“H-h-he u-m-mm.” – Wow, I have lost the ability to speak now.
“I got all day, little bird. Take your time.” I watch him as he looks over my shoulder. I know who he’s staring at, I can feel his hot eyes on my back like daggers scorched by red hot coals running down my spine.
“He, well he put the H in hurt and the F in fear. He placed a pain inside me and a sick sense of pity so much that I thought I would never be able to breathe again,” I choke out, the tears hot dripping from my eyes and rolling like a torrid of anger from my body as 81’s lips found my forehead,softly kissing me there before he broke free.
“Get on my bike, little bird, and stay there.” His tone is ice.
I do as he says too scared to defy the man. I watch frozen as he stalks over to wherehestood, leaning against his car. That same car that has had my blood splattered over the windshield and dash from a broken nose after a work party. I didn’t smile or laugh enough at the party, so I received broken ribs, my back and stomach covered in bruises and boot marks. The pain is searing hot, so my hands fall around my waist just at the memory, seeking out the old pain and the scars formed from many beatings.
“Oi, you,” 81 barks out as his whole body and all of his massive, tattooed leather wearing soul seeps anger and darkness. He storms like thunder rolling of the back of a hurricane towards a man who has stolen all of the best parts of me. I tremble as I watch. I know how evil and harmful Carl is. How he can break bones and crunch fingers… rip flesh and sever emotion from a person with a blink of his evil eyes, a whip of his hand or kick of a boot.
“Me?” Carl questions looking around the street.
“Yeah, you.” A livid 81 growls out. “You best listen and listen good. You ever, and I mean ever, come near my woman, so much as blink in her direction again and I will string you up then gut you like roadkill, mother fucker.” 81’s fists balled at his sides. He was losing control; I can see it by the way his muscles rippled over his back and the vein beat in the side of his neck.
“Your woman? That fucking piece a scarred ass over there belongs to me and she knows it. You better get to knowing it fast as well.” Carl’s voice is laced with a hate that made my body tremor in searing, painful memories.
“She owes you fuck all, brother. I am not the joking kinda man. Take this as a rather heavy warning or you won’t like the me you get next time.”
“The you I get next time? Well,brother, you have me quaking in my boots.” Carl’s hands came up to the front of him shaking in a mocking way towards one rather large and now fully pissed-off biker.
Carl’s head fell back, as an evil laugh left his open mouth.
81 steps swiftly his fist balled tight and pulled back. Before I can even blink, he slams his fist into Carl’s face shattering his nose. Blood flies from his face coating 81 and the front of Carl, also seeping into the cold harsh black tar of the street. Shock washes over me as a secret giggle erupts from deep down in my stomach, the place where all the hate for that sadistic asshole lived. Carl gurgles in shock, his hand wrapped tight around his nose and face as blood seeps through his clenched fingers. He’s screaming some sort of abuse at 81, while his eyes pinned on me. I stand across the street still shaking but feeling a damn sight safer having 81.
“You. You.” He points at me with his free hand. “You will fucking pay for what you have just done.” Just as his hand fell to his side, 81’s fist went to his gut. As he folded in on himself gasping for air, 81’s other fist came under his chin in a shattering crack, breaking his jaw by the sound of it. Carl falls back against his car and slid down it with his eyes closed andblood seeping everywhere.
81 walks back towards me breathing heavily, his fists clenched, and jaw locked.
“You. Bike now!” he barks at me as I stand shaking like a little rabbit caught in the blinding light of a hunter’s spotlight.
“Um, no,” I say jutting my chin up toward the towering man.
“Pardon?” his tone is bitterly cold.
“I said no. I am, if you hadn’t noticed, sick of men telling me what to do.”
“Little bird, I swear don’t test me.” I watch as he cracks his neck his fist clenching and then unclenching only to repeat a second and third time before I open my mouth again.
His eyes are burning into mine, anger on anger no room for anything else. Carl is still slumped against his car across the street a few bystanders have mulled around him.
“Little bird, if you want to make a scene, I have no problem making a fucking scene.”
I stand strong where I am, hands moving to my hips looking him in the eye.
“Oh, I am well aware.” He advances closer to me but stops before our bodies touch. The air thickens between us.
“Is this the part of the conversation where you say I’m lucky it was you who was just so damn conveniently standing out here to save me from, well that?” I ask pointing to a still rather knocked out Carl. I lift my chin up to counteract the shaking of my voice. Which is a bad move because it makes him all the more able to grab my chin between his thumb and forefinger. His grip is tight. Painful almost. But I don’t flinch away from it. Don’t try to run. No, if anything I melt into that grip, into the pain. That scares me slightlybecause Carl gave me nothing but pain, and 81 in all his muscle and bad boy biker grip, could hurt me a lot more than the all-American piss bag that is Carl.81 senses it also as he pauses at my reaction. It's less than a moment, but I can tell my lack of resistance to his touch surprises him. He has a fairly good idea of the demons I battle, and the pain that was inflicted on my soul by now, I know he can see it in my eyes.
“And, little bird, what makes you think I can’t make you do what I want?” he challenges me. My stomach curdles with fear and excitement, at least I think that is what that feeling is dancing inside. Or is it something else? Fear at the true promise behind his words, while desire dances in his eyes. This man would hurt me, no can hurt me. I know that. It is something even the naivest would see while looking into the abyss that are his eyes. The abyss that roused the intrinsic human fight or flight instinct. I do not fight. Nor do I take flight. I just stay, frozen in his grasp. Not because I want to, it is because of the something else. Because of my body’s other intrinsic reaction to his hands on me, eyes boring into more than my soul. More than his gaze inside me. It is arousal. Hot blooded arousal and to someone like me, that is insane. The man grabbing me, without my permission, in the middle of the street - outside church, the home to the holy father himself - after he has quite stunningly knocked out a man who was indeed threating my well-being by just being within breathing space of me.
I don’t get turned on by men like this. Like him. Like Carl. Not anymore. Not now. Before, yes. Before the damage was done. Before the scars and the nightmares.
I barely even got turned on before the pain came. But when I did, it was by clean-cut, all-American men in suits like my father had embedded in me. The men that father said were safe, dependable, well liked and well-groomed for this life that father had planned. Carl was my father’s prized pet. He said all the right things. He had me doing all the right things. He knew just where to hit and kick so I could cover up and the world would never know that the man my father had fallen in love with was abusing his only child - his daughter - in ways that would make even the devil cringe.
81’s fingers never leave my chin as he towers over me. His sheer size and muscle mass seem to have the ability to swallow up the sky behind him. He’s not a man who radiates safety and dependability. No, he’s one who radiated danger and chaos. Everything I keep my well-ordered life away from. Yet, here I stand, turned the hell on, finding it so damn hard to speak, to breathe around the man grasping my chin in a borderline brutal grip that was sending chills down my body.
“Little Bird. Bike. Your ass on it. Now.” Again, he spoke in demands, not asking me but telling me. I wish my smart-ass mouth was present, but that bitch is hiding, and all that I have is a throb between my thighs. I clench them hard together to stop the ever-present arousal from this massive beast of a man. I hold my ground.As he pulls me up into his grip, closer to his chest, I can feel his hot breath on my skin as he stares down into my eyes “Little bird, I’m not a man you say no too.”
