And our child.
Chapter One It was just a regular Tuesday when Mindy got up, slipped into the cute little dress uniform she wore to work at Cook’s Diner, put on the stupid, frilly apron, and pinned the stupid, frilly hat onto her dark brown hair.
Then, she put on some light makeup. If she wore too much, the truckers tried to take her out back and offer her money to take off her shirt; if she didn’t put on enough, her tips sucked, and customers complained. They showed up at Cook’s because the food was good and the uniforms were both short and low cut. Cook was a good guy, but he didn’t believe in subtlety.
Mindy’s shift went fine. Louise, who usually worked the night shift, called out, and Mindy agreed to pick up the double. She could use the extra cash, and it wasn’t like she had much else going on. Her DVR could wait until tomorrow. Cook would give her dinner on the house as a thank you.
But around 7:30 pm, just as the sun was setting over the mountains, Mindy heard the roar of a motorcycle coming up the road. Not just one, she realized after a moment, but a bunch. Bikers. Inwardly, she steeled herself, willing them to pass by. Bikers could be great, or they could be total assholes, and she did not want to deal with the second type after nine and a half hours on her feet. The tips weren’t worth it. The dinner rush had just ended, and she was looking forward to a nice, relaxing few hours until she could go home to a bubble bath in her leaky tub, then fall asleep watching infomercials on late night TV.
The bikers turned into the diner’s parking lot, and Mindy fought back a groan as she plastered a smile on her face. She shouted back to Cook that there were—she counted in a hurry—about a dozen guys in leather and on bikes heading in, and she heard Cook curse. He’d just sent Donnie, the second line cook, home for the night, and he was about to work his bad knee right into the ground. They’d get it done, though. She and Cook had been working together for a year now, and they knew each other’s rhythm. They’d get through. But damn, these bikers had better pay well.
They piled in; an assortment of men, from big and burly to lithe and even scrawny to downright fat. There were bearded faces and clean shaven faces and scruffy faces, but every single one of them had tattoos. They varied in quality; some of them looked like prison tats, while others looked professional but faded by years of sun and wind exposure.
Mindy tried hard to ignore the stirring in her belly. She had a soft spot for tough guys; guys who looked like they could toss you onto a bed or into a wall (after they asked nicely) with equal ease, guys who didn’t spend time talking about their feelings or fussing over stuff that didn’t matter. That suited her just fine. She didn’t have much room in her life for feelings either and preferred a rough and quick tumble and a rapid goodbye to an awkward relationship that fizzled out anyway. What was the point in getting attached to anyone? She liked a life where she could just pick up and go whenever she wanted. She’d been in Providence for eighteen months now, and she was starting to get itchy. She and Cook had become friends, and that wasn’t good. Attachments did nothing but screw her over. Maybe a quick rough and tumble would get her on her way with a smile on her face. She did like a good, stacked biker.
At first glance, though, none of the men in the diner quite fit her rather specific preferences. So, she focused on work—taking orders, passing them on to Cook in the most logical way she could, filling cups with black coffee, and trying not to laugh when a couple of guys ordered things like tea or hot chocolate on the sly. She enjoyed that a man could be a man with whipped cream in his mustache.
As Cook filled the orders and she passed them out, she could see the men enjoying looking at her body. She was willing to work it a little; being appreciated scratched that itch nearly as well as an actual lay, though nothing like as good as shaking the dust of a town off her heels. Let them look down her shirt and glimpse her panties when she bent over to pick up something that one of them had dropped. It would almost certainly up her tips—she didn’t care what anyone said about outlaws and bad boys, bikers always tipped well—and it was fun. Let them think she was nothing but tits and ass; it didn’t hurt her.
But then one of them grabbed her and hauled her into his lap. He laughed when she yelped, and she was furious at herself for making such a weak sound. He was laughing and shouting something to his friends, something she couldn’t quite make out through her rage, but his hand came down on her breast, and it was game over. She thumped him as hard as she could, but he was the kind of solid that just laughed at her fist. If she’d been able to stand, she could have hit him in the bread basket and knocked him over. With leverage, she could have clocked him in the temple and dropped him if necessary, but like this, close to his body but not close enough to bite, there wasn’t much she could do.
And then someone’s hand circled her wrist, and truth be told, that was when Mindy found herself really scared. One dumbass thug who wanted a cheap feel she could handle. If she was about to get pulled into some kind of round robin, things were going to get really bad.
Except that instead of being pulled into a circle of men who all wanted a turn, she was shoved behind someone who was big and strong and broad. He was taller than her, just a bit, but she had worn heels. She was off balance, and she let her hands fall on his back to balance herself. Every muscle in his body was tense, but not towards her. He faced off with the man in front of him, who was no longer laughing.
“Wester,” the man said. Mindy couldn’t help but notice that he had one arm held out in front of her, keeping her back, but also putting a shield between her and the men in the booth. There was ink all up and down his arm; a coiled chain that circled his wrist and then wrapped around his forearm before disappearing under the rolled-up sleeve of his cotton shirt. In another time, she thought distractedly, she would enjoy running her fingers up the lines of the ink, and seeing just how far up his arm it went.
“Jackdaw,” the dirt bag replied. “Didn’t know you were back in town.”
The man—Jackdaw?—laughed, but there wasn’t any humor in the sound. “You know, Wester, most guys don’t need bullies around to make sure they treat women like people.”
Wester bristled, and his face grew red. His voice grew soft and dangerous. “The diner is within bounds for the Wardens, Dawson. Don’t push us.”
“Ain’t pushing,” Jackdaw said. “Just explaining how things are. This has been Chain Gang territory for years, and Grim’s death ain’t changing that.”
“Changed an awful lot of things,” Wester said, and he stood up slow out of the booth. He was taller than Jackdaw, bigger and broader. He wasn’t fat so much as he was huge. He looked like some of the guys in the pro wrestling that Cook turned on late at night; huge and powerful, with hands like bear paws. “Might be some more things are going to change. Might be the Chain Gang can’t be led by some skinny shit who named himself after a fucking bird.”
The punch happened so fast that Mindy only realized that Jackdaw had moved after the blow had already landed. Wester gave a huge groan and bent over, clutching his stomach; Jackdaw grabbed the man’s hand and pulled it down to connect his nose with the big man’s knee. Behind her, she heard Cook shout that he was calling the police, and they all better clear out right now. Every man who came in with Wester was on their feet, and she knew that she and this man who had saved her were about to die. But then he grabbed her hand like some kind of hero in an action film and whispered, “Run.” That was the only warning she’d got before he tugged her towards the door, running towards the outside. He pulled a bike off its kickstand and dropped a helmet on her head with no ceremony.
“I don’t know how to ride,” she managed to say, her heart pounding in her throat.
“Ain’t nothing to it,” he said, pulling at her waist. “Get on, hold on, don’t let go.”
Okay. Okay, she could handle that. She slung her leg over the back of the bike, finding a place to settle her feet, and wrapped her arms around his waist as tightly as she could. She was barely settled on the bike’s saddle before there
was a plume of dust rising behind them, Jackdaw tearing off towards the open road as the bikers behind them fanned out towards their own bikes. They were already gone, though, before she heard the first engine cough into life somewhere behind them, and the man she was clinging to didn’t seem afraid at all. That made it easier to breathe.
Chapter Two After the first few miles, he slowed down to a more conservative speed, and Mindy let herself feel the thrill of what had just happened. The adrenaline was still roaring through her, eager and desperate, and having her arms wrapped around a super cut biker who had just rescued her was not calming down her raging hormones.
He drove the bike to a small apartment complex that she vaguely recognized as being on the outskirts of Providence. He rode the bike around the back, away from the parking lot, and then pulled to a stop.
“We’re going to hide here for a little bit,” he said. “Safer. Until Wester and his boys calm the fuck down.”
Mindy slung her leg off the bike, the space between her legs still vibrating with the rhythm of the engine, and tried to push thoughts of finishing off that rhythm right out of her head. “And what if I don’t want to hide with you? I don’t even know your name.”
He raised one eyebrow and gave her the most come-hither look she’d ever seen. “Thought you heard back at the diner. Jackdaw.”
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Jackdaw isn’t any kind of name.”
“It’s a biker name.”
“What’s your real name, Birdman?”
He threw back his head and laughed, then stuck out a hand. “Jack Dawson,” he said. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am.”
She reached out and shook his hand. “Mindy Scarlet.”
The son of a bitch actually laughed. “That’s a porn star name if I ever heard one.”
She yanked her hand out of his. “What the hell kind of a thing is that to say?”
He shrugged. “A true thing. I’m not saying a thing about you, ma’am, just that your name sounds like you should be on a billboard or dancing around a pole. And no shame on those that make their living that way. That’s more athletic than I’ve ever been in my life.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, looking for any shame or trickery in his voice or his expression. She saw absolutely none. “I was handling myself just fine back there, you know?” It might not be a polite thing to say, but she didn’t like the idea of him thinking that she was in his debt.
“You absolutely were,” he replied. “Honestly, Wester and I got beef that goes way back; rescuing you was almost a side benefit.”
Her mouth gaped open, and he laughed at her.
“Come on, now. It can’t be that much of a surprise.”
And then she realized where she’d heard of this man, of Jackdaw Dawson before. The other waitresses had a name for him; Mr. Big. It was a direct reference to the bulge he carried in his worn Levis. She couldn’t keep her eyes from straying down there now, taking him in. They were not kidding. No one said he slept around, and none of the waitresses had ever been bothered by him, but somehow Mindy hadn’t ever waited on him.
She thought about arguing more, about explaining that she wasn’t going into some dark apartment with a man she didn’t know, but she was hungry. She’d been hungry at the diner, and she was hungry now, and Mindy Scarlet had never really bothered denying her hunger. That was one of the many benefits of leaving her life in the dust every so often; she had the freedom to do exactly what she needed to.
“Alright, fine,” she said. “Show me this wonderful hiding place where we will never be found.”
Jack blinked for a moment, and then a smile traced its way across his face. “Right this way, ma’am.”
“If you don’t stop calling me that, I will walk right out into the road and wave down anyone on a motorcycle that I see,” Mindy snapped, her hands back on her hips. “You have to be ten years older than me.”
That smile quirked like he was going to bust out laughing again. “Sorry, Mindy,” he said, nodding to her. “Come on in.”
Later, she’d be embarrassed by it. Not much, but just a little. Jack led her down a hallway, then took out a key to open a door in the darkened building. She stepped inside a room that wasn’t much bigger than a closet but looked clean enough. “This is where you live?”
“No,” he said. “This is an old dorm building for the Chain Gang. From before—well—some stuff happened. But no one comes here anymore, not even the Wardens’ assholes.”
That was all she needed to hear. She could see the mattress in the corner, and that was what she wanted. She stepped into Jack’s space, made sure he didn’t hesitate, then wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.
There was a long moment when she was quite sure he was surprised, but that faded quickly enough. He pulled her hips tight against his, and then moved them, pressing her tight up against the door. His hands came to her body, one hooking her leg up to wrap it around his waist, the other reaching up to caress her breast. It felt so good, it felt so incredibly good to have a touch she wanted wiping away the touch that had felt so terrible, and she rocked her hips up so that her cloth covered pussy smashed into his denim wrapped harness. And God was he ever hard.
He broke the kiss for a moment to look at her in the dim light, his hand cupping the back of her head.
“Are you sure?” he said. “Tell me you’re sure. Tell me you want me.”
She reached between them and cupped his erection, hearing him hiss in the darkness.
“I want you,” she murmured, even though what she meant was I want this. He didn’t say anything after that. He lifted both of her legs, cradling her against him easily and carrying her to the mattress. He dropped to his knees first, then laid her down on her back. He didn’t hesitate, just flipped up her ridiculous skirt and—Jesus, she was still wearing the absurd frilly apron—then her panties were off, and he was covering her with his mouth, and she stopped worrying about the apron.
Her back arched up off the mattress at the splendid feel of his hot tongue stroking her slit and finding the right rhythm to make her heave against him, desperate and eager and so very wanton. It felt so good, so incredibly good, but even as he twisted his fingers inside of her, groaning at finding her so warm and open and welcoming, it wasn’t what she wanted. She tugged at his shoulders, pulling him up to her and fighting with the buttons of his shirt. He tore the apron strings, trying to get the apron untied, and then yanked at the button front of her dress. She showed him the zipper, and he yanked it down, burying his face between her small breasts as he let out another one of those groans. He angled his hips up enough to unzip his fly and push his jeans and boxers down, and then it was just a few short movements before his hard cock was tracing the tip of her opening.
He froze, right there, and caught her chin in his hand. She noticed how very blue his eyes were, how strong his face looked, the sandy blond of his hair, and the scar that ran along his jawline and disrupted the flow of his stubble, which looked real, not just artfully poorly shaved.
“Tell me you want this,” he said. “Tell me with words.”
She angled her hips up, trying to pull him deep inside of her, but he teased away.
“Tell me.”
She lay there for a moment, her dress open around her, his arms still in his shirt but his ass bare, and she tried to find the words. To explain the hunger, the need for him, the itch that had overtaken her tonight and the sure sense that he could scratch it just right.
“Yes,” she said, not finding anything better after a long, soul-searching moment. “Yes, please. Jack. Jackdaw. Fuck me.”
He groaned as he sunk into her, as sweet and smooth as a magnet turning towards the north. Her body was arching up to meet him in moments, aching at the sense of him so very deep inside of her. He was big, really big, and she was astonished he’d slid in so smooth; it told her something about how eager and ready and wet she was. She could feel her body stretching to accommod
ate him, but even more, she felt him crashing into her. She didn’t know what was driving him so deep into her body, but she didn’t care; she didn’t care if it made him fuck like this, made him want her this much.
He reached down, his hands going under her ass to adjust the angle and let him drive in just a little deeper. It made his pelvis grind into her clit, and within moments an orgasm was circling her, swirling through her, making her bite down on his shoulder to keep from screaming. He cried out with the pain, and she felt his body tense, felt his cock swell just a little bit more before he came, jerking inside of her in sharp, shattering spasms. He had barely taken a breath after that before he was reaching down between them, making just enough room to finger her clit in sweet, tight little circles. It would have been too intense without his cock still inside of her blunting the sensations just enough to drive her over the edge and make her spasm for him, shattering and bursting into bright lights as he stroked her gently through her climax.
When she came back down to earth, he crashed down next to her, laughing softly. His hand lay on the flat of her belly, a completely natural feeling of possessiveness that she found she liked. She’d never tolerated a man being possessive before; any attempt at cuddling was sharply rejected, and the offending man was sent on their way. Or, if they were at his place—which was much more likely—she found an excuse, got up, and left.
BIKER’S GIFT Page 50
