Vindication: A Motorcycle Club Romance (9 page)

Ghost’s stomach was rumbling. “Any
good places to eat in this Burling joint?”

Someone from Eagleton answered, but
he wasn’t sure who. Not Lucero, at least, because there was no southern drawl.
“There’s a couple cafés.”

“I’m gonna eat a whole cherry pie,”
said Ghost.

“Ghost, keep the line clear.” It was
Jase this time, using his dad voice.

Ghost rolled his eyes and clicked the
button again. “Roger, your honor.” He felt that bitterness again and revved the
throttle on his bike, roaring past Tommy and nearly up to the bumper of the Volkswagen
van they’d been trailing the last five miles. Tommy was right on his heels,
keeping pace with his speed as Ghost changed lanes and roared past the van, and
past the white service truck ahead of that. The van was just ahead, rolling
smoothly in the right lane.

They had the fast lane mostly clear
for a good half-mile, so Ghost didn’t bother to get back behind the van, and
cruised alongside and just a bit slower. Their orders had been to not make the
escort look glaringly obvious, but he figured the run was almost done, and no
one was around to give a shit anyway. He wanted a change of scenery. At least
instead of staring at the ass-end of that hippy-mobile, he had an open horizon in
front of him, the sky a vibrant mix of gradient blues that always seemed to
come with warming spring.

The wind felt good on his face. The
ride had been boring, but Ghost always tried to pull even a little bit of
pleasure from all of his tasks. He took a big deep breath and gave a glance
over to the van. At his angle, he could see inside the cabin just a bit thanks
to the driver’s side door mirror. Or at least, he could see the grumpy,
scowling face of Lucero and his gray-streaked beard, eyes hidden behind big
dark sunglasses.

Ghost’s gaze flicked back to the road
in front of him, and found it still empty. Back to the mirror, he took another
glance at Lucero.

Something was wrong. Was he nodding
off?

It was only a few seconds of time in
the end, but to Ghost it felt like everything slowed to a painful crawl. As his
mind formed the question, in the mirror he saw Lucero’s head loll and then
fully drop, chin against chest. His body tipped to the side toward the window.
Ghost felt his hands close hard on the brake levers of his bike before he even
realized he’d made the decision to do it.

The screech of tires soared into the
air as the van swerved, like Lucero’s body had, left toward the window and
toward the fast lane where Tommy was still riding at full speed.

Ghost watched in helpless horror from
his slowing bike as the van reared hard toward Tommy. He had the conscious
thought that he was about to watch his favorite kid brother become a Jackson
Pollock painting on the highway.

But Tommy wasn’t blind. As soon as he
caught the van coming in his periphery, he revved his engine hard.  Tommy
leaned back as his bike jolted forward with sudden force. The van twisted by
behind him. He almost made it clear, but the shiny chrome edge of the van’s
front bumper swiped Tommy’s rear tire, and send him wobbling and fighting to
keep his balance.

It was too much force. Tommy wheeled
hard left off the road and into the desert scrub of the highway median until he
finally lost control of the bike and tried to bail. His bike skittered like a
toy across the rocky earth. Ghost watched Tommy’s body hit the ground like he
was a crash test dummy, all flopping limbs and grotesque angles, until he
disappeared from view.

Ghost didn’t even see the brake
lights on the van blaze on as it continued off the highway and onto the flat
desert scrub, hitting rough bumps and ditches until it finally came to a hard
stop, tires spinning uselessly in a deep narrow canal. The van tipped with an
aching moan and stopped, dust swirling into the atmosphere.

Ghost clicked on the walkie button.
“Get the fuck up here now, and call an ambulance! We have a situation!”

Voices howled in worried response,
but Ghost ignored them and twisted his throttle hard to catch up. He pulled off
the road and stopped his bike, dashing out into the scrub toward Tommy’s crash
site. Cars on the highway still mostly rushed by unbothered, but a few were
slowing down as they passed.

“Tommy!” yelled Ghost as he jumped
over short green bushes. Tommy’s bike smoked in the dirt, but Ghost found its
rider about fifty feet away, his body broken and twisted on the rocks. He was
still conscious.

“Oh, fucking God,” said Ghost. He
whipped off his cut and stuffed it under Tommy’s head carefully as he ran his gaze
up and down Tommy’s body. Both of his legs and one of his arms were broken, and
stuff around his ribs did not look right. Half his face was red and raw, torn
by the rocks and plants as he fell. Blood and tears mixed down his face as he
moaned in pain.

“Buddy, it’s okay. Hang on, we’re
going to get you help,” said Ghost. He grabbed Tommy’s hand carefully and
clicked the walkie on. “Where the fuck are you?! There’s been an accident! We
need a helicopter for Tommy.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” yelled Jase
over the line. “Where are you?”

“Where’s Lucero and Will?” said a
voice that sounded like Shaun, but strained with stress.

“Trust me, you’re not going to miss
the smoking wreckage on the roadside.” Ghost stretched out to get a view of the
van, still sitting in the ditch some yards back. He couldn’t see any movement.
“I don’t have eyes on Will and Lucero, but the van’s not in terrible shape.”

“We have to get the guns out of
there,” said Shaun urgently. “I’ve only got two Highway Patrol on my dime and
way more first responders are on their way than that.”

“Fuck!” Ghost snarled. He’d
completely forgotten about the guns. Tommy groaned from beneath him and Ghost
gave his hand a squeeze. “Tommy’s hurt bad. I can’t just leave him here.”

“Ghost, get the fucking guns ready!”
said Jase. “You’re not a doctor. You can’t do anything for him. Get to the van
and get the guns ready to switch when we pull up. We’re two minutes out.”

Ghost felt a shameful anger rise up
in his gut. Jase was right, but right didn’t fucking matter in that moment, not
if right was asking him to leave Tommy here bleeding in the dirt by himself. He
looked down at his friend and shook his head, furious. “Tommy, hang on. Please,
buddy. I want you to think of something that makes you super fucking angry,
okay? Anything: terrorists, wife-beaters, people who answer their phones at the
movies… get angry, right now. Get angrier than you’ve ever been and you hold on
to that anger for me until I get back.”

The noise Tommy made broke what
little bit of a heart Ghost had left. There were no audible words involved; it
was just pain and fear in vocal form.

“I know, I’m sorry. Shit, be angry at
me. But I’m the only one up; I have to go check on Will. And I have to get
those guns out of here so we can get you to a good hospital, and not a prison
one,” said Ghost. He clutched Tommy’s hand tighter. “Stay angry, bruiser. I’ll
be back before you know it.”

Against all his wants and instincts,
Ghost stood up and left Tommy there in the dirt. He stalked hard and heated
across the scrubland toward the van. On the roadside at a distance, he could
see a minivan had parked and a family of portly, pastel-wearing people was
gawking, and two of them were on their phones.

The van was tipped at an awkward
angle, but luckily it hadn’t flipped or even fallen completely on its side. The
engine still hummed softly, one tire spinning in the air. Ghost came around and
opened the swinging panel doors on the driver’s side. The fake meat packing
boxes that were really full of black market guns had been tossed all over the
metal interior like matchsticks. In the passenger seat, Will hung limply
against the seat belt across his chest, groaning his way back to consciousness.

The sight of Lucero completely passed
out in the driver’s seat brought Ghost to a level of rage he’d never felt
before. Every thought in his head became of dragging the motherfucker from the
van and beating him to death right there in the desert.

“What the fuck…” came Will’s slurred
voice, followed by a sharp howl of pain. He brought his right arm to his chest
tenderly.

“Will,” said Ghost. He pulled a grip
of the messy boxes onto the desert ground and climbed in the van. “Will, are
you all right? How bad are you hurt?”

“My arm,” said Will. Ghost couldn’t
see any blood, but Will’s forearm was already twice its size and turning
purple. He must have smacked it good on something when they went off road.
Ghost followed a tiny river of blood coming from the top of his scalp, but it
was just a superficial gash in the jungle of Will’s copper curls. It wasn’t
bad, it would just need stitches. He got lucky.

“Just stay there, buddy,” said Ghost.
“Don’t move, you might be hurt somewhere else. Help is on the way. I’m right
here.”

Will didn’t answer, lulling back into
his hazed shock.

Ghost had most of the boxes out of
the van and piled by the time the second group of Dogs arrived. The four of
them scattered down to the van’s crash site.

“Get these boxes into the other van
right fucking now,” said Shaun. Scott and Rick didn’t hesitate, and immediately
began hefting the boxes into their arms and up the hill toward the waiting
second van. Ghost bent to help, and Shaun was right behind him.

“Will?” said Jase immediately,
throwing himself into the van. Ghost heard him exchange quick, quiet words with
his best friend before he climbed back out with wet eyes and a steely expression
and joined them in lifting boxes.

Once all thirteen boxes were safely
on the second van, Ghost raced back to Tommy’s side with Jase close on his
heels. When Jase approached close enough to get eyes on Tommy’s injuries, he
made a sick noise in his throat.

“Fucking hell,” said Jase as he bent
at Tommy’s other side. “Oh, Tommy. Christ. What the fuck happened?”

In the distance, the sound of sirens
wailed, pressing closer with every second. Shaun was yelling at the Eagleton Dogs,
commanding Scott to get in the driver’s seat of the other van and get out of
the area. Rick climbed in with him, and the van sped off into traffic toward
Burling.

Ghost took Tommy’s hand again and
looked up at Jase with fury in his eyes. “You know goddamn well what the fuck
happened. Exactly what I told you what was going to happen.”

Jase’s face fell, blank and white.

“Lucero,” growled Ghost. “This is all
Lucero.”

~
NINE ~

Bridget

She really wanted to like the tea the headmistress had
given her for her birthday this year, but it didn’t matter what kind of sugar
or honey she put it in it, Bridget couldn’t finish a cup. Feeling shameful
anyway, she went to the sink and poured out the rest of her mug with a sour
face, and then decided to get the kettle boiling for a cup of some reliable
Lady Gray.

The school week had flown by, and she
could hardly believe she was already thinking about what to make for Thursday
evening dinner. All the emotional excitement around Toby and Ghost was making
her typically routine life quite a bit more complicated, even if one of them
was positive and interesting.

She hadn’t yet figured out what she
was going to wear on her dinner date with Ghost; what would a guy like him want
to do on a first date, anyway? Bridget tended to dress for the crash, not for
the ride. She didn’t want to pick out her hottest cocktail number, only to have
him be a nut and suggest laser tag, which seemed utterly possible.

Like he was reading her mind,
suddenly Ghost’s name and number lit up on the bright screen of her cell phone.
Bridget almost didn’t notice the call coming in. She wasn’t expecting to talk
to anyone tonight, least of all Ghost. They had texted back and forth a bit
while he was out of town doing whatever, flirting and prodding with each other
every few hours, until he stopped responding altogether yesterday. But he’d
clearly said he planned to take her out on Friday.

Butterflies fluttered in her stomach,
and she scoffed at herself with a smile. She bit her lip and answered. “Hello?”

“God, you even sound hot on the
phone,” he said.

Bridget laughed and said playfully,
“Who is this?”

“I am literally whoever you want me
to be.”

“I think I’ll just take you as
yourself for now, reserving the option for future trades, of course.”

“It’s only prudent,” he said with a
laugh.

“I thought you were still out of
town,” she said.

Ghost sighed. There was something
very heavy in it, and it made Bridget realize that even though he was still
cracking jokes, his voice wasn’t as airy as it had been before. “Nah, I came
back early. We had a problem… something went wrong.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Is it…
can you even tell me what happened? I don’t know how this works with a biker
club.”

“I can tell you the part that sucks,”
he said. “But honestly, I’d like to wait for that, if it’s all the same to
you.”

Bridget felt sad. Whatever it was
clearly had him down. “Sure. You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t
want to.”

“You are a unicorn among zombie
hordes. Do you have plans tonight?”

Bridget looked around the empty
kitchen, as if the answer would pop out at her. “Oh, uh… no, I guess not. I was
just about to figure out what to have for dinner.”

“I know we talked about dinner
tomorrow, but after this week, I could really use some company that is both
gorgeous and not stupid. Do you think you could help me out with that?”

Bridget laughed. She felt a slight
hesitation in her heart and bit her thumb. She was a planner, not really a
spontaneous person on the regular, and especially not with men. She’d just been
burned too many times. Now she approached them like a coyote sniffing at bait
in a trap: slowly, with open eyes, and a mind for biting. She liked her
interactions with them to be controlled and safe.

But she realized, somehow, that she
already felt safer about Ghost than she did most men at this stage. The thought
both upset and relaxed her. Maybe it was just how badly she wanted to feel his
hard body pressed up against hers, and see if all his swagger was for show.

In the end her fire won out, and she
said, “Sure. I can do that. Do you want to go out, or stay in?”

“A night in sounds magical to me.”

“I kind of feel the same. Well, how
about I just add an extra serving to dinner and you join me?”

“Just tell me what time to be there.”

They decided on eight, which gave
Bridget just an hour to come up with something to feed them both. She opted for
Italian, mostly because she had been on a kick for some prosciutto last grocery
shopping trip, and filled her whole fridge with sundry cheeses, meats, olives,
and wine. She laid out stark white serving plates with the goods, and added
some different crackers and bread, then made a Caesar salad in a big, blue
bowl. She didn’t know what kind of food Ghost was into, but she hadn’t met a
person yet she couldn’t talk into enjoying a traditional Italian spread. 

As eight o’clock crept closer,
Bridget got more nervous, eventually to the point that she couldn’t focus on
the book she tried to read on the couch. She changed her clothes twice and
eventually settled on a pair of jean shorts that showed off her lean legs, and
a casual white t-shirt. She liked the way the outfit softened her without
making her feel like she was a doll being stuffed into a dress. She brushed
through her straight blonde hair and gargled with mouthwash before she was
finally settled with how she looked.

“Ghost,” she said to herself in the
mirror with a chuckle. “You’re about to have dinner with a grown man named
Ghost.”

The doorbell chimed. Bridget tilted
her head, amazed. “How does he keep doing that?” She shoved away the last of
her beauty supplies under the sink and headed out to answer the door. One hand
on the knob, she took a big deep breath and swung the door open.

With the setting sunlight at his
back, Ghost stood there smiling, holding a gorgeous bouquet of bright flowers
that he bought from a store instead of pulling from a live garden. When he saw
her in the doorway, his smile turned into something a little closer to stunned
arousal.

“Goddamn,” he said, looking her up
and down. “You are seriously the salve to my wounds.”

The line hit Bridget hard,
unexpected. She blushed and twisted in the doorway before she could help
herself. “You’re a flatterer.”

“You have a lot of flattering
features,” he said. He stepped up the stoop into the doorway to stand closer to
her. She could feel his heat and inhaled sharply, her chest tight. “I can’t
help it.”

Bridget smiled up at him and moved
back from the door to let him in. Ghost came into the foyer, and waited as
Bridget closed and locked the door behind her. When she turned around, the look
on his face was an unmistakable mask of animal lust. She felt heat rise between
her legs and up the sides of her neck.

Ghost walked toward her slowly, his
eyes fixed on her lips. Bridget opened her mouth, but she didn’t have a single
word or thought in her mind as she watched him approach. He pressed his body
against hers, and with his free hand, cupped her jaw and tilted her eyes up so
they were looking into his.

“Listen,” he said quietly, his lips
brushing against hers as he spoke. “This week has been hell. I know you’re a quality
woman, and I don’t want to disrespect you. But there is nothing in the world I
want more right now than to kiss you, and not stop kissing you until we can’t
feel our own faces anymore.”

Everything about the darkness in his
voice told her he was sincere, and Bridget had never ached so badly for anyone
in her life. She panted lightly against Ghost’s lips and nuzzled her face into
his. “Ghost…”

“Tell me you want it,” he whispered.
His body pushed against hers, grinding. Already his cock was raging hard
against her leg, and it made Bridget wet with need. “Tell me whatever you want,
and I’ll give it to you. Just tell me.” She heard a plastic crinkle as he
dropped the flowers next to their feet. He ran his other hand up the smoothness
of her bare leg, over the curve of her thigh, around her ass to pull her close.

Nothing else was in Bridget’s mind
for that moment except Ghost. He pushed her against the front door and groped
at her ass until she wrapped her leg around his waist.

“I want it,” said Bridget in a
breathy whisper. “I want it. I want you.”

Ghost’s only reply was to smash his
lips on hers in a ferocious kiss, lapping at her like he had been starving to
kiss her all his life. The hand on her jaw pulled her closer, tighter; the
other rubbed her bare thigh and snaked its fingers up underneath the hem of her
shorts to feel her ass. Bridget threw her arms around his neck and clung to
him, moaning as she felt his growing erection pushing against her.

Like teenagers, they groped at each
other in the doorway, making out, until Ghost moved his swollen, wet lips down
her jaw and neck, leaving tiny little bite marks along the way that made
Bridget cry out in pleasure. With his mouth and grateful hands, he slowly made
his way down Bridget’s body until he was on his knees in front of her. He undid
the button fly on her shorts with his teeth as he ran his hands up and down her
bare legs, and all Bridget could do was writhe under his touch and pant his
name.

Ghost pulled her shorts down off her
body until they were pooled at her ankles. Underneath, she had worn her
favorite pair of sexy underwear: a pair of black, lace-top panties that
accentuated the curve of her athletic ass. She swore she heard Ghost gasp when
he saw them. He ran his hands up the back of her legs and cupped her ass in his
big hands as he rubbed his face lovingly against her, nibbling and prodding gently
with his lips at the outer nerves of her pussy. After a few moments, he
carefully moved the panties from her body, leaving her completely bare below
the waist.

“Baby, thank you,” he said as he put
his hands between her thighs and nudged her legs apart. “It is my sincere
pleasure to be down here.”

Before Bridget could respond, Ghost
bent down and sucked her clit into his mouth. The sensation was staggering in
its pleasure; she couldn’t remember the last time a man had eaten her out.
Bridget’s head lolled back against the door and her eyes closed. She pawed at
Ghost’s shaven head as he lapped at her wetness, using his hands to pull open
her lips and run his flat tongue over her hole and clit. It wasn’t long before
Bridget could feel her orgasm building, and Ghost held onto her hips as she
came with a loud cry, gushing her juices all over his tongue. He lapped it up
happily and, while her pussy was still wracked with aftershock, pushed two
fingers inside her until she was writhing on his hand like a puppet.

“Oh, fuck, Ghost,” she moaned,
clawing at his shoulders. Her legs were starting to shake from the intensity
and from her orgasm. Ghost pumped his fingers inside her at an achingly slow
pace, a smile on his face as he watched each time he hit her G-spot. Each push
went deeper and then retracted, but not all the way, only pausing long enough
for her to miss it before he pushed back in again. Just when Bridget thought
she was going to collapse from the torture of it, Ghost pushed his fingers deep
inside her pussy and wrapped his other arm around her waist.

He was even stronger than he looked.
Carefully he twisted Bridget down with him onto the ground, holding her against
him, his fingers buried inside of her but rubbing and rotating anyway. She cried
and yelped at the pleasure and grasped onto his shoulders as he moved her down
to the foyer floor. He hovered over her with his fingers inside of her,
watching her face the whole time.

“I want to watch you cum again,” he
said, fucking her with his fingers.

Her pussy was soaking, and she felt
delirious with pleasure. All she could do was say his name and pull him down
for a desperate kiss. Ghost returned it passionately and ran his free hand down
her neck to knead her breasts over her shirt.

“Fuck yes,” she said against his
mouth. “You know just how to touch me.”

Ghost pulled his fingers out and
pushed them back in. He laughed from low in his throat as she gasped. “Just how
you deserve to be touched.” He bent and lifted her t-shirt up, exposing her
braless breasts to the cool air. Ghost took them in his mouth one at a time and
sucked, his tongue lapping all over the sensitive skin, and making Bridget race
toward another orgasm.