The look he gave her—if he’d been wearing glasses, he’d have been peering over them. “Which is it? Do you want me to get up and throw the condom away, or do you want me to stay here?”
“The condom can wait.” She held out her arms.
“I agree.” He settled at her side and tucked her under his arm. “I love this lounge.”
“I know. You think Aunt Mad and Uncle Ox have fucked on it?” That idea didn’t seem as weird as it probably should have.
“Seems like it was made for it. This whole back yard is like a private playground. They have neighbors, I know. I see the houses when I pull up. But you wouldn’t know it back here.”
“They like their privacy.”
“And God bless ‘em for it.”
Caleb’s club ink was on his chest, over his right pec. Cecily set her fingers on it and traced the lines of the design. It had a style she would have called tribal—but that had a different connotation with Caleb. But she didn’t know how to ask about it. He’d told her to ask anything she wanted, but she wasn’t ready to test that out.
She liked this man. When he’d sat beside her and told her that he liked her because she was sad and angry, at first she hadn’t believed him. Who would have? But he’d made her see it was true. He saw her, and he understood. That was sexier than his thick, long hair or his sleek skin or his deep, dark eyes.
She really liked him. He was a Bull, and she really liked him.
But the Bulls had killed her father.
Her head filled at once with echo and whine, and she pushed herself out of his arms and scooted to the end of the lounge.
The Bulls had killed her father. They’d killed her daddy. She turned her right wrist up and brushed her thumb over the tattoo there. The words Don’t be shy, in script, with the tail of the y making a flowing heart.
Don’t be shy. What her father had said her whole life as an invitation for a hug. His arms outstretched. Hey, cookie. Don’t be shy.
He was gone. Forever. Because the Bulls had killed him.
Maverick’s voice stepped into her head. A Bull, Ciss. A Bull killed him. And another one settled that score.
But the score wasn’t settled. How could it be? Her father’s life was worth more than Griffin’s. Her father had left more behind. His hole was so much bigger.
“Cecily?” Caleb’s hand brushed her back. She felt his gentle touch like a Taser, and she jumped to her feet.
The whine pressed at the edges of her head now, seeking cracks to leak through into the world. “I need you to go.”
He sat there, his face completely blank. He was naked, but he didn’t seem vulnerable or exposed at all. She, on the other hand, just as naked, was suddenly all raw nerves.
“No,” he said, simply. An assertion.
“What?”
He stood up. “No, I’m not going. You’re not throwing me out.”
She could feel herself unspooling. God, she hated this feeling, when everything everywhere, even her own brain, was beyond her control. And Caleb standing there, simply saying no. The control all his, none hers. “Fuck you! This is my place! I want you to go!”
“One, no, it’s not your place. It’s Ox and Maddie’s place, and I’m here because you were too much of a pussy to come in on your own. Clearly not your place.”
“FUCK. YOU!” Needing to feel that she’d made something happen, made some kind of impact, she swung at him, but he knocked her punch away and then snapped out his hands, grabbed her by her upper arms, and dragged her close.
“You’re not going to hit me, and I’m not going to hit you. We’re going to talk. Because two, I don’t know what the fuck happened in the past three minutes, but up until then, this was a damn good night. For you, too. I’m not giving that up.”
“That’s not your call to make!”
“Talk to me. Just talk to me. This was good. Just a few minutes ago, this was great. Tell me what changed.” He spoke quietly, even gently, but she could see his tension in the way it made his cheeks twitch.
Perversely, that helped—seeing that he was pissed. He had much better control over his emotions than she did, but he had them. She’d pissed him off. He wasn’t implacable. She’d had an impact, even if her punch hadn’t connected. The echo in her head settled down.
When she squirmed against his hold, he let her go, though she saw in his wary eyes the readiness to duck.
“You’re a Bull.”
A sliver of a smile broke through his clenched jaw. “That is not a change.”
“I remembered.”
That piece of smile disappeared. “I didn’t kill your father, Cecily. The man who did is dead.”
“It’s not enough.”
“I know. Nothing ever will be. There’s no way to balance one loss against another. Justice isn’t about that—I don’t care about the statue with the scales. Justice is about making right what you can so you can close the door. My family has been gutted by loss more than once. When I was seven, some idiot fell asleep at the wheel and killed six people in my family at once—all the women, every one. My drunk of a father ran out on us and died in a gutter somewhere. My grandfather’s father was murdered while my great-grandmother was pregnant, and he has been steeped in hatred for that injustice from the womb. He’s never going to be satisfied. He lives his life in that hate, and you can see it—it’s carved all over his face. He brought my brother and me up in it, and Levi is the same. I love them, I would die for them, or kill for them, but I can’t live like they do. The anger, I get. Anger is pure. It’s power. It’s action. The hate, though, it wears you down, keeps you down. There’s a better way to be, Cecily.”
He was like Maverick—full of powerful words, woven around all her doubts and stifling them, turning everything in his own direction. They’d silenced her head, and that scared her at the same time that it calmed her. “Why are you here?”
“I’m going to need you to stop asking that question, so here’s my final answer. I like you. I told you why. I want a chance to like you more. I’m here because I want to be.” He reached out again, this time brushing his fingers down the side of her arm. Gooseflesh rose up in his wake. “If you don’t want to see where this goes, if you don’t like me that much, okay. I’ll go, and that will be that. But I won’t get jerked around. And I won’t have you drive me out because I’m a Bull. You’re one of us. It’s in your blood more than mine. That’s you hating you, not me.”
“Fuck you.” She’d meant the words to have bite, but they came out with hardly more force than a whisper.
He grinned. “If that’s an offer, I accept.”
“You’re a dick.”
“Sometimes. Not to you. Not now.” His hand came up and cupped her cheek. “What do you want, Cissy?”
He’d called her by her family name again, but this time, it was comfort. “I don’t know. I want things to make sense.”
“That would be nice, yeah. What do you want right now?”
There was only one other answer. “Not to be alone.”
“You’re not.”
“Okay.” She let her head fall forward, onto his chest, and sighed when she felt his lips in her hair.
Her head was quiet. He was strong and warm, and his arms were around her, and she was quiet. She breathed.
Comforted, her frenzied, unfocused anger spent, Cecily finally stepped back. When she collected the courage to meet his eyes, she found him smiling, and he leaned in and kissed her gently. “Okay?”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, iňloňka. But don’t come at me with those claws first. I said you can ask me anything. You can tell me anything, too. Talk to me.”
“I’m not good at that.”
“But you’re a writer, right? Words are your thing?”
“Writing and talking…they’re nothing alike. They’re opposites.”
“Then write it out if you need to. I’ll read. Let me know you.”
God, could this be real? “You wan
t that?”
“Would I have stayed if I didn’t?”
Something had changed in Caleb, in the way he was with her. He was clearer, steadier, more in control. He’d found his footing with her. If only she could say the same. “I guess not.”
She wrapped her pareo around her chest, and Caleb pulled his jeans on—he was commando now. They gathered up the rest of their clothes, cleaned up the patio, and went inside. He took the trash and empty bottles to the garage while she put their few dishes in the dishwasher. When he came in, he stopped at the end of the hallway and leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. His biceps and pecs swelled just right, showing his strength, but not like he was carrying boulders under his skin.
He really was gorgeous. Sheesh.
“I’m out of condoms. You think I should run out and get some more?”
“You think you need more?”
“You tell me.”
“You got a hot date after this?” She made sure to hit a teasing note.
He heard it; a smirk snaked up one side of his face. “I thought I was on a hot date.”
“You think you’re hot shit, you mean.”
“No, I think you are.”
She smiled. “I think you might want to have another condom or two around.”
“You want to come with? Pick up some ice cream while we’re out?” He picked up his t-shirt from the table and pulled it on. Cecily was sorry to see his chest disappear under the cotton.
“Ice cream sounds great. We can get Ben & Jerry’s at the drugstore.”
“Perfect. Get dressed. Let’s take a ride.”
~oOo~
On her father’s old Fat Bob, the bitch seat had sat several inches higher than the saddle. Cecily had hooked her hands in her father’s kutte when she’d ridden with him, or set them on his shoulders. But the seat on Caleb’s Dyna Low Rider was only a couple inches up. She could, and did, loop her arms around his waist. She liked that, feeling his hips against her thighs, his belly under her hands. He liked it, too. At every intersection, he set his feet on the street and leaned back into her.
He’d wound his hair into a quick braid before they’d left, and she’d knotted hers into a messy bun with a hair tie. He’d tried to offer her his night-riding glasses, but she put her Ray-Ban aviators on. The dark lenses in the dark made the world feel intimate and safe, even as the air rushed into her face.
They stopped at the drugstore down the street. At the condom display, Caleb hooked his arm around her waist. “You have a preference?”
Her emotions were in chaos—happiness and fear and everything in between—and that was probably why the question hit her in the face with the giggles.
He frowned. “Hey, it’s a straight question.”
His serious response struck her funnier, and she could hardly stand for the gales of embarrassing laughter. He caught them as well, his frown softening, becoming a smile, then a chuckle, and, at last, he was laughing, too. “You’re nuts. What’s so funny?”
“I have no idea.” She picked up a box of three. “Ribbed for her pleasure? Or studded! Studs are good, right? I don’t know. I’ve never had studs. No, wait! Flavored.”
“Too sticky.” Laughing as much as she now, he picked up a box. “Magnum, baby.”
She made a show of evaluating his crotch. “I mean…it’s nice. At least a B+. Possibly an A-. But magnum? Really?”
“I’ll show you magnum.” Grinning, he tossed the boxes over his shoulder and shoved her against the shelves. The display rattled. His mouth came down on hers, and she was ready for him, so ready. She grabbed hold of his braid and hooked her leg around his, drawing his body to hers, reveling in the feel of his cock becoming an A+ and pressing hard against her.
“You want to back off her right now, Tonto.”
Caleb froze. His tongue withdrew slowly from her mouth, and he leaned back just enough so that she could see his eyes. Lust and humor had filled them only seconds earlier, but now she saw something in them she understood in her soul. Anger—the kind that lurked always in the corners, waiting, the kind that could not be vented away. Seething fury.
“Move along, buddy.” His voice pulsed with murder.
“I ain’t your buddy, Tonto. Get off the girl.” The guy’s tone changed. “You okay, sweetheart? You need help?”
They were in the land of gated communities. This was not where shit like this happened. The people around here might look down their noses when they saw something they didn’t like, but they whispered their bigotry. They didn’t get confrontational. Certainly not with a guy wearing a Brazen Bulls kutte.
Neither she nor Caleb had looked at their interrupter. They stared into each other’s eyes. Cecily said, “I’m great, but you’re going to need a lot of help if you don’t mind your fucking business, asshole.”
Silence.
Then, “I bet you make your father cry, whoring it up for an injun.”
Caleb lost his mind, but not the way Cecily would have. She flew into her rage; he walked into his. His eyes hardened like glass, and his expression became stone. He pushed away from her, pushed her back, turned to the asshole, and simply walked down the aisle toward him. The guy—he was in his forties, maybe, balding and beer-bellied, wearing a St. Louis Cardinals t-shirt, and didn’t look like a typical resident of a gated community—didn’t realize the trouble he was in until it was too late. He was taller than Caleb, and heavier, and maybe he thought that would keep him safe.
But Caleb was young and strong and furious. He stalked down the aisle and stopped right in front of the guy.
“What did you say to her?”
“Nothing she ain’t heard before.”
And then he was on the floor, his nose gushing blood. Cecily hadn’t seen Caleb move. The guy was standing, and then he was down, gasping, sputtering as blood came from him like a faucet on full blast. Single-serving bags of chips cascaded over him from the cardboard display he’d crushed in his fall.
When the guy tried to get up, Caleb kicked him in the gut, twice. “You stay down and you shut the fuck up, or I will feed you your own goddamn lungs, you redneck cocksucker.”
Then he turned and came back to Cecily. He stopped at the condom display and picked up one of the boxes they’d been laughing over. “I think ribbed for your pleasure.”
Taking her hand, as cool as if they’d simply made their selection and were ready to go, he led her to the front of the store. There were no other customers that Cecily saw. The guy at the desk—just a kid, maybe still in high school—stared at Caleb like Charles Manson had just set a box of LifeStyles on the counter.
“You got security cameras, right?”
“Y-y-yes. Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
Caleb pulled his wallet from his pocket. The chain dangled on the counter. “I need that tape.” He drew a hundred-dollar bill out.
The clerk glanced down, under the counter. “I…”
“Now, son.”
With a keen sense of self-preservation, the clerk took the tape from the machine and handed it over. Caleb gave him the hundred, and another ten for the condoms. Then he turned around.
“You see this patch on my back?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Caleb faced him again. “You know what happens when people talk about the Bulls?”
Just a frantic nod in response.
“Good. Then you’ll keep your mouth shut, yeah?”
Another frantic nod.
“Excellent. And...” Caleb made a point of examining the clerk’s nametag. “Jeremy, that asshole deserved it.”
Jeremy settled at once. “I know. I heard.”
“Good. You have a good night, Jeremy. Sorry about the mess.” He took Cecily’s hand again, and they walked out into the summer night.
Cecily was stunned and on fire. All those chaotic emotions she’d felt before? Now they were exploding. She was shaking. She was almost crying—no, she was crying.
Caleb walked so fast, pulling her along, still impell
ed by that calm fury, that they were at his bike before he realized the state she was in. He turned, ready to say something, and saw her tears. His expression softened, and he cupped her cheek. “Oh fuck, Ciss. I’m sorry. I just…when he…I’m sorry I scared you.”
“No—don’t be sorry.”
“Not this again. Jesus Christ, woman! When I fuck up, you have to let me be fucking sorry!”
“No! It’s not that! You didn’t fuck up. What you did—shit, Caleb. That was…that was beautiful. I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m not sad or scared or…I don’t know what I feel. I feel everything.” She grabbed the hand that had bloodied the man’s nose, brought it to her mouth, and kissed his knuckles. “I haven’t felt safe like that in years. God, I feel…don’t ask me right now if I love you.”
Stand (The Brazen Bulls MC Book 7) Page 14
