As the weeks had worn on, it was pretty safe to say that Grizz and I were working out damn well. We had fallen into the routine of an old married couple.

Well, an old married couple that still had mind-blowing sex...

Neither of us said a word about the possibility that we’d be broken apart down the line. There was a fictional line drawn in the sand on that one, and we weren’t willing to cross that topic.

Maybe pretending that everything was going to stay fine was a bit naïve.

It had taken us a while to get to the point where we could fuck again without mentally breaking each other, so yeah. As far as the two of us were concerned, the future was a Big Scary Place™. It could just stay far ahead of us and leave us none the wiser.

While I’d picked up a little bartending gig just to keep myself occupied and make a little extra money, Grizz spent most of his days working armed protection for a couple of new contacts in New Orleans.

The first week, he was just a big guy with a gun, but now he was an enforcer for a smaller organization that fronted a few of the riverfront operations.

He worked late some nights, but so did I. Sometimes, I’d wander back home past 2AM, while he’d be in a couple of hours later.

By that point, I’d be showered and waiting patiently. When he was back, I’d let him clean up, I’d rub down his shoulders and lower back, and then go down on the guy like a horny teenager.

The sex had started off great and only become more amazing. Grizz and I grew even closer in our comfort, and we opened up to each other about lives, our sexual tastes, and anything that came to mind.

A month in the sack together, and we spared no secrets from one another.

Grizz told me bedtime stories from his past as we went to sleep at night, our bodies exhausted and sweaty.

But his stories weren’t about trickster elves or funny animals, teaching children well-seated morals.

Grizz’s stories were about battling renegade clubs and dastardly drug dealers, about overthrowing thieves’ unions and thwarting assault rifle smugglers, about uniting a network of criminals into a force for good in the desert…

Every night, he had another story to tell. It was always something that kept me on the edge of my seat, and it would always seem like hope was lost, but he and his Devil’s Dragons would come through in the end.

“There’s no way all of this is true,” I told him after the end of his latest story. “Not without losing men here and there…”

“We have lost our own,” Grizz told me. “Been getting lucky these last few times. At least ten good men have died in the line of fire in the last seven years.”

“Jesus…” I was shocked. “How?”

“It’s a life where everyone has a gun, and some people get trigger-happy,” Grizz replied solemnly. “Club rivalries went wrong. Targets fought back. Some armed protection contracts went sideways.”

“You talk about it so matter-of-factly.”

“When you wear the leathers, you have to know the game,” he spoke somberly. “Putting on the club emblem doesn’t make you a hard-ass, Kate… the wrong place, the wrong people, it makes you a target.”

“Never thought of it like that.”

“People don’t. We’ve turned away good men who didn’t get it. Plenty of people sharp with a shooter have failed to impress Hunter because they had the wrong attitude and the wrong motivations. They were gonna get themselves killed out there… Maybe even drag some of the rest of us down with them.”

“So, how did you fall in with them?”

His response was what I pictured you’d get if you crossed a sigh with a smile.

“Knew you were going to ask that someday,” he replied aloofly. “Surprised it took you this long to ask.”

“I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all,” I confessed. “The last I saw you, you were a Marine going off to fight in the war again, and now you’re a biker outlaw.”

“You’re wondering how that happened.”

“Yeah… if that’s okay, of course.”

Grizz scratched at his beard for a moment. “Twelve years ago, we parted ways. Half that time passed with me either fighting with my squad or trapped in the desert… When I came back to Arizona and you were long gone and I was left without direction. My father died in his trailer and he left me nothing. Place was a wreck.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

“I’ve made my peace with it… Anyway, I had money. The Marines paid me for my service, and gave me extra for my trials. Put me through to a good psychologist to help me adjust to civilian life again.”

“How was it? The therapy?”

“Never went,” I answered. “The kind of therapy the shrinks would have given me… I knew it wasn’t the kind I needed.”

“What did you do, then?”

“I left,” he answered. “Bought a shit bike at a shit price, packed a few changes of clothes, and high-tailed it the fuck out of there.”

He paused for a moment, reliving the experience. I held his strong, rugged hand in my own.

“Where did you go?”

“The desert is all I know. I understood the beating heat and how to be a soldier. Without direction I was Moses, alone in the wilderness and searching for my Promised Land. No matter where I turned, I couldn’t find it… I fell in with an Indian reservation for a few weeks, smoking peyote in the desert and having long conversations with God.”

“Peyote?”

“It’s some kind of shit they take from a cactus out there. Supposed to help you make peace with your demons. Didn’t do shit for me. Anyway, I came across a small band of bikers in search of salvation. They had been scattered to the winds after betrayal slaughtered over half of their own. They were directionless.”

“The Devil’s Dragons?” I asked.

“One and the same. The youngest among them had sharp eyes. We broke bread and he spoke of his dream – to follow in the footsteps of his former leader. He wanted to bring the criminals of the desert together to do some good in the world. The boy was naïve. But despite his flaws, I saw something in him. He had the gift. If he was molded the right way, he would become a powerful leader.”

I finally started to get it.

“They were desperate, and I was damn good with anything that took bullets. It was nothing for me to join them. Once I was in, I mentored Hunter, teaching him how to fight… and how to lead. He was still too young, and most of the club looked up to me after a while. Pretty soon, the club voted me in as President.”

“You mean… you were the real president of the Devil’s Dragons club?”

Grizz chuckled. “You sound surprised. I never wanted to be in command… I just wanted to enable the right person to take the reins. So that’s what I did – I taught the boy to lead, and then I let him lead. I named him my second-in-command, and when he was ready, I stepped down.”

“And that’s when you got into armed protection?” I asked.

“At the time, it was unheard of for a biker gang to make their way as hired guns. Hunter demanded a new direction for the Devil’s Dragons. He claimed that there was a better way, and that everyone would get paid more than ever before. Armed protection was his idea. There was room for a gang of hired guns in the Arizona desert, so we made money. Lots of money. Enough money to bring on new men, buy better equipment, and build a solid brotherhood between us.”

Grizz smiled cryptically. “That’s when he began working towards building the Outlaws. But as Hunter likes to say… that’s a story for another time.”

I pouted. “You can’t stop it there.”

“Sure I can,” Grizz grinned, pulling me into his embrace to kiss my neck. I felt his strong fingers tickle up my body, and squealed with pleasure. “I can stop the story wherever I want…”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Which would you rather,” Grizz smirked, kissing his way along my chest. “A little more of the story? Or my face between your thighs?”

“That’s not fair,” I groaned.

“Then I’ll make the decision for you.”

“You can’t do that either!”

I felt him rip me down the bed with his incredible strength. Before I could protest, he was burying his face into my pussy, sucking on my clit, and all my complains seemed to just slip away…