The Stolen Girl (5 page)

The person on Slammer’s left was definitely a biker, but she was also definitely a woman! The woman had bright reddish-orange hair, cut short and swept across her head. Her face had a few hard lines on it, and she wore a scowl, but she still had an angular sort of attractiveness. More than that, however, she seemed to exude an air of barely contained anger. She wore a sleeveless leather vest, dipping low enough to show a hint of cleavage, but both her vest’s shoulders and her leather gauntlets were covered in spiked metal studs. These weren’t simply gleaming decoration, either; I swore that I could see dark stains discoloring the bumps on her knuckles. As I made eye contact with her, she glared back and slowly cracked her knuckles with a loud popping sound.

“So, this is our meal ticket?” the woman said, her voice sounding scornful. “She doesn’t look like much. Honestly, Slammer, this whole thing seems like a dumbass idea.”

“Shut your mouth, Flamer,” Slammer replied. He didn’t raise his voice, or even turn his head, but the woman did as he asked, her jaw slamming shut with a snap. Her eyes were briefly filled with rage, but she merely tightened her fists in those leather gauntlets.

“Toss her onto my bike,” the big man went on. “We’re getting out of here.”

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and shifted my gaze over. Biggie and Chainz had both gotten up from their bench and had approached us. Of the teenager, Rachel, I didn’t see any sign. She must have run off as soon as they let her go. I felt a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, thinking about what I had seen her doing. Chainz returned my eye contact and leered at me. I wanted to be wearing a blanket, something to cover myself up from his roving, perverted eyes.

“No,” Roads replied. “I’m taking her.”

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S
lammer’s eyebrow twitched for an instant. “What?”

“You heard me,”
Roads repeated.
“I don’t trust you with her. I’m going along with this plan, but I’m going to make sure that she gets returned without any harm. She’s coming on my bike.”

The man in black in front of me took a challenging step forward. “Roads, you’re out of line! Don’t forget who’s the leader of this gang! Or do you want to challenge that?”

Roads’ hand on my shoulder pushed me aside - thankfully, nudging me more towards Flamer than towards Chainz and Biggie. With me out of the way, my protector also took a step forward towards Slammer. The two men, both standing over six feet, were barely an arm’s width apart. “I’m trying to do what’s best for this gang!” Roads shouted. “And that doesn’t involve getting us all on the Most Wanted list for accidentally killing the daughter of a prominent politician!”

Slammer’s hands had rose up to his chest, tightening and balling up into fists. Roads’ hands were still at his sides, but I could see them pulling into fists as well. The men stood and glared at each other, two alpha males sizing each other up and watching for any sign of weakness. I sensed that this was much deeper than it seemed; this was a power struggle that affected the entire gang. The other members were standing around, not moving forward to get involved but also keeping their eyes peeled and watching every detail of what transpired.

“Listen to me,” Roads spoke up again, not breaking eye contact. “I’ve gone along with your plan this entire time. And I know that you want to do what’s best for the Outlaws. I do too. But I just want to make sure that nothing goes wrong, that we can get our cash and get out of here without having the Feds chasing us for the rest of our lives!”

Slammer shook his head. “I think that you don’t trust me,” he hissed, his eyes piercing like daggers. “Do you trust me, Roads? Because if you don’t, well, we’ve got a problem.”

For a long minute longer, Roads held the gang leader’s gaze. But then, he let his eyes drop down, looking down at the ground and breaking eye contact. “I trust you,” he said. Each of those three words sounded as though it was forced with monumental effort, but they came out. His hands were still pulled into fists, and I could see his knuckles turning white as his fingertips bit into his palms.

The answer seemed to be enough to please the gang leader, however, and Slammer took a step back and relaxed his pose. “Good,” he said. “And you better keep on trusting me. Or else, if one of these days I find out that you’re going behind my back, well, your punishment won’t just be a beating. You know that?”

Roads didn’t respond, but Slammer kept going. “If you cross me,” he went on, “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“If I disagree with you,” Roads replied, “I’ll make sure that you know it. But the girl’s still riding with me.” His eyes rose back up to meet Slammer’s.

It didn’t matter any more, though - I could see that the leader of the bikers felt that he had won. He had made his opponent back down, and that was what mattered. “Fine,” he said, shrugging and waving away the issue with a hand. “We’re all going to the same place anyway. Back to the haunt.” He raised his voice and waved one hand towards the bikes, parked in the lot. “Let’s ride!”

As the other bikers nodded and headed towards the choppers, Roads once again stepped up to me. “Come on,” he whispered down to me. “That red chopper, parked up in the corner? That one’s mine. Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle before?”

I stared at the bike that he had indicated. It was huge, a giant piece of gleaming red metal, black leather seating, and shining chrome. Wordlessly, I shook my head. I was definitely intimidated.

Roads stepped up to the bike, and threw a leg over it. Straddling it, he used his weight to shift it upright, off of the kick stand that was holding it up, one hand steadying the front wheel by resting on the handlebars. He turned towards me, and his other hand patted the leather behind him. “Climb up here,” he said, not unkindly. “See these pegs at the sides? Those are for your feet to rest on. It’s just like sitting on a see-saw at a jungle gym.”

Yeah, except see-saws don’t contain an engine and go roaring out from under you at seventy miles per hour. I climbed onto the back of the hog, putting my feet up on the little foot rests that Roads had indicated. I saw a problem, however. “What about my hands? What do I hold on to?”

Despite the situation, Roads grinned briefly at this. “That would be me,” he replied. “Go ahead and wrap your arms around me - trust me, I won’t be bothered if you end up squeezing tightly.”

Around me, loud roars marked the other bikers firing up their machines. I glanced around at them. Biggie was on a massive black cruiser that seemed to be riding especially close to the ground - although that might just be his weight, forcing the shocks to their maximum compression limit. Chainz was on a chopper that seemed to be all gleaming chrome, blinding in the last rays of the setting sun. Flamer’s chopper was bright orange, a clashing but somehow fitting match to her burning hair. And the last man, the one with the glasses, had a slightly smaller blue bike with saddlebags hanging off the sides and a hard-shelled container on the back behind him.

Roads opened his mouth to say something, but his words were washed away in a thundering roar, and Slammer pulled up alongside us. The gang leader sat astride a massive chopper, bigger than any other in the gang. Painted a matte black color, something about it just looked, well, angry. I noticed that there was a ram’s skull strapped to the front, above the front wheel and between the handlebars, just above the large, single, angry headlight.

“Is this the little kitty’s first time on a real bike?” Slammer asked in a mocking tone. He grinned at me. “She’s in for a treat! You sure you can handle her, Roads?”

“I’m fine,” Roads replied shortly, and then, grabbing the handlebars with both hands, I saw him mash down a button on the right grip, and between my legs, the bike suddenly roared into thundering life.

In shock at the sudden noise and movement, I threw my hands around Roads, clinging tightly. I felt the man’s chest shake, and looked up. Wait a moment. Was he laughing?

He most definitely was. The man turned his head to glance back at me as I clung to him, wide-eyed and scared as the machine rumbled between my legs like an angry panther. “Just try to hold on!” he called out. “Focus on keeping your grip, and ignore the rest!” And then, before I could respond, the man twisted his right hand on the throttle, and the bike leapt forward beneath us.

Before Roads had started up the bike, I had intended to keep my eyes peeled for landmarks, to try and gather as much information as possible about where we were, where we were heading, so that I could hopefully pass my location off to the authorities if I had a chance to make contact. As soon as that motorcycle was running, however, just about all conscious thoughts fled from my mind. I couldn’t read the street signs. I couldn’t look around at the buildings that went whizzing past, memorize the landmarks that I saw or the stores that flashed before my eyes. All I could think about was that vibrating sensation between my legs, soaking in through the thin fabric of my pajamas and sending waves of pleasure shooting out from between my thighs and zinging up and down my spine.

My arms were wrapped around Roads’ chest, but my fingers tightened into claws as I gripped at this man, kept myself pressed against him. On my chest, beneath the thin cotton of my tank top and bra, I could feel my nipples growing hard, erect, poking out. I wondered if the man in front of me could feel them pressing against his back. The raging sensation was exhilarating and exhausting at the same time - and, worst of all, the longer it persisted, the hornier I could feel myself growing!

I’d never had urges like these before. Sure, when I’d been with my boyfriend back in high school, I’d occasionally felt a longing to be pressed up against him, to feel his naked flesh against mine, to soak up his warmth. But that was nothing compared to the hot desire now overflowing in my veins.

Trying frantically to distract myself from the pleasure rising up from my belly, I glanced around at the other bikers. We had all rolled out of the parking lot in a big group, and they were settling into a loose formation around us on both sides. Slammer had roared ahead to take the lead, but Flamer, the biker with the glasses, and Chainz were alongside us on the right and left. My eyes briefly caught those of Chainz, and he grinned wickedly at me. I wondered if he knew what I was feeling; my guess was that he did. I quickly tore my eyes away.

Turning back to face forward again, I buried my head in the shoulder of my rider, Roads, to try and avoid the rushing wind of the road. My hands were locked around him, my fingers still digging into his chest and sides as I clung to him.

Roaring along the highway at seventy miles per hour, each tiny bump or pothole that we hit sent a shock running through my body. After running over one especially striking pothole, I couldn’t hold in a verbal moan, and it slipped out into Roads’ ear. Despite the pleasure coursing through my body and limbs, I still froze as I realized what I had just done. Had he heard me? The man gave no indication that he had done so, however, and I spent the rest of the ride focusing on not letting him realize how powerfully his vibrating, shaking ride was playing with me, was pleasuring me.

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I
t was late in the afternoon when Senator Leonard Sterling’s phone rang. The man was sitting in his living room, gazing down at a paper and trying to lose himself in his reading, but he had been stuck on the same page for the last twenty minutes. His eyes were on the words, but his mind was elsewhere, unable to stop running through scenario after horrifying scenario. In his mind’s eye, he could see his daughter bound and gagged in some freak’s basement, lying motionless in a ditch, in handcuffs and being sold into slavery…

Fortunately, the phone startled Sterling out of his trance, vibrating in his pocket as it buzzed at him. He sat up and fumbled for it, taking several seconds before he was able to get it out of his pocket and swipe his finger across the surface. “Hello?” he said, unable to keep a note of hopefulness out of his voice.

“Hello, is this Senator Sterling?” Sterling recognized the voice on the line. It was the female FBI agent, Carol, who had seemed moved by his plight when he had gone in to give his statement.