Biker Chic Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Devyn Quinn

  Published by Mojocastle Press, LLC

  Haymarket, Virginia

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Biker Chic

  ISBN: 978-1-60180-212-5

  Copyright @ 2013 Devyn Quinn

  Cover Art Copyright @ 2013 Vanessa Hawthorne

  All rights reserved.

  Excluding legitimate review sites and review publications, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Copying, scanning, uploading, selling and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission from the publisher is illegal, punishable by law and will be prosecuted.

  Available online at:

  http://www.mojocastle.com/

  Also By Devyn Quinn

  The Keepers of Eternity:

  Echoes of Angels

  Descent of Demons

  Genesis Awry

  Chapter One

  It’s amazing how easily our lives can be dismantled, torn down and put away in boxes, Melanie thought.

  With a sigh, she smoothed out the wrinkles on one of Phil's shirts. She’d picked this one out. Was that why he’d left it behind? He no longer wanted the things she’d contributed to his life? So it seemed. She ran her hands over the fabric, enjoying the feel of the cotton under her palms. The shirt was one of her favorites, and it was easy to remember how her husband had looked wearing it. Absolutely fabulous. How well it had fit over his broad shoulders, its crisp style and bold color only serving to accentuate his sandy blond hair and deeply tanned skin. More than good-looking, Phillip Brooks was model handsome.

  For eighteen years he’d been hers.

  But no longer.

  Now they were separated, and it was breaking her heart. Her mouth twisted at the ease with which she recalled every detail of their recent arguments.

  Trying not to think about the bitter scenes that had passed between them, her thoughts returned to the many boxes she’d been packing lately. Interesting to think how boxes represented and contained people’s lives. Boxes carried pieces of yourself from place to place, to be rearranged to fit your life. She remembered the boxes she’d packed when she moved out of her childhood home and into her first apartment with the man she’d eventually marry. Young and desperate to escape her parents and the hate they’d developed for each other, moving in with Phil seemed heaven sent. In retrospect, she would come to believe she’d jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. It only took hindsight for her to figure it out.

  Time passed, and more boxes had come into her life. Nine years ago, they'd moved into this house. Those boxes had been so full of happiness, hope and pride. Life was good for them, was getting better all the time. Phil had graduated, and his practice was really starting to take off. The struggle, it seemed, was all behind them. They were young, in love, and had a blooming future.

  But her dreams were gone now, and in their place was cold, hard reality. Her lips pressed tighter together, resentment winding itself around her heart. Now the boxes are being packed again, but only one of us is leaving.

  That’s what she was doing today. Boxing up the last few remnants of his life in their—now her—house. She supposed they'd have to sell it. The house had four big bedrooms, not to mention an exercise room with an attached sauna and Jacuzzi. It was too big for one person. Though they’d been trying to talk their way through a tentative reconciliation, they weren’t really getting very far. For two people who’d been together for so long, they had little to say to each other. Married too young, they’d grown up and grown apart.

  Phil was the one who had chosen to walk out. How easily he seemed to be adjusting to the transition. For her? It was sheer hell. Finito? For him, yes. Sometimes it seemed like she'd been blown to bits by a bomb, only her brain wasn’t registering any pain. Deep down the hurt was there, but she was numb, absolutely numb. Sooner or later, the pain was going to hit. And when it did, she’d feel every bit of it. Right now, she was only doing what she needed to do...functioning.

  Boxes also reminded her of coffins. She wanted to crawl in one the day Phil had told her quite calmly over dinner that he was leaving her for another woman.

  No, she thought. It isn’t me who belongs in a coffin. It's Phil. Him and his twenty-one-year-old slut, Tammi.

  Tammi with an 'I', not a 'Y'. Tammi with her pert, upturned nose and her perky tits, the nose and tits that Melanie’s plastic-surgeon hubby had constructed.

  “A forty-one-year-old man running after an ex-patient,” she fumed, jealousy stabbing at her heart with its sharp, poisonous blade. “That little girl is barely old enough to drive, much less know what love is. It’s obscene for a man that old to be running around with a girl barely out of her teens.”

  An angry tear trickled down her cheek. She swiped it away with an impatient hand. At thirty-seven, she felt older than dirt. Useless. Worthless. For the thousandth time, she wondered what she’d done wrong, why she hadn’t been able to keep her man satisfied at home instead of having him wander off sniffing out younger pussy at work.

  It wasn’t as if she was fat or frumpy. She’d never had kids and had kept herself slim, trim and firm. She swam, played tennis at the country club...she worked to make herself attractive. Her shoulder-length blond hair was fashionably streaked and styled, her nails beautifully manicured. She wore her makeup in a subtle fashion, not painted onto her skin the way some women wore it. She believed that she’d been the picture-perfect wife in every way. Supportive and loving; a lady in the parlor and a whore in the bedroom. What more had he wanted? How exciting could a marriage be after eighteen years?

  Of course, she knew the answer. Phil wanted something fresh, new and exciting. Something out of the ordinary, a break from the same-old routine.

  He’d even gone so far as to suggest a partner swap with some of their friends. When she’d vetoed that idea, he’d tried to wheedle her into a threesome with the man or woman of her choice. Again, she’d held her ground and said no. She’d believed their sex life was fine.

  Trouble was, Phil didn’t. He liked sex. Anytime, anywhere. And when he couldn’t get what he wanted at home, he went looking elsewhere. More than once, he’d taken a lover. But he’d never before given any indication that he’d be willing to bust up their marriage.

  Until Tammi came into his life.

  And he walked out on me.

  It wasn’t the first time a marriage had grown stale, that partners had grown apart. It happened every day, and the divorce courts across the nation were clogged with similar sad stories. People simply got bored with each other. The heat had gone—the fire burned to ashes. Their marriage hadn’t ended with a bang or a whimper, just a sad sigh.

  If I had said yes, would he have stayed? Or would I have been delaying the inevitable? With hindsight, she realized that there had been something wrong with their marriage for a long time; that he had been spending less and less time at home with her. She wanted to believe that it really was the pressures of his work. In the back of her mind, though, she knew the bombshell was coming, that Phil didn’t really love her anymore, didn’t want her anymore. No, there were other women in his life…and he’d
finally met the one for whom he wanted his freedom.

  Unable to stop herself, Melanie picked up his shirt and pressed it to her face. Though freshly laundered, she thought she could smell his masculine scent trapped in its fibers, the lingering tang of his aftershave. Without thinking about it, she lifted her tank top over her head, let it drop to the floor, then slipped into his shirt. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that Phil was pressing his body against hers.

  Even though they were separated, she still dreamed about him, about making love to him. When she awoke, her body’s response to those images was so acute and so sharp that it was impossible to believe that it was all just a dream. It was almost as if her subconscious was trying to will him to come back to her.

  He said he wanted to see another man make love to me. What would that have been like, having another man put his hands on my body? It was a fantasy of his. I remember how he’d whisper it in my ear as he touched me.

  Cupping her breasts through the material, she ran her thumbs over her nipples, enjoying the feel of the pebbled tips. Closing her eyes, she pushed the material aside and began to trace the pink aureoles with the soft pads of her fingers. A surgeon, Phil had great hands, and he handled her breasts as if they were something precious, squeezing them gently as his fingers worked their way to her hard nipples. It felt so good when he made love to them. When he touched her, the sensation ran all the way down her body, to between her legs.

  Imagining that her hands were his, she rubbed her breasts and sighed softly. It was easy to remember their wild lovemaking, the way he’d assume control of her body. She loved it when he circled her nipples with his tongue. The sensation of a man suckling at the hard tips could make her climax.

  Almost panting from the memories playing across her mind’s screen, Melanie’s hands traced over her flat belly, her hands sneaking between her legs until her fingers were stroking hard against the crotch of her shorts. She was so wet that the material slipped between her lips and rubbed against her clit.

  Memories drifted in and out of her mind as she touched herself, whispering silken promises, and her body started to relax.

  Phil had often told her that she was unbelievably sensual. When he said it his eyes would light up with passion, revealing to her how much he enjoyed that side of her personality. It was an aspect she’d never suspected existed inside her until she’d met him, something she’d shared with him and him alone. It was as though her love for her husband gave her the freedom and confidence to show him all the gifts of womanhood.

  Lost in her fantasies, she didn’t hear anything until a man’s voice rumbled behind her.

  Chapter Two

  “Well, isn’t this a lovely sight? It does a man’s heart good to come home and find his wife getting herself ready for him.”

  Melanie came out of her dream and whirled around. Her body trembled, drenched in sweat. Heat blazed in her cheeks. She quickly tugged his shirt over her bare breasts, upset with herself for being caught in a moment of self-betrayal. His presence, coming so totally unexpected on the heels of her erotic interlude, was almost too much for her brain to cope with logically.

  “Ph-Phil,” she stammered. “You weren’t supposed to be here ‘til five.” She’d been nervous about seeing him today. Since he’d called this morning, the butterflies wouldn’t stop fluttering in her stomach. Seeing him now, though, butterflies of another kind took flight…and they weren’t in her belly.

  Giving her a guilty smile, he shrugged, sliding a careless hand through his tousled hair. “It’s Friday. Took off early. Good thing I did. Looks like you could use a hand there.”

  Did he mean the packing, or…?

  “Ah, no, silly,” she said, trying to gather her composure and failing. “I was just gathering up the last of your things.”

  Twirling his stylish sunglasses by an earpiece, he glanced quickly around the room. “You’ve been busy.”

  Breath catching in her throat, she nodded. “I changed a few things around,” she answered tentatively, almost fearing his displeasure. In a burst of energy, she’d recently redecorated the entire bedroom, painting the walls eggshell white and accenting it with a feminine shade of rose blush for the curtains, bedspread and throw rugs. She could see by his sour expression that he didn’t like it.

  “Things have changed since you started packing me up and moving me out,” he commented, walking around the room as though inspecting her handiwork.

  Melanie tensed and bit down hard on her bottom lip. How was it he still managed to make her believe she had to ask permission for everything she did?

  She tried to clear her mind, think calmly and logically. He’s cheated on me time and time again because I didn’t give in, she reminded herself. Am I supposed to cave in to keep him?

  A hard decision. Which was more important—her marriage, or her dignity and self-respect? She wasn’t sure she could answer that. She hated the weakness she’d shown when he left; continually driving around his office and new apartment like a psycho stalker, leaving one message after another with his secretary with yet another lame excuse that she needed to talk to him about the details of the separation. And just as she’d never had the nerve to stop and go into either place to talk to him face to face, he’d never returned her calls.

  Her throat tightened in response, pain welling up inside her. “You’re the one who decided to do that,” she reminded through gritted teeth.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to go.” He stopped and looked at her knowingly, his eyes tracking over her body, taking in her bead-hard nipples, her flat stomach, long legs. Desire sparked in his brown eyes. “Mmm. You look good enough to eat today, Mel.”

  His frank comments caught her off-guard, reminding her that he had walked in on her in a state of acute physical arousal. Even though she was somewhat dressed, she felt as though she were standing stark naked before him. Her heart leapt to her throat, nearly choking her. He had a way of wheedling people, twisting things around to get what he wanted. He never hesitated to use his looks, his talent and his intelligence to his advantage. Most people did. That was human nature. And the way he was looking at her meant that one thing, and one thing alone was on his mind.

  “Don’t start, Phil,” she mumbled. The tension was almost a physical barrier between them. Her eyes burned from the strain of suppressing her tears. Every breath she took reinforced her emotional and physical awareness of him. She could actually feel her own yearning need for him deep within her pussy. Her breasts suddenly felt heavy and tender. She wanted to lean against him, wrap herself around him.

  He ignored her. Tossing his sunglasses on the bed, he came to her in a few quick steps, hands capturing her shoulders. Before she could stop him, he kissed the curve of her jaw near her ear, moving his lips softly along her cheek until their mouths met. Their kiss only lasted a moment before she pulled away, looking at him with a mixture of suspicion and longing.

  Her frown deepened as panic engulfed her. Now that he had touched her, her body longed for contact with his. She was lost, helpless to control her responses to him.

  “Stop it.” She crossed her arms over her chest, desperate to change the subject while she still had some control over it. “What you saw—”

  He slid his fingers into her hair, and she flinched and trembled as his thumb brushed the flushed heat of her cheek, touched the corner of her mouth. “I saw a woman just dying for a little relief.”

  Phil’s hands left her body, and she wondered briefly what he intended to do.

  And then he slapped her.

  Melanie screamed out in pain. What happened next was a haze of pain, mingled with the pain of betrayal.

  Her husband raped her.

  When Phil zipped his slacks and walked away, Melanie’s mind stopped working. She slid down the wall and fell face forward into the carpet in a limp heap, spatters of red, white and black exploding like fireworks behind her eyes. Feeling as though she was drowning in a murky pool, she reali
zed the husband she’d so dearly loved, the husband who had cheated on her, was now no more than a ferocious stranger. The brutality of his actions made her sick.

  Shaken, feeling as though she would vomit, tears pricked at her eyes. Her whole mind and soul ached with acute resentment, her heart filling with hate. Deep within her psyche, something sounded. Her initial shock was fading, but what was left in its place was even worse; a sick kind of anxiety, coupled with the pain and something more, something she dared not analyze.

  Hatred. Distrust. Disgust.

  Her fingers curled into angry claws. She’d been a fool, and now she was paying for it.

  Chapter Three

  “So that’s it?” Angela asked between spoonfuls of cottage cheese and pineapple. “You’re divorced?”

  Melanie speared a bite of her salad and nodded. “Yep. Eighteen years of marriage down the drain. We signed the final paperwork this morning. It’s over.”

  “And Phil agreed to the settlement?”

  Melanie swallowed and took a sip of her white wine. She didn’t usually drink alcohol this early in the day, but she was still tense from this morning's meeting in the judge’s chambers with Phil and his attorney, and she needed to relax.

  “I wouldn’t say he agreed,” she said lightly. “I’d just say he really had no choice.”

  Angela took a sip of her own gin and tonic. Unlike Melanie, she was used to drinking in the afternoons. For her, the cocktail hour began when the country club opened at eleven. “Would you have really pressed sexual assault charges against him?”

  Appetite suddenly gone, Melanie put down her fork and wiped her mouth with her napkin. As she lowered it, she noticed her lipstick had left a crimson smear across the pristine white linen. The color reminded her of blood. It wasn’t her normal shade, but since the day Phil had attacked her, she’d taken to wearing the scarlet hue as a symbol of the raging hate she felt for him in her heart. That was how she felt inside: smeared, stained. Soiled. She hated the way he had taken the love once existing between them and perverted it, made it something ugly and hurtful. Physically, she would recover. Mentally, she still had a lot of healing to do.