Unattainable (Undeniable, #3)(14)
But a good girl like Ellie? Why the f*ck not?
Still not wanting to touch her, he contemplated calling Deuce for help until Ellie’s eyelids began to flutter closed. He let loose a large breath of relief. She was out. He could handle her unconscious. Gently, he rolled her onto her back and tried as best he could to pull up her pants. Then, with the trepidation of a grown man handling a baby for the very first time, he lifted her up into his arms, cradled her against his chest, and headed out of the alleyway.
CHAPTER THREE
Unblinking, I stared at the desktop monitor in front of me, at the e-mail attachment I’d just opened, and skimmed over the title:
“Animal Rights Activists Protest the Excessive Use of Leather at Biker Rally in Los Angeles.”
Shaking my head, I snorted softly. You could take the girl out of the motorcycle club, but she’ll never outrun those damn Harley pipes. It wasn’t just ZZ that was a constant reminder, it was the loud yet sexy rumble of every passing motorcycle. My world always seemed to stop as the beautiful machine whooshed through my life, no matter what I was doing—eating, talking, immersed in my smart phone—I always paused to watch as it flew by, and stared as it disappeared. But unlike everybody else, who might give a quick glance and then immediately go back to what they’d been doing, unaware that they’d just witnessed the ultimate freedom, a way to fly without wings, I would stare long after the bike had vanished, remembering what it felt like to be on the back of a bike, holding tight to a man.
Wishing, aching, wanting to be somewhere else, someone else. And yet, at the same time, hating myself because I knew, deep down, I’d never truly belonged in that life.
Sighing, I slumped down in my desk chair, closed my eyes, and tried to remind myself that I’d dodged a bullet. That if I hadn’t had my heart broken at such a young age, who knows how I would have ended up. In all likelihood, I’d be a Hell’s Horsemen club whore just like my mother had been. As it was, I was already the next best thing.
True, ZZ no longer wore his cut. He always ditched his bike before he got back in town, something that made me infinitely curious about what he was doing when he was away, why he needed to stay so inconspicuous, and he didn’t talk about the club other than short, clipped statements regarding Deuce. But he was still ZZ. A face, a name, a man I associated with my childhood, with my mother and all her pain.
“Jeez, Teg, you look like you just swallowed a dick.”
My eyes flew open and met with the denim-clad curvy backside that had propped itself on the corner of my desk.
“’Sup girl.”
Hayley was the closest thing I had to a best friend. We met my junior year in college during a rally protesting cosmetic testing on animals, and had become inseparable. We didn’t hang out as much as we used to anymore, mostly because she’d gotten married recently, but we still managed to get together at least once a week.
“Who let you in here?” I teased. “Where’s security?”
“Yes!” Hayley exclaimed dramatically, opening her arms wide and made an all-encompassing gesture to the small one-room office staffed with the twelve people that made up The San Franciscan Jurisdiction, all seated inside their personally decorated cubicles.
“Someone needs to be protecting all you up-and-coming Pulitzer Prize winners from the hit men hired to off you once your big exposé goes live on human sex slave trafficking, and our dear, sweet politicians that support it!”
“Damn straight!” someone called out. “Fuck the government!”
“‘If you tremble indignation at every injustice,’” Hayley yelled back, quoting Che Guevara, “‘then you are a comrade of mine!’”
Two cubicles in front of me, our sports editor, Christian, jumped up on his desk and thrust his clenched fist in the air. “‘I prefer to die standing!’” he bellowed, also quoting the infamous rebel leader, “‘rather than live on my knees!’”
“Viva La Revolución!” came an answering yell.
“Look what you did,” I said, giggling. “Now they’ll never shut up.”
Hayley waved me off and, placing her palm halfway across my desk, leaned in. Sweeping her long, pink-streaked blonde hair over her shoulder, she laughed. “Girl, I haven’t seen you in forever and I’m demanding you come to dinner tonight.”
Smiling, I rolled my eyes. “We saw each other last week.”
Shaking her head, she waved away my statement. “Last week,” she repeated. “Forever ago. So, dinner. Tonight. And please tell me ZZ is out of town.”
I grimaced. Hayley didn’t like ZZ; actually, no one I associated with on a regular basis in San Francisco liked ZZ. Either he intimidated them or just plain pissed them off. For the most part he liked his solitude, but every now and then he liked to play, only his version of playing was a little hard-core for some of my more happy-go-lucky friends.
Playing to them meant a small party, music, clinking beers and passing green.
Playing to ZZ meant wall-to-wall bodies, eardrum-blasting music, hard-core drinking, blowing lines, and f*cking whatever he bumped up against. Or at least it used to, since he was apparently only f*cking me now.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that so instead of dwelling on it, I pushed it aside and focused on Hayley.
“No, he’s home,” I said.