by Jackson, Meg
I stopped and looked at myself in the mirror before going back into the night; my workout leggings hugged my curves, and I could hear Jeremy’s condescending voice in my head. The old, faded, vintage t-shirt I’d worn to work that day was tight around my breasts, the only part of me that Jeremy encouraged me to show off.
I looked about as normal as I could, considering the circumstances. The only thing that stood out was the ugly welt above my forehead, but I didn’t feel like putting on more concealer. And who cared? No one was going to talk to me, and if they did, I’d shut them down. I didn’t want any trouble, and I didn’t plan on making any trouble. I just wanted to eat and sleep and coast away come morning.
Back at the bar, I drew a little more attention in my tight-fitting clothes than I had in my maid’s uniform. Plus, I was no longer concealing half my body with a duffel bag. I approached the bar once more and caught the eye of the bartender who’d helped me earlier; she nodded and walked back towards the kitchen, grabbing a steaming plate and delivering it straight to me. It smelled absolutely heavenly.
And it tasted like the best kind of sin.
As I munched my way through the meaty, salty, greasy, savory sandwich, I let the background noise fade away, focusing entirely on that one moment. How long had it been since I’d indulged like this? Jeremy always kept me on a strict diet, disapproving of “indulgences”. Of course, that only applied to me and what I ate; he went to town on whatever he felt like, whenever he felt like it.
I was pulled back into the real world when the bartender suddenly slammed a huge drink in front of me. I looked up at her, mouth full, eyes questioning.
“Rum and coke. From that guy,” she said, sounding a little pissed. I looked where she pointed, then promptly wanted to spit my food out onto the bar.
Holy fuck, but that guy was hot.
He was looked at me, a sly sort of half-grin on his face, short stubble defining his strong chin under a nose cut from marble. Even in the dark bar, I could see his crystal-clear blue eyes, the color of a strong-burning flame. His dark, slightly curly hair hung around his face like an anti-halo. He was wearing a leather jacket over a loose white undershirt that showed just the slightest hint of the magnificent body underneath. My heart skipped a beat. I didn’t think that happened in real life, but apparently it does.
Automatically, without even thinking about it, I grabbed the drink and took a sip, immediately recoiling once the alcohol hit my tongue. Jeremy didn’t approve of me drinking; aside from a beer or two at a work event or party (his work event or party, I’ll add), I hadn’t drank in the three years we’d been married. The taste of the rum seemed exceptionally strong. I coughed slightly, looking back at the dreamboat who’d bought me the drink. He was chuckling slightly, those eyes still lingering on me, his hand coming up to cover his smile. Charming. As. Shit.
He just feels bad for you because of that knocker on your forehead, I told myself. There’s no way someone like him could like someone like you, you cow. Besides, what, are you gonna hop into bed with the first guy who’s nice to you? Slut.
Shut up, Jeremy, said that other voice, that new voice, the voice that I was starting to like quite a bit. Go for it, Gabriella. Seal the deal. Make the break complete. When’s the last time Jeremy looked at you with half the interest this guy’s showing? You deserve to feel good for once. Drink up.
I was as torn as I’d ever been in my life. But what the hell. I’d dug my grave deep enough, in my opinion, and one drink wasn’t going to get me out – or dig me any deeper. I smiled back at the handsome stranger, waved, and took another sip, this time hoping I looked coy and demure and grateful.
I was rewarded by a nod – and then thrown into a panic when the man rose from his place at the bar and came to my side. I desperately swabbed at my greasy lips, cursing myself for having ordered the most disgusting thing on the menu.
I gulped at the drink, needing liquid courage.
Needing any courage I could get my hands on.
That “Jeremy” voice inside me was still screaming at me for being stupid, for being silly, slutty, pathetic, worn-out, ugly, fat…
“What’s a pretty gal like you doing in a place like this,” the stranger asked as he approached me, leaning into the seat next to mine. I’m pretty sure I responded, but I think it was just a strangled, choking sound.
He was even better looking up close.
I could make out the hint of tattoos crawling up his neck from the deep V of his shirt, and across the backs of his hands. His leather jacket was adorned with patches. One larger than the others, said “Black Smoke MC”.
His eyes fell on the bruise above my eye, his brow furrowing, his hand coming up to brush it gently. His touch was like being electrified. Perhaps it was the boldness of the motion; we didn’t even know each other’s names, but he’d already made contact with me; a very sensitive part of me, to boot. Perhaps it was the way I was looking at his lips as he did it, his pouty, gorgeous lips. Perhaps it was the booze, or the leftover adrenaline from my rather eventful day. Whatever it was, it sealed my fate, even though I didn’t know it at the time.
“Got something to do with this?” he’d asked when he’d brushed his fingers against my forehead. My mind dragged behind him, trying to figure out what he was asking, the small amount of alcohol I’d had mingling with the unusually fatty and carbohydrate-laden meal I was eating to create a general feeling of confusion in me. Alright, so I was confused for more reasons than just the booze and burger, but I didn’t want to admit it at the time.
“It’s a birthmark,” I blurted out, flinching even as I said it. Of all the stupid excuses I’d made for the marks Jeremy left on me, that was, without a doubt, the stupidest to ever cross my lips. The stranger’s eyebrows raised in half-amusement, half-concern.
“Is that so?” he said, his voice low and sultry. I gulped down more of my drink, realizing with no small dismay that it was the last gulp – I’d downed the whole thing in a matter of minutes. And for someone who never drank…well, you can imagine how that might have affected me. I felt warm all over, and suddenly a lot friendlier.
“Actually, no,” I said, hearing the slightest slur in my words. What are you doing, Gabriella? One part of me asked.
Getting what I fucking want for once, said that other voice, that new voice. And even if my real voice was slurring, that voice seemed straight sober.
“That’s exactly the reason I’m here,” I heard myself say. “I’m ditching the guy who did it.”
“Well, if I ever heard something that called for a damn drink, that’s it,” the stranger said, flashing me another crooked grin. They have yet to invent a word to describe what happened in my pants, or my surprise at the feeling. He pounded on the bar, attracting the attention of the bartender and making an “another” gesture with his hand. She obliged, but not without a sour look in his direction. He offered me his hand, not turning to me, snaking his hand underneath his shoulder in a nonchalant way that was confusingly suave.
“Reign,” he said. “Like a king, not the weather.”
“What?” I asked, stupidly, taking his hand in a limp shake that belied the sharp, short shock that went through me when we touched.
“My name,” he said, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. I could only make out one side of his face, but I could see the grin on him stretching from ear to ear. I blushed.
“Gabriella,” I said. Gabby, said that new voice in me. But not yet; I couldn’t, not yet.
I have another confession to make, dear reader. Jeremy was not only my first and only husband, and the first and only man I’d ever let raise his hand against me, he was also my first and only lover.
And in the five years we’d been sleeping together, he’d never once made me come.
He’d gotten me close, a few times, but he seemed to enjoy keeping me in a perpetual state of sexual limbo. For that matter, I’d never been one to masturbate. That, at least, had nothing to do with Jeremy.
&nb
sp; I’d just always wanted to be able to orgasm with someone I loved, and I thought that if I masturbated I might “desensitize” myself to that sort of touch. Even when it became clear, throughout the marriage, that Jeremy was never going to give me the sort of release they write about in romance novels and talk about in Cosmo, I didn’t think it was going to help the situation if I took it upon myself to get the job done.
At 27, you could say I was long overdue for it.
And what I’d felt when the stranger touched me, when he looked at me…that spark, like a shaft of light jolting through me, told me that even though I had just met him, and certainly didn’t love him, he had the potential to give me what Jeremy never had.
And that new voice inside me was hungry for it.
“Hey,” the stranger said, turning to me somewhat abruptly from the bar. “If you had a theme park, what kind would you have? What would the theme be, rides and stuff?”
I drew a deep breath in surprise. What kind of question was that? Especially after…well, it didn’t seem like quite the normal response to an admission like mine.
“Well…I don’t know. Um…” I said, brain stuttering along. He was looking at me patiently, a smile on his face that just begged to be returned. So I did. You know how they say that when you’re not happy you should just smile, and it will fool your brain into feeling happy? I can attest to that, from that experience. Smiling at him put me at ease, made it okay that I was totally blindsided by his question and must have seemed pretty stupid as I racked my brain for a clever answer. Everything, it seemed, was easy with this guy.
~ 5 ~
How many stories start by spotting someone across a bar? Taking a chance on them? Maybe just for the night, maybe for a night and a morning, but maybe…
Reign watched the girl, who was clearly enjoying the absolute hell out of her burger. Enjoying it so much, you’d think she’d never had red meat or cheese before. She had beautiful, long black hair that waved gently around her face, which just seemed so damn…kissable. She was a thicker girl, but that only made him like her more. A lot more. He thought about what it would be like to run his hands down her sides, pry open her beautiful, soft thighs…
He couldn’t see, in the dimness and the distance, the welt above her eye that would, soon, tell him everything he needed to know about how she’d come to be there.
He could only see her expression of unadulterated pleasure as she ate, like a child indulging in a stolen cookie from the cookie jar, the way she closed her eyes, breathed through her nose, with each bite. He bit his own lips reflexively.
I’d like to take a bite of you, he thought, watching her, hoping his energy would reach her somehow. It didn’t, obviously, but he wasn’t shy. There was no reason to be shy. If she rejected him, so what? If she didn’t…
Well, they’d both have a hell of a night. He’d make sure of it.
And who knew? Maybe it wouldn’t just be a night…
But Reign shook that possibility from his head, knowing that, just like every other girl who came in and out of his life, she would just be around for a while. And what did he want some girl clinging around him for, anyway? He didn’t need an old lady. Not yet.
Though he wondered how she’d look in leather, hair windblown as they rolled down the highway…
“Honey,” Reign said, calling to the bartender who’d served the girl her burger. “I wanna buy that girl a drink. What do you think? Rum and coke?”
“Ummm, anything virgin’s more like it, buddy. She’s jumpy as a jackrabbit on a coke binge, and twice as cagey,” Honey said, her disapproval of Reign’s choice for the night coming through her eyes.
“Make it a strong rum and coke, then,” Reign said, rapping on the bar and shooting her a “don’t-stick-your-nose-in-this” look. Honey shrugged and made the drink, delivering it to the girl, who looked surprised, then nervous, then embarrassed. She looked over in Reign’s direction, and he saw the unmistakable flicker of “holy shit” that crossed her face.
And then the wave.
And then, locked in like a photon torpedo, he made his move.
As he got closer and her face grew clearer, he saw the bruise above her eye for the first time. She was guzzling the drink heartily; that didn’t necessarily make him happy to see, since he preferred to spend his time with girls who could actually think for themselves and weren’t puking on their shoes, but as his mind put together the puzzle pieces (the way she’d been eating, the bruise, her very presence in the bar in the first place), he thought she needed that drink more than even she knew.
She’d need a lot of things.
And even if she refused some of what he wanted to offer, the sexy stuff, he knew he’d still want to help her get what she needed in any way he could.
After all, he’d been in much the same place as her when he’d come to Ditcher’s Valley, all those years ago. Running away from a broken home where fists flew more often than kisses. And he’d been lucky to be taken in, taken care of, set back on his feet and given the chance to find himself, be happy.
And he was interested in paying that forward, whenever he could.
Starting with another drink for Ms. Gorgeous Runaway over here. And maybe a touch that wouldn’t hurt, if she’d let him.
He hoped, harder than ever as he took in her voluptuous body, that she would.
~ 6 ~
“…and a bike ride on Mars thing, with a Led Zeppelin laser show, you know, anti-gravity bike riding in space. Gravitron, of course. And…a Martian photo booth. Martian laser tag, maybe you have to fight evil aliens who want to eat you. A zero-gravity bar, powdered vodka and all that shit. Anti-gravity sex room!”
“Stop, stop, please! Reign’s Grown Up Space Camp…I can’t!” I said, snorting, acting quite unladylike, my hand over my mouth to try and control myself. I almost thought I was going to wet my pants from laughing so hard.
“So, Reign, you’re what, 27? 28? I’m good at guessing ages,” I said once I’d calmed down enough to stand up straight. We were standing outside the bar, enjoying the evening, so much warmer than I was used to up in the Rockies.
He was smoking a cigarette; I was half-drunk and eying the cigarette somewhat enviously. I’d been a smoker when I met Jeremy and, you guessed it, had quit upon his suggestion. I enjoyed being a non-smoker, didn’t miss it much, but, hell, I’d broken all my other rules that night, and a smoke sounded like as good a way to keep the train rolling as any.
It had been so long since someone asked me so many questions about myself, seemed to care about the answers. Laughed at my jokes. Smiled at me.
Don’t I sound desperate as hell? Would it make it any better if I told you that I wouldn’t have been talking to him at all if he wasn’t also so damn handsome, as well as charming? I mean, this would be any girl’s dream regardless of the circumstances. That crooked, boyish grin, that easy laugh…trust me, ladies, if you’d been in my shoes you’d hold your judgement.
“Close, 29,” he said. He seemed to notice where my eyes were lingering and held his pack of cigarettes out to me; Parliaments, my old brand. It was fate! I laughed as I felt my hand go up to the offered pack, certainly not responding to any conscious demand from my brain. But why not? I was feeling good; two drinks in, hamburger slowly digesting in my stomach, a handsome man at my side, why not? I let him light the cigarette for me, began to cough violently as soon as I took the first drag.
“Been awhile?” he asked, eyebrows raised as he tried to hide amusement. I let him off the hook, laughing at myself. God, it felt good to laugh.
“Five years,” I croaked, smoke still streaming from my mouth and nostrils. The second drag, though, went down okay, even if it felt a little scratchy. By the third, I remembered how good a cigarette felt combined with a few drinks. The fourth, I was considering buying my own pack. But, I knew that was a dangerous path to go down, Jeremy or no Jeremy. Smoking in 2015 seemed as stupid as drinking while pregnant. I stubbed out the cigarette, only a little disappoint
ed.
“He make you quit?” Reign suddenly asked, his smile fading as he brought up Jeremy. I’d told him the bare minimum: cop husband, me on the run. We’d changed the subject quickly. This wasn’t the time or place to linger on the past – even the very, very recent past.
The mere mention of “him” actually drove a cold stake through my heart, made the night seem a little chillier, bristled the hair on my arms. I wasn’t safe yet. I was still in the States, not far enough away. I still had my damn car. Maybe he already knew where I was…maybe he was headed there right now…and I was, what, drinking and flirting with a stranger? Real fucking smart, Gabriella. Just sit like a damn duck in a frozen pond.
“Shit, sorry,” Reign said, picking up on the change in my mood. “I didn’t mean to drag you down.”