After he was gone, I closed the bathroom door, got undressed and slipped beneath bubbles. The water was still hot and felt great. Pouring myself a glass of wine, I sat back and relaxed. It was as calm as I’d felt all day. I had been running on pure adrenaline since the shots had first started and was just numb to all that had happened. The bath felt amazing and the wine didn’t hurt a bit. I had finished almost the whole bottle before I climbed out. I slipped into my robe and poured the rest into my glass.
Slipping into my pajamas and brushing my hair, I sat down in front of the mirror and looked at myself. I could see how tired I looked. A part of me just wanted to go home, and not just my makeshift home here. I wanted to leave all of this and go back to my old life. I didn’t want to know about motorcycle clubs, drugs or get shot at while getting out of cars. I just wanted to forget any of this ever happened.
Mostly, I just wanted to get as far away as possible from D. I wanted to forget that I had met him and the effect he had on me. I wanted to forget the way he smelled, tasted, the sound of his laugh. I could no longer reconcile my need to find my father’s killer with my affection for D. I couldn’t have it both ways and perhaps it was just time to let it all go and walk away while I still could. In time, I’d let the pain of both go. My mind raced with so many thoughts that I couldn’t quite make sense of all of them.
I climbed into bed, my head feeling a bit woozy from the beers and wine aided by the hot water I had been soaking in. If nothing else, at least maybe I could stop thinking so much for a while. I snuggled into the heavy cotton sheets and closed my eyes, looking forward to a bit of oblivion. Sleep came quickly, thankfully.
The following morning, D and I stopped off for breakfast at a little place known simply as Earth Food. It was a bit of a dive, but that was typical. D was making good on his earlier promise to take me to all of the places that only the locals knew about, places where the décor was questionable, but the food was top notch. Unfortunately, the company wasn’t quite as desirable. D was moody, obviously lost in his own thoughts. I was glad when it was time to go, though I had my own concerns about that as well.
The drive from breakfast to the casino seemed endless. I stared out the window, my mind already back on the multi-track thought system with so many thoughts that I wasn’t sure which to focus on for more than thirty seconds at a time. D didn’t speak, instead turning the radio up a bit on an alternative rock station so that there was no need or room for conversation between us. I was glad when we pulled into the parking lot, even if I was still also a bit apprehensive about stepping out of the car since D refused to change his parking habits just because someone shot at us.
We made our way into the casino and went our separate ways. I headed over to the center bar where Knuckles was already working and D retreated to his office within the casino. Neither of us even bothered to say goodbye as we parted company.
Standing behind the bar, it was business as usual for everyone else in the club, but for me, it was nerve jangling. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to ask so many questions of everyone there. I needed answers now more than ever and there were none to be had. The moment I started to ask any, I’d have D to deal with, and I really couldn’t say for certain what that meant. The urge to just run away from it all was getting stronger by the moment. I just didn’t know how much more I could take.
I had to consider the facts of everything. The most important thing being the fact of who D really was. It was easy to overlook the kind of man everyone knew him to be when he was so charming on a personal level, but D had long been known as a monster to many. It was frightening to know I could have feelings for someone who was capable of the things I considered he might do if I crossed him further. I was lucky that I had escaped much of his wrath as it was, and a part of me wondered why that was. Why had he taken it easy on me when he would have taken swift action against anyone else?
“Janessa, shift’s over. Let’s go.”
I looked up to see D passing by, waving toward me like he was calling a family pet, and I found that it both annoyed and hurt me to be treated that way by him. I gathered my things and followed at his heels like a good puppy. Just like on our way in, we didn’t speak on the ride home. I realized that I hadn’t seen him all day and wondered what he had been up to. Looking over at him in the car, I could see that he looked incredibly pale again. He must be in considerable pain.
“Did you take any pain meds today, D?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Janessa. Maybe because I thought it best to be on top of my game with people infiltrating my club, betraying me from the inside and shooting at me when I try to get out of my fucking car.”
“Why are you so angry? It was just a question.”
“It was a stupid question.”
“I’ll try to refrain from asking any more of them then.”
“Do that.”
I could feel tears welling up. I hated that I often cried when I was angry, but this was twofold. Not only did I feel angry, but I was hurt on top of it and it all was just surfacing rapidly amid the stress of all that was going on. I was stuck, D’s prisoner. It might look like I was living like a queen in a mansion, but I was really nothing more than an animal in a cage.
“Nadine made dinner, so we will eat and then we need to talk.”
“Talk about what?”
“After dinner, Janessa.”
“Not like I have a choice but to say okay, is there, D?”
“No, that would pretty much be your only option.”
“Lucky me.”
Ignoring my sarcasm, he parked the car at the house and we made our way inside. Whatever Nadine had prepared smelled wonderful. At least there was that to look forward to.
“I’m going to change for dinner.”
“Okay. I’ll pick out a bottle of wine.”
“Special occasion?”
“Just a long day.”
“Have you changed your bandage today?”
“No. I haven’t had time.”
“Let me get changed, and I’ll bring down the stuff to get it cleaned and re-bandaged.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“I’ll be in the game room.”
When I returned, he was sitting on the sofa, staring into space. There was no television on, no music, just him staring blankly ahead.
“D? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Okay. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I watched as he stood and pulled his shirt over his head. He hadn’t worn the sling to the casino and I could tell by the way he moved his arm so slowly that he had paid for it dearly already. I also had a hard time not being enthralled with his bare skin. It was hard not to look at his muscular chest and perfectly defined abs and not want him. Despite everything that had gone on between us, I found it hard to forget the feelings that I had been developing for him. Now, all I could think of was how to get out of this whole mess I was in.
“I’m sorry that I have gotten you into this whole business, Janessa.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
I paused with the pad I was using the clean his wound and looked up at him. He was looking down at me thoughtfully.
“You are here because of me, my club. Your father is dead because of me.”
“What are you saying? You know what happened to my father?”
“No, not yet, but I know that my lack of control over my organization allowed for it to happen. Perhaps I didn’t pull the trigger, but I hold myself responsible just the same.”
“D, you can’t take care of everything. You can only know so much, do so much.”
I went back to cleaning his arm, finishing it up and dabbing on the antibiotic cream before putting the large square of gauze over it and taping it down. I looked up at him as I finished and smiled, pulling the bottle of pain killers from my pocket and fishing two of them out.
“Here, go ahead and take these. They’ll kick in by the time we finish eating.”
“No. I’ve picked us out some wine to have with dinner. Let’s go eat. Nadine already left.”
“Okay.”
I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on with him. He was so distant on the ride home and now he was just being odd in a way that I couldn’t quite understand. I put the bandaging aside and went to wash my hands before we ate. D was getting the wine from the kitchen when I walked into the formal dining room where dinner had been set out on the large, formal table.
I sat down in one of the chairs on the left side where the food had been set out. To my surprise, D sat down beside me rather than across the table as I would have expected. There was definitely something going on with him tonight. After the silent treatment all day, he seemed to be having some sort of guilt trip about things, perhaps my father, perhaps just how he had been treating me. I never had been the best at reading men. I doubted that I was spot on with it now.
“Wine?”
“Yes, please.”
D poured me a glass of wine and then one for himself, settling down into his chair and waiting for me to start helping myself before he began putting his own plate together.
“This looks fantastic!”
“Oh, it is. I asked her to make it because it is one of my favorites and I knew you would enjoy it too. It’s like chicken cordon bleu, but she uses a few alternate ingredients that really kick it up a notch.”
Cutting into my piece, I took a bite, savoring it slowly. It was delicious. The perfectly cooked chicken breast was topped with a thick slice of smoked ham and five pepper cheese, giving it a bold, spicy flavor you didn’t get when you made it with baby Swiss. The sauce she had prepared was simple but elegant, and complimented the flavor well. Accompanied by steamed vegetables and a Mediterranean style couscous, it was one of the best meals I’d eaten in a long time.
“You were right, this is fantastic and the wine goes with it perfectly.”
“I’m glad you like it. I wanted to have her make something you’d really enjoy.”
A dark thought occurred to me and I tried to shut it out, but it loomed large in my brain. Why was he worried about my meal, unless…maybe it was my last one? I chastised myself for thinking like that, but I had once again forgotten just who I was dealing with. It would make sense that I was a liability, in the way. Perhaps he had already found the truth about my father, and now I was just in the way. A part of me had a hard time imagining D doing the things I knew he was capable of, especially when it came to doing them to me. I just couldn’t imagine him doing me any harm, not really. Yet the thoughts persisted.
“What’s wrong? Your face, it looks like you saw a ghost.”
“Why did you have Nadine make this for me? I feel like you are saying goodbye.”
“Goodbye? What? Oh, Janessa. No. This is an apology. I have been thinking about everything and I’ve realized just how much my club has wronged you. I may not have done it directly. I may not have even known about it, but my lack of attention to things around me resulted in it.”
“It’s not your fault, D. I thought we talked about this before. You have a lot on your shoulders. You can’t know everything.”
“I only need to know one thing. One thing only, Janessa. I need to know that I am surrounded by people who have my back. I need to know that when I’m not there to tell them what to do, they are still doing what is in the best interests of the club and its members. Going rogue and taking down innocent people isn’t acceptable, but it’s my fault for getting too comfortable with the wrong people. I’ve got some hard decisions ahead of me. I have to weed out the herd, so to speak, and I am not sure that I can know if I’m doing it right under current circumstances.”
“I know you are burdened with way too much for one man, but I believe you are a good judge of character. I think that when the time comes, you will be able to sort out those who should stay from those who need to go, and I don’t believe there is anyone who could possibly be better at instinctively having the answer they need than you.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I have just lost faith in those innate abilities for the moment. Anyway, let’s finish talking about this after dinner, Janessa. I don’t want to ruin our meal with all of this nonsense.”
“Okay. We can do that, but I do think it warrants further discussion.”
“You are most likely right about that. Good enough for now. Let’s eat our food.”
We ate mostly in silence that felt awkward. It put a huge damper on an otherwise wonderful meal, but I was getting a bit used to that with D. I never knew what one day would bring from the next. He was as moody as they came, but I had to understand that it was something anyone would be in his position. There was no doubt that he was under a lot of pressure, and I certainly hadn’t helped matters with my little revelations.
We cleared away the plates, rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher. When we were done, I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next. I turned to him and waited to see what he would say about what we should do next. I expected whatever he had to say to be something I didn’t want to hear after his comment that we should wait until after dinner, instead I found myself completely caught off guard by his next words.
“I have feelings for you, Janessa.”
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
“Let me finish.”
“Okay.”
I braced myself for what was to come next. I fully expected there to be a “but,” as in, “I have feelings for you but we just can’t be together after what you’ve done.” Instead, I got a quite unexpected surprise.
“I understand what you did. He was your father and you needed answers. You didn’t know me and to someone who is looking at my world from the outside, I must seem like a pretty terrible guy. I won’t lie, I’ve done things that I’m not proud of. I’ve done things that you don’t really want to know about. What I haven’t done is ever harm someone who didn’t bring it upon themselves.”
“I don’t know what to say to that.”
He put his finger up to my lips to hush me and shook his head from side to side as if to say I wasn’t supposed to say anything about it.
“I can’t blame you for what you did. I didn’t expect for it to bother me like it did. Normally, I would have kicked you out of my casino and warned you against any further snooping. I wouldn’t have lost one night’s sleep over it. Instead, I have agonized about it. All I could think about was how you betrayed me after I had begun to trust you. What I’ve realized in these last few days is that you were only doing exactly what I do every day, looking out for your family.”
“Yes.”
“I understand that someone took your family from you. I understand that someone is in my club somewhere. What has been hard is reconciling what I feel for you with what I feel for my own family, and I think you know that the club is all the family I have. The problem is, my family has betrayed me, maybe not all of them, but some of them. I still don’t know how deeply it runs, but I’m getting closer. I need someone on my side. I need someone I can trust, and I believe that I can trust you.”
“As long as what you are telling me is the truth, that you didn’t kill my father and you don’t know who did, then you can trust me completely.”
“That is true. I promise you that.”
“Then I promise you that you can trust me.”
“I really hope so, Janessa. I want to. I need to.”
“You can.”
He stood there looking down at me, the weight of the world present behind his haunted eyes. How hard it must be to be Damian Diaz, leader of the toughest motorcycle club in the area. It was a big burden to carry for someone our age. I couldn’t imagine having to make the kinds of decisions he must make on a daily basis. Having people working for you who are putting their lives on the line to be a part of your organization was something I couldn’t fathom, yet he did it every single day.
Brushing a strand of hair away from my face, he leaned forward and kissed me. It was soft but passionate, demonstrating a need that went far beyond the physical. At least it seemed that way as he urgently probed my mouth with his tongue, tasting me as if I were the best dessert he had ever had and lingering on each bite.
“I’ve wanted to do that again for days,” he breathed as he pulled away for a moment.
“I never said you couldn’t.”
“I know. I just had to sort out my head without confusing things any more than they already felt.”
“I understand.”
“I hope that you do.”
“I do.”
“Let’s go to bed.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Let’s go to bed together.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to make your life more complicated.”
Of course I didn’t mean a word of it, but I felt I had to say it. I had to give him an out in case the kiss had just been a moment of weakness.
“Do you know how hard it has been to sleep across the hall from you and want you so much? It’s been all I could do not to just get up in the middle of the night and climb into bed with you, even if it was just to hold you while you slept.”
“It has been hard for me too.”
“Then let’s stop talking about it and go to bed…together.”
“I think I understand now.”
“Good. We will move your things into my room tomorrow. I want you there every night.”
“I don’t know about moving in together. I have my own place across the hall and all that.”
“I’m evicting you. You have nowhere to go but my room now.”
“You forget that I have my own house.”
“Hmm. In that case, you are under house arrest.”
“Now you’re a cop? I’d say that certainly doesn’t suit you.”
“Stop teasing me, woman. Let’s go to bed. I want to do deliciously naughty things to that wicked body of yours.”
“Well, since you put it that way. Let’s go.”
My heart was racing as we made our way up the stairs to his bedroom. D fumbled slowly with the buttons on my shirt, careful not to move his injured shoulder too much as he undressed me. My skin felt like it was on fire even before he touched me, the familiar ache he seemed to instill in me growing more needful by the second. I exhaled deeply as his lips fell on my right nipple and kissed me there before slowly licking his way around my nipple and blowing on it until it was rock hard. His teeth sank into it, pulling and sucking as I moaned aloud.
He took his time just enjoying teasing my breasts, alternately sucking and biting them as I cooed at his touch. I felt his hand slipping down between us, into the band of my skirt and down the front of my panties until his fingers were slowly circling my clit. The combined sensation of his mouth on my nipples and his fingers on my clit were driving me insane with desire for him. All I could think about was having him inside of me again.
“D, that feels so amazing.”
“I love the way you respond to my touch. It’s like you were made for me. I love that about you.”
Perhaps I was reading too much into it, but I couldn’t help note multiple uses of the word love in what he said. It may have just been my mind playing tricks or possibly even hearing what it wanted to hear, but it was awfully close to him saying something considerably more substantial. I found myself wondering if it were even possible for someone like him to love someone like me. Our worlds were nothing alike. He lived off adrenaline and my life was pretty vanilla. Outside our current situation, could we even exist together?
The thoughts drifted from my mind as his fingers deftly moved across my clit, their place taken by his thumb as he slipped two of them inside of me and began fucking me slowly with them. I was like jelly with my legs quivering as if fresh out of a form mold. Shards of electricity raced down my legs and heat rose through my center as he skillfully brought me to a series of orgasms that resounded throughout every fiber of my being.
“Oh, God. Yes. Mmmmmm.”
“The way you sound when you cum is such a turn on. I love making you sound that way. I’ve missed it.
“I want you.”
We stood looking into each other’s eyes as I unbuttoned his shirt and slowly slipped it off of him, never looking away from one another as I moved down to his jeans to unbutton them and push them downward. He leaned in and kissed me as he slipped off his shoes and shuffled the rest of the way out of his pants. I could feel his erection pressing heavily into my hip as his kiss lingered, the vibration of his moaning into my mouth only making me hungrier for him.
Pushing me down across the bed, he pushed my legs open, his thumb once again rubbing my clit as his mouth covered my already soaked pussy. My hands tangled in his hair as he lapped at my center. My body responded to his teasing the way it always did, by wanting more and more of him. I writhed and moaned beneath him as he dragged his tongue back and forth lazily through my pink folds, his thumb pressed firmly on my sensitive pink nub above them.
“God, I’m going to cum again”
“Yes. I want to taste you. Cum for me, Janessa.”
His mouth was still very close to my clit as he spoke, the vibrations singing along my swollen button and sending me over the edge as I exploded against his mouth. I was still panting in the after rush of my explosion when he stood and entered me with one fluid stroke, slowly rocking back and forth as he made love to me so slowly, so sweetly that I felt close to tears a few times. I wasn’t sure what was happening between us, but it felt like something was very different, very good.
He moaned as he sank into me deeply, picking up his pace little by little until he was slamming into me roughly. I only wanted more as my hips thrust forward to meet his with each stroke. I couldn’t believe how amazing he felt. It was like it was our first time again, except this time it felt like more than just lust. There were underlying feelings that weren’t there before. It made all the difference.
My legs shook violently as I shattered into another series of orgasms that left me breathless. D smiled down at me, enjoying the way my body trembled beneath him. I knew that he enjoyed the way I responded to him. I could tell it even more by the way he became more heated with his thrusts. The room was filled with our mingled grunts, groans and moans as D reached his own orgasm, his body seized with the force of it before falling onto the bed beside me. We lay there looking at the ceiling as he reached for my hand, stroking the back of it with his thumb and forefinger.
“I’m really glad you are here, Janessa.”
“I am certainly glad I am here too.”
D rolled over and propped himself up on his elbow to look at me. He traced his fingers along the tops of my breasts, careful not to move his arm too much. There was a smile on his face as he looked down at me.
“We are going to figure all of this out, Janessa. I’m going to help you figure out who killed your father, and they will pay for what they did.”
“It’s a lot bigger than that, D.”
“You mean the DEA agent.”
“Yes. I came here as part of an agreement with him that I’d find out what I could about your drug business if he helped me with finding my father’s killer.”
“And what did he do for you in that regard?”
“He provided me with files on every member of the club, including the girls and known associates from other clubs and gangs. I was reporting in periodically but haven’t in a while now.”
“How long since you talked to him?”
“Not long, just since you brought me here. I wasn’t using my personal phone. I have a burner at my house that I use to make the calls. So, it’s been a bit difficult here.”
“Well, I’d say that cat is out of the bag and you can just use your own phone at this point, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah. Just one problem with that.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t know his number. It’s in the other phone.”
D laughed and rolled toward me, kissing me before getting out of the bed and walking toward the bathroom. I watched his naked figure retreat across the floor, admiring how muscular and beautiful he was. He returned in a moment with a glass of water and offered me a drink, which I accepted eagerly. I had worked up more than a bit of thirst during our session.
“Let’s get some sleep, beautiful. We have a very busy day tomorrow.”
“Sounds good.”
He kissed me again and I felt a stir even though it had only been minutes ago that he was inside me. I knew he felt it too from the way he lingered and the way he looked at me. Smiling at me, he climbed into bed and I curled up to him, my head beside his on the pillow, my hand resting on his chest. This was nothing I had expected, but I realized that I no longer had any reservations about giving myself to D, heart, mind, body and soul.