Petals and Chrome: A Biker Erotic Romance (Flowers of Hell MC) (2 page)

“I’m going to that bar, James,” I said, trying to keep my voice as cool and level as I could, not wanting to betray just how nervous I secretly was about my new plan. “You can come with me if you like…”
 

I watched his face as he thought this offer over, his brow furrowing and his teeth chewing, a slight blush rising to his pale cheeks. His Adam’s apple bobbed wildly in his thin neck as he swallowed back his nerves in an audible gulp.
 

“Fine,” he said. “Give me a minute to get ready.”
 

“How about you two?” I asked, turning to Dave and Julie, who’d started a listless game of cards over at the breakfast nook, their cups of tea steaming in little red travel beakers.
 

“No thanks,” Julie said, smiling a tight, thin-lipped smile at me.

“Yeah, think we’re gonna have an early night,” Dave said. “But you guys have fun…”
 

James shot me an icy look. I could tell he was trying to call my bluff; he still didn’t think I was actually going to go through with my plan.
 

Oh, how wrong he was.
 

§

We walked most of the way down the windy little side road in silence. I could tell James was nervous from the number of cigarettes he smoked as we made our way up the almost pitch-black roadside towards the main highway. Normally he only smoked two or three a day, but he’d smoked double that in the last thirty minutes or so.
 

Finally the ominous silhouette of the roadhouse loomed into view, its neon sign blinking away in the darkness.
 

“Rose, wait!” James blurted just as we were almost outside. “
Don’t
go in there. Please! It’s dangerous. You heard what that old bloke said.”
 

“James,” I said, turning to face him. His thin face looked so childlike and innocent, illuminated by the flashing sign of the roadhouse. “I’m sorry, but I need to do this. And anyway,” I continued. “I’ve been thinking …”

At this I trailed off, not knowing quite how to say the next part, my brain spinning.
 

“Thinking
what
?” he said, his voice cracking nervously, a little froth of spittle collecting at the corners of his mouth.
 

“I don’t think it’s working between us …” I said quietly, unable to look him in the eye, instead focussing my gaze on a ground-out cigarette butt nearby in the dirt of the dusty parking lot.
 

“What the fuck?” James yelped. “You’re breaking up with me? Right here? On holiday?”
 

I knew just how awful what I was doing was; and what shitty timing it was. But right then I felt physically incapable of keeping the relationship going any longer, not even for another minute.
 

I nodded quietly.
 

“I’m really sorry, James,” I said, looking up and meeting his eye.
 

He was about to cry, I could tell by the way his cheeks had flushed red and his wet mouth was hanging open in shock. He swallowed back his tears, wiping the back of his hand roughly against his eyes.
 

“I didn’t want it to end like this,” I continued, “but I just can’t take it any longer. It’s not
fun
, and we’re still young James. We should be having fun. I know this holiday was something we were both looking forward to, for such a long time, but so far it’s been really fucking
boring
, and it’s made me realize that …”

I knew that what I was about to say next would end things for good.
 

I took a deep breath, wondering if I could really say it, right to his face.
 

“Realize what?” James said quietly.
 

“Realize …” I said, meeting his tearful eye once more, “that I don’t love you anymore. And if I’m honest, maybe I never did.”
 

There, I’d said it. I’d finally said the thing that had been weighing me down for such a long fucking time.
 

“Fuck you, Rose,” James said, his eyes narrowing and his mouth turning into a scorned sneer. “Fuck you, you fucking cold hearted bitch.”
 

And just like that, he turned and stormed off the way we’d just come, lighting another smoke with trembling fingers. I watched him go, until all I could make out in the darkness was the glow of his cigarette, bobbing away down the side road.
 

My heart was pounding and my whole body was trembling, but I didn’t feel scared, just exhilarated that I was finally free; that I’d finally told him the truth and ended my shitty relationship once and for all.
 

I wondered what would happen next, thinking briefly about how awful the rest of the holiday would be if I spent it in that cramped, smelly RV. No, I would do the remainder of this trip on my own. People went traveling around the States on their own all the time, right? My flight was still a whole month away — I would hitchhike maybe, or take the Greyhound busses, all around America. Have my own little adventure, starting right here and now by going into this roadhouse, all on my own!

As I walked through the parking lot, I felt my heart begin to drum and my skin prickle out in a cold, electric sweat.
 

I noticed, with a slight shiver of shock and excitement, that right by the door to the bar were a row of motorbikes — large beastly-looking things, with huge black tires and shiny chrome engines. And as I got a little closer to them, I noticed that they all had that same symbol emblazoned on them; the same symbol I’d seen painted on that biker gang’s jacket earlier. It was a red flower, I realized as I got up close to it: a rose, just like me.
 

Okay,
I thought, turning to the dingy, windowless door, behind which I could hear the low hum of male voices and the pulsing rhythmic beat of rock music.
Let’s do this.
 

I pushed the heavy, flaking door open and stepped nervously inside …
 

Chapter Three

The moment I set foot in that bar, it felt like every pair of eyes in the place turned to look at me. I know how much of a cliche or exaggeration that sounds, but it was true. As I made the short walk to the bar, I felt so acutely
aware
of my body, of my bare legs, of my bum and my small breasts, and I hoped to God that points of my nipples weren’t visible beneath the flimsy cotton my sun-dress as like an idiot I’d decided not to wear a bra. I could feel my ponytail swishing behind me as I walked, and I kept my head held high, pushing my shoulders back, retaining as much confidence and composure as I could muster, even though inside my heart was absolutely hammering in my chest, my breath shivering in my throat.
 

The roadhouse was dimly-lit, with a long bar at one side, and chairs and tables at the other, a pool table and a jukebox and a small scuffed dance floor at the far end. All the people in the bar were men; I realized with a start that I was the only female. And the men seemed to be divided into two distinct groups. There were guys who looked like truckers, I guess: dressed in plaid shirts and dirty jeans, swilling back large pitchers of foamy beer, and then, over at the other side were the bikers, a smaller group, maybe ten or twelve of them, all drinking beer
and
shots of whiskey, some of them with shaved heads, some with extreme flesh-tunnels and piercings, some with long sculpted beards, and all of them with tattoos and leathers, emblazoned with that same rose symbol I’d seen in the parking lot.
 

“What’ll it be?” the bartender asked me, in a surprisingly soft, gentle voice. He was dressed in a beer-stained checkered shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, and despite a few faded blue tattoos on his forearms, he looked like a nice guy, his hair greying at the temples, just like my Daddy’s did, and his stubble a comforting salt and pepper color, his skin sun-browned and the lines around his eyes becoming prominent as he smiled down at me.
 

“I’ll have a bottle of beer, please,” I said, so acutely aware of my cut-glass English accent, which seemed to ring out like a bell in the bar, standing out above the rhythmic, pulsating growl of the rock music.
 

“One beer coming right up,” he said cheerily, popping the cap off an ice-cold bottle of Bud. As he set it on the bar and told me the price in a loud voice, he then quickly leaned in and continued speaking in a much lower tone. “Listen, missy,” he whispered, “you’d better drink that up real quick, okay? There’s trouble brewing in here and I really don’t want you to get caught up in it. Just drink your drink,
fast
, and then get out and don’t come back. Trust me. You
don’t
want to be part of what’s about to happen …”

I held his gaze.
 

“Thanks for the advice,” I said with a smile. I turned to leave the bar, then span back on my heel. “Actually, make that a whiskey, too,” I said.
 

He raised his eyebrows, then poured out my shot, the amber liquid quickly filling up the grubby little glass.
 

I downed it in one, feeling the harsh liquid burning in my throat as it made its way down, and I tried to suppress the shudder but couldn’t quite manage to. I washed back the foul taste with my ice cold beer, then turned and walked down the room, past the group of bikers, past a long table of truckers, towards the jukebox in the corner.
 

As I walked, I wondered if perhaps I was taking my newfound freedom a little too far.
 

I knew I was flirting with danger just by
being in here
, and now here was the bartender giving me a friendly warning to get out, too. I knew deep down that I should follow his advice, but another part of me was enjoying herself, finally, for the first time in weeks, in months … No, scratch that: for the first time in my whole fucking
life
.
 

Because what had I really done, up until now?
 

I’d diligently attended a boring girls school.
 

I’d taken my exams and gone off to University.
 

I’d studied hard and done everything I could to make my parents proud of me.
 

I’d met James.
 

I’d lost my virginity to him.
 

I’d taken a boring job at a boring fucking call centre, in order to save up the money to come away on this supposed “once in a lifetime adventure” with him and his friends.
 

And that was it: that was my whole fucking life, up until this point, and it felt like everyone had always been making my decisions for me, first my parents, then my school, and then James.
Well, all that is over,
I decided, right there beside the jukebox in that filthy, dingy bar.
From now on, Rose Adams, you will be in charge of your own destiny. You will make your own fucking decisions …

Just then, the song finished on the jukebox, and spurred on by my new fearless attitude, I fed a couple of quarters into the slot, resting my beer bottle on top of the ancient machine as I flicked through its selections. It was almost all heavy metal and blues rock, but right at the back of the selection cards, I found one old R’N’B collection and keyed in a slow dance number from it, my heart still hammering as the song began to play, spilling out sensuously from the speakers of the jukebox, causing all the bikers and truckers to look over in my direction for the
second
time that evening.
 

Feeling a slight heady buzz from my large whiskey shot, I found myself closing my eyes and swaying softly in time to the song, shifting my hips, letting myself get carried along in time to the sexy, sultry beat, my floaty cotton sundress swishing around by my bare thighs. I was just about losing myself in the music when a voice came out of nowhere.

“Hey, slut.”

The low growl rang out across the bar, heavy with menace and pent-up aggression.
 

I opened my eyes and looked in the direction it came from. A huge hulk of a man — one of the truckers — was lifting himself up from his seat, his eyes fixed on me. I stood, rooted to the spot, as he lumbered towards me, his chin wet with beer, his sizable gut hanging a little over the front of his dirty jeans, and his eyes burning with an uneasy mixture of lust and anger as he headed towards me.
 

“Think you can come in here and dance around like that?” His voice was loud and firm.
 

I didn’t know what to say.
 

I was frozen with shock. This was fast getting out of control.
 

I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came from it. I gulped and shook my head meekly, my heart pounding, my skin prickling with sweat, wondering if I’d bitten off more than I could chew this time. Why hadn’t I just done like the bartender had advised? Drank my beer and gotten the hell out of there? But no, high on the excitement of my new little adventure, I’d taken things way too far, dancing around to try and catch the attention of those stupid bikers.
 

And now this.
 

This guy.
 

Hulking towards me with something downright
mean
smoldering in his gaze. His piggy little eyes were bloodshot and I realized with a shiver of dread that there was no goodness in them whatsoever. As if on cue, the song I’d chosen on the jukebox finished just at that moment, and the whole bar now was plunged into a tense, uneasy silence.
 

“So, you enjoy being a little cock-tease, is that right?” he growled.
 

The whole bar was watching us now. I didn’t know what to do. Again, I shook my head.
 

“And what would happen if I want
more
than a tease? What if I asked you to get down on your knees, right here in this fucking bar, and suck my dick? Would you do that, little girl? Would you be a good little slut and do that for daddy?”

He hissed the words out with pure venom and I could tell, with a queasy pang of dread, that he actually meant them.