Kayla
We walk through the bar, past a few of Dante’s men, and into his office. The bar is open-plan, with tables and chairs scattered across one side, the other given over to a pool table and a long conference-style table where they sit for all-hands meetings. On the walls, photographs hang of dead or imprisoned club members, special events with all current members, and a few stock photos of Missouri. A few leather jackets have been pressed flat and laid in frames and hung up, too.
Dante closes the door behind us. His office is large, with a President’s desk and a President’s chair, but there are no pictures on the walls. Opposite the desk, there is a door. It’s open and I glance through: a living area, similar to mine, with an en-suite extending to one side. His clothes are strewn across the floor and his big silver handgun—the one he used to shoot out the reinforced glass—rests on his nightstand.
He presses his body into mine when the door is shut, kissing me, hard, on the lips. I have never been kissed hard before. My body roars out in response, my nipples getting as hard as the kiss, my clit buzzing. Our teeth press through our lips and touch. He moans, and I hear myself moan; I hear myself make noise, something I try and avoid at all costs. Dante moves his hand down my body, toward my pussy, and I want him to touch it. I do. I want the pleasure. I want the heat. I am wet for him. I am soaking for him. My panties are damp. I know they are. I want to feel his biker’s finger slide deep inside of me. I want to feel the heat of my rescuer deep in my pussy.
But then I press my palm flat against his chest and thrust him away.
I do not have enough strength for this, and for a moment I panic. What if he just carries on? But then he takes a step back and puts a toothpick in his mouth.
I wipe my mouth and lean against the wall, catching my breath. I can still feel the way his shadowy beard tickled my cheek. I can still feel the phantom of his hand on my belly. I can still feel his lips against mine and the pressure of his teeth. I close my eyes and regain my composure, and then look up at him. All at once, I want to kiss him again. He just walks around to his desk, leans back, and chews on his toothpick.
I go to the desk and sit opposite him, on the smaller, non-President’s chair. “You’re as quiet as me, sometimes,” I say.
He shrugs. “Sometimes quiet is best.”
“I’m—I’m sorry—”
“No need,” he says coolly.
“I just—” I let out a sigh. He might say there’s no need, but for some reason I feel I owe him an explanation. Or maybe I owe myself an explanation, because I wanted that kiss to go further. I mutter: “That was nice of you, doing that in front of them.”
“If you’re mine, they won’t bother you. They’ll want to, but they won’t.”
His? His? Like I am an item. No, worse than that, like I am some girl with a thorny flower in her hair locked in a one-windowed room being taped and ordered around for his pleasure, like I am somebody without a say-so in my own life, like I have no kind of will. That is what scares me the most, I think. That this situation is not all that different from the situation I almost found myself in: than the situation with the Movement. All my life, men have tried to trap me, cut off my wings and keep me in one place, doing one thing, their place and their thing. They have tried to make me theirs for their own reasons and it terrifies me that this might be the same. Oh, it feels different, but just because something feels different at first, it doesn’t mean it is different.
It’s only when I stop, panting, that I realize I’ve said all that out loud.
Dante sits up, watching me with dark eyes.
“Oh,” I say, leaning back, wishing the chair would swallow me. It’s far more than I’ve said since I got here.
“The Movement?” Dante says, eyebrow raised. “What’s that? Some kind of cult?”
“Don’t ask me about that,” I say quickly. “Just—don’t.”
He watches, chews, and then drops his toothpick onto the table. “Alright. But I think I get where you’re coming from, Kayla. Look, I’m not saying I wouldn’t like a piece of that, but I get where you’re coming from. But I’m moving you in here with me.” He nods to the bedroom behind me. “If we want the club girls to stop bothering you, we’ve got to make it look like you’re mine. Even if you do have all this shit going on up here.” He taps the side of his head, and then takes a new toothpick from his front pocket.
“Uh—” I think about it. What will make my life easier? What will make hiding, being inconspicuous, easier? Running away, for sure. But except for running away, the safest thing to do would be to remain a cleaning lady, a burger-flipper, let the others think that I really am stupid. But that stopped being an option when Dante kissed me.
“When do I move in?” I say, but it’s more like I hear myself say it.
“Tonight,” Dante says. “Gives me a chance to order in some fresh sheets, get the room cleaned.” He smiles with a hint of embarrassment, but only a hint. “A single man don’t live in such a clean way, you know?”
“Okay.” I nod. My throat is hoarse from speaking so much. “Do I still clean and cook?”
“I’m moving you to cooking duty, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You won’t need to go into the dormitory wing.”
“Okay. I should go and get ready for lunch, then.”
He rises to his feet and walks with me to the door. “I’ll see you tonight, then.”
I place my hand on the door before he opens it. “But this doesn’t mean I’m your whore,” I say. “This doesn’t mean I’ll sleep with you. I don’t want to be . . . to be trapped.”
“I know. You made that clear.”
“Then why?” I nod at the bedroom: why would a man like Dante want a woman who won’t even sleep with him?
He stares at me for a few moments, seems about to say something, but then just murmurs: “’Cause I want it.”
Then he opens the door and I walk back across the bar, toward the dormitory wing, reeling. Reeling from the kiss and reeling from the conversation afterward, reeling that I shared so much with him without properly realizing it, without questioning it, reeling from the heat which emanated from his body and set mine burning, reeling from the way his moans provoked mine. I cannot remember moaning with a man, ever. I have always been too conscious of myself. But with Dante, briefly, I was able to let go long enough to moan. It’s strange.
I’ve taken no more than two steps into the dormitory wing when Ogre, the huge man I’ve avoided since I arrived here, steps into my path. He really is massive. Standing in front of him is like standing in front of an industrial-sized vending machine. I have to crane my neck to look up at him, and even then I’m mostly staring at his mouth and his neck. To get a proper look at him, I would have to crane my back, too. He steps into my path and I jump back, letting out a reflexive yelp.
“Do you like this?” he says, tugging at his jacket with a meaty hand. I back away to the wall and he follows, looming over me. “He who steals must steal no longer. But rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need.” With each word, he takes another step, until I am laid flat against the wall.
I am too scared to speak. My mouth, suddenly so alive in Dante’s office, is unmoving except for my trembling lips. Sweat slides down my body. I am so frightened that I wish Angelica and the club girls would return to the hallway. I would rather have them insulting me than this man looming over me. I swallow; my throat aches.
“That means that it is better to make your own jacket than to steal mine,” he says. “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. That means that you should cut off your hand because you used that sinful hand to pull my jacket around your shoulders. I do not think that was a very nice thing to do and let me tell you something else you small bird—yes, a bird and I can snap birds very easily, in half, right in half—let me tell you that if you ever tell Boss about me talking to you now, here, I will snap you just like you really was a little bird. Please nod if you understand.”
I nod so vehemently my chin touches my chest.
“I want you to tell me you are sorry for stealing my jacket. That was not a very nice thing to do. Please tell me now before I forget where I am and cause you pain.”
Talking is difficult, but I manage to whisper: “I am sorry for stealing your jacket.”
“Good. That is very good. Thank you for apologizing.”
He paces away from me without saying anything else. I keel over, squeezing my belly, panting, terror moving through me as fiercely as lust did moments ago.