by Evelyn Glass
“Slick!” I shout, voice hoarse. “Slick! Please, Slick!” Through the hissing water, the spitting flames, the moaning dying, I am sure I hear the dim ringing of sirens, growing louder. Soon, they’ll be here, the flashing lights my family has ignored for as long as I can remember. They’ll question me, which might lead to the club, and eventually my daughter . . . I can’t let that happen. I am crying openly now, as I limp toward my bike, images of Slick’s fire-charred exploded body forefront in my mind. I have to go, though; there’s no other choice. I’m not sure if that’s true or if it’s just what I’m telling myself.
I’m about to climb onto my bike when I see it: a Slick-sized blur of shadow, a few yards out in the water, swimming toward the docks. I know it could be my mind playing tricks on me, and I know I should just go, but even the remote possibility that it might be Slick is something I can’t ignore. I kick my bike alive, and cruise to the edge of the dock.
“Slick?” I call uncertainly.
“Bri—Brat—Bri!” Slick calls back, gargling water.
“Slick!” I scream, kicking my stand and jumping from my bike. “Are you hurt?”
“Just a headache,” he calls up to me. “I jumped, before it exploded, but—A bit of shrapnel or somethin’. Can you help me up? I feel like a fuckin’ twelve-gauge just went off next to my goddamn ear.”
I lie flat on the dock and reach my arm into the darkness below. The flames have died down now, providing no light. Slick’s hand is wet and cold, but it’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever touched. Going from assuming he’s dead to knowing he’s alive in the space of a few minutes is enough to make me want to burst into tears all over again. But the sirens are blaring, and we need to go.
“You’re heavy.” My muscles strain as I pull. I know I’m not even pulling half his weight. He has his arm hooked around the metal frame of the dock foundations, and is hauling himself up as I haul him.
Slick stumbles onto the docks, collapsing on his front, panting. The side of his head is covered in blood, but when I examine the wound, I see nothing but a bruise. No cuts, no punctures.
“Tired,” Slick mutters.
“Yeah, I bet,” I reply, helping him to his feet.
“What’re you doing here?” he asks, as I climb onto the bike. “How the hell’d you get here?”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” I say. “Just get on.”
He has no choice, and does as I say.
“It feels damn strange to have my arms round you like this, Brat,” he says. “Like I’m the damn woman or somethin’.”
“Well, I’ve always been a tomboy. Maybe it’s time you tried.”
“Fuck that.” He snorts. “Just get us the fuck outta here before my dick turns into a pussy.”
“You’re disgusting.”
I cruise along the docks, making sure not to go too fast just in case somebody sees and thinks we’re fleeing, and soon I’m riding to the outskirts of the city. The sirens grow quieter, being replaced with the mundane, welcome noises of honking horns and humming traffic. I take us to a deadbeat motel, the sort of place with neon letters which stopped working sometime around the turn of the century and a communal pool with more condoms cigarette butts moving across the water than floats.
“Wait here while I get a room,” I say.
I expect him to argue—Slick has always liked to be in control—but he just leans against the wall, staring at the ground as though replaying the explosive moment in his head, dripping water. I know it’s my imagination, but before I leave him I’m sure I see a flicker of flame in his sky-blue eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
Bri
When I’ve patched Slick up, ordered some takeout, and both of us have washed, we sit on the edge of the bed in silence, Slick in his dried, crisp clothes. It’s early morning, but for a long time, neither of us is tired. For most of the night Slick has been like a zombie, blandly staring off into space, but slowly he comes back to himself. The room is bare except for the takeout containers, an old box TV set, and some peeling wallpaper. It’s such an everyday setting it’s difficult for me to believe that not that long ago, we were at the scene of an earth-shaking explosion. I turned the news on a couple of hours ago and saw that the CCTV footage of the explosion has been mysteriously erased. That’s the power of MCs, I guess.
At some point, both of us fall asleep, slumping in our sitting positions and napping with our clothes on. When we wake, it’s afternoon. I order us a late breakfast, we eat, and then we just sit there again. Slick is gathering himself, it seems to me, trying to come to terms with what just happened. But he doesn’t seem upset. It’s more like he can hardly believe it, and has to keep showing it to himself to make it real.
Finally, at around three, he says, “You shouldn’t have followed me, Brat. That was a damn fool thing to do.”
“Damn fool . . .” I let that hang for a moment, and then snap, “You would’ve drowned if I hadn’t gotten you out.”
“Yeah, or you could’a got yourself blown straight to fuckin’ hell. The fuck were you thinkin’, chasing me like that? I saw that rider, and I reckoned it was some bastard Grizzly’d sent after me to make sure I got it done. Not you.” He shakes his head, but an unwanted smile touches his lips.
“But you were impressed,” I note, reading his expression.
“No,” he says. “I mean—yeah, when I thought it was some fuck from the club. I’m not impressed with you. What if you’d gotten yourself killed? What then? The fuck you think happens when you die, Brat?”
“Don’t lecture me!” I snap, rising to my feet. I go to the window, the sunlight murky through the grimy curtains, my back to him. “I couldn’t let you come up here again all by yourself. If they took you, and no one was here . . . Somebody needed to be here just in case that happened.”
“You’re a mechanic, Brat, not a secret agent. Goddamn.”
“I’m more than you’ve ever given me credit for,” I throw back, still with my back turned. “Much more. You just never wanted to see it.”
I hear Slick stand, approach me, but I don’t turn. For some reason, looking at him is difficult right now. Maybe it’s because he just killed so many men, or maybe it’s because I know he’s right. I never should’ve come here, not with Charlotte to worry about. It was a stupid thing to do. He’s right about all of that. But—
“I just couldn’t let anything happen to you, not again. I just couldn’t, Slick.”
He stands close behind me, but doesn’t touch me. “You have to take care of our daughter,” he says. “That’s all that matters. Just her. Not me. I don’t fuckin’ matter. I’ve never fuckin’ mattered. Just take care of our damn daughter. Do what a mother should do; stick to that. Don’t get yourself killed to prove a point.”
“Prove a point!” I scream, anger suddenly seizing me. I spin around, facing him, waving my hands in his face. He doesn’t step back, just stands there, solid, staring me down. “Is that what you think I was doing?” I go on, trying to keep my voice level. “You think I was proving a point? No, Slick, I wasn’t proving some bullshit point. I was making sure nothing happened to you!”
“So you’re my protector now?” He laughs bitterly. “I don’t need a protector, Brat. But our daughter does—”
“You keep saying our daughter like you even fucking know her! But where were you when she was crying all night for her dad, huh? You were in some cell for those Skull pricks! That’s why I had to follow you, Slick! I couldn’t let that happen again. I love you, you stupid big fucking oaf!”
I stop, panting, and then pace to the other side of the room, near the TV set.
We stand like that, on opposite sides of the room, until Slick mutters: “You love me, Brat? Is that it? You really fuckin’ love me? You don’t even know me. You don’t wanna love a man like me. That’d be a big mistake.”
“Oh, just stop it,” I murmur. “Just stop all this I’m-not-good-enough shit!”
“But it’s true!” he roars. On
e second he’s on the other side of the room. The next his hands are on my shoulders, spinning me around. He looms over me. “Take. Care. Of. Our. Daughter. That’s it, Brat. That’s all that matters. Let me take care of myself.”
His hands dig into my shoulders, making me remember the first time he held me like this. I had just turned eighteen and I was drunk, following him out to his bike when he left the club. I kept hinting for him to take me home, not caring if I was embarrassing myself, just wanting to see if the reality matched up with my fantasy. He kept saying no, and then finally grabbed me and shoved me up against the wall. He kissed me once, giving me a preview, and then let me go and backed away.
He doesn’t back away now.
And I don’t hesitate now.
“You’re such a prick,” I say, and then stand on my tiptoes and kiss him.
He seems caught off-guard by the kiss at first. I can’t blame him. I’m caught off-guard by it, too. But I can’t help myself. He looks so sexy, with his muscles tensed, his hair over his eyes, his eyes staring intensely into me. And emotion is easily transferred; passionate anger can become passionate lust pretty easily, in my experience. I open my mouth, hungry for the taste of him. After a moment, he opens his mouth, too, and we kiss properly. Kiss like two drowning people who want to take what pleasure they can before the last air bubble pops, kiss like lovers who have not seen each other for decades, not just years. I don’t think now; I can’t afford to think. I just kiss him, our tongues touching, and then he lifts me up and carries me to the bed. I love when he lifts he like this, hands pressed into my arms, like I weigh nothing, like I’m a teenaged tomboy again and he’s still the older boy.
He lays me on my back, leans over me as we break off the kiss.
“You’re so fuckin’ beautiful, Brat,” he says. “You’ve always been so fuckin’ beautiful.”
“Come here,” I moan. “Come here. I want you.”
As I speak, I reach up and take off his shirt, revealing his layers of ridged muscle. He reaches down and unbuckles his jeans, pulling them down to his knees. His cock is rock-hard, springing up, eleven inches, thick, venous, the sort of cock which terrified me the first time I saw it, but tantalizes me now . . . now that I know what deep pleasure it can give.
“You need to be naked before I come near you, Brat,” he says, with his old cocky smirk. “That’s the rules.”
He takes my lower half; I take my upper. We strip me together. In a matter of seconds we are both naked, lit by the murky sunlight, Slick standing over me so hard his cock points almost directly up. Then, slowly, he lowers his body down over me. When his chest presses into my bare breasts, I let out a small sighing noise, it feels so incredible. I reach up and grab his back, thick, unyielding muscle in my hand, squeezing it. There’s no give to it; that’s what drives me wild. Slick is carved from steel. I could squeeze him all day and never find an inch of fat. His face close to mind, his breath caresses my cheek.
“I need to fuckin’ be inside of you,” he growls close to my ear.
“Fuck me, then,” I say, as desperate for it as he sounds. “Fuck me, Slick. Fuck me. Fuck me.”
He lifts his torso so that I can see his face. His expression is twisted, lust turning him intense. I know it’s wrong, so wrong, but the fact that he just killed the bastards who imprisoned him, the fact that he still has a small patch of blood on his head, turns me on even more. They tried to beat him, all of them, and they couldn’t. He was too strong for them. That’s the man leaning over me. That’s the father of my child.
He reaches down and grabs his cock in his hand, and then guides it toward my pussy. I feel the helmet brush against my hole, probing it, widening it. His cock is so huge, long and thick, that as he pushes the end inside of me, I gasp in pain. My pussy screams hotly, getting wider as he forces his massive length inside of me. I’m wet, already soaked for him. Just seeing him naked is enough for that. But he’s still huge. He slides into me slowly, his cock going deeper and deeper as my wet pussy gets wider for him. And then the pain stops, and my pussy loosens so that his cock sends pleasure through me, not pain. He holds it like that for a while, end pressed firmly against my sweet spot, staring down at my pert breasts, and then slides out, just as slowly as he slid in.
All through this, he stares at me, eyes wide, mouth closed, intense and serious and so captivating. Slowly, passionately, he slides in and out of me. It’s like each thrust brings us closer, the way he does it. I don’t know how, but each time he slides slowly, deeply, inside of me, it’s like the time we spent apart closes, until it is no time at all, until we are who we were before he became a prisoner and me a mother, when I was a tomboy and he was the unattainable older boy. I have never felt the pleasure of that night again, until now. I lift my legs, bob up and down on his cock, squeezing my pussy around him. He growls softly from the back of his throat when I do that, so I keep doing it.
Then he leans down, bringing his face to mine. He never kissed me, the last time we had sex. I always got the sense it made him uncomfortable for some reason, some manly thing that he just couldn’t do. But now, after everything, he brings his lips to mine. We don’t kiss exactly. It’s more like our mouths grind together as he thrusts and I bob up and down, both of us moaning down each other’s throats. I dig my fingernails into his shoulders, gouging his skin, taking all the pleasure from him I can. He thrusts deeper, deeper, until I feel an orgasm approaching. It’s strange when an orgasm comes like this: slow, so that you can sense it far in advance. I bite his lip, drawing blood, and he fucks me faster. Not too fast, but faster, sensing that I am close. I bounce up and down on him with more force, sitting hard on his balls, feeling his cock drive deep inside of me, pressing even more firmly against my hot spot.
“I’m going to—”
“Do it,” he whispers. “Come, Brat. Fuckin’ come.”
I tilt my hips, and then sit down, hard, just once, as hard as I can, so hard that his cock pounds into me for the first time, instead of slides in. I release his lip, afraid that I will bite clean through it when the orgasm hits me, and instead bite down on the mass of muscle in his shoulder. I tilt my hips one last time, and then it hits me: hits me with the weight of years spent apart. My pussy goes super tight around his cock and then releases, quickly, my body hungry for the pleasure. The heat burns deep in my pussy, at the end of his cock, burning into my sensitive spot and spreading up into my belly, making it warm, tingly. My whole body is alive with his warmth, the warmth of his chest pressed against my breasts, of his hard slab of belly pushed against mine, and most of all of his scorching cock inside of me. I gasp, again and again, as the orgasm rolls through me, touching every part of me, sending my nerves flaring into overdrive. I hover atop the pleasure, sitting down on his cock over and over, loving the feeling of my lips hugging it tightly as the orgasm seizes me. I squirt, toward the end, squirt my pleasure down the length of him. Slick looks down, moaning in pleasure at the squirting come, and somehow that makes me do it again. I can’t help it.
“Fuck—fuck—fuck—fuck—”
When it passes, I slump down, releasing his back and panting. Slick thrusts into me one last time, and then growls like a wild animal, eyes wider and amazed. I grip his face in my hands, direct his gaze to me, make it so we’re watching each other as he comes inside of me. When he falls to the side, I crawl into his embrace. Then he holds me.
“I want to meet Charlotte,” he says, after we’ve been lying like this for some time, listening to the sounds of the motel and the road. “Properly, I mean.”
“I just need to figure out when,” I reply. “I—I can’t see her hurt, Slick.”
“Okay,” he says, and then kisses on one the top of the head. “Okay.”
Chapter Fourteen
Slick
When I wake, a full day after the explosion on the docks, I lie in bed next to Brat for a while just staring at the ceiling. I stare and I think. I think about the Skulls, mostly, about how they’re all dead now. At lea
st, most of ’em are dead, enough so that they’ll never be able to run some fucked up kidnapping racket like that again, so that the Masked Man will never again hack and shoot and torture anybody else. I remember how it felt, that machete cutting into my flesh with a thunk. And I remember how it looked, the plume of fire lighting up the light, reflected in the water as I jumped away from it. I thought I’d feel happy. But in truth, I don’t feel much of anything. I feel about the same, except for a small glimmer of relief which doesn’t compare to the pain those bastards inflicted on me. Two years of torture and twisting me to their cause for this small pinprick of relief? It’s a damn confusing mess, is what it is.
Brat wakes up, rubbing her eyes, and smiles up at me. “Are you okay?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I reply. “But we better get back to Denver if we don’t want the whole damn MC comin’ up here looking for us. You know your dad’s noticed you’re gone.”