Page 10 of Jacob

The American Motorcyclist Association commented forever ago that 99% of motorcyclists were law-abiding citizens, the implication being the last one percent were outlaws. It became a badge of honor to clubs like the Roughneck Riders and, apparently, Odin’s Fury.

Beneath his outlaw patch, a “Member” tag was stitched under his road name: Romeo. Immediately that half-smile she had for his belt buckle dropped. Heat flamed in her cheeks. What did that mean? A spike of irrational jealousy rippled through her. The idea of him earning a reputation for seducing women had her clenching her jaw, despite knowing it was a ridiculous reaction.

“Why’d you stop writing?” His voice sounded restrained.

His question, his voice—deeper than she remembered, yanked her out of her insecurity. She had no business caring. She had no claim on him. He wanted to be Romeo, some Lothario biker thinking he’s God’s gift to women, let him. It wasn’t any skin off her nose.

Pulling the lollipop from her mouth, she lifted her chin and took a deep breath. “My dad died.” She hadn’t said those words in a few years. She didn’t get out and mingle all that often—pretty much stuck with the Roughneck Riders family and they all knew. Ducky Oliveira died for his club.

“That’s why you stopped going to the rallies,” he argued and stepped further into the storage room. As he ate up the distance between them, it felt as though he filled the space as well. What had felt cavernous before quickly shrank.

Holding her breath, she felt him tower over her. Those intense eyes took hold of hers, refusing to let go, demanding more of her. This close, she could smell him. Stale cigarettes, beer with undertones of some sort of minty-pine combination. She wouldn’t call it a cologne, but it was a unique scent only he possessed.

“Why did you stop writing?” He repeated the question slower this time, annunciating each word.

When she found the ability to breathe, short shaky breaths slipped in and out of her lungs, but words wouldn’t come out of her mouth. The anger from before about his road name and what it meant had dissipated, all but forgotten. How could she think about anything else when he was so close?

She heard the slight whistle in his nose as he breathed. She wanted to wrap that distinct Jacob smell around her. This close to him, even though the lighting in the storage room wasn’t the best, she could see every line, variation, and fleck that made his blue eyes so sharp. If she reached out, she could touch him, and as her gaze drifted south, away from his eyes, below the mustache of his beard, she saw the pink of his lips. Would he kiss her back if—? She leaned in, closing those inches to all but a half-inch, her focus bouncing back up to his eyes, watching for a reaction.

His attention flicked from her eyes down to her lips and back before his hands settled on her hips. White-hot fire shot through his fingers, transferring to her body. Radiating from her hips outward like lightning bolts ricocheting inside her. Time slowed as he tilted his head down toward hers.

Soft, slick, and smooth. The coarse hairs of his mustache tickled. “I’m sorry,” she whispered against his lips.

His fingers dug into her hips, pulling her against him hard. Sure she had approached the sun, the scorching intensity all but overwhelmed her. She had to say more than that. She had to do something. Say something. She couldn’t let this happen, she had a boyfriend.

His lips brushed hers and her body sang, wanting more.

Taking a step back, her breath hitched. Immediately regretting the decision, considering his hands still rested on her hips and that felt way too damn good, she had to put distance between them. He wasn’t safe to be around. Though, she’d give him something. Why had she stopped writing?

Clearing her throat, she glanced down to the floor. “I have to work,” she said because she didn’t have an answer for why she’d stopped writing.

His fingers ghosted along her body as she retreated from his hold. The feeling shouldn’t have been erotic. The barely-there touch shouldn’t have turned her on, and she shouldn’t have an urge to look back.

Her hurried steps through the storage room turned into a trot because the longer she remained in that room with him, the easier it’d be to lose her nerve. She’d built him up in her mind. She’d romanticized him. It’d been seven years. She didn’t know shit about him.

It felt like it took half an hour to make it out the door when in reality it took only seconds. With her hand on the knob, she turned, losing the battle not to look over her shoulder.

Leaning against stacked cases of Jim Beam with one hand in his pocket, he rolled the corner of his mustache hair with the other. He watched her. His gaze never wavered. His concentrated expression locked on her as he stood there in complete silence.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated before she turned back, pushing the door open.

Reality crashed against her with blaring music and competing conversations. She exited the storage room, the portal to her past, with a knot of regret growing in her stomach. She’d longed for that moment, the reunion between her and Jacob. She’d dreamed a million different ways it could have gone. None of them ended as disappointingly as real life. She’d blown it, just like she had with the letters.

Chapter 7

Jacob

Contemplating their exchange, he ran his hand over his beard, stroking the coarse hairs. Previously, in every scenario he ran through his mind where they met again, she’d always answered the question. She’d always had some valid reason. She’d broken both her hands. Or all her fingers had fallen off, and she had an experimental transplant surgery, where new fingers were grafted in their place, and she’d not regained the use of them yet. You know, logical shit. She’d nevernotanswered the question.

Reaching into the inner pocket of his cut, his finger swiped past the letter he’d kept as he withdrew his pack of cigarettes. She’d apologized again. Pulling a Marlboro from the pack, he tapped it against the fleshy part of his hand between his thumb and index finger.

Their barely kiss had been an unexpected surprise. As he rested the butt between his lips, he found himself utterly befuddled. From the pocket of his jeans, he pulled his lighter, sparked it, and took a deep drag from his cigarette. Holding it in his lungs, he stared at the door where she’d just looked back at him with an expression somewhere between wistful and regret.

What the fuck just happened?

As he exhaled the smoke, his burner phone vibrated in his pocket. The club had an endless supply of prepaid flip cell phones. They never did club business on their personal cellphones. Everything club-related was handled on burners that were destroyed and tossed frequently.

Pulling it out, he flipped it open to read the message.

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