Hard Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 1) (8 page)

“It’s been quiet for a while,” said Theo. “Those Wrecking Crew were running a good business, keeping it low. But you’re right. If this is the spark of something, it’s going to be a hellstorm here. In fact—”

Theo turned, and saw June waiting at the door. His face lit up.

“Hey there, Junebug,” he said with a grin, clearly forcing it. He was still angry—but he was trying to be kind, now. “When did you get in? Y’all weren’t gonna tell me?” He looked around at the other men, who clearly were as surprised to see her as he was.

Theo and June embraced briefly, hugging tight. June then passed herself around the room, hugging her brother Kyle tight (noticing, though, that he was somewhat removed from the affection), and giving a small half-hug to Paxton who she ardently hoped did not read too much into it.

Paxton Prince had crushed on June for a long time during high school. She'd turned him down for dates time and again. When her mother found out, of course her father found out, and then her parents shared their displeasure with June's choices over a series of dinners during her junior year.

“Paxton has a future in this town,” “Paxton was old money,” all the same old song and dance.

Finally she got a boyfriend—more to shut them up than anything else—which ended amicably once she graduated and left town.

June came to her father, who stood up stiffly, arms held out. Their hug—the first time she had seen him in person for more than a year—was cool and short.

“Good to see you, Dad,” she said, faking as best she could.

“You too, honeybear.”

There was a small, awkward silence that swept through the room. It was saved suddenly by the hard, high-pitched twang of her mother’s voice.

“Is that my June?”

The door slammed, her mother rushing into the kitchen with her arms full of groceries. She swept them down on the island counter and rushed to June, kissing her on the forehead and pulling her close.

“It
is!
It’s so good to see you, baby. How are you? You look so
thin
. What have you been eating?”

The rapid pace of questions was normal for her mother in times of excitement—one thought quickly replaced by another, each delivered with great importance.

Sheila Colt was a small woman with the metabolism of a hummingbird, never quite understanding that others couldn’t tear through baked goods and daily desserts without a body weight variation of more than five pounds like she could.

She led her neighborhood’s walking group, and the Veteran’s Welcome Home Association, and organized the spin classes at the local gym. Active, active, active—if she sat still, June was afraid she might be dying.

In June’s last year of high school, her mother had come down with a sick case of kidney stones. She was supposed to be bed-ridden for a week, but sure enough, after two days, she was up and about, cooking meals and spending long hours on the treadmill talking to her friends across town like nothing had happened.

Sheriff Colt cleared his throat.

“Boys, you know what I want. You two,” he pointed at Kyle and Paxton. “Keep a good look out. And you,” he said to Theo, “do that thing we talked about, okay?”

The cops began to clear out, military fashion, obedient to a tee. First Theo left, and then Kyle. June dug into the fridge, looking for a bottle of water, and when she turned back around, she noticed her mother and father were both gone, leaving her alone in the kitchen with Paxton.

“Hey, June,” he said, holding the brim of his hat over his chest. “You're looking great.”

“Thanks.”

This was eerie and gross, and it had her parents' complicity written all over it. Paxton was a decent enough fellow. He had pale blond hair that was thinning on the top of his head, too pale for his comb over to be effective. A small paunch sat at the front of his stomach, but he was otherwise broad-shouldered and in good shape, with a pleasant face.

In sum, he was breathtakingly average, but not in a dull way. Instead, it was the sort of dependable, heart-of-Texas way that put his sort of man into so many marriages after a girl’s wild times in college were finally “out of her system.”

June couldn't help but compare him to Ram, though—a living incarnation of every late night, lonely, desperate, dripping wet thought she'd ever had about screwing a bad boy.

And Paxton simply didn't measure up. If Ram incarnated trouble, then Paxton incarnated safety, and in the worst possible way.

“I was thinking, now that you're back in town, I could take you out one night. Show you around. There's a new Italian place back from where the movie theater on Rio used to be, and—”

“I don't know about that,” June blurted. “I'm not...ready for that just yet. I had a relationship end not too long ago, and I'm still dealing with it. You understand, don't you Paxton?”

Ram wouldn't understand. Ram would barely ask. He would ride up on to her lawn and carve holes into the lawn with his wheels until she got on the back and felt that hot thrill of horsepower thrumming between her legs. He'd take her by the arms and hold her down until she admitted just how brilliantly wet her pussy was for him.

But Paxton did understand. “Oh,” he nodded. “Right. Sure. Of course. I just meant...as a welcome back. A good night out. But I understand. It's fine.”

It clearly wasn't fine; he was blushing and disappointment spiked his face, but she couldn't bring herself to care that much. She felt nothing for him four years ago, and she felt nothing for him now.

He left, and June found her father and her mother sitting in the den, small frowns on their faces. She had little doubt they'd been listening in.

“Kyle couldn’t stay?” June asked. “Get some family time in?”

“He’s got a job,” said Colt. “You might have heard of those, even in Austin. You two can socialize later on.”

Aaaaand, it begins
.
Super
.

It was little use telling him she'd had a job—she'd worked her butt off at it too. He might start asking her whether she was a waitress or a secretary.

“I’m just so happy to see you,” said her mother, hugging her tight again. “How was the drive? I thought you would have been here a couple of hours ago. You usually get up so early...”

“My phone died. And my car died. The radiator blew. But it’s in the shop now. I took care of it.” She said this looking in her father’s eyes very carefully. “So I’ll go take a look around tomorrow and see what the damage is.”

“That’s a shame,” said Sheila. “That nice car you bought, how old was it?”

“I’ve had it for two years.”

“Might as well be two hundred, driving around that Asian junk,” said Colt. “How many times did I tell you to get a good American car? You buy yourself a Dodge, you’ll go fifteen thousand miles without even
needing
a mechanic, and that’s just the first year. Those things get better with age. Why,—”

“John Colt,” said Sheila, “if you start lecturing the two of us about vehicles, you are not going to have your dinner.”

Colt adjusted his belt, standing up. He walked to the kitchen and pulled his hat from the post. “Just as well,” he said. “I don’t have the cash to buy you some new car anyway.”

“You didn’t pay for any car of mine, Dad,” June said, voice false-saccharine, “so don’t worry about it.”

Sheila was ever the diplomat. She guided June back into the kitchen, toward the fridge, and started pulling out food. “Now, I made you some dip, I know you like it with the carrots and the ranch? And there’s a few cookies in the jar over there. I’ve had drip beef cooking in the crock pot all afternoon, so I think it
should
be ready to go by dinnertime, and, well—”

Colt interjected. “She’s going to be having dinner with Paxton, though. Wasn’t that what we said?”

Sheila made a face, and then flashed an apologetic look at her daughter. “Well,” said Sheila. “That was one of the possibilities we discussed, yes.”

June fought hard not to start yelling. “Paxton asked me out. I said no. So I'll be having dinner here tonight.”

Colt crossed his arms. “I told him you'd go out with him. Let him show you the town. And you, you're telling me you told him to blow off? That ain’t right. That’s the mayor’s son. I can’t just tell him to—”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Both of them looked with some surprise at June.

Yes, people, I’ve added “hell” to my retinue of swears. Wait till you hear the rest.

“I'm talking about Paxton Prince. He’s David Prince’s son,” said her father, as if this explained everything. “You know, the mayor.”

June waited for the rest, jaw set to one side.

“We just thought,” said her mother, “with you being single and all, why, you must be wanting for some
fun
. And Paxton is
very
handsome, and neatly well-to-do, and he’s been asking about you a lot. Apparently he thought you were
real
cute back in high school.”

Colt nodded. “The two of you are going out tonight. You’ll have fun together.”

The way her father said this indicated to June that this was more than a chance encounter, more than something put together at the last minute by Paxton. This felt like some kind of
arrangement.

A sardonic part of her wondered what the dowry was.

“I really don’t think it’s appropriate for me to go out with him,” said June. “Or for you to make me a date.”

“Why not?” said Colt. “You’re a woman. He’s a man. Men and women go on dates.”

This was her chance. This was where she could tell him off. This was the time she could use to put her father in his place,
finally
, to let her know she was an independent person outside of the bounds of his ever-reaching claws.

But she had wanted more
time
than this. She wanted a little time to ingratiate herself, to re-familiarize herself with him and his habits, to get her pathway in. But her father didn’t need any such allowances—oh no. His little girl was his little girl, and would be no matter what she had to say about it.

“I can’t,” she said again. “I won’t. It’s not...it’s not what I want.”

She was starting to get angry, and because she was getting angry, tears started forming in her eyes. It was her automatic response to anger to start crying, and she hated it. It made her feel weak and feckless, even though all it meant was that she had so much emotion that it was literally pouring out of her eyeballs.

Her brain scrambled to find something, anything, to break this stupid cycle before it even got started—to cut these two dead in their tracks.

“Honey,” said her mother, “are you even sure you know what you want? You haven’t dated anyone since that Simon fellow, is that right? And you didn’t even let us
meet
him but the one time. I mean, it would be one thing if you were dating someone now, but since you aren’t—”

“I am!” June blurted it out without even thinking about it—and then she kept going. “I
am
dating someone, actually. We’re actually, you know, quite serious. Engaged. We’re engaged.”

It was a lie. It was a great big, disastrous lie and it was going to end poorly for her.

But in that moment, it was worth it just to see the shock on her father’s face at the total ruination of his plan.

––––––––

“Y
ou told them what?” Ram almost dropped his wrench on his head, a great spurt of oil spraying down over his shoulder.

He worked in Buddy’s Mechanic Shop any day that he wasn’t running jobs with the Wrecking Crew.

Most of the guys in the Crew had some sort of day job, usually in manual labor, trucking, or the like. Only a few, like Ace, were a hundred percent illegal, earning all their income from drug deals or gun sales or their protection runs.

When June told him the news, he was underneath her car, trying to strip its innards so that he could start the work on repairs and replacements. Ram might have been a bastard killer, a thief, and a criminal, but he was a man of his word.

It was late in the morning, and though the shop was not empty, the two were relatively alone. On the other side of the shop, another mechanic worked at rotating the tires of an old Chevy.

“I had to tell them
something
,” she said. “And they wouldn’t believe I was just
dating
a guy. They would want me to go out on the date still with Paxton.”

“And so you told them you were engaged?”

Sliding out from underneath her car, his anger began to flare, but with anger came the rest of his passion. And looking at June, there was plenty of passion in him to spread around. She was a beauty, pure and simple, and the long kiss he’d shared with her yesterday had not left him feeling cold.

Quite the opposite. If he ever bothered to jerk off, he would have had plenty of fuel for it yesterday, but Ram had waited. There was too much easy pussy in his life for him to consider jerking off most of the time, and besides, he wanted to save up his desire for June.

Because pretend relationship or not, he was going to fuck her rotten.

She wore a tight pair of pants that looked made for ripping from her body. He wanted to trace the lines of her hips with his tongue. And her blouse, red and loose, had just enough buttons undone so he could see directly down her shirt. He'd always liked being tall—it gave him a great view of lots of girls along his way, and made a lot of girls come after him.

But seeing her sumptuous cleavage, small beads of sweat forming there from the heat outside, made him come close to thanking god for his height.

“They don’t run my life, all right?” She crossed her arms. Her hair was tied up in a pony tail that stretched down to one side, and it bounced angrily. “And besides, think about it. You’ve been telling people I’m your old lady now, right? What happens if one of them sees Paxton and me out together? Word will get back to your people, and then you’re screwed.”

Ram frowned. She was right, though he didn’t like to admit it. Marlowe was a small town, and everybody knew everybody.

It would be a bad scene if some other little shit was out with his “old lady.”