Lock and Key (35 page)

The air in the room suddenly got hotter and pressed in on me.

Kitty One rolled my panty over my hips and down my legs and then nudged my knees open. Kitty Two climbed up on the mattress and took one of my breasts in her mouth. My eyes widened at the sensation of a small metal ball rolling over my skin.

“Stop it!” I said.

Butler jerked his cock faster.

Holy shit.

I had never been with a woman before, and I didn’t intend to start now. I kicked her away and twisted on the mattress.

“Butler?”

Two hands clamped down on my wrists and others dug painfully into my thighs.

“Easy, baby, this is all for you. Gonna feel so good,” Butler said.

My throat burned, that choking sensation in my lungs tightened. I twisted against them, but I had no strength left. My joints had turned to jelly, and those four hands and two mouths had a firm grip on me. I could barely breathe, barely think. Butler spit out a slew of curses from his armchair. The girls emitted breathy moaning sounds as if on cue.

“I’m gonna get you a hood ring, Sister,” Butler laughed. “I’m gonna make your pussy sing, baby!”

Yeah, a piercing down there was what I was missing.

Frankly I don’t think Butler could put forth the effort to make anyone or anything sing right at this moment.

He stumbled over to us from his seat, and stood over the bed, his wet erection in his hand, his eyes burning. The Kitty on the bed scuttled over to the edge of the mattress and sat up on her knees. Butler shoved his cock in her mouth and grunted.

I pushed at the other Kitty Twin with my foot. She fell back on the floor and giggled. He fisted his fingers in the other one’s hair and ground into her face. Butler screwed his eyes shut. He was lost in his own world.

Just fucking lost.

I crawled up the bed, leaned back against the headboard and watched. Butler muttered a round of expletives and pumped harder, his breathing grew even more labored. The other Kitty got up from the floor and pushed her sister out of the way and took Butler in her mouth and worked him furiously. Shit, this could go on all night long.

Butler’s strained eyes found mine. His face reddened. His body stiffened, he let out a yell, and finally, finally, shot whatever wad he had into her mouth. She groaned and licked him dry. Her sister let out a soft giggle and flopped back on the bed. Butler dropped onto the mattress and crumpled over the girls. All three of them sniggered and laughed.

I crawled out of the mess of a bed, found my panties and bra and tugged them back on. My legs shook as I stood over them. The Kitties glanced up at me and surprise flickered over their dazed features.

“Get out,” I said.

They only laughed. I disengaged their limbs from Butler’s body, and rolled them off the bed. The two of them slithered over to the cocaine table and rubbed some coke along their gums.

“Get out!”

They frowned at me, stumbled to the door and banged it shut behind them. Butler snored from the bed. I pulled his jeans off of him, and he curled into a ball on the twisted sheets. I stood still with his jeans in my hands. He went back to snoring. I dropped the jeans on the chair, glanced at him once more and nabbed the envelope from the table. I went to the bathroom and turned on the light. Words were scribbled on the inside of the envelope:

“Canada Thursday. Will text details.”

I returned the envelope to the table.

“Baby?” Butler mumbled. “Come here.”

I sighed, laid down, and wrapped my arms around him like I would a child. My hand stroked his back.

“I’m here,” I whispered. He sighed and settled into me. A smear of blood smudged the edge of his nose and the top of his lip.

“That was fun, huh? Gonna have lots of fun together, baby. Wanna make you happy.”

I planted a kiss on his forehead. If only that gentleness could help ease his lonely, crazy wild. Of course it wouldn’t.

I forced my muscles to relax into the mattress and tried to not think about the questionable sheets underneath me. My dazed thoughts tripped over themselves and eventually landed on Lock. As they usually did.

Lock. Lock. Lock.

Tall Lock. Lanky Lock. Silent Lock. Lonely Lock. Lock’s cock.

I wonder where Lock’s cock is tonight?

My gut swirled. My brain spilled over.

Got to tell Jump… I’m getting a bad deal. Alicia will really be disappointed, won’t she? Tonight was not quite the romantic reunion she had in mind.

I closed my eyes, but I knew it was useless. Sleep wouldn’t come.

I am now officially flapping in the wind.

Dig had once promised me that he and the club wouldn’t leave me ‘flapping in the wind.’

So this is what it feels like.

Flappin’ flippin’ flappin’ flap flap flap.

Oh no, wait. Lock is out there somewhere, close by, keeping tabs on me. Maybe he can’t sleep either. Yes, we’re on a job here, aren’t we?

And Daddy is back in Montana, back to not being inconvenienced or held back by his family. Oh wait, I’m all that’s left now of that “family.”

No, there’s Jakey.

I needed to concentrate on Jakey.

I rubbed the heels of my hands into my sore eyes. What was that song that Phil, a neighbor of mine at my apartment in Seattle, used to blast with hellish regularity during his drawn out divorce drama? I had learned the words against my will over the course of those months. It was some British synth duo… ah, Hurts, that’s it. Perfect.

The bittersweet words came to me. My hoarse and creaky voice ruptured the darkness in Butler’s room.

Yes, the lyrics to “Blind” made complete sense to me now.

I waited on my bike in the parking lot of the Mandan Harley store just outside of Bismarck, North Dakota.

I had my patch-less leather jacket on over my cut. I was on my second hour and onto my tenth cigarette. It was Saturday afternoon and the place was busy. Families and couples browsed through the ample variety of clothing and accessories, plenty of folks inquired about bikes, parts. Plenty of movement, some noise. Perfect.

But no sign of Grace and Butler. Yet.

Grace had called Alicia early this morning. In the course of their superficial conversation Grace had said the previously agreed upon magic phrase that let us know something was up, and she needed a meet to share important information. I had been up here since yesterday anyhow. Whenever she came up to Butler’s, I came up and hovered nearby. No way was I going to leave Grace on her own with that shithead and his merry band of assholes.

A group of four North Dakota One-Eyed Jacks roared into the lot up front by the entrance to the store. Finally.

I swallowed hard. Butler pulled his scooter to a stop, and Grace hopped off. She bent over and kissed him. An ache set off in my chest and twisted there, but I pushed it aside. Her hands reached out and smoothed down the bandana he wore on his head. The asshole grinned up at her. Butler got off his bike, hooked his arm over her shoulders, and they strode into the store. His three brothers trailed behind them.

Game on.

This was the second time she had spent a few days with Butler. The first was when she had taken off with him at the cemetery two weeks ago, which had shocked the shit out of me. She hadn’t shed one tear at the funeral. Her face had been an unreadable mask. On Grace it was bizarre.

That beautiful face was usually so expressive, a combination of girlish innocence and seriousness that I found damned irresistible. But at the funeral it was blank, as if she had bled out. It only got worse at the cemetery. She had been in her own world. Boner had called out to her when she took off. Nothing. I had moved towards her, and she had jumped away from me as if I was some kind of freak she had to escape. She bolted and got on the back of Butler’s bike. That gouged me deep. She was hurting, and I could do nothing to help her.

I checked my watch. Over half an hour had passed since Butler and Grace had entered the store. Time to move.

The men were on their own in the repair and parts shop. I now stood in a thick forest of leather jackets against a back wall on the other end of the store and waited for her. My hands smoothed over the thick, fresh leather. I inhaled that epic scent. The display racks were high at this end and full of bulky merchandise that provided good cover. I took a few steps back into the leather jungle and waited.

Four teenage girls rifled through a rack of tank tops in the women’s section, and there was Grace going through the rack with kid’s t-shirts on the other side. She plucked one hanger off the rack, checked the tag, looked over the design on the front, then the back, then the front again, and put it back on the rack. She did that same exact thing three times over until she held onto two t-shirts in her hand. Jesus. She began moving towards the leather jackets. Towards me.

She stopped just a couple of yards from me. I pushed my sunglasses up on my head and pressed my lips together.

“Hey,” I said. My heart tripped.

Her face was pale, and she had dark circles under her eyes. Her lips seemed taut, thinner. Her opaque eyes, more grey brown than green, darted around us.

“I don’t have much time. He’s clingy.”

My jaw clenched. “Yeah, I noticed.”

She tilted her head at me. “You noticed?” Her voice was brittle.

“Every time you come up here, I’m here, too.”

“Right.” Her face darkened. “Hope it’s been entertaining for you.”

It’s been total shit, baby.

My lips sealed into a firm line.

Grace adjusted the sunglasses on her head with a quick flick of her fingers. “I noticed someone at their clubhouse last week. From our trip to Montana.” Her fingers absently stroked the long thick sleeve of a brown leather jacket that hung in front of her.

“A Demon Seed?”

“Yeah.” She blinked up at me then returned her attention to the jacket. “He was one of the guys who brought me into the warehouse where Vig was waiting for me. He looked like a Demon Seed recruit at the time, but the other night he wasn’t wearing a cut at all. Thought that was strange. I would have said something sooner, but I wasn’t sure it was him the first time I saw him. He’s in and out of the clubhouse pretty regularly. I’ve been trying hard not to pay him any attention, just be in a Butler tizzy all the time.” She rolled her eyes. “But I know it’s him.”

Oh God, her voice was flat, the richness gone from it. I swallowed hard. “Got a name?”

She didn’t look at me. Her eyes darted everywhere, on her boots, the jackets, price tags, the way out of our hidden corner. Everywhere except at me.

“Crank.”

“Anything else?” I asked. I took a few more steps back closer to another line of jackets against the wall. She followed me casually. A finger pushed back a lock of stray hair.

Baby, look at me. Please, give me that much, just once.

“I get the impression most of the crew doesn’t really fall in behind Butler, especially Creeper,” Grace whispered, her eyes finally on me. “I can’t say I blame them, he’s high almost all the time. Too much coke and plenty of weed. Then he throws in the booze at night and it becomes a three-ring circus.” Her face tensed momentarily, and my eyes narrowed over her.

“He can’t be making many good decisions like this,” she said and let out a huff. “Creeper seems to be the one watching over the henhouse.”

“Grace…”

“Crank brings him the coke. I checked out the package when he was asleep. There was a message that Canada was on for Thursday and to expect a text. He finally got the text yesterday. When he fell asleep last night I went into his phone and found it. It was from Vig. Butler and his boys are bringing in a truck from Canada and switching it out here, then bringing the goods to Montana for him.”

“This Thursday?”

“Yeah. Must be a big payoff. Butler, Creeper, and Tail were all smiles and happy feet last night after the text came in.”

She stepped forward, took a tiny crumpled ball of paper from her front jeans pocket and stuffed it in the front pocket of my jeans, her green brown eyes glued to mine.

“I wrote down the coordinates for the location of the switch out for you,” she whispered.

Her fingertips barely brushed the top of my thigh, but it was electric. My cock twitched in my jeans. The sweet minty green scent of her shampoo drifted over me. Our first night together came crashing in on my memory. The breath caught in my chest and pinched there.

She frowned and took a step back. “Butler’s going to hang on to it for one night, then make the delivery into Montana the day after.” Her gaze slid back to the jackets hanging high over us against the wall.

I wanted to pull her in my arms, stroke her back until she relaxed into me. But that was a fucking fantasy right here in the middle of the store with Butler and his boys under the same roof. Anyway, that was done with, she wouldn’t want that from me anymore, would she?

Not after you sold her out, let her fall into the snake pit.

Maybe she and Butler had rekindled their long lost fucking fire? I could barely think about that without my skin crawling and a red rage whipping through me. But, no, I didn’t think so. No way. She didn’t look too happy. In fact, she didn’t look happy at all.