Raw: Street Demons MC

by Ada Stone

  I chewed on my fries, having decided what I would do. I’d call up Jordan, since he was the one most likely to still do anything for me. I couldn’t say about the others, but Jordan had seen things through with me, thick and thin. If anyone was still hanging around, it was him. I thought about calling Gordon and Shank, but knew it was a lost cause. They’d been busted with me, but served only half the time, and I knew that as soon as they got out, they were in the wind.

  I didn’t ask what they’d had to give up to get a reduced sentence, but I could guess.

  When the waitress came back, she handed me my box and my ticket, then winked at me one last time. I almost rolled my eyes at her, whatever physical urges I had mixing with my personal anger at the female half of the species until I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to fuck her without killing her, too. But when I glanced down at the ticket—I’d been, right, it was cheap—I saw that she’s scribbled a number down, too.

  I frowned at it, but kept the number anyway. Maybe I wasn’t interested in any sort of relationship, but a good fuck might make me a little easier for everyone to deal with.

  Going to the front to pay so that I could get change for the phone, I headed out and called Jordan. Within minutes, he picked me up. I’d crash at his place for a few days until I could get situated again and was pleased to find that he still had my Harley stashed right where I’d left it.

  ***

  The Harley needed gas, but otherwise ran just fine. Thankfully, I had money stashed before I went to prison and Jordan was enough of an intelligent person to know that I would eventually be released from prison and if that money was gone, he was a dead man. So at least I wasn’t broke. Which was why I immediately put gas in my bike and went on the road.

  It was just supposed to be a drive, because when you’ve been locked up for as long as I have, having a little freedom, like riding your own damn bike, went a long way. But as I spent the day driving—to old haunts, to restaurants where I got everything from more cheeseburgers to sea food—I found myself inevitably drift down that all too familiar drive.

  I was headed there before I realized it, but I couldn’t lie to myself and say that I didn’t know what I was doing when I found myself hitting the hillside overlook that was almost right in Zoe’s back yard.

  Pulling onto the overlook, I settled my bike and turned it off, going to look down into the neighborhood that would never be called the best, but certainly didn’t merit the title of worst. Zoe’s house was hers because she’d seen a foreclosure notice a couple of years back and decided to make a bid for it. She was in nursing school at the time. I figured she had to have finished by now, though now that we’d broken up and I’d been locked away, I didn’t know jack about her life, including whether or not this was actually her house anymore. She hadn’t had a lot of money when she got it, but was determined to not get stuck in the trap of noisy, distracting, party all night roommates, so she went the extra mile and got the house.

  It was impressive, especially given that she was on part scholarship and working her way to pay for the rest. Zoe’d been a waitress. Just like the one whose number was shoved down into my pocket.

  Pushing down thoughts of Zoe’s waitressing days and the number, I focused on the house. I knew I needed to confront Zoe. To talk to her and figure out why she would really let me go the way she did. Yes, I’d maybe put her through some tough times. It wasn’t always easy dating the leader of a motorcycle club. It meant the cops came knocking and snooping more than you would like, and it meant late nights and some shady characters sometimes, but she’d always known what I was. And she’d been ready for it. She’d gone with it whole hog without so much as batting an eyelash.

  She was one tough cookie and it didn’t ring true to me that prison was enough of a deterrent for her.

  No. Something else was going on.

  I was about to get back on my bike and drive down there, mostly to demand a real reason from her, but maybe also to give my dick a workout, because whether I was angry and felt betrayed or not, I was still a man with needs. Needs that wanted to be met inside of her. But just as I was about to start up my bike, I saw the door to the little house open.

  It was Zoe.

  Even from here I could tell it was her. And I could tell she was just as fucking beautiful as the moment I laid eyes on her. Her long dark hair was pulled away from her face, shiny and thick like I remembered. It was harder to make out features from this distance, but I could see that her eyes were big and her lips were full and I could see that her breasts were clutched by a low cut shirt that was begging for attention.

  I grew hard at the thought of doing things with her. Not for love, I reminded myself, because we were done. Whether she wanted me back or not, we were done. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t and wouldn’t have fun with her.

  I started up my bike and was about to screech out onto the road again like a bat out of hell when I saw the motorcycle pull up. I frowned, because I couldn’t quite make out the logo on it, but I could see the flames and I could tell that they meant something. Like the burning wings on mine that marked me as Heaven’s Wrath. He belonged to a club, I just couldn’t tell which one.

  I saw the man pull off his helmet. I saw him walk up to her door. I saw him kiss her.

  Then she pulled the door closed after him, but it was too late, because I’d realized what those flames meant and I knew whose bike that was. That was a Vengeful Gods bike and that was their leader, Sal Davis, riding it.

  Chapter Two

  Zoe

  When Sal left, it was sort of a relief. I instantly felt guilty for feeling that way, but it was difficult not to. There was a very particular type of woman that Sal wanted and most of the time I was pretty sure that wasn’t me. In fact, I didn’t even know why he wanted me, because I was sure most of the time he didn’t like me. Maybe it was the excitement of a new girl—though I was hardly that anymore—or maybe it was just the thrill of the chase. After all, I’d given him a good run for his money.

  I watched him drive away, staying at the door until I was sure he was gone. That was a quick lesson I’d learned with Sal: always be the waiting, doting girlfriend.

  When I finally saw his taillights disappear around the curve, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Then I began to adjust. I tugged my hair out of the holder it had been in, letting it hang in thick waves down my back. It was hot against my neck, the summer night in full swing, but I didn’t care. I hated having my hair up, especially when I knew how important it was for Sal to have it up all the time.

  I tossed it over my shoulder to shake it out a bit, then adjusted my shirt where he’d attempted to paw at it. Once again he’d pressed me, but again I’d told him, “Not tonight.” Thankfully, when his anger flashed, he’d merely gotten up to leave. Told me he’d be back tomorrow.

  I sighed and forced myself to relax. Everything was fine.

  Closing the door to my tiny house, I took a moment to give it back to myself. I went around the room and straightened things, moved them back from where Sal had picked them up and replanted them in awkward, unflattering places. Like my textbooks from nursing school. Useless now maybe, but still valuable even if it was only as somewhat bitter sweet memories of what I’d been working towards. Or like the candle with the little coin in it, the one that I refused to burn, because it had been a gift from…

  Well, not that it mattered now anyway.

  As I went around the house systematically straightening things up, I was surprised to hear a knock at the door. A knock and then a louder knock that quickly turned into a banging sound. Startled, I glanced over at the wall clock, frowning when I saw that it was just after ten at night. A little late for a visitor. I wondered if it wasn’t coming back for something—I didn’t think so, since I would have found whatever he’d left by now.

  Heading to the door, I straightened myself up, flattening my too unruly hair and checking my lipstick in the mirror to make sure that it was still in
place and not on my teeth. Sal liked a put together kind of girl and I had to work a little harder than I normally did to reach the type of perfection he was usually looking for.

  When I was satisfied, I opened the door, fully prepared to find Sal—or at the very least one of his boys—on my door step. Instead, I nearly crumpled to the floor right then and there, my knees threatening to give way.

  Nick Perry. My Nick.

  He was tall, taller than I remembered. He towered over me almost like a giant, and he was bigger in general, too, I thought. His shoulders seemed larger and his arms were bulkier, as though he’d spent the last five years working out.

  Maybe he had, maybe that was what he’d done with his time in prison, throwing himself into push-ups and sit ups and calisthenics and whatever else he could. That sounded like Nick.

  I tried not to think about those five years, what they must have done to him—what they had done to me—but as my eyes devoured him of their own accord, I couldn’t help but wonder. Had he had the tattoo of the snake wrapping around his bicep before he went in? What about the one that curled down his neck and disappeared into the neck of his shirt? Had his hands always been so large, so strong? Had his thick hair always been so dark? And his lips…were they always so full, so damn kissable?

  Yes. To that last one at least, yes. I remembered the way they used to press against my mouth, hungry and desperate almost every time, as though I was the first and only person he was ever going to kiss again.

  That was just Nick, though. He was an all or nothing kind of man. It didn’t matter if he’d done a thing a thousand times, there was some urge inside him that made him treat it like the first.

  It always made the bedroom a heated experience for me.

  As my eyes traveled higher, I found his eyes, lined in thick black lashes that were still so silky. But his eyes…they were the same blue I remembered, sky blue, robin’s egg blue, the perfect blue. But they were cooler than I remembered, like someone had poured ice into them and left them out in the cold to freeze. Even in the heat of a Florida summer night, I shivered at the sight of them. At the way they narrowed in on me, stared me down in a frightening challenge.

  And that’s when I realized it. He’d seen me. With Sal.

  Nick brushed past me easily, my body automatically getting out of his way as I cringed a little at myself for the spike of fear that came. I’d never been afraid of Nick, and even now, in the heat of his anger, I knew that I wasn’t. Not really. It was only a flinch.

  “Nick, I…” I began, not really sure what I would say, but knowing that I needed to make him understand now, because it would be my only shot.

  But it didn’t matter, because he cut through me quickly, not giving me even half a chance to come up with some kind of explanation. Not that any would be good enough for him. I’d done too much for something like that. Far too much and Sal was simply the cherry on that sundae of betrayal.

  “Shut up,” he snapped at me, the coldness in his eyes melting as fury overtook him. “You don’t get to talk right now. Not until I’ve gotten some words out. Not until I’ve said every wretched think I can think of and you’ve—”

  He stopped suddenly and I had no idea why. His words were coming out rapid fire, angry and heated, but at least they weren’t like cold steel plunging into my gut. I could take his anger, because I knew Nick. He was the kind of guy who needed to get it all out, and if I could just let him, then I knew we could talk. We could talk and maybe I was wrong, that I did still have a chance, if only he could let some of that anger go. But I’d never seen him like this before, stopping mid rant and going still as stone. It scared me and unnerved me far more than any bout of anger ever would.

  “Nick?” I got out in a tiny voice, afraid of what was to come.

  I stepped forward and saw his eyes shift with me. That was when I noticed where they were focused. On my hand. More specifically, they were locked onto my ring finger where a giant rock was planted heavily. The thing was huge, a sparkling, gaudy diamond that I hated more than I ever appreciated. More than a few women at grocery stores and movie theaters and restaurants had noticed it and told me what a lucky woman I was, but I’d hated it since the moment it was slipped onto my finger.

  How many times had it gotten caught in my thick hair? How many times had it torn fabric or knocked against something or spun around on my finger until it was hanging upside down awkwardly?

  Thousands, though I supposed that wasn’t really the point. No, the point was that it wasn’t my kind of ring. It was Sal’s.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I rooted myself to the spot. I wasn’t sure what to do now. Nick’s gaze was still locked onto that stupid ring and I knew he would ask about it and I sensed by his anger, by the way he’d glanced at me so coldly when I first opened the door for him, that he knew whose ring that was and that on some level it still hurt him.

  Part of me was relieved; I’d thought he had gotten over me while in prison. The rest of me was eaten up inside. It didn’t matter if he’d gotten over me or not in the end, because I knew that we were over. Permanently. Forever.

  Something clutched at my heart, but I pushed the feeling away. I’d made my choice.

  “What the hell are you thinking?” he asked suddenly, his voice oddly quiet.

  I was used to loud Nick who shouted what he thought, not caring who heard or what they thought of what they heard. And I was used to sweet Nick who whispered delicious and sometimes dirty sweet nothings into my ear while we indulged in each other’s bodies. But this? I wasn’t used to quiet Nick, and I sensed that it wasn’t a good thing.

  “I…” But I didn’t know what to say, so I folded my arms across my chest, subconsciously hiding the ring beneath my right arm when I tucked my hand in the crook of it.

  His eyes narrowed at the action. “How could you ever get married to a snake like Sal?” His eyes flashed and I saw that anger again, but it was deeper than before, more destructive.

  I swallowed heavily and clenched my eyes shut. Why was I marrying Sal? I had my reasons. Important reasons. The kind of reasons that changed a game mid play and changed your opinions of people and actions, even though maybe you never thought they could. Nick had hated Sal for a long time—I wasn’t stupid enough to have missed that. But when Nick got arrested, everything had changed. But he was so clouded by rage that he would never understand. And that was how I knew I couldn’t tell him the truth.

  “I know that you guys have a history,” I began tentatively, knowing that I had to choose my next words carefully or it was a waste of breath. “I know that…that you have some bad blood, but, Nick, he’s not such a bad guy!”

  He actually laughed at that and I couldn’t help but wince at the harshness of it. “Not such a bad guy?” he repeated incredulously.

  Feeling my own anger build, I put more force into my words. I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s right. Sal’s been really good to me,” I told him angrily, stepping closer. “He’s taken care of me while you’ve been in prison!”

  That last part slipped out before I could think better of it and part of me, most of me, wished that I could scoop the words out of the air and put them back into my mouth before he had the chance to hear them, but it was useless. He’d caught them and there was no taking them back.

  “Right. Sure, of course. Taken care of you,” he spat. “Because he wasn’t the one who put me there in the first place, right?”

  I bit my lip. There was a chance that it was true, that Sal had been the one to get Nick into trouble. I’d been working hard to tell myself that it wasn’t true, that Sal would never do something like that intentionally, but at the same time I knew how deep the hatred ran between the two of them. Sal hated Nick just as much as Nick hated Sal.

  But even so, I had to believe that that wasn’t the case. Even Sal wasn’t so cruel.

  I shook my head. “There’s never been any proof that he—”

  “He was the one who tipped off the fucking cops!” Nick al
l but screamed at me, eyes flashing dangerously. “Who else would have done it?”

  His words shook me, but I couldn’t let this get to me. I was where I was and there was no changing it. Not now. Probably never. Part of me sunk at that sad, pathetic thought, but I pushed it aside. No time to be weak now. “Oh, so I suppose you didn’t sell drugs at all, then, right?”

  I saw Nick’s whole body tense, because he knew on some level that I was right. Whether Sal had set him up or not, Nick had gone along with the deal all on his own. Sal wouldn’t have been able to force him to do that no matter what Nick said. It didn’t mean that it wasn’t Sal’s fault if it had been him to call the cops on Nick, but Nick would have to accept some of the blame, too.

  Even if I wasn’t sure that was really fair. This was the only life Nick had ever known; how could anyone expect any different? And in the end, I’d known what he was doing, too. Wasn’t I just as guilty, then?