Playing With Monsters

by Layla Wolfe

  It was an ingenious and sensual move for her to make, and Roman spurted a few drops of come inside his fucking jeans just as some moron bellowed into the hallway,

  “Cutlasses at Wagon Box!”

  There was a sudden, almost painful silence as the jukebox died and the other six couples in the hallway abruptly stopped rutting.

  Again, the idiot shrieked, “Cutlasses are at Wagon Box! We’re out of here, men!”

  Women squealed with excitement, men checked their side arms, and more than one brother checked a sword strapped to his back. Roman felt the wind through his hair as people stampeded down the hall and nearly spun him around with the cyclone of their energy.

  “I have to find Wolf!” cried Gudrun.

  Roman knew he had to find Wolf, too, so they joined the blitz of people racing into the main clubhouse.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  GUDRUN

  It was strange to be suddenly ripped from Roman’s arms and thrust into this chaos.

  It was almost like a stampede of people during an earthquake, everyone trying to get out the door at the same time. But Roman stayed glued to me until we found Wolf Glaser, who was jumping up and down on his white tennis shoes.

  Roman instructed the Prospect, “Ride toward the front left next to Ford. I’m going to tail gun it in the back with some of these Assassins and Flagstaff brothers, try to blend in and keep my eye out.”

  I thought Wolf would just grab me and run, but Roman held me back. He grabbed a handful of my hair at the back of my head, forcing me to look at him. “Be safe.” The intensity in his voice and eyes almost scared me. “I will fucking find you when we get to Two Guns, Gudrun. Ford can’t keep me away from you anymore. If there’s going to be trouble I’m going to be there to protect you.”

  “We’ve got to go,” said Wolf with urgency as some guy wider than he was tall slammed past him.

  Still holding my hair, Roman kissed me. You know how you can tell from a kiss whether or not you still want to date that person? Well, I knew from the kiss that I wanted to marry Roman. I know that sounds corny, but sometimes corny things are true. His mouth was sensuous, talented, even artistic. The bitten-off tip of his tongue was uniquely him. He had imagination, passion, and the sexiest sort of lust I’d ever felt. I was sure he was overly experienced with the groupies, and maybe he was just displaying his skill. But when a simple kiss has my inner pussy quivering for more, there is no denying that.

  Then suddenly, I was flying into the parking lot too, swept along with the crowd.

  Like before, we rode swiftly into formation. It was almost beautiful, like a pack of Blue Angels riding with skill and forethought. Yet we were just out of Flagstaff when my thoughts overrode the rumble of fifty Harleys gunning it through the high desert.

  The one fantastic and exciting thing that kept running through my head was this is my new life. This is me. There is no going back to Tucson. I had been feeling bad about leaving my mother behind with that Armando dickwad. She had depended upon the kindness of morons my entire life. But how could I help her when I hadn’t even helped myself? The first order of business was to find Shannon. As we drew closer to the meteor crater, I felt her presence even more sharply. I knew she probably wouldn’t be found anywhere near her car, and my only hope was that as a valuable commodity we also probably wouldn’t discover her body. Only when we found Shannon and busted those Chinese traffickers—and Riker—only then could I move on.

  But did bikers “bust” their enemies? Bikers didn’t work hand in hand with the police. Could I imagine Roman, for example, dialing 911 to report that he had the culprits in hand and would hold them at gunpoint until the cops arrived? If the Chinese had moved into Utah as seemed to be their M.O.that was kidnapping across state lines, a federal offense. Would Roman call the FBI and inform them he had a few Chinese triad thugs tied up and would patiently wait until the nearest fed could come and handcuff them?

  I didn’t think that was how it worked. More than likely, Roman would just waste whoever got in his way. I was in love with a murderer. And it’s telling that it was the “in love” part of this thought that put the fear of God into me, not the murdering part. Yep, I’m in love with Roman Serpico. My stepbrother. And I had to giggle at that with my arms around Wolf Glaser’s waist. He probably thought I was crying.

  The little burg of Two Guns was already overwhelmed with bikers by the time we pulled onto the dinky Main Street. Apparently tipped off to our arrival, a couple of water trucks were driving up and down the street hosing them down while a street sweeper followed. At first I thought they were being polite and welcoming. But as Wolf and I pulled off our lids, he told me,

  “The sweeper is spitting out soap to make it difficult for us to race.”

  Faux Pas, also stowing his brain bucket on his handlebars, laughed. “In the past, if we dare try to race, they shoot us off our rides with giant streams of water from the fire trucks.”

  Just as Faux Pas said this, something like a cannonball landed on the asphalt next to us. Wolf automatically covered me with his arms, but Faux Pas glared up at a rooftop. “Putain enfants! Aspirer beurre de mon cul! We’re going to shoot you out of your nests if you keep throwing bricks at us!”

  Because it was a fucking brick, and when I looked up a row of tiny heads shouted some shit at us, then quickly ducked farther back on the rooftop out of sight.

  Wolf, more relaxed now that the Bamboo Boys weren’t lobbing grenades at us, picked up the brick and chucked it back onto the roof. “Goodman motherfucking little rug rats! Didn’t your parents ever teach you any fucking manners?” But, contrary to his protestations that he had a workout regime, his throw wasn’t very robust, and the brick wound up hitting some more fancy brickwork at the crest of the building that told us it had been built in 1897. It completely ruined the artwork, sending a shower of brick dust down onto the sidewalk.

  Wolf turned to me. “You’re not going to tell Tracy that happened.”

  “Not me,” I vowed.

  But Faux Pas thought it was hilarious. He clapped Wolf on the back. “Good one, Prospect. You just wrecked a historical building.”

  “Nah, nah!” yelled an audacious rooftop kid. “Fucking bikers think you’re so hot! You throw like a fucking girl!”

  “Cumon!” bellowed Wild Man, who stood with a group of Bare Boners whose names I was just learning. There was Speed Shellmound, the tall gangly brother of Madison and June. He was head wrench at The Citadel for all of the Illuminati Trucking heavy construction equipment. There was the short, rotund guy who looked like someone had plopped a Ronald McDonald wig on his head, Kneecap. He looked harmless, but apparently he’d been fucking Knoxie’s ex-wife a few years ago, so Knoxie had taken out his knees with a baseball bat. He still walked with a cane. Then there were pass-arounds Rhetta, Gia, and Sunyade, former disciples rescued from that bizarre wilderness cult where Riker had buried Ziggy Fulton. They would never become old ladies because no one gave a “Property Of” patch to a woman who’d been used by every brother, but at least they were out of the cult.

  “It’s a party inside! Wet T-shirt time!” Wild Man bellowed, before diving into the dark bar I assumed was the Wagon Box.

  I was starting to think that I wanted a “Property Of” patch, and I automatically swiveled my head around looking for Roman. He was either inside the Wagon Box or was one of the crowd farther down the street revving their engines to test their riding skills behind the street sweeper. I knew Roman was fond of hot dogging it, doing daredevil work with his custom bike, but I sure hoped he wasn’t being that stupid.

  “Where are the Cutlasses?” Faux Pas asked a passing Assassin who was already swigging from a tequila bottle.

  “We fucking de-patched two of them inside the Box Wagon,” the guy slurred, waving his bottle around. “And those are the only two we’ve seen.”

  Faux Pas’ face fell, disappointed. He shrugged. “Well, maybe we can still watch the T-shirt contest.” And he ambled off.

/>   I knew Faux Pas was married to Sapphire, who was along on the run, and they even had a teen daughter. Taking Wolf’s arm, we headed toward the notorious bar, and I asked him,

  “How does that work? Don’t the wives get jealous if their men are watching a wet T-shirt contest?” Then something struck me. “Or do they…participate?”

  “Oh, no,” Wolf said cheerfully. “That would be far too slutty for them to participate. Old ladies have class and style. But they do have to learn to turn their heads to certain things. Most of them probably won’t even be inside the Wagon Box. They might be heading up to Butch Trucks’ land to set up the tents, shit like that, get some potato salad ready, you know the drill. They don’t particularly want to know what their men are doing most of the time. You know what I mean.”

  “Not really,” I said. “But I’d like to.”

  A guy in a cowboy hat gestured toward the Wagon Box’s door, allowing me to go first. I thought that was polite, until I wondered what a cowboy was doing there the day the place was overrun with bikers. Once inside, though, I didn’t have the bandwidth to give it a second thought.

  What a fucking mob scene. There were two sweetbutts dancing on the bar wearing panties, shortie shirts, and cowgirl boots. I didn’t recognize them, so they must live nearby, just waiting for the annual biker run to cut loose. For lack of a hose, some Flagstaff guys had gotten behind the bar and were squirting their boobs and pussies with streams of beer. No music played, and it didn’t have to, because it was deafening in there just with the hoots and roars of seventy outlaws. The year 2007 had seen a smoking ban in Arizona, prompting me to quit the habit, but the air was so thick with cigarette as well as pot smoking, I was nearly knocked unconscious. I couldn’t see a single worker who wasn’t a member of our club anywhere in sight.

  A couple of brothers—I won’t name names—were on the bar with the whores. They humped them from behind, joggled their tits lewdly, and for all purposes looked about to fuck them on the bar. I hoped to hell Roman wasn’t getting off on this, and I quickly found him at the back of the large barn-like room, calmly and soberly playing pool with Ford and Knoxie.

  He would have dropped his pool stick when he saw me if Wolf Glaser hadn’t grabbed it from him. He wrapped his long arms around me and squeezed the daylights out of me while murmuring,

  “Love…my love…”

  My love! Was that almost like telling someone you loved them? My heart had been ruined, stomped upon, and ground into bits by my husband’s death, so I wasn’t about to believe that noise. But I nuzzled his neck back, reveling in the hot, manly scent of him.

  “Get a room!” teased a brother.

  “Manhole!” advised another.

  I pulled back a bit, looking at his stunning face with unfocused eyes. “Manhole?” Why was someone calling me a manhole? I had hardly fucked anyone since my husband had died. I had heard someone use that name before, and frankly, it was offensive.

  “Never mind,” said Roman, grabbing my hand and dragging me into a darkened back hallway.

  “Don’t go riding bareback, Kiosk!” yelled someone else.

  A thought occurred to me. “Are you Manhole and Kiosk?”

  “That doesn’t matter. We’re going to hide back in this bar manager’s fucking office until we hear fighting start. Then I’ll have to leave you—temporarily.”

  “Roman,” I persisted, “do you ever, ah, I mean, participate in activities such as what they’re doing out in the bar?”

  “Get out of here!” Roman snapped at a rutting couple inside the office. The guy’s bare, white butt shined like a full moon and rippled like a plastic bag full of pudding. He grunted and lunged over the woman who was splayed on the unfortunate manager’s desk. Invoices and purchase orders were slipping and sliding everywhere, and I thought for sure the guy would shoot Roman for interrupting him.

  But something in Roman’s voice must have communicated authority—or maybe the guy recognized Roman’s voice from Little Accident’s music. The guy gasped, leaped off the poor woman, and twirled to face Roman, as though busted servicing a gay glory hole.

  It was Kneecap, the ridiculously clownish, waddling Ronald McDonald twin I had just seen out front of the Wagon Box!

  How the hell had he gotten in here so fast, and more than that—managed to score this fake-titted sweetbutt so fast? He must be some kind of ladies’ man to have taken Knoxie’s wife away from him. Knoxie looked like he should be beating up international fugitives while surfing in Hawaii, and this guy looked like…well, like he should be selling artery-clogging burgers.

  While Roman literally took the guy by the scruff of the shirt and tossed him out with his pants still around his knees, I did the same for the girl.

  “What do you see in that guy?” I whispered.

  “I could become someone’s old lady!” she declared. “Just need to fuck the right guys.”

  Was that how it worked? I was under the impression that club members wouldn’t seriously date a slut who had whored her way through the brothers and hang-arounds. As Roman slammed and locked the door, I asked,

  “That’s not true, is it?”

  “What?”

  “She just told me if a girl fucks the right guys, she can become an old lady.”

  A cloud passed over Roman’s face. Taking me by the arms, he leaned me back against a two-drawer file cabinet. I sat on a stack of toppling file folders, slippery under my ass. “No. Of course not. She’s misinformed. Of course, guys being guys, they’ll fuck anything that can’t run fast enough. But when it comes times to choosing an old lady…” He examined my face as though I was an insect under glass. “They want a woman who is choosy. They don’t want to feel like one of a hundred thousand guys who’ve been there, you know? I know women want to feel special. But I think men do, too.”

  “Like me,” I stated. “I’m choosy.”

  Why was he chuckling? What was so funny about that? “Choosy? Hell, Gudrun. You don’t choose anyone.”

  Oh. That. I stuck out my lower lip. “Sort of like you, no? You should be the prime property of patch holders around here, seeing as how you don’t choose anyone.”

  His eyes roamed my face. “I’ve chosen someone.”

  I wanted to make him say it. “Who, Roman? Tell me who.” I laughed a little. I think I use humor to lighten intense situations sometimes. “Tell me who, and I’ll beat her to smithereens.”

  He stroked my hair. “You know who. You. I don’t want anyone else if I can’t have you. And it’s my duty to keep you safe.”

  Hearing him say it aloud sent a rush of emotion through me. I spiked my fingers through his glossy, thick hair, the spiked ends like a brush against my palm. It was one thing to imagine, hope, and fantasize. It was another thing altogether when the man was standing in front of you, his erection pulsating against your clit, declaring his intentions. I touched the tip of my nose to his and whispered against his mouth.

  “I’ve made up my mind too. I only want you.”

  He groaned when I made as if to kiss him. Sometimes a little bit of devil can get into me, and suddenly I felt playful as hell. Maybe it was the wild party and rumble that had overtaken the entire town. Yeah, that was it. Maybe it was the concept that Roman would throw away his long-time celibacy all for me. Whatever had gotten into me, I fisted the lapels of his leather cut and instead of kissing him, I snarled mischievously.

  “Then sit your ass on this fucking filing cabinet.”

  I twirled him around like a ballroom dancer. I think he was so surprised he went easily. I hadn’t really thought much of it through, though. From the thunderous stomping and whooping in the main part of the bar, someone was probably doing those sluts on top of the bar. Men stomped in unison, uttering that stupid “Woo! Woo! Woo!” that either meant someone was doing someone on top of a bar, or two superhero women were tearing each other’s clothes off while mud wrestling.

  I knew it was a sin almost as bad as a life without tattoos to grab a biker’s cut, s
o my hands moved to Roman’s belt buckle. His rippled, concave abs excited me. I used to strive for perfection like that when modeling, and I knew how difficult it was to achieve. So one loving hand lingered over the rigidity of his stomach while the other thumbed his pewter buckle free. The ground vibrated with the stamping, and I knew we didn’t have much time. Roman would have to run any minute now.

  “I want you, Roman,” I breathed against his mouth. Palming his hard-on through the jeans, it was hot, alive, almost throbbing in my hand. I had felt the length and breadth of it before against my pubic bone, or spied it through that nearly sheer white towel wrapped around his waist. I knew he was hung like a fucking racehorse, and this thrilled me from an aesthetic point of view. Now I slid one hand down over his burning pubic bone, the hair crisp and moist under my palm. I wrapped my fingers around it at the base, the nakedness of his virility making me jump from side to side, like a kid eager to play.

  His fingertips massaged the back of my skull. “We can’t do it right now, Gudrun. I don’t want to do it in some fucking disgusting office ten feet from where Kneecap was just boning—ah!”

  My hand lunged to cradle the entirety of his penis in my palm. When I finally had a big handful of that naked meat, a wave of sheer lust raced down my innards. My knees went weak as I squeezed his long, fat boner. My uterus shuddered in some ancient biological response to having such a hot, plump dick in my grasp. I could actually feel a tiny trickle of pussy juice emanate from between my cunt lips, itching as it crawled across my inner thigh.

  His hand jumped to clasp mine, as though preventing me from jacking him. “Look,” he gasped, “we just can’t fucking do this now. You deserve better. The boys are going to need me any fucking second.”

  But my free hand raced eagerly to slide between his ass and his jeans, cranking them down over his lovely haunch like opening a can of sex. His beautiful dick sprang free, my hands vigorously roaming over his bared thighs, the muscled slope of his ass, his full ball sac.