Leaning up on her toes, I still have to bend down a little to meet her lips with mine. Always soft and warm and hypnotising. From this moment on, I know her taste will always be my addiction, the only lips I want to press mine against for all my days.
“Be mine, darlin’,” I whisper, breaking our kiss.
“I’m yours, John.”
Lifting her, she wraps her legs around my waist and I push her up against the wall. I can’t help myself, I claim her mouth once more and she opens greedily. Her tongue laps with mine and my dick strains against my jeans.
“I need to have you tonight,” I growl into her mouth as not to break the kiss.
“I need to have you now.”
Not wasting a second, I keep her held around my waist and walk us over to the house as she drives me crazy trailing hungry kisses down my neck.
Tonight has been a game changer for me and I now understand why my brothers’ always act like fools with their women, they drive us to the point of insanity just to be with them.
Chapter Four
Shellie
Low rumbles of thunder roll around the sky and the rain pounds against the window. It hasn’t stopped all night. I thought I would have been tired after spending hours under and on top of John, but I found I was on alert and when the first round of thunder and lightning hit, I was wide awake. John has been the opposite, he hasn’t moved all night. All my life I’ve spent it bouncing from day to day, taking them as they come and go. With John, life seems to be falling into place perfectly. It’s crazy, one minute I don’t have a clue where my future is heading, then I meet one man and it’s like it has meant to have been this way all along. I’m not sure I believe in destiny and fate, but spending time with John makes it seem possible that it does exist. Like I said, it’s crazy.
John’s soft snores fade out and he rolls over and pushes up against me. His arm tightens around my waist and he pulls me back, leaving no space between us.
Everything he said to me last night has been on repeat, he was so sweet and I knew then that I wanted to be with him and when he said I was his old lady, I knew I wouldn’t be able to cope if he changed his mind.
“Don’t you like the storm?” he asks, his voice thick with sleep.
“I don’t mind them, I was awake anyway.”
“You haven’t slept all night?”
“Not much.”
“You should’ve woken me. I could’ve kept ya company.”
An unsettling feeling buries itself deep in my stomach. In the dark when all is quiet and it’s only you and your thoughts, I let them run away with me and everything is perfect. Now he is awake and life is back to reality, doubt is starting to creep in.
“Did you really mean everything you said last night?” I ask.
“Of course I did, I don’t say shit for the fun of it, darlin’.”
I look over my shoulder when I feel him moving behind me and he pulls himself up so he’s leaning up on his elbow. His muscles bulge in his arm and I remind myself not to get distracted.
I roll onto my back and his fingers gently stroke my cheek.
“I don’t know why this beautiful head is full of self-doubt, but don’t doubt how I say I feel about you. If you can trust just one person to believe everything they say to you, then believe me. I’m not a liar and I’m not a game player, I say shit as I see it and I see you as the most beautiful woman in the world. You got me?”
“I got you,” I smile, threading my fingers in his hair and pulling him down to meet my mouth.
Repositioning himself, he moves from beside me to on top of me and I open my legs to ready myself for the pleasure I know he is about to inflict on me.
“Oak!”
And just like that, I already know he has business he’s needed for and my time with him is over until tonight.
“You awake, man? Mark wants ya.”
It’s Micky and it sounds like he’s right on the other side of the door.
“You should answer him before he tries to come in,” I squeak, already feeling embarrassed lying in this position.
“To be continued,” he smirks, lifting himself off of me and sliding off the bed.
For someone of his size, I’d imagine him to move slower than he does and with less grace. However, in less than a beat he is dressed and filling his pockets with keys and cigarettes.
“I’ll see you later, darlin’.”
He’s out of the door before I can say bye and I throw back the blankets and find the dress I was wearing last night. Rayna has been kind enough to loan me some clothes since the shooting, but the dress I borrowed from Flo. I don’t think Rayna has ever owned a dress, it’s not her style.
I need to go home and collect my own clothes.
Downstairs is crowded and I find Rayna on the back porch, looking like she is hiding from everyone.
I sit down beside her and watch the rain hammer into the puddles.
“I heard there was a scene in the bar last night,” she smiles, sipping her coffee.
“You hear about everything.”
“Perks of being married to the boss,” she shrugs.
“John and I are together now.”
Hearing it from him last night and this morning was one thing, but saying it out loud is quite another.
“I could’ve called it, you know, I haven’t seen him with anyone before you came along. From the night we were attacked, he’s been everywhere you are.”
“No one has ever made me feel the way he does, it’s scary how fast everything is moving,” I admit to her.
“When I first saw Mark, he blew me away, he would come into the diner every day, sometimes twice a day and I would wait for him to ask me out. It took a while, but I knew from the second day of him coming into the diner that I wanted him. I knew nothing about him apart from the way he made feel when I was around him. Go with how he makes you feel rather than what you should feel and before you know it, you’re living life exactly how you’re supposed to be.”
She makes it sound so easy, it worked out for her and now she’s married and living her dream.
“Stop worrying, if you haven’t noticed, people around here do what they want, when they want with no regard for who thinks what about them. It’s the whole point of being here, there are no rules or any notions that you have to do as society wants. If you broke it off with Oak today and went with Michael tomorrow, who cares?”
“I have wondered if people thought that about me and Benny.”
“I doubt it. You seem to be the only one who cares about it. Oak is clearly taken with you, who cares how long you’ve known him. See how it goes, if it works, it works, if it doesn’t, you’ll move on. Live in the now, not in the uncertainty of the future.”
An uneasy lump forms in my throat at the thought of it not working out with him. I’m not expecting him to rush into proposing or anything like that like Mark did, but Rayna is right, living in the now I am happy and John has told me he needs me.
“Are you busy this morning?” I ask, taking on board what she has said.
“No, what do you need?”
“Can you drive me into town, I really need to collect my own clothes and a few things.”
“Sure, give me ten minutes and we’ll go.”
It’s time to live my life and not care what people think.
***
“Do you still live with your parents?”
I direct Rayna onto my parents drive and she kills the engine.
“Only when I go home, I can’t afford my own place and most of my friends went off to college and never came back to town so I couldn’t house share.”
Jenna Harris from up the street and my best friend since kindergarten and I had plans to move into our own place and live together from an early age, her mom raised her alone and her daddy would show up once or twice a year and always make her cry. He wasn’t a nice man and I never understood why he bothered coming back at all.
Neither of us particularly did well at
school, but in the last year Jenna studied hard and was accepted into college I didn’t know she had applied for and she blew out of town without so much as a goodbye, or a see you soon.
When Rayna goes to open her door, I panic.
“You should stay in the car. I won’t be long.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lie, faking a bright smile while I jump out of the car so she doesn’t have time to question me.
The rain has turned into a drizzle and I hurry up the front path. The grass is overgrown, and the house could do with a fresh coat of paint. Unlike me, no one here cares about the appearance of our house. My parents drink more than half the town put together, and my brothers are just as bad and would fit in well with a bunch of hillbillies. The only sensible one out of us all is my sister and she ran away the day she turned eighteen. Another one who left me in this town on my own. That was six months ago and no one has heard from her since.
The lock on the front door is busted, my mom threw my dad a couple of years ago and after getting so drunk he forgot they argued, he broke it to get in the house. Nobody has fixed it and nobody is worried about it being open every night. There isn’t a person in this town who doesn’t know we don’t have anything to rob. There isn’t a person in this town who would willingly step inside this house.
As usual my mother dearest is already on the wine with the television blaring her favourite game show. Any chance of creeping past her vanishes when she sees my reflection in the mirror hanging by television set.
“Where the heck have you been?” she shrieks, swivelling in her armchair.
“At a friends,” I mutter, trying to kick my way through rubbish littered on the carpet.
Honestly, you wouldn’t be able to see the carpet if you tried, you’d have to kick the beer bottles, cigarette packs and takeout containers out of the way.
“Really?” she slurs, sarcastically.
“Yes, really.”
“It’s not what your father’s been told and he ain’t happy with you at all,” she drones on.
Why ask me where I’ve been if she already knows, I hate it when she does this.
“Hank told him you’ve been riding all over town with those fucking bikers that have moved into town,” she carries on.
Leaving her and her rant, I continue through to my bedroom. The one room in the house that is tidy and clean. It’s plainly decorated but it’s nothing like the rest of the house.
Grabbing an old case I used to take to my grandma’s in the summer breaks, I empty my drawers into it and try to fit the few things I have hanging in the wardrobe.
“What are you doing?”
Her voice makes me jump and I spin round to see her using the doorframe to hold herself up. I feel privileged she actually left the lounge to come and ask me, not shout through.
“I need some clothes.”
“You might as well take them all, if you’re hanging with those bikers now I don’t want you coming back here.”
It should hurt hearing this from my mother, but after you’ve heard it countless times the reaction she’s trying to get from me gets tiring. This is her go to line whenever I do something she doesn’t like.
Loud banging and then yelling coming from outside has me rushing to the window. Pulling the blinds up, my brothers, Nicky and Robbie, are home and circling Rayna in her car. Their fists banging on the hood of her car.
“Oh yeah, your brother’s are home,” my mother sneers.
“Don’t worry, I won’t be coming back here,” I promise her and myself.
Even if it doesn’t work out with John, I’ll have to fend for myself because I’d rather sleep on the streets then come back here and hear how they knew I’d be back.
Snatching my case off the bed, I don’t bother with my mom and brush past her and out of the house.
Cutting across the grass, my feet are soaked through by the time I make it to the car.
“Shellie,” my brother, Nicky, yells, jumping up onto Rayna’s hood.
“Hey, get off my car,” Rayna shouts, winding down her window.
“Where you going, little sister?” Robbie asks, pulling at my case.
I tighten my hold on the handle but after one hard tug from him, the case opens and my clothes end up in a pile in the long, wet grass.
He finds it funny while I can’t believe I asked Rayna to bring me here and the embarrassment is too much to bear.
I don’t register the car door opening and Rayna comes over and helps me repack my case.
“Who’s your friend, Shell?” Nicky asks, walking closer to us.
“She’s real pretty,” Robbie leers.
“Leave her alone,” I growl, surprising myself how angry I sound.
“Where you going with all your stuff?” Nicky continues his questioning.
“None of your business,” I spit, reaching out for a pair of jeans.
“She’s going off with those bikers.”
Spinning around so fast, I land on my ass watching my mother stumble down the front steps and see the awkwardness on Rayna’s face.
Inside, I’m dying of embarrassment.
“No she ain’t,” Robbie yells, bending down beside me and ripping the case from my hands.
“No sister of ours is going to be a biker whore.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, assholes.”
Rayna’s defending doesn’t go down well and I know we have to get out of here. Leaving the case and everything I have to my name, I grab Rayna’s arm and haul her up with me.
“Let’s go, they’ll only get worse,” I warn so she follows.
She listens and slams the door shut behind, pushing the lock down.
“Lock your door, Shell, quick,” she blurts, my brothers circling the car again.
Nicky jumps on the hood and Rayna brings the car to life, revving the engine, and the Camero roars.
“Just drive,” I shout at her.
“He’s on the fucking car, Shellie.”
“I don’t care, he’ll jump off.”
She puts the car in reverse and pushes her foot down, Nicky, like I told her jumps off and rolls onto the grass.
“A heads up your family are crazy drunks would’ve been nice,” she scowls, burning rubber on the street, kicking the car into action.
She doesn’t drive away fast enough and the back window smashes onto the back seat.
“What was that?” she cries and tries looking over her shoulder as she turns the corner and off my parent’s street.
“One of my brothers’ must’ve thrown a rock.”
My heart pounds heavily and a chill seeps in from the broken window.
“I won’t be able to hide this from Mark, he’s going to flip a brick when he sees the car and knowing I was in it when it happened.”
If Mark knows then John will found out.
“No, you can’t tell him. Please, John can’t find out about my family, it’s too humiliating.”
Hot, heavy tears spill over onto my cheeks and I can’t stop them.
“I’m going to have to tell him something, it’s a broken window Shellie.”
I’m asking this woman I hardly know to lie to her husband, and here’s me thinking this day can’t get any worse.
Chapter Five
Oak
“When we get back, we should build some units in here, somewhere to store our tools for when we’re working on our bikes.”
Currently, Mark and I are in one of the outbuildings where we’ve been keeping the bikes until the storm passes.
“Makes sense,” I agree, leaning against my bike and ask, “How long do you think we’ll be gone?”
“Three days, if it’s a clear ride we could be back in two and a half.”
“I’m sure you can live without your girl for a couple of days,” Micky laughs, barrelling through the door.
“Like you do, asshole?” I snap, not finding him funny at all.
Going on runs with Mick
y is like going on a run with a whiney little bitch, he moans constantly and has been threatened many times by one of us wanting to knock his ass out just to shut him up.
“Come on, we all have women waiting for us, just remember we’re doing this for them.”
Mark has a point, we all like the cash in our pockets and it’s more than we could’ve hoped to make. One run can keep me going for months, now I’m with Shellie, I can afford to give her what I want.
“Just sayin’ we’re not all pussy whipped. Some of us can survive a couple of days on our own,” I say.
Only because I know she’ll be here when I ride through the gates, waiting to see me as I wait to see her again.
“I need a drink before you two give me a headache,” Mark mutters, heading for the door.
The rain has stopped and the sun is trying to shine down on us. Mark stops when he sees Rayna’s car drive through the gate and I stop when I see Shellie is with her. She didn’t mention anything about going out.
She looks away when the car passes by and Mark is alert when we see the back window smashed in.
“What the fuck?” he hisses, following the car until she parks up beside the house.
Rayna climbs out the car first and refuses to look our way. Shellie reluctantly joins her and she too, won’t look at us.
“What’s happened, babe?” Mark asks his wife, peering in the hole when the glass should be.
“Oh, a bird flew into us.”
Shellie’s hair falls over her face, but I don’t miss her red, puffy eyes. Looking into the back seat, there isn’t no feathers anywhere to be seen.
“A bird?” Mark asks, clearly not believing his old lady.
“Yeah, a big one.”
Shellie has yet to say a word and I know they are lying.
“A bird flying into her car made you cry?” I ask her.
Her chin lifts and her hair falls to the side.
“It died, it was sad,” is all she says, shrugging one shoulder.
“Nah, I don’t believe you,” I say, moving closer to her, “I haven’t seen you cry for a man you saw die, yet, a fuckin’ bird dies and your eyes are red and swollen. What really happened?” I demand.