by Sara Cate
My feet shuffle back a step, in a moment of boldness that is nothing like me. Just enough that my shoulder brushes his chest.
I shrug, feeling his warmth on my skin from the movement, even through my sweatshirt. “Life, I guess.”
He hums, the vibrations from his chest rumbling against my arm, shooting into my own body. “If you could have any Christmas wish this year, what would it be?”
A Christmas wish? I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever wished for anything for Christmas. Not since I was a young child, at least. I know gifts and wishes are unattainable. Not anything I’d actually ever receive, so why even wish for it? It’s just a waste of time.
“I don’t know. Nothing.”
I can feel his frown. I can sense his displeasure in how grinchy I am. I can’t help it, it’s just how I’ve been brought up, I guess.
“Come on, Iris. One wish for Christmas. What would it be? A fucking pony?”
I turn around, a harsh glare instantly hitting my features. “I’m not a baby,” I snap, not sure where my balls are coming from. Yes, maybe he’s being a snarky fucking dick for his comment. I’m not the kid with the bouncy curls. I don’t want a fucking pony. But speaking up? I rarely do it to anyone.
“Then tell me what you want,” he implores, his dark gaze heavy on mine. It entraps me, keeps me locked in the mixture of pine and smoke and nothing—nothing at all—could ever release me from this prison.
Maybe I don’t want to be released.
“I want a new life,” I breathe, his eyes breaking the walls down, even when I don’t want them to. He doesn’t deserve to know the deep parts of me. No one does. I keep them locked away, only letting them out at night when I’m alone in my room. When I can wither away and wish for things that’ll never come true. But when I’m in front of people, I keep the guard high, and I never, never show weakness.
But somehow, Lynx breaks everything down with just one look.
“I want to live where I’m wanted. I want someone to look at me and tell me they want me to be there. I want to love and love back. I want fucking Christmas to actually be a holiday and not just another day. I want…” I take a breath, realizing I shouldn’t have drank so quickly, because I’m verbally spewing emotions to a man who probably thinks I’m batshit. “I don’t want to survive anymore. I just want to live. Like really live.”
He stares down at me, his face a mixture of irritation and unease. He doesn’t know how to take my words, and I don’t know why I ever expected he should.
“Sorry. I don’t know why I said all that shit.” I shake my head, self-consciousness creeping up my neck and into my face. I can feel the heat, the redness blotching across my skin. “Wow, that’s embarrassing.” I step away from him, but his hand snaps down, wrapping around my wrist.
“You said that shit because you mean it. Don’t ever feel bad or embarrassed for being you, Iris. Anyone that makes you feel that way deserves a bullet in the brain.”
A nervous chuckle breaks from my throat. “Okay.”
“Come here. Let me show you something.” His hand drops from my wrist, and he steps away from me, turning around and walking toward a room in the back. I follow him, because his hold over me feels unbreakable at this point. My interest is piqued with this man. Unfortunately, a sliver of infatuation is burning beneath the surface, one that can never be uncovered.
Most of all by Violet.
He steps into a dark room, slapping on the light. A large table, banged, bruised, and cut in various places stretches from one wall to the next. Seven chairs sit around it, with a wooden mallet at the end. Almost like a judge’s quarters, though I know it can’t be.
This is a motorcycle club.
“What is this?” Confusion twists my lips. What is he trying to tell me?
“This place that you stand in is a place my father built. After he passed, this club fell into my hands. Our lives are either built with money or dirt. We’re either raised in good or evil. We choose the path of right or wrong. There is no in between. But the good thing about being young is, you can still choose your path. Shit might stink in the dirt, but that doesn’t mean you don’t end up walking the path of money. You might go to sleep at night feeling wrong, but one day, everything will be right. Christmas has never been a thing? Well, when you grow up, make it the biggest fucking production of your entire life.”
He walks around the table, his corded forearms tensing as his fingers brush the rough surface. “I could’ve let this place burn to dust after my father died. I could’ve made my own path. But instead, I built something stronger than it’s ever been. The dreams and wishes that I always wanted, I made it happen, because I knew I could.” He ends at the head of the table, his hand gliding over the mallet. Lifting his eyes, they lock right on mine. “Take that fucking Christmas wish and make it happen, Iris. Don’t let your shitty life take you down with it.”
I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to laugh. I want to do so many things as my chest swells with a sensation I’m unfamiliar with and my eyes fill with tears. So many fucking emotions are swirling inside me that I can’t do anything besides walk around the table toward him. His eyes narrow as I get closer, his fingers wrapping around the mallet and squeezing tight, the knuckles whitening from the strain.
“What the hell are you doin’?”
“Why are you saying these things to me?” I whisper. Why does he care? Why does he waste his breath on a child who he’s never met?
What is this connection?
“Because you deserve to hear them.”
My hand lifts, my fingers barely touching the leather across his chest. “No one has ever said these words to me before. No one has ever cared enough to speak them.”
His eyes narrow. “Your home life pretty shitty, I take it?”
I nod. There isn’t much else to say about it.
He exhales, whiskey combined with smoke blowing my hair across my face. My hand heats where it lay lightly against his chest, and I want to curl my fingers against the rock-hardness of it, feel the muscles tense and his heart pound against my palm.
“People hitting you?”
I shake my head, and he mumbles under his breath. I can’t hear the words, but I can feel the vibration.
I take a step closer.
“What’re you doin’?” he asks me.
I don’t have an answer, because even I don’t understand what I’m doing. He’s older than me. Mid-thirties, I would guess. Too old for my seventeen-year-old self. But it doesn’t stop the emotions I’m feeling. It doesn’t stop how connected I feel to him after just one conversation.
“I don’t know.”
“You have to stop, Iris.”
Maybe I’m drunk, or maybe I’m just high on his words, but I can’t stop myself as I push up on my toes, leaning forward. It still doesn’t make me tall enough, though. My mouth barely hovers over his chin and lower lip, but his head is already tilted down, so I brush my lips against his scruff, my top lip soft against his bottom one that’s rough and dry but so fucking plump.
I whimper.
He tears himself from me, his hands going to my biceps, squeezing tight as he holds me at arm’s length. “No. Fuck no, Iris. What the fuck are you doing?”
“I-I don’t know.”
He whips his head back and forth, and my heart shrivels at the horrified look on his face. “You’re just a fucking kid.”
I frown, hating the word kid. Kid. Like I’m some baby, a juvenile that doesn’t know what she wants.
For just a moment, I thought he finally saw me… for me. Not a poor girl. Not a kid. Not someone who gets treated like shit from everyone around him.
I guess I was wrong.
I rip my arms from his hold, and he lets me, his face screwed up with so many different emotions that I can’t even read one.
“I have to go,” I say, lowering my face to the cigarette-burnt ground and walking toward the door.
“Iris, wait,” he barks at me.
<
br /> I take a breath, wanting to ignore him and leave. Walk out of here and back to the party. I don’t want to care. I don’t want to listen to another word he has to say. I’m so incredibly frustrated.
I thought he understood me. I thought we were on the same level, and for just a moment, I thought we understood each other.
I thought he felt what I felt.
How incredibly wrong I was.
But I can’t. So I stay where I am, listening as his footsteps come closer, to the point where I can once again feel the heat of him against my back. I take a shaky breath, feeling so out of sorts. I’ve never wanted anyone, not like this, anyway. My life has been filled with half-assed encounters with boys who I’m somewhat attracted to who don’t like me back because I’m three cents to being homeless, and grown men who think I’m a fucking diamond and want to touch me at first glance. I hate it, there’s never been any middle ground. I’ve never… wanted this badly.
Until now.
“I’m so embarrassed,” I whisper at the door, refusing to see his face. I don’t want to see the pity.
“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s just… you’re a kid, Iris.”
My nostrils flare, and my hand goes to the knob, swinging the door open and leaving him in the dark behind me.
I’m not a child.
Fuck that. Fuck him.
Chapter 7
“Violet,” I mumble, shoving her thigh. She doesn’t move from the couch, her head on the arm. Eyes closed.
Passed out.
“Violet, I need to go home.” I feel drunk. No, I am drunk.
Violet and I ended up having more than one drink. The moment Haley turned her head, occupied by other people, Violet made one fruity cocktail after another.
One. Two. Three. I don’t know how many, exactly. But it no longer tasted like liquor and started tasting delicious. I couldn’t stop.
I’m also irritated.
Avoiding Lynx at all costs didn’t become hard once my vision started darkening. The amount of people also made it easy, since the flood of leather meshed them all together in a sea of darkness. I slinked into the corner with Violet, and we drank and laughed and had a good fucking time.
A good time. When is the last time I actually enjoyed myself? I can’t remember the last time I had a smile on my face or felt a laugh burst from my chest.
But now I’m tired drunk. Stupid drunk. I need to go home, where I can wither away and recoup.
And I have no way to get home on my own.
I roll over, falling on Violet’s hip. Her hand lifts, and she slaps me in the arm, groaning as she buries her face deeper into the couch. “Leave me alone,” she moans.
My fingers grip her arm. “Violet, can you bring me home?”
She shakes her head. “Stay here.”
My head whips back and forth, and it makes my head pound across my forehead and into my eyes. “No, please…”
“Iris.” My name coming from a raspy voice causes a chill to run along my spine. I spin around, seeing Lynx stand there with a blank look on his face. “Let me take you home.”
My mouth opens to protest, my eyes flitting to back to Violet.
“Violet’s not leaving this couch until morning, and even if she was, I’d never let her get behind the wheel of a car. You two are fucking fools for drinking as much as you did.”
“We didn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me.” His tone is stern, fucking disappointed, and I’m both irritated and once again ashamed.
My eyes drop to the ground, and I can feel his burning into the top of my head. “Let me take you home,” he repeats.
I nod, knowing there’s no other choice I have at this point. It’s either go with Lynx, or stay here for the night. With one last glance at Violet, I shove off the couch and follow Lynx out of the front door. Most of the people are gone now, only a few lingering bikers sitting at the bar. Haley is gone, too, probably having gone to bed for the night.
Eyes follow me as I walk through with their President.
Why is he doing this? Is it because he feels bad for earlier? Or is he just trying to be a good guy? I almost laugh at that. He doesn’t seem like someone who cares about whether he’s a good guy or not. He seems like does what he wants when he wants.
I wrap my arms around my stomach as we step into the cool air. He walks up to a bike, the largest motorcycle out of the entire row. It’s filled with black and chrome and looks so deadly that I take a step back. “I can’t ride on that.”
He swings his leg over the seat, sitting down as he lifts it off the kickstand. “Why is that?”
“Don’t you have a car or something? There isn’t even enough room for me.” There’s plenty of room, but I’ll have to sit right up against him, and that seems like the most dangerous thing to do after what happened earlier.
“Darlin’, I haven’t driven or ridden in a car in years. If I’m not on my bike, I ain’t goin’, so get on, or go back inside and get to sleep.”
I bite my lip, watching him watch me. It’s the middle of the night, and all the lights are off. We stand in the dark, save for the moon hanging high in the sky. A light blanket of snow that must have fallen over the last few hours covers our surroundings in white. It won’t be snowing at home, and it feels weird to see it here. Completely abnormal with palm trees only a handful of miles away.
He shifts to get off his bike, and my hands fly up. “Wait, I’m coming.” Walking to the side of the bike, I swing my leg over, but the seat is so high I can barely reach my ankle to meet the other side. His arm snaps back to help me, his strong fingers digging into the meat of my thigh as he holds me in place. I stay perfectly still as his hand slides up, barely touching my butt before he grips onto the fabric of my leggings near my hip and pulls me the rest of the way onto his bike. I fly up, my butt slamming back onto the padded seat. My hands instantly go to his sides, and they’re so strong and toned, I can’t help as my fingers curl, burying against the hardened muscles.
Jesus.
He stiffens against me but doesn’t say anything as his fingers curl behind my knees and pull me forward, until my front snuggles directly against his back.
I’m not a religious person, but if I were, I’d be praying right about now.
His hands release my legs and go to the handlebars. Switching on his motorcycle, the heavy rumble vibrates beneath me. I can’t hear anything, I can barely even think as the smell of winter pine and smoke invades me.
The bike jerks forward, and off we go.
The air changes from crisp to cool, the mountain air turning salty as the Pacific Ocean grows closer. The seclusion becomes less so and more people flood the streets.
Does it look weird? With a high schooler on the back of a motorcycle, with a grown man covered in facial hair and a messy ponytail? His tattooed arms flex and tense as he swerves through the lanes, controlling his massive bike with such ease. Like it’s absolutely nothing.
He knows how to ride. He owns not only the bike, but the entire road he rides on.
I don’t have to say where to go. No directions are given as he weaves and cuts through the streets, like he’s been to my house one million times.
By the time he stops in front of my apartment, my mouth is dropped wide, and I can do nothing but hold onto his body with shaky arms, wondering how the hell he knew where to go.
“You gettin’ off or staying on my bike all night?” he mumbles, the vibrations rolling from his back and into my belly.
That snaps me into action. I slide off his bike and stand in front of him. He stares at me, his dark eyes so mysterious and commanding that I can’t look away from them.
“How did you… I don’t understand…” The sleeves of my sweatshirt bunch over my hands, and I squeeze the worn fabric, nervous and mortified at the state of my home. Trash is littered outside, the front steps broken and crumbling, cracked with only half a railing.
“I think the bigger question is, why’re you living in such a pile of sh
it?”
I look down at my feet, and a flush breaks out along my body. I have no choice on where I live. I have no job and no money. My mom barely has anything herself.
“You don’t have to stay here.”
My eyes lock with his again, trying to make sense of what he means. I feel so shattered on the inside, knowing it’s not true. “Where else would I go?”
His eyes burn bright, his fist clenching around his handlebars. “You can stay with me.” His eyes shutter. “At my clubhouse. With Violet and Haley. You can stay with them.”
A cat screeches in the alleyway, and I so badly want to fold. To crumble and let him save me. But I can’t. I could never leave my mother. She wouldn’t survive without me.
“I can’t,” I whisper, turning around before I take back my words and leap into his arms.
The engine revs behind me, and I can feel the distance break between us as his bike roars down the road, leaving me in the dust. I glance over my shoulder at the last second, watching his shirt rise over his lower back, the toned, tattooed skin shining under the light of the moon.
The fog of my drunkenness has abated slightly, and I push open the front door that’s already propped open by an old milk crate, kicking it out of the way. I don’t know why people leave the front door like this all the time. All it does is lead to creepy homeless people wandering through the building and knocking on all our doors in the middle of the night.
I make my way to the second floor, half wishing my mom is here so I know she’s safe, and half wishing she isn’t. That will mean her boyfriend is here too, and I really don’t want to run into him after seeing his dick earlier.
I stop in front of my beaten, wooden door with more chips in it then there’s actual wood. Just as I’m about to open it, the sound of footsteps pounds up the stairs. Glancing over my shoulder, I see the massive body of Lynx prowling toward me, his legs toned and the strands from his hair falling from his pony, across his face.
“What—”
Before I can even think to finish, he reaches me but doesn’t stop moving. His body slams against mine, my back hitting the wall from his pace as he starts to guide me into the corner of the hallway. His hand goes to my jaw, his fingers expanding around the back of my neck, threading through my hair. He tilts my head to look up at him, and I gaze in shock into his eyes. Dark, so fucking dark.