Edison

by Jessica Gadziala

  Before I could open my mouth to ask if he was okay because he never so much as thought to give me the night off even when I had sliced my palm wide open on a broken beer bottle that some idiot was brandishing like a weapon. His solution to that had been a somewhat clean rag soaked in vodka wrapped around the wound.

  This was why I had a long, raised, four-inch scar there still.

  "Lenny, angel," a mildly familiar voice called, making my head shoot to the side even as Meryl snorted at the idea of anyone calling me an angel.

  And there was, well, Cyrus. Of all people.

  "Is that a Henchmen cut?" Meryl asked, clearly having half a hard-on at the idea of more business from the group.

  Cyrus gave him a nod, his usual, charming, lopsided smile in place. "We seem to be out of Johnnie Red and Vodka. I volunteered to run out."

  "And you came here?" I asked suspiciously because, prior to the keg situation sending Edison in our direction, no Henchmen ever stepped foot in our little hellhole.

  "Of course he came here!" Meryl said, way too false-cheery. "Supporting local businesses and all that. I bet your friend Edison had nothing but good things to say about us here."

  Cyrus smiled in my direction, eyes dancing. "I definitely remember hearing some nice things about Lenny here."

  "Lenny? Of course!" Meryl went on. "She's like the store mascot."

  "And by that he means the store's guard dog who may or may not be battling a case of rabies," I supplied, making Cyrus chuckle as I watched Meryl shuffle off to find the Johnnie Red mentioned as well as some vodka that was decidedly top shelf for our crappy place, but would be considered mid-shelf anywhere else. "Why don't you stop by after your shift, Lenny?" Cyrus suggested as Meryl put two bottles of each liquor on the counter - equivalent to more liquor sales than we had had the whole day, seeing as most of our customers were going for shit like Natty Ice and Pabst to save money. "We're going to need at least two more bottles of vodka," Cy commented, not even glancing at the bottles. "They drink it like water. But yeah, come. I heard Pagan singing your praises yesterday."

  "Why would I want to come to a biker compound?" I asked, going for light, but there was an edge to my voice that I was praying he didn't know me well enough to pick up on.

  "Drinks? Pizza? A chance to bust the balls of a bunch of probies who have been getting off way too fucking light lately. Come on. I know I got you at that last bit. You know it."

  "As much as I do so love to take a male ego down a notch or fifty, I don't think that will be happening," I said as I rang up his bottles, wanting to move this along, uncomfortable.

  Cyrus handed me cash as Meryl moved in to load the bottles into an empty beer box.

  "No?" he asked, and there was something in his tone that I didn't trust. "Well," he said, picking up the box, "okay then. I will just have to tell everyone you didn't want to come."

  Everyone.

  Everyone.

  We both knew he didn't mean that.

  He meant Edison.

  This bastard set me up.

  I had a feeling that they didn't have a pressing need for whiskey or vodka. Oh no. He came with the sole purpose of trying to trap me into a situation he damn well knew I didn't want to be a part of.

  If you had told me when I was training with him that he had the potential to be a devious little jackass, I would have said not a chance in hell.

  Apparently, I didn't know him at all.

  "You're a real shit, do you know that, Cy?" I asked, staring daggers at him.

  "See? There's that spunk we need."

  "Did you ever stop to consider that conning a woman into coming to your compound full of untraceable guns was maybe not the best idea?"

  He gave me a wink, pushing his back into the front door to press it open

  "I'll wait by the gates for ya. The guys are gonna love you."

  Since when did men start trying to play matchmaker?

  Didn't these bikers have like clubwhores to fuck and drunken target practice to conduct?

  What, just because word got back that we'd hit the sheets, suddenly they needed to make it something more than that?

  "Looks like you have an exciting evening planned," Niblet said, nodding his head, likely at the idea of one lone woman at a biker club late at night, and all the filthy things that that could entail.

  "Sorry to burst your bubble here, Niblet, but no one is running a train on me tonight. Get that fucking pervy ass look off your face."

  I could just not go.

  No one was twisting my arm, not really.

  So what if he went back and told Edison that he had invited me, and I didn't want to come?

  Maybe I had somewhere to be in the morning.

  Maybe I had a different man to take to my bed later.

  Maybe I just didn't want to fucking come.

  What did it matter what Edison thought?

  Why did I care that he would know that the reason I turned it down was mostly because of him?

  He was just a fuck, damnit.

  His opinion of me shouldn't have mattered.

  Why did it, then?

  Because there was no denying that it did, not as I climbed in my car and drove off in the direction of the industrial part of town instead of toward my much closer home.

  It fucking mattered to me that he didn't think I was a chickenshit, that he didn't think he got the upper hand, that he didn't think I was so weak as not to be able to spend one night in his presence.

  Maybe I just wanted to prove that my guards were still perfectly in place.

  Or maybe, a little voice whispered as I climbed out of the car parked in front of their compound, Cyrus waiting at the gate as promised, just maybe... I simply wanted to see him again.

  The compound was about what you would expect except that it was relatively clean considering how many men lived there. There was a bar, a pool table, a seating area with a scuffed coffee table from kicked-up boots, and a TV so big that you could very likely see it from half a freaking football field away. I pulled at the sides of my motorcycle jacket, a somewhat self-conscious gesture, the likes of which I wasn't exactly known for.

  My eyes drifted over the men gathered in the common area. Of all of them, I recognized Pagan who sent me a brow raise, like he knew what was going on, knew I was only there to save face. I couldn't quite tell if he approved of that or not.

  All the others were new faces to me.

  There were two equally tall men, one with dark hair, gray eyes, and some really nice bone structure. The other was dark-skinned, brown-eyed, and had some arm muscles that were begging for freedom from their sleeves.

  "Hey mami," another one said, a tall, almost off-puttingly good-looking Puerto Rican guy with an easy smile.

  No Edison.

  What the hell?

  Wasn't that supposed to be the whole point?

  "Everyone, this is... Cash, the fuck are you doing?" Cyrus cut off as Cash - who I had seen around the gym several times, but hadn't said more than a hi to before - walked out of what seemed to be the kitchen with another man beside him. He was tall and a lean kind of strong with European features, gray eyes, and dark hair pulled up. And, well, his hands cuffed down in the front. The hands, I feel the need to add, were currently holding a sandwich.

  "If you had to hear him bitching about needing to make his own food for the past hour, you'd be doing the same thing," Cash said, raking a hand up the shaved portion of his head a bit frustratedly.

  "Well look at ya," the man in cuffs said, smirk a bit wicked, eyes on me. "Yer a gorgeous thing, ain't ya? And ya got that 'can burn a man's pubic hair off with one stare' look to ya too. Nice."

  "Right," I said, shaking my head a little. "I really needed a compliment from a prisoner in a biker compound."

  "Duchess, just think of the fun we could have with these cuffs," he suggested, smirk sly enough to make the damn devil jealous.

  "Easy," Cash warned.

  "What? She one of yours?"

&n
bsp; There was a collective, shared look, everyone thinking they had the answer to that, but knowing that I had never agreed to it.

  "I'm not a dog. I don't belong to anyone."

  "No?" he asked, the smirk going even more sinister. "So you don't come when ya are told to?"

  Sensing eyes on me, knowing I would lose all respect if I backed down from going there, I lifted my chin, sending him a smirk of my own. "I come when, where, and however many times I want to."

  To that, the cuffed man let out a low chuckle, appreciating my balls. "Seriously though, which one of ya unworthy fucks gets a girl like this?"

  "Think this is a good time to shove that sandwich in your trap, Adler," Cash suggested, clearly frustrated by the man who was able to complain about a sandwich for an hour. "Oh thank fuck," Cash said, seeing the liquor Cyrus was putting on the bar, making a bee-line for it, pouring almost half a cup of the whiskey.

  "What can I get you, Lenny?" he asked, waving at the stocked back bar.

  "Tequila," a deep, familiar voice growled from my side, sending an unwanted shiver through my insides, remembering how hot that voice sounded when he was inside of me.

  I didn't want to look.

  I knew that seeing him was going to make the chaos already starting to rage between my thighs only go into overdrive, but there was also no way I couldn't look either.

  So I forced my head to turn, finding him standing in a doorway next to the bar that, I figured, led back into the bedrooms.

  All in black, hair up, I couldn't help but wish he had nothing on again, had his hair around his shoulders, tickling my inner thighs, spread over my pillows.

  Ugh.

  That was not a good place for my thoughts to go.

  I gave him eye contact, just enough for him to know I knew he was there, then turned back to correct him.

  "Gin," I said, with a nod. "No way am I drinking tequila around a bunch of bikers."

  "What's the matter?" Adler asked, having somehow hoovered his sandwich and moved over toward me at the bar, seemingly completely unfazed by the presence of the cuffs on his wrists, leading me to wonder how many times he might have had cause to be in them before. "Afraid that after a couple rounds of Jose, one of us might innocently suggest the idea of strip Poker that your tequila-soaked brain will think is a fantastic idea?" he asked, knowing the situation too well. "I mean we all know the booze just makes you vocal about the things you want. If you want to see me naked, just ask," he suggested, raising his cuffed wrists, "I am a little indisposed, but you are free to cut me free of my clothes. Then we can discuss that coming thing."

  "What coming thing?" Edison's voice cracked through the air, low, lethal.

  "Oh, this woman right here claims that she don't come on command," Adler supplied, clearly not reading the situation. Or, maybe more likely, reading it, but being the kind of man who liked to stir shit up.

  Edison leaned back against the wall, head tipped to the side a bit, eyes on me, lips tipped up so slightly that you wouldn't notice if you didn't know exactly what he was thinking - that I did come when he demanded it. "Is that what she claimed?" he asked, eyes heated.

  Adler's lips twitched. "She did. Figured I could prove to her that she's been wrong all her life."

  "Well, this is sufficiently fucking awkward," Cash declared, moving to go sit down with the rest of the men who weren't even trying to pretend they weren't watching the interaction.

  I turned back to the bar, seeing my gin poured. As desperately as I needed a drink, I wasn't even going to complain about it being warm.

  The part of me that knew the best way to get under someone's - especially a man's - skin was telling me to keep entertaining Adler's flirtation, to ignore Edison completely.

  The other part of me, however, was begging for me not to play games, not to be a bitch, not to keep pushing people - him - away.

  "Yeah, can ya believe that?" Adler asked, just poke poke poking away at the sleeping bear. "Me and her, we got a bit of chemistry. Duchess," he said, leaning in close, and well, you had to admit - the man definitely had more than his fair share of charisma, "wanna see if I can make you come on command? Bet I could even do it with just my fingers."

  "Aren't you supposed to be locked the fuck up?" Edison demanded, voice a bit of a roar in the rather quiet space.

  "What?" Adler asked, all false innocence, knowing damn well exactly what was going on, "and deprive you all of my sparkling fucking personality?"

  "Reign said he had to stay cuffed and watched," Cash supplied. "And if I had to listen to him pound on that fucking door for one more minute, I was going to go in there and kill the fuck myself before we even got any answers."

  Hmm.

  Answers about what?

  Why was Adler in cuffs?

  Why was Adler not freaked out about being in cuffs in a notoriously violent - when it was necessary - biker gang?

  And, well, why the hell was I, an outsider, allowed to see a prisoner cuffed in an outlaw biker gang compound?

  Maybe they figured I wasn't stupid enough to say shit about it.

  "I must not have had enough of this yet," I told him when his eyes went back to me. "I'm not seeing the sparkle."

  "No?" he asked, eyes mock-worried as I raised my cup to take a sip. His hand moved out, tipping up the bottom, forcing me to chug, or spill half the contents down a shirt that earlier this evening had already proved was not hiding much even without it being soaking wet. He didn't stop until the cup was empty, giving me a sly look as I shot daggers at him. "I have a feeling that now the fun begins," he declared, moving off toward the seating area, taking the spot next to Cash who was keeping an eye on him, leaving just one open spot.

  And both Edison and me needed a place to sit. My eyes scanned around, knowing Cash and Cyrus both had women, not wanting to fuck with biker old ladies. So I moved instead over toward the gray-eyed biker who seemed to scream single, and rested my ass on the arm of his chair.

  There was a pause, then a brow raise before he spoke. "I'm Sugar," he supplied, dropping off the end sound, reminding me of a mix of Staten Island, Jersey, and the Bronx, a mix I somehow found comforting. Maybe because I had lived in all those places. "And this is Virgin," he went on, introducing the friend seated beside him, who nodded his head at me.

  "Interesting road names," I observed. "I'm Lenny."

  "And that's short for?" And that's shawt fawh?

  This one little clubhouse had a lot of interesting accents.

  I had always been a sucker for them.

  I shook my head at that, a little too aware of Edison finally dropping down in the open chair. "Lenore," I supplied, curling my lip.

  "As in The rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore?" Cy asked.

  Every set of eyes shot to him at that, brows raised, smirks teasing.

  "What?" he asked, rolling his eyes. "So Reese read me some Poe shit and I liked it. Fuck off."

  "My fucking eighth-grade teacher made us memorize that shit," Pagan said, shaking his head. "Know how much fucking alcohol I've had to drink to try to kill the braincells that remembered that crap? Now you're bringing it up in conversation at a biker compound where I was damn near fucking certain I would never have to worry about having goddamn classic American poetry recited at me again? I'm not drunk enough for this shit," he ribbed Cyrus, moving to go get himself a drink. "Lenny, refill?"

  "Sure."

  "So, Lenny," Cyrus spoke again, clearly trying to move the conversation away from his apparent enjoyment of macabre poetry. "Are you from around here?"

  I snorted a little at that. "I'm from everywhere," I said, watching as his brow raised in a way that was inviting an explanation. And that was not information I generally shared. Maybe bits and pieces came out of me here and there on occasion, but not when I was mostly sober, and in front of a guy I had fucked. "My mom was - is - a serial dater. And wife. And every time a man wanted to get shot of her - which was often - we all picked up, and moved somewhere new."
>
  "All?" I heard called from behind me. Well, no. Not called. Growled.

  I half-turned to him, shrugging. I didn't plan to say it.

  But it came out anyway.

  "My mom, me, and my little sister."

  "Little sister," Adler picked up on right away, voice teasing again.

  "No," I snapped, voice a bit too forceful, because I could feel a lot of unspoken communication going on among the men around me.

  "Got it," Adler agreed, this time his voice held none of the teasing, just responding seriously to the demand I shot at him. "More interested in learning about ya anyway, duchess. What pays your bills?"

  "Cigarette and cheap beer slinging."

  His lips quirked back up at that. "But you do it for the love of the work, right? All that ass-grabbing and tit-grazing from sleazebags with bad comb-overs."

  "So you've been to my place!" I said with a teasing smile as Pagan handed me my refill, this time with some ice, thankfully.

  "With all the traveling, what the fuck would make you settle down in Navesink Bank?"

  "Family," I hedged, not wanting to go into detail about that.

  "How long you been here?" Cyrus asked, keeping conversation going.

  "Since I was about eighteen."

  "And we've never crossed paths?" Cyrus went on, looking confused at the prospect.

  "You strike me as the social type," I observed. "Do I seem like that?"

  His smirk wasn't unkind. "No. Not at all."

  "So unless you were slumming it with the crackwhores down in my hood at Meryl's, then we weren't likely to run into each other."

  "So how did Cy get you to come hang with us then?" Pagan asked, clearly wanting to make things even more uncomfortable.

  Luckily, it was right that moment that some older, bearded, man seemed to appear out of nowhere. "Pizza is here," he answered the question in his brother's eyes.

  So then everyone hopped up to get pizza. Someone flicked on the TV to some gory as fuck horror movie. Drinks were refilled.

  I was making my way back over to the arm of Sugar's chair when I felt my belt loop snagged and yanked, making me turn to find Edison watching me, finger digging in even harder.

  Almost, well, possessive.