Live Free

by Shyla Colt

  She turned on the shower, stripped down and stepped beneath the spray. The warm water eased her aches, but did nothing to slow down her overactive brain. Not dealing with what Levi had done would come back to harm her, but right now she didn’t have the time or the desire. Ignoring the inner voice that often allowed fear to outweigh everything else, she grabbed the bar of soap and inhaled the sandalwood scent. Lathering up the beige square, she soaped up and bathed quickly. Rocky wasn’t the kind of man who waited patiently.

  Dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, Evonne held her head high as she and Rocky emerged from his room. Though her heart pounded and her mouth felt like the Sahara Desert, she couldn’t help but feel proud. Never one to rebel or rock the boat, she’d missed out on a lot of opportunities to simply live. Regaining missed chances in the wake of devastation boosted her self-confidence, which was currently riddled with so many holes it resembled Swiss cheese.

  “Welcome to daylight, princess,” Moose said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. The girls here?”

  “Waiting at Rocky’s,” Moose said.

  “Fantastic.” She pictured them lined up on the couch with furrowed brows and downturned lips.

  “Yeah, have fun with that,” Moose said. “You got practice soon,” he said to Rocky. I’ll play chauffeur to Evonne.”

  “All right, thanks, man. I’ll catch you later at home,” Rocky said to Evonne.

  “Yeah.” Home. It reminded her of how much she’d lost in the blink of an eye. He walked away and she found herself left with Moose.

  “You ready?” Moose asked.

  “Yeah, might as well get it over with. Were they pissed off?” she asked.

  “Out for blood more like it, especially Hil. If we hadn’t stopped her, she would’ve busted in there like a cop after drugs.” He snorted.

  “Oh lord.” She followed him outside, dragging her feet slightly.

  “Yeah. I’m going to be straight up. I’m not about to venture into that house with you. I’ll see you to the door and I’m out,” Moose said.

  “Coward.”

  “Are you kidding me? They’re all out for blood and Joey with hormones is over the top.” He shook his head.

  She laughed. “Still hard to believe you’re about to be parents.”

  “Who you telling?” He arched an eyebrow at her.

  She liked Moose. His humor offset his scariness. She climbed onto the bike behind him. A prospect opened the gate and they roared out of the compound. The winds whipping at her hair and her clothing felt good, but the downtime was murder. Her mind immediately drifted to her plight. How long would she be relocated? She needed to start calling clients today and minimizing bills coming in. The mental checklist she compiled gave her ground to stand on. A point to cling to until she could move forward. Like a lone survivor surrounded by zombies with torches, she clutched the small tasks tightly and held the panic and breakdown at bay.

  They pulled into the yard at what she assumed was Rocky’s house. He dropped her off and watched as she walked to the front door. Stepping inside, she found all three women stood by the front door.

  “What were you thinking?” Hil snapped.

  “Nice to see you too,” Evonne said.

  “This isn’t you, Evonne. We’re worried,” Juliette piped in.

  “We know the shit with Levi has you reeling, but this is not the answer,” Joey said, unusually serious.

  “What? Having fun? Blowing off steam? Allowing myself a little distraction?” Evonne asked.

  Silence fell.

  “I know this seems sudden, but for the first time in a very long time, I don’t want to think. I can’t. Not right now.” Evonne shook her head. “I have to keep it together to get through this. Do you know what it’s like to be uprooted? I have to call my clients and cancel my work for an undetermined amount of time. Stay away from the home I worked so hard to get and make a safe haven.” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “Trust me, I’m screaming on the inside. This is me trying to get by. Can you let me have that?”

  “We’re just worried about what’ll happen when you come back to reality,” Juliette offered.

  “Regrets can eat you up from the inside out,” Hil added. “We don’t want that for you.”

  “It won’t.” Evonne shook her head. “Look, I’m not reading too deeply or looking to replace Levi with Rocky. It’s just—well shit, sex.”

  Joey snickered. “Oh my God, it’s like you suddenly have an evil twin.”

  “Oh come on, like all of you haven’t hooked up without thinking about happily ever after before.” Evonne rolled her eyes.

  “It’s not that we’re judging you. It’s that—well, we never thought you would,” Hil explained.

  “Me either. Things change.” Evonne shrugged.

  “Well, then I guess, okay,” Juliette said.

  “Now that we’ve done our obligational, let’s move on and ask what we all want to know. How was he?” Joey asked as she plopped down on the couch.

  Juliette and Hilary sat on opposite sides of her.

  Evonne sank down on the chair beside them, laughing. “Do you take me for a woman who kisses and tells?” She fluttered her lashes.

  “I sure as hell hope so. The man is fine,” Hil said.

  “Look, even Hil isn’t immune to his charms.” Joey gestured toward her friend.

  Juliette cleared her throat. “He does have quite a reputation.”

  “It’s well earned,” Evonne said.

  “Oooh!” The girls tittered and Evonne smirked.

  “So, you’re…as okay as you could be?” Juliette asked.

  “Yeah, Jul.” Evonne reached over and squeezed her hand. “Shaken, pissed at myself and still processing, but maintaining. Now, how about we move me in?” Evonne said, thinking of the boxes piled up in her room.

  “That’s what we really came here for. The cleaning supplies are in the kitchen. You know how bachelors live,” Hil said, shuddering.

  Evonne rose, grateful they’d decided to drop it for now. “Let’s get some music going.” She walked to her room, took out her mp3 player. A few minutes later, upbeat pop from her workout playlist filled the room.

  * * * * *

  Rocky opened the door to his house and stepped inside. The scent of something light and citrusy filled his nostrils. A red warning flag went up. Evonne had been cleaning. Did she move my shit around too? We’re going to have to talk. I’ll share my space for a time, but I’m not surrendering the keys to the bachelor pad totally. He shut the door behind him and walked farther down the small hall that led to the living room. The scent of something rich and meaty wafted in from the kitchen. His stomach grumbled. “Evonne?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  His gaze swept over his domain as he walked. Good, nothing’s been moved around. “What are you doing?” He stepped into the kitchen and paused in the doorframe.

  Evonne pulled out a glass plate of lasagna from the oven, set it on the stove and grabbed a loaf of garlic bread cut in half. “I’m just going to pop this in, and we can eat in like…ten?”

  “It smells amazing, but you didn’t have to do any of this shit. I can tell you cleaned up. You’re not a house mouse. There are no chores to be done when I leave.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She shrugged. “But I am staying here, cramping your style and I need something to keep me busy. I had to cancel all my upcoming jobs and now, if I don’t keep busy…I’ll go out of my mind here during the day.”

  “All right, fair enough. Let me put my shit in my room and I’ll meet up with you at the table.”

  She gave a small smile and nodded. “Sounds good. Beer okay?”

  “Hell, yeah. I need it after the ass kicking I just did.” He winked at her and headed back to his room. He couldn’t help but feel a bit appreciative. It’d been a long-ass time since he had a home-cooked meal.

  Images of his grandmother, whom he always called Nona, the Italian word for grandmother dance
d, in his head. The woman had birthed ten children. Small meals weren’t in her vocabulary. She’d had a soft spot for him, despite the banishment his mother earned when she had him out of wedlock and stepped out on her own. Family affairs had been a tense thing with his grandfather pretending he didn’t exist and glowering at his mom. His grandparents hadn’t come around at all until he was about ten, and his Nona had a heart attack. Apparently her near-death experience gave his soft-spoken, somewhat submissive Nona her own voice. Petite with tan skin, hands calloused and worn from hard work and with her curly white hair in a bun, she’d been a saint.

  Too bad none of that stuck with my mother. Junkie bitch. When his mom, Mona, wasn’t strung out she could give a Stepford wife a run for her money. Home-cooked meals, clean house, help with his homework. But he could never trust it. Because he knew eventually she’d fall off the wagon and turn into a monster.

  Pasty faced, rail thin, and constantly twitching, junkie Mona would do anything to get money for drugs and tended to forget about everything else. She cursed him, swung at him in her paranoid state when she swore he was after her stash and forced him to scrounge for food to keep from starving. He’d been grateful when he left the hellhole of an apartment he shared with her. Thank God Nona didn’t live to see the worst of it.

  Dropping the bag inside his room, he paused in the bathroom to wash his hands and proceeded to the kitchen. The wood floor practically gleamed and the counters were brighter than he’d seen them in a while. “It looks good. Did you do this all by yourself?”

  “No, the girls helped. They wanted to make sure I was settled in properly.”

  “I bet they did.” He smirked, taking a swig of the beer she set on table for him.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Bitches like to talk,” he said.

  “So conceited.” She clicked her tongue.

  “You telling me I’m wrong?” He watched her as she ran a hand along the back of her neck.

  “No,” she mumbled.

  “Mm-hmm.” He grinned and took another sip of beer. Might not be so bad having her around.

  A timer dinged.

  “And we’re ready to eat. I know you have a diet you keep to. I’m hoping this won’t wreck it too badly?”

  “Naw, you’re good. I can indulge every now and then. Rule of thumb, lean protein, some veggie and some fruit.”

  “Gotcha.” She bobbed her head and the dark hair she’d slicked back and put up into a high ponytail swayed from side to side.

  Rocky didn’t have a type, really. An equal-opportunity man, he’d been with girls of all shades and shapes. Yet there was something Evonne had going he liked on a level deeper than physical. Fuck, she’s the first girl I’ve slept with who I didn’t want to make disappear in the morning. Gives shit a different perspective.

  “I’ll serve you this time, but don’t think this is going to be a habit,” Evonne warned as she cut up pieces of bread and then the lasagna, placing them on his plain black ceramic plates.

  Rocky laughed, relieved she wasn’t trying to play house. “That’s fair enough. You going to make me do dishes too?”

  “Hey, I cooked, least you can do is clean.”

  “I don’t know, might mess up my pretty hands.”

  She snorted. “Please.” She walked to the table and placed the dishes across from one another. A glass of white wine sat at her place. “It feels nice to sit; it’s been awhile since I’ve been so domestic.”

  “What, you don’t do this for yourself?”

  She shook her head. “Maybe once or twice a week. I don’t have to make as much for just me and I usually go with light and quick. By the end of the day, my brain is fried from all the numbers and dealing with people. This may come as a surprise, but the more money people make, the bigger the assholes they tend to be when it comes time to do taxes and examine finances.”

  Rocky threw his head back and laughed. “Where the hell have you been hiding this personality?”

  She paused, swirling her wineglass around. “I’m not sure.”

  “Most people don’t react this way to finding out something like you did.” Yep, she intrigued him.

  “Hmm. Long story short, it sort of woke me up, you know? I’ve been asleep at the wheel a long time. It’s time I actually drive again.”

  “Well, if you ever need a joystick…mine’s just down the hall and available.” He grinned wickedly.

  She chuckled. “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. Bonus to your offer, I know you’re not a psycho taking pictures of me via hidden cameras in the wall.” Her expression clouded over and she stabbed at the lasagna while going quiet.

  Taking the lull as his cue, he took a bite and moaned. “Good shit, Firecracker.”

  “Thanks, it’s my gram’s recipe.”

  “Big ups to gram,” he said, taking a huge bite of the garlic bread. The decadent taste soothed his craving for something other than health food. It was a tough balance, life in the M.C. and training for mixed martial arts, but it had stockpiled them a lot of money and made them good connections. Not that you’d see him in any legal ring. Rule one, stay off the radar as much as possible.

  They finished their dinner around light conversation and witty banter. She seemed sharp as a tack and not afraid to kid with him. It earned his respect. When he’d seen her in the past, he used to wonder if she was shy or just plain scared of him and his brothers. “Okay, I got dish duty.” He pushed the chair back and stood, taking both of their plates.

  “Thanks. You know I was serious about not wanting to cramp your style,” she said almost tentatively.

  “Hey, don’t worry about it, I’m looking after you,” he said.

  “I wasn’t alone, was I?”

  “When the girls left, hell no, we got brothers doing drive-bys constantly. I’m so close, it’s simple enough. We also have surveillance cameras.” He wanted to be up front about it.

  She stopped in mid-step.

  “Hey, it’s on the outside only, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay. So um, what would you normally be doing?” she asked.

  “Over at the clubhouse.”

  “So do that,” she said.

  “You know I can’t go anywhere and leave you solo.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  Rocky laughed. “When you and the girls are there, a lot of watering down goes on. You head there now on a weekday and it’s going to be raw and raunchy. Not exactly your scene.”

  “But it’s yours?”

  Rocky shrugged. “After all that work, a man wants to relax.” And get blowjobs and sex, none of which will happen now, since I’m playing bodyguard.

  “You think I can’t handle it?” Her jaw tensed and she crossed her arms under her breasts.

  Her actions brought his attention to the melon-sized beauties displayed in her V-neck t-shirt. He licked his lips. “I’m not saying shit. I just didn’t see the point of making you sit through it. You want to go, we’ll go.” One thing I know how to do is keep a woman from being pissed at me.

  “So…we’ll go?”

  “Sure, if you want.” He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “You might want to, uh, change though. You’re wearing—a lot.” He gestured toward her clothes.

  Evonne gazed down at herself. “It’s jeans and a t-shirt.”

  “Yeah.” He nodded.

  She rolled her eyes. “Give me ten.”

  Rocky released a deep breath. This is either going to go very well or bad as fuck.

  She returned in less than five minutes in a black leather mini that hugged her curves.

  His jaw dropped. “Shit, mama, where’d you get that from?”

  “The back of my closet.” She lifted her legs to show off her knee-length boots. “Same place I dug this from. I wasn’t always a number-crunching, cautious, quiet accountant.” She smirked, clearly pleased she’d surprised him.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Life.”

  The shuttered look on her face t
old him that was all he’d be getting. “Fair enough. There’s one rule you have to follow though.”

  “Okay?”

  “What happens in the club stays there. No running and telling anyone anything and that includes your gaggle of besties,” he said, staring her down.

  “I can keep a secret,” she said.

  “Good. Let’s go.” He strode in front of her while adjusting the bulge in his pants. She had a bad girl inside her waiting to get out. Leave it to me to get stuck with a naughty accountant. He snickered. Naughty accountant, sounds like a porn.

  Ten minutes later, they were inside the compound and when they reached the club entrance, he paused. “You sure you want to do this?”

  “Well, we can’t hide in the house the whole time I’m with you.”

  “Aright, remember I warned you.” Rocky pushed the door open as the smell of beers and sex reached him. He heard her gasp and glanced over to the right where some of his brothers were doing lines of coke off a brunette’s rack. He turned to see Evonne wide eyed and slack jawed. “This is how we roll, sweetheart. You ready to pack it in?”

  “No.” She shook her head.

  Stubborn ass. He shrugged. Blissful cries assaulted his ear as he weaved his way through the crowd.

  “What the fuck, Rock?” Crazy hissed from his position perched on a stool at the bar.

  “Hey, she’s cool. She knows the rules. And seeing as how the two of us are glued at the hip ‘til shit blows over, I think it’s cool as fuck she’s willing to come here and kick it,” he said, daring Crazy to say something.

  Crazy mean-mugged her. “Just keep your fucking trap shut.”

  “Seems like you’re the one who runs off at the mouth every time I see you,” Evonne retorted.

  Crazy looked stunned and his jaw went slack.

  Rocky tossed his head back and laughed. “Damn, brother, she’s got a point there. Ease up, Firecracker. Crazy has his name for a reason.”