Exposed_Fury Riders MC

by Sophia Gray

  “I saw a guy run out the back of the house and into that back road,” he said, still pointing off into the distance.

  “What the hell?” Jagger said, breaking into a run. “Why didn’t you fucking say something sooner?”

  “You were fighting,” Tony said weakly, starting to follow Jagger before shooting ahead of him. Abby did the same, putting all the strength in her body into her limbs to run as fast as possible. Jagger sped up, and they ran together, side by side, too focused on their target – a little brown blip on the horizon by this point – to yell at each other.

  After another five minutes of running, it was evident the chase had become futile. There was no way they were going to catch up with him. He was too far ahead, and there was no way of telling how many turns he’d taken by now.

  “Goddammit,” Jagger said in between big pants for air.

  “You can say that again,” Abby replied as she bent over and grabbed her knees, stretching out her aching muscles. “Fucking Christ.”

  “Well, are you happy now?” Jagger said as soon as he caught his breath.

  Anger flared up Abby’s spine, hot and painful. “Are you fucking serious? You’re blaming this on me?”

  Jagger shrugged. “Well, if you hadn’t been here, I definitely would have been able to catch him.”

  “And if you hadn’t been here, I would have been able to talk to him. Or, if you just hadn’t freaked out when you saw me, none of this would have happened. Jesus H., man,” Abby groaned, turning to walk back to the potential arsonist’s house where their cars were still parked.

  “Technically it’s all our faults,” Tony said, still heaving for breath as he walked slowly behind them.

  “Shut up, Tony,” both Jagger and Abby said at the same time.

  The slower Abby walked, her worn-out limbs aching more and more with each step forward, the more drained she felt overall. The anger from before had receded, and instead, she just felt useless. Her big attempt to prove herself as worthy of the investigation went up in smoke, no pun intended. Now Jagger thought she was an even bigger problem than she was before. Why do I care? Abby thought. Why do I give a single flying fuck if he thinks I’m strong or weak? I know I’m good enough. That’s all that matters, right?

  When they walked back to the cars, she got into Jagger’s rather than Tony’s. She knew they were going to have a painful conversation either way, and she figured it was better to get it over with as soon as possible. “Let me have it,” she murmured, the tone of defeat seeping into her voice against her will as she sunk against the back of the passenger seat of Jagger’s car.

  “Already said everything I need to say,” Jagger muttered as he switched the car on and pulled out, heading onto the main road.

  That sounded ominous. Abby would much rather have been yelled at than deal with his judgmental silence as if he were in some position of authority over her. She felt like a little kid always being scolded, constantly doing the wrong thing. She shouldn’t have even cared about his opinion of her, but it rankled her nerves, making her feel more insecure than she had in years. He had a way of making her feel like she was still fifteen, still stuck in a hospital bed waiting for God to decide what her fate was. Why couldn’t Jagger understand that she needed to have some control over her life? Why couldn’t he get that she needed to participate in the investigation as much as she needed to stay alive? He of all people should have understood that.

  She was so wrapped up in her own useless, pathetic thoughts that she didn’t even notice that they weren’t heading toward Satan’s Blazes’ compound until several minutes down the road. Abby turned around to see if Tony was following them, but she couldn’t see his car anywhere behind them. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “My house,” Jagger said curtly, his tone hard and mean.

  “I thought you lived at the compound. Don’t you have a room there?” The room where we fucked, she thought silently.

  “I do, but I also have my own property,” Jagger said, swiftly taking a hard turn onto a side road. “We’re going to stay there.”

  “We? There’s no we here. I’m not staying with you,” Abby said petulantly. She hated how whiny her voice sounded, how young she came across, how immature. She was in the right in this situation and she wasn’t going to back down, not for anything.

  “Uh, yeah, you are,” Jagger said as he took another turn, this time on a rocky, uneven road that had Abby bouncing a little in her seat.

  “What is this, a citizen’s arrest?” Abby asked. “I’m not going to stay with you. End of story.”

  Jagger didn’t say anything, he just mumbled something under his breath as he pulled up to a large, Gothic-looking house at the end of the gravel road. He turned the engine off, immediately jumping out of the car without saying anything to Abby.

  For a long moment, she just sat in the car, staring out at the huge building that Jagger apparently owned. She wouldn’t have thought he would stay in a place like this. It was so big and dramatic, like something out of a Beauty and the Beast production. Despite herself, she liked it, and she couldn’t help but feel curious as to what it looked like on the inside. What was she going to do, anyway, call a cab? Even if she called the cheapest cab service available, it was going to take at least a half-hour before the driver got there. She had nothing to do but go in and explore.

  The front door was unlocked, even though it loudly creaked as Abby opened it and stepped inside, closing it with a slam behind her so that Jagger knew she came in. The place was covered top to bottom with a layer of dust. Cleaning wasn’t Jagger’s forte, but she figured he spent most of his time at the compound anyway. There were old, obsolete candlestick holders sticking out of the walls everywhere she looked, and a large chandelier hung down from the center of the ceiling in the front room. Abby couldn’t help herself. She looked up and stared at the beautiful shining lights. It was hypnotizing, staring at the rainbow reflections within each crystal bulb. She could get used to staying in a place like this. But I’m not, she reminded herself. No matter how romantic it is. I’m not staying here with his dumb ass.

  She slowly walked through the main room, stumbling over some random cardboard boxes on the ground that her eyes didn’t pick up on in the darkness. She followed the little bit of light she could see down a long hallway to her left. That must have been where Jagger went. Abby paused at the entrance to the hallway, leaning her weight on the wall for a second to give her body a break. It had been a long day, but somehow, she knew it was nowhere near over just yet.

  No one made her walk down the hallway toward Jagger. The smart thing, the only sensible thing would have been to turn around, leave the house, call a cab, and never talk to him again. Nothing good would come of this. They were too angry, too chaotic. Abby didn’t need any more of that kind of energy in her life. So, what was the point?

  She knew all this, and yet she still found herself moving forward, toward the light.

  Abby paused in front of the door, straining her ears to see if she could hear any sound on the other side, trying to prepare herself for another encounter with an angry Jagger. Eventually, however, she sighed in defeat, unable to make out a single noise. She leaned her head against the door, giving herself a final moment of peace, before knocking lightly against the thick wood.

  “Come in,” Jagger said from the other side. His voice sounded normal, casual, like all his emotion had receded. Even still, Abby inhaled deeply and pushed on the door slowly, carefully peeking inside, her heart pounding in her ears.

  The first thing she noticed was a shirtless Jagger, rubbing a towel over his bare bulging shoulders. “Uh, hi,” Abby said softly, her words coming out stilted and awkward. She was partly nervous, embarrassed that she’d shown her temper so badly fifteen minutes earlier. At the same time, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Jagger’s chest. She was only human, right? “Hey, there. I’m sorry about before.”

  “Don’t be,” Jagger said, but his words came out a litt
le too quickly, suggesting he hadn’t even heard her, rather just correctly anticipated what was going to come out of her mouth.

  “Well, I am,” Abby replied. “It’s my business, and I’m choosing to feel shitty about it.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s up to you,” Jagger said as he walked over to his dresser, picking up a thin white T-shirt and slipping it over his head. Abby inwardly mourned the loss of his bare chest. Stop it, she berated herself, physically shaking her head as if that could make the horny thoughts go away.

  “I shouldn’t have lied to you,” Abby said, stepping a little further into the room and shutting the door behind her out of habit. “That was messed up.”

  Jagger turned his head in her direction, but his back still faced her. Abby could see the definition of his back muscles even through the shirt. Goddamn, he was a beautiful specimen. “You mean that?” he asked.

  “Yes. Lying’s bullshit. I don’t like doing it,” Abby said. “But it’s also… It’s also pretty fucked up that you tried to cut me out of the investigation. I didn’t appreciate that.”

  “Yeah,” Jagger said, finally turning around to face her. “I got that.”

  Abby was silent a moment, crossing her arms over her chest. “Are you going to apologize, or….?”

  “I don’t want to lie to you, either,” Jagger said. “I’m not sorry. Not really. I just wanted to keep you safe. I don’t understand why that’s so awful to you.”

  The words hurt, mostly because Abby knew they were true. There was something defective about her, something broken and burnt-through, that made her different than other people. She had come so close to death as a teenager, practically brushing up against it like a cat rubbing its owner’s legs. But she’d gotten away. She’d survived. She just hadn’t known what the price would be. To survive, you must stop living. Or at least you’ve got to stop living like a person does. That’s what Abby thought, anyway. When something breaks you, when something tears the fabric of your body apart, turns your flesh into your enemy— After that happens, you become an alien creature that eats, drinks, and breathes fear. Life takes a backseat to that, Abby said to herself, like a prayer, like her fear had become her own religion. It had kept her safe all these years, when she’d listened to it. With Mark, she’d ignored her fear, she’d pushed it down into the depths of her soul, and as a result, she’d paid the price.

  She would never make that mistake again.

  At this point, several minutes had passed with dead silence in the room. Abby’s legs started to feel weak as if the weight of the rest of her body had become too much for them to bear. She couldn’t help it. She sunk down onto Jagger’s soft bed, letting her limbs splay out uselessly. “Are you okay?” Jagger said behind her.

  “Yeah… I’m… Yeah,” Abby said, stuttering out the words. She stared down at her feet, trying to ground herself, but she kept feeling more and more light-headed. She knew he was asking her if she was having a panic attack again, but this feeling was different. It wasn’t about panic. It was about despair. Somehow, before this moment, she’d never really comprehended how alone she was, how alone she had been in order to feel safe. If she let someone in, they could hurt her. Worse, they could take care of her, and in the process of taking care of her, prove that she was truly weak. Either way, she would end up losing. She couldn’t relate to anyone, positively or negatively, without admitting that she wasn’t strong, she wasn’t whole, she wasn’t complete.

  Jagger’s hands touched her shoulders lightly, his fingertips skirting over the sleeves of her shirt. “Everything’s okay, you know,” Jagger whispered above her.

  “How do you know?” Abby whispered back, barely able to hear her voice in her ears over the rush of her heartbeat.

  “You’re here with me. I’ve got you,” Jagger said, sounding perfectly secure. His confidence diffused into Abby’s body, loosening up her muscles as she relaxed. She fell back into his touch, rocking her head back on his chest as he stood behind her on the bed. “Relax. Just relax,” he whispered, digging the palms of his hands into her tense shoulders, driving gently into her wound-up muscles. “Relax.”

  “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” Abby whispered, feeling the guilt leave her body like smoke winding away from a candle being sucked into the light.

  “I’m sorry I upset you. Really. I am,” Jagger said, pressing his hands down harder into Abby’s skin. “I just want to keep you alive. That’s all I want.”

  Abby bit down on her bottom lip, unsure if she believed him. “You make me feel weak, you know? And I can’t stand that. I can’t stand it.” She whispered fiercely.

  Jagger was quiet for a just a moment, rubbing his way down her neck and back. It was amazing, how quickly they fell back into physical intimacy, like it was meant to be. Abby’s body felt like it was permanently disconnected from her brain, but at the same time it was like her and Jagger’s bodies spoke the same language, beyond what their brains could understand. Deep in Abby’s mind, some little voice still protested that she was pissed off, that Jagger was an idiot, a Neanderthal who acted like he had authority over her when he didn’t. Unwilling, her shoulders sank beneath his touch, her neck falling to one side as Jagger leaned in and brushed his lips against her sensitive flesh.

  “Why is that the worst thing?” Jagger asked in between tiny little kisses along Abby’s neck. “Being weak? Why is that always bad?”

  “Because,” Abby replied as if that explained everything. She sighed deeply, willing the right words to come to her. “Because I can’t… I can’t go back to that.” She let her head hang back, allowing Jagger to dig more deeply into the tension at the base of her neck. For right now, she would let herself melt into his arms. It didn’t have to mean anything. She could still scream at him later for his overprotective bullshit; she could still allow herself to hate him as a person if she needed to. But his hands… his hands were miracle workers. She was powerless to resist them, even as they began to dip inside her clothing, rubbing at the skin of her shoulders and collarbone.

  “You gotta move forward. The past is in the past. Why let it make you miserable?” Jagger asked, leaning in again to drop kisses against the top of her head, nudging at her scalp with his nose.

  “It’s not like I’ve got much of a choice. I’m the… the only one I’ve got…” Abby murmured, her thoughts getting hazier and hazier as Jagger’s fingers slid under the hem of her shirt, scratching their way up her spine. Her head rocked back and forth, into thin air and back onto Jagger’s torso. It was almost a rhythm at this point: back and forth, back and forth. Meanwhile, Jagger’s hands found her shoulder-blades, tracing the bone delicately until Abby groaned softly, backing further into his touch.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Jagger replied, but at this point, Abby wasn’t sure what she had even said just a moment earlier, her brain was so fuzzy and warm. The next thing she knew, her top was being pulled over her head, leaving her in only her bra. “Lay down,” Jagger ordered her, gently pushing her down. Abby laid on her stomach and shoved a pillow beneath her chin, hugging the warm blankets to her chest while Jagger straddled her back. He dragged his nails lightly down her spinal column until she squirmed, her hips twitching. “You’re good at relaxing, you know? It looks beautiful on you.”

  Abby had no idea how to respond to that. She just shifted on the bed, backing her ass up so that there was less space between her torso and Jagger’s body. She couldn’t help herself. She had to ask the question that popped up into her mind. “Am I… prettier when I calm down or something?” Her voice came out embarrassingly squeaky, making her sound like a twelve-year-old girl anxious about what her crush thought of her.

  “It’s not that simple,” Jagger said before leaning over and sliding his lips gently over her back, in one direction and then in the opposite direction, over and over again, making all of the nerve endings in Abby’s skin come alive. “It’s not about being pretty. You’re always pretty. But when I’ve got you like this, pinned unde
r me….” He paused to drag his tongue up the back of her neck, causing her to moan breathlessly with pleasure. “You glow. I like seeing it.”

  Abby shifted her hips around in circles, wanting more of his hands on her skin. “God, you feel so good. You make me feel….”

  “Good?” Jagger suggested.

  “Safe,” Abby said. “And dangerous, at the same time. I can’t wrap my head around it.”

  “Maybe you don’t have to,” Jagger whispered in her ear, his hot breath making her tingle uncontrollably as if she were being tickled in all of her most sensitive spots all at once. “Maybe you can just take it in. And not fucking worry about it.”

  “That’s not my style,” Abby said with a laugh, which quickly transformed into a whimper as Jagger bit down lightly on the side of her neck.

  “Try it on for size,” Jagger hissed into her ear before sucking her lobe into his mouth, dragging the sensitive flesh between his teeth. “See if you like it.”

  “I think… I think I do,” Abby whispered, afraid to confess the truth out loud but also, incapable of resisting it. “I think I really like it.”