Ride All Night

by Michele De Winton

  “You didn’t hear me complaining.”

  “No, I didn’t.” She looked up at him from under her long dark lashes and a flash of what had almost happened rattled through him like a hot Harley in a race. “This sort of thing happen to you all the time, does it?”

  “Woman slides into my bed in the deep dark of night and drives me crazy without even asking my name? Oh yes, happens all the time. I usually wake up partway through though.” He smiled at her and her pupils dilated. God, she was sexy, no question. “I’m no angel, but you’re something special, little bird.”

  She pulled at a long strand of curly hair and chewed on the end of it, then caught herself and tucked it behind her ear. “Why do you call me little bird?”

  That gave him pause. “I don’t really know. It just sort of came out. You appeared out of nowhere like a little bird, perched on top of me. And that tiny waist of yours, and your skin smooth as feathers, guess it just seemed about right.”

  “Huh.”

  The silence filled the room and for the second time that evening, Rusty found himself unsure whether he wanted to break it. Beth Ravens had gotten under his skin, and he couldn’t work out whether he wanted to let her settle there, or yank her out and give her back to his brother like she wanted. As she started chewing on another strand of hair, her full lips caught up in a pout as good as Monroe pulled in her day, the idea that had been just a flicker, fleshed out and started walking around his brain demanding attention.

  Beth Ravens was more than a hot body and luscious lips. She was an opportunity. An opportunity to sort his shit out, give his TV show a real shot at happening, and an opportunity to screw with his brother for a change.

  Grim looked after himself. Period. Give his brother this same opportunity and the guy wouldn’t blink before working out a way to milk it while Rusty was left behind eating road dust.

  Rusty needed a break. Hell, he’d earned it.

  “I’ll get you a drink while you think about whether I can call downstairs anytime soon.” He pulled two beers from the fridge and handed one to her. He took a long sip of his own.

  Their folks had died when they were teens, and it made Grim focus on himself, deciding that he was going to “be someone” and screw anyone that got in the way. Rusty, well, he went deep, black, and dark, and tried hard to give life the slip. He rode hard and fast and furious ’til he fell for a girl who he thought would give him everything he wanted, and instead took everything he owned. It threw him into a depression. Lost as to what to do with his life, Rusty stood up when Grim got into trouble for gambling at a Reapers of Menace table back home in Illinois. Rusty could handle himself around the club, but Grim would have just gotten into more trouble. It was probably madness, but it made a kind of sense for the brothers at the time. Now though, Rusty mostly felt like his brother had used him.

  He looked at Beth, who hadn’t taken a sip of her beer at all but was just pulling at the label. Girl definitely looked like she could use a break.

  When Rusty had agreed to work off Grim’s debt with the Illinois chapter of the Reapers of Menace MC, it was on the basis that Grim would get set up in LA and make sure Rusty had a place to land when he got there. A fresh start for both of them. Grim had the earning potential, it had just been bad luck that landed him on the wrong side of the Reapers. What Grim hadn’t let on was that the Reapers didn’t think the deal ended in two years. Rusty was a good rider and he’d become a good driver and he’d run a few big jobs for the club, making them a ton of cash. They kept making excuses about needing him to stay on.

  Rusty rubbed his nose where the break had healed but never felt quite the same. He’d done plenty for the Reapers and they knew it. But a few of them hadn’t wanted him to go. A little gentle persuasion with his fists had helped, but it had taken the head of the club stepping in to get out. As long as he didn’t go back to Illinois, the Reapers wouldn’t go after him. That was the deal. Or that was supposed to be the deal.

  When he’d finally gotten to LA though, Grim hadn’t exactly welcomed him with open arms. Sure, he’d lent him the small amount of money Rusty was short for the garage. To be fair he should have asked for a whole lot more given how much he’d had to work off for Grim, but Rusty had taken the money and so he couldn’t complain. And then Grim had introduced him to a few people like stunt man Jake Slade, and his girl Lucy. But that had been it. No real contact, no real family. Rusty had been lonely and bored and looking for company. He’d gotten used to the noise and community of MC life and he missed it. But with the few guys still pissed at him back in Illinois he’d given up on MC life. Then he found Wilde’s. The Hell’s boys were a good fit. More brotherhood than bank robbery. And they weren’t the Reapers. When Rocco, the head of the Raising Hellfire MC, asked if Rusty wanted to take on the Hell’s boys’ bikes at his garage, Rusty decided it must have been a sign and joined up properly. Rusty just didn’t tell them the whole story of where he’d come from or why. His time in the Reapers was in the past, LA was his fresh start.

  Rusty looked at the woman next to him again and tried to picture her on Grim’s arm on a red carpet. Nah, he couldn’t see it. But . . . An idea blossomed and he saw it playing out in front of him. Yes. It could work.

  Here was a chance to get back on an equal footing with Grim. Hell, to play him at his own game, a chance for Rusty to get a little of what came to Grim so easily. “I have a little proposition for you,” he said to Beth.

  “I think we’re past propositions, don’t you?” she said, pulling her dress farther down her thighs.

  Although his muscles squeezed at the thought of yanking the dress away and finishing what she’d started, he kept his hands by his sides. “You want to get to know my brother and make it big in this town, right?”

  She nodded.

  “I might be able to help.”

  Her eyes grew huge. “Oh, shit. Have I made an even bigger fool of myself? I thought you said you owned a garage. I thought you were a biker. You’re not in Hollywood, are you?”

  “I do own a garage. One that would make the perfect setting for a reality show.”

  “And I fit into that how?”

  “I’ve been working with a producer, he’s a client. He wants me to shoot a pilot, but reckons I need more drama in the shop. Need another character. Girl like you, reckon you’d add drama in an instant.”

  “You want me to be in a show about bikes?” She laughed. “I can act, but I don’t know that I’m good enough to fake being a bike mechanic. Not in front of true fans.”

  “The workshop is a mess, and we need an office manager anyway now that we’re getting busy. You take the job, you’re part of the show. Two birds, one stone, like you say. You help me make the pilot happen and I’ll even introduce you to my brother, properly. Fame and fortune, love and marriage swiftly follow,” he said sarcastically. “Win, win, win, all the way home.”

  “Wait.” She sat up, suddenly totally focused on him. “Are you serious?”

  “As water in a fuel tank.”

  He could almost see the cogs of her brain starting to click into gear with the idea.

  “When you say a pilot, it’s not the type where you want me to take my clothes off and ride your bike, right?”

  He sat back, his eyebrows almost ratcheting off his forehead. “Ha, no. I mean, your, ahem, assets, wouldn’t exactly be bad for ratings, but this is about bikes. Big, beautiful, pimped-out bikes and the people who make them that way.”

  She looked down at her broken shoe a moment and readjusted it to be perfectly in line with the other. “And what happened tonight never leaves this room?”

  “It’s our little secret.”

  “Okay then.”

  “Lemme try that door again.”

  She put a hand on his arm. “There’s no catch?”

  “No catch. Except if you suck at being an office manager. Then we might need to rethink it.”

  “I’ll be an amazing office manager. I’m organized and focused. You sho
uld see me with a spreadsheet. But I’ll have to stay on here while we see if this will work out for both of us. Don’t worry”—she held up a hand—“I can do both. I just need to keep this job ’cause I get to live in the bunkhouse rent-free with it.”

  “We can work out your salary if you fit in with the workshop and the TV project.”

  She bit her lip. “I do want to do film, but hell, I’ll take anything that doesn’t involve serving beer to that bunch of leather-heads downstairs. At least you can hold a conversation that has more content than a tool belt.”

  “I’ll give you that last one, but the TV show is about bikers. I assumed you liked ’em, given you work here.”

  “Oh, I’m sure there’s plenty to like about bikers. Your brother’s managing to fake it, right? Just don’t make me ride anything, or, I don’t know, try and fix anything. I failed shop at school, I failed almost everything except English and drama. I can’t even bake.”

  “No cakes needed, I promise. And you can learn all the stuff about tools you need to play it on-screen. I’m a great teacher.”

  She pursed her lips and Rusty would have sworn he felt them on his own. Then her face changed.

  “You screw me over and I’ll find a way to take you down.”

  Rusty threw back his head and laughed. “I’d like to see you try, little bird.”

  “I will. I’m smart and desperate. So, don’t . . .” He saw her lips form words then dismiss them. “Don’t fuck with me.”

  He held back the laugh and just nodded. She didn’t curse, that much was obvious. But rather than making her seem ridiculous, it just made her endearing. “Wouldn’t dream of it. You put my garage on the map and I’ll make sure that my brother never finds out how we met.”

  “And you’ll make sure he falls in love with me,” she added quickly.

  A strange rush sped through Rusty’s bloodstream but he forced it down. His brother got everything he wanted, but this time Rusty was going to get something out of it too. “I can’t promise that. My brother is a fickle beast. But I can make sure you make a good impression. And he’d be a fool to turn you down.”

  Their eyes locked and Rusty wondered, again, what would have happened if he hadn’t mentioned that using Grim’s room had been a birthday present just when he did. “You work hard and the world’s your oyster. My mom always told me that.”

  Finally, she smiled, a smile that took over her whole face and brightened the room. “So did mine.” Resolution flashed in her eyes. “I have to make it work here, for her. And for my dad. They’ve both been amazing about me coming over here straight out of film school. I am going to make it. I just have to. So, I’m in. For now, at least.”

  “Perfect. We can go over your duties and the outline for the show I’ve been working on tomorrow. Ten o’clock.”

  She shifted and looked at the door. “How am I going to get out of here without anyone seeing me?”

  “We’ll take the back stairs. And I’ll go first. Anyone comes along, I’ll distract them.”

  She tugged her dress down as she stood, suddenly his partner in crime. It was nice, he realized. The sort of nice that meant trouble with a capital T. Sweet bundle of innocence like her was not his sort of thing. Hell, he’d decided to swear off women entirely not all that long ago. But he wasn’t about to just give her over to his brother without working on his own dreams. Not this time. The prospect of making the show he’d started dreaming about since he got here seeped into his skin and warmed him like a shot of bourbon.

  “I’m in the bunkhouse out back,” she said and he nodded, jiggling the door handle while lifting it up at the same time.

  He was going to make this happen. Make something just for him. Rusty thought about the smell of engine oil in the garage. It was soothing. He looked down at the woman watching him. His brother always managed to get things handed to him on a silver platter. What if he didn’t introduce them? The smirk felt good, but Rusty knew it wouldn’t last. Honor above all, that’s what Rocco had drilled into him when he’d joined the Raising Hellfire club. And he’d lived by it ever since. Keeping Beth Ravens in his life was about work, period, and if she and Grim hit it off, well, that was their business.

  “There we go.” The door handle unseized and opened with a creak. “See you at ten a.m. tomorrow downstairs. We can eat and talk, then I’ll give you a lift to the garage.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Beth flicked her eyes open and stared at the rusty springs of the bunk bed above. Her knee throbbed from where she’d hit it on the bar the night before, her ankle ached where she’d twisted it breaking her shoe, and her head was woolly. “All in all, a great morning then.” She closed her eyes again, willing the colossal mess that had been her evening to be all a dream.

  Eyes open, wide awake. Nope.

  Heaving a sigh, Beth looked out the open window. Everything was still and quiet at that time in the morning, and Beth let herself breathe in the smell of the world waking up just for a moment. It was a long way away from the dusty scents of the small farm where she’d grown up, farther still from the strong eucalyptus tree smell that would greet her each morning when she let the dogs out. On the outskirts of Melbourne, life had been simple, acting still mostly a dream, and now, here she was. Almost penniless. She tried not to let the sigh overwhelm her. Today was a new day. Period.

  Shifting her legs, she winced. Everything hurt. It took her back to her childhood. Her mother’s voice came into her head. “You are not your past. The future is waiting for you to take it. Now.” Being the only girl who couldn’t play sports was a gift, her parents always told her. It had allowed her to find her feet as an actor earlier than others.

  It had been a gift, but not as they had meant it. Onstage she could escape into characters who relished their body’s quirks, who were strong and proud and didn’t care what others thought. That was the woman she pictured herself as, but was too scared to allow herself to be. Onstage she could be her best self. The self that any Prince Charming would have slayed a bullying dragon for.

  She’d lived her whole school life as Elizalimp or Limpalong Lizabeth, depending on how kind the kids at school were feeling that day. And it was only after her final operation that she realized she hadn’t needed to let it define her as much as it had. Her fear about being different, about not fitting in had made her run away into the world of her imagination and the only place she’d found solace had been in acting class.

  Now her limp was gone and she was struggling with fitting in in an entirely different way. Funny how life turned out sometimes. Nothing was ever as easy as you thought it would be when you were dreaming it up. Well you ain’t limpy anymore but you just found a fairy godmother to help with the Prince Charming. Okay, so more of a fairy god-biker, but she’d take it.

  Rusty McKinley. Sheesh. If someone had asked her yesterday how her night would have turned out she would NOT have seen him and his proposal coming. She took a deep breath.

  Swinging her legs over the side of the bunk, she sat up. The hangover pain wasn’t that bad if she distracted herself. Her phone pinged and she reached for it. An appointment reminder flashed on her screen. RUSTY, 10 A.M., BISTRO. Oh, god. Her body swelled, heating up as the memory of the night flooded back . . . Don’t dwell on it now. She needed to move forward, that’s what her mom would have told her. For a second she thought longingly of calling her Mom and downloading the whole night. And then reality kicked in. Not even a swamp-load of angry crocodiles could have convinced her to tell her mom about last night.

  It had seemed a good idea to come out here on her own. Force herself to jump into her new life without a parachute. This was a town where everyone was searching, after all, it made people hungry, passionate, driven. And it would add to her story when she made it big—make it easier to fund-raise to fight polio in other countries. But the lack of friends and well, anyone, for support was starting to get old.

  “That’s why I need Grim,” she said out loud. The acronyms she’d come u
p with for the two of them sounded more like wizarding names than anything Hollywood though. “Elizagrim.” That was a little better. She might have reinvented herself as Beth over here, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t use her past to form her future.

  She thought about the tall, dark actor: his eyes pools of chocolate and his voice thick with gravel. Sleek and focused, but with a lot of soul, she was sure, she would unwrap his glossy exterior and they would share their dreams together. The characters he played on the big screen were always darkly brooding but soft-centered. Letting herself daydream, she stood beside him on the red carpet, swathed in gently flowing silk as he looked down at her adoringly. It was a future she was going to make happen.

  But sitting on her bunk, staring at the unadorned timber boards on the wall, she admitted to herself there was something else scratching at the edges of her fantasy. Something that kept creeping over her skin and nipping at her neck in a delicious but dangerous way: Rusty McKinley.

  “The brother.” Saying that out loud didn’t help much either. Thinking of the tall, dark biker, her skin tightened like it was waiting for his touch. “It’s just shock. And your ego feeling stupid that you threw yourself at him.” Yes, that was it. And then he goes all fairy godmother. Sure the outfit would have looked ridiculous on him, but offering her the opportunity to work on a pilot could be her way to finally catch a break in this town. “Or it could be a complete mess.” Either way she was going to be seeing Rusty McKinley again. Thinking about his hands on her, their sure, steady grip on her waist, their strength, the callouses on his palms, just brought the heat back between her thighs, The blood rushed there, urging her to do something about it, to revel in the memory and let herself surrender to it. She took a deep breath and stood, unsteadily. “I need a pint of hot coffee and a cold shower.”