Craving Absolution (15 page)

Farrah

“I’ve got a bathroom in here, so you won’t have to share,” Cody told me, dropping my bag just inside the door of his room. “It’s not huge, but at least we won’t be crowded into the main room.”

“
How’d you score a room?” I asked, looking around at the bare walls and the plain black comforter on his bed. I’d seen the number of men in the main room, and the number of doorways in the long hallway off the back of the club. That shit didn’t add up.

“
Some of the brothers don’t keep a room here,” he said with a shrug. “That’s why they’re all camping out on the floor. If I didn’t have an old lady, I would have been expected to give up the room, but since I do . . .”

“
Wait, what?” I turned to look at him in horror.

“
What?”

“
You’re talking about me?”

“
Oh, fuck me. Are we really getting into this now?” he asked in irritation. “Of course I’m talking about you. When the fuck would I have time for someone else, and why the fuck would you be in this room if you weren’t mine?”

I sp
luttered, trying to find the words to blast him. He was irritated? Fuck that! He was the one who’d promised we weren’t putting labels on shit! We were as good as married in the club’s eyes, and I’d had no fucking idea.

“Who’s April?” I asked stonily, not willing to give an inch.

“The bitch that cleans the fucking club. You’re being an idiot.”

“
Fucking fantastic, Cody,” I mumbled, yanking my suitcase farther into the room. Once I’d opened it up and found the makeup case I was looking for, I met his eyes. “You can go.”

“
Why are you being such a bitch?” he asked, reaching behind him to lock the door. Good, at least when I beat the hell out of him, no one could come in to save his ass.

“
You said no labels!”

“
I told you that
you
didn’t have to label it. I never said shit about claiming you at the club,” he growled back.

“
Semantics!” I argued, my voice even. I didn’t want everyone to hear us fighting, but my tone was scathing. “Echo never—”

He tackl
ed me onto the bed midsentence, knocking the makeup case across the room. I found myself glaring at his face as he straddled my belly and captured my hands above my head.

“
Echo was a fucking pussy,” he said with a sneer, so close I could feel his breath on my face.

“
Shut up! You didn’t know him!”

“
I’ll say whatever the fuck I want.” He punctuated his vow by squeezing my wrists. “He didn’t take care of you.”

“
Yes, he—”

“
No. He didn’t.”

“
Let me talk!” I screeched, bucking my hips in an unsuccessful attempt to move him.

“
No. I’m talking now,” he said menacingly. “I watched you lose your shit when he died, and I didn’t say shit because I knew you couldn’t handle it.”

“
Fuck you!”

“
But we’re going to get a few things straight, right now. Echo was a fucking pussy who didn’t take care of you. He didn’t say shit when you were fucking wasting away. He didn’t do shit about your parents fucking beating on you and making your life miserable. He was too concerned with his own ass to make sure that yours was safe. He didn’t deserve your tears. The guy deserves to be dead.”

“
No, he doesn’t.” I sobbed, barely able to catch my breath as his words pummeled me. He was relentless, pushing and poking at every memory I had of the first man I’d thought loved me. I slammed my eyes shut and fought the memory of the day I’d locked myself in my bedroom, calling Echo over and over until Gator had finally broken through the door, my phone and any chance of escape lost.

“
Don’t,” I cried out. “He was good to me. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“
Listen to me.” He shook me gently. “Look at me!”

I opened my eyes to meet his, and my stomach dropped.

“I am in love with you,” he said. “There is not one thing I wouldn’t do for you. I’d kill for you. I’d die for you. No hesitation, no question. Do not ever compare me to Echo again. That man is dead, and he isn’t worth the dirt he’s buried under. Do you understand me?”

“
He wasn’t—”

“
He wasn’t anything, Farrah. He didn’t claim you because he wasn’t worth shit. You were my old lady from the night you pulled into town. I claimed you, even knowing you would be pissed. You know why?”

I sniffled, my breath hiccupping in my throat. Tears were still rolling down the sides of my face
, and I hated him for making me cry in front of him. “No.”

“
Because I would do anything to keep you safe.” He leaned down, pressing my hands into the bed, and kissed me hard. “Even if you hate me for it.”

His t
ongue pushed into my mouth, and he let go of my wrists to grip my head. I slapped at his chest even as I kissed him back, my emotions too strong to contain. I wanted him and loved him and hated him as I fought against his words. I was so afraid that what he was saying was the truth.

Our fight turned to desperation as
I tore off his cut and the T-shirt underneath, scratching his back with my nails. He yanked my shirt over my head, and instead of unsnapping my bra, pulled out a knife from his jeans and flicked it up from between my breasts, cutting the bra in half.

We pushed and pulled and rolled around the bed, at one point almost hitting the floor until Cody caught us, using one arm to push us back up. He bit me and I bit him,
our bodies red and sweaty by the time we’d stripped our bottom halves.

“
Brace your hands on the wall,” he ordered as he knelt above me, his chest heaving. Without thought, I followed his direction, placing my hands on the cold concrete above my head.

“
Brace ’em, Ladybug,” he repeated.

As soon as I
’d locked my elbows, he pulled my hips from the bed and slammed inside me. My head flew back, the tendons in my neck straining as I held back my cry. I was still conscious of the people outside his room, but I wouldn’t be for long.

His fingers dug into my hips, pulling me toward him as he snapped his hips forward again and again, and soon I
was moaning with every thrust. Then he let go of one of my hips and ran his fingers down the length of my chest, from my neck to my belly button. He wiped away the sweat that had been beading on my skin, and my entire body clenched as he lifted his fingers to his lips and licked them clean.

“
Tastes good,” he rasped.

He
pounded in again before pulling out with a muffled curse, then flipped one of my legs over the other so I was lying with my bottom half twisted sideways.

“
Keep those arms up,” he reminded me as he pushed the top leg until my thigh was resting against my chest.

Without any warning, he
pushed slowly back inside me. The change in angle and the tight feeling of his entry had me gasping, the sweat on my hands making them slip against the wall. He leaned down so one of his forearms was braced beside me—his fingers wrapped gently around my upraised arm—and rested his chest against my torso, bringing the other hand up to rub up and down my bent leg, keeping it in place.

“
Oh my God.” I groaned, clenching my teeth as he started to move faster.

He made a noise
against my collarbone as he grasped behind my knee and rotated his hips just a fraction. I was so immersed in him—the way he smelled, the taste of his skin, the sound of his voice in my ear—that by the time he let go of my thigh to reach down and pinch my clit, hidden under my drawn-up thigh, I was so close to orgasm I detonated on contact.

“
That’s my girl,” he whispered in my ear. “I take care of you, don’t I?”

I moaned high in my throat as the orgasm went on and on until finally my body relaxed. As soon as it was finished, his hand slipped
away from where we connected and grabbed the opposite arm. Without slowing his thrusts, he turned me fully onto my side. When I was exactly how he wanted me, he leaned down to tenderly kiss my lips, and then used my hair to jerk my face away from him.

Breathing heavily, h
e came, biting down on the back of my neck.

He summarized his point by on
ce again covering Echo’s mark with his own.

Son
of a bitch. I was too tired to argue anymore.

Farrah

The first few days at the club actually weren
’t that bad. People seemed to give me a wide berth, which suited me just fine. I wasn’t there to make friends, and if it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have been there at all. I was pretty small potatoes when it came to club politics, and I doubted anyone would have even connected me to the Aces, but Cody was adamant that it wasn’t safe for me outside the barbed wire fence that surrounded the grounds.

I didn
’t fight him on it. I’d felt like shit when I had to call in to work, but when I’d told the owner that I had a family emergency, he’d been super cool about it. At least I didn’t have to worry about losing my job. I could live with being cooped up with a bunch of people I didn’t know as long as my family was around.

I spent most of my time hanging outside with Callie, Will
, and occasionally Cameron. Gram had found her way into the kitchen and was schooling all the other women on how to feed an army, and Cody was mostly off doing shit for the guys in the club, so I didn’t see them as much.

After the first day, the adults had realized that it was insane to try
to keep the kids locked inside, so they set up some water games and yard toys in the field behind the building. The old ladies were comfortable with each other, and they took shifts slathering the kids in sunscreen and watching them run wild, but none of them ever made their way into our little group.

I felt bad that I seemed to be alienating Callie from the women she had so much in common with, but it really couldn
’t be helped. They didn’t want anything to do with me—my reputation must have preceded me—so even if I’d smiled at them and tried to play nice, they wouldn’t have given us the time of day. We were interlopers, and by the strain on Callie’s face by the end of each day, I knew it was weighing on her.

By the fifth day of confinement, I made myself cut her loose. I knew
that while I was around she wouldn’t make any of the friends that she quite obviously wanted, so instead of following the crowd outside after breakfast, I told her I wanted to spend the day reading in Cody’s room. It was a bit disturbing the way her eyes lit up before she deliberately gave me a disappointed look, but I let it go. I understood, as much as it irritated me.

If I
’d known what I was getting myself into, I would have gladly tagged along with Callie and kept her friendless.

I
’d been in Cody’s room for about an hour when there was a soft knock on the door. Thinking it was Gram or Callie, I climbed off the bed and swung the door open, immediately wishing I could slam it closed again.

“
Hi,” she said nervously, her voice rough and deep. “I’m Vera. Slider’s wife?”

“
Is that a question?” I asked flatly, my asshole persona falling flawlessly into place.

“
No.” She scowled. “I just wasn’t sure if you knew who I was.”

I looked her over slowly, taking in her slender body co
vered in a Harley Davidson tank top and low-cut jeans designed for someone half her age. Every life choice she’d made seemed to have made itself known on her features, from her overly tanned skin to the wrinkles around her lips from puckering a million times around a cigarette. Yet, there was still something oddly beautiful about her.

“
Yeah, I know who you are. Can I help you with something?” I was praying to any god that could hear me that someone, anyone, would walk in and interrupt us.

“
I just wanted to talk to ya for a minute,” she said, stepping into the room without invitation, forcing me to take a step back.

I stood silently
with a polite look of disinterest on my face and fought the panic building in my chest at our proximity as she looked me over. I’d been avoiding her for days, and just my fucking luck, the minute I got comfortable, there she was.

“
You’re so beautiful,” she said softly. “I knew you would be.”

She reached up to touch me and I flinched
away violently, my mind racing. What the hell was she doing?

“
Um . . .”

“
You’ve been giving your dad such a hard fucking time,” she said, gently scolding me with a shake of her head as she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket with shaky hands. “It’s—”

I cut her off midsentence.
“He’s not my dad.”

“
Honey, your birth certificate didn’t lie, and neither do those eyebrows and that chin you’ve got pointed to the sky. Hell, you looked just like him when you were born, though you’ve got the look of your mother now.”

“
What?” I asked in confusion. Was I in the fucking twilight zone? She’d seen me as a baby? I couldn’t grasp what she was trying to say, and my fingers began to tingle.

Oh shit.

She looked around the room, almost as if she couldn’t meet my eyes as she started to speak.

“
I was pissed as hell when your dad told me he’d knocked up some club whore. God, I could have shot him with his own damn gun. Ya wanna sit?”

I shook my head woodenly as I locked my knees. No, I did not want to fucking sit.

“I’m gonna sit,” she told me with a nod, perching on the side of Cody’s bed. “Story’s a fucked-up one, but I think you need to hear it. Your dad sure as shit will never tell ya, and even though he never says nothin’, I know he worries about ya. He’s always worried about ya.”

I fought the lump in my throat, determined to stay standing and coherent as she sat awfully close to my wedding ring quilt. If I hadn
’t been so afraid to get near her, I would have snatched it off the bed before her vanilla perfume could contaminate it.

“
Knew your mother. Didn’t like her. She always hung around back then, scoring coke off the boys however she could. Didn’t know she was fucking my husband, not until later, but I knew something was off about her. Something was missing.”

“
Don’t touch the fucking coffee table, Farrah! You knock any of my sugar off the table, I’ll beat your ass!”

No. Nonononono.

“When I found out she was pregnant, I wanted to kill her. Seriously considered it a time or two. But your father, well, we’d been trying for a long-ass time by then, and still no babies. He tried to act like he didn’t care, but I knew a part of him was a bit excited by the whole thing. Couldn’t help himself.”

“
That’s your daddy in the picture. See him, Farrah? Handsome motherfucker, huh? He didn’t want you, so he sent us away. Like we were trash, just tossed us out like garbage. Shoulda never gotten pregnant.”

“
As much as I wanted him to, he couldn’t ignore what was happening. He was afraid your mother’d keep you coked outta your brain and starvin’, so he set her up in a little house on the other side of town. Paid her bills and shit, made sure she was eating, and tried to keep watch on her through the boys so she couldn’t go out and score.” I vaguely registered her voice catching on the last word. “Eventually she realized Slider wasn’t going to leave me for her, even though at the time, shit wasn’t good between us for obvious reasons.”

“
Coulda stayed with your daddy, you know. He didn’t want kids, though, so once you came along I was screwed. Hand me mama’s dollar over there, yeah, that one. You remember that, Farrah, I chose you. So you be a good girl and don’t you make me regret it.”

“
She told us that we could adopt the baby, and for a price, we’d never have to see her again.”

Vera sniffled, but I
still refused to look at her. My vision was starting to have little spots in it as I tried to quietly pull air into my lungs.

“
It wasn’t easy for me, I want you to know that. I didn’t want nothin’ to do with her kid at first, the proof of my husband fucking around on me. But eventually I seen what it was doing to Slider, and I knew that I had to dig deep down inside me to find if I was willing to overlook a baby, the man I love’s baby, just for the sake of pride.”

“
Your daddy’s cunt wife was gonna kill ya, Farrah. I saw it. I knew if I didn’t get you away from there, she’d do it and she’d get away with it. She wanted you dead, I had to protect ya.”

“
Less than a month before you were due, we agreed to take you.” She made a hoarse sound deep in her throat, making me cringe. “I loved ya before you were born, knowing you were gonna be mine. Haven’t loved anyone more in my entire life, and that’s the God’s honest truth. By the time you came, I had a little room all set up for ya, lots of clothes and toys you wouldn’t be using for months. I got everything just perfect.”

My breath
was wheezing past my tight throat as I listened to her bullshit, and almost overpowering my fear was the absolute certainty that she was lying.

“
We only had you two months before she took you back.”

My ears started ringing.

“Didn’t trust lawyers back then, hadn’t signed adoption papers or any of that shit, so when your mother came with the police saying Slider’d kept ya against her wishes, we had no choice. Then she just . . . she just disappeared and took you along with her.”

“
Had to flee in the night like one a those Lifetime movies. Just like it. Your daddy woulda let her do it, I saw it in his eyes. He hated ya, and you were just a poor little baby then. He’s a bad man, Farrah. Don’t you ever go looking for him, ’less you wanna die.”

“
We hoped that she stayed clean, we thought maybe she’d just changed her mind. She never asked for more money or contacted us again. Back then, dads didn’t have a whole lot of rights to their kids, so even if we would have found you, there was a good chance we wouldn’t get you back. After a couple of years we stopped looking, hoping you were okay, that she’d proved us wrong and gotten her shit together.”

She was looking at me, I could feel it, but I couldn
’t make myself look back. My chest felt like someone was sitting on it, and my arms had gone completely numb from the elbows down by then. It took all I had just to keep standing.

“
Please get the fuck out of my room,” I choked out, my voice weak and shaky. “You’re a liar and I don’t want to hear any more.”

“
I named you Cecilia, for my mother. Your dad called you CeeCee his bumblebee—”

“
Stop! Stop it, you cunt! You know what my name was? Kid or asshole or little shit or piece of shit or goddamn-it-Farrah or get-the-fuck-back-in-your-room.” I heard her sob, just once. “She hit me and yelled and had junkies in and out of the house at all hours—and that was
before
I was twelve years old. I was yours? Fuck you. You didn’t find me, you stopped looking. I was within miles of an Aces chapter. Fuck you and fuck your piece-of-shit husband.”

She stood up from the bed and took a step toward me.

“Stop!” I wheezed. “Get out!”

I
wasn’t sure what finally made her listen, whether it was the way my body started to shake or the way I struggled for breath, but after a few seconds she raced out of the room. I took two shaky steps before falling heavily onto the bed, focusing on moving my hands so I could grasp my quilt. By the time I’d pulled it over my head, I was on the verge of passing out.

It wasn
’t bullshit.
Fuck
. It all made so much sense.

Oh God, she
’d been telling the truth. They’d had me, they’d loved me, and when shit got hard, they’d given up on me. It was worse than believing that Slider just hadn’t wanted kids. So much worse.

I was bar
ely coherent when Cody found me.