It seemed like the more I held her, the worse she cried. And as I felt some of the guys staring out the window at us, I knew I needed to get her out of here. If she stood any chance of the guys being on her side with some bullshit like this, then they couldn’t see her break down the way she currently broke down.
“How about we go for a little ride on my bike?” I offered.
Josie drew in broken breaths. “I—I don’t know if—I—uh—”
I buried my nose into her hair. “We have to get you to calm down. Some fresh air might do you some good.”
And when she nodded her head, I whisked her away to my bike.
“All right, make sure you hold tight.”
“Yes, you can put your hands there.”
“Grip with your thighs. It’ll help you feel more stable.”
“Lean against me if you need to.”
After feeding her instructions on how to feel more stable on the back of my bike, I handed her a helmet. I slid mine on and connected our Bluetooth headphones just in case I needed to calm her down a bit more, then I struck up the engine of my bike. I revved it a few times, shocking her attention away from her crying. And after she sniffled a few times without any other sobs pouring forth, I eased us onto the road.
Before heading straight for our final destination.
Things were silent between us, but with every mile we put on my bike her crying died down a bit. Her grip got stronger as she clung to me, and I tried my best not to pop a fucking chub against my damn jeans. I had a beautiful woman clinging to me and I wasn’t even going to be sleeping with her. That was a first for me. But it was a first I’d take on with my head held high.
Especially if Josie wanted to get out of this mission alive.
I blazed a trail to my very favorite local destination spot: a beachside cabana with seats that faced the ocean. They served everything from booze to chili-cheese fries, and my stomach growled as we pulled up into the sandy parking lot. And without another word spoken between us, we parked, put ourselves together, and made our way for the cabana.
Where people stared at Josie’s face.
“Fucking hell,” she murmured.
I leaned toward her. “If you’d rather take some things to go, we can go on a walk. Find a nice deserted place on the beach.”
Her eyes grew wide, like a puppy dog. “You’d do that for me?”
A waiter interrupted us. “Uh, h-hi there. Can I—get you guys anything?”
I looked up at him. “Two surf and turf sandwiches with double-fried French fries, some ketchup, some mustard, and two Cokes. All to go.”
The waiter tried not to stare at Josie as he committed our order to memory. “Anything else? Possibly a milkshake or something?”
Josie nodded. “That sounds good. Are there banana milkshakes?”
The waiter nodded. “I can make you one, yes.”
I cleared my throat. “Then, we’ll also take a banana milkshake.”
“But with no whipped cream,” Josie added.
I scoffed. “Blasphemy.”
And when she smiled at me, the stars that had found homes in her eyes sparkled with delight.
She’s beautiful when she smiles.
The waiter scurried away with our order and we hung out with some water another waitress practically tossed in our general direction. They were being incredibly unprofessional, but then again this place had a penchant for hiring teens looking for their first job. They didn’t know how to not stare at some bullshit.
I could tell it made Josie uncomfortable, though.
“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” I said.
Her eyes met mine. “What?”
I shrugged. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Like… what?”
“I don’t know. Your favorite color, for instance.”
She snickered. “Yellow. You?”
I grinned. “Red.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course.”
I held my arms out. “Can’t help that I’m a fiery kinda guy.”
She snorted. “You wish.”
I winked at her. “You wish you knew firsthand, sure.”
She blushed at my words. “Your turn. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
“If I play along, you have to answer, too. You know that, right?”
She nodded. “I know. Your turn.”
I drew in a deep breath. “I can’t stand sardines. Brooks loves them on pizza for some reason, but they stink and have a terrible taste.”
She barked with laughter. “I’m the same exact way with olives. Just the texture, and the saltiness. They literally serve no purpose except to raise my blood pressure.”
I snorted as I laughed. “Those are pretty gross. Though, stuffed with cheese, they aren’t that bad.”
“Well, look at you, getting all fancy with them salty balls of yours.”
I smirked. “What can I say? The saltier, the better.”
We went back and forth and laughed our heads off until the waiter came back with our food. Then, I paid him, scooped up our bags of food, and offered Josie my arm. There was a pier a few blocks down the beach that not only looked comfortable with the shade it provided, but it was private. So, we meandered around and sipped our drinks until we got beneath its darkened docks.
Then, things got serious.
“Why were you so adamant about me not doing this?” Josie asked.
I took a massive bite out of my sandwich and chewed slowly. Did I really want to get into this with her? Could she even tolerate the truth? Hell, sometimes I couldn’t even tolerate the truth, and I was worried at how she might perceive me once I told her.
Then again, what did I have to lose?
“My sister,” I said.
She took a bite of her fries and kept her eyes on me. “What about her?”
I stared off into the watery horizon. “She, uh, kind of got herself tangled up with dudes she had no business being around.”
“What happened? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”
I peeked over at her. “You know that if I answer this, you’ll have to come back with something equally as vulnerable, right?”
Her eyes held mine for a while before she nodded her head. “Yes, I know.”
I drew in a sharp breath through my nose and looked back out at the water. “My sister and I grew up in a rough part of town. We never had much, and every damn day I was having to dodge the gangs scattered around town just to make it home from school safely. That was just the life, you know? Gang life or no life.”
“Wow,” she murmured.
I cleared my throat. “Anyway, I grew up and out of it. I hit eighteen, packed on some muscles, got myself a nice piece to carry around, and no one fucked with me. I escorted my sister to and from school, so she felt safe. But one day, Mom overdosed on heroin and I had to get her to the hospital, which meant not getting my sister from school.”
“Oh, no,” she murmured.
I closed my eyes. “That was the day the gangs decided to prey on her. She was kidnapped by a local gang and forced into their prostitution syndicate. Mom and Dad couldn’t even get the fucking police interested enough to go looking for her, seeing as girls went missing just about every damn day.”
“What the fuck?” she asked.
I swallowed the knot forming in my throat as my eyes opened. “I decided that if the police weren’t going to go after her, then I would. And I got pretty close. I joined up with the gang to try and get closer to her. I worked my way over the course of a few months into bodyguarding for their auctions. But when I tried to get my sister out of there, they caught us both. Decided to make an example out of her.”
“You mean…?”
I gritted my teeth. “Yeah. They killed her.”
Her hand rubbed my back. “Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry, Archer.”
I shrugged. “It was a long time ago, but it still formed me as a young man. It’s why I had such a stark reaction to you doing this. After slaughtering the men that killed my sister, Hyde—our former President—essentially dug me out of the hole I had shoveled for myself. It’s a long story and I won’t get into it now, but I promised myself after Hyde helped me clean up that I’d always—ALWAYS—save women like my sister.”
“And right now, you’re agreeing with tossing me into it.”
I nodded slowly. “Yep.”
Her hand fell to the small of my back and stayed. “Do you know why I started stripping in the first place?”
I slowly turned my gaze toward her. “Why?”
Then, it was her turn to move her gaze out toward the ocean. “I grew up in a very traditional sort of family. Mom always stayed at home, she cooked the best dinners every night, and Saturdays were meant for family before we went to church on Sundays.”
“Sounds nice,” I murmured.
But she snickered. “To the outside world, sure. But there were a lot of lessons they tried drilling into me that simply didn’t work. My mother was a big proponent of always looking nice for my dad. She felt it was a woman’s duty to always keep the bar high, so the man knew just how high he had to reach to keep her. And that sort of morphed into her trying to teach me that being smart and all that shit was great, but it meant nothing if I didn’t look good, too.”
“Well, fuck,” I said flatly.
“I hit puberty and gained a lot of weight. You know, like most girls do. But to Mom? That wasn’t good enough. She put me on diets and hid all of the snacks in the house. It was like I was being shamed for something I couldn’t control. And it eventually morphed into an eating disorder that I carried with me well into my older teenage years.”
“Jesus, that’s some bullshit.”
I giggled bitterly. “Yeah, and had it not been for Astrid trying to talk some sense into me, it actually might have killed me. It wasn’t until a doctor looked at me one day and told me that if something didn’t change that year, I’d be dead before the next one.”
“So, where does the dancing come into play?”
She shrugged. “I used plain old dancing to distract my mind from the reel my mother had embedded into me as a child. Every time I felt those thoughts creeping up, I went and danced. And when I felt strong enough to deal with the real world on my own, I ventured out and found a group dancing class.”
“Nice, nice.”
She smiled softly. “I met a girl in one of my dance classes that got me interested in those pole-dancing classes older women did to bring sexy moves into the bedroom. She showed me that being healthy was more than just putting on weight. It was doing something with the fuel I put into my body. It gave me control over things that weren’t my weight, and it helped distract me further. And that’s kind of how I slid into dancing and stripping. It gives me confidence, it gives me something I can control, it gets me out of my own mind, and it gives me the money I need to live the life I’m proud of.”
To say I was impressed was an understatement. “That’s powerful stuff right there.”
She finally looked back over at me and I saw tears in her eyes. “That’s why I dance. Or strip. Or whatever you want to call it. It isn’t because I don’t have a choice, but it’s because that’s the best choice for me. It makes me feel strong, and I truly enjoy what I do. And the idea that these assholes you guys are dealing with are about to ruin that for people I love makes me sick. That’s why I want to help. Because more often than not, the girls I dance with are just like me. And they deserve the chance to live their truth, just like I’ve been able to.”
I was in awe of her. “You’re a beautiful human being, you know that?”
She blushed. “Do you understand now why this is so important to me?”
I turned my body to face hers. “Yeah, I get it now. Thank you for being so open with me.”
She reached over and patted my knee. “Thank you for the same. I understand your reactions now, and I’ll try to be more sensitive toward them.”
“Just know that I’m the one tasked with your safety, and I take that very seriously. So, if I feel your life is in danger at any moment in time during all of this, I’m temporarily pulling the plug.”
Her eyes searched mine. “And now that I know why that is—and that it’s not because you think I can’t handle myself—I’ll fully and completely respect it.”
“That’s all I ask.”
Maybe it was the rhythmic sounds of the waves crashing against the shoreline. Or maybe it was the way the sunlight pouring through the slats above us in the pier made her eyes sparkle. Maybe it was the fact that the damned beach was deserted in the middle of the day, or maybe it was simply because Josie was a breathtaking woman, inside and out. But before I knew what I was doing, I leaned forward and captured her lips with my own.
And found myself shocked when she returned my kiss.
