Scenic Route

by D. D. Prince

  “Cartels and mafia?” I gasped. “Like, real mafia?”

  “It’s okay. We got connections, too. Two men at the salon from now on. Don’t like that Scoot had to deal on his own. Edge got released this mornin’. He’s on his way down here. Told ‘em he was in the middle of relocating so the cops won’t fuss about him being outside Sioux Falls. Him. Brady. Now both Aberdeen. We’re swellin’ our numbers, too. We think Mantis is hidin’ close by here and Edge wants him. Bad.”

  I had a feeling things were about to get bad.

  ***

  It was Tuesday night and we were at Deke’s Roadhouse. It was the three Valentine brothers and their girls. Our first triple date. Jenna, Ella, me, and the three guys were at a table and us girls were trying to keep it light with laughing and joking around, but the guys were much more subdued tonight. Alert. Watchful. It wasn’t the fun date we’d had in mind as it was obvious that the guys were on edge.

  This was a last-minute outing, not something we had any input into. They were probably less than thrilled about taking us out. It’s not every day your father and MC Prez orders you to go on a triple date.

  We’d all gone on the backs of our guys’ motorcycles and wound up at the cheesesteak place. We ate, and now we were here.

  Everyone in the club was out riding, at various points in the city. Making their presence known. Dominion Brotherhood members from other charters were all taking turns swinging into town, too, and would be throughout the following days, stopping by to drink at the Roadhouse. This was happening in every city where there was both a Dom and Jackal presence. There were now four such cities.

  There had been a meeting the previous afternoon. He told me that Deke wanted a presence around town. Lots of riding. With women. But, no one out after midnight unless in a group and without the women.

  In fact, on the upcoming Saturday, we were doing a charity thing in the Valentine parking lot for Biker Big Bros. We were raising money with a bike and car wash and charity barbeque. Me and Jenna would do face painting. Ella, her Mom, Laura, and Deanna would sell burgers and hot dogs. Bronto and Pudge were going to be biker clowns. Pudge was apparently a dab hand at balloon animals. MCs that were friendly with the Doms would come by to get their bikes or cars washed and show their support. The club would be getting press, too.

  The charity was going to have the side effect of helping with the image of the Doms and this would help keep the Jackals firmly known as the local outlaw club.

  It was Jenna’s idea, seconded by Ella, to get the hot bikers to do the car and bike washing shirtless.

  “We should get a photographer. Make a Beautiful Biker Calendar!” Ella had bounced up and down.

  “No,” Deacon said.

  “For charity!” Jenna tried, an excited gleam in her eye. “Andie does photography. She could---"

  “You okay with other women droolin’ over me, gorgeous? My picture on their wall?”

  Jenna’s expression changed. She looked at Rider a second and then she and Ella looked at one another. “Nevermind,” they said in perfect unison.

  In the end, it was decided that all the Dom brothers would be shirtless and doing the car and bike washing. Younger, older, hot, not, buff, and fluff. Equal. And it was a no to the Beautiful Biker calendar.

  “Eyes, seven o’clock,” Deacon muttered, eyes bouncing between Spencer and Rider.

  Rider casually looked behind him and looked back to Deacon. Spencer dropped his keys on the floor and turned to casually look.

  “Paige Simpson,” Jenna said under her breath.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “We went to high school with her,” Ella whispered. “She’s a mole for the Jackals. Takes pictures of things happening in here. Tries to get with Dom brothers so she can report back on secrets. She’d dumb as a bag of rocks, so they let her do her thing so that we know what’s what. No bikers ever take her up on her skankiness.”

  I sipped my drink and looked that way and saw the redheaded biker broad sitting at the corner of the bar, drinking beers with a blonde girl. The redhead had her phone out and she did not look casual.

  “Do we know who she’s reporting to?” Ella asked.

  “Gordino,” Spencer said.

  Gordino was the Jackals president in Ipswich, which was nearby.

  “Let’s go,” Rider said. “We’ll have eyes on her.

  ***

  Rider and Jenna went home in Rider’s car, leaving Rider’s motorcycle here, but me and Spencer plus Deacon and Ella headed up the inside stairs (that unlocked with a key fob Spencer had on his keychain) into the clubhouse after two drinks. But when we got to the second floor, something was wrong. Spencer & Deacon’s phones sounded at the same time with a text.

  “Fuck,” they both said in unison in the hallway, eyes on their screens. Ella and I looked at one another with worry.

  “Go watch TV with Pippa, Kitten. Be with you in a minute,” Deacon said, gesturing to the TV room, which was to the left of the stairs.

  Spencer kissed me and the two headed down the hall together.

  “Uh oh,” Ella said.

  “I don’t like this,” I told her. “The air feels wrong.”

  “You got that right, sister.”

  ***

  An older retired Dom MC member in Rapid City, one with a longstanding beef with Mantis’s father, was found dead in his home that day with bullet wounds to the chest.

  Sean “Blow” O’Grady’s girlfriend Marlena had been in a bad car accident on the way back to Aberdeen from Redfield. Spencer told me they suspected her brakes had been messed with. She was in ICU in critical condition. She’d had Pudge following her and she almost took his bike out, too, when she lost control of the car. The Jaws of Life had to be used to extricate her from the vehicle. They were worried about brain trauma.

  A shipment of four new motorcycles for the showroom had not shown up that day. The delivery truck was missing and the driver had been found unconscious in a parking lot of a truck stop. He said he’d been knocked out at a truck stop and mugged of his wallet, keys, and truck. He recalled being followed by three bikers for a long stretch of highway as they’d pulled into the truck stop with him, but said he couldn’t see what sort of patch was on their leather.

  Add to that what they’d tried to pull with me and it was not a good day for The Dominion Brotherhood.

  “Ride asked that you girls close the salon the rest of the week,” Spencer said to me when we got back to his room. He and Deacon had broken all this news to us in the TV room and then we’d gone to our respective rooms. Chakotay, who’d been at my feet had followed us in.

  “Jenna pleaded her case,” he added. “and she won. But you’re gonna have two members inside instead of one. We aren’t fuckin’ around. Not after the day we had.”

  I dropped my jeans onto his chair and threw my hoodie off, then climbed onto the bed in my tank and undies. The dog jumped up with me and put his head on my belly.

  Spencer stared down at the dog while undressing.

  He pointed toward the dog bed.

  I looked down and the dog was looking up at him, tail thumping, and him pretending he wasn’t being asked to get out of the bed.

  “Chakotay, down.”

  He jumped down and went to his doggie bed.

  Spencer got in beside me and pulled me close. “Fuckin’ dog is supposed to be mine but he’s now half Beau’s and half yours.”

  I giggled. “He likes me.”

  “Fuckin’ shitty day,” he mumbled.

  “Yeah.”

  “But, sure is nice to have you here at the end of it.”

  I ran my hand up his chest and he caught it and pulled my palm to his lips and planted a kiss there.

  “Shit gets any worse, she can have her other girls run the place and you and her are in lock down. I’d feel better if you were now, but I understand you girls have a business to run.”

  I chewed my cheek and cuddled in, head on his chest. He reached above his head to the head
board and grabbed his remote and flicked the television on.

  I fell asleep on his chest.

  ***

  I was being choked. Hands were around my throat choking me. The face was Joe’s, then the bearded biker, and I was calling for Spencer, pleading for him, but then I saw he was on the ground beside me, his motorcycle lying on its side. He was bleeding.

  I was screaming.

  “Baby, it’s okay, I have you.”

  The room was dark. Spencer was holding me. I grabbed his face and choked out a cry.

  “You’re okay?”

  “Yeah, Pippa. I’m okay. What’d you dream?”

  There was pounding on the door.

  “Pippa!” came a shout.

  Bronto?

  Spencer flew away from me and threw the light on and ripped the door open.

  “What?”

  “She’s screamin’. What’s goin’ on.”

  “She had a nightmare.”

  “You fine, Pippa?” Bronto peeked in.

  I was sitting up, clutching blankets to my chest, hyperventilating. Deacon, Pudge, and Skip were also in the hall now, looking woken up, trying to figure out what the ruckus was.

  “I had a nightmare. Sorry.” I shielded my eyes from the blinding light.

  Talk about embarrassing.

  “Back off.” Spencer gave Bronto another sour look and slammed the door and locked it, then flicked the light off and crawled in with me and pulled me close.

  “You okay?”

  My heart was racing, and I was mortified.

  Bronto thought Spencer was hurting me.

  “You were hurt and someone was choking me. It was Joe and then the Wyld Jackal with the beard. You were bleeding and on the ground beside your motorcycle.”

  He caressed my cheek.

  “And I woke everyone and made you and Bronto growl at one another again. I thought you two were fine.”

  “We are fine, baby.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Not your fault you had a bad dream. You want a drink?”

  “No.” It was 2:30 in the morning. I needed to get back to sleep. “Oh. Wednesday night, tonight, we have dinner with my parents.”

  “We what?”

  “Shit. My Mom’s gonna kill me. What’s your favorite dinner?”

  “Huh? Wednesday, not Sunday?”

  I took a deep breath and tried to clear the rest of the nightmare cobwebs away.

  “Sunday too. But Wednesday because Mom was mad that I didn’t invite her to your birthday party, so she wants to at least do a birthday dinner for you.”

  His body tensed.

  “I told her you don’t like your birthday, but she…like…really makes a big deal out of birthdays and wants to do your favorite dinner. She’ll probably buy you a silly present so as not to make a big deal. And make or buy you a cake. She texted me today and told me if I didn’t get her answers by tonight, she was going to make surf ‘n turf for you.”

  “Uh…”

  “Do you have plans, because attendance is sort of mandatory.”

  “Mandatory like the mandatory slippers?”

  I loosened up, hearing humor in his voice.

  “So, do you like surf ‘n turf?” I asked. “Jojo said you like seafood and most guys like steak so…”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “I don’t, really. I’m more of a chicken breast girl than a steak girl, unless it’s steak fajitas. And seafood? Meh. Not my jam. But, I’ll deal. How do you feel about chocolate cake?”

  “Duh,” was his reply. “And I like fajitas too, baby, remember? Fuck, you wake up whatever time and you’re just go, go, go, aren’t you?”

  I giggled and sat up, then crawled over, straddling him. And then I remembered making fajitas with Joe once when Spencer was over. He ate them like they were about to go out of style. Joe and I made them often. I pushed those thoughts away.

  “Are you sleepy?” I asked, running my hand up his chest to land on his shoulder.

  His reply was to put his hands on my hips.

  “Even if I was, this always trumps sleep.” His fingers tightened on my hips. “Always.”

  I rocked in a slow and deliberate motion to create fiction right in the perfect place. He sat up, hefting me tighter against his big bulge, pushing my tank top up and putting his mouth to my breast.

  “This is a great way to slay a nightmare,” I advised.

  “Nightmare slayer right here,” he announced.

  “Oh yeah?” I inquired.

  “Yep. You’re lucky. No nightmares will ever hurt you again. You didn’t know this when you dreamt tonight, but now you do. So… any time you feel something off in your dreams, just tell yourself, I’ve got Spence. He’s on his way to slay this nightmare. Nothing’ll ever hurt me.”

  “Great news, baby.” I reached down and pulled my panties to the side, getting his hard cock wet with me.

  “Mm. His fingers tightened on my hips. “That’s nice. You wanna reach down for a condom, baby?”

  I reached over, and his fingers sank inside me from behind. This made me lose my balance and land flat on my belly before I got to the condom.

  He pulled my panties down and off, then his mouth was on me down there. But he was behind me.

  “Oh wow,” I groaned and tugged on the strip but then fumbled and dropped them on the floor.

  I got to my knees as he tongued my clit, holding my butt cheeks in his hands.

  I was gonna reach toward the floor but kind of forgot.

  “Spencerrrr.”

  “Mm. Baby. You taste good.”

  “I wanna taste you, too.”

  I was flipped around and then my face was at his crotch, my knees above his shoulders. I pulled down his boxer briefs and got my mouth around him and began to suck, running my hands down his thighs, then caressing his balls.

  With my ass in his hands and his tongue inside, his thumb slid between my butt cheeks just a little, and then it was right there. Back door breach. Whoa. Hot. I started to come, began choking on his cock while coming. My legs were trembling and my eyes were rolling, and somehow I was having a gag reflex while climaxing. My eyes watered as I tried to recover, digging my nails into his legs while he kept thrusting his pelvis up into my face. I took a big breath and then sucked hard. His hand slapped my ass and then his fingers gripped hard as he came down my throat with a loud groan.

  Chakotay barked.

  We both started to laugh.

  This dog had, what, slept through my nightmare, and the ruckus? This was the first sound out of him since all that.

  “Now you’re with us,” I joked.

  “He didn’t bark when you had the nightmare ‘cuz he knew I had you covered.”

  “He’s smart,” I said.

  “Yep. He is.”

  He pulled his underwear on and slipped out into the hallway. He came back with two bottles of water not long after. I was still at the wrong end of the bed, flopped, still recovering.

  “You okay down there?” he asked when he was back in bed and I still hadn’t budged.

  “Nope. Cocknotized.”

  “What?”

  “Well, actually, tongue-notized since it was your tongue that did that instead of your cock.”

  He laughed.

  “My guy? He has some skills,” I bragged.

  He hauled me up to the top of the bed and cuddled me close.

  “Nightmare slayer. Protector. Cock and tongue magician. What other skills you got?” I asked.

  “Guess we’ll find out as time goes by.”

  I giggled and then my giggle died with a gulp. I took a deep breath. “I think maybe I love you, Spencer Valentine.”

  His arms went tight around me. “You think maybe?”

  “Maybe.” I planted a kiss on the cleft on his chin. His fingers went into my hair and he kissed my forehead.

  “I’ll make you sure.”

  “Hm.” I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

 
; 16

  It was Wednesday night and we were leaving my parents’ place after Spencer’s non-birthday birthday dinner.

  Dad was a little pooped from work, having gotten home an hour before dinner after being on the road since Sunday night, but he and Mom worked together to grill steaks and seafood kebobs with baked potatoes and her famous seven-layer salad. She made Spencer a German chocolate cake. Everything tasted incredible and Spencer thrilled my mother with his compliments of her cooking.

  As she came out of the kitchen with the cake, a candle lit, not having warned me she was going to do that, she started by singing out… “Haaaaaappppp…”

  Dad had slipped out to the bathroom, so wasn’t in the room and I didn’t join in, because I’d bloody well told her he didn’t like his birthday, and he just stared, looking like he was trying hard not to shut down. He was failing at not looking like he wanted her to stop. If it’d been any other time, she’d have paused, hollered for Dad to “Get in here!” and would’ve started over.

  Not this time. This time, Mom’s face went funny and then she set the cake on the table in front of him and went “---ppy belated birthday. Okay. Never mind this.” She blew out the candle and pulled it out.

  It was frosted with chocolate swirls but said Happy Birthday Spencer in hot pink icing. Sheesh, Mom.

  “Just a little non-gift. Just something fun for you two to do. Pippa can open it since it’s not a birthday gift.” She had an envelope. She pulled something out of what was obviously a card and handed it to me, then held the card behind her back.

  Spencer chuckled and that broke the ice, so I laughed at my mom as I opened the tiny envelope.

  A voucher for a little boutique inn. Couples massage and a getaway night for two with a romantic dinner.

  “Oh wow, Mom,” I said. “This is great.” I passed it to Spencer.

  He smiled. “Very cool, Mrs. Griffin.”