“Come with me,” I yelled. My lower back tightened and I came, but I bounced through it.
“Red,” he bellowed, and his body quaked under me. I claimed his lips, lying sprawled on top of him while he still jerked inside me.
“Damn, you might’ve broke me.” He relaxed back into the bed then slid out of me as I shifted, but he stayed still. I removed the condom to drop it in the trash.
“Want a pop?” I stood and headed to the kitchen.
“Sure.” The bed creaked.
“Stay.”
I brought back two drinks, laying the cold can against his neck.
He didn’t even jump, but his hand snatched it from me. I sat beside him, drinking mine. His finger traced the outline of my tropical flower and then moved between my thighs to the spot the vine ended on my labia.
“I’ve never seen a sexier tattoo.” He sipped his drink. “Is there a story?”
I glanced away. Should I tell him? “Trade stories?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Deal.”
“When I ran away, I didn’t have a place to go, so I struggled.” Memories flooded back of nights on the street until I’d found my sanctuary at a home for runaway teens. They helped me find a job at The Black Line. “I landed at my first tat parlor, seedy as hell. With my third paycheck, I paid next to nothing for this guy, the only decent artist there, to make this flower, and the vine. My sign of triumph. I’d made it out of the dark—it’s so easy to get swallowed there.”
Dare’s jaw ticked with tension, but his eyes held something else.
“You’re so damn tough.” He pulled me down for a kiss.
I could agree as long as tough didn’t mean hard, because I’d have broken on the cement long ago if I’d turned hard. Instead, I learned to be water, finding the smallest path to freedom—it helped me survive.
“Which one will you tell me about?”
“You pick.”
“The reaper on your back.” I’d wondered about it for a while, low and centered in the small of his back, the design screamed defiance.
He tugged me next to him. “Jericho designed it and inked it on Bear and me.” He paused, staring up the ceiling. “Jericho, Bear and I are close, no one, not even the club president comes between us.” He rolled over to face me. “That tat reminds everyone if you fuck with one of us—you get the three of us.” He stared over at me. “No one crosses us more than once.” His voice changed and lowered. This wasn’t the guy I knew, and I hoped I never did anything to see the reaper side of him.
“Does Jericho have it too?”
“I inked three reapers in the center of his back.”
I thought of my conversation with Bear today, and maybe I’d been too rough on him. He’d been trying to tell me what Dare couldn’t, what Dare worried about—either that or Bear was a dick. Honestly, I’d bet money it was all three. In fact, most people felt the same way about Dare that I did Jericho and Bear, but something happened the moment we met that changed everything—had it just been the chemical attraction or something deeper? Whatever started it, I was so mired in us that when he walked away I’d lose more than a bit of myself in the separation.
Worrying about shit I couldn’t control was a stupid way to spend our time together. I should take Rachel’s advice—be positive. I made myself a promise to stop expecting the end, even if I couldn’t expect forever just yet.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Lila
On Friday morning, my cell phone rang and I hurried to get it thinking Dare needed something at the clubhouse, but it quit ringing before I picked it up. Frustrated, I swiped the screen and saw my sister’s number, which confused me since she was three weeks early for the Thanksgiving call. She didn’t leave a message, so I stuffed the phone in my pocket before I started inventory. Just as I finished, my phone rang again. I took it out and my sister’s number flashed across the screen, again. I almost pushed Ignore, but she never called me twice in as many hours.
“Hey, Melody.” I held the phone between my ear and shoulder while I tallied inventory.
“Lila, thank god you answered. I need you.” She broke down in loud sobs.
I held the phone from my ear and waited for her to pull it together. I tried not to hate my sister. She’d left for college, and never looked back, let alone called to check on me, or leave an emergency number for her fourteen-year-old sister.
When Dad died four years ago, I’d gone home to Tulsa to put the monster in the ground and prove he’d never hurt me again. Melody attended, and we’d awkwardly reconnected, even exchanging phone numbers with promises to keep in touch. I didn’t, but surprisingly, she did. We spoke two or three times a year, and I liked our relationship, or lack of one, just the way it was.