Stand (The Brazen Bulls MC Book 7)

by Susan Fanetti

  He’d sat with her and let her spew her rancor at him, filling her glass when she asked. After a while, she’d calmed and softened, and they’d started talking normally. Flirting.

  That night, he’d done something totally stupid and shitty. She’d come on strong, hanging all over him, sticking her tongue in his ear, running her fingers through his hair, grabbing at his crotch. And she was hot as hell, with all that red hair and those fierce blue eyes, those hips that swelled out just right from a small waist, and just the right bit of jiggly junk in her trunk. He would always remember that black dress, tight as paint. It had laced up her back and showed a mile of fair, bare skin down the full length of her spine. The hemline had stopped right below her shapely, just-right-jiggly ass. And her legs had gone on and on and on.

  She’d been literally begging him for it, and so fucking hot. So he’d taken her upstairs to a crash pad and given her what she wanted. It hadn’t been the best sex of his life, because she’d been too drunk to really get into it, but he’d thought it went okay.

  The next morning, he’d tried to tell her he liked her—like, liked her—and wanted to see her again, but he couldn’t get a word in while she muttered fuck fuck fuck over and over and scrambled into her clothes.

  He’d stared at the closed door after she left, feeling rejected and pissed. And then Gunner, his sponsor, had stormed into the room and dragged him downstairs by his hair.

  It wasn’t until he was sitting naked on a chair while Gunner and Maverick took turns screaming at him and beating his brains to mush that he saw he’d done something shitty—or at least, that it could be seen that he had.

  It wasn’t until just yesterday, standing on the sidewalk while Cecily’s Trans Am laid down rubber escaping him, that he understood what the shitty thing he’d done had really been.

  He’d fucking raped her.

  ~oOo~

  “Hey, Caleb. Got a minute?” Apollo came up alongside the truck he was working on, and Caleb stepped out from under the lift. He had only a minute, actually; his shift was about up, and he needed to get this job finished before he clocked out.

  “Yeah.”

  Apollo glanced around before he spoke, his voice a step lower than usual. “I got her bag. Can you take it to her? I got to get back to Jacinda.”

  “She okay?”

  “Yeah. The bed rest is making her crabby, and she gets depressed when she’s alone. I don’t like to be gone when I don’t have to be.”

  “Cecily doesn’t want to see me, brother. Not unless I’m cutlets on her dinner plate.”

  Apollo laughed. “That goes for all of us, Cay. But I don’t want to bring any more Bulls into her drama, and I’m not about to ask Willa to go over there again. She’ll be glad to have her shit back, and you don’t have to stay.”

  He owed her a very late apology, anyway. “Yeah, okay. I can’t stay, anyway. I have to get back to Hominy tonight.”

  Apollo nodded and pointed to Caleb’s work station. “It’s in that sack. Far as I could tell, everything’s in there—phone, wallet, money, keys. That doesn’t mean somebody didn’t check out her ID, but it’s an old address.”

  Caleb noticed that Apollo’s hand was pretty fucked up—swollen, the knuckles torn up. A lot worse than they’d been after he’d beaten the tweaker. “What happened there?”

  “Had to push my way through some obstacles to get her bag. Not a big deal. But I have to do some checking. We might not be able to keep this quiet for her.”

  “Shit. Is it a club thing?” If it was a club thing, it probably meant trouble with the Street Hounds again, and that would seriously suck.

  “I don’t know yet. If it is, you know I’m going straight to D with it.”

  Yeah, he knew. There was probably no Bull less likely to keep a dangerous secret from the club than Apollo. Right around the same time Caleb had gotten a lesson about not fucking—raping, shit—drunk club daughters in the clubhouse, Apollo had gotten a lesson on the consequences of keeping secrets that could hurt them.

  They both carried scars. Apollo’s were worse. They’d burned him. Right here, where they now stood. Roasted him over hot coals, the whole club standing around him in a circle, like some medieval ritual.

  So, yeah. No secrets. “She won’t like it, but she’ll have to deal with it.”

  Apollo nodded. “Agreed. I’ll let you know if I need to go to D.”

  ~oOo~

  Caleb got to Ox and Maddie’s house around seven. He needed to be back in Hominy by eight. It was forty miles, but on his bike he could do that in half an hour or so. He had plenty of time to drop off Cecily’s bag and even take a minute to apologize—and check on her, too.

  She was there; her TA was parked on the driveway. It needed a wash. Here in April, there were still grimy blotches of salt scum from the winter, and the windshield was filthy, except for the arcs cleaned by the wipers.

  Caleb had been pissed at her Saturday night, seeing what she’d done to the house, but after Sunday, he thought maybe she wasn’t just a slob. She was a mess in general. Maybe the house and her car, and what had happened Saturday night, was all part of the same deal—the girl was dangling off a cliff, holding on by a blade of grass.

  Why, though? Things were pretty good for her, weren’t they? She had a college degree, and a job, and this sweet house for free. Her mom’s shop kept her in all the clothes she wanted. She was gorgeous and young, and what was so bad in her life?

  Yeah, her dad was dead, okay. Join the fucking dead-parent club. Both his parents were dead.

  He didn’t get it. He knew why she hated the Bulls, and that made some kind of sense. But why did she hate herself so much? And everything else?

  As he stepped to the front door and rang the bell, he shoved all that to the side. He was here to give her the bag and apologize for what he’d done two years ago, and to ask how she was doing. No need for him to ask her anything else.

  She answered the door with a scowl—and that expression got deeper and darker when she saw him. Wearing the same clothes as the day before, without the hoodie, she crossed her arms. The bruising at her elbow had gotten even darker, almost black. Whoever had shot her up had dug around for a long time trying to get the stick right.

  He’d checked a few times, as surreptitiously as possible, and hadn’t seen track marks. His bet was that stick had been her first—and her last, he hoped.

  However, she was clearly a habitual user of a lot of other shit. Before she spoke, he was fairly certain she was already wasted. Then she slurred, “What do you want?” at him. Yeah, she was skunked. And still not a member of his fan club.

  “I thought you had work today.” She taught at the community education center—teaching people how to write resumes and shit like that, he thought. But all the evidence before him suggested that she hadn’t left the house all day.

  “I called in. What’s it to you?”

  “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I’m great. Thanks for asking.” She moved to slam the door in his face, but he shot his hand out and stopped it, earning an evil eye from her.

  “I also have your bag. Apollo went for it.” He held up the sack.

  “I don’t want it.” She turned and walked away, into the house, leaving the door open.

  Caleb stood there on the porch for a second, not sure what to do. Of course she wanted her bag, with her wallet, her phone, and her keys. He stepped over the threshold and went in.

  It would have been an exaggeration to say that all his work cleaning up after her had been undone, but she’d done what she could in the past day and a half to get a good start on the undoing. There were three dirty plates, with utensils, and four glasses, on the kitchen table. She had a couple of notebooks and more loose-leaf pages of writing strewn over the table, too. A couple of take-out bags and some cartons littered the main counter. And about a dozen empty beer bottles and an empty Absolut bottle were grouped like a battalion near the sink.

  While he
took that in, Cecily was at the freezer, pulling out another bottle of Absolut, this one about three-fourths empty.

  “I didn’t invite you in,” she muttered fuzzily as she poured vodka into a glass. “Go away.”

  Caleb set the sack with her purse on the table. “What’s wrong, Cecily?”

  “At the moment, my biggest problem is you’re standing in my house. Go the fuck away.”

  He had to go anyway, but first he had to say something. She was drunk, and maybe she wouldn’t remember. Maybe he’d have to say it again. But right now, the words had to come out. “I’m sorry.”

  “Good. Then leave.”

  “No, I mean…I’m sorry about what I did. At the clubhouse a couple of years ago. I shouldn’t have…I mean, you were too drunk—”

  “Shut up.”

  Those words were crystal clear and furious, but he didn’t understand why, and he couldn’t shut up. He had to say what had been eating at him since the day before. “You were drunk, and you didn’t know—”

  “Shut up!”

  “—didn’t know what you were doing, and I took advantage of that, and I’m sorry. I like you, Cecily. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

  She threw the bottle of vodka at him. In no way had he thought that was coming, and it hit him square in the cheekbone, splashing vodka over him. Under the flash of pain, he felt the skin split, and the sting of the alcohol, and then the rush of hot blood from the cut.

  “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” More shit—glasses, trash, everything on the counter—sailed at him, most of it hitting him, and Caleb leapt around the corner, out of range.

  She chased him, still screaming the same two words in a psychotic chant, and when she came around the corner she had a goddamn chair in her hands, lifting it over her head. With no clear path to the door and no other alternative besides getting hit with a chair, Caleb ducked and dived, grabbing her legs, and took her down to the floor. The chair hit his back and bounced away as she lost hold of it.

  His cheek ran blood and spattered over them both. Cecily fought in a frenzy, screaming incoherently now, loud enough that Caleb worried a neighbor would call the cops. She hit and kicked and screamed, and it was like she’d grown four more legs and six more arms. Finally, he got his body over hers enough to subdue her. She fought on for a few ineffectual seconds and then gave up and lay there, panting, glaring daggers at him with tear-drenched eyes.

  She was covered in his blood. He was covered in his blood. They were in Maddie and Ox’s living room, and he was bleeding all over Maddie’s white carpet.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. He was short of breath, too. And full to the brim with confusion.

  “Please shut up. Please go away. Please.”

  “I don’t know why I make you so mad.”

  A sob broke out of her clenched jaws. “Please. Please, please, please. Just go.”

  Understanding finally dawned that he was forcing himself on her again, and Caleb pushed himself off. “I’m sorry.”

  She was still lying on the bloody carpet when he left. It felt wrong to go, but what choice did he have?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Cecily woke before dawn, lying on the living room floor, gummy blood spattered over her face and hands and chest, and bloodstains on the carpet. Her eyes had the dry, itchy feel that told her she’d cried herself to sleep. The vodka gods hadn’t seen fit to bestow on her the blackout boon, so she remembered everything that had happened, and she sat there on the floor for a long time, feeling shitty about everything.

  But it was Tuesday, she remembered that, too. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she taught three classes. It was the first Tuesday of the month, so she also had a staff meeting, and an obligatory lunch date with her mother. If she called in on a day like today, people would start to ask questions. She wouldn’t be the girl who partied hard, she’d be the girl with A Problem. Nope. That was not happening.

  Once she’d showered and had a cup of coffee in her, though, Cecily felt basically human. The sun hadn’t risen yet, so she took the time to sweep up the mess in the kitchen—shit, she’d broken three of Maddie’s glasses and two plates. While she was at it, she ran the dishwasher and took out the trash—a lot more cleaning than she’d done in a while. After everything was put to rights, she stared at the carpet, trying to figure out what to do. What got blood out of white carpet? Who the fuck put white carpet in their living room?

  The doorbell rang, and she jumped, nearly spilling her coffee and adding another feature to the abstract art on the carpet. It wasn’t even seven in the morning. Expecting no one, wanting no one, she ignored it.

  Then there was a loud knock—more of a pounding, really. “Cecily!” Maverick. He pounded again, rang again, shouted her name again. “Cissy!” Then he tried the doorknob, which was unlocked, and shoved the door open and stepped inside.

  He stood there in his Sinclair uniform, a white thermal t-shirt under his light green shirt, his kutte over it, his Oakleys tucked by one stem into a chest pocket.

  “Hey. We need to talk.”

  She could tell by looking at him that he knew a lot more about her past few days than he had on Sunday afternoon. Caleb must have left and gone straight to him. “Fucking Caleb. Fucking rat.”

  He closed the door. “He should’ve told me right away. Why didn’t you tell me? We were sitting there, you’d come to me. Why didn’t you say?”

  “Nothing to say. Just had a bad weekend.”

  “Cissy, that was more than a bad weekend.” He noticed the blood on the carpet. “What the hell?”

  “It’s not mine. It’s Caleb’s”

  Maverick turned to her, his eyebrow halfway up his forehead. “You did that to him? What’d he do?”

  Apologized. She’d lost her shit at him for apologizing. But she didn’t want his apology. Everybody seemed hellbent on making her into a victim.

  “Pissed me off.” When murder took up a seat on Maverick’s face, she added, “I way overreacted. He didn’t do anything wrong. It was just an argument, and I lost my shit.”

  “You’re doing that a lot lately.”

  She shrugged, but she knew it was true. Living alone in this house, things had been slipping pretty fast. She’d thought she wanted to be alone—she did want to be alone—but…she didn’t know. Everything was just hard.

  Maverick took her hand. “Come sit. Let’s talk.”

  “I have to get ready for work.”

  “I’ve got work, too. Come sit.” He drew her to the sofa, walking around the bloodstains, and sat her down. Cecily set her coffee on the table, remembering to use a coaster.

  Maverick still had hold of her hand. “I need you to tell me everything that happened Saturday. Everything you remember.”

  “I don’t remember anything important.”

  “Everything you remember, Cissy. Now.”

  He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Typical Bull bullying. But, under her irritation at being intruded upon, and the rising anxiety at the thought of talking about this, Cecily felt something else—something like relief. She trusted Mav. He was the only one she did trust. When he let go of her hand and put his arm around her shoulders, she let him tuck her close.

  “I met some friends at Tempest. They do dollar Jell-O shots on Saturday nights.”

  “What friends are these?”

  “Just some people from work.”

  “Names, Ciss.”

  “No, Mav. They didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “If you blacked out, how can you be sure?”

  “Because they’re my friends. If you blacked out with Gun, would you think he fucked with you?”

  “No. But he’s my best friend. These friends—they’re that close?”

  No, they weren’t. But they were as close as anyone. “They’re close enough. They didn’t do anything to me, and you don’t need to know who they are.”

  Actually, Cecily did wonder when and how she’d been separated from them, but she figured it w
as her fault. She was a real bitch when people got in her way—even sober, she tended to overreact. Fucked up, though, she could get violent. She knew this.

  “One of my friends had some acid, and Tempest is a great place to trip—with all the neon and the house music, and everything is just bright and rhythmic and beautiful. Somebody else had some Molly.”

  “Fuck, Cecily. Acid, E, and vodka? All at once?”