REIGN: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (9 page)

End
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Part 2

~
9
~

Her lips were parted, welcoming him, his mouth
like sweet water flowing over hers, down her throat. She drank him like wine,
the fullest, richest merlot. His fingers, roughed and calloused but dripping
with the promise of boundless pleasures, fell between her thighs, pulling them
apart. They weren’t anywhere, at least nowhere on earth. They were somewhere
still and soft, and he pressed hard against her, his manhood throbbing against
her, slipping up and down her parted sex, drenched already as the head of his
cock stroked up and down, up and down, again and again, until she was panting
and pained with need.

She found his body, her arms heavy and
unresponsive, and grabbed him towards her, their mouths engulfed with each
other, the distance between them sealed and dissolved as he burst into her,
filling her up to her chest, where her heart beat quickly, brimming with
pleasure, skin almost liquid as they came together in a perfect circle…

…you
ain’t
goin
’ nowhere…

The music started suddenly, from a distance, but
soon seemed to swoop down on them, crashing them into reality. She opened her
eyes and saw herself, alone, in her kitchen, under the table, the sound of
things breaking echoing through the house, the chorus of the song playing over
and over again as heavy footfalls approached her. She felt fear, tasted it, her
ears burning as the lyrics repeated,

…you
ain’t
goin
’ nowhere…

…you
ain’t
goin
’ nowhere…

…you
ain’t
goin
’ nowhere…

like a taunting chant. She knew the song. She
knew it well, liked it, but not now. Now it was like an invitation to her own
demise.

She closed her eyes and when she reopened them
she was holding the duffel bag. She knew she had to hide it. She knew what he
would do if he found it. The questions he’d ask. And Reign was gone. He wasn’t
there to protect her. She tried to open the fridge but the door stuck hard. The
cabinets were packed. She was exposed, and the song was playing louder, the
crashes growing nearer, the footfalls approaching faster. She tried under the
sink, but it was all full of water that poured out around her feet, filling the
kitchen quickly, rising to her ankles.

She’d drown. She’d drown or he’d find her.

She tried the kitchen door. It opened, but she
couldn’t leave.

“You
ain’t
goin
’ nowhere,” the song played again, and now she turned,
and he was in the doorway, in his uniform, his face a monstrous mask, his hands
in fists. He saw her. His eyes were wide pupils, deepest black, bloodshot and
violent. His voice became the song, and he repeated the chorus, “you
ain’t
goin
’ nowhere.”

“Please, let me explain, I need to explain,” she
said, panicking now, sweating, the water still rising, now inching up towards
her calves. He walked to her, impossibly wide strides, growing taller and
taller with each step, until he stood before her, gigantic and radiating heat,
his hands coming to her biceps.

The duffel bag fell to the water with a splash.

The water was at her knees.

He was shaking her, screaming, his words
impossible to understand. The song had stopped. There was just his voice piercing
her ears, rubbing against her mind like sandpaper as he shook her and shook
her, and the water was at her hips. And then she was on her knees, the water at
her neck, his cock hard against her cheek, his hands around her neck. The water
rose. She tried to breath and swallowed water, choking as he shoved himself
into her, water going up her nose, the money from the bag now floating around
her, some sort of cruel irony as she choked and tried to breathe…

Gabriella woke up in a pool of sweat. The room was dark, she was
gasping, desperate to breathe. The song rang in her ears. But she only awoke
for a moment, one moment of shining reality, the fear and pain taking a hold of
her entire self.

And then sleep rushed back in, quickly, a sleep that could only come
from the direst need for rest. Like an animal making itself small to hide from
a prowling jaguar, her mind curled up into itself and turned off. She wouldn’t
remember that dream. She couldn’t. If she remembered it, remembered the utter
despair and desperation, she would never have been able to sleep again.

Her head rolled to the side as her eyes closed once more. Her body
cooled down, the sweat beginning to dry. The sun crept upwards in the sky
outside, illuminating the distant mountains in a haze of dust and heat. The
curtains kept the sun at bay. The duffel bag sat, anonymous and unfeeling,
inanimate, in the safe. Nothing stirred in the room except the sheets on her
chest, gently rising and falling with her breath, now steady and deep.

She didn’t have any more dreams.

~
10
~

I’ve never liked hotel rooms. That started even before it became my
job to clean them up. And one of the things I hate most about hotel rooms is
how dim they are, always, when the curtains are closed. Now, I know it’s
because they use special light-blocking curtains for jet-lagged folks who want
to sleep during the day, but it gets to me. I guess it probably gets to
everyone, to some degree.

Anyway, when I woke up after that first night in Utah, I had no idea
what time it was, and I was afraid to look at the clock. I felt well-rested,
and hadn’t gotten to sleep until 8 that morning, so I figured it was at least
4pm. I didn’t know what I’d have to do to get to sleep
that
night; probably drink myself into a stupor.

Or, if Reign was going to come by again, he might be able to help me
get to sleep…

That thought, drowsy and dreamy, jolted me awake as soon as I’d fully
processed it. Reign. Utah. The money. Jeremy. Oh shit. Oh shit.
Oh shit!

What the fuck was I doing laying in this motel bed thinking about some
motorcycle dude when Jeremy was probably after me by now, and I was probably
wanted by the police for ditching that hotel room with the body in it? How
could I possibly be thinking about sex?

Everything came back in a sickening rush.
I let him take my fucking car…I’m such an idiot! Oh god, I’m such a
stupid, stupid idiot! I’ve
gotta
get out of here!

All Reign’s lovely words and heartfelt promises from the night before
now fell to the floor, as useless as clothes had been twelve hours prior. It
was like waking up from some strange coma where I’d been fully aware of what I
was doing for hours, but which no longer seemed to be real. There was no
way
I’d done that. Any of it. Not the
drinking, not the cigarette, not the sex, not the long hours of talking
afterwards. Not only was that just not me…it was fucking dangerous, and I
couldn’t be the sort of person who engaged in that activity.

But what sort of person was I, then? Did I even know? Could I even
answer that question honestly? Not really…I’d been Jeremy’s person, his
property, for so long that I didn’t have my own person anymore.

I jumped out of bed like I’d slept through my alarm, the same panicky
heart-racing feeling amplified by a thousand. My eyes darted around the room,
seeing everything but not making sense of anything. All I had were the clothes
I’d worn to work, my gym clothes, and my uniform.

Thoughtlessly, I threw on my jeans and the tank top I usually worked
out in; it was form-fitting and a little dirty but I didn’t care. I hadn’t even
stopped to put my panties back on. Once dressed, I felt a little better. But I
still didn’t have anywhere to go, or any idea what to do.

What had Reign said the night before? He wouldn’t be up until 9? That
left…four hours, I realized, finally looking at the clock. Four hours without
my car keys, with no place to go…

Maybe I can break into the car and hotwire it,
I thought, then realized how stupid an idea that
was. For one thing, I had no idea how to hotwire a car. And, for another, if I
just waited a little while I could just drive away with my keys…but the
waiting, that seemed like unbearable torture. I knew that just sitting in the
room would be hard enough, with my mind racing with constant thoughts of Jeremy
and the police and all the trouble I’d be in.

Okay, okay, okay,
I thought to myself, closing my eyes and willing
my
heartrate
to go back to normal, my racing mind to
slow down and be logical.
There has to be
something I can do…

As I focused on my breathing, I was surprised to feel myself actually
calming down. A word seemed to emerge in my thoughts, repeating over and over,
a word that I hadn’t thought of in years. Something that I’d picked up in
college, before I’d met Jeremy, taking a course on Eastern Philosophy. I’d been
very into meditation then, and had latched onto
ham-
sah
as my mantra of choice.

But I hadn’t meditated in years, at least not since before my
marriage. Life as Jeremy’s wife had taken that sense of peace and surety out of
me. Now, I almost wanted to cry as I felt myself slipping into a calmer state,
the world around me no longer spinning dizzyingly out of control.

I control my own fate,
I thought, the words sounding far-off in my
brain.
I can do whatever I want.

It was so strange, to be in that hotel room, in what was arguably the
most dangerous situation of my life, and still be able to find solace engaging
in a practice that I’d dropped so long ago. But it was just like everything
else that I’d felt since leaving Colorado; I was coming back to myself. I was
indulging in the things that made me who I was. I was letting myself meet
myself again, brand new and ready to leave everything behind.

Let’s take a walk,
I suddenly thought, the words now sharp and clear
against the stillness of my mind as I meditated. My eyes opened on their own,
as though my brain was yielding to some greater part of me that knew best. Just
as my eyes seemed to open independently of my telling them to, my legs moved me
towards the door. As the trance-like effects of meditating wore off, I glanced
at the clock once more and was shocked to see an entire half hour had passed
by, though it felt like I’d only closed my eyes for five minutes.

Only three and a half hours to go,
I thought, banking entirely on Reign’s promise
that he’d sleep until 9.
I should have
gotten his phone number,
I thought, realizing just how silly it was that I
hadn’t; I wasn’t planning on risking my safety by turning my phone back on and
potentially cluing Jeremy in to my whereabouts, but there was a phone in the
room and I could have used it to call him.

But this time, when I thought about this lapse in judgement, I didn’t
feel like a worthless piece of shit, which was generally how screwing up in any
way made me feel. Instead, I felt like a normal person who’d made a mistake and
didn’t need to commit seppuku over it.

I opened the door and immediately had to shield my eyes from the
brightness outside. It had been so dark in the hotel room, my eyes ached as I
blinked into the sun. The air was dry and hot, the desert stretching out for
miles in all directions, mountains ranging across the distance. It was
gorgeous, really, with that sort of sad, desolate beauty that only exists
amongst the sagebrush and red rock.

The bar was circled entirely by motorcycles once more, all of them
parked and gleaming in the sun. A few men stood outside smoking; they didn’t
seem to see me. For the first time, I looked at the buildings that made up the
actual motel, wondering how many other people were staying there. Judging by
the lack of cars in any of the designated parking spots, it seemed I was the
sole visitor to the Ditcher’s Valley Sun Lizard Motel and Bar.

The sign declaring the bar’s name hadn’t been lit up at all the night
before, so this was my first look at it. The sign was well-worn and weathered,
the shoddy paint peeling around the edges, a cartoonish iguana clad in a
motorcycle jacket looking googly-eyed onto the main street. I walked towards
the road and shaded my eyes once more, peering in the opposite direction of the
bar.

The town seemed to have only the one street, and all I could make out
in the baking heat was a glimmering parking lot, what looked like a gas
station, and a building that could have been a bank. Assuming that my car was
parked in the lot, I made my way towards it, no real plan as to what I’d do when
I got there.

I was just following that idea that had popped into my head at the end
of my meditation: take a walk. It beat the hell out of chewing my fingernails
off in the motel room, and I wasn’t feeling up to the task of going into the
bar and asking a stranger to tell me where I could find Reign – and my car
keys.

The entire town was no more than a mile long, and most of the
businesses seemed to be shuttered and closed for good. I thought about what
Reign had told me the night before; that the club essentially owned the town,
including the police force. I wondered if the lack of economic vitality was a
result of the club’s dirty dealings, or an intentional façade to keep outsiders
away.

The small municipal lot where my car was parked was dusty and lonely;
my little Subaru looked out of place amongst the old vans and
junkers
that were its neighbors. Past the lot there was,
indeed, a bank and a gas station, as well as a small grocery store, a repair
shop, a dinky police station, and a library. A Harley store sat on the very end
of the main street, after which there was nothing but miles of desert speckled
with the occasional shack, trailer, or one-story house.

The side streets of the town all seemed to go nowhere, and the only
other signs of habitation were a series of apartment buildings that fairly
towered behind the grocery store. It was almost spooky in the town; there were
few people out and about, and everyone seemed to be idling around with nothing
to do.

I wondered where the hell people worked or what they did; there wasn’t
even a movie theater. I assumed, correctly as it would turn out, that pretty
much everyone in town spent their nights at the bar, and that the main source
of work was the club. Even the sleepy gas station attendant wore a leather
jacket bearing the name of the Black Smoke MC.

I was floored by the fact that an entire town could be run by an
illegal operation, fueled entirely by drug deals and criminal pursuits. It
really was like the Wild West; I wondered if the FBI ever tried to intervene in
the club’s activities, or even had Ditcher’s Valley on their radar.

Walking the town only killed about half the time I needed it to kill,
and soon I found myself wandering back towards the motel, no wiser for my
stroll. Anxiety was creeping in again. I wanted to get gone, as soon as
possible.

The fact that the town seemed to be entirely operated by the club
didn’t actually help my worries; if anything, it made me more nervous. It meant
that if Jeremy found out where I was, and came to get me, I could be ruining
Reign’s life along with my own. And if I was responsible for bringing outside
forces to Ditcher’s Valley, I suspected he couldn’t protect me from whatever
revenge the club decided to enact.

Besides, the longer I thought about it, the less realistic it seemed
to me that Reign was doing anything but using me. Girls like me certainly
didn’t get to attract guys like him without an ulterior motive. He was so
handsome, he could have any girl he wanted, and the fact that he chose me only
meant that he thought he could get something out of me.

That’s the way it always is with fat girls
, I thought sourly.
We always have to settle for assholes like Jeremy, or get used by men
like Reign
. I was being blind and stupid to believe that he actually cared
for me and wanted to help me. More likely than not, he had suspicions about
what was in the duffel bag, and meant to get to it by pretending to be
interested in me. And if I didn’t watch myself, I’d fall right for it, hook,
line, and sinker.

But I still needed my damn keys.