He frowned. “What ladies are you talking about, Zara? I only said I wanted you to check Jessica first. I do want you to look at my arm. I don’t think it’s serious, but better safe than sorry. Why don’t we go to my room?”
I gave him an incredulous look. What ladies? Was he kidding me? Every time I saw him, he had women hanging all over him. That was the main reason I wasn’t going to go there with him. His brothers might be able to settle for one, but I didn’t see him as being one who could. Sharing wasn’t on my bucket list.
“As if you don’t know. Fine. If you want me to look at it, pull up your sleeve. I can do it here. No need to go to your room.” No way I’d let him get me alone in there. My control was weakening around him, another reason to stay away.
“Zara, those women are just bunnies. They hang around all of us. No way I’d let them check out my wound. Come on. We’ll be more comfortable inside.”
Yeah, he wouldn’t let them check his wound, just suck and ride his cock. God, if nothing else told me how he viewed women that statement did. I decided not to say anything else about them.
“It’s fine here. Do you want me to check it or not?” I asked him impatiently. He frowned but didn’t argue. He rolled up his sleeve. I took out some gauze and saline and cleaned the area. He’d taken a bullet across the outer part of his bicep. It was a clean wound, and I thought Steri-Strips might do the trick.
“Let’s see if this does it,” I told him as I dried the cleaned area and applied the strips. Once they were on, I smeared it with antibiotic cream and covered it with a dry covering. When it was done, I patted his arm. “You’re all done. Keep it dry, covered and change the dressing once a day. If it gets swollen, red, hot, or has a discharge, you need to have your doctor check it. Later, Demon.” I spun around to head to my car. He followed.
When I got there, he put his hand on my door to keep me from opening it. I sighed as I looked back at him. “Is there a problem?”
“Yeah, why are you acting like this, Zara? I thought earlier we were getting along and now you act like you don’t want anything to do with me. What’s up with this hot-and-cold shit of yours?” he asked with a note of anger in his voice. My hackles went up. I twisted around to face him.
“My shit? Demon, you’re the master of shit. What’s your damn story? Acting all friendly one minute, then laughing and hanging with a bunch of sluts the next! I don’t play games. I don’t have time for them, and it looks like that’s your specialty. Let’s just agree to stay away from each other as much as possible. I’ll limit my time here.” He stepped back as his mouth fell open. I took the opportunity to get my door open and into my car. As I turned it on, he was at the door. Luckily, it locked automatically as soon as I turned on the engine. He banged on the window.
“Zara, get your ass out here. We’re going to talk about this. I’m not playing games with you. Fuck. You need to listen to me.” I shook my head at him and put the car into drive. He was still yelling as the gate opened and I left.
I was too wound up to go home, so I decided to go for a drive. It would help me to clear my head and decide how to limit my time around him. I didn’t want to give up my new friendship with Jessica. Maybe we could arrange to meet off the compound when we wanted to get together. That would be the easiest way. All I knew was I was wearing down around him. I’d never be able to look myself in the mirror if I gave into this attraction and he proved me right. It was better to stop it now. As I drove along, I realized I’d forgotten to write her a script in case she needed something more than Tylenol. Damn, I’d have to go back before I headed home.
Demon:
I watched as she left. I couldn’t believe she seriously thought I wanted those women over her. The guys had been right. I couldn’t help they came around me. But I wasn’t doing anything with them for God’s sake. I didn’t want any of them. I wanted Zara. I was tired of her fighting me. I needed to find a way to make her take me seriously. So, rather than run after her like I wanted, I turned and went inside. I needed to think about this.
Back inside, everyone was talking and getting up to head into church. I knew we’d have to discuss what we’d found, and what to do with May. We took our seats to wait for Ajax to join us. It was maybe ten minutes before he came through the door. I could see he was still worried about Jess. We all called out asking how she was doing.
“She’s good. Tired, needs some food, a little bruised and has a headache, but otherwise fine. Let’s talk about what we’re going to do about that bitch, May, in the Cellar,” he said as he took his seat. More than one grumble came from around the room. She’d been holed up in a house outside of town. Outlaw had found her.
“We need to question her to find out how they were able to get inside here. That’s the first thing. Then, once we know that, we can make her disappear. Any preference on how we make that happen? I know we usually don’t hurt women, but she’s an exception,” Bull said. I could tell he was less than happy. He was pissed. All of us nodded in agreement.
“I’d like to say she should suffer a little bit, but I don’t think many of us would want to see that. I know it’s sexist, but hurting women still bothers me, though in her case, maybe not,” Ajax admitted. I knew we didn’t usually hurt women, but some of us had done it in the military—only when it was deserved. We’d do what was necessary to protect our families.
“It’s not my preference, but if you want her to suffer, I can do it. I’ve done it before in Afghanistan and other places. I won’t lose any sleep over this one,” Payne told him. He was our enforcer and prior Delta Force. In addition to him, me, Bull, Bear, Rebel, Slash, and Maverick had been in the military as well.
“Thanks, Payne, I’ll think about it. I think the priority is finding out how they got inside. I’d like to let her stew a little longer, but we need to know how as soon as possible.”
“I agree. We took care of the bodies at the farm. Slash made it look like a gas leak got lit by a cigarette. They were in the room, near the stove, which was the ignition point. No reason for them to dig deeper, and if they do, we didn’t leave anything behind that could implicate us,” Bull explained for those who hadn’t been with us. Slash nodded his head in agreement.
“I made sure it went off and burned hot as hell. I swept the house to be sure nothing of Jess’s was there, and any tracks in the dirt were wiped out too. The only ones they would see are the ones from their van,” Slash reassured us.
“Good. Now, Outlaw, did you find anything on the cameras to show where they came in?” Bull asked. Outlaw frowned.
“I did, and it’s not good. They came in the small side gate we have on the west side of the compound. They knew the code, Bull. Someone in here had to have told them or they were watching and had a telescopic lens to see what it was. No way they could have just been lucky in guessing what it is. We change the codes every three months.”
“Shit, I was hoping it wasn’t something like that. You know what that means? We’re going to have to question the prospects, the bunnies, and even the old ladies, to see if they have inadvertently shared it.” Bear groaned.
“Let’s see what May has to say first. We might not have to go through all that. Let’s go find out what we can and then we’ll decide what else we need to do,” Bull suggested. With this hanging in the air unanswered, we all stood up and followed Bull. We went out to our bikes and rode back to the Cellar.
It was our confinement room and hid our crematorium. Not your standard addition to a house or compound, I admit, but the prior owners of the property had owned a mortuary. They had cremated people here as part of their services. Of course, that had been about forty years ago. It had been long defunct when Bull had bought it several years ago to be our compound.
We entered it to find May huddled in one of the cells. She looked worse for wear with her hair all ragged and her clothes covered in dirt. I wanted to laugh. She was looking at us with apprehension and maybe defiance in her eyes. She needed to be scared. Ajax walked up to her cell.
“Do you know me?” he asked her with a serious look on his face.
“You’re that biker who Jess hooked up with. I have no idea what you see in her. Must be a boredom thing, especially since you could have had my daughter,” she sneered.