Rough Ride (Riding with Honor)

by Rebecca Avery

  Now he was left with nothing but memories of her. Not just memories of that night but of her on the roof, wearing his helmet into the grocery store, the heat in her eyes when he’d come on to her in the dressing room at the mall. She had even seemed to latch on to the shop…his shop… his dreams and goals for the business. Taking over and building on in the one area he wasn’t equipped to handle…he had thought he’d finally found someone to share his life with. He was falling in love with her. God he did love her…even now knowing she was in the arms of another man!

  Damn her! Damn him for losing his heart to the one woman he should have known he could never have! What the fuck had he been thinking?

  Chapter Thirteen

  As the cab turned onto Sherri’s street, Lilly thought back over the past two weeks. Simon had managed to get her case transferred to a new judge and an evidence hearing had been scheduled for the beginning of the upcoming week. The hearing would never take place as even now Detective Sanders and several FBI agents were closing in to arrest Kyle, Simon and several other people including the judge who was now handling the fictitious case against Lilly.

  Detective Sanders had put Lilly on a plane to Florida to ensure she was safely out of state when the arrests went down. She would be safe from the media frenzy that would be unleashed in a few short hours, and safe from those who would use her to gain their own freedom. He had assured her that he would be in contact with her when she was needed to testify. Her fast thinking regarding additional money that did not exist being tied to her and Darren’s investments had been enough to get Simon, Kyle and the judge talking and planning.

  She had even managed to leave her wire tapped necklace in the judge’s chambers catching a conversation between Simon and the judge that implicated them both in other illegal activities. Playing the damsel in distress had merely provided her the in she needed. The rest had come from using her wits and intelligence. Darren had never appreciated her for more than her looks and her ability to maintain good standing amongst their peers. Money had meant more to Darren than she ever had and it seemed that Kyle was of the same cloth. Bobby had been the only man in her life to ever want her for who she was… not for her money or her ability to maintain an image.

  As painful as it would be to potentially run into him now, this was where she belonged. He had probably moved on to someone else by now. Detective Sanders had asked her if she planned to move back home to New York once the case was over. She had realized that the only place she thought of as home was here… small town Florida surrounded by motorcycle riding roughnecks.

  She had known Bobby was a playboy when she got involved with him, but she’d already allowed one man in her life to disrupt her relationship with Sherri. No amount of heartache and certainly no man would keep her from being in Sherri’s life this time. Sherri had encouraged her to call Bobby a couple of times, probably hoping that if she could patch things up with him or at least find closure, she would return to Florida. Unable to tell Sherri the real reason she had left or even when she would return, she’d simply cut her conversations short.

  She pulled money from her purse, handed it through the sliding window to the cab driver and then grabbing her bag opened the door. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the open garage door. He was standing there, staring at her with his dark scowl. Her heart beat so rapidly she could hear it in her ears. As the cab drove away she forced herself to walk up the driveway.

  As she approached where he stood with his massive arms folded across his chest, she felt her entire body heat from the inside at his dark gaze until unable to bear it she looked away.

  “Hi,” she said awkwardly. After several seconds of silence she looked up at him.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” he asked.

  “I couldn’t…I thought…” she started.

  “Look I know you think I’m some sort of loser. I’m a thirty four year old mechanic who lives with his eighty year old grandmother. I don’t have a pot to piss in so to speak and am by no means a model citizen. I told you there were other women before you but none of them were you,” he said. “I should have called… and I’m sorry but I was out making a deal for the shop that will keep the place afloat at least for another half a year. As much as the guys need the money, I need it too. I promised Gran I would keep her in that house as long as she wanted to be there. I owe her that much and I may be a loser and a playboy but I keep my word,” he finished, turning and walking angrily to the front of the garage.

  She walked further into the garage, set her bag down and then slowly made her way to where Bobby stood with his back to her. As she approached the heat that was him, she reached up to touch his broad back and then pulled her hand away. God she had missed this. The feelings that this man seemed to drag out of her were incredible but she had to know.

  “I thought since you got what you wanted from me that you had moved on,” she said quietly.

  Bobby dropped his head to his chest and halfheartedly laughed. “No Lilly, I’m not the one who moved on this time. This time it was the woman who ditched me and left me hanging while she moved on to someone else,” he said.

  She heard raindrops outside the garage and watched as Bobby walked over and hit the button to close the overhead door. He seemed angry and wouldn’t even look at her. Confusion left her with a momentary loss of words. What did he mean she had moved on? She had spent the last two weeks in hell, nursing a broken heart while attempting not to picture him with another woman.

  “What?” she asked in confusion.

  Bobby seemed to physically snap at her words and he moved like lightening until he was standing in front of her. Grabbing her roughly by the back of her neck he forced her to look up at him and said, “Who is he Lilly? Does he make you whimper when he fucks you? Or is his money what makes your panties wet?”

  Her mouth went slack and she had to force her eyes to remain open rather than closing at the impact of his touch. Yet his words fired her emotions and left her even more confused. “What are you talking about Bobby?” she croaked.

  “Kyle… I saw you with him outside of the courthouse,” he said angrily. “Yet you want to make it seem like I’m the one who walked away from you. Admit it! I’m just not good enough, not proper enough, not rich enough for you…am I? You used me! Not the other way around.”

  “It’s not what you think…” she started.

  His mouth crashed down on hers. Never one to treat her like breakable china… pretty to look at but not for everyday use…she felt heat travel from his rough grasp on her neck and the passion behind his kiss. Unable to resist him, she was suddenly kissing him back with all the emotion she had tried so desperately to push aside.

  He pushed her back against a small row of cabinets that sat along the wall as his fingers pushed and pulled her skirt up around her waist. His hands slid along the sides of her panties and he pushed them down. Breaking free from her mouth he looked at her and said, “Tell me to stop.”

  She saw the same heartbreak in his eyes she’d seen staring back at her from the mirror. Though she needed him to understand about Kyle she couldn’t seem to catch her breath or stop the heat that licked each place that his fingers touched.

  “No,” she said and brought her mouth back to his.

  He moaned into her mouth and gathered her hair up into his fist to pull her head back to gain access to her throat. Using his other hand he pushed several items from the counter top as Lilly stepped out of her panties. Then letting loose of her hair his large hands covered her bottom and lifted her up and onto the edge of the counter.

  He recaptured her mouth again as he unfastened his belt and unzipped his pants. She felt him at her entrance and placing her arms behind her she moved her hips forward to allow him better access. With one thrust he was inside. Grabbing her legs in each hand he began an almost violent rhythm. She broke the kiss and threw her head back with a moan.

  “Is this all I’m good for Lilly?” he gasped out between clenched teeth. “I
s it? Good enough to fuck but not to take out in public?”

  His words were like a bucket of cold ice water poured over top of her, drenching the flames that had seemed to consume her from the inside out.

  “No… Bobby… wait… stop,” she cried as tears spilled down her cheeks.

  He stopped and pulled out turning away from her to quickly zip his pants and fasten his belt.

  “Please… we need to talk,” she said.

  “I tried Lilly… Sherri told you I called didn’t she?” he said between broken breaths. Resting his hands on his hips he turned back to face her.

  “Yes, she told me,” she said, trying to control the tears that had built up over the past couple of weeks.

  Looking at her he said, “You should have called me back. Up until that night I had never given you any reason not to trust me. I’m not Darren. You chose to believe all the things you had heard about me and didn’t even give me a chance to explain. Tommy was there… you could have asked him…” His voice broke and he turned his face away from her. “You should have called me back,” he finished.

  With that he walked through the door of the garage into the house slamming the door behind him. She sobbed as she slid off the counter and retrieved her panties from the cold garage floor, stuffing them into the pocket of her skirt. A few short minutes later she heard the sound of Bobby’s bike start up and then take off down the street. A knock sounded on the garage door just before it opened and Sherri stepped through.

  Her sister gathered her into her embrace until her sobbing subsided.

  “I just don’t know what to think,” she started.

  “Let me kick these bums out and you and I will have a little heart to heart over a bottle of wine,” Sherri said, handing her a napkin she found on the counter.

  Sherri disappeared back into the house once again only to return a few minutes later. She could hear a couple of motorcycles and a car start up and leave. Sherri caught her by the shoulders and brought her into the house and sat her at the kitchen table.

  Lilly tried valiantly to pull herself together as Sherri shuffled around the kitchen getting out two wine glasses and pulling the cork from a cheap bottle of wine. After setting a glass of wine in front of her, Sherri took a seat at the table next to her.

  Taking a sip of her wine Sherri said, “He’s in love with you.”

  “What?” she asked through her tears.

  “You heard me. Bobby Jackson is in love with you,” Sherri said, taking another sip of her wine.

  “You said he is a playboy…” she said.

  “So? You need to learn to trust your own judgment and listen to your heart and stop giving a royal fuck what other people think, including me,” Sherri said. “I told you to call him didn’t I?”

  “I couldn’t call Bobby. I was helping the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI to bring Kyle to justice. He was in on the whole thing with Darren. I’ve spent the last two weeks working with them to find enough evidence to arrest him. I couldn’t risk Kyle overhearing my conversation with him,” She said. “He hurt me when he didn’t come back that night, but that wasn’t the only reason I left.”

  “Bullshit” Sherri said, “If you had enough time to call me, you could have found a few minutes to call him. So why didn’t you call him? Shame the devil…tell the truth.”

  Taking a large sip of the wine, whether for courage or to delay having to give a voice to the feelings she’d held in since meeting Bobby, she wasn’t sure.

  “I don’t trust my own judgment,” she whispered before breaking into a new fit of tears.

  Sherri left the table only to return with a box of tissues which she placed next to Lilly’s glass of wine.

  “Why?” Sherri asked.

  Taking a deep breath she said, “I was so wrong about Darren. He seemed so nice and smart and…well, good. Yet he wasn’t. He was a liar, a cheat, a con man and a criminal. He may have looked like an upper class businessman but he was a lowlife Sherri…and not only did it go on right beneath my nose, I let it come between you and me. I’m sorry for that…so sorry. If I had listened to you about him, I could have ended it years ago. I mean deep down…in my heart…I knew he was cheating on me… I chose not to give it credence and it ended up nearly destroying me.”

  “So you thought it best to listen to my jaded self where Bobby was concerned?” Sherri asked incredulously.

  “Well… yea. I mean it’s not like I don’t have eyes myself. I see how women are constantly touching him and looking at him. I was more embarrassed about anyone finding out about Darren’s affairs than I was hurt by them. I know that’s sad to say, but it’s true. The thought of Bobby being with another woman, nearly killed me. I mean I couldn’t breathe the pain was so bad,” she said.

  “I admitted that I didn’t know him very well when he dropped you off here that first day you rolled into town. What’s he like?” Sherri asked.

  “He’s actually a good person. He works hard and looks out for the guys at the shop. I mean he told me tonight that he lives with his Grandmother because he promised her she could stay in that house as long as she wanted,” she said.

  Sherri simply nodded her head in agreement, “Are you in love with him?”

  “Yes. Yea I am in love with him,” she said with confidence.

  “Have you told him that?” Sherri asked.

  “No. I don’t think he wants to hear that right now. He’s so angry with me for not calling him. I hurt him badly by not giving him a chance to make it right or to even say goodbye. I think I hurt him as much if not more than he hurt me by not calling me that night and not coming home,” she said.

  Sherri smiled at Lilly’s use of the word home. Her wealthy upper class sister referring to a camper full of bikers as home only made her wish that somehow Darren was there to hear it.

  “All I know is that one of you is going to have to be the bigger person and admit how you really feel. I appreciate hot sex as much as the next girl, but sex isn’t everything. In a relationship it’s just one slice of the pie. Communication, trust and honesty help make it a complete dessert,” Sherri said with a wink.

  She laughed and nearly choked on her wine as Bobby’s words flowed through her mind. “Was he able to make you orgasm?”

  “What?” Sherri asked with a laugh

  “Nothing,” she replied.

  “I probably don’t want to know,” Sherri said.

  “You really think he’s in love with me?” She asked.

  “Yea I do and so does a whole bunch of broken hearted women, now that he’s off the market,” Sherri replied.

  “Off the market?” she asked.

  “He hasn’t even looked at another woman since he met you. In Bobby Jackson time a month’s worth of interest in only one woman speaks volumes,” Sherri said, finishing off her wine and pouring herself another glass. “Hell from what I’ve heard Tommy has taken on Chuck as his new P.I.C. when he goes on the prowl.”

  “P.I.C.?” she asked.

  “Partner in Crime,” Sherri replied.

  “That’s probably information I don’t want to know,” she said with a laugh.

  “I’m not sure what happened between you two tonight but he’s yours for the taking…if you want him,” Sherri said.

  “I’m heading up to bed. I am so worn out…emotionally and physically,” she said, standing and placing her wine glass in the sink.

  “From what I’ve heard, Bobby Jackson will do that to a woman...” Sherri snickered.

  Lilly lightly punched Sherri on the arm as she left the kitchen and made her way up the stairs to her room. Closing the door she glanced at the window only to catch her breath at the memories of Bobby out on the rooftop.

  “What was the best part? Did you like the rush from going fast, the roar and power between your legs, or the feel of me in your arms?”

  Squeezing her eyes shut tightly to block out the memories, she changed, brushed her teeth, washed her face and climbed into bed.

&
nbsp; Two days later, she found herself standing at the entrance to the garage bay of the shop. Glancing up Dickie spotted her and a slow grin spread across his face.

  “That foreign job you drive giving you problems again?” he asked, walking towards her.

  Lilly watched as Tommy peered around the opened hood of the car they were working on and Chuck rolled out from under the car on a creeper. Tommy’s eyes lit up and Chuck smiled when they saw her. Before she could fully appreciate their unexpected welcome, Dickie scooped her up into a big bear hug and whirled her around.

  “Man, am I glad to see you!” he said, standing her back on her feet and releasing her. “Just in time for payroll.”

  “I um… I just stopped by to…” she said, embarrassment heating her cheeks as the guys all stared at her.

  “Go through the mail? It’s right this way,” Dickie said jokingly as he guided her into the office with his hand on her lower back.

  As they stepped inside, she could not help but notice the condition of the desk. The part of her that needed to organize every aspect of her life drew her to it like a moth to a flame. They had completely trashed her desk…again. Her desk…

  “I suppose you’re looking for Bobby. He’s actually out of town. He left to go and review the plans he’s been working on for four new custom bikes with the customer,” Dickie said in a serious tone.

  “As much as I want to lie and tell you that I just stopped by to see you and the guys, you and I both know why I’m here,” she said, turning with the pile of mail she had scooped off the counter that ran along the top of the desk.

  “I want to apologize to you Lilly. I already apologized to Bobby. When he didn’t come back the night of the rally I assumed he was out ‘painting the town’ so to speak. I think my reaction to those assumptions spilled over to you and gave you the wrong impression,” he said. “I’ve since learned that for once he was doing the right thing, making this business a priority. He wasn’t with another woman that night. He was out drumming up business. In this industry sometimes that is done in less conventional ways than you’re used to.”