Chapter 4 - Knuckles
I'm not sure I heard her right.
For a second, my brain just... stops. Like someone pulled the plug on every coherent thought I've ever had.
She wants me to help her out of the dress.
Which means seeing her in whatever she's wearing underneath it. Which means putting my hands on her again, on bare skin this time, close enough to feel the heat of her body and smell whatever perfume she's wearing under the odor of fear and exhaustion.
Which means I'm about to be completely fucked.
Because I'm just a man. A man who hasn't been with anyone in three months because casual hookups have started feeling more empty than satisfying.
A man who's been half-hard since I picked her up and felt how perfectly she fit against my chest. A man who's already having thoughts he has absolutely no business having about a woman who ran here to escape being hurt.
Thoughts like how she'd look spread out on that bed. How she'd sound if I put my mouth on her. How tight she'd be if I pushed inside her. Whether she'd let me bend her over the dresser and fuck her until she forgot every bad thing that's ever happened to her.
Jesus Christ. I need to get my head straight.
She's scared. She's hurt. She's running from an abusive piece of shit who probably did things to her that make my violent thoughts look tame. The absolute last thing she needs is me looking at her like I'm thinking about fucking her.
Even if that's exactly what I'm thinking about.
"Yeah," I hear myself say. "I can do that."
She turns around, presenting her back to me. The zipper runs from between her shoulder blades all the way down to the small of her back, hidden under a row of tiny fabric-covered buttons that look like they'd take a fucking hour to undo.
I step closer. She stiffens slightly but doesn't move away.
"Just the zipper?" I ask, my voice rougher than intended.
"There are buttons too. But if you can just get the zipper, I can probably manage the rest."
I reach for the top of the zipper. My fingers brush the back of her neck and she makes a small sound. Not quite a gasp, not quite a whimper. I freeze.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Sorry. Just... not used to being touched gently."
And fuck, that sentence is going to haunt me.
I find the zipper pull and start sliding it down. Slowly. The fabric parts to reveal smooth skin and the white lace of her bra. I keep my eyes focused on what I'm doing and absolutely not on the curve of her back or the way her skin looks in the lamplight.
The zipper reaches the end just above her ass and suddenly I can see more than I should. The dress gapes open and I catch a glimpse of white panties. Not just white, but sheer. See-through lace that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination.
I can see the curve of her ass. The dimples at the small of her back. Everything. My dick goes from half-hard to fully hard in about two seconds flat.
I step back like she's on fire, adjusting my stance so maybe she won't notice the obvious bulge in my jeans if she turns around.
"Done," I manage to say.
"Thank you." She holds the front of the dress to her chest with one hand and turns to face me. Her cheeks are flushed. "Can you... can you stay? Just for a few minutes? I don't want to be alone right now."
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to say no. To get the fuck out of this room before I do something stupid. Before she sees exactly what she does to me and gets scared for entirely new reasons.
But she's looking at me with those amber eyes and asking me to stay, and I've never been good at saying no to someone who needs help.
"Yeah," I say. "I can stay."
"I'm just going to change. I'll be fast."
She disappears into the bathroom with the robe from the closet. I hear the door close. Not lock, just close, and the rustle of fabric.
I take the opportunity to adjust myself because my dick apparently doesn't give a fuck about being appropriate.
The image of those see-through panties is burned into my brain.
The lace barely covering anything. The way I could see the exact shape of her ass, the line where her cheeks met her thighs.
I need to stop. I need to think about literally anything else.
I force myself to focus on practical shit. The food I brought up is still sitting on the dresser. She needs to eat. Needs to rest. Needs to not have me standing here thinking about bending her over and pulling those panties to the side.
Fuck.
I walk to the window and look out at the Vegas strip. Lights and noise and people who have no idea that three floors up, I'm losing my fucking mind over a woman I met an hour ago.
The bathroom door opens and she comes out wearing the robe. It's too big for her. Hotel robes always are, and she's cinched it tight around her waist. Her hair is down now, falling in dark waves past her shoulders.
Fuck.
"Better?" I ask, turning around yet. Giving myself another few seconds to get control.
"Yeah. Much." I hear her sit on the edge of the bed. "Thank you. For everything. You didn't have to do any of this."
I turn around, keeping my expression neutral. "Already told you why I did it."
"I know. But still." She's quiet for a moment, her hands clasped in her lap. "You're the first person in a really long time who's been kind to me without wanting something in return."
"I'm not a saint, Savannah." The words come out harsher than I intended. "Don't make me into something I'm not."
"I'm not. I just..." She trails off, looking down at her hands. "I'm just trying to say thank you."
I should leave. Should get out of this room before I say something or do something that fucks this up. But she asked me to stay, and I'm apparently incapable of doing the smart thing tonight.
"Your food's getting cold," I say instead, nodding toward the bag on the dresser.
"I'll eat in a minute. Can you sit? Please? You're making me nervous standing there like you're about to bolt."
She's not wrong. I am about to bolt. But I cross the room and sit in the chair by the window, as far from the bed as I can get while still being in the same room.
"Better?" I ask.
"Better." She pulls the robe tighter around herself. "Can I ask you something?"
"Depends on the question."
"How long have you been with the club?"
"Long enough." I don't want to talk about this. Don't want to get into my history or why Pope gave me a patch or the two years I spent on the streets before that. "You should eat."
"I will. I just..." She hesitates. "I just want to talk for a minute. To something other than the inside of my own head. It's been a really long day."
Understatement of the fucking year.
"What do you want to talk about?" I ask.
"I don't know. Anything. Everything. Nothing." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I don't even know anymore. This morning I was getting married. Now I'm sitting in a hotel room with a biker I just met, wearing a bathrobe and eating cold french fries. My brain can't process any of it."
"You want to talk about him? The groom?"
Her expression shutters immediately. "Not really."
"Might help."
"Might make it worse." She's quiet for a long moment. "Like I told you, his name is Derek. Derek Marsh. We were together for three years. Engaged for one. And I spent most of that time trying to convince myself it wasn't as bad as it was."
I wait. She keeps talking, the words spilling out like she's been holding them for too long.
"He hit me. Not all the time. Just when I made him angry. And I could always make him angry, saying the wrong thing, wearing the wrong outfit, talking to the wrong person. Everything was a potential trigger and I never knew which one would set him off."
Her voice is flat, emotionless. Like she's reading from a script.
"I told my mother after the first time. She said I must have provoked him. Said Derek was a good man with a good job, and I needed to learn how to handle him better." She laughs bitterly. "So, I stopped telling people. Stopped asking for help. Just... survived."
"Until today."
"Until today. I was standing in the bridal suite, looking at myself in the mirror, and I realized if I went through with it, he was going to kill me eventually. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday. And I just... couldn't. Couldn't do it. So, I ran."
The casual way she talks about her own murder makes me want to break something. Preferably Derek's face.
"You did the right thing," I tell her.
"Did I? I left everyone at the wedding. My family, his family, two hundred guests. The photographer, the caterer, the band. I ruined everything."
"You saved your own life."
"Maybe. Or maybe I'm just a coward who couldn't commit." She wipes at her eyes. "That's what my mother's messages say. That I'm being dramatic. That I'm embarrassing everyone. That Derek's worried sick and I need to come home and fix this."
"Fuck what your mother says."
She looks up, surprised at the vehemence in my voice.
"Fuck her," I say again. "And fuck Derek. And fuck anyone who thinks you should go back to someone who hurts you. You're not a coward. You're a survivor. And you did the hardest fucking thing there is, you walked away."
"You don't know me well enough to say that."
"Don't need to. I know enough."
She's quiet for a long moment. "Why are you really helping me? And don't say it's just because you can. Nobody does this much for a stranger without a reason."
Because I see myself in you. Because I know what it's like to have nowhere to go. Because something about you makes me want to protect instead of destroy, and that's rare enough that I'm not going to ignore it.
But I don't say any of that.
"Does it matter?" I ask instead.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I need to know if I can trust you."
Fair question. If I were in her position, I'd be asking the same thing.
"You can trust me," I say. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Not gonna let anyone else hurt you either. That's a promise."
"Promises don't mean much. Derek made a lot of promises."
"I'm not Derek."
"I know. You're different. I just..." She trails off. "I don't know what different looks like anymore. Don't know what safe feels like. Derek made sure of that."
I stand up, needing to move before I do something stupid like cross the room and pull her into my arms. "You should eat. Get some rest. We'll figure out the rest tomorrow."
"Wait." She stands too, wobbling slightly on her injured feet. "Don't go yet. Please."
"Savannah—"
"Just a few more minutes. I know I'm asking a lot. I know you've already done more than enough. But I don't want to be alone right now. And you're the only person in this entire city who I don't have to pretend with."
Fuck.
I sit back down. "Fifteen minutes. Then I need to make some calls, let my president know what's going on."
"Okay. Fifteen minutes." She sits on the edge of the bed again. "Will you tell me about the club? About the Steel Sinners?"
"What do you want to know?"
"Anything. Everything. I don't know anything about motorcycle clubs except what I've seen in movies."
"Movies get it wrong, mostly."
"So, tell me what's right."
I spend the next fifteen minutes giving her the sanitized version. The club, the brotherhood, the casino business. I leave out the darker shit—the protection rackets, the deals with other clubs, the violence that comes with the territory.
She listens intently, asking questions occasionally, and slowly I watch some of the tension leave her shoulders. By the time my phone buzzes with a text from Ghost saying he's got her clothes, she's almost smiling.
"That's Ghost," I tell her. "He's got clothes for you."
"Ghost? That's his name?"
"Road name, yeah. I'll grab the stuff and bring it back."
I head out into the hallway where Ghost is waiting with several shopping bags.
"Pope already knows and wants to see her," Ghost says without preamble. "Tomorrow morning. Ten sharp."
"She'll be there."
"She’s trouble?"
"Maybe. Probably. Yeah."
Ghost hands me the bags. "You know what you're doing?"
"No fucking idea."
"Perfect." He turns to leave, then pauses. "She pretty?"
"Irrelevant."
"That means yes. Be smart, Knuckles. Don't shit where you eat."
"I'm not… It's not like that."
Ghost gives me a look that says he doesn't believe me for a second. "Sure it's not. Just remember, she's under club protection now. That means hands off unless she asks. And even then, think twice."
He leaves before I can respond. I bring the bags back to the room and knock three times. Savannah opens the door, still in the robe.
"Clothes," I say, handing them over. "Ghost did his best. If something doesn't fit, let me know and we'll get you something else."
"Thank you."
"You need anything else tonight?"
She hesitates. "Will you be nearby? In case..."
"I'll be right down the hall. Room 312. Anything happens, anything at all, you call me." I pull out my phone. "Give me your number."
She recites it and I save it in my contacts.
"I'm turning my phone back on," she says quietly. "Just for a second. To see..."
"Don't respond to anything. Just look."
She nods and powers on her phone. Almost immediately it starts buzzing with notifications. I watch her face go pale as she scrolls through them.
"Fifty-three messages," she whispers. "Seventeen missed calls. They're all so angry."
"Block them."
"What?"
"Your ex. Your mother. Anyone who's telling you to go back. Block all of them."
"I can't just—"
"Yes, you can. They don't get to have access to you anymore. Not after what they did. Not after they chose him over you." I take the phone from her shaking hands and start going through her contacts. "Tell me who to block."
She lists names. I block them all. Derek. Her mother. Her sisters. The wedding planner. Friends who were really his friends.
When I'm done, her contact list is half the size it was.
"There," I say, handing it back. "Now they can scream into the void all they want. You don't have to hear it."
She looks at the phone, then at me. "Thank you."
"Get some rest, Savannah. Tomorrow we meet with Pope and figure out next steps."
"Okay." She pauses. "Ryan?"
It's the first time she's used my real name. It does something to me, hearing it in her voice.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For everything. For being kind. For not asking anything in return. For just... being here."
I should leave it at that. Should walk out and go to my room and get some fucking distance.
But I find myself saying, "You don't have to thank me for basic human decency."
"When you've gone without it for as long as I have, yes, you do."
I leave before I can do something stupid like tell her she deserves better than basic human decency. That she deserves everything good in the world and I'd burn down anyone who tries to take it from her.
Because that would be crossing a line I have no business crossing.
She's under club protection. Which means she's off limits.
I just need to keep reminding myself of that.