Chapter 6
6
Karma
I dozed off in his arms on the deck and dreamed nice things for a change. And woke up not feeling like the world had crashed against me with all its terrible weight, squashing me like a bug. His soft caresses against the naked skin of my back, under the t-shirt, had a lot to do with that. As did the pastel pinks, blues and yellows of the sky, reflecting perfectly in the calm waters of the lake. I could stay right here for a long time and not miss a thing.
“You ready for more?” I ask as I smile at him.
He smiles back, but shakes his head.
“I’m ready for some dinner first,” he says and gives my ass a soft slap. “Come on, get dressed.”
I peel myself off his warmth very reluctantly.
“Now that you mention it, I could eat.”
He rises with me in his arms and sets me down on the cooling planks.
“But we can’t go anywhere with too many people,” I say. “Me being a fugitive and all.”
He nods. “Right. I know just the place. But you’re riding with me.”
I shake my head. “I don’t ride bitch.”
His eyes flash with something very close to disappointment. But in the next second, he’s grinning again as he fixes his cock in his boxers. “You are tonight.”
And then he strides into the cabin without letting me reply. I find him merrily putting on his clothes like it’s all decided.
“I just… I worked hard…” I don’t know how to explain to him how much it means to me to be my own woman, to ride my own bike, to be free of any man’s demands, however small. It’s a whole long, sad and terrible tale and I doubt he wants to hear it.
“You’re a strong, independent woman with her own bike, I get it,” he says, grinning at me as he fixes the buckle on his belt. “But I’m just gonna insist. I want you on the back of my bike.”
I know I’m not gonna get far arguing. Just like I never got far when I kept telling him to stop coming on to me all the time. And just like I’m no longer sure why I was so stubborn about that, I don’t know why I should argue with him on this. He knows who I am. I don’t have to prove anything to him.
“Fine,” I say. “But just this once.”
I pull his shirt up over my head, ignoring how his fire hot gaze makes everything, and especially my hard nipples tingle. Not an easy thing to do. And I still sort of feel his lust-filled gaze once I’m fully dressed and following him out of the cabin to his bike. Mine is still parked by the bar where I left it last night.
“Let’s just check on my bike before we go,” I say as I climb on behind him with an ease like I’d done it a thousand times before and with no hint that riding on the back of a guy’s bike is something I only do when I absolutely have no choice. I have all the choice in the world here. And I’m choosing this.
“It’s fine, those assholes didn’t mess with it,” he says. “I went to check on it this morning.”
“You did?” The words just fly out of my mouth, as does the kiss I plant on the side of his neck. “That’s so sweet of you.”
“Sweet, huh?” he says, grinning over his shoulder. “Not exactly what I was going for, but OK.”
“And a very manly thing to do, of course,” I correct myself. “As was the way you stepped between me and those six assholes last night. That was very tough too and I’m very grateful for it.”
I run my hands over his hard abs before wrapping them tight around his waist. None of that was forced. Saying it felt as natural as breathing. Despite how well I can take care of myself and don’t need a man to do it for me.
“That’s better,” he says and revs the bike.
And then we’re riding, going pleasantly fast down an empty blacktop, the trees and rocks a blur of green, gold and grey around us. And despite myself, I have to admit it’s nice to let someone else take the handlebars, while I just lean back, letting my hair trail in the wind, my arms anchored around his waist like they’ve always belonged there.
The last time I rode bitch like this was way back in the days after Grim and Reaper found me covered in blood on the side of the road. I didn’t know much back then. But one of the few things I did was that I would never let anyone tell me what to do. Least of all a man. Maybe I should be worried how easily that conviction cakes away with the steady vibrations of his bike and his strong body in my arms.
But last night and today were a little pool of absolute bliss after months of hell. So why not swim in it a little longer? It can’t possibly last much longer anyway. So why not get all I can out of it? He seems to be enjoying it all just as much as I am.
After taking us for a ride across this whole forest, it seemed like, he finally parks in front of a small mom and pop type restaurant on a hill above a small lakeside town that’s all lit up and looks cozy as hell. Moonlight is reflecting off the lake and a part of me wishes we’d just stayed in our cabin beside it, finished off my store of travel food for dinner and gone to bed early. It’s simpler there. More pleasant. Here, no matter how cozy it is, I’m still constantly looking over my shoulder and checking everyone’s faces for signs that they recognize me from some wanted poster.
“Relax,” he says, not even lifting his eyes off the menu. “They don’t even have a police station in this town.”
The table we’re sitting at is small and his long legs are enveloping mine, the touch comforting and familiar.
“I’m trying,” I say and smile at him. “I enjoyed the ride and I want to enjoy dinner too.”
He shrugs and closes the menu. “So enjoy it.”
The waitress—a smiling teenager—comes to take our order. He gets a steak, I opt for a cheeseburger and fries because I have a feeling it’ll be good here. Not like in the dumps I usually eat at.
“So who’d you kill to get on the most wanted list?” he asks once the waitress leaves.
I gasp while taking a sip of my water, barely managing not to inhale an ice cube.
“Or is that question still off limits?” he adds, smiling shyly.
“Why do you think I killed anyone?” I ask.
He shrugs. “The bloody woman tattooed on your arms… that’s you, isn’t it?”
I glance at my right arm, where the eyes of my likeness would be looking back at me, if her face wasn’t covered by long blood-soaked hair. The me on my left arm is staring at the world defiantly, wearing a bikini top and a skimpy skirt, a knife and a gun in my hands, blood dripping everywhere.
“You’re very observant,” I say. “When did you have time to look at my tats so closely?”
He smiles. “All the time since I met you. But mostly this morning when I couldn’t sleep. They’re all very well done.”
“They are, aren’t they?” I say, running my hands down my arms, over the women and the wolf howling at the moon which is for Grim. And the bear, keeping watch over it all, which is for Reaper. And all the trees and chains and bikes and empty roads which is for my life as a fugitive. “My girl Isabella is mad talented.”
“That tattoo artist from Brooklyn?” he asks and I nod.
“I found her about ten years ago,” I tell him. “Most of my ink is her work. I don’t trust anyone else anymore.”
“Good decision,” he says. “Because they’re all gorgeous. Just like you are.”
“You don’t have to say stuff like that anymore,” I say. “You already got me naked.”
He frowns as though I’d offended him and I’m instantly sorry for my harshness.
“I said it because I mean it,” he says. “Just like all the other times I’ve said it.”
He straightens in his seat and his legs are no longer touching mine. And it feels like a cold and lonely chasm has opened around me. That same chasm that’s been around me ever since Reaper died. Or maybe even from before. He’s managed to build a bridge over it, and I didn’t even realize it until just now when he took it away.
I’m sick of running and hiding, sick of the knots in my stomach that make me say mean things and won’t let me enjoy the burger which I’m sure will be delicious. I’m sick of not trusting anyone. And being unable to just be happy.
I lay my hand on his arm as the waitress sets down our food and wait for her to leave again. The feel of his warm skin under my fingers instantly makes the chasm less threatening.
“About fifteen years ago, I killed the mayor’s son and two of his buddies, also scions of wealthy and influential families in Charlotte,” I tell him. “They were gonna put me in a cage and keep me as a pet. This was after they’d bought me off some other guy who got me from my stepdad, neither of which was very good to me.”
He doesn’t say anything, so I glance at his face. But there’s something so genuinely sympathetic in his eyes, I have to look away again. I don’t want his pity. I’ve told him too much.
“Fifteen years ago?” he says, his voice distant and somehow muffled. “You must’ve been just a teenager.”
“I was seventeen,” I say. “And I didn’t know much but I knew I wasn’t going in that cage. They had knives hanging on the wall in the room where they had me. Ornate, heavy things. And the next thing I remember is walking down one of the pretty colonial mansion-lined streets wearing a blood-soaked dress and no shoes. That’s how Reaper and Grim found me. They picked me up and I’ve been free ever since. And running from the law ever since.”
I figured I might as well just tell him the whole story, since I made the mistake of opening up about it in the first place.
He’s just looking at me, silently, impossible to know what he’s thinking. I rub my arms. The street and the house where it happened are also on my arm, hidden and obscure, but there all the same, as a reminder of the day my life ended. And how much worse it might’ve been.
“But if they bought you and were gonna cage you, then you were just defending yourself,” he says in that same muffled, distant voice.
“You’d think, right? But the cops and the press called me a hooker who went mad,” I say. “They even gave me a nickname. Jackie the Ripper.”
“That’s a cool nickname,” he says.
“Karma’s better.”
He nods. “It is. But seriously, you should’ve just burned the house down with their dead bodies in it. That’s what I did. The house didn’t burn, but their bodies did.”
He looks shocked, his eyes growing wide and kinda spooked for a second. But then they cloud over.
“What?” I ask after going over all the other questions that start with wh- and settling on this one.
His attention is already on his steak though, and the blood spilling out as he cuts into it.
“I had a run in with a couple of psychos similar to the ones you described. Also about fifteen years ago,” he says and sticks his fork into the piece of steak he cut off, doing it so hard that some of the blood lands on the table. “They don’t haunt me the same way yours do though. At least no one ever came looking at me over their deaths.”
He brings the piece of steak to his mouth and chews, but doesn’t look like he’s enjoying it all. He kinda looks like he’s in pain. I glance at the tats covering his forearms. It’s bright orange flames covering vicious looking scars on both his wrists. I think those tattoos are a visual representation of the story he just told me and I’m not sure how to respond. He looks like he absolutely doesn’t want to talk about it anymore and it feels like winter has come early on this warm, late summer evening.
“I’m sorry you had to do that,” I say. “If you wanna talk about it, I’m listening.”
“What good’s talking about it gonna do?”
“The best way to get over something is to face it.”
He stabs at his steak again and this time the blood lands on my hand. I just leave it there. What’s one more drop of blood?
“Joker had the same idea a couple of days ago,” he says. “I told him he’s full of shit too.”
“It’s not just bullshit,” I say. “It’s good to talk about what’s weighing you down.”
He scoffs derisively. “Nah, it’s good to move on and forget the past. Just like Honey would always say, the past is past, no use dwelling on it. Though she did spend a hell of a lot of time talking about the past. So there’s that.”
“Who’s Honey?” I’m not sure if he’s sharing again or just trying to change the subject.
He grins. “Are you a little jealous of Honey?”
Maybe I did feel a little twinge to hear him talk so lovingly about another woman. No idea why. We’re nothing but a good time to each other.
“Relax, she was just my father’s whore who raised me after he died. Dead almost twenty years now,” he says and brings another piece of steak to his mouth. “I try not to think about her too much, but Joker dragged me to see her grave in Chicago.”
I’ve known Joker, the president of their MC, for a couple of years now and would never accuse him of being a particularly caring sort of guy. Machiavellian and calculating, sure. Kinda scary. But not someone who visits the graves of dead whores.
“He’s a good friend to you,” I say.
He nods. “Yeah, he’s like a brother to me. Saved my life a bunch of times and helped me burn those bodies. You’d already know that if you hung around us more. But you’re always in such a hurry to move on.”
The Lost Sons MC have hired us for a bunch of jobs over the last couple of years. Easy sort of things, overseeing takeovers of strip joints and such.
“We can’t stay in one place too long,” I say. “There’s too much heat on us. And you have more than enough guys to handle your shit on your own.”
I pick up a fry off my plate, but don’t bring it to my mouth. Maybe he’s got a point. Not much good comes from talking about the past. Those knots in my stomach from before have now turned into ice cold stones and I hardly remember the pleasant ride through the forest that brought us here. Or dozing in his arms by the lake all afternoon.
“How about we get this food to go and take it back to the cabin?” he says.
I put the fry down and smile at him as best I can in my new apathetic state. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
He grins and waves the waitress over. “See? What did I tell you? Honey was right about a lot of things. Talking about shit from the past just ruins your appetite. Best to forget it.”
I shrug, but I can’t deny it so I don’t say anything. He seems to be in a better mood and I want the same thing.
He makes a good point. I’ve lived through enough sadness to last several lifetimes. There’s really no use unpacking it everywhere I lay my head for the night, since I’ll never get rid of it anyway.