Page 50 of Diesel
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Diesel
I stayed awake long after her breaths fell even, holding her as though she might slip away from me. I stared up at the ceiling cradling her to my side, my fingers dancing over her silky skin. I could still smell her all around me. The sweet, flowery scent invaded my senses like a warm blanket. She was like a sunny summer day; like I was spread out on the grass in the middle of a field full of wildflowers.
She was everything I wasn’t. She was light and innocent. She was beautiful and amazing. She was everything that was good in the world. I was none of those things. It weighed heavy on my heart that I would only bring her down. But I still feared that in the end, I would be the one left broken, my soul crushed beyond repair.
I remembered back to the hours before, replaying the little bits and pieces I could in my mind. I was only vaguely aware she was in the bathroom with me. She was there, dancing on the edges of my mind the whole time. My head was buried so deep in the empty, dark place that I went when I needed to escape and recover.
But she was there, like a bright beacon trying to call out to me. Only I wasn’t ready to see it. I wasn’t ready to come back and face reality. I wasn’t done punishing myself. Not to mention, I wasn’t ready to deal with the fucked up fact that she was there, cleaning up my mess.
Now that I’d had time to think about it all, I began to hate everything. She had seen me in the basement. She had seen the man I really was. The one that didn’t even flinch when taking another man’s life. But she had seen it and she still came back. It was tearing me apart inside. I didn’t know what to do with that. Not only had she come back, but she fucking took care of me. She cleaned up after me. And then, she took my anger and pain away. She reached inside me, into the darkest corner of my soul, and poured her love into it. Without hesitation. Without needing anything in return. Without even a second thought. I wasn’t the man who deserved even a sliver of that.
I was willing to open up and tell her almost everything. I had expected a slew of questions about the club, what I was doing down in the basement, and my life. But she only asked one. She only wanted to make sure I was going to be fine. Not just fine, but better.
She was there, in my arms, breathing softly against my side, my baby growing in her belly. But I still couldn’t let myself go and believe it. I still couldn’t keep my past from holding me back. I knew it wasn’t fair to her, and maybe it wasn’t fair to me, too. I knew that I needed to get my head out of my ass and figure my shit out. She wouldn’t keep trying to break through my walls forever. Eventually, she would get tired and move on.
I sighed and shifted slightly. I kissed her head and took one last look at her before I slid out of the bed. She didn’t move and I was thankful for that. I just needed a little time to calm down. I also knew I couldn’t put off filling Cal in on the information I’d gotten out of Switchblade. Or lack of information, rather.
I pulled on a pair of jeans and a black, V-neck tee. I slung my cut over my arms then slipped on a new pair of boots, wishing I had my old pair back. I took one last look at her before slipping out of my room without a sound. I walked down the long hall to the bar still smelling her all around me. Still feeling her fingers on my skin. Her moans were still ringing in my ears. And my dick stirred in my pants remembering how good it felt to be buried deep inside of her. She was like no other I had been with.
I spotted Clean at the bar as I exited the hall to head to Cal’s office. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t even have been there. I probably wouldn’t even be alive. I owed him a lot more than I could ever repay. Although, there were times I hated him for saving me when he did. I slid onto the stool beside him after grabbing a beer.
“All done?” I asked referring to the cleanup.
Clean had his ways he liked to do things. He wiped up the crime scene, disappeared the body, then came back to get paid. Hence the reason he was called Mr. Clean. So if he was sitting here, then that meant he was already done.
“Yep,” he said casually as if we were talking about taking a shit. “You left a mess, but I must say I expected worse from you.” It was true, I had been thrown off after I saw Ellie down in that basement. It was close to being over when she stumbled down there but after I saw her, I lost some of my edge and just ended it.
“Weird night,” I supplied. He nodded, knowing that was enough.
Even though he wasn’t part of the club, he was an outsider we trusted. He did his job, did it with perfection, and never asked questions. It was actually his connections to the club that led me here.
“You doin’ okay?” His eyes didn’t look at me as he asked. Not that I expected them to. I nodded, knowing he would see me out of the corner of his eye. We both seemed to be focused on the same nonexistent spot behind the bar.
I still remembered the night Clean found me in that seedy back alley. I was bloody and nearly unconscious. Not to mention, too drunk to know my own name. I remembered seeing something blurry crouch beside me. I thought it was the guys I had egged into a fight coming back to finish me off.
But it wasn’t. Instead, it was a built guy in a white button-up shirt, with a head bald as a baby’s ass except for the slicked back Mohawk. He asked me if I was alive and I just laughed at him, wishing I wasn’t. He cocked his head, probably taking in the pathetic mess I had become. Then he picked me up and shoved me into the back of a white van. I remembered it smelling strongly of bleach and some other kind of chemical. And I wondered for a second if he was going to take me somewhere and finish the job the others failed to do.
But no. He took me to a shitty apartment in a shitty part of town. Where prostitutes shared their corners with drug dealers. He got me sober, got me clean, and eventually got my story out of me.
Months rolled by, him occasionally leaving for days on end without a word as to where he was going or what he was doing. The logo on his van indicated he was a pool cleaner, but I sensed that was far from the truth.
Then one day he told me to take a ride with him. Eight hours and two pit stops later, he dropped me off at the place I now called home. I didn’t share my story with anyone, but I knew that Cal, Loch, and Bocca all had some idea.
Bocca, because he could find out just about anything about anyone, and I wasn’t exactly under the radar. Cal and Loch, because they were the ones who told Bocca to do the digging. And being president and vice president, it was their job to know.
The whole story had been plastered in the papers. Everyone back home knew and I there wasn’t one place I could hide. I suspected that was why Clean dropped me at a motorcycle club in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Like I said. I owed Clean. I was still fighting my demons, but I was alive to do so.
“You seem different,” he said breaking me from my thoughts. “You sure somethings not up?” I huffed out a laugh. If he only knew.
I felt her before I even saw her. At that moment, I tilted my head to see Ellie walking out of the long hall from my room. She glanced at me. I could see the sadness in her eyes before she ducked her head and hid behind her curtain of strawberry hair. My heart thumped in my chest as my eyes watched her scamper along the far wall and out of the room and towards her own. I couldn’t deny the way that woman affected me. She was wearing my shirt and I almost smiled knowing she didn’t have anything under it. Knowing that my seed was probably dripping down her legs. I knew the slight interaction wouldn’t go unnoticed, even if Clean wasn’t looking directly at the situation.
“Hm,” he grunted. “That yours?” I knew he was mostly referring to the rounded belly that even my huge shirt didn’t hide too well.
“Yeah,” I breathed out and took a swig of my beer.
