“Guess they don't get many fowl up here,” I said, lamely—before burying my head into my daiquiri. Yes, perhaps drinking would further dull my blunt edges. At the very least, the drunker Carter was, the less he'd think I sounded like a fucking idiot.
“What are you talking about? Fowl?”
I pointed to the birdbath, but didn't turn my head to face his. Instead, I grinned at the tiny stone structure as he laughed again. My date sure loved to laugh.
“That's a sundial, kid,” Carter said. Then, I heard his feet moving in the grass behind me. I felt a series of bona fide shivers along my skin, then flips in my stomach—the butterflies of cliché. He was now so close behind me that I could feel his hot breath on the back of my neck, the hair along his arms grazing my own.
“I knew that.”
“You know about sundials? They say they come from ancient Egypt. Like the obelisk. You tell the time by where the shadows fall. Pretty genius, if you ask me.”
Ginger. And peach. He smelled like peach trees, with the slightest additional edge.
I set my glass down on the sundial's surface.
His hands cut through the air, landing squarely on the sides of my hips. He applied the smallest bit of pressure there, and I felt my center leap, my skin tingle. My mouth, at blissful last, clamped shut. It didn't seem like there was anything left to say.
Carter turned his head so his stubble grazed the side of my bare neck. If I'd have pivoted, I knew I would have seen his violet eyes burning into mine. He pushed his leather-clad hips forward, very slightly—but enough so I felt an enormous bulge pressing into the center of my ass. The fabric squeaked on contact.
“So what time is it, smartass?” Knox whispered into the crook of my ear, but I knew that this wasn't a question. I allowed my body to fully slouch against his, like he was an easy chair. And I didn't let myself think about my bike on the road, or the sun moving across the sky, or the bikers at home, or my sister in some distant motel. There was only the perimeter of this magical new place. There was only this man.
His lips were soft when they brushed my neck. I felt the sticky-sweetness of his drink. His stubble tickled. And at his touch, I became aware of a new quality in my skin, one I'd never noticed before: I felt like velvet, all over. Smooth. As if he had just discovered this as well, Carter reached an exploratory hand up and across the back of my body. His fingers lightly encircled my neck, and then he began to make small motions in my skin with the pads of his fingers.
“Does that feel good?” he whispered into my ear. It felt so good it was almost painful. I was sure that if I moved, I'd squirm and giggle myself into a million pieces. But instead of allowing the foreign touch to make me antsy, I sank further into it. Perhaps all of me was velvet. My base began to thrum. My breath began to quicken.
“Oh, yes,” I cooed. I wanted more, but a part of me remained self-conscious. We were basically outdoors, after all. And this man, however handsome, was still a stranger to me—even if it didn't feel like it.
Carter set his drink down next to mine, then pressed another confident hand into my back. Initiating with his thumb, he kneaded the muscles along my spine that I hadn't even realized were sore. I arched into the massage like a cat being stroked.
And yet, I was sure that I was experiencing something far more sexual than the situation warranted. All of my skin felt hot, like water approaching a boil. I'd never been with a real, grown-up man before (I didn't count Dog), but I did know that Esse and Rayna weren't talking about back “massages” when they yammered on about “the feminine pleasure zones,” all hours of the day, ashing their menthol cigarettes across the clubhouse kitchen. And the occasional urge I sometimes gave in to, that compulsion to press against myself in service of daydreams—oh buddy, was I getting that now. I knew that my secret, inner body was ripe and reddening, already slick with desire for more of Carter's touch. He continued to knead my shoulders, pressing harder and harder into my defenseless skin. He was so strong.
I thought of the ladies in the kitchen that morning: everyone needs a little D sometimes, Gizzy...
I tilted my chin just slightly, and Carter slid a firm hand up to the back of my head. Pressing his fingers into the nape of my neck, he wrenched me backwards, toward his mouth. I almost yelped at the sudden change in pressure, but he smiled, and I felt safe.
“Now I really don't do things like this very often,” he murmured.
“Oh give it up, Romeo,” I grinned. Raising an eyebrow, Carter closed the distance between our mouths with one fluid push. His kiss was warm, but determined. He tasted of smoke and sweet daiquiri. And I was content to let him pull me forward, draw me further into the kiss—to let him dominate me. All the while, his fingers remained deep in the muscles of my back, the base of my skull.
Just as I began to wonder if Carter was wondering the same thing—if perhaps it was time to retreat from public eye into the swamp, where we might tear one another's clothes off with the zeal of kids opening Christmas presents—Scotty's little pate came bobbing along the walkway. He was upon us before I could slink away from Carter's grasp.
The owner's face was oddly grave.
“Sorry to interrupt, you two. But, err, Knox? I think you'd better scram. Few unsavory characters outside.”
Carter dropped his hands, and at the exact same moment I felt my surfaces cool. Though he said nothing, I could sense some eye-contact-only communication going on between him and Scotty. Whatever was up, he didn't want to say it in front of me.
“We should leave separately, Gisele. I'm sorry to run out on you like this.” My date was already grabbing his jacket and helmet, regarding his half-drunk daiquiri with a tinge of regret.
“I'll go with you,” I said quickly. “Hey, I'm no stranger to running from the law.” I attempted a smile, but Carter's face was ashen. Whatever he'd been feeling a moment ago had already evaporated. Something about this made me unbearably sad. I then had a neurotic, wild thought: what if I never hear his laughter again? What if this was it, for the two of us?
“Really,” I said, stepping closer and forcing his gaze to meet mine. “I can go with you. I run with a tough crowd.”
Carter looked at me a little strangely. He seemed to be searching my face for something, the same way he had on the highway. But again, a thwarting Scotty interrupted before my date could speak.
“Knox, I mean it. You should go.”
“How can I find you? Don't you have a phone number?” I asked.
He shook his head sadly, one foot already half out of our little enclosure.
“Well, will you come back here?!”
Scotty started to pace, fully irritated now. “Knox! You think I just sit here and shout for my health?”
“I'll find you, baby,” Carter said, darting back towards me to plant a chaste kiss on my forehead. Though his violet eyes were scanning, distracted—his voice sounded truthful. Then I thought about this for a second: was it even possible to hear the 'truth' in someone's voice? Had I perhaps just been played for a sap?
Like yeah right, who in 2014 didn't have a phone?
When Knox had all-the-way vanished back towards the highway, leaving me alone in our little tiki love-nest, Scotty regarded me for a beat. I didn't want to stick around Casablanca anymore—the magic I'd felt in this bar moments before had utterly dissipated when my highway hero had flown the coop. The patio looked contrived to me, now—the little sundial looked tacky, not romantic. Who operated a day drinking tiki-bar? Where were we, some tropical port city at the turn of the century? Someone was trying too fucking hard.
“He doesn't lie, darling,” the owner wheezed, watching me as I slowly gathered my helmet (and composure). I wanted desperately to believe him, but I couldn't help but hear a thread of pity in Scotty's voice.
Making my way back through the public part of the club, I glanced around for the so-called “unsavory characters.” Scotty's place had the aura of a bar without a liquor license, so my first thought was: cops. Perhaps
plainclothesman were out here taking names, in some echo of prohibition justice. But here on the main floor, the waters seemed unperturbed. People were still dancing like sweet old fogies to sweet old tunes. There was laughter and drinking and no visible scumbags in sight.
Was it possible that I'd been the butt of some cruel joke? Why? Why would someone do that? Almost better to let me die on the highway than jump through all these humiliating hoops...
Before I succumbed to hot, frustrated tears for the second time in a day, I saw a familiar face in the bar crowd: Dixon, a senior member of the Coffin Cheaters. He raised his eyebrows over his beer on seeing me, making no attempt to suppress his shock. But then, of course he was shocked. Not only did I rarely elect to leave the MC compound for anything other than a joyride, but I wasn't exactly known for being a big party girl on the days the boys raised hell on site, let alone off in the Florida foothills. The old fool probably didn't even realize that I could hold my liquor, I just often chose not to. Especially when a bunch of handsy fuckers were so quick to refill my glass.
“Gisele!” Dixon called across the room, beginning to thwack his way through a cluster of dancing older couples towards me. “Wait up! Fancy seeing you here, sweet butt! Just wait'll I tell the boys!”
I just plain didn't feel like a catch-up session, so I did the rude thing: I mimed that I couldn't hear the grisly rider over the bar sounds. I pointed to my ear, mouthed 'sorry,' then fled for the roadside. Once I'd found safe solitude beside my bike, I indulged in a little breakdown.
I wiped away my tears and straightened my shoulders. I slid onto the bike and pushed the helmet over my face. Just as I began to feel better—if wistful—a glancing memory rushed to my mind's surface, so ridiculous I burst out laughing.
Baby. That sexy sap had called me baby. And here I thought no man would ever get away with that, let alone a man in leather pants.
Chapter Four
* * *
A few days passed at the compound with me trying to remain optimistic about the non-date, and merely content to enjoy the memory. I needed distractions for such a Jedi Mind Trick to work, so—I rose early to help with chores around the clubhouse, and made nice with Esse and Rayna and Nunu, lending an eager ear to their raucous sex stories. I offered to help a few of the riders with detailing, free of charge. One day, Dog took me into the city and we ambled around South Beach, passing a 40 between us and talking about nothing.
But through it all, there was a nagging undercurrent: it was like a piece of ticker tape was sluicing through my brain, constantly telegraphing “Carter Knox Carter Knox Carter Knox” into my thoughts. It was almost as if I'd dreamed him—his name, his laugh. At night, in my too-small childhood bunk bed, I couldn't keep my imagination from wandering in the direction of what might-have-been. I would touch myself then, picturing how things might have continued at Scotty's had those “unsavory characters” not shown up. In my dreams, Carter undressed me with the same tenderness with which he'd worked my spine—but then he handled my naked flesh with a fearsome strength. He pressed his full lips into every single one of my hidden crevices, he sucked me dry, he left me raw and damp—and after these imagined acts concluded, I would come like a warm flood. Sleep arrived easily on these nights, because I dreamt I was sleeping with him.
Because of all this, I hadn't given much thought to the fact that Scotty had so deliberately used “unsavory characters” as a ruse for Carter's escape. After all, the Cheaters had made no mention of a threat in town, and nothing on the garage's burgled police radio suggested that a new criminal element had come to Miami-Dade. If I'd been thinking properly, something about this might have struck me as a little suspicious—but I wasn't thinking properly. I was daydreaming about the boy, instead.
I finally wrote Tati, on a day when my emotions seemed too much to keep inside:
Hey Twin,
Glad to hear you're fully living the good life. We all miss you tons—especially the “ladies who lunch” (wink nudge nudge)—but I have to admit, I don't think I could ever buck up and follow a band around, like you. For one thing, aren't musicians awfully weasely? I like muscle. I've always liked muscle. Just one more reason why we're not EXACTLY the same person, contrary to—well—appearances.
Speaking of MUSCLE, I did have this weird moment the other day. Don't laugh: he's another rider. Don't laugh again: he picked me up on the side of the highway. Well, scratch that, he pulled me over when I had some debris in a tire. Stone Cold Fox, sissy—and I basically yelled in his face, “will you go for a drink with me??” He looks a little like George Clooney or something. Tall, dark and CLASICALLY handsome—but it looks like his nose has been broken before, so he's got the whole tough guy thing going for him, too. Anyways so we went for this drink, and things started to heat up, but he ran out in the middle because of—
I balled up the letter. Tati, I was sure, would laugh in my face reading the words as written. I sounded totally batshit, lusting after some random highway weirdo.
Just then, Dog ran into my bunk.
“Gizzy! Come quick! There's some kind of—summit going on!” Dog was still pretty new to the Cheaters' vocabulary (I'd never known us to have a “summit” before...), but the look on his face told me things were serious. We basically never had MC meetings—this club was so old and entrenched that its members moved around by instinct, like a flock of geese.
“Well don't just sit there, bright eyes! Put your boots on!”
Chapter Five
* * *
The only place large enough to house an MC meeting was an old, blown-out, barn-like structure behind the clubhouse. This ugly dungeon was so dilapidated you really had to use your imagination to picture it as a functional building. Most of the club believed it had once been some kind of plywood congregation, as our beachy part of Florida had scant use for a barn and the space's floorplan was laid out like a church¸ with one long section crossing a short one. Yet in a decidedly unholy way, the room was constantly humid, and usually smelled like rotting fruit. Also, the ground was littered with condom wrappers and cigarette butts, from all the MC parties going back across history, probably to before I was born. They called this place the Crossroads. I seldom ventured back there because I hated it so much.
Dixon was standing in the center of a circle of Coffin Cheaters, squelching across the damp ground in his heavy motorcycle boots. When he saw Dog and I rush in, he gave me an odd look—containing something like relief. Then he motioned to us to find seats, on upturned barrels or the damp ground. I collapsed into a squat.
Dixon wasn't the club president—that gentleman went by the name of Ra Rodney, and he was such a pothead it was rare to see him before the sun went down. And in all these years, no one had officially replaced my father as number two; in fact, much of the MC's formerly rigid decision-making structure had fallen by the wayside over time. Most club matters were handled through a kind of oligarchy of the senior members—there was Dixon, who'd been a Coffin Cheater for forty years; Flapper, who'd allegedly shot a member of a rival MC over a girl, back in the eighties; and finally, there was Tall Man—a stone-faced Choctaw 'Nam veteran who rarely spoke, but commanded everyone's respect nonetheless.
Rarely were all three men in one room, but here they stood before me.
“There's been a rumor around town,” Dixon began, pinching a wedge of chew from a tin and sliding it below his lower teeth. “About an old enemy of ours being back in town. There've been reports of a few—shall we say—unsavory characters.”
I almost giggled at this repetition. What was the likelihood that two people I knew well in 2014 both used this one old-timey-movie phrase, at different intervals? Oh, but...wait. Shit.
“That's right, you sons o' bitches. The Styx are back in town.”
An angry ripple tore through the crowd. I felt my limbs go numb. Dog, after shaking his head and murmuring a curse to the ground, noticed my pallor. He drew me under his smelly armpit, started patting my head like I was a Labrador.
>
“Didn't we run those sad sacks out?” called Viper, a young kid who'd already lost a lot of his natural beauty to an unfortunate love affair with methamphetamine.
“We did once before. We'll do it again.”
“I'd like to fucking SLICE those sons of whores. Tear every single one of 'em limb from limb, like a beast.”
“I wanna burn them. Nice and slow-like.”
“Motherfuckers gave me THIS SCAR! Everyone see it? Everyone seen my scar?”
“HEY.” A hush fell. Tall Man had done the improbable: risen to speak in a crowded room. “We are all full of anger. But attention must be paid, and pans must me considered. We will accomplish nothing unless we are strong.” Then, the cold-eyed prophet turned to me. Everyone's eyes seemed to follow suit.
“There is one among us who has lost family to these miserable dirtbags,” Dixon broke in, his voice rent with uncharacteristic pity. “Our very own baby girl here. So as we contemplate how to respond to the threat, I want you to think about the good men we've lost to the Knights of Styx.” The riders murmured a slow, dopy assent. These men, for all their bravery, were intimidated by planning. Coffin Cheaters were men of action, Coffin Cheaters were soldiers. I felt a burst of relief, imagining how all this rabble-rousing still might come to nothing. I sure as hell didn't want a fight. Especially when...
“There's another thing, boys. Before we all get to the drink,” this was Flapper now, his angry little voice cutting high above the crowd. “Because we must appear strong, it seems high-time that our MC re-establish some of its old hierarchies. With this in mind, we'd like to appoint a Den Mother, to help with some of the club's inner workings. Thankfully, we've already got a nice candidate for the job right here in our midst: Ms. Gisele Owens.”
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