Axle: A Devil’s Nightmare MC Novella

by Lena Bourne

  I walk with him to the fridge and stand right behind him as he reaches in to pull out two beers. I’m so close he startles as he straightens and turns to hand me mine. He doesn’t move though, and neither do I. That sharp edge in his eyes as he looks into mine tells me we’re both very aware of the tension. And the solution to it.

  “What do you want, Mia?” he asks hoarsely. Harshly, too.

  “The same thing you do, Axle,” I answer coyly. I haven’t been this aroused in ages. And certainly not while stone cold sober.

  “You throwing yourself at me?” he snaps. “You want me to fuck you like some random slut before you disappear for the next twenty years?”

  He would too. And a part of me, the part that thinks only with my clit, wants that very much. It’s been a long time since I’ve had good sex. Let alone amazing sex, as it always was with him.

  “No,” I whisper anyway, not breaking eye contact.

  “Liar,” he counters, the edge of his lips curling up into a smile, the first I’ve seen on his face tonight.

  “I want you to make love to me like you used to,” I say.

  His eyes widen in surprise for a split second, before that mocking grin returns.

  “What makes you think I want to?”

  I shrug and smile coyly. “Well, don’t you?”

  He doesn’t answer, not in words.

  Instead, he grabs the back of my head, leans in and kisses me. And for all the lust and tension in it, all the passion, all the roughness, the kiss is soft and lasting and nothing short of the best kiss I’ve had this side of the decade. Or longer.

  I kiss him back, let his tongue into my mouth, play with it, ecstatic that I remember it all, that it’s just like it was. Better.

  One of his hands is gripping my ass, the other caressing my breasts. I missed his strong hands on me, missed his tongue in my mouth, missed his smell and his taste. I missed it so much, but didn’t even know it.

  This is no time to think of the past. Of the could have beens and might have beens.

  This is something to enjoy in full and always remember.

  I kiss him harder, running my hands down his wide strong biceps, the touch of his hot skin under my fingers electric.

  His cock is rock hard, pressing against my hip, making my pussy wet and my brain foggy and fuzzy.

  “Upstairs,” he says coarsely at one point, but then kisses me passionately for a couple of more minutes before grabbing my hand and pulling me after him out of the kitchen and up the narrow stairs to his bedroom.

  He flips on the light and gazes so deep into my eyes I feel like I’m naked already. Then he uses his large, calloused fingers to undo the tiny buttons of my shirt. Slowly, one by one, not breaking eye contact. The passion with which he kissed me downstairs isn’t gone, it’s just banked for the moment. This magical moment.

  Once the buttons are undone, he slides my shirt down off my shoulders and caresses my breasts, pinching my nipples just hard enough to make me gasp and moan.

  “Still like that, then?” he asks quietly and I nod. He wastes no time unhooking my bra, his hands still as skilled at that task as ever. I don’t want to think about how much practice he’s had over the years, so I won’t.

  My jeans are next to go, and I kick off my shoes and help him slide them off. He holds me at arm’s length once I’m standing before him in just my lacy champagne panties. I kinda wish he kept the light off. And kinda love looking at him looking at me.

  “You’re still a gorgeous woman, Mia,” he says hoarsely.

  I smile and he pulls me to him, kisses me again with all the urgency and thirst of a man just come from the desert. This kiss ends with me fumbling to get his shirt off with one hand and unbuckling his belt with the other. I need to feel his hot skin against mine, I can’t wait any longer.

  He stops the kiss and removes his shirt, ripping instead of unbuttoning the last two buttons, then unbuckles his belt and unzips jeans, shedding them as he guides me backwards to the bed.

  I kiss him as the back of my knees touch the cool wooden frame then pull him down on top of me as I sit and then lie down on my back. His smell is all around me now, under me, over me, and his presence is everywhere too, battering at me to let him in all the way. That’s the only thing I want, but instead of obliging his lips slide off mine to kiss my chin, then my neck, my chest and my breasts, his teeth nipping at my nipples just hard enough, just rough enough, to awaken moans in my throat and send electric shocks of desire straight to my clit and my brain and everywhere else my body can feel.

  By the time his lips reach my clit, I’m swimming in the electric current, my mind lost in the sparkling, charged flood of lust and desire and love and everything in between. His tongue is as skilled as ever—more so—as his licks and nips, and burrows me to the edge of an orgasm that makes me gasp and moan and nearly scream just in anticipation.

  “Please,” I moan, as once again that reward is snatched away from me by whatever he does so well.

  “You want to come?” he asks wryly.

  “Yes, please,” I moan, missing his lips on my pussy with a physical pang.

  But they don’t return. Instead, it’s his calloused thumb that rubs my clit, making me shiver and moan and writhe on the bed. But not as hard as when he slips his finger into me. It’s soon followed by another. And before I know it, the slow, sensual penetration reaches that spot inside me, the one only he can find on the first try. He starts pumping his fingers into my pussy, pushing that button, his thumb rubbing my clit and it takes mere seconds before the orgasm I’ve begged for erupts and keeps erupting, making the room spin before me, turning my whole body and mind into a single current of pleasure and bliss as he gives me exactly what I asked for. And more. As always.

  Eventually, slowly, the shocks of pleasure subside. He pulls his fingers from me slowly and is grinning at me as I open my eyes to see where he went.

  “Is that what you wanted?” he asks.

  I smile and nod, and motion him closer. “Come here.”

  He wastes no time covering my still shivering body with his weight and kissing me deeply. I taste myself on him, and I taste him, and it’s such a heady combination. I’m transport right back to how it was all those years ago, when our love was fresh and new. When it was everything and I didn’t know where he ended and I began as we lay like this, kissing, making love. When we were as close as two people can be.

  All that is reality once again.

  His presence, his soul, is still battering at me to let him in all the way. He groans into the kiss as my hands find his rock hard cock and guide it to my pussy.

  He takes over once he knows what I want. What we both want.

  I gasp as his cock slides into my pussy. It’s as wide as I remember, wider than I’ve had since, and longer, yet still fits like it was made just for me.

  His thrusts are steady and slow at first, not too deep, not too shallow, just right, just perfect, just what I needed and wanted. What we both did.

  Soon I’m again floating on that sea of pleasure, thick and dense and rich, yet softer than anything ever was. There are vast depths to this sea, ones he’ll pull me down into soon, but for now, his kiss and his slow thrusts are all I need. All I ever needed.

  Soon he starts thrusting into me faster, harder, matching my moans and whimpers with his groans. We’re ready to dive.

  And dive we do, all the way to that place where I don’t know myself, don’t know color or sound, words or voice. All I know is this pleasure only he can give. This pleasure only us two can create together, as one.

  And as the currents of this pleasure finally take me under, explode inside me into another mind-shattering orgasm or the kind that only he can give me, I know only one thing.

  Coming here tonight was not a mistake. Everything else was, but this is the only right thing I’ve done in the last twenty years.

  He lays down next to me once we recover enough to move, pulls the covers over us and holds me close. His eyes
are closed as he kisses my neck one last time.

  “I’m afraid I’m still very much in love with you, Mia,” he slurs.

  The words send a jolt through me, stronger and more electric than any he’s given me tonight. But when I look at him to check if he’s being serious, he’s already asleep.

  “I’m afraid it’s the same for me,” I whisper anyway, and I have no idea what to do with that knowing. That rock hard truth.

  17

  Axle

  I wake up with a start, the room so dark I’m not even sure my eyes are open until a couple more moments pass and my eyes adjust. It’s definitely past three AM since the streetlamp outside is off and not shining into the far left corner of my bedroom. I’m very familiar with that light. I usually get up before it goes out. I haven’t slept this deeply and this long in months.

  Mia?

  I can still taste her, still feel her, still smell her everywhere around me. But she’s not here.

  Of course she’s not.

  Why would she stay, she got what she wanted?

  And I went and told her that crap about still loving her. That probably propelled her out the door as soon as I closed my eyes and started snoring.

  I’m the biggest fucking idiot I know.

  But I won’t even think about it. I’ll just pretend it never happened. None of it. I’ve gotten real good at that over the years.

  I also have to piss something awful, so I stumble off the bed, waking more of her smell from the sheets, which doesn’t even bother me.

  Without even bothering with the light, I cross the room, and tread on something sharp as fuck halfway there.

  Her stiletto. And the rest of her clothes are still in a heap next to it where I took them off her. She didn’t leave. Unless she went naked.

  Only then do I realize someone’s downstairs in the kitchen and the house smells of eggs and toast.

  I’m downstairs in what seems less than three steps and grinning at her from the kitchen doorway in four.

  She’s by the stove, wearing one of my white, Three Stars Garage T-shirts, which is so large on her it comes down almost to her knees. That’s a shame. But I like looking at her any which way. It’s just that more is better.

  “Good morning,” she says, grinning at me over her shoulder, like she knew I was here all along. “I borrowed one of your shirts, I hope you don’t mind. Though it looks like you need it. Should I take it off?”

  “I wish you would,” I say, as I walk over to her, naked.

  She takes the pan off the heat and leans towards me, accepting my kiss. She tastes like all the mornings we’ve missed.

  “Let’s eat, I’m starving,” she says, breaking away from the kiss much too soon.

  “What are we having?” I ask, looking at the mess of scrambled eggs, tomatoes, onions, peppers and I don’t know what else in the pan.

  “It’s called Satarash,” she says. “It’s an old Romani dish. I really like it. You will too.”

  “What now?” I say. “I have a fridge full of perfectly good sandwich materials and you decide to make fancy scrambled eggs in the middle of the night.”

  “Just try some,” she says, scooping a bit onto the spatula and holding it up to my mouth.

  I eat it like she wants me to, and miraculously it doesn’t scald my mouth.

  “It’s good,” I say, and it’s not even a little bit of a lie.

  “Told you,” she says. “Now let’s eat.”

  I grab the pan and wrap my free arm around her waist, and she gets the toast on the way to the table, where I set her down in my lap where she belongs.

  She proceeds to feed us both, straight out of the pan, using the clumsy, big wooden spatula, but it’s perfect nonetheless. Exactly like it was. Exactly as though no time ever passed between us and no distance ever separated us. Until I’m not even entirely sure I did open my eyes when I jerked awake earlier. Maybe I’m still dreaming. Not that it matters much. Dream or real, this is how it should be.

  The first blinding rays of the sun are shining through my bedroom widow as I watch her perfect body disappear under her clothes. Her hair is wet from the shower we just took, glistening like freshly applied copper spray paint.

  “Stay a little longer,” I say, walking to her and pulling her into a lose embrace.

  “I can’t,” she says and gives me a peck on the lips, which I turn into a full-on kiss she gladly accepts.

  But she pulls away again.

  “Mom and I have to finish packing up the salon,” she says. “She’s waiting for me. And you have my car to fix.”

  She tries to extricate herself from my arms, but I don’t let her go.

  Her amber eyes are serious as she fixes them on me—kinda watery and soft, but serious nonetheless.

  “I’m not going forever, Axle,” she says, answering the question my pride would never let me ask. “Somehow, some way, we’ll make it work this time. I promise you.”

  Her eyes sure are serious enough to make me believe she’s telling the truth. But I grin anyway. “Yeah, we’ll see.”

  “I mean—“ I interrupt her by kissing her, and hugging her tight as I do.

  She’s never lied to me, and I don’t want her to start now. We both know what’s holding us apart, and it’s as huge a chasm as it ever was.

  “I mean it,” she finishes breathlessly once I break away from the kiss and let her go.

  I nod, smooth down her hair and watch her put her shoes on.

  And then, after she promises she’ll come by the garage tonight, I watch her leave my house. And I don’t think much else other than that I want her to stay.

  18

  Mia

  Mom is sitting on the top step of the front porch of her home, looking off into the distance, her eyes unfocused. She doesn’t even see me pull up, recognizes neither her car nor me. For a moment, I consider honking to get her attention, but there’s something so sad and lost in her gaze I don’t dare yank her out of it.

  So instead, I get out of the car and traverse the lawn. Mom’s house—my former home—is very similar to Axel’s house. A white paneled house with a light blue roof, a front porch that wraps around the front, and a small enclosed backyard, which you can’t really see from the front. Before we moved here, we lived in a tiny apartment just off Main Street above one of the three clothes shops in town. Once Mom’s salon finally took off and we could afford to move, we came here. I was seven or eight at the time, and one of the first things we did after moving in was plant the rosebushes along the porch. Most of them are blooming now. Huge, delicate flowers in every hue from yellow, red, orange, white and more, are scenting the air with their enticing aroma. For all their delicate petals, roses are some of the most hardy plants around, impossible to destroy once they take root. They’ve always reminded me of my mom. Especially the rich, dark red ones, which also smell the nicest.

  “Ahh, there you are,” she says once I’m almost next to her. “Did you have a good time last night?”

  I can’t help but smile very widely.

  “The best in a long time,” I say and sit down next to her, making the wooden step creak ominously.

  “That’s good to hear,” she says and taps my knee. “I’m glad.”

  Her sadness is contagious. It seeps right through the pores of my happiness and elation and makes it all dull and non-consequential.

  I also don’t know if I should be worried. She’s not being herself. My mom’s always been a fighter. A stubborn, relentless one. She never backed down from anything.

  This last year has been very hard on her. And I’m afraid this change that gradually came over her is permanent. She’s given up. The woman who raised me all alone, provided a good home for me and put me through college has given up.

  Panic is not an emotion I usually feel. Over anything. But I’ve been growing more and more panicked over seeing these changes in my mom, and my inability to help her.

  “So, are you and Axle getting back together?” she asks
, acting maybe a little more like herself, but not much.

  “That’s a very good question,” I say. And the one I can’t even begin to answer, despite the promise I made. The promise I meant wholeheartedly. “It wouldn’t be easy, that’s for sure.”

  She nods pensively. “Seems we’re both faced with some big and tall problems. At least yours is also a very good-looking man.”

  She chuckles at her own joke, but it’s a brittle, dark sound. I laugh too anyway and stand up.

  “How about we just take the day off from our problems and go to the beach?” I say. “The SUV won’t be ready until tomorrow at the soonest and we’ve finished most of the packing.”

  “I don’t know, hun,” she says. ‘I’m afraid I won’t be the best company today.”

  “Nonsense,” I say and extend my hand to help her rise. “I’ll just go change and you go grab your bathing suit. Find one for me too. I didn’t bring mine.”

  She takes my hand and I help her stand up.

  “It’s not good to run away from your problems, you know?” she says with a sad little smile.

  I shrug and smile wide. “We’re not running. We’re just hiding for a little while. All the problems will still be here when we get back, don’t you worry.”

  She laughs and I laugh with her.

  “Can’t argue with that,” she concedes.

  And less than half an hour later we’re merging onto the highway that will take us to the quaint little town of Bedrock that I haven’t visited in a decade or more. I hope it’s still the same as I remember it.

  I also hope the day away will give me clarity, and an answer. How do I keep my promise without throwing away everything I’ve worked so hard for these last twenty years?

  The sun is starting to set, coloring the sky a perfect orange as me and my mom pull up on Main Street. It was a wonderful day at the beach, and Mom lost her vacant look about two hours into our trip. She’s laughing at the joke I just made regarding the fact that all those fancy shops, vegan and whatnot shops and yoga studios going up everywhere in Pleasantville will soon make it too expensive for even the yuppies to be here, tears stream down her face.