Money Shot: Selected Sinners MC Romance (2 page)

The rumble from the exhaust made sneaking around in the car almost impossible. My father had built it as a show car, and planned on using it as a trophy of sorts, only driving it on special occasions. He had a 521 cubic inch 600 horsepower motor built by a local professional shop, and I helped him install it right before he died.

His instructions to me upon his passing were clear.

Drive the car, Sienna. Drive it and enjoy it. And if you ever decide to sell it, don’t sell it because you want something different; sell it because you don’t love it anymore. And only sell it to someone who does.

He had the car as long as I was alive, and actually had purchased it a few years before I was born. His entire life had been spent making the car perfect, and perfect was how I intended to keep it.

“521 cubic inches of earth shaking Big Block Ford, six hundred horsepower to be exact,” I bragged as I backed out of the driveway.

“No shit?” he said with a grin. “You know your cars, huh?”

“I’m an only child, and a daddy’s girl. The only time I spent with him was in the garage,” I said. “So, I know a little about cars, and a lot about
this
car.”

He nodded his head as he glanced around the interior of the car admiringly.

“So where were you going?” I asked as I shifted the car into drive. “You know, when you ran out of gas.”

“Nowhere, just riding. I go out on Sunday nights and just ride, it clears my mind before starting a new week. Had a poker run yesterday, and as that fucker started spittin’ and sputterin’, I remembered I forgot to fill it up after. I can get two hundred miles on a full tank, and not a mile more. Runnin’ out is the price I pay for not keeping track of my miles, I guess,” he said.

“Well, the station up on Douglas will loan us a gas can. Just remember, two hundred miles,” I said with a grin.

He stared at me for a moment, narrowed his upper lip, and revealed his teeth. As I gazed back at him rather confused, he narrowed his eyes and pointed to his teeth with his index finger.

“You’ve got a big piece of meat or something in your front teeth. Sorry, but it’s driving me nuts,” he said as he tapped the tip of his finger against his tooth.

I glanced in the rearview mirror and curled my lip upward. The side of one of my two front teeth was as red as a ruby. I had obviously wiped the other tooth clean with my finger on the front porch, but missed whatever wine-soaked matter was stuck between my other teeth.

“Shit, sorry,” I said as I alternated glances between the road and the mirror.

He shook his head and grinned.

“I was eating crackers and cheese and drinking wine. Typical Sunday night at my house,” I said as I turned into the gas station.

I pulled in front of the store and after a few seconds of the engine running, decided to shut it off. The sound of the motor running while parked against a brick building became rather annoying very quickly, the low rumble from the high performance camshaft made the car sound like an old school race car.

“This fucker was shaking the windows,” he said as he opened the door. “You got to love the sound of all that power.”

I grinned, proud of what my father and I had built. He pushed the door open slightly and paused. Time seemed to stand still as he fixed his eyes on me and cleared his throat.

“Need anything?” he asked.

I had no idea of who this man was, but on the outside he was everything I wanted in a man. I may have licked my lips before I responded, but if I did, he didn’t seem to notice or care. After a few seconds of admiring his muscles and handsome looks, I shook my head from side to side and shrugged.

“A toothbrush,” I laughed.

“Be right back,” he said as he stepped out of the car.

After carefully closing the door, he walked into the gas station, talked to the guy at the register, and turned toward the back of the building. In the well illuminated store, I could see every detail of what he was wearing. The back of his leather vest had a patch of a winged skull with two crossed rifles sewn on it, and had a “Kansas” rocker. I’d read enough books about bikers that I recognized the diamond shaped one percenter patch, and considering he was wearing a cut with the patch and rockers, there was no doubt he was a fully patched member of the club.

Selected Sinners.

I’d seen a few of the members of the club from time to time over the years, riding down the road or in a bar in Old Town. For a one percent club, they sure seemed to have their shit together, and never made the news for doing anything stupid, at least not that I’d seen. As I sat in the car and watched him walk toward the gas pumps, I recalled seeing on the news that one of their members had donated gold coins to the Salvation Army during Christmas time.

I glanced in the rearview mirror and admired his reflection. He was far too handsome to be standing there alone. I opened the door of the car and shuffled toward the gas pump. With each well thought out step, I realized although I was far from sober, I was not as drunk as I needed to be to offer myself to him.

I was single, lonely, and really needed to be fucked, but I was far from a slut. The thought of being ravished by a biker was always something lingering in the back of my mind, but actually allowing him to do it was a different thing altogether.

“So, one of your guys donated a bunch of gold on Christmas a while back. Right after he got back from the war. He was some special forces guy or something,” I said as I walked up to the gas pump.

“Sure did,” he responded.

I shrugged my shoulders as he placed the nozzle back into the pump. “Not the kind of thing most people think of bikers doing.”

“Probably not,” he responded.

Wow.

Don’t feel like talking?

I stared down at my flip-flops and realized my toes were in desperate need of polish. Half embarrassed, I turned toward the car as he began to step past me. As I glanced up from my toes, I noticed a man standing beside my car with his hand on the front fender. Before I had a chance to say anything, Vince barked out a demand in a tone of voice that caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand up.

“Step away from the car, Motherfucker,” he growled as the pace of his steps quickened.

The man, obviously drunk, turned his head toward Vince and all but fell into the fender of my car. After taking a few more steps, Vince placed the gas can beside the car, walked up to the man, and gently pushed him to the side by pressing his left forearm against the man’s chest. As the man stumbled backward, Vince stepped between him and my car.

“Expensive paint job, Brother. Just want you to be careful,” he said.

“Get your fucking hands off me,” the man howled.

In a split-second, the man produced a knife and began swinging it toward Vince. Immediately, it was apparent Vince was no stranger to fighting, protecting himself, or disarming a knife wielding drunk.

Kick his fucking ass, Vince.  

As the man grunted and lurched forward with the knife, Vince raised his left arm high in the air, wrapped it around the man’s right arm, and quickly turned around. With his back against the man’s chest and the man’s arm pinned in Vince’s armpit, he reached for the man’s wrist and turned it to the side.

As the drunk wailed in pain, he dropped the knife. As soon as it hit the pavement, Vince stepped on it and pushed the man to the side.

As the man stumbled, Vince bent down, picked up the knife, and shoved it into his back pocket. I stood in awe at what I had just seen. No differently than the men in my MC Romance books, Vince was not only a biker, but a bad-ass biker. Standing and waiting to see what his next Judo move might be, I was surprised to see a police officer walk from inside the store and onto the sidewalk in front of my car.

“Kid inside told me what happened. He saw it all. You want to press charges for assault?” the officer asked.

Still standing between the man and my car, Vince crossed his arms in front of his chest and shook his head. “Simple misunderstanding, Officer.”

“Kid inside said he pulled a knife on you,” the officer said as he tilted his head toward the drunk.

“Nope. He took a swing at me and missed. Didn’t see a knife,” Vince said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“A swing and a miss, huh? Anyone here had too much to drink?” the officer asked as he glanced at each of us.

It had only been thirty minutes since I finished the bottle of wine, and although I wasn’t shit-faced drunk, I was definitely not as drunk as I was going to get. With each passing minute, I felt a little more incapable of standing without teetering over. A sobriety test would land me in jail for sure.

“Can’t speak for him,” Vince said as he tossed his head toward the drunken man. “But, she’s had some wine. Good thing I’m driving.”

The officer cocked an eyebrow. “You’re driving?”

“That’s what I said,” Vince responded.

The officer pointed his finger at me. “Kid inside said
she
drove up…”

He turned and pointed his finger at Vince’s chest. “
You
got gas…”

He swiveled to the side and pointed at the drunk. “And
he
attacked you with a knife when you walked up to the car.”

“Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear,” Vince said.

Wow. He just quoted Edgar Allen Poe.

The officer turned to face me, pressed his hands on his hips, and sighed. “So what
really
happened?”

Raised by a father who was wrongly accused and subsequently wrongly convicted of a crime he didn’t commit, I had very little respect for police officers, especially our city’s finest. Based on my desire to spend more time with Vince and less time standing and talking to a cop, I shrugged my shoulders and smiled.

“Exactly what he said happened,” I responded.

The officer raised his hand and pressed his thumb against the bill of his hat, raising it slightly. “And how much wine did you drink tonight?”

“Not so much that I’m blind or stupid, but too damned much to drive,” I responded.

He nodded his head in confirmation, apparently disappointed he wasn’t able to make a few arrests.

“How’d
you
get here?” the officer asked as he turned toward the drunken man.

Obviously not an intelligent man, the drunk tossed his head toward a truck parked a few stalls away from where we were standing.

“Have a nice night,” the officer said with a nod as he grabbed the man by his upper arm and pulled him onto the sidewalk.

After carefully placing the can of gas in the floorboard between my feet, we got into the car and turned to face each other.

“Keys?” Vince asked as he held his hand out.

I reluctantly dropped the keys into his hand. Other than my father and me, he would be the only other one to ever drive the car.

He reached into his front pocket, fumbled around for a moment, and then reached toward my lap.

“Here,” he said as he dropped a small tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush in my lap.

I glanced down and smiled. As ridiculous as it seemed to actually think of the toothpaste and toothbrush as a gift, I immediately felt warmth developing in my heart as I gazed at the items. Short of my father, it was the only gift a man had ever given me.

“Any secrets to starting it?” he asked as he pushed the key into the ignition.

I turned to face him and immediately my mouth curled into a grin. He had captured my attention in a short period of time, and I had no desire to let him slip away without trying to learn more about him. Before I embarrassed myself by staring, I shifted my drunken eyes away from him and responded.

“Pump it once and turn the key,” I said as I opened the glovebox and placed the items inside.

He started the car and slowly backed out of the parking stall. Relishing in the recollection of Vince’s one-sided fight, I glanced out the window and toward the building. The officer was giving the man a sobriety test on the sidewalk, and it was pretty obvious he wasn’t going to pass it. As I shifted my eyes once again toward Vince, I wondered just how well I would have performed the same test in my flip-flops.

“I appreciate you saying you were driving,” I said.

“No problem,” he responded. “I appreciate you taking me to get gas.”

“No problem,” I said in a mimicking tone. “But we’re not even.”

“Oh we’re not?” he asked over his shoulder as he pulled into the street.

The muscles on his tattooed bicep flared as he turned the steering wheel. He was torturing me and he had no idea he was doing so.

I shook my head and swallowed a mouthful of desire. “Nope. I want a ride on your bike.”

He turned his head in my direction as the car came to a stop at the traffic light. After cocking an eyebrow comically and fixing his eyes on mine, he responded.

“I don’t give just anyone a ride on my bike,” he said flatly.

“Well,” I said as I raised my eyebrows slightly.

“I’m not just anyone.”