Page 57 of Dirty Salvation

Back in his room, she was where he'd left her. The picture of her in his oversized clothes dwarfing her, damp strands of blond hanging down by her shoulders and the haunted look in her eyes pulled at something deep with Rider, a slick of dread for what happens if he couldn't help her. That place he never knew existed the place that said he cared-a-fucking-lot for this girl.

Having sent her away cruelly, purposefully all that time ago, here was his only chance to make it all right again, to carve their pieces back together, to see the sunshine in her eyes again and not the pain and suffering he was looking at now.

Jesus, who could say they got that chance again?

Don't ruin it, idiot.

As he placed the tray on the tall dresser and took that short walk back over to her to go down on his haunches, he vowed to himself he'd do that. If it was the last thing Rider ever did, he'd see the brightness radiate from her again.

Broken pieces could be fixed, he knew.

Whatever it took, however long it took him, he'd put his Icy together again.

"Think you can eat, baby?"

He watched her blink back into focus. Her face flushed. "Rider. I'm sorry. God. What must you think of me? I'm sorry. That was---"

"You don't apologize to me, Zara. You don't apologize, you hearin' me? You were due to crash. When it happens again I'll be here. If it happens further I'll be here, you wanna shower for twenty hours I'ma be right here. Though I kinda stink like a whore house now, so fruity, so maybe I'ma buy you something biker friendly ‘cause my boy's’ gonna give me shit for how I smell."

His eyes glinted as he said it, and he winked at her just to see her smile shyly, her head dipped, but he wouldn't let her look down, he caught her chin.

She didn't flinch.My good girl, he grinned. "Are you gonna eat somethin' and talk to me?"

"I ... I don't want you to know any of it, Rider." Worry masked her face.

Rider shifted himself up, helped her to her feet, and when he sat in the leather armchair, he pulled Zara across his lap. It felt as though they'd gone one hundred miles together tonight alone when she settled deep into him without a spec of protest, just fitted herself in against his ribs.

He kept his hold as casual as he could for a man who fucking wanted her still in dirty ways, one hand cupped around her hip.

"I don't want it hauntin' you, festering in here." he pressed a hand to her belly. "killin' you, baby. I hear you dreamin', you're never settled. It's like I can hear those soft-footed nightmares crawlin' into your head. Tell me how I can help. When you wanna talk, I'm here."

A ghost of a smile crossed her face. "You're being sweet again, big bad biker man. What's a girl supposed to do with that."

Hearing it was rhetorical Rider still grinned and answered.

"You take it, baby. Now fuckin' eat would you, before I can't even feel you on my lap."

The sound of her watery chuckle was music to his weary ears. In twelve hours or so he'd be knee deep in blood and homicide, but while his sweet girl was on his lap poking the fork into the biscuits Rider had all he needed and he was right where he wanted to be.

Caring didn't come naturally to him, and he figured it was not gonna be a new thing that he slung around to everybody. Zara was an exception to everything and he was slowly ... surely ... accepting the newness in his life.

Not about to fuck up what he was seeing as a second chance.

She called him a big bad biker man, she just didn't know how much yet, especially when he wanted something.

Wanted her.

Wouldget her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Mark my words, we’ll have a new queen soon…” - Uncle Jed

The Renegade Souls compound sat unpretentiously against a backdrop of the Colorado mountains. A picturesque scene if you can claim rows and rows of steel built hard wearing buildings with a larger state-of-the-art bike shop as its base was pretty. Around the compound was an eight-foot wire fence with a motion controlled wrought iron gate on a rolling mechanism. Censors dotted along the perimeter, not even a rogue rabbit could hop along without the cameras picking it up. Zara knew this because she'd quizzed Rider intricately that second night, needing to know the safety levels of his club. Instead of rolling his eyes, being annoyed at her, he'd sat with his legs braced, arms resting on his thighs and he'd answered every question until Zara was satisfied.

For all its ugliness unwelcoming attraction from the outside, the gaudy buildings against the wash of nature and the coming Fall in the background were quite lovely, the stark mountain peaks reaching into the clouds, she had nodded and felt safe behind the gate and fence and security system.

It would take a person three layers of intense security to get through to reach her inside the club. She had to believe that was enough of a deterrent for any fool.