Doesn’t even kiss? Doesn’t even kiss?
My mind flashed with images of him kissing me, devouring my lips with that beautiful mouth of his. That talented mouth of his. He wasn’t cold with me, at least not then. He wasn’t emotionless during that kiss. In fact, the emotion coming at me made my knees go to jelly. I’d blamed the alcohol in my system too, but yeah… there was more than that. There was definite emotion.
“Hm,” I mused, folding and rolling another cutlery-filled napkin, thinking that Christian had kissed me with far more emotion than Luke and Luke and I had kissed quite a few times.
The Third Time I Tried to Lose It
The third time I tried to lose my virginity was the night Luke had been killed. And it had been an emotional night. Because we fought. We almost made love and he stopped it and we fought.
I thought I was in love with him. I told him as much. I pleaded for him to make me his, in body, in public. We fought and he told me he wasn’t good enough for me, and insisted on driving me home. And then he got killed.
And a few days later I’d found out that he’d had sex with a girl in a gang bang fake rape scene while we were getting close and that it’d been videotaped. And that was why we were run off the road that night.
He’d been there, always, minus the nickel of time he’d done starting when he was eighteen, but other than that, he’d been a fixture. My crush. The unattainable brother’s best friend who teased me in a sweet way with his practical jokes and who often recruited me to help him execute those jokes on others. He had warm brown eyes, the softest long dark hair, the best ink I’d ever seen on anyone (except maybe Rider, because Luke had done all Rider’s ink), and the man I’d wanted, really wanted, to be my first and maybe my only.
It wasn’t meant to be. He told me I wasn’t meant to be his. I refused to listen, I disagreed, and one of the last things he said to me was that he knew there was someone better for me out there, better than him.
While I was remembering the night, just about to get to the part with the rain, the blurry headlights, the skidding and then the crashing, my father burst into the kitchen from his office with flames shooting out of his eyes and his mouth.
“Joelle! Get your fuckin’ ass in my office. Now!” He jerked his thumb back.
The whole kitchen went silent.
I gulped and my guess was that I gulped loud enough that they heard it.
He watched me walk by him into his office. He did this with the angriest, burning gaze I’d seen since the night he drove into a big tree because my mother was such a lying bitch, hurting him the worst way she could think of.
I didn’t know what was up, but I knew of only one thing I’d done recently that’d make him mad like that. Well, two, really, because I was there when Fork pulled that fire alarm, but I soon found out that he’d found out about the other thing I did.
Dad wasn’t in angry dad mode. This looked like angry biker mode.
Uh oh.
***
“This?” Dad threw a piece of paper at me after slamming his door so hard the walls shook. The paper fell to the floor, so I bent over and lifted it. It was a flyer for the Biker Babes of South Dakota Calendar pitching advertising space. Above the BB block letters on the top was an image of me in my leather bra and mini skirt getup and it made it look like I was on my knees not on my Harley but on the B in Babes. Shit. I was part of their logo now. Me with my ass up in the air and a ‘come fuck me’ look on my face.
Lawrence told me that was a possibility. There would be one payment for participation, an extra bonus for the cover, and one of the lucky participants who got to be part of their new logo got a triple payment. Shit!
Yeah, there would be fallout, I knew this, but I didn’t expect it this soon. I had been pondering how I’d tell him, thinking maybe I’d tell them all just before Sturgis. I thought I had weeks. Shit!
There were pictures of the other calendar girls, too, but I was on there twice. August and the logo, which was prominent.
“Okay, so first… I was thinking I had more time to tell you about this. This shouldn’t have been a blindside, Dad. Not my intention.”
He said nothing, just glared at me. My heart skipped a beat. I’d seen this expression a few times in my life but never ever aimed at me.
I forced myself to speak.
“So, I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m a woman and I was offered an opportunity to do it to help some local charities and even with an offer for pay; I said I’d do it for our charity. I was thinking that during the rally, there could be a check presented from me to the Biker Big Bros charity for my earnings. If there’s any offers for ongoing merchandise related to any of my pictures, my royalties will also go to the ch---”
Dad pulled his fist back and then let it fly, punching a hole in the drywall.
I sat down in the chair in front of his desk and clamped my mouth shut. I set the flyer down on his desk face-down.
He glared at me and flipped the paper back over before aggressively punching the digits into his desk phone, eyeballing the flyer.
“Yo. Deke Valentine, president of The Dominion Brotherhood MC, Aberdeen chapter here and I’m standin’ here looking at pictures of my ---” Dad’s tone went more guttural as he finished, saying it through his teeth --- “daughter on your fuckin’ flyer.”
Dad held the phone a minute, his eyes still on me and, no joke, it was as if flames were still coming out of them.
I bit down on my lip and examined my fingernails.
“Find someone else,” Dad clipped.
And then he listened some more.
And then he barked, “Oh, she did, did she? Fuck,” and slammed the phone.
“Out of my sight,” he snapped.
My heart dropped.
I stood. “Dad…”
His knuckles were all raw-looking. He flexed his hand and blew out a stuttered breath. He was trying to calm himself down. I was pretty sure he was failing.
“No. Sit your ass back down.”
I sat. Dad picked up his cell and made a call.
“Ella? Send Spence to my office in the roadhouse now.” He ended the call.
Oh fuck.
He touched the screen again. “Ride? You ‘n Deacon – my office, now. Jess there? Then lock the garage up… no, fuckin’ now.” He put the phone down hard.
He paced back and forth in the small space with aggression rolling off him before he sat down in his chair and singed me with his expression. Yep: I was a pile of charred ash sitting there in the chair. He flipped the flyer back over, so it wasn’t going to be immediately obvious what it was.
Fuck.
I blew out a big breath. Here we go. This was my doing. I didn’t expect to have to do it this soon, but I knew it was coming. I couldn’t feel sorry for myself and I couldn’t be weak about it. I straightened up in the seat.
Rider came in first.
“What’s up?” He looked tweaked, likely because Dad had barked at him and it wasn’t something our father did without reason. He was in coveralls, full of grease, wiping his hands on a rag.
Spencer came in behind him, looking confused.
And then Deacon came in, also looking like he’d been elbow deep in motor oil. Deacon shut the door with an elbow nudge, also wiping his hands on a rag.