Hard Rider

by Lydia Pax

  For a moment, Howitzer looked proud of his boy. Ram had never seen the look before up close. It took him a moment to process it completely.

  “You know, if you talked like that more often, might be you’d have more back up right about now.”

  “Maybe so,” said Ram. “But ain’t nothing gets done in the present by living in the past, is there?”

  “No, there isn’t.” Howitzer clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ll hunker down, get ready for whatever’s coming. You don’t fix it, find a way to let us know, yeah? We’ll get the fuckers back. If not for the club, then for blood, okay?”

  That was a deal Ram could live with.

  Chapter 47

  There weren’t many safe places left in town to meet with Ram. Meeting at her home had been a childish indulgence on her part—a desire to somehow fight at her father, to do something that would eat away at him if he ever found out.

  But the time for indulgences was done. There were guns on the streets. Local news coverage was already picking up the arming of the APCs in the department’s lot. Sheriff Colt had played it off like it was some kind of routine operation—a drill for emergencies in case of a terrorist attack or the like.

  And yet, as the day went on and progressed into night, streets were progressively closed, and citizens were encouraged firmly to stay indoors until further notice. They couldn’t declare martial law without actually being a military, but the subtext was not lost on anyone—something big was happening in Marlowe, and no one wanted to be caught in the crossfire.

  She met Ram, then, at a small motel at the edge of town as the clock approached noon. It was a sort of exciting prospect—it felt almost like they were having an affair.

  Maybe they were, but cheating on their families instead of spouses. During the day leading up to meeting him, she had gone to the electronics store and started digitizing the tapes she found. It took a long while but she managed to get it all done with the help of her laptop and a lot of stress-eating chocolate. Tension hung over her atmosphere like a fallen curtain, collapsing her view so completely that it stunned her when she encountered someone thinking about anything else.

  When she entered, he was inside the room already—kissed her hard the second she entered the door. Her bag sank to the ground—all thoughts forgotten as her arms looped around the thick trunk of his neck.

  They were together again, and for a little while at least, everything made sense. Every new breath she took, every heavy scent of his perfect masculine musk made her knees go a little weaker and re-affirmed her illogical, euphoric conviction that it would all end well. Nothing that felt this right could end anything but well.

  Except she knew that it could. There were men with guns on both sides of the law looking to kill her man and that made her kiss him all the harder.

  His need for her was urgent and self-evident, hardness bulging down his pant leg. Her thigh slid against it, encouraging long shuddering moans from his mouth. He kissed her harder, luxuriating in her taste, pulling playfully at her hair and then at her shirt, needing to feel her skin on his.

  Her hands pushed across his shirt like she was swimming through water, unbuttoning half the buttons in one go. Not to be outdone, he quickly lifted her tank top off and tossed it to the other side of the room where it landed on the television. Soon his hands were scooped against her heavy breasts, eliciting groans of pleasure from June, who wished only that he could touch her like that forever.

  With a strength that she still couldn’t quite believe, he lifted her up and tossed her onto the bed, taking off his pants in record time and then hers, heedlessly ripping her panties away. She would have to replace them, and she didn’t care.

  Everything in her mind was focused solely on feeling Ram inside of her. His cock was hard and long, thickening by the second and already quite slick with his masculine essence. Her mouth watered at the sight, pussy moistening. She wanted him so bad.

  Completely naked now, this young god slid up between her thighs. She thought that he would be sliding all the way up until their hips met—so he could join them in that perfect connection of souls—but he stopped there with his head between her legs.

  Oh, god. Licking her again. He was licking her again and the pleasure powered through her like someone had flipped a switch.

  She rolled and twisted on the bed, her fists thumping against the heavy mattress as his tongue continued to flick at her clitoris with a subdued, almost lazy speed. Every third or fourth lick would be longer, accented for her pleasure, and it was enough to make her cry out.

  And she did cry out. In the past, no one had ever given her enough to make her scream or moan with pleasure, and she thought the practice was uncouth. But with Ram, there was hardly a choice. He was such a magnificent specimen that every part of her wanted to cry out, wanted to shout, wanted to announce to the world that yes this was the man who was fucking her—and he fucked no one else. She was his wife.

  His licking continued and she had to warn him. “I’m going to come, Ram, real soon.”

  He only continued at his regular, even pace, seemingly encouraged by her need to release. During one of her bucking twists, she saw that once again he stroked himself as he licked her, keeping himself hard.

  There was no one this time that would interrupt them. No one that would ruin their night of fun. He was going to be hard as hell, and soon she would be post-orgasmic and begging for his hardness inside of her.

  That thought alone was enough to set off the pleasure rockets inside of her. They shot up and swirled through her hips, her torso, her brain, exploding in a full-bodied orgasm that made her moan Ram’s name with exultant ease.

  She rollicked on the bed, almost falling off. His grip was strong, though, fast on her ass and thighs, and kept her there. He continued to lick her until most of her twitching had stopped, slowing his pace down in tune with her body’s movements. Once she ceased, he wiped his mouth with a heavy forearm and smiled.

  “You can’t run away from me yet.”

  His smile was predatory, but loving too. Possessive.

  Property. Claimed. His.

  “God, you’re amazing at that,” she groaned, sliding her hands down his endlessly impressive torso.

  Quickly she wrapped her hand around his cock. “Maybe you’ll give me a chance to see if I can one-up you?”

  She bit her lip, obviously hoping to take him once more down her throat. But he shook his head.

  “I’m too turned on for that,” he said. “Licking you gets me too excited. I want to fuck my wife.”

  It was all he had to say. Thoughts of sucking him off retreated to a pleasant cabin vacation somewhere in the mountains of her mind. Now was the time for an honest-to-god proper fuck.

  Her legs spread wide, pulling him into her already very wet entrance. He slid into her with ease, but slower than he had before. Their past several efforts were fast, furiously fast like they wanted to win a race. Now he moved inside her with great care, luxuriating in each stroke.

  The slowness only increased her heat for him. Her entrance clung to each massive inch of his cock as he pumped in and out. Their moans filled the room.

  His face was directly over hers, and she could see how vulnerable and open he was making himself to her as he filled her up again and again. There was something extraordinary about seeing such a masculine, confident man becoming so overwhelmingly under her control. When she raised her hips off the bed, he groaned with pleasure. If she tightened herself around him, his gaze became glassy and empty, staring so hard enough into the wall that he could punch through it.

  She pulled herself against him, loving the tight hardness of his body. Loving the impossibly defined lines between each of his abdominal muscles, between his pecs and his shoulders. Loving the thick beard on his face, loving his dark smoking eyes.

  Loving him.

  It made so much sense right then, as he thrust into her again and again, that she could not help but start to say it.

&nb
sp; “Ram, I—”

  And she had to stop herself, biting her tongue.

  But he finished for her, his cock pushing deep as he stared down into her soul. “I love you, June.”

  Her reply was automatic, instinctual. “I love you, Ram.”

  The air between them changed. Everything changed. There were no longer two individuals in a room, trying to make sense of their spiraling lives by fucking out their frustrations. They were a team, partnering, coupling to cement themselves with one another.

  She was gasping, saying it over and over again, feeling her own pleasure rise as he continued to tell her as well.

  “I love you”s filled the room as her pleasure rose. He was going to make her come again. Everything about his body, his cock, was pure magic inside of her. She bucked beneath him, urging him to finish, urging him to spill all over her.

  At a certain point, he became unable to control himself—unable to keep his pace so slow and steady.

  “Too good,” he grunted. “God, you feel so good.”

  “That’s it,” she moaned. “Yes, like that. Like that!”

  They came almost in rhythm, just slightly off time. Hers bucked her entire body beneath him, sending her mind into outer space. She squeezed his massive member with everything she had, needing to milk every last drop of pleasure from him.

  And just as she was coming back into orbit, she felt a sudden emptiness and then a perfect heat as he emptied his seed onto her belly once again.

  “I love you,” he said again.

  She tried to say it back again, but only managed a mumbling, tired moan—but it was clear what she was trying to say. He held her tight—almost too tight. But she felt safe, protected.

  And for some reason, she felt like he was saying goodbye.

  Chapter 48

  She loved him. She did. It was more true than any emotion she had felt for ages. More true than her anger at her father, more right than any aspiration at a career, and stronger than her desire for his body.

  June loved Ram.

  For long minutes after he spilled himself all over her belly, she stroked his face and kept whispering it, stunned at how simple and right it felt. And gratified, too, by how perfect it was when he repeated her, looking down and clearly meaning every word.

  But eventually, deep in the afternoon, it had to end. They got up and dressed, June admiring for the thousandth time the sensational build of her lover in his tight pants and shirt.

  God, but he looked fucking cool in that vest. She wanted to ride with him on his bike, wanted to press her thighs against his body for hours and shamelessly stroke his cock through his pants while he took them faster and faster on the open road.

  “God,” she said. “That was amazing. They ought to clone you. I think the women of America would do well with a copy of your tongue in every drawer.”

  He laughed. She put it together for the first time that he was dressing—and that dressing meant he was leaving.

  But I love him, she thought. And I fucking need that cock inside of me again.

  “Leaving so soon?” she asked. “I mean, I’m not going to see you for a while. I thought maybe you and I could…”

  She let it hang, her eyes sparkling with all the possibilities that she could deliver to him. Temptation struck him then, and passion, the two of them mixing together until they were one tangled mess. He was tempted by his own passion for her, the passion for her tempting him even further.

  “We have to talk,” he said.

  She sat up. “Uh oh. Are you going out of the country or something? That would be okay, I think, but I’d need to get my passport. I wanted to get it anyway, though, so don’t worry. I thought that once I passed the bar I’d take a trip to Canada or something—”

  “June, listen, please.”

  She smiled. “Sorry. You’ve got my brain in a bit of a post-sex haze right now.”

  “I’m staying around here just for today,” he said. “Staying to take care of business. After that, I’ve got no idea what will happen.”

  “Taking care of business?”

  “Beretta and I put together a plan to take care of your dad’s crusade before it gets off the ground. I’ll need those tapes. Do you have them?”

  She nodded over toward her bag. “They’re yours.”

  “They’re yours. But…why are you talking like you won’t come back?”

  “There’s a lot of unknowns, June.”

  “And one of them is that you might not live?”

  When he didn’t respond right away, anger swept through her. “Are you fucking kidding me? Your big plan involves you maybe dying?”

  “The life I lead? I might die every day, June. That’s who you signed on with. I tried to tell you.”

  “You told me you were a killer, not that you would be killed.”

  “I thought it was a kind of basic implication. Nobody’s a killer without making some enemies.”

  She huffed, pacing around the room and started to pull on clothes. He admired her naked form for as long as possible, and then slipped easily into an admiration for her clothed form as she pulled on her jeans and tank top.

  “I have something to tell you too,” she said. “I meant to say it before, but we were…” she blushed a little. “We got busy.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It’s really, god. I don’t even know. I think my dad is losing his mind.”

  “I could have told you that.”

  “He’s threatening to start arresting every Wrecking Crew member he knows about. The implication was that he would kill them when he did it.”

  Ram nodded, not all that surprised. “That sounds like him.”

  “It’s an egregious misuse of his power,” said June. “He’ll get kicked out of office if the press covers it at all, but I don’t think he cares right now. We’ve got him really pissed off.”

  “Good. I don’t want him thinking straight.”

  “It’s not that simple, Ram. He said he would start tomorrow. If we don’t act soon—”

  “We’re acting tonight.” He corrected himself. “I’m acting tonight.”

  “But your action might get you killed,” she said. “I can annul the marriage. That was my Dad’s way out of this. He said if I annulled the marriage, he’d stop everything. It would go back to the way it was.”

  A sudden spiteful anger filled Ram—the same kind of anger, he knew, that Colt was probably full of for him. To imagine that man trying to inject his machinations between Ram and June, between their love, their marriage, made him furious.

  Of course the love was new, the marriage untested, but it was still his. And Ram’s possession of June, of his old lady, was not to be fucked with.

  “That won’t work, June. You give in to one demand, he’ll make a thousand more. That’s the kind of man he is.”

  He could see that June knew he was right but didn’t want to admit it. The thought of anything bad happening to June, anything at all, filled him with a terror so real that he could squat on it. No doubt it was the same for her.

  “I have to try something, Ram. I can’t see you hurt. I can’t. Not when…not when this is so fresh, and so good…”

  He pulled her down onto his lap, kissing her hot and heavy. Her body ground against his, breasts crushing against his massive chest. For as long as the kiss continued, he could make her feel safe—and felt she was safe. It was enough to interrupt the flow of her panic for at least those spare seconds of pleasure.

  She was his Wild Girl. But she wasn’t used to this sort of thing yet. She’d have to get that way soon if she wanted to keep running with him.

  “You’re getting an annulment over my dead fucking body, girl. You’re my old lady, my wife, and that shit isn’t changing just because there’s danger flying around. You stick with me? There’s gonna be times when I might not come back. Every time I ride my bike I’m riding with the reaper. You’ve been on it. You know how it is. So you gotta squash this shit about annulment right
now, because I want you as my wife.”

  His coarse, heavy language struck deep into the core of himself—realizing how true the words were even as he said them. There was no fanciful protestation in him, no depth of expression. But there was a simple truth—she belonged to him and he wanted her at his side.

  Looking at her face, he could see that was more than enough. That was all she needed to hear.

  “Fine,” she said, her expression turning very solid. “Then I’m coming with you.”

  She stood up from his lap and began to pack all her things together. For a few moments she adjusted her hair in the mirror, and then threw up her hands, obviously deciding it didn’t matter.

  “The fuck?” he said, half in confusion, half in amazement.

  “You want me as your wife, Trouble Man? No problem. But don’t expect me to sit behind while you go out to battle. If you’re gonna be in danger, then we are, and that’s all there is to it. I don’t feel—”

  She stopped what she was about to say, and he could see fear of the words hanging just behind her tongue, afraid of what they might do to him. To them.

  “Don’t feel what?” he asked.

  Ram hoped he already knew the answer—because he felt the same way.

  “I don’t feel like living if I’m not doing it with you anyway.”

  He slid her back down on his lap, her hips sliding against the massive, half-hard bulge beneath his pants, rising quickly at her words.

  In his eyes, she’d already proved herself a half-dozen times. That wild stunt at the Black Flag bar. Wanting to marry him just to spit in the eye of her cop dad. Not backing down for a second in all the time he’d known her. Just wanting to go along with this plan—wanting to come with him—was enough

  “Wild Girl,” he said. “Wild woman. Fine. You come along. But you gotta follow my lead, okay? This isn’t for amateurs.”

  “I can do that,” she said, giving him a little half-salute. “You’re in charge.”

  Chapter 49

  Two hours later, the sun started its long slow ride down to the horizon, splattering purple and red across the sky. They pulled up to Ram’s old hunting cabin. June had ridden there with him, leaving her car at the motel. She loved to hold on to him, she said—loved to feel him as he rode.