CRASH (A Stone Kings Motorcycle Club Romance)

by Daphne Loveling

  “My husband,” she retorted. “My stepchildren.”

  Her voice tripped over the words, and strangely, my stomach dropped to hear them.

  To imagine her married, when she couldn’t be more than twenty-one or twenty-two… well, it’s not that she wasn’t old enough. Hell, twenty-two was practically ancient for a woman to be unmarried in the WFZ. But she just seemed so… innocent. Granted, the women I was used to being around these days looked older at eighteen than this one probably would at thirty. But still. Given what I knew about the place she had escaped, I could fill in some of the blanks of what her marriage had probably been like. And it wasn’t pretty.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, my mind fixing on something she had said. “You said your name was Cherish Holmes. But if you’re married…”

  She nodded. “My married name is Whitehead.” Her jaw set. “Was Whitehead,” she corrected.

  I dimly remembered the name. “Which Whitehead?” I asked.

  “Isaiah,” she murmured. Her eyes grew dark, troubled, and a pang of sympathy shot through me. The Whiteheads were one of the most prominent families of the WFZ, second only to the Radleffs.

  Isaiah Whitehead, if I remembered correctly, had been a brooding, borderline sadistic asshole, the kind of bully that cults like the WFZ bred like rabbits. Their version of God’s will somehow seemed to always coincidentally line up with whatever the hell they wanted to do, anyway. Isaiah Whitehead had been about thirty or so when I left the faith. As I gazed at Cherish now, my stomach twisted at the thought of him bedding her, my fist clenching involuntarily at the idea of her forced to do her wifely duty by him.

  Women didn’t have the right to say no in the WFZ community. Their primary duty was to be entirely subservient to their husbands in all things. Judging from the fact that Cherish had chosen to run rather than stay with her husband told me I probably had a pretty accurate picture of what her marriage had been like.

  “Stepkids, you said?” I asked, noting that she hadn’t mentioned children.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “Isaiah and I did not have the… did not have children of our own.” Her face colored again at the reference to sex. Sudden anger flooded through me at the realization that she had probably never experienced it as anything but pain or unpleasant duty. I didn’t know why I cared, exactly, but it galled me that she had probably only experienced sex as pain and unpleasant obligation.

  Yes you do, an inner voice said. You know exactly why it pisses you off.

  Fuck. That fucking cult.

  I had tried so hard to get away from it and never think of that god-forsaken place again. It made me furious to have to think of that band of sick assholes again.

  Suddenly, my mind registered something else Cherish had said. “Wait,” I said. “You said your brother told you where I was?” How the hell did Elias know anything about me? And had he helped Cherish to escape?

  “No,” she shook her head. “He didn’t tell me. Not exactly.” She sighed as she ran a hand through her hair and sat back down on the picnic table. For the first time, I realized how exhausted she probably was, and how hard it must have been for her to get here, with no car and no resources.

  “Elias somehow heard through the grapevine that you had come here,” she continued tiredly. “You’re the only person I can remember who ever left and didn’t come back. You’re shunned, you know. Your name isn’t to be spoken by anyone. Not even your family.”

  She looked up suddenly, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I’m sure that isn’t easy to hear.”

  “No skin off my nose,” I snorted. I had said goodbye to my family a long time ago.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “that doesn’t keep people from gossiping, of course. Whispering. You’re like this… this boogey man in people’s minds. You’re the fallen one who has gone to the Devil. They know that you left for a place called Lupine, which they say is the symbol of the devil because it’s named after a wolf, and that you’re a killer in a motorcycle gang.”

  I burst into laughter. “Lupine isn’t named after a wolf. It’s named after a goddamn flower.”

  “Well, anyway,” she shrugged. “That’s what they say.”

  My laughter subsided, and I tilted my head at her in confusion. “So, you heard I lived in a town named after Satan, and that I’m a killer, and you decided that it would be a good idea to come find me?” I smirked.

  She looked up at me, her dark eyes clear and frank. “I had to get out. You were the only person I knew who might help me.”

  Shit. That wasn’t where I wanted this to go. I had been trying to get rid of her, but I had gotten distracted by her story in spite of myself.

  “Look,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t help you. I’m not exactly what Elias told you I was, but I’m not that far off. My life doesn’t have any room in it for helping out some woman I’ve never met. I can’t do anything for you.”

  A look of desperation and fear crossed her face. She stood up from the picnic table and took a few steps forward, until she was facing me not two feet away. Her large, dark eyes met mine, imploring me without words, and a shock of electricity shot through me before I knew what was happening. Up until now, I had noticed that she was pretty, but the fucking Minions shirt she was wearing had been so distracting that I hadn’t paid much more attention than that. Up close, with her face raised toward me, I realized for the first time that she was fucking beautiful. Her creamy, clear skin set off the full, pouty pinkness of her lips, and before I realized what was going on, I had grown hard as a rock as my mind conjured up an image of how that soft, full mouth would look wrapped around my dick.

  “Please,” she said simply as I fought for self-control. She didn’t seem to have any idea of the fucking effect she was having on me as her voice lowered to a whisper. “I don’t have any place else to go. I don’t have any money left.” Her eyes searched mine, begging me, and my cock jumped in my pants. “Please,” she repeated, softer this time. “Please, just help me find someplace to sleep tonight, and take a shower. I promise I’ll leave you alone after that.”

  Goddamn. My heart was slamming against my ribcage so hard I was afraid she’d hear it. She couldn’t have known that all I could think of now was joining her naked body in the shower she’d just asked for, and hearing that throaty little voice beg me for something else entirely. I took a step back and arranged my face in an angry frown. Fuck.

  I couldn’t believe I was about to do this. Grey would probably fucking kill me for it.

  “Okay,” I growled at her. “One night. One night only.” I nodded back toward the clubhouse. “There’s an apartment upstairs. You can stay there. It’s got a bathroom with a shower.” And a lock on the door.

  “Oh, thank you!” she cried, jumping up and down slightly. She smiled at me then, a bright, dazzling smile that lit up her whole face and made my heart start slamming in my chest again. “Thank you so much, Levi!” She stepped forward just a little, then pulled back in embarrassment, her arms clasped tightly to her chest.

  Grumbling to myself, I had her follow me to the entrance to the clubhouse and held the door open for her. Inside, I led her through the bar, upstairs, to the nicest of the apartments we kept. After telling her as quickly as I could where things were and, I got the hell out of there and went back downstairs. I announced to the astonished men who had watched me lead her in that she was staying for one night, and that she was strictly off limits.

  Then I took out my cell and called the only person I could think of to come help me the fuck out.

  “Hey, Seton?” I said when she answered. “I’ve got a situation.”

  5

  Cherish

  I don’t know what I had expected when I met Levi, but the reality of him was both exactly right and not even close.

  I had had only the very vaguest memory of him from when I was a child. After all, he had left when I was probably no more than seven or eight years old. When I started making my plans to escape the WFZ Ranch, I hadn’t
let myself think too much about what might be awaiting me in Lupine. When Elias said that Leviticus had joined a motorcycle gang (“club,” I reminded myself now), I had imagined a big, hulking bald man with a long, menacing beard, wearing leather and covered in tattoos.

  Well, I had gotten the tattoos right. Almost every surface of his skin below his neck seemed to be covered with them. (In spite of myself, my mind wandered to whether he was tattooed everywhere, and I blushed furiously at the thought.) And I had the beard right, as well, though it was shorter and lighter than I had expected, a slightly more reddish tint than the reddish-brown of his hair.

  What I hadn’t gotten right was how… attractive he was. Masculine, in a way that was both dangerous and thrilling. Somehow the tattoos, which I had imagined as scary, were actually sort of beautiful. The colorful, geometric patterns accentuated the chiseled muscles on his arms. Tattoos were strictly forbidden in the faith, as were any body alterations, and I had never really seen any up close before. The ones Levi had made my eyes want to linger on his body, and even to touch his skin, to see whether it felt any different on the parts that were covered with the designs.

  I hadn’t gotten his eyes right, either. I half-expected them to be dark, menacing, mean. Instead, they were green, a light, penetrating color that was so mesmerizing that I had to work not to fixate on them.

  Leviticus had been furious to see me. I hadn’t allowed myself to consider that he might be, but I couldn’t blame him for it. After all, here I was, dropping unannounced into his life from a world he had risked everything to leave behind. I had been lucky, I knew, that he had agreed to help me at all. And frankly, I had been lucky that he wasn’t the evil demon that the community made him out to be. He was scary, for sure. But I sensed that his intention was not to hurt me. He just wanted me gone. It fairly radiated off of him when he looked at me. And I had to live with that, and accept it. It was his right to be angry with me for disrupting his life.

  Levi led me through the bar of the clubhouse, the eyes of several other tattooed men and a few busty, made-up women following us curiously. We went up a flight of stairs to the second floor. The doors to most of the rooms were closed, but he led me to one at the far end of a hall and opened it without a key.

  “Here,” he said gruffly. “Bed’s over there, bathroom’s through there. Make yourself comfortable. I’m gonna call my president’s old lady to check in on you in a little while. Lock the door.”

  And with that, he was gone.

  I looked around the sparsely furnished apartment, then sank down on the bed. It was surprisingly comfortable, or maybe it was just that I was exhausted. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. For the first time in almost four days, I was safe, at least momentarily. I didn’t have to look over my shoulder every second. Levi had told me I could only stay for only one night, but I couldn’t let myself think about that now. I knew I needed to just focus on the moment at hand, or otherwise I’d go crazy with fear and worry. Tomorrow was tomorrow. I’d think about what to do then.

  I resisted the temptation to just lie back and close my eyes, knowing that I’d be asleep in a heartbeat. Instead, I kicked off my flip flops, spent a few moments massaging my dirty, aching feet, and went into the bathroom. I turned on the shower as hot as I could stand it, and stood under the water for close to twenty minutes, luxuriating in the pleasure of the spray beating against my skin. I had never taken such a long shower before, but I couldn’t seem to get myself to shut the water off. I had brought a couple of travel bottles of shampoo with me, and I used an entire small bottle on my hair, breathing in the scent and being thankful for this smallest of pleasures.

  Once I was out of the shower, I stood on the mat with a bath towel around me and fretted at the realization that I’d have to put my dirty clothes back on. Unfortunately, I had no choice. I had brought a few spare pairs of underwear, though, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I carefully washed the underwear I had been wearing in the sink and hung it up in the shower to dry. I towel dried my hair, running my hands through it like a comb, then went back out to the main room, where I lay back down on the bed and, as I knew I would, promptly fell asleep.

  A discreet knock on the door woke me up some time later, jarring me out of a confused dream full of tattooed men and the noise of tires on highways. I rose groggily and flipped the deadbolt on the door. A young woman stood on the other side, a paper shopping bag in her arms.

  “Hi, I’m Seton,” she said, smiling. “You must be Cherish. Can I come in?”

  I stood back from the door and she strode in and set the shopping bag on the table in the kitchenette. When Levi had mentioned something about an old lady, I expected a grandmotherly type, or at least someone my mother’s age. Seton looked to be about twenty-five or so, and she was exceptionally pretty, with wavy brown hair and flashing green eyes. She was dressed simply but stylishly in a red top and jeans that hugged her body attractively.

  “Levi called me and asked me to come help you out. He said you needed a change of clothes.” She turned toward me now, eyeing the dirty T-shirt I had had no choice but to put back on after my shower. Her mouth twitched up at the corners. “He wasn’t kidding.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what she meant, but her eyes told me everything I needed to know. “I didn’t have many choices at the Goodwill,” I said, looking down at the shirt. “Not good?”

  “Not good,” she agreed cheerfully. “Here, give me that, and I can wash it. I’ll give it back, but only if you promise you’ll only use it for sleeping.”

  I flushed with embarrassment as I realized how ridiculous I must look, but I could tell she wasn’t trying to be mean to me. I swallowed my pride and forced myself to smile. “Thank you,” I nodded.

  Her hand was still out, and I suddenly realized she meant for me to take my shirt off right there and give it to her. My eyes darted toward the bathroom, and Seton must have realized I wasn’t comfortable undressing in front of a stranger. “Here,” she said gently, picking up the shopping bag and handing it to me. “There should be some things in here that will fit you. Go on into the bathroom and find something for yourself.”

  I murmured a thank you and did as she asked. In the bag, I found a pair of jeans, a couple of pairs of shorts, a light green flowered sun dress, and a few T-shirts that looked like they would fit me much better than the yellow one did. I selected a pair of jeans and a dark green tank top, resisting the fear of showing my bare shoulders in public and giving in to the temptation of wearing something cool that didn’t scratch at my skin. I put the rest of the clothes back in the bag, and went back out into the main room.

  “Much better,” Seton said appreciatively when I came out. “That green is gorgeous with your hair, by the way.”

  I blushed at the compliment. “Thank you,” I murmured. “And thank you for letting me borrow these.”

  “Nope,” she shook her head. “Not borrow. Those are yours.” When I protested, she laughed me off. “Remember, you’re not to wear the Minions shirt except to bed when I give it back. And besides, those are all clothes I don’t wear anymore. So don’t worry, you’re not putting me out.”

  I tried to argue with her, but she wouldn’t have any of it. “The subject’s closed,” she said firmly. She reached into her back pocket and took out a cell phone, glancing at it briefly. “So, I’m guessing you haven’t had dinner yet, right?”

  In fact, I hadn’t had lunch, either, but I didn’t tell her that. The events of the day had my stomach in knots, anyway, so I didn’t feel hungry, but I knew that if I didn’t eat at some point, I’d be starving by bedtime. “No, I haven’t.”

  “I’ve got a great idea,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “I have had one crazy week, and I could really use a girls’ night out. Let’s you and me go out and get something to eat.”

  “I… um, I don’t have any money,” I admitted.

  “Oh, I know,” she said, smiling. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got cash. You can pay me back l
ater if you really want to.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to refuse, but Seton’s smile was so open and accepting, I found myself relaxing a little. My conscience eased just a little at the hope that someday I’d be making my own money, and I’d be able to do pay her back for all of her kindness. As soon as I accepted, she grinned and slipped an arm through mine. “Great! Come on,” she said. “I know just the place.”

  A half an hour later, we were seated in a booth at a bustling bar and grill called Hammie’s. Seton introduced me to a friend of hers named Andi, a tall woman with almost platinum-blond hair working behind the bar, who immediately offered us a drink on the house. Seton ordered a margarita, and I frowned, not sure what to order for myself.

  “Give her the same,” Seton said to Andi, then glanced at me. “The margaritas here are fantastic.” I didn’t have the courage to tell her that I’d never tried alcohol before, so I stayed silent and thanked Andi for the drink.

  When the waitress came, Seton ordered a burger and fries, and I ordered a club sandwich. Then she raised her glass in a toast. “To… hmm. To what? What should we toast to?” she asked.

  “To the future,” I said. I didn’t know what it held, but I hoped it would be better than the past.

  We clinked glasses and drank. When the tart, strong liquid hit my throat, I started coughing so hard I almost dropped my glass. Seton pressed her lips together, clearly trying not to laugh.

  “Um, Cherish, can I ask you something?”

  “Of course,” I wheezed at her, clapping myself on the chest and taking a long drink of water.

  “Is that the first margarita you’ve ever had?”

  There was no use trying to hide anything, I decided. “It’s actually the first alcohol I’ve ever had,” I admitted.

  Her eyes went wide. “Really?” she asked. “I mean, I guess it’s not that unusual, but… I don’t know. I guess I just assumed…”

  “No, it’s okay.” I had finally gotten my throat to start working again. “Where I come from, women aren’t really allowed to drink.”