by Jayne Blue
Mom left me to figure out on my own how to invite Bo to dinner.
This could be spectacular, or it could be a disaster. I had no idea how I was going to invite Bo. I wondered how he was going to take it. I knew he never answered to parents or family. The thought of Bo at the table with Papus giving him the third degree or telling him about some gypsy legend was so out of place.
Suddenly the idea made me giggle.
It was going to be okay. I knew it was.
I finished getting ready for my date with Bo.
We’d spent our time all over town: parks, food, movies. I didn’t care what we did as long as we were together.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what it felt like to have him touch me. I’d gone from nervous virgin to voracious maniac in one summer. It was a whirlwind of sensation when I was with Bo.
Lately, if I wasn’t working, I was with Bo. I had no idea what we were doing tonight but the sound of his bike coming around the corner produced a little thrill from my throat to my toes.
Bo said we were staying “in.” So I guessed I was finally going to see his apartment.
He pulled up as always and this time my mom was peeking out of the store window as I took Bo’s hand.
“Don’t mind the spy in the window there.” Bo looked over my shoulder and waved to my mom. She waved back.
“Your mom is pretty. Just like you,” he said to me and we drove off. It was sweet. My mom was pretty.
“I got my wild hair from her. I wish I got her skinny gene.”
“I love every soft inch.” He said it low and right in my ear. I felt the hairs on my body stand up.
I giggled, and we sped off. Bo’s apartment wasn’t that far. It is amazing how you can live in the same town as someone your whole life and never meet.
“There it is.”
Bo slowed down, and we came to a stop in front of a brick building. It was clearly a warehouse and it had to be at least one hundred years old. The brick was old in some places, and in others it looked like they had painted over the original.
“This is so funky I can’t even!”
“You can’t even? Hold on. Let’s drive around back so I can put my bike inside.”
Bo took us to the back of the building where there was a big cargo bay type door. We got his bike inside.
“There’s a ton of shit in here we need for the club, the businesses, finding stuff is a nightmare.”
I wondered about the history of the building. What had it looked like back in its heyday?
“It’s pretty huge.” Bo took my hand and led me through. My head was on a swivel looking around.
“Not afraid of freight elevators, I hope?”
“No? Why would I be?”
“Rickety is all.” He lifted the door from the floor and we stepped in. The elevator went up. The door was a metal grate, so you could see the floors as you went up. It stopped with a creaking noise.
“See what I mean, rickety.”
“I love it.”
“Well, here it is, home sweet home.”
There was the smell of sawdust as I stepped off the elevator.
“I’ve framed in ten units. The guys wired my place, temporary, while I finish up. It’s not fancy but it’s home. Be careful.”
Bo guided me around various construction obstacles. The floor consisted of plywood. It was rough, but it felt stable. I could see through to each unit, they were framed in so I could see the layout but there was no drywall.
“I really think we should have done six units, made two of them a little bigger, charge more for rent, something like that. But they wanted to get in as many as they could. Here’s mine.”
I nearly cried with how sweet it looked. Amidst the sawdust, tools, and construction equipment Bo had made a little home for himself. He’d also made it nice for me. There was a card table with a paper tablecloth on it. In the center, he’d put a bouquet of wildflowers in an old paint can.
“No candles, don’t want to set the place on fire.”
“It’s perfect.” I turned to him and leaned up and kissed him.
“You know, it’s the first place I’ve ever had. I was in so many foster homes and then the garage at the club.”
“I love it. I can’t wait to see it when it’s all done.”
“It might be a while. Maybe when you come back for Christmas break?”
I didn’t even want to think about it. I felt a pang of panic at saying goodbye. Would I really not see him for months and months?
“How about Labor Day?” I wasn’t going to wait till Christmas. That was for damn sure.
“I’ll be waiting.” He lifted me up in his arms. He was so damn strong.
“Is that lasagna I smell?”
“Yep. I fucking cooked! I feel like that’s not the priority right now though.” He set me on my feet and moved his lips to my neck. His fingers inched up my t-shirt.
“Wait. No. The food. I want the food. And the tour.”
“This is the kitchen and the living room, there’s the bedroom and bathroom, three feet away. See it over there?” Bo did his best Price Is Right prize honey impression.
“Very funny. You made the lasagna. I want to eat the lasagna. And you did the flowers!”
“Alright. Let’s get it over with. I want to get to dessert.”
He looked at me with sin in his eyes and I knew without a doubt that I was dessert.
“Is there a seating arrangement?” I said in an English accent.
“Sit your sweet ass down, Wild Girl.”
Bo had two folding chairs set up. I picked one and then watched him get the food ready. He had a little kitchen setup that included a mini-fridge, a microwave, and a sink. It was rough. I felt a pang of sadness for what a young Bo must have gone through as a boy if this was his first place.
He had to have been so beautiful. The idea of him without a home made me so angry. I wished I could go back in time and scoop him up. He didn’t talk about it at all. But I knew there had to be pain. I knew he was this tough for a reason. Life had made him this tough.
To me, he was perfect.
Watching him bring me food had me hungry for more than lasagna.
As we ate, Bo opened up a little more about his plans.
“I like that I get to do the carpentry thing here. I mean, mainly I enforce for The Saints but this is creating you know?”
“I exactly know. But what do you mean enforce?”
“I make sure what we vote on happens, by any means needed.”
I knew that meant the scrapes on his hands. Bo was violent. He’d been calm when Dougie and Arnie were in my store. But when he said “Get out, or else,” it wasn’t a threat, it was a promise.
I had no idea what that life might be like because every moment we’d been together he’d been so gentle with me.
There were parts to Bo that I thought I wanted to know more about.
“Do you like that part, the violence?”
“I don’t like it or hate it. It’s just what it is.”
“Why don’t you leave The Saints, go into carpentry?”
“Why don’t you leave the Wilde family?” He didn’t say it with malice, and I had asked. And that was the answer.
“The Saints are your family?”
“The only one I’ve ever known. They do for me. I do for them. I’m proud as hell to be one of them.”
“What about, well … it’s dangerous, right?”
“I’m dangerous. And because of The Saints, Port Az is less dangerous.”
I didn’t press it. Part of what had me obsessed with Bo was his dangerous side. He said he did violent things in the name of The Dark Saints.
I only knew my heart called out to his. And I believed his called to mine.
We didn’t talk anymore about the club or our futures. That road led to some sort of long distance relationship. I didn’t want to ruin the fantasy I was living by bringing up the reality of both our lives.
“You cooked, I clear
.” I stood up. I put Bo’s plate on top of mine.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I told you. It’s the rules. And next Sunday when you come for Chicken at my Papus’, I’d keep that in mind if I were you.”
Bo made some sort of frustrated exhale. I didn’t give him a chance to argue. I turned and went to the sink. He had a sponge, to my surprise, and I made quick work of tidying up.
I was almost done when I felt Bo stand behind me. His chest was against my back and he lifted my hair to kiss the back of my neck.
I leaned into him. His slow-motion stroking of my neck with his lips was the last slow thing we did. Bo ripped my shirt over my head. I was facing the sink and bracing against it with my hands. Bo freed both my breasts from my bra and squeezed my nipples, I felt him hard against me, behind me.
He yanked down my yoga pants and the thong I wore with them. In less than ten seconds, I was naked. My mind raced.
My sexual experience was so new that I still had a count on it.
Up to now everything was sultry, slow, tender; this was different. There was an aggression in the way he ripped my clothes off, the way his hands positioned my hips against him. I was on fire. I didn’t exactly know how this all worked. I only knew this felt more raw, more animal than anything that came before it. My body was racing to keep up. I knew where we were headed, and I wanted it.
Bo put his hand on my back and bent me farther over the sink. I held tight to it for balance.
I felt his hard body open me, split me into pieces, and at the same time all my cells, my body, gathered tight around him.
“Fuck.” He growled the words into the back of my shoulder. He thrust in over, and over, each time it was harder. Each time, I had to grip the sink tighter. I felt his fingers sink into the soft flesh of my hip. My toes barely touched the ground.
I couldn’t hold back. A wave of pleasure, so intense, so out of my control, radiated through my body. I closed my eyes. I screamed. It wasn’t the soft sigh of our other times together. It was a ragged release recognizing something primal in us both.
He pounded me harder then. I felt his body shudder into mine. Bo’s breath was heavy as he poured into me. His fingers gripped my flesh and released it. He leaned his head on my back and sucked my skin into his mouth as we both slide down off of the high we’d been on.
His hands moved up and he encircled my shoulders. He turned me around to face him. Bo pulled me close to his chest. He stroked my hair.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No, I … ” I was almost afraid to say it. What did it say about me that I loved what had just happened? I loved the raw power he had and the way nothing else mattered in that moment but getting closer to each other. I was the Wild Girl he called me.
“What?”
“I liked it. I want it again. I like the dark parts of you. Your violence doesn’t make me run.” I stretched up and kissed Bo.
I wanted him to see I wasn’t going to flinch. He could have me any way he wanted me.
Bo lifted me up in his arms and carried me to his bed.
“I fucking love that you’re okay with my nasty side.”
He put me down in a surprisingly lush pile of blankets and pillows. He laid next to me.
“Fucking love it,” I said and I ran a hand up under his t-shirt. He’d stripped me but hadn’t taken the time to do the same.
I pulled his t-shirt off. And ran my hands across the muscles of his chest. I didn’t have a single tattoo, no boyfriend I had ever dated did. I didn’t know how sexy they were until now. His ink represented the club I was sure. It started on a shoulder and snaked down his bicep. I traced it with my hands.
“There’s only one problem.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“I’m naked and you’re not.” I tugged at his jeans and pulled them down over his hips. His body was ridiculous. It felt like it was carved out of marble and at the same time it radiated heat.
I pulled off the rest of his clothes and stared again.
“Come here.” I did as he said. Bo folded me into his arms. Our naked limbs were entwined. I was deliciously aware of what had just happened at the sink.
“I can’t believe how lucky I am,” he said, and we kissed again, this time slowly.
“I think I love you.” I said it. Screw it. I wasn’t playing cool or fooling anyone. Bo had my body and there was just no doubt he had my heart.
Bo squeezed me tightly.
“No one has ever said that to me before.”
“What?”
“It’s weird to hear it and scary as hell to feel it,” Bo said.
“There’s nothing to be scared about.” I didn’t know what he meant by that. I had love in my life. I knew it was the most important thing in the world.
I was going to bring love into Bo’s life in giant, vibrant colors.
8
Bo
* * *
“You’re sure about this?”
I didn’t want Lyric to do something she couldn’t erase.
“Totally sure about this. If yours are hot, mine will be even hotter.”
“No question.”
She wanted a tattoo. I did what I could to talk Lyric out of it, but she wasn’t a girl who changed her mind.
“I’m going to do it, with you or without you.”
“You are not fucking going to a shitty tattoo parlor without me. You can get hurt, infected, or worse, it could look like shit.”
I took her to the best place for ink.
It was in the back of Woody’s Bar. It was almost an annex, and all of us in the MC got our ink there.
Chaz was a Dark Saint and had his sideline like the rest of us. He was fucking great at creating what you wanted, and he could ply his trade in the back of Woody’s without having to actually run a business. Woody let Chaz rotate his tattoo parlor into the bar whenever he wanted to.
I held Lyric’s hand and we walked through Woody’s. Benz, Maddox, and Shep were hanging out in front. They had a table with a window view. If I could have snuck by, I would have. But they were on me immediately with a big wave to come over.
Fuck. I hadn’t told them I was bringing Lyric. And I didn’t know they were going to be there.
I kept Lyric slightly behind me for a second, but she wasn’t having it.
“So, you’re the reason we haven’t seen Bo much this summer,” Benz said to Lyric.
“Hi, I’m Lyric Wilde.”
“Lyric, this is Benz, Maddox, and Shep.”
Shep stood up and put a hand on Lyric’s shoulder. In that moment I wanted to rip it off and feed cram it down his throat. If he even tried that smile shit he did with women, I’d murder my friend in broad daylight.
“Wilde Pawn, right? I’ve done business there. Is that your Grandpa?”
“Yes, he owns it, I work there.”
“Good business, they never tried to fuck me over on price like Lone Star Gold,” Shep said.
“Never go to Lone Star again, trust me, he’s a lying son of a bitch.”
Shep laughed and my eyes widened. She was supposed to be afraid of bikers. We made a living looking intimidating! But no, she was as outspoken as always.
“I like her,” Shep said to me and I shot dagger at him through my eyes.
On the one hand, I wanted my Brothers to like her, on the other, not too much. I wanted her to myself. Not that they’d ever break that bro code, but still. In my mind, she was mine.
It pained me to think about her living hours away in college.
“Bo says getting a tattoo is excruciating. Is it really?”
“Oh, no, I mean Benz cried but he’s a pussy,” Maddox piped up. Benz laughed and replied with a middle finger to Maddox.
“You’ll be fine, little sister. It’s not that bad,” Shep said to Lyric and she looked at me in triumph.
“I’m ready then.”
I was happy to get her away from them and back into my own bubble.
“Nice to m
eet you, Lyric. Come back after you turn twenty-one!” Maddox lifted his beer and titled the nozzle in her direction.
“Shut the fuck up.” I dragged Lyric away from my, all of sudden, fucking charming brothers. The tattoo parlor was an offshoot of the bar.
Lyric laughed and waved at the comedy chapter of The Dark Saints MC.
Chaz was waiting.
“Hey, did you tell them I was coming in with Lyric?”
“Maybe so. We all wanted to meet your Old Lady.”
“I prefer Young Lady.” Lyric winked at Chaz.
“Tell him what you want.”
I had had enough of bringing my girl around my boys for one day. It was time to get this done.
“Okay.”
Lyric described her idea and Chaz listened. I knew he’d do it right.
“I think I’ve got it. Big question, where do you want it, Young Lady?”
“My hip bone.”
“Oh no!” I shook my head and grabbed Chaz by the shoulder. This was a bad idea.
“Oh, yes, I can’t it get somewhere my Mom or Papus will see. Plus, I think that’s cool.”
“You’re eighteen, right?” Chaz asked her, even though I had already assured him she was.
“Yes. Ignore him. He’s just getting used to the idea of women voting, much less having tattoos.” Chaz laughed.
“Have a seat. Bo, you can wait outside.”
“No, I’ll be right here.” I wasn’t about to let this go down without me. Lyric sat on the reclining seat.
“I’m going to have to lay it flat so I get a good surface, you good with that?”
“I guess, if you have too.” I answered for her.
“I was talking to Lyric.”
At this point I could only snort in their direction.
“I’m cool, do your thing,” Lyric said. She was cool. I was not.
Over the next hour Lyric said I was experiencing “personal growth” as I watched Chaz lean over Lyric’s body. I succeeded in not killing anyone as she lifted her skirt on the one side so he could get at her hip.
I drew blood in my palms from clenching them as Lyric tried not to squirm.
While I winced, and the seconds seemed like hours, Lyric was brave as fuck. She handled it like a pro. That was Lyric, I was realizing. She just handled shit. She made tough stuff look easy.