Haven: Renegade Saints MC (3 page)

Victoria

The tears surprised me as much as they surprised Max. His face went white when I started bawling, and I dipped my head to my lap, trying to shield my eyes.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know where this came from. I hate talking about him,” I added, biting my lower lip.

“I want to know everything I can,” Max said in a calm voice. “Is that okay?”

I looked at him. Max’s dark eyes were serious and I could tell there was no laughter in them now. Whenever I’d seen Max before, he’d alternated between intense and off the deep end. My father had trusted him with his life, and the other guys seemed to love him. But I could tell Max had a dark edge that he didn’t readily expose to just anyone.

“Okay,” I said softly. Max nodded, eager for me to begin. “We met in college,” I said. “I, um, had a class with him. I had a crush on him almost immediately, but he didn’t ask me out for a long time.”

“When did he start becoming abusive?”

I cringed. When I thought about it now, I was embarrassed that I’d wasted so many years of my life on someone who had treated me like garbage. He’d distanced me from all of my friends, except for Kitty, and he’d made me question almost every single moment of my existence.

“About a month in,” I said softly as I told Max about the “incident” with the red dress. “He…it really surprised me, you know? I knew he was weird, but I never thought he was the kind of guy who would jerk me around and yank me by the arm just because he was unhappy with me.”

Max shrugged. I could tell he was angry, but somehow managing to hold everything in. “That’s how it starts,” he said, looking away. “The abuser always wants to make sure you’re isolated before trying anything too bad. He wants to make sure you don’t have anywhere to go.”

“I lost all of my friends,” I admitted. “The only friend I still have is Kitty. You remember her? That blonde girl who used to live across the street from me.”

Max nodded again. “What kind of shit has he been doing lately?” When I didn’t respond, Max licked his lips and stared at me. “Tell me about the breakup, Tori,” he added, this time in a gentler voice. “Tell me what you said to him, and the things he’s threatened you with.”

I winced. These wounds were more recent, and I hated thinking about them. “Okay,” I said softly. “I broke up with him about a month ago. The…the violence had gotten really bad,” I added, feeling my voice shake. In my chest, my heart was beating but it felt hollow, devoid of love. “There was one really bad night where we were going to go out. I did something to piss him off, I don’t even remember what it was now. It was probably something really stupid. But either way, he was furious with me. He told me that he was leaving and that I wouldn’t ever see him again.” I looked away, ashamed of what came next. “I’m not proud of it, but I begged him to stay. I grabbed him by the arm when he tried to leave. And then he took off his belt…” My voice faltered.

“It’s okay, Tori,” Max said. “I’m here. You can talk to me. You can trust me, remember?”

I nodded. “I just hate talking about this,” I said as a hot tear squeezed out of my eye. “It makes me feel so stupid.”

“You’re not stupid,” Max said in an even voice. “You’re really brave, and I promise this will get easier.”

Taking a deep breath, I made myself continue. “He took his belt off and he beat me with it,” I said. My voice sounded wooden, clinical, almost dull. “And when he was done with that, he started using his fists. My face was so swollen that I couldn’t leave the house.”

Max let out a deep breath and I saw that he was shaking. “I’m sorry,” he said, giving me an odd, tight little smile. “I don’t know how to hear this stuff without getting furious,” he added. “It sickens me that someone would have treated you like that.”

I looked away. “I don’t even feel like it happened to me,” I said softly. “I feel like it happened to someone else, some other girl.”

I didn’t exactly know what to think about Max. I liked him, against my better judgment, but there was some tiny voice in the back of my head that was telling me not to trust him. After all, this was the man who was supposedly involved with my father’s death. This was the man who was possibly a killer. He was a good listener though, and I realized that I was starting to feel more calm than I had in ages.

“You can’t stay at your place anymore, Tori,” Max said.

I gaped. “Are you kidding me?” My mind started racing. Right now, I didn’t have the money to move out. My dad had left me an inheritance, but I wouldn’t be able to touch it until I turned thirty.

“I’m dead serious,” Max replied. “It’s obviously not safe for you. Has he broken in before?”

I bit my lip. “I had the locks changed when I broke up with him,” I replied. “But he’s tried to get in all the same.”

Max shook his head. “That’s not going to change,” he said gruffly. “A guy like Silas won’t be satisfied until you’re in the hospital, or dead.”

A strange wave of emotion came over me. I couldn’t begin to explain it, but somewhere, deep down, I felt like I was starting to have an anxiety attack.
“I don’t feel good,” I said slowly. “I mean, this is a lot for me to take in.”

“I know,” Max replied. “But it’s for your own safety.”

I laughed. “And just where do you think I should go? I can’t go live with Kitty, she has roommates and they wouldn’t allow it. And it’s not like I have a couple thousand lying around for a security deposit and rent in a new place.”

Max looked at me. “You have to move in with me,” he said. “That’ll keep Silas away from you. He’s too stupid to fuck with me, and if he’s not, I’ll take him down in an instant. Plus, the other guys from the MC can stand guard if I have to leave the house.”

I frowned. “You mean I’m supposed to stay locked up in your house?”

“Well, you’re a blogger, aren’t you?”

I let out a long sigh. I was a food blogger, and despite what had happened with Silas, things had actually been going pretty well for me. I’d been invited to judge a couple of cooking competitions, one of them was even in California. But I didn’t see a way for that to happen now.

“I work from home,” I said in an icy tone. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t ever need to leave. I can’t stay inside all day,” I whined. “Come on, Max. That’s ridiculous.”

Max glared at me. “Tori, this is your life we’re talking about,” he said sternly. “Don’t you place more value on yourself than that?”

I glanced down. “I just…” I sighed. “Fine, I’ll move in with you.”

“That’s not all,” Max said. “We should get married. That way you have my protection and the full protection of the club. I don’t think anything will happen to me, but if it does…but if it does, you’ll be taken care of.”

I gaped at him. “You can’t be serious,” I said with a little laugh. “You’re joking, right?”

Max stared back at me. “I’m not kidding,” he said. “This isn’t a joke, Victoria.”

I winced. “Please don’t call me that,” I replied. “It’s Tori now.”

“I’m sorry,” Max said. He shook his head. For a moment, I had the urge to tell him how much I loved hearing my real name. Or rather, I used to love hearing my full name. Until Silas ruined it for me.

“I know,” I said. “I’m asking a lot of you…”

“Not so much,” Max said. He grinned at me. “I have to protect you, you deserve the protection of the MC. Your dad would have wanted that.”

“I just…I don’t know if I can go through with this,” I said. “This…seems extreme.”

“Tori, Silas isn’t going to stop until he’s really hurt you,” Max said. “This isn’t extreme. What would be extreme is you winding up in the hospital.”

I bit my lip.

“You’re vulnerable as a single woman,” Max said. “If you marry me, that’s automatic, guaranteed protection.”

I blinked at him. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting when I went to Max for help, but this definitely wasn’t it. I thought that maybe he and his guys could ride by Silas’s house and scare him, maybe threaten to kick his ass or something until he left me alone. But move in with Max? Move in and get married to someone I barely knew? It seemed ridiculous.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, what’s in this for you?”

Max hesitated. “I have to protect you,” he said simply. “You’re vulnerable, and you need protection, and you have a shithead of an ex-boyfriend who thinks that beating women is acceptable.”

My head was spinning. I didn’t even know what to say, I was so shocked. At first, when he’d suggested getting married, it sounded like a joke, like something he would have said to get rid of the lingering tension in the room. But now that I knew he was serious, I felt flustered. My whole body was shaking and it was scary, like having to make a serious decision on the spot.

“This will affect the rest of our lives,” I said softly. “Are you sure? Are you sure you can do this?”

Max nodded. “I’m damn positive,” he said.

I sat back in my seat and blinked. Remembering my beer, I reached forward and drank the rest of the glass in one gulp.

“Silas is going to keep chasing you until you’re dead,” Max said in a low, serious voice. “Tori, you wouldn’t have come to me for help if you didn’t think it was serious. Now that you know it is, what are you going to do? And you realize I can’t let you just leave,” he added. “I’ll have to watch you, no matter what we do. But it’s going to be even worse for you if you don’t listen to me and take me up on the offer.”

I closed my eyes. Behind my lids, colors were swirling around in a frenzy, a frantic pattern of reds and light greys. It looked like the color of a bruise, like my wrists.
Like my face will look if Silas can get to me
, I thought with a shiver.

I knew something had to be done, but goddamn if I was going to like doing it.

Max

I watched as a swirling pattern of emotions took over Tori’s face. First, she was shocked. Her lips hung open and her eyes were white and wide. Then, when she realized I was being serious, she seemed amazed. And surprised, and maybe a little disbelieving.

“I don’t know,” Tori kept saying. “I just…I just don’t know. It doesn’t seem like a good idea, Max.”

“It’s the only idea I have,” I said gruffly. “And just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean you have to shit on it.” Part of me was angry. I’d promised Kristoff that I’d always care for his daughter, no matter what. And if that meant marrying her, then so be it.

Honestly, deep down, I didn’t mind so much. Tori was smoking hot, and ever since she’d grown up, I’d wanted to take her for my own. Even if only for a night. Even if only for the shortest amount of time possible. I wanted those long legs wrapped around me, I wanted to feel the heat from her petal-soft lips. I wanted her musky, sweet smell to wash over me and take me over until I was drowning in Tori.

“It won’t be so bad,” I said with a grin. “I have a big house, you know?”

The mention of marriage brought up an unexpected memory.
Talia.
Talia was the woman I’d actually fallen in love with years ago. Talia was a woman who had broken my world apart, a woman who had come in and destroyed everything.

Back in my early twenties, I thought I was set to be an outlaw for the rest of my life. I’d just become a patched member of the Renegade Saints, and I was riding high on pride and hormones. Lust and the urge to get myself into trouble were around every corner. The guys and I would go out every night, carousing and fucking our way around Marquette. It wasn’t long before I had a line of credit at every strip club in town, and even some outside of town.

Those days had been some of the best of my life. Now, looking back was painful, almost like looking through a broken mirror. But back then, I’d loved being alive. I was young and powerful, and nothing could touch me. I thought I was immortal. I fucked a different girl every night and vowed to never fall in love. There were some women who I appreciated, but that wasn’t the same kind of thing as love.

And then I met Talia. She changed everything. She threw my world upside down, and before I knew it, I was head over heels in love with her. She was crazy, she was loud, she was brash. And then when I least expected it, she was shy. She was ladylike. She knew how to eat pasta with a spoon. She was basically a man’s dream come true. The kind of woman who wanted to be fucked hard every night and then delicately taken out to breakfast in the morning. The kind of woman who would make you laugh by mouthing curse words in public places. Talia had wild black hair and dark eyes. A couple of the other guys in the MC always used to joke that she looked like my sister, but I knew she was more than that. We were soulmates.

I’d asked her marry me six months after we met. She was eager to put the ring on her finger, and she couldn’t wait to be my wife. But then she died, and it fucking crushed me. The circumstances of Talia’s death were mysterious, and although I had my suspicions, I never figured out who had been involved.

After Talia died, nothing was the same. I couldn’t go back to the way I’d lived before. It felt empty, false. My guys always told me, “Fake it ’til you make it,” so I kept at it. I kept going out, fucking and drinking and drinking and fucking until everything was one big blur of pussy and beer and whiskey in front of my face, twenty-four hours a day.

I’d only recently started to enjoy living again. This had been almost ten years ago, but I’d thought about Talia every day after she died. Even though her face started to blur in my mind, I couldn’t get the sharpness of emotion out of my head: how it felt to fall in love. What it felt like to have a soul-crushing argument with the woman I loved, how good it felt to make up afterwards.

But there was no danger of that ever happening again. Tori was gorgeous, but she was the same woman I’d known growing up. She was Kristoff’s daughter, a fiery redhead with a spitfire personality. Right now, she needed my help. I wanted to help her. There wasn’t a chance that I’d fall in love with Tori like I’d fallen in love with Talia. With Talia, we’d been equals. Two wild people running free, trying to break the bonds of society and rule together as outlaws. But Tori needed my help; she was dependent on me for everything.

“Just marry me,” I said. “Come on, Tor. It’s not something you need to keep thinking about. If you want to stay safe, this is the only option.”

Tori looked up at me with her gorgeous green eyes. There was a blush on her pale cheeks and I could feel my cock stiffening in my pants. For all the talk I made about not being able to fall in love with her, I knew I’d be able to fuck her just fine. She was hot, maybe one of the hottest women I’d ever seen.
And she’s gonna be yours
, I thought to myself with a grin.

So maybe I wasn’t the biggest gentleman in the world. Sure, I was offering Tori lifetime protection. But I was also guaranteeing that I’d get laid with a hot piece whenever I wanted. I grinned; I couldn’t help it. A deal this nice hadn’t
ever
fallen in my lap before.

Since I’d fallen so hard for Talia, I knew there wasn’t a chance I’d get my heart broken with Tori. And judging from her attitude—the kind of coy way she was holding back from me—I didn’t think it would be a problem for her. Deep down, I felt really bad for her. After all, her biggest relationship had been with an abusive asshole. But that meant her head had to be all kinds of fucked up, that there wouldn’t even be room for her to love me.

Maybe it was a good thing she was so preoccupied with Silas. I had a feeling that Tori was the kind of woman who could let her emotions take the best of her, and that maybe she’d always think before acting.

“Tori, come on,” I said. “You know this is the right idea.” I reached out, intending to grab her arm, but she twisted away and my hand fell on her knee. Her skin was bare; she was wearing a skirt and a blouse, and she jumped but didn’t push me away. I could feel her pulse racing under her skin.

My cock chafed against my pants. Suddenly, I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anyone. She was right there, so close, right in front of me. Mine for the taking.

“We can divorce later, if you want,” I said, massaging her thigh with my thumb. Tori bit her lip and blushed bright red. “I mean, if you think that would be better for both of us. If you want me to agree to it now, I’ll even put it in writing,” I added, knowing that I’d rip up the piece of paper immediately after signing. Now that Tori was going to be mine, I wasn’t going to let her go.
At least not without a few rounds of hot sex
, I thought wickedly.
She’s going to be mine, even if only temporarily
.

“I can’t marry a man who might have killed my father,” Tori blurted out. She shoved my hand off her leg at the same time and stood up on wobbly ankles.  A red flush was covering her face and I found myself feeling both aroused and incredibly angry.

Anger flared up in me so sharply that I saw red. What the fuck was this broad talking about? I was loyal to her father! I
loved
her father! He was like a father to me, and ever since he made me promise to protect his daughter, I knew I had to obey him. Even if it was his dying wish, I wouldn’t be able to back down. I was so mad at her!

“You’re being an ignorant bitch,” I said, my voice low and warning. Tori stared at me. The air changed between us, became more tense. I could feel lust crackling between our bodies. Tori sighed, and her sweet, musky scent washed over me like an ocean. Without even thinking about what I was doing, I reached forward and tangled my hand in her long red hair, pulling her close to me. Tori was breathing hard, and her lips were slightly parted. Her green eyes were wide open and I could see the pulse of her heartbeat in her delicate, long throat. Tori’s legs went on for days, and I felt a lick of desire shoot through me as I imagined what she would look like without any panties on. I imagined soft curls between her legs, leaking moisture.

God damn,
I thought. I couldn’t ever remember being this turned on in my entire life. It was like an arrow straight to the crotch, filled with a hormone that made me want to bend her over and fuck her raw.

Tori stretched. I misinterpreted her movement as trying to get away from me, and for a brief moment, we tussled. Then, before I knew it, my lips were pressing down on hers. Tori let out a small gasp as I kissed her, but she didn’t pull away. She tasted like beer and strawberries, and I closed my eyes, sucking on her full lower lip and sliding my tongue into her mouth.

Tori’s body was stiff against mine. For a moment, I thought she was going to slap me. Then she pushed herself closer and wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me hungrily towards her. I realized that she’d debated pushing me away and decided it against it. Her little nipples were stiff and hard—I could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra—and they brushed against my chest, making me feel like I was going to come in my pants. She was an amazing kisser; Tori knew how to deliver light pecks and bites, mixed with generous tongue. My cock was aching by the time we parted.

Tori gazed up at me. She was panting, and she wiped her mouth with the back of her hands. “I don’t know what that was,” she said softly. “I’m sorry if I did something wrong.”

I grinned and winked at her. “Baby, you didn’t do nothin’ wrong,” I replied. “Come here,” I added.

Tori looked up at me. Her eyes had that big, scared look again, and I could tell she was hesitating. She was so sweet, just that little inkling that she was thinking about something naughty.

“And what you said about me,” I added shortly. “You have to know that shit isn’t true. I never would have laid a finger on Kristoff. He was like a father to me. I loved him, and I want to find out who murdered him.”

Tori shifted her eyes down. I could tell she didn’t believe me, but she didn’t say anything.

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” I said under my breath.

Tori still didn’t reply.

“Tori, don’t be a bitch about this,” I said. “You come to me, asking me for help, and this is what you get. If you do this with me, you have to trust me. You got that?”

Tori shook her head. “I know…” Her voice trailed off. “I’m just…I’m scared,” she added. The arousal still hung thick in the air between us but I could tell that her body was filled with tension and she was still frightened.

I grinned to myself. This had been one hell of an interesting day.
I woke up with one woman and then decided to start a life together with another
, I thought with a grin.
Max, you’re a player!

But something in Tori’s eyes made me stop right in my tracks. I had the uneasy feeling that she was going to be a lot to handle, even though she was clearly attracted to me. Furthermore, I had a feeling that a lot of other shit had gone down between her and Silas that she hadn’t told me about. After all, they’d been together for years. He’d had ample opportunities to hurt her or damage her in ways that I couldn’t even begin to think of.

“I won’t hurt you like Silas did,” I promised. “But you have to trust me, okay?”

Tori looked up at me with wet eyes. I thought she was going to protest. Instead, she stepped forward and kissed me again. I was hard almost instantly as her soft lips pressed against mine. Tori sighed and moaned softly, leaning against my body. When I slid my hands down her soft curves, she arched her back. I could tell how much she wanted it, how badly she was dying to give it to me.

And I’m just the man for that, baby.
I am just the man you need