Chapter Ten
Reed
The music is loud, the crowds are overwhelming, and there’s a man with his fucking hands on my kitten.
What the fuck?
Why is she here? She’s supposed to be at home, in bed, thinking about me. Not down here, in the middle of the damn night, with this asshole’s hands all over her.
I stop in my tracks and stare at them, my shoulders square, my jaw locked, my chest tight. The music is duller now, the crowd like a blur circling around us.
I stalk forward, my body reacting before my mind catches up.
Her eyes widen with each step I take, and the old fuck, who I see now is Troy, turns toward me, his gaze also getting wider. Normal people would probably offer some sort of explanation here, but I can’t speak. Nothing I have to say would make any sense.
I don’t own Nikki. I have no right to do what I’m doing, but I can’t stop myself.
It’s barbaric, primal, territorial, and wrong. These revelations should slow me down, but I’m only moving faster.
Immediately, I can tell this Troy fuck doesn’t often meet people like me. I feel his fear in the way he stares, in the way he backs away, allowing me, a strange man, to lift the woman he’s with up onto his shoulders and walk away.
What kind of a man lets that happen? What kind of a man stands by while another man hauls the woman he’s with away? He doesn’t know who I am, or what I’m capable of. I could be a serial killer, a fucking maniac. I could be anyone and Troy just stands there like a little bitch.
A pussy, that’s who. Troy is a fucking pussy. A pussy who doesn’t deserve my sweet, little kitten.
Fuck him!
The crowd hums around me as I carry my girl upstream. The moonlit log-roll starts in twenty minutes and everyone in town is headed to the back of the festival and toward the arena. Anywhere else, a woman on my shoulder kicking and screaming would cause a scene. Here, it’s a normal Friday night.
Not to mention that Nikki’s screams aren’t that convincing. She likes it on my shoulders and we both know it.
When we’ve crossed beneath the wooden arch, I carry her through the quiet field toward my motorcycle parked on the east end of the lot.
“Where are we going? You’re acting like an animal. Did Clint tell you I was here?”
She must have run into him. I have questions, but I’m too angry to ask any of them. I’m livid, and I don’t want to be held accountable for what I say.
The moon hangs low, lighting up the field as I set her in the grass next to my bike. I know she hates the thing, but it’s all I have here with me, and she’s getting on it.
Her arms cross over her chest and she scoffs. “You’re kidding yourself if you think I’m getting on that death machine.”
The chrome catches the moonlight, throwing it back in sharp flashes.
I focus on it for a second as I think over my next move, but mid-thought, I catch Troy making his way across the field.
Maybe he’s not a complete pussy. That said, I’m not fighting this fuck over something that’s belonged to me far before he even knew her name.
I lift Nikki from the ground, her small, curved frame twisting and flailing as I set her on the bike, boxing her in-between my arms as I climb on after her.
“What are you doing?” she shouts as I turn the engine, muting her words enough that I can pretend to ignore them.
Truth is I hear every damn syllable. I just don’t trust myself to answer.
I focus on the vibration, the rumble, the soft weight of her body as she leans back against me.
This is what gives me permission to peel off into the night. She won’t admit it, but she wants this. She wanted me to show up here tonight. She wanted me to lift her off the ground and carry her way. And though she’s scared of this bike, she wanted to be in my arms.
I keep my eyes on the moonlit field and drive without hesitation. Her hair whips back and brushes across my face and my throat, the soft scent of wildflowers moving with it.
I grip the handlebars until my knuckles are white and ride up onto the main road. There are two directions I could take. One, I could ride back up to the cabin. Two, I could finally get started on that road trip I’ve been meaning to take.
Sure, I have nothing packed, but there are plenty of shops along the way, and right now, I want to be as far away from anyone that could take Nikki from me as possible.
I know my buddy Kade has had a spot set up for me at his campground on the outskirts of the mountain since I told him I was thinking about the trip out there. It’s not the furthest I could get tonight, but it’s far enough that no one will think to look for us there.
Her back presses into me tighter and her small hands grip the tank. She’s small enough that I can cage her in without crowding her, but close enough that every breath she takes moves through me.
I love having her this close. Having her in my space, feeling her weight, holding her where no one else can touch her.
The wind hits cool and sharp. There’s a chill in the air tonight I don’t think anyone in town was expecting, which is probably why Nikki’s wearing this flannel she doesn’t usually wear.
I’ve been trying to ignore it, trying to push away thoughts of the asshole taking off his shirt to offer it to my little kitten, trying to dissociate from the hard truth that my little girl was close to leaving me for good.
But here, in the quiet rumble of my bike on the open road, the rage of this reality slashes at my chest like a serrated chef’s knife.
I want to pull over and rip it off her, punish her little body for letting that man care for her, but the night is cold and I don’t have a flannel she can wear right now.
It’s just a shirt.
Fabric.
It means nothing.
I tell myself this over and over again as I lean into a curve, the bike humming beneath us as she presses back into me for balance.
Why the hell is this bothering me so much?
I didn’t lose her. She’s right here in front of me, against my chest, between my arms, her tiny hand now on my thigh.
She’s safe. I have her.
I tell myself this truth repeatedly, but reality keeps slapping me in the damn face.
I could’ve lost her.
What would’ve happened if I hadn’t gotten up and left tonight? What would’ve happened if I hadn’t seen her and Troy at the festival? Everyone in town is down at the base of that mountain. There’s a huge possibility I could’ve missed them all together.
Then what?
What would’ve happened?
Would she have gone home with him?
Would they have planned a second date?
Would he have kissed her?
That old fuck touching my kitten’s lips?
Fuck!
Rage boiling, I turn down the old logging road to the left of the mountain, the silver light from the moon nearly disappearing amidst the cover of pine.
“Where are we going?” Her tone is nearly a whine, and part of me wants to pull over and reassure her, tell her she’s safe, remind her that I’m only doing this because I love her.
A bigger part of me knows what a fucking mistake that would be, so I keep my mouth closed and ride, bumping over gravel and divots in the seasonal road.
She grips my thigh with one hand, the frame of the bike with her other as I lean into a curve, the road dropping off into blackness on our right, trees rising up on the left.
The light from my headlamp catches a sign, half hanging on a nail.
Campground one mile. I’m not sure if that’s good or not.
What the hell do I do when I get her to the campsite?
I still don’t know what to say, what to do, how to react. I’m angry. Angry and territorial. Angry and frustrated. Angry and desperate to touch her again. To feel her tiny little frame against my body. To slide my cock into her tight little core and make her mine.
A hollow burning ache takes over in the pit of my stomach as the campground emerges from the dark. I slow my bike to the edge of the gate, punch in the code my buddy Kade gave me days ago, and wait for the barrier arm to lift as the scent of damp earth and wood-fire smoke fills the air.
“You’re not seriously taking me camping tonight, are you?
” She twists back as I ease the bike forward through towering pines and over more gravel, toward the sign for campsite thirty-one.
Apparently, Kade has a tent set up for me there.
I’m hoping he’s put some other essentials out as well, but if he hasn’t, we’ll make do for the night.
I don’t plan to stay here for long, anyway.
This is a pit stop. A place where I know no one will bother us.
A place where cell reception is lost to the trees and time exists only in the moment.
She shifts in front of me as I slow the bike again, her spine straightening, her shoulders tight.
How the hell do I do this? What do I say to her? How do I handle this when all I want to do is pin her down on the ground like a fucking bear and plow her little pussy raw until she admits that I’m where she belongs?
Pushing down the sick fucking urges driving through my body, I guide the bike between two stumps and kill the engine, letting the last of the vibrations fade out of my bones before I lift off the bike.
I needed that second. Hell, I need about twenty more, but Nikki is already squirming and huffing like I’ve drained the last bit of patience out of her. Can’t blame her, really. I have no right to do what I’ve done.
“Well,” she tilts her head to the side and crosses her arms over her chest in defiance, “you didn’t kill us on that thing, so good for you, but… what… are… you… doing? You can’t bring me out here in the middle of nowhere and think I’m actually going to stay, right?”
She grabs her phone out of her back pocket and stares down at the screen, flicking left and right before drawing her gaze up toward mine in the dark.
“There’s no cell reception. You did this on purpose.
What were you thinking?” Her head flicks back and forth in the dark woods as though she’s surveying the area.
“Not to mention that this place is like a ghost town. We’re going to get eaten by a bear or something! ”
Her tantrum shouldn’t turn me on, but for some reason the more she kicks her little feet in the dirt, the harder my cock gets.
Unless she wants me to fuck her raw like a wild animal, ignoring her is my best option.
I walk toward the fire ring and use the lighter from my back pocket to ignite the kindling Kade has set out.
It’s slow to catch, but after a couple of tries, the flame ignites enough that I’m able to coax the fire to life with a few twigs.
I stay crouched over the blaze, letting my hands focus on work, on something that doesn’t mess me up inside, but I hear her shuffling towards me, and my chest is tightening again.
I grit my teeth and focus on the flame as it pops and sparks, ignoring the raging fucking hard-on pulsing at my zipper.
“Reed,” she sighs, “I swear to God, if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on, I’m going to walk back to town! I don’t care how dark it is.”
I glance up at her pretty, blonde hair glowing in the light of the flame, her thick thighs spilling out from under the hem of a short little sundress, and that gross fucking flannel.
That old asshole’s gross fucking flannel!
A flare of heat flashes over me as my chest tightens with that same barbaric feeling I had at the festival.
I stand from the ground and stare at her, jaw locked as I tug the flannel off her and toss it into the flames.
There’s a sudden flare up of smoke and fire leaps higher, giving off a thick gray puff.
Her eyes narrow and her pretty, pink lips drop open with anger. “You’ve lost your mind! Why are you doing this?”
Honestly, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, but I need to say something. I need to fucking speak!
My shoulders lock, my hands go still, and the pull that’s been drawing me toward her for years suddenly snaps. I step forward and land my hand on her delicate little throat, a growl settling in my chest as I stare toward her in the dark light of the moon. “Because you’re mine.”