Unravel

by Tara Lynn

  Maybe it ran in the family.

  If Rett had no choice but to be a biker, then I had the the choice. It came effortlessly now, but what about a few years out? Could he last before or would the club reduce him, too?

  “Do you know what makes them go wrong?” I asked softly.

  “What?” My mother turned to me sharply.

  Her eyes were vibrant. She knew what I meant. But she didn’t say anything, and the longer the silence lasted, the clearer it became that this answer couldn’t come from her anyway.

  Rett might not let me save him from the MC, but I could save him in the MC. I could keep him from falling off the cliff. It was such a drop from the life we’d dreamed of, but at least we could be together. As long as I stood for what I wanted, no matter what anyone said, we’d still have each other.

  “It’s nothing, Mom,” I said. “I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

  She nodded and glanced out one last time. “I’m sure, too.”

  She turned and went off down the stairs.

  I drew without interruption for an hour. It was almost midnight and the silence seemed to almost grow with the time. I’d have a lot of nights like this to look forward to. Just a pad and coffee and my hand scritching over paper. Time flew past, and soon my mother came upstairs alone and went silently to bed.

  Another half hour passed and the front door opened. The stairs creaked again, longer. This wasn’t a false note. And it sounded different from my mom. The footsteps came steady, far too steady to be from a drunk man.

  I flung out of the blankets just as a tall, muscular form rose from the shadow of the stairwell. Rett saw me and strode quickly to his door, but I was outside covering his wrist as he turned the knob.

  “Rett, stop,” I said.

  His dark jacket hung off him. He had always looked so gorgeous, but it was amazing how cruel his features could be turned away from me. He didn’t even glance out of the corner of his eye. He simply said.

  “Let go.”

  “That’s not happening,” I whispered softly.

  He tried to tug away. I knew it was coming, and went with it, falling into his dark room. Good thing his bed filled most of it.

  “Oh, shit,” he said, running in after me. “Liza, are you ok?”

  The light turned on above me. I lay staring at it from his bed.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not ok. Come here.”

  “I can’t do that Liza. Just go.”

  His voice was like a low thundercloud in the room. When I looked up, he had a grey look on his face.

  “I know you can.” I twisted my way up to a seat facing him. “I know you want to.”

  “What I want doesn’t matter much anymore.”

  “Then come here for me.”

  I wanted to reach out and grab his hard forearm, to bring him weighing down on me. His heat seared the air and made me ache.

  I wanted him, yes, but only to melt him loose, to remind him what he was deep down, of what he was to me. I’d promised I’d save him. If the only thing I could do in this fight was love him, then I’d have to do it hard.

  I grabbed his hands and pulled him into me. He came down like the beam he was, crumpling then falling. He stopped the fall, propping himself over me at the edge of the bed.

  “This will only make it worse,” he said.

  I cupped his beautiful face. “I’ve handled way worse than you’ll ever be.”

  He leaned into my caress, then shook his head. “That’s why you deserve better.”

  “No, it’s why I deserve what I want. And I want you.”

  I tugged him down, until he slowly bent in. His lips touched mine and I pressed my kiss up into him, drawing him down deeper into me. His mouth started moving, his whole body filling with strength like an engine purring to life.

  The room door flicked shut. His hands caressed my shoulders as his tongue pressed into my mouth. His strength and his heat came down on me like a boulder.

  I was small now. I had awoken something mighty. It had been so long and I had been so tense that I was almost scared, like this was the first time this was happening. Who exactly was I giving myself to anymore? Was I ready?

  His lips pressed down my neck, and the thoughts burst uselessly in my head. He bit my skin and his hunger singed my nerves, ran straight into my brain.

  This was all wrong anyway. None of what I was doing was right. If it fucked up my life, then at least I was the one doing it.

  His face moved down between my breasts, unraveling my shirt from the top down. I freed my hands from my sleeves and grabbed his dark hair as his tongue swirled around a bared nipple. My chest dissolved into a storm of pleasure, unbound energy with no place to go but wildly into my head. He cupped my breasts and took turns sucking them into his mouth, teasing me with his tongue, then crushing me, practicing for the main event. I gasped with each stroke, wanting to fly but pinned and feeling wilder for it.

  His hands lingered on my chest, but he kissed his way down, drawing my shirt down over my waist. Then, my pants were wringing off me, too and his breathed lapped through my moist panties. It stayed there for a few moments. I looked up and saw him gazing at me like I was a treasure.

  “It’s yours,” I said. “It’s all yours. Take it.”

  His eyes blinked to me, and hardened at what they saw. He nudged aside the fabric and covered me fully below.

  “Oh god.” The ceiling exploded white above me. He lapped, and blinding flashes of pleasure pulsed up me. My eyes shut and I saw stars.

  His tongue found its rhythm. I looked down to see his eyes shut in content, felt his hunger curl against me over and over below. The bed felt like a sea churning into a storm, shallow waves steadily rising higher and higher. All too soon, the waves were crashing higher than I could handle. I twitched under Rett’s attention, but he just fastened my thighs and sank his mouth harder over my slit.

  God, he was going to take me under. I was gushing like a waterfall, writhing and trembling, and still Rett held steady. A wall of pressure, of unbelievable force filled me to the brim.

  “Oh god,” I squealed.

  “Mmmph,” he said, and lifted me further against his tongue.

  I shattered against him. I moaned and bucked as I came against him, wave after wave of needed release. He stayed strong on me all the way through, until I collapsed, wrecked on the bed.

  He pulled off and smiled, his face slick with me.

  “Is that what you wanted?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said, gasping for air.

  “Is that all you wanted?”

  I gazed up through dimmed eyes. I was exhausted and spent, but I had really done nothing. Nothing but lie on this bed and refuse to move.

  Rett would take care of the rest. He always knew the right thing to do, deep down. No matter what he did, that wouldn’t change.

  “No,” I said.

  “What do you want?”

  “All of you.”

  His mouth twitched up, not quite to a smile, but something more determined. Maybe it was him seeing that I wasn’t going to run, that he’d have to deal with me for a long time yet.

  He tugged his shirt off, and all his muscles rippled in the bright light. Oh he could handle me. Just watching him, new strength same searing back into me. I was ready to face anything with this guy.

  He shrugged his jeans down and his cock came out, the one part of him I never wanted to yield. He clutched me close, kissed me and tugged his lips by my ear.

  “Ok,” he said. “You have me.”

  He slid in hard and full. I cried out, tightening my voice to keep it low. He slid into that ache that had been building until there was nothing left to fill.

  “Is this enough?” he said, deep against my ear.

  “No. Give me everything.”

  “Fuck,” he said and sat up. “I hope this is right. I hope you can handle it baby.”

  He grabbed my hips and started thrusting. My mouth fell loose, forgetting any words. What did
it matter? Tonight was ours. Tomorrow, we would find a way out.

  And if this was it, then we’d find some way to stay together. I wrapped my legs around him and drew him tight so he could never let go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Everett

  The whistle rang out sharp and long, a second before the roar of the crowd snuffed it out.

  Touchdown for the Bandits.

  My team stalked slowly away from the end zone they had yielded, red helmets in their hand. They looked worse than defeated. They looked tired, as if all that was left was survival. Just running out the clock.

  I rubbed my brow of sweat from the dank, Texas night and searched for hope. The timer on the vast scoreboard showed a good five minutes left in the last quarter and three touchdowns needed to draw even. Even I couldn’t have pulled that off.

  Our side of the stands lay in soft murmurs, the right tone for an execution. Last year, the Bandits were the lowest ranked team in the league. It looked like my team would be giving them competition for that title come fall.

  Apparently the only way to go after riding high was a long, sharp fall. Maybe it should have stroked my ego to see my football empire crumbling without me, to match my own descent.

  Maybe it would have, if I hadn’t poured sweat and time on this grass trying to fix them. All that effort, and I couldn’t even teach them to execute basic plays right.

  No wonder I hadn’t been able to set myself free. Couldn’t even solve a shallow mess – how had I ever expected to unwind years of wrong choices.

  I looked up into night sky. The stars didn’t even really show past the bright white of the lights. My world didn’t go past the failure on this field.

  The ball went soaring across the field as the Bandits kicked off. The Vipers caught it and didn’t even make it halfway before they were sacked. Thirty seconds and three downs later, the Bandits had the ball again.

  I’d nearly burned the UT Austin contract yesterday. With the deadline past, it was just paper – useless paper, taunting me. But as I had flicked up my lighter, Liza had come in, and I had set it aside. She had a fire that burned far hotter than anything I could produce and she had lit me up, made the offer inconsequential.

  Well, I remembered it now.

  I should run in. There was time to gear up for one last play and just get in there. It wouldn’t be enough to win. Hell, it would probably disqualify them, but that was no bigger shame from where they were now.

  But at least I’d get one last chance, the last few minutes on a nearly empty gas tank, to remind the world what I had been. To remind them what I could have been, had I only been free.

  Fuck, whatever. That’s probably what the MC wanted anyway – one last showing of their star attraction before they signed me into their exclusive contract penned with blood. The sooner people forgot about me, the less use I was, and the sooner the MC might let me wander off. I could make my peace with being nothing and no one, as long as I could be rid of them.

  The bench creaked next to me. I had tried sitting some yards away from the grey cloud where the rest of the Vipers sat. Apparently not far enough.

  “This became a goddamn mess, huh?”

  I glanced up at the voice. Marlo sat scanning the field with disgust. My eyes were drawn to the MC patch on his thick leather cut.

  “We tried,” I said, watching as our QB got sacked.

  “Yeah, that’s the problem.”

  I shrugged. “Whatever, I did my best.”

  “No. No you fucking didn’t.”

  He glared at me. We weren’t talking about any game.

  “You heard?” I said.

  “Course I fucking heard. It’s the only thing my old man’s been talking about.”

  His eyes looked like jagged ice. Last few times I’d seen that look, he was delivering damage to another human’s body. Our side of the stands groaned at another useless play, but the sound receded against the blood pounding in my brain.

  “All I wanted was to get out of the MC,” I said.

  “So you fucking threatened to narc on everyone? All the people who helped you these past years, you were ready to get ‘em fried in the chair?”

  “No one’s getting fried. It was all a bluff I just needed something I could call them out with. I would have never turned it in.”

  “That’s fucked up. You have something to say, you say it like a man. You don’t go digging up shit that was buried for a reason.”

  Marlo’s whole body rattled, like he couldn’t contain all he had in him. I hunched in.

  “Did you know about that place?” I asked.

  He glanced at me, then back down. “I knew. My dad told me what happened to people who crossed the club.”

  “But you didn’t know for sure how many there were.”

  Marlo glanced at me. “If they’re there, it ain’t for no reason. We’re not talking about school teachers and nurses.”

  His gaze was sharp, but had lost that jagged edge. I unwound myself a bit.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t care about about any of that anyway. That’s club business. I was just trying to not be a part of it.

  “Then just fucking go. Why you gotta tear down the people who kept you standing all this time?”

  “They won’t fucking let me.” Fire came to my voice. “You think I did this for no goddamn reason? Jethro and Clash blackmailed me. I wasn’t the one who started it. Your old man didn’t tell you that bit?”

  Marlo shrugged. “There must be a reason.”

  “There’s no fucking reason other than they got me by a chain,” I said. “They want me as their prize mutt to trot around if people talk ill of them. Once they get me all grimy and junkyard, they might let me go. But by then, it’ll be too late.”

  I thought he’d see that. He’d been my one solid friend. Marlo just straightened though.

  “You don’t think you fucking owe them?” he said.

  “I’ve done plenty of things for them.”

  “Yeah, and they did some for you, too, didn’t they. They killed your stepsister’s father for you.”

  My chest caved. “That is not what I asked of them. I’m not taking that on me.”

  “Forget that then. They took care of you, man.”

  “They took care of me so they could use me,” I said. “Don’t you see this shit? It was all so out in the open. I just didn’t bother to look.”

  “They made you family. If they want you to help out, then it’s cause that’s what family does for each other.”

  “Family doesn’t make you turn down the deal of a lifetime to stick to the shitty family business,” I said.

  Marlo’s brow bunched up in confusion.

  “You didn’t know about my offer from UT-Austin?” I said.

  “They scouted you?”

  “They were watching all last fall.” The crowd roared as the Bandits scored an interception. “They watched me stomp these fools and they were prepared to take me on, full tuition and everything.”

  The clock was down to less than a minute, but the game went on, whistles and stomped grass, and men’s grunts rumbling the air.

  “That don’t excuse what you did,” Marlo said finally. “We were family. And you turned on us.”

  His eyes glowed, filled with some inner light. It was beyond my words to reach, but I tried uselessly. If there was one man in the club who I wanted to understand, it had to be Marlo. He and I had more than the cut between us. I needed him to know.

  “I know you’ve been tied to this club since you were a kid,” I said. “I get that. Maybe you’ll be president one day, and you’ll make it what it should be. But this ain’t that sort of family to me. I can’t give up who I am to be a part of it.”

  “Become a part of it? You already are. We took you in. We’re as real as the family you’re in now. You wouldn’t fuck over your stepsister would you?’

  No more than I did by being with her, at least. “She’s not trying to hold me back,” I s
aid.

  No, she was trying to set me free.

  The buzzer ran. Half the crowd cheered, while our side grumbled to their feet. The Bandits ran out on the field and the Vipers slunk off.

  Marlo’s gaze tightened to a glare.

  “Whatever, man,” I said. “Nothing came of it.”