CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

For the second time, I slapped my palms against ZZ’s chest and tried to push him out of my way. “Let me out of my room!” I demanded.

He gave my hands an amused glance before looking up at me. “Sorry, Danny, lady of the house said to keep you here and that’s what I’m doin’.”

“Fuck you!” I yelled, spinning around, sweeping my arm across my dresser as I did, sending everything on it flying across the room. “I need to get out of here!”

And I did. I wanted out of my family, out of the club, out of Montana, out of the never-ending depression and nightmares. But the more I daydreamed about running away, the harder it seemed to find the energy to do anything about it.

“Where you gonna go?” ZZ asked quietly. “How you gonna get there?”

“Shut up!” I hissed as I grabbed one of my ridiculous pink throw pillows and whipped it across the room. “Do you really think I need you telling me how pathetic I am?”

“Don’t think you’re pathetic, Danny. Think you’re hurtin’ somethin’ fierce.”

The next pillow I threw, this one purple and fuzzy, hit him square in the face. He picked it up off the floor and examined it closely. “Why’s it fuzzy?” he asked. “What’s the point?”

Cursing, I flung myself facedown on my bed. “Just go away!”

“Can’t. Orders are orders.”

I turned my head so he could see me glaring at him. “Orders are orders,” I mimicked. “Aren’t you a good little sheep.”

To my annoyance, ZZ burst out laughing, shaking his head as he reached into his cut and pulled out his cigarettes. He was still laughing when he took his first drag and ended up choking on it.

“Ha,” I spat, smiling nastily at him.

“You know,” he said, watching me with dark, knowing eyes, eyes I felt like gouging out of his head with a fork. “You could always talk to me. Tell me why you’re actin’ like a fuckin’ maniac. Seems to me like you need someone to talk to.”

“You know what you could do?” I shot back. “You could get the fuck out of my room!”

“Sorry, baby,” he said, shaking his head. “Nothin’ is gonna make me leave until either your old man or Foxy gives me the go-ahead.”

I stared at him, my thoughts a violent mess, only able to focus on what was wrong with my life and how I could make it worse. I was on autopilot, destined to destruction without a return ticket. No matter how desperately I wanted to turn this fucked-up ride around, to head back to what was good, to when I was happy, I didn’t know how.

“Nothing?” I sneered, pushing up off my bed. “Nothing at all, huh?”

I deliberately ran my eyes up and down his body. And it was an impressive body. ZZ was six feet of solid, toned muscle that showed underneath his plain white tee and formfitting leathers. On his right bicep hell’s was tattooed in big, bold lettering, and below it, on his forearm, read horsemen.

His dark brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, showing off his small hoop earrings, and wrapped around his neck was a black leather strip, identical to the ones on each of his wrists. All in all, ZZ was a big, sexy man package that I was about to try and exploit.

But however sexy ZZ might be, he wasn’t dumb. Far from it. He watched me eye-fuck him, his lips twitching.

“Ain’t gonna work,” he said.

“Why? You don’t think I’m pretty?”

He snorted. “I’d have to be blind or just straight up dumb not to, but I like my women a little less…ripe.”

I shrugged off the insult even as it cut me. I wanted to shower. No, I wanted to want to shower. I wanted to want a lot of things. I just…couldn’t figure out how.

“Okay,” I said, shrugging nonchalantly, grabbing the bottom of my T-shirt and lifting it over my head. I tossed it across my room and watched ZZ’s eyes drop to my bare breasts.

“Put your shirt back on,” he said, his tone blasé but the subtle tightening in his jaw gave him away.

“How about I do this instead?” I shoved down my jeans and underwear and kicked them aside. Naked, I glared at ZZ. “Still nothing I can do?”

He took an extra long drag off his cigarette before answering. “No,” he said tightly. “Put your fuckin’ clothes on before your old man walks in here and see’s you actin’ like this.”

“Like I care!”

“Do you care about me?” he shot back. “If someone walks in on this shit, they’re gonna get the wrong idea and I’m gonna be takin’ the blame for it. You want your old man to shoot me? Thanks a lot.”

If your old man caps me, you better be front and center at my fuckin’ funeral, cryin’ your goddamn eyes out.

I squeezed my eyes shut, shuddering through the painful memory ZZ’s similar words had stirred up inside me, and fought back my rising emotions.

“Then you better hurry,” I hissed. “And fuck me before anyone walks in.”

Muttering curses, ZZ dropped his cigarette on the floor and crushed it with the toe of his boot. Next, he reached behind him and pulled his gun from his leathers. After setting it down on my desk, he started for me, already unzipping his leathers.

My anger turned to panic. Oh god, why was I doing this? Why was I acting like a crazy slut? What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I stop it? Just shut it off? I didn’t want to have sex with ZZ any more than I wanted to be lashing out at my family.

But everything hurt. Every heartbeat a knife to my chest, every breath more painful than the last. It hurt straight to my bones, freezing my blood and straining my muscles, making me ache…so…bad.

And I couldn’t make it stop.

“You want to fuck,” ZZ hissed, grabbing my biceps and pushing me. I stumbled, trying to keep up with him as he began forcing me backward. “I’ll fuck you, Danny. That body of yours is worth an ass kickin’ or two.”

I wanted to scream, NO, that I didn’t want this to happen but I couldn’t, my pain keeping my mouth shut, demanding that I continue to hurt myself, my pain telling me that I deserved this, I deserved worse than this.

“But first,” he muttered. “Your ass is takin’ a shower.”

I shrieked as cold water spiked against my skin, not realizing until that very moment he’d backed me into my bathroom and straight into the shower.

“Let me out of here!” I screamed, violently thrashing as he held me under the spray of water, now lukewarm. But he didn’t. ZZ held fast, my punches, slaps, and kicks not fazing him in the least. And still I continued, hitting him harder and harder until I was crying, sobbing uncontrollably, relentlessly beating on him and the worst thing was…

He let me.

He just stood there and took it.

And when it was over, when I’d wrung the last tear from my exhausted body, when I could no longer stand on my own two feet, he wrapped me in a towel, picked me up, and tucked me into bed.

“You were never going to have sex with me,” I whispered, blinking sleepily up at him. “Were you?”

“No,” he whispered back, brushing a lock of wet hair out of my eyes. “I wasn’t.”