by Mackenzy Fox
He grunts in response. “I’ll get them moved into storage until you decide what you wanna do with them, or if you want, I can see what auctions are happening around the city, that’s gonna be your best selling point, unless you get an avid collector from Craig’s list or somewhere.”
“That’s kind of you,” I say, really, it’s one less headache too because I need these cars gone.
He stares at me blankly. “You offered to help me, so I’m helping you.”
“Is that how you operate? Mr. Nice Guy?”
“Nothin’ nice about me,” he leans against the back of the Cadillac looking at me. “Why’d you come here, Sienna, to Bracken Ridge?”
The question throws me, just out of the blue like that… no warm-up or anything.
“You know why, Max’s estate.”
“That the only reason?”
What the hell is he talking about?
“Yes.”
“Why have you been single for over a year?”
Wow. This is getting really personal really, really fast.
“Well, if you must know, I was having a break, not that that’s really any of your business.”
He snorts again then folds his arms over his chest because, now that we’ve slept together, he probably thinks he has some biker claim over me.
“I just don’t understand it, you’re beautiful.”
He seems like he is being sincere, he’s looking at me like he’s trying to comprehend it.
“A year isn’t as bad as it sounds,” I mutter, “and I chose to be single.”
He cracks his neck at the thought. “It would kill me, or rather, I’d literally want to be dead, I’d put myself out of my misery.”
No, he definitely isn’t the sort of person that can go without sex—typical male. After my ex, I’ve been sworn off men forever.
“And anyway,” I go on haphazardly, “there’s all this talk about me but I know nothing at all about you.”
He levels my gaze as I lean against the car opposite him.
“What you wanna know?”
My eyebrows shoot up, is he really going to give me information about himself?
“What’s the longest you’ve ever gone?”
He cocks an eyebrow. “All the questions in the world and you ask me that?”
I shrug. “Well, you asked me what I want to know, so that’s it.”
He lets out a disagreeable sigh. “Three or four weeks.”
I literally gape at him.
“Longer when I was deployed,” he goes on.
Deployed?
I’m stunned. “Did you serve in the military?”
He looks down at his boots then back up at me. “I trained in the army, worked in special ops, went to Afghanistan, Iraq, I got discharged six years ago, came home, went back to my trade, prospected for the club, and here we are.”
I literally have no words, though I can imagine him as some big, tough, army dude.
“What does special ops involve?”
He rubs his chin with one hand. “All the shit you don’t wanna know about, stuff of nightmares.”
“Have you ever killed someone?” I almost whisper.
“Yes.”
“Holy shit.” I ponder that for a moment. I’ve never even held a gun, much less shot one.
“There are bad people out there, princess,” he adds, seeing my apprehension. “The worst of the worst.”
I look at the ground then back up again. “Why did you quit?”
He looks past me. “Because I suffered from PTSD, a lot of shit went down on my last mission, I had a lot going on at home too, none of that shit is good for you mentally. I had severe night tremors, really bad, had to take sleeping pills for years, then I got Lola and everything changed. She helps a lot, it’s not so bad now and I’m happy here, I found my place, found my club, I don’t wake up every day and wish I was somewhere else.”
Wow. I envy him. I wish I felt happy somewhere, grounded, secure. To have that would be the ultimate luxury. I’m stunned at his admission.
“Tell me about your ex,” he says before I can say anything.
“Tell me about yours.”
He narrows his eyes. “I was married once.”
My eyes go wide. What the hell? I cannot imagine him tied down to anybody, much less married!
“Are you serious?”
“She’s ancient history or more like a big mistake, we were young and I was an idiot, didn’t know any better, but that’s enough about me.” He cocks a brow.
I look at my feet again, he’s really pushing it.
“I don’t really want to talk about it, if it’s all the same with you.”
“That good, huh?” He hooks both thumbs into his belt loop as he assesses me.
I keep my eyes on the ground. I can’t go there. I don’t know him well enough to blurt out my sorry, sad tale, and I don’t want to discuss exes. It brings back too many bad memories.
I’ve just gotten to the point where I don’t feel so afraid anymore… that’s when he doesn’t try to call, oh yeah, he finds me, he always finds me. I change numbers all the time but he always calls or texts me, I don’t know how he does it and the police do nothing about it. Restraining orders are just a piece of paper. They won’t stop him.
He doesn’t know about Bracken Ridge, so he won’t know where I am, I can be me for a while, I don’t have to hide.
“Let’s just say I’ve been sworn off men for quite some time.”
He looks like he wants to say a whole lot more but doesn’t.
“Fair enough, some people just shouldn’t be allowed oxygen.”
“You can say that again.”
His phone rings but the signal out here is crap, so he walks out of the shed and toward the front yard. A few moments later, he comes back.
“I gotta go, we’ll lock up here and I’ll get the cars sorted out for you.”
“Thanks so much.” I feel a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, the removalists have been and all the furniture has been donated to goodwill, so things are finally moving. “It’s a relief to be getting rid of all this stuff.”
His eyes trail down my body. “I got a situation, babe, I help at the Faux Paws stray dog rescue, they call me when they can’t get a dog safely or it’s a little dangerous, you can tag along if you want because it’s closer from here than from town. Lily’s gonna bring Lola to help.”
“Okay,” I say as I lock the shed behind us.
“The rescue is where I got Lola from,” he says, “she was an ex-bait dog.”
I follow behind him as we get back to the motorcycle.
“What’s an ex-bait dog?”
He hands me the helmet and I pull it on.
“A dog used to attack in illegal dog fighting rings. She’s a pitbull but not a fighter, in fact, most pitties aren’t, they’re usually not the aggressor, they’re actually very submissive dogs. I got her when she had half her face ripped open, they left her for dead on the side of the road after they were done with her.”
I stare at him, shocked. Clearly, he has a love for animals.
“I’m so sorry, that’s awful, I can’t believe people do that.”
“She’s a survivor.”
“And she trusted humans after that?”
He shrugs. “It took time, a lot of time, and patience, she’s wary of people she doesn’t know, but she’s resilient.”
“She’s an angel,” I smile.
He flicks his eyes to me as he swings a leg over his bike. “Anybody who survives being hurt physically or emotionally deserves that title.”
I can’t help but feel there’s an underlining meaning behind his words, but he doesn’t know anything about my Ewan situation, so that’s stupid.
I thought, at first, it was a case of what you see is what you get with Steel, with no in between. I never would have guessed when I first laid eyes on him that he has this side to him, even though I’d only been with him last night, he definitely has a softer
side behind closed doors. I guess I did judge a book by its cover, but behind all the tattoos and the club, he seems like a good guy. A decent guy. He loves dogs for heaven’s sake.
“Jump on,” he commands, breaking me out of my reverie. There’s another thing I’ve done with Steel that I never imagined myself doing; riding on a motorcycle, it really is kind of fun and I’m really not a thrill-seeking kind of girl.
We take off down the street but it doesn’t take long to get to the location, and when we do, I see Lily pull up in a canary yellow shiny car. She has Lola on the passenger seat beside her.
Steel guns the engine, kicks the stand down, and I climb off.
“Hi!” she says as we approach.
“Hi, Lily.”
She bites her lip as she studies me. “Thank you for the other night, I’ve been meaning to call but I didn’t know what to say.”
She hugs me, and for a little thing, she sure does knock the wind out of my sails. Guess it runs in the family.
“It’s alright, I’m just glad you left your phone on the bar, I had no idea that he wasn’t actually your boyfriend,” I say when she lets go of me.
“Yeah, let that be a lesson to you,” Steel barks.
Lily’s eyes narrow on her brother, she rests both hands on her hips. “That reminds me, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”
“Well, it’s gonna have to wait, I’ve got shit to do,” he lets Lola out of the car and begins scratching her head, then he turns to Lily, “you put this pink shit on her?”
She has a thick baby pink elastic headband on her head with a bright sequined heart on the side. It looks adorable.
Lily shrugs.
Steel grumbles and kisses his dog’s head. “Sorry, baby girl, I don’t have another one.”
“If he takes it off, Lola whines,” Lily whispers to me.
“He doesn’t like the girlie shit?” I whisper back.
She giggles. “Oh, hell no.”
A van with Faux Paws on the side arrives too and we all turn to look.
“Wait here,” he tells us as he stalks off with Lola by his side following him.
Lily rolls her eyes.
“You okay?” I ask, she seems like she might need an unbiased friend to offload to, I know what that can be like.
“No, well, yes, physically, but it’s been rough, and now Steel’s got a prospect following me everywhere I go.”
She nods to the far end of the yard; I’ve only just noticed the figure sitting on a bike under a tree.
“What’s a prospect again?”
“It’s when you try out for the club, you get all the shitty, horrible, worst jobs in the world, if you last a year or prove your worth, then you get patched in, which means you get the club colors and the respect of Pres and the members, and of course, the women and all the other perks.”
“Oh,” I say, thinking about that for a second.
“Not women like club girls,” she assures me quickly, “that’s girls like me, Deanna; Hutch’s daughter, Summer, we don’t sleep around but the sluts that hang around the club for the boys do, some of them are hanger-onners and want to be more or hope to be more.”
I look at her, dumbfounded. “Sounds just a tad bit misogynistic.”
I think about Steel with another woman and a surge of jealousy runs through me.
“You have no idea,” she agrees. “It’s pretty gross, some girls have no self-respect and definitely no class, like seriously.”
“So, they’re the sweet butts right?”
“Yes, and they think by sucking off a biker whenever they ask for it will get them to ol’ lady status. An ol’ lady is your regular piece, wife, or girlfriend who is off-limits, and it gets you a certain amount of respect, not that it’s much, but it isn’t that easy for a sweet butt and it rarely ever happens. Nobody wants an ol’ lady who everyone’s been with.”
I glance back at Steel. I remember him saying I’d never be a sweet butt, I wouldn’t sleep with anyone else anyway, much less any old biker at the club, but does he think I’m easy now? My blood runs a little chilly.
“Why would they do that if it rarely ever happens?” I whisper.
“Well, it could happen, sometimes, but in the meantime; they get good dick basically, so they don’t complain.”
My eyes go wide. She’s certainly not backwards in going forwards in her explanations.
She laughs. “Don’t look so horrified.”
“It’s all new to me,” I admit. I feel kind of grossed out if I’m honest. I wonder how many women Steel usually hooks up with and if he’s going to keep sleeping around while I’m here, even though he said he’s not, I just met him though; he could be full of shit for all I know.
A few moments later, an Animal Control van rolls up and more people get out.
“My brother likes you,” she says, watching Steel.
I glance at her again. Did he say something to her? Now may be an opportune time to get some dirt off his chatty little sister.
“He does?”
“Yes,” she giggles again. “For one, he never lets any woman on the back of his sled, this has to be a first, that tells you everything.”
Hmm. Interesting.
Now is definitely the time to make friends with her, I feel like if I stand here for long enough, she will just give me his life story without any probing whatsoever.
“Is that a big thing?” I frown. “I mean, they’re bikers.”
She turns to me again. “Yes, they’re bikers, but having a female on the back means something, it’s a statement, no girl ever just jumps on the back of your ride, like ever.”
I feel my mouth going dry.
“A statement to what?” I don’t know if I want to know this information.
“Well, that he likes you, that he’s claiming territory; he doesn’t want any of the other guys to get a look in.”
Claiming territory? I remember Steel’s brief explanation the night I went into the clubhouse to meet with Hutch about how all of that worked.
“I don’t think he’s doing that, we just met.”
It all sounds very chauvinistic. What kind of people are these bikers?
“Still. Steel has always known what he wants and he isn’t afraid to go and get it. And don’t look so worried, he’s really not that bad and the club are a family, we all look out for one another.”
Claiming. Ol’ ladies. Sweet butts. Sleds. Goddamn bikers. It is a possibility that these people may actually be insane. I close my eyes, wondering if I’ve made a mistake sleeping with Steel so quickly.
I feel embarrassed all of a sudden. Is it obvious we’re screwing?
I didn’t come here to get tied down to a motorcycle club or to somebody like Steel, even if he has surprised me by some of his admissions and how good he is in the bedroom.
It’s just sex, Sienna, and you haven’t had any in a while. That’s what I tell myself, and that may be so, but I’d be wise to keep my guard up, I can’t let him get under my skin. I’m not going to be claimed or paraded around like some trophy. Is that his end game? Another notch on his belt, see who gets to screw the new girl first? Maybe that’s it. Maybe everybody knows.
I shouldn’t feel this hurt but it stings.
“Don’t worry,” I assure her. “I’m only here for a couple more weeks; once Max’s house sells, I’m gone.”
I see her smirk out of the corner of my eye. “We’ll see,” she laughs, “you don’t know my brother.”
I decide to ignore that comment as the man in question turns and looks back towards us and gives me a chin lift. I look away quickly.
It’s just sex. Yeah, I need to keep telling myself that and maybe I’ll actually start to believe it.
13
Steel
“Is he hurt?” I ask the animal control guy, Kevin. He’s been out here since earlier today and couldn’t catch the dog, now the little guy is hiding under the house.
“Not that I can see, just very underweight, poor thing probab
ly hasn’t had a decent meal in weeks.”
“No signs of aggression?”
“None. He was whimpering and crying when we almost got him the first time, so terrified he peed himself, the neighbors say they think he was abandoned. They tried to catch him but had no luck, that’s why they called me.”
A lump forms in my throat. Despite my size and what some would call an unfriendly exterior, when it comes to animals, they have my heart—they have me hook, line, and sinker.
Ever since I started helping out at Faux Paws, long before I got Lola, it helped me a lot being around the dogs. I’d go and clean out the cages, take the dogs for walks, and keep them company. Faux Paws rehomes all kinds of strays that have had a hard life, most have either been abandoned, can no longer be cared for, or abused in some way. It’s something I am very passionate about. I can’t stand animal abuse or cruelty, some of the cases are general neglect, some are downright barbaric, and like my baby, Lola, just plain cruel. When we get cases like that, they have to restrain me and I’ve been known to take matters into my own hands on quite a few occasions.
We’ve placed a water bowl and some food outside the small opening where the dog has managed to get under the house.
I move over toward the porch and get down on my knees. I bend low and turn the torch on and try to see where he is, it’s pretty dark under there, I can’t see a damn thing.
I reach into my jacket pocket and grab a couple of long meaty dog sticks out and throw them in, then I break another one and place some little pieces just inside the entryway and outside it. If the dog is hungry, he’ll come out, he may not like it but he’ll come.
I don’t know if this will work, but sometimes it isn’t about treats and commanding words, it’s about presence. It’s about patience, and I have it in some things, just not all things.
I glance up and over to where Sienna is standing… nah, I don’t have patience when it comes to her. I fuckin’ hope Liliana isn’t filling her head full of shit either, they seem to be in deep conversation. It was a very bad move asking her to bring Lola out here but I needed her, Lola is good with other scared dogs, she does what I can’t sometimes. I’d never put her in danger but Kevin says the other dog isn’t aggressive, only scared, so that gives me some hope. Lola comes and lies down in front of me as I sit with my back against the bricks of the house. She’s a special dog, I’ve fostered lots over the years, but she was my foster fail, we bonded and I just couldn’t let her go. I look at her now and I sometimes wonder how anybody could do something like that to another living being and how terrified she would have been as a bait dog. I still can’t get over it, it’s the only thing to date that’s ever made me weep.