Michael

 

Fuck. The innocent girl I knew, the one who blushed when I tried stealing a kiss at her locker, had been replaced by a confident woman who responded to every touch with an electrifying heat.

 

When I carried her up to my bedroom I hadn’t fully formulated my plan, but I knew I was going to spank her, though I knew that was going to happen regardless of her behavior. For only a brief moment did I fear she would choose to walk out of the room instead of taking what I offered, but I knew her body better than she did. Her fingers rubbed together at her side, a nervous trait that told me she was going to do something she didn’t really want, or wasn’t sure she wanted to. I’d seen her to it a few dozen times in school when she needed to give a presentation in a class. As soon as I saw her fingers start moving, I knew she’d be bent over the bed in no time. She just needed her brain to catch up to her body.

 

I finished tossing the condom in the trash, grabbed a towel for her and headed back to my room. Empty.

 

Her clothes were gone, and the door to my room was open. Annoyed, I jammed my legs into my jeans and went in search for her. Didn’t we just talk about this? Well, I supposed I hadn’t told her to stay put, but it damn well was implied!

 

“Lauren!” I called down the stairwell. Nothing. I ran down the carpeted steps, checking the living room and kitchen. Both empty. She wouldn’t have been stupid enough to try to hail a cab at that time of night. It was nearing midnight and cabs didn’t run too often in my area.

 

Her backpack was gone from the kitchen, but I noticed her phone lying on the kitchen island. Either she left it behind, or she was still in the house. Deciding to check the upstairs bathroom, I took the stairs two at a time, each second of searching for her only compounding my annoyance.

 

When I reached the top of the staircase I noticed a thin beam of light coming from beneath the guest bedroom door. As I approached it, I heard a soft humming. I slowly turned the handle and pushed the door open just enough to peek inside. Lauren lay on the bed in her t-shirt. Her jeans and underwear were neatly folded in a pile on the nightstand beside her. Her nose was buried in a textbook while she laid on her stomach reading, her feet swaying above her to the music playing on the clock radio. Her head bounced right then left, then right again as the tempo picked up and she started singing along.

 

The sight reminded me of a simpler time. When I would watch her study in much the same fashion. I pushed the door open the rest of the way and leaned against the doorjamb, waiting for her to realize I’d found her. I examined her as though I’d not seen her before. The curves of her chin and nose were soft, gentle. Her legs were strong, but still held the feminine curves I loved so much. One red welt peaked out from under shirt across her ass and my stomach twisted. She left before I could be sure her ass was okay. After a few more minutes of my staring at her, I cleared my throat.

 

Her feet stilling in the air, and she slowly turned her head to look over her shoulder at me. Damn, she was beautiful. “Hey.” I walked over to the bed. Pushing her legs over, I sat down. “You left this downstairs.” I dropped her phone on the opened textbook.

 

“Thanks.” She forced a small smile.

 

“I need to look at your ass.” I reached for the hem of her shirt but she yanked away. “Lauren, I just want to be sure you’re okay.” After searching my expression for a silent moment, she nodded and rolled back onto her stomach. My fingers traced the welt. The other four strokes hadn’t left a mark; those red lines were nearly all faded, but one welt stood up off her skin. When I touched it, she sucked in her breath. “I’m sorry, babe. I would have taken care of this right away, but you left before I could.” Examining it more, I was relieved the skin hadn’t broken at all. It would probably bruise a bit, but wouldn’t last more than a day or two.

 

I pulled her shirt back down and let her roll back over to face me. “I thought you’d like your room back.” She sat up, scooting against the headboard.

 

“Why would I want that?” I climbed over her and lay beside her, resting my head on her thighs. Her hand sunk into my hair, running her fingers along my scalp. “I want you in my bed, Lauren. That’s where you belong.” I kept my voice even. No need to scare her.

 

“I needed to get some reading done.”

 

I was sure she did have something to work on for school, but that had nothing to do with her leaving my bedroom. She could have brought that book into my bed.

 

“If I look up and that lip of yours is sucked into your mouth, I’m going to kiss you until you can’t breathe, and then I’m going to ask you to repeat the first expectation I gave you tonight.” Before she could react, I rolled over and looked up at her. Sure enough that corner of her lip was stuck behind her teeth. I laughed and pulled her down to kiss me. “Now. What was the first expectation?”

 

“Always be honest,” she whispered.

 

“So tell me the truth. Why’d you move in here?”

 

She looked down at me, her lips parted as she took slow breaths. “I…once this is all done, and you finally admit I’m safe, you’ll leave again, and I don’t want it to hurt like it did all those years ago.”

 

Her words cut me as easily as any kitchen knife would have. “Lauren, I never meant to hurt you, that’s not why I left.”

 

“Then why? Tell me. What made you stay away from me? Why wouldn’t you let me see you, and why run away when you got out? I tried to find you, looked for you everywhere. A few of your old friends told me to back off, that if I couldn’t find you it was because you didn’t want to be found, but I kept looking.”

 

Picturing a younger version of this woman before me searching the streets of Chicago, going to my old haunts alone just to find me, turned my stomach. “Lauren—”

 

“No holding back. You said you expected me not to keep things from you, but here you are doing it to me.” Her eyes hardened as she stared down at me.

 

“Fine.” I sat up and hopped off the bed. If I were going to tell her everything she wanted to know, I couldn’t do it with her touching me. Not even casually. “When I got sent away, all I could think about was who the hell was going to watch over you. For weeks, I made calls to my friends, making them check up on you, making sure Chad and that bastard of a stepdad stayed away from you. You coming out to see me was a dumb thing to do. You had to take that bus all the way there; it wasn’t safe. I figured if I didn’t see you, you wouldn’t take the chance again.”

 

“You didn’t want me on the bus?” She looked at me like I had grown a second head.

 

I ignored the question. “When I got out, I got picked up by a biker club. Predators. They took me in, gave me an apartment and I worked with them on cars and shit. First just doing rebuilds, regular maintenance that short of crap. But then the president, he wanted me to do some special projects. Before I knew it, I was stealing cars, stripping them, and selling off the parts.” I didn’t look at her, I just kept leaning against the dresser with my hands stuffed in my jeans. “The pay was awesome, I got girls whenever I wanted, everything was going fine. In my second year with the club, he put me in charge of a small crew. I got to call the shots, what cars we took, where we sold the parts, everything. I just had to report back to him with results. The pay got better, the girls were chasing me down, so I kept going. Fast and hard. My life was the fucking club. But I got fucking cocky, stole the wrong car and got busted. Right back to jail they sent my ass, only I wasn’t a minor anymore and they sent me to prison. Spent a year locked up.”

 

“Michael.” The small voice nearly chewed me up. I didn’t want or need her pity. The decisions were mine and I lived by them. Good or bad, it was my life and I wasn’t going to apologize for any of it.

 

“When I got out that time, I wanted out of the car shit. But Prez wouldn’t let me out of it, said he needed me to keep running the crew ’cause he was getting too much heat from the cops. See, the club runs an actual garage, completely legit, but he runs his illegal shit through there, too. The cops have turned his garage over a few times looking for the auto theft shit, but they never find it. Prez is too clever for that. Officer Bixby helps keep the cops off my ass as long as I stay clear of the club. He was the detective on my case, trying to pin as many auto thefts on me as possible.”

 

I ran my hand over my face. “After a few dozen hours of questioning me, he realized I wasn’t going to give him shit, and Prez would sooner see me dead than let me hand over any information. Bixby looked out for me. Put me on the straight and narrow. He stopped looking, dropped his investigation and made me give him my word I wouldn’t lift another car for the club again.”

 

“I’m guessing your president didn’t like that idea.”

 

“No, he didn’t. Sent a few guys after me in prison to be sure I kept my mouth shut. After I sent one of those assholes to the medical ward, he backed off. Finally convinced I wasn’t going to flip on him. But he didn’t like that I wouldn’t run his crew when I got back. Said it was either that or turn in my leather. Now, I fucking loved that club. The guys, they were my fucking brothers, but he didn’t give me a choice. I wasn’t going back to prison for him. Fuck, the guy I laid out came at me with a fucking shiv. The asshole had sent someone to kill me, then wondered why the fuck I wouldn’t run his shit anymore.” I felt the anger brewing again, and took a deep breath.

 

She didn’t say anything. She crawled down the length of the bed and stepped off, moving to stand in front of me. I watched her hands touch the tattoo on my chest. A large dagger with P written on the handle. “Is that what this is? Your club tattoo?” Her fingers traced the edges of the daggers crossing below the knight’s helmet.

 

“Yeah. The one on my back, too.” Across my shoulders was the full emblem of the club. Having not been thrown out of the club, they’d let me keep my ink, so long as I didn’t wear my leathers. Just another way of Mick showing his power, but still hoping I’d come back to the club.

 

“That guy you had babysitting me tonight, Tony? He has this on his arm.” She looked up at me, those soft big eyes of hers. After what I told her, she should be disgusted with me. Instead she pressed her lips to my tattoo, as if she could ease away the pain that part of my life caused.

 

“Yeah. He’s still active, but doesn’t run the auto shit. A few of my guys are still in the club, but they work on the outside. Staying clear of Mick’s bullshit.”

 

“So you stayed away to protect me?”

 

Among other things, but I wasn’t about to start spilling my feelings all over the place. “You didn’t need to be a part of the shit I was doing.”

 

“What if I weren’t so innocent?” She moved her gaze from mine when she asked her question. Her hands dropped from my chest. “If I weren’t the naïve little girl you thought I was, would that have made a difference? Would it now?”

 

I pushed away from the dresser, standing at full height. That girl was hiding something from me. “What do you mean?”

 

“It’s just a question.”

 

“If you were doing shit you weren’t supposed to be doing? Yeah, I woulda hauled your ass to the side and taken care of it. But you weren’t, right?” I didn’t mean to sound so angry, but I kept my eyes on her for years after I left. She’d been completely on the straight and narrow, but the look in her eye at that moment suggested she wasn’t the innocent girl I left behind.

 

“Why can’t I stay at my place? And why does this cop I mentioned make you nervous?”

 

I took a deep breath, better to pull off the Band-Aid with one yank. “That guy last night, the one who jumped you? He was a club member. I went to see Mick today, turns out he’s been asked as a favor to convince you to turn down that internship. Said as long as you do, nothing else happens.”

 

“The car accident?”

 

“He didn’t know anything about that. I’m guessing the guy came to him after the car accident didn’t work to scare you off. Your apartment isn’t safe for you right now. Not until I figure out who this guy is who’s asking for favors. I might need to pull a few favors of my own, but until I do that, you stay with me. In my house. In my bed. Got it?”

 

She nodded, and I couldn’t keep myself from kissing those lips when they were so damn close to me. “Yeah, I got it,” she whispered when I pulled away.

 

“Tomorrow I want you to tell me about this internship. Why the hell is it so important that you not have it, and why does that asshat at school want it so bad.” I swooped down and hoisted her into my arms. “Right now, I want to take you back to my bed and get you good and tired before I tuck you in.”

 

“My book.” She pointed to the text that laid open on the pillows.

 

“You can read it after breakfast.” I left her clothes where they were on the nightstand and walked down the hall toward my bed. Her arms wrapped round my neck, and she rested her head against my chest as I carried her off. The little sigh I heard from her made me smile.

 

***

 

“Yeah, I got it. Great. Thanks, Bixby.” I clicked off the call and tucked my phone back into my jeans pocket. Lauren slept like the dead up in my bed, and I didn’t want to wake her. After checking her calendar on her phone, I realized she didn’t have a class until after lunch, so I was going to let her sleep in. The garage would have to get along without me for a day, but I knew Tony wouldn’t mind. If Kelly showed up for another oil change, I wouldn’t be there to cock block him.

 

“Michael, did you see my phone?” Lauren sauntered into the kitchen still wearing only a t-shirt, her hair mussed up around her head, and rubbing her eyes with heel of her palms. The sun in the kitchen could be bright as hell in the morning, and I hadn’t drawn the blinds down.

 

“It’s on the counter by the coffee, charging.” I walked up to her and slid my hands around her waist, pulling her to me for a kiss. She tried to turn away, declaring she had morning breath, to which I cupped her chin and took the kiss I wanted. “I talked with Bixby. No one is working your accident except for him. Whoever called you isn’t a cop. He’s gonna stop by campus today. He’ll meet us after your class and see who shows up. You aren’t going to talk to the guy, but we want to know who it is.”

 

She pulled out of my arms and went to the coffee maker, where a pot just finished brewing. I could see the tension in her shoulders and readied myself for another argument. I swore the woman swung from moods like an ape in the jungle. “I want to meet him. Maybe I can find out who sent him, wat they really want.” She opened cabinets until she found the coffee mugs and went to pouring herself a cup of coffee.

 

“No. Bixby just wants to get a look at him; he’ll talk to him if he thinks it’s necessary, or I will, but you will not go near him.”

 

Her shoulders slumped as she spooned sugar into her coffee. “I won’t hide.” The spoon clanked against the cup as she shook off the excess coffee.

 

“You’ll stay a safe distance from him.”

 

“I didn’t bring any extra clothes. I need to stop at my apartment.” She carried her cup out of the kitchen, right past me, and headed back upstairs. I knew her well enough to know that just because she didn’t argue with me didn’t mean she wasn’t going to do whatever the hell she wanted to do.

 

Three hours later, Bixby and I stood outside her economics class waiting for the lecture to finish up. The empty hallway felt creepy.

 

“You know this guy might just walk right up to her and snatch her. He probably doesn’t want to talk at all.”

 

“I’m aware of that. I told her she’s not to go anywhere after class except right out here to meet us.”

 

“Oh, you did, did you? You told her what to do?”

 

I ignored the smirk on his lips and looked at the time on my phone again. Just a few more minutes. “She’ll listen.”

 

“Yup…I’m sure she will. From what you’ve told me of her, she’s got her own mind. And if she is of the frame of mind to want to know what this guy wants, she may just sneak out that second door as everyone piles out this one and head down to where they are supposed to meet.”

 

My ears perked up at that suggestion just as the door swung open and students began to file out of the lecture hall. I tried to move through them, to get to the second door, but there were too many. Finally, I shoved my way through just in time to see Lauren ducking down the stairwell at the other end of the hall.

 

“Couldn’t have tipped me off to that ten minutes ago?” I barked at Bixby as we both made our way down the hall to follow her disobedient ass. Any regret I may have held on to for giving her that belting the night before washed away when I saw her approach a man in the lobby.

 

The guy wore a long leather coat, and considering the heat outside, it put me even more on edge. From the stairs, I could make out his cropped hair and a jagged scar running down the side of his right cheek.

 

“There they are!” I started to dart down the stairs faster, but Bixby grabbed me on the landing.

 

“Wait. She’s talking to him. Just let her finish; if he does anything we’ll go in. There’s a shit load of people in here. I don’t think he wants to attack her. Not here.”

 

“I’m going to beat her ass,” I promised myself, earning a chuckle from Bixby.

 

“I’d say she earned it.” He pointed to the guy who looked like he was becoming more agitated was the conversation went on. She shook her head and took a step back from him. The guy’s jaw clenched, as well as his fists, but he didn’t make a move to grab her.

 

“If we could get closer, we’d be able to hear him. Do you know this guy?” I didn’t move my eyes from the asshole and Lauren.

 

“No, doesn’t look familiar, but she doesn’t look all that scared of him. Maybe she does.”

 

She did look calm, annoyed, but not frightened. Her eyes had been full of terror when Matthew attacked her, but this guy, who glared down at her so hard his scar turned white, didn’t seem to be fazing her that much.

 

After what felt like hours, Lauren finally waved her hand at the guy, dismissing him. She was dismissing him! I watched as the big guy, towering over her by at least two feet, pointed at her and said one more thing before turning around and walking out of the building.

 

“Aren’t you going to go chase him?” I gave Bixby a shove.

 

“Nope. She’s going to tell us who he was.” He nodded toward Lauren, who looked around the lobby and finally locked her sight on us. Her usually pale skin paled even more when her eyes met mine. A week. That woman wasn’t going to sit on her ass for a week once I got her alone.

 

I ran down the rest of the stairs, keeping my eyes on her. She started to back away but I yelled from across the lobby. “Not one step, Lauren. Not a single one!” Ignoring Bixby’s chuckle from behind me, I made my way through the crowd, who now had set their eyes on us.

 

“Hey, Michael.” She threw on an easy smile, adjusting her bag on her shoulder. She hadn’t dislocated it like the doctor had worried about, but it still gave her some tenderness when she had her damn pack hanging from it. I ignored her wince of pain, she’d be doing a lot more of that by the end of the day.

 

“Lauren.”

 

“Hi, Lauren. My name is Detective Bixby.” He put on his brightest smile, the one he reserved for witnesses when he wanted to put them at ease to extract exactly what he needed from them.

 

“Nice to meet you.” She grinned back at him. “I didn’t see you in the hall. I thought maybe we were supposed to meet down here.” Her eyes settled on Bixby, not looking at me at all, as though that would somehow keep the fact that she was lying from me. When she didn’t suck in that lip of hers, she avoided eye contact. The woman didn’t understand how well I knew her.

 

“Quite all right.” Bixby nodded. “We saw you talking with someone; was he the man who contacted you?” Bixby stepped in front of me and gestured to a group of seats off to the side of the lobby.

 

Lauren started walking with him to the lounge area, still keeping me out of her sight. “Uh, yeah.” She settled down in a chair, slipping her bag from her shoulder and keeping it between her feet. “I must have misunderstood him on the phone. He wasn’t a cop. Insurance guy. Needed to ask a few questions to process my claim.”

 

Except I knew for a damn fact she hadn’t filed a claim. Bixby just nodded. “What sort of questions?”

 

“How fast was I going, what direction was the other guy going, that sort of stuff. Really, he could have done it over the phone, but I guess he was in the area.”

 

“Yeah, pretty standard stuff. He looked a little annoyed by what you were telling him; what was that about?”

 

I let Bixby do his thing, asking her questions, taking in her lies without stepping in, only because he knew what he was doing. I’d been on the other side of this conversation, sat where Lauren sat, and knew he’d get what he wanted. My inserting myself would only delay things. Besides, if I called her on her lies, she’d clam up, and I needed to find out why she was laying and what the fuck she was hiding.

 

I listened as Bixby continued to casually ask questions that weren’t responded to with any honesty on her part. He knew she was lying, but he continued to press her. Finally, I couldn’t stand anymore of it. “I need to get back to the garage, and Lauren’s shift starts soon. I’ll drop her off at the shelter. If you need to ask her anything more, just let me know and I’ll bring her to the station.” Without looking at her, I grabbed her bag and swung it over my shoulder.

 

“I think I have what I need.” He stood up from the chair he had been lounging in then snapped his fingers. “Oh. I almost forgot! I got a lead on that partial plate Tony gave me. Seems to belong to a Mr. Conrad Mathers, an eighty-two-year-old man. He dropped that car off for repair to a shop the morning of the accident. Apparently, the car was stolen from the lot while the crew had been out to lunch.”

 

“What shop?”

 

“Chicago’s Fallen and Auto Repair.” He raised both eyebrows at me. “Sound familiar?”

 

Sound familiar? They were the club's rivals. Both clubs owned garages, not a big deal, except Chicago’s Fallen moved into the Predator's’ neighborhood to set up shop, taking away business. Mick didn’t take kindly to it, and the two clubs fought off and on over the years. Why the hell would they be out to get Lauren? And, if they were the ones going to my club for help, why the hell didn’t Prez just toss them out on their asses?

 

“Yeah, rings a bell or two.” I nodded, looking over at Lauren who was suddenly very interested in her cell phone.

 

“Thought it might.” He winked. “I need to get back to the office, run this agent’s name through the system.” He turned to Lauren, who looked a bit panicked at his statement. “Just to be sure he’s on the up and up, you see. Just standard.” He assured her with a pat on the arm. “I’ll let you get to work. Michael, I’ll be in touch.”

 

With that, he walked away, giving me a knowing look and a gesture that meant to tell me to go easy on her. Bixby knew everything about me; hell he’d investigated me so goddamn thoroughly, it was no wonder he’d found out so damn much. The one thing about me he said had fallen in his lap that entertained him on his long nights in the office was my personal preferences when it came to my women. He didn’t try to persuade me to go the chocolate and roses route with them; instead he made damn sure I knew to keep things consensual.

 

“I suppose suggesting you let me take the bus wouldn’t work.” She gave me a flirtatious smile.

 

“No,” was all I said, and started walking. I didn’t check to see if she was behind me; I didn’t need to; I could feel her. “Remember how to hold on?” I asked her when we reached my bike.

 

“Yeah. I think I can manage.” She reached for her bag from me, but I held it out to her so she could slip her arms through the straps. Once it was on, I grabbed the extra helmet from my side bag and placed it on her head, tucking her hair back and securing the strap under her chin. She gave me a disgruntled look, but didn’t get in my way.

 

I had a lot of questions for her, but she needed to get to work, and I needed to calm down before I asked them. If she started lying again, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t strip her out of those khakis she wore and bend her over my bike for a spanking right there in the parking lot.

 

I’d get my head on straight. Head over the Fallen’s shop, see what I could find, then I’d pick her up from the shelter. She wasn’t cleaning offices that night, so we could have a nice long conversation about my first expectation.