by Karen Renee
Cal grinned at me. “I think you’re right.”
Then Cal got tense because his phone had vibrated against his hip. When he looked at the display, he went ramrod-straight, and I focused on the last bites of my quesadilla.
“Seriously, Volt. I know that, and any other time I would be there.”
Cal took in a sharp breath at whatever the caller had to say to him. “Are you shittin’ me?”
I chewed the last bite of my chicken quesadilla, and then swallowed the last of my margarita to wash it down. Bliss. So much bliss, I was not quite in tune to the fury emanating from Cal.
“Right. Be there ASAP, brother.”
He put his phone back on his hip, and dug his wallet out of his back pocket. He put some bills on the table to cover our bill, and then he said, “Sorry, sweet cheeks. We gotta split. I’m needed at the clubhouse like five minutes ago. Gonna have to ride hell for leather back via the interstate. No Sunday drive for you through Riverside.”
I nodded, “Okay, well, I still have things to organize at my house after the break-in, so it’s all good.”
Cal’s hand wrapped around my neck and gave a gentle squeeze, “I don’t think you get it Mal. You’re comin’ with me. I don’t have time to drop you back at your place and then hit the club. You’re gonna stay in my room at the compound. No arguments.”
I liked the squeeze a lot, but I really did not want to hit the “club.” So I said, “I do not –”
Cal kissed me very hard, pressing me into the booth. The kiss was downright brutal with forceful tongue swipes that made my breath catch in my throat and a lightheadedness not associated with margaritas take hold of my head.
He broke the kiss abruptly, and said, “I said ‘no arguments,’ woman!”
I had never heard of the term “riding hell for leather” before, but I would never forget it. If I was semi-freaked out about being on Blanding Boulevard, I was absolutely with a capital-F Freaked out about riding with Cal back to his MC compound. Yet, all of that said, I would do it again in a heartbeat, for as scary as it was, it was equally exhilarating, if not more so. And that is saying something, because I know how crazy Jacksonville drivers are, so I was exceptionally scared and Freaked. I was plastered to Cal’s back, and if I could have had my own way, I would have become a second skin on his back. He took the thirty-degree-angle left hand turn from I-10 onto I-295 at probably 55 miles per hour, even though the posted recommended speed was 45 at best. We got off I-295 at 103rd Street, and once on the four-lane thoroughfare Cal took it upon himself to ride in between vehicles! I cringed when he turned right on to Blanding Boulevard and rode as fast as he could up the designated bus lane. Had I been more biker-passenger savvy, I’d have pounded on Cal’s shoulder to tell him to stop it, but I was a total novice at being on the back of a bike.
We turned right off of Blanding on to Townsend road. I had not been down this side of the street. On the eastern side there was a drug store, a post office and apartments at the back. We went almost the entire length of the street, then took a left and a large black iron gate opened for the motorcycle to enter. We motored into what I could only assume was the compound. As we did so, I thought I could feel the stares of many people congregated around the forecourt. There might have even been some jaws hanging open, but we were still moving at a decent clip even if it was a slower clip, and therefore, I could have been mistaken.
Cal motored behind a large warehouse-type building and then took me in through the back entrance to the building. He told me there was a kitchen to the immediate right of the back doorway. Then he dragged me to a hallway with multiple doors lining the hall. At the second-to-last door on the right, he pulled out a key, opened the door and we both went in.
He closed the door softly but firmly, and placed his hands on the side of my head with his thumbs next to my ears. “Do not try to leave. Do not listen to anything anyone says. Good, bad, or otherwise. I will be back as soon as I can. I’m the Sergeant-at-Arms, so I got to deal with the shit goin’ down out there. I get my way, that’ll be quick. Then I’ll be back here with you, and we’ll pick up where we left off at Mossfire. Sound good?”
My eyebrows were furrowed. I knew it, because I was confused. I was confused because I couldn’t imagine why I had to be behind a closed door while Cal did whatever it was a Sergeant-at-Arms for an MC did as a Sergeant-at-Arms. Subsequent to all that I said, “No. It doesn’t sound good. Why can’t I go with you? I want to see whatever shit is goin’ on out there. As you might recall, you initially offered for me to come with you to this very barbeque, so if we had done that, I’d be in the thick of whatever is going down. So, I wanna see what it is that I missed.”
Cal’s eyes went to the ceiling. Then they came back to me with a semblance of sympathy, “When I suggested that course of action, you immediately asked if Patch and Vamp would be here. I said yes, and realized you would have been uncomfortable. Three rides on my bike, two of them being exceptionally good and the other one being fan-dam-tastically exciting doesn’t make you a biker babe. Don’t pout at me or give me the big eyes. You know I’m right. You were freaked the fuck out when I split lanes on a Hundred-and-third, and I damn sure didn’t miss it that you didn’t approve of me using the semi-useless bus lane on Blanding. So, no way are you going down to the action and finding out what kind of shit requires my intervention. Nor are you going to find out right yet, what kind of intervention is required of me for said shit. Got it?”
I nodded an affirmative, but truth be told, in no way did I get it. I mean he was pretty special with his muscles and domineering tendencies, but I didn’t understand what made him that special, just because he was the Sergeant-at-Arms. Back in high school and college, our clubs always had a Sergeant-at-Arms position, but they didn’t do too much, seeing as how high school and college clubs had a very subdued crowd compared to the congregation we rolled up on not five minutes ago. Nevertheless, what could one single man possibly do to a large group of hard-partying bikers and their ilk?
Cal gave me a kiss that was a step down from my foyer kiss, but a mild step up from our first kiss. His kiss forced me to stop thinking about Sergeants-at-Arms of any kind and the subduing tactics required. His talents in the kissing department had left me dazed, and Cal gently guided me to a sitting position in a recliner.
All of that brought me back to now. I was behind a very solid door which Cal had locked himself, with a key. This left me trapped inside his room. The lock was a deadbolt, but this deadbolt required a key on either side to lock or unlock. Not two seconds after I heard the key withdraw from the lock, I heard the muffled yelling of what I assumed was a woman.
And if you need reminding, her yelling was to the tune of, “What the hell? What in the God-damned hell, Cal?” None of this sounded good, and my gut told me that somehow my mere presence had instigated this.
I didn’t hear much else, except for Cal lowly growling, “Shut the fuck up. You got no fuckin’ claim on me, so you can damn sure stuff it, bitch. Let’s go. I got other shit to deal with and you need to leave.”
I heard their footsteps retreat down the hallway and I couldn’t hear any further conversation. I stood up from the recliner to take in my surroundings. The set-up was like a small hotel room. There was a petite dresser, upon which sat a flat screen TV and some sort of video game console. A queen-size bed was in the corner with a cherry wood mission-style headboard, but there was no matching footboard. The bed was unmade. Grey sheets were on the bed, and a grey-and-black comforter was rumpled at the foot of the bed. It looked like a Bed-in-a-Bag ensemble. A cherry nightstand with three drawers neighbored the bed. A bathroom was on the far side of the room.
I took off my jacket and laid it on the foot of the bed, and then I used the bathroom. It was a bare-bones set-up. A pedestal sink, a toilet, and a tub/shower combo with a formerly-clear plastic shower curtain. The shower curtain needed a serious dousing with bleach because it looked like the last time it was transparent would have been f
ive or six years ago. A medicine cabinet was in the wall next to the sink. I hurried out of the bathroom before my nosy nature had me peering inside the cabinet. I took my boots off, and laid down on Cal’s bed. I closed my eyes thinking I’d just rest them for a bit. Maybe it was adrenaline from the ride or the margarita, but in no time, I was asleep.
I jolted up when I heard a key scraping into the lock. I sat up and looked at a digital clock on the nightstand. The red digits informed me it was one-thirty-six. I watched Cal close the door and reinsert the key to lock it. He put a bottle on the dresser next to the flat screen. I opened my mouth to lay into him. Since I was not fully awake, Cal spoke before me.
“Sorry, Mallory. I didn’t get my way. It took a long time to sort out that clusterfuck.”
He sat down on the bed, and was tugging off his boots.
“You can stop right there, mister. Keep your boots on, so you can take me home. Pronto. What the fuck? It’s after one-thirty in the morning. You should have just taken me home instead of locking me up in your wanna-be hotel room here at the compound.”
He put a fist into the mattress and leaned toward me. “I’m gonna let that slide. I don’t normally let a lot of things slide, but it is late. I’m disappointed the night went to shit the way it did, but in my life, it can’t be helped. For future reference, sweet cheeks, I don’t take orders from a woman. You might have Gavin, Bobby, and James eating out of your pretty little hand, but that ain’t how I roll. I brought in a bottle of tequila. You’re takin’ a shot, I’m takin’ a shot, we’re gonna loosen up a little, fool around a little. If you’re feelin’ it, we could even fuck a little or hell,” a sly grin flitted across his face, “we could fuck a lot, which would be excellent after the fighting I just did. Either way, then we’re goin’ to sleep, and I don’t plan to get up until noon. Beyond that, we’ll play it by ear.”
My left eyelid started twitching. Not some soft twitch that the body is prone to do every so often, but a full-out, vibrating twitch assault on the top of my eyeball. Definitely stress-induced, because my blood had suddenly rushed to my head from rage. This could not be reality. Who said things like this? Frighteningly, there was a sliver of me who wanted to find out if Cal was as good at fooling around as he was at kissing me. Fortunately, I was now operating on all of my cylinders and I shut that sliver of my mind down.
“You must be joking. Seriously. You have to be joking. It took you some six-and-a-half hours to ‘deal with shit?’ Six plus hours, and you couldn’t have dropped me at my place before coming here. Some woman who has no claim on you came yelling at your door just as you locked me in, and it takes you until after one-fucking-thirty to even get back to this room? On top of that, you think with a simple bottle of Cuervo, you can fool around with me and possibly even fuck me. Think again.”
In the throes of my rant, I had not taken a very close look at Cal. My angry outburst over, I saw that Cal had a small white butterfly bandage on his chin. It appeared a knot was forming on the side of his forehead. He stood up and flexed his hands. I noticed that his right hand was bright pink and a shallow slash was on the top of his left hand.
His hazel eyes were furious. “Dial back the attitude, woman. I got done bustin’ heads over two hours ago, but it took another half hour to get the skanks from the Devil Lancer MC to split. I spent another fifteen minutes havin’ a beer with my brothers while we took care of our wounds. I had to wait my adrenaline out because, you probably don’t know this, but when men fight, it generally leaves them feeling horny as hell. I didn’t want to come in here and give you the wrong impression. Would I like in your pants, fuck, yeah, but you’re not accustomed to this scene. Now, I’m tired as hell, and I want to share a couple shots of tequila with the hot ass that’s been on the back of my bike this evening. You kissed me back with a sweet vengeance at your place when I showed up, and I want another taste of that. You wanna go home, you’re shit out of luck, because I am damn sure not gettin’ back on the road this late on a Saturday.”
I looked at his hands and whispered, “You’ve been fighting.”
His eyes warmed. “Yeah, Mal. It’s part and parcel of being the Sergeant-at-Arms. I’m good at it, and except for when I get called away from what was gonna be a good evening with you, I even like doin’ it. Now, you need salt or lime to chase your Cuervo?”
Chapter 7
I woke up early the next morning in Cal’s room. It was quiet, except for the grumbling of my stomach. Possibly because of our earlier verbal skirmish, or maybe because of our three shots of tequila, Cal didn’t have an arm draped across me. We fooled around a little in between shots two and three, and I was pleased to find out that Cal fooled around better than he kissed. His touches were firm when and where firmness was necessary and he could be excruciatingly tender. Had he not insisted on shot number three, this excellent fooling around might have actually led to sex. However, Jose Cuervo and I visit dreamland at the three to four-ounce mark. The absence of Cal’s arm meant I was able to sneak out of his bed, use the bathroom, and get dressed. I quietly stepped out of his room. I was able to unlock the door because Cal had left the key in the inside lock. Before going to sleep, he informed me that during a lockdown, which there had been about a week prior, the kitchen was well stocked. I still felt like I had some Cuervo sloshing through my veins, so I went to the kitchen in search of some toast and water.
On my hunt for water, I found a woman sitting at a round table with a cup of coffee. She had wavy purple and platinum-blonde hair that was hanging limply on her head. Bags were under her eyes. She looked like she needed sleep, and she needed to wash her face, like five days ago. She was wearing a yellow lace bra which left very damn little to the imagination, not even the small hoop nipple ring in her left breast. The table prevented me from seeing what she was wearing below the waist. Thank God for small blessings. She looked me up and down and scoffed, “Little overdressed, don'tcha think? You must be new. Word to the wise, bitch, the brothers like easy access twenty-four seven.”
If I hated it when men called me “woman,” my temper flared like a match when women called me “bitch.” Maybe it made me uptight, but to my thinking, all of us females had enough to deal with from men. There was no need for women to start calling one another “bitch,” even if it was just a turn of phrase. I bit my tongue almost to the point of drawing blood but not quite, and found a loaf of wheat bread on the counter. I put two slices in the toaster, and with a slightly snippy tone I said, “Thanks, I’ll bear that in mind.”
“I’m just sayin’. You won’t get any of the good ones wearin’ clothes like that.”
My eyebrow arched of its own accord, but luckily for me, yellow-lace-bra-chick couldn’t see it.
I opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water which was hidden amongst at least seven brands of beer. I leaned against the counter, opened the water bottle and asked her, “Which ones are the good ones?”
While I took a deep drink of the water, she gave me an assessing look. “If you can’t figure that shit out, I damn sure ain’t gonna tell you. Besides, they ain’t gonna give you a second glance, considering how you’re dressed. You’re wasting your time here, bitch. You need to take your poser ass outta here and go back to wherever the fuck you came from.”
“Trixie! Shut the fuck up,” seethed a shirtless Cal from the doorway to the kitchen.
Trixie set her coffee mug down with a deep thud, “Cal, she’s a yuppie poser. Hell, her type is worse than the fuckin’ hang-abouts who act like they wanna prospect but don’t have the damn gonads to do it.”
Cal moved quickly to the round table and leaned into Trixie’s face. “Get the fuck out of here, Trix. Now.”
Had Cal said something like that to me while simultaneously leaning into my face in such a vicious manner, I’m sure I would have reared back. Trixie, on the other hand, held herself firm and steady. She traced the tip of her upper lip with her tongue and took a very deep breath to say something, but before she could do so a
gravelly voice said, “Trixie ain’t goin’ nowhere, Cal. She is not out of line and you know it, brother. You need to put your yuppie woman in her place.”
The notion of anyone putting me in my place riled me up to no end. The idea that I needed to be put in my place for trying to carry on a civil conversation irritated me beyond measure. I gave the burly biker the dirtiest look I could manage and squinted my right eye while I was at it. This might not have been the best idea because then he added, “Or I’ll do it for you. Her place could be in between you and me, brother. I don’t mind bein’ the backdoor man. Makes it easier to imagine she’s any damn bitch I want her to be.”
My jaw dropped and my mouth went dry. I seriously wanted to deck this bastard. My toast popped up in the toaster, and it was like a spur to my brain, “Let’s get something straight. I’m not Cal’s woman. Also, I haven’t done anything wrong, therefore nobody needs to attempt putting me in my place. I was simply trying to carry on –” The remainder of my speech wasn’t just cut off; it was covered up by Cal’s massive hand over my mouth. I wrenched my head away and shot him a scathing look. Cal gripped me behind my neck and tried to march me back to his room. Halfway down the hall, I lost it. My shoulder went up to knock his hand free and I whirled around on him.
“You do not need to march me around like a kid! Leave me be. I’m getting out of here.”
As I entered Cal’s room he roared, “No, you’re not. I brought you here, and I’m not leaving until after church.”
I shoved on my jacket. “What the fuck was all that? I’m hungry and need food and suddenly I have three people up in my business! I didn’t do anything except make toast. I’m outta here. I’ll call an Uber, and if that takes too long, I’ll start walking to the bus stop on Blanding Boulevard. I’m sure there’s one up there, with that fancy-ass bus lane they put in two years ago.”
I was pulling on my boots and noticed Cal put his shirt and cut on, “So damned determined. All the damned time. Headstrong, my ass. More like a damn headcase, walk up to Blanding. I’ll fuckin’ take you home. We’ll leave the back way.”
