Stand (The Brazen Bulls MC Book 7)

by Susan Fanetti

  The room was dim and colorless, like a grainy black-and-white photograph, and Cecily rubbed her eyes, pushing the remnants of her aborted tears away and trying to clear her sight and her mind. When she looked again, the grain was mostly gone, but the color hadn’t really come back. Oh—it was raining. Needles of water hit the windows and washed out the color in the unlit space.

  If she was home, at Aunt Mad and Uncle Ox’s, what had she done to feel so bad?

  A knock on the closed door nearly shoved her out of her skin. Who was here with her?

  “Cecily? You okay?”

  She recognized but couldn’t place the voice. Still, it calmed her a bit; whoever it was, he didn’t seem like a threat. Also, now that she’d stopped, she comprehended that she’d been sitting here moaning. “Who the fuck are you?”

  No answer at first. Then, “It’s Caleb. Caleb Mathews.”

  There was a Bull here? That particular Bull? Why? What the fuck was going on?

  Oh man, had she fucked him again? That would explain why she was so sore between her legs—if they’d had an Olympic-size encounter. She clutched at the t-shirt she was wearing, a ratty one she wore for sleeping, when she was alone. That was all she was wearing, but at least she wasn’t naked. “What are you doing here?”

  Again, no immediate answer. “Can I come in? It’d be easier to talk if there wasn’t a door between us.”

  “No! No! Go away, please. Just go away.”

  “I can’t, Ciss. We really need to talk.”

  She despised him using that name. Her family called her that. Only her family. “I need you to fuck off.”

  “I can’t. I’ve got orders. I’ll…I’ll just stay out here and wait until you’re ready to come out.”

  Orders. From the club, he meant. The Bulls had put him on her for some reason. Fuck, fuck, fuck, double fuck, shit. What the hell had she done? She filled her lungs as full as she could and tried to take some calm in with the air, but she only managed to nauseate herself. As her stomach rolled and the room reeled, she threw the covers back and lurched to the bathroom, knocking the lamp from the dresser as she went.

  Then the door flung open, but she was too busy barely making the toilet to care. As she heaved, she felt hands at her hair, holding it back.

  Caleb Mathews, Brazen Bull, hunkered at her side and held her hair while she puked, her head in the toilet and her bare ass in the air. He said nothing. When her stomach was empty and had taken a break from its contortions, she rested her ass on her feet and her forehead on the toilet seat. “Please go away.” Her voice echoed against the porcelain walls of the bowl.

  “I can’t, Cecily. I’m not going. We have to talk.”

  Fucking bastard asshole Bulls. There was no way she’d win this fight, she was too sick to bring her A game, so he was going to get his way. She sighed and closed the lid, but kept her eyes closed. “Did I fuck you last night?”

  His hand twitched and tugged lightly at her hair. “No. But we really have to talk.”

  He was like a broken record. Finally, she looked at him. His face was creased with concern, his brown eyes nearly black in the shadow of his drawn brow. The luxurious fall of his straight black hair lay over one shoulder, gleaming even in the dim room.

  If she hadn’t fucked him, then who? Because she’d definitely fucked somebody.

  “What happened?”

  The furrows between his eyes became trenches. “We—”

  “Have to talk. Yeah, I got the message. Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

  “You really want to do that here?” With a sidewise nod, he indicated the bathroom.

  “No. Okay. I need a shower. Then I’ll be out.”

  “Okay.” He let go of her hair. “You okay?”

  “I have no idea. You seem to know better than me right now. So get out and let me shower, and we’ll talk.”

  He smiled—an expression of relief rather than amusement, but still his nearly perfect white teeth showed. “Okay.”

  Before he left, he flushed the toilet for her.

  When she stood, still feeling shaky and ill, she caught her reflection in the mirror above the sink. Good god. Makeup smeared every which way, her eyes sunk deep into their sockets, her complexion under the blotches of Lancôme as grey as ash. She had bad morning-afters all the time, but this one might be a blue-ribbon winner.

  She lifted her hand and ran it through the tangled skein of her hair, and then she saw her arm—the dark bruise near her elbow, the small dot of a scab at its center, the scattered sprinkles of tiny bruises in a band around her bicep.

  Oh god.

  ~oOo~

  After a quick, shaky shower that was more of a hose-off than a wash, and fully dressed in jeans and a not-ratty t-shirt, Cecily felt a bit more normal and a lot more worried. Parts of the night before had come back while she’d stood under the hot spray. Not enough to solve the biggest mysteries, but enough to give her a sense of why she’d lost a big hunk of the night.

  It was moments like these, sober and straight, feeling the ill effects of her stupidity, that she knew she was in trouble. The problem was, the more worried she was about what she was doing, the less she could deal with it, and then the whole stupid thing started over again. She had a long roster of nagging worries she couldn’t face. And they all went away with a glass or two of vodka, or a line of coke, or any number of ways she could forget her bullshit for awhile.

  She’d never shot forgetfulness into her arm before, though. That was a line she’d meant never to cross.

  She left her room and went down the hall to the kitchen—and stopped short at the doorway. The large kitchen and breakfast area was sparkling clean. It smelled of sour apples, the scent of the organic cleaning solution Maddie kept under the sink.

  Cecily had not left the room in this state. One of those nagging worries was her increasing slovenliness in Maddie and Ox’s dream house, but it weighed on her so much she couldn’t do anything about it, so it just got worse and worse.

  The breakfast table was clear of everything but her papers, which were stacked neatly before one of the chairs. Had Caleb read her poems? Her drafts of poems? Shit! Feeling more exposed than if she’d been naked, she practically jumped to the table and snatched up the pile, folding them in half and shoving them in a drawer of the sideboard.

  “Hey.”

  At Caleb’s voice, she wheeled around, her heart jumping like she’d been caught snooping, when he was the one who’d been rooting around where he didn’t belong.

  “Did you read those?” She slammed the drawer closed.

  His eyes landed on the drawer and sat there for a second, then slid up to her face. “No.”

  Her heart stuttered to a normal pace. “Oh. Who asked you to clean up?”

  “Nobody. But you’re a fucking slob, and this isn’t your house. When Maddie comes home, she’ll be alone. It’s shitty that you’re not taking better care.”

  It was; she knew that. She felt the guilt of her shittiness every second she was here. But she hated him to lecture her, like he was so much better than she was. He totally was better than she was, and she’d totally humiliated herself with him twice now, once in the clubhouse and again last night. Disgusted with herself and defensive, she lashed out. “Fuck you. Why are you here?”

  His mouth made something like a smile, but it was too hostile to really be one—same with the chuckle that accompanied it. “Sit. Let’s talk.”

  Pulling out the chair at her hip, she sat. He sat, too, across from her, looking way too good while she sat here looking and feeling like a microwaved turd.

  “What do you remember?” he asked, his voice gentler than she expected.

  Cecily closed her eyes and tried to draw a picture of the night before on the backs of her lids. “Um…I went out, to meet some work friends. We met at Tempest.” A dance club downtown. The kind of place with bubble machines and flashing neon lights.

  “And?” He tried to hide his eyeroll at the mention of the club, b
ut she caught it.

  And what? Clark had brought some acid. “We did a couple tabs.” Then her memories got typically swirly and surreal, but she was pretty sure they’d stayed at the club, because all those swirls were neon and bubbly—and then fell into a gaping blackness. “And then I don’t remember.” Tired of this crap, she flipped her wet hair off her shoulders. “You obviously know shit I don’t know, so just fucking tell me. Why the fuck are you here?”

  “Because you called me.”

  “What? How? Why would I?” Shit, had her fucked-up self acted on her stupid attraction to him that was all snarled up in her weird feelings about that night in the clubhouse? He was a Bull. She was supposed to hate him, and all the others, too. She wanted to hate him. She tried to hate him. It pissed her off that she couldn’t.

  Her confusion hurt him for some reason—she saw the ripple of it move across his face. “You were looking for Mav. But I guess I have the phone he had last or something. I don’t know. But you called, and said you needed help. You were seriously fucked up, Ciss.”

  “Don’t fucking call me that. That name’s not for you to use.”

  Again, he was hurt. “Sorry. Anyway, you didn’t tell me where you were before you hung up, so I called Apollo, and he did whatever he does—he found your phone, and we found you. At a drug house off 11th Street.”

  The room was closing in on her, and his voice had taken on a weird, echoing quality, but he wasn’t done. She gripped the edge of the table and heard the rest.

  “You were passed out, you still had the damn tube around your arm, and some scummy tweaker was all up in you. Jesus, Cis-Cecily. Shooting up? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  Okay, now she hated him. Also, she was going to be sick again. Yep, right now. Leaping up from the chair, she tried to run to the sink, but she didn’t make it and instead dropped to her knees and yarked on the floor. It wasn’t much, but it splattered over the grey stone tiles. Apparently, she’d last eaten a salad; flecks of lettuce floated in foamy bile.

  And there he was again, at her side, holding her hair back. “Who took you there, Cecily?”

  His touch made her skin crawl, and she yanked her hair from his grip and sat against the wall. She had no idea why she’d been at that place or how she’d gotten there, and it scared the hell out of her. She couldn’t deal with it while Caleb sat here looking all concerned and knowing way too goddamn much. “I need you to get the fuck out of here.”

  “I can’t go. I have to take you to the clinic.”

  “What? Why? Says who?”

  “Says Willa. And Apollo. And me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He stood up and went around the counter. As he pulled a long line of paper towels off the roll, he said, “Apollo and I found you. We brought you here, and called Willa. She took care of you last night. She said you need the clinic, because that guy last night wasn’t wearing a condom.”

  Dropping that bomb, he turned and wet the mass of towels. Cecily’s stomach threatened another revolt, and she leaned over, but nothing new came up. Puke had splattered on her clean jeans, she noticed.

  When he was back with the towels, she snatched them from his hand and cleaned up her own mess. Caleb let her and sat again at the table. He leaned on his knees and studied her.

  “What the hell are you doing, shooting horse? I know junkies. It’s ugly. That is not shit you want to get addicted to.”

  She wasn’t a junkie. She didn’t do heroin. And she wasn’t addicted to anything. “Why. Are. You. Here?”

  “Fuck you, Ciss. I’m trying to help here.”

  “Then get out. I need you to leave me alone.” She was going to lose her mind if he kept looking at her.

  “Not until I get you to the clinic.”

  “I can do that myself.”

  “No. Here’s the deal. I’m taking you to the clinic and making sure you get what you need. Then I’m taking you to get your car, if you can remember where you left it, and following you back here. Then, if I think you’re solid, I’ll go.”

  Her car. Fuck, where was her bag, her keys? Her phone? Why was he still looking at her? “Fuck off. I don’t need your help.”

  “The other option is Willa tells your mom about last night, and Apollo and me tell D. And we’ll add in the part about how you’re shitting all over Ox and Maddie’s house.”

  Goddamn motherfucking Bulls, acting like they ruled the world. Fucking murderous pieces of shit. Just what she needed, the whole bunch of them coming down on her head. And siccing her mother on her, too. “Fuck you. Fucking rat.”

  He laughed; it had that hostile twang again. “You know, for a poet, you sure suck at words.”

  She kicked his leg, putting all she could into it, but he just laughed harder. Asshole.

  ~oOo~

  The women’s clinic doctor, a woman not much older than Cecily, patted her leg and pushed her wheeled stool to the side of the examining table. She handed her a clutch of tissues. “You can sit up now.”

  Cecily wiped and sat up, arranging the pink paper covering over her cold legs and making sure the pink paper vest covered her boobs, too.

  “There’s some bruising and tearing. And two different kinds of hair that isn’t yours. If you need to talk to a counselor, or you need someone with you to talk to the cops, we’re here for that. We’ll help you every way we can.”

  “No, I don’t need that. I wasn’t raped.”

  The doctor very obviously didn’t believe her. “You said you blacked out. How can you be sure?”

  “I wasn’t fucking raped.” She probably totally had been raped, apparently more than once, but she couldn’t remember, and the thought that she’d been victimized was way worse than believing she’d been fucked up enough to want it. With her memory so conveniently blank, she might as well believe the easier thing. “I just need to make sure I didn’t get anything. Including pregnant.”

  Why Willa couldn’t have done all this for her, she didn’t know. She was like the Bulls’ Florence Nightingale, but she’d left Cecily to wake up alone and confused, with nobody but stupid Caleb and his stupid perfect hair to tell her what had happened and follow her around all day like her keeper.

  “Well, there’s definitely semen present. So we’ll put you on antibiotics, and get some tests done, and we’ll fill a script for Plan B. Take a pill before you leave today, and another before bed tonight. You’re going to need to come in regularly for an HIV test for the next few months.” The doctor sighed and pushed her cat’s-eye glasses to the top of her head. “Are you sure you don’t need to talk to someone? Maybe about why you blacked out?” She lifted Cecily’s bruised arm on her cold fingers like she was presenting evidence for the prosecution.

  Cecily jerked her arm away. “Can I just get the shot or the pills or whatever and go, please?”

  “Okay.” The doctor stood. “Go ahead and get dressed, and I’ll get your scripts and tests in order.”

  ~oOo~

  Caleb sat in the corner of the waiting room, flipping through an ancient magazine. Seeing her, he tossed it aside and stood.

  “Everything okay?”

  What a stupid question. “Yeah, everything is fucking awesome. Obviously.” She brushed by him and shoved the door open.

  “Cecily, hold up!”

  She ignored him and stalked down the corridor to the exterior door; then, seeing the armed guard and the metal detector, she did hold up. There was a whole gauntlet of idiots waving signs outside. They couldn’t get close to the building, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t shriek at her and call her names. On the way in, they’d begged her to turn around, but she’d seen how they’d treated a girl who’d been on her way out—to her, they’d shouted vicious things. Fuck.

  A woman in a bright pink t-shirt, with a walkie-talkie and a can of pepper spray clipped to her belt, came up and smiled. “Hi. I’m a clinic escort. I’ll get you to your car.”

  “That’s okay, I got her.” Caleb was at her side,
his hand on the small of her back, and for the first time that day, she didn’t want to squirm out of his reach.

  The escort spared him a glance and then focused again on Cecily. “Would you like me to go with you?”

  “No, thanks. We’re good.”

  “Okay. Don’t engage. Just walk straight to your car, and ignore them.” Again, she looked to Caleb. He wasn’t wearing his kutte, but he must have looked ready to rumble, because she made a point of staring hard into his eyes. “Don’t engage, understand?”