by K E Osborn
“Hey Techie, beer?” he asks.
“God yes. This place will be brimming with people soon. I’d like to get some peace in while I still can.”
He smiles pouring me the frosty beverage. “Emily’s bringing the kids back in. She was so angry when I told her we were going into lockdown. She was all like, ‘Why did you have to join that club? Our kids would be safe if you didn’t go AWOL and just had a normal midlife crisis like everyone else and bought an expensive car and dated a skank, but nooo you had a buy a Harley and join an MC.’ She doesn’t get that she actually didn’t want me anymore, and with leaving the Army I needed a brotherhood. This place, it’s my home.”
Exhaling, I nod. “Yeah brother, I know. Some women don’t get the brotherhood or the mateship. We’re family. Even though she might not support you, Blake, we do.”
He half-smiles and nods. “Thanks, brother. Wow! Sorry, I didn’t mean to unload all of that onto you. I’m the bartender, you’re supposed to tell me your problems, not vice versa.”
Laughing, I tilt my head. “Hey, you’ve been here what? Eight months? You’re almost ready to patch in, and when you do you’ll step out from behind that bar, and the new prospect will take your place, then he can unload all his shit on you.”
He chuckles. “Right, I need a beer.”
“Beers all round!” I advise. A couple of cheers echo from behind me as Rev and Mooch come up and sit down next to me. I raise my stein ready to drink myself into oblivion until all the families arrive.
***
Families are filing in, and the clubhouse is becoming fuller and fuller by the minute. The club girls, Flame, and Amelia, are taking charge along with Chowhound. Food platters are being passed out to everyone as music plays throughout the clubroom. There’s a general party atmosphere, like a welcome for everyone who’s coming to join us for God-only-knows how long. But with so many people coming in through our gates, Gadget and I are tight on security. Most of the families are on record here, and their faces are in the software recognition program, so when they step up to the gate, it alerts us that they’re a friend not foe.
We’ve had a couple of issues where the children are older now than their inputted photographs, but we’ve been working together to make sure everyone who needs to be is allowed in. We’ve only had five arguments so far and that’s a good effort for us considering we’ve been at it for two hours. Pretty much everyone is here now, we’re just waiting on a couple more stragglers.
Switch is back with the ring completely disinfected and cleaned. For something that had been through a pig’s intestines, it looks like it did when Steel bought it. I’ve sent it to Steel for safe keeping. Switch is now on the gate with the tablet and facial recognition program, while Gadget and I are inside debating how to monitor the families to make sure no one leaves the compound without us knowing. Gadget thinks everyone will stay of their own accord because they know the lockdown rules. But my argument is that the teenage girls, who always like to bend the rules and try and leave to go to parties and shit, think it will be fine to sneak out.
“So you want to put a tracking device on the teenagers or something? Don’t be ridiculous, Techie!” Gadget chides.
Huffing in annoyance, I shake my head. “That’s not what I said. What I think we need to do is put an alert on the gate, motion sensors or something so if anyone tries to leave or climb the fence we know about it, and can stop them before they get themselves killed.”
He grabs his hair and pulls on it dramatically in frustration. “Oh my God… you’re crazy. People are going to think they’re prisoners here if we do that.”
I shrug. “Gadget they kind of are. That’s what lockdowns are about, people’s safety. I’m sorry, but the kids are stupid, they don’t realise their lives are in danger and they will sneak out.”
“They are club kids they know what a lockdown is. They know they have to stay in. You’re being pedantic!”
“I’m being realistic!”
“Oh, for God’s sake, will you two stop your fucking arguing. I’m sorry, but as someone who has just come out of their teens, I would totally try to sneak out of a lockdown. I don’t know who you are, but you’re right, you need to set up something to stop the kids breaking out because they will. I would’ve tried. In fact, I’m sure I did when I was fifteen. I snuck out with Bobby Anderson one night from a lockdown and well… you don’t even want to know what we got up to.”
My breath catches as I look at her, my world stops spinning and everything stands still. I’m not quite sure what’s happening, but it’s like everything that’s been missing—like all the puzzle pieces—are finally falling into place. She’s stunning, but not in a princess way. Her dark framed eyes against her pale face make her striking ice blue eyes sparkle against the blackness surrounding them. Her supple lips, bright with red gloss are so inviting as she licks her bottom lips slightly, instantly making my cock ache. Her hair is in a high ponytail as her black fringe frames her perfect face making me smile as the tiny flecks of purple shine through the darkness of the black. My eyes run down her body as my heart rate spikes. She doesn’t dress like a princess either. Her torso is wrapped in a tight black corset adorned with a layer of purple lace over the top, forcing her supple tits to form perfect mounds at the top. I swallow hard as I gaze further down to view her in leather pants and lace up boots.
She’s simply stunning.
A goth?
A punk?
I’m not sure, but either way, my cock is loving the sight of her right now, and the fact that she just agreed with me and made Gadget look like the cock, makes me want to bend her over and fuck her into next week.
“Techie, no!” Gadget berates breaking me from staring at the gothic marvel before me.
“Sorry, what?” I murmur looking back up to her pale face which is now slightly pink in her cheeks as she looks back at me with a shy smile.
He groans as he brings his hand up and punches me hard in the arm. I turn to look at him breaking my stare at the queen and frown at him. “What the fuck, Gadget?”
“No! No way!” Gadget chides as the woman giggles.
I roll my eyes at his weird behaviour and turn my attention back to the beauty before me. She has me completely captivated, and I need to know who she is.
“Who are you?” I simply ask, and she smiles so radiantly that I feel like I’m melting, every part of me begins to crumble at the sight.
What the fuck is happening to me?
“She’s my sister, Techie!” Gadget announces. My body goes rigid, and I turn to face him with a scowl as he smiles at me finally seeing my horror. “Yes… my sister!”
CHAPTER FIVE
“So?” she replies, and I turn to her while taking a deep breath, as she looks me up and down with admiration and smiles her beautiful smile again.
My nerves are wreaking havoc inside me. Here stands the most magnificent woman I’ve ever seen in my life, but… she’s Gadget’s sister.
Of all people… Gadget?
She raises her eyebrow assessing me, apparently noticing my hesitance. So I decide to do what I do best.
Facts!
“Did you know there are nineteen different types of smiles? A researcher identified and put them into two categories, polite ‘social’ smiles, which use fewer muscles—”
“And sincere ‘felt’ smiles that use the muscles on both sides of the face,” she finishes my sentence, and I swear to God it’s the sexiest thing anyone has ever done for me.
Gadget groans and I smile at her a sincere ‘felt’ smile, and she smiles right back as I stare into her ice blue eyes. Something in me shifts, something changes. I don’t know what, but there’s something about this woman that knocks me off my motherfucking feet.
There’s a silence between us as we stare at each other—it isn’t awkward, it is of understanding. She’s smart, I can tell. I like her instantly.
“Okay, well, this is really awkward,” Gadget announces breaking our staring
at each other.
She looks at him and frowns. “Is it? I really don’t feel that, at all.” She smiles again, as a giant of an older man and a petite older woman come over to stand with us.
The older man is slightly intimidating. He’s huge, well over six foot tall, almost seven. No joke. And must weigh well over a hundred and thirty kilograms.
“Hey Dad,” Gadget says, and the man slaps Gadget on the shoulder lovingly.
“Son, who’s this?”
Gadget raises his lip in disgust. “This is Techie. Techie this is Stump, my dad. He’s one of the founding Originals of Aldinga.”
My chest tightens and my muscles clench. I’ve heard of Stump. He’s a tough but fair man, and he’s well liked in the ranks of the club. Plus, he’s this beauties father. I need to make an impression.
“So a stump by definition is a short remnant, which anyone can see you’re obviously not short by any means, Sir. So the term Stump for your Road Name is obviously a joke, but what isn’t a joke is the removal of tree stumps. They can be very tough to remove, and with basic household tools it’s nearly impossible. Stump grinding with professional specifically designed machinery is the only way to remove them. Once the stump is removed, it’s very unlikely it will grow back. But a few trees are more resilient than others, and they may need chemical treatment to prevent regrowth in rare cases.
“If there’s lateral roots under the surface they may need to be ground down, too. But sometimes it’s okay to leave the roots under the earth, as without the stump they simply… rot away and disappear.” I swallow hard as I spit out all that completely fucking useless information, and they all just look at me with a smirk. Except for Gadget, who’s frowning and looks like he’s ready to punch me.
“Okay, well that was very insightful. So are you saying that I should be cut down, and I will simply rot and disappear?” Stump asks, and my entire body flushes with a cold sweat.
“Oh fuck, no not at all. Sorry Sir, I was fact talking, not relating to you in any way, just babbling on for some stupid reason. Just ignore me.” I sink into myself feeling like a fucking idiot in front of my beauty, as she smiles at me drawing her lips in tight together like she’s trying to hide her laugh.
“Fact talking, hey? You remind me of Gadget. I can see why you two are friends,” Stump says.
I cough, as Gadget shakes his head and huffs. “We’re not friends. Not at all,” Gadget defends and I roll my eyes even though it’s true.
Stump laughs and shakes his head wrapping his arm around Gadget. “You should be… I like him. Take me to Gator. I wanna see how my club is being run.”
Gadget looks from me to his sister, huffs, and then walks off with his tall as fuck father toward Gator and Steel. I take a deep breath still feeling like a complete tosser.
It suddenly dawns on me that I don’t know his sister’s name, so I turn to her and look her up and down trying to figure out who she looks like. A Jessica? A Rachel? No neither of those suit her. She furrows her brows and scoffs.
I jolt my head back at her display of disgust, and I shake my head. “What?”
She pushes her hip to the side and glares at me. It’s supposed to be intimidating, but it’s as cute as fuck. “Do you think it’s okay to just perv on me like I’m a piece of meat?”
I’m taken aback by her forwardness, but in all honesty, it makes my cock twitch hearing her talk like that.
She affects me.
Really affects me.
“Sorry, it’s just… you’re not what I’m used to seeing around here.”
She huffs, folding her arms over her chest. Her tits popping up even more over her busty corset. “What? I’m a little different. So I’m not good enough now?”
Shaking my head, I can’t hold back my chuckle. She furrows her eyebrows, and her frown deepens. Shit! I’ve pissed her off even more as she flares her nostrils. I take a deep breath and decide to take this seriously by reaching out and grabbing her hand. She tries to pull it away, but I hold it harder and when our skin connects it’s like a bolt of lightning soars through our hands. She gasps, as I swallow hard looking into her eyes. She relaxes and lets her hand drop so I can take it fully. My thumb grazes over her delicately soft skin, and she draws her teeth over her bottom lip and half-smiles seeming to warm up to me slightly.
“You’re far more beautiful than the girls I’m used to here. And your quirkiness, this whole look you have going on, it’s so appealing to me.”
She swallows hard clenching her thighs together and clears her throat. “You give off one hell of a bad first impression. They say when you first meet a person you make a judgement about them in about four seconds and then—”
“The judgement is finalised within thirty seconds of the initial contact,” I finish her sentence this time.
She half-smiles and nods. “In the first four seconds I liked you, it was the following thirty where you made a bit of a dick of yourself.”
Laughing with her, I nod. “Yeah, the stump thing. Mmm… I got nervous. I was trying to impress Stump… and you. I guess I failed.”
She tilts her head to the side. “You were trying to impress me?”
Shrugging, I nod slightly. She turns her hand over in mine and laces our fingers together. Warmth runs through me like nothing I’ve felt before. A sense of tenderness, of kindness, of home, floods through me, and… I like it.
Her fingers lace with mine completely, and before I know it our hands are holding tight, interlocking our fingers together. Her hand fits in mine perfectly, and I look down at our hands and I can’t help but feel like I could get used to seeing that.
“You know they say that people holding hands releases oxytocin in the brain which, of course, helps in stress reduction.”
“So you’re holding my hand to stop me from stressing out?”
She shrugs. “Seems like you needed to calm down a little. I like to help where I can. So if I can release some oxytocin, I’m your gal.”
Letting out a small chuckle, I look into her eyes, and they’re shining brightly back at me. I’ve never met anyone like her before. I’ve known her all of five minutes, and in that time she’s knocked my world off its axis. We’ve already had a disagreement, made up, and now we’re holding hands. I think I’m in for a bumpy ride with… wait, I still don’t know her name.
“What’s your name?” I ask as I stare into her eyes.
She smiles so beautifully it sucks the air from my lungs. “I thought you’d never ask, Techie.” The way my name rolls off her tongue makes me want to taste every inch of her. I don’t care if she’s Gadget’s sister or not. She’s a gift too tempting not to unwrap. My heart is racing as I swallow hard and continue to look at her. She stares deep into my eyes, and I shudder slightly at the intensity of her gaze. She’s a marvel.
“Shay, my name is Shay D’Amore.”
“Shay,” I whisper her name. It suits her. It’s the perfect blend of beautiful and quirky, just like her.
Her soft giggle breaks me from my trance, and she shakes her head. “You’re a strange man, Techie.”
I nod. “True, my real name is Spike. Spike Williams by the way, but no one calls me that.”
She nods. “I get it. I’ve grown up with the club, I get Road Names and how important they are. Plus, Techie is an awesome name… So, is your family here?”
Shaking my head, I smile. “Nah, they live in Sydney, away from the chaos. So do you want to get a drink? Wait, how old are you? Are you allowed to drink?” It suddenly dawns on me she might be a lot younger than she appears.
She laughs and tightens her grip on my hand. “Relax Techie. I’m twenty-two. I know I look young but I’m legal, don’t fret.”
I lead her toward the bar, where Blake’s tending to a heavily occupied area. Paulie is behind helping too—he’s a newer prospect. It hasn’t gone unnoticed by me that our hands are still connected as we reach the bar. I move out grabbing her stool and pulling it out for her. She finally lets my hand go and si
ts down. “Wow! A gentleman. Who’d have thought?”
I laugh and shake my head. “I can be very gentlemanly, Miss D’Amore. What would you like to drink? Not sure we have too many typical girly drinks, though,” I say wincing slightly at how sexist that sounded.
She frowns slightly but turns to Blake, who’s walked over and smiles. “I’ll have a pint of beer thanks, prospect, and Techie will have his balls handed to him on a platter if he’s not careful.”
Blake laughs.
“Noted. I’ll have a beer and my balls please, Blake.”
“Coming right up, guys.” He nods then goes off to pour the beer.
I turn to her and wince. “Sorry.”
She shrugs and tilts her head. “I guess you haven’t had much interaction with normal girls, only club girls, right?”
I wonder where this is heading, but I decide it’s best to be honest.
“Right.”
“Okay, well I know club girls like prissy things… champagne, anything pink and shiny… but real girls, like me, we drink beer, we play video games, we watch the Syfy channel, and I certainly know how to burp. I’m not a princess, so please don’t expect me to be.”
I think… I just fell in love. Not really, but Shay is literally something from my wet dreams. She’s amazing, and I really need to get to know her. I’m so glad we’re in a lockdown, and she’ll be around for a while.
“Not a princess, got it! So you know what I do, but what about you? Do you work?” I ask needing to know more.
Her smile falters slightly, and I wonder what that’s about. “I go to Uni,” is all she offers.
Nodding, I wonder whether to ask any more or if the topic is closed. She must notice my apprehension as she suddenly smiles and lets out a small laugh.
“Shit, sorry. I’m doing my Honours in Bachelor of Forensic and Analytical Science.”
My eyebrows raise and I smile brightly. She is smart. “Wow Shay, that’s awesome. So you’re going to be Abby from NCIS?”