LuAnn and I didn’t argue. We held our breath.
He stumbled away.
“Fucking drunk,” Luann huffed. Putting the brush between her teeth, she pulled my hair up into a ponytail holder. Through the mirror, I could count the cigarette burns on her arms.
Didn’t matter if she knew he was a drunk and liked to burn her if she sassed. Didn’t matter if the beat her and Snakebite whenever he felt like it. LuAnn was one of those women who didn’t know her worth. She’d stay until he killed her. The man never touched me but only because it wasn’t his right. The members of this club would have a fit. After all, Diablo, legend around here had loved me like a daughter.
“Where’s Snakebite, anyhow?”
“He’s staying with Viper.”
Viper was his much older sister. One LuAnn didn’t have a hand in raising. She was married to Dice, our Sergeant at Arms, and they had a little girl, Betty who was five. We all called her Betty Boop. I babysat for them all the time.
My mind wandered, thinking about how I ended up with the Sons of Satan MC.
Daddy Diablo had told me the story a million times. “You were the rainbow after the storm. A little Star peeking out once the clouds passed.”
I wasn’t his blood, but he said my brother had been. My mother, his one true love, practically a princess of theCoyote Ghost’s MC and pregnant with his child left her club to be with him. But on her way to California, she was kidnapped by the vice-president of the Asphalt Gods’ MC, the General.
Apparently, he was smitten with her, too.
By the time Diablo infiltrated the other club to rescue her, he learned she’d escaped, run off to lord knows where. He spent the rest of his life tracking my mother down. Eventually, a mole in the Coyote Ghosts told him my mother would be headed back to Oklahoma from her home in Tennessee. Diablo guessed the road she’d take. Little did he know, the General had his own ears in Oklahoma. He’d also been looking for my mother. He’d been alerted of her travels as well.
Two gangs racing to intercept one woman before she made it safely to her kin in another gang—I’d always been on the edge of my seat—detached. It was a hell of a story, but I didn’t remember my parents and brother being killed. All I knew was, I’d been five years old. Diablo had saved me from the same sad fate. “I may not have been able to know my son, but I’ve gained a precious daughter who’s the spitting image of my beloved Kathy.”
LuAnn tore me from the memory with more talk of Snakebite. “I know why he’s hitting the bottle so hard tonight. His boy refusing to pledge is breaking his heart.”
As I rolled my eyes at LuAnn’s ability to forgive Serpentine’s behavior, I thought of running into Snakebite if his sister asked me to sit for them. Yet, the next time I saw him was during the Santa Ana winds.
By day three of the storm, they’d gotten so strong they’d knocked over Serpentines bike. LuAnn suggested we go to the Devil’s Den for shelter. The bar and restaurant within the compound was somewhere I wasn’t too often. See, while Serpentine hardly cared about me, what he did care about was the club. I’d practically been Diablo’s daughter. While other biker brats did as they pleased, drank and smoked—worse and they went on dates, fifteen or not, I’d been treated like glass my whole life. So much so, I’d been afraid of a hard cock and probably missed any chance I had with an older boy like Snakebite.
Because of the Santa Ana, wildfires had broken out up north. Fetish who ran the bar, turned on the news. As everyone watched, I noticed Snakebite come in and sit at a corner table with Ghost Rider and Dice. Betty was on herdad’s lap, but as soon as she spotted me, she jumped off and ran over to hang around my neck.
“How’re you, Betty Boop?”
“I ain’t afraid of no desert winds,” she said, probably mimicking her father.
“Me, either,” I told her, as I tried to listen to the forecast.… fanning several large fires in Southern California… prompted the National Weather Service to issue an extreme fire warning through Saturday… gusts up to 80 mph.
The wind howled, knocking against the building, making me and Betty both jump. Little Betty ran off to the safety of her father’s arms again, and Snakebite strolled my way. He didn’t stop to talk, but the smirk on his face said he wanted to. He jutted his head toward the bathrooms. After he’d disappeared, I got up to head to the ladies’ room, tingles running up my spine.
Just as I thought, he was waiting for me inside. Holding my breath, I locked the door on the single bathroom.
“I’m sorry,” I exhaled softly, trying to keep quiet.
“Don’t be,” he whispered back, and I could tell he still hadn’t pledged. He didn’t speak with the signature slur the other members did. His tongue was still intact. “I’m sorry things went too fast. For you. You’re not ready.”
“They didn’t. I am,” I said, a little bolder. Not sure if I meant it.
Just like that, we were kissing again. Snakebite’s whole body forced me against the door, so I couldn’t recoil from the steel rod smashed against me if I wanted to. I didn’t want to. I’d missed him so much, I welcomed it. He pounded against me as we sucked face. Hiking my leg, I pushed myself against him with the same fever. He seized my back side, helping me wrap my legs around his middle. Jutting his hips forward again, he put himself in the perfect position to ease my frustrations. I felt a trickle of moisture between my legs. If we were naked, he’d be inside me.
Our kiss instantly grew more intense. With his weight and the door holding me, his hands were free to roam up my sides, to my breasts. He cupped them both and squeezed. As he gyrated against me, his mouth dropped to my neck. My hands went into his long hair.
Like a magician, without me noticing at all, he’d unbuttoned my jeans and had his hand down over my panties. He rubbed me through the thin, satiny fabric, and it felt so much better than rubbing myself. Convinced by the sensation, I was sure I’d go all the way with him.
Just as I was really enjoying myself, he stopped moving all together. He removed his hand and whispered, “I wish we could finish this now, but we better go back outside.”
When he sat me back to my feet, I felt like whimpering. But he was right. Reality struck like lightning, and I buttoned my pants and straightened my clothes.
