TRIGGER: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (12 page)

“Too early,” she mumbled,
eyes shut tight. Her face was just fine, her smudged make-up giving her that
smoky look all the girls die to get. But those thoughts of Cass that morning
only made me think she’d look better without gunk all over her face. In fact,
as I lowered myself to sit beside her, I couldn’t imagine letting her give me a
repeat performance, though it’d been the one thing I looked forward to when I
woke up that morning.

“Early bird gets the worm,”
I said, hoping I could inspire myself to action. I snaked a hand beneath the
covers and found her body, warm and soft, naked. She moaned, still covered with
the blanket, as my fingers found her breasts and teased one nipple slightly.

“You’re nasty,” she said,
finally releasing her grip on the comforter and sliding it down to reveal
herself. She was thin, too thin for my liking, but she had a magnificent rack.
As I dipped my head down, taking one nipple in my mouth while moving my hand to
tease the other, I tried to lose myself in her scent, in her uniqueness, tried
to chase those thoughts of Cass away.

The girl’s body writhed
under my mouth, her hands falling to my hair and raking across my scalp. I eyed
her from my lower vantage point; her lips were pursed together tight, her neck
craned backwards. I let my free hand travel downwards; she was clean shaven,
and her body jerked violently as my finger dipped between her folds and across
her clit.

“Trigger,” she moaned, my
name candy from her lips, and I felt my cock stirring slightly. Only slightly,
though. This was going to require the big guns, if I was going to perform and
successfully rid my mind of painful memories.

I kissed down her torso,
long and lean, lingering over her belly button until she giggled. Lower still,
I let my tongue slip between her lips, my finger dropping to slip into her
wetness. She moaned again, her hands buried in my hair, and her face lifted to
look down at me, lips parted, eyes squinted in an expression that could have
been pain.

My tongue rolled over her
clit, which almost throbbed in my mouth, as I slipped a second finger into her
wet pussy. She was ready for me, impossibly wet, her thighs first spreading
then closing around my neck as her body shuddered. I hummed slightly and heard
her coo in appreciation, then flicked upwards sharply, causing her hips to
jump.

“You’re so fucking good,”
she cried out as her fingers clung more desperately to my scalp. My fingers
inside her curled, pulling forward slightly, looking for that place inside her
that would drive her over the edge. Nothing was surer to get me ready to fuck
than feeling a woman’s climax, her juices spilling over my fingers.

When, finally, I found the
soft space inside her that I knew to be her G-spot, I lowered my teeth slightly
so that they just grazed her clit and pressed down hard. She shot straight up
in bed, her thighs tightening to a death grip around my neck, and cried out
loud enough to wake the dead.

All of a sudden, my hand was
drenched, her pussy contracting around my fingers as I pulsed them inside her
once more, her clit rigid and nearly buzzing with pleasure as I lapped at it,
sucking it between my lips, letting her body shudder and buck under my touch.

“Oh, God, Trigger, fuck,”
she moaned as she fell back against the sheets, sweat gleaming now on her
chest, breasts heaving with labored breath. I smiled as I pulled away, but it
was a forced smile; somehow, my cock was still stubbornly limp, and even when I
pulled my fingers away and felt her wetness trickling down my palm, I couldn’t
summon the desire needed to properly fuck her.
God dammit Cass,
I thought, crawling up to join the buxom girl
laying on the bed.
After all these years…

Before my head even hit the
pillow, I could feel the girl’s hands tugging desperately at the zipper of my
pants. Her hand, dry and somewhat clammy, closed around my limp cock, and she
looked up at me with a sort of desperate smile.

“You should get a medal or
something,” she murmured, her hand pumping lightly. I could feel my blood
pumping, but the more I watched her overly-made-up eyes, staring up at me
expectantly, the more I felt like there was nothing in the world I wanted less than
to see her head bobbing up and down on my cock. That would surely be the next
step; but what good would it do? Even if the poor thing did manage to get me
hard, did manage to make me come, what would the point be? I just wasn’t
feeling it. Gingerly, I laid my hand over hers and pulled it away.

“Sorry, baby, just
ain’t
into it this morning,” I said. Her smile immediately
folded into a deep frown, a wrinkle appearing between her brows.

“What? But you just…what is
it? I’m not pretty enough, am I? Oh, I’m so stupid…” her eyes seemed to flash
wildly from anger to sadness to self-loathing. I groaned inwardly. Maybe it
would
be easier just to let her blow me,
after all. Maybe I could imagine she was Cass…

But I hadn’t done that in
years. I hadn’t let myself. I didn’t deserve to think of her like that. As much
as she was still the only woman who’d ever made me feel like I was any good, I
didn’t ever want her to just be a fantasy. It was all or nothing. And all I had
was nothing. So I had better be happy with it.

“You’re gorgeous,” I said,
wondering if she could hear the lie in my voice. I mean, it wasn’t much of a
lie; she was young and vibrant and beautiful with that morning bedhead and
smudgy make-up. But not to me, she wasn’t the girl I’d dream up as my ultimate
fantasy. “It’s not you, really. I promise. I just…I got some weird news this
morning, it’s got me kind of out of sorts.”

She rolled over, then up,
clutching her knees to her chest. She sniffled slightly, burying her nose
between her kneecaps.

“I get it,” she mumbled.
“I’m just some stupid slut.”

“Stop,” I said, rolling my
eyes behind her back. “I’m just not into it right now.”

She sniffled again, didn’t
look back. Which was a good thing, because I’m sure the look of annoyance on my
face would only have started her to bawling. I just didn’t have time for this
bullshit; or, rather, I had all the time in the world…but no patience. I’d just
given her a nice little orgasm, why couldn’t she just be grateful and move the
hell on? With a sigh, I figured I might as well
try
to be the nice guy.

“Listen, can I give you a
ride home? Where do you live?”

She uttered a short
exasperate sigh and stood up, so fast it was almost an act of violence. She
looked around the floor for her clothes; or, what passed for clothes at least.
It was the tiniest little red dress and a pair of fuck-me heels.

“I don’t need a ride,” she
said, nearly hissing. “I need a fucking drink.”

“Well, the bar’s right
across the lot, princess,” I said, fighting the urge to kick her off the edge
of the bed when she sat down to wobble her way into those stilettos. “But if I
were you, I’d just go home. What do you think you’re ever
gonna
get from hanging around here anyway? Shit, you can do better. Probably.”

She shot me a look over her
shoulder that was
one part
hatred, one part pathetic
hope.

“You don’t know me,” she
mumbled, moving on to the last resort of the young and misunderstood. My
frustration with her must have been palpable at that point. “You don’t know my
life.”

“Fine,” I spat. “And I don’t
fucking
want to. Ungrateful bitch.”

Oh boy,
I thought, realizing the exact moment I’d gone too far. The
slow turn of the head. The eyes narrowing more and more. The mouth screwed up
like a toddler about to throw a tantrum.

She was still holding one
stiletto up against her foot, having not yet slid her toes through the straps.
A moment later, my hand closed around her arm as it swung wide towards my face,
the spikey heel of her shoe poised to smack me straight in the nose. She
squealed slightly, her face red and eyes wild with anger (and a good dose of
hangover, I’d imagine). My grip on her was firm but gentle, only enough to keep
her diminutive strength at bay.

“You best not,” I said, the
low growl of my voice making her eyes go wide. A moment later and the shoe feel
harmlessly onto my lap; to be fair, it wasn’t
that
harmless, the heel still sharp enough to make my balls curl up
a bit as it smacked against my zipper. Her arm went limp and I released it,
tears now falling from her smudgy eyes liberally. She turned away from me
sharply.

“I’m sorry, I guess. Just
get out of here,” I said, handing her the shoe and getting up. I closed the
bathroom door between us and listened as she made a quick exit, the clatter of
her heels against the exposed wood floors an idyllic soundtrack to a dramatic
morning. I turned on the shower once I heard the click of the door closing. A
nice, long, hot shower…just what I needed to wash away the nasty feelings left
in my mouth. I uttered up a quick prayer of thanks that I’d never have to see
the crazy bitch again.

As it turns out, that thanks
was
a bit premature.

I should have known; when
was God ever on my side?

Cass

“Stop being so dramatic,” I
groaned. “I
never
said you were
gold-digging. I
never
said that. What
I did say was…”

Jennie interrupted me, going
off on a tangent about how I was in no position to judge her. Which, perhaps,
was true, but still.

“Jennie…Jennie…oh, my God,
you are such a little
drama queen,
all
I wanted to know is what you were doing for your
birthday,
if you
wanted
anything,
and I have to hear the goddam riot act…no…don’t…no don’t
interru
…ugh!”

I held the phone away from
my ear, not willing to listen to anymore of her criticisms.

You’re the one who’s unhappy,
she would say.

At least I don’t let my boyfriend treat me like a whipping girl,
she would
say.

At least Mike treats me like he loves me,
she would
say.

At least I’m not still pining over some guy who left me a million years
ago,
she would say.

Blah blah blah.

“Listen…listen
Jenn
…
Jenn
, I’m hanging up
now…yes, okay, yes…well, same to you…I’ll talk to you soon,” I said, clicking
off with a frustrated grunt. I let the phone clatter to the desk where my
laptop glowed softly, the room dim though it was past noon. Brock liked the
house dark when he slept off a hangover. He also liked it quiet, and I’d
probably asked for trouble by having a conversation with Jennie in the first
place, but the urge to call her and just hear her voice had hit me hard and
unexpected.

Her birthday was a week
away. I’d planned on getting her a tablet, but she’d mentioned that Mike, her
much-older boyfriend (and ex-boss) had already given her one as a
pre-
birthday gift. It had made me grit
my teeth a bit; the tablet I’d been eying would have done a number on my bank
account, and I probably would have had to hide the purchase from Brock. So now
it was back to the drawing board.

Nothing made any of it worse
than the fact that my kid sister was right about a lot of what she said. Not
that I was
wrong
about what I said to
her,
per say, but she was right. I
wasn’t
happy. I still did pine for a man
who’d left me long ago. Those days in New Hampshire haunted me in a way I
wasn’t sure I’d ever escape…

Life hadn’t been very fun
after coming back to New York. When I’d finally realized he was done with me,
it had been a hard pill to swallow – but I’d managed. I’d gotten a room in a
three-bedroom apartment in
Bushwick
, picked up two
part-time jobs waitressing in the city.

I saw Jennie on a weekly
basis, at the kindness of Jackie and Gloria, who had taken as good care of her
as I’d known. She was doing well, too. Good in school, lots of friends. When
she smiled, it was a real smile. They gave her new clothes, vacations, books
and games and all the things a child could want and need to flourish.

When I met Brock, I was 23.
Jennie was just about to turn 14. He’d been a big, burly long-haul truck
driver. He always stopped in to see me at the café I worked at, always with
some sweet thing to say and sometimes even a little gift. He was a good tipper,
too.
 
He wasn’t my type by a country
mile: huge, bulking shape, crew cut hair, yellow teeth from years of smoking.
But what did looks matter? Besides, I liked his tattoos. They reminded me
of…well…you can guess.

I hadn’t been with anyone
since Trigger – at least, not seriously. A few attempts at dating that had
never panned out. I was tired of living in Brooklyn, tired of the sad, dreary
city streets. I’d been mugged the year before, and no longer felt safe walking
alone at night.

I’d just been tired of
feeling like I was going it all alone, of looking down all the long road of my
life and seeing it filled with nothing but the same old shit. Brock had
promised me fun on the road, a life where I’d never have to work if I didn’t
want to, mountains and rivers and streams and cities and good food and music
and laughter. I’d believed his promises.

I was dumb.

And, I was selfish.

Jennie was just coming into
her teenage years when I left the second time, and I should have known how much
more she would need me then. Her voice, when I told her I was leaving, had been
cold and reluctant, but she hadn’t fought it or questioned it the way she had
when she was younger.

While my heart ached the
final time I hugged her, I managed to convince myself that this, too, was for
the better. What good could I really be to her if I was depressed and miserable
and bitter? I had dreams of her coming to visit me wherever I ended up, of
bringing her along on one of our trips, of showing her the Grand Canyon, or
Yellowstone, or, when she got older, Vegas.

But none of those things
ever came to pass.

Instead, she only grew more
distant,
more sullen
, and more resentful. As she grew
into her teenage years, our conversations got shorter and shorter, her tone
more clipped. The secrets grew. More and more often, I had to learn about
things in her life from Jackie and Gloria.

Where she once gleefully ran
to the phone whenever I called, she started claiming to be “too busy” to talk
when I called. She’d hit “ignore” when I called her cell phone. It got to the
point where I was lucky to talk to her once a week. When she got her first job
at 16, I was proud of her. Little did I know that this job would, ultimately,
create the last rift between us.

Jackie had been frantic when
she’d called to tell me the news: Jennie had just dropped a bomb on them. On
all of us. As soon as she turned 18, she told them that she’d been dating her
manager at the retail store she worked at.

He was older, twice her age,
and wealthy, and she claimed to love him. She said they hadn’t been intimate
yet, but that she was ready to lose her virginity to him. As if that all wasn’t
bad enough, a month after this first revelation, she said she’d decided to move
in with him – in Nevada. He had family there, and an opportunity to open his
own store.

Of course, I’d immediately
booked a bus back to New York. We lived in Colorado, and it took three days to
get there.

By the time I did, her bags
were already packed, and she was leaving for the airport the very next day.

I wish I had been kinder to
her on that last night. Instead, I was pushy, and criticized her, and pleaded
with her to rethink it. I told her that she was making a mistake, that she
would regret it immediately, that she was breaking Jackie and Gloria’s hearts
after they’d been nothing but good to her. She wouldn’t listen. Of course she
wouldn’t. She was 18 and in love.

And why
should
she listen to me? I had abandoned her twice. And it was no
secret that I was miserable with Brock; try as I might to hide it, the few
times I’d managed to get him to come to Christmas or Easter in New York, he’d
been so surly, rude, and cruel that it made everyone vividly uncomfortable.

I missed my little sister. I
took the blame for the current circumstances, but had no idea how to fix them.
I couldn’t lie to her and tell her I supported her decisions, even though I’d
met her older boyfriend and actually found him quite sweet. Instead, in an
effort to keep the peace, I tried not to discuss it at all. But that was hard
to do, since they lived together, and she was over-the-moon about him, and
wanted to talk about him all the time.

Which was why our phone
conversations always ended up the same: anger, tears, frustration.

While I tapped a pencil
against my teeth, ruminating on all this, my e-mail dinged. It would either be
from the tutoring service where I worked part-time, or something to do with
Brock’s upcoming fight in Reno. I breathed a sigh of relief to see that it was
a request from a student who wanted another session with me.

Of my two part-time jobs,
tutor was far easier to deal with than illegal underground fight manager. But
Brock, frankly, wasn’t good enough for anyone
not
dating him to want to manage. And, it kept him from bitching
about how I should be working more, making more money. Truth was, he made more
than enough for both of us in his day job as a construction worker, but he had
a spending problem as big as our budget, and we’d often find ourselves living
off my meagre wages a week after his payday.

Of course, he was under the
impression that all this was about to change. The last fight I’d booked him,
he’d gotten clobbered. Which was surprising, considering his considerable bulk
in comparison to the guy he’d been up against. But, as luck would have it,
there were some men in the audience who were
very
interested in Brock’s losing streak. Turns out, sometimes,
being a shit fighter works out for you. Like when they have a ringer who’ll
throw the fight, and make bank off the bets they place on you.

When the man in charge first
approached me, I’d been wary. Mostly because of his dumb outfit. He looked like
a poor man’s Frank Sinatra. But the cash he’d waved in my face had been real
and, he claimed, only
half
the amount
he was willing to pay to have Brock fight a guy in Reno. And win. A for sure
win.

Brock himself had been all
about it. Even when I’d voiced my concerns about getting involved in any sort
of racket like that, and after I’d done my research on the guys and their
venue. They ran a little basement fighting den, the kind that Brock generally
fought in. But they were notoriously cut throat in their dealings; when things
didn’t go their way, they were known to react with
extreme
prejudice. Like, six-feet-under prejudice.

“What could go wrong?” Brock
had argued, and I’d seen from the way his eyes started to narrow that this was
not a discussion that would end well. “I get a win under my belt, we get some
good money, maybe someone picks me up for a
real
fight, outside of these dingy-ass, crooked-ass, bullshit rings. They don’t
none of them fight fair, you know that, Cass. All I need is a fair fight and
you’ll see. The whole world will see.”

See that you’re a shit fighter with nothing but mass,
I wanted to
say, but bit my tongue. Turns out, even silence was the wrong thing.

“What? Can’t even agree with
me on something as fuck-all simple as that? Don’t think I’m a good fighter?
You’re a fucking cunt, Cass. I ever tell you how much of a fucking worthless
cunt you are? I been letting you run my career, and your dumb ass has run it
straight into the fucking ground. Now, I
ain’t
gonna
let you fuck this up for me,
you
dumb bitch,” he’d roared, his voice getting louder and louder with each
sentence.

“I’m sorry, baby, you’re
right,” I’d said quickly, laying my hand on his arm and trying to placate him.
He shook me off. “I’ve been doing a shit job, I know. This is great. This is
going to be great for you. You’ll show ‘
em
all.”

“Goddamn right I will! And
then I’ll get me a
real
fuckin’ girl.
A hot little model, and I’ll be
happy
giving
her all my damn money, at least she’ll put out. Not like you, frigid bitch.”

I’d winced. It was true,
Brock and I hadn’t slept together in upwards of two years. We’d been dating for
five years, and the first three had been fine; I was okay with letting him
stick it in me at night when he came home drunk. But then I learned he was
cheating. A lot. Like, every night. Even with me giving him all I could in the
bedroom, he was hiring prostitutes, damn near lived at a strip club, and would
take any bathroom bar fuck he could get.

After that, I’d said no
more. And he’d hemmed and hawed and threatened to kill me, but in the end he’d
been just as happy fucking
twice
the
number of girls on the side. Kept me around to manage the house we rented
together, and his career, and act the part of the good girlfriend at weddings
and parties. I was really good at that. At least, when he could keep his own
filthy, degrading mouth shut for long enough.

And me? Why did I stick
around?

Well, I guess I was in so
deep at that point, I didn’t see the point in leaving. He
did
help provide for me. Our house was
our
house. Our things were
our
things. And he could be sweet, sometimes…sort of.