by DD Prince
Rider lifted his brows, “Cocaine?”
I waved my hand, “Never mind.”
He growled, “Fuckin’ great. You know this for a fact?”
“I know he tried to get Joe to score for him. That’s all I know.”
“Fuck sakes.”
I didn’t like the look of him pissed. It was pretty scary, actually.
“I need to call Ella. I told her what I’d heard from Joe and Pip, and I need to tell her I got it wrong.” I reached for my phone. I hoped it wasn’t too late for Ella. If it was, it’d be my fault. Shit. Shit…
“They’ve already sorted it. I saw her bright and early this morning with him at his place. The only thing left to be sorted is Spence.” A muscle was working in his jaw. He looked annoyed.
“What do you mean?”
“Spence is lucky that Deacon overlooks shit with him. Deacon is no slouch and he doesn’t generally overlook bullshit from anyone, but he lets shit roll off with Spence. Anybody else, it’d be bad.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Deacon can be the scariest motherfucker I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen some scary fuckin’ mofos.”
“Yikes,” I said. Not sure what else to say.
“But that scariness won’t come at Ella. It’ll shield her. She’s got nothing to worry about, givin’ her heart to my brother.”
I felt a little melty at that. I smiled.
“Well, he did dangle Spencer from the roof,” I said.
Rider snickered, “Yeah, wish I’d seen it.”
“Not me. Didn’t sound like fun. I think you and me were havin’ a whole lot more fun while that was going on, anyway.”
He stared at me a beat, something working in his eyes. His lips tilted into a smile.
I smiled back.
His smile got bigger.
Our eyes locked for a second and my knees went to Jell-O.
He cleared his expression. “Another reason I’m here, beyond apologizing for not turnin’ up last night, is to warn you about Fork.”
“Fork?”
“Jackal. Ella’s cousin. Blond guy. Huge.”
“Christian Forker?” He was blond. And huge. He was probably 6’7”.
“Fork and the other Jackals from his charter are hanging around Aberdeen extra. They don’t like that The Brotherhood are here. They really don’t like that Ella’s with my brother. Figure she’ll tell you about it but in case she hasn’t, or in case she doesn’t drive the point home, I wanted to get in front of this. You gotta keep quiet about anything to do with the Dominion Brotherhood versus the Jackals. Anything.”
“Okay…”
“And a coupla their bitches were clocked last night bein’ moles and saw you with Spence at the Roadhouse. One of those bitches snapped a pic with her phone. If they think you’re with him, they might hassle ya.”
“With him? I didn’t give any indication of anything with him.”
“Heard you tackled him in the bar,” Rider said, sort of emotionless, “Took him to the floor, straddlin’ him.”
No, not emotionless. Cold. His eyes were cold when he said that.
“I was wrestling his phone off him to get your number,” I croaked out, feeling my face going red.
I did tackle him, but was it really seen like that? Is that why Rider didn’t show? He thought I was flirting with his brother?
“I spent two drinks and two shots trying to bribe him to get your number. I had no desire for his company otherwise, believe me.”
I folded my arms across my chest.
His expression didn’t change.
I swallowed. “Is that why you didn’t show? You thought I was playing games between you and your brother?”
He shook his head, “Nope. Said I had an emergency. I don’t bullshit, Jenna.”
I rolled my eyes, but my heart sank. That was the first time he’d called me ‘Jenna’. Until now I’d been “Gorgeous”, “Babe”, or “Baby” or some other pet name.
I didn’t like the tone in his voice when he said my name. I also didn’t believe him. Maybe he had an emergency, but he clearly had an opinion about me “straddlin’” his brother. Why the heck did I do that? In a skirt, no less. And there were pictures of it?
He narrowed his eyes and it made my heart sink even deeper. I looked away from his penetrating gaze.
“Okay, well, uh…thanks for the warning about Chris and the Jackals. And thanks for… setting me straight about Deacon.” I snapped the magazine I’d been reading shut and dropped it on the table in my waiting area. I moved to the door, opening it to wave him out. He didn’t move. He was working his jaw muscles, looking annoyed with me. More annoyed.
What the heck for?
I glared at him, tight-lipped, not wanting him to be annoyed with me, not sure why he was so annoyed, but not wanting him to have an upper hand. I always avoided giving men the upper hand. In my experience, they’d use it to hurt you.
He rolled his eyes and then his expression cleared and the new look on his face was even worse than the last one because this one was as if he clearly couldn’t give two shits that I was now in a dirty-look-showdown with him. He moved toward the door.
Shit.
Shit!
I was screwing this up with my attitude. Deacon and Ella’s thing? I might’ve screwed it up. Was I screwing up me and Rider, too? Before we even got a chance to be a me and Rider.
“Rider?” I stopped him with my hand to his arm as he was passing me.
He looked down at me, at my hand on his arm, and then his gaze lifted to meet mine.
My face felt like it melted a bit and I swallowed hard.
I was overcome with the urge to kiss him. To run my fingers through his hair. To salvage what was feeling like a meeting gone way wrong.
I swallowed again. Our eyes were still locked. I was sinking into a turquoise sea.
His annoyance and chill melted clean away. He smiled at me. And his smile was breathtaking.
He tucked my hair behind my ear. I shivered.
His smile went wider.
“Like that soft look on your face a lot better than the hard one, baby,” he whispered.
My heart lifted, and my words tumbled out before I had a chance to measure them. “I’m sorry if I’m off today. I partied too hard last night, and you didn’t show, and I was disappointed, and … and I’d like to see you again.”
He looked thoughtful for a beat.
“Is everything okay with your … emergency?”
“Dunno yet. A brother is MIA. Hopin’ it will be,” he whispered and leaned over and his lips touched mine.
I let go of the door and he moved us back and had me pinned against the wall in my reception area.
“Who?” I asked, and our eyes were locked.
His left hand was on my hip; his right hand moved to my jaw.
“Scooter. Talk about that later,” he moved in for a kiss.
His kiss was hungry, urgent, and mine was too, I think. I kissed him like I might never get a chance to kiss him again. My fingers were in his hair, and I let out a whimper or two. It’d felt, for a bit there, like that was a probability. That I’d fucked up. One of his hands went down to cup my behind and the other moved into my hair, holding me in place. I’d usually feel claustrophobic at something like that. I didn’t. I felt the opposite. I wanted him to hold on tight and suffocate me with his mouth, his touch.
I let out a gust and it sounded needy.
“Tomorrow night?” he asked.
“Tonight?” I amended.
“I’ll try. There’s something on tonight that I might not be able to get out of.”
“Not a date, I hope?” God. Me and my malfunctioning mouth.
“No, gorgeous. Not a date. I’ll call you.” He looked at me warmly.
“Okay.” I smiled. And then I got up on my tippy toes and kissed him, supremely pleased that his height meant I got to do that instead of leaning over or simply being eye-level. It was a little thing, but to me it was one of the
many things that made me very interested in this beautiful biker.
“Cuz if it was a date, I might have to fight her.”
He chuckled and then he kissed me back with even more passion. And that was when Deanna, my next appointment, was coming in. Dee, twenty-three, was an auburn-haired beauty. She was also a dick magnet. She had two sons with two different men and they’d both fucked her over.
When Dick #1 turned into said dick and didn’t bother to show up for the birth of baby number one, his best friend admitted his years-long crush on her and said he wanted her and her son. She left Dick #1 for the promise of him. Then, she got pregnant with his baby not even a year later, and he fucked off on her, thus christening him Dick #2. He was unable to handle the responsibility of her toddler; never mind the baby he’d put in her oven. So, she had to do it mostly alone. She had a disabled mom who tried to help, but no other family in the area.
Deanna was struggling. She worked at the cab office Ella worked at and sold make-up and household scented wax warmers, and did sex toy parties. She worked her ass off since neither of the two deadbeat dad dicks of her boys paid child support on a regular basis.
She had a standing monthly appointment and always brought her two toddlers with her. They always tore up the salon like little terrors, but she was a single mom, so I didn’t give her a hassle.
She was a pal, so I charged her just for the products I used and not my time and she made it up to me with free samples of all the stuff she sold. I regularly stocked up on the wax and had more than I could likely ever burn both here and at the apartment, but I saw how each sale helped her. I didn’t buy her sex toys, but Ella regularly talked up some $200 purple vibrator and she was threatening to buy me one for Christmas.
I also let Deanna put her scented stuff catalogues in my waiting area for my customers and Pip would hand out her sex toy catalogues to women who got Brazilians. While she got her pampering, Pip and I did our best to keep her two toddler boys busy. Her older one loved to sweep the floor.
“Hey Jenna. Mornin’,” Deanna beamed at me, taking in Rider from head to toe.
She bit her lip, with emphasis, her eyes locked on mine.
“Daddeeeee?” her 2 ½ year old son, Timothy, grabbed Rider’s Dom vest and tugged.
Rider looked down at him and chuckled and then looked to Deanna.
“So sorry. I don’t know why he keeps doin’ this!” She ushered him away, beet-faced. “That’s not Daddy, honey.”
“So, anyway, I gotta take care of Dee,” I told him.
“Try real hard for later, yeah?”
“Come pick me up? Take me for a ride on the back of your bike?” I asked.
His smile spread wide. “Yeah?”
I nodded, biting my lip. “Yeah. Maybe take me for a drink at the Roadhouse? Never been on a bike.”
“No?” His lips were twitching like he was fighting a smile.
“Nope. I’d love for you to pop that cherry,” I said.
“I’ll text you,” he whispered, giving me molten turquoise eyes.
“Sounds good.”
“If I can’t make it, you wait before getting on a bike. That cherry’s mine.”
Holy crap. I might’ve had a little bit of an orgasm right there.
4
I had a spring in my step throughout the rest of the day. I was scatterbrained and excited. I couldn’t wait to get the salon closed and my last appointment was a no-show, so I was tickled pink to have more time to get ready to hopefully meet Rider.
But, as I was climbing the stairs to go back up to my apartment, I got a text from my mom, summoning me.
“We would like you to come over for dinner today.”
Damn it! She hated texting. She only texted me when she didn’t want me to have an opportunity to say No.
Me: “Can’t do dinner. I have a date.”
Mom: “With Daniel Sotheby?”
Double damn it!
Why did I say ‘date’? Why didn’t I just say I had ‘plans’? Better yet, why didn’t I wait to respond to the text tomorrow?
Me: “No. Daniel and I are still sorting out schedules.”
Mom: “What time are you meeting this date?”
Me: “I don’t know yet. He’s going to txt.”
My phone rang.
“You’re seeing someone?” was how Mom greeted me. Before I got the Hello fully out.
“Hiiii Mommmm. How are youuuuu?” I drawled out snarkily.
“Jenna, please. I hardly have time for nonsense. Who are you going on a date with?”
Sigh.
“It’s new. Brand new. You don’t know him.”
“Oh.”
Loaded silence.
Another sigh from me but done away from the phone as she’d get irritated if she heard two in a row.
“What about Daniel Sotheby?” she asked.
“I texted him. We’re gonna meet for a coffee. But it might not go further than that, Mom.”
“So, you’ve kept your evening open; you’ll be desperately waiting by the phone for some other man?” Her voice was laced with judgement.
She wouldn’t ever allow any man to think she was waiting by the phone for him. My mother loved having the upper hand in everything. My theory was that it was one of the reasons why she works for a bank doing what she does. She likes to deny people money, make them grovel, repo their dreams.
“Not exactly. We just haven’t set a firm time yet. I’ll come by for an hour, though, before dinner? I’m sure me and Rider will probably be grabbing a drink later on.”
“Then come for dinner, Jenna.”
“You and Dad eat late and... “
“And bring the books.”
“Mom, can we just do this another day?”
“We need to go over the books, Jenna. We’ll eat early. For you.”
She added the ‘for you’ in a way that was so condescending it made my scalp prickle.
As if we needed to do that today. As if something was that pressing.
No. This was punishment. It was her using the books as leverage. If I didn’t love the salon so much, I wouldn’t let her continue to have this leverage over me.
I closed my eyes and forced a quiet breath out, so it wouldn’t sound like I was huffing.
“Okay, Mom. I’ll come over now. How’s that? We’ll do dinner another time.”
“Did you say, Rider?”
“Yes.”
“Rider?”
“That’s right.”
“Does this Rider have a surname?”
“Well, ma… he’s like Cher. He doesn’t need one of each. He’s just Rider.”
“Genevieve.”
Ugh.
“Rider Valentine.” Shit. Here we go. She was like a dog with a bone.
“Do not call me ‘ma’.”
Eyeroll from me.
“Valentine?” she confirmed.
“He’s new in town.”
“Yes, I know who he is, Genevieve.”
Of course she did.
Silence. Loaded silence. God, this conversation was painful. No. Not silence. I could hear her typing.
“The son of Deacon Valentine Senior?” she asked with a shuffle of paper in the background and then more typing. Did she have notes on the Valentine family? It wouldn’t surprise me. She was probably looking up Rider’s credit score right now.
“I guess. Why?” I was wishing I’d kept my mouth shut. I didn’t normally tell Mom about guys unless I was at the “introduce him to the parents” stage, which didn’t happen much. Clearly, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I must still be muddled by his kiss.
“Mom? Are you there?”
“Bikers, Jenna?” The disapproval in her voice? No, not just disapproval. Disgust.
“You know who they are?”
“I handled opening the father’s business accounts a few weeks ago. His sons came in and opened their own accounts as well. I didn’t handle that, but I saw them and had to have a talk with the girls who were inap
propriately discussing those… boys afterwards. I don’t remember which one Rider was, but they were bikers. They’ve all got healthy accounts, Jenna, but that’s where the healthy ends.”
“He had the longest hair.”
“What?”
“Rider is the one who has the longest hair.” I said this to identify him and show her that I didn’t give a rat’s ass about any of the shit she’d just said, including about their bank accounts. I wasn’t surprised that all four Valentine men walking into my mom’s bank caused a stir. Three gorgeous 20-something bikers and their still hot late 40s / early 50s dad? Plus, she’d hate that the guy I was dating had long hair. Another bonus.
Deke must’ve had a healthy account for Mom to handle it. She handled the branch’s wealthiest clients and she also liked to oversee some of the foreclosure stuff. She liked wealth and she also had a sadistic streak.
“Genevieve.” Mom’s voice was filled with disappointment.
How could she be so prejudiced?
And how come I was being so forthcoming? I knew it’d buy me nothing but hassles with her.
“Come. Over.” she ordered. “We’ll eat early. I’ll head there now. Do not forget the books, Genevieve.”
So many Genevieves. Pulling out that name gave me the heebie jeebies. It never bodes well for me.
***
No one but Ella knows my name is actually Genevieve. People think Jenna is short for Jennifer. Or that I’m just Jenna.
My parents named me after Dad’s mother, Genevieve, and as a child, Mom never hesitated to complain to me at every opportunity how much she despised my father’s mother and only did it because she had no choice. I never got to meet her, but my father has told me many times (though never in front of Mom) that he thinks I’m blessed with a bit of his late mother’s spirit. He said she was loving, free-spirited, loyal.
I don’t think my name is all that bad, but the association upsets me, so I prefer to be called by a name that doesn’t make me think of someone my mother hates.
Case in point:
One day, I was eleven years old, and I was flipping through one of her decorating coffee table books, minding my own business, though reading upside down with my legs thrown over the back of the couch, my head hanging off the edge when she waltzed in and glared.
“Up. We do not throw ourselves on the furniture like that!”
