Authors: Astrid Lee Donovan
BARE BACK WITH THE BIKER
Bad Boy Romance
BARE BACK WITH THE BIKER
Chapter One
Tammy bumped her shoulder roughly against Stella’s shoulder as she made her way to the stage. Stella sighed but didn’t return the hateful glance thrown her way as the busty blonde took the stairs two at a time, her heels clicking audibly. Tammy’s music started playing - Chris Isaak, “Wicked Game”. It was a slow song, sure, but one the crowd out front ate up like sweet, sweet honey. The lights flickered blue as Tammy began her routine, starting with one hand on the pole, twirling slightly, the glitter on her bikini glinting and gleaming.
“Stella,” a voice called from across the room. Junior, the bartender, was standing with his arms crossed, his sizeable muscles flexing. Beside him, Candy looked like a Barbie doll, all tiny and too thin. Stella knew right away something was up from the way Candy’s skinny arms hugged around her chest, barely covered in two little purple triangles. Candy’s face was wearing a frown so deep it was visible even across the dark bar. With one more glance towards the stage, where Tammy was currently crawling towards some rowdy frat boys, she hustled towards the bar.
“Candy? What’s wrong?” Stella asked, growing more and more concerned with each step that took her closer. She could see Candy’s mascara running, her pouting lips quivering.
Still, some cold, hard part of Stella knew it was probably a much smaller deal than the brunette was making it out to be. Candy was a crybaby, pure and simple. Shit, one time Stella had watched Candy pitch a fit because one of the other girls had accidentally used the last of her glitter lotion. She thought everyone had it out for her; a noticeable coke habit made it all the worse, turned tiny slights into paranoid delusions.
Stella had thought, more than once, that she should just fire her. Stella didn’t like working with girls who rolled in red-eyed and jittery on a regular basis, and Candy caused more trouble than she was worth, in Stella’s opinion. But she just didn’t have the heart for it. That was Stella’s problem: she loved all her girls, or at least wanted what was best for them. Even that bitch Tammy, who’d rather dig a stiletto into Stella’s eye than give her the time of day.
Candy’s shaking chin jutted out and pointed toward the end of the bar. A group of bikers had taken up most of the stools at the bar, and it was to these men that Candy seemed to be directing.
“One of ‘em done said I was a li’l boy,” she said, her deep Kentucky accent made even thicker by the tears she was barely holding back. Stella raised an eyebrow. Junior was clearly trying to bite back a smile.
“What?” Stella asked, keeping a sigh of frustration from her voice.
“Said I got the body of a li’l boy, said I ought to get one of them real girls to take care of ‘em,” she huffed. Stella moved around the bar, putting one hand around the girl and rubbing her back.
“Aw, come on now, Candy,” she said, “you can’t cry over every little thing. You know you earn good money here because of that body, why are you letting some asshole get you all bent out of shape? Shit, girl, I wish I had that flat tummy. You’re plenty hot. Isn’t she, Junior?”
Stella looked up at her bartender with desperate eyes, hoping he’d keep his razor-sharp wit to himself for once. To her relief, he obliged.
“Shit, Candy, I’ve been chasing you since the day I was hired,” he said. “You’re the one who keeps turning me down, remember?”
Of course, Junior chased just about every girl on staff – pleasantly enough, never expecting anything to come of it. Still, it seemed to help Candy perk up a bit. But when she turned her face up to Stella, her self-pitying look had turned to anger.
“Ain’t you gonna kick ‘em out, Stel? For bein’ mean?”
Stella wanted to roll her eyes, but she focused all her attention on pouting back at Candy. Onstage, Tammy was upside down on the pole, her breasts now free of the bikini top. Paper bills littered the stage. The song was almost over.
“I wish I could, hon,” Stella lied. “But you know I can’t kick them out. Johnny would have my ass. And how would the other girls feel if they knew a whole bunch of viable customers got the boot on your account?”
At that, Candy’s eyes widened. Strippers could be meaner than starved dogs given the right reason. Candy could give as good as she got when feuds broke out, but she was smart enough to know it was better not to give another girl a reason to hate you. She sniffled and shrugged.
“I guess you’re right,” she said, wiping at her cheeks. Stella gave her a friendly shake and squeezed her in close.
“You’re on after, Sugar,” Stella said. “Go get cleaned up and show those jerks just how sexy you are.”
With Candy fluttering away to the dressing room, Stella was left to finally release the laughter she’d been holding back, with Junior joining in. The fact was, Candy did kind of have a little boy’s figure. She was lean as an arrow, with two tiny A-cup breasts and an ass that disappeared when you looked at her from the side. But some of the club’s regulars seemed to like her, so it gave Stella another reason not to fire her, though to be frank she had no idea who’d hired her in the first place.
Stella had only been working as manager at Spanky’s for six months, and Candy had been hired by her own predecessor - a man who had all but gift-wrapped the position and handed it right over to her.
The owner, Johnny, had been very clear that he’d never hired a woman before, and didn’t outright trust Stella’s ability to manage the club, but after his last manager had gotten not one but two of his best dancers pregnant, he didn’t want to risk hiring another man. Stella’s age hadn’t worked in her favor either; at 24, she was “far too young” to know what she was doing, according to Johnny, but she’d been the only woman to apply.
And even Johnny had to admit that his original judgement of her had proved to be too hasty. Things at the club weren’t exactly one the up-and-up, but they were a far sight better than they’d been when Stella took the job. The dancers – who were infamous for quitting every week only to come back the next month when their sugar daddy failed to provide enough sugar – were sticking around more, showing up for their shifts on time, and even getting along better.
Stella’s managerial style was strict but compassionate, and the girls appreciated her empathetic way of listening to their endless gripes and needs. Well, most of the girls, anyway. There were one or two, like Tammy, who simply loathed having a woman for a boss. Stella knew that Tammy believed she should have been made manager, having worked at the club for a whopping two years – still the longest any dancer had stuck around. But Tammy also had a lot of enemies, and most of the other dancers gave her a wide berth.
Now, Stella eyed the group that had allegedly insulted Candy. She knew that Candy was likely exaggerating, and definitely needed to get a thicker skin, but Stella still didn’t like the idea of anyone pushing her girls around. When she made her way down the bar, she sized up the men. They were all big, burly men, wearing leather jackets with various patches. One that was shared by all seven men boldly declared them to be members of the Rolling Thunder MC.
She was familiar with the club; Truly, Kansas was a small town. The club operated a small dive bar on the opposite end of town from Spanky’s, on the outskirts of town, and were undoubtedly the town’s biggest importer of weed and hash. If it was being smoked in Truly, it came from Rolling Thunder. As she neared the group, several pairs of eyes fell to her. But it was one set in particular that caught Stella’s attention – along with the breath in her throat.
Shit, she thought as she got caught in the gaze of a green-eyed, brown-haired Adonis. With a cut, square jaw covered in a fine shadow and cheekbones like marble, he was strikingly handsome. She judged him to be in his early 30’s. His hair hung down over his forehead in a messy mop that just begged for her fingers to run through it.
But Stella checked herself, determined not to get her panties in a bunch over a hot guy. She’d managed to make it through most of her life without letting a man get the better of her heart or body, and she’d be damned if she was going to let it happen now.
“So,” Stella said, positioning herself in front of the group, arms spread as she braced herself against the wooden bar. “I heard you boys aren’t too fond of one of our girls here. Sweet little thing called Candy?”
She purposefully kept her eyes away from the green-eyed man, instead focusing on the cocky smiles that spread from ear to ear as the men turned to each other and then back to her. But, just Stella’s luck, it was the man she least wanted to interact with who answered her question. On the stage, Sugar had taken Tammy’s spot, and her song, some Velvet Revolver tune, filled the space.
“Send along our apologies,” he said in a voice that dripped like melted butter across the space between them. “We didn’t mean to get her all upset. Just playin’.”
Stella’s heart quickened in her chest, her eyes forced back to him. The smile on his face was begging to be slapped off…or covered in her lips. Shaking the fantasy from her head, Stella forced a smile in response.
“I know you guys,” she said coolly. “You’re the Rolling Thunder crew, right? Well, we do certainly appreciate your patronage, but I’d sure appreciate it more if you treated my girls with a little more decorum.”
One of the men hooted.
“Decorum? What the fuck is this? I thought this was a titty bar, not a fucking tea party,” cackled a grey-bearded man with a huge gut. He was sitting right next to the green-eyed man, who swiftly turned and gave him a more-than-playful punch on the shoulder. Grey beard’s eyes narrowed as he rubbed the spot, and the two men seemed engaged in a staring contest. When green eyes came out as the winner, Stella felt her heart flutter a little more. Seems she wasn’t the only one who felt his power in those eyes.
“A lady’s a lady, stripper or not,” green eyes growled before turning back to face Stella. He reached behind him and pulled out a huge wad of bills that made Stella’s eyes widen in spite of herself. He peeled off a twenty and slipped it across the bar.
“Go on and buy the sweet little thing a drink after her next dance,” he said, making eye contact once more. “She can keep the change, too.”
Stella shifted slightly, wondering what this guy’s angle was. Guys like him weren’t exactly notorious for being generous, or having much in the way of manners. But she took the twenty and pocketed it all the same.
“I’ll make sure she gets it,” Stella said, making to leave.
“I’m Tuck,” he said before she could walk away. Stella turned to him with a smile.
“Tuck? Really? Tuck like…”
“Like rhymes with fuck,” he responded, and Stella nearly shivered as the bar seemed to vaporize. In that moment, the only things that existed were his green eyes, his mouth saying fuck, and her heart beating like crazy. And the surprising tingle in her sex. She wondered if she was blushing as reality came zooming back in. She forced another smile.
“Good to know you,” she said at last.
“That’s what they tell me,” he replied quickly, flashing her a cocky smile. If she hadn’t been blushing before, she sure as hell was now.
“Right,” she said coolly, walking away down the bar once more.
“Wait,” he said, not leaning over the bar on his stool to shout after her. “I didn’t catch your name!”
Stella stopped but didn’t turn. She wondered what her name would sound like coming out of his mouth, maybe whispered into her ear as their bodies pressed together…this night was turning into a night of surprises. She never got this way around men. Better to nip it in the bud.
“Mud,” she said, flashing him a fuck-off look over her shoulder. His face crumpled slightly, then turned curious. “My name is mud.”
And with that she was gone, swallowed up into the crowd and then into the dressing room, where Sugar was just returning from her dance and Candy was preparing herself, applying yet another coat of glossy lipstick.
“Break a leg, Candy,” Stella said, ushering the girl out onto the catwalk while “I Want Candy” started booming on the speakers.
Chapter Two
The rest of Stella’s night went off without a hitch – a happy occurrence for a Friday night, which was usually when the worst of the worst was likely to happen. She managed to avoid the bikers, specifically Tuck, until they eventually shambled out sometime after midnight.
As the dancers left one by one, wallets full of singles, some on the arm of a customer who caught their fancy, some on the arm of a customer who promised to empty his bank account to be with her, Stella counted the till. Junior was closing up the bar, cleaning the last empty glasses and taking inventory of what would need to be replaced.
“So those Rolling Thunder guys,” he said, flashing her a sideways smile.
“What about ‘em?” Stella asked, still feeling some tension in her stomach as she remembered Tuck’s intense stare. Junior shrugged, the smile still plastered in his face.
“One of ‘em fancied you quite a bit, Stel,” he said. She looked away from the money she’d been counting to give him a hard stare.
“So?”
“So…he happened to be the hot one,” Junior said with a shrug. “What? You got some secret man you’re going home to tonight?”
Stella laughed, a genuine laugh, with only the slightest hint of sadness to it. Everything Stella did had the slightest hint of sadness to it.
“I’m just saying,” Junior said, pulling out a plastic bag of the night’s empty bottles from underneath the bar. “You could use a little lovin’. We all could. But especially you.”
Stella snorted, returning her attention to the money in her hand.
“What makes you say that?” she asked, starting to feel a little hurt by Junior’s words. Was her loneliness that obvious?
“Because as much as these bitches moan and groan about how hard their jobs are,” Junior said, “you’re the one who gets the worst of it. I can see the knots in your shoulders from here. Need a backrub, boss?”
“Not from you, Junior,” Stella said, smiling and dropping the night’s profit into an envelope to go into the safe.
“Can’t fault me from trying,” Junior replied, hauling the clinking bag towards the recycling out back.
Back in her office, Stella put the night’s numbers into the spreadsheet, her computer so old and slow that she had to type with one finger so that it wouldn’t crash. She wished Johnny would pony up to update the club’s look and software, but times were tight and she knew that they were barely making ends meet as it was.
Groaning as she finished up her work, she leaned back in her chair and rubbed her temples. She was very much looking forward to her post-shift drink. She allowed herself one, at the end of every night. That night, she needed it more than ever. The way she’d reacted to Tuck had surprised her – and, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, it had also disarmed her a bit.
She walked around with such a tough shell, never letting anything in through the cracks, but she felt something trying to snake its way in, past her defenses. And she didn’t want that to happen. She needed it not to happen.
Stella had worked hard to get where she was. Her father had been gone long before she was born, and CPS had taken her away from her mother at the age of seven, deeming the drug den that she lived in uninhabitable for a child. Which, to be fair, it was.
But then, most of the foster homes she’d been funneled through for the rest of her childhood and adolescence hadn’t been much better. In between the few loving, supporting families who’d taken her in had been homes where she was ignored or mistreated. Either no one cared where she was, or they used her as a sort of free maid.
In the worst cases, she’d had to run away entirely to avoid the drunken hands of an over-interested foster father. She’d never been adopted; older children usually never got adopted, especially not ones whose lives were as rocky from the outset as Stella’s. She’d been labelled as damaged goods, and she’d spent most of her life doing all she could to peel that label away.
She’d put herself through college, getting a degree in business, which had been more or less useless in the poor economic climate she’d found herself in after graduation. This job at Spanky’s had been a step up from the assistant manager job at Walmart, where she’d had to bartend at nights just to pay her rent.
If she was being truthful, though, Stella had to admit the job wasn’t all she’d hoped it would be. She missed the bartenders she’d worked with before; they had been close, almost like a family. And what Stella wanted more than anything in the world was a family.
At Spanky’s, even though she offered a shoulder to cry on and felt comfortable with her employees, she was still at a distance from them, having to think of the bottom line before anything else. And, of course, the girls would never see her as “one of them”. She felt that some of them probably harbored some resentment towards her, deep down, for being a woman and not having to dance for drinks.
There had been a time in Stella’s life when she’d seriously considered doing so. She had a nice body; with ample, C-cup breasts, long legs, and a generous bottom, she had never lacked for male attention – even when she didn’t want it, which was most of the time. Her auburn hair and blue eyes didn’t help matters much. She’d had to fend off more hungry suitors than she cared to remember, and had never fully trusted a man to want anything except a roll in the hay and a story to brag to his friends about.
She’d been with four men, none of who had cared to stick around after a month or two. Sometimes, she wondered if this was because she could only keep the smile in her eyes for so long before her truer self, sad and desperate for love, began to show.
But never before had a man made her feel the way she imagined men felt about her: pure, unadulterated lust – until that night. Until Tuck. He crept back into her brain, unwelcome and unwanted but still there. He’d caught her so off-guard, made her feel…vulnerable.
A knock at the door jolted Stella from her thoughts, and she blushed even though she was alone. Rolling her chair over, she opened the door just wide enough to see who waited outside. It was Junior, but someone stood behind him.
“What’s up?” she asked, immediately on guard. Years of essentially taking care of herself, and being wary of unwanted advances, made her nervous when she didn’t have a firm grasp on a situation. The fact that someone else was in the bar when it should have been just her and Junior made her stomach tighten slightly. But it only tightened more when she stood to open the door fully and saw that it was Tuck standing behind him. He was smiling affably enough, but those green eyes held a constant threat – or promise – of seduction.
“Homeboy here says he lost his wallet. Anyone turn anything in?” Junior asked, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder.
“Oh,” Stella said, trying to save face. She’d just been having thoughts about him. Not the most innocent of thoughts, either. To see him again in the flesh was a jolt to her system. “Um, not here. You can check around the bar if you want.”
“Already did,” Tuck said, that honeyed voice making her heart twinge. “Nada.”
“Sucks,” Stella said with a shrug she hoped was nonchalant enough. “Maybe the parking lot?”
“Maybe,” Tuck said, seeming nonplussed about the whole thing. Which reminded Stella…he hadn’t pulled that twenty out of a wallet. Her eyes narrowed.
“Well,” she said. “Sorry we can’t help you.”
“No problem,” Tuck said, giving her a shrug that seemed, more than anything, to be a response to the one she’d given him moments ago. “It was worth the trip back just to see you again.”
Stella flushed, taken aback by his boldness. The grin on Junior’s face widened, and he looked back at the biker in disbelief before turning back to Stella, eyebrows damn near lifted to his hairline.
“Uh,” Stella stuttered, but before she could find a reasonable response, he’d turned.
“Gonna let me out, friend?” he called to Junior, who turned on his heel with one last open-mouthed glance at Stella. She sank back into her chair, red and warm all over, until she heard the sound of the front door closing once more.