“Harper—”
“No. I don’t care what it is. All I know is that I want no part of it.” He leaned back, a move that dared me to leave before he was finished talking to me. And he wasn’t used to people not toeing the line. But I wasn’t his any longer, so I turned on my heel and left him with two tepid cups of bad coffee on the table in front of him.
***
When afternoon turned into evening, I told my mother that I needed to take Jamie home to sleep, and she agreed, pressing her house keys into my hands even as she resumed her seat in the hospital waiting room.
It was strange to return to my childhood home. I put Jamie down in my old twin bed, and he drifted off without a fuss. Keeping the door cracked so that I might hear any squeal of objection from my son, I began to unpack my sizable bag into the chest of drawers in the guest room.
The room had been redone since I’d last visited and was nicely appointed with a queen-sized brass bed and new forest-green velvet drapes that would block all of the sunlight out when drawn. The accompanying bathroom had also been redone, in fine white marble with brass fixtures, a Jacuzzi tub and separate steam shower. I decided to take a bath to scrub away the scent of death and peroxide that seemed to permeate my skin from hours spent in a hospital, and turned on the faucet, relaxing immediately upon hearing the sound of running water.
I stripped off the ratty tee shirt and faded jeans I’d worn since I’d driven down, and examined my body in the mirror: shapely, yes, with full, round breasts and wide hips, but I was perturbed to see that I’d softened somewhat around the middle. Still, I was not altogether displeased with my reflection, and gazed at myself from the side as well, noting how my ass, though sizable, was perky and smooth.
I drew my hair up into a high, messy bun and shed my bra and panties, moaning audibly as I lowered myself into the water. I delighted in the pleasant tingling sensation of the too-hot bath and leaned back against the ceramic of the tub, dipping lower so only my neck and face were exposed.
There was a dial on the side of the tub, and when I turned it on, the jets around the side began to run, making the bathtub into a bubbling cauldron. I smiled and leaned forward, letting one of the jets shoot water against the small of my back. I shifted, dropping a few lavender bath beads into the water, and inhaled deeply, trying my best to put concerns about my father out of my mind.
Instead, my brain turned to thoughts of Lucas, how good he looked, how his limp gave him a sort of swagger. I had been in the habit of forcing him out of my mind, despite the fact that I saw him in my son’s hair and in the gentle slope of his small nose. But now…
I allowed my knees to part, inviting one of the jets to shoot toward my pelvis. Scooting down slightly, the pressure of the water gently massaged my sex, and I was reminded of precisely how long it had been since I’d had a man between my thighs. I slid a hand up over the slope of one breast, past a nipple hardened by the sudden attention to the more sensitive areas of my body, and along the valley of my abdomen. Finally, my finger came to rest on the pith of my clitoris, and I thought of Lucas.
Lucas.
I had been nineteen when I’d married him, our lust for one another insatiable even after we found out that I was pregnant. As I rubbed myself into wet arousal, I remembered a particularly hot event from our torrid history. We had been young, too young to drink, but we were at a bar where a punk band was playing. I recalled how I was clad in a torn tee shirt and a denim mini-skirt and how Lucas had come up behind me at the bar and slid his hand between my legs.
“Lucas,” I had begun to protest, half turning. But he pressed a kiss to my temple and turned me back toward the bar.
“Look at them,” he growled into my ear. “They’re all looking at the band. No one is looking at you.” He pushed my panties aside and slid a finger into me, thrusting gently to the knuckle. “But they should be.”
I thought of that night as my breathing began to quicken; I thought of how I was always wet for him, always ready for him to take me; I thought of how I’d wanted him to fuck me in the bar that night, not caring whether or not anyone had seen. I moved my hand faster and faster under the water until I could feel my orgasm begin to build in the pit of my stomach. Lucas, my Lucas —
But then I heard the front door open and close, and snapped out of my reverie. I was flushed, from the water and from my fantasy, but I drained the tub and toweled off all the same, donning a terrycloth robe so that I could head down the stairs.
In the living room was my mother, and Lucas.
“Hey,” I said, tugging the robe more tightly around me, “How’d you get in — Mom gave me the keys.”
“Yeah, I kept my spare set,” Lucas replied, grinning a lopsided little grin.
“And I’m glad he did, too,” Mom said, plucking her clip-on earrings off her ears. “I wasn’t sure whether or not you’d still be awake.”
“Any news on Dad?” I asked, falling into a lean against the doorway. Mom just shook her head, and I noticed for the first time how much she’d aged since I’d seen her last. She was still beautiful — I had her dark hair, her blue eyes — but there were fine lines around those eyes, and streaks of white in that once onyx-black hair.
“I just came home to take a shower and change my clothes,” she insisted, heading toward the staircase. “I’m turning right back around again.”
“You should get a few hours’ rest, Angie,” Lucas said. “The doctor agrees with me.”
“I don’t want him to be alone in there,” she said, pausing on the bottom stair but not turning back to look at us. “He shouldn’t be alone.”
“He’s not alone. Fitz and the prospect are with him. And I’ve sent some of the other guys to track down Brian.” My brother, missing in action as always. I saw my mom bob her head once in a nod as she began to head up the stairs, and I was hoping it was a nod of concession. But that woman was as stubborn as an ox, so she would likely just change and take a cab back to the hospital if she had to.
“Thanks for bringing her home,” I said, not looking Lucas in the eye.
“Let’s get a drink,” he said by way of a reply.
“Lucky…”
“Come on.” He reached out and tucked an errant lock of hair behind my ear, canting his head to the side as he forced me to make eye contact with him.
“Jamie’s asleep, and my mom wants to go back to the hospital.”
“One drink, I promise. I want to show you something.”
***
It was weird to see Lucas behind the wheel of a pickup truck, since everyone who knew him was so used to seeing him astride his Harley Davidson Dyna Street Bob, custom finished with matte black paint and two wailing banshees airbrushed on the sides. He even seemed fidgety in the truck, like he didn’t quite know how to sit. He slung his elbow out the window and drove with his right hand. A few times he caught me casting furtive glances in his direction, or perhaps he was simply caught casting furtive glances in mine, and when he pulled into a dirt parking lot, he paused when he turned off the ignition.
“Are we… here?” I asked, peering around him to a flashing neon sign on the front of a rather plain-looking brick building: The Golden Harp.
“It’s not…” He hesitated, his gaze locking on mine. “It’s not quite finished yet…? I mean, it is, but it’s… I’m still working on it, and I had hoped I’d have a little more time before showing it to you.”
“What is it?”
“It’s your bar.”
I furrowed my brow and opened the door to the truck, hopping down and coming around to get a better look at the place. There wasn’t much to see out front: a red brick face, a green roof, two large picture windows that depicted a warm, if common, scene. And the neon sign that flashed The Golden Harp in bright yellow.
“What do you mean, ‘my bar’?” I asked, and he placed a gentle hand on the small of my back to urge me forward. He opened the door for me, and we were met by the happy din of a well-served patronage. It was a cozy
little dive with low-hanging green glass lamps, a pool table and a couple of dart boards. The room was half full and boasted considerably more men than women, most of whom wore the same black leather vest that Lucas wore, marking them as members of the Iron Banshees. And that meant I knew most of them as well.
“Harper Grace!” came a shout, accompanied by a friendly cheer. I smiled, waggling my fingers in greeting to these men that had watched me grow up. These were my father’s friends and colleagues, my brother’s closest compatriots, my husband’s family. Ex. Ex-husband. Or, very nearly ex — all I had to do was file the paperwork.
There was a gin gimlet on the end of the bar for me before I even had the chance to order it, and I couldn’t help but grin as I hopped up onto a bar stool. I sipped happily as the members of the MC came over one by one, pressing kisses to my cheek, clapping me on the shoulder, expressing concern about my father, telling me how good it was to see me home again. Lucas watched them file up, smiling, like he’d found the missing piece to a puzzle and he could finally see the whole image. For my part, I shrank under the weight of so much attention.
After the commotion had calmed down somewhat, Lucas reached over the bar to help himself to a beer and slid onto the stool beside mine. “This is one of our — how did you put it? — legitimate businesses.” He grinned and took a drink. “I opened it about a year ago, but the deed is in your name.”
“Mine?” I quirked a brow. “Why?”
“You know, just in case anything should happen, I wanted to make sure you and Jamie were taken care of.” He leaned in, peering at me through a forest of thick yellow lashes, and brushed the back of his knuckles over the flushed skin of my cheek. “I know why you left, and I get it. I do. But I still—”
The back door burst open then, granting admittance to a very large, shirtless man with a deep and bloody laceration over his right eye. And that wasn’t his only injury: his chest bore a number of bruises at various stages of healing, and his left elbow was scabbed over, as though he had been dragged across the floor on it. Even as battered as he was, there was something magnetic about him, as though he commanded the attention of everyone in his immediate vicinity. His hair was a rich mahogany brown, his eyes were the color of a glass of sherry. And I got a good look at him because he was headed straight for us.
“Whalen,” he said, and Lucas turned to look at him.
“Oliver?” Lucas said, rising to his feet. “The hell are you doin’, man?”
“I agreed to fight,” he said, “but no one told me anything about throwing matches.”
“Lucas?” I asked. “What is this?”
“Give me a minute, Harper,” Lucas said, and gripped the man’s arm as he directed him toward the back of the bar. I jumped off of my seat and followed. The three of us escaped into the backroom of the bar, which was essentially just cold concrete and a folding card table and metal chairs. A naked bulb hung from the ceiling and cast a sort of sickly yellow glow over everything. The man — Oliver — wiped at the blood on his face and his hand came away red.
“What the hell is this about, Oliver?” Lucas demanded, his arms crossed in front of him. “You can’t just come barging into a place of business and start screaming about this shit.”
“I agreed to pay off Tommy Flynn’s debt. But I’m not here to let some half-wit beat on me. You want me in that ring, I fight until I can’t stand up anymore.” Oliver glanced at me, then, registering my presence for the first time.
“You do what I tell you to do,” Lucas insisted. “If Fitz says throw a fight, you throw it. In fact, if any of the Banshees tell you to throw a fight, you fucking throw it. Understand? You’re here to pay off a debt, nothing more, nothing less.”
“I won’t do it. You’ll have to fuckin’ kill me.” He wiped at the blood again, and I gave a shake of my head.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said. I couldn’t help myself. If looks could kill, the one Lucas shot at me would have knocked me dead. “Throw it if they tell you to throw it. Because they will kill you.” I knew they would. I’d seen it. “And that cut is gonna need stitches.”
“We don’t have time to get him stitched up, he’s got another fight in half an hour,” Lucas said, pacing the length of the small room.
“Do you have a first aid kit?” I asked, rolling up the sleeves of my sweatshirt. Lucas bobbed his head in a nod. “Well, go get it for me.”
He hesitated, but ultimately excused himself, and I was alone with the bleeding, shirtless brute. “Sit down,” I said, and he complied, dumping himself onto one of the folding chairs like an old sack of potatoes. I bent forward and peered intently at his face, assessing the damage. It was deep, and had hit a major vein in his forehead. He must have been feeling light-headed, from all the blood he’d lost.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asked, and I noted the gentle lilt to his manner of speech.
“Harper,” I said. “And don’t call me sweetheart.”
“I’m Oliver. What’s a nice girl like you doin’ in a place like this?” I rolled my eyes, tugging down one of my sweatshirt sleeves and pressing it against his forehead in an attempt to stem the bleeding.
“I’m not such a nice girl. And if you don’t quit being so goddamned smarmy, I’m just gonna let this bleed until you pass out.” He smiled up at me then, a bright, earnest thing that lit up his entire face. I found myself smiling back.
Lucas returned with the first aid kit and I set to work laying out my supplies on the card table. It looked like he even had a needle and some sutures.
“So you can patch me up, eh, doc?” he asked, and I arched one shoulder in a shrug.
“I could, but it’ll leave one hell of a scar. I’m no plastic surgeon.”
“Leave a scar. Women like scars.”
“Do they?”
I tugged my sweatshirt off over my head, wiping gently at his forehead with the previously unsoiled sleeve, and began to disinfect the area. Oliver winced; I smiled.
“So,” I said, “you can take a beating, but you can’t handle a little hydrogen peroxide?”
“Apparently.”
I dried the skin around the cut and examined it closely, trying to ensure that no foreign materials had made their way into the wound. Leaning in that close to him, I could smell the sweat and the subtle pulse of endorphins and adrenaline that radiated from his glistening skin.
“You should come watch me fight some time,” he said as I leaned in with the needle and sutures. “I’m actually quite good.”
“Calm down, champ,” Lucas said, a distinctive edge to his voice. “You’ve only had two fights.”
“Yeah, but they were good fights,” Oliver said, tensing as I pierced his epidermis as gently and deftly as I could. But the fact of the matter was that I had only ever practiced this move on models, or on pieces of fruit. Not a fact I was going to share with my erstwhile patient.
“The first one was good,” Lucas begrudgingly agreed, “but you were supposed to fucking throw the second one. I don’t think you understand the kind of take we were banking on.”
“You conscripted me to win fights,” Oliver said. “That’s what I’ll do.”
“Stop talking,” I said. “Both of you.”
I worked slowly, but diligently, and after a long stretch of silence between the two men and myself, I tied off the suture, cut its end, and put a bandage over the whole thing. “Have a professional look at that, but it should keep your blood on the inside for the time being.”
“Thanks, love,” Oliver said, and rose to his feet. He was stiff, I could tell, but his muscles rolled and flexed under skin that had almost no fat on it whatsoever. Something about him was magnetic, and I wanted to stay close. Lucas, of course, had other ideas.
“Come on, Harper,” Lucky said, “I’ll take you home.”
***
Lucas held my bloodied sweatshirt as we headed back to the pickup truck. I couldn’t help but scoff. “So,” I said, climbing into the passenger’s seat, “my b
ar is connected to your underground fight club, or whatever.”
“It isn’t a fight club, Harper,” Lucas grumbled, suddenly looking and sounding incredibly tired. He turned on the ignition and headed back toward my mother’s house.
“Well, then, what is it? Because it seemed to me like you took me out tonight to try to prove that you’d, like, gone all legit. But it’s just the same old crap with you, isn’t it?” I shook my head and crossed my arms under my breasts, turning away from him to peer out the window as my hometown passed by outside.
“The bar is a legitimate business,” Lucas said. “And it isn’t the club’s only venture. We have a lot in the works.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, Harper. That’s a fucking fact. What, you think we want to be criminals?” I turned to look at him then, and could not help but smile a manic sort of smile.
“Yes, Lucas. Yes. That is exactly what I think. I think you want to be criminals — I think you love being criminals.”
“We don’t love being criminals—”
“You do, I can tell. You don’t need the money from your, what even is it? Your cage matches?”
“It’s just underground MMA, that’s all. It’s unregulated, that’s all it means.” He pulled over to the side of the road and looked me square in the eye. “Why do you think we do what we do, huh? Any of the Banshees. Why do you think we do it?”
“Because you were all born into it. Because you don’t know anything else.” I turned away from him and looked out the window into the empty blackness of late evening. The town was small and there wasn’t a lot of light pollution, so from where I was sitting, we could have been the only two people in the universe.
“We do it, Harper,” he murmured mildly, “because there are people we love who count on us. And, frankly, the legitimate businesses just don’t make us enough money to take care of them all.”
MC Fight Club: Iron Banshees: (Complete Series: Parts 1-5) An MC Fighter Menage Romance Page 2