by BB Easton
“Hey,” I said, stepping into his living room. “Did I wake you up?”
“Mmhmm,” he said, closing the door behind us and pulling me in for a hug.
I was sad there was a shirt between us. I wanted to feel his skin against my cheek and under my hands where they came to rest on his back.
“I’m sorry,” I said into the soft white cotton. “You did tell me to come around noon, right?”
“Mmhmm,” Harley hummed again.
I could feel his smile against the top of my head. I didn’t think it was possible, but sleepy Harley might have been even sexier than confident mechanic Harley. All I wanted to do was steer him back into whatever bed he’d just crawled out of and roll around in it with him for the next two to three days.
Keeping one arm around my shoulders, Harley walked me into the house and over to the couch. The coffee table was littered with beer cans and lighters and rolling papers and ashtrays made from random car parts and at least one bong.
“Gimme a sec,” Harley said, releasing me to sit. “You wanna smoke?” he asked, probably noticing the way I was eyeing all the paraphernalia on the coffee table
“Oh. No. Thanks. Weed makes me super sleepy,” I said, wiping my shaky, sweaty palms on my skintight fuzzy pants.
The movement caused Harley’s heavy-lidded gaze to land on my tiger-striped thighs. He curled his big, fat bottom lip into his mouth and tongued his lip ring as he stared.
“I’d take a beer though,” I blurted, desperately needing something to calm my nerves. “Do you mind if I grab one?”
Harley gave me an indignant look and said, “Pssh,” before heading toward the kitchen with the sleepy swagger of a sated lion.
I watched him move with my thighs pressed together and my lip between my teeth. All the beer in the world wasn’t going to help me get my shit together in the presence of that…man. He exuded sex unlike anyone I’d ever met, and he didn’t even seem to be trying. Unlike me in my animal-print pants, cropped Operation Ivy tank top, and visible red bra straps. I was definitely trying. I might as well have shown up wearing a sandwich board that said, Down to fuck.
On his way back into the living room, Harley drank me in and gave me a slow, appreciative smile. “Can’t let a pretty lady get her own beer,” he said, handing me a can of Natural Ice.
“You should never let a beautiful woman light her own cigarette.”
Knight’s voice in my head sounded as clear as the day he’d uttered those words. For a split second, I wasn’t in Harley’s living room anymore. I was sitting on the tailgate of Knight’s Frankentruck, wearing his hoodie and watching him light my cigarette with swollen, bleeding knuckles.
“I’m sorry. What?” I shook my head and blinked.
Harley wasn’t standing in front of me anymore. I turned my head toward the sound of a toilet flushing and saw Harley in the bathroom just down the hall. His back was toward me, but I could see his reflection in the vanity mirror as he began brushing his teeth.
Did he just pee with the door wide open?
I don’t know why, but the idea made me smile.
When Harley returned to the living room, he’d thrown on his signature Dickies and chain wallet, but he was still sporting some serious bedhead and facial scruff. I smiled at him like a goddamn fool. Partly because I’d chugged half of my beer and was already feeling tipsy, but also because he was just so damn cute.
“What?” he asked, giving me the side eye.
“You peed with the door open,” I said, beaming as I pulled my feet underneath me on the couch.
“I didn’t know you were into that kinda thing.” Harley smirked as he plopped down on the couch next to me. “I can give you a golden shower later if you want.”
I shoved his arm, and he made a show of flopping over on the couch, as if I had the strength of a hundred men.
I fucking loved Harley.
When he sat up, Harley reached for a lighter and the bong on the table. It was already packed. He took a hit and held the air in his lungs as long as he could. Exhaling with a tiny cough, Harley pointed to the plastic tube and said, “You mind?”
“Oh no. Go ahead,” I said. “I actually really like the smell. It smells like my house.”
Harley gave me a puzzled look.
“My parents smoke. All the time. They’re total hippies. My mom wears Birkenstocks and tie-dye and shit.”
Harley smiled. “My parents smoke, too, but they’re bikers.”
“Uh, yeah. I figured that out the second you introduced me to your brother. Harley and Davidson? Really?”
Harley chuckled. “Dave fucking hates it.”
“So, if you guys are the same age and he’s only ten months younger, that means you must have a birthday soon, huh?” I’d given it a lot of thought—obviously.
Harley exhaled a stream of smoke and choked out, “Yeah. August ninth.”
“Oh, you’re a Leo,” I said, finishing off my beer. “I love Leos. Super compatible with Geminis.” I felt a blush begin to crawl up my neck. Had I really just said the words love and compatible in the same sentence? Oh my God. How cheesy.
Harley coughed out a laugh. “You really were raised by hippies.”
I helped myself to another beer, and while I drank it, Harley and I talked for what felt like hours. He was just so relaxed and funny and flirty that I got high simply by being near him. His aura wrapped around me like a mink shawl—soft and warm and sexy. I committed all his mannerisms to memory. The way his eyes narrowed when he was about to tease me and drooped like a cartoon basset hound when he was trying to be cute. The way he ran his fingers through his hair when he was talking and sucked on his lip ring when he was listening. But when his hand found my fuzzy velour-covered thigh and began stroking it absentmindedly, my ability to form new thoughts and memories went completely out the window.
My ability to filter my fucking mouth disappeared too, because the words, “Can I see your room?” tumbled from it completely unchecked.
Harley gave me a knowing smile and stood up, offering his hand. I took it and let him lead me down the hallway, a little embarrassed but not ashamed. My panties were soaked from the heat of his gaze, the warmth in his words, and the trail of fire left by his fingertips. Harley’s touch—his attention—kept the darkness at bay. It made me feel like myself again. I wanted him, and with my guilty conscience passed out from day drinking, I couldn’t think of a single reason to deny myself what I wanted.
I might have only been sixteen, but after the twisted, kinky, bloody fuckery Knight had subjected me to, I was about as far from virginal as a person could get. I wasn’t just experienced; I was a veteran. And I had the scars and piercings to prove it. Harley might have brought out the giddy schoolgirl in me, but in the bedroom, I planned on showing him just how grown-up I really was.
That is, until I actually saw his bedroom.
“Harley! Where’s all your furniture?” I cackled in the doorway, pulling him to a stop.
His room consisted of a mattress on the floor, and…well, that was about it.
Harley turned around and shrugged. “What? You don’t like how I decorated?”
“This place feels like a flophouse. Are you running from the cops?” Yep, my filter was definitely off duty.
After a pause, Harley asked, “What if I am?” His expression was completely unreadable.
Was he being serious? Harley didn’t do serious. No, he had to be fucking with me.
“Just because you’re on the lam doesn’t mean you can’t at least tack up a poster here and there. Jesus!” Dropping his hand, I walked to the opposite wall to open the blinds and let in some light. “Didn’t you say you’ve been living here a couple of months? It looks like you just moved in yesterday. Were you robbed?”
Harley leaned against the doorframe and smirked as I made a drunken fuss over his lack of decor. When I walked back over to him, the mood sufficiently crushed, Harley took my hand and said, “C’mon,” tugging me back out into the ha
llway behind him.
“Where are we going?” I asked as we crossed the living room and headed through the kitchen, toward the back door.
“We’re gonna fuckin’ decorate.”
Between the growl of Harley’s 429 cubic-inch engine, the delicious vibration of my seat, the way the muscles and veins under his tattoos flexed and bulged with every shift, and Harley’s hand stroking my fuzzy thigh, the drive to Trash—my favorite store in Little Five Points—almost brought me to orgasm.
The ride also helped me realize a few things. The first thing I discovered was that, if you pour two beers into the empty stomach of a ninety-something-pound girl in the span of one hour and then put her in a bouncy, rumbly car for fifteen minutes, she will be fucking wasted by the time you get to your destination. The second thing I discovered was that telling Harley to take me to a store in Little Five Points had been a very, very bad idea.
Little Five Points had always been my happy place. It was a tiny neighborhood on the east side of Atlanta full of funky novelty shops, vintage clothing outlets, record stores, tattoo parlors, dive bars, head shops, and more graffiti than you could shake an incense stick at. It was where any self-respecting punk, skin, goth, hippie, Rastafarian, or skater shopped, and until Harley pulled the Boss into a back corner parking spot in a lot behind Terminus City Tattoo, I had always kind of thought of it as home.
Before he even killed the engine, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Out of my chest. Could practically see it trying to claw through my rib cage. My wide eyes landed on the alley that separated Terminus City Tattoo from the fetish club next door, and I couldn’t breathe. That was our alley. The place where Knight had found me sick from ecstasy and alcohol and taken me into his work to care for me. The stairs where I’d spent dozens of Friday nights sitting and smoking and talking with him after the tattoo shop closed. The same shop where he’d pierced me, tattooed me, fucked me, loved me, opened up to me, and shown me exactly what kinds of demons dwelled inside him.
The kind that cut.
The kind that killed.
Invisible hands wound around my neck and squeezed as I relived the night everything had fallen apart. The night an innocent man had lost his life. The night Knight had put his hands on me in anger for the first time. The night he’d shoved me down those fire escape stairs and locked me out of his life forever. Stars danced behind my eyes as the interior of the car closed in around me, swallowing me whole, taking me prisoner.
“Hey.” Harley’s gentle yet rough voice floated into my consciousness on some faraway breeze, rousing me from my nightmare.
I felt pressure on my thigh. Rubbing maybe?
“Hey. You okay? What’s wrong, babe?”
Babe. Did he just call me babe?
A warmth spread through me as my basic bodily functions suddenly decided to start working again. I sucked in lungfuls of life, almost hyperventilating on the bliss of being able to breathe again. Harley was rubbing my thigh, and it felt amazing. He made me feel safe. Knight was gone, and Harley was here. I was safe. I was safe.
I’m safe.
I blinked rapidly at Harley. His brows were pulled together in concern as he reached up and cupped my jaw.
“Sorry,” I said, clearing my throat, expecting it to be sore from the invisible choking I’d just received. “I haven’t eaten all day. I think I blacked out for a minute.”
“Shit, lady. Let’s get you some food. Where do you want to go?”
“Not the Yacht Club,” I said a little too quickly, remembering that a Knight Loves BB heart was carved into one of the tables there.
Harley took me to a funky Mexican place that had been established in an old auto body shop.
Fitting, I thought.
They’d kept the giant metal garage doors and huge industrial ceiling fans. They’d suspended paintings from the ceiling at random heights, and all the tables and chairs were mismatched vintage patio furniture fully equipped with equally mismatched outdoor umbrellas. It was rugged and fucking adorable. Just like Harley.
After getting a good five pounds of chips and cheese dip in me, I felt about five hundred percent better. When we were ready to go, Harley dropped a few bills on the table, and we left—just like he’d done at Waffle House. It was so weird. He drove this crazy expensive car and overpaid for all his meals like money was no object, but then he lived in this tiny, little house with his brother and slept on a mattress on the floor. It didn’t add up, but over the last few months, I’d learned that nobody made any fucking sense. People were liars. They were imposters. They were shady as fuck. Even the good ones. If you were lucky enough to find someone who made you feel good, you were lucky enough.
As Harley and I crossed the street and headed toward Trash, I clutched his hand to stay grounded. I didn’t look at the spot in the middle of the street where Knight and I had gotten into our first fight. I didn’t look at the bench where we’d sat on Valentine’s Day and planned our future. And I damn sure didn’t look at the old Victorian mansion he’d said he wanted to live in with me and fix up on the weekends.
But I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. That my worst nightmare was lurking in the shadows, foaming at the mouth with rage as I paraded a new man around on his turf. As I desecrated everything we’d experienced there.
No, I thought. Stop it. Knight is gone. He’s gone, and you’re safe.
The words seemed to bring me comfort, so I repeated them over and over in my head.
He’s gone.
You’re safe.
He’s gone.
You’re safe.
He’s gone.
I squeezed Harley’s hand and was met with a reassuring smile.
You’re safe.
Once we entered the store, I was transported into a world of whimsy that brought some much-needed distraction. Trash was like Disneyland for freaks and drag queens. Novelties, sex toys, drug paraphernalia, stripper shoes in men’s sizes, clothes for every kind of subculture, counterculture, and gender bender under the sun, and the kitschiest home décor money could buy.
Harley gave me a peck on the lips that made my heart swell before we split up—him disappearing into the head shop in the back of the store and me falling down the rabbit hole of possibilities over in housewares.
I needed a theme. Cars seemed too obvious. Harley had kind of a punk, rockabilly look, but band posters seemed too juvenile. Then I passed a rack of black T-shirts with white skulls screen-printed on them and got an idea. Grabbing four of them, I decided I would turn them into throw pillows using my mom’s sewing machine. I might even add some fringe to give them little Mohawks.
Then, I zeroed in on a framed pen-and-ink drawing of an anatomically correct heart. Bingo. I had a theme—body parts. The second I picked the drawing up, however, the store fell away. I found myself sitting at my desk in Mr. Kampfer’s AP chemistry class, holding an unfolded piece of notebook paper covered in psychotic all-caps handwriting with a huge pencil-and-ink drawing of an anatomically correct heart in the middle. Blinking the image away, I slammed the framed art back onto the shelf, as if it were teeming with spiders.
He’s gone.
You’re safe.
I continued to wander around the housewares department, wondering what Harley would like. I didn’t know him all that well, but I knew him well enough to know that I was probably trying way too hard. I could have picked out a fish tank full of rubber mice or a mannequin wearing a top hat and a strap-on, and Harley would have had the same reaction. He’d smile. He’d buy it. And he’d proudly display it without giving a single, solitary fuck.
Reason number nine hundred eighty-eight why I was totally gone over Harley James.
Eventually, I just settled on a taxidermic jackalope bust. Everybody loves jackalopes. Sticking the antlered freak of nature under my arm, I made my way to the back of the housewares department where something stopped me dead in my tracks.
There, in the corner of the store, half-tucked be
hind a beaded curtain, was the coolest chair in the history of sitting. It was a simple wooden dining room chair with off-white upholstery, but the back cushion had been screen-printed with the image of a realistic-looking rib cage and spine, and the seat cushion had been screen-printed with a pelvis and thighbones. It was brilliant. It was ridiculous. And, most importantly, it fit my theme.
Harley walked up behind me as I ogled the work of art. Wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his scratchy chin on my bare shoulder, he and I studied the chair in silence.
“I love it,” I said barely above a whisper.
“Then get it,” he replied, placing a soft kiss on my freckled skin. Followed by another, a little higher up, and another.
As Harley trailed kisses from my shoulder to my earlobe, a tingly heat danced over my skin and caused my vag to contract around nothing. If I affected Harley half as much as he affected me, I knew he had to be sporting a killer hard-on, but he didn’t press it into me. Didn’t pressure me for more. He waited for my lead.
Reason number nine hundred eighty-nine why I was totally fucking gone over Harley James.
As we made our way to the checkout stand—me holding a jackalope and an armful of T-shirts and Harley carrying the chair—he stopped in front of a collection of four-foot-tall hollow metal statues of medieval knights in full armor.
Picking one up with his free hand, Harley turned to me and asked, “What about—”
“No!” I yelled, loud enough to turn heads.
Harley’s eyes went wide, and he slowly put the knight back down, as if I’d threatened him at gunpoint. “Okay, okay. The lady doesn’t like the knights. Good to know.”
At the register, Harley pulled two hundred-dollar bills out of his fat wallet to pay for the assorted bullshit I’d picked out. I watched to see if he would wait around for the change. He did, but he immediately dropped it into my cavernous purse. I cursed at him and tried to dig the money out, but my hands were full of stuffed jackrabbit, and Harley was already out the door with his new chair.