Lucy
I got home late, but I’ll admit I was surprised to find Max’s bike already parked in the garage. Only a couple of lights were on, but I could hear running water as soon as I opened the door.
I’d stayed a while with Mom even after dinner and cleaning up the dishes. We talked about random things, nothing serious, because I couldn’t handle any more of that, and watched old black-and-white movies until Mom finally fell asleep. I kissed her forehead and checked my phone for messages. A trickle of fear had gone through me when I saw there were none. Not even a quick text.
Max’s fine, I’d told myself, but I hadn’t really believed it until I walked through that door.
“Max?” I called, an eerie déjà vu sweeping me. Suddenly, I felt panic and fear swamp me. I almost thought about turning and running, but if this were a repeat of that night, I had to know. I had to know if Max were gone, because that changed everything.
That changed me.
“Here,” he answered after a moment, and as soon as his warm, heady voice filtered out to me, I relaxed. He was fine. I was being paranoid, overreacting. I was always overreacting these days.
The here had come from the kitchen, so I headed in that direction. The house was two stories, but fairly small. Plenty of room for the two of us, but add a third person to the mix and it was tiny. I’d insisted on no more crashers, not even for a night, because there was only one bathroom and I was tired of coming downstairs to find a half-dressed biker snoring on the couch.
The front door opened directly to the living room where there was a TV that rarely got used unless football was on and the aforementioned couch that was thankfully no longer occupied very often. There were a few scattered pictures, mostly of the guys, me and Max, my father, and of the slew of foster families Max had rotated through.
I walked through the living room to the right where the kitchen was, a small thing that barely covered it for the two of us and would never do if we had any sort of company over. Which we didn’t, at least none that weren’t accommodated by grilling outside instead.
The stairs leading to the bedroom on the second floor was adjacent to the kitchen entryway, but I ignored them. Max’s voice had come from the kitchen.
When I walked in, I saw why I’d heard running water. Max had both of his hands submerged beneath the running stream of the faucet, the water running pink as he scrubbed at his knuckles and beneath his fingernails.
I stared at his hands for a moment, realizing the cuts lacing his knuckles weren’t the same ones from before. I could see some of the old blood that had already dried, some he’d missed, and I saw the bright fresh stuff, too.
Max was washing off fresh blood and it sent a tingle down my spine. Something had happened tonight.
“Max?”
He looked up at me, his tense shoulders easing slightly as his eyes found me. There was something in them tonight and I knew whatever had happened had been bad. Really bad.
“Hey, baby,” he murmured, his deep voice soft and sweet in the dark, but the underlying tension didn’t leave as he spoke. “C’mere.”
I did. I went to him as he turned off the faucet and dried off his hands. The towel came away red, just a little, and I watched it as he put it back on the counter. I didn’t want to ask about what happened tonight. I didn’t want to know, but something in me had to. “Max,” I repeated even as his arms opened for me and I stepped into them, letting his strength envelop me for a moment in his warmth. He held me for a long, silent moment until I asked, “What happened tonight?”
He didn’t answer right away, instead remaining silent as he held me, but eventually he let me go, stepping back slightly. “Are you happy?” he asked me, an unexpected question, and also not an answer to my question.
My eyebrows rose in surprise and I tried to hide some of what I’d been feeling that night. He didn’t need my worries weighing on him, too, I knew that much; besides, I hadn’t really worked through them myself anyway. But he was looking at me with those dark eyes, all seriousness and intensity, and I couldn’t not tell him the truth. I just couldn’t.
I looked away, trying to find the right words. Ultimately, they came too simply. “No,” I said, and it came out as a whisper. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his shoulders slump and knew I needed to give a better explanation. “I’m tired of the violence. I’m tired of the fear. I want us to be in a better place.” I hoped that was enough to tell him this wasn’t about not wanting him. This was about not wanting the life we were leading.
After a moment, he managed to get out, “Me, too.”
Unable to stand in that silence for any longer, I went to get some ice from the fridge because it was something to do. I didn’t want to see his expression, suddenly afraid to find nothing but hollowness in his eyes.
When I came back, he’d finally found an answer for my initial question. One we could both, maybe, live with.
“Things got…complicated tonight. There was some trouble,” he told me hesitantly, something deep and dark flashing in his eyes. I couldn’t be sure what it was, but I knew it was bad. There was something he seemed intent on telling me, but couldn’t seem to decide if he should or not. “A lot happened tonight, that’s it. I guess I’m a little rough over it is all.”
I reached for him, my hands trailing over his, pressing the icepack to his raw skin. He didn’t flinch away from what must have been a sharp cold, instead allowing me to help in what small way I could. I stared at those hands, the cuts on them. He’d wiped away most of the blood, but there were cuts and bruises, letting me know at least some of that blood had been his. I wondered how much.
My eyes jerked up to examine his face suddenly, searching him for signs of injury.
What had he been doing tonight? What had been eating him up? What gave him that haunted look in his eyes? I worried that there’d been a serious fight. With the Slayers? I couldn’t be sure. I knew there’d been talk of working something out between them, but maybe that’s all it was. Talk. My hands lifted from his knuckles to feel along his face. Was he okay? My thumb trailed over his lip and he kissed it.
Fire slipped from that kiss all the way down my body, tingling along my spine to pool deep and dark between my legs. God, I wanted him.
And he wanted me. His eyes were open and staring so intently at me that he might be boring holes into my body that way.
I felt that familiar urge to ease away that weight, if only for a night.
He must have sensed it, because his hands reached out for me and grabbed me by the hips, jerking me to his body until we were pressed together harshly, tightly. His hard body pressed against mine, and even through the zipper of his jeans, I could feel him hard and needy, desperate for me.
I shuddered and allowed my body to ease into him, slowly at first, but increasing in speed until I was grinding against him, his grip on my hips loose enough only for that. He leaned into me, his face pressing into the hollow of my neck, his stubble scratching at my pale skin.
This was how it started, and I couldn’t deny that I loved every moment of it.
I breathed him in, his scent a strong, spicy, musky scent that wrapped around me and went straight through me all at once. I knew there were things about smell that drove people to desire and passion. Pheromones, chemicals, something like that, but I thought it was more about the way he smelled. Like power and strength and need.
My warrior.
“Max,” I breathed, and was rewarded with a shudder and his hands clenching tighter to my hips. His face shifted so his lips found my skin, pressing little kisses against my neck and collarbone until my skin was flushed with heat. I didn’t need him to tell me how much he wanted me, but that didn’t mean I didn’t love to hear it.
“I won’t go easy tonight,” he murmured, his breath hot against my neck.
I shuddered again at the promise of the hard and fast fucking his voice promised me. “Okay,” was all I said, and it was all I had to say. The permission was there and that little piece of consent was all he needed.
He picked me up, his hands moving down from my hips to my ass, gripping each cheek firmly in his rough hands. He jerked me up so I was pressed against him, my legs wrapping around his waist automatically. He pressed a kiss against my mouth, hot and fierce, desperation leaking through and making it clear that this wasn’t about talking anymore tonight.
Tonight, like many nights before, my body was his release. His means of forgetting, and I was okay with that. I relished it, even.
My eyes slid shut even as I felt him carrying me up the stairs, his hands gripping me so tightly that it was almost painful. My arms were wrapped tightly around his neck, clinging to him greedily as I pushed for a deeper kiss. I held us tightly together, my full breasts pressing against his hard muscles, the sensation arousing. I felt his tongue slide across my lips and I parted them immediately, desperate for him to devour me.
I didn’t think we’d make it to the bedroom, but he managed to kick the door open. We did not, however, make it to the bed. As soon as we were in the room, he lost it. He couldn’t wait anymore, because he needed this now.
My back slammed against the wall harshly and I let out a small cry of surprise. He allowed it because his mouth was moving elsewhere, placing sloppy kisses on my neck and down across my shoulders. His hands had begun to move, traveling downward and inward until I felt his fingers pressing against my inner thighs.
I could have cursed my choice of pants that night and thought he probably could have, too, but it wasn’t enough to delay Max.
His hands came back around so they could get to my crotch from the top. He pressed me tightly against the wall and I gripped his hips firmly so when his hands were no longer supporting me, I still remained up. His hands moved to my jeans, fiddling with first the button and then the zipper until he managed to get both undone. Not interested in waiting to get to the good stuff, his hand pushed past the waistband of my panties to find my center. Two fingers dove into me before I even had time to register that he was there and then I was screaming in pleasure. He worked me into a frenzy, his fingers coated with my natural lubricant as he shoved them in and out of me.
It might have been enough to get me off; he had wonderful, skilled hands. But tonight wasn’t about me. He had needs that had to be taken care of, things that needed to be addressed, and I didn’t mind that his hand pulled away from my crotch only because he was urging my legs down to the floor so he could jerk my pants down past my thighs. I shimmied them off along with my panties so he could focus on his own jeans.
By the time my lower half was bare, he’d gotten his belt and fly undone, his hand reaching into his pants to pull out his already hard, throbbing member. I licked my lips at the sight of it and gave him a look that silently asked if he wanted me to suck or fuck.
“Not tonight, baby,” he murmured to the small space between us. He closed that distance so he could get ahold of my leg, jerking it up high, letting the knee bend over his arm so I was opened wide for him.
He wasn’t patient that night, but I hadn’t expected him to be. His cock was poised at my entrance in a second, and before I even had time to register it, he’d shoved it inside me all the way, my walls stretching to accommodate his large size.
I cried out again, arching my back as he wasted no time in beginning to thrust. He was right; this wouldn’t be gentle.
His hands were all over me. Sometimes they’d hold my arms above my head so he could have his way with my body without interference, sliding his length inside until I was so full of him that I thought he might be an extension of myself. Other times, his hands would find my hips and grip so tightly that I knew there would be bruises later.
He never let me back from the wall. He needed the leverage and the power to thrust into me with abandon, the sounds our bodies making as they came together a mix of sensual and violent.
Finally, his hands found my breasts, reaching up beneath my tight shirt until I heard a seam tear across the bottom. He fondled them, pinching and pulling and massaging. He pressed his face into the side of my neck, nibbling and kissing and worrying at it. He thrust into me again, bottoming out, and grunted against my skin. His hot breath whispered, “Fuck. You’re soft, you’re sweet, and I have to do it, baby. I have to fuck you like this.”
He plunged himself inside of me, burying his length so deep that our hips pressed together and my body felt like all there could ever be was him. My skin was flushed with heat, sticky with sweat and a rosy red color. Max wasn’t much better. Sweat dotted his forehead and passion burned in his eyes along with something else, something darker. His lips pressed fire into my skin and his hands trailed it along my body.
“Oh, Max!”
I cried out his name and begged, begged to find the end of this, wherever that might be. I didn’t care if I came, but I needed him to. I needed him to find some sort of relief in the depths of my body so I could have him back, because whatever uncertainty I was feeling, there was no doubting that I needed him.
He let out a loud, low groan that told me he was close. His thrusts became quicker, more urgent as he built up higher towards that final explosion. The slick sounds of our embrace became more and more intense, until finally he used his whole body to hold me tightly against the wall and pressed his cock inside me until there was no room left.
He bit me on the neck, hard, when he finally came. I felt him pulse inside me, throbbing and aching for long moments until he was finally spent. When he was done, he didn’t release me right away, but allowed for both of our bodies to slide down the wall to the floor. I straddled his lap as his cock grew soft within me and eventually slipped out.
I held him, because I wanted him to feel this softness for a little while longer. I stroked my fingers through his hair. He didn’t move, didn’t say anything for a long time, and I wondered why we couldn’t have moments like this without the darkness that had pushed him to need it.
Why couldn’t we exist like this outside of the fear that came with this life?
I didn’t know, but I knew there were a thousand more nights like this one waiting for me. For us. There would always be someone else coming for Max, some new enemy. There would always be some night that drove Max to do devastating, haunting things like tonight had.
I hated it, but that was how it would always be so long as we were here, like this.
Eventually, he pulled himself from his stupor and helped me up off the floor. He murmured sweet things to me that were sort of apologies, but not really. He wasn’t sorry for the things he enjoyed doing to me any more than I was, but he never wanted it to reach past that to real pain. It didn’t, but I appreciated his worry over it anyway.
We undressed the rest of the way and rinsed off quickly, washing the sweat and stickiness from our bodies, before crawling in to sleep off what was left of the night. As I lay there in bed beside him, I couldn’t help but wonder what a life without fear was. I tried to picture it, but as much as I tried, I just couldn’t.
Max
It took me a moment longer than it should have to realize what was going on. I was drowsy still, heavy with sleep and sated after the pleasure I’d taken from Lucy. She was still lying beside me, but, like me, had jerked awake at the sound.
It had been loud, like a car backfiring or a small cherry bomb blowing up a mailbox, but that wasn’t it. I knew because I’d heard the sound before a time or two. Occupational hazard of leading a biker club, even if we were mostly legitimate.
“Shit,” I muttered as I realized what that sound was, and the potential for what it meant.
I reached for the bedside table and jerked open the door, pulling out the piece I always kept there, just in case. Even as I threw back the covers and leapt out of bed, I checked to see that the gun was loaded. It was. Safety off. I made a quick run for the window, it was the only one in the room and faced the front lawn, which was where I thought the shot had come from.
A gunshot. Someone had been shooting in my fucking front yard.
“Max, what’s going on?”
It was Lucy, her voice small and worried. She was tough when she had to be, but so much of that was an act. When she could, she relied on me to be the tough one, and I couldn’t let her see that I was scared, too.
“Get on the floor and stay away from the window and door!” I told her in a fast, hushed tone.
I didn’t look to see if she obeyed, but heard the ruffling of clothing, the padding of feet, and knees hitting the floor. Focusing on the shot, I went to the side of the window and carefully looked around the frame, pushing back the curtains just enough to see outside.
It was late still, dark outside. The streetlights were on, but three in the area were broken and unlikely to be fixed anytime soon. The neighbors’ lights were out and I knew they’d remain that way. It wasn’t that they hadn’t heard the shots. It was that they didn’t want to get caught up in what those shots meant.
I searched the street for the shooter, and prayed whoever it was wasn’t too close to here, though it seemed the most likely scenario.
Quickly, my eyes fell to a dark shadow in the night. His arms were up, his bulky frame lined perfectly to fire away from the house and down the street. There was the faintest gleam of light reflecting off his smooth, shaved head, and after I made that connection, the rest fell in place quickly.
“Bills.”
“What?” Lucy asked. She was on the other side of the bed on the floor, but had come up just enough so she could look over the bed at me. “What about Bills?”
“Stay here. He’s downstairs. I’m going to meet him and ask him what the hell is going on.”
“Max!”
I didn’t listen or pause. I headed out the door of the bedroom and headed down the stairs immediately to meet Bills. I still had my piece and it brought me some comfort. I couldn’t say why I was nervous, this was Bills, one of mine, but there was something off about tonight. A lot of things had been off lately.
The front door opened and there he stood, a dark silhouette in the doorframe. I gripped my piece tighter, then flipped on the damn light. He squinted against the sudden brightness. “Fuck,” he growled.
“That’s my line,” I told him, gripping the handle of my gun tighter, but keeping it lowered at my side. “What the hell is going on?”
He gestured back out towards the night. “I caught some fucking guy creeping around your house,” he told me, his voice dark and serious. “He had a fucking knife, man.”
A tendril of cold ran through me. A knife? All things considered, it wasn’t the deadliest weapon in a lot of respects. A gun would have maybe been more intimidating, but if that guy weren’t interested in intimidation, if he were interested in just taking care of business, then there was a lot of reason to choose a knife.
A knife was quick. A knife was quiet. A knife was hard to fight off and it was hard to fix without medical attention.
And it meant you had to be up close and personal. Whoever this guy was, he meant business.
“Who the fuck was it?” I demanded of Bills, anger and fear mixing in my belly to come up with something like adrenaline, but more like fire and whiskey. “Did you see him?”
Bills shrugged his shoulders. “It was dark, but we grappled. I got a few good hits in, I think, but it’s hard to say. The chickenshit ran off, but when I saw him, he was standing on the front lawn and he was staring up. He was staring up at the window, Max.”
The window. As in, the bedroom window. It was the only one on that side of the building on the second floor. The house just wasn’t that big.
“Did he say anything?”
Bills shook his head. “No, but he was on a motorcycle and it looked like he was a club member.”
I frowned. “Not a Reaper.”
Quickly, Bills corrected me, “No. Not one of ours. One of theirs.”
“The Slayers.”
I thought of that night, of their gift. I thought of that manic look in Blade’s eyes and the way he seemed to be enjoying it all so much. Too much. It made something sick swirl through my guts and I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep from puking.
What had I gotten us into?
“I can’t be sure,” Bills said, but I could see something in his eyes that told me he had already decided who it was out there, or at least who they belonged to. “But it wasn’t one of ours, that much I am sure of.”
I sat heavily on the bottom stair, putting my piece down next to me. My hands went to my hair, running through them uneasily. What the hell was I doing anymore? The Preacher had made this shit look easy, but I had learned it wasn’t. More than that, it was dangerous. That was obvious.
What had happened tonight? What if that guy had gotten into the house and made it up the stairs before anyone had heard him? What if Bills hadn’t been there? What if he made it to the bedroom and gotten to Lucy before…
I couldn’t finish the thought. It made me sick to think of something happening to Lucy. It was more than I could handle and I finally realized it: I wasn’t cut out for this crap anymore. Somewhere along the way, things had changed for me, too. I thought of Lucy and how she wasn’t happy, how she seemed scared all the time. I couldn’t protect her twenty-four seven, no matter how I wanted to or how I tried, but I could change the type of lifestyle that meant she had to be protected all the time.
I could make her safe. I just couldn’t do it like this.
“I think this is it,” I told Bills. He gave me a confused look, not following the thoughts in my head. “This is my last big deal. Things have gotta change, man.”
I heard a sound behind me, footsteps on the stairs, and almost sensed more than heard Lucy standing at the top landing. I felt like I could hear her breathing and feel the pounding of her heart. Things were like that sometimes. Like we were so connected that there was this sixth sense about her. I always wanted to ask her if she felt it, too, but could never man up enough to do it.
“What the fuck?” Bills demanded in a low, angry whisper. He looked like he might argue or say something else, but snapped his mouth shut instead, his eyes moving from my face. He’d seen Lucy, his gaze going to a spot behind me, and the glare there was more than a little intense.
Things weren’t great between the two of them, not that I could blame Lucy for that, but I could see what Bills thought was going on.
He thought she was a distraction, and maybe she was. Maybe she was the worst and best kind of distraction, but that wasn’t Bills’ call. He didn’t have the right to say one way or the other what kind of leader I was, because everyone had a pretty good idea what kind he would be. Reckless. Dangerous. A loose cannon. If people left the club to him, everyone would be thrown in the slammer by the time the year was up.
But that wasn’t the real reason he didn’t like Lucy. It was part of it and the only legitimate thing he could say against her, because no one questioned the validity of the Preacher’s daughter, least of all to me. The other part of it was less pretty and less fair, though maybe made more sense.
He was in love with her.
Or at least, he wanted to fuck her pretty badly. He wasn’t the only member of the Sin Reapers who’d eyed Lucy like she was a piece of meat or some French model they could bend into all kinds of naughty, dirty positions. But he was the only one who’d made a pass at her.
It had been years ago and it was water under the bridge—at least it was for me, more by force of will than any real inclination—but no one had forgotten that it’d happened. Not Lucy. Not me. It was hard when you had as much history as we did.
Ten years ago, I’d saved Lucy. Maybe I didn’t look at it that way, but Lucy did. We were just a couple of kids in high school. She was only fifteen and I was coming up fast on seventeen. Even then, her father had been leader of the Sin Reapers. She acted a lot tougher than she was back then, and that along with her father’s reputation was usually enough to keep her out of trouble.
But not that day.
I’d never forget it, though my memories were red around the edges and fuzzy in the middle. It was raining. Lucy was walking home. I never did find out why, but it was the last time she did it. I was on the other side of the street trying to bum a cigarette off a guy who wouldn’t believe I was eighteen—which I wasn’t.
I saw the guy start following her, but didn’t think much of it. A lot of people walked that way; no big deal. But then she got a little farther and he got a little closer. She finally stopped, leaning against the wall like she was waiting for someone. But she wasn’t.
The guy looked like he might just keep going, but when he didn’t I knew things were about to get bad.
I forgot the guy and the smoke, turning to cross the street just as the guy reached for her. He grabbed her by the arm and she struggled to shake him off, but he was too strong for her. A car nearly ran me over, making me stop before I could reach her, and by the time it passed that guy was dragging her into an alley between a smoke shop and the Mexican food place right next to it. I heard a scream.
I ran. When I got to that alley, she was pressed against the wall, the guy holding her down as she kicked at him, struggling to break free. But his hold was tight and his free hand was already wandering. He had one knee between her legs, forcing them apart, and his hand was starting up her skirt. She screamed. He smacked his hand over her mouth. She bit him. And that was when he hit her across the face, making her fall to the alley floor, her mouth bleeding.
I saw red. Fury flared through me, so hot I might have burst into flames. I ran for her as the man started to undo his pants. I heard his sneering voice as he told her, “Scream again, bitch, and I’ll fucking kill you.”
The rest, I didn’t really remember. I knew I got there before he reached her. I knew I punched him until his face was broken and bleeding and my hands weren’t doing much better. I knew when I finally came back to myself, Lucy was wrapped in my arms, my bloodied hands stroking her dark hair as I whispered to her that she was okay, I’d protect her.
As far as I knew, the man survived. Barely. His face would never quite be the same though. I wasn’t charged only because Lucy was the Preacher’s daughter and he had an in with the police department.
After that, I always walked her home. We started making out in little hallway nooks when no one was looking. By the end of the year, my hands were constantly down her pants, making her cry out in pleasure. And on her seventeenth birthday, she took off all her clothes and told me she wanted me to be her first. I was. I’d had other girls before and made sure it was good for her. After that first time, we couldn’t be separated.
When she graduated high school—I had dropped out senior year to work full time at an auto shop—I thought she might go off into the world and leave me behind, but she took local community college classes and stuck with me.
Eventually, she got dragged into the club just like I had. It was inevitable; her dad was the Preacher, leader of the club. She was more accountant than anything else and kept the books balanced.
I always waited for her to leave me, to find someone better, but she never did. Instead, our relationship seemed to just grow in intensity. The sex got better every time we had it and I knew unquestioningly that I loved her. That kind of crazy love that drove you to do things you wouldn’t normally do. Things like beat a man within an inch of his life.
Bills didn’t love her like I did, no one did, but he wanted her and he wasn’t the kind of man who took kindly to “no.” I didn’t know what he said to her, she refused to tell me, but something happened that made her skittish around him. All she would tell me was that he told her he was interested and she told him she wasn’t.
I didn’t bother asking him. He’d just say that nothing had happened.
“You sure that’s you talking?” Bills asked me finally, jerking me back to the here and now. His tone was even, though his face was red and blotchy. He was pissed, no question. I couldn’t tell if Lucy had heard him or not or if he’d meant her to, but I knew what he was trying to say.
He always tried to tell me that she distracted me. I always told him to shut the fuck up.
“Let’s worry about it another time,” I told him, not interested in dealing with the issues I knew wouldn’t wait for much longer. “Right now, I want to focus on that guy. I want to know who he was and if he really was a Slayer.”
Bills nodded his head. “I’ll find out.”
I had little doubt that he would.