Asher: Heartless Devils MC (3 page)

His sleepy, half-open eyes roamed Jenny’s face as she slept beside him. It was weird to see her face so relaxed, even after knowing her only a short time. There were no frown lines between her brows, and her mouth wasn’t in a smirk or snarl. It was sweet, her lips slightly puckered from where her cheek pressed into her hand on the pillow. He smiled slightly, then very quietly, so as not to disturb her slumber, slipped out from between the sheets and headed into the bathroom.

She felt the bed moving, as he careful left her bed, but she only dared to open her eyes once she heard the shower start.

Over the coming days, Asher was her living shadow. To school, to the shops, like Mary and her lamb, everywhere Jenny went, Asher was sure to go. He had caused quite a stir at school, especially among the woman, as he waited patiently outside the lecture hall for her return. He wasn’t overbearing, allowing her to mix with her friends, but he was always close, and his eyes were always in motion.

They didn’t say much about their intimate encounter the first night, and there was no repeat performance. It was after a week of living together as close strangers that Asher finally decided he needed to speak up.

“We can’t go on like this, Jenny,” he said one morning over breakfast.

She looked up at him blankly, not sure what exactly he meant. “What, exactly, are you talking about?”

“This. Me following you around every single place you go.”

“I thought that was your job?” Jenny kept her casual air, drinking her coffee and wondering where in the hell this was going.

“My job is to protect you. But I’ve been thinking, well, why not use this time to teach you how to protect yourself? Teach you the things the daughter of the club president ought to know.” He picked up another slice of crispy bacon and methodically chewed it, as he waited for her response.

Jenny waited a moment before supplying an answer, mulling over the possibilities. “My dad won’t like it,” she pointed out, raising the first issue.

“He doesn’t have to know.”

“He’ll find out eventually.”

“Find out that his daughter can ride like Maria Costello and shoot like Annie Oakley? I don’t think he’ll mind too much that she takes a bit after him, too.”

“Who’s Maria Costello? Never mind, I get the point. What makes you think I’ll be so good?” Jenny asked, a wry smile forming on her lips.

“Because I’ll be teaching you,” he said, ending the conversation.

***

The day after school had ended for the Thanksgiving break, her training began. Thinking it would be the easiest place to start, Asher got her set up with the smallest bike they stored at the clubhouse. It was a Suzuki TU250X, a bike the club used as a shame ride and given as a joke for members to ride when they put their bike on the ground hard enough to require extended repair. It was a light street model, typically ridden by teenagers as a starter bike. Riding it with her perched on the back, clinging on like a limpet, he headed to a large parking lot where they could practice without interruption by pointless things like pedestrians and police.

With Asher giving her patient encouragement to give the bike ever more throttle—as she repeatedly stalled it out in fear of it accelerating wildly out of her control—she finally got moving. Once moving, she rode the bike with ease, becoming more comfortable with the controls and the feel of the bike. Until her first stop, when she confused the front brake and clutch and dumped the bike, and herself, onto the ground in a twisted pile.

He tried not to laugh but couldn’t stop himself. As she kicked away from the bike and got to her feet, she gave him a savage middle finger then picked the bike up, thumbed it to life, and immediately rode away again. Over the next half hour, she had several more close calls, but she never crashed the bike again.

After two hours of ripping around the empty parking lot, she wasn’t ready to compete in the Isle of Man TT with Maria Costello, but she was smooth and competent enough that he was satisfied that all she needed was more practice.

He checked his watch. “Come on. Let’s get you legal.”

“What?”

“You need to have an endorsement on your license to ride on the street. If we hurry, you can just get in today.”

Ninety minutes after they arrived at the DMV, a smiling Jenny emerged, waving a license in front of her. “Nothing to it. Get on. I’ll ride you back.”

“I’ll walk first.”

“What? Don’t you trust me?”

“It’s not that. It’s that I still have my pride.”

She put on a comical pout. “Okay, fine. Be that way.”

***

They returned to the clubhouse where they did a little shuttling to get Asher’s bike, her car, and what she now possessively considered
her
bike back to her apartment. She felt like a total bad-ass bitch, as she motored through town on her little Suzuki, trying to look awesome while also paying attention to what she was doing. She was still new to this, and she didn’t want to screw up and embarrass herself, or worse, get hurt.

That night, as she bobbed around the kitchen, she felt like her feet were barely touching the floor. She never understood the appeal of motorcycles before. They were hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and wet in the rain. They messed up your hair and were much more dangerous than a car. But that was before she learned to ride—because she
got
it now.

She danced her way out of the kitchen, two plates of poached salmon with rice pilaf in her hands. As she slid Asher’s plate in front of him, he looked at it with mild disdain.

“You know, riding a bike is more than just another way of getting around. It’s a mindset. If you are going to ride, you can’t keep eating like this.”

“This is good for you!”

He sighed as he began to pick apart the delicate fish.
She still has a lot to learn.

***

The next day they went for a ride, leaving Miami in their rearview mirrors. The weather was perfect for riding, temperatures in the seventies with bright blue skies. They would ride for a while, Asher cruising along beside her on his much more powerful Harley, then they would stop and he would critique her riding, offering suggestions and showing her techniques to use.

As they day progressed, Jenny began eyeing Asher’s bike enviously. She like the deep rumble of the thing, and how it effortlessly out accelerated her bike no matter how hard she twisted the throttle. She had clearly proven herself in the kiddie pool; now she wanted to jump straight into the shark tank.

“Where can I get a Harley like yours?” she asked, as they pumped yet another tank of fuel into the bikes.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I just like it better. This thing feels so slow now.”

“That’s because it is. But riding a big heavy bike is a lot different than a small, light bike. You can’t muscle a hog around like you can that one.”

“You don’t think I can do it?” she challenged, her dander getting up. Nothing made her more determined to do something than having someone tell her she can’t.

“I didn’t say that. I’m saying that you can get hurt, and quick, on a big bike. This thing weighs four times what that one does and has a
lot
more power. Power and weight is dangerous combination. You’re not even equipped to ride a bike like this.”

“What do you mean,
equipped
?” she asked, her voice getting low and dangerous.

He smiled at her tone. “You dump this bike at eighty, dressed like you are now, I could scrape you up and sell you as hamburger. Do you know why we wear leather?”

Jenny shook her head, mollified slightly that he wasn’t referring to her gender. “Because it makes you look like a badass?”

He chuckled. “Besides that. It’s so when we go down, the road has to wear through another piece of hide before it starts on ours. What you are wearing isn’t going to cut it.”

The pump clicked off, ending the conversation. As Asher’s bike started with a rumble, and she thumbed her own mount to life, the buzz of the smaller bike’s engine made her all the more determined to move up to something better. And soon.

***

“I don’t understand why I can’t at least try a more powerful bike,” Jenny complained, as they stepped out of the mini-mart after another long ride around south Florida. “You aren’t even griping at me anymore. The only problem now is that I feel like a rebellious
teenager
on that thing.”

“Didn’t you know? All of us nasty biker boys started out as rebellious teenagers. You’re a lot better, much smoother and more confident, but you’re still learning,” he responded, choosing yet again to not be drawn into an argument with her.

“You said yourself just the other day that I was doing great. Surely that’s reason enough to let me at least try a better bike. It doesn’t have to be one like yours, but something better than a kid’s bike would be nice. I’m tired of feeling like I am holding up traffic.”

He looked at her carefully for a moment before sighing.

“Fine. I’ll try to find you one. And you’ll need to get some actual leathers. You need better protection than what you’re wearing. Until then, stick to practicing with this one.” With that, he slipped his sunglasses on, thumbed his hog to life, kicked it backwards out of the parking space, and roared away, the bellow of his bike leading the way back to Jenny’s place.

***

That night, as they sprawled on the sofa with pizza—Asher having finally convinced Jenny that the occasional take out wasn’t that bad—he raised the topic of her bike again.

“So, I think I’ve found you a bike,” he said calmly, helping himself to another slice of pizza.

“That’s great!” Jenny sat up in excitement. “Where is it? When can I get it?”

“I just found it. We’ll go look at it tomorrow and make sure it’s on the up-and-up. It’s a 2012 Switchback. The guy wants twelve grand for it. It seems a little high, but it’s low mileage and the guy said it’s perfect. But before that, we have to get you fixed up with some gear. That cheap, nasty pleather shit simply ain’t gonna work, sunshine,” he said with a grin as he demolished his slice in record time and reached for another.

“Twelve thousand dollars? For a two-year-old motorcycle? That seems like a lot!”

“Hey, you’re the one that wanted to upgrade. You can keep riding the Suzuki.”

She pursed her lips in annoyance. “Fine, we’ll go tomorrow.”

“He’ll want cash.”

She sighed. “Okay. I’ll have to stop by the bank of course. Then leathers? Then the bike?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Jenny paused for a moment. “Where do I go? For the leathers, I mean.”

“There’s a shop downtown. I know the owner. He is the official supplier for the Devils. He’ll give you a good deal.” He contemplated the pizza he’d taken two bites of before throwing it back into the box. “There’s also the matter of the other side of your training.”

“Other side?” Jenny queried, pausing with a slice halfway to her mouth.

“The actually protecting yourself side.”

“Well, I took some self-defense classes. Mom made me.”

“Great, so if a guy is pointing a gun at you, you can explain to him how to get out of a choke hold. Now here’s the hard part. On one hand, you need to be safe at all costs. On the other, your dad will probably kill me if he finds out I taught you how to handle a gun.”

“I guess we better not tell him then, huh?”