Priest - Innocent Read online

  Contents

  PRIEST - Innocent

  For Gat, my rock.

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

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  HAWK - ROID RAGE

  © Alice May Ball, TzR Publishing, 2014 - 2018

  PRIEST

  1

  INNOCENT

  Alice May Ball

  Gat, my rock.

  Without you,

  it wouldn’t mean a thing

  Prologue

  HER EYES FLICKERED AND flinched as the big biker laid me out across the pool table. His eyes widened as they fixed on the softness of my heaving breasts. With his forearm behind my knees, he lifted my red, stinging thighs and pushed them all the way up to my chest. My hands stretched out and grasped as he pressed down.

  I shook and cried out as he slapped my ass. A grin spread wide across his thick, powerful lips and he plunged his mouth onto my swollen and sore lips.

  I shuddered and as I shook and moistened, his tongue fanned me mercilessly. As I throbbed there, my body shook uncontrollably. He sucked on me. When I began to gush, he drank greedily. His long tongue probed and explored my soft opening relentlessly.

  Waves of cascading vibration swelled to a gathering crest. My thighs, my stomach and my buttocks clenched and released. Tightened and relaxed. When my walls gripped around the snaking thrust of his tongue, my mouth sagged and his hand closed on my throat.

  Chapter 1

  THROUGH THE GRIMY GLASS, the gas station clerk could not have been less interested. He barely pulled his half-closed eyes from the screen. His bored voice crackled through a tinny speaker, “Your card’s declined, Miss. Do you have another card that you want to use for payment?”

  Bad news. Served up dry. Baked in the Nevada heat.

  It had to be a mistake. I stepped away from the pay window and took out my phone to call Laurent. My call went straight to a machine voice that told me, ‘There is no service on this number at present.’

  Perfect. I was about to put it away when I saw that a text had come in. ‘Your service has been terminated due to non-payment,’ and a number to call. I called the number.

  I got the machine again, telling me that there was no service.

  Practically the middle of the desert, I had enough gas for about twenty miles and that was it. Eight dollars and forty cents in cash. I figured my best, safest option was to drive back to the block-long blur of strip mall that I passed through about six or seven miles back.

  I remembered thinking as I drove through, Here’s somewhere I’ll never need to see more of. Aint it always the way? I was past and out the other side, back into dusty desert scrub before the thought had even finished. Now, I could end up having to walk there if the gas in my tank gave out.

  I turned around and drove back. A post office in the middle of the strip doubled as a bus station. It was closed. Right next door was an empty diner with peeling paint the color of rust. With a sorry-looking grocery store by the gas station at the other end of the short strip and a couple of vacant storefronts, that seemed to be what there was, pretty much.

  It must be a riot here on a Saturday night.

  Chapter 2

  DRIVING BACK FROM A visit to Tucson, my tiny denim skirt and a thin t-shirt with no bra was fine for driving. I hadn’t expected to be out of the car any longer than it took to buy gas, why worry? That was way back when I still thought I could buy gas.

  The little diner looked like it was almost all of my available options. I parked out front. In the dusty lot were two cars. They didn’t look in any better shape than my little brown Honda. There was a big, shiny motorcycle, too. A Harley with high bars.

  And the diner was open. I saw somebody bustling inside. I could get a coffee and sit. Take a rest from driving. Then some miraculous idea would pop into my head out of nowhere. I knew better than to try and think more than a few minutes ahead. Life with Laurent had me primed for emergencies.

  As I stepped in, the smell of fresh coffee was a welcome greeting and a little bell jingled over the door. The hot guy who was serving didn’t seem to mind one bit how I was dressed.

  He was wiry and trim, about nineteen. His hair was razored into tribal swirls that matched the ink on his arms and his neck. His skin was tanned and smooth. The little white apron looked out of place, hanging below his lean, bare midriff, but not in a bad way.

  He watched as I took a seat inside, facing the window.

  His rolling gate brought him slowly to my table and I looked up a second time to check. Nope, the little apron looked just fine as his big thighs slid behind it. I didn’t expect any attention from him. I never expect hot guys or cute guys or cool guys to notice me. That’s maybe one reason I always wind up with the Laurent’s of this world.

  I took a slow breath. The sun streamed in through the window, I caught the warm smell of fresh coffee and a super-hot guy stood next to me. Given the way the morning had gone up to now, I figured this was going to be a high spot in the day, so I wanted to taste it and savor sas much as I could.

  “Hi,” he said, pencil and pad in hand, “I’m Beanie,” he grinned a little as he jabbed the pencil at a name tag on his broad chest. I carried on watching his midriff. Make sure nothing bad happened to it, you know? I watched the tilt of his hips, too.

  His soft gray eyes lit when I lifted mine. “Coffee,” I said.

  A tight smile waved through his lips. As he turned to walk away, I turned to watch his ass. He was too young for me. I thought probably I ought to tell that to myself a couple more times. Maybe he was only a little too young. Could be borderline.

  What did it matter? He wasn’t going to be interested in some flat-broke blow in loser like me. So, why not let the fantasy roll. I had nothing else to do. Yeah, some pretty pictures of him, Beanie, images in my head, they brightened my mood some.

  I waited for the coffee, tried to keep my mind off the yawning black hole that was my immediate future. I watched the traffic, what there was of it. A truck lumbered by every few minutes. Occasionally a car. Once a biker thundered past and ducked his head to peer through over his black shades into the diner. He was on on a big, black Harley. I guessed he was Beanie’s buddy.

  The bike out front was likely Beanie’s, then. I thought about Beanie’s ink. imagined all the places he could be tattooed that I hadn’t seen. I was getting to feel right at home. Just as well, since there probably wasn’t anywhere else I could say was ‘home.’ Not just right at that moment.

  Other than that, I watched out of the window while a whole lot of nothing happened. All of the mass of great ideas for how I was going to turn this situation around were taking their sweet time to show up, too. If I didn’t think of something fast, I would have to do something anyway.

  That was bad. I could only think of two things that I could do right then.

  Chapter 3

  SO, LAURENT HAD FINALLY maxed out my card, busted our cell contract and most probably made a moonlight run out of our little apartment in Boulder, CO. Not a place to get too sentimental about, I thought, trying to suppress the trace of sentiment that I felt, thinking of the door swinging and no-one home.

  The last two months, I knew there was something off, every time Laurent told me, “I’ll take the rent. Give me the cash and I’ll drop it by to Mrs Oakham.”

  I knew it but I I guess I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want to believe it. Whether it was because I didn’t want to believe that Laurent really was such a slimeball, or if I just couldn’t face the fact that my own judgment was so
messed up. We all just believe what we need to believe, when it comes down to it. Right? Hold on to it until something drags it out of our hands and away from us.

  That jerk. It wasn’t the rough treatment that I minded so much. I’m a grown up, you know? What I hated was him being a dick about it. Daddy used to hand out ‘slaps’ as regular reminders of something. I don’t ever remember what.

  Daddy didn’t hover, dithering, holding himself back. He didn’t lash out in a rage and then collapse in tears, crying that he didn’t mean it and it wouldn’t ever happen again. When Daddy hit you, he meant it and you knew it. If you didn’t know why, he’d tell you. After.

  Aside from the pain of hearing the nails on chalkboard whine, the unbearable grating of a man demeaning himself, there’s also no way to reason or discuss with someone who’s constantly swearing they didn’t mean it and they’ll never do it again. That’s how he does something bad and then makes himself the victim.

  Asshole.

  Chapter 4

  WHEN I ASKED BEANIE for a refill of my coffee, he brought the pot over. He lowered his voice to say, “I’m only supposed to refill you with a food order.” Cute. There was nobody out here to hear him but me.

  I watched the traffic some more. I’d have to find a payphone. Call my friend Jamie in Tucson. Listen to her saying, “I’m not going to say I told you so…” But then what, ask her to drive out here, Oh, and could you bring some money, please? Else, what? Call Daddy? Fuck. NO way.

  Then Beanie said, “I got an order of scrambled with a stack.” He was by the side of my table again, “I must have got it wrong but it’s going begging. Don’t suppose you’d like them, would you? They ain’t going nowhere else.” I looked up at Beanie. I thought, There’s nobody here but me, Beanie. Who could they have been for?

  I told him, “I’m too old for you, Beanie.”

  He looked me over, slowly, “Oh, no, ma’am.” He grinned, “No, you’re really not.” So innocent.

  “See?” I said, “You don’t know what I mean when I say that I’m too old for you. You think that I’m talking about the difference in our ages.” I watched the clouds drift over his pretty face. “I mean that I would burn you up.”

  There was a sigh under his voice as he left, “You have no idea how much I’d like that, ma’am.”

  I thought, Oh, Beanie, I really do. I know how much you think you’d love it. And I know what it could really do to you.

  I swallowed my pride and gratefully scarfed down the eggs, waffles and bacon with hash browns on the side. Nothing ever cheers me up quite like diner food.

  While I ate, the black Harley crackled by again, going the other way. Slower this time. And the rider looked into the diner window with more attention.

  I thought about Beanie. About the wiry weight of him. Sinew flowing, slow like lava. He moved like a dancer. All that young muscle, toned and supple and his lightly bronzed caramel skin. I watched the flashes of his athlete’s girdle, the iliac furrow. Aphrodite’s handles. They’re a real trigger for me, those two little clefts. Pointing the way.

  His tats. I thought about how they would roll and undulate as they slid over his muscles. How his muscles would clench and flex.

  The eager light in his pale blue eyes. A little furrow pulled his short, neat eyebrows together. His lips, stretching back and tightening over his strong, white teeth. The sounds he would make. I thought of the bright light in his eyes. It looked like innocence to me, but I was sure it was something else.

  Inside my short denim skirt, I was getting pretty hot. My little sheer panties felt too tight. Too hot. I was distracted. And way too wet. My hips tilted and I shifted in my seat.

  All of this longing came on so fast. Was it the shock of being alone again, alone and single, or was it just the pent-up passions inside me that I hadn’t been connecting with the past few months?

  I guess that’s a defense mechanism of mine. While I was imagining the flowing ridges of that boy’s shoulders and his thickening, hardening, reddening neck as his back might roll, with my nails maybe scraping down it, all that kept my mind distracted and away from panicking about my situation.

  Nothing had come to me that I could add to my two bad ideas yet. If something didn’t show up soon, I would have to act on one of them.

  Chapter 5

  THE BLACK MOTORCYCLE RETURNED. This time slowly. The rider leaned the bike over and made a sweeping arc onto the lot in front of the diner. The muffled crack of the motor, like machine gun fire under a fat mattress, drew louder.

  His black shades matched the big lamps on the front of the bike’s bars. He sat low and easy in the deep saddle. His arms were almost straight to the short handlebars. He leaned again, harder this time, and made a slow arc to bring the bike in front of the window. The fat back tire in was front of me. He faced the machine out and away.

  He killed the engine. The swing of his leg over the bike was easy and fluid. His tight, round ass rolled, firm and hard under the loose denim. When he stood he was tall, dark haired and broad. On the back of his cutoff leather jacket was a biker club patch. Steel Riders. With a skull.

  His hands, in fingerless gloves, ran through the shaggy mop of his hair. His nose creased and he swung up the two little steps to the door of the diner. The swing of his hips was something to watch.

  A tattoo on his cheek had a red dagger. Another on his bare shoulder matched the design on his MC patch. His face turned to me and his head dipped slightly. His golden-brown eyes shone at me over the tops of his shades. He sauntered over to Beanie and they bro-hugged . they spent some time with energetic slaps and pats on the back and shoulders. It didn’t looked like long-lost greetings, more as though that was how they normally were.

  They were friends. Close even. But there was a plain difference of rank between them. Beanie didn’t have the same status as the other, slightly older biker. He was my age. Maybe even a year or two older.

  A chair scraped on the far side of the little diner and they sat at a table together. They were out of my view, or at least they were unless I turned to watch them. I could have. I wanted to.

  Their voices murmured together a while. After I heard the scrape of the chair again, the biker came to stand in front of me. He looked at me a long time. Long enough to make me feel fidgety. But I din’t move. Like if there’s a bee under your nose but you decide to stay still. Not shoo it away. However much you want to.

  As he looked at me over the top of his shades, an amused grin started up behind his eyes. it made me want to slap his face. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, he spoke. His voice was low, dark and honeyed.

  “So,” his chin lifted as he spoke to me, “S’up?” There was an amused sparkle in his voice.

  I told him, “I was passing through. Thought I might stay and check out the night life.”

  His bottom lip pushed up a little, pulling on the cleft in his chin. “There’s some more to Peaceable than you’ve probably seen.” Maybe I scratched his civic pride. Seemed unlikely. I thought he was hinting at something.

  “This seat free?” He indicated the chair across the table from me.

  “Sure,” I said. My voice wasn’t quite as level as I would have liked. I extended a hand to invite him. I wondered for a moment if I was too young for him. Like Beanie was too young for me. My stomach did a little backflip.

  He was courteous. Almost making a joke of it, “Thank you, ma’am,”

  “Belle,” I told him.

  His grin spread. Before he could say anything, I held up my hand. I said, “My folks were so poor, they couldn’t afford an imagination.”

  He grinned. “We could be related,” he told me as he held his hand across the table. “Priest.” My eyes were on his as I took his hand.

  The hard, warm tips of his fingers touched my soft, cool palm and his thumb brushed the back of my hand. A shock jolted up my arm and rocked my whole body. There was no way I could be sure that he felt it too. Maybe his eyes flashed. I couldn’t be certain.r />