by Kylie Walker
If Samantha was intimidated it wasn’t because entering a testosterone den looking like a twenty-buck hooker gave her pause. She wasn’t the biggest fan of being leered at and ogled, but she could handle it. Her heart was punching up her throat as she stepped out of the scalding, desert sun and into the gasoline-scented shadows, and it had everything to do with the company she was now joining. This wasn’t just a garage full of mechanics. This was a garage full of men that belonged to one of the most dangerous MC clubs in history. It was also not a club that you wanted to fuck with, for any reason. Samantha knew she was taking her life in her hands but she was young enough and perhaps naïve enough to believe the success she would achieve if she could pull this off and it would be worth it.
Once in the doorway she cleared her throat and transformed the nervous grimace she knew decorated her face, into a smile that she had used in the past to charm some of the nastiest snakes. She hoped it would work on the skulls as well. She jutted her hip out and locked eyes with a greasy-looking, forty-year-old, balding biker whose beer belly hung over his waistband. She focused on him on purpose. There were at least five other men in the garage…all hot, sweaty, tattoo and muscle. She wasn’t sure her cool and easy demeanor would hold up against one of them. The middle-aged man was safe. “Hi there.”
The fat guy narrowed his steely gaze on her as he polished some kind of tool on his stained undershirt. Out of her peripheral vision, she could see another mechanic, with piercing blue eyes begin to stalk toward her. The other men closed in as well and she thought she may have even heard a whistle.
“Are you lost?” one of the big men asked. Samantha looked at him with her big green eyes that she hoped looked innocent and as someone stopped the loud music she said, “An oil change would be real nice, thanks so much. I’m Samantha. And you are?” She was still addressing the old fat guy. At her introduction, he grunted and turned away. She was insulted enough that it distracted her from the fact that the big guy with the blue eyes was now hovering over her. She felt his cool breath cut across her shoulders and flinched. She turned slightly to angle her body away from him when she was suddenly face to face with another muscled up biker. She smiled again but she was sure they could hear the tremor in her voice as she held out her keys and said, “Here are the keys.”
The big biker indulged her by taking them. He tossed them to a younger looking mechanic who caught them with ease and started out in the hot sun toward the Prius.
“Just an oil change?” the man in front of her asked. She turned her timid attention back on him just as he said, “Are you sure there’s nothing else we can do for you?” The offer sounded distinctly suggestive.
He was so close that she instinctively wanted to step back and get him out of her personal space, but she sensed more than felt the wall of men behind her. Her thoughts were racing and when she didn’t respond one of the men behind her cooed in her ear, “Samantha, Samantha, you ain’t from around here, are ya?”
“I’m from Vegas,” she admitted. She turned to face him cautiously just as someone else flicked a lock of her strawberry blonde hair off her damp shoulder.
“You came all this way just for a little tune up?”
“Nah, she didn’t,” another one answered for her. He had a crew cut and rugged good looks, chest as firm as a brick wall, forearms, and biceps like iron bars. Samantha pegged him for late thirties, 6’4”, and according to her extensive research, she would guess him to be Jared Hurst. Jared was a formidable member of the Black Skulls but one who wasn’t high enough on the totem pole to make executive decisions. If he had known the late Johnny Fox at all while he was the Vice President and a heavy hitter within the club, his knowledge likely wouldn’t include Fox’s presumed secrets and lies and which of those deep-running flaws of his had ultimately gotten him killed and dumped in a shallow grave in the middle of the desert. It’s amazing how things out here in the middle of nowhere were growing by leaps and bounds. Who would have guessed ten years ago that a Ralph’s Supermarket would be put in that spot? A spot formerly in the center of nowhere. Obviously not whoever killed Johnny Fox and dumped his body.
“I doubt she cares about her car,” Jared said as he smirked down at her. His gaze darted from her plump lips to her perky tits in a way that was impossible to misread. “I think I know a skull fucker when I see one.”
“A skull fucker?” she questioned, keeping her voice even in its flirtatious tone but feeling more than slightly unnerved at his forward-barking. The context alone was unmistakable.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he growled, stepping in a bit closer. “If you’re shy, we can lower the garage door. Make it nice and dark for you. Although most of our skull-fuckers are anything but shy. It almost takes balls to come all the way out here and just waltz in here like you did. I don’t think you have any balls hidden in those pants, though, do you, babe?”
Samantha laughed. It was a nervous laugh but she had done her best to make it sound as confident as possible. She wondered if she should meet them halfway. Confessing to being a skull-fucker might get her a quicker ‘in’ than just a regular old customer needing an oil change might. She made a snap decision and then said, “Okay it’s true. I am a hardcore fan of the club. How could I not be? Look at you guys.” She got arrogant smirks and confident grins all the way around. “I finally got the time and the courage to come all the way out here and meet you. But, I also have to admit that I came out here with a particular skull in mind. No offense to the rest of you, but I really have a thing for Mr. Boone.”
The fat one snorted a mean laugh from the side of the garage in complete anticipation of her point then called out, “You ain’t got a shot in hell of getting Rodney Boone to give two shits about you, I don’t care how great your ass looks.”
“He’s a little old for you,” Jared agreed as a crooked smile came over his mouth. “But his son’s not. Is that who you’re talking about? You out here looking for Asa?”
Asa Boone, she thought, the man with no photos online. In all her research, Asa amounted to strictly a name with an important affiliation. He was the son of the Black Skulls president and chairman, Rodney Boone, which meant that Samantha would definitely like to talk to him. “Is he as sexy as his daddy?”
Jared looked like he wasn’t sure whether to smile or vomit at her suggestion that Rodney Boone was sexy. He may have been so in his youth, but the hard-partying, rough living life he had led into his fifties had not left him well-preserved. Some women liked them old and tore up, though, who were they to say she wasn’t one of them. “Rodney don’t have time for skull fuckers, but Asa might want a shot,” Jared said. “Yo’ Strike!” The young biker who had driven Samantha’s Prius up to the edge of the garage and was now poking around under the hood angled his head out. “Why don’t you show our good friend, Sam, on into Poison and see if Asa ain’t around?”
Someone cupped Samantha’s ass and she slapped their thick fingers off without glancing over her shoulder to see who was responsible. She squeezed out of the circle of bikers that seemed in no rush to step aside and walked, slow and steady, hips swaying and stilettos clicking over concrete, towards the twenty-something, brown-haired biker they called Strike.
When she reached him, she looked back at the men and shot Jared Hurst an easy smile for good measure. He didn’t smile back. He was looking at her with a thoughtful look as if still trying to believe she was here to simply fuck one of the skulls or not. She turned back to Strike. She had noticed that all the bikers were wearing black leather vests that were open down the front. The vests were called kuttes, and Strike didn’t have one. She turned back toward Jared and caught sight of the back of his kutte. It depicted a black skull laid over a white circle. The name Black Skulls arched over the top of the decal and Jared’s last name curved up around the bottom. Samantha had thought the design was badass the first time she saw it. She wasn’t usually impressed with the bad boy thing, but something about being amped up on the adrenaline that had followed
her out from Las Vegas had her on the edge and all of this muscle and testosterone was getting to her a little bit.
“Come on,” Strike said to her. She turned her attention back to him and as he walked toward the bar, Poison, she followed.
“Too hot for leather?” she asked as they crossed the dusty apex.
He screwed his face up, squinting through the merciless glare, then touched eyes with her. “I’m not in yet.”
“Not in the Black Skulls?”
“Still paying my dues, proving myself.”
“Ah,” she said, as they came to the heavy, wooden door of the bar. There was something very wild west about this remote location—an old-timey saloon pitched at a quasi-angle across from an automotive garage, not another business insight, a world owned and operated by the Black Skulls—but that’s what Samantha liked about it.
And best of all, she was the only reporter here. She was in the throes of out-scooping every last one of them. She could feel it.
“That’s why they call me Strike,” he went on, holding the door open for her to step inside the dark, quiet, and empty bar. “The second I showed up and told them I wanted in, Asa said, three strikes and you're out, that’s how it works.”
The kid let out a nervous and breathy laugh that brought out his gleaming innocence which was remarkably attractive. If she wasn’t in her late twenties...
“How many strikes do you have left?” she asked, while in the back of her mind realizing how brutally stagnant the air was in the room. No AC. There wasn’t even a damn fan.
Strike shot her a sideways glance, smiling as he told her, “Enough. I have enough strikes left to do alright.”
They stood in the middle of a wide, oblong room with wooden floors that appeared to have taken a beating or two. The bar was as weathered as the town of Death Falls itself. On the wall behind the bar was a thick, metal sign that read, Black Skulls MC, Las Vegas Chapter and the rest of the walls were covered in polished hubcaps and posters of bikini babes from the 80’s, though framing the latter was admittedly a nice touch.
To the left of the bar was a closed door where men's voices murmured from the other side.
As Strike neared the door, keeping an ear out while making no motion to actually knock, he commented, “The meeting’s still going on.”
“Meeting?”
He met her gaze and nodded without elaborating. Instead, he started up behind the bar and began listing, “Bud, Bud Light, Coors, Amstel-”
“Ah,” she softly stalled, knowing full well that drinking in the afternoon would not be productive. “I might not.”
Her hesitant answer made him beam what appeared to be a highly aroused smile. Oh right, she thought, he thinks I’m going to fuck some guy, because I’m a groupie, and he’s impressed I can do it stone cold sober.
The plain fact of the matter was that she didn’t need a drink or a twenty-two-year-old babysitter. She needed to press her ear against that door and overhear every last damn word she could. Of course the MC committee—the president, VP, sergeant-at-arms, and treasurer—would be in the throes of a serious meeting. The skeletal remains of one of their own, who had gone missing a decade prior, had just been found dead this morning where a supermarket was supposed to go. At least they were presumably the bones. That had yet to be authenticated but it was doubtful they had come back as anyone else’s. Mainly, even the mention that it might be Johnny would have the cops out here sniffing around the clubhouse and she was sure none of them would want that. Reporters would be even less welcomed since they weren’t bound by the same rules the cops had to follow.
Samantha could feel it in her bones that they were strategizing right now on the other side of that door, which meant that they were saying things that she needed to record. They might even be discussing which of them had actually killed Fox all those years ago and why. “Hey, Strike,” she sang sweetly. “My Prius isn’t going to lube itself.”
“You don’t mind?” he asked, his brows pinched up to his forehead. He was already walking out from the bar. “Asa will be out in a sec I’m sure.”
“I’m not worried,” she assured him, offering a coy smile. “And I can entertain myself in the meantime.”
“Asa’s a lucky guy,” he said as he swaggered backward to the door and Samantha fought the urge to roll her eyes. Yeah, she thought. Like I’m actually going to fuck some guy I’ve never met just because he’s in a motorcycle gang. She knew from her research that some women did. A lot of women as a matter of fact. It was hard for her to wrap her head around but to each their own. She was here to do a job and she meant to do it well. Strike winked at her right before he turned on his heel and thrusted the door open.
The second she was alone in the dimly lit bar, quiet all but for rock music playing faintly from the garage across the way and the rise and fall of arguing men on the other side of the closed door, Samantha pranced on tiptoes to minimize her clicking stilettos until she was standing ear-to-door. She kept one eye on the front door, her senses alerted so as not to blow her cover. As she listened, she could pick out a few words—murder, dirty dealings, only a matter of time—but there was no way for her to grasp the context or the overall points the men were making. Their gravelly voices were overlapping too much, sometimes barking, murmuring otherwise.
Beads of sweat rolled down her neck and dripped between her breasts both from the sweltering hot room and the fear of being discovered. Her heart raced, causing her chest to heave in a never-ending flutter. She wanted this so bad that she hoped to eavesdrop something groundbreaking, but life was rarely so simple. If anything, she ought to stop hoping and start plotting. What was she even going to say to Asa Boone when he did come out that door? What was she planning on asking? And how would she weave her journalistic questions into casual and of course highly suggestive conversation without causing him to become suspicious? She was so green but she firmly believed that her resolve to do this would outweigh the fact that she was quite simply, a rookie.
Just as Samantha reminded herself how smoking hot she looked and that it was highly likely it didn’t even matter what she said the door was suddenly pushed open and whacked her in the side of the head. She staggered sideways and her vision was slightly blurred. She sensed more than saw the man that had just pushed his way out of the room. He stood still, watching her until her vision came back into focus and she was suddenly taking him in.
Black boots, jeans loosely hugging his calves but tightly clinging around his muscular thighs, a shiny belt buckle hovering just north of his defined bulge... She righted her balance and plowed her fingers through her wavy hair even though all she wanted to do was rub the side of her head and tell the guy off for almost smashing her face in with the door.
“Can I help you?” he asked in a smooth, deep tone that seemed to perfectly capture both his rugged good looks and the bad boy glint in his black eyes. He stood about 6’2” with brown hair sheared short on the sides in an almost faux-hawk crew cut, a crisp wide jaw and light dusting of stubble across his chin and cheeks, and he had lips that had the power to hypnotize. Jesus Christ he was sex on a stick and everything inside of Samantha was either shaking or on fire. Whoever this man was, as far as looks went he was a distinct cut above the rest, and Samantha was having a hard time getting her brain to work because of it.
His forearms and threaded biceps completely covered in tattoos and that chest! The white, wife-beater he wore was so thin that Samantha could trace the lines of his body underneath—the firm mounds of his pecs, his washboard abs and the muscles that wrapped his hips curving down towards his bulging, jeans-encased package!
But none of it got her heart pounding quite like those dark eyes of his and the laid-back expression on his sexy face, the intrigued mix of curiosity and skepticism that veiled what appeared to be smoldering interest.
He liked what he saw...
There was no mistaking it.
He was into her. Hopefully, this guy could help her as much as hooking
up with Asa Boone. She wouldn’t mind really hooking up with him. Another time and place maybe…
“Yes, you can help me,” she finally said, sinking into her hip the second she remembered the part she was playing. “I’m looking for Asa Boone.” She suddenly hoped Asa wasn’t here. She wanted this one instead.
A strange and subtle smile came over his face as he studied her a moment longer. “You found him.”
Chapter 2
If Samantha was glad about anything, it was the fact that the other Black Skulls members hadn’t filtered out of the meeting room. Her impression was that their meeting was very much in full swing, which meant that she had Asa to herself, at least for a little while.
And even though maybe four seconds had lapsed since he’d indicated that she had found her man, Samantha felt the instant and awkward pressure of having completely dropped the conversational ball.
Yet at the same time, staring up into those black eyes of his, drinking in the sight of his reserved interest in her, she felt bizarrely comfortable despite their mutual silence.
Pauses, she thought to herself. That’s how first kisses start. But kissing him would be an act of insanity. People don’t kiss the second they meet one another just because a room is empty or the conversation stilted.
Why the hell hadn’t she said something yet?
Samantha, say something!