Her Journey (Her Series Book 2)

  Kicking over a trash can, I cursed myself for not having thought about it earlier. I should have known that until Scrapes was taken care of Melia would be in danger because she was connected to Ryan. Fucking lust had clouded my mind and I didn’t think.

  The sun was starting to peek over the horizon before I finally called it a night. Dirty had turned in a short while before. Monk, Brew and Piro were woken up and pulled in an hour or so before. They would keep up the search while I grabbed a few hours of rest. I didn’t care how long we kept at it, we would figure out who had broken in and why. Melia would stay under my roof until them and I would use that time to hopefully convince her to stay there even after we figured it out.

  Walking to my room, I paused in front of Melia’s. I wanted to go check on her, but I didn’t want to wake her up. I didn’t know if I would even be welcomed. From the way she’d left the house during the party, I would say no. Then again, she’d been different when I drove her back to the house. Wrestling with my indecision, I went to my own room, stripping down to my boxer briefs before climbing into bed.

  After tossing and turning for over an hour, I got up and paced my room. My brain wouldn’t shut off over what had happened. When Dirty had told me someone had broken in to Melia’s place, I’d demanded to come with. I had to know she was okay even if she didn’t want me around. I still had the scared look that’d been on her face implanted in my head. Things could’ve gone so much differently than they had, and that was what was driving me nuts.

  What if they hadn’t come only for her purse? Did something scare them off and that’s why they’d only grabbed that? What if she hadn’t found her phone? What would she have done? Without us around, she was all alone and that bothered me in ways I couldn’t explain.

  Dragging my hands over my head in frustration, I finally pulled on my jeans and went across the hall. Fuck it. I had to check on her, I had to hold her close to know that she was okay. I wasn’t sleeping anyway, so even if she kicked me out, it was worth a shot. Knocking softly on her door, I waited a minute before pushing it open.

  Melia was still curled up in the bed under her sheets when I slipped into her room, shutting the door quietly. Standing there, I watched as she slept. Her face was relaxed, making her look years younger. The blankets were twisted, the other pillow tossed on the floor, telling me she hadn’t been sleeping well.

  Walking closer, I stood right next to her, reaching out to brush a strand of hair off her face. She moaned my name softly. The little woman was wrapping me around her finger and she didn’t even have to be awake. It was alarming, yet I couldn’t make myself care. I just wanted to take care of her, be there for her the way no one else seemed to be. If only I could prove to her that she needed to be around me. Fuck, I wanted her to want me the way I wanted her. Needed her. I craved being near her, hearing her laugh and even having her give me a hard time over every damn thing. It was a sickness. One day I’d been fine, the next she swept in and changed my whole world and there was no cure for it.

  When she groaned and rolled over on the bed, I decided I didn’t care if she woke up pissed, I was going to lie with her. Moving around the bed, I slipped under the covers, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her closer to me. Instantly, she snuggled closer to my chest and sighed contentedly.

  Smiling, I closed my eyes and finally fell asleep.

  Slowly I opened my eyes and looked around the room; I was alone on the bed. Melia was gone. Her bathroom door was open and the bedroom door was shut. There was no place else to go. I realized then what it had felt like for Melia to wake up alone in my bed. It didn’t feel good. I didn’t even know how she’d felt when she’d woken up to being wrapped tightly in my arms when I hadn’t been in her bed when she’d gone to sleep.

  Fuck. I climbed out of the bed and went to find her. I checked everywhere she usually was but I had no luck. Finally, I went to Ryan’s room and banged on the door.

  “What do you want?” Ryan asked, opening the door while holding onto her head. Hungover.

  “Melia in here?” I looked over her shoulder, but the room was still pitch black from the blackout curtains she’d installed.

  “No. It’s just me and the toilet in here. Why would she be here? She should be at her apartment.” Ryan blinked a few times, squinting at me. Clearly her brain was trying to figure out what was going on through the hangover haze it was in.

  “You’ve missed a lot. I just need to find her.” I sighed, not wanting to explain it all until I knew she was okay. Knowing my luck, she woke, freaked and ran. The absolute worst thing she could’ve done would be to leave the house.

  “I’ll see if I have any messages from her on my phone, okay? Now go away.” Ryan shut the door in my face.

  Out of places to look, I went to the meeting room to see if anything had been found out while I’d slept. I hadn’t looked at the clock before falling asleep, but I couldn’t have slept for more than four hours. Hopefully they had found something. I found Piro and Brew still in the room; Monk was no where to be found.

  “Update?” I asked, pulling out a chair to sit in. My head was throbbing due to stress. I was a damn fool. Always making things worse when it came to Melia. It really reminded me why I didn’t do relationships, I could never get shit right.

  “Nothing. No one seems to know what happened. No links to Scrapes or anyone else. It very possibly could’ve just been a break in. A crackhead looking for cash or stuff to pawn. With her keys, they’d have access to her apartment when she left, plus her car. Has anyone been back by her apartment?” Piro sat next to me and arched an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, I had someone go by and fix her door and replace the lock with a new one so they couldn’t get in. I didn’t think about her car though. I’ll have someone swing by and pick it up.” I didn’t need keys to get the car. Hot wiring was easy and her car would be safe at the compound until we got those damn keys back. It was frustrating to have nothing to go on. Nothing to reassure her with. At least the longer we went without a connection to Scrapes, the better it looked. The bastard would gloat to his flunkies over his success. Then again, what if he was after Melia, not her belongings? That thought alone would drive me insane. I had to find her. Standing I shoved the chair back in and braced my hands on the back of it. “Where the fuck is Monk?”

  “He went to talk to Melia after she stormed in here a little while ago.” Brew said but kept looking at his computer.

  “Where?” I growled. “Where did they go?”

  “Monk’s room, I think,” Piro spoke up. So both bastards had known where she was, yet neither told me where she was earlier. Fuckers.

  Spinning on my heel, I marched out of the room and down the hall to Monk’s room. His room was farthest away from the game room on the other side of the house from mine. He was supposed to be someone I trusted. Fuck, I trusted him to keep an eye on my sister every time she was in town. Yet he was holed away with my woman doing god knows what.

  I didn’t knock. I threw open the door to Monk’s room. Pissed was an understatement of how upset I was at Monk. Not to mention my pride stung a bit, since she’d gone from my bed to his, just like my ex had done. Really trying to push that thought out of my head, it took me a minute to see what was right in front of me.

  Melia was lying on Monk’s bed, on her side, while he had his damn hands all over her. Raging across the room, I grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked him off the bed and away from her.

  “Whoa.” Monk threw out his hands before I could sink my fist into his face. “Wrench, it’s nothing.”

  “Nothing? I’ll show you nothing.” My fist collided with his jaw. Had I not fisted his shirt in my hand, he would’ve stepped back, but I didn’t want him going anywhere until I was done showing him nothing.

  “Stop!” Melia screamed as I popped him in the kidneys.

  Fucking nothing. No one touched my woman and told me it was nothing. I could see Monk’s lips moving, but it didn’t matter what he was saying, he co
uldn’t change what I saw. The betrayal was burning through me and I was going to take it out on him. The stupid motherfucker.

  I hit him so many times I lost count, the whole time with Melia screaming behind me. Finally, other guys broke us apart. Punching the asshole trying to hold me back, I stomped away from the room. I had to, otherwise I might kill Monk.

  As an escape, I went to the garage. I wiped blood from my hands, tossing the rag on the ground before grabbing my keys off a hook on the wall. Jumping on my bike, I peeled out of the drive way. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have shoes on. I didn’t have a shirt on either. All that mattered was getting away before I did something I really regretted.

  The pavement rolled by under me, the world flew by. Riding was my life. I didn’t get to do it as often as I once did, but I still did it as often as I could. I rode until my back was burning from the sun beating down on it. Where I went, I don’t know — it didn’t matter. The haze of red that’d filled my vision was all I saw.

  Rolling back up to the house, I parked my bike in front and walked in the front door. Instead of heading to check on Monk or Melia, I went to the meeting room. I couldn’t handle being near either of them for a while. Dirty was in the room, texting on his phone. He set it down when I walked in.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Dirty stood and walked over to me.

  “Out. What did you find out?” I brushed off his nasty look. He could get fucked too for all I cared.

  “It was Scrapes. We got one of his men to turn on him at least for that little bit of information. He didn’t know or wouldn’t tell us why Scrapes had his men do it, but we know for a fact that it was Scrapes,” Dirty said with his feet up on the table, barely lifting his eyes from his phone to tell me.

  “Who is this guy? Is he here? I want to talk to him.” Yeah, talking to that motherfucker I could get out some of the left over rage that still pumped through me. I felt a sadistic smile crawl on my face as I cracked the knuckles of both hands in anticipation.

  “No, he isn’t here,” Dirty interrupted, putting a hand on my shoulder. He lowered his voice so the other two men in the room couldn’t hear him. “Can we step outside for a minute?”

  “Fine.” I figured he’d want to talk to me as soon as I got back. Slap on the hand, bad boy type shit. Walking from the room, I led him to my office. I moved to my chair while he closed the door. “What?”

  “What the fuck happened?” Dirty sat in the chair across from my desk, so I made my way around the desk and sat in the chair. Immediately it felt like I had ripped the skin off my back. Sunburn. Great, just another positive thing about the day from hell. Grinding my teeth, I sat forward in the chair, leaning my elbows on my knees.

  “He was touching my woman.” That was all I needed to say and Dirty nodded his head. He knew what it was like. He was crazy for Ryan that way too.

  ~Melia~

  When I’d woken up surrounded by a heavenly scent and the heavy weight of Wrench’s arm around me, it had shocked me to say the least. My back was to his chest, his face buried in my hair, but I didn’t need to see him to know who it was. His scent was distinctive and hard to forget.

  I lay there, absorbing everything about the moment. My hair was moving slightly with each breath he exhaled. The feel of his palm spread over my belly, like he was protecting the babes even in sleep. Even the feel of his erection nudging against my back was different.

  I might be conflicted over what I wanted from our relationship, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t one hundred percent attracted to the man. His fierce protectiveness was sexy as hell even when he went over board. The sheer strength he possessed, but kept leashed at all times. Not once had he been rough with me, or rougher than I wanted, and even those times had only been when we were having sex.

  It was hard to forget all that would come with dating a man like him though. It wasn’t just him, it was the whole Motorcycle Club, the environment and living situation that came with him. He would always have women throwing themselves at him because of his position. Well, that and he was a womanizer. When I’d lived there for a month, he’d fucked more than a handful of people. While I wasn’t a saint, I didn’t sleep around quite like that. I couldn’t handle being with a man who did things like that. I needed a man who wanted to be with only me.

  Eventually my bladder won the war and I had to get out of bed. Moving slowly, I was able to slide out from under his arm. Immediately, he grumbled under his breath, but thankfully he didn’t wake up. After relieving my aching bladder, I stood in the doorway of the bathroom looking at the man in my bed. I didn’t know what made him show up in my room and crawl in bed with me, but I was grateful for it. The night had been rough. It took a long while for me to calm down enough to actually fall asleep, then I’d tossed and turned or woken up every few minutes.

  Somewhere in my subconscious I felt a warm presence soothe me and I’d finally fallen into a deep sleep. That must have been when Wrench had come to me.

  I wish I could get in his head, know what he was really thinking. He was always so careful of what he said. I knew he cared in his own way. That didn’t mean they were enough. Was it a simple infatuation that would get old after a few months and I’d be kicked to the curb nursing a broken heart? He himself had said he was no good at relationships. Ryan didn’t think he’d ever been in one more than for fucking. Would he even be able to be faithful? Or maybe he didn’t think that I would require him to be.

  Ugh, the more I stood there the more questions I came up with. I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t need a broken heart. If only it was simple to figure out.

  Silently, I left my room, shutting my door behind me so he’d be left alone for as long as possible. I knew he had to be tired as he was rarely left alone for any period of time. Someone always wanted something from him.

  I was still in my clothes from the night before, but I didn’t care. My incredible thirst drove me to the kitchen first. Grabbing a bottle of water, I leaned against the counter and drank it all. Using the water from the fridge, I filled it up and sipped from it as I meandered around the house. I didn’t know where to go or what I was doing. I really wanted to go back to my own place where I could be alone with my thoughts. Then again it was the last place I wanted to be if someone had keys to it or was going to break in again.

  I should have trusted that when I felt like I was being watched, someone was really there. I hadn’t, but that also meant that whoever it was had followed me from just outside of Wrench’s place. With that thought, I found a guy in the game room and asked where Ellis was. No one seemed to know so I asked for Monk or Brew since I knew they could be trusted. I was directed to a room in the house I’d never been in before.

  Slowly opening the door, I peered in. There was a massive table with a couple of laptops, a pair of landline phone and a TV on the far wall. On the walls were maps of Arizona, it appeared; various sections were outlined in different colors and there were pins on the maps as well. I didn’t know what it all meant, but it looked complicated. Brew, Monk and one of the men that always seemed to be with Wrench when he left the house were sitting at the other end of the table. Monk was the first to notice me. He jumped from his chair and swiftly walked to me. His hand wrapped around my arm and he pulled me from the room, shutting the door behind us.

  “What are you doing? Are you crazy?” Monk whispered in a shocked voice, his hand still on my arm. “You can’t be in that room. That room is for members only and Wrench would have a damn heart attack if he knew you went in there.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I was just looking for you,” I said, pulling my arm from his grasp. “I remembered something that might be useful to you guys.”

  “Let’s go to my room where we’ll have some privacy.” Monk looked over his shoulder before placing his hand at the small of my back, leading me down a hallway I’d never ventured. I didn’t like the feel of his hand on my back. It felt wrong, even though I knew he was just doing it to be frien
dly.

  Once in his room, I crossed it and watched as he closed the door. I didn’t care for him shutting the door, but I also trusted him so I let it slide. If he thought we needed privacy, then so be it.

  “Here sit on the bed. I won’t try anything funny, I promise. No one touches Wrench’s woman.” Monk tucked his hands in his pocket.

  “Wrench’s woman? Is that what he’s telling everyone?” I sighed, rubbing my forehead. Monk scoffed then laughed softly.

  “Nah. He doesn’t have to say anything. It’s clear as fucking day.” Monk moved and sat next to me on the bed. “Look, I don’t know exactly what’s going on with you two. I do know that Wrench doesn’t treat any woman the way he treats you. He doesn’t leave a party behind to go rescue just any woman. He doesn’t have people looking twenty-four seven for information if he didn’t think you were someone he needed to protect. Trust me. He might not have the best skills to say it or show it, but he cares more than you could possibly know.”

  I dropped my head into my hands and broke out into tears. Monk rubbed my back softly as I cried.

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry. Do you not feel anything for him?” Monk asked. I was surprised he didn’t try to pull me into a hug or closer to him, simply kept rubbing my back.

  I shook my head in a fierce negative. That wasn’t the issue. It was my hormones, for sure, that made everything so much more tear inducing. It was just reassuring to hear a confirmation from someone else about Wrench’s feelings.

  “Let me go get you some tissue.” Monk stood, leaving me alone.

  While he was gone, I had a sharp pain shoot through my side, around my stomach, making me gasp and hold my belly. I’d never felt anything like it. Monk came back in and dropped the tissue, running around my side.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Shit. I don’t know where that came from, but I think I’m okay now.” I continued to rub my stomach reassuringly. Monk went and picked up the forgotten tissue to bring it to me. I wiped away my drying tears with it as another shooting pain sparked through my side.