I closed my eyes, leaning against the wall beside the door so I could figure myself out. There was still a heavy tread to my thoughts like they waded through thigh high swamp water but the urge to be sick had retreated.
I was almost asleep against the side of the house when the low rumble of approaching motorcycles roused me.
In Entrance, that thunderous growl was not uncommon. The Fallen MC had been a staple of the town almost since the MC was founded in 1960. I’d grown up seeing the leather-clad bikers swarm the streets in rigid formation on the backs of great metal beasts, their hair long, their beards wild and their skin covered in permanent art. I’d always watched them with a strange kind of envy because I’d never seen anything as free as those men seemed to be, riding off as a brotherhood into the sunset.
After the shooting, I’d watched for them wherever I went, desperate to catch sight of Zeus, even when I knew he was in prison but especially after I knew he got out. I didn’t know if he was a part of the infamous gang because he had never answered my questions about his involvement that day at First Light Church and my memory was too hazy to recall if he’d been wearing the cut of The Fallen.
I deeply suspected he was a part of the rebel group and it thrilled me each time I heard the rumble of a bike, thinking that I might finally, after nearly ten years, see him again.
The thunder grew so close that I struggled to sit up from the wall and open my leaden eyes wider. Seconds later, three yellow-lighted bikes swung around the corner and slowly rolled down the street.
My eyes were riveted on the scene and I suddenly hated myself for getting drunk for the first time in my life because, though my traitorous eyes could have been deceiving me, I was certain that the powerful figure at the head of the trio was my guardian monster.
I watched, my heavy eyelids peeled back wide but I would have taped them wider if I could have. I didn’t want to miss a second.
I shot to my feet to say something or, maybe, to run to him but the effort was too much for my alcohol-muddled brain and I promptly passed out.
“What the fuck?” Zeus was growling somewhere very close to me.
I blinked as I came to, but my vision refused to clear so I lay still and focused on not throwing up again instead.
“She was letting loose, man. It’s not a big deal. Everyone gets like this before they understand their limits,” Reece responded.
Even from within the fog of my inebriation, I knew that was not a good thing to say to Zeus.
I was proven right when the wall I was lying against grew impossibly harder and I realized, as arms tightened brutally around me, that he was holding me against him.
“You brought her here, yeah? To party and get in her pants?” Zeus asked, deceptively casual.
There was a long pause.
Zeus took one step forward.
“Yes, yes, okay? So what?” Reece asked nervously.
“So, you got a girl with you, a girl you want a piece of and you let her get fuckin’ wasted like this? There are two types of men who do that shit. One, the pigs that need to get a woman drunk to stick their dicks in ’em willing or not. Two, the jackasses like you who don’t give a shit about ’em till your dick gets hard and you can use ’em to get off on or in. Which one are you?”
Wow. I blinked again and finally my vision cleared. I stared at the steep edge of Zeus’s bearded jaw and decided it was time for me to step in.
“Zeus, he didn’t mean any harm.”
He stiffened even more and cut his burning gaze down to me for one horrible moment. “I’ll deal with you later.”
Um, what?
“What?” I asked, confounded by his fury.
This was the first time I’d seen him since I was seven years old and this was how he was going to talk to me?
Then again, it was the first time I’d seen him in a decade and this was how I was going to see him, drunk, dumb and seriously disgusting.
The inebriated side of my mind chose to point out that at least I was in his arms which was nice.
More than nice.
So my drunk mind won out and I curled closer into his marble slab of a chest, my fingers pushing past the edge of his leather vest so I could rest my palm over his heart.
I could feel the breath stutter for a moment in his chest before he recovered and it made me smile.
“I’m not either of those guys. I did her a favour, man. You obviously don’t get this but Louise is fucking repressed and she needed to let go. I helped her do that. Though why the fuck you of all people care is beyond me,” Reece said.
He had bigger balls than I’d originally credited him with or he had a death wish.
“In fact,” Reece went on, proving that he must indeed have a death wish, “I should be defending her from you.”
A low, menacing growl thundered through Zeus’s chest. I peeled open my sticky eyelids to see Reece step back in fear at the look on my biker man’s face.
“Listen here, you motherfucker. You obviously know who I am, you obviously got no respect for anythin’, but if Lou thinks you’re worth her time then you better prove fuckin’ worthy of it or the entire weight of The Fallen will fall heavy on you, you hear me? I personally will cut off your dick and shove it up your ass if you treat her like anything less than fuckin’ gold. Under-fuckin’-stood?”
Reece blinked at Zeus then looked at me and back to him. I watched his Adam’s apple work as he swallowed painfully and said, “Yeah, Mr. Garro. Understood.”
Zeus nodded curtly then turned on his heel and stormed out of the house. I noticed vaguely that there were no more teenage partygoers. Instead, leather-clad bikers appeared through the open doorway to the kitchen laughing and drinking leftover booze.
“You kicked everyone out?” I asked weakly, safe but curious in his arms.
“Shut the fuck up,” he ordered without looking down at me as we stepped through the front door and made it to his huge motorcycle.
Maneuvering me in his arms so that I was wrapped around his front like a koala bear, he reached for the helmet strapped to the back seat of the bike and plunked it on my head, clipping it closed with one hand. He stared at me with dark, angry eyes for a second before he swung us both over the bike and let go of me to put his hands on the bars.
“Hold on tight and don’t fuckin’ throw up on my bike,” he demanded.
I swallowed and closed my eyes against the misery of my pounding head, twisting stomach and wounded pride. I closed my eyes, held on tight and hoped with every molecule that I would wake up and this would have all been a terrible nightmare. Miserably, I noticed that he smelled like leather, tobacco and some kind of tree, cedar or pine. It was better than any high drink or drugs could give me. His big, hard body was warm against mine as the cold night wind rippled over us as he pulled into the street and I snuggled close to the scent and the warmth.
“I missed you so much,” I murmured, half-asleep and fully drunk.
“Fuckin’ pissed at you for pullin’ this shit, Lou,” he told me over the loud rumble of his bike and the rushing wind.
“I know,” I agreed sleepily. “I’m pissed too. I don’t know if I’ll remember this in the morning and thinking about forgetting the way you smell makes me want to cry.”
“No tears,” he ordered.
“But I’m not alone this time,” I reminded him. “I’ve finally got my guardian monster back.”