I was out of the door of the house, slamming the antique thing behind me, luckily not breaking it in half, and was down the steps, ready to scream my lungs out at the man that was currently at the top of my shit list, until I stopped…
… dead in my tracks. The dirt cloud surrounding the bike caught the evening breeze, clearing my view, and I realized that this man was in fact, not Jax.
He pulled up the raging machine, stopping only a few feet from where I was standing, and let the engine die as I assessed my unexpected guest.
The sun had already set for the day and the cool, dim blues of the sky did their best to light up the face looking at me. Sunken eyes and dark circles were the first things I noticed. The second was the lack of leather he wore. Third was the gun holster I saw sitting just beneath the denim jacket he had on over his shoulders.
“Who are you?” I demanded, taking a long step backwards.
As if in response, the automatic light on the porch clicked on, and the striking gold light seemed to cut edges into the blurred shadow in front of me. The dark eyes were a deep, murky grey and his dark, wild hair hung around his sharp features. His face was softened slightly by the ingrowth of facial hair marring the leathered skin over his angled cheekbones and jaw. What couldn’t be hidden by hair were the barrage of scars all over his skin, which the porch light did everything in its power to show their intimidating aura.
“I asked your name,” I growled, not liking the horrible, crawling feeling of distrust climbing up my spine.
The man smiled, and I didn’t appreciate it.
He rose from his bike, his height towering but not invading. He was slimmer than Jax, which was a difficult feat considering how lean the man had become.
“In my country,” he murmured, and it was similar to the voice of Jax’s president who met with him this morning. “It’s polite to give your name first before asking for someone else’s.”
“Well, we’re not in your country,” I countered, not wanting to show that I had no weapon, nor a means to defend myself. My little black cell was on the other side of the house where I’d thrown it during an imaginary argument where I was tearing Jax to shreds. Of course, even in my mind he had comebacks for everything, and I had lost. To an imaginary Jax.
“You’re right.” He nodded but didn’t do what I asked.
I felt my hair, the light threads loose from my ponytail, catch the wind and begin to stick to the slick of sweat growing on my skin. I watched his eyes trace the inconsequential movement but did nothing about it.
A girl knew better than to occupy herself when being stared at by a predator. A smarter girl would have brought the shotgun hidden in the pantry.
“I’m here to give you a message,” he said but made no attempt to come near me. “I tried to pass it on before but looks like my message wasn’t clear enough at the motel.”
The motel?
He’s the one who broke into my room!
My body ran cold as I realized how close I had come to this man before. It unnerved me, and I fought the urge to escape.
The man may have been staying near his bike, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough freedom for me to make a break for the house. It was stand firm or run, and this time, I had no choice but to do the former.
“Who for?”
“They know who they are. So, do you.” His lips quirked not in joy or satisfaction but in knowing.
I kept my face passive, but my eyes were another story as I glowered at the stranger. “What’s the message?”
A single step was all it took for him to invade my space. The stench of sweat and oil hit my nose like a punch in the face. I tried to take a step backward, but he caught my arm and dragged me near him, my weak leg faltering against the pull, leaving me slamming hard into his chest, and only seconds later, into the lips against my cheek.
It was like everything moved in slow motion. The course hair of his beard grazing my skin, the rough, dry lips pressing into the bones of my cheek, the cool heat of them making my body turn to ice.
“That,” he whispered, pulling back just enough to steady me. With a gentle touch, he pushed aside the hair stuck to my cheek and tucked it behind my ear, “is my message.”
He turned on his heels, not minding showing me his broad back before mounting his motorcycle and turning away, disappearing like a shadow sweeping over a field on a clouded day.
I couldn’t say how long I stood there, feeling an iron taste on my tongue as I bit down on my own skin. He was gone, but the burn of that touch was still sinking its way under the surface, as if it may permanently be tattooed on there.
My numbness, however, didn’t recede as I moved back through the house, scrambling for my phone, going to the one person I needed.
Jax.
* * *
Eight was a big number.
Especially when it was referring to the number of nefarious motorcycle gang members crammed into the little kitchen.
Calling Jax had made this happen.
When I had called to tell him I had a message for his group, I had expected maybe him and the big guy. I hadn’t expected all of them. And then some.
The little blonde sat at the table to the side of me, a wall of huge towering men with their arms folded, brows drawn, and mouths set in firm lines, closed in around us. “Um,” I breathed, looking to the blonde for help.
She ignored me. Red nails flew over the keyboard of her laptop with speed I’d never seen before. I could barely find the Google search bar never mind whatever not-so-legal stuff it looked like she was doing. Not that I could tell—I just assumed.
I looked down to the surface of the table. My hand reached to smooth over the ridges and notches in the wood, comforted by their rough touch under my cold, shaky fingers. All the blood had drained to my legs by the time I found my cell phone. It took three attempts to get Jax on the line, because I couldn’t get my hands to stop shaking and press the right buttons. I wasn’t sure exactly what I said to him, but all of a sudden, I was being bulldozed by a dozen men and a woman leading the march.
Jax hadn’t said anything since he’d found me with my shotgun hiding behind the door, but when I’d almost blown his head off, he hadn’t been pissed. He’d just sworn and walked straight back out the door. Then his teammates came in, all branded in leather and stern faces, and sat me down on the table to reiterate my story to the blonde who had yet to introduce herself yet.
Although I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get to know her.
She was intimidating.
“Anatoli Ivanov,” she said, a sharp grin on her lips as she gave one last click of the computer.
The humongous Russian man who dwarfed the rest of the large men in the room sucked up the rest of my breathing space as he leaned over the girl’s shoulder, his brown-greying beard just brushing the bare skin of her arm. I tried to ignore the bright pink hair and the fact that a few of the men had fresh bruises on them. Jax was sporting a war wound on his jaw—one that hadn’t been there this morning—and I didn’t feel the inclination to ask where they came from.
“A Black Jack.” The man sighed, the lilt he had matched the intruder. From the name the girl gave, I was assuming that my earlier guess was correct, and both men were Russian.
A black jack? Like the playing card?
“It’s not the one I found in Portland. I’ve been keeping tabs on him, and he’s still hanging out in the city,” the smallest of the men said from the other side of the room, his expression not once changing since he had waltzed in the door. He ran a hand through his short blond hair.
“Then his friend must be the one. He works fast,” the Russian grunted.
“His word travels faster,” the pretty blonde man said. I recognized him as the one who had come with the big Russian man to visit Jax this morning.
“His actions are the quickest,” the petite woman quipped, her eyes jumping to me. It was the first attempt at humor—if that’s what it was—I’d seen since this whole thing began
.
It mustn’t have gone down well, however, as not a second later, the door to the back slammed open, and I turned just in time to see the sole familiar face disappearing out of it.
The blonde got up from her seat to go after him but was halted. The Russian man’s hand came down on her shoulder, pushing her back in her seat. Dark, brown eyes turned from her blue glaring ones and settled on me.
He didn’t say a word.
I tried to hold his gaze, but the man was intimidating and my best attempts to return it faltered. They lowered to where a small scar ran over his crooked nose, not wanting to wonder where he got it. When the man’s eyes still didn’t move from me, I began to rise from my seat. “I suppose I should go after him?” I said, looking for confirmation.
Nobody said anything. They just stared as I headed toward the door. When nobody stopped me, I slipped out the door, closing it firmly behind me, and breathed in the humid night air.
Do they all have to be cryptic?
My boots made noise as grit worn into the rubber grooves fell through the wooden cracks to the earth beneath. Jax leaned over the old, wooden railing, his leather stretching across the cresting expanse of his back as the light from inside of the house illuminated the worn motorcycle patch.
Black Angels MC.
Fellpeak, OR.
Eyes tracing the cursive white letters, I waited for Jax to make his move. The tension rippling off him had my feet still on the worn, wooden panels, listening to the sound of distant mosquitos and crickets echoing from the darkness.
His sigh made me jump.
Pushing off his elbows, he turned to face me. I was shocked to see his expression. He looked… defeated. It was so strange to see emotion on him that I almost had to look twice to see if it was really him. His terse frown from earlier was gone, and in its place, his soft dark eyes were washing over me bit by bit.
He took a step toward me, his hand reaching up to my face, enclosing around my fingers. “Stop rubbing it,” he breathed, pulling my hand away from my cheek. I hadn’t even realized I was doing it, surprised as I felt his calloused palm brush against the smooth outside of mine as he lowered it to my side. He held it for a moment and I seized the opportunity to study his face up close.
Where the warm light had sharpened my intruder earlier, the contrast seemed to soften Jax’s harsh features. With a face made up of so many edges and angles and leathered wrinkles around his eyes, it was hard to see the soft roundness of his lips, chin, and nose. Nor the way his shoulders were narrow, or the way his muscles seemed leaner and tighter to his body, all of it allowing him the advantage of speed and agility over strength, winning him many trophies and hearts alongside them in his youth. I couldn’t help but wonder what it earned him now.
“I’m sorry,” he said, pulling me out of my studying. Dark curls of hair slipped from behind his ear. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s not your fault,” I whispered back, shaking my head. “I came here knowing full well what your gang was. I’ve seen the news articles on you and them. I knew danger was a possibility when I came to you.”
When the man earlier had asked me who the message was for, it wasn’t hard to make the connection, especially with a gang as notorious as the Black Angels, who had come recently under the wing of the infamous Grim Reapers along with their neighboring MC, the Hell’s something-or-other. After their huge feud a few years back, I wasn’t surprised. It seemed bad news followed them wherever they went.
It was a lot of information. But I had a lot of spare time at night over the past year and a half.
“Club,” Jax grumbled, shaking his head.
I frowned, his dark eyes rolling away from me before turning back in quiet amusement. “We’re a motorcycle club. Not a gang. And what we do might not always be on the best side of the law, but that doesn’t mean we’re bad people, Ron. I want you to know that.”
I felt my brows dip once more, but then they rose as his words sunk in, I studied him. I stared at the new man before me, the one who was watching me with a serious gaze I wasn’t used to seeing on him. The one who had come flying with his friends by his side the second danger arrived, armed and ready to incite violence. The man who, even though hating me, didn’t turn away my plea for help. I witness all that and yet….
“I can’t know that, Jax. Not really,” I whispered. His face transformed with a flat-lipped frown. I pushed my hair away from my face and then gestured down to him. “A long time ago, I knew Jackson. The boy who had a wild heart, who tried his best to be kind and to please. The one who saw a horse as more than just a tool to make money. Who, even though I annoyed the absolute shit out of, never sent me away. Never made me not feel welcome. But you—” I reached out, and for once Jax didn’t move as my hand settled on the warm leather cut on his shoulders. It held tight to the fading warmth of the day and the soft, worn material was smooth against my skin. “—I don’t know Jax, the Black Angel motorcycle member. The bad boy flirt who’s had nearly every girl in town. I don’t know the darkness I saw in your face when you stepped through the door today. You’re a face I no longer know how to read, or the man whose words I always knew were honest. You are someone who I don’t know. A stranger….”
I let my hand slide from his leather, taking a slow step back. He didn’t deny anything I said, and both of us knew I wasn’t wrong. I didn’t want to deny his club, but I also knew that the words of this new man didn’t mean as much to me as they may once have coming from Jackson’s mouth.
“I trust you to keep me safe, Jax,” I said, glancing through the lit window to the tall shadows of his club members. “I trust you to look after Max. And I trust that you won’t put me in danger on purpose. But whether you’re a good man or a bad one, whether your club is on the better side of the law or not… that’s not up for me to decide. Not anymore.”
I turned my back, reaching for the door handle.
“Then get to know me.”
“What?” I turned. The sound of my hair brushing against leather touched my ears. He stood so close I only had to lean forward to touch him. I hadn’t heard him move.
With the coolness of dusk surrounding us, I felt the heat of his skin, smelled the dry, crisp scent of his clothes, tasted his musky warmth on my damp lips. His dark eyes caught just enough of the porch light to give them an almost golden luminescent glow.
“The reason you don’t know me, Ronnie, is because you haven’t tried to. Ever since you’ve been here the only person you’ve been looking for is Jackson. You’re looking for the boy who caved to the pressure of his parents, who couldn’t decide anything for his own, who was the good little soldier boy everyone wanted him to be. Even you. But Jackson’s not here anymore, Ronnie. I am. As Jax. Getting to know me is all up to you, Ronnie, because when I got that phone call and I realized how close you came to being hurt, it scared me. While you were looking for someone who is no longer here, I’ve been pretending the past you didn’t exist either. But unlike me, you are the same annoying, little shadow you’ve always have been. Because if I accepted you were still the same girl… I knew I couldn’t hate you anymore. Knew I couldn’t hold onto the pain of what you did to me. But no matter how much I tried to ignore that you still matter to me…I couldn’t. I’ve been pushing you out, not letting you get close but… I don’t want to push you out any longer.”
“But, Jax—”
Jax held up his hand, stopping my breath.
“No buts. I’ve seen too many of my brothers be stupid over stuff like this, and you’re important to me, Ronnie. I want you to know the real me.” He gave me that typical, quirky smile and it transformed his face into something I didn’t realize I had been craving until now. “What d’ya say? Truce?”
He extended his long, inked hand, palm facing up toward me, eyes never leaving mine.
I stood looking at him for what felt like the longest moment before I looked down to see callouses and slight scars I had never seen before, to the tattoos I saw
spreading down his forearm and up the biceps I had never felt before.
Did I want this? Did I want to get to know Jax? What if I didn’t like what I learned?
I won’t be here forever.
The thought was a wave of cold as I stared down at his hand, almost seeing through it to the future I knew was coming, and from the inevitability that even if Jax wanted to keep me in his life even if he got to know me… I couldn’t stay.
Knowing all of this, I knew I couldn’t get in deep. And shaking his hand would do that.
I won’t do it.
I won’t give in.
I don’t want this.
But I do.
I want this more than the sky is blue. More than the oceans are vast. And more than sun shines. Will I regret this?
I took his hand.
His huge one enclosed my smaller one, knowing that I would most likely, one day, regret it.
But it was too late now, and I said the one word that would no doubt doom both of our fates.
“Truce.”
* * *
By the time the sun was rising, light was casting a dawning gold into blue dusk sky, and crops crested with an ethereal glow in the back field, it felt as if everything was as new as the coming day. The dark I’d been in last night was now just beginning to brighten as my world and sight expanded into Jax’s.
I held the coffee cup to my face and thought about everything that was floating around in my mind.
I learned a lot after Jax’s proposal of truce. For over an hour, Jax and I sat on the bench on the back porch as he first and foremost explained everything that had gone on involving the so-called Black Jacks, a Russian group of mercenaries that the Black Angels had nearly wiped out during a conflict with some powerful English guy, instigating a war of revenge last year. They had tried to track down the last of them to clear the threat they posed, leading to my eventful encounter with one of the worst last night.
He hadn’t given the full details; there were things Jax was censoring, but I didn’t push, knowing what I was getting was already privy information if the looks cast through window from the group in the kitchen was any indication. They had looked at me with caution and I could see they didn’t trust me thus far, and I couldn’t blame them.
Jax: Black Angels MC, #3 Page 12
