Chapter 8 #2
Then he mouths, “Behave.”
Next, he full-on smiles at me, and I almost stagger back.
Jesus, that smile should be outlawed, just like him.
Lust buzzes to life and ripples through my blood.
My sex drive has been nonexistent since my escape from Antwane’s hell.
Prior to that, I had a weird relationship with sex.
I was technically still a virgin—the only action I had was with my trusty vibrator.
I’m not sure if my lack of actual sexual partners was due to almost being raped, and knowing that my mom had been heinously violated, but I think it had mostly come down to having sex with someone took work and didn’t necessarily mean they’d get me off.
I had loved orgasms and had a high sex drive, even if I wasn’t sleeping with anyone.
But all that ceased and never returned after surviving Antwane.
Staring at Bane now, straddling that powerful bike, my core starts to pulse.
I bet that man knows how to give orgasms.
But with my growing lust, there’s a surge of emotions, which is bad. As heat spreads through me, the emotions swell and press against the locked box, demanding to be let out. And as the emotions awaken within me, the screams of the Numbers come to life with it.
I’m going to be quickly overwhelmed by the memories and screams, so I clamp down on everything, forcing it all back until the numb nothingness is all that remains.
The rumble of the bikes fills the air as Bane and Army start them. Bane is still staring at me, his smile gone and a pensive frown marring his rugged, handsome face. He stares at me until Army says something. Bane nods, then slips on a pair of sunglasses. I don’t relax until they’re driving away.
Bane is dangerous—not because he’s a criminal, a renegade that lives by a code and law that civilian society doesn’t accept, but because he makes me feel. Even at a distance, just by making eye contact with me and flashing a smile.
I need to get out of here.
But in order to do that, I need to convince Ash to let me leave.
“You okay, Slade?” Jez asks.
“She’s fine, Jez,” a gravelly voice says from behind us.
Speak of the devil…
Turning, I see Ash standing there. He’s a big guy, not nearly as big as Bane, but still tall and solid, and no one should be able to come up so quietly without me being aware.
We’re standing on gravel, not asphalt or grass.
His boots should’ve made noise to alert me of his approach, yet he soundlessly appeared like a ghost.
His blue eyes don’t give anything away as he studies my expression. My flat, dead-inside expression.
“I got it from here, Jez.” Ash inclines his head toward the clubhouse. “Get some sleep before your shift at Vixen’s.”
“Vixen’s?” I ask. “Maybe if I’m being forced to stay here, I could get a job on the pole.”
A stripper, I am not; I’m not nearly coordinated or graceful enough.
The women and men who ‘work the pole’ deserve all the kudos and money, in my opinion.
However, making an escape from Vixen’s or one of the other many businesses the Havoc Guardians own would be a hell of a lot easier than escaping from the compound.
“She knows everything, Prez,” Jez rats me out. “The firing range, the Cell…”
Ash rubs his jaw, his thick silver rings catching the sunlight. Then he smiles. “Slade is Havoc Guardians, through and through. Now go, Jez,” he orders. “Slade, you’re with me.”
Jez quickly strides back to the clubhouse, and Ash takes hold of my elbow.
I jerk free of his grip, because he’s almost touching the thick scar that runs down the back of my arm, and he’d feel it under the thin fabric of my sleeve.
He looks dismayed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle or trigger you.”
“I just don’t like being touched.”
Ash nods, not pressing me for more. “Walk with me, peanut.”
I startle at the nickname he had given me right after saving me from the Demon Spawn gang member. I don’t say anything, though, and just fall into step with him as he heads toward the grasslands behind the bunkhouses.
We’re silent as we walk, the tall grass swishing around our knees and the wind in our faces.
I realize we’re going to the cliffs where the MC land ends, overlooking the bay.
You can’t go to the cliff's edge, though, because of the fence that prevents anyone from sneaking onto their land.
I used to go there, loving the sound of the wind and ocean, and the sight of the birds soaring free.
Once we get to the spot, I sit on the flat rock sticking out of the ground, like it’s there as nature’s perfect bench.
Ash sits beside me, keeping space between us, as I push the sunglasses up on my head.
I stare out at the ocean in the distance through the towering chain-link fence, which I know is electrified.
When I was young, the fence never marred my view, knowing it was there to keep the MC safe.
But now all I see is a cage keeping me inside and a threat to those around me.
“You need to let me leave, Ash.”
The wind blows his hair over his forehead. “You came here a lot as a kid,” he says instead of responding to my comment. “But never after what happened with the Demon Spawn.”
He’s right; the last time I had been here was the day before the attack.
“Mom packed us up and left not long after the attack,” I remind him.
He turns to look at me. “Did I do this, Slade?”
This. My lack of feeling anything.
I lift my chin to the wind blowing off the ocean. “You saved me, Ash. And for that, I’ll always be grateful.”
“Who was the predator you escaped from?”
Either my brothers ratted me out, or there are cameras in the clubhouse that Ash and his Council monitor.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s dead.”
“Yet you’re running from something,” he insists. “Or someone.”
That parental protective tone is stronger than ever.
But my desire to keep anyone else from getting hurt because of me is stronger.
I just need Ash to see reason. Yes, he feels a certain amount of responsibility for me, but his top priority is the Havoc Guardians.
The protection of one against the cost of the entire MC would never be something he chooses. He’s Prez first, Ash Dexter second.
I just need to remind him of that and paint a vivid picture of potential risks while doing so. I can’t give him all the details. One, because I can’t even try to speak the words out loud. And two, because the less he knows, the better.
“Do you know what went through my head that night you saved me?” I ask and he side-eyes.
“When Mom heard the door being kicked in, she hid me under the bed and told me not to come out. But one of the gang members found me and pulled me out. I fought him, and he banged my head against the floor. I struggled to stay conscious.”
I should be shaking, recalling the attack, the memory of the tattooed evil face and his hands on me, ripping my pajamas and grabbing my body, but I’m not. I’m flat.
“Then you were there, Ash. A vengeful god—that’s what went through my head—who slit that guy’s throat.”
“I scarred you,” he murmurs, watching me intently.
“No, you didn’t. You took care of me, made me feel safer than my own dad ever made me feel.”
Ash had wrapped me in a blanket, telling me to hide my face as he walked me through the house so I didn’t witness what happened to the other gang members.
He took me to a washroom and handed me a change of clothes that someone had brought to him.
After I got re-dressed, he helped me clean the blood from my skin and told me that my brothers would take me to the clubhouse.
I had panicked, not wanting to be away from him, my new surrogate parent.
“I told you, ‘I got you, peanut. I won’t let anything ever happen to you’. I promised you, Slade.”
I shift on the stone, facing him. “And that’s a promise no one could ever keep, Ash. And one I free you from. Your oath of loyalty and promise to protect is to the Havoc Guardians. You have to let me go; let me leave so you can keep that promise to the club.”
“Why?” His voice is rugged and hoarse as his gaze flicks over my expressionless face. “Tell me why, and I’ll consider it.”
There’s absolutely no chance I’d be able to voice the horrors I’ve lived through and explain why the Vanderalls are after me.
“Because you’re the President, the leader,” I say instead. “And like a parent, you have to make hard choices, tough love. Do what’s best, even if it’s not what you want.”
“You’re so well-versed in parenthood?” He cocks a brow at me.
I can’t resist a small smile but shake my head. “You need to let me leave so you can protect the MC.”
He shoves a hand through his hair, making it stick up. “For the love of fuck, tell me what we’re dealing with.”
“I came here to say goodbye, Ash.” It’s the truth. I did return to say goodbye to my brothers, but I’m now realizing I need to give Ash that closure, too. “You need to let me leave.”
He’s processing my words. No one returns home just to say goodbye…not unless it’s the end of the road.
“What’s coming for you, Slade?”
I shake my head. “I’m protecting you, just like you protected me. And I’m trying to protect the family I once had.”
“You came back because you wanted us to help you.”
“No. I’ve accepted my fate—”
“Bull fucking shit.” He jerks to his feet, towering over me. “You’re a fighter, Slade, and fighters don’t fucking lie down and take it.”
I rise as well. “This isn’t something I can win, Ash.”
“Are you dying?” he demands. “Cancer? Some incurable disease?”
The resolve is clear on his face.
Once again, I miscalculated Ash’s protectiveness over me, and I can see my mistake. Instead of seeing reason and protecting the Havoc Guardians like he should as the leader, he’s letting emotions and his past promise to me cloud his judgment.
Goddammit.
“You’re family, peanut,” he declares vehemently. “And turning my back on family is one thing I’ll never do. I let you down once, Slade—me, the entire MC, your bastard of a father, your mom, your brothers. You’re staying here so we can protect you.”
“You can’t save me, Ash. Not this time, not from this.”
His eyes harden and his fists clench. “Then you better let us know what’s gunning for you so we can prepare, because you aren’t fucking leaving.”
Then he stalks away.