Biker Chicks: Volume 2 Read online

  When I climbed beneath the sheets Jake rolled over and slid his arms around me, pulling me close. My skin had gotten cold out on the porch; his hug warmed me. I fell asleep listening to him breathe in the darkness.

  IV: One Good Man

  I woke up before Jake did. He was so zonked that my slipping out didn’t disturb him at all, so I let him sleep. Instead I dug through the saddlebags I’d hauled up from my bike and found my toiletries kit, intent on a shower as soon as Jake woke up and I could ask him if that was okay. That was my policy; unless somebody told me I could have something or use something, I didn’t lay a finger on it. I didn’t have the right to Jake’s shower just because we’d traded orgasms. I was sure he’d say yes, but I felt compelled to ask. Besides, my razor needed sharpening.

  Jake stumbled out of the bedroom right as I finished stropping the edge, wearing nothing but a pair of faded sweats. I smiled at him, taking a big bite of eye-candy as I did. “Morning,” I said.

  He pointed at the straight razor in my hand. “Auditioning for Sweeny Todd later?”

  “Was hoping to get a shower.”

  He blinked. “Wait...you shave your legs with that?”

  “I shave everything with this,” I said.

  “Hot.”

  I snorted laughter. “You and every other guy,” I said.

  “Well it is,” he said.

  “You don’t mind if I use the shower?”

  He shrugged. “Go for it.”

  I stood and collected my kit while Jake fumbled through the motions of starting coffee. When I passed by, he paused. “By the way,” he said in an awkward tone, “about last night-“

  I put a finger to his lips. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Apologize,” I said. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t beg you to do. If anything, I owe you one.”

  His eyebrows jumped. “Why?”

  I ran my hand through his hair. “You aren’t my boyfriend,” I said. “I don’t recall paying you to be my therapist, either. You invited me home because you wanted to get laid...and I came home with you because I wanted the same thing.” He had soft hair, even mussed from sleep. “They’re my issues, Jake. I’m sorry they got in the way.”

  He kissed the side of my wrist. A shiver ran down my arm. “Okay.”

  “Thanks also for not asking,” I said.

  “I figured you’d tell me if you wanted to,” he said. “Otherwise, it isn’t my business.”

  I let go of his hair before I gave in to the urge for a proper kiss. If I did that I’d never make it to the shower. “I’ll be sure to leave enough hot water,” I said.

  Jake’s shower was the stand-up kind with no tub. When it came to grooming I wasn’t fussy about most of it; in less than two minutes my hair and body were clean. My legs were another matter, as with a bare blade I had to go slow. Nicks could be serious business.

  I was still baffled as to why men thought how I shaved was so sexy; it was the best and cheapest way to get the job done. Then again, most of the politics and bullshit surrounding female grooming habits seemed pretty stupid to me. If I didn’t shave, within weeks I looked like Burt Reynolds from the waist down and my bush reached almost to my navel. For me, body grooming wasn’t about conforming to beauty standards. It was about not dealing with itchy legs and pubic hair poking out of my waistband.

  I couldn’t help but think about Jake while I worked. Part of me wished he was in the shower with me, which was odd because I wasn’t normally like that. Private matters like grooming and feelings were just that...private.

  I went a fair amount of time between men, and it wasn’t due to being a prude; between living among outlaws and getting by on the street I’d tossed every scrap of girly-girl BS out of my head. I’d just hammered out a set of standards since passing thirty and didn’t often find guys who measured up to them.

  I didn’t go for macho men anymore; during my time in the MC world I’d had enough wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am to last me three lifetimes. Getting me off wasn’t too much of a trick but a man did have to try, and macho-types usually didn’t. Besides, they were often under the impression that sticking their dick in me meant they owned me, and they didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer when I disagreed.

  I wasn’t a fan of sensitive either, because ironically enough those guys were usually terrible about boundaries and shared way too much too quickly. They could never get it through their heads that yes, I really did want a no-strings screw, no I wasn’t interested in emotional entanglements and fuck no, I wasn’t interested in their mommy-issues. I shook my head, smirking as I scraped the last of the cream and hair from below my navel.

  “If I want a boy I’ll find a high school,” I muttered. “And if I want to be a therapist, I’ll fucking well become a therapist.”

  I paused. That statement applied as well to macho assholes as it did their ‘sensitive’ counterparts, and in that moment I wondered if so-called sensitive men were really sensitive at all. As far as I had seen, they were as bad in their own way as the Cro-Magnons they claimed to be so different from. Maybe they hadn’t discovered anything except a more socially-acceptable way to act like a douchebag. That thought merited a grin, but as with all shower-driven inspiration it disappeared before it could become anything useful.

  When it came to men, I looked for easygoing. I looked for self-contained. I looked for stable. I looked for respectful. I looked for bedroom skills. ‘Handsome’ came in at a distant sixth, negotiable in most cases when the first five were present...but it helped that Jake was all of the above. I washed off my razor and wiped it on a towel.

  While brushing my hair, I noted yet another silver one above my left eyebrow. I’d gotten my first at twenty-seven, and after nine years I had an all-over dusting of them. My reflection reminded me of the other reason why I was negotiable on looks; between my scrawny figure, road-worn face and graying hippie mane I wasn’t exactly a sex bomb myself. A twinge of uncertainty pulsed in my gut.

  “Okay,” I said to my reflection, “so what’s the catch here?”

  Wandering between men as I did, I’d found that when guys were single there was always a reason for it. Either they wanted to be, or there was an ugly fact which guaranteed they couldn’t be anything but. Jake didn’t come off as a guy who wanted to be single, and while I was weird my tastes weren’t; pleasant, respectful, handsome and good in bed usually added up to ‘taken’. There had to be a reason Jake wasn’t with anybody. Such made me just a little squirmy about sticking around.

  Too good to be true was often just that.

  I finished my clean-up routine, dressed and found my way back out into the living room. Jake was parked against the wall between the living room and the kitchen, sipping coffee from a chipped mug which read “WHAT WOULD YOU ATTEMPT TO DO IF YOU KNEW YOU COULDN’T FAIL?” Once again I took a bite of the eye-candy. I couldn’t help it; Jake had one of those rangy long-boned physiques which looked perfect leaning on something. It was easy to picture him as a Hollywood cowboy, chewing on a strand of grass and muttering ‘aw shucks’ when a pretty girl wandered by and smiled at him.

  “Your turn,” I said. Invite me to join you. Please.

  “Thanks,” he said, russet forelock falling over one eye as he set his coffee cup on a nearby table. “Help yourself to the fridge...I think there’s some food in there somewhere.”

  “I’ll do that,” I said. I’ll do you, lots more.

  I shook my head once he was out of sight, trying to get it back on straight. Sure, I let my lady-bits weigh in on decisions where applicable, but I didn’t like how their wants kept pushing to have more of a say than they deserved. My cynical side said that I should load up my bike and get the hell out of there. Instead, I found myself rooting through Jake’s fridge and munching on the slice of pizza I found in it.

  It wasn’t just my libido pushing me to stay, not even mostly. A lifetime of rough scrapes and close calls hadn’t hardened my heart all the way. I was still a person
with needs, and Jake’s hugs and warm smile were just as compelling as his bedroom talents. So was his tendency to stay out of my business when I hadn’t let him in. The irony was in how that last tendency made me want to let him closer. I sighed, pushing damp hair out of my eyes.

  Wrestling with the squishy feelings had never been my strong suit.

  V: Sabotage

  It wasn’t long before Jake finished his shower, but before he did I’d made several important decisions. He ambled out of his bedroom dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt. I stepped up behind him and slid my arms around his waist.

  “Hey there,” he said, stroking my arm.

  “I’m going to be in town at least two weeks,” I said as he turned around to face me. “Mind living in sin with a stranger?”

  His hands went to my hips. “What’s involved?”

  “We fuck more.” I toyed with the waistband of his jeans. “A lot more.”

  “I like the sound of that,” he said with that lovely hangdog grin he had.

  “Good.” I leaned up to kiss him. It’ll suck to leave you behind.

  There was a knock at the door, six stiff raps. A female voice sounded from outside.

  “Jacob?” The voice was high, clear and heavy with a French accent.

  Jake flinched. “Oh goddamn it no.”

  Another knock, louder than the last. “Don’t you ignore me, Jacob...we need to talk.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Girlfriend?”

  He shook his head. “Ex-fiancée.” His eyes were narrow with irritation, his tone exasperated – but there was more. Beneath the annoyance Jake wanted me to believe, there was a grim brand of fear...the fatalistic resolve a bomb expert displayed before stepping into a minefield.

  “Jacob, you open this door!” there was a loud thud.

  “Did she just kick it?”

  He sighed, pushing his hands through his hair. “Giselle...she does this,” he said. “She doesn’t get that we aren’t together anymore.”

  “You’ve told her?”

  He sighed. “Only about a dozen times.” There was another thud.

  And here we have the catch. “Call the cops?”

  He shook his head. “My landlord told me last week that if they show up one more time because of her he’ll evict me.”

  “Jesus,” I muttered. It was an easy situation to size up. I’d been in Jake’s shoes, once upon a time.

  The door rattled with a third kick.

  What I saw added up to trouble I didn’t need, a whole lot of it. She kept on shouting through the door, much of it too heavily accented to understand, but I could catch the brittle edge in her words, the rushed way they came out. It was the voice of somebody not playing with a full deck.

  I met Jake’s eyes, thinking about how he’d treated me both in the bedroom and outside of it. There were plenty of emotions in his stare; fear, shame, anger and the struggle born of long habit to cover them all up.

  It pissed me off.

  “You want me to make this my business?”

  A fourth thud echoed through the apartment. Jake nodded, shame and relief warring in his eyes.

  “Okay.” I crossed the room, put on my jacket and stuffed my Colt down the back of my leathers. Jake watched without comment as I threw open the door and stepped back. I didn’t want to get kicked in the shins.

  “Oh!” The woman on the other side came up to my chin, her figure an hourglass to my beanpole, with bright blond hair and apple cheeks rosy with anger.

  “Cut it out,” I said.

  Brushstroke brows rose, then lowered over the blackest eyes I’d ever seen. “Who are you?”

  “Next in line.”

  Giselle’s stare went to Jake, hot with anger. He edged back.

  “You bastard,” she hissed, pushing through the door and slamming it shut. I stepped out of her way; I didn’t want to get physical if I could help it.

  “Giselle I told you-“

  She took a couple of steps towards him, her eyes two pits of crazy. “I give you a few days to think things over,” she said, “and this is what you do.” She stabbed a finger at me. “Go and screw some slutty biker hag.”

  “Hey now.” I stepped between her and him. “I’m in the room.”

  She glared at me. “And just who do you think you are?”

  “Like I said...the next in line.”

  “Oh don’t make me laugh, you dried-up old skank.” Her voice dripped scorn.

  I smiled. “Honey, miles on the meter beats loose screws in the brainpan. Didn’t your mama ever tell you that?”

  Giselle’s dark eyes went wide with rage. She puffed up and advanced on me.

  “Bad idea,” I said.

  She spat something in French and brought her palm around in a clumsy slap. I forearm-blocked it and answered with a stiff right. Up on tiptoe like she was, my punch knocked her off-balance, her arms windmills as she landed on her ass with a thud. She stared up at me, face contorted in an expression of abject shock.

  “Told ya.”

  Jake stepped up next to me. “Jesus!”

  “What?” I flexed my fingers to work the sting out of my knuckles. “She hit me first. Not my fault she doesn’t know how to scrap.”

  “Oh my god.” Giselle’s hands were on her face, blood leaking from between her fingers. “You...you broke my nose!”

  I scoffed at her. “Relax, you big baby...it’s just bloody. Tilt your head back and you’ll be fine in a few minutes.”

  She sank into a ball and whimpered instead. Jake knelt, intending to help her to her feet. She coiled up, got her weight under her legs.

  Aw shit. I reached for Jake’s shoulder to pull him away. I didn’t get there in time.

  There was a flat click and a bright flash as Giselle’s hand came out of her sweatshirt pocket. Jake leapt back with a startled shout, blood spurting from his hand. In Giselle’s there was a knife.

  She boiled to her feet, screaming obscenities in French. Before she could stand all the way, I snap-kicked her in the groin. She doubled over with a choked grunt, dropping her knife. I threw a roundhouse left at her face with all the starch I could muster behind it. The blow spun her about, knocked her sprawling.

  “There,” I snarled. “Now it’s broken.”

  Jake had his right hand between his knees, face gray-white, blood dripping off his fingertips. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Fucking hell.”

  “Keep pressure on that,” I said. With the toe of my boot I kicked the knife away. Giselle was curled up in a ball, coughing. Crotch-shots worked better on women than men; they hurt more and chicks almost never saw them coming. Out came my Colt as I grabbed a fistful of her hair and hauled her to her knees.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jake’s voice shook.

  “Lesson in manners.”

  Giselle opened her mouth, and I shoved the business end of my Python into it. Whatever she was about to say died in a strangled gurgle.

  “Do I have your fucking attention?”

  She didn’t make a peep, her eyes as big as saucers. I took that as a yes.

  “I don’t know what they call the barking-moonbat bullshit where you come from, but here in the States we call it attempted murder in the second degree.” I prodded the roof of her mouth with the barrel of my Python. “That means I’m legally justified in blowing your cross-wired brains straight into next Tuesday afternoon.” She tried to push her head away; I shoved her up against the door. “And that’s my man you just carved up, which puts you right at the top of my shit list. You reading me?”

  Her chin jerked in a nod, snot and blood from her ruined nose running down it.

  “Now, there are two words you can learn to put together...Ex and Boyfriend.” I thumbed back the hammer. “Or, you can argue with the wrong end of a gun. That what you want?”

  She whimpered and shook her head, eyes crossing on the gun in her mouth. I pulled it out. “Glad we understand each other.” I de-cocked my pistol and stepped back.

  “You,”
she whispered, “are in so much trouble.”

  I shook my head. “Not as much as you’ll be.” I pointed at the knife. “Your prints, his blood. You go to the cops and the best you can hope for is ending up in a cell right next to mine. I know how to survive in tough places, but an uppity little thing like you...” I shook my head. “Shit, it’d take about five minutes before you found yourself bent over a toilet seat with some white-trash dyke’s fist up your cunt.”

  Her anger got hamstrung by confusion. “...what?”

  “You think jailhouse rape only happens to boys?” I fed her a nasty smile. “That’s adorable.”

  “But you stuck a gun in my mouth!”

  I shoved the Colt into the small of my back. “What gun?” I made a show of looking around. “I don’t see a gun. Do you see a gun, Jake?”

  Giselle and I both looked at him, and I could see the war in his eyes. I knew his struggle and I hoped I’d read him right. I was gambling, wagering on his good sense winning out over whatever hooks she had in him.

  Jake shook his head. “Nope.”

  I relaxed. Giselle stared at him. “Jacob...how can you do this?”

  Jake held up his bloody hand, still clenched in his left fist. “You’re making it easy, Giselle.”

  “But...but I...”

  “Go away,” he said in a flat tone, face blank.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” I said as I took her by the arm. She struggled, and I tightened my grip, handed her my best death glare. “Don’t exceed the limits of my medication.”

  She stared at me, clearly out of her depth. It was the way to handle crazy people; be crazier than they were.

  It was fifteen short steps to Giselle’s shiny red Honda Civic. I opened the door and pushed her into the driver’s seat. “Remember what we talked about,” I said.

  Giselle pointed at her face. “What...what do I say to people?”

  “Tell them you fell down some stairs.”

  I slammed the car door shut.

  VI: Roulette

  It took me a few minutes to get the cut on Jake’s hand cleaned and bandaged. He’d been lucky; while the slash was long enough to bleed a lot I managed to close it with three butterfly bandages rather than stitching.