Please ensure this ebook is stored somewhere that cannot be accessed by underage readers.

©  Copyright 2017 by Lizzie Swale - All rights reserved.

In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.

Author's Note:

This book is a work of fiction.  The names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.  Any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.  The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third party websites or their content.

DATE

WITH A

BIKER

Contents

The Rough Riders had started going in another direction recently, and Silas was glad for it. He was an older Rough Rider, one of the ones that could remember the originals. Not that it made him very old chronologically, Silas was only just over forty. But he didn't look a day older than thirty, and that was something that helped him keep the revolving door of women in his life, in motion. It also helped that Silas was a nice guy.

Because, even with all of his tattoos and muscle, at heart Silas was a big softy. He liked to go on walks in the park, he liked to paint, and read, and do all kinds of things the rest of the Rough Riders didn't. It wasn't that he felt left out of the club or anything, though. In fact, Silas liked the way the club let him do his own thing. It was nice to be part of something that allowed such great flux in it. Silas knew he had Jackson to thank for that, though. The Old Man, as he had been lovingly called, hadn't been that way.

It had been one of the many things that led to dissent in the ranks of the Rough Riders. There had been many a time when the Old Man had cracked down on the younger members of the MC, and Silas had always thought it draconian. They were an MC, after all. There weren't supposed to be a bunch of rules about how they should act. Of course, Silas was one of the people that thought no Rough Rider should ever run from a fight, or treat a woman poorly. But those were unspoken things. They didn't need to be written down or memorized. Anyone who didn't already live by that code had no place in the Rough Riders, and Silas hoped the rest of the MC felt that way as well.

Silas thought about the old days as he leaned into a curve on his bike. He thought about how there used to be other MCs to fight, and how they would lose people every day, it seemed like. Now the Rough Riders’ lives were much easier, and he appreciated that. In the past Silas had been afraid to grow attached to a woman for fear that something would happen to her because of how crazy the early lives of the Rough Riders had been. But now there just wasn't that concern anymore. In fact, with the Rough Riders owning the used car lot outside of Boone, Iowa—just west of Ames and the university—he wondered if he would even have to do anything against the law anymore.

He sure hoped not. Silas had been lucky in the past to never have been brought in on any charges, and now that he was getting older jail seemed less and less a thing that he would be able to just shrug off. He knew that several of the other Rough Riders who had gone to jail early in life hadn't really thought much of it, even the ones that had done half a dozen years. Maybe that was because young people don't understand how precious their youth is.

As he coasted up to the Rough Rider’s clubhouse he saw Jackson sitting on the front porch. These days the rumor mill had it that Jackson had a new girl that he was pretty serious about, one that he'd met through the Lucky Ladies Sorority.

“Silas!” Jackson said, standing to great him. “Where have you been? Last I heard you rode off into the sunset, chasing another gash into the grave!”

Silas laughed.

“You know me too well to believe I'd chase any woman that far, Jackson,” Silas said. “But I'll tell you something, I like the changes you've been making.”

Jackson smiled big as Silas walked up the stairs to stand on the porch with him and handed Silas a beer. Silas knew that Jackson respected his opinion, even if most of the rest of the Rough Riders didn't even know who he was anymore.

“You really mean it, Silas?” Jackson asked. “You think I'm doing it the right way?”

Silas had a seat by Jackson and kicked his feet up on the porch railing.

“Jackson,” Silas said, then took a sip of beer. “You’re killing me with this craft beer junk.” He coughed and laughed.

“You don't even drink!” Jackson said with a laugh.

“That's right,” Silas said. “A habit from back in the day when the Old Man made all the Rough Riders go dry so they could fight or ride anytime.”

They were both silent for a moment.

“The good old days,” Jackson said.

Silas shook his head.

“The bad old days,” Silas corrected him. “Let me tell you something Jackson, these are the good old days. The Rough Riders have never had it better. Things are peaceful. We run this town, and a fucking business that is doing well. I mean, the days you're talking about we were at war with two other MCs. Every day there was more bad news.”

A cop car slowly cruised by on the street. Jackson waved, and the officer smiled and waved back.

“And that's part of the reason things are better,” Silas said. “The Old Man wanted to fight the world, never really understood that we didn't need to pick a fight with every asshole out there.”

Jackson nodded.

“I'm changing things to be more livable is all,” Jackson said. “I mean, the Old Man, he was one of a kind. But his way isn't my way. And I don't think I could have done a better job than him back in the day, but now it's my day, and my way.”

Silas clinked his beer together with Jackson's and they both sipped their drinks while looking up at the clear blue Iowa sky.

“You know, Jackson,” Silas said. “I know I have a reputation for kind of being a womanizer, but . . . I don't know. I kind of think that maybe it might be time to settle down.”

Jackson looked at him in shock.

“Really?”

“I mean it!” Silas said with a chuckle. “I mean, maybe it's time for me to take a hard look at how old I am, where I'm at in life, and go from there. Not that I want to leave the club or anything, it's just that I'd like to settle down a little bit and maybe even have some kids. I know it wouldn't affect the club much because I'm already pretty distant. Not that I'm distant because I want to be absent, but because that's how I've always been with the Rough Riders. You folks are my family, but I'm kind of loner.”

“I know, Silas,” Jackson said. “You don't have to explain things to me. You've earned your opinion, and also your decision to want to do your own thing. I'm encouraging that sort of thinking, because I think it'll make the Rough Riders stronger in the long run. Remember back in the day when all the new people had to fight for scraps? Or when the new joins would get sent out on the longest runs in the worst weather? Well, I'd like that to happen still, but not for the same reasons. I don't want to haze people, I want people to earn their own status. And that might mean that some of the older Rough Riders have to take a backseat when it comes to some of the more general operations.”

Silas couldn't believe his ears. Jackson was so much like the Old Man, but in his own way was very much his own person. He liked his position of authority, but not because he liked to boss people around, or because he liked to call the shots. Jackson just wanted to see the Rough Riders grow stronger, and more survivable. Things didn't have to be like they had been. Silas liked the new way.

“You know what, Jackson,” Silas said. “I'm really glad I came and talked with you. I was a little nervous at first. You know how MCs can be about people that want to step away a little bit. In other clubs, I'd already have had my patch stripped off my back and my bike stolen from me. But here you are, talking to me as a friend, and speaking the truth; telling me I've earned the right to do as I please, and that I can make my own decisions. And you know what? That makes me want to stick around, even if I'm taking a step back.”

“The young and the old together is what will make us strong,” Jackson said. “It isn't enough to just have the young.”

Silas nodded. He finished his beer and took his leave of Jackson just as Tony showed up, carrying something in a duffel bag. Tony seemed liked he wanted to speak with Silas, but couldn't because whatever was in the bag had to be taken inside quickly. A lot of the Rough Riders wanted to speak with Silas when they saw him. He was somewhat of a legend now, something that made him a little uncomfortable.

As Silas mounted his bike and started to cruise down the block several new Rough Riders flew past him, and he grew angry at how poorly they rode.

As Silas rode off toward the edge of town to get laid, he wondered how many more times he was going to see Kristi, the woman he was currently sleeping with.

Kristi wasn't a bad person, but she was one of those woman that had no intention of ever being serious with a man. That didn't bother Silas at all because he had no intention of ever getting serious with Kristi. They both shared rent in a house that wasn't very big, just on the outskirts of Boone. Rent was cheap, and they didn't have to really try that hard to get by. Kristi was really good at thrift shopping, so the house looked like someone had hired an interior decorator to deck it out in Midwest memorabilia. Silas didn't think it was cheesy, though, or he would have said something. Instead he found it endearing. The rest of Boone was either trashy, or trying to be something it wasn't. At least Kristi had a sense of style and knew how to make a house look like a home instead of a flophouse.

“Hey, baby,” Kristi said when she saw him. “How was your day?”

Kristi was a blonde woman who was super lithe. She had nice tear dropped shaped breasts that fit neatly into Silas's hands, and also loved sex. Silas was built, and well-tanned. His muscles weren't from the gym, but from working around the house, or doing things for the Rough Riders. Silas always laughed when people got the idea that he didn't do anything except sit around and smoke meth because of the stigma that MCs had. Neither he nor Kristi were like that. They both took care of themselves, and each other. Right now, it seemed like Kristi wanted Silas to take care of her.

“How are you, babe?” Silas said as he took her into his arms.

They slowly walked backward together until they stumbled onto the couch. It moved slightly underneath them, sliding on the carpet as they fell onto it with a soft thud. Kristi giggled as she ran her hands up and down Silas' body. Silas smiled and kissed Kristi, and she responded by slowly slipping her tongue into his mouth, then running it over his lips. She was the kind of woman who liked to have very sensual sex. She didn't want to just get to it, she wanted to really drag it out first. And Silas was game for that.

He slowly started kissing down her shirt, then to her booty shorts. He undid the button and zipper, then tugged the shorts down a little bit. Moving the panties to the side he nibbled on her clit, and licked her pussy lips. He loved the way that Kristi tasted, the way she moved her body against his. It was something special they had between them—how good the sex was. And that was something Silas really appreciated.

“Oh, baby,” Kristi moaned. “I love the way you eat my pussy baby. You always do such a good job.”

Silas couldn't help but smile as he continued to go down on Kristi. She loved the way he teased her, the way he took his time. Silas prided himself in being a good lover, although there was no real love between him and Kristi. That was the problem, he'd decided. And even as he stood up to pull down his pants and whip out his manhood, a throbbing cock with a purple head, he knew that their time of just fooling around for fun was drawing to a close.

As Silas mounted her, slowly pushing into Kristi, she moaned and moved her body to make it easier for him to penetrate her. Once he had slid his member deep inside her he started to slowly thrust.

“Give it to me,” Kristi moaned. “Oh, baby, I just want you to give it to me! Faster!”

Silas grabbed Kristi's breasts and picked up his tempo. He was enjoying himself, as he usually did, but something inside of him wanted more. Silas didn't just want to “fuck,” he wanted to do more than that. He didn't just want to get off anymore. And although he was still having fun fucking Kristi and playing with her nice breasts, there was something missing. Earlier in his life there wouldn't have been any problem, but lately it just wasn't the same. He needed some spark, some fire, something more than just a body to slap his into. He wanted someone he really cared about.

“Are you all right, baby?” Kristi said.

Silas didn't respond, but instead started really fucking Kristi hard. She moaned and clawed at his back. They both arched their backs and came together. Silas slumped over against her. Kristi patted him on the back and massaged his shoulders.

They lay like that for a while on the couch. They both knew that their time together was drawing to a close, but didn't want to discuss it. Kristi had made it very clear in the past that she wasn't going to get locked into anything that she didn't feel really ready for. Silas had taken that as a clear indication that Kristi wasn't ready to grow up.

Silas was. That was what it came down to. He was over the games with women, even if it made some of the younger Rough Riders think that he was cool. The young ones would soon grow up and be just like him, looking at the rest of their lives thinking, “Now what?” Not that it was a bad place to be, considering, but Silas wanted what he wanted—a real relationship with a woman, with all the highs, lows, and in everything in between. It was clear that Kristi was going to be single until her looks gave out. She wasn't even thirty, although she was fast approaching it, and that meant that she felt she still had time to fuck around. When really, if she'd think of it from a perspective not revolving around the present moment, she'd realize that what they had could be built on.

“Baby,” Kristi said. “I know what you're thinking.”

Silas stood up and started to get dressed.

“What's that?” he asked.

“You want more,” Kristi said. “And I know that. But I'm just not in a place to give you more. I'm not the person that you want me to be. And I know that. And it isn't a bad thing, really, it's just that we really are in different places in our lives and we need to realize that.”

Silas nodded and turned his back on her as he put his shirt on. Suddenly he didn't feel like hanging around. Playing house with Kristi was starting to feel more and more forced on his part, and she wasn't even willing to give them a chance.

“So, when I tell you that I'm about to go for a ride and not be back for a few days you aren't going to cop an attitude?” Silas asked as he turned around.

Kristi’s eyes became insolent as she lay on the couch. Kristi didn't like it when she didn't get her way, even though she didn't mind when Silas didn't get his. It was something that had really started to grate on him recently. In the past he wouldn't have minded, even though it would have annoyed him, but now that he was getting more serious about changing his life around he did mind. Kristi could have really been something special with him, but to her, “freedom” was the most important thing. Freedom to laze around an old house and decorate it with things she bought from thrift shops. Which was fine by Silas, but that didn't mean that he had to hang out after they fucked. If Kristi wanted it to be a strictly physical thing then so be it, it wasn't that big of a deal to him. But it was to her. Because Kristi had some parts of her that played right into the stereotypes about women that are negative. And one of them was showing.

“Why do you have to be this way, Silas!?” Kristi said, angrily covering herself. “I don't understand why we can't just have a good time. You're always trying to turn it into something it isn't? And now you want to punish me by taking off on one of your rides that lasts for days at a time.”

Silas laughed.

“If you were my girlfriend this could be something that concerns you, but since you’re my ‘just have fun’ friend, it doesn't get to concern you. I've been kind to you, Kristi, always treated you well. Hell, for a while I considered us more than just fuck buddies. But evidently you never really respected me, and only want me around to fill some void in your life.”

Kristi gasped. Silas had never talked to her this way before. They had never really fought before, now that Silas thought about it.

“Kristi, I'm not telling you anything that you don't already know,” Silas said. “And hell, you said as much to me last week when you'd had too much to drink.”

Kristi became sullen.

“I said I was sorry about that, Silas. You know that I can run off at the mouth when I drink.”

“Kristi, it's more than that,” Silas said. “You really don't think that I'm worth keeping around. I know you had that other boy from the college in here the other day, even though you didn't tell me about it. The young buck wears that stank ass cologne that sprays out of a Goddamn can, Kristi.”

She didn't say anything. And as Silas slowly gathered his few belongings and prepared to leave for the last time, she finally opened her mouth up to say something.

“Are you still going to pay rent here?” Kristi asked.

“Just until the end of the month,” Silas said. “That should give you enough time to find a replacement, especially with way you act like people like me are just falling all over themselves to get with you.”

Silas could hear her cursing him as he threw his leg over his bike and got ready to head back to the Rough Riders clubhouse. Little did he know that when he arrived Tony would be waiting, filled in by Jackson on what Silas wanted from life.

“I already know,” Tony said.

Silas had rolled up to the Rough Riders house a little sheepishly. He only ever stayed there when he was either in trouble or between women. Now he felt like he was both of those things.

“What do you mean?” Silas asked.

“Jackson told me you are thinking about the future, and with guys like us that always means settling down a little bit. And I know that the woman you've been staying with has been having over some kid from the college, and you're fed up with it. So now you're here, and I'm going to help you.”

Silas slapped him on the back.

“I’ll be just fine, my friend.”

“No. The Lucky Ladies are the solution,” Tony said. “Or at least, a good place to start. I was just on the phone with Elizabeth, the woman who runs the Lucky Ladies, and you know what she said? That they have someone who might be a really good fit for you. She's thirty, a ‘mature’ student, and she's down to be serious with someone.”

Silas was shocked. When he'd headed over from his old spot he hadn't expected anything like this. The Rough Riders had helped him in the past, sure, but this was something else entirely. This was them really going out of their way to set him up for the future.

Courtney was the perfect fit for a Rough Rider who wanted to settle down, Elizabeth thought. Courtney was the newest member of the Lucky Ladies. As a mature student, she was around thirty. She made Elizabeth wonder why so many of the other people who were Courtney's age weren't cool like she was.

Courtney was a redhead, with a big bust, big hips, and she was liberal with her sexuality. She didn't really get around, though, which surprised Elizabeth, considering how easy it would have been for Courtney to simply fuck all of the young men at the college. Elizabeth might have done it if she'd been Courtney. Courtney had such a moral high ground to do it from, being older she'd really be able to play the, “I'm just doing this because men are dumb and it's easy,” card. But Courtney had never shown even the slightest interest in doing so. There was something to be said for that, Elizabeth thought, and that was why she thought that Courtney would be such a great pick for Silas.

Elizabeth had met Silas once at a Rough Riders' party, and they had had a great conversation. Silas had come across as the quiet, brooding type, but was actually quite artistic. Courtney said that she wanted a man who was mysterious, but not in his intentions with her – no games. She also liked older men, which was one of the many reasons Courtney said that she wasn't interested in sleeping with any of the guys at the college.

“Hey, Courtney,” Elizabeth said as she walked into Courtney's room.

Courtney was unlike many of the other women of the Lucky Ladies in that she was an extreme minimalist. There was almost nothing in her room at all save for a yoga mat and a bunch of books. It wasn't every day that Elizabeth saw someone be so comfortable with themselves, by themselves, with no TV or anything else there to distract them. Courtney didn't even use a fancy phone like the rest of the people they knew, but instead used an old flip phone. It was something that Elizabeth found very endearing about her, how she was sort of Luddite when it came to technology.

“Elizabeth,” Courtney said. “I knew it was you walking up the stairs. It's amazing how clear your aura is, and how easily I read it. No wonder you are the person in charge of all these wonderful ladies.”

Courtney was still new enough that she didn't use the word “us” like many of the Lucky Ladies did when referring to the sorority house. Elizabeth didn't mind, Courtney was very much her own person.

“Courtney, you are such a beautiful person,” Elizabeth said. “And I have great news for you. I've found you a suitor!”

Courtney looked up, an amused look on her face.

“Oh, really? And who might he be?” she asked.

“He's one of the original Rough Riders,” Elizabeth said. “And he's older, maybe forty-ish. He's a smart one, you'll really like him. And from what I've been told he really treats women well. I think you two will hit it off!”

Courtney stood up and smiled.

“He sounds like he’ll do.” Courtney said demurely.

Both of the women sat cross legged on Courtney's floor and talked about the future. Elizabeth told her that there was no pressure, that Courtney didn't have to do anything she didn't want to do, and how, in fact, the majority of the Rough Riders really were gentlemen.

“We became involved with them because the rest of the campus kept fucking us off, or fucking us over. We just realized that we didn't want anything to do with all of the idiots that run around the college pretending to be men, when really they are kids with their parents' credit cards.”

Courtney agreed, and they both parted ways thinking about the future and what could be. Elizabeth was especially pleased at how much Courtney wanted to play ball, and how she wasn't stressing out about stuff. Courtney was a grown ass woman, and Elizabeth really appreciated that about her.

“Hey, Tony,” Elizabeth said into her phone. “I have good news! Courtney is down.”

Jackson had just been told by Tony that the Lucky Ladies were going to come through again for them. A sexual alliance with a sorority sounded like something out of a porno. It was something that Jackson never really thought would have been possible, but hell, it was going really well.

“Have you told Silas yet?” Jackson asked Tony.

“Not yet, boss,” Tony said.

“Just have him come over, I want to talk to him personally,” Jackson said. “Not that I think he'll act a fool, but I just want to be the one to tell him. You know? This could be a big step forward in the life of the Rough Rider’s most notorious loner.”

“He sure has calmed down in recent years, hasn't he?” Tony said.

Jackson sipped his beer and nodded.

“He used to be a real wild man. The first to throw a punch, the first to fire a wild shot off the back of his bike. But now he's calmed down, realized that he's got the rest of his life ahead of him and that there is no reason to throw it away. And I can really appreciate that,” Jackson said.

“So can I,” Tony said. “I really like Silas, and I've been worried about him for a while. He wants to grow up yet he keeps fucking young dumb girls, like Kristi. I know that he doesn't let that woman get over on him, but at the same time I just think that Silas deserves a lot more.”

“He does.” Jackson agreed.

Jackson and Tony both sat on the porch watching the sun set. Tony was seeing a woman from town, Jackson was still seeing one of the Lucky Ladies and things were getting super serious. The Rough Riders had never been better: there was no war, the cops didn't care about what they did anymore because of the lack of violence, and all of them were moving forward as adults while still holding on to what made them who they were.

The sun sat on the horizon, making the cloud's underbellies turn a color of blush that really popped. Iowa's sky never disappointed them, and that was something they both appreciated.

“Tony, it really is a beautiful day, isn't it?”

“Sure is boss.”

They sat there, sipping their beer until the sun disappeared and the world turned dark. That was when Silas showed up.

“Hey fellas,” he said. “What's going on?”

“We've found a girl for you, Silas,” Jackson said. “And not just any old girl, but one of the Lucky Ladies.”

“Seriously?” Silas said. “Hell guys, you didn’t have to do that. What is her name? The one you're going to set me up with?”

“Her name is Courtney,” Jackson said. “And she's a real firecracker, of sorts, anyway.”

Silas grabbed a beer and they all headed inside. Someone had put logs in the fire because the autumn chill was starting to creep into the night with more and more of a bite as winter approached. The rest of the night was filled with drinking and laughing. It was the way that they all remembered the Rough Riders being, and the way they wanted it to continue to be, even as people grew and changed.

“So, what do you do?” Courtney asked Silas as they sat across from each other. The quilt she'd brought for the picnic helped keep the nettling feeling of the grass from making their legs break out in a rash.

“I guess not too much,” Silas said. “The whole MC thing means that I don't work a lot, but when I do work, it can be for weeks at a time. Usually what happens is something like this: I'll get a call to pick something up several states away, and when I get there I'll be told where to take it. The reason I get called is because the Rough Riders have been around for a while and have established a good reputation. Also, on my bike, I take all back roads. The old highways and byways that the fuzz don't sit on anymore because they don't make any money doing it.”

Courtney nodded, brushing crumbs off the blanket. The sun shining down on them offset the chilly breeze that turned their flesh to goose bumps. Silas was having a decent time, even though he hated picnics. Courtney was having the time of her life, already head over heels for Silas when he showed up on his bike, all wind bitten and sun tanned. Silas thought Courtney was a knock out, but also knew that it was going to take more than the want for them to fool around for them to really hit it off.

“I really like to read, and paint,” Silas said. “Lately, I've just not been in the mood, though. I guess you could say I've been melancholy, trying to figure out where my life is going. I guess that's the only thing I miss about being super young, was that it was always like, fuck it. You know? Like, if things don't work out, then oh well. But now . . .”

Courtney nodded and looked around the park to make sure they didn't have to censor what they said. If there were little kids around, or teenagers, she didn't want to discuss the serious aspects of her life in front of them. It just seemed like something that younger ears didn't need to hear out of her mouth.

“I agree completely,” Courtney said. “I know I'm a little younger than you, but at the same time, you have no idea how I feel over there at the university surrounded by kids that act like they are literally half my age.”

Silas laughed.

“Yeah, those fucking knucklehead college kids really don't get any smarter. They put a few years under their belt in some cloistered college community—where all they do is drink their faces off and treat everyone else like shit—then off they head to whatever city they find a 'job' in. And they look down their nose at people like me, when I make in a weekend what they make in two years.”

Silas shook his head and sighed. Then continued.

“Honestly that's why I don't go over there anymore. It's just never any better. No matter how much the times change, or the styles change, or the politics change, or whatever—it's still a tale of ‘same shit different day’.”

“It's a little silly,” Courtney said. “But, you are absolutely right. And that is how everyone acts, as if they are part of some chosen few that have been selected for societal greatness.”

Silas picked a dandelion out of the grass, then flipped its head high above them with his thumb; it caught in the wind, did a few loops, then fell back to the grass.

“What is it like to go to college, though?” Silas asked. “Because I know you folks do some serious studying. I sat in on a few classes, with the colleges permission, just to see one day. And I was like, holy shit, some of these little fuckers are really poring these texts into their minds and absorbing them. And not just that, but really digesting them in intellectually.”

Courtney spoke as she unpacked the picnic basket.

“It's not too bad. I mean, the problem with always being surrounded by kids is that you start to realize that some of the classes are made for kids who don't care to pass—specifically designed to be really easily passable. And that doesn't sound like a terrible idea, but at the same time, it makes it hard for me to really put my all into a class when I only need to put about ten percent effort forward to receive a passing grade. I don't know. I guess I'd bitch, too, if it were harder, but I'd like to know I'm really getting my money’s worth.”

Silas liked the way Courtney talked. It was common sounding, but at the same time educated. He talked in a similar fashion when he was around people that could appreciate it. Courtney seemed like the kind of person who would be a real firecracker in bed too, as well as being an intellectual. Those were two things that Silas appreciated very much.

“You know,” Silas said between bites of his sandwich. “I think we're going to get along well. It's weird how similar we are as people. I mean, I feel a little old sometimes when I'm around the Rough Riders now, like I'm sure you do around the Lucky Ladies.”

“I do feel a little old,” Courtney said. “But the Lucky Ladies really do hold their own on the maturity front. It's like some of them just have old souls. I don't know, that probably sounds stupid to you.”

Silas nearly choked.

“No, no!” he said. “Not at all. I feel the same way about the Rough Riders. They certainly are a special group of people, at least to me. And even though many of them are going through the exact same thing I went through when I was their age, they are all handling it better than I did. I mean, I was a real hellion back in the day. But those times are over for me. The Rough Riders don't even really get into trouble anymore like they used to, so it's not like I have to worry about that at all.”

Silas realized he'd been talking too much, or at least felt that way.

“I'm sorry to go on about the MC,” he said. “Let's go for a walk.”

Courtney rose and took his hand. They walked toward a small pond in the middle of the park. The day was beautiful, the kind of day that they could have only hoped for when they set out that morning to go on a picnic date together. The winter would be here within a few months, but for the time being they both could bask in the sun for a while longer.

Maybe the season had something to do with how he felt, Silas thought as he held Courtney's hand. Maybe it was a combination of the next hard Iowa winter coming and his onset of middle age. He liked to think that age wasn't something that scared him, but maybe it did. Or maybe, he thought, maybe it was just time to make a real change in his life. He was sick of the same old that he'd been living for years.

“What are you thinking?” Courtney asked quietly.

Silas glanced over at her. She was so beautiful, with her frizzy red hair and amazing breasts. She had dressed modestly, with black tights and a thin pink sweater, but he could still see the outline of her round, plump ass and gorgeous round tits.

“I was just thinking how seasons change, and people change. But sometimes people, unlike the seasons, change for good. It's not always like that though, not all the time for everyone, of course. But I'm ready for some change in my life, Courtney, I really am. I'm sick of just going day to day, even if the days are pleasant. I want to build something with someone. When I was younger I guess that was what the Rough Riders really meant to me. But now, I don't know. I want to build something different.”

Courtney squeezed his hands and they both nearly jumped, startled as a few mallards took off from the pond, their feet chopping the surface of the water as they gained speed and lifted off, barely clearing the reeds that rung the pond.

“Look at them go!” Silas said. “I'm always amazed at mallards. They are a pretty duck, but when they take off they look like something is wrong with them!”

Courtney laughed. Then so did Silas. They both lay down beside each other, and before Silas knew it, he drifted off to sleep with Courtney's head on his stomach.

Silas didn't realize he was dreaming right away. It was the kind of dream where his conscious mind had its suspicions though, as soon as his mind started to tug in the direction of knowing he was asleep, something in the dream began to really immerse him in the experience.

At first, he dreamed of growing up poor, with his dad always being gone and drunk. His mother was cooking something on the stove, and there was frost on the edges of the windowpanes, but at the same time it smelled just like spring and he could hear the sound of water lapping on the edge of land somewhere close by.

Then he dreamed about when he joined the Rough Riders, how there had been a war between them and another MC from out of town and Silas had seen his chance to prove himself and make good on being fully patched in. It was back when there seemed to be more bullets exchanged between MCs than words, and he was in a bar with all the windows shattering to shards of glass blown inward by bullets. The projectiles buried themselves in walls, and sometimes bounced around making crazy high pitched sounds as if he were in some kind of cartoon. But unlike how it really happened, back in the day, when he'd pulled out his Beretta and returned fire so the Rough Riders could escape out the back, instead of pulling out a gun he pulled out something much different. The banana felt funny in his hand, and he wondered why in the world he'd carry that around in the place of a firearm.

As more bullets zinged through the walls, breaking the legs off chairs and making bottles of liquor explode, Silas started to crawl toward the back door. He wasn't sure where he was going, except out of the building, but once he got there he was going to run and run. He wasn't ever going to come back. And as he stumbled to a half bent over trot, he was struck with a bullet in the back and fell forward on his face, and something on the floor made his face wet.

Silas woke with a start, the wetness was Courtney's lips on his.

“You were having a bad dream, so I decided to wake you,” Courtney said breathlessly.

She was on top of Silas now, pulling off his belt and tugging at his cock through his boxers. Silas knew that Courtney wasn't going to let him leave the grove without fooling around, although, for the first time in a long time, he felt the kind of fear and excitement that being with a woman meant when he was a young man. It was nice to really feel it, be into it, so that when Courtney tugged his quickly hardening cock out of his boxers he smiled. It was throbbing already, and he was ready to give her the ride of her life.

But Courtney had other plans. She didn't just want to get right to it, she wanted to take her time, to feel his body and rub him against her. As she sat on him, playing with his throbbing member she let her sweater fall down over her shoulders. Silas reached out to stroke her milky chest, and noticed her suck in her breath with his touch. He got even hornier as he played with her breasts. They really were something else, like the years had left them untouched. Courtney had really fair skin, and a smattering of freckles across her chest that made her breasts look like something out of an old school classy gentleman's magazine.

“You look so fucking good,” Silas said. “Holy shit.”

Courtney just laughed and quickly stood up, stepping up and out of her leggings. Silas couldn't believe that she hadn't worn panties on the date, but quickly recovered from his surprise and began undressing as well. He didn't want to fall behind, lest things become awkward where one of them was fully clothed and the other wasn't. Soon they were both lying naked beside each other on the grass, each running their hands greedily over the other's body.

They kissed, their lips seeming to throw sparks between them as there was so much energy and chemistry. Silas couldn't believe how entranced he was by Courtney, so that when she mounted him it was all he could do to hold onto her waist and gaze up at her.

“Silas, you're so fucking big. You feel so good inside of me,” Courtney said as she slowly lowered her warmth onto his throbbing cock.

She started to pant as she really started to ride him. Silas held onto her hips for dear life as she really got going for a few seconds. It wasn't something he was used to, women that actually did a good job of fucking him. Usually he was the one that had to do all the work. Not this time, though, Courtney was fully capable of taking charge, and that was something that Silas found more of a turn on than her looks.

He squeezed and played with her tits as she bounced up and down on his cock, glad that he had decided to start getting serious about settling down, because how else would he have run into this gorgeous woman who didn't have a problem fucking him in public on the first date? It kind of blew his mind, but not in a bad way. To Silas it wasn't slutty at all. For him it was just fun adventure. He wasn't some puritan kid from the university, and that was one of the reasons he thought that Courtney found him so attractive. She'd been surrounded by squares for so long that all she wanted was a man who thought for himself and was willing to have fun. Like fuck her by the pond in the middle of a small-town Iowa park.

Silas was down to fuck her anywhere, and as she ground her hard clit down on him, his cock probing her depths, he couldn't help but let out a moan. Courtney was so good on top that he wondered if he would ever want it another way from her. But before he knew it she was getting off and onto all fours. As he entered her from behind Courtney started to moan and buck back into him as he fucked her. It was great to have a woman respond this way to his cock. Although he usually got a pretty positive response, it wasn't always nearly like this. Courtney was obviously turned on by more than just the sex, there was an underlying lust that was intellectual, that was something that transcended their joining for a moment.

“Oh, fuck,” Courtney said. “Oh my God. I'm going to come. I'm going to fucking come on your big hard dick, Silas. Holy fucking shit.”

Silas glanced around just for a fraction of a moment as he pulled Courtney back onto his cock even harder—she was being loud, but he didn’t care. There was no turning back now, as Courtney's body went through the kind of orgasm that made her spasm as if she was being electrified from the pleasure. She moaned like a whore as she put all her weight onto her hands so that she could more deftly work her pussy up and down on his cock.

It was the best sex that Silas had ever had, and he’d fucked plenty of ‘professionals’. As his hands left her hips to grab her breasts he loosed a stinging slap on her ass. Courtney loved it, and started to come again. Silas watched her moan and spasm, knowing that soon he was going to come as well. He wasn't sure if he wanted to come inside of her on the first date, or if he wanted to come in her mouth, or on her tits. It was one of those decisions that he loved to make, and he was glad that he and Courtney were comfortable enough with each other that he didn't feel weird coming on her, or in her mouth.

As soon as she stopped coming he pulled out of her pussy and brought his cock up to her face. She sucked him off as he jerked himself, his seed filling up her mouth so quickly that she couldn't swallow fast enough, some of it dribbling down her chin.

They laughed, and cleaned each other up. Instead of going their separate ways, they walked around the park and talked, holding hands and being sweet. Silas really did like Courtney's company, so it was no problem to engage with her after banging her. He could tell that Courtney was relieved at this, and that meant she was probably feeling a little insecure about putting out on the first date.

“Listen,” Silas said as he took both of her hands in his, stopping to face her. “I want you to know that us fooling around was just spur of the moment fun that adults have sometimes, but I also want you to know that I like you. A lot. So, you don't have to worry about what I think about you putting out on the first date, or anything like that. I know that sometimes when it happens people get the cold prickly feelings and start to wonder what the other person is thinking. So, I figured that I would just tell you.”

Courtney threw her arms around him and hugged him tight.

“Thanks for being so understanding, Silas,” Courtney said. “I know that it was probably a lot, even for a guy like you. I guess I can come on pretty strong sometimes. But you know what, it's not often that a thing like we just did happens.”

Silas laughed and held her close. They walked back to her car together. The sun setting in front of them cast a gorgeous red hue that Silas had never seen before. The day had turned out to be a first for many things.

“So, how did it go?”

Courtney had just returned from the date and had hurried upstairs looked all mussed up and frazzled. She was sure that was why Elizabeth had followed her. Elizabeth was always making sure that things were going well for her Ladies. And it wasn't her being overbearing or bossy, she just genuinely cared about the Lucky Ladies.

“Things went so well,” Courtney said. “But we did bang in the park.”

Elizabeth laughed so hard she doubled over.

“Oh my God!” Elizabeth said. “That is too amazing. I'm glad you had fun! Did anyone see you?”

“I don't think so,” Courtney said. “But I'm not sure.”

They both laughed, and Elizabeth left her alone. Courtney appreciated that Elizabeth had followed up on what had happened, and not judged her at all for fooling around with Silas on the first date.

As Courtney reclined on her bed she thought about all the time she had spent running around campus, avoiding the jocks who would whistle at her and call her a cougar. Courtney had been holding out for someone just like Silas to enter her life, and had he ever done so with a bang.

Courtney didn't really know a thing about Silas, but also knew at the same time that she felt a deep connection with him. He seemed like he meant what he said about wanting to settle down. She totally understood why so many of the older Rough Riders wanted to settle down and not be out riding and taking risks all the time.

As she drifted off to sleep, she thought of texting Silas, but didn't – texting on her flip phone took forever. She'd save it for another day.

Over the course of the next several months. Silas and Courtney got to know each other very well. They talked about a lot of things that were near and dear to them. Silas even bought her an updated cell phone so that she could actually text him. Once they were able to have text message conversations, things really took off between them.

Their sense of humor was much the same, and that helped them a great deal. They were also able to finish each other’s sentences and eerily know what the other was thinking.

It was as if Courtney had found a soul-mate. It was a kind of bond that she had never experienced before, one that drew her closer to Silas the more intimate they became. It wasn't long until things were very, very serious between them.

Silas was nervous as he cruised over to the Rough Riders clubhouse. He hadn't been able to get a hold of Jackson the past few days because he'd been away on business. Tony was supposed to be around, but he must have been busy as well. It was a strange feeling for Silas to have so many of the senior Rough Riders ignore his attempts to speak with them. Not that he was taking it unduly personally, or anything like that. It was just that, now that Jackson was back from business, he was going over to have a very serious discussion without warming Jackson up at all.

Silas and Jackson had known each other a long time, but even though Silas had been around longer, it didn't mean that he questioned Jackson's authority. Jackson was the one calling the shots now, and he was doing an alright job of calling them. It was just that Silas was going to propose something that he'd never brought up before. Not in the way he was going to bring it up now.

When he pulled up the driveway Jackson stood up on the porch, but didn't hail him with greeting like he usually did. Jackson always did have a sixth sense about him when it came to peoples' moods.

“What's ails you, Silas?” Jackson asked before Silas had even made it up the stairs.

“Jackson, how long have you known me?” Silas asked him as he sat down next to the Rough Riders' leader.

“All my life, and most of yours, Silas,” Jackson answered.

“That's right,” Silas said. “And I want you to know that I've thought long and hard about this.”

Silas paused.

“You want out,” Jackson said, finishing the thought for Silas.

Silas nodded silently.

Jackson sighed.

“I thought this might happen.”

Jackson looked like he was angry, but it was hard for Silas to tell. He'd come over here from Courtney's place so she would be fresh in his mind.

“I want you to know that Courtney didn't put me up to it, all right?” Silas said.

“Hey, listen,” Jackson said. “I really do get it. Things change. Times change. And now you want to do your own thing, completely on your own. But before you go you'll have to do the Rough Riders one last solid. The Mayor of Nevada, the town to the east of Ames, isn't playing along with our used car lot expansion. So, in your last act of good faith toward the Rough Riders, I want you to go over there and make him an offer he can't refuse—he plays along, or you take care of him.”

“What?!” Silas said. “Are you crazy? Listen to yourself, you sound like the Old Man. I'm not down with this, at all. What about the peace you’ve tried so hard to achieve?”

In a flash, Jackson was on his feet and in Silas's face, jabbing his finger into Silas's chest.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Jackson seethed. “I'm still in charge here, and you're part of the club. We both know that it'll be alright if you rough up the political clown a little bit. You'll only do a little bit of time if you get charged, and then you'll be free, and done with us, at the same time.”

Silas grabbed Jackson by the neck and lifted him off his feet so his toes scraped against the porch's wooden planks.

“No, Jackson,” Silas said. “I'm done right NOW. And if I even so much as sense trouble coming from you folks, I'll come back over here and kill ever single last one of you—try me.”

Silas dropped Jackson and left without a word. While he rode back towards Ames he wondered if he was doing the right thing, or if he would regret it later. But there was a big part of him that knew that it wasn't all about a girl, and it wasn't all about getting old. Some of it had to do with those things, but most of it had to do with how Silas wanted to grow. It wasn't that he wanted to be a completely new person, it was that he wanted to shift away from what had been. Especially with Jackson turning out to be much more like the Old Man than he'd ever let on.

His whole future was in front of him. As he cruised up to the Lucky Ladies’ house he knew more than ever that the future included Courtney. She was waiting for him, and he hopped in her car as they headed out to a eat at their favorite little diner.

“How did the meeting go?” Courtney asked. “And what was it about, anyway? It sure had you worried.”

“Not so well,” Silas said. “I think I am out, but Jackson and me aren't friends anymore. When I told him I wanted to leave he tried pulling some old school bullshit, so I had to tell him how things really work.”

The car went silent.

“You know I'll support you no matter what,” Courtney said. “But can I ask why?”

“I guess I just grew up,” Silas said. “Not that there is anything wrong with what those guys are doing, but I just don't want to do it anymore. And I'm sure as hell not going to be demoted from rook to pawn just because I want to graduate to adulthood with some grace and dignity.”

The ride seemed to take longer than normal, although they were going the same speed they always did. When they got to their little spot, Courtney gave him a long kiss. Silas had had no idea how Courtney was going to react, but judging from her actions she was happy about it.

“What do you think?” Silas asked, wanting to know what was going through Courtney's mind.

“I think you are the man I want to spend the rest of my life with,” Courtney said. “And I really mean that. I love that you went ahead and put in your notice with the Rough Riders, not because I wanted you to, but because I've felt that you've wanted to for a long time. And I know what the Rough Riders used to mean to you, and I just think at some point, if you are going to grow like you want to, then you'll have to shake off some of the old habits. Not that you can't ride and have fun, but really, when was the last time you even considered yourself a full-fledged Rough Rider?”

Silas had to think about it, but then he answered.

“It's been awhile.”

The remained seated in the car, the temperature quickly cooling in the autumn air.

“I'm glad you’re here for me, Courtney,” Silas said. “And I'm glad you support my decision. I was wondering if you liked the bad boy part of me.”

Courtney laughed and grabbed at Silas’ crotch. This is bad boy enough for me.”

Silas smiled at her playful touch. Things were going to be great. He was ready to figure out how to be a good man to Courtney, and what it meant to have an amazing woman around.

However, there was a nagging feeling in the back of his mind. If Jackson was going back to the old-school way of running the MC, there was no way he was going to be able to just walk away. He wondered if he was going to spend the next days, weeks, maybe even months, looking over his shoulder.

If they did come for him, he’d be ready. Courtney meant more to him than the club ever did, and if he had to fight for his freedom to be with her, so be it. He looked into her green eyes and felt peace with his decision. He also knew that he would fight to the death for to keep her safe.

The End.

Dan didn't like to think about his job anymore. It was just kind of something he did to pay the bills. Or at least that was what he told himself when things weren't going so well. Lately, things hadn't been going that well, so he'd been telling himself that a lot. He tried not to think about what he thought life was going to be like when he first started fighting professionally. He had had all these dreams about being someone. And now that he was the person who'd he thought he'd wanted to be he was finding it something he didn't like so much anymore. Not that he'd liked it all that much to start.

Kind of like boxing was for inner city black kids, MMA was for a lot of white young men. Not that there wasn't a very eclectic group of ethnicities present in MMA, but if you were black and good at boxing, you were a boxer. Maybe it was apples and oranges, as a lot of people were fond of telling Dan when he made the comparison. But for him it was fair to say that because he really believed it, and because he was living it. And not just living, but thriving. As far as that was getting him. It wasn't like he was any less beat up than the next guy that had to fight for a living but wasn't doing so well.

Maybe it would have been better to not have been doing so well. Unlike the boxers it wasn't possible for him to just fight a few matches a year and somehow make ends meet with so much money he was stuffing mattresses with it and using it as kindling in his fireplace. That just wasn't the way the industry was for people like him. He had to fight a lot, nearly every month, and sometimes that didn't work out well. Because there really was no way to avoid getting knocked around a little bit. Sure, you could make a pretty good go of doing the whole Floyd Mayweather run and gun, but that was only going to get you so far in UFC. And in UFC you could end up hurt in a hurry if you lost a match badly.

As Dan trained he thought of all of this. It was something that never left his mind, the sport of UFC. He was even going to start going to a trainer to help sharpen his game a little. The doctors were telling him that he just couldn't get knocked around that much anymore, that maybe the next shot to the head would leave him terminally punch drunk. Dan wasn't so worried about that, though. It wasn't like he was going to be doing UFC forever. Or at least that was what he liked to think when his body started to really disagree with him. Sometimes when he woke up in the morning everything creaked, groaned, and cracked. He was like an old man on some mornings, and on even the best mornings he was no spring chicken.

Youth was fleeting, he would remind himself as he worked the speed bag. Youth, good looks, the ability to get beat up all the time and still keep coming back for more. All of that was very fleeting. And there was no way to add anytime to it, as far as Dan was concerned. All he wanted to do was throw fuel on the fire while he could. He needed this to work out for him in the long haul sense. He wanted to be one of those guys that retired into the world of coaching at a gym. It wasn't much of a life, but it beat breaking his back on a highway somewhere, trying to spread asphalt around like some kind of real working man. Dan didn't want to end up being that guy, the father who was so burned out by the age of forty that they could barely stay standing at their childrens' soccer games. There was just a lot on the line, at least in Dan's mind.

So he'd work the bag extra in hopes that some of it would really pay off, and he'd stay longer hours at the gym than he needed to. And now he was hiring a couch to tell him how to fight, even though he already knew how to fight. How was this person going to help him? The fact that she was a woman had nothing to do with hit, he would tell himself as he skipped jump rope by an empty ring, way after hours, when no one was in the club. That was just the way he did things though, working late and always applying himself. Maybe if he would have applied himself a little bit more in school he wouldn't have had to put all his might into the whole MMA thing, but that was the distant past now. Now he needed to win the next fight, because it was big.

Chapter 2

Walter Whitman, or WW as people liked to call him, was a Russian man as big as a bear. He was a man that as a child actually grew up wrestling bears, so it was fitting that he was now as bid as one. His reach, and his strength were renowned—in fact he had even killed the last two men that he had fought. Dan sat watching the fights where WW got in the two or three finishing punches that he always ended with a crushing blow to the head. In American UFC the judge would have jumped in way before the last blow would have delivered a death knell, or at least that was what Dan liked to tell himself.

WW had something of an underdog story going for him as well because he had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks; or so the story went. Dan was never very sure of all the details since so much of the information about WW came straight from his publicists mouth, but he figured there was probably some truth to the tales about him fighting for scraps of food when he was kid—some truth. Dan wasn't buying all of it though.

Dan shook his head and told himself that he needed to focus on his own training and not be so worried about the stories other fighters circulated about themselves. He was pulling into a gym that was new to him to work with his new trainer for the first time. The gym was one of those little ones that thrived back in the day but had recently fallen onto hard times because of the influx of people going to the twenty-four hour fitness gyms that had popped up all over the place like dandelions in recent years. Dan had heard that the trainer, Samantha, was former military and a real hard ass. That was the reason that Dan wanted to work with her so much.

Were there trainers who would love to work with him that were a little more well known? Sure. But Dan wasn't trying to work with someone based on the reviews that their gym had online, or because they helped newbies to the fighting world get their start. Dan wasn't a newbie, he didn't need someone to tell him how to hook and jab, or how to roll with a punch. He needed someone to suss out his weak spots and then really hammer on them so he could start to make some real changes. This was imperative to him. Dan been hearing rumors of how WW was watching hours upon hours of video of him fighting, and that all his trainers were mimicking his fighting style when they sparred with WW.

Dan didn't wory about much, but that had him worried. Mostly because for a long time he had taken a bunch of heat from the talking heads of the MMA media world for never working with a trainer. In the past it wasn't something Dan had felt would really be worth his time. But now, walking into the old gym, he felt like he was doing the right thing by finally working with someone who was really going to be hard on him. He needed that, needed grow and change so when he got in the ring with WW things didn't fall apart—so he didn't get taken apart.

Dan surveyed the gym as he walked back to the locker room to change. The lighting was that kind of harsh fluorescent lighting that flickers quickly, but just slowly enough so that there is almost a strobe like effect. The floors were freshly mopped, but it had been a very long time since they had been replaced. The walls had old school vents for AC and heat, the metal kind that turn brown with rust that can't be easily scraped off, as if it is actually part of the metal instead of being something on the surface. There were a few water fountains. Dan checked both of them and they both worked. The ring in the center of the place was well worn, and there was a brown in one of the corners where someone's blood had stained the white mat. There was still some looking around to do even though the place was small, but for the moment Dan was satisfied.

“Did the place pass muster?”

Dan whipped around to see a smiling, lithe, female figure leaning up against one of the walls. It had to be Samantha, his new trainer.

“Yes!” Dan said. “Everything looks great! Well, there are a few things that have probably seen better days, but I'm kind of that way as well in some spots. Wouldn't have gym any other way.”

Samantha straightened up away from the wall and walked toward him with a good natured smirk on her face. She had short brown hair and delicate features, although it was apparent that she'd had her noes broken a few times and whoever had set it hadn't really known what they were doing. That was a common sight to see in the fighting world. A lot of fighter didn't want to spend thousands of dollars after every fight where a glancing jab sent the cartilage in their knows sideways so they'd have a trainer set it.

“Really?” she asked. “Because the place you're coming from, the nice little fitness place that is open all hours of the day and night, is a lot nicer than this place. There you have someone that will talk all sweet to you and go over how you are really letting yourself down by drinking all the time and constantly stuffing your face with junk food. Here, well, here you aren't going to have that.”

Dan wasn't taken aback by the somewhat abrasive hello. He figured that if Samantha was really as tough a cookie as everyone said that she was then she wouldn't hesitate to talk some shit about how Dan was one of those fighters that didn't work out in a dungeon.

“That isn't what I'm looking for from you,” Dan said. “What I need from you is someone that is going to push me. Someone that is going to keep me in check and really hold me accountable. My next fight is with that maniac WW, the one that has killed a few people in some of his fights. I'm sure you've heard of him. Well, I plan on winning that fight. And beyond that I plan on kicking his ass. So that's why I'm here. To learn and grow.”

Samantha smiled and slowly circled around Dan, looking him up and down.

“Call me Sam,” she said. “And hurry up and get changed, we have training to do.”

Without saying another word, or even so much as looking Sam again Dan headed back to the locker room and started to get ready. It took a little bit for him to get all the way ready, almost as long as it had taken his ex to get ready to go out on a Friday night. First he had to change, then tape his hands up, then there was what some fighters called “getting in the zone.” Although it didn't take Dan as long as some fighters he'd met to “zone in,” it did take him about fifteen minutes of meditating while he listened to heavy rock to get in the mood to train. Because training wasn't like fighting; there wasn't a huge adrenaline rush that went along with fighting a trainer. The trainer wasn't another fighter, who Dan could wear down bit by bit. The trainer was going to wear him down. Dan had to be ready for that.

By the time Dan walked out of the locker room in a hoody, gym shorts, and training shoes Sam had already set up a few bags for him to hit. He had kind of thought that maybe she would start him off with some of the fancy drills to see where he was at as a fighter. Showing of technical skill was something that people that weren't amateurs asked Dan to do on a regular basis, so he expected the same from Sam. But that wasn't what she had waiting for him. Instead of doing anything fancy, she just had him work the bag.

So for the next few hours Dan worked the bag. He worked it and worked it, up and down, left and right, until he could barely lift his arms. The bag was one of those super heavy bags trainers fill with sand and chain from the ceiling. Sam held it for him so it wouldn't spin or sway, and every time he let his guard down she lashed out with jab to his face. It wasn't a hard jab, and she'd put on some soft training gloves so that it wouldn't hurt him, but it still stung. And it stung a lot more than just Dan's face. He could feel his pride start to well up a little bit, and he had to remind himself that he wasn't too good for a trainer, that every jab she landed was actually his own doing and if WW would have landed it he'd be in a world of pain. That was what Dan focused on while he worked the bag in a fervor—how he was going to beat out WW, and then the whole world would know that he was a very “for real” fighter.

Lately the talking heads that ran the MMA sports round up shows had been criticizing Dan in ways that he had never thought he be criticized for before. Usually it was all about how he was a sloppy fighter, or how his foot work wasn't that great, or how maybe he would be a better fighter if he gained some weight, or dropped some weight, or whatever other fool idea had flitted into the minds and out of the mouths of talk show hosts with no fighting experience of their own. Not that the public watching at home cared if the people running their mouths had ever stepped in the ring, or even so much as been in a fist fight on a playground at some point. All anyone cared about was breaking fighters down, and the more of a chance you had at being a truly great fighter, the more that people wanted to break you down.

Suddenly Sam pulled the bag away from him.

“What are you thinking about right now?” she asked.

Dan wasn't sure how to respond. He'd thought that he'd been giving one hundred percent while working the bag, but now he realized that he must have been giving it away that his mind was somewhere else.

“I was thinking about what the fucking MMA news casters say about me on television,” Dan answered. “And I know that sounds like some super insecure shit, but at least I'm being honest.”

“And what do they say about you?” Sam asked, looking around the bag at him with blue steel eyes.

“They say I'm not good enough,” Dan said. “More or less. It's always something with them. But mostly it revolves around how I'm not technical enough, and how I should be a little more defensive minded.”

Sam nodded at him and disappeared back behind the bag. Dan went back to hitting the bag, working it up and down, but this time he didn't think so much. He didn't really think about anything. He just made sure to keep his defenses tight, and that he wasn't ever just standing around between punches. Because that's how one of the guys that WW had killed went down—he'd landed a decent punch on the giant Russian and then, for a brief moment, dropped his guard. WW had smashed him so hard in the head the poor guy never got back up. The boxing world had said it was a freak thing, that usually people didn't get killed from a single punch to the side of the head like that, but they said this even though it was the second man that WW ha put in the grave. The third had been similar, a punch to the head, but instead of a punch through dropped defenses it was a punch that simple burst through the other fighters defenses.

After what seemed like forever Sam said that Dan could take a break and went to her office. Dan got a drink from a fountain and sat down on a stool near the ring. The gym didn't have a moldy smell too it, and that was something Dan was thankful for. He had secretly hoped that the place wouldn't be an outright dive. Although he wasn't stuck up about where he trained Dan wasn't a huge fan of the mindset that thought gross gyms were legit by way of their nasty smell and feel. That wasn't what Dan thought at all. Sam's gym was clean, very clean. So clean in fact that when Dan peaked under the flap of the ring to see the floor below the canvas he didn't find a single speck of dirt or anything that would indicate the place wasn't cleaned nearly everyday.

“Don't worry,” Sam said walking out of her office and catching Dan peaking under the flap. “I clean this place, and I also have some of the kids who can't pay their dues clean the place. That's how it goes sometimes when you run an actual gym and not some place for out of shape yuppies to feel good about themselves after they do thirty minutes on the stair step machine.”

Dan nodded, and Sam turned away to do something at the far end of the gym. Dan couldn't tell what she was up to, but figured it meant that the gym was about to officially open. He'd come in extra early for the first day of training, wanting to get to know Sam a little bit. That wasn't what had happened though; not that Dan was upset or anything.

“All right,” Sam said walking back. “So the gym opens soon and I'm going to be running a boxing clinic for at risk youth.”

Dan nodded again. He couldn't remember the last time he'd nodded so much to communicate. It reminded him of back when he first started coming to gyms and talking to trainers a little bit, before he had decided that he was just going to do it on his own.

“I understand,” Dan said once he realized that Sam wasn't going to let him off the hook that easy. “I'll be out of here before anyone shows up. I know that having a MMA fighter around can be distracting for some people.”

Sam nodded. Dan realized that that was what she had been getting at, and she had just been waiting for him to figure it out. Dan could feel his face burning as he stood up to head back to the locker room to change back into street clothes and head out. Just when he started to walk away Sam spoke again.

“I want you to watch video of this WW guy,” she said. “And I really want you to study him. Don't take it lightly. This guy has killed three people in past matches, and although you are way better fighter than any of those people were, that doesn't mean that the same couldn't happen to you. So study it. And I mean really study it.

Dan nodded, then turned back toward the locker room. It had been a long morning of training, and he was exhausted.

Chapter 3

Watching tape was a lot more involved than Dan initially thought. For some reason he'd thought that it would be like plugging in a video and relaxing. Instead he found himself tensely engaged with what was going on in the ring beyond just the punches and jabs themselves. There was a lot to a boxers choreographed rhythm; it was almost like watching a dancer in some ways, except that the progression of a dancer would happen in an arch over their career—or so Dan thought. With boxing it was different in that fighters would go through different phases sometimes. Dan was watching some of WW early fights when he'd realized that the fighter, now seasoned, wouldn't be using such simple footwork anymore. And sure enough, when Dan checked the most recent footage it was just as he'd thought. There was indeed better footwork, there was also more agility over all, and a kind of weariness in all of WW movements.

Dan noticed this and thought that maybe it was WW nursing some kind of injury: favoring a foot, or trying to hide a shoulder. But after a few fights of seeing it in WW's face Dan realized it was just the look of a very seasoned fighter settling in for the long haul of the match. WW was like a tank at times, but at other he was moving at, and through, opponents at a speed that amazed Dan. There was a lot to WW, Dan realized, much more than whatever sob story his team was selling to get asses in the seats of the arena.

As Dan got up to get a drink after watching several hours of tape his phone chimed. He looked at it and didn't recognize the number. The text asked him how he was doing and said something else that Dan didn't even bother to read at all. Instead he just texted back an inquiry about the other person's identity and headed to the fridge.

He'd forgotten to buy beer before heading home, then he remembered that he hadn't forgotten at all, that beer was something that Sam had said that he needed to stay away from if he wanted to have a chance against the Russian Bear, as some of media had taken to calling WW. Dan regretted that decision now. He didn't smoke weed—as a rule he didn't put anything in his lungs that might slow him down in a fight—so there was really no other way for him to unwind.

Dan sat back down in front of his computer, and older model he'd been gifted by his father that Dan had never had the heart to throw out, and saw his phone. The person had responded, and it was Sam. She was wondering how the evening was going for Dan, and if he needed any help breaking down the video.

This stuff is way more complex than I thought it would be. Dan texted her.

I thought it might be. Sam texted back

They talked for a while about MMA, and then talked about other things. It was strange, almost, to Dan that he was thinking of Sam as his equal, maybe even his superior, and she was a female. It made Dan wonder if he'd really been one of those people that didn't realize they had a couched prejudice inside of them. He'd never really thought about it in terms of fighting before, maybe that's why it was so strange. But at the same time he'd never really been forced to confront femininity before like he was now. There was no way around the fact that Sam was a woman, and she was clearly running the show. And not only that, but she was doing it with style and grace.

It made Dan wonder, as he watched WW smash people and texted Sam, if he would have been as cool as her if he would have been if he'd been in her place—some MMA guy walking into the gym and being like “teach me.” She could have been a dick about it; she could have humiliated him, told him he had to clean the bathrooms or some shit like that. Because that was how it went sometimes with trainers, you really had to earn their respect before they would work with you.

Maybe Sam had respected him before he'd walked through the door. It was something that he never asked her, and probably never would ask. But he couldn't help but wonder if she'd seen him fight on television, and if so, what she had thought. If she'd looked down at his somewhat sloppy fighting style, or if she had seen potential far greater than what was going on.

Sam ended their texting conversation by telling Dan that she was headed to bed and how she looked forward to working with him the next day. Dan found himself texting back something polite even though deep down he still begrudged the fact that he'd had to seek help for something that he'd been doing his entire life. But then he thought of how WW was working with a bunch of trainers, how WW was watching the film with them too, not just working bags with them. And how WW might have already out worked him.

Dan shook the thought from his mind as he pushed his seat back from the desk and shut down the computer. He was ready for the next day, even though he felt tired and alone. Sam would want to run drills all day tomorrow. It wasn't that she didn't think that he could do them, it was how obvious that he could but didn't. The irony of the whole situation dawned on Dan slowly, much the same way a soft blush hue will color the sky when the sun settles into the horizon for dusk so Dan's mind was illuminated. It wasn't some thunderclap realization—he didn't really realize it until he woke up to drive to the gym the next morning.

Then it hit him: Sam was the only woman in his life; and also, up to this point, she was also the most healthy female relationship he'd had. As he pulled out of his driveway he thought about his taste in woman and how it was usually much different from Sam. Usually Dan liked the curvy, super busty woman that he'd grown up seeing in magazines. But Sam wasn't like that at all. She was slim, lithe, and she could move her hands so fast Dan's eyes had a hard time keeping up that morning.

The drills went fairly well, Dan thought, mostly because Sam was gracious enough to let his ego take the beating instead of his face. When Dan would be lazy, which wasn't often, but did happen, Sam would slam in upside the head with the pad. It was more of a love tap than anything else, and Dan took it for what it was—correction. He needed to learn and grow, and sometimes that meant that things had to be shook up a little bit, that he needed to be shook up a little bit.

Dan could tell that Sam was starting to respect him more as a fighter and as a person the more they worked together. Where at first she had acted liked he was an average fighter that wanted to review the basics when they initially squared off that morning, by the end she was running some of the most complex drills that Dan had ever done. Some of them he couldn't keep up with, and others were the kind of drills that people couldn't really finish unless they had done them before a few times. Dan didn't mind messing up a little bit, though. That was what he was ultimately here to do.

Toward the end he could tell that Sam felt let down for some reason. He tried to think back on his energy level and didn't know why she was acting like he wasn't putting in his all, like this was high school sports or something and he was just trying to make it to the end of the practice so he could go get high in the parking lot.

“What's the problem?” Dan asked her as things wound down. “You're acting like I'm not keeping up or something.”

“It's not that,” Sam said. “It's that I think you get off in your head sometimes. The most important thing about training is actually being present in the moment to participate. You can't phone this stuff in. And yes, you are acting like this is high school football practice. You're acting like the couch is having you run speed drills and you aren't trying to out pace yourself.”

Dan didn't know what to say, and Sam didn't give him a chance to say it as she stormed into her office and slammed the door. In the locker room he sat and looked at the floor despondently. What was he doing wrong? Why was he so hard on him? Then he started to laugh. This was exactly what he needed! This was what he came for. Dan had forgotten all about Sam's military training. It would be wise of her to break him down and then build him back up. That was what Dan had always heard went on in the military—people came in, were broken down, then built back up to be something more than they had been before. He wasn't sure if he liked her taking it straight to the mind games, but maybe she wasn't at all—there was always the chance that she was being totally for real about her feelings.

Dan laced up his street shoes and figured he was over thinking it anyway. He'd go home, have a beer if he damn well pleased, and show up tomorrow even more prepared than he had today. Last night he'd been up to late watching film. Tonight he would take it easy and get plenty of sleep so that when he woke he'd be a step ahead of the rest, and ready to take on the world.

As he left the gym, just when Dan was ready to put the entire business of being an MMA fighter out of his mind, Sam called him into her office.

“Are you scared?” she asked him before his ass had even had a chance to touch the seat. “Is that why you're acting like your off in another reality in your head while I'm trying to teach you how to fight like a professional instead of some lucky school yard brawler?”

Dan's mouth fell open. He wasn't sure what to say. She did have a point, he had been off in his a lot lately. Maybe that was why he was here, that and he had finally realized that he needed to tighten up his game so he could go to the next level without having some kind of trauma in his brain. That was one thing he remembered most from watching WW fight, was that he looked confused in some moments when he should have been in complete control. Maybe he was doing the same thing to himself by getting up in his own head so much and thinking about things.

“I'm not sure what it is,” Dan said. “I know that lately I have been struggling with my own insecurities a lot. As a fighter I mean. I guess I've just had to face that I'm not all that, like I thought I was. And I'm also dealing with thinking that I was 'all that' to begin with. So it's kind of like a cycle that keeps repeating. But I do have to say that I've been putting myself into this to the utmost. There hasn't been a time when I wasn't trying, or when I was just 'phoning it in,' as you put it.”

Sam shifted in her seat, leaning forward and glaring at him.

“You're actually trying to tell me that there wasn't a time, not a single time, that you weren't giving it your all today? Did you not feel it when I tapped you on the head? Hey, I know that I'm not yelling at you out there, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to most of the time. I just don't think it's productive to yell at the person I'm trying to teach because they aren't picking up what I'm laying down.”

Dan started to say something, but then stopped himself. He didn't want to get in some fight about all of this while he was tired and not thinking straight. He wanted to go home and think on it and then maybe talk about it the next day.

“Let me think about it,” Dan said. “I know that might sound like a cop out, but I want you to know that I really am trying to become a better fighter.”

Sam leaned back in her seat and looked at the ceiling. As if for the first time Dan noticed how beautiful she looked when she was angry. It wasn't a cuteness, either, like some guys liked to tell their girl friends when they'd get mad at them. It was a real beauty that sprung from her poise, and how she seemed to vibrate with energy while still remaining in control of herself.

“Fine,” Sam said. “We can just forget about it. Or talk about I tomorrow or whatever. But what would really help things out was if you came here to be here and train, and didn't worry so much about whatever doubts you carry around with you. I realize that you're trying to break through a stagnation in your fighting ability, and that means you've realized at some point that you've failed to continue to grow. I can respect that, but what I can't is someone acting scared of spirit while they punch a bag or run through a drill.”

Dan nodded. He didn't want to escalate things any further. It also wasn't his place to tell his trainer that she was wrong in her estimation of how he'd done that day. He know if he tried to do that she would just blow up on him since it seemed like she already wanted to do that anyway.

Dan stood, and looked around the room as if he'd set his keys down somewhere and was trying to find them. People told him that he looked that way whenever he was really trying to search for the right words. But Dan didn't find them, so he just turned and left without saying anything else. He wondered, as he drove home, if Sam was trying to get him to quit—testing his resolve to see if he was really in it to win it, or if he was just having the fighter version of a midlife crisis.

When he got back to his place the sun was already going down. Dan hated how the winter stole so many hours of daylight. Not that he needed it to work, like some people, but just because he took solace in a shining sun. It always uplifted his spirit to feel the sun on his face. But in the winter that just wasn't the way things went. As Dan got out of his car and headed into his apartment complex a chill wind cut through his gym clothes and he realized that he'd forgotten to change before leaving the gym.

Dan hated when he got shook up like this. Maybe that's why he'd avoided going to a trainer for all these years. He cursed WW for making him realize that he wasn't good enough to make it on his own, not if he wanted to be a real contender and not just some guy who paid the rent by legally beating people up. As he sat behind his computer and re-watched WW fight a few of his most recent matches he was sure to tune in to his footwork, and to pay special attention to all the small feints and other tactics to throw off WW's opponent.

As much as Dan just wanted to get drunk and not think about any of it he knew that wasn't going to be the reality of the situation for him because he was a real fighter, a real competitor, and that meant that he was going to do what he needed to do to beat anyone in his way. Even if the anyone was as big and bad as WW.

Before going to sleep that night Dan checked his phone to see if Sam had shot him any messages, but found it void of any messages from her, or any other human contact.

As Dan drifted off to sleep he thought about how much he had sacrificed to MMA already, and how much further he was ready to go. He was willing to get in a ring with WW even though that meant he might day, and he was willing to train with someone who was hard on him even if it caused him some existential discomfort. But at some point he really would have to tally it all up and see what had worked out for him and what hadn't worked out for him; what investments had brought a return, and which of them had gone bust. He just hoped that he wouldn't fail himself before his career was really over, and that his body wouldn't fail him during and after his career when it was normal for fighters to start to show their wear and tear.

It was a lot to hope for, he realized as he set his alarm. It was a lot for him to think about and maybe at the end of the day he really just needed to cut the shit and be a little more open to being present in the moment. Not just there throwing punches, but there and aware in a way that he hadn't been the last few days. There were no more excuses. Tomorrow would be day three, and by that time any decent fighter should be at least rolling steadily along with whoever they are training.

But what if he wasn't a decent fighter? What if, like Sam had said, he was just another school yard brawler that got lucky—until they didn't. Would WW be the fight where instead of getting lucky he met his match, and maybe even his maker?

As he drifted off to sleep all of these thoughts seemed to drift away from him as well, until Dan felt like he was suspended over a vast pit of nothingness, sleeping. Then, after the dream dissolved, there was nothing.

Chapter 4

Over the next few months Dan really did apply himself in a way that he had never done before. He was present for every punch, and didn't flinch when sweat stung his eyes, and didn't complain when Sam landed a slap with the pad because the fluorescent lights quick staccato flashing had confused his vision. Each week was a battle with himself, and each week he had to really gut check himself and see whether or not he really wanted to be an excellent fighter. It wasn't something he had done since the start of his career, before he had gotten some traction and felt the benefit of being what people referred to as a charismatic fighter.

That was something else he was having to deal with: The public's perception of him. WW had a very PR team that was always busy putting out either some crazy story about WW, or trying to circulate doubts about Dan. It was almost enough that Dan was impressed, but one night it really got to him.

He was up late, watching more footage. He'd gotten on an MMA forum at the behest of a friend to read a thread about the upcoming match. Usually Dan kept well away from forums before a fight because of how many people were willing to go on the internet and completely talk out of their ass, as if they had nothing better to do; but this time was different because his friend had told him that WW himself was posting, had posted a few pictures to prove his identity, and the shit he was saying was ruthless.

When Dan got to WW's comments he could almost feel his blood boil he got so angry. Who did this guy think he was, anyway? Or was it even WW? It very well could be some shill that his PR team was paying to throw a bunch of bullshit around the internet and see if they could scare up any comment from Dan himself—Dan had recently gone on record saying that he didn't have anything even remotely close to a PR team, and now regretted it.

Before he gave himself a chance to do anything stupid Dan shot Sam a text and asked her what she thought.

That's a hard one, because I know I'd be mad as well. She replied.

They talked about it via text as Dan read more and more stupid posts from someone claiming to be WW, but could have been anyone with a few photos. Sam kept trying to reason with him but Dan kept getting angry, until finally Sam said she was coming over to hang out with him for a minute.

Dan wasn't sure what to think about that at all, so he didn't say anything in response. Within the hour Sam was at his door.

Chapter 5

“What you need to realize is the only reason they would pull a stunt like this is to try and exhaust every avenue of fucking with you before a fight—because they are scared.”

Sam sat across from Dan at his small table. They were in the “dining area” of Dan's sparsely decorated and barely furnished apartment. Dan wondered what it looked like to Sam. He didn't really have that many friends, and he definitely didn't have a girl friend, so he didn't invest much time or energy into his place. If he was around it more maybe it would be a priority, but at present Dan invested way too much of his time into what people referred to as the “MMA lifestyle” to be in tune with much else.

Sam looked good sitting there, Dan had to admit to himself. She kept talking about how WW's low brow tactics weren't going to win him the match, and how pathetic that it was that he was even willing to stoop that low. And although she kept sort of noticing Dan check her out—her awareness telegraphed through shifts of posture and other body language—she didn't ask him to stop, and she didn't leave. During one pause in the conversation where it was so apparent Dan blushed she got up to fill he glass with water, being sure to pout her nice ass up in the air as she leaned over the sink and gulped it down. Dan's eyes couldn't get enough.

“You know, Sam,” he said. “I've been thinking about our relationship, you know, as you as my trainer and me as your trainee. And I was thinking about, well, maybe . . .”

Sam turned to face him, a big smile creasing her face. She knew exactly what he was getting at, but took great and obvious pleasure at how nervous Dan was acting.

“Go on Dan,” she said. “I think you were trying to tell me that you like me.”

Dan's mouth hung ajar, and he wondered how much more he could underestimate Sam. Probably a lot more, if he didn't remember, and quickly, that she was still a woman. And not only was she a woman, but she was a strong woman, someone that wouldn't let the world tell her that she shouldn't run a gym because of her gender, and someone who wasn't afraid to take on one of the best emerging MMA fighters as her own before the fight of his life.

“I guess that's what I'm trying to tell you,” Dan said. “Although I think I was trying to avoid sounding like a goober.”

“And that was your first mistake,” Sam said with a chuckle as she crossed her arms and leaned back against the sink.

Dan noticed, as if for the first time, how nice Sam's small breasts were, and how great they looked in the tank top she was wearing. Now that Dan looked at her dress in the greater context of how frank this discussion had just become, he realized that some of her clothing choices had been very deliberate. She hadn't just thrown on a tank top and forgotten to wear a training bra like she usually did; she had chosen not to wear a sports bra with a tank top that made her look great. Also, he realized that she'd specially chosen what looked to be a very comfortable pair of sweats to wear. They weren't gym sweats, as people that trained often wore outside of the gym like some kind of uniform. The sweats didn't have any stains or rips; but they did make her tight ass muscles look just amazing, and showed off how being lithe didn't necessarily mean that Sam wasn't still bodacious in her own way.

“You like what you see?” Sam asked in a taunting tone. “Are you going to be afraid to come and get it?”

Dan got up and took Sam into her arms tenderly, but firmly. He lifted up her chin with a finger and kissed her. Her lips parted slightly and she pressed her mouth softly to his; and they held the kiss for a long time, much longer than Dan was ready for. When the kiss broke they found each other breathless, as if they'd both just done a sprint. And it was also like something that had been between both of them dissolved and now there was nothing to restrain them at all.

They pulled each other's clothes off as they stumbled toward the bedroom, each one trying to feel as much as the other as they could, as quickly as they could. Dan loved it when sex was like this—passionate and without hesitation, and also urgent. It was like neither of them realized that they could take their time, that if they wanted they could stop and wait a few minutes. When they got to the bed they were both naked.

Sam looked like a model, so toned and fit that it made Dan a little bit insecure about his own bit of pudge around the midsection, but she didn't seem to mind that at all. In fact she ran her hands around his abs, just coming through, before she kissed her way down to his throbbing member and took him into her mouth. Dan was in heaven as Sam gave him the best blow job of his life. It was as if he'd never really gotten a great one to know what it could be like, although some of the girls that Dan had been with had had reputations that told of their oral prowess.

Dan ran his hands gently over her hear, and down her shoulders to her back. Looking down at her, and playing with her breasts, Dan couldn't believe how turned on he was. He also couldn't believe how certain he was that this wasn't a bad idea. Even though it might complicate things a little bit, he had faith that both of them would be able to stay professional and not let this affect them in the future.

“Hey, baby,” Dan said softly. “Why don't you get on top?”

Sam smiled up at him before crawling up on top of him as he lay back on his bed. She definitely knew what she was doing, and it was so insane how hot she was on top of him, riding him. They had spent so much time around each other that it was weird or anything that they were naked together, not like it was sometimes when Dan would have sex with someone for the first time. He loved how she leaned forward and put her straightened arms on his chest so she could work herself up and down his throbbing erection more quickly. Dan was somewhat surprised at how worked up she was, but it did kind of make sense considering how long they had known each other, and how much time they had spent together. They'd never once even hinted that this might be a possibility before, so he was glad it was all working out this way. And as he reached up to play with her breasts and tweak her nipples he loved how she let out a low moan and started riding him even faster.

“Oh, Dan,” Sam said. “You feel so fucking good inside of me. Fuck, baby, you feel so hard. I love how you're cock is like a railroad spike right now.”

Dan arched his back so that Sam could really bear down on him. The look in eyes had him wondering if he would be able to keep up with her, or if maybe he'd bit off more than he could chew at this point. Maybe that was the case, but he wasn't scared to find out.

“You look so fucking good right now,” Dan said breathlessly. “I can't believe you're riding me. I just never thought this was going to happen, you know?”

Sam let out another moan.

“To be honest I did have some idea that this was going to happen,” she said. “I mean, you're a hot guy. I'm a hot girl. We spend a lot of time together. It kind of makes sense that this happened. Don't you think?”

Dan didn't answer. He was trying to think of something else while Sam was on top of him. He thought about baseball instead of feeling her ass, but that only worked for so long. He tried to think of ways that he could prolong the inevitable, and the only thing that really came to mind was switching positions.

“I need to, uh,” Dan said. “We should switch positions.”

For a second Sam looked like she was going to playfully give him a hard time, but then she didn't say anything and instead jumped off and got on all fours. Dan maneuvered himself behind her and slowly slipped himself in. He started thrusting slowly at first, but quickly worked up a rhythm that he knew would lead him to orgasm fairly quickly.

“Sam, fuck,” Dan said. “I'm not going to last much longer. Holy shit, I don't know if I'm going to be able to . . .”

“Just a little longer,” Sam said. “Just a little bit--”

Dan felt Sam's body stiffen on top of him as an orgasm rocked her; and not just a ordinary orgasm, but the pent up sexual tension of many weeks released. She moaned and swore, bucking up and down on his dick. It was some of the best sec Dan had ever had, and just when she finished coming his own rapture of ecstasy started.

“Holy shit,” he gasped as he felt himself tighten and then release his seed into her. “Oh my fucking God you feel so good!”

Afterward they both lay on his bed kissing and cuddling. It was a sweet moment they shared between each other, and Dan was happy that it had gone down the way it did. He did wonder, though, if there wouldn't be some kind of unforeseen consequences that he hadn't thought of. Not that he doubted that Sam would be able to be professional about everything, it was just that he didn't want to fuck anything up between them.

As they drifted off to sleep in each other's arms he thought about how lucky he was to have Sam around. It was strange that he almost thought of her as a kind of mentor beyond just being a trainer. While they drifted off to sleep the snow started to come down outside, and the streetlights lit up the flakes with a yellow haze. Somewhere someone in the building started to play Jazz music on a saxophone, and Dan realized that it was the kind of night where everyone vibrations were humming together; one of those rare instances in life where everything seemed to be coming together instead of falling apart.

Chapter 6

In the coming months before the fight the added intimacy of them having slept together only added fuel to the fire when it came to their training. Now it was as if Sam pushed him to his limit and kept him there even longer than before; she was invested now beyond just professionalism and it showed in everything she did for Dan, and in every drill she ran with him.

Dan, for his part, also remind completely and totally professional, and as the time for the fight neared he knew that he was as ready as he'd ever be. While WW's PR team was busy on the internet Dan was busy memorizing WW's movements on tape. He felt like he had fought him already sometimes, as if the match of the future, the real match, was just a dream and the actually conflict had already been resolved.

Dan didn't think about how WW had killed three men anymore. It just wasn't something that floated through his head like it had. He didn't know if it was because he was more focused now, or if it was because Sam had watched the tapes with him and pointed out how badly the fighters that went down for the long sleep fought; how so many of them were winded within the first few rounds and basically presented no threat whatsoever to WW, who then worked them into a corner and threw what Sam called “very predator punches.”

“Aren't those just the nature of punches?” Dan asked Sam.

“No,” Sam said. “Just like all fights aren't dirty fights. This WW guy, or whatever his actual Russian name is, is a pro at making people think he is just some dumb brawler. Or he was. Now that he is moving up towards the upper echelon I think his 'team' has realized that they need to up the hocus pocus game—thus there are so many rumors about this guy floating around that if you believed them all you'd think that he was the Russian Oliver Twist turned Kimbo Slice.”

Kimbo Slice was an MMA fighter who  had risen to fame through not only his fighting prowess, but also videos of him on the internet fighting people on the street. It was one of the now infamous stunts that he'd pulled in his career to garner attention and notoriety. But where was Mr. Slice now? He certainly wasn't nearly the fighting force people had thought that he'd be, even though for awhile the MMA world had really stood in awe of him.

Chapter 7

As the fight approached Sam pushed him harder and harder in the gym. She found sparring partners for him that were the same size and weight as WW, and even had some of them fight the same way as the Russian. Dan found some of it to be very useful, but sometimes he just wanted to spar with someone for real, without the whole “this is what it would be like to fight WW,” schtick going on in the background.

During all of this Dan could feel Sam growing more and more attached to him, until they started sleeping together on a regular basis. It was one of those things that kind of just happened. It wasn't like they were dating though, but it was like they were sort of dating. They both had so much invested in each other it only felt natural for feelings to follow. Or that's how they both felt about it when they would talk about their budding relationship.

When the day of the fight arrived it wasn't Dan who was nervous, it was Sam. She got emotional and almost cried as she drove him to match. Dan tried to comfort her, but she wouldn't have it and just kept apologizing for being silly about her feelings. Dan told her not to feel badly for having emotions like a normal person, but before he could really comfort her they pulled into the place where the match was being held.

Dan kissed her on the cheek and they both got out and walked into the place tall and proud. When the first bell rung Dan was more ready to fight the Russian, the famed and feared WW, than for anything else he'd ever done in his life. He wasn't nervous at all, and didn't feel like he needed to be a tough guy and stare down the other fighter. WW, however, put on a huge show of entering the ring and leering at Dan as if the big Russian planned to run over and try to bash his head in at any second.

The first round went well. They exchanged opening blows and moved around the ring. WW looked weary, like he had in all the videos, as if pacing himself for a fight that would go until time ran out. Dan wasn't so sure he fell for it, though. WW was big, and started to get winded quickly. Dan kept his eyes locked on WW's, and in the second round thought he saw a glimmer of something beyond the weary shell that WW presented.

Just before the round was about to end WW threw a solid hay maker that Dan deftly deflected before throwing his own powerful uppercut. For a second time froze, or seemed to, and WW reeled backward, trying to keep his balance. Then, at the last moment, just before the bell was rung, WW fell to the ground flat on his back as if he were some kind of giant Red Wood. The sound that he made when he hit the canvas was an enormous thwak that made Dan wince.

When he returned to his corner to wait for the referee to finish his count he found none other than his trainer, mentor, and girl of his dreams all in one waiting for him. And then, in front of the everyone in the world she kissed him full on the lips as the referee declared WW to be knocked out cold.

“You did it!” Sam yelled over and over.

Dan just smiled and picked her up, putting her on his shoulders—not like a kid, but like she were sitting on just one of his big deltoids. Then the crowd rushed up into the ring. It was the end of Dan being worried about what kind of fighter he really was. He'd proven to himself and to Sam that he was serious about MMA, and that there wasn't anything in the world that he was going to let stand in his way.

Chapter 8

Sam and Dan ended up staying together after the fight, and Sam continued to train Dan as well. Dan bought into the gym, becoming co-owner, and when he wasn't training for MMA matches he was training at risk youth not only how to defend themselves but also how to control themselves.

Different news outlets kept contacting them wanting to do a story, and there were even a few offers put on the table having to do with a potential made for television movie. Sam wouldn't have any of it, though, saying that such things would only be a nuisance. And, as she liked to point out, it wasn't like they needed the money. Dan was making excellent money fighting, and the gym was in the  black, and above and beyond that they had each other. What else did they really need?

Chapter 1

My life started normal, I swear it did. I had a mom and a dad and a dog, what more could a little girl want? But then things got scary at home. There was a lot of yelling and a lot of fighting. My mom cried a lot, my dad stayed late at work a lot, and I had to spend a lot of weekends with the neighbours or with Grandma. Eventually my dad just left.

Those next few years with just me and my mom were kind of nice, you know? Sure, we ate a lot of mac and cheese and hotdogs, but I didn’t have to share my mom with anyone. She read to me a lot and she painted my nails. We talked to each other because there was no one else. She held me when I cried, she held me when she cried. We were friends.

Things changed again when I was twelve. My mom had started dated and eventually married this guy, Tim. Tim was nice enough, I’d met him quite a few times before they decided to get married, but it was hard sharing my mom with him at first. Instead of spending all her free time with me she wanted to sit and watch grown-up movies with Tim, or I’d get sent to a friend’s house so they could have a quiet dinner together. We did settle into an easy peace though, I guess it was when he showed up for a “meet my dad” activity at school. He didn’t have to do that, I didn’t even know he was coming. I was all ready to hang my head and say, ‘no, my dad is in Florida, he couldn’t come’ but then Tim walked in with all the other dads and sat next to me and for that afternoon I was just like the other kids. It sure was nice not being ‘Natalie, the girl with no dad’ anymore. Things would have been great, except that Tim also had a son.

Jason. He was twelve, like me, and for the first few years he lived with his mom. I only saw him every other weekend and a few holidays and two weeks of summer vacation and that was more than enough! He treated me like a baby just because he was a few months older than I was. He got two birthdays and two Christmases and two Easters, just because he lived with his mom and his dad and I never saw my dad at all anymore. It wasn’t my fault that my dad ran off to Florida, with my dog and some woman I had never met, and doesn’t write or call ever, not even on my birthdays, but Jason liked to rub it in my face. We fought like cats and dogs. Looking back I guess we probably drove our parents crazy those first four years.

Chapter 2

When Jason was sixteen he decided he wanted to transfer high schools, something about wanting a sport scholarship and his school not having a very good team. But my school was perfect and so the summer between grades ten and eleven Jason moved in with us and would see his mother every other weekend, half the holidays, two weeks in summer vacation, and one evening a week for dinner.

Of course by then things had changed, and so had Jason. Gone was the twig thin twelve year old and in his place was an athletic, muscular sixteen year old. His hair, dark like his dad’s, was cut short, even though the predominant style was boy-band long. He said short was better for sports and he was all about the sports. His acne had cleared up early and I was suddenly noticing that his eyes were a great shade of caramel brown. They twinkled when he smiled, which was often, and his laughter was infectious.

I had changed too, I was no longer as self-conscious or as flat and twig thin as he had been. My ratty little girl hair had thickened into a wave of shimmering brown, my curves were filling out, my mother had taught me about make-up and I hid my insecurities behind an artful mask until the insecurities started to fade away completely.

The weekends Jason was home became the highlight of my week. We ate popcorn and watched movies, or we had a few friends over, or we rode our bikes. It was like having one of my friends living at my house.

Two months into the school year and it became painfully obvious that I was developing a crush on him. At least it was obvious to me. Jason, thank god, seemed oblivious to the fact that I blushed if he sat too close to me on the couch and that I tended to stare at him too much.

For two years I kept my crush a secret from everyone, but I wasn’t the only one crushing on him. My friends swooned over him and he dated a few of them, and a few others that weren’t in our group. I burned with jealousy every time I saw some girl hanging off his arm. As far as I was concerned none of them were good enough for my brother.

But he wasn’t really my brother at all. We forgot that sometimes, which was fine by me. As long as we were brother and sister no one said ‘boo’ that we spent so much time together in such close quarters. But as long as we were brother and sister there was no way Jason would ever look at me, and there was no way anyone would accept that fact that I wanted him.

The next two years would have been hell except that a new girl moved to our school. Her name was Angela and she very quickly became my best friend, providing me with a distraction from Jason. She was a rather plain looking girl with brown hair that had no gloss and a subtle undertone that appeared almost grey. She wore glasses, a cheap, thin-framed pair that didn’t suit her face. Her family was huge! She had seven siblings. It meant she had to babysit a lot and that they all wore thrift shop clothes because that was the only way they could afford to have everyone dressed. Still she was sweet with a wickedly fast sense of humour. That girl could zing you twice before you even knew she’d picked you out for a jabbing. We still spent a lot of time watching movies with him and his friends but as it became more of a group activity it became easier for me to hide my feelings for Jason from everyone else, even Angela.

Chapter 3

The last two years of high school passed by in a blur of parties, Jason’s games, movie nights, and slumber parties. Somewhere in there we managed to attend classes and finish our homework and write our exams  and soon enough Angela and I were shopping for grad dresses and applying to colleges.

That was one thing Angela, Jason, and I could agree on – college out of state would be ideal. When Jason got his scholarship offer to Cape Coral College, Angela and I started looking at programming and decided that same college would work for us too. That’s when we hatched on our brilliant plan. It would be cheaper and easier for the three of us to rent a two-bedroom house near the university and split the rent three ways.

I was in heaven. I would be away from my parents, living with my step-brother and best friend, and maybe, just maybe, he would begin to see me as a young woman and not his ‘younger’ sister.

Of course, Angela would be a problem. I had seen her lately staring at Jason when she thought no one was watching her. She smiled at him, a lot, and played with her hair when he talked to her. Thankfully he didn’t seem to notice her, she wasn’t his type, but I knew what it meant. My best-friend was crushing on my step-brother, the same boy I had wanted for two years and couldn’t have.

When he started calling her Angie I knew I was in trouble. He’d never once called me Nat! I wanted him to see me as a woman, I wanted him to be attracted to me, not to Angela or any of the other girls he brought home.

Chapter 4

One day in mid-October we were alone in the house and I knew we would be alone all evening because Angela was working. This was my chance. I decided it was now or never, after all he’d been blind to nearly six weeks of “subtle” hints, even though he hadn’t brought a girl home in weeks and must have been going crazy horny.

Honestly, I had been walking around in a towel after my showers and just a loosely tied bathrobe in the mornings. I rarely wore a bra around the house, or even panties for that matter. I wore crop tops and then stretched to reach things up high. I wore low cut tops and leaned at odd angles, trying to flash him a face full of cleavage. I wore short skirts and bent over to pick up all the things I dropped.

Nothing. Not even a glance. Even Angela noticed. At first she gave me these puzzled looks. I had never done anything like this in the time we’d been friends. Though I dressed with confidence and style I didn’t dress or act like a slut. She’d clear her throat to politely warn me when I was a little over exposed, or she’d casually adjust my robe as she went by, pretending it was just a pat on my shoulder. She probably thought she was saving me from embarrassment but I would have stripped in the living room to get his attention.

Puzzled turned to concerned, complete with pursed lips, narrowed eyes, and deep frowns. That turned to thinly veiled hostility and we stopped talking to each other altogether. That was something Jason noticed and he said, “Did you and Angie have a falling out?”

I shrugged. I refused to call her Angie. “Angela and I can be very competitive. We both want the same thing and until one, or the other, of us gets it, we’ll be rather upset with each other.”

“Is this upset thing going to end when one of you wins?”

“Usually it does,” I said.

“Good, because I don’t need to be living in the middle of a bitch fight.” He settled down on the couch with a beer. There were already three empties on the counter, I wasn’t sure what had spurred this minor binge but I was going to use it to my advantage. “What are you competing over this time? Grades?”

“A boy,” I said with an exaggerated sigh, sitting down next to him.

He perked up, a bad sign, actually, since it probably meant he was into Angie after all and wanted to know if there was competition. “Really? Uh, you want to talk about it?”

“Actually I do. Maybe you could help me. I’ve tried everything I can think of to let this guy know I’m into him.”

“That explains how you’ve been dressing lately.”

So he had noticed. “Yes, but he doesn’t seem to care at all. He really seems to be into Angela and I might just have to admit defeat.” I was stretching the truth only a little but I could see my words were making him antsy, which is what I wanted. “I’m supposed to be spending some time with him, for school,” I fibbed. “Maybe you know of a quick, blunt, way to get a guy interested.”

“Take off your top,” he said. “That’s a good first step. Actually, first make sure he’s into casual flings.”

“Oh, he’s into casual sex all right.”

“Then take off your shirt and tell him you want to take a break from studying. He’ll either tell you off or fuck you on the spot.”

I struck a provocative pose on the couch and said in a sultry voice, “What do you think my chances are?”

“If he’s blind, fifty-fifty. If he’s our age, healthy, and as horny as you seem to think, I’d give you a ninety.”

“Only ninety percent?” I pouted.

He shrugged. “He could be gay.”

I had to bite back a laugh. “He’s not.”

“Or have a girlfriend back home.”

“He doesn’t.”

He paused with the beer bottle almost to his lips and said, “You did some homework on this, didn’t you.”

I nodded. “So, still just a ninety?”

“Ninety-five percent. There’s still a chance he’ll turn you down. That’s the risk you take.”

He was right. And it was time to take that risk. I just hoped he was drunk enough and horny enough that he wouldn't call my mother.

“Well then,” I said. “Here goes.” He probably expected me to hop off the couch and head out the door so when I stood up in front of him and stripped my top off he nearly spit out his beer.

“What the hell, Natalie! You forgot to mention that you were talking about me!”

“I was talking about you.”

“You and Angie are competing over me?”

“Not in as many words, no, but I’m in love with you and I know she has a thing for you …” I shrugged.

“You’re my sister.”

“Am not. My mom happens to be married to your dad, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Legally you’re my sister.”

“But I’m not. We have zero biological parents in common. I’m not even your cousin.” I clasped my hands in front of me, using my arms to accentuate my breasts. “Don’t you think I’m pretty?” I batted my eyes at him.

He swallowed hard, staring at me with eyes too wide as if it was his first time really seeing me, as if he wanted to look away but couldn’t. He licked his lips slowly. He nodded slowly. “Yeah, you’re pretty.”

Very slowly I undid the button on my jeans. “Don’t you think I’m sexy?”

He nodded again.

“I’ve always thought you were sexy,” I purred stepping closer to him until my leg brushed his knee.

He just stared. He was, after all, now sitting at eye level with and within arm’s reach of my barely concealed breasts. I knew from experience that lace did more to tease than provide modesty.

“I sometimes think about you fucking me when I masturbate,” I added, giving him a wide-eyed innocent look.

“You know,” he said. “You have a point. We’re not siblings. We’re two consenting adults who are not related to each other in any way.” He took a sip of his beer and then reached out and tugged at the seam of my jeans. “Let me see you without these in the way.”

I very slowly pulled the zipper down and opened the front, revealing hot pink, sheer, panties. The corner of his mouth perked up in a lazy smile. I shimmied them down over my hips and turned around, sticking my ass out and swinging my hips from side to side as I inched them down looking back over my shoulder at him. I don’t think he even noticed that I was watching him watch me, his eyes never left my ass. I bent double, pushing my pants down to my ankles, giving him an even better view. I was so close he was able to reach out and run a hand over my ass.

I stepped out of the pants and turned, a movement I am not ashamed to say that I had practiced many times in the privacy of my room. It’s harder than it looks. Most of the time I ended up a tangled heap on the floor. This time, thank god, it went smoothly.

With one graceful step I was between his legs. I smoothly lowered myself to my knees and looked up at him with wide eyes. “Now I want to see you,” I purred. I undid the button on his baggy blue jeans and he lifted his hips so I could slide them down. I grabbed the waistband of both pants and boxers at once and lifted the elastic over his hard cock. I had to move back so he could close his legs but I got them down around his ankles and slid between his knees again.

“Mmm.” I ran my finger lightly from tip to balls and giggled. “Jason, you’re so big.”

His eyes were a little glazed from the beer, and from lust. I stared up into them as I leaned forward and ran my tongue over the head of his cock. A soft groan escaped him. I repeated the motion, my eyes never leaving his.

“Oh god, Natalie, just suck it already.”

I smiled and then licked the head one more time before taking it in my mouth. I worked slowly down the length of him, bobbing up and then sliding down a little further each time. He leaned back and ran his fingers through my wave of brown hair.

“That’s it, Natalie, that’s it, take it. You’re amazing.”

I could have made the blow job the main event, his cock was so amazing, but I wanted that cock somewhere else this evening. Still, I went to town sucking and licking his cock with great enthusiasm. Finally I slid my mouth off his cock and smiled up at him.

He caressed my cheek and said, “Please tell me you’re going to let me fuck you.”

“Please tell me that you want to fuck me,” I replied.

“Get up here.” He stood and helped me to my feet. He spun us around and I suddenly found myself on the couch pinned underneath him. He started kissing me, hard and passionate, his hands roaming over my body.

“God, Natalie, I used to stare at your breasts all the time,” he said. He pulled the straps of my bra down my shoulders and kissed my breasts.

“Used to?”

He flicked his tongue over my nipple and shrugged. “You were my sister, at some point the wrongness of looking overpowered the teenage horniness.”

“And now you’re kissing them.”

“And they’re gorgeous. You’re not my sister, you said it yourself, you’ll never be my sister, not anymore, not ever again, things can’t go back.”

“I don’t want them to go back, I want you to fuck me. I’m hoping you’ll fuck me over and over again and do all sorts of fun, dirty things with me.”

“You’re a little slut.”

“Only when it comes to you.” I kissed him and slipped my tongue in his mouth.

He pressed his hand hard between my legs.

I shuddered. “I want you,” I whispered. “I’ve wanted you for so long now. I’ve tried everything to get your attention.”

“You’ve got it now,” he said, something dark in his voice. “And I’m going to enjoy taking you.”

He roughly pulled my panties down and pushed two fingers deep inside me. As he fingered me he took my breast in his mouth. His teeth grazed my nipple and I moaned, pressing down against his fingers.

He pulled his fingers out and pushed his cock in, burying it deep inside me. I gasped as my body was forced to stretch to accommodate him. I wasn’t used to the size of him yet and I whimpered as he started thrusting into me.

He was hard and rough and fast, driving his cock into me over and over again, making me yelp and moan and scream. It was a good thing we were in a house and not an apartment or a dorm room because he was making it impossible for me to keep quiet. I grabbed his arms and held on, it was all I could do as he continued to fuck me mercilessly.

I had never had a boy fuck me like this before. They’d all been timid or less in some way, but this was raw and passionate and desperate. I knew I was going to be sore in a few hours and I didn’t care. His rhythm shifted to longer, deeper, thrusts and then he grabbed my hips and slammed into me with a grunt. He exploded, filling me with cum. He was breathing hard and his shirt was clinging to his sweaty chest.

He pulled out of me and grabbed his clothes from the floor. “I’m going to shower.”

“I could come scrub your back.”

He teetered a little, from the beer and the exertion, and said, “No, no, I’m fine. I’ll be in and out and then you can have it if you want it.”

I would have loved to have hopped in the shower with him but sex on the couch was a great start and I wasn’t about to push my luck.

Chapter 5

When Angela got back from work I was sitting in the living room watching TV and painting my toe nails. “How was your afternoon?” she said, hanging her bag in the closet.

“Delightful,” I said. “I have five minutes left in this show and then I’m going to my room to catch up on some reading for class.”

“Yeah, I have a ton of school work to do too. Is Jason home?”

“No, he went out with some friends to shoot hoops. He’ll be home very late.”

She nodded but I saw the fleeting look of disappointment. “Have you eaten?” she said.

“Yup. There’s still half a pizza in the fridge from the weekend though.”

“Thanks. I’ll see what else I can find.”

During the weeks things were always busy. I could go days without seeing Angela, or Jason, or both, and when I did see them it was generally in passing or because we happened to be in the kitchen looking for coffee and food at the same time. We all had classes but Jason also had practices, formal and informal, and Angela was working.

It was nearly a week before schedules lined up again and Jason and I were home, alone, for enough time to have some fun. He was hiding in his room but he had the music on, which meant he was either working out or masturbating. He never listened to music when he was doing school work.

I knocked on his door and walked in. He was lounging in bed, the covers were a mess, and he had his jeans down around his knees. His cock was in hand and he had just opened his eyes to look at the door when I walked in.

“What the fuck, Natalie! Who said you could just barge in here?”

“I knocked,” I said with feigned innocence.

His face was bright red, it was actually cute. “I didn’t say you could come in. We agreed, bedrooms are off limits without permission.”

“We have the house to ourselves,” I said, coming closer.

He grabbed at the blankets with one hand while trying to get his jeans up with the other.

“I’ve seen it already,” I said. “And I’ve tasted it. And I’ve fucked it.” Just thinking about it was making me horny for his cock. Of course seeing his cock was helping a lot on that front too.

“I was drunk.”

“And very much in charge, I seem to remember.”

“It was one time, Natalie.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed and reached out to touch his cock.

“Don’t.” There was no conviction in the word.

“I’ll keep my clothes on,” I said. “I just want to play with it. Come on, it must get boring always taking care of it yourself. Let me help you.”

“I’m perfectly capable of getting off by myself, thank-you.”

“But why do it yourself when I’m willing to touch you, and play with you, and get you off?” I let my fingers slide ever so lightly over the head of his cock and down the shaft. He shivered. “I just want to touch it. It’s so big and hard. You have such a great cock, can you blame me for wanting more of it?”

“Just a hand job?”

“I promise.”

I had more experience with hand jobs than with any other aspect of a sexual relationship. Most of my relationships didn’t get past the hand job. I wanted my brother’s cock and all others held very little interest for me. There were a few that were tantalizing enough that I had gone all the way with them, but it felt fake, like I was playing them, pretending at something I didn’t feel, and so I ended those relationships in hopes that the impossible would be mine.

I slid further onto the bed and curled up against him, letting him drape his arm over me. I ghosted my fingers along the length of his cock for a while knowing the feather-light touch would make him more sensitive. I wrapped my hand around him and squeezed, watching his face out of the corner of my eyes. His eyes fluttered shut.

I smiled. It was time to get down to business and prove that I was a valuable companion, someone he wanted and needed in his life, and in his bed.

I wasn’t sure what he was using for lube, if anything, but I drew my hand back and spat on my palm. I hated that, but for some reason it turned guys on. I wrapped my wet hand around his cock and started sliding it up and down in slow, firm strokes. He groaned and wrapped his arm a little tighter around me. I tugged and pulled and twisted my hand around his shaft, alternating between fast and slow, while he moaned and sighed and caressed my arm. I was watching him carefully, a hand job was all well and good, but it was foreplay, even if he didn’t know it. Getting him to blow a load over my hand would have been easy, but teasing him to the point where he would let me suck him off, or maybe even fuck him, would be harder. And that was my plan.

He let out a particularly long groan and I stretched up and kissed his cheek. “Can’t I just lick it a little bit?” I said, keeping my voice sweet.

He nodded, eyes still closed.

I slid down and took his cock in my mouth. Maybe convincing him that he wanted me sucking and fucking his cock on a regular basis wasn’t going to be so hard after all.

He tangled both hands in my hair and pushed gently, urging me to take more of his cock into my mouth. I could have resisted if I had wanted to, but I wanted his cock. Still, I let him push instead of just going to town on him; let him think he’s actually asking for something, actually in control of how fast this was going.

“Oh,” he groaned. “Go on Natalie, take all of it.” The one thing I had skipped the first time I had sucked his cock was deep throating, this time I let him have it. I eased him deeper and deeper, fighting past the gag reflex until my nose touched curly hairs and the head of his cock was brushing the back of my throat. I held him there while he made happy sounds in the back of his throat.

It didn’t take long after that. I pulled completely away and gasped for air and then got busy sucking and licking the length of his cock, moaning over it and making slurping noises. The next time he pressed on the back of my head there was a lot of groaning and grunting and his hips bucked up. That’s really all the warning I had and then my mouth was filled with cum. I sucked hard, helping him along, and then swallowed everything.

“God Natalie, you’re good at that,” he panted.

I smiled. “I think I’m addicted to your cock,” I said. “Was that better than using your own hand?”

He just nodded.

“Maybe you should come find me next time we’re alone and you get horny,” I said, sliding out of the bed. “I’ve got some reading to do, see you later.”

Chapter 6

We didn’t have time for much after that, not for nearly two weeks. We were making out in his room when Angela showed up early, a lecture had been cancelled because the prof was sick. We sprang apart and I left, thanking him profusely for explaining something that was mildly relevant to what I was studying and that he might actually know something about – I’m not even sure what it was I was babbling about.

Dinner that evening, which we all ate together around the table, a rare event indeed, was awkward. Jason didn’t want to look at either of us. Every time I looked at Jason I blushed. Angela had to keep repeating herself because I kept missing things, and I was paranoid that I still looked dishevelled.

And then one day I was in my room with my headphones on working on a math assignment when my door burst open. I looked up, startled, and scrambled to get the headphones off and turn the music off and sit up all at once. Jason was in the doorway and he shut the door behind him.

“She’s gone,” he said. “Went out with friends. She’ll be back late.”

He was desperate, it was all over his face. So I shrugged. “So?”

He was fast too. He crossed to the bed in two steps and kissed me hard. Usually that first kiss was hard but he would calm down and ease off, but not today. His kisses were rough and demanding and his fist stayed tangled in the hair at the base of my neck so I couldn’t pull away. His tongue pushed past my lips and filled my mouth.

When he was done kissing me he pushed me onto the bed and made quick work of pulling all my clothes off. I was breathing hard and my pussy was getting wet. I’d never had it rough like this before but it was turning me on.

He knelt over me and kneaded my breasts, his eyes hot and dangerous. I bit my lip and groaned. He looked so damn hot. He pinched my nipples and then bent low and nipped at them until I was gasping. He was dancing along that line between pleasure and pain.

He crawled off of me long enough to kick his pants and boxers aside and then suddenly I felt a finger being pushed into my pussy. After a few moments he added a second finger. The rough treatment made me gasp and yelp but at the same time I could feel my pussy getting wetter and wetter, betrayal of a growing level of desire.

He pulled his fingers out and dragged me towards the edge of the bed, his hands on my ass, until my legs were on either side of him. He rubbed the head of his cock against my pussy, teasing me with it.

I moaned. “Oh, Jason, fuck me, please.”

He dropped me and I lay there gasping for a moment. He grabbed my hips and rolled me over, moving my body to whatever position he wanted. Once I was on my hands and knees he rubbed the head of his cock against me again until I was whimpering.

I felt his cock push into my sopping wet pussy. He barreled ahead, his thick cock filling me completely. I cried out but it quickly melded into the moan of pleasure as he continued pounding my sopping pussy. At first all I felt was sensation, and then pressure began to build in me as that sensation went from merely enjoyable to overwhelming.

I’d had orgasms before but this was different. Maybe it was the angle of being taken from behind for the first time, or maybe it was knowing how fucking wrong it was to have my step-brother pounding me from behind and not caring. I don’t know, but as the pleasure and pressure built I felt like I was ready to scream, and when I finally did orgasm I screamed loud and long.

But he wasn’t finished. He kept pounding my cunt and at this angle it was bordering on painful. He let go of my hips and pushed down on my shoulders, changing the angle, and I gasped. And then I grunted. And then I was biting back a scream of painful pleasure. And then I did scream. He kept on fucking me, harder and deeper and faster. I was yelling with each thrust and he went on.

“Jason! Oh god! Please!” I screamed, on the edge of it being too much.

Finally he pushed into me with a familiar grunt and then I felt the pulsing heat as he filled me with cum. He pulled out slowly and I expected him to crawl into bed with me and hold me. I was shuddering and whimpering from the intensity of it all but he just grabbed his pants and walked out.

For a long time I just lay there curled in a ball. Had it been too rough? No, not at all, I had wanted him to fuck me. Maybe it was a little rougher than I was used to, but I wanted him to fuck me, I never once said no or stop, not even when it hurt.

By morning the pain was gone. I was a little tender but that was all superficial and more from how long it had taken him to get off. Overall it had actually been quite enjoyable, even if it had left me a little shocked and sore.

Chapter 7

We were never able to come together very often, but every time we were alone in the house we would find each other. We had sex on the couch, in his room, in my room, even in the shower. If there wasn’t time for sex I gave him a blow job. There were a few close calls, and those seemed to put him more on edge than they should have. I mean, yeah, we sort of didn’t want people to know we were fucking each other because they wouldn’t understand, they’d see siblings and call the cops, or something. But it was more than that, he was genuinely afraid of getting caught. I wasn’t allowed to snuggle after sex, if I started to doze off in his bed he chased me out. If we had sex on the couch he’d tell me to get dressed as soon as we were done and then he’d head to the shower. Hell, I think he showered right after sex every time. Was he scared someone would smell me on him?

It was probably for the best that we couldn’t have sex all the time. We both had classes and reading and assignments and he had practices to attend. After sex it was hard to focus on whatever I was supposed to be doing so I’d just set it aside and masturbate for a while. There was that, and he was still being pretty rough during sex; rough in a good way though, like he was totally into it and was fucking me hard, not like he was pinning me down by my throat. And none of them were as rough as that time he took me from behind, something he rarely did. Anyways, it meant that I’d be a little sore for a few days after we’d had sex. I’d sit down in class and the slight throbbing or tingling between my legs would remind me that I’d just had sex with my step-brother and I’d smile and get all hot again.

Chapter 8

Sitting here after the fact, thinking about everything that happened, I guess I should have seen the signs, but I was blinded by pleasure and by a sense of victory. As far as I was concerned we were in love, or at least happily in lust. I saw no sign that he was seeing someone else. He came to me, or let me into his room, as often as we were alone together.

For the most part our sex was fast and fun, a flurry of touching and groping and kissing and fucking. We hopped through the shower together a few times but Jason wasn’t really into that. It was too bad though, I really loved the feeling of wet skin and the steamy air. I stopped wearing slutty clothes around the house and Angela and I actually started talking again.

In one way the tension seemed to lift, I wasn’t competing with Angela anymore and she seemed to sense it. But on the other hand there was the constant fear that we’d be discovered.

The longer we were ‘together’ the less I cared if anyone found out. Who cared if we slept together? We are not related to each other in any way. We said it often to each other, but I was never sure he really believed that what we were doing was okay. He grew more and more anxious, and paranoid and insistent that we never tell anyone or ever let anyone catch us. We couldn’t even make plans to meet because he didn’t want anyone overhearing us or seeing the notes of the texts. Not even hints or code.

I figured that I had seduced him into sleeping with me so it would only be a matter of time before he came around and got comfortable enough with us being together that he would hold my hand in public or at least kiss me in front of Angela. I mean I figured if we couldn’t trust Angela then we couldn’t trust anyone, ever. Turns out I was very wrong, about Angela, about Jason, about everything.

We’d been having sex or fooling around once or twice a week for most of the semester already. There was snow on the ground and Christmas decorations for sale in the stores. We were all busy with final papers and reports and projects and studying for exams. Angela was getting more hours at work and Jason was looking for a job. It was likely I’d need one too which would seriously cut into our together time; which is why I was so hopeful that we’d be able to be a little more open with our relationship. I was going to miss having sex with him if our schedules stopped lining up.

Chapter 9

One snowy afternoon found us alone in the house while Angela was out Christmas shopping. With seven siblings Christmas shopping always took her a full day. We had started in the kitchen while Jason was doing dishes. I came up behind him and slipped my hands under his shirt in a familiar and romantic gesture. His back stiffened a little and he said, “What did you need Natalie?” He put another dish on the rack.

I slid my hand lower, dipping my fingers under the waist of his jeans and caressing his chest. “The dishes can wait you know.”

“I’ve almost got them finished.” He didn’t push me away but he didn’t relax either.

I reached down his boxers and fondled him. “Can’t we go play for a while? Angela is gone and you can always do the dishes when she gets back.”

For a minute I thought he was actually going to turn me down, but then his cock started to stiffen in my hands. He was breathing deeper and he had stopped washing dishes; he stood there with his hands in the sink and his eyes closed.

I smiled and caressed his chest again. “Come and take a break. Just fill the sink up to soak and come with me. It’s cold and windy outside. Let’s go warm each other up.” I kissed his back and pressed up against him. “My room or yours? Or did you want to have sex on the couch today?”

“Your room,” he said quickly. “Let’s go.” He shook off his hands, shook free of me, and headed off towards my room.

I smiled and followed him, stripping my shirt off as he went.

As I came in he said, “Natalie I …” but then he turned around and stopped.

“Yes?” I unclipped my bra and dropped it to the ground. He was so hard his jeans were tenting. I walked up to him and rubbed his cock through the fabric.

“Nothing,” he muttered. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and kissed me hard. His free hand grabbed my breast and squeezed. I fumbled to free his cock from his pants.

He stepped free of his jeans and practically dragged me with him to the bed. He sat, pulling me on top of him, and shoved my skirt up. I had left off the underwear in anticipation and I was already wet and willing so it was very easy for him to pull me onto him. I straddled him and rode him as he thrust up under me. It was fast and hard and left me panting. As soon as he had filled me with cum he rolled away, dumping me on the bed.

“What’s the rush?” I said, reaching for him.

“I have dishes to do, excuse me.”

I watched him leave, feeling confused.

Chapter 10

The last weekend before first term exams we were alone again so I put on the sexy lingerie I had picked up as an early Christmas gift to myself and wandered over to his room. I struck a sexy pose in the doorway and said, “Did you want to be on the naughty list? Or the nice list?”

He looked up from his studying and then back down without batting an eye. I wasn’t even sure his breathing had changed. “I’m busy Natalie.”

“Let’s take a break from studying.” I took a few steps forward.

“Get out of my room,” he said without looking up.

“You don’t mean that.”

Now he looked up, and he didn’t look happy. “Natalie, I’m studying, get out of my room, and for fuck’s sake, go put some clothes on.”

“It’s for fuck’s sake that I’m not wearing any,” I said with a sly smile.

“OUT!”

“Okay, okay, I’m going! Geez.” I retreated, feeling hurt and confused. Back in my room I curled up on the bed trying not to cry. I don’t know how long I stayed curled up there before he showed up at my door but I was drifting towards sleep and at first I thought he was just a dream.

“Natalie.”

“What?” I murmured.

“Look, I didn’t want to tell you now, not with exams around the corner, but this has to stop.”

I sat up. “What has to stop?”

“Us, the sex, the secrets, it all has to stop.”

“So you want to tell people?”

“No. Never. You’ll not breathe a word of this to anyone. It stops now.”

“But I thought you loved me.”

“Dammit Natalie, I did love you once, as a sister! You ruined that when you took your shirt off. I told you things would never be the same.”

“But …”

“But what? But you thought we could be lovers? That we could date? That we would get married or live together? We’re siblings, Natalie. Legally we’re siblings, everyone looks at us and sees siblings, everyone in our family considers us siblings. We have no future together. None. No one will accept us sleeping together.”

“We don’t need anyone else!”

“I’m not going to be your secret sex toy for the rest of my life, Natalie.”

“Why would you say it that way? You were into it.”

“I was drunk and you were naked, so yeah, I fucked you. And then it was like, well I’m already down this rabbit hole I might as well have fun.”

“So what changed? Isn’t it fun anymore?”

“The running around and hiding was exciting at first, now it’s too stressful. And …”

“And what? What? Oh my god, there’s someone else, isn’t there?”

“Yes, Natalie, there is. I’m not going to fuck you anymore because I’m not going to cheat on her. It’s over between us. And this living arrangement, I don’t think it’s going to work anymore.”

“Why not?” I snapped, tears welling up in my eyes. “Are you afraid I’m going to tell your girlfriend that you fucked your step-sister and liked it? Are you afraid I’m going to seduce you again?”

“Yes.”

“You believe I’d do that?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re moving out?”

“Actually, I was hoping you would move out.”

“ME!” I was shrieking now and I didn’t care. I didn’t care about looking sexy or composed, not when my heart was breaking and my step-brother, the boy I loved, was kicking me out of his life completely. “Why the fuck should I leave?!”

He looked down at his hands.

“Oh my fucking god you’re dating Angela! You’re dating miss plain-Jane, prudish, Angela! She’s not your type!”

“You’re right, but maybe my type has been wrong all this time. We’ve had a lot of chances to talk and get to know each other and I think I love her.”

“Enough to go celibate until you graduate and can offer her a wedding ring, because that’s what she’s going to want,” I said bitterly.

“Yes, Natalie, enough to remain celibate, and that includes not cheating on her. I just think it’s best for all of us if you’re not here in the new year. You don’t want to watch us falling in love, and I don’t want you doing or saying anything to put my relationship with her at risk.”

“You’re really doing this to me just days before exams?”

“I told you, I wanted to wait, but you pushed. If you had just walked out the first time I asked you to I would have left it alone. But you’ll never stop pushing. You think that a little swagger of your hips and a little skin and I’ll just fall in line with your schemes. And that’s not going to happen.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Go home for Christmas. You don’t have a job keeping you here like Angela and I do. Put in for a dorm room for the next semester, or find another place, and don’t come back here.”

“So that’s it then?”

“That’s it.”

“You’re not afraid I’ll tell Angela everything?”

“I’ll deny it. I’ll say you’ve gone crazy with jealousy. You’ll lose her friendship too.”

“I don’t want to be friends with her anymore. Get out of here.”

“Will you leave?”

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM!”

I spent the rest of the evening crying. And most of the next day too. Monday I went and wrote my first exam with a feeling of emotionless calm. The crying had emptied me. I looked over the last month with fresh eyes. I’d been so caught up watching for an opportunity to fuck him that I hadn’t noticed the long quiet evenings they spent together at the table discussing homework. I hadn’t seen the shy glances between them. I hadn’t noticed the little smiles, or the seemingly casual touches.

When my exams were done I packed everything I owned into boxes. I took just what I needed for the holidays and went home.

Was I running away with my tail between my legs? Hell yes. Was I giving in and giving up without a fight? Yeah. For now. If I stayed they were likely to find their own place and leave me with the rent, or with strange roommates. I'm not going to watch my step-brother fall in love with Angela. No. He's not going to fall in love with her. Not if I can help it.

James was coming in from another long cattle drive, and he was beat. The help at the Rusty Spur Ranch had been stretched a little thin lately, so he wasn't too excited to get back. All he wanted was his bunk and a hot shower. The plains of Nevada had been kind to them this go around, and James was having a hard time seeing the sense in going back at all.

“Billy,” James said. “You know that when we get back, there is going to be all sorts of drama about how they need help with this or that. I reckon it's best that we head straight out to mend fences when we get these cattle buttoned up in their corral.”

James and Billy hadn't chatted too much that day. Billy was having some of the same feelings of trepidation that James was about heading back. Both of them were sick of taking on extra duties when they were already working long, hard hours tending to the Rusty Spur Ranch's herd. It wasn't a herd so big that two expert cowboys like them couldn't handle it, but it was sizable enough that it took up nearly all of their time.

They didn't appreciate coming back to the ranch to be told to run around doing this or that. Usually, the work to be done was house chores. And while neither James nor Billy was above helping out around the ranch, they didn't like it when, last time back, they had to help sweep out the attic after coaxing the herd into their giant barbwire enclosure. Not that either of them was going to complain to Mr. Frederick about any of it.

“Hey Billy,” James said. “Do you think we should talk to Mr. Frederick about how things been going around here as of late? Or should we just keep our mouths shut?”

Billy spat out a long tendril of chew and stared off toward the ranch as he tugged his reins so that his horse drifted over next to James.

“I think we should just do as we're told,” Billy said. “I know that Mr. Frederick said that he didn't let go of old splinter face because of his sass, but I know better.”

Splinter Face was the nickname of a cowhand who'd been recently let go. The cowhand had caught shrapnel from an explosion that happened on a work site close to the ranch long before James or Billy had ever come to Rusty Spur Ranch. They'd never found out what had actually happened. Splinter face had been working in one of the nearby mines, and that's about all he would say about it. There was a big part of James that thought the old cowhand simply didn't know what had happened, but didn't want to sound foolish. Mr. Frederick had kept splinter face on at the Rusty Spur Ranch for years, until recently when the old cowhand had started shooting off at the mouth about how the ranch could be run better.

The Rusty Spur Ranch was only a few miles away now, and the other ranch hands were coming out to help herd the cattle into their fenced in pasture. James couldn't help but feel relief to be back. This last drive had been a long one. They'd taken the cattle out to graze on a plain not far from the ranch, but then hail the size of marbles had fallen from the sky. Billy had the idea to swing the herd down and around some of the mesas further to the south, so that's what they'd done.

Now, closer to the Rusty Spur Ranch, they saw that there were other herds in new corrals full of cattle. Mr. Frederick was busy while they were gone. James was glad to see some more activity on ranch. Lately, things had seemed near stagnant and James and Billy had started to wonder if they needed to be concerned.

“Hello boys,” Mr. Frederick said as he rode up to them on his old brown horse. “It's good to see you coming back! I'd thought maybe we'd have to send out search parties.”

James laughed.

“That sure would be a knee jerk reaction, considering we're only a few weeks late and the size of the herd!”

James was on sound footing with Mr. Frederick because of how long he'd been working on the Rusty Spur Ranch with Billy. He and Billy had both come to the Rusty Spur Ranch looking for steady work years ago, and had created good rapport with the old rancher.

“I know, I know boys,” Mr. Frederick said. “I get that you two have got things all strumming along nice and comfortable with the herd. You two love it out there so much, so I get the feeling you don’t exactly rush to get back here. How far out did you go, anyway?”

“Just about to the small town south of the mesas,” Billy said. “Pretty far. I don't think I've ever been that far before.”

“We had to,” James said. “The way the weather turned on us we just couldn't be out in it anymore.”

Mr. Frederick nodded.

“Well, you boys have eyes and can see that things here have expanded,” Mr. Frederick said. “And I just want you to know that we've hired on a few more hands. It's not nearly as many as we need though. Needless to say, there will be a lot of new faces here soon. But for now, we’re going to have to make it work with what we’ve got.”

James and Billy both nodded as they listened. Mr. Frederick talked more about how things had changed, but there was nothing that they couldn't see on their own.

Mr. Frederick finished explaining everything and turned his horse back toward the ranch house. James and Billy looked at each other, not knowing what to think. There were new people on the ranch now, and a few of them were hauling water across the yard—young women, something that the ranch hadn’t seen before.

Now there would be a small society unto itself out here at the ranch. It wouldn't be just a few cowboys. James was glad that things were changing. The pang of boredom often struck him in between the cattle drives.

“I'll be damned,” Billy said. “You know how Mr. Frederick doesn't like change. It's surprising that he's all right with doing so much at once. I would never have taken him for such a man of action.”

James laughed in agreement as they both tied their horses up.

“You know,” James said. “I heard that he’s preparing for a lady to arrive here. Remember his New York trip? Apparently, he met some high society lady and rumor has it she’s making her way out to visit here. I reckon he’s trying to turn the business into something more respectable so he can have her stay here.”

Helen had been working in the kitchen all day. Although the ranch staff was nowhere near full complement, there was still a fair amount of mouths at the ranch, so she still had to hustle to keep up with the demand for food. There were more than ‘just a few cowboys out here’, as she'd first been told. She'd taken the job for the summer while she went to teacher’s college. The pay was good, and for Helen, that was really what mattered most. The job wasn't going to be a forever thing, and she wasn't willing to stress over it if the money she needed was there.

What she hadn't planned on was the two very tall, very good looking cowboys walking in as she, sweating, tried to stir a big pot of chili. Helen was a big girl, so she didn't need any help, it was just that she had a physically demanding job. She was sure the cowboys could relate.

“What can I do you fellas for?” Helen asked. “You must be the two that just brought the herd back. Which is which? I know your names are James and Billy.” Helen said, taking in the tall, fit physique of both the men. One was taller with blonde hair and a blonde beard. The shorter one had a long dark ponytail and piercing blue eyes. He also had a beards, but his was dark like coal.

“I'm James,” the better-looking blonde one said as he took his hat off and held it in his hands. “I reckon that there is some kind of chow hall now.”

“That's right!” Helen said as she stepped away from the chili to speak with both of them. “And my name is Helen by the way.”

James extended his hand, shaking Helen’s vigorously, yet letting his grasp linger. Helen met his blue eyes and could sense the lust in the man. It was strange to feel attractive when she was all gross from working hard, but she figured that might be what was attractive to James—seeing a voluptuous woman slave away at her chosen profession. Or at least what she was doing at the moment for her chosen profession.

“Do you think you could help us out by telling us where in the world to go?” Billy asked.

They all laughed at this. And while it hadn't been a joke, it certainly broke the tension in the room. It was nice to laugh with the two men, Helen thought, and even better that both of them were treating her as an equal in their speech and mannerisms. The way that Mr. Frederick had talked about the two men had made them seem like dangerous rough and tumble cowboys. Mr. Frederick had told stories about the two men fighting off bandits when the Rusty Spur Ranch had first broken ground and some passing thieves had mistaken the ranch for an easy target.

In her mind, Helen had built both men up to be much larger than they actually were, and had even made them mean. For some reason, she figured that both men would have a cantankerous demeanor. Most of the cowboys out here were infamous for being good at their jobs and bad at the rest of their lives.

“The chow hall is the last building on the road out of here, the white one with the bell on top,” Helen said. “And it's been a pleasure to meet both of you. Especially you, James.”

“Much obliged,” James said, hiding his face in his hat as he returned it to his head and turned to walk out the door with Billy.

“Don't be a stranger!” Helen shouted as she turned back to prepare the evening meal.

“Well, she liked you!” Billy said.

James knew that Billy was going to give him a hard time about it. That was just Billy's way. He was probably jealous. After all, besides the Rusty Spur Ranch, neither of them had a whole lot of life experience. Sure, maybe back in school they'd fumbled around with a few girls. But it had been awhile since either of them had been with a woman. Billy didn't seem to mind, but James knew that there was a part of himself that needed the female touch, and company.

“She sure did,” James said. “Maybe I'll talk to her again when I see her around. But I'll give it a few days before I go looking for her. I wouldn't want to give Mr. Frederick the wrong idea.”

“What do you mean?” Billy asked.

The afternoon was hot, but as the sun dipped into the horizon, the temperature dropped. A chilly wind was already blowing in from the plains.

“He probably doesn’t want any drama from the women folk here. If I start messing around with the ladies, it could mess up a good thing here.”

When they walked into the church turned chow hall they were greeted by a bubbly cute girl wearing a green velvet dress highlighting her perky breasts. A nice change from all the other women dressed like cowboys.

“Name’s Josephine,” she said. “And I run the chow hall, and I’ll be doing your laundry.”

Josephine was a traditionally attractive girl, with long hair, a slim figure, and blue eyes. It was clear that she was attracted to James, and that James was attracted to her as well. James could tell that Billy was more amused by the last fifteen minutes of their day than he had been the whole cattle drive they'd just returned from.

“Well hello, Josephine,” James said. “It's a pleasure to meet you. It looks like we're a little early. Should we just sit at the back table and wait?”

“Do as you please, supper will be served shortly,” Josephine said, twirling on her heel and looking back at the cowboys flirtatiously as she walked away.

James and Billy walked through the converted church to make it to the back table. The place looked nice, the inside was whitewashed and the pews served as benches for the long tables. Josephine had picked purple wildflowers and arranged them in jars along the tables.

“Don't,” James said just as Billy was about to speak. “I don't want to get a hard time from you about this stuff. I can't help that I'm ridiculously good looking.”

In all reality, the two men looked a great deal alike, it was just that Billy walked with his shoulders slouched and a slump in his back. He rode his horse that way as well. James had a more classic posture, and was more muscular. James was the kind of guy that women looked at as he walked by. Billy was the kind of man that caught a woman's eye upon second glance.

“Aw, I'm not worried about any of it,” Billy said. “It's just funny to see you squirm.”

“Yeah, yeah,” James said. “I get it. But I'm just saying. We need to act cool, like none of this even raises our pulses. Mr. Frederick will be looking for us to be leaders. You know that. So, let's lead by example and not play into the drama. The beautiful, tempting, soft, drama...”

“Jeez,” Billy said. “I just said I'm sorry that all the girls like you and not me. I'm sorry James, I know it's hard.”

For a moment, James lifted one of his eyebrows so that it was cocked over his left eye, and then they both burst into laughter. It was funny to think that girls would fluster either of them. They were the two most trusted employees at the Rusty Spur Ranch, and that was something to be proud of.

“Do you think we’re going to get raises, now that we have some seniority here?” Billy asked.

“Hmmph. It’s hard to say. We sure as hell should, but who knows how thin the pocketbook has been stretched with all this unnecessary staff.” James responded.

As supper went on, both men found themselves short for conversation with each other, and started listening to the other conversations buzzing around them. Many of the new men were complaining about having to mend the fences, something that James was thankful he wouldn't be doing much of anymore, at least from the sounds of it.

After supper had wrapped up, the two men headed toward what had been their old dwelling, a small shack near the ranch's main house. They were glad to find that it was still there. James recalled seeing it when they'd rode in, but at this point, with all of the changes, he wasn't willing to bet that that the things he liked would stay the same. He was pleasantly surprised to see that they had kept their old place, now they had separate rooms! Before they had lived in the same big room, but now Mr. Frederick had built a divider and furnished both sides a lot nicer than just a cot and a dusty rug.

“Damn,” Billy said as he surveyed their new abode. “This place got a lot better while we were away!”

“It sure did,” James said, as he too did a quick lap around the newly furnished dwelling.

Then someone knocked on the door.

“Hello, James.”

It was Mr. Frederick. He walked in and sat down on one of the chairs in the common area right in front of the divider that separated the two sides.

“Well, as you both might have reasoned,” Mr. Frederick started. “You're both being promoted to foreman. That means more money, and you also get to live in what I'm calling the foremen's quarters. I figured both of you have worked so long here now that you deserve some very real recognition for what you do.”

Mr. Frederick stood up, signaling that he was done speaking. He wasn't much for small talk, so when he nodded and shook both of their hands, then took his leave for the evening, neither were surprised.

“Well I'll be God damned,” Billy said. “A raise and everything! Promotion! My daddy wouldn't believe it even if I wrote and told him about it. Would yours?”

“You know what, I doubt he'd even believe I'm still alive!” James said. “When I left home he kept telling me how big and bad the world was, and how I wasn't going to make it. And that was how many years ago? I can't even remember. So, by now I figure he reckons me long gone.”

Billy chuckled as he sat down on his bed. Even with the divider they were still going to be living without much privacy.

“My daddy wouldn't believe this in a million years,” Billy said.

James laid down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He already missed the stars that would have been overhead out on the plain. As he slipped into sleep, he realized that he still had all of his clothes on, but by that time the tug of sleep was too strong to keep from being pulled under.

Helen wasn't done cleaning dishes and squaring away the kitchen until late into the night. That's how it usually went. She'd known what she was getting into when she'd signed up to come out here and work on the Rusty Spur Ranch. There were the early mornings to hate, the busy lunches to dread, and the late dinners to loathe. But Helen didn't feel anything but lucky to be a part of the ranch for the summer.

Helen knew that she would have competition for James from Josephine, the good looking little girl who did all the cleaning and laundry. That was fine, as far as Helen was concerned. Let the lightweight figure out that big girls can snag the hot guys too.

Helen had already worked out her plan.

*

James was sitting outside his small shack when he saw a figure leave the kitchen and stride confidently towards him.

“Hey, James,” Helen said. “What are you doing up? Can't sleep?”

“Naw,” James said. “I ended up falling asleep with all my clothes on. Then I woke up feeling like a dirt ball. Now I'm smoking, which usually isn't my thing.”

“Yeah, it's a nasty habit to pick up, but if you don't do it a lot it can be soothing,” Helen said. “Would you like company for a minute?”

“Sure,” James said.

Helen sat beside him in silence, and he offered her a drag of his cigarette.

They sat there staring at the starry night sky, enjoying each other’s presence.

“Well, it’s been a slice,” Helen said exhaling. “But I've got to be up in a few hours for breakfast!”

“Damn!” James said. “They sure run you ragged.”

“True,” Helen replied. “I make decent money, though. And I'm my own boss in that kitchen at least.”

Helen stood. James couldn't help but notice all of her beautiful curves filling out her dress. She really was a good-looking woman.

“Well, I'll see you around James. I hope you get some sleep,” Helen said.

“Sweet dreams,” James said with a wry smile.

Helen looked for a moment like she didn't know what to say, then she quickly turned and headed towards her quarters. James' eyes followed her plump ass in her cotton skirt as she walked away. He admired a hard-working woman, and how she handled it with such grace.

James butted his cigarette out on the ground under his boot and headed back to bed. He had to be up early as well, and the day would be full of manual labor that would wear him down. If he didn't get enough shut-eye, he'd be dragging, and Billy wouldn't be happy about that. Neither would Mr. Frederick.

As James drifted off to sleep for a second time, he found himself in a dream world full of Helens and Josephines. He had to pick, though; he couldn't have both. When he woke, his hard on was straining at his briefs. He tried to remember which woman he had chosen to kiss in his dream, but his mind was drawing a blank.

*

“I saw you and Josephine talking after breakfast,” Billy said. “It must be tough to have a buffet of options to choose from.”

Billy was just talking to pass the time while they mended fences. James had thought that their days of mending fences were over, but lo and behold, one of the new corrals went and broke. He and Billy were the only ones around who knew how to make a proper corral, so here they were, pounding in metal fence posts, and setting up the corners so that they would last at least five years.

“At this point, Billy, they each have a lot going for them,” James said. “I did talk to Mr. Frederick in passing, and he said that he wouldn't have any issue with either of us pursuing the women because he knows we're both gentlemen. But we can’t go buck wild and sleep with all the new women, we’ve got to be careful with our first selection. We’re not going to be able to change it up so easily, without leaving a trail of angry jaded women behind us.”

The sun hung high and hot in the sky, beating down on them relentlessly. It was a beautiful day with a decent enough breeze, but there was no escaping the sun or the heat. The fence mending, they both knew, would be over shortly. They were both so good at it that they got it done in a matter of hours what would have taken five times as many people all day.

“Well,” Billy said. “I'm not sure how you’re going to choose. I would just figure out which one makes my pants tighter and pick her.”

James stopped what he was doing and looked at Billy.

“Thanks, pal,” James said. “That’s a real scientific approach.”

“I'm just joshing you,” Billy said. “Although, for real, I would figure out quickly what you want. There are a lot of men here, and just those two gals. They’ll be snapped up and bunking with one of the junior ranch hands in no time”

James didn't answer. Within the hour, they had wrapped up the job and were headed to the chow hall for lunch. It was crazy how much more food the new Rusty Spur Ranch served compared to the old—which had served exactly no food. Now James and Billy didn't have to heat up old cans of soup to kill their pangs of hunger; they could go to the chow hall. And hell, all the new people respected them.

When they got to the chow hall, they saw a sign scrawled on a scrap piece of paper, tacked to the door with a nail ‘Lunch Cancelled’.

“I'm sorry,” Josephine yelled, peeking out from the back. “I should have told you two yesterday. Today's lunch didn't happen because of some mix-up with the food delivery.”

Josephine put her hands on her hips and giggled. She pulled a strand of her curled brown hair from the bun at the nape of her neck and played with it while sashaying in front of them. James waited a few seconds for her to say something intelligent before he turned and left. He could feel that he had the potential to be sweet on her, but at the same time, he was repelled by how she acted like so many of the other women he'd known in the past who had bored him to death.

“Well, all right then,” Billy said as they both walked out.

“What do you think that's all about?” James asked.

“I'll tell you what,” Mr. Frederick said. Making both of them jump in surprise. “Bandits are hitting our supply trucks as they come out. I'm having my son move here from the east coast. He'll be able to handle this sort of thing—he's a former Marine.”

He’d practically come out of nowhere. It went to show them that he was always around, and they should always be careful about what they’re bitching about.

“Mr. Frederick!” James said. “That's too bad to hear about the bandits. I'd thought me and Billy here had fought the last of them off when this place started, but maybe they just left us alone to focus on other prey.”

“That's what I reckon,” Mr. Frederick said as he walked with the boys toward the ranch. “Oh, and that reminds me. I want you to meet up with Helen and see what she needs from town – ask her to make a list. I spoke with her this morning, and it was only a few things, but they're the kind of things that she can't do without. While you're in town, I want you to pick up my son from the train station.”

“Of course, Mr. Frederick,” Billy said. “We will get your son back here safe and sound.”

Mr. Frederick's speech softened, and he nodded.

“I guess I knew that already,” he said. “I'm just a little stressed out is all. With all of these changes to the ranch, there have been a lot of things going wrong. I'm glad you two were here to fix the fences or I would have been in trouble!”

James and Billy nodded their heads simultaneously, then turned and headed for the kitchen.

“Jesus,” James said right before they walked through the door. “He seems uptight.”

Billy nodded in agreement.

*

James was back in the stock room of the kitchen with Helen. They were both taking a quick inventory so that the two cowboys could get on the road as quickly as possible.

“Here, this is low,” Helen said.

James walked over to see what Helen was talking about. It was the lard.

“I don't need a lot of it,” Helen said. “The next time supply makes it out there will be a big tub. So, just pick me up a small barrel of it while you're in town.”

“Well look at you bossing me around like you own the place,” James said.

Helen shrugged.

“I'm just trying to get things done, cowboy,” she said. “I hope I'm not being too rough on you.”

There was something about Helen, her attitude and all her curves, that really turned James on. He stood behind her trying to think of something to say, but was drawing a blank. James turned her around and pressed his lips against hers in a kiss so fierce it pushed her back against the shelves. Helen returned the kiss full force, slipping her tongue between his lips and sliding it against his tongue. James fumbled with the string on her bodice to free her heaving bosom from its confines. James knew that Billy must have heard the commotion from outside, but he didn't come in. Which was good, because neither James or Helen would have stopped.

They kept kissing and pawing at each other for the next five minutes. James kneaded her one breast and gathered her skirt up with the other. She responded undoing the leather string at the top of his chaps. It became pretty apparent that they needed to pump the brakes before they went any further and couldn't stop.

Billy banged on the storage room door and James and Helen reluctantly pried themselves apart and fixed up their buttons and fasteners. Helen gave James the short list of necessities, and he and Billy headed into town.

*

“What was going on in there?” Billy asked with a knowing grin as they rode out of town with an extra horse in tow for Mr. Frederick's son.

“You know God damn well what was going on in there,” James said, returning Billy's grin. “And I ain't ashamed of it none, either.”

Billy busted out laughing.

“I wasn't saying that you should be!” Billy said. “I was just asking! Helen is a hell of a woman, so I'm not making any negative judgments. She's got a body that Josephine doesn't, and I have to say that I think she's also got a little more going on upstairs, if you know what I mean.”

James nodded and they rode on. Town was a few hours away by horseback, and they needed to make haste if they wanted to make it there before nightfall. They'd be riding back in the dark, which meant there was a possibility of bandits attacking them.

“What do you think is up with the law not taking care of the bandits?” James asked Billy in a low voice, as if the desert was listening.

Billy was silent for a long time before he answered. James knew that Billy had mixed feelings about the law, and he wasn't going to mince words trying to make it seem like a black and white issue.

“Well,” Billy said. “The law doesn't have much reason to come out here. Mr. Frederick runs a tight ship and is well liked. The law has to make money, and there just isn't much of that in coming out to the middle of the desert to catch a few washed-up robbers.”

James couldn't help but agree, even though he was one to think more of the law than Billy. But that didn't make James naïve. There was a lot of truth to what Billy said. The law never came out here because there wasn't anything out here for them. If there were some way for them to levy a tax, or issue some tickets, the law would be at the Rusty Spur Ranch in a second.

The small town that Mr. Frederick’s son was arriving at was on the horizon now. The air was filled with smoke. There was something wrong, and both of the cowboys slowed the pace of their steed to a slow walk. The town was on fire, the glow that they had at first thought was the reflection of the setting sun against windows was actually the buildings engulfed in flames.

“Let's go!” James said as he urged his horse forward.

Billy followed. They both knew that the bandits had burned the town down. Not that it had been much of a city. But there was no denying that it was the closest thing to civilization that the Rusty Spur Ranch had in an afternoon's ride. As the cowboys approached they saw a group of people on the side of town closest to them, huddled together watching as the city went up in flames.

“What happened?” James asked.

He and Billy's horses skidded to a stop by the somber crowd.

“The bandits.”

That was all the people said. They didn't know what else to say. Most of them were older and infirm. They'd never thought that their little corner of the world would ever be sundered from them. But that's exactly what had happened.

“What made them do this?” Billy asked.

No one answered. James tried to get the small group of people watching their homes and businesses burn to speak with them, but none would. They were all struck mute by what had just happened. Finally, after riding around the town, James and Billy found Mr. Frederick's son. He was shot in the shoulder and leg, sitting on the ground with his back leaned against a rock.

“Well I'll be damned,” he said. “My names Johnson. Yeah, my daddy gave me a last name for a first name. I don't know what he was thinking.”

Billy and James both laughed at this. Johnson took a long pull from a bottle of whiskey.

“What in the hell happened here?” James asked.

“Seems as though someone who lived here ratted out some bad guys who have been hiding in them hills.”

“Any idea why? Or who these fellas are?” James asked Johnson.

“Who they are? That I don't know,” Johnson answered, trying to sit up, but falling back on the rock. “I have a good idea of why they burned this place down, though. The bandits see the Rusty Spur expanding and don't like it. That's why they've been hitting the supply coaches headed that direction. It's been hard to get any real information from any of the people who lived here. They seem to think that their silence will protect them.”

James nodded and jumped off his horse, Billy followed suit. James looked at Johnson's wounds and found them to be superficial. Johnson would be all right once he had a chance to rest and heal. But for the moment, he was out of commission. And he'd most likely not be able to put weight on his leg for a few weeks.

“So, there was a shootout?” James asked.

“Yup,” Johnson said, then took a long pull of his whiskey. “I thought they were going to smoke us out and cut us down like the savages they are, but we managed to wound a few of them. I think I did most of the shooting, but a few of the townspeople helped. It's strange how whipped they acted before it even started. I got here, waited for you two, then the bandits show up on the hill over yonder, and everyone acted like they were the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

James nodded grimly and helped Johnson up onto the horse. Even though he was hurt, he was going to have to ride to the Rusty Spur Ranch tonight. They'd have to come out tomorrow and collect the rest of the folks who would be willing to come to the ranch to live and work until they had a chance to figure out their lives. Some of the folks wouldn't come, James knew that already. As the three men turned their horses toward the Rusty Spur Ranch James spoke in a small voice.

“The people here have long had something worked out with the bandits. I'm not sure what the terms were exactly. But I've long suspected something was going on, some unholy alliance. Johnson, you've got to remember this, we're out in the middle of nowhere here, and many of the country folks believe whatever they're told. So, I'm not surprised at all that they were somehow intimidated into cooperating. I don't hold it against them, and I hope you don't either.”

Johnson didn't answer. They rode in silence for a while, until the sound of hooves sending rocks clattering down the slope of the hill off to the north made them all aware that they were not alone in the desert. James had figured that whoever had burned the town down would probably still be worked up enough to do something about Mr. Frederick's son, Johnson, showing up. It was strange to think that the bushwhackers were sophisticated enough to know that they should try to stop Johnson from becoming part of the Rusty Spur Ranch. It would be a hell of a power shift.

“Well boys,” James said. “I think our nice ride through the night is about to be interrupted.”

The sounds of horses rushing down the slope that was a half a mile away from them were clear as day in the night air. All three men pulled their six shooters from their holsters and loosed a few shots in the direction of the hill before putting their horses to a gallop toward the Rusty Spur Ranch. As much as James wanted to stand and fight, he knew that now wasn't the time for that. With Johnson wounded they needed to think about the future, not about revenge. Mr. Frederick would want them to get back so that his son could live to fight another day.

They rode the horses hard for about ten miles, then slowed them to a trot. James could barely make out the dark figures in the night behind them, and shot in their direction accordingly. Billy and Johnson joined in, emptying their chambers. All of the men knew that their lives depended on keeping the bandits back far enough, or killing them. That meant that, until they got to the Rusty Spur Ranch, they'd be sending shots in the dark toward the ominous shapes that followed them.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the Rusty Spur Ranch loomed up in the night in front of them. Mr. Frederick and some of the new cowhands were on the road behind a barricade made out of old barnboard and wire. Mr. Frederick was armed with a rifle and the other hands had pistols and shotguns.

“We saw the smoke from that little spit of a town and figured what must have happened,” Mr. Frederick said. “And then we heard shooting when you got close, so it seemed the right thing to do to set something up that we could fight from.”

James surveyed the barricade and wondered how the rookie cowhands had had the wherewithal to know how to set it up in a way that would protect them. It had to be Mr. Frederick’s work. There was more to him than met the eye, James decided.

“Johnson,” Mr. Frederick said. “Is that you?”

“Sure is,” Johnson said. “You got me shot before I even made it to the Rusty Spur Ranch!”

Both father and son laughed at this. Billy shot James a look that communicated more than ten minutes of talking would have. It was becoming clear that much more than just the Rusty Spur Ranch had changed while they were on the last drive. Somehow, Mr. Frederick had become aware that the increased size of Rusty Spur ranch, would make it a target. James wondered if Mr. Frederick could have warned the small town that had just been torched, or if he had and they'd ignored him like they ignored the rest of the world.

As James took Billy and Johnson's horses to the stable, he couldn't help but wonder how much fighting would be going on shortly. There was a part of him that longed for the danger, but also a part of him that knew how many people who didn't know how to fight, or couldn't, would be badly injured, even killed. His mind ran to Helen. He realized how devastated he would be if something happened to that woman.

“Is everything all right?”

The assertive voice came from behind him and made James jump up in the air like he'd stepped on hot coals. He whirled around with his gun drawn.

“Don't shoot!”

It was Helen. She was dressed for the night, wrapped up in a long cloak, and armed with a small caliber rifle.

“Helen!” James said. “I'm so glad you're all right!”

Without thinking, James strode over to her and scooped her up in his arms. She felt so good to hold. Helen kissed him on the mouth, pushing him back into the stable. James couldn't believe what was happening. Just when he thought the night was over, Helen surprised him in the best way.

“You're lucky I didn't shoot you!” James said.

Helen just laughed as she pushed him backward onto a pile of hay and started to kiss him like they had in the stockroom. Helen fumbled with his belt buckle, and James had to take it off for her. James' hands explored her body, cupping her full breasts, sucking on her nipples like they were the first he'd ever seen. James couldn't believe how hard he was, and how good Helen looked with clothes off.

James knew that the bandits were lurking nearby, but the throbbing of his cock had made an encounter with Helen his new priority.

“My apologies, if this isn’t romantic, ma’am. But lie back and spread yourself wide.”

Helen smiled at James and lifted her skirt high, revealing no undergarments, she kicked her feet into the air, spreading her legs far apart like a gymnast. It was more than James could take. He grabbed his cock, and guided it to her welcoming womanhood. There was no time to mess around, and he didn’t actually think he’d last very long even if they weren’t in a hurry.

James rammed himself into Helen and grunted with each thrust, quickly increasing the tempo. Helen responded by spreading her one leg wider and draping the other around his back. She held his shoulders and marveled at their beauty as he moved his cock within her.

James was getting close. It happened fast. He grabbed Helen’s hips and thrust into her one last time as the orgasm ripped through his body and launched into hers like a tsunami.

The horses snorted and stamped outside, the noises that James and Helen were making definitely weren’t quiet. At one point James had Helen up against the side of the stable, taking her from behind, and the whole building rocked with them. They weren't ashamed at all about their tryst; what else were they supposed to do? Neither lived in a place where there was any privacy.

When they had finished, Helen lay against James' chest, and he stroked her hair. It felt good to be close to someone, and even better when he respected that person. It wasn't something he was used to. He knew that Helen could hold her own, and she could also keep his attention sexually, and that was saying something.

After lying with each other for a spell, they both got up, brushed the straw off of their clothes and went their separate ways after a passionate goodbye kiss. James thought about how lucky he was to have run into Helen out here on the Rusty Spur Ranch. He thought of how much his life had changed in so little time, and how much of it had hinged on Mr. Frederick’s ranch expansion – all to impress a woman.

The next day James got up early and sat smoking on the porch of his bunkhouse, his senses heightened for any sign of the bandits. There was something in his head telling him that this day would be just as crazy as yesterday was.

Just as he turned, something on the distant hill that stood between the Rusty Spur Ranch and the small town caught his eye. He squinted to try to make out who was up there, even though he knew exactly who it was.

“Billy!” James screamed charging into the bunkhouse. He grabbed his belt with his guns and ammo, strapped it on and slung his rifle over his shoulder. “We have company.”

Billy was up in a flash, and ready faster than James. They both strode out of the wooden bunkhouse and made their way toward the fence line. The bandits were most likely to become tangled in, or at least held up by the fencing as they crossed the plain. They were still about forty-five minutes away, and the fence line wasn't something they likely saw yet. James and Billy had just put it in recently, before the last cattle run, at the request of Mr. Frederick. He'd said that he wanted a little something out there to trip anyone up that would come charging across the country to bear down on the ranch. James and Billy had thought it a somewhat strange request considering how long it had been since the last attack, but had been happy to do it for Mr. Frederick because they knew he was someone who thought ahead. Now they were even happier to have done it because the robbers would topple over the lines of barbed wire about a hundred yards out from the actual property line, and the ensuing confusion would make them easy targets for rifles.

As they walked out to the property line, James shot off a few rounds into the air to get everyone up and moving. It worked just as he'd thought it would, with Mr. Frederick sounding the alarm to let everyone know all hands were needed to repel invaders. It was something that made James feel strange, to want the fight to come to them so badly. He wasn't usually one to long for confrontation, but at this point, he knew there was no other way. The people who were riding down the hillside were the same ones who had tried to shoot him in the back the night before. It was time just to end it, and James knew how.

He unslung his rifle and waited. Billy did the same. They didn't have long to wait, as the bandits put the spurs to their horse's flanks. Before James had time to prepare himself, the bandits were headed right to the fence line. But they didn't charge right over it. Instead, they stopped just short and started trotting their horses back and forth.

That was when all the hands at the Rusty Spur Ranch opened up with everything they had. Billy shot off all of his rifle rounds, then started dumping revolvers full of pistol ammunition at the figures scurrying around in panic. Several horses went down, and James saw a few men go down as well. But then the air become so thick with the smoke from Mr. Frederick’s musket, which he'd used because he was the only one who knew how and they were short on firearms. There were also a few really old shotguns, more like a blunderbuss than a proper gun, that poured smoke into the air.

“Cease fire!” Mr. Frederick shouted. He wanted to conserve their ammunition and to allow the smoke to clear. When it did, they could see again the bandits were gone. When James and Billy rode out to check if there were any wounded, they didn't find anything but a few horses that had been shot during the exchange, and unfortunately now lay dead. Everything else was gone. There was nothing left on the horses, not even reins.

“What kind of people are we fighting?” Billy wondered aloud.

“I'm not sure,” James said. “But I think we need to watch our asses from now. These people ghosted out of here like real warriors, and I can only hope they won't be back. We're damn lucky to have had Mr. Frederick tell us to put this little fence out here. When we did it, we both wondered what had gotten into him. Now look at us.”

Billy nodded. James could tell that it had already been on his mind. Was there something that Mr. Frederick wasn't telling them? James couldn't help but wonder that night, during the celebration feast. Johnson was drunk, and all over Josephine. They seemed to be getting along well, though. The rest of the hands drank, and Mr. Frederick gave a short, but moving speech about community and how proud he was that all the members of the Rusty Spur had come together as a family. It shamed James for thinking that Mr. Frederick might be doing something on the sly. He also had the feeling that the celebration dinner was a bit premature.

“These two boys here,” Mr. Frederick said. “They're like sons to me, just like Johnson is my son. And if it weren't for Billy and James, the Rusty Spur Ranch wouldn't be here right now. They've been by my side for many moons now, and I'm excited to have Johnson join us now as well. The Rusty Spur Ranch is becoming more powerful, and is a threat to these horrid men. They see us, and they know their time of lawless reign is coming to an end!”

Everyone cheered, and old Mackenzie whipped out his fiddle, a lively jig filling the air. The old church was full of music and dancing for the first time in a very long time. James and Helen danced together and kissed openly, not caring if anyone saw them. The West was a hard place, now he saw it a little differently.

As the night went on Johnson and Josephine danced up a storm on the floor, and Mr. Frederick clapped and hollered like none of them had ever seen. There seemed to be no shortage of booze, which surprised James. It wasn't like the old days when no one had a smoke or a drink or even ammunition to spare. Now there were people here, and the kind of individuals who took care of themselves and those around them. It was the kind of place that made James feel at home.

James took Helen to bed that night, and their sex was passionate and slow. He planted kisses all over her body. She moved to try to conceal her rolls but he held her hands firmly and kissed her healthy midsection. He moved down and buried his face in the warmth between her legs. She tasted incredible. He wasn’t moving from between her legs until her felt her shudder and moan from an orgasm. It didn’t take long, Helen arched her back and he felt her body tense up as she screamed out into the night. She collapsed into an exhausted heap and James curled up in behind her, holding her shuddering body tightly.

Maybe there was an entirely different world out there, one where he wouldn't have to wear a gun and constantly be on guard. James knew he'd have to talk more to Billy about it, but he felt like he should go see the rest of this big world out there. Although he wasn't sure how much bigger it could get than the desert plains.

The next day James and Billy rode back to the torched town early in the morning. Their horses were heavily laden with guns: rifles, pistols, shotguns, and even a small string of razor wire to be used as a trap if needed. They didn't expect trouble, but at the same time, they wanted to be able to unleash hell on anyone who got in their way.

When they got to the town's ashes, they found what they'd expected to find—a bunch of people camping out on the outskirts of the destroyed speck of humanity. James rode to the middle of the small group of tents and dismounted.

“Who's in charge?” James shouted at the tents.

Slowly, one of the tent flaps opened, and a young man with a bandaged arm came out.

“I guess that would be me,” the man said.

“I'm here to tell all of you that you're all welcome at the Rusty Spur Ranch. It will be an all-day walk, but if you start now, we can make it back by nightfall. We'll ride with you so if any of those cowards try anything we can put up a real fight. We brought plenty of guns and ammunition to pass out if need be. What do you say?”

The young man looked at him like James was some kind of savior from above, and James knew that all of the towns survivors would end up coming as well. They had been a proud little community, and maybe that's why they had been so stubborn to leave it. James decided not to ask if the town had ever been working the bandits and instead bring it up to Mr. Frederick after the fact. They'd have to keep an eye out for any funny business, but James thought that if there was any way to teach a people how life worked, it was by befriending them after their own designs ended in ruin.

The people from the old town gathered their few remaining possessions, packed up their tents, and started walking. Billy and James rode by them and kept watch on the hills. Everyone was skittish about the possibility that they would be attacked, but no one cried or complained about the walk. There were a few times James was sure he saw the flash of a white horse's flank on the hillside, and he even called out to Billy at one point, but nothing ever happened. James was certain they were being watched, though, as was Billy. There was no way the same people who they'd shot so many rounds at yesterday, who had retreated from their failed charge with all the grace of a trained military, were just going to give up.

When the Rusty Spur Ranch was in sight everyone started to walk faster. That was when the first of the shots rang out from behind them. Whoever it was knew the land well, and had ridden up behind them using ditches created from the rainy season. James and Billy whipped around and fired back. Neither were willing to charge the attacking force, and there wasn't time to hand out the weapons. So instead they shot as much as they could in between trotting their horses to keep up with the small caravan of people carrying tents and other belongings. Everyone was jogging now, and James was having trouble with how much smoke some of the shotguns released when they discharged. The smoke stung his eyes and made him cough. Billy was having similar problems, but somehow, they managed to make it back through the Rusty Spur Ranch front gate.

“Holy cow,” Mr. Frederick said. “I can't believe they attacked again!”

“I can.” James said as he hopped down off his horse to stand next to Mr. Frederick. “It makes me wonder what their real intentions are. Something isn't right about this attack.”

Instead of standing around worrying about it, James and Billy ran another fence about knee high, in between the old trip wire and the property line. His thoughts were constantly running to Helen and her big firm ass.

“I don't understand why more people aren't out here helping us run a wire over the plain. I realize everyone is a little shook up, but at the end of the day, we need more protection, not less.”

Later that night, in Helen's arms, he sorted through what was happening at the ranch. Now, not only were there new buildings but there was also a small tent town as well. And that meant more mouths to feed but even more hands to help with the work. That was something James was thankful for. He started to devise a plan about putting together a protection force for the ranch, perhaps that’s what the old man had in mind when he sent for his marine son.

James looked at Helen as she slept next to him, her milky breasts pressed against his tanned skin. He was so happy to have a girl like Helen in his life. They talked about how she would have to leave to go back to teacher’s college, but that didn't mean that they couldn't be here for each other in the here and now. James thought that it was very mature of Helen to understand his intentions with her were pure, even if they weren't so sure of the future.

James made time to take Mr. Frederick aside and express his concerns about how the people from the small town that was just torched could have been working with the bandits. Mr. Frederick nodded and said he'd figured that they had at least struck some unholy bargain—but was then quick to sympathize because they couldn't defend themselves.

Billy and James sat down together and figured out a new route for the cattle that would allow the herd to graze, but wouldn't take them far from the ranch. They also decided that the Rusty Spur Ranch needed a telegram machine to be able to communicate with the outside world. And when they brought those things up, Mr. Frederick couldn't have agreed with them more.

James was happier than he'd ever been, and couldn't remember why he'd thought that he'd want to see the big city. The new Rusty Spur Ranch was more than enough for him now, and he was a real part of it, a leader. And he had a girlfriend now, and an army to build.

Life had changed so much for the better; he wondered what would happen next.

Chapter 1

Rick wasn't ready for the next tour. It was something he had a hard time admitting to himself, as he ascended to rickety steps to his rundown apartment in the bad part of town. His band, Cull the Unfaithful, was a new wave metal cross over to hardcore punk, and Rick looked every bit the part of a punk rocker. He dressed in all black, pretty much all the time. He'd been bulky before the last tour, but then the tour or Europe hadn't afforded him the opportunity to dine on high protein Vegan cuisine, so he'd lost a bunch of weight. It was something he was a little self-conscious about, right along with how the apartment he lived in between tours wasn't glamorous at all.

When Rick made it up the steps to his place and the door swung open, he tentatively peeked inside to see if there were any giant bugs sitting at the small table he ate at. He knew it was a silly thought, but as he watched a few roaches scatter away from the light he knew that he wasn't going to be alone in the apartment in the traditional sense until he spent a few hundred dollars on a pest control guy—money he didn't have. The last tour had also wiped him out financially because of a bad storm that had swept through one of their markets right before they got there. No one had bought any merchandise at all, so as Rick opened the fridge and searched his cupboards, he knew that he was going to have to head to the greenroom early in hopes of scoring a free meal.

As Rick sat there in the kitchen, he felt a wave of sadness and loneliness wash over him. He knew that he'd gone too far with the tattoos when he'd gotten his face and neck done. Now he was nearly unemployable except in an industry that he'd grown to more or less hate. His muscles bulged under his tight black shirt, his brow furrowed.

What am I going to do? He thought to himself. What if this whole being a rock star thing just doesn't work out like it should?

Things wouldn't be so bad if he had someone to share everything with, but that wasn't exactly easy to find when he spent nearly all of his time on the road on tour, or back home trying to put together another album. But it was hard to find someone that he was interested in who would put up with all of the band guy bullshit. As he aged, it became more and more clear to him that a lot of the stuff that went on in his life was just bullshit generated by the music industry. The tour he'd just come back from had been extended due to bad booking and other failures out of his control. No one seemed to care that it affected his life, and it definitely kept him from meeting someone meaningful.

Because that's what Rick wanted, someone really special in his life. He didn't want to set himself up for failure and put them on a pedestal already, though. He wanted to meet them, see them in action, feel their energy, and touch their flesh far before he put them in some position in his mind above himself. Rick knew that he was like many men in how he often time set himself up for failure. He didn't want to do it again.

Rick got up and paced around his small apartment, putting off going to the greenroom. The gig for the night wasn't even really a real gig. It was more of a charity thing, which Rick thought was great, but it also meant that people would treat him like a novelty act instead of worshiping him. Rick didn't like it when people worshiped him, but at the same time he didn't like it when people treated him like some kind of bear at a circus. Rick didn't like to be treated like he was something special, or like he was a freak—like many entertainers he just wanted to be treated like someone that had a talent to share. It was a damn shame that it was so hard to find that anymore.

With a sigh, Rick dawned his favorite jacket and headed back down the stairs from his dinghy apartment to the street. He'd have to hustle to catch the bus—touring didn't make it practical for him to have his own car because he was never around to drive it. So he trotted to the bus stop and barely managed to catch it.

Wouldn't that be a great way to end the last tour and potentially start the next? He thought to himself.

It really would have been a great way to remind himself that everything that could go wrong would. But he couldn't focus on that, he reminded himself as he slipped into a seat. He had to keep his head clear. He was meeting with the tour manager in the greenroom in less than an hour to talk about where the band would be headed in the future, to include the details of the next tour. So Rick had to be on his toes, or he might not be able to voice his opinion during pretty much the only time it mattered.

Chapter 2

Jen was running late as well, but on the other side of town in a much better neighborhood. She was fresh out of college and wanted to make a great impression on the world. And today was her day to do just that. She was on her way to a charity show where one of her favorite bands, Cull the Unfaithful, was performing. It was a charity for a youth shelter, so there was a special skip in her step as she made her way out of her nice apartment to her car.

Jen had worked hard all the way through high school and college to be able to have the things she had, and that was something she was proud of. She knew that a lot of her peers were heavily subsidized by their parents. That just wasn't the way Jen was brought up, though. She'd always been taught that it was best to be reliant on herself, more than anyone else, including her parents. Not that her parents hadn't always been there for her, ready to help her whenever she might have needed it. Her mother always told her that she was her grandfather's child, the way she was too prideful to ask for help from anyone, and Jen always replied that maybe that determination to make it is what had made her successful in school and now heading in the direction of success in the real world.

She was headed to the show not just to watch, but also for her first day as an intern. And the internship was the best kind, not something unpaid that she would have to validate in every interview she had with future employers. Because that's what so many internships were, more or less wastes of time. She'd run into a myriad number of them in her search for a decent gig: corporations that would let you run the execs coffee, record labels that would let you wait on them hand and foot, and other weird things that seemed a lot more like slave labor than anything else. This gig wasn't like the others, though. This internship was not only paid, it was of importance to the musical Collective that Cull the Unfaithful worked in.

Cull the Unfaithful was a group unlike the rest of the mainstream music world. They didn't rely on the major record labels or distribution outlets. In truth, what they were doing was only possible because of the age of the internet. In the eighties, there would have been absolutely no way that they would have been able to ignore nearly every unwritten rule of the industry and still achieve success. The band's lead man, Rick, was a tough cookie—or so she'd heard. He seemed like a nice guy in all of his interviews and other public appearances, but he had a reputation for being an asshole. Compared with the other bad behavior by minor celebrities, it was nothing to write home about, but it did make the tabloids. Every now and again Rick would fly off the handle at someone shoving a camera in his face, or go off on some strange rant on Facebook. It was going to be her job to manage him.

It was a strange first assignment, but Jen was glad to have it. As she navigated her way across town, she thought about how important it was going to be to achieve some kind of rapport with Rick early on in the business relationship, meaning today, so that when the tour kicked off in a few days it wouldn't be harder than it had to be. Rick wasn't going to be happy about the tour, mostly because no one had told him about it. Jen had heard that the end of the last tour hadn't gone so well, so they'd been a little wary of letting Rick in on the big news that another tour was about to launch. He wouldn't have wanted to go, but he didn't really have a choice, so no one asked. The Collective  that the band had signed on with had insisted that the tour take place, they said that their market analysts had done a couple of tests on small groups and they thought that this certain tour, for many reasons, would be very lucrative. Jen wasn't really in on all of the pseudo-science that had gone into deciding that this tour would be the best tour ever. She figured it had a lot to do with taking into account the rest of the music industry and where they were sending their bands to tour. But what she did know was that she'd been told that she'd have to break it to Rick.

As Jen neared the venue, she realized that her job today would be a really tough one. Up until this point, she figured that her fiery red hair, curves, green eyes, and freckles would be enough to win Rick over, or at least win him over enough where he didn't have some meltdown before the show. The rest of the band was insisting that he be told before the show. They did have a point, that he deserved to know. Jen thought about how the tour manager had looked very worried at the possible prospect of Rick throwing a fit, and she thought about how the manager had said that if she couldn't keep that from happening then maybe she wouldn't have a job. It would really suck to lose her job on the first day.

Jen pulled into the spot reserved for staff and readied herself to walk into the venue. She wanted to make a good impression and had dressed to kill. She hoped it all worked.

Chapter 3

Rick showed up to the venue to early. He hated it when he did that. There wasn't any food, or really anyone else there when he showed up. He figured he must have read the event wrong off his phone, or put it in wrong in his phone, or whatever the fuck kept seeming to happen to him during this crazy business of live music. So he walked around the place for a second to scope it out. The venue wasn't bad, being medium sized and having a grungy industrial feel to it. The greenroom was small, but it would do. There were a few things he wasn't so excited about.

For starters, there was just too much lighting. He hated it when small time venues tried to fool people into thinking they were important by blasting the people onstage with enough light singe their nostril hairs. Another thing he wasn't a fan of was the bathroom. It wasn't that the bathroom was too small, or too gross, it was that it was a big, nice, sprawling, sparkling thing that looked so sanitary Rick wouldn't have had a problem having a minor surgery in there. That told Rick that the venue itself wouldn't be attracting the kind of people that listened to Cull the Unfaithful. Their fans were mostly music scene people that liked metal, but also like the raw emotion of hardcore. That was the kind of music Rick liked to play and listen to, so he enjoyed it that his fans were the same as him—he knew a few bands that had been built on fan bases that they didn't even identify with, and it always seemed like the people involved with those projects had just had their souls sucked out of them.

Rick had a seat at the bar and ordered a drink. Waiting for everyone else to show up would leave him with a lot of time to think, and be hungry—the two very things that he had very specifically been trying to avoid. But now there was absolutely no avoiding them.

“Hey, Rick right?”

It was the bartender. Rick thought he recognized him from somewhere, but couldn't place him.

“Yeah, I'm Rick. I'll be playing tonight. I'm pretty sure my band is the headliner. What's your name?”

“Tod,” the bartender answered. “We went to high school together. But that was a long time ago. You probably don't remember me at all.”

It took Rick a second to place Tod's face. He tried and tried, but kept coming up with a blank. Until, that is, he thought of football. Rick hadn't been that much of a jock in high school, but he had played football a few years. Tod had been the defensive center, and he still was a very big guy.

“God damn I do remember you!” Rick said, smiling. “Hell, I remember the last game of junior season, on the last play, how you tore through the offensive line like they were wet tissue, sacked the quarter back causing a fumble, and then grabbed the ball and ran it into the in-zone.”

They both laughed at this. Their team that year had been terrible, really terrible, and that last second touchdown hadn't won the team the game. But it had created a memory that both men could call upon in this moment to bond over; something that made Rick feel good and made him realize that he wanted more moments like these. Not necessarily nostalgia, but the actual bonding that goes on between human beings. The band had kind of lost that spark as far as Rick was concerned. Everyone seemed so set on making money and making Rick go along with it, that he wasn't really in the mood to even see them much anymore. Even though his entire life was the band.

“You know,” Rick said as Tod poured him a beer. “I really miss high school sometimes. But not for all the horseshit reasons people miss high school; like because they were a cool kid, or because they got laid a lot, or whatever the fuck else people reminisce about.”

Rick took a long drink of his beer.

“Why do you miss it?” Tod prompted.

Rick liked bartenders. They always knew how to prod him into having a decent conversation even when he didn't really feel like it at all.

“Well, I guess I miss the freedom,” Rick said. “I know that might sound a little strange coming from a minor rock star, but my life is so wrapped up in dates and deadlines and touring that sometimes all I can think about is the days before when I was struggling to make it, back when I had more of a say about what was going on. And then there is high school, way back when neither of us had much to worry about except getting caught skipping class or smoking weed in the bathroom.”

They both laughed at this. Their principal had been a former Marine and a real hard ass. He liked to chew out the young men he found huddled in a bathroom stall smoking a joint amongst them. As they laughed the door to the venue opened and a smoking hot redhead walked in. Rick couldn't help but check her out using the corner of his eye. Even though he was a rock star or a minor one at least, didn't mean that he just stopped caring about manners and stuff like that. At least when it came to being a gentleman. That didn't mean that he let women walk all over him, or that he gave them special treatment like letting them hang out in the greenroom in hopes that he would get to sleep with them.

“What'll it be?” Tod asked the young woman as she sat down.

Rick noticed that Tod hadn't carded her, which meant that she was probably someone that he knew from around. And how could he not at least try to know her, she was so stunning. Her curly hair fell back in long locks that were fire engine red. Her eyes were the kind of green that happened in the ocean after a storm, with speckles of gold in them. Her body had curves in all the right places, and sometimes with curves to spare. It was crazy to think that anyone could look as attractive as she did.

“I'll just take a water,” she said. “I have to talk some business with Rick.”

Rick felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end. He didn't like it when people got the drop on him. He didn't know if this lady was with the press or what, but now he didn't want to talk with her at all.

“I guess I could have started that without putting you off,” she said softly as Tod walked to the other end of the bar and busied himself with cleaning the glasses.

“Probably,” Rick said. “So who the fuck are you, anyway? You seem to have me at a serious disadvantage, considering. You know who I am, and apparently we are here to talk about something that the rest of the band didn't want to be around for. Is that why I was scheduled so early to show up? Fucking Christ. You know, I don't have to be on time like I always am. I could just be one of the fuck off rock and roll guys that never does shit but anything for himself. I don't know why the Collective keeps pushing me around like we won't be renegotiating a contract after the next tour.”

Rick saw something flicker in the eyes of the woman beside him.

“So this is about the next tour,” Rick said. “Let me tell you something, I'm burned out from the last tour. I don't know how much they told you exactly, but I ended up, at one point, standing out in the fucking rain for three hours because the rest of the band gets so fucked up they're out of their minds most of the time.”

The woman whose name he still didn't know shifted in her chair uncomfortably. Rick was glad she was uncomfortable. It was complete and total horseshit that they had sprung a meeting on him, much less with a total stranger.

“So are you going to start talking or should I just go home?” Rick said. “I never signed a contract for this gig, so it'll be no skin off my ass if it doesn't happen.”

She looked like she was going to fall out of her seat. Rick decided to wait until she spoke again to say anything else. He didn't want to come across as one of those people who always talks over the people around him. Those kind of people sucked, as far as he was concerned, and he was afraid he'd just been one.

“Hey,” Rick said softly. “You know, I'm sorry about all of that. It's just that, well, I'm a little burned out is all. You have to understand that this industry isn't exactly easy on the people that actually make the music. We get treated like animals that do nothing but make other people money. The Collective  was supposed to be something that actually cared about the musicians, but that hasn't turned out like I thought it would. I guess I wasn't really sure how it would turn out, but when I signed on—fuck, it seems like years ago now—I had no idea that they would be aggressively running things like they are now.”

The woman looked down at her drink then up at Rick.

“I'm sorry things have gotten off to a rough start,” she said. “My name is Jen, and I'm your personal manager. I think you might have been told I'm the tour manager and that we were going to speak before the show—at least that's what I sussed out of the emails I read. So let me start with an apology.”

She stopped and took a long drink of her water.

“Well all right then,” Rick said. “So my days with the Collective  are officially numbered. There is pretty much no fucking way I'm sticking around with these assholes if this is how they tell me about meetings.”

Jen nodded.

“I'm also here to tell you that the next tour starts in three days. That's the reason that they had this meeting take place two hours before the gig actually kicks off. They didn't want you to lose your cool in front of a bunch of people. And if you don't do the gig or the tour, I lose my job. Not that that really matters to you, I completely and totally understand that you aren't really going to care that I lose my job when my job can't exist without your job. It isn't your thing to care about your interns job. It's your--”

“Wait, what?” Rick interjected. “So I have a fucking intern now? The fucking Collective, full of people that are the most punk rock, like, ever, have forced a fucking intern on me.”

Rick finished his drink and stood up.

“Listen, lady,” he said. “I'm sure that they gave you some kind of song and dance when they hired you. But even if they're paying you, being an intern in the music industry is fucking shitty. Like, way shitty. I don't want you to waste your life looking after a bunch of people that probably shouldn't be allowed out of the house, much less on a stage to be worshiped by a bunch of drooling zombie fans.”

Rick pulled a few dollar bills out of his pocket and placed them by his drink. He quickly registered that Jen was surprised that he was tipping so heavily. Everyone was always surprised that he tipped heavily. It was kind of annoying, but not nearly as annoying as the Collective  hiring what amounted to a personal assistant or nanny to look after him without even bothering to consult him first. It was the kind of thing that just didn't fly with Rick at all.

“I'm fucking out of here,” he said. “You can try and follow me to convince me otherwise, but it probably won't work. Not that you won't have time. Because I don't have a car, I have to walk my ass all the way across town. Do you have any idea how not fun that is for me? So not only did I get jerked around today, but I'm being forced to exercise? Do you have any idea how much punk rockers hate being healthy?”

With that, Rick turned and left. Tod nodded at him as he did, a faint smile on his lips. Tod must have heard the whole thing, and that was fine with Rick. Let Tod tell the rest of his fucking jerk off band mates that were part of this little set up know how badly he reacted to the whole thing. Let the fucking bartender tell the rest of the band how badly this had all gone. As he flung the door open, Rick felt free for the first time in a very long time.

Chapter 4

As Jen watched Rick storm out of the bar, she couldn't help but feel her heart sink. What was she supposed to do now? There was no way she'd be able to talk Rick back into the whole doing the gig today thing along with doing the tour in a few days. Or could she?

“If you are going to try to talk him into it maybe you should follow him home,” Tod said. “I mean, it isn't really that far anyway. He was just saying that shit to be dramatic. It's maybe a twenty-minute walk. He just always takes the bus so he assumes it actually takes forever to make it down here.”

Jen nodded, paid her tab, and headed toward the door.

“Wait a second,” she said. “Do you happen to know where he lives?”

The bartender, Tod, who she'd known for years, looked hesitant. That wasn't something that she was used to seeing. Normally people were quick to trust her. It made her wonder if Rick was the kind of guy that was not only a bad boy but also kind of dangerous.

“Will I be all right to go and drop in on him?” she asked. “I want to get there first and be waiting on the steps kind of thing. Maybe I'll bring some booze or something.”

Tod thought about it for a second.

“You know what, fuck it, I'll tell you where he lives,” Tod said, reaching for a napkin to write on. “Why the fuck wouldn't I tell you? It's not like you're going to kill him or anything. And he isn't going to get crazy or anything like that. And also, I'll tell you something else. But, you aren't going to like to hear it. So maybe you'd just better find out on your own.”

Jen raised an eyebrow.

“How about you just tell me?” she asked.

“All right,” Tod said. “I'm pretty sure the event is going to be moved to tomorrow. All the people that were going to attend are hung up on the fact that there is a solidarity protest with the Black Lives Matter movement going on at the same time and the promoters are going to move it so that it isn't a bust. Since the band pretty much doesn't have shit going on anyway, it shouldn't be a big deal.”

“How do you know this?” Jen asked.

“Easy,” Tod said. “I do all the booking for this place.”

Jen mentally kicked herself for forgetting that you never knew who was really running the shows behind the scenes in the music industry. What a rookie mistake.

“Don't worry, I'm not offended that you didn't know that I'm the dude running things here. I don't put on airs like most people. I just show up, clock in, do my job, and I guess I also give out peoples' personal information when I shouldn't.”

Tod handed her the napkin and she was off.

Chapter 5

The trip to Rick's place wasn't that long at all. He had been exaggerating a little bit when he'd said that it was all the way on the other side of town. When Jen pulled up to his spot, she realized that he did live in what many people would call the “hood,” although it wasn't that bad. Jen used to live around the same area, and although you couldn't walk around at night without worrying about your safety, it wasn't like people broke into peoples' car on the regular.

It took Jen awhile to figure out that the external staircase leading up to the second story was the way into Rick's apartment. Jen sat on the first step and looked down the street in the direction that Rick would be coming from. She hoped that by the time he got to his place, and to her, that he would have cooled off enough to realize that it was in everyone's best interest if he just did the gig the next day and the tour. She wondered if he would tell her that she couldn't go with him on the tour—although it really hadn't been nailed down if she would be going with the band. The whole thing hadn't been that nailed down. Except for the money, which Jen had been paid up front. So that was nice. Not that the money had really been all that much, but it was still nice to get it up front so there wasn't the whole uncertainty about getting it that she'd felt so many times before.

Before too long she saw a figure that looked like it could be Rick walking down the street with its hands crammed into its front pockets and its face looking at the ground. Rick was a good looking guy, and Jen found herself thinking about him that way even though she'd told herself going into it that she wasn't going to crush on him at all. But it was hard not to, now that she knew that he wasn't just playing the tortured artist card to play it, but was actually living in a dive in a shady part of town. There was something to be said for the struggles that a working artist faced in an industry that really only wanted to use them up. Even the Collective  wanted to use Rick for their own ends, even though that flew in the face of everything they were supposed to stand for.

Jen tried to ready herself as she saw Rick walk closer and closer down the street. It was one thing to think that she was ready to face him and talk to him, it was another thing entirely to actually be ready to face him and talk to him. Maybe he'd be super pissed that she'd come to his house to speak with him. Or maybe he wouldn't. She'd just have to wait and find out, but she wouldn't have to wait long.

Chapter 6

Rick couldn't help but think how he shouldn't have gotten out of bed that morning. There were other things he could have done, and sleep would have been a good choice. He needed to figure out where his life was heading. Obviously this whole music industry forever thing wasn't going the way that he'd hoped. He was willing to put in his fair share of the work, but he wasn't willing to sacrifice every little bit of his chance at some kind of happiness that didn't include pills or the bottle. Because that's where things were headed with a lot of the rest of the band guys he knew, including those in his own band. Guys would keep telling themselves that it was all right they were still hanging out with and fucking women half their age while nursing a pretty serious pill habit, along with all kinds of other stuff going on in the background that would make their mothers' blush.

Rick shook his head as he walked, looking down at sidewalk below him. All of the cracks reminded him that there was much to life going on underneath the surface, and much which he had no control over. But there were some things that he did have control over, and those were the things that he wanted to keep his mind on. So he thought about what he was going to say to the music Collective  about skipping the gig that night, and maybe not even going on tour. On tour? Was he even really considering it? There just wasn't room in his life for a tour at the moment. He needed to find someone to be with, someone he could share his time with, someone he could share his heart with. That someone was going to be hard to find. It wasn't like people like that just fell into your life. He wasn't going to just walk home and find the girl of his dreams sitting on the steps to his fucked up apartment. But just when he was about to mount the stairs to head up to his apartment a voice scared him.

“Hey, Rick.”

It was the girl from the bar. What had her name been? Jen. That's right. Jen. Damn, she was a looker. But besides that he didn't know anything else about her except that it was her job to convince him to go on the tour and to do the gig. What a shitty job. In a way, he felt bad for her, the way that things weren't going to work out the way she wanted. The people that hired her had most likely filled her head with all kinds of nonsense about what would happen once she was part of the “cool kids club,” or on the inside of the music industry. But truth be told the inside wasn't the place you really wanted to be. That was something Rick was learning and relearning the hard way. Where you really wanted to be was running the label, the people who told other people what to do and got most of the money. That seemed simple enough for anyone to understand. Maybe Jen would understand if he explained it.

“Hey,” Rick said back to her. “You know, we should probably have a chat about what's going on. Would you like to follow me up to my apartment? We can sit and chat at length up there. But there are a bunch of bugs, like roaches and other pests. I'm gone most of the time on tour so I don't really get to spend the time this place needs to not suck. But the rent is the right price, so I'm not moving anytime soon.”

Rick moved up the stairs swiftly, and Jen followed. Rick looked behind him once before he reached the door to find Jen clinging to the side rail for dear life as the steps swung in the breeze. It did take a little getting used to, the way the steps weren't nailed to the side of the house. Rick had brought it up to the landlord time and time again but he never really seemed that concerned. It was probably hard to get really concerned about someone that was never around anymore. Luckily Jen righted herself and continued up the stairs without a problem, and Rick fumbled the key into the lock like he usually did. There was still the same problems with the door that never seemed to get addressed, like how it kind of stuck for a second.

“So this is where I live!” Rick said.

The mock enthusiasm didn't seem to be lost on Jen as Rick watched her survey the wreck that was his apartment. Somehow it looked even worse than it had the day before, and that was really saying something. While he'd been at the venue, some mice had drug something out from under the fridge, or out of cupboard, and now a bunch of little bugs were writhing all over it as they gobbled down as much as they could. It was strange to think that his apartment was part of the ecosystem that went on outside of the apartment. Most people would have freaked out that there were actual things living in the same place they were. Rick wasn't sure how he felt about it, he realized as he sat down at the small table. Jen sat down hesitantly across from him as if she wasn't sure if she'd find the chair hot, or the table sticky. Rick got a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“So, ah, Rick,” Jen said. “I've got good news. Or what could be good news. The gig tonight has been moved to tomorrow, so potentially, if you wanted to, you could still go and do it. I mean, if you don't want to do the tour, the gig is for a good cause.”

“What cause,” Rick said. His voice held a dry note of sarcasm.

“Youth homes,” she said sharply.

“Seems like every gig I do is for youth homes,” Rick said. “Every charity gig that is. Maybe I should have a couple of them for my own home, you know what I mean?”

Rick could tell that Jen was feeling backed into a corner, but didn't really care. Maybe she should feel backed into a corner, it's how he felt most of the time.

“Look around,” Rick continued. “Should I do a gig to get the mice a new place? How about these bugs? There is just so much living under my roof I can't help but wonder if I'm running a home that isn't my own home. Like a bug house or some shit.”

Jen's shoulders seemed to collapse in a little bit and she sighed.

“All right, all right,” Rick said. “I can tone it down a little bit, but you are going to have to open your mind to the idea that the people running you around are really fucking you around. Have you even seen any money from them yet?”

“Sure I have,” Jen said. “I got paid for my first month up front.”

“Oh really?” Rick said. “Is that right? How so? Have you seen the money? Is it in your account?”

“No, they wrote me a check!” Jen exclaimed.

“Have you deposited it?” Rick said.

Jen's face scrunched up, making her look even more cute. She really was a super cute girl. Rick realized that he needed to check himself if he wanted to have a chance with her. Did he want to have a chance with Jen? He wasn't sure, but it suddenly occurred to him that he wasn't sure. Before he hadn't known that it was even an option that he might interested in.

“So it's like this,” Rick said. “The people that I work for, the Collective  or whatever the fuck you want to call them, they aren't on the up and up. Sure, they might not be as bad as some of the labels, and they might let me swear in my lyrics, but when it comes to my actual quality of life.”

Jen looked like she was listening, but she kept glancing over whatever was on the floor. Rick wanted to be sure she understood.

“When was the last time anyone asked, 'Hey, you know what? I think that there might be something up with Rick? He doesn't seem happy at all.' Has anyone ever asked that around you?”

Jen thought for a second, and Rick thought for sure that she was going to say some cop out answer that would somehow, in her mind, absolve her of any culpability.

“No, I haven't,” she finally answered.

“And how long have you been working for them?” Rick asked.

“About a week.”

Rick laughed.

“And you haven't put that check in the bank? Damn girl, you really are running around with your head in the clouds. You have to realize that a lot of these people aren't really nice people. They don't care about anything but money. How much of the gig tomorrow is even going to the youth homes?”

Jen didn't know. They got to talking about the city and all of the problems that plagued it. They lived in a big metropolis so there were plenty of problems to go around. There was homelessness, and the city officials were corrupt. It was a little eery to hear Jen align with all of his political ideas. Not often Rick met a female that was on top of things like he was when it came to politics—and when he thought that Rick realized what a misogynist he was turning into hanging out with music industry people all the time. Rick shared these thoughts with Jen, and she nodded listening. She seemed like a good person, someone who genuinely wanted to do the right thing. It was hard to find people like that anymore, not to mention how stunningly good looking she was. Crazy to think that she really had been sitting on his front steps when he'd been thinking about how people like her won't just going to show up. Maybe he was reading her all wrong, though. That was probably it, Rick cynical thought to himself, he was probably jumping the gun on this one.

But the conversation continued and they kept on agreeing on things, and sometimes they would just outright disagree, present what each of them thought, and move on. It wasn't an impasse like it was between other people. Rick didn't expect everyone to agree with what he thought, and it seemed like Jen didn't think that way either. So they ended up talking long into the evening until all of the stars were out and the street lights on. Jen talked about leaving, but Rick told her she could stay if she wanted. He didn't have a couch, but they could share the bed.

“We're both adults,” Rick said. “It's not like we're a pair of kids that can't control themselves.”

Jen agreed, but Rick could tell that she was already really considering fooling around with him. It wasn't that he didn't want to, but he was hesitant. It was always strange to sleep with someone on the same day that he first met them, or at least it was to him. Maybe it wasn't the same to Jen, but then again she was a little bit younger. For her he was probably some rock star cool guy. That was the way he felt a lot of would be romantic interests felt to him. It always made him uncomfortable because he was just a normal guy like everyone else, and, in fact, there were many things about him that made him a less than, rather than a better than, when it came to being compared to the average person.

When they undressed in front of each other before bed they left on their underwear. When they slid under the covers, Rick felt bare in front of her, as if the lights were still on. The night was long and cold, and they held each other as much for warmth as affection. Rick never ended up making a move on Jen, although he did find himself hoping at times that she would. It just wasn't that kind of mood, though. There was defiantly sexual tension, but it wasn't the kind of sexual tension that felt juvenile, or like either of them just wanted to get off. But when Jen snuggled back into Rick he knew that she had to be able to feel his member jump and start to stiffen, and when he reached around her and cupped her breasts by accident he could feel her body stiffen with electricity and longing.

Chapter 7

But that night nothing happened sexually to speak of, and Rick drifted off to dreamland. Before he knew it, he was dreaming of a house on a hill that reminded him of house he had grown up in for a few years, back before his parents broke up. There had always been something about houses in the country that made him think that this was where he should be, in the country. This house had a long walk way up to it, which Rick climbed carefully, favoring his bum knee. He tried not to think about how he didn't have insurance and how even though he'd hurt his knee in a loading accident when an amp dropped out of the bus and onto him he probably wouldn't ever receive any kind of worker's compensation for it. There just wasn't much he could do since so much of the power in his life was centralized elsewhere.

When he finally got to the front door of the house, he found his last name on the placard above the mailbox. He knew somehow that he was dreaming, but it was the same kind of knowing a dreamer feels when he knows that he should get up but can't. So Rick opened the front door with confidence. He walked into the house quietly, listening for anyone that might be around. In the living room, there were a bunch of toys that had been discarded by children, and in the study there was a big dog sleeping in what had to be the chair to his desk. From the kitchen came the smell of food and the sound of cooking. He walked slowly toward the kitchen, afraid of what he would find.

At the door he paused. Something was keeping him from opening the door. He could feel himself waking up. He wasn't sure what was going on.

Chapter 8

Jen woke early in the morning and was horny. Rick had his arm wrapped around her, his hand cupping one of her breasts. It turned her on so much to think that she was about to make a move on Rick. It usually wasn't her style to do such things, but then again it usually wasn't the style of a man in bed with her to not hit on her. It made her think that now would be a good time to expand her horizons and start making a move on guys.

So Jen slipped her hand behind her and found his member. She took it in her hand and started to squeeze it slow and steady, gently giving it a few tugs now and again. Rick's body responded accordingly, but it took longer than she thought it would have. It wasn't until he started to murmur something in his sleep that she realized that he must be dreaming and that was why it was taking so long to get him turned on. But eventually he was turned on, and slowly coming to. He started to knead her breasts and pinch her nipples. Jen loved it when people played with her tits, and she especially loved it when they pinched her nipples. Rick was good at it, his hands smooth and supple, and his movements deft and sure. It was just the kind of thing that made her glad that there were men in the world that could please her, and that she'd found Rick.

Soon, spooning while they groped each other wasn't enough, and Rick pushed his way toward the end of the bed. For a moment, Jen didn't know what he was going to do, even though it was clear that he was going to go down on her. She was just so turned on and lost in the moment that she was having trouble thinking straight. When Jake took her into his mouth she gasped and arched her back, her breasts bouncing and hitting her in the chin. Rick definitely knew what he was doing and wasn't shy about doing it to her. The way he would take her into his mouth, the most sensitive parts of her body, and roll them around with his tongue—it was enough to drive her crazy. Jen took both of her hands and placed them on the back of Rick's head. She pushed, but not too hard. But hard enough so that there was no way that he didn't know that he should keep doing what he was doing. It was great how he was pleasing her orally, most guys wouldn't do that on the first time being together, and some guys just wouldn't do it at all.

“Oh, Rick,” Jen gasped. “Oh, baby. Just keep going like that. Just like that. Oh my God, you make me feel fucking good. Just like that baby. Just like that, please don't stop! I love it! You're going to make me come.”

Rick kept going, doubling his efforts to make Jen orgasm. She could feel how much work he was putting into it and that was turning her on even more. It felt so fucking good. Any second she was going to come. She could feel it building up in her. It was something like electricity circling through her body. All of a sudden she came.

“Oh Jesus,” Jen said. “Holy fuck, Rick, I'm coming!”

Waves of pleasure rocked through her body as she came again and again. It felt so good to just come like that, right in Rick's mouth. When she finished, she realized that Rick wasn't finished with her. He moved up her body and before she knew it was pressing his member against her womanhood. She arched her back, then pressed herself into him. When he was all the way inside of her, her eyes rolled back in her head. Jen just couldn't believe how good Rick felt, and how much more of him she wanted even though he was inside of her.

They made love slowly, tenderly, even though Rick was a tattooed bad boy rock star. It was fun to be with him like this, the way his hands roved her body, touching everything but never stopping long enough to cease the exploring. She loved it and kissed him deeply, feeling his tongue in her mouth and moaning again and again. Rick kept moving faster and faster, and Jen knew that he was going to come any second.

“Oh God,” Rick panted. “Oh, holy shit you feel so good. I don't know how much longer I'm going to last. I think I'm going to come. Holy shit I think I'm going to fucking come!”

Then it was Rick's turn to arch his back in ecstasy. It was a beautiful thing to have great sex, and Jen fell asleep by Rick on the bed.

Chapter 8

A few hours later Jen woke before Rick and realized that having sex might make things a little more complicated between them. Or maybe it wouldn't. It kind of depended on whether or not Rick was a cool guy. He could be a cool enough guy that he didn't let something like sex suddenly become a big thing. But some guys would, and if Rick was like any of those guys then he'd start to become possessive, maybe instead he would become dismissive. It was always hard to tell with guys if they were going to be nice about sex, or if it was going to turn into some kind of sitcom esque style drama that no one really cared about anyway.

Jen didn't know what else to do but wait for Rick to get up. She needed to talk to him about the gig today, and about the upcoming tour. It was important for her future that he went to both of them, but she knew that it would be an uphill battle. So to pass the time she slipped into the shower and turned the water on hot. As the shower cascaded over her shoulders, she thought of how that even though Rick wasn't happy in life the best thing he could do was make something of himself. That meant going on the tour. If he didn't like it then at the end of it he could just not renew the contract with the Collective. It would really be that easy for him. And after that he would be free to do whatever he wanted. But if he skipped out on the tour it would be really hard to find anyone that would work with him after that. Skipping something like that would cost the Collective  so much money, and it would really be a black eye for Rick as well when word got around about it.

But, Jen had to admit, it was fucked up that the Collective  hadn't told Rick about it. When she'd been told that she was the one that was going to tell Rick about the tour she figured it was because he was a bad drunk or something and his friends didn't want to deal with him anymore. She'd read up on the role of a manager of rock stars and found that often times the band mates just couldn't deal with how poorly things were going with a certain member, or how the member always turned to getting fucked up to cope with things, so they'd hire someone to do it for them. Jen had, at first, believed that this was the reason she'd been hired to talk to Rick. But now she was thinking that maybe it had much more to do with outright manipulation of Rick.

Before she could think anymore about it, Rick slipped into the shower behind her. She couldn't say anything before he'd bent her over gently and started rubbing her slit. They made love in a rough fashion, with Rick pulling her hair and playfully choking her. It was just the kind of sex that Jen liked, and she enjoyed every minute of it. They almost fell down right in the middle of going at it, but luckily Rick caught himself on the side railing of his shitty shower. Before she came Jen realized that this was the best sex she'd ever had, this lay in the shower and the one before in bed earlier. She wondered what she would do if she wasn't able to get sex from Rick anymore. Even though they'd only slept together two times, she knew that she wasn't just going to be able to head out into the world and find someone else as good in bed as Rick. When she came, Rick came, and together they basked in the ecstasy of the feeling of coitus.

Chapter 9

When they'd finished, they both sat at the table wrapped in towels. The towels were clean, much to Rick's surprise. It wasn't often he had clean anything in the apartment, but boy was he more thankful now than ever that he kept clean towels around. He knew that it was one thing to be able to have sex with a woman in a dirty shower, but completely another to ask her to sit and chat while wrapped in a dirty towel.

“So,” Rick said. “I've been thinking about the charity gig tonight. And I'm going to do it. Even though a lot of this is starting to irk me in ways I never thought possible, I'll play along with the Collective's whims for now. But I want you to know that when the time rolls around for me to sign papers with them again there is pretty much going to be no way whatsoever.”

Jen nodded. Rick could tell that she wanted him to talk, wanted him to vent his feelings so she could have a better idea of what was going on in his head. Some women got all vulnerable after sex, and even though it wasn't so bad in that way with Jen, she was still a little vulnerable. It was kind of cute to see. And boy did she ever look good during her afterglow. Jen seemed to be floating in herself somehow. Rick thought he'd never seen anyone look so radiant before in his entire life.

“You've got to do the tour, Rick,” Jen said. “I know shit is fucked up the way they threw you under the bus by not telling you, but you did sign papers with them. That means that you could be on the hook for any of the damages you cause. So if you were to not go and that meant they had to cancel the tour, or say that they went ahead with the tour, but things couldn't get off the ground without you there, then you could maybe be in trouble. I'd just hate to see that happen, you know?”

Rick thought about it for a second.

“You know what,” Rick said. “If you come with me on the tour then I'll go on the tour. But I don't want you to come in the capacity of a manger. I just want you to be there with me. That way we can see if we could really be something, you know? I guess maybe I sound a little emo, not so much like the hard ass punk rocker that people think I am or make me out to be.”

Jen's mouth dropped open, but she didn't look shocked like in terror shocked, just more shocked like she hadn't seen it coming. Which was fine with Rick if she hadn't thought that he would ask her to come along in the capacity of a maybe lover. She should be shocked. But Rick figured that asking was better than not asking. Because who cares if she shot him down. It would be better than having to go the rest of his life not knowing what the answer could have been. Rick was nervous about the answer, though. He really did want her to come along on the tour and hadn't realized just how much he wanted her to come along on the tour until that very moment.

“Well,” Jen started. “I hadn't really known if I was going to come along. The Collective had kind of made it sound like I was going to, but now, after everything has happened, I'm not too hot on the whole taking everything they say at face value. I can tell you this, though if you say that I have to go on the tour or you won't go then they'll let me go on the tour.”

“So you'll go!?” Rick said.

Jen jumped up from her chair, letting her towels fall to the flower, and hugged Rick.

“Yes!” she said.

Rick beamed as she hugged him. He ran his fingers through her red, curly hair and gave her ass a playful slap. He wanted to fool around with her again, but they had to get ready to head to the charity gig. They both got dressed and headed out the door, both of them with a little smile and some pep in their step. Rick started his walk toward the gig while Jen made her way home to change, then head back to the venue in her car.

That night everything went well. The show went off without a problem and they raised plenty of money for charity. It wasn't really the normal crowd for Cull the Unfaithful, but they weren't complaining. After the gig when Rick talked to the Collective and pitched the idea that he bring Jen along as a friend they were fine with it. They kept trying to pressure him into signing on for a tour next year, even though it was so early that it was almost foolish to offer it since things could change so much in so little time—but Rick just laughed. He didn't care if people thought he owed them something when he didn't owe them a God damn thing. It was one thing to follow his contract through to the end, but he wasn't going to sign on to anything else just to make a bunch of jerk off industry people happy.

“How did things go?” Jen asked when he met her outside.

She was leaning against her car, which was parked to the side of the venue, looking good as ever. Rick couldn't believe how lucky he was.

“They went great,” Rick said. “You're going on tour with us!”

They both jumped into each other's arms this time and then looked around to make sure no one had seen. Rick was really excited, though, so much that he couldn't help but smile and kiss her. It was one of those moments that he wanted to remember forever, one of those things that he hoped that he would never forget. Because it really was things like this that made life worth living. After this tour, he wanted to quit the band and see where he could take things with Jen.

But first he felt like a drink, so they both headed back into the bar to sit close to each other and whisper with knowing eyes about the future.

CHAPTER ONE

There wasn't much that Jackson wanted for in his life. That being said Jackson knew that his life was much different from the lives most other ‘normal’ people led. Most people worked nine to five jobs and worried about paying off their student loan debt. But not Jackson. He had led a different life. He'd joined up with the Rough Riders a long time ago. Thinking back on it now it seemed like a lifetime, but he knew that it wasn't. Jackson was only twenty-eight years old, and he had a lot of life left ahead of him. And, right now, he was at the top of the biker MC world.

He had recently ascended to leader of the Rough Riders, something that he had always wanted; but there was something missing in his life. He'd tried to tell himself that it was just an empty feeling, that he didn't need a woman around to make him happy. Besides that, where was he going to meet a woman that he would get along with anyway? Sure, there were plenty of whores that hung around the clubhouse, and Jackson hadn’t been above using them for his voracious needs. But now, he was looking for something more, a real connection.

The nearby town of Ames, Iowa, held one of the nation’s top party schools, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to try to source his next old lady by sifting through the throngs of elitist Uggs wearing girls of the university.

Although, a few club members had found some fun times with members of the Lucky Ladies sorority. He had heard that they were the most open and accepting (and adventurous) of all the sororities.

Jackson was sitting on his porch. The old wooden house had been built years before in the style of southern plantations with a big deck and plenty of windows. It seemed very out of place in Iowa. It also surprised Jackson that the old house had held up after all of the years of abuse the Rough Riders had put her through.

“Tony,” Jackson called over his shoulder.

“What's up?” Tony asked as he trotted out of the house.

Jackson was more relaxed than the last Rough Rider who had lead the club, but people were still on their toes as evidenced by Tony’s scampering feet and a breathless acknowledgment.

“Tony,” Jackson said. “How many times do I have to tell you that you don't have to run to answer me?”

Jackson could tell that Tony was embarrassed, and immediately felt badly for calling him out on it.

“Listen,” Jackson said. “It's not a big deal. All right? But I'd just like things to relax around here a little bit. It's not like we are at war with any other gang. I mean hell, we don't even have trouble with the cops around here anymore.”

Tony nodded. He was a good man and Jackson enjoyed his company. It was rare that Jackson enjoyed anyone's company, but Tony was an exception. He never let his mouth run to anyone, and Jackson trusted him with his life.

“Tony, where do you think I should look to find a good girl?” Jackson asked.

Jackson was good looking, and he knew it. With his long blonde hair and his baby blue eyes there weren't many women in the world that wouldn't turn their head to watch him pass, even in rural Iowa with all the pomp given to decorum and modesty.

“Well,” Tony started, looking a little bemused by Jackson’s question. “I guess the first place I'd suggest is the Lucky Ladies. I mean, we've been having a lot of luck with them. They aren't stuck up, but aren't super slutty either. And the woman running them, Elizabeth, is really easy to work with. They don't cause any trouble and keep to themselves. Not just that, but if you get one of them to fall for you, well, then you'd have a college educated lady. It might be nice to have someone around who is a little more learned is all.”

Jackson nodded.

“You know, I was thinking about that,” Jackson said. “The kind of woman I’m looking for should be able to hang out at the club, but I’d never ask her to live amongst the debauchery that happens here. I'd probably have to move out of the club house.”

Tony nodded. Just about everyone knew that Jackson wanted to get out of the clubhouse. It wasn't that he didn't want to live among his brothers anymore, he wanted to give them some space to relax. It would probably be a few years before people got used to his leadership style. Jackson wanted people to be comfortable, he wanted people to get along with each other.

“So, I just call up this Elizabeth and give her my wish list? And how exactly is this different from a brothel?”

“Well, boss…” Tony stammered.

“Don’t beat around this bush Tony, you need to be able to answer me honestly.”

“You don’t pay ‘em. Well not in money anyway.” He replied with a little smirk.

That broke the tension. Jackson laughed and slapped Tony on the back.

It was another one of the things that the Rough Riders were having to get used to. The man that Jackson had replaced had really drilled into people that they didn't question him. Jackson wasn't that way at all. He was always looking for information from people, and appreciated it when his authority was challenged with new ideas. He wasn't the old way, he was the new way. And maybe that meant that he just needed to get gone from the clubhouse in order to allow things to settle a little down a little bit. The old way was still strong, and Jackson thought that if he made himself scarce maybe people would start to forget there was a boss at all.

That's the kind of motorcycle club that Jackson wanted: a club without a real leader, a group held together by its own accord. It might end up being the end of the Rough Riders, but that didn't mean that Jackson wasn't going to see it through. He wanted to see his dream take life, wanted to see the Rough Riders go in a different direction. The direction could be something that let the club live forever in its own little microcosm.

“Jackson. Jackson. You're off in thought again.”

“I'm sorry, Tony,” Jackson said. “I was. You know how I am sometimes. I got lost thinking about some hot tits with a brain attached.”

Tony laughed. “Seriously boss? There was no way you were that deep in thought about a gash.”

“Ya, you got me. Do you think it's a good idea to have a club that's held together by its members, or do you want a club where the guy running it holds it together through fear and money? Because at some point, Tony, and we both know this, someone is going to sell out.”

“Loyalty is bought cheapest the second time. As you like to say.”

Jackson nodded.

“Well, would you get a hold of this Elizabeth woman for me?”

“What’s on your wish list?”

“You heard me. Nice tits and a brain. End of list.”

“That shouldn’t be too difficult, Boss.” Tony stood up, clapped his hand on Jackson’s shoulder as he walked back inside.

Once again Jackson was left with his own thoughts as he sat alone on the porch. He hoped that he was making the right decisions. As much as he detested the old way, it didn't mean he didn't love the Rough Riders with all his heart. Because he really did. When he'd been a nobody, a loser kid, orphaned and on the streets of Ames, they'd taken him in. They'd fed him. And they hadn't ever anticipated anything in return. The “Old Man,” as he'd been called, who'd ran it then had only wanted to take care of him. It wasn’t exactly a loving environment, but it gave him all sorts of unconventional life skills.

The Old Man had hated Ames and the people who attended the University. He claimed that was the reason he took Jackson in – to spite them. “All those rich people, I used to watch them walk past you on the street, saw how they turned their nose up at you. I hated it. That's when I knew I had to do something real about it.”

And so, Jackson had found a home, and in the most unlikely of places. And as he thought back on it he knew how lucky he was to be in charge now, even if his head hung heavy with the crown.

CHAPTER TWO

Elizabeth had gotten used to fielding texts from the Rough Riders. Elizabeth knew that they valued her discretion. She'd get texts out of the blue from numbers she didn't know. At first it had been really strange. They always used her name. Always. And they were always short and to the point. It wasn't at all intrusive, and that was something that Elizabeth appreciated.

Most of the young men at the college were so disrespectful, any kind of discretion was amazing to her. She was starting to get the hang of it, and justified her relationship with the club by the fact that no money ever exchanged hands. She wasn’t a Madam. It takes two to tango, was her new mantra, and her girls were always interested in dancing.

It always excited Elizabeth to speak with the Rough Riders who hit her up. They were respectful and most of them just looking to get laid, but there had been a few short term relationships that had bloomed from her match making.

It wasn't hard to ferret out when some of the Ladies were starting to get big heads about things. And it also wasn't hard to rein the girls back in, simply uttering threats of cutting of the sorority/MC arrangement was enough to keep them in line. The biggest rule, well after keeping quiet about everything, was that they were forbidden to use the Rough Riders as muscle.

And things really had sparked off. It was easy to discount it as the way of the world when men and women spend time together, but Elizabeth knew that deep down all of the Lucky Ladies and the Rough Riders knew that they were part of something special.

Elizabeth smiled as she walked out on the university's big lawn for privacy, finding a spot far away from people. She knew how much Jackson's guys loved her sorority sisters. And although she'd yet to meet the new President, Jackson, himself, the feedback her sisters were getting from their individual Rough Riders could leave no doubt that he was different.

The phone range once.

“Hey, this is Tony,” the voice on the other end said. “I was just hitting you up to let you know that Jackson is looking for someone to be with beyond just, well, you know . . .”

Elizabeth smiled. So he was different. “Do you mean that Jackson wants to engage with someone romantically, in the literal sense of the word? Because that could be possible, if that's what he’s looking for,” she said.

“Someone pretty. And smart. You know, can hold a conversation and suck a good cock” Tony said. “Shit, sorry. It’s hard to switch out of club lingo. My apologies”

Elizabeth wasn’t shocked by his language. She looked around her to make sure none of her peers had, for whatever reasons, wandered out onto the grass and could hear her. After making sure she was alone, she resumed her conversation.

“I do get it, Tony.” Elizabeth said. “Let me talk to someone I have in mind and get back to you? How does that sound?”

“Sounds good to me,” Tony said. “And sorry about the language again. I mean it.”

“Don’t give it a second thought.”

Elizabeth said goodbye and disconnected the call. She wondered what had gotten into Jackson, in that he wanted to settle down with someone.

Which was fine by Elizabeth, even though it went against her advice to her pledges. She told the Lucky Ladies time and again not to get attached to anyone. If they didn't listen it was because they didn't want to, and Elizabeth wasn't going to begrudge anyone making their own mistakes. That was an important part of growing up, and ultimately that was what the Lucky Ladies was all about—helping young women grow up so that they could face, and embrace, the future in ways that were most beneficial to them.

As Elizabeth left the university she couldn't help but think about the person she'd already picked out in her mind for Jackson. Samantha was a great choice. She was one of those girls who had been full of angst as a teenager—maybe a goth kid at some point—but now she was really maturing. Samantha wasn't like the rest of the Lucky Ladies. She had been through the system and survived, and now thrived.

Most of the sorority girls were going to go on to live semi-normal lives in cubicles somewhere. But not Samantha, she wasn't done being wild by a long shot. And, she would look at Jackson as an equal. Samantha would be able to understand Jackson in ways that the others couldn't. She knew there would be girls that weren't very happy with her decision, but she knew it was the right call.

CHAPTER THREE

“Do you really think he'll like me?”

Samantha wasn't so sure that Jackson would find her interesting.

It was always surprising to Elizabeth how some of the most beautiful and confident women she knew seemed to wilt when it came to self-worth.

Since her conversation with Tony, Elizabeth followed up with a call to Jackson. There had to be more to his wish list and she wanted to get the info directly from the source. She could hear in his voice, and words, that he was looking for a pretty girl with substance. He was also very clear that he wouldn’t waste his time with anyone who didn’t pique his interest right away. So, Elizabeth knew that she had her work cut out for her.

It was fall, and the sun dipped down until it was a dark red crescent. Where Elizabeth came from, there were sometimes sun dogs that would accompany the sunsets, but over the Midwest there was no such thing—although there were sometimes Northern Lights, which seemed to be a fair trade-off.

“I'm not sure,” Samantha said. “I mean, this Jackson guy. He's important. Even powerful! That's not something that I'm used to at all.”

Samantha was a total knock out—a blonde bomb shell. She was the kind of girl that men drooled over as they walked past on the street. It wasn't like Jackson was going to have any problem finding something interesting about her physically. And beyond that Samantha was one of those girls that brooded a lot and was all mysterious. Elizabeth had heard a little bit about Jackson through the rumor mill and knew that he was the kind of person that would really appreciate someone with a few more layers than one. Samantha was one of those girls.

“Listen,” Elizabeth said. “Jackson is going to find you interesting because you are interesting, Sometimes I just want to shake you! You're so, gorgeous, and you're also smart, and you're deep! You're the kind of thing that Jackson is looking for. And you know what, you should ask yourself if Jackson is the kind of thing that you're looking for. Because at the same time he’s assessing you, you'll be assessing him. And if you really want to be fair to yourself and him, you'll go into it with both eyes open, really giving this an honest opportunity to go wherever it wants to.”

Samantha didn't look convinced. “I'll do it,” Samantha said hesitantly as she watched the sun set outside of the window in the distance.

Elizabeth turned and ran down the stairs two at time to call Tony.

“It's on. Your boy has a date with Samantha. She’s free this weekend. Your boy has to step up to the plate and make the arrangements.” Elizabeth gave Tony Samantha’s number.

And with that it was out of her hands. If Jackson didn't want to reach out, then maybe Samantha would just miss out on the entire thing. Which would be a shame. This could be exactly what Samantha needed to shed that layer of insecurity.

Elizabeth heard a few of the Lucky Ladies coming through the front door and collected herself. She couldn't get tunnel vision over this one thing, it just wasn't good leadership if she did. There were plenty of other Lucky Ladies who would need her attention, and maybe even need her to set them up with some Rough Riders. When the handful of Lucky Ladies finally stumbled through the front door she smiled, beaming at them like a proud mother.

CHAPTER FOUR

“You've talked with her?” Tony asked Jackson. “Samantha, that is.”

Jackson nodded.

“Sure have,” he said. Not divulging the fact that the two had already spent several hours talking on the phone.

“Well that's great, then,” Tony said. “I think things will go decently, at least. You'll probably get a roll in the hay out of it, if nothing else.”

They were on the club house porch again, this time feet up on the railing as they both sipped craft beer. In the days gone by, long ago, when they'd both been young and dumb, they'd have been sucking down suds like they were on their final days of spring break. That was a long time ago now.

“Listen, while I'm out with Samantha I don't want to be bothered with club stuff. I hereby appoint you as my right-hand man and you'll be in charge. Sound like a plan?”

Jackson wasn't sure how Tony was going to take this order. Tony wasn't the kind of guy who wanted be in charge, and as far as Jackson was concerned that made him even better material for leadership; combined with the fact that Tony wasn't the kind of guy who passed the buck. He wasn't the kind of guy that let his brothers get the shaft, and he never shirked his duty to the club.

“You know,” Tony said. “I used to wonder why in the world the Rough Riders didn't have a number two from the very start. Maybe it's because I like to watch Star Trek when I'm not on my bike, but it does seem to make a lot of sense. Almost all other clubs do something similar.”

“I'll tell the rest of the Rough Riders at the next meeting,” Jackson said. “I think everyone will be all right with it. I mean, in the past, you and I both know, that it has caused problems when the head guy is away and suddenly he's needed, or he's tied up with something and there is a decision to be made. Remember when the Old Man went away to jail for a few months, how everyone just kind of stood around waiting for orders, as if he was going to be able to communicate with us from solitary or something.”

Tony nodded. The memory, although years ago, was one that all the Rough Riders shared. It had been a time of great upheaval, when the law had really been after them. Now that the Old Man was dead, the law didn't seem all that interested in them. It was something they had all noticed, and something that had given them all pause. How many times had they been shaken down just because the Old Man was running things?

It was a question that Jackson never expected to get the answer to. But he knew deep down if they had had a rotating head of the club for a while things would have been easier. It's hard for a motorcycle club to make money and do what it needs to do day in and day out if the heat is on, and especially when the heat knows that there is just one guy making all of the decisions. Now, with Tony as a second in command, Jackson felt a lot better about the future of the Rough Riders.

CHAPTER FIVE

Samantha was having some real doubts about her date with Jackson. She was surprised at how easily they could talk for hours on the phone, but that didn't help soothe her anxieties. She was excited, but didn’t want to let her expectations get the best of her.

“Chemistry is important,” Elizabeth had reminded her. “Just be open to what may be and what may not be.”

Elizabeth was always good for advice and it was second nature for her to give Samantha the push she needed.

“How are you doing?”

“About the same,” Samantha said. “I know that's not what you want to hear, but seriously, I just don't want to let anyone down. Including myself. And I know that sounds silly considering this is just a date and it's not like anything has to come of it or happen afterward—I just . . . I don't know.”

“Don't worry!” Elizabeth said cheerfully. “You are a little worry wart about things. Seriously, this isn't something that should be consuming your thoughts. Just go have fun!”

And before Samantha could think of something else to get anxious about Elizabeth gathered up Sam’s handbag and shooed her out of the room.

“Change of plans. You’re not driving. I’ll drop you off at the restaurant.”

“But how will I get back?”

“Are you serious? Ames is so small you could walk back if you really needed,” Elizabeth said. “And besides, it's not like he won't want to give you a ride home on his bike.”

Samantha nodded, feeling a little bit better about the entire thing. Because Elizabeth was right, she really did have all the power. If she wanted, they could probably head back to Jackson's place after the date and fool around. Or they could come back to the sorority house to hang out.

As they pulled up to the pub Elizabeth squeezed Samantha’s hand.

“Good luck,” Elizabeth said. “And have fun!”

Samantha didn't reply, but she did squeeze Elizabeth's hand back. When she turned to walk into the restaurant she saw a gorgeous rough looking man with long blonde hair on the patio. That’s when her palms got sweaty. It was hot out, so Samantha was glad for that, she’d have an excuse for her clammy hands.

Instead of walking through the restaurant Samantha entered through the patio's small gate. Jackson saw her right away and smiled a big, perfect smile. He looked great, his hair looked “dirty,” in that it was dark, in some places looking as if it was almost brown. He had broad shoulders and blue eyes. His plaid shirt was tight in the arms, subtly showing off his biceps. Samantha could tell that Jackson worked out a fair amount in his spare time. Surprisingly, it wasn't something that put her off, like it usually did.

“You look beautiful,” Jackson said as he rose from his seat. Trying not to obviously take in Samantha’s black tank top, and its’ very round and ample contents.

He walked around the table and pulled out Samantha's chair for her. She couldn't believe how sweet and polite he was. It was apparent from his behavior that he was taking the date seriously and Samantha liked a gentleman.

“Thank you so much,” Samantha said. “How are you today?” She stammered, holding out her hand for him to shake. He grasped her slender hand and pulled her in to kiss her on the cheek. She smelled like vanilla.

Jackson moved around the table again and quickly seated himself, subtly adjusting his cock, which was growing harder by the second.

“Samantha. I was reading your blog last night and you and I think the same way about many things, except politics.”

Samantha was taken aback. This dude had certainly done his research. It gave her hope for the date, and what could come. She did a quick inventory of any potentially embarrassing things that were on her blog. There was a lot of stuff that Samantha had written from the heart.

“I'm glad you enjoyed it,” Samantha said. “How much did you read?”

“I got to the part where you were on a high school exchange to Australia. That was so great!” Jackson said. “I can’t believe you swam with great whites! There’s no way I would have the balls to get in the water with those fish.”

The waiter poured Samantha a water and refilled Jackson's.

“I hope you don't mind that I ordered for you,” Jackson said. “I know that's a little rude, but you're going to get a real kick out of the special.”

“What is it?”

“Malibu Shark!” Jackson said excitedly. “It just so happens to be something this place has on the menu about twice a year. I apologize if it was presumptuous, I that maybe you might be interested in trying some.”

Samantha was impressed. The whole date was off to a great start. Jackson was a nice guy who was showing himself to be considerate, and that was awesome. Here Samantha had been worrying about what was ahead, worrying about more than that even—what could be, what ought to be, and what she was afraid of in all of those scenarios. But here Jackson was being a normal human being, and not just that, but showing himself to be polite and a gentleman.

“What do you like to do?” Samantha asked. “I mean, besides ride your motorcycle.”

“I run my club. That’s about it” Jackson was reluctant to go into any further details about the club’s less savory activities.

“So, the club is your life then?”

“I guess,” Jackson started hesitantly. “I guess that the Rough Riders is more than just a club to me, obviously. I'm trying to change it for the better though. I know that might sound vague, but what I'm doing is going to make the club into something more livable, therefore sustainable, for the members. For too long it's been a 'ride till you die' mentality when it came to what guided our actions.”

Samantha was astounded to hear Jackson talk about the Rough Riders in such a manner. He was clearly trying to infuse some ethics into the club.

“What's going to change?” Samantha asked. “And why is there a need for change? I know that there are probably some things that you can't really talk about with me because of the nature of what you do. Not that it bothers me at all. I'm not a square or anything, and I totally realize that there is a lot to be said for living by one's own code, instead of letting society dictate what needs to happen.”

“Exactly,” Jackson said. “That's exactly what I've been saying. The Rough Riders is a great club full of solid guys, but it has had a very traditional dictator-style leadership for decades. It's just going to be tough. I think the club will rise to the occasion though. I mean, I think they've been wanting to rise. Deep down I know that if I hadn't gotten the idea to change things then the club would’ve blown up. The Rough Riders are headed in a new direction that is a lot freer, guys will feel loyal out of true loyalty to the club and not because of fear of reprisals. And also, less inclined to hate my guts and want to either destroy me or take my place.”

Samantha nodded. It was strange to think about it that way, how Jackson could literally be stabbed in the back by a friend. It was something that she didn't have to deal with in her world – well, only in the figurative sense.

“Where do you think the Rough Riders will be five years from now?” Samantha asked.

Their waiter arrived and carefully placed their plates of shark in front of them.

“Hopefully a little more diverse, and also a little more spread out,” Jackson said. “I'd like to see chapters open up in other states, and I'd like to see more fresh blood in the mix. I think that if we do that then we could foster relationships with the larger clubs that are mutually beneficial and go from there.”

“Damn, you've really thought about this,” Samantha said.

“Sure have,” Jackson said.

And with that, they ate. The rest of the meal went well, and like Elizabeth had suggested, Jackson did indeed want to give her a ride back to her place on the back of his bike. Samantha wasn't against the idea, but it was also a little scary to her. She didn't like how motorcycles were so vulnerable on the road, but something deep down in her told her to trust him.

CHAPTER SIX

All that Jackson could think about on the way to the sorority house house was how lucky he was to have such a quality woman on the back of his bike. Samantha really was a special girl, there was no doubt about that. And the way she looked—damn!

As they neared the house Jackson felt his pulse race and his hands start to sweat. He just hoped that he didn't make a fool of himself. He was shocked at his reaction to her. He didn’t even want to fuck her tonight. There was no way he was going to ruin such a nice evening. As he parked the bike, he wondered what the rest of the night would hold.

Jackson couldn't wait to find out.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Samantha led Jackson up to her room, past the living room full of her gawking sisters. She was self-conscious about her room, even though it was cleaner than usual. There was just something about having a boy over, especially a boy who was a grown man, that made her even more nervous.

When they finally made it up the stairs and into her room they both sat on her bed looking at each other. Jackson was the first to lie back, resting his head on his hands with his fingers laced in his hair. Samantha followed his lead. When she turned to look at Jackson, to see if his eyes were open or if he was relaxing with them closed, he leaned over and kissed her softly on the lips. It wasn't an aggressive kiss, but a sensual one. The kind that made Samantha realize how much she loved to be kissed.

They held the kiss for a few seconds, then a few seconds more. Then they started to explore each other's bodies with their hands. Jackson rested his left hand on her stomach and played with a necklace she was wearing, which hung low with a heavy fake red jewel. Samantha just ran her hands up and down Jackson's body at will. Soon he was doing the same to her, slipping his hands into her bra and feeling the heftiness of her bust.

Samantha couldn't believe how turned on she was. It was one thing to have a run of the mill college boy over and start to fool around, but with Jackson it really was something else.

“Hang on,” Samantha said jumping up from the bed. “Let me get naked!”

Jackson let out a laugh and stood as well. If this was the way the night was meant to be, he wasn’t going to fight it. They both got undressed frantically. When they both stood in front of each other Samantha couldn't believe how ready she was for sex. And from the look of Jackson's long, hard erection, he was more than prepared. Samantha was glad that Jackson wasn't having any stage fright. There had been times in the past when stage fright had ruined good times for her—this was not a good time she wanted ruined.

“You are so hot,” Jackson said.

“And so are you,” Samantha laughed. “And hung!”

They both laid back on the bed and started exploring again with their hands. At first Jackson played with Samantha's breasts while she felt his arms and chest, then he moved his hands down to run his fingers through her slit. Samantha moaned as she started to stroke Jackson's hard on.

“Holy shit, I had no idea tonight was going to be this awesome,” Jackson said.

“Me neither,” Samantha said.

And she didn't feel badly at all that they were jumping right into the bed on the first date. Perhaps, it wasn't that bad of an idea. If one were to wait to find out the person they wanted to see on a regular basis romantically was bad in bed, that usually led to extra frustration.

“You want me to go down on you, baby?”

Samantha moved to suck his throbbing cock without waiting for a response. Jackson responded with a gasp, which Samantha took as a yes.

When Samantha took Jackson's member into her mouth she knew that she wasn't going to be able to go all the way down to the base with her mouth. He was just too hung, a good problem to have. So instead she swirled her tongue around the head and bobbed her head up and down quickly on the top of the shaft. Jackson moaned and Samantha knew that she was doing the right stuff. She started to use her hand to jack him off while she blew him, sucking extra hard when her head started to rise back to its zenith.

“You mouth feels so good!” Jackson said. “I want to make you feel good baby.”

Jackson was going to make her feel good, that much was certain. There was no way that such a good looking, well-muscled, well hung man wasn't going to make her feel good.

Samantha crawled up on top of Jackson so that her pussy hovered over his throbbing cock. Reaching back behind her she rubbed the head of his throbbing cock up and down her slit. It felt so good, and it also helped her get ready to ride Jackson's big cock.

“Are you ready?” Samantha asked as she prepared to lower herself onto Jackson's rock hard erection as it slowly pulsed with his heartbeat.

“Baby, I'm so ready,” Jackson said.

Samantha was so turned on by how hard he felt in her hand. As she slowly lowered herself onto his member she wondered if she was going to be able to take it all, or if it was going to prove too much. If it proved too much, it wouldn't be a big deal, but it would also be the first cock that Samantha couldn't take. That would really be something, she thought. But, as she slowly, very slowly, slid down the last few inches of his dick she realized that it was a perfect fit. When she leaned back, arched her back, and ground her hips into him she could feel his cock head pushing up against her cervix. It was the most amazing feeling in the world.

“Oh fuck, Jackson,” Samantha said. “I can't believe how fucking good you feel. Holy shit. Oh. My. God.”

Samantha started to grind Jackson, slowly at first, but quickly working up quite the rhythm. Jackson had the biggest smile on his face as he looked up at her, occasionally reaching up to play with her breasts as they heaved up and down with her bouncing motion.

“Oh my God, I'm going to come so hard,” Samantha said.

She just hoped that she wouldn't embarrass herself somehow. There were times when she'd come as hard as she was about to in the past, but it had always been with a boyfriend, never with a person she'd just met.

“FUCK” Samantha screamed as the first wave of pleasure rocked her body.

Her orgasm was like nothing she'd ever felt before. She saw white light. She leaned forward to put all of her weight on her hands, hoping that Jackson wouldn't mind the extra pressure on his chest – her orgasm had made her weak. After a few seconds, she could see again, but she was still coming, and moaning so loudly that there was no way that all of the Lucky Ladies in the house didn't hear it.

“Oh Jesus,” Samantha said between panting. “Holy fucking Christ that was amazing.”

Jackson smiled at her, and without saying anything flipped her over so that she was on her back. It was his turn to ride her, and so he did. It was one of the greatest lays that Samantha had ever experienced. By the time they were done—both catching their breath and running their hands all over each other—they both knew that they would be seeing each other again, just for sex if nothing else.

“Well, I'd . . . I'd . . .” Jackson's voice trailed off.

“You had better go,” Samantha said, disappointed.

They both stood and Jackson took her face in his hands, kissing her long and soft, like he never wanted to leave. Samantha didn't want him to leave. He saw the sadness in her eyes.

“Can I spend the night with you?” Jackson asked earnestly.

Samantha threw her arms around Jackson's neck. “Let's have a sleep over!”

Jackson smiled and crawled under her soft sheets. Samantha nestled into the crook of his arm with her head on his chest. Both spent, they fell asleep almost instantly, in a tight embrace.

Jackson left early the next morning before the rest of the house was alive and buzzing.

“So, I heard things went well…” Elizabeth said as she poked her head into Samantha’s room.

Samantha blushed and pulled the sheet up to her neck.

“Things couldn't have gone any better,” Samantha said.

“So, second date?”

“I hope so. I just hope that I didn’t fuck it up by giving it up so quickly.”

“Even if that’s the case, it sounded like it might have been worth it.”

“It so was. He was so good. And that cock…”

Elizabeth smiled and sat down on the bed next to Samantha.

“The only reason I pressured you into hanging out with him was because I knew that you two would really hit it off, you know what I mean?”

Samantha nodded. Elizabeth was proving to be a pretty decent match maker. Samantha owed her one.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Over the course of the next few months Jackson and Samantha grew closer and closer. Around the holidays, when snow piled up on the planes of Iowa, they would spend even more time together in her bed. The Lucky Ladies were supportive of Samantha, even though she could tell that some of them were more than just a little jealous of her new boyfriend.

Samantha learned all kinds of things about Jackson when he started to open up after a few weeks. She was fascinated with how he'd been one of Ames’ homeless youths back in the day, and how the former leader of the Rough Riders had taken him in off the streets.

She couldn’t help but wonder if their orphaned beginnings were what had drawn them so closely together so quickly. It was like they understood where each other had come from.

Jackson didn't speak especially fondly of the man he'd replaced as the head of the Rough Riders. She decided to wait to really dig into what had gone on in the past. He was a genuine guy, one that actually said what he meant and didn't go slinking around town cheating on her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jackson was happy with how everything was turning out. Not only had the Rough Riders accepted Tony as their second in command, but they had also accepted that their number one wasn't going to be around all the time. For some of them, it had been a big step, while others thought it had been a long overdue action.

Most of the Rough Riders liked Samantha, and the influence she was having on their leader. It seemed like the Rough Riders were growing to see the merit of the new ways Jackson wanted to instill in them, and this made Jackson's heart swell with pride.

Were he and Samantha getting serious enough that she might stick around after college? Jackson wasn't sure, but he wanted to lay the groundwork just in case. He was heading out for a two-week tour of potential towns for a club expansion, after stopping in to fuck his lady.

“Hey boss,” Tony said. “Storm is coming in. The news is saying a foot of snow. If I were you I'd get headed to the campus!”

Jackson smiled. Tony was always looking out for him. Usually a number two in a biker gang wouldn't care if their boss made it over to his college girlfriend’s place. Jackson was glad things weren't business as usual anymore, because in the past such an attitude had been at the expense of a rank and file. Now everyone looked out for each other because power was a little more decentralized.

“Thanks for the heads up, Tony,” Jackson said. “I really appreciate how much you've been there for me over the past few months.”

“Don't mention it,” Tony said. “I know how hard you worked for the Old Man when he was running things. The old way needs to go away though, as you like to say.”

They both laughed.

“Those sorority girls got you reading poetry, do they?”

Jackson looked at Tony and smiled.

“They sure do,” he said. “And I fucking love it.”

**

Before he left the sorority house for his road trip, Samantha asked him to leave his red plaid shirt, so she could sleep in it. As she watched him drive away in the truck, she felt a piece of paper in the breast pocket. Pulling it out, she unfolded it and held it to her chest. Tears welled up in her eyes. It simply read:

I love you.

She wrapped his shirt around her naked body, feeling the warmth of the fabric and inhaling his scent. She smiled; she was his.