Savage Redemption

by Carter Steele

  This particular area looked more like a pool hall than an actual bar. There were about eight different pool tables set up, only one of which was being used. Six different TVs were turned to six different sports stations. The bar had a multitude of alcohol selections, most of which came from Porter Ridge, but they also had—

  Goddamnit. Of course.

  Sitting on the far side of the bar, sipping on what looked like a glass of whiskey, was none other than Brock King. He caught my eye far too fast for me to turn away like I had earlier in the day. Unable to turn away, I found myself in a staring contest of sorts with Brock. I gulped as I felt my body tense.

  He didn’t seem to be rushing to leave this time. He didn’t seem to be as tired or off-put as he was this morning. But he also didn’t seem like he was in a hurry to approach me and chat.

  Finally, he gave a wink, but then he looked like he regretted it, and he turned his attention to the television on the wall. I had never felt so confused by someone, but at least I felt reasonably sure Brock felt the same way. Our flirting in high school hadn’t felt as disjointed.

  I sat down at the bar, my body facing a perpendicular direction to Brock, but with him still in my peripheral vision. I pulled out my phone and started to text Jess, but I changed my mind at the last second. If she did come, and she saw Brock here…

  I instead texted some friends from UCLA, where I had gone to school. I did my best to focus all of my attention on the conversations, but I couldn’t help but notice Brock eying me out of the corner of his eye. There definitely were some walls between us, but it was hard to tell which were made of paper or steel and which had been thrown up by life or ourselves.

  I kept up this facade for about ten minutes, even laughing at a genuine joke from one of my sorority sisters from Delta Gamma Phi. The joke pulled me out of my mind just long enough for me not to notice Brock sitting next to me.

  “Are you always on your phone this much with your students?”

  3

  Brock

  I really shouldn’t be doing this.

  As much as the thought sounded good in my head, seeing Heather for a second time on this day felt like too much of a coincidence to ignore. I’d already had a hell of a day with our guns being stolen, killing time by riding my bike, and setting up a club meeting for 6 p.m. just before we feasted for dinner and had some drinks. For this to happen again…

  But by the same token, I refused to say that I shouldn’t be doing this but I did because I had no willpower. That was a piss poor excuse, and it just wasn’t true. I had plenty of willpower, but I was choosing to go and talk to Heather. I was choosing to engage her. We weren’t kids anymore where I had to be afraid; we were adults, and we could do whatever we pleased.

  Just don’t get hurt again.

  With my guard somewhat up—and the knowledge that I could only stay for about half an hour anyways before I ran off to the club meeting—I approached Heather as she glared at her phone, doing her best to ignore me as I had tried to ignore her before. For both of us being in our late twenties, we sure flirted like we had just hit puberty.

  And the funny thing was, it wasn’t like I was an awkward mess around women. Far from it. If anything, I suppose the title “player” could apply to me. I was known to take a different woman from every party and stay attached to none of them. Being president of an MC didn’t exactly allow for a stable, healthy dating life.

  But, then again, Heather Richards wasn’t exactly a normal party gal. In fact, she was quite unique in my life.

  She was the only girl that I had ever stayed committed and monogamous to.

  Well, until we broke up.

  “Are you always on your phone this much with your students?” I said, trying to shake out of the thoughts in my head.

  I grabbed her phone jokingly, causing her to yell “hey!” but with a playful underline to it.

  “Miss Richards, it’s not appropriate to text when someone is trying to talk to you. Didn’t you learn that in fourth grade?”

  “Oh, bite me,” she said with a laugh, wrestling me for the phone.

  I even laughed myself as I held it away from her. But then—damnit, she did it—she tickled me, somehow remembering my one ticklish spot on my neck. I cracked up, folded, and handed her her phone.

  “I can’t believe you remember that,” I said, slowly returning to my normal, stoic demeanor. “Ten years later and you still remember?”

  “Funny thing about you, Brock King,” she said. “Is you’re a tough guy to forget.”

  “Really,” I said. “I never would have guessed.”

  “Oh, don’t play coy with me,” she said. “It’s hard to forget a guy that you dated for two years and then suddenly just ghosts you without a word, only to show up ten years later and act schizo around you.”

  It’s too bad that’s more accurate than it really should be. But if she knew why…

  “Well, it’s equally hard to forget one of the most beautiful women you’ve ever met in your life,” I said.

  Heather took a sip of her beer, eying me carefully. Everything she did in the next few seconds seemed to move at half normal speed. She swallowed her drink slowly. She tilted her head slowly. Even the words that came next were a little slow.

  “We’re really doing this, aren’t we,” she said.

  “Doing what?”

  She rolled her eyes. I loved asking obvious questions and pretending not to know the answer.

  “Well, we’re apparently not really doing it.”

  Flirting. Going down this road again. Seeing what’s going to happen.

  “I don’t think we can, not like we used to,” I said. “I’m not the same kid as I was a decade ago. Things have changed. Especially after my father was killed.”

  Her eyes went wide. It was as if she had finally connected the dots to why I had withdrawn.

  Unfortunately for her, there were a few dots hidden from her view that went even further than she knew.

  It was really just a damn shame she was too tempting to ignore. A real, damn, tragic shame.

  “Yeah,” she murmured softly. “So tell me, Brock. You apparently have quite the reputation in town. How did you get it?”

  Back to the playful stuff, huh? Probably for the best.

  “I’m just a simple car mechanic who likes to ride his motorcycle, Heather. I can’t speak to anything else.”

  “You were all the talk of the teachers at school,” she said, noticeably starting to play with her hair as she leaned forward.

  I also noticed her cheeks reddening. Practically every sign that screamed “turned on” was flashing in neon red letters right now. This could be fun.

  It could also be dangerous. If you’re not going to bring a normal girl into your life, why would you suddenly bring Heather in?

  Ah, screw it.

  “I might be a little bit known around these parts,” I said with a smile. “But all I do is ride my bike, hang with my brothers in my club, and work nine to five in a mechanic shop. If you hear anything else, it’s all rumor and conjecture.”

  She fiddled with her hair some more, took a sip of her beer, and slowly put the glass down. It seemed like she was incapable of doing anything that took her eyes off of me, and that just made it all the more enjoyable.

  “You’re full of shit,” she said. “But you’re hot and I know you well enough to know you have a reason for being full of shit. So I guess I’ll allow it.”

  “I didn’t realize I needed your permission to be something I’m not,” I said with a knowing laugh.

  “You don’t,” she said. “You never have. It’s part of why I liked you, you know. You never asked permission for anything. You just did things if you wanted to.”

  And speaking of…

  “Well, I’m about to prove you right,” I said, standing up and gently grabbing her arm.

  “Where—”

  “Just to the pool tables,” I said. “Come on, Miss Richards. You’re not afraid of a litt
le competition, are you?”

  In a more rational, detached moment, I might have had some proper fear for going down this road. I might have been able to recognize that this would probably not end well.

  But what the hell. I was horny, Heather looked sexy as ever, and she was right. I did grab the bull by the horns. I did like to take charge. It was like a drug that had no bad side effects, other than making me push things to the limit.

  And with Heather, well, I was about to find out if I was willing to respect that limit or jump right past it without ever looking at it.

  Heather followed me all the way to the table without responding to my question. I could feel the goosebumps on her arm, the hairs standing up. I looked back at her, enjoying her nervous smile. I suspected no one had been so audacious with her in the decade since our last encounter.

  Time to change that.

  Slowly.

  “Here, you can break,” I said. “I’ll let you have a shot.”

  “So we’re just going to play? No stakes?”

  “I thought the stakes were implied. Bragging rights.”

  Heather tried to hide her guilty smile. She did a rather poor job of doing just that.

  “Let’s put a real bet on it. Since I’m breaking, you pick the bet.”

  “OK,” I said, immediately knowing what I was going to do if I won. “But I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to do if I win.”

  “Oh?”

  “Too much to be said out loud. Better shown than told.”

  Heather pursed her lips, nodded, and shrugged.

  “Then I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to do, either,” she warned.

  You’re so far into this, you’re out of your damn mind. You’re letting your hormones control you here, man. Don’t do it. You know better than this.

  “Break,” I said, ignoring the voice in my head as best as I could. “I need to win.”

  Heather rolled her eyes, broke, and got solids. Over the course of the game—one that immediately became apparent would be an easy victory for me, as Heather could barely line up a shot properly—I peppered her with questions about what she’d done in the past decade, half because I was curious, half because I didn’t want her to start probing into my life in the Savage Kings. That was a life I had to keep separate from her, at least as much as possible.

  I learned that she had graduated from UCLA after five years and had started in finance in San Francisco, but she had hated it and wanted something less stressful and more relevant to the world. She switched over to teaching after a year and had worked in the Bay Area for five years before seeking an area far cheaper and far calmer. That had brought her back to Romara.

  But I was less interested in the biographical details as I was in the personal ones. What had her dating life been like? Had she found someone since me?

  Had I always been in the back of her mind? Had I been someone she’d hoped to see when she returned? Or had she dreaded the possibility that I’d still be in Romara?

  By the time we got to the eight ball—with me having a three-ball advantage—I was deliberately missing, trying to string her along to get more answers out of her. But though she had a flirtatious spirit and she kept me on edge with her playfulness, she never did dive into her personal past. I didn’t want to directly ask her and break the spell, but I was also getting too curious for my own good.

  Be bold. Find out.

  “OK,” I said. “This has been fun dancing around the target, but it’s time to end this.”

  With that, when it was my shot, I called out the back left pocket. I lined up my shot, hit the eight ball, and watched it quickly roll to the corner and rattle in. Heather turned and placed her hands on her hips.

  “You could have ended that at any point, couldn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “But what would be the point in ending something fun early?”

  Heather stammered for words, but she couldn’t find anything. I saw my chance. I took it.

  I stepped forward, closing the space between us at what was a normal pace but felt like a thousand steps. My heart raced as I felt that warm rush in the stomach that I hadn’t felt in nearly ten years. I licked my lips, and Heather did the same.

  For ten years, I’ve wanted this moment. I may not have always thought of it like so, but I’ve wanted it on some level. And now, it’s time to take it.

  I put one hand on Heather’s side and the other on her cheek. She looked up at me with longing eyes. I knew this was a bad idea, and I knew it would never work out, and I knew that it might likely leave both parties dissatisfied, but—

  My phone rang.

  My fucking phone rang.

  “Hold on, sorry,” I said.

  I pulled down my phone to see who the fucking bastard was. It was a call I could not ignore.

  “What?” I said as soon as I answered.

  “Brock, we know where the Anarchists took the guns,” my brother said, completely oblivious to how close I was to hooking up with my high school sweetheart. “Also, where are you? The meeting’s in five.”

  Shit. That’s a great look for a president, leading with his dick.

  “Got caught up in something pumping gas. I’ll be there shortly.”

  “OK, just—”

  I hung up before Landon could say anything else. I looked down into the pleading but not hopeful eyes of Heather. I still wanted her; Landon’s call had only made me want her more.

  But that call was exactly why I could not have her. I would never be able to have work-life balance. My role as president of the MC would forever get in the way.

  “I gotta go,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t tell me that’s it!”

  I didn’t think she’d planned to say that. I think it just came out by instinct, showing her true desires. It sounded shallow as hell, but it was pretty nice to be desperately needed.

  “It’s not over,” I said with a wink.

  But as I walked out the door and as I regained control of myself, I couldn’t help but wonder if it needed to be.

  4

  Heather

  Oh, Brock.

  I didn’t care what Jess, the school, parents, or anyone else had to say about Brock King. I didn’t care that he had hurt me a decade ago. I only cared that in the time we’d spent flirting and playing pool, I felt like a teenage girl all over again.

  Brock’s handsome and muscular body helped, obviously, but it was really his mysterious aura, his multi-layered charm, and his amusing smirk that made him so damn sexy. It wasn’t like I was trying to fall into his charm; he just had such a way about him that it was virtually impossible to stay detached. It felt like a fait accompli that I would have kissed him there.

  And yet, just like ten years ago, he had walked out without any warning, right when things were going to get good.

  Admittedly, my frustration wasn’t just with the lack of a kiss. It was from not having any good kisses in the last several years. It was from the sickening feeling of deja vu that he was leaving me. It was from many factors that made me think “it’s the same as always.” I was reduced to begging him to come back.

  At least he had promised that this wouldn’t be the end. But how the hell would it keep going? He didn’t have my new phone number. We’d only run into each other by coincidence.

  But it’s Brock. Something tells me he’ll find a way to figure it out.

  Still, left without a kiss and having been so aroused as to nearly make out with my ex in the span of a combined forty minutes of hanging out wasn’t just something that went away because he had gone away. I had a lot of pent up energy, and it wasn’t something easily released here in a public setting.

  I closed my tab out quickly, jumped in my car, and sped home. I briefly checked my text messages at a stop light and saw Jess had invited me to a game night at her place, but I ignored it. I may not have been able to see Brock tonight, but I could still imagine what such an encounter would look like.


  I got home, tried to tell myself to calm down, and laughed at the thought. I locked the door behind me, headed for my room, and took off all my clothes. I closed my eyes and started to imagine Brock approaching me at Porter Ridge Brewing.

  But unlike at the real Porter Ridge, when Brock had had to suddenly leave, this time, he kissed me. And he didn’t just kiss me—he kissed me without abandon. His hands went on to the small of my back, lifting me up and off the ground. I let out a yip as his hands squeezed me against his body; in our position, I could feel his bulging cock. In real life, my hand slid down to my sex, gently rubbing at first.

  Back in the fantasy, this time, Porter Ridge cleared out of all other customers and bartenders. With just the two of us there, Brock laid me out on the pool table, tearing, ripping at my clothes. He was like a wolf with the ferocity that he growled and tore at me with. He had the same enthusiasm and intensity that eighteen-year-old Brock did.

  But unlike that Brock, who looked something like a pretty surfer boy, this Brock was more mature, more rough in appearance. This Brock had gone from a skinny stick figure with muscular outline by default to a jacked, filled-out man who had muscles and veins bulging in every spot. His tanned, dark skin rippled in every spot, ridges of muscles and rivers of veins decorating his body. His eyes, though darker and less youthful than before, carried with them a confidence he had not had before.

  That Brock was the kind of boy I’d wanted to lose my virginity to. This Brock was the kind of boy I wanted to lose my mind to.

  He had me naked on that pool table in a matter of seconds, his body between my legs. He started by kissing my toes on my right leg and working his way down, pausing just as his beard brushed against my clit. I gasped in real time, but in the fantasy, he moved to the other leg, teasing, brushing up on me but never quite diving all the way. Only after a couple of passes on each leg did he actually dive into my pussy and start to eat me out.