Welcome to Sugartown (17 page)

Oh no she
didn’t.

“
Then you
should tell him yourself. You’ve only been eye-raping him for the
last half hour, what’s a bit of harmless flirting between
friends?”

Her
responding smile is dripping with venom, though her voice is airy
and filled with laughter. “You’re so funny, Ana. I really can’t
understand why we weren’t closer in high school?”

Probably
because you stole my boyfriend out from under me, you two-faced
home-wrecking whore
, I think, but I don’t
give her the satisfaction of hearing those words out
loud.

I feel Holly
come up behind me. “Well, don’t stand around chit-chatting all
night, you’ve got a hot date, remember?

“
Right,” I
mutter, and fling open the door. Now I’m an anxious mess for an
entirely different reason.

“
How long
have they been together?” I hear Renee ask Holly, and as I’m
exiting the diner I bend down and pretend to fuss with the zipper
on my boot.

“
Ana and
Elijah?” She feigns nonchalance. “Oh, they’ve been banging one
another’s brains out since he first rode into town. Guess he
doesn’t need that motorcycle anymore, now he just rides
her.”

“
That’s not
what I heard,” Nicole says.

“
No? Then you
haven’t been in the room next to them when they really hit their
stride. It’s like someone opened all the cages in the zoo and the
animals are having a free-for-all.”

I cringe at
that last statement, quit playing with my boot and begin marching
across the road to meet Elijah. Though she always has my back, and
my best interests at heart, sometimes I wish Holly would contract a
flesh eating throat virus that would render her speechless for the
remainder of her life.

Elijah has
the front door to the garage pulled down, so I slip in through the
side door. The shop is shrouded in shadow, and I’m just about to
call out to him when I hear him talking on the phone in the
bathroom. “You listen to me, you worthless piece of shit. You hang
up the phone and you lose this number.”

“
I don’t give
a shit what you say to the club. Tell them I rode the bike off the
edge of a cliff. I’ve got a good thing going here, and I will be
fucked if I let you waltz back in and ruin everything I’ve worked
so hard for. This conversation alone is enough to send me back into
the lock-up. Zero contact with club affiliates, did you forget
about that condition of my release?”

There’s a
pause, and then he roars so loud it rattles the drywall of the tiny
bathroom. “I AM NOT YOUR SON! I stopped being that the day your
retaliation got Lil and Mum killed!” There’s a loud yell and the
sound of plastic thwacking against the wall and shattering across
the tiled floor.

I’m frozen to
the spot, caught between breaking down the door and demanding an
explanation or running in the opposite direction. And, while I’m
contemplating my retreat, I hear Elijah mutter to himself, “Pull it
together arsehole.” And then he wrenches the door open and stands
there, staring at me.

I know the
guilt of overhearing his conversation is written all over my face
so I’m not sure why I try to pretend like I’m in the dark, but I
smile sweetly. “Hi.”

“
How long you
been standing there, Ana?”

“
Not long, I
just got here.”

“
Oh yeah?” He
eliminates the distance between us and slides his hands around my
waist. Then he lifts me up and sets me back down on the workbench,
easing his way between my thighs. He’s shaking slightly and I can
feel the caged violence in him, and the effort it takes him to be
gentle with me. “You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”

“
Nice
outfit.” He tugs my zipper down an extra inch until my boobs are
practically falling out of my jacket. Then he slips his hand inside
my bra and rolls my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “You
got a hot date tonight?”

“
Yeah,
actually I should get going. Scott’s picking me up in a minute,” I
joke, just to relieve some of the tension between us, but it has
the opposite effect. Elijah growls and tugs hard on my nipple,
causing my breath to catch in the back of my throat and a shot of
fiery pleasure to arc between my breast and my already drenched
crevice. “Now is really not the time to be putting images of you
with other men in my head, Ana.”

“
You wanna
talk about it?” We both know I don’t mean the ridiculous idea of me
with other men.

“
No,” he
says, a little too quickly, and then presses a hard kiss to my
lips.

“
Elijah—”

“
I don’t
wanna talk about it. I wanna put you over my knee and spank you til
your arse is raw. And then I wanna flip you over and eat you out
until that beautiful pussy can’t come any more.” He peppers my face
and neck with kisses, then slides a hand between my legs and begins
working me into a frenzy. The seam of my jeans rubs against my clit
with every stroke until I’m a sighing, shuddering mess of a woman.
“Then I wanna fuck your mouth until you drain every last drop from
me.”

I have my own
ideas about that last one. As much as I love going down on him, I’d
much rather he fucked me than my mouth, but I’m not prepared to
admit that little detail yet. Besides, I’m under no illusions that
if he took me now while he’s in this dark—and frankly, kinda
scary—mood, I wouldn’t be walking for a week. As hot as that makes
me, it’s really not the way I think my first time should
go.

Not that it
matters at this point. A few more strokes of his hand and I’ll
consent to anything as I’m riding that delicious post-orgasmic
high. I think he senses this, too, because he withdraws his hand
and tilts my face up to his. I’m panting and desperate and
aching
for him to finish
me off, but the wicked glint in his eye tells me he has no
intention of doing so. I let out a ridiculous whimper that shames
me beyond the point of no return, which says a lot when you
consider who my best friend is. Elijah laughs, low and so sexy that
it sends a fresh frisson of yearning through me.

“
What’s the
matter, baby girl? Cunt got your tongue?”

“
You’re
cruel,” I whine and slap playfully at his chest. He catches my hand
in his and brings it to his lips.

“
Ah, but I
promised you a date.”

“
And it
couldn’t start
after
my orgasm?”

“
Usually that
happens at the end of the date.” Elijah carefully zips me back into
my jacket and leads me out through the side door before locking up
after himself. He falls into step beside me and slides his hand
into my back pocket, then he leans down and whispers, “If you’re a
very good girl, I might even tie you to the bed and take more from
you tonight than just your orgasm.”

I freeze
midstride.
Does he already know that this
is where tonight is leading? Is it written all over my face? Did he
somehow hear Holly from across the street? And is he kidding me
with this whole bondage thing, or have I bitten off much more than
I can chew?

All these
questions run through my head as I watch him jump on the bike and
turn the key in the ignition, though the questions I should have
been asking Elijah have nothing to do with losing my
virginity.

Why do I get
the feeling that the answers to the questions Elijah’s so eager to
avoid are the ones that will ruin everything?

Chapter Fifteen

Elijah

The streets
are lined with people; adults and kids, voices, music and the smell
of fried food everywhere. People jostle one another for space in
order to get a better view of the parade. Several big-arse lanterns
pass us by, ships and dragons and something that looks like a giant
fertility goddess, each more elaborate than the first and most
requiring four or more people to carry them.

We stand
across the road from a pub, huddled in with the other spectators.
There’s several big biker dudes drinking and making a raucous
outside the pub, though no one but me seems to be paying them any
mind. I’m not sure why my eyes keep sliding from the parade to
them. I don’t recognise a single face, and they certainly don’t
know me from any of the other coat-clad revellers here but these
days, anyone wearing a cut instantly forces my hair to stand on
end.

I wrap my
arms tight around Ana’s waist and pull her into the warmth of my
jacket. She’s got to be freezing. Earlier, the sight of just a
sheer lace bra beneath her jacket nearly had me tearing off her
knickers and nailing her on her father’s work bench, and wouldn’t
that be fun to explain to her old man come Monday once he’d seen
the security feed footage? But I made a promise to myself that I’d
never touch her in anger and, after talking to that scumbag of a
father of mine, anger didn’t begin to explain what I was feeling.
Ana deserves more than that, deserves more than some angry ex-con
shithead just looking to get his dick wet.

And speaking
of shitheads … one of the guys across the street must feel my eyes
on him because he meets my gaze, makes a show of checking out Ana
and then salutes me with his beer. He’s big, about my height
actually, and equally as ripped, but I reckon I could take him
because he has about fifteen years on me. I can’t take him with his
biker boyfriends standing around, though. Audience or not, they’d
have me on my knees and crying for my mummy in seconds.

“
You need to
be wearing more clothes,” I gripe as I tug her zip up to the hollow
between her collarbones.

“
Alright, who
are you and what’ve you done with my boyfriend? Because he seemed
to lurrrrve my outfit earlier.”

“
Baby girl,
every man with eyes loves you in that outfit. That’s the problem.
I’m gonna wind up behind bars defending your honour.”

Ana has some
witty reply, but it’s lost on me on account of the group across the
road. It’s grown in the time I’ve been distracted with her, and now
there are six sets of eyes on us, and only four sets of those are
unfamiliar.

Fuck!

My heart
thunders inside my chest. For a moment, I’m frozen where I stand
while I watch recognition set in. The two new additions know my
face just as well as I know theirs, and several heartbeats pass in
the time that I glance between their eyes and their Hell’s Angels
patches. Patches I should have been wearing, and the lack of those
patches will more than likely mean the end of me. My mind is
running through an endless and really unhelpful cycle of
ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck.

Ana lets out
a delighted little squeal as a pair of drummers begin beating out a
rhythm, and a troupe of belly dancers twirl and twist in front of
us. I glance from the dancers to the bikers, and it’s as if our
standoff suddenly shatters.

“
Time to go,”
I whisper and yank on her arm.

“
But the
parade hasn’t finished yet,” she protests, but hurries along behind
me anyway.

My bike’s
parked down the road and around the corner, but we’ll never make it
there without being seen by the group that’s pursuing us, and I
know without having to look behind me that they’re pursuing us. I
know because I can hear the protests from the crowd and the parade
affiliates as the guys cross the road to come after us.

“
Oh my god,
are you seeing this? Those guys just—”

“
Ana.” I grab
hold of her shoulders and give a gentle shake her to get her
attention. “Is there a back alley we can use to get back to the
bike?”

“
What? It’s
just around—”

“
Yes or
no?”

“
Yes. Elijah,
what’s going on?”

“
I’m gonna
need you to run.”

“
What?”

I don’t take
the time to explain, because if I did we’d both be dead. Instead, I
yank her along with me and we take off running, pushing past the
throng of people. I gotta hand it to her; she may be the only woman
I’ve met who can run in heels and still look fucking sexy doing
it.

“
This way,”
she yells and we slip into an arcade that I wasn’t even aware had
been there until we were running through it. We come out the other
side into a dark alleyway; no street lights, no people. I don’t
think they’ve followed us, but that doesn’t mean they won’t find
the bike before we do. And, though the license plate was changed
the minute I got out of prison, it’s still the same bike my
grandfather handed down to me, and there really aren’t a lot of
1979 Moto Guzzi California’s in Australia.