Diesel
Page 16
“Tyler…”
“Hear me out, please. I know it’s not an anniversary we should be celebrating, but this is the day that you freed me from all the pain I was in when I was living in California. If you hadn’t come knocking on my apartment door, you know what Knux would have eventually done to me. I wouldn’t be standing here. That’s for sure.”
“As for where you’re going to wear it,” he continues, “I think that will be revealed later tonight.”
“Later tonight? You have plans for me?”
“No, not me. I’m not that grateful for you, Blanche.” He laughs and reaches inside his jacket, pulling out a crisp white card.
“What is this?” I ask, turning it over as a million options run through my mind.
I recognize the small, scribbled print almost immediately. Diesel and I spent more than a month writing letters back and forth while he was being held in county while the cops prepared him for his trial. I had wanted to bail him out with his dad’s money, but he wanted the account to remain untouched for Mateo in case he was given a harsh sentence.
We argued in those letters over what we should do, how hard we should fight the case, and if I should go back to California to gather evidence that Knux’s murder was in self-defense. In the end, it was Tyler who came through. He called in some favors and arranged for the man he let live testify about the night and Knux’s plans. It cleared Diesel on every charge except for firing a weapon inside a residential home – which carried a sentence of a few months rather than a lifetime behind bars.
Dear, Blanche,
Over a year ago, I came home and found your letter telling me that you were protecting your family by leaving me. It took me almost losing everything to understand why you did it. Now, after everything that has happened with our family, I know that I want to give the world to you.
Tonight, I want to show you just how much you mean to me. It’s been so long since we’ve been out together – just the two of us. So get dressed and meet me at the shop by 5 PM. I’ll be waiting.
Forever yours,
Diesel
My heart races as I practically race to my bedroom. I should savor this time to pamper myself or at least work on my eyeshadow game, but I can’t stand still. The thought of a night out with my man is one of the most exciting things that’s happened to me outside of Mateo’s birth.
I throw the dress on over my head, toss my hair up into a high bun, and spritz my perfume. I don’t even bother looking at myself in the mirror before heading back into the living room for the shoes.
“Wow,” Tyler says, stunned, “you really clean up nice.”
“Thanks.” I blush. “You’re going to be okay tonight? You won’t need any help?”
“No, no. And if I do, Mom and Dad are only a phone call away. They’re going to kill me when they know I got more Mateo time than they did.”
“They’ll get over it. It’s not like Mom isn’t going to be his babysitter come time for me to go back to work. Plus, tonight’s special. I can’t believe you guys pulled this off.”
“Just you fucking wait.” Tyler smiles as he places a hand over his mouth. “Sorry – still trying to break the habit around the kid. But seriously, it’s all Diesel’s been talking about for the last month. I try to talk about the business, and it comes right back around to what he has planned for you.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. You think a guy like him wouldn’t be into romance, but Christ is he…”
I sit down as I place the shoes on my feet. They’re going to pinch like hell, but pain is beauty.
“How is the business going? Diesel doesn’t like to talk shop with me.”
Tyler practically beams as he explains, “It’s going better than we imagined, Blanche. The body shop is booked out for at least three weeks, and the dealership needs new salesmen. We can’t stock the Harleys fast enough. Who the hell knew that this area had so many bikers?”
“Well, it helps when you’re recruiting them to your MC…”
I never thought I would be on board for the Screaming Devils, but Diesel swore that the club would never become a one percent type. With no business involved, the boys spend their weekends organizing club rides, drinking at the Willow Bar, and shooting the shit. And in return, I get to go to bed at night knowing they’re coming home when they’re done.
The clock on the wall beckons me on. I quickly give Mateo a kiss as I run off a list of instructions for Tyler. Knowing him, he’ll be on the phone with my mom the minute he starts to fuss. But I couldn’t care less. Tonight is my night. I can put aside being a mom for a few hours in exchange for whatever Diesel has up his sleeve.
When I arrive at the body shop, Diesel’s outside, hands in his pockets, and looking anxious. He kicks around a small pile of rocks with the new boots I bought him last month – when his old ones finally gave out. He’s also wearing the white dress shirt he swore he’d never touch and the pair of black trousers I told him to keep in case he ever had a business meeting. The only thing that looks like my Diesel is the wavy dark hair that flies around his wide, angular face.
“What are you doing out here?” I call out through my car’s open window. “The weatherman said there was going to be rain later!”
“What are you still doing in that car? I wanna see what you look like in that dress.”
I try to hide my smile as I turn the car off and slowly open the door. He watches, licking his lips, as I step out carefully in my heels.
Under his breath, I hear him mutter, “Fucking hell, do you look delicious.”
“You like?” I ask demurely, giving him a small spin. “It’s not really my style, but—”
“Shut up and kiss me.” He rushes to my side.
I barely have a second to catch my breath before his hands grasp my back, pulling me into his chest. Another hand cups my cheek, pulling my lips to his. We kiss, and it’s just like the first time. Every. Single. Time. The hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.
When he pulls away, he whispers a quick apology: “I had to do it. You look…”
“And so do you,” I pant out as I pull far enough away to properly study the outfit.
It’s not him at all, but that’s the point. Sometimes you play the part to please your partner. A little fantasy goes a long way.
“Come inside,” he commands as he takes my hand, “I’ve got something to show you.”
The Eagle Cycle Shop and Salesroom is unusually quiet. Every time I’ve popped into Tyler and Diesel’s business, the place has been hopping with customers and clients. The small staff has doubled in size in the last two months alone. Most days, Diesel can barely keep up with the books, so I take over the work as a favor to him. After all, he’s paying for the rent on our small cottage. It’s the least I can do.
“Did you send everyone home?” I ask as we step through the doors. Music’s playing over the speakers, but it’s not the typical hard rock and heavy metal Diesel prefers.
“Yeah. The cleaning girls stayed around for a while and made sure that everything was set.”
“Was set for—” Before I can ask the rest of my question, Diesel turns me around to face the emptied out showroom. Where the newest models are usually on display, a table for two covered in a white linen tablecloth sits surrounded by a circle of long, stemmed pink candles.
“What is this?”
“This, Blanche – this is dinner.”
“You didn’t…”
He places an arm around my waist and walks me towards the table and through a parting of the candles. I didn’t notice the red and pink flower petals before now. Nor did I see the plates – my mom’s good China from her wedding.
“Blanche,” Diesel says quietly, bringing me back to the present. “This is nothing. What I have here is nothing – nothing compared to what you did and sacrificed for me back in the field. Without you, we would have all been… well, we wouldn’t be here tonight.”
The breath in my throat catches as
I struggle to see him through my teary eyes.
“I should have known that first night we were together that you would be the one that would change my world. I was too stupid and too prideful to even consider it. But you taught me that family and love mean more than anything else, and you’re both to me. You’re my first and only love. You’re my family. And there’s nothing I want more in this world than to make it official. Back in California, you made me a deal, and I want to make a new one with you tonight...”
I gasp, bringing a hand up to cover my gaping mouth, as Diesel drops to one knee. A ring box appears as if out of nowhere. He says more to me, but I don’t hear a word. All I can think of is my answer.
“Yes!” I shout as he grows quiet. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
This is one agreement I know I will never regret.
THE END
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Sneak Preview of SILAS
Read on for a sneak preview of my first book, Silas!
Silas: A Bad Boy Motorcycle Club Romance (Death Knells MC)
Biker. Outlaw. Bad boy. Killer?
On his deathbed, my MC president made me swear to keep his daughter safe.
But marrying the girl is a dangerous mistake.
She’s in my house now – and I can’t keep my hands off of her.
Which is how she ended up pregnant with my baby.
JESSA
Silas has always done what he needed to do to survive.
But I could never be with a man whose hands are covered in innocent blood.
It doesn’t matter that he’d do anything to keep me safe.
I don’t need to be protected – I need to be free.
Free from pain.
Free from violence.
Free from my past.
But I’m trapped in a contradiction.
Because the only place I truly feel alive is on the back of Silas’s bike.
I can’t submit to this life.
I’ve got a bright future, far away from here.
At least, that’s what I used to think.
But now, every time Silas lays his hands on me…
Every time he takes me to his bed and shows me what my body craves…
I’m forced to admit:
I belong to him.
SILAS
Jessa tried to run away from the biker world.
But I jumped into the deep end.
I’ve done bad things in my time down here.
Robbed. Hurt. Killed.
All for the club. For my brothers.
But my sins have changed me. Marked me.
I can’t be near a woman anymore.
Especially not one as pure and innocent as Jessa.
If she gets too close…
There’s no telling what I might do to her.
Which is why this fake marriage is a huge mistake.
I swore to her father – my dying president – that I’d protect his only daughter.
But I never expected it to come to this:
Her walking through my house.
Sleeping in my bed.
And – God help us both – having my baby.
Chapter One
341 B. 341 B.
Jessa swallowed a sick knot in her throat as the room number ran through her mind. The hospital had too many damn hallways. She skidded to a stop in front of a plaque with room numbers pointing in opposite directions. The anxiety made it impossible to digest what she was seeing. She pressed a hand to her forehead.
341 B.
She hung a left, her legs feeling wooden as she remembered the phone call. One of the motorcycle club brothers. A guy she hadn’t seen in years – telling her she needed to come to the hospital ASAP. Her father had been shot.
Most times when a brother got shot, it didn’t even warrant a second glance.
If they had been instructed to call her, the estranged daughter of the Death Knells’ president, then it could only be bad.
Bad bad bad. 341 Bad.
The breath whooshed out of her when she finally found the room. Hands shaking, she turned the door handle. She hadn’t seen her father face-to-face in two years. Even then, it had been fleeting and perfunctory. A sort of “let’s try to make this relationship better” meetup that had ultimately led to nothing changing.
Because how could it? Her father, Stone, was committed to his MC. Jessa’s little brother had died at the helm of it, too, so Jessa never wanted a part of their fake trappings of security and brotherhood.
Better to just go their separate ways.
And now look where the MC got you, Dad.
The door creaked as it swung open. A dimly lit room greeted her. And six Death Knells members turned to look at her.
The room seemed to shrink under the quiet protectiveness of the club brothers. There was barely a sound as she stepped in, save for the weak beeping of a machine hooked up to her father. His grizzled features looked even more war-torn than she remembered under the dim light of the room.
He gestured for her to approach, an IV stuck in his hand.
Jessa looked at the brothers as she headed for the bed. There wasn’t animosity necessarily, but rather a feeling of two species of different worlds acknowledging each other. A rabbit nodding at a dinosaur. A scientist stepping into the world of a porn star.
“Jessa.” Her father’s rasp was weak – almost sounded like a different person entirely. “You came.” The surprise registered in his voice despite the breathing tube. After all, he had good reason to think she might not come.
But Jessa had debated, then realized, at the end of the day, that she at least needed to see the old man off.
“What happened?” She slid her hand into his rough outstretched fingers. His familiar warmth brought back tender memories of childhood – the way he used to lead her to her favorite ice cream shop on Sundays, the effortless way he could throw her up, high into the sky, while she shrieked with joy, and the overall sense that her daddy would always be her protector. No matter what life threw their way.
Except he couldn’t protect your brother. And he couldn’t protect himself. So you had to protect yourself through distance.
“I don’t think you want to know.” He managed a weak laugh. Jessa was acutely aware of the brick wall of brothers surrounding her and her father. The men were motionless, stoic – always there to do the president’s bidding. “It was tense. We lost a brother.”
She sniffed. “And now you.” Her gaze traveled over the bandages wrapped around his bicep. He shifted in bed, wincing. “Where were you shot?”
He let out a rattling sigh. “My gut and my chest.”
“So why aren’t they just sewing you up?” She glanced around the hospital room. A few pairs of eyes were on her. Who could tell what these guys knew about her, much less what they thought of her? Two she recognized from her childhood; longtime pals and brothers of the club. The rest were strangers; probably recruited sometime in the past six years that she’d distanced herself fully from her father and the club.
Her baby brother, Jake, had died at age eighteen as a recruit for the Death Knells. It had destroyed her, and their father, too. But the fact that the old man didn’t give up the MC lifestyle immediately hadn’t sat well with her. It just didn’t make sense for him to support the lifestyle that had killed his only son.
Not that this crowd would be sympathetic.
“The way the bullet entered…” He paused, wheezing. “I’ve got some internal bleeding. It’s real bad, Gem.”
He’d always called her his ‘Jessa Gem’ growing up – pretty like a gemstone. She rolled her lips inward, studying the seam of his hospital-issued blanket. She wouldn’t cry here, not in front of all these men she didn’t know.
The brothers regarded her in stony silence. Maybe her father had instructed them to be invisible, or maybe this was the byproduct of her truly awful reputation. Stone nodded, flicking his fingers toward the door. She watched as they filed out like a bizarre version of a schoolroom line; these grown boys in their matching uniforms, black leather cuts with the same gnarled bell sewn onto the back.