Blood in the Water (Kairos)

by Catherine Johnson

  Samuel finished the beer he’d pulled from the now warm cooler that had accompanied their lunch. “Right, we’ll leave you to catch a shower and change or whatever. God knows I need one. We’ll see you at Church at eight. We’ll make it brief. I think everyone’ll be lookin’ more to the party. You know where you’re goin’ from here?”

  Paul had driven around the town several times over to get his bearings when he’d been house hunting. “Sure do. See you in a couple of hours. Thank you, for everything today.”

  “Our pleasure, brother. You’re one of the family now. Don’t worry, my lady here’ll take her pound of flesh in payment soon enough.”

  “Yeah.” Charlie muttered. “Just you wait ‘til the next town charity day.”

  Moira gave him a hard look. Paul was sure she’d have clipped him around the ear if he hadn’t been a patch.

  Paul watched from the top of the porch steps as they all returned to their various vehicles, fired up their engines and turned down the dirt road, leaving a dusty cloud in their wake. When they were out of sight he entered the house, locking the door behind him out of habit. He was weary. It had been a long, physically demanding day and it wasn’t over yet. By the end of it he would be a fully patched member of the Priests, and then his work would really start. He’d be constantly caught in the riptide of his double life; finding his fit with his new brothers, proving his worth, earning his place and showing his loyalty and dedication, and all the while looking for an opportunity to kill his president or to arrange a situation where he could make that happen.

  The extra details that Jimmy and Giles had discussed with him had included the request that if he could take down Terry, his vice president, then so much the better, While the club was in a state of flux from losing its leaders, the Satan’s Tail MC would reach out to the Rojas family. If the Rojas turned their proposal down... well, war would be a feeble description. Paul’s mission was clear, take down Samuel and Terry without being caught so that the Rabids, patched over to the Satan’s Tails, could step in and swallow or eradicate the club. If he failed he would die and the Priests would be massacred.

  For now, Paul decided to put aside the darker side of his task and to concentrate on the making sure that he was accepted into the fold. He knew his reputation preceded him, and that would buy him some respect. Equally, it usually brought with it a certain amount of distance. Some people seemed to think that an ability to take a person down to the barest essence of what was human using pain and terror meant that he was either unstable or dangerous. They weren’t wrong about the dangerous, but he was as much in his own mind as anyone else. Tonight was the night he would have to start working to overcome that.

  He walked through the house that somehow now resembled a home more than his apartment in Texas ever had. It might have been the lingering hint of the smell of bodies over the disinfectant, or it might have been that now there was a memory attached to each piece of furniture that involved someone other than himself. When he looked at the sofa, he saw Morse and Dizzy bickering about which way it should face to avoid the light from the window reflecting off the television. As he passed into his bedroom and saw the bed, he remembered Samuel cussing as he’d knocked his knuckles on the door frame as they’d muscled the huge frame inside. The bed might have been considered by some to be an indulgence, but Paul considered it a necessity. He was too tall to fit comfortably on most bed frames; the brown leather super king-sized frame was the only one he’d found that could accommodate his size without looking like it was out of the wrong century. Rabbit and Sloth had sworn just as much getting it out and into the truck in the first place

  He stripped and stepped into the shower. He blindly grabbed the soap from the dish and realized that either Moira or Ashleigh had put it there because he hadn’t, and he was sure as shit that it hadn’t occurred to Samuel, Charlie, Dizzy or even the Prospect to make sure that there was soap available. Thinking about Ashleigh while he was naked with water cascading over his skin was a bad idea. He was hard before he’d even registered the sensation of blood rushing south. He thought twice before letting his hand drop to his cock. Maybe if he let his fantasies spin out his one time he could get over himself and treat Ashleigh Carter just like any other woman instead of imagining what she’d look like thrashing in orgasmic abandon every time he looked at her. Fuck but he wanted her writhing and moaning in his bed. He wanted to see those slim hands holding onto the pillows for dear life; or better yet, feel them gripping his arms or his shoulders as he pounded into her. He wanted to see that golden hair in a sweaty, tangled mess, see those bright blue eyes widen as she came, he wanted those full pink lips around his cock. He wanted to feel hot, wet flesh clenching around him. Fuck... his hand worked faster. He leant his forearm on the cool tile and rested his head against it as the threads of electricity uncurled in the pit of his stomach and reached outwards. His breath came in sharp pants. He kept eyes closed, concentrating hard on the images flashing behind his lids until his whole body clenched and his come spurted into the spray.

  He finished soaping the rest of his body, and rinsed the day away. He dried off and dressed in fresh clothes that someone, again it was highly unlikely to have been one of the men, had emptied from the black trash bags they’d been transported in and hung in the wardrobe. That was it, he’d indulged himself and now he’d be able to look past her and concentrate on business. He made it a priority on his internal ‘to do’ list to check out the women that hung around the club that night. As the focus of the party, he’d get plenty of attention. It would be a very good idea to take advantage of it. As he swung his leg over his bike and twisted the throttle, he sent up a short prayer to no one in particular that his moment in the shower wouldn’t have made things worse, because a voice in the back of his mind was whispering that now that he’d imagined seeing and feeling Ashleigh that way, it would be real nice to see if the reality lived up to expectation.

  Chapter Four

  Ashleigh lifted another tray of food that had been keeping warm out of the oven in the clubhouse kitchen and slid it onto the countertop. She took the heatproof mitt off her right hand long enough to dab the back of her hand against her forehead, before replacing the glove and bending down again to relieve the next shelf of the oven of its contents. She was half dead on her feet. As well as the cleaning and moving this afternoon, she’d been helping her mama with the cooking and other preparations for tonight. She’d barely had time to get showered and dressed and get back to the clubhouse to help with the last minute tasks. All the good work of that brief shower had been undone by standing over steaming pots and leaning into hot ovens. She doubted any of the light makeup she’d put on had survived the last hour. She was planning to call it a night early on. Just a couple of drinks, maybe a few games of pool with Crash. She was definitely going to be out of here before Kong started getting his dick sucked, and that usually happened pretty early on.

  If there was anything that resembled an occasion even slightly more extravagant than the usual Friday night party her mama would draft her in to help whether she liked it or not. The bitchy girls at school who thought that being the daughter of the MC President meant that she was some sort of pampered and spoilt princess couldn’t have been more wrong. As a member of the first family of the club she was expected to help out with almost everything, and if she couldn’t help, she better damn well show her face.

  Along with her mother and Aunt Dolly, she was part of the public face of the club, all the more so considering that most of the members didn’t have Old Ladies. It was good public relations to make sure that people in town remembered the club was about more than Harleys, leather and testosterone; but since there were precious few families attached to the club, the ones that did exist had to be all the more visible. Ashleigh often felt like she had a double duty to pull, since her brother wore a patch as well. There were a close-minded, sour-faced few who thought that the patch was a contagious disease, a one way ticket to Sodom and Gomorrah. Ashleigh
felt like she had some sort of responsibility to show that it did indeed have another side, that it benefited Absolution for the MC to be around.

  Sure, feminism hadn’t yet made it through the door of the clubhouse. There were a few in the town who seemed to think that any female in the building got bent over the pool table every five minutes and was being backhanded whenever she wasn’t being fucked. It was true that both of those things had happened under this roof; but it was also true that in some ways there was a lot more respect for women in this building than there was outside it. Ashleigh had felt a whole lot less safe when she’d been at some parties in college or some bars in the city than she had in the clubhouse, and that wasn’t all down to having grown up there. If a woman got struck in the clubhouse it wasn’t a casual thing, and if she got bent over the pool table you better believe she was a willing participant. It went against the very essence of what formed nearly every member to force a woman. It was a point of pride amongst them that they didn’t have to, and they liked to earn their reputations. They knew damn well the sweetbutts gossiped, and although they weren’t ever going to be rose petals and champagne with the club girls, they knew it would result in a call to the ring if they got too rough with someone who didn’t have the same preferences.

  Ashleigh handed the second tray that she’d pulled out of the oven to Katie, one of the sweetbutts, and followed her out to the bar with the first tray that was waiting patiently on the counter. All the prospects had been pulled onto bar duty tonight and were busy stocking up the fridges and shelves with bottles and glasses. Trestle tables had been set up against one wall and covered with white paper cloths in readiness for the food. There was never any point in putting it into fancy serving dishes; no one noticed and it got eaten so quickly it would have taken longer to make it pretty. For a similar reason the plates that were stacked at one end were paper and the cutlery that lay in the tubs close by was plastic. No one wanted to have the responsibility for that amount of washing up. It was far easier to wander round the room as the food disappeared with a trash bag to collect the abandoned scraps and plates.

  Katie found a spot in the already half-complete buffet for the tray she was carrying and headed back to the kitchen. Leah, another sweetbutt, was making sure that all the dishes were in some sort of order. She and Ashleigh exchanged smiles before Ashleigh headed back to the kitchen. For the most part, Ashleigh got along with all the club girls. It wasn’t hard, though; her mother tended to make anyone with an overt attitude realize that the clubhouse was not the place they wanted to be, regardless of how popular they were with the boys. There had been some disappointed faces in the past, but if it had tits, then it was Moira’s responsibility and the boys just had to live with whatever she decided.

  All the club girls had put extra effort into their outfits, hair and makeup tonight. The wall of perfume fighting with the aromas of the food hit Ashleigh like a punch every time she walked into the kitchen. In here, the food was winning; out by the bar the perfume definitely had the advantage. They were all on a mission to impress the new guy. There certainly was a lot of him to impress. Jesus, he was big. If it wasn’t for Dizzy’s Stetson he’d have been the tallest figure in the MC for sure, but his sheer size made him stand out anyhow. She hadn’t even realized that some muscles on the human body could get that big. The black beater he’d been wearing that afternoon had left very little to the imagination. The sheer size of his arms had given her pause; they couldn’t lie flat to the side of his body even when he was relaxed thanks to the bulge of his triceps. She’d been thoroughly distracted by the muscles that curved out from his neck over his shoulders. Trapezius, that was what they were called; she’d Googled after her mama had dropped her off at home. Chiz was the only other member that was anything like as muscled as Paul, but he was nowhere near as big and Ashleigh had never noticed his physique quite as much.

  She was sure most of the girls were trying to avoid the hot work as much as possible to preserve their makeup. Ashleigh grabbed a towel and a spoon to rescue an unattended pot that was boiling over and cursed as some of the spitting water hit her arm. The top she was wearing was a long, sleeveless t-shirt, the shimmery black Lycra clung at her waist and hips, but the neckline was cut to drape over her chest. It was completely impractical for kitchen duty, but it would get warm in the main room once it was full of bodies, and she’d be glad of the lack of coverage then, even if her arms were going to be covered in burns and scalds by that point.

  “You’d do yourself less mischief if you kept your mind on the job, cher.” Her mother called from across the room.

  Her Aunt Dolly chipped in, “I know where my head’s been all evening. Jesus God, have you seen the size of that boy?” Dolly patted her blonde curls, as if one would dare to fall out of place, “He should be riding a tank not a Harley. Damn bike probably looks like a trike between those thighs.” Dolly shook herself. “Speakin’ of those thighs I’m sure I’ve seen smaller tree trunks.”

  “Oh Dolly, you haven’t even seen him doin’ any heavy liftin’ yet, and you have no business checkin’ out his thighs. You’ll break poor Terry’s heart.” Moira taunted her friend.

  “Those sure are some pretty muscles. I wonder if he’s got those hip muscles. You know the ones, like big arrows. Damn but I get stupid for those.” Katie giggled from over by the sink.

  Yeah, if he had those muscles Ashleigh would get a little stupid too. For a moment she was jealous of the girls. It would be nice to know what it felt like to be wrapped up in those huge arms, to be able to run her hands over the cut muscles on that massive chest, but that wasn’t going to be happening. Apart from her personal rule of not sleeping with anyone in the club, she wasn’t planning on sleeping with anyone at all for the next, well, maybe ever.

  She’d thought what she had with Matthew had been completely solid. It had pulled the earth from under her to find out that it wasn’t. It had seriously dented her self confidence to be told by her husband on her twenty-ninth birthday, over what should have been a romantic meal at a local restaurant, that he was leaving her for a younger woman. Christ, it wasn’t as if she even had any grey hairs, let alone gone all haggard and wrinkled. After that bombshell she wasn’t ready to let anyone get close. She had been totally exposed. She’d been herself without pretence and had made an effort to really get along with Matthew’s family. Apparently it hadn’t been enough. She was lacking something that the twenty-year-old assistant in the accountancy firm must have had in spades. Once he’d made it clear it was over, she hadn’t wanted any more details. She hadn’t wanted to fight for a relationship that she obviously hadn’t realized had been off life-support for some time.

  She felt blind and dense, stupid and used. She wasn’t strong enough to face rejection again just yet. It would be too much to know that she wasn’t even good enough for a quick fuck. She didn’t have it in her to even try and compete with Katie and her huge chocolate-colored eyes, pillow lips and according to the gossip her talent for giving head; or Leah, who despite having the physique of a heroin addict apparently had almost limitless stamina; and never mind Sammy, Annabelle and Tricia, who were all good-looking women and who were all dressed to highlight their assets tonight.

  Ashleigh had been so deep in thought she hadn’t realized that Dolly had joined her at the stove until she asked quietly, “So, you gonna make a play for him tonight before the kittens get their claws out?”

  “Nope, they can have the new shiny.”

  “You should.” Jesus, now her mother was pulling the ninja shit too, either that or her head really was elsewhere. “Sweetheart, you’ve locked yourself up like a nun for these past ten months. Now I’m not sayin’ that you should be settin’ yourself up to fall in love again, but there’s no harm in havin’ a little fun, gettin’ back on the horse.”

  “Mama, if I was goin’ to have a little fun a patch is the last man I should be lookin’ at.” Her mother didn’t generally involve herself in Ashleigh’s love life. Of course f
or a very long time there had been absolutely no need for her to show any interest.

  “If you’re worried about those boys lookin’ at you like a sweetbutt, you’re dead wrong. More’n half of ‘em see themselves as your brother and the other half all think they’re your daddy. And those boys specialize in no strings sex. He couldn’t be better for you.”

  Jesus, and she’d thought the night couldn’t get more bizarre. “So I’m like the ‘Welcome to Absolution’ gift basket?”

  “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Her mother said patiently, without offence, refusing to rise to the bait.

  “No, I’m not sure what you do mean, Mama. The ink on my divorce hasn’t been dry more’n a couple of months.” Ashleigh wasn’t sure why she was still picking at this rather than just walking away.

  Dolly decided to add her two cents’ worth. “That cheatin’ bastard stole eight years of your life, honey. You goin’ to let him steal some more?”

  “I’m not discussin’ this. If I want to get laid it’ll be my own goddamn business who and when.”