Steel Horses - Act 1 (MC Erotic Romance)

Chapter 2

  I sat staring into Colt’s blue eyes, and him into mine. I wondered how I was going to get my teeth into him when another pack of motorcycles roared up to the Dusty Piston. They gunned their engines. Colt turned to Doc. “Hey, who else was coming tonight?”

  Doc shrugged his shoulders. “No one that I know of.” A look of worry erupted on Doc’s face. He put his hand inside his vest, taking out a silver revolver and pulling back the hammer. “Just in case,” he said.

  Colt nodded. “Beast, Houston. Keep your shit wired tight as a drum. We’ve got company.”

  Beast nodded, flipping over a wooden table near the back wall, sending condiments and packets of fake sugar all over the floor.

  Colt reached into his vest, pulling out a Colt-45 pistol from his chest holster. He racked the slide back, the sound of metal on metal reminding me of my training at Quantico. Colt grabbed my hand and walked me behind the bar. “Don’t move until I tell you it’s ok Jessie, no matter what. I got a bad feeling about this.”

  I nodded; my heart was racing, dying to reach for my standard issue, subcompact handgun in my purse. But to reach for that would be to reach for my own death.

  Damian crowed in my ear. “Jessie, we’ve got a problem you need to get out of there immediately! Rival gang members are pulling up to the bar. They’ve got guns.”

  Before Damian could finish, three rival bikers kicked open the door of the Dusty Piston, and thundered in holding shotguns. The men fired off round after round from their boomsticks. Buckshot bounced around the bar like miniature pinballs. Glass splintered off mirrors flying everywhere and liquor spilled down the wall behind the bar, running along the floor and all over my clothes. The sound of gunshots filled my ears, blocking out the sound of anything else, especially the sound of Damian’s worried voice.

  Missy was huddled behind the bar like me. She reached below the register and pulled out a handgun. She jumped up from the back of the bar aiming at the men but was blasted by a shotgun and sent flying into a mini-fridge filled with bottles of golden lager. She dropped to the floor, dead as can be, blood running out of her chest.

  The rival gang used a wall as a shield as they reloaded their guns, pumping them when finished. “I told you Colt! Stay out of the meth business north of Cal City, that’s Vatos Locos Territory ese! They came back out blasting. Ripping open the windows and walls with buckshot.

  Colt waited for a break in the gunfire when he hopped up behind the counter, firing three rounds in fast succession. He ducked promptly, looking at me with a smile. “Got one.” It was clear to me that he loved a gunfight, a true outlaw in every sense of the word but he was protecting me. I hated to encourage the violence, up until the point it would save my life.

  “Oh fuck!” one of the Vatos Locos said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here aye!” They fired their remaining shells and dropped their guns to the ground, booking it out the front door and toward their motorcycles.

  Their bikes roared to life. I stood to survey the damage. Houston and Beast jumped up from the ground, going after the Vatos Locos. Doc tried to get follow them, but just as he took his first step he collapsed to the ground. “Colt, I’m hit! It’s my god damn leg!” He grasped at his thigh as blood poured out of it.

  Houston and Beast ran out of the bar and into the parking lot, where they were firing bullets into the night as the Vatos Locos sped out of sight, only the sound of their engines echoing behind their bikes remained.

  My ear-piece was running on and on, Damian’s voice becoming clear now that my ears stopped ringing. “Jessie?! Jessie?! Are you ok? Check in Jessie.”

  “I’m fine!” I yelled, hoping to let both Damian and Colt know that I was ok at the same time. The gambit worked.

  Damian sighed in relief. My ear-piece hissed. “Ok, Jessie. Cops are on their way, gunshot reports are all over the local police dispatch. Hold tight.”

  On the ground next to Doc was a dead biker with brown skin and black hair, a green leather cut wrapped tightly around his body. The back said “Vatos Locos MC.”

  Houston and Beast barged back into the bar. Houston looked at Colt. “We’ve gotta run mother fucker! Cops are on their way. Sirens are faint but they’re coming. We wont be able to buy our way out of this one.”

  Colt was decisive. “Houston, take Doc to the safe house. Beast, follow Houston and Doc. Go. Now!” Colt looked at me. “Jessie, you’re coming with me.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Why? I have my own car. I can leave right now.”

  He wasn’t leaving anything to chance. “I can’t have you getting wrangled by the cops. You’re coming with me. You can get your car in the morning. We don’t have time, let’s roll!”

  I was hesitant to go but to afraid to say no to Colt. It was an opportunity to get closer to him, to gain his trust. I grabbed my purse and left with him, against all instinct telling me to run.

  “Do not go, Jessie!” Damian screamed into my ear. I faked like I was scratching my ear, knocking my earpiece to the floor. If he got wind of this my career would be over, just when it was getting interesting.

  Houston and Beast picked up Doc, carrying him off to their bikes, firing up their engines and bolting out of sight.

  Colt grabbed my hand and walked me out the front door, mounting his motorcycle. He commanded me. “Get on the back and hold on to me tight.”

  Colt fired up the engine, the exhaust steaming into the night air. I cinched my hands around his chest, every grain of muscle in his hard, fit body readily appreciable to my hands, even through his cut. He let the throttle rip and bolted into the night. I held him tighter as the force of his bike pulled on my body.

  I expected him to run from the cops but instead he was headed right into the oncoming onslaught of police vehicles whose red and blue lights lit up the night like the fourth of July. I counted four patrol cars in a two by two formation. He turned the handle throttle even more, the wind ripping through my hair and plastering my eyes open as we accelerated.

  The cop cars were closing the gap between us and taking up both lanes of the two-lane highway that boarded the Dusty Piston. Colt drove faster, harder. He moved from the right lane to the middle lane, tracing over the dashed yellow line of the road. He was headed right for the middle of the cop cars and not a damn thing was going to stop him.

  He split them, the air resistance between the vehicles threatening to send us careening to the ground. I’d never held onto anything tighter in my entire life than I did to his leather cut, my white knuckled hands almost ripping the patches right off of it.

  Just as we broke through the barrage of cop cars they slammed on their brakes, the red lights evident in his rear view mirror. They abruptly turned around and followed us. Only then did I realize he didn’t have a death wish, but that taking the heat off of his friends was his plan all along.

  “Where are we going?!” I yelled.

  “Somewhere safe!” he screamed, battling the volume of the air resistance as he tore over the asphalt like a bat out of hell.

  The cop cars were floored, catching up to us and nipping at our heels. A helicopter joined the pursuit, its bright spotlight shining on us like a sun in the night, impossible to lose. Colt was un-phased, pulling the throttle harder and bringing his motorcycle to its maximum speed as he pierced the darkness in front of him. I looked back, a sea of red and blue lights still behind us. I had never been more excited in my life.

  Colt took a sharp left onto a dirt road, one that I wasn’t expecting. My stomach was left beside me. In the rear view mirror I watched the cop cars tumble over, not able to make the same turn. One burst into flames. Colt floored it, heading out into the deep, inky darkness of the desert. The helicopter lost us in the desert before circling over the multiple vehicle crash piled up at the entrance to the dirt road.

  Colt finally stopped and hid his bike next to a large rock formation in the desert.

  “Fuck!” he yelled. “That was too damn close!”

  I was so exhila
rated that I was speechless. It took me a moment to catch my breath. “Why did you bring me here, Colt?”

  He looked me in the eyes, only the moon lighting up the counters of his face. “I had to make sure you weren’t going to talk.”

  I played the part of the helpless fawn. “I promise I wont. I don’t want to. Please don’t hurt me, I don’t want trouble with you.”

  He crowded me, pressing me into the back of his bike. “Yea? And what happens when the cops press you? Or threaten to take away your freedoms unless you give up the MC?”

  I was about to hyperventilate; my hand ready to go for my gun. “I wont. I promise I wont. I’m into you, Colt.”

  He placed his hands on my face, holding my cheeks tightly in the moonlit night. “Then we’ll seal it with a kiss.” He pressed his lips onto mine, and in that moment everything I learned in the academy went out the window. This was a major faux pas but his lips felt too good to resist. I kissed him back. Our passion ran wild in the desert. Like a pair of outlaws we embraced, feeling one another, the wind in between our bodies, and the cool air leaving goosebumps on my skin.

  I pulled away. “I barely know you.”

  He rubbed the side of my face with his hard hands, calloused from riding his bike. “And that’s going to change.”