A Leap in the Dark (Assassins of Youth MC Book 2) (5 page)

“
Argh
!” I shouted, hugging myself tightly. It was cool in early December, but the briskness was bracing. I didn’t want to be so wide the fuck awake. “I need a fucking drink.”

It wasn’t until I was actually in the kitchen that I realized I didn’t have any booze. I didn’t like beer, the only thing the Avalanche grocery run was allowed to sell. There was a state liquor store out on Route 15. I headed for my purse on the living room couch, but was stopped by Deloy Pingree. My new roommate.

“Nurse Warrior!” he cried, as though he hadn’t seen me in a year. “Dingo just brought me back from the dental assisting school in St. George. It was
amazing
!” Deloy described “amazing” with his hands spread wide. I had the feeling he was equally as amazed by
Full House
reruns, sales on canned chili, and balloons. But his enthusiasm was infectious.

“But I thought you wanted to be a
dentist
. I found out the only school is in Salt Lake.” It was true. The school in St. George I thought was for dentists was now only for dental assistants.

“But that’s
insane
, Nurse Warrior.”

“Call me Oaklyn.”

“Oaklyn. Who’s going to pay my way while I attend dentist school in Salt Lake?”

“Who’s going to pay your way while you attend dental assisting school in St. George?”

Deloy splayed his hand against his chest. “
I
am. Like you said, I’ve got a small nest egg saved up, thanks to Levon Rockwell.”

“Thanks to yourself.”

“And Gideon’s offered me this house for free. He owns it, but it’s an investment for him, while he spruces up this town. It’ll be worth way more in a few years once we get this town together.”

Now I
really
needed a drink. “What’s this ‘we’ business? Are you planning on becoming the town’s first dental assistant?” I’d developed a sense of ownership over Deloy Pingree during the past few days. I was a nurse. I knew that a woman’s fertility started to decline once she hit thirty. The cutoff age had been going down and down with each new study done. Soon they’d be telling us the cutoff age was really twenty-five. And with no halfway feasible man even remotely on the horizon, my biological clock was ticking. I wanted to mother the hell out of some boy, and Deloy Pingree was it.

When he looked crushed, I was crushed too. “Well, there
isn’t
a dentist in Avalanche, so far. But by ‘we’ I mean
us
. The motorcycle gang.”

“
What
?” I bawled. “Deloy, you told me you drive a Prius! You ride one up on Dingo’s Harley and suddenly you’re a member of the club?”

“Well, not hardly. But they’ve already taken me under their wing.”

“They
have
?”

Deloy looked proud. “After the school, we stopped in at a bar called The High Dive downtown and had a drink.”

“You
did
?” I was feeling angry and more than a little left out. Why wasn’t
I
invited to have a drink? My sister’s old man was actually the President of the Assassins of Youth. I should be invited. And I was dying for a drink.

“And you wouldn’t believe it, but this giant, hulking, red-haired man came in wearing a bloody butcher’s apron. He looked like he was a Marine or a member of the Special Ops. Dingo knew him and started playing darts with him.
Well
! Turns out it was the infamous Sledgehammer, he owns the grocery around the corner on Watchtower Street,
and
he said he’d give me a job checking groceries!”

My jaw hung open. Deloy had accomplished all this in a day and a half, and all I’d done was fume over some worthless Italian playboy. “I…” was all I could say.

“Isn’t that amazing? Sledgehammer said he’d work around my dental school hours—classes start right after Christmas—and I can have all the cut-rate meat and groceries I want! Meanwhile, Gideon’s taking me to the shooting range to teach me how to use a gun, and—”

“
What
? Wait a minute.
What?
Deloy, why do you need to use a gun?”

He looked taken aback. “Well—uh—because. Because that’s what guys do when they join a motorcycle gang.”

“Oh, that’s just
it
!” I stalked to the back plate glass windows and whipped my phone from my pocket. “You spend
one day
with these guys and you automatically think you’re joining their club? Deloy, I’ve got news for you! These guys are nothing but common thugs.”

“Your brother-in-law is the President, Oaklyn.”

“I don’t care! Listen, can you honestly see yourself riding motorcycles around with these guys? Running guns and drugs and whatever else they do that they need money laundering outlets for? You’re going from the frying pan into the fire, Deloy! Why do you want to go from an abusive control freak who uses you to
another
abusive control freak who uses you?”

It was Deloy’s turn to drop his jaw. “Oaklyn. This is your brother-in-law you’re talking about. And I never agreed that Levon Rockwell used me! Of course he took a small percentage off my take. That’s his right as my protector and the guy who pays the mortgage and the property taxes. And who said anything about abusive? Not only did Levon never hit me, he never once even yelled at me. He, of all people, knows how it feels to be on the receiving end of a beating. He’d never stand for that happening to any of his Lost Boys.”

I was speechless. You know those moments when all evidence points to the fact that you’ve been a complete and utter dork about something? But it takes some time for it to sink in? Admitting you’ve been wrong is the hardest thing in the world. For me, anyway. So I just said, “Well, maybe. I wouldn’t know about that. But do you know what those motorcycle guys
do
?”

He shrugged. “Not really. Dingo said they have meetings—called ‘chapel’—in the back room of The High Dive, and they figure out who’s going to do what.”

I pointed at Deloy with my phone. “Right! Like who’s going to accompany the truck full of guns from Mexico, or who’s going to stand guard while they rob a bank.”

Deloy screwed up his face. “Rob a bank? Who said anything about—”

I brandished my phone dramatically. “I’m getting to the bottom of this, Deloy. I’m not letting you get into any trouble right when your life is finally getting on the right track.” I went onto the deck to text Mahalia.

Did you hear? Deloy’s planning to join Gideon’s stupid club? He even called it a “gang.” Let’s meet for a drink at The High Dive.

Since I didn’t want to face Deloy again—I was already feeling like a massive hypocrite since it was
I
who needed to escape from an abusive asshole—I snuck on past the kitchen and into my bedroom. The house was in escrow, and Gideon had just thrown a few basic pieces of furniture into it. I had a bed, but no nightstand or dresser. My overnight bag lay open on the floor under a large window that looked out onto God’s country. I hadn’t really been thinking when I packed it. I’d just been planning to go from Provo to Bountiful, examine some young men for venereal diseases, maybe spend one night with my sister, and go back home. My excuse for coming down to Avalanche was that if the VD test came back positive, Deloy would need me.

What was Deloy thinking, joining an MC? Did they even
want
him? He was probably already heading for his needle and thread to sew a patch onto his new leather vest, and they had no idea who he was. Then it struck me. Deloy had always been a part of something bigger than himself. At first, he’d belonged in Cornucopia. Until he hadn’t. Then he was part of the street scene in Bountiful, reveling in the gutters with his fellow Lost Boys. When Levon Rockwell had scooped him up, he’d joined his sleazy empire.

Now he probably felt lost, adrift without a group to belong to. It made sense he’d want to follow his Lost Boy-in-arms, Dingo, into the brotherhood of the MC. They’d never let him in. He’d fail the first test, actually
riding
a motorcycle. I felt better knowing this.

Where
was
Mahalia? Sighing, I flopped onto my unmade bed. I was still wearing sweats because I hadn’t gone anywhere that day, just waiting as usual for the dumbass to call me back. Bored, I let my hand trail lazily down my belly. I allowed it to delve down the front of the sweats, over my mound. I pinched my outer lips together and rubbed, letting the slickness massage the bud of my clitoris. I may have even gasped. I knew I wanted more.

Men never bothered satisfying women. They pretty much expected you to get all excited, both mentally and physically, over a quick makeout session. They’d feel your boobs—almost nonexistent boobs in my case—and they’d tweak your nipples as though dialing a radio. I don’t know who all men have been toying with, but it must’ve been a blowup sex doll for it to get primed and ready over such feeble and fumbling manhandling.

Then they’d climb on top, wham, bam, thank you ma’am style. As a nurse, I know that a penis pounding away inside a vagina is not the most scintillating thing in the world. There are minimal nerve endings inside the vaginal canal. Fucking like that is more like an assault than “lovemaking.” It’s all about the clitoris, and for some reason our vengeful God designed us so that the clit sits a bit too high up to get much action during penetration. I’d had success using a vibrator while Giovanni—and a few boyfriends before him—did me dogstyle. Still, it always felt artificial and forced, so I usually just let him assault me, smiling weakly afterward.

I’d learned that self-love was the best, and now my fingers leisurely stroked my clit, already elongating and filling with blood. My free hand moved to my breast, where I lightly scraped my nail across the nipple. As I felt my body sink deeper into the mattress, my hips rocked rhythmically, as though I swayed to a bossa nova. My senses started shutting down one by one, my vision tunneling into blackness at the edges, my ears hearing nothing past my own heartbeat.

Yet every centimeter of my skin was alive in the best sense, and I sped up my attention to my clit. This was where images, of sexy actors and other men I didn’t personally know, came into the picture. After seeing
Magic Mike
, lately it’d been Joe Manganiello. Imagine my shock when the face—and cut torso—of Levon Rockwell insinuated itself into my fantasies!

After the initial shock, though, I made a split-second decision to go with it. I was already riding high on the orgasmic roller coaster. Blood filled my pelvis, and that indescribably tense yearning was building in my uterus and thighs. I wasn’t going to let an image of some asshole ruin it for me, so I went with it, allowing my fantasy Levon to strip off his flimsy tee and exhibit his ripped abs.

Oh yeah
. This was working better than Joe Manganiello, maybe because I’d recently seen Levon’s buff torso with my own eyes. My hypothalamus filling with oxytocin, getting ready to let the floodgates roar open, as Pretend Levon did a coy strip tease, sliding his palm over the stunning bulge in his too-tight jeans, and squeezing.

It was the squeezing that did it.
Bang
, I went off like a firecracker. My thighs shuddered with the sudden release, my hips shimmying in a wild dance. The image of Levon evaporated almost with a loud pop as I felt my eyeballs roll up into my skull. Contraction gave way to new contraction, each one stronger than the last.

It was always a challenge to my compromised brain to keep my fingers moving. I was like an epileptic with no control over my monumental muscle spasms. I was always surprised I didn’t swallow my tongue when an orgasm hit this strongly. That’s where it would’ve been nice to have a trained, outside person controlling the stimulation. It was a slippery slope to keep the action going while riding the tidal waves.

To make matters worse, Deloy was talking to someone in the living room. He was probably just on the phone, but it was a distraction that instantly lessened the impact of my wild ride. Then, to add insult to injury, he opened my door without knocking first! He must’ve stood there for a full thirty seconds staring at me. Thirty seconds doesn’t sound like a long time when you’re not trying to ride a bucking bronco. I wanted to scream “Go away!” but that would’ve diminished my ecstasy even more.

He finally shut the door quietly, but the damage was done. I was stuck unable to coax any more bliss from the climax that had been cut short. Any interruption at all always ruined the fine balance I’d built up. And a dorky kid who was probably a pussy virgin watching like a voyeur, well, that put a giant damper on it.

I almost cried with frustration. It had been good, but it could have been better. I pulled my hand angrily from my sweats and wiped it off on my leg. Who the hell cared? I hadn’t brought enough clothes to last another day in this backwater burg. I’d have to borrow some clothes from Mahalia just to meet her for a drink at The High Dive. And she
still
hadn’t returned my text!

Since I had the master bathroom, I peed and washed my hands, pouting the whole while. Back in the bedroom, I smashed my phone back onto the windowsill and sighed at the gorgeous view. How could I be so miserable in God’s country? Dark grey clouds backed the splendid wedding cake vista of the flaming buttes, lit up in the blaze of the setting sun.

And now I’d fantasized about Levon Rockwell! It was like those dreams you have about making out with a co-worker, someone you’d never remotely fantasized about before. Suddenly you see him walking down the hall and you hide from him, convinced that he knows! That’s how I’d feel seeing Levon again, if I ever saw him, and I was glad he was safely up in Bountiful, and I’d be going back—

Wait
.
Who
exactly was Deloy talking to in the living room? I put my ear to the door and listened. It was easier to hear Deloy’s words because his voice was clear, high, and cheerleader clear.

“So you stand behind my decision? It’d make me ever so happy to know I had you on my side.”

“Of
course
I stand behind you, Deloy,” said Levon Rockwell.
Levon. Rockwell. In the flesh.
“What sort of a boss would I be if I tried to stop you from bettering your life? A good boss has his employees’ best interests at heart.”