The Biker's Secret Torment: MC Romance: Talon (Rosesson Brothers) (5 page)

"Yeah, cellular biology at eight in the morning."

He looked around the well-lit parking lot, then turned back to me, his square jaw drawing my eye as he spoke. "What kind of hotels are near here?"

"Hotels, why?"

He fastened his own helmet and narrowed his eyes. "Where else are we going to sleep?"

"Sleep? What?" Was he asking me to sleep with him? I knew he wasn't but I couldn't get my brain to form thoughts. I dropped my eyes to the pavement and dug into my palm with my fingernails. I hadn't seen him in almost two months and he still did this to me. He must think I was a complete idiot.

"So you can get to your final tomorrow without us having to fight rush hour traffic and get up at oh-dark-thirty. I'll take you home after your final."

"You're staying with me?"

Talon's eyes narrowed and he turned his head slightly. "Yeah, of course. What if this guy comes back?"

I shuddered at the thought and looked around the parking lot like maybe he was hiding behind a police car, about to run at us. "Oh, yeah. Ok. Um. There's lots of hotels but you won't be able to get a room right now. There's a game tonight. They'll all be booked completely full two cities out."

Talon just stared at me with his beautiful eyes. "Ok. We'll head to the club then. Get up early in the morning and come back."

I didn't want to drive all the way to Rosemill. It was almost an hour north of San Francisco, and we had almost an hour's drive just to get to the Golden Gate bridge. Even driving to San Fran to find a hotel would be better than going all the way back. Maybe we didn't have to leave Stanford though. "We could stay in my room. Well, maybe we could. My roommate has a boyfriend. She hardly ever sleeps there anymore. Let's go see if she's there."

Talon nodded and started his bike, waiting for me to climb on. I did, sneaking my hands around his waist and leaning forward against his broad back. This was the first ride I'd gotten from him in five years. I still remembered he and my brother pooling their money and restoring that old Bonneville together. Talon's first bike. His pull into the world I'd always known and frequently rejected, with a heavier heart each time I did it. I loved my dad. I loved my brother. Both were bikers for life, even if I knew I would never fit with the lifestyle. Throw Talon in there, and things really started getting confusing. I sighed. Yeah, that was my life. Confusing.

The bike glided forward, taking us with it. The wind in my face and vibration under my ass cooled my earlier upset, made the whole damn day a little easier to bear.

The warm, sexy man who made heat rush between my legs didn't hurt either.

Crystal

I pulled Talon quickly down the hallway of my dorm, not looking left or right into the open doors of my friends on the floor. I just hoped no one would see us. I'd put away all of my pictures of him because girls would come into my room just to look at him. Especially the one of him in his Army uniform, holding his sniper rifle, smiling into the camera, the Afghan desert stark and lonely behind him. Sloane especially had loved that picture and the thought of Sloane looking at Talon with lust in her eye made me go bonkers. I'd seen Talon with other girls before in high school, when he barely knew I existed, and I knew he could have any woman he wanted at the club, but this was different. This was my turf. He was here to see me.

My room was the last one on the right. I put my key in the lock and pushed inside, thrilled when the room seemed empty. But then Sloane appeared from behind the room divider, her snotty little nose upturned like normal.

She saw Talon behind me and changed in an instant. A smile I'm sure she thought was sexy crossed her face. All I saw was her scheming bullshit. She lifted her chin. "Hi Crystal, who's this?"

"None of your fucking business, bitch," I said, having had enough of her, of the day, of everything. She hadn't called me Crystal in months. In order to call me by name she would have had to speak to me, and that's something she hadn't done in forever either. Fuck her. "We're just grabbing something and leaving so you don't need to know his name."

Talon squeezed my hand and Sloane looked like I'd punched her right in her lying, lipsticked mouth. The hurt-bunny look disappeared in an instant and I knew she was going to be trouble. How much, I couldn't have imagined. She stepped backwards and disappeared behind the divider.

I let go of Talon's hand and hurried to the closet to grab a bag and some clothes. "We'll try to find a hotel," I muttered to Talon, who was looking around the room, a bewildered expression on his face. "If we can't then we'll go home."

I stopped what I was doing and looked straight at him. "Do you have money for a hotel?" I was broke and I knew Talon had spent every cent he had on his surgery, and then on getting his brothers a place to live. Maybe my dad had gotten him some money, but if not, I didn't want to be a hardship to him.

A strange smile spread over his face, a lot like the one he'd given Officer Turner. It made my heart glad to see it. Like some of the gloom that had surrounded him since he was wounded and then the Army had kicked him out had left him. That made me think of something else. He hadn't limped at all since he'd shown up. Just like when I'd seen him on the TV. I grabbed his arm before he could answer. "Hey, you're not limping. I just realized."

His smile widened, making my heart hurt.

"The last surgery was a complete success. My knee works as well as if it was all my bone in there."

"Does it still hurt?" I whispered, knowing Sloane was listening.

"Sometimes. The scars ache. Therapy hurts every time I go, but I can walk and even run a little without very much pain."

I squeezed his arm and felt my eyes water. I was just so happy for him. I'd cried a thousand tears for him that he never knew about in the almost two years since his injuries. I hated that he'd had to go through it. But he was home now, and mostly in one piece. I could be grateful for that.

"That's so great," I said, then turned quickly and let the tears fall down my face where he wouldn't see them. I shoved a pair of jeans into my backpack and dropped to my knees to dig my riding boots and my leather jacket out of the back corner of the closet. If we were going to ride back to Rosemill on his bike, I would need them.

Then I heard what could only be Sloane deciding she wanted to die.

"I recognize you now! You're the soldier from Crystal's picture." Her voice took on a sickening syrupy quality like she was talking to Bambi in the woods after the hunter shot his mother. "Were you injured?"

Talon didn't say anything and I stayed completely still, not trusting myself to move. Talon cleared his throat like he was uncomfortable and I whirled around. Sloane was standing next to him, her hand caressing his arm, her heavily-lined eyes staring up at him.

It was too much. I launched myself at her like some jealous sixteen-year-old. She had no fucking right and she knew it! I didn't know how much of this was her wanting to mess with me and how much was her genuinely being interested in Talon, but it didn't matter. She'd had this coming since the day she'd borrowed my laptop without asking me and
accidentally
deleted all my pictures and music. That wasn't the worst she'd done to me, but it had been the first.

I caught her around her shoulders, my weight propelling us both to the ground. I pulled my fist back, prepared to slam it into her pretty face but something caught me around the elbow. Something solid and completely unmovable.

"Gidge, what the hell!" Talon shouted at me while hauling me off of Sloane by my waist. I kicked and tried to get away until my heel connected with Talon's knee and he grunted. Hot regret flooded my face and I stilled, my feet a good foot above the carpet.

"Oh my God, I'm sorry, Talon. Are you ok?"

"Fine," he said and relief filled me when I heard his voice. He didn't sound like he was lying.

Sloane scrambled to her feet and backed away from us. "Crazy cunt," she said under her breath. From the way Talon was holding me up, I could see over the room divider. She went to her desk, grabbed her purse and her phone, and stomped to the door. "I'll be glad when I get my new room," she spit at me. "You were the worst roommate in history and you're going to be a shitty fucking doctor."

"Back at you, Princess," I sneered. She pushed out the door and slammed it behind her, cutting off the rest of what I was going to say. Something biting about her boyfriend and skid marks in her underwear. I didn't have it all worked out so it was probably better that she was gone.

Talon put me down on the floor. "What was that about?"

"Sorry," I said, feeling ashamed. She really knew how to push my buttons but still, I should have more control than that. Doctors didn't physically attack people who pissed them off. "She's really hard to get along with. Thanks for stopping me though, I didn't want to end up back at the police station."

Talon nodded, eyeing me like he'd never seen me before. "Now I see why you petitioned for a new roommate next semester."

I smiled, pleased. "You read my letters!"

"I did." A look crossed his face. Guilt? He'd written me back sometimes when he'd been deployed and once from the Army hospital, but I hadn't gotten anything while he was in Mexico. I didn't mind. I knew he didn't like writing letters.

I turned back to the closet and kept shoving things in my bag.

I heard Talon moving things around on my desk behind me. "Think she's coming back tonight?"

"Nah, she usually sleeps at her boyfriend's place."

I closed my bag and turned around, just as Talon dropped into my desk chair. "Staying here might be easiest, then, if you feel comfortable. I can sleep on the floor."

He gestured to the patch of carpet next to my tiny bed and my heart sped up again. No way was I letting him sleep on the floor. But not having to ride home now on the back of his bike sounded great. My stomach woke up and rumbled loud enough that he laughed.

"We can get some dinner too. Delivery."

He was going to stay with me tonight? That sounded heavenly, even if it did scare the crap out of me.

Talon

I sat on the floor next to Crystal's bed chewing my New York Style pizza slice and trying not to feel like a dirty fucking traitor. Crystal deserved to know that her brother was missing. I would tell her, the second she took her final. It had been Whip's place to tell her, but he'd chickened out. I wouldn't.

My thoughts drifted and I let them. Now that Crystal was safe, I could turn my thoughts back to what the fuck could possibly be going on with Whip. I knew I hadn't heard all the stories about the club over the years, but the ones I had heard told me they'd been into some outlaw shit for a long time. Whip had enemies for sure, or at least he used to. But I didn't know who any of them were. I would have to have a talk with Whitey maybe. Whitey had been there from the beginning. He had founded the club with Whip and four other guys, and he would be the best one to ask since Whip wouldn't tell me shit.

I worked on another piece of pizza and followed each thread of my thoughts, making silent mental checklists of what I could do tomorrow to figure this thing out. If Whip wanted to bury himself that was fine, but his past and silence might have already buried Jaze. There was no way I was letting it bury Crystal too. I would get proactive as soon as we got back to the clubhouse. All I had done so far was contact Knox and ask him to look into a few things, and ask around about Jaze to his friends.

I glanced at Crystal, sitting at her desk, looking over a text book. She was rubbing her right shoulder.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

She shrugged and stretched her neck. "I don't know. It's sore. Tight all of a sudden."

I tossed my last bite into my mouth and stood up, then approached her, my eyes checking her exposed skin for bruises or redness. "Did he hit you here?" I asked, touching my fingers to her shoulder and applying a bit of pressure where she'd been rubbing.

Crystal stiffened under my hands and I almost pulled away, but then she relaxed. "Yeah, he full-on tackled me on that side. Pinned my arm against my body and propelled me into the trees."

Fucker. If I ever found him I'd fucking kill him. I'd killed a few men on government orders, and it wouldn't bother me a bit to kill one more on my orders. Some people didn't deserve to live, and I knew how to cover my tracks.

"What did he look like?"

She shrugged. "I never saw his face. Big dude. Short, brown hair. Black shirt. Black pants."

Sounded like half of the men in California.
I palpated the muscles in Crystal's neck, then up and down her arm, then checked her back. During my own rehabilitation exercises and therapy for my shrapnel wounds, I'd learned more than I ever wanted to know about what a tight muscle group felt like and how to fix it. My fingers crept over her shoulder, following a rope of tissue down the front of her body, onto her chest. My eyes fell down the front of her shirt, where the tops of her small but perfect breasts were visible. My dick hardened in my jeans at once, making its wishes known. Fuck.

I pulled my fingers back up to her shoulder. I could work on the muscle from there. I pressed into it, squeezing and releasing, ignoring my dick. It had no idea what complexities were, what loyalty was, what forbidden meant. It had always been partial to Crystal, even when she'd only been fourteen, a whip-thin girl, all legs and hair and big brown eyes. When her breasts had come in, I couldn't even look at my best friend's little sister if I wanted to make it through the day without a raging hard on.