Page 17 of Biker's Prisoner: Property of Bucky

He gives me another once over. He does that a lot and I have to pretend that it doesn’t make me nervous – especially about the whole sharing a bed thing.

“We need to get clean.”

“Bedroom?” I ask, pointing to the door, desperate for something to separate us before this man does something unhinged like climb in the shower with me.

“Yes,” he says. “That’s the bedroom. But I don’t like dirt in my room.”

His mean look gives me the creeps when he says dirt and for a paranoid second, I think he’s referring to me. Ruger exhales slowly, his gaze spreading terror through me for the first time since we walked into this house together. It’s just something in the way he said “dirt” that rubbed me the wrong way.

“I’ll be more than happy to sleep in a dog bed in the living room.”

Zeus runs over to the bed once he hears the word.

It’s the type of comment that could make one man laugh and another one smack the shit out of me (or worse). It’s the unpredictability of violence. He laughs.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“If you have a problem with dirt in your bedroom.”

Ruger looks at me bewildered. “We’re fucking filthy and you smell like my ass after a day of hauling bales of hay.”

Okay, damn. He didn’t have to go in like that. There’s still something fishy about him. I don’t question a racist vibe when I get it.

“I’m showering alone.”

“Like fuck you are.”

He says it with a startlingly casual tone. Like something I would expect out of someone who knew me a hell of a lot better than this grunting neanderthal who murdered his wife. That’s the only reason she’s his ex-wife. Because he killed her. I don’twant him acting casual with me about anything. Especially not that.

“You can’t shower with me,” I tell him, failing to hold back the fear that I obviously feel now that he threatens to get naked with me in a confined space. I haven’t done a terrible job so far, and he doesn’t scare me most of the time, but just then, he does. And he knows it.

Ruger likes it too.

“Why not?”he asks. No need to hide his amusement. He’ll show me anything he thinks will scare the crap out of me. He’s obviously fucked in the head.

“Because I need to fart.”

I’m tryingto gross this man out, but Ruger just… laughs again.

“As far as I know,”he says once his little chuckle session is over. “Nothing I’ve done can stop your ass from farting if you want to. I’m not letting you shower alone.”

“You just said I was filthy.”

“I didn’t say it bothered me.” He seems to notice himself approaching the edge of something. “I won’t climb in with you. I’ll just watch.”

I don’t believe him.

“There’s nothing for you to see. I’m not all that.”

Ruger laughs.

“What?”

“I still want to see.”

Now he looks shy.

“I told you.I’m not much to look at.”

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