“Are you really asking me if I’m okay?” I snort.
Tanner, finding the humor in his question, laughs too. “Yeah, I guess I am.” Throughout the years it’s been that smile of his that’s taken me out of every dark place I’ve ever been in, and although my family situation is far from ideal, Tanner always makes me feel like as long as I have his smile, I am the luckiest girl in the world.
“Can I try something?” I ask. He looks at me and raises a brow.
“Sure, what’s up?”
I don’t answer, instead I pull my t-shirt over my head and unclasp my bra. “What are you doing?” he whispers, his eyes wide as he stares at my bare breasts for the first time.
“Just tell me if I hurt you,” I say, pushing my jean shorts down until I am only in my cotton panties.
“Ray, you don’t have to do this. I don’t want you to have sex with me because you feel sorry for me. I don’t want pity sex from you.”
“Pity sex?” I bark loud enough for other people in the house to hear. “Pity sex?” I repeat in a whisper. “Tanner Redmond, this isn’t pity sex. This is just making the most out of life.” I straddle him and look for signs of him being in pain. There aren’t any. I grab his wrists and place the palm of his hands on my breasts.
“I don’t want to do it this way, Ray,” Tanner says, although something stiffening in his jeans tells me otherwise. He must read my face. “No, I want to. Of course I fucking want to.” Tanner never cursed, but there was excitement in his voice. “Roll over.” He pushes me off of him until I am flat on my back. He stands up and removes his shirt. His once muscled and tanned body has been replaced with pale skin over protruding bones. He is still beautiful to me.
He would always be beautiful to me.
I lift my hips and pull off my panties. His boxers tent as he gazes down at me. “Under the covers,” he says. I shift and raise up my comforter and sheet, scooting underneath. He pushes down his boxers and I lift up the covers so he can join me. I spread my legs and he settles himself on top of me, his arousal pressed up against my stomach.
For the first time in our lives we are skin to skin.
“Are you nervous?” Tanner asks. He could probably feel my heart pounding like a hammer and fluttering at break neck speeds in my chest. Because I feel his and it is doing the exact same thing.
“No,” I lie.
“Me either,” he lies.
Tanner kisses me and after a few minutes, he positions himself with his hand and slowly enters me. It hurts at first. Just a little pinch of pain, but then it’s gone. It doesn’t feel good, it’s uncomfortable at best, but it feels good to be sharing this with him.
It is over in just a few minutes. He collapses on top of me and kisses my neck. “I love you, Ray. I love you so much it hurts.”
And it did hurt.
So much.
“Holy Shit!”
I clasped my hands over my mouth in surprise.
“What? Did you remember something?” Tanner asked eagerly, searching my eyes for his answer.
I nodded slowly, unable to explain to him what it was I just experienced.
Tanner shook my shoulders like he was trying to shake my answer from me. “Ray! What did you remember? What is it? Tell me!”
“I just remembered…”
“What? What did you just remember?”
“I just remembered—that I love you.”
King
I heard Bear before I saw him. His muffled scream ripped through the air, the breeze carrying it over the lake and right to my face as if he were standing there screaming at me.
I’d raided one of Preppy’s storage houses in the woods and found exactly what I’d needed.
“Zombie apocalypse supply center,” Preppy corrected.
I’d even found a charged burner in the shed, but when I’d called the MC and asked for Bear’s old man, the kid who answered told me Chop wasn’t taking calls. When I dialed Chop’s cell, it went to right to voicemail. I called every single member of Bear’s MC whose number I had memorized, but as soon as they heard it was me calling, they’d all hung up without even letting me explain that Bear was in trouble.
I left voicemails. I sent texts.
Nothing.
The Beach Bastards MC, with the exception of Bear, were working their way up to the top of my list of motherfuckers who needed to be taught a lesson in manners.
In respect.
In fucking brotherhood.
“We don’t need those motherfuckers, Boss Man,” Preppy chimed in. “We got this shit. Well, we’d have this shit if I could hold my gun, or had a body, or was fucking alive. Then we would sooooo totally have this shit.”