Dizzy: A Steel Bones Motorcycle Club Prequel

by Cate C. Wells

  While Charge and I been grillin’ and commiserating in silence, Nickel has ventured over. His eyes are flickin’ all over the yard. He’s lookin’ for Story.

  “She’s inside,” I say.

  He grunts. Doesn’t respond. But his eyes narrow on the back door.

  “Beer?” Charge asks, half-rising and grabbing three cold ones from the cooler.

  Nickel and I hold out our hands. Charge slaps icy, wet bottles into our palms. I sip as I take off the sausages and lay them on a plate lined with a paper towel. Perfect.

  I beckon the ladies, and Deb sends Angel over to grab them. I put a few more on the grill. Don’t want anyone to go hungry.

  “Why don’t you go in there, Dizzy? See what’s goin’ on?” Charge nods toward the clubhouse.

  “I’m cookin’, man. And my woman’s fine.”

  “What’s goin’ on?” Nickel tenses and swells, pumped with adrenaline. Instantly, he’s ready to kill. Jesus Christ. It’s a handy thing—one I’ll always be grateful for—when a man has a knife at your woman’s throat. Or when a former brother turns on his club for mere money and needs to be put down.

  On a random Sunday afternoon at a family picnic? It’s unsettling.

  I clap a hand on his back. “Relax. It’s nothin’. Charge has got woman trouble.”

  Nickel sniffs and cracks his neck. You can see it. He’s got this dark energy now, and he don’t know what to do with it.

  “Looks like Bullet’s tryin’ to get something going over by the fire pit,” I point out. It’s early for the sparring to start, but Wall and the prospect Roosevelt are gathered there, messin’ around.

  Nickel nods. “Peace,” he says as he stalks away.

  Charge shakes his head. “I don’t get why he don’t claim her. Story’s been after him forever. She ain’t gonna turn him down.”

  “I’m sure the man has his reasons.”

  We’re quiet a while, soakin’ in the sunshine. It’s the kind of early May day that’s bright but cool. Everything’s chatterin’. The birds. The crickets. The females and the old dudes at the horseshoe pits.

  A glorious day. I’m a blessed man.

  And then a whistle rings out in the yard, and the chattering turns to hoots and hollers.

  “It’s Fay-Lee, ain’t it?” I try hard to fight the grin. I been grillin’ a while now. I figured she’d be demandin’ my attention sooner or later.

  “Ayup.”

  I look where folks are pointing. She hanging out an upstairs window, unbuttoning her shirt.

  “Who wants to see my tits?” she shouts. Thank goodness Ernestine herded all the kids inside a few minutes ago to wash their hands and get sundaes.

  There’s a hue and cry. I slap the tongs in Charge’s hands. “Give ‘em a minute or two then turn ‘em.”

  She takes off her shirt, swings it in the air, and lets it fly. She’s wearin’ her white lace bra with the little pink rosebud.

  “Hurry up, sugar!” Grinder shouts. “Dizzy’s headin’ up!”

  I’ll beat his ass once I’m done with Fay-Lee’s.

  She smiles at me, easing her hands behind her back, widening her eyes each time she pops a clasp.

  “Get outta that window, baby!”

  “Make me!” She holds the bra to her chest and lets the straps fall down. “Oops.”

  “Heads down, motherfuckers, or I’m collectin’ eyeballs when I get back out here!” There’s a chorus of tough talk and laughter, but I make note of who listens and who don’t.

  I bust through the door and pound up the stairs, grinnin’ from ear-to-ear. By the time I reach the room—the same one I found her in that first day we met, although it’s been redone since then—she’s naked and bent over the bed, ass high in the air, gigglin’.

  I crack her ass cheek with one hand while I unzip my pants with the other. She shrieks, tilting her hips for more.

  She loves it. She loves me. It’s a miracle. She’s a miracle.

  Thwack. Thwack. I make that ass wobble, leave a handprint I’ll admire later. Maybe make her show everyone. Remind them so there is no doubt she belongs to me.

  She’s panting, her hand shoved between her legs. I let the next one catch wind, and she shrieks as my palm makes contact. Then she kind of shakes her head and scrambles forward on the bed. I drag her back.

  “Uh, uh, baby. You’re gonna take what you asked for.”

  “Leave off, Dizzy. I got to—ouch!” She swats at my hand and flips to her back. “Hold up. Broccoli! Orange Crush! Fuck!”

  I squeeze in one last slap, and I quit. The current safe word’s parmesan, but she’s always forgettin’ it and changing it. She knows hold on or stop works just fine.

  “I wanted to tell you something.”

  “That why you decide to hang out the window and strip for the whole damn club?”

  “I needed your undivided attention.”

  “My ears work fine.”

  She pouts, scooting up to the head of the bed. I sit at the foot. She’s adorable. I love the scar at the corner of her mouth. I love her big brown eyes and her long black hair and her stubborn chin. I love her pointy elbows and her long legs.

  “Well? You gonna tell me what’s so important that I had to leave Charge Denney with the brats and come up here?”

  She chews her bottom lip, glancing up at me from under thick lashes. “I changed my mind.”

  “Okay.”

  “That’s all you can say?” she huffs.

  “It’s a woman’s prerogative?”

  She tucks her knees to her chin, and rubs the tattooed stars on her wrist. She had Creech add three. One each for me, Parker, and Carson. Then she had Creech turn Sharon’s name on my back into barbed wire.

  She’s nervous about somethin’. I want to go to her, drag her into my lap, kiss her ‘til she remembers there’s nothin’ she can’t tell me. She ain’t alone in life anymore. I got her back. In everything.

  But I wait. I think I know where she’s goin’, but I remain calm. She has surprised me before. Often.

  Finally, she sighs. “I want to have a baby. Your baby. Dumbass.”

  My heart leaps in my chest.

  “But not right this minute. I got to get used to the idea. I’m gonna stay on the pill until at least this prescription runs out.”

  “Okay.” A grin splits my face.

  “And there’s things I want to do first.”

  “All right.”

  “And we got to make sure Parker and Carson are okay with it.”

  “They will be.” Both boys have asked me when we’re gonna have a baby. They’re outgrowing their stuff, but they’re attached to it, so instead of donating it to the Goodwill, they want to pack it away “for when you and Fay-Lee have a kid.”

  “I don’t want stretch marks.”

  “I’ll love your stretch marks.”

  “We should probably get married first.”

  “I’ve asked you a dozen times,” I point out. “Bought you that ring.”

  “Rings don’t mean anything. And it’s just a piece of paper.”

  “We can go to the courthouse. Don’t need to be a big deal. If you’re worried about family bein’ there, you know Steel Bones are your people now.”

  She gets maudlin every once in a while after she’s had a glass of wine. She’ll call one of her sisters, and they’ll go on about themselves, won’t let Fay-Lee get a word in edgewise, and then they ask for money. She ends up cryin’ in the bathroom with the door shut.

  “I’ll think about it,” she concedes. “I don’t want to be a boring married mom. I still want to do kinky stuff. In bed.”

  She crawls over to where I’m sitting and tucks herself under my arm.

  “I’ll fuck you however you want.”

  “You’re an infuriatingly simple and easy-to-please man.” She’s smiling now, too. I push down my pants to past my knees and scoop her up into my lap. She squirms until she’s straddling me, arms wrapped around my neck. Her pussy’s hot and wet aga
inst my belly. My cock is nestled in her ass crack.

  I kiss her. She tastes like ginger ale. “Want me to show you how I’m gonna put a baby in your belly? When you’re ready?”

  “Yeah,” she pants, guiding my cock through her legs so she can rock her wet slit up and down the shaft. I take her mouth, twine my tongue with hers, breathe in all her smells and sounds.

  Before this woman, I was gettin' by. Making do.

  Now, I’m livin’. She’s given me everything. And as I slide home, burying myself to the hilt in her heat, I swear in my heart, as I have every day I wake up beside her—I will give this woman the world.

  My woman. I caught her. She’s mine.

  The Steel Bones Motorcycle Club saga begins with Charge. Click to keep reading!

  A Note From The Author

  Will Ernestine ever take Grinder back?

  Will Creech ever find someone who can love him?

  Who was Boots’ “California Girl” and why did she leave?

  I have no idea! But you will be the first to know if you sign up for my newsletter at http://catecwells.com.

  You’ll get a FREE novella, too!

  About the Author

  Cate C. Wells is the author of the Steel Bones Motorcycle Club series. She writes gritty, real, emotionally satisfying romance. She’s into messy love, flaws, long roads to redemption, grace, and happily ever after, in books and in life.

  Along with stories, she’s collected a husband and three children along the way. She lives in Baltimore when she’s not exploring America with the family. #allfiftystates

  I love to connect with readers! Meet me in The Cate C. Wells Reader Group on Facebook.

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  Sneak Peek

  CHARGE: A STEEL BONES MOTORCYCLE CLUB ROMANCE (BOOK 1)

  A bearded biker with a man bun is checking out my ass.

  If today wasn’t already the worst, it’d make me kind of uncomfortable. As it is…of course, there’s a pervy old biker ogling my ass. The way my life has been going, I’m surprised he doesn’t have his whole club sitting next to him like the ice skating judges at the Olympics, scoring my ass as I haul boxes up this rickety iron staircase. Which I’m pretty sure is actually a fire escape? And that has to be out of compliance with all kinds of codes.

  I hope Jimmy doesn’t notice this guy—shit. Where’s Jimmy?

  My eyes fly to the Corolla.

  No surprise. He’s not where he’s supposed to be, guarding the open trunk. I should’ve known that ploy wouldn’t work. Not now that he’s a big six. The other day he woke up in the middle of the night and caught me crying over the checkbook. He gave me this stern look and flipped the book shut.

  “Mama, go to bed,” he’d said. “I’m a big six now. You don’t have to worry anymore.”

  Right.

  He can’t have gotten far. I picked this place in part because it’s like a zoo for kids. Lots to look at but no real danger. We’re at the bottom of a cul-de-sac next to the shallowest, laziest stretch of the Luckahannock. The railroad runs on a trestle two stories overhead.

  I do a quick scan. The swampy mud bank where the river must’ve risen during the spring thaw. The wall of cattails thick enough that even Jimmy at his stubbornest couldn’t get through them without a scythe and more upper body strength than a big six can muster. The squat pre-fab house with a handicap ramp and pier next door where the biker sits on the front stairs, swigging his beer and leering.

  Then I check out the main reason I signed the lease: the big old patch of green behind our new place with its swingset-without-a-swing and droopy weeping willow. And there he is. Swinging from the willow branches, frowning and muttering to himself.

  That’s my Jimmy. Can’t stay put. Won’t stay still. Doesn’t care to smile, not even when he was a baby. He’s the crankiest old man of a little boy you’ll ever meet. And I love him just the way he is: grumpy and perfect and mine.

  And I’m taking care of him. Even if this all doesn’t really feel much like taking care of a lot of the time.

  A few weeks ago, I realized we needed to downsize from our one bedroom in town with utilities. I was two months behind on rent, and I didn’t need Dad and Victoria finding out about an eviction. So I found this second-floor studio without utilities on the outskirts of Petty’s Mill. Rent is three hundred less a month, but no utilities included means my electric can get cut off.

  Can and will. If I don’t pay the electric on time.

  Which has a good chance of happening eventually because—math. Basic addition and subtraction. I’ve only got a GED, and Petty’s Mill doesn’t even have a mill anymore. I’ve got a decent thing going as a picker at the General Goods warehouse, but that’s all contingent on the Corolla not dying on me.

  And a few weeks ago, along with the rent being late and Jimmy’s teacher calling about how she caught the other kids teasing him about his dollar store backpack, the Corolla contracted a bit of a death rattle. It shudders a little each time I turn it off now as if it’s saying, “That’s the last time, lady. Seriously. I’ve had enough.”

  I know the feeling.

  After all, the Corolla and I have been knocking around about the same amount of time. It was my mom’s before she passed, and it sat around in Dad’s garage until I turned sixteen and Victoria figured it was either get it working again or keep driving me places. Anyway, it’s almost twenty, and I’m twenty-one. If I’ve made it this long, a Toyota should sure be able to chug along a few more years.

  Right.

  My arms full of a box of dishes, I swing the door open with my hip, maybe harder than strictly necessary because life kind of sucks, I’m sweating under my boobs, my thighs are rubbing, and my shorts are riding up. And an unemployed biker is taking it all in like I’m the damn nature channel. I bang my hipbone good on the knob, and I can’t stop the whimper.

  “Oh, baby, don’t hurt it. Ain’t nobody want a bruised peach.”

  Oh, good. The biker’s decided to step it up to catcalling. I drop the box and rub my hip. He’s right about one thing. That’s gonna leave a mark.

  I kick-scoot the box to the far wall, the one that serves as a kitchen with a sink, a stovetop, no oven, and a yellow-green fridge from the seventies. There’s a smell coming from the fridge, but I can’t worry about that now. I have half a Corolla left to unload and Jimmy’s not going to be content swinging on the willow tree forever. He’s going to get bored, and a bored Jimmy is the devil’s plaything.

  I don’t think he can climb a railroad trestle, but he can start making plans. And gathering equipment.

  I turn to make another trip, but before I take two steps, boots on the iron stairs sets the metal clanging. Big boots.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I dart my gaze around the apartment, but I’ve got nothing. The kitchen knives are in a box in the car, so are the standing lamp and Jimmy’s tee ball bat. The furniture I reassembled yesterday isn’t much help; it’s more cardboard than anything.

  It’s broad daylight though, and everyone’s windows are open. Besides, it’s ten o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday. It’s fine. I’m fine.

  My heart’s still in my throat, though, and my skin goes hot and clammy.

  At least Jimmy’s out back.

  The screen door flies open.

  “Where you want these, Peaches?”

  His voice is normal. Casual. He’s carrying a box on each shoulder, the heavy ones I’d marked hold from the bottom.

  “There.” I nod toward the bathroom. When he saunters over, all six-feet-four-hundred inches of him, I take the opportunity to duck out the door.

  The weight bearing down on my chest lifts, and I can breathe again. I wipe my hands down my slacks.

  And I start to feel dumb.

  Like my friend Sue always says, not everyone has nefarious intenti
ons.

  He’s probably your average guy just trying to be neighborly. It’s not like I don’t know his type. The places Jimmy and I’ve lived since I got him back…guys like him are par for the course.

  But that’s not what this guy’s seeing when he comes back out and rakes his eyes down my front, making the weird, cold sweats come back big time. This guy thinks I’m something I’ve never been. A sorority girl maybe. The girl next door.

  He’s eating me up with his eyes. And it’s one part creepy, and another part amazing. Like I’m amazed this is happening. This never happens. My body’s okay—my tits are on the big side and I’m the kind of curvy that makes a number eight when I lay on my side—but I know my face and hair are nothing much. And I’m short.

  You wouldn’t know it by how long this guy is taking to give me the once-over.

  And, yeah, I was totally wrong about his age. He’s not old enough to be my dad. More like thirty or so. And now that he’s close enough to touch, my stomach starts flipping like a dog doing tricks. The face behind the beard…dude is gorgeous. Movie star, chiseled jaw, freakin’ twinkling sky-blue eyes— gorgeous. Full lips and thick, shiny hair and veiny, muscled forearms like an Italian sculpture. Bright white teeth. He smells good, too. Kind of like molasses.

  Oh, shit. He’s grinning. He noticed me staring. Of course he did. The landing’s narrow, but several feet long, and he’s standing close, not giving me space. He’s ducked past me, and he’s leaning against the siding, all James Dean. He’s probably noticed the sweat above my upper lip. And the dried milk in my hair from the mishap with the straw this morning.

  This isn’t awkward. Not at all.

  “Like what you see, Peaches?”

  “My name’s not Peaches.”

  That’s what I went with? Not thanks, but no thanks? Get lost? Hard pass?