He snorts. “Did you just call this thing a vest?” he nods to the leather garment, making a face as if I’ve suggested he’s donned a tutu.
“Yeah,” I say slowly.
“Okay, let’s shut that shit down right now. Don’t call this a vest.” He says the word as though it’s deeply offensive. This,” he pats the leather, “is called a cut.” His voice sounds rough, but I can hear the amusement in it.
“Sorry. Your cut is hotter than this desert. How can you stand wearing that out here?”
He shrugs and puffs on his smoke. “I like it. I thrive off the heat. I always have.” He offers me a butt.
I shake my head, but then realize he can’t see it. “No thanks, I’m good.”
“Suit yourself.” He pockets the pack.
I glance back at the clubhouse front yard where several women are hanging off the men drinking there. All of them are dressed in not much more than my Devil’s Den uniform. “How come the women never wear cuts or have those patches like you?”
Spider laughs. Sitting on the step in front of Casper’s, Cap must have heard me, because he grins and shakes his head at me.
Obviously, I’m showing my ignorance again.
“I’ll have to clue you in about the way things work around here sometime,” Spider says. “Women aren’t members, Wildcat.”
“Ever?”
He shakes his head.
“Why?”
He takes another puff and tosses the butt. “It’s just how things are.”
I wince. Another boy’s club.
I can’t count how often the pastors gave that answer when very young members of His Holy Peace asked why women couldn’t have certain jobs, like running a tractor, driving to their jobs without a man at the wheel, or becoming a guard. That was their answer, too. Well, they usually said, “It’s God’s will,” or, “It’s not a woman’s place,” but I can hear it in his voice; the meaning is the same.
Still. At least he’s talking to me. This is probably the first real conversation I’ve had with Spider—the first one that I want to have, and which doesn’t feel like he’s shutting me out or trying to get something out of me.
It’s stupid, but I feel the first real connection with him since I met him, as if, for a fraction of a second there, he opened up. As if I’m not just a thief he’s using for his pleasure, but something more.
The guilt that took root in my belly earlier for lying my way out of the clubhouse stretches out its tendrils, wrapping around my heart.
“Hold on now,” Spider says, cutting into my thoughts and staring the bike.
The motorcycle rumbles, vibrating heavily between my legs and easily drowning out all else. And effectively ending the conversation.
I rest my cheek against his…cut, ignoring the burn of the hot leather on my skin, and squeeze him tight without considering my actions. He massages my hand as if he likes the closeness, then rolls out of the tavern lot.
This is only the second time I’ve ridden with him. I swear I’ll never get used to being on a motorcycle.
We ride through the sweltering desert at a breakneck speed. Every time he steers the bike around a turn on the dry road, I lean into the curve the way he instructed before we left the clubhouse. The bike dips on the turns, and I cling to him for dear life, expecting the vehicle to tip over. It doesn’t.
I’d be lying if I said the ride was all bad. It’s kind of exciting to feel the warm wind in my face, the rumble of the huge, heavy motorcycle’s engine between my thighs. To be wrapped around Spider’s powerful frame, all muscle and man in my arms.
Spider speeds down the road, reducing the desert that whizzes past us to a red-gold blur, the clay formations to monolithic shadows. Clearly, he knows what he’s doing. He leans smoothly into the curves, not at all phased by the speed at which we’re tearing up the road. Sometimes, he touches my thigh, as if to make sure I’m okay. I squeeze him, letting him know I am.
In his speech about his life before His Holy Peace, Deacon Harmon talked about how much he loved his bike, what a thrill it was to ride the open road. He talked about how he missed it, how hard it was to let go of that life. I didn’t really know what that meant until now.
Though Spider obviously knows what he’s doing, there’s no denying that there’s an element of danger here. One I didn’t feel when Dee drove me around in her car to shop, or when the pastors took us around the Colony grounds in their big vans. Life in the Colony must have seemed painfully boring to Harmon compared to this.
It’s a thrill to ride with Spider, but it’s more than that. Every time he touches my knee or squeezes my hand, I feel the connection between us deepening.
That’s ridiculous, I know. Spider is all hardness and violence and danger. He can’t possibly care about me. And I can’t care about him.
Spider is my captor.
I can’t care if he wipes out on the road and cracks his head open.
I can’t care how tough he is or respect him for it.
I can’t give a hoot why the club excludes women from membership.
And I absolutely can not feel guilty for lying to him about why I wanted to start working again.
The more distant he is, and the less I know about him, the easier it will be to leave him.
Until those few minutes before we left the clubhouse, Spider hadn’t said more than a handful of words to me since the night of Diesel’s party. Except in bed, and then it was only whispers of what a perfect fuck I am, reminders that he owns me. The entire week and a half that I’ve known him, I’ve always felt as if he’s a million miles away even when I’m in his arms. Even when he’s inside me.
Time and time again, I’ve tried to find some common ground with him, to form a connection. He’s told me nothing about himself or his club, and he asks me nothing about me in return. Today is the closest he’s come to talking to me like an equal.
It’s a strange thing. On one hand, it’s just as well that he doesn’t ask me anything personal. I can’t tell him where I came from, or anything about my life without revealing the Colony. His knowing my real name is not an option. But on the other hand, I get the feeling he doesn’t want to know anything about me as a person.
I let that knowledge sink in, severing the feeling of connectedness I feel with him now. He doesn’t care about me. I’m nothing to him. That stings, but that’s the way it has to be. He’s unattainable, untouchable, and it’s better that way.
We pull up at The Devil’s Den just as its getting dark. As Spider swings off, anxiety wells up. I haven’t been back here since Deacon Jacob showed up. Chances are, Seth or my parents would have someone looking for me. Would they send someone here again?
The likelihood of someone from the Colony showing up here on my first day back is slim, but I can’t help thinking they might. I give a quick glance around the busy lot, but I don’t see any vehicles that look like they belong to members of His Holy Peace.
“Problem, Wildcat?” Spider asks, taking my helmet off my head.
I glance up to see him watching me with that familiar calculating expression. He’s picked up on my nervousness.
His tone is also mocking, the comparative gentleness I felt in him earlier now gone.