Taming the Night (Creatures of the Night Book 1) (13 page)

Once the room was stable he went and looked outside. It was nearly noon. He’d only slept a few hours. He had the thought to sleep a little longer but knew that he couldn’t, not if he wanted to live. He moved over t
o the armoire and rummaged through it. He was happy to find a pair of sweat pants. They were bound to be more comfortable than the soiled kaki pants he’d cut to fit. He blushed with a bit of embarrassment to remember how he’d released with his clothes still on.

He’d never done that before. He hadn’t been able to stop it from happening though. It was as if when she took a pull from his neck, her lips wrapped around his n
ipples and the head of his cock at the same time, pulling pleasure out of him at every sensitive area he had. He shivered with pleasure just to think of it. His blood was certainly recouping just fine because it suddenly rushed to his shaft and made him hard as a rock. He couldn’t think of her now without wanting to be inside her, pounding away.

He hurried to the bathroom and was glad when the sweatpants fit him without having to be cut. They were snug and high-water but they concealed him
and his bandages for the most part. He tossed the bloodied dirtied hospital gown aside and laid the pants on the sink while he showered holding his casted arm and wrapped leg on the outside. The warm water felt like heaven to his bruised muscles.

When he was finished he rewrapped the bandages around his ribs and his eyes watered at not only the pain but… at the thought of the last person who had applied this bandage.
Sarah Watkins would be missed terribly. Her husband, Lenny, had died years ago, but she had children and grand children that would return from Knocksville to try and find her. They would spend time and money and resources combing the woods looking for her and he would know what had happened to her and couldn’t tell anyone.

It occurred to him suddenly that his Uncle might be looking for him as well at this very moment. He laughed at himself. Might. The whole police force and half the town would be out looking for him and Sarah right now. It would be so easy if he could just ride away from this whole mess on the back of
Al’s motorcycle and never look back. He opened his eyes and looked at himself in the mirror. His eyes were rimmed in black and the bruises on his face were still purpling. His skin was pale and his eyes were blood shot.

“We have to have
gas before we ride off anywhere,” he told the stranger in the mirror.

He turned and headed back out to the living room. He wasn’t sure where his socks had gotten to but he pulled on a pair of tennis shoes he found near the front door. They too were tight, but he couldn’t go walking on the highway with nothing on but socks.

He went to Al and sat on the bed. She was sweating so hard that her hair was stuck to her face and when he touched her he realized that she was burning up. Fever was a sign of healing he knew so he wouldn’t worry too much about it. He reached down to unzip her boots and remove them one by one. She sighed in contentment as if she was relieved to have her feet free to the air. He sighed as he thought about what she might have to say at what he was about to do, but it would be better for her in the long run.

He moved up until he was beside her and slowly unzipped the leather shirt and then unbuttoned the leather pants. He removed the shirt first to reveal a tight black sports bra beneath it. He nodded and smiled. He had been expecting something lacey and form fitting, but this was of course more practical. He didn’t know that she had a side that wasn’t reckless. She seemed to
breathe reckless abandon and he was happy to see that she wouldn’t wear some contraption simply to look pretty, especially when no one was going to see it.

He then pulled down her pants and all his warm feeling flew out the window as hot lava erupted in his stomach. W
here the bra was completely practical; these panties would be the end of him. She was wearing the same sliver of black material that he had seen on her last night. They could barely be called underwear. They were more like thin string held together by a lacey V of material in the center. The curve of her hip looked so delicious in them that he found himself wanting to take a bite out of it.

For just one moment he allowed his hand to run o
ver the silky skin at her hips and then thighs. He had to close his eyes as desire soared to life inside him. He shouldn’t be doing this, but his hands suddenly had a mind of their own and he could hardly breathe as they snaked their way up to her bra. His fingers hit the elastic and then dove beneath.

He swallowed hard as his hand cupped her perfect nipple and the peak rose to meet his hand. He rolled over and
lay beside her as he pushed the scrap of material up and released the beautiful breasts she had bared to him last night. Wild horses couldn’t have stopped him from taking the puckered nipple into his mouth and sucking it deep. She let out a little moan of pleasure and it was nearly his undoing.

She tasted so sweet to him and he wanted nothing more than to devour her. He reached over to finger her other nipple as he continued to splay his tongue over the peek of her breast and draw at it until she moaned again.

“Thomas,” she whispered and he stopped what he was doing immediately. He drew back to look at her. What was he doing? She was in the middle of a fever induced hallucination about her dead husband, and here he was taking advantage. This was completely unlike him and he felt shame and guilt wash over him. What was he thinking? Where was his self control? He had arrested men for less than this. He shook his head and began to put her bra back into place but noticed the elastic band was leaving red welts in her skin.

He remembered how his wife had said that sleeping in a bra was completely uncomfortable. He removed the bra quickly and then rummage
d through the chest at the end of the bed. He found a sheet and quickly covered her up with it before he had any more ideas. He would let her sleep while he found them some gas, and maybe a stronger dose of will power. He had plenty of time to get to a gas station and back before dark… he hoped.

Chapter
Seven

Jerry stood up and looked down at the motorcycle. He’d found the money that Al had stashed in the satchel. The highway hadn’t been t
oo long of a walk and he’d hitched a ride both ways. He’d bought a gas can and some clothes that fit, thank God. He’d filled the gas can before he’d asked for a ride back to the head of the road. No one seemed to recognize him out of uniform. Fairfax was still a small town and being so close to Taming, he feared that someone might recognize him, but he’d seemed to go unnoticed.

Now he faced a new dilemma. Al was still dead to the world and no amount of screaming her name had woken her. Not splashing her with water. N
ot even holding a match to her big toe. If it weren’t for the breathing he would doubt that she was even alive. They needed more gas than he’d been able to bring in the gas can if they were going to ride through the night. He was going to have to do this and pray that she was awake by the time he got back. He looked at the watch he’d bought and his heart lurched. It was nearly four, barely enough time to get back to the gas station, fill up the tank, and get back.

He had seen plenty of people riding motorcycles, had ridden on plenty of motorcycles, but he’d never once driven a motorcycle.
He had poured the bit of gas he’d brought back into the tank and closed it and then… stood there looking at it for a good fifteen minutes. It wasn’t that he was scared… of course he wasn’t scared. He wasn’t scared. He could get on and ride this thing if he wanted to. Alicia did it. He could do it. He was bigger than she was.

Still he just stood there looking at it.
Stop being a chicken shit. It can’t be that hard.
He looked at the bike again. If Al were awake he would ask her to show him how the damn thing worked. If she were on the bike he would feel a little bit better about this. Hell, he might even be happy to be the one in control of the speed they went. He didn’t think Al knew how to go below a hundred on the thing.

Before he could talk himself out of it again he put the helmet on his head. He had just taken the broken glass out so he wouldn’t look quite as silly with only one eye covered by the shield. Not that he could have looked any sillier than he had when he’d shown up at the ga
s station earlier, with the high water sweatpants and flannel shirt that was so tight he could only button the middle button on it. He’d gotten a few looks, but the looks had disappeared when he’d come out with some fitting jeans and t-shirt.

He swung his leg
over the motorcycle and looked at the kick start he’d seen her use earlier. Then he looked at all the gauges and handles and lights… it was almost like flying a plane compared to driving a car. He took his time and thought about what Al had done. She had turned the key. Pressed this button to prime it and then… With one kick the beast roared to life. His moment of triumph quickly faded as he realized that the way his hand was rolling the bar now had him moving forward.

Before he was ready the bike moved beneath him with an angry growl and was pulling him forward at a speed that made him swallow his tongue.
Breathe. Just breathe damn you!
He forced himself to relax. So the bike was moving. If he could keep his balance he would be just fine. He made it to the end of the gravel road and leaned into the turn like Al had done.

He was going faster than he was comfortable with but
he could deal with that, right? He would just slow down a bit. As he looked over all the buttons and gauges he suddenly realized that he didn’t know how to stop. When she’d let him go before he’d sort of just coasted to a stop and then turned the key to off. Maybe he could do that again at the gas station. He didn’t know what all the buttons did and didn’t dare press anything so he let his hand off the gas and realized that he was slowing down.

This made him feel ten times calmer until he neared the
gas station. It was at the bottom of the hill. He frantically looked for anything that might say brake. When he saw nothing he thought back to his bicycle riding days. The brake was on the handlebars. But this wasn’t a school kid’s bike. This was a motor vehicle and there was what looked like a brake near the foot rest.

“Hey, are you crazy!
” he heard someone yell as he entered the parking lot of the gas station. A gas station attendant had to dive out of the way and Jerry felt the bike swerve beneath him. With no other choice and a lifetime of hitting the break with his foot, he slammed on the brake near the foot rest.

With a sudden and jarring force the motorcycle came to a halt and he was airborne flying over the handlebars. He had just a moment
mid-air to think and he laughed at himself. The end of his life was about to come and he would die wearing a T-shirt that said ‘honk if you love fishing’. His feet were above his head and then he landed not too gracefully on a stack of tires near the garage portion of the filling station.

He lay there for a
second starring at the blue sky, his lungs refusing to fill with air. When they finally did fill he heard a strange ringing in his ears and he thought an elephant might be standing on his chest. Stars passed before his eyes and he refused to move for fear of what he would feel. He had probably broken something else and he wasn’t in a hurry to tally the number of broken bones.

A face came into view above his head and whistled. Jerry groaned as he saw who it was. “If this is heaven, God sure d
oes have a funny sense of humor,” he grumbled.

“Well if this was heaven you probably wouldn’t be wearin’ that shirt.”

“That’s true,” Jerry conceded. Sgt. Gerald knew how much Jerry hated fishing. This was why he invited him to go fishing with him all the time. It was also why he felt justified in telling Jerry to never say that he didn’t invite him to go anywhere because Jerry always declined. Gerald and his Uncle Victor, however, fished all the time.

“I think you might have
some splanin’ to do Jer,” the sergeant said with a scratch of one of his chins.

“I was planin’ on callin’ Sarge.”

“When? After the whole state of North Carolina and Tennessee came up here lookin’ for you. They were going to try to get DNR and them federal boys up here to look for you too, although every local agency has given every man they have to the hunt. They found your bloody bandages and Sarah Watkins scrubs. We didn’t know what had happened to you. Your uncle is still out in the woods lookin’ for you right now.”

“How did you find me?
” Jerry asked, still lying in the pile of tires. It was his tailbone. He was pretty sure that it was broken. If not broken then seriously bruised.

Gerald
shrugged and spit a stream of tobacco off to his right. “Old friend of mine, name of Tom Gillis, said he gave someone matching your description a ride to the fillin’ station in Fairfax this afternoon. Thought I’d come and see if you’d show up again. Guess it was worth the wait.”

Jerry watched him for a while before he said anything else. “So… What are you going to do to
me?”

Gerald sighed. “I’m gonna have to take you into the station. I have a feelin’ that your u
ncle is gonna want to talk at you.”

Jerry eyed the sun in the sky. He thought about Al laying up there asleep with no protection against the beasts. He thought of all the innocent people at the police station that would be harmed if the creatures were after him and not Al. Why they would be, he didn’t know, but there did seem to be something to Al’s belief considering what had happened at the hospital. Al had already been gone when they’d come after him. Maybe Sarah was dead because of him.

Before Jerry had any time to take any other action Gerald cuffed his arm to his own. “What the hell are you doing?” Jerry asked as he struggled to sit up, take the helmet off with his casted arm, and then get to his feet. He was a head taller than Gerald but Gerald made up what he lacked in height in width. Jerry wouldn’t be able to drag him anywhere if he tried.

“You had that look in your eye like you was about to bolt and I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.
At least not until you’ve talked with the Chief.”

Jerry looked around at the crowd that had come out of the diner across the street and those who were pumping gas. They were watching the exchange intently. Even if Jerry had the thought to overpower Gerald, there were too many witnesses. He looked in the direction of the motorcycle that lay on its side. It had skidded across the parking lot to rest on its side still running.

Gerald looked in the direction of his gaze and cursed. “We’re going to have to call Samuel to come over here and tow that bike to the impound.
Is that that biker woman’s bike? She’s going to be pissed with you when she sees what you’ve done to her bike. Where is she and why is her bike here?”

Jerry clamped his mouth shut and looked straight ahead. Gerald just tsked and shook his head. “Your Uncle is not going to be happy with you. What is it with you and women? You find the women that can do the most damage to your life and reputation and fall in love straight away. I suppose you aren’t too different from the rest of us that way.”

Jerry smiled in spite of himself and looked at Gerald. “I’m sure Winnie would love to hear you say that. Haven’t you been married like thirty years?”

“Thirty four and I can tell you that that woman has done plenty of damage to me son.”

Jerry took a deep breath and blew it out. His chest hurt, his head hurt, and he was weary to his bones. “I guess this whole thing is really messed up. I suppose my Uncle is not ever going to understand this.”

They reached the car and Gerald opened the passenger side door, un
-cuffed his arm, and hooked the cuff to the bar that held the cage that separated the front seat from the back. It was slow going because of the pain in his tailbone. Gerald asked him if he was sure he didn’t want an ambulance and he assured him it wouldn’t be necessary. Even if his butt bone were broken, there wouldn’t be anything they could do about it. There was no cast for the butt bone. It would have to heal on its own.

Gerald
closed the door and then went to ask the garage owner if he would hold the bike until the tow truck showed up for it. The garage owner offered to store it in his fenced in backyard so that Gerald didn’t have to call the tow truck and Gerald agreed gratefully. It wasn’t protocol but it would mean less paperwork and though Gerald acted tough, Jerry knew that the man had a soft spot for Al’s long legs. He wouldn’t make her pay for a tow if he didn’t have to.

Before Gerald made his way back to
the car Jerry spotted a spare handcuff key in the ash tray. He hurried to take it and stick it in one of the finger holes of his cast. Gerald lowered his girth into the driver’s seat and shut the door.

“Thanks for not putting me in the back,” Jerry offered.

Gerald made a face and looked at him. Jerry prepared himself for one of the man’s long lectures. To his surprise he refrained. He said instead, “You’re still an officer. You might be a young fool, but you’ve always been a cop, just like your old man. If I cut you I bet you’d bleed blue.”

Jerry
now felt three times worse for what he had to do once they got away from the filling station. Once Gerald got on the road Jerry immediately moved his cast over to make it look like he was rubbing his wrist, as if the cuff were hurting him.

“Thos
e things are damn uncomfortable. Sorry I had to do it.”

“You’re just doing your job. Don’t worry about it,” Jerry replied as a bead of sweat popped out on his face. The AC was trying hard to cool the car but it had been so hot all day. Even with the sun beginning to set it was still a scorcher.

Gerald’s cell phone rang and Jerry was happy for the distraction. He didn’t want Gerald to get suspicious. The cuff opened quietly and Jerry breathed a sigh of relief as he kept his arm, free of the cuff, at his side.

“Yep. It was him.”

Jerry looked towards Gerald with dread growing in the pit of his stomach. It had to be his Uncle if the ferocity of the cursing on the other end of the line was any indication. Gerald shook his head as he took the phone from his ear and then held it out to Jerry. Jerry shook his head and put his cast up to indicate how difficult it would be to hold the phone.

Gerald rolled his eyes and continued to hold the phone out to him. Jerry reached out and took the phone
suddenly wishing that his fingers had been casted as well. He held the phone to his ear and took a quick calming breath. “Hey Unc,” he began.

“Hey Unc! Hey Unc! That’s what you have to say to me after we’ve been out here looking for you all night! While you’ve been doing what, rolling between the sheets with that biker woman
?! Did it not occur to you that we would be out here looking for you? What the hell is going on with you Jerry? Where is Sarah Watkins? She was in the room when you were taken! I mean… what the hell is going on?”

Jerry looked out at the trees as they whipped past. He had thought about what he might say to his uncle all day. Nothing particular had come to mind.
“I can’t really say what happened Unc. I was drug from the room the same as Sarah but I wasn’t conscious and Al saved me.”

“Al saved you? Al saved you? Saved you from what? Say it straight. Where is Sarah, her family is worried sick.”