Black Dogs Motorcycle Club: Full Series Box Set (50 page)

Will piped calmly on the
line. “That would definitely not be advisable.”

Ghost’s stomach was
rumbling. “Any good places to eat in this Burling joint?”

Someone from Eagleton
answered, but he wasn’t sure who. Not Lucero, at least, because there was no
southern drawl. “There’s a couple cafés.”

“I’m gonna eat a whole
cherry pie,” said Ghost.

“Ghost, keep the line
clear.” It was Jase this time, using his dad voice.

Ghost rolled his eyes and
clicked the button again. “Roger, your honor.” He felt that bitterness again
and revved the throttle on his bike, roaring past Tommy and nearly up to the
bumper of the Volkswagen van they’d been trailing the last five miles. Tommy
was right on his heels, keeping pace with his speed as Ghost changed lanes and
roared past the van, and past the white service truck ahead of that. The van
was just ahead, rolling smoothly in the right lane.

They had the fast lane
mostly clear for a good half-mile, so Ghost didn’t bother to get back behind
the van, and cruised alongside and just a bit slower. Their orders had been to
not make the escort look glaringly obvious, but he figured the run was almost done,
and no one was around to give a shit anyway. He wanted a change of scenery. At
least instead of staring at the ass-end of that hippy-mobile, he had an open
horizon in front of him, the sky a vibrant mix of gradient blues that always
seemed to come with warming spring.

The wind felt good on his
face. The ride had been boring, but Ghost always tried to pull even a little
bit of pleasure from all of his tasks. He took a big deep breath and gave a
glance over to the van. At his angle, he could see inside the cabin just a bit
thanks to the driver’s side door mirror. Or at least, he could see the grumpy,
scowling face of Lucero and his gray-streaked beard, eyes hidden behind big
dark sunglasses.

Ghost’s gaze flicked back
to the road in front of him, and found it still empty. Back to the mirror, he
took another glance at Lucero.

Something was wrong. Was
he nodding off?

It was only a few seconds
of time in the end, but to Ghost it felt like everything slowed to a painful
crawl. As his mind formed the question, in the mirror he saw Lucero’s head loll
and then fully drop, chin against chest. His body tipped to the side toward the
window. Ghost felt his hands close hard on the brake levers of his bike before
he even realized he’d made the decision to do it.

The screech of tires
soared into the air as the van swerved, like Lucero’s body had, left toward the
window and toward the fast lane where Tommy was still riding at full speed.

Ghost watched in helpless
horror from his slowing bike as the van reared hard toward Tommy. He had the
conscious thought that he was about to watch his favorite kid brother become a
Jackson Pollock painting on the highway.

But Tommy wasn’t blind. As
soon as he caught the van coming in his periphery, he revved his engine hard. 
Tommy leaned back as his bike jolted forward with sudden force. The van twisted
by behind him. He almost made it clear, but the shiny chrome edge of the van’s
front bumper swiped Tommy’s rear tire, and send him wobbling and fighting to
keep his balance.

It was too much force.
Tommy wheeled hard left off the road and into the desert scrub of the highway
median until he finally lost control of the bike and tried to bail. His bike
skittered like a toy across the rocky earth. Ghost watched Tommy’s body hit the
ground like he was a crash test dummy, all flopping limbs and grotesque angles,
until he disappeared from view.

Ghost didn’t even see the
brake lights on the van blaze on as it continued off the highway and onto the
flat desert scrub, hitting rough bumps and ditches until it finally came to a
hard stop, tires spinning uselessly in a deep narrow canal. The van tipped with
an aching moan and stopped, dust swirling into the atmosphere.

Ghost clicked on the
walkie button. “Get the fuck up here now, and call an ambulance! We have a
situation!”

Voices howled in worried
response, but Ghost ignored them and twisted his throttle hard to catch up. He
pulled off the road and stopped his bike, dashing out into the scrub toward
Tommy’s crash site. Cars on the highway still mostly rushed by unbothered, but
a few were slowing down as they passed.

“Tommy!” yelled Ghost as
he jumped over short green bushes. Tommy’s bike smoked in the dirt, but Ghost
found its rider about fifty feet away, his body broken and twisted on the
rocks. He was still conscious.

“Oh, fucking God,” said
Ghost. He whipped off his cut and stuffed it under Tommy’s head carefully as he
ran his gaze up and down Tommy’s body. Both of his legs and one of his arms
were broken, and stuff around his ribs did not look right. Half his face was
red and raw, torn by the rocks and plants as he fell. Blood and tears mixed
down his face as he moaned in pain.

“Buddy, it’s okay. Hang
on, we’re going to get you help,” said Ghost. He grabbed Tommy’s hand carefully
and clicked the walkie on. “Where the fuck are you?! There’s been an accident!
We need a helicopter for Tommy.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!”
yelled Jase over the line. “Where are you?”

“Where’s Lucero and Will?”
said a voice that sounded like Shaun, but strained with stress.

“Trust me, you’re not
going to miss the smoking wreckage on the roadside.” Ghost stretched out to get
a view of the van, still sitting in the ditch some yards back. He couldn’t see
any movement. “I don’t have eyes on Will and Lucero, but the van’s not in
terrible shape.”

“We have to get the guns
out of there,” said Shaun urgently. “I’ve only got two Highway Patrol on my
dime and way more first responders are on their way than that.”

“Fuck!” Ghost snarled.
He’d completely forgotten about the guns. Tommy groaned from beneath him and
Ghost gave his hand a squeeze. “Tommy’s hurt bad. I can’t just leave him here.”

“Ghost, get the fucking guns
ready!” said Jase. “You’re not a doctor. You can’t do anything for him. Get to
the van and get the guns ready to switch when we pull up. We’re two minutes
out.”

Ghost felt a shameful
anger rise up in his gut. Jase was right, but right didn’t fucking matter in
that moment, not if right was asking him to leave Tommy here bleeding in the
dirt by himself. He looked down at his friend and shook his head, furious.
“Tommy, hang on. Please, buddy. I want you to think of something that makes you
super fucking angry, okay? Anything: terrorists, wife-beaters, people who
answer their phones at the movies… get angry, right now. Get angrier than
you’ve ever been and you hold on to that anger for me until I get back.”

The noise Tommy made broke
what little bit of a heart Ghost had left. There were no audible words
involved; it was just pain and fear in vocal form.

“I know, I’m sorry. Shit,
be angry at me. But I’m the only one up; I have to go check on Will. And I have
to get those guns out of here so we can get you to a good hospital, and not a
prison one,” said Ghost. He clutched Tommy’s hand tighter. “Stay angry,
bruiser. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Against all his wants and
instincts, Ghost stood up and left Tommy there in the dirt. He stalked hard and
heated across the scrubland toward the van. On the roadside at a distance, he
could see a minivan had parked and a family of portly, pastel-wearing people
was gawking, and two of them were on their phones.

The van was tipped at an
awkward angle, but luckily it hadn’t flipped or even fallen completely on its
side. The engine still hummed softly, one tire spinning in the air. Ghost came
around and opened the swinging panel doors on the driver’s side. The fake meat
packing boxes that were really full of black market guns had been tossed all
over the metal interior like matchsticks. In the passenger seat, Will hung
limply against the seat belt across his chest, groaning his way back to
consciousness.

The sight of Lucero
completely passed out in the driver’s seat brought Ghost to a level of rage
he’d never felt before. Every thought in his head became of dragging the
motherfucker from the van and beating him to death right there in the desert.

“What the fuck…” came
Will’s slurred voice, followed by a sharp howl of pain. He brought his right
arm to his chest tenderly.

“Will,” said Ghost. He
pulled a grip of the messy boxes onto the desert ground and climbed in the van.
“Will, are you all right? How bad are you hurt?”

“My arm,” said Will. Ghost
couldn’t see any blood, but Will’s forearm was already twice its size and
turning purple. He must have smacked it good on something when they went off
road. Ghost followed a tiny river of blood coming from the top of his scalp,
but it was just a superficial gash in the jungle of Will’s copper curls. It
wasn’t bad, it would just need stitches. He got lucky.

“Just stay there, buddy,”
said Ghost. “Don’t move, you might be hurt somewhere else. Help is on the way.
I’m right here.”

Will didn’t answer,
lulling back into his hazed shock.

Ghost had most of the
boxes out of the van and piled by the time the second group of Dogs arrived.
The four of them scattered down to the van’s crash site.

“Get these boxes into the
other van right fucking now,” said Shaun. Scott and Rick didn’t hesitate, and
immediately began hefting the boxes into their arms and up the hill toward the
waiting second van. Ghost bent to help, and Shaun was right behind him.

“Will?” said Jase
immediately, throwing himself into the van. Ghost heard him exchange quick,
quiet words with his best friend before he climbed back out with wet eyes and a
steely expression and joined them in lifting boxes.

Once all thirteen boxes
were safely on the second van, Ghost raced back to Tommy’s side with Jase close
on his heels. When Jase approached close enough to get eyes on Tommy’s
injuries, he made a sick noise in his throat.

“Fucking hell,” said Jase
as he bent at Tommy’s other side. “Oh, Tommy. Christ. What the fuck happened?”

In the distance, the sound
of sirens wailed, pressing closer with every second. Shaun was yelling at the
Eagleton Dogs, commanding Scott to get in the driver’s seat of the other van and
get out of the area. Rick climbed in with him, and the van sped off into
traffic toward Burling.

Ghost took Tommy’s hand
again and looked up at Jase with fury in his eyes. “You know goddamn well what
the fuck happened. Exactly what I told you what was going to happen.”

Jase’s face fell, blank
and white.

“Lucero,” growled Ghost.
“This is all Lucero.”

~ NINE ~

Bridget

She really wanted to like the tea the headmistress had
given her for her birthday this year, but it didn’t matter what kind of sugar
or honey she put it in it, Bridget couldn’t finish a cup. Feeling shameful
anyway, she went to the sink and poured out the rest of her mug with a sour
face, and then decided to get the kettle boiling for a cup of some reliable
Lady Gray.

The school week had flown
by, and she could hardly believe she was already thinking about what to make
for Thursday evening dinner. All the emotional excitement around Toby and Ghost
was making her typically routine life quite a bit more complicated, even if one
of them was positive and interesting.

She hadn’t yet figured out
what she was going to wear on her dinner date with Ghost; what would a guy like
him want to do on a first date, anyway? Bridget tended to dress for the crash,
not for the ride. She didn’t want to pick out her hottest cocktail number, only
to have him be a nut and suggest laser tag, which seemed utterly possible.

Like he was reading her
mind, suddenly Ghost’s name and number lit up on the bright screen of her cell
phone. Bridget almost didn’t notice the call coming in. She wasn’t expecting to
talk to anyone tonight, least of all Ghost. They had texted back and forth a
bit while he was out of town doing whatever, flirting and prodding with each
other every few hours, until he stopped responding altogether yesterday. But
he’d clearly said he planned to take her out on Friday.

Butterflies fluttered in
her stomach, and she scoffed at herself with a smile. She bit her lip and
answered. “Hello?”

“God, you even sound hot
on the phone,” he said.

Bridget laughed and said
playfully, “Who is this?”

“I am literally whoever
you want me to be.”

“I think I’ll just take
you as yourself for now, reserving the option for future trades, of course.”

“It’s only prudent,” he
said with a laugh.

“I thought you were still
out of town,” she said.

Ghost sighed. There was
something very heavy in it, and it made Bridget realize that even though he was
still cracking jokes, his voice wasn’t as airy as it had been before. “Nah, I
came back early. We had a problem… something went wrong.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear
that. Is it… can you even tell me what happened? I don’t know how this works
with a biker club.”

“I can tell you the part
that sucks,” he said. “But honestly, I’d like to wait for that, if it’s all the
same to you.”

Bridget felt sad. Whatever
it was clearly had him down. “Sure. You don’t have to talk about anything you
don’t want to.”

“You are a unicorn among
zombie hordes. Do you have plans tonight?”

Bridget looked around the
empty kitchen, as if the answer would pop out at her. “Oh, uh… no, I guess not.
I was just about to figure out what to have for dinner.”

“I know we talked about
dinner tomorrow, but after this week, I could really use some company that is
both gorgeous and not stupid. Do you think you could help me out with that?”

Bridget laughed. She felt
a slight hesitation in her heart and bit her thumb. She was a planner, not
really a spontaneous person on the regular, and especially not with men. She’d
just been burned too many times. Now she approached them like a coyote sniffing
at bait in a trap: slowly, with open eyes, and a mind for biting. She liked her
interactions with them to be controlled and safe.

But she realized, somehow,
that she already felt safer about Ghost than she did most men at this stage.
The thought both upset and relaxed her. Maybe it was just how badly she wanted
to feel his hard body pressed up against hers, and see if all his swagger was
for show.

In the end her fire won
out, and she said, “Sure. I can do that. Do you want to go out, or stay in?”

“A night in sounds magical
to me.”

“I kind of feel the same.
Well, how about I just add an extra serving to dinner and you join me?”

“Just tell me what time to
be there.”

They decided on eight,
which gave Bridget just an hour to come up with something to feed them both.
She opted for Italian, mostly because she had been on a kick for some
prosciutto last grocery shopping trip, and filled her whole fridge with sundry
cheeses, meats, olives, and wine. She laid out stark white serving plates with
the goods, and added some different crackers and bread, then made a Caesar
salad in a big, blue bowl. She didn’t know what kind of food Ghost was into,
but she hadn’t met a person yet she couldn’t talk into enjoying a traditional
Italian spread. 

As eight o’clock crept
closer, Bridget got more nervous, eventually to the point that she couldn’t
focus on the book she tried to read on the couch. She changed her clothes twice
and eventually settled on a pair of jean shorts that showed off her lean legs,
and a casual white t-shirt. She liked the way the outfit softened her without
making her feel like she was a doll being stuffed into a dress. She brushed
through her straight blonde hair and gargled with mouthwash before she was
finally settled with how she looked.

“Ghost,” she said to
herself in the mirror with a chuckle. “You’re about to have dinner with a grown
man named Ghost.”

The doorbell chimed.
Bridget tilted her head, amazed. “How does he keep doing that?” She shoved away
the last of her beauty supplies under the sink and headed out to answer the
door. One hand on the knob, she took a big deep breath and swung the door open.

With the setting sunlight
at his back, Ghost stood there smiling, holding a gorgeous bouquet of bright
flowers that he bought from a store instead of pulling from a live garden. When
he saw her in the doorway, his smile turned into something a little closer to
stunned arousal.

“Goddamn,” he said,
looking her up and down. “You are seriously the salve to my wounds.”

The line hit Bridget hard,
unexpected. She blushed and twisted in the doorway before she could help
herself. “You’re a flatterer.”

“You have a lot of
flattering features,” he said. He stepped up the stoop into the doorway to
stand closer to her. She could feel his heat and inhaled sharply, her chest
tight. “I can’t help it.”

Bridget smiled up at him
and moved back from the door to let him in. Ghost came into the foyer, and
waited as Bridget closed and locked the door behind her. When she turned
around, the look on his face was an unmistakable mask of animal lust. She felt
heat rise between her legs and up the sides of her neck.

Ghost walked toward her
slowly, his eyes fixed on her lips. Bridget opened her mouth, but she didn’t
have a single word or thought in her mind as she watched him approach. He
pressed his body against hers, and with his free hand, cupped her jaw and
tilted her eyes up so they were looking into his.

“Listen,” he said quietly,
his lips brushing against hers as he spoke. “This week has been hell. I know
you’re a quality woman, and I don’t want to disrespect you. But there is
nothing in the world I want more right now than to kiss you, and not stop
kissing you until we can’t feel our own faces anymore.”

Everything about the
darkness in his voice told her he was sincere, and Bridget had never ached so
badly for anyone in her life. She panted lightly against Ghost’s lips and
nuzzled her face into his. “Ghost…”

“Tell me you want it,” he
whispered. His body pushed against hers, grinding. Already his cock was raging
hard against her leg, and it made Bridget wet with need. “Tell me whatever you
want, and I’ll give it to you. Just tell me.” She heard a plastic crinkle as he
dropped the flowers next to their feet. He ran his other hand up the smoothness
of her bare leg, over the curve of her thigh, around her ass to pull her close.

Nothing else was in
Bridget’s mind for that moment except Ghost. He pushed her against the front
door and groped at her ass until she wrapped her leg around his waist.

“I want it,” said Bridget
in a breathy whisper. “I want it. I want you.”

Ghost’s only reply was to
smash his lips on hers in a ferocious kiss, lapping at her like he had been
starving to kiss her all his life. The hand on her jaw pulled her closer,
tighter; the other rubbed her bare thigh and snaked its fingers up underneath
the hem of her shorts to feel her ass. Bridget threw her arms around his neck
and clung to him, moaning as she felt his growing erection pushing against her.

Like teenagers, they
groped at each other in the doorway, making out, until Ghost moved his swollen,
wet lips down her jaw and neck, leaving tiny little bite marks along the way
that made Bridget cry out in pleasure. With his mouth and grateful hands, he
slowly made his way down Bridget’s body until he was on his knees in front of
her. He undid the button fly on her shorts with his teeth as he ran his hands
up and down her bare legs, and all Bridget could do was writhe under his touch
and pant his name.

Ghost pulled her shorts
down off her body until they were pooled at her ankles. Underneath, she had
worn her favorite pair of sexy underwear: a pair of black, lace-top panties
that accentuated the curve of her athletic ass. She swore she heard Ghost gasp
when he saw them. He ran his hands up the back of her legs and cupped her ass
in his big hands as he rubbed his face lovingly against her, nibbling and
prodding gently with his lips at the outer nerves of her pussy. After a few
moments, he carefully moved the panties from her body, leaving her completely
bare below the waist.

“Baby, thank you,” he said
as he put his hands between her thighs and nudged her legs apart. “It is my
sincere pleasure to be down here.”

Before Bridget could
respond, Ghost bent down and sucked her clit into his mouth. The sensation was
staggering in its pleasure; she couldn’t remember the last time a man had eaten
her out. Bridget’s head lolled back against the door and her eyes closed. She
pawed at Ghost’s shaven head as he lapped at her wetness, using his hands to
pull open her lips and run his flat tongue over her hole and clit. It wasn’t
long before Bridget could feel her orgasm building, and Ghost held onto her
hips as she came with a loud cry, gushing her juices all over his tongue. He
lapped it up happily and, while her pussy was still wracked with aftershock,
pushed two fingers inside her until she was writhing on his hand like a puppet.

“Oh, fuck, Ghost,” she
moaned, clawing at his shoulders. Her legs were starting to shake from the
intensity and from her orgasm. Ghost pumped his fingers inside her at an
achingly slow pace, a smile on his face as he watched each time he hit her
G-spot. Each push went deeper and then retracted, but not all the way, only
pausing long enough for her to miss it before he pushed back in again. Just
when Bridget thought she was going to collapse from the torture of it, Ghost
pushed his fingers deep inside her pussy and wrapped his other arm around her
waist.

He was even stronger than
he looked. Carefully he twisted Bridget down with him onto the ground, holding
her against him, his fingers buried inside of her but rubbing and rotating
anyway. She cried and yelped at the pleasure and grasped onto his shoulders as
he moved her down to the foyer floor. He hovered over her with his fingers
inside of her, watching her face the whole time.

“I want to watch you cum
again,” he said, fucking her with his fingers.

Her pussy was soaking, and
she felt delirious with pleasure. All she could do was say his name and pull
him down for a desperate kiss. Ghost returned it passionately and ran his free
hand down her neck to knead her breasts over her shirt.

“Fuck yes,” she said
against his mouth. “You know just how to touch me.”

Ghost pulled his fingers
out and pushed them back in. He laughed from low in his throat as she gasped.
“Just how you deserve to be touched.” He bent and lifted her t-shirt up,
exposing her braless breasts to the cool air. Ghost took them in his mouth one
at a time and sucked, his tongue lapping all over the sensitive skin, and
making Bridget race toward another orgasm.