Cook (The Ridge MC Book 4)

Chapter 3

Cook

I was back at Mom’s house by dinnertime, lugging plastic bags filled with clothes of all shapes, styles, and sizes. The woman at the department store had loaded me up with various things she’d insisted women needed. I declined some of stringy the underthings she’d pulled off the racks, unable to fathom how having lacy strings between my ass cheeks would be any kind of comfortable.

But the sight of Maddie’s ass in those... No way, Cook! I needed to shut down that line of thought. Some pairs of nice cotton granny panties would do, and maybe they would help me keep my thoughts from wandering into places they shouldn’t go.

Having a full wardrobe at Mom’s house, I didn’t need to go back to the Ridge for anything, so I had only visited the mall before returning. I couldn’t stay here, though. Mom could do that hand-holding.

When I walked into the kitchen, Mom had prepared a feast, but none of the food had been touched. All my childhood favorites sat on the dinner table, brimming with cheese. Those were simpler times and before I knew how to cook. Mom had made chocolaty desserts too, but they were also untouched. Maddie sat at the table, staring at all the food, and I tried to fight my grimace.

I had warned Mom not to go overboard, but the woman didn’t know how not to. If this was before, Daddy would’ve eaten his fill, then beaten her senseless for wasting all this food.

“You’re back,” said Maddie nearly breathlessly. An empty plate sat in front of her.

“Yeah.” I set bags on the sofa and walked into the dining room. “Where’s Mom?”

“I took a shower, but she said the bathroom was disgustingly dirty. She had to clean it before I used it again.” Maddie frowned.

Damn it. Mom probably wasn’t taking her pills again, and her anxiety was getting bad. I didn’t help by dropping a stranger at her door. But Mom had always wanted a daughter, someone who had fewer chances of ending up like Daddy.

“Did you eat anything?” I asked.

“Um...” She puckered her lips and narrowed her eyes on the food, as though she didn’t know where to start. Who could blame her with this spread?

I clenched my teeth to stop myself from telling her to eat some of everything, that she was too fucking skinny.

Maddie wore different clothes now, which were a little better fitting. But they screamed old. Her damp hair clung to her skin, stringy. “I don’t know where to start,” she admitted.

I snorted. “That happens with Mom.”

Maddie shook her head. Small tremors rushed down her body. “I’m not really hungry either.”

But she didn’t leave the table, and I wondered if there had been consequences for her in the past.

“I’ll put the food away. Someone will eat it.” Usually me.

I grabbed a full pot of homemade mac and cheese from the table. Maddie had been eyeing it like she recognized the food, but she hadn’t moved to take any. I thought about slamming a heaping onto her plate and ordering her to eat. Instead, I took the pot over to the stove.

“You ate a taco earlier, so it’s okay not to want anything else.” I had to push away the urges I had to take care of her in my way. I just wanted to see her hollow cheeks fill out faster. After putting away the dish, I asked, “Is there anything I can get for you?”

“Sleep,” she said. “In a bed.”

I wiped my hands off on a towel. “You can go to your bedroom.”

She didn’t move from the table, and I squinted at her. When was the last time she’d made her own choices? Ever?

“Tell me what you need, Maddie.” I couldn’t read her mind, no matter how much I searched her features.

She raised her head, pink on her cheeks, and mumbled, “I like the other bedroom.”

“The other...” Oh my God, was she actually saying...? “You want to sleep in my bedroom?”

She wrung her hands and raised her shoulders to her ears, nodding at me as if I might lash out. “It smells like you.”

I inhaled sharply and let the air leave my body slowly. I could sleep somewhere else or head back to the Ridge. “All right. I’ll crash in the spare room for tonight.”

She stood up, her arms entwined with her hands clasped in front of her lower belly. Maddie tilted her head as she approached me. “Will you lay in bed with me? Just until I fall asleep?”

My eyes popped wide open, and I forcibly blinked. Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn’t that. “Yeah, okay,” I said after a moment. “Let me put the rest of the food away first.”

In my bedroom, I closed the door behind us. Mom was in the bathroom, making a racket with all of her cleaning. It would be a surprise if Maddie got any sleep tonight, and I wondered if she’d slept in the hospital. Probably not, unless it was drug induced. I doubted she’d rested well while with Signora. Dark bags hung under her eyes, opposite of her milky white skin. She almost glowed in the slanted moonlight coming through the windows. She needed the sun on her face to make her look less ghostly.

“So.” I cleared my throat.

The bed was freshly done. Knowing my mother and her cleaning-focused anxiety, she had probably changed out the sheets today, but the room smelled stale. I rarely slept there. More often than not, I drove back to the Ridge in the middle of the night.

Maddie walked to the other side of the bed and started to strip.

I looked away quickly. “Maddie? What the fuck?”

She gasped, and I peeked through my eyelashes just to check if she had finished changing, but she hadn’t. Scars creating a red and white web over her bare body drew my full, appalled attention. Goose bumps erupted across her skin as she reached for a pair of pajamas on the bed.

Her body, though marred and too thin, was... gorgeous. The scars told her story, a map of her history—the good, the bad, and the horribly ugly. Every line on her skin, a chapter. Every mark, a tale of survival.

How was she still standing so tall and confident after what happened to her? Her breath was even. Her shoulders were rolled back, head held high. Her copper hair cascaded over the bones that protruded from her skin.

Blood rushed to my cock, and I commanded myself, Look away, perv.

After all that had happened to her, I wasn’t going to be the motherfucker to bring up anything sexual. Just remember what she called you, Cook!

It was enough to calm my dick.

Maddie just needed someone to hold her and keep her safe until she went to sleep. There were many nights as a kid that I’d needed the same and had crawled into bed with Mom. To be honest, I was surprised she was seeking even that much from me. The last time someone held her was probably just them holding her down while she screamed for them to stop.

With her reaction to others, why was she like this with me?

Maddie faced me, sliding her arms into the sleeves. With an impish smile, she dragged her eyes up my body in the same way people said men weren’t supposed to look at a woman.

I finally looked away, no matter how hard it was, and suppressed the words on the tip of my tongue: I’ll strip if you wanna devour me with those eyes... or those pouty lips.

“Are you tired?” I asked instead, motioning to the bed.

Leaning down, she brushed her hand over the quilt and comforter. “You’re staying, right?”

“I said I would.” But I sure as shit was regretting that now. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”

“Not after?” she asked.

What did she want me to say? I couldn’t stay here all night. But her big doe eyes stared up at me, burrowing into my body. I was her captive now, and I’d suffer through this if that’s what she needed. I lay down on the bed, on top of the blankets. I still wore my jeans and boots as I rolled over and lifted the blankets on the other side of the bed. Maddie slid underneath, and my hand grazed her chest when I lowered the blanket.

Yanking back, I swore under my breath. Thankfully, she didn’t comment. “Are you comfortable?”

“Yeah.” She curled the blankets under her chin. “Can you hold me?”

Fuck, she was making this difficult. Backing up on the bed, she wiggled her ass. The blankets pulled tighter around her body where she lay in the center of the bed. She either meant to push me off the bed or make sure I had nowhere else to go. I wasn’t sleeping on the floor. Then again, there wouldn’t be sleep for me at all in this bed.

Sucking it up, I slung my arm around her shoulders. My groin tightened at her nearness, at her how back arched, how she smelled, how she felt under my body. Shit.

“Is this good?” I asked.

“Yes, Daddy,” said Maddie in a sleepy haze.

My body went rigid, every muscle locking down. There was so much hurt tied up in that word, so why did a current of desire rush through my veins when it slipped from her lips?

The fuck was happening to me? I had more control than this. Or I used to. But every breath she took also moved me.

“Why do you keep calling that?” I asked through clenched teeth.

Her breathing halted.

My voice had been too harsh. “Maybe I should go.”

I started to pull away, but she latched onto my arm.

Finally, I said in a resigned voice, “Maddie, I’m not anyone’s daddy. Daddy is... isn’t... well, it’s just not right.”

Too many memories.

You’ve pissed your daddy off now.

Daddy’s going to beat the shit outta you!

All those warnings followed by Mom’s screams and my sobs into a pillow.

Maddie made a little humming noise, almost like a purr.

“Maddie,” I said, my voice near a growl. “I need to know why you keep calling me Daddy.”

She was as stiff as a boulder under my arm, but I waited. I needed this answer. Maybe my family was the odd one out. Celt had a good father, and Bou was having a kid with Wilde. Not all families had what I had—thankfully—but fuck, I didn’t want to be reminded of all that shit.

After a long moment, Maddie moved in the bed and rolled over to face me. Moonlight made her eyes glow. Thankfully, it wasn’t from tears. I couldn’t deal with a woman crying in my bed.

“I need someone,” she said finally.

And somehow, she got me? There were better men out there.

“I need someone who will be gentle with me, but firm enough to tell me what I need to do, like the dad I remember,” she continued, gnawing on her bottom lip. “Stern, but loving.

Demanding, but kind when needed.”

She rested her small hand on my chest, and I swear my heart stuttered. That was a lot to ask for.

“You barely know me.” I’m not that man.

“I’ve seen this in you, Cook,” she said. “From the moment you rescued me at Barton Mill. You took care of me.”

“I didn’t have much choice when you crawled in my arms.”

Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “You came for me again today. I can’t explain it, but I see you better, I think, than you see yourself.”

For a long moment, we stared at each other. I wasn’t going to blink or balk. This woman barely knew me, yet she acted so certain about the things she said. I had seen her cower as well as the savage side of her. She could rip me in half with her sharp nails and tear me apart with her teeth if she wanted, yet she was giving me her vulnerability on a goddamn silver platter.

Her eyes bored into me, the pleading look doing more damage than any weapon could.

Maddie

Cook was gone in the morning, but the sheets still smelled like him. I inhaled deeply and rolled over in the bed, feeling where his warmth and pressure had once been. The pressure of his body had been gentle and warm against mine like he hadn’t wanted to crush me. Or... as if he would let me go as soon as I wanted to wriggle away.

No man at Signora’s had ever cared that much. And while I wanted the freedom to make my own choices, I also liked the way he took care of me.

The pressure had disappeared in the middle of the night, and I had felt it leave. The warmth had escaped me, and I woke on a shiver. Somewhere deep inside, I’d been aware of him leaving, but it hadn’t been enough to pull me from a heavy, dreamless sleep. I couldn’t recall the last time I slept like that, without fear that someone would take me in the middle of the night or use my body.

An alarm went off in the house, and I shot up in bed. My heartbeat quickened. Were we under attack? Signora had alarms all over the place, watching her surroundings, but it wasn’t that kind of alarm. This was the ding of a preheated oven.

More food? I sighed.

Vivi had made so much for dinner last night that I had no idea what to do. Nor was I hungry for it. My stomach had been knots, and all I wanted was Cook to come back for me.

Getting out of bed, I padded into the hallway and then the kitchen.

Cook slipped a pan into the oven and then stood at his full height, so I could read the frilly blue-and-white apron he was wearing. I woke up this morning wanting to flog the sausage.

My eyes went round and my face heated. “Is that...?” I pointed at him.

Cook looked down and his eyes stretched too. “Ah shit. I’m sorry.”

I started snickering when he stripped the thing over his head, then he glanced down at his T-shirt before turning to face me. It read, “Four wheels move the body. Two move the soul.” I guess that was appropriate enough for my innocent eyes, not that I had any sort of innocence left.

The thin material pulled tightly across his chest with his muscles rippling below. Damn, he was built. Tattoos spiraled down his muscular arms. His sun-kissed skin had a glistening shine.

Besides yesterday, I hadn’t stood freely in the sun for years, but I craved it.

The problem was... I couldn’t help but admire this man’s body. My thoughts swirled. I shouldn’t want to touch a man or have him touch me, but inexplicably, I did.

“Did you ah”—he combed his fingers through his hair, making the silver threads dance in the morning light—“sleep well?” he asked.

I tilted my head to one side and studied the small lines around his eyes as well as the way the dark pools shifted around the small kitchen. Did I make him uncomfortable?

Cook lifted a mug of coffee to his lips as he leaned against the counter, his brows raised. “I was going to come wake you in a few minutes.”

Waking up without him there saddened me, but this prospect piqued my curiosity. How would he have woken me, I wanted to know? Would he have brushed his fingers down my arm or placed my hair behind my ear? It would have been nice to wake to his heat and weight surrounding me.

“I can go back to bed, so you can, if you want?” I offered, stepping back toward the door.

He cracked a smile. “No point. Come in. I made breakfast for you.”

“For me?” I asked, walking toward the dinner table. In my memory, besides Vivi and now Cook, no one had prepared a meal especially for me.

“Yeah. You need to eat,” said Cook.

His back faced me, and he had another pan on the stove, seemingly making eggs.

“I know Mom made you food last night, but you didn’t eat.” He turned around and slid an egg onto my plate from the frying pan. “That was okay last night, but you need to eat this morning.”

My stomach flipped. Maybe I was hungry when I smelled breakfast in my bedroom, but it had all disappeared when I saw Cook. I drank him in, wanting... what?

“I’m,” I started, but couldn’t think of a good answer. Not hungry for food. What was I supposed to say to him?

“You’re going to eat,” he growled. “You’re too skinny. Probably malnourished. You need food. You chose me to take care of you, so you’re going to do what I say in this matter. Can’t have you wasting away on my watch.”

Toast popped up from the toaster in the corner. Cook, with his long arms and lean body, reached for them. He walked the plate of toast with butter and jam to the table and put them down in front of me. I marveled at his thick muscles and then dragged my gaze up his broad shoulders and to his chiseled face.

I reached up to touch his beard, but he slipped away, sitting behind his own plate across the table.

“Eat,” ordered Cook. “The bacon will be done in a few minutes. I wanted to make you something that wouldn’t be too hard on your stomach. Is bacon okay? If not, just eat the eggs and toast.”

He ripped off a hunk of the toast and chewed, one brow raised and waiting for me to eat. When I finally took a bite of the egg, he grinned. “We’ll work you up to richer foods. When we do, your taste buds won’t know what hit them.”

When he brought his coffee to his mouth, I licked my lips and then said, “I’d love to taste anything you want to feed me.”

Cook choked and coughed until his eyes watered, but he didn’t respond.

“Where’s Vivi?” I shoved the corner of the toast in my mouth.

“Still asleep,” he answered. “She cleaned long into the night and needs her rest.”

“She did a lot yesterday.”

“I can’t help her cleaning and cooking obsession.”

I grabbed the butter and slathered it across the remaining toast. Signora didn’t supply butter with the stale bread she threw at us, and we still pounced on the morsels like hungry dogs. After the butter melted, I placed a thick layer of strawberry jam on top. The toast began to sag, so I quickly shoved it into my mouth, humming with delight over the simple pleasure.

I’d forgotten what fresh bread tasted like, and the sweet jam and salty butter only made the experience more heavenly.

“Say, what did Signora feed you while—” Cook blinked at me several times while I gulped down the last bite.

Without realizing it, I had eaten both pieces of toast brimming with butter and jam. The food fell heavily into my gut, my stomach expanding tightly. I hadn’t realized how ravenous I was.

I lowered my gaze to the napkin in my lap. “If we were good, Signora gave us oatmeal.”

However, the gruel her minions shoveled into our bowls hadn’t been the buttery-sweet oats my parents had given me and Melanie when we were kids. Those were half-cooked and soupy and lacked any sugar or spice.

“Most times, we got scraps. Whatever was left over from Signora’s meals or the guards’. Sometimes, they would toss it to us like slop for pigs just to see us fight over the scraps.” I shrugged one shoulder. “Signora didn’t care as long as we didn’t leave permanent marks on each other.” The only people allowed to mark us were the clients or Signora.

Cook worked his jaw like he was about to say something else, but then the oven dinged. He leaped up and donned mitts, pulling out the bacon, before he turned off the oven. He leaned on the counter, his head hanging as his shoulders hunched.

The bacon smelled so delicious. My stomach was full, but I didn’t think I’d eaten a strip of bacon since before Signora’s men took me. I would eat as much as I possibly could, remembering my father standing over the stove and frying it up.

Cook recovered from whatever his worry was with a deep breath and slid the plate in front of me. My fingers reached forward and took two strips, then my hand moved toward the sunny-side-up eggs, where I paused. Remembering to use the utensils, I experimented with how to grip them.

“Like this.” Cook showed me how he held his utensils then put them beside his plate, grabbed the knife, and placed it in my right hand. I mimicked his hold on the fork.

Signora hadn’t allowed us to use forks, knives, or spoons, because they could’ve been used as weapons. We only ate with our fingers as the guards watched on, joking and elbowing each other in the stomachs and pointing at us and laughing.

When Cook lowered himself into the closest chair, I asked, “You aren’t going to eat?”

“We need to talk about something,” said Cook in a deadly tone.

I forgot about the fork and knife, even about the food. My stomach clenched. Was he sending me back to the hospital? To Signora? I turned myself to stone and demanded, “What?”

Hardening myself was the only way I wouldn’t cry or rip off his head. I wouldn’t make it far if I ran—he was in much better shape and would probably catch me before I reached the door. But he needed to know I wouldn’t go back to either of those places.

“You called me Daddy again last night,” said Cook.

My hands turned clammy. At least, this wasn’t about me leaving. But I couldn’t explain why any more than I could explain it last night. The word had just slipped out.

It fit him.

“Are you going to send me back to Doctor Richardson?” I asked, my voice thin. I didn’t want any more of her talking or sedatives.

“No,” said Cook.

I released my bated breath.

A vein in his neck throbbed. “I’ll never. But I want to understand.”

“I told you.” But I hadn’t told him everything. The word, or the title, Daddy meant more to me. I was sure of at least that much.

Silence lingered, and I had no idea how to fill it, or if I should. Meanwhile, the eggs and bacon cooled on the plates.

“I still don’t understand,” he said.

He leaned back in his chair. His fingers thrummed against the table. When I realized I wanted those fingers on my skin, my cheeks flushed, and I looked away. What kind of freak was I? A captive, sold for sex and violence, and now I wanted another man to touch me. Maybe I did need the drugs and a head shrink.

But there was more to this than my attraction to Cook. It was freedom. I got to decide.

I thought he might want to say more, so I waited for a few seconds before responding. “I don’t understand either.” That much was true. How was I supposed to explain something I couldn’t even understand myself?

“What does that mean?” he asked. Was that judgment in his tone?

My shoulders slumped. There had been many times in my life that I wondered when the pain would go away—if someone could take it away. Maybe that was what I was seeing in this man. Like he could free me from all the shit in my past and I could become a new person.

I could start over.

Stupid thought.

“I-I, um.” I pressed my sweaty palms flat against my thighs. Words wouldn’t squeeze past the lump in my throat or the painful memories in my mind.

On the counter, Cook’s cell phone started to ring and buzz. Across the few feet separating him from the counter, Cook took a look at the screen and then stood. “I’ll be back.” He walked into the hallway, and I heard a muffled, “What’s up?”

The yellow eggs waited to be eaten. Bacon grease gelled on top of the golden-brown meat, and it no longer looked appetizing. Even the yummy smell had gone. It now reminded me of how meat-like my body had been, laid out for someone to consume. I had been like the slab of bacon to them, snapped in half, licked, chewed, sliced, and then wiggled around like the limper pieces. They’d used me however they wished, and then they’d thrown me out like the piece of trash I was.

Cook walked back into the kitchen, shoving his cell phone into his front pocket. “You need to eat.”

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Celt,” he said, but I didn’t recognize the name. “I need to go soon, and you need to eat.”

I shook my head no. I didn’t want him to go, and I didn’t want to eat.

Cook took one long stride toward the table and scooped eggs into a spoon, and then he pressed them to my lips like he was feeding a toddler. I had them clamped shut, my teeth clenched. But he gave me a stern look, like he’d win the stare-down between himself—Daddy—and me.

I ate the eggs.

He watched me as I chewed and swallowed. I don’t think I even tasted them.

“You don’t like the bacon?” he asked, eyeing the untouched bacon on my plate.

“I prefer sausage.” I snatched the spoon from his grasp and fed myself, smirking up at him as I chewed.

“Of course you do.” Cook let out a groan and grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the chair. “I gotta go to church.”