by Bijou Hunter
“I’m thinking I should be doing you,” he said, adjusting himself after climbing off the bike.
“You drove us way out here for that?”
“No, I drove us out here for this,” Judd said, removing a gun from his holster. “You need to learn to shoot.”
For the slightest second when the gun appeared, I imagined it was meant to be used on me. The fear didn’t last long, but that moment must have registered on my face because Judd frowned.
“Tawny,” he said as if simply my name would express the irritation he felt at my even considering he might harm me.
“Yes, Judd?” I asked innocently.
Rolling his eyes, he walked toward the creek. “Vaughn and I come out here to shoot. I called ahead and let Jodi know I was bringing you out here, so they wouldn’t freak about the gunshots. Now, come over here so I can teach you.”
Judd stood at the edge of the creek and fired at a tree, hitting a well worn hole. I watched him until he glanced back at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, realizing he was hurt by my fear. “It’s a reflex.”
“I know. I just hate that look on my angel’s face. You’ve had enough fear in your life that I can’t be someone who adds to it.”
Walking to him, I gave him my best smile. “With you, I feel safer than I’ve ever felt. Even in that room full of bikers, I felt like I would be okay because you were with me. I really believed you’d use Cooper as a shield to protect me.”
Judd laughed. “I would so shove his ass in front of you to take a bullet. He knows it too. It’s why he’s not being a bitch about our relationship anymore. He knows I’m not fucking you. I’m…”
Unable to finish, Judd just stared into my eyes and I hoped that look meant what I thought it did. Instead of talking about feelings, Judd handed me the gun and showed me the basics. Soon, I was holding it with both hands and aiming at the target across the creek.
“Relax so the recoil won’t hurt you,” he said as his body pressed behind me. “Let yourself focus on the target, not on how you want to hit it.”
The first shot went off into the woods, never getting anywhere close to the tree. Imagining one of the bikers from years ago, I focused on the idea of him standing on the other side of the creek. I didn’t focus on hitting him, only saw him mocking me. Firing once, I chipped the tree.
“Nice,” Judd murmured, leaning down to nip at my earlobe.
“I was thinking of one of those fuckers who hurt me,” I said softly. “I didn’t read him well at all. I thought he was nicer because he didn’t hit me or chock me. He didn’t piss on me or yank me around by my hair. He seemed almost gentle and I looked forward to when it was his turn because he wasn’t so scary.”
Firing again, I grazed the tree. “His name was Alex and he said he would get my necklace back from the fuck who took it for his kid. He said I was pretty and the others didn’t. They said Farah was Cinderella and I was the ugly stepsister. Alex made me feel like I wasn’t the shitty leftovers no one wanted though. I even liked him a little after the first few days, but he’s the one who ruined me.”
My mind was focused on Alex standing on the other side of creek, waiting to die. I never thought of Judd standing behind me or what I was saying. I just wanted to hurt Alex for making me nothing.
“The head guy was Travis and he liked Farah. He enjoyed making her scream and he hated how she would cry when he fucked her. He wanted to punish her and Alex thought it would be funny for me to be part of hurting Farah. I hate the fucker.”
Firing again, I refused to cry. Besides, I wasn’t sad. I was enraged that Farah ever cried or screamed or that I shamed myself in front of her.
“Alex would fuck me in front of the mirror. I didn’t think about that, but one time, he made me come and told me to look at what a dirty whore I was. I did look and he was right. I looked happy. I knew that’s how I looked in front of Farah and I hated myself. I tried to forget, but that’s the face I see in the mirror. The dirty whore coming with some old fucker. The evil bitch that came for Travis in front of a crying Farah.”
When Judd yanked the gun away from me, I turned to him and frowned. “I was getting better at hitting the target.”
He stared at me and I saw such pain in those eyes. “Do you ever listen to what you say about yourself?”
Confused, I stared up at him. “I feel like I have to lie with everyone else, but I don’t want to lie with you.”
Judd wiped a single tear rolling down my cheek. “I need you to be strong and understand my life because you’re part of it. I want you to feel safe and strong, but you’re the biggest threat to yourself.”
Lowering my gaze, I felt ashamed to have him say those words. “I’m sorry.”
“Tawny,” he said softly, lifting my chin so I would meet his gaze, “you are so beautiful and you deserve to look in the fucking mirror and see what I see.”
“I can’t look. When I do, I see that whore coming for every freak in the gang.”
“You’ve imprinted all these lies into your head and I can’t make them go away. I don’t have the power to make you stop thinking like that. Only you do, but I don’t think you can. Not on your own.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, caressing my crucifix for reassurance.
Judd returned the gun to his holster. “When my mom got away from my dad, she suffered from PTSD. She tried therapy and it didn’t really help. Building a new life did help, but she still had those dark moods. Finally, her doctor got her on an anti-depressant and her dark moods weren’t so dark. She still has bad days, but she feels more in control.”
Feeling like he was calling me defective, I just wanted to hide from the world. “You want me to take medication to fix me?”
“No,” he said, cupping my face. “You are fixing yourself already. At first, I didn’t get why you’d work at that job or live in the shithole, but I understand now. If you lived off Cooper, in your mind, your every success would really be his.”
Even afraid Judd was ready to discard me for being a loser, I had to admit he was right about why I wanted to work and live on my own. I nodded as he caressed my cheeks.
“You try so hard and I see you working to dig yourself out of that life you had growing up, but you also have these dark moods where I worry you’ll be the one who destroys you.”
“I was just being honest and using Alex as a target.”
“Not just what you said right now, but the message you left me. Fuck, you can’t know how scared I was that you’d do something before I got back to you. I thought to call you, but what if I said something to make it worse? I just jumped on the bike and came straight to see you because the girl leaving that message didn’t hate me for fucking up. She hated herself for every wrong in the world. It’s not your damn fault those fuckers hurt you and Farah.”
“I came in front of Farah,” I said, pulling away and wiping at my tears. “With Travis, after he’d hurt her. I had to look in her eyes as she cried in a corner and I got off. I’m a whore.”
Judd yanked me to him and I thought he might hit me. “My mom would think she asked to be hit by my dad. Like she brought it on herself. He was a predator though and she was weak. Those fuckers are predators and you were a child. You were too young to know what was happening and you’ve filled your head with fucking lies. Dammit, Tawny,” he said, shaking me by the shoulders. “You were what, twelve, thirteen? They screwed you up and you never healed right. You just tell yourself those damn lies again and again. You think them every time you pass a fucking mirror. I see the way you dodge anything with your reflection. That’s fucked up and you deserve to be free of it, but you can’t because your brain is wired to self-hatred.” Judd paused and pulled me into his arms. “You need help rewiring it.”
“What can some pill do though?”
“If it’s like my mom, it’ll just even out your moods. Make it easier for you to work through shit when you start feeling bad. It doesn’t make you happy. It just makes it easier
for you to make yourself happy.”
I tried to imagine feeling calmer and being able to get stronger. Sometimes, I thought if I didn’t have Farah and now Judd, I would rather die than feel as bad as I did. If a pill kept me from feeling so bad, I wanted to try. When I was calmer, I knew I deserved to be happy. Now, finding Judd, I had a chance to be happier than I’d ever dreamed, but I was scared.
“Will you go with me to the doctor?” I asked, sounding like a kid.
Judd caressed my hair. “Fuck yeah, babe. I’ll do whatever you need because when you smile, it’s like the world is perfect. But when you say that ugly shit about yourself, I can barely keep from tearing this world apart for hurting you the way it has. We’ll do this together.”
Wrapping him tighter in my arm, I sighed. “I do want to smile and know what I really look like in the mirror. I want those things, but I’m scared to do anything different. I’m worried if I try and fail that I’ll know it’ll never be better.”
“If one thing doesn’t work, we’ll try something else,” he said, running his fingers through my messy hair. “We’ll try because that girl back with those bikers deserved to have a good life. We need to give her that.”
Suddenly, I felt like I was that girl again. Really felt the pain and shame. Remembered how my father wouldn’t look at me after Travis said I loved every moment. Mostly, I remembered how broken Farah was and how I worried she wouldn’t love me anymore. I wondered if every time Farah looked at me that she saw the whore coming with the man who tortured her?
Sobbing against Judd, I remembered how simple my dreams once were. Before those bikers showed up, all I wanted was to take my sister out for a birthday dinner at Dairy Queen. Why couldn’t that little girl have another chance to feel truly happy again?
By the time I calmed down and rested next to Judd on the cold ground, I already felt happier. I’d never said those ugly things out loud. Instead of keeping the pain inside, I showed Judd all of the painful scars and he still looked at me like I was beautiful. The smile he gave me as we returned to the Harley was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. My knight never stopped saving me.
Chapter Twenty Three
I was raised to believe therapy was something rich weak people did because they were too weak to know better. Even knowing most of the shit my family believed was stupid, I felt weird sitting in the shrink’s office. Judd sat next to me, messing around on his phone. I wasn’t sure what was so fascinating, but I sensed it was related to the mole. Once he was done texting his secret codes and sent them to Cooper, he smiled down at me.
“Having fun yet?” he asked.
Nodding, I ran my fingers over his angel tattoo. Even though Judd thought I was beautiful like the angel, I felt dirty sitting there with him.
“What if she’s mean? What if she calls me names like Aunt Pam said the therapist did to my cousin who killed herself?”
“If she’s a bitch, I’ll hold her down while you punch her in the face.”
Smiling weakly, I felt the panic growing. “What if she says I’m too fucked up to help?”
“She’s getting paid, babe. No way she tells you that you’re beyond help.”
Staring into his eyes, I fiddled with the crucifix necklace. “I’m scared.”
“I know, but I’ll be with you. If things go south, I’ll take you back to my place and make you feel better.”
“Therapy is for losers,” I whispered.
“My mom went to therapy and she’s not a loser.”
“Your mom has an exotic name. Is she exotic?”
“No. My grandparents just wanted to be different.”
Nodding again, I leaned my head against his shoulder and traced the angel on his forearm. Her lashes were thick and I wondered if mine looked that way too? We sat silently for the next few minutes until Dr. Nicholson called us into her office. She wanted to speak with me alone, but I told her no. Judd said nothing, only giving her the dark look that shut down further conversation.
The doctor said I could call her Tina. She even looked a bit like Aunt Pam except less rundown by life.
While I was afraid of her questions, she talked around things a lot that first day. She wanted to know about the medication my doctor prescribed and what I hoped to gain from taking it. When I told her how I kept thinking negative things about myself, she asked for examples. Instead of pacing myself, I blurted out how I was raped and a whore and I had all those orgasms and hated myself now. Tina only nodded and wrote something down on her clipboard.
While I should have been irritated by her lack of a reaction, it actually helped. Later, as we left, Tina explained how she often worked with rape victims in her practice. What I said wasn’t shocking to her and this made me feel less like a freak.
Judd never said anything during the session or on the ride to the restaurant. Simply there as moral support, he wanted me to take the reins. I wanted to be strong, so he trusted me to say what needed to be said. By the time we picked up the prescription for an anti-depressant, I did feel stronger. Healthy might be a long way down the road, but I was on my way.
Chapter Twenty Four
Normally when Judd and I woke up, we messed around for a good half hour or more before moving our games to the shower. This morning though, he wanted to shower alone. He didn’t say the words, but he asked if I wanted to clean up first. I caught the hint and was soon waiting for him to emerge from his solo shower.
My feelings were hurt because I sensed I was getting on his nerves. Judd shifted from never having a woman around to me around all the time. I knew logically how he should be restless with my constant presence. Yet, whenever I suggested I sleep at my place, he frowned like I was shitting on his feelings. Confused, I just waited for him to tell me what he wanted. I knew asking would lead to that blank stare he gave me whenever I sent a question his direction that he had no interest in answering.
Appearing from the steamy bathroom, Judd walked across the room in all of his naked glory and moved a gun into a top dresser drawer. I watched him and waited to touch all of the shiny clean skin. I could already taste it and my body responded with a flush of heat. Judd glanced at me then sighed.
“I have a confession.”
“What?” I mumbled, studying his hard chest covered in tattoos.
“I’m a virgin.”
Grinning, I leaned back and spread my legs slightly. “In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, ‘I do not think that word means what you think it means.’ There’s a reason I call you, Judd the Stud, you know?”
Judd shared my smile. “I’ve never gone down on a woman before. I think today we pop my cherry on that one.”
Swallowing hard, I asked, “Are you sure it’s safe?”
Smile gone, Judd stepped closer to the bed. “Safe how? You think I can’t successfully make you come, babe?”
“You make me come by breathing on my neck. I just mean I could be…”
“Stop,” he barked and flinched. “You said you went to a doctor. You were tested. You need to stop letting the ugly part of your brain tell you stupid shit.”
“I’m sorry.”
Judd exhaled hard. “You’re beautiful and delicate and perfect, but you see only shit in yourself. It drives me crazy.”
“Are you not going to kiss me down there now?” I asked, swinging my knees and trying to get us back to the part where I popped Judd’s oral cherry.
Judd’s gaze latched onto where I slid my hand and opened myself to him. When he smiled, I knew we were back on track.
“It’s my first time,” he said, grinning slyly. “Be patient with me.”
“Fuck,” I said, already breathing too fast as I imagined how good it would feel.
Judd crawled over me and kissed me gently. Nipping at my lower lip as he pulled away, Judd smiled. “You’re ready to come already, aren’t you?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m excited.”
“You look electric when you get aroused like this,” he said, sliding two fingers
inside me and using the knuckle of his thumb to caress my clit. “Don’t worry about noise. Verna is out of town.”
Normally, I would have laughed, but instead I called out his name as I came hard against his fingers. Judd waited until the waves of pleasure eased then he removed his fingers and sucked the taste of me off them.
“I love when you say my name,” he murmured as his lips teased each nipple then moved down to my stomach. “The way it sounds when you come is like music.”
Watching him, I soaked in every blissful stroke from his lips, fingers, and that curious tongue. By the time Judd spread me open and blew softly on the wet flesh, I was ready to come again. Everything about the man from his soft wavy hair to his hard muscles and hot skin to the tip of his tongue stroking my clit was absolutely perfect.
After the second orgasm from him sucking softly at my clit, I lost the ability to communicate in words. Judd took his time and I came apart for him, melting under his touch. The arrogant look on his face when he climbed over me and stroked my wetness with his cock told me he knew exactly how much I was under his spell.
“I need to be inside you,” he murmured, still teasing me with his cock. “Do you want that?”
Only nodding because words weren’t possible, I reached for him then groaned as he filled me. His arrogant expression faded until he stared at me with a gaze full of intense need.
“Everything about you makes me crazy,” he said, thrusting harder. “I can’t think of anything without you at the edges. Everything I see is a reminder of you. My life was empty, yet sufficient a month ago. Now, it’s pointless without you.”
Staring up at him, I nearly cried out how much I loved him and hoped he loved me. Even with the words on the tip of my tongue, I held back. Judd was opening up to me, trusting me with his feelings, but he wasn’t ready yet for such a declaration. It was why he needed the private shower. Also, why after we were exhausted, he stared at the wall like the world was unbearable for him.
Eventually, we cleaned up again and headed to lunch at Tequila Jodi. Still in a quiet mood, Judd barely acknowledged Cooper who was talking to a few of his dad’s top guys. These were men who had known the mole for years and trusted the bastard. I suspected they originally had doubts that their friend would betray the club, but Judd said the guy confessed. He told them everything, so even his closest buddy was willing to put the fucker out of his misery in the end.
