Johnnie and June

by Lara Norman

  “I love the way your tits bounce when you ride me, Shea.”

  “Yes.”

  “I love the way your pussy squeezes my cock so tight.”

  “Oh yes!”

  She couldn’t take it anymore, pressing her fingers to her clit and rubbing in furious circles as he thrust hard inside her. He leaned forward, pulling her hair back to expose her throat, licking his way down it and then biting it. She clamped down, seeing stars and exploding around him in loud bursts. He pushed up one more time before he grunted and held her close.

  “I’m going to enjoy staying here,” she mumbled into his shirt when she could breathe again.

  He chuckled. “Until I make you split the chores with me after a long night at work.”

  “The horror.”

  He laughed again. “I think you’ll find the compensation fair.”

  “And more than adequate.”

  “I’m glad you think so. It’s a boost to my ego.”

  She lifted her head to look at him. “Is that something you needed? You don’t strike me as being cocky, Johnnie.”

  “I’m not, June.”

  “Then I’ll boost it any day of the week.” She nipped his chin, kissing him deeply and wrapping her arms around him. “I think I need another shower.”

  “Imagine how much my water bill is going to go up.”

  “I think you’ll find the compensation is fair.”

  He laughed at her for throwing his words back at him. “So far, so damn good.”

  Chapter Eight

  Shea followed Milo into the bar on Monday at mid morning. She felt nervous, but she was also excited. She wanted to move on with a new life, to become the woman she used to be before she let Alex ruin it all for her. She would finally meet new people and have a job. She clasped her hands together in front of her as they walked in, unsure of what she would see or who would be there. He brought her to the office in the back and took out several forms for her to fill out.

  “The other three should be here within ten minutes. Go ahead and come out to the bar when you’re done and I’ll introduce you.”

  She swallowed and nodded.

  He left her alone and she hurried to fill out the paperwork. She didn’t particularly want to be in there alone. When she made her way to the front of the house, she found two men and a woman. The woman had extremely long lavender hair and piercings, one of the men had light brown hair cut into a fade, long on top and cut high. His arms were covered in tattoo sleeves. The last guy was tall with a mop of curly blond hair. They all looked up as she walked over to the bar.

  “Everybody, this is Shea. She’s joining us for lessons and tonight will be her first night behind the bar. We’re going to give her easy tasks such as taking orders and delivering drinks until she learns a few things, okay?”

  They each greeted her, and Shea gave a little wave as a blush took over her cheeks.

  “Shea, this is Nora, Cooper, and Ryder.”

  Nora waved her over, so she went to stand near her. “I suck at anything that requires coordination, so don’t feel bad if you don’t catch on right away.”

  “That’s nice of you to say.”

  Milo began with a few basics for Nora and Shea, giving the men a more advanced technique to practice. To her surprise, Shea had no trouble catching the bottles when they were empty.

  “Keep that up and we’ll move to full bottles to see how you do with the weight,” Milo said.

  She blushed darker, pleased that she was decent.

  “Figures,” Nora muttered as she dropped her bottle for the fifth time.

  The hours sped by as Shea attempted to flip and catch bottle after bottle. She hadn’t mastered anything fancy by the end of the session, but she was at least able to catch them without dropping them ninety percent of the time. After the others left, Milo and Shea stayed to go over the cash register and inventory.

  “Here’s the list of what we serve,” he said, handing her a small, laminated menu. “Most customers know what they want without looking at it, but it doesn’t hurt to have this in your apron pocket. If they order something that sounds out there and you’re not sure we make it, check the menu. I can make pretty much anything, but we might not have the ingredients for the fancier drinks.”

  “Okay.” She looked over the menu to familiarize herself.

  “If you’re ever in doubt, tell them you need to check. No one will get onto you for asking, and if they do, I’ll kick their ass.” He smiled to show he was teasing, and she grinned back. “It’s never a dull moment in here once the doors open, but nobody gets too rowdy. Lillie banned the Bandidos for the most part, other than a few that know how to keep to themselves. We don’t have a bouncer anymore except for occasionally when Luke comes in. He’s married to Lillie’s best friend Stella.”

  “When do you think I’ll meet Lillie?” she asked, biting her lip as she thought about the woman with balls of steel.

  “She comes in every Saturday night and sometimes she pops in unannounced. Otherwise, I could take you to her house whenever you want.”

  “I don’t want.”

  He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Why not?”

  She sighed. “Remember when I said just the sound of her intimidates me?”

  “Yeah, and I told you that was nonsense.”

  “Not really. She has everything I don’t, she has her shit together and I don’t, and she knows her mind. Isn’t that how you described her?”

  “Yes, but Shea, you’ve been through a lot. You have to give yourself a break.” He moved closer to her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “You’re doing those things now, going for what you want and getting your shit together, to use your words.”

  She dropped her gaze. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Hey.” He dipped down to look her in the eye, and she reluctantly lifted her head. “You’re going to be great. I’ll see to it.”

  She shook her head. “No, I’ll see to it. It’s my job to figure out my life now that I’ve got one.”

  “You’re right; you’re in control and you have to make the changes. I’ll help if I can, like getting you this job, but the rest is up to you.”

  “Thank you.” She wrapped her arms around him, resting her face on his chest. “You make me feel safe.”

  “Good.”

  Milo pulled away and took her hand. “We have a few hours before we have to be back to open the doors. What would you like to do?”

  “Can we go for a ride?”

  He grinned. “Absolutely.”

  They rode the back streets and down the interstate where Milo pointed to the billboard advertising Carter’s Bar. Shea felt a clenching in her gut as she realized how much they were advertising their hole in the wall. For such a small town, it was something that could put them on the map.

  The last thing she needed was Alex deciding to take a side trip from hunting her down to whet his appetite for excessive drinking. He loved alcohol more than he’d ever loved her, that was a fact.

  Shea was clinging to Milo in desperation by the time he brought the motorcycle to a stop in his driveway. She knew they only had time to grab something to eat and go back to work, but she desperately wanted to curl around him and not let him go. She worried she was becoming dependent on the first man to be nice to her since she’d run from her past life.

  As shaky as she was, she wasn’t surprised when he noticed.

  “Are you okay?” he asked as she stumbled getting off the bike.

  “Sort of.”

  He took one look at her and steered her in the house with his hand on her elbow.

  “Please, sit down and talk to me.”

  “I was thinking about Alex, that’s all.”

  “Your ex?” he clarified. At her nod, he continued. “Why was he on your mind? Typically, riding is the best cure for when I need to clear my head.”

  She sighed, sitting on a barstool. “It’s going to be that way for a while, that much I know. I’ll look over my shoulder fo
r years, probably. I worry he’ll be traveling the interstates searching for me, as if he doesn’t have a job and a new apartment or something. If he decided to pass by Abbott, he’d see the sign for the bar and swing on in.”

  “You got all that from our ride?”

  “Yep. That’s how my mind works. I’m suspicious, nervous, paranoid. Whatever you want to call it, I’m thinking the worst at all times. I’m even disgusted with myself for relying on you so quickly, though I like you and trust you.”

  “By all means, go out on your own and don’t rely on me.” He swept his arm through the air over the counter. “Find something for rent—good luck with that, by the way—and get a job by yourself that has nothing to do with me.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be pissy.”

  “Don’t give me a reason to be pissy!”

  He turned away from her, rummaging through the refrigerator and setting sandwich makings on the counter next to it. She watched him, absorbing the hunched shoulders and the sharp movements.

  “Milo, it has nothing to do with the content of your character. In that regard, you’re a great human being.”

  He snorted.

  “It’s a need to stand on my own two feet. I used to be that woman, the strong type that went for what she wanted and had her own things. I worked for that life. I don’t quite know how or when I became this other person.”

  “It’s not as if you did something wrong and need to make it right. You only have to take things one day at a time, Shea.”

  She hummed. “You might be right, but I don’t exactly have a choice at the moment. I can’t ask anyone else for help.”

  He faced her with a jar of mayonnaise in his hand. “You have a choice, Shea. The options might be limited, but you have a choice.”

  “Are you going to make a sandwich with that or throw it at me?”

  “Tempting, but I’m not going to throw anything at you.” He set the mayo down and reached for the bread. “How about we eat and get to work, and talk about this later?”

  Shea took Milo’s advice and let it drop. They ate, they went back to the bar, and she tried not to hyperventilate at all the people who showed up. It was busier than she’d expected which was ironic since she hadn’t known what to expect.

  She handled herself well, she thought. She was friendly and not too forgetful. She made some decent tips as far as she was concerned, and she didn’t have to put hers in the jar to split with the bartenders. Shea watched Milo and Ryder put on a mini show with their tricks and looked forward to the time when she could perform like them. Nora might not be good at the showmanship part of it all, but she was an excellent bartender. She was quick and efficient, and the customers seemed to like her. Shea also thought Nora was nice, at least to her. She tended to give shit to the boys.

  Shea chuckled to herself. Cooper and Ryder weren’t boys, but they tended to act that way. Cooper could be seen trying to score phone numbers at any point in time throughout the night, and Ryder had a very likeable but goofy personality.

  Milo kept an eye on them all, getting onto Cooper for flirting too much and guiding Shea with her orders. She made a few drinks when they were slow, but for the most part she handled taking orders and dropping off drinks. She appreciated Milo’s management style. He didn’t hover, but she knew he was there for support if it became a necessity.

  Even though she knew she could walk to his house, it wasn’t a smart idea in the middle of the night. When they closed, Milo counted down the drawer while the other three gathered their things and left through the back door. Nora would be safe getting to her car with her escort, and Shea smiled at the idea.

  “What are you smiling about?” Milo asked.

  “Oh, the fact that you were right. The people in this town look out for one another. Everyone was very nice and no one got impatient when I thought I was moving too slowly.”

  “It was a good night. Now, I’m ready for sleep.” He closed the drawer and walked to her, slinging an arm around her shoulders.

  “Sounds good. My feet are killing me.”

  “You did good, kid.”

  “Did you just call me kid?”

  He flipped off the last remaining light. “I did.”

  She elbowed him in the gut and then laughed when he tickled her sides. They were both laughing when they walked out the back door together to get on his bike and head back to his house.

  Shea realized it was the first time in a long time that she’d laughed and teased just for the hell of it.

  Chapter Nine

  The more time passed, the better Shea became at her job. She was more talented with the tricks than Nora, much to Nora’s dismay, and she had excellent people skills. Milo was proud of her; even better than that, she was proud of herself. It was never in her plans to become a bartender/waitress, but now that she was, she found herself happy with it.

  The only thing that continued to nag her was the idea that Alex could be out looking for her. It remained in the back of her mind each and every day, something that would make her freeze in place without notice. She tried not to worry, she tried to focus on being in the moment and not stress over what might be, but it didn’t always work.

  In an effort to forget about him, she focused on being the person she used to be before Alex. She used to be smart and strong, someone that didn’t put up with anyone’s bullshit. She had plans and a career, money in the bank, and a place of her own. She didn’t have to rely on anyone, and she liked who she was. When she thought back to that time, though, she remembered feeling lonely. She didn’t have close friends, she only had people that liked to go out and get drunk. It was fine for the time being when she was in her early twenties, but it wouldn’t have lasted, anyway. She realized that her life would have evolved in some ways without Alex, just not in the ugly and pitiful spiral that it had.

  Shea made an effort to befriend Nora. She was a sweet woman who was only a year younger than Shea. She’d felt as if she didn’t have a life back in Missouri where she’d grown up and wanted something new for herself. She’d gone off on her own to find a new job and a new life in Abbott. She had been driving down the interstate and seen the billboard for the bartending school. With nothing more than a few suitcases and a hundred dollars, Nora had made a new life for herself in the small town in Texas.

  The entire idea was enough to send Shea back into a panic. What Nora had done was Shea’s worst fear for Alex; if she had done it, he could do it, too. She hadn’t set off looking for Abbott or a bartending school, she’d essentially just been driving until she found something that looked interesting. The idea of Alex doing the same had Shea’s heart in her throat and her stomach plummeting to her toes.

  Her fear had gotten to the point where she would only go out long enough to work and then go directly back to Milo’s. She hated to hide out, hated to be in a state of mind that included panic attacks and impending depression. She wouldn’t join him in going to the grocery store or to meet his friends. He begged her to go with him for dinner at Fletcher and Lillie’s house, but she refused. If they were out and about, Alex could find her. It was bad enough that he might walk in the door of the bar at any second, but if he followed them to one of Milo’s friends’ houses, he could make their lives hell as he’d done to her.

  She hated watching her thoughts spiral down the drain. She struggled to fix her obsessive attitude, but it seemed an impossible task. She worked to relax and not live with permanently hunched shoulders twenty-four hours a day. But it didn’t matter what she tried; nothing worked.

  While Milo was gone one evening, Shea heard a noise in the backyard and nearly had a heart attack. With trembling hands, she moved to the back door and peered out the edge of the small window. She didn’t see anything in the complete darkness of the yard. Milo had a light out back, but she was afraid to flip it on. If there was someone out there, she didn’t want them to know she was standing right there watching. She had the phone in her hand and the first two numbers of the e
mergency department dialed when Milo walked in the door.

  She screamed and dropped the phone, realizing it was him with such relief that it made her feel like a complete fool. With a sob, she sank down onto the floor and started to cry. She hated herself more now than when she first left Alex. She had a sudden realization of how cowed she’d become, more afraid of her own shadow now that when she lived with that monster.

  He rushed over to where she’d squatted. “Shea, what the hell?”

  She threw her hands in the air in exasperation. “I don’t know, I don’t know!”

  He kneeled by her side and put his arms around her. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I told you I’d be back at nine.”

  “You’re right, you did. I forgot about that when I heard you in the backyard.”

  “Why did that scare you?”

  She could barely look him in the eye. “It could have been anyone!”

  He sat beside her. “You mean it could have been Alex.”

  She nodded, hiding her face in his sweatshirt. “I hate this.”

  “Fear is different for everyone, Shea. It comes in all shapes and sizes, in many forms that you can’t control. It’s not your fault, but you have to work on not being afraid all the time. That’s no way to live.”

  “I know, but how do I make it better?” She picked her head back up, taking his closest hand and holding it tightly between both of hers.

  “Think about the fact that this is not living. Surely you promised yourself something about that when you left him, or what was the point in leaving?”

  “I just knew I needed to get out of there. I didn’t think about anything past running far away.”

  “Okay, so why don’t you think about it now? Living in fear means he wins. He still has control over you all this distance apart. You don’t want that, do you?”

  Shea sighed. “No, I really don’t.”

  “So, you need to be prepared for the small chance he does come for you—and I don’t think he will—but, if you’re prepared for the worst, then you can’t be afraid of him anymore.”