CRASH (A Stone Kings Motorcycle Club Romance)

by Daphne Loveling

  If anything, the question just seemed to amuse her more. “Like, any motorcycle rider?” she asked, her darkly penciled brow cocking in what I was pretty sure was mockery.

  “The person I’m looking for is a motorcycle rider,” I explained, willing the ever-hotter flush in my cheeks to go away. “I thought, if I could find someone who knew other motorcycle riders, they might be able to tell me where he is.”

  She shrugged. “You could just go hang out downtown and wait for someone on a motorcycle to show up,” she suggested. Her eyes flicked away from me toward a table of boys about her age who were roughhousing noisily. It was clear she was getting bored with talking to me. I thanked her, and she wasted no time setting down my check and heading toward the boys’ table. I absently watched her as she flirted shamelessly with the best-looking of them, her voice growing teasing and animated.

  Taking a sip of my orange juice, I thought about my next move. Actually, the waitress’s suggestion about going downtown and trying to find a motorcycle rider wasn’t a bad one. At any rate, I couldn’t be very choosy, considering I had basically no other ideas. I reached into my pocket for my few remaining bills, paid my tab, and wandered outside.

  Downtown Lupine was about a mile and a half from where the bus had dropped me off at a combination bus depot and truck stop. I walked the distance along a dusty highway with no sidewalks, and eventually came across the area, which primarily consisted of one long main street lined with bars, restaurants, and shops of various kinds. I covered the several blocks from one end to the other, noting a smattering of motorcycles along the way. Eventually, I stopped in front of another diner, where a cluster of them were parked. These machines were larger and more imposing than the others I had seen, and some of them had leather side bags, or skull designs on the gas tank.

  Pushing down my nervousness, I decided that talking to whoever owned these motorcycles would probably be my best shot at learning where Leviticus was. There were no benches or places to sit that I could see, so I sat down awkwardly on the curb to wait.

  I’m not sure how much time passed, but eventually a group of men came out of the diner talking in loud voices. They were wearing jeans and leather vests with patches on them that said undecipherable things like “Road Capt.” and “Enforcer” and a couple of them had long, thick beards. Tattoos lined their muscled arms, and one of them immediately lit up a cigarette as soon as they were outside.

  I stood up, brushed off the backside of my jeans and took a deep breath. “Excuse me,” I called out to them.

  The one with the longest beard turned to look at me, smiling to reveal a set of straight, very white teeth. He reminded me of the big bad wolf in the fairy tale we read to children at the Ranch. “Well, well, well, darlin’, what can we do for you?” he said in a voice that was both a challenge and an invitation.

  I took a few steps forward and tried to keep my voice from trembling. “I’m looking for someone. A motor… a biker. And I was wondering if you might know where he is. “

  Beard looked at another of the men, with razored hair about the same length as his whiskers. “If you’re lookin’ for a man, darlin’, I can help you out,” he leered suggestively.

  A wave of fright shot through me. Suddenly, I realized this might not be such a good idea. Nervously, I looked around, reassured that there were a few other people on the street who would hear me if I cried out.

  “I’m sorry, no,” I replied in a shaking voice. I didn’t want to provoke these dangerous men in any way. “It’s a particular person I’m looking for. His name is Leviticus Wolff.”

  “Leviticus Wolff?” Beard repeated in disbelief. His tone matched the one the waitress had used when I’d said Leviticus’s name, and I almost laughed at how similar this enormous bearded man sounded to the teenage girl. He laughed then, a loud bark, and turned to his friends. “Levi’s name is fuckin’ Leviticus?”

  I flinched at the curse, but otherwise didn’t react as the men burst into loud laughter. Nonetheless, my heart leapt at what he had said. They knew Leviticus! But apparently he went by Levi now. I made a mental note of it; the fact that these men didn’t know his full name might mean that he didn’t want them to, for some reason.

  I waited until their laughter had died down and repeated my question. “Do you know where Levit… where Levi is?”

  “Honey, you sure you know what you’re gettin’ into here?” a man whose head was shaved clean spoke up. His eyes raked slowly over me, lingering on my breasts, making me feel as though I was naked instead of wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt.

  “He’s… He’s someone I know from way back,” I lied. “I have a message for him.” I hadn’t though through this part of my plan very well, I realized. I should have thought of some plausible reason why a dangerous biker would want to talk to me.

  “You got a message for him?” Shaved Head mocked. “This the pony express or something? Why the fuck don’t you just call him?”

  “I don’t have his phone number,” I explained.

  Or a cell phone.

  “Look, darlin’,” Beard began. He shook his head slightly. “You need to get in touch with Levi, you’re just gonna have to figure out how to do that yourself. I don’t know what your business is with him, but you look like a nice enough girl. Why don’t you run along, find yourself a nice college student or male librarian or something.” He nodded once toward the man beside him. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “You have a nice day, now,” Shaved Head drawled, winking at me so suggestively it made my cheeks burn hot. The men walked past me and headed toward their bikes, a couple of them murmuring crudely about how I would look naked just loudly enough for me to hear them. As I watched them go, I noticed that the patches on the backs of their vests all said the same thing: Stone Kings MC.

  I watched them pull away, then sat back down on the curb to think. The encounter with the bikers had left me shaken and rethinking my plans. I had thought I’d prepared myself for the possibility that Leviticus was in some sort of motorcycle gang, and that it might be dangerous to go see him, but the reality had been much more frightening than I had expected. Still, I was out of money and out of ideas, and being all alone with no one to help me and nowhere to stay was just as frightening.

  I had to believe that even if Leviticus was a hardened criminal, he would at least take pity on me and give me a few dollars or point me toward someone who could. Surely he would help someone who had escaped our community like he had? Of course, he had been gone for years — more than ten, at least. I didn’t even really know him when I was a child, and I had absolutely no idea the kind of man he’d become. There was always the possibility that he had no trace left of any morals or decency. He belonged to a motorcycle gang, after all. What if I found him, and instead of helping me, he… did to me what the men who were his friends had made it clear that they wanted to do, with their leering and suggestive words?

  I shuddered, and almost started crying at the sudden realization of how alone I really was and how much potential danger I was in. Growing up in the faith, in the center of a tight-knit and isolated community, I had never been alone before. Family and friends were constantly around me. In fact, at the Ranch, I hardly ever had a moment to myself, unless I was taking care of my bodily functions or getting dressed or undressed. By contrast, in the three days I had been gone, I had spoken to no one apart from the impersonal few words necessary to order food or buy something at a store. The singularity of my purpose — to get to Lupine, to make contact with the only person I had any connection to in the outside world — had mostly kept me from considering how alone I truly was. But now, I was lonely, scared. And facing the very real possibility that at best, Leviticus Wolff would be completely indifferent to me. And at worst…

  A slight sob escaped me. An older man passing by me turned at the sound to look at me curiously. I cleared my throat and gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile. I stood up abruptly before he could ask me anything, and started walking
purposefully in the other direction as though I had suddenly remembered an appointment.

  Stop it, Cherish, I told myself sternly. No matter what happened, I scolded myself, it would be better than what I had left. Here I was, wringing my hands at the thought that some dangerous biker might take my virtue. Was that really any worse than what had already happened to me?

  It was a sad realization that a total stranger forcing himself upon me was really not much worse than what I already went through on a daily basis back home. I was not innocent to the ways and dangers of a man’s desire, having been married not once, but twice before. My first husband, Abram Radleff, had been the brother of our leader, Harlan Radleff. I was Abram’s fourth and final wife. The other three had died, the last of cancer. I had been only sixteen at the time of our marriage. Thankfully, Abram, at almost eighty, was too old and frail to consummate the marriage, so I was spared being deflowered by him.

  After Abram died, I was married off to Isaiah, at nineteen. Isaiah, at forty-five years old, had one wife before me, Carolyn, whose bed he rarely seemed to share after our marriage.

  The night of our wedding, despite my terror, I did my wifely duty and lay still as I had been told to do, while he took his pleasure with me. Despite the shock of searing pain, I made sure not to cry out when he first entered me. The next night, and every night after that, he made clear that he expected me to get into bed and wait for him, and I did so, listening with revulsion to his animal pants and groans and trying not to smell his stagnant breath as he thrashed and thrust inside me.

  Once, I had been taken ill with a fever, and was so tired and achy that I tried to tell him no. When he pushed me back on the bed and tried to take me by force, I tried to fight him, even though I was weak from the sickness. Before I realized what was happening, he had raised his arm and backhanded me across the face, splitting my bottom lip open with the force of it.

  After that, I never dared fight him again.

  Whatever awaited me now, I reminded myself bitterly, short of death it could only be as bad as what was waiting for me back at the Ranch. I swore to myself for the hundredth time that I would never go back, no matter what.

  I spent the afternoon walking up and down Main Street in Lupine, asking random strangers if they knew where the Stone Kings MC could be found. Many of them looked at me with surprise and warned me against what I was asking. Finally, a young man of about my age told me that they had a clubhouse at the edge of town, and explained to me where it was. He stared after me curiously as I thanked him and set off on foot. I had no idea how far I would have to walk to get there, but it didn’t matter as I had no other option but to walk.

  Eventually, I came to a large, two-story structure that looked a bit like a small warehouse or commercial building. About twenty motorcycles were parked in two long rows in the parking lot. It was as though someone had dumped a bucket of ice in my stomach: this was it. For better or for worse, I had finally reached the end of my journey.

  After all I had done to get here, I couldn’t make myself take the final steps and go inside the building. I knew I would feel safer outside meeting Levi, even if, unlike downtown, no one was around to hear me if anything happened. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait very long before a tall, thin man with short red hair and a beard came out and started toward the far row of motorcycles. I approached him, asked if he would tell Levi Wolff I was there to see him, and sat down at an ancient, peeling picnic table outside the entrance to wait.

  4

  Levi

  I had just managed to kick Trigger’s ass in an arm wrestling match and was basking in the glory of him having to serve me up a shot like a little bitch, when Pig came up next to me at the bar.

  “Levi, there’s some chick in a Minions shirt outside to see you.”

  “What the fuck?” I cocked a brow at him. “What did you say?”

  “Some chick in a Minions T-shirt. She’s waiting outside.”

  I shook my head and frowned, trying to get my head around what the hell he was talking about. The only chicks I knew wore leather and skin-tight Harley tanks, not some fuckin’ cartoon character shirt. My mind’s eye conjured up an image of a twelve year-old girl, but no twelve year-old was gonna be waiting outside a biker clubhouse unless she was serious jail bait.

  “You’re shitting me.” I said, frowning. “She say what she want?”

  “Nope,” Pig replied, taking a stool next to me and reaching for the Jack.

  I was half-inclined just to ignore whoever it was and give Trig the rematch he was begging for, but curiosity got the better of me. Standing up, I reached my arms behind my head and stretched, then wandered outside, trying to think of any civilian chick that could possibly be stupid or brave enough to come by the MC to find me.

  The sun was bright and I didn’t have my shades on me, so at first all I could see was a fucking ridiculous yellow shirt with one of those damn googly-eyed things on it, sitting on our picnic table. I walked toward it, squinting, my hand raised to shade my eyes.

  “You wanted to talk to me?” I asked the figure.

  “Leviticus?” she said in a questioning voice, and stood up.

  What. The. Fuck.

  I stopped dead in my tracks as soon as I heard the name that no one had called me for a dozen years. My fists clenched involuntarily as my eyes finally began to adjust to the glaring sunlight enough for me to see who the voice belonged to.

  She looked to be in her early twenties, though she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Most twenty-something women I knew wouldn’t be caught dead in public without it. That fucking ridiculous yellow shirt obscured whatever figure she might be hiding under it, and made her look even younger. She was wearing jeans and dusty flip flops. Her arms hung awkwardly at her sides, though the longer I stared at her without speaking, she crossed them in front of her self-consciously, as though to defend herself. Dark reddish-brown hair fell down past her shoulders to the middle of her back, and framed her heart-shaped face in gentle, artless waves. Her eyes were dark and wide as she stared at me, her plump lips slightly parted in an expression I couldn’t quite read, but that was probably fear.

  Good. I wanted her to be scared. Whoever she was, she had no business here.

  Leviticus, she had called me. That took care of one of my questions. There was only one place she could be from.

  My past.

  “It’s Levi,” I barked back at her. It came out more harshly than I had meant to, but I told myself I didn’t care.

  She shrank back for a moment, and looked down. “I’m sorry. Levi,” she mumbled.

  “What the fuck do you want?” I snarled at her. She looked so nervous that I felt just a little bit bad about the way I was talking to her, but too fucking bad. I didn’t want her here. Whatever the fuck she was trying to pull, the quickest way to get her gone was to show her that she was not welcome, in no uncertain terms. The man she was looking for didn’t exist anymore.

  There was no reason for her to be here. None.

  “It’s just… I…” she began. Her eyes filled with sudden tears, and she brushed at them distractedly with the back of one hand. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I guess I didn’t really plan this part out very well.”

  “What part?” I demanded. “You shouldn’t be here.” I know where you’re from, little girl. You need to go back there right now, before someone gets hurt.

  “I’m…” she took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. When she started again, her voice was more or less steady. “My name is Cherish Holmes,” she said, looking me directly in the eye. “I’m from the Waiting For Zion Ranch.” Her eyes flickered for a moment. “At least, I was. I’ve run away. I left the Ranch.” Her jaw set, and she continued. “I’m hoping you’ll help me.”

  “Help you?” I asked incredulously, scoffing. “How the hell can I help you? Do you even know where you are?”

  “Lupine, Colorado, at the clubhouse of the Stone Kings Motorcycle Gang,” she answered. Her chin jutted almost defi
antly.

  In spite of myself, I had to laugh. “It’s a club, not a gang,” I said, one corner of my mouth curving upward.

  “Club, then,” she corrected, her face coloring. “I know you’re a member of the club. And I know you used to be in the WFZ community, too.”

  My anger surged back. “How the hell do you know about me?” I demanded, taking a threatening step closer.

  This was already too much information for her to have. I needed to get her the hell away from here. The last thing I needed was some ex-cult member hanging on to me, expecting me to help her make it in the cold, cruel world. I was not a babysitter for a young, beautiful woman who had no fucking experience with life outside her sheltered little existence. I had barely made it out myself, and I was the worse for wear in every respect.

  “My brother is Elias Holmes. You were friends when you were kids.”

  My mind flashed back to my childhood. Elias. The image of a freckled redhead with a gap-toothed grin came to my mind. The two of us used to play together during the rare times where there was any room for recreation between school, chores, and prayer. I remember that Elias’s mother hadn’t liked me much, and thought I was a bad influence on her son. I laughed to myself at the memory. She was a perceptive woman.

  The girl, Cherish, widened her eyes a bit at my sudden laugh. “You remember him, don’t you?” she asked. “I’m not lying, I swear.”

  I shook my head and snorted. “I know you’re not lying,” I scowled at her. “I remember your brother. Besides, you look like the last person in the world who would be capable of telling a lie.”

  To my amusement, she seemed actually put out by that remark. “I can so tell a lie.” She jutted her chin at me defiantly. “I had to conceal my escape plans from everybody, for months.”

  “Oh yeah?” I asked mockingly, but curious in spite of myself. “Who’d you have to hide from?”