Chapter 8
Clyde
I’m going through my fourth cigarette by the time I hear the distant sound of an engine. I can’t believe he dared be late. No wonder he’s such a fucking failure in life and their club has no chance to make it big when people like him are on top.
I throw out the cigarette butt and take a few deep breaths as I pull out my knife. I can only hope he did the honorable thing and came alone. If he didn’t, it wouldn’t be the first unequal fight we’ve had, and I do have to admit that sometimes the odds were in my favor.
The yellow headlight is a bright beam in the darkness between the rows of unused garages. I turn on mine as well, as we’ll need to see each other for this fight. My guts clench when Road’s motorcycle slows down, and it must be the conflicting feelings screwing me up so much.
His interest in me has opened floodgates that were supposed to stay shut and my mind is a mess, because I don’t know whether I like it or not. But since my heart and body can’t decide, I take the easy way out and let my mind guide me instead. And the logical path is clear.
One of us needs to die, because otherwise, neither will ever be safe.
Still, I can’t help letting my gaze linger on the way his firm thighs squeeze the cherry-red hog he calls Smokey. He stops and makes his engine roar, like an animal flaunting its strength before fighting for dominance. And I wish the blood flowing south would make my head boil instead .
Road takes off his helmet and dismounts with the casual grace I’ve always envied. He doesn’t need to work on embodying the outlaw biker from everyone’s imagination. He just is. And it infuriates me to no end.
“I thought you may not show up. But I’m glad to be wrong this time,” Road says in a voice like chocolate-covered gravel. I’m not proud of the way my knees weaken as he steps closer, walking in front of his bike. The headlight creates a halo around his broad-shouldered form, and I find myself wanting to lick the dense shadow he casts. It’s like facing the embodiment of everything that haunts me day and night, but I stay firm and take in his sheepish smile.
Even now, he’s convinced he’s going to walk out of this with my blood on his hands, not the other way around.
Road’s not even a classically handsome man. His nose has been broken more than once and is now crooked. And it’s been too big for his face to begin with. His eyes are hooded but appear disproportionally large when compared with his mouth, and the dip between his lips and chin is so deep I sometimes imagine filling it with my lips. And still, when his brown gaze slides over me, it’s like physical touch, and heat climbs up my neck.
Now that he has this big burn scar there too, he has no business being this confident. Like a fucking wild dog on the prowl, unaware it’s not actually a wolf.
“You’re the one who’s late,” I snap at him and squeeze the knife. I don’t have time for chitchat. I’ve even tied my hair back into a tight knot on my nape so he can’t grab my braid.
Just a few hours ago, I did something I really shouldn’t have with him, and now I’m paying the price. I should have turned off that call, like a sane person. Instead, now he knows I watched him jerk off. And I liked it more than I’d admit.
In another world, another time, maybe I would fuck him.
“Oh, are you saying I should go back to bed?” he asks, pointing at his bike over the shoulder. I’m struck into silence, but maybe I should no longer be surprised by this guy’s bravado? He lives as if he has a death wish, and that’s not likely to change just because we’re about to have a fight only one of us can survive.
I don’t let him leave me stunned for more than a second and step closer. “I’m saying, you’re delaying your death, so get on with it. Knives only. Like men.” I’m used to fights, maybe I even like the surge of adrenaline, but the way my heart is beating has nothing to do with the blade in my hand. Every step Road takes my way is like the abyss coming for me. I can’t be this excited about him . Or any man in general. But especially him.
He opens his arms and looks around, checking the shadowy corners around the rows of old garages. This late in the night, the air is cold despite the warmth of the recent days, and it smells of nature awakening out of its winter slumber. As far as places to die go, this is not a bad one.
“Come on,” he says, snorting as if he were calling out my bluff, and he takes yet another step toward me. My breath catches in my throat. I know he has maybe two inches on me, but in this moment, in the silence of the semi-abandoned site on the outskirts of town, and with only our headlights for illumination, he appears gigantic. “There’s no one else here.”
I frown as his meaning sinks in. Did he think… what? That I invited him for a quickie? My face flushes at the suggestion. “I meant what I wrote. This can’t go on in any way. I don’t know what fucked-up world you live in, but in mine, only this matters.” I lift my knife to make him understand. “I’m giving you a chance. You either defend yourself, or don’t. I don’t give a shit.”
He doesn’t seem impressed, and his narrow lips twist. “So that wasn’t code for let’s do it live? What the fuck?” he asks and, against any rhyme or reason, comes even closer.
Without a weapon.
And instead of stabbing him, I take a step back. As though his sole presence is a threat.
“Do what? Suck your dick? You’re out of your damn mind!”
He blows a raspberry and has the gall to roll his eyes while reaching for me with the same hand he stroked his dick with a few hours back. “I mean… yes? Why the hell not?”
I can’t believe it.
He really is that stupid.
But that’s logic speaking. Because when he touches me, all the hairs on my forearms bristle, and I know I need to put a stop to this. Otherwise, I’ll be thinking about licking cum off his hand, and I’ve already wasted several hours of my life doing that.
I’m so nervous my stomach sticks to my spine, but he made his choice, and I did warn him.
“You will not own my secret!”
At least when I stab my knife forward, he has the instinct to leap back .
I don’t know why I’m glad, since I’ve come here to gut him. Maybe I’m the one with the death wish.
His eyes narrow as he pins his gaze to me, and his right hand dips to the knife sheath I’ve never seen him without, the one always wrapped in a faded old bandana. “Easy there, Blue Eyes. We both know that’s not what we want out of this,” he says softly.
I’m so confused I slash at him again, because I want his knife out. That, I understand. Compliments from a man? From fucking Roadkill ? That leaves me confused, and when I’m unsure about something, I prefer to punch first, think later.
A curse falls from his lips, but when I jab forward again, and the blade tears a hole in his jacket, he finally understands that this is for real, and steel glints in his right hand.
“And they tell me I’m messed up,” he growls as we both circle one another in the lit-up space between our bikes.
How wrong is it that seeing him like this only makes me hornier? I was never into cute and soft guys. It’s what got me in trouble in the first place. And now I’m back at square one, about to either kill or die.
“You’ve wanted to be rid of me for years. Now’s your fucking chance,” I say to distract him right before I aim my knife for his hand.
Road snorts, changing direction and coming a bit too close for my liking. He’s moving like a cobra, and I know the muscles that make his body so unbelievably tempting might flex and propel him toward me at any moment. “I want your club gone. Not the same as wishing you were dead, Blue Eyes.”
He’s never called me that before. Not in a mocking way, not ever. This new focus on a physical trait of mine is fucking with my head and getting under my skin. Because… is he saying he likes my eyes? Or is he trying to distance my looks from who I am? Most of all, why do I care what he likes? Road is trash. A fucking lowlife from nowhere who lives solely to impress his buddies.
When I meet his gaze, he winks at me, and I fucking lose it.
I launch myself at him in a vicious attack and a roar of fury tears from deep in my chest. He pulls in his stomach, but I still manage to slash through his T-shirt and I swear I must have cut him at least a little too.
But anger is my downfall. Too focused on his knife, I don’t anticipate the punch to my wrist coming, and it’s so hard my knife falls from my hand. As I dip after it, Road kicks my legs from under me, and I collapse to the cracked asphalt. Pain spreads from my hip and shoulder. As I’m about to roll away to get my bearings and find the dagger, a heavy body smelling like my forthcoming doom lands on top, knocking the air out of my lungs.
His face looms over mine, dark eyes focused, teeth digging into his lower lip, and when I try to raise my head, Road slams it back down, and I shiver at the sudden nip on my neck.
His eyes widen.
“Keep the fuck still,” he says and shows me a knife he must have held against my throat. I catch a glimpse of blood before he presses it to my flesh again.
Did he just… save me from getting my own throat cut?
I stare at him, defeated. I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I pat the asphalt, but my knife isn’t within reach.
I’m so confused at his closeness that it strikes me we’ve always fought in public. Either in town, or with some of our club brothers around. But here, we’re all alone in the darkness, and his heart thuds against my chest. I can smell him. Sweat, blood, cherry tobacco, but also soap and fresh laundry. His closeness shouldn’t give me such a thrill. I should see him for what he is—a threat.
If I punch him, the blade is going into my throat, but if I do nothing, I’m as good as dead.
I swallow against the blade. “Do it,” I dare him, looking straight into his eyes. I want this madness to end, the beast gnawing at my insides each night gone.
He licks his lips, and is it just me, or did his breathing get faster? He’s already sporting a tan despite it only being May, yet I can still see the flush blooming on his features as he swallows. His fingers slide into my hair and he untangles my knot in a caress that sends jolts of electricity all the way to my balls. Who the fuck reacts like this to a simple touch?
I’m so damn broken, but my mind becomes a desolate desert somewhere in space when Road responds by pushing his knee against the inside of my thigh to spread my legs. The blade that was meant to end my life flies off and clatters against the asphalt, and the hand still sweaty from holding it pushes my wrist down.
What is happening?
I stiffen, out of breath, and I don’t know if I’m terrified or horny. I could fight. He’s thrown away his knife, and I’m not the scrawny boy I used to be. I could take him. I’ve learned to be vicious and unyielding so I’m never again at the mercy of some predatory fucker .
Instead, I make the tiniest moan I didn’t intend and raise my hips ever so slightly to rub my rock-hard cock against him. Because yeah, I got hard in seconds. And I want him to feel it.
The relief flooding my chest feels as if someone took a combat boot off my neck after keeping it there for years. He’s hard too.