by Jessica Ames
Bastard.
Then we’re flying, and I forget about everything but the movement of the bike. We glide through traffic, headlights blinding me as Dean weaves the bike. The wind bites but I barely notice because I’m punch-drunk on excitement. I feel free, liberated and I understand why Dean rides—why they all ride. If I could bottle this feeling I would.
He guides the motorcycle around the cars, taking us towards the town centre, veering off before hitting the high street. He steers the bike down side road after side road until the houses give way to an old industrial estate in a part of Kingsley I’m not familiar with.
Rows of old warehouses line the narrow road, but there is only one building that shows any sign of life. Dean points the bike in that direction, stopping outside the gates of a huge warehouse. It’s illuminated with orange floodlights and sits behind a high perimeter fence that looks almost impenetrable.
This can’t be the clubhouse, can it? There are no signs to tell me what this place is but my stomach tingles with apprehension until a head pops out of the booth on the other side. I recognise him. It’s Rabbit—the Prospect from outside the gym.
“Yo, D-man!” Rabbit yells out.
I should feel like I’m heading into the lion’s den, but with Dean all I feel is safe. I hope that trust is not misplaced. I readjust my position on the bike as the gates start to roll back, granting us access to the compound.
Dean revs the bike and slowly guides it through the now open gates into a parking area that is filled with row after row of motorcycles. There’s a handful of cars as well, but it’s mostly bikes.
He puts the motorcycle into the first available space and cuts the engine.
“You okay?”
Am I okay? I’m better than okay. I’m on top of the fucking world. I nod, vigorously.
“I’m fucking perfect,” I tell him in a loud voice.
He laughs and pats my leg. I’m so buzzed with adrenaline I don’t even register it. “You think you’re able to get off the back without hitting the deck?”
I beam. “I think I can manage.”
I use his shoulders to stand and vault off the back. Despite my assertion my legs are a little shaky as I get back onto solid ground. I start to pace the tarmac next to the bike while he kicks down the stand and gets off himself.
“You doing okay?”
“That was—” My fingers go to the back of my head, skimming over the solid weight of the helmet. “Amazing. It was fucking amazing, Dean!”
“There’s nothing else in the world that compares.” His eyes dart over my face before he speaks again. “So, I broke your bike virginity. I’m not sure how I feel about that, darlin’.” He grins as he unclips his helmet and pulls it off.
His hair is getting longer but not long enough to get helmet hair, which I’m definitely going to have. I tug off my own helmet and run a hand through my hair to flatten it but that is all the attention I give it before Dean takes it from me.
“I’m glad you did,” I tell him and I mean it.
He starts to turn away, but I grab his arm, the leather rough beneath my hand.
“Thank you,” is what I manage to get out. My voice is breathy and rushed and I’m sure my face is flaming but I don’t care because adrenaline is a hell of a drug. “That was so… amazing and I just… thank you.”
He grins down at me. “You’re welcome.”
My beaming smile grows. “Now, are you going to show me these moves you promised?”
“Yeah, darlin’, I’m going to show you these moves.”
He leads me towards the building, lighting up a cigarette as we walk. There’s a handful of other men sitting on benches out the front of what I’m assuming used to be part of the loading bay, when the building was still a working warehouse. They’re illuminated under the floods, laughing and joking. When Dean and I approach, all eyes come to us.
“Where the fuck have you been all day?” an older man demands.
He’s wearing a vest like the others, ‘Treasurer’ stamped on the breast. For an older guy, he’s really quite attractive. He has silvery-white hair which is styled into a mini-mohawk, and thick tree-trunk arms covered in tattoos. There is even one peeking out from under his vest around his neck.
“None of your fucking business, Jack,” Dean says with a smile that softens the words. Jack doesn’t seem offended by them anyway.
“You get that job done?”
Dean takes a drag of his cigarette before asking, “Have I ever not got a job done?”
The smell of tobacco is heavy in the air as he blows out smoke.
Jack eyeballs him. “Do I need to remind you about Skegness?”
I have no idea what the heck Skegness—which, if I’m not mistaken, is a small seaside town in the east of England—has to do with anything but the whole group erupts into laughter.
A blond man who looks like he could have walked off the pages of a Norse saga pushes away from the pillar where he’s leaning. He brushes his hair back from his face, the loose, tousled, wild waves a strange contrast to the leather and denim.
“He’s been busy, by the looks of things.” His eyes come to me and he offers me his hand. “I’m Jem.”
“Liv.” I take his hand and rather than shaking it, as I am expecting, he clasps it and brings our joined hands to his mouth. He then kisses the back of my hand gallantly.
“It’s a pleasure, sweetheart.”
Dean curses under his breath, but I grin. “Who said chivalry is dead?”
“Yeah, Jem’s a real fucking princess,” someone shouts out and laughter erupts from the group.
“Ignore them,” Jem says to me, still grinning. “They wouldn’t know how to treat a woman if their lives depended on it. It’s probably why so many of these tossers are acquainted with their right hands.”
Dean disentangles me from Jem’s hold, tucking me against his side and it’s not a bad place to be. He then plants a hand in Jem’s chest and shoves him back.
“Fuck off, you fucking delinquent.”
“We’ve got a run in the morning,” Jack says, his words pointed and cutting off any further banter between Dean and Jem.
“I’ll be ready,” Dean tells him and Jack meets his eyes, then nods, turning to me.
“Nice to meet you, sweetheart.”
“You too.”
Dean finally seems to lose patience with the whole situation. He takes my hand and pulls me towards the door. I try to wave to the group as I rush to keep up with his pace.
“Are they all in the Club?” I ask as he ushers us into the building after stubbing his cigarette out in the bin by the door.
“Unfortunately.”
This makes me grin because I liked them. Especially Jem. Not that I would tell Dean this. I don’t think it would go down well.
As we step inside, I’m hit with a wave of warm air. The building outside is a contrast to in. The exterior is encased in corrugated iron and looks industrialised. Inside is surprising. It’s homey and pleasant.
My eyes are everywhere as Dean takes me down a series of connecting corridors, numerous doors leading off to other rooms. There are photographs on the walls. The majority look like typical photographs you’d expect to see in any home—other than the fact they are of burly tattooed men in leather. In some, women are draped around them and there are a few photographs of kids with bikers. I even spot Dean in a fair number of them.
I stop to study one. He looks like he’s in a bar with a few other men who are all wearing the same vest he has on (I recognise a few from outside, including Jem). My gaze moves to the neighbouring photograph of Dean with his arm around the shoulders of a brunette. I don’t know why, but the easy smile on his face (and hers) makes my stomach lurch unpleasantly.
“This is all my gran’s doing,” he says, slowing his pace a little to give me time to look at the images. “She loves photographs, taking them, looking at them. I think Derek humours her by letting her put this stuff up.”
“A
re these all members?”
I’m genuinely curious as I study the faces staring back at me. Some are older men, some younger than Dean—and me. One thing that strikes me is the sense of family in the images. It’s clear these people are all close to one another. There’s a real family vibe, something I never had growing up, despite having a big family.
“Yeah—both past and present.” He takes my hand suddenly and my heart stutters as he pulls me half way back down the corridor. He stops in front of an old black and white image, one that clearly is from the sixties or seventies, judging by the fashion. The photograph has four men on it, all dressed in jeans and heavy leather jackets. They can’t be more than twenty, and they look like trouble. He points to the guy second in from the left.
“That’s Sammy—my grandfather. These four set up the Club in the sixties.”
I peer closely at the man.
“You look like him,” I tell him, and he does. He has a similar shaped face, the same heavy brow and strong jaw. The only difference is Dean has a beard, while his grandfather is clean shaven.
“So my gran is always telling me,” he says. “I didn’t quite inherit his penchant for trouble though.”
I find this statement odd, given the fact we’re standing in the Lost Saxons MC clubhouse and Dean is wearing the Lost Saxons vest.
He stares at the photograph and I can see the nostalgia washing across his features.
“He was a good man. A complete nut, but a good man.”
His words make my brow draw down and my words spill out before I check them.
“I’m not sure ‘good man’ and ‘nut’ are synonymous, Dean.”
Crap. Should I have said that? I bite my lip until he surprises me by laughing.
“Probably not, but it’s true all the same. Sammy and John Harlow—” He points to the man on the end of the row of men, “—once stole a milk float and drove it around Kingsley until the battery ran out. Grandad was always surprised by how far those things could go.”
“How old was he when he did that?” I’m acutely aware of the fact Dean is still holding my hand and that he hasn’t pulled away. Neither have I. What that means, I’m not sure, but I try not to think about how much I like the feel of his skin on mine.
“He must have been about twelve or something. He was always a tearaway. His mum had twelve kids—Sammy being somewhere in the middle. She just couldn’t control him and take care of the littler ones, so Sammy did what he wanted when he wanted.”
“Like setting up a motorcycle club?”
He nods. “Yeah, like setting up a motorcycle club. Come on.” He releases my hand and I feel the loss of his warmth keenly. I don’t let the disappointment show on my face as he retraces our steps up the corridor.
“So, you followed in your grandfather’s footsteps by joining the Club?” I ask as I tag along behind him.
“Yeah.”
“Was your father part of the Club as well?”
“For a time.” His words are clipped, and instinctively I know I need to stop asking questions, that I’ve hit a nerve.
“Sorry,” I mutter and he stops walking, turning back to me.
“For what?”
And I don’t know what I’m sorry for, only that I know I’ve said something I shouldn’t, so I shrug.
“Asking questions, for prying.”
“If I don’t want to answer something, darlin’, I won’t answer it, but how are you going to know what I will and won’t answer if you don’t ask?”
There is a strange logic to that.
“I was being nosey.”
His eyes scan my face before he says, “My dad got locked up when I was seven.”
My initial reaction is shock. I don’t let it show though because I can see Dean is watching me carefully for a reaction. And my reaction is holy fuck. I don’t know anyone who has been in prison—although Simon might have benefited from doing a long stint. I have no idea what to say to Dean, so I simply mutter, “Fuck.”
This is not the best response, nor the most articulate, but it seems to alleviate some of the tension because Dean snorts as he sags against the wall.
“You can say that again.”
“Is he… still…”
“Inside?” Dean says. “Yeah.”
Jesus. What did he do to get a sentence that long? Dean is at least in his early thirties now and his dad went inside when he was seven? I keep my mask in place as I stumble along the corridor behind him, my mind in overdrive. I’m not sure I want to know what he did. Ignorance is bliss and on this occasion the saying is completely true. I’m happier not knowing, even if my brain is drawing its own terrifying conclusions.
“It was just me and Gran when I was a kid—and a bunch of brothers. Mum died when I was a couple of months old.”
“Oh. Dean, I’m sorry.”
He shifts his shoulders. “I don’t remember her, and I had all the family I needed growing up.”
This may be the case but the thought of younger Dean growing up without his mother and his father locked up hits me hard. I reach out to touch his arm but another door on the corridor opens and I drop my hand as if I’ve been caught with it in the cookie jar.
Dean and I both turn in that direction and I see an older man—maybe in his sixties—coming down the corridor. He’s wearing a vest, like Dean, jeans and a checked shirt. There’s a patch on his vest that says ‘President’. So, this is the president of the Lost Saxons, Derek—the man who donated five grand to the shelter. He’s formidable, exactly how I expect the head of a motorcycle club to look; he certainly doesn’t look like he could be anyone’s grandad—despite his age. There is nothing grandfatherly about the man. He’s all jagged edges.
My gaze shifts to the man he’s with—a man I recognise. It’s Dim Tim, the councillor who helped us get the charity event up and running. He spots me and Dean and gives us both a thin-lipped smile before turning to the Lost Saxons president, giving us his back.
“What’s Dim Tim doing here?” I ask before I can stop myself. Holly said he was neck deep in dirt… I’m guessing she was right. What other reason is there for a politician to be at the headquarters of a criminal biker gang?
Dean’s brows draw together. “Dim Tim?”
“That’s what Holly calls him.”
He grins. “I knew I liked her. And I don’t know. Prez doesn’t tell me everything, darlin’, and even if I did know it’s Club business. I can’t talk about it.”
What the heck?
“You can’t talk about Club business?” What are they? The Illuminati?
“Nope.” He leans into me and stage-whispers. “It’s boring anyway.”
Dean moves to a door at the end of the corridor and opens it. It has an old-style lock that needs a key to open it from the other side and there are several bolts along the frame. Dean holds the door open for me, muttering, “Come on.”
Together, we step out of the claustrophobic clubhouse and into a large open courtyard. I can barely make out the stars overhead past the bright floodlights, but it’s quieter in this part of the compound, so quiet all I can hear is mine and Dean’s breaths. The warehouse looms around us on three sides, with a number of squat outbuildings situated on the fourth.
“So, now that you’ve interrogated me, it’s my turn.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I say, brushing my fingers through my hair as I force a smile. “Trust me: I’m seriously boring.”
If only…
But telling this strong, vivacious man about my not-so-boring past is not happening.
He stops walking and turns to me.
“I don’t think you could ever be boring, Liv.”
I think he’s joking but his expression tells me how serious he is. I’m fairly certain I blush to the roots of my hair and I want to throttle whoever installed these floodlights because I’m pretty sure my red face is clear to see.
I give a nervous laugh. “Trust me; I do boring well.”
“I’ll be the
judge of that.”
“Really, Dean, I’m probably the dullest person you’ll ever meet.” Apart from the closet full of skeletons that I have locked away.
His eyes zero in on me. “I’m curious—how’d you get involved in the shelter?”
My husband used to beat the crap out of me…
I swallow bile. “I’m sure you promised to show me some epic moves.”
This has the desired effect because he forgets his questioning, saying, “I did and I’m going to.”
Dean nudges me towards the door of the middle outbuilding. It’s a squat, single storey structure, unlike the main part of the clubhouse. He tugs on the keychain that spans from the front of his belt loop to the back, and a set of keys come free. He unhooks them and unlocks the door.
He enters first, fumbling on the inside wall for the light switch. I step in behind him as the room is suddenly illuminated.
The room is one big open space, filled with exercise machines. It’s as well-stocked as any gym, with rowers and cycles, a couple of treadmills and a rack filled with weights. There are some mats on the floor near the back end and a boxing ring on the very far side. The floor is something dark that looks hard wearing but not hard like tiles would be, and the walls are not corrugated iron but smooth plasterboard that has been painted cream.
I wrap my arms around my middle as my eyes scan the room, trying to take in everything. Dean appraises me, his eyes unreadable, but I swear his lips curve up a little before he says, “Give me two secs to get changed and then we’ll fight.”
“Okay, Dean.”
He crosses the room, eating up the space in a few long strides, and tugs open a door I didn’t even notice. I glimpse what looks like a changing area.
This is a seriously bad idea…
When he returns a couple of minutes later, he’s dressed in shorts that show off tanned, thickly toned legs and a sleeveless top that leaves his bulky tattooed biceps exposed. He’s inked right up his arms and down both legs—although the latter is not as intensive as the former. And God, he looks fantastic.
My blood is heated as I watch him saunter towards me, his hand running over his jaw.