I told myself I was spending extra time on my appearance that morning because I was evolving into a new post-William me, a woman who wore what she wanted even if it meant lipstick in the morning on a Thursday and a dress with a form fitting bodice and short, flirty skirt that almost showed too much leg. It was mostly true, so the little lie was easier to swallow.
I smoothed the silky fabric over my thighs as I pulled into Hephaestus Auto and Mechanics and turned off the engine. The garage was surprisingly large and thrumming with activity even at 7:30 in the morning. I spotted over a dozen men milling about the lot, working on cars or chatting over parts. The garage had a reputation all across Canada for being the best at automobile upgrades and motorcycle additions but I could never have imagined what a colossal venture it would be.
Suddenly, I was intensely aware of my run-down, fourth-hand Honda Civic. I pulled into an empty spot between some kind of Ferrari and a sleek black sports car with an insignia I’d never even seen before. I sat in my car, stroking the wheel absently to soothe us both as I took stock of the operation.
Hephaestus Auto sprawled across an enormous industrial lot that bordered the ‘good’ side of downtown Entrance from the seedier neighborhoods. The parking area was large and bracketed an undesignated pathway that led up to a small brick building that must have housed the office areas and reception. To the left were the garage bays, five huge caverns all currently open and filled with at least one or two cars. To the right was a little park area, incongruent with the asphalt jungle, verdant with a small garden and huge earthenware pots and troughs that held long grass and, in the spring, would probably bloom with beautiful flowers. Beyond that lay another long, low brick building with a huge black door studded with metal and very few windows. There was a super cool graffiti sign to one side of the door that showed a terrifying skull bracketed by huge charred and tattered wings with ‘The Fallen’ written in black letters across the top. I figured that it was some kind of clubhouse or meeting hall where they conducted all their criminal business.
My lips thinned as I thought about King’s part in all of that.
I’d done my research last night after an hour of lying in bed wired and unable to sleep. The Fallen MC was the premier source of BC marijuana in the province and all of North America. They ran into problems with gang warfare only in the southern states of America and California where they crossed territory with the Mexican drug cartels but otherwise, they’d cornered the market. They didn’t deal in other drugs, which I found kind of strange, and the rest of their ‘supposed’ criminal enterprises consisted of munitions dealing and money laundering.
I had been born and raised by older, conservative parents who didn’t believe in divorce. Then, I’d been married to a deeply reserved, repressed lawyer who felt about nothing so passionately as he did his own social standing.
I’d wanted to shed my old skin, those old connections, but did I really want to do a 180? If I took up with a biker, there was no chance William or my parents would take me back. I tried to tell myself that I didn’t care about that but I did. Even though they didn’t make me happy, they had been my entire life and I wasn’t ready to irrevocably emancipate myself from them yet.
I sighed deeply, steeling myself against King’s inevitable temptation. Just because he was the hottest thing I had ever seen—living or dead and that included Elvis Presley who was the original hottie—didn’t mean I would lose control around him and say, fall to my knees and beg him to bed me like I’d fantasized about in the longs hours without sleep the night before. No, I was a strong, independent woman.
Still, I flipped down the mirror to check and then reapply my deep berry lip stain before I got out of the car.
Before I could approach the reception area, an enormous man covered in tattoos from chin to finger tips, approached me with a crooked smile.
“Lost, lady?”
I swallowed back my unease because the guy was both scary and ridiculously attractive. His tattoos were all done in blacks as deep as his unkempt hair and long-lashed eyes, and they contrasted deeply with his porcelain skin tone.
“I’m looking for King. He told me to bring my car in for servicing.”
The stranger’s inky black eyes trailed the length of my car. His lips twitched but at least he didn’t laugh. “You sure he didn’t mean to send you to the dump?”
Shame rippled down my spine. “I’m sure. Betty Sue is all I can afford and she just needs… a face lift.”
“Thinking if you can’t afford a new car, you sure as hell can’t afford the facelift this piece of crap needs to stay running,” he told me.
I blew a huff through my lips and planted my hands on my hips. “Listen, that’s exactly what I told King but he wouldn’t listen to me. I’ll just get in my car and go then. I’m sorry we both wasted our time.”
“Whoa, hold up, Sassy. If King told you to bring it in, he musta meant to fix it within your price range, all right? Stay here. I’ll get ‘im.”
I realized that I was pouting and pulled my curled lower lip between my teeth before I nodded. The stranger smiled, wiped his dirty hands on his dirty navy blue mechanic overalls and extended it to me.
“Bat Stevens.”
I stared at his outstretched fingers and corded forearm, covered in an inked flurry of bats.
“You must love bats,” I deadpanned as I shook his hand.
His lips quirked, softening the hard lines of his face and his overall badassery. “Hate ‘em, but I make myself live with them.”
I frowned after him as he turned away to find King. He wore the standard black jumpsuit of a mechanic but I knew without having to ask that Bat Stevens was a one percenter and I didn’t know if it said good things about me that I was astonished by his parting words of wisdom. Could a biker really be a philosopher or was he just tripping on something and I was so desperate for insight that I was looking for it in unlikely places?
“Babe,” the already familiar boyish huskiness of King’s voice called to me from across the asphalt.
I looked up with a nervous smile that immediately fell off my face as I took in all that was King as he approached me. He was wearing another tee, this one a dark navy that set his eyes to the color of Arctic blue, and his signature low-riding, totally worn out jeans over ridiculously sexy motorcycle boots. I watched as he wiped his grease-covered hands on an even greasier rag before slipping it into a back pocket. His hair was messy, a chaos of golden kinks around his wide-smiling face. He looked like a freaking angel.
My heart stopped for a long pause. Restarted with a clunking thunk that made me think I was dying.
He slowed as he reached me, his smile twisting into something less pure, corrupted with the arrogance he felt when he saw how much he affected me. I tried to be annoyed but it was hard when his beauty literally made it difficult for me to breath.
How a man could exist who looked like him in real life was really beyond my comprehension.
“Babe,” he repeated, this time quietly but his voice was filled with laughter.
“King,” I said, my voice cracking. Heat sluiced from the top of my head to my toes and I knew I was blushing but I cleared my throat and powered on. “You told me to bring my car in so here I am.”
“Here you are,” he agreed as his eyes dragged like a physical touch over my body. “Lookin’ fucking gorgeous. I can’t believe the guys have left you alone.”
“I haven’t been here long,” I admitted.
“Yeah, that must be it.”
We stood staring at each other and I worried it was awkward but I couldn’t bring myself to stop staring at him. He seemed to be experiencing the same problem.
“Still determined to stay away from me?” he asked with that signature cocky grin I was already helpless against.
“It’s for the best.”
“I gotta disagree with you there, babe.”
I watched him lean against my car, one booted foot crossed over the other, his arms folded so that the fabric of his shirt pulled tight over all those lean muscles in his chest. He was so beautiful but so cliché, I had to laugh.
“You are such a rebel without a cause,” I teased.
His eyes lit as they raked me up and down. “I got a cause, babe. Gettin’ you on the back of my bike and gettin’ you to stay there.”
My laughter died in my throat, clogging it like road kill. I swallowed thickly. “You’re tenacious, I’ll give you that.”
“You should give me a lot more but I’m willing to earn it. Just need the chance.”
I threw my hands up. “You don’t even know me, King. Why in the world are you trying so hard?”
His eyes narrowed and the cocky, boyish charm he usually exuded fell away like a wolf its sheep-shorn disguise. I took a step back, which was a mistake because he was on me, so close but not touching, rangy arms bracketing my body against the car and bent slightly so that he could bring his face close to mine.
All I could see were those silver blue eyes, wolf bright.
“Attraction ain’t something you can fake, babe, and soon as I saw your sweet self across the parking lot that day, my breath left my body like a punch to the gut. Never seen someone or anything so beautiful as you.”
“Beauty isn’t everything,” I protested weakly.
His eyes remained somber but there was twitch in his lips that told me he fought a smile. “Nah, it’s not. Lucky for you, I also happen to like dorky, sweet librarian types with a hidden wealth of sass.”
“Gosh, that was sweet,” I whispered before I could stop myself.
His grin nearly blinded me but it was the hand that worked its way under my hair to cup the back of my neck that made my knees shake.
“I got a lotta sweet to give if you promise to look at me like that every time I give it.”
“Look at you like what?”
“Like I’m worth somethin’ special. Don’t get that much and babe, I gotta tell you, it makes me feel like I’m King of my own fuckin’ castle.”
I closed my eyes and dropped my head against the car with a groan. “I never stood a chance against you, did I?”
“Not really,” he laughed.
I peeked at him through one squinted eye. “My life is a mess and I’m not jumping up and down at the thought of dating a criminal.”
“Like I tried to tell you yesterday, I’m not a criminal. My family is involved with the club but I’m not.” He sighed and dragged a hand through his curls. “I’m not yet, at least. Gotta be honest here babe, if you’re gonna give me a chance, it’s a very real possibility that I might be a brother one day. Some might even say it’s a forgone conclusion.”
“But it isn’t?” I asked, clinging to the slight possibility.
“Nah, but turning my back on family isn’t really in me. Even if I didn’t patch in, this place, the brothers and the lifestyle… I couldn’t ever turn my back on ‘em.”
I chewed on my bottom lip for a long moment. Too long apparently, because King gently pulled it with his fingers and smoothed his thumb across it.
“Never told anyone I wasn’t sure if I was gonna patch in,” he muttered.
A little thrill went through me at the intimacy of him sharing such a big secret. “I won’t tell.”
“Know that, babe,” he said as if we’d known each other forever and he’d been sharing his secrets all our lives.
We stared at each other and I felt suddenly like crying.
“You’re too much for me,” I breathed through my tightening throat. “I swear, you’ll be bored in a week. I’m no fun.”
His thumb brushed back and forth over the corner of his jaw, his eyes soft as over-washed denim. “The bones are already there, Cress. You’re the same girl who climbed on the back of a stranger’s bike and beat my ass at pool using some pretty dirty tricks. I just gotta corrupt you a little and, just to say, I’m lookin’ forward to that part.”
I blushed which made the hand on the back of my neck tighten, so I knew before he did it that he was going to kiss me. It was a long, languid kiss that started out with closed lips then open mouths and finally tongues, molasses smooth and sweet swipes and tangles that made my belly quiver.
“Nice piece,” someone shouted.
“When you’re done with her, I wouldn’t mind a round with the bitch,” another man yelled from across the lot.
Shame burned through me, William’s voice suddenly in my head telling me not to be a slut. I tried to push King away but he was immovable. He frowned but I knew the expression wasn’t for me when he looked over his shoulder and spotted the second guy who had called out.
“Shut the fuck up, Skell. My woman wouldn’t give you a second fuckin’ look if you were the last man in Entrance.”
His woman?
“Your woman, eh?” The man named Skell barked out a laugh. He was a terrifying looking guy, with tattoos all up his neck, a few on his face and silver bits stuck in his brows and ears. “Bit young for a ball and chain, King.”
“You see her?” King called back.
There was a pause. “Yeah, man. Saw her clear across the lot, wanted her. I get closer, might have to find a way to convince her to give another brother a chance.”
“Then you know, you find something this sweet, you get it on lock down. So, if you’re done being an asshole, leave me to doing that, yeah?”
Skell jerked up his chin in the universal sign for male respect and walked back into one of the garage bays.
When King turned back to me, I was the one frowning.
“What?” he asked.
“I can’t resist you if you keep going all sweet in a cool, badass biker kind of way that’s also sexy,” I informed him.
His lips twitched, then he did my favorite thing by throwing his head back to laugh. I stared at his beautiful throat, unaware until him that a throat could be beautiful, and absorbed the awesome sound of his humor.
“Babe,” he squeezed me tighter, “you don’t want to resist me. The sooner you realize it, the happier we’ll both be.”
He was so right. It didn’t say much about me, except that I had a very narrow mind, but I was constantly surprised by King’s sweetness and smarts. They seemed totally incongruent with the image of a biker I had in my head.
“Okay,” I said softly, looking up into his face so I could watch the warmth flood his icy eyes.
“Good, babe,” he whispered back in the same gentle way.
God, a tall, rough-edged biker man who could also be thoughtful, smart and kind?
He was too good to be true.
I just wished I’d known how literal that was at the time.
“Pick you up tonight at eight.”
“Okay, where are we going?” I asked.
There were only four restaurants in Entrance proper: the two formal, Donovan’s Steakhouse for family dinners and celebrations, and La Gustosa, the place to impress anyone and everyone with their phenomenal authentic Italian food; the informal, Stella’s Diner and an Earl’s, the one and only chain restaurant to infiltrate the town. I had only been to Earl’s and even then only once because when I was married, I’d needed to be out of the classroom and on the road home by four thirty at the latest in order to have dinner on the table for William by the time he got home from work.
“Somewhere outside of town.”
“Oh,” I pouted slightly. “I’d love to go somewhere here. Maybe Stella’s?”
He raised a brow at me. “Woulda taken you more for a La Gustosa kinda woman.”
I shrugged. “I’ve heard Arturo and Anna Lucia make the best pasta outside of Italy but I’ve been to lots of fancy restaurants and I have to admit, I haven’t had a really good burger in years.”
King reeled back as if I’d hit him, his eyes wide and mouth slack with horror. I giggled, as I’m sure he meant for me to.
“Well, we can’t have that. Burgers it is, but not Stella’s. Best place for a burger and fries is Pourhouse in Vancouver. You up for another ride on the back of my bike?”
“I like riding on the back of your bike,” I said, because it was true but also because I wanted to see his eyes turn to fire.
They did not disappoint.
He groaned, pressing my body fully into the car with his weight flush against me and his forehead tipped to mine. “Sexy as fuck, you like my bike.”
“Glad you think so,” I said, as if I wasn’t down to my toes thrilled that someone as freaking unbelievably attractive as King thought I was sexy.
“Now, I’m gonna kiss you ‘til your toes curl then I’m going to get one of the brothers to give you a ride to where you got to be.”
I was stuck on the kissing thing, my lips tingling and my gut tightening, so I didn’t object to making some stranger go out of their way to give me a ride to school.
“Okay.”
He grinned, then moved closer to press that smile to the corner of my mouth. “Like that word from you, baby.”
I opened my mouth, hopefully to say something feminist and independent but probably to say ‘okay’ again and again until he kissed me senseless but he was already on me, kissing me just like that.
He tasted good, fresh and clean like a drink of cool water. His hand found its place under my heavy hair, wrapped around my neck as if he knew I needed the support to hold me up in case my knees gave out.
“Be at yours at eight. You own a pair of jeans?” he asked after one last lingering kiss.
My eyes were still closed and I was considering the possibility that just a kiss could bring me to orgasm. With King, I honestly thought it might be achievable.
“Babe,” he called.
“Here, just recovering.”
His chuckle wafted over my lips. I licked them, tasting him on me, thinking his laugh had a taste and it was freaking awesome.
“You own jeans or just these sexy skirts?”
“I own jeans.” I opened my eyes under furrowed brows and huffed. “Of course, I own jeans. I’m Canadian. It’s a toss-up between jeans and Lulu Lemons, which is our national uniform.”
He grinned. “Coulda just said yes, Cress.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, King, I own jeans.”
The hand holding my neck squeezed then slid a long, languid path down my back and over my bottom. I shivered and King watched me do it, his eyes tracking the goose bumps that rippled up along my neck. He ducked his head to run his teeth and the very tip of his tongue down the side of my throat until he reached the juncture of my shoulder and gently bit there.
“Oh,” I gasped.
He pressed a chaste kiss to the top of my shoulder. “Gotta get goin’. Wish I didn’t.”
“Me too.”
“Tonight, Cress.” He pulled away, both hands at my neck, bracketing it firmly so that he could look me in the eyes.
“Tonight, King. Got it.”
“I’m gonna show you how to live, if you let me in to do it.”
I knew it. I knew it better than I knew Paradise Lost and I’d written my honors English thesis on it. I knew it better than I knew William’s schedule and I’d lived by it for eight years. King was a man who could change my life, throw me into the deep end when I’d only ever kept my feet in the warm waters of the shallows. I didn’t know if I was ready for such a massive change. I was still technically married, I had no experience to keep a man as wild as him anything close to satisfied let alone tame, and I had less than two thousand dollars in my bank account. Not exactly living the dream I’d dreamt of my whole life. But on the back of a bike with King, riding to nowhere with the smell of hot asphalt and his clean laundry scent in my nose, I thought that could easily be a new dream to dream and maybe, unlike the others, attain.
“I’m counting on it.”
