Hopefully we wouldn’t have to.
As I drove down my driveway through the rain, I felt more alive than I had in a long time. And it had nothing to do with the scrap with Carl. Giving in to what I wanted had never felt so good. Charlotte quenched a thirst that I hadn’t realized was inside of me. I felt like a changed man, somehow. I was someone different than I was two hours ago.
I don’t want tonight to be a one-time thing.
Now that I’d had a taste of Charlotte, now that we’d fucked like there was literally no tomorrow, I couldn’t go back to text messages and community service. And I doubted she could either. We hadchemistry, a raw desire between us that I could no longer ignore. I felt like we were two pieces of metal that had been welded together. We were stronger than before, and impossible to break apart.
I drove down the main street and slowed as I neared Flop’s bar. My biggest fear was that a dozen bikes would be parked outside, reinforcements to help Carl. But it was as quiet as I’d left it, and Flop had even turned off the neon Budweiser sign out front. I drove the truck around back, then down a dirt path that led toward Flop’s house in the forest. When I was deep enough that I knew my truck wouldn’t be spotted from the road, I parked and carried my duffel bag back up the road, boots squelching in the mud with every step.
I approached the door to Flop’s bar with my pistol held at my side in case there was some sort of ambush. It was locked. Tensing, I knocked three times, put my duffel bag on the ground, and trained my gun on the door with both hands. The rain came down all around me as I waited to see who would open up.
Thankfully, it was Flop’s weary face that peered out into the rain when the door opened, his assault rifle held at the ready. I grabbed my duffel bag and rushed inside while Flop flipped four locks behind me. Everything was quiet inside the bar. The muscles in my jaw relaxed a fraction.
“Talked to my buddy,” I told him. “He can be here with his U-Haul in an hour.”
“How much does he charge?” Flop asked.
“Don’t worry about it. This one’s on me.”
Flop pulled out his phone and thumbed a phone number. “Shit, Jayce. You ain’t have to do that.”
“My mess, my cleanup,” I said.
Flop talked to the person on the other end of the phone without any greeting or small talk. He told him we would have the package delivered to Jacksonville by morning. Flop listened for a few moments then hung up.
“He says don’t take I-95. Back roads only.”
I nodded. That would cost extra for my contact, but it was worth it to avoid any cops. Or any of the Copperheads if they suddenly got wind of what was happening.
I looked at the time on my phone. “Now what?”
“Now we hunker down and hope the Copperheads don’t realize Carl’s gone missing. Hey! Sweetie-pumpkins? Everything dandy with our guest?”
His ex-wife Sandra emerged from the kitchen with a sawed-off shotgun held against one leg. “Carl’s sniveling like he’d got a cold, but he ain’t fighting back. Think he’s got the itch.”
“All right then. Jayce, you watch the window by the door. Should have a view of the road from the south there. I’ll take the window by the kitchen door. And she’ll watch Carl some more.”
His wife pumped her shotgun. “You heard the man. Get to it.” She smacked her ex-husband on the ass and disappeared into the kitchen. Flop looked chagrined, then followed.
Laughing at their weird relationship, I pulled up a chair to the window by the door and set to watching the road for any Copperheads. It was going to be a long night.
Whatever it takes to keep Charlotte safe.
30
Charlotte
I stretched out on Jayce’s bed and listened to the rain pelting the roof of the barn, completely content with the world.
Completelyhappy.
I felt more secure than I’d felt in over a month. It was a paradoxical feeling since my life was in danger from a meth-transporting biker gang, but that was the effect of Jayce. Sleeping with him, and having him go back out in the rain to take care of the man who had attacked me at Flop’s, made me feelsafe.
It was stereotypical, but there was something ridiculously hot about a man coming to a woman’s defense at a bar. The way Jayce had appeared in the doorway with the shotgun, ordering Carl to leave me alone, had turned me on in deep, primal way. I was still kind of shocked by it. I tried to imagine how Scott would have reacted to Carl bothering me in the bar. He had never been in a fight in his life.
I rolled over, stretched my arms over my head, and sighed. I could still smell Jayce on the pillow, and taste him on my lips. He was the opposite of the kind of guy I normally went for. Tattoos and a bike and sudden, unhesitating violence when he needed to protect someone. Momma would freak out if I took him home. Dad wouldn’t say it out loud, but I’d be able to see the judgement on his face. They would ask why I couldn’t date someone a little more polished, with a degree and a steady job and a pair of jeans that didn’t have holes in the knees.
But I didn’t care.