Chapter Two
Liss
I strained at the handcuffs, furious with myself for getting caught. The memory of Gideon’s promise echoed in my memory.
If you don’t get cleaned up on your own, sweetheart, I’ll strip you down and scrub every inch of you myself. Every. Naked. Inch. Your choice.
I hated the way my body clenched with need at the gravel-rough timbre of his voice when he said it. I hated the way I imagined his large, callused hands on my bare body, touching everywhere I needed him the most.
Fuck, why was I thinking like this?
Was he hot? Absolutely.
Were his tattoo sleeves sexy and distracting as hell? No doubt about it.
But his salt-and-pepper beard indicated he was older than me. Much older. Possibly old enough to be my father. That realization alone should have filled me with repulsion, but I could still feel the low heat of arousal pumping through my body. When I shifted, the seam of my jeans rubbed against my core with just enough friction to indicate Gideon had awakened something in me that I really, really liked.
“It’s called daddy issues,” I mumbled to myself. “Now get over it and focus.”
I studied the metal pipe that led to the shower head. It was a bare bones setup, with soap scum on the tiles, and a rusty faucet. Maybe the pipe was weak enough that I could pull it loose.
Wedging one foot against the wall, I tugged on the pipe with all my strength until I could have sworn my shoulders were about to pop out of their sockets.
No luck. It didn’t budge.
The low hum of voices outside the bathroom was too muffled to hear what was being said, but it didn’t take a genius to know I was the one they were talking about. All I wanted to do was leave this shithole of a town behind, but now I was stuck with this damn motorcycle gang who were dead set on seeing me punished for trying to steal one of their bikes. Never mind the fact that I’d failed.
Swearing under my breath, I fumbled my backpack off one shoulder. With my wrist shackled to the shower, it was an awkward effort, to say the least, but I managed to unhook the safety pin from my zipper and set to work picking the lock on my cuffs.
I guess there are some perks to having a criminal douchebag for a brother. If he could see me now, he’d never let me live it down.
See, little sis? You should listen to me more often. I taught you that. I’m the one who saved your ass. And you never appreciate it.
I growled under my breath and worked at the lock harder, shoving my brother’s voice to the back of my mind. The complicated part was that I felt bad for him. Even though he treated me like dog shit, I understood why he did it.
Life had been hard for us growing up, and as the oldest sibling, Ryan got the brunt of it. I was only six years old when Mom died, so I didn’t remember much. Just bits and pieces of our mother passed out drunk on the couch, and a father who raged with his fists.
Ryan was old enough to remember it all.
He watched our mother spiral, slowly wasting away as she drowned herself in a bottle of alcohol every night to escape her shitty marriage and the children she didn’t love.
He shielded me from the beatings as often as he could when our father came home once in a blue moon, angry about everything—bills unpaid, the messy house, the filthy starving children who served as an ugly reminder that he was failing as a parent.
So, Ryan became mean in order to survive. He got involved with the wrong people—dangerous people—running drugs and guns for them. And I was his golden ticket. In a world of cutthroat, backstabbing men, I easily flew under the radar. A scrawny little thing, beaten into submission by my older, bigger, stronger brother.
The safety pin slipped and cut a jagged slice across my fingertip.
“Damn it,” I hissed.
I hastily wiped my hand on my jeans and continued to dig at the lock. My grip grew slippery as my fingertip kept bleeding, but I couldn’t afford to waste precious seconds to deal with it if I wanted to escape.
Ryan would have figured out I was gone by now. He would be looking for me. I needed to get out of Buckeye Junction before our paths crossed. It was a small town in the middle-of-nowhere Montana. We were bound to run into each other eventually. And he would comb every damn inch of the place to find me.
The door knob twisted.
My time was up. Shit.
Gideon stood on the threshold and propped one shoulder against the doorframe. He was a beefy, barrel-chested guy, with red and black tattoos roiling up his arms. A hint of more dark tattoo ink peeked out at his collar, along with a dusting of silver chest hair. My brain took off with possibilities, wondering just how much of him was inked.
“What did I tell you about getting washed up?” he said.
I brandished my cuffed wrist.
“Have you ever tried to take a shower this way? It’s a little complicated.”
“Sounds like an excuse to me.”
Gideon stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. My heart thundered against my ribs, and a flush of heat swept up my neck. The arousal I felt earlier began to fade as adrenaline took over when I realized what a bad position I was in. Cuffed to a shower, alone with a man I didn’t know.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat as he approached the tub.
“If you lay a finger on me,” I said, my voice wobbling slightly. “I’ll kick you in the balls so hard, you’ll be singing soprano for the rest of your miserable life.”
Gideon arched an eyebrow, but he didn’t seem concerned about my threat. He stopped next to the tub, towering over me. It struck me all over again how big he was. Maybe I shouldn’t be mouthing off like this…
He gave a lazy flick of his wrist.
“Strip.”
I curled my fingers into a fist until my nails bit into my palm. The arousal was completely gone, replaced by the urge to fight. The odds weren’t in my favor, though. If I managed to get past Gideon, I’d have to contend with his buddies. But I wasn’t going to wilt like a little wallflower and simply take whatever came my way without raising hell.
“No,” I shot back.
A beat of silence settled over the room. Gideon gazed at me with steady, dark eyes. Then he crouched down and rested his forearms on the edge of the tub.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” he said.
To my surprise, his deep, gruff voice was almost…gentle? No, that couldn’t be right. He was probably playing me for a fool, getting me to lower my guard.
“Then let me go and I won’t be your problem anymore,” I countered.
“Can’t do that.”
“Why not? Oh, wait, let me guess. You see a chance to get your dick wet with a sweet piece of ass, so you won’t release me until you’ve had your fun. Is that it?”
Gideon’s gaze remained locked on me. He didn’t even fucking blink. I fought the urge to squirm under that piercing look.
“Is that what happened to you? Did someone use you to get their dick wet?”
I snorted.
“Don’t act like you give a shit about what happens to me. I’m cuffed to a goddamn shower because of you.”
“Then I guess I can scrub you down as promised and it won’t be a big deal.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Gideon reached over and turned on the water. The shower sputtered and coughed. Then an icy spray sluiced over me. There was nothing I could do to escape it.
“Jesus Christ, that’s freezing!”
Gideon didn’t reply and grabbed my ankle, yanking at my boot. When I tried to kick him, he held my leg tightly wedged under his arm.
“Let me go!” I yelled, shoving at his shoulder. “You prick!”
After Gideon pried one boot off, he started tugging on the other. I had a knife tucked in there and I sure as hell didn’t want him to find it. My clothes were soaked through, too, and my teeth began to chatter. I wriggled as hard as I could, pummeling his broad, strong back with my fists, but nothing even phased him. He was immovable as a brick wall.
“I’ll fucking kill you for this,” I spat, clawing at his forearm.
“You’re welcome to try if it makes you feel any better, sweetheart,” Gideon replied with no heat in his voice.
When he reached for my belt, a jolt of panic cut through my chest. I pushed his hands away.
“I can do it myself.”
“You had your chance,” Gideon said. “You chose not to take it.”
With a twist of his wrist, my belt buckle popped open. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of my jeans.
“I said no, asshole—”
Too late. He peeled my jeans halfway down my legs. More frigid water poured over my exposed skin. My throat grew so tight that my breath came in a strained wheeze. With my damp panties in full view, the reality of my situation slammed into my chest. This was really happening. I was about to get naked in front of a tattooed biker twice my age, against my will. That couldn’t mean anything good.
My brain went white with static. Before I realized what I was doing, I snapped my elbow up into Gideon’s face. A sickening crunch echoed through the room. His head jolted backward with a guttural sound of pain.
Blood streamed from his nose, staining his beard. He turned and spat a glob of red onto the floor.
Fuck! I’d broken his nose. I was in deep trouble now.
Gideon said nothing. The silence was deafening.
I recoiled, pressing myself back against the shower wall. My bare feet slipped on the wet tub, and I couldn’t stop shivering because of the damn arctic temperature of the water.
Or was I shivering because I was so scared that I could shit myself right now?
The silence continued, on and on. I hated it. Why wasn’t he saying anything? I knew he would be furious. First, I tried to steal his bike, and now I’d clocked him in the face.
“Go ahead,” I said, when I couldn’t stand the quiet any longer. “Beat my ass black and blue. Tell me I deserve it for being a little brat. Don’t just stand there. Get it over with.”
Gideon tenderly touched his nose with a wince. Then he shook his head.
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Right. Of course not. You wouldn’t want to get your hands dirty. I guess that job belongs to your bruiser—the hulking beast in the bar you spoke to earlier. What was his name again? Vlad? Well, invite him in here. Make it a party. You can sit back and watch while he’s the one who beats the shit out of me.”
Blood darkened Gideon’s lips and he swiped it away with the back of his hand. He fixed his dark eyes on me with that unnervingly level stare. Unshakeable.
It freaked me out that he was so damn calm about this. My father broke my arm once for accidentally spilling a glass of milk. There was no way an intimidating tough guy like Big G would let me get away with breaking his fucking nose.
“I’m not going to do that either,” he said. “No matter how much you might act up, you don’t deserve anyone raising their hand to you.”
I blinked at him, stunned. After a moment, I recovered enough to scoff.
“What a gentleman. You’ve been manhandling me, tossing me around like a rag doll, and you were about to rip the clothes off my body, but hitting me is taking it too far. It’s good to know you have standards, even if they’re fucked up.”
For the first time, Gideon voluntarily broke eye contact and glanced down. I followed his gaze to the massive bruise on my hip, just above the elastic of my panties.
When I told my brother that I didn’t want to run drugs for him anymore, he’d slammed me against the kitchen cupboards. What Gideon didn’t see were the bruises that studded my back from the cupboard handles digging into my spine. Or the bruise in the shape of my brother’s handprint when he grabbed my upper arm, threatening to break it if I didn’t do as I was told.
Gideon also didn’t see the scar under my right breast from a drug run gone wrong, when I caught a knife to the ribs. My brother refused to take me to a hospital. I had to stitch myself up on my own—a sloppy, ugly affair that almost got infected. It was still pink and tender.
Hell, I didn’t want Gideon seeing any of the scars or bruises that littered my body.
Most men saw my bruises and took it as an invitation to hurt me more.
On rare occasions, one or two men had looked at me with pity, and it had churned my stomach. I didn’t need anyone’s damn pity.
After what felt like a lifetime, Gideon finally dragged his gaze back up to my face. Water droplets dotted his leather vest, soaked his shirt until it clung to his muscled shoulders like a second skin.
“Who did that to you?”
His tone had changed—quiet and firm, with a hard edge like a knife, ready to draw blood.
I grabbed the hem of my shirt and shoved it down, attempting to cover the bruise.
“It’s nothing.”
I tensed, waiting for him to force the issue. Expecting him to scoff at my paper-thin lie and unleash his anger, letting it boil until it filled the room, oppressive and loud.
Gideon swiped the back of his hand under his nose. A streak of blood marked his knuckles. He winced slightly, betraying the fact that it really did hurt despite his valiant effort to hide how much pain he must be in, thanks to me.
“Do I look stupid to you?”
Undoubtedly a rhetorical question, but I latched onto it, probably despite my better judgment.
“Don’t you think I’ve done enough damage already?” I countered, fighting my voice to remain steady. “I’ll leave your pride in fucking pieces if I answer that question.”
Gideon snorted then grimaced since it probably hurt like hell. I was still shaking so hard that my muscles were cramping. My lips must have been turning blue by now.
“With that wicked little tongue of yours, I have no doubt you could wreck a man twice your size and leave him curled up in a ball, crying,” he replied. “But bruises don’t materialize out of nowhere. So, I’ll ask you one more time. Who did that to you?”
I huddled in the tub and scowled at him, silent, indicating I had no intention of cooperating. He sighed and ran a hand through his damp hair, slicking it back.
“I should bend you over my knee for being so stubborn,” he muttered.
After years of beatings, I knew how to recognize a genuine threat when I saw one. There was no heat to Gideon’s voice though, no real menace to his words.
He didn’t mean it.
And that confused me.
I’d hurt him. I’d acted up and refused to give him what he wanted. I’d been a total bitch this whole time. There was no doubt in my mind that he could hurt me if he wanted to—badly.
For a brief moment, I pictured Gideon’s big, callused hands guiding my bare body over his knees. I pictured the sharp sting of his hot, heavy palm on my bare ass. I pictured the way he would touch me in the same way he spoke now—gentle but firm, commanding but not taking.
The silence between us had morphed into something else…something I couldn’t put my finger on. Gideon’s gaze swept over me, slow, assessing, until he met my eyes again.
“Well, look at that,” he murmured. “The promise of a spanking has you speechless.”
“Go to hell, grandpa.”
He hummed and shook his head. If I hadn’t been so damn cold, I might have blushed from head to toe under his gaze.
“Tell me your name,” Gideon said. “Then I’ll take the cuffs off so you can shower alone.”
That definitely sounded too good to be true. Too easy. There had to be a trick somewhere in all this.
I hesitated, weighing whether or not I believed him. Despite his broken nose, Gideon hadn’t lost his temper, hadn’t exploded like I expected him to. It should have put me at ease, knowing he had more self-control than the scumbags who my brother introduced me to. On the other hand, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a setup and I was walking right into a trap.
Either way, it didn’t seem like I had much of a choice. If I wanted my freedom, I’d have to play along.
What if I lied? Since he hadn’t checked my backpack for any kind of ID, I could give him any name I wanted to. He wouldn’t know the difference.
“Choose wisely,” Gideon warned, as if reading my mind. “You get one shot at this second chance. Don’t throw it away by being a smartass.”
I huffed, tempted to deal with the consequences anyway as long as I got the satisfaction of firing off a sarcastic remark. But I was tired and this water was fucking cold. So, I gave in.
“Liss,” I finally admitted, begrudgingly. “My name is Larissa. Since I couldn’t pronounce it when I was little, I called myself Liss and it stuck.”
“There now. That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
Gideon reached up and turned the knob on the shower. Gradually, the water began to grow warmer until I wasn’t shivering anymore. Blissful heat trickled over my skin. For a brief moment, his gaze lingered on the bruise at my hip. I hoped and prayed he wouldn’t pressure me to tell him about that, too.
Then he tossed a key into the bathtub.
“When you’re done, come and get that hot meal I promised you.”
As Gideon turned to leave, I scrambled for the key and jammed it into the cuff’s lock. Just as he closed the door, it dawned on me. The big tough biker was the first man in my life who hadn’t sought to hurt me. He’d only asked for my name and nothing more.