by Karen Renee
I yanked my hand out from under his and smacked at his outstretched arm. “Stop it! It’s not like I’m a drama queen, you know. We could start at one and see where that takes us.”
Cal halfway stood up and leaned into me, he planted a soap-opera kiss on me right in the middle of the restaurant. He broke away from me with a huge smile on his face.
“Can’t ask for more than that, sweet cheeks.”
EPILOGUE
Four months later…
It was a sunny Saturday morning in early July. I was in my bedroom gathering all of my travel necessities together. That morning, Cal woke me up and told me to pack a small bag. He said we were going to get out of town for the 4th of July holiday. He wouldn’t tell me where we were going, though. I wasn’t keen on this. Partly because I was a control freak, and it was a habit I had yet to break. Then again, being abducted is the ultimate loss of control, so my need for control was stronger lately. What Cal did say was to bring one dress, plenty of tank tops, shorts and my swimsuit. I zipped up my overnight bag and my phone rang. The screen indicated Razor was calling.
“Hi there, stranger,” I greeted him.
His voice seemed sad, but I could still hear the smile when he said, “Hi, yourself, Fireball. I’ll keep this brief, but I wanted to let you know I’m going to ground for a while.”
“Going to ground? Why?”
“Don’t you worry. Just be safe.”
I shook my head and said, “No, something’s up.”
Razor gave a soft sigh and said, “Gotta lay low.”
“I have something to do with it?”
After a pause he said, “Not…exactly.”
I stifled a chuckle and said, “You’re a lousy liar. I feel bad. You helped me out so much in March. C’mon, tell me, what can I do to help?”
Razor chuckled at me. “Stay safe. What’s done is done.”
That sounded cryptic at best. “What’s done is done?”
Razor groaned, “You’re no fireball. You’re a bulldog. Here’s the deal, Mal. Me hittin’ Bush on your behalf wasn’t good, but the club gave me a pass. Me leavin’ during Bike Week would’ve been okay, but to do it for another club’s woman? No. To make it worse, the house call from the club doctor for your concussion was frowned upon, too.”
I exhaled and said, “Okay, so what does that mean for you?”
“Took an ass-beating. Knew it might happen. Some shit’s gone on recently, and my loyalty has been called into question because of the shit in March and some more shit that’s happening now. Club’s gonna decide if I’m gonna lose my patch. For now, I’m gonna lay low and consider things. Be safe. At least Cal can’t take the next good one to come along.”
“What do you mean ‘consider things’?”
I waited, then pulled my phone away to see Razor had hung up.
Cal came into my bedroom and asked, “Who was on the phone, babe?”
I looked up into his hazel eyes and said, “Razor. Says he’s going to ground, whatever that means.”
Cal arched an eyebrow at me and said, “Not a good thing, normally. Why’d he call you, though?”
I shrugged. “Not sure. Apparently, helping me out didn’t go over well with his club. He took an ass-beating for it back in March, he said, and now some other stuff is going on and his club loyalty is being questioned. I guess they’re gonna vote on him remaining a member. He said to stay safe, he’s going to be lying low, and don’t worry. Oh, and at least you wouldn’t be interested in the next good one to come along.”
Cal’s eyes bulged at the mention of Razor’s membership being put to a vote. At the last thing I said, Cal chuckled. “He’s got that right. You’re it for me, sweet cheeks. You ready to split yet?”
* * * * *
The wind roared in my ears. I knew we were on the Interstate because we got on Cal’s bike and rode Interstate 95 south to St. Augustine. At a tiny rest area in St. Augustine Cal told me use the bathroom. When I returned to the bike, he tied a navy blue bandana around my head to cover my eyes, and put a full helmet on top of that. For the remainder of the trip, I was oblivious to where we were or where we were headed.
I was certain we were off of the Interstate, and I thought we might be in Daytona. It was the only reason I could think of for Cal’s attempt to keep me in the dark, literally and figuratively. He pulled to a stop and I tapped his shoulder then shouted, “We in Daytona?”
He leaned his weight back into my torso and asked, “What if we are?”
I pursed my lips and exhaled.
Cal nudged me. “That a problem?”
I shook my head and said, “Can I remove the bandana and helmet?”
We pulled over. I removed the helmet and Cal untied the bandana. Sunshine blinded me temporarily. I saw we were off of US 1. Cal lifted the visor on the helmet and put it back on my head.
He settled on the bike, reached back squeezing my knee, then he said, “Gonna ride the Loop. You seemed to like that last time.”
I smiled and nodded.
Like the last ride of the Loop, Cal pulled off to the left at the park where we had met Patch, Volt, Blood, and their women. I didn’t see any bikes in the parking lot, but there were plenty of vehicles. Then again, it was a hot Saturday in July. The beach was undeniably the best place to be today.
Cal parked, and I handed the helmet to him. He opened a saddle bag, withdrew a bundled shopping bag and then placed the helmet inside of the saddle bag.
I threw my arms out wide and arched my back to stretch while I asked, “Is that lunch?”
Cal smirked at me and said, “Maybe. Let’s go to the pavilion and find out.”
We walked up the sidewalk to the shaded picnic tables, and I noticed there were tons of people at the pavilion. Then I realized that I knew them. All of them, because it was the entirety of Riot.
I looked up at Cal. “What are they doing here? What’s going on?”
Once we were under the awning and everyone quieted down, I realized they were all smiling. Jackie was bouncing on her toes like she could hardly contain herself. Blood and Abby had huge grins on their faces. All of these people knew what was up, and I didn’t.
I slid a suspicious glance at Cal, and he chuckled.
He looked around the gathered crowd and said loudly, “Mallory, you know this already, but I don’t know how many of my Riot brothers and family know this. I love you, Mallory Pierce. I’ve loved you since I first met you. I want you by my side now, tomorrow, always. I’ve claimed you to my brothers in church, but I want the world to know you’re my woman.”
Cal put the shopping bag in my hands. His right hand swung behind my neck and he stared into my eyes when he said, “Be my Old Lady.”
My hands felt like lead weights. I knew we were serious. We hadn’t spent a single night apart since I was abducted. I hadn’t moved to Mandarin yet, but only because we disagreed about renting or selling my house. Once we decided firmly about my house, I was moving. We had discussed kids back in March. However, our inability to come to a decision on a real estate issue gave me pause to have a child. Many decisions with babies and kids were minor and could be decided on the fly, but other decisions blindsided parents. If the parents didn’t act as a united team, the children pounced on that weakness. Greg and I learned that early, and we had four years together, with no kids, to get our united-team aspect fully organized.
However, I knew my answer down to my soul. I loved Cal Robertson. I loved him in a way I didn’t think I could love another man. I opened the bag and pulled out a leather vest and on the back was a Riot MC patch surrounded by two rockers. Property of Cal.
I wanted to beam at him, but somehow I managed to hold it in and asked, “So, me wearing the cut, it’s like we’re married?”
Cal’s hazel eyes glittered at me in the bright sunshine. “You’re damn sure mine, woman.”
I gave him a sly look and said, “I’m not like other women. I still want a ring on my finger.”
Cal took the cut
from my hands and whirled it around to my back. I slid my arms into it, and he arranged it over my torso. He turned me around to look at my backside, then his hand dug into my right asscheek and he turned me around to face him again. His other hand came around my back side and he had me in a tight grip, chest-to-chest.
His full lips were in an almost pouty smirk, but he said, “You work in a white collar fuckin’ cube-farm, babe. Of course, I’m puttin’ a ring on your finger, so none of those polo-shirt-wearing pricks think twice about approaching you. Now, are you gonna be my Old Lady?”
I beamed at him. “Yes, I am.”
Cal’s arms tightened, he lifted me off the ground and he planted the most delicious kiss on my lips. Jackie’s words about the property cut making her feel like ‘more’ echoed in my mind. She was right. It had been a long time since I felt so wanted, so loved, and felt like so much more. Becoming Cal’s Old Lady was more than I ever could have dreamed.
###
Thank you for reading Unforeseen Riot. If you enjoyed it, I would greatly appreciate it if you left a review. Even if you didn’t love it, any and all feedback is helpful.
The Riot will continue with Inciting a Riot and the first two chapters are included with this eBook. Want to know about other titles and works-in-progress, feel free to visit my website www.authorkarenrenee.com or sign up for my newsletter here. All newsletter subscribers receive a free bonus chapter for Unforeseen Riot!
Sneak Peek of Inciting a Riot (Riot MC Novel 2)
No, no. Not again! These were my thoughts as I wandered around one of my favorite places to spend my disposable income. Those shouldn’t have been my thoughts as I examined the shiny display of Pandora charms while I stood inside the cool, plush interior of Jared, the Galleria of Jewelry in Jacksonville. Yep, the high-quality jewelry store with the ads proclaiming, “He went to Jared’s!” Well, my now ex-boyfriend, known as cheater number ten going forward, went to Jared’s. That was how I came to see Bradley (aka number ten) with another woman at the engagement counter!
Men suck. They are the worst. It's too damn bad Lady Gaga got it totally right when she sang “I'm born this way,” because I really wanted to turn to women. But, it just didn't appeal. Besides, women were just as capable of cheating as men, and there was nothing to say lesbians didn't find themselves faced with the ultimate betrayal just as I did right now.
My real issue was the repetitive nature of this shit. My first “boyfriend” in eleventh grade was the brashest of cheaters, or so I thought at the time. I would learn later that Ben taking me to prom but spending the bulk of the night slow dancing, which is to say groping, with Nancy Blackburn was the tamest of cheating scenarios. No less hurtful, but tame. College was fun that was until the cheating happened again. Call me crazy, but twice does not a pattern make. I graduated from college, and again found myself on the receiving end of a cheater’s deception. Adulting is hard and cheaters are just more gunk gumming up the works of the machine that is life.
Then there was Cary Sullivan. He was a bad boy at heart. When I met him, he had recently been discharged from the Marines and was a recruit or prospect for a motorcycle gang. They call it a club, but semantics are meaningless to me. Cheaters teach you that. “We never ‘said’ we were ‘exclusive’, baby.” Cheaters were vocabulary masters when they were caught, though cheaters almost always called it “being found out” or “discovered.” As if they were rare fossils on an archeological dig.
Once Cary was initiated, he earned the “road name” Vamp. Short for Vampire, I supposed. He never said. Of all the cheaters, Cary hurt the most. Not sure why. Okay, that was not true. I was in denial. Truth was….I fell for Cary. Not Vamp. Cary. That road name happened the same day we ended. It wasn't a fizzle. It wasn't a clean break. It was an epic explosion. Nuclear….and I was still cleaning up the debris littering my heart.
I was debating on which charm I could add to my current bracelet without ruining it or causing a major clash. Before I noticed Bradley, I was torn between three charms, a little pink pave strawberry charm, a tropical sea glass charm with swirls of white, aqua, purple and green; and a Disney charm that said “Believe.” Well, seeing another fine-ass example of a damn cheater, my mind was made up. Believe, it would be. I didn’t care if it violently clashed with the poinsettia charm, coiled sparkling snake with green eyes, and the vintage silver F charm already in place on my open clasp bracelet. I needed that charm to remind me to always Believe. Not believe in Disney style fairy-tales of goodness, but in the inherent bad within all men. Yep, number ten. I could always remember Vamp was the fourth cheater, because when I caught him, he was with not one, but two other women. At the same damn time! And one of those sorry sluts had the gall to say, “Ooh. She’s hot. C’mon, chickie, there’s room for more. I know I can make it worth your while, even if Vamp doesn’t.” The woman who was sitting astride Vamp looked at me and hollered, “A foursome. Yeah! Get your clothes off.” Needless to say, I did not make their threesome a foursome. For the next six years, I attempted to get back on the dating bicycle. Each time, it seemed I was thrown off, not by a bump in the road, but by a cheater on my road. Bastards. All of them.
I’m not shirking any of my own responsibility in this serial cheating business. I mean, after all, I picked ‘em. Well, in the first three instances I picked ‘em. The first two, I can forgive myself. I mean, eleventh grade, I was sixteen and stupid. We’re talking stupid with a capital S. And for that matter sixteen. I hadn’t been kissed. I was so shy; I put the ‘shhh’ in shy. I was kind of pretty, and occasionally boys were brave enough to flirt with me. But these boys had girlfriends, so nothing ever came of their flirting. Or maybe the die was cast from that early time period. See? Stupid. I didn’t even think about the fact that I was flirting with taken boys, so even in a minor way I was helping to perpetuate potential cheating. At sixteen! Gah.
Anyway, I asked a boy to prom. Yep. My mother told me not to do it, but my God it was March. Prom was in May. I wanted to go, so badly. So, I picked Ben from the marching band. Asked if he had a date. He said he did not. He grinned at me, but he did not see my asking him to the prom coming his way. Thinking back on it, I don’t know if he said yes because he was surprised or if he was showing me pity. I was just over the damn moon that my gumption got me a date. Plus, Ben insisted we go out in the month or so leading up to prom, in order to get to know one another better. It also didn’t hurt that I had proved my overbearing mother completely wrong. Being confident and forward enough to ask a boy to prom was the best decision I had made, and I was walking on air in the days and weeks leading up to prom. That air gave way when I saw Ben and Laura on the dance floor groping each other with their heads closing in for a kiss, and it was a rough landing coming back down to the ground.
I didn’t know what my problem was. Like I said, I’m slightly pretty, not stunning. Hell, if I were stunning, then I would have known what popularity felt like. I figured part of my problem was that I was on the fence. I was nerdy, but I wasn’t full-on smart nerd. I was receptive to everyone. I could hang with nerds, dweebs, the stoner set, and on occasion, jocks and cheerleaders gave me the time of day during classes. I wasn’t fooling myself though. I was no Renaissance-man social butterfly flitting between cliques. The stoners and jocks only tolerated me because I was smart and helpful. By helpful, I mean, if a jock suddenly wanted to sit next to me in geometry in order to peek at my test, I never said boo. I normally tried to forewarn them that geometry was no more my subject of choice than theirs, but I figured it was their funeral for choosing to cheat from my test. See? I allowed for cheating on tests. I should have known I’d be physically attracted to nothing but relationship cheaters.
In college, the smart boys I hung with were always friendly and funny. A year, two, sometimes even three would elapse before they would build up the nerve to ask me out. I never wanted to endanger our friendship, and further, none of these guys had the physique I was looking for in a guy. So, I’d let them down gently, and w
e’d remain friends. However, as guys are prone to do, they eventually found girls who were very receptive to their advances. These girls would meet me, “the friend,” and before I knew it, the guys told me they had to focus on their girls. I mean, I know some chicks believe Nora Ephron’s declaration that men and women cannot be friends without sex entering the equation and those chicks believe it as though it is the Gospel. I just don’t buy it. Yet, these girlfriends of my guy friends saw me as a threat. That much was clear, and subsequently I found myself without some of my favorite guys. I had to admit, because those chicks forced me out of the picture, those same nice and lovable guys likely never cheated. Hmmm.
My stupid spell lasted until I was twenty. That was when I stopped pursuing guys.
Cheater number three led me to do things sexually that I never knew about. He was only my second sexual relationship, so it stood to reason that I wouldn’t know my legs could be draped over his biceps while he thrust into my sex. It was awesome. Ultimately, number three was like a sexual pre-algebra class that prepared me for sexual advanced algebra with Vamp. I suppose if it hadn’t been for my experiences with number three, then I never would have been Vamp’s cup of tea.
Crazy as it sounds, if I hadn’t found Vamp in the throes of a threesome, I think we might have gone the distance. At least I liked to delude myself that way sometimes. I fell for him hard, and I was pretty sure I never got over it. I may not have learned how to spot a cheater from a glance, but I did learn early on that a woman cannot change a man. Vamp wanted variety and he wanted that variety simultaneously. Fine. He’d just have to do it without me in his life. However, even after six years, I hadn’t come as hard as I did with Vamp. Not in any way, shape or form. Not from myself and definitely not from guys like the bastard Bradley. The sex with Vamp was just that good.
