Girl For Rent: A Dark Romantic Comedy

by Dark Angel

  He ignores me and just keeps checking the rearview mirror as he frantically weaves in and out of traffic. It’s like all of those chase scenes that you’ve ever seen in a billion-dollar Hollywood project … except in an Areostar instead of a Porsche 911. Somehow, it loses its appeal in a minivan.

  He’s not saying anything, so to fill the silence, I start talking. I’d say that I have a captive audience, except he’s the whole who just captured me, or at least kidnapped me. But either way, he was stuck listening to me, and I pounce on the opportunity to let off some steam.

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but the weather has been so shit lately that even though summer is almost here, I have almost no tan whatsoever. You can’t lay out in a snowsuit, you know. When I put on my bikini this summer, people are going to have to put on their sunglasses so they don’t get blinded by my legs!

  “And then,” I say, really warming up to the topic, “I’m 10 pounds overweight! Have you seen such flabby thighs in all your life?” I pinch at my thighs, showing underneath my skirt, and he glances over for just a moment … and then almost runs us into the car in the next lane. “Watch it!” I yell and he swerves back into our lane to a chorus of honks.

  “Anyway,” I say, since he still doesn’t seem to be talking much, “here I am, 26 years old, and I’m not getting any younger, you know. Not that I want to push out a bunch of babies or something, but god, I’d at least like to find a boyfriend who can keep it up in bed.” I look over, and he’s looking … strange. Ill. Red in the face. “Are you okay?” I ask.

  He nods, not looking at me.

  A real talker on my hands.

  “What I’m really looking for is a guy who will fuck me. Like, really fuck me. My boyfriend wilts after three minutes in bed and then he’s snoring two minutes after that. Did I tell you he was fired? Because he was,” I say, not waiting for an answer. “Which he’s taken as a sign from the universe that I should be the one to support us. I have student loans from law school, you know. I don’t want to sound overdramatic or anything, but student loans are a real killer, especially the ones from Harvard. They see you coming and going. I’ll be paying off loans until the day I die, and ten years after that, if my boyfriend doesn’t get his ass out of bed and start working again.”

  We pull up to the Beth Israel hospital and I stare up at it, and then back at him. “Are you hurt?” I ask, scanning his body over for blood or knife wounds or something. I notice his bulging muscles on almost every square inch of his body that I can see, and feel my pussy grow wet with desire. I ignore it. I’m good at ignoring lust by this point.

  But what I don’t see is any blood, or even a Band-Aid.

  “I gotta deliver some papers,” he growls. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  I jump out of the van after him and hurry to catch up. This is about the most exciting thing that has happened to me in the last … I don’t even know, and I’m not about to let him get away now.

  Harlan

  I hand the papers over to Crankshaft, President of the Black Fist MC. “It’s all there, boss,” I tell him. “The Dark Tribe is definitely working with the FBI. What a bunch of fucking narcs. They almost took me out on the way over here, but I got away. I’m never going to see my Harley again, though.” I feel a wave of panic wash over me at the thought. I loved my Harley. Losing it was like losing a piece of my soul.

  The girl I kidnapped comes walking into the room, interrupting whatever it was that my prez was about to say. “Hey, I told you to wait out in the hallway,” I warn her, my voice testy.

  “It’s my minivan,” she volleys back instantly. “Or, at least it’s my name on the rental receipt for it. And anyway, I can go anywhere I want to.” She turns to my president and says, “Hi, I’m Becca Whiting,” sticking her hand out to shake, for all the world appearing as if she’s in a drawing room and meeting with local dignitaries.

  Becca … I roll the name around in my mind, testing it. Somehow, in all the craziness, I had forgotten to ask her for it.

  “Oh, hi,” he says, taken aback, and then with a grin shot at me, he says, “I’m Crankshaft and I’m the president of Black Fist.”

  “Really? Crankshaft? Your mother named you Crankshaft?”

  “Maybe not my mother,” he says with a wry grin, but doesn’t explain any further. Apparently Becca hasn’t been around too many bikers—we rarely go by the names written on our birth certificate. I mean, c’mon, my real name is Fredrick. Who's scared of a Fredrick? That sounds like a German prince or something for fuck’s sake.

  So as far as anyone knows, I’m Harlan, and that’s all that matters.

  “What happened to your arm?” she asks, nodding at Crankshaft’s left arm, which is in a sling across his chest.

  “Some people thought they could fuck with me.” His tone, laughing, belied his words. That’s Crankshaft; he never lets anything get him down.

  My eyes slide back over to Becca, and down to her ass. God, that’s a real nice skirt she has on her. Black but it’s shiny too, like there are sparkles in the fabric … what little fabric there is. I remembered back to the van ride over, and how she’d talked about sex so openly, and it had been all I could do not to pull the van over and fuck her senseless. Keeping my hands off her as I listened to her go on and on and on about having needs and wanting to be fucked...

  Torture. Pure torture.

  “So, can I have my keys to my Ford minivan?” she asks, holding her hand out toward me. I reluctantly fish them out of my pocket. I really didn’t want to hand them over. That’d take away any reason I had to be around her, to listen to her ...

  To fuck her.

  She snags the keys from my hand. “I’m already shitastically late to work, but I called my boss, Mr. Williford, out in the hallway and told him that I’d be late coming in. Told him I’d been kidnapped by a biker. He was appropriately appalled. Truth is, that was more fun than I usually have in a month. If you hadn’t thrown my door open this morning and asked to … take over my van,” she says with a wink at me, “I would’ve been stuck looking over liability documents for an upcoming event at the Barclay’s Arena, and I promise you, nothing will make my eyes cross faster than to stare at liability documents for hours on end.”

  She starts to turn away, and I say impulsively, “That sounds awful.”

  She stops mid-turn and looks back at me. “Yeah, it really kind of is.” She chuckles without humor. “When I went to law school, I thought I’d be making a difference in the world. I thought I’d be defending the good guys, beating the bad ones. I thought…” She waved her hand in the air, brushing it all away. “It doesn’t matter what I thought, because it isn’t what happened. My life is so boring, it’d put a librarian to sleep. At least they have overdue fines to charge people. I just read fine print all day.”

  “Do you want to stay kidnapped?” I blurt out. I can sense my prez shift on the bed, but I ignore him. I’m not ready to let her go yet. I need to keep her by my side a little longer.

  Just for the day, or something.

  “You mean, like a little vaycay, but as a kidnap victim for a biker gang?” She laughs and I know it’s ridiculous and I open up my mouth to take it back, to say I was just kidding, of course, no one would actually do that, and then she says, “I’d love it. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but I would. Anything to get away from my life for a little while.

  “I’d need to go back to my apartment and get my charger and some clothes, though. Is that okay?”

  “Sure, sure,” I say, my heart swelling with surprise at her answer. I can’t believe she’s actually going for it.

  “Here are my keys back. I can’t be kidnapped if I’m the one driving, right?”

  “Of course, right.”

  Like I kidnap a lot of people on a regular basis or something. I don’t want to ruin my badass rep, but Becca’s the first person I’ve ever kidnapped, and I wouldn’t have done it if I’d had a choice.

  Becca shakes Cranksh
aft’s hand, kissing him on the cheek as she does so. “Good to meet you, sir,” she says and practically bounces from the room. He looks at me, eyes wide, and says, “You have a handful with her, Harlan.”

  “Yeah, I noticed,” I agree drily. “You should hear her talk about…” I trail off, realizing that I didn’t want to tell my prez about Becca’s comments about sex. That’s a first for me. I usually tell him everything. I clear my throat. “Well anyway, I’m off.”

  “Have fun,” he says with a wink and a naughty grin. I roll my eyes and head for the door. It’s time to kidnap Becca.

  Again.

  Becca

  We head toward my apartment—Tye’s apartment—on the Upper East Side. I don’t know why I’m already mentally referring to it as his, since we’ve lived together in it for the last three months, but … it’s never really felt like mine. Not even before he lost his job and started spending his nights drinking and getting high.

  How much longer do I put up with that?

  I don’t know. I was never one who’d been blessed with boatloads of patience, but breaking up also seemed like a lot of work. Did I really care that much? Apathy stole over me at the thought.

  I call into work and get my boss on the phone. “Listen, I thought they were going to let me go,” I say casually, “but it turns out, they need me a little longer. As their hostage.”

  I wait for his screeching and panic to subside—he doesn’t really care about me, he just doesn’t want to have to do my work for me—and then when he finally winds down, I say, “I’ll call you later,” then end the call. Actually…I think about it a bit. They may be able to track my movements with my cell phone, and my boss just might call this into the police. My latest work is so boring, my boss would involve the police rather than be forced to actually do it himself.

  I shut my phone down completely and slide it into my purse. Now, no tracking available.

  I feel a little happier already.

  We head up the elevator and down the hallway to my apartment, with me doing my best not to breathe too deeply around Harlan. Or at least obviously. He smells so damn good. It’s hard to keep my hands to myself, but I just barely manage. He said he’d kidnap me for the day, not fuck me. There is a difference, sadly enough.

  I slid my key into the lock and opened up the front door. “Tye, I’m home. I have someone with…”

  My voice dies off as I see Tye in bed…fucking another woman.

  Not just any woman, but a high-end stripper, Candi, who lives downstairs from us. I’d caught Tye staring at her rack more than once, but he’d always claimed he was just a red-blooded male, checking other women out, but he’d never actually fuck them.

  I guess that was a lie.

  At the sound of my voice, Tye flips over and scoots up the bed, pulling the sheets up to his chest. “Hey, Becca,” he says with a weak smile. “I didn’t know you were going to come home so early. Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “Shouldn’t you not be fucking the stripper?” I turn to her and she’s just staring at me, frozen with shock. “Get some clothes on and get out of here. At least for now, I live here and I don’t exactly want you all up in my face. Got it?”

  She nods and scurries off the bed and into her clothes, before crab walking past us to get out the front door. I see, out of the corner of my eye, that Harlan keeps his eyes on a blank wall, away from Candi’s luscious body, the whole time. He has every reason to sneak a peek, and he doesn’t take it.

  Surprise wells up in me at the thought. How is it that my kidnapper shows more respect towards me than my…well, now ex-boyfriend?

  I realize that as surprised as I am, I’m not angry. I didn’t care enough to be angry.

  And didn’t that just sum it all up?

  “Why is there a guy here?” Tye blusters. He reaches down to the ground, straining for his boxers, and Harlan slams his boot down on top of them. Tye jerks his hand away and looks back at me, whining. “Who is this guy? Have you been cheating on me?”

  “Tye, you low-lying piece of shit man, I have never even thought about cheating on you, you little dirt worm. For your information, you cock sucking pile of horse shit, this guy has kidnapped me, you low-life bastard, and I’m quite happy about it!” My chest is heaving, I’m glaring daggers at him, and he shrinks back against the pillows.

  “Shouldn’t we call the police then or something?”

  How is it that I’ve never noticed how high-pitched his voice is? After listening to the low timbre of Harlan’s voice, vibrating through me with every word, Tye sounds like a girl …before puberty.

  “Actually, what we’re going to do is, you’re going to stay in that bed, right there, and not move an inch. I’d hate to see any square inch of your flesh without being forced to. And what I’m going to do is pack up my shit, turn all of my payments off, and leave you to actually pay for your own lifestyle. I sure hope you have enough money to pay Candi ‘cause last I heard, she doesn’t come cheap.”

  Harlan looks up at me, and I realize he’s twirling a knife around in his hand. “You sure you don’t want me to teach him a lesson?” he asks casually, the blade flashing in the light with every rotation. Tye’s eyes are trained on the blade and a little squeaking noise comes out. Like a human-sized chew toy.

  “No,” I say with a sigh. “The paperwork would be too much. You just watch over his skinny ass while I throw my shit into some bags.”

  Harlan shrugs nonchalantly and I begin gathering up my things. I’m surprised by how little I have to move out. I’d kept most of my stuff in a storage unit, telling myself that “someday,” I’d move it into our new apartment.

  Maybe a part of me knew all of this was going to come tumbling down.

  Shoving the last of my toiletries into an overnight bag, I look around the apartment. No pictures to take down from the walls, no dishes in the kitchen. I’d put so little into the apartment, I probably would’ve made myself more at home in a hotel.

  And yet, I spent the last three months paying every bill that came through the door for this place.

  I shove that thought away. Tye is on his own now. Let him find another sugar momma. Maybe he can hook up with Candi and they can fuck their way into a passel of babies.

  “Ready?” Harlan asks.

  “Sure am,” I say with a huge smile. I am surprised by how light I feel. How happy. What a difference from this morning. It's like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

  “Good.” He turns back to Tye, slips his knife back into his boot, draws back his fist and decks him.

  A squeal of surprise and laughter spills out of me. A squeal of surprise and pain spills out of Tye.

  “Why’d you do that, man?” he whines, rocking back and forth, covering his eye, and what was sure to be a nice shiner by tomorrow. “I wasn’t fighting you or nothing.”

  Harlan ignores his whining, grabs his arm and hauls him out of bed, opening the sliding glass door out onto the fire escape and shoving him outside.

  Buck ass fucking naked.

  “What are you doing?” His howling is getting louder by the moment, but Harlan simply closes the door, cutting off the sound, and flicks the lock into place.

  “Ready,” he says to me casually, and I can hardly walk to the front door of the apartment, I’m laughing so hard.

  Oh yeah, what a difference from this morning.

  Harlan

  Leaving her bags out in the van for a moment, I drag Becca into the clubhouse. I know the guys are just gonna drool their asses off once they see what a catch I’m bringing back. Damn, can’t wait to make all the guys jealous, I grin to myself.

  I give her a little tour, showing her the vintage 1962 Harley Davidson we have on display, and … well, she doesn’t seem to be as impressed by it as she should be. I give a mental shrug. You never can guess what a girl’s gonna care about.

  I introduce her to a couple of the guys, and they clasp her hand in their giant paws. “Real good to meet you,” Dragon says
, eyeing her up and down real quick.

  With a quick, throat clearing from behind Becca, I warn him off. I wanted him to mentally drool over her, not physically. She’s a lady, not a fucking hanger-on.

  After a few more introductions, I drag her back to my room. I am actually just on loan until this whole mess with the Dark Tribe gets cleaned up, and then I’m gonna be off to Long Island again. Crankshaft says I’ll be starting up my own chapter there in the next couple of months. I’m chafing at the bit; I’ve been waiting for a while, but shit keeps happening.

  In the meanwhile, I bunk here at the clubhouse. And maybe with Becca…? I watch her closely as she takes in my black silk sheets and my framed Harley Davidson jacket on the wall. She just moved out of her boyfriend’s place, but she didn’t say she was actually moving in with me.

  “So this is where we’re gonna be sleeping, huh?” she says, sitting on the edge of the bed and bouncing a bit. I watch her tits bounce in time with her movements.

  “Uh, yeah,” I say, my dick growing hard at her words. She’s gonna fuck me! I step toward her, ready to start stripping her naked and admiring those tits with my teeth, when she says, “Cool. Let me go get a couple more guys then. I’ll be right back.”

  I grab her arm as she passes me.

  “What?” I growl. I could not have heard her right.

  “I’ve been kidnapped by an MC. I’ve read enough books on my Kindle; I know how this goes. You guys will fill all my holes. Believe me, I can’t wait until you shove your monster into my pussy.” She reaches down and pats my hardening cock through my jeans and then disappears through the doorway, leaving me behind, frozen in shock.

  “Dragon? Ink?” I hear drift through the doorway. “Come here. I need you.”

  In more ways than one…