Perfect Collision (12 page)

“If you open your eyes when you ask me.”

I did. He was so close. I swallowed, took a deep breath, and then I asked.

“Could you kiss me again? Just once.”

He looked at me with such intensity, and eventually nodded. He was still holding my cheeks and once he'd agreed I closed my eyes again. Then I felt his lips on mine. I circled his waist to get closer, and his lips left mine.

I thought that was it, but I was wrong; they came crashing down again. I opened my mouth a little and felt his tongue dart inside. It was even better than the first time. It was great. It was more than great. It was... magnificent, totally different when I knew it was coming.

He let go of my face and put his arms around me, hugging me tight, and still kissing me. When I felt his dick against me, I took the chance and pressed against it. That's when he stopped and grabbed my hips to hold me still—panting. Once he calmed down, his hands were on my cheeks again. He leaned his forehead against mine.

“You taste so good. I can't believe how good you taste.” He placed a kiss on my forehead. “I have to go, Katze, before I do something really fucking stupid.”

I kinda hoped he'd stay and do something stupid, but he let go of me, and with a 'take care, girl' he left.

That's when I started crying.

Momentum: I Found a Good Guy

-o0o-

MAC HAD NO IDEA
how to deal. It had been almost two months since he'd left Vi in her hallway. If he'd thought he'd get over her, he'd been dead wrong. It wasn't even getting easier, quite the opposite.

To make matters worse, he was pretty sure Bear suspected something, because he was eyeing him, and not in a friendly way. The cherry on top was that Vi was completely ignoring him. She'd been back at the clubhouse for a few birthdays and a short visit on Mitch's patch-in party. The long hug she'd given Mitch had resulted in an unexpected stab of jealousy in Mac's chest.

Then her eighteenth birthday came, and they'd celebrated it at his dad and Mel's place. Apparently Mel hadn't thought Bear's place was good enough for Vi's eighteenth birthday and had pushed him to let her fix it. Mac'd been there, and Vi had managed to go through the entire evening without looking at him once. It was driving him insane.

It was Saturday, and he'd just come home from the clubhouse. He lived in a simple studio apartment, but it was pretty okay. One big open area with a kitchen island separating the kitchen from the rest of the room. A comfortable, big bed and an awesome TV and sound system was pretty much all he needed, but Mel had been there to put up some curtains, and she'd brought some living room furniture, too.

He threw his keys on the counter, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and had just planted his ass on the couch when his phone rang. He didn't recognize the number, but it was the club prepay and ignoring it would result in a fine.

“Yeah!”

“Mac, it's Violet.”

“Vi?” The only other time she'd called him was to set up his appointment for the ink, and considering how she'd been ignoring him, her call was worrisome rather than encouraging. “What's wrong?”

“I'm in trouble. Or I think I'm in trouble, and... I can't call Dad, please don't call Dad. This was so stupid, and I know it was so you don't have—”

He didn't let her finish. “Just tell me where you are.”

“24 Tucker Road. It's this old abandoned house.”

“I know which one it is. I'll be there in ten.” He hung up. He didn't want to know anymore, and he went out to his truck to go get her.

The old house on 24 Tucker Road had been used by kids for years. He'd been there a few times, and he'd picked up Mitch from there more than a few times. It was where kids went to drink, do drugs, and fuck. Just the thought of Vi at that filthy fucking place drove him insane.

He pulled up outside the house about five minutes later, immediately flew out of the truck and went inside fully prepared to just deck anyone who got in his way. Considering her purple hair, she should be easy to spot, but he couldn't see her anywhere on the first floor. Which meant she was on the second floor—where the bedrooms were.

He took the steps two at a time, and he heard her before he'd cleared the stairwell. She was yelling, “Let go of me!”

Mac'd managed to locate the door by the time he heard the soon to be dead dude yell back at her.

“Why the hell did you even come here if you're not gonna put out?”

Mac simply kicked the door in, and a scrawny fucker with a green mohawk stared at him.

“Who the fuck are you?” mohawk spit out, but Mac wasn't looking at him.

He was looking at Vi. She straightened her t-shirt and picked up her bag from the floor without looking at him. She was trying to hide her face, but he could still see she was crying.

Mac was famed for his even mood. It took a lot to piss him off. Keeping cool was pretty much his hallmark, but at that moment he was close to just pulling out his gun and going apeshit. To try to keep himself from killing a bunch of teenagers, he turned his attention from Vi's tearstained face to the scrawny guy who'd made her cry.

Amazingly enough, that actually calmed him down. But keeping focus from Vi only worked until the guy who had a mohawk, but no self-preservation, opened his mouth

“Where the fuck do you think you're going?” he snarled at Vi, and Mac'd had it. He snapped.

Three long steps, and he grabbed mohawk's throat, pushed him up against the wall, and landed two hard punches in his face.

“She's coming with me.” A third punch. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Nah, man,” he answered in a blood-filled slur. “No problem.”

Mac felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Vi standing behind him with a pleading face.

“Don't. I just want to go home,” she said. “Please just take me home.”

He dropped the guy on the floor. “Stay the fuck away from her, or I'll come find you again.”

When the punk nodded, Mac turned around, grabbed Vi's hand and pulled her behind him out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the house to his truck. All without saying a single word.

He couldn't.

He knew that if he opened his mouth he would never stop screaming. The entire trip to her place, he stared at the road and kept his eyes off Vi. He mainly tried to breathe calmly and stay on the road. When he pulled up by the curb outside the apartment building, he still wasn't looking at her but heard her shifting in her seat.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

That was it, he couldn't shut up anymore, and as suspected he started screaming once he opened his mouth.

“What the fuck were you doing at that house?!”

She jumped in her seat and turned to look at him with big, amber eyes and then shrugged. That was the extent of her reply. She shrugged!

“A shrug is not a fucking answer! Answer me!”

“What do you care?” she finally said, and she was glaring at him.
She
was glaring at
him
!

“Baby, I just saved your fucking ass. You owe me better than that. It's a shit place, and I know that you know that.
Everyone
knows exactly what goes on there, so why the fuck were you there?”

“I guess I'm too
young
to know better.”

“Don't give me that shit.” It stung, though, how she emphasized 'young.' “You're smarter than that, I know you are. And with a loser like that guy? You're a great girl. You can find a good guy.”

He would prefer her not finding any guy, but at the same time he knew she would sooner or later. But a guy like that, why the hell would she even give an idiot like him even the time of day?

Vi was, as always, looking at her hands. Her hair fell like a curtain between them, and he couldn't see her face. He kept a firm grip on the steering wheel to stop himself from reaching for her hair and tuck it behind her ear.

“I found a good guy,” she mumbled. “He just didn't want me.”

Without waiting for an answer, she reached for the handle and quickly left the truck. She didn't look back once as she ran towards the door and went inside.

Once she was gone, he leaned his forehead against the steering wheel and took several deep breaths trying to stop himself from running after her.

Didn't want her? Fuck, there was no one else he wanted. After a few feeble attempts with other girls to get his mind off Vi, he'd stopped trying. It was seriously better jerking off while thinking of her than trying to ignore all the ways the girl he was fucking wasn't Vi. That's how much he wanted her. He was fucking pathetic, and it was because of her, and how much he wanted her.

It was killing him to know the fact that he was trying to be the good guy and not take advantage of her had almost gotten her raped. So much for not fucking her up.

-o0o-

The minute I came through the door, I sat down and bawled my eyes out. There was just nothing that could make the night worse.

I didn't have a good reason for why I'd gone to the house. Troy, a guy who was a few years older than me, had asked me to come with him, and I did. I hardly knew him, didn't particularly like him, but it was at least something new.

It was something outside the club, which meant something that didn't have anything to do with Mac.

Obviously, Troy had been all over me the second we got there. I'd kind of expected him to be, but then I panicked. I might've thought about what could happen, but it wasn't until I was standing there the full force of it hit me. He wouldn't take me home, so I told him I needed to use the bathroom first. While I was in there with my phone in my hand, the only one I could think of calling was Mac. Dad would've just gone on a killing spree and the other guys... no. Mac seemed like a safe option, and I wasn't even sure why I felt that way.

Not even when I was safe at home, crying on the hallway floor, did I know why the thought of calling him had entered my mind. Or why I did.

I shouldn't want him to know I'd been to that house, but at the same time some sadistic part of me wanted him to know what he was doing to me. What he'd turned me into. I wasn't sure I liked that part of myself.

But he came for me, and he didn't even hesitate, just asked me where I was. Then he started beating on Troy, and it scared me. That wasn't why I'd called him; I really just wanted to go home.

When he started yelling at me in the car, I'd realized how pissed he actually was, and... I kind of snapped at him. Which was bad, 'cause he was right, he totally didn't deserve that. But it hurt when he talked about finding a good guy. It hurt a lot, and I just threw myself out of the car to get away from him.

No matter how much he'd hurt me, that was a pretty shitty thing to do. Maybe even calling him to begin with had been shitty, and I should thank him.

Dad was big on that, making sure you thanked people who'd helped you, and it had been pounded it into my head.  I could hear it as clearly as if he was sitting next to me.

'Always thank those who help you or do you favors, Katze.'

The thought of Dad made me cry again. I had no idea how to tell him about this.

-o0o-

When Bear walked through the door, he was slightly drunk, a little stoned, and pretty pissed. He still tried to move silently, since he assumed Vi was sleeping. He threw his keys in the bowl where they kept their keys.

The bowl had been Mel's idea. Both him and Vi had spent twenty minutes every morning for months trying to find their keys. Mel had suggested a bowl on a table in the hallway, and once they actually started remembering to put their keys into it, it had worked great.

Standing in the hallway, staring at the bowl with Vi's keys in it, he tried to calm down.

Ella'd called, on a Saturday evening no less, and once again brought up the fact that he'd let Vi start as an apprentice at a tattoo shop, 'ruining any chance she had of going to college.'

He loved his youngest daughter, he'd rather rip out his heart than hurt her feelings, but you had to be fucking delusional to think she'd ever go to college. It was a fucking hassle to get her to read a menu for fuck's sake!

He tiptoed into Vi's room to make sure she was sleeping, but when he opened the door the light was on, and she was sitting by her desk drawing.

“Hey, Katze,” he said and took a few steps into her room. “What's going on?”

She looked at him with reddened eyes. “It's pretty shit. Think you could make me some hot chocolate?”

He pulled her out of the chair and was hugging her tight when he felt the first sobs rip through her body. “Oh, baby girl... what's going on with you?”

“Life,” she sniveled. “It's sort of a bitch.”

“Tell me about it,” he mumbled, and buried his nose into her hair. “No matter what's up, I love you.”

She looked up at him and gave him a shaky smile as he dried her cheeks. “Does that mean you'll make me hot chocolate even if I'm not up for talking?”

“Yeah. I'll make you hot chocolate.”

He watched her as they drank it. They talked, but not about what was really bugging her. He was starting to wonder if he maybe should try to get her to a shrink again, because something was really wrong. She'd been looking forward to her birthday and when it came along, she'd been moping around most of the evening and then asked him to go home. It didn't seem like the best way to celebrate your eighteenth birthday, but he'd done as she asked and took her home.

He wasn't an idiot; he knew this had something to do with Mac, but had no idea what the fuck'd happened between the two of them, or how to help her. Initially, he'd thought that Vi might've made a move on Mac, but it didn't seem likely. She was much too shy for that. No matter what the problem was, he couldn't help her unless she talked to him, and it didn't look as if she was going to.