Ice

Today, I haven’t been riding as hard or as fast as I did the last few days, haven’t felt the need to. I’ve even been enjoying the scenery, the timelessness of the empty road, the freedom and peace it can offer.

When I was younger, before the Spawns destroyed everything, I’d take long rides just for the hell of it, just for the peace and quiet and calm. I’ve tried and tried to get back to that peace and calmness since I was freed, tried to make the echoes of it a reality again and again. But it never worked.

Not the time I went down to Mexico on my own, not on my ride out East to my hometown in Illinois. There was never any peace on those rides and I needed some goal to keep going, like seeing my father’s grave and the ruins of my childhood home. Before that, I needed a Spawn to kill at the end of the road, or to help Rook find that lady friend of his down in Mexico City, or getting Barbie to California, to keep my mind from wandering into the darkness I’ve spent so long alone in, and where I never get even a moment of peace from the hate, let alone any calm. That need was gone this morning and hasn’t come back yet.

I forgot the world, how it smelled, how the road felt under the tires of my bike, how the light shimmers on the horizon on hot summer days, how creamy the clouds look. I forgot what freedom felt like long before I got it back. I even forgot I wanted it back. But I do now.

I also forgot how good a woman could feel and taste. I remember it clear as day now, Barbie reminded me, and I’ve been enjoying her warm and soft body pressed against my back. Very much so. I still say she should run away from me, but I’m starting to think it’d be nice, if she stayed for a little while longer anyway.

It’s just past noon and the bright sun is reflecting off a body of water in the distance.

“Wanna stop at another lake?” I ask, since we’re going slow enough for her to hear me, which wasn’t the case on our previous rides.

She smiles brightly at me through the rearview mirror, brighter than the sun. “Yeah, I do.”

It’s the least I can do, since I ruined our last trip to the lake. That was a good idea she had, to stop there, just the timing was off. But the timing feels pretty good right now, and we got plenty of time. I speed up so we can reach the lake faster.

“We should go for a swim,” she says as she climbs off the bike once we do.

It’s a hot day today, more summer than fall, and a bunch of people are already doing just that.

“The water’s gonna be damn cold,” I inform her.

She shrugs. “I’ll take it. I haven’t been swimming in years.”

“Me either,” I admit, and her eyes turn soft and sad. Pitying.

“I can’t imagine being locked up for that long,” she says, and I don’t much like this additional reminder of what she’s letting me forget. The pity in her eyes is already plenty. “I love to just go walking sometimes. Like for miles and miles. I can’t imagine not being free to do that.”

Her pity isn’t as infuriating anymore after she tells me all that. But then again, I’m getting used to her saying exactly what needs to be said.

“I’m not in the mood for a hike right now,” I tell her and grin, since I was never the best at knowing what to say and when. Maybe she really wanted to go for a walk, and I ruined it for her. But I was always good at speaking my mind, and I don’t want to go walking. Right now, I want to watch her swim naked.

She grabs my hand, laces her fingers between mine and squeezes tight before she starts pulling me towards the water.

“That’s fine,” she says. “Because today I want to swim.”

She lets go of my hand once we’re almost at the lake and gives me a mischievous grin. “Stay right here.”

Then she walks the few feet to the water’s edge and stops near a family of five. She unzips her jacket, slides it off and tosses it on the ground by her feet. I only fully understand that she’s stripping for me, once she pulls off her t-shirt slowly, twisting her body just so and making a show of it. She tosses the shirt at my chest then starts peeling off her skin-tight jeans equally slowly, ass towards me and out, a very large smile on her face as she looks over her shoulder at me. But it’s probably not as big as the one on mine.

She’s wearing a red bra and a red thong, and I already saw both when she put them on this morning, but I could watch her all day. I have the urge to whistle at her, and I do it, which only works to alert the people who weren’t already staring at us to turn their heads and gawk. But I don’t care. She’s a gorgeous woman and I want to be looking at her. And I want her to know just how much.

“Better leave the rest on, this seems like a family sorta place,” I tell her as I join her by the water’s edge. Not that I care. I don’t really notice anyone else right now, not even the ghosts in my head. Just her.

“Let them look. They’re all just jealous because we’re free and we can do whatever we want,” she says as she wraps her arms around my waist and kisses me.

Every time we do that, the ghosts retreat to some very far off place in my mind. And right now, that’s even more pronounced, because they’re gone. The kiss just lasts and lasts, my hard-on getting painful enough to forget we’re not alone here. Or to not care that we aren’t. Either way, it comes to the same thing. I want her and I need her, and that’s all I care about. Hopefully the ghosts won’t come back, and it’ll stay that way for the rest of the day and the night too.

She slides my jacket off while we’re still kissing, unbuckles my belt right after and only stops to help me pull my t-shirt over my head.

There won’t be much of my hard-on left after I get in the icy water that she starts leading me into, but that’s alright, I’m sure she’ll take care of that too.

The ocean would be better for this, but Cali’s far off and it’s not going anywhere. And this is a good day. Better than any I still remember clearly.

* * *

Barbie

I wanted him to take me right there in the water, even though it was so cold it took my breath away when I entered it, but that would’ve been too over the top. A lot of the people on the lakeshore removed themselves while we kissed and splashed around and did everything, but actually have sex. If we did that, someone would’ve called the cops and then we’d probably end up getting arrested, and be forced to spend the night apart, each in our own cell.

This is much better. We found a secluded spot under some trees right by the water and I’m leaning on him as he leans on a rock, his skin hot and soft against my back, his even breaths calming as I watch the sun descend towards the water in the distance.

I’m all soft inside from the last orgasm he gave me, sated and content. He’s spent for now, his cock soft as it presses against the small of my back. I’ll want more soon and I’ll want it all over again after that, but this is nice too, very nice.

“You know, I don’t remember the last time I felt this comfortable with a guy,” I blurt out, and I wasn’t exactly planning on voicing this particular thought right now, but it still feels good to tell him that.

He chuckles, the movement of his chest tickling my back. “Come on, Barbie, there’s no need to feed me lines like that anymore. You got me for the time being.”

He sounds like he really means all of what he just said. Both that I have him and that it’s only for the time being. I bet his eyes are all wintery right now too, and am proven right as I look at him over my shoulder.

“I’m not just saying that,” I tell him, because it’s important for him to know “I mean it. And you should take that as a compliment, because I’ve been with a bunch of guys before you.”

His eyes harden some more and even that grin on his face seems to be carved from ice now. “Yeah, we already established that. No need to keep reminding me.”

“Alright, I won’t,” I say sheepishly, probably blushing a little, since, yeah, why the hell would I want to bring up the fact that I’ve slept around lots. Guys hate hearing that, they like to think the women they’re with are all virgins.

I lean back against him, take his left hand in mine and start studying the lines on his palm. His love line is deep and even, but it starts later than mine, I notice as I compare them against each other.

“You reading my palm now?” he asks mockingly.

He doesn’t take his hand away though.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what that fortuneteller told me,” I say, staring at my love line.

“She was just an old fraud who wanted your money,” he says.

“Yeah maybe, but it’s not what she said that I’ve been thinking about,” I say and grin back at him. “It’s this break in the love line on my palm. See, here?”

I show it to him, so he’ll know what I’m talking about.

He takes my hand and peers at the spot I’m showing him, probably more to humor me than because he’s taking this seriously, judging by the mocking half-smile on his face.

“I figured out what that gap means,” I tell him before he can say something mean. “And your palm confirms it.”

“Oh, yeah? How’s that?” he asks.

“I think we were meant to meet six years ago when I first came to your town, only you weren’t there, because of what happened to you,” I say, then pause to swallow hard, since I’m only just now realizing this is a very painful subject for him. But the point I’m trying to make is beautiful. I hope he’ll see it that way too. “So it took that long for us to meet, but now we did. And your love line starts later, kinda at the same spot where mine takes up again. Don’t you think?”

I open his palm to show it to him next to mine, and I’m kinda afraid to look back at him to see his reaction, but I gotta see it. Then I wish I hadn’t looked, because that’s not just winter in his eyes now, it’s a blizzard.

“I think palm reading is a bunch of bullshit,” he says in an ice cold voice.

I should’ve seen this coming, since most guys freeze up when love becomes the subject of a conversation, and this particular conversation must be painful for him in other ways too. I better take this down a notch, if I want to spend the night here in his arms and not the other way around, on the back of his bike with only my arms around him. And I really want that first option.

He’s not yet ready to completely give into the rightness of him and me being together the way I am, but we’ve been progressing in leaps and bounds, and I’m sure he’ll join me here soon.

“Yeah, maybe,” I say, backtracking as I release his hand.

I shift and rub my butt against his cock, which begins to harden just from that little attention. “But going back to what you were saying before, I bet you were real popular with the ladies too, big boy. So don’t even try to act all high and mighty with me.”

He groans and grinds his cock into my ass, squeezing my breasts at the same time. He somehow always manages to pinch my nipples just so, making me give out a sharp “aaahhh” and forget what I was thinking.

“Oh, Barbie, where the hell did you come from?”

He doesn’t even wait for an answer, probably because he’s now afraid I’ll start talking about love lines again. Instead he kisses my neck hungrily, hitting the exact right spot as he pinches my nipples just so again.

“I’ve always been right here, waiting for you,” I say anyway, amid the moans and aahhhs his lips and his hands are coaxing out of me, because it’s the truth as I see it.

He doesn’t say anything to that, but his kisses, nips and bites get wilder, and amid all this undivided attention he’s giving me, I grow even more certain I’m right. But soon, I can’t think anymore.

I’m stroking his cock as I moan and writhe in his arms, and under his hands and fingers, which know exactly what to do with my body to give me the ecstasy every woman wants, but I’ve finally found.

It doesn’t take long before the first sounds of the freight train of our lust and passion start hitting me. Before I know it, my knees and my palms are getting scraped up against the gravelly ground, his cock inside me, its thrusts opening up vast plains of pleasure that’s beyond this world and the next. I feel no pain, only lust, only enjoyment, only the rightness, only the sense of belonging that only he can give me.

He goes so deep into me, yet there’ll always be more room for him to take me out of this world and into another, one where all thinks sparkle and pleasure and laughter is possible all the time.

Before long, I can’t even hold onto that thought anymore. His thrusts grow faster, go deeper still, and I’m writing and begging for a reprieve, even as I offer my pussy to him willingly, not moving away but pushing back to meet every one of his thrusts. I can’t take this much good all at once, I’m not used to it. But then I get used to that too.

The setting sun is inside me now, making everything burn and shine, but not painfully, no, everything is just right, just perfect, just exactly the way I always wanted it to be. The river of my orgasm washes over it all, the light inside me reflecting off water, which can’t douse the sparkling enjoyment, the bliss, the electric pleasure that only he can drown me in. And I him. Because I know that’s a fact too, even if he doesn’t yet.

* * *

Ice

She’s asleep in my arms and it’s getting cold, but I don’t want to move and put more wood on the fire, the few glowing embers of which are the only thing still fighting the pitch black night.

She talks a good game, this Barbie does. So good I almost believe her, almost believe that I could be the guy I was before for her. I do believe her when we kiss, or when I come inside her sweet little pussy, because at those times all that matters is how good she feels, and how good she makes me feel. Better than I thought I’d ever feel again.

But it all crashes once the passion is spent. Like right now, when she’s asleep. That strip show she gave me by the lake took me right back to the time before Lizard, when life was all about having as much wild fun as I could cram into it, and I’ll always be grateful to her for giving me that back even if just for an afternoon. Because even that’s fading now too.

It’s easier not to think about what could’ve been and wasn’t, easier to stand being alive at all, while I listen to her speak. She has a pretty face and everything else on her is pretty too. Together with that good mouth on her and her good pussy, the whole package is weirdly perfect with her, I can’t deny that. But I’m just her ride and she’s just the girl I stole from someone else. And I’m just a guy who said goodbye to living and loving a long time ago.

Even as the last of the embers of our fire go out, the bad memories don’t overshadow this great day we shared, the first in a year of days that were good but not in a good way. They were just good in a bloody, murderous, revengeful and angry way.

Even remembering all that, I still prefer to just fall asleep with her in my arms over anything else. For the first time in seven years, anger, hate and regret aren’t the last thing on my mind as I start to doze off. Maybe they won’t be the first thing on my mind when I wake up. But that’s probably a stretch. She just tired me out today with her good mouth and her good pussy and her thirst for life, which I don’t understand where she gets from.

* * *

No such luck on waking up feeling good. Seven’s snarling face seconds before he died is burned over the image of Lizard holding his stomach, his black guts glistening in what little light came into the back of the van where I killed him. Even with my eyes wide open, I still see that part of my dream clearly. The sun’s up, but it’s not reaching the secluded, wooded area where Barbie and me spent the night. The fire is crackling and burning well, but she’s gone. All her clothes are gone too. And I feel sick.

But before I even fully comprehend how all those things are connected and tied together, she comes charging up through the bushes, holding the white scarf that crazy palm reader gave her, and smiling brightly.

“Good, you’re up,” she says as she kneels on the ground next to me, and gives me a warm and sweet kiss.

I don’t kiss her back, since I’m still trying to put everything floating around in my brain into some sort of coherent order. The last thing I was thinking before she showed up was that she’s probably better off disappearing on me. And that made me angry, because it’s not what I want.

She pulls back from the kiss and pouts at me. “What’s wrong?”

I shrug, since I don’t even know where to begin explaining any of that to her. But I do know her eyes are bright blue even in this grey half-light of a cold dawn, and that I really like looking into them.

“Did you think I left?” she asks, gasping a little but trying to hide it. “I just woke up real early and felt like taking a walk. It’s been awhile since I’ve done that. I built you a nice big fire, so you wouldn’t be cold while I was gone.”

She points at the fire, but whatever she sees in my face makes her smile droop sadly.

I don’t want her sad. I want to drink off this vibrancy she carries inside, which seems to have no end. So I don’t waste any time, just pull her to me and kiss her like I should’ve done as soon as she showed up, because that’s the only thing I really wanted to do, and it makes perfect sense even when nothing else does. Once she kisses me back and settles into my lap, the rest falls into its rightful place too, receding right to the back of my mind where it belongs now that it’s all said and done.

The sun is much higher in the sky when we finally stop kissing, but that fire she built is still burning brightly.

“You make one hell of a camp fire,” I tell her, smiling at her half closed eyes and glistening, swollen lips. “A better one than me.”

She smiles too. “I was dirt poor growing up. No central heating, and no money to pay for it even if we had it. So it was either learn to build a good fire or freeze to death during the night. I learned to build a good fire.”

“Yeah, you did,” I say and brush a lock of her hair that’s obscuring her eyes back behind her ear. I’m not just talking about an actual fire right now, I’m talking about the metaphorical one she lit for us too, for me, the one that’s thawing up things inside me I thought were gone for good.

“Let’s get some breakfast, babe,” I tell her, smacking her ass lightly. “Unless you got good at hunting for food too, while you were growing up dirt poor, I mean. Then we can stay right here.”

I laugh at the outrage on her face, and get smacked on the arm for it. “Hey, no need to poke fun at me.”

“Yeah, I can’t hunt worth shit either,” I say and grin, then kiss her again, because in a lot of ways, she’s the only thing I’m hungry for right now.

* * *

Barbie

He was brooding hard when I returned from my walk, totally stopped while we were kissing, but he’s kinda doing it again now as I push the last piece of my blueberry pancake around on my plate, because I’m absolutely too full to eat another bite.

“What’s on your mind, big boy?” I ask, since I’m not gonna figure it out on my own and he’s shown that he needs some prodding before he starts telling me stuff. And also that he feels better once he actually does tell me.

He shrugs and takes a long gulp of his coffee instead of answering. But I don’t say anything, just wait for him to start talking. Sometimes it’s better if I don’t talk and with him, I’m learning very quickly when those times are.

“I’ve been doing some math in my head,” he finally says, once he realizes I’m not gonna fill the silence with my yakking this time.

“Math’s a waste of time,” I interject into his pause, since I can only get so far out of my chatterbox nature. “At least, I always thought so.”

He grins, which is softer than the expression that was on his face before, but not by much.

“Well, this is the useful kind of math, the one that tells me we’ve been on the road long enough for that boyfriend of yours to recover and mobilize,” he says and the mention of Brick makes me queasy. I wanna say he’s not gonna come after me, but I know him too well. He’s gonna try.

“He’s probably already coming after us,” he adds, echoing my thoughts.

“And good luck to him finding us,” I say. “We’re lost in the middle of nowhere. He’s dumb and old, and he’ll forget all about me soon enough. In fact, I bet he already has on that night we ran away together.”

“What about that other guy?” Ice asks, grinning. “The one he was handing you off to?”

That one’s trickier, and the thought of it makes me even more nauseous. “Razor’s been after me for a long time, like stalking me and shit. But he’s gotta give up eventually and this is a great time for him to finally learn that.”

I laugh after I say it, but his face stays stone cold serious.

“He knows who I am and who I’ve been riding with,” he says and just by his tone alone, I know that this is the main reason why he’s been brooding all through breakfast.

“I thought you had no one,” I say, more quietly adding, “Like me.”

His eyes grow a fraction softer. “I told you I had help getting my revenge on the Spawns. The guys from Devil’s Nightmare MC helped me. They freed me and then they helped me kill them all.”

The way he says that last makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up like I’ve been caught in a very cold breeze. But maybe that’s also because he mentioned the Devils. I’ve heard of them, everyone has, and no one likes to say much about them, one way or the other. But everyone knows that they’re stone cold killers who’ll murder anyone if the price is right.

“Brick will never go against the Devils,” I say. “He’s too scared of them. And I’ll bet Razor is too.”

He grins, doubt clear in his eyes. “You heard of the Devils? Or did you just date a couple of them too?”

I shake my head and I don’t like his insinuation, so I’m gonna ignore it. “Everyone’s heard of the Devils. Stories about them are like children’s scary stories for adult bikers. Brick won’t go to them looking for me.”

He barks a laugh. “They’re not that bad. My sister is their president’s old lady, and she’s having his baby. I’d rather not risk any of their lives on the assumption that Brick and Razor are a couple of cowards.”

“Your sister is alive? I thought she was dead too,” I say way too brightly and excitedly for what I’m actually saying, but right now I’m just really happy that it’s so.

He nods, but the expression on his face is far from happy. “I caught up to Lizard and the rest of his scum just in time to save her on that night when they murdered everyone else. He was gonna keep her alive and do things I’d rather not think about to her, but I stopped it. I was gonna kill him that night, or die trying, but instead I prevented him from taking her and let myself get taken instead.”

I’m getting teary-eyed listening to him and I practically never get teary-eyed over anything. The last time I cried was when I lost my baby. I grab his hand in both of mine and squeeze reassuringly. He doesn’t pull it from my grasp, but it’s dead weight in mine.

“Nothing will happen to your sister, she’s safe,” I say. “We won’t go there and that’s that. Even Brick and Razor won’t demand the return of someone who’s not there to be given back. They’re dumb, but not that dumb.”

The half smile he gives me suggests I’m the dumb one. “Men retaliate for all sorts of reasons, big or small. What Lizard did to my father and our MC, that was over nothing at all, a dumb turf dispute that shouldn’t have escalated into a war, but it did. For years, I believed my sister was dead, because Lizard lied to me and told me he found her and had killed her. I believed that right up until the moment the Devils’ president told me he freed me for her. I don’t wanna mourn her again. I don’t wanna mourn any of them.”

He’s not calling me dumb, I was wrong about that. He’s apologizing. Apologizing to me, because he thinks he can’t save me from Brick and Razor. And he’s sad because he’ll have to let them have me, if they find us. I don’t know much, and I’m a simple girl, but I know all that, and I know I’ll never let him just hand me over to someone else without a fight. Because I know we’re meant to be together.

I get up without letting go of his hand and walk over to his side of the booth. “Scooch over.”

He looks at me questioningly, but does it. And all those things I know make even better sense once I lean in real close to him and only let go of his hand so I can wrap my arms around his waist. “We’re in this together, Ice. I’m not going back to Brick, and I know you don’t want that either. So we’re just gonna have to figure it out.”

“That’s kinda always been your plan, Barbie, hasn’t it?” he asks. “Just go with the flow, come what comes?”

I nod and smile at him. “Yes, and now you came. And that’s all I ever wanted. I’m not letting you go.”

He shakes his head even as he wraps his arm around my shoulders and hugs me tightly. “Life’s not that simple.”

“Yeah, it is. It’s as simple as you and me right here,” I say and kiss his cheek. “Besides, you didn’t steal me from Brick. You fought them for me and they lost. Even dumb bastards like them understand something like that. Brick didn’t want me anymore anyway, and him and Razor were never very good friends. I doubt we’ll ever see either of them again. Especially not if it means messing with the Devils.”

That might be a bit of a stretch, but it makes sense too.

“I hope you’re right,” he says and kisses the top of my head, the last of the tension finally leaving his body. It was always there in the beginning, gone for the last day or so, came back while he was talking about his fears, but now it’s gone again and it better never return.

“Hope’s really all that matters. It’s what gets you out of bed in the mornings,” I say.

“Yeah, but wanting to kill someone in revenge works just as well,” he says, all cold and tense again. This is something he knows and I don’t, so a good reply escapes me.

He’s not waiting for one though. He just leans down and kisses me, his hand slipping under my t-shirt, squeezing my belly as his tongue invades my mouth. And I forget trying to find something to say, forget the cold stab to the heart his words felt like, forget everything but my sparkling, glowing hope that we will figure this out.

“Hope is better,” I mutter, the reply miraculously appearing once his lips leave mine.

He grins. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

He kisses me again and after awhile of that, I’m sure we don’t even need to hope for anything, because all we’ve ever wished for is already ours.