“Look at you,” Silver said, waving a hand at her. “Sitting here with your legs open and your tits out, on your fucking desk at work, with four guys just downstairs. You want them to come watch, Jolene? Huh? You want to be the garage-slut equivalent of bar-slut Vixen? Take numbers and have a revolving door of my brothers up here?”
“Silver –”
“You think I’m ever gonna let another stupid slut that I work with back me into a fucking corner and screw me over again?” he hissed. “You think you’re worth all of that?”
She shook her head, flailing to make sense of what the hell was happening. She tried to pull her gaping blouse back together, tried to tug her skirt back down her legs. “I don’t – what –”
“I knew what you were the night we met,” Silver went on relentlessly. “An easy lay whoring around in a dive bar and no doubt about that. But for you to rip your tight, slutty clothes off in your place of business is low, even for you. Why don’t you fucking quit and just spare us your skanky ass around the place?
His words had the effect of a physical slap: she reared back with a gasp, her face flushed. Time to finish her.
“I’d rather fuck a leper than ever touch you again.” He turned to go, gave her one last withering look as she sat there on her desk, half-naked and humiliated and shaking. “Now get your pathetic ass dressed and get out forever – unless you want me to send someone else up here to fuck you before you leave? You have a preference or should I just pick anyone? Maybe Cowboy, huh?”
Then he left the office, shut the door behind him and went down the stairs on shaking legs. By the time he hit his office, he hated himself more than he’d thought possible, but he grimly chanted over and over in his head that it was done now and it was all for the best.
There. That should do it. She’s gone. No coming back from that one.
**
The next morning at ten minutes to eight, Silver saw Jolene as she walked into The Garage. Her hair shone and her skin glowed; her eyes and lips were perfectly made up. She sashayed through the door, smiling and greeting the twins, Jinx and Kansas… and she met and held Silver’s eye as she then proceeded to move in for the kill. She slowly unbuttoned her long cream coat and slid it off her shoulders in a sexy, graceful movement, revealing herself a bit at a time.
And what she showed was traffic- and heart-stopping.
The woman was wearing the goddamn red dress. His dress.
He froze as his brothers started to let out wolf whistles that were both genuinely admiring and gently teasing, and she laughed and thanked them. Dux called out for a spin and she obliged him, doing a graceful twirl, showing off that curvy ass that Silver’s hands still ached to cup and squeeze.
She finished her little show for the boys, did a joking shimmying bow to raucous applause, then looked over at Silver, made direct eye contact once more. She smiled brilliantly at him as he stood motionless in his office doorway holding his overnight bag.
And she fucking winked.
It was nothing but a challenge, a slammed door on all his efforts, an announcement that if he’d sneered that she was dressing too sexy for work before, well, the day before had been nothing, nothing at all to what she actually had hidden away in her arsenal. It was a declaration of war and intentions, and he heard her thoughts as clear as day:
Fuck you, querido. I’m not going anywhere. Have a good trip.
Chapter Thirteen
Four days later
Jo sighed, rolled her shoulders back to relieve some of the crushing tension in them. She glanced at the clock in the corner of her laptop and started: how did it get to be almost eight o’clock already? Jesus, she needed to get a goddamn life. At least join a gym and leave work at five or six, spend an hour on the treadmill or something. Sitting at this desk from eight to eight was easy, God knows, because there was enough to do… but no way it was healthy.
She sighed again and slowly got to her feet. Her right foot was asleep, so she took off her high heel, pressed down on her toe like a ballerina (not that she’d ever taken ballet, gallumph that she was) and winced. Yes, her new shoes were totally hot and sexy and flattering, but wow, fashion could be a royal pain in the ass. Or the foot.
Suddenly there was a noise outside her office, down in the garage. Jo froze, still stupidly standing in her ballerina position. It was late and the garage was closed; all the guys had gone home about an hour before. Had one of them forgotten something? Or maybe someone had stopped into Satan’s for a drink and was here to grab something they’d left behind?
Or maybe – horrible thought – Silver was back from his sourcing trip a bit early. She’d enjoyed the four days of peace at work without his presence, and she’d thought he’d be back tomorrow morning… but possibly he was downstairs dropping off the pieces and parts that he’d bought. Well, if so, he’d see her light and probably bring up the expense reports and receipts for anything purchased, as well as for his hotel, food, gas.
Almost as if she’d summoned him with her mere thoughts, she heard footsteps on the stairs outside. She sighed for a third time, a deep heaving sigh that was both irritated and exhausted, and called for inner strength and fortitude. If Silver started pushing her buttons now, she might collapse like a wet kleenex, or she might hurl a stapler at his stupid silver-blond head. She didn’t want to deal with his bullshit attitude tonight.
Jo slipped her high heel back on, feeling somehow more grounded and balanced with both feet firmly encased in shoes as a weird kind of protection, then stood her ground, shoulders back and chin high. The handle turned and the door started to swing open.
Dear Lord. Here we go.
But the man who came in wasn’t Silver. Oh no. Not at all.
Brian stepped into the office, like something out of her nightmares – and for a few seconds, Jo did think that she was dreaming, that she’d fallen asleep at her desk and she was going to wake up now. But those cold blue eyes were nailed on her in a way that she’d struggled hard to forget, and she knew – she just knew – that this was real. Her heart stopped, started up double-time.
Without breaking his gaze, Brian turned off the lights, shut the door behind him quietly and deliberately, and that was when Jo realized that she was alone with the man who’d slammed her head onto the kitchen table hard enough to split her forehead open. The man who’d almost killed her and more than once, in more ways than one.
She screamed then, a long helpless sound, and he was on her. His hand covering her mouth, his larger body pushing her until her back was against the wall, trapping and crushing her, making her struggles useless. They’d always been useless.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” he hissed in her face. “Don’t make me say it again or I’ll fuck you up.”
She stopped wriggling immediately, went still and silent and stopped breathing, knowing that he meant what he said. The man was a liar and a cheater and a general monster, but oddly, he was a man of his violent word. When he said he’d fuck her up if he had to repeat himself, he was absolutely, completely committed to that course of action. History told her that.
The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
His past behavior spoke for itself clearly and loudly – and she was a dead woman. That was her future. The future that was almost present: she was counting her life in minutes now. In breaths and heartbeats.
Brian was staring down at her and she knew that he’d noticed the top two buttons of her blouse undone, her snug little skirt, her high heels. He ran his gaze over her streaked eye makeup, her dangly earrings, her lustrous-now-messy hair and his lip curled up in disgust.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, the words dripping with venom. “Look at you. You look like a fucking whore. Here I thought I’d gotten rid of that side of you, shown you the right way to dress. I spent fucking years training you and look at you now.”
She held her breath as with
one hand he pulled her blouse down over her shoulders, exposing the lace of her bra between her breasts.
“Are you a whore again, Jolene?” he asked in a quiet tone, the silken, dangerous one that he used just before the storm was unleashed. “Showing off your body for every prick with a prick around this place? Fucking men on this desk? Having one-night-stands with assholes in a bar?”
She flinched as he mentioned some of her behavior in passing, kind of. But she wasn’t going to say one goddamn word – and she definitely wasn’t going to apologize. Thanks to this disgusting nightmare of a human, she’d spent years begging and apologizing and hating who she was… she wasn’t going out that way.
Jo raised her eyes to his and he studied her expression with surprise. She imagined that even with his hand covering her mouth, she still looked defiant and furious. She tried to telegraph her naked, blazing hatred of him in her eyes alone – and from the look on his face, she’d succeeded.
“Well, well, well,” he said softly. “Look at this. What do we have here, huh? Some attitude, looks like. Where’d you get that fucking attitude, baby? Who have you been spending time with? These filthy bikers?”
She narrowed her eyes and growled deep in her throat, the fear almost gone now. Fuck you, Brian.
“Oh really?” he said and the calm was over and he was beginning to show rage. “Fuck me?”
He lifted his hand from her mouth and quick as a blink, Jo spat in his face, relishing it, knowing that it was going to be her only victory and it was a small one. Sure enough and right away, he slapped her hard and viciously, high enough on her cheek that her ear started to ring. She slumped slightly, knew that it was all about to begin.
Idly, she wondered who’d find her body in the morning. Drake? Jinx? Silver? Or maybe there would be no body to find, just an empty room and no note and everyone assuming that she’d just walked away. Silver would probably say exactly that and he’d do it while pirouetting with delight. Who’d think to search for her, raise the alarm?
Nobody. Nobody.
Brian yanked her blouse out of her skirt waistband and pulled it up and off, lifted her skirt over her hips, and she suddenly knew what he was going to do. That she wouldn’t be able to stand and her desire to fight returned. Jo struggled, her shoes falling off as she kicked wildly at his shins, just hoping to make contact. She had no real hope of stopping him for long – but she’d fight him off as long as she could draw breath and squirm.
He grunted, forced her down to the floor, his body pressing on top of hers and stealing her ability to speak. His one hand was holding her wrists above her head, the other was fumbling with her panties.
“No,” she gasped, not having enough air to say more than that. “No, no, no…”
Suddenly he froze above her, lifted his head. He slammed his hand back down on her mouth hard enough to bruise, and she squeaked in pain and surprise: everything about how he was holding himself gave the impression of listening intently. But to what?
Jo tried to hear past the ringing in her left ear, now burning red from his slap. She didn’t hear anything – but Brian did.
He shook her. “Who the fuck’s here at this time of night?”
Jo stared at him, totally confused but now hopeful. Was someone actually downstairs?
God, please. Please.
He listened again and now panic crossed his face. Without hesitation, he grabbed her discarded blouse from the floor and forced it into her mouth. He tied it tight, so tight that her lips were forced back painfully and then he gripped her hair in a brutal hold, holding her still.
She heard it now: the sound of an engine down in one of the garages. From the faintness of the sound and the sense of distance it wasn’t the one right under her office space, but probably the one next door and attached through Silver’s office. Her heart jumped in hope, in joy, and then he slapped her again and shoved his furious, sneering face into hers.
“This is not finished,” he snarled. “Not even fucking close. You’re going to see me again, bitch.”
He flipped her roughly over onto her stomach, jumped to his feet, dashed to the door. By the time Jo had turned over and sat up, managed to shakily undo the blouse from around her mouth and take a deep breath, Brian was gone.
And just like that, it was over as quickly as it had begun; he’d shown up out of nowhere and disappeared straight back there too. The horror started to build, and the panic too:
He’s found me. Oh, my God.
All those years of post-violence recovery came rushing to her rescue now, all those times that he’d left her a battered mess on the floor had taught her how to get right up and get back to normal. Or whatever she’d convinced herself that ‘normal’ was while living with a deranged, gaslighting animal who had a human form.
Numb, knowing that feeling anything was a huge and tragic mistake, Jo got to her knees, then to her feet. She swayed, grabbed the desk for balance. She blinked, then slowly started to put herself back together, murmuring in a reassuring tone as she did:
“It’s OK, you’re OK, you’ve got this. You’ve done this a thousand times before, and you remember what to do now, right? Sure you do. First, get dressed again. You can do that, you do it every morning, so just do it again. Button up your blouse, tuck it into your skirt. Good. That’s good. Now a mirror.” She looked at herself, smoothed the material down. “Fix your hair. Better. No need to do anything about your makeup, but wipe around your eyes with a kleenex because you look like a goddamn panda. OK, good. Your lip is swollen but there’s no blood, so that’s something positive to focus on, huh? Now… shoes. You’ll feel better with shoes on. You always do.”
Jo stood there in front of the mirror, took in her fucking wrecked appearance. Well, it wasn’t great, that was for damn sure, but at least she looked whole. She examined her left cheek and saw that it wasn’t as red as she’d feared: her ear had taken the brunt of the slap. She covered that side of her face with her disastrous hair, swiped at her lip again, nodded in approval.
Only then did her numb mind actually click into thought and remember that someone was downstairs. She stayed still and silent and barely breathing in the dark room, hoping with everything that she had that they just went away, and soon.
Because she had to get her ass to a cash-only motel and plan her exit from her new life.
Tonight.
**
Silver was just putting all the receipts from his trip away in his desk drawer to give to Jolene the next day, when he heard what sounded like footsteps in the garage. He paused and glanced at the clock on the wall, figuring that it could be nobody but Jolene. Was the woman really working late on accounts again?
He stood up, crossed the tiny room, swung the door open.
“Hey,” he began – and he saw a man’s back bolting the hell out the side door. A strange man. A man who sure wasn’t one of his brothers and no way he was a customer, because none of the guys were here working on a vehicle.
So who the fuck was he?
“Hey!” he shouted now, hoping that the guy would stop, but no go. He was out and away, disappeared into the night. Silver briefly considered chasing him down, then decided against it… because the guy had come down the stairs from Jolene’s office.
Why the hell was he up there with her?
Suddenly, Silver had a crazed vivid vision of Jolene and this guy up in that dark office. Tearing each other’s clothes off, hands all over each other’s heated bodies. Him fucking her over her desk, on the sofa, on the floor. Her moaning his name (what the fuck was his name?), then screaming it as she came. The memory of her body clutching and spasming around his cock pierced him, took his breath away, and he was utterly enraged that some other man had seen and felt her like that.
No goddamn way.
He stormed up the stairs and practically ripped the goddamn door off its frame – and that’s when he
got eyes on her. His heart stopped dead in his broad chest as he took her in fully, as he really saw her.
Oh sure, at first glance and on the surface she looked well and truly like a woman who had just been soundly and roundly fucked. Her clothes were disheveled, her hair was tousled all sexily, her lips pink and bee-stung, her makeup was running and ruined – all the usual suspects of a wild and wonderful tryst.
But her face. Her body.
Jolene’s frightening stillness, her disquieting quiet. She was physically in the room but she wasn’t in the room; she had a blankness, a void, an absence. She looked like a woman who’d just seen a ghost, or the date of her own death, or her own soul. She looked destroyed.
Something had happened here.
Something fucking bad.
“Hey,” Silver said for the third time, gently now. “Jolene… you alright?”
She blinked and he watched her focus on him.
“Zeke?”
He paused at that, unsure how to proceed, decided to follow her lead and not force anything. “Uh – yeah. It’s me.” He took a step closer, watching her face to see if she showed any sign of fear, her body to see if she shrank back. “You OK?”
“I – I –” She gulped, looked down at herself. “I don’t know.”
“OK.” Silver kept his tone level and calm, even though he was already starting to feel anger at what had almost certainly happened up here: her swollen lip told him that in no uncertain terms. He gestured at the sofa next to her. “You want to sit down?”
“No.” She shook her head more vigorously than strictly necessary, her hair flying and falling away and the light catching her face. That’s when he saw the red mark high on her cheek, saw that her lip was starting to bruise.
Without a conscious thought, he immediately abandoned any intention of keeping his distance. Silver was furious, fucking furious, that anyone had dared to mark that perfect, smooth golden skin. He had to get close to her, had to inspect the damage for himself.
The Devil's Silver (The Road Devils MC Book 2) Page 21
