In the process of backing quickly away from her, Dirty paused. “So?” he asked.
“It’s going to get ticketed. And Daniel will know I’m still here! He’ll find me!”
Dirty blinked. “Daniel,” he said slowly and Ellie realized, in her panic, she’d just given the name of her attacker away, something she’d planned on keeping quiet in order to protect herself.
She knew the moment Dirty figured out exactly who Daniel was. His expression went from confused to not only hostile, but frightening. Murderous.
“Mooresville,” he growled menacingly. “Chief fucktard? That’s who motherfuckin’ did this to you?”
Ellie swallowed hard. What now? She obviously needed help and it wasn’t as if her parents could do anything. Dirty, as well as the Horsemen, she supposed, were her only option. The more she thought about it, the more a small sense of comfort began to soothe her tightly strung nerves. If anyone could take on the law and win, it was Deuce West. As it was, Dirty had already tried to kill the man.
“Yes,” she whispered, feeling disgusted with herself. “God, I was so stupid. What was I thinking kissing him?”
The next thing she knew Dirty was grabbing her shoulders, painfully squeezing her bruised skin. The smell of body odor, motor oil, and cigarette smoke hit her like a punch in the gut and she recoiled.
“Fuck that!” he hissed, shaking her. “This shit isn’t your fault. This is that rich, thinks-he’s-fuckin’-entitled-to-anything-he-fuckin’-wants asshole’s fault.”
“Stop!” she cried, her terror from last night resurfacing. “Please, you’re hurting me!”
Dirty froze and a breath later released her. She scrambled backward, back into the safety of the bathroom, and tried to breathe as her heart pounded painfully, wondering how she was going to escape Dirty when he was blocking her only exit. But when she looked back at him, she found him looking nearly as afraid as she felt. Not only was he holding his grease-stained hands out in front of him, he was staring down at them in disbelief.
Then he glanced up at her and his eyes went wide. It took Ellie a moment to realize what was wrong; she was naked, her towel had fallen from her body in her mad scramble for safety. Quickly, she snatched her towel from the floor and held it against her body and the second she did, Dirty suddenly spun around, facing the hallway.
“I’m sorry,” Dirty said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Fuck, I’m really sorry. I don’t know why I did that.”
Ellie didn’t say anything, just stared at his back, at his hole-ridden T-shirt and the filthy jeans sagging off his body.
“Hang here,” he continued, his voice rough. “I’m goin’ to the club, gonna let Deuce handle this shit.”
As soon as Dirty took his first step forward, Ellie panicked. “Wait!” she cried and Dirty froze.
“Don’t leave me here alone!”
She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to take the chance that Daniel had seen Dirty last night and would come looking for him or her or both of them.
“Fuck,” Dirty muttered. “Fuckin’ fuck.”
Ellie waited with bated breath to see what he would say next, hoping and praying he wasn’t going to abandon her.
• • •
Holy fucking shit. Holy what-the-fuck fucking shit. Dirty was going to throw up. He was going to fucking spew his guts all over the damn place. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why had he grabbed her? He could still feel her skin on his palms, warm and damp from her shower, her body quivering, the fear in her voice.
She’d been nearly raped in a filthy alleyway, beaten unconscious, and he’d only further terrified her. Then, if shit wasn’t already fucking awful, he’d seen her naked.
She’d gained weight since he’d last seen her as a teenager. She’d been curvy before but she was all curves now. Her stomach far from flat, her full breasts hung heavy, and her thighs were dimpled with extra weight.
His brothers, most of them, would have taken one look at her and passed on her in favor of a thinner, more aesthetically pleasing female.
Actually, most of the boys steered clear of black women. Some of them because, yeah, they were fucking racist, others because brothers knew better than to mess with a sister. Most of the black women they encountered were gang-affiliated, and not women who messed around. If you wanted a black bitch in your bed, you’d better have plans on making her your old lady unless you wanted to find your balls no longer attached to your body.
But none of it was off-putting to him. Dirty never discriminated; he didn’t give two fucks who he was fucking because 99.9% of the time they didn’t have a clue they were being fucked, and the other 0.1%…
Tap stepped in front of Deuce. “Hold off a minute, Prez,” he said, looking down at Mama Vi, his mouth slowly curving into a grin. “Lemme have at her first.”
“Fuck you,” Deuce muttered. “This bitch needs to be put the fuck down.”
“Yeah,” Tap said, his eyes never once leaving Mama Vi. “But first I’m gonna show her what the fuck happens when some fuckin’ cunt thinks she can mess with my club.”
“You just wanna fuck her,” Cox said, lighting up a smoke. “Don’t lie.”
Tap shrugged. “That too.”
Dirty had been standing off to the side waiting for it, watching Tap closely, knowing exactly what was running through the brother’s mind, waiting for Deuce to okay it before he jumped on board.
He didn’t get the chance very often to take a woman while she was conscious, a woman he could do whatever the fuck he wanted to, beat her, brutally fuck her like a goddamn animal, relish in hearing her beg and scream.
Because unlike most of the women he fucked, this bitch deserved what she was about to get.
She was a cold-blooded killer; a bitch who had tortured and killed without remorse, a bitch who deserved to go out in the worst possible way, and women like her, Dirty didn’t lose any sleep over what he was about to do.
But he never initiated it. He let Tap or Bucket or Dimebag take the lead. Deuce already knew he was fucked in the head. He didn’t want his prez thinking he was a loose cannon, giving Deuce a reason to strip his patch.
“I’m in,” Dirty said, joining Tap. He kneeled down beside Mama Vi and grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking her head up. “Don’t let the lack of a mustache fool ya, baby,” he said, grinning, stroking his full beard. “I’m always down for a gang bang.”
“There ain’t nothin’ you can do to me,” she hissed, “that ain’t already been done.”
Dirty’s grin grew wider. That’s what she thought. His foster mother had proven useful in situations such as these. The sick bitch had an imagination to rival that of anything he’d ever read about.
“Yeah?” he asked. “You hear that, Tap? Guess we’re gonna have to get creative.”
Whatever, as long as he got to hurt her. Because he needed to hurt her; he needed to hurt someone, anyone, because he hurt so fucking bad all the damn time and it never left him, not once, he didn’t get even five fucking seconds of peace, never, fucking ever. It was always there, a constant reminder that he was a worthless piece of fucking shit, a blight on humanity, that he was trash, used up and broken, unfixable, worse even, because he’d become the monster he’d hated most of all.
“Brother, I am all about creative.”
“Have at her,” Deuce said. Grabbing hold of her bound hands, Deuce yanked her to her feet and shoved her forward into Dirty’s arms. “But it’s me who’s gonna be puttin’ her to ground.”
Dirty didn’t waste any time ripping Mama Vi’s shirt open. Then, while Tap was unbuttoning his leathers, Dirty pulled her jeans down.
“You go right ahead and scream, bitch,” Tap growled, grabbing her neck, squeezing tightly and forcing her to bend over.
And when it was Dirty’s turn, he damn sure made that bitch scream.
But this was different.
Dirty didn’t want to hurt Ellie, he didn’t want to make her scream.
Did he?
Fuck.
She looked so soft and warm. She looked the complete opposite of the women he fucked; the women who reminded him of…
HER.
Jesus fucking Christ.
He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d looked upon the front of a naked woman’s body for any length of time. He’d never fucked a woman on her back. Not since…
He couldn’t look at them. It was too…
It was disgusting and beautiful all at the same time.
Fuck, he couldn’t look at their breasts, their pussy, without getting nauseous, without his body growing clammy and paralyzing panic taking root inside of him. It didn’t even matter that he dosed the women he fucked, he still couldn’t look at them, even unconscious. Fuck, for the most part he couldn’t even touch a conscious woman without feeling the overwhelming urge to bolt. Or jerk off. Or puke. Or knock her out and fuck her. Or kill them, someone, himself. Or all of the above.
None of which he wanted to do in front of Ellie. Or to Ellie. Jesus Christ, why was he suddenly all fucked-up and confused? Why had it been him to find her? This was the very last thing he needed. He had to get the fuck away from her before he did something very stupid.
“I’ll call Deuce,” he said, hearing the agony he was feeling in his voice. “Tell him to come here, okay?”
For a moment he didn’t think she was going to respond, but there was no fucking way in hell he was going to turn around. In fact, he was going to go sit in the kitchen, in a corner, facing the wall until Deuce got here.
“Okay,” she finally whispered. “Thank you.”
Dirty hightailed it down the hallway, already dialing Deuce. Hitting the kitchen, he fell to his knees and waited for his prez to pick up.
“Yeah?”
“Got a problem.”
“What?”
His voice shaking, Dirty did his best to explain everything that had transpired since last night and then he waited for Deuce to respond.
“Ellie?” Deuce asked. “As in Danny’s Ellie?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure it was Mooresville?”
“She is,” Dirty said. “I didn’t get a good look at him.”
“Fuck,” Deuce growled. “I don’t need this shit. We got a huge deal about to go down and I need that fucker in place, and I’m thinkin’ he ain’t gonna be in place if he’s too busy worryin’ ’bout Ellie rattin’ him out.”
That was not what Dirty wanted to hear.
“She can’t stay here, Prez,” he whispered. “You gotta get her outta my place.”
Deuce went silent.
“Brother,” Deuce said after several moments. “Did you do somethin’ I need to know about?”
“No,” he gritted out. “But I need her the fuck outta here.”
“Gimme fifteen,” Deuce said quickly. “And I’ll be there.”
Trembling, Dirty let his phone fall to the linoleum with a loud clatter and then his head dropped and he pressed his forehead against the wall. Fifteen minutes. He could keep his shit together for fifteen minutes.
CHAPTER FIVE
ZZ: Where the fuck are you?
Rolling my eyes, I typed ZZ back a short text.
Me: Fuck you.
My phone buzzed again.
ZZ: Can’t. You ain’t here.
Me: I’ll be home later.
ZZ: Where the fuck are you?
Me: Since when do you care?
ZZ: Answer me.
“Fucker,” I hissed under my breath.
Narrowing my eyes, I glared down at my phone. What the fuck was wrong with him?
Angry, I punched in exactly two letters.
Me: No.
“Teg?”
My head shot up and I found Hayley, her husband Joe, and our mutual friends, Tara and her boyfriend Tim, and two of Joe’s douche canoe friends, Doug and—Scott? Skip? something with an S—all staring at me.
And Hayley looked seriously annoyed.
“What?” I asked, feeling pretty annoyed myself.
She gestured toward Scott or Skip. “I was just telling Steve how much you appreciate motorcycles and it just so happens that he has one.”
Whoopee. Like I fucking cared.
“Oh yeah?” I said, glancing at Steve. “What kind of ride?”
The douche canoe grinned at me, revealing two perfectly straight and glaringly white rows of teeth.
“A BMW,” he said. “R12—”
“A sports bike?” I interrupted, wrinkling up my nose. “How super gay for you.”
The table went quiet as everyone glanced uncomfortably at one another. Rolling my eyes, I stabbed a piece of tofu on my plate and shoved it in my mouth.
When I’d finished chewing and still no one had yet to speak, I glanced around the table. “What?” I asked. “Sport bikes are for pussies. True fucking story.”
Hayley let out a long-suffering sigh and Joe shook his head. Whatever. I shrugged again and went back to eating.
Exactly one extraordinarily painful half an hour later, I was finally on my way out the door, racing through the night with Hayley hot on my heels.
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded. “Are you trying to stay single forever?”
I picked up my speed, suddenly pissed off that both my work and my apartment were within walking distance of Hayley’s home.
“Tegen!” she shouted, breathing hard behind me. “I just want to see you happy!”
“I’m perfectly fucking happy!” I shouted over my shoulder. “In fact, the only thing I’m not happy about is you constantly trying to marry me off to Joe’s douchey friends!”
“You are not happy!” she shouted back. “You are so far from happy!”
Oh, hell no. How dare she?
I came skidding to a stop and spun around. Upon seeing my murderous expression, Hayley froze.
“Stop it,” I hissed. “You don’t get to judge me, you don’t even know the half of it, so you do not get to fucking judge me!”
“I don’t need to know any of it to know that ZZ is the problem! You’re like frozen or something, Teg! What’s the plan here? Are you going to marry him? Or are you just going to have meaningless sex forever? When are you going to really start living?”
I stared at her, fighting back the tears burning behind my eyes. I wasn’t frozen. I fucking wasn’t. I had a life here. I did. I fucking did.
“Fuck you,” I whispered.
Hayley’s expression shifted from hard to kind. “Oh, Tegen, honey. Please, I just want you to be happy.”
Happy.
Who was I kidding? Even after all these years, I wasn’t ready to let go. Because if I were, if I really and truly were ready, I wouldn’t still be daydreaming about being on the back of a certain asshole’s bike. I wouldn’t be staring forlornly at passing motorcycles. And I wouldn’t be fucking a man who did nothing but remind me of a life I supposedly wanted to forget. Everything I’d left behind.
But most of all, because he reminded me of…
Shit.
Which meant it was probably time to start being honest with myself, meaning I would finally have to admit what my therapist had been trying to get me to concede for years now.
That ZZ wasn’t just a fill-in, he was a fill-in for something, for someone very specific.
Goddammit, I was still sitting on Cage’s bed the morning after he’d taken my virginity, my heart aching, looking up at him as he looked down at me and said, “It ain’t like that for me, baby.”
Even after all these years.
I left Hayley in the middle of the street staring sadly after me. When I got home, I found ZZ lounging on the couch in his boxers, his cell phone held to his ear with his shoulder, a bottle of Jack in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
I dropped my backpack by the door, kicked off my sandals, and began undressing. By the time I reached him, I was naked.
As I straddled his lap, he stubbed out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray and let the bottle fall to the floor. Cu
pping both my breasts, he squeezed them hard and twisted the soft flesh in his hands until I winced in pain.
“How many?” he asked the person on the other end of his phone call.
“Fuck that, Prez,” he continued. “I can handle it.”
“Fuck me,” I pleaded in a whisper, lowering my face to his, grinding my hips over his, feeling him grow hard as I did.
His grip on my breasts tightened and his dark eyes bored into mine, but he did nothing.
Aggravated, I pushed up and off him and dropped to my knees between his legs. Freeing him from his boxers, I took him into my mouth. ZZ threaded his fingers through my hair, digging into my scalp, grabbing fistfuls and pulling as hard as he could.
Yes. I needed this. Pain to make the pain go away.
“Prez,” ZZ said, sounding strained. “I don’t care how many years he’s been running shit through the Cali territories. If you send that motherfucker out here, I will put a fuckin’ bullet in him.”
Still working him with my mouth, I glanced up at him. He had to be talking about Ripper. Ripper had a house in Los Angeles.
“You think I give a motherfuck about him bein’ your son-in-law?” ZZ hissed. “I ain’t workin’ with him. Not fuckin’ now, not fuckin’ ever.”
I took more of him, worked him harder, lightly grazing him with my teeth, all the while watching him.
“Yeah, I fuckin’ got this shit,” he said hoarsely, looking down at me through hooded eyes. “Listen, Prez. I gotta go.”
Releasing my hair, he grabbed his phone and tossed it aside.
The next thing I knew his hips punched up, sending his dick down the back of my throat. Gagging and cursing, I pushed backward only to have him grab my upper arms and haul me up and onto his lap again.
“How was your date?” he sneered, smelling strongly of liquor.
“It wasn’t a date,” I shot back. “I was at Hayley’s.”
“Yeah?” he said, and laughed. “You expect me to believe she wasn’t tryin’ to hook your ass up with one of those dick-suckin’ friends of hers? Those fuckers who got pussies where their assholes should be?”
He kissed me before I could respond, a brutal kiss, all teeth, biting and sucking on my lips, popping blood vessels, and splitting skin. I closed my eyes, reveling in the pain. I wanted it rough tonight, to make me forget for a few minutes what the span of years could not.
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