Chapter 1
Ella
Four months ago
I’d defy anyone who’s a resident of Tucson not to be aware of the Satan’s Devils Motorcycle Club, whether they regard them with fear and hide in the shadows as the sound of thunder announces their approach, or, like me, eyeball them with a mixture of intrigue and curiosity.
Maybe it’s down to the parts of the city that I frequent, but I often see them on my side of town, wearing leather vests proudly claiming their loyalty to the Tucson chapter. My interest in them is, at least in part, inspired by me being a hopeless romantic and spending far too much of my time with my nose in my e-reader devouring MC romance novels as though they were going out of fashion. My imagination fuelled by the rough but tender outlaw bikers I read about, making me wish for an opportunity to discover if fiction bears any similarity to the flesh and blood men I see riding around on their Harleys in real life.
It’s rumoured they own the Wheel Inn Restaurant and Bar, and whether they do or don’t, it’s an excellent place to find tall, ruggedly handsome, muscular, and tattooed members of the club who regularly drop by, presumably, if the gossip is true, to check in on their investment. Though I’d never gone inside—let’s face it, I can barely afford a takeaway from McDonald’s—I often manage to find an excuse to walk past on my way to work, if only in the hope that I’ll bump into the man of my dreams.
Just a distant sighting of one of them on their gleaming machines is sufficient to make my mouth and lady parts water, something to store up for the lonely nights in my bed.
Until one day when I was passing and, so intent on letting my eyes feast on a pair of bikers standing talking, I tripped on the kerb and fell into leather-clad arms. As I flushed red I made the mistake of glancing up into a pair of the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. To be met with a smirk. He’d righted me, patted me on the shoulder and sent me away with a little slap to my butt. I was dismissed. I’d walked on fast to put distance between us, berating myself as to how stupid I was to think little plain old me would ever attract their attention. Shit! I’d literally fallen at his feet and thrown myself at him, but he’d barely noticed, not even pausing his conversation, showing discussing bike parts was clearly far more interesting than me.
After that, embarrassment had me changing my route, no longer taking the detour past the establishment they apparently own, relegating thoughts of devastatingly handsome bikers to where they belonged. In my dreams.
And there I thought they would stay, until the day I bump into Jill.
The spring sun is gleaming down, a perfect temperature to sit outside and treat myself to a cup of coffee bought with the extra tips I’d earned last night. Leaning back, my eyes closed, a rumbling sound roars up the road, echoing around the buildings until suddenly cutting off. Straightening, I sit up and, shading my eyes with my hand, see a vision parked up on the other side of the road. It’s one of them. The Satan’s Devils. Unable to tear my attention away, I watch as the biker removes his sunglasses and slips them into a pocket in his leather vest before disappearing into to the hardware store.
Honestly, I need to fan myself. They’re just so hot! I’m still gazing across at the black and chrome monster parked up at the kerb, keen not to miss seeing him re-emerge when I hear a sudden shout.
“Hey! It’s Ella, isn’t it? My God! It is! I haven’t seen you for fuckin’ years!”
Slightly annoyed at the untimely interruption and at the person who blocks the sight of the bike, my eyes are drawn to an attractive woman wearing almost indecent shorts that showcase legs going on for miles, and a tight tee that brazenly outlines her braless breasts. The sun shining directly in my eyes, I need a second look before I recognise her.
“It is, isn’t it? Fuck me! How have you been?” As she pulls out a chair opposite me and without waiting for an invitation sits down, her face becomes clear, and it’s only then I’m able to place her.
My voice comes out as a squeal when I grasp who it is. “Jill! For heaven’s sake. I can’t believe I’ve bumped into you.”
At once we both stand, pulling each other in for a hug, exchanging comments of “how have you been” and “what have you been doing”, both talking at once and laughing as the words tumble out.
I haven’t seen her for years. We’d gone to school together and were on the cheerleading team. Always the pair getting into mischief, the ones who’d got the notice of the boys. Well, her at least, me not so much. My role was normally just tagging along. I’d acted as look out on more than one occasion. But remembering the fun we’d had together, before we lost touch, my friendship with Jill has to be one of my best memories about my teenage years.
Grinning at each other, we sit down again. Now I’m in for my second surprise of the morning. My attention being focused on my companion, I hadn’t noticed the biker leaving the store. But I certainly don’t miss him dodging through the traffic and coming over to this side of the road, approaching us, then curling his hand around the back of Jill’s neck, tipping her head back and giving her deep kiss on her mouth. It’s like a scene out of one of my novels, and now I really do need to wave my hand briskly in front of my face to cool myself down.
As my eyes open wide he murmurs, “Later doll.” He gives her a wink that holds promise, then he disappears back to his bike, throws his leg over the seat then looks back over and lifts his chin before starting the engine and heading up the road with an ear-shattering roar.
“Hell, Jill. Is that your boyfriend?” My eyes are still staring in the direction where he’s disappearing into the distance.
When I look back it’s to catch her smirking. “Not exactly.” Her enigmatic reply is all that she says.
“Well...?” I prompt her, hoping she’ll say more. Christ, I’d give my back teeth to be the subject of a display like the one I’d just witnessed. Who is he to her?
She shakes her head dismissively and won’t be drawn. Instead, she changes the conversation back to the rather more boring subject of me and how my life’s turned out. It’s fairly simple to sum up. Boring.
After another cup of coffee she gets up to leave. “Hey, I’ve had fun reminiscing about old times. Do you come here often? Shall we meet up again?”
When I can afford it. “Yeah. I’d like that.” Especially if your boyfriend, or whoever he is, turns up. I’ve enjoyed myself too. And I’ll jump at the chance to find out just how well she knows the man in black leather. And whether she can introduce me to his friends.
It quickly becomes habit for us to get together. I spend far too much on coffees I can’t really afford, but it’s pleasurable to renew our friendship. However, much to my disappointment, as the weeks pass, while she’s managed to extract the uninteresting facts about my job and my life, she gives little away about hers. And I don’t see her biker friend again, nor can I get her to talk about who he is or how she knows him. But I enjoy her company, and she appears to like mine.
Gradually, as we continue to meet and start to regain the easy relationship we’d had when in high school, her tongue loosens until eventually, to my delight, she begins to open up. Over a second cup of coffee that has me counting my remaining cents in my head, she begins to explain exactly what her relationship with the Satan’s Devils entails. I’d started with an innocent enquiry about her address, and my eyes opened wide as, with a wary glance around her, she whispers conspiratorially and lets it all out.
“You really live at their compound? For free?” It’s the words she’s just spoken, but I don’t understand. “What, are you a waitress or cleaner or something?” It’s all I can think of when she explains they provide her accommodation and food for nothing, as well as making sure she’s got money in her pocket to cover her expenses. “Shit, Jill. That sounds like a dream.”
She stares into my face as though waiting for my reaction, then prepares to clarify her role. She straightens her back and shakes back her hair, then after a moment of silence, which I start to think she’s not going to fill, she tells me the truth. “I’m what’s called a sweet butt, Ella. I make myself available to the men…”
“You what?” My coffee spits out of my mouth and my eyes almost pop out of my face. “When you say…”
“I fuck them.” Her eyes narrow, as if in challenge.
Using a napkin to wipe up my spilled drink, and then looking down into my half-empty cup, I try to process what she means. But the coffee provides no other interpretation than what she’s just said.
“All of them? You’re a whore? How can you do that?” My voice is low as I breathe the words out. To say she’s shocked me would be the understatement of the year. Of the century, come to that.
She leans forward, her face splitting into a grin as she laughs. “Girl, how can I do that? Have you seen them around? Boy, are they something. And do they have some cock. Biker cock, babe. Best there is.” The last she whispers conspiratorially.
I’m shocked but intrigued, and must admit, a tiny bit jealous. Going through a particularly dry spell myself, I’m becoming increasingly certain my girly parts are starting to forget what they were made for, I listen with my jaw dropping as she elucidates the reasons for her fascination with these men.
“They live fast, hun, on the edge. They don’t bide by no citizen—that would be the types of you—rules. They fuck hard too. And there’s this one, Tongue, well, he’ll go down on you for hours and I can’t even start to tell you what he can do with his stud.” She glances at me, her eyes are half-lidded, her lips turning up in a smile. “Can’t explain, El, what it’s like to have such power over these men. I have them in the fuckin’ palm of my hand.”
She sleeps with all the bikers? I’m still trying to get my head around that. What if she doesn’t find one or more attractive? “Do you get any say? What if you don’t like one of them?” I take a sip of my now cold coffee to give my fidgeting hands something to do and my eyes something else to look at. My face burns red and it’s not from the heat of the sun.
She looks smug and not overly offended by my inquisitive questions and shrugs. “It’s no hardship. They all know how to fuck. So why not? I’m not ashamed to admit that I enjoy sex. Sure, one or two I might need to keep my eyes closed, but the rest. Mmm, mm. And if they’re coming at you from behind it’s their cocks that matter, not their face.” Her eyes glaze over dreamily. “And sometimes there’s one that prefers to keep to one girl, you know, you get to know what each other likes. And maybe in time there’ll be that special one who’ll make me his old lady.” Her lips curl up as though she’s putting them through their paces in her mind. “It’s mind-blowing sex on tap, twenty-four-seven. What citizen boyfriend would be able to offer that?”
Certainly none I’d ever come across.
It’s probably one of the strangest and most enlightening conversations I’ve ever had. And one it seems I’m unable to get out of my mind. Over the next few days I keep remembering how she’d shown no shame in being what I would term a whore. But then, my knowledge of prostitutes is limited to films like Pretty Woman, where girls sell their bodies on the streets to anyone who comes along, longing for a chance to get out of that life, preferably by being swept away by a millionaire. Or hookers needing money for drugs. What she’d described was something very different. While at the heart of it she’s still selling herself, it is to a limited pool. And if she’s right about them all being well-endowed and knowing what to do with their endowment, she probably sees more action in a week than I have my whole life. She certainly seemed to enjoy what she does. Hmm.
Her description of the way she lives gets stuck in my head. While remaining uncomfortable at the thought of being at the beck and call of a group of men—what if you weren’t in the mood, for example? I find myself envying her as I compare her life to my own. Is the way I live so much more admirable? I’ve got a go-nowhere job in a sleazy bar and a shithole of an apartment I share with Tilly, my human companion, and several of the animal variety that I try not to think about. I’ve no man interested in me—if you exclude the shady offers whispered in my ear along with the drinks that I serve, and there’s certainly been none which have tempted me to follow up.
The thought starts to sneak up on me. Could I do what she does? Of course I couldn’t. Don’t be ridiculous. I’m worth much more than that. Standing at the sink washing up after my messy housemate yet again¸ I dismiss the idea as outrageous. She’s bound to have made it sound far more glamourous than it actually is, maybe as an excuse to justify how she’s sunk so low.
So low? She didn’t look like she was down on her luck. Her eyes sparkled with fun, and her clothes, while minimal, don’t look like they’ve come from a thrift shop.
Me on the other hand? I just manage to scrape by.
You’ll never amount to anything. Oh yeah, my mom never held back. Part of the reason I moved out of home, only to live a life which seemed to prove her correct. Glancing around me, I see it as she would. I’m living in a hovel—and even that’s almost more than I can afford—with a woman I’m fast coming to dislike. If I’m going to get out of here I’ve got to do it myself, and I’ve limited options. I’ve no chance of fulfilling my dream and going to college, and even finding a new, better paying job has proved impossible.
I think back to the bikers I’d seen around town and a shiver goes through me at the thought of letting them do anything they want to me. What if, as Jill had suggested, there’d be that special man, that someone who’d want only me. Maybe the biker who’d caught me in his arms that day? Oh, it’s obvious why he didn’t find me attractive. Not when he’d got the likes of Jill back at base, ready and waiting.
Without really realising it’s happening, the idea starts cementing in my head, justified the next time I meet Jill and enviously note the glow of satisfaction on her face, which certainly isn’t on mine. Having now opened up, she revels in telling me such stories she makes my toes curl with her descriptions of the bikers and life on the compound. I find myself feeling jealous at the differences in our lives.
It takes just one more bad night at the bar, together with a re-examination of what little I’ve got, for me to summon up enough courage. At the coffee shop the next Saturday, I pick up my cup and speak over the top. “Are they looking for another girl?” As the words leave my mouth I immediately regret them, covering my lips with my hand. I didn’t mean to say that. I’m not whore material. Surely I can’t be that desperate? But the memory of the foul-breathed man who’d lent over the bar to grope me last evening reminds me that perhaps I am.
She doesn’t seem surprised, just laughs and waves her hand. “You fancy yourself some biker cock, do you? Well,” she looks me up and down as if seeing me for the first time, “you’ve kept yourself in shape. The men would definitely go for that rack.” Her visual inspection makes me want to squirm. “I could ask for you. Be good to have you there, El. The others are okay, there’s Chrissy, Pussy, and Allie, and they’re alright, but we,” she points to me then to her, “we go way back.” She breaks off and then gives me a broad smile. “Yeah, I’ll put your name forward and see how it goes.” Her tongue flicks out to catch a stray drop of coffee as she leans forward and continues, “You’ll probably have to come around as a hang-around first off.”
“Hang-around?”
“Yeah.” She shrugs, “We have girls up from Tucson every Friday night, sometimes Saturdays too.” Her mouth twists as she continues, and her little frown shows me she doesn’t approve of them very much. “The boys go with whoever happens to take their fancy.”
That might be a good place to start. A chance for me to give them an informal interview as well as the other way around. A flicker of excitement warms me from the inside. Sex hasn’t been anything great for me before. Oh, I’ve done it, sure. Many times, even had a few one-night stands. But now hearing about the type of experience she has with men who know how to use the tools God gave them, I suspect the ones that I’ve been with weren’t so accomplished. When we part it’s with her promise to float the idea back at the club.
What the fuck am I doing? I leave the coffee shop bemused. What the hell made me even ask? Is this what I want out of life? My mother would have conniptions. The thought makes me smile as I think of seeing her face. You might not have thought much of me to start with, Mom, but just wait until I tell you I’m thinking of becoming a whore. She’d have a fit. Or then again, maybe not. Sometimes I don’t think she cares very much at all.
Returning home, I search with the remote until I find a rerun of Sons of Anarchy and settle back to watch, my mouth dropping open as the scenes play out. There’s so much fighting and violence. Satan’s Devils aren’t like that, are they? But oh, my. That Jax Teller. Now if they were like him… I get engrossed by the way his tight ass moves as he fucks his old lady, muscles rippling as he drives into her, that rapturous look on her face. That night I use my vibrator.
Come the next morning, I take a real good look at myself in the mirror, lifting my boobs in my hands, and glancing down—they’re firm, not too large, not small and perky though, and from this angle look a bit lopsided. Looking lower, my stomach’s flat, my bush is neat and tidy, but don’t men like that prefer it bare? Well I don’t. Pursing my lips, I decide to give it a nice trim, but not go any further. Not unless I’m asked to. I move my eyes up again and bite my lip. Jill’s so pretty, you could see why anyone would want her. Me? I decide after my inspection I’m very ordinary. Nothing special at all. Nothing to attract the likes of Jax Teller here.
Would they even want me? I’m suddenly nervous that even if I did get an invite to the club I may end up the girl sitting in the corner with none of the men showing any interest. Now that would be embarrassing. You don’t know until you try.
Now that I seem to have made the decision and have taken the first step, I start to fear rejection more than acceptance. My life continues to slide downhill. Tilly’s being more of a slob than ever, and I’m desperate enough to do just about anything to get out. The next time we meet I pester Jill almost before she’s got her ass on the seat.
With a smirk, she assures me she’s mentioned my name, but hasn’t yet had a response. When we part I leave dissatisfied, knowing once my mind is made up, very little can change it, and the delay’s only making it worse. The following nights I continue to pleasure myself, my inspiration that elusive biker cock.