Wild Ones (The Lane) (12 page)

“Really! Bravo! A+ performance, guys!”

Casting a quick look around to see if she had deflected the attention off us, she stepped closer, her eyes narrowing and voice lowering to a pitch that was so frightening, it even gave Luke pause. “I don’t know who the hell you are, Boy Wonder, but I know this—Rosemary Young is not going to be embarrassed by anyone. Certainly not a couple of train wrecks in a bar. Now, if you guys have some domestic you are looking to catch, I suggest you do it elsewhere.” She jerked a perfectly manicured thumb over her shoulder. “I got a reputation to uphold, assholes. Show some damned restraint.”

Luke opened his mouth as if he planned on saying something in return, but I grabbed his arm and yanked him toward the staircase hidden behind a door near the bathroom. It didn’t lead anywhere anymore, not since they sectioned off the apartments sometime in the eighties, according to Fury, but it was the perfect place to finish what we’d started.

“Why the fuck are you listening to her?” Luke barked out as we walked. “Who the hell is she to tell me what the hell to do?”

“She is one of the few I can actually tolerate. A list you are not currently on,” I shot back. “And she was right. You’re being a dick.”

I pushed open the door marked Employees Only and dragged Luke into the stairwell. When the door clicked shut behind him, we were plunged into darkness.

“I can’t believe you,” I snarled, picking up where we had left off. “And how the fuck are you even here right now?”

“I was looking for you! I looked everywhere too. Then what do I find when I finally track you down? You practically fucking some weasel.” He crowded me against the wall and I tried to shove him backward. He anticipated it, however, and leaned forward over me, not budging.

“Great, a psycho and a stalker! Killed any puppies lately? Mugged any old ladies? I’m just wondering about the extent of your charm here.”

“Don’t you turn this around on me.” He leaned over me farther, forcing me to arch my back to stare directly up at him. “What the hell were you doing with that fucker’s hands on you?”

“We were talking,” I said, as if I wasn’t in a vulnerable position, as if I had the upper hand. “God, you’re psychotic!”

“Didn’t look like talking to me!”

I scoffed.

“You need your eyes checked. I wasn’t doing anything. Not that it matters if I was. You don’t fucking own me!”

Instead of answering, Luke leaned back slightly to grab my jaw with one hand and my shoulder with the other, yanking me forward. Before I could shove away or even object, his mouth was on mine.

It was possessive, this kiss, full of anger and frustration and punishment, and damn if I wasn’t going right back at him, gripping the front of his shirt, balling up the worn fabric in my fists. We were pushing and pulling at each other, clawing and digging in. My head was swimming and I was so angry, so pissed off, that I couldn’t think around it. Around him.

He shoved me up against the wall again, bracing himself with his forearm above my head. His kisses shifted, lips softening, exploring, possessing thoroughly, and I shifted with him, sliding my arms up to wrap around his neck. His other hand drifted down to the small of my back, arching my lower half into his. He was everywhere and, God, I wanted him so bad. I wanted him and I hated him for it.

I told him so.

“No. You don’t.” His voice was both a prayer and a thing I would pray to. Spend the rest of my life on my knees, worshipping. “You want to, but you can’t. Just like I can’t hate you.”

I shivered then, a full-body quiver, my entire body tight with need.

“I should though,” he whispered, his lips skimming across my jaw and up to my ear. “Because you’re under my fucking skin and I don’t want you there. Not if you’re gonna do stupid shit that will only piss me off.”

“I don’t want to be there,” I breathed, throwing my head back and giving him full access to my neck, to which he took advantage. His fingers found the soft flesh of my ass cheek and kneaded it, making me groan. “I hate you,” I told him softly, moaning around every word. “I hate you and I wouldn’t have let anything go on with that guy because I hate you.”

“Liar.”

I didn’t even know which I was supposed to be lying about. But what I said was the truth. No matter how drunk I was or how relatively good-looking Mark had been, I wouldn’t have done anything. Because he wasn’t Luke.

He yanked me fully into his arms and reached underneath my skirt to jerk my panties to the side. I didn’t just let him, I was right there undoing his pants and guiding him into me. Knowing, in the second between me sheathing him completely and him moving, taking me on a roller coaster that climbed to impossible heights before free-falling, that this was it. I was officially too far gone to ever recover. Not even rehab could help me. It didn’t matter that I’d only known him a few weeks, that he was crazy and possibly a stalker and had a way of being everywhere I was to the point of being creepy. The only thing that mattered was that I couldn’t get enough of him.

And I didn’t want to.

Chapter Twelve

I had officially surrendered that night, and suddenly, Luke was everywhere in my life. Damn near living with me at the apartment, showing up at my work, taking me out on my nights off. Whenever he wasn’t training, he was with me and whenever I wasn’t working, I was with him. I even became a regular fixture down at the gym, watching him train and hating every bloody, glorious second of it.

Somewhere from the past, I felt my ma nod knowingly.

But it was an easy routine we slipped into, both endearing and dysfunctional. We fought and we fucked and we fucked and he fought, and every day my addiction grew until I couldn’t separate what was lust, what was need and what was just plain foolishness. I was consumed, and like a junkie, I loved the high and feared the crash.

A few weeks after the bar incident, a disastrous Halloween party at the gym found Luke and I in a screaming match next to the makeshift wet bar when I showed up in an Eve costume to match Jax’s Adam one. It ended with us fucking in the locker room, which smelled like bleach, old sweat and the ghost of Ivory soap.

Soon after the party, a fight between Johnson and Luke was announced. We only knew it was going to be on a Friday. No one knew which Friday, where, or what time. I knew the protocol, but let Luke explain it to me anyway after he hung up with Theo. Though the topic had come up a few times, we never did get around to talking about how I knew so much about something I wasn’t supposed to. I wasn’t necessarily hiding it from him, I just felt he didn’t need to know.

Better kept close to the vest.

“We’ll get a call anywhere from an hour or two beforehand.” Luke frowned when I nodded, but continued. “They’ll tell us where to be and what time to be there. Gotta be ready to roll in a hot second every Friday until then.”

I nodded again and while his frown deepened, he didn’t press my lack of surprise. It all sounded pretty standard. I remembered those calls and the flurry of activity that had always followed them. The worst ones came after I’d already been in bed and on more than one occasion I’d been dragged out in mismatched pajamas, sporting little girl bed head and sleepy eyes.

“Who will call?” I asked, because that was the one mystery I hadn’t been able to solve.

Luke shrugged, watching me carefully. “Mine comes from Theo. Sometimes Cam. It changes for them.”

Because of the impending fight, Luke spent a lot more time at the gym. I split my time between there and work, always desperate to be near him, even if it was just watching him spar with Cam or use the weight room. He was a flame and I was a moth and I was mostly helpless when it came to resisting him.

Thursdays had always sucked, but suddenly they were their own kind of torture and hell. Not only did I have to spend the majority of the day away from Luke, but now there was the constant worry that the next night would be the one when Luke faced off against the dirty Johnson. Luke still hadn’t explained to me exactly how Johnson was dirty, what things he had done in the past that made Luke so tense whenever his name was so much as mentioned, but it worried him sometimes, and that was enough to worry me.

I spent the entire time with stretched-too-tight nerves that threatened to snap under the strain at any moment. I searched desperately for a distraction, anything to take my mind off being away from Luke and the coming fight, but work was uneventful and dragged by. I almost begged Jax to cut me early by the time I made it down to Duke’s for my second shift, but we needed the money, as usual. Especially since I refused to take any from Luke. Judging by the covert looks Jax was giving me when he thought I wasn’t looking, he wouldn’t have done it anyway. We hadn’t talked much since Luke became my drug of choice, but I knew Jax wasn’t entirely happy about it even if he had been the one who encouraged me to call him, mostly out of worry for me.

When I was finally let go, I barely managed a wave goodbye to him before I was shooting out the back door and up the stairs to the street. I had parked my car in my normal spot by the bus station, waiting for a still-MIA Preach to show back up, and for once I cursed myself for it being so far away. The need, burning and insistent, to get to Luke as fast as possible was almost painful in its intensity.

I’d barely walked-ran half a block before I realized I wasn’t alone.

He didn’t make it obvious at first, trailing far enough behind that I easily confused him for someone who just happened to be going in the same direction as I was, but when he didn’t turn off at any of the side streets, I started to get suspicious. When I turned down a random residential street full of large, dark houses that could have easily been unoccupied for all the life moving around inside them, and Anonymous turned too, I knew it wasn’t a coincidence. Without breaking stride, I dug my phone out of my purse and scrolled down to Luke’s number.

Anonymous behind me kept pace and I could practically hear Jax’s voice in my head berating me for “not making better choices.”

He would totally say “I told you so” if something happened too.

Luke picked up on the second ring.

“Someone is following me,” I told him, not bothering to wait for a “hello” or lower my voice. “Where are you?”

“‘Bout ten minutes away. I just left,” came his reply, already hot and full of venom. “I can be there in five.”

“Do that. I’m down Mongolia.” Then lower, because I was almost ashamed to say it, “Don’t hang up.”

He uttered a low curse and I could hear the engine of his truck rev as he hit the gas. “Can you tell who it is?” he asked and I almost laughed out loud at that.

“No. Want me to stop and ask?”

“Sugar, I’ll kick your ass myself. Keep walking. Don’t you dare stop.”

I wouldn’t have, but I kinda liked when he went a little Neanderthal. Especially when it was in regard to me.

Behind me, the footsteps suddenly sped up, making my adrenaline spike.

“I think the frog decided to leap,” I muttered into the phone and without waiting for a reply, I dropped it and whirled to face my brass-balled stalker.

It was dark, the only lights coming from the stars above and the soft glow of the Lane a few streets beyond us, but from what I could tell, Anonymous didn’t look particularly intimidating. More like he would have been interested in selling me an insurance package or sharing the good word of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Next to my feet, where my phone had come to rest, Luke’s voice was yelling tinny threats, promising death and destruction and expensive hospital bills.

Anonymous and I stood staring at each other, neither making a move or speaking. My heart was pounding and that dark part of my brain was whispering, “Come on, come on, come on” to the time of the beats, like blood pumping under a bruise. I grinned, knowing it must have looked deranged, and approval hummed through me when Anonymous took a wary step back.

“Can I help you with something?” I asked with more cheer than the situation probably called for. It seemed to unnerve Anonymous further.

He hesitated. “You Brianna?”

I inclined my head slightly.

Resolve washed over him. Somewhere nearby, tires could be heard squealing around a corner, a familiar-sounding engine was gunned, and I grinned wider, recognizing the sound. Anonymous, either deducing or tipped off by my smile, seemed to realize who was coming too.

“That Turner on the phone?” he asked, pointing, and I glanced down as I started to reply.

I didn’t get the chance. To do anything. Anonymous, taking advantage of my distraction, exploded forward. I caught the movement a second too late and stumbled backward but Anonymous already had my arm in his grasp before I was able to recover.

Twisting me around, throwing me off balance again, he wrenched my arm behind my back and up. Any fight rearing up in me, preparing to lash out, instantly stilled. I knew this position, though I’d never personally been in it before.

“Tell Turner to throw it. He’ll know.”

“Fuck you,” I gasped out, knowing it was a mistake and yet unable to help myself. “Tell him yourself.”

Pain shot across my shoulder as he wrenched my arm higher, and I bit back the shriek ripping at my throat.

“You tell him,” he snarled, slowly raising my arm up with each word, one excruciating inch at a time.

Whimpers fell from my lips uninhibited, and hot tears sprang up behind my eyes.

Suddenly headlights swung onto the dark street, illuminating us, and Anonymous growled something that might have been “Tell him” close to my ear. I felt, and heard, a loud pop that left my shoulder blazing. I dropped to the pavement as soon as he released me, unable to stand up or think around the consuming inferno of agony that raced up my arm.

I was screaming as if I were on fire. My shrieks were echoing off the houses around me, bouncing back to batter against my eardrums as burning tears ran unchecked down my cheeks. Misery was the only thing I knew, it was the only thing that existed, and I was making noises unnatural to humans. I had once watched this very thing happen to Christian and had wondered at a pain so intense it could make a nearly grown man cry. Now I knew. I knew and I wanted to apologize to Christian all over again for ever thinking him weak. It wasn’t weakness, trying to escape this torment, it was smart. The only logical choice.

I thought, through the haze that settled over me that made everything both clearer and foggy all at once, that I heard car doors slamming and shouts and enraged roars and flesh striking flesh. But God, I didn’t care. I didn’t care what was happening. I just wanted to feel normal again. It was a weird thought to latch on to, but I did. I wanted to not feel the wrongness of an arm hanging unnaturally. I didn’t want to be aware of my shoulder. A person shouldn’t feel their shoulder and yet I could and I just wanted to be normal. I wanted to rewind to about seven minutes ago when I was still being followed and things weren’t wrong yet.

Fuck Thursdays. I laughed through the tears and it turned into a pitiful moan-shriek that had me clutching at the offending limb, trying to refrain from rolling around the way instinct was telling me to do to put out the fire.

“Shhh, darlin’,” came a soft voice, and I stopped sobbing long enough to search out Theo’s face looming over me. “We’ll fix it. Come on now. Sit up.”

I didn’t want to. God, I didn’t want to, but I bit back the screech trying to claw its way out and pulled myself up using Theo’s outstretched hands. Suddenly Luke was there behind me, helping me the rest of the way to my feet with his arms locked around my waist. His breath was dark salvation in my ear, sliding along the skin of my neck, a hypnotizing drug that lessened the pain enough for it to be manageable.

“Set it,” he growled to Theo, and as his words sank in, I started to thrash, suddenly not caring about the pain I was already feeling, but terrified of the pain that would come if they did that. I didn’t want to be touched. I could learn to live with it. Quasimodo did and he seemed to do okay for himself.

“No,” I croaked out as Theo took a step forward. “No! Leave it! Please!” I struggled to turn in Luke’s arms, desperate to escape, yet not wanting to go any farther than his chest.

“Bri.” It was a command, a plea, full of regret and authority, and I slumped against him, defeated with that one word. The tears flowing down my cheeks froze and I nodded wordlessly.

Luke shifted, letting Theo take his place as he moved to stand in front of me. I stared into his eyes, still begging, but his gaze was firm, if slightly anguished. He reached out and laid his hand along my neck, bending over and putting his forehead against mine.

“I told you he’s dirty,” he whispered against my lips, and I wanted to feel anger because he hadn’t told me
how
Johnson was dirty, just that he was. I had no idea that I should have been expecting something like this.

Theo put his arm across my chest alongside my collarbone and threaded his other under my slack arm. I tried to tune him out then, focusing instead on Luke’s face in front of me, the burn of his fingertips on my skin.

“Did you get him?” I asked like a little girl asking if the monsters were gone, and though I could feel how wild my eyes were, my heart racing a furious rhythm against Theo’s arm, my thirst for Anonymous’s blood was strong.

“I got him, sugar,” Luke assured me, kissing me lightly on the lips. He pulled back slightly and made eye contact with Theo, nodding. I didn’t have a chance to react, to prepare myself—and maybe that was the point—before Theo was jerking my arm up and over and Luke’s hand was clamping down on my mouth to muffle the screams that sprang out of me.

When Theo finally released me, I fell forward, limp and suddenly exhausted, light-headed and slightly nauseated, but Luke was already there, sweeping me up off my stumbling feet, lifting me high against his chest. I sagged with relief to be there.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I whimpered, a litany I believed in. I buried my face in the base of his throat, tasting the salt-tinged skin. “Oh, fuck.”

“I know, sugar. Fuck, I know.” He turned and started walking, his tread jerky, as though he wanted to hurry and was holding himself back, sending shock waves down my arm with each step. I cradled it in my good arm, begging for the pain to resign, reaching for the dull ache laying behind it. It wasn’t as bad as it had been, but it was fresh and I was, bizarrely, missing the familiarity of the old pain. It had stolen my breath away and turned me into a teary mess, but I was supposed to feel it. This new pain was cruel because I should have felt relief. Not this.

Luke slid me into the backseat of his haphazardly parked truck and mercifully climbed in next to me. I scooted as close to him as possible in the cramped space back there, laying my head on his shoulder and breathing in deep, inhaling the smell of him, committing it to memory to drown out the memory of this. Theo climbed into the driver’s seat a second later and reached down into the passenger side floorboard for something. After a second of searching, he pulled out a pill bottle and passed it back.

“Morphine,” he explained to Luke as he put the truck in gear. “Give her half now. You guys don’t want to know what I did to get this.”