Raine Falling (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) (13 page)

CHAPTER 33

W
hen we got off the plane, Dolly and I used the ladies and Reno was working his cell. We had brought carry-ons so gathering luggage wasn’t a problem. We had miraculously beat the restroom line so we got right in and did our business. We spent some time adjusting, readjusting, combing, spraying, and refreshing our makeup. Like that.

We were waiting at the pickup when a black SUV with tinted windows pulled up to the curb. The driver parked and came quickly around to our side of the car. I was busy organizing and pushing the handle down on my carry-on when it was taken from me. I glanced up to see a pair of dark brown eyes looking at me.

It was Diego. Damn if it wasn’t.

He gave me a chin nod and moved on to Dolly. He gave her a great big hug and told her how happy he was to see her. Then he did the arm shake thing with Reno, called him brother, and helped him get the bags in. Me, he pretty much ignored.

Reno sat in the front with Diego. Dolly and I sat in the back. The talking was easy between the three of them, and Diego filled them in. Apparently I was the only one who was surprised to see him in Nevada. Diego didn’t address any of the conversation to me, but his eyes met mine a lot in that rearview mirror. So much so I was squirming in my seat trying to find a way to get out of his vision. Short of literally ducking my head there wasn’t a thing I could do; I took to looking out the window.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Because seeing Pinky for the first time in twenty years at the funeral of her only sister wasn’t stressful enough, let’s add a little Diego to the mix.

CHAPTER 34

P
inky, Petey, and Lilah had grown up in an old farmhouse near Carson City. Diego explained that although there were enough bedrooms for all of us, there was only one bathroom. Prosper thought we would probably be more comfortable in the hotel a couple of miles up the road. That’s where Diego brought us. The plan was that we should do what we needed to do to feel human again after the plane trip. Diego would be waiting to bring us to Pinky and Prosper, where we would eat the potluck that well-meaning family and friends had foisted upon them.

We checked in. I went to grab my bag from Diego, but he already had it in his hand along with the key to my room. He simply looked at me when I made a move for both of them.

He said, “Room 33. Elevator. Third floor. Move.”

Diego grabbed my arm and steered me in that direction. I craned my neck back to see if Dolly and Reno were following. Dolly was busy organizing something in her purse, and Reno was back on his cell. No help there. Diego didn’t look at me while we waited for the elevator, not when we were in the elevator, and not while we were out of the elevator and heading towards the room. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t let go of me either. I kept sneaking little peeks at him, and what I saw was scary.

We got to the room. He put the suitcase down for a millisecond, slid the key card quickly through the lock, and pushed the door open hard when the light flashed green. I hesitated, pulling back and worried about going into that room with him. He felt it. Although he didn’t hurt me, he tugged me hard towards him. Once inside, he kicked the door shut with his foot, threw the suitcase on the bed, and pressed me hard against the back of the door.

“Your fingers broken, Raine?” He growled at me, his face three inches away from mine. His body pressed against me.

Major asshole.

“Move back, Diego,” I breathed at him.

“You broke your fingers. Both hands. Hearing gone too. Voice ditto. Only explanation.” His hand moved to the back of my neck.

“Stop it.” I twisted my head away. He held on tight.

“You don’t pick up your cell. You don’t take my calls at the clubhouse. You don’t open your door for me. You ignoring me, Raine? You fucking ignoring me? ’Cause let me tell you right goddamn fucking now, I’m not the kind of guy you want to ignore.” His dark eyes glittered like shards of black diamonds.

“Get your hands off me.” I pushed at him.

“The fuck I will, Raine.” He stepped in and now he was even closer. Great. Just great.

“I don’t want to do this now.” And I didn’t. So I pushed at him again to drive my point home. He wasn’t going to bully me.

“You don’t want to do this now? Really, Raine? Is now not a good time for this?” He roared at me.

“You know when
would
have been a good time for this? Over a week ago when I almost banged down your door would have been a good time. But with the shit she said I figured I would give you that. Every day that I called the clubhouse or your cell would have been a good time. But you wouldn’t take my calls. You wouldn’t return my messages. So maybe it’s not a good time for you, but it’s a fucking great time for me.” His eyes flashed.

I wasn’t liking this. Not one bit. But the alternative was to fight a battle I couldn’t win. I thought I might as well get this bullshit over with him once and for all.

“Okay,” I said to the top of his chest.

He let out a breath then and I felt the air around him change. He took a small step away from me. He moved his hand to my hair and gently pulled my face up to meet his eyes.

“Okay.” His eyes softened just a little. Mine didn’t.

We did the eye standoff thing for a few moments, which I thought I might be winning. Then his eyes moved to my mouth, and his hand shifted in my hair. This wasn’t good. Not good at all. This wasn’t me winning.

I hissed at him, “She
overshared,
Diego. And when she was done oversharing, she called me a dirty little Indian whore. She gave that to me. All of it. She threw it at me. I had no clue it was coming, and she threw that at me. And
you
. You didn’t do a thing to stop it! You knew what you had with her, and you let her throw that at me.” I was heaving.

“Always knew she could be a raving bitch but didn’t know how deep that shit went with her. Woman like that in a place like that, safer to find out where her head was. Even if it meant you having to catch some of it,” Diego gave as way of explanation.

He was still way too close to me. He also had his head up his ass. Way up his ass.

“What you’re referring to as shit, Diego? That was love to her. That’s how deep that went for her. Two years? Two years and you didn’t know that was love to her?”

“Bullshit, Raine. Jesus, that was never even close to what that was. I knew it. She knew it. I made that clear. We both knew what that was.”

I just shook my head. Really?

So I tried to help him get his head out of that ass by saying this:

“There’s no making that clear to a woman who you have been . . .” I w
as searching for the words and didn’t want to use her words.

“A woman I’ve been . . . ?” Diego prompted.

“A woman you have been
having relations
with for two years,” I finished lamely.

He chortled. No, really. He did. He chortled.

“Relations?” He smirked. “Is that what we’re calling it now? Relations?” His eyes were dancing.

“For two years, whatever you want to call it, for a woman that means something.” I was not finding the humor.

Any woman knows that. And really, most men do too. How he missed that I didn’t know.

“Shit.” He pulled his hand through his hair. “She said just about the same thing but not in the same way.”

Yeah, I had a taste of what Ellie’s word choices were.

“Two years and she thought it was going one way and when it didn’t she fought for it the only way she knew how,” I said.

“Would you have done that, baby?” The way he said that, the way he looked at me when he said that, the way he moved closer to me when he said that, made my girlie parts tingle.

“Done what?” I told my girlie parts to calm down.

“Fought for it?” His tone was light, and his hand was working its way through my hair while his other hand was on the side of my face. He leaned in.

He was being all sexy and flirty and light. But in my mind it wasn’t the time to be sexy and flirty and light. A heart had been broken. Albeit a skanky, slutty, misguided heart. A heart that hadn’t anything like a vow, or a ring, or even a nod in the Happily Ever After or “your feelings are being returned” direction. Not even a heart I cared overly much about, but a heart nonetheless and that should not be taken lightly.

“I said it once, I’ll say it again. I don’t fight over men. I’m not that kind of woman.” I looked at him and made my eyes hard. Girlie parts at ease.

He took a step back then and gave me the once-over. Slowly. From head to toe. “No, you aren’t that kind of woman. You’re the kind of woman men fight over, not the woman who fights over men.”

Wow. I didn’t know what to do with that. I didn’t want men fighting over me and never knew a man who had.

“No, Diego. I’m not her either.” I took the opportunity to walk away from the wall and out of his space.

“Yeah, Babe. You are.” Diego was standing away from me with his arms crossed over his chest. Tattooed biceps bulging, face watching me.

“Stop it.” He was making me uncomfortable.

“Babe, you walk into a room and conversation stops.” He pressed his point.

“You’re crazy,” I said softly.

“Not crazy, honey. You walked into that junkie’s kitchen and every brother in there including me was ready to give you anything you needed to make it right for your sister. Later on when you walked into the clubhouse looking all lost and scared and beautiful, all eyes turned in your direction. Then you tossed your hair and smiled, and every,
every
, single dick in that place got hard. Trust me on that.”

I shook my head in denial. He was whacked. And if he wasn’t whacked, this wasn’t something I wanted to hear. It wasn’t a comfortable thought to think
that dicks were getting hard at me back at the clubhouse.

He continued.

“Jules practically falls over himself every morning watching for you to come out so he can feed you. Crow, who I’ve never seen even look at any of the talent hanging at the MC, threw down for you.”

“Crow threw down for me? What does that mean?” I might have asked that too quickly.

Diego’s eyes got hard and a muscle jumped in his jaw. “What does what mean?” he repeated.

“You said Crow threw down for me,” I murmured.

“Means he made his interest known,” he answered carefully.

“He’s married.” I felt the heat rising to my face, remembering the conversation.

“How do you know that, Raine?” Diego’s mouth got tight.

“He told me.” I moved away from him.

“Told you what?” He got closer to me again. Mouth tighter. Voice getting louder.

“Told me he was married.” My voice got louder too.

“You been spending time with Crow?” He had a hold of my arm.

“Yes, Diego. Crow gave me a ride to work at Ruby Reds.” I pulled away. He held on.

“How?” He growled.

“How what?” I looked him.

“Raine, how did he give you a ride to work?” His eyes were hard.

“What do you mean?” I honestly was getting nervous and really confused.

“HOW DID HE GET YOU TO WORK?” He roared at me.

“ON HIS BIKE,” I roared back.

All the air went out of the room. “You have got to be shitting me right now, Raine.”

I didn’t say a word.

“What else?” he said, deadly quiet.

Uh-oh. Big giant uh-oh.

I took a minute. Because here we were again. Diego and me. We didn’t have conversations, we had verbal boxing bouts. Sometimes gloves on, sometimes gloves off. But there always seemed to have to be the knockout round, and he always seemed to be the one eager to deliver it. He had me on the ropes again.

“What else what?” I took a breath.

“Raine,” he growled.

“Not much else, geez.” I attempted to pry my arm from him. “And by the way, where is Ellie?”

“Fucking damn it, Raine, already told you that shit.” He was starting to breathe fire.

“What else?” He stepped in. Dragon fully awake.

“None of your . . .” I began.

“WHAT ELSE HAPPENED WHILE CROW HAD YOU ON THE BACK OF HIS BIKE?” he roared.

“WHERE IS ELLIE?” I shouted back.

Because really?

Really??

I hadn’t asked for any of this. His crazy bitch had started this whole thing and now he was yelling at me. No way. No fucking way. I was done with this. He could thump and stomp and roar all he wanted. This was on him. Not on me.

He scrubbed his hand over his face and visibly looked like he was trying not to put his fist through the wall.

“Ellie is fucking gone, Raine. Packed her shit into a Greyhound bus and told her not to come back. Now answer my fucking question. RIGHT! FUCKING! NOW!” He punctuated that with a fist bang to the door by the side of my head and I jumped.

This wasn’t good, and I was getting scared.

“Diego, stop this,” I said with the small semblance of calm I had left.

He was having none of it. As a matter of fact, my calm just seemed to infuriate him more.

“Raine, you don’t want to mess with me on this. You. Do. Not. Now you got about ten goddamn fucking seconds to answer my question, or I’m pushing you aside, getting on my bike, and riding straight to that clubhouse and putting a bullet in my brother for fucking with shit I already laid claim to. Unless you have something different to tell me in ten FUCKING SECONDS.”

Oh for Christ’s sake.

“NINE,” he roared.

“Diego,” I began.

“EIGHT.” Another fist to the door by the side of my head.

“Stop this!” I yelled back.

“SEVEN.” His face was shouting in mine.

“Humph.” I was starting to shake. Something he already laid claim to?

“SIX.” He had his hands on my shoulders, getting ready to move me away from the door.

“FIVE.”

Oh, sweet Jesus. He wasn’t even close to kidding about this. His eyes were dark and the veins were popping out of his neck. His whole body was leaning into me and was rigid with anger. His biceps were pumped through with testosterone and primed to punch a hole through something.

“He kissed me,” I said quickly, and before I ran out of brave I added, “and I kissed him back.”

Diego let go of me like I burned him. Then he took a step away. Then he took a deep breath. Then he took a minute. When the minute was over, he asked carefully, “What else?”

Something important was happening, and I wasn’t stupid enough to miss that. I decided that a lot depended on what I said next. I knew Diego was seeing red, and I didn’t want any bloodshed between brothers over an innocent kiss. And it
had
been innocent in all the ways that mattered.

He had laid claim to me. Diego had laid claimed to me.

I looked him straight in the eye and moved towards him slowly. I stood in front of him and put my hands out palms up in a gesture of surrender. I swirled the words around in my head a few times before I found the way to deliver them so they would make sense to this madman standing before me.

“Nothing else, Diego. Not in the way you mean. What happened was that I found a friend. Or I thought I had found a friend, and I had needed one. Prosper was gone, Claire was gone, and you were gone. You left without saying a word. You left with Ellie and it hurt. I don’t know who she is to you. I only know who she thinks she is to you. I don’t know what you think she is to you.”

And I don’t know who I am to you.

Then I continued as honestly as I could. My shoulders slumped. I was all of a sudden very tired.

“I didn’t ignore your calls, Diego. I didn’t ignore your messages. I was too afraid to take them. Too afraid I would fall apart when I heard your voice. I’m so tired of feeling that. So tired of feeling something only to have it taken away from me before I even begin to understand what it is. Before it even has a chance to grow into something I can recognize.”