Ryder (Savage Wolves MC) #3

Chapter One

After everything that happened to me... everything has changed.

I've started drinking more. I'm quieter. Not as outspoken. I flinch at every touch, and tremble whenever I try to feel anything remotely sexual with someone else.

I can't relax. Both my body and mind can't find their way to relax and ease into anything with anyone without the faces of those men flooding my mind and ruining the moment.

With Dougie, I was certain I'd be able to get over it. I knew he would be the one that could bring me out of my funk and back to the way I was before. But even he couldn't help me.

No one can.

Only I can help myself, and I haven't been able to. Not yet.

I thought I was strong. I thought I would be fine after it all happened. I thought maybe I'd be a little down for a while, and then all of a sudden be back to my typical carefree, gun-toting, smart-mouthed self.

I was wrong. So very, very wrong. I used to see women who were abused and wonder why it took so long for them to get over it, to get through the pain. Now I know, and I feel bad for every thought I ever had about this feeling being something easy to recover from.

Because it's not. It's the hardest goddamn thing I've ever had to do and I'm not sure I'm capable of pulling myself out.

Sitting up, I cling to the pillow with one arm, covering my naked body, and reach for the nearly empty bottle of tequila at my bedside.

Letha's note she wrote almost a year ago now, right after we were released from the hospital, is tapped to the lamp on the table, reminding me that even though I might not believe in myself, I've at least got one person rooting for me in my corner.

You've got this.

I've got this.

Deep down, I know I do. Deep down, I can feel the old me banging at the door to be let out, to break free, to burst through the barrier put in place to protect myself.

I keep her locked away, though. Keep her hidden within. Buried beneath weeks of torture and torment and pain and humiliation. A lifetime of building up who I was to be torn down in an instant by five men who thought they could do with my body as they please.

Who thought that because they were stronger and cruel, that I was an easy target and deserved what I got.

I down the rest of the bottle, dropping it back down onto the nightstand where several other empty bottles are accumulating.

Soon enough, the entire apartment will be filled and I'll have to remove them. Each day I stare at them and each day I hate myself for what I'm doing to my body, to my mind.

The alcohol numbs the pain, but it makes me feel like garbage. I've surprisingly lost weight, replacing nutritious calories with alcohol and junk.

I don't have the energy to feed myself properly. Not with fighting my demons weighing so heavily on my mind.

And especially not with expending fifty percent of my energy on warding off the dumb as dirt best friend of my best friend's fiancé.

Ryder.

Ryder motherfucking Novak.

A six foot two twig of a man with shaggy brown hair and green eyes that seem to watch me everywhere I go.

Otherwise known as a pain in my behind and the biggest nuisance in my life next to running out of booze.

Sure, he's attractive in a dirty bad boy kind of way. He's got that whole 'I look like I do hard drugs to stay this thin but I don't actually do anything' look going for him, even though he has packed on a bit of muscle in his arms and shoulders since we first met almost a year ago. And fine, whatever, I've definitely fantasized about how big his cock is. It's when I think about said cock coming anywhere near me that makes me panic and get all hot and sweaty - and not in a good way.