by Bourne, Lena
“We might’ve come back one day and everyone would be dead,” he adds. “Or they’d come after us and tear us apart that way.”
“That can still happen if we run now,” I say quietly. Not much is clear in my mind right now, but that is.
“It was always a shit choice, all the choices were shit,” he says. “Somehow I still managed to make the worst one.”
“You chose to protect me and your family,” I say and take his hand, which feels like a stone in mine, only much warmer. “That’s not a wrong choice.”
He gives me a disbelieving half smile.
“What I mean is that it was an honorable choice,” I hasten to explain. “I wish you didn’t make it, I wish you’d told me all this back then, and we could’ve solved it together, but you still made an honorable choice.”
He shrugs and his hand in mine isn’t quite as heavy anymore.
“It’s all good, as long as you forgive me,” he says and chuckles.
“I do. I forgive you,” I say and I mean it one hundred percent, no, one thousand percent, I mean it completely. And that’s something I never thought I could claim.
“But we have to go back now and fix what we can,” I say. “That’s the only way we’ll ever have peace. You do understand that, right?”
I search his face for an answer, for the understanding I know must be there.
“How?” he finally asks.
“We’ll find a way,” I say. “I’ll make my father promise to back off, and use the stuff I stole from his safe to force him to keep his word. We’ll give the land back to your mom, and explain to your uncle and brother that it’s a gesture of good faith. And I’ll have my father sweeten the pot some more. I’ll think of something.”
He’s smiling at me while I talk. “You think it’ll be that easy?”
I shrug. “And I’ll make my father understand that nothing he does will ever make me give you up. Ever. We’ll get our peace too, we deserve it.”
He doesn’t say anything once I stop talking, just looks at me and keeps smiling.
“What do you think?” I finally ask.
“I think that none of my ways of dealing with this worked out well,” he says. “So yeah, let’s try yours.”
“But you understand why we have to?” I ask. It’s very important to me that he knows I’m not just suggesting this so I can go back home and abandon our plan of riding off together.
“I understand that I love you,” he says, smiling invitingly. “And I understand that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I also understand you won’t be happy until we try to do this.”
“But the rest?” I ask in a breathless voice, since all he just said hit all the right spots.
“We’ll just hope for the best, how about that?” he says and leans down to kiss me.
I want to say more, make him give me a straighter answer than that, but after a few moments of tasting his lips I forget everything I could still say.
Moments like this, moments when the love we share is all there is between us and around us, are the reason why I want to resolve this issue once and for all. I think that’s why he kissed me rather than let me keep talking. It was because he knows it just as well as I do.
* * *
Ink
Julie fell asleep in her underwear minutes after we’d laid down in bed in our hotel room, but I had the hardest time following her. I finally managed it by thinking of nothing but how good her naked skin feels against mine, and that I better be rested for whatever waits for us when we go back home.
Then the maid came in to clean the room and woke me, because we forgot to put up the “Do Not Disturb” sign. That was two hours ago and I’ve been awake since.
What I should do is call Hawk and apologize for not calling sooner then begging Cross to forgive me for disappearing. I’ll need the Devils for what’s coming, I have no doubt about that.
There’s a lot I didn’t tell Julie about the mess that was her father wanting her back and away from me. The whole thing wasn’t just about that, I know that now, but it still centered on me and her, and resulted in my uncle hating me, which was a huge step up from the dislike that was our relationship before.
If I come to him with Julie’s proof and plan to make peace, he’ll laugh me right out of the room and then start looking for ways to use her against her father again. He has no real reason to do it, he’ll just do it out of spite. My father talked him out of that plan two years ago. I never knew the details of the deal they made, but he swore to me, swore on his dying bed, as it were, that the deal would hold if I leave town.
It held.
But that won’t be the case after I ride back into town with Julie at my back. I’d need the Devils for that. They never struck me as a particularly forgiving sort, but then again, all I did was leave town for a week after being told not to. How bad an offence can that actually be? We’ve done a lot of shit we normally wouldn’t to keep their old ladies safe and happy lately, so they’ll understand I really needed to be alone with mine for a while. Won’t they?
I’ve been going over this in my mind since I woke up. Going over and over the same things, coming to no good answers. I could force Julie not to go through with her plans, but she’ll never be happy until she tries. And I’ve already made her very unhappy. I don’t know if our relationship could survive another blow like that.
So that’s enough thinking. It’s time to get the wheels rolling on this, yet another half-baked plan of mine.
I get up as slowly as I can so as not to wake her, close the balcony door as quietly as I can, then stare at my burner phone for at least five minutes before dialing the number Hawk made me memorize when I first joined the Devils.
It rings and rings for so long I’m sure no one’s going to pick up. I’m already dreading having to come up with the resolve to call again later, when Hawk finally picks up, demanding to know who’s calling.
“It’s me,” I say, adding, “Ink,” once I realize there’s probably no way he’ll just recognize my voice.
“Where the hell have you been, Ink?” he snaps. “I told you to call me right away.”
“I’ve…I’ve been facing the music with my girlfriend and putting my life back together,” I say. “It took longer than I expected.”
He snorts. “You created some loud music to face here in the process.”
I hear someone talking in the distance on Hawk’s end, and even though I can’t really know, I’m sure it’s Cross.
“I can’t come back just yet,” I say. “There’s still some more music for me to face here. But I wanted to check in and find out if everything’s still alright.”
“It’s not, Ink,” Hawk says and it sounds like a warning despite the fact that his voice is very level.
I start to say something, but there’s rustling and talking coming from his end, so I fall silent.
“This is Cross,” the man says, and I’d probably recognize his voice even if he hadn’t introduced himself. “Be at Sanctuary tomorrow morning by nine. That’s an order.”
Anyone else I would’ve argued with, but Cross, he just fucking demands respect. He has mine, anyway, and I’m feeling very ashamed for wanting to disappear without saying anything.
“Yes, sir,” I say and then he just hangs up.
A part of me wants to ignore this order, but the other part, the loyal, honorable part knows I can’t. He’s my president and I need his help with what Julie wants to achieve. I also owe him my obedience and have to make up for defying him for this long. And right now, I have no idea how I could’ve made so light of that when I came up with the plan for me and Julie to just disappear.
I finally fully understand her point of view on the situation.
Running away won’t give us peace. There will be no peace for us until we make it for ourselves by clearing up everything that stands in our way.
13
Julie
He woke me around lunchtime, but we decided to eat on the road bac
k home. We had decided that plenty of times, back in the day, when things were complicated, but not as much as they are now. I feel hollow. The movements we’re going through feel like someone else’s actions in a way I’ve never felt before. Even my thoughts seem distant.
I took a shower by myself, plagued by the memory of the one we took together when we first got here, along with all the ones we took together before. Those memories seem so distant now. Even the kisses we shared when he woke me felt distant. Like there was something else on his mind. But there was something else on my mind too. I can’t just blame him for that.
There is plenty on my mind and I can name all of it, but I’m not ready to start categorizing any of it, let alone start making plans on how to deal with it. I can’t even think about it too hard.
Yet the need to keeps intruding. It’s as though the wind against my face and the vibrations of the bike as we near our hometown are bringing it all closer and closer to the surface, the distance in my mind receding with the miles separating us from having to deal with it all, forcing me to face our situation no matter how hard I try not to.
That’s the reason we haven’t been talking much. Because as soon as we start speaking, we’re going to talk about it. The fact that we’re in danger, the fact that my damn father caused it all— caused the pain I was drowning in for the better part of a year, caused the hurt to Ink and his family, caused the agony that nearly killed him twice over. Nearly made it impossible for him to ever come back to me. I caused it all.
Every time my thoughts go in that direction, I see him waiting by the gates of my high school on the day after the basketball game where we first saw each other. I almost didn’t go to that game, my best friend dragged me along because she had a crush on one of the players from his school. I never cared about basketball. How much heartache would’ve been spared to the both of us, to so many people around us, to his family, if I’d never gone to that game? So much. But how much love would’ve been lost? Too much.
As the memory plays in my mind, vivid as the day it happened, I see myself turn when he calls out to me while I walk through the gates, and every time I do the exact same thing. I walk up to him and say yes when he asks me if I’d like to go for a drink. We had a drink and ice cream and dinner that day, and it is still the most magical afternoon I’ve ever spent with anyone, even him.
I say yes over and over again. I would and will always say yes. There’s no other way that part of our lives could go. We were meant to be together. It’s fate. No matter what we do, it has to be between us.
Once I realized that, I didn’t feel so hollow anymore. The comfort and belonging that is holding onto his strong, powerful body on the back of his bike once again took front seat in my mind, took center stage in my life. We can get through this. It’s fate, there can be no other way.
But the hollowness returned once we rode past the gates of my old high school on the way to my condo. And it’s still all there is, as he closes the front door of my house behind us.
But then we look at each other, our eyes locking, and the full magic of what we share, the absolute rightness of it, hits me all at once. My parents wanted me to stop seeing him as soon as they found out about him. They kept telling me he was just a fling, that I’ll get over him quickly, but I knew different. This magic, this love we share, is everything. It starts in his eyes and envelops me whole, always has, right now and a thousand times before.
I think he sees the same thing in my eyes too, because he drops the bags he’s carrying and comes to me, wraps his arms and kisses me deeply and passionately, peeling back the layers of magic we create, showing me the wonders behind it. Our love isn’t an illusion. All parts of it are more real than anything else in this world.
I could swim in this magic we share forever, I would willingly let it drown me over and over again. I would risk all for it. Even my life. Even his.
I stiffen as I think that, my whole body turning rigid, because that was a lie. I’d never survive losing him, and I would never risk him for anything.
He stops kissing me, just holds me loosely as he gazes down into my eyes.
“You alright?” he asks. “You’ve been real quiet today.”
I snort. “Yeah, look who’s talking.”
Apart from the necessary conversations about where we’re going to eat and whether we need more stops than the one for lunch, we didn’t talk. Didn’t make any plans beyond the ones we hastily discussed before we left. We just rode.
“Not much left to talk about, is there?” he says. “I’m gonna go see my brother, and then I’m gonna ride out to meet the president of my MC. Once I’ve dealt with that, I’ll come back and we’ll deal with everything here.”
We did talk a little about this before we left the hotel room. I didn’t want him to leave me again, but I didn’t have a better plan. I still don’t, but all of me wishes I did.
“And you’re gonna stay here, and pretend you know nothing about anything,” he says. “Call your dad, tell him you were partying with friends in San Diego and that’s why you didn’t answer his calls, but don’t tell him anything about us.”
“Will there be an us when all this is over?” I ask, speaking the thought that’s been plaguing the front of my mind, since he told me everything and I found out it was actually all my fault.
He tightens his arms on my waist, the intensity in his eyes shooting through me like a powerful, searing gust of wind. “There has to be.”
He might as well be speaking my mind, but are we both just being naïve?
“I’ll do everything I can to make it happen, Julie,” he says, correctly reading my mind via the look in my eyes. He can do that so well.
“Me too,” I say.
“You should let me handle this for now, Julie,” he says and I feel patronized even though I know that’s not what he’s going for.
“I should talk to my father, tell him all I know and make him back off,” I say. “That’s the best way to solve this quickly.”
That look in his eyes is telling me something, but I’m not as good as deciphering his thoughts from his gaze as he is from mine.
“You will talk to him,” he says. “Just let me put everything in place first. You can never have too much backup, right?”
I nod and smile at him. That’s my general line of reasoning and approach to all things. He’s more of a maverick, lone wolf type when it comes to living life. It lands him in some tight spots and gets him hurt, so I’ve always tried to convince him that my way is better. Maybe he has finally started listening.
“I should head out, get this thing started,” he says and releases me, but I tighten my arms around his waist and pull him to me.
“Not so fast,” I say and grin.
Then I step on my toes and kiss him, and there’s nothing even remotely hollow or distant about this kiss we’re sharing now. It’s filled with magic and love and everything nice and blissful, and absolutely nothing is taking away from it. Good. Because there’s no way I’m letting him walk out of here without experiencing every last drop of the magical love we share.
We don’t have tomorrow, but we have right now. It’s all we ever really have. That’s his general type of reasoning, and I guess it’s rubbed off on me too.
I loosen my grip on his waist and start undoing his belt buckle with one hand while pulling up his t-shirt with the other.
He pulls a mere half inch away from my lips. “I should get going.”
“We have some time,” I whisper seductively and kiss him again, with fire, with passion, with all the need I have for him, which nothing can ever extinguish. Because it’s the fire of fate, and it’s burning bright and hot in both of us.
“You’re right, as always,” he says as he pulls away from my kiss only to move his lips to my neck, which never fails to send a searing jolt of electrical desire straight down my center. His hands grabbing my ass were already doing that just fine on their own too.
After that, the clothes fly o
ff us, and before long, my neck and my nipples and my lips are all pulsing and tingling as though they’ve been burned by his kisses. They have. Burned by the fire of fate, branded by him.
He lifts me up by my ass, and I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries me to the bedroom, his rock hard cock pulsing against my clit and making my head spin in anticipation of the flames we’re about to make hotter and higher.
My bed is still unmade, which is how we left it before going to San Diego, and I love how it makes me think that nothing has changed, that no time has passed, since that first night we spent together after so long apart. That’s how it always was for us. Timeless. Nothing matters in this moment except how close we are, how hot the flames of passion engulfing us are and how high they rise.
The sheets are cool against my back as he lays me down, but not nearly cool enough to douse the flames. As he enters me, I feel nothing but heat, nothing but the searing bliss and rightness of this moment.
His thrusts are shallow and fast, yet they fill me completely nonetheless, the pleasure they’re bringing suffusing me from my toes to the top of my head. The flames of bliss keep rising ever higher, their heat pure pleasure as it licks my skin, inside and out, making me think of the sun rising and warming my skin while the wind cools it as we ride, free and unburdened, untethered except to each other, limited only by this all-encompassing oneness that is our fate.
My orgasm comes slowly but relentlessly, like winds picking up before a gale, like flames growing wilder and hotter, stoked higher by the winds. As I come, the everlasting circle of love, of magic, of fate, of us, connects, and joins us even tighter.
I fight to stay awake once the flames die down to glowing embers that give off that pleasant kind of heat you can feel all the way to your bones. I’m afraid to fall asleep because I know he’ll be gone when I wake up.
