"Thirsty for the chemistry,Like a Junkie " -Kill Paris (feat. Nevve & Monstre), Junkie

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Maya Ford was the epitome of I've-been-through-ѕhit-but-I've-dealt-with-it. Just being in her presence for a few minutes was enough to absorb her good vibes and make my day seem a little less ѕhitty than it was.

"So," she began, handing me a glass of ice-cold soda before plunking down beside me on the leather couch, "how've you been?"

I took a long sip of my drink before answering. "Good. You?"

Scrutinizing me with luminous grey eyes, Maya pushed her curly hair out of her face and over one shoulder. "If you were good, you wouldn't skip Sunday night poker at the clubhouse so that you could babysit my kids with me," she pointed out.

"Hey," I said sharply, "I love your kids."

The look in Maya's eyes softened. "I know, but you seem really down, Cat. I'm not used to seeing you like this."

"I think I hear Keegan crying—"

"The baby monitor is right here," Maya said, gesturing at the silent monitor that was standing on the coffee table. "Try again."

I wasn't going to try again. I huffed out a breath that I hoped conveyed how pissed off I was that she wouldn't let it go. Couldn't a girl just want to escape all the ѕhit in her life by inserting herself into someone else's life?

"Do you think you could get me a beer instead?" I muttered, fully aware that I sounded like a grumpy toddler, and that it definitely wasn't fair to Maya. She had three kids already.

Lila was her oldest, and only girl—so far. Michael, named after her father, had followed shortly after, and Keegan was only a few months old.

Maya was opening her mouth to reply, when Lila ran into the TV room where we were, screaming at the top of her voice that her doll was broken and that her mother needed to make her better. She was gonna be a ball-buster when she grew up, no doubt. Lila was the cutest four-year-old ever, but as one of her four godmothers, I was definitely heavily biased. Chubby-faced with dark curls and huge, grey eyes that were permanently filled with mischief, she looked exactly like her mother. I felt a sharp pang in my chest and forced it away.

"It's broken, Mommy!" she wailed again, holding up a headless Barbie doll for Maya to inspect.

I laughed, remembering how I used to decapitate my dolls as a kid just for kicks. I was a twisted little ѕhit. "It isn't broken," I reassured the little girl. "Just temporarily decapitated."

Lila looked at me like I was talking gibberish, which, to her, I probably was.

Maya shook her head at me, lips twitching. "I'll fix her, baby. Mommy's a nurse, remember?"

"Doctor!" Lila demanded, shaking her head repeatedly. "Barbie needs a doctor."

"She makes me feel so inadequate sometimes," Maya joked, pressing the head back onto the plastic doll's skinny neck. She handed it back to Lila. "There. All better now. Did you say hello to Auntie Cat?"

"Meow," I said on cue, curling my fingers into claws, and Lila grinned up at me, missing teeth and all, meowing back before speeding back out of the room and back to wherever she had been playing.

"Twenty minutes before bedtime, Lila!" Maya called after her. She returned her gaze to me. "You still want a beer?"

I sighed. "Not really. The soda's fine."

"But you're not. Clearly."

I squinted at her. "You think I'm crazy, Silver?"

"I think anyone who willingly calls herself Puѕsy is crazy." The grin on her face disappeared once she saw that I was clearly being serious. "Where's this coming from?" she asked, her voice soft.

"Nowhere. I was just asking."

"People don't just ask that."

I didn't say anything to her. Visiting my mother had been a dumbass mistake, to be fucκing honest, one that I deeply regretted. Seeing her had just reminded me that my days as a person clinging to the pillar that was sanity were quickly ending.

Fucκ.

Maybe that was what had happened to Camila. Maybe she'd just lost her mind and run off with her boyfriend. Maybe she didn't want to be found.

Maybe? Try definitely.

"Cat?"

Maya's worried voice broke through my dark thoughts. I looked at her, before finishing the last of my drink and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand in an unladylike manner.

"Stop looking at me like that," I grunted at Maya.

"How are things with you and Ghost?" she asked, changing the subject. Curling her feet beneath her ass, she looked like she was settling in to hear a juicy story.

"For starters, there's no you-and-Ghost."

She huffed out a breath. "Well, excuse me for not understanding your weird dynamic."

"We're fucκing. What's there to understand?"

"Wow, the two of you are so annoying. Well, you are. Ghost wears his heart on his sleeve, and you step on it. Repeatedly. With those boots of yours."

"Not this again," I said, tapping said boot on the carpeted floor. "I come here to escape this ѕhit."

Maya pressed her lips together, a frown on her face. "You know I care about you..."

"I do."

"And you know I care about Ghost..."

"Yup."

"So you know why we're doing this again."

The words mind your own business were on the tip of my tongue, but I knew that this was her business. Despite all the ѕhit Maya had gone through, she wasn't the kind of person who could be happy when the people she cared about were unhappy. I got that. I respected that. I almost wished I could share her innate goodness.

Almost.

"Like I've said about a million times before," I began, "what we have works for us. Don't try to fix something that isn't broken."

Maya looked like she wanted to say something, but changed her mind at the last minute, and instead, lifted the hem of the long, flowy skirt she was wearing, until her thighs were exposed.

I looked because I knew what she was doing, what she wanted to show me. She wasn't shy about it, but I was, because I knew what it meant. That

"See this?" she said, running her fingertips down the side of her leg. The skin there had the remnants of a now barely noticeable scar, a scar inflicted on her by a sadistic fucκer who'd thought that carving his dead brother's name into her was a great way to get the message across that he was a sadistic fucκer. "I had to wait for this to heal properly and become a scar. And then I had to wait for the memories to start to fade before I could get the courage to get onto my back again—for laser, this time. Every treatment was like reliving it all over again, but I did it anyway.

Your scars might not be physical, but they're there, and they won't go away if you don't acknowledge them. That's all I'm going to say."

Keegan's sudden cry echoed through the baby monitor, and Maya stood almost immediately, pressing a finger to one of her breasts. "They automatically start leaking whenever he cries," she said with a wry grin. "Don't go anywhere, Cat. I'll be back in a sec."

I nodded, but once I was sure she was upstairs, I left.

***

The other Marys were still at the Phantoms' clubhouse, so I reveled in having our place to myself. It was quiet, but that was okay. Sitting outside on the porch with a cold beer in my hand and nothing but the stars in the sky as company, it felt like there wasn't anything in the world to worry about. This was my favorite time of the day, when the light was gone and darkness blanketed the sky.

The silence was broken by the roar of an engine as a motorcycle came down the driveway and into the compound. I recognized the sound of that bike, just like I knew the sound of my own.

Ghost brought his bike to a stop just a few feet from me.

"What're you doing here?" I asked him as he approached me, reaching up to hand him my bottle.

He took it from me, taking a long, good mouthful as he sat down beside me. "Maya."

Of course. "She call you?"

"You know it."

"She's overreacting."

"The other night, I had you in my lap. We were fucκing cuddling. Maya isn't overreacting."

"Does the big, bad Ghost want to talk about feelings and other bullѕhit?" I muttered sarcastically. "Next, you'll be telling me that we have the same cycle."

"I'd tell you to go fucκ yourself, but I know for sure that you'd take that literally."

I was feeling the need to release all these pent-up emotions in a more physical way...

"Wanna race?"

He scratched his bearded chin absently. "Gotta be fucκin' kidding me."

"Loser gets to ride bitch."

"I don't ride bitch. Ever."

"Well," I said, getting to my feet, "get used to looking at this ass, 'cause you're gonna be sitting behind it in a minute."

Ghost was laughing as he got to his feet, pushing his hair out of his face. "We haven't raced in a long-ass time."

"You're a sore loser, that's why."

I went inside to put my jacket on—after so many wipeouts on the road, the importance of leather to prevent road rash wasn't lost on me—and when I came back out, Ghost and I split up to get our bikes. Mine was sitting comfy in the garage tonight, and when I brought it out to him, Ghost was already straddling his Ducati. I hated that ride, and he knew it. I was a Harley girl, through and through, and my bike was the closest thing I'd ever have to a kid.

"Ready to press your tits against my back soon?"

"Ready to have your dicκ between my ass cheeks?"

He snorted, like I was being ridiculous, but his grey eyes were sparkling. "Maybe we can do that later."

It was my turn to snort as I hoisted myself onto my bike. "We're riding up to the bottom of Lover's Bush," I informed him. Lover's Bush was the affectionate term for Sallow County's forested area, a popular haunt for thrill-seekers wanting to experience sex in the wild.

"Noted," Ghost replied, pulling his helmet on.

I did the same before getting onto my bike. Having this beautiful piece of metal between my legs was like getting the best head from a familiar friend. It went without saying that Ghost was this familiar friend.

I turned to Ghost, who was revving his engine beside me. I couldn't make out the expression on his face behind the visor of his helmet, but I knew he was probably grinning at this long forgotten time-honored tradition of ours.

His deep voice cut through the night as he counted down, and then we were both off, trailing dust behind us. There was nothing as good as the rush that came from a good race—well, nothing but sex, and that was debatable. Tearing through the night with nothing but the whipping wind and the roar of my engine as a soundtrack was the best feeling.

Ghost's Ducati sounded like a total bitch in comparison to my Harley as we went neck and neck, winding along the narrow road that would take us to the edge of the forest.

It was no surprise—to me, at least—that I beat him there.

"Guess who's riding bitch," I crowed, while Ghost just stood there, listening to me gloat.

He folded his arms across his barrel-like chest. "You done?" he wanted to know after having enough, a dimple in his right cheek making an appearance.

"Guess so."

"Good," he said, and then he leaned down and pressed his lips against mine, moving them against mine with confident precision.

I put my hands on his shoulders, clinging to his leather vest as I pulled him even closer. His tongue swept the inside of my mouth, brushing against mine with each stroke, turning me inside out and back the right way again.

Ghost's body was pushed against mine, and his hands were on my ass. I could feel his erection against my pubic bone, could feel how much this was turning him on...so I pulled away from him, drawing in a large lungful of air.

His heavy-lidded stare under the starlit sky burned right through me. I needed this. I needed him, and fucκ anyone who thought this was unhealthy.

My hands coasted down his strong, broad shoulders—shoulders that had carried way too many burdens—before I slipped them inside his cut, sliding the leather fabric down his shoulders and off his upper body. He wore a tee underneath, and I didn't care about what color it was, only that I needed to feel his skin.

But not right now.

Right now, I just needed to feel him inside me.

The adrenaline from our little race was still coursing through me, and my breaths were coming out in short pants after our kiss. Ghost's chest was rising and falling in quick succession, and he spun me around, impatient, bending me over his bike. I felt my skin prickle in anticipation, felt my clit pulse from arousal, and then I felt his hands on the front of my skintight pants, tugging them down. I bit my lip when Ghost rubbed the front of my thong, teasing my swollen clit through the sheer material. His rough hands pushed the material aside, exposing my bare puѕsy to the cool air, and the only thing keeping me steady was his bike. The drag of his zipper was like music to my ears, as was the unmistakable crinkling sound of a foil wrapper tearing. There was a pause, in which my entire body pulsed and tingled and thrummed with want, with need, with desire.

"I win," Ghost growled, poising himself at my entrance before pushing just the tip inside.

I moaned, knowing that I was wet for him, knowing that he was hard for me. Rough hands grabbed my hips, pulling me against him, until he was seated fully inside me, until I could swear I felt him inside my fucκing chest.

"Fucκ," I cursed in a broken voice, completely shattered.

Ghost growled, and he started thrusting and thrusting into me like he wanted to get deeper, like he wanted to sink completely inside me. Helpless, I could only moan my pleasure, holding on to his bike for dear life, almost delirious with ecstasy as he increased the pace of his thrusts.

"You feel that?" he rasped, sounding breathless.

I scrunched my eyes shut, pleasure nearly rendering me mute. "What, your dicκ?" I finally gasped.

Ghost slowed his thrusts, and I whimpered in protest. "This. You. Me. It's always been you, Pusѕy."

But it hadn't always been me, had it? And I had no one else to blame, because I had pushed him away. Kept pushing him away. I fucκed us up.

Instead of saying anything, I clenched myself around his cocκ, dragging a pained groan from his throat.

"Don't," he choked out, slapping my ass. "I'll fucκing come."

"I want you to," I begged, squeezing him again. "Need it."

"Goddamn it," he bit out, and I knew I had him.

He threw himself against me, driving himself even further and further, rocking me and his bike with every jerk of his powerful hips. I could smell pine in the air, and it mingled with the sweet scent of our bodies coming together like this. I was wild for Ghost, throwing my ass back against him, moaning how good it was, until I felt him jerking inside me. I couldn't fight against what had been building up from the moment he sat down beside me and put his lips on my beer bottle. My climax ripped through me, and I climbed that wave again and again, my moans and gasps nothing compared to the hoarse curse words pouring out of Ghost's mouth.

Drooped over Ghost's bike with a sore pusѕy and my pants around my ankles wasn't a bad way to end a Sunday night.

He slowly pulled out, and after a while, I gathered up enough energy to straighten up and pull my pants back up. My hair was in my face and my skin felt clammy. I fucκing loved that.

When I turned to face him, Ghost was decent. "You ready to head back?" he wanted to know, his voice cracking on the last word.

"Yeah," I replied.

He took his phone out of his back pocket, tapping the screen before putting it to his ear. "Beast," he said after a moment of silence, "get one of the prospects to come get my bike from Lover's Bush."

He swiftly hung up, rubbing the back of his scruffy head as he stared at my bike. "Ѕhit. Let's get this humiliation over with, Pusѕy."

"Oh, don't act like you don't enjoy being behind me, baby," I teased, and as I turned around to grab my helmet, he slapped my ass.

I was gonna enjoy the hell out of the ride back.