“Yes,” I said.
I had plenty of waitress experience since it was the only thing I was qualified for in life. My dreams of pursuing a law degree or becoming a doctor were tossed out the window as soon as I moved into town. I had been under orders from my mother to stay away from my neighbor - Knoxville. Telling that to a teenager girl was stupid. It only made me want him more. So I spent years finding ways to sneak around and meet him. Hold his hand. Kiss him. Let him touch me in places…
“Are you hearing me?” Porter asked.
“Sorry.”
“I’ll be back in town tomorrow. I have a thing tonight.”
“A thing,” I said.
“Car auction.”
I nodded.
That was always his excuse.
When Porter went to a car auction he never came back with cars and he always had a change of clothes on. I couldn’t figure out if he was murdering people or cheating on me. Maybe both.
Maybe I didn’t care.
No, that was a lie. I cared. I cared a lot.
I hated what he did all the time.
“Just don’t fuck this thing on me,” Porter said. “I’d hate for you to be sick again.”
Sick.
I swallowed hard.
I didn’t want to be sick.
Hiding in a room, trying to let things heal up, scrambling for gallons of makeup to make things look normal if someone knocked on my apartment door.
And to think, this all started because I was dumb enough to buy into Porter’s nice eyes and smooth words. I got him dinner and drinks, he tipped me huge, and then he waited for me outside. He was the only thing that took my mind off what I couldn’t have. Now he wouldn’t let me go. I couldn’t escape him unless it was through death.
“Shit, woman, you look on edge bad,” he said. “You want a good pill or something?”
“No,” I said. “I have to be straight for tonight.”
“Good thinking. See, you’re not that dumb. Now come here.”
Porter grabbed me and pulled me to him. He started to kiss me, slobbering his tongue in my mouth and to my neck. He grabbed my right hand and stuck it between his legs.
“Not here,” I said.
“Why the fuck not? Nobody is watching us.”
His hand flicked open the button of my jeans. I felt his fingers slide into my panties and down and around. As soon as he touched me, I flinched, jumping at him. I hated his touch but the feeling was like a drug. It was all I had in life.
“Oh, babe,” he said, kissing my neck. “Easy… just easy…”
I quickly grabbed at the zipper of his pants. The only way I’d get off was if Porter got off too. God forbid he touched me without something in return. Usually it was always at the same time, just in case.
I forced my hand into his boxers and pulled his dick out of his pants. I squeezed and stroked, knowing right where his weak spot was.
Two of his fingers crammed into me, making me groan, not from pleasure. He then did it again and again. I put my head back and shut my eyes, slipping away. The second I shut my eyes, I forgot about Porter and I became wet.
Then it felt good.
Really good.
But not explosive good.
There I was, on the gravel road in a cemetery, Porter fingering me while I jerked him off. I always seemed to sink to a new level of low.
He couldn’t find my clit if I highlighted it in bright pink, so I learned to move my hips and work his fingers to my needs.
Pleasure was my addiction, I couldn’t save myself from it.
But as I sat there, my dying mother’s last sentence popped into my mind. It hit me like a lightning bolt, from my heart down to between my legs.
“Ana… I was wrong… you need someone like him to save you… you need a man… you need to find Knox…”
chapter four
(knox)
THEN
I stood while everyone else sat. I leaned against the garage wall and looked around at all the posters. From motorcycles to naked chicks, the place looked and reeked of man cave. Shit, that was before the idea of a man cave was cool. Me and the guys invented the idea. No woman would dare to enter the garage. They all knew better.
The thing that got me the most was the silence.
It was never quiet in the garage.
Even if we were sitting and thinking, you could always hear the whir and buzz of the power tools, keeping the front of the place all legit. That was dead too. The fucking economy bombed out and our little piece of shit town was left off the give a damn map. Seemed those in charge were more interested in constructing a certain image to make the rest of the country feel like things were getting better.
Fucking politicians.
The head of the table was empty and that was wrong too.
We had all the guys there. Half of them weren’t even wearing their leather cuts anymore. Yeah, the charter and the MC had taken its hits throughout the years, but wearing the cut still mattered. At least it did to me. It fucking mattered.
There was a lot of Federal noise over the last couple years and a lot of guys were rattled. A lot hung up their cut. A lot were killed in street wars that should have never gotten to the point they did.
And now…