Lock and Key (11 page)

I got my bra and shirt back on, but Dig refused to give me my panties back. “Not until the weekend’s up, Peanut. So far, so good. You see it through, you get them back.”

Oh I’d see this through, alright. Dig had lit a fire in me I didn’t know existed and yet always yearned for. He pulled tightly on his belt, his eyes on me. Every nerve ending in my body vibrated under that fierce gaze. He kissed me hard then he linked my fingers in his and we returned to the party.

He checked in with his president and a while later led me inside the building. We passed Vig who was with two women in the dimly lit hallway. He glared at me, and I quickly averted my gaze. Dig’s hand tightened over mine. We turned right down another hallway, and he unlocked a door and led me into what I assumed was his room. He locked the door behind us. A small night light in the bathroom illuminated the room with an eerie blue glow.

He yanked his t-shirt over his head and threw it to a corner littered with clothing, then unbuckled his belt and unfastened his jeans. “Shower,” he said.

That was something else I had never done before. I had heard Ruby in the shower at home with a man plenty of times, her moans and laughter audible through the heavy cascade of water. Dig brushed past me and went into the small bathroom.

Here it was. He and I wouldn’t be fumbling with each other in the dark after too many brews. Being face to face and naked together under the unforgiving light of his bathroom would make this entire surreal situation… real, wouldn’t it?

The water ran. My pulse raced through me despite my fatigue as I shoved off my boots and peeled off my clothes. I pulled back the shower curtain and took in the dramatic sight of the large sinister One Eyed Jacks skull tattoo on Dig’s contoured back. Long curving lines of muscle were slick with water and shampoo suds. A beautifully detailed snake was tattooed around his waist, as well. I entered the small stall and drew the plastic curtain.

He handed me the shower gel bottle over his shoulder, and I took it and emptied some of the creamy liquid into my hands. My fingers worked the lather into his firm muscles and my hands ran down his slick lower back and hips and then over his high ass. I kissed his smooth shoulder blades and leaned into his body as I slid a soapy hand around his waist over that snake and down his sleek abs to where his hard shaft waited at full attention for me.

He leaned back against my body and exhaled. He put his hand over my shaky one and showed me how to touch him. I stroked him until his cock pulsed in my hand. Dig groaned and planted one hand against the shower wall, the other went behind him and wrapped around my middle, holding me tight against him.

The warm water sprayed over us. He came in my hand, then he tilted his head and stared at me. I stared right back. He turned around and kissed me. This moment was mine, and I tucked it in my brain and in every cell of my being to keep it with me for when this weekend was over.

I stood there immobile as Dig slathered my breasts with the soapy gel. He slid his fingers between my legs. I choked back a cry as his fingers worked their magic again. My body jerked in his arms against the cold bathroom tile. Dig’s hands cupped my breasts as he kissed my face and I came back down to earth. He released me and began to shampoo my hair. I looked up at his beautiful face in a complete haze of sensation.

We dried each other off and collapsed onto his bed tangled in each other’s arms and legs, and quickly fell asleep. The following morning when I woke up, I took the opportunity to admire his powerful body while he slept. His streaky dark golden hair had fallen over his face. I swept it back and gently kissed the angles of his jaw.

My tongue designed wet circles over his chest as my hand slid over his hip and down a muscular thigh. My fingers grazed his cock. He was rock hard. Morning wood, I believe Tania had called it. I smiled and took his stiff length in my hand.

“Grace?”

He stretched out on the bed, and rolled onto his back. I crouched between his legs and gently licked around the tip of his hard shaft.

“Baby,” he murmured and propped himself up on his elbows.

“Show me how, Dig,” I whispered. “I want to make it good for you.”

His bleary eyes ignited with heat, and he let out a heavy sigh. “Fuck me.”

The roar of voices mixed with laughter and the reverberating music assaulted me and Junk at the large archway marking the entrance to the main room of the clubhouse. I tried not to give too much thought to the idea that I would probably see Miller One Night Action. I couldn’t think of that now or what it might be like to see him again because I’d go nuts. I couldn’t afford to go nuts. I was on a mission.

I took in a cleansing breath of air and stepped through the archway. The main room was where everyone hung out, and the offices, the meeting room, the kitchen, and the bathrooms and the hallways leading to the men’s bedrooms all led off of this large center room. The bar looked the same except fresh posters of hot women in bikinis on motorcycles had replaced the ones I remembered. The same blue and red neon clock advertising a now defunct beer brewery still faithfully ticked away the correct time on the wall, albeit with only part of its neon still glowing.

I moved towards the bar. The same dusty shelves filled with a combination of empty and full liquor bottles lined the wall overhead. My fingers pressed into the ancient cherry red vinyl topped stools. What tales they could tell. Now scuffed and scratched, those high stools remained like steadfast silent witnesses to raucous, wild exuberance, risky determination, and so much bitter grief.

The Scorpions blared over the greatly improved sound system. The pool table still held pride of place at one end of the room where a group of four men played a game. Three unmatched sofas of black and a tired brown striped pattern were filled with couples necking and laughing, and an older biker with a young woman in a ponytail who giggled on his lap while he fondled her and whispered in her ear. That had to be Willy with that straggly grey beard. Dear sweet Willy always had a thing for the young ones.

Three younger men were in deep conversation under a cloud of fragrant smoke on one sofa, practically oblivious to the two young women who gyrated to the music on the big round coffee table in front of them. Another woman in a tighter-than-tight tank top, her firm, bountiful cleavage spilling forth that looked to me like it had to hurt, dashed around and served drinks.

“Who’s this, bro?” a familiar scratchy voice came from behind me. My eyes slid closed against the dip of my gut. I turned around and faced my husband’s best friend who stood behind the bar. My gaze locked on his sparkling green eyes.

“A whiskey, neat. Please.”

Boner’s eyebrows bunched and his mouth hung open.

“I’m gonna go get the prez,” Junk said. “He was in a meeting.”

“Holy shit,” Boner said. “Holy shit!”

I smiled. “Do me a favor Boner. Pour me a drink first, yell after.”

Boner snatched a glass and plonked a whiskey bottle in front of me. His arms shook with tension. He lifted the bottle and started to pour, his maniacal, glassy eyes glued to mine. The whiskey topped out over the glass, and the amber liquid flowed over the already sticky bar. “Fuck!” he shouted and waved his hands over his head, still holding onto the bottle. “Fuck!”

“What the hell is wrong with you, man?” Willy charged our way, his long, grey beard swayed. Willy was one of the oldest members of the club and had first nominated Dig to be VP before it all went to shit. I leaned over the bar and sucked in the whiskey until the glass was no longer overly full. The harsh warmth soothed my aching throat.

“It’s Little Sister, you assholes! Little Sister!” Boner’s voice boomed.

The room quieted down a few degrees, and a sharp female voice trilled, “Who the fuck is she? Somebody’s Old Lady?”

I kept my eyes on Boner. His big green eyes burned right through my heart. He shook his head at me, let out a great big whoop and bounded over the bar top. He took me in his arms, lifted me up and squeezed the air out of me.

My breath snagged and water filled my eyes. “Oh, honey,” I murmured in his neck and held him close as he swung me around and around.

“Put her down, man!” shouted Willy. Boner planted a juicy kiss on my mouth then released me from his death grip. I hugged him once more as a tear slipped down my hot skin. He wiped away the salty streak and cursed under his breath.

Boner and Dig had been best friends since before they had joined the club. They had come up to South Dakota from Colorado on a bike trip. They had just finished a round of duty with the National Guard after high school and wanted to check out the festival at Sturgis. They stayed in South Dakota, eventually hooked up with members of the One-Eyed Jacks, became prospects together, and patched in.

Willy folded me in his arms and hugged me. His hands cupped my face, and he smiled. “Oh, my baby girl, my sweet baby girl, it really is you. Fucking A!” his voice drifted, his eyes crinkled.

This was belonging. I had forgotten how it felt. It felt damned good.

The music had stopped, and more female voices rose in complaint. “Hey! What’s going on?”

A door slammed open and the hot air in the room became a living thing, intense, expectant, vibrant.

“Where is she?” a voice I recognized thundered through the room.

“Our girl’s right here where she belongs!” Willy said.

The women on the table stopped chattering and turned, the men stood up from the sofas and chairs. Jump smiled at me from the open door of the president’s office. He was just as handsome as ever, his hair, still in a long smooth braid falling right down his broad back, was now threaded with grey. His face had creased with time, his belly was fuller, but his large brown eyes were still bursting with drive and spark.

Jump and Dig had been officers together. They had shared a secret language that had made directing the club under their prez and having to make tough decisions a streamlined operation most of the time. Jump’s cut was now emblazoned with the president’s patch.

“Get over here, Sister.”

I dashed across the room and lunged at him. Jump lifted me up in his thick arms with a great big shout and squeezed me tight. He put me down and planted a kiss on my forehead.

“Where’ve you been, Sister?” he said against my hair. “Alicia baby, where are you?” Jump hollered. “Get the hell out here, woman!”

Alicia, Jump’s Old Lady, tall and thin, straight long blonde hair down her chest, expressive kohl-lined blue eyes, just as I remembered her, strutted towards me slowly.

Alicia had been a close friend from the start and my mentor at the club, not only in all things womanly… clothes and makeup, men and sex, but also in all things biker… riding and old lady etiquette. “Grace?” her voice rang out in the room. “Oh Grace,” she repeated and wrapped me in her arms and hugged me tightly on a deep sigh.

“Who the hell is she?” a hoarse-voiced woman asked from somewhere behind me. Alicia’s face tightened, her eyes narrowed. She spun us around to face that voice. It belonged to the red head in the white bikini top I had seen giving the blow job to the guy in the hallway earlier.

“This here is one of the greatest Old Ladies this Club has ever seen, you two-bit twat,” Alicia said in her still sexy, raspy voice. It was another trace of home to me. She put her hands on her hips. “And if you don’t shut your face and show her some respect, you’re gonna get kicked out of here on your ass! Little Sister is a living legend around here.”

My breath caught in my chest, but not over my old friend’s fiercely proud and loving words. Red-headed Two-Bit Twat had her curvy body draped around Miller, who sported a slouchy black knit cap. He stared at me open-mouthed.

Oh shit.

Miller and the red head were the blow job couple I had seen in the hallway.

It had been exactly sixteen days since I last saw Grace at that motel.

Now she stood four yards away from me, right here at the clubhouse. A phantom fist might as well have punched me in the chest and lodged itself there. Her beautiful greenish brown eyes locked on mine. Everything suspended in mid-air in that second.