breaths.
He threw some of the pieces of the cell phone out the door and pulled out.
***
The tears were back. I couldn’t stop the tears from running down my face, like an endless waterfall as it all just kept washing over me again and again. Yet another brush with death.
“You’re okay,” he said, gruffly.
Minutes later, he chucked another piece of the remaining cell phone pieces out the window. His hand then reached the dash and came at me with the pack of Kleenex.
I recoiled with a gasp.
He lifted his hand up higher in the air, dropping the package on the floor.
“You’re okay, Jojo.”
I nodded, but kept doing that hyperventilating/shuddering thing.
“Hey?” He reached over and grabbed the Kleenex from the floor and handed it to me.
“Back off,” I pleaded, feeling like his hands anywhere near me were taking me back to a few minutes ago when I feared for my life while he held me. I knew there was Kleenex there; I’d wipe my eyes if I fucking well wanted to.
His expression dropped and he did not back off. He drove faster, drove like a bit of a maniac in fact, and this had me holding onto my arm rests like they had supernatural protective abilities. He pulled into an old mostly overgrown dirt driveaway and kept going. The brush was so thick, the branches kept hitting the windshield, and the banging and scratching noises seemed to just go on and on. This driveway went on for forever. Finally, he threw it in park aggressively and chucked the final cell phone piece out the window.
“The fuck are you doing?” I whispered. “You just stopped us from getting killed, probably, and now you almost kill us in this fucking shit box?”
I looked at his face and the fury all over it got me so tweaked, I decided I needed the fuck away from this guy. I unclicked my seatbelt and then as I reached for the door handle his hand clamped down on my wrist, halting me. He was out of his seat hovering over me. I tried to pull away. He let go of my wrist, so I shrank away from him.
“I’m not a bad guy here for a switch. I’m on the right fuckin’ side. I know what you heard, but it’s all part of the plan. Your father’s in on the whole thing. I went to them and told ‘em I made a mistake leaving their club, that I wanted back in. They don’t trust me but were playin’ along, thinkin’ I had access to money to steal from your dad and we’d use it to rebuild. I let them think I didn’t fuckin’ know they’d off me the minute they got their hands on that money. I’m with the brotherhood. A hundred per cent. We have plans to take out the rest of those fuckers.”
“Whatever,” I whispered.
“Listen… I didn’t know how the fuck I’d get us outta that, but I only knew I had to get you outta that so that’s what I fuckin’ did. You can look at me like I’m a hardened criminal who murders for kicks, but just know I did what I did because I knew just one thing… and that was that they could not fuckin’ get you where they wanted you. That’s now two less men who have the ability to come after you, hurt you and your family. You hear?”
When I didn’t answer him, he tugged me out of my seat and hauled me back to where we’d been in the back, onto the mound of quilted moving pads behind the driver’s seat.
I gasped in shock and put my hands against his chest, about to shove him, but then his lips were on my mouth. I had his lips on me, his hands on my face and I was on his lap.
I couldn’t even form a coherent thought, because he was devouring me with those lips, and I was melting. I finally managed to say, “Hey, wait.” I pulled back to look at his face. It was dim back here with a bit of light coming in from the windshield and back windows, but I could see enough to see fierceness in his expression.
“Christian?”
“They’ve hurt too many, no fuckin’ way was I letting them hurt you,” he said, hands firmly holding my face. His voice was choked. “I’ve been fighting tooth and fuckin’ nail to deprive myself of you all this time only to have them looking at you with their filthy