Rockstar Untamed: A Single Dad Virgin Romance by Michelle Love (9)

“I felt the same way. I have to have you in my arms to be able to sleep.”

She looks up at me. “I don’t know how we’ve become so dependent on one another in such a short amount of time. It’s incredible.”

“It is. Everything about this is incredible. Our life together will be incredible, and that’s exciting. Don’t you think?” I kiss her forehead and rock with her in my arms.

A deep sigh fills the air, then she says, “This is too good to be true.”

I hold her back and give her a stern look. “No, it’s not. This is true, and if you didn’t have that bad past then you’d never question what we have. You have to know that’s true.”

“I suppose you’re right. I guess I think there’s a lot of bad in the world, and how we are together is so good, it’s just a little scary that something could happen to end it.”

“Nothing can happen to end what we have. Jenna, this is deep. This is years deep and you know that,” I say as I search her eyes.

“I know.” She looks around the kitchen as I hold her. “I remember the first time you touched me in this room. You put an apron over my head and your presence at my back set me on fire.”

“I remember that. I did it on purpose. It set me on fire too.” I kiss her with a long slow kiss. The way I yearned to all those years ago.

Her hand touches my cheek as our lips part. “Reed, I love you so much.”

“I will never get tired of hearing those words come out of your mouth. And I will never get tired of telling you that I love you too. You are my world now. My everything. I never want you to feel anything but happiness, my angel.”

“We should tell your parents goodbye and get that room. I can’t wait to be alone with you. Yesterday without you was torture. I want to feel your body next to mine,” she says as her fingers trail over my chest.

“I want to feel your body beneath mine.” I kiss her again, run my hands down to her ample ass, and take handfuls of it.

Pulling her to me, I feel the heat coming from her as her legs wrap around me and my cock pulses against her.

Our kiss goes crazy and I move until I have her back against the wall and grind into her soft center. Her hands move all over my back and up into my hair.

I pump my dick against her jeans as she moans. Then our mouths part, and I kiss her neck. “Reed. My God, Reed.”

She says my name like it’s the only thing she can think of. And that’s exactly what I want. I want her only to think about me and leave the rest behind her in the distant past, a past which should never have been, that left emotional scars on her.

Jenna had a nightmare on Sunday night while we were at my home in Bel-Air. She woke up screaming my name and when I asked her what happened, she wouldn’t talk. She just wanted to go back to sleep.

I have a feeling that in her subconscious she's worrying about what will happen when Rod and I finally clash over this.

It won’t be pretty, but I will win in the end. I don’t lose. Not anymore.

This woman is more precious to me than all the financial deals in the world. There is not a thing on this planet that can take her away from me.

Not as long as she wants me and what we have.

Which I pray is forever!

Chapter 19

JENNA

The last two months have flown by. Reed and I are leaving town the day after tomorrow and our parents are throwing us a combined engagement party and going away party tonight at the Mannings’ home.

But getting our asses out of this bed in the room at the lodge he rented us is proving to be harder than expected.

His hot mouth just keeps touching my body and making it impossible to stop what we’ve been doing for hours now. Every nerve in my body is tingling and super sensitive with all his attention.

The way his hand is running up my leg as he licks and sucks my breast has me groaning. “Reed, what you do to me is unreal.”

I can feel his cock coming back to life already, even though a mere half hour ago he came like a flood inside me.

What his mere touch does to me is amazing. My body absolutely craves his. My insides heat with every pulse of his growing cock against my leg.

He’s about to fill me up with his massive organ again, and already I’m aching for that feeling again.

His hand moves over my stomach as he lifts his head, letting my breast go. His eyes are dark as he looks at me. “Guess I have one more in me. How about you?”

I nod and bite my lip. “My legs are quivering, they want you back between them so badly.”

He growls as he moves up my body and I keep my eyes trained on his. “One more time. Then we’ll shower and get ready for the party.”

My breathing goes heavy with feeling his body covering mine. I move my legs up to bend my knees and he loops his arm around the back of the right one and lifts it until my knee is by my head.

He holds my eyes as he makes a hard thrust into me. I huff with the impact and sink my nails into his shoulder. “Reed!”

“Yeah, Angel. Say it again,” he growls at me.

With another hard thrust, I say his name again. Then I moan and have to close my eyes as he grinds his thick cock into me.

It’s not of this world, how this man makes me feel. I’m not even having an orgasm and yet my body is all melty and solid at the same time. It’s constantly aching and yearning for him, all the while fulfilled at the same time.

It’s a complicated mix of things I never knew could be combined. But they can, and Reed makes that happen in me every single time.

I wiggle and moan with his hard thrusts. Then he lets my leg go and moves his hands to take mine in them. He pulls them up over my head and pins them down with one of his.

He moves hard and fast into me as I struggle underneath him. The wave hits me and the first climax goes into full swing. “Reed!” I arch up to meet every hard thrust.

I screech as my body convulses around his hard cock and he keeps stroking in and out as he clenches his teeth. “Yes! Give it all to me. Cum all over me, Jenna. I want you all over my dick.”

My body sends what’s left of my fluids out to him and he can only make a few more deep thrusts into me before it takes him with it. He makes a loud moan as he fills me with more hot semen.

If I wasn’t on the Pill, this man would’ve gotten me pregnant for sure. He’s filled me up five times in the last few hours.

As a matter of fact, I’m not sure even the Pill can stop this amount of baby juice.

Once we catch our breath, I say, “Okay. We only have an hour to get ready, so we have to stop this and get up.”

He lays half on and half off me, pulling his dick out of me. “Okay. Let’s get out of this bed.”

Reed climbs out of the bed and reaches for me. I’m pretty weak and try to sit up, but fall back.

He laughs and scoops me up in his arms. “I got you. Seems I’ve left you unable to walk.”

I hold onto him and lean my head on his sweaty chest that I love knowing he got that way with me. “You have, you monster.”

He chuckles as he carries me to the shower. “Monster, huh?”

As he places me on the seat on one side of the large shower, I smile at him. “Well, the best kind of monster.”

“Oh, like the Cookie Monster?” He turns on the warm water and it falls over my tired body.

I nod. “Okay, like the Cookie Monster. Only I’m going to call you my pleasure monster.”

His eyebrows wiggle. “I like that. I’m your pleasure monster. Yeah, I like that.”

He pours some shampoo into my palm and some in his. We shampoo our hair, then he picks me up and I lean back as he holds me around the waist and lets the water rinse my hair out. His hand runs through it to help out and then he pulls me up and kisses me.

My head goes light. When our mouths part, I have to catch my breath. “Okay, pleasure monster. Let me out of your magic arms so we can get going to our party.”

He lets me go and smiles at me. “It really is magical, isn’t it?”

“It really is.”

And I hope it stays this way!

 

The guests have already arrived, like I knew was going to happen. We’re late to our own party thanks to what happened in the shower too!

I’m not complaining. I am going to have to figure out what we can do to learn how to end the lovemaking in a timelier manner and do life things. Otherwise, we’ll never leave the house.

A tall wall of lavender is built around the edge of the patio that surrounds the swimming pool where some of the guests have congregated. Other guests are in the house.

I come outside to grab us a couple of beers and, as I lean over the cooler, I find I can hear a couple of male voices on the other side of it and I can smell cigarette smoke.

I don’t pay much attention, as I recognize the voices as the cousins, A.J., and Lance. Then Lance says, “What do you think Rod will do when he finds out Reed took his girl?”

I stop breathing. Then A.J. says, “All I know is, I’m not going to be the one to tell him. That dude has a wicked temper and has been known to beat the messenger on occasion. He can find out on his own. You know, I talked to him a few weeks ago, and he’s going to be home next week.”

My heart stops. Then Lance says, “Oh, yeah? Is he coming in with that motorcycle gang he joined?”

A.J. answers, “Hell, yeah. He doesn’t go anywhere without them. Shit, he joined the club to protect him from his old boss. The dude caught him selling drugs out of the shop and was about to turn him in if he didn’t give him a cut of the profits. You know Rod wasn’t about to do that, so he left. Went and found a gang to join.”

Lance says, “I thought Jenna knew about it. I mean, I know she had to put on a good act so no one else would know. But Rod had to have let her in on what he was doing.”

A.J. says, “I don’t know if he did or not. If he did and he comes back to find her engaged to his brother, shit will hit the fan. Now, if he left and left her in the dark, then I don’t blame the chick for moving on.”

“Yeah, me neither. But we ain’t Rod. He’s got serious possession issues. If he did expect her to wait, and she didn’t, well, too bad for her and Reed. That’s all I’m saying,” Lance says.

“And now he has this rough gang behind him too,” A.J. says. I can tell he’s taking a drag off the cigarette as he pauses, and I can smell the stink from it. A stench I haven’t had to endure in the last couple of years. “I think he could be a real threat to the little love birds with that gang behind him.”

“Hey!” I hear Reed shout as he comes out of the set of French doors that lead out onto the patio. “Need help, Angel?”

I turn back with the beers in my hand as I hear the men on the other side of the fence snicker. Then A.J. says, “All she can get.” And they break out laughing like a couple of hyenas, a thing Reed notices, as they’re loud. I hurry to him as he starts to go back there and I stop him and pull him inside the house with me. “We need to talk, Reed.”

He follows along. “Go to my old bedroom.”

I walk through the living room with him right behind me and we go to his room. As soon as he closes the door, I fall into his arms. “They know where Rod is. He’s joined a motorcycle gang.”

“Who knows this?” Reed asks in confusion.

“A.J. and Lance. I heard them talking behind that wall thing. It was them you heard laughing. They were laughing because Rod is about to come back with his motorcycle gang. They were saying that Rod left town because he was selling drugs out of the shop he worked at. His boss found out and wanted him to give him some of the drug money. I guess Rod didn’t want to, and that’s the reason he disappeared.”

Reed looks pissed. Not afraid like I am. Just really mad.

“That selfish son of a bitch. Well, Mom’s no bitch, but you know what I mean.” He hugs me tighter. “Don’t worry. We’ll be long gone by the time he gets to town.”

“I know that. But once he finds out about us, what if he comes looking for us? He could make one of your parents tell him where you live, you know.” I search his eyes for any sign of fear and there just is none.

But he doesn’t know the Rod I do!

Reed takes me by the shoulders, as I’m sure he feels my body shaking. “Jenna, stop. You know the mansion is a fortress. And the neighborhood isn’t a place a gang would be tolerated. They’d no sooner get to the first mansion in their motorcycle brigade than the cops would get called.”

I nod my head. I know he’s right. But I have this horrible feeling.

“You won’t let him get a hold of me will you?”

He pulls me tight to him. “No. Never, Jenna. He will never hurt you again. Not ever. And, not right now, because we have this party, but soon I want to know everything that went on with you two. Because you’re much too afraid of him for nothing more than that one incident that happened when the cops were called to affect you like this.”

I nod, but don’t really ever want to talk to him about what I allowed to be done to me. “I can’t believe he was selling drugs behind my back. I can’t believe he didn’t at least explain to me why he had to leave. I would’ve understood, and maybe I would’ve been heartbroken, but at least I would’ve known why he was leaving. And why couldn’t he have taken me with him?”

Reed moves me back and looks at me with a very hard look on his handsome face. “You don’t realize how lucky you got when he left you, do you?”

“I do, Reed. I really do. But so many questions went unanswered. I would’ve gone with him if he wanted me to. I belonged to him.” I look away quickly, as I realize I’m talking too much.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing. You know, the typical we-belong-together thing. It’s stupid. I need to think about other things. This party. You and me and our wedding. There are a lot of people out there. We need to get back to them.” I try to pull out of his arms, but he won’t let me go.

“Jenna, you don’t want him back, do you? And please be truthful.” I hate the way his eyes are drooping.

I take in a deep breath. “Reed, I love you more than I ever knew was possible. And please believe me when I tell you none of the things going through my head are anything close to wanting him back. I will not ever be going back to life the way Rod has to have it. My life is with you, now and forever. I swear that to you. And, Reed, I want you to know that if you were in my life or not, I would not be going back to Rod. That’s not the life I want or will allow ever again. Not ever!”

He looks a little relieved but not completely. “Promise me that you’ll never be alone with him for any reason.”

I look him straight in the eyes, as this is the honest truth. “That’s an easy promise to make. I will never be alone with him, Reed. I’m not looking forward to ever seeing him again, much less giving him the chance to take his aggression out on me.”

“Good. I don’t trust him.” Reed takes my hand and we leave his bedroom. And as we walk down the dark hallway to the living room, a chill runs through me as A.J. and Lance walk into the living room.

Both men look down the hall as we walk out of it and both have the oddest smiles on their bearded faces. Then A.J. gives Reed a little punch in the arm. “So you really did it. You stole your big brother’s girl. You sure have grown a huge set of balls, Reed.”

Reed narrows his eyes at his older cousin. “A.J., just what were you out there smoking?”

A.J. and Lance laugh as the eight or nine family members who are in the living room stare at us all. Reed is a good two inches taller than A.J. and a foot taller than Lance. He’s built so much better than they are, too.

I have no doubts that Reed could wipe the floor with both of them. But I don’t want any of that crap at our party, so I say, “Come on, guys. Give us a break. And please don’t think anyone stole anyone. I was a very single woman these last couple of years.” Then I tug at Reed’s hand to get him to follow me outside.

He does, but looks over his shoulder at his cousins. Or, as he always calls them, Rod’s cousins. But their words tell me that if that’s how they look at this, then Rod will too.

And that’s going to be a problem!

Chapter 20

REED

The moon’s light is the only light we need as Jenna and I hold each other in my parents’ swimming pool at two in the morning. Everyone went home a few hours ago; my parents are dead asleep; and I found myself wanting to spend some time in the pool alone with my angel.

After ditching our clothes, we jumped in and now I have her back against the side as we kiss and I hold her in my arms. “So, when do you think you might want to officially become Mrs. Reed Manning?”

Her green eyes sparkle in the moonlight, and I find them so damn beautiful it physically hurts. “Sooner than later, I think.”

I swish her around in the water, then press her back against the side so I can press my cock against her where it loves to be. “Do you remember telling me you hoped one of our kids would have the dimple I have in my chin?”

She nods and a blush covers her cheeks. “The way you talked then, I did feel as if you were talking about a child you and I would have. It sent this odd sensation deep inside me when you said those words. And now look at us. Someday we really will have kids. Who knew?”

I wink at her. “Me. I always knew one day the jackass would fuck up too bad and that would end.”

“Is that why you paid for my college? So you could keep tabs on me?” She gives me a scowling look.

“Yes,” I admit.

The way her face goes all sweet and loving tells me my admission made her heart melt. “Reed, how sweet. How romantic. I had no idea. I really didn’t.”

“I was biding my time. I knew it would come. But it was damn hard not to knock my brother out of my way. But I knew he had to really show you who he was for you to see you didn’t belong with him.” I push a damp piece of hair behind her ear, then lean down to nibble the tasty earlobe.

She makes this moaning purr sound that drives me insane, and my cock grows. Her legs wrap around me. “Reed, please, I’m going crazy to have you inside me.”

I move her a bit and slide my cock into her sweet spot and my body goes to that place only she takes me to every time I enter her. It’s the most magical shit I’ve ever experienced.

It’s intense pleasure that sends my mind to a place it’s never gone to until I made love to her. She is the one for me. There is no doubt in my mind.

I make a gentle stroke as she moans my name, “Reed.”

“Jenna,” I moan back as my lips graze her neck. Her soft and sweet neck.

My cock fills her completely. There is absolutely no space left as I move inside her, and her legs squeeze me. “Reed, I can’t believe we’re going to be married and live in your mansion. It’s like a fantasy.”

My lips touch her ear. “Our mansion.” I move her back and forth as I put my hands on her waist.

She runs her hand over my cheek and pulls her head off my shoulder to look at me. “You made that money and it’s yours, Reed.”

“I did make that money.” I rotate my hips and move my cock around to make sure it hits her in just the right way. Her eyes roll up as she hangs her head back.

“God, Reed! How do you know how to do these things?”

“I didn’t until I found you. It all comes very naturally with you. And I bought that mansion with only you in mind, Jenna. That is our place. It has been since I got it. Don’t ever think anything other than that. That was bought to be our home, and now it will be.” I give her another swirl of my hips and her groan fills me with satisfaction.

Her mouth falls on my shoulder, where she bites it as her nails move over my back. I see she wants a little rough action, so I push her back to the wall and move as fast and hard as I can into her.

The low moans turn into little pants and then she’s making quiet squeals as I feel her body going into an orgasm. I go hard and fast until I find mine too. Then I ease the hard thrusts and make slow strokes as our bodies end the intense pleasure we seem to give each other.

“I love you, Reed,” she says. Her lips move against my neck as she keeps her legs wrapped around my waist and her arms around my neck.

“Love is a word that isn’t even strong enough for what we’ve found. But since I don’t have a new one yet, I love you too, Jenna.” I trail soft kisses down her neck and over her shoulder.

We should probably get out and get going back to the room at the lodge, but holding her in this warm water feels too good to stop. Then a sound has me listening very hard.

“That sounds like a motorcycle, doesn’t it?” Jenna asks, as we both look around to see if we can see any lights.

But the backyard has so many privacy fences around it, we can’t see a thing to tell us where the thing might be. I kiss her cheek to calm her, as her body has gone tense.

“It’s only one bike, and he’s not due in until next week, remember.”

She nods. The sound of the motorcycle is gone now, and she wraps her arms back around me. “I’m being silly.”

A light comes on in the kitchen, then the back door opens. Jenna turns in my arms to see who it is. Neither of us can see any more than a shadow.

“Shit!” Jenna hisses quietly. “Busted!”

I hold on to her from behind and whisper in her ear. “Probably just Dad taking in a breath of fresh air, and he’ll go back inside. Just be still and quiet.”

Then a lighter lights up and it lights a cigarette.

Dad does not smoke!

Now it’s me who hisses, “Shit!”

The outside light comes on as he takes a couple of steps out and triggers the motion sensor. It also makes the interior pool light come on as a safety thing, and now it’s made us vulnerable.

It takes a second for my brother’s eyes to roam over us and when they do, I see fire in them. He pulls his black leather jacket with the words Brothers of the Scarlet Dragon off and tosses it on the ground, followed by his cigarette.

He’s not saying any words at all. But his body is in full gear as he begins to walk with a quick pace toward the pool. Then I feel Jenna slipping out of my arms as she pulls herself up on the edge of the pool and she’s out and running to him.

“No! No, Rod! Stop!”

I hurry out after her, both of bare-assed. I manage to grab up my shorts and pull them on in a fraction of a second. Then I see Rod toss her to the side and she falls on her ass.

He doesn’t even look at what he’s done to her as he’s focused only on me. Then I see her get up and run at him again from behind.

“Jenna, no!” I yell at her. “Get Dad!”

She runs toward the door, grabs a towel off the chair next to it, and wraps herself up as she runs inside.

Rod goes right for my throat. “I’m going to kill you!” His words are spoken between clenched teeth.

I avoid his hands and smash my fist into his stomach. He takes a step back with the punch, but it doesn’t seem to affect him or slow him down at all.

His left arm comes up and I go to block it, when his right fist slams into my face. I fall back with the punch, but quickly regain my balance and come at him like a linebacker.

Catching him in the middle, I run forward and take his feet off the ground as I run with him until I hit something that has his breath pushing out so hard I can feel it.

He grunts with the force, and I let him go. He falls to the ground but gets back up, and the way he comes at me has me walking backward, but not fast enough. His fist hits my mouth, and I taste blood right away.

It only pisses me off and I throw a wild punch. It connects, and I see his cheek split and blood starts pouring from it.

Then we both grab each other and wrestle, trying to take the other one to the ground. But we both stop and let go of each other as a loud gunshot stops us.

We turn and find our father at the back door holding a shotgun. “The first one to raise a fist gets a taste of this.”

Jenna and Mom are behind him and it seems Mom gave Jenna one of her nightgowns to cover herself up with. I look at Rod and he looks at me. Then we take a few steps away from each other.

Jenna comes running out, straight to me, until Rod says something that makes her stop dead in her tracks. His voice is low and threatening as he says, “You better rethink that, baby. You’re mine, no matter what Reed thinks. And you damn well know that.”

Her face goes very pale and her body starts to shake. I take a step toward her and she holds up her hand, stopping me. “It’s okay, Reed. I need to face this.” Her voice is shaky, and I can tell she’s scared, but she swallows hard. “I am not yours, Rod. You left me. And a day doesn’t go by that I don’t thank God you did. I am with Reed now. Not a damn thing you say or do will change that.”

“I still have the paper, Jenna. You are mine, and you know that. It might take a bit of retraining to get you back to how I had you, but I will have you. And you damn well know that.” He turns his head and spits in my direction.

“I’m not listening to any more of his shit!” I start walking towards Jenna and take her hand when I get to her. “Come on, Angel. We’re leaving.”

She falls in behind me as I pull her along, and I hear Rod coming up behind us. But Dad fires off another shot. “Leave her alone, son.”

“She is my woman!” Reed shouts. “How could you two allow this to happen? You both know who it is she belongs to!”

“Now, Rod,” my mother says in her best mom tone. “You left her. You left her without a word. She had every right to move on.”

“No, she didn’t, and she knew that.” He stays where he is since Dad has the gun and I pull Jenna inside.

I look over my shoulder at my mother. “We’re leaving in the morning instead of the day after.”

She nods. “I understand. Good night.”

I take Jenna out through the front door, put her in the passenger seat, and lock her door. Then I quickly get in the driver’s side and leave my parents’ home as fast as I can and pray they don’t let him leave right behind us. Or we’ll have to bring the cops in on this.

My head is spinning. Then Jenna just falls apart and cries like I’ve never seen her do before. She’s sobbing uncontrollably.

What did that fucking bastard do to her?

I let her cry it out until we pull into the parking lot. Then I get her out of the car and carry her inside as she cries into my bare chest.

Sitting on the bed with her on my lap, I stroke her damp hair. “Jenna, it’s okay. We’re leaving in the morning. It’ll all be okay. He knows now, and he can start to get over it.”

She shakes her head. “It will be a long time before he gets over this. And he will try his best to stop this. I could see it in his eyes. I am his.”

“You are not his! Shit! Jenna, you don’t belong to anyone. Not even me. You are your own person. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.” I kiss her cheek and taste the salt of her many tears.

“I haven’t cried like this in so long. I don’t know how he has the power to make me this way. Weak and afraid.” She takes in a deep breath, trying to stop herself, but it doesn’t work and she busts out again. “I hate him, Reed!”

The thought crosses my mind that he has done something so bad to her she may need professional help to get over it. And that makes me furious at him.

“You can be weak right now if you need to be. I’m here for you. You fell when he threw you. Let me see if you’re hurt.” I lay her face down on the bed as she continues to cry softly.

When I raise up the nightgown, I see her ass is scraped up and go to find something to clean it up with and see if we have any kind of ointment to make it feel better.

In a bag of toiletries, I find some antibiotic ointment with pain reliever and take that along with a wet washcloth back to her. I see in the mirror that my lip is busted and dried blood is caked around it, but I’ll see to her first, then clean myself up.

When I go back to her I can hear that she’s stopped crying, and she seems to be asleep. I press the cloth to the scrape on her ass and she doesn’t move, so I know she’s asleep pretty deeply.

I spread the medicine all over the wound and she turns her head. Her eyes open. “Oh, it’s you. Good.”

“Who else would it be?” I ask.

“Rod used to do that afterwards. It’s just that I was asleep, and I guess dreaming, and thought it was him.”

“Rod used to do this to you after what, Jenna?” My whole body is tense, as I don’t know if I want to hear this or not.

“Never mind, Reed. I’m very sleepy.” Then her eyes close.

I move her around to lie the right way on the bed. She’s still wearing my mother’s flower covered nightgown so I leave it on her, as she must be exhausted.

As I go to clean myself up, I can’t help but think about how this will all play out. Rod is not one to come around and play nice.

Not ever!

Chapter 21

JENNA

My body aches as I lie in the bed and see the early morning light streaming through the white curtains of the small room Reed rented for us. I can hear him in the bathroom.

He opens the door and smiles at me as I lie in bed. “Hey there, sleepyhead.” He comes and kisses my cheek. “I thought I’d let you rest while I go grab us some breakfast from the café. How about a couple of breakfast tacos?”

“Mmm. Yes, that sounds good. I could use a few more winks before I get going today.” I stretch a little and he gives me one more kiss.

“I’ll be back in about an hour so you can rest. I’ll gas up the car and get ready to go to the airport. Sleep, Angel.” He leaves, and I hear the deadbolt lock and close my eyes.

 

Softly, his hand runs over my back as I lie on my stomach. “Back already? That didn’t seem like an hour. I feel like I barely fell back asleep.”

I roll over and nearly have a heart attack. “Rod!” I have on a nightgown, but I grab the blanket and pull it up to cover myself even more. “How did you get in here?”

“I know the chick at the front desk and she gave me a key. You and I need to talk.” He stands up and pulls out his wallet.

I watch him and have no idea what I need to be doing to ensure not only my safety, but Reed’s too. Rod pulls a folded piece of paper out of his wallet and opens it, then hands it to me. “Remember when you signed this?”

I place the contract on the bed without looking at it and look straight into his eyes. “I do. I was a dumb kid then. I’m not anymore. The fact is, you wouldn’t even like me now. So just be glad I’m not wanting you back.”

A grin covers his heavily bearded face. His hair is really short on the sides and kind of long on top. He’s covered in tattoos, and his beard is thick and long.

He barely looks like the same man.

“We both know I can get you back to the way I want you.” He sits back down on the side of the bed. “That’s not a problem. Tell me why you left our home.”

I glare at him. “How was I to keep it? And tell me why I would even want to? You left me without a word. Not a note, nothing. So why would I stay? And for over two years, at that.”

“Because you belong to me. I knew you went off to college, and I was okay with that. I thought you’d know to come back here and get a job until I came for you. You came back just like I knew you would. My plan was to come for you this summer and take you with me. Only you found my baby brother, didn’t you?” He reaches out to touch my face.

I pull back so he can’t. “No! You do not touch me. I’m not going to allow you to touch me. Not ever again. You hurt me. You have no idea what your leaving like that did to me. I had no idea if you were alive or anything. I had to worry for what felt like forever. Then one day it went away, a little and a little more each day, until I just didn’t think about you anymore.”

“Why would you do that? I never stopped thinking about you. I never stopped dreaming about the day I could come get you and take you with me on the road with my gang.” He smiles. “You’re going to have a rough time at first. The women are tough as shit. But I know you can gain their respect. You’re tough and fearless.”

I shake my head. “What makes you think I want to be a part of a motorcycle gang? I’m going to be a kindergarten teacher, Rod. I’m not biker chick material.”

“You are my woman and, as such, you will be what I want you to be. So if I say you need to fit in with my new lifestyle, then you will do as I say. I will train you just like I did before.” He reaches for me again and I move away from him.

“You should leave before Reed gets back.”

“You are mine. And I will show him that.” He grabs my wrist and pulls me up to him.

His face is too close to mine. I can smell the cigarettes and some kind of liquor, maybe tequila. “If you think you’re going to force yourself on me, you better know I will file rape charges on your ass. I swear it. You’ll have to kill me for that not to happen. Get me?”

He lets me go and stands up with a laugh. “See, you are tough. You just need to come back to me for a little while and you’ll fall right back into place.”

“I’m marrying Reed. I’m not going to hang with you to see if I want that back, because I know I don’t. To be honest, that was never a life I wanted. I accepted it because I was young and dumb and I loved you for reasons now I can’t really figure out. You were wild and dangerous and a thing no grown woman wants in her life. Not this one, anyway.” I shift in the bed and realize I don’t have any underwear on. That makes me feel a bit vulnerable, but I try hard not to let my face show that.

Rod looks down at me. “Mom gave me the ring I gave you when I asked you to marry me and you said yes. Want to explain to me why you gave it to her?”

“Because I was done with you. I waited nearly a month at the house for you and two more months at my parents’. When I decided to go away to college, I wanted to leave it all behind me. So I gave the ring to your mother. It’s a lot better than tossing the motherfucking thing that, in my opinion, you didn’t care at all about.” I pull the blanket up even tighter around me.

He pulls the ring out of his pocket. “I’m here to get that ring off your finger and this one back on it.”

“You’ll play hell doing that, Rod.” I stare right into his eyes. “You see, Reed will be back soon, and he will beat your ass if he finds you here. And I will do everything I can to help him do that.” I hold my left hand up next to my face. “So jump if you feel froggy, asshole!”

His steel-blue eyes light up and his eyebrows go up high. “Wow! See, you are tough. And I made you that way. I do deserve a little appreciation, don’t you think?”

“You also made me have trust issues. You also made me have nightmares about how you strung me up for hours on end and did things to my body until I was crying and asking you to stop.”

His smile goes only over half his mouth. “That was no nightmare; that did happen. More than a few times. But I recall you agreeing to that. I recall reaching into your pussy and finding it wet and throbbing after those kinds of things. I recall you begging to suck my dick after those things. What is it you recall, Jenna?”

“I recall feeling weak. I recall thinking I had to make you happy, because you weren’t. I recall thinking that, if I could just make you feel loved, you would soften up some. And for the last part of our time together, you were softer. Not entirely, but you weren’t exactly that hard man you were in the beginning. But those things you did to me did scarred me deeper than the flesh wounds you gave me with your punishments.”

His eyes narrow and he looks down. “If things were better, and I was more like the man you wanted me to be, then why did you move on?”

With a sigh, I say, “Because even the man you had become wasn’t what I wanted. When I was eighteen and started things with you, I had no idea what I wanted. All I knew was that you had wanted me for two years, and that was pretty awesome in my young and naïve eyes.”

“So you never wanted me?” He looks at me with sad eyes.

That look used to get me every time, but not this time. “That would be a lie. I did want you. I did want to make you happy, and so I did the things you told me you needed. And still you fucked other women. And still you left me without a word. So my heart hardened. I learned how to harden a lot of things thanks to your training, Rod. So now you will reap the rewards of a job well done. You wanted me to be hard, and now I am.”

“And turned against me. Your owner. And if you think I’m going to let this go, you're very wrong. I’m going to leave, so I don’t have to deal with my little brother. But you and I are not done.” After picking up the contract off the bed, he walks toward the door, then stops and turns back. “See you soon, baby.”

As I watch him walk out the door, all the strength in me fades away so quickly, it’s unreal. My body begins to shake and I jump up and lock the door again. I also close the latch inside so even if he uses the key, he can’t get back in.

I managed to escape that little interaction unscathed, but that was close. I think he could see in my eyes that I wouldn’t go down easy. The tiger in me showed itself, I think.

But I don’t even want to know if I could actually fend him off or not. I’d rather never find that out.

I go and pick up the phone to call the front desk and hear a friendly female answer, “Hello. How can I help you this morning?”

“Are you the bitch who gave Rod Manning a key to this room?” I ask, trying to keep my tone sharp.

“No.” She hangs up and I call the other number on the phone. The one that says if you have any problems, please call.

“Good morning, Arizona Lodging Corporation. How can I help you this morning?”

“Hello, my name is Jenna Foster. My fiancé rented a room here at your Jerome location and I’d like to report that the woman who is working at the front desk this morning gave a key to another man and he entered our room. I suppose that’s frowned upon in your business. Is it not?”

“Oh my goodness! Are you okay, ma’am?”

“I am. But the man she let in and I have a very bad past. He used to beat me. So I was very scared. I’d hate to see anyone else go through what I just did. I can count on you to take care of this situation without my needing to involve the authorities, can’t I?”

“Of course! I’ll have the manager there soon and that employee will be fired immediately. Your stay with us will be free of charge, of course. Please don’t go to anyone else with this issue. I’d hate it if our lodging in Jerome got bad publicity for one woman’s poor decision.”

“Me too. I will be checking in with the manager before we leave a little later today, to be sure this was dealt with. Thank you. Goodbye.”

“Bye,” she says. Then I hang up feeling a little better about this thing.

Where Rod is concerned, I will pull no punches. I will take everything illegal or bad thing he does and flip it around on him.

If he thinks I’m going to go down all easy, he has another think coming.

Reed or no Reed, I will never go down that path with Rod or any man ever again.

Not ever!

The room’s phone rings again. I answer. “Hello.”

“Hello, Miss Foster. This is Lynette Jones, the manager here. I have Trisha Steen here with me and she tells me she did not give anyone a key to your room.”

I frown and then get mad. Really mad. “So you’re taking her word over mine?”

“I don’t know what else I can do, Miss Foster.”

“Tell me how many keys you have to this particular room, Mrs. Jones.”

She seems to be thinking. Then she says, “We gave you and your fiancé two of them. That leaves one we keep up here in the key box. So, three.”

“Look in the key box and see if that one is there, please,” I say and look my fingernails over as I wait.

I can hear her tell the woman to open the box, so I add, “I need you to look. Obviously, she will say it’s there.”

“Oh, yes. Hang on, then.” The phone clanks a bit as she puts it down. “I need to do that, Trisha.” I hear clicking sounds and then I hear a gasp. “Trisha, no!” Disappointment fills her voice.

Then I hear Trisha. “Aunt Lynn, I didn’t give it to him. I swear it. I don’t know where the key is!”

“Trisha, how could you? Everyone in this town knows about Rod Manning and Jenna Foster. Everyone knows about that time he pushed her all over their yard and the police had to come. How could you put her in jeopardy like that?”

Trisha is stammering and making no sense. Then I hear her say, “He made me. He told me he’d teach me good if I didn’t give him the key.”

Then my heart aches for her. But it doesn’t mean she should get off scot-free.

When the manager gets back on the phone, she’s apologizing like crazy. I stop her. “Look, I know he’s intimidating. I heard her, and I do believe her. But something has to be done to show her how she can handle something like that if it ever happens again. So please see to it that some kind of measures can be taken to teach not only her, but your other employees, how to handle a situation like that. Perhaps something as simple as teaching them to say there are no other keys to the rooms.”

“Yes, ma’am. And your stay is on us. There will be no charges at all.”

“We were here two months,” I say, as I can’t possibly imagine them comping the whole time.

“I’m aware of that, and the entire stay is on us. Thank you for staying with us. When you visit again, I hope you will consider staying with us again. I am very sorry, and this incident will help us to form a protocol for just this kind of thing. I am so sorry, and so is my niece.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry he did that to her.” I hang up and feel even more awful that he would do that to anyone just to get to me.

Does he draw no lines?

Chapter 22

REED

As I try to open the door to our room, I find the inside lock is latched.

“Reed?” Jenna calls out.

“Yes, it’s me.”

She comes and opens it and nearly falls into my arms. “Thank God!”

“Are you that hungry, Jenna?” I laugh a little as she wraps her arms around me.

But then I feel her body shaking as she hugs me.

I move with her, set the drinks and bag of food down, and pick her up. “What’s wrong?”

“Rod.” Then the tears start again.

“Jenna, you have to get a hold of yourself. You can’t let him get to you like this.” I run my hand through her hair.

She takes her face off my chest and looks up at me. “He was here, Reed. The girl at the front desk gave him a key, and he got in here.”

My body goes instantly hot. “No fucking way! That bitch is getting fired!”

“I already took care of that, and we don’t have to pay for our stay here. And the reason she did it is that he intimidated her into it. But they’re going to figure out some way to train their employees not to let that happen again,” she says, then buries her face back in my chest and wraps her arms tightly around me.

“What did he do to you?” I hold her tight and fight the urge to leave to go find him.

“Nothing. He didn’t do anything to me. Just told me he wants me back. That kind of thing.” A shiver runs through her.

“Bet there’s a lot more to it than that,” I say as I hold her back and make her look at me. “I need to know it all. What happened with you two in the past? Don’t leave anything out.”

The way she looks up at me makes my heart hurt. I know it’s bad, and I know she doesn’t want to relive this, but I have to know.

She moves off my lap and climbs under the blanket and leans against the headboard. “Reed, I’m afraid you won’t be able to respect me if I tell you what I allowed.”

“You were young and inexperienced. I promise you there’s not a thing you can say to me that will make me lose respect for you. I respect who you are today. That young woman is not you anymore. I wouldn’t even ask you to do this, but I don’t want Rod to think he can make you stay quiet about what he’s done to you.” I move around on the bed and give her my full attention.

She bites her bottom lip. Then she looks down. “Not long after we moved in together, Rod asked me to enter into a contract with him. A submissive/slave contract, where he was the dominant. It said in the contract that he owned me.”

The way my stomach tightens and rolls makes me want to throw up. “I see.”

She keeps looking down. “I wasn’t going to sign it. I really wasn’t. But he had another woman come to the house, and she was ready to take that offer. She was ready and willing to do whatever he wanted, right then and there. So I told him I’d do it. I signed it and became his property.”

“That’s not even legal. But I get what you’re saying. So this contract was for life, then?” I ask, and have to fight nausea.

She nods. “And it came with rules and punishments for breaking them. And conditioning my body to accept pain.”

I run my hand over the blanket where her legs are. She can’t look at me, it seems. “Jenna, what did he do to you?”

“That first night, right after I signed the contract, he bound my hands and hung me up on a hook he’d put up on the wall in our bedroom. A hook like you’d hang a robe on. Only robes never hung there. Only me.” She has to close her eyes, and a tear runs down her cheek.

“I know this is hard.” I run my hand up her arm and over her cheek to wipe the tear away.

She opens her eyes, but doesn’t look at me. “He got out his leather belt and told me to say the safe word only after the pain was enough to make me cry. I was able to take five lashes before that happened. And he was pleased with that.”

My heart is pounding, and I wish that was all the fucker had done to her, but I know it couldn’t have been. “And after that?”

“He had sex with me while I was still strung up. And while I was still crying.” She closes her eyes again. “That was not the worst thing he ever did to me. It was just the first thing. It sticks out because of that, I guess.”

“So he hit you often?”

She nods. “For the first few months of the contract, it was every day. To get my body in condition, he said. And when I made little infractions of his rules, it got more intense. Nipple clamps, collars that were tight and large. They made me very uncomfortable, you know.”

“I can imagine. And you were incapacitated when he did those things?”

“Yes, strung up, so I couldn’t get away from him. Do you remember that New Year’s Eve when we all went to that bar and you left early?” she asks me as she looks into my eyes.

“I do.” I take her hand in mine and lace our fingers together.

“After you left, he made me go into the bathroom when that woman he was playing pool with went in. I had to beat her up. I busted her head against the sink and never felt worse about anything in my life. Not anything made me feel as bad as that did. But he was so proud of me for doing it. He told me he was making me strong and fearless. The kind of woman he needed.” She looks away.

“What else has he made you do?”

“Sex in places that were semi-public. Your family’s bathroom, the men’s room where he worked. The café where everyone in town eats. Behind the grocery store in the alley. I couldn’t work so he could call me to come to him when he wanted or come home to have sex or get a blowjob whenever he felt the need. If I wasn’t available for him then he said he’d get it from another woman and I didn’t want that. That’s why I made myself available for him.”

“He’s a very fucked up individual.”

She nods. “After that fight in the front yard when the cops came, and I told the cop not to take him to jail, he changed a lot. He threw away the belts, the bonds, and the other things he used to hurt me. He stopped making me cater to him. And he let me do my online classes. Then he asked me to marry him, and everything was great.” Her eyes cut up to mine. “Nowhere near as great as one single moment you and I have shared. But great for me and Rod. But then he disappeared and left a hole in my soul. I was a slave with no master. The contract was still there, always lingering in the background of our relationship.”

“You belonged to him in your mind, didn’t you?” I run my hands up and down her arms.

“In my mind, I did. And with each day that passed after he left, that idea of belonging to him faded away. The reality of what life really is about started seeping in. Going off to college was the best thing I ever did for myself. I met this guy there, Cam. He helped me come to see that I had secluded myself. I pushed people away. I had no trust in anyone. With his help I came out of the shell I had allowed Rod to put me in.”

“Was he your boyfriend, Jenna?” I feel pangs of jealousy.

She shakes her head. “No. He was a great friend. I think it was very important for me to make him my friend and learn all men are not like Rod. All men don’t want to control women. All men don’t feel the need to punish. All men aren’t out to hurt me physically or emotionally.”

“I’m glad you had a friend like that. You became a very different person with that guy’s help. I should send him a thank-you card,” I say with a smile.

She looks at me. “Can I be completely honest with you?”

My heart lurches, as I have this deep fear she still has feelings for Rod, but I have to hear it if she does. So I nod and hold my breath.

“If this all comes out, Rod is going to say some things that are very personal about what we did. You see, I have no idea why this happened, but when he was giving me lashes I would get wet inside. And after he stopped I would have this frantic sex with him. I can’t explain why. It just worked like that. And I feel shame about that. I feel like a horrible person for that.”

“And I am going to get someone you can talk to about what happened to you, Jenna. Someone who can help you forgive yourself for things that were beyond your control. You were young, and he took advantage of the fact that you had never been allowed to date. You had no idea what was normal and what was not.”

Her hands shake as she moves them through her hair. “You’re right about that. And I think it would help if someone who’s been through that could help me understand why I’d react that way and understand why I didn’t leave. I had my parents to go to. But I never did. You told me to call you if I needed anything, and I never did. I had people who would’ve helped me. Thing is, I didn’t want help. I didn’t want out. And even when he first disappeared, I didn’t want it to end.”

I pull her into my arms. “I’m so sorry that he did that to you. So very sorry.”

Her hands move over my back and up to move through my hair. “Make love to me, Reed. Take my mind back to me and you and away from thinking about those days.”

Her hands move to the bottom of my T-shirt and I hold my arms up so she can pull it off me. Then I take off the nightgown she has on and toss it on the floor as I kick off my shoes.

I stand up, get rid of my jeans, and pull the blanket back. Her body rises and falls with her breathing and I find her beautiful. How my brother could do those things to her, I can’t understand.

She is an angel and should never be hurt. I run my hands over her stomach and watch it quiver with my touch.

She breathes out my name, “Reed.”

I look at her to find her gazing at me. “I love you, Jenna.”

Her hand runs over my cheek. “I love you. You really have made me happier than I ever imagined I could be.”

The sick feeling her story gave me starts to fade away as her touch heals me. I hope my touch does something similar to her.

“You have made me happier than I knew possible too.” I move my body over hers and she raises her legs, running her feet up my calves then wraps her legs around me as I slide into her gently.

I move with slow strokes and kiss her softly. Then I trail kisses down her cheek and over her neck. “You’re perfect.”

She moans as I move deep inside her. “Reed.”

Her breasts rub against my chest as I let the upper part of my body move to feel them between us. I move in and out of her with nice, slow strokes.

As I make love to her slow and steady, I want to show her how much I adore her and cherish her. I want to let her know that part of her life is over and she will never have to live like that again.

Her hands leave little currents of electricity as she trails them over my back and arches up to me. I roll with her so she’s on top of me and I can look at her.

She sits up and takes my hands to her breasts. I take them and rub them as she moves rhythmically over me. Back and forth she rocks on me, as I give her breasts gentle squeezes.

I move my hands down to her waist and pick her up to allow her body to stroke my cock. She puts her hands on my stomach and runs her fingers through the lines that divide my abs.

Her body is perfect and voluptuous. Her skin is a creamy peach color and her cheeks are flushed with desire.

This woman is like no other, and no man will ever harm a hair on her gorgeous head again.

The sun shines in, making her golden blonde hair shine, and a halo glows around her head as she moves up and down, giving me more pleasure than any man should be allowed to have.

But I am allowed this for some reason. I am allowed to have her. I am allowed to be the man for her.

Together, we will make a life for ourselves far away from the road my brother planned on taking her down.

She will live with me in a mansion instead of with him in a dump. She will be on my arm, a respectable woman instead of on the back of his motorcycle, hanging out with him and his motorcycle gang in biker bars across the country.

She will be treated like the goddess she is, instead of the slave he wanted her to be.

I watch her lip begin to quiver as her body starts to pulse around me. “Reed,” she moans as she climaxes.

She stretches out as she rides me and her walls squeeze my cock until I can’t take anymore and let my body do what it wants— cum inside her and fill her up with my love for her.

Her eyes open as my cum shoots into her and she looks at me, then smiles as I hiss out, “Yes! Jenna, you’re amazing!”

“You are,” she says, then leans over and kisses me, soft and sweet.

And I thank God she gave me a chance!

Chapter 23

REED

As Jenna sleeps in my arms, the calm our lovemaking gave me starts to leave and the fury at my brother creeps in.

I leave her sleeping, put my clothes back on, and leave to pay my brother a visit.

If he thinks he’s getting away without me kicking his ass completely for what he did to her, he’s very mistaken.

As I pull up to my parents’ house, I see both of their cars are gone and his Harley is in the driveway, along with a small red car.

As I go inside, I don’t see anyone. So I go to his bedroom and open the door. Sprawled across the bed, naked as the day they were born, are my brother and some woman with a red dye job.

With a quick visit to the kitchen to retrieve a glass of ice water, I go back and toss it in his sleeping face.

His eyes open and so do the woman’s who’s next to him. “What the fuck?” she shouts as she sits up and grabs the sheet to cover herself.

My brother doesn’t say a word as he attempts to jump out of bed, but my hands meet his chest and shove him back down. “Nope, you just lie back there so I can set your ass straight. Jenna told me everything. The slave contract, the way you beat her ass, the way you fucked her in ways that were inexcusable. And now I’m here to let you know she’s mine now. You will never touch her again. You got me, bro?”

“She is mine, and I have a contract that says that. I will get her. I will take her with me, and you will never see her again. Once I take her, I will never be coming back here. So take that and shove it up your ass, little bro.” He smiles and puts his hands behind his head and leans back, not even attempting to cover himself up.

“If you want her so bad, why do you have this skank in your bed?”

The woman glares at me, and I look right back at her until she looks away. Rod shakes his head. “I have needs, and Jenna’s being difficult right now. None of your business, really. But you need to get it through your head that Jenna is mine. She always was. I took her virginity and, in the Biblical sense, she is my wife.”

I laugh. “You know nothing about the Bible, Rod! Please don’t even attempt to bring God into anything concerning you. After what you did to that poor girl, the only entity on your side is Satan.”

He smirks at me. “How much would you like to bet that if you gave me an hour with Jenna alone, I would have her back? Bet you aren’t secure enough about what you think you have with her to do that.”

“If you think I will ever allow that, you are truly insane. And the stunt you pulled at the lodge is a criminal act, you know.”

His eyes narrow at me. “I didn’t hurt her.”

“You came into a private room without being asked to,” I say, and find him smiling.

“How do you know she didn’t let me in, Reed?”

“I know she didn’t. She’s afraid of you.”

He eyes me to see if I’ll budge. “What if she did let me in? What if she does want to talk to me? Will you be man enough to let her?”

I look right back at him. “She didn’t let you in. She doesn’t want to talk to you. And I am man enough to protect the woman I love. I will never let her talk to you alone, no matter if she begs me to. You messed her head up, and I’m going to get her help to understand why she allowed you to do the things to her you did.”

“Now who’s controlling her?” Rod glances sideways at the woman in his bed.

She answers, “Sounds like he is.”

“Really? Bringing this bitch into this, Rod?” I roll my eyes. “Jenna doesn’t want to talk to you. I’m not going to allow you another moment around her to intimidate her into thinking she wants to talk to you.”

“I will get her back. And you can be sure her ass will stay red for a month for doing this to me. This is very humiliating. And I don’t deal well with being humiliated, little bro.” He sits up and puts his hand on his dick. Which makes me kind of sick. His hand runs up and down it. “See this? This has been all in that woman. This was in her first, and it will be in her last. And there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it.”

“Stop that!” I shout, as he keeps running his hand up and down his cock, making it erect.

Then he looks over at the woman. “Suck it.”

She doesn’t even hesitate to do what he’s said and sits up and leans her head down and takes it into her mouth.

“Rod! Fuck!” I shout.

“You can stay and watch me get sucked off or leave. Either way, this conversation is over, little bro.”

I turn to leave but say, “We’re leaving today. Just so you know—if you ever come to our home in California you will be arrested, as I’ll be taking out a protective order with the Bel-Air police department against you. Don’t fuck with either of us.”

With a slam of his door, I leave his bedroom and have the strong need to take a bath with how filthy the man is.

I hear my parents coming in and go to them. “We need to talk. Your son has done horrible things, and you two need to know about them.”

Mom shakes her head. “Reed, please, I don’t want to know. I’ve had my suspicions, but I don’t want to know the details.”

Dad looks at her, then walks toward the back. “Come on, let’s go outside. Sue, you have to deal with the truth.”

The three of us go out to the patio and they sit down. I stand, because I’m too pissed to sit down.

“Rod made a BDSM contract with Jenna just a little while after they moved in together. He’s beat her,” I say. Then my mother raises her hand like a kid in class.

I give her a nod and she says, “If they made a contract then she was agreeing to let him do that, right? Isn’t that how things like that work?”

My father looks at her with disapproval etched into his face. “Sue! Are you defending him?”

She shakes her head. “Heavens, no! But I am trying to say that Jenna was allowing it. I was over there one time and he made her take off his boots and get him a beer. I was right there telling her not to do that for him, and she did it anyway. Some people want that in their lives. She stayed with him after that incident with the police coming when Rod threw her all over the yard.”

“Mom, she was an innocent girl when he got a hold of her. She had no idea about what she was getting into with him and that contract.” I start pacing, as I really didn’t expect this out of my mother.

“That girl had plenty of people she could’ve gone to if she wasn’t accepting of what he was doing,” she says as she taps the tabletop. “She could’ve left at any time. You have to admit that, Reed. You can’t blame Rod entirely. She let him do it.”

“Well, then, can I blame Rod for pushing things so far as to go into our room at the lodge while I was gone and trying to get her back?” I ask as I find my hands going through the air over my head as I yell.

My father gives me a look telling me to quiet down. Then he says, “Son, you did take his fiancée. Did you expect he would take that well? Did you think he wouldn’t want to talk to her? Did you think he wouldn’t make an attempt to get her back from you?”

Great!

“Dad, he hurt her.”

Mom quickly interrupts, “She accepted it!”

“You know, you two are why he’s the fuck up he is! No matter what he has ever done, you two never really tried to correct his actions. You just said that was how he was. His temper was bad, so I needed to watch out. You guys told me that when I was young and he’d beat the shit out of me. Just stay out of his way, you told me. And now that I’m telling you your oldest son beats women, all you have to say is she allowed it.” I turn around and run my hand over my face in complete exasperation.

“Look, Reed, I’ll talk to him,” my father says. “I can make sure he knows that kind of thing is the wrong thing to do.”

I turn back. “And you think that will work? The man is all grown up now, Dad. There’s no changing him. What I’d like from you both is a bit of backup. Tell Rod to leave me and Jenna alone.”

Mom shakes her head. “As if he would listen to us.”

“Just say it. He has no place to live. Tell him he can’t stay with you if he bothers her anymore.” I look back and forth at them and find my mother shaking her head.

“No, Reed. He’s our son, and he’s been gone for years. I’m not about to tell him anything like that. I love Jenna. You know I do. But I won’t put out my son because of something she allowed him to do to her. I won’t do it!”

“She’s right, Reed. We can’t toss him out. And you have to accept the consequences of your actions. You took your brother’s girl. That was always going to cost you. And Jenna, for that matter.” Dad looks right into my eyes. “What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking that I love her. I was going to come home the summer she graduated from high school and try to get a shot with her. I had eyes for her since she was fourteen and I first saw her when we were in high school.”

Mom’s nose wrinkles as she says, “Why did you take so long to let her or anyone else know that? I mean, you had the same shot at her as your brother did. Only he actually moved on what he wanted. You sat back and missed your shot back then. And now I can see why he said those things about you being jealous when he asked Jenna to marry him. You were.”

“I was angry, not jealous. I could see he wasn’t right for her. She was a good girl. I had my ideas about what he was doing to her. But when she told me what he did, it made me sick,” I say, as I hold my stomach because my whole family is making me sick right now.

Mom tops it off as she says, “Yet she allowed him to do it, Reed. She may not be the woman you think she is. You might really think about that before you marry her. She has a dark side, just like your brother. She was a mess when he disappeared. You should’ve seen her. She waited for him to come back. When most women would’ve never taken him back, she was more than ready to. They have a history and a connection, and there’s not a thing you can do about that.”

My father looks at me. “If they do get back together, I expect you to accept that.”

“Fuck that shit! I will never accept that. I will fight to the end for her. I will never allow him or anyone else to hurt her again. And if that’s how you two feel, I don’t know if this is the kind of family I want to be a part of. Our kids don’t need grandparents with such hard hearts. So I guess this is goodbye.”

I slam back into the house and out the front door, barely able to think with all the betrayal by my parents.

As I get into my car, I pound the steering wheel with my fists. Then I look up, with a thought about destroying Rod’s bike.

Only it’s not here, and neither is that little red car that bitch must have come in.

And in that instant, fear runs through me and I hurry to get to Jenna.

Please don’t let anything bad be happening to her!

I press the gas pedal to the floor as I speed to the other side of our small town to get to the lodge. My heart is pounding after all my parents have said.

What if Jenna really does want to talk to Rod, and she’s afraid to tell me that? Would I let her? Could I let her talk to him without me around, at the very least?

And what if she does want to give him another chance? She did wait for him when he left. She did stay with him when he did those things to her.

Maybe she does have a hidden dark side?

Maybe she’s only telling me what she thinks I want to hear.

But if that’s true, then why does it feel like magic when we touch? Or is that just me, and she’s telling me she feels it too but she’s lying about that?

I’ve wanted her for so damn many years; it could be just me. Am I some kind of a fool? Am I about to lose the woman I love because she doesn’t really love me?

Maybe she wanted me because I’m the next thing to Rod. Though we’re complete opposites, she could see me as the closest thing to Rod she could get.

But she seemed so afraid of him. She talked so strongly about not wanting him or that life back.

I round the corner and see the lodge. Neither the little red car nor his bike are there, so I feel relieved.

I can’t wait to get Jenna and get the fuck out of this town!

I leave the car and run inside to get her. She was sleeping when I left and probably still is. This is taking a toll on her, and I don’t plan on letting her in on the fact my parents are being so fucking casual about this.

The door opens before I unlock it and I push it back to find the sheets and blanket are pulled off the bed. I look around and see the only thing gone is Mom’s nightgown that Jenna was wearing before we made love and I tossed it on the floor.

“Jenna!” I shout.

With no answer, I run to the bathroom, and she’s not there either. She would not leave this room only wearing that. Even her purse is here.

I look around and remember her cell phone being on the nightstand. It’s gone.

I call it and find it goes straight to voicemail. So I leave a text, telling her to call me as soon as possible.

Then it hits me that Rod may have come and taken her. So I run to the office and find an older woman sitting at the desk. “Hi!” I nearly shout as I come through the door. “Did you see a motorcycle come into this parking lot at all in the last hour?”

She shakes her head. “No, sir.”

“Did you see a little red car?”

Her brow furrows as she thinks. Then she nods. “Yes. It was here for a few minutes, then it was gone.”

“Did you see who was in it?”

My heart is racing so hard, I feel like I might have a fucking heart attack.

She shakes her head. “Sorry. Are you checking out today? I have a note here saying not to charge you and that you two are leaving today.”

“I’m not sure yet. You see, my fiancée is missing from our room.”

“Oh my goodness! What are you going to do?”

I look at her and feel like crying.

“I don’t know. Can you call the police for me and tell them to meet me at my room?” She nods, and I walk slowly out of the office and back to our room, praying Jenna is in there when I walk back in.

But she isn’t, and I fall to the floor as I know he has her.

I have to find her!

Chapter 24

JENNA

The smell of the spare tire which I’m resting my head on, in the trunk of some little red car I’m crammed into, is making me sick. I was abducted from our room by some woman with a horrible red dye job, along with Rod, and three other big-ass men in motorcycle jackets, who put a gag in my mouth and tied me up. I’m trying to figure out how I’ll get out of this situation.

The sound of a phone ringing fills my ears. Then I hear the woman talking. “Hey.”

Then I hear Rod’s voice coming over the car’s speaker system. “You there yet?”

“No, ’bout three minutes away,” she answers.

“I want her strung up in my room. Then leave her alone there until I come.”

“Yes, Master,” she says.

Chills run all through me as I hear her say the words he used to make me say. She is his new sub.

So why does he want me too?

The car lurches to a stop as it slips on gravel. I hear the engine go off and one car door open, then close, so I’m pretty sure the other three men went off with Rod.

The crunching of gravel crushing beneath big boots comes toward the car and the trunk is opened. The daylight streams in, and I have to close my eyes.

I only have on the nightgown I got from Reed’s mother last night, as that’s what Rod grabbed up and put on my naked body when they all came into the room and found me asleep and naked.

Two huge bearded and tattooed men pull me out of the trunk, and one of them tosses me over his shoulder and takes me inside of a big metal building. I look around and see maybe twenty bikers sitting around the building that has a bunch of tables and chairs in it.

It resembles a bar, and there’s dim lighting coming from beer signs that are hung on the walls. It smells like oil and gasoline, with a heavy cigarette background.

All heads turn to look at me. Yet not one person asks a thing about why there’s a woman all bound up and gagged and being taken toward the back of the building. So I have no doubt I will not find a compassionate person in this bunch of misfits.

I’m taken through some door and tossed on a small bed that reeks of booze and cigarettes. It makes me sick to think this is how Rod is living now.

The redhead comes in as the two Neanderthals leave. She comes to me, and I am helpless to get away from her as not only my hands are bound with bungee cords, but my feet too.

She closes the door and looks me over. “I don’t know why he’s so hung up on you. You’re way too vanilla for him.”

I nod and she smiles, revealing a missing tooth just to the left of her front one. I mumble to try to get her to see I want to talk to her. But she looks away from me.

“I guess you and me are going to be like some kind of sister-wives or some shit. Rod just sprang this on me last night. I had no idea we were coming to this tiny town for anything more than a road trip. Guess we were coming for you, Jenna Foster. The Jenna Foster that I am constantly compared to. You must’ve done things so great for the man who I belong to.”

I shake my head and mumble again in an attempt to get her to at least set my mouth free. She looks at me with a lot of unanswered questions clouding her expression. Then she comes to me.

Taking a knife out of her tight leather jeans pocket, she runs it up behind my head. The gag goes loose, and I spit it out. “Thank you.”

“Don’t. I just want to hear you tell me I’ll be his number one woman. You can sit back and be quiet and stay the fuck out of my way and maybe we can co-exist with Rod.” She folds her arms in front of her and leans against the wall.

“I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be with him. I don’t know what he told you, but he left me. I wasn’t good enough for him, obviously, or he’d have taken me with him.”

She looks me all over and makes a face that has it all squished up. “You look like a damn teacher or something with that drab little hairstyle you got going on. And why in the hell does a woman your age wear old lady nightgowns?”

“This isn’t mine. I put it on last night when Rod caught me and his brother in the swimming pool naked. His mother gave it to me to cover myself. And I am going to be a school teacher. A kindergarten teacher, to be precise.”

Her eyes go narrow. “Fucking fantastic! So my sister-wife is a normal, boring woman. That’s just going to work out so great! Not!”

I try hard to think about what to say to get her to see it’s best to let me go. “Look, I need your help. What’s your name?”

“Rod nicknamed me Sweet-thing.” Her smile tells me she’s very proud of the fact he gave her that name.

“K. Sweet-thing, I need your help. If you could find it in your heart to just let me go, then I’ll disappear, and you can have your life with Rod,” I make sure to sound like I’m pleading with her.

But it does no good as her face is hard as a rock and she shakes her head. “He’d string me up and beat me nonstop for three or more hours if I did that. If you know the man like he claims you do, then you know I can’t do that. And I’m not a girl who goes around doing good deeds, anyway.”

“Yeah, you don’t look real helpful,” I find myself saying out loud, though I had no intention of doing that.

“Look, bitch!” She comes closer to me, shaking the knife near my face. “If it wasn’t for Rod and how he is about you then I would cut your ass up right now. But he will kill me if I harm a hair on your head. He told me that himself. But I won’t let you get away with talking about me at all.”

“Sorry. That was way out of line, Sweet-thing. It’s just that I really need to get out of here before he gets here. Once he does, I know he’ll make damn sure I don’t.”

“You got that right,” she says, then grabs an open, half-drunk beer off the small table in the little room.

I throw up a little in my mouth as she takes the rest of it in one long drink. She burps and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, then sets the empty brown bottle back down.

“I know you’re not liking this, Sweet-thing. And you have to realize that you will really hate it when you have to share Rod, if you get a chance to at all. He and I had a really hot connection. He’s going to want to have sex with me a lot. We used to have sex three and four times a day. It’s been over two years since he’s touched me. I’m sure he’s not going to come out of this room for days once he gets here,” I say, and watch her face fall.

“Fuck!” she says, then looks around the room. “The bed’s too small for the three of us. He’ll probably make me sleep out in the bar. Fuck! Why did he have to find your ass?”

“Let me go and you won’t have any problems. If you don’t, you will lose him to me. I can promise you that. He’ll make you a slave to both of us. I know he will. I don’t want to see that happen to you.” I watch her as she slides her back down the wall and lands on her ass.

She puts her face in her hands and shakes her head. “I know that too. But if I let you go …”

I interrupt her. “If you let my legs free and reposition the bungee cord holding my hands together, then hang me on that hook, I can see it’s low enough that I can use my feet to climb up the wall. I can get off the hook all on my own and escape. It won’t be your fault at all.”

“That’ll never work,” she says, as she keeps her head in her hands.

“It will. I heard him tell you to string me up. He told you to leave me in here alone after that. If you give me the heads up about a back door or window, then that would make it easier for me too. You know how things are going to work out if he gets me. I’m like his favorite toy and if I have to live with him then I will become all he wants. I did before. It helped me to be punished less and treated better. I know how to work the man now. It won’t take me anytime at all to have him eating out of the palm of my hand.”

She moves back up the wall until she’s standing. “There’s a back door. When you walk out of this room turn to the right and stay close to the wall and no one will see you. The door is behind a wall. You’ll have to only open it as far as you have to, to get out. It will let in some light, and somebody might notice that.”

“Is there any way you feel like telling me what direction will get me back to town?” I ask, and hope like crazy she wants to be a little more helpful.

“If you can get to the front of the bar without being seen, that’s the quickest way. But chances are that if you’re walking up that road, Rod will be coming down it. If any of the gang sees a woman walking down the road in a nightgown, chances are they will grab you and bring you right back here,” she says, then nods her head. “Yeah, you better just run out the back and keep going that direction. You’ll come upon some house, I’m sure. Eventually, anyway.”

The woman pulls my cell phone out of her pocket and sets it on the table. Then she comes and takes the cord off my ankles, then releases the cord around my wrists. “Thank you,” I say, as I shake my hands and wiggle my feet to get the blood flowing back into them.

“Take these with you. I don’t want him finding them and putting two and two together. I’m going to tell him I had you bound up and strung up and have no idea how you got free. He didn’t see me take your phone. So he won’t know about that.” She looks into my face and seems to be searching it. “How’d you take it when he left you like that?”

“Very badly. But I thank the Lord every single day that he did. I got myself back. And I don’t want to give myself back to him ever again. Not ever!” I look into her eyes and see the lost look she has, very much the way I looked when I was with him.

“Good luck,” she says, then turns away from me. “You’re going to need it.” Then she walks out of the small room and I get up, grab my cell phone, and peek out the door.

I find it dark, and no one is looking my way, so I slip out the door and stay close to the wall. Slinking against the wall I spot the door she told me about and, once I get to it, I slip out it and start hauling ass like I have never run before.

It’s just desert out here. Cactus and hot sand are all I see, and my bare feet are already burning. I keep running and look at my cell phone and see there’s no service.

Of course there isn’t; that would be too fucking easy!

Far away, I can hear the sound of motorcycles coming down the road and somehow increase my speed, as I have a feeling it’s Rod. When he finds me not in his room waiting for him to pour on the punishment for daring to leave his ass, he’s sure to come out that back door and come looking for me.

So I keep running, and it occurs to me that my footprints are left in the sandy soil, but there’s not a damn thing I can do about that. I just pray all those years of his cigarette smoking will have him not being able to run for as long as I can.

Chapter 25

JENNA

My body is past hot. I’m getting tired and can’t run anymore. If Rod is following me, he’s so far back that I can’t see or hear him. It’s been a whole hour since I got out of there, and still I’ve yet to see any signs of a house or civilization at all.

But in the distance, I can hear what sound like chickens. So I veer to the left a bit and go toward the sound that should mean someone lives near the chickens I’m hearing.

The sound of a small dog barking as I get closer to the chickens has me picking up speed as hope fills me. The little yapping dog comes out of nowhere, yipping at me.

It’s small and ugly as sin, but damn, I’m glad to see it!

I crouch down. “Here, puppy. Take me to your home, puppy.”

It slows down and comes timidly up to me with its tiny tail wagging away. I pick it up and pet him. “Oh, you’re so ferocious, aren’t you? Want to take me to your home, puppy?”

I put him down and follow him as he goes back toward where he came from. Suddenly I feel a lot better, and it occurs to me I might just make it out of here intact.

The chickens come into view and so does a rickety shack. But the old shack has a new satellite dish on the wavy roof and that’s good luck for me.

A screen door is about halfway off, but I knock on it anyway. “Hello,” I call out to whoever may be inside.

“What?” I hear the voice of an old woman.

I take six fast steps backward as a short, round, white-haired women with one eye shows up on the other side of the door. “Oh! Um, hello there. I need some help.”

“Why?” she says with a snarling sound in her old crotchety voice.

“I was kidnapped and need to make a call. Do you have any satellite reception in there?” I ask as I peek around her to see if I see anything that tells me the dish on the roof is working.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She turns around abruptly. “Stop pushing me, Roland!”

I don’t see anyone behind her. “Who?”

She spins back and throws the squeaking door open. “Come in! For goodness’ sake, it’s a hundred and eleven degrees out there!” She waddles off mumbling, “Not a brain in her head, it seems, Roland.”

Incredibly I see a small Wi-Fi router and hurry to see if my cell phone can pick it up. I find there’s a code I need for it. “Ma’am, what’s the code for your Wi-Fi?”

“My what?” she spins back and stops and I nearly run into her. “I don’t know what she’s talking about, Roland. So shut up!”

I look around to find who the hell she’s talking to and shake my head when I find no one. I point to the little router with the green blinking lights. “That machine has a code. Do you remember what it is?”

“Hells bells, where are my manners? You want some eggs, little girl?” She hops on one foot to a tiny kitchen.

“Are you hurt?” I ask, as she wasn’t hopping before.

“Land’s sake! Hurt! Do you need a bandage? I don’t have any, but if you need one I can ask Roland to get you one from the store.” She opens a little brown box, pulls out two eggs, cracks them into a cloudy glass, and hands it to me.

I take it and smile nervously. “Thank you.”

What is wrong with this woman?

Instead of asking her anything else, I go to the router and look at the bottom of it. Sure enough, someone has written a code there.

Thank God!

I put it into my phone and I have service. Quickly I swipe Reed’s name and his voice makes me fall to my knees. “Jenna?”

“Reed,” I say, and have to hold back the cries I want to set free. “Thank God.”

“Jenna, where are you?” he asks.

“I don’t know for sure. Right now I’m at a woman’s house. But he will find me soon, I know it. My footprints are in the sand, and all he has to do is follow them to me.”

“Ping your location and I’ll find you.”

My heart pounds, as I have real hope he’ll come and save me. “Okay. Reed, hurry.”

“I will. You do whatever you have to if he shows up. See if that person has a gun. Shoot the motherfucker if you have to, Jenna. I’ll be there soon,” he says. Then I end the call so I can send him my location.

“Ma’am, do you have a gun by any chance?”

She closes her one good eye and presses her thumb to her chin. Then she walks away and opens a door on the side of the one-room shack. “What kind do you need?”

I walk over and look in the room that’s full of things. Three of those things are guns.

Big shotguns!

Watching where I step, as there’s a lot of crap in the tiny room, I grab the guns and see one box of bullets. I pick them up too and go back to her.

She swats at the air and shouts, “Tarnation, Roland! Stop pulling my hair!”

With a shake of my head, I ask, “Is Roland your husband?”

“No! Are you blind?” She spins in a circle three times, then stops. “He’s my cat, goofy woman!”

She thinks I’m goofy?

“So it’s just you and your cat who live here?” I ask as I take a seat on a rickety old chair with a half-broken seat.

I’ve never shot a gun or loaded one, but I’m about to learn how really quickly. I’d ask the old woman, but I doubt she’d tell me the right way. She must be clinically insane.

“Me and what cat?” she asks as she sits Indian style on the old wood floor that has more than a few holes in it.

“Roland,” I say, and roll my eyes.

Reed, hurry up, before this woman takes me to crazy town with her!

“Scat!” she screams and throws her hands up in the air. They flail around her head.

“You okay?” I ask as I sit here and just watch her.

She stops and looks at me with her one eye squinted. She doesn’t say a word as she looks at me for a long time, then whispers, “I see dead people all the time. You don’t scare me.”

“I’m not trying to scare you,” I say, and finally figure out how to open the shotgun and find a shell already in the chamber. “I see you keep this one loaded.”

“Why does a ghost need a gun, anyway?” she whispers.

“I’m not a ghost. I’m a woman who is being sought after by a crazy motorcycle riding lunatic. That’s why I need a gun.” I put that one down very carefully on the floor and pick up the next one to find it’s loaded as well. And so is the third one.

She shivers and runs her hands over her chubby arms. “I had a dog one time.”

“You have a dog right now,” I remind her. “When was the last time you remembered to feed him?”

“Feed what?” She looks really confused, and that takes some doing with only one eye.

I sigh. “Your dog.”

“Dog? I have a cat. His name is Roland.”

“I know that. You also have a dog. One who needs to eat.” I hear the chickens going crazy outside, take the gun in my hand, and hurry to look out the back door.

My heart is pounding as I think I might have to shoot Rod or some other member of his gang. It slows a bit as I see it’s just the little dog killing one of the smaller chickens.

So that’s how he’s managing to stay alive!

Scanning the area I came from and seeing nothing, I think the dog will bark if it hears anyone coming. So I relax a little.

I turn when I feel tugging at the back of my nightgown. The woman is there pulling on it. “I like this snazzy dress. I sure do. Want to trade for something I got?”

“You’re a bit shorter than I am. I kind of need this.” I walk away and take a seat on the floor so she can have her one chair.

She perches on the broken chair and pulls her white hair up with her fists. It makes it stand straight up off her old wrinkled head. “I think you and me look a lot alike.”

My eyebrows go up as I look at her. “You do?”

“I do,” she says, then licks her fingertip and runs it over one of her very bushy white eyebrows. “Once I was a showgirl.”

“You were?” I ask, and find myself smiling at the thought.

“Well, showgirl might be a little fancy for what I was.” She looks all around, then leans toward me as she whispers, “I used to take my clothes off for money, and I had sex and gave blow jobs for money too. I used to be rich.”

I’m kind of shocked and kind of not. “So what happened?”

“I bit this guy’s cock, and he hit me in the eye so hard he busted it. I was ugly then, and no one wanted me. I got thrown out of the whorehouse and all I could afford was this place. So I bought it and some chickens and took my cat, Roland, and found myself living in the Arizona desert. Alone.”

“That’s heartbreaking,” I say. “When my fiancé comes, we can take you to a woman’s shelter where you can get some help. And some nice people will come and get your chickens and your dog and make sure they all go to good homes. Won’t that be nice? You’ll sleep in a nice comfy bed and get to take a bath.”

“You’re a friendly ghost,” she says. “I like friendly ghosts. Scat!”

I jump as she screams the last word. “And you can get some help with your problems too. Maybe some nice drugs to help you not live in an alternate universe.” I give her a smile and don’t know if they make anything that would really help her not be crazy.

The dog starts barking. I jump up, run to the door, and see he’s running around the house to the front. I run to that door. As I throw open the door, I see Reed’s rented Mercedes pulling up and run out to him.

He skids to a stop in the sand and jumps out. His arms hold me tight and I let the tears loose. “Reed!”

“Jenna, I have you now. I have you, my angel!” His lips touch the side of my head as I cling tightly to him.

The sound of the shotgun going off has me letting him go. I turn and see the crazy woman pointing the gun up in the air. “Scat!” she screams. “You kids get in here before the vultures come back!”

“She’s not all there,” I say.

“You think?” he asks as he takes my hand and walks around the car to put me in the passenger’s side.

“Reed, we need to take her to get her some help.”

He rolls his eyes. “I’ll get her. What’s her name?”

With a shrug, I say, “I don’t know.”

“Great.” He turns back to look at her. “Hey, come here a minute, ma’am.”

She tosses the shotgun to the side and pulls at her hair. I do believe she thinks she’s fixing it. One hand goes to her hip as she tries her best to saunter, it seems. “So you’d like my services, would ya?”

I get back out of the car. “No, he does not want your services. Remember, we’re taking you somewhere nice. I told you that just a few minutes ago.”

She walks right up to Reed and I flinch as she grabs at his crotch. He moves back just in time to avoid the grasp. “Hey!”

I go take the old woman by the arm. “This is my man. Okay? Now let’s get you in the car and to a place that will be much safer for you.”

I take her to the back seat and, once I get her inside, I get back into the passenger’s side and take in a deep breath, then cough and gag as I realize the woman smells awful.

Reed looks over at me. “The rental company is going to charge me to clean this thing. You know that, right?”

I nod and smile. “But at least we’ll both know we did a good deed.”

He pulls back out of the dirt driveway and we head for town. “I can’t wait to get out of this damn state.”

“I’m going straight to the police station,” he says, as I hear the old lady singing some song in the back seat. “I was told to take you in so they could get you to press charges on Rod and his gang for kidnapping.”

“Reed, do I have to? That will mean a trial and seeing them all and I don’t want that. I just want to go to California. Please, Reed. I’m tired, and if I start something here it’ll mean coming back here over and over.”

He gives me a look like it’s not a thing he wants, but he nods. “Then tell them you don’t want to press charges. But if Reed makes it to our home somehow, we will press charges. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say and lay my head back on the soft leather. “Tell your mom I’m burning this nightgown and I’ll buy her a new one. This one’s had it.”

“Yeah, I’m not talking to my parents. I don’t know if I ever will again,” he says, and I pick my head up and look at him with my jaw dropped.

What the hell happened with them?