Chapter Thirteen
Ciara
The Northern Kings’ clubhouse was only fifteen minutes from where I lived. Nestled at the very back of a busy industrial estate, it was surrounded by overgrown bushes. Weeds poked through the cracked road surface, and I steered the car around the potholes of the pitted road, trying not to cause it any more damage. I’d followed Demon, doing my best to keep up as he pushed the stupidly loud motorbike over every speed limit on every road. Beside me, the black bin bags I had taped to the windows rattled annoyingly, the wind catching and yanking at them. But annoying or not, they kept the rain off me, otherwise I would have been drenched.
Demon must have been soaked. The heavens had opened the minute we got onto the road. Rain bounced on my windscreen, my window wipers looking like they were on drugs at a rave with the speed at which they worked, trying to clear the water. In front of me, the thick back wheel of the motorbike kicked water at me. A finer mist of water and dirt on top of the rain hammering down from above. We slowed for a set of lights, the red glowing on the road, reflecting in a huge expanse of surface water that couldn’t drain because of the deluge. I moved in my seat.
I was uncomfortable. I ached. And every time I moved just a fraction, that ache reminded me of him. There’d been something ruthless about the way he’d fucked me. Almost like he’d wanted to cause me pain. Yet, despite the feeling he was splitting me in two with each stroke, I’d loved every minute of it. And just that thought warmed me up. A fresh load of tingles pulsed through my battered pussy, and the heavy clenching of my thighs couldn’t still my thoughts or the sensation gathering inside me.
It shouldn’t have happened. I barely knew him. And what I did know was not good news. He was an arsehole, with serious anger management issues. Not only that, he was part of a bike club. Lawless and dangerous. Just as much as the people I’d spent the last few years running from. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. And now he was leading me to their clubhouse. God only knew whether I’d be allowed to leave. Or whether they would require some sort of commitment from me. What would I see there that I shouldn’t? What would I hear there that I shouldn’t? But I had no choice. Or that was what I was telling myself. I had no choice. I had no choice but to let Demon fix my car windows. I had no choice to take my books and work in the clubhouse rather than my bedsit. I had no choice.
Fuck it if I didn’t know this was a bad idea. But here I was, pulling up outside of the sprawling pub, about to step into the domain of the Northern Kings. Demon’s bike cut off, the deafening roar stilling, a strange fuzz filling my ears now the rumble of the vibrations had stopped. My car still purred, the engine turning over.
He was imposing. His black leather jacket, with the black waistcoat over the top, and the three crowned skulls embroidered on the back. Three sets of soulless eyes staring back at me. There were badges on the front of the cut. Words and phrases I didn’t understand. Some sort of bike club language. Maybe it was like the Brownie Guides or something? Perhaps he’d been in charge of a barbeque sometime? Or got the beer orders right? I didn’t think he had earned himself a sewing badge, although someone had to have sewed it onto his cut.
“You coming?” His voice boomed over the thrash of rain as he pulled the car door open.
“I… err … yeah.”
Pulling my rucksack off the passenger seat, I spun my legs out of the car, staring at Demon’s outstretched hand as if touching him was toxic. Maybe it was? Maybe even being near him was? All I wanted to do in his presence was argue with him or fuck him. Neither was good separately or as a combination. Definitely toxic.
We pushed through the door of the pub, out of the rain. It smelled damp inside. Stale. The sickly smell of alcohol clung in the air, and on the carpets that my feet stuck to. The tables were a mismatch of varnished wood, every single one covered in dents and cigarette burns. And smoke still lingered in the atmosphere. Last night’s smoke. I’d worked in enough bars to recognise it. Worked in enough shitholes to turn a blind eye to the smoking of cigarettes in public places which was illegal. Although this probably wasn’t a public bar, no matter what label anyone tried to give it.
There were more people scattered around tables than I thought there would be for this time on a Sunday. Although most looked worse for wear. Maybe they hadn’t even gone home yet. Some faces I recognised. Fury. The tall, broad-shouldered biker with the long dark hair sat in a corner, nursing a pint of lager that looked barely touched. Beside him were the twins. I’d seen the pair of them in Trouble several times. Identical, even down to their hairstyles and the clothes they wore. Between them sat a woman. Older than them if I had to guess, with similar coloured brown hair to mine, just short, ending just past her shoulders. She looked giddy. Drunk or high, or both. It was hard to tell from this distance.
I followed Demon to the bar. To the man with the grey-flecked hair in a white t-shirt with his back to us. Three crowned skulls stared back at me. Again. His arms were completely covered in colourful tattoos. Tiny intricate details merging into each other, too difficult to make out from this distance. He was well muscled for an older guy. Well-muscled for a biker. All the ones I’d seen before were portly middle-aged men, with decent sized beer bellies to rest their decent sized beards. So far, the Northern Kings seemed to have a physique code. Everyone I’d met in this club seemed fit.
“You’ve met my brother, Indie, haven’t you?” Demon introduced him and the grey-haired man turned and studied me.
“Aye. I have.” Indie’s eyes travelled over me, slowing over my chest like everyone always did.
“Drink?”
“Sorry?” I asked.
“Do you want a drink?”
“You got a coffee?”
Indie studied me again before turning to Demon.
“What the fuck’s wrong with this one? Coffee?”
“What do you mean, what’s wrong with me? You lot not drink coffee? Is it all whisky and whatever shit you shove up your noses?”
I bit. I shouldn’t have. That was dangerous. Indie stared at me for a while, contemplating, and I stared back, trying to control the fear niggling at me. Then he smiled, his brown eyes crinkling at the sides. They were a lighter shade than Demon’s, rich and deep, full of stories and of life well lived.
“So, you want a coffee then, lass?” His voice rumbled, breaking my gaze and the hypnotic pull of his eyes.
“Please.”
“Some sort of fancy shit? I have a machine here,” he pointed to the big silver coffee machine that looked barely used.
I shook my head. I worked with that almost every day, the scent ingrained in my nostrils, the bitterness of freshly ground coffee and the pungent smell of frothed milk.
“Instant, if you’ve got some, please. Two spoons of coffee. No Sugar. No milk.”
The grey-haired man nodded, a smile pulling at his lips.
“Love a lass who knows what she wants.” He winked as he turned, a gesture towards Demon, who was quietly watching the exchange. Dark eyebrows pulled together in disgruntled, uneven peaks.
“What?” I challenged.
“You know, you could be a bit less abrasive?”
“And you could stop putting people’s heads through my windows and then I could still be in bed.”
“Demon been losing his shit again?” The voice from behind me was light, feminine, and far too gentle for this place.
I turned. She was petite. A good few inches smaller than me, with a round face and sparkling blue eyes. Wavy blonde hair framed that face, immaculately styled as if it wasn’t 11am on a Sunday morning. Sunday mornings meant for lie-ins and chill time.
“I’m Suzy,” she said when I did nothing other than stare at her. “Magnet’s wife.”
“I don’t think I know who he is.”
She smiled. It was friendly, no hint of an agenda. “He’ll be along later. He’s got some business to attend to. Demon, could you ask Indie to get me a coke when he’s back? I’ve got some patches to sew up.”
“Sure, darl’”
The small blonde woman turned away, moving back to a table by the window. A pang of jealousy, stupid and irrational took a stab at my chest. I shook my head. I should recognise this, this with Demon, for what it was. There were so many reasons to not get attached.
“Darl’ huh? You into sharing each other’s wives here in the club?”
Demon searched my face, confusion on his.
“Only the twins. It’s kinda some whacked up thing of theirs. Why?”
“You called her darl’.”
“So?”
“You’ve called me that too.”
“I call women that if I like them.”
“You like me then, huh?”
“Nah. That’s why we just fucked. Cos, I hate you. Fuck’s sake, Ciara. It’s just a term. It means nothing.”
“So, I mean nothing then?”
“Fuck me!”
“Already did that.”
“Ciara,” Demon turned, his hands moving to my shoulders and, for a moment, instinctively I stepped back. Just a fraction. A little falter. Fingers wrapped around the bulbs of my shoulders, holding me still, not letting me run from him. I tipped my chin up, defiance swelling in my chest.
“Ciara,” he said again, “stop making this so damn difficult.”
“This?”
“Us.”
“There’s an us now?” I cocked my head, watching Demon stare at me, unsure how to answer, because whatever response he gave, I was in the mood for a fight.
“Maybe. Maybe there could be. I’ll let you think on that one, darl ’.” I didn’t miss the way he slowed on the word. “Just do me a favour and go think on it over there. I’m heading out back to give Indie a hand to fix your car.”
He watched me a few seconds longer, the tiniest hint of a smile pulling at his lips, his face just knocked out of its perfect symmetry.
I spent the next few hours trying to work on my assignment but succeeding only in being constantly distracted. The blonde woman sat diligently a few tables away, guiding leather cuts carefully through a sewing machine, spinning and moving them deftly as the metal arm hammered into the thick material. She barely looked up, her concentration solely on the fabric, folding them into neat piles after she’d checked them, before starting another. Wherever Magnet was, he was taking his time, no one else showing for a good long while.
At the far side Fury, the twins and the girl sat sipping alcohol, the occasional bark of laughter breaking my thoughts. Thoughts that had taken some persuading at getting into the game. This morning should never have happened. I don’t know what I’d been thinking. I probably wasn’t thinking. Demon seemed to have that effect on me, cutting me off from rational thought, from reasoning and common sense. So here I was. In the clubhouse of a bike gang.
I glanced around again at the faded, peeling wallpaper. The stuff must have dated back to the eighties. A good decade before I’d been born. The green and cream pattern was separated by a dado rail, the woodchip paper below the same green gloss. It was easy to clean, I supposed, but ugly. Really ugly. I’d seen better decorated lap-dancing clubs back in Ireland, and that was fucking saying something.
A sudden rumble from outside broke my concentration once again, pulling my attention from the mottled screen of the old laptop. I could feel the vibrations under my feet. The whole pub seemed to shake. I couldn’t count the number of engines, but the heavy purr and guttural chant of motorbikes dwarfed the noise that Demon’s made. Then silence. The pub floor stopped vibrating, and the air stilled, my own breaths the only sound I could hear now.
Around me, no one else seemed phased. Suzy unhooked the thread from her machine, a pile of leather sitting to one side of her, and across the room the four heads continued to raise glasses and erupt in cackles. And, through the door, marched in a line of leather clad men.
The man in the front had a head of thick grey hair and a goatee beard, trimmed to perfection. Whiter than Indie’s, his hair was pushed back over his head, mussed from the helmet that he carried in one hand. Behind him, a slim woman in leather, with raven hair that fell around her shoulders and swung out from side to side from somewhere near her arse. The procession wandered in, the low rumble of men’s voices filling the room with a sudden energy.
“That’s the club president,” that light voice said suddenly from the side of me, answering a question I’d never even asked. But then she caught me with the next nugget of information she offered. “Indie and Demon’s dad.”
I stared then, at the man walking past me. He was tall, but older. Sixties probably. His right ear was littered with earrings. A mix of hoops, climbing up the flesh of his lobe. Silver, Celtic patterned, and gold. Nothing matched or contrasted, just scattered. He looked at me as he passed, keen brown eyes boring into mine, lingering for just a little too long that I felt I was being scrutinised. The woman behind him watched me, too. Not with interest, but threat. Something slightly vicious on her face.
“That’s Tori,” Suzy said again, this time more of a whisper, as if saying her name would see her struck down by a blasphemy punishing lightning bolt. The petite blonde woman had scooted along the bench seat without me even realising, and now she sat on my right hand-side as if we’d been deep in conversation for hours.
I shrugged back at her in response, as if I was supposed to know what she was talking about.
“Ste’s ol’ lady.”
The dark-haired woman glanced back at us, her eyes catching mine, noticing me watching her.
“Just watch your back with her. She can be a bit of a bitch.” Suzy sounded like she was speaking from experience. But I had no intention of watching my back. I had every intention of never coming here again.