“Your guys all saw me last night,” I say, trying to keep my eyes off Rebel’s bare chest. I’m morbidly fascinated by the angry red stitches that trail across his stomach and disappear over his side, toward his back. His blood has dried and cracked, turned so dark it’s almost black; it creates bizarre patterns all over the tightly packed muscle of his chest and stomach. “I say guys,” I continue, “but there were two women there, too. An older, really tall woman, and a younger one with pink hair.”
Rebel nods. “Yeah. Fee. Josephine. She’s the tall one. She was one of the first club members. And the one with the pink hair…” He shakes his head ruefully. “That one is the bane of my fucking life. The rest of the crew are guys, though. Did any of them look like they were going to lynch you?” he asks.
“They looked stunned actually. Seems like you did a really good job of keeping me a secret.”
Rebel purses his lips—god, I want to bite them. I can still remember how amazing they felt all over my body—and then he blinks up at the ceiling, like he’s weighing up what he wants to tell me. Eventually, he says, “They’re good guys. The Widow Makers isn’t like any other club, though, Soph. Everyone has a story here. There isn’t a single person here who joined because they think breaking the law is fun. We have a lot of vets here. Like me. Like Cade. After the corps chews you up and spits you out, you kinda feel like…like you’ve lost your family. Unless they’re ex-military too, your blood and bone relatives will never understand what you’ve been through. The bond you build with the other guys in your unit…they’re never just guys by the end. Even the guys you hate, the ones who drive you insane, the ones you wanna kill half the time—they’re your brothers too.” He laughs. “I mean, most brothers want to strangle each other half the time anyway, right? But if someone fucks with them…” Shaking his head, Rebel sighs. “Someone tries to fuck with them and it’s game on. Brothers will defend each other ‘til the death.
“And these guys who somehow found their way to me, they’re even more gung-ho about that stuff than the army. Ramirez has been screwing with me and my family for years now, screwing with our business. These men aren’t going to take that lying down. They’re going to skin the motherfucker alive, given half the chance. They’ll do it by any means necessary. They won’t let a girl they don’t know get in their way. And some of them haven’t exactly had the most stable female role models in their lives, either. A few of them…a few of them don’t see a reason for there to be women around the club at all, other than for the occasional receptacle to sink their dicks into.
“I didn’t want them getting confused about your purpose here, Soph. So, yeah. You were pretty much the most heavily guarded secret I had. That’s seriously saying something. And, no, I’m not sorry for it.”
FIVE
REBEL
The next five days are seriously fucking shitty.
Moving is a uphill struggle—even getting up to take a piss is a monumental effort—and when I do feel well enough to sit up in bed, I’m not even allowed to hold a goddamn book. Cade told Sophia not to let me lift anything and, boy, did the girl take him literally. She reads to me. She fucking reads to me, and it’s amazing. I don’t tell her that, though. I sit with my eyes closed, pretending I don’t notice her eyes are on me more often than they are on the pages of Catch 22.
Unlike the first night I was hurt, she doesn’t sleep with me in the bed anymore. She sleeps on the couch, arms and legs contorted in the most amusing positions, hair wild and crazy all over the cushions.
I can’t believe she’s never come properly. That in itself is a travesty. I mean, yes, she came with me in that hallway, but that was rushed, a spur of the moment thing. Definitely not my best work. I can make her come so much harder than that. I can make her feel like her whole body is being ripped apart at the seams if I want to. And I do. I want to open her eyes. I wanna be the guy to show her what sex can feel like if it’s done properly, by a real man and not by some pissy, soft college kid. I’m gonna turn her whole world on it’s head, and it is going to be so goddamn perfect.
In between what’s going down with Ramirez, Dela Vega, and the gigantic fucking hole in my side, I’m sure thinking about a girl is the most insane thing I could be doing right now, but as I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, Sophia is the only thing occupying my mind.