Bishop: Dead Legion MC #1

by Krane, Kasey

  “God, I’m sorry, Bishop,” Jules said, looking up at me. I smiled down at her and stroked a blonde strand of hair out of her face. “You couldn’t have known. Let’s go in, shall we?” Jules straightened her shoulders and nodded determinedly as I gave a perfunctory knock on the front door and then opened it up.

  “Hey baby!” I heard from the back of the house, and then my mom appeared, hobbling down the hallway towards us. Her right side of her face was scarred, as was her right arm. She couldn’t walk without a limp - her left leg had never healed quite right after the accident. I heard the tiniest of gasps from Jules, and then she was moving forward, shaking hands with my mom, introducing herself, asking her questions - putting her at ease.

  I felt an overwhelming sense of pride in Jules at the moment. I’d intentionally not told Jules about my mother’s crippled condition and scarred appearance because I wanted to see how she would react. I never brought a woman home before - had never even considered bringing one home before - and knew that meeting my mother would be the best test of Jules’s character that I could ever come up with.

  My mom had been on the back of my dad’s bike the day the accident happened, riding bitch. It was my dad’s body that saved her life, but she’d never physically be the same again.

  That ride had taken her husband, her best friend, her looks, and her mobility.

  Complicated didn’t begin to describe her feelings towards the club.

  “Here are the chaps,” my mom said, handing the folded leather pants over to Jules. “I think they’ll fit you just fine. Back when I got around better, I was your size, if you can believe that.” Jules laughed sweetly.

  “Well, I really appreciate you lending these to me. When my boss told me back in New York to go write a story about a motorcycle club, it didn’t occur to me that I’d need leather chaps. I’ve sure learned a lot since I got here.”

  I could tell my mother was going to invite Jules to sit down and have a cup of coffee and discuss the weather, how hard I was to potty train, and peace in the Middle East if I didn’t get Jules out of there quick. It was nice that Jules and my mother got along but I didn’t think potty training stories were a good idea, not to mention we really had to hit the road. I was antsy to get to the clubhouse and see how many riders had shown up that morning.

  “Well, Mom, thanks for the chaps,” I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, “but we need to get going. Where’s the helmet at?” She grabbed it from the kitchen counter and handed it over.

  “Well, dear, it was real nice to meet you,” she said, and pulled Jules in for a hug. Surprised, it took Jules a moment to respond but she wrapped her arms around my mom and hugged her back. “You come back real soon, you hear? And tell me all about how you met Bishop and why you have such an awful accent.” They laughed like old friends, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I was okay if my mother liked Jules - who wouldn’t? - but they couldn’t get all conspiracy and friendly and shit together. That seemed like a downright awful idea to me.

  I pulled Jules along, back out the door and to the motorcycle. I shoved the chaps and extra helmet into my saddlebags. “To The Hidewaway?” I asked as I went.

  “That’d be great,” Jules said. “Your mom was on that bike when your dad died, wasn’t she,” she said, a statement rather than a question. I marveled again at her intelligence. If Ghost thought he was going to pull one over on her, he was going to be sorely disappointed.

  “Yes,” I said quietly. I waited for her response. Would she be angry with me for hiding this from her beforehand?

  “The weight gain is because she can’t move very well, and that’s caused her diabetes.” Another statement of fact.

  I nodded slowly. “She was quite the looker before the accident. My dad had always claimed she was the cutest girl he’d ever laid eyes on. Even with an Old Lady, most MC members sleep around, but my dad never did. I think he knew my mom would kill him if he even considered it.”

  Jules nodded solemnly. “That day took a lot from her, and from you. No wonder you’re so concerned about safety. Did you ever blame the club for what happened?”

  I shifted uncomfortably. “We need to get going - we need to stop at the motel and then to the clubhouse. I should probably be there to help get people going in the right direction.” She hesitated for a moment and I could see it in her eyes - she wanted to press for more information - but instead she nodded. “All right,” she said, “I’ll pester you with questions later.”

  “Something to look forward to,” I laughed and she smiled back. The mood lightened as we rode to the motel and she hurriedly brushed her teeth and changed her clothes. We almost didn’t make it back out the door as I watched the most beautiful chick I’d ever seen strip in front of me. Putting clothes back on seemed like such a travesty. My palms itched to reach out and fondle her tits, and pull her up against me as I kissed her.

  She ran to the bathroom and brushed and braided her hair in a plait down her back. I’d never seen her with her hair braided before, but I instantly approved. At 85 mph down the freeway, loose hair was a nightmare.

  Finally she was ready, chaps on, closed-face helmet on, and tennis shoes on. I would have felt better if she wore steel-toed boots instead, but since these were the most substantial footwear she’d packed, I reluctantly agreed. She filled out those leather chaps in ways that made my mind go wild with ideas. I felt myself harden at the idea of fucking Jules wearing nothing but those amazing leather chaps. I tried to tell myself that they were my mother’s, and tamp down my enthusiasm for the idea that way, but it didn’t seem to make a goddamn bit of difference to my cock.

  “Hey, I need to ask you a favor,” Jules said, breaking into my thoughts.

  “What’s up?”

  “I want to take a picture of the Dead Legion riding by in formation down the road. I think that’d make a great action shot that Evan will love.”

  “Oh, sure,” I said, relieved to be thinking about something else other than fucking her. Perhaps my cock would calm down if I concentrated on action shots.

  Which only made me think of the cum shot in porn, which did not help with the hard-on situation one single bit.

  Dammit.

  We headed over to the clubhouse and when we pulled into the parking lot, I was happy to see bikes and RVs and sponsor vehicles everywhere. This was a good turnout for us. I coasted into a bay of the garage and into a corner. I wanted to keep my bike out of the way, and out of the sun. It was only 7:30 but the sun was already starting to beat down. It was going to be a scorcher.

  Jules pulled her helmet off and laid it on the seat. I stroked her hair back and then couldn’t help myself - I took one quick sip of heaven. Her breath was minty from her toothpaste and I wanted nothing more than to back her against the garage wall and fuck her senseless.

  “Goddammit,” I swore, pulling away from her. I looked down at her amazingly beautiful green eyes and fucking felt my heart skip a beat. I thought that shit only happened in chick flicks.

  She smiled up at me, and I felt…joy.

  I wasn’t sure if this pleased or terrified me more.

  21

  Jules

  “I’m ready whenever you are,” I said. I wanted to embrace this adventure. I’d never even gotten on a motorcycle until I met Bishop, and now I was going to be gone on a two-day camping trip on one. The thought seemed ridiculous to me, but at the same time, with Bishop by my side, absolutely right.

  We walked out of the garage and into the thick of things - people shouting at him, asking questions, chaos everywhere. As I watched him get to work in his element, I realized that by all rights, I should be terrified of him. He was huge, and muscular, and could break me in half with no more effort than it took for him to break a tree limb, he was covered in tats, and he was wearing his leather vest with a Dead Legion mascot on the back, which was terrifying all on its own.

  But from the moment we’d made eye contact in the airport, I knew he was one of the go
od guys. I’d be okay. He’d protect me from the assholes of the world, including Ghost. This desire to be protected was surprising to me – I’d grown up in the country in New York state, and had learned how to take care of myself from a young age. I wasn’t someone who wanted to be coddled or protected.

  There was something about Bishop, though, that made me relax into him. That made me realize that it was okay to trust and rely on someone else.

  I loved how close his mother and he seemed to be. When I first laid eyes on his mom, I knew instantly what happened, and I also knew why Bishop hadn’t told me. It was a test to see how I’d react to the disfiguring scars on his mother’s face and arm, to the limp, to the weight. His mother hadn’t been the heaviest person I had ever seen, but I knew the doctors had to be pestering her about losing some of it, especially with her diabetes.

  I also knew that I passed Bishop’s test. It wasn’t hard to do - his mother was a sweetie and I had felt an instant connection with her. But introducing me to his mother had taken our relationship to a whole new level, even more of a change than had happened from our fuck session last night.

  But with Bishop, it was so much more than fucking.

  Pushing all of it out of my mind, I searched out Bishop in the crowd. Although not the tallest man there, his hulking size made him easy to spot. He looked up and caught my eye and I smiled and waved at him. He quirked up a corner of his mouth at me and I knew he was inwardly laughing at my juvenile greeting, as if we hadn’t just spent the last 24 hours together.

  I crossed through the crowds to reach Bishop and then stopped, panicked. Bishop hadn’t said anything about how to treat our relationship in public. More specifically, around the club. Even after his thawing yesterday, I doubted that Ghost wanted anyone else talking to me and I sincerely doubted he wanted his VP sleeping with me. This would be considered sleeping with the enemy, no doubt about it.

  “Hi,” Ghost said in my ear. I gave a small yelp of surprise and did this half jump turn maneuver that ended with me facing him with my hand over my heart, gasping for breath.

  Perhaps my 5th grade ballet teacher should have reconsidered her assessment that I possessed no athletic talent whatsoever.

  “Sorry, I didn’t hear you come up,” I said, plastering a smile on my face. Considering the rumbling of the motorcycles, the people talking, and the music blaring, it was surprising I could hear anything at all and hadn’t just gone deaf instead.

  Ghost’s eyes ran up and down my body and I fought down the urge to cover my boobs from his gaze. How the hell a lecherous asshole like him had ended up the president instead of Bishop was beyond me. I should ask Bishop sometime how the fuck that one happened, since Ghost obviously wasn’t going to tell me.

  “You look like you’re ready to ride,” he finally said, ending his blatant assessment of my body.

  “Bishop’s mother lent these chaps to me,” I said, attempting to be as polite as possible while still holding him at arm’s length. Last time I’d been around this asshat, I practically felt him up because I was so pissed at Bishop. I should at least attempt to be civil today.

  “Well, they fit you real fine,” he said, glancing back down at my hips. “You know, if you want to continue that interview we had the other day, I’m sure I could schedule some private time, just you and I.”

  My smile felt as stiff as dried clay, and as brittle. “If I think of more questions to ask, I’ll be sure to ask you.”

  With Bishop standing by my side.

  The idea of going anywhere private with this man was ludicrous.

  “Fuck, you could think while you ride bitch on my bike today. I had some other gal I was going to ask but if you think that it’d be helpful for your article, I’d be happy to oblige.”

  My stomach dropped and twisted in revulsion at the idea of snuggling up against this man for miles on end.

  Hell no!

  I was saved from having to come up with a suitable reply that didn’t include “fuck” and “you” in it when Bishop appeared at my elbow.

  “Hey, how you doing over here?” he asked, smiling down at me. There was a faint echo of worry in his eyes that he attempted to cover up with studied cheerfulness.

  “Oh, everything’s great,” I said smoothly. “Ghost here was just offering to answer more questions for me for the article but I was just telling him that I didn’t have any for him at the moment. Thanks again for the offer,” I said to Ghost, giving him a small smile and then turned away, dismissing him with my body language. I didn’t care if I pissed him off or not - I was done playing games with Ghost.

  “So, are we about to ready to roll out?” I asked Bishop.

  “Yup. You and I are going to ride out right now so you can get set up for your camera shoot on the side of the ro—” the blast of a whistle cut him off, and then whoops and hollers filled the air. I smiled up at him, my body filling with the excitement of the moment, pushing the dread and worry away.

  “We better hurry,” he urged me, and we headed back to the garage, where the bike was safely hidden away from the morning heat, and strapped our helmets on. I raised the visor of my helmet so he could hear me speak.

  “This is going to be fun!” I shouted over the rumble of the motorcycles in the parking lot.

  “Yeah,” he grinned back. “I think you’re going to love it.” I nodded and clicked my visor back down into place, swung my leg over behind him, and snuggled against his back.

  Oh yeah, this was going to be one hell of a ride.

  22

  Jules

  The Harley slowed down and coasted to a stop, then shut off completely. I slowly opened my eyes and pulled away from Bishop. I’d fallen into a trance from the rumbling of the motor and the wind buffeting against my body as we’d flown down the highway. Bishop waited patiently for me to get my bearings back and remove my helmet before I swung my leg off from the bike. This was a step too far, literally - I partially collapsed, my legs unsteady beneath me. I felt like I had when I was a child after I’d jumped on the trampoline for hours on end.

  “Whoa, you okay?” Bishop asked, grabbing my arm before I could complete my inelegant and completely unsexy fall to the ground.

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling up at him through a haze. I just felt a little off-kilter. “Are we…are we there yet? Are we at the Coronado National Forest?”

  “No, we won’t get there until this evening. We’re eating lunch here at Tombstone.”

  For the first time, I looked around me, past the bikers and Old Ladies milling around in the parking lot, to the buildings in the distance. “O.K. Corral” and “Boothill Graveyard” signs jumped out at me.

  “What??” I squealed, my brain finally putting everything together. “We’re in Tombstone, where there was the shootout at the O.K. Corral?!” I’d known - vaguely - that O.K. Corral was in the southwestern region of the United States, but somehow in my research into Deming before I left New York, I didn’t realize just how close it was.

  “Yup,” Bishop said with a laugh. “Remember how I told you that we stop in the afternoon on our rides because of the monsoons? Tombstone is the perfect stopping place - about halfway through our journey, and lots of places to eat and check out while we wait for the rains to hit. Once they’re passed, then we hit the road again.”

  I grabbed my camera from the saddlebags and turned it on. “This is perfect for the story - Evan wanted lots of pictures of tough, sexy bikers doing sweet, likable things. I don’t think you can get much better than a bunch of hardened bikers playing the tourist.”

  They walked towards the tourist portion of Tombstone that had been preserved through the years. Dirt roads, wooden sidewalks, saloons everywhere - it was just like I’d expected, except for the fact that we had to walk to get there. I looked around and didn’t see a vehicle in sight. “Where are all of the cars?” I asked Bishop.

  “Dirt roads are hard to maintain, and they sure as hell can’t maintain them if they have semis rolling through, or cars on
the roads 24/7. So you have to park in a parking lot on the edge of town and walk in. It also helps maintain the illusion that you’re back in the 1800s.”

  “Except the fact that every person here has a cell phone,” I laughed.

  “Yeah, there is that,” Bishop said, smiling down at me.

  I began wandering around, snapping pictures and asking questions of bikers - why they did this ride and if they knew Bishop’s dad, James Miller. I was surprised by how many bikers remembered James and had something nice to say about him - the biker community seemed so tight-knit, much more so than I expected.

  It seemed like it was a sea of Dead Legion cuts and red bandanas everywhere I looked, but a lot of other clubs were there too. I was surprised by how many different MCs there were - this was a whole culture I only had the most basic of knowledge about two weeks previous, but to these bikers, it was their whole world. It was a bit mind-boggling to think about.

  Although Bishop seemed to know every biker there, he was careful to keep up with me and would often break off conversations partway through so he could follow me as I moved on. He didn’t say it, but I knew he was protecting me. I wondered if his constantly watchful attitude was because he was always on high alert, or if he thought someone in the group was going to cause a problem. I wanted to ask him exactly that, but wasn’t sure if he’d tell me, or just hedge his answers like he always did when I broached a topic he didn’t want to discuss. I filed the question away to ask later, around less strangers.

  Pointing at the roiling dark purple clouds heading our way, Bishop convinced me that right about now was a good time to go find something to eat. We needed to get to cover before the monsoon hit. I reluctantly agreed, and we went into a restored 1800s saloon, complete with a huge mirror behind the bar, wooden paneling on the walls, a bartender dressed as an old-time saloon bartender, and ragtime music piped out of tiny speakers strategically placed around the bar. I looked around, expecting to find someone banging away at a high-backed piano, but found no one. Apparently the replication efforts only went so far, and didn’t include a salary for a full-time piano player.