Page 34 of Ruthless Son

I couldn’t remember a time when a shower had felt so relaxing, but when you’d been showering under a warm trickle in a shitty motel for days, a powerful waterfall and a good body wash felt like heaven.

When I finished, I used the thick towels on the heater, wrapping my hair and body and stepping out, then drying my body off and slipping into my clean clothes. The clean leggings were a lighter shade, the charcoal color clinging to the contours of my lower body, whilst my burgundy tunic was long enough to cover my ass. It hung off one shoulder, showing pale skin and no bra strap. The strapless contraption the only thing keeping my nipples under control.

Opening the door, the steam from the bathroom drifted out, curling around me like a lover and keeping its warm embrace around me when I stepped into the cooler room.

A hiss of breath followed by a fuck was the only evidence that Rex hadn’t left. For a man his size, he hid in the shadows perfectly. The darkness enveloping him until the only thing I could see were his legs stretched in front of him. “I said, don’t you have anything less tight. What about that screams ‘I’m taken’.”

A startled chuckle escaped me, taken? “Who exactly am I taken by?” I started combing through my hair, and platting the long tresses, keeping it out of my way. I may hope that it’d dry and stay in perfect waves, but no amount of platting it would change the dead straight hair.

“Yes, Mia. Taken.” He rose to his full height, looming over me. This still had a trickle of excitement swirling within me, the fact that he could look down on me and still have space to spare. Even though anger was quickly taking over, I could appreciate that the frustrating man was a fine specimen. “Do you think I’m protecting you out of the goodness of my heart?” he gritted out. “Do you think I want to keep you here because I’m a good man? Because I’m not, you’re here for purely selfish reasons and your sister can think otherwise in her little naive mind, but we both know the truth.”

My fingers shook around the rope of my hair, holding onto it tightly to keep my hands busy. It was the most honest he’d ever been, a truth maybe I didn’t want to admit shining in his bright blue eyes.

“Say it.”

I shook my head, refusing to admit to the frustrating man that I was here for anything other than to get my sister out of this mess before we flew home, simply because I wouldn’t have this chaos following the sweet women that still slept next door.

He stepped closer, his boots stopping a mere inch from my bare toes, his chest almost flush with mine. “Say it, princess.” His voice lowered, the words whispering over me in a haze. “What’s on your mind now you’re in my room and you have me exactly where you’ve wanted me since you first saw me.”

I could feel my body sway toward him, as if he was a magnet pulling me forward. “I… this can’t be something…” I muttered. “I’m not…” I couldn’t think straight, words stuck in my throat, incapable of passing my dry lips. I licked the traitorous duo, and Rex’s eyes flashed as I swiped my tongue across them.

“Mia, tell me you want to be here as much as I want you here.” Need was a subtle entity as I watched him, waiting for an answer that I didn’t know how to give.

Did I want to be here? Well… no. I was here because I had no other choice. I would much rather be in my own home with my slippers on, watering my indoor plants and getting ready to meet friends for lunch, the same routine I had on my days off. But I was here, in America, in a motorcycle man’s clubhouse, hiding from a murderer, so I had no choice but to make good on his promise to keep us safe until I could get back home.

Bang bang.

“Let’s go, Brother.” Sly’s voice was muffled through the door, but his message was loud and clear.

Rex sighed in disappointment, the answer he wanted still hanging in the air between us.

“I’ve got to go, princess. I’ll be back tonight, behave yourself and don’t go getting into any more cat fights.” He dropped a light kiss to my forehead that I felt all the way down to my toes. As I stood in the middle of his room, feeling the touch of his lips on my skin for the first time, he walked toward the door. Pausing at the threshold, he twisted toward me. “And just in case it wasn’t clear, you’re sleeping in here tonight.”

Rex

The open road was a balm to my bruised ego. I’d stood there, waiting for her to reveal what her face so freely showed, but her pretty pink lips remained firmly closed to the truth that she refused to admit to.

I didn’t have to drag her into the clubhouse kicking and screaming, I didn’t have to hold her hostage to keep her with me. She’d walked willingly into the lion’s den, and now she was mine.

I’d make damned sure she stayed where I wanted her.

But first, we had a little problem to deal with.

Sly and Kannon flanked me, the rumble of their engines joining mine in perfect harmony. The address we’d been given was an old gas station at the entrance to town. It had long since run dry, the previous owners boarding up and shipping out when they realized there wasn’t much money in filling vehicles in a little town in Ohio with a population of only 3,000.

We parked up half a mile away, our bikes tucked behind the tree line and walked the rest of the way in silence, our bootsteps muffled by the grassy bank.

My gun was a comfort in its holster tucked beneath my cut. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to resort to using them tonight, I had plans with a certain blonde, and clearing up crime scenes was a time consuming business.

The beat of loud music carried down wind, and I knew we were getting closer. Signaling to my brothers, they clustered around me, already in sync. “Kannon, take the back entrance, make sure they don’t try to run. Remember, we just want to have a friendly little chat.” I checked my clip, the gun loaded and ready. “But, just in case they’re not open to getting the fuck out of our town and staying out this time…”

With Kannon splitting off into the trees, the obsidian darkness engulfed him as he made his way silently around the back of the building. Laughter and the stench of marijuana rent the air, staining the night with its impurity.

There was nothing worse than a substance that could ruin your senses and drive you to actions that had no thought. I sold drugs, I made money off the back of people like this, because there would always be those who had a need for it. Those who craved the unknown and oblivion to ease their situations, but I vowed long ago that my decisions would be my own and never swayed by a panacea.

I’d got rid of an alcoholic father—my first kill—and I wear that badge with pride on my body, a mark hidden within the sharp lines of a tattoo shaped to appear like the barbed wire of our patch. The spokes of the wire had grown over the years, but I never forgot the first one, the one that had freed me from his cruel control and addictions.

In my line of work, I could monitor every single drug that came into my town, I could ensure that not one of us is trapped in that cycle again. My town had been clean, something I—and our prez—was proud of. The streets were clear and managed by my brothers, yet some still wormed their way back into the outskirts like the serpent who was intent on humanity’s fall from grace.

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