Chapter Six
Demon
“You’re not sleeping in your car, Ciara.”
“I fucking am.” She yanked at her arm.
“Out. Now.” My voice came out like a growl, low and threatening, like I was dealing with some rowdy punter from the bar, not a damsel in distress. Even if right now that distress was my own causing.
She glanced up at me, a tiny flash of fear in her brown eyes, quickly consumed by defiance.
“I don’t need your help, Demon. I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.”
“Really? You gonna push this tin can of junk to the nearest garage?”
“No. I told you. I’ll stay here till morning, then I’ll find some kind soul from a garage who will come out and change this tyre.”
I should just let her get on with it. Let her sleep in her fucking car in one of the most dangerous neighbourhoods in Shields. Let her find someone to help her in the morning when she was cramped and cold and hungry. That’s what I should have done.
“Ciara. I’m taking you home. Now get out of the fucking car.”
She relaxed, sighing, a sound of defeat, and I loosened my grip. Then she spun her arm, whipping it from my grasp, and slid in behind the steering wheel.
“No.”
She pulled at the door. And I knew the minute she got it shut, she would lock me out. Because I would do the same. I wedged my hands into the door frame, glancing over to Fury, who was smirking on the other side of the car in amusement. Twat.
“Such a way with women, Demon,” he chuckled.
“Well, if you think you can do better, be my fucking guest.”
Fury rocked his head from side to side, looking more like he was getting ready to work out in the gym than talk some stubborn woman out of her car for her own good.
“Hey, Ciara,” he said softly, opening the door on the other side of the car. “Let my boy here give you a ride home tonight. In the morning, we’ll help you get someone to sort your car out and get you back for it.”
She sighed, shaking her head.
“I need to be up early. I need to be at the coffee shop and then Uni. I don’t have time for any of this shit right now.”
“We’ll get you back for it as early as you like. Scout’s honour.”
“Don’t look much like a boy scout to me,” she grumbled, but she swung a leg out of the car, anyway.
Fury winked at me from over the top of the roof.
*****
Her arms wrapped tightly round my stomach all the way home. Hanging on like a vice for fear she might fall off, or maybe to cause me pain. I couldn’t be sure. Reluctantly, she’d given me her address, and we’d had a separate argument about that too. I pulled into the sleepy Gateshead street of run down terraces. The road was riddled with potholes, and I did my best to avoid as many as I could. At some point, there had been a continuous brick wall running along the front of the properties, giving it some protection from the street and the road. Now though, some of it was completely missing whilst the parts that had survived were littered with weeds and the occasional small tree trying desperately for purchase in the rubble.
The properties were old, spanning three or four floors in some cases. Once plush Victorian townhouses now calved up into houses of multiple occupation from greedy landlords packing as many people in as possible. It was ghetto like.
The house before hers had an old armchair sitting outside the bay window, mottled with moss and surrounded by black bin bags. The fabric was faded and ripped, left out in the elements for too long. The entire street was a shithole. I hadn’t expected this to be where she lived. Student halls maybe, in a swanky apartment with a group of girls. But then, what did I know of her?
“This you?” I asked, turning the engine off as I pulled up alongside the door.
“Yeah.” She offered no more.
“Err, nice place.”
“I’ve lived in worse.”
“Really?”
Ciara wriggled, pushing away from me till she could swing her leg over the back of the bike. And then I was joining her on the cracked pavement at the side of the road. She passed back Fury’s spare helmet, her eyes catching mine and something poised on her lips.
“Thanks for the ride back,” she muttered, clearly hating the words coming out of her mouth.
“Pass your phone.”
“Why?” she looked at me suspiciously, defiance firing in the back of those deep brown eyes.
She was stunning when she was pissed off. Her lips pushed together in a pout, challenging, her chin tipped upwards, egging me on.
“So, you can ring me when you need a lift back in a few hours.”
Ciara hesitated. I couldn’t tell what was going on in her head, but I suspected there was a struggle. She wanted to defy me, to not comply. But she needed her car more. And so she handed over her phone.
I typed my number in, saving it and then pressing the call button.
“What are you doing that for?”
“So that I have your number, too.”
I didn’t think her eyes could darken anymore, but they had, and now the anger on her face looked almost murderous, and something about it made me smile.
“I need to let you know if something comes up.”
It didn’t quell the thunder in her eyes. And now I was enthralled. She plucked her phone from my hand and turned away from me, walking up the four broken steps to her front door. And for some fucking unknown reason, I followed her.
“What do you want, Demon?” she asked, not even turning to face me.
“Just making sure you get in OK.”
“Pretty sure I can safely walk the last three feet to the door alone.” She reached forward, pushing the key into the clunky lock.
“Looks like a shithole round here, darl’. Can’t be too careful.”
She whizzed around, her eyes on fire, irritated and angry all in one. They say ‘if looks could kill’; and that one would have disembowelled me, for sure. I took the last step, and now, one step below her, we were face to face, lips to lips. I should have walked away, turned around and got the hell out of there. But I didn’t.
My arm shot out before I’d really had the chance to think, scooping around her back and yanking her to me. And this time, there was no distance between our lips as I pressed mine onto hers. I expected her to wriggle away. To step back and slap me. But her tongue darted out to meet mine. It wasn’t delicate, or sensual, or even desperately sexual. It was angry and chaotic. A show of power, fast and dominant. Neither of us backing down. Just like the first time I’d kissed her when she’d truly pissed me off.
Her lips were smooth and plush, flesh plucking against me, her tongue hot and wet, and each swipe sent me wilder. Desperate to punish her, desperate to dominate. Yet she fought back with every movement, pushing her mouth against me. And then her fingers scraped up the back of my head, fingernails scratching my scalp. I stepped up the last step, pushing her back against the door so our bodies were forced together, my swelling cock pushing against the bottom of her stomach. I knew she could feel it through my jeans and the scant clothes she wore. So, I pressed harder. A promise.
Shit. I could just fuck her here. Against her own door. For all the street to see. It would be so easy to peel those short shorts down her legs and plunge into her till she woke the neighbours up. Too easy.
I broke away, my breath coming heavy like I’d just finished a marathon.
“You know, you could invite me in?”
“I could,” she answered, her voice husky.
“So?”
She smiled. For the first time. And it was fucking beautiful. Those deep smile lines suddenly connected, her face lighting up, her heart-shaped features accentuated, and the thick scar thinning as it was pulled over her cheeks. Then the door clicked and suddenly she stepped backwards, slipping inside, and closing the chipped painted barrier in my face before I had even had a chance to react.
*****
“How did the club night at Trouble go?” my father asked the next night during Church.
“Lived up to its name,” I grunted, tiredness swarming my brain.
The last thing I needed was a club meeting after an all-nighter and then a full day of work. I was over-dosing on caffeine just to keep my eyelids prized away from my eyeballs. It looked like my dad could have done without church too. He was agitated. Shifting his weight continually in his chair, unable to get comfortable. He looked paler than usual. A sickly hangover looking grey. That’s what it was. While the younger members were out on club business, the older ones had probably been out all night too.
“What happened?”
“Just some kid touching up a back patch. Don’t think he’ll do that again.”
“Don’t tell me. Brie?”
“Aye. Mental bastard.” I nodded, rolling my eyes at the memory of the crazy, middle-aged president of the Angels and Demons MC, named after his love of time-served French prostitutes.
The men round the table broke into a chorus of laughs, my father with them, until the cough he’d been nursing for the last few weeks took hold. He stood up suddenly, bolting out the door and down the corridor towards the toilets, the barking sound of the cough growing quieter.
“He still got that cold?” I glanced at Indie, watching my brother’s brow furrow, the greying eyebrows drawing together.
“Seems that way.”
We waited patiently for his return, not making a fuss over his sudden exit when he sat to resume the meeting.
“We got a good chunk of quid from last night. The investment in Tez is paying off.”
“It was a gamble to invest outside the club members, Demon,” my father noted, “one that could have gone to shit. Let’s not do too many. Speaking of investments…. Magnet, how are you getting on?”
“Good boss. Got the product coming in the next week and have a unit earmarked to calve it up a bit.”
“Who’s doing the cutting?”
“The prospects. Need to keep this well under wraps. They want to earn their patches. They’ll work for it and keep their traps shut.”
My father nodded, stifling a cough as he tried to keep another round of it at bay.
“Good plan,” he said eventually, between sips of water.
I watched him carefully. At the way his chest heaved in between breaths, at the sickly pale of his skin and the thin sheen of sweat misting his forehead. He really needed to quit the late-night drinking sessions. But who was I to comment on his lifestyle when I hadn’t had any sleep in the last thirty-six hours?