24. Mia
I stretched languidly, my arms extending outward, almost knocking a lamp off a side table. “What the hell?” I muttered, looking around through sleep-crusted eyes. This wasn’t the motel. Millie slept soundly beside me, her hair covering her face and her mouth open in her slumber, a line of drool trickled out of her open lips. She’d always been an inelegant sleeper. She was legally an adult, but sometimes, like now when she was passed out and stuck in dreamland, I wondered how the hell she managed to survive in this harsh world.
Last night’s events came rushing back, and Margot’s sightless eyes were prominent in my memories. Slapping my hand against my cheek, I knocked the impression away, determined not to relive that horrible moment, especially before I’d had coffee.
My clothes were a rumpled mess where I’d fallen straight into bed, and feeling around the knots and tangles, I got the idea that my hair was a bird’s nest. The perks of having such pin-straight hair was that I could wash it and leave it to dry naturally, falling dry into a perfect fall of silkiness. The downside, it was so fine that it constantly tangled and twisted itself together as if it had a mind of its own, and only a good strong detangling brush would do it justice.
Without any of my things, I had to make do with just tying the whole thing at the top of my head in a messy bun—with emphasis on the messy—and walked out to find someone who could help me navigate what my day, and the coming week, would look like. Because I needed my things, and I wasn’t going the whole day without having a shower and putting clean clothes on. I still had on the same underwear as yesterday and it was not something that I felt comfortable with.
The hallway was empty, doors flung open to reveal vacant rooms. Where the hell is everyone?
Following the low rumble of voices, I found myself in a main hall. I remembered this part from last night, but I hadn’t got a good look at it. The large TV was set on CNN, the subtitles rolling across the screen. The voices were coming from some women sitting on the couches in front of it.
“Hi, good morning.” I waved at the two women, who craned their necks around to shoot me with black looks, their eyes cutting as they swept their fully made-up eyes over my disheveled self. My experience with Jenna and the men here had created a blanket of friendliness, and that had just been pulled out from beneath me, my feet hitting the ground hard with the reality that not everyone here was nice, judging by their sharp glances.
“Who are you? We ain’t been told there’s a new woman here,” the older of the two started, rising off the couch and giving me a greater view of her attire. It couldn’t be later than mid-morning, and this woman was dressed up for a night out. Her short denim skirt fell to just above mid-thigh, and her buttoned up shirt was open to reveal the sides of her bra. She was mutton dressed as lamb, her dry hair bleached a bright blonde and her make-up heavy to try and give her some semblance of youth that had left her at least a decade ago. Her foundation was a shade too dark for her complexion, and it enhanced the lines in her face tenfold. “Well? Who are ya?” She strutted over on heels too high, but she still only came eye to eye with me.
“I’m just looking to grab a coffee and then I’ll head on back to my room,” I said gently, trying to diffuse some imagined insult that my presence seemed to be.
“Your room.” She cackled, turning to look at the other woman. “Did you hear that, Denise, she said her room.” Her thick acrylic nails were tacky as hell, and she pointed one ugly ass nail in my face. “Listen, Miss Prissy Pants.” I snorted in amusement, was that supposed to be offensive? I’d been called far worse by my own friends just for fun, calling me Miss Prissy Pants was more humorous at this point. “You’re in the wrong place. You don’t have no room here, they’re the men’s rooms and you’re just some whore they picked up last night.” She raked her vicious gaze up and down. “And you need to be leaving.”
She grabbed my arm, trying to pull me around. Cementing my feet to the floor, I jerked my arm away, my patience with this woman wearing thin. “Don’t touch me. Now I’m going to ask you politely, where is Rex… or hell, I’ll speak to Sly if he’s around.” I didn’t want to make enemies on my first morning here, so I spoke as calmly as I could manage at this point, hoping she just got the hint I wasn’t in the mood for an argument. I’d left my sister sleeping and I didn’t know what kind of state she’d be in when she woke up, but I didn’t want to be gone too long.
She watched me with what I could only decipher as disgust. “Rex… or… Sly,” she muttered slowly. “Both of them?” Her eyes narrowed on me, and her lips pinched in a tight line. “Are you kidding?”
“Oh, for god’s sake, I don’t mean I’m with both of them, look… I’m sorry to have disrupted your little chat with your mates, I’ll let you get back to it and I’ll have a look for them myself.”
The second woman gasped as I turned toward one of the doorways that I hadn’t been down, there must be a kitchen somewhere, or another living room where I’d find the men so I could get my goddamn stuff.
“Oh no you don’t.” The woman stalked in front of me, blocking my path. “You’re not allowed down there. I don’t fucking know you. You… you come in here like you own the place and now you think you can just prance about.” Her face was inches from mine, her layers of makeup hiding something far more sinister. A ring of open sores lined her lips, the lumps looked inflamed and painful and yet she had pasted thick concealer over them, and lined her lips with bright pink lipstick to try and hide them as much as possible.
She continued her abusive tirade, calling me names and poking her finger in my chest, the acrylic blunt, but the light padding in my bra was offering my boobs some protection from her stabbing. I was far too caught up in the cracking scabs around her lips that were being irritated by her continuous talking.
“I’m in charge here, prissy, and you’re not welcome here. You’ve done what you needed to do and offered up some fresh meat to the boys, but they don’t want you, otherwise they would have told me about you. Since I have no fuckin’ idea who you are, it means you’re just not important enough.”
“Your own sense of self-importance is far too high. Why would you need to know who I am?” Jenna was the president’s wife and she hadn’t even spoken to me in such a way, and I’m pretty sure in the hierarchy of things, Jenna was way above this woman with poor personal hygiene.
“I’ve been around since before you were born, lady.” My lips twitched as she attempted to emphasize her value, but it only preceded to highlight to me how out of touch she was with reality.
“That’s not really something to brag about,” I stated confidently. “ You really should speak to the men about my presence here. I’ve been told I have to stay a while, so get used to my presence, which will only be for a short time,” I stressed. “Because I don’t want you speaking to my sister?—”
“Sister!” she screeched. “There’s another one of you prissy bitches around here?”
My jaw ached as I grit my teeth around my words. “You stay the fuck away from my sister, do you understand!” I spat at the bitter woman. “And while we’re having such a lovely little chat,” I stepped a touch closer, my breath coming in harsh pants as I reined in my instinct to stamp on her open toed sandals—I’ve seen enough damage to feet by women on a night out, “I think you really should see a doctor about that rash, it looks infected.” Her hand came up and covered her mouth, and she glared at me over her fingers. “I’ve seen this before, that herpes virus is a real bitch, which is fitting considering its host. Your lips will eventually turn black and rotten, and then no matter how much you protest and cry about your importance, no man here will want you… not even the dog will seek you out for scraps,” I whispered, the dog in question, an old bloodhound, lay sprawled in a corner, completely oblivious to the war waging between us.
Applause had us snapping our necks to see a line of leather standing by the rear exit, Sly’s hands slapping together as if they’d been listening to the whole thing.
“Rex, baby, this… woman…” she stressed, her hand falling away from her scabby lips, “says she knows you.”
He narrowed his eyes on her, his thick arms crossed over his wide chest, his hair damp and scraped back off his face. With his cut on over a wifebeater, his arms were left bare and I could see every thick vein lining his forearms. “She’s mine,” he declared, her face falling and looking back at me, with what seemed to me like loss.
For just a brief second, I felt a pang of sympathy for the woman. She clearly had a view of herself that the others didn’t share, especially judging by the disdain on some of their faces when they looked at her teetering on her heels.
Rex stormed toward me, completely ignoring everyone around us, his eyes locked on mine with determination. I was frozen in place as he grabbed my arm in the exact same place that the woman had touched, but this time, I didn’t stop my feet from following him back toward the bedroom. His hand burned his touch into me felt like what I’d think their brand felt like. The barbed wire mark on his arm on prominent display nestled within the dark tattoos that stretched around his arm.
“You can’t walk around looking like you just rolled out of bed, princess.” He unlocked the door to his own room, the one opposite the one I slept in last night, and flicked the light on. Easing me into the room before him and shutting us both in, the dim light barely reaching the corners of the double room, leaving parts of it in secret, the top of the bed just a shadow of my imagination.
“But I did just roll out of bed,” I huffed. “I have nothing else to wear, and I was wearing this yesterday when I was in the flower shop, you never said anything then… anyway. I don’t have my st?—”
He grabbed a large duffel from the side of the room, and dropped it on the bed. “You were behind the counter yesterday, if I’d have noticed, things would have been different. This is all of yours and your sister’s stuff.”
“You packed my stuff?” I muttered in disbelief. “You went through my things?”
“I didn’t, no. One of the brothers did.” He unzipped it, rifling through the things and pulling out items, checking each one before throwing it in a pile. “Don’t you have anything that covers you more than that?”
“I’m wearing leggings and a T-shirt,” I argued, hugging my chest.
“Well, those pants are too tight. Here,” he threw a pair of joggers at me, “put these on.”
“These aren’t mine.” I held them to my waist, they were huge, and most definitely his. “They won’t fit, Rex.” I sighed in exasperation, throwing them back at him and reaching over the bed to grab my own clothes. The door to the bathroom was ajar, it was laid out exactly the same way as the room opposite but a mirror image of it, everything was reversed. “I’m going for a shower. If my sister wakes up, tell her where I am,” I shouted the last part through the door, as I closed it on him and locked it for good measure. The snick of the lock was loud in the silent bathroom.
Without wasting any time, I got down to business, stripping and hopping in the shower. The hot spray washed away the dregs of my fatigue and I stood under the fall letting it carry away my worries, replacing them with some semblance of control in the chaos of the last few days. The wall was lined with hair products that any woman would die for—this is why Rex had such gorgeous hair, because he spent so much money on conditioners.
Using a large dose of his detangler, I worked the soft conditioner through my tangles, finger combing the bigger knots out until my hair hung in wet tendrils down my back.
I couldn’t remember a time when a shower had felt so relaxing, but when you’d been showering under a warm trickle in a shitty motel for days, a powerful waterfall and a good body wash felt like heaven.
When I finished, I used the thick towels on the heater, wrapping my hair and body and stepping out, then drying my body off and slipping into my clean clothes. The clean leggings were a lighter shade, the charcoal color clinging to the contours of my lower body, whilst my burgundy tunic was long enough to cover my ass. It hung off one shoulder, showing pale skin and no bra strap. The strapless contraption the only thing keeping my nipples under control.
Opening the door, the steam from the bathroom drifted out, curling around me like a lover and keeping its warm embrace around me when I stepped into the cooler room.
A hiss of breath followed by a fuck was the only evidence that Rex hadn’t left. For a man his size, he hid in the shadows perfectly. The darkness enveloping him until the only thing I could see were his legs stretched in front of him. “I said, don’t you have anything less tight. What about that screams ‘I’m taken’.”
A startled chuckle escaped me, taken? “Who exactly am I taken by?” I started combing through my hair, and platting the long tresses, keeping it out of my way. I may hope that it’d dry and stay in perfect waves, but no amount of platting it would change the dead straight hair.
“Yes, Mia. Taken.” He rose to his full height, looming over me. This still had a trickle of excitement swirling within me, the fact that he could look down on me and still have space to spare. Even though anger was quickly taking over, I could appreciate that the frustrating man was a fine specimen. “Do you think I’m protecting you out of the goodness of my heart?” he gritted out. “Do you think I want to keep you here because I’m a good man? Because I’m not, you’re here for purely selfish reasons and your sister can think otherwise in her little naive mind, but we both know the truth.”
My fingers shook around the rope of my hair, holding onto it tightly to keep my hands busy. It was the most honest he’d ever been, a truth maybe I didn’t want to admit shining in his bright blue eyes.
“Say it.”
I shook my head, refusing to admit to the frustrating man that I was here for anything other than to get my sister out of this mess before we flew home, simply because I wouldn’t have this chaos following the sweet women that still slept next door.
He stepped closer, his boots stopping a mere inch from my bare toes, his chest almost flush with mine. “Say it, princess.” His voice lowered, the words whispering over me in a haze. “What’s on your mind now you’re in my room and you have me exactly where you’ve wanted me since you first saw me.”
I could feel my body sway toward him, as if he was a magnet pulling me forward. “I… this can’t be something…” I muttered. “I’m not…” I couldn’t think straight, words stuck in my throat, incapable of passing my dry lips. I licked the traitorous duo, and Rex’s eyes flashed as I swiped my tongue across them.
“Mia, tell me you want to be here as much as I want you here.” Need was a subtle entity as I watched him, waiting for an answer that I didn’t know how to give.
Did I want to be here? Well… no. I was here because I had no other choice. I would much rather be in my own home with my slippers on, watering my indoor plants and getting ready to meet friends for lunch, the same routine I had on my days off. But I was here, in America, in a motorcycle man’s clubhouse, hiding from a murderer, so I had no choice but to make good on his promise to keep us safe until I could get back home.
Bang bang.
“Let’s go, Brother.” Sly’s voice was muffled through the door, but his message was loud and clear.
Rex sighed in disappointment, the answer he wanted still hanging in the air between us.
“I’ve got to go, princess. I’ll be back tonight, behave yourself and don’t go getting into any more cat fights.” He dropped a light kiss to my forehead that I felt all the way down to my toes. As I stood in the middle of his room, feeling the touch of his lips on my skin for the first time, he walked toward the door. Pausing at the threshold, he twisted toward me. “And just in case it wasn’t clear, you’re sleeping in here tonight.”