by Jade Kuzma
“You cut your hair,” I said.
“It comes and goes with the season. Change is good sometimes.”
“Yeah…”
“What are you doing here?”
“I just got back in town a few days ago.”
“Got back in town? You on vacation?”
I gave him a tight-lipped smile and shook my head.
“I got a job at the shelter,” I said.
“Wait… You mean you’re staying here.”
“That’s the plan. For now.”
“Wow…”
Jon looked the same as I remembered him. Five years didn’t change him much. He was still as handsome as ever. If anything, the maturity seemed to make him more attractive.
Calm down, Anna…
I had to remind myself that I was just stopping by to say hello. Jon and I had something a long time ago. Had something. A long time ago.
“I just came to say hello,” I said. “I figured I was going to run into you eventually. Might as well stop by and see some old friends.”
“Right… I get it…”
“It’s good to see that everything is still in order. The place is in great shape. How’s the club?”
“The club is perfect. Can’t complain.”
“It looks like you got a new patch.”
“That’s right. As long as Ivory is standing, the Reapers will be riding.”
“BRIC. As synonymous with Ivory as anything else.”
Jon ordered himself a beer. He kept his eyes locked on me as I looked around the club. Just from the way he stared at me was enough to make my cheeks blush. I felt like I was a damn schoolgirl again and I was completely embarrassed about it.
“What brings you back to Ivory?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. “I left because I wanted to see what was out there.”
“Then you realized there’s nothing as good as Ivory.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said with a laugh. “But I will admit that there isn’t a place like Ivory. There’s just something about this town that makes it special.”
“It’s home.”
There was a kind smile on his face. Jon was always intense. I knew how he was because I’d been around him so many times. But with me, he was able to smile. I saw the real Jon, the genuine Jon I knew was inside of him, not the Ghost that everybody knew him as.
“We should talk,” he said. “You got any plans?”
“I don’t have any plans. I just got back in town.”
“I have a room in the back of the clubhouse—”
“Whoa, hold on.”
I put my hand up and chuckled nervously.
“I just got back in town,” I said. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I really did just come by to say hello. I…”
I’d be lying to myself if I said I didn’t want him to just pull my jeans down and bend me over. No matter where I went, they didn’t make ‘em as rugged as Jon.
But I wasn’t about to do something like that. Not on the first night, anyway.
“…I just wanted to see how you’re doing. From the looks of things, you’re doing well.”
He took a step back from me and nodded.
“That’s cool,” he said. “I get it. I’m glad you’re back.”
“It’s nice to be back.”
“How about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Have dinner with me.”
“I don’t know if I should—”
“You said you were working at the shelter.”
“That’s right. What about it?”
“The club and I were just talking about setting up some donations. The Reapers do a lot of charity around here. Maybe we can make some arrangement with the shelter.”
Jon gave me a knowing look. That smile on his face told me everything. But I wasn’t about to refuse him.
“I guess I don’t see anything wrong with that,” I said with a shrug.
“We’ll talk business. We can catch up, too.”
He put his hands up.
“That’s it,” he said.
I giggled softly to myself.
“What’s so funny?” he said.
“Just because it’s been five years doesn’t mean I haven’t already figured you out. People can change but not a lot. I know you, Jon. You’re up to something.”
“All right,” he said with a laugh. “But I really do wanna talk business with you. What do you say?”
I sighed knowing that I wasn’t about to refuse him. Those green eyes of his were enough to make any woman forget about what they were thinking.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s have dinner.”
He picked his beer up and clinked his glass against mine.
“A toast,” he said. “Welcome back to Ivory.”
I took a big gulp of beer and looked out into the crowd of the clubhouse before I responded.
“It’s good to be back.”
Chapter 4
JON
Garnet and I spent most of the day setting up the deal with Lin and the Chinese. Even though we had an agreement, it wasn’t a simple manner of just taking the drugs and riding ‘em up north. With the feds in town, we had to take extra precautions to make sure that nobody was on our asses when we did. Hell, there could’ve been someone watching us when we had the meeting with Lin.
I was too distracted to worry too much about club business though. Anna was in my thoughts the entire day. I could barely sleep that night and I woke up early just counting the time until I could see her again.
Night came and Anna stayed true to her word.
“You still eat here?”
“Why not?”
“The food hasn’t changed, has it?”
“I’m sure it’s still as good as you remember it.”
Anna examined her surroundings but I knew they weren’t anything new to her.
“You used to take me here all the time,” she said.
“Best steakhouse in town.”
“I’ve been to some good steakhouses when I was about.”
“Is that right? I bet they weren’t as good as this place.”
“No, they were as good. Just because the steaks here are the best you’ve ever had doesn’t mean I haven’t had better.”
She smirked at me. That devilish little grin on her face looked just as familiar as the rest of her. She always poked and prodded me because she knew I’d let her get away with it. She was the only one.
“All right,” I said. “The steaks are better out there. What else is better?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “There are a lot of things. For one thing, there’s a lot more to do in the bigger cities. It’s more than just people going to Finn’s and getting drunk. Bikers getting into fights. Girls bending over trying to be old ladies.”
“Of course. In the city, you’ve got pretty boys flaunting their cash and girls wearing their fancy dresses taking selfies. Just because I live in Ivory doesn’t mean I don’t know what the scene outside of this town is like.”
“You’re right,” she said with a giggle. “There are some obnoxious people in both places. But there are some good people, too.”
She took a sip of her glass of wine and smiled at me.
Anna was a demure, unassuming girl. Long, brown hair. Deep brown eyes. Fair skin. A firm pair of tits and some hips that I loved to just hold onto. But there was more to her than that.
I knew what kind of woman Anna was. And seeing her sitting right there in front of me with that hypnotizing smile on her lips… It was easy to remember why I fell for her.
“All right,” she said. “What’s this all about?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said you wanted to talk business. So… Let’s talk business.”
“Right. I talked to Garnet today.”
“Garnet… How is Declan?”
“You don’t have to worry about him.”
“I didn�
�t think so. I talked to Michelle.”
“Did you?”
I raised an eyebrow at her.
“She didn’t give you any shit, did she?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “She’s still the same woman I remember.”
“Michelle can be cold sometimes.”
“I don’t take it personally,” she said with a laugh. “She’s not a bitch. She’s with Garnet. She’s just doing what she has to do. It’s the life of an old lady…”
She shifted her eyes away from me as she took a sip of wine. There was so much shit I wanted to talk to her about but I wasn’t sure if she wanted to get into it right now.
“You were saying?” she said. “About Declan?”
“I talked to him about setting something up. We’ve got a good deal of cash in the treasury. We figure it’d be best if we spread it around and helped out some of the people who need it most like we’ve been doing.”
“What have you done so far?”
“You remember Amy’s, right?”
“The bakery? Sure, I do. How is Amy?”
“Amy’s not there anymore. There’s someone else running it. An old club member and his girl. Sean…”
“Sean… I remember Sean…”
“People love Amy’s. It feels good knowing that the Reapers have done their part to keep the place up and running.”
“And it’s good publicity for the club. It must be nice to know that everybody in town is checking out the Reapers’ good work.”
I chuckled and nodded in response. I wasn’t about to lie to her.
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s good pub for the club but you know the Reapers care about Ivory. This is our town. The citizens here respect us just as much as we respect them.”
“Okay… A donation to the shelter would be a good start. The place is underfunded and it needs a lot of renovating.”
“How about you? They paying you well.”
She had a smile on her lips this whole time but that left her face as soon as I spoke.
“I’m not doing it for the money,” she said, an undeniable seriousness in her eyes. “I’m doing it because I can make a living and there are people in this town who need my help. If you want to help, that’d be great. But we’ll find a way to get by with or without your help.”
“I do want to help.”
“Good. Then we can use some volunteers to help around the place, too.”
“What?”
“Come on, Jon. I know you’ve got club business but you’ve got a free schedule, too. Repairing bikes and cars only takes up so much of your time. You’ve got time to spare. Those people could use your help. I could use your help.”
She stared at me, her eyebrows raised as she waited for my answer. I looked back at her and sighed a deep breath through my nose, knowing that she got me. I wasn’t about to argue with her.
“All right,” I said. “Maybe I can convince some of the boys to hang out at the shelter for a bit, too.”
“Don’t worry. The time will fly by like nothing. You do it long enough, you’ll realize just how grateful you should be.”
“I’m grateful right now…”
She clenched her jaw to avoid smiling at me. But her cheeks started to redden on her fair skin. She could never hide how she really felt from me.
The waiter arrived with our food and Anna started digging in. I watched her for a second as she chewed on a hunk of steak. Even the way she ate brought back memories.
She closed her eyes and savored her bite.
“I remember the first time you brought me here,” she said.
“I remember it, too. I was a perfect gentleman.”
“Oh, please,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “You couldn’t make it more obvious that you were trying to get into my pants.”
“Hey. It might have been obvious but I was a gentleman.”
“…You were. Everything was perfect. The food. The music. It was like we had the whole restaurant to ourselves even though there were people around us. Then you had to go and ruin it by dumping a glass of wine into my lap.”
“What?” I said, my face scrunched in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on, Jon.”
She put her knife and fork down, then crossed her arms.
“You really don’t remember?” she said. “That hurts. It was one of our first dates.”
“I…”
I chuckled as I shook my head.
“…I don’t remember—”
“You reached over to try and grab one of my breasts. You were in such a hurry that you knocked my glass into my lap. Red wine spilled all over my top and jeans.”
“Oh… Right… Now I remember…”
I stuffed a piece of steak into my mouth as the memory came back to me. We were both laughing even though Anna still seemed upset about it.
“That was your fault,” I said.
“My fault?” she exclaimed. “How was it my fault?”
“I asked you if you would let me grab you in public. You said yes.”
“Yeah, and?”
“I never would’ve knocked the glass over if you said no.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “Just blame the victim… You know, you would’ve had a free squeeze if you weren’t in such a hurry. Why are guys always in such a rush when it comes to getting some?”
“Guys are in a hurry because they’re trying to beat everybody else to it.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to hurry now…”
She turned her attention back to her food.
“You by yourself?” I asked. “You didn’t come back to Ivory with anybody else, did you?”
“It’s just me,” she sighed.
“You waiting for anybody to come visit you?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not waiting for anybody.”
She stuffed another piece of steak into her mouth as she eyeballed me.
“How about you?” she asked. “Anybody… important in your life right now?”
“My main priority right now is club business.”
“You’ve always been about the club. Some things haven’t changed.”
“It seems that way.”
“I bet you’ve been banging a lot of Ivory sluts though.”
Her sudden bluntness caught me off guard. I washed down my bite of food with my beer, trying not to choke on it.
“Don’t be shy,” she said. “I was at The Grindhouse. Things in this town haven’t changed. And I know there are still groupies just trying to get some MC cock.”
“You shouldn’t speak like that at the dinner table—”
“Oh, I think it’s fair to speak like that anywhere. That’s what you liked, Jon. You liked it when I talked dirty. I remember.”
I watched the smirk slowly form on her lips. I grinned back at her and nodded, knowing what she was getting at.
“You want gossip, you should talk to Needle,” I said. “He’s got plenty of stories. They’re old now that he’s engaged but he’s still got stories.”
“Blake? He’s engaged?”
“That’s right. He’s got a kid, too.”
“You’re kidding.”
I shook my head.
“Wow… Blake seemed like the type who could never keep his dick in his pants. It’s hard to believe that he would willingly give up other women.”
“Sometimes you just have to find the right girl.”
Anna’s cheeks immediately started to blush as I said it. I stuffed another bite into my mouth and grinned at her.
My past with Anna couldn’t be avoided. It was bound to come up. But Anna was as candid as any person I met. She wasn’t the type to dance around a subject, regardless of how awkward it might have been.
“So… Am I missing any other details?” she asked.
“All you need to know is that I’m VP of the Reapers and I’m trying to do my part to make Ivory a better place.”
“That’s good to hear.”
“What about you?”
“Me? I’m the same as you. Just trying to make Ivory a better place.”
“You could have made any place you were at better. Why did you bother coming back?”
She didn’t respond immediately. I chewed on my steak and stared at her but she didn’t look back at me. She just looked off to the side, lost in thought. It was clear there was more to it than whatever answer she was planning on giving me.
She nonchalantly cut at her steak and stuffed it into her mouth.
“Ivory is home,” she said. “The weather is nice. There’s no traffic. The steak is good. And the people…”
“The people?”
I raised an eyebrow at her.
“They’re my kind of people.”
“Ivory born and raised. This town is a part of you. You’ll never be able to shake that.”
“I guess not.”
Anna smiled at me as she took another bite of food.
“What’s after this?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Steak. Wine. Good conversation. Settled business. What else is there to discuss?”
“Well… Dinner isn’t completely over until we’ve had dessert.”
“Oh, how could I forget?”
She leaned forward across the table and smirked at me.
“You in the mood for dessert?” I asked.
“That depends. What’s for dessert, Jon?”
Chapter 5
ANNA
The streets of Ivory were so familiar to me even though it had been so long. But it wasn’t just because I grew up here.
Compared to the big cities, the streets were always empty at night. It was the perfect time to ride out on the open road.
The wind running through my hair and blowing against my face. The rumble of the engine underneath me. There was nothing quite like the feeling of riding on a chopper.
It didn’t hurt that I had my arms tight around a man like Jon. His muscles were just as firm as I remembered them. I could feel how hard his physique was even through his kutte.
The engine roared as we made our way through Ivory. Even though I was half-drunk on wine, Jon had a way of driving that made me feel like I was floating through the air.
This was the feeling more familiar than anything else.