Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6) Read online

  Pippa had every right to want to know more about me. She knew next to nothing. She knew I’d been a lawyer before resorting to killing people with a different sort of instrument, and that was about it. Just the knowledge of either sort of career would be enough to put most women off, but not Pippa. She had stuck adoringly by my side. She didn’t just want me for a bodyguard, that was obvious. She wanted me for a lover.

  I followed her at a safe distance. Watched her crash into a biker, bounce off a few other folks like a ping-pong ball, ready to hit back if anyone harmed her.

  Then I saw her meet up with Wolf and Tracy. I was glad she’d be safe with good, solid friends, but something told me to stick around. I knew why when I saw Tobias Weingarten come flailing like a banshee out of the crowd. I moved close enough to hear Wolf yell that he would “kick his butt so hard his asshole will be up between his shoulder blades.”

  The crowd was egging them on to a dangerous level. By the time I moved in close enough to act as a shield between Pippa and a hard chick who might’ve gone head to head with her, Tobias had actually connected a few feeble punches to Wolf’s solar plexus. I wasn’t worried. Wolf could more than handle him, if those bikers would let him go.

  I did something really stupid and corny I hadn’t done in two years. I winked at Pippa. I don’t know why. It just seemed the thing to do, to reassure her I was there, that I meant her no harm. Although God fucking knows, I’ve always been far from harmless.

  “Hey, you’re in my way,” said Pippa, straining to see past my shoulder. “You’re missing the fight of the century.”

  So I bent my knees and circled her waist with my hands. I set her little boots on top of mine so she had a boost up, a front row seat.

  The guys had let Wolf go by now. Before, Wolf had just been toying with Tobias. Now I could tell he was enraged. “Where’d you get those clothes, nerd boy? At the toilet store? I was going to tell you a joke about my dick but it’s too long.”

  “Oh yeah?” answered Tobias, rolling up the sleeves of his tight turtleneck. He seemed the sort to wear a turtleneck no matter what the weather. “Well, I—I—I would tell you a joke about your pussy, but you’ll never get it.”

  Wolf laughed, relaxed now. “Good one! You said my pussy, get it? You’re talking about Tracy. You’re the one who’ll never get it.”

  Tobias laid into Wolf now, fists cycling like a boxer at a punching bag. Wolf merely held the shorter man away by placing his palm flat against Tobias’ forehead. Tobias snarled, “Cumon, fuckboy! I’m not the one who played clarinet in the high school band.”

  Hoots and catcalls erupted from the crowd. “A flute!” “I played the trombone!” “I played one of those super big drums!” various people shouted.

  Wolf looked from side to side, embarrassed. “It was a saxophone, byte boy! And you fucking messed with the wrong high school marching band member!”

  Removing his hand from Tobias’ forehead, Wolf jumped lightly to one side, allowing Tobias to plow into a wall of men. No one touched or restrained either combatant this time—they were having too much fun. Wolf skipped on his toes from side to side, hands in fists like a pugilist. I actually wanted to see what happened next, but Pippa twisted her torso around and looked at me bright-eyed.

  “This would be a good time to leave. No one will notice we’re gone, and I’ve got Ben Wa balls in my pussy.”

  That did it.

  I lifted her so she could jump off my boots, and I found her hand. The crowd pressed in on us so energetically, eager to take our vacated positions. I had to go first like a battering ram, holding Pippa under my arm like a mother hen. It was a temptation to look back when I heard Wolf braying,

  “The only way you’ll ever get laid is if you crawl up a chicken’s ass and wait, you propellerhead.”

  We busted out into the clearing, where people were still being attracted to the fight like zombies to a human. I looked both ways, then yanked Pippa into an empty booth that apparently sold those furry blankets emblazoned with Harley logos and shit like that. It was a good choice, because not only were there furry blankets, there was a sturdy table for the vendor to sit at, also covered with blankets. And the entire stand was covered with an awning.

  Backing Pippa against the table, I didn’t waste any time. Who knew how long the fight would last and the seller would return? I tossed her little cowgirl’s hat onto a blanket and kissed her pixie nose. “I was a lawyer in Taos. I worked for the District Attorney’s office defending people who were usually guilty as sin. It got to me after awhile.”

  She took my face between her palms and spoke frantically against my mouth. “Tell me later. Right now get those damned balls out of my pussy.”

  Grinning, I fell to my knees.

  I dove right in. Her crotch was damp and humid, and with my tongue-tip I tasted a sheen of pussy juice already coating her inner thigh. It was dark and steamy under the tight tent of her skirt, and I could just barely slide a hand in and pull the strip of her panties aside.

  The crowd witnessing Tobias and Wolf was hollering like they were at a backyard fight club as I gave Pippa’s puffy clit several strokes with the length of my tongue. She squealed and squirmed, but my other hand kept a grip on her hip. The pulpy lips of her cunt protruded from her panties, and I mashed them together with my fingertips, capturing her swollen clit.

  That did it. The balls inside her were being shaken around, titillating her already-aroused labia. It was like a gumball machine operating at high speed, and her squeal was now so sonic a dog couldn’t have heard it.

  Keeping her erect button firmly clasped between her labia, I frantically licked the extended glans that peeked out. Her boots were digging so deep into my back, I was proud of the marks she’d made there later. Her hips shuddered as though she rode a mechanical bull, but I kept my tongue on the mark. It’d been a century since I’d given a skull job like this, but it all came back naturally to me, especially with such a tasty tidbit as Pippa.

  Juice was flowing so freely now I had to gulp it. I sucked and licked, sucked and licked at her delicious nubbin. The claws of one of her hands dug into my bare shoulder, puncturing and drawing blood, which I saw later smack in the middle of the phrase “righteous man” in my inked Ezekiel verse.

  Suddenly she caught her breath and held it, her thighs so tight around my head the roar of the crowd became a dull babble. I kept up my steady pace on her clit, worrying her labia with my fingertips, hoping I hadn’t forgotten the skill. It seemed she held her breath for fucking ever. A gush of juice over my tongue told me I was on the right track. Then, a harsh gasp.

  And she held her breath again, yanking a giant fistful of my hair.

  The contractions came fewer and farther between, and I slowed my lapping. I dared to snake my tongue inside her pussy, and one stainless steel ball popped onto my tongue. Like a magician, I quickly palmed it, then went in for the other one. That one I left in my mouth, and came up for air.

  She wouldn’t let go of my hair as I rose. She had a stranglehold on me. But I noted a couple of hired guns jogging toward the fight as frightened people started innocently walking the other way. A couple of those thuggish Friends of Distinction members followed the direction of the rent-a-cops, apparently eager for a fight. So I wiped my face on my forearm and bent over the exhausted woman. She finally opened her eyes and let go of my hair with a surprised little “oh!” With her mouth still open, I closed mine over hers and gently pressed the ball between her lips. I could feel her smile as she accepted it, but she quickly removed it and looked at me, our noses almost touching.

  “My name’s Travis McShane.”

  Her lazy smile grew wider. “Nice to meet you, Travis.”

  We might have remained locked together there like idiots for who knew how long, but an authoritative voice was at my shoulder.

  “Fox. Pippa. Time to go.”

  Luckily, it was Lytton Driving Hawk. “Let’s thrash it before those morons get arrested. We’re all meeting
at the One Finger Salute.”

  Assuming that was a bar, I helped Pippa off the table. “Sounds good, my man. Thanks for the intel.” I gathered up the blanket Pippa had been sitting on. Figuring it was used goods now I bought it, slapped some bank on the table, and took her hand. The crowd was now a flood of people navigating away from the scene of the fight, Tracy one of them.

  “Tracy!” yelled Pippa. “Over here!”

  Lytton and I simultaneously jumped out and grabbed Tracy from the floodtide. She looked dazed and confused.

  “Shit,” she said. “They grabbed Wolf and Tobias and took them away with those zip ties around their wrists. And right after Ford told no one to get a ticket.”

  Putting her arm around Tracy, Pippa said warmly, “Listen, come with me. We’re going to some bar to meet up with everyone.” She looked at me. “Is that all right?”

  I knew Lytton would think she was just acting like a regular old lady, asking for permission. Only I knew she really asked me if I thought it was safe for her to go somewhere without my protection.

  “How far’s the bar?” I asked Lytton.

  He lifted his chin. “Two blocks up, one block to the right. Neon cocktail for a sign.”

  I nodded at Pippa, and the women joined the tide of leather-clad revelers. But Lytton held me back. We took the “one block to the right” portion of the walk first.

  “We need to get those morons out of lockup,” I said.

  Lytton said, “The Friends are on it,” referring to those hardasses with ball peen hammers hanging from their waists. “The mall cops were basically laughing when they cuffed them, and everyone was telling them it was the best entertainment of the whole rally. Listen, I heard about what went down at Ruben Ochoa’s.”

  I waited for more information to go on. I wasn’t expecting an “attaboy” for taking matters into my own hands.

  Lytton said, “I understand if you’ve got a separate agenda from us. Maybe you had instructions from a higher authority.”

  “I did,” I allowed.

  “Seeing as how no one’s stepped up to take responsibility, we’re not sure whether they’re going to demand satisfaction from us. We’ve got to be prepared to go to the mats. During the last chapel we told everyone to be on the lookout for Ochoas. But now we’ve got to know.”

  We had to sidestep around some out-of-his-head numbnuts who had parked his scoot sideways on the sidewalk and was sobbing about it, sitting on the curb. “My handmade exhaust!” he kept bawling. “My handmade exhaust! My Springer front end!”

  Lytton literally stepped over the guy who had eaten asphalt. “You need to pick sides, Isherwood.” He looked sideways at me, meaningfully. His gaze was unknowable behind his shades. “It’s us or Ortelio Jones.”

  I was such a hardened customer by now, my heart didn’t skip a beat when Lytton let it be known he knew who I worked for. It wouldn’t be that difficult for an MC Sergeant-at-arms to figure out who a redheaded Anglo sicario worked for. “I understand. You can’t have a guy working both sides of the tracks on your inside operations.”

  “Exactly. Tobias figured out this Phil Din guy works for Jones, so he must’ve been sent here by Jones to check up on you. I just don’t know why you were tracking down poor Pippa. Were you hired by her asshole ex-husband?”

  “No!” I stopped dead in my tracks, my hands spread wide. I even tore my shades from my face so Lytton could get a gander at my sincerity. “Don’t even think that, Lytton! I have nothing to do with that epic asshat. No, I work for Jones, I admit that. But that’s coming to an end. I just don’t know how.”

  Lytton put his hands on his hips and scrutinized me. People walked in between us, so we moved a bit into a shop entryway with a CLOSED sign in the window. “I’m trying to get you, Isherwood. If you’re playing Pippa like a fucking fiddle, we’re going to end you.”

  I moved even closer to the pot impresario. “No. I’ll admit I was sent to find her. All that finished when I realized the mission was…misrepresented to me. I’m staying because I sincerely care for her now. And I need to find a way to protect her. I’m tracking down this Phil Din motherfucker, Lytton.”

  He sneered. “Yeah? Well it sure looks like you’re just kneeling there with your face in Pippa’s snatch. I need her, Isherwood. I need her scientific background and I like where she’s going with the CBD hybrids. I need her and I like her.”

  I couldn’t admit my main sources of intel in the Phil Din search were Tobias and Santiago Slayer. For obvious reasons I couldn’t use my tech guy down in Nogales. “I admit my face was in her snatch too, Lytton. I admit it all. Just let me go hit that Phil Din mother. Then I’ll turn in my badge to Jones.”

  “No one ever retires from the cartel.”

  I knew that. But I said, “I’m just an independent contractor. Now I’ve got to go find Pippa. Do what I’m here for.”

  Lytton persisted. “I used to be like you, Isherwood. A coldhearted, mean-spirited toolbag. June convinced me to live and love. There’s a bigger freedom in loving someone other than yourself.”

  I snorted skeptically. “A week ago, Driving Hawk, I didn’t even love myself.”

  He finally took off his shades, and there was the glint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “That’s the beauty in it. Now you can do both.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  PIPPA

  The air was cooling down with the sunset. An unreal, magical quality hung over the scene, enhanced by the bowl of starry sky above, infused with pot smoke—of inferior quality to our Young Man Blue, of course.

  We took part in a religious pilgrimage, surging forth from the One Finger Salute to the ground where they had already built a wooden pyre for the Burning of the Bike. I got to know people I’d only heard of in Pure and Easy. I chatted awhile with Roman and Gudrun. Gudrun was the club lawyer Slushy’s daughter, a nurse’s assistant. Roman had headed up the indie rock band Little Accident before giving it up with revenge in mind for his father’s murder. Gudrun had been drugged and held prisoner in the same trap house as Tracy when Roman and Wolf had busted in, guns blazing from all accounts, to save them.

  Tracy had told me the romantic story as we walked to the bar. Well, the saga didn’t start so romantically really, with Gudrun’s addiction to prescription painkillers leading them into a sleazy house where they’d been drugged and held in preparation for transport as human cargo.

  “This was how I knew Wolf was the one for me,” she explained. “He came in in a shower of smoke and body parts to whisk me off to safety.”

  “Then why did you spend so much time with Tobias?”

  Tracy had paused, screwing up her face. “You know how you get distracted by something that isn’t right for you? You’re too afraid to believe in the dramatic, romantic story of someone else.”

  I remembered how Fox had told me to create my own story. That was how my story would eventually mesh with someone else’s. Had he meant his own? “Yes, exactly. Sometimes the most dramatic story strikes fear into you. It makes you think your whole life with that person will be like that.”

  “Right! I knew Wolf led a life of danger. All Tobias does is play video games and design spreadsheets for the Leaves of Grass. After the trauma I’d been through, I wanted safety. Security.”

  “I can relate to that.” I really could. “When I first came to Pure and Easy, I felt safe inside my little space over the biker bar.”

  Tracy laughed. “That’s rich, huh? Safe space over a biker bar?”

  “I know. I totally saw the irony. But after all I’d been through with Russ, it was like a safe haven. I didn’t want any complications.”

  “I had a boyfriend once who hit me,” Tracy confided.

  I’d always felt like a fraud with that story about an abusive ex-husband. I felt I did a disservice to women who really had been beaten by men. The way I justified it to myself was remembering that my Russ had been abusive in his own way. Certainly selling your girlfriend to a ruthless cartel was a parallel sor
t of abuse.

  And that was a story I couldn’t tell.

  “That’s terrible,” I said lamely. “Was it just once, or repeatedly?”

  Tracy shrugged. “Once was enough for me. But my point is, I’m going back to the danger of Wolf now. Wolf did something for me no one else ever did. He protected me. Don’t get me wrong—Tobias is a great guy. He’s certainly the brainiest as far as computer stuff goes. And Wolf can be sort of a doofus.”

  “Sort of a turkey,” I agreed wholeheartedly.

  Tracy looked shy. “But you know what? He made me feel wanted. He made me feel secure. He made me feel like…”

  I easily supplied the words. “Like a lady.”

  Tracy snapped her fingers. “Yes! That’s it! I realized Tobias and I were more like good friends. Wolf and I are in love.” We stopped in front of a street stand where two tattoo artists were at work. One filled in a realistic back piece on a guy depicting Marlon Brando on a bike. Tracy said slyly, “What about you and Fox? He’s hellafine. Is he sticking around?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, suddenly despondent. “I wish he’d stay. But his apartment is in Nogales. That’s where he works out of.”

  “Oh,” Tracy said innocently. “Does he work for the Jones cartel?”

  You know how they say blood ran cold in someone’s veins? Well, mine did. It was like my brain was one of those instant cold packs and some giant had squeezed both sides of it to make it pop. I don’t know how long my brain was in the deep freeze. Eventually I somehow came out of it long enough to ask in what I hoped was a casual tone, “Why would you say that?”

  “That’s their power base. Or so I hear. Course, it could be the Ochoas or the Presencións or any number of warring cartels.”

  I flipped my hair over my shoulder. “Oh. I heard the Jones cartel was based in Laredo, Texas.”