Quick as lightning, he punched the hood again. Kat flinched and closed her eyes. Through the window, clear and full of vehemence, he screamed, “The fuck you are! Is it mine or is it not, Kathy?”
What do I do? What do I do? Her mind was caught in a hamster wheel. She was trying to escape, but finding it impossible. This wasn't the reaction she’d expected. Anger from Solomon, yes; but, this sort of blind fury and rage, no.
Before she’d left Cross Roads, Texas and the Free Guns, Solomon had been the silent and deadly sort. The man that would sit in the corner, chair leaned back on two legs, plotting and manipulating events to suit his needs. Solomon thought, planned, evaluated a situation from all sides. When he didn’t see a way out, he went with the flow.
When Jamison had died and everyone, every single member, had called him a killer. He knew that nothing he said would get him out of it; yet, he had done what he’d wanted and taken what he could get for whatever time he’d had left. But, his death never happened. Instead, Kat ended up looking weak and he’d taken advantage of the situation, manipulating it to suit his needs.
He had never, never done anything to hurt her. Everything Solomon Parker had done, from the moment he’d set eyes on her over nine years ago, had been to get close to her.
He’s not going to hurt me. He won’t. Kat reminded herself, as the fear that had slipped into her heart inched its way out. Through the tinted front window, she watched Solomon gulp in a breath. His black hair blew in the wind and his cheeks darkened.
Very slowly, Kat unbuckled herself and climbed out of the car. She mentally wrapped a protective covering around her heart. She’d convinced herself that this needed to happen, the fight should happen now. It was the only way they would ever find their way back to each other. She wasn’t the person she was five months ago. She wasn’t the girl who had fucked a guy who could have been a killer and who she nearly killed herself. She wasn’t the girl who ran away because she couldn’t deal with life. That person was dead and buried and she wasn’t coming back.
Now, she need to help Solomon and pull him out of whatever dark hole he was in. He was in a hole, of that Kat was sure. “How’ve you been Solomon? Looking a little tired there, a little stressed.”
Rounding the hood, Solomon shot his hands out on either side of Kat’s door and caged her. “Do you think this is funny, Kat? Showing up after five fucking months, pregnant, demanding that I step down, walking around like you fucking own the place! Is it all some big game to you? Screwing with people’s lives.”
As it was, pregnancy had set Kat’s emotions on a teeter-totter. While she had only the best intentions at heart, they didn’t quite make it out of her mouth. Anger arched through her body and she went head-to-head with Solomon, refusing to be cowed. “Yes!” she yelled on a hysterical laugh, throwing her hands up in the sky. “I wake up laughing my ass off in the morning. Wondering how else I can fuck up. Maybe I’ll throw myself off a building for kicks. Maybe I’ll fall in love with a man and then leave him for the hell of it or maybe I’ll just finally pull that trig--”
Solomon claimed the rest of her words on his tongue. Fire raced through her mouth, as he claimed her with the same blatant power by which he claimed everything else. She loved it.
This! This is what I’ve been missing! Kat immediately twined her arms around Solomon’s neck and gave herself up to him. The road melted away along with the car and the two bikers parked behind them. Everything melted away except for Solomon’s mouth and arms wrapped tightly around her.
As soon as it started, it stopped. Solomon ripped his mouth away from hers and took a few staggering steps back. Anger flashed across his features, as he ran his hands through his black curls. “Not again, Kit-Kat. I’m not doing this again.”
Kat leaned heavily against the car, feeling the warm metal pressing against her back. For a second, she’d forgotten that she’d ever left. She’d forgotten that things had changed and that she had changed.
“Do what again?” her voice was soft, so soft the wind barely carried it to him.
Whipping his head back to her, he waved his arms between them. “This! You’re fucking mood swings. One minute you want to kill me and drive me crazy. The next you want me to screw you in the backseat of your car.”
He smothered a frustrated scream before he finally rubbed a hand across his face and calmed down. In the span of a few minutes, Solomon aged almost a decade. Stress lines were carved into his cheeks, little lines formed around his mouth, and dark circles were visible under his eyes.
“I love you, Kit-Kat. After everything you’ve put me through, I still love you.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The little car rounded the corner and pulled up to the curb in front of her old building. Kat looked up at the apartment. It still looked like it was one call away from being demolished. Bricks were missing, paint was chipping, and most of the apartment unit numbers were gone.
She missed this old place.
And cigarettes, Kat thought, as she watched Solomon cut the engine and sit in the car for another few seconds. I would kill for a cigarette and a bottle of tequila.
After Solomon had delivered his confession, he’d waited for Kat to say something, anything back to him. When that hadn’t happened, they’d continued driving. Half an hour later with the sun descending and painting the sky red, they’d made their way into her old neighborhood.
Kat realized somewhere along the way the biker guards had left. The purr of their motorcycles couldn’t be heard anymore. The only thing pounding in Kat’s ears was her own heartbeat. On the drive over, she’d made the decision to come clean and tell Solomon the one thing she’d never told anyone. It was the thing she’d tried to hide, even from herself.
“I don’t live here anymore,” Kat mumbled, as they continued to sit in the car. Neither of them made a move to get up.
Solomon’s fingers gripped the wheel tighter. “No. I do.”
Mouthing a silent Oh, Kat looked straight out the windshield and down the street. She watched the sun make shadows with bushes, lamp posts, and buildings until darkness settled over them and the shadows were engulfed. Still, neither of them moved.
It was another long, tense moment before Kat forced herself to finally speak. “I need to tell you something. I don’t want to do it here. Can you, um, take me back to my hotel?”
That was her best bet. Kat wasn't sure what was going through Solomon’s mind, but it wasn’t good. So far, he’d been aggressive and violent, not at all how he’d been before she’d left.
“No. You’re staying here.”
Finality. Solomon Parker had mastered that tone of finality. Kat knew she could have fought with him. She could have insisted that he take her back to her safe and secure hotel room, but would be the point? Time and time again, she’d reminded herself who he was and what she’d done. If he was going to hurt her, he was a couple of months late.
Kat sighed and shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “I don’t have any of my stuff.”
In a seconds, Solomon had his cell phone out and his ear pressed to the receiver. A few short commands later, he hung up. Less than five minutes after that, Dominic was rolling up to them on his army green bike.
Solomon rolled down her window with the flip of a switch and leaned over her to talk to Dominic. He stood right next to her door.
“Dominic, can you--”
“Hello, Dominic.” Kat cut Solomon off as she reached her hand out the window to her old friend. He’d been one of only a handful of bikers she trusted absolutely with her life. Kat only hoped he still regarded her the same way.
Ignoring her hand, Dominic reached through the window and gave her a brief hug. His large mass filled the small space of the window. “Howdy, Kat.”
Pulling back, Dominic inclined his head to Solomon and sat back on his bike.
“Give him your room key and room number, Kit-Kat. He’ll get your stuff.”
Kat paused, looking over at Solomon uncertainly. Mem
ories came back of another time they’d been in her apartment. A time when he’d broken in and she’d handcuffed him, but also another time when they’d lived together for three blissful days. The small one-bedroom unit held a lot of memories.
Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her room key and passed it to Dominic through the window. “102,” she said softly. There was only one hotel in Crossroads and she knew Dominic would have no problem getting her things.
As quickly as he’d come, Dominic sped back down the road. The night consumed him and his bike.
It was another tense moment before Solomon got out of the car and Kat followed him. They walked up the flight of stairs to the apartment, Solomon following close behind her. He stepped in front of her and opened the door to the apartment, then ushered her in.
“Do you need anything?” Solomon asked politely, as he flipped on the switch and motioned to the beige love seat in the living room.
Kat took a cursory look around and noticed that everything was more or less the way she’d left it, as if Solomon had preserved it for her. An ancient TV sat on a rickety wooden stand in the corner next to her floor to ceiling book case. Her tacky 1970s lime green circular rug was still in the middle of the room. Its edges were underneath her beige faux-leather couch. A small circular side table with a matching lime green lamp sat beside the love seat. Everything was just as Kat remembered it, nothing had changed.
Making her way over to the seat, she shook her head and said, “No, I’m fine.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat, as she clenched her fists and forced the rest of her words out. “Can you sit down? I have something important to tell you.”
Solomon turned towards her and shut the door softly, throwing his jacket over the bar separating the kitchen and the living room. Kicking off his shoes, he came and sat beside her on the couch. “Is it something I want to hear?” The words sounded clipped, his anger from earlier still showing.
Kat laughed nervously, as she stroked a hand over her stomach. “Probably not. But…you need to hear this.”
Taking a deep breath, she began the story that she had been rehearsing for the last few weeks. It was the story she’d already told her father and a story she was now going to have to tell Solomon. The beginning was slow, but Kat forced the words out. She needed him to hear them, as much as she needed to say them. “When I was 11, I was…” she paused and clenched her fingers until her nails bit into her palms, “r-raped by my uncle. I never told anyone and I hoped it would just disappear like a bad dream. But it didn’t. A couple weeks after the first time, he tried to do it again; but, we were in the kitchen and when he--”
Solomon grabbed her hands and unclenched her fists. “Stop, Kat. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to explain.”
Kat shook her head and looked at him through the tears that gathered in her eyes. For the third time in her life, she was allowing herself to be vulnerable in front of a man. “I have to say this. You have to know.”
Kat saw his jaw lock, but he nodded and allowed her to continue.
“When he tried the second time, I reached onto the counter and stabbed him in the leg with a knife. I didn’t realize that I hit an artery. There was so much blood and I didn’t know what to do. I…I was a kid. I dialed 9-1-1, but when they told me to stem the bleeding, I refused. I couldn’t bear to touch my uncle, not after what he’d done to me. I-”
“Kat. Don’t.”
“I let him die!” The words were ripped out of her, laden with regret she hadn’t quite learned how to let go of. “I watched him, as I sat huddled in a corner and let him bleed to death. It took me years to understand what had happened to me, but I realized I didn’t want to understand. So, I locked that piece of my life away, except it never really went away. I joined a motorcycle club, I had sex with strangers all the time, I placed myself in dangerous situations, and I did everything I could to change myself, to be this badass biker bitch. None of it worked though. I still have the scars, I’m still damaged goods.”
Strong hands clamped around Kat’s shoulders. He brought her back from her memories, memories she hadn’t even realized she’d been dwelling on. Slowly the room came into view, smudged and clouded by tears. It was only then that Kat realized she was shaking. Little whimpers sounded from her throat, like a wounded animal. But, that was what Kat was, wounded.
Nine years ago, she’d thought running from her past and submerging herself in reckless behavior would heal her. She believed building a new life that was completely different from her old life would change her. Solomon Parker had brought that all down. He ripped apart the barriers she’d tried her damnedest to build by just being himself.
“You are not damaged goods, Kat.” Solomon shook her, as he tried to drill it into her with his rainwater eyes and his steely baritone. “You are perfect. Fucking perfect.”
Kat shook her head. All the vulnerability she’d tried to hide from him was coming to the surface. “I killed him.”
“No, you protected yourself.” Solomon turned his head, his eyes burned fiercely and his upper lip curled in distaste. “I would have cut off his dick, fed it to him, and watched him choke on it.”
Kat flinched away from the dispassionate way he said the words. It was the sort of calm clarity of a sociopath. He noticed it immediately and turned back to her, as his expression became sympathetic.
“I’m so sorry you went through that, Kat.”
Nodding, he reached up and wiped her tears with the fleshy part of her hand. “It made me stronger. I went through shit and I survived it.”
Solomon smiled, though there was still violence in his eyes and a loathing for a man whom she’d killed over a decade ago. It made Kat feel a little better, knowing that he felt so strongly about her darkest secret. It was the thing that she’d let control her for the better part of her life. She wouldn’t let it control her anymore. The past had to be buried. Kat knew that and that was what she was trying to do.
Lifting her head, she turned to Solomon. She needed him. “You had to know. The person I was when I was in the Free Guns was still that little scared girl who didn’t know how to deal with her problems. I steeled my heart and locked it away. I didn’t know how to deal with it when the lock broke. I’m ready now. Solomon, I love you.”
It felt so good to say the words. So right.
Solomon stared at her for a long moment, as demons raged behind his eyes. But slowly, as if they were being vanquished one by one, they disappeared. Kat thought that was what she must have looked like when she’d finally confronted her problems and then let them go.
Leaning over to him, Kat kissed him. Simple and sweet, the kiss took the bitterness off of their earlier conversation. The past had been recognized, but now it was time to bury it again. But this time, Kat said her last goodbye, shed her last tear, and walked away from the horrors of her childhood. She couldn’t change the past, she could only choose how she was going to live with it.
Cool lips pressed firmly into hers, as Solomon kissed her back. His arms snaked around her to press her into him. Kat smiled against his lips, as she settled on his lap, her knees pushing into the worn leather of her couch.
A second later, Solomon stood up. His arms wrapped tightly around her. He ducked and moved his arms under the back of her thighs. Then, he picked her up princess-style. Yet, he never broke the kiss.
“I want you,” Kat whispered against his lips, as she kissed his strong jaw and felt the stubble there.
“I want you more,” Solomon growled, as he moved to the bedroom and placed her on the sheets. Kat felt his hands on her body, as he stripped off her clothes.
Her eyes moved around the bedroom. She noticed the small changes, masculine changes. A black towel hung on the door leading to her private bathroom. A pair of blue jeans and a white t-shirt had been thrown over a chair in the corner. Small touches everywhere, declaring that a man lived in the room.
Even as her body pressed into cool cotton sheets, Kat noticed a differenc
e. She’d never owned black sheets, always choosing lighter colors; but, Solomon had chosen black sheets for his room.
“You shouldn’t be thinking, Kit-Kat,” Solomon purred, as he stripped off her underwear and went to work on his own clothes.
Smiling like an idiot. Kat stretched and thrust her breasts out. It felt right to be naked with him, good. “Not at all?” she said, teasing him.
Solomon groaned, as his cock sprang out from his boxers. Almost instantly, Kat felt a wetness between her thighs, causing her to squirm on the bed.
Solomon smiled down at her like he knew exactly what she wanted, as he kicked away his jeans. “If it isn’t about me being inside of you, then you shouldn’t be thinking it.”
Kat laughed out loud, but the sound was cut short by Solomon’s hands on her thighs, as he pushed her legs wide. Kat moaned, as the cool air hit her heated flesh and his eyes devoured her body. “You’re soaking wet, Kit-Kat. Did you miss me?” Solomon purred, as he trailed a finger down her thigh and to her outer lips.
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