MALICE (A HOUNDS OF HELL MOTORCYCLE CLUB ROMANCE)

by Nikki Wild

  “I went to check on Jackal in his room.” Clear as day, I could see in my mind the other club members waiting downstairs for our leader to make his big entrance before our nightly ride to make sure the townspeople knew we meant business. I could smell the leather cuts rubbed slick with sweat, the faint, sharp aroma of gasoline that cut through damn near everything we touched. Gasoline and motor oil. We wore them like goddamn cologne.

  “He was taking his sweet-ass time getting up. The whole damn club was stuck with their thumbs up their asses, so they sent me up to get his ass out of bed. We all figured he was still hungover from the night before, since the bastard drank like a fish. But when I opened the door… that was the least of my worries.”

  I wished like hell I could forget what happened next. I wished I could erase all memory of it, wished I could take the afterimages seared into my retinas and pretend it had never happened. No, that wasn’t fair—I flat-out wished it had never happened. Because as much as what I’d walked in on disturbed the shit out of me, I knew the ones who’d suffered through it had it way, way worse.

  “I saw Jackal on the bed,” I began, stomach already churning at the thought of having to say these things out loud, “on top of this girl I’d seen around the motel, which under different circumstances wouldn’t have been weird—the prez is the big boss. Our fearless leader. He can do what he likes, y’know? Even if it breaks the rules he sets for everyone else. Thing was, though… the girl he was sweating over…” I wet my lips; they felt so cracked and dry. “She couldn’t have been a day over fifteen.”

  Lucy physically recoiled in my arms, and I couldn’t blame her. I’d had a very visceral reaction to the scene myself. That girl’s eyes—I could still see them. So wide. So full of fear. Her lip gloss was smeared over the lower half of her face where Jackal had clamped his hand down on her mouth to keep her from screaming. Sweat and tears had made her heavily applied eyeliner and mascara run, and the black streaks crackled when she turned her head to look at me, her vacant gaze hollow but pleading.

  “I lost it,” I continued, looking down at Lulu. I instantly regretted it; the second our eyes met, that young girl’s face transposed over Lucy’s and bile rose in my throat. “I lost my fucking mind. There’s a lot of shit I can overlook, a lot I can live with, but rape? And of a minor?” I shook my head. “Hell no.”

  “What did you do?” she asked me, lips pulled into a grimace. “I mean… he was your leader…” I could see the gears turning in her head. I knew she was thinking of Delfino, about all the shit he’d pulled and the fact that it seemed like no one had tried to stop him. Lord help that man if he’d done anything like that to Lucy. I doubted that he had, given how icy he was, but still…

  “I beat the living shit out of him, Lucy,” I said with a sneer. It wasn’t directed at her, but at the image of Jackal’s devilish grin as he asked if I wanted to call dibs on seconds—and then his incredulous snort when he’d told me that she’d wanted it. Old enough to bleed, he’d begun, but I hadn’t let him finish that sentence. “I tore him off of that girl and beat him to a bloody pulp right then and there.” If I thought on it hard enough, I could still feel his flesh tearing under my knuckles, feel the crumbling of his bones.

  “Before I knew it I heard the others coming upstairs after me, wondering what was happening, what all that screaming was… When they saw me standing over Jackal, I knew there wasn’t anything else I could do but run. So that’s what I did.”

  Hot shame washed over me, prickling my cheeks and the corners of my eyes. I felt like such a fucking coward for not sticking around, for failing to ensure that girl was safe. It reminded me all too sharply of how I’d failed Lucy, especially when she looked at me so uncomprehendingly.

  “I don’t understand… Why didn’t you just tell them what had happened? Why didn’t you explain?”

  “Because when you’re in a motorcycle club, things don’t work like that,” I told her, rubbing the back of my neck. “I know it sounds bad, but you’re not there to question authority. I mean, you are… just not authority outside of…” I hesitated. The more I put into words the dynamic that existed between Jackal and the rest of the MC, the worse it sounded. “Let’s just say loyalty means a whole damn lot to people like them.”

  “I thought you joined the club for a chance at freedom.”

  I sighed. “So did I.”

  We stood in silence for a while as I let those memories seep out of me, rejecting the poison they made bubble in my veins. Though Lucy’s line of questioning had given me pause, the last thing I needed to be thinking about right now were my former brothers-in-arms. What was going on here, now, in Pleasant Lakes—that was what was important. Not the past. Just our future.

  “You can’t go back,” Lucy whispered to me. “After what you’ve done, you can’t go back to your club ever again. Can you?”

  I shook my head, despair tugging at my heart. “No. I can’t ever go back there again. Shit…” I forced a rueful laugh. “One of the guys even took a shot at me while I was riding away.”

  She breathed a sigh. “I won’t pretend to understand it, Leo. That world and its rules—I don’t get it. But I’m… I’m sorry. Sorry because I know they meant so much to you. Like family.” She looked away from me. “Sorry that you’re all alone in the world now.”

  I pulled her back around to face me, caressing her cheek, looking down into her eyes. With a shake of my head, I whispered, “I’m not alone, Lucy. For the first time since I walked out on you, I’m not alone. I’m here, with you, exactly where I oughta be. The rest of it… I’m ready to leave it behind.”

  It was true. I was ready to leave behind all the bad and start over with Lucy. Ready to disconnect myself from the world I’d once considered my home, if it meant I could have her in my arms every day and night. None of that other shit mattered anymore. I wanted a chance at something more than bad memories and stolen moments. I wanted to put down roots somewhere. I wanted a house and a home.

  And that was saying something. The idea of home never meant much to me, not before Lucy. She’d changed so much for me in that short time we’d spent together, and now that we were reunited, I found myself wanting her all the more. I wanted to give her the kind of life she deserved from the kind of man who deserved her. If that meant hanging up my helmet and letting my Fat Boy rust, well… so be it.

  I kind of hoped it wouldn’t, though. Secretly, I hoped I could have my cake and eat it too. That I could find both my freedom and my family in Lucy. That against all odds, I could satisfy both parts of myself. Maybe that was selfish. But with Lulu in my arms, anything and everything felt possible. Once we were out of here… who knew what the horizon held for us?

  There was only one way to find out. But how long could I keep playing this game? How long before I did to Delfino what I’d done to Jackal? Could I really keep the beast of my anger at bay long enough to see us through this? We were already playing with fire, and I couldn’t help but wonder: how long before we got burned?

  Twelve

  Lucy

  “When will you be back?” I asked from the doorway as the old man walked to his car. I honestly couldn’t care less how long he stayed away. I had Leo to keep me company, someone who wouldn’t treat me like an object to be given away to whatever man he deemed worthy.

  “Don’t worry about that, Lucy,” Delfino said, looking at me over his shoulder. “I may not be back home until after midnight.”

  It wasn’t as though Delfino had never stayed out late before. But he’d been out of the house more and more often lately. Something had to be going on—one of his pet projects, if I had to guess.

  I saw him out.

  “Fuckface is gone again?” Leo asked, wrapping his arms around my waist as I closed the door and secured the deadbolt, despite how futile such a gesture was. Delfino had the key—Delfino had all of the keys. “What’s he up to?”

  “No idea,” I muttered, breathing in Leo’s thick, masculine scent—God help and
forgive me, I loved every nuance of it.

  He smelled a little like oil and black leather with a sharp note of gasoline—even after having been away from his bike for so long, it clung to his skin like it was just another part of him, along with an undertone of grease. Dark currents of very strong coffee taken black, no cream, no sugar; he’d only just had some, and I’d smiled as I placed it in his hands, not because Father wanted me to but because seeing Leo first thing in the morning was the only kind of heaven I ever wanted to know.

  There was something otherworldly about his fragrance too—a static charge that excited the atoms around him just a little. On his fingertips, beneath his nails, he carried the distant memory of cigarette smoke, making it hard for me to resist putting them in my mouth to lick them clean and scentless. Leo smelled like bad decisions and rock bottom and tragedy and lessons learned in the worst ways, and when I kissed him, his lips stung like vodka and burned all the way down just the same. It was irresistible.

  “But the way he’s acting.,” I continued, a flash of cold concern overcoming the heat starting to flare in my core. “…Lately, he’s not sticking to any pattern. He’s become erratic, but… smug about it. Like he’s dropping breadcrumbs he knows I’ll never pick up on. Hints at a future I’m not sure I ever want to see, let alone be a part of.”

  Leo threaded his strong fingers through my hair, followed by a gentle pull which sent a wave of pleasure crashing through me from the top of my head and right down into my hips. I loved the way he pulled on my roots, held them so strongly. Kinky as hair-pulling might sound, it made me feel safe, secure in the knowledge that I was being held by someone who would never truly harm me.

  “I won’t let him do anything to you, Lulu,” he whispered in my ear, his hot breath fanning the ember I’d been resisting for day snow. I couldn’t help sucking in my breath, my teeth catching softly on my bottom lip.

  “I… I know,” I murmured, looking up into his eyes. Everything I’d ever feared melted away under the scrutiny of his gaze, my heart hammering away the longer I indulged in staring at him. It felt like minutes passed when I knew it had been seconds. He never looked away from me. Each time he held my eyes like this, it was like he was reading me somehow. Like I was an open book and my thoughts, my desires, were little more than ink on a page.

  Stop! I demanded of myself, even as my hands slipped down to his sides, fingertips grazing each of his ribs, playing over them reverently like I was caressing the strings of a harp. What if Delfino finds out?

  But that thought only made the idea more exciting, just as it had that first night I’d lain with Leo. My palms were sweaty, mouth dry, a kind of nervous elation pulsating through my body. I wanted him so badly, to feel his skin slide wetly, effortlessly against mine. I still felt that draw, that deep, primal bond that could only come with someone who had been your very first, both physically and emotionally.

  “We… we should try to behave ourselves,” I said, my voice tremulous and weak as I felt his warmth against my body, the clench of his hands at my waist. I remembered the way those hands held me tight as he rode me to my very first climax with a man. “If Delfino comes back, then we’ll…”

  “We’ll what?” he asked, his breath rolling over my skin like a wave of scalding water over a cool, barren beach. “We’ll do something you just might enjoy?”

  I tried not to smile, tried not to let the color rise in my cheeks as I thought of all the ways that Leo had made me moan and writhe underneath him that night. I certainly had enjoyed it, more than I’d ever enjoyed anything in my life. And if I was truly honest with myself, I wanted to feel it again.

  “But we’ll be found out,” I whimpered, chewing on my bottom lip anxiously. Despite my protests I couldn’t stop myself from pressing against Leo even more, my hands roving over his abs. “Delfino will know.”

  “Only if we tell him,” he said, his hands sliding up underneath my blouse and up my back, goosebumps rising all down my arms as he grasped my shoulder blades and pulled me close. When my body drew up against his, I could feel a growl rumble in his chest. “C’mon, Lu. Stop thinking of what he wants. Tell me what you want. I wanna know.”

  “I don’t know,” I moaned, looking up into his eyes as he leaned in and pressed those soft, scorching lips against mine. His heat infused my body and settled between my thighs, followed by a distinct, distantly remembered slickness. “Please don’t ask me that. I can’t… I don’t know.”

  There’d been no one else since Leo left me. Delfino had seen to it that I never got physically close to anyone, but there wasn’t even a boy I’d pined for from afar. Even when I tried to forget Leo, there was simply a void I carried around inside me that was shaped like him. No one else had ever fit.

  “Yes you do,” he whispered to me, his eyes boring into mine as he began to lift my blouse up, exposing my stomach, gooseflesh rising wherever his skin brushed against mine. “You’ve always known. No matter how hard people have tried to beat it out of you, you’ve never let go of your desires.”

  “My desires?” I scoffed, squirming as Leo grazed the heels of his palms down my sides. “I’m not allowed to have those.”

  “But you do.” His eyes glinted darkly, embers smoldering. “I know it. You know it. You’ve tried to be good and play the part of the empty vessel, the dutiful daughter, sure. But never ‘cause you wanted to. Only ‘cause you had to. But Delfino’s gone now, Lucy. He’s out the door and a million miles away, for all it matters. It’s just us. You can put your armor down and tell me: what do you want?”

  “I…” I began, the rest of the words dying before they could leave my lips. I wanted him. I wanted Leo, and I wanted him more than anything else in the world, but there was something underneath that want, something simmering and urgent. Something that filled me with such yearning it bordered on melancholy—an ache that grew steadily sharper with each passing moment.

  “Christ, Leo…” I answered at last. “I want… I want to feel.” And perhaps that would have been enough, for it would have been true, but there was more to it than that. I dragged my lower lip into my mouth and said, “I want to feel safe.”

  “Safe,” Leo repeated, the husk of his voice getting lower and harsher as he lifted my shirt up and over my breasts. “I can do that, Lucy. You know I can. Question is… how bad do you want it?” He cocked a brow. “Bad enough to take a risk?” He gathered the fabric and tugged up, placing it under my chin, around my throat. “Bad enough to break the rules?”

  This time, I answered him only by lifting my arms above my head. He regarded me a moment—the fire in my eyes, the set of my jaw. And then he pulled my blouse free of my head, bent, and swallowed my gasp with the hard press of his mouth.

  I wasn’t sure how we managed to make it up the stairs, the way the both of us were entwined, our hands ranging over one another’s bodies, pressing one another against the walls. I let out a loud, keening cry Leo stifled with another kiss as he slipped beneath the band of my skirt and down between my thighs, feeling for my damp desire. His fingers found my clit, rough pads abrading those nerves so deliciously. It was like he’d never left. It was like our first night together was just the night before. He hadn’t forgotten one damn thing about my body.

  I was powerless to resist him. He was like a force of nature. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  By the time we reached Leo’s room, I was panting, my breasts straining, threatening to overflow the cups of my bra. His hot, callused fingers explored between the folds of my wanting sex, and my cheeks flushed as an electric shiver ran from the base of my skull to the bottoms of my feet, my hands scrambling for purchase on something, anything, to keep me from toppling over the edge of what felt like insanity.

  My skirt fell from the curve of my hips, leaving me more exposed to a man than I’d been since Leo. I was both embarrassed and elated by the fact that he could see almost all of me, my body laid almost completely bare in front of him for him to devour with his eyes—and perhaps ev
en more than that.

  “Lulu,” Leo moaned against my neck as he swept his lips over it. “Goddammit, girl, I’ve missed you.”

  “I need you,” I whined in reply, chewing on my bottom lip. “You have no idea what it’s been like. How alone I’ve been… I…”

  Before he could answer, I reached around behind me, undoing the clasps of my bra and letting it fall to the floor, panting as the cold air inspired my nipples to attention. Leo pulled back enough to glance down, brows lifted, and wet his lips with a dart of his tongue. I’d never seen a man look so hungry in all my life.

  With a shove, he drove the backs of my knees into the edge of his bed and I fell onto the mattress with a delighted shriek. He hushed me with a grin as he crawled over top of me, reminding me that while Delfino wasn’t here to catch us, the neighbors might have something to say about a series of impassioned moans coming from next door.

  My breath caught in my throat as he dipped his fingers into the band of my panties, peeling away the soaked fabric from the velvety folds of my pussy. The open air made my hips give an involuntary buck; Leo captured them as they rose, thumbs pressing into the twin pressure points inside my hip bones.

  “Don’t stop,” I gasped, but he shook his head at me. My face twisted in confusion. A small pit of dread opened in my stomach. “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re moving too fast,” he answered. The low, gravelly timbre of his voice made my hips jump again and he snickered. “Slow it down some.”

  I huffed. “You make it sound like I’m some overeager schoolgirl.”

  His eyes gleamed. “Well, you’re kind of acting like one.”

  “That’s not fair!” I declared, slapping the bed for emphasis. “I want you! It’s been so long!”

  “I know,” Leo assured me, lowering my hips, hands on either side of my body now. “So what’s a little longer, huh?”