Chapter 5

Axel

It was just past eight in the morning when the wall phone buzzed, announcing that someone had pulled up to my gate. I saw Ellie’s car on the security camera and buzzed her in. I watched as she parked in the same place she had yesterday and got out of the car.

She was wearing a pair of ripped blue jeans that were rolled up her calves. Big boots that made her feet look a little too large swam around her ankles, and she was wearing a white beater with a plaid shirt tied around her waist. This was her usual shop attire, and it suited her. She had her usual black baseball cap on, but her long, blond hair was down. I knew this would be temporary. She always started the day with her hair down. As soon as work started, it would be tied in a tight knot or ponytail on top of her head. I had watched the routine for years now.

I started a pot of coffee before going to the front door to let her in. I pulled it open as she raised her fist to knock, and she smiled brightly at me.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Morning,” I dipped my head in greeting and held the door open for her. “I’m waiting on a couple of bikes for us to work on today. Should only be another twenty minutes or so. Want a cup of coffee?”

Ellie nodded and pushed her boots off with her toes. She nudged them into the corner, tucking them neatly out of the way, and then followed me down the hall to my kitchen.

“Your place is really nice,” she said behind me when we emerged in the kitchen.

I grunted out a thank you as I poured her a mug of coffee. “Do you put anything in it?”

She shook her head, and I slid the mug across the counter into her hands. She wrapped her fingers around it and breathed in the rich aroma of the stuff. I poured one for myself and stood on the other side of the kitchen island from her as she took her first sip.

“Don’t get used to the pampering,” I said. “We’ll be working pretty steady today once the bikes show up.”

“You call this pampering?” She arched a dark blond eyebrow. The corner of her lips lifted with it. She was teasing me.

“It’s pampering compared to how we’re about to spend our day.”

She shrugged in a way that suggested she didn’t mind the idea of working hard in the shop for the day. She had never shied away from it before. I didn’t know why I expected her to now.

She put her mug down. “So, when are these bikes showing up? In twenty, you said? Should we head out to the shop?”

“Sure.” Ellie and I went out through the back door with our coffees in hand, and I opened the bay doors to the shop. The sun streamed in, casting light into all the now-clean corners of the shop.

Ellie stood in the middle and looked around, admiring our hard work from the night before. “There’s nothing more satisfying than this. I can’t wait to get grease and shit all over your pristine floors.” She winked at me.

Then, like clockwork, she pulled the hair tie from her wrist and swept her hair up into a ponytail. I watched the way her blond curls danced across her shoulders until it was all neatly slicked back in a long rope down the middle of her back.

It was hard for me to look away from her. Something felt different about her now, but I couldn’t put a finger on what it was. She looked the same but better somehow. It was like I was noticing all the small details about her for the first time, the freckles across her nose and shoulders, her dimples, her stray hairs around her hairline that were always falling in her eyes because they were too short to be held back in her hair tie.

I was grateful when I heard the sound of a tow truck pulling up out front of the gate. “I’m going to let him in. Wait here, all right?”

Ellie nodded, and I left her standing in the shop as I crossed the gravel pit and marched down the driveway to the gate. I opened it up, and a tow truck came through. The driver, Dan, was a short and stocky forty-year-old man with a thick brown beard. He always wore the same knitted beanie of orange and brown thread. He hopped down, his steel toe boots landing heavily on the pavement, and hooked his thumbs in his belt.

“Morning, Ax,” he called to me. He was the only person I didn’t correct when he shortened my name. “I have all four of them for you. Need me to come back and get them when you’re done? I’ll deliver them to your customers for you if need be. I was sorry to hear about your shop. Messy business, that was.”

“Morning, Dan,” I said, shaking his hand and walking to the back of the truck to peer up at the motorcycles on the trailer. They were all hogs. There were black leather and chrome and little else. “I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for bringing them over.” I fished a wad of rolled up twenty-dollar bills from my back pocket and slapped them into his palm.

“You don’t need to—” Dan started to say, but I talked over him.

“It’s not for the bikes. It’s to thank you for keeping my home a private place. I appreciate you not telling anyone where I live, Dan. Makes things a lot easier for me.”

“Happy to do it, Ax.”

“If you bring ‘em straight into the shop, my partner and I can take it from there.”

“Sure thing,” Dan said, before hopping back up into the driver’s seat and expertly maneuvering the tow truck into my backyard to unload the bikes into the shop. Ellie helped us roll them down the ramp by taking one of the bikes. Dan went to go help her, but I assured him she would be fine.

I couldn’t help but watch her as she kicked out the kickstand and stood back to admire the paint job on the hog. It was a glittering black that was quite dazzling in the sunlight. Blue flames, barely lighter than the black paint itself, had been painted all up the gas tank.

After Dan left, Ellie was still checking out the bikes. “They all look like they’re in perfect shape. What the hell are we supposed to be doing to them?”

I grinned at her. “Those two over there,” I nodded to the two I had brought in, “are switching engines with these two over here.”

Ellie nodded knowingly. “I don’t know why I thought we’d be doing anything that wasn’t still illegal.”

“Who said anything about it being illegal?”

Ellie gave me a flat look. “People don’t switch their engines just for shits and giggles. Two of these are stolen, right?”

“That’s not information we need to know. As far as we’re concerned, we’re just the people hired to get the job done. That all right with you?”

Ellie smirked. “I get to get up close and personal with these bad boys. Of course, it’s all right with me.”

Yet again, she impressed me with her tenacity. She wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, whether that was literally or figuratively. Ellie was a strong woman. I had always thought so. And she was a dear friend. I couldn’t deny that I cared for her.

I had even gone to the lengths to ask Johnny to have her back as if she were one of us. Johnny had instantly agreed. She was part of the MC. She just didn’t know that. As far as she was concerned, she was still on the outside. That way, if the law or someone worse like the Black Hearts ever came knocking, Ellie would be safe on the sidelines.

We set to work right away removing the engine from the first bike.

After five hours, we took a lunch break. Ellie had packed her own food, which surprised me a little. I grabbed us each a beer and joined her outside on the grass with a sandwich in hand for myself. She was sitting with her legs stretched out in front of her as she let the sun warm her face.

“So, tell me. How did you get so good at being a grease monkey? I don’t think I’ve ever really asked. And I’m not trying to be a sexist asshole here, but you don’t see many girls with a mechanic interest these days.” Especially girls like Ellie.

Ellie popped the tab of the beer I handed her and took a sip. A little bead of it formed at the corner of her mouth, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. “My dad.”

I smiled. So, she was a daddy’s girl.

“He taught you everything you know?”

“Everything I knew before you hired me, yeah. He always had me around motorcycles when I was growing up. Drove my mom crazy. She wanted me to go shopping with her or to nail appointments. You know? But I only ever wanted to be in the garage with my dad. I wanted to understand how so many tiny parts could make something so powerful. I dedicated myself to learning it all, and it made my dad really happy. I think that’s probably how it all started. I wanted to be the son he never had.” Ellie shrugged and drank more beer. “Once I started, I never wanted to stop.”

“Did your dad ride too?”

“Oh, absolutely. Not the kind of stuff you guys ride, though. He was a speed man. He had a few bikes. A Ducati and a VMAX. Once he got older, he traded in for something a little more practical. A V-Strom, if I remember correctly.”

“Never was a Harley man?”

Ellie giggled and shook her head. Then, she plucked a blade of grass and twirled it between her thumb and forefinger before peeling it apart into thin strips. “No. Dad never liked Harleys.” She looked at me as if she was worried she would offend me. “He thought they were all noise and little else. Just for show, in other words. And he could never justify spending the kind of money a Harley costs, especially because it couldn’t buy him the speed he was after.”

“And do you agree with your old man?” I sipped my beer. “Do you think hogs are a waste of money?”

“Yes and no.”

“I’m intrigued.”

“I think Harleys are more of a work of art than other bikes. Every piece is assembled with the intent of making a masterpiece. Other bikes are built to conquer the roads and ride fast and hard. They don’t have the same beauty a hog can have.” She looked over her shoulder to the bikes standing in a row in the shop. She pressed her chin to her bare, tanned shoulder, and smiled. “Dad never saw that part of them, I don’t think.”

“But you do.”

“Yeah. I do.”

The girl was making it hard to think of anything but her lips. I wanted to know how they would feel against mine and around my cock. What would she taste like?

After finishing our lunches, we got back to work. Ellie had her back to me as she crouched beside her bike. I could see the muscles in her back and shoulders as she worked. Her arms were strong, and the muscles down her spine were tight as she moved.

She stood and wiped sweat from her forehead. She blew out a breath, and my eyes fell to the swell of her breasts at the neckline of her muscle shirt. She was sexy as hell. Johnny’s words started echoing in my brain. Thoughts of throwing her down on my bed and ripping her clothes off ran rampant. I wanted to taste her. I wanted to fuck her so good, she couldn’t remember her own goddamn name.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I tore my eyes away from Ellie to answer it. It was Jax.

“Hey, man,” I said into the receiver.

Jax needed a lift so I left to go get him. Ellie said she wanted to stay and work a bit later. I agreed and felt completely comfortable leaving her at my place. I gave her the code to the gate so she could get out and let herself back in when she needed. For some reason, she smiled as I passed her a crumpled piece of paper with the code scribbled on it.

She tucked it into her back pocket and turned away from me to continue working on the bike.