by Vivian Gray
I’m not sure why I do it, but I don’t head to the main sidewalk or the front entrance of the building. Instead, I press my arms tightly up against the side and hem of my dress as I slip through some unmanicured bushes. I can feel the thorns itch up against my skin and tug at my dress. But I move even slower, careful not to make too much of a scene as I plunge my way out to the other side.
“You know you could have just gone through the alley if you didn’t want to get caught sneaking out.” Ash is standing outside by his motorcycle as it idles loudly. “Then again, you’re a big girl. You really don’t have to sneak off anywhere.”
“I don’t want to get caught.”
“...by that guy?” he asks as I watch one of his darkened eyebrows raise playfully.
“Jamie? I couldn’t care less about him or what he thinks. He’s just a guy.”
“...a guy who follows you around everywhere. I know all about him. I’ve had you tailed, you know.”
My heart drops as I hear him say those words. He obviously isn’t the innocent guy I once thought he was. He has someone following me outside of the two motorcycle gang members apparently “protecting me.” How can someone be good and so bad at the same exact time?
“I really wish you would stop doing that. If you have to ask me something or know about my life, I’d rather it come from me than your informants. Unlike you, I’m straight up about my life. I tell the truth.”
“I haven’t lied to you either. I’m an open book.” His arms spread open wide. They’re the length of the motorcycle itself.
I can’t help but wonder if he could wrap them around my waist twice if he tried. I shudder to think that he probably could. I swallow the spit that has accumulated in my mouth as I say in a whisper I myself can barely hear, “Then tell me why you started that fire in my apartment building! Why were you there?”
He looks back down at the ground, his head full of dark brown curls falling in front of his round, chiseled face. When he looks back up at me, he has this off smile on his face as if he can’t really process his own emotions in that moment. Did I hit a nerve?
“Get on my bike, Dani.” He pats the seat lightly and holds up a helmet to me.
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” I tell him. But I’m lying. There’s a feeling between my thighs that are just burning to straddle his back and hold on to his waist as he drives us off into the distance.
“Why not? What do you think is going to happen?”
The easy answer is that I know I am going to get wherever he brings me, and we’re going to have a repeat marathon session of what went on in that gym just a few hours before. I can feel my entire body crave him, crave that adrenaline rush that comes from fucking a wild man without control. I couldn’t help myself last time. I couldn’t stop myself in that moment. And if I go off with him to somewhere new, somewhere out of my own territory, who the hell knows what will happen to me?
He repeats himself again, this time standing up straight and fixing his jacket with his gloved hands. “Get on my bike, Dani. I’m not going to offer you this again.”
I manage to squeak out, “I want answers.”
“I can give you what you want, but I’m not going to do it here. Get on my bike.” He stares me down and then adds, more insistently, “Now.”
My legs move before I can have a second thought. My heart beats faster with each step nearer to him. When I’m within arm’s reach, he scoops me up from under my bare legs, just inches from the high slit of my dress, and carries me the rest of the way.
His eyes light up from the parking lot street lamps as he growls, “The next time this happens, I’m not going to ask a second time. Got it?” Without waiting for my answer, he practically throws me over the back of his bike, giving me just seconds to strap on the helmet and throw my arms around his thick waist. The motorcycle lurches forward as I leave the firehouse behind in a cloud of asphalt dust and moonlight.
Chapter 13
Her tiny hands feel like little miniature weights up against my skin, dragging me down to the ground. It’s obvious by the way she holds on even tighter when I take a tight curve or lean the bike a certain way that she hasn’t ridden a lot. Most experienced back riders just move with it, but she is clearly frightened. I wonder if it’s of me, or of the bike -- or both. But, honestly, I’m just kind of an asshole sometimes, and I do the only thing I can think of when I got a chicken rider on my back: I go even faster.
At first, I had no idea where I was going to take her. Bringing her back to HQ was totally out of the question. I couldn’t get her past the doors without someone asking questions or potentially even recognizing her, which would be an out-and-out fucking disaster. That alabaster face of hers was plastered all over the news, and I have no doubt that the boys would have taken an interest in a blonde bombshell with legs for days and tits to make anybody’s mouth water.
I am quivering just thinking about those breasts leaned up against my back and her fingers inches away from my throbbing cock. Just the mere touch of her is sparking something inside of me that I can’t contain. I have to get her somewhere fast, somewhere she won’t be recognized and I won’t be caught.
My only option is the Cedar Hill Orange Grove. It isn’t a working farm anymore. My grandparents had owned it for years, and at one point, long before I was a Ranger or the leader of the Devil’s Crucifix, I thought about taking it over when they passed. Kenny, Rhonda, and I would talk about making it a sanctuary for retired riders -- a place where they could go to get a good meal and do an honest day’s work.
But when my brother Kenny died, that dream pretty much fell to the wayside. I just wanted nothing to do with it when I got out of prison. It was a constant reminder of what I had done and all those lives I sacrificed to put mine ahead. The old me, the me my family knew, was no longer there. Now, there is just Ash Cooper, the leader of the notorious Devil’s Crucifix, criminal, murderer.
Tonight, however, I am going to make an exception. I’m going to use that place, that person, to my advantage, even if just for a few hours or to so I can get a little privacy outside that president role. And as her wiped in front of my face from the hard blowing wind, I have to admit I am anticipating laying her down on those wood plank floors.
The road quickly passes by in a complete blur, zigging and zagging patterns of black with dashed yellow in the middle. How I navigate that with my mind somewhere completely different, I don’t know. Riding while distracted is not exactly something I’d recommend. But whatever the case, I manage it, and before long, I am pulling up to the long dirt driveway towards the blackened two-story red farm home. The only light is the streetlamp the county insisted on putting in a few months ago “for safety purposes.”
I quickly dismount and chivalrously offer her my hand. She pauses as she pulls off her helmet, her mouth making a large O shape as she says quietly, “Where are we?” Her lips tremble slightly, but she does a good job hiding her trepidation.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say nonchalantly.
That doesn’t sit well with her. “Are we going to get caught?” she demands. “I mean, this place looks abandoned, sure, but does someone live or work here? How did you know about this? How many times have you been here?” Her questions fire off at me one by one as I look down at my boots, my hands resting on my hips impatiently.
“Did you hear me, Dani?” I ask, puffing myself up a little bit. “I said to not worry about it.”
“Yeah, well, I am worried about it,” she hisses in response.
Dani had this way of getting under my skin, of making me feel like a lesser man. No woman had ever dared do what she just did to me. Whatever I said went. I didn’t take kindly to questions, or smart mouth replies, or second-guessing.
But that shit goes out the door when it comes to this girl. She isn’t one of my kind. She doesn’t know our ways or our codes. I can practically feel her hesitation, her nervousness, her fear, radiating off her like a hot potato. She is sweating and sh
ivering at the same time -- no doubt as much because of me as anything else. She has to know who I am and how dangerous I am, and I can sense that behind all that bravado, she is like the rest -- scared, shy, and, probably, a little turned on.
Still, I give in. One little answer wasn’t going to hurt me, especially if it shut her up for a few minutes and got us faster to the good stuff. “It’s called Cedar Hill Orchard,” I explain. “It belongs to me, sort of. It was my grandfather’s, and when he died, he gave it to my brother and me.”
“So, your brother lives here?” She walks up the steps slowly, and I watch from the motorcycle as her thin calves flex in the light with each step up. Her arms sway gently like they are tree limbs in the breeze. She turns to me and pulls back a piece of her hair. She didn’t get that hair tie like I told her to, but I find myself to be less mad at her for disobeying my orders than I should be. She speaks slowly again, a hint of trepidation in her voice, “Am I going to meet him?”
“No,” I reply coldly. Her question has completely caught me off guard. “He’s dead. His wife, too. Died right before I went to prison. He wanted to run this place with the help of the club, but when he died, I just stopped working it.” ‘Cause it’s too goddamn painful, I want to add -- but, of course, I don’t.
Her eyes peer up at me as if she is studying me to test me, wondering if I’m being honest or just have become a really good liar. I don’t dare break her glare. I want her to know I am being honest with her. I want her to trust me. And I’m not sure why. I mean, seriously, what the fuck has this broad done to deserve this kind of loyalty?
I’m still mentally cursing myself when she cuts my eye contact off and looks around, her heart-shaped chin held high as if she is surveying the land. “It’s beautiful, Ash,” she says quietly, a gentle awe in her voice. “You shouldn’t ignore it. This place needs someone to work it. It could be even better with just someone watering and trimming the trees. Honest -- it’d be that simple. Hell, you could probably even make a fortune selling the fruits from the orchard.”
There she goes surprising me again. What the fuck does she care if this place goes to ruins or if I burn it down with my own hands? For that matter, why should it matter that I do it myself? Has she just forgotten who I am? Or does she see something totally different in me that no one else has?
I walk slowly towards her, uttering a few words each step. “I don’t want to run an orchard, Dani,” I say. “I couldn’t care less about this damn place. It’s just some memory from my past, like the teddy bear I cuddled with when I was a baby. I don’t have the teddy bear anymore, either.”
She raises an eyebrow. “You sure about that?” she teases in spite of herself. I chuckle lightly and, getting what she wanted out of me, she continues. “C’mon, Ash,” she insists, “why did you bring me here? What was the point?” Her emerald green eyes flicker innocently, as if she doesn’t know what’s about to happen between the two of us.
“I brought you here,” I begin, sucking in a deep, dramatic breath, “because what I want from you needs extra privacy. I didn’t think you wanted a repeat of what happened in the gym. And I certainly think you don’t want to mess with the boys in the club. In that red dress, they’d fucking eat you up and spit you back out…one by one.”
I leer at her wildly. I was right. That dress is something else. The moment I spotted her glowing like a fire through those bushes was enough to send me reeling. I had seen skimpy before, but what she is wearing is on a whole new level. No clothes should hang on a body like that. It is enough to make me want to rip it off and punish her for being so bold around a man like me.
I flash my dirty-man smile at her before walking right up to her. Dani places a hand to her chest as if she is both trying to cover up that line between her breasts and draw attention to it all at the same time. My eyes float down to that sweet spot as I imagine my head between those mountains, the smell of her sweat and perfume mixing with my breath. It’s some kind of dream heaven I want to be part of.
I don’t linger long. I stiffen my jaw as I push past her, towards the door. The key ring circles around my thumb as I find the one silver house key I never use. It’s still marked with the tape my grandfather used. The words, “Barn Home” are in his crooked script, barely legible now after all the wear and tear of fifty years. The key jams slightly as I twist it a few times. Finally, the door bursts open, leading into a darkened wood lodge of a living room.
I use my hands to usher Dani in and follow just a few feet behind. My hand searches in the dark for the light switch, but it doesn’t flick on when I find it. To be honest, I can’t actually remember the last time I paid for electricity. The state only mandates me to have water and gas to keep the pipes in working condition.
Still, I know this home all too well as I turn to Dani and tell her to stay where she is. She stands in the middle of the living room and looks up at the few places on the ceiling that is illuminated from the dim outside lights. As she paces back and forth, her tiny black shoes make the floorboards creak and moan slightly.
I come back from the kitchen area with about five long candles and a hurricane lamp. My grandmother insisted on being prepared for everything, especially with being out in the middle of nowhere. I was sending mental thank yous up to her, though I’m not sure if she likes what I have in mind for them. As I walk back to the living room, I light each one.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Ash.” Dani says as she sees me approach with an entire handful of live flames. “You’re going to set this place on fire! A hurricane lamp with old oil? No way.” She shakes her head and takes a few steps backwards towards the open door.
“I’ve got a firefighter here with me. What could go wrong?” I try not to smile at her for fear she’ll just run the other way, but I still look at her as if to reassure her I’m not trying to kill us both.
“You’ve got a firefighter here who says it isn’t safe. At least don’t use that hurricane lamp. It looks like it’s a million years old.”
“Probably at least fifty. It was my grandmother’s. Most of this stuff was hers from when she got married. They don’t make these things like they used to.”
“There’s a reason for that.” When she’s done, she looks at me in absolute horror. I try not to break face as she approaches me. Her hand touches mine and she looks up at me earnestly as she says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your grandmother. I just… after the fire…I get... “
I can’t hold it in. I let out a stream of laughter that overtakes me. As I belly over I blow out the hurricane lamp and set it on the ground. Dani screams over me, “What the hell is so funny?”
“She hated this lamp, too, Dani. It’s okay. You don’t have to be that girl for me.”
“What do you mean ‘that girl’? I’m just being polite.”
“Well, knock it off. I hate polite. I hate nice, too. You got something to say to me, you say it without pussyfooting around it. I’ll respect you more if you don’t apologize for everything.” I run over to an old cedar chest and pull out a blanket. She watches me speechless as I shake the blanket out and place it down on the ground next to the fireplace. The flames flicker on my face as I sit cross-legged looking up at her as she holds her arms around her stomach. She looks as nervous as ever.
“Fine.” Dani says as she bites down on her bottom lip and then sits across from on the checkered pattern blanket. “If you want me to be honest, I am going to be honest.”
There’s a long pause as I can tell she’s parsing her words, thinking them over in a kind of filter. She’s already doing the one thing I told her not to.
I shout, “Just spit it out already, Dani!”
“I think you started those fires!” She blurts it out fast, with lips that move rapidly against her breath. “There! I said it. I’ve been thinking about it all night. I’ve been going over every single detail, every moment of when you rescued me…at least the ones I remember. And there is no other explanation. You set those fires. Y
ou just felt bad that you trapped me in or you thought I was hot and was willing to risk it. But you did it.” She lowers her voice as she breathes in deeply, “Didn’t you?”
With every one of her words, her accusations, my heart has sped up exponentially. I can feel my pulse pounding up against the side of my neck and my palms sweating as I flex them into large balled up fists. I don’t know if I am allowed to be angry that she would ever think of me as that, or if I should let it slide because she really doesn’t know me. She should be suspicious. The police are, some of my boys probably are, as well. Why not this stranger who just met me?
