RIDE (A Stone Kings Motorcycle Club Romance) (43 page)

“What am I going to do, Levi? If I can’t get a social security number, they won’t let me work!” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.

Smiling at Cherish reassuringly, I said, “Don’t worry about it. You must have a birth certificate, so you just have to apply to get an original sent to you.”

“What about the second form of ID?”

I thought back to my own escape years ago. I had been lucky; I’d been able to get a driver’s license before I left. Unfortunately, you needed a residential address for that, too. I furrowed my brow, lost in thought for a moment, and then remembered that the club had a contact who specialized in creation of realistic identification documents. Chico could easily mock up a driver’s license for Cherish, but in this case, she would need a real one eventually, anyway. Better to have him do something simple, like the school ID. That would be enough to get her going on the social security number, and she wouldn’t have to wait until she’d passed her driver’s license.

“Look, don’t worry,” I said calmly. “The club has it covered. We just need to stop at the passport office downstairs and take some ID photos on the way out. There’s a photo booth down there. It’ll just take a few minutes.”

Next, we followed the signs to the office that dealt with marital and divorce records. Here, the process for getting information was a lot simpler. It turned out all we had to do was provide the names of the bride and groom, the county where the marriage license would have been issued, and the date of the wedding. However, since Cherish had been married — if she was married — in Arizona, she needed to contact the courthouse of the county where the Ranch was located.

Cherish was kind of dispirited as left the courthouse. “We didn’t get anything done that we wanted to do,” she said gloomily as we descended the stairs.

“Sure we did,” I argued. “We got a lot of information. And we got your ID photos taken care of,” I said, nodding toward the small envelope she carried.

“What good will those do?” she shrugged.

“Look, most offices don’t look very hard at identification cards. It’s not that difficult to make one that looks convincing.”

Cherish’s eyes widened. “You mean lie?” she asked.

I grinned. “I mean, give them what they want. Cherish, making up a school ID card isn’t going to send you to jail. Or to Hell.”

She went quiet at that, and I didn’t push it. We continued out into the parking lot, and she wordlessly took the helmet I offered her. She seemed so disappointed by everything that my mind was casting about trying to think of ways to cheer her up. Suddenly, it was obvious.

“Hey, let’s take a ride,” I suggested. “Out of town. Take a break from thinking about all this stuff.”

Cherish looked at the bike, and then at me. A slow smile spread across her face. “That sounds like a great idea,” she said. My heart surged as she beamed up at me. I had never seen her look as radiant as now, at the simple pleasure of a ride on my bike, and suddenly all I ever wanted to do in the world was find things to do for her that would make her look at me like that forever.

W
e rode
out of town in the late afternoon, and the traffic was pretty light. I felt more comfortable on the bike now, and I could feel that Levi was taking the turns a little faster, but never so much that I was afraid.

It was such a beautiful day, and being on such a powerful machine was a thrill like none I’d ever experienced before. It was amazing to feel the wind on my skin, and to be able to smell the fresh, clean scent of pines as we flew by them. I understood now why people rode motorcycles. Being here with Levi, I felt more alive, more aware of everything around me, than I had ever felt before.

Of course, there was also the fact that I was pressed against Levi’s muscular back, my arms around his taut waist. When he first motioned to me to get onto the bike back at the clubhouse, I would rather have had the earth open up and swallow me than do what he said. But seeing as I had no choice if I wanted to get the documents I needed to start my new job, I swallowed my embarrassment and did as I was told. The slope of the seat meant that I could hardly avoid being pushed up against him. I was sure my face was red as a beet as I realized I had to wrap my arms around him or risk falling off the motorcycle. I had never been so nervous in my whole life, not even on my wedding night with Isaiah.

The roar of the engine underneath us wasn’t a surprise, though it was louder up close. What was a surprise, though, was that I could feel it between my legs, and every time that Levi boosted the throttle, it sent shivers of response through my body. As he leaned us through the turns, my thighs instinctively pressed together trying to hold on, but instead of gripping the seat, they found Levi’s muscular thighs. I felt them flex as he worked the pedals, and a rush of heat flooded through me, pooling below my stomach. It had been hard enough to try to ignore my desire for him at the clubhouse the last several days, when I could scurry for my room whenever he appeared. Now, wrapped around him on the back of his bike, my senses were flooded with him. I felt almost dizzy with need, and yet all I could do was hold on and hope he couldn’t sense the tumult inside me.

We headed east for so long that I lost track of time and finally gave in to the guilty pleasure of Levi’s presence and heat against my body. Eventually, he slowed to a stop at a mesa with a breathtaking view of a valley below. I got off the bike and took off my helmet, my mouth widening in surprise at the beauty of it.

“Ooohh,” I breathed. “Levi, it’s amazing.”

He grinned at me. “I thought you might like it.” He headed for a large table-top rock on the edge of the mesa, and I followed and lowered myself down next to him.

We sat for a few minutes in silence, just enjoying the magnificent view and the stillness of it all. There was just enough of a breeze to make it comfortable, and I closed my eyes and told myself to remember that if I hadn’t left the Ranch, I never would have seen this.

Levi’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “You feeling a little better now?”

“Yes. Much. Thank you,” I replied, opening my eyes to look at him. His expression was warmer than it usually was, and it stirred something inside me that made me look away toward the valley. “I’m sorry I got upset at the courthouse. Sometimes I feel like maybe I’m not strong enough to make it in the outside world,” I confessed to him. “It’s just so overwhelming sometimes. Like all this paperwork I don’t have, and I have no idea how to get it. It’s like everything is telling me I don’t belong.”

He nodded. “I remember. When I left the WFZ, I realized I didn’t know how to do a fucking thing in the real world.” He glanced at me apologetically. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to swear.”

“It’s okay,” I reassured him. “Honestly, I think over the years, I’ve started to realize that words are just words. I’ve learned from experience that people can say the nicest words you’ve ever heard, but poison can still be dripping from them.”

He chuckled. “You’re not kidding.” We sat companionably for a few moments, lost in our own thoughts, until Levi finally turned to me with a long, penetrating look. “You know, what you told me about why you decided to escape? The final straw that made you decide,” he said slowly. “Did you ever hear anything at the Ranch about why I left?”

“No,” I replied. “Like I said before, you’re shunned. Hardly anyone ever talked about you, and then only in whispers. And don’t forget, I was just a little girl when it all happened. Even if they were talking about it at the time, it wasn’t to me.”

Levi reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette. Lighting it, he blew out a long plume of smoke and sighed heavily. “I had a little sister. Faith. From the sounds of it, she wasn’t much older than the stepdaughter you mentioned having. The one who’s about to be married. My father married Faith off to one of the elders when she was fourteen, and she got pregnant pretty soon after that.

“When she was pretty far along — at least seven months, I’d say — she showed up at our house one night. She was crying, and her face was all bloodied and bruised. Turned out,
he
had beaten her up, because she was afraid to have sex with him that late into the pregnancy.” I turned to see Levi’s face contorted in suppressed rage. “Instead of helping her — instead of fucking
doing
something — my father sent her back to him.” He looked at me with murder in his eyes. “Her husband beat her again a few weeks later for the same reason. She lost the baby and bled to death because he didn’t call anybody to help her.”

“Levi!” I whispered in horror. “My God.”

His face was grim as he continued, determined to finish the story. “I went after Faith’s husband with a two by four. Broke a couple of bones in his face before I was through. And when my father found out, he beat the shit out of me for doing it. So I left.”

I sat, paralyzed, watching the muscles in Levi’s jaw work as he fought to control himself. His anger was so raw, so close to the surface, I realized it had probably taken him years to push all of it down out of sight. No wonder he hated the idea of anyone knowing about his past. And when I arrived at the clubhouse that day, I had brought everything back. I was a reminder of everything he had tried to put behind him, just by being here.

Suddenly I hated myself for what I’d done. I’d been so selfish to just assume that it would be easy enough for Levi to take me in, that the only thing I would be asking of him was some lodging and maybe some direction. I never realized that I could be opening up old wounds that had barely healed. “Levi… I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe my coming here has brought all this back to you.” I looked at him as my eyes pricked with regretful tears. “I wish I’d never tried to find you. I was so selfish, and cowardly. I should never have forced you to help me.”

“Cherish,” he frowned. His eyes met mine, and where they had been stormy, now they softened. “Don’t. Don’t do that.” He reached up, and with a softness that astonished me, brushed a tear carefully from my cheek with his thumb. I drew in my breath, his touch electric against my skin.

“I’m glad you came,” he murmured. “I’m glad that knowing there was someone out there who might help you got you to leave. And, don’t say you’re a coward.” He looked at me fiercely. “It took you far more courage to leave than it took me. I’m a man. Even as hard as it was for me to leave everything I knew and go out into the world, it was nothing compared to the risk you took in coming here. Jesus, you could have been…” Abruptly, he stopped.

“What?” I asked him.

Then, before I knew what was happening, his mouth came down on mine. Everything I thought I understood about what it was like to be kissed flew away under his touch. His mouth and tongue were warm and insistent, his lips so soft, that as his mouth teased mine open it felt like I was turning to melting lava. Dizzily, I felt his arms go around me, pulling me to him, and without thinking, my lips and tongue began to answer his. One hand moved up from my lower back, twining in my hair, and his kiss deepened as he held me to him.

Levi pulled away a little, his dark eyes penetrating mine. I was gasping for breath, my lips parted. I was afraid to beg him, but desperate for him to kiss me again.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he demanded, his voice low and urgent.

“I don’t want you to stop,” I whispered.

With an almost animal growl, his mouth found mine again. His kiss grew deeper, more demanding, and I opened to him. The hot throb between my legs, which I had felt so often lately when thinking of him, began deep inside me and grew almost painful. I was desperate for something I barely understood, but I instinctively knew that Levi could take me there. His mouth left mine and slowly began to trace a trail down my neck. I had no idea that a simple touch could feel like that.

A loud moan escaped my lips, and my eyes flew open with embarrassment. My body must have tensed, because Levi chuckled deep in his throat. “Don’t be embarrassed, Cherish,” he murmured against my skin. “That’s the hottest damn sound I’ve ever heard.”

He continued to brush his lips down my neck, his tongue flicking against the soft spot at the base of my throat. My nipples tightened in response, and I arched my back, suddenly knowing that what I wanted was to have his mouth there. As if Levi had read my mind, I felt one of his hands reach to the bottom of my shirt and gently begin to push it up over my stomach. My breath caught in my throat and I resisted the urge to stop him, knowing that it was only my upbringing that made me feel that I should. The fact was, every cell in my body was crying out for him, and I knew that whatever happened, the only thing I wanted was for him to keep touching me and not stop.

His hand gently caressed the sensitive skin on my stomach, before sliding back to the clasp of my bra. Crazily, I almost laughed, and sent a silent thanks to Seton for making me go underwear shopping. I shivered as I felt the fabric loosen, my breasts heavy and fully, waiting for his touch. Levi gently lowered me onto my back on the flat rock, and I held my breath and shut my eyes in anticipation, then gasped as I felt his lips find my right nipple.

Again, I felt my back arch, this time knowing it was because my body was asking him for more. I moaned again, straining toward him, as his tongue began to lick and lap at the hard nub. The ache between my legs grew, and throbbed; I felt stretched tight as a rubber band. My muscles were taut, and tense, straining toward something I needed so badly that everything else had fallen away. His lips left one nipple, and then grazed my skin before finding the other. The pleasure was agony, and I was almost crying with it. He held me like that, teasing first one bud and then the other, until I was whispering, “Please!” over and over, without even knowing what exactly I was begging him for.

One hand gently began to touch the skin on my inner thigh, light as a feather, and I felt it slide slowly toward the place in me that felt like the center of all my need. His touch was light, so light that I could barely stand it, and then he had slipped under my shorts, under my panties and found my core. I could feel that I was wet, soaking even, and as he touched me, I was coating his fingers with my desire. Softly, he began to stroke me there, my wetness making his finger slick against my skin. I cried out, my legs spreading wide in spite of myself. I knew exactly where the core of all this desire was, then, I could feel it, and suddenly I could feel exactly where I wanted him to touch me, more than anything on the earth. My hips thrust toward his hand impatiently, and he chuckled in appreciation. “Cherish, you have no idea how beautiful you are.”

He teased me a bit, drawing back as I strained forward, clearly enjoying my frustration. Finally, when I thought I would go crazy from the agony, he leaned up and kissed me deeply, and at last swirled around the slick center of my desperate torment. Before I knew what was happening, I exploded.

The world and everything in it felt like it had shattered into a billion pieces. I could hear myself calling Levi’s name, but I had no sense of myself doing it. It was as though he had torn his name from my throat, drawn everything in me inside out with this white-hot heat. I felt myself rock and shudder, and then his arms were around me, holding me as I continued to quiver and shake. When finally I slowed, barely able to catch my breath, I opened my eyes to find Levi staring at me, his eyes as dark as I’d ever seen them.

“That was fucking gorgeous,” he murmured. “Excuse my French.”

I laughed softly as his lips dipped to mine for a gentle kiss. I was so exhausted I could barely return it.

We stayed like that, talking quietly together, until the sun began its slow descent toward the horizon. It was strange; I couldn’t member ever feeling more content, or more protected, safe in the arms of this dangerous bad boy biker with his tough shell of tattoos. He had given me a glimpse of the softer side of him, a door into his past that he took great care to keep tightly closed off from others.

I didn’t have any idea what the future held. Most of it scared the life out of me. To be honest, what had just happened between Levi and me scared the life out of me, in a way. But right then, right there, I was happy being in the arms of this dark, dangerous man. And, I decided, I needed to be thankful for that moment of uncomplicated bliss, no matter what happened, or where I found myself tomorrow.