by Paula Cox
“How’s that?” I ask.
I finish my beer and hold up two fingers to Francis, who starts making our second round of drinks.
“Well, all girls like to be appreciated, I guess.” She blushes. “I don’t get off on it or anything,” she adds quickly.
“You’re a little dirty, aren’t you, Lana?”
She swallows, pouts again, eyes flashing golden and playful. Goddamn, those eyes, they make me think what it’d be like to see them go wide with me deep inside of her, make me think what it’d be like to see them go wide with shock as my cock opens her up and she’s there wondering if she can take it all. Make me think what it’d be like if I was drilling her from behind and she’s twisting her head around and looking at me wide-eyed and full of pleasure.
“Maybe,” she says, and then leans back as Francis places the drinks down. “I really shouldn’t.”
But then she picks it up and takes a sip.
“How old are you, Lana?” I ask.
“Twenty-two. You?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“You’re an old man,” she jokes.
“You’re a kid,” I retort.
Our eyes meet. We laugh. I sip my beer.
“So are you living at home with your parents?”
“My mom, yeah, though it’s like she isn’t really there. She drinks all day and claims disability for headaches. My dad is in jail for petty theft, his third—no, fourth time now.” She stops, shaking her head. “I didn’t mean to lay all that on you. This vodka’s going to my head.”
“It’s alright,” I say, realizing it is, it really is, I am really okay with it. What is happening to me right now? Usually, a woman starts chirping on about her life and her parents and all that shit, I’m done. I zone out. I get out of the situation as fast as I can. But with Lana I don’t mind hearing about it too much. Maybe it’s the beer, I tell myself, the beer and those eyes and those lips and those huge breasts squashed into that too-tight bikini top.
She’s about to say something else when the dive-bar fucks from outside stumble into the bar, shoving each other and shouting and talking too loudly and generally being assholes ruining everybody else’s good time. Their leader is a tall, wide man, a vending-machine man with a shaved head and a swastika tattooed under his left eye, a teardrop tattooed under his right, wearing a tank top to show off his vending-machine bulk. He wasn’t with the dive-bar fucks outside. He must be the cavalry.
One of his minions, a skinny mini-me of the vending-machine man with a tank top and Swastika of his own, taps him on the shoulder and points at us. Lana, who has turned to watch them enter, sees this and swivels quickly to me.
“We should go,” she mutters. “This doesn’t look good.”
“It’s fine,” I say, voice flat. I feel that deep stirring, distant and faraway, that always comes before violence. A stirring which followed me through my childhood in the trailer park. A stirring which moved through my body every time my drunk father sat me down and downed glass after glass of whisky, waving his revolver around and screaming at me that one of these days he was going to use it, eyes red, cheeks redder. “Don’t move.”
The leader swaggers over, all bluster, and stands over the table.
“Listen, pal,” he says, “you disrespected my friend here and I don’t take too fuckin’ kindly to it. Apologize or I’m goin’ to smash your fuckin’ teeth in—”
I move with a fighter’s speed and instinct, speed and instinct honed in junkyards and playgrounds and alleyways, fighting off kids twice my age and twice my size, speed and instinct honed by countless hours of bloody violence.
I jump up from my seat, grab his arm, twist it, and slam his head into the table, holding him still. By the time he knows what I’m doing, his face is already smashed against the table.
“You and your friends are going to leave,” I say, “or there really will be trouble.”
There is anger in me, and pain, and hatred, as if all the years of my past in the trailer park are resurfacing now, swirling in my chest. But the anger does not show itself on the outside. Outside, I am calm. I am the leader of the Tidal Knights. And no bastard marches up to the leader of the Tidal Knights when he’s on a date and tells him shit.
I give the man’s arm a twist. “Understand?”
His minions watch, waiting to see which way it’ll go. If there boss stands tall, they’ll fight. If not, they’ll flee.
The boss does not stand tall. He whimpers. “Yes, okay. I get it. Damn.”
“Alright, then.”
I let go of his arm and take a step back, ready to do violence if it comes to it. But the leader just rotates his arm, wincing, and then turns and paces from the bar, barging a couple of his own men out of the way. A few people in the bar stare at me. I stare back, and they all look away, and then, once all the fuss is over, I return to my seat.
I realize Lana is watching me, biting her lip, a glint in her eye that wasn’t there before. When I look at her, she quickly glances down at the table and releases her lip.
“Wow,” she says, then finishes her vodka in a quick sip. “Wow.”
“Another drink?” I ask.
“Yes. Sure.”
I drain my beer and hold up my fingers to signal for more drinks.
“Do I sense that you got some thrill from that, Lana?” I say, as Francis brings the drinks over.
“No,” she shoots back, a little too sternly, overcompensating. “Absolutely not. I am a classy lady, Kade, the classiest lady you’ve ever met.”
I nod. “That’s probably true, actually.”
“Really?” she says. “The classiest lady you’ve ever met works as a bikini barista?”
“Well, fuck it.” I shrug. “You’re not hurting anyone, except maybe yourself.”
“Myself?”
“That guy earlier. He didn’t seem so friendly.”
“He’s an exception. Mostly the guys just like to look at you. A couple say crude things. That’s all.”
“And you kind of like it, sometimes,” I say.
She nods, only showing slight embarrassment. “It isn’t as black and white as that. Nothing ever is, in my experience. Take you, for example.”
“Me?” I sip my beer. I’m starting to feel a little tipsy. Not even close to drunk, but a little farther from sober than I was when we got in here. Lana is tipsier; her face is crimson and flushed and her eyes have that hazy gloss to them, but she’s not drunk either. “What about me?”
“You’re a violent biker,” she says. “A man I should be afraid of. The Tidal Knights. That’s a biker gang, right? So you’re a member of a—”
“Gotta stop you there, little lady. I’m the founder and leader of the Tidal Knights, not just a member.”
She looks at me anew, with fresh eyes, and that same glinting. Excitement and lust. I know enough about women to recognize it when I see it. She wants something tonight and I’ve got a mind to give it to her.
“Okay, you’re the leader of a biker gang and a violent man. I should be afraid of you. And yet I am still here. And yet I am afraid of you, a little. So you see how people are a little more complicated than is often assumed.”
“I guess so,” I say. “I never really give it much thought, truth be told.”
“I suppose I have a lot of time to think when I’m standing there between customers.”
We finish our drinks and then I lean back and just watch her for a little while. I could get used to watching her, watching her all day and night, with those flushed cheeks and that way of looking at me like she can’t quite decide how far to go, even though I can tell she wants something from me, something real.
“I’m staying at a motel,” I tell her.
“Okay . . .”
“I think we should take a cab back there.”
“What about your bike?”
“Francis won’t let anything happen to it. He knows the Tidal Knights.”
“Why would I go back to your motel with you, an
yway?” she says, but her eyes betray her, the way she struggles not to bite her lip betrays her.
“We both know why,” I say, holding her gaze.
“I’m not that kind of girl,” she says, and then she reaches across the table and lays her hand on mine. “Usually. Don’t judge me in the morning, Kade.”
“I’ll never judge you,” I say. “I promise that. I’d never dream of it.”
I stand up and walk around the table, reach down and lift her to her feet, and then lean down and kiss her hard on the lips.
She moans, and so do I.
Chapter Four
Lana
When he kisses me, I forget about everything for a second.
All my life, there have been certain emotions swirling around inside of me, even if they often become background noise. I will be walking from the bus stop to the Twin Peaks or serving a customer or just watching TV and my mind will be replaying Dad’s ranting and drug-taking and Mom’s absolute submission to defeat, her groans and her occasional sighs as she sips from her hipflask, or I will be thinking about how I am a failure and don’t even have enough money yet to move to Seattle. All these depressing, anxious feelings.
But when Kade kisses me, I forget.
He presses his lips firmly into mine, so firmly I feel the solid touch of our teeth through the flesh of our lips, passion making the pain quiet, easy to ignore. I fall into him, laying my body against his jacket, feeling my breasts press against the mass of his muscular body. Then I break the kiss off and look up at him, in his embrace.
“Let’s go,” I say.
He nods, takes my hand, and we leave the bar.
I meant it when I told him I’m not that kind of girl. I have never been that kind of girl. I’ve had partners, of course, but I’ve never thrown myself around. I’ve never felt like I owed men anything, and so I have never given them more than I wanted to. But now, with Kade, my lust overrides everything; this has never happened to me before. It’s like my lust is a separate entity inside of me, driving me forward. I want it. I want it bad. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted it before. Kade hails a cab and tells the driver the address of the motel. We don’t touch in the car, but lust rises like a scent between us, animals waiting for the pesky eyes of the cab driver to be gone so we can fall upon each other.
He pays the driver, and we walk quickly across the motel parking lot, past old cars and over the gum-plastered concrete and then into Room 45 on the bottom floor, a window view of the muddy-water pool. Kade kicks the door open, drags me inside, and then slams it behind me. The motel room is simple, with a double bed, a bedside table and lamp, an old TV set with the door to the bathroom just behind it. What interests me more is what is resting next to the TV set: a handgun in a holster and scattered bullets.
“You just leave them lying around?”
“The owner of the motel knows me,” he says. “Knows how to work the law, too. They’d never get in here in time to see it.”
“You’re careless and dangerous,” I say. We stand next to the bed, staring at each other. Careless and dangerous . . . and hotter than any man I’ve ever seen. I stare into those bright blue eyes and I feel my body thrum with lust, thrum with the power of it, my toes already curling, my heart pounding, my head heavy and foggy with desire.
“Yes,” he says, and he closes the distance between us. “I am.”
His eyes hold a thousand feelings, all of them variations of lust, all of them aimed directly at me with animal ferocity.
He leans down and kisses me again, this time harder, and then we begin tearing at each other’s clothes. I pull off his jacket and drop it to the floor, grab at the front of his pants. He’s hard. Fuck, he’s hard. He’s so hard I can feel the outline of his cock through the denim, rock-fucking-hard. He’s huge, too. I undo his belt and rip his button out of the hole and then pull his pants and underwear down. At the same time, he removes my coat and tears my clothes free, until I am standing there in my bikini. His cock springs up. Fuck, fuck, fuck. It must be eleven inches, and thick, too. I grab it and my hand doesn’t even go around the base.
“Oh my god,” I moan, as Kade reaches down and pushes his fingers against my clit through the fabric of my bikini. “Oh my fucking god.”
His hand is powerful, pushing against my clit with such force that I have to stand on my tiptoes; he almost lifts me off my feet. He rubs it in small circles, hard, fierce small circles that send twisting pleasure all the way up into my sweet spot and beyond, making my belly warm, making my nipples harder than they are even on a cool spring morning at the Twin Peaks. He breaks off the kiss, groaning as I grip his cock in pleasure.
“Come for me, Lana,” he says, and hearing my name said in that husky biker’s voice is almost too much to handle. “Come for me.”
He slides down my underwear. I let it fall, liking the feel of the fabric rustling against my skin, down to my ankles, and then Kade slides two fingers into my tight pussy. I feel my lips stretch for those fingers. Then I can’t feel any individual sensation. He slides his fingers all the way to that burning spot inside of me and fucking teases it. I don’t jerk him, I can’t, I’m too caught up in the scorching pleasure inside of me. But as spasms rock through my body, my arm shifts, my hand shifts, and Kade groans and moves his fingers quicker inside of me.
“Come for me,” he says, and when I look up at him all I see are two stern azure eyes, commanding me.
“Come for me, now.”
As he moves his fingers inside of me, I think about all the things those fingers have been involved in. I think about the way those fingers were part of the hand which slammed that neo-Nazi back at the bar, I think about those fingers pulling the clutch on his roaring motorbike, I think about those fingers pulling the trigger of a gun. All bad things, and yet—fuck, yes, yes, fuck. I can’t help but want them. Want him. Want him and all the bad things he’s done. He moves his fingers almost brutally now, slamming around inside of me.
Heat builds, builds. I moan—I think I moan. Everything shimmers and shifts until I can’t focus. I close my eyes and fall forward into him, bracing my hands on his chest, which is pure muscle all the way through.
“I’m going to—”
I stop, drawing in a gasping breath. Everything stops. Time stops. All thought is an echo. All feeling except for the explosive release inside of me is numb. All I can feel is the eruption deep in my pussy, an eruption that is triggered from the ends of his fingertips. I close my legs around his hand, sit down on it. He holds me up with one arm and swivels his fingers around that super-sensitive spot. Yes, yes, yes. Jesus fucking Christ. Yes. I can’t—I can’t do anything but feel—feel. I close my eyes and see red, like sunlight on my eyelids, as the orgasm really strikes me. I feel like I’m floating. Floating atop his fingers. Euphoria courses through every part of me, touching ever nerve, every simmering inch of skin. My toes curl so hard I think they might snap. I collapse forward, biting down on his chest, tasting the sweaty, oily fabric of his shirt. I bite down as wave after wave of the orgasm surges through me.
And then, as if waking from a deep sleep, I open my stuck-together eyes.
Kade is staring down at me with so much passion for a second it makes me afraid, like looking into the eyes of a wolf on the hunt.
“I fuckin’ need you,” he says, voice huskier than ever. “I need you fuckin’ now.”
Without waiting for a reply—he can see I need him too; he must be able to—he lifts me up by my armpits and throws me onto the bed. As soon as I land, I open my legs, opening myself for him. It feels good to lift and part my legs and look up at him through my bent knees with my toes pointing, beckoning him. My pussy aches for it. The creature of lust inside me screams for it. I want it; I want it so fucking badly I can barely think. The universe has reduced down to this room, this moment. Never before in my life have I felt so much captured pleasure.
He takes off his top, revealing a torso which is muscular and marked with scars here and there: a few
old stab wounds and a line across his bulging pectoral. He climbs onto the bed, naked and hard, and leans over me. There is no doubt now, no hesitation, no confusion. For one of the rare times in my life, I am one-hundred certain about how I feel.
“I need you, baby,” I moan.
Kade props his hand on the bed, near my head. I reach up and grab his muscles, his biceps and triceps, both of them well-defined and bulging out of his skin, muscles as hard as his massive cock. With his other hand he reaches down and grabs his cock, guiding it toward my pussy. The tip brushes against my hole, and then he pushes in with his shaft. He’s bigger than any man I’ve ever fucked, much bigger. My pussy sends urgent signals at me, urgent and mixed, pain and pleasure intermingling. Then the pain abates and my lust takes over. I widen for him. I welcome him. I open my legs and I draw him into me.