Riding Him (Ghost Riders MC Book 5) (5 page)

I
’ve been lying
in the dirt for the last three hours, and I swear I can still feel Knox’s beard on the insides of my thighs. Jesus, I had no idea orgasms could be like that. Sure I’ve had some before. I thought they were good. Hell, it’s normally my nightly routine to get myself off right before I go to bed, but it’s never been like that. Not even freaking close. It was like my body came alive.

It was a whole new thrill I knew nothing about, and now I think, just like my adrenaline addiction, I’m about to have an orgasm addiction. Is this how people become nymphos? Maybe I could test this out more with Knox. See all the things I’ve been missing. He’s seems like he’s more than willing to oblige. He could teach me all the wonderful things he could do to my body. Maybe I’d even learn a little something for my own nightly routine.

I shake the thought from my head and go back to scanning the crowd, which is what I should be focusing on. Not trying to remember just how many times Knox had made me cum. How his hands felt on my skin. How it seemed like he couldn’t get enough of my taste on him. That all he wanted was just that. Almost like he got off on just getting me off.

There are thousands of people below at the rally, and I still haven’t spotted my target. Worse, we can’t even really be sure he’s down there right now. Cobra’s cell isn’t hitting any tower. The battery is dead, or he’s pulled it from the phone. So Knox says, anyway. I don’t know shit about any of that kind of crap. So I just wait and keep looking, playing the biker version of Where’s Waldo.

I roll my left shoulder, trying to relieve a little bit of strain. I know this is going to be a long day. I can’t be having my muscles tense up on me this early. The sun is already sitting high and beating down on me. I have absolutely no coverage from above.

“How you feeling?” Knox asks into my ear. He stayed down at the camp to do some shit on his computer. See if any of Cobra’s known men were in the area. They were generally close to where he was. Knowing my luck they probably fucking left because I haven’t spotted shit but heavy partying since I got up here. I’m not sure if this is a rally or an orgy. Before last night I would question how people could go at it for hours, but I’m seeing that isn’t so uncommon.

It makes me wonder if Knox has ever gone at it for hours. Been at the rallies with women crawling all over him. That little green monster of jealousy spikes in the back of my mind. I’m not sure if I’m madder at the thought of Knox doing it, or myself for caring.

Worse, if the rumors are true, this thing that happened between Knox and me will never work. Once things are done with us, I’ll have to see this shit all the time. Right in my face. I could barely take it when I thought he’d been with the bartender, and that was before last night. Before I’d let him do things to me I thought I'd never want to do. I don’t want to be the crazy jealous ex. I’d probably end up stabbing someone. That would most definitely get me kicked out of the club.

Now I’m starting to really question everything. It isn’t helping that thinking is all I have to do right now. Recount every little detail of last night over and over again in my head. I should be exhausted from my lack of sleep, but I actually feel the opposite. I could run a freaking marathon right now with everything that’s pumping through me.

“I’m good,” I tell him, though my chest is freakin’ killing me and the ground is fucking freezing, even with the sun beating down on me. I should have practiced sitting still more. I try to go back to when Cas and I did these drills together, how I’d gotten through the hours. It only makes me think that it’s Knox fucking with my head. When I’d been doing those drills, I hadn't even met him yet. He wasn’t clouding my brain like he is now.

“Hmm,” he mumbles back, and the line goes quiet for a few moments. The silence stretches longer than I like. As much as I want to push Knox away, I want him to keep talking. “What made you want to be a part of the club?” he finally asks, as if he can hear my silent plea.

I’m starting to think he can read my thoughts. Last night when I couldn’t get there, he knew what I needed. He pulled me on top of him and let me have control. I didn’t even know why I couldn’t get there. I was so close, yet so far from cumming, but somehow he knew. He’s reading me better than I can read myself, which is fucking scary as shit. He sees me a little too well.

“Couldn’t find that on your computer?” I retort, locking my jaw after the words are out of my mouth. After last night I feel more confused than ever about Knox. Fuck, I don’t even know what name I should be calling him. I almost want to smack myself. First I’m wanting him to talk, then when he does, I say something to shut him down. It’s almost like I can’t stop myself. The need to protect myself seems to be rather strong.

“Putting the walls back up, I see.” His tone is light, like it doesn’t matter. A small pang of fear runs through me at the thought that he’ll give up, and his words only confirm that. “That’s all right, baby, I’ll knock them back down.”

A stupid little flutter hits my stomach, knocking that pang of fear right out of there.

“I didn’t know when I joined the military I’d find a family. Didn’t even know I was looking for one. Or at least I didn’t know better families could be out there.” I feel some of the building tension leave my body as Knox starts to talk. He’s giving me a piece of him. Something deeper. At his words, a wave of sadness hits me. More than anyone, I know what he’s missed out on.

I have a family. A fucking wonderful one. One that will drive you so fucking nuts that you don’t know if you want to punch them or kiss them. I don’t know what I would have done without them, to be honest. They are all I’ve ever had. I don’t seem to fit in anywhere, but I know when I go home I’ll always fit in there. I have that security blanket, and I couldn’t imagine not having it. I can’t imagine the pain of not having that as a child.

“I didn’t really fit in anywhere before then. Kind of always kept to myself. Just my computer and me.” He says it like he’s remembering. It’s hard for me to picture, because Knox seems like he fits in everywhere. That person who can walk into a room and talk to anyone. I would have pictured him as the class clown. The center of attention.

“Hard to see you like that,” I admit, wanting him to tell me more. Anything or everything, if he would. His tale of childhood is hitting a little close to home. I didn’t sit behind a computer, but I was always alone when not with my family. Not like everyone else in my family, who had big personalities. Each and every one of them stood out. You couldn’t miss them. They wouldn’t let you. They were my only friends because, like Knox, I didn’t seem to fit anywhere else.

“You can make people see anything you like if you want.” He drops that little truth bomb right on top of me. How he keeps doing that, I don’t know. He surprises me at every turn. He doesn't have to say more, because I get what he’s saying.
You don’t have to pretend to be a badass to hide something else.
But normally when you pretend to be a badass, people don’t touch you. Except for Knox. They don’t try to grab you off the street or think they can trick you into getting into their car. But when does pretending become reality? When does it become too hard to find yourself again? To find the part you’ve lost? I had that part taken away from me. Had Knox lost something, too? Behind all those jokes, is there something else no one really gets to see? And why do I want to see it so badly now?

“The jokes,” I say, letting him know I understand.

“Yeah, baby, like the jokes.” I can hear the smile in his voice. He’s happy that I get him, that I can see it. “You know, at first the jokes were to be liked, and well, they made everyone laugh. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I soaked up some of that attention. I’d never really had it before. I wasn’t always this handsome, as hard as it might be to believe.”

I smile at that. There it is.

“And just like I probably made you smile right there, I started to see I could use that humor for something else. I can use it when times are rough, when I’m behind a computer screen and everyone I love is on the ground fighting for their lives. Fighting for each other’s lives.”

I listen to what he’s saying, and I feel all the things I’d been thinking about him slip away.

“Sometimes everybody just needs to laugh, and I could give that to them. Cut the darkness that was hanging around us. It might not be much, but it was something. When the silence started to stretch in the night and everyone was waiting for the skies to light up with impending death, it gave a moment of relief.”

“Wow,” is all I say. That was nothing like I thought. Nothing at all.

“Eyes on the crowd, baby,” he tells me in a soft whisper, reminding me that I’d stopped scanning the crowd for a moment.

“You burning up out there?”

I let out a long sigh. “I don’t know how my front is fucking freezing and my back is burning.”

“You need another layer of sunscreen? I’ll come up over there and put it on you.”

“Hands to yourself, Scribe.”

“For now,” he adds, reminding me that he plans to continue what we did last night. I want to ask him if all that stuff he’d said to me last night was true. About only wanting me and not having been with anyone. God, he was so good to me. Said all the right stuff. I wonder if that’s the real Knox or just another front he’s putting up. I need a distraction, so I decide to talk about something else.

“I wanted something that was mine,” I admit, returning to his earlier question.

“I’m all yours, Violet,” he jokes, but for some reason it doesn’t feel like a joke at all. Or maybe I try to make myself believe that because I want it to be true.

“Being a police officer just wasn’t something that interested me.” At least not since I was a young girl. “I thought about the military for a moment, but Cas showed me a few things. I fit with her. I felt like there was somewhere I could belong. That maybe the Ghost Riders was what I’d been looking for.”

I don’t tell him how I’d felt a little lost before Cas came along. I didn’t know that when I started protecting myself, it would result in pushing everyone else away. I’m not good at balance. I only have two modes: all or nothing. For some reason I don’t want him to see my faults, to think I’m broken or damaged. But he’s given me so much. He’s told me things I don’t think he’s ever told anyone. Maybe I should do the same. I push past what I would normally do and try something new, give a little bit of me.

“You don’t think I belong though.” It isn’t a question.

“Violet—”

I cut him off and talk over him. “I’ve killed before.” With that, he goes utterly silent. No joke to be found. Not even “baby.” Just “Violet.” Why does that bother me?

“You think I don’t have it in me to go all the way. That while I might have the skills, I just don’t have that final push to do what needs to be done. But what you don’t know is I had that moment long ago. You think I’m too young now. I can’t imagine what you would have thought seven years ago.” I hear a mumbled “Jesus.”

“That day changed me, and you know what? It wasn’t taking a life that did it. In fact, I’ve never had a moment of regret about that, and I’m not sure what that says about me. But what I am sure of is that I don’t care what it says about me.”

“What changed you about that day? Tell me, baby.” The last word gets me. How does the simple word make me feel all soft? Even a little bit precious. I wonder if he calls everyone that. I’m going to have to listen to see if I catch it.

“It was a cop.”

I get another mumble at that. “You lost trust.”

I just nod, knowing he can’t see me.

“Even in yourself,” he finishes, hitting the nail on the head.

I did. So I made sure that couldn’t happen again. That I wouldn’t trust myself. Keep them at arm’s length. It was for the best, but now I’m starting to wonder the cost of that. I’d only built this security to protect myself, but was I even really living? What cost was I paying for it?

The silence stretches once again.

“We’re calling it.”

“What?!” I wonder if I told him too much and now he really doesn’t think I should be here.

“Calm down. I got word Cobra is in town until nightfall. We’ll get him tomorrow when he shows up.”

Fuck. I wanted this to be done with. I expected to be heading back home soon. Not only that, I wanted everyone to know I’d come out and done what needed to be done. I wanted to be one step closer to being a full member of the Ghost Riders.

I roll to my side, easing my gun from my shoulder where it had been propped.

“Leave it,” Knox says, probably knowing I was going to dismantle it. I grab the camouflage netting and throw it over the gun, then take the bullets with me.

Making my way back down to camp, I have no idea what I’m going to say when I get there. There’s probably going to be some weird awkwardness. This isn't like me. I don’t fuck with things I want, and I’m playing a very dangerous game with Knox, because I’m falling for him. And like all things in life, I never do them half-assed. I have a feeling if I fall for him it will be hard. So hard I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get up, let alone be able to see him every day after it all goes up in flames.