11: NOVA

I flush warm with the memory of what happened this morning. I think about how sick I felt last night, which prompted me to go to bed earlier than normal. I had taken a much-needed day off work after running the store for the last two months daily, seven days a week.

I’d spent the day picking through an antiques shop a town over and then going to another town to do some clothes shopping.

“I um...I was sick last night, so I’d gone to bed early. Felt a bit woozy for some reason, but I made sure that everything was locked up and the alarm was on. Tucked Raider into his room and locked him in this time. I woke up this morning when the alarm went off. Nothing out of the normal, like noises or open windows and doors. But when I got up to go to the bathroom, my...”

How the hell do I say this to this man? Hell, it was embarrassing enough discovering it, and I haven’t told anyone about this morning’s snafu, not even my best friend, Sandra.

“And what happened in the bathroom?” Kai prompts.

Uncontrollable tears of anger and fear flood my face. I can’t hold it in any longer, and I’m pissed, a wreck, and walking in fear.

“What happened in the bathroom?” Kai repeats this time through clenched teeth.

Swiping at my tears, I say, “I had to use the bathroom before showering, and I didn’t have any panties on.”

His face scrunches in a confused scowl, and I know that he’s not interpreting what I’m saying correctly.

“Kai, someone removed my panties while I slept last night. Like right off my body.”

Understanding dawns in his pale blue eyes, and a finger of fear dances along my spine as I witness them turning glacial.

“Somebody broke into your house and removed your panties, Nova?”

I nod.

“Did they rape you?”

Shaking my head, I say, “I don’t think so.”

“The fuck you mean?”

“I feel violated knowing that someone would do something like this, but other than that, my body doesn’t feel as if...as if I’ve been sexually assaulted or molested. I don’t believe anyone penetrated me, but—”

“But knowing what happened is fucking enough.”

He bursts up off the couch and paces my floor so hard that the porcelain figurines in my etagere shake. Then he stops as suddenly as he starts. Turning to face me, he asks, “You been to the doctor?”

“No.”

“We need to see if you were drugged, Nova. That’s the only way to explain how you slept through something like that. It only makes sense when you consider that you didn’t feel well last night, and you said you were woozy.”

I nod.

“What did you do when you found out?”

“I um...well, that was a little after ten this morning. I showered, dressed, grabbed Raider and left the house as quickly as possible. I wasn’t planning to be at the store until after one, but I went straight to the store and locked myself in my office. Told my staff that I had a lot of calls to make and contracts to review. So, no one disturbed me.”

“The rest of the day?”

I get up and walk to the window, staring outside into the darkness.

“Remained in that office until I could figure out something. I couldn’t...couldn’t figure it out. I’m so fucking pissed, Kai! Like if I knew who it was, then I could press charges, get the bastard back, kick their ass or something. But as it stands, I have no idea who my enemy is. Do you know how frustrating it is to fight a faceless enemy? How helpless I fucking feel?” I shout with tears streaming down my face as I spin around to face Kai.

I hadn’t realized how close to me he’d moved. He folds me into his arms,rests his chin on my head and rocks me slowly side to side. I feel safe in his arms, as though no amount of evil in this world can penetrate the protective shield that he’s placed around me.

He lets me cry in his embrace, and he doesn’t make me feel bad about it. His arms strengthen me to experience the breakdown that I need. For the last few months since I’ve pushed him away, I’ve buried myself in the store only to return home to lonely nights.

“I wish you would’ve called me.”

“I told myself that I would. But then I got the security system and had a sense of false security.”

“I’m here now.”

Those words are more reassuring than any security system.

I spend so much time at my bookstore that I’m exhausted at the end of the night. I come home, fall into bed around eleven, and wake up early in the morning to do it all over again.

It’s the only way that I can escape the memories and longing that I have for Kai. It’s the only way that I can convince myself that pushing him out of my life is the right thing to do. If I’d allowed him back in, I would only be hurt in the end, and without him anyway. With his lifestyle, it’s inevitable.

“He left a note.”

“What note?”

I hold up a finger and head to my bedroom. Grabbing the note from my nightstand, I return and hand it to him.

“This was lying on my nightstand when I woke up this morning.”

“‘Real elegance is everywhere – especially in the things that don’t show. Christian Dior.’ XOXOXO, Your Secret Admirer’,” he reads.

Exhaling loudly, Kai asks, “Have you been receiving these?”

Nodding, I reply, “With every package that he leaves.”

“You still got ‘em?”

I shake my head. “I threw most of them away, not thinking anything about them.

“I want you to get all the ones you still have for me. Oh, yeah, I’m staying here with you tonight.”

I nod.

“I want you to get some sleep. You can bet your ass that nothing will happen as long as I’m here. When we get up in the morning, you’re going to the clubhouse with me.”

“I have to open the store in the morning, Kai.”

“Fuck that store!” he thunders, pulling back and staring into my eyes. “I care more about your safety and wellbeing than I do that store.”

“It’s my business, Kai!”

“And you’re my business, Nova!”

When I look as if I might argue that point, he growls, “You became my business when you came back begging me back into your life.”

My shoulders slump. He has a point.

“Why do I need to go to the clubhouse?”

“If you don’t want to go to the doctor’s office, then you’ll go see Doc. He’s the doctor at the MC, and he can tell if you’ve been drugged or not and anything else that we need to find out, including the contents of the drug.”

“I can’t have some biker guy—”

“He’s not just some biker guy. He was a smart-ass kid whose parents were a waste of space. His dad was in the MC screwing around on his mom every chance he got, and she covered those woes by staying doped up. Doc was smart enough to know that his way out was using his brain. He got a full ride to college at sixteen. Graduated at twenty and went on to medical school, and the MC paid all those expenses. He did his three-year residency, got his license, and returned to us so that he could use his skills in-house.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know.”

He looks away from me, releasing me and says, “Yeah. There’s a lot you don’t know. Gotta stop making snap judgments, Nova. You, of all people, should know that.”

People often judged me when they learned that I spent my teen years in foster care.

“You’re right,” I say.

“Go get some rest,” Kai orders. He plops down on my couch and says, “I’ll be right here in the morning.”

“What if someone tries to come through the bedroom?”

His eyes flash again. “They won’t.”

I nod, knowing that I want to say more. A part of me wants to tell him that I’d only feel safe wrapped in his arms, him laying behind me in bed, but I don’t. I turn and head down the hallway to my bedroom.

***

Somehow, after tossing and turning and mulling over what happened to me earlier in the day and knowing that Kai was in my house, I finally fell asleep. I’d even turned my alarm off before going to bed so that I could get some real rest.

I glance at the clock, and I see that it’s a little after ten-thirty. I never sleep this long. I can hear pots and pans banging in the kitchen, and I’m a little startled because I didn’t think that Kai could cook. He wasn’t very good at it when we were kids, but he also wasn’t interested in trying to be good at it.

I slip my feet into my house shoes to make sure that I’m not in danger of having my house burnt down.

Walking into my kitchen, I’m taken aback by a couple of things. First, Kai has no shirt on, but he’s wearing an apron. The way those jeans hang on his hips makes me want to devour him for breakfast. Second, Raider is right at his heels with every move he makes.

“You’re gonna keep standing back there watching my ass, or are you gonna come help cook.”

Blushing, I reply, “I didn’t realize you could cook.”

“Can do a lot of things that I couldn’t when I was a kid. At some point, we all gotta grow up and mature, right?” he asks, throwing my words back at me as he steps away from the stove.

“Kai, I never meant that the way—”

He ends my words abruptly with a searing kiss. His hands lift me from the floor and set me on top of the counter as he uses his body to part my legs.

I make way for Kai between my legs, and my arms lift, looping around his neck and pulling him closer. Fire burns in my belly as the flames of desire ignite between my legs. His hand slips underneath my nightshirt, and he groans when he finds that I’m wearing no panties.

“How often do you sleep this way?” he asks, breathing heavily as he presses his forehead against mine.

“Since last night. Hoping you’d come back there,” I share.

“Fuck!” he grunts, reaching down to lift my nightshirt up and over my head.

I’m sitting on my counter with my legs wide open, breasts bared to him, and nothing between my ass and the counter. Kai leans in to kiss me again as he struggles to unbutton his jeans.

The time between him making that happen and him pressing against me with an intense, searing pressure is probably just seconds but feels like a lifetime. When he’s inside of me, he releases a deep-throated sigh of contentment, and my thighs tighten around his back.

“Kai,” I moan.

“Shut up,” he grumbles, pounding inside me.

His hands tighten on my thighs as he pulls me closer to the edge and rocks deeper inside of me. When he’s fully seated, I wonder why I’m so scared to take a risk on this man. I know that he’ll hurt me, and I know that I’ll lose my way, but isn’t that what love is all about?

Shouldn’t we be willing to take the risk no matter the consequences if it means these moments of happiness are experienced, memories are created, and we get to explore something beautiful, even if only for a while?

“Kai, I need more,” I beg as he rocks into me again.

He pulls back, and his lips greedily and hungrily devour my breasts, alternating between nipping and sucking at them. My hands tug at his hair, urging him on while my hips scoot forward, hoping that he’ll slip inside of me again because my walls already miss him.

When I’m finally at the edge, he lifts me from the counter and settles me on him.

“Kai!” I scream when he presses hard and deep into me with no warning or barrier.

He takes me hard and fast, and I hold nothing back, basking in the pain of his furious thrusts. A part of me wonders if he’s punishing me for pushing him away.

Kai’s teeth sink into my shoulder as he bounces me up and down on his dick. My head rocks back as I bite my bottom lip, enjoying the pain and the thrill of this unexpected union.

His hands are hot on my body as they roam up and down my back, cupping and caressing my ass, only to lift again and jerk my hair. When my head rocks back, his teeth sink into the flesh at the base of my throat, and I cry out.

“So, fucking wet and hot! So deep,” he grumbles.

“Oh, God, Kai! Damn,” I cry.

I can’t believe that I’m literally crying. Tears fall from my eyes, and I shake and whimper at his touch and the feeling of him inside of me.

“Can’t hold it, Nova. Your pussy’s so sweet.”

“Please! Kai, don’t stop. Don’t ever stop,” I beg, even as I cum all down his dick.

“That’s it, baby. Drench this dick with your juices.”

I continue to cum to his labored grunts of, “Yeah. That’s it. Gush! Gush! Gush! That pussy’s gushing!”

When he cums it feels like a volcano erupting inside of me. The shaking, earthshattering feeling of his hot semen spurting inside of me doesn’t scare me as it should. It’s a welcome feeling, one that makes me feel the strong bond between us that never really left.

When he’s finished, he slowly lets me down, and when I reach out to touch him, he grabs my hand and stares into my eyes. We stare at one another for a while before he drops my hand and walks to the guest bathroom.

“Go get dressed. We need to leave. Breakfast will be ready when you’re done,” he says, tossing a casual glance at me over his shoulder.

“Thanks,” I say in reference to him cooking for me.

He grumbles something and then says, “Pack a couple of bags.”

“For what?”

“You’re not coming back here, Nova. Not until we figure out what the hell is going on and deal with it.”

“I don’t have any other place to go, Kai. Besides, going to a hotel would be more dangerous than here.”

“You’re staying with me.”

A chill runs down my spine, and I ignore all the warning bells and do what he says instead.

An hour and a half later, I’m showered, dressed, packed and fed, and the kitchen is clean.

“Where’s that thing going?” Kai asks, nodding his head at Raider, who’s wrapped in a blanket in my arms.

“With us.”

“There’s no animals where we’re going, Nova.”

“Well, I’m sure Raider will feel like the prince of the castle, knowing he has the place all to himself.”

“Not sure about that,” he grumbles, heading out the front door as I alarm the security system. I’m not even sure that I should bother knowing that someone can still infiltrate the system.

I slow my car to a crawl as Kai stops in front of a guarded entrance. In the distance, I see a tall building that looks like a castle, complete with turrets and guards. Is this where Kai lives?

The men at the gates wave Kai through and me after he says something to them and jerks his thumb back at me.

I follow him up a long, winding drive, and we don’t stop at the castle but keep moving toward some low-lying, two-story brick buildings. There are five in all. Just when I expect we’ll stop there, we don’t but continue further down the road to a group of cottages.

They don’t look like anything that I would expect to be on property owned by an MC. They’re cute, little gingerbread-looking cottages with tiny gardens and hanging flowers. They’re coral, camel, grey, mint, and terracotta in color.

Kai rolls to a stop in front of a coral-colored cottage that has several rose bushes.

“Who lives here?” I ask after I get out of the car.

“No one. These cottages are for visitors and other MCs when they come into town. They used to look shitty, but Roxie, that’s one of my brother’s Ol’ Lady, she took on a project with a few of the other Ol’ Ladies and decided to renovate the cottages inside and out and the grounds.”

“I don’t know what they looked like before, but they’re nice now,” I say just as a beautiful, cinnamon-colored woman exits the door. She’s gorgeous enough to be a model, but the look on her face is intimidating. Not that I can’t hold my own, but I’m not trying to come on these people’s property and deal with bullshit from no one.

Just as soon as the thought enters my mind, it disappears as a smile blossoms on her face, and the scowl she’d worn before is abandoned. She sticks out her hand and says, “I’m Roxie. You must be Nova.”

“I am,” I say, accepting her hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I hear that you’re a friend of End Game’s, and I’m so excited that you’ll be here with us for a while.”

“End Game?”

Roxie looks between Kai and me with confusion, and I shake my head laughing. “Sorry. I’m not used to that name. I only know him by—”

“You said the cottage is ready, Roxie?” Kai asks.

Roxie winks at me and smiles, handing Kai the key. “It is. I’ll let you get settled in, Nova. The welcoming committee will be back around for some tea.”

The way that she says it with the twist of her lips and a lift of an eyebrow, I know she’s not referencing drinking tea, but she wants me to spill the goods on Kai. I smile and say, “That’ll be nice,” if for no other reason than to not raise his suspicions.

It would be nice to have someone else to talk to around here for however long I’ll be here. She waves goodbye, and I follow Kai up the two short stairs to the porch. There’s a cute little porch swing and potted plants along the short porch.

When he pushes the door open, the scent of apples and cinnamon greets me, and I look around and see several lit candles. The vibe is cozy and welcoming while still coastal with its soft blue, tan, and green color palate.

We’re standing in the living room, which opens to the kitchen. There’s no dining room, but there is a breakfast nook. I can tell the place isn’t very big, but neither is mine. It’s clean, cute, cozy, and free. I can’t complain.

“Take a look around, get acquainted. You’ll be staying here for the foreseeable future,” Kai says, extending a hand towards two closed doors.

The first door opens to a bathroom with a toilet and sink. I step out of that one, hoping the bedroom has a full bath. The bedroom isn’t much smaller than mine and has a queen-sized bed, a dresser, a nightstand, and a desk. There are three doors; one I can tell belongs to a closet, and the next is the full-sized bathroom I’d been hoping to find.

It has a soaker tub, a separate shower, a pedestal sink, and a cabinet with fresh linens and towels. The bathroom is almost the same size as the bedroom. The third door leads to a private patio off the backyard, which is fenced-in and quaint. A tree at the back of the yard has a tire swing, and there’s a tiny flower garden and not much more.

When I walk back to the living room, Kai is standing there, and I can see the anxiety in his eyes. The bags that I’d left in the car are now at his feet.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah...um, will this work for you?”

“Yes, of course, it’s perfect, Kai. Thank you,” I say softly.

“Good. Well, I already checked. The refrigerator is full of food. Everything you need is here. Doc’s waiting on us, so if you’re ready, we need to roll to the clubhouse and meet up with him.”

I flinch inwardly, wondering what he’ll ask of me. I hope he doesn’t plan to do any examination because I’ll cooperate with pretty much everything, except for removing my clothes. I stop there. I don’t care how many credentials and licenses the man has; I’m not getting naked for a tattooed, leather vest-wearing stranger.