by Meg Jackson
“I get that you’re anxious to leave,” Reign said, picking up on my hesitation. “But if you stick around, I’m pretty sure I can get you into a new car tomorrow. Well, not a new car, but a different car. Clean plates, registration, all that, no problem.”
I bit my lip, still avoiding Reign’s gaze. I knew damn well that I wanted to stay for another night. If only to feel those feelings one more time…assuming he still wanted me, of course. And a car would be an immense help, would take a huge load off my shoulders.
“Come here, sit down for a bit,” Reign said, finally, after a few moments had passed. He reached out and placed his hand gently on my lower back, steering me towards an empty table in the corner of the bar.
His hand on me made my brain blink out of commission. I looked back as Reign guided me; Honey was watching once more, her eyebrows raised in interest. I wondered what she was thinking, why she was so interested in what was going on between Reign and I. I hoped I wasn’t stepping on her territory in some way; but she seemed to be perfectly happy with the girl beside her.
“You know, Honey is kind of like a mother around here,” Reign said, once more picking up on my thoughts. “I mean, not really, she’s more like a…like a wife, or something, to everyone. Keeps an eye on us, out for us. Takes care of her boys. She’s got this sixth sense for trouble, you know? So she takes some warming up to, that’s all.”
“Oh,” I said, taking a seat, somewhat relieved to be free of Reign’s gently pressing hand, which had all but eradicated my ability to think or function.
“She’s a good woman, Honey,” he continued. “A lot like you, actually.”
“How’s that?” I asked, no longer able to keep my eyes away from Reign as he took his seat across from me. God damn, I still couldn’t believe a fat girl like me had spent the night with an Adonis like him…not just spent the night, but the whole damn morning, too.
“Just similar,” he said, clamming up on the subject. I got the feeling he didn’t quite want to go further out of a sense of propriety; I supposed that gossip wasn’t something he was comfortable with.
“I don’t think she likes me much,” I said. Reign chuckled.
“She doesn’t like many strangers much. We certainly don’t call her Honey ‘cause she’s so sweet,” he said.
“What’s her real name?” I asked, suddenly curious about how everyone around here got their nicknames. I’d heard enough strange names being thrown around, and I didn’t know the first thing about MC culture.
“I don’t know, don’t care. She’s Honey to us, and that’s all that matters,” Reign said.
And what’s your real name, Reign? How’d you get such a regal nickname? Where did you even come from…I found myself getting lost in my thoughts. Being around him…I just wanted to know more. Everything. I wanted to read his autobiography.
“So…the car…” I said, feeling a bit more stable now that my mind and body had gotten used to being around him again. That initial shock is a killer, I thought, marveling at how dumbstruck he’d made me. And how, even now that I’d calmed down, there was really nothing that I wanted more than to be closer to him.
“Yeah, so, we got a dealer here in town, actually just a ways out of town. He’s a good guy, he’ll do an easy trade-in for you, on the spot. He’s legit, but he knows how to keep his mouth shut under pressure,” Reign said, leaning back, one arm draped over the side of the chair and the other laying across the table.
“Well, I mean, that sounds…that sounds fine?” I said, torn between desire to stay, the logic of what Reign was saying, my instinctual urge to leave as soon as possible, and suspicion over the happy coincidences that had led me to this perfect situation. The phrase “too good to be true” came to mind.
“What you really ought to get is a bike,” Reign said, suddenly, a glint in his eye, his smile spreading wider. I scoffed.
“Are you kidding me? I’m trying to keep a low profile, not announce myself to every town I go through. Besides, I’ve never even ridden on the back of a motorcycle before,” I said. I knew he wasn’t being serious, but the idea drove a thrill of fear through me. I was telling the truth; I’d never been on a motorcycle, they’d always scared me. The thought of being exposed and moving so quickly…it wasn’t for me.
“Bikes are easy to ditch when you need to. And people are less likely to mess with you. And, damn but it feels good, girl. You don’t know what you’re missing,” he replied, the smile now planted firmly on his face. He looked me up and down, almost as though he was judging whether or not I was worthy of a motorcycle. Clearly, it was his whole life; you don’t go around joining biker gangs if you don’t have some love for bikes. But it wasn’t a love I could share with him. Not at all. I shook my head.
“Really, though, you’ve never been on a motorcycle before?” he asked, the smile fading slightly as he looked at me, a more serious expression in his eyes.
“Nope, never have and hopefully never will,” I said, starting to get a bad feeling from the way he was looking at me.
“Don’t be too confident about that,” he said. “We’re taking you out tonight.”
“Oh, no, really, I don’t….” I started to say, panic fluttering into my chest as I imagined myself riding on the back of a Harley. Not my cup of tea. I didn’t care how damn charming this guy was, and how much he was promising to help me, I’d be damned if I let him coax me onto a death machine.
“How can you know you don’t like it if you’ve never tried?” He asked, entirely serious now. He had a point, of course, but you could say the same thing about a lot of things. I’ve never tried raw, rotten tuna, but I don’t have to try it to know it’s not something I want. I told him as much, but it didn’t sway him.
“Baby, you just gotta understand. It’s not scary. It’s…it’s freedom. Pure, absolute, unfettered freedom. You got the road in front of you, the wind at your back, you’re like a bird,” he said, now leaning in close across the table.
I jumped in my seat as I felt his hand land on my knee and pulse, sending a shockwave through my body. I could remember, all too well, what he could do with those hands. His palm slid upwards slightly, rubbing my thigh through my jeans. I wanted to remain focused on our discussion of how I was going to get over the border, but he was making it very, very hard.
“You get that engine between your legs and you feel so powerful. You feel like the whole damn world just opens up for you. Like you are doing exactly what God put you on this earth to do. You can’t imagine how good it feels…” he said, his hand now moving even further up my thigh. My heart sped up. I could hear his voice in my ear as he leaned closer and closer, tugging me towards him like a rope across the table, making me lean in farther. He could have been reciting the dictionary and I would have been enthralled.
“The night sky above you, all the stars, the cool air, baby, you’re gonna love it, I promise, you won’t believe how much you’re gonna love it,” he whispered, his face now only inches away from mine. He closed the gap slowly, my eyes half-closing as I let myself be lulled by his voice and by his hand rubbing me.
Our lips met, parted slightly, and I tasted him like a fine wine, sipping him slowly, our tongues coming together in a gentle waltz. Oh, God, but he was a good kisser. I felt like my head was lifting off my shoulders, that my whole body was full of warm lava, slow-moving pleasure rippling through me. He broke away, the smile returning to his face.
“I can’t,” I said, slurring my words slightly, intoxicated by him.
“I want you to,” he said in return, his voice inviting no arguments. I didn’t have any. As much as I tried to fight it, he had me wrapped around his finger. I would have jumped from the roof of the bar if he’d asked me to. I just wanted to be close to him again, to wrap my arms around him, feel him fill me up in that wonderful way, the heat of his skin against mine making us sweaty and sticking us together as we twirled, naked, across a bed…
His hand moved from my thigh to my hand, grasping it fir
mly.
“Trust me,” he said.
I nodded, felt almost like I was outside of my body, watching myself agree to do this crazy thing that was so “not me”. But, deep down, some part of me wondered if I really even knew who “me” was. Maybe the “me” that I should have been all those years with Jeremy was the sort of girl who would accept motorcycle rides from sexy men. Maybe that “me” wouldn’t have found herself in this situation in the first place.
13
From across the crowded bar, he watched them. No one noticed him. People rarely did. He was very good at going unnoticed. Just another rough looking dude in the lawless desert, someone you wouldn’t ask for credentials. Tough enough to blend in, with a pocketful of lies to cover his tracks if anyone started getting nosey.
He was aware of everything going on around him, but his focus was trained on the couple – or at least, they looked like a couple – in the corner. The woman, dark-haired, tan, and shyly smiling; the man, tall and lean and bold. They were speaking close, like lovers, but something about their body language told him that she was being talked into something she wasn’t wholly sure of. But that wasn’t important; what was important was the way the man was looking at her, the way he leaned into her, the way you could almost feel his desire to reach out and stroke her cheek.
He was the man to get to, and it looked like she was the way to get him. The stranger watched as the girl nodded, agreeing to whatever deal they’d struck. Reign, the man’s target, was clearly pleased as he fairly leapt from his chair.
A moment later, he was talking to the female bartender, someone the man had earlier pegged as a potential tool in his game. But it was clear that while Honey had some place in the club, and in Reign’s affections, she was neither as compelling or easy a target as this Latina-looking newcomer. The man watched as Honey smiled and laughed and disappeared behind the bar, re-appearing with a helmet and jacket.
Going for a little ride, the man thought, taking a sip of his beer. It was skunked. The bar was shit. It was a wonder that this club was still around, if their bar was any indication of their ability to keep their shit together. He’d been casing the place for a week already and hadn’t been served a single drink that didn’t taste like the glasses were washed in nail polish remover. But, despite their crappy bar-running skills, the club had managed to spark the interest – or ire – of the man’s employer.
From what he knew, which wasn’t much, the Black Smoke Motorcycle Club had recently moved into his employer’s territory with their trafficking business. The man didn’t care much about the details. They didn’t matter. He was a hired gun, that was all. He didn’t care a whit about trafficking, human or otherwise.
He knew, from his own research, that the club he was currently working for – the Immortal Soulz – had a reputation for roughing up their “passengers”, and were even involved in the sort of trafficking that put fourteen-year-old girls in especially nasty situations. As far as he knew, the Black Smokes were a little more humane in their treatment of illegal immigrants. But he didn’t care about who was the good guy. He was gonna make a lot of money by screwing with the Black Smokes, and that was all that mattered.
He had to find out more about that girl. Judging by the bruise on her face, and the strange way she’d hugged that duffel bag to her body when she first came into the bar (he was a very observant man), she was running from something pretty gnarly. And anyone running from something gnarly had a weakness that could be exploited. And if he could exploit her weakness, he could exploit Reign’s weakness. It would have been foolish to go straight for the club’s aging president; he could do just as much damage going after the front-runner.
He knew her room number, and he had a lock-picking kit burning a hole in his pocket. Not that the locks here would cause him much trouble. Most likely they were as crappy as the beer.
He finished his drink just as the girl and her beau left the bar; he counted the seconds as they passed. One minute, two minutes, three. Outside, a bike engine kicked up, hummed in neutral for a while, and then roared off. He stood and slipped away, inviting not a single curious glance on his way out.
If he’d had a conscious, he’d have felt bad about what he was doing. He would have thought twice before picking the lock to her room, perfectly, so smoothly that no one would ever know he’d done it. He’d have felt bad rummaging through her things to look for a wallet, some identifying information. He’d have felt bad once he found the wallet and her ID and memorized the information on it. He’d have felt bad breaking into the safe, pulling down the duffel bag, and seeing what was inside. He’d have felt bad putting it back, putting everything back where it belonged, and leaving without a trace.
He would have felt bad about all those things, but he didn’t. He just felt confident that he was about to come into a lot of money. If not from the Immortal Soulz, at least from that jackpot the girl was hiding in her room. She certainly didn’t come by it honestly – and even if she had, who cared? Girls who hid huge bundles of cash in duffel bags in hotel safes weren’t, generally, very interested in going to the cops to report missing money. Maybe he’d leave her a wad, if he was feeling generous. Maybe he should just take it now and hit the road…
But no, he knew it would be better to wait. If he played things right, he could get his pay from the Immortal Soulz and the girl’s money. Then he’d be sitting real pretty.
In the meantime, he had her name and address. That was a good place to start. Hell, it was a great place to start. He hummed a little tune as he left the room, clicking the door softly behind him, and headed to his truck. He didn’t know why it had suddenly come into his head, but he liked it.
“You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” he sang softly to himself as he eased into the driver’s seat and turned the key. He had a lot of digging to do that night.
As he headed down the town’s only road and back towards the shack that was passing for his basecamp until the job was done, he kept an eye out for the telltale glint of a bike pulled off to the side of the road. He had a feeling that Reign had taken his sweetheart out on a little ride, and from the chemistry between the two he figured that ride was going to take quite an interesting turn once the girl had that engine between her knees…
14
Ten minutes after agreeing to Reign’s pleas to join him on a bike ride, I was standing outside the bar, the cool desert air laying lightly on my shoulders. I was nervous, but not as piss-your-pants scared as I thought I’d be. I was holding a borrowed helmet in one hand, and wearing a borrowed leather jacket in the other.
Both had been borrowed from Honey, who had gotten significantly drunker in the time I’d been talking to Reign and who was more than excited to whip them out from behind the bar and present them to me.
She sure did like me a lot more when she was stumbling and slurring than she did when she was tending bar. But she wasn’t a sloppy drunk, don’t get that idea. She was only as drunk as everyone else in the bar, Reign and myself excluded. She’d come outside with us; the girl she’d been with earlier followed her like a silent shadow. I almost wanted to talk to the young thing, but she didn’t seem very friendly anyway.
“When I first….when I first got on a bike…shit, I was like…I’m gonna die! But then…then it was so fun, and really…really just fucking…something else, man, I tell you what it’s…fuck, you’re gonna love it,” Honey was saying.
Reign had disappeared behind the bar; I heard the telltale sign of an engine kicking to life. Moments later, he arrived astride a bright, shining Harley, shimmering blue and almost throbbing with power. My heart clenched up like a fist. He somehow looked even more handsome with his helmet on, which was ridiculous since I couldn’t even see his face.
He let the bike stall and beckoned me to come closer. I did, slowly, anxiously, rethinking my decision to go along for the (literal) ride. But now, with Honey staring at me, I felt even more compelled to go through with it; I still wanted her to like me, even if I didn�
�t know why that would be something I wanted. I just knew that she’d probably start acting like a bitch again if I proved myself to be too cowardly to get on the back of a motorcycle.
And, dammit, I wanted to prove it to myself, too. Sleeping with Reign had been one thing; for one, I’d been drunk, which made it worlds easier. For another, that had been something my body wanted. But almost no part of me wanted to get onto the bike, except for a small but compelling voice in my head that wanted me to do everything. Just to try it. Just to see if I could. Just to prove that I wasn’t a coward.
With my heart in my throat and my bladder threatening to empty itself at any moment, I swung one leg around the humming bike and planted myself into the passenger saddle. The bike was vibrating softly; I lifted up my feet and leaned forward, wrapping my arms around Reign. Even through the helmet, I could smell him, musky and delectable. With my body pressed tightly against his and the slightest shaking of the engine, I could already tell what one of the attractions of motorcycles was.
The engine kicked up again as Reign put it in gear, and the pleasant warmth that was spreading through me from the vibrations was quickly forgotten as I cried out. I wanted to stop this now, before it even started, my brain screaming as I realized that this was for real, not just play.
But my cries were swallowed up by the wind and the sound of the engine as we suddenly flew away from the bar, tires hitting the road with a gravelly thump, the roar of the bike surrounding us like four walls. The town melted away in an instant, it seemed; we couldn’t possibly have been going the speed limit, but no one was around to give a damn.
As the road opened up into desert, with the black shadows of the mountains bleeding upwards into a star-filled night, I was awestruck by the feeling. It was scary – a little – but more than anything it was…free. It was like being let loose onto the world, like the first time your parents let you stay out all night, like turning 18. It was like winning the lotto: all your cares erased in an instant.