This wasn't her first rodeo. She knew exactly how to act when she walked into the bar, as if she owned it, strutting across the floor in her leather pants and fringed shirt like a pro.
She never expected to attract their attention. They were the leaders, the core four, and just the thought that she had drawn their attention was enough to make her wet. She could smell the excitement on her skin as she passed them and all four sets of eyes followed her path, to her surprise.
The blue eyes drew her in and held her fast as she downed the shot of tequila the bartender had set her up. Her eyes watered, but it was her own fault. Too long without the juice and she went soft, weak; there was no room for weakness here.
A girl had to take care of herself, always. It was just as much a law of the road as any other imaginary law that the man created.
She felt them behind her before she turned to see them. Blue eyes was tall, taller than he looked sitting down. He looked at her, studied her, then stared at the tip of his steel-toed boots while the short one did all the talking.
After her mind filtered out the dirty words, she realized he asked her a question.
"A ride? Yeah, uh, sure. I'll ride with you."
It wasn't long before she was a fixture on the back of Lenny's bike. They traveled the roads, sleeping in bedrolls on the side of the highway but occasionally there were real beds and motel rooms. The party never seemed to stop; she could have liquor, beer, wine, drugs, anything that her little heart desired. Lenny snapped his fingers and Shelly got it for him and he gave it to her.
She started making a game of it. She would request something that seemed impossible—a particular liquor, a certain type of pot, a specialized shampoo that made her smell like green apples and home—and within a couple of hours, she had it in her hand. She made sure to thank Shelly every time, just on principle. It was a given that he was excellent at finding things, just like Lenny was at needing things. They fit well together, even better when she was between them. She was the missing piece of the puzzle and they both knew it.
Lenny knew that Shelly loved her. His body language screamed his devotion. He stiffened when she was around, taut with nervous energy that he usually spent riding alone. Lenny would watch him climb on his hog and ride off, his heart on his sleeve to those who knew him and indifferent and cold to those who don't.
Penny didn't know him well.
Lenny thought about passing her on, but she had the fresh, Cali girl looks that seemed to draw attention to his power within the group, so he kept her for himself. There were others, of course; she was only a girl, after all, and he couldn't be bothered with faithfulness when he was the head honcho. That's not his life, he thought, sandwiched between Leslie and Priya in the queen-sized bed. He wondered for a moment where Penny had spent the night then shrugged, not really caring.
Shelly had given her shelter. She slept on the other bed in his room, curled up on top of the comforter and fully clothed. He woke her up and she rolled over in time to see his bare ass as he strode into the bathroom. Her face flamed; he had seen more of her than she of him, but it still wore on her mind later that day when she was back in her rightful place on the back of Lenny's bike.
The whole thing came to a head when they stopped for gas and Penny went to the bathroom.
She returned to the crowd around the bikes and saw Lenny and Shelly standing off.
Lenny turned to face her on the tarmac. "So, bitch, where did you sleep last night?"
She saw no reason to lie. "Shelly let me sleep in his room in the other bed."
The heavy hand across her cheek shocked her. She fell to the ground, holding her face as tears erupted from her eyes. "Whore! You gonna fuck the whole gang now? Is that what you want?"
"No, Lenny. I was tired and needed somewhere to sleep. Shelly just felt sorry for me and didn't want me to sleep outside."
He grabbed her long braid and dragged her upright. "Yeah, well, fuck that. Anyone want to take over this whore? Going once."
"I will."
His soft voice cut through the clamor and Lenny turned to look at his second in command. "So you want my sloppy seconds, eh, Shelly? You never have before."
"Well, there's always a first time for everything, Lenny. You never had one that looked like her before either."
He pulled her face close to his and squinted down into her eyes. He could see the terror swimming to the surface, felt the first onset of panic as she started to struggle in his grasp. "Yeah, she's still pretty. Maybe I'll keep her for a little while longer."
"You just told me that I could have her, Lenny." He was quietly insistent, but his calm seemed to incite the leader's anger.
He tossed Penny at Sheldon's feet. She wasn't ready for the throw so her hands and knees hit the ground and her chin collided with the steel toe on Shelly's boot. "Fucking take her, then. Keep the bitch in line and her mouth shut, though, or we're going to have a problem."
She picked herself up and dusted her hands off on her jeans. She climbed onto the back of Shelly's bike, found the pegs with her feet, and tried to sit as upright and still as she could as they started their long road trip.
They rode for nearly ten hours before they stopped. She figured that it would be a campground or the side of the road; she was shocked when Shelly pulled into another motel. Within a few minutes, they were safely ensconced in a room and he was holding out a towel.
"Go take a shower. You reek of Lenny's cologne and old sex."
She blushed as she took the towel and went into the bathroom.
While she showered, she wondered if she would be expected to service him when she got out. She bathed herself carefully; she had learned her lesson about grooming after one time she hadn't. She was a quick learner.
She came out of the bathroom wrapped in the towel and nothing else. She didn't have many clothes with her; Shelly was a wild card and she had no idea what he was about.
He glanced up at her, and then turned back to the money he had laid out on the bedspread. "Put some clothes on," he said gruffly, and she turned to grab her tee shirt and shorts, tossing the towel aside as she pulled them on. She didn't see his eyes lingering on her, only his glare when her head popped through the neck of the shirt.
Without looking at her, he gestured her over to sit down. "Lemme make something crystal to you, kitten. I don't expect you to fuck me and I don't expect you to like me. I need some arm candy to keep prying eyes out of my business and you fit the bill. I help you, you help me, we both win. Understood?"
She watched him as he cut the money into piles, and then carefully put it into packets before shoving it into a messenger bag that he always carried with him. "But—I thought that was why you—"
He pinned her in place with those incredible blue eyes and silenced her without a word. "Sweetheart, you don't know a fucking thing about me except what I want you to know."
He pointed to the bed by the door and said, "That's yours." Without another word or look, he got to his feet and hustled into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him. She crawled into the other bed and fell into the dreamless sleep of the exhausted.
She didn't know that he stood over her, watching her sleep for a long time. He wished things were different. He really, really did.
He never spoke to her when they weren't riding. When they were on the bike, he only spoke to give her instructions, criticism, and nothing more. Howie was still pestering her, grabbing her ass and tweaking her nipple whenever she passed him when they were stopped. When Shelly witnessed one of his more adventurous groping sessions, she was grabbed by the upper arm and dragged out of Howie's lap, shoved to one side, and admonished to stay put when Shelly pulled out a wickedly sharp switchblade.
"You know, Howie, you should really learn to keep your hands off my things."
There was a deadly undertone to Shelly's voice and she shivered at the hollow sound of it in the middle of the silent bar. Howard turned and gave her a wink and a wave, implying that he would be feeling her up again as soon as he had the chance; Penny cringed inside, hoping that there would be a truck cross his path or hers before that happened.
He didn't see Shelly gritting his teeth, only felt the edge of the knife as it sliced through the palm of his hand. With a shout, he was on his feet and holding his bleeding palm.
"You fucking bastard! What the fuck, Shelly?"
"I told you. Now I'm letting you know I'm serious." He licked Howie's blood off the knife and shoved the blade back into the sheath. "Don't fuck with me, Howie. The closer we get, the more irritable I'm gonna be."
"All right, man, all right." He looked over his shoulder at Penny and winked at Shelly. "She must be riding the cotton pony if you're not tapping that yet."
"Yes, well, that's neither here nor there, Howie. Keep your eyes to yourself."
Howie backed down and Lenny came up to stand beside him. "Do I need to relieve you and help you out here, bud? Penny's got a knack for easing tension; you just gotta let her do her thing."
"Perhaps we'll take a short jaunt up the coast, Lenny, if you don't mind."
Lenny grabbed his tall friend's shoulder. "Sure, whatever you need, Shelly. Go on, get out of here."
She hurried after him as he walked out of the bar, his messenger bag on his shoulder.
He seemed angry when he tossed his bag in the saddlebag on the side of the bike. She stood back, waiting for some sign that it wasn't she he was pissed at; he never looked her way, but threw his leg over the seat and gritted out, "So are you fucking coming or would you rather be a star in the next gangbang?"
She hurried to the bike and climbed on behind him, tucking her hands under her ass to keep from touching him. She knew that he didn't like to be touched, especially when he was driving.
"You got more than what you got on right now?"
She blinked at the barely mumbled question, and then shook her head. Realizing her mistake, she said, "No. I carry everything in my bag." She rattled her overly large purse at him and he laughed mirthlessly.
"Yeah, me too. Fucking nomadic life."
Without further conversation, he started the bike and hit the highway, tearing up miles between them and the bikers they rode with. She swayed with the motion of the motorcycle as it bumped and shuddered along the rougher sections, leaned with the curves, and did her best not to touch the rider in front of her, but she couldn't help but brush against his back occasionally. It was an unstoppable force, nearly magnetic, pulling them closer together with the distance.
Like they were running without running. Like she was getting ready for something big, something so unbelievable that she couldn't imagine it.
She was daydreaming about what might happen when they verged onto a dirt road. She wasn't even sure how far they'd drove, just that they were in a wooded area with cleaner air than they'd come from, air so fresh that it reminded her of home. She couldn't stop the tears that flowed down her cheeks; she wondered if her parents even cared that she disappeared. Not like it mattered, anyway. They never thought anything good about her.
She could still hear her father calling her a whore.
She set her jaw and looked over Shelly's shoulder, catching sight of the cabin on the edge of a river. "Where are we?"
He glanced over his shoulder for a split second and made a snap judgment. "My place."
He pulled up in front of the cabin, shut off the motor, and left her sitting on the pillion seat.
She sat on the stairs of the cabin, waiting for him to come back. Darkness fell and he was still missing, having disappeared into the woods as soon as his ass left the seat of the bike. She didn't feel like she knew him well enough to just walk into his house, figuring that he had it locked down anyway, since it was so isolated, so she waited for him, looked around outside, relieved herself in the bushes, then sat down on the stairs. She was getting a little irritated; she was tired, dirty, and hungry and his absence was not helping matters much. Why did he even drag her along if he was going to abandon her here?
She was about to hit the road on foot when she saw him coming out of the woods. He didn't look any different, but his entire demeanor had changed. He was relaxed, his arms swinging with his stride; he usually held himself so stiff and distant that she couldn't grasp his mood.
He gave her a genuine smile when he was close enough to see her in the dark. "Why are you sitting outside?"
She looked down at her hands instead of at him. "I didn't want to intrude."
He held out his hand. "I brought you, didn't I? If I didn't want you here, you wouldn't be here."
She reached out and took the proffered hand. "I suppose. So this is your place?"
He pulled her to her feet and preceded her onto the porch. "Yeah. Family place. Got it in the will, you know. Anyway, I would appreciate it if you would keep it to yourself. You're the first person besides family that's been here."
She followed him into what seemed to be a rustic cabin from the outside. When she stepped through the door, it was not as it appeared. There was a large living area that seemed to comprise a living room, dining room, entertainment room, and kitchen, with a large island in the center that was carved from a single tree trunk. There were stairs off to the right, leading to an open loft, and two other doors.
"This is really nice."
"Thanks." He threw his keys into a bowl by the front door and tossed his messenger bag on a desk chair. He pulled his fingerless leather gloves off and tossed them next to the bowl, then carefully hung his jacket over the back of the chair holding the bag.
She put her purse down next to the door and wandered around. "Do you come here much?"
He looked up at her, arched his eyebrows, and then concentrated on not looking at her. "Not as often as I want. I'm too busy with other things."
"Oh." She didn't need to ask what—she knew that it was Lenny and the gang.
He didn't say anything, just went into the kitchen and started pulling things out of the cabinets. He washed his hands and started opening cans, pouring them into pots and putting them on the stove.
"Do you want help?"
He looked at her shyly. "No, I really don't. You can shower in the bathroom, if you want."
"It won't be weird?"
He considered for a moment, and then shook his head. "Naw, it won't be weird. There's towels in the closet and all kinds of bath products. My mom—went kind of crazy one year at a bath store."
"Okay." She fished a change of clothes out of her bottomless bag and was interrupted by his voice, coming out of the depths of the refrigerator. "If you want to wash your clothes, I have a washer and dryer."
Her limp clothes hung from her hand and she considered his offer. "Yeah, but if I wash them, I don't have anything to wear."
"I can lend you some. If you want."
She nodded. "Okay."
"I'll put something out on the sink for you."
She pulled back the shower curtain with the periodic table and found a set of plaid pajamas laying on the edge of the sink. She pulled them on and rolled the arms and legs up to keep them from dragging, then went out into the main area to smell the rich scent of spaghetti sauce. "Something smells great. I didn't know you knew how to cook."
"Yeah, I don't cook very often. Too much time spent in diners."
He set a plate of spaghetti in front of her. "Here you go."
She twirled a forkful of spaghetti onto her fork and saw hot dogs, chopped into pennies swimming in the sauce. She glanced up at him and saw him waiting for her to eat, so she shoved a healthy bite into her mouth and chewed, smiling. "Tastes good. I never thought of putting hot dogs into spaghetti."
"My mom made it that way."
Dinner was mostly silent. They chatted for a few moments when Penny could come up with a topic, but they mostly sat and avoided looking at one another.
She helped him wash the dishes, then grabbed her clothes out of her bag and headed toward the back of the kitchen and a little closet that he'd pointed out earlier. She dumped her clothes into the washer, shook in some powdered detergent, and went back into the main area to find him.
He sat in front of the television, his feet planted on the floor and a large book in his lap. She watched him quietly for a moment from her vantage point in the kitchen, admiring his looks without fearing that he would catch her.
He was far handsomer than the others in the gang were. His features were fine and aristocratic, his nose straight and unbroken. He looked rugged and dangerous; truth be told, he was more dangerous than he seemed, in her mind.
She thought back over the last few weeks, riding pillion with him. There was something about him that made her want more—more contact, more conversation, more of the physical. She was a woman, she had needs. She thought that he did too, but he never turned to her in all the times that they had shared a roll or a room, never touched her in any way.
Yes, he made her want more and she knew that was an iffy subject, no matter how you sliced it. Still, he was a kind man; in the last couple of months, she didn't brace herself for a fist because there was no physical violence from him. He got his point across with a word and a raised eyebrow, not his machismo and bluster.
He could handle a switchblade, though. He had proved that in the bar.
He must have felt her watching him because he turned and looked at her. "If you want to watch a movie or something, you can. I'm just…well, I'm reading."
"Okay." She crossed the room and sat down next to him on the couch, propping her feet on the table. He cleared his throat and she dropped them to the floor before looking at him sheepishly. "Sorry."
"Please refrain from doing so again, if at all possible."
She gave him a funny look. "You're…different."
"Yes, well…are you tired? You look tired."
"Yeah, I guess it's about time to hit the sack." She stood and stretched and the pajamas parted slightly, giving him a glimpse of her stomach. "You know, Shelly, I never have thanked you for…well, for keeping me from being abandoned on the side of the road, or worse. I really do appreciate it."
Her eyes searched for the differences in him, the palpable changes that she had noticed since they arrived here. He was clean. His clothes, his skin, his hair—even his nails had been trimmed and the dirt scoured from his long, aristocratic hands. He wasn't as distant, as stiff, as unyielding as he normally was. He seemed approachable and…softer, somehow. Nearly boyish.
She mentally gave herself a shake and looked down at the book in his lap. Physics. Huh, who would have guessed? She knew that he was smart; Lenny wouldn't let him handle the funds if he wasn't. But physics smart? She had no idea.
He was looking up at her shyly from under his lashes. It seemed flirty, something that she would do to him, not the other way around. She giggled and his face fell.
It was like a shutter closed and she felt the chill fill the room. "We will be staying here for a few days. Make yourself at home but don't pry or pilfer and absolutely no snooping. There's plenty to do around here if you can entertain yourself."
"Okay. Um, goodnight, Shelly."
"Good night."
He watched her careful, measured steps as she took the staircase to the loft. She climbed into the far side of the queen-sized bed with Star Wars sheets and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. She didn't hear him come up, didn't feel him as he climbed in bed with her, and didn't know that he laid in the dark staring at her, watching her sleep and feeling creepy doing so, but he couldn't stop himself. He could only exercise so much control.
Penny woke the next morning with a warm arm thrown over her waist and her legs tangled with two others. She tried to slip out of the bed and he tightened his hold, burrowing his face in her back as he pulled her closer to him. His hand touched her bare skin just above the waistband of the over-large pajamas and she shivered at the electricity that seemed to jump between them.
His breathing changed and she knew that he was awake. She also felt something pressed against her bottom. She wiggled experimentally and he jumped away from her and out his side of the bed.
"Shelly?"
He was about to head downstairs when her voice stopped him dead at the top of the staircase. "Am I repulsive to you?"
He turned and looked at her. Her hair tumbled over her shoulder and she had that morning sex look, though nothing of the sort had happened. Her eyes searched his for truth and he discovered that he didn't want to avoid it any longer.
"No." He stepped closer to the bed and stopped himself, steeled himself against the temptation to crawl back into bed with her. "No, you are not repulsive to me. In fact, I find you very attractive. However, it would greatly damage our standing in the group to change anything between us."
"What, do you think that Lenny would care? I don't mean anything to him, Shelly. I'm nothing but a pair of tits and a p—"
"Please, refrain from that type of vulgarity here. This is my oasis from all that and I would prefer it remain that way."
"All right then. I'm nothing but someone to sleep with."
He started down the stairs. "You do not know him like I do. Once he has had you, you belong to him. I am just a stopgap before he decides to claim you again."
She pushed her hair out of her face and thought about what he said. She didn't belong to Lenny; she didn't belong to anyone but herself. She was no man's possession, especially not that tin god. Not to mention he had anger issues, that was for sure. She didn't want to go back to that kind of life; she had tried hard enough to get out of it.
She wasn't anyone's dog to kick or trophy girlfriend. Not now, not ever again.
She climbed out of bed and heard Shelly in the kitchen, cooking again, she guessed. Still in the oversized pajamas, she padded down the stairs and headed to the kitchen. Shelly was behind the island, cooking scrambled eggs and bacon with a certain panache that belied his dismissal the night before.
"Shelly, I just don't get it. What's a nice guy like you riding with Lenny anyway? You don't seem like the type for it."
He wouldn't look at her (couldn't, either, because it would give him away). "I met Lenny in school. I was tired of the bull and tired of being picked on for…many reasons, so we started riding motorcycles to get away. Riding led to other things, then the group that we rode with adopted colors and…the rest is history."
"But you're smart, aren't ya? I saw you flipping through that physics book last night. You were reading it so fast that I'm surprised that you even saw the words."
He leaned over the counter and shook a spatula in her face. "Don't you ever say anything about that, you hear? I snuck around and finished school and now I'm going to keep going. It's nobody's business but mine, understand? I've never hit a woman and I don't plan on it, but if anyone finds out, we're both dead meat."
She keeled back on her heels, then rocked forward again and grabbed his wrist. "Shelly, as far as I'm concerned, I'm your girl now. You treat me good, you act like I'm a human being and not just a hole and that goes a long way with me. Your secrets are my secrets and vice versa."
He searched her face looking for the lie. He saw no agenda, just a woman who was desperate for acceptance. "It's well, not good. I treat you well."
"Yeah, whatever. You're good to me, how's that?"
He gave her a little grin. "That's fine. Scrambled eggs okay?"
He disappeared again after breakfast. She watched him walk into the woods, then stripped off to her skin and went swimming in the river by the cabin, enjoying the cold water in the heat of the morning sun. By afternoon, though, the sun hid behind the height of the trees and she began to chill.
She slipped out of the water and headed up the rocks edging the river. She looked around and saw nothing but nature, so she laid herself down on the rocks and let the sun dry her skin.
Shelly watched her from the tree line, hidden by deep bushes and branches.
She had supper already cooked by the time he returned from his walkabout. She didn't ask where he'd been; only set a plate of food in front of him after he'd washed up in the bathroom.
They ate together in silence, and then she went into the bathroom and stayed in there for a long while. He could hear her humming occasionally, short little ditties of popular songs that were on the radio right now. He tried to concentrate on his work and found his mind wandering to what he had seen in the woods that afternoon.
When she finally emerged from the bathroom, the scent of honeysuckle preceded her into the room. She toweled her hair and took it to the laundry area, put it in the proper place, and transferred her forgotten clothes from the washer to the dryer.
She turned to find him standing behind her, almost too close to her. She could feel the heat rising from his skin as she took in his reddened cheeks and stiff posture.
"You…disturb me, Penny."
"I'm sorry, Shelly. I was trying to be as quiet as I could."
He turned away and walked quickly across the room. "Not like that. You disturb my thoughts, break my concentration, make me want to do things that I shouldn't. You are a constant point of chaos, aren't you?"
She shook her head. What? "What do you mean?" she finally settled on.
"Never mind." He headed toward the front door and she moved around him, pressing her back against the wood and blocking his exit. "Tell me what you mean."
"I mean that I can't think when you're around. I can't concentrate, I can't do my work, and I can't keep my mind on task. You…you—"
She refused to listen to any more. She grabbed his head and dragged him down to her level to press her mouth to his.
Her heart exploded with feelings as she kissed him. She didn't notice that he wasn't kissing her back, was holding his body away from her as far as he could.
She let him go and he stood up, towering over her. "I would appreciate it if you did not do that again."
She couldn't stop the tears, but she could keep him from seeing them. She turned and opened the front door and ran into the night, not listening to his yells of surprise and warning as she made her way to the woods.
She found shelter in the hollow of a pine tree as the rain began to fall. She heard animals in the underbrush; she had been raised in the country so the sounds didn't frighten her, only made her wish for a shotgun. She curled into a small ball and shivered in the cool night air as she tried to keep warm.
He came at her from behind and surprised her more than any animal could. As he wrapped her in a blanket and picked her shivering form up into his arms, she looked up at him and said, "What took you so long?"
He didn't answer her question, not on the short trek back to the cabin or after he shut the door securely behind him. He locked it for the first time since they'd been there and then gave her a look that was more menacing than comforting. "I don't expect that kind of behavior to happen again, no matter how upset you are."
She headed to the bathroom to wash her feet. When she came out, the house was dark and she couldn't see Shelly in the main living area. She found she didn't feel like sharing his bed with him; it wouldn't do her any good anyway, she rationalized. She grabbed an afghan off the back of the leather sofa and bundled up in it, sitting in front of the fireplace that dominated that end of the room.
He watched her bed down for the night from above.
She woke the next morning to find him standing over her, dressed for riding. "I'm going into town for supplies. I'll be back shortly. Do not leave the cabin."
Without another word to her, he was out the door. The bike started with a throb and he was gone.
She wandered around the cabin for a while, thought about going back down to the river for a swim before she remembered his admonishment, then sat down with a book she found on the shelves. Before long, she found herself deeply engrossed in the pages and didn't realize the passage of time until she couldn't read comfortably in the waning light. She saw that hours had passed and Shelly hadn't returned yet.
She heard the engine of the bike as it came down the road and threw open the door.
It wasn't Shelly returning; it was Lenny, come to check on his property.
He sidled up to her, confidence in his swagger. "So, Penny, miss me?"
She refused to meet his eyes. "Yeah, yeah…Shelly brought me here. He said nobody knew about it."
"Yeah, he thinks nobody knows, but we all do. We share this cabin, just like we share everything else."
There was an implied threat in his voice and she started inching her way back to the door of the cabin. Lenny stood at the foot of the stairs leading to the porch, looking like a cat that ate a canary. That smarmy, shit-eating grin split his face and he said, "You know, he ain't coming back. He's in town, getting busy with one of his friends."
"I don't believe you."
"Yeah, Shelly likes 'em tall and dark, like his sister. We always wondered about him and his sister. They used to hang out all the time but when he joined us, she stopped having anything to do with him. Lover's quarrel, I guess."
"I don't believe you." She was almost to the door. He still hadn't started up the stairs so she thought she might have time.
"That's why I knew that you'd be safe in his hands. I knew that he would fuck you and you would still be mine."
"I don't fucking believe you and I will never be yours. Never!"
He was at her side in a shot, his boots barely making a sound on the wooden porch. He grabbed her by the hair and wound it around his hand, tugging her down to her knees. "You will always be mine, bitch. Don't forget it."
"No, she won't."
Shelly's voice came out of the darkness at the edge of the porch, startling them both. "Let her go, Lenny. Let her go and face me down—it's what you've always wanted, isn't it? To face me down, one on one."
Lenny twisted her hair tighter in his fist. "Don't think so, buddy. You've got an advantage, don't ya?"
Shelly stepped into the light. It caught the edge of the switchblade and glinted evilly. "The only thing that I have on you is height, Leonard."
"Don't fucking call me Leonard! I've told you that before, asshole."
"You have said a lot of things, Leonard, and one of them was that she belonged to me. Of course, I do not subscribe to your belief that women are property, but that is my opinion."
"Yeah, and you know that opinions are like assholes, buddy. Now, let me get on with this…." He reached down and started drawing down his zipper and Shelly leaped onto the porch and nicked Leonard's wrist with a flick of the blade.
"I said let her go."
Lenny started whining; it shocked her so much that when he dropped her hair, she still kneeled at his feet. "Come on, buddy, you know that I was shitting with ya. Us, fight over a girl? That's not us, man. We're bros. Bros before hoes, remember?"
"I don't hardly think so, Lenny. Go back to the gang and we'll be back with you in a couple of days. And don't ever come here again, you or any of the others. I'll kill you if you do."
Lenny looked at him, unwilling to call Shelly's bluff. He tred down the stairs, careful of every step, then turned to look at him from the bottom. Penny moved behind Shelly and the open switchblade, watching from behind Shelly's back.
"Just so you know, Sheldon, this isn't over."
"Yes it is, Leonard. Yes it is."
They watched the taillights fade in the dark, and then headed into the cabin.
After he saw her in safely, he headed back out into the night. It wasn't very long before she heard his bike (how did she mistake one for the other? She didn't know, never would) pulling into the drive.
He returned with two large bags of groceries. He looked at her, but refused to speak, no matter what overtures she made.
He was pissed off, severely pissed off. She could tell. For one, he hadn't spoken to her since the standoff with Lenny. For another, if she slept in the bed, he took the couch; if she crawled in bed after him, he moved while she slept. Either way, she woke alone.
He disappeared during the day, doing what she had no idea. He came into the house at dusk, filthy and sweaty, and headed directly to the bathroom. He ate whatever she cooked and went to bed immediately after, not waiting for her or helping her clean up afterward.
On the morning of the fifth day, he stopped her when she started into the kitchen. "I'm leaving in the morning."
"I'll get my things together."
"You're not going with me."
She could see him slipping back into his old persona, the person that she had been riding behind for weeks. "What? Where am I going to go, then?"
"You're staying here."
"Shelly, I can't stay here. Lenny—"
"Lenny will not be problematic for you anymore."
She tried. She gave him every argument against abandoning her that she could come up with, but he was adamant about her location. She would stay at the cabin and wait for him to come back.
Mentally, though, she compromised. Two weeks. She would give him two weeks, and then all bets were off and she was going to find him.
That night, when she crawled into the bed, she didn't stop on her side. She rolled over and pressed herself against his stiffened back, her arms wrapping around his waist.
"Shelly," she whispered in the dark. Her lips touched his skin and he shivered in her embrace. "Shelly, talk to me."
"What is there to say? I have my plans already made." He grabbed her wandering hand and stilled it in the center of his chest. She could feel his heart beating wildly beneath her fingertips and she wondered if it was her fault or something else.
"You didn't give me a choice, though."
"You don't need a choice. I made your choice for a reason."
He turned onto his back and faced her, speaking to her for the first time in two days. "Penny. I know that I haven't been the best to you. I've shut you out and kept you at a distance for the entire time I've known you, but you have to understand—I have my reasons. I need you to stay here and not ask questions, okay? I will come back for you."
"Shelly, you got to give me something to make me believe you. Anything."
He didn't answer her with words. He pushed her back onto the bed, pinning her shoulders with his hands, and kissed her hard. Stars exploded and the cosmos twirled behind her eyes as the brush of his lips sent her past the outer limits and into the stratosphere. His tongue slid effortlessly between her lips to taste the sweetness of her mouth and she moaned into his mouth, arched her back to press against him.
"Oh, Shelly—"
"Don't call me that. Call me Sheldon."
"Sheldon." Her whisper was a prayer on the wind as he bent his head to kiss her once again.
She woke up the next morning, the sheets tangled around her waist. She stretched, cat-like, and felt a familiar soreness in her body, one that had been absent for several weeks. She felt content, happy, and whole; it permeated her from her head to her toes and she wanted to roll in the sensation. Instead, she climbed out of the bed and bounced down the stairs, slipping his pajama top on over her lithe, naked form.
"Sheldon?"
Silence answered her. "Shelly? Where are you?"
He didn't answer. She ran to the front door and opened it. The bike was gone, the only evidence left were the tracks in the dirt.
She collapsed in the front door and cried.
She stayed at the cabin for a month. She wouldn't have stayed that long, but that was how long the groceries held out. She didn't have any place to go anyway; where would she go, back to Nebraska? Doubtful.
She thumbed a ride to Pasadena and got a waitressing job. She started living in a small, one-bedroom apartment and decided that maybe acting was a good thing for her to try.
She tried out for a couple of small parts, a commercial or two. She got a couple; she got even more offers for porn and turned them down cold. Sheldon wouldn't approve.
Sheldon. She still waited, couldn't forget him and that one magical night. She didn't want to. She refused every date, every wicked one-liner that men threw at her. She had no desire for a one-night stand, all she wanted was Sheldon. He obviously didn't want her, not enough to stay.
She was drinking herself to sleep at night to forget the magic between them. She was spending her days trying not to think of that lanky, blue-eyed devil that had stolen her heart and left her abandoned and alone in the woods. She dodged passes and went home alone to watch programs on science because that's what he liked.
God, she was pathetic.
"Hey, Penny—there's a guy out front asking for you specifically to wait on him."
"Yeah? Well, he can wait until I'm done with table six." She gathered the four plates to take to her regular customers, some science geeks from the university.
She walked out of the kitchen and headed to her table. She glanced up and the plates fell from her hands, shattering on the floor.
Sheldon sat at a table alone, dressed in a three-piece suit.
She couldn't help it; she ran to meet him and was swept up in his arms, to the stunned surprise of the crowded restaurant. She was crying and kissing him at the same time. He cupped her face in his hands and asked her if there was somewhere they could talk.
With a stammered apology to her manager, she turned and led him out the door of The Cheesecake Factory to her car.
She started to drive to her apartment, then changed direction and hit the highway.
They made it to the cabin by sunset. The rosy color washed the trees and highlighted autumn. It was exactly as she left it—down to the note on the door.
They never spoke. He unlocked the door and led her inside, up the stairs, and to the bed.
The only thing to break the silence was the sound of their breathing.
She turned over and looked at him, resting her chin on his chest. "So, you wanna tell me the truth now?"
He looked down at her and raised his eyebrow. "Really, after six months that's all you are going to say?"
"Well it's either that or I start cursing. I don't think that you want to hear me curse, I can get pretty graphic. And I was told one time that this was an oasis and I wasn't to use that kind of language here."
He chuckled—actually chuckled. "Yes. Well. After I left here—"
"Abandoned me, asshole."
"Very well, abandoned you here, I rejoined the gang. We rode for a while. Then I—"
He stopped and withdrew from her. He sat up on the side of the bed with his back to her and let his hands hang between his legs, his face in shadow. "I haven't been honest with you, Penny. I'm not who you think I am."
She sat up. "Then who are you? I don't care, really, but I would like to know something honest about the man that takes me to the moon and back."
He glanced over his shoulder and then back at the floor. "I'm a police officer for the Austin P.D."
"Okay. Should I run screaming now?"
"I was undercover with the biker gang to try to flush out drug trade, but I found something much more sinister at work there. Drugs were not the only thing on their agenda and I knew it when you joined us. I got you out as soon as I could."
"Well, thanks, I guess, but what were they doing?" She crawled up behind him and touched his back and his shoulders sagged.
"It wasn't necessarily Lenny and Howie, but they reaped the profits from it. The…well, some of them were trafficking in slavery. There were drugs and guns too, but there were a lot of women going missing in the southwest and we started seeing a trend."
He turned halfway and looked down at her. "When Lenny started letting you do drugs, I knew that he was going to put you on the block when he got tired of you. You knew Leslie and Priya. Well, one day they were there, the next they were gone. We found them in Tijuana, in a whorehouse."
He recognized the horror on her face. He had seen it in the mirror enough in the past few months.
"So you—you saved them, right?"
"Yeah, but—Penny, I didn't want that to happen to you. I knew that if I took you back, Lenny was going to force the issue—either make you the property of the gang, or set you on the block. I took a chance."
She threw herself on his lap and held him close. "Thank God you did." She drew back and frowned. "How did you explain when you went back without me?"
"I told them that I stopped for gas and you hitchhiked away while I was in the bathroom. They never asked any more, I never said any more."
She wondered for a moment how she was supposed to feel. On one hand, he had lied to her the entire time they knew one another. He was not who he was, that was for certain; he had slipped the persona off as easily as a snake shed its skin. Right now, she wasn't sure who he was.
She thought of something. "What about Lenny? Didn't you two go to school together?"
"Yeah, but that was a convenient coincidence. We weren't best friends, Penny, just guys that hung out occasionally. I went to Austin and attended the police academy. Leonard went to New Jersey."
"Oh." She slipped off his lap and sat next to him, their legs touching. "So what does this mean for us?"
"Well, I meant to talk to you about that. We—we kind of jumped the gun."
She had to laugh as she looked at the bed, their clothes all over the floor, and shoes at the top of the stairs. "Yeah, I guess that we did."
He took her hands and leaned forward. "Penny."
"Yes, Sheldon."
"Penny." He breathed her name, a prayer.
"Sheldon."
"Penny." He bent his head and kissed her lightly. Her eyes fluttered, suddenly heavy, and then he was abruptly gone. She opened her eyes to see him looking at her with chagrin.
"Sorry, did it again. I know that you don't know the real me and I don't want to mislead you. But—I—Penny, you make me feel so much and I don't know how to express it. I want to try, though."
She searched his face. There was something indescribable about it, a hint of hope that she had been searching for all her life. He was asking for a chance; she was willing to spend her last dollar on this longshot.
She raised her hand and touched his face. Cupping his cheek, she smiled brightly. "I'd really like that, Shelly. Sheldon. Officer. What's your real name, anyway?"
"Sheldon Cooper Ph.D. Or, it will be as soon as I defend my thesis."
"Oh, you're one of those beautiful mind guys."
"Yeah." He looked at her shyly and she giggled again. He made her feel like she was floating on air. Was this love? She didn't know, but she was willing to find out.
She twined herself around him once again and only paused for a moment. "Please, tell me you still have the bike and your leathers?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I liked the way that your ass looked in them. Now, come here and kiss me."
So he did.