As Crip fired up his bike, Alexandra cleared her throat.
“He’s a dick,” she whispered.
I couldn’t argue with her. He was a dick. But he was a dick for a reason. “Yeah. He can be,” I said. “But he’s got his reasons.”
I turned around and faced the group. Eleven of my brothers stood beside their bikes, and seven girls who ranged in age from nine to twenty-one were at their sides. What had happened over the course of the night was staggering when I thought about it.
Pee Bee slid the door open, and after Crip rode through it, he pulled it closed.
I crossed my arms and glanced around the group. “He’s going to get a van, and then I’ll get you all taken home. Your parents can take you to the hospital, or wherever you need to go. Probably be about an hour before we head out. Bathroom’s back there, and there’s food in the fridge.”
I tried to imagine what the girls had been through, but for the life of me, couldn’t come up with anything that I felt could compare to what they’d experienced. As a few of the men led the girls toward the bathroom or the refrigerator, Alexandra looked at mem but didn’t speak. Her eyes couldn’t hide her desire to speak, though.
I raised my eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“I don’t want to go home,” she said. “Not yet.”
“It’ll be an hour or so. You okay?”
She shrugged. “I’ll be okay, but I don’t want to go home.”
Other than having dirty hair, countless bruises, and scrubs that didn’t fit, she looked remarkably normal. It was hard for me to believe she’d been in the position she was in and somehow found a way to maintain anything close to sanity.
She must have been one tough little bitch.
“Where do you want to go?” I asked.
She shrugged. “With you?”
I shook my head. “After I take everyone home, I’m going for a long ride. Need to clear my head.”
“You need to clear your head?” She tossed her leg over my seat and grinned. “So do I. A lot more than you, I’m sure.”
After going through what she did, if she felt a ride would clear her head, who was I to argue?
“You sure you don’t need--”
“I need another ride on this motorcycle,” she said. “It’s hard to explain, but it makes me feel--”
“No need to explain,” I said. “I know exactly what you’re trying to say.”
Her eyes lit up. “So, you’ll take me for a ride?”
I nodded. “As long of one as it takes.”
“Be careful what you promise,” she said.
I wasn’t worried. She’d get sick of riding long before I did, that much I was sure of.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Lex
Seeing the girls walk away wasn’t easy for either of us. For him, there were too many questions he simply couldn’t answer, and I could see that it frustrated him. For me, watching the them leave was difficult and emotionally exhausting. In the end, having them reunited with their families was very rewarding, yet I found it to be a slightly troubling experience.
I felt like I was losing members of my family.
Sisters I’d never see again.
We dropped off Marbella, and I could see the end of our time together approaching. I produced all the excuses I could summon in support of why I didn’t want to go home, but none of them seemed to work. After a little pleading – begging was more like it – he offered to let me take a shower at his house. Appreciative of not only what he’d done, but of the character he seemed to possess, I sat at his kitchen table and studied him.
He was big, muscular, rough-looking, and covered in tattoos. Most women would simply thank him and leave, but for whatever reason, I needed him to remain close to me for a little bit longer.
I was normally attracted to men like him, but it wasn’t his physical characteristics that lured me. After a few moments, I decided it was his compassionate nature that I found attractive.
After spending a lifetime convinced heroes only existed in books and movies, having real-life one sit in front of me left me a little star struck.
I rested my cheek against my hand and cocked my head to the side. “How old are you?”
The words came out before I could stop them. Obviously, I was more than just a little star struck. I decided it was fine. I wanted to know his age anyway.
Halfway through a sip of his coffee, he lowered the cup and looked at me. “Thirty-one.”
I nodded.
The corner of his mouth curled up. “Why?”
Despite his rough exterior, he was actually kind of cute. I grinned. “Just wondering.”
He returned a nervous look and lifted his cup. “You ready to go when we’re done with these?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“You need to get home,” he said. “Hell, you didn’t even let me call your mom and say you’re alright.”
I shrugged. “I’m not ready yet.”
He leaned forward and rested his tattooed forearms on the edge of the table. “Listen. You’re probably in shock. You need to go home, go to the hospital and get checked out, and then get some rest. We need to finish this coffee and go.”
“You said you’d let me ride for as long as it took to clear my head.” I arched an eyebrow. “It took forever to get everyone dropped off, and we basically rode from your clubhouse to here. I just wanted to get cleaned up. Now I’m ready.”
His brow wrinkled. “Listen. I’m not even going to act like I can imagine what you’ve been through, but I know you can’t just act like it didn’t happen. The club’s President? The guy you said was a dick? His mom works at a place that--”
“I’ll be fine. Really,” I said.
He leaned back and let out a sigh. “When you get home, you’re really going to need--”
“Home? Right now, I don’t have a home. When those assholes…” I took a deep breath and then sighed. “When I was at the 7-Eleven I was on my way to ask my mother if I could move in with her for a while. The guy I was living with smacked me for the last time, and I left after he went to work. All my shit’s in my car. Or, at least it was.”
“God damn.” He pushed his cup aside and shook his head. “You can’t catch a break.”
“A break?” I coughed out a laugh and struggled to keep from spitting coffee on him in the process. “I don’t need a break. Life throws us good days and bad days. Accepting the bad days as being part of life’s cycle allows me to appreciate the good ones that much more.”
“Hell of an attitude to have,” he said with a nod.
“Listen,” I said. “When we were on our way out of that shit-hole, it sure didn’t look to me like that prick with the tattoos on his face was going to hurt anyone else. He got what he had coming. That’s todays break, I guess.”
He nodded and looked away.
I took a sip of coffee. “Guy with a swastika, huh?”
“Yeah,” he said without looking at me.
I chuckled. “Okay.”
He looked at me. “So, what are we gonna do?”
“You ready to take me for that ride?”
He sighed and shifted his eyes toward the kitchen.
I finished my coffee and then shook my head. “Look, mister. You can think whatever you want, but they didn’t destroy me. I didn’t let them. I won’t give anyone that satisfaction. I’m just some girl who had an asshole for a boyfriend, and was at the right 7-ELEVEN at the wrong fucking time. It’s over, and regardless of whether you want to take credit for it or not, I have you to thank for it. I don’t want anything from you but to use your motorcycle to clear my head.”
He met my gaze.
“So, thank you,” I said. “Now. What about that ride?”
“After everything you’ve been through, I don’t know if taking you for a ride is a good idea. You need to go to your mom’s house and--”
I shot him a shitty glare. “I want a ride on your bike, not your cock.”
“You�
�ve got quite a mouth for a little girl,” he mumbled.
Little girl?
His words ground against the grain of my being like fingernails on the chalkboard of life.
I folded my arms across my chest and sharpened my glare. “Little girl? I’ll be twenty-one in two weeks, and I’ve lived through more shit than most women will endure in ten fucking lifetimes. I’ve been shitting in a bucket that I had to share with seven other girls for the last week, sleeping on a piss covered floor, and the only food I’ve had is a handful of granola bars and this cup of god damned coffee. Have you heard me complain once?”
He stared at me with wide eyes.
“Even fucking once?” I snarled.
His tugged at the bill of his hat, but didn’t respond.
“Well,” I snapped. “Have you?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“That’s because I’m not a little girl. And, I’m perfectly fucking capable of making my own decisions.” I stood up and shot him a sideways look. “Remember that.”
“Alright, then,” he breathed. “You ready to take that ride?”
We rode for the entire morning, and I found it to be so much more than a means of transportation. It was therapeutic.
Refreshing.
Cleansing.
We didn’t really talk during the ride. My mind drifted to thoughts of freedom, flying, and what it was like to be an eagle. The experience was the polar opposite of what I had been exposed to during my abduction.
When we were finally done, he pulled into my mother’s driveway. I released my grip from his waist and mentally prepared to get off the motorcycle, even though I didn’t really want to.
The front door swung open, and my mother screeched. I lifted my leg over the seat and fumbled to get my footing. As she ran down the driveway toward us, my savior and I exchanged a quick look.
Nothing was said, but I don’t know that anything needed to be. Our eyes simply locked for an instant, and then he broke my gaze.
His rough exterior could do nothing to completely hide his caring inner self.
And, it was at that instant, when our eyes met for only a split-second, that I decided I wanted to know more about the man who slayed my monsters in his spare time.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Cholo
I opened my saddle bag and carefully removed the towels from the enclosure. Using a motorcycle as my basic mode of transportation was liberating, but at times it was a pain in the ass. My mother taught me to never show up at someone’s house empty-handed, and something as simple as transporting a bottle of wine became difficult on a bike. After removing the bottle and wiping the condensation from the glass, I inspected it for damage.
I hated using Alexandra’s abduction as a reason to visit Lucy, but after ten years of not seeing her, I really didn’t have any other excuse for showing up. I mentally shrugged off my reservations and sauntered up the walk toward the porch.
As I was brushing the wrinkles from my jeans, the door opened.
Lucy’s eyes lit up. “Adam.” She looked me over, and then stepped aside. “I like the vest. Come in. How are you doing?”
I smiled and nodded. She was dressed in a pair of velour designer sweats and a tight-fitting tee shirt. My mother also taught me not to stare, but her outfit left little to the imagination, and diverting my eyes was close to impossible.
I gave her a quick look, pried my eyes from her tits, and then met her gaze. “I’m good, thanks.”
She glanced at the wine, and then at me. She looked much better than the day I’d seen her at the remodel home, and appeared to have gotten some rest since I dropped Alexandra off a week prior.
Her eyebrows raised slightly. “You brought wine?”
Her light brown hair was clean and straight, almost reflecting the late evening sun. She looked the same as she did when I’d watch her walk to her car in the summers before she moved away. I still remembered the day she left, and although it seemed like a lifetime had passed since, she hadn’t aged one bit.
“It’s Friday night.” I hoisted the bottle. “And, my mom always said never show up empty-handed.”
“Wine’s my weakness. Well, one of them.” She motioned toward the living room. “Have a seat, I’ll pour us a glass.”
I handed her the bottle and looked around the small living room. The home was a small two-bedroom ranch, typical of the lower income houses in southern California. It reminded me of the shit-hole Alexandra was in, but so did the majority of the homes in Oceanside.
I sat in the middle of the couch, hoping she’d take a seat beside me. There was a chair shoehorned between the end table and the wall, and a loveseat at the other side. I glanced around the room and decided where she chose to sit would give me an idea of her intentions.
After a moment, she walked in and sat down beside me. She poured a glass of wine and handed it to me.
“Here.”
I smiled and took a quick glance at her tits, trying not to stare. “Thanks.”
She poured another glass, and then set the bottle on the end table. She raised her glass. “Here’s to Lex being home again.”
I lifted my glass in agreement. As she took a drink, I did the same, and almost choked on the syrupy substance.
Wine wasn’t my go-to drink, in fact, I’d never had a glass of it in my life. I’d chosen the bottle of Moscato based on my mother’s recommendation, and although Lucy seemed to love it, I had my doubts as to whether I’d even be able to finish the glass or not.
“Oh, God.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “This is good.”
It tasted like candy. Shitty candy. I lifted the glass and grinned, nonetheless. “So, where’s Alexandra?”
She took another drink, finishing her glass in one large gulp. She reached for the bottle. “She’s at some class. She’s going to two. Coping with PTSD, and another for victims of rape.”
I took a fake sip and then nodded. “I’m sure they’ll do her good. ”
She poured her glass full, took another gulp, and rested her hand on my leg. “I can’t…I just…You have no idea,” she stammered. “What you did? I’m so grateful. And, she looks up to you. You should hear how she talks about you and your friends.”
She squeezed my thigh.
I glanced at her hand and then looked at her. “It’s best to just forget about the whole thing.” I shook my head. “Let it pass.”
“The police called it a gang war. They said it was two gangs fighting over territory. Did you see that on the news?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“They have no idea.” She squeezed my leg again. “That’s good, huh?”
Her beautiful looks and tight-fitting shirt – when combined with her hand being three inches from the tip of my dick – made hiding my sexual desire difficult.
As I felt myself begin to grow rigid, her eyebrows raised. “Isn’t it?”
I realized although my cock had responded, I hadn’t. I nodded eagerly and tried to think of anything that might make the swelling go down. “Oh. Yeah. That’s good.”
I’d fought bare knuckles fights with guys twice my size, boxed golden gloves for years, was in a gang as a kid, and had been in more street fights than the entire MC combined. Furthermore, I’d accomplished all that without a single moment of feeling nervous.
Yet.
I sat at her side nervous as fuck that she was going to either notice the rapid swelling and start stroking it, or unintentionally brush against it and scream. The thought of either made me more anxious than I used to get when I was a teen.
Despite that fact that I’d fucked more women than I could come close to counting, and that I never really valued a relationship as being anything that could last beyond my typical Sunday morning departure, I wanted whatever was going to materialize between us to be different.
I pressed my back against the couch cushion and tried to gain an inch or two of room between my throbbing stick and her heavy hand.
Her
fingers inched up my thigh slightly as I moved. I glanced down and then looked at her. She took a sip of wine and grinned.
I’d spent damn near ten years mentally fucking her, and now that I had a chance at the real thing, I didn’t want an unexpected swipe of her hand against the tip of my overeager Johnston to lessen my odds of success.
“Oh God.” She giggled. “I’m feeling this wine already.”
She raised her glass and wiped her forearm across her forehead.
In about two fucking seconds, you’re going to get it, lady.
I took a drink of the shitty wine, wishing the entire time it took me to choke it down that it was a beer. As beads of sweat formed on my brow, the front door swung open.
She lifted her hand from my thigh. “Hey Lex. Look who stopped by.”
I shifted my eyes from Lucy’s tits to Alexandra.
It had been a little more than a week since I’d dropped her off. I don’t really know what I expected her to look like, but the person who stood in the doorway surprised me.
Shocked was more like it.
Dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a tee shirt, she could have been anyone – but she looked different than everyone. The bruises on her face had either faded away or been covered by makeup. Her dark blonde hair was curled and most of it was twisted into a knot on top of her head.
She tossed her purse on the floor, and looked up. A few loose strands of hair dangled at the sides of her face. Her cheeks were filled out, and no longer gaunt. Her eyes gleamed, and she looked truly happy, although I seriously doubted she truly was.
Hell, how could she be?
“Oh. Wow. Hey, how’s it going?”
I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth and felt guilty for even noticing her good looks.
“I’m Good.” I pushed myself from the couch and stood. “How are you doing?”
She grinned a shallow grin. “I’m good. Really good.”
Her eyes shot to the bottle of wine, and then to her mother. “I’ll grab a glass.”
“You’ve got a week to go,” Lucy said, although it didn’t sound like she meant it.
“Five days,” Alexandra said on her way to the kitchen. “I’ve earned it.”
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