I kept going to therapy because it was true that talking about it all seemed to relieve a little of the weight, but outside of therapy, my lips were sealed.
Hell, I hadn’t even meant to open up to Jason, but there was something so damned warm and inviting about him, I wanted to rip open every wound I had so he could peer inside and heal it.
Surely, I thought now, in the quiet darkness of my room, that was unhealthy.
I shouldn’t feel that way about him. I shouldn’t allow myself to feel that way about any one. I’d been taught not to trust anyone, and that was a lesson I kept close at all times.
Trusting Jason was dangerous, no matter how peaceful and kind he was.
Wasn’t it?
Everything was turned upside down inside of me and so I did what I did best…I waited to see what would happen next.
For the tenth time tonight, I tried to push Jason’s face from the forefront of my mind and concentrate on the book I was reading. It was a juicy murder mystery that was set in the sunny Caribbean islands and as far away from real life that I could find. Although, the female lead in the book was falling for one of the dashing investigators, and every single time she mentioned his green eyes or his handsome good looks, Jason’s face haunted me again.
I put the book down and checked on Alex again. He lay so calm and tranquil, not a worry in his head and I couldn’t help but be proud of that.
I’d done that, I thought. I gave him peace and stability and comfort and love, all the ingredients required to keep him safe and happy and healthy. Being a mother had broken me wide open, and Alex had taught me how to love. I shuddered to think of where I’d be now if he hadn’t come along.
Probably still under Ruby’s thumb, waiting around for Luke’s next fight to be over so he’d have time to come and abuse me again. The in-between time was nice and quiet, but he had a way of making up for lost time when he finally did show back up. It took weeks to recover from one of his visits. Early on, I’d begged Ruby to reassign me, but she insisted that Luke was happy and we shouldn’t rock the boat. She didn’t want to lose Luke as a customer, she said. If she didn’t give him what he wanted, which apparently was me at his beck and call, then he’d go elsewhere.
To think that there were so many other’s keeping women like cattle in nondescript apartments and houses around the globe sickened me. I’d spent many hours imagining how I could track them all down and free them, make them see the chains were violent, but they had the strength to break free from them.
Part of winning the fight was just knowing you could walk away.
If only I’d known sooner…
If only I’d left sooner…
If only I’d known that getting pregnant was the key to freedom, maybe I’d have tried to do it sooner…
None of that mattered anymore. Now, here I was.
Strong. Independent. And hungry…
I padded out to the kitchen in search of a midnight snack. Bea made oatmeal raisin cookies and I scarfed a few of them down before searching for a glass in the cabinet. The cookies were delicious, if not a tad dry. I drank a glass of water in the dark, listening to the quiet nighttime sounds of the shelter.
Faint crying could be heard, along with a few comforting whispers, and I knew Bea was most likely with the new girls. The first night was the absolute hardest. You were still reeling from whatever awful circumstances had brought you here to this unfamiliar house, with these unfamiliar people.
Sure, they were kind, but they were strangers and strangers are just that until they aren’t. In the meantime, dealing with it all is very difficult, especially when you have children.
I contemplated walking back there and seeing if there was anything I could do or say to make the new girls feel better but I knew from experience the only thing that really would help was time. Instead, I walked back to my room at the front of the house, grateful that all of that was behind me.
Never again would I have a black eye or a bloodied lip. Never again would I stare up at the ceiling like a frozen corpse while a man used my body without my consent. Never again would someone make money off of me like that.
I closed the door to my bedroom, looking around at the dingy furnishings. It was a far cry from the palace that Jason lived in, but I didn’t mind. It was safe and that’s all that mattered.
I turned back to Alex’s crib, standing in front of it and listening to his breathing with a smile. I reached down and caressed his cheek softly, relishing the velvety softness of his flawless skin. With a heavy sigh, I turned to go back to my bed.
I glanced at the window and froze when I saw a man’s face peering in at me.
He looked up at me with wide, angry eyes and I opened my mouth and screamed as loud as I could.
“Bea!” I cried. “Bea! BEA! Help!”
Footsteps echoed down the hallway and my bedroom door flew open, followed by a frantic, wild-eyed Bea brandishing a baseball bat.
“There’s someone out there! A man was looking in my window!”
“Shit! Call 911!” She flew out of the room and I heard the front door of the house burst open. My heart pounded with fear as I dialed my phone.
When I realized I was being put on hold, I cried out in anger.
“Dammit!”
The occupants of the safe house filed into the living room, with our barebones staff that consisted of Bea and two other young counselors, running outside to chase off the man. By the time the operator answered the phone, they were walking back in.
“He’s gone,” Bea said, listening as I rattled off our address and told the operator what happened.
“We have a unit in the area, they’ll stop by shortly.”
“Please hurry,” I said. “We’re a domestic violence safe house.”
“We know, ma’am, the police are on their way.”
I hung up the phone with my heart threatening to burst from my chest.
“What did he look like?” Bea asked.
By now, everyone was crowded around me. The front door had been locked and bolted again and every window in the house had been double-checked.
“Tall guy. Bald. White, late thirties, early forties. He was just standing there staring in…”
“Did he have a goatee?” One of the ladies who’d just arrived asked, clearly fearing for her life.
“I think so,” I said, shrugging.
“It could have been him,” she said, her voice shaking. “He may have found me! He said he would, he promised he would find me and kill me.”
“Nobody knows you’re here, Sheri,” Bea walked over and pulled the sobbing girl in her arms. “It was probably just a neighborhood peeping Tom or something.”
“I don’t know. Jeffrey’s smart. All of his friends are cops! They could have given him the address!”
“Shh,” Bea said. “You’re safe here, I promise.” She shot me a worried glance over the girl’s head and I shrugged. She and I both knew there were no real guarantees of safety. Not even here.
She held her while the girl cried in her arms. I heard Alex cry out and I ran into our room and scooped him up in my arms, my heart in my throat, as I held him close. I was shaking, the realization that some strange man had come just feet away from my precious boy beginning to dawn on me.
That very well could have been the girl’s boyfriend.
It could have been anybody. Nobody goes looking into the window of a house that didn’t belong to you with good intentions.
I looked around at the drab bedroom, feeling more unsafe than I had in a very long time.
Before I could think about it any longer, I shut the bedroom door, drew the curtains tight and grabbed my cell phone.
He answered on the first ring.
“Jason, it’s Daisy…”
Lucifer
Lily’s ass wiggled in front of me, her pussy offered up to me like a piece of pie. I slammed into her, giving her my all.
Look, I’ll admit it. I feel like shit for the other night.
<
br /> But fuck, she was nagging me like an incessant goat and I can’t stand that shit. I have no patience. Maybe patience is a virtue for some people, but I think it makes you weak.
When you want something, you should demand that you have it right away.
Trust me, with that attitude, and the willingness to get physical every now and then to make your point, you could get a lot more out of life. Sure, it helps that I’m mean as a junkyard dog and my bite is much worse than my bark, but I wouldn’t get anywhere with just violence.
You had to have the attitude, too.
It was a package deal.
Anyway, I decided this morning that I should make sure Lily was properly fucked so she wouldn’t make a big fuss out of the other night. Sure enough, as soon as I poured on the charm, she’d forgotten she was mad at me and lifted her ass up to me like it was cake on a gold platter.
She wiggled on my cock and I pounded into her, holding on to her hips as she made that stupid cooing sound she did sometimes.
I admitted I felt bad, so I’ll admit something else.
Maybe you’ve figured it out already, but I am so over this bitch. Like I said before, I’m only staying in this to keep my fortune intact, and I’m only fucking her now so she’ll stay away from the press, but I am so not into it anymore.
I used to find her attractive.
Now, she’s just annoying. Her pussy is like a bank I have to keep depositing money into so I don’t get dinged with fees.
It’s a duty.
And I’m doing it.
Here’s the thing, though…I figured out long ago that I could fake an orgasm, just like chicks do, and as long as I pretended to come inside of her, then she’d never know. It was easier that way because no way in hell was I going to be able to bust a nut with all that cooing and wiggling going on.
Besides, all I could think about was Scarlet.
No, not the rose, I crumbled that stupid thing, remember?
I mean my wayward girl.
My missing baby mama.
I’d called a private investigator my lawyer recommended and pulled out all the stops to find her and my baby. Stupid bitch can’t just disappear off the face of the Earth and I’m going to find her and make sure she pays for what she’s done. She deprived me of witnessing the birth of my baby boy and just took off. For a fucking year! I still wasn’t done with Ruby, but I was biding my time a little bit longer while I figured out how to handle that bitch. She should have called me the minute she knew anything. This was mostly her fault.
I blamed Scarlet, too. She knew my fucking phone number, it’s not like she was innocent in all of this. She could have told me she was pregnant.
I had a right to know. She fucked me over. They’d both fucked me over.
I’d make them all pay.
As soon as I found her, which better not be long. The investigator, a dude named Philip Rosen, charged a grand an hour. I was told he was the best, and at that rate, he’d better fuckin’ be.
I didn’t really care how much it costs.
I just want my kid.
“Oh, yeah, baby, look at you,” I murmured, speeding up my thrusts. I was glad I’d positioned Lily away from me so that she couldn’t see the bored look on my face. “Oh, oh, oh! I’m coming, babe.”
I grunted and groaned and slammed inside of her again before pulling out and walking to the bathroom and turning on the shower.
“You’re done?” She called after me. I looked over my shoulder and she was still leaning face forward on the bed, her ass still up in the air. “I'm not done.”
“Finish yourself off, babe, I’m tired,” I said, closing the bathroom door. I fished my cell phone out of the pocket of the jeans I’d left hanging on the back of the door and called Philip.
“Hey Rosen, it’s Luke, man. Any news?” I asked.
“Not yet, sir. I’ve put out some feelers, though. I should know something in a few days.”
“A few days? That’s too long.”
“As soon as I get a lead, I’ll let you know. You didn’t give me a lot to work with, you know, and the hospital is very strict with those damned HIPAA laws. I can’t get any info from them.”
“You’ll figure it out. But fucking hurry, mate!”
“I’m working as fast as I can, I assure you, sir.”
I hung up the phone and jumped in the shower, the steaming hot water scalding my skin. It felt fucking amazing.
I closed my eyes, wondering what it was going to be like to meet my son.
Hell, I didn’t even know his name.
Does he look like me?
Does he have my eyes?
There was one thing I knew for sure. Before long, I’d have him trained and in the ring right alongside me.
In twenty years, he was going to be the next Lucifer.
Hell, he was going to be ten times better than me, because he had me to train him.
My prodigy.
My little fighter.
My son.
My legend.
Bones
Daisy called me in the middle of the night, her voice shaking with fear, sending daggers of anxiety straight through my heart. I’d thought for sure something terrible had happened.
I never in a million years thought she’d agree to move in and work for me.
Now, we were loading her surprisingly few belongings into the biggest of the spare bedrooms at the back of the house, and suddenly I felt a little shy about the whole thing.
I’d never lived with a woman outside of my mother and that was a lifetime ago and didn’t really count, now did it?
Not that this counted, either.
It was merely a business agreement, right? Sure, we’d kissed, and sure, it felt amazing, and sure, I was very keen on doing it again, but that didn’t mean we were moving in together, not in a romantic sense. And now that she’d agreed, I wasn’t even sure where that left us.
She might back track, decide kissing me was a mistake now that she was here.
I was prepared to accept that completely, should she go that way, but I was hoping like hell she didn’t. For now, we kept passing each other in the hall and exchanging smiles. Once we’d finished bringing everything in, we stood in the hallway staring at each other awkwardly.
Alex had fallen asleep in the truck so he was happily snoring away in his seat in the living room. Chester was running around our legs and sniffing every box we brought in.
Staring into Daisy’s eyes, my heart swelled knowing that I’d now get to see her every day.
“So, what now?” I asked.
“Maybe I should unpack?”
“Sure, sure. Are you hungry? I could make us lunch.”
“More potato salad?”
“Not today,” I said, smiling at her. “Listen, Daisy, I want you to completely make yourself at home. Like I said before, I won’t be here too much during the day and some nights I even stay at the hospital or go to the clubhouse on the weekends.”
“I’ll be fine alone, Jason. Thank you so much,” she said, smiling up at me. “I’m really happy to be here, even though I’ll miss the ladies at the shelter.”
“Last night really shook you up, didn’t it?”
“I’ve always felt safe there,” she shrugged. “Maybe I wasn't as safe as I thought I was.”
“Well, no matter what, I’m glad you’re here. Both of you.”
“You’re a great guy, Jason,” she said.
“You’re pretty great, too,” I replied, my stomach flipping. I reached out, pulling her into my arms and bending my head to kiss her. She leaned in at first, but then she stiffened and pulled away, sending a dagger of disappointment right into my heart.
“I’m sorry, Jason, I just don’t think…now that I'm working for you…”
“I completely understand,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m so sorry.”
I was more than sorry, I was mortified. Of course she wouldn’t want to be kissed, her entire life had been upended. What kind of imbeci
le was I?
“No, don’t be sorry,” she whispered, her eyes staring at me, so wide and sweet. “It’s okay. I just don't know the right way to go about this.”
“How about we just take it slow for now? We can figure it out as we go along. To be honest, I’ve never lived with a woman in my life, so I’m not sure how to do this, either. Not that we’re living together, I mean.” I said, hurriedly.
She smiled again, the sweetest, most trusting smile I’d ever seen.
“One day at a time sounds good to me,” she whispered.
I nodded, peering into her pretty eyes.
“Let me show you around a little more,” I said, leading her through the house. I showed her how to turn all the lights on and off and gave her a quick tour of the kitchen. She’d seen the entire house last time, so giving her a real tour seemed repetitive.
Finally, I opened the garage door and we stepped into the garage. It was way too big, but it had come with the house. I had my two trucks, a Honda and my bike in there, and there was still enough room to ride a skateboard, if you wanted.
“So this is your bike, huh?” She said, walking around it, her eyes raking over it. Chester’s sidecar was attached, so I knew it was anything but cool, not in the traditional sense, at least.
“Chester doesn’t like to be left at home,” I said, shrugging.
“It’s nice,” she nodded. “Very pretty.”
She reached down and lifted up the cut that was slung across the seat, inspecting it, reading the patches.
“So, you really are a biker…”
“Yep. Totally patched in,” I said, my chin lifting proudly.
“You ever do anything illegal?” She asked, raising an eyebrow and staring over at me.
I shook my head, thinking back over the past few years.
“Nothing I’m ashamed of,” I said.
She nodded and smiled a quiet little smile as she put the cut back on the seat, smoothing it out. A knot formed in my throat as I watched her fingers slide over the worn leather.
“I’ll take you for a ride sometime,” I said, my voice gruff and scratchy. “If you want…”
BONES: GODS OF CHAOS MC Page 9
