Chapter 22 Doc
DOC
Her hair tangled and wrapped around my fingers, like every inch of her wanted to make sure that I was every inch of me.
I scooped her against my body, feeling her tip-toes balancing on the tops of my boots as more whoops and hollers rose from the girls.
I even heard a couple of the guys clap their hands.
But Cap’s voice always had a way of dousing cold water on a situation. “Phase One is complete, but it’s time for Phase Two.”
Reluctantly, I pulled away from those luscious lips and let my forehead lean against hers.
“What’s Phase Two?” she whispered.
“Just listen,” I whispered back as I cradled her in my embrace, pulling her against me as I tucked her head beneath my chin.
Anything to remind myself that she was still there.
Still untouched.
Still breathing.
“What’s Phase Two?” Anna asked.
Cap didn’t hesitate. “Phase Two is: we’ve got half an hour to load the bikes up with our things. We have to get you girls out of here.”
“What?!” they all asked in unison.
Even my Liz furrowed her brow as she looked up at me. “What?”
Like Cap wasn’t the end-all-be-all source of knowledge for her.
It was a role I’d take on with honor, being her go-to for all things questions-related.
I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “The house has been compromised. A couple of windows were taken out. They got past Ranger’s perimeter outlines simply by attacking us from beyond them. It isn’t safe here any longer.”
“Come on,” Cap said as he herded us out of the panic room. “We’ve got twenty-nine minutes before we have to be out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“What about those blankets you brought me? Those won’t fit.”
“Will we have enough room for the flowers you just got me? I’d hate to leave them behind.”
“Come on, I’ll help you pack. We can military roll most of your stuff.”
Everyone talked amongst themselves while my brothers went to go help their women.
My Liz’s head was on a swivel, and I saw the calculating look in her eye.
She still looked for threats. Still assessing danger as if she were back in the military.
I wanted to ask her so many things. But I simply allowed for her vigilance.
Sometimes that kind of thing made someone feel better.
Like they had their control back.
My Liz was exceptionally quiet, however.
Instead of peppering me with questions, she simply went over to her things and packed them up.
I stood there with my hands clasped behind my back as I watched her hands.
They moved with precision, like everything about her movement was down to an efficient science.
I hadn’t witnessed this side of her yet.
Up until now, she simply wasn’t strong enough to exude it.
“You gonna come help me, or what?”
Her voice snapped me out of my trance and I grinned. “If you wanted me touching your panties, all you had to do was say so.”
She wrinkled her nose and giggled. “Ew. Don’t say that word again.”
I tilted my head. “What word?”
“Panties. Such a weird word.”
I narrowed my eyes playfully as I slowly talked toward her. “You don’t like the word panties?”
“Or moist,” she said as she continued packing her things with hairline precision. “Or doughnut. A doughnut is neither dough, nor is it in the shape of a nut. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a ballsack with a hole in it, you know what I’m saying?”
Goddamn it, this woman was perfect. “It’s named after a lugnut.”
She paused and looked off at the wall before nodding slowly. “Huh. I suppose that makes more sense. But, still.”
She didn’t finish her sentence, however. She just went back to packing.
Did I miss something? “But still… what?”
She flickered her gaze to me. “Doughnut is still a weird word and I don’t like it.”
I chuckled as I walked over and dropped a kiss on top of her head. “I’ll go get your toiletries packed up.”
“You just wanna feel all up on my tampons.”
I couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped me, despite the moment we found ourselves in.
Was this more of my Liz?
Beautifully calm in the midst of a storm?
It didn’t take us long to pack her up, and then we were out by my bike.
Some of the guys had already loaded up. Others helped their women onto their bikes.
I walked Liz over to mine stashed off to the side, my bright red chopper custom-built for passenger relaxation with extra storage compartments on both sides of the saddle bag.
It took us no time to pack her things up in a way that equally distributed the weight.
She worked with an efficiency and a structured intelligence that I hadn’t seen in action yet.
I was positively enamored.
“Well?” she asked as she turned and offered me her hand. “You going to help me up like a gentleman?”
“Of course, My Elizabeth,” I said as I took her hand within mine.
I tugged her toward me and gripping her waist.
“Whoo!” she exclaimed as I picked her up and placed her onto the passenger princess seat.
Her eyes were wide as I stayed at her side, reaching for the straps and clasps I had added for extra protection.
Hey, I planned to have a passenger princess in my life at some point.
And I couldn’t think of a better one to have.
“All right,” I said as I helped her into a helmet and then jammed mine onto my head. I swung my leg over and got situated. “We’ve still got a few minutes, so why don’t we—”
She slid. She slid down the leather of the bike toward me until her legs straddled me from behind.
Her chest, pressed against the middle of my back.
The heat of her body, radiating through the clothing on my back.
I felt her cheek press in between my shoulder blades.
Her hands sank to my abs, gripping them as if she tested out how in the world she was going to hold onto me for the ride.
“Here,” I muttered as I grabbed her hands.
She looped her arms around me completely.
“Mmm,” she hummed softly.
Oh, I could get used to this.
I sat there motionless until she got herself comfortable.
And then, I kicked up the stand and walked my bike toward the rest of the guys.
I heard their women asking all sorts of questions.
Where we were going. How long it would take us to get there.
Were we all staying once we got there? How far out would we be from Redd Valley?
They were all valid questions.
I was a bit shocked that my Liz had none for herself to interject with.
Instead of Cap holding his hand up to command our attention, or silencing us with one of Wrecker’s ear-shattering whistles, he simply cranked the engine of his bike.
And every single one of us fell into formation.
I always brought up the rear of formations.
Well, no, that wasn’t true. Ghost and Brutus were almost always behind me.
But I was in front of them, and everyone else was in front of us.
I couldn’t help but notice that a couple of the devil’s legion guys were with us, no doubt because our secondary location was none other than one of their safehouses.
It wouldn’t have anywhere near the room my place had.
Or the amount of stolen moments.
My Elizabeth squeezed her arms a little tighter around my body, and my life fell into place.
Her little arms with all of the strength her body could muster clung to me as if she were nothing but a newborn seeking out this confusing way of life, and a protective instinct I’d never known before welled up within me.
I reached down with one of my hands and wrapped it around hers.
I squeezed softly, hoping that she felt my devotion and my commitment to her.
I wished for nothing more than to mutter my promises to her while between her legs.
The wind rushed by us as we kept formation, the stars hanging high in the sky. The moon wasn’t as bright, but it still lit our pathway just the same. The engine rumbled between my legs as I leaned forward, keeping my head on a swivel to look out for anything that may be coming at us.
While My Liz continued to hold onto me like the good girl she was.
I enjoyed having her hang onto me. I enjoyed having her on the back of my bike.
I thought my brothers were crazy to plan things like cross-country trips with these women.
Not that taking trips with women was weird or anything.
But on a bike? No one wanted to spend any of our hard-earned cash on, I don’t know, say, a first-class flight to the tropics for a week?
Anyone?
No?
Maybe my Liz would wish to be spoiled in such a way.
I needed to take the time to ask her.
I leaned back against her every time we came to a stop at a light or a sign.
I felt her nuzzle back against me whenever we took off, like she tried to get as close as possible so that the wind wouldn’t yank her away.
I did my best not to have a lead foot. The guys always complained about how my driving was too reckless when I had things on my mind.
It was why I was stuck in the back of our resting formation on the road.
So I could have a pacer bike ahead of me.
Eventually, after driving around and around, switching bikes and switching girls and switching Iron Battalion with Devil’s Legion and back again, Cap felt like we played enough ‘choose which cup,’ so to speak.
It was a pretty articulate plan, if I did say so myself.
But Cap not filling us in until we were executing it told me how paranoid he felt at that moment.
I couldn’t blame him.
The switch-off was simple: after driving around in different circles for well over an hour, we ended up on the outskirts of one of the towns that The Devil’s Legion stomped around in regularly.
There was a pitch black patch of trees that looked like it had the capability of blocking out the world, given the chance.
We all huddled underneath there before the switch-off took place.
While we shed our jackets and helmets, some of King’s men came out of the woodworks, literally. They shed their jackets off their backs and we exchanged them, even going so far as to take our goddamn bikes from us.
My chopper.
My pride and joy.
I looked over at Cap, but he just nodded his head.
I relinquished my beautiful chopper that I restored and decorated myself.
King ushered us over silently to a fucking van he had stashed away in the darkness of the bushes.
“Come on,” he whispered, “we’ll use the engines of the bikes to cover up our sounds. Let’s get you guys to the safehouse.”
And just as we all piled into the van with King driving, Cap in the passenger’s seat, and the rest of us stuffed in the back, we waited for King’s men to rev our bike engines.
He cranked the van up, keeping the lights off, and backed out of the bushes just as they pulled away from the trees.