Chapter 23 Lizzie
LIZZIE
No wonder the girls loved the bike rides.
It felt so peaceful being on the back of Doc’s bike.
The wind rushed by us, and it felt like little faerie wings wafting against my skin.
The smooth motion of the leans as we took turns made me cling to his waist, and I found that I enjoyed being smashed against him.
We leaned together. We moved together. The motorcycle rumbled between us.
Yet all too soon, we were shoved into the back of a van.
I found myself crammed on Doc’s lap.
“Won’t be long now, my Elizabeth,” he muttered as he kissed my temple.
I melted into him.
His Elizabeth.
I hoped he never stopped calling me that.
But the ride in the van wasn’t smooth. The wheels bounced over potholes and jostled around curves.
The world tilted a bit as my lack of food reared its head.
I’d never been one that was prone to motion sickness, but on an empty stomach and with no grounding force, I was a goner.
The nausea kicked in, and with every dip of the vehicle that bounced us back up, my ribs ached.
One of the turns made me whimper.
“Hey,” Doc called out, “keep the driving smooth. We’ve still got injuries back here.”
His arms wrapped around me, cradling me against him as he tucked my head beneath his chin.
I allowed my eyes to close, if only to shut out the uneven field of view that tumbled in my vision.
I just focused on his warmth. On his protective embrace.
The way his body seemed carved out to fit mine.
There was strength where I had none. There were spaces where I had a lot.
And every single inch of me seemed to fit with every single inch of him.
I got so lost in the feeling of my body against his as we bobbed and swayed that I didn’t register when the vehicle stopped.
“We’re here, beautiful,” Doc muttered against the top of my head.
The van doors flew open, and King stood there with a smile on his face. “Home sweet home. Come on guys. No one will find you here.”
“Don’t jinx it,” Jasmine muttered.
Doc refused to let me go, though. I attempted to pull away, but all he did was buckle his arm around my lower back as he slid along the van floor.
He had me leaned against him, my head tucked along his shoulder, and eventually, he planted his feet onto the floor.
He stood with me in his arms, and it took us a second before we moved.
I watched the world form behind him, and I realized why he took a second to pause.
We were in the woods.
We were deep in the woods.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Somewhere safe,” was the only thing Doc said.
I got too curious. I must’ve moved around too much in his arms, because once we got to the threshold of the door, Doc placed me down. And when I gazed out over the front of the property, holy fucking shit.
It was nothing but trees for miles.
“There’s an entertainment room in here!” Jasmine squealed.
“Is that a hot tub out there? Oh hell yeah, I was jealous that I didn’t get to use Doc’s.”
“Ice cream!”
“Oh my God, this couch is fantastic.”
“There’s a room for each of us!”
I slowly looked up at Doc, only to find him already staring down at me.
He walked in front of me, blocking my view of the endless amount of trees that sprawled out before us.
He reached down. Tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
Wiped at a bit of perspiration on my brow that I didn’t even know II was brewing.
The words were out before I could catch them. “I really like you, Doc.”
His hand paused, his fingertips caressing my skin before he cupped my cheek. “I really like you, too, My Liz.”
My smile blossomed before he slid his hand from my cheek, down my arm, all the way to my own hand. He laced our fingers together, his long, dexterous ones slotting perfectly in between my own. And when we turned toward the house, we found multiple sets of eyes on us.
“Hell yeah,” Cap said with a grin.
The girls were two seconds away from giggling their heads off, which made me shake my own. “You guys are insufferable, you know that?”
My question unleashed the cackling.
Marla came over and slipped her arm into mine, and that was it.
The girls gathered around me, and away we went, venturing deeper into the massive log cabin home.
There wasn’t much to see. Not many decorations, enough furniture to fill the place in order to function for whoever utilized it.
The air was tainted with a slight stale smell, and the fine layer of dust over everything told me that this place hadn’t been disturbed in a while.
And one by one, the girls slipped into the rooms that they loved.
“This one’s mine!” Amanda said quickly as she dashed into the room filled with books.
Wrecker just chuckled and followed in behind her.
“Ooooh, this one is lovely,” Ariel said as she ventured into a bedroom with a television mounted to the wall.
“Hey, Range!” Cap barked as he slipped in behind her. “We got a way to lock down these televisions in here!?”
“Working on it!” he called out.
I looked around and realized that Marla wasn’t with us. Somewhere along the line, she let go of my arm, and I didn’t even feel it. I furrowed my brow as I went in search of her, and I found her perched on Ranger’s lap in the only room that had a desk outfitted in the corner.
She peered over his shoulder and smiled at me, waving. “Hey! Sorry I slipped out earlier, Ranger already snatched this room up for us.”
“Got the most outlets,” he said as he fingers flew across the keyboard of a laptop.
I just smiled and shook my head. “Just wanted to make sure I knew where you were. Love you.”
Em smiled. “Love you.”
“Love you!” Range called out playfully.
“Don’t electrocute yourself!” I called back.
Em giggled with delight as I swung their door closed, but when I turned around, Doc was standing there.
With a smirk on his face.
“Ready to go see your room?” he asked as he held his hand out.
On the one hand, I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t picked a room yet and that we needed to go searching.
But the idea that I already had one established and waiting for me was a nice thought.
My cheeks hurt with my smile as I slid my hand into his, and I heard the girls aimlessly chattering away with their men as we slipped our way all the way into the back of what I realized was a massive log cabin.
“CHURCH IN AN HOUR!” Cap bellowed through the house.
My shoulders deflated. I wasn’t ready to give up Doc to the gods just yet. He must’ve seen the way my posture melted, because he rubbed my back as he swung the bedroom door open that he stopped us at.
Only for me to realize that we had the only entrance to the back yard.
Where the hot tub was.
“Oh yeah,” I said as I slipped into the room and walked right over to the door.
“Figured you’d want to be in close proximity,” Doc said as he stepped to the side and let me in.
“Awww, yay!” I heard Anna say as I whipped around.
She stood in the doorway next to Doc, her arms crossed over her chest. “I wondered who would choose to be my neighbor.”
I thumbed over my shoulder. “You got an entrance out to the back, too?”
She nodded and pointed at me. “You and Doc better not hog that hot tub. I want a dip, too, you know.”
Brutus lumbered behind her. “Why do you have so much shit?”
She tilted her head back and smiled up at him. “Because you have big saddle bags on your bike and I enjoyed stuffing them with my shit.”
Brutus grumbled as he walked away, but Anna just tossed us a wink. “If you guys make too much noise at night, I’m going to start pulling pranks.”
She swung the door closed and whistled to herself as she bounded in the direction Brutus had walked off in.
I crooked an eyebrow as I looked over at Doc. “You think the two of them…?”
Doc’s lips pursed as he nodded. “Oh yeah. It’ll happen. Maybe not more than once, but it’ll eventually happen.”
I barked with laughter. “My God, good luck, Brutus.”
I found myself staring back out through the door at the hot tub before Doc’s reflection appeared in the window behind me. His arms weaved around my waist. His chin rested against the top of my head.
It was heaven being in his arms.
I declared it to be the truth.
“Penny for your thoughts,” he said as he kissed the top of my head.
I shrugged softly. “Just worried about what this church meeting of yours will bring.”
He nuzzled against my hair. “Most likely, Cap just wants to move the timeline up for our plan.”
“What’s the plan?”
He didn’t answer me, though.
“Ah,” I said softly. “Need to know.”
He pressed a reverent kiss to the nape of my neck. “I would tell you if I could.”
To be honest, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know. Being in the know all the time wasn’t always good for the nerves. I was healing well. Eating well. Sleeping better with every night that passed. That was what I needed to be focused on.
Not whatever danger may have been looming on the horizon.
“All right,” I said softly as I laid my head back against his chest, “I can jive with that.”
“That’s my good girl.”
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that.
Me, in his arms, enjoying the way he felt against me.
He had a heat to him that wasn’t overbearing, and I enjoyed it.
Most men were furnaces, and I couldn’t stand to be held by them for more than a few minutes, at best. But Doc didn’t have that burning body temperature that fucked with mine.
I felt my eyes closing before the sounds started back up.
“Oh fuck!”
“Take it for me.”
“Jesus. Yes. Yes. Oh fuck.”
I groaned. “Goddamn it. Being smushed closer together in a house means—whoa!”
Something slipped over my head, and in a heartbeat, I couldn’t hear anything.
I whipped around, my eyes wide as my hands came up to figure out what in the hell plunked over my head.
My hands smashed against the padded band over my head.
They patted down to the rounded things that encased my ears completely.
Headphones.
I had headphones on my head.
And when I looked up at Doc, I found him smiling down at me, with a pair of headphones on his head as well.
He reached up to his and pressed something before reaching out to press mine. And then…
“Can you hear me?” he asked.
His voice filtered through the headphones, and I couldn’t help myself. Tears laced my eyes as I stepped forward, pressing my hands against his chest. Just to feel him. Just to be near him.
“Yeah, I hear you,” I said back.
His smile beamed. “Good. I figured these might help.”
“They’re just so loud.”
He grinned. “We’re loud.”
I rolled my eyes playfully and shoved at him, but he grabbed my wrists and pulled me flush against his body. His body felt like home, and his smile felt like the heavens opened up and graced me with its presence, and I found that I didn’t want to relinquish him.
His hand slipped down to my lower back. “Getting cheeky now, are we?”
He chuckled as he banded his arm around my back and pulled me even closer. “Something like that.”
He took my hand within his free one and held it up.
The music started playing through my headphones.
My jaw dropped. “Can you hear—?”
“Yes,” he said as he dropped a kiss to my forehead, “I hear the music, too.”
I rested my forehead against his chest as he draped his arms around me, our bodies swaying to the soft music coming through the headphones.
I didn’t want him to go to church. I didn’t want him to leave me.
I wanted to crawl into bed and bury myself in him until the hell was over and the world was safe again.
I now understood why Em spent so much time with Ranger.
“I don’t want you to go to church,” I mumbled.
I didn’t even realize I said it out loud until Doc responded.
“I know, beautiful. But some guys from The Devil’s Legion are going to help us with taking shifts of patrol at this homebase, so there won’t be too much back and forth traffic from here to the outside world.
Should keep you guys from being compromised again. ”
“Should?” I asked as I pulled back enough to peek up at him.
I just found him smiling comfortingly down at me. “Nothing is foolproof or perfect. But you’re in capable hands.”
“That I know.”
He smiled with pride. “Now come here and let me hold you before I have to get on my bike and leave.”
“Wait, church isn’t here?”
He shook his head. “Not really a space where we can have privacy and not have you women trying to eavesdrop.”
I gasped playfully. “My word, I do declare, I would never do such a thing.”
He chuckled and yanked me back against him. “Come here, you beautiful woman, you.”
I wanted to ask him when he’d be back, but something in my gut told me he probably didn’t know.
So I allowed the music to filter back into my mind’s eye.
The song changed to one I wasn’t familiar with, but it was slow and smooth just the same.
His arms wrapped around me. Our bodies swayed to the rhythm that only we could hear.
And there was not a sex sound to be heard above it.