I took exception to his remark. It would be one thing if people simply carried phones, and then used them when they needed to. That wasn’t the case. Whenever there’s a lull in conversation, people reach for their phones. It was contributing to the dumbing down of a generation—or generations—of people.
The thought of it made me ill.
“Imagine if it was 1920,” I said. “How did people get by without cell phones, tablets, lap tops or their trusty Kindles? Just fine. When they wanted to talk to someone, they went to see them. When they wanted to read, they went to the library. When they needed to know something, they looked it up in an encyclopedia. Technology has taken the quality of time two people are able to spend together and turned it to shit. I grew up watching old VHS movies and reading books. That’s what my father and I did for quality time together, we watched old movies.”
He laughed dryly. “For quality time when I was a kid, I had to go elsewhere.”
“What do you mean?”
“We didn’t watch movies in the house I grew up in. We all met at a Ghost’s house for movies.”
“Oh. Were your parents strict?”
“They weren’t strict, they were drunken idiots.”
My heart sank into the pit of my stomach. “I’m sorry. Do they still…are they still that way?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. Left when I was eighteen. Haven’t seen ‘em or talked to ‘em since.”
I nodded in acknowledgement of what he’d said but didn’t press forward with the subject. I didn’t want to continue down that somber trail.
Not having a relationship with his parents—regardless of their faults—was unimaginable. I wondered if he was stubborn, held grudges, or if they had done something he simply couldn’t forgive them for.
He took a bite of his burger. After swallowing it, he studied the portion that remained in his hands. He seemed to drift away for a moment. “So, you’re a car girl?”
Changing the subject was a great idea. “I like loud things. Fast things. Nostalgic things. Groups of people that get along. Writing letters on paper. Seeing how far I can kick something. Drinking beer out of a can. Eating meat off the bone.” I sipped my milk. “It’s better that way, you know.”
He went back to studying the burger. “Beer out of a can?”
“That, too. I was meaning meat off the bone, though.”
He raised the remaining portion of his burger in agreement. “Agreed. On the meat, not the beer.”
I dismissed his beer comment as foolishness. Beer bottles thrown out on roadways punctured tires and caused wrecks. Beer cans tossed aside were collected by the homeless and turned into cash. The cash bought them food and necessities.
“One day you’ll run over a beer bottle remnant and have a blowout.” I warned. “You’ll switch to cans after that.”
He stared blankly at the table for a minute. He finished his burger. While I finished mine, he started looking around.
“Napkin?” I asked, lifting a spare napkin.
“I was looking for a menu.”
I pulled the menu from behind the condiment caddy and handed it to him. He read it. “That burger isn’t on there.”
“They make them to order,” I mumbled over a mouthful of food.
He seemed pleased. “So, you came up with that concoction?”
I wiped my mouth. “Grilled jalapenos, a slice of cream cheese, thick-cut bacon, and grass-fed beef. It’s a party in your mouth, huh?”
“Impressive.”
I smiled at the comment. “Me, or the burger?”
“Both.” He looked at my backpack. “So, are you really a thief?”
“No,” I lied. “I was just kidding. Kind of like the panties in the pocket thing. I do and say stuff sometimes that I shouldn’t. I know some pretty awesome card tricks, though.”
He grinned and gave a sharp nod.
I looked him over. He was handsome, intimidating, and cute, all at the same time. I knew that he’d eventually get up and leave, but I didn’t want him to. I preferred he stay and talk about stealing cars, riding Harleys, or how much he reminded me of James Dean.
“Did you steal that bike you were riding the other day, or is that yours?” I asked.
“It’s mine.” He glanced toward the car. His expression dulled. “I just realized something.”
“I’ve got some in my purse,” I said matter-of-factly.
His eyes narrowed. “Some what?”
“Condoms.”
He laughed. “You’re quick-witted. I like that.”
“You’re…” I hesitated, taking a second to think about what I was going to say instead of just letting my thoughts spill out of my mouth. They spilled out anyway. “You’re pretty.”
His brows went together. “Pretty?”
“You remind me of James Dean. He was pretty,” I said in my defense. “Coming from me, that’s a significant compliment, by the way.”
“You don’t give compliments often?”
“I don’t make comparisons to James Dean,” I explained. “He stands alone. Or, at least he did until you showed up.”
He struggled not to smile. “Thanks.”
“So, what did you realize?” I asked. “A minute ago? When you said you realized something?”
He gestured toward the street with a nod of his head. “I’m leaving that car here. I need a ride to get my bike.”
“You’re leaving it here?” I screeched in disbelief. “Out there on the street?”
He swallowed heavily and then cleared his throat. “It was Porter’s car. In his will, he left it to the owner of this place. One of the stipulations was that I had to drive it here. Deliver it, or whatever.”
“George?” I asked excitedly. “He gave that car to George?”
“You know him?”
“He’s the best. He’s got a pretty cool car, too. A Mercury Marauder. Porter built it for him. George talks about him all the time. I guess they were pretty close.”
“I didn’t know they were close.” Sadness clouded his James Dean-esque features. “Explains why he left him the car, I guess.”
I reached for his hand, but paused before touching him. “I’ll take you to get your bike. But the ride’s conditional.”
He smiled a crappy little smile. “On what?”
“Give me a ride on your motorcycle afterward.”
He smiled. This time for real. “You’ve got a deal.”
120
GOOSE
Being in a motorcycle club made succeeding at a relationship a difficult task. Being in the Devil’s Disciples Motorcycle Club made doing so impossible.
I was a biker from head to toe, and always had been. From the time I was old enough to balance myself on a minibike, I’d been riding. In my early teens, while escaping the often-violent grasp of my alcoholic parents, I realized the feeling of freedom one could obtain on two wheels.
At that moment, I was hooked.
I later decided cars were for people who were satisfied with simplicity. Riding a motorcycle 365 days a year isn’t an easy task. If it was, everyone would do it. Only those who were willing to make sacrifices could claim to be a hard-core biker.
Although I was a hard-core biker, a criminal, and a professional thief, I wasn’t an asshole. I left that task to the club’s resident prick, Reno.
I knew how to treat a woman. I knew how not to treat a woman. I had a good understanding of what a woman wanted from a man. By any means of measure, I should make a good husband, boyfriend, or fuck buddy.
When it came to relationships, the problem wasn’t me.
It was the club.
Protecting the club, the club’s activities, and its members was my priority. Over everything. Part of that protection required hiding the club’s ongoing criminal activity. A woman’s natural curiosity caused late-night outings and weekend-long club ventures to become matters of contention. Lying was the only way to conceal the truth.
Based on experience, I knew that lying in a relationship was a
one-way ticket to failure.
Simply giving a woman a ride on my motorcycle, however, wouldn’t require me to lie, be manipulative, or be deceitful.
So, that’s what I agreed to do.
A simple ride.
We’d ridden up Mission Boulevard, through La Jolla. I got on the 5 after going through Torrey Pines. Now exiting the freeway at Encinitas, we’d been on the road for over an hour.
If I hadn’t seen Ally get on the bike myself, I wouldn’t have known she was back there.
After taking the Encinitas Boulevard exit, I rolled to a stop at the light. The heat rising from the engine carried a hint of her perfume to my nose. A recollection of my daydream at the funeral brought a smile to my face.
“You’re a natural,” I said over my shoulder.
She pressed her chest against my back. “At what?”
“Riding.”
“All I’ve got to do is sit here.” She laughed, exhaling her warm breath against the side of my neck. “It’s not difficult.”
I winced and glanced to my side. She was close enough to kiss. I wanted to devour her but refrained from showing any emotion.
I couldn’t define it, but there was something about her that made me feel extremely comfortable in her presence. It could have been her bold attitude or quick wit. It might have been that her expressed interest allowed me to feel normal for the first time since Ghost died. Whatever the reason, I enjoyed being with her immensely.
“You’d be surprised how many can’t get the hang of it,” I assured her. “Nothing worse than getting someone back there that flops all over the place.”
She lowered her sunglasses with the tip of her finger. Her eyes gleamed with excitement. “So, you’re saying we can do this again?”
She was gorgeous, had a great sense of humor, and a magnetic personality. Denying myself the pleasure of being in her presence would be foolish on my part. But. She was like any other addictive substance. Moderation would be key. If I spent too much time with her, it wouldn’t end well for either of us, and I knew it.
“Sure.” I faced the road ahead. If I looked at her for much longer, I’d convince myself fucking her would be a good idea. It wasn’t. “If you want to, I’m sure we can figure something out.”
Her lips touched my ear. “I want to,” she breathed.
A tingling ran from my neck to my tailbone.
Unwilling to split traffic with an inexperienced rider on the back of my bike, I was wedged between two bumpers of the bumper to bumper late-afternoon traffic. At a very frustrating twenty-mile-an-hour speed, we inched our way toward the beach.
Ten minutes later, we came to a stop at the next traffic light. Despite being early winter, the heat from the asphalt and the motorcycle’s air-cooled engine made being stopped almost unbearable.
Her weight shifted against me. Having her in such proximity was wreaking havoc on my ability to resist. While trying to convince myself she had no idea what she was doing to me, I felt her breath against my ear.
“I’m so hot,” she whispered.
“It gets that way in stop-and-go traffic,” I muttered.
“It’s not the traffic,” she breathed.
My cock twitched.
The light turned green. I exhaled a long breath and released the clutch. With her, proceeding on a friendly level wasn’t going to be easy.
In fact, I feared it was going to be impossible.
121
ALLY
I’d forfeited one pair of panties to him. The pair I was wearing were soaked to the point I was uncomfortable. At the rate I was going through them, I needed to invest in Victoria’s Secret stock. Soon.
It wasn’t a matter of whether I was going to throw myself at him or not.
It was going to happen.
It wasn’t his looks that captivated me, at least not wholly. He could have been repulsive in appearance, and I would have been drawn to him eventually.
Confidence excreted from his pores. His perma-squint gave him an enigmatic presence. The way he sized everyone up that was within eyeshot led me to believe he was hiding secrets.
I liked the thought of him spending his waking hours teetering on a fine line between what is undeniably good and what is perceived evil. Walking along the razor’s edge.
An outlaw.
A man who made his own rules.
I knew little of Ghost before his death, but I learned enough to know Porter, like me, detested the law. He hated rules. He found solace in solitude, and in the handful of people he chose to call friends. Although the time we shared together was short, I was honored to be consider one of those people.
Men like Porter ran in tight circles, surrounding themselves with like-minded people. If he called Goose a friend, it was enough of an endorsement for me.
Place an enigmatic outlaw on a Harley so loud it could wake the dead and give him features that were undeniably handsome.
The combination was irresistible.
“I’m hungry,” he shouted over the sound of the exhaust. “That half a burger wasn’t enough. You hungry?”
Waiting on George, talking about cars, picking up Goose’s motorcycle, and riding along the coast at sightseeing speeds had consumed the entire afternoon. The pancakes and half a burger I’d eaten for lunch had been expended through fifty miles of sexual frustrations created by Goose and his eight-hundred-pound two-wheeled vibrator.
We came to a stop. Intentionally grazing his earlobe with my lips, I whispered my response. “I could eat, too.”
He nudged me away with a shrug of his shoulder. “What did you say?”
I took exception to him brushing me away while I was trying to playfully tease him, and I wanted him to know it. I leaned against the backrest and pointed my mouth at the handful of clouds that had been following us since we left the SD.
“I. Could. Eat. Too,” I yelled.
Struggling to get the gear selector to work, he laughed. After shifting the transmission into neutral, he glanced over his shoulder. “I thought you said, ‘I could eat you’.”
“I could eat you,” I responded. “But that’s not what I said.”
“Be careful playing around like that,” he warned. “You’re going to get yourself in trouble.”
I decided to step up my game. “You don’t seem interested in trouble, Mister.”
He snatched off his sunglasses and turned around. “Excuse me?”
Based on the tone of his voice and the eleven o’clock thing going on between his brows, it was obvious I’d hit a nerve. Instead of receding and playing it cool, I decided to poke him again.
“I’ve made a few comments,” I said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think…”
The car behind us honked.
His glare sharpened. “Think what?”
They honked again.
He shifted his anger from me to the driver of the car. “Go around, motherfucker!” He met my gaze with a glare. “Think what?”
Poking him wasn’t enough. He obviously needed a shove. “I don’t know. That you weren’t. Like.” I struggled not to smile. “Interested.”
“In what?” he snapped back.
I gave an innocent shrug. “Women?”
His eyes thinned to slits. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Kidding? No,” I deadpanned. “I wasn’t.”
Another car honked.
His angry eyes shifted beyond me, toward the unsuspecting motorist. “Fuck off, motherfucker!” he bellowed. “Go around.”
I found the rhythmic blump, blump, blump sound from the motorcycle’s exhaust soothing. Despite Goose’s expressed anger, I relaxed against the backrest and waited to hear his rebuttal.
In an instant, his narrow eyes found mine. “You trying to tell me that you think I’m, what, gay?”
I was sure he wasn’t, but I was enjoying myself. Refraining from laughing wasn’t easy.
Not at all.
“If you are, that’s fine,” I assured him. “I’d just rath
er know now.”
“You’re fucking kidding, right?”
“No. I really would rather know now.”
“About the being gay, Goddammit.” One eyebrow raised ever so slightly. “You’re kidding right?”
“Oh. Well. I uhhm. Sure. Whatever,” I stammered.
He squeezed his sunglasses so hard I feared the lenses were going to shatter. I’d been in worse situations with men before, but never in such close quarters. It was time for me to let him know it was nothing more than a cruel joke driven by my infatuation with his sexy persona. I tightened the strap on my helmet, just in case things went south before I got them resolved.
“I’ll pull this motherfucker over, bend you over the seat, and fuck you right here in front of every one of these horn-honking motherfuckers,” he seethed. “I’m. Not. Gay.”
It sounded like a hell of a plan. I offered another innocent shrug. “Okay.”
His jaw clenched. “I’m fucking serious.”
“I’m not big on public sex,” I said flatly. “But that sounds tempting.”
He glared at me for a moment, and then fumbled to get his crumpled glasses to fit his face. When he finally gave up, they were so crooked it looked like he’d been slapped by a bear. Without another word, he turned to face the traffic light, pulled in the clutch, and shifted into gear.
Ten silent minutes later, he parked on the sidewalk of a beachside seafood restaurant, because the parking lot was full.
When he shut off the bike, I reached for my helmet’s strap. “I was joking about the gay thing.”
He swept the kickstand down and got off the motorcycle. He looked at me through his mirrored lenses. “Well, I wasn’t joking about bending you over the seat of this motherfucker, you little smart-ass.”
His glasses were still askew on his face, which made taking him serious nearly impossible.
Still nestled against my ultra-plush seat, I nodded toward his sideview mirror. “Look in the mirror.”
He hung his helmet on the handlebars. “What?”
“The mirror,” I said. “Look at yourself. You kind of look like a dork.”
He crossed his arms and looked down his nose at me. “A gay dork?”
Devil's Disciples MC (Box Set) Page 65