11. Ember
THURSDAY AFTERNOON (2 WEEKS AFTER ABDUCTION)
“Where are we going?” I shouted over the wind for the fifth time.
Priest and I had called some sort of truce. He had left me in my room aching for him, and I was pissed. I found a porn video and rubbed one out while I imagined that the couple on the TV was Priest and me.
He hadn’t returned until a little over an hour later to bring me some burgers, fries, and a packet of Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies. I had showered, eaten, and gone to sleep because I was angry and bored out of my mind.
The following day was more of the same. Priest avoided me as much as possible other than to bring me food. This morning, he had brought me out of my room for breakfast and told me to get dressed because we had somewhere to go. When I asked him questions, he refused to answer me.
I had removed the sew-in a few days earlier and washed my hair. It hung just beneath my shoulders. Today, I brushed my hair back into a ponytail, put on some tight jeans that he bought for me, a cropped T-shirt, and some boots that he said were for riding on the bike with. When I asked him how he knew my sizes, he had once again shut down on me.
Priest was an enigma, but one I found that I wanted to solve, despite my pleas to be returned to my family. I wasn’t sure if I should be excited or disappointed about our little impromptu trip. Was he taking me to my father and Daniel? Or were we going someplace else? Either way, I was a bit disappointed and excited. The excitement of going to my father had nothing to do with seeing him or Daniel but was strictly related to my freedom. The excitement of going someplace else was related to Priest’s trust in me.
The disappointment over seeing my father or Daniel was because I didn’t want to be with either man. I was indifferent about Daniel, but I knew that I wasn’t in love with him. He was too damn old for me, despite how good he looked with that caramel skin, hazel eyes, thick beard and mustache, and that beautiful smile. He reminded me of the actor Shemar Moore, but he was too old for me.
I was still hurt over what I had learned about my father. It was so hard to believe that he was a sex trafficker, and it was even harder to believe that he was involved with my mother’s murder. In fact, it sounded like he was the one behind it.
All of that hurt and ripped my chest apart when I allowed myself to think about it for too long. That was another reason I hated Priest locking me away because it left me too much time to think. I couldn’t escape the memories, and I couldn’t block out what my mind knew to be true. Therefore, when Priest paid me the slightest bit of attention, I leapt at it like a starved cat at a bowl of milk.
Disappointment over going someplace else meant that I wasn’t being released, and I would still be locked in that damn room. If the circumstances were different, I wouldn’t mind being around Priest. I had been attracted to him for a while. Every time I saw him around town, I felt myself staring longer than I should have and fantasizing about what his hair would feel like under my fingers, what his lips would feel like against my skin, and how that strong, powerful back and those bowed legs might put in some good work to pleasure me. I had always been attracted to him and the dangerous element that surrounded him.
Yet, I knew that Priest was off-limits. He was someone you went home and fantasized about late at night when no one was looking, and you played with your pussy under the covers. He wasn’t the sort of man good girls, like me and my friends, discussed privately or openly. We knew the types of things that men like Priest did, and secretly, we wanted it done to us as well.
My only thing against him was that every time I saw him, a different woman was fawning over him. He was a whore magnet, and I wasn’t stupid. I knew that he screwed every last one of them.
“Why are we here?” I asked when we pulled up into the gravel-paved parking lot of the bike club. There were motorcycles all over the parking lot, and some of his MC brothers were outside with the women that always hung out at places like this.
“I’ve got some business to handle. Figured you might want to get out of the house for a little bit.”
“And come here?” I asked, climbing off the bike. “You could’ve left me where I was. Or better yet, dropped me off at home where I belong.”
“Where do you belong, Ember?”
My heart thrummed at that nickname, but I couldn’t give in. He was getting into my head and heart, and there was no room for that here. I was nothing to him, and I knew that. He would use me for sex, and when it was time to return me, he wouldn’t think twice about me. I’d be sitting somewhere nursing a broken heart like a fool.
“With my fiancé, the man who loves me,” I answered, telling a tale that my mind nor my heart believed.
“Is that what you think?”
“It’s what I know. He’s not out to use me. At least he knows my worth and plans to treat me accordingly. He’s a real man, Priest. Not someone playing little boy games,” I replied spitefully.
He climbed off the bike and pulled his helmet off his head. When he turned to look at me, there was an edge to him. I wasn’t sure if my statement had offended him or not, but I didn’t like being brought here to “hang out.” I would rather have stayed back at the cabin alone in the room I had been stuck in. I could have slept, watched TV, or maybe even tried to escape.
I glanced away from his judgmental gaze and checked out the others who watched us closely.
“Did I say something to offend you?” I asked sarcastically.
He mugged me, snatched my helmet out of my hands, and placed it on his bike. When he turned and headed to the clubhouse without saying another word, I quickly followed him. The last thing that I wanted was to be left alone with the men who stared at me like I was either a piece of meat they wanted to consume or make me the latest toy in their orgy.
These men scared the hell out of me. They looked a lot like the men who had assaulted my mother several years ago. Every time I came around them, trepidation paralyzed me, and all I wanted was to escape.
“Priest, what am I supposed to do while we’re here?” I asked once we stepped inside the club. There were people everywhere. Some people were shooting pool, others sitting around drinking and smoking, a couple of girls were twerking on each other in the corner, men were throwing money at them, and in another corner, a girl was giving a blowjob in plain view of everyone. No one seemed to be surprised or even pay attention. It was as if it were normal behavior.
Priest grabbed me by my arm and pulled me away. “Quit staring. Chill until it’s time to go,” he demanded and pointed at the couch I’d sat on the last time that I was here.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ve got some business to take care of,” he answered and turned away from me as a light brown-skinned, hippy woman walked in his direction. Although she walked toward him, she was mugging the shit out of me. If looks could kill, shit, my ass would probably be six feet under the ground. Then I remembered. She was the one who hung all over him when I saw him at the tattoo shop the day he kidnapped me.
Priest stopped, turned back, looked at me, and warned, “Don’t get no ideas, princess. You’re being watched.”
I knew that he was thinking about me running away, and the idea had crossed my mind. At the moment, I wasn’t concerned about that. I was more concerned about why the woman who’d been glaring at me was wrapping her arm around his, and Priest wasn’t doing anything to dissuade her. Who was she? His girlfriend? A club whore?
Yeah, that was more like it based on the way that she was dressed, which wasn’t much different than how I’d been dressed at the house, except her short shorts literally showed off her ass cheeks, only covering the tops of her cheeks. I glanced enviously at the woman’s large breasts, shapely curves, and golden, almost flawless skin. I was a bad bitch myself, but her curves were full, grown woman ass curves.
I saw the smirk on her lips as she rolled her eyes at me before she turned her attention to Priest. She considered me her competition. Well, she could have him all to herself again soon. It had been two weeks since Priest had kidnapped me from my home. I had just over two weeks left before I could return home. He would be all hers again.
An unexpected sadness washed over me with that thought.
“Hey, take one of these. It’ll help you feel better,” a short, thick, medium-brown woman commented. She sat next to me and held out a tray of cookies. She wore her hair pulled back in a big, curly afro puff.
“Don’t listen to her ass. You’ll be high off your ass and have Priest pissed at everybody in this damn place,” another light-skinned woman with light brown braids that hung to the middle of her back warned. She sat on the other side of me.
“They’re just cookies,” I responded.
“They’re not just cookies,” she replied.
I looked at the woman who offered them. “Are those edibles?”
“They are, and don’t nobody make ’em like me. I’m Kyte, by the way. And this hater over here is my friend, Bell.”
“It’s nice to meet you both. I’m September.”
“Yeah, we know who you are,” Kyte replied. She bit into one of her cookies and smirked. “The only woman to ever pass through here and have Cheekz’s ass up in arms.”
“Who?” I asked.
“The Beyoncé wannabe,” Bell answered around the cookie she munched on.
I couldn’t help but wonder how high she’d be in a minute with the way she went at that cookie. She already had her eye on a second one in the pack.
“Oh, you mean the one with the platinum blonde braids?”
“Yeah. The one with her ass on display. You can say it because I know you wanted to,” Kyte observed.
“She’s a club whore who has set her sights on becoming Priest’s old lady one day,” Bell announced.
“Oh.”
Because what more could I say about that?
“I’m married to Jagged, the MC’s enforcer, and Bell is engaged to Ox. Then there’s Torch, who is married to Chainz, the MC’s mechanic, and Juicy, who is married to Lyon, our sergeant-at-arms,” she stated as she pointed out a tall, thin, dark-skinned woman with long, red hair and a woman about my height with dangerous curves and a killer smile. They were with a group of other ladies, talking. “Other than that, the rest of the men in the club aren’t tied down with a woman, so they screw the club whores at random. They float from one man to the next. Only Priest sticks with one woman.”
“I’m guessing that’s Cheekz,” I replied.
“Look at that. This girl’s a genius. That’s who his ass needs to claim.” Kyte snickered. She slapped her thigh and laughed loudly.
Bell twisted her lips and shook her head. “Kyte, don’t even think about it,” she declared and snatched the pack of cookies from Kyte’s hand as the other woman reached for a third and fourth cookie since she’d demolished the first two while we had chatted.
“Give me them damn cookies,” Kyte demanded through her giggles.
“No. You’re gonna piss Ox off if he comes in and sees you this way.”
“They’re my damn cookies,” Kyte replied. She laughed so hard that she cried.
“Cookies you were supposed to bring for the brothers and for them to share. Not for your ass to demolish. I swear, I can’t take your ass anywhere,” Bell grumbled, holding the cookies out of Kyte’s reach. I jumped off the couch as Kyte tried to reach over me and damn near tackled me.
“Geek,” Bell called out to a tall, thin man who wore glasses. He was young, around my age, and very attractive.
“Hey, Bell. What’s up?”
“Take these cookies. Kyte brought them for the brothers,” Bell stated as Kyte jumped up and tried to take the cookies.
She was a short woman, so it was easy for “Geek” to take the cookies and hold them over her head. His long legs took him away from her quickly as he jogged upstairs. Kyte plopped back onto the couch and dropped her head on the arm of the couch.
“Y’all so damn funny. Gonna take my ass home and make some more,” she quipped, still in the throes of her giggle fest.
Bell shook her head and sat back down, and I followed suit. “Kyte is a good woman. You’ve got to excuse her today, though. She owns a bakery, and she’s been experimenting with edibles for the MC to sell. They’ve been doing so well that her ass has been getting excited about it. Maybe a little too excited,” Bell noted.
“So, you were saying about Cheekz,” I prompted.
“She’s got her eye on becoming Priest’s old lady. But I won’t lie; I’ve never seen a club whore become an old lady, and I can’t see him being the first one to do so. But that’s the thing about Priest. He’s the most unpredictable man I’ve ever met. Don’t get me wrong; he’s a good man and a great leader, but you can never detect how he’s going to move. He never does anything exactly the same, which is why I guess the shit he gets into works for him because no one can predict what he’ll do next. But anyway, he doesn’t screw with all the other whores. It’s only been Cheekz for the last couple of years. I don’t know about anything before that because I wasn’t coming around back then.”
We chatted for a while about how Kyte and Bell became involved with the brothers and how they became involved with the MC. I snagged onto something that Bell said.
“You said one percenter. What does that mean?”
“They’re the one percent of motorcycle gangs who are considered a menace to society. Honestly, it’s derived from the idea that ninety-nine percent of motorcycle clubs are law-abiding.”
“And the other one percent isn’t,” I finished for her.
“Exactly. But listen. When they’re family, they’re down for you, and there’s not anything that the brothers won’t do for each other or their men.”
I laughed. “You don’t have to do a PSA for me. I’m not considering joining it or having anything to do with it once Priest decides to release me.”
As if I conjured him with the mention of his name, Priest reappeared in the doorway and walked in our direction.
Bell patted my thigh, stood, and retorted, “Good luck with that.”