Biker B*tch Read online

  “So, why haven’t you come to see me since you’ve been back?”

  Embarrassed, Skyler pushed her potatoes around the plate. Being around Debbie made her feel just like a dorky teenager again.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

  Debbie put down her fork, the sound reverberating through the trailer, and straightened her spine.

  “Eat your potatoes instead of pushing them around the plate.” Her face softened before she said, “And why do you think I’d be mad at you?”

  Skyler’s throat felt tight and she could feel tears form in her eyes. Debbie hadn’t yelled at her much when she was younger. She finally understood why the Travis boys had done whatever it took to stay in their mother’s good graces. “My dad. Isaac. I just thought—”

  “You thought I wouldn’t want to see you because of what your dad did? I don’t know whether to be sad or insulted. Of course, I wanted to see you. You don’t know how happy I was to hear you’d moved back. Abner had to physically restrain me from coming over to take care of you last week. I ought to go out to Roy’s right now and tear him a new one.” Now there were tears in Debbie’s eyes. She immediately felt sorry and opened her mouth to speak, but the woman cut her off. “You’ve always been like one of my own. I understand you felt like you had to get out of here after what happened with your dad—to Isaac—but I always hoped you’d come around. At least keep in touch.”

  Skyler put her hand over Debbie’s. Before she’d come back, she’d been embarrassed about her dad; now she was embarrassed she’d abandoned people who cared about her. Like Sara. And people who loved her, like Debbie.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I was…selfish.” The tears that’d threatened before escaped, and they both sat there crying for a bit.

  After a few moments, Debbie wiped her tears. “You were eighteen, and your whole world was turned catawampus. I don’t blame you. I just missed you. You couldn’t even get a Facebook account for me to nag you over.” Debbie sniffed to clear the last of the haze of shared grief and smiled as she picked up her fork. “Now eat before your meatloaf gets cold.”

  Skyler tucked into the food. A familiar, warm feeling settled over her the more she ate.

  “So, are you dating Travis? Or are you just fooling around?”

  She almost choked and grabbed for her glass of wine. Debbie sat back. An amused grin crossed her lips as she sipped out of her glass. “Ed said you two looked real cozy at the bar a couple of weeks ago.”

  Skyler’s wine went down the wrong pipe and she had a coughing fit. Why was Ed telling her business to Travis’s mom?

  “Why don’t you ask Travis? He hasn’t been around for over a week.”

  “That’s not what I asked. You probably told him to get himself gone.”

  “If I did?”

  “I’m just trying to find out what your intentions are toward my son.” Debbie didn’t even bother to hide the grin then; it was a lot like Travis’s.

  “I don’t have any intentions. Toward anybody. Not that Travis has any intentions about me. How did you know?”

  “I live with Ed and put up with him hanging out at that bar until all hours. The only advantage is he tells me all the goings-on.” Skyler gaped. She was learning not to put anything near her mouth when Debbie opened hers. “What? I’m old. I’m not dead. When my husband died, I mourned for a proper time period.”

  “I’m just surprised. Things around here have changed.”

  “Yes, they have. But not my son’s feelings toward you. Abner came over to build some flower beds for me last week and was like an angry bear. He’s never like that, so I knew it had to be about a girl—a girl he might actually care about.”

  “He cares about me. But not like that. We just—”

  “You can spare me the details. I don’t need to know that much about my son. But you’re wrong. He does care about you. Just like he did when you were younger. And now he cares about you in a different way. So, again, what are your intentions toward my son?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t say just now.” So much information flowed through her brain. She’d affected Travis in more than just a sexual way. Could he really want her with the same intensity she’d wanted him since she was fifteen? That seemed too good to be true, but if he didn’t just see her as a quickie in the back of the bar—and someone he had to pull out of trouble once in a while—maybe they had something.

  She shifted in her seat, not sure what else to say. She couldn’t tell Debbie about her feelings before telling Travis.

  “He’s a good man, you know. Nothing like your dad, if that’s what you’re worried about.

  “You know, I told Travis he had to protect you back in high school. I could see the way he looked at you, and I thought if I made him promise to keep you safe, things wouldn’t get out of control.” Debbie chewed on a bit of meatloaf. “When your dad fell off, I knew we’d have to keep you close. Isaac was old enough to make his own choices, but you were like a frog in slowly boiling water. You couldn’t have known what your dad was up to. I just wish I could have kept you out of it.”

  No one could have protected her from her father—he was a monster. But Debbie had been friends with her mom, and she had sure as hell tried.

  “I wouldn’t have believed you if you told me things were the way they were.”

  Maybe Debbie was right; the past was over, and she could have a fresh start. Maybe she could give Travis a pass on the whole biker thing. Even though he was a total brute. And she liked it. She felt her cheeks heat remembering the handprints on her rear end that had taken a while to fade.

  “I’m not.” She cleared her throat. “Worried, that is.”

  “I am. If either one of you hurts the other, I’m going to have to throttle one of my babies.” Debbie downed the rest of her glass of wine and looked at the bottle, obviously impressed. “This is why incest is frowned upon.”

  Skyler could feel her face turn even redder.

  13

  Skyler was clearing brush in one of the fields when she heard a motorcycle approach. After her conversation with Debbie the night before, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do about this thing between them.

  She pulled the last of the brush in that section of field onto the pile. Sweat dripped down her lower back and between her breasts. The long-sleeved button-down, jeans, and felt hat protected her from the sun, but didn’t do anything to control her internal thermostat. The sight of Travis dismounting from his bike didn’t cool her down at all.

  After her conversation with Debbie, she realized this could get really serious, really fast. Her feelings for him were so tied up with the comfort and safety he’d always represented that she could fall back in with him. But what if word got back to her father? He wouldn’t approve; Travis had refused to join the Diablos along with his brother. He was a good man.

  But what if the sheriff conflated her involvement with Travis as her dipping her toe back into the biker lifestyle and a revival of her criminal career? That could hurt both of them. She still didn’t know if she believed Sara’s assurances that the Sinners were on the up and up.

  If they got more involved than one night, would she hurt him when it all blew up later? No one ever stayed for her—college boyfriends, mentors, and her father. The only man who put up with her for a long time—Michael—had his own demons. Travis wouldn’t stay with her forever. Her bitchy attitude and whatever it was that made men run would drive him away eventually. How badly would it hurt when they ended and she had to see him around town?

  That last thought kept the smile from her face. “What are you doing here?”

  Travis grimaced. “Why wouldn’t I be here just to see you, Carrots?”

  “Because I’m nothing but trouble, and you got what you wanted two weeks ago.”

  A smile spread across his face. He must have known what she was trying to do. Unsuccessfully.

  “I didn’t get nearly enough of what I wanted.” He wa
lked over to her so she could feel his body heat along with her own. She was going to burn up at this rate.

  She took a step back. “Oh, please. I’ve heard all about your modus operandi with the women of Sebastopol.”

  “Oh, yeah, what’s that?”

  “Lust ‘em and leave ‘em, of course.”

  He gave her a full-throated belly laugh and erased the distance between them. He touched her face with his hand, unexpectedly tender. She stayed absolutely still, but she couldn’t stop herself from looking into his eyes, which held un-distilled lust—and something else.

  “Admit it. You only want me because I’m not nice to you. If I start obliging you, you’ll get tired of me right quick.”

  He looked at her for a long second. He wanted her because she was the one woman in town he couldn’t have at his beck and call. Shit. This could hurt so much.

  “Your head okay?” And there he had to go, being so sweet to her.

  “Just fine.”

  If she didn’t get away from him now, she would fall at his feet. Again. She’d keep falling at his feet until he got sick of her.

  “You’re thinking too much,” he said.

  “Am I? Shouldn’t one of us be doing some thinking?”

  Travis cupped her face with his other hand. That friction from his calluses against her skin was sublime. He pulled her close so she could feel his breath on her cheek.

  “I’m doing enough thinking for the both of us.” She closed her eyes, and he gently kissed both of her eyelids. She finally opened her eyes when he spoke. “Right now, I think you need to come on a picnic with me. You look tired, babe.”

  She tried to pull back but he held her fast. He was right, after all. She hadn’t been sleeping much. Just working and thinking of him.

  “We shouldn’t. This is a mistake.”

  “If you think it is, I didn’t do my job right.” He spread light, dry kisses over her cheekbones and the corners of her lips. She could feel her resolve slipping away. Go on ahead and just roll over, legs open right now. Just like every other girl in town.

  “Come on a ride with me, Sky. You used to love it. Don’t let what happened take that away from you.”

  Maybe if she gave in just one more time, this feeling would go away. Sure, she’d go with that.

  “Got a helmet for me?”

  His triumphant grin was swoon-worthy. He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the bike. “You know I’ve got you covered, Carrots. You’ve done enough damage to that noggin yourself.”

  She dragged her feet. But when she bit her lip, Travis knew she was wavering. He had to do something to push this over the edge. He had to have her again. Leaving her alone just wasn’t an option anymore.

  “You know you want to.”

  She turned to him then and said, “The problem is, that I really do want to go with you. I shouldn’t want to, but I do.”

  “Why shouldn’t you want to go with me?”

  “This feels like more than a picnic.”

  He smiled at her and knew he’d won when she didn’t give him an itemized list of reasons why she shouldn’t climb on the back of his bike.

  “C’mon. We won’t be gone long.”

  She didn’t fight him when he guided her toward the bike. And he couldn’t wait to have her body pressed into his back.

  He buckled her helmet, even though she very easily could have put it on herself. He knew it would piss her off. Independent woman. He climbed on the bike and she threw her leg over behind him. She even smelled good when she was all sweaty and dirty from work.

  “Keep your legs away from the pipes, yeah?”

  “This isn’t my first time on a bike.” She was snappy today.

  “Yeah, but it’s been a long time.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Not far.”

  “I’ve got to be back early—”

  He revved the bike and took off as soon as she wrapped her arms around him. He’d planned on taking her over to a rest area off Highway 1, where all the high school kids made out on weekend nights. But after her prickly reception, he needed to step up his game.

  He savored the feeling of her wrapped around him. He didn’t have a lot of girls on his bike because they all thought it meant something more than it did. He wanted it to mean something with Skyler. Before, he’d never thought about a woman when she wasn’t around. No woman had ever distracted him with her scent.

  Not until now.

  He should have known he was in trouble right after she got back to town and the smell of an apple—just like her shampoo—made him hard. He started something he couldn’t control when he dragged her into the back of the bar. He shouldn’t have volunteered to be her emergency contact. But he did, and now he had to have her in every way.

  Once he got off the gravel and dirt of the winery’s paths and onto the main road, he opened up the engine just to feel Carrots clutch him tighter. The excitement ran from her body to his. As she leaned into curves with him, he realized that she must have missed the freedom of the bike as much as she scorned her father’s outlaw lifestyle. He had to show her that he was different, that he wasn’t an outlaw. At least not in the same way.

  He brought her to his shop. If she could see that he was on the up-and-up, maybe she’d agree to see where this thing between them could go.

  When they pulled up to the Foundry, a familiar shot of pride and happiness flowed through him, with a bit of apprehension. He had a pit in his stomach, different from the kind that he felt when he had to deal with a shitty client or an errant meth cooker. It was the feeling that he could lose something that mattered to him. Vulnerability.

  He used to get the same stomachache when Isaac beat him at anything. Back then, he’d made it go away by working harder and getting better: whether it was rebuilding a bike or a making a jump shot, he’d always been able to buckle down and focus. He made sure that he would win, or he didn’t play at all.

  Skyler wasn’t a game that he could win, but he wanted to dominate her until she admitted that he affected her. The night at Ed’s told him that she wanted his body, that she enjoyed playing sexy games with him. But he wanted her to crave him the same way he craved her. He wanted to be in all of her dreams.

  She dismounted the bike and looked around the property, face impassive, lips pursed. After a long moment staring at the building, she nodded her head.

  “Nice spot you’ve got here. I like the location. Wasn’t this the MacLean land?”

  He nodded, almost unable to talk through his nerves. He wanted to show her rather than tell her what he’d built here. “No good for vineyards, the orchards pretty much stripped the soil.”

  “Can we go inside?” It was the first time she’d shown any interest in anything other than their past or his dick.

  “Yeah, I want to show you around. I think you’ll like it.”

  He opened the door and she followed him in. The pit in his stomach started to unravel, and his mind turned to thoughts of what he’d do with her on one of his worktables once he finished showing her his tools.

  Skyler walked around the building, afraid to touch anything because it was all shiny and expensive. When they were younger, he and Isaac had rusty tools cast off from the winery.

  Now, he had a proper artist’s studio. His high-tech tools and toys allowed him to create masterworks. The photographs on the walls had recognizable Hollywood stars and more than a few guys who had bigger net worths than Michael with the incredible pieces of work that Travis had built. They varied in size, but they were masculine and imposing, without exception. Just like him.

  This was not what she’d pictured.

  The in-progress piece in the middle of the floor held her attention. Three rusted out bumpers, taller than her and twisted together in a way that looked like a dance. Stuck together. If they were installed outdoors, they would rust more together each season. They’d degrade but endure.

  “What do you think?” Travis’s smile was half cocky a
nd half nervous. It made her want to give him a hug. Comfort him. He’d always been superhuman to her, impervious to others’ opinions. She was both bewildered and humbled by the fact that he seemed to want her approval.

  “It’s amazing. I always knew you could make beautiful things—bikes—but this is something totally different.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” There he was. Just like that, his cocky attitude had returned and the sexual tension ratcheted up. This wasn’t a good idea. She should demand he take her home now.

  He stalked toward her. She backed up until she hit the edge of one of the stainless steel workbenches. His blue eyes sparked with a look different than the jealousy she’d seen at Ed’s, which—God help her—had excited her. But this was pure heat. Want.

  Her knees felt shaky and she could feel her pulse thrum at the base of her throat. She knew her skin would be flushed. She felt a sudden urge to unbutton her shirt, but that was a terrible idea. Thing was, she wasn’t going to pretend that she could make good decisions around him. He scrambled her brains.

  “I didn’t agree to take a ride with you so we could do this again.”

  “You don’t want to?” Of course, she wanted to. He always made her want to, but she just wasn’t sure it was a good idea. He was just a hairsbreadth away. He pressed his body against her. His erection burned a hole in her clothes. “You feel how much I want you, don’t you? I can’t get you out of my head. I’m this hard for you all the time.”

  His words seduced her. If he’d taken her out to some abandoned country road and tried to get in her pants, she could have said no. But he brought her here. Someplace that meant something to him, and he wanted her to like it. That seduced her even more than the words.

  She couldn’t forget that this was sex. Feelings were a whole other thing. It would be hard to keep the sex and the feelings separate with him, but she could do it. Before she consciously decided to, she rubbed his cock through his jeans. He groaned, and she said, “I think about you, too.”