by Ryan Michele
She complied, dozing off with his welcome weight pinning her to the mattress.
5
Hitch
I woke slowly, drifting up from the deep sleep that had held me in its grip for hours. There was this immense sense of peace in my chest. Not something I was accustomed to, and I spent a few brain cells trying to sort it out before the heat of a body next to mine registered. Talia. I’d know her scent or the feel of her anywhere. She was not beside me. I’d sprawled out over her until the woman lay plastered to the bed.
Thoughts of the previous night swept through my head. They provided a vivid stop-action film of our activities that had my cock soaking up the memories like a sponge, fattening and uncoiling from where it rested against the small of Talia’s back.
When I tried to shift to the side, the aftermath of the other events came crashing back in, reminding me I’d very nearly been dead at one point in the past couple of days.
Still, it was worth it to hear my angel’s voice. “Hitch?” Soft and sleepy, she asked, “You okay?”
“Yeah, baby.” I rested against her, teasing flawless skin with my teeth, then pressed a kiss there. “With you here? I’m fuckin’ great. Tip-top.” My chest aborted a cough before it made it to a full-fledged hack, while the resulting sharp movements made me hiss and groan. “Fuck, Jesus. What the hell?”
“You were shot,” Talia helpfully reminded me, rolling out from underneath me. Hair in a tangle around her head, clasped fists curled beneath her chin, she offered a wry look. “And stabbed.”
“And beaten.” I couldn’t argue with her assessment. “Still sucks. I woke up with plans for ya. All the plans.” The stitches in my arm pulled when I lifted my hand, and I ignored the pinch of pain, counting it necessary if it meant I got to touch her.
“So many plans?” Lips lifting unevenly, she gave me a twisted grin as she pressed into the caress. “All the plans?”
“Yeah, baby, all those motherfuckin’ plans.” The apple of her cheek fit my hand, just like her body had fit mine last night. We were matched in every way, and my resolve from the preceding day returned. “I’m keepin’ you. You know that, right?”
Talia rolled her lips between her teeth, biting down for a moment. “I live here in Adkins.”
“So? That’s not some magical barrier to me keepin’ you, babe. That’s a tiny wrinkle, not a shut and locked door. You like livin’ here? Grew up here? Wanna stay here where you’re close to your brother?” She gave the tiniest of nods to each question, answering each individually. “You wanna ’xplore this with me?” Another nod, larger than the others. “Wanna keep me around?” I got a grin and a solid dip of her chin to her neck, lashes fluttering to hide her eyes. “Then I’ll sort my shit and figure out what it means for me.”
Her gaze darted to my face, dancing between my eyes as I gave her a minute to consider what it all meant. It didn’t take long before she was rolling her lips again, biting them nervously.
“What, Talia?” I shoved my other hand underneath her head, cradling her face between my palms as I drew her closer. Our noses brushed, and the heat of her breath swept over me as I asked again, “What’s goin’ on in that noggin, beautiful? I’m not a man to wait around. When I want something, I take it. I want you. Means a change in my life, I’m down with it. It’d be worth anything to wake up to you like this every fuckin’ day. Bottom of my heart, I mean that.”
Trembling lips parted, and the flash of her tongue peeked out. Then she rocked my world.
“I could love you.”
“Oh, baby,” I ground out, pressing her face to my throat while I buried myself in her hair. After a moment, I shoved up on an elbow and stared down at her. “If you’re gonna give me all that beauty inside you all at once, I’m gonna overdose on the sweet. You could love me?” She nodded, and I busted her lips free from her teeth, taking her mouth in a deep, wet slide, drinking my fill from her. When I broke the kiss, she blinked up at me with an expression fast becoming my favorite. Love-drunk and aroused looked gorgeous on her.
“Every day I’ll work to be worthy.” Her lashes drifted to touch her cheeks, and I saw the muscles in her throat tighten as she swallowed hard. What I was saying meant something to her, a deep and profound emotion playing across her features when she opened her eyes to stare up into my face. “I wanna be worthy. Wanna be everything for you.”
Talia lifted to meet my mouth, and I chased her lips until she was panting and writhing and my dick was hard enough to pound nails.
A knock at the door had me groaning as I whipped my head around to glare at the blameless surface.
“Yeah?”
“You still alive in there, Hitch?” Twisted’s voice came through the wood, concern and amusement constant bedfellows in his tone. “Brother, it’s time we hit the road. Gonna hafta say goodbye to the pretty chickie.”
Another voice joined his. “Talia Rosalie, are you in there?”
Talia groaned and covered her face with both hands.
“Jesus, Sparks,” I called out, pulling Talia closer, puffing up when she buried her face against my chest. I’ll protect her against anything comin’ our way. “Wanna back the fuck off my woman?”
There was silence, and when Talia drew back, I found myself smiling down at her shocked expression. “You misplace the knowledge that I’m keepin’ you?” She shook her head in a slow side-to-side arc. “By definition that makes you my woman.”
“That’s my brother.”
“So? Right now, him and my national president are both”—I raised my voice to project to our visitors—“unwelcome as fuck, pullin’ this shit.” Laughter from the hallway told me my words weren’t taken the wrong way, giving me freedom to push a little more. In the sternest voice I could muster from around my grin, I ordered them, “Go. Away.”
“Talk in fifteen,” Twisted insisted, and I had to grunt in annoyance at the proof my president and friend was an asshole determined to cockblock me this morning. “You get me, Hitch?”
“Oh yeah. I fuckin’ get you, boss.” Ignoring the sounds of leave-taking from behind the door, I dragged my thumb across Talia’s lips, reiterating the important part of what he’d said. “Fifteen.”
Adjusting my position along her side, I held her in place when Talia would have pulled away. “Hitch, we’ve got to get up.”
“I’ve got—” I kissed her, softly in the beginning, ramping up into a scorching joining of lips and breath, pushing until she had that dazed expression on her face again. “Fifteen minutes to teach you what’s going to happen every morning from here on out.” Forehead fitted against hers, I brushed the tips of our noses together.
No longer banished to no man’s land, I’d somehow found myself in a paradise I could hold on to.
“Keepin’ you,” I reminded her.
“Lettin’ you,” she rejoined, and I smiled against her lips.
“Fuck yeah.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Raised in the south, MariaLisa learned about the magic of books at an early age. Every summer, she would spend hours in the local library, devouring books of every genre. Self-described as a book-a-holic, she says "I've always loved to read, but then I discovered writing, and found I adored that, too. For reading...if nothing else is available, I've been known to read the back of the cereal box."
Her MC series include Rebel Wayfarers MC, Neither This Nor That MC, and Mayhan Bucklers MC.
Killing Time by Mary Martel
Kings of Torment Motorcycle Club
1
Lance
Bored, I ignored the chick on her knees in front of me unfastening my belt and took in my surroundings. Night had fallen, and we were between two of the craft tents, hidden from view of the people strolling by.
The girl before me managed to unhook my belt, unbutton my jeans, and lower my zipper in record time. And I wasn't into it in the slightes
t.
I held my hands out at my sides, not wanting to touch her and give her the wrong idea about what was going on here. Hell, the only time I'd actually touched her tonight had been when she'd confidently walked up to me, grabbed ahold of my hand and dragged me back here. She'd whispered seductively in my ear, purring about all the dirty things she wanted to do to me.
I hadn't protested, but now I was seeing the error of my ways.
I leaned back against the pole of the tent behind me and tipped my head to the side, watching the people as they passed by the tents, rather than watching the chick on her knees before me as she slides my jeans down my thighs.
"Lance," she whined in a high voice, making me flinch.
Of course she knows my name. Everyone does.
I'm about to look down at her, even though I don't want to, when a slight, rail thin female with long locks of dirty blonde hair flowing all around her pauses in the entrance of the space we're occupying.
The chick on her knees whines my name again, demanding my attention, and the other woman must hear it because she turns her head to the side and stares straight at me.
Wide grey eyes meet my brown ones, growing wider by the second.
The sight of her standing in front of me, a woman I haven't seen for years, not since she fled town the day of her high school graduation, sends a sharp pain through my chest. I'd been fantasizing about her since freshman year of high school. The girl I always wanted but knew I was too dirty to touch. To touch her would be to taint her. She was poison to me and would be my ruin. A woman like that would get drunk and take a taste of me, then in the morning she'd run. She'd tell no one, and I'd become her dirty little secret. Something shameful but delicious, but she'd never come back for more. I'd want her to, and the poison she'd infect me with would take over my soul.
Her eyes trailed down my body, only to stop once they reached my hips. A look of disgust filled her pretty face right before she turns, dismissing me, and continues on her way.
"Shit," I hissed.
I shoved at the woman on her knees, knocking her away from me. Her arms wheeled out at her sides, uselessly, as she lands hard on her ass on the trampled grass. The short jean skirt she had on rode high up her thighs, flashing the fact she had nothing on underneath, making me sneer down at her.
I know I'm no better than she is, but I'd always wanted better for myself. I'm not sure who the sneer's really for, her or me.
Her mouth forms a pout, dark purple lipstick making her look angrier than she really is, as she stares up at me with wide eyes. Easy things weren't used to being told no, not with the crew I ran with.
"We're done here," I tell her as my hands drop to my pants and I drag them back up my thighs. I do up the zipper, fasten the button, and hook my belt back in place.
Even though I knew it was the wrong thing to do, we were done. I'd set my sights on something better. Someone better.
"But, Lance," she whines, "I'm just getting started. We haven't even gotten to the good part yet."
I hated how my name sounded coming out of her mouth. Nobody called me Lance, and this chick doing it now only served to deteriorate my mood even more. Being the president of a motorcycle club in a small town meant everybody and their fucking mother knew my name, but nobody used it.
"Lance, where are you going?"
She latched onto my arm in a desperate attempt to keep me from walking away from her.
"Get the fuck off me," I growled, peeling her hand off of my arm and tossing it away from me. The more she dragged this on the farther Maggie got away from me, taking the chance to rub up against something clean with her.
"But-"
Turning around, I locked eyes with her. I let the disgust I felt for her, and the rage building inside me by the second fill my eyes and show on my face. She scrambled back away from me as her eyes started leaking. She swiped at her face, chasing her tears and smearing her lipstick.
"Do not put your hands on me, ever." I ground out between clenched teeth.
She scrambled up to her feet and took a step towards me. "I-"
"Am desperate. Pathetic. Not even wearing any fucking underwear so I know you came here looking for an easy ride. Shoulda picked somebody else, babe, and not set your sights on me." She jerked back as if I'd struck her, and more wet leaked out of her eyes. "What did you think was going to happen? You'd drop to your knees, suck me off, and I'd what? Want to marry you?" I shook my head in disgust. "Sorry, but I was over it before your knees even hit the grass."
"But, you came back here with me." Another tear leaked out. I watched the trail it made on it's journey down her cheek and felt absolutely nothing but disdain.
I shrugged carelessly. "I was bored and didn't have anything better to do. Now I have something better to do, so we're done."
"Asshole," she hissed as she spat at my feet.
She had that right, but she was wrong if she thought I cared.
"Yeah," I muttered as I turned on my boot and walked away.
2
Maggie
I didn't run, but I wanted to.
The way Hawk had looked at me, there was something in his eyes that terrified me. Or, maybe it was just the man himself that terrified me. But I didn't run. I forced myself to walk at a normal pace, putting one foot in front of the other and not looking back. As much as Hawk terrified me I wasn't a coward anymore, and I would not run away from anyone, especially him.
I'd left this town ten years ago getting as far away from this toxic place, and the Kings of Torment Motorcycle Club who ran it, as I could get. I'd watched my mother throw her life down the toilet chasing after men on motorcycles, all the while forgetting she had two little girls at home waiting for her to come back and take care of them. Half the time she was too high to remember we even existed and, for the better part of my childhood, my sister had raised me.
It had hurt me to leave my sister behind when I ran away from this place, but she understood why I had to leave and let me go. She didn't go though, oh no, not my beautiful Franny. She stayed to take care of the woman who'd given birth to us and it had slowly worn her down as it would have anyone.
Eventually it destroyed her and now I was back to make things right for her. For my sweet Franny who hadn't deserved anything she'd gotten out of this life. But life wasn't fair and sometimes it fucked over the best of us, and we were just supposed to hold on and go along for the ride.
I wasn't interested in getting fucked unless I wanted it.
Franny'd been too sweet for her own good. I wasn't sweet, though, not anymore.
I was going to take care of my sister, even though she was dead and would never know about it. I would know, and that was the only thing that mattered anymore.
I passed by a tent with open flaps and peeked in.
Long tables were set up in rows, cheap red and white checkered tablecloths covered them. Metal folding chairs lined up alongside the tables, and a long makeshift bar had been set up along one side of the tent.
It was littered with bottles of booze, plastic cups and shot glasses. Two kegs were on the grass in front of the bar.
Two women stood behind the bar, pouring drinks. They looked just like my mother had. Big hair, lots of makeup, and not a whole lot of clothing. They were older than me, and if I'd seen them before I didn't remember it.
I wouldn't forget their faces now. I'd memorize them, just like I would with everything else about the Kings of Torment MC.
Two men stood in front of one of the kegs. They had red plastic cups in their hands and one of them held his cup under the nozzle while the other one pushed down on the pump. From their clothes I could tell they were locals and not associated with the MC.
One of the tables had been taken over by men wearing cuts, proclaiming them proud members of their club, and motorcycle boots. There were other people, random people, sitting around tables, drinking and having a good time. There was an air around anyone in a cut, a vibe they gave out, and everyone else kept t
heir distance.
A man turned and caught my eye. He was older, with hair turning white at his temples, laugh lines shooting out around his eyes, and a ginormous beard.
I recognized him immediately. He'd been one of my mother's favorites, he'd liked her just the same in return. I know because he'd been one of the few who'd actually come to our house to see her.
His eyes flashed with recognition and he stumbled to his feet.
Damn, that'd been the second time tonight and I wasn't ready for it.
I looked away and kept on moving, this time putting extra hustle in my step.
"Hey," he shouted from behind me, his voice slurring just a little. "Aren't you JoJo's girl? Maggie? Hey, get back here, girl. I'm talking to you."
Actually, he was yelling. I didn't stick around to argue with him about it though.
I moved through people, losing myself in the crowd and, thankfully, losing my follower. I walked for a good hour, passing booths and tents alike. Vendors kept yelling out at me, trying to get me to play their games or eat their food. I didn't stop at any of them. Instead, I was stuck in my head, remembering a time ten years ago when I had last come here with Franny. Only then, I'd thrown darts at balloons, winning my sister a cute, pink teddy bear. We'd laughed as we linked arms and practically danced our way from booth to booth. We'd eaten elephant ears and laughed while we whirled around in a giant tea cup with our hair flying out all around us.
She'd been happy that night. I left her a week later, and even though I talked to her on the phone and we texted daily, I never came back. Not even when she had to bury our mom. I'd sent flowers then; they hadn't been for our mother but for my grieving sister whose heart was far too big.