Chapter 9
EMILY
Her second day in Grand Ridge had been mostly uneventful.
She’d met the rest of the women when Savannah took her to Trinity’s coffee shop.
They were all super sweet and easy to talk to.
After, Makenzie took her on a drive through the town and onto Valhalla where two club members were working the gate.
After meeting Bull and Mad Dog, she met Mia and Veronica.
They were a hoot. Some of the women were very open about their DDlg relationships and Emily couldn’t stop thinking about it.
She was mulling over the rules the girls had told her about when Rampage dropped another one for her.
"Yesterday I came looking for you and couldn’t find you.
Luckily, Irish was nearby and told me you were with Mak.
From now on, if you go somewhere, you tell me first," Rampage said, not looking up from his coffee.
"Even inside the compound. If I don't know where you are, I'm going to come find you.
You might not like the consequences when I do. "
Emily looked up from her toast. "Inside the compound."
"Yes."
"You want me to report my location inside a building."
"Yes."
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked at Savannah across the table, who was studying her own mug with the focused intensity of a woman actively not inserting herself.
"That's—" Emily started.
"Non-negotiable," he said. Same even tone. Like he was reading from a list of facts about the weather.
"I was going to say something else," she said evenly. "But okay. Non-negotiable works too."
He finally looked at her. Something in the look that said he'd expected an argument and was recalibrating.
She picked up her toast. "I'm not going to fight you about my own safety. I told you that."
"You told me. Didn't know if it would hold when the rules got specific."
"I'm a woman of my word." She took a bite. "Can I at least use the bathroom without a check-in, or—"
"Emily."
"I'm asking a genuine logistical question."
Nicole made a sound into her coffee that was almost certainly a laugh.
"Use your judgment," he said. "Anytime you are going further than twenty feet from me, you tell me."
"Twenty feet. Got it." She considered that. "That's a very specific number."
"It's the distance at which I lose immediate response capability."
She stared at him. "You calculated that."
"Yes."
"You calculated your response radius and used it to set my movement parameters."
"Yes."
Emily looked at Savannah. Savannah looked back at her with an expression that said I know and I know, right and isn't it something all at once.
"Okay," Emily said. "Twenty feet."
She spent the rest of breakfast thinking about the fact that he'd done the math on how close he had to be to keep her safe.
The urge started at two in the afternoon.
She'd been good. She'd been genuinely, actively good.
She'd told him when she went to the back porch to call Madison, told him when she moved from the common room to the kitchen, had sent him a text that said going upstairs to change, back in 10 that she was at least sixty percent sure was not ridiculous given the circumstances.
She felt ridiculous doing so but she also felt weirdly…
good about it. Like it was his way of showing he cared.
He'd texted back: ok.
Just ok. But he'd texted back in under thirty seconds.
She didn't think about that.
What she thought about, sitting on the back porch after her call with Madison, was the fact that her apartment was three hours away, she had approximately three days of borrowed clothes, and she needed her stuff.
Her specific stuff. Like her kindle, her good face wash, the particular blanket she slept with that Chloe called a security blanket.
She needed it.
She could get it herself. She was a twenty-six-year-old adult woman and the threat was Marcus Delling specifically, and Marcus Delling had no reason to know where she lived because she'd only ever communicated with him through Facebook Marketplace and she'd been careful about—
She stopped that thought.
She had also been careful about only meeting him in the afternoon, and only at his house, and only after checking his profile reviews.
She had been very careful, and here she was.
She opened her Facebook profile on her phone.
Damn if her work location wasn’t very public.
Of course it was, how else would she get people to attend her yoga classes?
At least her apartment wasn’t mentioned ever.
Even if Marcus knew where she worked, he wouldn’t know where she lived.
She went to find Rampage.
He was in the garage with Savage, both of them leaning over her CR-V.
She stopped in the doorway and watched him for a second.
He was large, almost larger than life and definitely worked out.
She imagined his special forces training had something to do with the amount of discipline he asserted to those muscles in his arms. She’d been impressed with the large gym on property and had taken advantage of getting an early morning yoga session in.
Apparently, keeping in shape was important to most of the MC members as they rotated in an out of the gym throughout the morning.
"Hey," she said.
Both of them looked up.
"I need to go to my apartment," she said. "I need clothes and my kindle and some other things. I know the rules. I'm not asking to go alone. I'm asking to go."
Savage looked at Rampage. A look that communicated something she didn't have the translation for.
Rampage straightened. Wiped his hands on a cloth. "When?"
She blinked. "That's it? You're not going to debate it?"
"You followed the rule. You came and asked and didn’t sneak off and try to go alone. I’m proud of you." He tossed the cloth on the workbench. "When would you like to go?"
"Whenever works. Now, if you want. We can be there and back by like nine, if it’s not too late. I can uh, pay for gas."
"You aren’t paying for a damn thing. Give me ten minutes to wash up. We’ll take my truck."
“Uh. Okay.” She was not expecting him to agree to go now, but who was she to argue?
“And Emily?”
“Yeah?”
“Good girl.” He winked at her. Flushed, she turned around to go back inside and grab her purse and keys, and nearly walked directly into Irish, who was standing approximately four inches behind her with Clover.
"How long have you been there?" she asked.
"Clover needed air," Irish said with great innocence.
"We're in a garage."
"He likes the smells."
"Irish."
"The answer is not long." He paused. "You handled that really well, for what it's worth."
"What, asking for what I needed?"
"Yeah." He said it simply, without edge. "Some people can't do that. Takes a while to learn."
Emily looked at the enormous, soft-hearted man with his enormous, soft-hearted dog and felt a sudden urge to cry.
Not sad tears, not exactly. Maybe they were grateful tears.
She was grateful for the support she’d received and Irish was acting as close to a big brother as anyone ever had towards her.
"Thank you," she said, and meant it for more than a compliment.
The beginning of the drive to her apartment was quiet in the way she’d grown used to around Rampage, not uncomfortable, just present. He drove his truck, even though her car had cleared as safe after a full check. She imagined he might feel small and cramped in it.
"You didn't fight me," he said a few minutes into the drive.
"About the rules?"
"About coming back to the compound after we leave your apartment."
She looked at him. His eyes stayed on the road. "Did you expect me to?"
"I expected you to make the argument for staying at your apartment once we get there."
She thought about that. Once she was home, surrounded by her things, in her own space, it might be easy to say actually, I'll just stay here, it's fine.
"I told you I'd stay with you until this was all over," she said. "I meant it."
"People mean things until they get comfortable enough to rethink them."
"I'm not comfortable," she said. Then, quieter: "That's not what's keeping me there."
He glanced at her. Just briefly. Then back to the road.
"What is?" he asked.
Emily looked out the passenger window at the Colorado scenery going by, at the wide sky and the road cutting through it and thought about how to answer that honestly.
"You make me feel like you are handling the situation and I’m safe," she said finally. "And I can't remember the last time I felt that. So, I'd rather be somewhere I feel that than somewhere familiar that doesn't."
The truck was quiet.
"Even with the twenty-foot rule," she added.
"Even with that," he agreed, and there was something in his voice she couldn't quite name, something low and careful that she felt more than heard.
For the next two hours, Rampage allowed her to play twenty questions with him.
She knew he was allowing it, because occasionally he would sigh and shake his head, but he played along.
She’d ask a question and he’d ask her one.
They’d talked about everything from favorite foods to religious upbringing.
She’d grown quiet and sad when he asked about her family, and he allowed her to only tell what she was ready and able.
She appreciated his respecting her boundaries.
They pulled into her apartment complex.
"Fifteen minutes," he said, getting out. “After I clear the apartment to make sure no one is in there.”
"You're timing me?" She didn’t even ask about him clearing it. She knew it would be another non-negotiable.
"I'm giving you space." He looked at her over the roof of the car. "Fifteen minutes means I'm not standing over you while you pack. More than fifteen means I'm coming in."
She grabbed her keys. "Fifteen minutes," she said.
She made it in twelve.
The left town quickly, drove through a hamburger joint on the way home and then, on the drive back to Grand Ridge talked about the lifestyle.
He told her about his experience, how he’d been a Daddy before and she told him about hers.
They talked about what it meant to each of them and she found herself relaxing more and more with him…
and when they got back and she tucked herself in with her security blanket, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like for him to tuck her in and kiss her goodnight.
Six hours alone in a truck had been exactly what she needed to cement what she was already feeling inside. She wanted Rampage to be her Daddy, but was it wishful thinking?