I nodded, though I wasn’t sure that I agreed with her. I honestly wasn’t sure if things would ever be better again. It felt like the whole world was against me—danger at every turn. The bikers I was running from. The ones that had taken me in the first place and were now sheltering me from my own family. And now this woman. This amazing, marvelous woman who’d taken me into her home with no questions asked.
Everything was screwed up, broken, and I was the most broken of all.
I may have been Penny Benite, but right then I felt like a stranger.
*
After the couple of days I’d had, it was no wonder I was exhausted. When I woke up, I was alone and uncomfortable on a sun lounger by the pool in the back yard. Charlie had let me sleep for an hour or two on the sofa until she’d needed to clean, and then I’d ended up outside in the sun. I’d curled up on my side and dragged the blanket over my head and slept like the dead.
I stretched and sat up, looking around for Charlie before kicking off my shoes and following the sound of music into the house. The back of the house opened up onto a large kitchen, with black granite work surfaces and gray cupboards. Even the tiles were black glass. It should have been dark and dingy, yet it oozed classy, badass bitch. I liked her even more.
“Hey there, sleeping beauty,” Charlie called as she came into the kitchen with Macy on her hip. “Hungry?”
“Yeah,” I answered. I hadn’t even thought about food until she’d mentioned it, but now that I was thinking about it I felt starved, and my stomach gurgled in agreement.
She laughed and headed to the large refrigerator before pulling the doors open.
It was filled with food of every color, shape, and size, and my mouth began to salivate in appreciation.
“Okay, we’ve got ham and cheese, salad, steaks. Macy here likes mac and cheese just like her daddy, don’t you little monkey?” she cooed, bouncing the little girl on her hip. “I can’t stand the stuff, but whatever.”
Charlie fixed us mac and cheese and some burgers, and we ate in silence at the kitchen table. I wondered briefly if maybe she’d poisoned my food. I mean, if she thought I was a threat to her old man or her club, why wouldn’t she? I had no doubt that the Viper women would have in a heartbeat. But then I doubted Charlie would poison someone who was sitting opposite her kid.
I helped to feed Macy when Charlie went to answer the phone, and everything felt so strange. So normal. I was on the run, scared out of my mind, my best friend was dead and I had nothing to my name, and yet there I was eating burgers and feeding a stranger’s baby mac and cheese. A stranger my kidnapper had left me with.
I thought about Fighter, recalling his face, his touch, his scent, and his words to me in the truck. Did he like me? Was that even a possibility? And if it was, did I like him back? I shouldn’t; it was all kinds of crazy messed up. But then, that was life. And really, what had he actually done other than starve me for a few days and give me the best orgasms of my life?
I couldn’t exactly complain about the spanking, or the way his tongue had brought me to oblivion. And then, right when he should have killed me, he’d let me walk away. I had thought I’d hated him so much, but I’d done nothing but fantasize about him since.
‘Go on, get out of here.’
‘But…’
‘Just get fucking gone before I change my mind,’ he’d growled.
But he’d still held my in place against the wall, his body pressed against mine and his nose in my hair like he couldn’t get himself to let go of me. To let me walk away from this nightmare, from him.
‘I won’t say anything to anyone, I promise,’ I’d sobbed.
I didn’t even know why I was crying. Fear, terror, the loss of something so pure it had embedded itself in my soul.
‘I’ll find you if you do,’ he replied, but there was no conviction in his tone. ‘I’ll cut out your tongue and feed it to my dog and then I’ll wrap my hands around your throat and break your neck.’
His words were threatening. The way he trapped me with his body was threatening. Everything about his was threatening. Yet I leaned back against him, baring my throat to him. I groaned when his teeth nipped at it.
This was wrong.
He was wrong.
I was so fucking wrong.
He nipped my again, his grip tightening on my arms, his hard length pressing against me. I arched back against him, my breaths coming quicker. I wanted him to touch me, defile me. I wanted him to hurt me. Spank me, and then sooth the pain with his tongue.
I was seriously fucked up.
And then he was gone so suddenly I almost fell over.
The door slammed behind him and his heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs and out of the house.
