15

DONNAWAYNE’S NOSE WAS reset, Jeffery’s hand was numb from Donnawayne squeezing the shit out of it every time I came close to him, and my discomfort was at a max by the time Saylor and I were finally alone. When I asked her why she chose two gay men to be her only friends, she responded with a shrug and “at least I know they won’t take you.” Her answer was good enough for me. But, even if her friends were female, there was no one I wanted other than her.

“Will you sleep with me tonight?” Saylor asks, between yawns.

“Yes,” I tell her, thinking of how I want to make up for the days I missed.

“’K, I just need to take my contacts out.” I wait for her in bed, ready to feel her body against mine. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since I was with her.

When she climbs in, she is naked and my cock stands at attention at the feel of her silky skin against mine. “I haven’t slept hardly any since you left,” she says, and I feel the weight of her body on me as she starts to relax. Her head is on my shoulder, her arm around my neck, one leg thrown over mine and her bare chest against my side. I like her like this. Just the feel of her next to me has my own body relaxing. We don’t tell each other good night because words aren’t needed. We both know this moment is as good as it gets.

—

Saylor is out for doughnuts when I wake up. I know this because the room is covered in Post-it notes, telling me. There are at least twenty of them, and I know she did it so that as soon as I opened my eyes, no matter where I looked I would know where she was.

I shower and am forced to wear a towel because all of my clothes are missing. My bag is empty and inside of it is a note that tells me she is doing my laundry. I find some milk in the fridge, and drink it while I check out her apartment. It’s still pretty bare, but some of the boxes in the spare room look like they have been somewhat unpacked. I want her to pack them back up and ship them to my place. Which is where I’m gonna ask her to move when she gets back.

I hear the door open and close and I freeze, wondering if there is any way possible that it’s not Saylor. I use the small island in the kitchen to cover as much of me as possible, and let out a breath when Saylor emerges. Her bright pink T-shirt is so long it almost covers her shorts, her hair is wild around her head, and she has on a pair of neon yellow running shoes. I take it Saylor likes bright colors.

She smiles when she sees me, then her eyes fall to the towel around my waist. “Why didn’t I think to hide the towels?” she asks, and in one swift movement, I’m standing completely naked in her kitchen. Her eyes travel the length of my body as I walk toward her, already imagining what she will feel like when I’m buried inside her. I want her on the kitchen table. I want her on the counter. I want her on the floor, against the wall, in the air, and everywhere in between. But the noise coming from the laundry room tells me the best place to have her is on the washing machine.

I could grab her hand and lead her there. I could tell her to follow me. But both of those will take away more time than what I’m willing to give. So I scoop her in my arms and carry her, making sure to step over the box of doughnuts that are now on the floor.

The machine is on the wash cycle, and the gentle back and forth movement is just enough to make her tits dance for me. I strip off her shirt and bra, anxious to have her in my mouth. When I gently bite down on her nipple, she moans deep in her throat and pulls me closer to her.

She’s naked and I’m inside her before my mind slows down enough for me to think. I’m buried deep, letting her squeeze me with her pussy and pull my hair with her hands while she kisses me almost desperately. Fuck I’ve missed her. I move inside her, long, deep thrusts that are slow at first, then hard as I drive home that last inch. Her body jerks and she moans each time I pound into her. I love watching her—the way she squeezes her eyes shut, the way she throws her head back, the way she leans back on one hand while the other pulls at her nipples. She is a beautiful sight.

When her body tenses and she comes, the feeling she has can’t be anything close to the feeling I get each time I look at her like this. My own release isn’t as powerful as this feeling in my chest. Feeling my dick jerk inside her, flooding her, filling her . . . is pretty fucking intense.

But nothing can compare to what I feel for her in my heart. That mind-blowing, forget-everything, all-I-can-concentrate-on-is-this-moment sensation. This feeling you get when you reach that orgasmic high is what I feel every time I look at her. When she opens her eyes to look at me, I can see all the way to her soul. I can feel it. And I can feel her searching for mine. Playing games with the devil isn’t smart. I sold my soul to him a long time ago, and Saylor Samson wants to possess what doesn’t even belong to me. But I believe she is powerful enough to give the devil a run for his money.

—

“You were thinking about something earlier. Something deep. Tell me about it.” Saylor is laying next to me on the living room floor, naked except for her socks. I can’t even remember how we got here, but we’ve been here awhile.

“I was thinking about how much I love you.” I answer honestly, staring up at the ceiling, holding her hand in mine.

“There was something else. I could see it in your eyes. Tell me.” I stroke the back of her hand with my thumb, wondering how in the hell I am going to answer her question.

“I can feel you inside me. In places I haven’t had feeling in a long time.” That sounded stupid, but I hope she got it.

“You’re talking about your soul, aren’t you?” I don’t answer her because she already knows what I mean. Plus, I don’t like saying shit when I’m not sure it’s what I want to say. “Just because you think you’re not good enough, doesn’t make it true. That’s not your decision. It’s God’s.”

I don’t like this conversation and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m hoping by ignoring her, the subject will be dropped. I’d rather talk about anything than this.

“I’m sick, Dirk,” she says, and my head jerks toward her. Maybe she has a headache. Maybe a stomach virus. I don’t know and I can’t tell because she won’t look at me. She keeps her eyes on the ceiling. I stare at her, silently begging her for more information so I can fix her, and wondering if I need to go ahead and inform Nationals that I won’t be leaving today.

“Saylor.” I squeeze her hand and she finally looks at me, her eyes shining with unshed tears. When she blinks, I follow one until it rolls off her cheek and onto the carpet. “What’s wrong?” I ask, and if it wasn’t for the flood of tears, I wouldn’t know she was crying. She doesn’t sob, or make a sad face. She looks almost relieved.

I turn on my side, propping myself on my elbow so I can look down at her, but she pushes me away. She stands and I follow her to her room. She grabs a robe from the bed and puts it on, disappearing out the door. I’m trying not to get mad, but her nonchalance about the situation is driving me insane. If she is sick, then why don’t she tell me what’s wrong? Why the fuck is she crying? Why can’t we just stay naked?

She walks back in, holding a basket of clean laundry, and I grab my one and only pair of sweats off the top. My mind takes a break from the turmoil I feel in my chest and silently thanks Saylor for throwing the clothes in the dryer before leaving the laundry room.

When my junk is covered, I feel marginally better about chewing Saylor’s ass for not giving me any info other than “I’m sick.” But, when I turn to find her, she is looking at me—her face and neck wet with tears.

“I’m not just sick, Dirk. I’m dying.” Her eyes are begging me to understand what she said, but I can’t. We’re all dying. Every day on this earth puts us one day closer to that inevitable day we will all face. But that’s not what’s she’s saying. She is saying she is dying like she knows when that inevitable day is.

I feel my heart leap to my throat, then fall to my knees as her words sink in. The emptiness in my chest is almost too much, and I know if I wasn’t looking dead at her, it would be as if she were already gone. Because she is telling me she is leaving.

“Those headaches I have are caused from an inoperable, malignant brain tumor.” She pauses as if she is waiting for her words to fully register. They don’t. All I’m hearing is I’m dying and all I can think is She can’t.

“My mother died from the same thing. After she passed, they removed the tumor and did some research. They found it was hereditary. I’ve been going for routine CT scans since. At first I hoped it might have somehow skipped me, but they found it about six months ago when I went for my checkup.”

Brain tumor? Couldn’t they just take it out? She said inoperable, but she didn’t say incurable.

“They can fix it,” I inform her, because these days, chemo and radiation and all that shit cured these types of things. She would lose her hair, but it would grow back. Technology was amazing. There were smart people all over the world, finding cures for cancer right now. Little lab geeks in white coats with glasses and all that shit.

“There’s no fixing it, Dirk. It’s gonna happen. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but six months from now I won’t be here.”

How could she be so calm? How could she not care? Why the fuck has she been keeping this from me?

“I’m at peace with this, Dirk, and it’s taken me a long time to get where I am.”

I’m still shaking my head, telling her this isn’t real in a way that I’ve been taught not to. I don’t nod, or shake my head. I speak when I have something to say, but I can’t find the words. She puts her hands on either side of my face and I still. I’m frantically searching her eyes for any sign of hope, but there isn’t any.

“How can you say you are at peace with this?” I whisper the words, afraid if I say them too loud that the part of my brain that can fully process what I’m asking will hear and make this all true.

“God has decided that I’m not needed in this life anymore.”

“I need you,” I say through my teeth, fighting back the burning that is going on behind my eyes. I know what it is, and because I haven’t felt it in so long, it hurts more. Saylor’s thick walls and peace with the situation are failing. The small amount of sadness I saw in her eyes isn’t so small anymore.

“And you have me.” She is smiling. It’s sad, but it resembles happiness and I don’t see the happiness in this moment. Not one fucking bit.

“You lied to me.” The words hurt more when I say them out loud, and I’m searching for anger to replace pain, but it’s not working. She’s shaking her head, panic welling in her eyes.

“I didn’t know how to tell you. I could never find the right time.” Her words help me find the anger I’ve been searching for. I grab her wrists, pulling her hands from my face and pushing her away. She reaches for me and I step back. I don’t want her touching me. I don’t want to look at her. All her actions make sense now. She isn’t a heartbroken woman with a broken past; she is a dying woman that wanted to live on the wild side and mark biker off her bucket list before it was too late.

“You used me.” I’m whispering. The realization of being a pawn in her fucking sick game of limited life did more than slap me in the face. It ripped out my fucking heart. Maybe the next time she prays, she should ask God to shed some mercy on her soul. Because it’s gotta be pretty twisted to allow her to do what she’s done to me.

“I never used you, Dirk! I love you!” Her desperate cries would hurt me, if she hadn’t made me so numb.

“You love me?” I can’t hide the shock in my voice. I should have known love was a fucked-up thing. Black actually did do something for me. He shielded me from the one thing that could hurt me more than anything else. Fucking heartbreak.

“Dirk, please don’t hate me. I need you.” Hate her? I could never hate her. But I had to leave. She knew that.

I find my voice, laced with as much malice and ice I can find. I’m digging into the deepest, darkest, most tainted part of my soul to tell her the last words I ever want her to hear me say.

“Out of all the endless hours I’ve spent with you. All that fucking time and not once you could tell me? You should have told me before I ever let you into my life. I gave you everything and what are you giving me? A six-month notice that what I thought I’d waited my whole life for was going to die?”

I’m not angry at Saylor, but I know I’m taking my frustration out on her. It’s not her fault this is happening. But who else can I blame?

“I need you, Dirk.” I shake my head at her words, wishing I could forget everything.

“I have to go, Saylor. I have a job to do.” I grab my bag and turn to leave. I was a fool. A fuckup. I knew she was too good to be true. I don’t deserve her. I never did and now the universe is proving it. So I do the only thing I know how to do. I run.

“Will you be back?” Her sweet voice hits me right in the chest.

“I just need some time.”

I chance a look back at her, wanting nothing more than to hold her in my arms. I step closer, allowing her scent to engulf me. When I’m close enough, I lean down and kiss her head. I’m giving her the only thing I have left. A good-bye and words that I’ve vowed never to say, but have spoken twice to her. “I’m sorry, Saylor.” Because that doesn’t seem to be enough, I wait until I’m on my bike before I whisper the words she will never hear. “Good-bye.”

—

“Whiskey,” I snap to the Prospect whose lack of eye contact and silence are the only things keeping him alive. For some reason, they put this new blood behind the bar in Houston. I guess they thought it was a good way to break him in. If he could survive me after the shit mood I’ve been in the past week, he could survive anything.

Roach called yesterday telling me that we needed to make a move on Death Mob. It seemed they wanted more of Texas than what we were willing to give. My job was to ask them to leave. I knew it wouldn’t turn out good and Roach did too, but he considered me trained enough to handle it. And I would. Alone. I dared a motherfucker to try and take me out. If I went, I’d take a hell of a lot of ’em with me. Life wasn’t that great these days anyway.

Death Mob didn’t have the relationship with Dorian that Sinner’s Creed did, but Cyrus had a lot of reach. He had several connections in his pocket, and word on the street was that he was sniffing around about our business with Mexico. That wasn’t good for us, but it sure as hell wasn’t good for him.

I finished off the bottle of whiskey, letting it numb the pain I still had in my chest over her—the one whose name we don’t speak. My anger turned to resentment, my resentment turned back to anger, and when I couldn’t find things to get pissed off at anymore, I became sad. That’s where I am now. Fucking sad. Heartbroken. Crushed. Devastated. All those fucking words that express that dying feeling inside of you. It’s more painful than being shot, stabbed, and beaten to a pulp. I’ve experienced all three and none of them can compare to this.

When I walk outside, silence descends and it is a sure giveaway that I am the topic of conversation. But nobody attempts to stop me or say anything. Roach had given them strict orders to let me handle shit. He had put his faith in me this long; there was no sense in doubting me now. When I mount my bike, I look over to find Shady sitting on his, putting his helmet on. I just glare at him. My look speaks more volume than my words.

“Brothers for life. Ride or die. I’m ya boy blue. All that shit,” he says, slapping his chest and throwing up what I’m guessing are gang signs. I don’t need his help, or his love and loyalty. I need his respect. And right now, he needs to respectfully stay the fuck outta my way.

“Don’t.” My one-word warning does nothing. I’m gonna have to fight this asshole.

“Look, man, I push papers. Let me do something,” he says, his voice exasperated. He knew this fight was coming. Paper pusher my ass. Shady has fought plenty of battles. He is sick with a gun. But, if he thinks he is gonna make me feel like shit and I’m gonna cave, he’s wrong. I’m much better at fucking with people’s heads than he is.

“Just what I need. Some-fucking-body else using me to get their thrills.” He knows what I mean and the remorse is on his face. Good. I’ll guilt his ass into staying and save my strength for Death Mob.

I close my shield and tear out, leaving a cloud of dust behind me. When it clears, Shady’s bike comes into view in my mirror. I should have fucking known.