by Cat Porter
I dumped the bastard’s shaking bleeding body on the concrete and kicked him. He rolled over, a groan heaving from his bloodied mouth. I wiped his blood off my knife on his colors and stalked out of the shed to my bike. I swerved off the property, my Harley screaming.
I tore through the Badlands. The Lakota rightly named their sacred land mako sica or land bad. Grim and bleak to some, but to me the eroded canyons, steep slopes, and rugged peaks were a kind of Zen meditation which I needed, craved. Right the fuck now. I was no passerby here. I was a traveler being taken on, accepted, and I was respectful in turn of its irascible beauty. Beauty scratched and battered yet stunning and untouched, telling the story of time.
The road wound me through textured layers of colored rock—sandy brown, clay red, charcoal gray, dull black, muted yellows—their tones transforming in the shimmer of the sun. My heartbeat tuned into the rhythm of my engine, my muscles eased one after the other. My mind let go.
Let go.
The unrelenting stone pinnacles—whispering an ancient quiet, eerie and inexplicable—dominated the wide-open Dakota sky. It was my holy and my thrill. Riding through this blunt, magnificent desolation my whirring thoughts, my rage, my stifling memories released their sinister grip on me.
Two hours later, I ended up at Dead Ringer’s. I slammed through the Old West-style panel doors and threw myself at the bar.
“The 15.”
Biff only nodded at me and placed the bottle of Glenlivet 15 Year Old French Oak Reserve in front of me. I stared at the label, the familiar shape of the bottle.
My dad’s favorite.
I poured the amber liquor in the glass Biff had slid toward me. The Doors were playing low over the speaker system. Biff fucking loved the Doors.
With my full glass, I saluted his prized poster of Morrison against the side wall. “Long live the king!” I mumbled and knocked back the whiskey, absorbing its warm, almost sweet smoothness down my throat.
“Hey you,” a voice rose up next to me.
A spicy, syrupy sweet perfume clogged my nostrils. Carly, one of the older waitresses, stood at my side, a hand on her waist, a small smile painted on her scarlet lips.
She lifted an eyebrow. “Must be bad this time.”
I drained my glass. She raised the bottle and poured me another. I swallowed it down.
She eyed me. “Hmm. Real bad.”
I glanced up at her. Her small brown eyes were heavily lined with black like some sort of Cleopatra, long dark hair down her curvy thirty-something body. She was sexy. She was offering. I could take her now, grab her by the arm, and fuck her in the restroom. Hell, we could probably get away with it right here against the bar. There was no one around. Bar wasn’t even open yet. Biff had disappeared into the back. I stared at her tits rising and falling rapidly under her Aerosmith T-shirt. Jump and Clip had fucked her together a couple of years ago. She was always willing. I’d just never gotten around to it.
It would be so easy, so very easy, to take out my anger and desperation on Carly instead of Grace. But that would be incredibly stupid. That would push this whole mess into different territory, hellish territory.
My gaze darted up at my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. My eyes were haggard, my hair, barely touching my shoulders, was a stringy mess after my long ride.
“Your hair is the color of whiskey and wheat.”
I drank.
Carly’s fingers trailed under my sleeve. “Hey, Dig,” she murmured.
I studied us in the mirror as she leaned in closer to me, her cigarette-laced breath mingling with mine, her lips parting.
A sour taste rose in my mouth. I didn’t want to touch or smell or kiss anybody but Grace.
Grace. Grace. Grace.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Her face marred by a wash of shame earlier in the shed passed before me. Shame and guilt from the out-in-the-open acknowledgement before the whole club that whatever was going on between her and Butler wasn’t right. Rage no longer had me in its grip, only frustration that Grace wouldn’t open her mouth and just say no to Butler. And disappointment that I was less than her everything. A strange sense of longing I didn’t understand lingered. The thought of losing her gripped my insides tighter and tighter like the slithering tentacles of a foul monster from the deep pit of my blackest fears.
Why don’t I just break this whole thing off? Right now. Perfect out. The Ruby of my past nodded her head at me.
Carly’s purple-painted fingernails dragged down my arm, a smile breaking over her full lips, and that heavy perfume wafting between us. The siren’s call.
This would be the easy way.
I’d done it so many fucking times before. Cheating, indulging, shrugging my shoulders, skipping stones over the surface of that water, dipping in a toe. But that sort of easy had been over for me now for a very long time. And I didn’t want an easy out now. Fuck, I didn’t want an out at all.
My fingers clenched the glass.
I only wanted in deeper, more in than ever before.
Getting that tat on her the other day was a part of that, wasn’t it? That wasn’t just boyfriend-girlfriend shit, like my grandfather having given his college ring to my grandmother as a sign of going steady when they were first dating. Grace’s tat was a promise, sinking deep in layers of skin and emotion, just like mine was. I laid my left arm down on the bar and tugged up my sleeve. The word stained over my skin pulsed on the inside of my wrist.
They weren’t just a bunch of letters or some clever motto inked on my skin. I didn’t get tats for the fuck of it. Tats were engraved on my body from experiences I bore in my soul. Right there, right over my throbbing vein, was a vow. A declaration that my reality was now rooted in her, in the same rocky soil, and nothing and no one was going to take that away. I wouldn’t let that happen.
I shoved my cotton sleeve back down my arm. Sucking in air, I stared at myself in the mirror once more. I rubbed a hand across my jaw. The silver of my pistol ring glinted in the overhead light.
I will either find a way or make one.
I made my own choices in this sea of inconsequential madness. I remained at the tiller of my ship. And I had chosen Grace over and over again.
There was only her.
A hand slid over my shoulder.
Not Grace’s hand.
A breathy voice rumbled in my ear.
Not Grace’s.
“Nobody’s here, Dig. We could—”
I dug my fingertips into her hand and slammed it onto the bar, pinning her there, her body twisting.
She let out a loud gasp. “Hey! What the—”
“Don’t fucking touch me. Ever.”
I released her, ripped bills out of my pocket, and tossed them on the bar as I shot up from my seat. I got out of there and got on my bike—my brain clear, my body tight—and I raced toward Meager.
I could only see Grace ahead of me on the road, not the signs or the traffic lights, not the cars and trucks giving me free rein. I stormed back into the club, into my room, and found her there, folded up on the floor, staring up at me. Awaiting judgment? Awaiting exile? She surrendered to my anger, and I made her strip. Her naked body was in my arms, arousing me, enraging me at the idea of her sharing it with anyone else. She was mine. I was her Sergeant at Arms.
I lectured her about not letting anyone take advantage of her. I tightly gripped her jaw, taking in her every reaction to my gunfire of questions. “You want Butler? You liked having his eyes on you?” My blood screamed in my veins. “You curious? You’ve only been with me. You bored already?” I shook her in my hands as I went down the list. “You like him? You want to fuck him?”
“He’s…”
The sting burned through me as I waited for her to spill her liquid fire.
“…I’m attracted to him. But I don’t want his hands on me, his mouth on me. I don’t want him inside me.” She put her hand over mine on her tattoo. “Your mark means everything to me. You’re everything to me, Dig. I wouldn’t
throw away what we have for…I love you.”
The sting burned through me. I only wanted to punish her and smother myself in her at the same time. I pushed her hand aside and squeezed her ass. “Yeah? You sure about that?”
Her gaze hardened. “What about that bottle-blonde who keeps showing up everywhere we go?” she asked, her voice low, steady, her eyes flashing.
Lissa.
Oh, any of them. All of them. All the fucking Lissas in the world.
“You want her? You want inside that cheap ass? You want to fuck her? Come on, say it!” Her hazel eyes hardened and burned right through mine.
She was pissed, disappointed, like I was.
“Yeah, I do.”
It was the goddamn truth, wasn’t it?
Telling the truth robbed a hidden thing of its power. I believed that. And Grace and I were usually frank with one another. Yet this time, we’d gotten stuck.
I gripped her hard, her eyes swimming in the same hurt, anger, sadness in which I too was spattered.
My forehead slid to hers. “She ain’t got what you got, Grace. None of ’em do. And I need you, need you to fucking breathe. Everything comes back to you. Always you.”
We fell into each other, and I repeated that chant with every thrust inside her.
We made a mess of my tiny room at the clubhouse, devouring each other for the better part of the afternoon and night. Each of us was punishing, each of us demanding, each of us begging. The damp sheets were torn off the mattress, pillows dumped on the floor, both of us sweaty, exhausted, satisfied. My fingers outlined the fresh ink on her ass cheek. I sucked on the soft curve of her skin below the tattoo.
Goose bumps erupted on her skin. “Are you giving me a hickey on my butt?”
“I think I’ll make a ring of hickeys around this leg, like a garter belt.” I let out a laugh as my hand slid up her thigh, grazing her wet pussy.
Her flesh quivered under my touch, her breath caught. Yeah, she was sore.
“Shh.” I sat up, raised her hips high, and gently licked her slit all the way up to her ass, the tip of my tongue teasing the puckered flesh, swirling round and round. My hand smoothed up her torso until it found a full breast.
Another moan. She raised her ass higher.
My fingers skimmed down her thighs to the backs of her knees, and I sat up. “Grab the ointment, babe.”
Her hips squirmed at the loss of contact, and I grinned. She handed me the small tube from the table within her reach. I squirted it out over her tat and smoothed it over the flower, our initials glistening up at me.
My mark.
Our mark.
“Grace?”
“Hmm?”
“Let’s get married.”
She shuffled her head to the side, over her arms, one round eye staring at me. “What?”
“Let’s get married.”
She dropped to her side. “Why?”
I quirked an eyebrow and fell back on my haunches. “Why? That’s great, baby.”
“I mean, why now, all of a sudden?”
“Because I love you. Because you’re my old lady, and I want to make that permanent.”
“What’s the rush?”
“Rush? Babe, we’ve been together for a year. You consider that rushing?” I tightened the cap on the tube and tossed it on the table. “Unless you don’t—”
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted.” Her eyes searched mine.
“Okay. What’s the problem?”
Her face softened. “There is no problem. I just didn’t think—”
“Good. How’s next week for you?”
She shrieked, “Next week?”
I laughed. “What? Did you want the diamond-ring, register-for-shit-we-can’t-afford-and-we’ll-never-use, lacy-white-dress, and limo-to-the-church thing?”
She let out a heavy exhale, her eyes wide.
“My wordy girl is speechless?” My fingers slid up the back of her thigh. “But if you want it…”
She hissed in air. “You’re all I want.”
My fingers stroked the flesh of her behind and slid between her legs, nestling in her wet heat. Her lids grew heavy. My cock twitched to life once more.
“Anyway, I hate lace,” she murmured, her voice catching, her hips moving against my hand.
“I’m getting you a ring, though,” I whispered as her flesh vibrated against my fingers.
“You’d better.”
I smirked against her damp skin. My fingers slid deeper. “There’s my wildflower.”
“Oh…Dig.” Her legs gave way, and she let out a cry as I buried my tongue inside her again.
“BUTLER JUST TOOK OFF,” Jump said.
“What?”
“You didn’t expect him to stay after what you did to him?”
“He fucking deserved it.”
“Yeah, he sure as shit did. But he’s not sticking around. Mick gave him an option. He’s heading to North Dakota to solidify things up there.”
“Shit.”
“Shit is right. We needed Butler. Now we lost his vote.” Jump rubbed the back of his neck. “This is what getting your dick in a twist over a piece of pussy gets you.”
My hand shot out to his throat. “Watch what you say, motherfucker!”
His eyes shone. “It’s the truth! Bitches start getting in between brothers, there are big problems, no matter what. She may be your old lady and all, but she’s no better than any of the rest of ’em. This is all on her.”
“What the fuck is your problem, Jump? Butler’s been on her ass for months. I was the idiot who didn’t nip it sooner, too fucking busy to look after my own house.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“No. No. Not one of your whatevers. She got attention from him, attention that should’ve been coming from me. Of course she liked it. He’s a flirt, and he ain’t rough on the eyes.”
“Right.”
“I don’t have to explain my woman to you. You’ve known her since she was just past being a teenager, for Christ’s sake. She didn’t have a hell of a lot of experience with men before we got involved.”
“Okay, yeah, Sister was always a good kid. I’ll give you that. But pussy is pussy, and this shit don’t change. Ever.”
My throat tightened, a freight train blowing between my ears. “You need to shut the fuck up!”
“She blew this for you!” He shoved his finger toward me in the air. “For us. She did this! That’s what I know.”
“Fuck you, man. I don’t piss on your old lady. Don’t you dare piss on mine.”
He only shook his head, his eyes darting down the dimly lit long hallway. “By sending Creeper up there with Butler, Mick’s solidifying shit in the North Dakota chapter to his benefit. And after your little blowup with the Blades on that run, they’re not so eager to play ball with you and me no more.”
“I will fix it,” I said, holding back a snarl.
“How?”
“First of all, Butler and Creeper are definitely not best friends. I’ll give Butler some time to lick his wounds, and then I’ll reach out to him.”
“Yeah, Creeper is not your biggest fan either. You think he’s gonna let that happen, you’re dreamin’.”
“We’ll see. I’m a good negotiator.”
“This is gonna take a lot of sit-and-wait now. Damn it. First things first, you start making nice with Zed. Find a way. Throw some free product his way. Do something. Make it right.”
I nodded, running a hand through my hair, and yawned. “I’m gonna get back.”
“Your dick hasn’t fallen off yet?”
“Not yet, asshole.”
It was our wedding day.
Grace and I had gone to Rapid, gotten registered, and gotten the marriage license. Matt, a guy I knew who did weddings at Sturgis during the rally every year, was going to officiate. I wore a new pair of black jeans, even a long-sleeved white shirt that Grace had ironed for me, and my colors. My formal look.
There was a beer truck along with
the pig that we’d set to roasting hours ago. A fake wedding cake towered over the big table because inevitably some drunk asshole would knock it over. Alicia and Dee had overseen making the huge sheet cake, which stood ready in the fridge along with the other food.
All the chapters had shown for our wedding. Butler was there. He paid his respects and kept a safe distance from us. Grace’s cranky best friend from high school, Tania, was there too. She didn’t like the club much, but I knew she had Grace’s back, had had it for a long time, so I’d put up with her, and she’d put up with me. It was a silent understanding between us, and it worked.
“Oh, bro, look at her,” murmured Boner, his hand squeezing my shoulder.
Grace held a small bouquet of white roses in her hands. Mixed in the blooms were a few of those blue wildflowers she’d gone and picked early that morning. Her alarm had shrieked in our bedroom before the sun had even risen and she’d sprung from our bed. I’d tried to pull her back under the covers, but she’d pushed me away.
“No! No! Don’t start. I have to have those flowers! I have to!”
I’d only buried my face back in my warm pillow and grinned.
My heart banged against my ribs at the sight of Wreck with one arm wrapped around my woman, both of them moving toward me together down the long proud aisle of the brothers’ parked bikes. Everyone gunned their engines as Grace and Wreck swept past.
Oh my God, she was beautiful. All for me.
She wore a long white dress with a slit up the side and the new black boots I’d just bought her. That lacy black garter belt I picked out yesterday adorned the thigh showing through the slit. Hanging down her chest was a silver One-Eyed Jack’s medallion with one diamond chip in the skull’s eye and our names engraved on the back. I had given it to her the night before. She’d had a diamond chip inserted in the one eye of my club skull ring as a wedding gift.
I took in a breath of air and savored the pressure in my chest. I was so fucking grateful I’d managed to get here in one piece. Well, maybe a few pieces, but I was here. Here in this moment with Grace, Wreck, and Boner. And without having been maimed or having a prison term on my record. Not yet at least.
And those who weren’t here?