He looked a little surprised.
“I’ll call her,” I offered. “Put her mind at ease. I’ll talk to my brothers’ girlfriends, too. They’ll all be cool. I’m sure of it.”
“I’d appreciate that.” Jesse put his beer to his lips.
I felt Christian staring at me.
“And if brothers’re being assholes about it, Jess, put ‘em in the ring.”
I punched my left palm with my right fist.
Jesse’s eyes lit with amusement, but he said nothing. We had a boxing ring we set up sometimes for kicks and occasionally for beefs that needed to be settled the old-fashioned way between members. I’d heard that my father had entered that ring a few times before he became VP in Sioux Falls.
“Oh, here.” I gestured with the key for Christian to take it.
“Later.” I winked at him and walked away.
I felt my belly flip-flop as I headed the other way. Gutsy to flirt openly like this with club members’ eyes on me. But, I felt safe enough to do it around Jesse, particularly with that offer of his help I’d just made. Jesse’d had the shortest stint as a prospect that I’d ever seen before getting his patch, less than a year, so I knew he was tight with my family, but I also didn’t worry too much about him ratting me out. He just didn’t seem the type. That man was a no-nonsense straight shooter and he didn’t go out of his way to have his voice heard a whole lot, but I’d heard my own dad say that when Jesse did open his mouth, what he said was not ever bullshit. Pure biker, part asshole, and smokin’ hot… I would’ve had a crush on him if I weren’t going after Fork. (And if he wasn’t with Gianna, of course).
Besides, my family had to get used to the idea I wasn’t a little kid anymore. I understood Gianna as a soul sister, because, I too, wanted my biker. I wanted to be one half of one of those couples by the fire or to be making out in the hall with my man without people losing their shit like my brother Deacon had done the last club party for Easter when I’d been making out with that prospect and got caught red-handed.
I bumped into Shane Stubbs by the pool table. Or maybe he bumped into me. Stubbs was a patched Sioux Falls member who’d been patched about three years. Before he got patched though? My face went hot. Way hot.
“Sorry, Jojo,” he said, looking at me up and down, his eyes devouring my body. His palm landed on my lower back.
“No worries,” I kept moving.
Flirting with Fork had been brave of me with the eyes around the place, especially because this place had been the first place I tried to try something with a biker and it’d backfired. That backfire was the guy I’d just bumped into. I headed back to the firepots, but glanced behind me before I turned the corner and saw that Stubbs still had his eyes on me while I was walking away. Fork had his eyes on me too. I threw a smile at Fork, hoping Stubbs didn’t mistakenly think it was for him and that was when Fork looked at Stubbs with what looked to me like irritation.
Hm. Interesting.
I’ve tried, so far, to lose my virginity four times. Shane Stubbs was the first failed attempt.
***
The First Time I Tried to Lose It
I was fifteen. I know, fifteen is way too young, but I was anxious to put it behind me. Even then, I knew I wanted a biker as my man. Shane Stubbs was nineteen, a club prospect, and he had no idea I was fifteen and definitely no idea I was a Valentine.
I flirted and teased in my crop-top and my yoga pants, snapping my pink gum, flipping my hair, and licking my bubblegum pink lips slowly and exaggeratedly as he swept out under the covered porch at the Sioux Falls clubhouse.
I was there while Daddy was in church, helping Delia with some office stuff. She’d gotten on the phone and had been nattering with one of her friends for a good long while, so I’d wandered off. And when I saw him, I lost the oversized hoodie that my father insisted I wear when we went because it covered my belly button, not to mention my booty.
Stubbs was good looking. He also looked at me like he was way into me. I didn’t look fifteen. I also didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. I did what I’d seen my mom do when she wanted my father’s attention.
I flirted with my eyes, with the sashay of my hips, and the blond-haired, green-eyed biker put me up against the wall and laid a hot and heavy kiss on me before he even said hello. The kiss, my first grown-up kiss; it made my knees wobble.
“You wanna fuck?” he whispered against my throat, grinding up against me, and that was when my brother, Rider, yanked him off of me and beat his face to a pulp. To an absolute pulp.
I didn’t give it up that day. I also figured out that Ride gave a shit about my virtue. Too much so.
I also got marked. My brothers made sure every guy who wore a cut within a ten-mile radius knew that if they laid hands or dicks on Joelle Valentine, they’d be buzzard meat.
***
It was getting late and I was past wobbly. I’d sat at the fire with Jenna, Delia, Connie, Sheila, and Ella’s mom Bertie. We were laughing our asses off all night long. Spencer and Pippa had gone to bed ages ago and Ella and Deacon had just gone. Rider was now trying to coax Jenna to bed with flirty eyes from across the firepot. I tried to ignore it but that was pretty much impossible. She abruptly got up with a drunk smile on her face, waving bye to us. Clearly, they’d made up over our dancing thing the week before. Sounded to me like those two had a passionate relationship with lots of fighting and lots of making up. They seemed happy. It made me happy.
I decided to wander inside to see what was happening in the bar room and caught Dad and Laura making out in the hall. Dad’s right hand was full of Laura’s ass cheek and his left was on her boob.
“My eyes, my eyes!” I griped as I walked by with my hands over them.
Laura laughed, embarrassed, and my father leveled me with a ‘get lost’ look.
“Wait up. Where ya think you’re goin’, missy? Dad asked belatedly.
I spun around. “For a wander, maybe shoot a game of pool.”
“Uh uh.” He jerked his thumb back. “Get to bed, Joelle. It’s three in the mornin’. You head in there without the other girls, you’re likely to find nothin’ but trouble.”
I blew out a breath and went back the way I came, sticking my tongue out at him.
“She’s lookin’ kinda tipsy,” Laura stage-whispered.
“Yep,” Dad replied. “Hang here a minute. In case she tries to sneak back by.”
“I heard that,” I called out. “I think you two are tipsy, too.”
Laura burst out laughing. I peeked and she had her face buried in my dad’s chest. He had a smile on his face.
“I love you, Dad! I love seeing you happy,” I called out.
My dad gave me a smirk and then kissed the top of her head. She was beaming with joy, staring up at his face with love in her eyes.
“And I love you, Laura. You’re fucking amazeballs,” I bellowed.
She looked at me with surprise.
I rounded a corner and got near my assigned room but then thought about it for a second and kept going. I went to the front office instead. I still had the key in my jean skirt pocket.
I was definitely drunk and what I did next was a bad idea, though my alcohol-level would not be a real viable defense for said bad idea because I could hold my liquor pretty well for a girl my age. Still, I proceeded.