by Bebe Balocca
We inherited Barney when we bought this old farmhouse ten years ago. After we moved in, we told Mack Grayden, the owner, that we’d found a cat in the barn.
Mack had shrugged and spat on the ground. “Just an old barn cat,” the crusty old man had grunted. “And I got no use for him where I’m going. Keep him or call animal control to pick him up, don’t matter none to me. Reckon you might want a good mouser, though. Keep mice from gettin’ into the place.”
We decided to give the unnamed mouser a trial period. I set out dry cat food in a dish, and the cat acted like it was wild salmon on a bed of caviar. Apparently Mack had never fed the cat at all and had just left him to fend for himself with mice and lizards and whatever else he could catch. The poor, scrawny thing was just skin and bones. We fattened him up, got him checked out at the vet, and invited him into the house. Our hand-me-down cat proved to be a well-adjusted and contented pet, as well as a very, very good eater. He’d rolled with the punches delivered by his neglectful previous owner Mack, and was more than ready for the next phase of his life. Now Barney, as we named the orange barn cat, is part of our family, a huge, tough tomcat who sleeps at the foot of our bed and curls next to me while I write, as loyal as any dog.
I wait and I hope, but there’s no lightning bolt this morning.
Michael comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. “I’m afraid he’s gone, babe,” he says quietly, and plants a kiss on my neck. “He’s been missing for six days now.”
Fear stings the back of my throat and I swallow painfully. I just can’t bring myself to believe it. “He’s been gone for a week before and come back, hungry and filthy and covered in burrs. He’s probably just out hunting,” I insist. I cup my hands around my mouth and shout once more into the air. “Barney! Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!”
Michael leaves me to my yelling and walks to the coffee pot.
I shut the back door with a sigh. “You think he’s really gone for good?” I ask quietly.
Michael pours two cups of coffee and sloshes some cream in the mug intended for me. He hands it to me and answers carefully. “Barney’s an old cat, Ivy,” he says quietly. “And he was starting to move pretty slowly. He’s had a good, long life, but he may have gone off to die if he felt the time was near. Outdoor cats do that sometimes, you know.” He sees me bite my lip and quickly adds, “But I could be wrong. He could show up any minute, begging for some Fancy Feast and a nap in your lap. What do I know, right?” He smiles at me over his coffee cup, blue eyes glinting warmly.
Two months into his biannual buzz-cut has given a nicely tousled look to his wavy black hair. I love how he can’t be bothered with frequent haircuts, yet manages to look devastatingly hot with his hair at every length from shaved to shaggy. I think that now is my favourite hair length on him, though—long enough to run my fingers through his short waves, and still short enough to stand up on its ends.
“Wanna go for a ride this afternoon?” Michael asks. “I’ve got an appointment this morning, but we could get a nice little putt in after lunch. It’s going to be gorgeous today. I’ve got the Chief waxed and ready to ride.” He clears his throat before continuing. “I thought today would be a good day to get started on our new tats. Joe and Chloe have time for both of us at two o’clock.”
He says this casually, but I know it’s as meaningful to him as it is to me. For our tenth anniversary of being together, we’re getting each other’s names tattooed over our hearts. Michael and I aren’t married, but we have a bond that goes deeper than any ’till death do us part’ vow spoken in a church. I’ve given myself to him, forever and ever, no matter what, and he’s given himself to me. We have grown together like two trees planted side by side. Our branches are locked and tangled as they grow up to the sun, and, far beneath the surface, our roots are fused together. We’ll never be separated.
These tattoos were my idea. Although Michael is a tattoo artist, and has his share of ink on his gorgeously muscled body, I’m a tattoo virgin. It’s not that I don’t appreciate body art—I’m crazy about Michael’s tats. I love to trace my fingers over the intricate Celtic knot on his biceps and the crescent moon on his wrist. The stark tribal tat stretching across his shoulders is my favourite. It gorgeously accents the beefy width of his back when he’s shirtless. The reason I’ve yet to go under the tattoo gun myself, though, is that for most of my life I’ve been unable to settle on any particular image. I just didn’t feel strongly enough about anything to mark myself with it for the rest of my life. Also, I’ll confess that I’m a big chicken when it comes to pain. Tattoos look like they hurt.
A few years ago, though, when I knew beyond a doubt that Michael was my forever mate, I started dreaming of getting his name over my left breast. I want it right over my heart, so I can hold my palm on it and feel my own heartbeat through his name. I figure I’ll just deal with the pain when it comes, although the thought of a tattoo needle plunging into my skin makes my stomach clench into knots and flop around like a spastic fish.
After I convinced him that I wouldn’t regret it—and how could I ever regret having my true lover’s name printed on my skin?—we talked about how our tats would look and drew up sketches for Joe and Chloe to use. Michael loves the idea of getting my name over his heart, too. He wants to have my name surrounded by tendrils of ivy. Easy enough, right? ‘Ivy’ encased in ivy. I’m getting Michael’s name in a heart drawn from gears and pipes and chains, an homage to Michael’s Indian Chief motorcycle and his love of all things mechanical. Plus, it looks cool.
“So how about that ride?” He plops down into a kitchen chair and asks again, “Do you have much work to do? Can you fit in a putt and then an appointment at Tattoo Maxx? I’ve been looking forward to getting inked with you, Ivy, for a long time, and I think today’s the perfect day for it.”
My heart lurches in my chest as though it, too, were both scared and eager to feel the bite of the tattoo gun. “I’ve just got a few hours of work,” I answer. “I need to polish up that article for the Gazette, and then I can take off for the rest of the day. Is that college kid coming back to get colour added to his sleeve?”
Michael nods and sips his black coffee. “Yeah, I’m going to start colouring in Brent’s tiger today, but a sleeve like he’s getting is going to take another visit or two after this one before I finish up.” He glances at the wall clock and rises. “Kid’s gonna be here in ten minutes,” he says. “So I’m going to head out to the shop.”
I stand to meet him, the top of my head not even reaching his collarbone. I run my hands down his solid frame, all six feet and three inches of it, and think for the bazillionth time how much I adore every little thing about this man.
He lowers his face and kisses me. I love the sharp stubble around his lips and the warm, coffee-flavoured sweetness of his mouth. I cup his ass in my palms and pull him towards me. I feel his cock bulge slightly beneath the fly of his jeans and the muscles of his ass flex beneath my hands. He groans into my mouth, towering over me and smelling deliciously woodsy and fresh. He cradles my face in his hands and pulls away reluctantly. “I’d love to go right back to bed with you, Ivy,” he says softly, grinding his half-mast cock against my stomach. “But there’s a college kid who needs some ink in his skin. See you at lunch?”
He refreshes his coffee and heads out to his tattoo shop. He used to work in the city for Joe at Tattoo Maxx, an established piercing and tattoo parlour, but dreamed of opening his own shop. Michael’s work is professional and precise, and he’s grown quite a following among tattoo enthusiasts in our area. We saved his salary from Tattoo Maxx and the earnings from my writing gigs until we could build his own shop, right here on our property. I sometimes walk through our graceful old farmhouse, look out on the unspoilt countryside that surrounds us, and visit Michael in his thriving shop, and think that it’s all too good to be true. We both work from home at flexible jobs we love, and we get to take plenty of breaks in between my writing and his inking. Those breaks come in
handy for long chats over meals, motorcycle rides on winding country roads, and fuck breaks in our bedroom.
All this and heaven too, right?
I see Michael crunch across our gravel drive and walk on the flagstone path to his new building. The red Knock Out rosebushes I just planted line the walkway. There are just a few small buds now, but the nursery owner assured me that they’d grow into a lush hedge of blooms within a few years. Skin Deep, Michael’s shop, is his dream and his vision—a tattoo parlour with a clean, retro feel. Michael decorated the space with vintage motorcycle memorabilia—he’s an Indian devotee—as well as posters. We found some mid-century red vinyl furniture at an auction and snapped it up, so Michael’s customers get to sit on cushy and stylish furniture while they wait to get inked.
I pour another cup of joe for myself and climb the creaky wooden stairs to my office. My window overlooks the side yard, so I have a view of the front door of Michael’s shop while I work. A yellow Mustang pulls into our driveway. Lenny Kravitz blares from the windows, “Are you gonna go my way?” The kid, Brent, turns off the car and Lenny’s lusty question hangs in the air unanswered. Brent gets out of the canary-coloured muscle car and adjusts his designer shades in his side-view mirror. I smile. At one time, I’d have rolled my eyes at him, scorning him for his superficial rich-boy, cool-kid affectations. But, whatever. Brent’s harmless enough, and that tattoo sleeve of his paid for my Knock Out rosebushes. He can act just as cool as he wants to, as far as I’m concerned.
* * * *
I finish the piece for the Gazette. It’s a multi-restaurant review of the three newest eateries in town. I manage to be flattering towards all three, which involves some very generous omissions and exaggerations on my part—between you and me, the fish tacos at Maya con Dios were on the bland side of things—but, hey, love makes the world go round, right? I read through the article once more and catch a typo, then send it off to the editor. Looking up, I see Brent’s yellow Mustang pull out of our drive, spraying gravel all over my roses and blasting Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion. Brent may be a dumb-ass and a terrible driver, but at least he has good taste in music.
Michael is cleaning the visors on our helmets when I walk down to the kitchen. I shout for Barney once more from the back door, but again there’s no sign of the gingery old warrior. I know Michael’s right and that Barney’s probably dead. I swallow a jagged lump in my throat and for just the briefest of moments I imagine that I feel Barney’s bulky body slamming against my calf once more. He’s purring and rubbing against my leg, affectionate as a Labrador—and almost as heavy. I close my eyes and hold my arms in front of me, and I swear that I can almost feel him leap into embrace and bump his whiskery face against my chin jubilantly. “Oh, Barney,” I whisper. “Are you really gone, old boy?”
Michael gives me an odd look and hands me my helmet. We have matching wine red helmets with gold pinstriping. Extravagances, surely, but it’s awfully fun to ride that gorgeous red 1946 Indian Chief and look like we’re part of the machine. I put on my fringed leather chaps, jacket, and gloves—wine red, like my helmet—as Michael slides into his—he opted for a black set. After we shove our helmets over our heads and strap them on snugly, we’re ready to ride.
The Indian Chief looks like sex on wheels. Sleek, blood-red lacquer, gleaming like newly painted fingernails, coats the luxuriantly curvy frame. It’s Michael’s other lover. I’d be jealous except I love the Chief, too. There’s no thrill quite like scooting up behind my man’s ass and feeling the hum of that massive vee-twin engine humming underneath me.
Michael opens the garage door and mounts the bike. The deep wub-wub-wub of the Chief fills the garage and bounces from wall to wall. Expectation thrums through me as though I were a plucked harp string. Michael knows perfectly well what riding does to me. The rumbling vibration from the engine hooked me from my first ride, when I got so worked up that my juices left a wet spot on the seat of the bike. I leave the handling of the bike to Michael. What I’m after is the feel of his hips between my thighs and those intoxicating mechanical vibrations against my cunt. All that’s required of me is to hold on and lean with Michael in the turns, and I’m free to let the sensations wash through me and prime me for the rest of our afternoon together.
It’s the best part of our work-at-home arrangement. A motorcycle ride on the Chief gets my pussy purring like nothing else. It’s the spicy first course in a long, delicious home-cooked fuck meal.
Vrooom!
I round-kick my right leg over the top of the bike and saddle up behind him. Wub-wub-wub-wub… I spread my knees wide and grind against the padded black leather seat. Michael eases carefully down our driveway and onto the road. In just a few minutes, we’re on the parkway, hurtling between lush green trees and around breathtaking vistas. I’m not nervous, because Michael is a careful, experienced driver, but I’m anything but relaxed. I’m all too aware of my body’s reaction to the growling motor and to my lover’s body pressed against mine.
The sun sparkles on the trees. They look like they’re growing taller and more vibrant with each passing second. I close my eyes and wrap my arms tightly around Michael’s ribs. I wiggle against him and feel my slickness and heat build. Although the ride itself is pure pleasure, I can hardly wait until we pull back into our driveway and rush inside. We’ll strip off our leathers and our clothes and fall into our huge canopy bed, and Michael will work me over with his lips and hands and cock until I explode with the force of my release.
God, I can’t wait.
I slide my hands down over the belt of his chaps and to his crotch. I feel his aroused heft through the thick denim of his jeans. We twist around a tight corner, mocking gravity with a sharp, forty-degree lean, and I feel the blood rush through every muscle of my body. Michael’s back tenses and bunches with each movement. I bite my lip, feeling my excitement grow. I stroke Michael’s erection through his jeans and grind my pussy against the seat of the bike. I’ve never come on the bike before, but I think it’s going to happen this time. I hear my own quickened breath inside my helmet, loud over the growl of the engine. My panties are damp inside my chaps and jeans. They cling to my pussy lips like a clammy swimsuit, but Michael will get them off me soon enough once we get home. I buck my hips, rubbing my crotch against the smooth leather seat and the back of Michael’s ass. The bike engine revs faster, pulsing into the soft centre of my cunt. It’s heaven, almost.
“Fuck!” Michael shouts. He turns the bike hard to the left.
My eyes fly open and I see Brent’s yellow Mustang in the lane in front of us. It’s facing us, but it’s turning. Slowly, slowly, it spins into the other lane—how can it move so slowly?—in balletic three-sixty loops. I smell the tang of burning rubber and hear the screech of brakes. I grab Michael’s back and hold on for dear life, knowing that, if I just hang on to him, everything will be okay.
We slam into the Mustang and I’m wrenched away from Michael. I’m just not strong enough to cling to him. I’m flying through the air now. I see the faint movement of the green leaves on the trees. I hadn’t even noticed any wind, but it rustles the leaves ever so slightly. I see a robin with a worm in its mouth coming in for a landing, and I see the creamy yellow points of the hungry baby robins’ mouths jutting up from the top of the nest. Overhead, I hear an airplane roar through the clouds.
So lovely, I think. Such a perfectly lovely day.
I slam into something hard—a tree trunk?—and feel a sharp twinge in my neck. It only lasts a second, though, and I’m back on my feet and running to Michael and the bike. He’s so far away, right in the middle of the road next to that damned yellow muscle car. Paradise City by Guns N’ Roses is blaring from the car, but Brent is nowhere in sight. Punk kid probably ran off, I think grimly. The Chief is mangled, that gorgeous vintage chrome bent and twisted. Michael’s gonna be so pissed off.
It takes me a moment to find him, not because he’s not there, but because he’s fading from view. I see him on the ground, crumpled
next to the Chief. He looks perfect, down to the bulge in his jeans, but he’s leaving me. He’s fading from my sight, and, with horror, I realise why.
He’s dead.
And life as I know it is over.
Get your copy now
About the Author
I live in a teeny-tiny town in the southeastern United States, surrounded by rolling hills and lots of cows. My house is brimming with my rowdy sons, hot husband, and more pets than I can shake a stick at. When I close my eyes, though, I’m in a white stucco villa on the Mediterranean, sipping a Pimm’s Royal and watching the turquoise waves crash at my feet. Next to my hot husband, naturally.
I love to read and write erotic romance, fantasy, and sci-fi because of the escape factor—I want to leave the ordinary and travel somewhere exotic, unusual, and sexually charged in a book. My characters are thrust into unpredictable situations, and they respond with humour, open-mindedness, and loads of scorching passion. I hope you enjoy escaping with me into the sultry world of erotic romance.
Email: [email protected]
Bebe loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.total-e-bound.com.
Also by Bebe Balocca
Carved Into Her Heart
A Ghost on Two Wheels
Prescott Woods: Bubbles and Troubles
Total-E-Bound Publishing
www.total-e-bound.com
