Heart of a Rebel

by Glenna Maynard

  His fingers sweep my hair back and he brushes his thumbs under my eyes, wiping the stray tears that have escaped away.

  “Don’t think just feel, Romeo. Feel my pulse…my heartbeat. I am here with you. I choose to be in your bed.” Taking his hand, I run his fingers down my naked torso. His hands are rough, and aged against my silky fair skin.

  Romeo’s fingers run over my clit and I buck my hips eager to be loved by him. His lips are barely a whisper against my own. Seizing the opportunity, I kiss him hard. His lips don’t move and it hurts my shattered heart.

  “I can’t,” he says clearly in pain.

  Annoyed I flippantly say, “well if you can’t I know plenty who will.”

  By the time my feet hit the floor, his arms are around my waist with his body pressing me into the mattress.

  “Don’t threaten me with words like that unless you mean it.”

  “Romeo, I’m a woman who enjoys sex. I need to be wanted and if you don’t want me in your bed, I will find someone who does. I don’t need love to have sex.” I shove against his chest; his strong muscular form is crushing me.

  His cock is hard and pressing against my thigh. His eyes are dark and heated. His lips are curled up in a snarl as he breathes hard.

  “Never said I didn’t want or need you,” he grits through his clenched teeth. Anger is rolling from his shoulders. Thick fingers wrap around my throat constricting my airway. He squeezes tightly and I can’t breathe.

  I smack at him with all of my strength and it doesn’t even phase him. Is this what he likes? Being in control and leaving me helpless and vulnerable. My mind goes back to the night my husband raped me, how harsh and rough he was with me. Striker really was his father’s son.

  Tears threaten to spill from the corners of my eyes.

  I am brought back to the present as Romeo speaks. “Want me to fuck you with no feelings and treat you like the whore you want to be?” His hands are digging into my neck as my legs kick.

  I continue to struggle against him as he continues to scream at me.

  “Want me to use your body for comfort with disregard for your heart?”

  “That’s exactly what I want,” I choke out through my numb lips.

  He lets go of my throat as I struggle to breathe. My knees are shoved wide open by him. Blanketed with his sweat I gasp for another breath. Without warning, he slams into me, roughly. I dig my nails into his shoulder blade, drawing blood.

  “Fuck me hard!” I cry out as he thrusts deeper inside. My throat aches with a dull pain.

  “This is what you wanted. Be careful what you wish for sweetheart. I told you before I can be a real asshole.” He nips my bottom lip and my resolve falters for a moment.

  We bite at each other’s tongues angrily. I smack him hard leaving red fingerprint marks on his cheek and he laughs.

  He throws his head back and roars with laughter.

  “Fuck you!” I spit out at him.

  “Well darlin’, I’m trying but you keep hitting me.” His head comes down resting on my shoulder. “Goddamn it you fucking drive me insane Baby!” He hugs me being tenderer planting air soft kisses along my neck.

  “You think you don’t drive me just as crazy?” I ask cradling his face next to my breast.

  Romeo bites down on my muddy-rose nipple and tugs.

  “Never doubted that I don’t.”

  Our feelings are forgotten for the moment, as we get lost in the sensations as our bodies reconnect. Sex with Romeo has never been a problem. It’s all the other stuff that gets in the way.

  Romeo

  Watching Baby as she sleeps soundly next to me brings me such ecstasy and sorrow. I am at war with my heart and my head. My heart wants to spend the rest of my days waking up next to her but my head won’t allow it.

  Her chest rises and falls, dawn is on the horizon and the light shines on her hair. Shades of red and copper lay across my chest. My fingers lightly stroke her arm that is resting above her head. The marks of the night we just shared showing on her ivory skin. Purple bite marks are beginning to appear. We used and abused each other hard last night.

  When she told me, she would go to bed with someone else, something inside me flipped a switch, I wanted to kill her and own her in the same moment. I could have killed her…I wanted to. I could have done it when my fingers were wrapped around her throat, but I gave her what she wanted. I fucked her until she passed out from exhaustion. Sex with Baby isn’t the problem, my damn emotions are getting the best of me.

  Her eyelids flutter as she tries to wake. Running my hand over her eyes, she goes back to sleep. I want to stay like this for a moment longer, watching her. Seeing her next to me, resting peacefully. She doesn’t sleep much and when she does—she cries out his name…Striker. Every night it is the same. Her arms and legs thrash under the sheets and his name leaves her lips.

  She isn’t even aware she does it and I don’t have the heart to bring it up. I can’t bear to see the pain etched in her face when she talks about his death.

  We should be able to talk about it, about him, but we can’t. The son I never wanted and the husband she regretted to a point.

  I keep trying to find a way to make things right but I don’t know how. Things are so damn fucked right now. I hear the kids starting to wake up, they will be hungry soon.

  Easing from under Baby, I make my way out of bed. The mattress creaks and she rolls over yawning and snuggling back into the covers. Grabbing my jeans from the floor, I quietly pad across the room in hope of getting a shower before Miracle and Colt awaken. Jamie and Dawn can take care of themselves until I get out.

  Moments later as the water washes over me, Baby lets herself into the bathroom and starts her day without speaking to me. Normally she would hop in the shower with me. My cock hardens at the thought of the water running over her naked flesh and pinning her against the wall to fuck her hard from behind.

  I grip my cock hoping she will change her mind.

  The water turns just as cold as the look she is giving me as I ask, “Wanna’ join me?”

  The door slams shut and I am left alone standing in the icy water with a semi-hard-on. Guess she is upset about last night.

  3

  Rebel

  My cell phone buzzes for the fifth time with another missed call from Lil Bit. She had a doctor’s appointment today and wanted me to be there. I don’t know what the fuck for. She is only a few months, they can’t tell much yet. I don’t know how I feel about her being pregnant with my ‘supposed’ child.

  She swears the kid is mine, but how I am to be sure until we can do a paternity test. A kid is the last thing on my mind right now. Chugging my beer, I delete her calls. Tread pulls up the seat next to me at the bar.

  “Deleting her calls won’t change the fact that she is carrying your child.”

  “Did I fucking ask for your opinion?” I snap at him.

  He shakes his head ignoring me.

  Chelsea pours him a shot and gives me a sad look. “The fuck you gazing at me like that for?” I glare back at her and demand another beer. I don’t need her pity.

  Dumb cunt tried to offer me a pity fuck a few nights ago. Told me some bullshit about how if we were together it would make her feel closer to my brother. Psycho bitch. My brother could have gave two shits to the wind about her and I let her fucking know it too. I told her he said her pussy stunk. He didn’t say it but she doesn’t know that.

  “Any word from Truth yet?” Truth took off last week said he knew a guy that might have a lead on Grim. Not heard shit from the little geeky bastard since.

  “Nah man,” he says letting out a long breath.

  “What’s a matter you two have a lover’s quarrel,” I kid giving him shit.

  “Fuck you, shit isn’t remotely funny.” He punches me hard, throwing me off balance and spilling my beer.

  I like to give him a hard time. Tread and Truth are into sharing their whores. Not my business what they do on their own time. But it is
funny as fuck to watch him squirm.

  Tread and Romeo are riding out later today to sit down with Shred and Lasher. Thanks to the deal my brother made with the Dry Ridge Sinners, we are locked in tight with them and buried deep in a territory war with them against the Undead Bastards.

  Shred got word that those slimy fucks are responsible for the death of my wife, only time can tell. Might just be a way to dig us in deeper? I’d like to take his word and wipe them out but it isn’t that simple. Something like that takes planning and I have plenty of time. It might not be tomorrow or hell a year from now, but one day I will make a motherfucker pay. Only thing keeping me going is the thought of avenging my wife’s gruesome murder.

  Rumor wasn’t happy here but I couldn’t walk away. I should have left her alone. I should have sent her back to Chicago after she got out of the hospital when she wrecked Aspen’s car.

  Too late now, she’s cold and in the ground. All she wanted was a child—a child I never planned to give her. I knew we couldn’t conceive, her fertility doctor told us we were wasting our money, but I kept letting her hang onto the hope of being a mother someday. That was wrong of me, I kept holding on because I didn’t want to be alone. Serves me right to have her taken from me in such a violent manner.

  When I saw her body, hanging from that tree…my guilt drove me over the edge. Her guts were hanging out and goddamn Baby was by my side wailing in pain. I wanted to hurt Baby and make her suffer. It was her fault I chose Rumor; it was her fault Striker was following in our father’s footsteps. At least that is how I felt about it at the time. Not too sure how I feel about any of it now. Especially Baby. She clouds my judgment; she always has since we were kids.

  When my brother showed up that fateful day, I wanted to inflict the pain I was feeling on him. I wanted him to hurt and know what loss was like. I was out of my mind and now my little brother is dead by my hands. Nothing will ever make it right. My hands are stained with his blood.

  I have to learn to live with the hell I have created. I have no one to blame but myself. My mother says it wasn’t my fault, she blames herself. Says she should have done something, but she doesn’t even know what that something is. And she blames Baby too. Says if Baby had stood by his side instead of shutting him out, everything would have been different.

  My phone buzzes with a new call from Lil Bit and I hit ignore. Someone taps my shoulder and I turn around meeting a fist straight to my right eye. My neck snaps back and I blink. Wasn’t expecting that. Lil Bit is standing in front of me with her hands on her dainty hips. For someone so tiny she hits like a man.

  “The fuck!” I clench my fist and bite my knuckle to keep from hitting her back. God, she gets under my skin. “Goddamn!” I shake my fist in her face.

  “My calls might have been important fuckface! Next time I call you I expect you to answer,” she screeches in my ear before she spins on her heel, flipping her long dark hair over her shoulder. I watch as she storms out the door abruptly, leaving me with a brain-splitting headache.

  Tread laughs and shakes his head. “You got your hands full with that one. Better not piss her off too much, those brothers of hers might not take it as easy on ya.”

  “Fuck her and her brothers. I don’t owe her shit and I don’t answer to her.” Lighting up a smoke I resume sitting at the bar and not giving a fuck. “Shred and Lasher can eat my dick, dumb motherfuckers,” I tell him grabbing my junk.

  “Keep telling yourself that man and you might start to believe it,” Tread says clamping his hand hard on my shoulder and shaking me slightly. I shrug him off and get loaded.

  Baby

  After dropping Dawn and Jamie off with LL, I drop Colt and Miracle at daycare. Romeo is still not sure about her, but she is their mother and deserves a chance to make things right with her children.

  Things with Romeo were awkward this morning. We had a rough night. The remains of our angry sex are evident on my neck and my arms. His fingerprints show strongly on my pale skin. Purple bite marks cover my collarbone. LL was eyeing me speculatively, seeming as if she wanted to comment on my appearance, but wisely refrained.

  Today I am putting on my big girl britches and cleaning out the apartment I shared with Striker while we were married. Well technically, I am his widow. Our divorce was never final. He never received the papers to sign or contest them. It seems so surreal. I keep thinking when I open the door he will be on the other side.

  As I walk up these stairs, memories flood me. The look on his face when I busted that bitch Diamond’s face on the porch post. He was so shocked and amused. I was so angry with him. God he drove me crazy with jealousy. Thinking back on it now still pisses me off. Why that dumb whore thought she could have him is beyond me.

  I keep asking myself where it all went wrong. Despite it all I loved him…I still do. Why does this have to be so hard, why does it have to hurt so damn much? I need him—Colt needs him.

  We were far from perfect but he was mine and I was his. If I had let Romeo go, maybe things could have been different. We could have made it work somehow…maybe. I would bring him back and suffer ten kinds of hell, so he could be here with his son. It doesn’t matter now though, Striker is gone and I can’t go back. I can’t bring him back.

  Taking the spare key from over the doorframe, I take a deep breath and steady my breathing. Foxie brought some boxes and storage containers over for me a few days ago. She offered to help me but I have to do this alone. I need to be alone with Striker one last time.

  I have been slowly moving my things into my dad’s place. Clearing out this apartment makes it seem so official…Striker’s death. If I hadn’t left him, my sister might still be here…he might still be here.

  No—I can’t keep thinking this way. I am going to make myself crazy with what ifs. The door creaks open, this tiny apartment once held my whole world and now it seems so cold.

  Flipping on the light, everything is the way I left it. Colt’s baby photos still hang on the wall, and I can faintly hear the echoes of his laughter, while Striker blows raspberries on his tummy, while getting him ready for bed. My chest aches and my heart breaks a little bit more. Striker loved being a father, but he loved being a biker more.

  Boxing up the décor in the living room isn’t so bad, I know it is the bedroom and his clothes that will be the hardest—his personal items.

  I am taking all of his things and storing them in one of my dad’s sheds for Colt. I know he will want to get to know his father somehow once he is older. At least I can give him a physical connection to him with his stuff.

  I can tell him how much Striker loved him, but how will he know? He is too young to remember, and all I have is some photos to show him, and my own memories to share with him. I hope that they will be enough when he is old enough to ask questions and understand.

  Will I tell him the truth about his father’s death or will I tell him the lie I have told everyone else? The only people that really know what happened that day under our tree are Foxie, Romeo, Rebel and me. As far as everyone is concerned, Striker tried to take his own life, but the truth is Rebel pulled that trigger. How do I explain that to a child?

  Working my way through the apartment I make my way into the bathroom. His toothbrush still sits on the edge of the sink. It sounds so stupid but I run the head of the brush over my lips wanting to feel something of him. God, I need to feel him, really feel him.

  Throwing the toothbrush against the mirror I slide down to the floor and pray to God to make this hurt go away and give my husband back to me, if only for a minute.

  I once told him we abuse those who love us most and I know without a doubt he loved me most and had a pure heart. He just didn’t know how to show me. And I was too blind to see the love he gave to me. He was under so much pressure and all I did was add to it, not caring what effect my actions had on him.

  Picking myself up from the floor, I go to the closet and pull out one of his favorite t-shirts. I slip it over my head and wrap my arms ac
ross my chest, wishing his arms were holding me.

  Tears continue to stream down my face, Striker can never be replaced. Nothing could be worse than this feeling of emptiness without him to make me feel truly at home.

  Rebel

  Staggering out of the backdoor of the Roadhouse I see Baby carrying boxes down the stairs from my brother’s apartment. She looks so hollow inside and out. I want to do something for her, but I don’t know what, I can’t handle my own demons, let alone try to tackle hers. She is hurting bad. So am I. Her eyes are swollen from crying. Her chest shakes as she tries to hold back from shedding more tears.

  I trip on the gravel and hold onto the side of the building for support. I don’t know what I will even say to her but my feet are moving in her direction. She might not want me, but she needs me right now. I understand how she feels. I miss him too.

  She senses me watching her and gives me a look that would turn others to stone. We both stand frozen not knowing what to say to one another. Tears roll down her face steady as a summer rain. She can’t keep holding it all in. I know Baby is trying so hard to stay strong.

  I continue stumbling forward until I reach her. The summer heat is blazing and making me sweat. The sun is shining in my eyes as I squint. All the alcohol I have consumed has done nothing to numb the ache I feel. I need something to fill this empty void inside of me.

  My hand instinctively without thought reaches out to dry her tears. She flinches at my touch and shrinks away from me. I know she thinks I am a heartless monster, maybe I am.

  Baby recovers quickly. “I have some boxes for you. Things I thought you might want or that Striker may have wanted you to have. Mostly motorcycle parts.” She shrugs and tries to play off how uncomfortable she feels in my presence.

  My throat tightens with a lump the size of a tennis ball. I am surprised she thought of me, or would want to give me anything of his, considering.