“I’m… speechless,” I sat back and looked through the window as we passed through the middle of town, heading for the road that led out to the compound.
“We always knew it was going to be hard to make the sexual assault cases stick, but this,” Cassie squeezed my shoulder. “If the FBI has actually come at him with a search warrant, then that’s a big deal, Wave. Depending on what they find, he could go to prison for this.”
“For how long?”
“Usually around two to five years,” she said. “It depends on the severity of what he’s been doing, if there have been losses for the government that usually adds a couple of years. If it’s really bad, he could get about twenty, but that’s rare. This is fucking nuts though. What a total dick this guy is.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I muttered, crossing my arms and leaning back in the seat.
Rosa was looking at me, but she didn’t say anything. Cassie had no idea what Andrew did to me, she’d never asked any questions about why the MC has gone after him. I guess that’s why she was a good lawyer for the club. She only asked questions she needed the answers to.
“Even if he does go down for this particular crime, there is still the civil suit against him and if there are more recent sexual assaults that they find, he’ll get that added on too. He’s screwed,” Cassie went on.
I sunk a little more into the seat. I hated thinking about him in any capacity. Even hearing this good news, it couldn’t stop my mind from going back to that night. Again. I’d worked so hard not to let those memories resurface. I’d tried to focus a lot on everything going on with the MC to keep me from thinking about him. Now that I was close to getting what I wanted, seeing him punished for everything he’d done, I couldn’t stop the memories rising. I suddenly felt hot and a little dizzy, everything I’d been through was coming back to me in one powerful onslaught.
When Rosa pulled to a stop I got out of the car fast, feeling claustrophobic, clawing at the t-shirt by my throat, like it was choking me.
“Hey, come on honey, let’s take a seat over here,” Rosa took my hand and led me to the picnic table. The same one I’d been sat at after Tanya threw that rock at my head. “I think you’re having an anxiety attack, just breathe, okay. You’re all good.”
People were staring at us, I felt stupid and could see Shady standing by the car watching me as Cassie stayed back too, not sure whether to approach me or not.
“I’m making a scene.”
“You’re allowed, and fuck these guys, just catch your breath. I’ll kick all their asses if they say anything.”
I huffed out a laugh. “I’m okay, it’s just…”
“He’s getting what he deserves, honey. Not enough in my humble opinion but, he’s gonna be behind bars,” Rosa sat beside me taking my hand. “He won’t be able to hurt anyone else.”
I nodded. That was what was hitting me so hard. If we did this, we actually got him locked up, he really couldn’t hurt anyone again. Including me. He may not be arrested and sent away for the crimes I wanted him to go away for, but if it got him off the streets.
Rosa shuffled away and stood up and I lifted my chin to see Hudson there, looking at me with concern. I let Rosa fill him in. He kept his eyes on mine as she told him. I didn’t know if I could take any kind of tenderness from him right now. I wasn’t sure what I needed but I knew it wasn’t that. I didn’t want to be smothered.
Hudson took the keys to his bike out of his pocket and looked over at it. “Let’s go for a ride.”
I heaved out a shaky breath. I could do that. I wouldn’t need to talk, I could just hold on to him as he took me away from everything.
He didn’t reach for my hand or say anything as he handed me the spare helmet. We both got onto the bike and he took off, slowing only to go through the gate after telling the guy there we would be fine.
There wasn’t much of a threat anymore, or Hudson didn’t think there was. I clung to him and turned my head as far as I could, so my cheek was resting against the leather of his cut, the smell of that and his subtle cologne soothing me. We rode for a long time. When he finally slowed, he turned us into a parking lot. I sat up straight and looked around. He’d driven us through the actual parking lot and closer to one of the trail heads.
Hudson set the stand down and dropped his feet to the floor. He helped me off the bike and then twisted around so both of his legs were on one side. He spread them wide, grabbed my hips and pulled me into him, pressing his face lightly into my sternum, and he just stayed likethat, his hot breath warming the skin of my stomach. I reached up and trailed my fingers through his hair.
I hadn’t been to The Wawayanda State Park in years. We’d spent a lot of time here when we first got together, sneaking around so Connor and Warren wouldn’t find out we were together. We’d got up to some pretty x-rated stuff on the trails too. I had so many happy memories here. All of it at a time before Andrew ruined me.
After a few minutes, he got up and stowed our helmets, then this time he did take my hand and led me towards the Wingdam Trail. I couldn’t help but let a smile curl my lips, remembering how I’d lured him into the woods up here and stripped off, shocking the hell out of him. We walked for a while until we passed Laurel Pond and came to a natural outcrop where we could sit down.
He clearly decided he had enough of giving me space, because when he sat down, he grabbed me and pulled me on to his lap, so I was straddling his thighs. He looped my arms around his neck, before running his hands along the backs of my arms, down my sides making sure he stroked the sides of my breasts, then he gripped me around the waist.
“I seem to recall making a very stupid decision when we were last up here.”
“Oh?” I asked, but I knew exactly what he was talking about.
“Yeah, I had you naked, right over there,” he pointed behind him. “And you wanted to get on your knees for me.”
“You told me no.”
“Cos I was a fucking idiot.” I laughed at the disgust in his voice. “Wanna go rectify that?”
