Pops’ and Place. Pops used to be the Road Captain for this chapter until he busted his knee and couldn’t ride anymore. He took over the bar for us when the previous owner passed away.
I’d always liked coming here as a teenager. Pops let me do what I wanted while I was here, years before I was legally allowed to drink, and he sheltered me when my dad came looking to pick a fight. He didn’t know how bad things were, or he would have been one of the first to kill my father. It bothers me that I haven’t been up here since a few years after Dad died.
Rows of motorcycles, those belonging to the men from my chapter and from this one, sit outside the wooden, lodge-like establishment, dozens of them. Dex’s chapter is twice the size of ours, something he likes to needle Dragon about.
The dark van we’d transported the guns in isn’t in sight. It’s probably in the back, in the garage where Dex’s mechanics fix up the bikes.
As we draw close, I see Dragon and some of the others sitting on the patio out front with Dex and dozens of White Springs members, some with bare chests, nearly all with beers in hand, looking relaxed. The White Springs club girls serve up beers or sprawl on the men’s laps.
It’s like a home away from home, the kind you avoid for years and then wish the hell you hadn’t when you return. Dragon has Tequila on his lap; he and the others look like they’ve been here a while, having settled in.
When I pull into the lot, Emma sits up, and I feel her body tense. The men on the patio laugh and rib each other, tossing back their drinks, some of them insulting each other. Unease pounds through her. I park my bike and kill the engine, resisting the urge to give her a reassuring pat on the thigh. Our time has passed. She needs to suffer for her actions today.
Striker and Rat pull in behind me and their engines shut off.
Swinging off the bike, I unbuckle the helmet Emma’s wearing and take it off, hanging it on the handlebars.
Her throat works as she watches two men at a table arm-wrestling, a large group of them loudly cheering one or the other on.
It occurs to me that, however hard it is to believe she was part of a violent, zealotist cult, nearly all of her behavior fits with her story, from the way she reacted to the skimpy outfit I’ve given her, to the way she panicked when I started finger-fucking her at the restaurant. She looks completely out of her element now, exactly like a woman who still doesn’t know what to make of the biker lifestyle and thinks us all savage criminals who act like the kind of men she’s been gaslighted to fear.
She looks as if she thinks any one of those men is going to sling her over his shoulder and drag her off at any second.
Unfortunately, as I have to remind myself, her reaction to public sex and skimpy clothing could be explained away by the normal, if strict, upbringing of a pastor’s daughter. And her reaction to my lifestyle is hardly unusual. Most women who aren’t born into an MC are nervous when they see us in our habitat, even when they don’t realize how brutal we can be.
I let the memory of her story, the insanity, the pure far-fetched feel of it roll around in my head, counteracting with the few behaviors that don’t add up to her living a normal life. I let them remind me not to be drawn in by her naiveté of my world, the innocence that seems to glow from her.
I shouldn’t be reassuring her, but outright fear is a problem. Some of the men in this chapter don’t know me as well as those at Casper’s, and they will take advantage of a woman who looks at them like a deer caught in headlights.
I turn her chin up with my fingers. “What did I tell you before, when I first took you to the clubhouse?”
She blinks at me, clearly unsure what I’m referring to.
“Relax. No one will touch you. You belong to me, and they will know it soon enough.”
She sighs, not looking reassured. I help her off, about to lay a long, hot kiss on her for everyone out here to see, but I don’t get the chance.
“Spidy!”
I turn. A little