It took her a moment to recall her cruel words from Melanie’s viewing. She swallowed hard, because until he’d asked the question, she’d thought her answer was ‘no’. She thought she’d moved past his absence, accepted his abandonment. She thought she’d come to terms with thinking of him in a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type fashion.
“I don’t know,” she confessed.
Pain crossed his features for a fraction of a second before he masked it. Nodding, he said sternly, “Then hate me, Jen. Yell at me, curse me, call me names, hit me if you must… But do all of it while loving me.”
Jenna’s heart squeezed tightly inside her chest. “I do love you, Jack. That will never change. I just don’t know where we go from here. I don’t know how to…” She hesitated, “Be us, right now.”
Jack licked his lips. Still gripping her hair with one hand, he raised the harness up with the other. “Are you brave enough to find out?”
Jenna swallowed hard. It had been a long time since she’d been on a motorcycle. They’d ridden last summer, until one day when she couldn’t. Jack had refused to ride without her.There’d only been two exceptions that Jenna knew of: riding with the club to pick Pumpkin up from rehab and then following Melanie’s murder.
Her eyes went to the harness. It wasn’t quite like Bree’s. Bree’s was a dual contraption, securing her to the driver at four points. This one seemed to be a waist loop with a tall back zipper and then two hoops, but she couldn’t figure out if they were meant for her arms or her legs.
“We can’t bring the wheelchair with us on the bike,” she pointed out to him.
Jack nipped at her nose. “I wasn’t planning on stopping, and even if we did, you know I got you.”
Warmth spread through her at the reminder. Shedidknow that. That was never even a question. The idea of not stopping was intoxicating. Taking her left hand off of the armrest, she gripped his shirt. Her left hand had nearly full dexterity, and it didn’t have the tremors her right suffered from.
Jenna dragged Jack down to her, claiming his lips. The kiss wasn’t fancy. They weren’t using tongue, nor were they fighting for control. It was a fusion of their souls, a reiteration of the vows they’d made to each other over forty years ago, and an exclamation of their shared pain. Neither had mentioned Melanie. They would have to, eventually.
They would need to face the misery and turmoil together, or there could be no future for them.
Pulling back, they both gasped for air as Jack rested his forehead on Jenna’s. “Fuck, baby… You have no idea how much I needed that.”
She did, in fact, but her lungs were struggling for air too much to tell him so.
Jack lifted his lips to kiss her temple. “Come on. Let’s get you upstairs and changed. No way in hell are you getting on my hog dressed like that.”
She knew he meant the lack of protection her current outfit provided her, not anything negative about what she was wearing or how it fit her. “You can take me upstairs,” she gasped, “but you won’t find any of our clothes there.”
Jack picked his head up, confused. “Why not?”
“Because our room is now the old den.” Jenna nodded her head over her shoulder. “I should warn you, your youngest has been decorating.”
The horror that crossed Jack’s face caused Jenna to emit the first true laugh from her in months.
Jack had beentwenty when he bought his first motorcycle. It had been a rusted, junker of a bike, but he’d worked endlessly while on leave to fix it up. And it was only after numerous test runs to ensure it was in perfect working condition that Jack finally allowed Jenna to ride on it too. Their first trip had been short—and not just because Jenna had requested a bathroom break twenty minutes in. Neither had bothered to check the forecast and they’d gotten caught in a rainstorm under an overpass for several hours.
Jenna could still smell the rain, the feel of Jack’s leather jacket wrapped around her to keep her wet body from getting too cold, and the reassurance of his arm as they sat on that concrete ledge as they waited for the rain to pass. Jack had apologized, thinking the weather had ruined her perception of what joy riding a motorcycle could be. He hadn’t understood. She hadn’t cared about the length of the ride or even about getting soaked before he’d gotten them under the overpass.
Jack had had her. The feminist in her liked to argue that she shouldn’t need a man, that she could stand on her own two feetand solve her own problems. Over the years, even some of her fellow women had looked down on Jenna for getting married so young, for relying on Jack so heavily, for never having a job and being a stay-at-home mom until her late forties. It wasn’t about Jack being a man, though she was secure in her own femininity enough to be appreciative of hisfinemasculine form.
It was about having a partner, someone she knew that would always be there. If Jack had been a woman, or Jenna had been a man, she knew that their souls would have still found each other, and she would have ended up on the back of his motorcycle regardless. Because bottom line, Jack had her.
That first motorcycle ride had proved it, regardless of how short it was. He’d protected her, thought only of her, and ignored his own discomfort to ensure hers.
Forty years later, and the same was still true. The harness Jack had gotten for her offered her more back support than a standard sissy backrest. It latched her upper thighs to his, her belly to his back, and her arms around his waist. He’d playfully pinched her when she’d commented, “Kinky,” at the sight of the wrist cuffs.
Getting on his bike with him almost felt like a factory reset. They were bringing it back to basics, allowing the road to be their counselor and guide.
Eventually they did have to stop. Jenna dozed on and off during the ride. Her exercise from that morning, getting dressed in more protective clothing, and then figuring out how to work the harness had zapped the energy right out of her. The rumble of the motorcycle under her felt like a full-bodied Tens unit, massaging every nerve and muscle. It felt so good, she’d let out a long moan of ecstasy against Jack’s back.
Which haddefinitelygotten his attention because his left hand spent most of the ride on her thigh.
In the late afternoon, they stopped. Both needed food and the bathroom, and the bike needed gas. They didn’t talk much, but that didn’t make the experience any less intimate. At the small road-side diner, Jack had taken her into the ladies’ room since there was no family bathroom. The waitress had stood guard to ensure that no one got a stick up their ass about Jack being in the women’s restroom to help her.
Then he carried her to a booth, where he sat with his back to the window and Jenna between his legs. Jenna could have fed herself. The nap she’d taken in addition to the feel of the motorcycle had rejuvenated her and she felt more like herself than she had in a long time. Or perhaps it was the man at her back. Either way, she made no attempt to feed herself as she lay back against Jack’s chest as he fed her.
