Nothin' But Trouble (5 page)

Lilly
stayed in the car with the doors locked, but rolled down her window a crack.
She was glad to see someone, but she wasn’t stupid. The sound of a car door
opening and then slamming shut, and then of boots crunching on the gravel
suddenly had her heart racing. But when a big burly man with a trimmed beard
and wearing a ball cap pulled low over his forehead, stepped beside her
driver’s side door and leaned down, the instinct to flee was strong inside of
her.

“You
need a tow?” His voice was pitched low, and with him wearing that hat and the
shadows around them, it made seeing his face all the harder. “Your car just up
and die?”

“Um,
yeah.
I think it’s my engine. I heard a clicking.”

He
nodded and straightened, and even though he wore a loose fitting flannel shirt
and she could only see his upper body, she could tell he was powerfully built.
But her heart was still beating fast, and her throat had gone dry. She didn’t
know why she was having this reaction, aside from the fact her surroundings
creeped
her out. He was three times as big as she was, but
it wasn’t the situation. It was him.

“Pop
the hood, and I’ll check out what’s going on.”

She
did as he asked, and waited for several minutes as he did whatever he was doing
under her hood. Finally he closed the lid, produced a rag from his back pocket,
and cleaned his hands off.

“Without
any tools I can’t say for sure, but I got a pretty good guess that your engine
is toast.”

She
nodded, because she had figured as much. “Yeah, that’s what my boyfriend said,
too.” Lilly knew that she had to act strong, because a predator could smell
weakness like spilled blood. Telling him she had a boyfriend would, she hoped,
make him back off—if he had any intentions of starting anything. Of course he
might be a nice guy, and it was just her own nervousness that was getting the
better of her. But even as she thought that she knew it wasn’t just her nerves.
The guy just stared at her for several seconds after she said that, and she
curled her hands around the steering wheel tighter to stop them from suddenly
shaking.

“Your
boyfriend, huh?”
She nodded and licked her lips.
“He a mechanic?
I’ve
never seen you around before.”

“Yeah,
I actually called him a while ago, and he should be here any minute. Thanks for
looking at the engine though.” She smiled, but he showed no emotion.

“You
have reception out here?” His question chilled her, and she felt a cold sweat
start to move along her spine. He placed a hand on the door of her car.
“Because no one ever gets reception on this road.”
He
grinned, and something inside of her screamed that this was a very, very bad
situation that she was in.

“Yeah,
I made the call a long time ago. Seriously, he should be here any minute.” Her
voice was shaky, and she kept looking in her rearview mirror and praying a set
of headlight would make an appearance.

“I
can take you into town and you can have your boyfriend meet you there? You can
call him on the way from your phone.” He stared right into her eyes, not
showing a grin or any other kind of expression. It was freaky as hell. “In
fact, I almost insist on taking you into town. It isn’t safe for a young woman
to be out here all alone in the middle of the night.”

It
was hardly the middle of the night, and she saw the way he kept glancing up and
down the road, as if he were expecting a car to pass by.

“No,
no, that’s okay. He really will be here soon.” She was grasping for straws now,
praying that he would just leave. He stood and wrapped the rag he had used to
clean his hands on around his knuckles.

“No
one really uses this back road much. Shame that career center decided to build
so far out from town.” He looked down the road again, and her heart started
hurting from how hard it was pounding. “Come on out and I’ll take you into
town. We can talk and get to know each other.” He leaned down again and rested
his wrapped hand on the doorframe. “I don’t get much personal time with pretty,
decent girls like you. Only ones that hang around town that will give it up
without complaint are the whores working out of the strip club.”

“N-No,
thank you.
My boyfriend will get worried if he comes here and I’m gone.” She heard him
sigh heavily, and then he lowered his head and shook it a few times.

“No
one is coming for you, and you don’t have a boyfriend, at least not one that is
on his way.” She didn’t respond, didn’t move, and didn’t even breathe. “Now,
you can come with me the easy way, we can have ourselves a good time, or you
can fight me and I can take what I want. If you choose option two it won’t feel
very good.”

She
didn’t care if her damn engine blew up. She cranked the engine, but nothing
happened. Lilly tried over and over again, but the low, deep chuckle had her
heart pounding hard. She looked over at him, and he held up a sparkplug. He
tossed it aside, and before she could even scream, he rammed his wrapped hand
through the glass of her driver’s side window with so much force she felt the
shards tear through the skin on the side of her face.

Lilly
cried out and frantically tried to unstrap her belt, but her hands shook
uncontrollably, her palms were sweaty, and her sudden torrent of tears made her
vision blurry. The click of her seatbelt coming undone had her trying to move
quickly to the other side of the car, but the man reached out and grabbed her
neck, slamming her back against the seat. Lilly clawed at his hand as he
tightened it and kept her stationary as he reached inside with his other hand
and unlocked the door. And then everything after that was like a blur.

He
wrenched her out of the seat and tossed her on the ground. The gravel beneath
her dug into her palms as she braced herself, and she felt the burning
sensation of her skin being torn off. Kicking her legs out, she was about to
haul ass into the woods since that was right in front of her, but he wrapped a
hand in her hair and yanked her backward. Stars danced in front of her vision
as his forceful motions caused her head to connect with the pavement. A groan
left her, and she clutched at her head.

“Little
girl, we could have had a good time if you would have.” He yanked her up by the
hair and she screamed out, but she was spun around so fast, and slammed into
the side of her car so hard, that her scream became garbled from the grunt of
her impact.

“Why
are you doing this?” Her vision was still blurry, but she saw him lift his
hand. Trying to brace
herself
for the hit that was
inevitable was easier said than done. Lilly kicked her legs out, but connected
with his shin when he anticipated the move and blocked her. He brought his fist
across her temple, and pain slammed into her with so much force nausea swirled
inside of her, and bile rose up in her throat. She threw up, not able to stop herself
as the pain controlled every part of her. Rolling onto her back cause a cry of
pain to leave her, and her head throbbed like someone was taking a jackhammer
to it.

“Come
on.” He reached for her again, but she brought up all of her strength and lifted
her leg right for his crotch. A spark of pleasure left her when she connected
with his dick and a grunt of pain came from him. But she didn’t wait to watch
him fall to his knees. Lilly tried to stand, but her head hurt so badly and she
started to feel her eyes swelling shut. Crawling on her hands and knees toward
the road, she swore she heard something rumble, but the sound of her pulse
filled her ears and it was hard to tell if it was real or in her head. “You
fucking cunt.” He grabbed her leg, and she kicked out again, felt her foot
connect with his head, but the satisfaction was short-lived because he yanked
her back, flipped her on her back, and started going for his belt.

“No.
Please, don’t.” Every part of her screamed out in agony, but the sound of the
rumbling intensified, and then she heard the man on top of her curse and stand
quickly. He tried to lift her up, but ended up ripping her scrub top in the
process. The cool air brushed along her exposed chest, and even though she wore
a bra she tried to lift her hand to cover
herself
. It
seemed her brain didn’t want to give the commands, because her arm felt like it
was made of lead. Exhaustion started weighing down on her, and she couldn’t see
out of her left eye any longer. But that rumbling sound was most definitely not
in her head, and the closer it got the more she realized what it was.

Lilly
managed to stumble forward, drag herself off the ground despite her pounding
head, and moved toward the road, but she didn’t get far because he wrapped a
thick arm around her middle and hauled her against his chest. He was striding
quickly toward his truck, but Lilly got a renewed sense of strength and started
fighting harder than she had before.

“What
the fuck.” The deep, rage-filled voice could be heard clearly through the
massive rumbling of the Harleys that had come to a stop in front of them, but
with Lilly’s swollen eye, and their headlights shining right on them, she
couldn’t see much.

“Not
your concern. Just ride on,” the man holding her said in a low, harsh voice. He
started moving toward the truck again, and she screamed.

“Help.
God, please
help me.” It was only seconds after she had called out that someone had her out
of the other man’s hands and pressed against his chest. She smelled leather and
a spicy
cologne, and all she could think about at that
time was Court. It was such a random thing because it had been so long since
they had seen each other, but his image slammed into her head and she started
to cry.

“You
motherfucker,” someone gritted out, and then she heard the sound of flesh
meeting flesh, of a male grunting in pain, and then of a body hitting the
ground. Despite the sound of motorcycles still rumbling close by, it seemed so
deathly quiet.

“Hey,
you’re okay,” the man holding her said and rubbed her back. “Can you tell me
your name and who we can call?” She pulled back, but winced and moaned as her
head pounded hard.

She
shook her head, but licked her chapped lips and spoke through her tears.
“Lilly Winters.”
She rattled off Roan’s number, didn’t know
if anyone had written it down, but she was feeling even sicker the longer she
stood on her feet.

“Man,
I think she needs to see a doctor. She can’t even stand up without you holding
onto her,” another man said from behind her. Lilly didn’t know these men, but
she didn’t feel the dread and need to escape like she had with the asshole that
had attacked her.

“We
can’t take her to a hospital, especially not when we need to take that fucker
back to the clubhouse. Kink, call Doc Mason, and get a hold of her family,” the
man holding her said. Lilly looked into his face, but with the swelling and her
tears all she saw was this blurry vision. Dizziness assaulted her and she
swayed, but he held onto her tighter, and then she was in his arms and resting
her head on his hard chest. “I’m Lucien Silver, and
ain’t
no one
gonna
fuck with you anymore.” He tightened his
arms around her, and she tried to breathe through the pain. But darkness was
slowly starting to consume her, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold on
for much longer. “Malice, call Ruin and have him get his ass out here to take
my bike back to the clubhouse. I’ll take that piece of shit’s truck.”

Clubhouse?
So they were
bikers.

“You
want me to toss this dick in the back of the truck?” a guy behind her asked.

“Yeah,
throw his soon to be dead ass with the rest of the trash he has back there.”

But
that was the last thing she heard because she gave up the fight and finally
allowed herself to be swallowed up by the darkness that tempted her.

Chapter
Four

Court
grabbed his bottle of beer, the one he had been nursing for the last hour, and
took a sip of the lukewarm shit. The stripper on stage was currently in the
process of slipping her G-string down her thighs. They had been at
Summer’s
for a few hours, but Court would have left sooner
if Stinger hadn’t gotten trashed and needed a babysitter. Dallas was at least
sober, but he had been getting lap dances of his own and wasn’t paying any mind
to Stinger. The thing with Dallas was he was in his own world recently. He did
what needed to do to keep the club going, was there for the rest of the
members, but there was this void look in his eyes. Whatever the fuck he was
going through it was some heavy shit.

Normally
they could take care of themselves, whether they were drunk or not, but Stinger
was getting lap dance after lap dance, and a few times the bouncers had to tell
him to keep his hands on his lap. The bouncers and owner at
Summer’s
knew not to mess with The Grizzly MC, but that didn’t mean they still didn’t
have to look out for the girls working the pole or the guys. No hard feelings
on that account, and after the second time of Stinger being clearly too drunk
to give a fuck, Court had stepped in and told him to cut the fucking shit.