by A. J. Downey
“Shower and food?” Ethan asked. I nodded and he smiled. He stood up and stretched, and I drooled a little. God he was beautiful. Gorgeous in fact, all masculine planes and angles, body ridged in all the right places. He bent and scooped me up shrieking, throwing me over his shoulder cave man style and I laughed. I struggled a little and he swatted me on the ass, the light sting making me yip.
Before I could think to protest he was out the door and striding up the hallway, ducking us into the bathroom. I heard Dragon’s familiar masculine chuckle from further up the hall as Ethan shut the door behind us and I blushed furiously.
“Love you Babe.” He said with a rakish grin and started the shower. I put my hands on my hips and tried to put on a stern look but failed miserably.
We showered quickly and wrapped in the towels provided. Back in the room I donned my swimsuit which was a white bikini with cherries on it and pulled on a pair of olive green shorts over the bottoms. The shorts were very short and made my legs look longer than they actually were. I slid my feet into some white flip flops and found Ethan eyeing me from across the room. A pair of old dessert camo fatigues cut off just below the knee hung off his lean hips, that delicious muscular V shape disappearing into the waistband made me want to go peel the shorts off him.
“We keep lookin’ at each other like this we’re not going to make it to the party.” His voice was low and sultry and did things low in my body, but I really wanted to join the others so I put my sunglasses on my head and went for the door. Ethan shrugged his feet into a pair of black Nike skids and we went out, his hands resting lightly on my shoulders.
The cabin was deserted and we trudged down the drive towards the back deck of the lodge which was two stories. Underneath the deck, tables were lined out in the shade for sitting. Up on the large wooden structure’s second story the food and drink was being passed out. We went up and got our plates.
When my plate had a sufficient amount of barbeque ribs, green salad and an assortment of fruit we went back down stairs. I carried napkins and silverware, Ethan had two bottles of beer and a third bottle of hard lemonade for me. We found a seat at the table with Reaver, Chandra, Doc, Derek, Andy and Zander.
“Came up for air?” Doc asked smiling and I blushed Chandra smacked him in the shoulder.
“No seriously, that was hot to hear you two.” She said, unlit cigarette bobbing between her lips. She raised a Bic and lit the end sucking in a long drag.
“Thanks.” I mumbled, blushing deeply and cast my eyes down to my food. I could feel Reaver’s eyes on me as I ate. Ethan seemed perfectly comfortable and I thought about it. If he wasn’t embarrassed why should I be? I mean it wasn’t like I was ashamed of making love to him… I looked up as Dragon settled his bulk next to me. He cleared his throat and I looked up.
“I was wonderin’ if I could ask you somethin’.” He said.
“Sure.” I replied and set down my fork. I wiped my fingers on my napkin and gave him my full attention.
“Anybody tell you how the lake runs got started?” he asked gruffly.
“No, just that you do two, one in spring and one at the end of the summer…” I said.
“Well the summer run we’ve been doing longer but this one we’re on now, the spring run, is our memorial run. Tilly, that was my wife, she died around this time of year along with some of our brothers. Happened five years ago. We been doing this ever since as a way to sort of celebrate their lives and to remember.” The big man choked up and I did the only thing I could think of, I hugged one of his massive arms and waited for him to ask me whatever it was. I was already sure I would say yes. Dragon took a deep breath and pressed on…
“The last night we’re here, that’ll be Sunday night, we do a memorial service. Send some paper lanterns out on the lake, say a few words that kind of thing. I was wondering if you’d sing something.” He looked at me anxiously and I smiled.
“Of course, I’d be honored.” I said, even though my stomach was doing back flips at the thought of singing in front of so many people.
“What would you like me to sing?” I asked.
“Whatever you think is best, just not Amazing Grace. Tilly hated that song.” The look he gave me was so grateful it melted my heart. Dragon kissed the top of my head and I let his arm go.
“Thanks Sunshine.” He said and moved off, lumbering through the tables, the club’s logo on the back of his jacket stark on the plane of his broad back.
“Thanks baby.” Ethan said softly. The sentiment was echoed around the table.
“Of course.” I murmured and finished my meal.
Later on we were gathered around a large bonfire on the beach closer to the cabin. I leaned against Ethan’s chest, warm in the circle of his arms and stared into the flames, contemplating what I would sing in two nights. I settled on something and happy with my choice tuned into the conversation around me.
“Can’t wait to go shootin’ tomorrow.” Someone was saying.
“Oh yeah? Think you’re gonna take Trig?” someone asked.
“Gonna try.” He said. I looked up at Ethan but he was looking at the man, that cold gleam in his eyes. He’d gone still, so very still I wasn’t even sure his heart beat in his chest. He’d slipped into his own head and was looking the man who’d spoken over. Reaver jumped the log Ethan was siting against and settled in next to us.
“Got one of the prospects motoring across at dawn to set up the targets…” he proclaimed. I looked out into the dark. Across the lake from us was a high bluff and in front of the bluff a strip of beach but it was awfully far away… like ridiculously far away.
“How big are the targets?” I asked.
“We use melons. Closest thing to a human head.” Reaver grinned and I quailed.
“How can you hit something the size of a melon from the beach here?” I asked.
“Oh we don’t shoot from the beach baby we shoot from the deck.” Ethan said softly and the cadence of his voice was strange. Low and concentrated, almost mechanical. He wasn’t Ethan anymore, this was Trigger. I shivered and that seemed to snap him out of it.
“You cold?” he asked and just like that, my Ethan was back.
“No…” I said and he frowned. He kissed the top of my head and cuddled me in closer anyway and I sighed, a happy woman.
“We have a shooting range set up out that way for hand guns and to throw knives too.” Reaver grinned and indicated a path leading back into the woods alongside the lodge opposite the cabin. I nodded.
“I want to teach you gun safety and how to shoot this weekend.” Ethan said, “We got ‘em in the house, you need to learn how to be safe around them.” He proclaimed and I didn’t argue, I thought it was a good idea.
“Okay.” I said softly.
We went to bed around midnight, the day promising to be a busy one. I got up before Ethan and went for a swim about the time that two prospects loaded into a motor boat with supplies and took off across the lake. I came back up onto shore and Ethan folded me into a towel.
“Ready to watch your man show off his sniping skills?” he asked me. I blinked.
“Are you sure you’re okay to?” I asked.
“Yeah Babe, I love shooting. Don’t get to very much anymore. Enough booze and sex tonight and the nightmares should stay away. Up for it?” he asked grinning.
“Well when you put it that way…” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes, but I let him lead me up to the deck. I quickly realized I was the only woman present.
“Ready? One two three!” Reaver, Zander and Dray muscled a wide picnic table up against the railing, and Ethan climbed up on it, laying down on his stomach.
“Yep that’ll do.” He bounded up and started assembling a weapon from what looked like a pile of little pieces. Derek was fiddling with a bunch of scopes next to him. Reaver came up behind me where I stood dripping on the deck, it was still cool right now but was promising to be a hot day. He hugged me and I leaned back into him.
“What are
they doing?” I asked in a whisper.
“Trigger’s putting his rifle together and Loyal is calibrating equipment, he’s going to spot for him.” I let Reaver keep me warm while I watched what my lover and his friend were doing. I swallowed hard. Ethan was methodical, more sure than I had ever seen him, totally aware and it was a little frightening to watch.
He positioned the rifle, a nasty piece of work, on a stand on the table and did some final checks. Derek set up a scope on a tripod next to Ethan and both of them got onto the table.
Derek started rattling off some technical jargon at Ethan in a low controlled voice. I watched them fascinated. Ethan was so still that if I didn’t know any better, I would say he’d perished.
Reaver handed me some binoculars and I tried to see across the lake to what they were aiming at. Even with the aid, it still looked far away. A line of melons on what looked like fence posts sat on the spit across the water. Derek gave a command and the rifle cracked, I jumped. Ethan called his shot and I watched the melon explode in a fine pink mist. I felt chilled to the bone.
“That was a catastrophic brain injury if I ever saw one.” Reaver said grinning and I looked up to see him peering through a set of binoculars of his own. The shot was impressive but also terrifying. Ethan lined up his next one and Derek walked him through it. I didn’t watch this time.
Both Derek and Ethan were emotionless, quick and efficient and it was scary. Reaver hugged me around the shoulders and smoothed a hand up and down my towel covered arm. He smiled down at me reassuring and I gave him a brave smile back. I watched Trigger take the place of my beloved and marveled at his skill. He didn’t miss a single shot and I couldn’t even fathom how far away we were from the targets.
Finally he stood up, and began disassembling and cleaning his weapon. His cold silver eyes met mine and something passed between us. His look said “I’m a killer,” but in the same breath it was like the sun came out behind his gaze and it said “…and I’ll use it to protect you.” When he was done with putting everything away he came to me and wrapped me up in his warm embrace.
“I love you Baby.” He said.
“I love you too.” I answered.
“Scare you?” he asked.
“Yes.” I said honestly and I felt his heart drop through his thin tee shirt.
“We okay?” he asked tentatively kissing the top of my head and I could tell he feared the answer. I looked up into his ghostly silver eyes and smiled.
“Absolutely.” I said, and I meant it and I could see the apprehension drain out of him. I could accept this part of him. I would accept this part of him, even as frightening and alien as it was to me.
“I think you’ll feel better once I put a gun in your hands and you know how they operate.” He said judiciously.
“Okay.” I said softly. He kissed me. People had crowded the beach, watching by the time he was finished and I saw Shelly waving at me.
“Go on, have some girl time.” He said grinning and I smiled back grateful.
She and I slathered on her Goth block sunscreen and sat out on towels talking. Chandra joined us tanning and the dark clouds brought on watching Ethan shoot slowly drifted away. Several others took their shots at sniping throughout the morning but once again, Ethan was declared the best shot. We did breakfast and went and watched Reaver and several others compete at throwing knives. Reaver was just as terrifying to watch with a blade as Ethan had been behind the scope of his sniper’s gun. Reaver was deadly accurate and as feral as anything I had ever seen and that included Chadwick in one of his more dispassionate moods.
When the knife throwing was done and Reaver declared the winner, Ethan, Reaver and Dragon took me aside.
“Time to learn how to shoot.” Ethan said.
The three of them went over gun safety. How to always check and see if a firearm was loaded, how to always assume one was loaded when I found one. They went through taking one apart and putting it back together. How to load it and make it ready to fire and finally how to aim properly.
Ethan showed me how to fire, how to start low, let the kick bring my arms up for the next shot and so on. Most importantly he taught me how to breathe. I fired two clips, or thirty shots and got more than half onto the paper target and more than half of those in the black area. Everyone agreed that it wasn’t bad for a first time shooter and a girl but I think they were just trying to keep me from feeling bad.
Lunch was served and Ethan went swimming with me. Finally it was time for dinner and the guys were getting amped up and excited again. Talking animatedly about who was going to take who and whatnot.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Saturday night fight night.” Reaver explained, grinning.
“Oh.” I said and looked at Ethan, he smiled sheepishly.
“It’s tradition.” He explained.
A circle was being drawn on the beach and I realized they were seriously going to fight… I paled.
“Ethan no…” I whispered.
“Hey it’s okay babe. No one ever gets anything other than a minor cut or bruise.” He kissed me softly and despite my misgivings I nodded cautiously.
“Besides, most of us are too drunk to feel it anyways.” Reaver said grinning impishly and I rolled my eyes.
“That is so comforting!” I exclaimed.
True to his word, by the time men started squaring off inside the circle in the sand ringed with tiki torches, most of them were too lit to actually land a punch. Finally Dragon and the only guy in the MC big enough to match him, a man they called Moose, entered into the ring.
Both were shirtless and both looked pretty sober as compared to the others who had faced off. They grappled, they punched they kneed each other in the face and they were just scary brutal. I quailed, and became frightened for Moose at one point. Dragon punched him a good one to the jaw and Moose sprawled out on his back into the sand. Dragon let out a primal bellow at the crowd and I blinked. Now I knew where he’d gotten the nick name Dragon. He looked like a Dragon when he let out that bellow, he certainly fought like one too.
The crowd cheered and Ethan kissed the top of my head. Moose was dragged off to the side where Doc was tending to the fighters and I was glad he was here. Data got into the ring, he was serving as the de facto announcer.
“Who wants to see a marine in action?” he asked the crowd and I sighed.
The crowd went nuts.
“Who wants to see two marines in action!?”
The crowd went double nuts.
Derek got into the ring and Ethan squared off across from him. Both of them wore just their shorts. Ethan’s hair was pulled back into a loose pony tail, the firelight gleamed satiny off their skins. Ethan’s pale, freckles brought out by the sun across his broad shoulders. Derek turning a deep tan. I closed my eyes and decided I loved Ethan but that now would be a very good time to use the bathroom. I waved at him and indicated my need to pee in an unladylike and fairly childish manner.
He laughed, pointed at me, blew me a kiss and made a shooing motion with his hand. I shook my head, rolled my eyes dramatically, dipped a curtsey and went in the direction of the cabin. I could hear cheering and jeering from the shore all the way up on the porch and slipped into the building. I used the restroom washed my hands and was on my way out the cabin door when I ran headlong into a solid wall of muscle covered in black leather.
“Oh! I’m sorry!” I cried as hands gripped my upper arms to keep me from falling. I backed into the wall to the side of the door and looked up into Dray’s ominous dark eyes.
“Hey Sunshine.” He slurred my nickname and the way it came out sounded more like ‘Shunshine’. He hadn’t let me go yet and I stilled.
“So you’re Trigger’s Old Lady now huh?” he said, a cruel grin twisting his lips. I scoffed.
“I’m not old!” I said laughing lightly. He cocked his head to the side.
“So you don’t belong to Trig?” he asked and swayed a little unsteady on his feet.
> “Ethan wants me to be my own person.” I said brightly, a creeping dread stealing between my shoulder blades. Dray dipped his head to bring us eye to eye.
“If you don’t belong to Trigger than you’re anybody’s meat.” He bit the last word off in my face and my heart sank.
“Dray let me go, you’re scaring me.” I tried.
“I’m a scary guy.” He said and crushed his mouth over mine. I recoiled as he forced his tongue past my teeth, the bitter bite of stale booze and cigarettes flooded my mouth and I winced. I tried to shove him but he was bigger and outweighed me. I made a noise of protestation and felt hot angry tears well in my eyes.
I wanted him off me! I tried to bring my knee up between his legs but he deflected. I struggled and screamed into his mouth and finally I bit savagely down on his lower lip. He yelled and jerked his head back and I tasted blood.
“Stupid bitch!” his hand flew out and landed in a stinging slap across the left side of my face. I opened my mouth and screamed in fear, the sound long and loud and piteously high and I prayed someone, anyone would hear it in time…
Beefy hands covered in a smattering of dark hair across the knuckles captured Dray by the shoulders and pulled him backwards off of me. He flew down the steps and landed hard on his back and I looked down into the tempestuous eyes of his father.
Oh no. My heart sank.
Chapter 21
Trig…
It didn’t even occur to me anything was wrong. One second I’m throwing a jab at Derek and the next Dray is sprawling at my feet. I looked up and over from the direction where he came from to see Dragon, and he was fucking heated. Just behind him Ashton stood hugging herself, looking dazed, eyes wide and glimmering with tears, the outline of a red handprint across her jaw and cheek.
Derek caught me in the mouth with a half pulled punch and I leaned back from it. I was already moving in Ashton’s direction.
“Babe what happened?” I asked her and she launched herself at me, small arms going around my waist where she could reach. She sobbed into my chest and Dragon looked sorrowful.
