Hawk (Ride with Me)

Chapter 14

Ruby

Nightmares from my past life invaded my brain last night. I tried so hard in the last few years to forget about the people who hurt me and led me to my present life. But those men chasing me last night brought it all back to the surface.

I woke up this morning in Hawk’s arms. Feeling his naked body against mine freaked me out. I’ve never actually slept with a man before. The only relationship I had was with my high school sweetheart, which ended in my life being completely destroyed.

The sound of the water running confused me when I first became aware of my surroundings, my first instinct being that someone broke in. Hawk’s arms fell off my body as I detached myself from him.

I walked into the bathroom and realized the shower was running. I put my hand under the water, the thought of taking a shower so very tempting. The water was cold as ice though. I turned the knobs off and looked around me, unsure of which way to go.

First on the list was putting my clothes back on. Since all I had was a pair of sweatpants and a tank top, I still felt severely underdressed once I had them on.

I walked back into the main part of the room and watched Hawk as he continued sleeping. His gun was on the table next to the bed. It would’ve been no trouble to grab it and shoot him dead.

Luckily, I came to my senses quickly enough. He is the only protection I have at the moment. If I killed him, whoever was after me last night would have absolutely no problem finding me today.

I also have feelings for Hawk. They would not allow me to hurt a hair on his head regardless of anything else. Him pointing that same gun I was eyeing before at me did nothing to make me change my mind about him.

Now, as he left me alone in his room at the motel, I once again wonder what the point of surviving is anymore. I stare at my cell phone, realizing that I have not one person I can call to help me in any way.

In the same respect, I don’t know why I trust Hawk at all. After all, he did tell me that he purposely gave me false information that he knew I would share with Lala, and in turn, it would get to Bricks.

He set me up to fail, and he succeeded in it. Now, only a couple of months away from turning twenty-two, my life is once again in danger of being over. I’m not sure if I can get away from this like I did from my situation four years ago.

Chills take over my entire body as I remain seated in the chair where Hawk left me three hours ago. He never said where he was going or when he’d be back. His words before exiting the room echo in my head.

“It’s up to you if you want to leave while I’m gone. If you do leave, be prepared to die shortly after. Just because I told them last night that you were not here, it doesn’t mean they believed it. What you do next is your fucking business.”

I drop my face in my hands and resist the urge to cry. It wouldn’t solve anything, and I’d only end up with a major headache.

Standing up from the chair, I walk over to the bed to grab the blanket off it. That’s when I notice a large black hoodie on the floor. I pick it up and bring it to my face, almost weeping when the smell of Hawk hits all my senses at once.

I don’t hesitate when I pull it over my head and once again bury my face in it. I feel exhausted and out of sorts, so I decide to lie down and wait. I don’t see any of his other stuff in here, so the chances of him coming back for me are pretty slim.

Closing my eyes for a second, I try to process everything. I’m thinking that if I just went to the police, it would not do anything. If I learned anything from what happened to me back home is that anyone can be bought.

Since they apparently want me, they are most likely tracking all of my moves, including whether I’d end up in Louisiana. I’m not sure whether contacting my financial advisor is a good idea or not.

Suddenly, another thought crosses my mind, this one the most frightening of them all. What if they are able to hack into my accounts and steal all my money? Or just buy off the guy who takes care of them where he just hands everything over to them. I could end up with nothing. The security that money has been giving me for the last couple of years is all I got.

My eyes snap open when I hear movement at the door. Scared that the two men from last night are now back, I get up from the bed and run to the bathroom, doing what Hawk showed me last night, just lie flat in the tub.

I do just that, not even breathing when I hear the door opening. My eyes stare at the ceiling, taking in every crack in the plaster and the paint that’s peeling off.

Heavy footsteps enter the room right before the door slams hard, rattling the entire building, just about. The person walks around slowly, and in no time at all, he is in the doorway to the bathroom. I slap a hand over my mouth in an effort to stop myself from crying out loud. At this rate, no one will have to kill me because my heart is about to give out on its own.

“Very good, sweetheart.” Hawk’s face pops up above me. “You do have some survival instinct in you. I doubted it a little.”

For some reason, his words offend me.

“You have no idea about me or my instincts,” I spit at him, albeit in a much softer voice than I was planning on.

“Agreed,” he nods.

I sit up from the tub, expecting him to help me out once I do it. He just stares at me with an obnoxious smirk that I want to slap off his face. I step out of the tub and remain in front of him, staring him down like I’m the one who’s a foot taller.

He lifts a hand and I flinch, thinking he is about to smack me instead. But he just ruffles the hair on top of my head and chuckles.

“You’re cute, babe.”

He walks away, leaving me standing by the tub, dumbfounded. This is the first time he’s called me by anything other than sweetheart. I’m not even sure he’s ever called me Ruby, at least not in an endearing way.

I blink a couple of times in an effort to shake off the feeling of belonging, not necessarily in his biker world, but with him, no matter where he’d go.

“Well,” his voice calls out to me. “Since you’re still here, I’m thinking you’re not ready to be on your own.”

He’s not asking me, just telling me, and I’ve never heard truer words in my life.

“With that said, we have a few things to talk about.”

I look at the bags he has sitting on the bed.

“I need to be somewhere by tonight.” There’s apprehension in his voice. “If this gets back to Bricks, I will be dead. And there won’t be anyone protecting you anymore.”

It takes me a minute to understand what he’s telling me. This is not something I should share with Lala. At this point, I wouldn’t even if he begged me.

“But I do need you to pass on a message,” he continues, and all my hopes for a normal life fly out the window.

“You need to tell Lala that there’s a meeting with Devereaux at two in the afternoon, on the day after tomorrow.”

I just stare at him, never making a move toward my phone.

“Who is Devereaux?” I ask without thinking.

Hawk smirks at me. “Bricks’ best friend. Just hearing about this should get him going.”

I continue staring, and he doesn’t look amused anymore. He grabs my cell phone off the bed and looks at it. When he taps on the screen, the passcode requirement pops up. His eyebrow lifts in question.

“Four, three, two, one,” I whisper and look away in embarrassment.

“Jesus Christ,” he shakes his head at me. “I’m not sure how you’re still alive, sweetheart.”

He unlocks my phone, scrolls through it for a while before finally typing a message, presumably to Lala.

I sigh and sit down on the bed, with my head hanging as I’m staring at my hands. At this point, I don’t even care anymore. He’s using me, they’re using me, nobody gives a shit about me or my needs.

I don’t even know if I have any needs anymore. My biggest dream after running away from home has been to save enough money where I never had to worry about it for the rest of my life. I’ve always been very aware of the fact that stripping is not a long term career. People get old and their bodies change. I will never bring in the kind of money I bring in now.

Unfortunately, getting on these criminals’ radar is halting the one thing that was going very well for me.

“Okay, now that’s done, you need to get changed.”

I jump when Hawk throws something at me. When I look down, I notice a pair of jeans. I pick them up and stare. They look very much like a pair I already own.

“How did you guess my size?” I ask. He specifically asked about my shoe size, not my clothes.

“I broke into your apartment.”

The way he tells me that is so casual, I almost miss it. But when it does, panic sets it. I have so much cash hidden in the floorboards, anyone could just walk in and take it.

“Oh my god, did you leave the door open?”

Hawk takes offense to that.

“What kind of stupid criminal do you think I am, sweetheart? No, I did not leave the door open. I didn’t even go in through the door. I used the window in the bathroom, which, by the way, you left open.

I press a hand to my chest, trying to think back to what I did when I left the house to go to work on the day before yesterday. I do open that window sometimes when I take a shower, to let the steam out, so it is entirely possible that I left it open.

A long-sleeved top hits me in the head next, followed by a bra and a pair of panties. They are skimpy and not for casual wearing, same with the bra.

“I thought you could use some undergarments,” he smirks at me.

I look at everything that’s now sitting in my lap. The bra and panties, the top, the jeans.

“What do I need all this for?”

“It is safer for riding on the bike. Unless…” He scans me up and down. “Unless you prefer to ride in what you’re currently wearing. It gets a tad nippily while riding, if you catch my drift.”

I cross my arms over my chest, the words of those two men from the other night haunting me. They were making comments about my breasts. They are on the larger side, always have been. They are also responsible for all the trouble I got into over the years.

“I don’t understand why I would need to be on a bike anyway,” I sulk. And it’s true, I don’t know what his plans are. “Where are you taking me?”

Hawk shakes his head at me in disappointment.

“I told you last night, sweetheart. We’re going to go visit my mother.”

My eyes widen in surprise. I know he said that, but I never believed for a second that he actually meant it. I remain quiet, waiting for him to expand on it. Instead, he motions with his hands for me to get dressed.

“In front of you?” I ask in disbelief.

That makes him laugh. “Why? You can only take your clothes off in front of people, not put them back on?”

His words anger me enough where I don’t even care anymore. With slow moves, I grab onto the bottom of the hoodie I’m wearing and pull it over my head. That’s followed by the tank top and sweatpants. Before long, I am standing in front of him completely naked.

“Nice,” he grins and looks me over in appreciation. There’s lust in his eyes, but also something more that I can’t put my finger on.

With a definite attitude, I pick up the panties and slide them over my legs, making sure to move as slow as I am physically capable of. I then pick up the bra and make a big spectacle of fitting the cups over my breasts before adjusting the straps and hooking it in the back.

The jeans are next, and I repeat the process like I did with the panties. By the time I have them zipped and buttoned up, Hawk looks like he is ready to throw me on the mattress and fuck me into next week. I’m not sure what’s holding him back, but I do try to make it as hard as possible for him to resist me.

When I reach for the long-sleeved top he brought me, he stops me.

“Change of plans.” He throws at me the tank top I just threw off.

I slide it over my head with no protest, because I don’t even care at this point. Once it’s on properly, I place both hands on my hips and stare at him.

“Happy?”

He takes a step closer and reaches for my breasts. With abrupt moves, he lifts the cups of my bra and pulls the tank top lower until the full swells show over.

“Now I am,” he winks at me.

He then hands me his hoodie.

“Wear this over. You’ll need it,” he informs me knowingly. “And it looks hot as fuck on you.”

I put it on and look down, trying to picture what he’s seeing. The material almost reaches my knees, and my entire body is completely engulfed in it.

Without explaining himself further, Hawk picks up one of the plastic bags he dropped on the bed.

“Socks,” he says as he hands me a pair of thick cotton white socks. I look at them with disdain.

“I don’t remember the last time I wore something like this.”

Hawk doesn’t acknowledge my words. Instead, he hands me something else.

“Boots,” he points at them.

It’s a pair of leather boots, like the ones I saw bikers wearing before, except that these are smaller. When I slide my feet in them, I am surprised how well they fit.

“Okay,” Hawk claps his hands together. “Now we are ready.”

Right before turning around, he points to a backpack he had sitting next to the bags. I recognize it as my own.

“Look inside,” he encourages me.

With shaky hands, I pick up the backpack and undo the zipper. I gasp in shock when I look at the contents.

“My money! How did you find it?”

I don’t have time to count it right now, but I swear it’s all the stacks I had hidden under the floorboards.

“They weren’t hard to find, babe,” he shrugs at me.

My pulse picks up at hearing that endearment again. Tears well up in my eyes, and I don’t know what to say.

Hawk stretches his arm out, offering me his hand. When I touch it, he runs the rough pads of his fingers over my much softer ones.

“Come on, babe. Ride with me.”

He doesn’t give me any choice but to follow him. I rush to zip up the backpack while Hawk rolls up the top he brought to me and the sweatpants I was wearing earlier. He walks outside first, making sure there’s no one out there. He puts all his stuff and mine in the two saddles framing his motorcycle, then he sits on it and starts it. All the while, I remain standing in the doorway, scared to step a foot outside the door.

Hawk revs up the bike before turning around to look at me.

“There is no one here right now,” he assures me. “We need to leave.”

I put my backpack on and pull the hood over my head before taking off in a light run until I reach him. He pats the seat behind him, showing me what to do. With tentative moves, I land on the seat, my knees framing his hips. He hands me a helmet, which takes me a minute to secure to my head.

“Say goodbye to this fucking town, babe,” Hawk mutters in the corner of his mouth. “You’ll never see it again.”