“This bodyguard thing isn’t gonna be permanent, okay?” I murmur, moving back a couple inches. “Just long enough for them to gauge how Cady’s husband’s gonna react to the divorce thing.” I hesitate. “I’ll try to give you your space, as much as I can.”
December stands in silence for a second, looking up at me. “How are you going to give me my space while simultaneously being all up in my business?” she asks, arching a brow.
Her lips are still parted, her breathing shallow. I almost decide to go for it and just kiss her, but somehow the one non-fucked-up part of my brain stops me in time by reminding me that Tank’s counting on me not to screw this up.
I drop my hand, take a step back. Off-limits. “That’s my problem to worry about. But I’ll figure it out. Do it for them, not for me. Okay?”
She lets out a soft sigh. “Fine. If you can keep your distance, I’ll keep them as clients.”
Relief floods my veins. “Good. Thanks.”
“But you have to keep your end of the bargain,” she repeats. “I don’t take orders.”
“I’ll back off as much as I possibly can.”
“Okay.” She gives me a pointed stare. “I’m going in now. And you’re going to go home, because I don’t need a security guard standing sentry outside my house overnight.”
“Like I said, twenty-four-seven doesn’t start until tomorrow.” I reach down, give the dog a pat on the head. “You and Bert sleep tight, now.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” she adds. “You should call me Ember. It’s what my friends call me.”
“Am I your friend?” I risk.
“Far from it,” she laughs. “But it feels weird having you call me December, so…”
“Okay. Noted.”
She looks down at the dog. “Come on B,” she says to him. “Let’s go in.”
I watch as she turns and starts toward her house.
“Hey, Ember?” I say, trying out the name on my tongue.
“Yes?” She glances back at me over her shoulder.
I give her a crooked grin. “Lock your damn door.”
The hot lawyer chick rolls her eyes at me, but this time she’s smiling a little. I watch as she and the dog head up the walk and toward the illuminated front porch light.
Jesus Christ, that girl’s got a fine ass on her. Those yoga pants give me an eyeful, even in the half-light. Hair all up and messy, tendrils of it falling around her face, just begging to be messed up some more… She looks fresh and sexy. Fucking beddable.
Fuck. I stifle a groan. Just like that, I’m hard. Good goddamn thing it’s dark.
In another life, in different circumstances, Ember Wells would feel like one hell of a challenge. A game with myself to see how long it would take for Miss Buttoned-Up to get down and dirty with me. Hell, no wonder Tank warned me off her.
I’m not without restraint. I can take a mental picture of that and put it in the spank bank for later, no problem. But fuck, it ain’t gonna be easy.
I slip back into the shadows, biding my time for a few minutes before I decide to call it a night. I stand there in the silence, smoking and watching Ember’s house. One by one, the lights go out, until the only one left is in a window upstairs and to the right.
Her bedroom.
No shadows pass by the window. She’s being careful not to get too close. In case I’m out here, watching.
Goddamn right I’m out here, sweetheart. Thanks for lettin’ me know you’re thinkin’ about me, too.
My cock hardens again.
I take another drag on my cigarette, shift from one leg to the other, watch as a lone car passes by. I make a mental note to drive my SUV tomorrow, for comfort’s sake. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any stakeout or surveillance work. I’d forgotten how fuckin’ boring it is.
This ain’t the normal way I spend my evenings, that’s for sure. If I wasn’t stuck out here tonight, I’d probably be balls-deep in some chick right now.
And even deeper into a bottle of Jack.
Christ, I could use a drink. Especially considering I almost cost Tank and Cady their lawyer just now. The last thing I want to do is fuck up their lives. Again.
Tank doesn’t know that, though.
Oh, he knows something’s wrong. He’s cottoned on to the fact that lately, there’s something I’m trying to drown at the bottom of a bottle. None of the other Lords have paid any attention, except for him. Hell, it ain’t like a biker who drinks a lot is anything unusual, so there’s no reason they’d notice.
But Tank’s my best friend. He knows me too damn well. He hasn’t come out and asked me point-blank why it seems like my life is self-destructing from the inside.
Not that I’d tell him. Coward that I am.
Right now, though, none of that shit matters. As long as I’m sober enough to show up and do my job, it ain’t anybody’s business but my own what else I do on my own time.
And right now, my job is to protect this shit-hot lawyer from Cady’s ex.
Maybe if I do it well enough, I’ll eventually let go of the guilt I feel.
That’s the least I can fuckin’ do.
For my best friend.
But especially for Cady and Wren.
Ember’s bedroom light finally goes out.
I smoke the last cigarette in my pack, hidden from view and staring in silence at her house until the cherry of the cigarette creeps up and burns my fingers. As I stub it out against the tree, I remember that’s called an ember, too.
When it’s gone, I take out my phone, check the time. It’s late enough for me to call it a night. I decide to go home, grab some sleep.
Back at my place, I park my bike, unlock my door, and shuffle through the blackness into my kitchen. I don’t bother turning on the lights. I know where the whiskey is.
I pour myself a couple fingers. Go to the living room, sit down on the couch.
My stomach rumbles from lack of food, but I ignore it.
I’m one finger down when I decide to make a phone call. I hit the number on my screen, wondering if this will be the time I find out it’s disconnected, or I’ve been blocked.
The call goes to voice mail, like I knew it would.
You’ve reached Richard. Leave a message.
I don’t.
Instead, I hang up and set the phone down, turning the ringer off so I won’t hope for a call back.
When the whiskey in my glass is gone, I go back to the kitchen and grab the bottle. Back on the couch, I think about December Wells as I drink the liquid fire that loosens my muscles and unclenches my soul.
December.
Ember.
Ice. But also, fire.
She feels like a contradiction. A puzzle that’s tugging at me.
I find myself wanting to solve it.
7
Ember
I stand in the entryway of my house, back against the door, for a full five minutes. Frozen to the spot.
The unexpectedness of Striker’s touch — the way his callused finger lifted my chin up to his face — shocked me. Even now, I feel the absence of it.
That, and the way Striker’s voice softened when his eyes met mine. I know it’s how he convinced me to keep Tank and Cady on as clients.
Damn my weakness. Damn his eyes. Those dark, brooding pools that seemed to pierce right through me.
I keep replaying the conversation in my head, even after I’ve gone back inside. How Striker went from cocky, to demanding, to pleading with me not to drop Cady and Tank as clients. I don’t know why he’d care so much about me taking their case over anyone else. All I know was, the relief on his face when I said I’d keep them on was unmistakable.
Getting ready for bed, I can almost feel his eyes on me as he stands out there in the night. Though I would never admit this — especially not to Striker — his touch just now awakened something in me. A desire I pushed down deep when I was still with Mark, out of self-preservation. The promise of contact. Skin to skin. Rough to smooth. H
ard to soft.
Once I’ve turned off my bedroom light — once I’m safely in the dark was in the dark — a small part of me can’t resist imagining that I was bold enough to stand in front of the window as I undressed and got ready for bed.
If he’s still out there, what would he think if he saw my naked body in silhouette?
What would he do if I went outside again? If I walked up to him, closing the distance between us, until nothing but the crisp night air separated us. The cool air caressing our skin. Pebbling my nipples.
It’s an effort not to touch myself — to give myself the pleasure I haven’t desired in ages — and imagine it’s him doing it to me.
Sleep is a long time coming. When it does, the arrogant biker — too handsome for his own good — even penetrates my dreams.
Looking in the mirror the next morning, my puffy eyes are an embarrassing reminder that I’ve barely slept.
I decide to let Bert out in the backyard, instead of taking him for his morning walk. “Sorry, buddy. No walk for you this morning. But I promise I’ll take you for a nice long run when I get home tonight. Deal?”
Bert doesn’t seem convinced. He tilts his head at me and gives me a low groan, as though he’s questioning my honesty. He knows me too well.
Yawning, I cling to this mug of fresh-brewed coffee like it’s a lifeline and open the back door to let him push through. I follow him out, then sit down on the steps leading down from the back deck to drink my coffee while he does his business.
It’s not that I don’t want to take Bert out as usual. It’s just that I’m just not quite ready to face the day yet. And by “the day,” I mean I’m not ready for my new reality of being guarded day and night by an outlaw motorcycle club.
I bring the mug to my lips, gingerly taking a sip of the hot liquid. I still don’t know if Tank is overreacting about my needing protection. It’s still hard for me to believe there’s anything to Tank’s worry that Cady’s ex could come after me. As a family law attorney, I’ve had to deal with an angry spouse of a client here and there, but nothing that truly made me afraid. Certainly nothing that has ever made me feel like I needed to consider hiring personal protection. I still viscerally dislike the idea of someone out there, surveilling me.
But the irony is that having Striker in charge of it has made me feel more unsettled, instead of less. In a way, it feels like Striker himself I need protecting from. Even if he’s incredibly easy on the eyes. Even if he’s only there to keep me safe.
The truth is, I’ve had enough of being watched in my life to make this situation a special kind of hell for me.
I guess most people would call me an introvert. In general, I prefer the company of a good book to the company of people. Marriage was kind of a stretch for me in that respect. To be honest, I had been nervous about moving in with Mark, for that and other reasons. Even early on, I knew him to be a bit of a control freak — the kind who liked things to be just so. I told myself I’d rather be with a neat freak than a slob I was always picking up after. Still, I knew sharing a space with him — with anyone — would be a challenge for me. I found myself pushing off living together until after we were engaged. And then, it just seemed like it made more sense to wait until we got married, so I wouldn’t have to move twice.
It turns out, waiting that long was a mistake. Once we tied the knot and moved into this house, he started acting less like my partner, and more like an authoritarian parent. The first big conflict arose over the fact that I had decided not to take his last name. Before the wedding he said it didn’t bother him. But after we were married, he started to drop disparaging remarks, saying that other people — especially men — would take our different last names as a signal that I wasn’t fully committed to the marriage.
From there, a possessive, jealous streak in him emerged that I had never seen before. If a man talked to me at a party and I appeared to enjoy the conversation, Mark would sulk for days afterwards, and accuse me of inviting flirtation, or worse. He would accuse me of not “honoring the marriage” and making him appear foolish.
Then there were his opinions on my appearance. Mark was quick to criticize my hairstyle, or a new item of clothing I’d purchased. When we had plans for a night out with friends, he’d give me a “suggestion” about what he thought I should wear that turned out to be more of a directive. If I didn’t choose that outfit, he would to pout about it all evening, but insist nothing was wrong.
As Mark’s wife, I felt like I was being watched almost all the time. I never quite relaxed, knowing that he was constantly evaluating my words and actions, whether he actually said anything about them or not. It was stressful and exhausting, always living by the yardstick of my husband’s expectations. I wore myself out defending myself from accusations of flirtation or even cheating — accusations which were completely baseless, and thus even harder to disprove.
Ironically, it wasn’t until later that I learned he had been cheating on me the whole time.
When Mark started lobbying hard to start trying for a baby, I balked. We had only been married for a year at that point. I told him I’d like to push parenthood off for a couple more years, while I concentrated on my building my career.
“But why, December?” he asked me, astonished and more than a little irritated. “You’re going to quit working once Baby is born anyway. What’s the point climbing up the professional ladder when you’re just going to have to climb down again?”
We had never once talked about my leaving my career once I became a mother, but Mark talked about it like it was a done deal. That was the moment I realized that having Mark’s baby was to be his final keystone of control. Once I got pregnant, I would lose my career — which I had worked so hard and long for. And with it, my identity as an individual.
I held fast to my insistence that we wait at least one more year before trying for a baby, hoping that would give me time to convince him I could practice law and be a mother at the same time. Not long after, Mark started finding fault with the firm where I worked. On the way home after a dinner party one night, he threw a fit in the car and accused Lance Roth, one of the partners, of making a pass at me right in front of him. It was a ridiculous accusation, but Mark wouldn’t let it go. Things got so bad that the tension between us became unbearable. In the end, I left the firm and started my own office, just so I would no longer have any male colleagues for Mark to accuse me of leading on.
Looking back on it now, the whole thing makes me sick to my stomach. I tried so hard to fit into the boxes that Mark had created for me, both real and metaphorical. The biggest physical box was this house, purchased for the express purpose of showing off and entertaining. Mark chose it because it was impressive enough to raise eyebrows, and project an image of success, good taste, and established wealth. Then there was the enormous fancy black SUV for me to be seen around town in — a car I got rid of as soon as I could after our separation, because the payments were ungodly. As time went on, the boxes of my life got more numerous, and more uncomfortable.
In the end, Mark gave me an ultimatum. He told me he was done humoring me. It was time for me to quit “playing around” and get serious about starting our family. It was time for me to leave my job.
Instead, I finally decided I’d had enough, and left the marriage.
Technically, I’m still Mark’s wife, though we haven’t lived together in months. I’m definitely poorer, wiser, and the worse for wear. My life isn’t what I thought it would be at this stage in the game. I’m living in a giant house with a mortgage I can’t really afford, which Mark doesn’t help with, probably because he’s hoping I’ll come to my senses and let him move back in. And I still have a huge chunk of student loans from law school that it will take me an eternity to pay off. I make a decent income as a family lawyer, but honestly, I’m barely getting by.
But at least my life is mine again. Or at least, it will be, eventually. Maybe I’m just not cut out for marriage. Or for any relationship at all.
Now, when I come home at the end of a stressful, intense day, I can truly relax. I don’t have anyone breathing down my neck. There are no one’s passive-aggressive suggestions to cater to. Compared to the last few years, it’s heaven.
Now, though, having Striker out there, following me around — watching what I do and where I go — feels uncomfortably like the worst parts of my marriage. Which I guess is why I blew up at him last night when he ordered me to lock my door. I know he’s just doing what Tank asked him to do. But don’t feel like I’m being protected. I feel like I’m being spied on. Albeit by a very hot, unnervingly sexy biker.
I hate the very thought of it. I really, really hate it.
Lost in painful thoughts of the past, when I finally come out of my reverie, Bert has finished his business and is digging a hole next to a hydrangea bush.
I take a sip of my coffee, and grimace to find it ice cold. “Shit,” I hiss, spitting it back in the cup. I must have been out here for longer than I thought. I whistle to Bert, grab an old towel off the railing to wipe off his muddy paws, and head back inside. I’m going to be late for work at this rate. I’ll have to be quick about it if I want to grab a shower before I get ready.
8
Ember
Striker doesn’t appear when I pull my car out of the driveway, and I make it to work without a motorcycle escort. On the way, I’m still reconsidering whether I should Cady and Tank and give them recommendations for another lawyer to take their case.
But as it turns out, Cady is already there waiting for me — one of two unexpected visits I get during the course of the day. And definitely the more pleasant one.
“Morning, Margot!” I call as I walk through the front door at ten after nine. “Sorry I’m — oh!”
The two figures waiting in the reception area take me by surprise, since I don’t have any appointments scheduled. Cady, dressed casually in jeans and a white button-down shirt, stands up from her seat. The pint-sized version of her stands as well.
STRIKER: Lords of Carnage MC Page 5
