Walking towards her bike, she pulled out her phone to see it was early morning, and from the blush of light in the sky, she knew the sun would be peeking over the horizon before long. With a sigh, she looked around and realized everyone else was still sleeping, except for a lone figure seated near the remains of the bonfire. Moving that direction, she recognized DeeDee, resting comfortably in a chair with a quilt drawn around her shoulders, staring at the glowing embers of the banked fire.
Silently Mela sat down on the grass beside her, eyes already fixed on the flickering cinders.
DeeDee hummed, then asked, “What’s up, buttercup?” From the corner of her eye, she saw her friend turn to glance Mela’s way before facing the fire again. “There’s just something about a fire. It’s mesmerizing when at this stage. The early blaze is full of energy and heat, wild and chaotic. Out of control. But, if you let things go far enough, you wind up with this calmness. It’s still hot as hell, just more stable, less riotous. You know the fire burning down to coals like this means it’s nearing the end of its life, but it’s still so beautiful.”
She leaned against DeeDee’s legs and sighed. Without looking away from the flames, Mela said, “Daddy didn’t want me to come.”
“We know, sweetheart. Estavez called Slate and Mason straight away when you left. He told them you were on your way, and he’d have men on you the whole trip.” DeeDee offered this knowledge without hesitating.
“I’d have been here earlier yesterday, but I ditched them. I didn’t tell Daddy where we were planning to camp, so I thought I could escape the scrutiny for at least a couple of days,” she said and sighed again. “Slate probably told Daddy exactly where this place is already, so that was useless. Wasted effort. They'll come roaring in here soon, all pissed off because they got played, and they’re gonna make me leave.”
“No, they won’t.” DeeDee’s voice was clear and firm. “Your father would have preferred that scenario, but Slate talked him down. Told him he’d have his best men in place to keep us all safe.” She pointed towards the van. “Hurley here with us, and three men staged along the road. You rode past them to get in, and if it anyone other than you had approached, that person would have never made it a hundred feet up the road.”
“I just get so tired of everything,” Mela muttered, propping her head in her hand. “It’s always about the club. Real shit. Made up shit. Doesn’t matter. I can’t do anything just for me.”
“We should have made Eddie come, babies or not,” DeeDee said with a soft laugh, referencing another of the Rebel women, one whose father had also been a club president. “Growing up as she did, she could relate, for sure. But Carmela,” her tone became serious, “you more than most know what happened to Watcher’s daughter at the hands of their enemies. That’s not made up. You saw her, helped care for her. You know he’s lucky Bella lived, honey, and she’s never going to be the same. You can’t be angry with your father for fearing it could happen to you. There is unrest in the clubs” —Mela raised her head to retort, but DeeDee pushed on— “I know what you’re going to say, and I’ve used the same argument sweetheart, because there is always unrest, but this is a level we’ve not seen in decades. Something is building, and our men don’t yet have a handle on exactly what. So, when something like that happens to a powerful man’s family, a president’s daughter, all the men in our lives pay attention. Like it or not, you are your father’s daughter, which means you are a target.”
Hurley
He had woken abruptly, every sense singing danger, screaming at him that something had changed. In those first few moments of awareness his gut had filled with a rolling sense of unease. As he scanned the inside of the van, there was nothing overtly out of place, everything looked as he expected, but hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something important was missing.
It had taken him two carefully metered breaths to realize the body that had been so sweetly curled into him, the heat and presence he’d enjoyed lying beside was gone. Dammit, she ran after all. She’d surrendered to her own wants, and fuck, but he was glad she did. Fucking amazing lay. Smart and funny, she’d certainly raised the bar for chicks in his bed. Mela had been so hesitant from the beginning, seemingly fearful until she let go her control and gave herself to him. That fear creeping back in nearly immediately, but she’d stayed. Amazing woman. Gone.
I asked her to stay. Hurley’d asked, and she’d given in, burrowing into him as if she couldn’t get close enough. Stretched out beside him, hand on his chest. Head pillowed on his shoulder, the scent of her had surrounded him. He’d watched her sleeping, smiling at the little snuffling noises she made, liking how she snuggled into his side, trusting even at rest.
Turning things over in his mind, he’d found he wanted…no, needed to know more about her. She wasn’t an old lady, nor a fender bunny. A puzzle to solve. She was here at the chick campout, which meant she was well known to the Rebels or she wouldn’t have been trusted with the location of this little party, but he didn’t know her from Adam. Or Eve.
So beautiful, her face and body were spectacular, unforgettable, but he’d never laid eyes on her before. A temptation from the beginning, opening his eyes to find her looking him over had been a thrill. Naked and rousing to hard within a moment, it hadn’t been easy tamping down his desires. His mouth watered at the thought of her and breathing deep, he caught a trace of her scent on the air. I’ll for-fucking-sure remember that woman.
Dressing quickly, he exited the van, taking care to close the door quietly. Two figures were seated near the bonfire from last night, Mela and DeeDee. Even from here he could see he was right, Mela had leaned into the older woman. They were friends, wind sisters, if not club.
Moving close enough to eavesdrop, DeeDee’s words hit him like a blow. She’s a fucking princess. Someone precious to his president. Important to his brothers, and like he thought last night, far out of his reach. Not my queen. Then the rest of what DeeDee said sank in, and he realized that this assignment was critical, like she’d tried to tell him before. Not a punishment detail, but an honor. He shifted his shoulders, feeling the leather slide across his bare skin. Something asked of every brother, part of the written bylaws, to protect the things each man held most dear. Club, brothers, family.
Now there were things he needed to know to plot his path. One, he needed to know Mela’s connections so he could understand. Two, DeeDee had to give him a sign that what he’d done wasn’t going to fuck things up. All the women would follow her lead, even Ruby eventually, so if she were in favor of his liaison with Mela, then he wouldn’t have to fight as hard to keep her.
Keep her?
She sat facing the fire, dim flickering glow from the flames glancing across her skin, hair gathered over one shoulder. Gorgeous. Not happy with her lot in life, either, it seemed. I could make her happy. I did last night. Not just the sex, either. The talking before, the way she looked at him when he complimented her. Her easy laughter at his stories. The way she’d leaned in to kiss him. I could mean something to her.
Keep her? Oh, hell yeah.
Carmela
“What kind of target?” Hurley’s voice came from right behind DeeDee, and Mela jumped, twisting around. “And who is your father?” She stared at him for a minute, finding he looked different in the light cast from the fire’s coals. His hair a dull red and the expression on his face angry, striped with lines of shadow and fury.
Without responding, she stood and walked to her bike, lifted her jacket from the handlebars and unfolded it, turning so the weak light from the fire illuminated the patches on the back. Hurley’s eyes went wide as he read the club’s information, and her title, and he said, “No shit?”
DeeDee answered him with a soft laugh. “Shit-free, totally.”
“So we got the national president’s cousin who’s also a leverage member’s old lady, my chapter president’s old lady, a member’s old lady, and now another club’s national president’s fucking daughter? Goddamned Mac
hos?” He held up four fingers, “DeeDee, Ruby, Kathy…and Mela?”
DeeDee nodded, twisting in her chair to face him. “And four of their best friends, who also have a place in your national president’s heart.” She paused, staring up at him. “It’s a stern charge, Hurley. Slate believed you up for the job, but you have only to make a single call to pull in others. Your decision,” she said and turned back so she could watch the fire again. He didn’t respond other than with a nod that DeeDee didn’t see, and then turned and silently stalked past Mela, moving back towards the van.
Gaze to the ground, she slowly refolded her jacket, again draping it over the handlebars of her bike. Her chest was tight with the pain and shame of a rejection she had expected, but it hurt no less for that. She thought to herself, Well, that is that, and if you thought it could ever be more than that, you were loco, chica.
Princess status in her father’s club meant few men were brave enough to even befriend her, and none had ever wanted her enough to dare wade through the politics and pressure of a relationship. Today looked to be no different.
A touch on her arm interrupted her thoughts, and she looked up, stunned to see Hurley standing there, his palm sliding down the inside of her wrist, fingers threading through hers. “Come back to bed, honey,” he said, leaning in for a kiss. Then, tugging at their joined hands, he led her back to the van, claiming her, even if their audience was limited to one broadly grinning and overly protective mother figure.
Slate
“Fuck me,” Slate muttered, rolling his eyes at Ruby. She was standing in the kitchen bottle-feeding Kayley, one of their infants, while their two oldest stood, each holding tight to a leg of Ruby’s jeans. Allen and Dani were babbling incessantly back and forth, by turns grinning and frowning. Their oldest set of twins had been actively building a private language of late, which DeeDee assured him was normal. Privately, he thought it meant he and Ruby would be fucked at some point. Those two were already getting into everything. He expected that once they could scheme and plot together, their lives would be pure chaos.
Slate was cradling Hayley, twin sister to the one in Ruby’s arms, tipping a bottle to her hungry mouth to quiet her vocal complaints. “You’re serious? Mela hooked up with Hurley?”
Grinning widely, Ruby nodded. Leaning down to nuzzle Kayley’s cheek, she told him, “Humping like bunnies in the van.” She giggled. “He was really sweet with her, you shoulda seen it. I kinda like him for her. It’s a good match.”
Allen plopped down to the floor, then rocked over so he could crawl away, his ass comically swaying side-to-side as he moved out of sight through the arch that led to the living room. Dani watched him go for a moment, then tipped her head back, eyes far more calculating than Slate liked flicking over him before latching onto her mother’s face. The babble from before changed, and he grinned to hear her calling, “Da. Da. Dadada. DA!” while looking up at Ruby. Distracted, he was startled when a crash came from the living room, toenails clicking a mad retreat on the hardwood floor as the beagle they were dog-sitting tried to escape the boy. That was followed by squeals of laughter from Allen.
“You don’t fuckin’ like Hurley, Ruby. Why would you want him for my Mela?” Hayley had lost the nipple, and her tiny fists flailed for a moment, then she quietened when he teased her bottom lip with it, her chin bobbing as she sought it again. “She deserves—”
“A man who makes her feel safe. A man who would turn the world upside down to make her happy.” She gave him one of those smiles, the ones that nearly took his knees out from underneath him. The smiles that he worked every day to earn. Even now, almost four years into the relationship with her, she could floor him with a single look. Her voice was soft when she continued, “A man like you.”
“Fuck me.”
End
THANK YOU
This short story sets into the Rebel Wayfarers MC storyline directly following Duck, book #8, so we’ll call this one 8.5. I loved learning more about Carmela and seeing the woman she’s grown into.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Raised in the south, MariaLisa deMora learned about the magic of books at an early age. Every summer, she would spend hours in the Upshur County library, devouring stacks of books in every genre. She still reads voraciously, and always has a few books going in paperback, hardback, on devices! On music, she says, “I love music of nearly any kind—jazz, country, rock, alt rock, metal, classical, bluegrass, rap, gangstergrass, hip hop—you name the type, I probably listen to it.
“I can often be seen dancing through the house in the early mornings. But what I really, REALLY love is live music. My favorite way to experience live music is seeing bands in small, dive bars [read: small, intimate venues]. If said bar [venue] has a good selection of premium tequila, then that’s a definite plus! Oh, and since I’m a hand gal, drummers are my thing—yeah, Paul and Alex—you know who you are!”
ADDITIONAL SERIES AND BOOKS
Please note each book is part of a series, for the most part featuring characters from other books in the series. If the books in a series are read out of order, you’ll twig to spoilers for the other books, so going back to read the skipped titles won’t have the same angsty reveals.
It is strongly recommended they be read in order.
Rebel Wayfarers MC series:
Mica, book #1
Slate, book #2
Bear, book #3
Jase, book #4
Gunny, book #5
Mason, book #6
Hoss, book #7
Duck, book #8
Watcher, book #9 (Dec 2016)
Bones, book #10 (2017)
Fury, book #11 (2017)
Cassie, book #12 (2018)
Occupy Yourself band series:
Born Into Trouble, book #1
Grace In Motion, book #2 (2017)
What They Say, book #3 (2017)
Neither This, Nor That series:
This Is The Route Of Twisted Pain, book #1
Treading The Traitor’s Path Out Bad, book #2 (TBD)
More information available at mldemora.com.
Biker Chick Campout (Rebel Wayfarers MC) Page 5
