Hearts of Winter (Bleeding Angels MC Book 2) (18 page)

But Ryan’s breathing starts to become more labored as he touches himself, getting excited as he watches me.  I already feel like I’ve been invaded, soiled, and he hasn’t even touched me yet.  I remind myself that this is just about giving him my body. He doesn’t get my heart. He doesn’t get my soul.

“Take your panties off and turn around,” he tells me, his breath coming in short, sharp breaths.

I do as I’m told, dropping my panties to the floor and turning over so I’m lying face down on the bed.  I hear Ryan’s footsteps as he walks over and I feel myself trembling uncontrollably.

“I bet he hasn’t had you here,” Ryan says, dragging his fingers over my ass.  “I bet you’re like a virgin there.” His voice trembles like he’s about to come right there in his pants.

“No, I’ve never,” I say, starting to panic.  “Please,” I plead. I don’t want him take me this way. 

“Please?” He cackles like the hyena that he is.  “You’re begging me for it.  You’re just a slut, aren’t you, Aimee?  Just a dirty little whore, like all the rest,” he says, breathing hard, as I feel him bend over me.

I don’t hear the telltale crinkle of a condom packet and my panic rises.  “Are you wearing protection?” I ask, my voice strangled.

“Jakey-boy didn’t wear a rubber the other night, did he?” Ryan asks, his breath rancid as it reaches my nose.  “If he doesn’t wear one, I don’t need to either.”

“But he’s been tested, he’s clean,” I tell him, struggling to get out from underneath him.  God only knows what Ryan might have.

“That’s strike three,” I hear him mutter under his breath, and as I manage to turn myself over, Ryan’s hand comes up and hits me across my face, making my eye feel like it’s about to explode. 

I’ve never been hit before and I think I’m a little bit in shock.  I whimper quietly, holding my hand to my cheek.  “Oh, why did you make me do that?  I didn’t want to hurt you, but now look what you’ve made me do,” he whines at me, as if it were my fault. 

Suddenly, he gets off of the bed and seems to be talking to himself.   “Come on, come on,” he mumbles as he walks up and down.  I catch sight of him rubbing himself and from the sound of his curses I start to get the impression that he’s having performance issues.  My cheek is still vibrating from the force of the slap, but it doesn’t take much attention for me to figure out what’s going on.  I keep my mouth closed, knowing that anything I say will just make him even angrier with me.

But my silence seems to irk him as much as any words that I can say might.  “Don’t you fucking look at me,” he yells.  “Don’t fucking look at me, bitch.  You did this.  This is your fault!” He’s shouting and his eyes are filled with a terrifying madness.

For one of the few times in my life, I manage to get my brain and my mouth talking to each other and not out loud.  I cower on the bed, hoping and praying that Ryan doesn’t manage to rouse himself enough to have sex with me.

Time goes by and Ryan moves from raging at me like he wants to kill me to sitting in the armchair in the corner of the room, looking morosely at his flaccid member.  He opens a bottle of vodka and starts taking greedy gulps.  I keep my expression as neutral as I can and I try to keep as still as possible, as if by doing those things, he wouldn’t be able to see me.

He orders me to lie down again, but I can hear his curses from the corner of the room and I know that he’s not able to get it up.  I thank whoever up there is looking out for me for saving me from being with Ryan, from having him inside of me, from letting him do every sadistic thing that he’s imagined to me.

“Put your clothes on and get the fuck out,” he says eventually, his words slurred from all the drink he’s consumed. 

I can’t quite believe my ears, but I don’t stop to ask him to repeat what he’s said.  I don’t waste any time slipping on my panties and fastening my bra as quickly as I can.  I pull up the uniform, all thumbs as I try to button myself up.

“Fucking bitch, you’re a fucking waste of time,” he says, taking another swig of his bottle.  “Well, my little chikadee,” he giggles to himself.  “Neither of us got what we wanted today.” He lifts up the almost empty bottle and pours the remnants of the vodka into his mouth before throwing the bottle against the wall, where it smashes with a loud
crack
.

I pull the dress around myself tightly, replaying the words that he’s just said in my mind.  “What are you saying?” I ask.  “I did everything that you wanted.” 

“Yeah, you did everything, except the one thing I wanted you to do. You couldn’t even make me hard.  You think you’re so fucking superior, and you can’t even get a man’s dick hard.  Fucking slut,” he spits out in disgust.

“What do you mean that neither of us got what we wanted today?” I repeat, feeling the cold fingers of panic stretch over me.  “What do you mean?” I demand.  “Tell me!” I say, my voice refusing to give in to the emotions whirling around inside of me.

“You’re a smart girl, Aimee.  I’m sure you can figure it out,” Ryan says, smiling like the weasel that he is.

“You lied to me,” I say, shaking with rage.  “You tricked me!” I shout at him, making him take a step back.

“
You lied to me, you tricked me
,” Ryan imitates with a whiny voice.  “You’re pathetic, do you know that?”

“But you said— You told me that you wouldn’t take Jake once the month was up or any other time,” I say, already realizing the mistake that I had made.

“But I didn’t say anything about not getting him patched
before
,” he notes, chuckling at his own intelligence.  “Everyone always said you were so smart.” The mad, wide-eyed look takes over his expression again.  “Everyone said you were so smart, but you’re really a stupid little slut.  I’m smarter than you.  I’m better than you!” he shrieks at me.

I know that Ryan is hanging by a thread and that anything could potentially push him into doing something that there was no going back from.  But I can’t help myself.  He’s proven himself to be even more sadistic and crazy than even I had thought he was.

“You’re a sad excuse for a human being, Ryan.  You’re a disgusting little
worm!
” I yell at him, unable to stop the spiteful words from spilling out of my mouth.  “You need help. You need serious help,” I tell him, not caring what he might do to me, only concerned with doing him as much damage as possible while I still can.

“You’re a pathetic little whore.  Now shut up and get out of here before I give you to one of the boys,” he threatens, turning his back to me.

“Why are you letting me just walk out of here?” I challenge him, pulling my dress as tightly around me as I can with the missing buttons.  “Or are you afraid that if you let me hang around I’m going to tell your boys that you couldn’t get it up?”

I should have known better, but I didn’t.  Ryan whirls around, moving faster than I had thought he was capable in his drunken state, and he lands a punch square on my jaw.  I fall to the ground, an explosion of pain ricocheting around my head.  I can taste the metallic blood as it fills my mouth.

“Hitting a girl, yeah, you’re such a man, Ryan,” I say, loudly enough for him to hear me.

“Get out of here, Winters, before I change my mind.  I’ll fucking kill you if you say anything to anyone about this, you can believe that,” he rages at me. 

I push myself up from the ground, spitting a mouthful of blood out at Ryan’s feet as I walk past him.  I expect the bar to be full of bikers as I walk through it, but there’s no one around.  I think back to all the engines that I’d heard leaving the bar and the call that Ryan had made when he sent me into the red bedroom.  The pieces start to slot together in my head and I realize how easily Ryan had played me.  I know where they’ve all gone, and I know that I’m going to get there too late to stop them from doing what they’ve been planning this whole time.

The body shop is a good five miles away from Wheels, and I’m on foot.  I stick my thumb out as soon as I get to the road, but I already know how unlikely it is that anyone is going to pick me up looking the way I do now.  I must seem like some crazed homeless person, between the dirt all over my dress and the blood on my face and swelling jaw.  I keep trying, but I’m close to tears of frustration, as time keeps ticking by and no one stops.  I start running, as quickly as I can—which, in my current condition, isn’t all that fast.  I’m breathing hard and I recognize the symptoms of one of my panic attacks.  But I push the thought away, not allowing myself to fail now, not when I’ve already failed so spectacularly.

“Please be alright, please be alright, please be alright,” I keep repeating to myself over and over, like a mantra. 

Night is just starting to fall as the body shop appears in my line of sight.  I use all the energy I have to run as fast as I can towards the shop.  “Jake! Jake!” I shout as I throw open the door.  The floor of the shop is empty. There’s no sign of anyone.  “No, no, no, no, no,” I moan as I drag myself up the stairs to our studio, only to find it empty.

Well, almost empty.  There’s only one person there. The last person I wanted to see right now.

“What happened?” I ask, feeling more afraid than I had thought possible.

“Aimee.” Suzie shakes her head, but remains seated on the bed—
our
bed.  “You’re not looking your best, are you?” she tuts.

“
What happened?
” I repeat.  “Where the hell is Jake?” I ask, although I already know the answer.

“Well, you’ve come a little late to the party,” she informs me.  “But you’d probably figured that out already.”

“Suzie, we used to be friends,” I remind her, sinking to my knees because I don’t have the strength to stand anymore.  “For the sake of whatever friendship we may have left, please just tell me.”

I must look even more pathetic than I had imagined, as Suzie’s resolve seems to waver and I catch a look of something close to pity pass across her face.  “They took him,” she says, her voice flat.

I cover my face with my hands and do the only thing that I have left to do: I cry. I cry as if I’m crying my heart out.  “He lied to me, the bastard lied to me.  He tricked me like the idiot that I am,” I mutter, through my sobs.  “How could I have been so
stupid?
” I ask myself, slamming my fist into the floor, just to feel something other than this ache that makes it hard to breathe.  Then a thought occurs to me.  “Is Jake alright?  Did they hurt him?” I ask, getting to my feet.

“He’s fine.” She waves my concern away as if I were an overprotective mother.  “He went of his own free will, Aimee,” she says, looking at me intently.

This is the last thing I had expected, and between my surprise and the ringing in my ears that has been present since Ryan punched me, I feel like I’ve missed something.  “What?” It’s the only thing that I can articulate.

Suzie sighs, getting up from the bed, as if having to repeat herself spoils all the fun.  “There wasn’t a fight.” She shrugs, wandering around the studio that had been our home.  “They told Jake about you and Ryan and he agreed to leave with them.  Poor guy, he looked pretty broken up about it,” she says, scraping some spare change off of the table and pocketing it quickly.

“
What
about Ryan and me?” I ask, my voice barely able to escape around the lump in my throat.

“That you slept with him,” Suzie replies blandly.

“But I
didn’t
sleep with him,” I tell her.  “I only agreed to his offer because he told me if I did, then he would talk to Scar and persuade him to pass over Jake. That he wouldn’t become an Angel,” I explain to Suzie, desperately.  “Ryan couldn’t do it, he couldn’t… perform,” I say, raising my hand gingerly to my chin, feeling how swollen it is.

“What a surprise, Ryan can’t get it up,” Suzie says gleefully.  “That’s not exactly breaking news, Aimee.”

I feel like my life has come crashing down around my ears.  I did something unthinkable, something unbearable to save Jake, only I didn’t get to save him and now he thinks that I betrayed him. All I wanted was to help him. 

“Why did he believe them?”  I ask.  “Jake knows better than to believe what the Angels tell him; he’s not stupid.”

“No, he’s not stupid, you got that right.  But he is in love, and between your little lie about working at the diner today and the old little green monster named Jealousy, well… There weren’t a lot of reasons for him
not
to believe us,” she reasons.

“You told him,” I accuse her, as the realization hits me.  “You were the one that told him.”

“Well, if there was one person Jake was going to believe, it was going to be me. His long lost friend who’s had a tough time of things but who is really trying to make her life better,” she tells me.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, amazed at just how far away she is from being the person that had been my friend.  “Why are you doing this?  And doing it with a smile on your face?  How can you?” I ask, shaking my head in disgust at her.

“Don’t you judge me, Aimee!” she shrieks, pointing at me.  “You don’t get to judge me.  You’re a slut that’ll do whatever it takes to get what you want, I know you,” she taunts me.  “You were willing to sleep with Ryan to get what you want—how does that make you different from me? I do what I have to do to get what I need,” she says, grinding her teeth.  “So do you.”

“Get out of my house, Suzie,” I say to her, getting back up on my feet slowly, my voice stronger than I feel.  “Get out of my house, before I do something that I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.”

She must see something in my eyes that tells her that I’m not just posturing, that I’m deadly serious.  Suzie edges past me and I keep my eyes fixed on her the entire time.  When she’s close to me I notice that her pupils are seriously dilated.  She’s high.  That’s what she’s sold her soul for—a chemical high, something that I’m sure is eventually going to kill her.

“Never come to me for anything,” I say before she walks out.  “We are done.  You’re not the person that I used to know. That person is gone,” I say, my voice holding steady despite the fact that all I want to do is collapse on the floor and cry.  “I don’t know you.” My voice is harsh as I bite out the words. “You’re just a drug addict.”

Suzie’s mouth works open and closed as if she’s trying to say something, but we both know that there is nothing she could say that would go any way to making this right.  She’s hurt the only people that have ever cared about her, and it seems like the realization of that has only just hit her.

“Aimee,” she says, for the first time sounding like her old self. 

“Get out,” I reply, as I try to take deep gulps of air.  I feel more hatred towards her than I have felt ever in my life and that alongside the events of the past few hours are enough to set me off on my biggest panic attack to date.  My heart is hammering out of my chest, my head is pounding, and I feel like I can’t get my breath, but I refuse to let her see me vulnerable. I refuse to let her see me afraid. 

The door closes quietly behind her and I hear her footsteps retreat down the stairs.  It’s a small victory, but it’s mine.  I sink to my knees, all the energy sapped out of me as I take in one breath after another, but I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere near enough oxygen.  I wheeze, struggling to remember the steps that Jake had taken me through whenever I had a bad attack.  It’s the thought of Jake and what he must think of me that finally tips me over the edge.  I’m vaguely aware of my head hitting the wooden floor, and after that, just blackness.