Ropes Read online

  * * *

  Devlin

  I tugged Ropes inside, then closed and locked my door. I was three shots of Grey Goose in and feeling the effects of the alcohol, which is probably why I virtually climbed his body to cover his mouth with mine.

  At least this is what I planned to tell myself in the morning.

  “Dev—”

  “Hush,” I hissed. “I know you want this and so do I, so come on.”

  “I think maybe you only want this because of what just happened.”

  “How about you let me decide what I want and why I want it.”

  “It’s just—”

  “I want your dick in my mouth, but your talking’s gonna ruin it. So, I’d appreciate it if you’d zip it, so I can suck it.”

  “How about I unzip it?” he countered, his hands going to his jeans.

  “Get to it,” I demanded and knelt in front of him.

  Ropes didn’t waste any time… and neither did I, but again, he stopped me. “I’m clean, baby. Got the paperwork in my wallet, but I still want to use a condom.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “When it’s time for your dick to migrate from my mouth to my pussy, you can use a condom, but I’d like it bare for my purposes.”

  “Fuck me.”

  “In a minute,” I promised, tugging his jeans and boxers down his legs. His cock sprang free and I gave myself a few seconds to marvel at the size. Man, he was big.

  “We can wait,” Ropes said, obviously mistaking my pause for trepidation.

  “I’m just admiring the view,” I said, then wrapped my lips around the tip.

  He let out a hiss as I took him deeper, as far down my throat as I could without gagging. I wrapped one hand around the base of his shaft, cupping his balls with the other, then began to work his length with both my hand and my mouth.

  His hands slid into my hair and he fell back against my door. I grinned when he began to fuck my mouth, and I added pressure to his shaft with my hand with each pass.

  “Now, baby,” he hissed out and tried to pull back.

  I grabbed his ass and pulled him forward, glad he picked up on my need to taste him completely. He gripped my scalp harder and thrust once more before coming in my mouth. Before I could enjoy the effect I’d had on his body, he lifted me under my arms and pulled me up, kissing me as he yanked off my clothing.

  “Your turn,” he said, and I slid my hands up his chest.

  Over the course of the night, Ropes repeatedly brought me to the edge of ecstasy and then pushed me over. By the time I fell asleep sprawled on his body, I was more drunk than tipsy, but I knew I’d never forget a second of the perfection of this night.

  * * *

  The birds outside sang a sweet melody, pulling me from my slumber, and despite my lower back being on fire, I felt well-rested. I rolled over to get into a more comfortable position and was confused to find that I had slept on the floor, a pillow and throw from the couch serving as my only bedding. Plus, I was naked as a grape and I never slept in the nude. I rolled onto my back to find a man’s face directly over mine.

  “Good mor—”

  My right hand snapped forward reflexively, connecting squarely with his nose, and he stumbled backward. I heard a massive crash from behind me and spun onto my stomach to see what the hell was going on. I let out a squeak and slapped a hand over my mouth.

  Ropes was flat on his ass, blood gushing from his nose, covered in a mixture of orange juice, oatmeal, and egg yolks. A serving tray and an assortment of broken dishes were beside him on the floor.

  I covered myself the best I could with the throw and shouted, “What the hell are you doing in my apartment?”

  “What are you talking about, you maniac? I’ve been here all night. You begged me to stay. We had sex!” he replied.

  Oh, shit. I had sex with Ropes last night. Really good sex.

  “I know that,” I said, trying and failing to somehow act and sound casual.

  “Then why the fuck did you break my nose?” he demanded, now pinching the bridge of his nose with a napkin. His perfectly tatted chest, awash with blood and breakfast.

  “I’m so sorry, it was just a reflex,” I said, rising to my feet. “Here, let me help you up.”

  “I’m okay, Cherry,” Ropes said. “I could use a couple of towels though.”

  “Cherry?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “My name’s Devlin. You called me Cherry just now.”

  “I did? Sorry. I guess you rung my bell pretty good,” he said.

  “Let me get you some towels and an icepack,” I said, feeling the heat of embarrassment creep up the back of my neck. “I’m just gonna put some clothes on really quick,” I added, before darting into my room. I threw on some sweat shorts, smelled three t-shirts from atop the pile of dirty laundry, and selected the cleanest smelling one. I then ran out to the kitchen to find Ropes already there, standing at the sink, his ink-covered back to me. My knees buckled.

  An outpouring of memories flooded my mind from last night. I’d never experienced that kind of sexual synergy before. Our bodies felt as if they were designed for one another and Ropes was able to take me to places I rarely visited. Now, in the light of the morning, and without the fog of alcohol, I could see his body was even more glorious than I knew.

  “There are towels in the top drawer by your left hand,” I said, and Ropes shot me a thumbs up without turning around. “I’m sorry about your nose. You scared the shit out of me.”

  “I understand,” Ropes said, opening the drawer I’d directed him to only to find it empty, another glaring reminder that I was painfully behind on doing the laundry.

  “Shit on a brick,” I muttered. “Hold on one second.” I ran to the bathroom, grabbed the cleanest bath towel I could find, and returned to wet, shirtless, Ropes.

  “Thanks,” he said, taking the towel. His nose appeared to have stopped bleeding but was swollen and already starting to bruise.

  “Is it broken?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time, but no, I think it’ll be alright,” he said smiling wide.

  He was absolutely gorgeous. I can understand why, after last night’s events and drinking too much, I could have lowered my defenses enough to sleep with Ropes, but I was still shocked that I did.

  “Sorry about all of this,” Ropes said, motioning to the carnage on the floor. “I made you a little breakfast, but I guess we’ll have to settle for the freezer-burned toaster waffles I found earlier.”

  “You should go,” I blurted out.

  “What? Why? Did I do something wrong?” Ropes was still smiling, but he was clearly confused. I couldn’t blame the guy, but on the other hand, I needed to process what the fuck had gone on within the past twenty-four hours or I was going to have a full-blown panic attack.

  “No, you were great,” I said, avoiding eye contact. I could feel my pulse starting to rise and my chest began to tighten. “I just, don’t do… this kind of thing often. Like, as in, ever,” I said.

  “Oh, me neither,” Ropes said in an assuring tone.

  “Right,” I snapped back sarcastically.

  “Ouch,” he said, dropping his smile. “That hurt more than the punch to my sniffer.”

  “Come on, don’t act all innocent. You hook up all the time and you know it.”

  “You always make assumptions about people you don’t know?” he asked.

  “Are you saying you don’t sleep around?”

  Ropes took a step closer to me. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  I swallowed. “What?”

  “Are you in the habit of judging books by their covers?”

  “No, but you’ve been on me since the minute Ben and I rolled into town, so I figured you must hit on everything with legs and boobs that walks into Sally Anne’s.”

  “Have you ever seen me talking to any other women inside the bar? Or anywhere else, for that matter?” He took another step closer.

  “No, but I—”

 
“Who’s Ben?” he asked.

  “W… what?”

  “You said you and Ben rolled into town. Is he your boyfriend or something?”

  “No, Ben is my car. A 1978 Pumpkin Orange Volkswagen Thing,” I said. “I call him Ben after—”

  “Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four,” Ropes finished my sentence, before taking my hand. My vision began to tunnel, and I felt like I was going to pass out. “Devlin, I’ve been asking you to go out with me since day one because I want to get to know you. I haven’t even noticed other women since that day, let alone hooked up with anybody. I told you last night that I’m not with anybody, and I mean what I say.”

  I felt a wave of overstimulation hit me.

  “You have to go now,” I said, pulling my hand from his.

  “Are we still on for tonight? I really do want to get to know you.”

  “I don’t know. I’ll call you later,” I said still avoiding eye contact. Something about this guy made me feel very vulnerable and extremely uncomfortable.

  “Can I help you clean up this mess?”

  “Just go, please. I’m all right.”

  “Devlin, you don’t seem all right.”

  Hearing Ropes say my name made me want to throw him on the kitchen floor and fuck him until I was raw, but mostly I just wanted to hide under a blanket in the fetal position and binge watch Bones with him.

  Don’t make eye contact.

  “Devlin, please look at me,” Ropes said softly.

  I made eye contact.

  Shit.

  “Look, I don’t know what that was all about last night,” Ropes said, before quickly interjecting, “Don’t get me wrong, it was amazing, but I feel like everything that happened at the bar and in the parking lot, last night may have… confused things between you and me just a little.”

  “Ya think?”

  “Okay then.” He smiled wide. “How about a Mulligan?”

  “A Mulligan?”

  “It’s a golf term. It means a do-over.”

  “Golf? See, there you go again. What the hell kind of biker are you?”

  “Let me take you out tonight like we’d planned and you can find out.”

  “We planned to go out together. I never said I’d let you take me out.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “You ‘taking me out’ implies that you’ll be doing things like picking me up, opening doors, and paying for everything.”

  “Does it?” he asked.

  “Yes, it does, and none of that is going to happen.”

  “But we are still going out?” He flashed a boyish grin that I couldn’t possibly refuse.

  “Fine. I’ll meet you at Pioneer Square Mall at seven.”

  “The mall?”

  “Yes, there’s a place there where I like to eat, so if you want to go out with me, that’s where I’ll be.”

  “It’s a date, then,” Ropes said.

  “No, it’s not. It’s just two people going out, paying via separate checks.”

  “One thousand pieces, no corners, no edges, give up now,” Ropes said quietly.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just a memory from my childhood. I’ll see you at seven.”

  “At the food court,” I added.

  “I’ll be sure to reserve us a romantic spot with a view of the play area.”

  I managed to finally get Ropes out of my apartment, took one look at his failed attempt at sweetness that lay on my apartment floor, and burst into tears.

  Ropes

  IT WAS BEFORE noon on a Sunday, so I figured most of the Saints at the Sanctuary would be crashed out after a hard night of partying. However, I was hoping Kitty, a new house guest of ours was up. Kitty used to run with the Dogs of Fire, a local club that we’d recently begun building bridges with after years of tension. His staying with us was likely going to cause our club some trouble, as Kitty and the Dogs of Fire did not part on the best terms. In fact, Kitty had been told very clearly to leave Portland for good when he was kicked out of the Dogs, but he’d helped us out of a serious jam recently, and the Burning Saints never left a debt unpaid even if it meant we might catch a little hell for it. His plan was to make good with his old club, but he’d settled in with us quite nicely.

  I pulled up to the Sanctuary gate and was buzzed in by the guard.

  “Ropes! Where were you last night?” Doozer shouted as I entered the great hall of the Sanctuary. There were around a half-dozen Saints in the Sanctuary that I could see, but not the one I was looking for.

  “Holy shit. Did you hit a fucking seagull on your bike this morning?” he asked, spotting Devlin’s discount nose-job. He then glanced down at my bruised knuckles. “Oh, shit. You’d better not let Minus see those battle scars.”

  “I’ve been working out with the kids at Clutch’s new place,” I lied, using the boxing gym as an excuse.

  “I never figured you for a guy who needed lessons on how to use his hands,” he replied.

  “We’ve all gotta stay in shape somehow, right? Is Kitty around?” I asked.

  “I haven’t seen him yet this morning. Maybe he’s passed out somewhere,” Doozer replied.

  “Passed out? Did a tanker truck full of Jack Daniels show up last night?”

  Doozer laughed. Kitty was massive, by far the largest individual I’d ever met. It wasn’t just his size that made him so dangerous, though. He was also a certified genius when it came to technology and I needed him to utilize those skills for me. I had what some might call trust issues. I’d also often been called a control freak, but I preferred the term “positive outcome enthusiast.” I wanted to go into this date with Devlin with as much information as I could gather.

  I made my way to Kitty’s room and gently tapped on his door to no response. After a few seconds, I quietly cracked the door open and peeked inside. I had no desire to wake a sleeping giant, for fear of having a beanstalk shoved up my ass. As it turned out, I need not worry, as Kitty was wide awake, and balls deep in a busty blonde. He had his back to me and was taking her from behind. I couldn’t even imagine how this chick was going to be able to walk later, but currently she seemed to be enjoying herself just fine. This was worse than walking in on a sleeping Kitty, and I quickly shut the door, accidentally slamming it as I did.

  “Who the fuck is there?” I heard Kitty bellow from behind the door.

  “Um, it’s Ropes. Sorry, man, I can come back later.”

  “Come on in, brother!” he called back cheerily.

  “It’s okay, it sounds like you’ve got company.”

  “Get the fuck in here,” he replied, and I did as I was told.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but—”

  “No problem, Mandy here doesn’t mind, do you baby?”

  “Um, my name is Marny,” she corrected, still on all fours.

  “See, she don’t fuckin’ care. What’s up? Just make it quick. I don’t wanna lose my boner.”

  “I just need some information about someone, a waitress who works at Sally Anne’s. Anything you can find, really, and the sooner the better,” I said, trying my best to avert my eyes from the happy couple.

  “That all?” He chuckled. “Write the name down there on that pad and I’ll have it for you in five…make, it ten minutes.” He pointed to a notepad on top of his dresser by the door.

  “Thanks, Kitty,” I said, jotting down Devlin’s name, then closing the door behind me.

  I walked out to the great room, grabbed a beer from the cooler, and the first open chair I saw. It was only once I’d sat down and taken a few sips that I began thinking about what might have happened had I not gone back to the bar to talk to Devlin last night. I knew Sally Anne’s usually closed at two o’ clock on weeknights, but Devlin was already in her car when I pulled up. It took me a few seconds to register what I was seeing, but as soon as I recognized Troy, I flew off my bike and was on top of him before I could even think. Although, the club was on a strict no violence diet, I knew even Minus
would understand why I had to do what I did. At least I hoped he would, or I was in deep shit.

  After a while I heard Kitty’s booming voice. “Here you go,” he said, holding out a single sheet of paper. I scowled as I read its limited contents.

  “Not much here,” I said.

  “Looks like there’s not much to find,” Kitty replied. “She was born in Idaho, moved here six months ago, and applied for a driver’s license and tattoo permit the moment she got into town. No criminal record, no street affiliations and outside of student loan debt, seems clear.”

  I held up the paper. “Thanks, Kitty. I appreciate this.”

  “No problem, man. I don’t know why you’re looking into this chick, but she’s clean as a whistle.”

  Surprisingly so.

  I wasn’t quite sure why Devlin’s record coming back so clean made me feel uneasy. I suppose I was expecting Kitty to find an assortment of edges and barbs in her past and was simply caught off guard when he didn’t.

  “Thanks again, I owe you one,” I said heading to the kitchen to grab another beer and an icepack before heading to my room.

  As I got dressed, I remembered Troy’s teeth in my kutte pocket and made a mental note to stop off at my mailbox later. A few years ago, I’d earned the nickname ‘Tooth Fairy’ after I started mailing the teeth I’d knocked out back to their owners. It was my not-so-subtle way of reminding folks on the streets to stay in line. I wasn’t a violent person by nature, but I certainly had a deep well of rage inside of me. A well that I could draw from when needed. My job as a soldier was to crack the skulls of the people who tried to strong-arm those under the club’s protection. It was as simple as that, but I’d always rather deliver a message than a second beating whenever possible. Bloody molars via post seemed to do the trick.

  * * *

  Devlin

  Sketching had always helped bring me back to the surface when I’d been dragged under by the waves of a panic attack. Art as therapy was what got me into drawing as a kid. I’d always suffered from episodes of severe anxiety from as far back as I can remember, but recent events had caused them to develop into crippling panic attacks.

  Often, what I sketched during these times, inspired some of my favorite tattoo designs, several of which have even made it onto clients. Today, my creative subconscious and colored pencils led me to sketching mostly eyes. Reaching for various hues of green, eventually finding the right balance between emerald and jade, before realizing I was sketching eyes that belonged to a face I knew. These were Ropes’s eyes.