Born to Ride

by Kasey Millstead

  She cracks an eyelid and whispers, “Stop staring at me, it’s weird.”

  “Eat me,” I reply and scoop her up until she’s lying on top of me. She sits herself up and I can’t resist trailing my hands over her gorgeous tits. She wiggles a little, like she’s suddenly ticklish, and my cock jumps around excitedly like it’s going to see some. Fuck. I feel like I’ve been in a state of perm-a-wood ever since I met this girl. She spears her bottom lip with her teeth and says, “Okay” before trailing her mouth down my neck and chest. She hovers over the tattoo on my left pec. Surprise twists her face as her eyes zero in on the name written in cursive, hidden there amongst an eerie moonlit cemetery. I tense.

  Don’t ask me about it, I think. Not now.

  For a moment I think she’s going to, and then she lowers her gaze and brings her mouth to my stomach, licking and kissing and sucking all the way. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  When she reaches my navel I grab her wrist, stopping her from going any further, “Ana, you don’t have to do that.”

  “And if I want to?”

  Fuck me! Does she have any idea what that does to a man? It looks like she might, because she smiles this sneaky little smile and dips her head lower, taking me into her mouth. Her hand follows her lips up the length of my cock and back down again.

  Oh fuck.

  I’ve never had a problem staying the course, but holy mother of nun cunts, am I about to lose my shit like twelve-year-old at his first glance of pink bits in Playboy. I fist my hand in her hair, gently at first, and then harder. The urge to push her head back and forth until I’m defiling her beautiful mouth is so strong that I force my hand to go limp, so I won’t hurt her.

  I’ve played this game too many times to count. The players are different, but the rules never change. Until now. Until her. All the rules are different now, and I’d do anything not to fuck it up. This is what I think about as her delicate little mouth milks every last drop of come from my cock. I just had the most incredible woman sucking me off and she’s got me so fucking tied up in knots that I forgot to enjoy the simplicity and base nature of it all. I missed the whole God damn thing!

  Ana smiles coyly up at me, and then crawls up the bed and tucks herself in under my arm. I automatically pull her closer and kiss the top of her head. She lets out a contented sigh, and I feel her relax further into me. We lie in the patch of sunlight streaming in across the bed and she traces the tattoos on my arms and chest until she falls asleep.

  I’m too wired to fall asleep. My brain is buzzing from the high and a million thoughts swarm my head. Despite the morning’s workout, my body is itching to move, to get up, to run. Instead, I hold Ana while she naps. I stare at the ceiling and wonder what the hell I’ve done, and what I’m going to do now. It doesn’t matter which way I look at it: when it comes to Ana Belle, I’m completely fucking screwed.

  Ana

  The minute I set foot in the house Dad is on me. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You up and disappeared, without a word, Ana. Not to mention the fact that you drove while drinking.”

  “Okay, first of all, I wasn’t drunk. I’d stopped drinking at least two hours before I drove anywhere, and I told Holly where I was going—”

  “Holly is not your father!” Dad booms.

  “Why are we even having this conversation? I’m an adult, Dad. It’s time you started treating me like one.”

  “You’re not an adult, Ana. You might be nineteen, but that doesn’t mean you know what’s best for you.”

  “Oh, and you do? Okay, Dad, let’s talk about what’s best for me. Is it dating one of your biker club friends and becoming an empty shell of a woman waiting by the window for my husband to come home after he’s finished screwing clubhouse whores, like the rest of the old ladies? Is it staying in this shitty, fucked up town, marrying one of the dickheads I went to school with and running the pie shop for the rest of my life? Hey, you know what? Why not throw in raising Sammy, too, since you and your whore of a wife seem too busy with your bike club to take care of the kid she spat out of her gaping vagina? Why not just throw the kid in and hammer that last nail in my coffin?”

  “You watch your tone, missy,” he hisses.

  “No, Dad. You watch yours,” I spit back.

  “Let’s get one thing straight. While you live in this house, you live by my rules. You come home at a decent hour, not 3 pm the next day, wearing the same clothes you had on last night. That’s how shit gets started in places like this, Ana. You want more of those rumours floating around that you’re the town bike? You want me to get hauled back to the station for punching out some other fucker that’s been running his mouth?”

  “Are you done insinuating that I’m some giant fucking whore?” I fold my arms over my chest. “You wanna know where I was all night, Dad? At Elijah’s motel room. And since you’re so damn concerned about it, my virtue is still very much intact.”

  His eyes go saucer-wide, like he cannot believe I just said that. Come to think of it, I can’t believe I just said that. Call me crazy, but the fact that my dad thought I was a slut, along with the rest of the town, broke my heart into a million tiny pieces. As angry as I am with him, and as grown-up as I claim to be, I’m still his little girl, and it cuts to the bone to hear how low his opinion of me really is.

  “Yeah, Dad, still a virgin. But thanks for your vote of confidence.” I throw my keys on the table, grab a hair tie from the phone caddy on the bench and yank my hair back into a messy bun. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to spend the next eight hours of my free time making pies for this town that thinks so highly of me.”

  Dad stands there looking absolutely crushed. His mouth is working but no words are coming out. Sticking it to him like that should have made me feel better, but it doesn’t. It makes me feel just as ashamed as when he’d insinuated I was a whore. That’s the thing about guilt; it always leaves you feeling cheap.

  “Ana ...” he begins, but I wave him off and head for my room.

  “Forget it, Dad. I have to get to work.” I close the door and allow myself a minute or two for the tears pricking my eyes to fall.

  * * *

  I have maybe twenty pies lining the countertops when I hear Elijah’s bike pulling in around back. I smile to myself, thinking of the better part of the day when my dad wasn’t accusing me of being a whore and I was instead partaking in activities where I could perhaps still be considered one. I marvel at how small I felt in his hands and at how quickly he was able to blow my world apart for the third time today when he pushed me up against the cool shower tile.

  I’m still smiling as I pour melted chocolate into the recipe base for the pie that Elijah inspired, and I’m halfway to creating another recipe in my head when I hear the front door bang back on its hinges and my dad come tearing out of the house and across the gravel walkway toward Elijah. “CADE!”

  Oh crap! I throw the spatula down on the bench and run for the door. My dad has Elijah by the collar of his jacket, holding him up against the back of the shop and, despite being younger, taller and musclier than Dad, Elijah’s hands are up in surrender. “I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t pursue her, I swear. It just happened.”

  “So you think that makes it okay? Because she came to you? She’s nineteen, she doesn’t know what the fuck she wants.”

  “Dad!” I snap and the two of them glance at me. Dad backs off, but only enough so that there’s maybe an inch or two more space between them, and he’s no longer holding onto Elijah’s collar.

  “Bob, your daughter’s old enough to know what she wants.” Elijah runs a hand over the back of his neck and then looks at me a little sheepishly. “For God’s sake look at her. Have you ever seen a more put together nineteen-year-old? Look, you’re my boss. I respect you immensely. I respect your family and your family’s reputation in this town, but your daughter? There aren’t enough words to describe how much I think of her.”


  “Oh, I know exactly what you think of her. You and every other young prick in this town—”

  My father is getting riled up again. His face is beet red and he practically has steam pouring out his ears. I wedge myself between them and gently push at his broad chest. “Dad, back off. What happens between Elijah and I is none of your business.”

  He puts his hand over mine and looks down at me, “You’re my little girl; everything you do is my business.”

  I shake my head and give him a sad smile. “No. It’s not. I can’t be a little girl forever, Dad. I’m not a little girl. I haven’t been since Mum died.”

  “Aww, hell, kiddo.” Dad sniffs, and then, I guess to prove he’s not a complete pansy—because the definition of a “sheila” in my father’s eyes is a grown man who cries—he turns away from me and spits on the ground before taking a step back towards the house.

  I glance at Elijah, making sure he’s not already planning to run for the hills. He gives me an odd but warm smile, and then his eyes widen when he sees my dad turn around again.

  “Hey, kiddo, I’m sorry for what I said earlier. I didn’t mean it. I don’t mean it.”

  I smile, because despite the fact that he can be a big and scary beast of a man at times, underneath he’s like a puppy dog—albeit one with a mean bite—but mostly, I smile because, in my entire nineteen years, this is the first time I’ve ever heard my dad say sorry, to anyone. “Don’t worry about it, Dad. I know you’re just trying to look out for me.”

  He nods like he’s satisfied with that answer and then points a finger at Elijah. “You remember what I said last night. You think on it long and hard before you make any decisions that affect her or you’ll be seeing the wrong end of a shotgun. You got it?”

  Oh god, please tell me he didn’t just threaten to have Elijah killed if he broke my heart? And suddenly Elijah’s speedy exit from the party last night makes perfect sense.

  It’s Elijah’s turn to nod. “Yeah, I got it.”

  “I’m gonna need you at work bright and early Monday mornin’. You good with that?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Elijah replies and Dad walks back up the stairs and inside the house.

  I snag my lip between my teeth and glance awkwardly at Elijah. “Hi.”

  His smooth chocolate eyes fasten onto me and his lips tip up in the corner so that I know exactly what he’s thinking. “Hi.”

  “What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting to see you until tomorrow.”

  He moves closer, until we’re standing toe to toe and I’m close enough to feel his warm breath on the top of my hair. “I kept thinking of you, all alone in that big old kitchen making pies. Then, naturally, I thought of how good your pie tasted and how I wanted to taste it over and over again.”

  Somehow I didn’t think we’re talking about pastries, anymore.

  “That so?” I squeaked.

  “Mmm, that’s so.” He runs a finger up my arm, over my collarbone and cups the nape of my neck in his hand. He leans in as though he’s about to kiss me and there’s a moment of terrible, delicious torture as I wait for him to bring his lips down to mine, but he presses them into my cheek in a soft, slightly wet kiss instead. “Plus, if I have to choke down another cardboard microwave meal, my stomach’s never gonna forgive me.”

  “And who says I’m going to let you taste my pie again?”

  “Baby girl, five minutes alone with me and you’re gonna be begging me to taste your pie.”

  “Well, I guess it was pretty brave of you to show your face in front of my dad after I spent the night in your motel room. Surely you deserve some kind of reward for your heroism? You get that he’s hurt people for a lot less, right?”

  He chuckles and pulls me through the kitchen door. “Yeah, I got that.”

  “And you get that you’re not getting a free meal here, right? I mean, if I have to work, then so the hell do you.”

  “Wait, you really want me to help you cook pie?”

  “No, I want you to stand there like some Greek Adonis looking all ridiculous and cute. Of course you’re going to help.” He looks as though he’s about to protest again so I arch my brow and say, “So help me god, if you say anything about a man’s place not being in the kitchen I’m going to kick your ass, Cade.”

  He puts his hands up in mock surrender. “Wasn’t gonna.”

  “Good.” I rifle through the drawer and pull out two aprons. “Now, do you want the pink, or the yellow with cupcakes? Personally, I think the pink is really more your style.”

  Elijah

  Someone was pounding on my door and that someone was about to get their head pounded in. I was sweaty, my head felt like it’d gone a couple of rounds with Tyson and I ached from head to friggin’ toe. Ana’s kid brother had come home from school last week sporting a nasty case of a zombie virus and had since shared it all around. Because sharing is caring. I’d tried to keep my distance, but seeing as Ana spends half her time with Sam and I spend the majority of my time with her, I’d ended up being one of the infected, too. Oddly enough, this damn flu had hit everyone in her family, but Ana seemed immune.

  The pounding in my head and on my front door continues until I finally roll out of bed, snatch up the half empty bottle of vodka on my bedside table and take a hefty swig. It burns like a bitch the entire way down and feels even worse sitting in my empty stomach, but if it’ll help to burn out this flu then I’ll down the whole bottle now just so I can feel better and get back to work.

  Still nursing the bottle, I stumble over to the door, wrapped in a blanket and a pair of trackies. I pull the door back, and Ana’s face is the one that greets me, so I have to rethink my plan of pounding in her head because that would just suck. Plus she looks like a fucking goddess in those jeans.

  “Hey. How you feeling?”

  I just stare at her. I’m sure my sweaty, glassy-eyed, crackhead appearance says it all. “You look awful.”

  “Feel it, too. You shouldn’t be here, babe, you’re gonna get sick.”

  “I never get sick and I got Holly to cover my shift for me so,” she holds her hand out for me to shake and says in a breathy, sexy voice that has my Johnson twitching in my pants, “hi, I’m Ana, and I’ll be your nurse for the rest of the day.”

  “Oh good, ‘cause I have this ache in my pants that could use some TLC.” I smirk and take another swig.

  “Nice try. How about you give me the bottle—” she reaches out to take it but I hold it above my head.

  “How ‘bout you get drunk with me, instead?”

  “Give me the bottle, Elijah, before I hurt you.” She’s serious, too. On any other occasion I might have taken her up on that offer, but in my current state I’ve probably got all the coordination of a newborn baby, and no man wants to emasculate themselves in front of the girl they have perm-a-wood for. I hand over the bottle and surrender myself over to her care.

  “Good boy, now go and lie down.” I waggle my eyebrows and she gives me her serious face before a laugh escapes. Even though my ears and nose are full of crap and my hearing’s reduced by about 50 per cent, her laugh is still the best fucking sound I’ve ever heard. “I made you some soup with dry toast. I have tissues, cough medicine, throat lozenges and every Fast and the Furious movie ever released on DVD.”

  “Baby girl, what are you doin’ with a guy like me?”

  “The same thing you’re doing with a girl like me.” My head is much too messy to even begin trying to work that shit out, so I trudge back to bed and watch her fine arse in those jeans instead.

  Within minutes Ana is beside me, fluffing pillows and forcing medicine down my throat that tastes far worse than vodka ever could. Then she feeds me dry toast and the best chicken soup I’ve ever had—come to think of it I can’t remember a time when I ever ate chicken soup before this, but I’m sure even if I had, it was never this good. She slips a DVD in the player when I’m done and settles into the crook of my arm.

  About twenty minutes in I remember she hasn’
t eaten anything, and when I say as much she replies, “I ate before I came.”

  I press my lips into her hair, slide my arm a little higher up her waist and whisper, “Say it again.”

  “What?”

  “Came.”

  She laughs and I slide my hand up over her perfect tits and tilt her head up to mine to kiss her. I know I shouldn’t, but she’s here watching the ultimate guy movie with me and she made me chicken soup and forced medicine down my throat—and yes, she took away the vodka but that was probably for the best, too—and it occurs to me right then, in my fever heady state, that I’ve never had anyone take care of me before the way she does. And then it occurs to me that I could get used to having her care for me.

  Too used to it.

  My heart pounds around my chest uncontrollably. Fuck, when did I become such a complete pussy?

  “Oh my god, you’re like some twisted little sex fiend when you’re sick.” She sits up and climbs over me until she’s straddling my waist. I lift her hips and seat her back down over my cock, which has been rock hard since she curled up next to me.

  “Darlin’, nothing about me is little.”

  She lets out a breathy laugh which is one part humour and all parts desire. “I can see that.”

  She rocks back and forth gently over me. I can feel the heat of her sweet, hot pussy through her jeans and I sink my fingers into her hipbones, but it isn’t enough. I tug at her jeans.

  “Off,” I grunt. “Everything off.”

  “You’re kinda bossy when you’re sick, too,” she teases. “I like it.”

  “Yeah?”

  She bites her bottom lip. “Yeah.”

  “Then take these damn clothes off and I’ll boss you around all you like.”

  “Yes, sir.” She slips off the bed, careful not to take her eyes off me as she undresses. Once her t-shirt is off I know why: her bra is completely sheer. Seriously, there’s like the thinnest scrap of ... whatever the hell they make women’s underwear out of between her full, beautiful tits and the world, and all I want to do is run my mouth over the fabric and tear it with my teeth. She smiles like she knows exactly what I’m thinking and slowly peels off her jeans, revealing a matching see-through-as-fuck G-string that definitely has a date with my teeth.