‘What about it?’ I breathed, my fingers buried in his hair as his mouth moved down to my cleavage, neither of us in the least bit bothered about the fact we were very much on show here.
‘I thought we could head off in a couple of weeks.’ He raised his head, that sexy-as-hell smirk on his face, his eyes dancing about with an excitement that almost matched mine. ‘Let’s just do it, Lana. You, me, the Harley, and nothing but the open road.’
It had sounded good when we’d talked about it just a few days ago, and it sounded even better now. ‘Who needs anything else, huh?’
‘Who needs anything else,’ he whispered, his mouth closing in on mine, his kiss once more pulling me further into my very own crazy-stupid love story. And there was nowhere else I wanted to be. Everything was perfect, because I had Eddie. We had the bikes. And that was the only combination I needed. Eddie Fletcher was slowly starting to show me that dreams really could come true. And I wasn’t going to let anything ruin that, for either of us. Anything, or anyone…
11
I clung onto Eddie’s hand as we walked into the clubhouse, a large, grey-brick building on a private compound owned by Eddie’s motorcycle club – a place where he and the other guys in the club held their meetings, hung out, drank, partied; it was their own personal space. Although, anyone was welcome to pop in and hang out with them, so Eddie had told me. It wasn’t some kind of secret society.
The sound of heavy rock music and loud chatter filled the air. People were everywhere, both inside and spilling out into the yard, which was lit up by strings of bulbs hanging from any available lamppost, fence or canopy, the flames from a rather primitive-looking barbecue lending a warm-orange glow to the atmosphere outside.
This wasn’t my first time in a place frequented by bikers. I’d been to a few bars and clubs back in Newcastle, but I’d never set foot inside a real-life MC clubhouse before. And even though I hadn’t been entirely sure what to expect, this one felt like a pretty friendly place. Eddie was right – there wasn’t anything dark or sinister about it.
The music was my kind of thing – heavy on guitars and turned up loud enough to make your ears bleed. Everyone was dressed in dark denim and leather, short skirts and skinny jeans, biker cuts, heavy, battered boots and heels so high they looked impossible to walk in. As far as the men were concerned, it was a mass of beards of all descriptions and hair that ranged from crew-cut short to longer than mine, but the women – they were beautiful. I’d never seen so many stunning girls in one room before, and for a second or two I felt slightly inadequate. I was older than most of them and looking around at everyone, I felt it.
‘You look incredible, you hear me?’ Eddie’s mouth was so close to my ear as he murmured those words, his breath warm on my neck, and I shuddered slightly as his hand squeezed my waist. How did he have this knack of almost reading my mind? There was no doubt I’d felt incredible when I’d left the house earlier in skin-tight, leather-look jeans, black, spike-heeled ankle boots and a loose-fitting black and dark-grey top that managed to both hug and flatter my curves. Curves I was quite proud of, and Eddie seemed to like them. I’d left my hair loose, my make-up all dark eyes and pale lips and, yeah, I really had felt incredible when I’d climbed onto the back of Eddie’s Harley. I’d felt like that biker chick I wanted to be. But was I really just playing at it? I mean, the girls here in front of me, they were true biker babes: all hard beauty and attitude. I was still learning. Although, Finn would probably argue that, as far as the attitude was concerned, I was learning fast.
‘Lana, baby, did you hear me?’
I turned to look at him, reaching out to touch his cheek, leaning in for a quick kiss. ‘I heard you.’
‘There’s nothing to be nervous about, okay? They’re a great bunch of people here. Whatever you might have heard about biker clubs, whatever you might think goes on, just spend some time here. You’ll see we’re just a group of guys who love bikes. And beer. And women.’ His smile sent a wave of confidence flooding through me. ‘You’ll be welcome here with open arms, darlin’, I promise you.’
‘Okay.’ I smiled, running my fingers over his beard. ‘I believe you. Now, that beer you mentioned? I could really do with one.’
He pulled me against him, kissing me a little bit harder this time, and my body responded in the only way it knew how, moulding itself against his, my arms falling around his neck. ‘You got it, gorgeous.’
I watched him walk over to the bar at the far end of the room, absentmindedly biting down on my thumbnail, my eyes never leaving him.
‘You known Eddie long?’
I swung around, coming face to face with a very pretty, dark-haired woman, probably a few years younger than me but not by much. I was almost relieved to see someone who was at least in the vicinity of my age range. ‘No. Not really. I only met him a few days ago.’
The woman smiled a friendly smile. It seemed to reach her eyes, anyway, which made me feel a bit more relaxed. ‘You must be something quite special then, honey, because we ain’t seen Eddie with anyone for a long time.’
I didn’t really know what to say. All of a sudden I was feeling just a little bit lost.
‘I’m Kaley.’ The woman smiled again, and I returned it.
‘Lana.’
‘Well, it’s lovely to meet you, Lana. I take it Eddie’s getting you a drink?’
I nodded, taking a quick look back over at the bar. Eddie was talking to a tall, well-built, heavily bearded man with shoulder-length, dark-blonde hair covered by a black bandana.
‘That’s Nate,’ Kaley went on. ‘The club president.’ She led me over to a huge, slightly worn, brown-leather corner couch by the pool table. ‘Him and Eddie have been friends for ages, ever since Eddie became a member of this club, and that was about fourteen or fifteen years ago now, I think.’ She looked at me as we sat down, curling her legs up underneath her. ‘You look a little bewildered, honey. This all a bit strange for you? Only, you look as though you belong here.’
That was nice to hear, but I wasn’t ready to share my life story with another stranger just yet, not when I hadn’t even started sharing it with the man I was sleeping with. ‘Things have moved quite fast for me in the past few days, that’s all,’ I said, leaning forward and clasping my hands between my knees. ‘Me and Eddie it’s… it’s been a bit of a whirlwind, let’s put it that way.’
She smiled again. And again a wave of calm washed over me. I was beginning to really like Kaley. Whoever she was, she seemed to be someone else who could make me feel instantly comfortable in this strange environment. ‘Eddie’s a great guy, Lana. You’re very lucky. I know a lot of the women who hang around here would do anything they could to become a part of his life, but he’s just never shown any interest in that side of things. He can be a bit of a closed book in that respect, when he wants to be.’
I looked at her, and she laughed, reaching out to touch my arm.
‘Oh, honey, I’m not one of those women. I belong to Nate. I’m his old lady, which means I’m out of bounds to anyone else, but I’m sure you already know that.’
I knew enough. I knew that when a woman became a biker’s ‘old lady’ – a term that wasn’t, in any way, meant as derogatory – it meant commitment. It meant monogamy. It meant nobody else touched her, or even looked at her in that way. I knew enough bikers back home to have picked that much up.
‘Yeah. I know that.’
‘So, has Eddie asked you to be his old lady yet?’
I looked down at my clasped hands, aware that I was wringing them slightly, and I pulled them apart, trying to adopt a more relaxed position. ‘I don’t think our relationship has quite reached that point,’ I replied, kind of wishing Eddie would hurry up with that beer now.
‘You look good together. You should know that.’ She smiled again, standing up and leaving me with a wink.
‘You’ve met Kaley, then?’ Eddie sat down next to me, handing me a bottle.
‘Yeah. She seems nice.’
He took a long drink of beer, looking over at Kaley as she slid her arm around Nate’s waist, leaning in to him for a quick kiss. ‘She’s a good person. She’s good for Nate. And he needs someone like her, after everything he’s been through.’
I frowned slightly, wondering if it would be too forward of me to ask exactly what it was Nate had been through because, even though I didn’t know the guy, I was kind of curious. Everything about this place was making me curious. Especially the way Eddie seemed to have adopted a slightly harder edge to him since we’d walked in here.
He turned to look at me. ‘Nate’s wife, Deanne, she died a few months back. There was a…’ He looked down at his hands for a brief second before meeting my eyes again. ‘Sorry, you… you don’t need to know all this. It’s not important.’
‘You want me to be a part of your world, Eddie? Then let me in.’
He looked over at the bar again, his expression changing slightly, a look of something I couldn’t really describe clouding his features. It was too soon for me to be pushing my way this far in, quite obviously. But he’d brought me here.
‘There was a bit of a run-in with another club, an MC operating just outside of BoulderCity. Deanne she…’ He turned to face me again, his eyes serious, ‘… she got caught in the middle, trying to stop Nate from…’
I felt my heart start to race because, somehow, I knew what was coming next.
‘She was shot. Bled out before anyone could do anything to save her.’
‘Oh, my God,’ I whispered, my heart now hammering away inside me, my eyes refusing to leave his. ‘Oh, Jesus, Eddie…’
He put his beer down, reaching out for my hand, his fingers sliding between mine and I clung onto him. So tight I never wanted to let him go. ‘Kaley she… she was there for him, you know? She got him through it, because without her I think he would have crumbled, lost it…’ His eyes dipped, focusing on our joined hands. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that, but…’ He raised his gaze. I’d never shifted mine. ‘If this is too much for you, Lana…’
I shook my head, although, what he’d told me was still something I was trying to take in. And all of a sudden his world seemed a million miles away from mine. Even the new one I’d made for myself with Finn. Even that was so far away from this. This was a reality I wasn’t sure I could ever have been prepared for.
‘There’s no need for you to feel scared or in any danger because that kind of thing, that run-in with the other club, that’s rare. I can’t say things like that never happen, because sometimes… sometimes they do. But what happened with Deanne, that’s not the norm, baby. It really isn’t.’
I felt my fingers tighten around his as I continued to stare at him. ‘Are you…? Do you…? You said you were just a group of guys who love bikes, Eddie.’ Christ! How naïve did that make me sound?
‘We are, darlin’. That’s all we are. Everything else is just shit that happens, but we deal with it.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’
He smiled, his hand cupping my cheek, pulling me forward, his mouth touching mine in the lightest of kisses. And once again it was like he was injecting a dose of something calming into me, a beautiful toxin I needed from him. ‘Spend some time here, Lana, and you’ll see how safe it really is. Do you think I’d bring you here if I thought you’d be in any danger?’
I kissed him back, running my fingers through his hair, pressing my mouth against his that little bit harder. ‘If this is your world, Eddie, then I just want to be a part of it, okay? Look, I started whatever this is – we started whatever this is and I’m all for seeing where it takes us.’ That didn’t mean to say that what I’d just heard hadn’t shocked me, because it had. It had shocked me to the core, because it was like something straight off a TV show and being so close to the actual reality was a little unsettling. But I was learning to deal with a lot of things that were out of my comfort zone. This was just something else to add to the list.
He smiled, pulling my legs up and over his, letting one hand run slowly from my ankle to my thigh, his other arm around my waist as he kissed me again. His kisses could calm the strongest of storms going on inside my head. They were capable of blanking out anything I didn’t really want to think about; of making crap disappear. I was starting to find out more about Eddie Fletcher’s world than I’d bargained for and, yeah, it unnerved me slightly but not enough for me to want to give him up. I was a big girl now. I just had to trust him and make sure there were some things I just didn’t share with Finn.
‘We don’t have to hang around here long,’ he whispered, pulling me over so I straddled him, his hands sliding up under my top, the touch of his fingers on my skin causing goose bumps to appear and another of those unfamiliar tiny gasps to escape.
‘Eddie, I’m fine with it. Really.’
‘I haven’t scared you off?’ he asked, arching an eyebrow.
I smiled, leaning forward so my mouth rested against his. ‘You’ll have to try a lot harder than that to scare me off, biker boy.’
He grinned, standing up and lifting me up with him, causing me to let out a little cry of surprise, my legs wrapping around him, my arms clinging onto his neck. ‘Come on, gorgeous. We’re gonna go grab ourselves a few private minutes, alone.’
‘In the bathroom?’
He kicked the door to the rest room open, backing into it. ‘You think you’ve had some great sex so far, darlin’? Just wait ‘til you’ve had sex with Eddie Fletcher in a bathroom stall. This is gonna blow your beautiful mind, kid.’
I gave a surprised shriek, laughing out loud as he backed into one of the stalls, finally putting me down, locking the door behind us. ‘You certainly know how to show a girl a good time,’ I breathed as he pushed me back against the wall, but my heart was racing again, this time for all the right reasons. Suddenly, everything he’d just told me about Nate and Deanne; all those warning bells I’d tried to silence, they were well and truly shut off now as his mouth closed in on mine.
‘You have no idea how good a time I can really show you.’ He smiled, his mouth almost touching mine, but then he pulled away slightly. ‘Turn around.’
I cocked my head, narrowing my eyes just a little.
‘I won’t hurt you, Lana. I promise.’
I waited a couple of beats before saying anything, letting the intensity build. ‘Unless I want you to,’ I whispered, letting a slow smile spread across my face, and he returned it, causing another spark of electricity to fly between us.
‘Unless you want me to,’ he said quietly, his hand resting lightly against the side of my neck, his thumb stroking it, pressing just that little bit harder. ‘Now turn around.’
I did as he said, turning so I faced the wall, closing my eyes as he gently pushed my hair away from my neck, kissing it so lightly I felt the most incredible shiver wash over my entire body. His hands slowly moved down, loosening my jeans, pulling them down around my ankles, along with my underwear, and I couldn’t stop the tiniest of moans from escaping as his knee pushed my legs as far apart as they would go. I knew what was coming, and I both craved it and feared it. But I wanted him so much, whichever way it had to come.
His hands covered mine either side of my head, our fingers sliding together, his mouth close to my ear again, whispering into it, words that excited me so much I could literally feel myself becoming wet, and that need for him intensified, an almost unbearable, physical pain taking over as I waited for him to push inside me. And when he did, when I finally felt his body join with mine I didn’t care that I couldn’t hold down the long, low moan that seemed to come from somewhere deep within me. I only cared about what was happening, right there, between us.
His body slammed against me, each thrust becoming harder and faster, and I pushed back against him, taking him as deep as I could because when he hit that spot… I’d never felt anything like it. Never even known that feeling could exist; that he could touch me so deep inside and make my whole body shudder wit
h something so intense, so incredibly beautiful that I almost cried when I came. With his body right up against mine, our hands joined, his mouth touching the back of my neck – I was in the kind of heaven that even my dreams hadn’t let me enter. So what if some people saw this as something sordid and dirty – sex in a bathroom stall wasn’t exactly classy. But, Jesus, it was exciting!
I felt my muscles tense as his turn to hit the home run came, clenching tight, causing him to moan so loud it vibrated off the walls around us. And when I finally released my inner hold on him, I clung onto his hands, biting down on my lip as he let it all out, pushing himself up against me, his face buried in my hair as the wave subsided. Until his body finally relaxed. He was done. So was I.
‘Jesus Christ, Lana… baby…’ He almost growled those words again, something I loved to hear him to do. As if his voice wasn’t sexy enough, he could somehow make it even hotter.
He slowly pulled out of me and I reached down, yanking my knickers and jeans back up, turning around to face him, unable to keep the smile off my face. ‘Where did you come from, Eddie Fletcher?’
He smiled, too, zipping himself back up, his hand on my hip pulling me against him. ‘It’s where we’re going that matters, darlin’.’
I felt my insides shift on their axis, if that was even possible. In the space of a few days this man had turned my whole world upside down, pushing everything I’d once known further and further away. I was slowly starting to see the kind of future I wanted now. I just didn’t know that the past had other ideas…
12
Propping myself up on my elbow, I ran my fingers lightly over the tattoo that covered most of Eddie’s back – a huge eagle etched in deep-black ink, dark-red blood dripping from its outstretched wings, its mouth wide open as though some terrifying cry was being forced from it. It was both disturbing and fascinating, but beautifully crafted.
Shirley Valentine Goes to Vegas Page 10
