A hard fist hit the wood of the door, making me jump and bang my elbow on the vanity. “Wh-what the f**k are you d-doing in there? I don’t hear w-water.”

I quickly wiped my eyes and turned on the faucet. I flipped the lever for the shower. I laughed without humor. It was just like the one I had at The Order, and the situation felt all too similar.

“I am going in now,” I shouted back with a shaky voice and set to undressing.

I showered quickly and wrapped the towel around me to dry. I had no other clothes but the filthy heap on the floor, so taking a deep breath, I opened the door and tiptoed through in my scant state.

Styx was on his bed, a cigarette hanging lazily off his bottom lip, strumming a morose melody on his guitar, the lyrics haunting. “You can run on for a long time, but sooner or later, God’ll cut you down.”

Styx looked so dark and powerful as he sat on his bed singing quietly around the smoking white stick in his mouth. My breath caught at the sight. His dark hair fell over his fall eyes and his huge arm muscles flexed with every strum of his fingers on the strings. He was sin personified… A sin I craved… but right now I was out and out afraid of him.

Coughing gently to draw his attention, I fidgeted on the spot, and Styx looked up. His hands froze on the strings as his head lifted slightly. He followed the path of my body, right from my toes to the top of my head.

Blowing white smoke through his nose, never breaking my gaze, he stood, placing his guitar on the chair beside the bed, and slowly walked to where I stood.

Combing long hair out of his eyes with his fingers, he then stroked a finger down my arm, my skin reacting to his touch, shivers blazing up and down my spine.

His finger ghosted down to the knot in my towel, the knot just above my br**sts. “Fuck, Mae, I can’t deal,” he muttered gruffly, tugging at the towel, his large hazel eyes seeming to turn a bright jade green. “I want you so f**kin’ bad. So f**kin’ bad…” Then he left to go to the bathroom, slamming the door as he went.

He did not stutter. Not even once.

My fingers remained gripped on the towel and I shook with nerves. I knew what he wanted and my stomach fell like a rock dropped into a lake. He wanted what all men wanted from me; he wanted what a woman was meant to do for a man… what we were created for. He wanted what I had done for men since I was a child.

With a deep breath, I walked to the large bed, dropped the towel and braced myself in the required position for his pleasure. In no time at all, I heard the tinny pipes of the shower whine to a silence. The water switched off and I bowed down in preparation, forehead to the bed, spread my legs wide, grasping my hands behind my back and sent my mind to the place where I did not feel… anything.

Chapter Twelve

Styx

They’d tried to kill Mae. Some f**ker’d tried to kill Mae. Shit! They’d killed Lois.

Lois. Dead. Gone. Known the bitch since I was a kid. Lois, a goddamn sweetheart, beautiful to the core, and I’d f**kin’ crushed her before she was taken out by a rival’s slug.

FUCK!

A red mist fogged my mind and I was spittin’ mad. I wanted to hurt something, hit something… kill someone… bad.

My brothers had looked to me for explanations when I came through the bar. Viking, Flame, and AK off like f**kin’ Ghost Riders, burning road after the bastards who dared f**k with their brothers. But I had no answers. I knew they all had my back, but I couldn’t get my head focused beyond Mae, couldn’t rid the image of Rider saving Mae’s life. That should’ve been me. I f**ked up and if it wasn’t for Rider taking a f**kin’ bullet in the shoulder, I would’ve lost her.

It weren’t sitting well with me.

One thing was certain; Mae would never be leaving me again. Fuck trying to do good by her. She was staying right here with me, where I could watch her… protect her. At compound she was safe.

I’d done everything but drag her back to my room, and seeing her holding her f**kin’ injured arm, looking tiny and pale on my bed again, made me almost explode. I’d ordered her to the shower like a f**kin’ top-grade Nazi, unable to bear looking at her perfect skin tainted by blood, to be confronted with the reality of what could’ve happened. What had happened to Lois… fuckin’ loyal and messed-up Lois.

And now here I was, in the bathroom, freshly showered, dressed only in my jeans, having to face the repercussions of acting like a total prick to the only bitch I’d ever wanted. I’d scared her shitless. I could see the fear in her f**kin’ wolf gaze.

She feared me and it was all my fault.

Inwardly cussing and dumping the wet towel on the floor, I walked outta the bathroom and froze on the spot.

Mae?

CHRIST, Mae!

She was buck-naked, pink pu**y on show, tight round ass up, with her arms gripped behind her back in submission, forehead pressed against the mattress. My f**kin’ woman was braced on the bed, ready to be f**ked… Real f**ked-up shit!

I was wrong. What I’d felt before this moment wasn’t rage; it was a slight f**kin’ flicker of annoyance, a whisper of f**kin’ anger. It had to be, because seeing the bitch I was turning crazy for waiting for me in some bastard abuse-victim pose had me in cold-blooded murdering territory.

Despite my best efforts, my c**k hardened until it was almost painful, that tight pu**y too much to deal with. I’d wanted to f**k Mae since she woke up in my bed. Wanted to rip those f**kin’ leathers off her all damn day and sink into her warm pink hole. But any picture I’d painted in my head of what she’d look like naked was surpassed by f**kin’ miles. But her like this, braced for me to rape her, had me spinning.

What the hell had she come from? What the hell had they done to her in that commune? And why the f**k did she think she still had to do it right now?

And then I saw them: layers of scars on her back. Lots of ’em. Scratches, chain marks, lashes? I didn’t f**kin’ know.

Unable to see her like this anymore, I snapped, “M-Mae! What the f-fuck?!!”

She didn’t move.

Not even an inch.

Not even a flinch.

Moving around to the head of the bed, I beat my fist in my hand. She was zoned the hell out. Off in some la-la land or some shit.

My jaw clenched with anger, rage building up in my body, causing me to scream. “GET THE FUCK UP!!!”

Mae snapped out of her molestation trance and fell to the side, curling in on herself, peeking up at me through those beautiful long, black lashes; adopting the fetal position.