Alex’s sneering face flashed through my mind, and I pushed Liam away.
“The fuck?” Liam muttered.
I buried my face in my hands as my mind whirred. I saw Alex in the liquor aisle with my name on his arm. Alex’s face gave way to Bonnie’s, her lips forming a warning. “Don’t let Shayna find out.”
“Am I your old lady?” I blurted out.
“What?”
I picked my face up out of my hands and repeated the question. Liam’s brow furrowed as he processed what I’d just said.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Why aren’t you answering the question?”
Liam hitched himself off of the couch and took a few steps forward, scratching the back of his head. “You know where we stand, Aspen.” He dropped his hand and turned around to look at me.
“So I’m your old lady, then?”
Liam shifted uncomfortably on his feet.
“Am I?”
“No. Aspen—”
Liam caught me as I tried to run for the door. He held my arms to my sides, forcing me to look at him. “You know how I feel about you. But an old lady...that’s serious to us. That’s what happens before marriage.”
“No, an engagement happens before marriage,” I said. “I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m only asking if I’m your old lady.”
“Then the answer is no.”
I wrenched my arms out of his hands. Liam exhaled loudly in frustration.
“What do you want from me, Aspen? We only just met, what, a month ago? And dating for less than that? So sue me if I want to take things slow.”
I tipped myself forward onto my toes, meeting his eyes. “If I’m not your old lady, what am I?”
Liam opened his mouth and closed it. He looked like a fish as he searched for words. “You’re my girl, Aspen.”
I scoffed. Rage flooded through my system as I recalled Liam driving me home that first night, putting his hand on my knee, and taking my clothes off. I saw the moment with so much clarity this time. I’d just been another girl to charm, another girl to lay. Sure, we’d ended up together, anyway, but everything that happened after was just circumstantial.
I took a step backward, really seeing Liam for the first time. Tatted up with his broad shoulders, his ripped, stained jeans, his stubbly jaw. He was used to girls fawning over him, falling down at his feet one after the other. He didn’t have to try very hard; they all came to him. He was so much like Alex.
And I was seeing it all too late.
“Aspen, talk to me!”
I struggled with the lock on the door and managed to fling it open. The barbeque was still going strong, and nobody noticed me bisecting the parking lot to the bank of motorcycles on the other side.
“Take me home,” I said to Liam just as he caught up to me.
“Shayna won’t take this well—”
My temper flared. “I couldn’t give less of a fuck about Shayna,” I hissed.
Liam looked shocked. He handed me his helmet without saying a word.
* * *
“You love me, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Then do what you’re told.”
I stifled a sob. “I can’t, Alex.”
Alex’s hand whipped out, gripping my wrist. He dug his nails into my skin. “You know Ricky, right? You know he hits his girlfriend? I don’t hit you, Aspen, yet you still can’t even do one fucking thing for me?”
“I’m sorry!”
“Good.” Alex pulled my arm straight, exposing the vein. “Good girl.”
I shook as I felt the initial pinch of the needle going in and shut my eyes. Alex breathed heavily as he pushed something into my system. I was afraid. I was a beginner and afraid it would kill me. But Alex reassured me that he knew what he was doing. He was a professional.
“Good girl,” Alex kept murmuring. He unwound the tourniquet from my arm, and my hand tingled as blood rushed back down.
Then, I felt a grand whoosh of cold, sweet ecstasy. The world looped around me, and I fell back on the bed, watching the ceiling turn and spin.
Alex unbuttoned my pants and pulled them off. He worked on my panties. Instead of moving onto his own clothes, though, he walked to the door.
“She’s ready to go,” he said.
A stranger stepped through the door and handed a stack of cash to Alex. Another followed him, and another, and another...
In the background, I heard the tick-tick-sputter of a Mustang’s engine—
I jerked upright. My hands roamed through the empty sheets, searching for phantom bodies.
Tick-tick-sputter
Light cut in through the window and moved across the wall as a car passed by outside. I shook my head, still dazed from waking up. Blood rushed in my ears, as if...
No, I told myself. I wouldn’t even think of it. I could still hear the screams, my screams. I concentrated on the sound of my breath falling in and out of my body, healthy and strong. This was the new Aspen. I was alive, and that was all that mattered.
My eyes slid across the window of Buddy’s Sports Bar, counting the cars in the parking lot. A college football game played in the corner, filling the otherwise empty restaurant with ambient noise.
“Earth to Aspen?”
I jumped. Carmen raised her hands in surrender. I relaxed. “Oh. What’s up?”
“Feel like taking a break?”
“Sure.”
“Shayna called the restaurant earlier and left her number.” She passed me a scrap of paper with her acrylic fingernails. I stared at it for a moment before I realized it was for me.
“Wait, she wants to talk to me?” I asked incredulously.
Carmen shrugged.
I dug my phone out of my purse and went out the back door. The numbers wobbled before my eyes as I tried to make sense of them. Shayna wants to talk to me, I thought to myself, still unable to believe it. I dialed and breathed in, preparing for whatever was about to happen.
She answered on the third ring. “This is Shayna.”
“Um, Shayna?” My voice cracked. Perfect. “It’s Aspen.”
“Oh, thanks for getting back to me so soon,” Shayna said. She sounded distracted, and I imagined her sitting in a nail salon somewhere, rolling her eyes at her friends as she fielded my call. “I didn’t have your number, and I knew you worked at Buddy’s. Hope I didn’t get you in trouble.”
“No, it’s—”
“Anyway, the girls are coming over to help plan Noah’s surprise party while he’s at the club. I need you here. I’m serving drinks, so everybody else is bringing a snack. I’m thinking like nineish. Don’t tell Liam.”
I sighed. “Okay.”
“Good. This a good number to reach you? I’ll text you my address.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
I waited for a few moments. “Bye.”
The phone clicked off in my ear.
* * *
I pulled up in front of Shayna’s house, still wearing my uniform and smelling sharply of garlic and grease. After clocking out, I’d only had time to redo my ponytail and order two dozen hot wings for the little get-together. I rang the doorbell and waited on the front step, feeling like a sacrificial lamb.
Shayna answered the door. Her placid expression didn’t look happy, but it didn’t look disappointed, either. She accepted the Styrofoam container I passed into her hands. “Come on in.”
I stepped over the threshold and barely got a good look at the entrance hallway before Shayna stopped me in my path. She held a hand up to my chest. Light-hearted voices floated in from the room beyond as the other girls chatted casually with each other.
“What’s this I hear about an ex?”
My mouth fell open, and I felt like I’d been punched in the face. That was the last thing I expected her to say. “What? How did you know about that?”
Shayna smiled, but somehow she made it look evil. “Take care of your shit. If you and this guy still ha
ve something going on, kill it before you take things further with Liam. Take my advice, sweetie. It’ll be easier for everyone that way.”
“Ah, er, okay.”
Shayna’s smile widened. “Good.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and raised her voice. “We can finally get started, ladies!”
I followed Shayna into a tastefully decorated living room. I scanned the faces of the other women, and my heart sank when I realized that Bonnie wasn’t amongst them. Great, I grumbled inwardly. My gaze fell to the coffee table, which was topped with dishes of cucumber sandwiches, macaroons, and various other fixings for a proper tea party. Shayna walked out of the kitchen holding a china plate of my hot wings, and I felt absolutely ridiculous as she lowered my offering to the table.
I perched awkwardly on an ottoman.
“First things first,” Shayna said, collapsing into a winged armchair. “Venue.”
The clubhouse was an obvious first choice, but I kept my mouth shut as the women began shouting out suggestions. Shayna nodded with her eyes narrowed in thought, turning each option carefully over in her mind. I couldn’t help but watch her, appreciating how happy she looked surrounded by her good friends, wondering if I would ever be accepted as one of them.
Her cold, steely eyes rolled onto me. “Aspen? What do you think?”
I straightened up in my seat. “The clubhouse?”
Shayna brightened, filling me with a fleeting sense of optimism. “Now, there’s a suggestion. The clubhouse would be perfect for a members only, outsiders forbidden kind of party, wouldn’t it?”
“But we just had our barbeque there!” somebody protested.
And that was that. But as the topic moved on, I couldn’t shake the last thing Shayna had said to me. Members only, outsiders forbidden. It was her way of warning me that she held all the power, and that if I didn’t get rid of my Alex problem, then she’d get rid of me.
* * *
Logan perked up from his roost at the entrance to Amazon. He smiled playfully. “Hey, I.D. or no entry!”
“Shut up,” I said, shoving past him.
The interior of the club sprawled out before me, a hedonistic pit of strobe lights and body glitter. Liam was on the other side of the room, performing his security guard duties. He didn’t even see me. Good, because I was here for someone else.
I went straight for the bar. Bonnie stood on the other side, dressed in a neon green fishnet bodysuit. I planted my hands on the bar and called for her attention.
“Vodka cranberry. Better make it a double,” I yelled.
Bonnie turned around, her green eyes wide in surprise.
“Don’t worry, I’m not mad,” I said.
Bonnie deflated, looking relieved. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Aspen. You know how Shayna gets.” She paused briefly to mix my drink and set it in front of me on a hot pink cocktail napkin. “On the house.”
I sipped carefully, deep in thought. “What the hell do I do, though? Shayna wants me to handle it.”
“So handle it,” Bonnie said. “Simple, right?”
I shook my head. “Not exactly.” Before I knew it, I was telling her everything: the circumstances of my moving here, the drug-dealing ex, even my dream last night. She gasped and sympathized at all the right moments, patting my hand.
“So you see,” I finally finished, “I don’t exactly want to see him, but how do I get rid of him otherwise?”
“Does he know that you’re here? Maybe he’s just passing through.”
“Maybe.” But it would’ve been a hell of a coincidence. Plus, I wasn’t too sure if the Mustang I heard last night was a dream or actually real. Alex could’ve been right outside my house at that moment. I shuddered at the thought.
I sucked down the last of my drink and heaved a sigh. “Ah. Well, thanks for listening to me. There’s something else I have to do.” I spun around on the barstool to face the club.
My eyes immediately found Liam, as if drawn by magnets. Somehow, my body always knew where he was standing in relation to me. That had to be a sign, right? I stood up from my seat and made my way toward him. I made it halfway across the club until he spotted me.
And he didn’t look too happy.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. His eyes kept scanning our surroundings without looking at me.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Well, I’m working.” He crossed his arms.
“It’ll only take a second.”
Liam set his lips into a straight line. “Fine. Come with me.”
He led me to a doorway dressed in velvet curtains and held them up for me to pass through. The hallway on the other side could’ve been a hallway of an insurance agency rather than a strip club. Fluorescent bulbs buzzed over my head from the low ceiling. Liam led me through the second door on the right.
“This dressing room should stay empty for now,” he muttered more to himself than to me. He shut us in and motioned toward an old gingham couch. “What’s up?”
I perched myself on a cushion and eyed the floor. “I’m sorry about the other day,” I said.
Liam sat down beside me. He surprised me when he put his hand on my leg. “You know, so am I. Things work a little differently for me, and I can’t expect you to understand that so soon. But what I don’t get is where it all came from. I thought you were happy.”
Blissfully unaware is more like it. “I was.”
Liam moved his hand up to my shoulder and pulled me into a hug. “Well, let’s forget about it, then. Let’s start over.”
I closed my eyes, drinking him in. His scent wafted around me, and his soft, fragrant hair pressed against my cheek. I ran my hands absentmindedly up and down his thighs, soothing myself. Suddenly, I realized that Liam’s breaths were growing shorter and shorter against my ear.
“Let’s see if we can remember what goes where,” he whispered.
I shivered at his words. That’s right, I realized. It had been longer than usual since the last time we’d had sex. I went limp and let Liam pull me into a kiss. His tongue filled my mouth, and flashes of light burst in my vision. My hands roamed up his shirt, brushing along the ridges of his hard abs. Even without seeing, my fingers knew the shapes of the tattoos traced into his skin.
“Is this okay, honey?” he said.
“Yeah.”
Liam pushed at my shoulders, urging me onto my back. He lowered my head to the armrest, his lips following the path of my neck. I exhaled shakily when I felt his tongue dance along the edge of my shirt, dangerously close to my cleavage. He kept whispering my name.
Liam. I bit my lip when his hands dove up my shirt, grabbing a fistful of fleshy breast and squeezing with bruising force.
“You love me, don’t you?” Alex’s voice whispered in the back of my mind.
I sat up, knocking Liam off of me.
“Aspen?”
I gasped for breath. My heart pounded away a mile a minute. I felt like I’d just woken up from a nightmare. “I’m sorry. I just can’t right now.”
Liam folded his hands together and held them in front of his forehead. His shoulders were shaking. “Whatever it is you’re going through,” he said carefully, “I hope you get over it soon, because it’s getting pretty fucking old.”
“Liam—”
He got up, wrenched open the door, and was out before I could get the words out.
* * *
Liam was the first person I saw when I lifted the velvet curtain. I hastily stepped toward him. “Hey, I ju—” The words froze in my throat.
In the center of the room, right in front of the stage, was a row of Scorpions, the Skull Kings’ rivals. I recognized Ryan, their ringleader, with his shaved head and red-sleeved jacket. And beside him was Alex, whose eyes were locked on mine. His lips spread into a thin, sinister smile.
“You guys have some nerve coming into this establishment,” Liam said.
Ryan raised his hands. “We’re paying customers, man. We’re just trying to show our buddy a good
time.”
“Get out.”
Ryan stood up and reached into his back pocket. Liam’s hand flew to his belt where he kept his blade.
“Easy, tiger,” Ryan said. He opened his wallet and pulled out a crisp hundred dollar bill. “We’d appreciate it if you let us enjoy our night in peace. Here’s a token of our gratitude.”
Liam knocked Ryan’s hand aside. His Scorpion cronies leapt to their feet and converged on Liam. Alex jerked in his seat with his hands on the armrests, as if he were still trying to decide whether to flee or stay.
“If you haven’t noticed,” Ryan growled, “you’re a little outnumbered. And we’ve got good money to spend.”
One of the dancers joined Liam’s side and batted her false lashes. “We don’t need your money, ya filthy arachnid.”
A Scorpion reared his fist, aiming straight for the dancer. Liam caught the punch in mid-air and delivered another into the Scorpion’s cheekbone. His knuckles connected with a loud crack that reverberated through the room, sending girls and patrons alike diving in all directions.
Two other Scorpions jumped onto Liam. His yelp of surprise burned me like a cattle prod, and I jumped in before I could stop myself. I grabbed the first red-sleeved man I saw and hopped onto his back. His ear fell into my hand and I closed my fingers, twisting it like a doorknob. His blood-curdling scream sent a chill of delight crawling up my back.
Then, I felt him touch me. I knew it by the coldness of his fingers. They wrapped around my neck and pulled. I fell onto a table, and Alex’s distorted face wobbled in and out of my vision.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he said.
Blackness closed over my head, and suddenly I was nineteen years old again, enslaved by a man who took away my make-up and short skirts, who called me fat, who forced me to starve while I watched him eat steak and potatoes, who ran a train on me to pay a debt to his suppliers. I quivered on the table, frozen and helpless, as he towered above me, breathing his poisonous breath into my face.
A gunshot split through the air. Alex flinched away and out of sight. My ears rang as I lifted myself from the table. The stripper with the false lashes stood in the center of the room pointing a handgun into the air. Her breasts were still shaking from its kick.
Skull Kings MC: the collection Page 5
