His bike roars to life outside, and I watch from the window as he thunders off into the night.
…Holding a piece of my heart with him.
Chapter Four
Oliver
In the shadow of the old, not-quite-finished racetrack complex, Lucile comes to a rumbling, growling stop in front of the storage units. Apparently, this place went up maybe a decade ago, when the then-mayor of Dark Water Falls got an “inside scoop” from a guy high up in the car racing world that they were looking for a new place to televise races. Every crook, conman, mobster, grifter, and lowlife with two quid to rub to together for about hundred miles came in on it, and up went Dark Water Falls Racing Pavilion.
For a shit-heel town of about six thousand people where the major industry is bars and illegal narcotics, you can see how daft an idea this was.
And, surprise, the racing circuit picked someplace less dirty, depressed, and all around grim than Dark Water Falls. Also, a place people could actually point to a bloody map. The mayor got run out of town on a rail, the criminal investors slunk away to lick their wounds, and the place sat derelict and falling the fuck apart for almost nine years.
Then, along comes Bryce bloody Barnes—a local geezer whose made his mark being the only muscle in town and then making sure he was the only one selling coke and Oxy. The twat runs around like he’s bloody Scarface or like a prohibition gangster in Chicago. But really, he’s just a small-town thug with a chip on his shoulder.
I grew up with a dozen of these cunts. Every street corner in East London had one or two of these blokes who’d watched too many Guy Ritchie movies or watched Goodfellas a time too many and thought they were some kind of criminal Czar in training. And Barnes is the same damn thing, but small-town American, with all the fake cowboy swagger bullshit that comes with it.
Now, there should be fuck all reason for me to be involved with a cunt like Barnes. He smells like trouble, and you can sniff it out from three towns over. But what can I say, every man has a weakness, and mine’s things that go fast.
…Things that go fast, and gambling on things that go fast.
When I first came to Blackthorn with my best mate Shepherd, and when we decided to put down roots and start our new club, the Lost Devils, it wasn’t long before I heard about Barnes’s races out here in Dark Water Falls, about a two hour haul from Blackthorn. Shepherd’s just as much a gearhead as I am, but the guy doesn’t bet like me. Maybe it’s cause he’s saved my arse more than a few times when a bet went south.
Maybe I should’ve learned my lesson years ago, but what can I say? Maybe I’m thick-headed. Maybe I just can’t stay away from the raw thrill of watching things with rumblings motors go as fast as they can, like a junky. Maybe I’m just bad at following the rules and doing what I should.
The short of it is, I found Barnes’s races, bet fast and loose, and got in deep. Real deep, if we’re being honest. That’s when I went from spectator to participate. Shit, I’ve been racing since I was old enough to bloody walk. And if my winnings go straight to Barnes to settle our debt? So be it. I don’t even want the money, I’m just in love with the thrill of the race, and the rush of death blasting under my two wheels at one-hundred-fifty-miles or more an hour.
I guess the small little detail worth mentioning is that my club, the Lost Devils, don’t know about this. I guess part of it is embarrassment, but it’s mostly that I know I need to fix my own shit myself. This is my mess, and I’m not going to go crying to my brothers to fight any battles for me.
I unlock the storage unit door and roll it up before I wheel Lucile inside. I flick on the dim overhead light, and I grin at my other girl—my side piece, I like to joke to myself. Lucile’s my main lady, but The Duchess?
I grin.
Well, The Duchess just does things to a man that Lucile can’t.
The Duchess is a gleaming red and black custom Ducati Panigale V4 916. She’s pure speed, power, and fucking sex appeal on two wheels. She’s also one of the reasons I’m in so deep with Barnes. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my club, and I love my new life up by Blackthorn doing what we do. But what can I say, I like shiny things that go bloody fast, and it’s not like the Devils are rolling in cashflow right now.
I shrug my club cut off and hang it on a hook on the wall. I’m not worried or scared about people knowing I’m with the Lost Devils, but I also don’t exactly need to advertise it. I’m here to race, not start shit. So I swap it out for the plain jacket I keep in here with the Ducati. For a second, I look into the dingy, cracked mirror hanging on a hook next to where I hang the spare jacket. I frown and step closer, and then I chuckle at what I’m looking at.
Fuck, she did a number on my neck. My mind wanders back to the diner, and to her. But it doesn’t take much wandering, because she’s been at the front of my mind ever since I walked out the door. I mean how could she not be? I mean bloody fucking hell, she’s perfect—that melodic voice, those haunting eyes, those full, soft lips and the way they moaned so sweetly for me.
I think of the way she tasted, and my cock instantly thickens in my jeans. I groan, and I can’t even help but reach down to cup my bulge when I remember the way her legs wrapped tight around my hips. What that was back there… well, that was something else. That wasn’t just sex. Sex is good. Sex is fun. “Sex” doesn’t shake you to your fucking core and shatter everything you think you know. “Sex” doesn’t feel like your heart is crawling out of your fucking chest to be closer to hers. “Sex” doesn’t feel like coming home when you first slide into her.
At least, no sex I’ve ever known did. Nowhere bloody close.
Whatever that was back there, it’s something I’ve never known. Fuck me, just walking in there and laying eyes on her, it was like I never wanted to look away. It was like I never wanted to not have her in my arms, and I didn’t even know her. Bloody hell, I still don’t know her—not her name, where she’s from, what she does when she’s not working at a diner. She’s a mystery, and I’m left holding the threads to a cold case.
I lock eyes with myself in the mirror, and then glance down again at the marks from her lips and her pleasure on my neck. I growl savagely. Fuck, I want her again, right now. Always. Forever. I hiss, my lips pulling back in a snarl. I don’t even know her fucking name, and I want her unlike I’ve ever wanted anything before, and that includes racing and bikes.
But then I think once again to the way we parted, and the little voice in my head growls to life again. She said she wasn’t married. She said she wasn’t with anyone. But, something’s amiss. That might be her story, but it’s not the full story, and I damn well know it. Yeah, maybe it’s that I’m a stranger, and it’s not like screwing like bloody rabbits on a diner counter is grounds for the sort of intimacy where you share your life story and all your baggage.
But still, the voice in my head might be half-cocked and crazy, but I’ve managed to stay alive for twenty-seven years and through some shit I probably shouldn’t have by listening to it now and again.
With a scowl, I push the Ducati out of the storage unit and lock it back up. I pull on the racing helmet and lower the visor before I swing a leg over The Duchess and crank her on.