Four Hours Earlier
With my legs propped up on a worn, leather couch in Daemon’s living room, I munched on handfuls of popcorn while mindless reality television about an ink shop blabbered on in the foreground.
Lockdown from the club was horrific.
Gut-wrenching concern every time the phone rang for the last three days while I couldn’t do anything to help—couldn’t do anything except sit around and hang out with Liv and sometimes Jules—was worse.
My fingers and my hands and my mind all itched to do something. Anything.
Yet there I sat, a beer on the floor next to the side of the couch, a bowl full of heavily buttered and even more heavily salted popcorn in my lap, while I lay out on the couch like a sixty-year-old man.
“We need to get drunk.”
I grabbed the beer and dangled it from my thumb and middle finger, letting it rock back and forth. “We’re on it.”
Liv rolled her eyes, but her eyes danced with unspoken and not-yet-acted on drunken regret.
“One beer isn’t drunken fun.”
“And I bet you’re going to tell me what is.” Placing the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table, I swung my lazy feet off the couch and onto the floor. My shirt and short yoga shorts made a sticky-tacky sound as I shifted.
It was August. It was summer. It was hotter than Hades, and my clothes had gotten stuck to the couch from my lazy afternoon.
“Call Jules,” I said. “I’ll watch Sophie and you two can go out.”
“Or her parents could watch Sophie and we can all go out. Do some shopping, get some martinis, maybe get our hair done, and pretend we’re classy and shit.”
I laughed. Leave it to Liv. Being from biker families didn’t make us classless. Liv had more class in one hand than most women carried in their whole bodies. She just covered it in chilled out, ripped denim and Harley tanks because she was that awesome.
I took in my own lazy day appearance. Stained gray yoga shorts, a yellow sweaty tank top, and chipped nail polish on my toes because I no longer had to look perfect all the time. My hair looked decent, but only due to the copious amounts of dry shampoo I used to make it look less greasy. I was unwashed and unshaven—basically a completely sloppy mess.
But I was dying to get out of the house.
I opened my mouth to agree that I’d go out, at least for the shopping—a girl could always use a new purse or shoes, and maybe a new haircut—when a quiet tap hit the front door.
“Who’s that?” I ask, whipping my head to Liv.
She shrugged and picked up her phone. “No clue, but Finn’s supposed to be outside.”
The slight creaking of the old wooden screen door alerted us to the fact that whoever had been outside was now inside.
My eyebrows pulled together when a quiet, feminine voice called out, “Olivia?”
Olivia set her feet on the floor and used her hands on the armrest of her chair to push her up to standing. As she walked by me, she mouthed, “I think it’s Melissa.”
Which was odd. Melissa was not only not our friend, but she had been Daemon’s club bunny for a long time until Olivia came back into the picture. I had seen her around town for years, her cheeks almost always slightly bruised, which I knew came from her asshole of a father.
I reached out to clean up my popcorn and empty beer bottle and was halfway standing when Liv returned to the living room with Melissa on her heels.
Melissa’s blonde hair hung down the sides of her face, parted directly in the middle and hid half of her cheeks. I knew what that meant.
My blood immediately began thrumming in my ears. Any man who would hurt any woman—especially his daughter—should have a reserved seat in hell, as close to the eternal fire as possible.
“Hey,” Melissa said, looking at me for a split second before she looked down at the floor, effectively cutting off any more eye contact.
“Hi, Melissa.”
She opened her mouth and then shut it. I shot Liv a “what the hell” look as I made my way to the kitchen. Whatever Melissa was there for had nothing to do with me.
Washing and rinsing out the popcorn bowl, recycling the beer bottle, and pretending to scrub the already clean kitchen counter, I delayed my return to the living room filled with hushed voices for as long as possible.
When there was nothing left I could do to stretch out the time, I headed back to the room, my feet trudging quietly along the slick kitchen floor.
My jaw dropped as I hit the doorway to the living room and saw Liv, crouched on her knees in front of the coffee table, and Melissa sitting on the other side, the edge of her butt resting on the couch I had vacated.
Paperwork covered the table in front of them.
“What’s all this?” I asked as I entered the room. Both women turned to me, but Melissa’s bruised cheeks turned a different shade of pink before she glanced a way. When she did, she slide the edge of her thumbnail into her mouth and began chewing.
“Melissa wants to go to college.” Liv’s grin tilted up slightly higher on one side. Her eyes flashed wide before she nudged her head in Melissa’s direction.
“Wow.” It was all I could say, but my feet closed the distance and I took a seat on the couch next to Melissa. “Getting out of town, huh?”
I smiled so she knew I was being friendly and happy for her. And I was. She was a sweet girl and always had been. It certainly wasn’t her fault she was born to a loser mom and an asshole dad.
We could relate that way, I figured. Shutting off the line of thought that hit whenever my mom was brought up, I reached out and grabbed a stack of papers.
“FAFSA?” I dragged my scrunched eyes to Liv.
“Financial aid.”
I arched a brow, my fingers absentmindedly fidgeting with the corners of the thin, cool paper.
Liv glanced at Melissa before returning her eyes to me. “I told Melissa that if she wanted to get out of town and go to college, I’d help her figure it all out.”
My eyes snapped to Melissa, who refused to look at me. Her fingers alternated between tapping the paper in front of her and playing with her the ends of her hair.
I knew. I knew the hesitancy she was dealing with. The fear that was wrapping its tendrils around her already fragile and shattered heart while some quiet voice spoke inside of her, telling her to flee, telling her she could do this.
My nose stung and I sniffed away the tears that threatened to grow in my eyes.
Instead, I sat back on the couch and threw an arm around her waist, pulling her to me.
She stiffened in my arm, but I pulled her closer and held her tighter.
“I get it,” I told her, my voice quiet, almost as if I was terrified of scaring away the frightened little rabbit.
But I was. And so was she—the frightened rabbit.
And I knew that with certainty while I looked at her because I saw me in her. The fidgeting of the hair and the fingernails. The inability to look someone in the eye. The way her shoulders slouched and her toes tapped mindlessly against the carpeted rug in Daemon’s living room. She lived her life in fear every day.
This step—this attempt at freedom—was the single most amazing and bravest step Melissa would ever take.
I knew that because it was how I felt the morning I allowed Ryker to drag me out of his room at the clubhouse, plop my ass in a stool, and feed me.
Melissa slowly relaxed into my arm as my hand that was wrapped around her waist squeezed her tight. “It’s so brave of you to do this,” I whispered against her cheek. Liv pretended to ignore us as she flipped through paper after paper, but I knew her ears were perked in our direction even if her eyes were glued to the stack in front of her. “You’ll do great wherever you go.”
Melissa’s chin trembled slightly. I dropped my arm from her waist and pulled back, allowing her the time to regain her emotions.
Smacking my hands on my knees, I pushed off the couch and headed for the stairs. “I’m going to take a shower,” I said, hitching my thumb in the direction of upstairs. Both Liv and Melissa glanced at me with smiles on their faces. One was proud, and yet one was still uncertain and shaky. “Call me when you’re ready for shopping, okay?”
“Got it.” Liv threw a thumbs up in my direction, smiled at Melissa, and started talking again.
The voices disappeared as I headed up the narrow and darkened staircase.
Quickly, I peeled off my sweat lined clothes and turned the water on in the bathroom. The warmth of the water and the pounding of the spray against my shoulders and my back erased the tension in my shoulders from worrying about Ryker. They’d only been gone for three days, but we hadn’t talked much. Every time we did speak, his deep voice was tinged with a tightness that equaled my own stress and worry.
Except below his, I sensed an anger and a need for revenge that rivaled my own hatred for Cain. Black Death had essentially left town weeks ago after The Nordic Lords, Daemon leading the charge, had annihilated their charter and their President, Hammer.
But that wasn’t where my mind went to as beads of slightly stinging hot water tumbled down my back, into the crevices of my behind, and down the front of my chest.
My hands in my hair as I massaged the shampoo into my scalp, I watched bubbles and water beads drip and roll down my chest, over the swells of my breasts and my nipples. My eyes closed, lost in the seductive tingle of the water on my skin, I saw two black eyes peering at me in my head.
Ryker’s eyes. The way they crinkled slightly at the outside edges when he smiled. The way they narrowed on my body when he raked them over my chest and body just days ago.
I felt his eyes on me as I stood underneath the water, my hands drifting to where Ryker’s had been days before, his firm, calloused hands roamed my body, tugged at my nipples, and pleasured my body in a way that only he could do.
My heart rate increased as my hands gripped my own breasts, pulling on my nipples, mirroring the way Ryker touched me.
I envisioned running my hands through his short black hair, tugging him to me, holding him against my skin as his lips and his unshaven morning shadow scraped against my tender skin. The way he woke me up by pressing his lips against my thighs, teasing me until he had placed his mouth directly onto my sex before licking.
I moaned, my fingers teasing myself the way Ryker had done for me. It wasn’t enough.
I needed more. I needed him. The only man who had touched me in such a reverent and awe-inspired way. My orgasm rocked through me quickly and fiercely. One hand of mine propped on the wall of the shower, one foot on the edge of the shower tub combo, as my fingers pressed against my clit, so close, but not nearly close enough to the perfect orgasm Ryker could pull from me.
When it was finished, and I only felt slightly satisfied, I knew I would never feel immense pleasure again unless it was Ryker’s hands or body doing the pleasing.
With that knowledge, I turned off the water in the shower, dried myself off with a towel, wrapping it around my chest, and grabbed another towel and did the same with my hair, piling it on top of my head so I looked like I was wearing a fluffy gray turban.
My slightly damp feet padded across the worn carpet into Ryker’s childhood room where I’d been staying for the last few days. The same room Ryker had been staying in since he’d been back in town.
His masculine scent cloaked the room and enveloped me in warmth and memories of good times in my youth every time I entered.
This time was no different as I traipsed across the room and headed straight toward a small bag of clothes I had brought with me. Clothes Liv and Jules had bought for me, yet they were perfectly me in fit and style.
I dug through the bag, searching for another pair of clean shorts to throw on, when my phone began buzzing against the wooden nightstand where I’d been charging it.
I unplugged the phone and frowned when I didn’t recognize the number. Yet the phone continued buzzing in my hand.
Vibrations from the phone tingled in my hand and sent similar sensations up my arms directly to my heart.
“Hello?” I asked, uncertainty and nerves made my voice sound shaky and ragged.
“I will always own you.”
The voice.
That voice.
It chilled me from my teeth to my bones. Coldness and chilled bumps broke out along my arms and the back of my neck. Hairs stood on end as I squeezed my eyes shut.
Cain. At the same time I thought his name, the image of the gun I’d used the other day flashed through my mind. Strength pumped through my blood as I gripped my cell phone, my eyes looking wild and untamed in the mirror across the room from me.
My skin was paler than normal. My blue eyes flashed wide. The words in my throat felt as if they tripped over a maze of razor blades on their way out of my mouth as I asked, “What do you want?”
Silence filled the line for a beat in time before he barked out one command.
“You.” I forced myself to swallow through a large golf-ball sized lump in my throat, unable to respond when he continued. “I want to see you. Now.”
My eyes darted around the room, subconsciously seeking a weapon that would end him. Screw the fact it was impossible to kill him through the phone line. “Never.”
His sick laugh reverberated through the phone until my body felt as if it’d been dipped in an oil spill—greasy and sick all over.
“Sure you will, Diamond.” My body trembled at the word. Never again did I want to be called that. I had taken something pure and beautiful and turned it into something defiled and ugly. I never wanted to be that woman again. “You can’t resist…” His voice changed then, an unknown timbre I’d never heard him speak in rolled through the line. “Don’t you want to know… don’t you have questions?”
I did. I had so many. And he taunted me with answers as I was a bunny and he was the carrot, dangling them barely out of my reach. I knew what he was asking. The answer to the question I had repeatedly asked him—begged him for. Why did you do this to me?
“Yes.” The word flew through the phone before I could take it back and feign indifference.
“You’ll come to me,” he said, his voice full of threatening undertones that I knew too well. “And by the time the night is done, you’ll be coming for me.”
I swayed on my feet as I stared at my ashen appearance in the mirror. With every word he spoke, more of the confident and strong woman I’d try to be in the last few weeks disappeared in front of my eyes.
I knew his threats. I knew his abilities to make me do the things he threatened even when I despised him.
But despite the fears that threatened to overtake me, I wanted it done.
I wanted to be free. And for the first time in five years, freedom was within my grasp.
“Tell me where.” My eyes widened in the mirror—my reflection surprised at herself and the steadiness in which I spoke.
Cain chuckled through the line. Unaffected or unaware of the fire that burned within me to extinguish him, he spoke the place, telling me to get there as soon as I could, that he’d be waiting for me. The only thing I had to figure out how was how to get out of the house without Finn following.