The Bare Bones (The Bare Bones MC) (27 page)

“Oh.” If I told Speed where I was, he’d be obligated to tell Ford. The end result would be one of two disasters. A, Ford would come and find me. Violence would ensue, and I couldn’t have that in my life again. Or B, Ford would
not
come and find me, in which case I’d be insulted, offended, and lonelier than ever. No. I hadn’t told Speed where I was. We talked once in a blue moon, but I had a new Arizona cell number. Even if he was tech-savvy, like I knew Ford and Turk were, he’d need my actual phone to put any sort of GPS tracker on it.

I sighed deeply. “I was thinking of telling Speed where I am.”

Sabrina gasped. “
Seriously?
Oh my God, Maddy. I think that would be the best thing in the world.”

I hurried to say, “You know what that means, though.” Just the merest thought of it was making my heart race. I was trying to dump out a dead plant from a flowerpot with one hand, banging it against the edge of a potting sink. “It means he’s going to be obligated to tell Ford.”

“Not necessarily. If Ford doesn’t know that he knows, it would never occur to Ford to ask. I know what you’re afraid of, Maddy. Your worst nightmare is that Ford doesn’t
care
enough to even
look
for you.”

“Yes,” I admitted tersely, and picked up another pot to bang against the sink. It turned out there were bulbs buried deep inside the pot, so I’d just killed them. They just hadn’t been watered inside the greenhouse all winter. They lay in the sink like stale marshmallows. “That
is
my worst fear. But I do miss feeling close to my brother, being able to be honest with him, telling him about my life here in New York. If he could know where I was, I could share with him details about my life.”

“Fidelia,” Sabrina pointed out. “You could tell him about Fidelia.”

“Well, let’s not get carried away. We could maybe reminisce about the babysitting days when he used to watch Anna change her shirt, even though Anna’s still flat as a board.”

Instead of laughing, Sabrina sighed, as though she pitied me. Her voice was now tinged with the shadow of her mother’s pedantic counseling tone. “Maddy. Fidelia is Speed’s
niece
. She’s his
family
. He’s going to kill you when he eventually finds out he’s got a niece and you never bothered telling him.”

We’d been over this a thousand times. “If I tell Speed about Fidelia, he’s
really
going to be obligated to tell Ford. And then Ford really
will
come rampaging out here.” Or not, as the case may be.

Or not, because he could care less about me. Or the child he might fear has Tay-Sachs Disease.

I could tell Sabrina was pursing her lips now. “It’s
his
child, Maddy. He has every right to know.”

I was sort of glad that Anna’s pale-skinned form was coming from the side kitchen door now. She was pointing frantically in the direction of the street. Sometimes I envied her petite ballerina’s body. I’d never be confused with a ballerina. I was chunky, big boned, “curvy” if you had to use a euphemism.

“Oh, Anna wants something. She’s coming from the house.”

“Nice way of not addressing the issue.” Sabrina changed gears then. “Well, as usual, it’s up to you, Maddy. But that’s a good sign that you want to tell Speed where you’re living.”

“Don’t tell him I said that, though. Let me do it at my own speed.”

“Own Speed.” Sabrina giggled. “Good one.”

I rolled my eyes as Anna stuck her head into the greenhouse door. “Hey, sorry to bother you,” Anna said politely.

“No problem. What’s up?”

Anna waved her arm. “Well, there’s a guy down there on the street. He’s been there about an hour, and it’s starting to bug me.”

I frowned. “Is he reading the meter or something?”

“I doubt it, because he’s leaning on a motorcycle. He’s got his arms crossed and he’s just staring intently at my house and garden. Like, it’s starting to make me uncomfortable. Bill’s not here, or I’d send him over to ask what’s up.”

I highly doubted that the effete little old lady Bill would confront any biker, but I was starting to get a creeping feeling, too. I tried peering through the dirty greenhouse windows, but the sprouting leaves of a willow got in the way, and I could see absolutely nothing. “What does he look like?”

“What’s going on?” asked Sabrina.

Anna crossed the threshold of the greenhouse in order to lower her voice, as though the guy could hear from that far away. “He’s handsome, Maddy. He looks like that picture you’ve got of Fidelia’s father.”

“Oh, crap,” I said automatically. I actually felt the blood drain from my face, and a wave of light-headedness overcame me.

Sabrina’s tinny voice came from the phone in my hand as I dropped it weakly to my side. “What’s she talking about, Maddy? Why is she talking about Fidelia’s father?”

Shoving past Anna, I jogged to a bare spot on the hill. I stood like a scarecrow losing its stuffing, almost too weak to stand. My blood pressure spiked, my heart raced, and all sense of reason evaporated from my head.

There was Ford, just as Anna had said, leaning against his Softail with his boots and arms tightly crossed. As she’d said, he was staring intently, unblinking, at the house, the garden.

And stupid, stupid me. My very first semi-rational thought was how nicely his biceps bulged under the black T-shirt. How nicely his package bulged between his muscular thighs.

I swear. Sometimes. I guess since all the blood had drained from my head, I was left with only hormones.

Then “fight or flight” took over. Before another hormonal thought could distract me, my feet were flying down the hill. Over cement steps, across flower beds that were just beginning to bloom, even between two thorny rose bushes. I flew.

I will never forget his face when he caught sight of me. It’s one of those images that are burned forever onto the backs of a person’s eyelids.

His jaw dropped. A fire lit up his beautiful root beer eyes. He half-rose from his leaning position. As it sunk in to him that I was really running downhill at breakneck speed, he started to step into the street that ran between us. He held up a hand against oncoming traffic without taking his eyes from me.

He actually just stepped right onto a street where people routinely went forty miles an hour, just to stop fucking traffic for me.

I wasn’t about to stop my panicked flight just for some car. Luckily, I see now in retrospect, there happened to be none coming at the moment. I made a beeline right into his arms.

He squeezed the ever-loving out of me. He squeezed me so hard he picked me right up off the asphalt. My face was squished against the side of his neck. He did smell ripe, as though he’d been riding for days, a combination of sweat, exhaust fumes, and fresh air.

I wrapped one tennis shoe around the back of his butt and held on for dear life. Most bikers don’t like
anyone
touching their cut, but Ford had never uttered a word of complaint whenever I had clutched his. No one said a thing for a long time until I whispered,

“You found me.”

He gave me a little shake. “Did you fucking think you could keep me away?”

My heart was literally being wrenched. I needed to breathe. The entire azure bowl of sky above me was spinning. I didn’t want to stop pressing my face into his mane of warm, glossy hair. I clutched the back of his skull, holding him to me, and one hot tear squeezed from the corner of my eye.

How did Ford know I was crying? He drew back a bit and licked the tear from my cheek. “Sugar cookie,” he murmured. “I love you so fucking much.”

I put both feet on the ground and touched the tip of his nose with mine. “How’d you find me? Speed doesn’t even know where I am.”

“Nurse’s board.” His sly little smile killed me.

The fucking nurse’s board! That asshole! I had to laugh, too. All my extreme efforts to remain undiscovered had all been pretty half-assed, once it occurred to Ford he could find me through the Board of Registered Nursing.
Damn
, he was good.

Carried away by the moment, I squeezed his hand. “Put your ride in the driveway by that bush. Don’t take that space, or Bill will kill you. Bill is Anna’s husband and a pretty big jerk.”

I ran halfway up the hill while Ford moved his bike into Anna’s driveway. She stood next to me while I waited on pins and needles.

“I take it you’re happy to see him?”

“Yes, I’m relieved,” I admitted. “I guess him not loving me is out of the equation now, and that’s a giant load off my shoulders. I think I’m ready to face his love.”

“Is it really that awful?”

“Oh, good Lord, you don’t know the half of it, Anna. His love hurts so bad, it’s good.”

“But he doesn’t know about Fidelia?”

“No. Can you take care of her for a few minutes? I’ll get around to it.”

Ford was now bounding up the hill looking like some fucking Roman god—the god of sex, beauty, and seduction. I could see him fresh now through Anna’s eyes. His forearms, corded with muscle, how he moved fluidly like a lion. His dark flashing eyes, quick with intelligence. Dr. Petrie, I know you think I’m some kind of masochist for loving Ford, but don’t you agree some things are just in your blood, in your heart, and you can’t stop or prevent them?

Besides, he’s Fidelia’s father. Oh, why am I justifying anything to you? This is
my
story!

Ford politely shook hands with Anna, and she politely asked him how far he’d just come.

“We were all on the Laughlin River Run,” he explained.

I’d heard of it. It was a giant annual biker rally where folks rode up and down the Colorado River, sometimes going into Lake Havasu City. “You told me you were going to do that this year.” I told Anna, “They’ve got motorcycle vendors, concerts, poker runs—”

“Right. So we were riding out to Kingman, but I just kept going. Something told me to keep riding, so I did. Around Amarillo something told me to take out my phone and google your name. Came up with the New York Nursing Board.”

Naturally, Anna looked a bit concerned. “And it showed you this address?”

Ford was the most adorable thing ever when he admitted, “Nope. That was a bit of trickery on Turk’s part. He’s a computer whiz.”

I no longer cared about any of the details. Just holding his hand close between my breasts wasn’t good enough, and I jerked him uphill, toward the greenhouse.

“I’ll go inside,” Anna called, waving.

In the greenhouse, I pushed Ford back against the potting table. Mounting his leather-clad knee, I put my forehead against his. “You big giant fucking goon,” I said, half-sad, half-ecstatic. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me, rode hellaway cross-country just to get to me.”

“I’d ride hellaway to the end of the planet to get to you, sugar cookie. And you’re making no excuses this time. You’re coming back with me. You’re taking that nursing job in P&E and you’re living in my house with me, and no one else.”

I didn’t answer, thinking about Fidelia. Instead, I drew back and slid his cut off his torso. He didn’t take his eyes off me as I placed it on top of a tray of irises, then yanked his tight black T-shirt over his head. I nearly swooned when his buff chest was revealed. He always knew the effect this had on me—and all women, no doubt—and usually he kicked back and waited, happy to be admired.

This time, though, I gave him no chance. I fell on him like a bitch in heat, snarling and gnawing at his flesh. I chewed his jawbone where the IED’s flash had burned his skin, his Adam’s apple, the luscious pit of his throat. I ran my hungry tongue across his silky clavicle, luxuriating in swirling the tip in the lovely pelt of hair that covered his well-developed pecs. I chewed on his nipple, flicking the barbell that pierced it.

“Ah, God, Maddy,” he cried in a strangled voice. He sank his fingers deep into my hair and guided me lower. “You always know exactly what to do to drive me over the fucking edge.”

I chewed on the silken line of hair that arrowed down the center of those abs. My fingers were suddenly nimble beyond belief as they flew to unbuckle that Bare Bones buckle, the same one he’d had forever, changing it to different belts as they wore out. I left the chaps buckled, liking the tough, down-and-dirty look of them with his beautiful, fat cock jutting out. The shiny mushroom head was deeply purple, needing release, and I fell on it with a vengeance, not waiting to admire it.

A low, resonant growl came from the pit of his stomach as I sank his dick down my throat. I had never sucked a cock so voraciously, and as a teen I was very good at pretending. No, I suckled Ford’s long, pulsating prick as though my life depended on it. I lapped away at the bottom, worrying the sensitive underside until it throbbed with urgency. I laved the shiny, squeaky glans that was so tight it felt about to burst. Ford’s groans morphed into staccato grunts. I knew one tiny little trick and he’d explode in exquisite bliss.

Detaching my mouth for one brief second, I slathered spit all over my middle finger. Ford missed my mouth enough to grunt like a caveman and smash my face back into his crotch. I obliged, gulping down that beautiful limb of a cock while sliding my slimy finger up his asshole.

I went right for the jugular—or the prostate, I should say. That little nubbin of untold delights could be tickled in just the right spot to send men directly into the arms of Cloud Nine.

Indeed, Ford cried out as though a thousand thorns pierced his body.
How delicious. I’ve hit the jackpot right away. He’s never going to forget me now.

I was shocked as hell when Ford tore me from him.

My mouth detached from his erection with a loud pop, and he drew me up to face him. He was lopsided, deranged with lust, just the way I loved him. “
No
,” he declared forcefully. “I’m not letting you get away with that, Maddy. I’m bending you over this fucking table and doing you the right way.”

And with that he tore my little sweater apart, right down the middle, and dove face-first into my cleavage.

I no longer wore the sexy push-up bras. I was actually wearing one of those nursing bras, but they were so cute nowadays, and Ford so frenzied, he didn’t seem to notice. He made short work of the clasp in front and my boobs popped out—larger, more pendulous than he’d last seen. He lapped up a nipple, masticating it between his incisors while I crawled up his thigh.