Ridin' Dirty: An Outlaw Author Anthology (OAMC Book 1) (45 page)

Her head turned to him, her eyes lifting from watching the feather to meet his. “What?”

Her voice was breathless. He liked that. “When you slid that pretty little foot of yours up my chest.”

Her palm cupped his jaw, her thumb grazing his lower lip as one foot began to stroke up and down his calf. “Can we quit playing now?”

He grinned, nipped at the pad of her thumb and tossed the feather aside. Then he moved over her. “Whatever the lady wants.”

Cole’s voice shook him from his memories, pulling him back to the present.

“Where would she go, Dog? Think.”

Suddenly he surged to his feet. “Let’s go.”

The men followed him as he stomped down the hall and out the front door.

“Where we goin’?” Cole asked as they all fired up their bikes.

“To get Wontons!” Dog yelled before twisting his throttle and roaring off down the street.

“Say what?” Wolf asked Cole.

“Did he say Wontons?” Green asked, frowning. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Hell if I know. Just shut up and come on.”

“He’s starting to go off the rails,” Wolf said, his eyes on the road in the direction that Red Dog had disappeared.

Cole nodded. “Yeah, well if we want to stop that from happening, then we’d better find Mary and do it quick.”

As Red Dog roared across town, his bike rumbling beneath him, he thought back to how happy they’d been that first year.

They’d practically been inseparable.

Fourteen years ago…

Red Dog knew he had to leave town for about ten days for the club’s annual run to Sturgis Bike Week in South Dakota. It was mandatory.

He lay in bed with Mary, his hand stroking her back wondering how he was going to tell her.

“I’ve been thinking about getting a tattoo,” she confessed in a whisper, drawing his attention away from the problem.

He frowned, cocking his head. “A tattoo? Why?”

“Because I want one.”

“Mary, your skin is flawless. It’s like porcelain. Why do you want to mark it?”

“Because there’s something I want to get. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. Don’t be mad, okay?” She started to pout, and he felt himself giving in.

“Where did you want this tattoo?”

“On my back.”

He trailed the back of his fingers over her skin, his mind more on his coming trip than the tattoo. “I’ve got to go out of town for about a week.”

She lifted up to look at him. “You do?”

He nodded. “Sturgis. It’s a mandatory run, our national meeting. I can’t get out of it.”

“Oh.”

“I hate I have to leave you.” He brushed the hair back from her forehead, studying her eyes. “You know that, right?”

She nodded. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too. First time I’ve ever dreaded the Sturgis run.” He grinned.

She smiled back, teasing, “Maybe if you play your cards right, I’ll still be here when you get back.”

His brows shot up, and he chuckled. “Oh, you better still be here, China Doll.”

She laughed and rested her head back down on his chest.

“Tell me about this tattoo you want to get.”

“Uh-uh. I want it to be a surprise.”

“Who’s gonna do the work?”

“The work?”

“The ink, baby. Who’s doing it?” He glanced down and watched her little brow furrow.

“I hadn’t gotten that far.”

“Well, when you do, I know a guy.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, one of my club brothers.” He lifted his arm, showing her some of his tattoos. “He does all my ink. He used to have a shop. Just does it on the side, now.”

“Will he give me a deal?” she teased up at him.

“Pretty as you are, he’ll probably do it for free.”

“Sold.”

He grinned. “He’s my brother, so he touches you, I’ll kill him. You understand?”

She chuckled. “Got it, honey.”

His eyes suddenly narrowed. “You know, they say tattoos can be addictive. You get one, you’re gonna want another.”

“Hmm.” She glanced down at her chest.

“He’s not tattooing your tits, babe.”

“What’s wrong with a tattoo there?”

“Nothing. They’re fine. On another broad.”

“Why not me?”

He ticked off his fingers. “One, I like your tits just the way they are. Two, nobody touches them but me. Three, my brothers
especially
don’t touch ‘em.” His brows shot up. “We clear on that?”

“Yes, sir. Just the back.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “I’d better like it.”

She grinned back at him. “I think you’re going to like it a lot.”

“Property of Red Dog, that’s what you should put.”

“More special.”

“Nothin’ more special than that, China Doll.”

“This will be.”

And he remembered when he’d come back from that Sturgis trip…

Dog rode home, walked in the door and Mary jumped in his arms. He carried her, kissing her as he moved through to the bedroom, kicking the door shut with his boot. Then he set her down, his eyes taking her in. She was in a short kimono robe in vivid red silk. It tied at the waist. He wanted it off her, but he was dying to see the ink she’d gotten. Especially after having stopped off at the clubhouse and seeing the little grin on Crash’s face when he looked at Red Dog.

Crash had been elected to stay behind and watch the clubhouse, partially because he’d busted up his leg that year and was hobbling in a cast.

“What did you do?” Dog had barked at him.

“What you asked me to do.”

“And?”

“And what? It’s some of my best work.”

“I’m gonna like it?”

“How the fuck should I know?”

“Crash—” Dog started in a threatening tone.

“You
better
like it, that’s all I’m sayin’.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, if you’re a smart man, you’ll tell her you love it, whether you do or not. She did it for you. Not sure what the fuck it means, but she said you’ll understand.”

And that had him worried. What if he
didn’t
understand? What if the tattoo’s meaning went right over his head?

So, here he stood, with her in nothing,
he hoped
, but that kimono, and all he could think about was that damn tattoo.

“Let me see.” His voice came out gravelly, even to his own ears.

She turned, looking back at him over her shoulder as her hands undid the sash. She bit her lip as she let the robe slip slowly off her shoulders and down to pool on the floor.

His eyes took in the colorful art that covered her back.
Covered
. From her shoulders all the way down to her ass was inked. He’d expected something small, but not this. Somehow he shouldn’t have been surprised. His Mary, he was learning, never did anything halfway.

He shouldn’t have worried about what the tattoo’s symbolism or meaning would be or if he’d get it. He got it. It’s meaning was vividly clear in a vibrant rainbow of colors.

It was an image of a peacock, its tail down, sweeping low to curl over the top of one of her ass cheeks. Yes, it’s meaning was clear to him. The dance she’d been doing the night he first met her, when she’d seduced him with those damn peacock feathers. The most erotic thing he’d ever seen. She still had a few of those feathers in a vase by her bed, ones he’d often used to stroke sensually over her soft skin on more than one occasion. So, yeah, the symbolism of her tattoo meant something between them.

As Dog’s eyes trailed down over her perfect ass, a part of him wanted to strangle Crash for having tattooed her there. He could just imagine her laid out across Crash’s table, her cute little ass half exposed and Crash with his head bent, putting a needle to her tender skin.

“Baby?” Mary called in a soft voice; shaking him from his felonious thoughts of all the ways he wanted to kill Crash.

“Hmm?” His eyes trailed back up to her face.

“You don’t like it?”

He could see her eyes were practically shimmering, on the verge of tears.

“I thought you’d like it.” Her voice trembled.

“I do, baby. I love it.” Their eyes connected. “C’mere.”

She turned and moved to him.

He lifted her in his arms, and her legs wrapped around his waist. He moved toward the bed and paused before laying her across it. “Is it healed? Are you still sore?”

She shook her head. “It’s fine.”

He laid her back across the mattress, coming down on top of her and settling between her thighs. “I missed you, China Doll.”

Her arms and legs wrapped around him, holding him close. “I missed you, too. So much.”

When the four bikes arrived at a house across town, Red Dog carried his Chinese takeout bag from Jimmy Wong’s up the steps to the door. His brothers dismounted and stood watching him ring the bell.

A moment later an old Chinese woman came to the door.

“Where’s your daughter?” Dog bit out.

She glanced past him at the bikes, and then her eyes returned to his as she snapped out in her chopped off accent, “Where my wontons? No wontons, no talk.” She started to slam the door in his face, but Red Dog grabbed it with one hand and held the takeout bag up with the other.

A big grin formed on her face. “You always my favorite.”

She made to reach for the bag, but Red Dog held it just out of her reach. “First you tell me where Mary went.”

She made another grab for the bag, and he could hear his brothers trying to suppress their laughter behind him. He continued to hold it above her head, which wasn’t hard to do since she was a tiny woman.

“Come on, Mama Wu. You want these, I need some info first.”

She put her hands on her hips. “She came. She left.”

“Where was she going?”

“She tell me nothing. She picked up the boy and left.”

“Billy was here?”

She nodded.

Dog handed over the bag, pulled his phone out and tried his son, but it went straight to voicemail.

“I think she took his phone before she hauled him outta here,” Mama Wu advised him. “What you do this time make my daughter so mad?”

“Hell if I know. You’re daughter is crazy.”

“Mary not crazy. You crazy. You find her,” she ordered shaking a finger at him, and with that she slammed the door.

“Motherfucking hell.” Red Dog sat down on the front step, not a clue where to start. He’d pinned all his hopes on the chance she’d just come home, or at the very least that her mother would know where she’d gone. But this? This he hadn’t expected. That she’d just take off…

He thought back to all the rough spots they’d had over the years, all the heartache they’d dealt with. And they had dealt with it. And they’d come out the other side. Maybe not without a few scars, but they’d made it. Or at least he’d thought they had.

Dog remembered it like it was yesterday. They’d loved each other so much. In the early days when everything was good, Dog never imagined anything could come between them. That was before Mary had her first miscarriage, and then her second, and a third.

With each one, he felt her pull away, drifting away to a dark place where he couldn’t reach her no matter how much he tried. And then the guilt settled deep inside him. Red Dog was a big man. Six four in height. While Mary was as petite as they came. And the thought gnawed at his gut that he was to blame, that she was just too small to carry the child of a big man like him. No matter how much the doctors reassured him that it had nothing to do with that, he still couldn’t let that thought go. It nagged at his brain.

And he feared that perhaps she felt guilt, too. Guilt that she couldn’t carry the babies, guilt that she couldn’t give him all the children they’d both dreamed about and talked about in the early days, lying snuggled together in bed late at night.

Somehow, they’d moved past it and eventually had their son, Billy. And they were happy, so happy. And for years they hadn’t tried again, believing that the child that God had given them would be enough.

Until one summer several years ago when that all changed. Mary had gotten pregnant again. Only this time she hadn’t told him. He’d gone out of town for Sturgis that year, and she’d had another miscarriage. But this time he wasn’t there for her. He knew nothing of the hell she was going through alone.

She had never told him of the pregnancy or the miscarriage.

And then when he returned, she began to push him away, and they grew more and more distant from each other. Red Dog had no idea why or what he had done. And so, as weeks turned into months, his frustration had grown. Mary seemed to grow colder and more indifferent to him with each passing day, until eventually he’d turned and sought out comfort with one of the women that hung around the club, a woman who had meant nothing to him. It had been wrong to do, and he knew it.