by Marla Monroe
At this angle, she couldn’t see the scar anymore but could picture it in her head. It wasn’t very long, but it stretched from an inch below the corner of his eye to about two, maybe two and a half inches diagonally toward his upper lip. Vella wondered if it had been a knife wound and if he had more. Bikers lived a violent life from what little she knew about them.
I probably should be afraid of him, but I’m not. He holds himself like he’s dangerous, and maybe he is, but not to me. I don’t think he’d hurt me, and that’s a suicidal belief to have about a biker or any single man in today’s world.
She couldn’t help it. She genuinely liked Lance so far, and something about his friend kept her from scooting farther away. Either she was delusional or she was pretty sure he’d had a wistful expression when she’d looked at him. It wasn’t there now, but it might have been there seconds before. Either way, she honestly wasn’t afraid, and that was a first for her in a very long time.
Chapter Five
He liked her. She was cautious but wasn’t afraid of them. Not really. For the most part, Vella was okay with them. Lance smiled at that knowledge. He’d been worried that Carver’s rough nature and the way he scowled all the time would frighten her to the point she’d run the first time they weren’t looking, but Lance was fairly sure that if they gave her a choice, she would lean toward sticking with them. That was his plan anyway.
Something about her had him by the balls. When they’d first gotten her out of the stream, he’d had the whole rescuer thing going on. She’d been his because he’d saved her, but not in a proprietor sort of way. Then once he’d gotten a good look at her, his body had gotten on board with wanting her to be theirs. Now that she’d woken up and was so calm and practical with everything, Lance could easily see himself falling in love with her. Hell, he was already halfway there.
As he watched her eat the soup and listened to her talk about what she’d been through, part of him wanted to wrap her up in cotton wool and make sure nothing ever touched her again. The other half felt pride in how she’d survived and not let anything break her spirit. He wanted to throw her over his shoulder and carry her somewhere that he could fuck them both into oblivion.
Even as he mentally stripped her of the blankets and imagined touching and licking her all over, Carver’s voice snapped him out of it before he’d even gotten started. Fuck, he was a perv. He shouldn’t be thinking about that with her sitting right next to him having nearly died.
“I’ll go find something for you to put on tomorrow while Lance stays here to keep you safe. There are some houses back a little ways. We would have taken you to one of them if we thought you’d have lasted long enough to make it to one.” Carver had finished his soup and was just sitting there talking to Vella.
“That’s a good idea, Carver. It won’t take near as long as it would for all three of us,” Lance said. “Plus, I don’t want her to have a relapse with the weather already turning cold like it is.”
“Um, is there anything special you might want or need that I might not think to get?” Carver asked her.
Lance nearly laughed out loud at how the big man looked down at his empty bowl when he asked her that. No doubt he was thinking she might need feminine supplies. He waited to see what she’d say, almost wishing she’d tell him she did. For a huge, burly biker, Carver seemed to be uncomfortable around the oddest things.
“I’d love it if you could find some sort of hand or body lotion. My skin has gotten rough, and my hands and feet are driving me crazy,” she said.
Carver’s entire body seemed to shutter before he looked over at her and nodded with that same solemn expression Lance had grown used to. When not scowling or frowning, it was the one he wore most often.
“I can do that,” he said with a nod. “I’ll leave at daybreak in the morning. By the time I make it there and factor in scavenging time, it will be nearly dark before I make it back.”
“Be careful, Carver,” Vella said with a soft smile aimed toward his friend.
Lance bit back his own smile and waited to see how the other man would react. To his surprise, one side of Carver’s mouth turned up slightly and the big man nodded before getting to his feet and taking his and Vella’s bowls to wash them out. It was obvious Carver liked her. That was a huge step in Lance’s plans. He wanted Vella as their woman. Getting Carver onboard was going to be a challenge, but it looked like it wouldn’t be nearly as difficult as he’d first thought.
“Carver will be fine. He’s learned how to navigate the world out there better than anyone I’ve come across. He’s been teaching me how to make traps to catch animals so that when we no longer have ammunition we can still survive,” Lance told her.
“He’s quiet. I’m not sure he likes me very much. I guess I caused you to get behind,” she said. Her frown created an ache in his heart that she felt like she was a problem to them.
“Naw. He likes you. He mostly keeps to himself, and finding you wasn’t a hardship to our plans one bit. It’s great to be around other people. Once we got a few hundred miles passed the Mississippi River, we didn’t see many people at all. Most of them we tried to avoid.”
“We’re still a long way from the group, aren’t we?” she said.
“Yeah, about a week’s worth of walking, I think. How were you planning to find them? I can’t even imagine how you got this far on your own.” That had been bugging Lance ever since they’d found out she was heading in the same direction.
“I had a map for the first part of the journey, but I lost it when I had to leave in a hurry from an abandoned house I spent the night in. Someone broke in while I was sleeping, and they tripped some things I had set up to warn me of that. I grabbed everything I could and ran. Unfortunately, the map and some other things didn’t end up in my pack.”
“Then how did you make it this far without it?” Lance asked, still amazed she’d done it by herself.
“Um, I have a photographic memory. If I have the time and look at something in order to memorize it, I can. Just reading through something doesn’t always work. I have to sort of concentrate on it.” She shrugged like it wasn’t any big deal.
“That’s amazing! I’ve met some guys with that ability, but never a woman. It was a huge advantage for the lawyer and the accountant I knew. The accountant was a forensic accountant and worked for the Treasury Department.”
“Cool. I didn’t really let anyone know about being able to do that because my parents knew someone would try to talk me into something like that. They were sort of conspiracy theorists.” Her face pinked up, making him smile.
“Can’t say that they weren’t right about some of the things most of those people believed. I saw a lot of stuff in my practice that proved some of their claims were true. Plus, they were right to keep you safe.” He knew what happened to a lot of people who had extraordinary skills like that. His accountant friend, David, had told him about how they were made into spies and moles who often didn’t survive past thirty years old.
“Well, it has helped me quite a bit. I spent some time in a library before I started out, memorizing as many of the survivalist books as I could find. A lot of the books had been taken, but I found another library about halfway here and found more books. I knew I couldn’t take them with me, so I absorbed as much as I could.” She dropped her gaze and stared at her hands, folded in her lap.
“That means you’re a virtual wealth of information. That’s awesome!” Lance said. “Hey, we need to find you something to wear temporarily so you’ll feel more comfortable. I’m way too tall for my pants to work on you, but if you don’t mind wearing my boxers and T-shirt, they’ll cover you up pretty well. They’re clean. I promise,” he told her with a grin.
She smiled back, and Lance basked in the warmth of it. He got up and grabbed his pack, pulling out a pair of boxers and one of his tees. Handing them to him, he walked over to the front of the cave with his back to her.
“Go ahead. I’ll keep my back turned and sto
p Carver if he comes back while you’re changing.”
“Thanks.”
Lance heard her as she rustled around behind him. He hoped she was okay, but he knew she would balk at his offering to help. Yeah, he and Carver had seen her without clothes already, but it was different when she was awake and would know they were watching her. He didn’t want to give her any reason to leave them.
“Okay. I’m dressed,” she said in a slightly shaky voice.
Lance turned around, worried that she’d overdone it. He hurried over to where she was standing. Her face had paled slightly, and there were stress lines around her mouth. She needed to lie back down for a while.
“I think they fit okay. If I was going to walk around in them, I’d have to find a pin or something for the waistband of the boxers. Thanks for letting me borrow them.” Her shy smile almost did him in.
“No problem. I think you need to rest again. You’ve been up long enough.” He held out his hand, and when she took it, Lance helped her over to the pallet.
Before he let her lay back down, the blankets needed straightening back out. Once that was accomplished, he helped her kneel then lie down. Lance covered her up then sat close enough to her that they could talk.
“Is she okay? Did she get sick?” Carver set the dishes down and hurried over.
“I’m okay. Just tired,” Vella said with a yawn.
Carver’s worried expression smoothed out, and his usual scowl took back over. Lance couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his friend without that scowl, but since they’d fished Vella out of the water, he’d only seen it a couple of times unless it was directed at him. Yeah, keeping her between them as their woman would be perfect for everyone. She would be protected, and they would make sure they kept her happy.
* * * *
He couldn’t stop looking at her. She was beautiful and nice. She smelled good since they’d bathed the stream water off of her. Nothing artificial, just her scent. They didn’t have anything except homemade lye soap. Carver sighed and made himself look away from her sleeping form. He shouldn’t get attached to her. She’d flip if she knew that he’d been a bondsman at one time. They had killed her brother, and God knew what they might have done to her. Just thinking about it sent a white-hot rage through his body. He opened and closed his hands into fists by his sides.
“Better get some sleep ourselves if you’re going to find her some clothes and things,” Lance told him.
He watched the other man lie down on one side of Vella and pull covers over himself. He wasn’t touching the woman, but close enough that they would share body heat. Carver knew he needed to rest as well, but he wasn’t sure he could trust himself not to pull her into his arms if he got as close to her as Lance was.
“Don’t go sleeping somewhere else, man. She needs our body heat, and we need at least one blanket on us. Settle down, Carver.” Fucking bastard. He was too smart for his own good.
“Yeah, yeah.” Carver stood up from where he’d been sitting near the fire and walked over to the other side of Vella’s sleeping form.
He didn’t bother pulling off any of his clothes. He didn’t want to risk touching her skin-to-skin, and now that she was doing so much better, she didn’t need that from him. Him needing it from her was an entirely different story. Carver burned for her already and hadn’t known her more than a few days. Sure, she’d only just woken up, but there was something about the way she’d fought to live when she shouldn’t have made it. Then there was how pretty she was and that she didn’t seem bothered by the fact he’d been a biker and the scar on his cheek.
That would all change if she finds out what I used to be after the world fell apart. She wouldn’t give me the time of day.
So he would do his best not to let her find out until they made it to the new community safely. He didn’t want her sneaking off on her own where she could get hurt or caught. Once they made it safely to the others, he would tell her and clear his conscious. She had a right to know. Then maybe he’d take off a little farther north to live. Close enough to maybe trade skins for some of their food sometimes, but not close enough he’d have to see her if he were careful.
Carver sighed and kept his back to Vella. Even with that, he could still feel her inside of him. Somehow he had to keep from falling for her. He almost laughed at the thought. That had never been a worry when he’d been with his brothers and the vast number of sweet butts and hanger-on. Pussy had been pussy—a way to scratch an itch—but Vella wasn’t like that. She was special, and that worried him. That was why he knew he was at risk of falling for her. He was already fond of her and sexually attracted to her. That alone spelled disaster.
He tried to clear his mind of her, but he couldn’t get the scent of her natural fragrance from his nose. So, Carver thought about what he planned to do the next morning. He’d get up around six and strap the rifle and water to himself. He would take a pack since he would need something to bring her things back to the cave and might not find one where he looked. She would need her own backpack to carry her things. He’d have to look for one while he was out. They weren’t easy to find anymore since everyone needed one now.
What all did she need? Clothes, of course. Finding her size might be a little hard, but he was pretty sure he would know what would fit her from the image of her he already had stored in his mind. So, long-sleeved shirts, pants, socks, a coat, and underwear. Oh, he would see if he could find her another pair of boots. Hers had a hole in one of them.
Carver thought about the other things she’d need, like toothbrush and toothpaste, soap, washcloth, and the lotion she’d asked for. He hoped he could find something that would smell good and not overwhelm her natural scent. The thought of her pretty hair made him add hair things to his mental list. She might want to pull it back sometimes, like when she washed her face. He did that sometimes, but all he had was the leather ties he made and kept in his pocket.
Memories of his life before the bondsmen and before all hell rained down on them surfaced, grounding him when he’d started to get drawn in to images of Vella—Vella naked with his hands on her, undressing her, and once her fever had broken, washing her off. Thoughts like that were entirely too dangerous. It was a dead-end relationship for him, so he thought about the good times with his brothers instead.
They’d lived free, played hard, and worked hard. It had been the happiest he’d ever been in his life. That wasn’t to say that there weren’t problems and hard times, but everyone had those. Yeah, they’d done some bad shit at times, but they’d never hurt an innocent or anyone who didn’t deserve their wrath.
The Rebel Riders MC had kept their territory free of drugs and guns. They hadn’t sold drugs at all but had done some light ammunition distribution from time to time. Mostly they had a popular custom bike shop and a top-notch auto and body shop where they did all types of repairs. That along with the bar they ran assured they always had enough money to keep all the brothers and their families housed and fed. No one did without.
Carver had no idea if any of his brothers had survived or not. He’d been in Texas, delivering one of their custom-ordered bikes, when everything had started. He’d had to lay low for two days while tornadoes and severe storms assaulted them. As soon as the weather was drivable, he left to hurry back, alarmed at the news reports of entire cities gone and widespread flooding sweeping even more towns away.
He hadn’t gotten far before a massive earthquake split the roads in two. He saw entire eighteen wheelers swallowed up in the gaps the quake had made. More and more autos and semis lost the battle to stay on the road. Carver had been lucky as hell to be on a fairly safe spot of road as he watched the giant craters widen then narrow over and over. Long stretches of quiet gave those still alive a thin thread of hope that it was over with, but it only lasted a few minutes before it all started again. He and several others were stuck on small areas of road for what felt like forever but ended up being about two hours. It had horrified him to stand there and do
nothing to help any of those who fell around him, but Carver was enough of a realist to know there was nothing he could do without joining them in their terrible death. His will to survive had saved him, but not his soul. It still carried those images and more from the days that followed.
By the time he finally made it back, there wasn’t anything left of their town or the men he’d called brothers. It was as if they’d just disappeared. No one still haunting the area had known anything. He had sifted around burnt buildings and stared at twisted remains just to see if he could find any sign that they had survived. The only thing he’d found was that not just some of the bikes were gone, but all of them. They were all so burned and piled up that he couldn’t tell whose bikes were missing to know who might have survived.
The depressive images burned into his retinas often plagued his dreams, along with more from his later years. Carver cursed himself for following through with the last memories of his family instead of stopping before it all went to hell. Yet it had done the job and taken his mind off of the curvy woman lying next to him.
A moan then a whimper froze his blood in his veins. Her scent curled its way back into his nose, and when Vella cried out in her sleep, he was once again lost in thoughts of her.
Chapter Six
Vella woke the next morning, sore but feeling a little more like herself. She didn’t seem to have quite as much trouble moving and didn’t think she was as weak either. The sun was up, and when she looked on either side of her, both men were up and gone. She knew Lance wouldn’t be far, but Carver was well on his way to find her something to wear. She felt guilty at stalling their plans for more than four days now—or was it five? Either way, now the man was even having to dress her.
Hell! I don’t need to go there. All I can think about is him undressing me. Not just him, but Lance as well. They’re both good-looking men, strong in different ways. I would never find another pair of men who make me feel this way, safe and comfortable.
