by Tracey Ward
It took two days to get my keys back from him, and when I finally did, I thought that would be that. I’d get some distance from him and that song that sings in my veins whenever I see him, but I’m not that lucky. He’s everywhere all the time. Constant as the tide, wearing me down. Eroding my defenses.
“What’s up, Harlow?” he asks me now, quiet and unassuming.
“Her name is Harley,” Duke corrects. “Like the bike. And, Harley, he said I could call him Strat. Like the guitar.”
I smile at him mildly. “That’s really cool, D.”
“It’s short for Stratford.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
I gesture to Josh with the box of rice in my hand. “Josh and I went to school together. He was the tutor I told you about.”
Josh grins smugly. “You were talking about me?”
“We were talking about books and learning disabilities. You came about by accident.”
“Story of his life, right?” Nika jokes darkly, referencing the rumors about Josh’s parents.
I glare at her, about three seconds shy of coming at her hard. Raw sees it, immediately running interference.
“Can I get a glass of that?” Raw asks her, nodding to the juice.
Nika smiles at him as she goes for a glass. She looks for one on the top shelf on purpose, reaching high to elongate her body and show off her ass.
Raw leans against the opposite counter, drinking in the view.
He’s always had a thing for Nika. Even before Devo joined the Due, Raw had seen Nika around town. He had plans to fuck her at some point but then Devo became a brother and his sister went off limits hard. It’s a sore spot between Raw and Devo, one Raw likes to poke at now and then. Just for fun.
“Why do you guys need the truck?” I ask pointedly, pulling Raw out of his eye-fuck session with Nika.
“We’re heading to Culver to pick up some stuff for Angela,” Josh answers. “Can’t fit it on the back of the bike.”
“Yeah, not with him hugging my ass,” Raw agrees. He takes the glass Nika offers him, pounds the juice in one long gulp, and hands it back with a wink. “What about you, baby? You wanna go for a ride on a bike?”
“Not on a bike, no,” she answers meaningfully.
“I want a ride,” Duke insists.
I put my arms around his shoulders, hugging him from behind. “No, dude, you don’t. Not this kind of ride.”
I feel Duke shudder. “Gross.”
“I know.” I nod to Raw. “If you take the truck, I don’t have a ride out of here. Unless Nika wants to take me to work.”
“I can’t,” she answers immediately. “I have errands to run.”
“Like what?”
“I have shit, Harley. Jesus.”
I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”
“Strat will drive you,” Raw offers. “I need him to take my bike back to the club anyway.”
“Since when can Josh ride a bike?”
“Since Josh got a crash course last week,” Josh answers simply.
Raw snorts. “Literally. He nearly put my baby through the side of the trailer.”
“My trailer?”
“Fuck your trailer. I was worried about my bike.” Raw holds out his hand to me. “Can I get those keys? I gotta get moving if I’m gonna make it to Culver before the warehouse closes.”
I hand them over. “What are you picking up?”
“Farming shit.”
Marijuana shit.
“Got it. Okay.” I glance at Josh, my eyes immediately darting away when I find him watching me. “I don’t need a ride. I can walk. Thanks.”
Raw laughs. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“It’s a nice day. I could use the exercise.”
“It’ll take you over an hour to walk home.”
“That’s fine.”
“I thought you had to get to work,” Nika argues because she’s so helpful.
I sigh, nodding. “Yeah. I do.”
“Then ride back with Strat,” Raw tells me.
He’s eyeing me funny, trying to work out what my deal is. It’s better for everybody if he doesn’t work on it for too long.
I smile at Josh, warm and bright. Normal. “Try not to kill us both, okay?”
“I’ll do my best,” he vows.
I hug Duke goodbye, promising to be at his soccer game this weekend. Nika disappears back into the bedroom before I can say anything else to her, which is fine by me. Raw takes off with the truck, in a hurry to get to the warehouse.
And in a matter of minutes, Josh and I are alone.
“You’re getting pretty tight with Raw, aren’t you?” I ask as we walk down the stairs. We’re side by side, our arms brushing against each other with every step. Each contact is like a static shock, especially when his fingers graze mine.
“He’s a good hang. I like him.”
“Everybody does.”
Josh glances over his shoulder, checking to see that we’re alone. “Nika definitely does.”
“She wants to fuck him so bad. It kills him too because he can’t. He promised Devo he wouldn’t.”
“Sucks.”
“You’re not a brother in the club,” I remind him. “You could fuck her if you want.”
He chuckles. “Can I? You giving me permission?”
“You don’t need my permission. I’m just telling you what your options are.”
“I don’t want options, ‘Low,” he tells me deeply.
I don’t test him by asking what he wants. I know what he wants. He’s told me what he wants. He’s shown me what he wants. But he can’t have it, so he needs to drop it. He needs to get this year with the club over with, head off to MIT, and find a nice girl to knock out some babies with. That’s what I want. That’s what I’ve always wanted for him; more than me. More than Opal. More than the rumors and the bad blood that follow him like a shadow.
Josh is silent as he gets us settled on the bike. It’s weird to watch him throw his denim clad leg over the black leather and glistening chrome. Surreal to see his large hands gripping the handle bars, molding around them like they were made for him. His big body easily hoists the heavy bike up off the kick, the muscles in his arms standing out strongly under the thin material of his shirt. It’s like watching worlds collide, my past and present melding together in a sinuous, sexy blur that leaves my heart in my throat and my self-control laboriously heaving its last breath. Especially when I climb on behind him, the curve of the seat sending me forward against his back. My legs pressing tight to his ass. His thighs. It’s not a great way to be for us. It feels like tempting fate. It feels like a precursor to fucking, and suddenly I’m so aware of his body and mine that I worry my breathing has changed. I worry he can feel it; rapid and rising against his neck.
As the bike rumbles to life, I put my arms on his hips to steady myself.
He immediately takes my hands and pulls them forward, wrapping them around his waist. Forcing my chest into his back.
“I don’t want you falling off,” he mutters over the purr of the engine. “I doubt Devo would be happy with me if I broke you.”
He’s needling me. Looking for a reaction by bringing up Devo, but I decide not to give him one. Instead, I settle in on the bike and hold on tight as he pulls us out of the parking lot, out into traffic.
For someone who just got into riding, Josh is surprisingly smooth. There are only a couple of moments where I feel like we’re going to tip. Where I gasp, clinging to him tighter by instinct. Both times, he reaches down to put his hand on my thigh, steadying me. Reassuring me.
It makes me wonder if it’s not on purpose.
Riding with Josh feels different from riding with Devo. I’m a little more afraid. More alive. More aware of the air rushing around me, the road under me, and the body against me. I feel every shift in his weight. Every breath in his lungs. I spread my palms flat against his stomach, feeling it flinch and relax under my touch. I fee
l his breathing fall in sync with mine as we lean together. As we ride together.
We get back to the bar in one piece. There’s a scary, squirrely moment when we ride onto the loose gravel, my thighs tightening around him and my fingers digging into the rigged landscape of his abs. He corrects it quickly, though, and before I know it, we’re stopped. The engine is off. Josh is waiting for me to untangle myself from his body so one of us can open the locked gate leading to the back lot.
I pull my hands from his stomach, getting ready to dismount.
Josh stops me with one quiet question. “What were you wishing for?”
I freeze, unable to move. To breathe.
All I can do is remember.
“This is us,” he promised me. “This is the way it should be. Always.”
“I wish... I-I wish…”
“It doesn’t matter,” I whisper nervously.
“It does to me.”
I glance around the parking lot. There are quite a few cars for a Thursday evening, but very few bikes out back. Kill, Bear, and probably Angela are here. Devo is not. “We can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?” He turns his head to the side, showing me his profile. “You can’t be real with me? It used to be I was the only one you were honest with. Now you’re lying to me every time you look at me.”
I sigh, letting my head fall against his back. It’s warm. Soft and rigid at the same time. “If I tell you, will you let it go? Will you leave me alone about it and the kiss and everything else?”
“Will you tell me the truth?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll try. That’s my truth. That’s as good as you’re gonna get.”
I lift my head, my eyes stinging in the cold air. My heart hot as fire in my chest.
“I was wishing I could stay there with you forever,” I tell him tightly, my throat clenching. I take a deep, shuddering breath. “I wished I could love you the way you should be loved. I wished I wasn’t so broken and shitty. I wished I was good enough for you. That’s what I wanted more than anything in the world. More than getting out of my dad’s house. I wanted—”
“Me,” he finishes for me, his voice thick with emotion. “You wanted me.”
“Desperately.”
He shakes his head, running his hand over his mouth. “Fuck, Harlow, you could have had me. You already did. Every fucking inch of me belonged to you. All you had to do was stay.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry.”
“Then what do you want?”
He turns on the bike until he’s looking in my eyes. Until he can wrap one arm around my waist and hold me to him tightly. “You. I still. Want. You.”
He says the words slowly, punctuating each one with a tightening of his fingers on my hip. It’s possessive and nearly painful, but it sends a thrill through my body that I can hardly bare.
“Josh, I—”
“Harley?”
Josh releases me immediately. I practically fall off the bike in my rush to untangle myself from him. I’m on my feet in the gravel when Lila comes around the back corner of the bar.
She frowns at me, a cigarette burning brightly in her hand. “I thought I heard a bike pull up.”
“What’s up Lila?”
“I’ve been looking all over for you. Vanessa is out sick. Can you start your shift now? I’m totally swamped and Kill does not do good behind the bar. No one wants to talk to him.”
“Yeah, sure. I’m right behind you.”
She presses her hands together in a sign of prayer. “Thank you!” She pauses when she notices Josh on the bike, her eyes widening with surprise. “Isn’t that Raw’s bike?”
“He took the truck and sent me home on his bike with Josh,” I explain in a hurry.
Lila smiles. “Lookin’ good, Strat. We might make a biker out of you yet.”
Josh chuckles, deep and easy. “Show me where to sign.”
I frown at him as I hit the button to open the gate. He walks the bike in, lining it up perfectly with the others. I follow Lila to the backdoor without a word to Josh, but I can feel him watching me. I can feel a pull in my gut, in that place where we’re connected. Where my soul ends and his begins, tethered together.
Forever.
Chapter Sixteen
Josh
“Women love you, College Boy,” Skeeze shouts at me over the din of the bar.
Friday night has the place packed, and while Raw and I are done dealing scripts for the night – my strict No-Business-After-Midnight Rule in full affect – the weed business is still booming. Skeeze has a small, black duffel bag next to him in the booth and he’s been dealing out of it all evening. In the month since we went into business together, the Due have seen a spike in sales. Mostly college kids.
I would be getting a cut of their profits, if fair was fair.
“Not as much as I’d like,” I mutter into my beer.
Skeeze snorts. “Oh, boo-fuckin’-hoo, bro. You could slam any piece of ass in this bar tonight, but you won’t because you’re a pussy.”
“How am I a pussy?”
“You never go for it.”
“He’s got a point,” Raw agrees lazily. He’s sitting in the curve of the booth, his arms slung over the back as he surveys the club. “I’ve seen women throw themselves at you and you don’t do jack about it.”
“You’ve seen girls try to pay me for product with sex,” I argue. “That’s not exactly women falling in love with me.”
“That’s your fuckin’ problem, Romeo. You’re looking for love. That shit doesn’t exist.”
“What’s your problem with trading trim for product?” Skeeze asks. “You above paying for it?”
“A little bit, yeah. You guys aren’t?”
Raw shrugs. “I don’t know. If I was hard up enough and I had coin in my pocket, I’d pay to get off. Sometimes you just gotta scratch that itch, you know?”
“I’ve paid for it,” Skeeze answers unapologetically. “But I paid for the good stuff. Like, the whole experience.”
“What kind of experience?” I ask curiously.
Raw shakes his head. “You don’t want to ask him that.”
“I hired a dominatrix,” Skeeze tells me proudly.
“Oh damn,” I breathe. “You went whips and chains and everything?”
“Whips, yeah. Chains, no. She tied me up and tortured me for an hour.” He smiles blissfully. “Best hour of my damn life.”
“Sexually tortured you or POW tortured you?”
“Both.”
“Christ.”
“Don’t judge, man. We all got our kinks. You’ve got yours, you just haven’t told us what it is yet.”
I don’t think that’s true; I don’t have a kink. I have an obsession, that’s for sure. And I’m looking right at her.
Harlow is behind the bar tonight. She knows I’m here but she hasn’t run off like she likes to do lately. I don’t think she can. The place is packed, the girls and even Hyde is behind the bar serving drinks. It’s a rare thing for one of the boys to jump in and help out. They have to be desperate for more hands to make it happen and as it is tonight, Hyde does not look happy. He’s handling all the beer orders. If you ask him for a mixed drink, you’re getting a stern look and an eerie silence until you walk that shit back and order a Coors.
“You better get some and soon,” Skeeze warns me. “Otherwise people are going to start thinking you’re a fag.”
“And what if I am?” I ask seriously.
Skeeze looks at me for a long time, his face unsure. He glances at Raw for help but he doesn’t find any. Raw is checking out the bar again, acting like he can’t hear this conversation.
“Ar—are you?” Skeeze stutters uncertainly.
I wink at him, taking a sip of my beer.
“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”
“That depends. How open to kink are you, Skeeze?”
“Not that fuckin’ open!”<
br />
Raw snickers, unable to contain his laughter.
I crack a smile to let Skeeze off the hook. “I’m not gay, man. I’m messing with you.”
He punches me hard on the shoulder. “Fuck you!”
I laugh, falling away to dodge another swing. “Stop hitting me!”
“I’ll break your goddamn face again, pretty boy.”
“Easy, Skeezey. You’re coming off a little homophobic.”
“Hell yeah, I’m homophobic! Proud of it!”
“He hates Jews too,” Raw tells me dryly.
“I don’t hate them. I just don’t trust them.”
“Yeah, that’s better.”
“You guys are assholes.”
Raw’s normally sedate expression darkens as he looks to the door. “Speaking of assholes,” he growls.
I sit up straight to look over the crowd. The door is open. A cold wind rushes through the muggy air inside the bar. With it comes a group of guys all dressed in black riding gear. Yellow bandanas are wrapped around heads and arms. A young guy barely older than I am turns around, checking out the club. On his back I catch a glimpse of ornate writing surrounding a large, angry bird sewn in black with sickly, violent yellow eyes. Black Hawks M.C. Culver, Nevada wraps in a circle around it, trying and failing to contain the bird of prey.
“Fuck, not tonight,” Skeeze mutters. He immediately shoves the bag to the floor, kicking it under the seat and out of sight.
“Are they a problem?” I ask tightly.
Raw is already standing, leaving the booth. “They’re a gang of meth heads from Culver who have tried for years to edge us out of the weed sales in the area. They’re pretty much our only problem.”
Across the club, Hyde is slowly moving out from behind the bar. His eyes are latched onto the group still hovering near the door. The crowd inside feels the shift in the air, the tension between the two gangs, and movement across the room slows to a crawl. Lila has disappeared from behind the bar. My guess is she’s in the backroom getting the rest of the boys. Luckily, they’re all here tonight. Everyone but Bear.
I follow Skeeze and Raw through the crowd toward the door. Hyde hovers closer to the front, flanking the group.
An older guy, short and balding with a yellow bandana wrapped around his temples, smiles thinly when he sees us coming. “Looks like you got a full house tonight.”