Rick“So he caught up to you?”“Yeah. Well, some of his guys did at first. It was pretty bad. I was alone. They found me at the hotel I was staying in, and they busted my door down and came after me while I was in the fucking shower.”She blinked. “Yikes.”I sighed, remembering the memory very un-fondly. “Yep. Never thought I’d have to fight for my life completely buck naked.”She covered her mouth.“Are you laughing at me?” I asked.She shook her head, but a giggle came out, and then she hid her face in the blankets.“Harley!”“I’m sorry! I’m sorry. It’s not funny. It’s just… I started picturing it, and my imagination got out of control. Please, tell me the rest.”I rolled my eyes in mock annoyance and picked at a loose thread on her blanket. “Well, I managed to fight them off. I was lucky that one of the guys staying in the room next to mine came to my aid. We’d run into each other earlier in the night at the hotel restaurant and shared a drink at the bar. He came in fists swinging,
HarleyThe line of racers waiting to register had to be fifty feet long, and it wrapped between a bunch of parked vehicles on the race grounds. I sat at the registration table at the front of the herd with Charlie, who had offered to help me today.The qualifying race was always the busiest of them all. Drivers came from all over the city, and more showed up from surrounding suburbs. Some even made their way over from neighboring states to try to get a slot in The Streets.This year was no different.Charlie sifted through the papers in front of us to find the name of the young man standing in front of her. He waited patiently and looked around with wide eyes.“Is this your first time?” Charlie asked without looking up at him.I watched out of the corner of my eye as I waved the next driver to step up.The young man in front of Charlie couldn’t have been older than twenty-one. He wrung his hands together and nodded. “Yes, ma’am. First time. I didn’t expect there to be so many people.”
HarleyEvery thought I had gave me anxiety, and I was more and more aware of the fact with every passing day that I had never felt this way about a man before. I had never cared about any of those questions, and I never desired the answers I wanted now.“So?” Charlie asked, leaning forward and giving me a coy little smile.“So…” I trailed off.Her smile stretched. “It was that good, huh?”“What are you talking about?”“Why are you suddenly so secretive?” she asked. “You and I both know this is all you’ve been thinking about for the last nine months. Hell, Laina knows too. It’s all we’ve talked about. Now that it’s finally happening, you clam up on me? That’s not fair, Harley.”I licked my lips. She was right, of course. I owed her the truth. She and Laina had both been there for me through the most difficult times since Rick left. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”She shimmied closer to me, the legs of her chair grating against the gravel underfoot. “Your place or his?”I shrugged. “Mine.”“
RickThe qualifying race was being held in an old industrial park just outside of Jackson Heights. It took me close to forty-five minutes to get there, and I arrived just before eleven-thirty at night. When I pulled up in my Jeep and parked, it was clear to me that the race had ended. A lot of people had already cleared out, and those who had stayed back to linger and socialize were packing up their cars now.A few people waved to me as I walked by and made my way to the registration booth. The sign had been taken down, but I could see Harley and her red hair from a mile away. She and Charlie were bent over the table collecting all the paperwork. My boots scuffed the gravel, and I slid my hands in my pocket and cleared my throat.“Ladies.”Charlie and Harley both turned around. Harley gave me a big smile, and Charlie watched her watch me.So, Charlie knew about Tuesday night then.Harley gave me a one-armed hug and then seemed to remember where she was. She let her arm fall from my wa
RickWe drove for another fifteen minutes or so before pulling into the parking lot of a fast food burger joint. The parking lot was empty except for a few cars that belonged to the staff and the one man inside the restaurant sipping a coffee and reading a book. We cruised through the drive thru, and I ordered our meals. Then I pulled into a parking space that faced the road, and we took off our seatbelts.Harley opened the bag and started handing me my items, as well as a straw for my drink and a handful of napkins. Then she flattened the bag into a placemat and put it over my console to use as a little makeshift table. She squirted some ketchup on the corner, dipped a piping-hot onion ring into it, and took a massive bite.She fanned her mouth as she chewed.“Careful,” I said, wincing on her behalf. I held out her drink to her.She snatched it out of my hands and drank greedily. “Places like this never have hot food. It’s almost unheard of. What’s the deal?”“The stars are aligned,
HarleyRick was on the ground and out of my range of vision within a matter of seconds. One minute, his lips were pressed to mine, and my knees were aching, and my stomach was swirling with butterflies. Then his door was being torn open, and he was being dragged out of the Jeep.It took about fifteen seconds for me to process what was happening.Three men stood at three points around the vehicle, dressed from head to toe in all black clothes. One had Rick down on the ground by his door, the other was standing in front of the hood, and the third was hanging around by the back tire of the driver’s side.None of them seemed too concerned about me. In their eyes, I was just some girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.Dumb bastards.“Rick!” I yelled again as I spun around and scrambled to get out of the car.I heard him grunt in pain.“Oh, hell no,” I growled as rage bubbled up inside me.As soon as I had my passenger door open, the guy at the hood of the Jeep set his sights on
RickI tried not to grimace when Harley drove over the dip in the curb and into my driveway. She parked the Jeep and looked over at me as she took her seatbelt off. “Home sweet home.”I nodded, took off my seatbelt, and opened my door. I slid out of the Jeep and closed the door behind me. Harley hurried around the hood and came to see if I needed help.“I’m all right,” I told heShe didn’t look like she believed me. She pursed her lips in a fine line and looked me up and down. “I think you’re full of shit.”I laughed and immediately stopped when it hurt my ribs. “Yeah. Maybe.”Harley marched up my driveway to my front door, which she opened with a twist of her wrist. She held it for me to half-stumble through. I tried to walk straight, but the pain in my side kept me hunched over while she closed and locked the door behind us.She let out a sigh and walked around me as I made my way down the hall toward the living room. “Do you have a first-aid kit or something?”“Yeah, under the bath
RickHarley looked down, and her hair fell in front of her face.I propped myself up, ignoring the tight burn in my side, and tucked her hair behind her ear. Her blue eyes swept up to meet mine. “You were reckless tonight.”She shrugged. “I’m not one of those girls who will let you handle things on your own, Rick. You know that about me.”“I know, but now that we’ve—I don’t know. Now that things have changed, I don’t like it. I don’t want you to get hurt.”“You don’t have to like it, but it isn’t going to change. Fuck those guys. They deserved what they got.”“Maybe, but—”Harley put a finger over my mouth. “No. No but. I’m telling you how it is, Rick Thomas. And you’d better get used to it.”I arched an eyebrow.“Too much?” she asked, a hesitant grimace on her face.I chuckled and shook my head. “No. You could never be too much. Truth be told, I don’t think I’ve ever been as attracted to you as I am right now.”“Keep it in your pants, buddy.”“I don’t want to.”She threw her head bac
Harley“I can’t believe it, man,” Rick said.“I couldn’t for a while either,” Mason said. “But this is something we’ve wanted for some time now. Now it’s happening. You picked a good time to go away. I was going to ask for your help building the crib and setting up the nursery.”Rick chuckled. “Well, you have Benji for that.”The men looked at Benji. His shoulders slumped. “Yay.”Everyone laughed.“Are you going to find out the gender, or let it be a surprise in the end?” I asked Laina.She lit up like a light bulb and instinctively put her hand on her belly, even though she wasn’t showing yet. “I think we’re going to wait.”I smiled. “Beautiful.”Within the next half hour, everyone migrated to the dining-room table, which Laina had set beautifully with a white tablecloth, gold chargers, and white plates. The candles were in gold holders, and even the cutlery was gold. She had an eye for detail.While we devoured the spaghetti and meatballs, we talked about life and babies and all the
HarleyTwo Months Later“Careful,” I said as Rick took a sharp righthand turn and drove the Jeep into Mason and Laina’s driveway. The appetizer I’d thrown together slid across the backseat and bumped into the door panel. I scowled at him. “I slaved over those for fifteen minutes. Don’t ruin them before we walk in the door. I want to knock everyone’s socks off with how much of a homemaker I’ve become.”Rick killed the ignition and arched an eyebrow at me. “A homemaker? Really?”I lifted my chin. “What?”He snorted and got out of the Jeep. “Nothing. I just doubt anyone is going to think ‘homemaker’ just because you’re showing up with a plate of—what do you call these?” He opened the back door and picked up the plate covered in three layers of saran wrap.Wrapping the plate had been more difficult than whipping up the food.“They’re caprese salad skewers,” I said.I’d spent the fifteen minutes before we left sliding cherry tomatoes, bocconcini cheese, and basil leaves onto toothpicks. I
RickThe corner of her mouth twitched, giving away the beginning of a smile. “A trip, huh?”I nodded. “We can narrow it down to some destinations and start mapping it out. There’s no better time than now, right? We can get out of the city, figure out what we want, and make up for lost time. Just you and me and beaches and sand and—”“Lots of sex?”I chuckled. “That’s not what I was going to say, but I assumed it was part of the package.”Harley nodded. “That sounds like a plan to me.”“Good,” I said. “Now stay still.”She opened her mouth to ask me why but promptly shut it when I ran my hands over her shoulders and then to her breasts, which I gently massaged, loving how they felt all lathered in slippery soap.“You’re such a guy,” she said playfully.I snickered. “I know.”She let me lather her entire body in the shower. Then we switched places, and she did the same for me. Having her run her hands all over me was heavenly, and it helped me forget about the tight pain in my bruised r
RickAll the aches and pains that had plagued me on Saturday night were still with me when I woke up on Monday morning. I was lying on my back, and Harley was tucked into my side. Her cheek was on my chest, and her left leg was draped over me. Her breathing was deep and slow and soft, and I didn’t open my eyes.I just lay there and listened to her. And felt her closeness.Yesterday had been dedicated to recovering and covering our tracks from Saturday’s race. I hired a tow-truck driver to come get the Saleen and bring it back to my place, where I got it in the garage so that if the cops came looking for it, the car wasn’t sitting out somewhere. It needed a lot of work, and the downside of street racing was obviously that it didn’t have insurance. I couldn’t claim a hit and run when the car was beat to shit on both sides and the rear end.Fucking Torq.But it was just a car, and I liked working on vehicles. The Saleen would be my project for the next year or so while I figured out what
HarleyHe watched me like a hawk as I started going down to my knees, pulling his boxers down as I went.His cock sprang free, teasing and taunting me as I got comfortable below him. I gazed up at him and took his shaft in one hand, working him over softly and warming him up. His gaze was dark and heavy as I ran my tongue from the base of his shaft to the tip and then swirled it around his meaty head.I drew him into my mouth, suctioning my lips around his thickness. I worked him slowly at first, taking my time, easing him into it. I knew he was hurting, and I wanted to be gentle with him.If he’d let me.He had a way of taking over halfway through and showing me who was boss. Not that I’d be mad if that happened.I swirled my tongue around his length before taking him deep in my throat and holding him there as my mouth filled with saliva. Then I bobbed my head, sucking him off hard and fast and fitting as much of him in my throat as I could take.He let me suck his cock for a long ti
HarleyIt was a wonder that the Saleen had even started back on the track, and it was even more mind blowing that it made it back to my house without losing several more pieces along the way.I parked at the back of my building in the private parking lot. I didn’t want to leave it on the curb in case any police drove by. It would be easy for them to link the Saleen to the scene down by the docks, and then we’d be done for.After parking the car, Rick had to climb out of the passenger window again. Every move he made was gentle and controlled. I knew he was hurting and hated that there was nothing I could do to take the pain away.Once he was out of the car, I climbed across the console and slipped out too. He offered me his hand, and I took it but didn’t lean on him for support. I was pretty sure he wasn’t in much of a position to be offering it in the first place.We walked soundlessly across the parking lot, our footsteps drowned out by the sound of rain pinging off the metal garbag
Rick“Fuck me fucking sideways,” I said.I couldn’t afford to waste any time. Either I was getting his ass out of the car, or I was bailing.“You owe me, motherfucker,” I said as I leaned in through the driver’s window and reached up to unclip his seatbelt.Torq crumpled to the ceiling of the car, landing across my arm beneath him. Shattered glass from the windshield bit into my bicep and forearm, but I gritted my teeth against the burn and worked to drag Torq’s ass out of the car. He was a heavy motherfucker.He started groaning.I stumbled to my feet and hauled him backward. “Work with me you fat bastard. I’m getting you out of here. Your asshole buddies bailed on you.”He mumbled something incoherent.“Yeah, I know. They’re your friends, not mine. I guess that’s what you get for being a piece of shit.”I collapsed when I had him clear of the car. I struggled to catch my breath, and my side screamed with pain. I tucked my arms under his armpits, stumbled back to my feet, and kept dr
RickI landed heavily on the wet pavement after managing to climb out through the passenger window of the Saleen. My right leg was tender and bruised from Torq driving into me, and my chest ached from the seatbelt and being jostled around roughly as I’d lost control of the car.But I was alive, nothing was broken, and there was no blood. So, overall, things were pretty good.Aside from the approaching police.I used the car to push myself to my feet, slicking my wet hair off my forehead as I rose. Then I stood and waited for the dizziness to pass. I didn’t think I’d hit my head at any point, but it sure felt like I had. Maybe it was just severe vertigo from whiplash.It didn’t matter. I could figure that out later. I had to focus on getting the hell out of there and making sure Harley was safe, too.She had a lot to lose if this race got busted, and so did I. She was everything. If I lost her, I would lose my damn mind. After all this time, we were finally together, and there was noth
HarleyBenji and Mason took off for the registration table. I swung my attention toward Rick’s car. The whole passenger side was busted up. The damage looked pretty bad, and I had no idea what sort of injuries he might have acquired. I leaned forward to look down the road.The last drivers were only twenty or so seconds away. Maybe less.“I think his door is jammed,” Laina said, nodding at Rick’s car.I narrowed my eyes. She was right. He couldn’t get out. His car was too crumpled and too fucked up for him to get the door open. I wondered if it would still run.If we had to leave it behind, it was a sure-fire way for the cops to trace the car back to Rick. Then all our dreams of starting a new life together would be over. He’d be in jail for a long time.Charlie shook my arm. “What do we do, Harley? Tell us what to do!”I swallowed and took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. We need to clear the area. Rick can handle himself. Help me get people the hell out of here. Send them off in differen