by Freya Barker
The responding big grin on his face is a surprise and I have to chuckle when he signs, She’s badass.
No shit. “Lusio?” I throw over my shoulder, noticing Yuma and Wapi, another of our cubs, looking on.
“Yeah, Chief?”
“Keep a close eye on the hothead. And I mean close, I don’t want him to take a piss without you knowing about it.”
“Got it,” he confirms, following Rowtag out.
I turn to Yuma. “You plan to stay here tonight?” He nods. “Good. Anything comes up, I’ll be home.”
I wait until they’ve gone before I turn to Cody. Gonna take my girl home. Tomorrow you and me are gonna talk about school... He doesn’t like that, I can tell, so I add, But your assignment tonight is to kick Wapi’s ass in Call Of Duty. No one can beat him, but I bet you can.
The grin back on his face, the kid runs to catch up with him.
“I could’ve handled him,” Luna says, gathering her things and walking up to me.
“I know, but that wasn’t my point. The way he handles himself is a reflection on this club—on me—I needed to make that clear.”
“I get it.”
I sigh, tossing an arm around her shoulder. “I don’t think he does, though.”
“I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU bringing me here is going to help my cover.”
Luna is walking into my house behind me. She hadn’t been happy when I told her to follow me to my place. Since I live almost across from the clubhouse on a rise overlooking Chapman Lake it took us two minutes to get there, and she’s still grumbling after parking her car in front of my garage.
I stop in the small hallway and turn to face her. “More than staying at the clubhouse would,” I explain. “My brothers know I don’t bring women here.”
“For real? Not ever?” The surprised look on her face is cute, and I snag a finger in the front of her shirt, pulling her close for a firm kiss on that slack mouth.
“Not big into relationships, Sprite. Never had the urge to share more than my dick.”
“Yikes,” she grimaces, pulling back. “Crass. And more than I needed to know.” She sidesteps me and walks into my living space.
I bought this place eight years ago, wanting a place of my own to withdraw to, but still close enough to the clubhouse. Other than the great location, one of the main attractions was the huge floor-to-ceiling glass panes all along the back of the house. My place sits higher than the surrounding area, and the land slopes down from the rise to the crisp mountain lake below. The view is fucking ace.
Apparently Luna agrees, because she’s immediately drawn to the windows.
“My God, and I thought I had a good view—this is stunning.”
I set the container with Momma’s dessert in the fridge, grab a couple of beers, and join her by the window. I hand her a bottle over her shoulder, slip my free arm around her middle, and pull her back to my front, my chin resting on her head.
“Didn’t mean to offend you.” Fuck, that sounds stiff. Apologies don’t come natural, and I almost choke on the dry words. “Only thing I was interested in before was getting off and getting out—is what I meant to say.” I feel her stomach muscles contract and wonder if I made it even worse.
“Wow,” she says, in a funny voice. “You sure know how to charm a girl.”
Definitely fucked up again.
I see her face scrunch up in the window’s reflection and turn her around, fully prepared to grovel. But the moment her eyes lift up, she throws her head back and bursts out laughing. She’s got a great fucking deep, full belly laugh I can feel ripple over my skin.
“Smartass,” I grumble, but I do it with a smile on my face.
Crisis averted, I get down to pulling shit together for dinner. Luna takes over prep for the salad, while I put together skewers. Steak, onion, bacon, chunks of fresh pineapple and Haloumi cheese. When there’s nothing left to do but fire up the grill, I lead Luna out on the deck off the kitchen, and she tells me about her session with Cody. Apparently they talked a little about what happened a couple of days ago, but she doesn’t elaborate much, and I don’t push it. I probably trust her more than I trust myself handling that boy right.
It takes just a couple of minutes on each side for the skewers to be ready, and we end up eating out on the deck.
“This stuff is amazing,” Luna says around a mouthful.
Damn, even her healthy appetite is sexy. I know this is supposed to be part of a job for her, but if I believed that’s all it means to her, I would never have brought her here. Still, I wish she were here without an ulterior motive. As for me, my ass is already royally fucked. Case or no case, I like her in my house, I like where this is going. Complications and all.
“Glad you like.”
“I’m actually surprised you didn’t serve up something fried or even ordered. This is pretty healthy fare.”
“Momma’s a great cook, but with a small army of hungry guys to feed every day, she’s more concerned about filling bellies than she is about nutritional value. She’s all about the stick to your ribs kinda food—unfortunately in my case—it settles in my gut.” I slap a hand on my belly.
“Hardly,” she snorts, putting her own hands on her stomach as she leans back in the chair. “God, I’m stuffed.”
I bite my lip to stop myself from letting the lewd thought that immediately springs to mind slip. Besides, I had another reason for whisking her off to my place, where we would have some privacy.
“Leave the plates,” I tell Luna when she starts stacking stuff up. “I’ll take care of them. Sit down, I got somethin’ to say.” I can see her defenses go up immediately, and I know she’s probably been waiting for this, so I barge right in. “You said them.” It’s almost like I slapped her so I quickly grab for her hand. Better would be having her in my lap, but I’ll take what I can get. “Pretty sure I know what that means, Sprite. Don’t need a blow-by-blow, but I can listen and I can be patient.” I’m actually not that sure about the latter, but I can sure as fuck try. “So I’m not gonna push, but one thing I need from you is names.”
I’ve been stewing on this for a while. Since my younger days, both on the streets and in the MC, I’ve lost my appetite for violence. That scene in the garage on Monday fired it right back up.
She shakes her head and stares out in the distance. “Can’t give you those.”
“Like hell you can’t. I don’t know—and I don’t care—if these motherfuckers are behind bars or on the other side of the world. Even if they’re already in a hole in the ground, I need their names, so I can piss on their graves.” My voice has risen with anger and Luna yanks her hand back as she pushes out of her chair. Instead of running off, as I expected her to, she paces a few steps either way before she stops in front of me, her hands on her hips, and fire shooting from her eyes.
“I can’t give you those, because I don’t know who they are!”
CHAPTER 12
LUNA
I’m angry because to this day just talking about what happened all those years ago still makes me feel like puking.
I even went to see Gary Patterson, my therapist in Aztec, yesterday. He was surprised when I called to see him outside of my normal scheduled appointment once a month, but made room for me over lunch. It’s all we talked about.
Gary is the only one who knows as much as I do. For years he’s been trying to convince me that the more I talk about it, the more I acknowledge it happened to me, the less power it will have in my life. He calls it ‘unresolved trauma.’
It took me long enough to seek help in the first place. When I was assigned to the La Plata County FBI field office, and first moved to Durango, the promise of a new start had me seek out counseling to deal with my past. Gary had me open up to him, which was a huge step for me, but I haven’t been able to move much beyond that point.
Maybe what I needed was a good incentive.
He seemed encouraged when I told him I’d developed an interest in someone. In actual fact, he s
aid, “About fucking time,” before launching into a pep talk that had me convinced I could do this, right up to about five minutes ago.
I focus on Ouray, who looks back at me without blinking, challenging me without saying a word. I grab onto the railing behind me and take a deep breath.
“It was a Halloween party at a frat house,” I finally manage, and once started, the words seem to fall from my lips unchecked. “My first one, and I was excited to dress up. It’s funny because growing up in the Netherlands, I was worldwise to a lot of things, a lot of things my fellow students seemed more naïve about. Like drinking, which I’d been legally allowed to do since sixteen there, but a lot of the kids here were only just exposed to. Also about sexuality. I had experimented as a teenager—little was considered taboo in Holland. I had no concept that the silly cat costume I was wearing might be considered a sexual provocation.”
“Shouldn’t matter what you wear,” Ouray says in a surprisingly soft voice.
“Maybe so, but still, it apparently gave the impression I was ‘free game.’ I was flattered when two guys—one wearing a Superman costume, and one dressed as Freddy Krueger—started dancing with me. Both had on masks. That’s about as much as I remember. I wasn’t drunk, so I figure they must’ve slipped me something in the beer they handed me.” I snort, remembering how stupidly innocent I had been. “I recall being led up a set of stairs. I recall the masks—still sometimes see them hovering over me in my dreams. I remember them pulling the turtleneck sweater I was wearing to cover my face, and trying to fight when they ripped off my tights, but other than that, I don’t remember much.”
“Jesus.” His voice is still gentle, in contrast with the clenched jaw and fisted hands on the armrests. “Tell me you know you hold no responsibility for what happened to you.”
I shrug. It’s one of the things I’ve struggled with most, what—if any—my part may have been in what happened. It’s why I am the way I am. Not simply guarded around men, but not trusting my own judgement of them. I tried a few times since to connect with men on a physical level, but I panicked and backed out every time. It just seemed easier to avoid any involvement altogether.
“Rationally I do. Emotionally...that’s a whole other kettle of fish.”
My eyes drift off in the distance as the silence that follows my words stretches, and I can’t help wonder what he is thinking. He may have made it clear he has more than a passing interest in me—even pushed me to tell him—but now that he knows how fucked up I really am, will he look at me the same?
I startle at a tentative touch of fingers reaching for my hand, and turn my eyes back to find him leaning forward, pressing his lips to my palm.
“I’m struggling,” he says breathing hard, and my heart falls. I almost pull my hand back when he continues, “I should be telling you not all guys take what they want without permission, and yet what I really want to do is pull you down on my knees, hold you tight, and kiss the fucking starch out of those lips.”
I search his face to find sincerity behind his words. I take a step closer and climb onto his lap, my eyes holding his as I press my mouth to his. Tentatively, his arms slide around me.
I hold no illusions I’m all better now, but being able to feel safe in a man’s arms—this man’s arms—is a sweet victory all on its own.
He lifts his mouth from mine, kisses the tip of my nose, and then we both turn our eyes to the beautiful view.
“What’s Blackfoot’s involvement?” he asks after a few minutes, and I realize even sitting together quietly, his mind never stopped churning.
“First time I met him was when he walked in, looking for an available bathroom, and found me lying on the bed.” I remember that part clearly. I’d just come to, freaked at the sight of him, and scrambled up the bed. The first thing I noticed was the pain, and it took me a second to realize I was half-naked. “He wanted to call 911, but I wouldn’t let him. I was still fairly new in the country, and convinced it must’ve been something I did wrong. Heck, I wasn’t even clear on what just happened. I convinced him to take me to my dorm room, even though he wasn’t happy about it. It was the first and the last time I saw him until moving to Durango. Seeing him was a shock.”
“So nothing was ever reported? You never found out who?”
I bristle at his words and straighten up. Probably because they echo my self-recriminations. “I was young, thousands of miles away from home. My mom passed away the year before, and I used money I inherited from her on my eighteenth birthday to finance my ticket and my studies. My father had already moved on to another wife, was starting a new family,” I reply defensively. “All I wanted to do was keep my head down. I switched my majors from English and history to psychology and criminology, and focused on my studies. And no—I never went looking.”
“Easy, Sprite,” he soothes me with his voice before pulling me back against his chest. “It was just a question.” With his fingers lightly stroking my arm, I eventually relax again, despite the barely restrained tension I feel coming from him.
Each lost to our own thoughts, we sit like that until the sun is almost gone from the sky and the mosquitos come out in full force. Grabbing plates and bottles, we make our way inside, and take care of the dirty dishes without exchanging a word. The silence becomes oppressive and, drying my hands on the kitchen towel, I speak up.
“I should probably head home.”
Rather than objecting, Ouray just nods, and the uncertainty I was feeling settles further in my bones like an ache.
“I’ll follow you,” he announces, as I dejectedly make my way to the door.
“No need. I know where I’m going.”
An arm wraps around my chest from behind, and his breath stirs my hair. “I’ll follow you,” he repeats, firmer than before. Not in the mood to bicker, I simply open the door and lead the way outside.
I’m not a crier, but the tears burn hot in my eyes on the drive home. Annoyed with him, and with myself for the show of weakness, I pull the car up to my place, and without looking back or even acknowledging his presence, march up to the door, my keys ready in my hand.
“Oh no you don’t,” his voice rumbles behind me, and I’m swung around by a firm hand on my shoulder.
OURAY
I back her into the door and block her with my body.
“I’ll be the first to admit I know fuck all about what goes on in a woman’s mind, but darlin’, I sure as hell can tell when a woman is upset.”
She keeps her eyes closed as I brush a fingertip over her cheek and bend down to cover her reluctant mouth with mine. A risk, because if she wanted, she could have me castrated in a split second. I taste the stray tears on her lips even as I feel her leaning into the kiss.
“Tonight was heavy,” I mumble, tilting my head so I can look her in the eye. “Was hard for me to listen to. I can’t even fuckin’ imagine what it must’ve been like for you to talk about. For me it doesn’t change a goddamn thing, I still want you the same, I’m just feeling a might murderous right now. Gonna need to blow off some steam, and now’s not the time to do that in bed. I’ll head over to the clubhouse, pound a bag for a bit, maybe have a drink, and hope I burn off enough I can sleep. You need some good rest too. Tomorrow we pick up where we left off. That’s all.”
I fucking hate seeing her eyes mist over, but she smiles when she nods her agreement. I take her keys and unlock the door for her, before I drop a quick kiss on her lips and walk back to my bike.
Instead of heading straight for the clubhouse, I return home. I wasn’t lying, I need to blow off steam, but what I want first is to get some answers.
“Blackfoot,” is the curt answer when I call. Didn’t take me long to find his number. He’s the only lead I have.
“She told me.” I don’t even bother introducing myself, but he’s not stupid.
“Nice try, she doesn’t talk.”
“You found her in a room in a frat house during a Halloween party, half-naked and terrified. She refused to
report anything and you took her to her dorm room.”
I hear the hiss of his breath over the line. “Jesus. She told you.”
“Who were they?”
The brief silence is thick, and threatening. “Say what?”
“Not buying for a second you didn’t know what was done to her the moment you saw her, Blackfoot. Don’t fuck me around. The two guys, Superman and Freddy Krueger. Who were they?”
“Two of them?” He sounds wrecked. “I hustled her out of there, dropped her at her dorm as she asked. Then I went back to the party. I tagged the guy dressed as Superman right away, bragging about his fucking conquest to some dumb kid. The moment he walked outside for a smoke, I was on him. Dragged him into the garage and beat the crap out of him. Pretty sure he never recovered.”
“Oh yeah? How’s that.”
“When he was out cold, I clamped his balls in a woodworking vise. Hard enough to leave him bleeding. I took off after that. It fucking never occurred to me there’d been two of them.”
I didn’t expect this and it takes the wind out of my sails. I’d been nursing my rage at Keith for not taking any action all night. Hearing he had taken action is deflating. It takes me a moment to recalibrate.
“Any suggestions how I might be able to track down Freddy Krueger?” I finally ask.
“Is this for Luna or for you?”
The guy is faster on his feet than I am, asking a question I should’ve been asking myself. “Both,” is my honest response.
“Right. Luna is an FBI agent, she probably has more ways than you and I combined to find these guys. You may want to consider why it is she’s never made an effort to find out for herself.”
Fuck. Another good point. “What are you, a motherfuckin’ feminist?” His snort is loud and immediate.
“Far from. I was recently introduced to the beauty of domestic bliss, and let me give you a friendly tip—learn to listen. Your wants don’t measure up to their needs.”
“Relationships sound like work,” I grumble, which apparently is funny too, since he starts to chuckle.