by Jenika Snow
Vengeance turned his head slightly, his focus still on the road, but his mouth closer to her so she could hear what he was about to say. “How’s this feel?”
She grinned.
“Like I’m flying,” she shouted, trying to be heard over the rumble of the engine.
The feeling of this powerful, massive bike beneath her, rumbling, vibrating the sensitive area between her thighs, had her turned on. Or maybe it was the excitement of being on this bike, Vengeance the only solid thing keeping her stationed.
He slowed, even though they were still on the back roads, and she swore this wave of wildness rose up in her. Could she do it? Did she even want to? For so long she’d kept how she felt buried, hidden. She’d played by the rules, made sure she didn’t cross any lines. She survived, but she wasn’t really living.
So, feeling like for once in her life she was just going to take that next step, Constance braced her feet firmly down, held onto Vengeance’s shoulders, and rose slightly.
Her knees shook, like warm pudding in a bowl, but she embraced it.
“Constance, what the fuck are you doing?” Vengeance said, but there was this laugh in his voice.
Of course she’d never done anything so wild or dangerous before, but she was tired of toeing the line, playing by the rules.
She was now standing, her hands on Vengeance’s shoulders, her nails digging into his leather vest. She felt him slow the bike even more and she closed her eyes, letting the feeling of really being free, of nothing holding her down rush through her.
It was intoxicating, invigorating.
The wind seemed fiercer up here, like she was on top of a building, the world rushing beneath her, the act of falling so close.
“You’re fucking crazy, woman.” He was laughing as he spoke.
For once in her life she felt like she was actually alive, and she didn’t want that to end.
Chapter 5
For the first time in his life, Vengeance didn’t want this moment to end, but like all good things, it had to. He rode back toward the cemetery where he’d first met her, and turned off his engine.
Constance climbed off the back of his bike and removed the helmet. They were near a street light so he could see her in the dark, and her face was aglow, as if she was completely enthralled and happy. It was a far cry from how he had first seen her. She had looked sad, even if she hadn’t cried.
“That was like the coolest thing ever,” she said, giggling.
He couldn’t help but join her, smiling. Taking the helmet from her, he secured it to the bike and climbed off. She was so small compared to him. With the way she had been pressed up against him, he knew she had curves in all the right places, at least all the places that he loved.
“Don’t you think it’s sad that I think the biggest highlight of my life was being on that bike?”
“Not getting engaged?” he asked.
“You do pay attention.” Her smile seemed to widen, and she pressed a hand to his chest.
“I have no choice but to pay attention. When I’m with my club it could be the difference between life or death.”
She nodded. “And you do not want to die.”
“I’d like to live a bit longer.” He couldn’t resist reaching out and stroking her cheek, which was warm, yet soft to the touch.
“I loved my fiancé.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, I did. I loved him so much, and getting married seemed like the right thing to do. I knew it was what my parents wanted, and it was what he wanted.”
“What did you want?”
She paused, frowning. “I don’t know.”
“Did you want to get married?” he asked.
Again, she shrugged. “I really don’t know. I just did what everyone expected of me, you know.”
“I do actually.” They stood still, both breathing a little heavily as they stared at each other. “Is that what you’ve done your whole life, what everyone else expected you to?”
She pulled away and smiled. “I enjoyed tonight, Vengeance. Thank you.”
“I’ll take your change of heart as a yes.” He watched as she tucked some hair behind her ear, her hand shaking. “When was the last time you did something for yourself?”
Constance looked at him, and then at the bike. “I just did.”
He frowned.
“My parents and my fiancé would have considered those death machines. I did what I wanted to do, not what I thought I should do. It was nice, and I had a lot of fun.”
There was that sparkle to her eyes again, and he loved it. He loved knowing that he was the one who had put it there.
“I’m glad I was able to give you a lot of fun.” He winked and watched as she blushed. “You blush as well. That’s good to know.”
“Shut up. I’m going to go now, and it was lovely to meet you.”
“Don’t think you won’t see me again. I know where to find you.” He pointed toward the cemetery. “Anytime you want a ride, give me a call.”
“I don’t know your number.”
“You saw my club, and our clubhouse has a phone. You ask for me, and I will be here as soon as I can.”
“You’d do that for me?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.
What was it about this woman that was driving him crazy? His cock thickened, and he wanted to do nothing more than take her to a bed and fuck her senseless, and yet at the same time, he wanted to wait, to get to know her, to understand her.
This shit was just crazy.
“You’d be surprised what I’m willing to do for a pretty girl like you.”
“I’m not pretty.”
“I think that’s for me to say if you are, and for you to take it as a compliment.”
She chuckled. “See you around, Vengeance.”
He watched as she climbed into her car and drove off. Interesting, completely interesting.
Constance stepped back from her arrangement of flowers, and then retreated once more. They were supposed to be clustered together, and the thorns removed for the bride.
“So, the rumor mill is talking about you,” Julie, the owner, said, coming toward her.
“Really?”
“Yeah, rumor is, you were on a motorcycle last night with some hot biker dude.”
Julie was one of her mom’s friends, who had given her this job straight out of high school. Brando had told her that ladies loved flowers, that it was proper for her to get a feminine job, to be delicate, innocent. Right now she could really roll her eyes and mock the girl she had been for listening to that bullshit.
Yeah, she had loved him, a lot, but at times he had been overbearing, condescending, and made her feel less than what she was. And then when she’d question herself and why she was with him, he’d be sweet, gentle, and so very loving. Being alone had been her fear. Because she’d been so weak back then, afraid of even herself, of being alive in her own skin, she’d stayed with him.
Of course she wouldn’t dream of telling anyone how she’d felt. It was kind of amazing how often people seemed to change ... how she’d changed.
“It was nothing,” she finally said.
“It didn’t sound like nothing. You know your mother would worry about you.”
She gritted her teeth. It was easier to keep her thoughts and her anger to herself. No one wanted to know what she really thought, how she felt. Everyone just assumed that she wanted to be a good girl, and do exactly as her mother had said.
“I met someone, and he gave me a ride on his bike. I was perfectly safe. I was safe.”
“And if something would have happened?”
“Then it would have happened. My parents and Brando played their life safe, Julie, and look what happened to them. They still ended up dead, okay? I took a chance and I’m here trying to arrange flowers, and failing miserably. I know what I’m doing.” She didn’t have a clue.
From the moment she’d seen Vengeance at the cemetery, and he had sat with her, something had c
hanged. He’d not looked at her as if she was some kind of crazy person for staring at her parents’ and fiancé’s headstones in the middle of the night. He had seen her, and she couldn’t recall the last time someone had looked at her in a way that made her feel noticed. He’d seen her for herself. It was crazy, she knew that and understood it, but there was no changing from what he had awoken.
“Maybe you should go to lunch, and just calm down.” Julie pulled her close and kissed her head.
Yeah, fresh air would do her good. She grabbed her bag, headed outside, and went across the street to the little coffee shop. After grabbing a cup of coffee, she took a seat at the table by the window, eating her lunch and staring at people outside. Some glanced her way, and gave her that sad smile that they seemed to think made everything okay.
Out in public, she kept to herself. Blowing out a breath, she stared at her food. She wanted that feeling again. The freedom of living, of basking in the glow of the slight danger from doing something that was completely naughty.
Pulling out her cell phone, she typed the Soldiers clubhouse into an Internet search and waited. Although she assumed she wouldn’t find anything, Constance was surprised when a number came up in the search results. Maybe she should have, but she didn’t even hesitate as she called it.
“Yeah?”
A moment of silence stretched on. Had she called the right number? Was this an actual direct line to a biker group? Surely they had to be kind of legitimate, right?
“Um, is this the Soldiers of Wrath Clubhouse?”
“Yeah. This is Weasel. Who the hell is this?”
Her heart thundered hard. “Can I speak to Vengeance?”
“Who is this?” His voice was hard, cold.
“Tell him it’s Constance.”
There was silence, and then in the distance she heard a shout. Glancing around the café, she couldn’t help but smile. Julie, everyone around her, they all expected something specific from her. A routine. Her mother had told her she had to uphold the family name, and with that, it meant not doing anything stupid or rebellious. She had to think about more than herself.
They were gone. She could think of herself now. She could be alive and free, trying to live for herself, and not the idea of what someone else wanted.
“Hello, sweetness,” Vengeance said. “What can I do for you?”
Hearing his voice had her body tightening, her heart racing. She glanced down, still smiling. “Does your offer for a ride still stand?” she asked.
“You want to go for another ride?”
“Yeah, I really do.”
Chapter 6
“So tomorrow then?” Constance said, her voice soft, sweet, and doing all kinds of things to him.
“Yeah, I’ll pick you up from work.”
“Sounds great.”
He disconnected the call, stared at the wall, and wondered if this was how Demon and all the other brothers felt when they’d found the females they wanted in their lives.
She’d found out where he was, , although that probably wouldn’t have been that hard, but hell, he felt pretty fucking good.
Truth was he already knew her details—her full name, her address, phone number. Fuck, she’d probably think he was a stalker if she knew all the digging he’d done on her. But it wasn’t like that. He felt this connection with her, and he didn’t want to pass it up as this one time he met a girl in a graveyard.
He hung the phone up, thinking about their plans for tomorrow.
“What was that about?” Weasel asked, amusement in his voice.
“It was about none of your fucking business.”
Weasel flipped him off, and Vengeance chuckled. The brothers in the club were nosy fuckers, always wanting to know what the fuck was going on with everyone else. This was a family, after all, but still, he wanted to keep what he had felt with Constance to himself. He wanted her, that was undeniable, but opening up about any of it, especially with a fellow Patch, was not what he wanted right now.
He headed down the hall, opened the door that led to the basement, and once at the landing he turned the light on. They stored a lot of shit down here, but there was a punching bag, some old as fuck weights, and privacy.
The latter was why Vengeance worked out down here instead of in the main workout room they had set up.
He took his cut and shirt off, started warming up by bouncing on the balls of his feet and cracking his neck, and went to town on the bag. He kept at it until he was sweaty, the hours seemed to pass, and his knuckles were bruised, the skin starting to open up.
The entire time he thought of Constance, what he wanted with her, and how he wanted to keep her close. How in the fuck was he going to keep his cool when what he wanted, what he felt like he needed in his heart, was her in his life?
She stared at the rose, the yellow color meaning friendship. The bud was perfect, the stem long. The thorns on it were deadly, but the intent and message clear.
Beauty can be dangerous and painful.
Constance ran her finger over the stem, her thoughts on Vengeance, on their plans for tomorrow. He’d been happy to hear from her, and she’d felt this flutter of excitement at that, at the fact his voice had lit up when she’d spoken.
That gentleness, that feeling like when he looked at her he really saw who she was, seemed to go against the whole biker persona she had in her head. Sure, he was dangerous, and could be violent to those who crossed him, but then he showed her a different side.
Vengeance showed her that with that darkness there was light. She had her own demons, her own misgivings about the world, herself, and of course life. But when she was with Vengeance, even if it had just been for that one night, she felt like none of that mattered.
The sharp pain that sliced through her finger had her gasping. She looked at the digit, the thorn having gone through the soft pad of her index finger. She watched the blood well up, that little bead of redness making her transfixed, almost mesmerized.
“Oh, honey.” Abigail, one of the older women who worked at the flower shop part time, handed her a napkin. “Be careful. Roses can be fickle bitches.”
The bell above the door rang, and Abigail went to help the customer. Constance’s mind went to Vengeance again.
Could it be possible to feel that connection with someone so soon? Could the whole insta…whatever, be real? She really wanted to believe it.
She really wanted to believe that being meek and delicate, trying to pretend that life wasn’t about danger and adventure, wasn’t how she should be.
But the thought of Vengeance, the thrill she felt with him, make her believe there was more in this world than she ever thought.
And that was invigorating.
Chapter 7
He wasn’t some fucking teenager. He was a grown fucking man, and yet Vengeance was nervous. This was the first time he’d actually taken the time to care about going on a date with a woman. The club whores were always there, always available for cock, no matter who you were.
Constance wasn’t anything like those women. Besides the fact she sat near graveyards at night, and not on dicks, when he was with her, he felt something. She was different, but not a weird kind of different, just … different.
Climbing off his bike, he waited for her to come out of her home, and he didn’t have to wait long. There she came, looking ready for a ride. She wore jeans that seemed to mold to every curve of her body.
“Hey,” she said with a hint of a smile on her face. “How are you?”
“I’m doing great.”
“Are you sure you don’t mind coming out here, giving me a ride?”
He had several erotic images of just how good she could ride him. Pushing them to the back of his mind, he simply smiled. “I didn’t mind at all. I wasn’t doing anything.”
She tucked some hair behind her ear, and he reached for his helmet. “No, please. Don’t make me wear that thing. I want to feel the wind in my hair and on my face. I don’t want to be stuffed
inside a horrible helmet that has probably seen way too many germs to count.”
“You’re the only one that has worn it,” he said.
Constance frowned. “Huh?”
“I don’t have any bitches at my back when I’m riding. I have the helmet but no one has ever worn it.”
“Wait, you’re telling me no one has been on the back of your bike?”
“No one I care about if we have an accident.” Shit, had he said the wrong thing?
She stared at him, hand on her hip. “You think we’ll have an accident?”
“Nope. I’m damn good and haven’t had an accident in years. However, doesn’t mean there isn’t some asshole drunk who’ll veer into my path, and then let’s say, the rest is history. I’m not willing to take a chance that you could get hurt. Are you?”
He loved it when she tilted her head to the side, and she stared at him. He had to wonder what was going around her brain. The tip of her tongue slid across her lip, and it teased him in more ways than he wanted to imagine.
“I can see your point. Still. This sucks.”
He chuckled.
“I don’t know if I want to go on a ride anymore.”
Now, that simply wouldn’t do.
“Put the damn helmet on. When we get to a spot that I’m happy with, you can take it off until we head back home.”
She gave a little squeal and then placed the helmet firmly on her head.
He hadn’t been lying about the helmet. There hadn’t been a woman on the back of his bike in a long time. He didn’t believe in riding bitches that were not his women. It was just some personal code that he stuck by and refused to back down.
Constance wrapped her arms around his waist and seemed to snuggle in his back. “Where are we going?” she asked.
They were just going to hit the road and not look back. “Try not to be too afraid.”
She wasn’t afraid.
