…
Star
Something that happened inside that ghost town post office that had rattled Remy.
I wanted to know, to see if I could help him, but I was too afraid to ask him. With that woman and her child right there on the ground… I was afraid that he might tell me if I did ask.
I wanted to be stronger…I was stronger, but Remy was a man made of barbed wire and to see him rattled like that scared the hell out of me.
It was selfish, but I now felt glad he had me wait across the street.
Leaving the post office, I knew I was in for a hell of a ride. Remy hadn’t been on a bike since he was almost killed by that Steel Veins kill team. Eagerness exuded from him like a legendary musician getting back on stage after a big hiatus.
Remy belonged on a bike.
When he started the engine, he palmed the gas tank with a gentle reverence. I imagined that whichever angry, ruthless god Remy prayed to must have been comprised of gasoline, chrome, rubber, and hellish fire.
The bike’s sudden acceleration had broken my inertia as we pulled away from the Lobos and their brutal interrogation of the lone Knight. I’d only been on a bike a few times, and always found it hard to prepare for that initial burst of speed.
The roads to the dead town were packed dirt for a few miles, but the second his back wheel hit real pavement, Remy opened the throttle up and we took off. Not like a bullet, but more like a freight train. The Harley was much louder, and had more of a weighty presence than Remy’s Ninja. Remy’s old bike was so fast and smooth that if he put his arms out on the highway we’d lift off like a jet.
All in all, I liked the feel of this Harley better. It felt more substantial, but I definitely understood why Remy preferred the Asian style more. Where this bike felt like I was on a rapidly accelerating steam engine, his Ninja was like sitting on a rocket that was taking off.
Not sitting, more like, holding-on-for-dear-fucking-life!
It was the embodiment of white-knuckled, screaming, crying speed, especially how Remy rode it.
I wasn’t as much of an adrenaline junkie as he was. I just loved the shrugging off of expectations and obligations that came with this lifestyle. Being an outlaw biker made me feel invincible...to a degree. Guns still scared the shit out of me.
I had killed two men now, I reminded myself. And I didn’t even know the second one’s name.
The second killing bothered me so much more than the first. I knew first hand, one-hundred percent that Rio deserved what he got. The other biker that was fleeing for his life… He probably did too. How could he not after what I saw in there?
But I didn’t know for myself.
Despite the rocky calluses forming around my heart I really hoped I’d never have to do anything like that ever again.
We traveled in a pocket of roaring wind and sound until we pulled into our crappy, little motel with so much speed and sensory deprivation that I had no idea how long of a ride it was, not that it mattered. I had my eyes closed most of the way. I didn’t want to think. I wanted to focus on the rhythm of the ride and let my mind drift.
I hadn’t realized how much I missed being on a bike. I could only imagine how Remy felt.
Pushing open our door, it struck me how absurd it all was. We left this small one room apartment as just another frustrated, dead-end couple, but returned to it with a fierceness of purpose. Despite the heavier-than-usual suit of sorrow Remy wore, the fire in his movements and in those dark eyes was unmistakable.
I wanted to ask him about the church car, and what had happened to him in that room, but the time still didn’t feel right. He seemed to want a little space, so I’d save my million questions for tomorrow.
Remy stripped off his shirt by the mirror and gazed into his reflection as if waiting for an answer to a question he didn’t even know how to ask. The divot scar running across his cheek from Bones’ bullet was a shadowy crater in the harsh bathroom light. Finally giving up his silent argument with the man in the mirror, he cleaned the blood off his hands and arms. Then, propped up on his elbows, he ran his wet hands over his face.
Back lit, under a shock of hair, his eyes were polished coal, and when his gaze shifted to me, through that mirror, I shuddered at its intensity.
That burning passion within him ignited my skin, goose bumps erupted all across me with arcing electricity. Even if he didn’t kill them himself, half a dozen people were dead tonight because of him. It was easy to forget just how dangerous this man was.
Remy was a force of nature.
When I started changing out of my dusty waitress outfit to get into the shower, he turned and faced me with a smoldering, unreadable expression. I had his full attention. With my clothes on the floor all around me into his hard eyes and watched them scrub every inch of skin. My naked form laid bare for him to feast on. His ravaging eyes were somehow harsher than I was comfortable with.
Was he actually seeing me at all?
I closed my eyes and prayed I knew what the answer was.
The faint foot falls of his thick, rubber-soled boots vibrated the thin carpet and up through my curled toes as he came closer. I could smell the copper of dried blood on his clothes as he walked completely around me. I braced for a touch that never came.
I opened my eyes when the shower turned on and felt weirdly dejected. Did he not want me? I slipped on a towel and patiently waited my turn for the shower. Something was frighteningly off about Remy.
By the time I got out of the long mostly hot shower and put on my ridiculous pajamas. The lights in bedroom were all off. Remy laid motionless, turned away from me in the bed. I reached over to comfort him, but hesitated right before I touched him.
I had never seen him like this. I didn’t think he’d hurt me, but I was still afraid. Quietly lying next to him in the dark room, I was overtaken by memories of these past few months. Being with him was so rewarding, but also so difficult. Remy was a lion in a lamb’s world.
How could he not see food everywhere he looked?
A thousand thoughts turned over in my head until eventually, sleep muted them all. My dreams were labored, vicious things. I was in a dark room, and for a moment, I couldn’t remember where.
The motel. I was in the motel with Remy. We lived here for now.
Suddenly, there was the startling sensation of my pajama bottoms and panties being ripped down that felt all too real. Sleep made everything hazy. Flashes of Top, and the first night at Muse’s haunted me. Tough as I was now, Remy’s brother still scared the hell out of me!
Then I felt the distinctive wet pressure of a tongue on my clit. The last of my sleep was torn from me like the last stubborn leaves from the ash tree we had in our backyard, during a harsh early-winter gale.
I moaned, but out of surprise and the inability to quickly form words, not arousal. My hands immediately sprang down to stop what was happening. It was when I felt the scar on his cheek, and the hard angles of his face, that things began to feel more familiar.
Remy, thank god, I sighed.
My body straightened when I felt his tongue push between the lips of my pussy and slowly spread me apart. Something I would’ve enjoyed a lot more, had I not been still shaking off a groggy, waking numbness.
Why now? Why not when we got home?
His touch was quick and rough, which was fine. I liked rough, but I couldn’t shake this nagging worry. There was something unsettling about the way Remy moved. Every jerk and motion had a sense of immediacy of it. There was a feeling of urgency to it all. It was all so mechanical. Like there was no “Remy” in there.
It freaked me out a little.
“I’d gotten worried,” I said tentatively trying to diffuse the mounting tension. He hadn’t said a word to me since before he walked into that post office. “Thought you—”
Remy cut me off by abruptly changing position. He was now on top of me, his hard cock slid up the inside of my naked thigh. His power and dominance still felt great, but something that was hard to place was very off. His touch was alien to me.
I didn’t know who he thought he was fucking, but it wasn’t me.
“Stop.”
He didn’t. His hands squeezed into my upper thigh hard enough for the pain to surpass the point of erotic. Now I was getting really worried. “Please, stop,” I said a little louder.
He continued. I could feel the tip of his cock brush my pussy. I wasn’t sure where his mind was at, or if he could even hear me, but this was all wrong! My heart raced, not with that amazing thrill I felt every other time he touched me, but with a rising fear like when his older brother, Top, had taken me.
“Remy! Stop, goddamnit!” I grabbed his cock and forced it away.
Remy stopped immediately. I’d finally broken through to him.
He collapsed on top of me, his head resting on my chest. I hesitantly ran my fingers through his hair and placed a hand over the scars on his back. His heart...was racing just as fast as mine, if not faster.
What the fuck had just happened?
“Are you ok?” No response. “Dammit, Remy! Talk to me!”
“I’m sorry,” Remy let the near whispered words out in the same breath as a heavy sigh. His voice was strangled by sorrow. “Last night... I... I lost my way.”
“Lost your way? How?”
I didn’t understand. When I walked into that doxa cooking room last night and saw him on the ground holding that dead woman’s hand... I almost didn’t recognize him. And when he didn’t answer me, I thought I’d lost him forever. I was lucky he snapped out of it when the Lobos showed up or things would probably have gone much, much worse for the both of us.
Seeing him sitting there catatonic was more terrifying for me than when he was shot. At least when he was shot there was something I could do to help him. The bullets were physical. I knew where the wounds were and what happened. As hard as it was, I could wrap my head around what needed to be done.
But seeing Remy hollowed out like a jack-o-lantern scared me on a whole different level. There was nothing I could do to help him! PTSD was something I knew nothing about. All I could do was wait and hope for him to return to me.
If he returned to me at all.
“What the fuck happened to you in there?” I asked cautiously.
“The Knights were holding kids as hostages so their mothers would work and stay in line,” Remy reluctantly began. “That’s why I went in.”
I was so pissed when I saw him disappear, especially after he reassured me that he wouldn’t! Right after I stopped the biker from leaving, I ran into that building, not just because I was worried about him, but also because I was fumingly angry! I was angry that he’d do that to me after he expressly told me he wouldn’t.
Hearing what his reason was made me feel like such an asshole.
“Kids? I didn’t see any—” It started to dawn on me. My heart started rising in my throat when I summoned the courage to ask him, “What happened to the kids?”
I felt my chest crush with dread at the anticipation.
“Most of them escaped with their mothers. I gave them our car keys.”
“Oh.” That couldn’t have been it, but it didn’t feel like that was it. Seeing the woman dead was shocking to me, but with all he’s been through with the club it couldn’t have been to him, at least not shocking enough to put him in this kind of mood.
It had to be something else.
“The woman that you saw…” Remy paused struggling to get the words out, “I killed her.”
“What?” I couldn’t think of any situation where that made sense.
“She’d taken several rounds from one of the Knight’s AK and wasn’t going to make it. She was holding a little boy when it happened. And he…”
No. My eyes shot open. I knew what he was going to say and I felt nauseous. I didn’t think anything of the bulge under the sheet and the additional red spot at the time.
“Oh, God.” I gasped. Remy watched a little boy die.
“Yeah.” Remy stopped to collect his thoughts and calm himself. “His mother whispered something to me when she knew... When she knew he was dead. She begged me to—”
“You put her out of her misery?” The words felt disgusting in my mouth. This was a human being not a sick, stray animal.
“One round through the heart.”
“Remy that’s awful. I’m so—”
“There’s more,” he interrupted before going into a long pause. He swallowed hard and then said, “Before you came in I put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger. But the gun was empty. Used my last round on her.”
I covered my mouth. I was speechless. It was horrible. My, God—Remy tried to kill himself! “Jesus, Remy!” The thought of finding his dead body next to that woman in the post office made me almost start crying. I didn’t want to imagine being without him, especially not there, surrounded by Lobos.
I suddenly got so angry at him! How could he do that to me? I wanted to scream at him! To slap him for almost leaving me! The anger quickly turned into guilt over my internal reaction.
This happened to him, not me, I scolded myself.
I immediately felt horrible for thinking such selfish and shitty thoughts. I could feel the incredible amount of grief within him. He opened up to me because he trusted me! I couldn’t betray him with that kind of thinking.
He needed my support, not some self righteous judgment.
I didn’t have the right words to say, if any even existed, so I pulled his head onto my chest. Rapid, heavy exhales blew across my breasts, and then his tears rolled down my stomach. I couldn’t imagine how hard this bloody lifestyle was on him.
The slayings last night, Lorenzo and the kill teams sent after us. The death of his blood brother, Bren, before that, then losing the rest of his club family afterwards. Having to work with the Lobos to save his club after those very people caused the situation that killed his wife, and shot him nearly to death... All that he shouldered alone. That weight. That pain he must have felt was unfathomable.
How could anyone keep it together like he had?
It stunned me at how strong he had to be to survive all that. It was hard to breathe just thinking about it, let alone going through a fraction of what he went through.
That’s why the sex felt so wrong. He wasn’t fucking me; he was coping with the pain the only way he knew how. Sex was his only escape from the all the madness that swirled around him.
“You’re not alone anymore,” I told him after desperately searching for other words that just weren’t there.
“Yeah,” his word was pushed out in a slow voice that was laid low with gravel, broken glass, and heartache. He kissed my stomach sweetly, and with the sound of budding relief filling his voice, he whispered, “I know.”
I held him as tightly as I could. We laid there in silence until the soft hues of morning crept through the cracks in the shades, and as exhausted as we were, sleep finally, mercifully embraced us.