Savage: Iron Dragons MC (18 page)

Kristina

“Kristina?”

“Sorry,” Kristina replied, as she watched Marie slip into the seat next to her. Literature was the only subject the two of them shared and more often than not they walked to class together. “I was somewhere else.”

“Thinking of Keith Lee, you mean,” Marie said shrewdly.

“What makes you think I was thinking of him?” Kristina asked defensively.

“Well, seeing as how he dropped you off here a few minutes ago, I figure that was a good guess,” Marie said, as she raised one eyebrow accusingly.

“Oh,” Kristina said sheepishly. “You saw that did you?”

“Yes, I saw that,” Marie said quickly. “But if I’m being completely honest, I didn’t need proof at all. I guessed that you’d been seeing a lot of him lately.”

Kristina didn’t bother denying it; a part of her didn’t want to have to explain herself anymore. She was a grown woman and she had every right to spend time with whomever she decided she wanted to. “I guess I have,” she said with a shrug.

“So you are dating him then?” Marie pressed.

“Not really,” Kristina said, trying to downplay it. “We’re just spending… time together.”

“Are the two of you having sex?” Marie asked bluntly.

Kristina thought about lying, but then she thought better of it. “Yes,” she said, “we are.”

“And you’re sticking to the whole ‘we’re not dating’ routine?” Marie asked skeptically.

“I’m not his girlfriend and he’s not my boyfriend,” Kristina clarified. “But we do like fucking each other…”

“So what you’re saying is this is just… a friends with benefits kind of deal?”

“I guess there’s no other way to say it,” Kristina conceded.

Marie leaned back in her seat and took that in. “And after graduation…?”

“I will move on with my life, and he will move on with his,” Kristina said with finality.

Marie regarded her carefully for a moment and then she nodded. “Ok.”

“Ok?” Kristina said in surprise.

Marie sighed. “I warned you, I advised you,” she started. “That’s all I can do. You’re a big girl and you’re capable of making your own decisions. Obviously nothing I’ve said so far has made any kind of impact, so I’m going to have to deal with the fact that this is something you have to do for some reason.”

“Thanks, Marie,” Kristina said sincerely. “It is.”

“I just have one question,” Marie said.

“Shoot,” Kristina nodded.

“
Why
is this something you just have to do?”

Kristina took a moment to think about it. “I don’t think I’ll ever meet someone like Keith ever again in my life.”

“That’s it?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Kristina said. “It’s just difficult to explain. The rest of my life is going to be filled with straight-laced guys with good boy haircuts and stable jobs that are boring as hell. I just want to know what it feels like to be with someone unpredictable and dangerous and surprising.”

“That’s very… primitive of you,” Marie said.

“I guess so,” Kristina said. “But he brings out the animal in me.”

“Whoa,” Marie said, as she raised her eyebrows. “Are we talking sex now?”

Kristina laughed. “I guess so.”

“Good,” Marie said. “Because I would like details.”

“Are you serious?”

“Hell yeah,” Marie said. “Let me live vicariously through you.”

“Do you even want to live vicariously through me?” Kristina demanded.

“Well, not in this particular case,” Marie conceded, “but I would like one torrid night of meaningless sex with someone who looked like Keith.”

“Really?” Kristina said, surprised by that.

“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” Marie said, sounding annoyed. “I have the need for a little adventure from time to time, too… I just don’t act on it quite as much as you do. If it weren’t for Keith’s criminal ties, I would have actually encouraged you to explore the relationship instead of warning you against it.”

Kristina smiled. “Good to know.”

“Well?” Marie demanded impatiently.

“Well what?”

“Since I’ve decided to step back and stop bugging you about how much time you’re spending with a criminal, I’m going to insist that you at the very least tell me how good he is in bed.”

Kristina laughed, but she realized suddenly that she missed sharing stuff with Marie about her personal life. She had been so tight lipped about it in the last few weeks that it was a relief to speak freely about the more intimate details of her relationship with Keith.

“Well, first of all… he’s amazing!” Kristina said, sighing in the process. “I mean… he doesn’t even have to try. I’m wet before he even touches me.”

Marie raised her eyebrows.

“That is not even an exaggeration,” Kristina said.

“Is he gentle, rough?” Marie pressed.

“He can be both,” Kristina answered. “Sometimes it’s both at the same time. But I love it when he handles me…. I know it seems like an oxymoron, but I actually feel this… weird sense of freedom.”

“Huh?” Marie said as though she didn’t understand.

Kristina laughed. “It’s hard to explain.”

“You used to be better at describing your sexual exploits,” Marie pointed out.

Kristina glanced around and then leaned in towards Marie so that she was the only one who could hear. “Ok, well, the other night we were at his place… and we were just eating dinner you know? We’d had sex that morning and there was no sign it was going to happen again.”

“And then he jumped you?”

“I was at the sink washing the dishes and he came up behind me,” Kristina said.

“And then what?”

“He put one hand up my shirt and the other hand down my pants,” Kristina said. “I almost broke a dish. I barely knew what was happening, and before I knew it, he had bent me over and he was fucking me over the sink.”

“Sounds uncomfortable,” Marie said.

“It would have been if it continued that way,” Kristina said. “But then he spread me out on top of the table—”

“The table you were just eating on?” Marie interrupted.

“Yeah,” Kristina nodded unashamedly. “And he pushed into me. Seriously Marie, you should see his cock, it is a thing of beauty.”

“Apparently,” Marie said with wide-eyed amusement. “Did you come?”

“Twice,” Kristina confirmed. “Twice that time and once in the morning.”

“You came three times in one day?”

“And that’s a slow day with Keith.”

“Whoa,” Marie said again.

“Yeah.”

“He’s that good, huh?” Marie said sounding sufficiently impressed.

“He is,” Kristina said with a sigh.

“You sound sad,” Marie pointed out. “For someone who’s getting it on a regular and getting it good by the sound of it… you should be skipping to your classes.”

Kristina smiled. “I just know it’s not going to last,” she explained. “That’s all.”

Marie looked at her carefully. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“And you’ll answer honestly?”

Kristina wasn’t sure where Marie was going with this, but she braced herself and nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

“If you had a choice… would you choose to be with Keith,” Marie asked. “Not someone like Keith… I mean Keith, just as he is now with all the baggage and all the… everything.”

Kristina felt her stomach turn at the question, mostly because she had been avoiding asking herself the very same one. “It’s complicated,” she said, trying deftly to avoid answering it until she had a better idea of her own mind.

“Try figuring it out,” Marie insisted.

“Now?”

“Now,” Marie nodded. “We have time. Professor Stuart is always late.”

“I… think that Keith and I are very different…” Kristina started shakily.

“That wasn’t my question,” Marie said, cutting her off.

Kristina rolled her eyes. “Fine then… I guess if I were being honest I wouldn’t mind… pursuing a relationship with Keith and seeing where it would lead.”

“Seriously?” Marie asked, but her tone suggested that she wasn’t judging, she was simply surprised.

“Yes,” Kristina nodded.

“Do you actually see a future with him?”

“I mean… if you like someone hard enough… don’t you always tend to believe in the best possible outcome?”

“Meaning that you
can
see yourself with Keith… in the long term?”

“I haven’t gone that far…”

“Meaning marriage and kids?”

“Whoa,” Kristina said, holding up her hands. “Slow it down; I’m not going there. I just know that if I had the choice… I would like to see how things would go. That was the question you asked, and I’m answering it… honestly.”

Marie nodded. “Do you even think someone like Keith would want to get married? Would he want to have kids?”

“I don’t know, Marie,” Kristina said. “That’s not really what we’re talking about here.”

“Kristina,” Marie said slowly. “You realize that we’re talking about a future for you and Keith right? What do you think that means?”

“Anything I want it to mean,” Kristina said. “People think there’s only one way of doing things, but I disagree. Your future can be anything you want… getting married and having kids or closing shop and travelling the world or… I don’t know… living in a caravan and eating off the land your whole life. There isn’t a wrong way of living.”

“Listen,” Marie said steadily. “I get you need to have this experience. I get that Keith is this hot as fuck biker with a dangerous past and an exciting life… but you have to remember that it’s not
your
life. Once you’ve cleared this phase you’re in, you’re going to see that more clearly than you do now. And when that happens I just hope you haven’t made a stupid mistake thinking that this feeling is going to last forever.”

Kristina nodded. “I know you’re right,” she nodded. “I do… it’s just…”

Kristina felt her mind whirling with new realizations, and she wished she were alone so that she could absorb them properly. She had convinced herself that she and Keith were temporary and that much was true, but the realization was that she wished that wasn’t the case. She wished that they would have an actual, real relationship, or at least an attempt at one. Kristina felt her heart sink as she realized that it wasn’t just their differences that stood between them, it was Natalie’s invisible presence.

Keith’s love for her was potent, and Kristina knew that she couldn’t compete with the memory of his lost love. He had to want to move on for her to have any chance at all. Still, Kristina reminded herself that Keith was with her. He had been for the last week, and he had made sure that she was safe. She was fairly certain he would never have tried that hard for someone for whom he had absolutely no feelings. She felt a nugget of hope rise inside her, and as hard as she tried to beat it down, the feeling just kept rising to the surface, resilient and strong.