by Helena Maeve
“Ms. Dominguez’s English class. You were a little know-it-all.”
Kayla nearly choked on her beer. She coughed demurely, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. “You went to school in Hackby? But the Manmouth patch…”
“I was born here,” Booker reported, grinning with half a mouth. “After Mom got in some trouble, state shipped me off to Nevada at thirteen. My grandparents raised me.”
“Huh…” Thirteen was just three years short of everything in Kayla’s life going wrong.
“Wasn’t that bad. They’ve got a pig farm—”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Booker shrugged. “Felt like it.”
“Look, if you think you know me ’cause we were in the same class a lifetime ago—”
“We weren’t friends,” he interjected, somehow curtailing her diatribe without making Kayla feel as though she was losing her mind. “You were one of the smartest people in class. I was kind of…not.”
That was then. “Is that why you wound up running with motorcycle gangs?”
Booker snorted under his breath. “Harley enthusiasts.”
“That skull and crossbones seems very enthusiastic, yeah…”
He followed her gaze to the patch on his kutte, smirking. “You noticed that, huh? Doesn’t mean what you think.”
“You mean you’re not a pirate?” Kayla quipped.
“I was in accident a few years back. Ran my gut into some asshole’s switchblade a few times…”
“Jesus.”
Booker held up a hand. “Hey, I made it. Least the club could do was let me add a patch.” He was so flippant that Kayla didn’t know whether to believe him.
“And the nine? Is that a headcount?”
“You’re really taken with my bad boy image, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t—”
“Means I have Indian blood,” Booker told her with a knowing smile.
“Right.”
He laughed. “I swear. Navajo, on my mother’s side.”
“Uh-huh…” Kayla made to hand him back his beer, then noticed the lipstick stain around the lip and promptly pulled it back to wipe off. “Zach hates it when I get makeup on his things,” she added softly, by way of explanation.
“Zach’s got a lot of hate,” Booker agreed. Their fingers brushed as he reclaimed the bottle of PBR. “Was he tellin’ the truth? At the clubhouse…”
“Yeah.” Kayla swallowed, throat tight with shame.
“You’re embarrassed about that.”
“Whole town knows my business—and now your buddies do, as well. Wouldn’t you be?”
“They already know everything there is to know about me,” Booker pointed out. “I don’t keep secrets from my brothers.”
“Really? You told them that you’re writing off a third of Zach’s debt ’cause I’m a good lay?” It was a stab in the dark with only instinct to guide it, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that Booker wasn’t the type to kiss and tell.
Her face filled with heat when he laughed. Wishful thinking had fogged up her vision before.
“Forget it—”
“No, let’s have it out,” Booker said. He wasn’t supposed to touch, but he brushed the back of his hand against her bare knee all the same, knuckles rough with callus. “You ain’t got a problem with your boyfriend pimping you out, but people knowin’ you slept with me…that’s got you worried?”
“He’s not pimping me out…”
“What do you call that ten grand?”
Kayla looked away.
“Hey, I ain’t tryin’ to make you feel bad—”
“Fuck you,” she gritted out, her temper on a hair trigger. “You don’t know shit. You came in two days ago. You’ll be gone in a week’s time. I have to live here, hear everyone talk about me like I’m trash…” Her voice cracked pitifully. It was just as well the cameras didn’t work. If Zach heard she’d gone all soft and weepy in front of a client, he’d never shut up. “And they’re not wrong, you know?”
“Smartest girl in Ms. Dominguez’s English class,” Booker recalled. His palm was a warm, welcome pressure on her knee, rules be damned.
Kayla waved off the flattery but let his hand remain in place. “Tell that to the folks at church. Or the grocery store…” She couldn’t keep the bitter snag from her voice. “Pretty sure thirteen was my intellectual peak. Everything since has been…one long string of bad decisions.”
Booker was silent for a long moment. Kayla didn’t dare raise her gaze to his for fear of seeing contempt in his eyes—or worse, pity. When he spoke, his tone was more prompting than judgmental. “You don’t have many friends in this town, do you?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Word on the street is you’re…what’s the word?”
“A slut?” she suggested, tilting her head back against the leather backrest. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Booker smirk. “You know it’s true.”
“Promiscuous,” he corrected.
“Same shit.”
“Not really.”
“Oh yeah?” Upholstery squeaking, Kayla shifted to tuck one leg under her and pin the other to the lit dais where she was supposed to have been strutting her stuff. She made herself face Booker head-on, the better to confront his lies. He didn’t need to be nice to her—he’d bought her time. He could just ask Zach and he’d be glad to send her off to the clubhouse again for another romp. All of the helplessness and the rage she’d kept down for the past twenty-four hours surged in Kayla’s chest like a second heartbeat. “What would you call a girl who turns tricks, who sleeps with other women’s husbands for money?” she blurted out. “What would your buddies call me, huh?”
Booker hardly even flinched. “Pretty fucking desperate.” He had a good poker face. Kayla couldn’t see a single crack in his strangely weighty stare.
She came to her senses a moment later, the fight leaving her frame. She wasn’t built for conflict. She had no cause to be asking anything of Booker, never mind the truth. “Sorry. Guess you were hoping for something a little more…upbeat.”
“You apologize too much.”
Kayla slid against the backrest and pulled a knee to her chest. “Got a lot to apologize for.”
Booker didn’t argue otherwise, for which she was grateful. He didn’t know the half of it.
After a moment, he stood, leather sighing beneath him. “I should head out,” he muttered.
“You still have twenty minutes left on the clock. Buzzer didn’t go off…”
“Beer’s done,” he replied.
Stomach fluttering, Kayla bit back the urge to say she could get him another.
“Hey, Book?”
He turned slowly, a hand already on the doorknob. He looked bigger from this angle, a larger than life behemoth, the back of which Kayla should’ve been relieved to see.
“I don’t do that no more,” she got out choppily. “The tricks, I mean.” I just dance on men’s laps.
Booker flashed her a grin, eyes gleaming like a pair of beads. “Come by the clubhouse tonight.”
“I have to work.”
“When you’re done,” he insisted doggedly. It might have been a challenge rather than an order, but then his gaze drifted down her bare thighs and Kayla understood what he meant. “Still owe me that dance.”
The door swung shut in his wake before Kayla could think of anything to say.
Chapter Four
Under the flickering, hazy glow of streetlights and armed with vague memories of that morning’s drive, Kayla half hoped she wouldn’t remember the way to the clubhouse.
Hackby wasn’t big enough to get lost in.
Once she found the interstate, the rest was child’s play. She heard the music before she saw the bikes lining the dusty stretch of road, the queue of battered trucks and white-bread sedans giving yielding to tricked-out choppers and shiny Harleys.
She was in the right place. She wasn’t the only one.
Kayla pu
lled up on the shoulder, where the dogwood branches reached out like clawed hands. The dashboard clock read fifteen minutes past two. She should’ve been home by now.
The Mercedes ceased its rattling as she yanked the keys out of the ignition.
Scrums of beefy men and pretty women went quiet to watch her pass. It was too dark to tell if they were hostile or curious, but Kayla knew she was an outsider. She spurred her feet.
Inside the roadhouse, country music echoed from an ancient jukebox. Moths circled the drooping light fixtures. Kayla hadn’t noticed the wall of mug shots that made up the length of the bar on her last visit. True, she hadn’t been paying attention to the scenery, but now more than ever she was keenly aware that the Hounds weren’t exactly boy scouts.
She didn’t realize she was staring now until someone laid a hand on her shoulder. She spun around on her heel, hackles rising.
Booker quirked an eyebrow. “Easy there…”
“Sorry,” Kayla breathed, her cheeks burning.
“S’all right. Crowded in here…”
“Yeah, you didn’t mention you were planning a party.”
Booker swept a glance over the crowd milling around the bar, patched kuttes and scantily-clad women filling up the space like flies on a wound. He seemed pleased with what he saw. “Didn’t want to spook you, in case you decided to show after all.”
“I can’t stay long.”
“That’s okay.” Booker looked her up and down. “You look like you could use a drink.”
Kayla didn’t see a reason to turn him down. She was off the clock.
If she fumbled a little when Booker draped a heavy arm around her shoulders…well, it was just the press of bodies around her, the strange sense of being a fish out of the water. Providentially, the bar was near and the beer plentiful and cold. Other drinkers made room once they noticed that she was with Booker.
“So these are the buddies you were talking about earlier, huh? Noisy bunch.”
“It’s how we celebrate a new dawn,” a throaty, smoker’s voice said over her shoulder.
Kayla turned, but not before seeing Booker’s gaze soften at the sight of the speaker. Whoever this was, he was a friend. She wasn’t expecting to see the colonel’s grizzled face behind the rim of a whiskey glass. He’d aged since the last time Kayla had seen him.
Booker pressed against her back before she could retreat, one hand at her waist like an anchor. “Someone I want you to meet. Colonel, this is Kayla. She works at Grounds for Divorce…”
The colonel waved his tumbler. “I know who you are, sweetheart.”
“Colonel.” Kayla shifted her weight from one foot to the other, pulse throbbing in her throat. It was one thing to tell Booker about her past as an abstract thing, an error of judgment with no real bearing on her present.
It was a different story when that past was staring her in the face.
“Sorry ‘bout your ma,” the colonel went on. Kayla had never wondered if he’d been handsome when he was young. It hadn’t mattered the last time they’d met and it didn’t matter now. Handsome or not, he was still dangerous.
“We weren’t close.”
The colonel nodded as if she’d only confirmed what he already suspected. “Tough lady. I remember she used to put your old man through his paces.”
“Yeah.”
He nudged her bare elbow with a wrinkled knuckle, snorting under his breath. “He used to run with us, you know…”
“I do. Straight off Glenwood Canyon, right?”
“Mm, sad day.”
Kayla said nothing.
“Lucky for you, Booker’s got a sound grip on that bike of his. He let you ride with him yet?”
“Couple of times,” Booker confirmed, stroking his thumb over the soft rise of Kayla’s hip. He seemed to sense her discomfort, because the next words out of his mouth were whisper-soft, a caress that raised gooseflesh on Kayla’s arms. “How about that dance?”
Kayla didn’t need to be told twice.
There was no real dance floor in the clubhouse, but a few guys had already pulled wives or girlfriends into their arms and were swaying softly to the lilting strains of a Rita Coolidge hit.
Booker left no room between him and Kayla for the Holy Ghost or anyone else. When she looked up, she discovered with relief that she couldn’t see the bar. Booker had a way of blotting out the world around him, the way a tall tree cast a broad shade over its immediate vicinity.
“Aren’t you gonna ask me?” she murmured, speaking against his lips. She wanted him to kiss her, but she didn’t want to let this chafe until later, when they were alone.
“You know the colonel.”
Kayla made an acquiescing noise.
“Lot of people know the colonel,” Booker noted and slid both hands to cup her ass. “But you said you can’t stay long, so…”
You want to make the most of it. She moved with him without rhythm, less for the sake of the music than the pace of Booker’s heart beneath her hand. He wore a tight black T-shirt under his kutte tonight. His ribcage pressed into her palm whenever he inhaled.
On a whim, Kayla worried her thumb over a pebbled nipple, grinning when he sucked in a startled breath. Any second now, he would pull her off the dance floor, take her back to his room. They’d end up in bed, his knees spreading her legs wide, her body pinned between his and the mattress. Her cunt pulsed with need as the vivid images raced through her thoughts.
Booker pressed a kiss just at the edge of her hairline. “Zach know you’re here?”
Desire curdled in her chest. Kayla stiffened.
“Was I supposed to tell him?” Ask his permission? What did Booker think she was? She extricated herself from his hold with a flinch. “I should go.”
“Already? No, come on—”
“Early day tomorrow. Gotta go over the books, close up the month…” Kayla shook him off. “It was nice seeing you again.”
“Seeing…” Booker caught her hand. “Wait, sweetheart—”
“Don’t call me that.”
A few heads had turned at the commotion. Kayla had a clear line of sight to the bar, where she saw the colonel watching them intently.
Booker frowned. “You okay to drive?”
“I’m fine.” Saving face was the least she could do for him, so Kayla swallowed her pride and rose up on tiptoe to press a kiss to his cheek. “Night.” She turned and wove through the crowd before Booker could stop her. She wasn’t sure why she assumed he would, after that performance.
Her pulse tripping, her cheeks numb, she all but vaulted behind the wheel of the Mercedes. The rear view mirror drooped, a narrow band of glass confronting her with the dark circles under her eyes and the remnants of that evening’s make-up.
“You’re one crazy bitch,” Kayla told her reflection.
The Mercedes revved to life with a sputter and a groan.
She didn’t let herself glance back to see if Booker had come out to see her off. Men like him didn’t put up with being strung along by women like Kayla. There was plenty of willing pussy in the bar. They’d make him forget his woes in no time.
* * * *
The ceiling fan spun lazily, stirred by the dry evening breeze. Kayla counted its slow revolutions. She’d tried warm milk, late night TV. Her vibe. Counting sheep only made her antsy, so that was out. She was beginning to understand that none of the traditional methods of beating insomnia worked.
That left her two options.
She kicked off the sheets and fetched her cell from the nightstand. Zach should be at the club, still. Maybe they could agree to meet at his place within the hour. Maybe he’d be willing to give her what she needed so she could get some sleep. She hovered her thumb over the call button.
Ever since she’d been with Booker, things had gone from bad to worse with Zach. They’d spent a week trying to squeeze profit margins for another ten grand. The Hounds paid them nightly visits—purportedly to enjoy the show and avail themselves of the girls on payroll, bu
t according to Zach, they were there as a reminder.
Kayla had seen blood stains on the tarmac a few nights in a row. She didn’t ask questions.
She tossed her cell to the bed and put her head in her hands. She didn’t want to go to Zach just so she could blow him while he pretended to pull her hair. She didn’t want to fake gagging just so he’d hurry up and finish.
“Fuck.” Sleeping with Booker had done a number on her.
Maybe the only way to excise the memory of his hands on her was to prove that he wasn’t that good, that she’d only enjoyed herself because it had been so long since she’d been with anyone other than Zach.
Kayla grabbed her cell phone and keys, and tore out of the house in her sleep clothes. She was lucky that Tamra was sleeping over at a friend’s two doors down.
Her body remembered the way. Her pulse sped at the sight of all those bikes lined up outside, but it was late and odds were that Booker had already skipped town. She could still go inside, look around. Maybe ask someone.
She wasn’t counting on slamming her foot down on the brake right outside the bar, heart leaping into her throat. The hazy glare of headlights brought into sharp relief in the oil streaks on Booker’s hands even as they elongated his shadow.
“Kayla?” He squinted, bemusement writ on his rugged features. “What’re you doin’ here?”
She had no memory of shoving the car door open. Her legs didn’t seem like her own as they carried her across the parking lot. But those were her hands on his cheeks and those were her lips against his, clinging to the dying embers of a flame that had long been snuffed out.
Proof lay in the stiff shelf of Booker’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Kayla panted, sinking to the balls of her feet. “Fuck, I don’t know what’s wrong with me—”
The rest of her half-baked apology died, suffocated beneath the force of Booker’s lips on hers. He backed her up onto the hood of the Mercedes, hoisting her legs around his waist.
Metal groaned beneath them, but Kayla barely heard it. Blood pounded against her eardrums, a staggered beat permeated only by the echo of Booker’s moans. He sank a hand into her hair, pulling her back when she would’ve happily gone on licking into his mouth.
