Chasing Pavement: A Biker Erotic Romance

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.

Chasing Pavement @ 2014 by Emily Stone. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

CHAPTER ONE

Even before the sirens began wailing
Miriam knew she’d been overzealous with the gas pedal. Swearing under her breath, she pulled over and waited patiently for the cops to come over and question her, praying for them to just give her a speeding ticket and send her on her way. The officer approached the window and Miriam obligingly rolled it down, looking up with a pleasant smile.

“Is there a problem, officer?” she asked, innocently.

“Turn off the engine and put the keys on the dashboard,” the officer ordered her gruffly, “then show me your license and registration.”

Miriam quietly did as she was told, not wanting to antagonize the officer. She handed the officer her ID and sat waiting while he read it.

“So where are you heading, Ms Harper?”

“I’m driving up from Vegas to see my boyfriend.” Miriam replied, giving an answer that was at least half-true.

“You must be in a hurry to be going ten mph over the speed limit.” The officer noted and handed Miriam back her ID.

“We’re in the middle of the desert, officer,” Miriam pointed out, a tinge of annoyance creeping into her voice, “and yours is the first car I’ve seen for miles. Do you seriously care if I was going a little faster than the law says I can?”

“Even so, do you mind if I look in your trunk quickly?” the officer asked.

“Why do you want to?” Miriam flinched, suppressing her nervousness.

“I’m just curious.” the officer shrugged, “I mean I can’t force you if you don’t want me to look, but then I’d have to ask ‘why not?’”

“Fine,” said Miriam, trying to sound like she had nothing to hide, “take a look.”

The officer went round to the back of the car and started fiddling with the trunk. Miriam seized her chance and snatched the keys off the dashboard, and turning it in the ignition; but at the crucial moment, the engine stalled. She frantically turned the key in the ignition, but to no avail, and slapped the wheel in fury.

The officer couldn’t fail to notice Miriam’s failed attempt to escape, and when he popped the trunk and saw what was inside, it became obvious why.

***

Miriam was read her rights and placed under arrest before being driven to the nearest police station. She scowled for her mug shot and kept up a tough appearance for the security camera as she was left to wait in the interrogation room; but inside, she was panicking.

Half a million dollars worth of guns and ammunition had been seized from her car trunk, and it was only a matter of time before they found who she was working for. The best she could hope for was a plea bargain, which would involve betraying her fellow Seraphim to the cops to shave at most a decade off her probable sentence. Either way, she was a dead woman.

Miriam turned to look at her reflection in the two-way mirror. Her hair wasn’t Miriam at all; she’d dyed her hair red a long time ago, shortly before adding a nose piercing and the Speeding Seraphim tattoo on her lower back; she was pretty damn hot. Once she went to prison, however, that wouldn’t last. The women’s sections of the state prison system were brutal; if the stories were true, she wouldn’t last longer than a month in there. Miriam hung her head in hopelessness. She could either sell out her fellow bikers in the Speeding Seraphim, or she could consign herself to a quarter of a century in a desert hellhole.

CHAPTER TWO

The jet-black hummer pulled up outside the police station. Out of the vehicle stepped a man and a woman wearing ATF jackets and shades to keep the glaring desert sun at bay. A local police officer came rushing out to meet them.

“I’m Officer Vasquez, we’ve been expecting you.” The officer offered his hand.

“I’m Agent McMahon and this is Agent Philips,” the male agent replied gruffly and ignored the attempted handshake, “why are we here?”

“A few hours ago, we arrested a Caucasian female in her late twenties for going ten miles over the speed limit.” Vasquez replied, leading the agents inside.

“And?” said Agent Philips skeptically.

“She was sporting a Speeding Seraphim tattoo on her lower back, and tried to speed away when an officer went to check the trunk of her car.”

“A biker chick driving a car?” said Agent McMahon as they were led to the back of the station, “that’s got to be at least a fifteen year sentence.”

“Especially given what she was smuggling,” Vasquez answered, doing his best to ignore McMahon’s haughty sarcasm as he led them to the forensic labs.

Half a dozen officers were cataloguing the weapons and boxes of ammunition they had seized from Miriam’s car, and the ATF agents removed their shades in surprise, their disdainful skepticism evaporating instantly.

“A dozen disassembled M16s, a dozen glocks, a pair of sawn-off shotguns, a thousand rounds of ammunition for all three, and a pair of hand grenades.” said Vasquez.

“This is the biggest seizure we’ve had in months.” said Agent Philips.

“Call the team here,” McMahon ordered, “and tell them to bring a firearms forensic kit.”

Agent Philips nodded and went outside to make the call.

“I need to speak with the woman who was transporting all this.”

“Sure,” Officer Vasquez led Agent McMahon to the interview room, “we were letting her stew first before questioning her; thought you might like to do that yourself.”

“What do you know about her?”

“Her name’s Miriam Harper, she lives in the next county, and her driver’s license is actually a motorcycle license. But she’s got no prior convictions, and this is the first time she’s ever been arrested.”

McMahon only half heard the rest of Vasquez’s words; he had stopped in his tracks on hearing her name.

“Is something wrong, agent?”

“That name’s familiar,” McMahon said truthfully, “in fact she’s been under suspicion for a while, but there’s no problem.” His second statement was a lie.

“Well, here she is.” Vasquez led McMahon into the viewing room.

McMahon remained outwardly implacable and austere, but inside he was lurched back into the past. The woman sitting at the table on the other side of the two-way mirror was slim and attractive, with dyed red hair cut short just above the shoulders. She had a woman’s biker jacket on and a pair of skin-tight jeans as well as flat-bottomed heels on. She was hanging her head slightly, possibly contemplating the life sentence she had incurred. In spite of her change in style, she was undoubtedly the same girl he grown up with.

“The team is on their way,” announced Agent Philips, returning from making the call, “they should be here in about an hour.”

“Officer Vasquez, would you mind giving us a minute alone?” McMahon requested. Vasquez nodded and left the room.

“What’s the problem?” Philips asked.

“I know her.” McMahon said grimly. Philips silently mouthed an awkward ‘oh’, not sure what to say in response.

“How long ago and how well did you two know each other?” she eventually asked.

“We grew up in the same town,” replied McMahon, staring at Miriam through the glass like a memory in physical form, “and we were very close indeed, before I left for college. This is the first time I’ve seen her in ten years.”

“You know she’s probably working for the Speeding Seraphim now, right?” Philips asked, sounding concerned.

“Why else would she be driving a car full of illegal weapons?” McMahon answered, missing his partner’s implicit meaning.

“I’m just saying, it can’t be easy seeing an old friend on the other side.” Philips persisted.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” McMahon demanded defensively.

“It means that we can’t afford for your shared history to compromise –”

“I’ve spent an entire year running this operation with no success!” McMahon snapped angrily, “These gangs hide behind reams of legal bullshit, and all the while the guns they trade all over the state are claiming more lives every week. So I don’t need a reminder on the importance of not compromising our only lead, thank you!”

“Calm the fuck down, Brad,” Philips shot back, keeping her tone level but hard, “I just don’t want it getting too personal.”

“It won’t.” McMahon said through gritted teeth. An awkward pause followed.

“Were you going to question her, or should I?” Philips asked, breaking the silence.

“I’ll talk to her.” said McMahon, heading into the interrogation room.

CHAPTER THREE

Miriam heard the door open and looked up from her despondence to see a well-built man in an ATF uniform enter the room. He was at least six feet tall and crossed the room with a stern, businesslike air about him before sitting down opposite her and giving her a hard stare. He was clean shaven with wavy brown hair and blue eyes, and an almost perfectly square jaw. Miriam completely forgot her predicament as she stared back at him in astonishment.

“Brad?” she asked, scarcely believing it was him.

“That’s Agent McMahon to you, Ms Harper.”

“Don’t you ‘Ms Harper’ me,” Miriam shot back, “you know my name, so use it.”

“Why were you driving a car with a motorcycle license?” Brad asked her.

“I’ve been fine these last ten years, thanks for asking,” Miriam replied with a note of sarcasm in her voice, “how about you, agent?”

“Maybe I should rephrase that,” continued Brad, appearing totally unmoved, “why were you transporting 500k worth of military grade weaponry in your car?”

“The car’s a rental;” Miriam said innocently, “maybe the last person to drive it was a gun runner and left his stash in the trunk by accident.”

“Or maybe you’re the one who runs guns for the Speeding Seraphim.”

“The who?” Miriam asked with an innocent smile.

“A biker gang who smuggle weapons for various gangs all over the state and sometimes across state lines,” Brad replied with accusatively, “of which you are a member. That’s who.”

“And what’s your proof for that?”

“The tattoo on your lower back.”

“Oh, you mean this?” Miriam got up and turned around, lifting up her shirt to reveal a tattoo of the Speeding Seraphim insignia; a naked woman with angelic wings spread wide, curled up in a model’s pose with her hands covering her modesty. The words ‘Speeding Seraphim’ were emblazoned on a banner underneath the angel.

“Nice.” said Brad, barely flinching and not sounding at all impressed. Miriam lowered her shirt and sat back down.

“That’s not the only tattoo I’ve got, you know,” Miriam said with a flirty smile, leaning forwards and reaching for her jacket zipper.

“That’s enough.” said Brad sharply. Miriam sat back again, looking disappointed.

“This is the bottom line: you enter a plea bargain where you tell us everything you know about Speeding Seraphim gun running operations in exchange for a significantly reduced sentence, maybe even amnesty.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I’ll personally lock you up in one of the famously hospitable federal prisons and throw away the key.” Brad answered coldly.

“You’d do that to your ex-girlfriend?” Miriam asked incredulously, “what the fuck happened to you, Brad?”

“I became responsible for stopping the flow of arms into this state and got tired of people dying because of the guns your gang of thugs smuggles in.”

“You and you’re fed buddies have killed plenty of us.” Miriam shot back, “the only difference between you and us is that ATF jacket, you fucking hypocrite.”

“So what’s your decision?” Brad demanded impatiently. Miriam sat back in her chair, taking her time before answering.

“I want a lawyer.” She said finally. Brad immediately got up and left the room, leaving Miriam to stew a bit longer.

As soon as the door closed, Miriam buried her head in her hands. She was in an impossible position, facing decades in prison if she refused to betray her fellow bikers to the feds. Worse still, the man spearheading the hunt for her ‘family’ was someone to whom she’d once been so close. They’d grown up in the same town together, shared secrets and moments together, had the most amazing sex, and now he was with the enemy.

The fact that Brad was working to kill or jail the people who’d accepted her as one of their own was almost impossible to bear; he hadn’t even seem moved by their reunion. Then again, Brad had always been good at hiding his true feelings under an implacably austere mask; there might still be some residual feelings deep down, a few latent sparks that she could kindle to salvage something from the train wreck of the past few hours. She hated the idea of being a honey trap whore, as the men in the Speeding Seraphim called such girls, but there were no other options available to her.

Ten minutes later, Brad reentered the room, snapping Miriam out of her crisis of conscience and forcing her to start playing the part of the honey trap.

“Is it time for you to strip search me?” Miriam asked with a dirty smile.

“You’re free to go.” Brad said bluntly.

“Come again?”

“You’re free to go for 24 hours,” Brad clarified, “but you can’t leave this town, we still have questions for you.”

“You questioned me for barely a minute;” Miriam said suspiciously, “what kind of trick are you trying to play?”

“There is no trick,” Brad assured her, “I’m allowing you to enjoy another 24 hours of freedom at the local motel so you can consider my offer.”

“What kind of cop sets a major suspect free?” Miriam interrogated, fishing for the ruse.

“The kind with federal authority and discretion.” replied Brad, losing his patience, “Now go get your things before I go back on my decision and make you sleep in a cell.”

Miriam decided not to question her luck any further, and quietly left the room.