Collateral Page 2

“Not that long,” I said. “I was going to say hi, but you seemed a little preoccupied.”

  My eyes floated over towards the brunette who was shooting daggers at me with her beady, eyeliner laced eyes.

  Raze laughed. “I would’ve welcomed an interruption from that.”

  “That’s not your girlfriend?” I asked.

  “Hell no.” Raze looked like he was about to throw up at the thought.

  I smiled, relieved, and said, “Well, I’m here now.”

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. He stared deep into my eyes, and for a second it felt like he was staring deep into my soul. There was some sort of magnetic thing going on between us, an inexplicable charge of electricity. I could feel it, that I knew for sure, but I didn’t know if he could.

  “Who’s this little filly?” a drunken biker asked as he stumbled up to the bar next to us.

  “This is Mia, from the motel across the street,” Raze said. He took a step closer in an almost protective move.

  “Nice of you to join us, Hot Stuff,” the guy said. He was drunk off his ass and slipped an arm around me to balance himself. He tried unsuccessfully to stifle a belch, and I was unfortunately on the receiving end of it.

  Raze grabbed his arm and flung it off of me. “Don’t touch her, Red.”

  “Alright, alright,” Red said as he stumbled away.

  “Thank you,” I said with a sweet smile.

  Raze shrugged and scanned the room to make sure the other guys saw that I was off limits. He reached down and grabbed my hand that was resting on my thigh. He cupped my face with his other hand then leaned in to kiss me. His tongue filled my mouth and he tasted like whiskey, but it was incredibly hot anyway. It turned me on that he knew what he wanted and just went for it. He had no fear. Raze was fearless, and I loved a man who wasn’t afraid to take what he believed was his.

  “I’ve wanted to do that ever since I first laid eyes on you,” he said. He was straightforward, and I liked that.

  “Me too,” I said as I leaned in to kiss him again. “Don’t stop now.”

  Raze kissed me back, and suddenly I forgot where I was. The loud thumping music and the smoke filled air all suddenly disappeared. We were in our own little world.

  “We’re probably not the safest people for you to hang around,” he said. His eyes shifted to the ground and then back up to mine. “You’re a nice girl, Mia.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You wanna be a Black Ice girl?” he asked.

  My heart skipped a beat. “I think it’d be kind of cool actually.”

  “No, no,” Raze said as she shook his head. “It’s not cool.”

  “Okay. Explain.”

  “We have rules. They’re not my rules. They’re club rules,” he explained. “You have to get initiated.”

  “Like how?”

  “There are things you have to do,” he said. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re too nice to be in our group, Mia. Trust me.”

  “I can be naughty,” I insisted, trailing my finger down his muscled bicep.

  “See Misty over there?” He nodded towards the brunette bitch. “Those are the kinds of girls who get initiated. They’re loose and fast. They have a past. They’re used to taking shit from people. They’re not sweet and innocent like you.”

  “I have to get out of this town. If I don’t leave with you, I’ll probably stay here forever,” I replied. My eyes pleaded with his. I just wanted a chance. “Take me with you. I’ll do anything.”

  “Sometimes we have to share our girls,” he said. “I couldn’t share you, Mia. Not with those guys.”

  “So can’t you leave the gang and we can start our own little gang?” I said with a flirty smile. He seemed to be growing annoyed at me for not taking him seriously.

  “I’m stuck with these guys for life.” He stared down at his almost empty glass of whiskey. He shot the rest of it and then slammed it on the counter, almost shattering the crystal. “I don’t have a choice.”

  “Of course you do,” I argued. “Everyone has a choice.”

  Raze slipped his strong hands around my tiny waste and pulled me off the bar stool and closer to him. I looked over his shoulder to see the Misty fawning over another guy in the gang, and then I saw a group of older members all foaming at the mouth as they stared at Raze and me.

  “I’m telling you, I can’t,” he said as he looked me stern in the face. “I can’t do that to you.”

  “Maybe it’s not up to you. Let me decide. Tell me what I have to do,” I demanded as I looked him square into his beautiful blue eyes.

  “Our initiation requires demonstration of…sexual skills. The women of the group are expected to serve,” he said. “The first year, you belong to all of us. After that, you pledge your exclusivity to one of us. In return, we promise to honor and protect our women.”

  I liked the idea of being exclusively Raze’s, but I wasn’t sure if I could make myself do those things with the other men. I sat quietly as I thought about it. This was going to be my only ticket out of here. The only way I could be with Raze.

  “Do yourself a favor and say no,” Raze pleaded. “I don’t think I can share you. You’re not even mine yet and the thought of sharing you makes me angry.”

  “Think of the end result,” I said. “That’s all that matters. What’s one year?”

  Raze shrugged and looked down at his boots. His biceps tensed and flexed a couple times.

  “You’re the sweetest girl I’ve ever met,” Raze said. “I hardly know you, but I know that you’re not like the others. I don’t get to be around girls like you that often.”

  Raze nudged towards the brunette across the room that was hanging all over one of the men.

  “She’s being initiated right now,” he said. “It’s her second week. Jimmy found her over in Tulsa and she latched onto him somethin’ fierce. Though I have a feeling she’d rather be with me.”

  “Have you…have you done things with her?” I asked, although I didn’t want to know the answer.

  Raze shrugged. “Not because I wanted to. As the vice president, I’m expected to participate in certain rituals.”

  “I see,” I replied. I could feel a frown forming on my face as a shot of jealousy coursed through my body, though I tried my best to hide it.

  I took a couple swigs of my gin and tonic. “Ah, what the hell. Let’s do this.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked with winced eyes. “You don’t have to do this, Mia.”

  “I want to. I want to be with you. I want to travel the country on the back of your bike,” I replied. “I’m one-hundred percent sure.”

  I could feel my palms start to sweat as I realized what I’d just agreed to. I was going to be a biker slut for a whole year. Those greasy, hairy men would be able to touch me and have their way with me, but after that year, Raze would be all mine and I would be all his. If I could keep focused on the end goal, this would be worth it all.

  “I’ll be right back,” Raze said as he slowly stepped away. He walked over to a couple guys standing by a pool table drinking beers. I saw them look towards me and nod. One of them walked over to another guy and nudged him, and then I saw them point towards the motel.

  Raze came back over to where I was standing. He leaned down and gave me a tender kiss, his five o’clock shadow tickling my soft cheek.

  “You really don’t have to do this,” he reminded me.

  “Stop before I change my mind,” I said as I playfully batted his tatted-up arm. His muscles were rock hard. I swilled the rest of the gin and tonic back and guzzled it down. I got one more shot and quickly gulped that down as well. I needed a little bit of liquid courage.

  “Let’s go,” Raze said as he grabbed my arm and escorted me out of the bar. “I’ll be there the whole time.”

  “Okay,” I said. My palms were sweating again, and I wiped them on my jeans. My heart felt like it was about to fly out of my chest at any moment.

 
“You’ll be fine,” he said. “The only requirement is that you do what they ask and you never say no.”

  What could they possibly ask of me? I wondered. They seemed like hot-blooded, All-American men. They shouldn’t be that hard to please.

  Raze led me to motel room number six. It was his room. He unlocked the door, and we went inside. I took a seat on the end of the bed. Raze seemed nervous and paced back and forth.

  “Raze, you’re scaring me,” I said.

  “I just don’t want to share you,” he said. He ran his fingers through his tousled, dark hair.

  “When are they going to be here? Maybe we can get started without them? Then you can have me to yourself for a bit?” I said with a flirty smile.

  Almost without warning, Raze lunged at me like a lion attacking his prey and pinned me beneath him. He buried his face in my neck and nibbled my ear. He ripped my camisole off and over my head and I tore his vest and top off. He kissed my mouth hard as he reached his hand down and unfastened my pants. He slipped his hand in and slid a finger down between my pussy lips as he massaged my clit. I wanted Raze inside of me, and I wanted him bad. His hot mouth encompassed my left nipple as his right hand massaged my right breast. He was rough to say the least, but it felt good. I reached down and slid my jeans and panties the rest of the way off. I was completely naked underneath him now, and there was no going back now.

  “I want you so bad,” Raze heaved.

  “Me too,” I sighed back. “I just want you inside me.”

  “They’re going to be here soon,” he said as he killed the mood. “We should stop. This isn’t protocol.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If I’m the one who brings you into the initiation, we aren’t supposed to do anything until the initiation period is over.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled. “So we can’t do anything for a year? You didn’t tell me that. That makes no sense!”

  “I know from the outside it seems insane, but they have their reasons. We have to follow the rules if we want to be together,” Raze said. He took one strong hand and brushed a tendril of blonde hair out of my eyes. He was so hard and strong yet so soft and tender at the same time. Raze was a true anomaly.

  “I just want to be with you, Raze,” I sighed. “Just promise me you’ll still be waiting for me in a year. That you won’t have moved onto someone else.”

  “I’ll be counting down the days,” he said as he looked me in the eyes. “Believe me.”

  “Are you going to be in here when the guys come in?” I asked.

  Raze looked conflicted. “I want to be here for you, Mia, but I don’t think I can watch all those other guys having their way with you.”

  “So I’ll be by myself,” I said as my lips trembled. He sure was good at changing his tune it seemed.

  “It’ll be okay,” he reassured me. “I promise.”

  Just then there was a loud knock on the door.

  “Please stay,” I begged. “I need you here.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “Yo, Raze, you ready for us?” a loud male’s voice boomed on the other side of the door.

  “Yeah,” Raze yelled back. His eyes seemed to apologize to me.

  The door flung wide open and two older bikers strutted in. One had dark hair with streaks of gray and his face was covered in wrinkles, probably from the thousands of days he spent riding under the hot sun. He had a permanent scowl on his face. The other had gray hair and a long gray beard that went down to the middle of his chest.

  “That’s my dad, Ace,” Raze said as he pointed to the guy with the dark hair. “And my uncle, ZZ. They’re the highest ranking guys in the club. They get to have you first.”

  “You gonna stay and watch, Raze?” Ace asked as his tongue practically wagged out of his mouth.

  “Yeah,” he said. With that, he gave me one look and I could tell he didn’t want to. He was doing it for me.

  I laid naked on the bed while Ace and ZZ stared me down. They each unbuckled their giant belt buckles, slid off their chaps and jeans, and tore off their tops and vests. They looked at me with the hungriest eyes I’d ever seen. Their bodies were solid and their beer bellies were covered in a crazy mess of hair.

  Ace stepped towards me first. From what I assumed, he was the president of the gang, so he got to go first.

  “You’re real pretty,” he said. He kneeled down on the bed next to me and rubbed my breasts. “So perky. She ain’t been rode hard and put away wet like those other girls.”

  “Not yet,” ZZ laughed.

  ZZ took a seat in a chair on the other side of the room, where Raze was seated with his head in his hands, and watched the action begin to unfold as he touched himself.

  The thought of fucking these strange men instantly made me want to vomit. I closed my eyes and tried to quiet my mind, but I knew it was wrong. Raze was right. I wasn’t cut out for this lifestyle.

  Lying on the bed, I began to quiver. Within seconds, I was shaking uncontrollably.

  “Uh, Raze,” Ace said as he stopped and stood up off the bed. “Is she alright?”

  Raze looked up at me and he knew. He flew across the room and grabbed me by the crook of my elbow to help me up off the bed.

  “I told you, Mia,” he sighed. “You don’t have to do this. You’re not this kind of girl.”

  Sheepish and mortified, I buried my head in his shoulder while his dad and uncle buckled their pants and got the hell out of there.

  “I’m sorry I made you look bad,” I said.

  “Sorry?” he said. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You didn’t make me look bad. Don’t worry about it.”

  “So I guess this means we can’t be together?”

  Raze lifted his defeated eyes to meet mine.

  CHAPTER 3

  We left his motel room, and I followed Raze back across the parking lot and over to the long line of cycles parked outside the bar. He hoisted me up and placed me on the seat of his bike and looked me square in the eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. He rubbed my face, my hair, and then my arms. “I never should’ve put you in that position.”

  I nodded as tears streamed down my cheeks. “I’m fine.”

  Raze placed his hand under my chin, leaned in, and kissed my mouth tenderly. His hands then cupped the side of my face and he ran his fingers through my hair.

  “I can’t imagine not seeing you again,” he whispered. “You really must like me to go through what you did.”

  I nodded and bit my lip. I liked him. I liked him a lot. There was some inexplicable, magnetic attraction between us that I couldn’t even begin to describe. It was just there.

  “This life, this biker gang life, it’s fucking bullshit,” Raze said. “I hate it.”

  “Can’t you leave?”

  “I wish it were that simple,” he said as he looked down at his boots. “I wish I could take you out of here. You and I could just ride away together and start a life somewhere new.”

  “Why can’t we?”

  Raze looked back into my eyes. “I guess we could. It’s just complicated. There are certain repercussions for abandoning your gang.”

  “But your dad is the president. He’d understand, right? He’d never do anything to hurt you, right?”

  Raze shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve seen him do some pretty horrible things. I guess I’ve never disobeyed him before.”

  “You’re a grown man, Raze,” I said. “You can’t live the life he wants you to live. You have to live a life for yourself.”

  “We could have a pretty amazing life together, couldn’t we?” Raze said as a sweet smile spread on his face. “A normal life.”

  “Yes,” I smiled back. “This is far from normal.”

  “It’s all I’ve ever known,” he said as kicked the gravel around the bike.

  “I just want to be with you. I’ll do whatever you want,” I insisted.

  Raze sighed. He was deep in thought. I could tell he was trying to
decide what to do from here.

  “Let’s go back to my room, relax, get some sleep, and we’ll get up early tomorrow morning and leave before the sun rises. No one will know we’ve left until we’re long gone,” Raze proposed. It seemed so romantic, yet so risky.

  “Okay,” I agreed as I stared deep into his eyes.

  As I followed him back to his motel room, no one was outside so no one saw us together, which was good. We entered his room, and he flipped on the lights. I sat down on the bed and relaxed. I knew I was safe and in good hands. Raze was the only man I trusted.