by Jessie Cooke
“I’m just giving you the facts.”
Doc sighed, audibly…like Coyote’s “nonsense” was annoying him. “Are you somewhere that I can call you back in a few?”
“It’s called Skye,” he said. He gave Doc the number of the bar and Doc told him he’d call back. That meant Coyote would be forced to sit in the bar longer, watching all the couples kiss and cuddle as the New Year rapidly approached. He’d been with a few “working girls” since coming out to California, but his social skills weren’t any better than they used to be, so out in public, he did his best to keep to himself.
He put the phone back in the cradle and held out a twenty toward the bartender. “Thanks, Jeff, he’s going to call back.” Jeff looked at the twenty and raised an eyebrow. Coyote rolled his eyes and took out another bill. Jeff took them and said:
“If the owner shows up, it’s a no go.”
“If it’s a no go, I get my forty bucks back.”
Jeff chuckled. “Another whiskey?”
“Two—I overpaid you for the phone calls.”
Jeff snorted, but he put two shot glasses up on the bar and filled them both to the top with Johnny Walker Red. Coyote slid onto the stool and picked up the first one. He was about to put it to his lips when he heard a female voice.
“Cheers.”
He looked over toward the voice. A woman, about his age with jet-black hair that hung straight like it had been ironed to her shoulders, and hazel eyes with eyelashes that were about an inch long surrounding them. She didn’t have on much makeup, other than some gloss on her lips and maybe a little bit of color on her cheeks. Her skin looked like china and Coyote immediately wanted to touch it. He had to take a deep breath before he could speak to her and he hoped she didn’t notice how shaky it was as he said, “You don’t have a drink.”
She smiled. Her teeth were perfect, like maybe they’d all been capped. They were so white that they were almost blinding. It was then that he noticed what she was wearing. She had on an evening dress, like the ones the women on television were wearing in New York at the fancy New Year’s Eve party. She was completely out of place in this ramshackle country bar. “You offering to buy me one?” She looked like she could afford to buy more than he could, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.
“Sure, what do you want?” She looked like a white-wine spritzer type, so he was surprised when she said:
“I’ll have what you’re having.”
Coyote cocked an eyebrow. “I’m drinking whiskey, straight.”
She smiled again. “Do I look like I can’t handle it?”
He cleared his throat. “No…I’m sure you can,” he said. He slid the second shot in front of him over to her. Her slight chuckle had him worrying that she thought he was being cheap for not ordering her one of her own. This was why he sucked so badly with women. He was always second-guessing himself.
“Thanks,” she said, picking it up. “Cheers,” she said, again.
“Cheers.” He tapped his glass to hers and they both downed their shots. As soon as she sat her glass down, she motioned to the bartender to pour her another. Coyote had seen women put away whiskey before; it was just that this woman didn’t look at all like someone that could handle hard liquor. She was sitting, but he could tell she was tiny, not over five two at the most. She was built slim, but her backside hung slightly off the stool…and he liked it. The blue sequined dress she was wearing hugged her body and although her breasts weren’t huge, they looked like nice handfuls…not that a woman like her would ever let him put his hands on them anyway.
“So…are you ringing in the New Year alone…or waiting for your girl?”
“Waiting,” he said. When she looked slightly disappointed, he felt a trickle of hope and added, “For a woman who can look like a lady and drink whiskey like a man.”
She smiled, brightly, picked up her shot glass, and emptied it. Slamming the glass down on the bar, she motioned to Jeff again and said, “Like that?”
Coyote had to catch his breath. This woman was flirting with him. Maybe she was a call girl, he thought. Surely she wasn’t the society woman that she looked like. First, she wouldn’t even be in a place like this, alone, no less. And second, she wouldn’t give a guy in a denim kutte who hadn’t shaved in a week the time of day. “Exactly like that,” he said. He didn’t care if she was a call girl. He had plenty of cash.
“What’s your name?”
He looked down at his kutte. His name was right there. She followed his eyes and said, “Your real name?”
“Xander,” he said.
“Nice, I like that. It’s different.”
“What’s your name?”
“Colleen,” she said. “Not so different. I suppose my parents weren’t as creative as yours.” Coyote thought about his parents. Creative was definitely not a word anyone who ever met them would use to describe them. They were plain and ordinary. He loved them, but most people wouldn’t have understood them.
“I like it. It’s pretty, like you.”
“Aw, thank you. So, why is a nice-looking, big, strong, young guy like yourself all alone on New Year’s Eve?”
Definitely a call girl, but his cock didn’t care. It was already gearing up, just in case. “I told you,” he said. “Looking for a woman like you. Which begs the question, what’s a beautiful woman like you doing in a place like this, all alone on New Year’s Eve?”
“Honest answer?” she asked.
“The only kind I like,” he said.
“I was at a party. My date was being a boorish ass, so I left. When I saw this bar, I told the driver to let me off here…I came in looking for a man to have sex with, for revenge on him, mostly.”
“Whoa…I wasn’t expecting quite that much honesty.”
She chuckled. “I’m sorry. I’m not good at this. It’s my first time picking up a guy strictly for sex. Did I blow it?”
Coyote’s core tightened. He could feel his palms begin to sweat and his hands were shaking. “Yo! Biker guy!” Jeff the bartender’s unwelcome voice interrupted the fantasy already unfolding in Coyote’s head. “Phone.” Fuck. Who would have known that Doc Marshall would turn out to be his biggest cockblock? He looked at Colleen and said, “I have to take that. Will you wait?”
“Will you make it worth my while if I do?” she asked, coyly.
Coyote could feel his heart speeding up. “If it kills me,” he said. He could hear her laugh as he walked toward the phone. His cock was growing. Doc better make it quick. “Yeah?” he said when picked up the phone.
“Did I interrupt you?” Doc asked, sarcastically.
“No,” Coyote lied. “Sorry.”
“Rat and I will be there by Wednesday.”
“You and Rat?”
“You don’t think I’m putting up millions for a property I’ve never seen, do you?”
Coyote bit back what he was thinking and feeling. Doc had a point, but it didn’t sting any less that he didn’t trust him as completely as he professed to when he sent him out to California. “No, of course not,” he said. “I’ll see you Wednesday. Safe travels.”
“Coyote?”
“Yeah?”
“Happy New Year.”
“Thanks, Doc, you too.” Coyote hung up the phone and took a deep breath before turning back around. He half expected Colleen to be gone. He wasn’t sure how he felt when he saw that she wasn’t. A simple conversation with Doc could strip his self-esteem down to nothing…but he had a feeling that a night with Colleen might just be what he needed to restore it.
9
Coyote’s memories were interrupted by his wife this time. He wasn’t even sure how much time had passed since Wolf left the room. He was still sitting in the same spot, but now the flask was empty. He closed the drawer and smiled up at Colleen. She was still as gorgeous as she was the night he’d met her almost two decades before, too gorgeous for him, for sure. If he had a dollar for every time he looked at her and wondered what she saw in him, he’d b
e a richer man than the one he stole her away from way back then. Sometimes he felt guilty about that. The guy was a dick, but she wouldn’t have had any trouble finding another rich man that wasn’t. She wasn’t made for this life. She had been destined for so much more…and he’d been like a brick wall, or even a train derailment.
Colleen was born into a wealthy, white-collar family. She should have been a society woman. She should have been attending charity balls every weekend and her daughter’s cotillion or some shit, he thought. Instead, she had chosen to be an old lady, his old lady. Coyote hadn’t even tried to talk her out of it. He wanted her…he needed her…so he had let her turn her back on her family and the only way of life she’d ever known. Colleen had quickly learned how to assimilate into his life. She was strong and mature and discreet. She didn’t judge him or his way of life. She supported him…always. She’d been with him since the beginning of the Westside Skulls, suffering every blow right along with him and celebrating every victory. She had loved him hard and she forgave him for everything he did, whether he deserved her forgiveness or not. He had judged Doc so harshly…as if he were a saint. When he finally met his maker, he had no doubt that he’d be joining Doc and Abril with theirs. That was actually his greatest fear because if that were the case, he’d surely never get to see his wife…or Dallas…again, even in the afterlife.
“Hey, baby, what are you doing in here all alone? I thought you were coming up to the house an hour ago?” Colleen asked him.
He stood up and stretched and then opened his arms and she came into them. He wondered if she could smell the whiskey. He suspected she could, but it was a rare occasion when she brought it up. “I was about to head that way.”
“You okay? Is this about Doc?” He wished that it was just about Doc. The truth was that the conversation he’d had with Wolf about the little boy in Texas had stirred up his own secrets, and guilt that he hadn’t let himself feel in a while was eating away at his guts all over again. His mind wanted to replay his entire adult life. Maybe it was because Doc’s death had him thinking about his own mortality.
“No, baby. I’m really okay.” He held her back by her shoulders and smiled. “I was honestly just sitting here thinking about that night…my favorite night, New Year’s Eve, 1982.”
Colleen smiled. “My favorite night too, even twenty years later.”
He nodded and reminded himself yet again how lucky he was to have her. “Let me lock up and we’ll head home. I’m tired.”
Colleen watched her old man lock up his desk and her mind began to call up her own memories. She saw herself standing out in front of that little bar in Modesto with a young Coyote. She could vividly remember how nervous she was, and she wondered sometimes: if she knew then what she knew now…would she have done anything differently?
New Year’s Eve
1982
Colleen had no idea what she was doing. She’d never done anything remotely like this before. But it was New Year’s Eve and her “date” had hit on every woman at the party, a few of them right in front of her. She’d been so humiliated, but mostly she was mad at herself. Preston Scott was an asshole and she’d known that before she agreed to be his date for the party. She had gone to high school with him. They both went to private school. Preston’s father owned strip malls all up and down California. They were filthy rich, Preston was good-looking, and he was spoiled rotten. He was used to getting whatever and whomever he wanted. All through high school, Colleen had wished that “whomever” was her…but he acted like he didn’t even know she existed. Then suddenly, when her father, who was a real estate investor, and his father, went into business together, she was on his radar. At first, she was flattered by his attention, and her parents were over the moon when she started seeing him. It only took her a few dates to realize that she was actually lucky he never noticed her in high school. She would have stopped seeing him now, if not for her parents’ prodding. His father had mentioned to her dad that she had a “calming effect” on Preston and he had hopes that the two of them would end up together. Sometime in that conversation, he had also mentioned a partnership. Colleen felt pressured to at least keep trying with Preston for her father’s sake. His business had been in trouble before he started working with Preston’s dad. Colleen felt pressured to keep up the appearance, and that was the only reason she agreed to go to the party with him on New Year’s Eve. But after over an hour of watching him shamelessly flirt with every woman in the room except her…she had said, “Fuck it.” She would deal with the fallout at home; this asshole wasn’t worth it. She left the party in a taxi, with every intention of going home. But something about the packed parking lot of Skye had called out to her as they drove by, and she’d had the driver leave her there.
She felt out of place as soon as she walked into the bar. She was way overdressed in her designer dress and shoes. People were staring at her and she almost left…but then she’d spotted Coyote. He was sitting alone at the bar and she could only see his profile, but she liked it. He was so different from the men she normally dated. He was wearing a denim vest and jeans and his vest had a big skull on the back. His face was unshaven and his hair was long…everything about him screamed “danger,” and oddly enough that sent a thrill of desire coursing through her body. She had sat down and started flirting, and half an hour later, she was standing out in front of the bar with him, next to a big Harley Davidson. She had agreed to go back to his hotel with him…for a nightcap. She knew nightcap meant sex and she’d been aching for it between her thighs…right up until she realized he wanted her to get on that big bike. Isn’t it dangerous enough to go to a hotel room and have sex with a stranger?
While she stared at the bike, Coyote stepped up close behind her and she felt him run his fingertips from her shoulders all the way down her arms to her wrists. His fingers were rough and calloused, and his touch sent shivers down her spine. When he ran his hands back up to her shoulders, he brushed her dark hair aside and the next thing she knew, his body was pressed into hers from behind and his warm lips were on her neck. She moaned and sighed and let her body relax into his. She could feel his lust through his jeans, pressing into her backside. She was rapidly losing whatever hesitancy she had…maybe her good sense, she thought. She finally overcame all the feelings enough to take a step forward and turn to face him.
“Maybe I should take a cab and meet you at your hotel.”
Coyote smiled. “Sure, if you’ll feel more comfortable. But just to warn you, it’s not a ‘hotel,’ it’s a motel, right off Highway 99 and not so pretty.” He looked her over like it was the first time he noticed what she was wearing and said, “Probably not what you’re used to.”
Colleen had a sudden need to explain herself. She knew it was stupid, she had every intention of sleeping with this guy…this stranger…but she wanted desperately for him to not think she was some kind of a slut. “I’m not used to any of this,” she said. “I’ve never gone to a hotel, or motel, room with a stranger.”
Coyote smiled. She liked his smile. It was genuine, not like he was forcing it, or making fun of her…but like he was just happy to be talking to her. “Me neither,” he said.
She laughed before she caught herself and Coyote raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry. It’s just…well, I don’t believe you.”
He threw his head back and laughed at that. “I have to say I’ve never met anyone quite as honest as you…at least not right off the bat. But I’m being honest, sort of. We’re not counting people you pay to go back to the motel room with you, are we?”
“Oh my God! You’ve done that?”
He looked embarrassed and said, “I guess that was too much information, huh?”
“A little much, yes.”
“Okay, so there’s a line between the truth and unnecessary information?”
She smiled. “A fine line.”
“You gonna get in a cab and ditch me?”
She slowly shook her head. “No. It’s almost midnight. I wan
t to kiss you when 1983 rings in…how do you feel about that?”
“I say come the fuck on, midnight.”
She giggled. “Okay, what motel are you staying at, and which room?”
“The Super 8, room 4,” he said. He held up his arm then and hailed a cab that was driving by. As he helped her in the back seat and closed the door, she could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t expect her to show up. She didn’t blame him. It even surprised her when she heard herself saying to the cab driver:
“Super 8 on 99, please.”
Coyote looked surprised when he opened the motel door to find Colleen standing there. Again, she didn’t blame him; she was still surprised to be there herself. He let her step inside and before she…or maybe he…changed their mind, he pulled her in for a kiss. Colleen had been kissed before, by more than a few men. But the kiss she shared with Coyote was what she had always imagined kissing would be like when she read romance novels and watched chick flicks on TV. She felt it in every part of her body, even in her toes. She knew for the first time what “toe-curling” meant. She didn’t know for sure, but she thought maybe it wasn’t so much the kiss as it was the chemistry that hung thick in the air between them. She was pondering that when he moved his mouth from her lips down to her neck and she suddenly felt his hands on her breasts. She gasped when she felt him begin to massage them through her dress, caressing and squeezing them, gently. Her nipples grew as hard as rocks and he ran his palms over them, pressing down just enough to send goosebumps skittering down her spine.
She was shaking all over thanks to what he was doing to her breasts, and then she felt his hands move up to the straps of her dress. He pulled them down off her shoulders and left them to rest on her arms just above her elbows. The top of her dress came down with them and her blue, lace strapless bra was exposed. Coyote brought his head up so he could look at her. The look in his dark eyes alone was enough to cause a rush of liquid heat between her legs. He dipped his head and kissed across the part of her breast that swelled up out of the bra and over to the other. Then his face went even lower and his tongue came out and snaked its way underneath that bra. He ran his tongue across her engorged, sensitive nipple. She sucked air in through her teeth and brought her hands up to grip his long hair. She held him to her chest and he proceeded to lick, suck, and nibble. She’d never had anyone bite on her nipples. He did it gently, not enough to hurt, just to tantalize…and it was hot.