Chapter Fourteen
I woke up to the warmth of the sun dancing across my face and a heavy but comforting arm around my waist. Dylan was still lying beside me, snoring softly, one arm slung over his face. I blinked against the bright light, the start of a headache gnawing at the back of my head.
As I started to wriggle out from under his arm, I hesitated, turning to look at Dylan as he slept. I half expected to feel some sort of regret. I expected him to feel like a mistake, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. My chest swelled with a feeling of adoration and before I rolled out of bed to take a shower, I leaned in and smiled, kissing his cheek gently.
I stepped under the warm spray of the shower, closing my eyes and trying to urge the dull pain in the base of my skull away.
The curtain rustled and there were suddenly strong arms around my waist, a familiar strength enveloping me and pulling me close. I smiled and turned, pressing the palms of my hands to his chest, chuckling and leaning up to kiss his jaw gently. I traced his tattoos with one of my fingers, glancing up at him.
He smiled and stole a kiss and I all but melted into him, sighing and wrapping my arms around his waist. He chuckled and held me close, swaying with me.
“So, you still think I’m amazing, now that you’re sober?” he asked almost cautiously.
“Absolutely,” I said simply, closing my eyes and resting my cheek against his chest.
“Good. I was hoping we could do it again sometime,” he teased.
I hesitated for a moment and leaned back, chewing my bottom lip. “I have a serious question, okay?”
He blinked, a bit surprised by the seriousness of my tone. “Sure. Shoot,” he said, nodding and cupping my cheek.
I took a breath and looked up at him and then away. “What is this exactly? Is this like a fling? Am I a booty call? I’m not trying to be pushy and I’m not saying we have to like be boyfriend and girlfriend or anything, but I just I think I deserve to know what this is,” I murmured.
His face softened and he looked at me for a moment. “Can I admit something?” he murmured.
“Of course.”
“You were a conquest when this first started. All I wanted to do was get you into bed and you’d be another notch on my belt. It was all a game, but now that we’re here and now that I have you I think I’d like to get to know you better, but if you’re just looking for sex, I guess I’m good with that too.”
My eyes widened and I shook my head quickly “No! No! I really want that too, to get to know you,” I said, looking up at him.
He nodded and leaned in close, kissing my forehead tenderly. “I think I’d like that a lot,” he said with a soft smile. “We’ll give it a try, okay? No pressure.”
I smiled and nodded, comforted by how quickly he was able to calm me down and bring me back down to earth. We enjoyed our shower, taking turns washing each other’s hair and offering kisses and caresses.
We got out of the shower and as we did he paused and went to his closet, a towel still wrapped around his waist. We both started getting dressed when a loud knock on the door broke the silence.
Dylan frowned but went downstairs to answer the door in nothing but jeans. I could hear whispered words, but nothing concrete. I left the bedroom and went to the top of the stairs, seeing Dylan with a serious look on his face.
“I got to go,” he murmured
Chapter Fifteen
He didn’t give me too many details about what was going on. At first he tried to tell me to stay back, but like hell I was going to do that. We both got dressed and went straight back to the bar we’d been in the night before. There was a woman sitting on one of the stools, her face was bruised and her black eyes told a dark story.
Dylan parked the bike and hopped off quickly, walking over to the group. “What on earth is going on here?”
One of the wives, a woman named Tammy, was rubbing the battered woman’s shoulders, trying to calm her down and get her to drink some water. Snake was the one who addressed Dylan’s question.
“This woman was running down the road, screaming like a banshee. She said someone was chasing her, trying to hurt her,” he murmured. “We haven’t really been able to get her to say much more than that,” he said, scratching the top of his head. “I think she’s in shock.”
“Does she need medical attention?” Dylan asked, standing in front of the woman and looking her over carefully.
“I don’t think so. Nothing looks broken,” Snake said, looking the woman up and down.
I frowned a little and moved to sit beside the women as Tammy dabbed at her bruising temple with a damp cloth. The woman looked more like a girl underneath all the damage. If I had to guess, I would have said she was about eighteen. I frowned and reached out, gently taking her hand. She shook and looked up at me, flinching away from my touch for a moment.
“You don’t have to be scared, no one here is going to hurt you, okay? We want to help you.”
She looked at me with wide eyes, tears streaming down her face. It was clear she’d been trying to hold them back but just couldn’t anymore. She whimpered and squeezed me hand.
“My husband beats me. He always has, and it’s getting worse. He’s got a quick temper and I don’t know …. I don’t know why I stay!” she sobbed. “People think I’m stupid. They think I like being there but they don’t understand what it’s like! They don’t understand what it’s like to be afraid in your own home!” she dropped her head into her hands and let out more shaking sobs.
I frowned and wrapped my arms around her, holding her close and stroking her hair. “Shhh, it’s okay. No one here thinks you’re stupid,” I assured her.
She sobbed into my shoulder, her entire frail body shaking with the force of the tears. “I thought he was going to kill me this time. I really thought I was dead,” she whispered.
I pulled away and looked down at her. “You can stay here, okay? You’ll have a place to go. We aren’t going to send you back to him.”
Dylan nodded, his brows knitted together in worry. “We aren’t going to let this bastard get away with this,” he said simply. “You tell us where to find him and we’ll take care of him. And we’ll take you to get your things if you’d like.”
She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “That would be nice, I didn’t even grab my clothes,” she murmured. “I was too afraid.”
I nodded and wiped the tears from her cheek gently. “We’ll go with you okay? The guys will protect you. It’s what they do,” I said with a soft smile, patting her back gently. “It’s going to be okay,” I promised.
She looked at me with wide, wet eyes and wiped her nose. “Really?”
“Really,” I promised, helping her stand. “Come on. You can come to our house so you can get cleaned up.”
She nodded and stood with me, leaning against me heavily as I led her up the drive way to the house. Feeling her small body shivering against mine made anger surge through me. I suddenly understood why Dylan did what he did. It was infuriating to see a poor woman so mistreated. I wasn’t sure how I could help, but I knew I wasn’t going to just stand by.
This fight was now my fight too.