Chapter Twenty-One #2
Something in his eyes flashed. He stepped me backward until my shoulders touched the shelves. Boxes rattled; a bolt rolled to the floor and spun. He kissed me deeper and pushed me into the shelves. My fingers fumbled at his cut, and he dropped his head to my throat.
“Demi,” he said into my skin, like the word was an answer and a plea all in one. His palms slid under the hem of the hoodie and over the thin cotton of my tank top. His fingers mapped me in slow, sure lines over my ribs, waist, the narrow of my back, and everywhere he could touch.
Voices moved past the door. The outside world returned for a heartbeat then receded because his mouth was at my jaw.
“Tell me to stop,” he said. It didn’t sound like a question.
“Don’t,” I said. It didn’t sound like a choice.
He kissed me again. Slowly turning hungry while bleeding into something that was on the edge of rough. I arched. He groaned. His hand splayed at my lower back. The other framed my jaw.
“Door,” I whispered, uselessly, because it was shut but not locked.
“It’s fine,” he said and kissed me until I believed him.
When we finally broke, the room felt too small to hold the air we were using. We stood forehead to forehead, drawing in the same breath and bargaining with ourselves about what to do next. He smoothed a hand over my hair like the gesture could put back pieces I hadn’t noticed he’d undone.
“I need to go to church,” he said, reluctant.
“I gathered.”
“I’ll keep it short.”
“I gathered that less.”
A huff, almost a laugh. “Stay here. Lock the door. If anyone knocks, no one will, but if they do, you don’t answer. You text me.”
I swallowed the protest, saved the eye roll, and nodded. “Fine. Stay in the closet.”
He kissed me once more, quick and possessive, then was gone. The door clicked behind him, and I was alone. I twisted the lock on the handle and sighed. Not at all how I thought I was going to be spending my day, but life hadn’t really been normal lately.
I checked my phone. No service in the closet. Of course. The hum of voices swelled through the wall, then settled into a rhythm. Time stretched. I traced the edges of a shipping label until the glue lifted.
Minutes or years later, I wasn’t sure, the doorknob jiggled.
My breath shot out of me. It happened again, sharper. “Hello?” a voice called, muffled. Young. Nervous.
Footsteps moved away. Silence returned, then the low thud of the bass from the main room resumed. I unclenched my fist and buried my face in the hoodie. It smelled like Werewolf, and it helped to calm me.
I forced myself to breathe slowly and my eyes moved around to inventory the small closet: two metal shelves, a stack of rags, eleven quarts of oil, a red toolbox with a drawer half-open, a patch kit for something bigger than a bicycle, and at least eight cans of paint.
I was about to start reading the paint colors on the cans when there was another knock on the door.
“Demi?” The voice was close to the door, pitched low. It was familiar, and I knew it was the brunette from the bar with the winged eyeliner. “You in there?”
I said nothing. My pulse kicked up. The knob turned once but didn’t open because I had turned the lock. “Look,” she said, “you can either learn how this place works the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is another woman tells you before the men shove you into it.”
My throat tightened around a dozen stupid responses. I said none of them.
“He’s got enemies,” she went on. “Some with patches, some without. You think being his makes you safe. It makes you visible. Learn where to stand and when not to talk. Learn who not to look in the eye.” A pause.
“And learn that sometimes the thing you make a man do to protect you is the one that kills him.”
The floor tilted. I hated that her words got through the door. Hated more that they hit anything inside me that could be hit.
“See you around,” she said finally, and her footsteps receded down the hall.
About five minutes later, another knock sounded, but this time it was Werewolf’s voice that accompanied it. “Open the door, Demi. It’s me.”
I twisted open the lock and yanked open the door.
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
“You wouldn’t really think there would be much happening in a closet, but you would be surprised. Some chick knocked, and then about five minutes after that, your friend with the eyeliner decided to try to offer an olive branch and clue me in on things…” I said. “And doom.”
“Which one?” His tone didn’t change, but his jaw did.
“Brunette. Wingtips sharp enough to cut a man.”
He grunted, somewhere between annoyance and amusement. “She’s under Tremor’s thumb. I wouldn’t listen to a word she says.”
I nodded and was glad I hadn’t opened the door to her. “How was church?”
“Shorter than I thought,” he said. “Longer than I wanted. Prez is… listening. Tremor has his ear and is doing everything he can to take me down.”
“And me?”
“You are what they’ll use to measure me.” He took two steps, erased the space between us, and cupped the back of my neck again. “Which is why I need you to do that annoying survival thing again.”
“You mean stay close and shut up.”
“Yeah, that.”
“You could at least say ‘please.’”
“Please,” he said, and it shouldn’t have hit as hard as it did.
We didn’t leave right away. He kissed me again, this time unhurried. My fingers slipped under the edge of his shirt, and I lost myself in him. It was so easy to do. The kiss ramped up, and his hands spanned my waist while I tried not to moan loudly.
“Wolf,” I said when his mouth cut a line along my throat. It came out like a confession. He lifted his head, and his eyes were a darker color than they’d been when he walked in.
“If I don’t take you out of this room now,” he said roughly, “I’m going to forget it’s not mine to keep you in.”
“We could continue this in your room, but I don’t think I will ever be able to be in a closet again without getting turned on,” I confessed.
His breath broke on a half-laugh that had no business being that wrecked. “Demi.”
“Although you seem to have more restraint than I do,” I said. “You step away like you’re the only one burning.”
“You think I don’t know you are, too?” He kissed me hard with one hand in my hair and the other skating lower. He eased the hoodie up an inch, and his knuckles brushed my bare waist. “Later,” he said finally. “Somewhere that isn’t a hole in the wall.”
“A closet,” I corrected, my head dizzy.
“Semantics.”
We pulled ourselves together. It took longer than it should have to smooth hair, straighten clothes, and find a breath that didn’t sound like it had been borrowed. He pressed his forehead to mine for one last beat, then took my hand and opened the door.
We made our way back to the common room, and Tremor leaned on the bar, talking low to a younger patched member I didn’t know. Prez stood with his back to us, broad and immovable as a door. I didn’t know if we were late to something or early to it, but there was something in the air.
“Run tonight’s still on,” someone called and tossed keys into the air. “Masks optional, bad decisions mandatory.”
Laughter answered. My hand tightened in his. He glanced down and squeezed once. “Stay with me,” he said under the noise.
“Try and stop me,” I said. I would die before I left Werewolf’s side tonight.
We moved together into the current. The winged brunette watched me pass, though her face was unreadable. A prospect wiped down a table like it might confess something if he rubbed hard enough. Tremor’s eyes cut like a blade, then slid away. No more personal commentary, which was somehow worse.
Close to the door, a man I hadn’t seen before unfolded from a chair. No patch, but he wore a cut like he’d been fitted for one and had walked out before they sewed the name on.
“Wolf,” he said, a nod like a test. “Need a word.”
“Later,” Werewolf said. Easy. Cold.
“Later,” the man echoed, eyes flicking to me. “New pet?”
I didn’t get the chance to answer. Werewolf’s body went still, and stillness in him was louder than violence in anyone else.
The man smiled like he’d been waiting to tap that vein. “Relax. I meant it kindly.”
“Don’t mean anything to her,” Werewolf said. “We clear?”
“Crystal.” The man’s gaze did one more slow slide, then he turned away.
“Bad news?” I asked under my breath.
“Old news,” he said. “That’s Chet. A prospect who will never get his full rocker. Any attention is good attention to him.”
Yeah, not the kind of person I wanted to get to know. I wasn’t sure there was anyone besides Werewolf I wanted to know in the Sons.
We pushed through the door into the early night. The air held that hint of October that tasted like apples and smoke. Halloween was a day away.
He walked me to the bikes. There, under his rear tire, was a scrap of paper folded twice, with a greasy thumbprint on the corner.
He clocked it too and nudged it under the bike with his boot so only we could see.
He bent, picked it up like it was nothing more than a receipt, and unfolded it with two fingers.
Four words were scribbled on the paper: She makes you weak.
No signature.
Tremor was my guess on who it was from. He seemed to like tormenting and teasing Werewolf.
“That’s interesting,” I said.
Werewolf shoved it into his pocket and grunted. “More like a note from an idiot. Fucking Tremor. He just liked poking the bear.”
“Are you worried?”
He scoffed. “That he thinks I’m weak because I’m with you?” He shook his head. “He couldn’t be more wrong. Hungry?” he asked, dismissing the note completely.
“For food?” I said.
“For anything.”
“Always,” I said, and he heard everything I didn’t say.
We didn’t make it to the bar. We made it three steps before he caught my wrist, turned me in under the overhang just out of the line of sight, and kissed me like the note hadn’t rattled him at all.
His hand framed my face and his mouth took mine.
Heat broke over me, real and fast. I clutched his cut and went up on my toes to meet him halfway.
It didn’t go further, but it went far enough that when he broke away, I had to relearn how to breathe. His knuckles traced my cheekbone.
“Tonight,” he said, promise and warning fused. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“I wasn’t going to let you,” I said. It came out breathless, but I meant it.
We stepped back into the noise. Someone wolf-whistled. Someone else laughed.
The rest of the evening was uneventful. Tremor kept his distance. Prez watched us closely. The winged brunette glared at me more times than I could count.
And through all of it, he kept his promise. I stayed within a foot of him, and his hand found the place at the small of my back that calmed every nerve. He was always right there, no matter what.
When we finally slipped out, we headed down the hallway to his room.
The door closed and the silence was perfect.
He took my face in both hands and kissed me like I was the only person in the world.
We worked on undressing each other, and he slid the hoodie off with a care that felt so gentle given everything else he could do with those hands.
He lifted me, and I went willingly. We made it to the bed that felt like home.
“Mine,” he murmured, and I said it back because it was the truth.
Later, I lay with my ear over his heartbeat and felt peace. My body was sore in beautiful ways. My head surprised me by being clear.
I wanted the truth about Tyler. I wanted justice. Those wants hadn’t cooled. They were still there, but now there was also Werewolf. My want for him was just as strong.
“You awake?” I asked.
He shifted under me. “Yeah.”
“You think the ugly part is coming?”
“Which ugly part?”
“Tyler,” I said, the truth finally out loud.
He smoothed my hair back and kissed my forehead like that could keep anything away. “As long as I can keep you safe when it happens.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes, babe. I just hope it doesn’t kill us both.”
I held on to him a little tighter. He didn’t ask why. He pulled me closer and anchored me with an arm across my spine that felt like a promise.
I knew what the answer to the ugly part was: Tremor.
I just needed to hear it out loud. I needed him to pay for it.
It was going to happen soon because I just wanted this to be over. I wanted to move past this and just let it be Werewolf and me.
And after that happened, life would be good.