Unattainable (34 page)

One thing was true: In this fucking
life, the dirty business he ran, you needed a good woman backing
you. A strong one. One who knew her place; one who would be there
for you no matter what. A woman a man could count on to give him
what he needed when he fucking needed it.

“
How’s the boy?” Mick
asked as Deuce slid onto the barstool beside him. Reaching over the
bar, Deuce slapped the back of Blue’s head, but the drunk old
fucker didn’t so much as twitch.

“
Fucked.”

“
Reminds me a lot of his
old man,” Mick said.

Deuce gave him a sideways glance.
“Yeah? How fuckin’ so? I ain’t never used.”

Grabbing the glass in front of him,
Mick downed the last of his whiskey. “Didn’t say it was the exact
same. Said he reminded me of you. After Eva ran out on ya.
Difference was, you had too many responsibilities to be fuckin’ up
so bad. Cage don’t have jack shit to do but fuck up.”

“
What the fuck you talkin’
about?” Deuce asked, grabbing for the bottle in front of Mick.
“Ain’t nobody run out on Cage. Idiot got himself shot because
of…”

Deuce trailed off and his chest began
to tighten.

He glanced over at Mick and Mick gave
him a grim smile.

“
Tegen,” Deuce
finished.

“
Tegen,” Mick repeated,
nodding his agreement.

“
You tryin’ to tell me he
loves her?”

“
Think about it,” Mick
said as he shoved off his barstool. “He was all up on her during
lockdown last year, every damn second, and I ain’t never seen him
pay a female any more attention than it took to get his dick sucked
until her. Then she’s sneakin’ out on him in the middle of the
night and he’s actin’ like a damn fool because of it. Next thing
you know, he’s haulin’ ass to Cali and instead of goin’ to Oakland,
he heads straight to her.”

Deuce closed his eyes. Fuck. Tegen
hadn’t snuck out. He’d pushed her out the damn door.

“
I gotta get home, Prez.
See you tomorrow?”

“
Yeah.”

He watched as Mick headed out and when
he was alone, other than Blue passed out on the bar, he placed his
elbows on the counter and dropped his head in his hands.

He’d fucked up. Again. In the midst of
his rage, thinking he was about to lose his son, he’d placed all
that blame on Tegen, told her to get the fuck out, and stay the
fuck away.

Except none of that shit had been her
fault. It was ZZ’s fault for pulling the trigger, it was Cage’s
fault for pulling his piece in the first place, and it was his own
fault for not realizing that whatever was between his son and Tegen
went deeper than he’d thought.

Now what?

Dorothy had told Eva she wanted nothing
to do with the club, Tegen hadn’t even tried to see Cage, and Cage
was a fucking wreck.

So, yeah, now fucking what?

“
Old man,” he barked,
tossing a coaster in Blue’s direction. It hit the top of the man’s
head and bounced off. “Could use some of that wiseass wisdom of
yours right about now.”

Nothing.

“
BLUE!” Deuce bellowed.
“Wake the fuck up!”

Nothing.

Cursing, Deuce got up out of his seat
and walked the few feet between them. Grabbing Blue’s arm, he
pulled and shook. “Motherfucker,” he growled. “How much did you
have today?”

Nothing.

When he let go of Blue’s arm, the limb
fell limp and heavy at his side, and all at once the old man’s body
began to slump. Deuce grabbed him before he could slide to the
floor and heaved him up in his seat. As Blue’s head rolled back,
panic rose in Deuce’s gut.

The fucker’s eyes were wide
open.

“
Blue!” he yelled, hauling
him off the seat and laying him out flat on the floor. He bent his
head over Blue’s mouth and nose and went still. He wasn’t
breathing.

Panic turned to fear and Deuce’s chest
locked up like a vice.

“
Blue! Dammit,
Blue!”

Pinching the man’s nose closed, Deuce
covered Blue’s mouth with his own and breathed into it. Chest
compressions were next. More breathing.

And, nothing.

“
Blue!” he bellowed, his
fists clenching. “Wake the motherfuck up!”

Tears pricked his eyes and his clenched
fists came crashing down on Blue’s chest. “Wake up, you stupid old
fuck! Wake the fuck up!”

Breathing hard, his chest aching, Deuce
staggered to his feet. With shaking hands, he reached inside his
cut for his cell phone when suddenly sharp pain sliced up his left
arm and straight into his chest. His cell phone dropped to the
floor and both his hands flew to his chest.

More pain followed and his throat
tightened.

“
Jesus,” he gasped,
clawing at the center of his chest. The pain was so great,
dizzying, that his legs gave out and he dropped to his
knees.

Desperate, he reached out, searching
blindly for his phone, but the pain was everywhere now. In his
chest and neck, in both of his arms. It felt like he was being
squeezed from the inside out with a rope made of razor
blades.

Unable to find his phone, he called out
to his son but his words were garbled and heavy with
pain.

Quickly weakening and light-headed, he
slumped to his side. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be
fucking dying. Not yet. At least, not now. Not when he had kids who
still needed him, Ivy and Damon, his eight-month-old son. He had a
grandbaby he adored, and a wife, goddammit, a wife he hadn’t had
nearly enough time with on this earth to fucking satisfy him. He
couldn’t go yet. He couldn’t leave them yet, not when his oldest
son was in the middle of throwing his whole damn life
away.

“
Cage,” he choked out, the
word barely a whisper.

“
Mark,” Ellie said,
pointing to one of her students in the second row. “How about you?
What’s your take on Mr. Poe’s ‘The Raven’? What is the underlying
message?”

The blond, blue-eyed, cocky high school
athlete grinned and shook his head. “I have no idea.”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “Anyone
else?”

Two students raised their hands, both
female, as was typical. High school English didn’t seem to interest
any of the males.

“
Vanessa,” she
said.

“
Everlasting love,” the
girl said. “And loss.”

Ellie smiled and nodded. Whenever a
student clicked with a literary work, she felt a surge of
pride.

“
Do you want to elaborate
further?” Ellie asked.

The girl opened her mouth just as the
buzzer went off, signaling the end of class as well as the end of
the day.

The entire class simultaneously looked
to her for confirmation that it was okay to leave.

“
Yes,” she said, waving
her hands in the direction of the door. “Go, go, go. Have a great
weekend.”

The mad rush to the door always amused
her. Reminded her of her own high school days when she was the lone
person loath to leave. She loved school, always had; that had never
changed.

Sitting down at her desk, she began
shuffling through papers in an attempt to organize the
mess.

“
Ms. Tate?”

Glancing toward the doorway, she found
the principal, Adele, standing there looking uncomfortable, and she
fought the urge to giggle.

“
Yes?”

“
Just wanted to check in
and see how your first week went.”

Ellie gave her a genuine smile.
“Amazing,” she answered honestly. “I really love it
here.”

The woman shifted uncomfortably. “I,
uh, er…will your boyfriend be picking you up every day?”

Now Ellie was really holding in her
laughter. Whatever Dirty had said to her that had convinced her to
offer Ellie the open position, it obviously hadn’t been very
pleasant. The woman was downright terrified of him.

It wasn’t that Ellie had approved of
his methods, but she was sure grateful for them. Her mother had
taken another turn for the worse and Ellie wanted to stay by her
side, rather than leave and miss out on much-needed time, as well
as help her father out with the hospital bills that were quickly
piling up.

It hadn’t been easy, adjusting to
living in the same town as the man who’d tried to rape her. But
whatever Deuce had said to him, whatever deal had been worked out,
Daniel hadn’t come near her. At first, on the rare occasion that
she’d gone anywhere without Dirty by her side and would spot Daniel
somewhere in town, she immediately retreated, rushed home and
straight into the shower where she would turn up the hot water
until her skin was scalded.

But sometimes it wasn’t enough to erase
the feeling of his hands on her. It was those days that Dirty would
take her out on his bike and they would just ride, no destination,
until Ellie felt clean again, in charge of her own body and free of
the filth Daniel had brought to her life.

As for Dirty, in the past year he’d
come so far from where he’d been emotionally.

Seated on the back of his bike, she
could wrap her arms around his waist now, lean her head against his
back and hold tightly to him, he allowed her that much. He still
needed a few moments to adjust to her touch, would flinch every
time, but it was progress.

There had even been a few instances
while watching a movie together that Ellie would scoot closer to
him on the couch and rest her head on his shoulder. Once, he’d even
held her hand.

For the most part, life was very good.
Better than she’d ever expected it to be after what had happened.
She hadn’t realized how much she missed having friends until she
had Danny back in her life, or how much better it was to surround
yourself with people instead of books.

There was only one problem. And it was
growing increasingly unbearable as more time passed.

She was desperately horny.

Lately, she spent her nights alone in
her bedroom, thinking of Dirty, knowing she couldn’t do anything
about it. Still, her resolve grew weaker and weaker.

They’d grown so close. He refused to
let her out of his sight; he took her to work every morning and
picked her up every afternoon. Some days they would eat dinner at
his place, other times at her parents’ house, and on the rare
occasion, they would go out.

Every day she was faced with his
beautiful face, his long, lean, sculpted body, and his personality,
so damaged, so fragile, she couldn’t help but want to fix him. He
was a woman’s worst nightmare—beautiful on the outside, ravaged on
the inside. A deadly combination.

Yet she wanted him.
Fiercely.

She had never thought of herself as a
typical woman, attracted to bad boys, but it was different with
Dirty. She couldn’t pinpoint what it was, and if she were being
completely honest with herself, she didn’t really care. She hadn’t
felt this way about a man…

Ever.

Whatever he’d done, his life at the
club, it didn’t matter. He was so good to her; he protected her,
took care of her, and not once since the morning he’d inadvertently
attacked her had he ever given her a reason to think she couldn’t
trust him implicitly.

And now, oh dear God, her hormones went
into overdrive every time she was close to him. Especially when he
smiled. Those rare smiles were so few and far between that when
they appeared, my God, she melted.

She didn’t have the first clue how to
go about acting on it. She was terrified that if she did, she would
drive him away.

“
Yes,” Ellie told Adele.
“Is that going to be a problem?”

The two women stared at each other
until the older woman finally caved. “Not at all,” Adele said
shortly and abruptly left.

Shaking her head, Ellie went back to
her papers and before she knew it, an hour had passed. She had just
started to clean up when she heard heavy footsteps in the hallway.
Knowing Dirty was here, she quickly pushed everything into a neat
pile and bent down to grab her purse. Grabbing her cell phone off
her desk, she headed for the door, scrolling through her messages
as she walked.

One new message.

Michael: Running late.

Confused, she glanced up and came
face-to-face with the chief of police, Daniel
Mooresville.

“
Ellie.” He sneered and
she caught the strong scent of liquor on his breath and immediately
backed away. “Been waiting a long time to get you without your
fucking babysitter.”

Stepping inside the classroom, he
closed the door behind him. “You’ll give it up to biker scum, but
not to me?”

Fear shot up from her stomach, curled
around her quickly beating heart, and lodged itself in her throat.
She had nowhere to run. She was on the second floor, and Daniel was
blocking her only exit. She was trapped.

“
Daniel,” she said, her
voice shaking as she continued backing away. “Please don’t do
this.”