Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Opening the door to Cool Hands, Nadia took a moment to let her eyes adjust, before she walked over to the bar. The place was snazzy—as her mom would say—with his industrial feel, concrete floors, gleaming dark wood and chrome, and deep red padded stools, chairs, and booths spread out around the perimeter. It was the kind of place where she’d enjoy a girls’ night with Vicki—and she determined, right in that moment, to do that. Soon. As soon as she figured out how to explain to her best friend that she’d just escaped captivity in her own house through her bedroom window.
Yeah, she realized she was, once again, and romance heroine cliché, the dum-dum who left the hero’s protection when things got dangerous. But she hadn’t been thinking about the danger, she’d been thinking that the asshole keeping her captive was being…well…an asshole.
Now, she was glad she was in a public place.
Waving down the bartender, a smiling twenty-something man with gelled hair and an eyebrow piercing. She asked to use the phone, saying she dropped hers out the car window. He slid the handheld across the bar and then moved down to chat with a slinky brunette with big teeth and tits. Rolling her eyes at her internal bitchiness, Nadia dialed Vicki. Wasting no time, she told Vicki where she was, and that she needed to see her STAT.
Vicki, knowing something was up, wasted no time in telling Nadia she’d be there in forty minutes, since she needed to drop Sylvia off at her ex’s house first. After hanging up, Nadia ordered a Diet Coke, knowing Vicki would pay the bill, and headed to the booth in the corner.
She sat down, and immediately, thoughts about everything that happened over the last five and a half months flooded her mind, but none as fresh and volatile as the memories of what happened that morning.
Sipping her soda, she let the memories, the heat, the hurt move through her mind. Locust had come to her when she needed him, he’d held her, he’d listened to her talk about her past, he’d made her feel safe, he’d kissed her, made her feel good, and through all of that, she felt…whole. Like he was right where he was supposed to be. With her. But then he went and did what he was good at; use her weakness for him against her. No, it wasn’t as bad as it had been when they first met, and he’d pulled the wool over her eyes about their relationship, but he’d still intended to kiss her and conquer her, to lull her, to bewitch her. And it had nearly worked.
Right, like you wouldn’t have just gone with him if you weren’t butt hurt about his methods.
Ugh. She hated that the wing-bearing biddy on her shoulder was right—she was more upset that he thought he could kiss her into compliance. If he’d simply asked her to pack a bag, told her that he was concerned for her safety, and held her hand as she went through the process, she could have climbed on the back of his bike without hesitation.
Yeah, she was that gone for him, and boy did that make her the biggest fool on the planet.
Blinking away her thoughts, she rubbed her eyes, and startled when she noticed someone was sliding into the booth seat across from her.
Shit. She’d been so caught up in her own mind that she hadn’t been paying attention. She lifted her gaze and gasped.
“Thought you were clever, didn’t you?” Locust drawled tightly, his pretty lips curling into a diabolical smirk, his eyes flashing with menace and… respect ? “I’m gonna make you pay for those tires, baby, and I am gonna love taking payment…over and over again.”
Immediately, her body turned molten, moisture gathering in her panties at the dark, decadent promise in his tone. Well, he could just forget about that! First off, she was never letting him touch her again. Second, she wasn’t a whore—it didn’t matter if she was fucking him for tires instead of money, he was still expecting her to suck his dick as compensation.
“Fuck you,” she snarled, her own lips curling. She nearly laughed at the shocked look on his face. Oh yeah, he wasn’t dealing with the old Nadia , the one who spoke softly and carefully, and would never think of dropping the F-bomb in public. He’d taken that Nadia, pissed on her, and then threw her into a pile of broken glass. That Nadia didn’t exist anymore. He’d see she wasn’t going to just fall on his cock and be that weak, stars-in-her-eyes loser again. And then he’d finally leave her the hell alone. “If you hadn’t locked me in my own bedroom like a fucking lunatic, I wouldn’t have had to climb out my own fucking window and stick a screwdriver in your fucking tires.” She shrugged nonchalantly, tossing her hair over her shoulder with a careless flip. “You earned that for being an asshole.” She almost cringed at the number of times she’d said the F-word, but she fought it. She wasn’t going to apologize for speaking her mind, even if her mind was suddenly an eighty-year-old sailor with Tourette’s.
“And how did you find me so fast?” she asked, smarting that her grand plan had been foiled so easily.
Locust snorted, leaning back in the booth seat, and crossing his arms. Without a word, he gave a chin lift to someone across the room, and when she turned to see who it was, she groaned.
She recognized the man in the kutte standing at the end of the bar. And she recognized the two women in the corner booth from the party at Horde’s house, where she first met them.
God, now she remembered where she’d heard of Cool Hands; Cilla and Stephie had been chatting about it at the club party the night before her love life blew up. It made sense that they were there, having lunch, and staring at her with obvious curiosity in their eyes. They looked like they wanted to get up and come over, and that would be awkward as hell. Ducking her head, she cursed, turning back to glare at the too sexy man sitting across from her.
Moaning, she muttered, “I knew this was too easy.”
Locust chuckled. “All that work to escape me, and you waltz right into a club-owned bar.” Shaking his head, a lopsided smile on his face, his blue eyes glinting with purpose and heat, he remarked, “It’s a good thing you came here; it saves me from hunting your pretty ass down.” Dropping his arms to the table, he leaned in, and she held her breath, too keyed up to look away. “Time to go, baby. We have some things to talk about.”
Without waiting for her response, he slid out of the booth, stepped over to stand beside her, then held out his hand, fully expecting—once again—for her to fall in line.
He must have seen something in her expression, because he narrowed his eyes at her.
“Now, don’t go making a scene, baby. We both know you hate being the center of attention,” he said, a little too much mocking edge in his tone. “Nice and quiet, baby.”
Nice and quiet? Like the old, weak Nadia. Disbelief morphed into dissonant anger in a flash.
The asshole expected her to get up, take his hand, and just leave with him—nice and quiet. Biting her lip, she considered her options; go with him, listening to whatever bullshit he had to say about his being a club slut puppet— fucking for duty, sir! —or…she could make a goddamn scene.
He was right; the old Nadia would hate making a scene in public, because she had manners and class, and a heaping helping of self-image issues. But the new Nadia, the one burned by the man she loved, was all about making him regret ever hurting her.
Again, he must have seen something in her expression, because he reached out for her hand, ready to take control of the situation, but she wasn’t having that.
The man wanted to talk…she’d talk.
As loud as she could get with a ball of anxiety in her throat, she blurted, “Wow, Locust, your hand looks red and raw.” God, he was going to hate this. She giggled on the inside. “I told you that would happen if you beat your meat five times a day—give your five inches a rest!”
Locust glared down at her, and hissed, “What the fuck are you doing?”
She bit back a laugh at the look of rising horror on his face.
It seemed like every pair of eyes in the place were zeroed in on her, including the man in kutte. Cilla and Stephie were snickering behind their hands, and Nadia suddenly wanted to die of embarrassment.
But the petty needed an outlet….
Undaunted, though, she exclaimed loudly, “What? You don’t beat your meat? Well, do you shake hands with the milkman? Polish the banister? Cuff the carrot? Don’t lie, I know you love choking the chicken and marching the penguin; you told me all about it that night you bought that special cream, you know, that medicine for the?—”
In a flash, Locust had hauled her to standing, and was marching her toward the door—and she wasn't even a penguin.
Shrugging, she couldn’t stop the snort of laughter that spilled from her hips. Not bothering to dig in her heels—Locust was just too determined to drag her out of there—she let him lead her right out the door to the parking lot. Just as her eyes adjusted to the afternoon sun, she spotted Vicki getting out of her car.
“Vicki!” Nadia called out, making the woman look up. At the sight of a massive, angry, determined biker pulling her friend toward his truck, Vicki’s jaw dropped.
“Nadia, what’s going on?” Vicki asked, hurrying toward them, her eyes wide, her cheeks flushed.
With a huff and a curse, Locust halted, and she jerked her arm from his grip.
His eyes blazing, Locust spun on her, and snarled, “What the fuck was that back there? Were you trying to embarrass yourself?”
Reaching them, Vicki peered between Nadia and Locust, concern and wariness in her gaze. “Nadia, what’s going on? What’s he talking about?”
Nadia snorted, crossing her arms over her chest. “Locust got bossy, I got pissed, and the whole bar got to hear all about Locust’s lone rangering ,” Nadia offered nonchalantly, totally belying the fact that her heart was about to jump right out of her chest. God, she’d really made an ass of herself in there, and she was sure she’d never be able to step foot through those doors again. Then again, she’d had an awful lot of fun making Locust squirm.
Locust growled, throwing his hands out in a gesture of frustration, but Nadia remained silent, watching him as emotions she’d never seen before flashed over his expression. Finally, anger etched itself in his features, an expression she knew he’d worked hard to hide from her all those months they’d been together. This was a part of the real James/Locust that he’d hidden from her.
But, God, he looked good angry; his face hard, his eyes intense, his body vibrating—every muscle taut as if ready to pounce.
Kicking herself for devolving into a needy cavewoman, she narrowed her eyes at Locust.
“Nadia,” Vicki said, and Nadia jerked her head toward her friend, having forgotten she was there. Heat bloomed in her cheeks; she’d been so caught up in Locust, no one else existed. “Are you okay? You called me…do you—did he do something to you?”
Locust grunted, shaking his head. He scrubbed his hand down his scruffy jaw, his eyes sad yet furious. But it was the disappointment she saw there that made her heart hurt.
Sucking in a breath, he said, “Nothing…I did nothing to her in there.” He shook his head again, as if he couldn’t believe what he was going to say. “She was a totally different person in there….” Swallowing, his Adam’s apple bobbing, he rasped, “What happened to you?”
Recoiling as if slapped, she gasped, the breath breaking up on the explosive inhale.
It was her turn to shake her head; disbelief, frustration, resentment, indignation—swirling rage and hurt and humiliation bled through her body, right down to her soul.
She could barely keep the tears at bay as she met his gaze once more.
“What happened to me?” she snapped, incredulous. Shaking her head, she ignored the curling grief in her gut, grief she hadn’t even felt with Joe, and declared, “I fell in love with a lie. My heart broke, shattered into pieces so small and jagged, I may never put them back together again. I am fundamentally changed; what you did, how you hurt me, rewrote who I am as a person. The old Nadia would never have said any of that in public—hell, she’d never say that in private, but the new Nadia, the one who is a mutation of the woman you met that day on the side of the road, she would have raged, and cursed, and damned you until God struck her down.” Breaths ragged, she almost cried out at the utter devastation on Locust’s face. But she wasn’t done. She needed to say this, for him to hear it, feel it. “I fell in love with a lie, Locust, that’s what happened to me. And I’ll never be the same again.”