Chapter 22 #2
“How long can you keep playing both sides like this?” Pressure builds in my chest as scenarios flit through my mind. “It’s dangerous, Linc. This will catch up to you. And then what? You end up in prison?”
“I doubt I’d make it to prison. Axe wouldn’t allow that.”
My movements falter, and I wobble. “What do you mean by that? What would he?—”
“Again,” he says, steadying my target.
“This isn’t working,” I snap, taking a step back. “It’s just… rage fueling me.”
Smiling, he pushes away from the bag. “All right. Let’s try a different outlet.
Punch me instead.” He widens his stance, one foot positioned slightly in front of the other, fists up.
“Come on. Not the first time you’ve thrown a punch my way.
You said you’ve taken self-defence, right?
Show me and my punchable face what you got. ”
With a breath out, I swing.
He catches my fist in his hand and twists me around, pulling my back tight to his chest, trapping me.
“Gonna have to do better than that.” His mouth is at my ear, his hot breath hitting my neck.
A flush of goose bumps rushes over my skin.
It’s a distraction. A reminder of what those lips can do.
I grit my teeth, struggling against the tightness pressing against my lungs.
“How you gonna get out of this, Gracie?” he whispers. “Let’s see how tough you are.”
With a grunt, I drop my weight to my legs. Then I forcefully push his arms up and slide out of his hold and onto the ground. Immediately, I twist around and kick at him.
He rears back, surprise flashing across his face. “Good. Let’s go again,” he says.
I push up to my feet, ready to kick his ass. I need this. I need to get rid of the stress eating at me. The fear. This sickness that’s been churning in my stomach since I sliced that knife down and ran.
Before my feet are back in position, a six-foot-something Lincoln Decker is lunging at me. I yelp when he makes contact, and we tumble onto the mat with a thump, his body crushing mine.
“Hey,” I cough. “I wasn’t ready!”
“Attackers don’t wait until you’re ready.” He pushes up on his elbows. “I’m on top of you and there’s no one around to help. I’m bigger and stronger than you. How do you get me off?”
I smile. “I stab you.”
“You can’t get to your knife.”
Wiggling, I shove my knee up, aiming for his groin, but before I can make contact, he slips himself between my legs, his body tight to mine, effectively stopping my attack. I flail, legs kicking, but he only seems to gather more strength.
“Flopping around like that will only burn up your energy. Wrap your legs around me,” he directs as he immobilizes me.
“I’m pretty sure if you’re attacking me, the last thing I’ll want to do is pull you closer.”
He grunts. “Just do it, Grace.”
With a sigh, I sling my legs over his hips.
“Now yank me forward and then thrust out. Use the momentum to push me back. You’ll want to get your feet in front of you so you can kick me away like you did before.”
It’s a struggle. Like he said, he’s bigger and stronger than me, but I use my hips to drive him back over and over again. Eventually, I give a big enough thrust to throw him off. My feet hit his chest, and he grunts as he falls on his ass.
“Yes!” I yell out.
He grins at me, amber eyes dancing. “Again.”
“You enjoying yourself, Decker?”
“I will always enjoy being on top of you.”
Before he’s finished speaking, he’s on the attack again, taking advantage of the moment I need to prepare.
He doesn’t hold back as he pins me to the floor, wrestling me until I kick him off.
We do it over and over again. Sweat building on my skin, breath ragged, pulse thrumming.
Slowly, I’m losing steam, my strength burning up.
“Okay, okay.” I throw my hand up in defeat. “I think I’m done kicking your ass now.”
I press my head back into the mat and release a long breath. Decker chuckles and plops down beside me, that easy smile still in place. We’re quiet as our hearts settle and our breathing evens out.
“So?” he says finally. “You gonna tell me about it?”
“Tell you… about what?”
He gives me one of those long, intense stares. Like he’s reading a book, turning my pages, slow and deliberate, like he’s trying to unfold every part of my story.
“The man you killed,” he says finally.
Every muscle in my body locks up. That sickness in my stomach comes back in full force, along with a tightness in my chest that crushes down on my already shallow breath. I open my mouth, but words escape me. Escape. That’s what I need. A way out. Cut and run.
I shoot upright. “I have to go.”
Between one heartbeat and the next, Decker’s hand is at my chest, pushing me back down. I hit the mat with a hard thud.
“No you don’t,” he says.
I slap his hand away with a growl.
He holds tight, not letting me flee like my every instinct is telling me to. Then he’s got me pinned down again. Wrists over my head, legs locked with his. This time, when I try to fight him off, he fights harder, and I’m too exhausted to kick him away.
“It was just a question,” he says, voice low and raspy. “I’m gonna free your wrists. Don’t hit me, all right?” When I stay silent, he sighs. “Tell me you won’t hit me.”
“Fine,” I bite.
Carefully, he eases the tension locking my hands in place. He keeps his focus fixed on my face as he hovers over me. Watching me. That perfect, handsome face pulled into a deep frown. He draws a finger down my cheek to my jaw and then down my throat, resting at the crook of my collarbones.
I swallow. “Why do you care? Why do you… why does any of this matter to you?”
His features soften as his attention drops to my lips. For a second I think he might kiss me, and I wish he would. Kissing means no talking. Kissing means an end to this conversation.
“I don’t know,” he says. “But for some reason, it’s all that matters. It’s like… like sometimes when I touch you, I breathe a little better. Fuck. Sometimes I just need to look at you, and I breathe better. And maybe I need to protect that feeling. You know what I mean by that?”
Some sort of heavy emotion claws its way up my throat.
With a thick swallow past it, I nod. As much as I want to cut these feelings out of my chest, to run from the need to pull this man closer, to lean into this, it’s starting to feel impossible.
It’s like Linc has dug himself deep into my marrow, and I can’t figure out how to scrape him off.
“Tell me, Gracie. Tell me how Jimmy Donovan’s daughter wound up in this kind of trouble.”
I take a breath. A deep one. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale, exhale.
“I… it’s complicated. It’s… it wasn’t on purpose.
Not really.” I press my lips together, consider where to start.
“I left home—Jimmy’s place—when I was twenty-one.
That town was suffocating me. So I took off.
After that, it was a blur of travelling and couch surfing and partying.
It was fun, honestly. Jimmy gave me that bike.
And as long as I visited him and Mom every few months, he let me keep it. ”
Decker’s wandering hand steadies at my throat. Then he clamps down. It’s a light sort of touch. Gentle. Tender. It’s safety.
“Not belonging anywhere? Not having anyone to answer to? It felt good. For a while, at least. But then… I don’t know. After a few years of not having a home, it started to get a little…”
“Lonely?”
“Yeah. About a year ago I moved to Calgary. Got a job serving drinks at this skeezy biker bar, and then I met Broedy.”
He was exactly like the men I grew up with. A little mean. A little violent. A big, tattooed biker. It’s what’s safe to me. Jack and Axe. Jimmy. They aren’t good guys, but they are. They’re good in the way it counts. Like Linc.
But Broedy wasn’t a good guy.
I didn’t see it at first. He was a little rough around the edges, like all the men had been in my life. They all have the same kind of wild in them. The Raiders’ world felt a lot like the world I grew up in. Sex, drugs, parties. It was fun. It was… home.
“I went by Grace McKenna out there.” It was easy. It was my name for the first fourteen years of my life. “They didn’t know who I was, and Broedy didn’t ask many questions. I was good with that. But then… then he started asking me to do things for him. And I did them,” I admit.
Because that’s what you do for a club. Whatever they ask.
“The drugs and cash?” Decker asks.
“Yes. The local PD was really cracking down on bike clubs out there. There was a lot of heat, and I was a nobody. Clubs don’t involve their women in their shit. So I wasn’t really at risk of being randomly pulled over. No reason to suspect a chick on a bike. For a while, I was happy to do it.”
I sigh, press down on my knuckles until they pop.
“But then… then he wanted more from me. Said I had to make a sacrifice. That the prez wanted a crack at me , so it was my turn to get up on the block. Give what was owed to them. I told him to go fuck himself, and he hit me. And”—my voice wavers—“and I just reacted. I’d never been hit like that. Not since… not since Rick.”
Decker nods, his expression turning icy. His father. Not the man who raised him, but the father he shares with Jack. The man who raised me . Whose fists I had to endure.
“Maybe I should have run,” I say. “Just agreed and then left in the middle of the night. But it was instinct. The second I pulled myself up from the floor, I grabbed that knife and swung down. My body did it before my brain could catch up. I don’t know what happened.
It’s all I see now when I close my eyes.
His face. The shock. All that blood. I kept waiting for the cops to come, for flashing lights and handcuffs and a fucking life sentence.
But I kept driving, and the only thing that came after me was that skull and crossbones. ”
Silence shrouds us, bringing with it a deeper sense of unease. I wiggle beneath him, itching to escape the hold he still has on me. “You think that makes me a bad person?”
He frowns thoughtfully, like he’s really considering the question. “No, Grace. I don’t. He had it coming. Like I said. Beautifully ruthless. You protected yourself. It’s why you’re alive. Never let go of that.”
“But I could have… I could have left. There was a way out that didn’t include him dying on the floor.”
He shrugs. “It was a trauma response. Fight-or-flight on overdrive. Your body picked fight. Rick hurt you in ways you can’t just shrug off.”
I shake my head. “It was only a few times. I know Jack likes to make it out that I’m some kind of victim. But I didn’t have it as bad as my mom. He didn’t hurt me like he hurt her. I was strong enough to handle it. She’s the one with the trauma. Not me.”
His eyes soften a little. “Just because someone had it worse than you doesn’t mean what happened to you wasn’t horrible.
Shit like that cuts deep into our bones.
It shapes us. Guides our decisions. You don’t process what happened to you, then you’ll never be able to face it. Never shed its control over you.”
I arch a brow. “Is that what you’re doing? With all your deep breathing and punching bags? You’re processing?”
“Maybe. Or maybe we’re the same. And I prefer to do my processing with a knife.” He rolls off me and pushes to standing. “Come on. You’re not done kicking my ass yet.”
He holds out his hand, and I take it. And then I’m swinging at him again.
And again. I don’t stop until I’m sweating and breathing heavy, and then Linc is between my legs.
Kissing me like he can fix it, undo what I did.
Or maybe like he doesn’t give a shit. Like maybe these dark corners, these wild, violent spaces I’ve always kept guarded, are ones he’s not keen on cutting out, on running from.
My pants are off, and then he’s inside me. Taking me in this harsh, beautiful way. Like he wants to devour me. Consume me.
And he is. Lincoln Decker is fucking consuming me.