Page 76 of Savage

I didn’t know if she was prepared for what was to come, but they’d plied her with enough coke that by the time the third brother’s dick had filled her pussy with cum, she’d been high as a motherfuckin’ kite. I’d jumped on my bike and gotten the hell outta there. I’d ridden like a fucking maniac all the way back here to the mountains. I hadn’t known why I was so pissed—this bitch hadn’t been anyone to me, but I’d felt responsible.

I hadn’t been back to the club for a week. Prez had sent me on some job halfway up the coast to Coffs Harbour, but when I returned with a big old sack of money in my saddlebags and the severed fingers of the man who’d stolen from the club, Ivy had been bent over the couch, Kick had been drilling her from behind, and Grim’s cock had been shoved so far down her throat she was gagging on it. I’d pushed down my anger as I’d walked past them and into Prez’s office, then when they were done, I’d thrown her over my shoulder and carried her off to my room. She hadn’t liked it much, and I hadn’t much cared. I’d told her to get her shit together, that I was taking her outta there. The fuckin’ bitch had dropped to her knees and sucked me deeper than I’d ever been sucked, and I’d been a fuckin’ goner. Much as I hated to admit it. I have a complex, much like my brother Kick. I wanted to save the girl from herself because she couldn’t.

Who knows what might have happened if she hadn’t shown up at the clubhouse lookin’ for me? She might’a ended up dead beneath that bridge like I’d heard her friend had, or she might’a gotten rescued by some fuckin’ tool with more money than sense, lookin’ for a bitch to clean up and tame who wouldn’t bleed him dry for his trust fund. A real life fuckin’Pretty Woman. I knew that wasn’t likely; power-hungry men didn’t fuck women like Ivy. Bikers. Scum of the earth, immoral, baseless bikers fucked Ivy. Bikers like me. Wasn’t supposed to fall in love with her, though. That shit definitely wasn’t supposed to happen.

I’m lying in the dark, angry as a cut fuckin’ snake, horny and fed up with all of her bullshit when her footsteps come padding softly down the hall. For a half second, I expect that she’s coming to raid my bathroom cupboards, checking for anything she can get her dainty little fucking hands on. But she stops in my doorway. I watch her in the dark, wanting to give her everything her little heart desires, and wanting her to have more self-respect. I sigh. “You gonna stand there all fuckin’ night? Or are you gonna tell me what the fuck you want?”

She exhales and whispers, “I need it, Tank.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” I mutter, shaking my head and glaring up at the ceiling with its ghostly moonlit shapes and shadows.

“I can’t stop trembling. I can’t stop thinking about it. Please? Please?” she sobs.

“I ain’t got what you want, darlin’. And even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to ya anyway. You gotta get better, and pumping that shit into your veins isn’t gonna get you better, it’ll kill ya.”And more than likely me. “Go to bed, Ivy.”

“Can I … Can I stay with you?”

“That depends. You gonna hold a knife to my fuckin’ throat like you did yesterday? You gonna get me all worked up again like you did before, and then hold my fuckin’ cock hostage until I give up the goods?”

She shakes her head, and I sigh and pull back the covers, inhaling sharply as she slides between them in only her singlet top and panties. Fuck me. It’s a good thing I don’t belong to another club, because I swear I must have the patience of a fuckin’ saint.

“Tank?”

“Yeah, Ivy?”

“Why am I here?” she asks, and her voice is so tiny, so broken. I’ve had this woman every which way possible. I’ve fucked her hard and fucked her slow, and I’ve treated her like the dirty whore she thinks she is. I’ve kicked her out on her arse when she cried after fucking her senseless, and I’ve done unspeakable things to her. I’ve called her every fuckin’ insult in the book. I’ve used and abused her. I’ve left her aching, and a broken, emotional mess, just like the rest of my club brothers have.

So why do I find it so fucking hard to tell her that I want to be the one to save her?

Why can’t I tell her that she’s my weakness? That she’s the only woman, aside from my mother, that I’ve ever … loved. That she’s the only bitch I want to see on the back of my bike, and that by her throwing her life away for some dumb fucker who only wanted to use her pain to make himself feel better, made her stupid. Because the whole time she had some other dickhead fawning over her like a lovesick fuckin’ puppy, she had this fuckin’ chump right here who’d do anything for her, including take a bullet to the brain.

I can’t tell her, because it means admitting I’m weak. Because it gives my enemies ammunition—hell it gives my fuckin’ club brothers ammunition. I’m not like the rest of them. I don’t get my jockstrap all fuckin’ twisted up over a woman, sometimes several women. I don’t feel, because feeling is weakness. Love is weakness. I’ve seen what it does to you when you have it and lose it, and I’ve seen the monster it can make of men who want to take it from you. And I won’t let that happen. But I won’t let her kill herself with coke either.

“You’re here because you need to get clean, Ivy. Prez is done. The club is done. If you can’t be useful, you can’t stop OD’ing, you’ll be thrown out on your arse.”

“I know that,” she snaps. “What I don’t understand is, why am I here? In your cabin? I’ve seen what happens to girls who can’t be of any use to the club. Why am I here, Tank?”

She rolls towards me and the moonlight outlines her face and her raven black hair spread out on my pillow. I have to fight the urge to touch her.

“Why am Ihere?” she whispers.

I know what she’s asking, and it would be nothing to give it to her. It would be nothing to explain why she hasn’t been tossed out on her arse, with only the clothes on her back and a bunch of STDs to keep her company. But I’m not that good a man. I could easily assuage her fears, but I won’t because it means giving herself more of me than I’m willing. It means demands, and promises, and maybe betrayal someday, and watching her being stripped of her dignity if my enemies ever got hold of her—and I have plenty of those. You don’t become hitman for the Angels or the Saints without racking up a nice little stack of enemies, all just waiting for the right time to swoop in and lodge a bullet in your brain. I have a state-of-the-art security system installed in my house for a reason, and it’s got nothing to do with naughty little club whores who can’t get themselves clean and want to run away to get their next fix.

“You’re here because I feel responsible for you.”

“Why?”

I scrub my hand over my face and try not to let my agitation leak out when I say, “Because if you hadn’t come to the club lookin’ for me, you wouldn’t have been surrounded by as much shit as you could get your hands on twenty-four fuckin’ seven.”

“I was a junkie before I met you, Tank. If it weren’t for the club, I’d likely be dead by now. That’s not news to anyone.”

“Don’t mean shit. I wanna help you, sweetheart, but you gotta let me.”

“Why do you want to help me? The others don’t care what happens to me, so why you?”

“The others do care—”

“Not Kick. He has his new plaything now—”

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