Wiry guy’s hands slid from her hips as he continued to press himself against her, but not yet probing her entrance. He lifted her up some more in order to push up her shirt all the way and free her breasts from her bra. His mistake. One she hadn’t counted on, but would very well use in her favor.
“Fuck, man, she was hiding something from us. Check out her tits.”
Meaty guy above dropped his head for a peek. And she made her move. Thrusting her head upward, she slammed the back of her skull into his chin. She felt a spray of wetness in her hair just as Meaty guy grunted and released one of her wrists. Without pause, she cocked her freed arm back and used her elbow to hit something hard behind her. Caught off guard, Wiry asshole rolled off of her from the force of her jab. She twisted around, but Lanky guy still held her ankles. She jackknifed her body and kicked out at the guy with her feet and yanked her other hand free from Meaty guy all at the same time.
Before she could get away, Wiry asshole scrambled to his feet and began to lunge at her. He probably meant to do a rendition of a WWF body slam. Instead, out of nowhere a fist connected with the right side of his body, sending him wind milling back toward the ground. Lanky guy found his neck in the clutches of someone’s hand. And a gun trained itself at a large target behind her head.
She rose on her elbows to get a better look at her savior. The moon spotlighted the lumberjack’s face. It held no emotions like he didn’t care about what had been about to happen.
“Fuck, Ender, we were just messing around with this whore. She weren’t invited, her words not mine. And that makes her fair game. You know the rules.” Wiry guy held his face while dark liquid leaked between his fingers. And she wondered at his IQ considering his grammar was subpar.
“She isn’t a whore.” The man they called Ender’s words were said with clinical detachment, but she was more interested that the lumberjack had a name.
“But she ain’t got no—” Wiry guy tried to say, but was cut off by Ender.
“Even if she were a whore, we don’t rape women. You know this. I should kill you just for that.” The guy did a version of a fish speak, opening and closing his mouth only drawing in air. “But you should know she’s Rocky’s.”
Those few words had everybody silent. The only noise was the harsh breaths of those around her. He hadn’t used Taylor’s name as it wouldn’t mean shit to anyone. But the club road name Rocky apparently held power. And wasn’t that something she needed to ponder.
Wiry guy looked like he’d shitted in his pants and still had diarrhea. His face was pinched, and he waved his hands side to side. “Fuck, man, we didn’t know. We didn’t know,” he repeated a few times.
“Get the fuck in the clubhouse. I’ll deal with you guys later.”
“But we—” Wiry guy protested.
“Get. The. Fuck. Gone,” Ender commanded.
With shuffling feet, the three guys high-tailed it out of there like the grim reaper was on their heels.
Alone, she pondered the lumberjack’s road name. Ender, as they’d called him, stared down at her with menace still obscuring his handsome features. In the darkness, the moonlight continued to rain upon him, only bringing a shine to his disgust. He didn’t hold out a hand to help her up, not that she would have taken it. He did put his gun away while she scrambled to get to her feet the best she could with the state of her clothes.
When she’d put her hand down on the ground to get up, she touched something hard and plastic. Her ID. She dully remembered storing that and her tips in her bra early that morning. She waved a hand around in the grass and came up with some bills. It was too dark to tell if she’d gotten it all, but she shoved what she found in her pocket. Then, she stood and faced him. He was so damn close it took her by surprise.
Big hands brushed dirt from her face and dusted grass from her hair. His sudden tenderness threw her off. “Are you okay?” he asked softly, sounding as if he cared. Momentarily mesmerized by his words, she nodded. “Don’t you worry, darling, I will make them pay for daring to touch you.”
Not knowing how to handle him sounding all protective like she was his, she slapped his hands away. She was fine. Never once had she really thought she was in any real danger from those fools. She hadn’t needed Ender. She didn’t need anyone to take care of her. She could damn well take care of herself.
“I had it handled. I didn’t need your help,” she spat as she tried to get her breasts back into solitary confinement.
Though secretly, she admitted to herself things had been close and he’d save her. She didn’t want to like the overbearing prick for that, but how could she not.
He didn’t respond, but the way his eyes narrowed and his kissable lips pinched, she knew he was all but saying I highly doubt that.
Screw him, she thought. His eyes trained on her size Ds, which got her hands moving faster. She shoved her mom’s curse back into the expensive sports bra, meant for runners who didn’t want a black eye from a boob in the face as they high-stepped into the wind.
She yanked down her shirt and half jumped as she tugged up her jeans and underwear. She never let her gaze stray from his face. He watched her movements like a hunter, and she wished like hell she knew what he was thinking.
Once she was all put away, all his sweetness minutes ago had been wiped away as if it’d never been. His frosty gaze returned to her face. He tossed her something he pulled from his shoulder. Her reflexes were quick enough to catch it despite the night that surrounded them.
“Put it on.” His voice matched the temperature in the air. She’d been grateful once again that she’d thought to bring her jacket.
However, what was in his hand turned out to be the leather vest she’d refused to wear. He didn’t say it, but she knew had she worn it, none of that shit would have happened. And she might have gotten away.
She didn’t comply. Instead, with all the dignity she could muster, she got moving. She kept her head held high and moved in the direction of the clubhouse with the knowledge she’d failed. She’d never once been in a situation like this on the losing end of things. She had no idea how to be graceful about it. So it was best she said nothing and didn’t look at the guy.
Just as she got within touching distance of the side door, she was jerked around by her backpack. She spun and ended up like the sticky end of flypaper against the wall. A raging lion with something to prove stood in front of her. She thought about the letters that formed words on his three middle fingers of each hand. The End. And his club name was Ender. She didn’t have to guess at his position. He was proving himself the competent Enforcer or as the club called it, Sergeant at Arms. Guys in his position were there to dole out punishment around the club, keeping everyone in line. And didn’t that just make her plan to get away a lot harder.
Crowding her personal space, he growled. “You have to be one stupid bitch.” She’d created a clusterfuck he would have to answer for. And he was on the edge of losing it. “Put on the cut.”
She looked like she tasted something foul, but roughly put it on anyway. When she kept quiet, he patted her head and said, “Attagirl.”
She slapped his hand away, and he waited for her to strike. He wanted a reason to roughen her up. But she’d learned a thing or two and kept her hands to herself. Too bad.
He stared into her fearless eyes and said, “Didn’t I tell you I would always find you?”
12
His anger was a palpable thing, rolling off him in waves of heat. Something in his eyes told Piper he was considering ending her. And maybe the proof was in the vise like grip his hand had around her neck as he gently squeezed.
“You are a pain I can remove.” The eyes locked on her were dead things, dark and unfathomable. “It would be easy enough to kill you and blame one of our enemies for it. Rocky trusts me. He’d believe whatever I told him.”
Hadn’t she already decided he wasn’t a liar? She also didn’t think he did much bluffing in his line of work. She modulated her breathing as
best as she could as he continued to constrict her airways. She did the only thing she could do. In his arrogance, he’d left her a vulnerable opening to exploit. She grabbed him in between his legs and did her own squeezing.
The fucker only grinned in a twisted psychotic way. “Go ahead, darling, I enjoy a little pain.”
She tried to suck in a breath as his length hardened in response to her assault. She couldn’t let go, though. It was her only play.
Once again, they were at a stalemate. His cruelty was written in his expression. Something pure and evil lurked there, and she wondered what kind of lunatic had been sent to fetch her. The dangerous and sexy kind, the devil in her mind whispered. She mentally shot down her crazy line of thoughts.
As he continued to slowly cut off her air, she began feeling lightheaded. There was no way she could afford to pass out. What would he do to her?
His beard tickled her face as he leaned in to whisper to her. “I’ll tell you one thing.” A strangled pause followed. “I understand now why Taylor was into you.”
His hand shoved up her shirt and under the bra like it didn’t exist. He adjusted her boob in the bra as she hadn’t fully gotten herself put to rights while he’d watched earlier. When he maneuvered under the tight material, he squeezed her in a way that not only caused immediate pain, but also felt like possession.
“Fuck you,” she rasped with what little breath she had left.
“Yeah, I know you want me to. Your eyes are dilated and a little glassy.” His lips brushed against her cheek as he faced her nose to nose. She shivered slightly by the contact. “And what do you know? Taylor’s girl gets off on pain and breath play.”
She wanted to fuck him and kill him all at the same time. Weakness crawled out to her limbs, leaving her with little juice to fight. She used the last of her strength to twist his impressive cock.
His eyes went heavy, and his lips parted like he was close to an orgasm. His words were heady. She felt them like a lightning strike to her center. “I suggest you let go unless you want to finish what you started, conscious or not.”
She jerked her hand free because blackness that had nothing to do with the dark night crept across the edges of her vision. She’d lost this round and didn’t want to be his spoils of war.
Amazingly, a second later, he too, let go. She bent, bracing her hands on her legs as she heaved in great amounts of oxygen. She wanted to slide down the wall and sit for a while to regain her breath.
Having other ideas, he pushed her flat against the wall with a hand to the center of her chest. He proceeded to sort the rest of her clothes, easily getting her breasts back into place, and finished by straightening her top. It was all kinds of nice and bipolar of him. He needed meds for his brand of crazy. He’d almost killed her and threatened to molest her. And, oh joy, she was faint and therefore couldn’t protest his handling. She only managed to cough and search for the air she’d lost.
“After we put your bag back, we are going inside. You’re going to be a good girl and sit where I tell you to sit, until it’s time to go.”
Great, the big bad wolf was back and decided to go back to telling her what to do. She said nothing because she couldn’t yet. Her biggest regret was that she hadn’t been smart enough to take out her gun before she’d gone traipsing toward the back of the club, in her failed escape attempt. And she wanted the lumberjack dead for outsmarting her at every move.
Slowly, she walked as she recovered and watched him nonchalantly lock her backpack in the saddlebag without checking to see if she followed his orders. She was so screwed.
When they walked into the club, no one paid attention to their entrance. The atmosphere had changed inside. All around, sounds and smells of sex had become the predominant activity.
A blonde sat with crossed legs and seemed to brighten at Ender’s approach. With his hand on Piper’s shoulder, he guided her to the stool in front of the longneck Pat had gotten her earlier. She felt bad about that. The woman was probably ticked she’d been duped into making her food while Piper tried to play jailbreak. She hoped that Pat wouldn’t be unfairly punished for not watching her more closely. The club was warped on how they saw certain transgressions.
“I waited right here just like you said,” the blonde directed at Ender, not even glancing at Piper. The woman personified the blond girl joke, sounding as dumb as she looked. That was the thing about club hangers-on. The women just wanted to be with the so-called bad boys and would do anything, including turning a blind eye to another woman. Not that Piper was Ender’s, but it had to look that way to those who didn’t know. Even Pat had thought it.
Ender bent down and said something in the woman’s ear to make her giggle. Piper turned away and wrapped two fingers around the beer, needing to swallow the bile that was heading north from her stomach.
As she drank, Piper heard the unmistakable sounds of a zipper. He wouldn’t dare, would he? Okay, so the club members were getting it on all over the place. In searching for a good direction to look, her eyes landed on a sofa that butted up against a hallway wall. A woman was straddling a guy’s lap as he pumped into her while she stretched her head across the couch to suck another guy’s dick.
“I don’t do slow, baby.” Ender’s gravelly voice entered Piper’s airspace, changing her focus back to him. The low and husky did all kinds of nuclear meltdown to her core. What the fuck? He wasn’t talking to her. She had to get away. There was no way she was going to sit a seat away from him as he fucked that blond chick. The shenanigans going on were the main reasons why club life had never been for Piper.
A hand clamped down on her shoulder. “Don’t move.”
Why the hell is he even paying attention to me? Piper wondered. His immovable grip kept her in her seat. She wanted to whip around and break the beer bottle against his skull. But club life was absolutely bros before hoes unless you married one, and even that sometimes didn’t count.
If she acted on her anger, she wouldn’t make it out of the building alive, unless Ender wanted her to. So she ground her molars together and only managed to cause her jaw to ache.
The woman next to her sucked in a breath. “You’re so big. And is it true you have a tattoo—”
“Quiet, baby.”
Piper rolled her eyes about the big comment. The girl obviously wanted Ender to feel like the man. But a tattoo. Did he have a tat on his…? Feminine moans with an edge of pain wafted to Piper like thick smog. It was enough to almost make her gag.
“Take it,” Ender grunted.
Piper jerked out of his hold and turned around to see Ender standing with his fly undone and the woman’s hand cupping his junk through his jeans. He had a condom wrapper between his teeth about to tear it with his hand as he eyed her. What had the moans been about?
As far as she could tell nothing had happened yet. Still, there was no fucking way she would sit there while he fucked someone else because that ultimately made Piper want to hurl. She narrowed her eyes in disgust as he began to laugh, like her reaction was so fucking funny. She stomped off toward the hall she’d used as an escape route earlier. Leaning back against the wall, she covered her eyes, wondering why she was so damn attracted to the asshole.
She wanted to castrate him and decided to allow that fantasy to play out in her head. Why had she even thought him sexy before? He was the biggest douche ever to live. Yet, thoughts of a dream starring a lumberjack that night at Chris’s returned.
“Oh my God. Oh my God,” was repeated loud enough she could hear the crescendo of phrases, until it peaked on the woman’s orgasm.
She couldn’t be sure it was the same woman with sex happening all around her.
“Ender,” came a different voice, not in the least deterred at what was going on. “Got a minute?”
The President sure has shit for timing, Ender thought. He pulled out and tucked himself back in his pants. He barely gave Suzie, Suzanne or whatever her name was a second thought. The whole time his mind had been on Piper,
who’d bolted. He’d only tried to fuck someone else so he could forget all about his best friend’s old lady. Now he would give chase to his prey of choice and teach her a lesson about tempting him.
The blond woman said, “Wait, you didn’t—”
Ender did what he always did when it came to club business; he glanced at her and said, “Gotta go, baby. Duty calls.”
Finally, he went in search of Piper and found her peaking around a corner. He watched as her eyes sought out his dick, but he’d already tucked himself in. She was jealous and wanted to know if he’d gone ahead and fucked the blonde. He decided she needed another lesson that no meant no.
When he reached her, in Piper’s ear, he said, “I expect you to stay put. Otherwise, I’ll let the three guys chase you down and finish what they started.”
It was only a threat to keep her safe. He’d say whatever he had to in order to get her to stay put. She didn’t have to know he’d never let that happen. Not again, not like before with someone else. He’d give his own life before he let any harm come to her. And it wasn’t because he was quickly becoming attached to her. She was Rocky’s and that was what the brotherhood did for each other. And that was all it was.
She wanted to spit in his face. But embarrassing the guy in front of the club, even if it wasn’t his charter, would only mean bad news for her. Ender would be forced to save face, and she didn’t like the way his mind worked. So she stayed quiet and followed him back to the bar where the blonde still sat pouting. So maybe he hadn’t fucked her?
Before he headed to the back to deal with the three cocksuckers who’d tried to take Taylor’s property for a joy ride, he took Piper’s hand and gave her his lesson. “Take care of this for me.”
“Should I wait for you?” the blonde asked too eagerly.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he watched as Piper realized what he’d given her.
Piper took a glance down at what tickled her palm as he walked away. When she saw the empty condom turned inside out in her hand, she glared in his direction. It didn’t matter that it was dry. It was fucking gross and a dickhead move on his part. She hurled the lightweight thing at his retreating form.
Ride or Die (Devil's Edge MC #1) Page 6
