Perfectly Bad: a bad boy romance (33 page)

I took a joint outside the clubhouse, sat in under a tree as the sky was turning dark blue. Walked around the lot, kicking dust. Bumped into Snori. “When are you fucks going back to the land of the ice and snow?” was what I wanted to ask him. Instead, I just pulled my lips tight, folded my arms and stepped around him.

As I passed, he grabbed my arm. Same arm as before, in the same place. I hated the heat and the smell of his breath on the side of my face. He hissed in my ear, “Don’t you be spreading stories now, will you, little girly? We’re the ones with the myths and the sagas.” And I shook as he let go roughly, and he said, “Don’t forget.”

I had to get out of there.
 

I drove around going nowhere in particular and feeling wretched and miserable.

It was only because I was driving around with no place to go, no pattern, turning at random and doubling back more than once, I started to notice that wherever I went, a dark sedan would be somewhere behind me and about two cars back. Not near enough that I could see the driver or read the license plate. I couldn’t even be too sure of the color, only that it was dark, but it stayed there like a shadow that was running late.

I had refused to wear the wire, but I wondered if maybe the dragon lady might not have given up yet. Perhaps she’d let me go a little too easily. I began to wonder if, as well as having me followed around, the dragon lady could have had devices planted in my car. A tracker or a wire, or even both.

Look at Little Sister

Cox watched from the clubhouse door. Bogart’s Harley climbed the incline up to the clubhouse as he returned from the Meathook. Bogart pulled up and leaned the bike on its stand outside. On the back of the bike was another girl. Another looker, too. She looked a lot like Angelica. Could they be related? Los Muertos could have brought sisters across the border, that would make sense, sure. Bogart turned in the saddle and spoke to her, pointed up at the clubhouse. Along the wall Cox saw Angelica, about the same time the girl did. She jumped off the back of the bike, ran over to Angelica.

Angelica never knew what Bogart did to get Inez and bring her back
Hell’s Kitchen
, but he brought her, safe and well.

When Angelica saw her sister, smiling, tired and dirty, all the stress of the last few days burst out of her and she hugged Inez’s neck and sobbed. She looked in her eyes, stroked her face, held her close and she wept.

She held Inez’s face in her hands, smoothed her crinkly black hair, brushed her face and kissed her over and over.

And now, she knew, she owed Bogart. Forever.

As Bogart stepped up to the clubhouse door, the two girls came over and hugged him. He almost smiled as he said, “Okay, girls. You’re happy. I get it. That’s good. Now, run along and be happy.”

Cox could see at once that
Los Muertos
hadn’t come up with the money, he didn’t even have to ask. They passed a look. Cox chewed inside his lip. They both knew that this was real trouble.

Who knew what the deal with the girl was, though. Bogart couldn’t be moving the club into trafficking. Not without a council. It was against everything the club stood for, Bogart’s rules as much as anyone’s. More than anyone who was alive and not in jail. Cox was sure it wasn’t something they needed to discuss, otherwise they’d be discussing it.

Bogart clapped Cox’s shoulder. “How’s Chief Ballmer’s little girl?” Cox knew that Bogart was riding him.

“Yeah, she’s good.”

“So, she your old lady now or what. Or should I maybe just wait until our brothers have flown home before I ask any more about that?”

“Yeah, OK, Bogart, that was partly to give her space from the Vikings,”

“HEY!” Bogart snapped, “Not out loud, okay, not ever. We got enough trouble.” That was true. They went inside and Bogart said, “Look, if you’re okay with her, it’s alright with me. You want to keep your pole dancing cheerleader to yourself, I think it’s unbrotherly of you,” now Cox
really
knew Bogart was riding him, “but I guess we’ll have to get along with you being a selfish bastard for a while.” They stopped by the bar and Bogart peered over his shades, his wily, crinkly eyes firm. “Just know,” he said, “You answer for her, Cox. She’s your responsibility.”

“Of course, Bogart.”

Images and thoughts of Nikka danced around Cox’s mind He thought about her more and more. The way that she bit her thumb, her tight, fit little moves – oh, yes. But more than that. She understood him, and she made him feel different somehow. Made him think of himself like he was a better man.

The Weight

I saw Beanie, shuffling out of the woods at the back of the yard, pale with a hollow look in his face. I went over and asked him, “What’s wrong Beanie?” and he couldn’t speak, but his eyes were so empty, I knew it was something bad. Something very, very bad.

Emotion can be hard on a prospect. They’d rather die than let a full member see it. I sat him down behind an outbuilding so he could have some time before any club members saw him. I fired up a joint and handed it to him. His eyes were blank but he took it, then I went in to grab a bottle of bourbon and a couple of shot glasses.

He had hardly moved when I got back, and his fingers were trembling on the spliff. I handed him a shot glass with a good sized slug, and he slung it back without his eyes moving. As the bourbon hit, he shook, once, hard. Then he looked at me.

The horror that he had seen shocked him so hard, its impact was still stamped on his face. “Cap,” he said and his bottom lip trembled. I knew it. He got a hold and he said, “They opened him, Nikka. They opened him up.”

I thought of Trols’ big, shiny serrated blade.

Gypsy

Hacker pulled up outside the Meathook, leaned his Harley in a dark patch of the parking lot, near the road, far from the bar and the line of bikes by the steps leading to the club doorway.

On the way in he checks that Jake, Shank and Boxers rides are all in the line. There they are, engines still warm and ticking.
 

From her perch at the bar, Gypsy watched as he strode into the bar, and the background noise of the Meathook changed key. He was a tall, rangy, biker with hair the color of straw. His cheekbones and jaw, even his short mustache and beard, they could all have been chiseled from granite. The short, neat beard can’t hide a deep cleft in his chin. His deep, emerald eyes were hard and penetrating. His expression was rock solid. The barroom floor could have burst into flame, his face wouldn’t move.
 

Her kick-ass leather waistcoat had black tassels on the big sliver buckles, and it was open over a white cotton shirt with a tall collar. The shirt was open most of the way, exposing a black lace bra that struggled to contain her hefty, heaving beauties. Sinuous Thai silver chains lay across the tops of her breasts, so as to show them as they when they rose and fell.
 

Sheer dark gunmetal nylon sheathed her long legs, with a tiny tight black leather mini skirt, a couple of tassels each side for added interest. Black lacy tops of the hold-ups peeked out just below the hem of the little skirt. The huge Mexican silver buckle on the wide black belt was low and loose on the sheen of leather stretched over the curve of her stomach. Short black Spanish hand-made cowboy boots with embroidery and raised heels helped to focus attention on her calves and thighs.

Gypsy sent her tried and tested
not looking at you
look to Hacker, along the bar. For a long time. When his attention was engaged, that look was supposed to be followed up by the disdainful tilt of the chin to say,
You thought it was YOU I wasn’t looking at? Hah!
Only his attention didn’t register her, Not at all. Not even in a
not looking at you, either
kind of a way. Not even in a
didn’t you once take off all your clothes in high school?
kind of a way. Gypsy wasn’t used to that. Hacker was talking to the barman, Grinder. Grinder looked like he was made out of two or more truckers. When she rolled her practically empty glass around and looked into it, Grinder noticed. But Hacker didn’t.

She wanted him. She wanted him so bad she could taste it right on the back of her throat, feel it with the tip of her tongue. Her thighs tingled and she got squirmy in her panties with the very thought of him. If she had known then what the cost was going to be, would she have done it any differently? Hard to say. Gypsy learned a lot in the next few days. If she’d seen what was coming, would she have acted differently, or would she have figured it was all worth the price?

Intricate tattoo art on his strong neck slipped down the muscles inside his black work shirt. On the back of his cut-off leather motorcycle jacket was the
Savage MC
top rocker, the big ‘S’ with a dagger and drips of red. The bike jacket had big zippers and buckles and even with no sleeves it looked like it weighed about as much as she did. He rocked up to the bar, loose-limbed in denim baggies, ordered a bourbon and talked with the barkeeper. Leaning at the bar, his ass was a miracle.

Gypsy recognized Hacker from high school, where he had been a few years above her, and he graduated from pretty cool to face-melting hot. That ass. The word was that he was pretty high up in the local motorcycle club, too. Thrillingly dangerous. The way that she looked in high school, she had the best shoes, the best clothes, the coolest makeup. She had all the money. But she had been under a layer or two of puppy fat. She looked a whole lot better now.

Gypsy strutted slowly over to the jukebox. She put on George Thorogood and the Destroyers
Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job.
The room was full of nobody caring, even though every other man’s eyes slid down the length of her throat, over the sliver chains and inside her shirt, around her black bra and then up her thighs. Every other man except Mr Hacker. The jukebox had
John the Revelator
, but only the Curtis Stigers version. If it had Son House she would have played that. She was going to cue up
Bad Company
, the original by Bad Company, but then she saw the live version of
Mr Big
by Free, so she lined that up with Hendrix
If Six Were Nine
, thinking,
Ignore that, motherfuckers
.