Forbidden Crush Page 9

  Hawk lowered his end of the wood and leaned against the post. A trickle of sweat ran down the side of his head. “Yep. They move drugs all over the state. That’s what’s in the big cement mixer. Sid keeps the Copperheads drugged up all the time on the supply. Hell, he’s high all the time himself.”

  “That explains why a bunch of them were ridiculously skinny,” I said. “And why Sid’s so crazy.”

  “Naw,” Hawk said. “Sid was crazy long before he started using. You satisfied now that you know what’s going on, and why they’re so dangerous? ”

  “I guess,” I replied. “You didn’t have to call me the c-word, though.”

  He sighed and leaned on the fence post. The gesture made the muscle in his shoulder flex like a beast awakening from its slumber. “I was tryin’ to save your life, Peaches.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said. “Some emotional abuse for my own good? I’ve seen this lifetime movie before. Next you’ll say you hit women because you care about them too much.”

  I kept my tone half-joking, but half-serious. Hawk’s eyes were full of sadness. “You don’t understand.”

  “Maybe help me understand, then, instead of being all cryptic about it.”

  “They think I stole from them.”

  “Stole what?”

  “Money from a drug sale.”

  I paused. “Did you?”

  “I’m not gonna dignify that with a response,” he said. “They think I stole this money, and they’ll do anything to get it back. Using whatever leverage over me they can. You saw what Sid did to my truck.” He looked at me with a hard, certain gaze. “You came up to me and showed concern. Caring for me, asking if I was okay. They were watching. I had to act like a dick to you. Otherwise…”

  “Otherwise he might have smashed me with the crowbar.”

  “You got it, Peaches.”

  My relief was immense. He hadn’t meant what he said. It was all for show. That took most of the sting away.

  Most of it.

  “I guess it worked,” I said. “Because you fooled me too.”

  He gave me a sad smile. “I’m sorry, Charlotte. I would never say anything like that to you genuinely.” He looked away. “I don’t know how anyone could say that to someone like you.”

  “Someone like what?” I asked, trying not to smile.

  He glanced back and hesitated like he was choosing his words carefully. “Someone so innocent.”

  Hawk looked like he’d wanted to say something else, but had held back. I decided not to push my luck as we resumed our fence-repairing.

  We worked in contented silence until lunch. “Accidentally made two sandwiches again,” Hawk said, tossing me another ziplock baggy.

  I smiled gratefully. “How lucky of me.”

  Hawk hopped the fence and sat on a nice section of the judge’s lawn. “You don’t think we’ll get in trouble if he sees us eating on the job?” I asked. “And on his property, to boot?”

  “Oh, we will,” he agreed. “But I need a little rebellion. Plus, I’ll hear his Cadillac coming.”

  “Nothing more rebellious than running back to the truck so we don’t get in trouble.” I sat cross-legged on the ground next to him. “I’m still confused about something. Why don’t you just run? Get on your bike and drive to, like, Iowa?”

  He bent one knee on the grass and bit into his sandwich. He gestured with the remains and spoke with his mouth full. “It’s complicated.”

  “What’d you tell me when I said my break-up was complicated? I doubt it.” I said the last part in the deepest voice I could manage. Hawk chuckled at my poor impression.

  “Eastland’s always been my home. Why should I leave just because he’s got it out for me?”

  “So you’ll have the moral high ground when you die. That’s comforting.”

  He shrugged and looked off into the distance. “I have a life here. I have… connections. I don’t want to uproot myself.”

  “What connections?” I asked. I realized I didn’t know much about him at all. Not where he lived, or what he did for a living, or if he had any family. “Where in town do you live, anyway? Down off route 22?”

  He gazed back at me coolly. “I’ve answered a lot of questions for one day.”

  I jerked my head at the house in the distance, with the perfectly green grass in between. “You live in a big mansion like this, don’t you?”

  That made him laugh like it was the funniest joke in the world. “I’d be happier in a barn than a big empty house like that.” His smile faded slowly as he considered it. “I’m not corrupt enough for a place like this.”

  “Few people are, I figure.” The delicious PB&J sandwich turned sour in my mouth. “You know, I was already pretty ticked off to be stuck in this town, but now that I know it’s all so the sheriff and judge can line their pockets with my money, I’m really mad.”

  “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Sucks there’s nothin’ we can do about it.”

  I gazed at the house, my anger intensifying. “Like heck there isn’t. Give me your pocket knife.”

  He paused in the middle of chewing. “You serious?”

  “As a heart attack.”

  He reached into his pocket and then placed the knife in my outstretched hand. “You’re not gonna do something you’ll regret later, are you?”

  “I’m not going to regret this one bit.”

  I put my sandwich on the ground and walked not toward the house, but to the fence. I found a flat spot on one of the posts and began carving into the wood. I moved the blade slowly, taking my time. Making sure it was perfect.

  When I was done I stood up and admired my work. Hawk got up and came over to look.

  “Judge Benjamin is a dick,” he read out loud. “Damn, Peaches. I thought you didn’t curse.”

  “Out loud is vulgar,” I said, sticking my nose in the air. “Carved into wood makes it more dignified.”

  “Remind me not to piss you off. I don’t want my name carved all over Eastland.” He scrunched up his face while looking at the fence. “It needs a little somethin’ extra.”

  He took the knife from my hand and bent down to the fence post. He blocked it with his body so I couldn’t see what he was doing until he finally stepped back. Underneath my message he had carved a tiny little penis, complete with bits of ejaculate squirting out the tip.

  “A dick for the dick,” he said happily. “In case anyone didn’t get the message.”

  It was so childish, but so perfect, that I couldn’t help but laugh. Soon Hawk joined in, both of us doubling over like school children who had pulled a prank on the principal. I fell to the ground and rolled with laughter, literally rolled on the grass with a case of the giggles. Hawk fell down next to me and did the same.

  “It doesn’t fix the corrupt asshole,” he said when we stopped, patting my knee. “But it sure feels good, Peaches.”

  My knee felt like fire where his hand touched. “Better rebellion than eating lunch on his lawn.”

  He took his hand off my knee and then turned to look over his shoulder at the road, which caused his hair to brush against my face. It brought with it the smell of shampoo, fruity and clean. When he turned back he stared deeply into my eyes. We were just two souls trapped in this town without any options.

  In that moment, I felt more connected to him than I’d ever felt with someone else.

  I don’t know who kissed who. Whether it was me who leaned in, or if it was Hawk. But we did kiss, our lips touching like they were made to. He tasted sweet from the grape jelly of his sandwich, and I melted into his embrace as his arms enveloped me. I could feel his desire as we kissed, like an earthquake underneath the surface that was slowly bubbling up. Something he’d been holding back all this time.

  He leaned into me, and I fell onto my back so that his beautiful face could block the sky. His next kiss was deeper, tongue dancing wetly with mine, and I parted my lips for it just as I parted my legs for the press of his body, a body which was warm and sweaty and f
elt better than all the dreams I’d had.

  I groaned, and he moaned with me. I could feel his rock-hard manhood through his pants as he ground into me, a dry thrust agonizingly inadequate compared to what we both really wanted. I spread my legs wider, imagining him driving into me with the full weight of his muscular body, filling me…

  I would have given myself to him there on the grass if he hadn’t pulled away first.

  He ripped his lips away. Like someone tearing the sheets off a dirty bed. I leaned forward and said, “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t,” he said, though his eyes told me that he wanted more. His body still lingered above mine, shadowing me. “I just can’t.”

  Flabbergasted, I watched as he rose, put on his shirt from the truck, and retrieved his hammer. “We should get back to work. Judge usually comes back from fishing around lunch.”

  I spent the rest of our day confused about what had happened.

  16

  Charlotte

  I was a reasonably self-aware person. I knew I was not unattractive. And I also knew when a guy was checking me out, which Hawk had totally been doing for the last few days when he thought I wasn’t looking. At a bare minimum, he was attracted to me. Our kiss wasn’t just a spur of the moment act.

  Not only that, but the kiss was natural. We both wanted it. I could feel it in the way he held me close and kissed me back like I was a cold glass of water to his parched lips. I could sense it in the way he sank his hips into me when I spread my legs for him, a dry-hump to end all dry-humps as we both played out what we’d wanted. He was only seconds from ripping my clothes off and making love to me on the soft grass like in a cheesy romance novel.

  Which was why I was confused about his rejection.

  The rest of our day was even more awkward than yesterday when he’d called me the c-word. Hawk’s sweat soaked through his grey t-shirt but he kept it on, as if his bare chest were to blame for what had happened. Like the male-equivalent of a girl being scolded for showing too much cleavage and distracting the boys.

  But even with the shirt on, Hawk was sexy. Tremendously sexy. Ridiculously sexy, in a way that stirred my loins just from watching him swing the hammer.

  God, I wanted to kiss him again.

  Did it have to do with the Copperheads? Like yesterday in front of Sid, he was afraid of showing any kind of affection for me? That they might be watching and then use me to get to him?

  That made no sense. Nobody was around for miles. We were alone together.

  It was stupid.

  But Hawk was quiet and brooding while we made our way along the fence, and I was feeling too embarrassed by his rejection to say anything.

  The first thing he said to me all afternoon was on the ride home. “You want me to drop you off at the motel so you don’t have to walk?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  He pulled up to the motel and parked the truck. Suddenly I remembered something.

  “Hey! Stay here a sec.”

  I ran inside and came back out with his jacket. I leaned across the passenger seat to hand it to him. He took it and held it up.

  “Forgot all about it.”

  “Me too,” I admitted. “Should’ve given it to you days ago.”

  We locked eyes for a few seconds. A moment passed between us.

  “Hey, Peaches?” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  He stared at me for a long, silent moment. “See you tomorrow.” He punctuated it with a warm smile that simultaneously made everything better and only confused me further.

  I went to the lobby to get dinner. Billy was sound asleep behind the desk, and woke with a jerk when the door closed shut behind me. “Morning,” I said.

  Billy practically fell out of his chair. “It’s… huh? What time is it?”

  “Just a joke,” I said as I got a microwavable burrito and coke out of the cooler.

  To his credit, he actually chuckled. “You got me good. Almost scared me half to death. Sheriff said if he caught me sleepin’ again he’d find an excuse to throw me in the jail ‘til I’m old enough to drink.”

  “Sorry.” I put the food on the counter and sighed. “Alright. About that weekly discount.”

  His smile spread slowly across his face.

  Back in my room I opened my laptop and used the insanely slow motel internet to do some research on the Copperheads. Their official Wikipedia page called them The Georgia Copperhead Motorcycle Club. There were only two paragraphs, one detailing their founding in 1982, and another explaining their notable run-ins with the law. I went back to Google and found a Facebook group for the Macon Police Department with a post about the Copperheads dated from 2017. Several residents complained about the motorcycles riding into their town in the middle of the night, causing a ruckus at the local restaurants and bars, and starting fist fights. Other posts complained about the lack of police attention to the issue. At the bottom was a canned response from the Macon Police Department saying they take the matter very seriously and are looking into it.

  There wasn’t much else on the internet to find. Even less when I tried to look up Sid himself. Turns out psychopathic motorcycle dudes didn’t post on Instagram.

  It was getting dark out, and my microwavable burrito was looking less and less appealing the more I stared at it. Finally I put it in the mini fridge and went back to the lobby.

  “Say, Billy,” I said in my friendliest tone. “You’re my best friend here, did you know that?”

  He squinted suspiciously at me. “Uh huh.”

  “You want to give me a ride into town?”

  He blew air out his nose. “I don’t got my license. Get dropped off and picked up here. Gonna get my learner’s permit next month, though!”

  It was a nice night, so I decided to brave the dark road and walk. There was a cool breeze which blew off the humidity, and the forest was a chorus of chirping birds and insects. It reminded me of my parents’ house, where I grew up. We didn’t have these wild forest sounds in Savannah, and I hadn’t realized I’d missed them until now.

  I was halfway to main street when I heard a single motorcycle approaching from behind.

  I felt a moment of panic as I moved to the ditch. What if it was a Copperhead? I could run and hide in the woods on the other side of the ditch. Better safe than sorry, especially for a girl all alone on a backwater Georgia road.

  Indecision kept me from running, and then the bike’s headlight was close enough that it was too late for me to run. It blinded me as it approached, shielding the rider from view. As it slowed down I said a silent prayer that I wouldn’t end up on the local news in the morning: girl disappears because she didn’t want to eat her burrito.

  But the man on the bike had flowing sandy hair, and wore a surprised grin on his handsome face as he stopped next to me.

  “You look lost, Peaches.”

  I gestured in the distance. “Heading into town for dinner.”

  Hawk patted the saddle behind him. “Hop on. I’m going that way.”

  My heart was still thumping in my chest from the fear that he was a Copperhead, so I climbed onto the back without hesitation. I didn’t know what to do with my hands—I’d never ridden on a motorcycle before—so I placed them gently on his shoulders.

  I felt him rumble with laughter more than I heard it. “You’re gonna need to hold on better than that, Peaches. I don’t ride slow.”

  When I still hesitated, he reached behind him and took my hands in his. He wrapped them around his midsection, pulling my arms forward until my entire chest was pressed against his broad back.

  “There we go. Hold on.”

  The bike roared to life and shot away so fast that I almost fell off the back, even with my arms wrapped around Hawk’s body. I gripped him tighter, feeling the brick-like abs underneath his tight black t-shirt. The bike vibrated nicely between my legs, a soothing shaking that instantly put a smile on my face.

  So this is why girls like bikers.

  It wasn�
��t a long ride into town. The end of this road, turning onto the main street, and then maybe a quarter mile to the diner. But it was so much fun I wished we were driving for miles. It was strangely intimate: my thighs against his thighs, my chest against his back, and his hair blowing gently into my face. He smelled incredible, like oil and smoke and grease. I couldn’t place it, but I kept inhaling the scent as we drove down the road.

  When we rounded the corner onto the main street, he reached between his legs and shifted something that was wedged underneath his leg. I craned my head around him to look. A bouquet of flowers stuck out, purple and red and pink.

  A pang of jealousy stabbed me in the chest, shocking me for a moment.

  “Who are those for?” I shouted over the roar of the engine.

  “Nobody.”

  “Oh, you bought them for yourself, then?”

  He chuckled at that, but didn’t answer.

  The diner appeared on the right, and he slowed down and rode over onto the side of the road. His boots planted on the ground to balance the bike while it was stationary.

  “Here ya go,” he said.

  With regret, I peeled my arms off him and stepped off the bike. My legs were slightly numb from the vibrations. “Thanks,” I said, wishing I could go on a longer ride with him. Wondering if I had the courage to ask for that.

  Before I could, Hawk said, “Have a good night, Peaches,” and drove away.

  I watched him go, bike rumbling back onto the road much slower than before. Then he turned down the dirt road into the woods, the same one I’d seen him ride down the other night. His bike headlight made the trees flicker into and then out of view.

  I glanced at the diner, then back at the dirt road. My curiosity was so strong that food could wait.

  I jogged up the street and then down the little road. It was unpaved, made up of dirt and gravel rocks spaced unevenly into the woods. Dirt in the air kicked up by Hawk’s bike stung my eyes and made me cough, but I kept jogging. The trees hung over the road like claws stretching out to grab me. If I wasn’t following Hawk, I probably would have been afraid. But knowing he was up ahead filled me with courage. Nothing bad would happen to me if he was there. I just had to get to him.