Hard Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 1) (11 page)

“A few days?”

“Wrecking Crew likes to party, babe. There's drinking, pot, acid...you know, a party.”

“I think my people would collectively implode if they tried a drug,” June laughed. “And my mother and father haven’t been intimate since probably I was conceived.”

Now Ram chuckled. “Doesn't sound like a great recipe for a marriage.”

Bad soft jazz powered out into the backyard from large speakers posted at regular intervals, mostly near the lights.

“They put their attention in different areas. My mom, for example, probably knows half of the city. So, that’s who she invited tonight.”

“For a homecoming party?”

“Homecoming. College graduation. Engagement, sort of. Honestly,” June squeezed tight on his forearm. It felt like bands of oak. “My mother could throw a party for a rainy Tuesday. It’s what she does.”

There were three grills cooking barbecue, each one with a different kind of meat. The juicy smell of sausage, brisket, and hamburgers filled the air. Ram was actually more dressed up than most of the men, who arrived in polos and khakis if not just plain jeans and tees.

June did not exactly like that she enjoyed it, but she
did
enjoy holding the arm of the most well-dressed, biggest, handsomest man at the party. It was a girlish thrill, one she both rejected and reveled in.

He created many such feelings in her.

“Is that June Colt all grown up?”

David Prince approached them from across the patio. He wore a maroon suit jacket and a deep blue shirt, his brightly polished shoes shining in the torch light. A short blond goatee attended his chin and his well-kept hair was parted to one side, as always. It was as though he hadn't aged a day since June had seen him last. Prince was the mayor of the town of Marlowe and had been for almost as long as Colt had been Sheriff.

He was also one of the few men besides Ram actually dressed up for the dinner, though Prince was notoriously overdressed for everything. This was one of the reasons cited—in quiet conversations, shuffled about in small whispers—that he was suspected of being a homosexual. The people of Marlowe put a whip on the word like they might with “nuclear bomb” or “carrying Ebola.”

The fact that he had a son didn't seem to matter much to them. His wife had divorced him long ago—a scandal all in itself in a town like Marlowe, worthy of newspaper headlines—and he'd never been seen around town courting another woman.

“Hello, Mayor,” said June. “It's nice to see you.”

It wasn't truly, but it wasn't exactly unpleasant either. Her feelings on the mayor—like a lot of people who worked closely with her father—were at their most favorable when they were neutral. There were none that she actually liked, save for her mother and brother.

“Mayor, oh god.” He took her hand. “Call me David, huh? And you, you're the lucky fella?”

Prince took Ram by the hand, who shook it firmly without wavering. “That's me.”

“I hear you're a part of Marlowe's very own Wrecking Crew?”

“That's right.”

“Good for you. Love their bake sale. They've got those,” he snapped his fingers, thinking, “those pecan sandies? Love 'em. You know you're quite brave, landing yourself in this crowd, don't you?”

Ram shrugged. “I don't know that bravery has all that much to do with it.”

“Oh, but it does, son! It does indeed. Brave. Stupid, too, but that's part of brave, so we can leave it out. Anyway, I thought I would say hello before they carry you off in handcuffs.
Nice
meeting you, though.”

He smiled all the while as he spoke, each word brimming with sincerity—to the point where it was difficult to tell which words were jokes, lies, a mixture of both—or just sarcasm. The second he left them he struck up a conversation with another couple, carrying that same tone. He could have been announcing ingredients on a cooking show.

June and Ram passed through the party, never quite staying long enough for anyone to probe too deeply about the nature of her and Ram’s relationship. There were all sorts of beats on the time line that wouldn’t work, but their basic cover story, repeated again and again throughout the night, was that they had met during a long road trip of his and then corresponded over the internet, with him meeting her in Austin every few weeks.

When asked, she built him up as a model boyfriend, always insisting on driving to meet her so he could treat her with meals.

A few women asked to see her ring, and of course June had to comply. Ram had hustled it to her quickly after Theo growled at him in the entry. It was a respectable gold band with a decently sized stone—no way of knowing if it was a real diamond, though June doubted it.

Ram wouldn’t say how much it cost—or even if he paid for it at all.

Honestly, she hoped it wasn't very much. Even for a real marriage, she had never wanted some expensive ring—and certainly with this all being fake (except for the rapidly growing and increasingly undeniable arousal she felt for him) she didn't want to put him out of any money.

Ram continued not to disappoint her intentions with the dress she wore. Its daring neckline drifted his eyes downward every few moments, and she took to holding her breath and then letting it out slowly just to watch his gaze glue onto her chest for longer and longer intervals.

She was playing with fire, turning him on like that. But she couldn't help but enjoy herself.

After socializing for close to an hour and gingerly eating a hamburger (her dress was just a few months old, something picked up after everything with Simon fell apart to help her out on the rebound scene, and she hardly wanted to stain it), her father began to call everyone up to the patio.

“Another speech,” she grumbled to Ram. “He’s always making speeches. Can’t get elected without them.”

“I haven't heard any of them.”

“They’re all the same. They start with, ‘My friends and fellow citizens of Marlowe. What a true pleasure it is to see you all here tonight...’”

Sheriff Colt cleared his throat, holding a microphone feeding loud speakers spread across the acreage. “My friends and fellow citizens of Marlowe. What a true pleasure it is to see you all here tonight...”

June elbowed Ram, who chuckled.

“Come here,” he said, taking her to one side while her father droned on.

He walked with her just a few feet away behind a heavy oak tree, half-dead from the sun. But it was wide enough to block the view of the two of them from the rest of the crowd.

“What is it?” she asked. “Do you still feel uneasy? Because no one will do anything. In fact—”

“You’re too gorgeous for me to think about what any cop is saying.”

Hands, strong and large, roamed up her waist. One landed on her neck, cradling her face just so.

“Oh,” she said. “Well. That’s—”

“I told you to get used to acting like my old lady, didn’t I? My old lady would only dress like that to fuck me whenever I wanted.”

She barely had time to react. God, he was
quick
. His lips came down on hers, a little sweetness and tang from the barbecue leftover on his tongue and hers. But the rest was all him—all of that heady road smell, that easy cool confidence as he pressed her back against the bark.

The bark dug into her dress, her skin, but she didn’t care. Her hands scooped up underneath his shirt, fingertips skating across the surface of those rock-hard abs. Feeling more brave than she had in ages, she took his hand and slipped it up against her thigh, slowly moving it upward. He got the idea.

Soon, his fingers dug in deep to the bare flesh of her behind, spreading her skin beneath the firmness of his grip. His fingers slipped underneath her panties and she felt her body wet and alive at his touch. Fingertips were mere inches away from being inside of her, and everything in her wanted him to close that distance.

“Ram,” she tried to whisper. It was more like a moan.

“Shut up. Don’t think about it.”

That was probably his whole life, wasn’t it? Seeing some action and not thinking about it long enough to realize what a bad idea it was.

It sounded so
thrilling
.

He shifted closer, and she could feel the hardness of him once again—and she knew without a doubt that, no matter how bad of an idea it was, no matter how much it would never, ever work out—she needed to have that cock inside of her body.

It pushed against her thigh, urging itself closer and closer to her entrance from behind its stupid fabric prison. Desperately she wanted to free it...and then enclose it again inside her.

“June?”

Kyle's voice broke her reverie. She pulled away from Ram, struggling not to giggle at the sheer stupid girlish delight at being caught.

He was just on the other side of the tree, looking off toward the party, as if he had not just caught his sister making out. He was dressed in a sky blue polo that fit snug on his form; broad chest but wide gut, strangely skinny legs sticking out like drum sticks inside his jeans.

“Hey Kyle.”

“Can we talk? Alone?”

––––––––

S
he moved with Kyle to another end of the party, sitting with him beside a small gazebo nested between a surprisingly fruitful set of pecan trees.

The request  to speak with her took her off-guard. She wasn't used to talking to Kyle. When she had first left Marlowe, she didn't ever try to contact her parents.

But, she had tried to contact Kyle. She called him frequently, but then he started to not answer the phone. And then she stopped calling—and then stopped answering when
he
called
.
It was worse than a cold war; at least in a cold war, there was a clear cause that was being fought over. Instead with her brother, they were ignoring each other over past instances of ignoring that spiraled down from simple mistakes or misunderstandings.

Kyle was a police officer like his father and cousins, but that was about all the sameness one could find among them. Theo and Sheriff Colt were great stadiums of men, heavily structured with dome-like chests and low centers of gravity.

He was smaller in frame but flabbier in flesh, his hair downy soft and blond. His neck, face, and arms were heavily tanned but Ram could see flashes of pure white skin under his color that looked as though they had never seen the light of day.

“How you been, Juney?”

“Doing okay,” she said. “It's pretty weird being back here all of a sudden.”

He nodded. “I bet. All those years without seeing it. Not being around it at all, and now you're here.”

There was an undercurrent to his voice that didn't quite match with the meek young man she had known four years ago—the man who she would defend from bullies at school, who she would have to stand up for in front of Mom and Dad.

“How are you, Kyle? A cop now? Mom told me, but I tell you, I didn't really believe it until I saw you in the uniform.”

“I bet,” he said again. “Well, I am a cop now, June, believe it or not.” His tone was combative.

She flinched a little. “It's just different for me, Kyle. That's all. I never thought—”

“So you're getting married, huh? To that guy?” He pointed back over to the trees where Ram still stood, leaning on the trunk with his arms crossed. He was sturdy as the oak. “That's weird.”

It was a charade. It was fake. And yet that was information only privy to her and Ram. For other people to question it felt very much impudent on their part, and June was already tired of it.

“It's not weird for people to fall in love, Kyle. They do it every day.”

“It is when people fall in love with criminals. You know he's a criminal, right? You know he's going to drag you down into his shit with him? That's what those people do. I see it every day.”

“God, listen to you. You sound like Dad.”

“Who else would I sound like, June? Who else has been around? Not you, that's for damn sure.”

He had stood up, raising his voice.

The Colts were experts at communicating loudly and always had been. In her time at college, June had found that a great many people didn't deal with anger and confrontation as directly as they did. For each Colt family member, there was a very distinct line between raising their voice, yelling, and screaming. Anyone overhearing right now who wasn't as schooled in the fine vintages of repressed rage might have thought Kyle was having a shouting fit.

“Sit down,” said June, her own voice rising up. “You sound like an ass. Let's talk about this.”

“Now you want to talk? Four years go by and now's a convenient time to talk for June. Sure, that's great. Let's talk. You want to hear me talk?”

Very suddenly, she didn't. But she nodded anyway.

“Good. Here's what I think. I think you're so desperate to piss Dad off that you'd marry any bum that came in off the street who wasn't someone he liked. I think deciding on the rest of your life for that reason is stupid and immature. I think you've got a history of making big, big decisions based on resentment for him and Mom, and if you keep going with that guy, you're going to have hardcore regrets in your life.”

He shook his head. Now he was yelling. “Do you know what the worst part is? The worst part is that you don't think you're stubborn. You think you're just open as shit to anything that comes along. You think that just because Dad's kind of a shit that it gives you a pass to railroad your way past anything else this family thinks. But no, you're stubborn. I'm telling you, straight up, that this is a bad idea and it'll end in heartbreak, and you won't even give that thought the time of day because nobody but you could ever be in the right.”

People were staring without staring, stepping away and nodding their heads over minutely. Kyle's voice had for several moments pushed past the music.

He looked deflated, the anger in his face quickly melting into something else entirely: a mixture of relief, confusion, and embarrassment that June somehow found herself matching with her own expression.

“Kyle,” she said. “I'm sorry if—”

“Shut up.” He said this not harshly, but preemptively, like you might tell someone in the grocery store to skip ahead in line when they only had a couple of items. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Let's not talk anymore. Goddammit. I'll talk to you later on.”