Ride Steady Read online

  “Your room needs to be cleaned,” I announced.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Your room,” I threw out an arm, “it needs to be cleaned.”

  “I’ll get my maids on that,” he muttered, then asked, “Is that why you needed to speak in private?”

  I shook my head, restraightened my shoulders, and declared, “I have a new tranny.”

  His brows shot together. “Say again?”

  I jerked a thumb to myself. “I have a new tranny.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

  “A new transmission.”

  “Know what a tranny is,” he stated.

  “I have one,” I told him.

  “Know that too. We don’t deal with Tercels but the boys got a lock on one, loaded it up in yours last night.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Why?” he parroted.

  “Yes,” I snapped. “Why?”

  “’Cause you needed one.”

  “I’m sure I did,” I retorted. “That still doesn’t explain why I have one.” Before he could say anything, I added, “A free one.”

  He leaned slightly back while crossing his arms on his chest.

  It was then I noticed his chest was rather well-defined—as could be seen through his tight, black T-shirt—and his arms were even more well-defined. The biceps bulged and his forearms were all sinewy.

  “You got a couple grand to lay down on a new transmission?” he asked and my gaze shot from its sudden rapt contemplation of his arms to his eyes.

  “If I had a couple thousand dollars to lay down, as you put it, on a new transmission, I’d buy a new car,” I returned.

  “And that would be a good call,” he muttered.

  I ignored that. “But at this moment I don’t need a new car since I have a new transmission, new tires, new wipers, an oil change, it’s a far sight cleaner than this room and smells like pine.”

  “What? Did you want new car smell?” he asked and I stared.

  Then I cried, “No! I didn’t want my car detailed. For free.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t get your problem, Butterfly.”

  I ignored the nickname, which was definitely cute and made me feel nice, and declared, “I’m not a charity case, Joker.”

  “I know that,” he returned.

  “Then why do I have a spick-and-span car that runs better than when I bought it and a new attorney that’s taking my case through retainer with the Chaos Motorcycle Gang?”

  “Club.”

  “Sorry?”

  “We’re a club, not a gang.”

  “There’s a difference?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I shut my mouth since his answer was so firm, it was granite.

  He didn’t keep his mouth shut.

  “Listen, you might have an idea about bikers. And in some cases, that idea would be on the mark. In the case of Chaos, boys here, they don’t like women to get jacked around by assholes. You lose it in our common room when you’re gettin’ jacked around by an asshole, and a kid’s involved, then their old ladies take your back, they’re gonna wade in. The Club waded in. That means you got people lookin’ after you. My advice, don’t bounce in here with your attitude and get shitty about it. Let ’em do it. You fight it, they’ll still do it and you’ll lose the face you’re tryin’ right now to save because you’ll have no choice but to give in.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I declared.

  “That’s Chaos,” he retorted.

  “They barely know me. In fact, outside of you, none of the men actually do,” I told him.

  “Don’t matter. You walked in with homemade pie. You strutted your ass right onto Chaos with homemade pie for a brother who did you a good deed. Then you got kicked in the teeth by your ex. No good woman gets kicked in the teeth on Chaos without retribution. He’s gonna feel our displeasure, and that’s just the way it is. Again, don’t fight it.”

  Although something about that made me feel something that was not unpleasant in the slightest, still, I couldn’t let it go.

  “That’s slightly insane.”

  “That’s our world,” he returned. “We claim you, you’re ours. No goin’ back.”

  I shook my head in confusion. “You’ve claimed me?”

  “I haven’t. Chaos has.”

  That didn’t feel pleasant. It kind of hurt.

  “Listen,” he kept going, “I saw the way you looked at me when I stopped to deal with your tire. That’s the way a lot of people look at my brothers and me. They make assumptions. They judge. You mighta done that for a second, but then you let that go. After that, you showed here, and I’ll tell you straight up, unless they want auto parts or a custom ride, no one shows here. Definitely not with pie. Not unless she’s a biker groupie, a girl who gets off on rough trade, or a woman fit for the life of an old lady who’s throwin’ her hat in the ring. And none of those bitches bring pie. We judge right back and that would be, we judge people who judge us or live narrow lives or have sticks up their asses. But people who open themselves to our world without bullshit coloring it, we let in. You met Elvira. She’s one of ’em. Now, you’re another. Anything threatened Elvira, every man who has a patch would throw down to protect her. As insane as you think that is, yesterday, you became Elvira but in a cute butterfly dress and sexy shoes.”

  He thought my dress was cute.

  And my shoes were sexy.

  Wow.

  “I had my son with me and I was in an uncertain situation,” I stated, feeling the need to explain my first reaction to him, which unfortunately he didn’t miss. “Any man who approached us when we had our flat—”

  “I hear you. I get you,” he interrupted me quietly. “You still did it because I’m a biker.”

  That was true, regrettably.

  So there was nothing else to say but what he deserved to hear.

  So I said it.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “’Preciated. Now, we done?”

  His curtness was both annoying and upsetting.

  Further, I wasn’t done.

  “I don’t judge you,” I told him. “Or your people. They’re all very nice.”

  “Glad you think that way seein’ as you’re adopted. Now, we done?”

  No, I wasn’t done.

  “As lovely as you’re all being, I’m uncomfortable about taking help from people I don’t know.”

  “Get over it.”

  I waited but that was it.

  Get over it.

  “I’m not sure I can,” I shared.

  “Try harder,” he replied.

  I stared at him.

  Then I glared.

  He watched one turn into the other and the second it did, he muttered, “Fuck, we’re not done.”

  “No we aren’t!” I yelled. “Your people practically bought me a new car and got me free legal counsel!”

  “Carissa, do you know what a retainer is?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I snapped.

  “Then you know this Club gave that firm a shit ton of money to be at our service. Luckily, we don’t need them often, so they sit on our money and do fuck-all. It’s no skin off our nose and actually is a good thing they’re doin’ somethin’ to earn that pay.”

  This made sense so I let that go, for now.

  “You shouldn’t curse,” I admonished sharply.

  His head jerked back. “Seriously?”

  “I’m a lady. It’s rude.”

  “You are a lady but I’m a biker and I do what the fuck I want,” he shot back.

  “Do you speak like that in front of Tyra?”

  “You’ve known her a day, Butterfly. She’s got a mouth on her too.”

  Women often cursed so he was probably right.

  I tried a different tack. “Do you speak like that in front of your mother?”

  His face went hard and he pierced me direct through the heart with his reply.

  “Don’t have one. Never did. She took o
ff before I could crawl. So no. I don’t. ’Cause I never got the chance.”

  I fell silent, feeling it deeply, but not believing it because I couldn’t fathom it.

  Travis was scooting around like a crazy boy. Which would mean Joker’s mother left before he was Travis’s age.

  “How could that be?” I whispered.

  “You know,” he replied bitingly, uncrossing one arm and jabbing a finger my way, but his next words caused no harm. Far from it. “That right there is why Chaos has thrown down for you. That look on your face. Those words outta your mouth.” He crossed his arm back on his chest. “You got no clue how a woman could do that to her kid. We know that your kid needs that kind of woman in his life. Fuckin’ let it go and fuckin’ let us help, for fuck’s sake.”

  “That’s three f-words in one sentence,” I said quietly.

  He threw out both hands. “Who gives a fuck?”

  His response was funny and I wanted to laugh. I really did.

  And I didn’t remember the last time I laughed at anything that wasn’t something that Travis did.

  “Now, are we fuckin’ done?” he asked.

  “No,” I whispered my answer.

  “What now?” he clipped, planting his hands on his hips.

  I watched him do this.

  His knuckles were all scabbed. But his fingers were long, not graceful, but handsome. They were a working man’s hands. They’d be rough. I could even see grease stains around the nail beds.

  Something about that caused something to happen inside me.

  My focus shifted from his hands to his crotch. His jeans were faded. The area around his crotch more faded.

  Up I went to a black belt with silver rivets in it that had seen some wear, the length beyond the clasp dangling from a belt loop to the side in a supple way, the leather not close to stiff.

  Up his flat belly to his wide chest and broad shoulders and bulging arms.

  And up to his long black hair that looked thick, messy, had a lot of wave and brushed his shoulders. His beard wasn’t bushy, it was trimmed, but it was about two days away from being unkempt.

  He was tall.

  He was annoyed.

  I felt the latter because he was the kind of man whose mood altered a room and I understood this because I was right then experiencing it. But I also knew it wasn’t just that or that we were the only ones in the room and having the conversation that was making him annoyed so of course I’d be feeling it.

  It was him. He had that kind of power behind his personality.

  I shifted my eyes to his.

  Steel. A strange flat color that seemed impenetrable.

  And suddenly I had a new dream. One that didn’t involve motherhood, cookies, doing laundry, and being a soccer mom.

  One that centered around penetrating the impenetrable.

  “So? What?” he prompted irately.

  At his words, I flew across the room.

  He had the chance to go back on a boot but that was all he had before my body slammed into his, my hands went to either side of his head and I lifted up on tiptoe as I yanked him down.

  Then I pressed my lips hard against his.

  A breath later, something strange happened.

  Strange and wondrous.

  His arms closed around me, and if I could think of anything, I’d worry about the state of my ribs.

  But I couldn’t think of anything because his tongue spiked into my mouth and my world changed.

  My entire world.

  I didn’t have a dead sister.

  I didn’t have a dead mother.

  I didn’t have a lonely father looking after his mother, who was addled with Alzheimer’s disease.

  I didn’t have an ex-husband, who I once loved who I thought would cherish and protect me and help me build my dream, but now was making my life a misery and trying to take my son away from me.

  I had this.

  All of it. All the biker named Joker gave me by holding me so tight it was a pain that hurt so good and who was invading my mouth with his tongue in a way that stated clearly he could do it for a lifetime and never get enough.

  My hands left his head so I could curve my arms around his shoulders as I pressed closer.

  In return, one of his hands slid up my spine. He pulled out my ponytail holder and drove his fingers into my hair, cupping the back of my head, tilting it one way while he slanted his the other. He deepened the kiss in an intoxicating way while his other hand glided down and cupped one cheek of my behind.

  That felt good.

  He shuffled me back.

  I went with him.

  We kept kissing.

  Then he turned quickly and we were falling.

  He landed on his back on the bed. I landed on him but barely had the opportunity to experience the dizzying beauty of the long length of his hard frame under mine before I was given more beauty when he rolled me and I had the weight of his hard frame pressing mine into the bed.

  His hand left my bottom and went up, fingers yanking at my navy LeLane’s polo shirt, pulling it from my khakis, and then I had its heat, skin against skin.

  I was right.

  His hands were rough.

  It felt so miraculous, I whimpered against his tongue.

  The instant I did, he was gone.

  I lay on the bed, blinking up at him as he stood over me, a biker god with long, messy hair, a beard that made the skin around my mouth sting gloriously, his chest rising and falling in a way I wanted to feel, the steel of his eyes closed against me.

  “Joker—” I whispered.

  “Took that too far. That’s on me. You don’t try that shit again, it won’t happen again. But you try it again, what happens will be on you.”

  I had the highly unusual and electrifying desire to try it again and again and again.

  “You need to get laid, do me and my brothers a favor, find it off Chaos. And you throw Chaos’s help in our face, that’s your call,” he clipped. “But you do that shit, you’re a fool.”

  He said not another word.

  He turned on his boot and stalked out, slamming the door behind him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Free

  Carissa

  “WHAT THE FUCK?”

  I looked up, tossing a ringlet back that had escaped the red bandana I had tied (rather adorably, I thought) around my head to hold my thick mess of curly hair back, and saw Joker at the doorway to his room, looking unhappy.

  The ringlet fell in my eye.

  Joker’s eyes narrowed on it.

  “What the fuck are you doin’?” he asked when I didn’t answer his opening question.

  “That’s twenty cents,” I returned.

  “Hunh?” he grunted.

  “Regular curse words are a nickel,” I told him. “Bad curse words are a dime. Everyone knows the f-word is a bad one and since, starting now, you’re paying me every time you curse, that’s twenty cents you owe me.” I shook my hair, bandana and all. “I’ll give it to charity or something. The way you cuss, we’ll probably be able to build a homeless shelter in a week.”

  He didn’t look any less unhappy when I finished talking but he did take two steps toward me.

  “Carissa, what are you doin’ in my room?”

  It was the day after my kiss with Joker. A day where I thought of nothing but Joker… and that kiss. A day and a sleepless night where I thought long and hard about it and made a decision.

  I wanted more.

  There were a variety of reasons for this.

  He was handsome. He wasn’t my type, but really, who knew what my type was? All I’d had was Aaron, and I’d found Aaron was definitely the wrong type for me.

  So maybe Joker was my type.

  He was also nice. Sure, he cursed constantly and in the beginning he’d seemed thoughtless about my pie, but he and his friends had done a variety of good things for me, all of them huge. But it started with him, which meant he started it.

  Further, once he
’d prowled out after our kiss, I’d seen the pie plate in his room on his nightstand.

  The empty pie plate.

  So he had liked my pie.

  And last, there was that kiss.

  Truthfully, the rest could go away and the kiss could remain and it was so good, I’d still want more.

  He acted like he could take me or leave me, but even if I’d only ever kissed Aaron, I’d kissed him a lot and we’d never (not ever) shared a kiss like that.

  I didn’t know what was holding Joker back. I may only have had Aaron as experience but there was no way to miss Joker had been into that kiss. A woman throws herself in your arms and you don’t want that, you push her away. You don’t stick your tongue in her mouth, redefine her world, and shuffle her straight to your bed.

  He liked it as much as me.

  But I didn’t care what was holding him back. I was just going to do whatever I could to put a stop to it.

  I looked around his room that now had a stripped bed, four pillowcases full of dirty clothes, a box filled with bottles to recycle, and two huge black trash bags filled with trash. Then I looked down at me, wearing my red Converse, my cuffed boyfriend jeans with the holes in the knees (and up the thighs), my cute tee that declared my devotion to Betty Boop, and the Windex and used paper towel in my hands.

  After that, I looked to him. “I’m cleaning your room.”

  “For fuck’s sake, why?” he bit out.

  “That’s thirty cents,” I returned disapprovingly.

  He didn’t respond. What he did was lean his torso slightly back, wrap his fingers around his hips, and scowl at me in a scary way that again got me talking.

  “Yesterday, you were right,” I informed him, lifting my chin. “I would be a fool not to take what you and your friends are offering. It’s extraordinarily kind, too kind, but I’m in a pickle. A bad pickle. I need help. I have no friends. My dad is in Nebraska taking care of my gramma, and I don’t want him worried about me. And my options are limited. But bottom line, I’m concerned about my son. I’m concerned about his father’s behavior, a father who would be raising him and clearly doesn’t know right from wrong or how to be respectful. Now, I have to do everything I can to make certain my son has a good upbringing, that being from me.”

  I lifted the Windex bottle and jerked a thumb at myself on the “me” and kept talking.