Page 61 of Marlin's Faith

She handed over her shiny, new, Florida identification and the clerk glanced between it and Faith several times until Faith tucked herself into my side from the scrutiny. Ironically, that seemed to satisfy the clerk and I realized that the scrutiny wasn’t likely what Faith had thought it to be. The well-meaning clerk had seen a fragile looking woman with the big bad biker and had leapt to the conclusion that she wasn’t with me of her free will. It’d happened to a few of the guys and their women before. We were just another casualty of citizen preconceived notions and judgment, until she’d taken shelter in my arms. It both filled me with resignation and elated me at the same time. A weird mix of emotions that I shoved into a footlocker and kicked aside.

I wanted to get my girl a shower, and some restful sleep. I made it a point to be extra polite to the motel’s clerk in an effort to speed things up and prove the bitch wrong in equal measure. She seemed unnerved by my smile, and by the quiet use of ‘Ma’am’ to address her and I was glad for it in a twisted kind of way. Any time you could kill that kind of negative with a positive was a good thing in my book. The world was a shitty enough place without adding more to the dung heap.

I put an arm around Faith’s shoulders when the clerk slid the key card across the counter at us. I took it and tipped my head, picked up my bags at our feet, and made a point to say thank you one more time before I steered Faith back out the glass doors. I steered my girl up the stairs to the right of us and down the long line of tightly shut doors to the one that would be ours. She was trembling lightly, and I had to imagine that motels and hotels in general weren’t the best place for her to be in light of recent events.

I made a strong mental note, that if I ever took her on the road or on a trip somewhere, that a bed and breakfast would be the way to go about lodging. There were plenty of ‘em in Ft. Royal which is what gave me the idea.

I shut the door firmly behind us and shot every lock and bolt available. Faith stood by the bed, staring at it, though her gaze was far away, someplace else. I sighed inwardly, and considered what to do, what to say to bring her back.

“Baby Girl,” I tried gently, and she startled.

She turned those beautiful aquamarine eyes up to mine and I lost whatever else I was going to say. Turns out I didn’t need tosayanything. Those eyes of hers filled to the brim, silently, and she dove at me. I caught her, and she buried her face in my chest and the wave crested. Faith crashed onto my shore, the sobs shaking her, wracking her still too-thin frame and it turned out, she didn’t need any words. She just needed me to be there. She just needed to be held and to empty it all out, and that? That I could do.

32

Faith…

“Shhh, it’s okay, Baby Girl, it’s okay.”

He was always so gentle with me, and this was no exception. He held me close, fingers buried in my hair, massaging my neck at the base of my skull. I expelled my anxiety, sadness, fear, and anger in the form of tears and shuddering sobs against him and he simply held me fast and let me do it. He let me cry it all out and sooner rather than later the storm was past.

I looked up at him, into his kind and caring eyes while he slicked the moisture off my face with his thumbs. He searched my eyes and whatever it was they held and finally smiled. He looked as tired and drawn as I felt and I realized the depth of his worry, and how hard it had been for him while I’d been… away.

“I don’t know about you, but I could use a shower and some decent sleep. Can I interest you in both?” he asked gently and I nodded, too drained to speak.

“Okay,” he murmured and unzipped my leather vest for me. His blunt fingers were gentle as he divested each of us of clothing, one piece at a time. Always keeping us even, one piece from me, one piece him, back and forth until he was just in his boxers and I in my bra and panty set.

He led me gently by the hands into the small bathroom and started the shower, smiling gently, but also a little sadly, he asked me, “Do you want to shower alone?”

I shook my head. After yesterday, I wanted to be close to him, he made me feel safe like nothing and no other, and I craved that almost more than I had ever craved the drugs they’d put in me.

“Okay, Baby Girl, okay,” he murmured and drew my forehead to his lips. I collapsed my body into his arms, my hands resting against his chest, my ear over his heart. He was so warm, and the room was cool from the air conditioning unit. He let me go to start the shower and slipped out of his boxers before gently undoing the catch on my bra at the back. He let me hide against him, stepping into the tub before me so that he might steady me as I stepped in. As soon as he jerked the curtain closed he let me resume my hiding by tucking myself close into his body, though he turned me into the hot shower spray to keep me warm.

“No, let me,” he murmured when I reached for the little packet with the bar of soap in it. He picked it up and tore the plastic with his teeth, sliding the sliver of a bar into his big hands. He soaped them and ran them gently along my throat, across my chest and shoulders, down my arms until my fingertips grazed his palms. My eyes had drifted shut at his pleasurable touch and they opened to a sparkle of joy in his eyes, a mischievous little boy smile on his lips.

“I love that I can do that,” he said.

“What?”

“Make your eyes close; make you lose yourself a little…”

“Make me forget?” I asked, his smile grew into a pleased grin.

“Do I?” he asked.

“You know you do.”

“It’s still nice to hear it, Baby Girl, it’s still nice to hear it.”

He turned me so my front met the spray and massaged the soap into my shoulders and back. I very nearly melted beneath the soothing touches designed to ease my tension and fear. He was purely comforting and yet sensual without being overtly erotic. In short, he was being oh so careful of me and I both loved him for it and became extremely frustrated with myself over being so… broken.

I sighed under his gently prying fingers as he worked out the stiffness, kinks, and knots of the tension I very nearly always carried with me lately and found myself wanting for a deeper, more significant exchange between us. I turned, of my own volition this time, and kissed him fiercely, the rough stubble of his few days’ growth tickling my palms. He pulled me tight against his body, the water sluicing through my hair, slicking it back from our faces.

I sighed out, comfortably, happy, and safe and Marlin did everything right, right up until he stopped me from wrapping my fingers around his length.

“Easy, Faith. I don’t want that right now, not here anyways.”

His cock was hard and hot where it was trapped between our bodies and I looked up at him, confused.

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