Misled (5 page)

He headed for his room, glad Kiera and Ellen weren’t in his bed, a
nd laid the girl down. He frowned, swore, suddenly recognizing the oversized jacket on her.
Rack.
He’d deal with that fucker in a moment.

Outlaw
went to his private bathroom and grabbed a pan, filling it with warm water and his bar of soap. He got some towels and returned to her. It didn’t take him long to strip her and he stared at the thin silvery lines crisscrossing her arms, thighs, legs and belly. Healed cuts.

What the fuck?

His mind searched for answers about why Megan Foy looked like she’d been used as turkey carving practice and breathed to talk about it. What stupid motherfucker had sliced Boss Foy’s daughter? The Death Dwellers weren’t no bitch-ass, fly-by-night club. The good deeds they bestowed upon the community allowed for some very positive press. Whatever crimes were committed were either overlooked or so well covered no one could ever accuse them. Fuck, yeah, rumors persisted but no motherfuckers were insane enough to openly accuse them.

Which meant all Megan had to do was identify her father and that should’ve been enough to deter such sadistic marring of her beautiful skin.

Outlaw grunted. Those slashes and her ass beating wasn’t all ailing her right now. The outline of her ribs pressed against her skin. Either she was anorexic or she’d lost a shitload of weight due to starvation. Her shoulder blades and breastbone stuck out, making her breasts rounded and fuller, topped by tight, little red nipples. Golden pussy hairs matched the golden hair on her head. He wanted to spread her legs and lick that blonde-covered perfection for hours, lose himself in her sweetness.

Despite her scars and bruises, t
his was one gorgeous fucking bitch. His dick swelled and lengthened. Sometimes, a conscience fucked you worse than taking the low road. Like now, for instance. He represented everything bad, beginning with how he’d been made. She was good, an angel in the midst of hell. If he hadn’t brought her here, he wouldn’t have an epic boner. He could’ve called Kiera and Ellen and fucked the afternoon away until time for the meeting came. But, no, he’d brought this girl here, to his room. He must be going fucking soft.

Shaking his head and sighing, he decided to get to his task. Wasn’t no use delaying what he had to do.

As careful as possible, he cleaned the dirt and blood from her face, hands, and poor, abused feet. She groaned and Outlaw noted a rush of pink replacing some of the paleness in her cheeks. He laid a hand over her forehead, finding her warmer than she should be. Rack. He needed gutting for doing this to her. Outlaw could only be thankful Rack hadn’t raped her. Then, again, no matter his threats of taking his money out of her ass, Rack knew Outlaw
would’ve
gutted him. Her color was returning, but she’d be in a lot of pain and needed rest, a place to heal. He picked the first T-shirt he put his hands on and dressed her in it before tucking the covers around her. He didn’t know if she was asleep or unconscious or a combination and, really, at this point, he couldn’t do anything more for her. He couldn’t migrate too far from the clubhouse today. She’d either live or die. He’d gotten her out of the cold, cleaned her up, warmed her up.

Everything now
depended on a God Outlaw had stopped believing in years ago.

“You’re awake.”

The husky words resounded in Meggie’s brain the moment she opened her eyes. She blinked and coughed, trying to get her bearings, then moaned and clutched the side of her face.

Had
Thomas found her?

She hurt
all over. Not surprising because pain and tears had been Meggie’s constant companions since her mother’s marriage. She tried to lift her head and found her sight narrowed to one slit in her right eye. She couldn’t see anything out of the left one. It throbbed with nauseating fierceness.  A sliver of light beamed off the brick wall she faced and she frowned, too late remembering any small movement would aggravate her pain receptors. She tried to take in her unfamiliar surroundings, but couldn’t fathom her whereabouts. She
knew
she was inside, in a bed.

“Megan?”

The voice sounded like
Outlaw’s
. Impossible. He’d thrown her off the premises and the last thing she remembered was Rack and the guys he’d been with when they’d cornered her, exacting revenge, they said, because Outlaw had battered Rack thanks to her big mouth.

She lifted herself on her elbows and noticed movement. “Outlaw?” she asked
, hoarse. Her throat felt tight and scratchy. She sneezed and bit her lip to keep from crying out in pain.

He lifted a brow but didn’t comment about the fact she knew his name.
“Yeah?”

More movement and the sound of boots thu
mped to the ground from where he sat on a chair near the bed.

She cleared her throat.
“What are you doing?” She was still hoarse.

“Puttin’
my feet on the floor so I can stand up,” he answered. A moment later, the bed dipped as he sat next to her. His warm fingers gripped her chin and turned her face this way and that. “Lay back.”

She complied, grateful for the comfort of the bed. He dropped his hand away, resting it on her belly. She scooted closer to him
, not sure what compelled her to touch him every time he was near her. “Where am I?”

“At the clubhouse. In my room.”

In his bed
. Her heart rate increased at the thought and she placed her hand over his.

“Do you gotta touch me all the fuckin’ time?”

Her head was already pounding something awful and his growl only worsened the pain. “Unless you wish to stop touching me,” she countered, hoping he didn’t take her challenge and move away.

He grunted and narrowed his eyes, trying to intimidate her, she supposed
through two sneezes and a cough. She refused to look away. A curse accompanied his scowl. Fatigue still pulled at Meggie, but, more than that, she felt like a lost little girl. The way her body responded to his, though, wasn’t in the least childlike. Besides, she’d grown up the moment she’d stepped out of her mother’s house to find her father on her own. Hortensia, Washington was relatively safe, tucked between Camas and Victoria, along the Columbia River. She’d found a spot near a creek to sleep and bathe. Although Rack had found her hideout, she’d gone unharmed for a month.

Now, she was hur
t, alone and afraid. Outlaw reminded her of her father—a frightening, overwhelming figure. But, like her father, he had a softer side. With them, what she saw was what she got. With Thomas, well…

Meggie burrowed against Outlaw’s
chest, her cheek rubbing against the soft leather of his vest. He stiffened for a moment, as if he considered pushing her away. A cough racked her and he sighed his favorite curse word. He pulled her into his arms. It hit her she didn’t have her jeans or her panties on. Or her shirt. Whatever she wore, dirt and perspiration didn’t stiffen it. “Where are my clothes?”

“Should
be in a shit pile, but they gettin’ washed. Now, I got a question for you.”

She
tried to breathe in his scent, but couldn’t through the stuffiness in her nose. “I have another one for you.”

“Megan—“

“What’s your name?” she interrupted, repositioning herself to get a better focus of him. As if she really needed to see him to know the raw and perfect angles of his face, his inky hair, and his green eyes.

“Outlaw.”

“Your
real
name,” she huffed.

He adjusted the
ir positions until they were eye-to-eye, his nose nearly touching hers. He ran his fingers through her hair and Meggie wanted to die of mortification. Her hair probably resembled a rat’s nest. Not to mention how her face must look. With the way her lips and eyes throbbed, she had to be a swollen mess. She also needed to brush her teeth. The thought made her back away. He caught her before she went very far and pulled her closer again.

H
e sighed, ending on a very vivid curse word. “Name’s Christopher.” He swallowed. “Christopher Caldwell.”

She caressed the side of his jaw, the dark stubble bristly beneath her fingertips.
“Was that so hard?”

He didn’t answer and asked instead, “
Why you have all them scars?”

Frowning
, Meggie pulled away and this time he didn’t try to stop her. She scooted closer to the wall, her sneeze giving her time to make sense of his words. Once she did, she avoided his scrutiny and pretended she didn’t know what he meant. “Scars?”

“Fuckin’ cuts. You know what the fuck I’m talkin’ about, Megan. I can see it in your fuckin’ face.”

She didn’t have the energy to argue nor did she have the vigor to think of a good excuse. “Go away,” she ordered.

“Not happenin’,” he shot back.

She’d never felt so awful in her life and she didn’t need his interrogation while she felt so feeble and cold. She might weaken and confess what she did to herself in order to cope with Thomas and her hellish home life. Since she’d been away from that house, she’d felt twinges of need to float away from reality. But it was different.

“Well?”

She sagged into the comfortable pillows. If he wouldn’t go away and she couldn’t ignore him, she’d turn the tables on him. Whether she understood her attraction to him or not, she studied every little detail about him, listened to every change in cadence in his sexy voice. Just like she had family secrets, he had his, too.  “Is Caldwell really your last name?” she asked around a sneeze.

“What the fuck you asked me?”

“You heard me. You’re right next to me.”

“You don’t get to ask me about me. It ain’t your fuckin’ business.”

She wheezed in a breath and bit her lip, wanting to make everything about him her business. But fair was fair. “Then you don’t get to ask me about me. It’s not your business.”

His eyes widened at her announcement but he snapped his mouth shut. Meggi
e hoped he’d open up, even a little, but silence stretched between them, broken only by her sneezes and shivers.

“Fuck me, but I should kick you the fuck outta her
e.” He dragged her closer and pulled her into his arms, wrapping his body around hers, his heat enveloping her, curling around Meggie and bringing warmth and a sense of safety to her. “If I answer you, I wanna fuckin’ know where them cuts on your beautiful skin came from.”

That wasn’t the way this was supposed to work.

“Understand, Megan?”

No one had ever said her name with such raw sexuality and rough command. Although barely an inch separated them, she
drew herself closer to him. The moment she did, he pushed her on her back and said, “Face the wall.”

Obeying without question, Meggie pressed her back against his front, rewarded when he pulled her closer, allowing her to feel every solid plane of his big body.

“Unfortunately, yes, Caldwell is my real fuckin’ name. Your turn.”

“Why, unfortunately?” she pressed.

His body tensed against hers. “Megan—“

“I want to know. Please?”

“Look, I don’t know you and I don’t share my personal business with my close friends, let alone a bitch who’s gonna be here only long enough to get well.”

He was right. They didn’t know each other and
, once her father returned, they’d probably never see one another again. Just because she felt an attraction to him didn’t mean he felt one to her. She caressed his knuckles and remembered she had to keep her end of the bargain. Though she should give the same reason to him he had given her, he had, at least, given her a small tidbit. Her fingers roamed his forearm and he sucked in a breath.

“I…” Her voice trailed off.
What should she say? She’d gone through great lengths to hide what she did to herself. She couldn’t dismiss her own pain and shame, so the thought of the revulsion others would turn upon her chilled her soul. Especially someone like him—older, in control, and unafraid of anything. God, she just wanted…

What? What did she want?

She sniffled. Safety. She wanted safety most of all. She wanted to know her father still loved her. No matter what happened, he had no excuse for just forgetting about her these last two years then promising Dinah he’d get Meggie but disappearing on club business instead. If she hadn’t heard her mother’s words to Thomas, she wouldn’t have left until after she graduated high school. She thought her father wanted her with him.

“The cuts, Megan,” Christopher cut in with impatience. He untangled h
imself from her and Meggie missed his nearness immediately.

“It doesn’t matter,”
she whispered, tired and wishing for a bath. She wanted to talk to her mother and her friends. Maybe, Big Joe had arrived in Seattle and Meggie had already left. Maybe, he was returning to the club at this very moment. “They’re just cuts. Nothing for someone whom I won’t ever see again, after I’m well, should bother with.”

“You know what, babe—“ He cu
t himself off with a curse and bolted from the bed.

Meggie rested on her back again in time to see him thrust his fingers through his hair. He pulled out his cigarettes, maneuvered one partially out of the pack, then grabbed it between his lips, not once tak
ing his green gaze from her. He flicked the lighter he also got from his vest. Once he’d taken a few puffs, he tried again.

“You
gonna drive some poor motherfucker, huh?”

“Drive
?”

“Up a fuckin’ wall. To the edge of fuckin’ violence. Just plain fuckin’ crazy.”

His observation stung her because, in essence, he thought her difficult, and she wasn’t by any means. He puffed in nicotine, then huffed out a breath.

“I can’t fuckin’ stand the name Caldwell because the fucker who made me should’ve been castrated for what he did to my mother. I’m here because of a fuckin’ rape, Megan. Conceived in violence, live in violence, and I’m sure I’ll fuckin’ die in violence. Ain’t a day went by when my grandfather didn’t remind me of how I ruined my mother’s life.”  He sucked on his cigarette again,
his eyes glittering with anger and other emotions. Hurt. Humiliation. Shame.

He might very well deny he felt either, but Meggie herself had lived with everything she saw in his expression.

“No child asks to be born,” she pointed out. “No matter how it’s conceived.
You
didn’t ruin your mother’s life.”

“What the fuck ever,” he snapped. “I didn’t tell you that shit to get fuckin’ pity. I stopped givin’ a fuck years ago.” He pointed a finger at her. “Don’t ever fuckin’ tell that shit to
no
fuckinbody. So, now, you little pain in the ass motherfucker, fuckin’ spill. Tell me the fuckin’ truth about those fuckin’ cuts and not fuckin’ bullshit. Because you know what I think, Megan?”

“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”

He threw his cigarette to the floor and, Megan assumed, stepped on it to put it out, as he stalked to the bed, climbed in, straddled her, and pinned her arms above her head. She tried to draw in air, to smell the leather of his vest, to smell
him,
but mucus still stuffed her nose, continuing to block his scent from her.

“You fuckin’ right I am.” He paused and pull
ed back to allow her a cough. “I think,” he continued, “you fuck yourself up. Ain’t no fuckin’ cuts another motherfucker gives you is so fuckin’ straight and neat. Them some precision fuckin’ cuts on you. I’ve cut motherfuckers in methodical ways but they move and shit. Squirm. Try to get the fuck away. That shit don’t allow for straight fuckin’ lines. And another thing. When other motherfuckers cut you? Wounds are a little fuckin’ deeper. Unless you dealin’ with a fuckin’ pussy, your wounds ain’t deep enough for someone else to have done that shit.”

Meggie’s eyes burned and her entire chest ach
ed, not from the flu or a cold or whatever. Christopher’s harsh words compounded her gut-wrenching shame. The raw, no-nonsense account from a man who hadn’t hesitated to point a gun at her head held an inescapable truth. Her father always insisted his innocuous club involved just a bunch of guys who loved motorcycles and gave money to children’s charities. The Death Dwellers were no such thing. They were
real.
They were violent. They were scary.