Coletrane (24 page)

I wanted to get laid pure and simple without any backlash to follow me home. To finally ditch the years of grief and get on with my life . . . with a baptismal fuck or a few.

“Buy you a drink?” A buxom boobs-out brunette sidled up to me.

Absolution by orgasm was headed my way.

I laid my hands on the bar as I considered her offer. My rings flashed in the low lights. Chunky and silver, they spelled out FUCK and OFF. I wore them for special occasions only. The tats that covered my arms trailed onto the backs of my hands. The words
Forever
and
Never
curled among the red Chinese dragons and green serpents and black ink that ran from my shoulders to my biceps and along my forearms and wrists.

I watched in the mirror behind the bar as the woman shimmied beside me. My blond hair tangled to my shoulders. My eyes—ice blue like Cat’s—flickered to the chicky. The muscles in my arms stood out as I clenched my fists and released them.

I saw the dancing babe beyond us. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her even as I nodded at the sweet possibility beside me. The sexy woman taking center place on the floor . . . I was sure I knew her, but I couldn’t place her. Maybe I’d done her in a previous life. She had blonde hair with pink streaks, and piercings all the way up her earlobes, visible when she rolled her head back.
Christ
. It looked like she was about to come because of the music alone.

“I’ll get the first round.” I turned to smile at the woman next to me. “Two shots of Patron.” I knocked my rings on the bar as I placed the order.

We clanked our glasses together, and I watched as she drained hers.

“I’m Jerry.” Her full red lips curved in a smile.

Jerry, not Cherry, I’ll have to remember that.

“Brodie.”

“You dance?” She licked the last remnants of alcohol from her lips.

“Not really.” I scratched the sculpted goatee on my jaw.

“Shame.”

“You ride?” I asked after polishing off my Patron.

“Not really.” She brushed a hand across mine. “I’m more of a chopper-hopper.”

So she was on the lookout for some MC daddy to be her permanent old man. Not my gig. “Shame,” I said, getting ready to cut my losses.

Handsome stepped in. “Gonna introduce the rest of us?”

I made the intros between Jerry-not-Cherry and Handsome, Tail, and Tuck, hoping she’d hop on one of their hogs instead of mine. Eventually she led my tribe and me to her group of girls, all out for some rough loving for the night.

None of them did anything for me. I’d had enough fender fluff to last a lifetime, and the last time it had ended on a note so sour, I still tasted bile in my throat. I wanted to get laid, but I wasn’t into having it thrown in my lap.

Besides, I was still jonesing for the hottie who’d started gathering more than a few admirers on the dance floor. She swiveled her hips with her back to me. Her head was thrown back. It was that fucking song from Josh Stone’s stag party. “She Rides” by Danzig. Last time I’d heard it I’d been pissed off. This time, holy fucking shit, my mouth went dry. My cock turned into a rock solid rod in my pants.

The woman swayed. Her half-cut road-bitch T-shirt rode up when she raised her arms above her head. It revealed the smooth toned skin of her midriff and a tat. Bright orange flowers of some kind or other wound around the middle of her body, disappearing into the opposite side of her low cut leathers. Those leathers dripped down her hourglass waist.

That’s what I’m looking for.

Sexy, but not slutty. A little bit trashy, but not trying to flaunt it. She danced like she didn’t have a care in the world and didn’t give a shit if anyone paid attention to her. That meant a whole lot of men were glued to her sinuous, unselfconscious movements. Dancing by herself, for herself, dreamily lost in her own world. My gaze was locked on her, too.

I strode up behind her. I’d only seen the side of her face, and I wanted the full frontal. As I slipped against her, one hand running across the soft skin of her belly, I glimpsed her closed eyes, her smiling lips, and the almost orgasmic look on her face.

She melted against me. We started to move together, my hips against her perfect, ripe ass. Heat coiled between us and her smile grew into a grin.

Brushing her hair aside, I lowered my lips to her ear. “You ride?”

“A bike and a cock, baby. But I’m choosy.” She grinded against my dick and brought her hands to my thighs, gripping the hard muscles.

“You said you don’t dance!” Jerry appeared with a screech.

Shit, the other honey. She was as bad as Nick’s harpies at Stone’s wedding, the handful I’d plucked up and taken to a bar—thereby missing the entire reception—just to get them off his back.

My dancing babe turned in my arms to glare at Jerry. “Do you mind? You’re harshing my mellow mood.”

That voice. That face. And where the hell had that body come from?

My mouth dropped open. Jerry shrieked off to the pool tables. The woman in my embrace went completely still as the music continued to spill around us.

Oh, fuck no.

I dropped my hands like she was on fire and about to burn me to ash.

“You!” She stepped back.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I rubbed one palm down my jaw as I stared at Officer motherfucking Ashe goddamn Kingston.

The woman I’d hated for years. The beauty I’d just decided to bag and bang for the night. It was the principle of the thing that pissed me off. I was here to get my rocks off, not get a badge shoved in my face. She probably had a crusade against Retribution, come to think of it.

Officer Ashe Kingston also knew the entire sick history about me, Cat, my folks. I didn’t like anyone outside my club to know the real raw deal.

“Bike Week, Brodie. Just like you. If you don’t mind, I’ll get back to it.” Ashe started moving away, her hips swinging in a challenge I wasn’t about to back away from.

She’d always gotten under my skin in places that made me uncomfortable. Suddenly she was even deeper. She’d been soft and warm and slinky against me. She’d wanted me as much as I did her. The contact high still revved through my body.

I whipped her back with a hand wrapped around her waist. “So you think you can just turn this off?”

“What?” She looked up at me. I saw how big her silvery gray eyes were for the first time.

How to put it politely?
This
was my cock practically shredding through my leathers because she was so hot to me I couldn’t even see any other broad in the place. For a second it didn’t matter how much bad blood brewed between us. But I’d never admit that out loud.

“Nothing,” I muttered.

Fuck
.

Bad start to a good week.

I stalked away. Tuck and Tail hind-legged it after me.

“Was that who I think it was?” Tail drawled.

“Yep.”

“So?”

“So we pretend she isn’t here, and I didn’t just hump her on the dance floor.” I took a long drink of beer then shook my bottle at them. “And we never mention it again, especially not around Boomer.”

An hour later, Ashe was on the Mechanical Chopper. She handled it like she knew exactly what she was doing. Her thighs gripped. Her upper body relaxed. Her head tossed back in ecstasy. She drew a drooling bunch of dickheads to her. They were probably thinking the same thing as me:
Christ, the things I bet she can do in bed.

Whoa, hoss.

Before I knew it, I was back at the bar. I left holding two longnecks in my hands. Approaching Ashe was a really bad idea, but I almost didn’t care. No Jerry or Cherry or wannabe Harley Momma was gonna cut it for me.

“Brought you a beer,” I said as Ashe hopped off the bucking chopper. I’d had to charge through a salivating crowd of men to reach her. “Dance?”

Ashe accepted the drink and took a swallow. I watched every move from her naturally red lips to her neck bobbing like it would when she took my dick down her throat. Instead of answering, she looped her arms around my shoulders.

I placed my hands just above her ass where the leather stretched tight and heat emanated from her skin. She felt good. She didn’t flap her gums. She moved like sin.

“I figured you’d probably ignore me for the rest of the week.” Ashe’s hips rocked against my combustible erection.

“Tried that.”

She pulled back. “For a whole hour?” Her eyes shined with amusement.

“It’s a well-known fact we hate each other.” My thigh sliding between hers gave lie to that notion.

“Baby, if you think I hate you, you must really think I rock when I like someone.” She anchored the seam of her pants against my solid thigh, riding me up and down.

I gripped her hips to move her harder against me. “Ashe, this is not a good idea.”

“It’s Bike Week. We’re not supposed to be good.” She leaned up to lick my earlobe. “We’re supposed to be bad.”

“Christ,” I ground out.

“I’m not looking for a good boy to bring home to Momma if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“What if I’ve had enough of your shrew tongue?”

“Then you'll never find out what else I can do with my tongue, will you?” Her hot mouth drifted to the corner of my lips as my brain cells went
kaboom
, and my cock did a touchdown dance. “What happens at Bike Week stays at Bike Week.
Just you and me, for one week only.
When we get back to Mount Pleasant
—
no contact,
no phone calls, no issues.”

“No way.” I clenched her closer. “I prefer anonymous hook-ups.”

“I’m sorry, did you say hookers? You know that’s an illegal offense, right?”

“But you’re not on duty.”

“That’s right. So the offer still stands.”

“Why?”

“I may be a cop, Brodie, but I’m still a woman.”

No shit.

I’d never seen Officer Kingston out of uniform. And she was
waaay
out of uniform here. Jesus. I’d also never seen the
policewoman
be anything but professional to a T. Now she was fucking with my head and just about fucking herself to climax on my leg. I could clearly see she was all-woman, stacked in all the right places. Something in me reacted to her like never before. Mainly, my cock.

“And I think you’re hot.” With her arms wound around my neck, she rose to her tiptoes to whisper in my ear, “You’re raw and dangerous.” Her fingers tugged my hair with the right amount of force, sending a jolt of excitement to my dick. “I bet you look damn good naked. And I figure you know how to fuck long and hard.”

Goddamn if I didn’t shudder and groan.

“I’ll show you an illegal offense, Officer PD Law.” I scooped my hands under her half-shirt to feel the bottom of her breasts. They were heavy in my palms. She twisted further against my caress.

“I don’t think you have the balls to follow through,” she dared.

I’d never backed away from a challenge before. But fuck my bike, this was Ashe
motherfucking
Kingston. The woman I held a deep grudge against. “You arrested my sister!”

“Mind taking your hands off my tits when you yell at me?”

I dropped back a step.

She leaned up in my face. “I probably changed her life.”

“And ruined the rest of ours at the same time.”

Ashe paled. “That’s not fair and you know it.” Her words were strong, but her voice weak.

“Shit.
SHIT.
” I shook my head at the floor, backing off. “I’m sorry.”

Before she could reply, I strode away. I hit the can. After taking a piss, I checked on my bike outside. I wasted some more time pacing the parking lot with a cig clamped between my teeth. Maybe it was my own guilt, my own blame eating me up inside. If I’d paid closer attention to Cat, I could’ve stopped her before she went full-blown addict on us. If I’d been driving our folks that night, maybe I could’ve avoided the accident that killed them.

Staring out at the night, the stars all but obliterated by the bright flashy Myrtle Beach lights, I lifted my half-smoked cig. The red ember burned at the end like my heart did.
I
felt half-finished, undone. I’d wanted to start fresh this year. Cat had done it. So had Nick. Stone and Leelee were expecting a new baby soon. I had Boomer—
fuckin’ A
—and I didn’t really want to grow old with him.

But Ashe? She was one of those risks I’d sworn off. The life and death kind. I could already feel it in my bones.

I stamped out my cigarette butt. I sat on my bike and thought about bailing on the rest of the night.

There were plenty of other men interested in Ashe. Let one of them take her for a ride. I didn’t have to go back inside. I didn’t have to see her again.

But I wanted to.

There was a pool game in action when I joined my tribe. Ashe held a cue, lifting eyes to mine that were less sparkly when she saw me. For a moment my heart did the wrecking ball thing in my chest. But I didn’t need anyone’s pity or sympathy. What was done was done. At least Cat had survived.