Ironside

by Alexis Abbott

  Before I can even get through the door, Ironside has caught up to me. I cry out in primal fear as his hands land on my shoulders. He spins me around and pins me against the wall inside the room, leaning in close so I can feel the angry heat radiating from him.

  “What is the matter with you?” he snarls.

  “Leave me alone! You’re hurting me!” I whimper, trying to squirm away.

  “I am not hurting you,” he hisses, and he’s right, I realize. Even though he has me fully cornered, I’m not in any pain. His hands on my shoulders are soft, but firm… yet not painful. That almost makes me more upset.

  “Let me go,” I sniffle.

  “Why do you want to go sniffing your little nose around in club business?” he accuses.

  “I’m sorry,” I sigh. “I just… I couldn’t resist, okay? I’m all alone here and I don’t have any clue what’s going on because nobody will tell me anything and I--I just needed answers!”

  “Answers to what?” he groans.

  “Anything! Who you are, where you come from, what you’re like-- I want to know everything because you’re the only person who has shown me any hope and I just want to make sure that the man I’m counting on is, you know, on the right side!” I blurt out, blushing hotly.

  “Goddamnit,” he sighs, looking at me with what seems to be worry.

  “I’ve never seen an interrogation in person before. And I wanted to know if it was true what I heard them say about your interrogation skills,” I explain.

  “And?” he asks. He sounds exasperated.

  “You still seem like a good guy to me,” I admit softly.

  Ironside looks at me differently then. His black eyes soften. Grow warm. He reaches one immense hand to cup my cheek delicately. He says, “I think you could use a break from all this.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, wide-eyed.

  “Come on,” he says, taking my hand. “I know the place.”

  * * *

  The diner is virtually empty at this hour, except for the high school kids necking in the corner booth and the old trucker reading a mystery novel at the coffee counter. And then there’s us: Ironside looking like a handsome stranger from the wrong side of the tracks and me, his innocent-faced sidekick. We lean in to eat burgers and fries, the two of us sharing one vanilla-chocolate swirl milkshake with two hot pink straws. I feel like we’ve stepped into the set of some old-fashioned, wholesome sitcom. But the man sitting across from me is more hardcore than family-friendly. Still, I can’t deny that he’s been oddly sweet to me.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he says. “How did you grow up?”

  “Well, to make a long story short, I always followed the rules and look where it got me,” I admit, realizing how very jaded I actually am. “I trusted my father to take care of me. To have my best interests in mind. But it turns out, he’s only ever seen me as a piece of property. Just another potential dollar sign to cash in.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” he says meaningfully. “You deserve so much better.”

  “Thank you,” I reply, picking at my fries.

  “And you know, you don’t have to do what they told you you’re supposed to do. You have other options, little girl. You don’t have to do what your Daddy says. You just have to do whatever is going to make you happy,” Ironside assures me.

  My heart flutters and a genuine smile hitches itself to my lips. I hadn’t known just how badly I needed to hear those words from somebody. And thank god, it was him.

  “So, little miss Justine,” he says playfully, leaning in close with those black eyes blazing, “if you could look into the future and see your wildest dreams come true, what would you see?”

  I giggle and blush, trying to wrack my brain for an answer. The truth is, I have hardly ever given myself a moment to think about the future. Well, other than the prescribed future my parents laid out for me. As I’m thinking it over, I realize I need to use the restroom.

  “I’ll be right back,” I tell him, hopping up.

  He lets me go, as the restroom is just several feet away, within eyesight of the table. I slip into the restroom and start doing my business, happily considering my future with an open mind-- until I hear something strange and unsettling outside the bathroom door.

  There’s a voice-- no, two voices. One of them is Ironside, the other sounds like the stiff, formulaic speech patterns of a rookie cop. And then I hear the cop say something that horrifies me to my core.

  My name.

  My full name.

  Ironside

  “Justine Smith,” the officer in front of me says.

  My heart is racing, but my gaze up at the police officer’s narrowed eyes looks like the picture of innocence as I keep my nerves under control. I’m used to keeping a clear head under pressure. This is dangerous, but if it were a lost cause, I’d be thinking about plan B already. This officer strode just after the waiter left the table, and now he’s asking me about a missing person last seen heading in this direction.

  “She’s about 5’5”, light red hair, nineteen years old,” he goes on, giving me that stern, suspicious look I know all too well. “Sweet little slip of a thing, you wouldn’t forget the sight of her around here,” he adds with a chuckle.

  Law enforcement tends to have a chip on its shoulder about bikers, and to be fair, we give them plenty of reason to. And since even though the officer who strode in had almost definitely been given a description of a kidnapper that looks a lot like me...I need to watch my every word.

  This is our territory. Even the police officers who aren’t on the take know that fact and respect it. I’ve seen this officer’s face before, but we’ve never met in person, so he doesn’t know me. What he thinks of the kutte hanging on my shoulders is up in the air.

  “Sounds like I wouldn’t,” I say with a gruff chuckle. “Take a seat, officer, tell me more. Maybe I can point you in the right direction.”

  The officer eyes me carefully for a few seconds, then his eyes pan down to the table. But the waiter had just come to collect our plates, and there’s no evidence left at the table that I’m not alone.

  Once again, luck pulls through for me.

  “I’ll stand,” he says, still regarding me skeptically. “So you’ve never seen this woman at all? Not even at the bar where you fellas get together?” he asks.

  “If she’s nineteen,” I say, “she wouldn’t have been in our bar. Anyone at the station can back you up on that.”

  “Uh-huh?” he says, moving his jaw side to side with a stony expression.

  “Mind if I write all that down?” I ask, reaching for the pen still sitting on the signed check for the bill. “I’ll pass it along to our prez. We look out for our own in Crook County.”

  Sure enough, the officer tersely repeats his description of Justine, which I write down on the back of a clean napkin that I then hold up with a gruff smile before tucking it safely into a pocket. The officer watches all of this, looking like he’s trying to decide whether I’m guilty and throwing him off--which I absolutely am--or just fucking with him.

  We kind of have a reputation for that, to put it lightly.

  “If we get any eyes on her, we’ll make sure you’re the first to know. Any idea what the situation is? Is she a runaway? Any direction she’s headed?”

  “Came from up northeast, might be in the company of a biker,” the cop says. “White male, thirties, tattoos-”

  “You’re gonna arrest a hell of a lot of bikers with that description, officer,” the waiter says with a good natured smile as he busses the nearby table. The officer glares at him, but his gaze pans back to me judiciously.

  “Your club has a reputation for keeping our girls safe,” the officer says begrudgingly. “I hope you live up to your reputation. If you see something, call us,” he says, scowling and heading out the door.

  The waiter and I exchange a look, and I chuckle, shaking my head and hiding just how relieved I feel.

  “Think he’s a rookie,” t
he waiter says as I stand up and head to the bathroom to give Justine the coast-is-clear signal. “He’ll get used to y’all.”

  “Don’t mind us, Brent,” I say, giving him a wave. “We know how to break ‘em in.”

  I get to the door and knock on it with the back of my hand. “Justine,” I whisper loudly to her through the door.

  It cracks open slowly, and Justine’s pale face pokes through and looks around before breathing a sigh of relief. I take her by the hand and lead her out as she looks up at me and takes a deep breath.

  “Did I hear…?” she asks.

  “You did,” I say with a curt nod. “But I got it under control. We’re out of the frying pan for now.”

  “Isn’t the second part of that saying-”

  “Yeah,” I grunt, “I didn’t say we were out of the fire yet.”

  “Are they looking for me?” she asks with a hard swallow. “What do we do? How do we get out of here?”

  She stands closer to the little hallway leading to the bathrooms to stay out of sight of the parking lot, where the officer is hovering around his squad car on his radio. I watch him for a moment, then turn back to Justine and put my hands on her shoulders.

  “He thinks we don’t know each other,” I say. “But if he’s out looking for you, he has backup in town. If they have a biker fitting my description and a girl fitting your description together in their crosshairs, we can’t be seen together.”

  “Do you mean we need to leave separately?” she asks, eyes widening.

  “Not exactly,” I say, glancing at the window briefly. “I need him to see me leaving alone, and you need to not be seen at all.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “Do you remember the lawyer’s office two lots down?” I ask, thinking for a moment.

  “The one with the green sign? I remember,” she says, nodding.

  “Leave out the back, through the kitchens,” I say, “and don’t stop for anything. Pretend you belong there, like you know what you’re doing and you know where you’re heading.”

  “O-okay,” she says, nodding hesitantly, and I squeeze her shoulders reassuringly.

  “Stay behind the buildings and meet me behind that office. I’ll bring the bike around and pick you up.”

  “Are you sure about this?” she asks, reaching up and taking my hands.

  “I trust you,” I say with a slow nod. “You can do this. I know you can.”

  She looks uncertain at first, but she finally takes a deep breath and nods. “Okay. Let’s go before it’s too late.”

  I lean in and give her a kiss on the lips before looking to the cop’s car. He has opened the front door and is sitting with one leg out, facing away from the diner--now’s the only chance we might get.

  “Go, straight for the kitchens and out the back,” I say, turning her and letting her jet to the back doors, power-walking while smoothing her hair out and trying to compose a confident stride.

  I watch her go until she’s through the doors, and I then head out the front doors myself, dropping a $50 on the table for Brent as a thank-you for his discretion. It pays off to be regular and tip well.

  The officer’s eyes are on me almost as soon as I’m out the door, and I pretend not to be watching him as I make my leisurely way to my bike. When my ass hits the seat, I take out my phone to just as leisurely text Breaker that the boys in blue are eyeballing me, and that I might take the long way home.

  That will tell Breaker all he needs to know to give me a hand, directly or indirectly. There’s no way this officer is the only one prowling the town for Justine tonight.

  I fire up the engine of my bike and pull out of the parking lot, giving the cop a nod as I go. I feel his eyes on me all the way down to the end of the block, where I turn the corner and vanish into the darkness of the night.

  Immediately, I quiet my engine and circle back around through the businesses’ back lots, rolling over cracked asphalt and cutting my headlights. In the flickering shadow of a floodlight, I see Justine step out from the side of a building, and I let out a relieved breath.

  Before my bike has even stopped completely, she throws her arms around me and kisses me before she hops onto the back of my bike and hugs me from behind, not just holding on but pressing herself into my back and putting her head to it as I turn the bike around and roll out.

  “You did great, baby,” I tell her, reaching behind me to squeeze her thigh. “I knew you would. Surprised you didn’t run for the cop while you had the chance.”

  “Who do you think I’d trust, you or some stranger?” she says without missing a beat, making my heart swell warmly more than she probably knows. “The cooks looked at me funny,” she admits, “but I just kept my eyes on the back door, and I think they knew what I was doing but didn’t mind.”

  “Our people are good people,” I say proudly, and I pull out onto the street.

  Sure enough, we aren’t far away before I notice another squad car parked in an alley, sitting idle. I keep my headlights off and wait for another car to pass and take the light with it before crossing the road carefully and rolling through a small neighborhood where I know the police rarely come prowling when searching the highways.

  “We’ll take it slow and dark,” I tell her as she watches the various yards pass her by. “Breaker is probably hitting up our pocket-cop and getting him to thin out some of the squad cars looking for you.

  Sure enough, while I’m at a stop behind an old shed on a street corner in the shadows, I watch a couple of police cruisers sail by away from the direction I’m heading--most likely to a false alarm conveniently on the other side of town.

  I pull back out into the road, and I take off for the clubhouse, heart pounding as the dry air kisses our faces on the rest of the road back to our sanctuary.

  When I finally lead Justine by the hand through the front doors of the bar and make a beeline for downstairs to get her out of sight, it truly does feel like coming back to the one sanctuary I have left on this earth. The bar has a handful of the usual members drinking and chatting happily, and after the tension outside, it’s a warm and inviting welcome.

  Hiding Justine away while I’m at it makes it all come together as something truly worth fighting for.

  Once we’re downstairs, where the bar’s empty, I’m not two steps into the room before I swing Justine around to the wall and press a fierce kiss to her, pinning her down with my hips and grinding against her. She moans delightedly, pleasantly surprised and squirming against me immediately. If I’m feeling the adrenaline rush, I can only imagine how she feels.

  A rebellious streak is one thing, but coming that close to capture again and evading the police in foot is another. I had faith in her, and I knew it wasn’t ill placed. I trusted her not to run to the cops, and she had all the opportunity to. She must have known there’s a chance that cop might not have turned her over to the wrong hands. But still, she stayed with me and followed my orders perfectly.

  She really is a good girl, after all.

  “I’m going to take you again, little girl,” I growl into her ear. “I know what you need, and I’ll give it to you. And you’ll like it.”

  She barely has time to nod her head before I pick her up by the hips and throw her over my shoulder, clutching her like a prize as she squeals. I carry her back to my room and throw the door open, toss her onto the bed, and lock us inside with a hungry smile.

  Her shoes hit the floor before I reach her, and I seize her pants to work them open and slide them off her legs, taking her underwear with it and gazing on her bare legs with a ravenous look in my eyes. I have to restrain myself from lunging for her right then, and instead, I stand up to my full height and pull my shirt off, dropping it to the floor and grabbing one of her ankles.

  Her eyes are full of desire and unwavering from me. She drinks in every inch of me as I drag her close enough to pull her up and take her shirt off. Her hair feels soft against my hands as I unhook her bra, and she gently rests her head
against my hardened abs as I bring my hands up to stroke her hair. She shrugs out of her bra while I hold her, feeling her warmth--as well as a kind of warmth within myself.

  I’ve never felt such a protective instinct for someone like I do for Justine. And I’m a man who has always had that instinct. For her though, it feels like a magnetic pull I can’t explain, and it makes me want to spend every second I’ve got touching her. I hold her hair tight and gently pull it back to make her look up at me, and I take her chin in my hand to stroke her lip with my thumb.

  “You weren’t made for this life,” I say to her. “You shouldn’t have to be doing this.”

  “It doesn’t feel normal,” she say, her eyes looking pensive, “but...is it...bad if I kind of like it?”

  “Like it?” I say, chuckling. “You like riding, don’t you?”

  “Not just that,” she says, uncertain. “I mean, that is nice. But I just never knew how riding would...feel? I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “It’s a rush,” I say, grinning. “It’s freedom. You can hold your own destiny in your hands on a good bike. There’s a reason people join MCs. This is how we live,” I say, squeezing her gently. “And it’s not for everyone.”

  “Do you think it could be for me?” she asks boldly.

  She wants me to call her naive again and get me to push back, and knowing that makes me grin. I push her back onto the bed, and she giggles, recoiling while I strip out of my pants and throw them aside before pouncing the bed.

  I grab her by the ankles again and drag her toward me, and I start kissing my way up her sensitive inner thighs. My stubble brushes against the thin skin and tickles her, but when she starts to squirm and writhe away, I take her by the hips and hold her down.

  I bring my mouth up to her firm, round breast and press a kiss to it. She shivers before I let my tongue wash over it and feel the stiffening nipple. I swirl my tongue slowly and tease it hard second by second. The sound of her moaning and sighing spurs me on, and my heart pounds and makes my naked body glisten in the dim light.