by Dani Wyatt
Give me something someone says is impossible, and I’ll show you something that’s not.
I run my hand down my beard. She’s tough, I get it, but under that tough shield there’s a sadness in her eyes and I want to know what it’s about, but even more, I want to be the one to make it go away. Looking at her, sitting there kicking the ground, I want to rip open my chest and let her see what’s in my heart. Something I didn’t know was possible until I saw her driving through town two years ago.
She’s why I decided this would be home. I’d been friendly with the Valor bunch before I got sent up to Lennon, but never got patched in until after I came back. They’re my family now, along with my parents who are both still kicking it old-school, living like nomads in their Airstream as they visit every naturist camp in every town and city where the temperature is over seventy-five.
There’s an uncertainty in her eyes as she looks at me and I know I’m not Prince Charming. My jaw is crooked, I’m thick, tatted, I wear this black knit cap even when it’s a hundred degrees, and when I do string my words together in fair order, my voice is a rough baritone, broken and thick, the result of a lead pipe to my throat I took when I was twenty.
I want to reassure her, to tell her I’ve been watching her. That I’ve protected her every time I saw a potential threat or even a perceived threat. But that would only scare her more, I’m sure. I’m not from her world, just like she said, but somehow all my patience has turned into urgent fury and now is the time to spin what shouldn’t be into what will be, starting right now.
I see the headlights pull off the side of the road as the sun gives way into the horizon. The pink and orange of its last fight of the day flicker off Annie’s ripe cheeks and I’m drawn to the defiance in her eyes.
“Hey, hey.” Rodney hops out of the driver’s side of the tow truck and walks back towards us. “Someone called for a knight in shining armor?” He chuckles but it’s not funny.
I jerk my head toward the passenger door, then at Annie. “Get your stuff. He’ll hook you up, take your car back to the shop.”
“I’m not leaving with you. I’m staying with my car.”
“Hook it up,” I grunt toward Rodney as I walk to the side of her car and open the door, grabbing her purse, a backpack, an insulated lunch bag and her cell phone which is sitting on the passenger seat, tucking the phone into the inside pocket of my vest.
“Look, Charles.” She snarls my name like it offends her, but I don’t care. Hearing her say it for the first time makes me think of how she would say it when I was on top of her. “Unless you have a gun or a court order, I’m not going with you. This is getting boring, repeating myself.”
Rodney steps in helping a brother out. “Sorry, ma’am, can’t let you ride with me. He’s the boss. If he says no customers in the truck, that’s no customers in the truck.”
I give Rodney an approving sniff, then look at Annie, raising my eyebrows as I stuff everything but her backpack into my saddle bags.
Rodney gives her a quick glance up and down, and he’s probably my best friend in the world, and fuck it I know she’s a work of art, but his eyes on her make me want to break his jaw. I swing the backpack onto my shoulders and walk up to Rodney, my chest bumping his.
“Watch what you’re looking at,” I growl as Annie comes up beside me, tugging on the strap of the backpack, and the simple touch distracts me and makes the ache in my balls pulse.
“I’ll carry this.” She takes the pack and slips her arms through the straps. “This is stupid. Let’s just go. I don’t care who takes me home.” Her voice sounds defeated but the way my blood turned hot at the brush of her fingers makes the lust I’ve felt for two years burn through me in a relentless blaze.
She’s not happy about the situation, but I don’t care. She’s on the back of my bike as Rodney hooks up her Mustang and I rev the engine as her arms wrap around my waist.
The softness of her tits against my back reminds me of how long it’s been since I’ve been with a woman. I was in prison four years, I’ve been here two, and it was probably a year or more before I went inside that I had even a fleeting interest in the opposite sex.
Love’s never been on my radar. Too many miles, too many clubs, too many fights over pussy. But, Annie’s different. I’d wage war on my own for her. I know that already, and I know when I do get between her legs, I’m damn sure I’m not going to be gentle.
I see the humor and question in Rodney’s eyes as I pull past him and I hate myself for snapping at him, wanting to hurt my own brother just for looking at her but I’m sure he’ll understand.
I am who I am. I’m not pretty, I’m not kind, I’m not smart. What I am is focused. And right now, my focus is on the sweet, spread thighs against my back.
And soon, I’ll be taking up permanent residence between those legs. Because all of that, all of her, is mine.
Chapter 3
Annie
How quickly that one-eighty happened. So quickly, I have whiplash. Being close to him like that, I stood firm as long as I could, then crumbled like the Walls of Jericho.
I’ve been pretending for almost two years that Charles “Chewy” Drake is an irritating mosquito I can’t seem to smack away. Every time I’ve seen him around town, riding on his bike, sitting in the park across from the school pretending to talk on his phone like he just happened to pull over outside where I work…every time, a low, sonic boom lodges itself directly on my clit then proceeds to fill my belly with a tension I’ve yet to figure out how to undo.
He’s six foot four and good gravy if my mouth doesn’t water whenever I see him even though every logical part of me knows he’s not my type. He’s hard, rough, not just around the edges, with a crooked sort of face that could only be the result of fists and baseball bats. And the tattoos? That should only seal the evidence that this is guy not from my world. I’m a good girl. The romance world might tell you it’s a match made in fictional heaven, but life is not books and he and I are oil and water, we scientifically cannot mix.
But, dang if seeing him up close and personal, closer than we’ve ever been before, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the clear outline of a foot-long dong that hung down the leg of his worn, grease-streaked Levis. I know he saw me look, I practically eye fucked his junk as I stood there being as difficult as I could, and that’s because I hate two things: being told what to do and admitting I need help.
I’ve got it under control, thank you very much.
But my hubris melted like a snow cone in August when he didn’t take my shit and didn’t take no for an answer.
Now, I’m riding behind him and I feel every rippling muscle under his leather vest. The wind on my face with his bare arms and shoulders covered in the ink that I know did not come from some fancy, uptown tattoo parlor with espresso makers and regular hours gives me an exhilaration I didn’t expect.
I take in the freedom of the speed and openness. In a car, the world sort of goes by without notice, but on the back of the bike, I notice everything. It’s like something inside of me is opening up and besides that, man, it’s just fun.
As we wheel down the highway and end up on the upside of town, Chewy slows, his left hand dropping down and cupping the back of my calf, sending a burst of excitement up my leg and all the way into my chest. He’s everything I never wanted and yet, I still got on the back of his bike instead of calling my father or my friend Alicia from high school to come pick me up.
Calling my father would not be first on my list. He’s done his job as a dad, technically speaking. But, anything sort of outside of what he views as his basic duties always seems to end up in a fight about how I don’t understand what it was like for him to raise me as a single father. How demanding and needy I was.
It’s true, I was demanding and needy, but I was a little kid without a mom and a dad that resented us both for trapping him. I pouted, threw tantrums, broke things, called child protective services on him when he wouldn’t get me a puppy for my
twelfth birthday.
I was a pain in the ass for a long time and he never let me forget it.
After a decade of hearing him tell me how I basically ruined his life, I went the other direction and decided I needed no one and nothing. I went away to school, paying my way with odd jobs and student loans because I wouldn’t take his money and he didn’t offer.,
Then, ironically, in my last year of undergrad, he decided he wanted me back here. Said he missed me, he was sorry for how things were between us and wanted to see if we could repair what had been so long broken. I wanted to say no, tell him I had plans for grad school, but he has a way with guilt, and I was broke, so that’s how I ended up back here in Valor, teaching Ethics and History classes at the local high school in the district where he’s superintendent.
Nepotism is alive and well in the heartland of America.
My plan was to go on and get my Master’s in Applied Ethics and possibly go on to see about a law degree. Doing what’s right has always fascinated me and knowing what’s right is not always clear but trying to figure out how it all works for the world and looking at it from a global standpoint was going to be my focus.
Instead, here I am doing what I think is right and coming home when my father suddenly decided he wanted to clear his conscience.
My core tenses as Chewy eases the bike into a spot on the street. People are out in droves tonight. It’s perfect weather, thirsty Thursday, and I realize how hungry I am when the scent of luscious food drapes around me and I breathe it in along with Chewy’s masculine scent topped with a hint of gasoline and coffee.
He kicks down the stand and kills the motor, dismounting in a smooth, gazelle-like movement which seems odd for such a monolith of a man. He reaches down and unsnaps my helmet, taking my hands and helping me off the back of the bike, even smoothing my skirt down when I stand.
“This will be safe in here.” He slips my backpack off my shoulders and secures it inside a side sort of container on the bike then he takes my hand. “Come on.” He nods toward the entry way of The Tribute, a Michelin star wanna be restaurant here in Valor.
I pause on the sidewalk outside, looking from the sleek chrome entry to Chewy’s bare arms and dirty jeans, his knit cap with loose threads and my plain, knee length floral skirt and white blouse. I can’t help but compare us to the patrons dressed for some millionaire’s charity event as they slip in and out of a door held open by a man in a tuxedo.
“Here?” I ask as he tugs my hand. I feel the rough calluses on his palm and fingers but his hand is warm and he squeezes my fingers and the sensation makes me press my legs together under my skirt.
“Yes, here.”
“But this place is like, booked up for a year, and a meal is more than a rent payment.” I know, because my dad brought me here after I moved home like he was showing me off. He’s never quite made peace with the low rent of his upbringing. He started teaching auto shop at the same high school where I teach now, and worked his way up the ladder somehow to be voted in as school Superintendent.
The power lit him up, gave him that sense of self-worth he’d been searching for his whole life but somehow, it doesn’t sit naturally with him. There’s a sense of having to prove to everyone who he is, what he has, and it never seems to be enough.
“Not your concern. Come on.”
Inside the front door, the gleaming glass and white walls make me feel dirty even though I showered this morning. The lithe, Morticia Adams impersonator at the hostess’s stand makes zero attempt to hide her disapproving eye roll as we approach.
“Do you have a reservation?” she asks in a nasally, bored monotone.
Chewy snaps his tongue over his teeth, pulling me by the hand next to him as she looks me up and down, holding back a disgusted choking grunt.
“No reservation but I have this.” He reaches into his back pocket with his free hand and pulls out his black leather wallet, the attached chain jingling as he pulls out a worn white business card and hands it to her. She takes it from him, touching it as though he’s handed her a used tissue infected with the plague, but when she turns it over a look passes over her face. A moment later she looks at Chewy, then at me, then back at the card.
“One moment.” She clears her throat and disappears through the dining room toward the back.
“What’s going on?” I look around to see the staff and other patrons glancing our way and a few whispers pass back and forth. “Let’s just go to Rooster’s. I could go for some greasy fries and a burger.”
“You don’t eat burgers or fries,” he answers and I’m taken aback.
“How do you know—” I start to ask when the sleek, black haired hostess returns, trailing behind a man in a suit who is now holding the dirty white business card, looking from it to Chewy before he stops a few feet from us, taking a long, irritated breath.
“I’m sorry. Our tables are full for the evening. I do suggest you make a reservation next time. As well as take note of our dress code.” He nods toward the wall next to the entry door and I look over to see a list of the preferences for patron’s attire, but Chewy doesn’t unlock his eyes from the gray-haired man in the black suit.
“That card says it gives me a VIP table at the time of my choosing. Signed by Phillipe Prescott, Chef de Cuisine and owner.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how you acquired this, but it is impossible for me to honor. I think it would be best if you dined elsewhere tonight.”
I start to tug on his arm but he shoots me a look and I stifle my moment of pity, thinking he must be humiliated by the treatment. His manner is calm but defiant and watching him stare down the insult in the eyes of the hostess and manager without a hint of embarrassment has my heart beating fast and my nipples hard enough to cut glass.
The air turns heavy in the silence as my skin prickles with a chill and I feel very exposed under the bright lights inside the entryway of the uber-sophisticated restaurant.
As the standoff turns almost unbearable, Chewy’s head turns toward the open restaurant, where a table at the front is being served, and I hear a low chuckle rumble from him as I glance at the hostess who is biting her bottom lip.
I know that look.
Yes, he’s sex on a stick and as high-brow-bitchy as you were to him, you’d offer up any hole of his choosing with the snap of his fingers.
“I think it’s best if I dined elsewhere tonight as well.” Chewy reaches out and snaps the white card from the man’s hand, making him wince and step back. “I’ll make sure I mention you when I let Phillipe know I stopped by.” Chewy puts the card back in his wallet then scratches the side of his face, his black beard sounding rough as his fingers move up and down before he finishes. “I’ll also let him know the asparagus is overcooked.”
Chewy tips his head toward the first table, where the woman wearing a Chanel suit is holding up her fork, a stalk of asparagus speared on the tines drooping in a sad horseshoe shape as she frowns at the vegetable.
He takes a step back, drapes his arm around my waist, then I gasp when he gives my ass a tap.
“I’ll take you someplace better.”
Outside again, he centers my helmet back on my head as I take in the wildness in his nearly black eyes and watch the sinuous muscle move under the skin of his biceps.
“Just take me home. I appreciate the offer for dinner, but maybe tonight is not the night. I told you earlier, I’m not even hungry.”
“Get on. I am hungry. I’ll be eating and I guarantee it will be way more delicious than anything they could serve here.” He sniffs, looking down at my skirt on a half-smile that has my insides twisting and wondering if he’s talking about food.
Because from the size of the third leg I see in his pants, I think maybe I’m what’s on the menu.
Chapter 4
Chewy
It’s dark by the time we pull up in front of the garage and the whole drive back I’ve been thinking about all the nights I lay in bed thinking of having her on the back
of my bike like this.
I thought of her in other ways, sure, but life taught me a lot about taking a moment to enjoy the simple things when they do come around. A touch that calms you. A whisper that washes away the rage.
Prison taught me more about rage than I knew before I went in. In there, I learned what monsters truly were. How you needed to be smart, to ally yourself just enough with them in order to survive, but not become one of them and watch any possibility of freedom wash away with the blood and the rot you lived with every day inside.
I assumed the dance we’ve done around each other was because of her fear. She’s the picture of simple, but not in a way that neglects the edgy sexiness underneath her almost clerical clothing and flat ballet-sort-of shoes.
But the wrapping she wears only serves to send my wildness into a spin. I’ve seen the curves and womanly shape she hides under her pleated skirts and straight-cut blouses.
We dismount the bike and the brush of her fingers on my arm makes the iron rod hanging down my pants pulse out her name in morse code.
She’s touching me deliberately now, it’s not an error or an awkward mistake, her hand rests on my forearm and the twist of lust and peace the sensation brings me makes me wonder what’s changed. Why, after she looked at me with such indifference for two years, is she giving me the gift of having her so close?
I only hope it’s not a dream, because if I wake up and none of this is real, I’ll be locked in a new sort of prison and the hell of it will make Lennon look like Disneyland.
“This doesn’t look like a restaurant.”
“It’s better.”
“Sure.” She gives me a curious look before finishing. “What was the story with that card? The whole Phillipe thing…”
I shrug, scratching under my eye. “He ripped up his transmission one night out on State Highway 23. I saw him swerve, then he hit the guardrail. I pulled up just as he got out of the car. He’d had a bit more Rothschild or whatever the fuck he was drinking that night. I took him back to his hotel, towed his car to the garage, fixed it up and delivered it back to him. Seemed like a decent guy. Said his wife just served him with divorce papers. Guy had a bad night. I helped out. Wanted to do me a favor in return.”