by Huss, JA
He made a bunch of different bombshell shirts specially for me back when he was trying out all his different logos. Now he uses the ravens and a few other things.
But this bombshell piece was like an arrow through my heart. It’s like carving Spencer and Ronnie sitting in a tree on the picnic table in my back yard. Which I did the very first week we met.
I smile a little at this as I fasten my lacy pink bra and tug the shirt over my head. I slip on my old black Frye Harness boots and grab the leather jacket off the sturdy hanger.
I sigh as I look at it. And then I giggle. I stole this from him last year. Back when I could tell he was getting ready to leave me behind just as his business and body-painting careers were taking off. It scared the shit out of me and I wanted something more than a t-shirt that would keep me connected to him. Spencer never gave me a motorcycle jacket all painted up like he did Rook. And I do admit, I’m insanely jealous of that jacket she has.
But this jacket that I swear to fucking God I can still smell his musky scent on makes up for all that sadness and what I’m about to do today. Well, it’s a defining moment for me.
I slip my arms into the smooth sleeves of the leather and put my hair up in a ponytail. The contents of my purse are exchanged into a backpack and then I walk out of the room.
Spencer thinks he can just boss me around, leave me hanging after getting himself off, and there’s not gonna be consequences?
Yeah, right, buddy.
“Shit, Ronnie, took you long—” Rook stops talking as she takes in my outfit. I’m a girl who dresses for the occasion and Rook knows this. “No,” she says. “You said you wanted me to help you haul it back to town on the truck, Veronica.”
I tilt my head up and smile. “I know what I said. But I lied. Else you’d say no. But you already sold me the bike, Rook. It’s mine. All I need is a ride out to the farm to pick it up.”
My phone buzzes in my backpack and I grab it, hoping it’s Spencer calling to apologize or maybe stop by after lunch to finish me off…
No such luck. “Carson,” I say into the phone after I accept the call. “I’ve been thinking about that dinner invitation you gave me last week…”
“No, Veronica,” he cuts me off. “That’s not why I’m calling. I know you were looking for a car, so I lined up a friend of mine to show you some nice prospects tonight.”
Silence.
“Uh, you know, so we can finalize the loan?”
“Riiiiight,” I say back. “The loan. Ah… yeah. I do need a car.” I eyeball Rook. “But I’ve found some transportation until I’m ready to buy another one. As for the paperwork, I’ve decided I don’t need the loan anymore. I’m good, and a flower shop was never gonna be my thing, OK? Well, it’s been nice knowing you, take care.” And before he can say anything I end the call and slip the phone back into my pack.
“Spencer will fucking kill me if you get on that bike today, Ronnie.” Rook picks up our conversation like Carson never even called. “It’s wet out!”
I walk over to the front window and crack the blinds apart. “It’s stopped raining already. It’s supposed to be sunny today. Just a morning shower.” I smile sweetly at her. Rook is a pushover, I’m not worried. When I told her I wanted to buy the bike, she said she’d give it to me. But I made certain I paid her what it was worth last night when I sold my car. Every cent I got from my Mini Cooper went to Rook. And I’ve got the signed title and the bill of sale in my wallet.
“Stop worrying. I told you, my little brother Vann and I took motorcycle classes together lasts summer. We’re pros now. Besides, you’re one to talk. You took off on that bike last year and drove it a thousand miles away and you lived.”
“Yeah, Spencer and Ford came and hauled my ass back, too. They were not happy. Not at all. And Ronin gave me the kibosh on riding ever since. All three of them will kill me if I take you out there and let you ride.”
“Rook, whose side are you on?” I exclaim. “It’s hoes before bros, bitch.”
She halts the rant about to come out of her mouth and laughs. “Hoes…” She shakes her head at that. “Ronnie, if you crash—”
“I’m not gonna crash, I told you. Vann and I have logged almost a hundred hours already. We’ve been on the sneak for almost a year. He’s even got a bike halfway built at his friend’s garage. He’ll be riding it on his eighteenth in June.”
She gives me a doubtful look. But all that was one hundred percent true. I hitch my pack over my shoulder, open the front door, and wave her through.
She accepts my invitation and I’m in. I am fucking in, baby.
My new life starts today.
Biker Bomb Ronnie.
Chapter Four - Spencer
“What do ya mean she doesn’t want the loan?” Fucking Veronica. Can’t this woman ever just go with the fucking flow? Why does she have to make my life so complicated?
“You were standing right here, Shrike. She blew me off and said she was never interested in the flower shop idea anyway.”
“Then—” I throw my hands up. “What the fuck is she doing?”
Carson checks his fingernails and suddenly he reminds me of a less cool version of Ford. “How should I know what that woman is thinking? I barely know her. She said she has transportation and she didn’t need a car just yet.”
“Trans—well, where the fuck did she get a car? I just saw her ass walking home less than an hour ago. How could she have picked up a vehicle in that time? Especially when I left her cold and wet”—very, very wet—“walking home barefoot in the rain.”
“Just for the record, that’s a dick move.”
I raise my eyebrows. Charlie Brown is getting brave.
“Look,” Carson says impatiently, “as much as I’d like to help you out, I told my old man I was at the dentist to come here this morning. I gotta get back to work. I’ll stop by tomorrow and we’ll talk ideas about my custom paint job. Later.”
And he just walks out.
Fuck. I rub the stubble on my head. Bombshell is gonna send me to my grave, that’s how crazy she drives me. I fish my phone out of my pocket and press her beautiful face. It rings through on the first ring. “You’ve reached Ronnie Vaughn. I’m either working or playing…”
I end the call and sit on the corner of my desk to think.
Ford comes back with a camera crew a few minutes later. “What’s up with them?” I ask, pointing to the three-man crew. “I thought they were Team Rook today?”
“Yeah, well, she told them she had to go to the women’s doctor and if they tried to follow her, they’d each get, and I quote, ‘a boot in the balls.’ She took off from the coffee shop and left them standing outside.”
I just stare at him. “So… she’s got my truck. Ronin’s out of town. She’s conveniently got an appointment no one knew about. Ronnie’s out of area and suddenly came up with her own mode of transportation. Something is not right.”
Ford’s already pushing the crew out of the office and closing the door while he dials his phone. “Ashleigh?” he says with some relief. “Have you seen Ronnie or Rook?” He listens to her for a few seconds and then pops off an, “I love you, be home at six,” and ends the call.
They sorta make me gag. That’s how sweet and considerate they are of each other. I can’t stop the eye roll. “What’d she say?”
He shrugs. “Ronnie went with Rook to a doctor’s appointment.”
“Huh.”
We stare at each other, both of us thinking that’s all total bullshit. But then Director Larry comes in and drags our minds back to work and we drop it. Ford and Larry are busy setting up stationary cameras in front of each of the mechanics’ bays, inside the paint room—we have our own in-house painter now—and in the showroom, behind Rook’s desk.
Besides the new painter, we picked up a couple girls from CSU to run parts and do errands that Rook used to do. My payroll went from five to nine. Which may not sound like much, but three years ago I had zero employees, no real shop, no
custom bikes of my own, and Ronnie and I were more together than not.
These days we’re not together at all.
And it sucks. I hate it. I hate sneaking around behind her back, trying to get shit done, trying to keep my secrets.
Yeah, I admitted I was guilty last week when we talked, but saying it like that—all generic and shit, no details—it’s not the same, because everyone knows the details are all that matter.
I walk outside and join the boys. The grand opening for Shrike Bikes is six days away. The painting crew had to wait until the rain stopped today, and now they are just finishing up the mechanic banners. The outside of the shop is all done up in black and red with a giant Shrike Bikes logo and a banner with each mechanic’s name on their bay door.
They are all good guys and they’ve all been with me since the start. Only Ryan and I make the custom bikes. I use Fletch and Griff to assemble the stock bikes. They do a little customization—but no frame stuff.
All the guys are checking out the painting with me. They are excited and smiling. We’re big time, those smiles say.
Yeah, we were on TV last year too, but this… This. Is. Big time.
I have to take a deep breath when Griff knocks me on the back and they all crowd around as we watch our names being painted on the side of a building.
And the reason I have to take a deep breath is because this is the dream, ya know?
I’m about to be living the fucking dream.
And it came pretty quick. I’m not even twenty-four years old yet. But that’s not what’s bothering me today. Today all I can think about are the mistakes I made to get here. And last week, back when I was bitching about Ronnie’s dump of an apartment, she said something to me that really hit home.
She said, ‘At least I got it honestly.’
It was like a stab to my heart. Because she’s absolutely fucking right. I cheated my ass into this opportunity. Sure, I contacted the Biker Channel and pitched the show, but I name-dropped. My father stepped in, called up some of his old biker buddies. Got them to make calls.
And Ford. I told them I would get Ford Aston on board. I used our infamy to get the pilot. I let Rook sign the contract even though I knew she was only doing it to defy Ronin. Because I wanted Ronin to model with Rook on the bikes. And guess what? I got my way. I got everything I set out to get.
I used every bit of clout, reputation, friendship, and notoriety I had. And all of it was based on the fact that I’m a goddamned criminal. A murderer.
Alleged murderer to the public, but there’s nothing alleged about what I did.
I pinch the bridge of my nose to stave off a headache and then look up when Ryan punches me in the arm. “Snap the fuck out of it, Shrike! This is it, man. The end of struggling. The end of sweating the payroll, the end of…”
I stop listening at payroll.
They have no idea. They have no fucking idea my net worth is over a hundred and fifty million dollars if you include what’s left of my cut of the jobs the Team did a few years ago.
I stand out there with the guys as they paint my name on the last bay.
S. P. E. N. C. E. R.
I step back a few paces so I can see the whole thing. All five bay doors, the open-winged blackbird that spans the entire length. The skull and crossbones centered in the middle. The Shrike Bikes rocker above the skull and the tagline Not Your Daddy’s Ride on the bottom rocker so that when taken together, the whole thing looks like the three-piece colors of a motorcycle club.
My mind wanders back to when I made this logo. Ronnie and I were on the couch in the living room, sweating our asses off in the midday August heat the summer after graduation…
Two years ago—Bellvue farm
Her legs slip under my sketchpad and rub along the soft jeans covering my thighs. I’ve got a huge hole in the right pant-leg, and the flicker of heat that passes across my bare skin as she positions her legs makes me hard immediately. I stop sketching and rub my palm up and down her calf.
“Ooooooh,” she purrs.
Her legs are so fucking soft and smooth. Either this woman is hairless or she shaves every day. “You’re distracting me, baby. And you smell so fucking good, I can hardly stand it.”
She sits up and wraps her arms around my neck, her legs staying put in my lap. “What do I smell like? Tell me again.”
I smile at this. Why this turns her on, I have no idea, but it does. “Sugar, Bombshell. You smell like sugar.” She licks the inside of my ear and I melt a little, letting out a deep breath. “I’m never gonna get this logo designed if you keep demanding my attention.”
She grabs my sketchpad and tosses it over on the coffee table. “That logo is perfect the way it is, Mr. Shrike.” Her back straightens and her tits push against my chest. “Pay attention to me,” she begs in my ear, her soft breath floating across the sensitive skin.
I grab her ass, haul her up into my lap and squeeze her until she squeals. “You’re being bad, Ronnie. I’m trying to work.”
“I’m work,” she pouts. “I need to be worked.” She leans in to nip my neck and then she lifts her mouth to my jaw. “I need to be worked every day. I’m gettin’ rusty.”
“Ha,” I chuckle. “I fucked you hard this morning, you’re well-oiled as far as I can tell.”
“No,” she insists as her lips drift over to mine so she can make me respond when she begins to lick me. “I need to be oiled, but I’m far from well-oiled now.”
She lets out another loud girly squeal as I toss her off to the side, making her tits bounce when she hits the soft cushions of the couch. “Stay still, Bombshell.”
Fuck me, she mouths silently. I lose control when she does that and she knows it. Fuck me, she mouths again. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. Over and over again.
She’s wearing that little bombshell tank top I made for her. The one with the pinup looking suspiciously like her, sitting on a WWII bomb as it sails through the air.
I grab the hem of her shirt and rip it right up the center.
“Spencer!” she screams. “I love this tank top!”
I grab the cups of her lacy pink bra and rip that apart too. “I’ll make you another one, baby.”
“Oh,” she gasps. “You are in so much tr—”
I pop the button on her Daisy Dukes next. It goes flying across the room. “You wanna get fucked?” I growl at her. “Lift your hips.”
She shudders. She always shudders. Like what I do to her is a surprise each and every time. I wait for the swallow, but she tucks her nerves away and inhales.
I’ve fucked Veronica Vaughn like eleventy billion times in the past year that we’re been dating. I’ve licked every inch of her body. I’ve fucked her pussy, her ass, her mouth, and her tits. We’ve done it outside, in the shop, on a bike—hell, on like a dozen bikes, at least—in the river out back, up on a ridge in the hills behind the property, in four public parks, on CSU campus—like every fucking building they have on CSU campus, minus the bookstore because we got caught before we finished, so it doesn’t count—in the back of my truck, in the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, basement… you name a place in the greater Fort Collins area, and chances are I’ve fucked my Bomb there.
But no matter what, no matter how many times I take her body, no matter how public the taking is, no matter how dirty the talk—the thing that turns me on the most about my Bombshell is the shudder that runs through her body each and every single time we get started. It’s my drug, and I’m addicted to it.
That shudder says, You rock my fucking world, Spencer Shrike.
And my response, each and every time, are these thoughts. The ones running through my mind, and not the ones controlled by my dick. The memories we make every time I touch her.
Fuck me, she mouths again as she lifts her hips and I slip her shorts off. Her panties are so adorable. And this is what I love about Ronnie. She’s a tattoo artist. She shoots better than I do after she took a bunch of marksmanship classes at my gun club. She’s got moves an
MMA fighter would envy. And she comes from a brood of siblings who would make just about anyone shit their pants if they ever met them in a dark alley.
But this girl—this girl is a fucking princess underneath it all. She’s soft and sweet and pretty and she smells like a bakery.
She smells like a sugar cookie. She’s like those little crystals of sugar on top, the ones that melt in your mouth.
“Fuck me,” she says out loud now. “Fuck me.”
I lean down and suck on her nipple, massaging her large breasts until she moans.
Piss on the logo, the logo can wait. I shift positions and lean down, her little body smothered by my large one. And now it’s my turn to breathe into her ear. “Veronica Bombshell Vaughn, I’ll never stop fucking you, baby. You know why?”
I wait for an answer and this throws her off her game. Her brows knit together slightly because I’ve changed the rules on her and I want a response. “Why?” she whispers back.
“Because you’re mine, baby. And I’m gonna keep you forever.”
“You promise?” she asks with a second shudder.
I have to close my eyes to let my body fully soak up that unexpected treat. “I promise.”
My phone vibrates in my pants and I reach in my pocket and pull it out, hoping it’s Ronnie calling me back.
It’s not.
It’s Ronin.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Hey,” he says back. “You seen Rook around? I keep calling and it goes right to voicemail.”
“I think her and Ronnie are at the women’s doctor together.”
“Huh, why? Ronnie got a problem?”
“No, you asshole. Rook said she had an appointment.”
“No,” he counters back. We are like the Two fucking Stooges. “She never mentioned the doctor to me. I’m pretty sure she’d tell me that.”
We just wait there in silence for a few seconds like dumbasses. “Well,” I finally say to break the awkwardness. “I guess congratulations are in order. Way to go, she’s probably pregnant and wants to keep it secret until she gets confirmation.”