by Tara Lynn
My hand squeezed by reflex, like I was priming a grenade. The tone cut off after a note.
“Hmm?” Christina stirred awake under me.
Outside, one tentative footstep edged my way. That door had no damn lock.
“Hey-,” Christina started.
I clamped my hand across her mouth. She warbled mutely and wagged her head. I made eye contact, shushed her and pointed outside. She got the message.
The entire house seemed to be still for some moments. The phone tried chirping again, but I jerked that thing out before it squeaked.
“She’s not picking up,” Jason yelled outside. His footsteps set off down the hall.
I collapsed into Christina with a relieved breath. The kid should not be the one to catch us. Something like this might drive him straight into Lorne’s arms.
I started to apologize to Christina, but not before she rubbed her hip up against me. My erection had fallen right along her soft thighs, and when I met her eyes, they didn’t look so awake. They were half shut in lust.
My hand still covered her mouth. I felt her warm breath lap my palm. Then her tongue flicked across me.
Fuck, she looked so good. And she wanted me. Whatever doubts she had that first night had evaporated after this last one. She was gifting her body to me again, already unwrapped.
The day light streamed white and pure through the curtains and her skin glowed. The heat of her center was so close to my own.
I turned her facing away from me, sighted myself on her warm, wet entrance and pushed in.
“Oh Jesus,” she gasped through my fingers
I shut my eyes and basked in the feeling of visiting her again. She nibbled wetly at my hand, as I found all the warmth deep inside her. We shifted softly on the blankets, every inch of myself in boundless pleasure as I plunged in and out of her.
My needs grew more urgent. I slid into her harder and faster. I squeezed her breasts one by one with my free hand, endlessly unsatisfied with how little of her I could hold. Her rosy centers were as hard as me. I flicked them as I rode into her, and her kisses broke to moans against my palm.
We deserved to wake up by each other and spend the first act of the day making each other come. Fuck the fake bonds Lorne had imposed on us. Christina’s supple body glowed warm around me, and I knew that I wanted a much deeper connection with her.
I moved my free hand to her hip and thrust her body even faster on and off me. The bed squeaked softly at the force of our coupling, but way less than the lust I wanted to inflict on her. Christina’s teeth clamped down on my fingers. The agony just made me fuck her harder.
Her stomach tightened and swelled against me. She was close. The girl came easy, or maybe she was just into me. She squirmed deep against my body, and I felt my own fuse lit. Then she started bucking. Soft whimpers leaked through my fingers and she twisted on me, even as I thrust inside her.
A cloud of vapor filled my head. My body condensed to my instrument, all pleasure, all set to explode. I pushed myself out of her, but her hand suddenly clasped the one I had on her mouth. She peeled it off.
“Inside me,” she whispered. “ I want you to finish inside me.”
Her voice slid straight down into my dick. I plunged back in, already twitching.
“Oh, god.” I sighed, held her tight against me and came.
I poured out into her with sharp, hot spasms. I pumped and pumped until I had given her everything. She watched me the whole time, those hazel eyes warm and inviting, making me her home.
I slumped into her face and we shared a soft, salty kiss. She wriggled off me and turned around in my arms. We were both damp with sweat.
“That felt really good,” she said. “Did you like it?”
I was about to laugh, but a set of footsteps clamped down the hall. “That was the best I’ve ever had,” I whispered.
“Really?” she said.
She looked so earnest. That dour bar face was all gone. She was my babe in the woods. “Why are you so shocked?” I asked.
“How about last night?”
“Also good.”
She sank against my chest. “It was amazing. I didn’t think my first time would feel that great.”
“First time?”
Shit, of course it was. She seemed to hate the whole goddamn town, and she had good reason.
I stroked her hair and held her tight, feeling guilty as all hell. It was pure chance she didn’t hate me, too. So far, the only thing I had fixed in town was her virginity. Lorne might have married her mother, but I had pressed her into my arms. All for a shot at something with no future.
No, not no future. This would just be another thing to add to my list of changes to make. I’d find a way for us to be together. But that depended on fixing the Liberated first.
She peered up my chest with doe eyes. They condensed at something they saw on my face.
“Don’t worry, “ she said. “I’m going to head to the pharmacy and get the pill. It just felt so good to let go finally.”
“It was amazing,” I said. “But, just remember, this has to stay hush hush.”
She tugged upright. “You think I want anyone knowing about this?”
“I mean they can’t even suspect a thing.”
Christina’s heat moved away from my body, even as her voice burned past a whisper. “I’m not some lovestruck ditz. I’m the one who said this was wrong, You’re the one who wanted to be ‘friends.’”
“Easy,” I said, pointing at the wall.
Nothing stirred outside. Christina’s face, meanwhile, was fast losing that smooth ease.
“Listen,” I said, gripping her shoulders. “I like you. I’m so glad we did this. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page so we don’t get in trouble.”
As the words left my mouth, I heard how raw they sounded. But she was smart. She heard what I meant.
“So we don’t, or you dont?” she said. “It’s mostly so you can carry out this plan you have.”
“I’ve got to get in to the club’s good graces first, but ok, yeah. I’ll admit it. That’s the main reason.”
Her face darkened some more. “Just to be clear, you’re basically saying you’re gonna be a biker for a bit.”
Our bodies were bare to each other, but, much as I wanted to, I wasn’t ready to share my mind the same way. “It’s going to look that way, I told you. But I’ll only be doing small things.”
She looked utterly unconvinced. “That’s how the prospects all start, isn’t it? It’s how you work your way up to the big things.”
“No, it’s not going to be like that. I’ve been in deep before. I’d never want to be a part of anything dark again. Believe me.”
“Why?” she said, with sudden strength. “Why is that you need me so desperately to believe you? Do you believe it yourself?”
She didn’t look mad, but her eyes seemed to swirl with vigor. She looked like some Roman goddess, with her body bare and free.
“I mean, you already got me,” she said. “Why do you keep pressing me to consider what you’re doing.”
Words came to my mouth unbidden. “I just want you to know I won’t let it happen again,” I said.
“What?”
Her spell had given away to confusion. I should back down now. This was not the time and place to share the sort of news I had. It would kill everything. There was this coil that wound around my chest though, that had always sat there. Now it was unspooling, and I couldn’t control it.
“I won’t let the Liberated do what got your dad killed.”
Her words came repeated, as a whisper. “What?”
“The way they reported it happening? What you heard on the news? It wasn’t how it happened that day. It wasn’t our guy that was being shot at in the gas station. It was the Liberated shooting at one of theirs.”
I had expected her to be roaring or raining strikes down on me. Instead her mouth just lay dimly open. The coil tightened and I released the fine grains.
/>
“We’d cornered him at the gas station. It was me, Lorne, and a couple others. The guy from the Scorpions had run in, hoping the civilians would give him cover until he could get backup. I thought he was right, but Lorne ordered us in. I told him I wouldn’t, and I swear to you I didn’t.”
She still stayed quiet. I sighed and went on.
“The other two obeyed. They got the guy, but not before the three of them shot up the place. Your dad wasn’t killed on purpose, but he must have caught a ricochet. Lorne paid off the kid working the counter and had a dirty cop turn us into heroes in the story. I couldn’t handle it. I had known Lorne was vicious, but that was my first time seeing what he was willing to pay. I took off my cut the next day.”
“My dad wasn’t shot once,” she said, softly. “There were three wounds in his body.”
“I know,” I said. “I knew it was wrong and I can’t stand you not knowing. I didn’t pull a trigger but I stood aside. That’s why I’m swearing to you now that I mean what I say. This empire Lorne has built up through blood and misery - I mean to turn it into something worthwhile or tear it down. Nothing else will do.”
Anyone outside that door would have heard my last words as if there were no walls, but I didn’t give one ounce of a fuck. If the truth had to come out now, so did my will. I needed her to know.
Christina had taken all this wind from my lungs, but she had not budged an inch. Instead, she just shrugged.
“If you say so.” She rolled my hands off her shoulders and got up. “Don’t worry, I won’t keep you from rising.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“You want my forgiveness or something?”
“I thought I’d at least get your rage.”
“Rage?” She laughed. Of all things, she laughed. “Damon, I knew your dad was shit the day I heard about him. I knew he killed my father whether he pulled the trigger or not. I can’t hold him any more accountable. I can’t loathe the Liberated more.”
She began to dress, but I just sat numbly and watched. The girl was complex. I wanted to sit down and run everything I’d ever considered past her. The stuff I hadn’t thought, she made me want to plan.
But we’d already gotten way closer than we ever should. If I cared about her, I would save her knowledge she didn’t have to know.
“You mad at me or something?” I asked, dumbly.
“No, not really,” she said, latching her dark bra on.
“At yourself?”
That gave her greater pause. “No, it was fun. I’m glad we did it.”
“I’m glad too,” I said.
The silence that followed held a lot of possible messages though. ‘Glad so that we can move on’ or ‘glad so that we can get started?’ The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wasn’t sure what the right answer was either.
She put on her shirt. We listened for sound, but our eyes lingered on each other. I almost wanted to tell her to stay. It was ridiculous that she couldn’t because she lived next door.
As I mulled the idea, she crept the door open.
“It’s clear.” She peeked back. “I’ll see you later.”
“Oh you’re bound to.”
She smiled wanly and slipped out. Her footsteps receded down the hall and then out the front door. She wasn’t kidding about heading straight to the drug store.
I checked my cell and found a couple messages from Baxter. Apparently I needed to report for duty. The message couldn’t have come from Lorne, or he’d have passed it on himself. I thought I knew who might be requesting me.
I showered away the residue of the night and the morning. I pictured Christina in the shower with me, her sweet lush form, bent over and moaning under the water and suds. Would there be another chance?
I tried to set the thought aside as I set out the door. To my surprise, Jason was out sitting on my newly appointed bike.
“Hey,” I said. “What are you up to?”
He looked up with his perpetual squint then hopped off. “Sorry man. I just wanted to try it out.”
“It’s cool,” I said. “But don’t you got somewhere to be?”
“Christina was supposed to take me into town, but I don’t know where she is. I guess she came back and took the car or something? I didn’t hear her.”
“I got you,” I said, clambering astride. “Hop on.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, what’s the big deal?”
He didn’t need any other encouragement to scamper on and grip the seat. Christina was suddenly in my head, reminding me I was poisoning her little brother. This was just a ride along though. If it got the kid this excited, he wasn’t all that close to being one of the Liberated.
“Where we headed?” I asked.
He gave me the name of a diner, and we zoomed off. The valley’s beauty sang through my nostrils - from the smell of the ranch to the vegetables on the farms and the sweet grass beyond. There was no better feeling than a perfect day streaming over your face.
I’d fight a hundred wars to keep this freedom. If that had been what I was doing over in Afghanistan, then I might not have minded staying. If that was what the Liberated truly sought, I might have never left.
Jason hopped off near a bunch of other lanky kids in missized clothes. He tossed me a nod and all his friends gaped at me. He probably earned a lot of props for that, but it wasn’t a sight that I needed to see. It was a reminder, though, that the Liberated should be a place worth occupying once those kids were old enough to land there.
I roared into the garage to find Baxter and Reggie deep in conversation outside the maintenance bays. It looked to be one sided, with Reggie stalking around and yelling and Baxter taking all the abuse stoically.
Reggie’s growl filled the air where my engine cut off. “Your boy is finally here,” he shouted back at Baxter.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“What’s going on is that you’re not here to do what is asked of you.”
“I didn’t know anyone was asking anything,” I said.
Reggie spread out his arms like I’d just revealed his magic trick. “That’s cause you weren’t here.”
“We report in now?” I glanced at Baxter. “Doesn’t sound very free to me.”
“You’re not free. You’re on probation, friend. And that means any of the partners can ask you any favor at any time.”
I glanced at the office. The windows were darkened. Maybe Lorne was watching from behind. He might be glad to have me back, but I was sure he enjoyed the ball-busting too.
“Alright,” I said. “I’m here. What do you need?”
Reggie took a measure of me then left us and disappeared into the garage.
“Sorry, brother,” I said to Baxter. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”
“Why do I get the feeling I’m gonna be hearing those words an awful lot from you?” Baxter said.
Reggie stalked back out and shoved a backpack at me. I peeked in through the zippers and saw the hard metal of a gun barrel.
“That’s registered to some bad people,” he said. “I need you to get it to Cavil in the Redwood Chapter.”
I hefted the bag. It couldn’t weight more than ten pounds. “You want me to deliver a single gun three hundred miles?”
He edged in, those crazy light eyes cutting in deep. “There’s no Q&A portion. You doing this or not?”
I forced myself to shrug. A hazing was a hazing. Still, a lone gun seemed to imply a lone gunman ahead of it. “Can I ask what it’s for?”
“Ask Cavil,” Reggie said. “But don’t be surprised if you’re the one who ends up using it if you do.”
I had no choice. You fight a war with the weapons you had. If I needed to do this to salvage my hometown, then so be it.
“Fine,” I said.
I threw Baxter a nod and hopped right back onto my chopper. As I pulled out into the garage, it occurred to me that there was nothing stopping me from leaving town for good. It wouldn’t ne
cessarily be a dumb move. It’d be more than I left town with the last time and Lorne wouldn’t miss the ride.
But all I could think of was Christina’s amber eyes watching me like a microscope lens, seeing which way I would go. If I wanted to catch another sight of that gorgeous face, then I had no choice.
Where she wanted it or not, I was going to have to be a biker for a bit.
CHAPTER NINE
Christina
A visit to the pharmacy made sure nothing physical lasted from my time with Damon. Not the Freemont pharmacy, of course. It’d be impossible to keep a visit like that secret from Ruby. No, I’d driven two hours round trip for a tiny little pill.
The queasy feeling that started up in my stomach later that day wasn’t so easy to get rid of. It wasn’t any medical symptom, just stress and confusion.
My little pillow talk with Damon hadn’t been nearly enough to cover what we had done. If anything, it had just made our situation more confusing. I was stewing with more emotions than ever.
It didn’t help that Damon vanished. The next day he was still gone.
Every time I passed the open bedroom door and saw those sheets still tussled from our bodies, my insides twisted all over again. The whole thing started to seem like some crazy vivid dream: him being inside me - me wanting it so bad that I begged for it.
I had no idea what came next in any relationship, never mind one like this. Was it even a relationship? I didn’t see how it could ever be anything in the daylight. We had barely given it a shot, though.
Maybe that was the right place to cut off?
Ugh, I had no idea. I just had this vague longing and loathing mingled in my head. I needed to see Damon again.
After he didn’t show up that second night, I did something almost as crazy as sleeping with my stepbrother. I talked to Lorne.
“Missing Damon huh?” he’d said, with a goofy smile. “He’ll be back soon, don’t worry. He’s just taking care of a little club business.”
Club business. I didn’t want to ask what.Two days meant it must be big. No matter what promises I made to Damon, it still annoyed me to hear how committed he was to the biker life.
