Craving Absolution (11 page)

When the orgasm finally ebbed away, I could no longer continue riding him. My body was boneless as I slumped against his chest, my arms barely able to hold on as he flipped me onto my back.

“I love you, Farrah,” he said into my shoulder. His face was buried in my neck as he raised my hips and thrust hard a few more times, finally coming with a low grunt.

It wasn
’t the first or the last time that Cody would completely derail my plans, but whether that was a good thing or a bad thing remained to be seen.

Farrah

“
What about this one?” Cody asked, running his fingers across the script tattoo on the side of my right thigh. “
All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen
.”

“
Did you ever read Roald Dahl books in school?” I asked.

“
Sure,
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
.”

“
Right. This tattoo’s from
Matilda
. I loved that book growing up. Her parents sucked too.”

He ran his tongue over the letters.
“You like to read?”

“
I love it, always have. We didn’t have a TV when I was a kid, but I could always check out books from the library at school. That’s probably why I have such an addiction to them now.”

“
Me too. I haven’t had time to read in a while, though,” he replied.

“
I always read, I feel weird if I haven’t read in a while, like jittery and shit. The only time I wasn’t reading a bunch was when I was drinking all the time. It’s hard to read when you can’t focus on the words.”

“
Not too drunk to get tattoos, though, huh?”

God,
the smirk on his face
killed
me.

“
Never too drunk for that,” I joked, “as long as you can find a tattoo guy that doesn’t give a shit.”

“
How many are there? Maybe I should count them,” he mumbled against my skin, running his lips across the tattoo again.

“
Twenty.” I laughed as his face lifted in surprise. “I have ten ladybugs, though, and my flower.”

The
mood in my bedroom turned somber as my last sentence sank in. We’d been lying in bed for hours, dozing and talking. We were both trying to keep things simple, coming down from our earlier fight, but the reminder of my scars was like a bucket of cold water thrown over our bodies as we relaxed in our afterglow.

“
I wish I could have killed him for you,” he told me seriously, resting his chin on my belly.

“
Well, thankfully that ship has sailed.”

“
How long was he with your mom?” he asked nonchalantly. His hands had started trailing over my tattoos again, but he couldn’t hide the tension in his shoulders.

“
They got together when I was twelve.” I didn’t want to tell him. I wanted to forget everything that had happened before I’d been taken in by Callie, but I found myself speaking anyway. “At first it was okay. My mom was always a junkie, ya know? So when I was little, there were all of these tweakers in and out of the house. It freaked me out. When she got with Gator, that shit stopped, and I was fucking relieved.”

Cody
kissed my hip and moved himself up the bed to lie next to me, gently pulling me on top of him, our bodies aligning from toes to chest.

“
Keep going,” he said.

I laid my arms across his chest, resting my chin on th
em as he played with my hair. “So, yeah, at first I was stoked. I didn’t have to deal with all the creepers anymore. Mom and Gator were barely ever home, so that was a plus. It took a couple of years before he started creeping me out, though. Like, this one time, he came up behind me in the kitchen and sort of pulled my hips back against his, and his tiny dick was hard. I was, what, fourteen? Yeah, I think I was like fourteen by then, because it was the summer before high school. Anyway, it was fucking gross, and he tried to play it off like he’d thought I was my mom or some shit. But then he started talking about my boobs and how I’d filled out, blah blah blah.”

I shuddered in revu
lsion, feeling Cody’s body jerk. What I didn’t tell him was that was when I’d started deliberately losing my curves.

“
Did he touch you?” he asked, his voice deep and rough.

“
No, no. He never got far. By then I’d started hanging out with some people outside of school, so I wasn’t around much,” I assured him, trying to hide the lie.

There had been one other time, after I
’d met Callie and had started hanging out at her place more than I was home. Gator had stopped making excuses for touching me, and one night he’d thrown what little control he had out the window and attacked me.

I
’d fought him—hard—and he hadn’t gotten what he wanted, but it had started a chain of events that I could have never imagined. I’d wondered back then if I would have just let him, if I’d just lain back and pretended I was anywhere else, if my life would have been easier. I remember scratching up his face, pulling at his hair, and finally kneeing him in the balls to get him off me. When he’d let me run out the front door, I thought I’d won.

What a joke.

Gator had left my mom after that, telling her that he didn’t want to be around me because I was disrespectful and rude. He’d talked around her, stroking her bruised ego by telling her that he’d been drawn to her because she was such a good mom, but he just couldn’t handle me anymore. It had left my mom in a situation she didn’t want to be in. The man she’d depended on for years left because of me, but she couldn’t kick me out because the reason he’d liked her in the first place was her mothering skills. It was a complete crock of shit, but it had worked, just like he’d planned.

After he left, m
y mom became the partier she’d been before, with people in and out of the house at all hours, and random men stopping by as they got off their shifts at work. The indifference she’d treated me with before turned into hatred so vile it made my stomach turn to be in the same room with her. That had also gone exactly how Gator planned it would.

It
had been a simple yet brilliant plan, and I’d been surprised that an idiot like Gator had manipulated the situation so well. He’d left blaming me, cutting off all contact with my mother including the drugs he’d been supplying her with, but he’d made sure that she couldn’t kick me out. So when he decided that maybe I wasn’t so bad and decided to come back, my mother was willing to back him on any situation concerning me. I’d been a lamb in a house of wolves, and they’d nearly devoured me.

I swallowed the bile in my throat from the memory and smiled at Cody
, who was watching me closely. “What about you? What’s your story?”

He laughed a little and shook his head.
“No story. Grew up with two parents and Callie. I was fifteen when my parents died, and Gram became my legal guardian. Now, here we are.”

“
I know all that, dumbass,” I told him, rolling my eyes. “What about the rest of it? Weren’t you away at school most of the time? How the hell did you wind up with the Aces?”

“
Yeah, I got sent to a private boarding school on the East Coast when I was seven.”

“
Holy hell!” I gasped. I hadn’t realized that he’d left home so young. It made my stomach cramp to think of Will moving that far away in only five more years.

“
It was all right. I was way ahead of all the kids in public school, and my parents couldn’t afford to send me to a private school in San Diego.” He shrugged, and pulled me higher on his chest. “My mom came from Mexico, hoping to go to college up here, so when they knew I was really smart, she started applying for all these scholarships and shit. School was really important to her, and she wanted to make sure that Callie and I got every advantage. It turned out that the one scholarship I was accepted for was set up by this old dude who didn’t have any kids, and wanted to send one to all of his old prep schools on the East Coast.”

“
That’s crazy. I can’t imagine sending my kid across the country.”

“
Yeah, I wouldn’t do it, but I can’t really complain. I had it a lot better than a bunch of other kids in the world, you included.”

Cody
looked uncomfortable at the thought of comparing our childhoods, and it made me feel like shit.

“
It’s not a competition, handsome,” I told him, leaning up to give him a slow kiss. “I hit the shitty parents jackpot, but that doesn’t mean yours were saints.”

“
Yeah, well, they weren’t bad.”

Silence fell as we looked
at each other, and for once, I wasn’t sure what to say. I couldn’t understand how we’d ended up where we were, lying together in bed and sharing secrets. I’d never talked to anyone about my mother, ever. I hadn’t even told Callie about the stuff I’d dealt with growing up, and she’d never pressed for information. I had a feeling that would not be the case with Cody.

Eventually, he
’d learn all my secrets and I’d be screwed.

“
So, how’d you end up with the Aces, then?” I asked, changing the subject.

His
gaze moved from me to the ceiling and he let out a heavy sigh. “That’s a story for a different day, Ladybug.”

Casper

Farrah was driving me insane.

After her big blowup, things had been better for a while. Once she knew I wasn’t going to take off, it seemed like she’d gotten a little more comfortable with the situation. Comfortable with Farrah wasn’t the same as comfortable with anyone else on the planet, though. I wasn’t sure if she’d ever lean on me the way I wanted her to.

Don
’t get me wrong, I fucking loved it that Farrah could take care of herself. I’d been with chicks who played like they couldn’t change a lightbulb, and it had been irritating as shit. I was glad she could handle herself in most situations, but it was the situations that she should have called me and didn’t that pissed me off.

She
’d found a job working at a little salon not far from her apartment, and she seemed to dig it. Instead of getting a job with Farrah like they’d planned, Callie had decided to stay home with Will for a while, and I knew Farrah had been really nervous about going it alone. She’d never said anything, though, and after a week, her natural bravado had relaxed into actual confidence.

One night I
’d gone to Farrah’s place after working on shit with the club for a couple of days, and her car was in the lot, but she didn’t answer her door. I was leaning on her hood, wondering where the hell she was, when I saw her coming down the sidewalk. On a fucking skateboard. Turned out, her car hadn’t started for the past two days and instead of telling anyone about it—like maybe the guy she was sleeping with who had access to a state-of-the-art garage—she’d started using a ratty-ass old skateboard to get there.

I would have laid into her—it was stupid as fuck that she hadn
’t said anything—but goddamn, she looked sexy as hell. She was wearing some loose Dickies, red Vans, and a tiny-ass white tank top, and it was like looking at my dream girl at fourteen. Instead of yelling at her, I’d rushed her into the house and banged her against the front door.

She dropped her guard during sex. It was one of the only times that I could get a read on her, so I
used it to my advantage. It seemed to calm her down, at least for a while, and I really dug the relaxed Farrah.

There were a ton of things about Farrah that drove me up the wall, but she
’d still come a long way from the girl I’d first met. She rarely drank anymore, she found a good job that she seemed to enjoy, and even though we argued about it, she wouldn’t let me help pay any of her bills. She was acting like an adult—doing her thing without using Callie as a crutch, and there was nothing sexier than a woman who had her shit together.

She
’d also gained back a little of the weight she’d lost. I still couldn’t figure out why she gained it and lost it like she did, but I was happy as hell that I’d never had to say anything about it. Her collarbone and hip bones weren’t as prominent anymore, her elbows and knees losing a little bit of their sharpness. She was beautiful before, but goddamn, she was a knockout when she gained a couple of pounds.

Shit was good.
We’d settled into life and I was practically living with her, which she didn’t seem to mind. All the pieces were finally falling into place—Callie and Grease had settled into living together for the first time, Gram had found a senior center to hang out in when she wasn’t helping with Will, and Farrah was working and feeding her book addiction every time I turned around.

If a man who did what I did for a living could be content,
that would be the word that described me.

But
I should have remembered that the minute you settled in and thought things were good, that was when shit happened. Life was once again about to punch me in the throat, and I didn’t even see it coming.

I was on my way to the club after lea
ving Farrah exhausted in bed. She still refused to have anything to do with that part of my life, and I had to admit, it made things a little tense. I had to spend a shit ton of time there. I wasn’t trusted enough to go on any important runs yet, but I was making small trips for information and doing daily club shit.

I was also expected to be at the parties for members, and there were so many of them that there were parties all the fucking time. I wanted her with me at the parties, and asked her to go every time, but
her answer was always no. Almost four months later and she still wasn’t over the shit that happened at Dragon and Brenna’s.

Poet had called and told me to get my ass to the club early, so I was
surprised when shit was quiet as I pulled up. A new recruit was at the gate, and it was a little weird when he started scrambling to open it for me. We were both prospects, but the guy treated me like I was his boss. Idiot.

None of the bays were open, and it was silent as I hit the door to the main room. I took a
quick look around, and for the first time since I’d been hanging around, there was absolutely no one inside. I almost turned around and left when I heard voices coming from the room off the back of the bar. It was a room the boys called “church” and I’d never been allowed inside—yet another thing I wasn’t trusted to be a part of.

I debated sitting down
at the bar to wait, but as I walked toward the bar, Poet stepped into the doorway, his face emotionless.

“
Come on in, kid.” He gestured with his hand and stepped back into the room.

I really didn
’t want to. Shit, I wasn’t getting a good feeling about the entire scenario. My mind was racing, trying to figure out if I’d done something to piss them off, but I couldn’t think of anything.

Poet,
Slider, Doc, Grease, Dragon, and an old-timer named Smokey sat around the table, their faces drawn and tight.

“
Hey, brother, we’ve got a situation,” Grease said quietly as his eyes met mine across the table. “Sit down.”

I made my way to the only open spot at the table, and was glad as hell that I
’d already pulled out my chair when Poet started speaking, because if I hadn’t, my ass would have been on the floor.

“
Early this morning, Tommy Gun’s woman was attacked,” he said. “Someone lit their fucking house on fire.” He paused to clear his throat and run his hand over his hair, from his forehead to the end of the long red braid hanging down his back. “Kids and Trish slept on the top floor. Didn’t make it out.”

The
men were emotionless as they watched me take in the news, and as much as I wanted to pretend like it didn’t have any effect on me, I couldn’t hide it.

My head dropped forward as I squeezed my eyes shut.
Fuck
.

Trisha and Tommy had been together since they were fifteen years old. It was kind of crazy
how well they balanced each other. They were both quiet—didn’t really get into any of the drama at the club or any of that shit—but anyone could see that Trish was Tommy’s North Star. She kept him grounded, stopped him from doing stupid shit without thinking it through, and gave him a reason to keep his shit together and come home. She’d given him five kids; the oldest was eleven and the youngest was three. Three girls and two boys. All gone.

Holy fuck.

“Where’s Tommy?” I asked Slider.

“
Got home this morning from Portland, found the house and called us. He’s in his room. Fucker’s huge and we could barely corral him, had to have Doc knock him out,” he replied.

I paused for a minute to let it all sink in. They
’d obviously wanted me there for a reason, but I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t even think about it. My head was too busy sorting through memories of Trisha and the kids.

Their oldest, Cameron, had a serious case of hero worship for me
, and the kid followed me around whenever Tommy would bring him to the club. When Curtis, their five-year-old, was there, the worship was multiplied by two—he loved his older brother and if Cam wanted to be just like me, then Curt did too. Fuck me. I hadn’t had much contact with the girls, but what I’d seen of them, they were sweethearts. Little replicas of their mother, one of the sweetest women I’d ever met.

This was going to rock the club
’s foundation, no doubt about it.

Shit, I was going to vomit.

I stood up and took quick steps to the outside door, losing what little was left in my stomach from the night before.

“
You ready to come back in, brother?” Grease asked after I’d stopped dry heaving.

“
Yeah. Be right there,” I replied.

When I got back into the room, the guys were speaking quietly to
one another, but with one hand gesture from Slider they all fell silent.

“
Tommy took some boys up to see what was going on with one of our suppliers in Portland. Name’s Thompson. The guy’s a pussy, but he’s been a solid contact for almost twenty years, so when he called saying he couldn’t do business with us anymore, I figured something or someone was fucking with him. Sent the boys up to give him protection if he needed it, or some incentive if that was the case,” Slider informed me.

“
Turns out the man was already dead,” Poet added. “New gang up there took out his family and took over their business. Real shady shit.”

“
Why am I here?” I asked, gesturing to the room we were in.

“
Need you to go do your thing in Portland. Find out who these guys are and what they’re doing. Don’t ride your bike—we’ll give you one of the cars in the shop. Wear some of those college-boy clothes you have, get in and out,” Slider replied. “Need to know if they’re behind this shit with Trish, and if they’ve got any more plans to fuck with us before we retaliate.”

“
I can do that,” I told Slider confidently. “Leave today?”

“
Yeah, within the next coupla hours,” he said. “Don’t worry about shit down here. I’ll keep an eye on my daughter, and Grease is takin’ care of Callie and your gram. Just do your job and get your ass back here.”

“
Will do.” We stood up from our chairs, and with a nod I left the room. I had a ton of shit to get ready if I was going to leave in two hours.

First on the list was Farrah.

With Tommy and Trish heavy on my mind, I started up my bike and headed toward home. I needed to see my woman and get lost in her for a while.

I had a feeling shit was going to get a whole lot worse before it got any better.