Chapter 3
CAL
At first light, I returned to the place where I’d found Lauren.
The tire tracks were still visible in the soft shoulder. I photographed them, along with the drag marks through the grass, then followed the road in both directions.
Whoever left her had known what they were doing. There was nothing else that might identify them.
But Lauren’s memory changed everything.
She hadn’t been jumped by a stranger looking for an easy target. She’d seen a dead woman with a sheriff’s deputy standing over her.
Someone had tried to make sure she never told anybody.
I walked up the ridge until the club phone found a signal and called TK.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Awake. She remembers her name.”
“That’s something.”
“She remembered more last night.”
I told him about the woman in the woods and the sheriff’s uniform.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “You believe her?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Does she know which county she was camping in?”
“Not yet. She said Daniel Boone National Forest. She remembers leaving her car near a trailhead, but not which one.”
“That covers a lot of ground.”
“She drives a blue Toyota RAV4. Kentucky plate. We find the car, we find her campsite.”
TK was quiet for a moment.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“Two brothers without their cuts. Have them check trailheads and campgrounds. Nobody talks to local law enforcement.”
“I’ll get someone looking through missing-person reports too.”
“Quietly.”
“That’s how I do things.”
“Since when?”
“Since my enforcer started telling me how to run my club.”
I ignored that. “We also need names and photographs of every sheriff and deputy working the counties around the forest.”
“Done.”
I looked toward the cabin below. Tommy stood on the porch, watching me. Lauren was nowhere in sight.
“Why leave her alive?” I said.
“Maybe they think she won’t remember, or will be too scared to talk.”
“Or they thought she would die before she was found.”
“I’m sending brothers to the cabin.”
“Not yet. I don’t want to scare her.”
TK gave a humorless laugh. “You’re the one she should be scared of.”
“Fuck you, Boss.”
“Take care, Bro.”
“Will do. And I can handle Lauren.”
“I’m sure you can.” He laughed.
I ended the call and turned toward the cabin.
Lauren was standing on the porch now. Fuck. Had she heard anything I’d said?
From the look on her face, she’d heard enough.
Lauren
“I can handle Lauren,” I repeated back to him slowly.
“Not what it sounds like,” he said.
Truth be told, if I didn’t feel so beat up, he could handle me any way he liked and I would let him. This guy oozed sex and I wasn’t even sure he knew that.
“How many people did you tell?” I asked.
Cal stopped walking toward me. “Tell what?”
“My name. My car. The dead woman.”
His face didn’t change. “My club president.”
“And now he’s sending people to search for my car.”
“Two brothers.”
“Strangers.”
“Not to me.”
I folded my arms, then winced when the movement pulled at my bruised ribs.
“You had no right.” I didn’t know why I was so pissed. He was helping me for fuck’s sake.
“I had every right.”
“You found me beside a road. That doesn’t make you responsible for my life.”
“Somebody has to be.”
“I can take care of myself.” I knew that sounded stupid as soon as I said it.
Cal looked at my bare feet and scratches on my face.
“That isn’t what I meant,” I snapped.
“Then tell me what you meant.”
“I said I didn’t want anyone involved until I remembered more.”
“You said you didn’t want the police involved.”
“You knew what I meant.”
“I knew the thought of calling the sheriff sent you into a panic. My brothers aren’t cops.”
“They’re a motorcycle club.”
“You say that like it makes them criminals.”
“Are they?”
He frowned. “They’re men I trust with my life.”
“I don’t know them.”
“You don’t know me either, but you slept in my bed last night.”
I chuckled, and he grinned.
He could have any woman sleep in his bed, and all he got was a broken-ass Lauren while he slept alone.
“I didn’t have much choice,” I said, trying to keep the conversation on course.
“Exactly.”
He took a breath and lowered his voice.
“The man who left you here believes you’re too scared to talk. If he checks the road or goes back for your car, he could discover he was wrong. He might know where you live. He might know your family.”
The anger drained out of me a little.
“I don’t have family nearby,” I said.
“He doesn’t know that.”
“Neither do you.”
“That’s why my club is looking.”
I glanced down the empty road. I hadn’t considered that whoever attacked me might check whether I had been found.
Cal stepped closer, but not close enough to crowd me. I could feel his heat. Or was that mine? I took off his shirt anyway.
His eyes drifted toward my chest and it did nothing to help me cool down.
“You can be pissed at me,” he said. “I’m still not gambling with your life to protect your feelings.”
It was like we were having this angry conversation while the sexual tension between us was building.
“That’s an incredibly arrogant thing to say.”
“Probably.”
“And if I tell you to call them off?”
“No.”
At least he didn’t pretend the decision was mine.
“Is your club coming here?” I asked.
“Not unless we need them.”
“You tell me before they do.”
“I can do that.”
“And nobody contacts anyone from my life without asking me first.”
He considered it, then nodded. “Agreed.”
I still didn’t like what he’d done.
I liked even less that his reasons made sense.
But I liked telling him what to do and having him agree. It gave me back a little control.
A galvanized wash tub stood beneath the outdoor faucet. I took off his flannel shirt as I crossed to it, then pulled my tee over my head and plunged it into the water to wash it. I knew he was watching. That was why I did it.
I wrung it out and dragged the wet fabric back over my bare skin. When I turned, his gaze dropped to my breasts as my nipples hardened beneath the soaked cotton.
Fuck, I wanted him. And the hunger on his face told me he wanted me too.
Two days later, apart from the bruises and grazes, I felt fine. Nothing was broken and I was rested and restless.
I stepped onto the porch and found Cal beside his Harley, pulling on a black leather vest.
It changed him.
It carried a skull between the words KENTUCKY and SKULLS MC. A smaller patch identified him as ENFORCER.
“You call that a vest?” I asked.
“A cut.”
“What exactly do you enforce?”
“Whatever TK tells me to.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“It wasn’t supposed to.”
He fastened the cut over a black T-shirt, then rolled the Harley off the trailer. Sunlight caught the chrome, and the motorcycle looked far too polished for a man living in the wild.
I pointed to the patch. “What does that mean to you?”
Cal looked down at the skull over his heart.
“Everything.”
“That’s specific.”
He rested one hand on the handlebar. “The Army gave me my first brothers. When I came home, I didn’t fit anywhere. The Skulls gave me another place to stand.”
“You were in the Army?”
“Thirteen years.”
“What happened after you got out?”
His eyes shifted away from mine. “I found the club.”
That was all he intended to give me.
Cal opened a storage box on the trailer and pulled out a second helmet.
I nodded.
He settled it over my head and fastened the strap beneath my jaw with surprising care.
“Tell me if anything hurts,” he said.
“Everything hurts,” I said, but it wasn’t all about the injuries.
“Anything new.”
He shut Tommy inside the cabin then climbed on and started the engine. The deep rumble filled the clearing and vibrated through the ground beneath my boots.
Cal looked back at me. “Get on.”
I eased onto the seat behind him.
“Feet on the pegs. Arms around my waist and lean when I lean.”
I slid my arms around him and squeezed my thighs against his.
The Harley rolled down the road and gathered speed. Wind rushed past us as the cabin disappeared behind the trees.
Cal kept the ride smooth, guiding the big motorcycle through the curves.
I wasn’t thinking about the sheriff, the dead woman or the hours missing from my memory.
I understood why Cal rode.
Nothing could close around you when the whole world was moving past.
And nothing felt better than being wrapped around that hard, hot muscle.
If I had died, then this would be heaven.
Cal
I stopped at an overlook where the hills stretched for miles in every direction.
Lauren climbed off the Harley and kept her hands around my waist until both feet were steady. I held her hips longer than necessary.
Neither of us mentioned it.
She removed the helmet and shook out her hair. The bruising around her face had already started to fade.
I shouldn’t have been thinking about kissing her, but I was.
“You do this often?” she asked.
“Ride?”
“Bring injured women into the hills and show them the scenery.”
“You’re the first.”
“I feel special.”
“You should.”
She looked at me, and I thought she was going to say more.
I turned toward the view before I said something stupid.
“Why were you camping alone?” I asked.
“I wanted to see if I could.”
“Why?”
She leaned against the wooden railing. “My divorce was finalized five months ago.”
“Bad marriage?”
“Not in the way you mean. He never hit me or cheated on me. He just decided everything. Where we lived. Who we saw. What we did on weekends.”
“And you let him?”
“For too long.”
There was no self-pity in her voice. Just anger, most of it aimed at herself.
“When I left, I realized I didn’t know what I liked anymore,” she continued. “Camping was something he would’ve hated. So I bought a tent, watched a dozen videos and went by myself.”
“That didn’t work out too well.”
“No. But I still got the tent up without help.”
I smiled despite myself. She was pitching a tent in my jeans as we spoke. My cock thickened against the zipper, and I adjusted it while she looked out at the view.
She glanced at me. “Why did you come here alone?”
“I needed space.”
“From your club?”
“From everybody.”
“Because of what happened when the power went out?”
My smile disappeared.
She watched my face. “You leave every light on at night. There are flashlights in every room, and you knew exactly how to talk me through a panic attack.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“You’re afraid of the dark.”
“I’m not afraid of it.”
“Then what are you afraid of?”
I picked up her helmet and held it out.
“We should head back.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
She took the helmet without looking away from me. “You expect me to tell you everything while you tell me nothing.”
“I didn’t ask about your divorce.”
“No. You just had your motorcycle club investigate my life.”
She had me there.
Lauren put on the helmet and climbed behind me. When we pulled back onto the road, her arms tightened around my waist.
I spent every mile to the cabin reminding myself that wanting her and touching her were two different things.
Lauren
Tommy met us at the cabin door with an angry bark.
“He doesn’t like being locked inside?” I asked.
“He chases motorcycles.”
Tommy pushed past Cal and came straight to me.
“He’s telling me he would never do that.”
“He’s a liar.”
Cal crouched to help me out of my boots, as if I was too damaged to do so myself. I liked that. His fingers stayed around my ankle for a second, warm against my skin.
He looked up, and I stopped breathing.
He rose slowly, leaving almost no space between us.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring at me.”
“Mn-hmm.”
His hand came up to my face. He ran his thumb softly over my cheek, and just when I thought he was going to lean in for a kiss he said:
“You should go inside.”
I couldn’t tell whether it was an invitation or a retreat.
Neither of us moved.
I licked my lip.
Cal’s gaze dropped to my mouth, so I did it again. Then he bent his head and kissed me.
It was gentle at first. But I didn’t need gentle, so I gripped the front of his cut, pulled him in, opened my mouth and sucked on his tongue.
His hand slid behind my neck. I felt the roughness of his whiskers against my skin and his hard cock pressed against me.
For a few seconds, I forgot everything else.
Then Cal broke the kiss and stepped back.
“No.”
The word took me a moment to understand.
“What?”
“That shouldn’t have happened.”
“It shouldn’t have stopped,” I said. I didn’t want it to stop and whatever he was thinking, he was wrong.
“Oh.”
“What’s the problem?”
He turned away and dragged a hand over his beard. “You’re injured. You can’t remember who attacked you, you don’t have your car and you’re staying in my cabin because you have nowhere else to go.”
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t want you to kiss me.”
“You’re dependent on me.”
“I’m hardly injured, Cal. And I’m not incapable of knowing what I want.”
His jaw tightened. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. That’s why I stopped.”
I folded my arms. “That makes no sense. I don’t need someone else telling me what to do.”
“I’m sorry, Lauren. I do want you.”
“So?” I held my hands out.
“I don’t want to wonder if you chose me because I’m the man standing between you and whoever attacked you.”
“You don’t get to decide why I choose somebody.”
“No. I get to decide why I touch them.”
I couldn’t argue with that, even though I wanted to.
Cal nudged the cabin door wider.
I walked past him with Tommy at my side.
Cal had drawn his line. Fine.
Once I could walk away from him, I intended to walk straight back.