by Hazel Parker
“But you want to cut it off?”
“Yes,” he said. “Just this date, I mean, not us trying this. And it’s not because I’m having a bad time. It’s because I want to go slow and make sure I do this right. You’re great, Natasha. I don’t want to fuck this up.”
“You’re sweet,” I said, leaning up to kiss him. “OK. Let’s get someplace we can get an Uber, and I’ll call it.”
“I could give you a ride on my bike.”
I looked up at his eyes, the confident smirk on his face, and goddamn if that wasn’t a huge temptation. I’d never ridden a motorcycle before—my father would never allow it, and even when he wasn’t around, I wasn’t necessarily a huge thrill-seeker—but with Richard… the opportunity it would present…
But then a thought came through that killed it.
“I’d probably smell like oil and gas, huh?”
“Shit, good point,” Richard said. “It sounded good in my head.”
“And at some point, Richard, it’ll look good when we do it,” I said.
I paused for just a second, thinking of how that sounded out of context. It sounded pretty damn hot, pretty damn erotic… pretty damn possible.
“But for now, I think Uber picks up at the side entrance. Shall we?”
“We shall,” Richard said, extending his arm for me to grab.
I took it and walked forward. I was amazed at how he seemed to have the perfect act, the perfect words for every moment. Even when it didn’t seem perfect at the moment, it seemed perfect after the fact.
When he said he wanted to cut the date off here, a part of me wondered if that was the right choice. We had such momentum going and were having fun; why shouldn’t we go to the nightclub, get some drinks, and dance a little bit? Yes, there was something to be said for leaving something on the table to come back to, but right now, I just wanted any chance I could to be with Richard.
But I trusted him. If he felt this was best, well, this was best. Plus, yes, it did make me desire him a hell of a lot more to have to wait for him.
We got to the exit, and on my phone, the Uber pinged to say it was one minute away.
“I suppose this is where we depart,” I said.
“For now,” Richard said.
He went in for one more kiss, which he started as passionate. But I didn’t want slow.
I all but wrapped my body around him as my tongue pushed through his lips, dancing with his. My hands explored his back, coming dangerously close to his ass. I wanted his body as I began panting and moaning against his lips. My body was getting out of control. I had to have Richard—wherever I could, however I could. I needed him.
But Richard gained control of the situation, pulling back. I still went to kiss his neck, but Richard gently pushed me back.
“As amazing as that feels,” he said. “Next time.”
I looked at him with such sexualized eyes that, looking back on it later, I couldn’t believe anyone had gotten me to that state of fire on just the first date.
“You better,” I said, grabbing at his shirt collar. “I don’t know what you did to me, Richard, but I’m not about to forget this.”
“Neither will I,” he said, giving me one more kiss on the forehead. “Alright, go home before Papa Russia comes and kills me for keeping you out.”
I wouldn’t let him leave me so easily, though. I held his hand as I had him escort me out to the Uber. It was a little bit of spoiled behavior, I know, but I figured I had earned it by that point. I kissed him one more time before getting in the Uber, letting him shut the door.
I was silent on the car ride home. I was still having the hots for Richard, but I was starting to come down just a bit. I was able to have a more objective appreciation for how the date had gone.
Which was to say, holy shit, it had gone really well!
I told myself I didn’t need to text him until I got home, but even that felt ridiculous. Since when did I put rules on myself with guys? Since someone as seductive, different, and handsome as Richard came in, that’s when.
I just smiled and laughed to myself. I was sure my Uber driver thought I was a little crazy, but, well, that wasn’t my problem.
He dropped me off at my house, and I headed up the steps to my front door, only to find my father waiting.
“Dad?” I said. “What’s going on?”
“You didn’t answer your messages,” he said.
Oh, shit! I remembered seeing them in the car, but the thought to answer them and the time when I could have had gone by too quickly.
“I was fine,” I said. “Just having fun.”
“I see,” my father said. “I just wanted to make sure you were OK, Natasha. Vladimir’s death has made me a little more paranoid about matters.”
“I understand,” I said. “But I’m OK. Just spent some time out on the Strip with some friends.”
I supposed that was the closest I could get to telling the truth without saying something embarrassing or something that would prevent future hangouts with Richard. I didn’t like lying to my father, but I guessed I chose love over making him happy.
“Very well,” he said.
It was hard to tell if he believed it or not. But then again, I could have told him I loved him, and if I didn’t know any better, his facial expression alone would have made it difficult to tell if he believed it or not.
“Have a good rest of your evening,” he said. “Tomorrow, I am hosting a senator from California. Her son, Tucker, will be there. I think he would make for a handsome man for you.”
“I’ll see, Dad,” I said as I headed inside.
But I had no intentions of honoring my father’s request. For the sake of appearances, I’d have to smile and greet Tucker. But I’d already mentally fallen for a different man.
Still, this was a dangerous game that I was playing. I’d have to be very careful moving forward, because if my father found out at any point before several months of dating, it was going to be very hard for me to withstand his pressure.
For Richard, though, it was a risk worth taking.
Chapter 9: Richard
The immediate aftermath of my date with Natasha felt like I had woken up from a dream in which I had gone to heaven.
I had never had a first date go so well. It went so well, in fact, that I forced myself to cut it off before I made a mistake. Crazy, right? I was thirty-nine; I’d been on a few first dates in my time and knew what to say and what not to say.
But because of the stakes and the pressure I’d put on myself, I didn’t think it was possible to go any higher than we had after that first kiss. It was just so perfect, so perfectly set up and timed, that to then try and dance with her or take her home would have ruined what I was going for.
So yeah, maybe Natasha would be a little resentful that I had cut things off just as they were getting good. But since I really did want something more with her, I had a feeling she wouldn’t be upset in the end. I didn’t know of many women who were upset with the idea of seeing a man more than just once, at least not women like Natasha.
I knew I wouldn’t see her for a few days after that, so we remained in touch by texting. Now, our texts were a lot more flirtatious… up to a point. We certainly hinted at sex, but we never crossed the line. The closest I came was on Monday night, when I was feeling particularly aroused.
“You know what I’m thinking about?” I wrote.
“What? Tell me everything :-)” she wrote back.
I knew from the smiley face I pretty much had free reign to say what I wanted. But what was the fun in giving away everything? I had to store something up… but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to give her a little bit.
“I’m thinking about what happens when you and I are in private,” I began, taking several texts to send what I wrote. “I am going to kiss you as we walk into my room. I’m going to press you up against the wall. I’m going to nibble on your neck as you moan my name.”
“Omg…”
�
�Your legs will be wrapped around my hips as I grab your ass and carry you to my bed. I’m going to lay you down gently. And from there… you’ll have to wait and see.”
The text message went blank for a few moments before she wrote back, “I hate you for cutting this short.”
I just replied with an emoji—which still seemed out of character for me.
“You better make it up to me in person.”
Of that, there was little doubt. I was pushing boundaries right now, that much was a given, but by withholding, I could make sure the second date was something to be remembered. I already knew where it would take place, too—I was going to take her to my private space here at The Red Door.
While that might have seemed more public than my room, the intimacy of the studio-sized room went a long way to ensuring that there wasn’t much else we could do but get it on. It also made it much easier for her to enjoy a show at The Red Door, and it added a certain level of exclusivity for being able to get into the place without being on the list. I knew that wasn’t as impressive to her as it might have been to someone who had never lived the wealthy lifestyle, but it was still something.
All of that, though, was put to the side on this night.
Because this night was Tuesday: the night when we were set to deliver a hit to the Degenerate Sinners for the bullshit they had caused us.
This was not the first violent mission I had ever done with the Savage Saints, but it was the first in a while. I put Dom and Barber in charge, given that they had military experience and a better understanding of how to attack.
“We’ll keep Walker back just to keep an eye on the base and, God forbid, keep the place going in case we all get killed,” Barber said.
“We got a lot of faith in you, bud,” Dom said.
I swear, does that dude never have a chill smile? It’s ridiculous.
“The rest of us, however, are going to attack from two sides. The Sinners’ base is a warehouse on the far east side of Las Vegas. It’s a ghetto, crummy, beatdown area, but that also means there won’t be a lot of civilian traffic to deal with. I don’t think explosives are a good idea for this round, as we want to keep this as low key as possible. Gunfire in that area is a regular thing, but explosions aren’t.”
“Last thing we need is a bunch of men making too much noise,” Mama said with a snort as she puffed on a cigarette.
Dom chuckled at that, but no one else seemed to notice.
“We’ll split into two teams of seven, which are going to strike within seconds of each other. Team Savage will strike on the right side of the building, laying waste to any openings and any Sinners who come out with their guns. While they take the lead, Team Saints will attack from the other side, essentially wedging the Sinners in. The hope is that we can kill off enough of those assholes to make them think twice about killing one of our own. If we do this right, we’ll be in and out within just a few minutes, maybe even less.”
It all seemed easy enough, but of course, it left out the fact that the Sinners were going to shoot back at us. If they had more weapons, there was no telling what else they might throw our way—grenades, Molotov cocktails, gas bombs… my mind was assuming the worst-case scenario, that was a given, but I was definitely a little afraid of this one. The Sinners wouldn’t have gotten as aggressive as they had without having some reasons to be confident.
“Any questions?”
No one had any. Barber and I led Team Savage, while Pork and Dom led Team Saints. Barber and I led the charge from the front, roaring out with five of my brethren. We all sported M4s and AK-47s, meaning at least from a gun perspective, we had the advantage. We also had the advantage of preemptively striking on a night when the Sinners might have thought that we were getting shitfaced.
Those advantages were only as good as our firing capabilities, though.
The ride from The Red Door to the Sinners took us around 215, a loop of highway that went around downtown Las Vegas, past the Strip, and dropped us off on the east side. It made for a nice panoramic view of the city, if that was something we cared about, but right now, we were much more concerned about getting there. We sped a little bit, but we didn’t go any faster than eighty or eighty-five; the last thing we needed was to have the cops pull us over.
We made it easily, getting off at Flamingo Road and heading further due east. The lair of the Sinners wasn’t too much farther now… within minutes, we’d be putting our own lives on the line to prevent more trouble from the Sinners.
We’re going to make this work. I’m not allowed to look doubtful about our plan. We will make this work.
We took one last turn, and the warehouse was just beyond the ridge. I looked over to Barber, who gave me the OK. There wasn’t going to be any waiting—if we did, the sound of our motorcycles would have given us away in any case. We veered to the right, crawled to a stop, pulled out our guns, and laid waste to the building.
Windows shattered, wood splintered, and clay dispersed from the gunfire. I saw a few Sinners moving in the windows. We managed to pick off a few, but for the most part, they were a little bit better organized than I thought. Granted, they had a much larger number of men than we did, but they weren’t nearly as well trained as we were.
I saw the second group coming from the other side and tried to hold my ground. Gunfire was now being returned to us from the Sinners, and our plan had only been to strike and make a point, not turn this into a full-out war. Ironically, despite being the financially stronger club with more resources, we were the ones who had to resort to guerrilla tactics. We just didn’t have the manpower, and for now, I wasn’t interested in bringing on mercenaries or more club members.
Just when I thought that Team Saints couldn’t get there in time, they started laying waste to the other side.
“That’s our cue!” I shouted after about a dozen seconds. “Let’s—”
I paused and yanked my head back when I felt a bullet whiz by my head. I wasn’t exaggerating when I said that it felt like the bullet could not have been any further out than just a couple of inches—I could actually feel it skirt by my mouth as it flew away.
That was some fucking scary shit, especially knowing that if I’d been leaning forward just a couple of inches, the best-case scenario was needing a new jaw. The worst case was not even being able to think about having a new jaw, because I’d be dead.
“Let’s go!” I shouted. “Barber!”
Barber gave a thumbs up, and we quickly retreated from where we had come. I did a quick head count—everyone in our team was still alive. One member named Spider was injured, bleeding from the arm, but it looked like more of a graze than an actual wound. He gave a thumbs up anyways when he saw me looking back at him, and that was enough for me.
The second group didn’t spend much longer on firing, either, rolling out with us just a couple of seconds later. In all, the battle couldn’t have lasted more than one minute, maybe a minute and a half. I’d forgotten how quickly these things could go; when the enemy was defeated, or the point of your strike had been made, it didn’t matter if it took one bullet or one hour.
When we got back to the clubhouse, I took a second to collect myself on my bike. The other men roared and patted their chest in triumph, saying they were going to call all the girls, but I kept thinking about how close that bullet had come to killing me. I didn’t want to die, but I also didn’t want to need jaw reconstruction surgery. Both were bad outcomes, and both were inches, maybe even millimeters, away from being a reality.
How would Natasha feel if I had gone out like that? She had an idea of what being a Savage Saint meant, but I didn’t think she fully understood just to what degree this stuff played a role in our lives. It was true that we hadn’t had this part of being a biker club in some time, but it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Natasha needed to know the full truth of what had happened if we were going to have sex. Once we crossed that boundary, feelings would come in, lines would get erased, and any
thing that was involved would only get more entangled. Maybe telling her was going to sabotage it. Maybe this was a really bad idea.
But I couldn’t shake it out of my mind that if Natasha found out after the fact the violent side of an MC, she was going to be more than upset. She would feel betrayed. She’d feel lied to, at least in lies of omission. She’d feel heartbroken.
“How about that, huh, buddy?” Dom said as he pulled up next to me, slapping my shoulder.
“Pretty good shit, huh?” I offered, hoping that it did the trick.
“Yeah, you could say that again,” Dom said with a laugh. “Pretty sure I took out half-a-dozen Sinners myself! Fucking assholes will see what happens when they kill someone.”
Dom was prone to joking and playing around, but he wasn’t much for exaggeration that often, so I believed him. Given the ones I had hit and had seen go down, I think it was fair to say we had killed at least a dozen Sinners tonight. If that had happened to the Saints, we’d pretty much have to fold and go out of business.
Aside from Spider’s injury, we’d avoided the worst of it. No one else had suffered any wounds, which proved the assumption that the Sinners weren’t disciplined or trained.
But still… just a few inches…
My current plans with Natasha had her coming over Thursday to The Red Door, and there was little doubt what would happen then.
After tonight, though, it couldn’t be the next thing that would happen.
Chapter 10: Natasha
Richard’s texts just kept picking up in steam, and I loved it.
All of the dirty, filthy, sexual thoughts that filled my mind were there in part because it really had been a while since I’d had sex. Part of that, like many other things in my life, had to do with my family’s situation. It was hard for me to get someone who was just friends with benefits, as most guys who found out who I was liked to try and date me, almost the reverse of a woman being a gold digger situation. Most guys who hit on me who genuinely wanted a relationship and were good guys. I just wasn’t into them. It had been…