But I was never one to tempt the fates.
Much.
Ah, fuck.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
I’d brought the alphasmart along, since Bish wasn’t here and there was only so much lip-reading she could do as of now. She was learning fast, though.
I put my finger on the first key and hesitated. But I wasn’t going to live my life not telling someone close to me exactly what I was thinking, exactly what I was all about. I took a lot of lives, I typed.
“Do you feel guilty?”
If they deserved it, am I supposed to feel guilty?
“No.”
Do you feel guilty about stabbing me?
“No.” I stared at her until she started to laugh a little. “It was the right thing to do, Mathias. You’re the one teaching me to protect myself.”
And then she reached out to trace the healing wound with her finger. “It’s going to scar.”
They always do.
“So you’ll always remember me.”
There are easier ways to make me always remember you.
She laughed a little, a joyous sound. One I wanted to hear more.
You’re beautiful, I told her.
“You’re handsome, Mathias. So incredibly handsome.” She ran a hand along my face as she spoke. She was using her hands to drive home her point, much in the same way I did. I didn’t need words all the time and I liked that she’d realized that.
Then she put her hands on my face, along my jawline, and she pulled me in for a kiss. It was soft and sweet—a tease. And then she pulled me in again for a deeper kiss, tentative and exploring, and I let her do her thing for a moment. And then I took over.
We rolled along the mat and I ended up covering her body with mine. Pinned underneath me, she shivered, but I knew the look on her face, and it was anything but fear. I bent to capture a nipple in my mouth and caress the other with my thumb. She jumped under me, pushed her pelvis up, grinding against me. And she looked surprised, like her body was betraying her. Hell, that was the only good kind of betrayal there was.
Chapter Twenty-One
Good times, bad times
Jessa
It was that time of night—early morning, actually—when it was so late and you were so tired, that everything seemed surreal. If I stayed up any longer, pushed past that point, the dreamlike quality would disappear, replaced by reality.
Still, I liked Defiance’s reality a lot better than my old one.
We’d made it to the diner, worn out from sex and everything else, and Bishop was already there. We were the only ones there so far, in a booth in the back and we were served quickly by a sleepy young girl who looked between me and the two men and smiled.
I could only guess what she was thinking.
But then I signed my food order to Bishop, who looked like a proud papa.
“You’re a good student,” he whispered behind his hand, then put a finger to his lips and pointed at me.
Mathias signed, I’m not deaf, asshole, but he didn’t seem angry that Bishop offered to teach me.
“You said your father couldn’t speak either. What did the doctors say was wrong?”
Nothing.
“Obviously, something was wrong.”
Not medically. As I settled in, watching Mathias’s hands and listening to Bishop’s voice, I tried to picture a young Mathias running wild in the bayou. Actually, it wasn’t all that hard. My parents knew I wouldn’t be able to speak before I was born. Our mama, she took me to a gypsy woman who lived in our parish. She had the sight, told Mama that I’d be born like my dad, because of the curse.
“Curse?”
That’s why I can’t speak.
I wanted to ask whether he really, truly believed that, but I didn’t. He knew, because he said, My grandpapa started it. He broke a gypsy woman’s heart and she cursed him and all the men in his line who followed him. Said that it would make him think hard before he told another woman he loved her so easily...figured you couldn’t lie with your hands or your face as easily as you could fool someone with your voice.
I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a simpler explanation.
Babe, I’ve been to docs. Ain’t nothing wrong with my vocal cords, my anatomy or my brain. Not one medical professional’s been able to explain it, but I didn’t need them to. The day the gypsy cursed my grandpapa was the last time he’d ever been able to speak. Was supposed to stop him from telling lies so freely.
“Did it work?”
He laughed. So did Bishop, and they continued, Probably not. I come from a long line of men who like telling tall tales.
“I’m finding all of this very hard to believe.”
That gypsy woman disappeared. Some of her family felt bad for us, tried to lift the curse, but that can only be done by the one who cast it.
“I’d hate her.”
Why?
“Because she left you disabled,” I blurted out.
He pushed me back against the booth’s seat and pinned me to the cold fabric, an elbow on one side of my shoulders while he signed. Bishop’s voice in my ear. Feel disabled to you, babe?
And then Mathias kissed me, right there in the diner. Over and over until the wash of an unexpected climax left me shuddering in his arms. In my post-orgasmic haze, I heard Bishop translate—If you really think I’m disabled, then you’re the one with the problem—right before I heard the door slam.
I lay there for a long while, staring at the ceiling of the diner, my cheeks burning. Bishop had stayed with me, and I didn’t know if Mathias had told him to or not.
But when the bells on the diner door began to ring, I knew I needed to get out of there before it filled up with customers. I got up and walked out without looking back. Bishop fell into step with me about five minutes later.
“People fight, Jessa.”
“Not where I come from. Not like that.”
“And if I’m remembering correctly, you don’t want to go back there.”
Damn him.
“Sex isn’t anything to be ashamed of. He was just reminding you that there’s nothing he can’t do for you. Around here, that’s important—gotta show your woman you’re capable of giving her everything she needs,” Bishop told me. “Actually, that’s the way it should be for every guy, whether they’re in an MC or not.”
“I didn’t mean what I said.”
“You did,” he corrected. “But you’re not him. And it’s important to him that you don’t see him as disabled, or a freak. He’s heard it enough, but not from someone who loves him.”
I stared at Bishop. He was right, on all counts, and I guessed my feelings were probably obvious from the moon. I only cared if they were obvious to the one man I’d just wounded deeply.
Bishop pointed to a spot where a couple of chairs were laid out and we sat there, in the morning cool, with the floodlights from the night before still shining. And then he told me, “He’s special, Jessa. Not saying that because he’s my friend. I’m saying it because it’s true. He’s too special to be fucked over by a politician’s daughter.”
Anger rose in me and I sputtered, “I have nothing to do with my father’s politics, or Charlie for that matter.”