by Paula Cox
“Sky!”
Her voice is the only thing in this whole world which could bring me out of this. Nothing else. No one else.
“Sky! It’s done!”
I turn, but it’s difficult to see much with all the blood on my face. I’m vaguely aware of Clint slumping to the floor behind me, moaning like a dying animal. I wipe blood from my face, or try to, but my hand is soaked with the stuff. Bathed in it, just like then, just like back then, but . . . Now I see her, a blur, but there, watching me, hands clutched to her chest, standing in the doorway. Like a bloody mirage, the only point of goodness in all my rotten fuckin’ soul. But I don’t have to be like that no more. I don’t have to be the Beast. Brat is proof enough of that. The Beast is a killer. The Beast don’t have a choice. I have a choice.
I turn back to Clint, looking down on him to make sure he’s still alive. He is, so I turn to his boys, and shout, “The fight is done and your man lies on the fuckin’ floor, can’t even goddamn speak! But I ain’t gonna kill him. I’m gonna tell him the same he tried to tell us. If he ain’t out of Colorado in twenty-four hours, he’s a dead man! Someone get him on a bike! Get him out of here!”
I watch, fear in my chest, waiting for one of the men to act. We’re still outnumbered, even if Clint is down. They could still turn on us; maybe one of them wants to become leader. But then I see the respect in their eyes, and the shame, and the guilt, and I know most of ’em just want to put all this shit behind them and get back to outlawing. I watch as the true club members move their guns from me to the real traitors, and as the traitors put their hands up.
“Damn fuckin’ right,” Grizzly says, standing beside me. “Bring those bastards here, and get them the fuck outta Colorado, too. I’m done with men who don’t respect the patch.” He looks down at Clint. “Listen to the lad, Clint, ’cause what he says is true. If you ever come back here, I’ll kill you myself. You twisted me against Slick for too long. That shit’s over now.” He smiles at me, or as much as he can smile when he’s President, and then nods toward Brat. “Go to her, son. I’ll clean up this mess.”
Gratefully, I limp toward my woman.
About halfway there, I collapse, and she comes rushing toward me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Bri
With Dad’s help, I take Slick through to the dormitory wing and lay him on the bed. He looks up at me through his mask of blood, smiling. “Bastard fuckin’ hit me enough times to shake some cobwebs loose,” he says. “Reckon I know what’s what now.”
“Is that so?” I say from the bathroom, filling a basin with water and going to him.
I kneel down beside him and begin cleaning his face, wiping the blood away. There’s a bruise on the side of his head, nasty and yellow, but the skin hasn’t broken. He has a couple of cuts below his eyes, but once they’ve been cleaned, they’re nowhere near as bad as the blood made them look. I leave him and go into the bar—Dad is untying the men, and Clint and the traitors are nowhere to be seen, probably outside being sent on their way—and return with a first-aid kit.
He winces when I pour the cleaning fluid over the cut. “Don’t be a baby,” I say.
“Baby.” He smiles again. It looks like it hurts him to smile, but he does it anyway. Maybe he thinks it’s worth it. “Baby. Baby Charlotte. I reckon I’ve earned a meeting with her, ain’t I, Brat?”
“I reckon you have,” I agree. “But why don’t we get you patched up first?”
“Alright. Nurse knows best.”
I stitch one of his cuts, but he won’t let me start on the next before I’ve got him some whisky. The next time I go in the bar, all the men are untied, and Dad is telling the men who were tricked into being on Clint’s side that they need to make it right with the others. They’ll probably agree to some system where half their pay goes to those who were loyal for a few months. The men won’t like it, but this is a club, and in a club if you haven’t got loyalty, you haven’t got anything. When I bring Slick his whisky, he’s sitting up, pillows propped behind him.
“The pain starting to wear off now?” I ask, returning to my seat.
“Not the pain. Just the dazed feelin’. Never get used to that in a fight, no matter how many you’ve been in. Dazed like your head is just gonna spin right off your shoulders and float into the sky. Damn strange.”
“Well, don’t get too excited,” I say, handing him the bottle. “There’s still another to go, yet.”
He takes a slug of whisky and I start stitching the other cut. When it’s all done, he looks like a different man to the blood-covered barbarian he was an hour ago. He drinks down half the bottle of whisky, and then asks for a cigarette. I get one from the bar and return to him. He lights up, blowing curling wisps of smoke and smiling tiredly.
“What happened?” I ask.
“When’d you get here?”
I tell him I rode here after getting a bad feeling. “Maybe it was our psychic connection,” I joke.
Slick doesn’t laugh. “Maybe it was,” he says. “Alright, so this is what went down.”
He tells me about talking Clint into a fight.
“Wow,” I say, thinking about all the ways that could’ve gone wrong, thinking about how the men could’ve just shot him down the moment he threatened their new leader. “That was risky.”
“Damn risky,” he agrees. “But what else was I gonna do? Let Clint ruin my father’s legacy? Let him ruin your father’s legacy? Fuck that.”
I bring my hand to his face, lightly touching it. “You mentioned you wanted to meet Charlotte. I think it’s about time you did, for real.”
Slick swallows, staring straight ahead.
“What is it?”
“I just . . .” He hesitates, and then gestures to his face with the whisky bottle. “I’ll scare her, Brat. Look at me. A kid don’t wanna see that.”
“But there’s more to you,” I say, reading him. I think I could read Slick better than I could ever read anybody else, maybe even Charlotte. There’s a connection there that goes beyond mere emotion; it runs as deep as time. It’s like Slick is my best friend, my lover, and the father of my child all rolled into one. Slick is a man who cannot be replaced. Slick is another part of me. “Tell me, Slick.” I stroke his stubbly cheek.
“I’m scared I’m not good enough for her,” he whispers, and I know that as he stares around the room, he’s not really staring around the room. He’s staring into the past, into what he was made to do. I think it’ll be years before her really gets over it. How long does it take a man to get over hell? I have no idea. “I’m scared that I’ll hurt her, which is damn weird ’cause the last thing in the world I wanna do is hurt her. But what if I do—by accident? My hands are killer’s hands, Brat. My hands are outlaw’s hands. My hands ain’t meant for holding children.” To my shock, I see that his eyes are teary. He takes a long swig of the whisky. “These hands are meant for snapping necks, nothin’ more.”
“You’re wrong,” I say firmly, “and I’ll prove it.”
“How?”
But I don’t reply. I stand up and walk out of the room, ignoring his questions. I get on my bike and ride to the city, to Heather’s apartment, and then Heather, Charlotte, and I return to the clubhouse. All the way, Charlotte is bobbing in her seat. When I told her she was going to meet her Dadda, she could barely contain herself. When we reach the clubhouse, she jumps out of her car seat into my arms the moment it’s unbuckled, pawing at my face, saying over and over, “Dadda, Dadda!”
“I can’t go in there,” Heather says, staring at the clubhouse, but then Dad appears in the doorway.
“Heather?”
“Jacob?”
They stare at each other for a time, and then Heather makes for the clubhouse. I follow her, but split up with her when Dad leads Heather toward his office. Charlotte squeezes my nose, squealing, “Dadda! Dadda! Dadda!”
I knock on the door, making sure Slick is ready. His voice is croaky when he calls out, “Come in.”
I don’t think tears will ever start streaming down my face so quickly and so unexpectedly ever again in my life. As soon as Charlotte sees Slick—sitting in a chair now, probably so he doesn’t seem hurt—she squirms out of my grip, drops to the floor, and pads over to him. I watch as she tilts her head up at him and murmurs, “Dadda?”
Slick grins shakily, and leans down. “I reckon so, little lady,” he says, as I cry in the doorway. He picks her up and places her on his knee, facing him. When he looks to me for support, I give him a smile of encouragement. “I’m your Dadda, alright, if you’ll have me.”
He’s careful with her, handling her as though she’s made of glass, but then Charlotte jumps up and throws her arms around his neck. “Kiss Dadda!” she squeals, kissing him on the unbruised side of his face. “Kiss Dadda! Kiss Dadda!” She kisses him over and over, each kiss making me cry all the harder, and Slick laugh all the louder.
“Look,” Slick says, when she’s stopped. He takes a small pocket-mirror from the bedside cabinet, and frames him and Charlotte in it. “Look at our eyes, princess.”
“Same,” Charlotte says, grinning.
“Same,” Slick repeats, grinning in exactly the same way.
Epilogue
Slick
Being with Bri never gets old. We’re in the bike shop, which a VP and the President’s daughter shouldn’t be doing even if we do have Grizzly’s blessing now. Outside, a light sleet is falling, the air crisp and wintery. But inside it is warm. I have her bent over a bike she was working on, and her moans are about the sweetest, sexiest damn thing that exists in the world. I thrust into her one last time, grabbing her ass cheeks, and I feel her come all over me. It’s a beautiful thing, the way Brat comes. First, her pussy goes tight, so tight that I can feel it like a hand squeezing my cock, and then she starts squirting all over me, so that when I look down I see the come rubbing up and down my cock as I thrust. Damn, damn beautiful.
When we’re done, I pull out and pull my jeans up, looking back toward the outside.
“That was risky,” I say, buckling my belt.
Brat giggles, facing me. “If it isn’t risky, it isn’t worth it.” She gives me a wink.
“I was sent by your dad to make sure you weren’t in here. He’s given me clear orders that you’re supposed to be a lady now. You’re supposed to have left all that tomboy stuff behind you.”
“Don’t I look like a lady?” She flicks her hair, which is longer than it’s ever been before. Soon it’ll be long enough that, when she’s naked, she’ll be able to cover her nipples with it. I can’t wait for that. I get hard again just thinking about it. She dances over to me, kissing me, and then wrapping her arms around. “I’m sure I’ve persuaded you to keep my secret, though, right?”
I grin, can’t help but grin. When I think of how things are now—me living with Charlotte and Brat in the city, being VP, having a real say in the club—to how things were a few months back, it’s difficult to believe. I still have the nightmares, don’t reckon they’ll ever go away, but hell is easier to deal with when you’ve got a couple of angels of your own.
“Thought so.” She kisses me on the nose. “Anyway, this is my bike, and I don’t exactly have another garage I can use whenever I like. But don’t worry.” Holding her grease-stained hands up. “I’m actually going full-time at another job.”
“Are you? When?”
“Tomorrow,” she says. “Heather doesn’t call me the Little Fashionista for nothing, you know.”
“Goddamn, Brat.” I put my arms around her, pulling her to me so that my cock is pressed against her tight ass. Just emptied my balls, and yet I’m hard all over again. “When you talk about fashion you get me fuckin’ goin’. You’re the best of both worlds. Half greasy monkey, half fashion lady. Glamorous and dirty all in one.”
She shifts her hips, rubbing that tight ass against me. “I think I’d prefer dirty, just one more time . . .”
***
Bri
I’ve just helped one of my regular customers, Chantelle, pick out a flowing dress which accentuates her curves when Heather comes over. Heather has been nervous all day, flustered and snappish, and I think I know why; it’s the same reason Dad was acting off when I saw him earlier. Chantelle is a busty, curvy redheaded woman with a nervous smile, which gets more nervous as Heather stomps over. She hands me the purchase catalogue. Since we’ve started buying our own stock, she’s been consulting me more and more about what to go in on. As soon as she hands it to me, I push it back.
“I’ve already looked. See?” I gesture to the sticky notes poking out from the end.
“Oh.”
She flicks to the pages, and then throws her hand up. “No way!” she cries, red-faced.
“Oh,” Chantelle murmurs, peering over Heather’s shoulder at the catalogue.
“What?” Heather says, turning to her. “What is it?”
I’ve picked out some biker-style gear, all leather and studs, kinky and cool.
“I just think it looks quite—quite exciting,” Chantelle says, making for the door. “I’m sure some of the other girls would, too.”
Heather raises an eyebrow at me, as Chantelle leaves. “The girls—your regulars, she means?”
I nod.
“Oh, fine, fine!”
She almost drops the catalogue when Dad walks in, dressed not in leathers, but in a suit. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him in a suit. I’m so startled by the sight that I just start laughing, which doesn’t help matters. He grins awkwardly, and Heather shoots me a furious look.
“Heather,” he says.
“Jacob,” she replies.
Dad clears his throat. Heather moves from foot to foot. I watch, cringing, but I’m happy for them despite the awkwardness.
After a while, Heather turns to me and says, “I’ll be back in time to watch Charlotte this evening.”
“Okay, just go! And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”
Heather shoots me another angry look, and then leaves, Dad holding the door open for her.
I spend the rest of the day helping customers, and then—once Heather has taken Charlotte, as promised, and once she’s ignored my questions about the date—I jump on my bike and head into the Rockies, sleet or no sleet.
Slick is there, as he said he would be, sitting at a foldout table next to my dirt bike in our metal hut. He places a picnic hamper on the table, which contains champagne and some nibbles, but I’m more interested in the blanket laid out on the floor. Candlelight throws our shadows onto the walls.
“Brat,” he says, rising to meet me. He grabs me, pulling me close to him. I love how much he takes control, how safe I feel with him.
“Brat,” I echo. “Will you ever stop calling me that?”
He grins, and shakes his head. “Don’t reckon so,” he says. “Unless you stopped being my Brat one day.”
“I never would,” I say, bringing my lips to his. Before we kiss, I whisper, “I’m glad you came home to me, Slick. I’m glad you came home to us.”
“So am I,” he says, voice throaty.
And then we kiss, and a light snow begins to fall, shrouding us.
THE END
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More Books by Paula Cox
I STOLE HER FROM HER WEDDING AND MADE HER MINE.
She wanted a way out.
So I put her on the back of my bike and took her away.
But I’m not her knight in shining armor…
And when she finds out what I want, she’ll be begging to go back.
I don’t say please.
I don’t say thank you.
When I see what I want, I take it.
And I’d never wanted anything more than that pretty little thing in her wedding dress.
She had tears beneath her veil.
I don’t blame her – the groom was a creep and a monster.
But when she made the choice to run away with me, she didn’t know that I was much worse.