The Dust and the Roar Page 10

  “Did he? I’ll bet.”

  “Oh yeah. You know, everyone’s all Harley-Davidson. But an Indian…”

  “Yeah, an Indian.”

  “He offered me good money too, on several occasions, but I had to say no.”

  “I understand.” My hand trailed over the rusted frame. The mere skeleton of a bike. A fossil my dad had seen, admired, coveted.

  Jed cleared his throat. “I’m saying yes now. That is, if you’d like her.”

  He was letting her go now out of necessity, hard reality, and I was here to catch her. A catch that my dad had tried to make.

  “How much?” I asked.

  He gave me a figure. “I got it. Not on me right now, but I’ll be back in an hour with the cash. You hold her for me.”

  “I will, son. I will. Deal’s a deal.” Jed stretched out his hand on a smile, and I shook it. “I’m so glad you’re taking her. I really am.”

  “Me too.”

  * * *

  That night, I hung up a couple of the gas stations signs in our clubhouse, pinned up one of the flags I’d washed carefully. Made the place look more like ours.

  “Cool,” said Cheezer from his spot on the sofa, a burning doobie between his fingers, two cans of Cheez Whiz at his side.

  Back in the small tin shed I’d set up behind the farmhouse for my tools and repairing our bikes, I set the Indian frame against a wall and started cleaning her up. Yes, I’d rebuild her. I would. Like Jed’s father had wanted to. Like Jed. Like my dad. So many good intentions were loaded on this delicate piece of old metal, but I would do it.

  “Hey.”

  A smooth voice that went straight to my insides. I raised my head, my every muscle tightening. Isadora.

  “Hey.” My pulse picked up speed, the two of us staring at each other. The scouring pad dropped from my fingers. “You found me.”

  “I found you.” She licked at her lip, her attention going to the Indian frame. “What’s this?”

  “Hmm? It’s a bike frame.”

  “Barely looks like it.”

  “It’s from the fifties. My dad had his eye on it a long time ago, and now I got it.”

  “Your dad taught you to ride?”

  “Yeah, I was about fifteen. Riding with him was a real high. The two of us singing in the same wind, flying over a road that led us wherever we wanted to go.”

  “Sounds amazing.” She laughed softly.

  “What?”

  “Your smile just now. Huge.”

  I averted my gaze, securing the Indian frame against the wall. “My dad was a real low-key, quiet guy, but that was when he’d cut loose and smile—when we rode. I could feel that smile, like the hot sun on my shoulders, the heat hitting my back. I could feel it, even if I couldn’t see it, you know?”

  “I get it.” Her face blushed, her eyes beaming at me. “So you’re cleaning it up?”

  “I’m cleaning it up.”

  “You going to—”

  “Get over here.”

  She strode over to me and lifted a bottle of Jack she’d been carrying at her side. “I brought you this.”

  “Mighty kind of you.” I took the bottle and set it on my worktable. “But not what I need—”

  She rose up and kissed me, her arms sliding around me. I crushed her to my body, pulling her between my legs. We kissed, we inhaled each other, the heat between us bursting, unbearable. Her breathing deepened, and she let out a small grunt as she kicked off her boots, I ripped off her jeans and mine and planted her over my bike, spreading her gorgeous legs. I stroked that curvy ass slowly, and she let out a groan. I thrust inside her, filling her to the hilt. “Isadora…”

  Her hands gripped the saddle as her body jostled under my assault. “Oh my God…”

  I slowed my pace, controlling myself inch for inch in her slickness until she came, her whole body shaking. I brought her to the floor, where she locked her legs around me, there on a field of bike parts and tools.

  Her hands slid over my sweaty chest, around my neck, her breathing as rough as my own. I lifted myself over her, sliding my cock up and down her wetness. She rocked against me. “Wreck, Wreck, get back inside, damn you.”

  “Not yet, baby, not yet. Feel every inch of me. I want to make you crazy.”

  “I am crazy, so crazy. God, you’re so thick, you’re so—”

  I drove inside her. “Is—Is—”

  She clung to me, and we flew. We flew together. We burned.

  Flames, the two of us.

  Flickering inside my darkness.

  Flickering inside my darkness still.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  After that night in the shed, we stayed together. It had been a week.

  Isi worked every day at her family’s store, so I’d drop over there at quitting time and take her out for something to eat at Drake’s or for a beer at Pete’s before she’d head on home. She lived at home with her dad and helped him run the store with her cousin, Georgia, pitching in when she could. Since her mother’s death when she was in high school, Isi had become the family caregiver. I didn’t press her to stay with me every night. I didn’t want her to feel pressured. I imagined she was already living with a whole fuck of a lot of pressure. I wanted her to cut loose with me, feel her own free and easy. I wanted her to feel me on her. In her. As much as possible.

  Friday and Saturday nights and Sundays were ours. Last night I’d brought her back to my small apartment after we’d made an appearance at a club party at the barn. I wanted to be alone with her, not around the guys and their women and the hanger-on girls. The two of us, alone.

  We’d had a few shots of Jack and gone at it. This morning, I’d woken up with us twisted in each other’s arms in the small double bed. With her in my arms, I slept better than I had in years.

  My fingers trailed along the side of her relaxed face as she slept beside me. I have a woman. I tugged the sheet aside, slid down her naked body, and licked up her inner thigh until I got to her pussy.

  One long, slow swipe of my tongue and her back arched, a small moan. Hell yes. My tongue swirled slowly through her wet, her thighs trembling. Her hips began to move, her fingers slid in my hair. She was searching for more of me, for more, and I wanted to give it to her.

  “What do you want, baby?” I whispered against her damp skin.

  I could feel her tremors on my tongue, in my hands that held her curvy bottom. This strong, regal woman was suddenly so fucking vulnerable. I wanted to crack her shell some more and revel in that glow she kept hidden inside. I licked at her again and whispered, “No words. Show me.”

  Her hips rocked toward my face, and my mouth sank over her. “Is,” I murmured.

  Sliding two fingers inside her tightness, I ate her, and a low, desperate moan escaped her mouth, her hand suddenly raking through my hair, pulling on me, keeping me close. I sucked on her swollen clit, and she let out a short yell, her body twitching and jerking in my grip. She groaned, her face smashing into the pillows. I cradled her ass and went at her again.

  “Wreck … oh my God…”

  My fingers dug into her ass as I sucked hard and steady. My tongue demanding, my fingers coaxing. Isi writhed underneath me and came once more.

  Now that was victory.

  Like some primordial caveman, I raised up off her and licked her sweaty throat. Stretching out next to her, I took in the sight of my woman in a daze, her limbs useless, her glistening with sweat body sprawled before me. Her limp gaze snagged on mine, and my hand went to my rock hard cock. I pulled, twisted, rubbed. Her lips parted, her breathing picked up again, our eyes locked. Within seconds my cum spattered over her belly, her tits.

  “Breakfast of champions,” she said on a laugh, dipping her fingers into the pool of cum between her breasts and licking.

  I got paper towels and wiped myself off her.

  “I got it,” she said. “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to,” I said, batting her hands away, wiping off the last traces
of me from the slopes of her body. “I’ll make coffee.” Planting a kiss on her knee, I climbed out of bed.

  She slid on my T-shirt that lay crumpled on the floor, got up, and explored the apartment, opening one small cabinet after another. Papers, a ruler, two worn Louis L’Amour paperbacks toppled out onto the counter, the floor.

  “Are these yours?” she asked as I handed her a mug of coffee.

  “Those books are my dad’s. I like ‘em too.”

  “You have a lot of stuff in here,” she murmured, taking a sip.

  “When I moved here from my trailer in Rapid, I kept a lot of my dad’s stuff. I had some of it at the barn, but I brought it here. I keep meaning to go through it. I want to keep some stuff, but…”

  “It’s hard to go through, right?”

  “Yeah, it is. I start then I … I don’t know.”

  “I watched my mom keep everything of my brother’s. But the chapel she made of his room only kept the sorrow drilled into her and that house. I’m not saying you need to throw everything out—no, of course not. Keep the good stuff, the stuff that has real meaning or vivid memories for you. That’s all.”

  “You make it sound easy.”

  “It can be. It’s another way of looking at it.” She glanced around the crowded apartment. “Want to do it?”

  “Not really.”

  “We’ll do it together,” she said.

  In one long day, we made piles of stuff to trash, stuff to give away, things I wanted to keep like his Louis L’Amour books, and a silver eagle ring a biker had given him in payment for fixing his bike on the fly. He’d never worn it but cherished it. We swept and mopped and washed the windows. She scrubbed down the kitchenette, and I dealt with the bathroom.

  “You need new towels,” she said. “I’ll bring you some from the store.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I want to,” she said. “Yours give me the heebie-jeebies. They’re worn out in spots and really nubby. Blech. And you need washcloths, so you can clean me up all soft. Paper towels don’t cut it for cum wiping.”

  I laughed out loud. “Well, since you put it that way… yeah, I don’t want to scratch that gorgeous skin.” I swiped at her bare shoulder with my tongue.

  I stacked a couple boxes of trash out in the hallway.

  “This is cute. Was it yours when you were a little boy?”

  “What’s that?” I stepped back into the room. Isi held a small stuffed animal in her hand. Miller’s buffalo, the one he’d left behind when my mom had dumped him on his dad. “Oh. I … uh … found it.”

  “And you kept it. Do you still want it?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “You want the toy?”

  I grabbed it from her and tucked it in the top drawer of the dresser.

  “Why do you want it?” she asked.

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “I don’t know. Is this buffalo a big deal?”

  I only shrugged and bent over another box.

  “Okay…” she let it go.

  The two of us grabbed sodas and went outside and laid down in the grass of the small backyard, enjoying the late afternoon breeze tickling our skin. “I’m exhausted,” she said on a sigh. “But it feels good to have done all that, doesn’t it?”

  “It does. A major accomplishment.” I brushed her lips with mine. She rested her head on my chest, humming. “You sing regularly now with that band that you played with at the Flames party?” My fingers sifted through her hair.

  “No. I’ve sung with them before, but it’s nothing formal.”

  “No?”

  “I’ve sung with a few other bands too. Whenever we’re at a party together, they invite me up, or I invite myself…” She waggled her eyebrows. “It’s fun.”

  “So you don’t sing on a regular basis?”

  “I sing whenever I can. When the opportunity arises, I take it. Singing was always my dream. I won my high school talent show twice. Everyone thought I’d go on to superstardom.”

  “What happened?”

  “Disco.”

  We laughed.

  My fingers trailed down her arm. “Come on, why didn’t you go for it?”

  “First, my brother didn’t come back from the war, then my mom died, and everything changed at home. A lot.”

  “You got stuck here.”

  “In a lot of ways, yeah. Singing was my escape from dull reality.” She let out a sigh. “I don’t mean to whine or—”

  “You’re not whining. You’re unloading. Go on.” She wasn’t being specific. She didn’t feel comfortable telling me everything. Yet.

  “When I get the chance, I perform. And actually, I kinda like the way it happens, spur of the moment, last minute. It’s a super high.”

  “Don’t you want more of those, babe? String all those highs together, and you get one big one that you can create yourself, control yourself, not only when there’s some band party, or you happen to get an invite.”

  Her eyes found mine, her fingertips tracing my bottom lip. “I don’t let myself dream big anymore.”

  “Why not?” I slid my hand around her wrist, kissing her palm.

  “Disappointment really stinks. I think it’s better to take one day at a time and take it as it comes. That’s been working for me lately, I’m going to stick with that.” She pulled me closer, and we kissed.

  “Well, take this. I got you a singing gig.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?” Isi’s big eyes blinked open as she sat up, her hand shading her eyes in the sunlight.

  “You know Kip, right?”

  “Kip from Meager? He and my brother were best friends.”

  “Well, I guess that explains Kip’s reaction when I mentioned your name,” I said. “He was all excited. He’s having a blow out for his birthday on Saturday at his granddaddy’s property. Some band is playing. He wants you to sing.”

  “You want me to sing.”

  “He’s heard you sing before, woman, and he wants you to sing at his birthday party. Take it or leave it.”

  “You did that for me?”

  “I just—”

  She squashed me in a bear hug. “You did that for me?” she whispered hoarsely.

  “All I did was ask him.”

  She pressed herself deep against me like she couldn’t believe I was real and wanted to hold onto me, to the moment. I was real all right.

  We were real.

  I closed my eyes and took in our real. There, in the sun, the breeze, the whispers of the towering trees.

  She released me, and her hands went to her eyes, wiping at them, and something shifted in my chest at the sight.

  “Do you want to do it?” I asked, cradling her face. “‘Cause you don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “Is that your mantra?” she asked.

  “My what?”

  “Your motto.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

  “Mine too. Right now, I want to kiss you.”

  “Good. Kiss me,” I said.

  We kissed, and she pulled me down to the grass. “Thank you,” she murmured against my lips. “I’ll call Kip and get the details.”

  “Later.” My hand cupped the curve of her ass, my lips nuzzling her throat.

  “You are so damn sexy in a cutoff T-shirt,” she said, her hands running up and down my arms, her legs hooking around my hips.

  “I want to fuck you so damn bad, but let’s get back to my room before someone calls the cops on us for indecent behavior. Dammit, Tramp, you’re such a bad influence on me.” Laughing, we scrambled back in the old rooming house and up the stairs, slamming my door behind us.

  She pushed me back on the bed and wriggled out of my T-shirt, her gorgeous tits bouncing free of the fabric. I’d never ever get tired of that sight.

  I kicked off my shoes, she yanked down my jeans, I took her in my arms, and she straddled me. We fucked, the bed squeaking loudly under us. After we held each o
ther, her back to my front, and my hand slid up her warm body and cupped a breast. I couldn’t stop touching her all the time. My fingers wandered, grazing a textured patch of skin. The skin seemed buckled—a set of small scars, healed but rough. Why hadn’t I noticed it before?

  “What’s that?” I asked, my fingers exploring gently.

  “Birthmark.” Isi brushed my fingers away and stood up, throwing my T-shirt back on. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “I thought you hated my nubby old towels?”

  “I do, but I’ll survive once more.” She kissed me and strode into the bathroom, leaving me on the bed.

  I ran a hand through my hair, wiping the sweat from my chest. I’d never been very forward with girls. I’d had crushes, but nothing that felt rooted from a hot place deep inside—a place I’d never been aware of before. I’d never given it much thought. But Isi was different in a way I couldn’t quite describe. I slung my arm over my eyes, the sound of the shower running filling the small apartment.

  Being with Isi felt different. And I wanted more. I wanted her to want to give me more.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “You nervous?” I asked, my arm around her waist, walking with her to where the band was setting up at Kip’s party.

  “Nope.”

  “How can you not be nervous?”

  “I’m so excited. This feels right. Everything fits.”

  “I get it.” I kissed her, gave her ass a squeeze. “Have fun, baby.” She beamed a smile at me and climbed up on the platform doubling for a stage. She stopped, pivoted, and ran back toward me. Grinning, I braced, and she jumped into my arms. “Thank you for this. Thank you so much,” she whispered in my ear, gripping me tightly.

  I squeezed her back, and we kissed. “You deserve this. Have a blast up there.”

  Every night last week she’d gotten together with the band, The Silver Tongues, and they’d practiced together in one of their garages in Rapid. She’d sung with them a couple times, so they already knew each other, and it had worked out great.