“Hope,” I whisper. “I—” Words desert me. “I—”
“You, what?” Hope demands, folding her arms underneath her breasts, pushing them up. I can’t help but look, but then I look up into her face, at the hurt in it, and I feel guilty.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe. “I don’t know what else to say. I’m not just saying that. I really don’t. I never should’ve doubted you. I should’ve believed you, or at least given you the chance . . .” My shoulders deflate. Back at the wheel, when our hands touched, I thought we’d just reconnect in a heartbeat. I was wrong.
“I know you’re sorry, Killian, I do.” She twists her neck from side to side. “It’s just—these past few weeks haven’t been the best, you know? I sat down to paint more times than I could count, and nothing would come out, nothing at all. I just sat there and all I could think about was that night and—” She shakes her head, laughing softly. Then the soft laughter turns into a giggle, and the giggle into a guffaw. When she’s done, she wipes a tear from her eye. “At least I know now,” she says. “At least I know that I didn’t take those drugs. I was going really mad, you know. I started to wonder if maybe I had taken them without realizing it, like you and Patrick and even Dawn seemed to think.”
Though she laughed, I can tell she’s still angry. It’s like a war is being fought on her face: anger and relief fighting for control.
“We better get going,” she says. “The sooner we give this statement, the sooner that crazy lady goes away, the sooner I’m safer.”
“Let’s get going, then.” I climb onto the bike, reach under, and hand her the helmet.
She takes it with an unsteady hand.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I’m getting on the back of your bike again,” she says. “After all this time, I’m just getting on the back of your bike again.”
She’s talking in the same tone she might use to describe sticking her hand into a furnace, as if sitting on the back of my bike is something to fear. I swallow a tennis ball which shifts down my throat in lurches. Will it ever be the same? I wonder. Will she ever forgive me?
“We can drive your car, if you want,” I say. “I’ll send someone by for the bike later.”
She looks into the darkness, biting her lip. Then she shrugs her shoulders. “Whatever, let’s just go.”
She sticks the helmet on her head and sits on the back of the bike, her arms wrapping around me. Not as firmly as they once did, but wrapping around me nonetheless.
My statement is quick and easy. Bob’s an easily swayed guy. Any man would be with the Satan’s Martyrs in his town, I guess. Now I sit in the waiting area which overlooks the office of the police station. A few men and women sit at desks, typing on keyboards and talking quietly into phones. All of this lit under white fluorescent lights which are blinding when walking in from the night. This is Rocky Cove, and crime isn’t exactly booming here. And even when it does, a few greased palms go a long way.
Next to me, handcuffed to her chair, sits a middle-aged, motherly-looking woman. She’s about forty, but well kept, with a bob of brown hair and a painted face. She wears jeans, furry boots, and a gray sweater. She looks over to me just as I happened to look over to her.
“What’re you in for?” I ask.
She blushes and shakes her head.
“Let me guess,” I go on, just shooting the shit for the sake of it, otherwise I’ll go crazy waiting for Hope. “You’re a serial killer, right? They caught you buried elbow-deep in blood and guts.”
The woman shakes her head again. “Shoplifting,” she says quietly.
“And they handcuffed you? Goddamn.”
She nods shortly. “Serious offence, I guess,” she mutters.
“What’d you get?” I ask, all the while looking over the top of her head, toward the back door out of which Hope will soon walk. And then I’ll make it up to her, I think. And then I’ll make everything better.
“Just some shoes,” the woman says.
“They’ll probably just fine you,” I say.
“I’m not so sure. People take shoplifting pretty serious these days.”
I look down at her handcuffed hand, see that she is wearing a thick gold wedding band over a diamond engagement ring. “How long’ve you been married?” I ask, thinking: Where is she? Am I going to have to go in there? Bob better not be messing me around.
She smiles. “Eleven years this January,” she says.
“And your husband, has he ever fucked up, really badly?”
Her smile grows wider. “Yeah, a few times.”
“And you’re still with him? You still love him, I mean?”
She nods. “I do.”
“Then tell me, mystery shoplifter, what the hell did he do to make it up to you?”
She looks down at me like I’m a naïve kid, but I can’t complain. When it comes to stuff like this, I am a naïve kid.
“Don’t humiliate yourself. Be sorry, but don’t cry and beg. Don’t plead with her. She’ll never respect you again if you do that. Be sorry—but be a man.”
I shrug. “I would never cry and beg, anyway,” I mutter.
“But remember, whatever it is, she’ll be angry for a while. There’s no stopping that.”
A police officer—a young lad called Shaneus—approaches the woman. “Time to write you up, Miss Stone,” he says.
“Hey, Shane,” I call. “Do me a solid and let her go, will you?”
Both Shane and Miss Stone flinch. “What?” they say at the same time.
“You heard me. Let her go. She stole some shoes, for Christ’s sake. You know how it is. Bored wife and shoplifting. No big deal.” Hope emerges from the back office. I stand up and look Shaneus in the eye. “I’m serious. Let her go. Don’t write her up. I’m leaving now, but if I hear you wasted police time on a shoe stealer, Bob will hear about it.”
Shaneus nods, chagrined, but he unlocks Miss Stone’s handcuffs and waves toward the exit. “Go on, then.”
I sit on the edge of Hope’s bed, watching as she walks up and down the room, wringing her hands. She talks aloud, but I get the sense she’s talking as much to herself as she’s talking to me. Her mind is like a pinball tonight, bouncing from one point to the next, but I can’t blame her. Crazy shit like this might be the norm for the Satan’s Martyrs, but it’s not for Hope. She’s changed out of her hoodie and skirt into sweatpants and a baggy poncho-type blanket.
“You hurt me, bad, that’s the truth. Very, very bad.” From one end of the room to the other, she paces. Over and over. Up and down. I start to get a neck ache following her. “You don’t have any idea how much you hurt me, Killian. It was like being stabbed in the heart. I know that sounds melodramatic as hell, but that’s really how I felt. Don’t get me wrong, either. It wasn’t that I was single, or even that you’d left me. That was part of it, obviously. But it was the way you left me. I was defenseless. I literally could not do anything to defend myself. And everyone thought I did it. Even my own sister.”
She stops, panting heavily, and turns to me with her eyebrows raised in a startled expression. “My own sister,” she repeats. “Do you know how much that stung? Imagine if everyone thought you did something you didn’t even remember doing and Patrick called you a liar. How would you like that?”
“Not a lot,” I murmur, feeling under fire. Is that what relationship arguments are always like? I think. How does any man survive?
“No, exactly,” Hope says. “Not a lot. I feel strange, Killian, because I want to hold you and slap you at the same time.”
I open my arms. “Slap me then,” I say.
“What?” she shoots back, but the corners of her lips twitch, a nearly-smile.
“Slap me,” I repeat. “Go on. I deserve it. Slap me as hard as you can, pretty lady.”
“Don’t call me ‘pretty lady’!” Hope snaps. “We’re not even close to there yet.”
“That’s good,” I say, sitting up, bringing my face close to her. “Good, get an
gry. Get damn angry. Get so angry you can hardly hold it in. Slap me, pretty lady. Come on, pretty lady. Slap me.” I smirk at her, cocky. “Come on. Do it.”
“I will,” she warns. “And it won’t be a little lady slap, either. It’ll hurt.”
“Good!” I exclaim. I jump to my feet and close the gap, so that I’m standing right next to her, looking down at her. “Slap me!” I urge. “Do it, Hope! Slap me! Do it! Or are—”
Her hand makes a s-lap! against my cheek. I feel my skin go red, and then—s-lap! She hits me again, on the other cheek. She wasn’t lying; she’s hit me hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. I smirk down at her, nodding my approval. “Doesn’t that feel better, pretty lady?”
“Yeah,” she says, as though surprised. She slaps me again, again and again. I stumble backward with each slap until I fall onto the bed. She stands over me, hands raised, staring down into my eyes. “I hope it hurts,” she says. “I hope it really does.”
I bring my hand to my cheek, touch the tender flesh. “It does,” I promise. “It hurts really bad.”
“Good,” she says.
She aims her hand, and I brace myself for another slap. But then she lowers her hands to my face and touches my cheeks tenderly. “You were right,” she says. “That did make me feel better.”
I reach up and touch her hands, feel how small they are, how tiny compared to mine. “I told you it would,” I say.
Then I pull gently on her hands, pulling her toward me. I can’t yank her because her arm, though wrapped in a bandage beneath her sleeve, is still gouged with Lindsey’s fingernail marks. I pull on her hands so gently that she could quite easily pull away.
But she doesn’t.
She falls atop me. I collapse backward and she splits her legs over my waist. Then we kiss. We kiss and it’s like all the pain and the feeling of loss we’ve felt since the night on the boat pours out of us. Heat explodes in that small bedroom and we sink into each other, our tongues battling, our teeth smashing together, writhing, moaning.
Finally, she pulls away. “This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” she says, face as red as mine feels. Lips parted, tongue sticking out, pupils dilated, looking horny and happy and sexy.
“Of course not,” I say, smiling up at her.
“Oh, fuck it,” she whispers, and then kisses me again.
I reach up and grab her ass. Her ass is molded to my hand, I’m sure of it. As soon as I grab it, it feels right, feels in place, feels like it’s where it belongs.
But then Hope leans up, breaking off the kiss for a second time.
“I’m not that easy, Mr. Biker.”
I lean up, trying to bring our lips together again, but she raises a finger and brings it to my lips.
“Uh-uh,” she smiles.
“I’ll do anything,” I say, my voice intense and serious. “I mean it. Anything. I’ll do anything to make it right. Just name it. I’ll swim from here to England. I’ll go to Canada and punch a bear in the face. I’ll—fuck it, I don’t know—I’ll strap myself to a rocket and go to the moon for you.”
She giggles. “Is that your idea of romantic, Mr. Biker?”
Goddamn, I’ve missed her calling me that.
I shrug. “It’s all I can come up with.”
“I don’t need any of that,” she says. “But there is something you could do for me. If you really want to do something.”
“I do,” I say. “Tell me—anything.”
“Talk to Lucca, please. He’s been a nightmare these past—”
“It’s done,” I tell her. “I’ll never let anyone talk to you like that again. From here on, you’re my woman.”
“For real?” she asks, her voice oddly soft.
“Forever,” I breathe, and then press my lips hard against hers.
Talk to my woman like shit? My woman!
My woman!
It feels good to call Hope that again.
I walk into Berelli’s Gourmet at ten o’clock in the morning, a few minutes after Lucca walks in.
The kid at the bar—Willy?—nods to me. “Hello, how can I help?”
“Here to see your boss, kid,” I grunt.
I walk into the kitchen, through it, and into the back office, which Hope told me was where Lucca hangs out most of the day. When he isn’t perving on his staff. Or shouting at people.
When I barge into the office, Lucca leaps up from his chair. “What the hell do you think—” Then he sees that it’s me, and the words die on his lips. He begins to shiver and shake his head. “I thought you were done with that—”
“That what?” I say casually. “Go on, finish.”
I reach into my jacket pocket and take out my gun. When I point it at him, he pisses himself. A line of urine shows clearly through his brown khaki pants.
“Nothing,” he whispers. “I wasn’t going to say—nothing.”
“Listen,” I yawn, keeping the gun pointed at him. “I’ve warned you once, haven’t I? I told you. Stop shouting at my fucking woman. Men like you . . . man, what do think you are? Do you think these women give a fuck about you? You’re a goddamn pervert.” I shake my head. Lucca stares at the barrel of the gun in terror.
“From now on, you don’t have a cock, got that? If I hear one more whisper about you touching any woman who works for you, I won’t come alone next time. You know Gunny, the Remington brothers, what about my brother, Patrick? None of them are very fond of perverts. Oh, and I need to make sure you get the message.”
I jump across the table and smash the grip of the gun into his nose. Blood sprays across the desk.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hope
Three weeks, right up until the day before Christmas eve, Killian and I fall in love all over again—if we ever fell out of love at all. We drive out to the amusement park three times during this visit, but we avoid the ferris wheel and the ghost train—Killian told me about Lindsey’s creepy horror show in the tunnels. Instead, we wrap up warm in a quiet, unremarkable nook in the corner of the amusement park. Killian moves his hands up, up my legs. I didn’t realize how badly I wanted his touch until he touched me again. It sparks electricity in me, all over me. I long for it whenever I’m not with him.
And, finally, we use the L word.
I’m bent over with my head against bed, Killian drilling me from behind, and I’m begging, begging, screaming out in pure pleasure. I know Dawn can probably hear—hell, the entire street—but I don’t care. The pleasure is too intense, too consuming, too right.
When we’re done, I collapse onto the bed and roll over on my back, looking down the length of my body at him. He grins at me, the cocky grin I know so well, the grin that tells me Killian is back, Mr. Biker is back, and here to say.
“You’re getting good at putting on a show,” he says, and then winks at me.
“Shut it,” I laugh. “I’m not putting on a show. I’m enjoying myself.”
“I can’t help but think, pretty lady, that all those moans and the way you move that perfect ass is all for me.” He walks around to the side of the bed, his cock hanging huge between his legs, and then kneels down next to me. He brings his hand to my face. His fingers smell of our sex, hot and sweaty, but I don’t mind because so does the entire room. “I can’t help but think everything you do is for me,” he goes on, smiling wickedly, his bright blue eyes dancing mischievously.
Careful, Killian, I think. You’re still on thin ice.
But I don’t say it, because the truth is he’s not on thin ice, not even close. He wasn’t on thin ice two days after we reconnected. When I went into work and saw that Lucca’s nose was busted, and that Lily seemed happier, more carefree than usual, he wasn’t on thin ice. When he thrust deep inside of me, he wasn’t on thin ice. And now, weeks after all that, the ice is as thick as ever.
“Are you alright?” he asks, when I don’t reply.
“Oh, I’m fine, just waiting for you to abandon me again.” I laugh when he screws his face up. He hates when I talk like t
hat, which only makes me talk like it all the more. I have to remind him what he did, even if it is in a joking away.
As always, he doesn’t take it as a joke. He grabs my hands in his and brings his face close to mine, so close I smell myself on his lips. Couples are disgusting, I learn, and they don’t care; I learn that it’s part of the fun.
“I’ve never said this to a woman before, Hope, but—”
“You want to put it in my ass,” I say solemnly, and then let out another peal of laughter.
Rebel’s Property_A Motorcycle Club Romance_Satan’s Martyrs MC Page 22
