Twisted Minds Read online

  Chapter 9

  Aaron - Day 17

  “Megan!” I shouted for her because I was ready to go shopping before I drank another beer and passed the hell out. We were supposed to go shopping yesterday, but after our pantry episode, I kept my distance before my dick led me down a path I knew I wasn’t supposed to take.

  Quick steps brought her into the living room, and she didn’t stop until she was standing timidly before me. “Yes.”

  “Are you ready to go so we can get the things on the list?”

  “You want me to go with you?” she asked as her brows lifted in surprise.

  “Yeah. Is something wrong with that?”

  She shrugged. “You’re not afraid of being seen with me?”

  My face scrunched with confusion. “Why the hell would I be afraid of being seen with you?”

  “When I rode with Jake, he made me climb into the back bed of his truck and duck down. He said he didn’t want to be seen with a nigger.”

  For a moment, I didn’t know what to say to her. Some of my family didn’t understand that most of the world didn’t give two fucks about their racist views.

  “My cousin is a fucking idiot. Do whatever you need to do. Fix your hair, straighten your clothes, or do whatever it is females do before you go to the store. Then, grab the list so we can go.”

  My words sounded clipped, but it usually didn’t take people but a day or two to realize or pick up on the fact that it was just the way I was.

  Megan returned a few minutes later with the list in her hand. Aside from making her high ponytail neater, she looked the same. She had on a pair of those pale blue, designer-looking sweatpants, an oversized, beige T-shirt that seemed not to want to cover one of her flawless brown shoulders, and black and white Nike tennis shoes.

  I think she’d intended the outfit to hide that ridiculously seductive body of hers, but no amount of extra material could hide what my eyes were trained to see. She was the equivalent of a living, breathing representation of pure temptation. The only thing I could do was to see how much longer I could resist it.

  * * *

  Once we stepped into The Mart, I started to understand what my stupid cousin was getting at about not being seen with Megan. I noticed the funny looks right away, but other than that, people kept their opinions to themselves. They fucking well better had, if I had anything to say about it.

  To avoid me cursing someone out, I suggested, “Hey, maybe we should split up. You work on that list, and I’ll grab some things I need from the automotive section. Make sure you get what you need and whatever else you think we need for the house.”

  I hadn’t missed that she’d almost smiled at me, but she’d suppressed it and kept a straight face. “I’ll meet you at the registers?” she asked before I could walk away.

  I gave her a quick nod before turning and stepping away from her. I could have helped her with the list, but I hated shopping and hated the way people’s eyes followed our every move. I was doing what was best to keep from cursing a motherfucker out for eyeballing us. The strong silent type—he was not me. I was the quick-tempered type, and there was only so much I could take before I lost my patience.

  After taking a few steps away from Megan, two mean-looking black men approached me. Their expressions warned me to prepare for a fight, but their sudden smiles met me before my anger took over. One of the men reached out his fist in a gesture for me to give him a fist-bump. I bumped my fist with the man’s, wondering why he’d initiated this friendly gesture towards me. My questioning gaze remained on his until he expressed his comment.

  “You a lucky man, bro. She’s nice.”

  My gaze followed their eyes to find that I’d been offered their friendly gesture because they were referring to Megan. They must have seen me with her and automatically assumed she was my woman. She was unaware of what was happening as she read the label on an item in her hand.

  I didn’t correct the men’s assumptions. Instead, I took their compliment before I moved the fuck on. “Thank you. Appreciate it.”

  The men walked away shaking their heads like they’d told me something I didn’t already know. If there was one thing I knew, it was that Megan was definitely nice as they’d put it. She had no idea I had random men complimenting me because they thought she was my woman.

  I rounded the automotive aisle and scanned for the wiper blades I needed for my truck. As my fingers grazed over blade after blade, searching for the model and size for my truck, male voices on the other side of the aisle confirmed that the conversation about Megan and me wasn’t over yet. The two brothers who’d approached me earlier were loud and unaware that I lurked near enough to hear them.

  “Did you see what that white boy strolled in here with? Lil’ Momma was fine as fuck. A dime for sure.”

  “Naw, brah, she’s one of them women that will break the scale. She a dime with sweats on, so imagine how fucking fine she is when she’s fixed herself up. White boy got him a platinum piece.”

  My smile widened at their conversation. Was this how men viewed women? I leaned my ear closer when they continued their colorful conversation.

  “I bet white boy catches hell from niggas mean mugging his ass over her. I was ready to give him shit, but after I saw her, I was like, nah, let me give this cracka his props for choosing wisely and shit.”

  The men laughed loud. One cut through the laughter and added, “Man, she one of them women you’d kill a motherfucker over. Somebody look at her the wrong way, and you’ll be ready to whip a nigga’s ass or shoot a motherfucker.”

  I bit into my bottom lip to stifle a grin. Now, I didn’t feel so bad for being attracted to Megan or for losing my shit when I was close to her. She affected men who’d never even talked to her, and here I was sharing a house with her.

  After finding the blades I needed, I picked up some air fresheners for my truck and headed towards the registers. I smiled at the sight of Megan waiting for me. The half-filled basket of goods sat next to her as she thumbed through a magazine.

  “Ready?”

  She jumped at the sound of my voice.

  “You got everything on that list?” I asked.

  She took a quick glance into the basket before she answered. “Yes.”

  “Okay, let’s go,” I said, tilting my head towards the nearest register. I placed my hands on the bar of the basket before she could and wheeled it towards the shortest line.

  Judging by the way her mouth had dropped open in surprise, she didn’t expect me to help her unload the groceries onto the conveyer belt or load them into the bed of my truck.

  I’ll admit, I’m fucked up in some areas of my life, can even be an asshole at times, but I’d never been one to abuse a woman, not even the poor white trash that hung around my MC’s bar all the time.

  Therefore, I saw no reason to treat Megan any different because her skin was darker than mine or because of the warped rules my MC had in place. Besides, I’d decided from the moment I’d laid eyes her that I was not only attracted to her but would also fuck her if the opportunity ever presented itself.

  Chapter 10

  Aaron - Day 18

  Later that evening, I informed Megan that I wanted to eat dinner at my dining table. When she sat my food in front of me and attempted to run away, my hand clamped around her wrist to keep her in place. I’d caught a hold of her rougher than I had intended to, but my action stopped her in her fast-moving tracks.

  My glance stayed on my hand wrapped around her warm, soft wrist. Without looking up at her, I spoke. “I want you to join me. I want to hear the story from your mouth…the story of how you landed this so-called maid’s job with my MC. We’ve had fucking deep cover agents that couldn’t have done what you’re doing right now.”

  Once I released her wrist, she rushed off to fix her plate, returned to the table, and took the seat across from me. I listened to her story intently as she updated me on her sister’s drug use and her constant struggle to save her from herself.r />
  The military had taught me what to look for in body language to spot lies, and Megan appeared genuine in the telling of her story. The flow of her tense words and the strain of sadness she tried to cover when she spoke of her sister were indicators. However, if Megan was telling me the truth, it wasn’t the whole truth. She was leaving out more than a few sentences. She was leaving out complete chapters.

  It did fascinate me to find out that she truly was an author. The fact that she made a living from writing was impressive. This was a new endeavor for me, to have a genuine interest in someone other than a target or potential business associate. I was interested in Megan. Previously, my interest in women had never gone past me wanting to fuck them.

  When Megan handed me her smart phone, I paused. My gaze pivoted between her and the phone before I reached for it. She’d pulled up multiple online sites that sold her books, and to my surprise, there were many. The information made me that much more curious about this woman.

  Her story caused me to question some of the negative shit that had been drilled in my head about blacks my entire life. Megan didn’t fit into any of the stereotypes that I’d been taught. The more I talked to her, the more I was convinced that lies had been shoved down my throat from the start. Thankfully, common sense made me acknowledge as much, and I was starting to realize it was possible that everything I’d been taught could have been a bunch of lies and stereotypical bullshit.

  Interested in more aspects of her life, I swiped through her cell.

  “What kind of music do you listen to, Megan?” I asked as I searched through more than just music. I wanted to know about the things she wanted to keep hidden. The damn chapters she’d skipped over when telling her story.

  She reached for her phone. Once she had it, she swiped and tapped the screen a few times and handed it back to me. “This is my master playlist. I listen to everything.”

  After raising an eyebrow, I tapped the screen and hit shuffle. The first song that popped up was a country tune that I enjoyed by Florida Georgia Line. While the song played, I glanced at her, eyeing her with suspicion. I listened to about a minute of the song before I shuffled to the next one. A classic rock tune by Journey played, followed by a heavy metal song. A rap song followed that song, and a few other different genres of music after that.

  Her voice interrupted my thoughts. “You thought because I’m African-American that I only listen to rap and R&B, right?”

  That was exactly what the hell I’d thought. I couldn’t lie.

  “Yes. That’s what I thought. As a matter of fact, a lot of what I was taught doesn’t seem to be true, not for you anyway.”

  The ice had been broken, and some of her tension eased enough for her to talk more openly with me now. She wasn’t as tense now that she saw that I wasn’t a monster.

  A tiny crease lined her forehead. “Unfortunately, a small percentage usually represents the whole of us in society’s eyes, and it’s usually the worst of us that the spotlight gets shined on,” she said.

  I understood exactly what she meant. The media always found the biggest, meanest, and most illiterate redneck around and presented him to the world as representation of all of us.

  I let the music play when one of my favorite country tunes by Garth Brooks spilled from the speakers. My feet tapped under the table as my mood lightened even more. My eyes skimmed over the delicate features of Megan’s beautiful face before landing on that silky brown shoulder that peeked from the top edge of her shirt and gave a glimpse of what she tried to hide. Although she didn’t appear old enough to be a widow, I’d found out that Megan’s husband was a soldier that had been killed in Iraq three years ago.

  As a former marine, I understood deployments and military life. I’d nearly had my head blown off in Iraq and was damn near blown to hell in Afghanistan. I still had a few tiny pieces of shrapnel in my back as a result of my time served.

  After her husband’s death, Megan claimed she’d turned into a recluse and poured her heart into her fiction writing. The writing paid off and turned into a livable income. Other than her sister, she had no family. She’d told me when she was younger, the state had dumped her into and yanked her out of six foster homes by the time she was twelve.

  The mournful look on her face when she spoke of foster care indicated that she’d likely had a hard time in the system. She’d shown more emotion talking about foster care than she had talking about her sister. That sad look on her face sparked a pang of sorrow within me, and I wanted to do something to take that look off her beautiful face.

  Wait! Where in the hell was all this coming from and more importantly, how was she making me feel this way? I changed the subject before more unusual shit decided to creep into my brain.

  “So, you spent all of your savings getting your sister into a top-notch rehab facility? Then, you turned around and did something as crazy as pawn yourself off to a bunch of dangerous bikers like us, all so that you can clear up the mess that she’d made? Have you considered that we could still end up raping or killing you?” I leaned forward a hair. “Just because you shot someone in front of my MC doesn’t mean you’re safe. We are not good people. We have lots of enemies gunning for us, and you could get caught in the crosshairs of our turmoil.”

  Her facial expression never changed as she let my words sink in. There was an unexplainable look of alarming intrigue in her expression. My comments should have been frightening to her, but I didn’t think they were. There was something peculiar about this woman that intrigued me as much as it alarmed me. Was she naïve, stupid, or manipulative?

  “You do realize that any number of things can happen to you just by hanging around with our kind? We have been attempting to refine our behavior and the way we conduct business, but we are still very dangerous people.”

  I squinted my eyes as I stared at her, speaking my words with purpose so that she’d understand what she’d truly gotten herself into by dealing with the August Knights. Aside from the steady flow of her breaths, those big brown eyes with their long, flirting lashes were all that moved as she took in my words and observed me with a curious glint. I was so aware of her that I could literally see her dark pupils swell each time her gaze landed on my lips. She was checking me out as much as I was checking her out, studying me just as I was her.

  No matter how fascinating Megan was turning out to be, something was strangely off about her. I’d talked of raping and killing her, and she hadn’t even flinched. Something wasn’t adding up, and I couldn’t put my finger on what was off about her.

  “I think there is a lot more you’re not telling me, Megan. For you to do this, something this extreme, tells me you’re not as afraid of this environment or any of us as you’d like us to believe. I think you’re insane or you’re probably one of those women who gets off on being scared.”

  Something I couldn’t identify sparked in her eyes at my statement. I’d always been a good puzzle solver. I could tell by studying her that she had some jagged parts and pieces that were never meant to be put back together. Hints of darkness peeked out from the veneer of innocence she presented.

  People took in my appearance and assumed I was some dumb redneck biker, but I’d always been more inclined to learn and plan before I acted and I’d become a good problem solver and business negotiator as a result. I’d also become a predatory killer, one of my MC’s most dangerous weapons. Being this way has made me patient; patient enough to piece together a good puzzle, even one as complex as I suspected Megan was.

  “I am going to download one of your books,” I blurted out.

  A smile.

  I’d finally put a smile on her beautiful face. Straight white teeth flashed in front of me and made her face even prettier than before. I tightened my lips to keep from returning the smile.

  There was nothing that I’d noticed that I didn’t like about Megan. I liked the fact that she didn’t have to wear fancy clothes or spend hours on hair and makeup to look beautiful. Nature had taken car
e of everything where her beauty was concerned. Although she worked constantly, she always managed to look clean and smelled fresh. But not perfume-fresh, though. It was more like she kept fresh showers in her pocket.

  My gaze fell to the small diamond studs in her earlobes and then moved to those long, flirty lashes that introduced the seduction hidden behind her eyelids that I wasn’t sure she was aware was there. The lushness of her full lips lured my gaze to her mouth. My gaze paused there before traveling down to her neck, which was not lost or sunken into her shoulders.

  Her neck was long enough for me to wrap my hand around it comfortably to enable me to control several positions I’d like to put her in. The fluffy and bouncy texture of her curly dark hair was as flirty as those damn lashes.

  My lips twitched at the roundness of her tits. By my eye’s measurements, they would fit perfectly into the palms of my hands. The tempting curve of her ass, that I’d eyeballed multiple times, was surely capable of taking a good pounding from the back. My eyes hadn’t missed that ass, not even the first time I’d seen her at the clubhouse.

  Although I hadn’t seen her naked, I’d pieced together enough to know that her body was toned and sexy as fuck like she spent her free time working out when she wasn’t working for dangerous bikers.

  She was sitting there watching me virtually undress her with my eyes. Unlike before, she didn’t seem bothered by it now. Her gaze followed my finger when I pointed at what appeared to be a scar on her arm, higher near her shoulder.

  “What are those marks on your arm?” I asked, dropping my hand on the table to stop myself from reaching over to touch her.