“Tanner sure as hell wasn’t unaffected.”
“So fucking what? He’s not me. And you know what—that sucked, that hard-on slamming against my ass during that take. It made me sick. It would have been super awesome if when it was over I could have come back to my trailer and had you hold me so I could regroup and not feel like I was practically violated on camera and then violated again when I was surrounded by shouting, angry men because you bloodied the star of the fucking film!”
Now he was overrun by a confusing crush of emotion. He wanted to kill Tanner for making her feel like that. He wanted to beat the shit out of all the men shouting at her. He felt miserably guilty for making everything so tough on her and not being there when she needed him. He wanted to hold her now and try to make it right. And he was still reeling with jealousy at the thought that he’d always have to share her in this way.
If he wanted her, he’d always have to share her, period—with her costars, with her family and friends, with the public. He would never be alone with her, not really.
Could he deal?
His head hurt a lot, but before he said anything more, he forced himself to think it out. This love thing was new to him, and he didn’t understand a lot of what he was feeling. Like this jealousy, the way it ate him up with fire. He was not hotheaded—or he’d never been before. But she was right to describe the way he was earlier as an ‘incoherent rage monster.’ He’d thought about nothing but tearing Tanner apart. He’d ended up hurting Riley, and he never wanted to do that. But if he was going to share her with the world, then he needed some grounding. Something to help him find his balance, to remind him, and everyone else, that she was his.
“I need you to be mine.”
She jerked a little, clearly surprised. Then she leaned forward. “I am yours, Bart. I don’t know how to make you believe it.”
“Take my ink.”
“What?”
“My ink. A tattoo that means you’re mine. My old lady.”
“What are you talking about?”
The research she’d done for the role had apparently missed this tidbit. “The stencil on your neck right now—the replica of Lilli’s tattoo? That’s Isaac’s ink. That’s why his name is in it. It’s his mark, saying she’s his.”
“You want me to get a permanent tattoo that says I’m yours? Like I’m a cow?”
“No. It’s not like that. It’s more like… like a ring. But more permanent. And it can keep you safe. Remember when Shiv had you, and he told me to show him my ink on you? He’d have backed off immediately—he never would have bothered you—if you’d had my ink.”
Her expression had softened from challenge to curiosity. “Like a ring? What are you saying, Bart?”
Part of him couldn’t believe he was doing this. The rest of him knew it was right. “I’m saying I love you and I need you to be mine. I want you to be my old lady, and I want you to show my ink.”
The air in the trailer seemed unstable to Bart as she considered what he was saying. He tried to be still and let her work her way around it. At last, she asked, “Will you do it for me? ‘Take ink’ for me?”
He grinned, his chest expanding as the pressure of jealousy eased from it. “Yes, absolutely. We can do it together.”
She moved to the couch and sat next to him. “Eleanor is going to have a heart attack.”
“Well, that’s just a bonus feature.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Scorpions clubhouse was dim and nearly empty when Riley went in on a January afternoon. Apparently, biker clubhouses had a common theme, because this was mostly just a bigger version of the Horde’s. The floor was cracked linoleum over concrete. The walls were paneled wood. The décor was Early Modern Beer and Motorcycle Sign, with an accent of Porn Pinup. And the furniture was Second Wave Salvation Army.
The smell was similar, too—stale beer and booze, sex, cigar, weed, and a just a dash of sweat, urine, and vomit. A delightful mélange.
She only saw three Scorpions and one Prospect, none of whom was Bart. And no girls. Of the five times she’d been here, that was a first—there seemed always to be a lot of women hanging around. A lot of very obviously very willing women. And Bart was the jealous one in the relationship. Right.
That jealousy was still palpable, but it had eased noticeably once she had an ornate ‘B’ inked into the back of her right shoulder. And honestly, she didn’t exactly mind seeing the ‘R’ with a star trailing from it on the back of his right shoulder. In fact, it was downright sexy.
It turned out that she didn’t mind being in the clubhouse that much. She hadn’t been to one of their notorious parties yet, and Bart was in no hurry to bring her into one, but she’d met the whole club. A few months ago, she would probably have been anxious, even frightened, around them. But her world, and her worldview, had changed a lot in those few months. Now instead of seeing a bunch of big, mean-looking men covered in ink and leather, she saw big, mean-looking men covered in ink and leather who laughed a lot, drank a lot, called her ‘doll’ and ‘honey’ and ‘darlin’,’—and stood up when she needed a seat, called for a drink for her, and stood on the street side of the sidewalk when they were with her. It hadn’t escaped her notice that the way they treated her and the other old ladies was not the way they treated all those very obviously very willing women—those women were treated pretty rudely and roughly, expected to serve the men in all sorts of ways, and otherwise ignored—but as far as Riley could tell, they were there of their own free will, and they had made their choices.
The other old ladies. There were three: Bibi, who was Hoosier’s wife, Connor’s mother, and the queen of the clubhouse; Margot, Blue’s old lady; and Ingrid, recently married to Diaz. Riley actually knew Ingrid—she was a well-established model, and they had done a makeup campaign together a couple of years back. Riley’s entire perspective about being old lady to a Scorpion had changed fundamentally upon seeing Ingrid in the clubhouse. She’d instantly felt like it wasn’t quite so strange to be a girl like her in a world like this.
And they all had ink that marked them as belonging to their men, all of it different. Apparently, that fact was unique among Scorpions clubhouses the world over. Most Scorpions old ladies wore, well, a scorpion, usually a smaller replica of the ink their man wore. It was expected. But Bibi hadn’t wanted a bug on her body, and she’d apparently caused a legendary stink about it. So Scorpions LA women chose their own ink. Riley liked that a lot. A whole lot. She didn’t like Bart’s scorpion. The thought of having it on her, too…would have been a problem. She liked their initials, something they shared just between the two of them.
The women had all welcomed her warmly, and Margot, who seemed to be sort of in charge of her, was being kind and patient in explaining the ways of the club. There were a lot of ways of the club, not all of them things Riley thought were so awesome. Like the ‘run rule,’ which basically stated that Bart could do whatever he wanted when he was off on a run, and there would be nothing she could do about it. Not even ask.
There was a lot of not asking in the ways of the club, too.
Okay. That wasn’t exactly a surprise. She knew they weren’t Boy Scouts, that when Bart went off on a run, he usually wasn’t delivering toys to sick children—though they did that, too. She knew that stuff she couldn’t ask about was stuff she was better off not knowing anyway. But she didn’t give even one fuck about the stupid ‘run rule.’ He didn’t get that one. Nope. No guy as jealous and possessive as Bart Elstad got to scamper out of town and get his extracurricular jollies when he had a woman at home. Uh-uh.
“Hey, little starlet, how’s it going?”
Riley turned and smiled up at the handsome blond Scorpion walking toward her. A lot of the Scorpions were handsome. But with all their ink and muscles and beards, they all also looked unmistakably like bikers. Just high-end versions. “Hi, Jesse. Bart around?”
“He’s over in the garage. I’ll call him.”
“Can I just go
over? Surprise him?”
He laughed. “You don’t want to surprise a man working with power tools, doll.” He leaned back and thought for a minute. “But go ‘round front, talk to Janine. She’ll send you back so he can see you coming. And don’t go strolling through the bays. You could get hurt, and we wouldn’t want that. Want me to walk you over?”
The Scorpions’ compound was a city block on the southern end of La Cienega Boulevard. Not the world’s best neighborhood. But in order for Riley to get from the front door of the clubhouse to the front door of Cali Classics Custom Cycles required her to walk about twenty feet. On the perimeter of a biker compound. She was perfectly safe. And this was a paparazzi-free zone. None of those douchebags could handle the idea of a whole club full of pissed off bikers coming for them.
“Nope. I can handle it.”
His forehead wrinkled suddenly. “Where’s your cage? You didn’t park that fine ride on the street, did you?”
“No way. I had somebody drop me off. Hoping to get a ride on a Harley instead. So, I’m gonna go over and hook that up. Thanks!”
“Any time, doll.” He bent down and turned his cheek. “Pay me with some sugar.”
“Flirt.” She kissed his cheek and went out into the warm sunshine of a California winter.
The bike shop was nothing at all like the clubhouse. The showroom was bright and modern and so clean it was practically sterile. Beautiful motorcycles gleamed under brilliant white lights. The color scheme was black, red, and white—a gleaming black floor, pristine white walls with the shop logo painted in vivid red on the back wall. There was a cluster of sleekly modern chairs in black and red leather surrounding a low chrome and glass table. There were two offices in the back corner, separated from the showroom by a wall of smoked glass.
Janine was the receptionist. She smiled when Riley came in. “Hi, Riley. Bart’s in back. Hold on—I’ll call him up.”
“Can I just go back?”
She put the phone back in its cradle. “Sure. Just stay on the wall side of the red line.”
Riley nodded and went through the red steel door behind the desk.
She never been back in the workspace before. It, too, was gleaming and bright. A long bank of tall, red and black toolboxes lined one wall. The music was loud, and Riley realized the soundproofing must be really excellent, because up front there had been no ambient sound. Back here, the concrete walls fairly vibrated with Metallica. Not to mention the sounds of engine work.
Bart was standing at a long red worktable situated in the center of the room. What must have once been a motorcycle engine was arrayed before him in small metal bits. He was wearing a black coverall, folded over at the waist, and a gloriously tight white t-shirt, smeared with black grease. He was all but facing her, so she stood and waited for him to notice. The other guys—Lakota and Connor—were squatting at bikes with their backs to her, so no one as yet had noticed her presence. She liked it. She felt like she was seeing into a part of Bart’s life that had been dark to her before now. In fact, she didn’t want him to see her.
But then he did. He looked up, and his eyes widened with surprise. And then his beautiful crooked grin moved up the side of his face, and he set down the part he was working on and walked over, wiping his hands on a red towel as he came.
“Hey, princess!” He stopped short of her, still wiping his hands, but she didn’t care about the grease. She grabbed his dirty t-shirt in her fist and pulled him to her. Still grinning, he bent down and claimed her mouth, his hands coming to rest on her hips. They kissed until the guys were whistling and howling behind them. Then Bart pulled back, his eyes hot, leaving her gasping.
“Why the surprise? No trouble, right?”
She blushed. “No. I just…I was excited. I was at that cast meeting this morning, and all I could think of was that you’d be coming home tonight. Not just coming to stay over, but coming home, and I was excited and wanted to see you. It’s okay, right?”
Bart was moving in today. Moving into her house. Their house. Living with her. Living together.
Not alone, not anymore.
“I like you excited.” He wiggled his eyebrows. Then his look shifted to one of concentration. “Hold up. Let me get all those parts put up so I can pick up where I left off, and I’ll see if Moscow’s around. I’ve got the van packed already, and I’ll have him drive my stuff over. Then you and I can get the hell out of here.”
“Are you sure? You can leave early?” She knew her huge smile was belying the sincerity of her concern.
“Babe, nobody cares, long as I get the job done on time, and as long as I answer the call. So let’s blow.”
~oOo~
Late that night, after Riley had closed the door on a departing Eleanor and Pru, she turned off the lights in the living room and the kitchen and went out onto the terrace. Bart was standing at the far edge of the lawn, looking out at the black and blue expanse of night sky and the glittering city below. In Los Angeles, without a telescope the like of which could only be found at the Griffith Observatory, stars did not exist above. Only below.
When they’d gotten home this afternoon, she’d led him to the terrace to show him the homecoming gift she’d bought him, and one of the reasons she’d been too excited to wait until he’d come home on his own, after dark: a huge, top-of-the-line gas grill. Her terrace wasn’t really big enough for a full outdoor kitchen, but she’d done the best she could. As these things went, it looked nice, stainless steel with marble prep tops on either side. The guy at the shop had rattled off several dozen supposedly wonderful features, none of which she’d understood. But Bart liked his red meat, and she wanted him to be able to do the manly cooking thing.
He’d been even more pleased than she’d hoped, picking her up off the ground to hold her. And then he’d surprised her more, suggesting—nay insisting—that she call Pru and Eleanor, and even Trevor, and invite them over for dinner. With no small sense of trepidation, she’d done so. And then she’d handed over the keys to her Ferrari, and Bart had raced down the hill to the market. He’d returned with half a barnyard’s worth of raw meat. And some salmon steaks for, as he’d said, grinning like an idiot, “All you food pussies.”
They’d all come. Trevor had even brought Dante, his husband. And after Trevor’s violent attack of the vapors upon seeing the grill and all the red flesh sizzling on it, they’d actually had a good time. Riley and Bart and their first dinner party. The actress and the biker, pouring wine and grilling steaks. Making a statement that they were as one.
She’d never had anything like this before. Her only other really powerful relationship had been with Devon—she’d had boyfriends, lovers, before him, but never anything that had gotten into her psyche and soul. She and Devon, as wildly as she’d loved him, had not been a couple like this, not ever. They had been sad and intense and needy and sweet, rolled up in each other in ways that had clearly not been healthy—not to him, obviously, but not to her, either. Now, looking back on what they’d had, and what they’d become, she saw that she’d been, in important ways, as alone with him as she’d been anywhere else. He’d consumed her.
She’d lived her life surrounded by people, people who had, by design or by opportunity, controlled her. Until recently, except for the hours of sleep, she’d hardly ever been without a companion of one sort or another. And still she’d been completely alone.
And now she wasn’t. Now Bart was with her. What he did didn’t matter, because who he was was perfect for her. He was hers.
She walked up behind him and circled her arms around his waist. He looked over his shoulder with a smile and looked down at her. “Hey, princess.”
“Hey. Thanks for tonight. I loved it. I love you.”
His smile grew, and then he pulled her to stand in front of him looking out, and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “I will never get tired of this view. It’s like the world is upside down, and the stars are on the ground.”
She chuckled; she’d been
thinking something not so different not so long ago. “I’ve lived here almost five years, and I’m not tired of it yet. It’s my favorite thing about this house. Our house.”
She felt his hand on her right shoulder, brushing her—blonde again—hair away and pulling her shirt down. He traced her tattoo with his thumb, and she could feel the letter as he drew it on her skin, the long, curved sweep of the stem, the rounded swells of each bowl: B. Then he bent down and kissed the spot where his thumb had last been.
He kissed over her shoulder, and she tipped her head to the side so that he could continue on up her neck. When he got to her ear, he whispered, “You know what else is my favorite thing?”
Focused on the way her body clenched and hummed at the touch of his hands, his lips, his breath, she could only answer, “Hmmm?”
“Privacy. Wanna skinny dip?”
She opened her eyes and turned her head to give him a look. “Seriously? It’s January.”
“It’s seventy degrees, and the pool is heated. You chicken, princess?”
“I’m not chicken. I’m smart.”
He laughed out loud at that, his head thrown back. She was confused. She hadn’t thought it was that funny. When he looked down at her again, his eyes dancing in the night lights, he said, “Don’t you remember the first time you said that to me? The night I took you out to look at the stars?”
Now she smiled, remembering. She also remembered the seriously intense sex they’d had later, up against the door of her hotel room. That memory, and the way her body loved it, sealed the deal, and she rounded him without a word and headed for the pool, pulling her top off as she went.
She heard him mutter “Score!” and could imagine the fist pump that had accompanied it, and she laughed. He could be such a dork. She stood at the side of the pool and slid her jeans off. She did hesitate a bit when she got to her underwear—really? They were going to do this? Outside—naked? And then Bart came streaking across the lawn, cannonballing into the pool.
Alone on Earth Page 28
