Reaper

by K. L. Savage

  “No,” I reply to him, my lips so close to his I can almost taste the coffee lingering on his breath.

  His face pinches as if my defiance causes him pain. “Answer me this. Why?”

  Why? Because I love you.

  But I can’t say that, not yet; it will only create a massive trench in the slight crack of our relationship.

  “I’ll fight you until you realize we don’t need to fight anymore,” I answer, leaning into his hard body more than I should.

  More than he ever allows.

  I’m tired of fighting him. If he thinks I actually get pleasure out of trying to throw myself at him and getting rejected at every turn, he has another think coming. More often than not, I cry myself to sleep from the humiliation I feel, from the longing I feel for him because for so long I’ve had these feelings, and it wasn’t reciprocated on his end.

  “You’re a maniac, Sarah. There are too many reasons why this can’t happen.” Reaper presses his forehead against mine before pushing away from me. He releases my wrists, and I immediately miss the pressure.

  I’m wearing him down. I see it in his face. He is so damn handsome. His temples are starting to gray, but other than that, he has a head full of thick hair that matches his scruff on his face. Today, he is wearing a simple white shirt with his cut, and on the left breast is a patch that says ‘President.’ There are a few grease stains splattered along his jeans that are torn along the knees, and his boots are scuffed to hell, but I know they’re his favorites because he chooses them out of all the others he has.

  “I don’t care about any of the reasons. Not a single one.”

  He throws his hands on his hips and stares at the ceiling, chuckling. “Well, I care.”

  “I don’t care that you care.”

  “That’s what worries me. Keep this in mind—you’re underage, and I won’t have you ruining my life; are we clear?”

  “If I were to ruin your life, I’d be ruining mine too. So why would I?” I take a step forward, not to where we are touching again because I know he wouldn’t like that. I can tell he is on the edge, and I don’t want him to stomp away, mad at me. I just want to be able to feel his warmth again. And is he that afraid he will give into me?

  If he ever did, I wouldn’t tell a soul. I wouldn’t deny him, and I think that’s what most of his problem is and why he fights this thing between us.

  Tool takes that moment to walk in, and I take a step back, but it isn’t missed by Tool that something was going on before he ruined it.

  Fucking, Tool.

  “Prez? I have more information, and Moretti got your message. He wants to talk.”

  “Good,” Reaper grunts and almost trips over the dining room chair as he walks away from me. Tool gives him a funny look, lifting his brow, but he doesn’t say anything else as he vanishes down the hallway.

  Reaper takes an apple from the brown bowl in the center of the table, tossing it in the air before catching it again. He’s leaving without saying anything. What else is there to say?

  “Reaper?” I never call him that, at least not to his face.

  He pauses the bite in the apple, and when he turns to me, the big red piece of fruit silences his ‘huh’, making it all muted and mumbled.

  I turn around, grab the bowl of soup and the pitcher of water, and leave the man I’m in love with first, so he can watch me walk away. “I’m your maniac.”

  The crunch of the apple makes me grin, and then it’s followed by a thump on the floor and a curse. Huh, looks like someone needs another apple.

  10

  Reaper

  “What’s going on with that?” Tool asks me as we walk out of the saloon doors of the clubhouse.

  I hate to say it, but I think the saloon doors are going to have to go. With this new threat, I want to make sure the club is a fortress. Over the last few years, threats haven’t been a concern; things have been running so fucking smoothly that it’s been a dream.

  But too much of a good thing…

  “What was what?”

  “Reaper, what the fuck are you doing?”

  I lean against the rail of the porch, the wood hot from the afternoon sun. The heat doesn’t stop me from craving a cigarette. Opening my cut, I dip my hand in the inner pocket and take the pack of smokes out. After I pack the case by hitting it against my palm, I place the sweet nicotine between my lips and light it with a match. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I know damn well what he is talking about, but what happened in the kitchen, shouldn’t have happened.

  “Do I need to be worrying about you? Are you fucking her?”

  I blow smoke in his face at the same time I press my elbow against his throat, and I lean into him until his back must be killing him from the pressure the rail is putting on him. “I’m going to say this once—whatever is, or isn’t, happening, isn’t your fucking business. I’m not fucking her, or will I ever fuck her. I’m not stupid.”

  A sharp inhale from behind me churns my stomach. When I look at Tool, his eyes are locked on the saloon doors, and when he glances over at me, I know it isn’t one of the cut-sluts standings there, but Sarah.

  Out of all the times she has to follow me, why does it have to be now? My arm falls from Tool’s neck, and he rubs the irritated flesh while mean mugging me. He fucking deserved it. I try to steer the conversation away from what she overheard like an idiot. “How’s your brother?” I ask? I take a hit on the cigarette between my lips, but the damn nicotine doesn’t do its job and calm my nerves. I’m a raging mess inside because I see the tears threatening to fall.

  “Asleep,” she informs me and takes a step outside with me and Tool.

  Having her in the same vicinity is starting to become too difficult. The next few months couldn’t go by fast enough. When she turns eighteen, I won’t feel so fucking guilty for wanting someone younger than me. And damn it, I fucking want her so goddamn bad. What makes it harder is that she doesn’t even look seventeen. She has long, luxurious golden hair that curls at the end over her small breasts, and her waist is lean with a steep curve in the middle before it rounds to her hips and ass. Her lips are pouty all the fucking time, swollen and plump, and her eyes are wide naturally, and almost too big for her face.

  She’s gorgeous and will only get prettier as she gets older.

  “Good, good. I’m glad he is resting.” Awkward silence falls, and I inhale a long drag of the cigarette.

  “Am I really so bad?” she asks, breaking my damn heart with every word.

  Before I can defend myself, she takes off down the steps, sprinting across the parking lot. When she gets next to my bike, she runs past it then stops.

  “Don’t even think about it!” I shout, stopping on the third step of the porch as I watch her take a step backward, look at my beautiful bike, and lift her leg.

  She kicks it. In slow motion, I watch my bike fall to the ground, and Tool gasps from the horrific sight. I hear the scrapping of rocks against the custom paint. It’s a biker’s worst fear to see their motorcycle on the ground.

  Then the little psychopath stomps on the fuel tank.

  “Oh god. Ow, that hurts me.” Tool cringes, holding his stomach as if it is personally happening to him.

  That’s what it feels like. A personal beating.

  I stomp down the steps, and before I can pick up the pace, she is darting away and across the street, climbing over the large hill. “Where the fuck are you going?” I shout after her and change my jog to a sprint.

  “Fuck. You!” she screams and disappears over the hill.

  Damn it. I can’t let her get too far. It’s the damn desert, and it’s hot as hell out here. She can get lost, and I’ll never see her again. The thought has me running full speed, and I jump onto the mound of dirt. My boots slide against the red clay until they gain traction, and my fingers dig into the hot dirt, getting trapped under my fingernails as I pull myself up the damn hill.

  “What the hell?’ Tool asks from below.
/>   I’m on top of the hill now, surrounded by cactuses and dead bushes fried from the sun. There’s a small moving dot a few yards ahead of me, and instead of coming closer, she’s going further. “That little….” I run down the hill and shout, “Tell the boys if we aren’t back by dark to come looking for us.” I don’t bother looking back. I keep my eyes forward on the dot in front of me. It’s hard to run in steel-toe boots, but I’m so used to it by now, it’s second nature.

  It’s nearing a hundred degrees right now. I’ve only been running for a minute, and already sweat has drenched my entire body. It’s too hot for this shit. When I get ahold of her, I’m going to skin her fucking hide. Sarah gives me such a damn headache.

  But life wouldn’t be the same without her.

  If she wants to run, I’ll chase her.

  And when I catch her, there will be hell to pay.

  “Sarah! Stop this shit!” I yell and jump over a prickly looking bush that I know would hurt if I landed on it. I’d be picking pins out of my ass for a month.

  “Fuck off, Jesse!” she responds, her legs moving quicker than mine as they kick up dust.

  They might move quicker, but I have longer strides.

  “Will you stop?” I shout again. It’s too damn complicated to yell and run in this heat. My sweat is stinging my eyes, and the sun is blinding me. I can’t let her get away because she’s so damn stubborn. I know she won’t come back, and then she will be lost. I won’t let her die in this heat and be bones forgotten in the sand like so many others.

  I’m just about to reach for her and swing her into my arms when she trips and falls onto the ground, crying out when she catches most of her weight on her arms. I try to come to a complete stop, but I’m going too fast, and my boots don’t catch the ground. I slide and fumble, slowing when I almost fall. My fingertips skim the ground, and when I right myself, I turn around and head straight through a cloud of dust.

  I cover my mouth and cough when I inhale all the dust swirling. Since there is no wind, the cloud settles quickly. That’s when I see Sarah, sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs. She’s crying. I fall to my knees, uncaring of the rocks and shit digging into me. Her arms are bleeding from the scrapes she sustained from the fall.

  “Sarah—”

  She scrambles back on her hands and feet, her ass sliding against the ground as she shakes her head. “Don’t touch me!”

  I have never seen her like this before. The look on her face is one of betrayal and heartbreak. Fat tears roll down her face, ruining her mascara and causing long black lines down her cheeks. Her lips are red and swollen, and her bottom lip is bleeding too; probably because she’s been chewing on it. She does that when she cries.

  “Sarah, we need to go home.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

  Her youth is starting to shine through. A grown woman who has been in love and has experienced heartache would never act like this. They know how much love can hurt, but they don’t run into the desert to forget it; at least, I don’t think they do.

  As a matter of fact, I don’t know much about women except how to fuck ’em, so maybe I need to keep my thoughts to my damn self.

  “Stop acting like—”

  “A child?” she finishes my sentence for me. “That’s what I am, right? A child. Don’t put your hands on me, Reaper. I am not going back with you. I want nothing to do with you or the club, and when my brother can finally walk, we are leaving.”

  I know that Jenkins has been on the fence with me for a few years now, especially with Sarah living with us. He has always had this way about him, like he tolerates the club but hates it at the same time. It’s why I haven’t given him his father’s cut for him to prospect. If he doesn’t seem like he wants it, then why would I give it to him?

  “Why would you do that? Why would you leave me?” I mean to ask why they would want to leave me when I’ve done nothing but provide for them, take care of them, protect them, and love them.

  I love her, and I’m just waiting until she is legal. Why is that so hard for her to understand?

  “You don’t mean that!” I fall to my knees in front of her and take her hands in mine. “Sarah, you don’t mean that. You’re angry right now, and I understand—”

  “No, no! You don’t understand. I don’t get you at all. We share moments. I know it isn’t all in my head. I feel it,” she cries, placing her hand above her heart. “I feel you all the time, right here. You’ve made yourself home inside me, Jesse.”

  There it is. I love it when she calls me Jesse. Reaper doesn’t sound right when she says it. I think it’s because no one else ever calls me that, and I hate it, but every time she says it, I just want to kiss her.

  “So when I hear you say you’d never have sex with me because you just aren’t that stupid, it hurts. It hurts more than you will ever know. Am I so disgusting that you can’t even imagine having sex with me?”

  If I’m honest, I’m a bad man.

  If I lie, I’m a bad man.

  This is why trust is so hard to come by.

  Sarah’s laugh is full of irony when I stay silent. “My god, are you really not even going to answer me? No one else is around, Jesse! We are literally alone in the fucking desert. No one can hear you. God, you are unbelievable. You can be the man everyone else wants you to be, but I expect one thing from you—one—and you can’t even give me that. You can give everyone else everything, but me? I’m begging for scraps. You make me feel like a fucking dog—a bitch, to be exact.” She gets up and heads west, which is once again nowhere near the clubhouse, but in the direction of the strip.

  Her words piss me off. I march to her and snake my arm around her, holding her to my body. She doesn’t fight me. She has no energy to. Her thin shirt is wet with sweat, and her chest rises and falls from the exertion of this entire ordeal. I glance down to see the sweat glimmering off her golden skin, and a droplet runs down between her palm-sized tits.

  I want nothing more than to lick it off her skin and taste to see if she is salty or sweet. Fuck! I can’t. I can’t for another few months.

  She wiggles against me to try to get out of the hold I have her in, but I’m much stronger than she is. The more she fights me, the harder it is to control my cock. It’s been a full year since I’ve had another woman under me, against me, kissing me, sucking me, because every time I close my eyes, brown ones stare back at me.

  “You feel that?” I press my pelvis against her. I can’t believe in this heat I can manage to get my cock up, but with Sarah, I can be on my death bed and still get an erection. “Is that what you want to know? Is that what you want to feel?” I push her away from me and roar into the air. I’m so frustrated. She has me all bent and twisted. I’m the President of the Ruthless Kings; I’m not supposed to be all fucked up inside. “Fuck, Sarah! You think it’s easy for me? You think it’s easy for me to see you every fucking day and not do a damn thing about it?” I pace and start worrying a trench in the dirt. With a shake of my head, I stop right in front of her. “You think I want this? I don’t want to want you, Sarah; get that through your head. When I say you’re too fucking young, I mean it. You are too young. You keep throwing yourself at me, begging me to take you, and I won’t. I refuse to, but don’t think for one fucking minute that not being able to have you, the way you want me to, doesn’t kill me every second because it does. I’m an old man compared to the boys your age. I’ve lived my life. I have nothing to offer you, but guess what? I’m counting down the fucking days, crossing them off my goddamn calendar until your birthday. So get this shit out of your head right now because in two months, you’ll be mine—that I can fucking promise you. Until then, stop fighting me.” My chest is heaving when I’m done yelling, and that’s when I notice how close I am. I’ve bent my head down until my lips are close to hers; a soft wind could blow me over and make us finally touch.

  I do one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.

  I take a step back
from my little maniac.

  11

  Sarah

  He takes a step away from me, carrying a piece of my heart with him. It’s unbearable. Now that I know he actually cares about me, I can breathe easier. I feel crazy for acting the way I did, but it was like my lungs got ripped from my body, and I wasn’t able to breathe after I overheard what he said to Tool, his VP.

  I stare off into the distance; the sun setting over the tall buildings on the strip is something I’ll never forget. I need to come out here more. The reds and oranges painting the sky seem darker than when I’m watching them from the clubhouse. It is more isolated out here, lonelier, and maybe that’s why the colors look so different. I’ve never seen them before, not like this.

  “I’ll never stop fighting for you, Jesse,” I say as a hint of the breeze blows. I cross my arms under my breasts when the chill of the night starts to inch its way in the air.

  His palm lands on my lower back before jerking away and leaving me alone again. “No need to fight for me, doll. Okay? You have what you wanted to know. The fight can be over.”

  He doesn’t know, but it’s only just begun between us now that I know he actually wants me.

  “We need to get home. I told the guys if we weren’t back by dark, to come looking for us. I’d rather get you home than have a flock of them come searching.”

  He holds out his hand, and I stare at it, not knowing what he wants me to do. His fingers are so long and thick, and bold black lines swirl over the tops of his hands and up his arms. He wiggles his fingers, and I do the only thing that I think of.