I flutter my lashes to clear the arousal from my eyes before I answer his question.
“81, after running from that monster… after walking inside a nightmare laced horror story for four years, I have kept away from anything resembling him - danger, hurt and hot poker pain - at all costs. So, getting on your bike… going with you to god knows where… even having you within an inch of my breathing space is like a neon-flashing danger sign. So, my ass on your bike is a no go. I will walk home. It doesn’t look like he’s moving anytime soon.” Brushing off his grip from my chin, which has remarkably softened at my words, the fire that has taken up residence in his eyes has subsided too. I feel sorry for anyone who got in his way for the rest of what should be a peaceful Sunday.
“Wow, little bird, them are some big balls you’re sporting.” His stare burns into mine as I smile at him, then walk away from him before I do something I’d regret - like showing him just how big them said balls really were. Which, let’s not even lie, aren’t even there coz I am a pussy. But I’m great at fake bravado.
“Wouldn’t you like to know just how big?” I say over my shoulder as 81 stood still next to the said bike, with his fists in white knuckled balls.
Chapter Sixteen
Jade
Eight am Monday morning and pounding begins on my door. I'd be lying if I didn't expect it but in fact, I've been hoping for it. Convincing myself that I need to tell him to leave me alone and don't need saving.
Last night Timberly came by with a cooked meal for me, saying she was being neighborly and had cooked too much for just her and Ghost. I'm not stupid though, I knew damn well it was 81 who sent her.
First, because his bike was parked across from my place, outside their shop and home. His eyes never leaving my window while he sat with them in the upstairs part of the building. I just drank my whiskey with lime and pretended to read a book, but let’s face it, I stole just as many glances at him as he did at me. Each time I looked, my stomach flipped and fluttered like a giddy schoolgirl, while my thighs clenched as my vagina begged for him to sink inside me.
My chin still burns from his grip, as my memory fades in and out to all the wonderful sensations a man like that could invoke on a girl like me. My scars and my past though hold me back as I will never be that vulnerable again. I will never let another man see me naked again to be able to hurt me in that way. That is the thing with trauma, isn’t it? You can escape the hands that caused it, but your mind and body tell a different story. One that no matter how hard you try you can’t escape from.
81 is a monster of a man and he is a biker. A biker from a club of such ill repute. He's a man hardened from society’s rules that he has fiercely broken with an iron fist and a wayward mind. He's shaped from a pain and loss that runs so deep, I see it in his eyes, in the way he walks and even talks. It’s embedded deep. Even if he were your biker on a Sunday kinda man pretending to be more, it wouldn't work. Because he wasn't.
He is something so much more than those sinister men from his club that has thrown society’s rules so far into the atmosphere with their live fast, drive fast, smoke and drink harder than the night before, and fuck anything with legs attitude. I see that Mr. 81 lives hard and fast. But he also lives dangerous. He also has a kind of emptiness behind his eyes that chills me to the core. Then there is the other side of him that makes me burn hot. That makes me want things I pretend I don't… things that I don't want my body to ever feel or long for again. Things like sensual kisses and the fire of arousal burning between your thighs. Things like skin on skin, hot breath tickling behind your ear as lips place wildfire kisses down to your collar bone.Things that I never even think about anymore because, how can I? How will I ever let a man see the real me again? How can a man actually see past the scars and want me? Let alone 81. He is a biker, a dangerous biker, with so many layers that I don’t even know if I can handle unwrapping him, let alone having him inside my carefully calculated life. I live boring. I barely live to be honest. My life is simple, orderly and measured by threats and counteracted by escape plans and routes.
I barely have any friends because I had to run away, I don’t trust so don’t see it being safe to make friends here. Maybe Timberly could be a friend but at the moment the jury is still out. I never take risks. I needed things safe and locked. The way I live is gentle and thought out. I had to design it this way for survival. So, using my precious logic, right now as he stands in front of me all pissed off and puffed up.
I need to dismiss him, for my own survival, it not for the fact that he is everything that I ran from. He is all that my body is scared of. He is all that can unhinge me and send me spinning out of control all over again. He is everything that I have tried to keep myself safe from. Chaos, danger, pain, and fear all wrapped up into one massive monster of a leather-wearing man. I should not have opened the door. I should have pretended I’m home. I should have stayed locked away safe, because his eyes alone send shivers down my spine as his fists clench and unclench standing before me, blocking the early morning rays from my skin, but lighting this man up in a golden halo that is comical given the death and fear that dripped from him at this every moment.
“So, I constantly feel like I am at war with myself. Like I want to hold you, kiss you and feel you, but you scare me. I scare myself with the demons that lie behind my eyes but also the ones that dance in yours that could match the chaos of mine. I wanna rip that wank stain’s face right off while feeding his kidneys to the monster who lives within. I want to stay locked inside the nightmare that’s loving her as well as walk from the constant burn from old dirty track marks that take all the pain away.”
Blinking up at him, as he word vomits all over me, sends my body into shock. I stumble back till my ankles hit the bottom step leading back up into my apartment. Falling onto my ass my eyes stay on the dirty black leather of his boots. I can see his fists unclench and the clench again in the shadows of the cream walls. Taking in one breath after another, deeper each time and holding for longer, my brain begins to swim with dizziness as my palms sweat.
“Jade?” I hear him. “Little bird?” again he calls.
Blink, breathe, blink, breathe Jade. I repeat this over and over inside my brain as he steps inside the small space. His body kneels before me, the sun lighting him up like a dark angel sent to fuck with my mind while claiming my sanity.
“You’re all the same. You all like to play. It’s always the same pain.” My mouth runs away with words that are meant for my mind only.
“Baby, no. No, we are not.” His hands go for mine and I pull them back into my chest still not bringing myself to meet his eyes.
“Why are you even here? I need you to not be here,” I say taking a deep breath in and blowing out slowly rising my eyes to meet his.
“Why, Little bird? Is it because of this?” His fingers stretch out and push the bangs away from my face over my scar, exposing it, the sun warm on the delicate flesh.
They say you have to meet the devil before you know how to stare at death and live through it. I feel that right now as he touches me, looks at me, breathes me in. As he traces his fingers over my scars, and I watch as he flinches at the risen jagged lines that hurt him more than they hurt me when Carl dragged the blade through my skin.
“You can’t blame yourself for this,” he says slowly tilting my chin to meet his stare. His eyes scream anger, a man seeking blood from another’s disfiguring touch.
“I don’t, not now anyway.” Pulling away from his touch, I pull myself out of his hold and stumble up the steps into my apartment, into the safety of what is familiar.
“Little bird, please.”
“Go home, 81,” I call back down as I walk up into my bedroom and fall onto my bed.
Chapter Seventeen
Jade
81 storms into my shop with an attitude the size of the Titanic four days after I told him to leave. Though, I get the feeling he never did. He berates me again and leaves me with Timberly.
