Unattainable (7 page)

But a good girl like Ellie? Why the
fuck not?

Still not wanting to touch her, he
contemplated calling Deuce for help until Ellie’s eyelids began to
flutter closed. He let loose a large breath of relief. She was out.
He could handle her unconscious. Gently, he rolled her onto her
back and tried as best he could to pull up her pants. Then, with
the trepidation of a grown man handling a baby for the very first
time, he lifted her up into his arms, cradled her against his
chest, and headed out of the alleyway.

Unblinking, I stared at the desktop
monitor in front of me, at the e-mail attachment I’d just opened,
and skimmed over the title:

“
Animal Rights Activists
Protest the Excessive Use of Leather at Biker Rally in Los
Angeles.”

Shaking my head, I snorted softly. You
could take the girl out of the motorcycle club, but she’ll never
outrun those damn Harley pipes. It wasn’t just ZZ that was a
constant reminder, it was the loud yet sexy rumble of every passing
motorcycle. My world always seemed to stop as the beautiful machine
whooshed through my life, no matter what I was doing—eating,
talking, immersed in my smart phone—I always paused to watch as it
flew by, and stared as it disappeared. But unlike everybody else,
who might give a quick glance and then immediately go back to what
they’d been doing, unaware that they’d just witnessed the ultimate
freedom, a way to fly without wings, I would stare long after the
bike had vanished, remembering what it felt like to be on the back
of a bike, holding tight to a man.

Wishing, aching, wanting to be
somewhere else, someone else. And yet, at the same time, hating
myself because I knew, deep down, I’d never truly belonged in that
life.

Sighing, I slumped down in my desk
chair, closed my eyes, and tried to remind myself that I’d dodged a
bullet. That if I hadn’t had my heart broken at such a young age,
who knows how I would have ended up. In all likelihood, I’d be a
Hell’s Horsemen club whore just like my mother had been. As it was,
I was already the next best thing.

True, ZZ no longer wore his cut. He
always ditched his bike before he got back in town, something that
made me infinitely curious about what he was doing when he was
away, why he needed to stay so inconspicuous, and he didn’t talk
about the club other than short, clipped statements regarding
Deuce. But he was still ZZ. A face, a name, a man I associated with
my childhood, with my mother and all her pain.

“
Jeez, Teg, you look like
you just swallowed a dick.”

My eyes flew open and met with the
denim-clad curvy backside that had propped itself on the corner of
my desk.

“’
Sup girl.”

Hayley was the closest thing I had to a
best friend. We met my junior year in college during a rally
protesting cosmetic testing on animals, and had become inseparable.
We didn’t hang out as much as we used to anymore, mostly because
she’d gotten married recently, but we still managed to get together
at least once a week.

“
Who let you in here?” I
teased. “Where’s security?”

“
Yes!” Hayley exclaimed
dramatically, opening her arms wide and made an all-encompassing
gesture to the small one-room office staffed with the twelve people
that made up
The San Franciscan Jurisdiction
, all seated
inside their personally decorated cubicles.

“
Someone needs to be
protecting all you up-and-coming Pulitzer Prize winners from the
hit men hired to off you once your big exposé goes live on human
sex slave trafficking, and our dear, sweet politicians that support
it!”

“
Damn straight!” someone
called out. “Fuck the government!”

“‘
If you tremble
indignation at every injustice,’” Hayley yelled back, quoting Che
Guevara, “‘then you are a comrade of mine!’”

Two cubicles in front of me, our sports
editor, Christian, jumped up on his desk and thrust his clenched
fist in the air. “‘I prefer to die standing!’” he bellowed, also
quoting the infamous rebel leader, “‘rather than live on my
knees!’”

“Viva La
Revolución
!” came an answering
yell.

“
Look what you did,” I
said, giggling. “Now they’ll never shut up.”

Hayley waved me off and, placing her
palm halfway across my desk, leaned in. Sweeping her long,
pink-streaked blonde hair over her shoulder, she laughed. “Girl, I
haven’t seen you in forever and I’m demanding you come to dinner
tonight.”

Smiling, I rolled my eyes. “We saw each
other last week.”

Shaking her head, she waved away my
statement. “Last week,” she repeated. “Forever ago. So, dinner.
Tonight. And please tell me ZZ is out of town.”

I grimaced. Hayley didn’t like ZZ;
actually, no one I associated with on a regular basis in San
Francisco liked ZZ. Either he intimidated them or just plain pissed
them off. For the most part he liked his solitude, but every now
and then he liked to play, only his version of playing was a little
hard-core for some of my more happy-go-lucky friends.

Playing to them meant a small party,
music, clinking beers and passing green.

Playing to ZZ meant wall-to-wall
bodies, eardrum-blasting music, hard-core drinking, blowing lines,
and fucking whatever he bumped up against. Or at least it used to,
since he was apparently only fucking me now.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that so
instead of dwelling on it, I pushed it aside and focused on
Hayley.

“
No, he’s home,” I
said.

“
Well,” she said slowly.
“It just so happens that I’m having a small dinner party tonight
and I think you should come, minus the brooding, anti-social biker
who’s always bogarting all of your time.”

I shrugged. “He’s got a big dick, fucks
like a slap-happy seal, and doesn’t talk very often. He’s pretty
much perfect.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Teg, he’s mean and
scary.”

My eyes crossed. It was laughable how
“mean” and “scary” she thought ZZ was. God, if she ever met Deuce
or Hawk or even Blue, as ancient as he was he could hold his own,
she’d probably pee herself on sight.

“
He’s moody,” I told her.
“It’s different.”

“
I bet all serial killers
are moody,” she shot back. “It’s probably in their job
description.”

Hayley didn’t realize how true her
statement really was. There was no doubt in my mind the Hell’s
Horsemen had taken plenty of people out over the years. Whereas
none of the brothers had openly talked about their business in
front of their wives and their kids, that hadn’t been the case with
me. Like my mother, after my father had left for good, they were
used to me hanging around the club. And either they didn’t notice
me, or they considered me so incredibly insignificant they couldn’t
have cared less how freely they spoke in front of me.

“
Girl, you’re getting that
‘swallowed a dick’ look again.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Shut
up.”

“
Listen up, Teg,” Hayley
said softly, leaning closer to me. “I get that your mom needs you
and that you’re in a tough situation, but every time you go back
there, to those people, you’re that much more miserable. As for ZZ,
he’s not good for you either, slap-happy or not.”

She was right. Hell, she was always
right. I was stuck inside a world I wanted nothing to do with but
couldn’t seem to shake.

“
Fuck it,” I muttered,
shaking myself out of my depressing thoughts. “I’ll do dinner
tonight. Without ZZ.”

Before I knew it, Hayley was on her
feet, clapping her hands together excitedly. “Perfect!” she cried
softly. Then she was halfway across the room, waving at me. “My
place!” she called out. “Six o’clock! And dress to
impress!”

It took a moment for her words to sink
in, but when they did…

“
Great,” I muttered,
turning back to my computer. She was undoubtedly trying to set me
up with one of her husband’s friends again. And while they were all
nice guys, which seemed to be my biggest problem with them, they
were pushovers, metrosexual girly men that did nothing for me
except make me angry and want to slap them across the face with a
lacy thong and ask them what they’d done with their
balls.

A thin stack of papers appeared in my
line of sight, blocking my gaze to my desktop’s keyboard. “Did you
check this out yet?”

I glanced up at Malcolm, the managing
editor of the small newspaper I worked for. He was short for a man,
in his early thirties, kept his dark hair in a trendy faux-hawk,
and wore Buddy Holly glasses. He’d also been trying to get in my
pants from way back when I’d still been a lowly intern instead of
the lowly copy editor I was today. But whatever, I loved my job,
and I loved my coworkers far too much to let Malcolm, the horny
hipster, bother me.

His unwanted attentions were infinitely
preferable to horny bikers who were five times his size. Whereas a
quick punch in the nuts or a restraining order would have Malcolm
running for the hills, it would only encourage a certain other
group of men I knew who would laugh their asses off if presented
with a restraining order. And then fuck to death whoever had the
audacity to get a restraining order in the first place.

One horny biker in particular came to
mind.

The muscles in my legs tightened and,
beneath my desk, my toes began to curl. Fucking hell, I was
pathetic. It had been eight fucking years since that horrible night
and even worse morning, yet my thoughts always led me back there…to
him.

Cage.

Cage Fucking West.

What was it about being invited on the
back of a bike that drove women crazy?

It was insulting.

Sexist.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

And it was hot as fuck.

“
Tegen?”

My eyes flew open and I snatched the
papers from Malcolm, leafed quickly through them, scanning over the
articles inside.

“
Yep,” I said, handing the
pile back to him. “I put the final proofs in Mary’s drop box this
morning.”

Nodding, Malcolm eyed me queerly. “Are
you okay, Tegen? You seem…off.”

“
I’m fine,” I said
quickly, turning back to my computer, mentally berating myself for
being so pathetic. I was a pathetic biker slut. Just like my
mother.

No, I wasn’t like her. I’d taken off my
rose-tinted glasses the very morning Cage had broken my
heart.

I’d walked away.

I had walked away.

Me. I’d walked the fuck
away.

And every visit home since, I’d made it
my goal in life to ensure Cage never got close enough to hurt me
again.

That was something.

Taking a deep breath, I leaned back in
my chair and glanced up at the ceiling. Maybe whoever Hayley was
going to try to set me up with tonight, I should give an actual
chance. Maybe I needed a guy in my life who, no matter how many
showers they took, didn't still reek of leather and exhaust
fumes.

Maybe I needed…

Groaning, I slunk down in my desk chair
and wondered if I could squeeze in a quick therapy session with my
shrink before dinner. I’d even settle for over-the-phone head
shrinkage.

Anything.

Something.

Fucking anything.

Feeling stiff and sore, the open wounds
on her body burning from the soap, Ellie stepped gingerly out of
Dirty’s shower and blew out a deep, shuddering breath. Grabbing the
folded towel off the toilet seat, one of two that Dirty owned, she
used it first to wipe off the steam-covered mirror and then wrapped
it around herself, wincing as the stiff material chafed against her
damaged skin.

Then she turned back to the mirror and
just stared. Stared at her split bottom lip, at the mottled
bruising covering the left side of her face, at her left eye still
swollen shut, at the angry red bite marks across her
neck.

Feeling suddenly light-headed, her
knees began to shake and she gripped the sides of the sink in order
to remain standing. What would have happened if Dirty hadn’t shown
up?

“
You would have been
raped,” she whispered to her disfigured reflection. “You would have
been raped and more than likely killed.”

Killed, because she couldn’t fathom
that the chief of police would rape a woman and then let her live
to tell the tale. And considering how violent he’d been just trying
to get her to submit to his advances, there was not a doubt in her
mind that it only would have worsened.

How could he have possibly thought
she’d want to have sex with him? And in an alleyway, no less? She
barely knew him! For God’s sake, the only reason she’d kissed him
was because of the amount of alcohol she’d consumed, clouding her
better judgment. She didn’t kiss men on the first date and that
hadn’t even been a date!

And, God, just the thought of that
awful kiss…

Her stomach rolled remembering how he’d
practically shoved his tongue down her throat while furiously
groping her and then, after she’d tried pushing him off her, when
he wouldn’t let go, his pawing worsened after she’d realized what
was happening and she’d started screaming.