Burning to Ride

by Michele De Winton

  “Hell’s Boys is family for me,” he said carefully. “My pop died defending them, and my brother was supposed to be heading up the gang. Idiot got himself shot. So that’s it. This is what I’ve got. But if I’m going to lead this bunch of fuckers, I’m going to make some changes. Starting with making sure we don’t shit in our own nest. St. Catherine’s has been good to this neighborhood. They’ve taken in more Hell’s Boys than is good for them, and the principal, well, let’s just say she’s helped out a few boys who needed to hide a while. We owe them. I owe them.”

  Lee sat up and put her hands on her hips. “If I hadn’t seen how scared half your gang is of you, I’d wonder if you were a biker at all. Sounds like you give a shit about more than money and getting high.”

  “I don’t get high.”

  He was quick off the mark there, his face instantly closed to her.

  “Sore spot?”

  “Could say that.”

  There was a pause and she wondered if that was going to be it. So much for your revolutionary reentry into polite conversation.

  “Drugs are shit. Simple. Fuck you up. Fuck everyone you know up. I’m not into them, it’s my thing. Some gangs make their money out of sucking the lifeblood of junkies and rich college kids. I don’t want any of that. Plenty of other ways to make cash.”

  “Like a car wash,” she said, hoping to lighten the mood again.

  He slapped her hard on the butt and she lay back down on top of him. “Ooo, you going to do that again?”

  “I know how you like it, but I’m going to save it up so I make you scream next time you ride my dick. You haven’t said how you’re going to pull that much cash out of your bucket of soapy water yet.”

  She smiled. “What just happened here . . .” She waved a hand over toward the couch. “I’m going to do that, but with your car.”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  “Not your car, obviously. But the guy who comes to the car wash with his precious Porsche? I’m going to give his car a virtual blow job.”

  He laughed, throwing his head back. Then he tipped her chin up and brushed his thumb over her lips sending shivers through her when she realized they still hadn’t kissed. They hadn’t kissed and she didn’t mind. A sudden flash of revelation came and she worried whether this was a problem. If he didn’t kiss her and she wanted him to, did that mean she wanted more from him? Stop it. What did it matter? This wasn’t a happily-ever-after scenario.

  But it hit her like a slap. She liked Hade Corban. Liked, liked him. That hadn’t happened for . . . well, forever really. Maybe it was his talk of family. A family she didn’t have anymore. And one that maybe, just maybe, she’d been looking for ever since she left her downtrodden mother and the asshat behind.

  A pang of sympathy for her mom rushed at her, but no way was she going to let someone tie her down like that. She’d begged her mom to get out, to call the police, but she wouldn’t even talk about it. And the one time Lee had gotten the cops to turn up, her mom and stepfather had put on such a great show the police had left without a backward glance.

  Lee was well out of there, and she was never going back. Good times, all the time, that was what she was after now.

  Hade snapped her back to the present. “Your deep throat was fucking great, lady, but I don’t see how you’re going to get a car in there.”

  “If you take everything I say literally, there are going to be some interesting conversations,” she said, relishing the way his eyes were locked with hers. “I used to be a burlesque dancer. I’m going get on top of that car and make that guy wish he was somewhere dark and private by the end of it. Then I’m going to smile sweetly and get him to hand over the cash.”

  His smile dimmed. Jealous again? Lee took that thought and hugged it to herself like a blanket. Although he’d stolen an orgasm that should have been hers earlier, when he gave his little lecture about not being with other bikers, she liked that he gave a shit, that he didn’t want to share her.

  “It’s only for show,” she said. “And only to make you the money for the school.”

  He cleared his throat. “I don’t doubt you look good on top of a car. But seven grand worth of good?”

  “Need me to show you?”

  “Thought you were never going to ask.” She ran a hand down his chest and, yes, he was hard again. This was going to be one long, hot week.

  * * *

  The next few days were just that. A whirlwind of going down to Wilde’s, cajoling the other bikers’ women into being involved in the car wash, making a list of soap, buckets, sponges, and car wax, and then visiting sites to find one that was going to work for the big event.

  When she spotted a vacant lot on the corner of some of the city’s busiest streets, Lee went back to Hade’s place excited at the possibility but worried that they wouldn’t get permission to use it. Next day however, Hade slapped a Council Permit on her ass as she sat at the bar.

  “Don’t ask,” he said when she started questioning how on earth he’d managed it. But she’d come to discover she didn’t need to question Hade much. He might have been tight with talk in public, but for a guy who was about to head up one of L.A.’s most notorious biker gangs, the guy was pretty open with her.

  And she had to admit she was more than willing to open up to him. Especially when he bent her over and took her hard and fast over his bike, with the motor rumbling hot against her clit, like he had the night before. And the night before the car wash, he’d come home with a pair of black leather pants for her and made her put them on for him before pulling them down to her ankles and having her on the kitchen table.

  Chapter Six

  Well, fuck me. Hade watched Lee lean over the hood of another guy’s car in her tight little Lycra hot pants so she was practically sitting on it (no metal studs, she’d reassured the owner) and felt his cock stiffen as she bent over and then squeezed a sponge full of water over her white tank top. He’d thought she must have used up all her moves in the first hour of the car wash, but she kept coming up with new flourishes. Spins, shimmies, slides, all covered in foam, hot water, and very little clothing. She hadn’t been kidding when she said she was going to give the cars at this wash a blow job.

  Shit. Her tank top gave up completely and a strap ripped off so she pulled it down, tearing it farther and revealing a lovely show of cleavage from her sporty little black bra.

  She spun on her ass, sitting on the hood of the red Lexus, and its owner whistled low and long. Hade’s hands tightened as Lee gave the guy a wink.

  Jealous? He checked himself. Maybe a little. But mostly proud, if anything. Proud and hot for her.

  “She’s a firecracker, that’s for damn sure,” the Lexus guy said. “Nice to get shaken down for cash by bikers in such a pleasant way. You must be cleaning up.”

  “Guess so,” said Hade. “And this is for St. Catherine’s. Didn’t you read the sign?”

  “Sure, sure.” The Lexus guy backed off quickly but not before Hade noticed he pushed a stack of bills into Lee’s bucket.

  “Thought you were talking out your ass when you said seven grand, but you might just make it.” Rocco was suddenly beside him and Hade started. The older biker had a way of appearing without a sound.

  “Said she’d been a burlesque dancer, but eight out of ten women think they’re burlesque dancers these days.”

  Rocco nodded. “Well she’s legit, that’s for sure. Milked that Lexus guy for a cool two hundy. At a car wash, for fuck’s sake.”

  Hade had to fight the smile that pushed at the edges of his mouth. Rocco didn’t do women. Not that he didn’t fuck them now and then, but being proud of one, feeling any sense of ownership? He’d taken that off the table long ago—his brother had told him as much.

  “Seven grand is peanuts really though, isn’t it? Not like anything the gang usually pulls in,” Hade said.

  “Legal money is harder to come by. Don’t knock it. Hard day’s work, good job all around. I’m impressed, Ha
de. I like that you give a shit. Your pop would be proud.”

  Hade’s mouth almost fell open. Rocco never mentioned his father.

  “Shit.”

  Hade followed Rocco’s eyes and saw a stranger wearing the Reapers of Menace logo arrive on a chrome-heavy bike. “Hoods and hogs. Guess one of them was always going to try it on.”

  “No one here is going to wash his bike. I heard one of the new kids had decided to call the Reapers out, and looks like the rumors were true.”

  “Don’t recognize him,” Hade said as the man dismounted his bike and looked around, making sure everyone saw him.

  Rocco’s face was hard. “Some of these new kids watch too many movies. Don’t understand that you can’t just fuck up anyone you want to and then go back to your beer. There are consequences. To everything. You get that. Thank Christ.”

  Did he? Hade shook off the thought. He did. And Rocco would be the first to let him know if he was messing things up. The delicate balance of the gang took plenty of smarts to keep in check. He’d been flattered that Rocco believed in him enough to give him this shot.

  Rocco slid from his side just as silently as he’d appeared and Hade looked over to see him having a quiet word with the biker. The guy nodded and went back to his bike, leaning back against it with his arms crossed. That was something else he needed to learn, Hade realized. He’d solved too many arguments with his fists of late.

  “What did you say?” he asked Rocco when the man returned to his side.

  “Just told him he had a one-time pass to watch the show then be on his way. Told him to think about the children.”

  “Really?”

  Rocco laughed. “No. I told him you’d break his nose if he started anything. Now shut up, I wanna watch.”

  Lee’s laugh stopped their conversation and Hade tried to stop overthinking the situation even as his insides tightened, while Lee stalked over to another car, a yellow Porsche no less, and leaned right over it.

  Lee spread herself over the hood on her back and pulled her legs into her chest, shimmying her cute little ass as she did. Then she leaned forward to pick up a sponge and let the hot soapy water run down over her arms. The threat of the other biker dimmed as the focus of everyone in the vacant lot honed in on Lee. Dropping the sponge on the hood of the car, she swiped at it once, twice, then used her butt to give it a third swirling wash of suds before laying herself out flat on her stomach, her butt high in the air, just asking to be spanked. Hade sucked in air through his teeth.

  Hell, if he watched any more of that he was going to have to pull her off the car and have her over his Harley again. Don’t go there. The thought of what she’d done to his cock as she’d writhed around on his machine . . . Man.

  She lay back and slid herself over the car, holding the sponge up over her body and letting the water pour down over her. There was a universal intake of breath as she shimmied down the hood, hands between her open thighs. Glancing over at the owner, Hade saw the guy with his mouth open, his hand on his wallet, and smirked at how right Lee had been. Then Lee ran a hand down her throat, across her torso, and down one leg, spreading her thighs wide, her eyes seeking Hade’s out. In her gaze, there was no doubt that this was for him. All of it. And damn if that didn’t make him even hotter.

  Don’t go getting all confused now. She’s hot. And it’s good. But that’s where it ends.

  Was it though? The longer he hung out with her, the more he realized he was into her. Really into her. Maybe she was right and he could have a woman and head up the gang. Sure, no one in the history of the Raising Hellfire Gang had done it. But then no one had to deal with the pressures of the gang in the new world of police hunts via social media, crowd-sourced gang fights, and all the rest. And no one else had a woman who was willing to dance like that to raise money for a school basketball court. She wasn’t a drain, far from it. He felt alive, really alive, and ready to take on the shit that was about to come his way for the first time in a long time.

  A cheer erupted from the smattering of bikers standing by, including the rogue Menace guy. Hade looked up again and Lee was standing on top of the Porsche, three women spraying her down with water. Her clothes left nothing to the imagination. Nothing. With tight breasts, pushing their hard little nipple buds out into the world, she stood with her legs apart, and all Hade could think of was opening them even farther and pushing her down into his bed with his body. She sagged a little, then caught herself, pushing a smile onto her face even as the water sprayed her down.

  Checking his watch, Hade realized they’d been at it for almost four hours. No wonder Lee was starting to feel it. The cars that had started lining up after Lee’s first performance had dwindled, too. It was home o’clock, time to start rolling things up. Just then however, the Reaper started toward Lee.

  “Wanna wash my bike next?”

  “No. She doesn’t. We’re about to pack up.” Hade didn’t even bother to hide the growl in his voice.

  “Wasn’t talking to you,” the other biker said, his eyes not leaving Lee.

  “Too bad.” Hade moved to stand in front of Lee, letting the biker’s eyes take in the full scope of his broad shoulders.

  “It’s okay, I can wash his bike.” Lee put a hand on Hade’s arm but rather than calming him like it was supposed to, it just made him aware of how much he was enjoying having her in his life. A life that didn’t allow for commitments other than the gang. “No, you can’t,” he said to her. “He’s just leaving.”

  The guy didn’t move.

  “I said you were just leaving.”

  The Menace guy shrugged. “Your loss.”

  “I’ll live with it,” Hade said and only after the guy had gotten back on his bike and roared out of sight did his shoulders relax.

  “I could have washed his bike for him. Milked him for some more cash,” Lee said, her hand snaking up to his neck. Hade softened. Everyone was fine. They’d made plenty of money and Lee had been true to her word.

  But Lee’s reaction just showed him how little she understood his world. And how soon this was likely going to end.

  Chapter Seven

  “What’s this?” Hade stomped into his apartment, and Lee hoped that sneaking in had been a good move. He hadn’t exactly given her a key, but he hadn’t hidden where he kept the spare, either.

  “Hope you’re hungry. Don’t let it be said that I don’t repay my debts.” Lee looked up from the grill after checking the underside of the steak. Not that it would make much difference; she’d never cooked a steak before in her life.

  She hadn’t exactly told Hade that she didn’t have anywhere else to go. Just turned up each night with her bag and he let her stay without questioning it.

  Hade’s face creased into a smile and the wrinkle between his eyebrows made him look younger, Lee decided. Cute. Looks like her sneaking-in gamble had paid off.

  “Debt? What debt?” he asked.

  She left the steak and walked over to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Don’t you remember when we first, ahem, met, you said if you didn’t make me come as good or better than I could, you’d owe me a steak dinner?”

  He slipped his arms around her and slapped her butt. The sting was painful, quickly followed by pleasure, as he dug his fingers into the exact spot and massaged her firmly. “A woman who cleans cars, sits on my cock like a boss, and cooks? What did I do to deserve this?”

  It was her turn to laugh. “Don’t get too excited. I’ve never cooked steak in my life. Don’t eat meat, remember?”

  “Just so long as you let me eat you,” he said, his voice already getting lower and his eyes darkening. He pulled her closer and touched his nose to hers, bringing a hand up to her face and stroking the line of her chin. The familiar sensation of heat rushed down between her thighs as she looked into his dark eyes and found that their glitter of lust matched hers.

  Was he going to kiss her? Finally? Lee’s lips tingled at the anticipation and her thoughts ran screaming around
her brain one way and then the other, trying to decide whether to let him. That’s a serious question? Her whole body ached for his lips to touch hers, and when he brushed his lips on her cheek, she turned to capture them with her own, relishing the soft plump feel of his kiss and the light dance of his tongue as she opened her mouth to him.

  “How is that the first time we’ve kissed?” He growled when they came up for air, leaning his forehead on hers.

  Something in Lee seized up, and a tiny voice whispered at her. Kisses come with feelings. That’s not what this is. Wasn’t it? She’d been with Hade a week already and that was her unwritten limit. Any longer with a man or woman and things started getting messy. Because your life is so well ordered and in control anyway?

  “Hey girl, where’d you go?” Hade nudged at her earlobe and Lee hissed in a breath as he bit it then soothed the hurt away with his tongue.

  “All this talking,” she said, hoping to keep the tightness out of her voice. “Take me to bed.”

  He picked her up and started carrying her to his bed. The position gave her a clear view of the cooker. “Oh crap. The steak.” Fat from the meat must have overheated and spat from the pan onto the gas element as a flame was suddenly licking the top of the very well-done steak.

  Turning to see what she saw, Hade put her down, threw a cover on the pan, and turned the gas off, quickly quelling the fire and making Lee all too aware of the smell of smoke in the kitchen.

  “Sorry. I did say I was a shitty cook.”

  Hade scooped her up again with a chuckle. “Lucky you’re so good in bed then.”

  * * *

  As she lay naked by his side, eating the takeout they’d had delivered instead of the steak dinner, Lee looked around carefully. Hade hadn’t questioned her being here when he got home. In fact, even on that first night it felt like he’d accepted her for who she was pretty much straightaway. Still, time to go before it gets all Netflix binge-watching and sex on the weekends.