Judge tromps in and throws his keys on the counter. He pulls a beer out of the fridge, pops the tab and downs half of it before saying hello. He drops a kiss on my forehead and gives Grant a chin nod.
“What you gnawing on, boy?” he asks.
Grant pulls his fingers out of his mouth and moseys over to the sink where he proceeds to wash his hands. “Had a paper cut,” he drawls.
“On two fingers?” Judge asks suspiciously.
“How was your day, Judge?” I ask in order to forestall any more awkward questions.
“Good. Got an order in from some newly minted celebrity who thinks he knows how to ride a custom.” Judge owns and runs Wheels Up, a custom bike and muscle car shop. He specializes in the renovation of Corvettes, Shelbys, Mustangs—domestic hot rods only—as well as custom-made low riders. “What you making?”
“Salad and lasagna.” I’d put the noodle dish together before I went for groceries. It’s smelling up the kitchen nice.
“You’re a prize, Chels. Don’t know what I did before you came along. Come on, Wrecker, got some club business I want to chat with you about.”
Grant deliberately brushes by as he exits and all my nerve endings start tingling. Damn him.
After dinner, Grant and Judge take off for the club. I clean up and then decide to shower. I use my lemon-scented shampoo and then lather up with a peach body gel. I find myself shaving everything in the shower. My legs, my underarms, my goddamn cooch. Half way through shaving my pubes, I realize I’m primping for Grant and I throw down the razor in disgust.
Turning the water off with a huff, I step out to dry myself and catch a glimpse of my lower half in the mirror. Half shaved, it looks like a lopsided mohawk. With a sigh, I climb back into the shower, turn on the water and lather up. It’s got to all come off.
By the time I’m completely denuded and lotioned up, it’s ten and I’m bored out of my mind. Nothing on cable is interesting me and my body is as wired as if I’d taken a hit of E.
I don’t want to want Grant, but I do. I want him so bad. I have to take the edge off.
Going through the house, I douse all the lights and climb into my bed. My sleep shirt is an old wife beater of Grant’s. I’ve slept in it ever since he went to prison. I’ve cried in it, masturbated in it, and dreamt in it which is the same as saying that Grant has never been far from my mind.
With my eyes shut tight, one hand between my legs and the other on my tits, I replay the night that Grant took my virginity because for me, much as it was for him, that night is one of the hottest I’ve ever had.
Four years ago
“She’s too young to be at this party,” Thomas Eddy snarls at Grant. Thomas is the high school football captain, a senior who’s going to Mankato State after the summer is over. It’s his party because it’s on his land but no one is telling Grant Harrison what to do, least of all this soft civilian.
“I’m watching over her, Civie, don’t you get your panties in a twist,” Grant replies coolly. At nineteen, he is effortlessly collected in all things. Maybe it’s because his dad is a power in this town or that he’s heir apparent to a club that dates back to the days of Vietnam—he’s third generation Death Lords and he walks as if the very ground submits to him.
He reeks of animal sexuality even at nineteen. Shit, even at thirteen, he was likely a terror making all the backseat warmers—girls who rode on the back of a bike—swoon. I didn’t know Grant at thirteen. My momma married Grant’s daddy when I was fourteen. Then she took off for parts unknown before my fifteenth birthday hit. Some say Judge took care of her. No one, least of all me, cared in the slightest. Why Judge married her, I don’t know other than he might’ve fallen for her beauty. But he always seemed too cagey for that. His attraction for my mother would always remain a mystery.
Judge, Grant’s daddy, didn’t turn me out. Instead he sat me down and said I had a choice. He could send me back to my uptight religious grandparents who made the adults in V. C. Andrews’ Secrets in the Atticlook like saints or I could stay with Judge and Grant and they’d be my family.
It wasn’t a contest.
I stayed and made myself useful. I am the best daughter in town, in my not so humble opinion. I clean every day, wash their clothes, shop for groceries, cook the meals, pack Judge’s lunch for the day and generally made it so that Judge could not live without me.
That’s what he says to me, “Chelsea, girl, I don’t know how I got along before you.”
I glow with pride which is why I try to tamp down my secret longing for Grant. My feelings for Grant are all wrong. He’s my brother now, but I don’t think of him like that and haven’t since the moment I laid eyes on him. I crushed on him when we moved in. He was already so handsome with his sandy blond hair, muscled arms and lean torso. I got to see him plenty around the house, wearing nothing but loose fitting athletic shorts.
I learned enough from old ladies, backseat warmers and club girls to know that the tingling sensation downstairs was arousal—or “want” with a capital W.
I got an eyeful hanging around the clubhouse during the day. Members thought nothing of getting down in the common room at all hours. Judge would hustle me in and out and when I turned sixteen, banned me from the clubhouse, telling me that I was too young for that shit. Which was total bullshit. Some of my high school classmates went to parties there. Granted they were eighteen but still, I believe I should get some kind of friends and family consideration.
In my bed, late at night, I’d hear Grant going at it with some girl from school or some older townie and I’d rub myself furiously to the sounds of his grunts and her cries. I pretended it was me.
Sometimes I thought he wanted it to be me. When I’d turned sixteen, his blue gaze tracked me all around the house. I started wearing skimpier and skimpier stuff, particularly when Judge wasn’t around, until all I was doing was waltzing around in tiny white tank tops and even tinier underwear.
Grant didn’t do a thing. Well, that wasn’t necessarily true. If anything, he ramped up his servicing of every girl between the age of sixteen—our state’s age of consent—and twenty-six in a three county radius. And when he went on rides with Judge and the rest of the club? Shit, he probably was involved in a dozen orgies a night. At least that’s how I tormented myself at night.
I got to be a pro at rubbing myself but it wasn’t ever enough. I never was satisfied. The cries that came out of my mouth when I came weren’t anything like I’d heard from the room next door. Those were screams of pleasure and I wanted, just once, to feel like that. More importantly, I wanted Grant to be the one to wring those cries from me, no matter how wrong that feeling was.
But no guy dared lay a finger on me. Judge picked me up from school or one of his men did and everyone knew that Chelsea Weaver belonged to the Death Lords MC. Touch her and expect the hammer of the club to fall on your dick.
I’m safer at this party than any other girl in the field. Grant strides over to me and hands me a beer. I’ll nurse this one until the party is over. It’s easier than not having a drink in the hand, plus, Grant only allows me to come with him so long as everything I eat or drink comes from his hand.
He drops down beside the log I’m sitting on so that his head is near my thigh. If I move my hand over, I could be drawing it through his tousled hair, almost straw colored given its exposure to the summer sun.
Across from us, Tommy has Jaycee Overstreet in his lap. She’s a senior and has not a modest bone in her body. I envy her ability to take what she wants and what she wants is clearly Thomas Eddy. She’s devouring him and he’s barely holding his own. His hands are clinging to her ass like it’s a life preserver and he’s stranded in the middle of the ocean. The firelight flickers them in and out of view like a nighttime peep show.
As she grinds on him, I feel myself dampen and shift uncomfortably on the log. I wish I had the courage to reach under my skirt and alleviate some of the discomfort. Grant’s breath is hot on my leg and I can tell he?
?s getting turned on too. Bitterly I wonder who he’ll take home tonight.
He propels himself onto the log beside me and drops a hand around my neck. Surprised by the contact, I try to turn to him but his fingers make it so my head can only face the erotic display that Tommy and Jaycee are putting on. Her shirt is up and its obvious Tommy is sucking on one of her generous tits. There are moans and rustles all around us as the mood turns from jovial drunkenness to sultry sensuality.
“You like what you’re seeing?” Grant’s whisper sends shivers down my spine. His breath is warm against my ear and I almost moan from that little contact. “Answer me,” he demands.
“Ye-yeah,” I stutter out.
“I know you do because you can’t sit still. You’re rubbing your legs together like a cricket on the hottest night of July. Are you wet in your little pussy?”
He pulls my words from me. “Yes, dammit,” I hiss.
“Do you get wet listening to me fuck those other girls at night?”
I’m panting now, half in anger and half in fucked up desire.
“Let me go, Grant.”
“Not a chance,” he whispers. He rolls us off the log and into a patch of pitch black. I can barely see my own hand. I notice, then, that we are under the tailgate of his truck. The metal overhang is providing us a shroud of dark privacy. We can still see Tommy and Jaycee. Her shirt is off and so is his. She’s still wearing her skirt but it’s around her waist like a belt. Her thong is pulled aside and Tommy’s jeans are around his ankles.
From the rhythmic way she rises and falls on his lap, they’re connected in a very intimate way. I’m nearly breathless with need. Between my legs, my blood is pulsing strongly and I ache for something more than my own fingers can deliver.
Grant’s hand is on my knee.
“What are you doing?” I gasp. He covers my mouth with his free hand and pushes me into the grass.
“I’m making you mine, Chelsea girl. I’ve waited a long time for you and I can tell by the way you were squirming and sighing that if I waited any longer someone else would be taking this sweet cherry of yours.”