Biker Chick Campout (Rebel Wayfarers MC) (7 page)

Silently Mela sat down on the grass beside
her, eyes already fixed on the flickering cinders.

DeeDee hummed, then asked, “What’s up,
buttercup?” From the corner of her
eye,
she
saw her friend turn to glance Mela’s way before facing the fire
again. “There’s just something about a
fire.
It’s
mesmerizing
when at this stage
.
The early blaze is full of energy and heat, wild and chaotic. Out
of control. But, if you let things go far enough, you wind up with
this calmness. It’s still hot as hell, just more stable, less
riotous. You know the fire burning down to coals like this means
it’s nearing the end of its life, but it’s still so beautiful.”

She leaned against DeeDee’s legs and sighed.
Without looking away from the
flames,
Mela
said, “Daddy didn’t want me to come.”

“We know, sweetheart.
Estavez
called Slate and Mason
straight
away
when you left. He
told them you
were
on your way, and he’d have men on you the whole trip.”
DeeDee offered this knowledge without hesitating.

“I’d have been here earlier yesterday, but I
ditched them. I didn’t tell Daddy where we were planning to camp,
so I thought I could escape the scrutiny for at least a couple of
days,” she
said
and sighed again. “Slate
probably told Daddy exactly where this place is already, so that
was useless. Wasted effort.
They'll
come
roaring in here soon, all pissed off because they got played, and
they’re gonna make me leave.”

“No, they won’t.” DeeDee’s voice was clear
and firm. “Your father would have preferred that scenario, but
Slate talked him down. Told him he’d have his best men in place to
keep us all safe.” She pointed towards the van. “Hurley here with
us, and three men
staged along the road. You
rode past them to get in, and if it anyone other than you had
approached, that person would have never made it a hundred feet up
the road.”

“I just get so tired of everything,” Mela
muttered,
propping
her head in her hand. “It’s
always about the club. Real shit. Made up shit. Doesn’t matter. I
can’t do anything just for me.”

“We should have made Eddie come, babies or
not,” DeeDee said with a soft laugh, referencing another of the
Rebel women, one whose father had also been a club president.
“Growing
up as
she did, she could relate, for
sure. But Carmela,” her tone
became
serious,
“you more than most know what happened to Watcher’s daughter at the
hands of their enemies. That’s not made up. You saw her, helped
care for her. You know he’s lucky Bella lived, honey, and she’s
never going to be the same. You can’t be angry with your father for
fearing it could happen to you.
There is unrest in
the clubs” —Mela raised her head to retort, but DeeDee pushed on—
“I know what you’re going to say, and I’ve used the same argument
sweetheart, because there is
always
unrest, but this is a level we’ve
not seen in decades.
Something is building, and our men
don’t yet have a handle on exactly what. So, when something like
that happens to a powerful man’s family, a president’s daughter,
all the men in our lives pay attention. Like it or not, you are
your father’s daughter, which means you are a target.”

He had woken abruptly, every sense singing
danger, screaming at him that something had changed. In those first
few moments of awareness his gut had filled with a rolling sense of
unease. As he scanned the inside of the van, there was nothing
overtly out of place, everything looked as he expected, but hadn’t
been able to shake the feeling that something important was
missing.

It had taken him two carefully metered
breaths to realize the body that had been so sweetly curled into
him, the heat and presence he’d enjoyed lying beside was gone.
Dammit,
she
ran after
all
. She’d surrendered to her own wants, and fuck, but he was
glad she did.
Fucking
amazing
lay
. Smart and funny, she’d certainly
raised the bar for chicks in his bed. Mela had been so hesitant
from the beginning, seemingly fearful until she let go her control
and gave herself to him. That fear creeping back in nearly
immediately, but she’d stayed.
Amazing woman
. Gone.

I asked her to stay
.
Hurley’d
asked, and she’d given in, burrowing into
him
as if she couldn’t get close enough.
Stretched out beside him, hand on his chest. Head pillowed on his
shoulder, the scent of her had surrounded him. He’d watched her
sleeping, smiling at the little snuffling noises she made, liking
how she snuggled into his side, trusting even at rest.

Turning things over in his mind, he’d found
he wanted…no,
needed
to know more about her. She wasn’t an
old lady, nor a fender bunny. A puzzle to solve. She was here at
the chick campout, which meant she was well known to the Rebels or
she wouldn’t have been trusted with the location of this little
party, but he didn’t know her from Adam.
Or Eve
.

So beautiful, her face and body were
spectacular, unforgettable, but he’d never laid eyes on her before.
A temptation from the beginning, opening his eyes to find her
looking him over had been a thrill. Naked and rousing to hard
within a moment, it hadn’t been easy tamping down his desires. His
mouth watered at the thought of her and breathing deep, he caught a
trace of her scent on the air.
I’ll for-fucking-sure remember
that woman
.

Dressing quickly, he exited the van, taking
care to close the door quietly. Two figures were seated near the
bonfire from last night, Mela and DeeDee. Even from here he could
see he was right, Mela had leaned into the older woman. They were
friends, wind sisters, if not club.

Moving close enough to eavesdrop, DeeDee’s
words hit him like a blow.
She’s a fucking princess
. Someone
precious to his president.
Important
to his
brothers, and like he thought last night, far out of his reach.
Not my queen
. Then the rest of what DeeDee said sank
in,
and he realized that this assignment was
critical, like she’d tried to tell him before. Not a punishment
detail, but an honor. He shifted his shoulders, feeling the leather
slide across his bare skin. Something asked of every brother, part
of the written
bylaws, to protect
the things
each man held most dear. Club, brothers, family.

Now there were things he needed to know
to
plot his path. One, he needed to know
Mela’s
connections
so he could understand.
Two, DeeDee had to give him a sign that what he’d done wasn’t going
to fuck things up. All the women would follow her lead, even Ruby
eventually, so if she
were
in
favor of
his liaison with Mela, then he wouldn’t have to
fight as hard to keep her.

Keep her?

She sat facing the fire, dim flickering glow
from the flames glancing across her skin, hair gathered over one
shoulder. Gorgeous. Not happy with her lot in life, either, it
seemed.
I could make her happy. I
did
last night
. Not just the sex, either. The
talking before, the way she looked at him when he complimented her.
Her easy laughter at his stories. The way she’d leaned in to kiss
him.
I could mean something to her
.

Keep her?
Oh, hell yeah.

“What kind of target?” Hurley’s voice came
from right behind DeeDee, and Mela jumped, twisting around. “And
who is your father?” She stared at him for a minute, finding he
looked different in the light cast from the fire’s coals. His hair
a dull red and the expression on his face
angry,
striped with lines of shadow and fury.

Without responding, she stood and walked to
her bike, lifted her jacket from the handlebars and unfolded it,
turning so the
weak
light from the fire
illuminated the patches on the back.
Hurley’s
eyes went wide as
he
read the club’s
information, and her title, and
he
said, “No
shit?”

DeeDee answered him with a soft laugh.
“Shit-free,
totally
.”

“So we got the national president’s cousin
who’s also a leverage member’s old lady, my chapter president’s old
lady, a member’s old lady, and now another club’s national
president’s fucking daughter?
Goddamned
Machos?” He held up four fingers, “DeeDee, Ruby, Kathy…and
Mela?”

DeeDee nodded, twisting in her chair to face
him. “And four of their best friends, who also have a place in your
national president’s heart.” She paused, staring up at him. “It’s a
stern charge, Hurley. Slate believed you up for the job, but you
have only to make a single call to pull in others. Your decision,”
she
said
and turned back so she could watch
the fire again. He didn’t respond other than with a nod that DeeDee
didn’t see, and then turned and silently stalked past Mela, moving
back towards the van.

Gaze
to
the ground, she
slowly refolded her jacket, again draping it over the handlebars of
her bike.
Her chest was tight with the pain and shame
of a rejection she had expected, but it hurt no less for that. She
thought to herself,
Well, that is
that, and if you thought it could ever be more than that, you were
loco, chica
.

Princess status in her father’s club meant
few men were brave enough to even befriend her, and none had ever
wanted her enough to dare wade through the politics and pressure of
a relationship. Today looked to be no different.

A touch on her arm interrupted her thoughts,
and she looked up, stunned to see Hurley standing there, his palm
sliding down the inside of her wrist, fingers threading through
hers. “Come back to bed, honey,” he said, leaning in for a kiss.
Then, tugging at their joined hands, he led her back to the van,
claiming her, even if their audience was limited to one broadly
grinning and overly protective mother figure.

“Fuck me,” Slate muttered, rolling his eyes
at Ruby. She was standing in the kitchen bottle-feeding Kayley, one
of their infants, while their two oldest stood, each holding tight
to a leg of Ruby’s jeans. Allen and Dani were babbling incessantly
back and forth, by turns grinning and frowning. Their oldest set of
twins had been actively building a private language of late, which
DeeDee assured him was normal. Privately, he thought it meant he
and Ruby would be fucked at some point. Those two were already
getting into everything. He expected that once they could scheme
and plot together, their lives would be pure chaos.

Slate was cradling Hayley, twin sister to
the one in Ruby’s arms, tipping a bottle to her hungry mouth to
quiet her vocal complaints. “You’re serious? Mela hooked up with
Hurley?”

Grinning widely, Ruby nodded. Leaning down
to nuzzle Kayley’s cheek, she told him, “Humping like bunnies in
the van.” She giggled. “He was really sweet with her, you shoulda
seen it. I kinda like him for her. It’s a good match.”

Allen plopped down to the floor, then rocked
over so he could crawl away, his ass comically swaying side-to-side
as he moved out of sight through the arch that led to the living
room. Dani watched him go for a moment, then tipped her head back,
eyes far more calculating than Slate liked flicking over him before
latching onto her mother’s face. The babble from before changed,
and he grinned to hear her calling, “Da. Da. Dadada.
DA!
”
while looking up at Ruby. Distracted, he was startled when a crash
came from the living room, toenails clicking a mad retreat on the
hardwood floor as the beagle they were dog-sitting tried to escape
the boy. That was followed by squeals of laughter from Allen.

“You don’t fuckin’ like Hurley, Ruby. Why
would you want him for my Mela?” Hayley had lost the nipple, and
her tiny fists flailed for a moment, then she quietened when he
teased her bottom lip with it, her chin bobbing as she sought it
again. “She deserves—”

“A man who makes her feel safe. A man who
would turn the world upside down to make her happy.” She gave him
one of those smiles, the ones that nearly took his knees out from
underneath him. The smiles that he worked every day to earn. Even
now,
almost
four years into the relationship
with her, she could floor him with a single look. Her voice was
soft when she continued, “A man like you.”

“
Fuck me
.”

End

THANK YOU

This short story
sets
into the Rebel Wayfarers MC storyline directly following Duck, book
#8, so we’ll call this one 8.5. I loved learning more about
Carmela
and seeing the woman she’s grown
into.

Raised in the south, MariaLisa deMora
learned about the magic of books at an early age. Every summer, she
would spend hours in the Upshur County library, devouring stacks of
books in every genre. She still reads voraciously, and always has a
few books going in paperback, hardback, on devices! On music, she
says, “I love music of nearly any kind—jazz, country, rock, alt
rock, metal, classical, bluegrass, rap,
gangstergrass
, hip hop—you name the type, I probably
listen to it.

“I can often be seen dancing
through
the house in the early mornings. But what I
really, REALLY love is live music. My favorite way to experience
live music
is seeing
bands in small, dive bars
[read: small, intimate venues]. If said bar [venue] has
a good
selection of premium tequila, then that’s a
definite plus! Oh, and since I’m a hand gal, drummers are my
thing—yeah, Paul and Alex—you know who you are!”