“That’s why I called it Lady Sings the Blues.” Mark found his way to my side again, just as stealthily as before.
“Do only women sing, then?”
“No. Men sing sometimes. Back then, I was lost. Used to sit here with old man Gallbraith, drinkin’ my problems away. He’s the one who introduced me to Billie Holiday and jazz and the blues. It’s sort of taken on a life of its own. Every Friday from nine to close is open mic.”
“What kind of bar is it the rest of the time?”
As if taking directions in a play, the glass door opens and about fifteen bikers spill inside. I’m the only one to even blink out of place at the intrusion. Violent thugs is what they really are. How are more people not freaking out about this?
“Mark,” I whisper. “There are bikers in your bar.” And I tense in his arms as the mostly hairy, leather-clad men saunter up to us.
“Hey Bossman,” one of the men, this one not hairy, says to Mark, eyeing the both of us standing so close together. Despite that he’s beautiful and looks as if he should be hanging with California surfer dudes from the neck up. From the neck down he’s all biker, and I’m not wholly comfortable with the way he predatorily peruses my body, or the way Mark smirks at him in turn. “This her?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Mark answers. “This is Elise.”
“Tommy. Maryanne.” The man nods respectfully to our friends, leaving me dumbstruck that Tommy Doyle, police officer, would be as comfortable as he seems to be with bikers.
“Elise, this is Chaos.” Mark introduces us.
“Chaos? Did your mother not love you?”
He and the other men laugh. “It’s my ride name. Bossman’s birth name isn’t Bossman, either.” I’m piecing together what he’s said when he pretty much crumbles my world with what he says next. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”
As his words really sink in, of course I look to Mark. And from Mark I look to Chaos, the other men and back to Mark again. Reality.
“You’ve got to be shitting me?” I step free from the arms of the man I felt so safe with only moments ago, keeping clear of his friends. “So what? Are you going to threaten me with a knife, too?”
“I—huh? Who threatened you with a knife, darlin’?”
“It doesn’t matter. But this—”I move my hand between the two of us“—can’t happen. Not now. My dad gets buried in three days. Shit, I thought you were one of the good ones. I’ve watched biker shows, read my share of MC novels. We all know how this ends for me.” Before he can capture my arm again, I stomp off for the door yelling ridiculously loud, “I cannot deal with this.”
Yeah, I realize that Mark hasn’t been anything but wonderful with me thus far, a real friend, nor does he know about the biker from my childhood. But that incident from so long ago put the fear of God into me, at least where bikers are concerned. There’d been so much blood. A gruesome sight for a six-year-old.
Once outside, able to breathe in the crisp nighttime air and clear my head, I concede that I probably overreacted. But hey, they aren’t called irrational fears for nothing.
As I look around the parking lot, I realize something else. I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere Kentucky without a car, no one will rent me a room, and all my stuff is at Mark ‘the lyingsonofa biker’s’ house. Lying by omission is still lying.
This cannot be happening. How did I end up here?
“You’re embarrassin’ me in front of my club.” Predictably, the burly bar owner followed me out.
“Don’t care.” I call back at him over my shoulder while flipping him the bird high in the air. With my mighty salute, I keep walking.
He follows.
“Woman, you better stop.” His command causes me to pause. But then I remember he’s nothing to me and continue moving. “Get back inside.” He warns through what sounds like clenched teeth.
“That’s really not going to work for me. Luckily, I’m not beholden to you or any man, so I’ll carry on my way. Knowing what you are, it’s for the best.”
“What I am, huh?” From the anger in his voice, maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words. “Where will you go?”
“The bus station.”
“So you’re gonna bail on Maryanne again? Ditch your father’s funeral?”
“Maryanne is just as much of a liar as you are and Hadley can handle things. It’s her day to shine anyway. My dad was a respectable man. He’d understand.”
“Your dad was a respectable man. And he was one of us.”
That went too far. “You liar! I hate you.”
“Wouldn’t let my old lady get away with this shit,” some man not Chaos calls out to Mark, and that’s when I realize our entire exchange has been witnessed by a gang of bikers.
“That’s it.” Mark fishes out what look like keys from his front pocket and starts for me. I, in turn, take off running away from him. Yet with the way my luck has gone these past five years, he easily overtakes me. First kissing me, and then he flips me up over his shoulder, walking toward his truck to the shouts and cat calls of our audience.
“We’re not what you think,” he says.
“Mmm…says the asshole carrying me caveman style.”
“Looks like someone’s old lady’s about to be punished,” another not Chaos calls out.
“I’m not his old lady,” I call back to the congregated mass. “I’m not your old lady,” I repeat to Mark directly.
“You are.” Then he slaps my bottom. Actually slaps my bottom to the tune of more biker cat calls, then drops me inside the front seat of his truck. “Get out of this car, and you will be sorry.”
What happened to my nice, sensitive Mark who understood me? I think about jumping out when he rounds the truck but the unpredictability of scary biker Mark keeps my stinging bottom planted where he dropped me.
And then he has the nerve to reach for my hand as he drives toward two streets over from my dad’s house. I pull away, scooting as far from him and his stupid hand as I can in the small cab. He doesn’t talk to me, just laughing and shakes his head. As if any of this is funny?
We pull into his driveway, and he cuts the engine.
“Listen, Elise.” Listen? I refuse to listen to anything he has to say, turning my head away from him to look out the window instead. “Fine.”
When Mark climbs out of the truck, I hastily lock the doors on him. He hits the unlock on his key fob. I lock it again. We go through this game three more times before he smartens up, putting one hand to the door handle and pressing the unlock with the other, opening the door before I have the chance to lock it again.
I wish he hadn’t.
Tossed over his shoulder again, he slams the truck door harder than necessary, walking us up onto his front porch. The Neanderthal still refuses to put me down while unlocking the door. Or once we’re inside. My shoes come off as he walks us toward his bedroom. His bedroom.
6.
Mark
“What are you doing?” she asks when I drop her on the bed. Her voice cracks. How could she be scared of me? You know I’d never hurt you, Elise. But how could you embarrass me in front of my club?
I don’t answer just yet, pulling an old Easyriders rodeo T-shirt from my drawer and toss it to her.
She holds it on her lap as I pull my own shirt up over my head. And she still doesn’t move to undress when I toe off each boot then let my jeans fall to the carpet, kicking them off to the corner by the laundry hamper.
Enough. “Elise, put the T-shirt on or you can sleep naked. Your choice.”
That lights a fire under her ass. She slides the shirt on before taking her other clothing off, pullin’ her shirt through the armhole then dropping her jeans.
“Bra, Elise. It’s not good for you to sleep in it.”
Then she does that thing I’ve seen her do before, back in high school. She cocks her eyebrow at me, and I swear, it takes every bit of self-control not to attack her lips.
“Bra, Elise,” I order again, because when I
pull her against me, a barrier is the last thing I want to feel.
“You have no say in my life,” she says to me, but says it while pulling her bra out through the arm of the T-shirt again. “So just leave me alone.”
“Leave you alone? I’ve been in love with you since fuckin’ high school.”
“Yeah. So you say Mark, if that’s even really your name.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I never went to school with a Mark. You’re probably that creepy, stalker guy—what’s his name?” she snaps her fingers and points at me. “Gary Litman. That it? Trying to get revenge on me because I turned you down, Gary Litman?”
“I ain’t Gary Litman. I have been in love with you since high school. And every man you offended at my bar tonight will be at your father’s funeral to pay respects.”
“They aren’t welcome and neither are you.”
“Woman, you’re gettin’ dangerously close to saying somethin’ you can’t take back.”
“Don’t you woman me. I don’t want to take it back. I don’t need Maryanne or Tommy. I didn’t need Logan. I didn’t need Beau. So I sure as hell don’t need you. You are nothing but a lapse in judgement I plan to rectify as soon as possible.”
She’s spouted that lip one too many times. She wants me to have her lip, fine. I’ll take it. So I launch at her.
She’s surprised but doesn’t refuse me as I kiss her with everything in me. It kills me to do it, but when she starts kissing me back, I pull away. Rolling from her. We’re both breathing as heavily as either of us have probably ever breathed in this situation.
“What are you doing?” Honest to god, there’s almost a whine when she asks it.
“Get under the covers, Elise. I’m tired.”
“You don’t get to order me around. I’m not your kid, and I’m not your girlfriend.”
“You sure as hell ain’t my kid. But you are my woman, and you know it. I didn’t want this to play out the way it has, but you forced my hand, darlin’, with all your judgmental, bratty behavior.”
“Don’t call me darlin’.”
“I will call you darlin’, darlin’. Now get over yourself and get some sleep. You got a lotta ass kissin’ to do tomorrow.”
“I’m not kissing any asses.”
“Those’re my brothers. You will.”
“Yeah. They’re your brothers, not mine. And I’m out of here the second my father’s funeral is over. Y’all will never see me again.”
“Y’all?” I laugh at her.
“Okay, so the accent might be rubbing off on me again.” She rolls over turned away from me, tucking her hands under her chin. “Yet another reason to get the hell out of Dodge.”
This is getting us nowhere. Dammit Elise.
“Naw.” I run my hands down my face, from forehead to beard, so over this conversation. “Lost you once, not lettin’ you go again. What’s gonna happen is you’re movin’ in here with me. I’ll put a ring on your finger and eventually, a baby in your belly.”
“I’m sorry, could you repeat yourself in English? I don’t speak grunting.”
I wanna laugh, but can’t. “Darlin’ you heard me just fine.”
“Listen Mark, if you’re that hard up for a woman, why not grunt at Hadley? She has an opening now that Dad’s gone. Bet she’d love to be your old lady. Especially if she doesn’t have to work.”
“Turn out the light, Elise.”
“Kiss my ass, Mark.”
“Tomorrow.”
Her head snaps around to look at me. Well that got her attention.
“And rest assured, when I’m done with you, not only will you be beggin’ me for more, but you’ll be doin’ it while apologizin’ to all my brothers. Then and only then will I give you more. Now turn the light out, Elise.”
What the—it worked? She reaches over flicking off the light. So yeah, I’d say it worked. But the stubborn woman stays rolled on her side putting a whole body width between us. This is not how I sleep next to my woman.
She don’t fight when I grab a handful of T-shirt dragging her across the bed until she’s taut against the length of me in full body contact, spooning us together, and drape my arm around her waist. We end up sharing a pillow just like last night. And again like last night I’ve never been more content or comfortable.
Damn her for forcing me to break out the asshole. That ain’t who I ever want to be around her. It ain’t who I’ve ever been. But just because I’m not that man don’t mean the club ain’t full of ‘em. And these are my brothers. Men who took me in at my lowest. I respect ‘em. I love her and respect them, and she’s gonna have to learn to respect ‘em too.
Those are the last thoughts in my head as I drift off to sleep.
When I wake, I’m flat on my back with Elise’s head resting against my neck. One of her arms slung above our heads while the other rests on my chest. Her fingers flat against my nipple. The best, worst part, she’s pressed her crotch flush against my hipbone with her leg bent at the knee, resting on top of mine.
I’m comfortable. I was dreaming. So then why am I up? Then I hear it, why I’m awake now instead of finishing that dream. The knock coming from the front of the house.
Carefully as I can, I peel the gorgeous even in sleep Elise off me and walk out to the living room. Someone wants to wake me this early on a Saturday morning when they know my woman has finally come home, what I ought to do is deliver an ass whooping so they remember to never make this mistake again. What I won’t do is bother to dress. I answer the door in my boxer briefs. Consequence for unwanted visitors.
“George. Margo.”
They stare. Stunned briefly. But good ole George. He don’t stay stunned for long.
“For God’s sake, boy. Put some clothes on.”
No one comes to my home and orders me around. Which is why I don’t retreat but push forward, pulling the door shut behind me so we’re all standing on my front porch.
“Is there a reason you’ve woken me up at seven-thirty on a Saturday when you know I work at a bar?”
“She’s in there, isn’t she?” Margo accuses. “The whore. What kind of man are you? Beddin’ the whore after what she did to Logan.”
“Call her a whore in my presence again, and I guarantee you won’t be callin’ anyone anything until they remove the wire from your jaw.”
“How dare you talk to us this way?”
“How dare you come onto my property talkin’ shit about my woman? She couldn’t leave even if she wanted to. Her car was busted up all to hell yesterday, which I’m sure you know. But she ain’t leavin’ anyway, as I prefer my woman to live with me.”
“She can’t be your woman.” Silly George, thinking he has any say in my life whatsoever.
“Oh, but she can and she is. Elise Manning is asleep in my bed right now. And that’s the only place I ever plan on her sleepin’ for the rest of my life.”
“Did your friendship with Logan mean nothin’? Did he really mean so little to you?” Margo knows nothing.
“I loved Logan like a brother, but he never deserved her and you know it. He screwed up. Now I’m gettin’ the life I always wanted but never went after because I did love him so much.”
Margo gasps. And I know it’s because Elise, she’s standing behind me. “Whore!” Margo shouts.
But then stupid George, stupid, stupid George goes and opens his mouth. “So you goin’ to sleep your way through the entire town? How many more boys you gonna screw over by gettin’ knocked up?”
It’s Elise’s turn to gasp. Me, I don’t even think, just react by slamming my fist into his jaw. He stumbles backward and down one step before he recovers.
“You will regret that decision,” he threatens. The bastard has the nerve to threaten me while rubbing his jaw. He licks at the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.
“Get off my property.”
At least he’s not stupid enough to come at me or Elise again. She goes back inside whil
e I watch to make sure they leave.
“Elise,” I call out to her, only once I’ve closed the door. “Elise, darlin’?” She don’t respond, but I do hear her crying in the bedroom. “What are you doin’ baby girl?” I ask when I can clearly see what she’s doing. She’s getting her stuff together to leave.
“I can’t bring this on you.”
“It was brought well before today, and they know it. Don’t leave me again. Not now. Not after just gettin’ you back.”
“The town’ll never stop. Get Beau’s parents to show up? The mayor and his wife ready to run me out of town. A new low even for them. You don’t need all this in your life. Even if you did turn into a misogynistic caveman last night.”
I can’t help but smile. She’s right about the misogynistic caveman stuff not the not needing her in my life, because I do. Need her in my life. And I always have.
“Come on.” I take the suitcase from her, setting it on the carpet and take her hand. We do our Fred and Ginger dance move where she matches me step for step only moving backward ‘til the backs of her knees hit the bed and she falls onto the mattress.
“What are we doing, Mark?”
“Makin’ up.”
“But yesterday I hated you.”
“That was yesterday. Today’s today. Besides, you never actually hated me, darlin’. That was just stress-induced panic.” We weren’t gonna go here until she knew everything. But if she leaves me, she never will. “So now I’m gonna help reduce your stress.”
“I don’t think—” I cut her off pressing a finger to her lips.
“Shh…thinkin’ causes stress. So let’s not think, hmm?”
Now’s the time to show her why she can’t leave me, what she means to me. I cover her with my body, peeling the T-shirt up and off so that I’m looking at the most beautiful woman in the world wearing only her pink satin panties with the black lace.
It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
Lady Sings the Blues Page 6