuck it,” she whispers, and then kisses me again.
I reach up and grab her ass. Her ass is molded to my hand, I’m sure of it. As soon as I grab it, it feels right, feels in place, feels like it’s where it belongs.
But then Hope leans up, breaking off the kiss for a second time.
“I’m not that easy, Mr. Biker.”
I lean up, trying to bring our lips together again, but she raises a finger and brings it to my lips.
“Uh-uh,” she smiles.
“I’ll do anything,” I say, my voice intense and serious. “I mean it. Anything. I’ll do anything to make it right. Just name it. I’ll swim from here to England. I’ll go to Canada and punch a b
ear in the face. I’ll—fuck it, I don’t know—I’ll strap myself to a rocket and go to the moon for you.”
She giggles. “Is that your idea of romantic, Mr. Biker?”
Goddamn, I’ve missed her calling me that.
I shrug. “It’s all I can come up with.”
“I don’t need any of that,” she says. “But there is something you could do for me. If you really want to do something.”
“I do,” I say. “Tell me—anything.”
“Talk to Lucca, please. He’s been a nightmare these past—”
“It’s done,” I tell her. “I’ll never let anyone talk to you like that again. From here on, you’re my woman.”
“For real?” she asks, her voice oddly soft.
“Forever,” I breathe, and then press my lips hard against hers.
Talk to my woman like shit? My woman!
My woman!
It feels good to call Hope that again.
I walk into Berelli’s Gourmet at ten o’clock in the morning, a few minutes after Lucca walks in.
The kid at the bar—Willy?—nods to me. “Hello, how can I help?”
“Here to see your boss, kid,” I grunt.
I walk into the kitchen, through it, and into the back office, which Hope told me was where Lucca hangs out most of the day. When he isn’t perving on his staff. Or shouting at people.
When I barge into the office, Lucca leaps up from his chair. “What the hell do you think—” Then he sees that it’s me, and the words die on his lips. He begins to shiver and shake his head. “I thought you were done with that—”
“That what?” I say casually. “Go on, finish.”
I reach into my jacket pocket and take out my gun. When I point it at him, he pisses himself. A line of urine shows clearly through his brown khaki pants.
“Nothing,” he whispers. “I wasn’t going to say—nothing.”
“Listen,” I yawn, keeping the gun pointed at him. “I’ve warned you once, haven’t I? I told you. Stop shouting at my fucking woman. Men like you . . . man, what do think you are? Do you think these women give a fuck about you? You’re a goddamn pervert.” I shake my head. Lucca stares at the barrel of the gun in terror.
“From now on, you don’t have a cock, got that? If I hear one more whisper about you touching any woman who works for you, I won’t come alone next time. You know Gunny, the Remington brothers, what about my brother, Patrick? None of them are very fond of perverts. Oh, and I need to make sure you get the message.”
I jump across the table and smash the grip of the gun into his nose. Blood sprays across the desk.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hope
Three weeks, right up until the day before Christmas eve, Killian and I fall in love all over again—if we ever fell out of love at all. We drive out to the amusement park three times during this visit, but we avoid the ferris wheel and the ghost train—Killian told me about Lindsey’s creepy horror show in the tunnels. Instead, we wrap up warm in a quiet, unremarkable nook in the corner of the amusement park. Killian moves his hands up, up my legs. I didn’t realize how badly I wanted his touch until he touched me again. It sparks electricity in me, all over me. I long for it whenever I’m not with him.
And, finally, we use the L word.
I’m bent over with my head against bed, Killian drilling me from behind, and I’m begging, begging, screaming out in pure pleasure. I know Dawn can probably hear—hell, the entire street—but I don’t care. The pleasure is too intense, too consuming, too right.
When we’re done, I collapse onto the bed and roll over on my back, looking down the length of my body at him. He grins at me, the cocky grin I know so well, the grin that tells me Killian is back, Mr. Biker is back, and here to say.
“You’re getting good at putting on a show,” he says, and then winks at me.
“Shut it,” I laugh. “I’m not putting on a show. I’m enjoying myself.”
“I can’t help but think, pretty lady, that all those moans and the way you move that perfect ass is all for me.” He walks around to the side of the bed, his cock hanging huge between his legs, and then kneels down next to me. He brings his hand to my face. His fingers smell of our sex, hot and sweaty, but I don’t mind because so does the entire room. “I can’t help but think everything you do is for me,” he goes on, smiling wickedly, his bright blue eyes dancing mischievously.
Careful, Killian, I think. You’re still on thin ice.
But I don’t say it, because the truth is he’s not on thin ice, not even close. He wasn’t on thin ice two days after we reconnected. When I went into work and saw that Lucca’s nose was busted, and that Lily seemed happier, more carefree than usual, he wasn’t on thin ice. When he thrust deep inside of me, he wasn’t on thin ice. And now, weeks after all that, the ice is as thick as ever.
“Are you alright?” he asks, when I don’t reply.
“Oh, I’m fine, just waiting for you to abandon me again.” I laugh when he screws his face up. He hates when I talk like that, which only makes me talk like it all the more. I have to remind him what he did, even if it is in a joking away.
As always, he doesn’t take it as a joke. He grabs my hands in his and brings his face close to mine, so close I smell myself on his lips. Couples are disgusting, I learn, and they don’t care; I learn that it’s part of the fun.
“I’ve never said this to a woman before, Hope, but—”
“You want to put it in my ass,” I say solemnly, and then let out another peal of laughter.
He shakes his head, the shadow of a smile on his lips. “You’re not making this any easier, you know. A man like me tries to be romantic, and what does he get? Laughter!”
“Okay, okay,” I say, forcing the laughter away. “What have you never said to a woman before?”
He looks deep into my eyes, and suddenly I know what he is going to say. It’s what we both feel, but for some strange reason neither of us has said it. Now he’s about to say it, I want to say it.
He sees that I know, and I see that he knows. We lock eyes, and then we open our mouths at the same time. Before the words are out, we each know what the other is going to say.
“I love you!” we laugh together.
I’ve never seen Killian look so happy when he says it. It’s like all the weight of his life—the fighting, the killing, the outlawing, the riding—it’s like all of it drops away from him with those three words. When he smiles at me, he is a man reborn. He’s no longer just an outlaw. He is my man.
I move aside on the bed. He climbs up and lies next to me, wrapping his arm around me and holding me close to his bare, muscular chest. It is damp with sweat, but I don’t care. In a strange way, I like the feel of the sweat. It reminds me of what we’ve just done.
“How long will you love me for, then, Mr. Biker?” I ask.
“That’s a silly question,” he says. “I’ll love you until the day I die, I can promise you that.”
“What about after that, though?” I urge.
“Oh, when we’re both dust and blowing around on the wind or whatever poetic thing it is you want me to say?” He chuckles. “I don’t know about any of that, Hope. You’re the artist, not me.”
I can’t help but laugh. He’s right. This life is enough. “Maybe we should stop all this lovey stuff before I make you sick,” I giggle. I reach down to his cock and grab it at the base. One moment it’s flaccid. The next it’s rock-hard, growing large in my hand.
“That’s an idea,” he groans, reaching across and placing his hands between my legs.
We play each other like instruments, hitting all the right notes, singing out a crescendo at the end.
Berelli’s Gourmet has been closed to the public tonight, Christmas Eve, which in itself is amazing. I can only assume that the Satan’s Martyrs has paid Lucca a hell of a lot of money, or is teaching him a lesson. It doesn’t matter. The result is the same.
The tables have been pulled together so that they form
a large, conference-style table, spanning almost the entire restaurant. Bikers from the Satan’s Martyrs crowd all around it, laughing and drinking, glasses piling up on the tables. Killian must’ve told the men to be extra nice to the waitresses, because almost each time they come to collect glasses, one of the bikers tips them. Killian and I sit at the head of the table, as though this is a medieval feast and we are the royalty. To my left, Dawn and Patrick sit together. To my right, next to Killian, sits Declan, the old man Killian told me about. To Declan’s right is Gunny and the Remington brothers.