GHOST (Devil's Disciples MC Book 3)

by Scott Hildreth

  For the first time since we’d exited the highway, I surveyed my surroundings. Short of the cars that lined the narrow streets, the town looked like something from the turn of the nineteenth century.

  Wooden buildings with porches that hung over the entrance, homes that had been converted to craft shops, and residences that doubled as restaurants lined the streets. We came to rest at a pie shop that looked like a century old New England cottage. He turned off the engine and lowered the kickstand.

  I was excited to get to know Porter, but I was mentally exhausted. I’d been daydreaming about him eating my pussy for the entire two-hour ride. Sexually frustrated and still soaking wet, I climbed off the motorcycle and brushed the wrinkles from my dress.

  He hung his helmet on the handlebars, looked at the pie shop’s small covered patio, and then at me. “You ready?”

  Before I could answer, his eyes darted to the motorcycle seat. “What the fuck is that?”

  He reached toward the seat.

  I shifted my gaze to the area in question. Upon seeing it, embarrassment balled up in my throat. The leather was slathered in what appeared to be proof of my joyous ride. He dragged his finger across the slippery surface, wiping a clean path through the six-inch wide wet spot I’d left there.

  A prickly feeling crept up my neck. My face flashed hot. With his focus on his finger, and mine on him, I held my breath as he moved his hand toward his mouth.

  Oh. My God. Please. Lick it. I’m begging you.

  With my mouth agape and my mind in the gutter, I followed the movement of his hand as it moved closer and closer to his face. He straightened his finger. His lips parted. The instant the tip of his tongue touched the juice covered digit, my legs went weak.

  His eyes thinned. He licked it again and then looked at me. “Enjoy the ride?”

  I nodded. A full-on blush enveloped me. Instead of playing the embarrassed innocent, I decided to simply own it.

  “I had a good time,” I said, cocking my hip as I spoke. “Is that a crime?”

  “I’ll tell you what the crime is.” He wiped the palm of his hand over the remnants of my sexual daydream-infused ride. “Letting this go to waste.”

  Just when I thought my degree of sexual agony couldn’t worsen, it did. In an overly dramatic fashion, he licked his hand clean. As if it were a daily occurrence, he then turned toward the sidewalk that led to the pie shop.

  “You ready to eat that pie?” he asked.

  “I’m ready for you to eat my pie,” I responded, saying what was on my mind before I could get my brain to stop my mouth from spewing out the words.

  “You tortured me by making me agree to do this,” he said. “I don’t give a single solitary fuck how horny you got on the ride up here. It’s my turn to torture you. We’re eating fucking pie.”

  He took a few long strides toward the entrance. “C’mon.”

  Eating an entire pie sounded like a great idea when we talked about it in the sushi restaurant. Now it seemed a complete waste of an afternoon. Nonetheless, I followed Porter up the sidewalk, second-guessing my denial of his offer to have sex the entire way. My dripping wet pussy agreed.

  Once inside the nostalgic establishment, I was met by an old-school glass pie display case that was filled with various pies. My mouth watered at the sight of the flaky crust and the aroma of the fresh pies. As I ogled the pies, Porter stepped to the counter.

  “I’d like one slice of the boysenberry apple crumb, and an entire pecan pie, please,” Porter said.

  “A slice of boysenberry apple, and a whole pecan pie?” the lady asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Any toppings?” she asked, pointing to a sign that was suspended over her head.

  I glanced at the sign. There were two ice cream options – vanilla and cinnamon, caramel sauce, cinnamon sauce, whipped cream, and cheddar cheese.

  “Cinnamon ice cream on top of the boysenberry, please,” Porter responded without looking at the sign. He glanced over his shoulder. “Do you want anything on your pie?”

  Still struggling to rid myself of lingering sexual thoughts, I simply shook my head. “No, thank you.”

  “You don’t want the pecan pie boxed?” the lady asked.

  Porter smiled. “No, ma’am. She’s going to eat it.”

  Her eyes went wide. “She can’t eat an entire pecan pie. That’s impossible.”

  “According to her, she can eat it,” Porter assured her. “We’ve got a bet.”

  She was a middle-aged woman that looked like she belonged in a nineteen sixties television sitcom. Her short graying hair was fixed in a series of close curls, and she wore an apron that was dusted with flour. Halfway up the bridge of her nose, a pair of glasses rested.

  She peered over the tops of the lenses and fixed her eyes on me. “Sweetheart, you’re going to get sick if you eat an entire pie.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I said.

  “Have you done this before?” she asked.

  “I ate seven hotdogs once,” I admitted. “Not on a bet. Just because.”

  “That’s a far cry from eating one of our pecan pies. I wish you the best of luck.” She offered a reassuring smile. “Anything to drink?”

  I stepped to Porter’s side. “Milk, please.”

  He draped his arm over my back and squeezed my shoulder, pulling me into him as he did so. It was a simple gesture and I doubted he meant anything by it. My heart – and my slowly recovering lady bits – seemed to think otherwise.

  I looked at him with the intention of asking – playfully – what the hell he was doing. Instead, a face-splitting smile formed. He squeezed my shoulder with his massive hand and grinned in return.

  Lost in blissful thoughts of the moment we shared, I walked at Porter’s side as he carried the pies, admiring him along the way. Once outside, he gestured toward an empty table with a nod. “How’s that one?”

  Patrons of various ages were scattered about the seating area. I was going to become a spectacle while I ate the pie, and there was nothing I could do about it. Even so, I agreed to sit in the seat he recommended.

  “It’s fine,” I said.

  Porter seemed, at least during our pie-eating adventure, to be kind, playful, and extremely polite. Those qualities, when combined with his intimidating looks and massive size, garnered my interest. All of it.

  I wanted to get back on the orgasm machine. Or go order another pie and have him put his arm around me. We could ride around the countryside, stopping every fifteen miles or so for him to lick the seat free of my juices.

  I could simply bring up the topic of sex and see if it aroused him as much as it did in the sushi restaurant, stealing glances under the table at his crotch as we talked. I had no interest, however, in the pie that sat between us.

  “I’m pretty full.” I pushed myself away from the table and looked at the pie with disgust. “That sushi is swelling in my belly.”

  Acting disinterested in the comment I’d made, Porter cut the tip from his pie. He lifted it to his mouth and paused.

  “You said you wanted to get to know me.” He nodded toward the pecan pie. “While we’re eating we can get started on getting to know one another. What do you detest? What aggravates you?”

  “Surprises,” I responded without much thought. “I hate surprises.”

  He seemed surprised. “Really?”

  “Yep. Can’t stand them,” I said through gritted teeth. “They make me itch. I’m itching right now just talking about it. What about you? What do you detest?”

  “Liars,” he responded. “Just tell me the truth, no matter what you think I want to hear. If someone out and out lies to me, it’s over.”

  “I can’t stand them, either,” I admitted. “Liars suck.”

  He studied me for a moment, cut off a piece of pie, and then paused. “I want to know three things. One, what’s your all-time favorite song, and why. Two, I want to know if you were required to put one saying on your headstone what it would be. An
d, three, what’s the item on your little list that likely going to be the last one you achieve.”

  I loved question-answer games. By asking those three simple questions, Ghost Porter-Porter inched a little closer to my heart. Two of the questions were going to be easy to answer. The third, not so much.

  “My favorite song is from a movie,” I said. “At least that’s where I heard it first. Solsbury Hill, by Peter Gabriel. I like it because it’s perfect. It’s written in imperfect time – a seven-four beat – which makes it feel like it’s missing a beat in every measure. It sounds like the song is struggling to continue. It was his first song as a solo artist, and I wonder if he was struggling to continue at that time as well. I find it to be a spiritual song, but it doesn’t feel like he’s shoving spirituality down your throat when you listen to it. I love it. It’s uplifting.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that song.” He sliced the tine of his fork through the ice cream-pie mixture. “I’m not a spiritual person, maybe that’s why.”

  “The song has spiritual meaning, but it’s not a spiritual song. I’ll play it for you sometime,” I said. “It’s awesome.”

  “Keep going.” He rolled his hand in a circle as if he were bored. “There’s two more.”

  His admittance of not being spiritual troubled me. I wondered how he’d ever make it through cancer treatment without having a good relationship with God. I couldn’t comprehend what it would be like, and the more I thought about it, the more bothered about it I became. I decided I’d ask about it later.

  At least for the time being, I felt I needed to stick with the questions he’d asked of me. The next one was easy to answer. I’d given it considerable thought, long before meeting Porter. As far as I was concerned, it was the perfect epitaph. “If I had to put a saying on my headstone, it’d say, it’s not that bad.”

  “It’s not that bad?” He laughed. “What’s not that bad?”

  “Everything,” I said. “Life. Cancer. Whatever troubles you. Death. It’s not that bad. I thought the saying would make people wonder as they looked at my headstone, especially about death. When I was diagnosed, I came to peace with death quickly. I wasn’t afraid to die, and I don’t think other people should be, either. It’s not that bad.”

  “I like it. It covers a lot of ground,” he said. “I might paint that shit on the fender of my bike.”

  I smiled. “Do it.”

  He set his fork down on the side of his plate. After studying me, he drew a slow breath and then looked away. A moment of awkward silence followed. Then, he met my gaze.

  “What’s your status?” he asked. “Now? With cancer?”

  “It’s gone,” I replied. “I had an odd blood cancer. They cured it with treatment.”

  He gave me a look of disbelief. “Why do you go to the meetings?”

  “It’s important for survivors to go,” I explained. “It’s the equivalent of a sober man going to an AA meeting. It gives those just stepping in a ray of hope. My experiences help others.”

  He nodded. “I see.”

  “Can I ask what your diagnosis is?” I asked.

  “I’ve got a brain tumor,” he said as if it were no big deal. “Still don’t know much.”

  “Treatment is a wonderful thing,” I said.

  The look on his face changed from acknowledgement to indifference. His cheeks lost their color.

  I reached for his hand. “Remember, it’s not that bad.”

  He forced a crooked smile. “Number three?”

  He’d eaten half his pie, and I hadn’t so much as touched mine. I gestured toward his plate with a nod. “Let me get caught up, and then I’ll answer.”

  With little effort, I gobbled down two pieces of pie. I’d eaten plenty of pecan pie in the past, none of which came close to the quality of what I was eating. I reached for another piece. “How did you find out about this place.”

  He pulled the fork past his tightened lips, wiping it clean as he removed it from his mouth. “We ride up here all the time.”

  “We?”

  “I ride in a motorcycle club. We come up here as a group.” He chuckled. “A couple of the guys really like pie.”

  “Are you one of them?” I asked. “The pie lovers?”

  “Pies are a lot like women,” he said. “A man can live the rest of his life without one as long as he’s never reminded of their existence. However, once one is placed in front of him there’s not much else that matters.”

  His response was cute and sad at the same time. I swallowed my pie and gave him my best sultry look. “What if there’s a woman and a pie in front of you?”

  He opened his arms wide. “All of what surrounds him vanishes.” He gestured to the table. “Then, all that’s left is her and the five and a half pieces of pie she needs to eat.”

  “Until she gets up and walks away. Right?”

  His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “You said a man can live the rest of his life without a woman as long as she’s not in front of him. Per your theory, when she walks away he’s left needing nothing.”

  “That’s not what I said. I said a man could live the rest of his life without a woman in it as long as he wasn’t reminded of their existence. A smell, a sound, my wandering mind, the rear seat on my bike being empty. All those things could remind me of your existence. That reminder makes it impossible to live without you.”

  I liked the thought of him not being able to live without me but didn’t particularly care for his analogy.

  “You’ve got five and a half pieces of pie and one question to go,” he said. “You better get busy, or we’ll be stuck in rush hour traffic.”

  I could have told him anything for the answer to question number three, and he’d never know the difference. Telling him the truth would leave me feeling incompetent and weak. I was sure of it. I hated admitting that there was something everyone else on earth seemed to acquire without much effort, and for some reason, I wasn’t allowed to have it.

  “The task on my to-do list that’s likely to be accomplished last, if at all, is number two.” I poked the remaining piece of pie into my mouth and spoke over my mouth full of food.

  “Fawn lub,” I muttered.

  He scrunched his nose and gave me a funny look. “What?”

  “Fawn lub.”

  “If I spoke with my mouth full my grandmother would have smacked my ass,” he said. “Swallow your pie, Abby.”

  I washed my pie down with a drink of milk and reached for another piece. “Sorry. Fall in love.”

  “Falling in love is on your to-do list?” he asked.

  I sloved half the piece into my mouth and nodded. “Yeth.”

  “That’s cute,” he said.

  I swallowed the wad of pie. “You think it’s cute?”

  He nodded. “I do.”

  “I think you’re cute,” I responded.

  There went my mouth again, saying what my mind was thinking without giving me time to stop it. It was a common problem.

  “Thank you,” he said. “But, I’m far from cute.”

  “The grandmother comment made you cute,” I explained. “I can imagine her slapping your shoulder with the back of her hand.”

  He laughed as if recalling a distant memory. “That’s exactly what she did, too.”

  “Can I ask you three questions?” I asked.

  He rocked his chair onto the rear legs. After looking me up and down, he grinned. “Sure.”

  I hadn’t given it much thought, but I really didn’t need to. My ability to think on my feet had been honed to perfection from years of interviewing people for my weekly YouTube show. While I considered my questions, I devoured the remaining portion of scrumptious pie I held, and then reached for piece number four.

  I peered beyond the piece of pie and looked him over. His arms were crossed over his chest. Veins stood out in his massive forearms, both of which were decorated with various tattoos. His muscular shoulders rose into his thick neck
. A day of stubble peppered his angular jaw. He looked rugged, unapproachable, and handsome all at the same time. Beneath that hard exterior, he was kind. With each moment we spent together, it became clearer.

  Porter was a walking contradiction.

  I brought the pie close enough that I could smell it, and hesitated. “Okay. One, do you believe in God? If not, please explain. Two, what living person do you admire the most? Then, the last one. Have you ever been in love?”

  His gaze went skyward, and then drifted around the small patio, not stopping on any one thing for very long. Eventually, he lowered the chair onto all four legs and looked right at me.

  “I’m not convinced God exists. I won’t swear he doesn’t, but I’m not convinced he does, either. For now, I’m sticking with this: God is a good thing for weak-minded people to attach themselves to. It allows them to find something to believe in when they are incapable of believing in themselves. Religion is one huge farce.”

  I wanted to go on a rant about his weak-minded people comment but knew not to. If a person of belief went on a tirade toward a skeptic or nonbeliever, it never ended well. I swallowed my desire and lowered my piece of half-eaten pie.

  “I’m not religious,” I said. “I’m spiritual.”

  A confused look washed over him. “What, exactly, does that mean?”

  “I don’t go to church. I believe everything a church going Christian believes, but I don’t think I need to go to church to profess my beliefs. That’s the only real difference. Spirituality is religion void of church service.”

  He nodded. “Always wondered what that meant.”

  “Is there a reason you don’t believe in God?” I asked.

  “Of all the shit we could be talking about, you had to pick this,” he muttered under his breath.

  He looked away. It seemed he was considering giving a response. I reached for my pie, hoping my lack of prying would encourage him to explain. After eyeing the entire patio, he met my gaze.

  “I didn’t know my father,” he said. “My mother and I lived on my grandparent’s ranch, in Montana. My grandfather acted as my father when I was young. He died of cancer when I was four. So, my grandmother stepped in as my father. She died of cancer when I was thirteen. My mother and I continued living on their ranch, with me taking care of all the livestock while she tried to keep the place picked up and presentable. She died of cancer when I was seventeen. So, there I stood. A man in a boy’s body, in charge of one hundred and sixty acres that did nothing but remind him that everything he once loved was lost. All to cancer.”