Raw: The Ultimate Mc Collection (8 page)

It was almost freeing.  If I knew what I was being freed from, that is.

That was the hardest part of all of this, the not knowing.  Not knowing what or who was waiting for me.  It was frightening.  And it scared me to the very depths of my soul.  My arms tightened around Ryder a little more as my mind wandered throughout the trip.

When he finally pulled off the road, it was into the parking lot of a run down bar.  The Rodeo Roadhouse looked like it was straight out of a Patrick Swayze movie.  I half-expected to see people fighting and being thrown out of the two saloon-style swinging doors we walked through.  Peanut shells littered the floor, the smell of old, stale beer assaulted my senses, and country music echoed through the place.  In addition to the beer, the distinct scent of bacon and burgers went straight to my starving stomach.

Ryder led me to a booth in the back and we sat down, placing our helmets on the seats next to us.  

“It’s not fancy, but they have the best burgers within 20 miles,” he said with that sexy half-grin of his.

“It’ll do just fine.  As long as they’re quick.  I don’t know why I’m so damned hungry.”

“I do. Outside of that IV, you haven’t eaten but once in four days.  Makes sense to me.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said.  My amnesia colored everything, every second of everything I did. We ordered from the saucy red-headed waitress, and I noticed that she couldn’t keep her eyes off Ryder as she stood by our booth.  I looked around, and saw that everyone else was staring, too.

I looked over at him again, and it all made sense.  He was huge, his towering frame was likely intimidating to even the most masculine of men, his meaty, tattooed arms absolutely screaming rebellion.  And that cut he wore - the scattered patches symbolizing things that I had no clue about - probably communicated more to these local people than it did to me.

If Ryder noticed, he didn’t let on.  His attention was focused on me, his eyes glued to my face as he watched my every move.

“So?” he asked.

“So what?”

“Anything? Any sparks of memory at all?” 

“Oh. No,” I replied. “I don’t think I’ve ever been here before.”

“No, I should hope not.  I wasn’t talking about this place.  Just, you know,” he said, glancing away from me and then back again. “I was just wondering if you remembered anything at all today.”

“No,” I said, simply. 

“Well, that’s okay. Give it time,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess,” I replied, smiling across the table at him. “You getting sick of me yet? You probably want your bed back, huh?”

“Hardly,” he replied.  “Well, I mean I’m not getting sick of you.  I do miss my bed, I must admit.”

“I’m sorry.  Isn’t there anywhere else I could sleep, so you can have it back?” 

His eyes narrowed at my suggestion.

“Nowhere I’d want you sleeping,” he said gruffly.

“What do you mean?” I asked curiously.

“Nevermind.  I’m sure any one of my brothers would be happy to offer up a bed, but I don’t trust them as far as I could throw them.  At least not when it comes to keeping their hands off of you.”

“Oh. Right.” 

“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.  We’ll figure something out.”

“Where have you been sleeping?” I asked.

“I haven’t,” he replied.

I felt even worse than before.  

“Listen, Ryder, I just want to say thank you again.  You’ve done so much for me, and I have nothing to offer you in return.  I promise, once this is all over, I’ll pay you back somehow for your trouble.”

“You don’t owe me a thing.  You don’t worry about that.  You just focus on getting better, that’s all I care about.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s very kind of you.”

He chuckled loudly.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m known for - kindness.  Some people might disagree with you.”

“I don’t care what anyone else thinks.  It’s obvious to me that you have a huge heart.  Why else would anyone do what you did?”

“Well, I couldn’t just leave you there lying on the side of the road, could I?”

“Sure, you could have.”

“Well.  I didn’t.  And now, here we are.”

“You could have just called the cops.”

“That’s not my style,” he said, winking at me.  “I try to avoid the police at all costs.  Never been very friendly with them. I guess you could say they don’t like the way I dress.”

I laughed, and it felt great.  It was the second time I had laughed that day, the other time being with Riot earlier.  I remembered the look on Ryder’s face when he walked in on us, and I wondered what he was feeling now that I had just invaded his life this way.  Was he annoyed?  He didn’t seem to be.  Was he burdened?  If so, he was taking it in stride.

“I kinda like the way you dress,” I said, teasingly, gesturing to his cut.  I could smell the faint smell of leather in the air every time he was around me, and it was intoxicating.

Our beers and burgers arrived, and we dug in.  The beer was delicious and I downed it quickly, before I started eating.  Ryder nodded appreciatively and ordered me another one without asking if that was what I wanted.

I guess it was obvious.  When I drank half of the new one just as quickly, he laughed again.

“Slow down there, Missy.  Don’t want you drunkenly falling off the back of my bike.”

“You’d save me,” I said, winking at him.  Was I flirting?  I think I was definitely flirting, and it caught me off guard a little.

“Yeah, maybe I would.  Let’s not risk it though.  Your face is way too pretty for any more bruises,” he said, flirting right back.

I bit my lip, marveling at how easy talking to him was.  I looked down at my hands.  No rings.  No tell-tale lingering indentations of any previously worn rings.  So, I probably wasn’t married.  But did I have a partner?

I looked across the table and for the first time, hoped that I didn’t.  I didn’t know where my life would lead from here, but I didn’t mind one bit if my future included Ryder. 

“You need a name,” he said.  “You know, until you remember yours.”

“Oh, yeah? Sure, okay,” I replied.  “Any suggestions?”

“Suggestions? Oh, let’s see…how about Barbie or Bertha?”  he said, laughing at his own joke.

I wrinkled my nose.

“Do I look like a Barbie or a Bertha? Really?”  I asked.

Ryder laughed, his eyes crinkling at the edges. The neon light from a sign behind the bar reflected off one of the grey hairs on his temple, shimmering in the light.  It was enchanting and completely distracting.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m getting up there.  I’m forty.”

“You’ve been in the MC for a long time?”  My mind was suddenly flowing with questions for him. 

“Yeah, a really, really long time.  My old man was the president before me,” his blue eyes darkened when he mentioned his father. 

“And your Mom?” I asked.  His eyes widened, and he looked away before he answered me under his breath.  “Long gone.  She’s long gone.  She died a while back, but she was dead to me before then.”

“Oh,” I said quietly.  I saw just a glimmer of pain in his eyes before he looked away, shutting down any flicker of emotion before it could surface.  “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all good, no worries.  She didn’t know the first thing about being a mother, so it’s good she wasn’t around.  I’m better off for it, clearly!”  he said, spreading his arms to his sides.  

I smiled, shaking my head at his sarcasm.  Truth was, he seemed just fine to me.  He obviously had a different opinion of himself.

“So, what exactly does the club do? What does the President of the Gods of Chaos do?”  I thought that might be a forbidden question, but I asked anyway.

“I do a lot of things.  I make the decisions about what jobs to take.  What direction the club is going to go in.  It’s a democracy, though.  We vote.  Sometimes, I veto the vote,” he said, chuckling. 

It was a vague answer, but I decided not to press the issue.  I had other things on my mind, and as much I wanted to know everything about him, including what he looked like under that cut, I had bigger questions to ask.

“I’m glad we have some time to talk,” I said, between scarfing down bites of my burger.  “I have so many questions for you.”

“Apparently, you do.  But first, we were deciding on a name for you,” he reminded me.

“Oh, right.  I got, um…,” my gaze landed on the grey hair on his temple again, still shimmering amongst the dark ones, still distracting me, still forcing me to use all my strength not to reach out and caress it, “…distracted. A name, okay, let’s see.  Maybe I should pick it?  You seem to only know the most awful names in existence.”

He laughed, throwing his head back, the sides of his eyes crinkling again, my insides melting with yearning for his touch.  

Why was I thinking like this? Why did he have this pull that I couldn’t shake?

“I got it,” I said.  

“You do? Okay, wait,” he said, wiping his hands on his jeans before offering his hand for me to shake across the table.  

“Hello, nice to meet you.  I’m Ryder,” he said, a twinkle in his eye.

What a charmer, I thought, as I put my hand in his.

“I’m Samantha,” I said, letting the name roll off my tongue. “But you can call me Sam.  Nice to meet you, Ryder.”

He shook my hand briefly, but then brought my palm up and brushed his lips against the back of it. 

“Sam,” he said, his intense gaze staring right through me.  “I like that.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I think I do, too.”  And I did.  It felt good.  Solid.  I needed solid.

“Okay,” he said, smiling. “Sam. Now, what questions can I answer for you?” he said, taking a swing from his beer after winking at me handsomely.

“Oh, questions.  Right.”  I was a mess.  My focus should have been on looking around the bar, maybe combing through the paper, driving through town even, but instead I was sitting here in this booth with Ryder acting like a damned kid on a date.  I should have been hysterical.  And deep down, I was.  The panic and terror I felt was like a big, black box in my stomach that I was doing everything I could to shove even deeper. 

So, maybe I was distracting myself. 

Maybe I didn’t want to remember. 

Or, maybe Ryder was just that goddamned sexy.  I was a woman, after all. And he was a man. A white-hot, devastatingly handsome, strong and protective man that had saved my life.  And while I may not remember who the fuck I was, I was well aware of the sparks that were flying between us.  And what a delicious distraction they were.

I knew something out there was waiting for me.  I knew the truth was out there, but instead of giddy anticipation, all I felt was dread when I thought about recovering my memories.  My intuition was still there.  And whatever was waiting for me, whatever truth would be unveiled eventually, that intuitive sense was warning me of something. 

There’s a reason you don’t remember,
I thought. 

I watched Ryder drinking his beer, his burger consumed long ago, waiting patiently to offer any help I needed.

“On the night you found me,” I said, taking a deep breath, “where was I exactly?”  I had been going over what he told me in my head, and there were so many holes. 

“On the side of the road that leads to my clubhouse from the highway,” he replied. 

“Okay, and you were alone when you found me?”

“Yep,” he nodded.

“And? So, what happened?”  I was frustrated.  I wanted all the answers at once and having to ask all these little questions to get the whole picture was infuriating.

His muscles flexed as he brought his beer bottle to his full lips again, and I licked my lips as I watched him swallow.  His every move was a distraction, and my body was reacting in ways that were in complete contrast with my brain.  I wanted answers, I needed answers, but the intensity of his unwavering attention was dissolving every ounce of my resistance to those sparks between us.