TRIGGER: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel (13 page)

Besides, when it came to
sex, I’d only ever had one man who pleased me. And in the deepest darkest
moments of the night, when Brock was out banging some tart or passed out drunk
beside me, it was the memory of him that satisfied me. Even though it made me
ashamed, knowing that Trigger certainly didn’t spend
his
nights touching himself to thoughts of me, it was all I had.

I’d conjure up a night – any
of those vivid nights – and let myself fall back into the memory.

My hands would follow the
same path Trigger’s had, starting at my neck, moving down my chest towards my
breasts, the same way his mouth had so many years before. I’d feel my skin
begin to twinkle and shiver as I pictured his tongue curling around my nipples,
his lips closing gently over them and pulling back, his hands supporting them
from below, the weight of him pressing me down.

Sometimes, I’d turn myself
over, to better muffle the movement from a sleeping Brock, and imagine Trigger’s
hands gripping my hips, pulling me towards him while my thighs parted. With my
head buried in the pillow, I’d bite it to keep from moaning, remembering the
way his cock had teased me, pressed against my slit, promising so much pleasure
but holding back while he enjoyed the view of me from behind, his hands tickling
up and down my sides before moving around to cup my mound, one finger slipping
between my lips to rub my clit, slick with my own juices, all the while
entering me one torturous centimeter at a time, slowly spreading my pussy for
his manhood.

My juices would run down my
thighs as I squirmed, one hand tight on the sheets, my hips working as though
he were actually there, and I was just waiting, deliciously waiting, for him to
enter me all the way, to fill me the way only he’d been able to do, plunging
himself down into me and immediately finding the places inside me that most
ached for him.

While my finger worked my
clit, I’d imagine his hands coming back to my hips, holding me tight in place,
not letting me thrust against him the way my body craved to, taking control of
me, defining the pace of my pleasure, sliding in and out almost leisurely, but
forceful enough that each thrust made the flames on my face jump and lick, my
thighs clenching and quivering as my muscles tensed to the point of rubber
bands stretched to their limits.

I’d imagine one of his hands
coming up to my shoulder, as it always would, pulling me even further onto his
cock, his pace quickening as his own pleasure took control, our needs aligning
as he began to slam into me with force, his hips hitting my ass hard enough to
almost leave a bruise, until finally his body would shudder and release behind
me, filling me with his cum, and only then I’d let myself go, biting even
harder against the pillow to stifle my moans as my juices released in a flood
and my clit exploded in a frenzy of indefinable pleasure.

And then the fantasy would
end, and I’d be left with wet fingers in a bed that felt cold despite Brock’s
warm body so close by. My body would spark and shake slightly as the last of my
climax waned away, and rolling over I’d fold my hands between my knees, curled
up slightly, and try not to cry. Try to be grateful for the memory that still
allowed me this rare and spectacular pleasure, hollow as it might be.

“
Did
someone tell you that we are patient men?”

“Did someone tell you that we are quick to forgive?”

“Did someone tell you we go easy on people who make mistakes?”

The three men spoke one after another, standing in front of Mikey with
their hands behind their backs. The tallest of the three men, wearing an olive
green suit that looked straight out of the 40’s, finished out the round with a
sickening smile.

“If someone told you those things, friend, they were lying.”

Mikey was sweating profusely, even though the room was cold. The room
itself was like something from Guantanamo Bay; dimly lit, gray concrete floor,
a single bulb swinging from a chain. There was no furniture except for the
chair he currently occupied. Unwillingly occupied, as it were; his ankles and
wrists were tied to the chair’s limbs.

His heart was beating faster than a racehorse. He wasn’t sure he was
going to get out of here alive. He wasn’t sure he’d
want
to get out of here alive, after the hulking
men who stood behind the three kingpins were done with him.

He cursed, for a billionth time, the horse whose leg had broken in the
last turn around the track. His horse. His stupid, useless, fucking horse. Mad
Hatter’s Tea Party should have won. Everything was in place for it to win.
Mikey’s friend, a stable hand at the dinky track, had slipped low doses of
tranquilizers to the rest of the horses. Not enough to make them too tired to
run, but definitely slowing them enough to make an easy win for Mikey – and the
three men who were placing their bets on Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, a
third-stringer if there ever was one.

The track itself was no place for high-rollers; it was tucked behind an
impoverished town in Upstate New York. But that was how these men operated;
they knew that the smaller and less official the gamble, the more chance they
had to reap a tidy profit. They were supposed to come out of that race $20,000
up. Instead, Mad Hatter’s Tea Party had taken a tumble in the last lap. All in
all, the men weren’t out more than $5,000. Mikey didn’t see how $5,000 dollars
was enough for all this fuss.

Of course, ‘all this fuss’ meant a lot more pain and agony for Mikey than
it did for the three men before him.

“Your horse broke its leg,” the second man in the row said. He looked
down at his fingernails thoughtfully. “Will you be keeping the horse alive? I
suppose not. From what I understand, a horse with a broken leg isn’t useful for
much besides dog food.”

“No, sir,” Mikey said. “He’ll be put down.”

“Not much of a horse to start with, was he?” the third man said. All
three men were clean-shaven, with brown eyes and brown hair. They could have
been brothers – it wouldn’t have surprised Mikey in the slightest. The glimmer
of sheer inhumanity in their eyes suggested some sort of genetic abnormality
that caused them to be born devoid of souls.

“No, sir,” Mikey agreed. “That’s why…”

“We know that’s why,” the first man interrupted. “We know our business
far better than you do, Mikey. You came to us, remember? With your stable hand
friend and sedative gel? Do you recall?”

“Yes, sir,” Mikey said. Every second that passed was an hour. He was
torturously aware that these would be the last pain-free moments of his life
for some time.

“Well, at any rate, all of this is just delaying the inevitable. We
prefer punishments which fit the crimes,” the second man said, beckoning to one
of the thugs behind him. A huge, burly man stepped into the circle of light
and, crouching down, untied one of Mikey’s ankles. His heart raced. Sweat
trickled down the side of his face.

“Please,” he
spit
, panic taking over now.
“Please don’t do this. It wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t have known, I couldn’t
possibly have known!”

“It wasn’t my fault!” A second man stepped forward and grabbed Mikey’s
kicking foot, holding it tight and still no matter how Mikey struggled to free
himself. The man moved backwards a few paces, stretching out Mikey’s leg until
it was straight.

“Please, have mercy, please! It wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t my fault! I’ll
do anything, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll make up the money, somehow, I’ll get your money
back! I swear!” The first burly man who’d come forth raised himself and,
reaching around his back, pulled a large, shiny hammer from his belt.

“Oh God, what are you
gonna
do? Please, please
don’t, please have mercy, please don’t do this!” The man with the hammer raised
it high over his head. Mikey struggled and fought, trying to kick his leg free.
His balls curled up into his body, sweat pouring down his sides.

“I’ll do anything, anything, I swear, I swear!” The man with the hammer
looked at his bosses. In unison, they nodded. With a roar, he swung the hammer
downwards.

Mikey’s screams filled the room, leaking out the sides of the door, only
to die, unheard, in the empty cellar.

Trigger

The kid was sneering at me,
and I didn’t know why.

He was young, maybe 24, buzz
cut, military tattoos mingling with more traditional biker tattoos. I knew him,
well. We’d never got along. He had himself a good dose of PTSD, and try as I
might to joke around with him, his temperament ran towards the overly violent –
always looking for a fight.

We called him Puck, after
his old man, a true blue Black Smoke of days gone by who had an inexplicable
love for hockey, hard to come by in a desert. Puck’s place in the club was
largely cemented by these misplaced affections towards his pop. I don’t think
Reign was too keen on the boy’s tradition of silence and begrudging attitude. I
always wondered why he ever took on the cut in the first place, if he was going
to be so sour about it all the time.

But up until that night, I’d
never had reason to make trouble with him. Or, so I thought, him with me.
Besides, when you’re a family, like us, you didn’t fight your brothers. And
when you’re
our
type of family,
particularly, everyone else in the world is so damn eager to fight you in the
first place that your efforts are much better served
protecting
your brothers.

But from the second I walked
into the bar that night, I knew Puck was itching to hash something out with me.

It wasn’t until I saw the
broad he’d been entertaining that I figured out what it was.

“Sup?” Endo asked, leaning
across the bar, dirty rag hanging out of his back pocket. He must have heard
the deep groan that I’d unwittingly let loose, because his eyes on me were
wary.

“Puck,” I said over the top
of my pint glass. Tomorrow was the day we’d light out for Reno, for my
first-ever not-so-prize fight. I’d spent the month sparring with
Knicker
, who was still pretty spry for an older guy, and
learning the ins and outs of taking a fall from
Youtube
videos and fighting forums.

Endo’s eyes followed mine.
That damn redhead was leaning on the kid’s arm like she had a bum knee,
whispering something into his ear. The kid’s eyes flitted back and forth from
her to me.

“What’d
ya
do to him,” Endo asked, a smile on his face. “Rub his head for good luck?”

I shot him a sour glance.

“How long’s he been with
that lollipop?” I asked. Endo shrugged.

“He’s been buying her drinks
for…oh, I don’t know, two weeks now? Seems a bit infatuated if you ask me. Why
do you ask? Got designs on her?
Wanna
see if she can
pull your, uh, trigger?” When I slammed my pint down on the bar, Endo laughed
and backed away with his palms up. “Sorry ‘bout the pun. Just can’t help
myself.”

“She’s crazy,” I said. “Tried
to use her heel as a sewing machine with my face as the fabric.
After
I went down on her and offered to
give her a ride home and everything.”

Endo’s face darkened
slightly as he watched the couple, who were now
both
making eyes at me. He could sense the same heat they were
throwing as much as I could, and I could see that it didn’t make him
comfortable. Endo is a real
Kumbaya
kind of
motherfucker.

“Well, leave the kid and his
ladyfriend
be, right?” he said, now throwing that
worried glance my way. “We
ain’t
had a fight in here
for three months now, and I aim to keep it that way.”

“A fight?” Honey came out of
nowhere, throwing one of her arms around me. She was running food and drinks
out to the tables – it was a busy night at the bar, everyone gearing up for the
next day’s trip down to Reno. “Who’s
gonna
fight?
Who’d
wanna
fight on a night like this?”

Endo nodded at Puck and the
redhead, and Honey’s head swiveled in their direction.

“Puck and Bella? Aw,
naw
, they
ain’t
fightin
’, they’re in
loooooove
,”
she said. “Damn good thing, too. Poor kid’s got some heart on him, but it’s all
buried in sand.”

“Honey, you see the best in
everyone,” Endo said with a fond smile. “Puck’s making the eyes at Trigger here
‘
cause
Trigger made it with the girl and she tried to
give him a lobotomy.”

“
Ooooh
,”
Honey said, her eyes focusing a bit more now. “Well, I think I can take care of
that right quick. C’mon,
babycakes
, let’s make this
family feud disappear, shall we?”

Before I could protest,
Honey was dragging me across the bar, still with one arm around my neck like a
headlock. Of course, it was a bit like getting a headlock from
Tinkerbell
, but all the same she had some leverage on me.
And, I figured, it was either sit around getting death stares from Puck all
night or let Honey put it to rest between us.

Once we got within spitting
distance, I separated myself from Honey and stood with my arms crossed. I
nodded at Puck, who nodded back. Honey plopped herself down at the table, much
to Bella’s obvious disgust. Ignoring the daggers being thrown in her direction,
she pulled Puck close.

“I don’t like it when my
boys fight,” she said. “Now, a girl is a girl…”

“Shut up, Honey,” Puck’s
voice was deep for his age – and his stature. I towered over him easily. He was
big, bulky, but shorter than me. Still, his voice had the rough rumble of a man
of many years. Honey’s face snapped towards his, her expression pure hurt. I
felt the first kindling of anger in my chest. I liked Honey. Everyone did. She
only ever tried to make things nice. Snapping at her was uncalled for.

“Listen,” I said, stepping
forward as Honey leaned away from Puck with a sour look on her face. She wasn’t
used to be talked to like that, either, and I knew she could let loose a
torrent that would beat a man down even faster than my fists. I kind of wanted
to save her the trouble. “I don’t know what you got in your mind to be staring
me down like that, but…”

“Oh, I tell you what he’s
got in his mind,” Bella said, her voice high and shrill. “He’s got it in his
mind that I’m
gonna
be his old lady, and you
disrespected me, and that calls for some correcting.”

Puck’s eyes flinched
slightly as he looked at her, but I could see the desire there anyway. He
wanted something from this girl, that was sure. But what it was…now, that much
I couldn’t tell.

“Right?” Bella nudged,
fixing Puck in a glare that meant business. He nodded, then, and turned to me
with the scowl on his face once more.

“I heard you were a right dick,”
he said. “And I don’t like people being right dicks to women, especially not
women I happen to have some affection for.”

“Sorry, man,” I said through
gritted teeth. “But this happened before you two got together, and I don’t
think it’s any of your business what happens in my own damn bedroom. And for
the record,” I knew I was going too far but couldn’t help myself, “if you’d
been between those sheets with us, you would know I treated her damn fine.”

A clatter as the table
overturned and the sour trickle of beer spilling over as Puck advanced towards
me, fists in the air. For one wild moment, I thought this was the perfect
opportunity to test out what it would feel like to throw a fight, to try out
those moves I’d been practicing with
Knicker
. But before
I could even stop myself, my hand shot forward, digging into the soft fleshy
mass of Puck’s neck even as his left fist landed between my ear and my scalp,
the distant ringing of pain mitigated by my own adrenaline.

His other fist fell square
on my left eye, and I moved forward with all my force, holding him by the neck
while my free hand balled up and shot into his stomach. This was the kind of
fighting I did; dirty, no-holds-barred scuffles. And it was the kind of
fighting I loved to do.

Puck’s face was reddening
even as I folded my body into his, releasing his neck only to grab him around
the chest. Screaming had erupted in the bar all around us, male and female,
some seeming to egg us on while other voices chanted for mercy. But one voice
rose above all the others, making my body sag around Puck’s.

He took the opportunity to
land one great elbow shot to my jaw; as my teeth clattered together, I tasted
bright metallic blood, and it drew me back to my body, to the struggling form I
still held in my tight grip. I threw him down to the ground, satisfaction in
the sound of chairs tumbling around him as he flailed trying not to land
face-down on the dirty ground. The effort was in vain, and the kid got a good
taste of old beer and cigarette ash.

“The fuck is this shit,”
Reign’s voice came in a fervent bellow across the room. “We don’t fuckin’ fight
our own. Get the fuck over here, boys.”

The crowd
ooh’d
like we were kids in high school about to get sent
down to the principle. I spat out a glob of blood, felt around my mouth; no
teeth missing, thank God. In prison I’d spit out plenty of my own pearly
whites, but they give you the best damn dentistry in the clink, you wouldn’t
believe it.

Looking down on the kid, I
felt my own shoulders heaving, felt bad for putting him out so viciously. In
front of his chick. Even if she
was
bat
shit crazy. As he turned, I considered putting my hand down to help him up,
then thought better. He’d just swat it away, anyway. The few punches he’d
managed to land had been solid, but I already knew they weren’t
gonna
leave bruises.

Just as I was going to make
my way towards Reign and take whatever stupid criticism he’d have to dole out,
I was stopped in my tracks by a red blur. Like a spider monkey on crack, Bella
launched herself at me, and wrapping her legs around my waist began to pound on
my back.

“
Fuck’n
dick! How
fuck’n
dare you!” she screamed, amidst a
slew of other sounds that were more like Nine Inch Nails being played through a
tin can than anything else. Baffled, I fell backwards, the whole bar erupting
in laughter. Her frail, boney frame was nothing, but the inch-long press-on
nails she was wearing were doing a number on my back, even through my shirt.

“Someone get this crazy
bitch off me!” I screamed, my ass hitting the floor just as I felt her weight
relieved, strong arms closing around her waist and shoulders and prying her off
me. Her shoes, more of those killer spikes, kicked at the air, one making a
jabbing contact with my shin that had me jerking around like a sick cat, all my
muscle nothing compared to a gash like that.

“Fuck!” I roared, clutching
my injured shin as I tried to make sense of what had just happened in the past
moments. Laughter erupted around me as I was helped back up to my feet. Out of
the corner of my eye, I watched Honey dragging a much-protesting Bella across
the bar towards the door, her mouth moving quickly; I couldn’t hear the
dressing-down she was doling out over the din, but from the look on her face it
was a royal one. Bella’s face was still turned to me, screaming nonsense.

“That how you take a fall,
Trig?”

“Won’t be too hard to fool ‘
em
tomorrow!”

“She got
ya
good, boy!”

I spat on the ground,
pushing through the crowd, limping slightly on my way to Reign, who stood with
his head in his hands in the far corner of the bar. Once we made it through the
thick of it, I could feel Puck’s presence behind me as he shuffled towards our
shared punishment. All my anger had drained away, replaced with a good dose of
shame and general irritation. Along with a growing concern for my injured leg.
I could feel the blood trickling down, wetting the denim of my jeans.

“The fuck is happening?”
Reign asked, but didn’t wait for our response. “Pair of morons, fuckin’
fighting for no damn reason! You got enough
fightin
’
to do tomorrow, Trig, the fuck you
wastin
’ your
punchin
’ arm on your own damn brother? Get the fuck into
the office!”

I sneered at Reign, crossing
my arms across my chest. This hadn’t been
my
fucking fight, and I didn’t appreciate being talked to like some kid. He
held my stare, eyes narrowed. His lips pursed together so tight they turned
white. Behind me, Puck sulked.

“Get. In. The. Office,”
Reign repeated, now pointing through the door.