Edge of Chaos (5 page)

“Good idea,
Carter, except that we have four crates of guns and no shovels. Unless you plan
on digging with your fingernails, you’re going to have to come up with a plan
B.”

The next couple hours
are just about the longest in Luke’s life. There are so many things that can go
wrong tonight. If a cop happens by, there’s no way he’s not going to see the
nearly destroyed windshield. By the time they finally reach the drop point,
both men are a nervous wreck. The second they explain the destroyed windshield
to the receiving crew, the men get back in their SUVs and split, only to call
them a few minutes later with an alternate location. They actually do it two
more times before they allow Carter and Luke to unload their cargo.

The two bikes in
the back got knocked around but are still okay to ride. Good thing too, because
they have an 8-hour ride ahead of them. It’s nearly dawn before they’re able to
head back home. Neither man is looking forward to breaking the news to the club
about Marty. He was a popular new member and his loss will be felt. As a token
for all their troubles, the client allows Luke and Carter to each keep the
H&K’s they had taken. Carter wanted to keep the LAWs Rocket as well, but no
chance of that.

When they pull up
to their clubhouse, dusty and exhausted, it’s nearly four in the afternoon and
all they want to do is sleep. Gunnar makes them tell and retell their story
until he is satisfied they’ve told him everything. He is, of course, trying to
figure out who the bikers that attacked them were. They all suspect the
Harbingers, but there’s no solid proof. Some brothers want to drive out there
and check out the scene for clues as to the bikers’ identity, but it’s finally
decided that it would be too risky. The cops will likely have the area taped
off and staked out in case the perpetrators return to the scene of the crime. 

Marty’s service is
a low key affair and the brothers forgive and forget the fact that he shot
their hostage when Luke and Carter tell them their wildly embellished tale of
bravery surrounding Marty’s death. No point in telling how he really died,
screaming in terror and falling a thousand feet into the ocean.

Kayla goes down
hard, her body barely breaking the fall before her head strikes the floor hard
enough to make her sees stars. As she fights to stay conscious, her small frame
is crushed beneath the tall muscular biker, Dillon Jones, Sergeant of Arms for
the Harbingers Motorcycle Club.

Using his weight,
he forces her legs apart and enters her with a powerful thrust. The man is a
machine, a veritable jackhammer of thrusting force as he rams his rigid member
deep into her sex. His hands are everywhere at once. He grabs her hair yanking
her head back and bats away her arms as she tries unsuccessfully to fend him
off. He’s tearing, ripping into what clothes she still has on until remnants of
Calvin Klein and Versace litter the floor.

Dillon’s love
making, if you could even call it that, wasn’t always so violent. Sure, there
had always been an element of brutality just beneath the surface, but it
usually didn’t erupt into sheer savagery like today. It’s ferocity, bordering
on sadism, that has her truly terrified and if she were to lose
consciousness…well, that would not be good.

Suddenly, he
stops. He’s looking into her eyes. Perhaps it’s her terrified expression she
can see mirrored in his own eyes that gives him pause; but he stops. Maybe it’s
the way the clothes and furniture are strewn about in a way only a tornado or a
violent lover could make it. Kayla watches the change come over his face and
his expression returns to that handsome young man she fell for so long ago in
high school.

How could that
young, ambitious son of a preacher be so rotten to the core? Maybe he wasn’t.
She remembers how he used to protect her like a fragile rose, lest a single
petal bruise. How exhilarating those days were on the back of his Harley Davidson
motorcycle. She would look down at the pavement watching those yellow strips
fly by, so close, so fast, and so electrifying.

Dillon’s path from
preacher’s boy to outlaw biker had been so completely thorough and shockingly
fast that she’d been powerless to extricate her own life from his, as the young
man she once loved slid down that nightmarish slippery slope into life as an
outlaw biker in the Harbingers Motorcycle Club. And she has been trying to
disentangle herself from him, unsuccessfully, for much of the last year.

The sound of
weeping, great gut-wrenching sobs brings Kayla back from the past with a
painful jolt. Her head aches and her insides feel ripped, torn into and from
the feel of it, she figures she is bleeding as well. Dillon realizes he has her
attention now and looks up at her with his large baleful dark eyes, tears
making tiny dusty tracks down his cheeks.

For the first time
in a very long time, what she sees in those mirrors to the soul doesn’t terrify
her. Instead, all she feels is pity… and a little compassion, and that has
always been her downfall. She's too compassionate and empathetic for her own
good and others often take advantage of her.

Suddenly, the
image of Luke pops into her mind. She remembers his fantastic body; his smooth,
muscular chest crisscrossed with scars acquired in the service of his country.

Now there’s a
man with principles. He is someone who holds his country and fellow man in high
regard,
she thinks
.

She recalls their
first playful exchange as she stitched up yet another wound and wonders why she
didn’t give him her number. Then she remembers that last tattoo she saw when he
rolled over on the table. Suicide Kings, was it? That’s the reason she didn’t
give him her number. How can she fall for yet another biker when she can’t seem
to shake the last one off?

She looks up at
Dillon again. He’s apologizing, promising a life of gentleness and care, never
to lay a hand on her or anyone ever again. He begs her forgiveness and
professes to be glad that Luke woke him up with that ass kicking he’d received.
As she listens to his vows punctuated by sobbing, she wonders how he could have
even convinced himself of what he’s swearing on his mother’s grave. He’s
certainly not convincing her. But if he’s not, how’d she end up in his bed one
more time?

What possessed her
to seek him out? She kept telling herself on the way there that she was just
stopping by to make sure Luke hadn’t permanently injured him. She would just
offer medical care if needed and then be on her way. That was two hours ago.
One more time she fell under the sway of an outlaw biker; never again.

The next day…

Kayla attacks her
breakfast with gusto. It’s not often she eats at Denny’s, and for good reason.
But after the chaos in the ER, losing herself in syrupy pancake goodness is
just what the doctor ordered.

“Hi.” Says a man's
voice behind her.

She drops her fork
halfway to her mouth. It lands on the edge or her plate, rolls off and ends up
in her lap, pancake, butter, syrup and all in one gooey mess.

“Does that happen
often?” Luke asks with a smile, as she tries to find her voice…and a clean
napkin.

He swipes one off
the table next to hers and hands it to her. “Would you like some assistance, Doc?”

She snatches it
out of his hand and proceeds to clean herself up. She refuses to acknowledge
his presence by speaking to him.

With infuriating
confidence, he sits himself down opposite her at the table and flags down a
nearby waitress.

“Coffee please,
and a refill for my friend,” he says with a smile.

“Not his friend,”
she finally says. “But I’ll take that coffee.”

She steals a
glance at him while she finishes cleaning the mess in her lap. He is as
handsome as ever with his messy but sexy windswept hair and facial scruff. His
green eyes twinkle in the sun as he watches her. To his credit, not even once
do his eyes move down to her chest. She can’t tell whether he respects her too
much to ogle or he’s afraid she’ll bite.

“So I was just
riding by and saw you in the window,” he begins.

She looks at his
leather jacket. It’s well-worn, rough around the edges with some of the
stitching coming loose. His patches clearly pledge allegiance to his motorcycle
club, the Suicide Kings. One rectangular patch declares his title as Vice
President while a diamond-shaped patch has the numeral one and a percentage
sign. She’s not familiar with that one and points it out.

“This one? It
simply states that we are the outlaw one percent of all motorcycle clubs, the
cream of the crop if you will. We’re the one- percenters,” he says proudly.

“And who would the
president of your cream of the crop club be?” she asks.

“That would be my
father,” he says.

When he talks
about his father, a dark look comes across his face and she wonders if there's
bad blood between the two.  

It can’t be
that bad if he’s the vice president in his father’s club
, she thinks to herself.

Luke’s coffee
arrives and he uses the time he sips the hot drink to study Kayla. She is the
whole package; smokin’ hot, fiery attitude and brains to match. Her silky blond
hair and her almond-shaped brown eyes give her an exotic look that just adds to
her overall appeal. Finally, he can resist no longer and lets his gaze drop to
her bare shoulders, slender yet defined arms, and then to her chest. He finds the
way the low scoop of her tank top emphasizes her chest infinitely erotic. The
thin black material does little to disguise her nipples as they push their way
through.

She is different! His
last romantic attachments have either been of the military brat persuasion or
the ‘old ladies’, the biker chicks that could never actually become members of
the Kings, but all of them were definitely fun to bang. Most of them weren't
much more than arm candy and pretty much brainless, unlike Kayla.

“If you’re going
to spend that much time staring at me,” she says, interrupting his thoughts,
“you could at least warn me, so I could fix my hair and straighten my bra or
something.”

Luke drops his
eyes as his face turns red.

“You’re blushing,”
she exclaims. “That’s good. Proves you’re not a total heel, at least.”

Luke peers down at
his coffee, at a loss for words. Blushing? How can the vice president of a
ruthless outlaw motorcycle club be made to blush by a woman? Glancing back to
her face, Luke realizes, for the first time, the hold she has over him even
though they have barely known each other. It makes no sense, whatsoever.

Part of him feels
like putting her in her place as he would have done with any other chick; just
stand up and exercise his authority over her, but he doesn’t. He sits there
sipping his coffee and wondering what the hell this woman is doing to him.

Kayla continues to
watch Luke. It’s interesting to see the influence she has on such a tough guy.
She’s sure he’s never blushed before after being caught checking a woman out.
Maybe there’s more to this biker guy than she first thought. Question is where
to go from here? She watches as he takes off his black leather jacket.
Underneath he’s wearing a faded black Metallica concert tee from the Enter
Sandman tour.

 
The guy has cliché
taste in music, at least,
she thinks amusingly.

 He’s got some
guns on him too. The man works out and can kick some serious ass. Dillon was a
grade A tough guy; yet, Luke handled him like he was a child; no contest. That,
of course, begs the question, what exactly did Luke do in Afghanistan? She has
the idea that he was not just some run of the mill soldier. In fact, when it
came to Special Forces, he's probably not an average Special Forces guy either…
Then she notices the hash marks on his arm.

Luke catches her
studying him. “You wondering what these are for, huh?” he asks, pointing to the
strange marks.

She nods, not
trusting herself to speak.

“That’s more like
a first…no, a second date conversation; sorry.”

“What? You’re
assuming that you’ll even get a first date with me. What mak—"

“You’ll date me.
You can’t stand the fact that I won’t tell you what they mean. You’ll date me
if for no other reason than to satisfy your curiosity,” he says with a smug
smile on his face.

“You—how can…I
mean…,” Kayla fumes and sputters, unable to come up with anything fiery to say
in return. His self- confidence both infuriates her and makes her desire him
even more. Finally, she shoves her half-empty plate away from herself and digs
around in her purse for money. She pulls out a ten and plops it on the table
along with a couple ones. She stands up and Luke follows suit. He grabs his
Jacket and steps out of the booth.

“Ready to go for a
ride?”

“Fine,” she snaps
without even thinking. “Let’s get out of here.”

Luke’s Harley is
amazing. It’s a solid black 2008 Dyna Wide Glide with raked-out wide-stance
front forks, giving it a stretched-out chopper feel from the ape hangers to the
bobbed rear fender, no mufflers, and just straight pipes. Portrayed on the side
of the tank is the Suicide Kings mad hatter complete with the 9mm barrel in the
open mouth. Nothing shouts crazy like a suicidal mad hatter! As Kayla positions
herself behind Luke, he fires up his machine. She loves the feel and sound of
the bike’s loud throaty rumble as Luke revs the throttle. He hands Kayla a
glossy black full-face helmet and in turn shoves a flat, black, old-school
helmet on his own head. He skips the strap, pops the clutch and they’re off
with a roar.

It has been a long
time since she last got on a bike. She never trusted Dillon and always felt he
was just a hair away from a fatal accident and that, of course, was a constant
bone of contention between them. Luke’s bike might scream power crazed mal
content, but his actions speak differently; at least as far as she has been
able to tell. She should not have been surprised when the final destination of
their little ride just happened to be his house.

Luke owns a very
old two-story Victorian on the edge of the Berkeley Oakland border. It’s sort
of mustard yellow with a brown trim. The yard needs landscaping, but it’s still
in decent shape. She’s even more surprised to find it halfway clean. Not the
image she had of a biker’s house and nothing like the atrocious apartment
Dillon lives in.

Kayla takes a seat
on a comfortable, black leather couch and accepts a glass of ice water. They
attempt a civil conversation for a while. Finally, Luke sets his glass down on
the coffee table and moves in to take what he came for; sex. Luke’s abrupt,
forward behavior doesn’t rattle Kayla in the least, being familiar with most
bikers’ typical manners.

His mouth finds
hers; their hands pull and tear at buttons, zippers, bra strap, and belts.
Clothes fall where they may, and naked bodies come together like a couple of
powerful magnets. Luke is as aggressive as he is skilled and knows his way
around a woman’s body, and for some reason, especially hers. He reads her signs
of passion, hints of desire, and in seconds her motor is purring.

He takes her, but
not before she’s ready. Kayla cries out in passion as he enters and soon his
moans of pleasure mix with hers, mouths glued together like two wild beasts
trying to devour the other. Luke makes love like no man she has experienced
before. He has the same raw passion and desire that Dillon has, but it’s not
buried beneath a thick layer of violence. Luke is aggressive and takes control,
but he makes Kayla feel like she is the one in control and everything he does
is exactly everything she wants. He’s not taking, he’s giving, and that makes
all the difference in the world.

Without
separating, they move from the couch to the floor; then to the wall in the
hallway, and finally to his bed. He’s on top; she’s on top; they’re side by
side; this way and that; sweating, moaning and crying out in ecstasy; giving,
taking, and finally, collapsing in one another’s arms, spent and satisfied in a
way neither had experienced before. Lying nose to nose, mouth to mouth,
drinking in one another’s breath, it occurs to Kayla that she has broken her
promise to be done with bikers. Now she’s back in bed with a biker. But not
just a biker…a soldier and that, she tells herself, makes every difference.
Tired of the constant conversation between her ears, she finally drifts off to
sleep.

Luke is confused.
How can he be getting involved with a doctor…well, Physician's Assistant? She
can never be a part of his world and he’ll never fit into hers. He’s not an
educated man. Well, not in the same way she is. He’s a soldier and a damn good
one. He can kill a man a mile away with a sniper rifle or just as easily up
close and personal with a blade and he can do it without remorse.

The army
reinforced his skills every day of his life while he was training for years
before his three tours in Afghanistan. They taught him to kill and to eat lunch
afterwards; no qualms, no regrets. He loved the brotherhood he shared with his
fellow soldiers in Afghanistan and he missed it terribly until he became a
Suicide King. Well, a Suicide King the second time around.

He was the only
brother in the Kings that wasn’t initially jumped in. His father was president
and he just grew up a King. After coming back from the war, he insisted he be
jumped in and he’s glad he did. That move earned him the trust of even the most
ruthless members. The process of joining the Kings varies from man to man and
it’s the last part of a long process, beginning with becoming a hanger on.

As a hanger on,
you are allowed to hang with the brothers at the club house and go to club
parties. However, you are not allowed to participate in any club meetings. You
are still an outsider. After you prove yourself as a hanger on, you can become
a prospect if a brother vouches for you in good standing and mentors you. That
is the longest period and can take years. A prospect has all the rights a
hanger on has, including being part of the club meetings and the planning of illicit
activities. Prospects have the trust of the club.

In the end, before
you are patched in, you have one final assignment. For some, it means a three-minute
beating at the hands of four brothers and the result is usually a hospital stay
and a Suicide King’s patch. Other prospects may be required to do one final
task to prove their loyalty to the club. That final task is decided on by the
President, Vice President, Secretary, and the Sergeant at Arms. Luke’s final
task had been a particularly gruesome one. It was discovered that one of their
old ladies had been having an affair with a member of the Harbingers and had
been slipping the Harbinger sensitive information about the Kings and their
illicit activities. It was Luke’s job to grab her and get what information she
knew out of her before killing her. It was a task ultimately suited to Luke
alone and played to his strengths.