A Kiss to Keep You
Rebel Wayfarers MC
#9.25
MariaLisa deMora
Copyright © 2016 MariaLisa deMora
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental.
First Printing 2016
ISBN 13: 978-0-9967486-9-8
DEDICATION
All that we see or seem,
Is but a dream within a dream. – Edgar Allen Poe
For everyone who has courageously breached their own internal walls and let in the world. Look at you go, you brave thing you. Rock on. You’re my hero.
Contents
Brute’s Girl
Bexley
Brute
Bexley
Brute
Brute
Bexley
Brute
Bexley
Brute
Bexley
Brute
Bexley
Brute
Brute
Brute
Bexley
Brute
Bexley
Brute
Brute
Brute
Bexley
Brute
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To be born and live in interesting times is said to be a curse. I would rather think of it as an opportunity to be one of the game changers. Those folks who manage, by virtue of their own stubbornness and effort, to make a worthy difference in the world.
Brute, from A Kiss to Keep You, I believe has traits of one of those people. The ones who breathe life into those interesting times. I love how he quietly sets things right in his world, in this story as well as others to come, and I have enjoyed watching the ripples of those efforts expand in growing circles of influence until there’s no end to the good things he’s set into motion.
That’s one of the things I want to do with this story. Ripples of real influence. For the first year of publication, half of all royalties earned from sales of this title will go to a charity of my choice. At the time of this writing, I am still settling the details, but my selection will benefit USA military veterans.
My dad was a proud career Air Force serviceman. I learned that pride from him, absorbed it into my soul, and have a deep-seated respect and love for our military. Daddy was a boom operator on a KC135 refueling jet and flew during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Korean Conflict, and the Vietnam War. He rode motorcycles, and once rode his bike from the boom operator school in California back home to northeast Texas. That man had stories for days. Miss him all the time.
This novella is about a soldier who was severely wounded while deployed overseas. As part of my research for the book I had conversations with a number of combat-wounded veterans to get a sense of how they dealt with their various injuries, and what the reaction was from folks back home. I learned that the struggles they face in their day-to-day lives are profound, and I want to do something that can make a difference.
For now, I'm still on the hunt for a charity I can get behind. One that supports veterans at a local level, whatever local is to that group. One my daddy would believe in. I’ll report in as things develop. I’m excited about the opportunities that have opened up, as well as the connections I’ve made throughout this process.
This section is always about the thank yous that I owe folks. They are multitude, as ever, because no way can these books happen just with me.
Keith, Nick, Thomas, and Ramone, thank you for your generous time and kind words. Your service to our country is priceless, and I am forever grateful to you.
Becky Johnson and the Hot Tree Editing beta readers, you help make me sound so much smarter than I truly am. Thanks for that!
Dyana Newton, because when I messaged you about describing a burn and blast victim using words like “grafts and therapy” and how to “minimize scars turning keloid and hypertropic” you took the time to talk me through some difficult scenes, and gave me the real scoop on how things would be handled, thank you.
My alpha readers and critique partners: Jamey, MirandaPanda, Kori, and Megan – y’all rock hard. Thank you for your patience with me.
Thanks also to Lila Rose, for helping me get some Aussie in my story. You are one of my favorite people in life. Love me some Lila.
I’ve heard from readers how some folks look avidly for these letters I slip into the beginning of my stories and books. How you can get a sense of how the story will unfold. In this, the last story I’ll publish in 2016, the year I promised to be consciously wooful in my writing, I hope you find it full of the woo that we long for.
Woofully yours,
~ML
Brute’s Girl
Brute
He sat on his bike and watched her. Gorgeous, reserved, she seemed unaware of her own beauty, and just as unconscious of his regard, because she never looked up from the book held balanced on her knees. Never raised her gaze to find him watching her. To see the other men in the area looking their fill. Seated on the green grass of the park, back to a tree, she rested with her heels drawn up tight to her bottom while her skirt draped gracefully over her angled legs. With a bottle of water lying nearby, her slouchy messenger bag was tossed to one side, phone nowhere in sight. She had lost herself in the story, as she so often did. Blonde, stunning, and so unattainable, especially for a man like him. She might as well have been on the moon.
Ricky sighed and started his bike, checking traffic before he smoothly pulled out of the lot where he had been sitting for over an hour. The first minutes had been spent anxiously waiting on her arrival, then the remainder, he’d been avidly watching his girl. That was what the guys in the motorcycle club, his brothers, all called her. As he rolled the throttle and accelerated up the street, he was already anticipating the jeering catcalls that would greet him when he pulled into the clubhouse. Brute’s Girl.
Gliding the bike to a stop behind traffic, as he waited for the light to turn green, he turned his head, glancing into the car beside him. Without thinking, he smiled fondly at the young girl driving the aged two-door vehicle. She looked a lot like his goddaughter, pert nose covered by freckles, untidy hair tucked behind her ears. Seeing her made him think he needed to call Dylan, see how their Natalie was doing in her first year of college, ask about the family. Then the girl turned her head and saw him. Her reaction was instant and dramatic, hands slapping at the controls on the inside of the door to lock the car, mouth falling open in silent horror. Swiftly, he wiped the smile from his face and turned forward, not wanting to make her more uncomfortable than he already had.
Richard Monte was well acquainted with the societal challenges he had to work within, and around. He should be, he saw evidence of them every time he looked in the mirror. Face mangled by the roadside bomb that had taken most of his patrol, his skin in turns was glossy smooth and cratered from the burns and shrapnel. He knew how the barest glimpse of his countenance could affect those who were unprepared. That was why he didn’t go out often; choosing instead to stay in his apartment, his work-from-home job as a help desk technician was without much outside contact. Not content, but merely pragmatic enough to recognize what it did to him every time he provoked a reaction like this one.
The men of the Rebel Wayfarers MC were the exception. Introduced to them by a friend, these
people judged him not by what remained of his face, but by his actions and words. Fiercely honorable in their own way, the outlaw group of bikers had folded themselves around him protectively, finding him a job allowing him to support himself. Providing both independence and giving him a community of people he could count on, no matter what.
The girl in the park, the blonde. The beauty he would only ever be able to look at from afar. She was another anomaly in his world. Months ago he had seen her in the grocery store, and she had shocked him by not reacting. Well, not reacting to his face, at least. She had reacted to him as a man, something he hadn’t experienced for nearly a decade. Reaching for a boxed dinner, he had clumsily knocked it to the floor, and before he could grab it, the blonde had bent over and picked it up. Holding it behind her back, she had smiled up at him, her tone light and playful as she had asked, “What’ll you give me for it?”
Bright blue pools looking right at his face, smile curling her full red lips, cheeks lifted, and that same smile making her eyes fucking dance, she had looked him in the eyes and teased him. Exactly as a woman would do with a man she found attractive. Without hesitation, he’d answered as he would have before the injury, boldly stating the cost. Two words shaping his desires. “A kiss.”
Immediately, she’d responded, “Deal,” and leaned forward, lifting her chin. Standing there in the grocery store aisle, he had bent slightly, pressing his lips in a brief, soft, closed-mouthed kiss to raspberry-flavored ones. Lips belonging to a beautiful blonde who was curvy but carried it well, cute and knew it, standing close to him in a strapless sundress still swinging slightly around her calves.
When he’d pulled back, she’d held the pose for a moment, lashes a shade darker than her hair resting on her cheeks, lips slightly parted, an adorable flush rising in her cheeks. Then her blue eyes had opened, and she again looked at him without distaste or fear, no cringing or hesitation in her appearance. “Here’s your box,” she’d murmured, and he’d reached for the container. She’d handed it over but had stayed in place for a moment, then an expression of regret had flashed across her features before she’d said, “See you around.” Ricky had stood there watching as she’d walked up the aisle away from him, turning to offer him a friendly wave before she’d gone out of sight, the hem of her colorful, swirling skirt the last thing he saw.
He had abandoned his cart in the store to follow her outside, noting the make and model of her car. Then, like the sad sack he was, he’d stalked her all the way to her house on the outskirts of town. He had been surprised to find she didn’t live too far from his apartment, only four blocks. Rare beauty, and so close to hand. Her house a tiny cottage tucked in alongside family homes in a well-established neighborhood, an oddness for the area. A generation ago it was probably used as a mother-in-law’s residence.
Back at the clubhouse that night, it had been hours later, and he was still turning the encounter over and over in his mind, trying to figure out what had actually happened. It was confusing on many levels. He didn’t get flirty anymore. Didn’t get sweet. Sure didn’t get kissed in public exposed under the too-bright lights of a grocery store.
One of the guys had plied him with booze and then worked to pry the story out of him. That was when she got her name. They already called him Brute, a plain statement of his looks but one that held surprisingly little sting, because it wasn’t done maliciously, but supportively. His looks didn’t matter to them, and the name they dubbed him with was a way for them to show it. So Brute’s Girl, well, that just came naturally.
Since then he had watched her. He didn’t think she had caught sight of him again. Probably harbored no memory of the gift she had given him, but oh, how he watched her.
Watched her go out with her friends, always their designated driver. Sticking close, never ditching them for a man, even if plenty of men approached her. Watched her go to work at the salon where she chatted and laughed, hands buried in the hair of men and women who sat in her chair. Where she made already pretty people beautiful. She had family in town, and he’d watched her play in the yard of her brother’s house, pounding a fist into the worn leather pocket of a glove. She’d called encouragingly to her nephew as she returned his throws to her, ball after ball, the boy seeming to tire of their game long before she did.
Those were her social moments, and she acted entirely comfortable in any situation. She had good friends who she looked out for, work she appeared to love, and she seemed tight with her family. A good life. A real one she had created herself.
But she wasn’t afraid to be alone, either. She read all the time, and he watched her in the library, strolling up and down the stacks, fingertips dragging along the spines of the books as if she couldn’t bear to not touch them. He followed her into theaters, trailing in behind her only after the film started, a point when he could be certain her attention would be on the feature. Alone in a seat halfway back, on the aisle, she was easy to find, his view of her by the flickering reflections from the screen no less satisfying than the bright sunlight of the park. Dinners out by herself. Sometimes with a book in hand, at times watching the people around her, not afraid of solitary entertainment. Him on the bike staking out the lot, watching from whatever vantage point that allowed him to see her table.
He watched, watched all the time, but didn’t approach. Mostly because he couldn’t figure her out. Her behavior in the grocery store seemed at odds with everything he knew about women, but the more he learned about her, the more it seemed in line with what she would do. See something she wanted and go after it, full steam ahead. Unafraid. Even of him, looking the way he did, nightmare features fixed forever in place on his face. In this scenario, the only anomaly was him.
He kept an eye on her, and because he liked what he saw, he helped where he could. When her lawnmower had broken, evidenced by the length of the grass growing in the yard, he’d fixed it. It wasn’t hard, just adjusting a cable. Took all of five minutes, him walking from a block away and then crouched in the shadows of her garage, retreating once he was done. Leaving the repaired mower on the walk between her garage and house where she couldn’t miss it, he’d affixed a note explaining what had happened and how she could prevent it in the future.
She had retrieved the note, untying the stiff card from the handle and standing in the yard. She’d studied it for long minutes, turning it this way and that to find nothing more than the straightforward lines of printed writing. She’d remained in place for a beat, then two before looking up and glancing around, not seeing him tucked behind one of the houses half a block away. Head down and still studying the note, she had walked into the house, where she and the note had disappeared.
When her car had needed brakes, the chirping of the pads a loud indication their replacement should be attended to, he’d arranged for a fake giveaway prize to be delivered to her at the salon. The hundred dollars for maintenance was at a nearby garage known for a variety of things, one of which was good brake work. Ricky was there when she’d arrived, he’d seen her drive in and talk to Don, the shop owner and his friend. Don had come out of the office, leaving her behind—seated in a cracked plastic chair, curvy legs crossed at the knee, magazine in hand—and he’d nodded at Ricky who’d made quick work of zipping up his coveralls and rolling himself underneath the car. It gave him a great deal of satisfaction to be the one to fix things for her. Big things, little things, it didn’t really matter, he just liked knowing he made her life a little easier.
With her focus on everyone except herself, she needed someone to watch out for her. Brute could do that. Do that for her. Do that for him. Take on that role and safeguard her, like he’d want someone to watch out for his goddaughter, Natalie, away at school and by herself.
Now, sitting at a light alongside a girl who was horrified just by looking at him, he snorted. Sure, he could be a fairy godfather. Right.
Bexley
She woke slowly, already nauseated before she even failed at lifting her pounding head from the ma
ttress. Crap. She took a measured, shallow breath, knowing from long-ago experiences that breathing too deeply would only worsen the sick feeling roiling in her stomach. Since lifting her head didn’t work, she rolled her aching eyes side to side to ascertain she was, indeed, in her own bed. Okay. Home. That was good. That was normal, because she never woke up not at home.
Clenching her teeth against the pain, she shifted on the mattress, freezing in place when she realized she was entirely undressed. Naked. Literally bare as the day she was born, it didn’t feel like she had a stitch of clothing on her body. Crap. That was not good, and definitely not normal.
Focusing intently, she ran an inventory of her body, trying to determine without movement, if there were any…select areas that hurt. Head, well, yeah, this was a hell of a hangover. Worst she’d ever had, so pain there, check. Shoulders and arms, no. Breasts and belly, no. Skip the middle for now. Toes and feet, legs and knees, no pain. Clenching her eyes even more tightly shut, she paid attention to her thighs and the area of her groin where they joined her body. No aching, no throbbing. Just naked. Good, but not good, still better than bad.
Rolling her head slowly to one side, she opened one eye just a slit, looking at the nightstand where she usually plugged in her phone. Secure in the holder that attached it to the speakers in the room, the clock face showed her it was early, not quite eight o’clock. Good. She opened her other eye the same small slit and realized the time was actually evening. So very not good.
She had seemingly been unconscious for an entire day. Verifying the date, she closed her eyes, relieved it was Sunday and the only day of the week she didn’t book official appointments. If it had been Monday, even as light as that day usually was with folks headed back to work, she would have had some apologizing to do to clients who didn’t get their cut and color in when they scheduled it. Sunday was her day off, had been since she started officially doing hair after earning her certification.
A Kiss to Keep You (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 14) Page 1
