by Nicole Fox
We arrived, and I wondered if this was right. I had no intention of staying. Trip seemed to have some sort of idea of that. It didn’t seem to matter when we sat across from each other, however, and I started to look at the menu, feeling more and more like my teen self than I did the adult woman that I was today.
Feels like a date. I haven’t gone on a real, right date in ages …
“Nothing’s even changed,” I murmured in awe, looking over the menu after our waitress took our drink orders. I ignored the lingering stare that the girl gave Trip and the way she leaned all the way over so that a peek of her chest was visible for Trip’s obviously wandering eyes in favor of paying attention to the abundance of food that I hadn’t had in forever. Trip laughed.
“You gonna huff and puff over the little waitress like old times, too?”
I looked at him over the menu.
“I was referring to the food.”
“Mmhm.”
“I was. You’re not that much of a problem stirrer, you know.”
“Is that so? I remember back in the day you liked showing pretty, interested waitresses just who was going home with me. Marked your territory real good.”
I stuck my tongue out him, and hoped that my blush wasn’t too prominent.
“Look, see! You’re red as a popped cherry, Mi.”
“Fuck off, T.”
Mi. T. What were we, teens again?
The waitress—Candy, it said on her nametag—came back around to take our orders. She ignored me in favor of asking Trip what he wanted.
“Is there anything good I can get you?” she asked. Once more, she leaned over more than necessary. Trip smiled up at her.
“I think my girl here is ready to order.”
I raised my brow at him calling me his girl, but I wouldn’t deny the satisfaction in how quickly Candy snapped up straight and turned to me instead. Of course, the look on her face wasn’t particularly pleasant.
“What do you want?”
Someone’s got an attitude.
“A large Italian sub and a loaded Stromboli, please.”
“Hmm, big appetite,” she commented; it was far from complimentary.
Candy turned back to Trip, and her tone immediately changed back.
“Now, what can I get you, honey?”
Trip ordered, though I didn’t pay much attention. I kept my eyes on the back of Candy’s head, mouth in a deep grimace. Seriously? Trip didn’t even go for blonde bimbo waitresses
“You know, green was always a good color for you.”
I looked away from a retreating Candy to turn to Trip.
“I’m not jealous.”
“I never said you were jealous.”
“You said green was a good color on me.”
“Your shirt’s green,” he said with a grin. “Take the damn compliment.”
I knew that Trip was playing with me, but I let it go. I was definitely, one hundred percent, was not jealous. It was just rude to ignore fifty percent of your table, that was all! I huffed and took a considerable sip of my soda, looking anywhere but at Trip and his stupid, smug, handsome face.
“Though, it’s kinda nice you still puff up over me. I wonder what else hasn’t changed about you.”
I inhaled through my nose. So, he was going to keep playing this game, was he?
“Not so much that things have changed, but I’ve probably learned a few things that would put you to shame, Trip. So I wouldn’t go there if I were you.”
He laughed.
“Oh? Have you? I bet it’s nothing I can’t handle. I bet whatever it is, I can give you a run for your money.”
“I bet you’re full of shit.”
“Oh, language!” he said, throwing my words back at me.
“Rose isn’t here.”
“I wonder what she’d say if she knew her mommy cursed like a sailor.”
“She’d probably think that it was daddy’s fault for being a bad influence.”
“Oh. Kinky. I didn’t realize you’d be fine calling me daddy.”
I nearly choked on my drink.
“Trip!”
He let out a roaring laugh, and I threw my napkin at him.
“You haven’t changed one bit, have you?”
“Nah, I’ve changed. It’s just been a long time since I’ve been able to have this.”
“Yeah … I can understand that.”
We were silent for a moment before he spoke up again.
“You and Holland … You ever do shit like this?” he asked. He sounded somewhere halfway between curious and not wanting to know.
“Shit like what, Trip? Dates? He took me out from time to time, yeah.”
“Did you like it?”
I stared at him.
“It was better than being holed up in his house all day, or at the shop.”
“I see.”
“It’s not like I looked at them like dates.”
He stared at me for a bit, head tilted.
“Would you consider this a date, then?”
Was he serious?
“I was considering it dinner, to be honest. You never said that it was a date.”
“I didn’t think I had to.”
I scoffed, though I wasn’t mad. It was more to hide the fact that I liked thinking of it as a date a little more than I should have. I was caught somewhere between disbelief and amused … Maybe a little pleased that he would have thought of this as a date to begin with. Hell. There I went again, thinking about this … this … shit again! I took another drink of my soda, as if that was going to help the situation in the slightest.
“What about you and Trixie?” I blurted out.
“What about me and Trixie?”
“It’s obvious that there’s something going on there.”
“She’s a club girl.” Well, I figured that much out. I wasn’t born yesterday. “Not much to go on. Besides, like I told you, that’s not happening anymore.”
“Hmm.”
He said it with such conviction that it was hard to not believe him. I honestly hadn’t when he had told me they were done during our fight. I figured they would still screw around—at least a little, because it wasn’t like there was a huge thing about fidelity among the clubs. Not like there was fidelity to be had between me and Trip!
Still.
I knew club girls. I’d never been one, but if you lived life around bikers, you lived life around club girls. You knew what they were for. You knew what they were worth—at least in the eyes of the boys. I’d always been friends with the girls that hung around the Pride; they also tended to titter on and on about me and Trip.
“You know,” I said, “we’re talking an awful lot about other women, to say that this is a date—”
“It’s a date now, is it?”
“I’m calling it a date.”
He seemed pleased by that, and grinned.
“Well, good. I like the sound of that.”
Our food came out then, Candy swaying her hips this way and that way. Trip didn’t pay attention to them, though. He kept his eyes on me and I couldn’t help but squirm; his stare had always beenneedlessly intense.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
I rolled my eyes. As we continued to eat, I felt myself get more and more … open to this. Eating here with him. But yet again, I found myself wanting to clear the air on something.
“About the other day—”
“You don’t gotta apologize. I think it’d probably be better if we didn’t try this whole apology thing, considering where it gets us,” he said. I nudged my foot at him under the table.
“I’m sorry,” I said anyway. “You have to understand things are just—”
“Different.”
“Yeah.”
“You know,” he said. “I don’t think they’re as different as you’re making them out to be. But that’s all right.”
“It is?”
“Yeah. Like you said, it’s been five years … But the
re is something that I want.”
Of course there is.
“And what would that be, Trip?”
“Well, if this is a date,” he said, digging into the fourth massive slice of his pizza, “I think we should treat it like one. All the way through.” He grinned at me, and my heart fluttered. “You wanna have some fun after? To make up for time lost and … all this shit the last few days. We were always good at making up, you know.”
The air seemed to snap with the release of the tension that had been around us all day—hell, since I’d gotten back—with his brazen, bold words. I knew exactly what kind of fun he meant—and exactly how we used to make up back in the day. It was obvious in the way he looked at me. I had to wonder if that was the only reason he’d brought me out here with him today. I had to wonder even more if I actually cared—I knew that I should, but this was Trip; I’d always been weak for him.
I decided to play it cool, even though I felt my resolve slipping and slipping hard, right between my legs, where the memory of having him there was far too in the distant past. I wanted to make up. I wanted him, too, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to have him for long.
“Depends on the kind of fun,” I said, sipping at my drink. “I don’t want Rose waiting up or thinking that something’s happened to me. Besides. If it’s making up, we should be thorough about it.” I nodded, and Trip matched mine with one of his own.
“Well, I was thinking something quick, but good. I can make up for being an ass when you’ve just gotten back.”
There was that phrase again, and the implication of his words was still there. I couldn’t pretend like there wasn’t one way that this was going to end. I should have been more opposed, but …
“Quick fun, you say?” I took a bite of my food, watching him. His eyes never left my mouth. When I flicked my tongue over my lips, he bit his own. The reaction made me feel powerful.
“Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun if it’s gonna be quick, Trip. And I don’t know if you can make up in such a short amount of time.”
“If I recall, it never took me too long to make you accept my apologies back in the day. Let me take care of you, Misha.”
It was a bad idea. I reminded myself—I wasn’t here for Trip. I wasn’t here to relive our younger days. Hell, I didn’t even know if there was a me and Trip to speak of. The boys at the bar could look at me and treat me like I was still his old lady all they wanted; didn’t mean that I was.
If I recall, it never took me too long to make you accept my apologies back in the day. Let me take care of you, Misha.
I’d missed it so much. Hadn’t realized how much until I’d come back and seen him again.
Maybe that’s all it was to him. Quick fun. If that’s all it was … just fun … Just making up.
It was a bullshit excuse, but I would take it and pretend like it was true nonetheless.
I sipped at my drink. I found myself a little too hot for my jeans, and I knew that there was something nagging between my legs and it was easy to pretend that if this was just for fun then it would be easy to treat it like that when it came time to snip Trip loose again when I left. But there was a reason that I had gotten involved with him in the first place. Trip was a hard man to resist, and I’d never been very good at telling him no. I might as well have been a horny teen again, not caring about caution all for the sake of the pretty boy across from me.
I wasn’t going to forgive myself, but if it meant sating part of this tension, then I would take it with a grain of salt and consider it my earned dues for the shit I’d had to go through.
“Five minutes,” I said, standing up. “We have to get back before sundown and you have work to do.”
I finished my drink and stood up, heading outside. But instead of going to Trip’s bike, I rounded the corner and went toward the alley beside the diner. Trip and I, when we were teens, had made use of that alley more often than not. We’d been stupid back then—apparently, we were still a little stupid.
It’d barely been two weeks, and I was already running back into Trip’s arms after having made the choice five years ago to leave them.
Chapter Five
Trip
I didn’t actually think that my flirting would get me anywhere. I’d hoped, but Misha was a stubborn woman. She had been so damn distant with me before this, but over the day we’d just slipped back into how we used to be. Or at least something that kind of felt like it.
I knew she was hiding something from me.
I knew she had gone through hell with the Jackals, regardless.
It didn’t matter when she agreed to some quick fun, though. Making up. If I was being honest, I hoped that it landed her with me longer than just something hard and quick. But for the time being, having spent the whole day with her, sitting across from her during dinner and seeing that she still reacted to me the way she used to, was enough.
I wanted her. She was mine. I’d make her remember what she’d obviously forgotten in five years.
I didn’t wait for Candy’s candy fake ass to come back around. I pulled out all the bills in my wallet, plenty to cover mine and Misha’s food, and more than a twenty percent tip before I headed out of the diner. I didn’t even bother to stop at Candy’s call, didn’t give her the satisfaction of giving her an answer, either.
I knew exactly where Misha headed. We’d done this a hundred times before.
She was leaned against the wall of the diner in the alley. She looked up to the sky, breathing in deeply. I was hungry for her in ways that I’d only ever been hungry for her. Never any other woman.
I took her face in my hands as soon as I was in front of her. I didn’t give her the time to change her mind, and I knew that she wouldn’t when she moaned against my lips. She tasted divine, felt better, too.
I didn’t want to give her time to decide she was gonna pull away from me. I hoisted her up against the wall. Her legs went instantly around my waist. Her shirt was a cute thing, little button up. I popped those top buttons open so I could kiss my way down to her breasts as they were exposed. They were full as ever, plump as fuck, and I wondered if that was because she’d had a child. I nuzzled my face there, inhaling her scent. She was sweet andfucking soft. Her nails raked through my hair and tugged hard, making me bite down on her with a growl.
I smirked at her gasp. She was going to bruise.
“Trip, come on. We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Hush and let me take care of you.”
I covered her mouth with mine so she couldn’t protest anymore. We moaned together, tongues sliding over each other. We fit each other like a glove and it made my cock twitch to feel how easy it was to kiss her like I used to.
Like no time had passed.
I unbuttoned the rest of her shirt, growling against her lips. I slid my hands over her as her own started to wander. Her nails raked over my abs and clawed into me, making my cock ache.
“Fuck me, Trip. I missed you.”
Her praises made me buck against her.
“I’ll give you something to miss, baby.”
Her whine was high and pretty, and as she fumbled with my pants I meddled with hers, shoving my hand in when I got the damn button and zipper loose. My fingers dipped in past panties and over her soft, hot skin. She was totally bare, and she was soaked.
“You’re already so wet for me,” I growled, finding her sweet little spot, rubbing my fingers over it. She bucked against me with a gasp and the hand working my pants gripped my cock over them.
“Trip … more. You’re apologizing, remember?” She said it like that was the only reason that we were back here doing this, but I fucking knew better, and knew she did too.
“Yeah, making up.” I covered my mouth with hers again as I slipped fingers inside of her, loving the feeling of her inside wrapped hot and tight around me.
She was a desperate little thing when she got worked up. I fucking loved it, and dipped my fingers down to her soaking, aching hole. I s
pread that sweet wetness around her clit, making it slippery slick. I could feel how it twitched beneath my fingers and I worked her over as she pulled my cock from my pants and started to jerk me off.
“Fuck, just like that, Misha. Just like that.”