But when we pull up to a huge-ass mansion on Mountain Avenue and he casually leads me around the front yard filled with people who are not college students and introduces me to his brothers as Peep, I quickly realize—he is a biker.
Like. The real deal.
We drink a couple beers—and not keg beers, either. The guy who owns the local famous microbrewery brought cases and cases of beer. It’s like these people are legit and this party is where all the pretty people end up. Not the kids from college who think they are hot shit. But people in the real world who know it.
He leans in to my ear and says, “Wanna go inside?”
His voice. I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s just… hot. He makes me hot.
I have the mandatory hesitation. Should I? Shouldn’t I? But it’s not real. There is no way in hell I will pass up a chance to be with this man, even if he’s just using me the way he used my art-class TA. I’m just not capable of walking away from this right now. And it’s got nothing to do with the beer.
I will never meet a man like this again. Bumping into him today was fate. It was destiny saying, Daisy, the world is your oyster. Let this man take you home to his biker clubhouse mansion and fuck your brains out until you scream.
OK. Maybe a little bit of this is the beer. But it’s so tiny, it hardly matters.
I want this man.
So I let him lead me up the porch steps, through the front door—and he does not even pretend we’re not going to fuck. There is no, Would you like a drink? Should we chat on the living room couch?
No. None of that. He leads me to the stairs. And we climb them in silence, just the music blaring The Kids Aren’t Alright outside as our background soundtrack.
Then next thing I know, I’m being led into his massive bedroom. It looks exactly the way a tattooed biker’s bedroom should look. One wall is nothing but aged and battered sheet metal. Large rivets run haphazardly up and down the wall, connecting the metal together. The wall opposite is paneled with old barn house wood that looks like it’s got a story to tell. There are naked women on that wall, but not posters. No. This guy isn’t into cheap-ass posters. They are sketches. Like he drew these bodies. Like he conjured these women up in graphite.
And they are framed, like they are art and nothing at all like porn.
In the far corner there is a motorcycle. A fat bike with big tires and a cherry-red tank with fancy script lettering that says ‘Vicious’ across the side. A string of skull lights hang from the ceiling above it and their eerie faces shine in the glossy red fenders.
To the right of the bike is a large window covered in gauzy gray curtains. They look like something out of a haunted house, tattered and torn. This whole mansion is something out of a haunted house. I walk up to the window because I want to feel the fabric. But it’s not a window. It’s a set of French doors that lead out to the balcony that overlooks the front yard.
He opens the doors. It’s a dramatic thing that comes with wind and makes the gauze curtains billow towards us. Something out of a movie. Something scripted.
But nothing about this night is scripted. It’s all just… real.
“Wanna go out there?” he asks me.
I don’t know what to say. I mean, not particularly. I don’t want to go out there. I want to stay in here with him.
I want to study every inch of this room.
I want to know this man.
Turning away from the open doors, I shake my head a little and once again concentrate on all the things in this space that give away hints to who and what he is.
The bed is just a mattress set on top of stacks of wooden pallets. It’s not made. But that just makes it more interesting, not less. His sheets and pillowcases are light gray satin, but his comforter is a dark gray luxurious velvet. I can only imagine what it feels like to sleep in his bed with those two contrasting textures on either side of your body.
Then I picture what it would feel like to lie next to him in that bed. To be his.
I let out a breath and allow my eyes to wander up the wall where there are more framed pictures. Magazine covers. Tattoo magazine covers, specifically.
And his face.
Vic Vaughn is Vicious, the cover in the center reads.
He’s standing next to me and I cannot stop the quick rotation of my head in his direction as I realize just who I am with. “You’re… him.”