by Hart, Rebel
For example, online websites where resumes are posted. It is not only HR’s job to scout those who have public resumes and email them, but it is also up to HR and those working within the department to…
I heard the revving of an engine in the distance and perked my head up. The sound faded away before it crept closer. Which meant, back to reading.
…and those working within the department to…
“Wait, what?” I murmured.
It is not only HR’s job to scout…
I sighed. “For example. Online websites where resumes are poste--why don’t I remember any of this?”
I slammed my pencil against my textbook. I leaned back as my highlighter fell to the floor. With my fingers drumming against my desk, I looked up at the ceiling and tried to manage my frustrations enough to focus on schoolwork. I couldn't retain anything, though. Over half of my book was highlighted to try and make sure I understood what in the world I had to know for these upcoming tests of mine. Precursors to our midterm exams that were creeping up faster rather than slower.
But all I could focus on was Max.
I closed my eyes, letting my body prickle at the thought of him. Yesterday had been outstanding. The shopping. The bike ride. Feeling those clothes tight against my body.
Feeling Max take them off.
“Mmm,” I hummed.
My mind drifted to Max’s bed. How comfortable it felt. How quickly he pinned me underneath his body. How close I had come to giving him everything. His lips against my skin made me shiver. I felt my thighs warming as the memory of his teeth against my breast made me gasp. I sat up and pulled out my shirt, peeking underneath at the soft purple mark against my left breast.
It made me smile as I gazed upon it.
I had almost given myself over to him. I had almost given him everything. And I would have, had I not stopped myself.
I still wanted to.
I didn’t know how this happened to me. For years, I hadn’t even looked in a boy’s direction. I kept my nose in my novels and my mind in my education and paved a path for myself. I had a ten-year plan. A plan that required me to graduate. For heaven’s sake, I had a vision board of my life, where I wanted to be and what I wanted out of my existence.
Nothing else mattered, though.
Not when Max took over my mind.
Have I lost my mind?
“I feel like I’m going crazy,” I whispered to myself.
I stood up from my desk, walked over to my bed, and jumped up onto it. I snuggled down beneath the covers, ready to take a nap. Maybe I was tired. Maybe sleep was what I needed. Maybe that was the secret to all of this, getting more than five hours of sleep before waking up with Max on my brain. I closed my eyes and curled up into a ball. I felt the tight jeans against my skin stretching and screaming for mercy. I felt my shirt buckling and tightening around my waist. I even felt the leather belt around my waist pinching me at my sides.
All of it reminded me of him.
“Damn it,” I murmured.
I slipped out of bed and ripped the clothes off. I tossed them to the floor and dug around in my dresser for my pajama pants. What was so wrong with my clothes, anyway? Why did he feel he had to change me? I kicked the outfit underneath my bed and pulled on my pajama pants and the baggiest sweatshirt I could find. I sighed with relief before I climbed back into bed, ready to relegate myself to a three-hour nap.
My mind still didn’t stop.
How had I fallen for a guy so quickly? Especially a guy like Max. I knew he had skeletons in his closet. I knew he was bad news. I didn’t know anything about him, or this gang he ran with. I didn’t know what they did, or what kind of trouble they got into, or what kind of life they afforded themselves. I didn’t know what Max had done in his past to warrant that stoic stare or that gruff voice. Or the scars I sometimes saw on his knuckles.
I don’t care.
The truth froze me in my tracks. I curled up into a ball and stayed like that as I squeezed my eyes shut. If I could just fall asleep, it would all go away. The thoughts. The feelings. The warmth. The truth.
The fact that I wanted to be with him still.
I mean, he made me feel alive. Cherished. Protected. Beautiful. Every time he kissed me, I felt like the only girl in the world. Being spoiled like that yesterday? I’d never had that happen before. Mom always bought my clothes and brought them home for Dad to either nod yes to or toss out the door. Max was everything my life hadn’t been. Max was everything I hadn’t yet experienced.
And I wanted all of him.
You want to have sex with him.
I growled to myself as I turned over onto my back. My eyes fell open effortlessly and I sighed with frustration. I wasn’t tired. I was distracted. And I realized that all I really wanted was to have sex with the man. I wanted to know what that felt like—with him. I wanted to feel all of those things. With him.
Max was my person.
And I wanted to give him my virginity.
Dad would have a fit.
I didn’t care, though. What used to be a threat was nothing more than an empty thought. As much as my parents talked to me about saving myself for marriage, that wasn’t what I wanted for my life. I just wanted the right person to come along so I could have a positive experience. I’d heard so many horror stories about someone’s first time going wrong. Being ripped away from them or being given up just to make a boy shut up about it. I didn’t want things to be like that with me.
“It wouldn't be like that with Max,” I whispered.
Sure, the man wasn’t the definition of the ‘right person.’ At least not by society’s standards. But I’d never wanted this with anyone else. I’d never even wanted to look at a boy like that before, until he came along. Until I laid eyes on him my first day back to campus and couldn't stop wondering about him.
He might not be Mr. Right. But he was my Mr. Right Now.
And just thinking about him turned me on so much.
I rolled over and faced the wall. My hands trembled as I thought about how I’d felt that bulge against my back yesterday. I felt how big he had grown. The man was a behemoth compared to me. Strong. Muscular. He could pick me up without hesitation with his bare hands. And I wondered if my first time with him would hurt. My toes curled at the thought. I didn't want it to hurt. Would he go slow if I asked?
Stop being so scared all the time, Dani.
I wasn’t scared. I really wasn’t! Well, maybe a little bit. But I wasn’t scared about the sex as much as I was scared about what would come after. He stopped when he saw how uncomfortable I was. If I told him to go slow, I knew he would. I trusted that.
I didn’t trust him to not discard me later, though.
He’d said it himself! All the other girls that had come before me were just ways to pass the time. What if we got to the end of things, and he decided I was just another way to pass the time? The thought hurt. It hurt so much it brought tears to my eyes. I sniffled and wiped them against my pillow, feeling more stupid than ever before.
“Why are you already crying, you weak little idiot?” I murmured to myself.
I didn’t want him to cast me off to the side. I didn’t want to be just another number to him. I wanted to be part of his life. I wanted to be at his side after it was all said and done. That meant I’d have to be part of his life somehow.
And that meant understanding more about this crew of his.
I rolled onto my back again and blinked. As my tears dried up, I drew in a deep breath. That settled it. The next time I saw him, I’d get to know more about him. About his life. About his past. About his childhood, and the guys he rode with. Even if that meant talking about his cousin, Benji. I grimaced at the thought. I didn’t want to talk about that jerk. But if it got me closer to Max, I’d talk about anything.
Especially if it got me closer to him.
I wanted to be his. I wanted to be Max’s woman. The girl at his side and on the back of his bike. The idea made me smile
. My head rushed as the room tilted over onto itself. Yes. That was it. I’d talk with him about becoming his, just like he’d said I would be. I wanted a definition around that. I wanted to know what that meant to him. Because if it meant what I wanted it to?
Then I was all his.
“Hey there, roomie!”
Hannah waltzed into the dorm room and I drew in a short breath. “Heya.”
Hannah stood beside me. “Nice to see you resting for once. Wanna go for coffee? My treat.”
I turned toward her. “Can you give me ten minutes to change?”
“You mean you aren’t going dressed as you are?”
I thought about the clothes under the bed. “Nope. I want to show you something new I bought.”
“Wait, you went shopping without me? Ah! Dani! I’m so hurt. Why would you do such a thing?”
I threw the covers off me. “Trust me, you’re going to like this outfit. A lot.”
“Then thrill me with it, sunshine.”
As I pulled the outfit from underneath my bed, I already heard Hannah gasping, clapping her hands, and cheering me on as I jumped into the skin-tight jeans. I knew I’d be asked a lot of questions, but I didn’t care. I wanted to talk to Hannah about this. I wanted to tell her what was going on.
I just didn’t want to dump it all on her at once.
32
Max
I sat on the rolling seat and cranked the wrench against my bike. It was making a funny sound, and I had been trying to chase that shit down all fucking morning. Every time the engine revved, it sounded like a fucking tin can was rattling around somewhere. It pissed me off.
“Come on,” I grunted.
I finally got the nut off and tossed it into a rusted tin can. Taking a motorcycle apart was always fun. If it was for restoration purposes. Doing it to actually chase down an issue was bullshit. It felt more like work than anything else. Still, I busted a damn sweat sitting there, pulling off metal side panels and setting them down on towels so the concrete slab of the double garage I’d laid last year wouldn't scuff up the newest paint job.
“Having troubles?”
I paused as my father’s voice rang in my ears. I slowly slid my eyes over toward the door of the garage and pivoted my entire chair to face him. I saw him standing by a completely blacked-out car. Very much his style. He leaned against the door in a suit that matched the car: all black except for the blood red pocket square against his chest.
When two burly men got out of the back seat, I stood up.
“Father.”
He nodded. “Max.”
I pointed to the two guys. “Something wrong?”
Dad snickered. “Oh, these guys? They’re my associates. You know how it goes.”
You mean bodyguards. “Yeah. I do.”
They were two new guys this time. Not the regular men I usually saw with him. They both loomed in the sunlight, casting a hazy shadow over my father as he closed the car door. He walked to the entrance of the garage, just barely crossing the threshold before stopping again. As I dropped my wrench, Dad nodded.
“So I hear you’ve been spending some time apart from the boys.”
I blinked. “Have I missed any meetings I didn’t know about?”
He clasped his hands together. “I don’t know. Have you?”
I shrugged. “Nope.”
“So this is all hearsay?”
“Far as I’m concerned.”
He nodded. “All right. That sounds acceptable.”
“Anything else?”
“Let’s say, for scenario’s sake, you have been spending time apart from the boys.”
“For scenario’s sake.”
He took a step toward me. “Yes.”
“You don’t have to come any closer.”
“I can do as I please.”
“Not on this property you can’t.”
He snickered. “Pretty sure I own it.”
I grinned. “Pretty sure you’ve forgotten that John and I refinanced it.”
His face fell. “Why have you been spending time away from the crew?”
My defenses instantly went up. “What makes you think I’ve been doing that?”
“Let’s call it a little birdie in the tree.”
“I’m assuming you mean Benji.”
“We don’t have to name names.”
“If you don’t think I see the game you’re playing, you’ve clearly underestimated me. I’m not spending as much time at the house, so John is no longer a player in your schemes to keep an eye on me. So you enlist the help of my cousin. Benji. Who you find out has been seeing more of me since I’ve been around campus. He comes whining to you about something, probably because I won’t initiate him--”
He took another step toward me. “Yes, let’s talk about that for a second. Why not make Benji a member?”
“Other than the fact that you can manipulate him easier than you can John? He’s better than us.”
“Enlighten me on what that means.”
I took a step toward him. “He’s got a real future ahead of him that has nothing to do with your influence.”
I held my father’s gaze as a smile broke out on his face. I hated seeing him smile. Every time he did, I saw myself in him. It’s why I didn’t look in mirrors. It’s why I had mine in my bathroom covered up with a fucking sheet. I hated looking in the mirror and seeing that man smiling back at me.
But there he was. With that sadistic smile I had inherited.
“My, my. She must really have you knotted up inside.”
I quirked an eyebrow. “She?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes. Um… Dani. That’s the name. Dani Young.”
I tensed. Holy shit, I didn’t even know her last name. This was bad. Very, very bad. Benji had gone and flapped his fucking jowls like the asshole he was, and now Dani was in my father’s crosshairs. That was never a safe place to be. More people than not died once my father set their sights on them. A chill worked its way down my spine as my father closed the distance between us. I stood my ground, keeping my face as stoic as I could. But I knew my silence had already given so much away.
“You’ve fallen for a girl who’s messed up your priorities, son.”
I licked my lips. “I’ve fallen for no one.”
“I told you this gallivanting around with strange women would catch up with you soon enough. How do you think you and your brother came along?”
I grinned. “When a psychopath and a drug addict love one another very much--”
“Even the strongest of men can be deterred by beauty!”
His roaring voice bounced off the walls of the garage as his spittle hit me in the face. In any other moment, with any other person, I would’ve strangled the asshole. But killing my father came with consequences that would get everyone else around me killed. Hell, even hurting my father would get people killed.
Dani included, now.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like her, and I don’t like you. Keep your head in the game, Maxwell. There are big jobs coming down the pipeline. Massive ones that will pay you more than Mr. Dean ever could have. Work through your pitiful anger and screw your head on straight.”
I grinned. “How is our duck-and-run client anyway?”
Dad raised his finger into my face. “Clients are counting on me to provide quality men. As in you and those Red Thorns. I established that crew from nothing. I endured torture after torture to establish this gang. To run it as I saw fit. With morals and an ethical code that got shit done. And ever since it got handed to you, the only thing that’s happened is that the moral fiber of this crew has dropped.”
I shrugged. “Or changed.”
He licked his teeth. “I will not have the president of this club throwing his future away because he wants to screw around with some college cunt on my dime. Women are a distraction. Nothing else. Fuck her, get rid of her, and get back to being president.”
My body hummed with fury. I felt my nostrils flaring as my f
ather’s eyes raked down me. He took a step back and adjusted his suit coat. As if I had somehow knocked it off-kilter with my voracious stare. I didn’t want to make a scene. Not with two massive brutes packing all sorts of heat just outside my fucking garage. Because I knew my father. And complicating Dani’s life to keep her away from me wasn’t something beyond the realm of his abilities. The last thing I wanted was for my girl to get dragged into this shit sto--
My girl?
Since when the hell had Dani become my girl?
“Do we have a deal?”
Dad’s voice ripped me from my confused mind. “I can take care of my own affairs.”
He chuckled. “Or maybe you just need something else to occupy your time.”
“What does that mean?”
Dad snapped his fingers. “Go ahead.”
“Wait. Wait a second. What--hey!”
The two goons standing by the car waltzed their way into the garage. My garage. With my personal things hanging on the walls. I watched them grab everything from pictures to tools and throw them onto the floor.
“Hey! Cut it the fuck out!”
I watched them tip over my tool chest, and the contents came spilling out. Nails and bolts. Hammers and wrenches of all shapes and sizes. My anger grew out of control. I didn’t even see red. I simply saw black. My anger blacked me out as my fists started swinging. I felt bones beneath my hands. I heard men growling. Grunting. I felt something around my neck before I bit down into the skin just beyond my chin. I stomped on bones that crunched as growls poured forth. And it was all I could do to keep myself from drawing the weapon that sat right there on my hip.
Until I felt a hand at the back of my neck.
The pain that ricocheted through my forehead snapped me out of it. I groaned as my vision slowly came back to the light. And when I saw the wall coming at me again, I held my hands out. I stopped the bashing from happening again as the world tilted around me. Then a pair of hands gripped my shoulders.
Before my father’s face came into view.
