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  I could only nod.

  Orion withdrew a pile of twenty dollar bills from his back pocket and threw it on the bed. “Get whatever else you need,” he said and then left without another word. I sank to the floor again, my mind doing cartwheels.

  “Shit,” I whispered, weakly leaning my head against the wall.

  What the hell had I done?

  Chapter Four

  The girl who’d served me in the bar was named Rachel and she was the one Orion sent. Rachel was very talkative and I quickly learned that she was twenty seven, a former Miss Arizona, and that she was the old lady of a Defiant club member named Casper.

  Rachel waited for me while I showered, luxuriating in the hot spray. I accepted the towel she handed me over the curtain and wrapped it around my body.

  “How long have you been here?” I asked her.

  “A little over two years. But it took over a year before Casper showed some permanent interest.”

  I stepped out of the shower, hugging the towel over my breasts. “Why so long? You’re beautiful.”

  Rachel laughed. “Oh sweetie, you have a few things to learn. To these guys a pretty girl is like a paper napkin. Use it and then toss it the fuck out.”

  My voice was grumpy. “I was raised around this shit. I know damn well how it works.”

  “Then you know that just because man nails you doesn’t make him yours.”

  “But Casper is yours?”

  “He is now.”

  I played with the ends of my wet hair, lowering my voice to a whisper. “So what will I be? To Orion?”

  Rachel regarded me shrewdly. “I guess that depends on you, hon. Learn how to please the shit out of him. Give him what he can’t get somewhere else.”

  This was beginning to sound like a less than appealing long term arrangement. But it might buy me some time. Rachel threw me another towel.

  “I’ll be right back. Casper and I actually have a trailer parked a few hundred yards out. You seem about my size so I’ll head over grab you some things. Then I’ll fry you up a hamburger. You like hamburgers, right?”

  “Sure. Thanks.” She started to leave when I called her back. I didn’t know how to put my question into words. “So, as far as Orion goes. I mean, he’s sort of a good guy, right?”

  Rachel’s face grew thoughtful. “Sometimes,” she said carefully. Her answer didn’t make me feel much better.

  I didn’t see Orion for the rest of the afternoon. Rachel fed me and clothed me and took me on a walk around Quartzsite. We visited a small drugstore where I was able to use the money Orion had given me to buy a few necessities. After that we came across a curious secondhand bookstore which was housed in a ramshackle building and overseen by an old man who didn’t wear clothes. Belatedly I noticed the ‘Nudist on the Premises’ signs. I bought a pile of books anyway, figuring they might be a worthy distraction from whatever the coming days had in store.

  As Rachel and I returned to the Riverbottom the sun was beginning its slow descent. I lowered my head, feeling a tear escape.

  “What’s wrong, hon?” Rachel circled an arm around me.

  I managed to give her a weak smile. “I just wish it was yesterday, that’s all.”

  Rachel nodded with sympathy and didn’t ask any further questions.

  Inside the bar a group of men were gathered in a circle, Orion at the center. They all wore the identities of the Defiant. Orion noticed us walk in and he nodded, beckoning.

  A row of shot glasses lined the bar. Each man took one as did Rachel. Orion placed one in my hand and I looked around uncertainly.

  When Orion started to speak his voice was thick and mournful.

  “I lost a brother today. Crest Tolleson was like my other half from the time I could walk. He was a hell of a man, a hell of a rider. And shit, even though we parted ways a decade ago, I’ll miss him every fucking day.” Orion tipped his head back and swallowed the shot. I thought I saw tears in the corners of his eyes.

  Everyone else seemed to take that as their cue to drink and so I did the same. A long moment of silence followed. My head was beginning to swim; from exhaustion, from the alcohol, from the stress and grief of my father’s murder. There would be no funeral. This was the only goodbye I would get.

  Orion’s voice reached me clearly. “Rachel,” he ordered. “Put her to bed.”

  Rachel led me back to the room which Orion had taken me to earlier. I guessed it belonged to him. As I did as well, I reminded myself. I let Rachel help me into a soft t-shirt and then sank onto the bed. For a long time I slept and it was, mercifully, dreamless.

  Chapter Five

  I awoke with a mighty gasp, bolting upright. The room’s small window let in enough light so that I was able to identify the time as somewhere in the middle of the morning.

  A quick glance around the room reminded me of everything. The terror of yesterday, the heartbreaking loss of my father, and finally the odd arrangement I’d somehow agreed to.

  Speaking of which, the man who had announced that today he would fuck me until I couldn’t stand sat watching me from a small table in the corner. Spread out in front of him were the books I’d purchased from the naked bookseller.

  I stared warily back at Orion Jackson.

  He motioned to the books, reading off the titles. “Oliver Twist, Catcher in the Rye, Wuthering Heights.” Orion lit a cigarette and blew a plume of smoke toward the ceiling. “You’ve a taste for the classics, huh?”

  I nodded, pulling my knees up to my chest. “I’ve read them all before.”

  “Then why the hell would you read them again?”

  I shrugged. “Familiarity. I enjoyed those stories. They made me happy. And I guess now they remind me of being home. I was studying English Lit, you know. To be a teacher.”

  Orion leaned back in his chair, taking another drag from his cigarette. He wore no shirt again and I tried to keep myself from staring at the tanned and muscled expanse of his chest. He grinned at me. “You sleep like a fucking rock.”

  I was startled, then noted the rumpled pillow next to me. “You slept here?”

  Orion blew more smoke. “I live here, Kira.”

  “Right.” I hugged my knees more tightly.

  For a fleeting second a strange look sifted across the rugged features of Orion’s face. I thought I saw something like uncertainty trouble his blue eyes. And then it was gone.

  “Rachel left you some more clothes.” He motioned to the pile by the door. “She’ll take you shopping today if you like.”

  “Okay,” I sighed, and rose tentatively off the bed. “Um, I need to use the bathroom.”

  “Are you asking for permission for Christ sake?”

  “No,” I flushed hot in the face and picked up the pile of clothes. “I was just, well, I mean because of what you promised yesterday…”

  He laughed. “Yeah, something about fucking you until you’re raw, right?”

  I nodded, clutching the clothes to my chest. “Something like that.”

  Orion Jackson looked at me seriously. “In time,” he said. He continued to stare at me but his eyes were missing the frank lust which consumed him yesterday. “After all,” he said softly, “I always keep my promises, Kira.”

  I grabbed the bag of toiletries I’d purchased at the drug store and retreated to the bathroom. Once I got a look at myself in the mirror I understood the meaning behind Orion’s ambiguous glance. Dressed in an oversized t-shirt, my hair around my shoulders and my face free of makeup, I looked all of twelve years old.

  I sat down on top of the closed toilet, thinking. It was the provocative outfit I’d arrived in yesterday which made Orion realize I was a woman now. But if I covered my body and went without makeup, he might remember me as the girl he’d known instead. And then he wouldn’t want me. Not that way.

  But was that the best idea?

  As my mind remembered Orion’s touch, my body began to respond, my nipples hardening, my center moistening. I didn’t have any other ideas r
ight now and giving Orion his way might give me some time to sort things out without having to worry every moment about the cops or the SF’s.

  I knew that wasn’t all there was to it though. The hard truth was I wanted Orion as much as he wanted me. The hours of yesterday’s anguish had done something to me. Whatever innocence had lingered in my soul was shattered. What sense did it make holding on to my virginity?

  By the time I emerged from the bathroom, Orion was nowhere in sight. I found him inside Riverbottom, talking in hushed tones with the gruff man who had spoken to me first yesterday. The man’s eyebrows rose at the sight of me and Orion watched my entrance with an expression which managed to be somewhere between relief and desire. In Rachel’s short skirt and tight halter top, my face tastefully made up and my long hair teased, I sure as hell didn’t look anything like the little girl he’d once known.

  The other man held out a hand. “Kira,” he said. “I’m Casper.”

  “Oh, you’re Rachel’s, ah, man,” I finished, not terribly sure where they stood.

  He laughed. “Among other things.” I noticed he was a few years younger than Orion, though a head shorter and stockier. He slapped Orion meaningfully on the side of the arm and retreated to a corner which was occupied by a few of the other members of Defiant who had been present the night before for the toast to my dead father.

  Orion still watched me. “You want a drink?”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s like not even noon. And anyway, I guess I shouldn’t be in here. I’m not quite twenty yet.”

  His gaze turned cool. “I know how old you are, Kira. I was there the day you were born.”

  “Right,” I muttered. Then I remembered something. “Hey, our birthdays are only a few days apart.”

  He shrugged. “So?”

  “So, you must be having one next week, right?”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Orion thought about that. “Big Four Oh it’ll be for me.” He took a step toward me and moved so close I had to bend my head back to look up at him. “Must seem positively ancient to you.”

  “Ancient?” I laughed. “No, just a little antiqued perhaps.”

  He was so close I could feel the heat of his body. I wanted to look down. I wanted to see if that place between his legs bulged but instead I kept my eyes locked onto his.

  “You hungry?” he asked me lightly, running a thick finger over my collarbone.

  “Starving,” I admitted, shifting uneasily as my body responded to the heat of his touch.

  Orion snapped his fingers. “Come on,” he said, placing a large hand at the small of my back and leading me back to the clubhouse.

  To my surprise, Orion let me to a tiny kitchen off the main room. None of the other club members were around. He began searching through cabinets. “Rice Crispies?” he finally asked, holding up a blue box.

  I nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

  He laughed to himself. “So fucking polite.”

  Orion found a plastic bowl and poured cereal to the brim. He also filled a coffee pot and started brewing. Then he stood in front of the sink, his large hands resting on the stainless steel surface and his eyes staring out of the small window into the scrubbed wasteland of the desert.

  “Something wrong?” I asked.

  “Come over here, Kira,” he said, not looking at me.

  I nervously obeyed and before I knew what was happening Orion’s hands were circled around my waist as he lifted me onto the counter. The tile surface was cool against my thighs as the fabric of my skirt rode up. Orion pushed my knees apart and with a shock I felt his hands travel underneath my panties, squeezing my ass and lifting me as I wrapped my legs around him tightly.

  We were both breathing heavily when our mouths met. I heard my own groan of pleasure as Orion’s hands moved to my breasts, fondling roughly. With tentative fingers I reached out to touch him and he moved my hand decisively to the hard outline of his dick. I pulled at the zipper, wanting he see him. He helped me.

  I hadn’t seen many men, but I knew Orion was unusually large. He enjoyed the way I sucked in my breath as I watched him and he grew larger yet before my eyes.

  Suddenly he pulled me off the counter as if I were weightless and we sank together into one of the shabby hard-backed kitchen chairs with me straddling him. The only thing between us was the thin satin of my underpants. Once I glanced around, worriedly considering the presence of others, but Orion pulled my face close and kissed me with urgency. He moved my body back and forth and I felt the swollen head of his dick pressing insistently against the moist, ready cavern on the other side of my panties. When he pushed my shirt up and began sucking hard on my breasts I arched my back to give him better access. The feel of his tongue on my tingling nipples was pure torture. By that time I didn’t care if anyone saw. I didn’t care about anything at all but satisfying the entreaties of my own passions.

  Orion continued to guide me back and forth and I felt the rhythm, grinding my hips as I tightened and clenched and tightened again. The release shocked me. It was enough to make me cry out and bite into the hard flesh of his shoulder as the spasms rocked me to the core for a seemingly endless minute of heavenly motion.

  But Orion wasn’t done. He wasn’t ready to possess me completely, but he would take some pleasure for himself just the same. When he pushed me down to my knees I knew what he wanted and I was eager to cooperate.

  I bent down and licked the flushed head of his swollen organ. The skin was smooth and hot. Orion groaned as I let him enter my mouth and I felt a surge of power more primal and exhilarating than anything I’d ever known. I didn’t mind when he grabbed me by the hair and pushed himself deeper into my mouth, showing me how it needed to be. And when he came with a mighty groan, his hands still wound tightly in my hair, I swallowed what he released into my mouth.

  Orion was still panting hotly when I got to my feet and quietly smoothed my clothing down. I poured myself a cup of coffee and let the hot liquid sear my throat. I looked out the window, feeling suddenly shy and more than a little embarrassed. Out in the yard a handful of club members were tinkering with a bike. Orion’s arms circled around me and he kissed the back of my neck. He rocked me back and forth in his huge arms.

  “Imagine,” he growled, “what the real thing will be like, Kira.”

  His hands reached between my legs, stroking, and I leaned into him, getting hot again. “Even better?” I guessed, again moaning and breathless.

  He pushed a finger inside my panties and inserted it directly into my slippery folds, pushing against the barrier he intended to break.

  “Tonight,” he whispered, kissing me lustily before removing his hands. He slapped me lightly on the rear end, poured himself a cup of coffee, and disappeared after flashing me a devastating grin.

  I took my bowl of Rice Crispies and slid into the chair we had just occupied. I chewed slowly, thinking about the way his hard dick pressed against my open sex.

  Tonight, he’d sworn.

  And I wanted it. Oh God, I wanted it.

  Chapter Six

  Rachel cheerfully escorted me around Quartzsite’s finest dusty boutiques in an ancient Malibu. She said perhaps next week we could talk our way into a drive to Phoenix.

  “You know,” she said cautiously, “when things die down.”

  I sunk further into the passenger seat and didn’t say anything.

  Rachel patted my hand. “I know you’ve had a hell of a few days, hon.”

  “It hasn’t been the best time,” I agreed. I couldn’t get the sound of my father’s rage-filled scream out of my head as he charged into the SF’s, meeting his own death not as the fierce fighter he’d always been but as a desperate parent trying to save his child.

  I sniffed and poked at the shopping bag in my lap. “Seems a little cold to be shopping for a new wardrobe the day after my father’s murder.”

  Rachel frowned. “Well, there’s a hell of a lot of cold in this world, Kira. I get the feeling your dad did his damnest to sh
ield you from it, but you can’t change who you are, where you came from.”

  I smiled weakly. “At least I got to see him once more.”

  Rachel pulled the car over onto the sandy shoulder of the road. An RV with Canadian plates lumbered passed and honked. She flipped off the white-haired driver and turned to me seriously.

  “You got more than that, Kira. You’re alive. Now Casper told me how it’s gonna go and I get the feeling that this thing with Orion isn’t sitting too easy with you. But it seems he’s giving you the best chance he knows how. You’re out of the SF’s reach and this way you won’t be passed from man to man.”

  “No,” I agreed. “Only one man.”

  She smiled knowingly and pushed a lock of hair out of my face. “Is that so bad? I see the looks between you two.”

  I thought about Orion’s fingers inside of me, his mouth on my breasts, the way he looked at me as if he could scarcely control himself. I also thought about the electric response of my body when he touched me. Maybe Rachel was right; maybe this was the best he could offer.

  And with a jolt I realized that perhaps, when my father sent me to his old best friend, he’d known as much.

  ***

  Once Rachel deposited me at the clubhouse I was at a loss over what to do next. She tied on her server’s apron and returned to the bar, winking at me before disappearing into the dark building. Orion was nowhere in sight and it seemed poor form to go around sniffing after his whereabouts like a lost puppy.

  Sitting in Orion’s room and staring at the wall proved an unappealing way to spend the time. I tried to page through the books I’d purchased the day before but I only kept reading the same familiar lines again and again without letting them sink in.

  I wandered outside, stepping over rusted vehicle parts and the scattered detritus of forgotten garbage. A dry wash ran about fifty yards beyond the clubhouse and I knelt beside it, trying to picture the cracked and desiccated surface roiling with rainwater. The temperature was easily in the low nineties by mid afternoon and I could well imagine the harshness of the approaching summer months. I wondered if I would be here long enough to find out.