CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Dirty stared at his reflection in the mirror. Stared and stared and stared. He didn’t even recognize himself. Without his full beard or his hair, he looked…

Well, he didn’t look anything like he’d thought he’d look. He’d expected to see the teenage boy he’d been. The face his foster mother had loved, the face she’d made sure to never harm even when his body had been fair game. The face she’d called beautiful. Angelic.

That face was gone. He blew out a breath of relief.

Time hadn’t been kind to him. He may have taken a good ten years off his looks by shaving his head and his face, but it did nothing to hide the lines around his eyes and mouth or the tired look in his eyes.

He wasn’t ugly. But he was no longer beautiful. In fact, he liked what he saw. He was just…him. A man.

Hearing his cell phone ringing in the other room, Dirty hurriedly slipped into his leathers and exited the bathroom. He snatched the phone off his bed.

“Wat up, Prez?”

“We got a problem.”

So? They always had a problem.

“What?”

“One of the grunts heard over the police scanner that Ellie’s been reported as missin’. Had one of our contacts look into it and it turns out motherfuckin’ Mooresville wrote up a report sayin’ he’d seen Ellie at Hank’s place, and next thing he knew he found her fuckin’ purse in the alleyway by the bar. Then the fuckin’ asshole took it one step further, went to her parents’ place, told ’em she’d come back home, told ’em about her job interview, told ’em everything.”

Dirty’s jaw locked. “What’s his game? Why the fuck would he want her found after what happened?”

“Fuck if I know,” Deuce said. “Only thing I could think of is he knows we got her. And he wants to use her as leverage or some shit tryin’ to milk us dry. Either that or he’s gonna come for her, take her out, and try to pin it on us.”

Fuck, he hated that fucker.

“What’s the plan?”

“You’re not gonna stand a chance if Mooresville decides to storm your place with his boys,” Deuce growled. “So cover her the fuck up, put her on the back of your bike, and get her fat ass to the club. We’re goin’ on lockdown. This motherfucker thinks he can fuck with my club, he’s about to get a heavy fuckin’ dose of motherfuckin’ reality.”

Deuce hung up.

Dirty frowned at his phone. Ellie’s ass wasn’t that fat. But he was less concerned with how Deuce felt about Ellie’s ass than he was about Ellie being on the back of his bike. Behind him. Where he couldn’t see her.

Worse. She’d be touching him. Not just touching him, her whole damn body would be pressed up against him. He’d never let anyone ride bitch before. He couldn’t stand it, the thought of not being able to control what was happening behind him; the thought of someone being able to restrain him, push him down, and do whatever they wanted to do to him.

“Dirty?”

Startled, he spun around and found Ellie standing in his bedroom doorway. Her eyes grew wide, giving her a bug-eyed appearance, and her lips parted.

“Dirty?” she repeated, sounding shocked.

He said nothing, just watched her take him in, his shaved head, his facial hair gone. He’d actually gone so far as to put on a clean white T-shirt. He’d figured if he were going to be clean, he might as well take that last step. His leathers, however, were still filthy and he had no immediate plans to rectify that.

“Oh my God,” Ellie breathed. “You look…you look…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

Dirty didn’t like the way she was looking at him. At all.

“Your parents know,” he said tersely. “Moorseville’s lookin’ for you.” That seemed to snap her out of her stupor.

“Got no choice,” he continued. “You gotta go to the club. We’re goin’ on lockdown.”

“My mother,” she whispered. “She’s really sick; she needs to know I’m all right.”

Dirty held out his cell phone. “Call her,” he said. “Explain what happened, but you gotta make sure they ain’t gonna say shit to the cops. Shit’s about to go down between the Horsemen and the law, and you’re bein’ put in the middle.”

Ellie stared at him, probably trying to figure out what he meant by “shit’s about to go down,” but he wasn’t going to elaborate. She may be in the middle of this fucking mess, but that didn’t mean she had the right to know what the mess was.

Ellie took the phone from him and while she called her parents, he began rummaging through his closet looking for something for her to wear. When she was off the phone and wiping tears off her bruised cheeks, he handed her a pair of leathers, a belt, a white tee, and his old leather jacket.

“Put my helmet on before we leave the apartment,” he told her as he pointed to it, and left her to get ready.

A few minutes later Ellie emerged from his bedroom. The T-shirt was tight around her breasts and the leathers were formfitting.

She looked damn hot. But it was the jacket he couldn’t stop staring at.

Dirty couldn’t explain it, neither did he understand it, why seeing a woman wearing something of his, his very first leather jacket, the very first thing he’d bought for himself after Deuce had brought him back to Montana, made him feel like…

Like…

He swallowed hard.

Like a man. He felt like a goddamn man. It was the weirdest fucking feeling.

“Are you ready?” Ellie asked, sniffling as she wiped the back of her hand under her nose.

“Yeah,” he muttered, turning away. Suddenly he didn’t want to take her to the club. He didn’t want her around the boys; he wanted to keep her here. With him. Well, not with him, but near him, a room or two away, so every once in a while he could hear her laughing. Or something.

• • •

Ellie put the helmet over her head and followed Dirty outside to the sidewalk where his bike was parked. The street was busier than usual; it being a holiday weekend, the townspeople had all ventured into town so Ellie kept her head down and didn’t look around as she waited silently for Dirty to straddle his bike.

“Fuckin’ hell,” she heard Dirty mutter and her head jerked up. Following Dirty’s gaze to the other side of the street, to the front of Hank’s, she found Daniel along with two uniforms and Hank himself, all staring at the two of them. Her heart dropped.

“Flip up the lid on the helmet,” Dirty said under his breath. “He knows it’s you. We’re gonna have to play this shit out right fuckin’ here and now.”

Swallowing hard, with shaking hands Ellie removed the helmet, and Daniel’s hard, narrowed gaze shot straight to her.

“Don’t leave me alone with him,” she whispered frantically as Daniel and his two officers started for them. “Please, Dirty, please don’t let him take me anywhere.”

Dirty turned to her and she balked at the expression on his face. It was like nothing she’d ever seen before. It was…it was…anger, determination, and most definitely a touch of crazy.

“I will kill him where he stands if he even tries,” Dirty said tightly through clenched teeth. Ellie gaped at Dirty. She didn’t doubt for a minute that he would in fact kill an officer of the law in broad daylight and in front of half the town, his expression was that terrifying.

“Ellie,” Daniel said, stopping on the opposite side of Dirty’s motorcycle. “We’ve been looking for you.”

Despite the raging anger and crippling fear she felt racing through her bloodstream, Ellie willed her shaking body to remain as still as possible. “Really?” she asked, her voice croaking.

Clearing her throat, she tried again. “Why?”

The corner of Daniel’s mouth lifted. “An officer found your purse behind Hank’s,” he said smoothly.

The more Ellie stared at Daniel, the sicker she began to feel until she had no choice but to place one of her sweaty, shaking hands over her stomach in a failed attempt to stop the rising nausea.

“She’s fine,” Dirty growled as he maneuvered himself partially in front of her. Like a shield, a protective wall, like…the man who’d saved her once and was ready to do it again. Even when facing down the law.

“She doesn’t look fine,” Daniel retorted. “In fact, she looks pretty beaten up.”

Ellie gaped at him. She couldn’t believe the nerve of this man, the audacity.

“How about you give her the purse back,” Dirty growled, “and we’ll be on our fuckin’ way.”

Daniel’s smirk turned grim as he focused on Dirty. “Her purse is at the station,” he replied tightly. “Evidence in what we thought was a missing person case.”

Dirty jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “She ain’t missin’, Einstein.”

“Her parents think she is,” Daniel spat back, his hand going to the gun on his belt holster. The two officers standing on either side of him mirrored the action.

So did Dirty. He reached into his cut and—

“No, they don’t,” Ellie said, stepping out from behind Dirty. “I just spoke with them, told them I’d decided to hang with a friend for a few days, and that I’d be by soon. It was supposed to be a surprise.” She glared at Daniel, grateful her anger had taken a front seat to this horror show. “A surprise you fucking ruined.” Those last five words were said through her teeth, punctuated with as much venomous innuendo as she could muster.

“Speakin’ of friends,” Dirty said. “We gotta ride. Places to fuckin’ be.”

“Ellie,” Daniel said tightly, turning back to her.

It took every ounce of willpower not to shrink away, every ounce of sanity not to remember that awful mouth on her, biting her, groping her, tearing her clothing off of her, punching her, slapping her.

“You need to come down to the station with me so we can close the case.”

“Hell fuckin’ no,” Dirty said, leaning over his bike and into Daniel’s personal space. “You want someone to be comin’ to that station, it’s gonna be Deuce. And he’ll be comin’ real fuckin’ soon.”

Daniel’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes did. Was that fear Ellie glimpsed? Satisfaction roared through her. Daniel was afraid of Deuce. And suddenly she’d never been so happy before that she knew Deuce and the Horsemen.

Daniel waited several tense moments before answering. “Make sure he does,” he replied evenly.

After Daniel and his officers were out of sight, Dirty straddled his bike. Once he was seated, he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Get on,” he said tightly.

He didn’t want her on the back of his bike; that much was obvious. He definitely had issues with being touched, needing space, and even seemed to have problems with having full-length conversations.

But neither of them had much of a choice at the moment. She just hoped her touching him wouldn’t send him into another flashback or worse.

At first, she tried to get on behind him without touching him, but the last time she’d been on a motorcycle was the one and only time she’d slept with Cage. Years and years ago. Eventually she gave up trying and grabbed Dirty’s shoulder to steady herself as she swung her left leg over the seat and eased herself up.

Once she was seated, she tentatively slid her arms around Dirty’s waist and as she did, his back went ramrod straight. She froze with her hands on his waist, then whispered, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She held her breath and waited for him to react, to get angry with her, to laugh at her even, but instead his body loosened and his shoulders bowed forward. Breathing out in relief, she continued her slow slide around his midsection until she was holding tightly to his lean waist.

“Lean with me,” Dirty said loudly over the roar of his Harley pipes.

“What?” she asked.

He turned his head to the side. “When I hit a corner, lean with me.”

She nodded, he faced forward, and they shot out into the street.