Unattainable (11 page)

Like right now.

Tegen smirked at him. “Aw, what’s
wrong, West? Did I bruise that inflated ego of yours? Little old
me? Just one of your millions?”

“
Fuck you,” he
snarled.

Still smirking, she rolled her eyes.
“No, thank you. Sorry, Cage, been there, done you, don’t care to be
a repeat offender.”

“
Damn,” Ripper said. “That
was a good one.”

“
Dinner!” Eva’s voice
carried throughout the house, instantly cutting through the tension
rolling around the upstairs occupants.

“
Finally,” Tegen muttered,
shoving past him. “I was beginning to think this family lived off
beer.”

His chest heaving angrily, his cock
pressing painfully against his leathers, he turned to watch her
make her way past Danny and Ripper. Danny glared at her and Ripper
had an amused smile on his face.

“
Although,” Tegen
continued as she descended the stairs. “A beer diet would explain a
lot.”

Cage hadn’t even realized he’d started
after her until he felt his back hit the wall. He blinked, seeing
Ripper’s scarred-up face mere inches from his own.

“
Brother,” Ripper said,
his voice low. “Let it slide. The bitch is tryin’ to get you riled
up and you’re lettin’ her.”

“
Fuck her,” he growled,
shoving Ripper off him even as his battle lust began to ease.
“She’s still fuckin’ pissed at me over somethin’ that happened
years ago, somethin’ I don’t even fuckin’ remember!”

“
You are an idiot!” Danny
snapped, sticking a manicured pink fingernail in his
face.

“
I was drunk!” he shot
back defensively.

Danny shook her head and rolled her
eyes. “You really are an idiot.”

He grabbed his sister’s finger and
shoved it back in her face. “You got Hello Kitty fingernails,
little sister, and you’re callin’ me an idiot? Fuck
off.”

Their father’s face appeared between
them and—

“
DINNER!”

He and Danny jumped apart.

“
Daddy!” Danny yelled.
“What the—”

“
Don’t finish that
sentence,” Deuce growled. “Get your ass and your sorry-ass man’s
ass down those fuckin’ stairs.”

Laughing, Ripper grabbed Danny’s hand
and pulled her away from Deuce, who turned toward Cage.

“
Tegen’s back here for
five fuckin’ minutes and you already got her goin’? What the fuck
is wrong with you?”

“
Her?” he yelled. “I just
got in and you’re givin’ a fuck about her? You didn’t even ask me
how the job went! Fuck you!”

Deuce’s eyes narrowed into slits. “I
need to ask you ’bout every little fuckin’ thing now? I’m guessin’
the job went just fuckin’ fine seein’ as how your stupid ass is
standin’ right in front of me, not bleedin’. So I ain’t too sure
what your fuckin’ problem is but since we’re sharin’ shit right
now, how about I tell you what my fuckin’ problem is?”

Cage glared at him, torn between
feeling like the piece of shit his father was treating him like and
punching the son of a bitch in his big fat mouth.

“
My problem,” he
continued, “is your worthless fuckin’ ass ain’t downstairs at the
motherfuckin’—”

Cage shut it out. Just shut down, shut
it out, shoved his father out of his way, and headed down the
stairs.

Family fucking dinners, his
ass.

• • •

This was the very worst part of coming
home. Deuce and Eva and their stupid family dinners and…seeing
Cage.

Everything had been fine up until five
minutes ago when I’d exited the upstairs bathroom and ran smack
into the asshole.

It didn’t even matter that Miles City
was a small town full of small-minded religious freaks who took one
look, a second, a third, and a fourth at my colorfully tattooed
body, numerous body piercings, my dreadlocks, and instantly decided
I was a freak of nature.

And maybe I was. But that was beside
the point.

Even Danny, with her perfect body, her
perfect hair, her perfect face—she probably turned girls into
lesbians, she was so damn perfect—I was actually getting along with
for a change. True, I had to shade my eyes against her ridiculously
bright blaring pink getup, but still.

And then I’d gone to pee
and…Cage.

Boom.

Every single time, without fail, one
look and I was a teenager again, feeling awkward and insignificant.
And now I was praying to keep my sanity.

But sanity and Miles City, Montana,
were not friendly neighbors. In fact, I was pretty sure they lived
on opposite ends of the universe.

Bad mood, here I come.

From her seat on his sofa, curled up in
one corner, her knees pulled to her chest, Ellie watched from
across two rooms as Dirty popped open his microwave door and pulled
out a partially blackened bag of popcorn, waving away the smoke
that followed it.

If she weren’t so terrified of what the
future held, she would have laughed at how ridiculous he looked. It
was his third attempt at making her something to eat; his third
failed attempt. The first had been microwavable macaroni and
cheese, which he also burned, the second had been two slices of
bread, which the toaster had burned, and now the popcorn had
burned.

No bones about it, Dirty was no chef.
Not that it mattered, she was too wound up and too sick to her
stomach with nerves to ingest anything without it coming right back
up.

Deuce had come by yesterday, taken one
look at her battered face, and started cursing up a storm. Then
he’d taken Dirty into the bedroom and closed the door behind them.
They were in there for nearly forty-five minutes, quiet for the
most part, but she managed to catch a few words here and
there.

Drop off.

Deal gone bad.

We need him.

She had no idea what was going on
except that something important was going to happen and Daniel
Mooresville was involved, and quite frankly it made her even more
afraid. Deuce might love his family and his club, but she was
neither. If a man like Deuce considered her nothing more than
collateral damage, then things didn’t bode well for her.

She’d been so consumed by her
foreboding thoughts that she hadn’t even heard them exit the
bedroom, didn’t know they were standing right in front of her until
Deuce cleared his throat. Startled, she screamed, nearly fell off
the couch, and embarrassingly enough when Deuce had reached for her
to help her up, she’d scrambled away from him and burst into
tears.

He’d immediately retreated, his hands
in the air and looked to Dirty, as if seeking help from him. It
wasn’t as if Dirty was going to be much help; the poor man looked
as terrified as she felt.

Really, the entire scene would have
been quite laughable if she hadn’t been so scared out of her
mind.

Then Deuce had hesitantly suggested she
come to the club until he was able to “figure out” what he was
going to do about the situation. Ellie didn’t want to know what he
meant by that and therefore didn’t ask, but she wasn’t exactly
thrilled about staying at the club with a group of men who’d never
been very good at keeping it in their pants. In fact, the very last
place she wanted to be was around anyone with a penis and a blatant
disregard for the law. She’d vowed never to set foot inside of the
club again after she’d learned of the shooting that had happened a
few years earlier. The last thing she wanted to get caught in the
middle of was some cheating biker and his enraged old
lady.

Her ideal would be to hightail it out
of Miles City, back to her apartment in her city, and forget that
this had ever happened. Only, judging by the look on Deuce’s face,
it didn’t appear that would be happening anytime soon.

But she was most definitely not going
to that clubhouse. She didn’t care how much security it had. So,
where did that leave her?

She glanced at Dirty, who shifted from
foot to foot, looking like he might bolt from the room at any
second. He also refused to look at her.

He might be a filthy mess of a man, he
certainly didn’t smell very good, but his apartment was clean to
the point of overkill and he seemed more than happy to continue
keeping his distance from her.

“
I’ll just stay here,” she
said to Deuce, then glanced at Dirty. “If that’s okay with
you?”

Dirty’s reaction was unexpected, to say
the least. His head shot up and his dark, bewildered gaze met
hers.

“
No!”

Her mouth fell open. He’d saved her
life, brought her to his place, had called Deuce over to help with
her situation, but was telling her she couldn’t stay at his
place?

“
Not gonna happen,” Deuce
said firmly. “It’s the club or you can figure this shit out on your
own.”

Ellie felt tears welling in her eyes.
What had she ever done to them? It wasn’t her fault that the police
chief in this awful little town had tried to rape her, something
that was obviously interfering with MC business.

“
Ah, shit,” Dirty said as
he ran his hands through his greasy hair. “Don’t fuckin’ cry. You
can stay here.”

Deuce’s head whipped in Dirty’s
direction. “No,” he growled.

Dirty shook his head. “No, Prez, it’s
fine. It’s…I…just…just stay with her, lemme go to the club for…uh,
something.”

Deuce glared at Dirty and Ellie
wondered how Dirty wasn’t withering and dying in the face of that
terrifying stare, but instead was meeting Deuce glare for
glare.

“
I got this,” Dirty said
firmly. “Just lemme go take care of some shit.”

Ellie watched, more confused than
anything else as the two man stared at each other, deeply engaged
in a private conversation that only the two of them were privy to.
Ellie couldn’t even comprehend how deeply connected two people had
to be to reach that level of communication.

It was Deuce who looked away first and
jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Go,” he barked. “You got two
hours, max. I gotta be home for fuckin’ dinner.”

Dirty didn’t hesitate; whatever it was
that he had to do was obviously of the utmost importance to him.
After he tore out the front door, Deuce stormed into the kitchen,
grabbed a six-pack out of the refrigerator, took a seat on Dirty’s
lone recliner, and switched the television on.

That was yesterday. Dirty had since
returned, Deuce was long gone, and Dirty was…

Well, Dirty was holding up the bag of
burnt popcorn, looking quite hapless.

Ellie couldn’t help herself. She burst
out laughing.

• • •

Dirty stared at Ellie. Why the fuck was
she laughing? He glanced at the bag of popcorn in his hand. Oh. She
was laughing at him. Normally if someone laughed at him, he’d pull
out his piece and maybe, if he felt like it, blow their fucking
skull to bits.

Surprisingly enough, he didn’t feel
that way with Ellie. Even more surprisingly, he felt…for
her.

Earlier, seeing her cower in front of
Deuce, seeing the mix of confusion and fear in her big blue eyes,
he felt
for
her.

How could he tell her she couldn’t stay
with him? Not when it was obvious this was the only place she felt
safe. How could he take that away from her? He knew all too well
what it felt like to live in fear, wishing he had just one person,
just one place he’d could have gone to, and felt safe.

If he could give that to Ellie…
Strangely, it almost felt like he was, in a way, giving himself a
little of the same.

But none of that meant it was easy for
him to be alone with her. Not after seeing her naked, touching her,
knowing what she’d gone through and knowing she was afraid and,
goddamn him
, being both disgusted and turned on by the
entire thing.

His insides were warring. What she
nearly went through represented everything he was afraid of, the
ghosts that would never leave him, yet the physical urge to
overpower her, to take her freedom, her choice, away from her was a
burning beacon deep within him, begging to be released.

He’d had no choice but to go to the
club.

He had to make it go away.

He was like an addict, growing sicker
and sicker, needing his next fix.

As soon as Deuce had relented he’d gone
straight to the club, straight to the bar, dosed the beer of the
first club whore he found—Amanda, a bitch he’d had many, many
times, unbeknownst to her. Once she started slumping against the
bar, he’d picked her up and carried her off to his room. Tossing
her facedown on his bed, he stripped her naked and, with his eyes
burning, Dirty positioned himself behind her, poised himself at her
entrance and—

His gut roiled. He always felt sick; it
was a feeling he’d gotten more than accustomed to over the decades,
but this, this was so much worse. Ellie’s face, her body, her
smile, it was all in the forefront in his brain.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t hurt her,
not her. Not Ellie. She was a good woman and he
couldn’t.