And then she realized it wasn’t finished. My God. Had…had Crash…made this? Stunned, she backed away, and then retreated to the kitchen. She poured herself a cup of coffee and stood at the island, staring at the sculpture. That man was such a puzzle. And the pieces just didn’t fit together. Shaking her head, she took her coffee and walked back to the bedroom.
As she walked through the doorway, one of the strands of paperclips snagged on her sweater, which then made her spill the coffee on her white leggings. “Damn it!”
Not only were her leggings ruined, but her sweater as well. Pissed off, she slammed the mug down on the dresser, and then in a fit, she grabbed the stupid paperclips and started yanking the strands down. Who makes a beaded-curtain out of paperclips, for God’s sake? How ridiculous. She rolled them all up in a ball, like tangled Christmas lights and threw them in the wastebasket. Stupid things. She looked down at the arm of her sweater. It was snagged beyond repair. Fabulous! She’d might as well toss it in the trash, too. Stomping over to her suitcase, she rummaged through it looking for something else to wear.
CHAPTER FIVE
Crash pulled up at the Queen of Hearts. The guys were standing in the parking lot, smoking. Cole was leaning back on his bike, his ass parked on his seat. Crash cut his bike off and walked over to him.
Cole looked up at him, a sly grin on his face. “You get you some coffee this mornin’?”
Crash’s eyes cut to the others, knowing they’d told him all about that fiasco. He grunted.
“She all settled?”
“If settled means a shit-ton of chick crap all over my bathroom sink, then, yeah, she’s settled.”
Cole let out a laugh. “High maintenance, brother. You called it.”
“Can we get this done, so I can get back before she redecorates the place?”
“Yeah, we can ‘get this done’,” Cole chuckled. He nodded over his shoulder toward the door. Crash’s eyes followed the direction of his gaze. “Artie upgraded the muscle at the door.” He stood and ground out his cigarette.
Crash saw the two bouncers standing, one on either side of the door. Musclebound body builders. He snorted, if it’s one thing he knew about bodybuilders it was that they were shit fighters. He looked over at Red Dog and Wolf. “You take the one on the right.” He looked at Green. “We got the guy on the left.”
They moved toward the door.
*****
It was almost seven by the time Crash got back home. He rolled down the street. When he got to within fifty feet of the building, the sensor on his bike activated the garage door, and it began rolling slowly up. He rolled inside and parked the bike. He was pulling his phone out to call Shannon to send down the elevator, when he heard her yell down the shaft. “Crash?”
He slid his phone back in his pocket, moving toward it. “Yeah,” he yelled back up. A moment later, the elevator began descending. He climbed on and rode back up. Leaning against the elevator bars, he rubbed the back of his neck. Damn, he was beat. A nice hot shower sounded fucking great. He shook out his hand, flexing it. His knuckles were cut, but the bleeding had stopped a while ago. Now the joints just ached. It had been a pleasure to teach Artie a well-deserved lesson. Arrogant prick.
The elevator jerked to a stop, and he pulled the gate open. He didn’t get two steps into the loft, when something caught his eye, and he turned his head to the right. His sculpture. Uncovered. Fuck.
His head turned back, searching out Shannon. She was sitting at the bar painting her nails. He walked over to her, taking a deep breath and blowing it out. He stopped next to her. One hand on the back of her barstool, one on the counter next to her. She paused, the little brush thing hovering over her nail, and turned to look up at him.
“You got a nosey streak?” he asked.
Her eyes moved past him to the sculpture, and then back to his face. “It’s beautiful, Crash. Did you make it?”
“Think, maybe, if I’d wanted you to see it, I’d have shown it to you?”
“Crash-”
Walking away from her, he opened the refrigerator and grabbed out a beer. Turning, he spotted a skillet sitting on top of the stove. He lifted the lid and looked at the cold, unappetizing goo inside. Mac and cheese. In a skillet. What the hell did she do, fry it? He dropped the lid back down with a bang and headed toward the bathroom. “I’m taking a shower.” He walked in that direction and came to a jarring halt as he passed his bedroom. It took him a second, and then he realized what was wrong. The paperclips were gone. What the hell? He stalked back to the kitchen. Shannon looked up at him with a questioning frown. “What did you do with the paperclips?”
She rolled her eyes. “I took them down. They were paperclips, for God’s sake.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you take them down?”
“They snagged my sweater. Why? What’s the big deal? They were just paperclips!”
He slammed his beer bottle down on the island. “The big deal, Shannon, is that a little five-year-old girl made those for me. Cole’s daughter, Melissa.” He watched her mouth part in surprise, but he didn’t care. “The big deal is, they weren’t yours to take down. The big deal is, Shannon, I don’t give a fuck if they snagged your damn sweater. ‘Cause, clue in, Princess, the whole world doesn’t revolve around you!” With that, he walked back to the bathroom and slammed the door. Fuck, he wanted to strangle her. This was a bad idea. Having her here. He was going to kill her before this was through. He stalked to the shower and flipped it on. Then he began stripping his clothes off.
Climbing under the steaming spray, Crash dialed the jets to high and let the pulsing water beat against the aching muscles of his back. He thought about Shannon prying into his things, snooping where her nose didn’t belong.
Seeing his art.
Let it go, man, he told himself. Resting his palm on the slate tile, he dropped his head and let the hot water sooth the tension out of the back of his neck and shoulders. When he thought about Melissa’s precious little gift to him all waded up in a heap in the trash, he wanted to put his fist through the tile. He needed to calm himself the fuck down. He couldn’t even look at Shannon in the mood he was in now. He breathed deep, trying to let go of the anger.
He knew there was more than just the immediate anger eating at him right now. It was having her here, in his place, in his things, in his life. He hadn’t let any chick in, not like that, not since Erin. And that’d been a long fucking time ago. Yeah, sure, he had women. A lot of women, a few he’d even brought home, but not many. And none of them had ever been in his place alone, without him here. They came, he fucked them, and then he got them gone.
This had been a mistake. Bringing her here. He should have never volunteered for this. But it was too late now. He was stuck with her. He was just gonna have to lay down the law to her and get through this somehow.
Shannon heard the shower come on. She sat stunned at the bar, thinking about how pissed he was. Oh, sure, he hadn’t blown up. He’d mostly kept his cool, but he was pissed. More than that. She’d hurt him, somehow. Her eyes strayed to the beautiful sculpture. He hadn’t wanted her to see it. Why? It was beautiful. He had to know that. She guessed it was a piece of him, he didn’t want to share with her. And he had a right to that. She’d been wrong to pry.
And the paperclips.
Dear God, she’d acted like…like the thoughtless bitch he must see her as. Usually, she could care less what other people thought of her. But for some reason, this bothered her. She had to fix this, and she’d never cared about fixing anything before. She found herself sliding off the barstool and walking into the bedroom. Grabbing the waded ball of clips out of the wastebasket, she sat on the bed. They were a tangled mess, but she could fix it. It’d probably take her days, and it would be easier to just buy a new box and string them together. But she couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be right. They wouldn’t mean anything to him. She stared down at the clips. Not like these did.
&
nbsp; She got to work. She had half of one strand untangled when he came out of the bathroom. Looking up, she froze. He walked into the bedroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around his hips, his fist clenching it around him below the waist. His hair was slicked back, wet from the shower.
“Get out,” he snapped.
She looked up at him, dazed.
“Unless you want to sit there and watch me dress, get the fuck out.”
She slid off the bed, clutching the silver ball in her hands and scurried from the room.
“Shannon.” His bark stopped her in the doorway. She turned, barely catching a glimpse of his bare ass, before a wet towel hit her in the face. “There’s more on the floor in the bathroom. Wash them.”
She retreated quickly. Moving to the bathroom, she gathered up the wet towels and bath mat. She carried them to the washing machine that was set up under the metal stairs that led to the roof. She stared at the machine. She didn’t have a clue how to use it. Crash strode out of the bedroom, dressed in a pair of jeans and a tee and walked up the stairs and onto the roof. The door banged shut, and she stared at it. She had to make this right. And that meant she had to do something she rarely did.
Apologize.
Dropping the towels to the floor, she walked into the kitchen and grabbed two bottles of beer out of the refrigerator. She paused at the island for a minute, trying to come up with the right words, and perhaps, if she was being honest, give him another minute to cool down.
A few minutes later, she headed toward the roof.
She found him sitting in one of the chairs, his feet up, smoking his cigarette. Approaching him quietly, she held the beer out to him. He looked to the bottle suspended from her hand next to his right shoulder a moment, and she thought maybe he would refuse to take it. And then his hand came up, accepting the bottle.
She sat in the chair next to him. “I’m sorry, Crash. Truly I am. You’re right. About all of it.”
He flicked his cigarette, his eyes on the horizon, saying nothing.
She continued. “I had no business touching your things. This is your home.”
He took a pull off the beer.
“Crash, please, look at me.”
His eyes came to her.
“I don’t know if you’re more upset about the sculpture or-”
“I don’t want to talk about the damn sculpture.”
She swallowed. “I’ll fix the paperclips and put them back, I swear-”
“Yeah, right. I’ll believe it when I see it.”
She stared at him a long moment. “Please, tell me how I can fix this.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Some things you can’t fix.”
Shannon looked at the horizon, not knowing what to say. They sat there silently for a long time, and then Crash finally broke the silence. “They’re silly, I know. But those silly paperclips meant the world to me.”
She looked at him. His eyes were on the Bay Bridge. “Tell me, please.”
He flicked his cigarette over the edge of the roof and leaned back, closing his eyes. She thought he was done, and then he spoke, a slight smile pulling at his mouth. “She’s the one that started calling this place the Batcave. Except, my elevator went up instead of down, she told me. Cole helped me hang the support for those chains, and Angel brought the kids over to see it. Melissa took one look at the divider and said, ‘But Uncle Crash, you don’t have a door.’ When I replied, ‘No, sweet pea. I sure don’t, do I?’ she told me not to worry, ‘cause she was gonna make me one.”
Shannon watched him lift the bottle to his lips. Crap. She’d really messed up. She swallowed, looking down. “Do you want me to leave?”
He huffed out a laugh. “Don’t matter. You’re here. Deal’s done.”
“I could leave.”
He turned to her then. “And go where? Back to him?”
She closed her eyes a moment, and then looked away to the horizon.
“You’re not going anywhere, Princess. You’ll stay here until this guy leaves the country.” He rolled his head, facing the horizon. “But maybe we need to set some ground rules.”
“Ground rules?”
“Yeah. One. You will stay outta my shit, and keep your hands off my stuff. Two. You will keep your shit outta my bathroom. Three. You will do what I tell you, no complaints.” He rolled his head back to her. “And four. I reserve the right to add more rules as needed, or just because I fuckin’ feel like it. Agreed?”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
“Agreed, Shannon?”
She huffed out a breath. “Agreed.”
He looked at the horizon and flexed his hand. Shannon glanced down, catching the movement, and she immediately noticed the swelling, bruising and cuts across his knuckles. Frowning, she asked, “Crash, what happened to your hand?”
He set it back on the armrest and took a pull off his beer. “Nothing.”
“Crash, that’s not nothing.”
He looked over at her. “I fell.”
“You fell?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“I fell.”
Crash-”
“Babe, there are some things you just can’t ask about. Okay?”
“But, you’re hurt, I-”
“Leave it alone.”
“But-”
“Shannon. I said, leave it alone.”
She took a deep breath and let it out. They sat there quietly for a while. She noticed he’d almost drained his beer. “Would you like another one?” she asked.
He looked at his bottle and then at her. Finally, he smiled. “Yeah.”
She disappeared and returned a minute later with another beer and her purse. Handing him the beer, she sat down and began digging through her bag. Crash gave her a questioning look, but didn’t ask. A moment later, she found what she was searching for and pulled out a small bottle of pills. Unscrewing the cap, she shook one out and held it out to him. “Here. It’ll help with the pain.”
He looked from the pill laying in her hand to her. “It’s not rat poison is it?” he asked with a grin.
Her shoulders dropped. “There wasn’t anything in the coffee. I don’t know where you got the idea I’d put rat poison in it. Honestly!” She shoved her hand at him. “Here. Are you going to take it or not?”
“Well, when you put it like that…” he mimicked her words from earlier. Then he picked it up, popped it in his mouth and chased it with a slug of beer.
“You really probably shouldn’t be drinking with pain pills. I shouldn’t have brought you that beer.”
“Oh, so that’s your angle. Put me into liver failure, huh?” he teased.
She rolled her eyes and dropped her bag next to her chair. Taking a sip of her beer, she studied the view and then announced, “I need to go shopping.”
Crash looked at her, frowning. “Shopping? For what?”
“Clothes.”
“Babe, you’ve only been here a day. You brought a bag. Oh, wait. I suppose it was mostly crammed full of beauty products.”
“I’m almost out of outfits.”
“So wash them. The machine’s under the stairs.”
She bit her lip.
“What? Don’t tell me. You don’t know how?”
She looked away.
He set his beer down, and the next thing she knew, he was pulling her to her feet. “Crash, what are you doing?”
“Come on.” He pulled her inside, down the stairs and over to the machine. Kicking the wet towels out of the way, he flipped the washing machine lid up. “Read.”
She glanced at the inside of the lid, noting the instructions imprinted there. “Fuck you!” she hissed and tried to twist her arm free, but he had a firm grip on her wrist.
“Aw, babe. Pickin’ up some foul language, are you? I don’t want to hear that talk come out of your mouth again, understand me? Or I’ll wash it out with soap.”
She sucked in her breath. “You wouldn’t dare!”
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“Wouldn’t I? Try me.”
“Why do you care if I swear? You and the guys do it all the time.”
“That’s them. That’s not you.”
“So?”
“Don’t start picking up that shit, Shannon. You’re a lady. I like that. I don’t want to hear you start cussing like a truck driver.” He tilted her head up by the chin. His gaze fell to her lips. “That mouth’s too pretty to have those words come out of it, got me?”
She stared, mesmerized by his face so close to hers.
“Nod your head, Princess.”
She nodded her head.
Then he released her and walked away, leaving her standing in a pile of wet towels.
CHAPTER SIX
Crash rolled over, bolting upright. Startled from sleep by the sounds of Shannon screaming out, he surged to his feet, looking toward the bedroom. The loft was dark, he could see the shadow of the chains as the metal glinted with what little moonlight came in through the skylights, but he couldn’t see the bed or Shannon. His first crazy thoughts were that her ex had found her somehow and was struggling with her.
He dashed across the room and to the bed. He could see the outline of her body in the shadowy light, but he didn’t see anybody else. Moving to the bedside table, he flipped on the light. She was thrashing in the throes of a nightmare. Sitting down on the bed, he tried to gently wake her. “Shannon,” he called her name softly. “Shannon, honey, wake up.”
She came awake swinging, her left fist popping Crash backhanded across the jaw. He quickly subdued her, grabbing both her forearms and pinning them across her chest. “Shannon, calm down!” She instantly stopped struggling and lay there staring up at him, her chest heaving with her rapid breathing. He could see she was confused. “You were having a nightmare, Princess.”
He released her arms, and she immediately scooted backwards, sitting against the headboard. Her eyes darted around the room, squinting against the light. She rubbed the heel of one hand over her eye and forehead. “Umm. I was dreaming he locked me in the trunk of a car. God, it seemed so real.”
CRASH: An Evil Dead MC Story (The Outlaw Series) Page 8
