JUSTIFIED (Motorcycle Club Romance) by Brynn Bekkwith

CHAPTER 1
 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    “Oh, my God, Ash,” I heaved, my hands still raw and pitted from the gravel beneath them. “What did you do?”
     
    “Let’s go,” he said. His lips were pursed and his body language screamed a mix of fear and adrenaline.
     
    “What’d you do?” I begged him to tell me.
     
    His hands, scraped and bloody, reached down to help me up. I straightened my dress which was twisted and tangled around my body and straightened the hemline. Pieces of my dress were lying somewhere in the cornfield and my bare feet ached once pressed against the gravel.
     
    “I killed him, Marina,” he said. His bottom lip quivered, and his eyes fought off tears. “I killed him.”
     
    I hobbled over and wrapped my arms around him. Ash was such a gentle soul. He wasn’t a killer. “You didn’t have to do that for me. Why’d you do that?”
     
    He buried his head in the crook of my shoulder, my hair matted and stuck to my neck, and began to sob. He only allowed himself to sob for a minute before finally gaining composure. He wiped his tears, cleared his throat, and took a deep breath.
     
    His eyes glanced over my shoulder to where the rest of the party was. Not even a half-mile away our friends were sharing drinks and laughing over a bonfire in the middle of a dirt field under a pale, full moon. We were hardly out of high school. We shouldn’t have been drinking let alone lighting bonfires amongst acres of precious Midwestern farmland.
     
    “We have to get out of here before anyone sees,” I said, looking him straight in the eyes. “I’m taking you home with me.”
     
    Ash nodded as he stared at my sullen face. Smears of dirt across my cheeks and swollen eyes told a story no man should ever have to see on the face of the girl he loves.
     
    “Ouch,” I said as I hobbled along the gravel, linked onto Ash’s arm. The soreness that came with every barefoot step on the country road was nothing compared to the pain that radiated from between my legs.
     
    “Stop,” Ash said.
     
    “What?” I asked, obeying.
     
    He slipped his hand down around my waist and hooked it around my hips. His other hand swept up the bottom of my skirt before he hoisted me up and carried me. His skin was moist, covered in a thin layer of blood and sweat.
     
    “Thank you,” I whispered as I laid my head down on his shoulder.
     
    He carried me, quietly, to his truck, which was parked down the road from the bonfire.
     
    “What are we going to do, Ash?” I asked as he helped me into his car. “They’re going to know it was us.”
     
    “It wasn’t you,” he said through gritted teeth. “You did nothing.”
     
    My heart ached for him. At eighteen years old, he had his entire life ahead of him…until me. Ash Decker had loved the hell out of me since we were kids. While I chased after every blue-eyed, bad-intentioned boy I ever met, Ash Decker chased after me. By the time we hit high school, he settled for the role of my best friend. Somewhere inside he always hoped I’d come around. I just didn’t think it was going to take him murdering my attacker for me to see him in a completely different light.
     
    “I have to turn myself in,” he said. His lip quivered once again. Knowing him, the thought of never having a chance to be with me was more of a death sentence than anything the judicial system could sentence him to.
     
    “No,” I said. I shook my head. “There’s got to be another option.”
     
    Ash’s truck came to a screeching halt at a blinking red light in the middle of a country intersection. Streaks of dried blood on his face revealed themselves under the moonlight that spilled in through the cracked windshield.
     
    “Why’d you run off with Tripp Cotton?” He asked. His voice was low and his eyes burned into mine as he turned to face me. “I told you to stay away from him. He’s nothing but trouble. You do realize his club is a rival club, right? Your