A Biker Romance

by Jess Winters

  “That gangster was that Calvin…”

  “Gangster?” I chuckle. “He’s a biker, but he’s not a gang member!” At least, I hope he’s not!

  “Oh, sorry. Well, while you were crying in the bathroom,” I drop my head to the floor and attempt to shield him from the glare of my glowing red cheeks. I did not know he heard me crying!

  “While you were out in the bathroom, he came back, and he left you this.”

  Brian opens up his hands and reveals a scrunched up napkin, stained by coffee on the edges. I pluck it from him, so nervous of what might be written that I hold back from opening it.

  “Don’t you want to know what it says?” asks Brian. “He was absolutely gorgeous!”

  I stare at it. Without unfolding it, I can almost make out some letters scribbled in black pen, but I turn away.

  “Just throw it out, Brian. I don’t need anything from him anymore.”

  Chapter Five

  “Too young! Too hairy! Is that man holding a snake?” I swipe across the pages and onto the next single bachelor advertising himself online.

  “Oh, he seems kind of cute, but what’s that?” My heart sinks a little, and I feel a lump in my throat.

  “Please don’t bother if you’re ‘bubbly’ AKA OVER 70KG.”

  It’s not the first time I’ve seen a comment like that on a dating website, but it still stings a little to read. I turn and look at my bowl of nachos to the side of me. I pinch a roll of fat and wonder what he would think if he ever saw me naked.

  You know what? If I can bag myself a guy like Calvin, with a body carved by the gods themselves and a bum like two eggs in a hanky, then I don’t need to worry about losers like this guy.

  Plus, I doubt those arms could pick me up and throw me onto a bed.

  “OK, Nicola,” I say out loud. “You must stop fantasizing about Calvin!”

  I shut down my laptop and take a sip of my warm hot chocolate, snuggling into my sofa. Just as I get comfortable, my phone rings.

  “Hello?” I hesitate, not recognizing the number.

  “Nicola! You answered!”

  “Hello, Zara,” I sigh. Despite the blaring music in the background and the sound of someone talking directly at her as she speaks to me, I can always recognize her voice.

  “What are you doing right now?”

  I look around the room and try to find something slightly less shameful to tell her.

  “I’m just talking to a friend online,” I lie.

  “A friend?”

  “Yep. An old friend.”

  “An old friend that I don’t know about?”

  I pause. Shit. If only I hadn’t known Zara my entire life!

  “OK, listen to me. Get out of those pyjamas!” I gaze down at my outfit, the cats on my pyjama bottoms could almost be staring back at me, judging me.

  “Find a cute outfit, do something sexy with your hair and come and meet me at this party.”

  “A party?” I exclaim. “I’m not going to a party!”

  “Nicola, stop. It’s Friday night. You never get Friday nights off work! When was the last time we danced together?”

  I laugh. “There’s a reason we shouldn’t dance together!”

  “Oh, come on! I promise you that I will make them play our jam!”

  I release a deep breath. “Zara, we’re not twenty anymore!”

  Zara drops the phone, a crowd of people cheer in the background, and I hear a can of beer being opened. I hear her pick me up again off the floor.

  “You deserve to let your hair down for once. You’ve had a rough week.”

  I’ve got to say; it’s hard to fight with that. After seeing Calvin on Tuesday and then having to deal with some pervert at the diner yesterday, maybe I have earned a night of girly fun with Zara.

  “I’ll be there in an hour. Don’t get drunk before I get there!”

  A long scream follows, and Zara announces to the room that I’ll be arriving any minute, though I’m sure most of them have no idea who I am.

  I run into my bedroom and burst open the wardrobe doors.

  “Right. Something that says ‘sexy yet sophisticated’ where are you?”

  Chapter Six

  I make my way through the cloud of smoke disguising the front porch. Four bikers suck on cigarettes, but one pauses to wolf whistles at me. I turn and scorn him before noticing the familiar face.

  “Hey there, Rocco! Long time, no see!”

  Rocco leans in and kisses my cheek.

  “Yeh, Nicola. You stopped coming to the bar. We wondered what happened to you.”

  I look up at the three other faces staring back at me. I’ve seen them before, but that was back when I dated Calvin. He took me to that bar and showed me off to all of his friends, drinking beer until the early hours almost every weekend.

  Rocco always had my back; he took a shine to me. He forced the barman to play my favourite cheesy songs on the jukebox, even though most of the guys there were metalheads.

  I’ll never forget the night Rocco and I sang “Beauty School Dropout” at karaoke. Calvin was crying with laughter, watching his metalhead friend spin me around the dancefloor all while wearing leather boots and sporting a green Mohican.

  I spot one of the guys checking out my cleavage; he catches me glancing at him and turns away shyly. I giggle a little. I guess I am wearing a pretty low cut top tonight; I’m not hiding any of my self today. And it’s nice to feel attractive. I always feel that way around the bikers; they all adore a bigger woman.

  “I’ve been meaning to come and see you guys at the bar sometime. I will, soon.” I smile briefly, but Rocca can feel my pain.

  He always said that Calvin and I were great together and I think he was hurting more than me when he left that day. But he can’t say anything about him behind his back.

  They’re bikers, and bikers are brothers. No matter happens, they stick together. I guess Rocco was holding out for an explanation that would make this all better. I’m a little less naive.

  “So I assume you know about Calvin?” Rocco tosses his cigarette butt and takes a swig from his beer can. He hands it to me. At first, I retract, but I take the can anyway and swig from it.

  “Yeh, I guess. He said he has some stuff to sort out. I don’t think he’ll be back for long, not if Dylan has anything to say about it.” I roll my eyes at Rocco, but he crinkles his face.

  “I mean tonight; I guess you know that Calvin is here, at this party.”

  I push past Rocco and his friends, as I storm through the doorway, I turn and see Calvin’s motorbike parked up against the others. I am so stupid!

  I rise onto my toes and search for Zara. She’s here, holding a glass of something, but she doesn’t look too drunk, yet.

  “Did you know he was going to be here?” I push her shoulder and turn her to face me. She recoils in shock.

  “Was he here when you phoned me?”

  I can see it in Zara’s eyes; she doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking about.

  I drop my head. Looking down at my heeled boots, I feel stupid for even coming here in the first place.

  “I’m just going to go home, OK?”

  Zara grabs me by the shoulders and shakes her head.

  “What are you talking about, we haven’t even danced…” Her eyes drift off behind me; I know instantly that she’s seen him. I watch her eyes as his reflection creeps closer and closer.

  As I feel his warm breath behind my ear, I freeze. Every single hair on the nape of my neck stands up.

  “I was hoping I’d see you here, but I didn’t think you were the partying type.”

  I lock eyes with Zara; she tilts her head in sympathy. We both know there’s no escape now.

  I face him. His thick black eyelashes flutter with excitement, knowing that he has me so close. He could kiss me without taking a step, and I’m motionless. I couldn’t stop him if he tried.

  “We’ll talk, I promise. Just wait?” My words leave my mouth clumsilly. I can’
t even string a sentence together. My lips are shaking so much that two syllables at a time are all I can muster up.

  I take Zara’s hand and march her off to the kitchen.

  “I’ll be right here when you get back,” he calls after me.

  I pull Zara close to me. “Grab a bottle of whatever you can find, and tuck it under your jacket. I need a drink before I do this.”

  Zara swigs the vodka and screws her face up in disgust.

  “You really couldn’t find anything nicer than vodka?” I chuckle.

  “I was hurrying for you!”

  Zara pulls back a section of my hair as she stands behind me. We both stare back at our reflections in the mirror.

  “You’re beautiful, you know?”

  I look away.

  “I’m serious!” she insists. “If I were a man, I’d be crazy about you.”

  I giggle under my breath. “You are crazy about me.”

  Zara passes me the bottle, and I heave just at the smell. “I’ve had enough, my head already feels… strange.”

  “Go out there, and show him that he messed up bad!”

  I reapply my lipstick, smudging the corners no matter how hard I try. I’ve drunk enough already.

  “He’s going to regret leaving me for the rest of his life,” I affirm. I love my new drunk confidence. I smile at Zara.

  “Come and grab me half an hour! OK! I want to get this over and done with and then dance!”

  We high five and bump our matching big bums into each other. Zara almost falls over, but she grabs the sink just in time.

  Staring up at me, she winks. “Go get ‘em, tiger!”

  Back at the party, I stand in the corner for a while, observing Calvin as he waits for me on the sofa. There are so many girls staring at him.

  His hair is pushed back by his headscarf, but a few dark curls fall across his face. One girl sits beside him and strokes his arm; I feel a stab in my stomach. Calvin smiles but shuffles away an inch.

  He wants me.

  I stride over, burping a little as I walk, but doing my best to seem confident and unphased.

  “Do you want to talk here, or somewhere else?”

  Calvin’s eyes light up as he hears me speak.

  “Let’s go outside,” he suggests, reaching for my hand that I sharply withdraw.

  He smiles awkwardly. His heavy blinking signals to me that he’s nervous- maybe even more nervous than I am.

  Chapter Seven

  “I didn’t come here to hurt you again, you know.”

  Looking up at the night sky and seeing the moon so big tonight, I wonder if the world is testing me. It wants to know if I’ll succumb to romance, alcohol and fate while I sit side-by-side with Calvin upon this wall.

  Calvin had to lift me up here, I thought I would be too big for him to lift, but his strength never fails to surprise me. My mind flutters back to the dating website, and I couldn’t help but compare him to the losers I came across there.

  “It doesn’t really matter why you did anything,” I reply. “You hurt me, and you can’t take that back.”

  “Every day for the last two years, I’ve thought about how much I hurt you, and how it was the last thing I ever wanted to do to you.”

  I turn and face him and shake my head gently.

  “Then why, why the hell, did you do it?”

  “I... I…” Calvin stammers and the words fail him.

  “If there was another woman...”

  “Never, there was never anyone else; you were the only woman I wanted, I swear, Nicola!”

  “But if there was, I could have moved past it. You could have told me you’d fallen out of love with me; that you didn’t see a future; that our worlds weren’t suited, and although it would have broken my heart, it would have been better.”

  A tear rolls down Calvin’s face. There was one sentence he always repeated to me, “I’ll keep you safe.” And now, despite all the pain he has, he knows that I can never believe those words again.

  “And Dylan? You know he hates you now! He won’t leave me alone because he thinks you’re dangerous and that you damaged me somehow. I can’t even bring up your name in this town without everyone looking at me apologetically. They hate you for what you did.”

  Calvin bites his lips and exhales fast through his nose.

  “I wanted to tell you everything, but you would never have let me go.”

  He lifts his hand to touch my face, but stops himself, knowing that I’m not his anymore, that the unquestionable access he once had to my body is gone.

  “I think about you all the time, you know?”

  I watch as a shooting star crosses our path.

  “Do you think about me sometimes?” Calvin nudges me with his shoulder; I giggle a little. “Don’t ask me that!”

  “Why not?” he chuckles.

  “Because you know I’m awful at lying! Especially to you!”

  Calvin smirks, and I slap his leg to show that I’m not impressed, but I can’t help the little grin creeping across my own face.

  “So you do think about me. Hmm, interesting.”

  I roll my eyes and look away.

  “Do you think about me naked?”

  “Calvin!” I exclaim.

  He places a single finger on my thigh and continues to walk up my leg softly with his hand.

  “Do you think about the way I used to kiss that freckle right here?”

  He stops, with his index finger just above that very freckle. I can’t see it, but just his touch brings back memories of having his face between my legs, loving every inch of my body, but he always paid extra attention to my freckles.

  I feel a tingle running through me; my whole body becomes sensitive to his touch.

  “Do you remember, Nicola?” he pants. “Because sometimes, I can’t even stop myself from thinking about it.”

  He turns and puts his other hand on my other leg and grips tightly. He pushes down firmly on my thighs until his fingertips slip beneath my skirt.

  I exhale deeply, my head screams out to me to make him stop, but I can only lean my head back and open my legs just a little, savouring the feel of his hands on my soft skin.

  I beg for him to reach higher and higher. I quiver as he touches the crease at the top of my leg. But a voice interrupts us. Calvin pulls away, and we both watch as Zara appears from the darkness and heads towards us.

  “Let’s go,” he gushes.

  I gasp in excitement, “Where?”

  Calvin jumps down from the wall and holds out his hand to me, as I clamber down, he catches me in his arms, spinning me around and holding me in the air for just a second.

  As I land, we kiss. It was so instant that I didn’t even have time to question whether it was right or wrong. After so many kisses shared, I never knew that just the pressing of our lips would excite me so much.

  His lips are cold, and despite my short skirt and my low-cut top, the rest of my body feels numb to the night. His tongue gently caresses my own overpowering every other sense in me. He pulls away quickly but leaves me reaching for more.

  He takes my hand and pulls me across the road. I can do nothing on my own. My legs, my mouth, and my impulses are no longer within my control.

  “Here,” he whispers. Somehow it’s like since we kissed, we’re connected, and I have to hold myself back from repeating his words out loud.

  He places a helmet on my head, fixing it by pushing back my hair and wiping the glass so I can see clearly.

  “Guys, are you leaving?” Zara holds a drink in her hand, it sways with every step she takes, and I know that she’ll barely remember this in the morning. And right now, I’ve got more important things to think about.

  Calvin lifts me onto the back of his bike and pulls my arms around his waist. Pushed so tightly against him, I can smell the cologne stuck to his hair.

  “Nicola!” Zara yells as we drive off into the night. I hold on tightly and think about nothing else.

  We arrive at my apart
ment, he takes off his helmet and turns to me.

  “I’m staying with Rocco; I thought it’d be best to come here. My warm breath turns to steam in the icy night sky.

  “Do you mind me being here?” he asks. I don’t reply. I can’t reply. I can’t even understand what I’m thinking. Almost every voice in my head is telling me that this is going to hurt in the morning.

  My mind flicks to images of Zara repeating ‘I told you so,’ but a voice follows- one that comes from deeper than my head. It’s not even a voice, it’s a feeling in my blood, in my veins, so intuitive that I can’t ignore it.

  I take him by the hand and lead him to my door. I rummage through my bag, searching for my keys. I feel his hands on my hips from behind me.

  They caress me slowly and just as my key slots into the lock, he grabs me and spins me around, kissing me hard and pushing me up against the door.

  With one hand, he turns the handle, and we step through the doorway, still locked in our embrace. In the hallway, before we can even make it into my bedroom, he lifts my shirt over my head.

  I stand still, helpless to him. My skin tingles as his lips make their way from my breasts down to my stomach, pausing at my nipples.

  He takes his time; he enjoys it just as much as I, and as he pulls away, he can’t help but go back just to taste them once more.

  He tugs at my skirt with one hand, the other slides up to the top of my leg and slips underneath my panties. With his teeth, he pulls down my skirt and nestles his face in between my legs.

  His hand pushes into me, slowly, yet firmly. His tongue caresses me rhythmically, and my legs begin to shake as he does everything just as I had imagined over and over again, alone in my bed.

  He feels me tremble and takes one of my legs and brings it around his body, resting it on top of his shoulder. I try to resist at first, knowing that my thighs can’t be easy to support.

  But he wraps his arm around it and pushes his face deeper into me. I release and let him take full control of me. As his fingers move faster, and his tongue continues stroking, I call out his name through pants of breath.