by Krane, Kasey
I looked at her, my eyebrow cocked, trying to figure out if she was seriously making some sort of fat joke. Sure, she had some meat on her bones, but I preferred sleeping with women who didn't pass for coat hangers. Surely she didn't think her amazing curves were anything less than that – amazing.
“Good morning!” The young blonde emerged from the back, responding to the bell over the door, saving me from having to figure out if she was being serious or not. “Oh hi, Knight! I saw you on YouTube the other night – wow, that was so cool! I can’t believe you helped save those little girls. Is Carmen going to be able to keep Maggie? How is the adoption process going?”
I wasn't sure how to answer that –adoptions didn't tend to happen in a few days, no matter how famous the case was and how much the wheels of justice were greased by the attention of millions of onlookers. “Good,” I finally settled on grunting. Leia looked up at me and rolled her eyes at my lack of loquaciousness. I looked down at her and shrugged. I wasn’t talkative at the best times and dammit, no one had given me coffee yet. They should all be happy I was upright.
Leia turned towards the clerk and said with a smile, “I’m Leia and your donuts smell amazing. Which kind do you recommend?” They started to chat as I wandered over to fill up my coffee cup from the coffee dispensers along the wall. I filled up a second one for Leia.
As I was filling up the coffee, I almost let it spill over in my hand as I watched Leia bend down at the case to look at the different items. I quickly shook my head and focused on pouring the coffee.
I got a maple bar, like always – the clerk didn't even bother asking me what I wanted – but Leia went for a bear claw. We sat down at one of the small tables at the front of the bakery, facing the street, as the blonde wandered back into the kitchen area to go back to work.
“I should show you a Sangre tat so you know what it looks like,” I said, pulling out my phone to find a picture online. She looked over my shoulder as I flicked through the pictures, until I could find a good one, close up and clear. “Can’t miss it - there aren’t too many people with severed goat heads as tattoos. Usually, the tats are on their necks - part of the initiation rites. You have to get this on your neck or you won’t be allowed in.”
“Ugh,” Leia said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “Especially the red blood dripping off the bottom. God, that’s nasty.”
“I don't think anyone's ever accused a Sangre of being nice,” I said dryly.
“You sure do know how to treat a girl to a good time. I mean, the donut’s awesome, but severed goat heads over breakfast? You must date some girls with some real iron stomachs.”
Date…had I ever dated someone? I tried to think back to a “date,” but was coming up empty.
I couldn’t believe I was saying it, even as the words spilled out of my mouth. “Not really sure how to date someone.” And since when did words just spill out of my mouth? But they were out there and I was smiling at her and she was smiling back. The pit of my stomach was twisting in knots and I was sure we were flirting, also something I did not do and would have professed that I did not know how to do, except with Leia, it just…happened.
“You’re not stuttering over your T’s,” Leia said gently, obviously trying to avoid the reaction she gotten the day before when she had raised this topic.
I stared at her. She was right. I thought back over what I had said, filled with all sorts of T’s, words I normally would have done verbal gymnastics to keep from saying.
I didn't know how to explain it. I had spent my whole life trying to figure out how to force my tongue to just say what I wanted it to say and now here it was, acting like it was best friends with T’s everywhere.
What the fuck just happened?
“Remember my friend from high school who stuttered?” Leia asked. “She told me that she stuttered a lot less around me and almost never around her family.”
“Why?” was all I could think to say.
“The more worried you are about stuttering, the more you stutter. The less worried you are, the less you stutter.” She shrugged. “Obviously, the more severe your stutter is, the less it will simply ‘go away’ when you relax but for sure, the absolute worst thing you can do is worry and focus on the fact that you stutter. The more you try to force the words, the less the words will come out.”
Which meant that I stuttered less around Leia than any other person I had ever met because she made me relax? I turned to stare out the front window at the dusty street, my mind whirling with possibilities. Could I learn to speak without stuttering to the Dead Legion also? I had never tried, had always simply structured my sentences so I didn't fuck up and expose my soft underbelly to the group. They were my family, sure, but they were bikers. I had never wanted them to know. I had never wanted them to think any less of me.
“I don't know what kind of number your family did on you as a kid,” she broke into my thoughts softly, “but I promise that stuttering is not linked to intelligence in any way. Studies have been done on it and there’s no link.”
It was like she could read my mind – as if she knew the worry I had been carrying around my entire life. My parents had refused speech therapy for me, telling the school that there was no point trying to teach a dumbass like me to talk. Actually, it was my stepdad talking; my mother never said anything. I had no idea if she believed it or not. She just never stood up for anything, or anyone.
But all of that meant that I had never been taught any coping strategies for stuttering - had never been taught how or what worked best to keep it from happening. I had pent it up my whole life, trying to beat it into submission, and now, I find out that I just needed to fucking relax??
The more I got to know Leia the more she surprised me.
12
Leia
The more I got to know Knight, the more attracted to him I became. He was, by far, the sexiest man I had ever laid eyes on and yet somehow, he seemed somewhat interested in me. Losing my mom a couple of months ago had sent me into a tailspin that had turned my world upside down. I had lost my rock, my mom, my best friend, and there had been days that I hadn’t been sure I was going to live through it. Finding my mom’s journal had been a huge surprise, a blast from my mom’s past that I hadn't even known existed. Following that dream, that lead, to find something from my mom’s past had seemed so natural at the time.
But now, having met Knight, my world had gone into a tailspin yet again, but this time, in a delightfully wonderful way. I had had no idea that men like Knight existed. And I would have bet my life savings on the fact that men liked Knight would not find women like me attractive. Pretending to study the display in front of me, I peeked sideways, trying to act ever so casual about it. Was he staring at me?
Which is when I found out that he had turned and was studiously studying the other side of the aisle. Dammit. Maybe he licked the fingers of every woman he ate donuts with. Maybe he was getting bored with me taking so long to choose a kite.
Maybe I just wasn't sexy enough.
“Well, I guess we should head back to the motel then,” he said pulling me from my thoughts.
“Sure! I said brightly, trying to ignore the red color creeping up my cheeks. He sure as hell wasn’t sneaking peeks at me like I had been at him. I needed to pull my head out of my ass.
He doesn’t look at me like that.
I had to remember that. Maybe scrawl it up my arm in Sharpie marker.
He jerked his head and stared off to the side, not making eye contact with me. He seemed as distant as a mountain range the next country over, and about as friendly.
We headed towards the cash register to pay, but when I pulled out my wallet to pay for the donuts and coffee, Knight held out his hand to stop me. “I got it,” he grunted. The clerk shrugged and took Knight’s card, clearly not caring who paid for it. I smiled at the cashier as if nothing was wrong, but inside, I was in turmoil. I hated having him pay for me. It solidified the feeling I had that we were actually o
n a date.
He doesn’t always look at me like we are on a date. And besides, I was planning on leaving Deming, eventually.
Okay, dammit, so maybe I should start planning for the future now. Maybe I should start pulling back, like he was so obviously pulling back. Whatever that bakery thing was, it was clearly not a big deal to Knight.
And anyway, who makes love to a woman’s fingers and then mic drops her twenty minutes later? Was he trying to fuck with my head? Was he trying to yank me around? What kind of game was this? I didn’t want to play his game, that was for damn sure.
It was about time I protected my heart. Knight could go play his games with someone else. Someone who knew the rules to the game. Someone who wasn’t as ignorant as I. Someone who had actually fucked a guy before.
Someone who was not me.
13
Knight
Goddammit, Leia was mad at me again.
There we were in the donut shop and I had been feeling bold and daring and…not myself. Well, not myself around a woman, anyway. I would take a shootout with the Sangre over trying to figure out a woman any day of the week. I would steal as many glances of her that I could get while I had the chance.
Which is when Bishop’s words had started pounding in my head again and again: You can’t trust her, Knight. Her dad is Butcher, for God’s sake. You can’t fuck her.
You can’t fuck her…
You can’t fuck her…
So when she bent over at the donut shop, studying the donuts and pastries they had for sale, and had stuck her way-too-perfect ass in the air, the air had disappeared from my lungs and my jeans had grown too tight - again! - and I nearly burned myself with the hot coffee I was pouring.
And then she had finally - finally - picked out what she wanted and was ready to go but following her to the front of the store had been its own form of torture as I watched her hips sway with every step.
She just had No Fucking Clue. She was slowly driving me insane with her citrus lotion and her gorgeous tits and her eyes that defied a label – brown and green and all mixed up, just like me.
When I began trying to back away, trying to give us space, trying not to pull her to me and crush her lips beneath mine and fuck her senseless, she had of course picked up on it. She was naïve but she wasn’t stupid. On our ride to the park, she was holding onto the bike instead of me. It was stupid how painful that distance of just a few inches was.
“Okay,” she said in a studiously happy voice, “let’s head back.”
Except, she wasn’t making eye contact and her face was flat and she was looking anywhere but at me. Unsure of how to fix it, knowing that it was best if it wasn’t fixed; I followed her as she walked towards my motorcycle. As I watched her walk, I realized that I couldn’t contain myself any longer.
Without thinking, I started for Leia, intent on kissing her, pulling her body close to mine. Fuck it. If Bishop wanted to be pissed at me, he could just be pissed. Leia was worth it. Leia was worth it all.
Which is when I saw the Sangre. Coming out of the bushes and heading straight for Leia, the man had something white and fluttering in his hand.
All of the joy, all of the happiness that had been blooming inside of me transformed into dread and terror. I broke out in a dead run, while screaming, “Run, Leia!” I grabbed for the Desert Eagle at the small of my back as my legs pumped, terror coursing through my veins like poison.
The Sangre looked up at the sound of my voice and froze for just a moment, unsure of which direction to go. Leia looked up too and then over at the incoming Sangre. Her eyes went wide and she dove off to the side, out of the easy grasp of the Sangre. I got off a shot, my heart pumping wildly, but it went wide and the short man dove back into the bushes and back out the other side, crashing through the brush and letting out a string of Spanish as he went. I had had enough Hispanic friends in high school to know that every word was a swear word.
I wanted to go to Leia, I wanted to look over every inch of her and make sure she was okay, but I couldn’t. Not if I was going to kill the Sangre with my bare hands.
Which I most definitely wanted to.
I darted around to the other side of the bushes but the Sangre was jumping into a moving van, the sliding door on the side open and waiting for him. They had obviously been prepared to take Leia with them and at least I could take small pleasures in the fact that they were leaving empty-handed. I glanced at the rear license plate as the van took off, back tires swinging wildly as it went around the corner. Covered in mud, I couldn’t see even a single digit on it.
The rest of the van was pristine. Of course. These jackasses were no dumbasses.
I considered making a run for my bike and chasing after them, but I knew with their head start, I would never catch up. Plus, they could circle around and kidnap Leia while I was busy trying to find them on the streets of Deming. There was no fucking way I was going to leave Leia alone, but I also couldn’t drag her along with me while I got in a fire fight with the Sangre. I had to protect her, not take her into a gun battle.
She ran up next to me, panting from the sprint. “Are they gone?” she asked, winded her hands on her knees from her sprint.
“Yeah. Unmarked van, license plates conveniently covered by mud. Goddammit!”
Which is when she reached up, cupped the back of my head in her hand, and pulled my lips down to hers.
14
Leia
I couldn’t believe what I had just done – that I had actually grabbed Knight and kissed him. It was the most bold, outrageous thing I had ever done in my life. It had just seemed like the best way to tell him thank you.
And, at least for the moment, I didn’t regret it one bit. Knight’s hand came around and he shoved it deeply into my hair, tilting my head back, tongue thrusting into my mouth, oh fucking God, just like I had wanted from the moment we met. Little whimpering noises built up in my throat and I realized that somehow, I had wrapped my arms around his neck and was pulling him closer. The world was gone, everything was gone, everything but Knight.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he began pulling back, until finally my eyes drifted open and I stared up at him, seeking answers from him. Did he want this as much as I did? I opened up my mouth to ask him when he grabbed me by the hand and pulled me towards his motorcycle.
That answered that.
I hurried with him across the brown, heat-killed grass of the park, my legs working to keep up with him. My heart was in my throat. I was going to do it. I was finally going to do it.
Knight jumped onto the motorcycle and I swung up behind him, cradling his thighs with mine. I buckled my helmet with trembling hands and as we took off down the street, I couldn’t help myself. My hands snuck under the bottom edge of his t-shirt and began to roam upwards, stroking and playing and caressing. I wanted to memorize his every edge, ripple, and dip in his skin. I wanted to hold him close to me and never, ever let him go. My wandering hands grazed his nipples and even over the roar of the Harley, I heard, or maybe just sensed, his gasp of pleasure. I began flicking my fingertips lightly over the hard nubs, eliciting more gasps from him, and finally – oh God, finally – we got back to her motel room.
Hanging the helmets haphazardly off the handlebars of the bike, not even bothering to lock them up, Knight scooped me up in his arms and carried me to the door of my motel room, waiting ever so impatiently for me to fumble at the doorknob before I got us inside.
I could hardly breathe – I had never been carried by anyone before. Didn’t he know that he shouldn’t carry someone like me? He might hurt his back! But when I began to protest, he simply covered my mouth with his, dipping his tongue into my mouth, shutting me up.
I got the message.
Once we made it inside the room, Knight kicked the door closed behind us and let me down, sliding me down the front of him, inch by delicious inch, my soft belly rubbing against his hard erection as my feet finally reached the floor. I looked up at him and bit my lower lip,
unsure of where to go from there. How did this work? Was I supposed to strip naked and climb onto the bed and lay on my back, waiting for him to stick his dick inside of me? Living at home my whole life had not left many chances to watch porn, and I suddenly realized that I was woefully ignorant about the whole sex concept.
“Oh God,” he groaned as I stood there, hesitantly staring up at him, which turned out to be the last words he said for quite some time.
He plundered my mouth with his, tongues dueling with pleasure. My breath hitched in my throat and I began to float in a haze of sexual desire. I felt my nipples pebble and knew that if he didn’t touch me soon, I was going to explode in a million little pieces. Or maybe I would explode in a million little pieces if he did touch me.
Explosions seemed imminent.
As if he had read my mind, he reached out and cupped one of my breasts filling me with pleasure. He began backing us towards the bed, step by step, until the back of my knees hit the edge of the bed and gracelessly, I fell backwards on the mattress. I giggled - apparently, fucking someone did not increase my graceful factor in any way.
He grinned down at me for a moment and then dropped to his knees in front of me. Stroking reverently, he began pushing my shirt up, fingertips grazing my belly ever so lightly that if I hadn’t been so damn turned on, I would’ve laughed instead. But at that moment, there was not a damn funny thing about what he was doing to my body. He paused and reversed direction, working the other way, down to the snap on my jeans.
He looked up at me, a question in his eyes. I craned my neck up when he’d stopped stroking me, trying to see what was wrong, and realized that he was giving me one last chance to back out. I stared down at his gorgeous face for a moment - square jaw and full lips beneath the most amazing dark chocolate eyes I had ever seen. I simply whispered, “Please.”