God, I am losing my mind. I pat the bedding around me, trying to gather my bearings. The shadow of Shooter isn’t really here; therefore, he can’t be moving over to my bed… can he?
“No, no, no,” I whisper into the air around me.
“Calm down, baby.”
Somebody call Doc Kelly because I am seriously losing my ever loving mind. There is no way Shooter is here, talking to me.
I push back my now wet hair from sweating during my nightmare. Then, taking a deep breath, I close my eyes. Get it together, Tessie. I blow out my breath and open my eyes. Shooter is now sitting with one leg hanging off my bed, watching me.
“Breathe, baby. Inhale,” he gently commands. “Exhale.”
These much needed simple reminders take the edge off the rising fear inside me. Doing as instructed, I find myself settling down, the panic subsiding. How does this man calm me?
“Shooter, why are you here?”
“Some things are changing, and I need to be here for a little while. I’ll sleep on the couch. You won’t notice me,” Shooter answers, watching me.
My breathing accelerates as my palms get clammy. Panic fills me once again, but for a totally different reason as I think about him being here in my home. Oh, God, what am I going to do?
“Tessie, you need to sleep.”
“No, Shooter, I need to shower, and you need to go home. I’ll make do. I always find a way.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Look, I’m sorry to inconvenience you with being here, even though I didn’t ask you to come, I might add. I’m also sorry I woke you up, but you need to go home,” I state, hoping like hell he leaves.
“Club orders, baby. Either I stay here, or you, your boy, and your mom all have to stay with me. Not negotiable.”
“I’m not part of the club, so the Hellions’ orders are irrelevant to me.”
He leans in close to me, his hands on either side of me as he comes in nose to nose with me. Our breathing comes and goes together while we both fight to maintain our composure.
“Baby, the minute I claimed you, the club owned you.” His face changes into an unreadable emotion. “Is there another brother you’d rather have? Hmmm…?” His agitation with me is no longer held back.
“Shooter, this isn’t about Rex.” Pausing, I decide to be as honest as I have ever been with anyone about Drexel “Rex” Crews. “Well, it is, but not like you think.” There, I admitted it. Everything with me is tied to Rex, only no one knows it.
He backs away from me only slightly. “So tell me.” He says it so simply. If only it was that easy.
At first, keeping quiet wasn’t a problem. As time passes, though, it is no longer about keeping my secret. Now, I have to worry about the repercussions of my once clear decision. My mind spins further. I need space.
“Go home, Shooter,” I command as I push up and off the bed, brushing him off as I get up.
Avoiding the biker in my room, I grab some clothes and go down the hall to take a shower. Hopefully, by the time I get out, he will be gone and this will be a nightmare.
The water running over me does nothing to calm my emotions. As I squirt some dollar store body wash on my loofa, I begin to lather and wash my body. Once again, I am quickly lost to my thoughts, to my nightmares. I watch the soap against my skin, but I can’t get clean. Turning the hot water on high and the cold completely off, I allow the liquid to scald my skin. Still not feeling clean, I scrub harder with my loofa; however, it is not enough.
I pull at my roots as I wash my hair. I want it to go away. I want to go back in time and call in sick that night. Hell, I don’t want to be with Rex, but if I would have given in to him that night, it wouldn’t have happened. If I had never gotten involved with Rex in the first place, I wouldn’t be working at Ruthless in the first place. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It is a constant battle in my mind. Oh, the things I would change. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, as they say.
Feeling like I may pass out from the heat, I rinse and get out of the shower. Drying off, I can only pat my now raw skin.
Making a quick walk through the house, I don’t find Shooter on the couch or anywhere. I guess he took me at my word.
Lying down, I toss and turn the same as I do every night. The bed is hard and unmoving, much like that wall. The unforgiving wall that aided in holding me immobile that night.
Exhaustion is consuming me because I haven’t slept a full night since the incident. I am not awake, but I am not in a dreamland of comfortable slumber. I twist as I find myself tangled and trapped in my own bed.
Strong arms scoop me up. How? I am sleeping, yet I feel him with me now. Shooter. That night, Shep was about to enter me. Shooter came, though. He carried me out. He kept me safe.
“I’ve been there, Tessie,” Shooter’s voice whispers in my ear, “where the silence is deafening. Where everything is so dark on the inside, the light of day won’t break through as you go through the motions. When the darkness falls and your mind takes your body back to the place where it all falls apart.”
My limbs feel heavy as I relax into his hold. He is saving me in my dreams even. My eyelids are far too heavy to lift as I drift further into sleep.
“Don’t let the black engulf you, baby. Fight it, Tessie. Fight it for Axel.”
The bed beneath me feels softer now, inviting almost.
Whispered words fill my mind.
“Fight it, baby. Fight for peace. Fight to have your life back. Fight back the darkness. Fight it for your mom.”
Drifting deeper into sleep, I hear Shooter whisper one more time. “Hell, baby, fight it for me. Fight it for what could be.”
Sleep will be left to the angels tonight. A call from Tessie’s mom, Claire, brought me over this evening. My plan was to talk to Tessie tomorrow about our living arrangements, only Claire is worried about her daughter. She is also worried about all of their safety. Although we have someone on guard, the rotation of men she doesn’t know is stressing Claire out. With her illness, stress is a trigger for flare ups, and she certainly has enough stress without the addition of strangers coming and going. The reality is, I am a stranger to her, as well, but she knows some of what happened and apparently feels like I am a family friend or at least a guardian. She called to ask me to stay over because Tessie seems to be having issues with nightmares.
The couch was the only available space for me to sleep other than the floor. I had barely closed my eyes when Tessie’s scream startled me. Sure, she told me to leave. The hell if I plan to do that, though, especially after seeing for myself that Claire is right. The physical signs of depression are there: weight loss, withdrawing, irritability, and many more I am sure I could pinpoint if I spent more time with Tessie. No, I am not going home.
Sorry, baby, but I am locking down and staying now. Not just on Tripp’s order, but for your own well-being, Tessie.
Hiding in the shadows isn’t hard when she gets out of the shower. Watching her lie down and not find peace is a torture like nothing I have faced before. She is hurting, and I am helpless to bring her peace.
Then something in me comes alive, some pull that I long ago shut down snaps back. Involuntarily, I find myself needing to comfort her.
When she doesn’t fight me as I climb in her bed and hold her, I don’t know what to think. Following my instincts, I talk her down from the panic she was building up just moments ago. She is not fully awake, yet not in a deep sleep, either; she is drifting in a way.
Night terrors—I have been there. You feel like you are awake and stuck in some horrific moment. You move and fight out against an invisible assailant. The world you are in is not your own, but one vividly recreated in your mind. Your bed is suddenly a person, a wall, or a cage containing you. Lashing out, you struggle, waging war in your mind against yourself. Muscles exerted, calories burned, sweat pours from your body as your imagination works in overdrive. Your pulse quickens, your breathing labors, and you continue to fight in vain until, hopefully, y
ou wake up. Hopefully, something pulls you slowly out of the dream and into the reality. And, more importantly, this all occurs before you hurt yourself or someone else.
Whispering softly to her, I follow my instincts to let her know she is not alone. She is resting on me as I lay on my back before she shifts to cover my chest. Evening out my breathing to match hers, I lie in the quiet of the dark, trying to push down the many emotions coursing through me.
There is a connection I have to her, one I can’t begin to understand.
Tessie is a beautiful woman. She has a quiet strength, carrying herself with grace and humility. She is everything I have never had in a woman, and I have had my fair share of barflies since Tracie.
Tracie. People say she is my angel now, watching over me. Ha! That is so far from the truth even the devil himself wouldn’t tell that lie. She died hating me, hating everything I stood for, everything I had done. She is no angel of mine. She is the sins of my past all bundled into my lifelong nightmare; everything I wanted for my future taken from me at her blood covered hands.
It is my fault. We got together much too young. She was a down home girl that wanted the regular life. To her, our future was me turning wrenches in her dad’s garage for life. I, being the young guy, wanted the adrenaline pumping, push my body beyond its limits life of a soldier.
We were together all four years of high school. After graduation, I left for boot camp, and then it was off to tech school for my MOS (Military Occupational Specialty). Not long after that, it was selection for SF (Special Forces) teams. She went through the motions, but she wasn’t happy, nagging me constantly about being away.
I tried to break up with her because my career was important to me. However, she was having none of that. I made it through selection and training and earned my green beret. Whereas my parents were proud to see their son become one of the elite, my girlfriend was miserable. I almost proposed thinking the commitment might help her adjust…only I didn’t. Then it was too late.
I was stationed in Fort Bragg, North Carolina and assigned to my team. Multiple trainings and deployments only strengthened my bond with my Army brothers, while those same separations from Tracie only furthered our divide. I was trained to withstand torture. I was trained to not carry ties to back home with me. I was trained to shut out everything around me except the mission at hand.
I was not trained to handle the emotions of a woman. I was not trained in how to support someone who wouldn’t support me. I was not equipped to see the signs of depression in my girlfriend.
My teammates, yes, I knew those boys better than my own damn family. Lock, for instance. When he would think of his sister Laura back home, his left jaw would twitch. Any other time, he would have a face of stone on a mission. Let him have idle time to think of his little sister and the twitch would start with a steady, even pace as his jaw pulsed, matching the slow rate of our hearts in stealth mode.
Bowie, he was hard. His life back home was far from easy. He grew up in a motorcycle club. His dad, being club prez to the Savage Outlaws, ultimately left him to raise himself. Bowie joined the Army, needing the discipline to tame his reckless abandon, and he needed the escape for a bit. Not much could faze him after being raised in his lifestyle. Fatigue, on the other hand… When Bowie would get worn down, he would start running his hands through his short hair. It seemed to wake him up for a bit. Other than that, Bowie was unreadable. Eyes of steel, giving nothing away; face of a hard-working man with no fear; and hands that never shook and never faltered. After a few tours, the life of a soldier wears on you. Not long after my discharge, he returned to his hometown and club life.
Hammer, who got his name for having an iron fist, would fidget with his hands when annoyed. The more worked up he would get, the more he twisted his hands or twiddled his thumbs, unable to keep them still.
Spending so much time with those guys, I couldn’t help studying them. Sometimes life and death could depend on being able to read the look in your brother’s eye. Non-verbal communication can sometimes speak volumes without one sound being shared.
If only I had paid more attention to Tracie. I could have seen the internal battle she was facing. Tunnel vision for my career, my wants, and my needs all clouded my view, making me unable to see how everything I did was affecting her.
Looking down at Tessie, I watch as she continues to breathe softly on my chest.
How can I know the individual ticks of my Army brothers yet not see the slow deterioration of the woman I had claimed to love? Tracie was open with her hatred of my job. However, rather than listen and pay attention to her body language, I chalked it up to her being a needy bitch.
I should have paid attention. I should have been more supportive. I should have been more understanding. Compromise, something that never once crossed my mind before, but is now my biggest regret. I forced my choices on her. It was take me as I am or not at all. I never sought out a way to meet her in the middle on anything.
Allowing my mind to go back through my past regrets, I watch as Tessie seems to be at peace in my arms. She fits somehow. This is a foreign feeling to me.
Whispering into the night, I muse, “Oh, baby, what are you doing to me? You are stirring up too much of my past. I wasn’t man enough to save Tracie; I don’t know that I’m man enough to save you.”
As if she heard me, Tessie snuggles in closer, holding my waist tighter as she nestles her face against my chest once more.
“Mercy, shine down on her. Give her peace, if for just one night,” I whisper once more as I close my eyes, knowing I won’t really get any sleep.
Truth
Warm. I feel warm. Safe.
Arms envelope me, providing comfort and a security I have never felt before. I don’t want to get up. For the first time, I want to stay asleep. For once, I am feeling somewhat rested.
Wait. Arms? Who is with me?
Breathing deeply, I don’t even open my eyes. Shooter.
What the hell am I going to do?
Cracking one eye open, I try to ignore the masculine perfection under me and look at the clock on my dresser. Eight twelve in the morning. Shit! I am so fucking screwed right now. Axel is late for school. More than that, he will be coming in my room any minute, I am sure of it. My secret is no longer safe.
“I know you’re awake, baby,” Shooter says without moving under me. His arms are still casually slung over me like we sleep together all the time.
Refusing to answer him, I only close my eyes and blow out my breath.
“I don’t mind spending the day like this if that’s what you want,” he adds while gently rubbing my back.
“What are you doing here?” I ask without bothering to get off him just yet.
“Some things have changed with the club. I need to be here.”
“No, you don’t,” I argue.
Shooter shifts under me, moving to sit up against the headboard, easily moving me with him. My full size bed gives me little room to escape him. His hold is gentle yet firm and not something I altogether want to get out of.
“Baby, it’s time we have a talk about club life. What has Rex told you about women and the Hellions?”
At the mention of my ex-fling, I flinch. Rex, yeah, he is not the person I want to talk about before I have had even a drop of coffee.
“Not a damn thing. Truth be told—” I am cut off by Shooter.
“Nothing? He shared nothing with you? Not even for your own safety?” I feel Shooter getting tense under me.
Having someone so protective of me is a new experience.
“I don’t want to know, Shooter,” I tell him calmly, knowing he is full of unease at my lack of knowledge.
“There are things you can’t know, Tessie. Things you will never know. It’s just club business.”
“Again, Shooter,” I interject, “I don’t want to know.”
“Want is irrelevant at this point in our relationship. You are now in a situation of need to know, baby. I claimed you;
do you understand that?”
“Yeah, I get it. I’m club property. I’m a representation of the Hellions and a direct representation of you. I fall under the halo of Hellion protection as your ol’ lady. I have no rights, no information, and no opinion of my own. I show up where I’m told as an arm piece to do as I’m told and ride where I’m told. I’m not to make a scene or disrespect you or any one of your brothers. If we were lovers, I would be expected to fuck you when you wanted to fuck, how you wanted to fuck, and however you wanted to fuck. I, however, would have no say whatsoever in whom you chose to fuck other than me. Furthermore, I would not be allowed to fuck anyone else since you cavemen don’t like to share while we women have to watch you get off by someone else, should you choose. Yup, Shooter, I got it. I know my damn place.” My tone is not sharp, my voice never rising, as I lay it out there for him calmly. I am not one for the dramatics or yelling. It is what it is. If there is a shit hand to be dealt, I know it will be placed in front of me. As such, there’s no need to cause a ruckus.
“Baby, who the fuck have you been talkin’ to? Do you really think for one second that’s how it is?”
“Shooter, I work at Ruthless. The barflies talk. Hell, your brothers get drunk and bitch constantly about their ol’ ladies not walking the line.”
“Baby, come on, you have to know better than to believe a bunch of whores and a bunch of drunken ramblings.”
Leaning away from his chest, I look him in the eye without saying a word. Yes, I believe it. I have heard it enough times and from enough different sources. There is truth to what I’ve said.
“Baby, do you think for one second Doll would let Tripp step out on her or to not allow her an opinion on subjects that aren’t club business? Hell, does Doll strike you as any man’s arm piece?” he questions, making a valid point.
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