Breaking the Bad Boy (22 page)

“The door is on the floor, genius, they’re not going to waltz in here, Buck’s an asshole, but he’s not an idiot. Anyway, there’s nothing here, they’re long gone,” he said, and they walked out of the open door, and got into their car and drove away.

Joss couldn’t move, she stayed there for what seemed like hours, but was probably only minutes, barely breathing. Finally the curtain shot back and she inhaled sharply but saw she was looking up into Buck’s anxious face and fell into his arms with a throaty sob of relief. He held her tightly, pulling her close.

“I thought they killed you, it didn’t make sense, but there it is,” he said into her hair. “I saw them come out without you and I thought you were lying in here dead.” He still held her tight. “Christ, how’d it take Brent this long to have a heart attack? You keep stopping my heart every day.” He pulled away from her and she saw his eyes were shiny, and his face badly bruised. She clung to him breathing in his scent and hers. Everything would be fine if she could just hold on to him.

He handed her a bag. “Come on, baby, get dressed, and let’s get out of here.”

“What did you do, raid Daisy Duke’s closet?” She asked when she looked at the clothes. He chuckled.

“I expect you’ll fill those out nicely, and we have a long day ahead of us,” he said and she dropped the towel and closed the bathroom door. Five minutes later she was dressed in very short denim cutoffs, and a leather bustier with a lot of midriff showing. “You look good enough to eat, Duchess.”

“You’ve clearly got a thing for bustiers and thongs.”

“I’ve just got a thing for you, Duchess,” he said lifting her hand to his mouth.

“I look like an unholy cross between Madonna and Easy Rider,” she said. He laughed again.

“Good, that’s exactly the effect I was going for. Right now, you’re a biker chick, and I’m the lucky bastard you hold on to. Come on,” he took her hand and they left the motel room.

They walked a block and a half over where there was a crowd of bikers waiting for them in the parking lot of a vacant building. They greeted him in a language she recognized from his sweet nothings, and she realized they were all Native Americans. They were blending in. Well, she wasn’t, she towered over everyone but Buck, and she was lily white, but Buck was blending in nicely.

One of the men said something to Buck and the other nine of them turned and focused on her, their eyes suspicious. Joss straightened her spine and returned their stares. Buck said something equally terse and the man she decided must be the leader nodded his head and soon the rest of them were nodding, too. Joss locked eyes with the leader and he said something to Buck, making two or three in the back laugh. The leader stopped the laughter with a single look.

Buck pulled her to face him. “Be brave, Duchess,” he whispered and he unzipped her bustier with deft hands. She let him. He pulled it open and drew her to his chest and lifted the bustier from her back to show them the three claw marks emblazoned there. The crowd behind her hummed with interest.

The leader got up off his bike and came right up to her back. Joss felt his fingers run lightly over the claw marks and she hissed through her teeth. The man said something to Buck and much of the tension drained from his body, but not all of it. Joss had been watching Buck’s face, holding handfuls of the back of his shirt in her fists, and once he was no longer rigid she let them go.

A second person had approached them and Joss flinched slightly as more hands touched her back. She felt a cool wetness as the person put some ointment on her claw marks. The effect was immediate, there was instant painlessness, and she almost collapsed with the relief, but Buck was holding tightly to her. Joss hadn’t realized how much pain she had been enduring, too much was going on. The woman, it sounded like a woman, began to hum behind her, and then placed something over the ointment; she thought maybe a bandage of sorts. The humming stopped and the woman walked away. Buck, his face impossible to read, brought her bustier to her back again and began to zip her back up.
 

“You are the bravest person I know, Duchess,” he said quietly finishing up by positioning her breasts lovingly within. She watched his poor beaten face as he took care of her. She didn’t think this tender care had anything to do with the bikers around them; instead he was apologizing for putting her through that. He was also enjoying himself with his hands on her breasts, which he was now completely familiar with. He brushed his lips on hers.

“It’s easy to be brave when I’m in your arms,” she smiled weakly at him. “I also have no idea what you were saying.”

“That’s probably for the best.” His mouth pinched slightly and he looked over her shoulder at someone.

“What language is it?”

“Navajo.”

“How do you say thank you?”

“Ahéhee.”

Joss repeated it and Buck’s mouth curled up. “Close enough,” he said.

Joss walked over to the woman who had put the salve on her back and waited to be acknowledged. Somewhere in her somewhat dubious knowledge of the Navajo she knew it was proper etiquette to wait to be noticed, but at the last minute she thought that might only be at dwellings. Oh well, here she was. The woman smiled at Joss and she figured that was good enough.

“Ahéhee,” Joss said and bowed her head slightly. The woman laughed musically, not unkindly, although Joss’s thank you didn’t sound much like what Buck had said.

“No problem, Bear’s Mistress,” she said and went back to packing her belongings away. Joss went back to Buck and he took her hand and led her to a black Harley that was off to the side.

“Bear’s Mistress?” She said and he smiled at her warmly.

“Indeed. You are marked, Duchess, no way around that. This is probably a mistake but I can’t help myself,” he said and pulled her into his embrace and kissed her soundly on the mouth. He couldn’t very well touch her back, so he grasped her ass in both his hands. Joss cupped the back of his head and kissed him back feeling the inevitable desire snake its way through her to her groin. Buck released her with a growl and nodded to the bike. “Ready?” She nodded. Buck sat in front and leaned forward and she climbed on behind him using his broad shoulders to balance.

“Where’d you get the bike?” She asked quietly.

“Storage, this is my bike,” he said turning to her and grinning.

“Nice bike,” she grinned back at him. “What on earth did you tell them?”

“The truth, Duchess. The bear marked you, followed you home and then died in your embrace, that’s powerful stuff, I should be so lucky. I just hope to be really old when it happens,” he said and kick started his bike.

“Well, you’ve certainly put your mark upon me, and you followed me home, I can wait for the rest.” He turned and looked at her solemnly.

“Hold me, Bear’s Mistress, press yourself up against me and don’t let me go.” She held him tightly and turned her head so her cheek pressed against his back. He was warm and smelled like Buck, and she was suddenly spectacularly happy.

An hour later Joss thought she was going to die from hunger. “Buck, is there any chance of food?” She yelled into his ear.

“In the panniers,” he yelled back and she opened one of them. Apples and condoms in this side, she took an apple out and reached it toward him. He took the apple, and then her hand and laid it on his chest, right over his heart. She felt it beating over the thrum of the big bike. He kissed her hand and gave it back to her.

It was an odd thing to do to someone he was merely having sex with, but she could be wrong.

The notion of being loved by anyone other than her brother, her father and Fernando was unknown to her. Since birth she had been an irritant to her mother, and once she started to grow into her long legs she became an object of desire, sometimes affection, but never love, to men. She was getting the distinct impression that Buck loved her. It was no secret that it would bother him when he figured it out, too, and then he would leave her instead of letting himself be happy. Joss wasn’t sure how she knew that to be true, but she knew it. She held him tight.

“Are you okay?” He asked surprising her with his awareness.

“I am right now,” she said and he squeezed her hand.

“We’ll be fine, Duchess.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Of course I have a plan.”

“And that is?”

“Most of it involves keeping you safe, Duchess, and after this morning I realized that may be harder than I thought it was going to be. And, of course, a lot of it involves getting you back into bed as soon as possible.”

“If anyone can do either of those, it’s you,” she said and leaned into his back. She felt a small rumble of mirth from him.

The lead biker pointed to the side road and people started down shifting and pulling off onto the small road back into the trees. They parked in the shade and dismounted. Buck staked his claim in the area removed from the others and Joss stopped him with her hands on his chest and he gave her a curious look.

“Any chance we could have sex, after a morning of having that bike vibrate underneath me, I’m in kind of in a bad way,” she said quietly to him.

“Christ, Joss!” He pulled her to him, he was instantly hard. “As soon as we’re safe I’ll happily satisfy your every need, but right now, Duchess, we are anything but.” He kissed her hard then leaned down and opened his panniers without letting her go. He handed Joss his gun. “Do you know how to use this?”

“Of course,” she said. She had been raised on a ranch; she was a pretty good shot. She couldn’t shoot a bear in the eye at forty yards, but she could hit a coke can at fifty paces. “Do you think I’ll need to?”

“There are at least two guys who’ve been riding a bit too close to us and generally being bullies. Keep the gun close, Duchess. We’ll go as soon as I get back and leave them to themselves, it’s not worth it.” He tilted her head up to his and kissed her. “God, I love kissing you.” He put his forehead to hers and gazed into her eyes. His skin seemed hot to the touch and she wanted to lie with him in the shade for a few blissful hours of peace together.

“Stay here, I won’t be long,” he said and moved off to find the medicine woman.

He was soon out of sight, moving gracefully through the trees. Joss squatted next to the panniers and opened the other side to see if there was any more food. Granola bars and bottled water, Advil and more condoms. She smiled. They hadn’t even used any the first night, they had been too caught up in need and fear. She did a minor calculation and figured they were probably in the clear, but should certainly start using their brains, as hard as that might be. Her butterflies made a brief appearance when she thought of Buck not using his brain.

When the bear found her the first time she was ovulating, she wondered what, if anything, that might have had to do with it. How the bear could smell anything over his own formidable scent was a mystery to her, but he was definitely sniffing her all over, and bears had a powerful sense of smell. For right now it meant she was no longer ovulating, and they might not be flirting with disaster, yet. Taking a handful of Advil she washed them down with a large swallow of water and leaned back with her feet flat and hugged her knees. Her head was still tender, and her muscles, too, but the stuff on her back was incredible, there was simply no pain. She should probably find out what was in it, it was too good not to be illicit.

She wondered how Buck was. She saw his most recent gunshot in the shower, but he kept distracting her away from it. Odd behavior, now that she thought of it, but at the time the distractions were so lovely she hadn’t thought of anything past them. She suddenly put the pieces together. Buck was more hurt than he wanted her to know. His lips were hot when he kissed her, too.

A branch broke behind her and she turned. One of the younger bikers stood leaning against a tree watching her. Joss hadn’t paid much attention to anyone other than the medicine woman and the leader until now, but she thought this was the guy who laughed right before she let Buck take off her bustier, and now he was sniffing around. This was one of the bullies Buck had mentioned, and he was going to be unpleasant.
Note to self: Take a class in Navajo so you will know what’s going on in the future.