by Craft, Lana
“What?” Miles shook his head. There wasn't a chance in hell. “No fuckin’ way man. I can’t do that.”
“Sorry?” The man holding Eden chuckled in response, pulling back on her hair and causing her to buckle against him. “You’ll do as I say,” he slurred, directing his intense gaze back and fourth between Trent and Miles both. “Otherwise…”
Miles swallowed hard. He started to say something, but Trent cut him off before he could. “It’s cool,” he said without looking back at him. The lock was jammed and giving him hell, but he was anything if not determined. “Just do as he says.”
A thin smile folded across the man’s face as he watched Miles point the heavy gun at Trent's back in defeat. The second guy, the more quiet of the two, approached Eden as she struggled in his partner's grip, bringing the palm of his hand down roughly against her ass.
Eden held her breath as a trail of tears brimmed their way down her cheeks. She flinched as the man worked his hands up under her tank top. The second one held her in place and ground up against her from behind her as the rope he secured her with rubbed uncomfortably against her wrists. She started to heave but swallowed hard, trying her best to maintain her composure.
Trent worked faster. He fidgeted with the lock, forcing himself not to look at Eden as the men continued to have their way with her.
Miles felt sick to his stomach. All of this was his fault and he knew it. He watched through an enraged haze as one of the men forced Eden her onto her knees. She placed her hands obediently on the ground, steadying herself as he ran his palms up and down her back before pulling her tank top over her head and tossing it aside.
Miles's heartbeat slowed to a dull thump behind his ears as the men eased their hands down Eden's exposed form, pulling at the fabric of her jeans. This wasn't fair to her. She had only come to him for a pick-up and a fuck, their usual routine, and after selling her a batch of coke he'd later find out was laced with levamisole, now she was getting sexually assaulted on his dime as well.
How would he ever be able to live with himself?
“What’s taking you so long?” Eden yelled, her voice coming out strained as she blinked back tears. Trent fumbled and dropped the keys in the process, muttering expletives under his breath.
Miles couldn't allow this to happen a second longer. He had gotten them into this mess, and now he would be the one to get them out of it. He pointed the gun at the larger man's head and closed his eyes, pulling back on the trigger. Not giving it anytime to cool down, he repeated the process, aiming at the second man before he could take action and firing three shots back to back.
Eden let out a high-pitched scream, but before she could process what had happened, both of the men collapsed in front of her. She kept her eyes firmly shut, too afraid too look. A few moments later, Trent rushed over to her and untied her hands, allowing her to latch onto him for support as she sobbed and pulled on her discharged tank top.
Miles was no longer anywhere insight, but the mess he had left behind surrounded them. Both men were lying face down in a puddle of their own blood, which gathered around Eden’s feet.
“Fuck!” Trent yelled, burying his hands in his hair as he paced back and forth. He pulled Eden into his arms and walked her up the stairs, but she struggled against him, hitting his chest.
Once in the living room, he set her down on the sofa to calm down and grabbed his backpack, stuffing a change of clothing in it as he looked around the house for Miles. He pulled back the front blinds only to discover that the SUV the men had arrived in was no longer out front.
He was long gone.
Trent sighed and met eyes with Eden, who was staring at the wall with a dazed look on her face. “Come on,” he finally said, extending his hand to her. “We have to get out of here.”
Chapter fifteen
They arrived back in Los Angeles not even an hour later. Trent pulled up to a small bar and parked his bike alongside four others just like it, climbing off and extending his hand to Eden. She swallowed hard and hesitated before taking hold of it. The situation that had unfolded back at the house had done quite the number on her. She had yet to even begin to process it, and Trent seemed in no hurry to give her any answers. In fact, he had dodged her questions the entire way here. Wherever the hell “here” even was.
All Eden wanted to do was go home, but whether she liked it or not she was a part of this now. She had been a witness to two murders. There was no running away.
Trent stepped inside the bar and Eden followed close behind him. “What is this place?” she asked, coughing into the crook of her elbow as a heavy wave of smoke filled her lungs.
On the way over Trent had made a phone call, informing someone on the other end of the line that they needed to meet “in their usual spot”. Now here they were, lingering in the front of a hole in the wall bar that had long outlived its glory days.
The wood flooring creaked beneath them as they entered a back room where five large men were huddled around a peeling pool table. A few of them even had women on their arms, but none of them were doing very much talking. They looked up when they noticed Eden and Trent in the doorway.
“T,” the largest of the men spoke up, taking a step forward. The patch stitched onto his heavy leather cut read ‘Chase’ and underneath it in all caps were the words ‘President’. He eyed Eden incredulously, his dark eyes intense and invasive. “You want to tell us who this is?”
Trent shrugged off his cut and approached the group, grabbing Eden's sweaty hand and pulling her forward.
“Wait a second!” one of the girls spoke up, pointing a perfectly manicured nail at Eden. “You’re that actress, Eden Winters! Holy shit!”
The other girls turned to look at Eden but Chase gave them a steely look and they remained quiet. “Get her out of here,” he told Trent, nodding at Eden. Then, he turned his attention back to the other girls. “All of you too. Me and the boys need to have a meeting.”
The girls stood up without having to be told a second time and Eden followed them into the other room, feeling incredibly out of place. Once in the front of the bar, the girl who had spoken before approached Eden with a smile. “Well?” she questioned.
“Yeah?”
“You are her right?”
“In the flesh,” Eden replied, shrugging her shoulders. She was hardly in the mood for this.
“Oh wow.” the girl exclaimed, bouncing up and down, her breasts jiggling in her tight shirt. “That's so cool!” She turned to face the other three girls, who had gathered around a small table in the center of the room. “Isn't it?” she asked them.
They nodded obediently. It was clear to Eden that this girl, whoever she was, was the leader of the pack. “Do you happen to know what's going on in there?” she asked, nodding at the back room and attempting to shift the subject off herself.
One of the other girls laughed. “What exactly are you doing here?” she asked instead, not bothering to mask the rudeness in her tone, but her ringleader shot her a piercing glare and was quick to shoot her down.
“Oh they’re just having one of their meetings,” she explained to Eden. “The boys have them from time to time. We aren't allowed to sit in on them.”
“Yeah?” Eden asked, settling into a barstool beside her. “Why not?” After everything she had just went through, she felt as though the least she deserved was to know what was going on. Had the rest of the men heard from Miles? Did they know about the dead bodies back at Trent's father’s house? Out of curiosity, Eden peeked her head into the backroom, but the girl was quick to pull her back.
“Easy,” she said with a laugh, clawing a hand through her short hair. “You don’t know much about outlaws, do you honey? Trust me, if the boys catch you listening in on club business they won’t be happy.”
“Yeah,” the girl who had spoken up earlier added. “If Chase sees you sneaking you'll be better off dead. It don’t matter if you’re famous or not.”
Eden swallowed hard and relen
ted, deciding it was best to head their warning. From what she had already seen of the clubs behavior, they hardly seemed like the rational type. “What are your names?” she asked the girls instead, changing the subject in an attempt at taking her mind off the situation at hand.
The vibrant beauty in front of Eden smiled, appearing visibly flattered that she had cared enough to finally ask. “I'm Leah,” she said, turning to face the other girls and pointing to them one by one. “And this would be Katie, Priscilla, and Gina.”
Gina, the rudest of the girls, rolled her eyes at the introduction. “I'm going to smoke,” she announced, standing up and turning to face her friends. “You guys coming?” The girls hesitated, glancing back and fourth between her and Leah before standing up and timidly following her outside. If Leah was in charge, and she definitely appeared to be, this Gina seemed to get off on testing the other girls loyalty to her.
“Oh, don’t mind her,” Leah spoke up, rolling her eyes and waving a hand at the door. “She’s never been able to stand seeing Trent with other girls, that’s all, especially not someone like you. She must be out there boiling with jealousy.”
Eden raised an eyebrow. “We're not–” she began, but Leah was quick to interrupt her.
“Oh you don’t have to explain,” she started, but before she could finish her sentence, Trent entered the room followed by Chase and the rest of the men.
“What's going on?” Eden questioned, pulling herself immediately to her feet. When she didn’t get an answer, she crossed her arms tightly over her chest and met eyes with Trent, staring him down until he finally met her gaze. “I think I have a right to know, don’t I?”
Trent started to respond, a strained expression surfacing on his face as Chase’s eyes burned holes into the back of his head. “Here’s the thing,” he finally spoke up, clearing his throat. “Miles is my brother…and with him being AWOL…well…it’s been decided that it's up to you and me to take care of this ourselves.”
What the fuck?
Eden backed away from him and shook her head. “No fucking way!” she responded, her eyes darting back and fourth between Chase and the other men. This had to be some kind of sick joke. Hadn’t she already been through enough?
“Eden,” Trent tried, reaching out to her. “It’ll be okay, I promise. We’ll—” But before he could finish his sentence, Chased paced towards her and grabbed her roughly by the neck. Trent reached forward to stop him but was held back by the other three men.
“Look,” Chase began, his voice languid and menacing. He looked up at Trent, rage brimming over his dark eyes. “You'll do what you’re told, and you’ll do it without complaint. Is that clear?”
“Chase!” Leah cried out, reaching out to him. “Stop it!” But he pushed her roughly off of his back, turning his attention back to Eden, who struggled to breathe beneath his grip.
“You betrayed us,” Chase spoke up, meeting eyes with Trent. “You were the one who suggested we take that son of a bitch under our wing. You vouched for him and now look what he’s went and done. The Russians? They were our friends, and now we have their blood on our hands. If you don’t think this is going to come back to bite us in the ass, you’re dead fucking wrong. So you’ll take care of this. And you’ll do it right. Because if you don’t…”
“I know,” Trent interrupted, not letting him finish his sentence. “It’ll be taken care of. I promise.”
“And you,” Chase continued, looking down at Eden, his spit making brief contact with her face. “I know your type. Don’t think I don’t. You distract men, make them lose focus of what's important.” He paused, turning his attention back to Trent. “Do this and maybe you'll still hold a place in this club, but as it stands, consider yourself demoted.”
Trent clenched his jaw as he reached forward to snatch his patch off his cut and nodded as the men holding him back shoved him roughly towards the door. “And Trent?” Chase added, lighting a smoke. Trent paused in the doorway, meeting his gaze. “You better keep her quiet,” he finished, nodding at Eden. “We wouldn’t want anyone else to get hurt, now would we?”
Chapter sixteen
Gina and her groupies snickered as Eden and Trent pushed past them and made their way over to his bike. Eden ignored them as she climbed on behind him, flipping them the finger as he pulled out onto the gravel road ahead.
When they were about halfway back to his father’s house, Trent sighed and pulled off onto the shoulder of the road, pacing back and fourth in the dirt. “I just need a minute,” he called out to Eden without looking at her, but she ignored him and approached him from behind.
Trent glanced over his shoulder at her. “I'm sorry I dragged you into this,” he finally said, racking a hand over his face and kicking at a patch of gravel. “I fucked up. I should have never brought you with me.”
Eden swallowed the lump in her throat and reached out to him, grabbing him by his cut and forcing him to stop moving. His eyes found their way back to hers and his breathing began to even out. There was no going back to the way things had been before, and he seemed to know it just as much as she did. Witnessing a double homicide together had pushed them outside the realm of being strangers.
“Tell me why you did it,” Eden whispered. “I want to know why you really came back for me.”
But as usual, Trent didn't give her an answer. Instead, he pulled away from her and continued to pace. Eden yearned to understand him. Knowing so little about the man who had both saved and threatened her life wasn't sitting well with her, nor was the desire she felt for him. The small glimpse she had gotten of his chiseled body before everything went bad had ignited something inside of her. Something she couldn’t bring herself to ignore. “Trent!” she yelled after him, feeling a strain in her voice. “After everything that's happened I think I deserve to know!”
She wasn’t stupid. She knew that it didn't matter in the eyes of the law that the men who had died had been asking for it. Miles didn't have to shoot to kill them, and as much as it scared Eden to admit, she and Trent didn't have to flee the scene.
Eden shuddered as her stomach tightened. As her nausea overcame her, she bent over to throw up, but the fact that it had been nearly a full day since she last consumed anything made it difficult. She was terrified beyond all belief, not to mention exhausted, but somehow, the only emotion she could focus on as she watched Trent pace was lust.
Her heart pounded in her ears as she approached him, grabbing him roughly by his shirt and forcing him to look at her. She needed to get her mind off of the situation at hand.
She needed a release.
Eden’s breath was warm against Trent’s neck. They locked eyes for what felt like an eternity, neither one of them speaking. The desire behind Trent’s gaze resonated not just in her body, but her soul. “We can't,” he finally whispered, breaking eye contact with her and swallowing hard, but Eden refused to listen. When Trent was at his most vulnerable, she pulled his heavy body to the ground, straddling him before she could second-guess herself any further. His muscled arms reached forward in an attempt to push her off of him, but she held on tightly to his shirt and refused to budge.
From Eden's vantage point above him, she could sense a warmness radiating from off of Trent's body as his cock stirred against his jeans. Like an animal in heat, he finally gave up his struggle, bringing a shaking hand to her small waist. She let out a soft gasp of approval and bit down on her bottom lip until all the blood rushed from it. Trent was tense, his brows furrowed, but he began to loosen up beneath her touch, his eyes softening against hers.
Their breathing was harsh and uneven but neither one of them seemed to notice. Eden slid an unsteady hand up under the hem of Trent's shirt, her fingertips coming into close contact with his warm flesh. She raked her nails over his toned stomach, across the firm column of his abs and over the v-line dip that carved out his hips.
Trent inhaled sharply, allowing Eden’s scent to fill his nostrils as she bent down against him, pressing he
r body closer against his as he closed his eyes to absorb her, allowing himself to succumb to the very thing he had fantasized about from the moment he first laid eyes on her. It all felt so familiar to them both, and more than anything, it was exactly what they needed in a moment.
Trent’s lips parted as a smooth groan emanated from his throat. Eden ran her hands further up his chest and placed a sweaty palm against his heart. His eyes were dark and questioning, silently warning her to turn back while she still could. He was trouble and she knew it, but she didn’t have it in her to heed his warning. Her lips hungrily found their way back to his as he shivered, gripping her body tightly against his, the soft fabric of his shirt rubbing against her breasts as her nipples stood to full attention before him.
Eden reached down and pulled at Trent's jeans with haste, burying her face in the cusp of his smooth neck as her moist mouth grazed his throat. Trent reached slowly upwards and grasped at her breasts, letting out a deep groan as she nibbled and sucked at the flesh just above his collarbone.
