“You became pregnant?” he asks, keeping the story flowing.
“Condom broke,” I tell him in a voice roughened with emotion. “It was the moment my life changed for both the better and the worst.”
“Boy or girl and how old?” he asks, cutting even quicker to the chase.
“Girl,” I tell him. “Her name’s Belle, and she just turned two a few months ago.”
“Where is she?”
“That I will never tell you,” I say fiercely. This is where I draw the line and keep the most important truth to myself. “She’s safe and far away from Zeke.”
“You ran with her?” he guesses.
“Yeah,” I say bitterly. “I ran just after she turned two. I got her to safety. After that, I ran in the opposite direction of Belle, knowing he’d eventually find me.”
“And when was that?”
“About a week ago,” I murmur. “Found me in Nebraska and dragged me back. Kept me locked up at the compound and tried to force me to tell him where Belle was.”
Bridger utters a low curse. “What did he do to you?”
“Beat me,” I say in a matter-of-fact tone. “Thought he could beat the information out of me, but that fucker underestimated my resolve. I’ll die before I give Belle up to him.”
Bridger nods, and I see a healthy dose of respect in his gaze. He takes another sip of water. After he swallows, he says in a gentle voice, “I’m going to play devil’s advocate here for a moment, but Zeke’s her father. Doesn’t he have a right to see her?”
Rage fills every fiber of my being that he would even dare to suggest such a thing. But still, I keep my voice as level as possible. “How well do you know Zeke?”
“Not well at all,” he admits. “Been around him a handful of times.”
“Well, that should have been plenty for you to get he’s a mean son of a bitch. Runs that club as if he’s Hitler and uses that same mentality on everyone around him, even his baby daughter. He’s rotten to the core, and that sick bastard has no fondness or love for Belle. She’s his property, and that’s all he cares about.”
I’m not sure what it is about that last statement, but Bridger’s entire body goes tight and his eyes flame with something akin to hatred. His voice doesn’t rise, but there’s no hiding the thunder of repressed anger. “Why exactly did you run? You stayed there for a few years after she was born.”
Shame overwhelms me because he’s forcing me very close to considering the question I’ve asked myself over and over again in the past few months. It’s not the same exact question he just asked, but it’s close enough.
Why didn’t I run sooner?
“You have to understand,” I whisper in response to what he just asked. “I didn’t think Belle was in any real danger at first. I mean… most of the time, Zeke ignored us both. Sometimes, he’d yell at me to keep her quiet if she was crying, but we were usually left alone. I cared for her, stayed in my room for the most part, and we sort of flew under the radar.”
“What happened?” he prods.
As Belle grew, started to walk, and became insanely curious about the world around her, I had a harder time keeping her in the solitary confinement of our room at the compound. I’d carefully take her outside when I knew Zeke was out and about to let her play in the fresh air. We were pretty much ignored, which was good.
Until the time when Belle wasn’t ignored.
“There was a stray dog that hung around the compound that had puppies,” I tell him with my eyes once again lowered to the table and my voice sounding oddly detached. “Belle liked to play with them. It was the highlight of her day to be able to go outside to be around them. One day, Zeke came out into the yard area where Belle was playing. He was drunk, which always made him meaner. I tried to pick up Belle and get her inside before he noticed us, but she’s two years old and she did what most toddlers would do. She pitched a fit and started crying, wanting to stay with the puppies.”
Bile starts to rise in my throat so it chokes my words down. I take another sip of water and hesitantly slide my gaze over to Bridger’s. His face appears impassive, but his eyes are simmering with anger. Yet his voice is surprisingly encouraging when he says, “Go on.”
I give a slight cough to clear my throat and press forward. “Her cries got Zeke’s attention, and he came our way. She was struggling to get out of my hold to get to the puppies… you know… in full-blown tantrum mode. Zeke yelled at her to ‘shut the fuck up’. That just made her scream louder. So he reached down, grabbed one of the puppies by the scruff, and held it up for her to see. I’ll never forget the way he taunted his daughter. He shook the puppy and told her, ‘I’ll give you something to cry about,’ and then he punted the puppy like a football. Poor thing didn’t stand a chance against those heavy biker boots. He was dead before he hit the ground.”
My body shudders as I say those last words, my mind immediately turning to Belle’s reaction. “She went limp in my arms, her mouth hanging open as her tear-filled eyes watched the limp puppy lying on the ground several feet away. I’ll never forget the tiny little moan that slid past those precious baby lips, then her mouth clamped shut and she didn’t utter another sound. Not for five days.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Bridger grits out as he pushes off the stool. I involuntarily shrink backward, thinking his anger for the situation is aimed at me.
Because let’s face it… it’s my fault Belle was in that environment. I should have run the minute I found out I was pregnant. I knew Zeke, and I knew he wasn’t father material. I knew… something like that would happen one day.
“I’m a terrible mother,” I say as he advances on me. I admit my failure to him, having no clue what he’s going to do to me, but by the murderous expression on his face, I know it’s going to hurt.
Bridger stalks right to me but rather than raising his hand to strike me, or pulling me from my chair to throw me out of the safety of his house, he drops to his knees by my chair and puts a large hand around the back of my neck, forcing me to turn to look at him. “You are not a terrible mother. You took your child and ran. You protected her.”
“Not at first,” I argue, my mind refusing to believe his words.
“You did what you had to do, and you did what was right when it truly mattered.”
I don’t respond, but I don’t drop my gaze from his either. I study him critically to see if he’s just blowing smoke up my ass or if he truly believes those words. He stares right back at me, and I can see from deep within those orbs the color of molten cognac that he knows a little something of what I’ve been through. In that moment, I realize I was right to trust him with this information.
With a soft squeeze to my neck, Bridger releases me and stands up, but he doesn’t move away. Looking down at me, he asks gravely, “You don’t have to tell me details, but are you sure Belle’s safe where she’s at?”
I give a tentative nod. “I think so.”
“Well, at least that gives us some time to decide what the best thing to do is,” Bridger says almost absently as he turns from me and reaches for his bottle of water. “For right now, I imagine the only person looking for you is Kayla, but when Zeke returns, he’s going to put all his resources into finding you again.”
I nod, because I know that’s true. “Then I should probably leave.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” he says gruffly. “You’re going to stay here and recover. It will be the last thing Zeke would ever think… that you’d stay in this area.”
His words warm me… fill me with a small measure of hope, but I have to remember the reality of the situation. “Bridger… if he finds out you’re helping me, he’ll…”
I can’t even say it.
“I know,” he says resolutely. “But fuck if I’m going to let him get his hands on you or Belle.”
And by the tone in his voice and the blazing determination in his eyes, I know he’s making me a promise he intends to keep.
Chapter 5
&n
bsp; Bridger
The orgasm is just beyond my reach, taunting me with its special brand of relief. It’s not something I really want, but it’s definitely something I need. Opening my eyes, I look down at the blonde head bobbing vigorously over my cock. I can’t see her face, but I can feel the warmth of her mouth as she takes me in deep and sucks hard.
Carina. One of my bartenders.
She gives good head, minimal gag reflex.
I should be busting an easy nut, but my body’s not cooperating. Oh, my cock’s hard enough and it feels good, but I can’t seem to get the job finished.
For the first time in… well, forever… I’m being sidetracked by worries, and it’s impeding on my ability to blow a hard load.
Fucking Maggie.
Goddamn gorgeous woman with a shit life and an even shittier future at this point, camped back at my house and completely lost in this world. I don’t want her problems to be my problems, but, for the life of me, I can’t seem to shake them free. I’m obsessing about her healing, keeping her safe from Zeke, and wondering how in the hell I can help protect her daughter when I don’t even know where she is. I’ve taken on her worries because I know how hard it is to break free from a terrible situation. I know what it’s like to have no good options. Most importantly, I understand the overwhelming guilt that gets directed toward yourself for not doing it sooner once you finally do get free.
Almost as if you enjoyed the abuse you were receiving.
And Christ… the abuse she took. Maggie probably doesn’t understand it, but when I realized all that shit she took… beatings and torture, but she never broke down and gave Belle up? Well, that right there had me respecting the shit out of her.
Carina changes tactics, concentrating on just the head of my dick and jacking the base with her hand. Yup… that feels good too, and I try to concentrate on that feeling so I can get it done.
Involuntarily, I start to imagine warm, brown hair instead of blonde, with streaks the color of a dark caramel running through. It’s the first thing I noticed about Maggie when she came out of the shower three days ago and I saw her clean for the first time. Her hair was stunning, even still damp, but it dried while we talked. The colors broke through then, and I couldn’t stop checking her out.
A tingling starts in my balls. This gives me relief the end is in sight and my dick isn’t broken. Apparently, just the thought of Maggie’s hair does it for me. I wonder what would happen if I imagined those full lips pulled back and her teeth grazing against my cock…
“Pull off,” I mutter to Carina as an orgasm starts to build from deep within. Thoughts of Maggie sucking my cock become vivid. In my imagination, she looks up at me with fern-colored eyes filled with lust as her teeth scrape over the head of my cock.
Carina doesn’t listen, apparently wanting to show me that her amazing skills include an aptitude for swallowing, and she tries to suck me in deeper.
I wonder if Maggie could deep throat me?
“Fuck,” I mutter as a violent tremor runs up my spine. I grab Carina’s hair, pulling her off me just as I start to erupt. Not a single drop lands on her tongue, thank fuck, but instead hits the side of her face as I push her away from me with a low groan of half-hearted release.
“For fuck’s sake, Bridger,” Carina complains as she sits back on her haunches and wipes my jizz off her face with the back of her hand. “I was willing to swallow.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t,” I growl at her as I push out of my desk chair and tuck my softening dick back in my jeans. That was utterly lackluster. The three seconds of pleasure seems almost wasteful, the only redeeming part of the whole experience was imagining Maggie on her knees before me.
Christ, I have got to get control over this shit. I’ve got no business even thinking those thoughts.
I don’t look back at Carina as she starts to push off the floor, but I do gentle my voice somewhat. “Go ahead and get back to work. There’ll be a little bonus in your paycheck.”
She snorts in response but in moments, I hear her walk out the door and pull it shut behind her. Carina likes pretty clothes and designer handbags, and gladly sucks my dick while we both pretend the extra money I add to her regular paycheck isn’t a form of prostitution. It sort of compromises my morals, but those are so tattered to begin with, I don’t obsess about it much.
I look back to my desk. There’s no denying I’ve got plenty of work I could do. I have to look over account reconciliations and sign off on inventory orders, but truth be told, I’d rather head back to my house and see what Maggie’s doing.
There’s a brief moment of indecision before I think, Fuck it.
Grabbing my keys off my desk, I head out of my office and call it an early night.
*
I find Maggie on her usual perch, on my big leather couch, sitting on one end with her feet curled up underneath her. I don’t need to look at the television to know she’s watching The Walking Dead. I know it by the way she has a soft blanket covering her body with the edges pulled protectively up to her neck as she stares at the screen with wide, tension-filled eyes.
“Thought you were too scared to watch that by yourself,” I say as I close the front door and lock it. I toss my car keys on the small table sitting to the side of the door.
She doesn’t take her eyes off the TV but says, “I can’t help it. I’m addicted.”
A lot and not much has happened in the past three days since Maggie came out of her drug-induced stupor and told me about her predicament. She’s slept a lot, and that’s good. It’s the best thing for her healing, and I can tell she’s moving around more easily now and taking less pain meds.
She’s quiet for the most part, trying to be unobtrusive in my house because she doesn’t want to be a burden on me. I’m sure she’d be fascinated to know that I don’t find her to be a burden, but I am worried about the situation as a whole. Instead, I find Maggie to be a calming sort of roommate. She’s considerate and keeps her stuff picked up, which includes a ton of new clothes that I went out and bought for her despite her protest. I merely pointed out to her that she couldn’t live in her one outfit. It had bloodstains that wouldn’t come out.
I also told her I didn’t mind getting her the clothes, although I’ll admit my thoughts ran on the lewd side as I was picking out her panties and bras in silk and lace rather than practical cotton.
Maggie’s cleaned my house, although I’ve asked her not to because I don’t expect it, and I know she has to still be in some pain. She ignores me though, and when I get home from work, my house is sparkling and she’s got dinner cooked. I don’t argue against dinner though as she’s a much better cook than I am. In the evenings, I found myself coming home early from The Wicked Horse, and we’d end up watching TV together. She told me that first night when I introduced her to The Walking Dead that she hadn’t seen a movie or television program in well over three years as there wasn’t a TV in her room at the compound. The most she’d seen had been some bad porn Zeke would play before he fucked her—a fact I would have rather not known about, but Maggie doesn’t hold anything back. It’s as if once she told me the truth of her past, she wasn’t going to hide the brutal details from me.
“Did you eat dinner?” she asks as she pulls the remote control out from underneath the blanket and points it at the TV, pausing it.
“Yeah,” I mutter as I walk around the coffee table and sit in my recliner. “Grabbed something at the club.”
I told Maggie I owned The Wicked Horse, but I obviously left out the part about me owning a secret sex club attached to it. There’s no way she’s ready to hear about The Silo and everything it entails.
I haven’t seen Maggie all day, having left early this morning before she awoke. I’d moved her into the guest room—not the one I’d fucked Jared in as I hadn’t been able to replace the comforter—and she’d been asleep when I’d left this morning to go help Woolf out on the ranch. I’d been wanting to get back on a horse and ride range for a while, so
mething I find myself deeply desiring the more time I spend in my office as I’m a true outdoorsman more than I am a businessman.
My eyes quickly roam over her, and I observe, “You look better. Feel okay?”
I ask her this each night before we watch TV together. She smiles, like she always does, and nods. “Yeah… I feel a lot better each day. I didn’t even take any pain medication today.”
“You should take it,” I admonish gently.
She shakes her head. “No, seriously… I’m feeling much better. The bruises are fading, and I’m sleeping a lot. I really don’t hurt very much.”
“But you still hurt,” I point out.
“Not enough for those pain meds,” she counters with a pointed look. “I don’t like the way they make me feel, and besides… Jared said I didn’t have to take them if I didn’t want to.”
I grimace. Fucking Jared.
He came to check on Maggie yesterday at my request. He proclaimed her to be healing very well, which was fantastic news.
But when I walked him to my front door, he turned to me with expectant eyes. I shut that shit down quickly. “I thank you for what you’ve done and I owed you, but I also paid you. Got it?”
He hesitated only a moment before nodding at me with a look of sadness. He started to turn away but stopped when I said, “Jared.”
Once his eyes connected to mine, I made sure he understood the situation. “You do not tell a soul about Maggie, you hear?”
He nodded again. While I’m pretty sure he’d never say a word, I reiterated. “You’ve got secrets that I protect too. Quid pro quo, right?”
“Of course,” he assured me. “Quid pro quo.”
Maggie pushes the blanket off her and it draws my attention, snapping me back to the present. She stands up from the couch, and I have to clamp my teeth down hard to keep my mouth from falling open. She’s wearing a t-shirt and a pair of workout pants that I bought her. In hindsight, they might be a tad too small. They look painted onto her. I take notice of how luscious that ass of hers really is and that her tits are huge, which is something I can’t appreciate when she’s wearing my t-shirts. I swallow hard and turn my head toward the TV screen.
The Wicked Horse Boxed Set (The Wicked Horse Series) Page 96
