Nine
T hey hadn’t spotted the discreet cameras set up in our little love nest, and I was glad I hadn’t removed them before they found the place. Watching my biker lover losing his shit was beautiful. Perfect . He’d torn that place apart, like it could undo what had happened between us. He denied our love. Our beautiful love. But I’d show him. I’d remind him. I’d make him realise that we were meant for each other.
I didn’t know that he’d be the one, but I realised it as I watched that video of him over and over again. That raw anger and frustration. Those strong, muscular arms flexing, as he tore at the drapery I’d worked so hard on. I remembered those muscles bulging, as he struggled against his restraints, in those random moments where he seemed to realise that things were not as he felt they should be.
Next time, I’d let him have a little more awareness. Let him struggle a little more. Maybe tear up the skin on those wrists of his a little. Let him bleed for me some more. I copied the files onto my system, and disconnected the camera feed. I didn’t need to retrieve the cameras from the nest. They were cheap crap, but they’d given me what I needed.
I scrolled back through the files, and found the clips of our night together. I’d already taken time to edit the footage, making smaller clips of my favourite moments, like the time I moved just in time to have him cover me with his cum. The way I deepthroated that large cock, and gagged on it. The way he yelled out when I clawed him with my nails. I wished I could leave a more permanent mark next time, like maybe a tattoo, or even a brand.
Ryder
I barely remembered returning to the clubhouse. I knew that we were in that fucking van, because I still wasn’t cleared to use my own wheels, and there’s no way I’m riding bitch. I stumbled back to my room, barely holding it together.
I had so much fucking anger burning inside of me, and no outlet for it. Torch had tried to make me take it out on him, and I know he kind of gets off on pain, but I hadn’t wanted to hurt him. And that other guy. Jesus .
Did I really try to rape a guy? Was I really preparing to try and force my cock into some guy’s ass, just to punish him for thinking we were gay or something? What the fuck had broken in my brain?
My door crashed open, and I realised I hadn’t made it very far. I was sitting on the floor with my back against the wall beside the door.
“Fuck’s sake. Are you drunk?” Reacher grabbed my arm and dragged me up from the floor, slamming the door behind him. We were alone, but why just him? I thought club business was club business or some shit. Maybe Stitch was balls deep in some club whore right now, not that we had many willing to associate with us.
“Sit down.” Reacher pretty much threw me into a chair, and I crossed my ankle over the other knee, while I rested my head back, staring at the ceiling. I still felt like I could cry like a fucking bitch. What I nearly did tonight… it had shaken me more than I’d ever admit to Torch.
I’ve never lost control like that before. The important thing about what I do is always knowing where the lines are that you should never cross. I fucking crossed one tonight. With that guy.
Was he right now sitting alone somewhere, cursing me for trying to do that to him? Was he with the cops? Trying to build a fucking sketch of me? Of Torch? Was he at the hospital, getting patched up, and trying to hide the fact that some bastard had tried to ass-rape him?
Jesus Christ.
A coffee was slammed down on the table in front of me.
“You’ll drink that, if you know what’s good for you,” Reacher snarled at me, probably still thinking I’d come back drunk. I wish. I wish I’d had a fucking drink. I wished there was something to blame for what I did. Instead, it’s all on me , and I can’t hide from that.
“I’m pretty sure coffee, the way you make it, is never good for me,” I muttered, staring at the too-dark drink in front of me. Jesus, did he even add milk? Have I even got any? I rubbed my face.
“Instead of being a smart-ass, talk to me, brother. Nobody else needs to know what gets said in this room. I can’t let you out there like a loose cannon, but I need to know what’s going on with you.”
I lifted my head to look at him. He didn’t look angry, or cranky, or any of the things I normally saw. He looked worried.
“What did Torch tell you?”
He groaned, rubbing at the piercings in his eyebrow. What did that actually achieve? Did it hurt? Did it tickle? Did it feel nice? I wanted to ask, but I’d just be stalling.
“He said that shit went down, and that you need to tell me yourself.”
Jesus fuck . I couldn’t look at him.
“Bar was a bust. Bartender remembers a blonde, but says it’s my responsibility to remember who I fuck.”
He snorted. “Yeah, guy’s always been a prick. I’ve had run ins with him before.”
“Oh… I think I’m barred now though. Torch too, maybe.”
He shrugged, sipping his tar-like coffee.
“No big deal. You’re on house arrest again anyway.”
“ Fucker .”
His eyebrows were raised, as he stared back at me.
“I just know you meant to say thank you to your fucking Club President for having your back.”
I went back to avoiding his eyes.
“We had a run in with a guy outside the bar too.”
He didn’t speak, but I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t look him in the eye, or see his face, his reaction, when I told him.
“I was having a bit of a scuffle with Torch, and some bell-end thought we were making out or something.”
“Yeah, I’m guessing you took offense.”
I glared at him then. “What do you think? Intolerant asshole, even though we weren’t gay. And I was pissed. Hanging onto my fucking temper by a thread.”
Reacher growled under his breath.
“Just get on with it. Tell me. You beat on the guy? Jesus… did you kill him?”
I suddenly felt like I actually wanted to see his face when I told him. Like I wanted to see his horror, the shock. I wanted to see how ashamed of me he’d be. I wanted his anger, and his hatred. Maybe even needed it.
“I beat on him. Yeah… and then I figured, why not show him what being gay feels like.”
Reacher’s jaw dropped. “What the fuck? Tell me you didn’t.”
Yep. There’s that horror, like he doesn’t know who the fuck he’s looking at right now.
“Torch stopped me,” I finally said, but it didn’t make him lose that look.
“Before, or after?” He growled, his tone deadly.
“Before. Don’t worry, I didn’t rape anyone.”
He slammed the coffee down, his fists clenching.
“You stupid fuck. You know why clubs like ours have a bad name? Shit like this. Did he see your club patches? Are the cops gonna be hassling us again? You know we’ve got some illegal shit going on right now. You know they love riding us. Now we’re gonna have rape cases, and attempted rape cases, because you’re so pissed that you can’t keep your head straight?”
I shrugged. “We were wearing our cuts, Pres. He must have seen them, but I think he’ll be too scared to talk though.”
“Or ashamed? I mean, you nearly did to him what you’re still fucking reeling from yourself. Not quite in the same way, but the end result is the fucking same. You’re on more than house arrest. You’re staying in this fucking room, until I say otherwise.”
“What the fuck!”
He stood up; his coffee forgotten, mug of sludge that it was.
“Be fucking grateful that I’m not locking you downstairs. You can’t be trusted out there right now.”
“I need to find this bitch,” I snapped, shooting up from the chair to glare at him.
“This right here? This is how I know you’re off your fucking rocker. Getting in my face? A day ago you’d never have dreamed of it. Now you think you’re the hard man, but you’re gonna get put down. Hard .”
I grabbed the coffee he’d made for me, and turned, throwing the mug at the wall, splashing dark liquid all over the wall, and the floor, ceramic shards flying.
“Yeah. Really fucking impressive. I’m not sending a prospect to clean that up.”
“Fuck it, it can rot for all I care.”
Reacher sat back down, the move heavy and exhausted.
“This isn’t you, brother. You’re dealing with something that you can’t get your head around, and you’re coming at every one of us, when we try to help. You need to get your head straight, but I don’t know how to help you. I know the doc wants to run some tests though.”
“What the fuck for? We know I was roofied.”
“STDs, Ryder. You weren’t with it, so you wouldn’t have been able to suit up for it. I’m guessing she didn’t bother. She could have had all sorts.”
Fuck . That had never even occurred to me, and for that matter…
“Jesus… what if she did it to get pregnant? What if right now she’s carrying my fucking baby?”
“Then I guess we’ll know who she is when you get hit for child support,” Reacher muttered glibly.
“Yeah, thanks. That’s helpful.”
He drank his crappy cup of coffee.
“Okay. I’m done. You’re gonna stay here tonight. Eat something. Rest. Tomorrow, doc is gonna take his samples and check you out. Ice will hopefully have more for us by then. You got your phone back now, so you call me if you need out. I’m putting two prospects on your door. Try not to be an asshole to them. This ain’t a duty any of them want. This is for your own protection, brother.”
I slumped back into my chair. “I get it, Pres. Thanks. I appreciate you not putting my head through the nearest wall for this shit.”
He shrugged, getting up and heading for the door.
“I still might, if you don’t clean up that mess you made. This is our fucking home, yeah?”
I nodded, watching him leave, hearing him muttering to some guys outside. Fucking prospects guarding my door. Keeping me inside. Why was I being punished for what she did? I needed to find her. I just had no clue how.
I glanced at my phone, which I’d lost track of again, but it was on my table in front of me. Did Reacher return it?
I could call Torch to hang with me. Tell him to bring dinner, and bring fucking alcohol, but then he’d gone running to Reacher. He was freaked out about the way I behaved out there. I stared at my phone. Did I want any other brother of mine to hang out with? Not really. None of them knew, at least as far as I was aware.
Another thought occurred to me. What if I could get one of the club girls up here? Fuck my troubles away? I sent out a text to Chrissy, the one I usually looked for when I wanted to get laid. She always made me feel good.
She didn’t take long to respond.
Chrissy : You know I can never say no to you…
Chrissy : But… Reacher was clear. None of us are allowed.
Fucker. He’d even warned the girls off. It was only when I set the phone down that I realised why. It wasn’t about me being on edge. It was about impending tests for STDs. Even though I always suit up, we don’t put the girls at risk, not knowingly.
Me : Don’t worry. Next time.
Chrissy : I could do phone sex… no rule against that.
She included some raunchy emojis after that one, but no. As it turned out, sex wasn’t really what I wanted anyway.
Me : Nah. I prefer my fucking with actual fucking. Later babe.
Chrissy : I’m sorry, Ryder.
I tossed the phone aside. What now? In the end I picked the phone back up, and rang Torch.
“You ringing to kill me over the phone?” He answered warily, and it made me grin. He sounded just like he always did.
“Nah, I wanted to entice you to my room, so I can kill you here.”
He barked out a laugh. “What do you need, brother?”
“Something to eat. Alcohol. Company.”
He cursed. “Food I can do. Alcohol, yeah, I can sort that. I know you’re not allowed out of that room, and I can’t bring any of the bitches up. He’s warned them all off.”
“Nah, I want your company.”
He was silent for a moment.
“I’m not fucking ya.”
I laughed somehow. “Bring a lot of alcohol. I’ll get you really drunk first.”
He ended the call, but I caught a laugh as he did. Ten minutes later he was letting himself into my room, and he was carrying an armload of bags, so I got up and helped him. I’d wiped up the spilled, or more accurately splashed, coffee, and tossed the broken mug. The place still stank of bitter coffee, but whatever food he’d brought was already starting to fill the room with new smells.
“Hotdogs? You went to the guy down the road, yeah?” I grabbed one, and started eating before he even answered, because suddenly I was starved.
He nodded, going to my kitchen, and rummaging for hot sauce.
“Yeah, course. So… we getting drunk?”
I finished the mouthful I had, damn near half the giant hotdog.
“Fucking right. Don’t rule out sex though, I might want to fuck you later.”
“ Too soon, man .” He grimaced, stuffing his face with his food.
Mine was gone already, so I reached for the bottle of vodka he’d brought, and fetched some glasses.
“Yeah, sorry. I thought we’d be ready to joke about it, but truthfully, I’m still freaked out. What the hell was going on in my head?”
I poured us both a generous glass, because who wants to bother with shots right now? I lifted up and sat on my kitchen counter, facing him, while he still ate.
“Thanks for stopping me. That was fucked up. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have actually gone through with it.”
He glanced at me as he wiped his face, and scrunched up the packaging from his hotdog.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. You try that on me though, and I’ll put your face through a window. Just saying.”
I nodded. “You know it was just a heat of the moment thing. I’m not… that’s not me. I scared the hell outta myself though.”
“Me too. I don’t mind watching you fuck a woman, or us fucking her at the same time. That shit’s normal, but trying to rape some homophobe in a dark alley, that’s next level fucked. You know I’d have done whatever it took to stop you, yeah? I mean, we were wearing our cuts, man.”
I drank most of the vodka in my glass, leaning my head back against the wall.
“I know. No wonder the Pres has me on lockdown. I was a fucking disaster. I just… I need to find her, you know? I need to find out why she did that, and I need to get my own back. I need to fucking make her hurt.”
“And you’re saying stuff you’d never have said before. You don’t mind a rough fuck, but you don’t hurt women, not the way you’re describing. She fucked you up pretty good.”
I stared at my glass. “I don’t like the not knowing. Not remembering what the fuck happened. It’s killing me. Anything could have happened, Torch. I was out of it. I was a fucking sitting duck. Who knows if she did other stuff, or if there was someone else there, or… Jesus… I don’t know … I’d have fucked her. She didn’t need to…”
“Rape you. It’s rape, brother, and that’s why you’re fucked in the head. Because you feel like this shit doesn’t happen to guys, and especially not guys like us. We’re top of the fucking food chain. We hurt others. We don’t get taken advantage of. We don’t get forced into anything, and nobody survives an attack on us. We’ll get her.”
I tightened my grip on my now-empty glass.
“How? We don’t have a fucking clue who she was, or where she is. For all we know, she swept through town, took what she wanted, and she’s already hundreds of miles away. And I’m left here wondering what the fuck happened, and why.”
Torch glanced behind him, at the sitting area.
“Your phone is going off.”
I slid off the counter, and went to fetch it. I hadn’t heard it, but it appeared to be on vibrate. It was dancing across the table surface intermittently, like messages were coming through.
I picked it up, expecting an update from Reacher or Stitch, or maybe even Ice. Either that or Chrissy, trying to coax me into phone sex again.
It was an unknown number. Three new messages.
Unknown : I had fun last night. We should do it again.
What the fuck!
Unknown : You felt so good inside me. Did you like it?
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I muttered, clicking the third message. A video clip.
The phone dropped out of my hand, as I absorbed what I’d just seen.
“What the fuck, man?” Torch grabbed the phone from the floor, as I dropped into the seat behind me. “You’ll smash the screen.” He checked it, and then glanced at me.
“What was it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I lifted my eyes to his. “Check out the messages from the unknown number.” He turned to the screen, swiping with his thumb, and then he cursed. And then he cursed some more.
He pulled his own phone out of his pocket, and dialled.
“We need you in Ryder’s room. The cunt sent him messages.”
He rang off. No other words were needed.
“Give it to me.”
He waved me off, staring at the screen.
“Give me the fucking phone,” I yelled, my fists clenched.
My door crashed open, and he passed it straight to Reacher, who looked like he’d been drinking. Stitch was right behind him, still fastening his jeans. Jesus. Did he just stop mid-fuck?
“What the fuck. That bitch,” I heard Reacher mutter, as he passed the phone to Stitch. Reacher was watching me now. I knew what Stitch was seeing. What the other two had seen.
Video footage. Of me, tied to that bed naked, except for the woman straddling my waist, riding my dick like she owned it. We couldn’t see her face. She was careful about that. But there was the red hair, flowing down her back, flying around her face as she rocked and writhed on top of me. Her hands were on my chest. She dragged her nails down my skin, leaving dark red marks, and I was unconscious. At least until she clawed me, and then my eyes opened, and I yelled out.
I’d only seen it once, but it was burned into my brain. I couldn’t stop seeing it. She really had tied me to a bed, and fucked me. While I was drugged up, and unaware of it.
Stitch was cursing, and disappeared from the room, taking my phone with him. I lurched out of the chair, wanting him to stop, to bring it back. Don’t show it to anyone.
Torch shoved me back into my chair.
“Stay the fuck there, man. He’ll be discreet.”
I glared at him. “He’s got my phone, with video footage of me apparently being raped by a woman. You tell me how the fuck that isn’t about to destroy my fucking reputation in this club. I’m weak. I’m a fucking victim!”
I shot to my feet again, upending the coffee table with a crash, turning to grab my chair, flipping it over. From there I went to my kitchen, where I grabbed the vodka, and started drinking it from the bottle. Oblivion. I just needed oblivion. Peace. No more concerned eyes, and fucking humiliation .