Bones

by Alexis Abbott

  Then again, this is the kind of place you stay if you want to get away from the world, not live neck-deep in it like you’d think a twenty-something young woman would be doing. But this woman isn’t like most. That much is becoming clear, I just can’t put my finger on the how or why.

  Once she’s tucked in and decent under the covers, I make my way back through the hallway into the kitchen. I stop at the closet to poke my head in, and after a quick search, I find a small hand towel that feels freshly washed and folded. She lives neatly, whoever she is.

  I take it into the kitchen, find a bag of frozen peas in the freezer, dust the freezer burn off, and wrap the cloth around it before rinsing it in cold water to make a cold compress. It isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing, and it might help in combination with an aspirin.

  Why the girl fainted is still a mystery to me. My best guess is that she had too much to drink and just managed to hide it somehow until the excitement on the couch got to be too much for her. I sigh and look around the room, noting how simple and unlived-in the house looks, furrowing my brow. Or maybe this girl just escaped some kind of crazy repressed family, and she’s trying to throw herself headlong into as much vice as she can handle. Going from zero to having your lips wrapped around a biker’s cock after almost getting roofied would be overwhelming to anyone.

  But girls who just got out from under an oppressive wing don’t dress like this girl is dressed. She knows what she’s doing, at least to some degree. I don’t have a wilting flower on my hands. I can sense the thorns on this rose a mile away, she just hasn’t shown them yet.

  Rummaging around her kitchen doesn’t yield any aspirin. She must keep it somewhere besides the kitchen. Not wanting to let the cold compress start to melt, I make my way back to the bedroom and find her right where I left her, still dozing peacefully. It’s like she laid down for a portrait, her body looks so picturesque. I sit down beside her and check her pulse to make sure nothing is seriously wrong, and when that feels fine, I press the ice to her forehead.

  After a few minutes of watching her like that, I start searching the room for aspirin. Maybe it’s in a nightstand or a dresser. Even though she’s out cold, I move carefully and quietly, because I don’t want her to wake up and panic at the sight of a biker who’s a head taller than her rummaging through her underwear drawer.

  The first drawer is just folded shirts, and the second I slide open looks like storage for either important documents or junk mail she hasn’t gotten around to sorting through and throwing out yet. Sure, that might be just me projecting why I have a huge stack of unopened mail in a drawer at my place, but you never know.

  I wish I could say I’m looking for aspirin when I reach down to push some of the envelopes aside, but honestly, I’m being nosy. I want to see if I can catch her last name. I already know this girl is worth trying to stay in touch with, if she still wants that when she wakes up. And something in my gut is still telling me there’s more to this woman than meets the eye.

  It almost makes me feel more guilty when my curiosity pays off.

  As soon as I push the top layer of mail out of the way, I lay eyes on a newspaper clipping that looks aged as hell. I glance at the date at the top, which she—assuming she’s the one who clipped the newspaper—went out of her way to preserve. It’s dated over a decade ago. I don’t know her exact age, but she can’t have been more than a young girl that long ago, or a teenager at most. And that gets my attention only because of what the headline on the article itself says:

  “Child Abducted by Wyoming Man Found Safe!”

  Glimpses of the article give more details. A twelve year old girl found kidnapped and chained up by a man old enough to be a father. The implications of something terrible happening to her, or about to have happened to her. It wasn’t clear at the time they ran this article, and they probably wanted to respect the poor girl’s privacy. But with this timeline...I glance back at the slumbering form on the bed and furrow my brow.

  There’s no way the woman passed out on the bed right now is the same girl from this news story who suffered so much at such a young age, is there?

  “Christ,” I murmur, sliding the drawer shut.

  Before it closes, I see the woman’s name on a piece of junk mail: Lauren Lockett. I silently mouth the name and feel my heart rate pick up briefly. It’s a pretty name. Real pretty. I’m a simple man, but I appreciate the little things like that. Lauren Lockett. It’s more whimsical and innocent than the leather-clad bombshell seems, but it suits her, somehow.

  I pull my phone out to text Breaker. I can’t find any aspirin, but it just hit me that the rush of the past hour probably has the rest of the MC wondering where the fuck I am. Well, they can probably figure it out, but I went and ruined their night by doing what I did.

  The rest of my motorcycle club—the Wyoming Heartbreakers, whose kutte I’ll proudly wear until the day I die—was playing pool when I started that fight. They weren’t involved, and even though I didn’t check on them when I was in the middle of the fight, I don’t think they would have gotten in the way unless the would-be rapist had buddies with him to outnumber me.

  We Heartbreakers like a fair fight.

  The texts are about what I’d expect: mostly wondering where the fuck I am, and letting me know that they all rode back to the clubhouse after I left. I chuckle at the way some of the guys phrase it, but I go straight to Breaker’s messages first to touch base with him.

  Hey Prez. Had to get the girl home. Taking care of her. Anything happen after I left? Asshole not dead is he?

  It’s only a second before I hear back, which tells me the guys are probably at the clubhouse already, having a few drinks and gossiping about whether I fought well with that asshole. At least, I’d like to think that’s what they’re doing, and that they’re not all hanging out in county jail if that bartender called the cops. But biker bartenders are usually alright about fights, so I’m not sweating it. I make my way back to the bedside, taking a seat on it carefully as I carry on the rest of the conversation.

  His ego’s bruised, says Breaker. He was military, bartender said locals love him. Might be some blowback. You sure he was trying to drug her, brother?

  POSITIVE. Girl can back me up. Saw the powder on the counter, so did the bartender.

  Hey I believe you, just giving heads up. How’s the girl?

  She was fine for a while, til she passed out. Keeping an eye on her. Did you see her drink any of the spiked drink?

  No, not after you punched the guy at least. Doesn’t make sense, she’d have been loopy earlier.

  See her drinking at all?

  No

  I furrow my brow and look down at Lauren, worried.

  “Damn, girl, are you just sick?” I murmur as I text Breaker once more to let him know I’ll probably be staying the night but that I’ll keep them posted, and I thank the MC for cleaning up after me. Breaker doesn’t mind me doing what I did. He expects us to watch out for people who can’t watch out for themselves. That’s what the Heartbreakers are about, and that’s not changing anytime soon.

  I reach down and brush some hair out of the girl’s face and pull some of the sheets further up her collar, covering her a little more uniformly. I can’t get over how serene she looks, and it makes me wish I had more to offer her. But the nearest store is a gas station miles away, and by the time I’d get back from a run like that, she’d be alone almost a full hour, and I don’t feel good about that. Not right now, at least. For all I know, Mr. Military Hero might have her address.

  But just five minutes of peaceful silence later, I hear a soft murmur from her, and I look away from my phone down at her and see her starting to stir ever so faintly. Her eyes crack open, and as she stares up at the ceiling in the brief moment before all her senses and memories come back to her...I see deep emptiness in those eyes.

  She’s awake, and after a moment of watching her chest rising and falling at a different rate, I can tell it hasn’t taken her lo
ng to come to. After the initial sadness in her expression passes, her eyes flutter open, and then she gasps at the sight of me looming over her. I hold up my hands inoffensively as she clutches her chest, but then she recognizes me, and I see the fear replaced with a sudden blush as memory floods back to her.

  She even cracks a smile, which touches me so much that I can’t help but return it. That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting from a girl waking up to the sight of me.

  “Hey,” my husky voice says in the dim light of the room.

  “Hey,” she replies, just before a soft, embarrassed laugh. “Um...god, I’m sorry,” she murmurs, rubbing her eyes.

  “I’m just gonna keep saying ‘don’t mention it’ until you get the message,” I chuckle, shaking my head.

  “What even happened?” she asks, noticing the cold pack on her head and putting it aside on the nightstand. “Wait, was that you?”

  “I was hoping you’d be able to answer that,” I say, scratching my head. “And yeah, hope you weren’t planning on using those peas for anything important. I just got you to bed and wrapped that up for you in case it was a hangover hitting early. Should I take you to the hospital? My ride’s got plenty of gas in it.”

  At this point, she’s rubbing her face more to save herself the embarrassment of looking back up at me, but the gratitude in her eyes when she does look at me is radiant as it is obvious.

  “No, no, I’m good,” she says, smiling. “But thank you. I just feel bad for keeping you here all night.”

  “Hey, you can keep me here as long as you like,” I tease, giving her a gruff grin that makes her blush satisfyingly before my expression grows more serious. “You...remember all that, too?”

  “Yeah, that’s all pretty clear, don’t worry,” she says, smile growing as she gives a more sincere laugh that puts my nerves at ease. “I...needed that, after that kind of night out.”

  “Look who’s talking,” I laugh, squeezing her hand, and she squeezes it back as our eyes go lidded. “And hey, I’ll beat it if you really want, but I’d feel better hanging out here tonight in case that asshole from the bar happened to tail us. We’d probably know by now, but just in case. I think I saw some blankets in the closet, I can crash on the couch.”

  “I’d like that,” she says, not letting go of my hand as her tentative, cautious voice speaks against her better judgment. “But I’d like it more if you stayed a little closer,” she adds with a faint nod toward the other side of the bed.

  I’d be out of my mind to say no, even if my cock weren’t already starting to swell in anticipation. I stare down at her with a hundred questions on my mind. Who the hell is she? Why does she have that article in her drawer? Is this place as much of a safehouse as it looks like? What the fuck was I getting myself into?

  But right then, there was only one response either of us wanted to hear from my lips.

  “That sounds great.”

  Bones

  Trying to sleep that night would have been a joke, plain and simple. It was no surprise to me to learn that Lauren is a cuddler. As soon as I got out of my clothes and into bed with her, she was up against my side, and brother, it’s hard to sleep when your cock is as thick as it was with her lips wrapped around it all night. She rests her head against me, and I feel her body matching the rhythm of my heartbeat as she drifts off to sleep in short order.

  That leaves me to stare at the ceiling and wonder just what this girl’s story must be.

  My senses have been telling me from the moment I saw the look in her eyes at me beating that guy’s ass that something is off. I don’t know what, and I’ll be the first to admit that it’s hard to figure out what when you’re busy getting some action from a girl I could spend all night in. But after the third time I almost doze off only to snap back awake, I realize I’ve got a lot of time to think things over before we have to talk again.

  Why would she have that damn newspaper article? That question has been burning brightest at the front of my mind, because I know it’s the one that I probably can’t ask her directly. If I bring it up, I’ll have to explain why I was rummaging through her stuff. Granted, “I was looking for aspirin while you were passed out” is a pretty good excuse if you ask me, but she might not see it that way.

  And I can’t shake the feeling that I don’t want to do anything that would turn this girl sour to me. Even if something doesn’t add up about her, I feel like I want her at my back, on the same page as me.

  All I can imagine is that she’s the girl in the article. If she is, then my heart breaks for her. The idea of being imprisoned by her own father like that sends a rush of anger through me so intense that I worry my heartbeat will wake her up. Part of me wants to get up, go back to the drawer, and see what else that article says. I wonder if the dad ever got locked up like he ought to be.

  That would also be a good reason for a girl to be living alone out in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming, too.

  I look down at the peacefully slumbering silhouette of Lauren in the darkness. A little light is filtering through the crack of the ensuite bathroom door. She left the light and fan on when she went to the bathroom before dozing off. It’s a cute touch I notice, and I have to admit, the bathroom fan is kind of hypnotic after a while when there’s nothing else to listen to. Beats the wind outside.

  But as her chest rises and falls with each breath, I can’t help but wonder what kind of life she’s had. My MC and I, we’ve lived through our share of trauma. When I first met Breaker back when we were members of the club called the Buzzsaws, he killed a man when he found out our old prez was getting into sex trafficking. And years ago, when I first got the hell out of SoCal and headed to the plains, god knows I left my share of trauma long those long, dusty roads.

  That’s just what life with a kutte is like. But we’ll never know the pain that little girl went through. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I don’t know for sure they’re the same person, and for all I know, she could just be collecting macabre stories as a hobby.

  She was dressed for a good time at the bar, so I’m not about to question that, but she didn’t act like most of the non-bikers you meet at a biker bar. For starters, she wasn’t hanging onto everyone with a kutte she came across, she was talking to that piece of shit I shut down. And he sure as hell wasn’t posing as a biker.

  Girls who come that close to something bad happening usually don’t want to jump into bed with you that night, in my experience. But me driving her home was entirely her idea, and so was inviting me in, shutting the door, and pressing one hell of a kiss to my lips. There was nothing at all wrong with that in my book, but pair that with how she passed out right after oral, and it adds up to a scene that doesn’t make a ton of sense.

  Maybe it’s the lack of sleep at around 4:00 in the morning, but I start to wonder if she has some other kind of motive. Damn, now that I think about it, she did jump into bed with me awfully fast, but con artists are usually more careful than to just let a random biker into their house alone at night, right? I wouldn’t have trusted anyone but the other Heartbreakers in that bar to do the same for Lauren.

  That couldn’t be the point, could it? Does this girl have some kind of death wish?

  No, I figure there’s something else going on, and I don’t like it.

  We Heartbreakers have big fish to fry. Ever since we put the Buzzsaws in their place, we’ve been trying to clean up this side of the state and undo the damage they did. And right now, that task has a face: a mean son of a bitch called Diesel is one of the few members of Buzz’s dead club who wasn’t accounted for after the smoke cleared, and we can’t find him anywhere in the region. The man’s a ghost, and there’s no way he isn’t looking for revenge, or worse, starting up a new operation somewhere.

  The clipping in Lauren’s dresser reminds me of him. As long as there are men like that guy out there, we can’t stop hunting them down like the invasive predators they are. I staked my life on that kind of philosophy long before I even met Breaker
and turned my back on Buzz.

  Chances are slim, but I wouldn’t put it past Diesel to set up a trap.

  After all, Diesel knows the Heartbreakers are in this area, and he knows we got our whole start protecting a woman from that kind of thing. A clumsy attempt to drug a girl in front of me would have been easier bait than I’d like to admit. I’d like to think I’d be dead by now if this was a trap, but I can’t be sure, and if I get caught, it’d mean a bloody, painful death under torture and questioning.

  I’d rather not run the risk of my last sight being Diesel swinging an extension cord’s prongs at my face, so I decide it’s time to hit the road before she gets up.

  Right when I see the first tinge of blue that tells me sunrise is about to begin, I carefully slip out of bed and pull my clothes back on. I take my time so as not to wake her, but she’s still and peaceful the whole time I get dressed. As my kutte rests on my shoulders, I decide it’s best not to look back at her before I stalk back down the hallway and out the door. As I’m walking across the yard, the sun is finally cresting over the horizon and painting the sky gorgeous colors.

  But as I mount my bike, I close my eyes for a moment, and I curse under my breath. She rode here with me, meaning her car was probably back at the bar. I couldn’t just strand her at home. My eyes turn to the house once more, and somehow, it’s no surprise that I see her pretty little face staring right back at me from her bedroom window.

  And there’s that haunted, empty look in her eyes again.

  It’s the same look she wore when she first woke up last night, when she thought she was alone for a moment. My mind goes back to that article as I watch her staring at me impassively. We stare at each other for a few seconds, but her face doesn't change. She doesn’t wave to me, doesn’t try to beckon me back in, and doesn’t give me the finger. She just stares with that hard-to-read look in her eyes.

  I give her a nod and a gesture to let her know that I’ll be back.