Checkmate With Bishop: A Hellions MC Novel Read online

  There was a gasp that was almost too soft to hear, but even in the miasma of pills and smoke Bishop heard it loud and clear. “I need to see you, Dory.”

  “Why, Stan?” her satin voice asked, its tone slithering over his skin. Dory had always been his weakness, her innocence belying her sexiness and it obviously hadn’t lost its appeal to him. Not if the rod that was tenting his bed covering was any indication.

  As if in fascination at the hard-on he was sporting, his hand moved down in a firm caress over the sheet draped on his fulsome flesh. “We’ve got things to talk about.”

  “What things?” Why did her voice sound breathily sexy instead of suspicious and snarky?

  He shook his head, wanting, no needing the cobwebs to disappear as he talked to her. She’d finally responded to him and yet he couldn’t put two sentences together in order to speak. “It’s been a long time, babe. Time enough for me to say sorry.”

  “Stop calling me ‘babe’, Stan.”

  He closed his eyes at the sound of his name, his real name on her lips. God. He remembered watching her say it, moan it as she hit it because of all the things he’d done to her and the iron rod beneath his fist flexed.

  “And we can say sorry over the phone.” But Dory’s voice, that goddamn sexy breathiness, gave her away again. Christ. If she’d been in front of him, he could’ve read her like a book even after all the years they’d been apart.

  “Not my way, Dory, and you fucking know it,” he countered sliding his hand underneath the sheet to touch himself skin-on-skin.

  There was a huff, a deep pant that came through the line loud and clear. He wondered if she was even aware of it since he knew she liked to deny how turned on she was until the very last second, the very last moment before she’d be flying off the edge of the universe as she came. Shivering and holding her shrieks back between teeth-covered lips as her body took flight.

  Was she touching herself as they talked in almost monosyllables?

  “I want to talk face-to-face, babe.” His grip on his length was firm and stroking in long movements. It felt like he hadn’t had sex in forever and if his dick wanted to play at just the sound of her voice, he was more than up for it! “I need to see you, Dory.”

  “About what, Stan?” God. That voice, the way she moved her mouth around her words was so close to the way she’d moved her mouth around his cock!

  “Endings, babe,” he wheezed, feeling his balls as they drew up sharply against him. He was going to come. Come so hard with only hearing her speak and the remembrance having her beneath him. “We never said goodbye.”

  “Yeah, we did,” she argued, but then Dory was great at debating a point if she felt she was right. “You opened my car door and I kissed you before I left.”

  “That wasn’t a goodbye, babe. Not between us.”

  There was no talking but Bishop could hear a movement in the background as Dory’s breathing sped up. The bitch was rubbing one out with him on the phone! He knew it!

  “That’s it, Dory. Find it, girl,” he growled, his own fist increasing its pace, spending more time on the sensitive crest of the head of his cock as he stroked. “Touch it like I used to.”

  “Oh…oh, god,” she moaned softly. “Stan, please…”

  “Yeah, babe,” Bishop groaned, and felt the charge begin in the base of his cock. “Rub it, Dory. Pretend it’s my fingers, my tongue making you feel that way.” He couldn’t believe he was masturbating to nothing but his ex-wife’s voice in the middle of the night after being apart for so long. But if that what it was gonna take to get him off, there was no way he was gonna shut it down!

  “God, Stttaaannn…”

  And that was all it took for him to find his own bliss. The sound of her coming, softly moaning his name provided the impetus for his own jets to spew forth, covering his belly and chest in the evidence of his fervent desire. His redheaded beauty could always help him find it, whether it was with her hands, her mouth or her sweet pussy. But in that moment, just through an electronic connection was all that he could mumble, the only word his mouth used was a simple strained, but heartfelt, “Dory.”

  He could hear his own breaths through the phone, only his own sounds as his body released but there, just in the background, he’d recognized her mumbles although the words seemed garbled as if the phone was muffled by something. But it was the “holy shit, Stan,” a phrase she’d always used afterwards that had his cock staying in the upright position.

  One that had always signified the pleasure he’d given her.

  Bishop waited until the sounds of the phone spoke of it being next to her ear.

  “We need to say good-bye, babe. In person.”

  There was a pause before he heard her sigh. “You told me if I left, I was dead to you.”

  What the fuck?

  Had he really said that?

  Had he seriously spewed that kind of shit at her? Words that had not only been untrue but were far from what he’d actually wanted in that moment?

  “So which is it, Stan? Am I dead or not?”

  His forehead creased as he tried to remember the words he’d spoken on that fateful day. The day she’d left him but his mind was too muddled. “We need to say good-bye, babe. In person.”

  There was another lengthy bit of silence before she huffed out a breath, the sound making him think she’d been holding it. “Yeah. Okay. Maybe it’s time.”

  “Too right, babe.”

  “I’ll come to you though, all right?”

  He thought for a moment. Actually, her coming to him would be better because for him to travel would take its toll on his already depleted body. “That’d be great, Dory. Appreciate it.”

  “Give me a few days to arrange things and then we’ll get to you.”

  He felt his forehead crease at the inclusion of the ‘we’ll’. “Erm…okay. Will you be flying or doing things by car?”

  There was yet another pause that made his heart stutter. “By car, Stan. Have you ever known me to travel by any other method?”

  He couldn’t help it. The words just jumped from his heart out beyond his lips. “Yeah, babe. There was a time when you only traveled by motorcycle.”

  There were a couple of beats of silence. Time enough for him to rue bringing the subject up.

  “That was a long time ago, honey,” she shot back softly.

  And Bishop couldn’t disagree. Though the wings his heart sprouted at her ‘honey’ had him soaring.

  *.*.*.*.*

  Why?

  Why had I called him when I was at my most vulnerable? After viewing the evidence, the goddamn photos that reminded me of what we’d had together. Of what was still between us after so many years apart.

  And why had we’d done…that?

  I held no allusions as to what had happened on the phone. That we had phone sex to the point of making one another come. And, it must be said, had made each of us orgasm as hard as we used to. Stan had always known how to not only get my motor running but had never missed a beat in bringing me to completion. Something that our time away from one another had taught me was not a guarantee.

  With Brian it had been hit or miss.

  Chet was a no-go as his touch was too soft, his movements too slow to find me hitting it. And the fact that he liked his sex silent? Yeah, that didn’t work for me.

  And for the fiftieth time that evening I wondered what I’d ever seen in Chet. Or Brian for that matter other than they were ‘nice guys’. But I hadn’t realized that I’d find that particular category of men so boring, uninteresting and not able to hold my attention.

  There was no way they could.

  Not after Stan.

  And the last fifteen minutes had proven it. Where even just the sound of Stan’s voice, his encouragement was so freaking thrilling that I’d hit it harder than I had in years! Why? What was it about him that had my body responding as if he’d been there with me, nudging my thighs apart with his knees as he aimed himself at my core?

>   Swear to god, hand on heart…if he’d been in the same room with me, there definitely would’ve been a round two. Or four. He really was that sexy, that kind of sex-on-a-stick for me.

  Always had been.

  Maybe always would be.

  Was that why I agreed to meet him face-to-face? Insisting that I would go back to Montana to meet with him?

  Carefully placing all the paperwork and pictures back into the box, I plugged in my phone and turned off the light while my mind churned.

  So I was going back to Montana.

  Maybe because I could clear out the storage locker and save the $1,200 expenditure each year. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, a place to store the stuff from my mom’s house after she’d died. But I could barely even remember what the unit contained, of what I’d packed up when I’d sold her home. Obviously, I’d considered it important enough at the time if I continued to pay to have it stored for so many years.

  Perhaps then I could make good at putting my ex-husband and our failed marriage behind me.

  Or to tell my son of his father by way of introduction, allowing both of them the avenue to discover one another. Maybe giving them the opportunity to have some kind of relationship.

  The snort that came out of my mouth and into my pillow was one I knew was one of derision.

  Yeah.

  Because if wishes were horses, then peasants like me would ride.

  *.*.*.*.*

  Bishop stared at the phone, almost bereft at the loss of contact with her.

  With his Dory.

  His former wife and the kernel of the ‘them’ that still took up so much room in his heart.

  It would be a lie to say she still didn’t matter to him, that she still didn’t have the sway to bring him to his knees. In spite of the life he’d lived after she’d quit him.

  A quitting that had left him hurting at such a deep level that even the Honeys had noticed and commented on it as he’d made the rotations through the single women of the club. He had to admit that his cock had been happy with the variety, but his heart had never been satisfied.

  The truth of it was, he ached for his wife.

  That he missed being with Dory, the girl he’d loved since he was seventeen and had still been a recruit with the Hellions. The girl that he’d seen in a hallway at Missoula High, her long red hair a beacon in the shadowed corridor holding their lockers.

  The fact that she’d been only a sophomore to his senior was a bonus. Untried, unschooled and unlike the other girls that threw themselves on a guy who sported the Hellion recruit patch was a turn-on. Because it meant that she was just for him.

  Would unfurl at his touch, at his urging.

  And she had.

  Bishop had played it slow with Dory, working all the magic he’d learned with the Honeys, practicing on the slutty classmates that more than fucking liked bad boys until he’d convinced her to like the feel of him. Of his hands on her beautiful breasts, almost making her peak as he stroked and then mouthed her comely nipples.

  But it had been when he’d finally, finally put a hand between her legs, feeling the heat of her pussy through her jeans, he’d realized that she was truly his.

  His in the way she’d sighed his name as he’d stroked the denim over the flesh he so wanted to sink himself into.

  His in the way she’d shiver before doing a hip thrust against his fingers. At the wetness he felt through the thick fabric, knowing it was because of his actions.

  And his in the way she’d sighed as he first eased himself into her after peeling her out of those jeans. So tight, so wet as he’d fingered her before aligning the head of his cock in the pink depths he’d been dreaming about for weeks.

  The dream being so much less than the reality.

  It hadn’t been just a coupling. Not with Dory. He hadn’t been out to just get his but had made it a point to ensure she found her heaven in their joining. Bishop remembered how his fingers had played, skimming then circling her bud of pleasure, rubbing her until she had been almost mindless. And just as she’d walked the cusp of it, just as her thighs had started to quiver, he’d eased the head of himself into her sopping chasm. “It might hurt, Dory,” he’d warned. “You know, when I put myself inside the first time.”

  ‘I don’t care, Stan. God. I don’t care. I just need…need…’ she’d groaned. And he’d known exactly what she meant because he’d had to have her too. Was driven to assuage himself within her, to join in the way that men and women had been coming together since time immortal. And as he’d sunk his hard, firm member inside her it was like…was like…coming home. Only to a home he’d never experienced.

  One of total acceptance of him just as he was.

  Of her filling every sense he knew he had.

  Of a completion.

  Bishop stroked his renewed hard-on, still clutching his then dark-screened phone.

  He’d missed her, missed everything about her and had been devastated when she’d pulled up stakes and cut him loose. Something he’d never even seen coming, although he’d known she’d been unhappy.

  Unhappy with the amount of time that had been required in fulfilling his Hellion duties as a recruit.

  Dismayed at his insistence that she become a part of the Honeys.

  Hating the way the club had taken over their lives even though he’d warned her that it would happen.

  Bishop felt his dick’s firmness decrease at the memory of Dory’s eyes, the expression her face had held as he’d explained why he needed to ride out again in the middle of the night. ‘It’s club’s business, babe,’ he’d told her, but in retrospect he heard the finality of his words. Ones that were said so firmly, that allowed no further discussion. Words he then wished he’d delivered better. Because he knew both from her expression and from the way the memory of them made him flinch, were the wrong words to say.

  ‘When will you be back?’ she’d always asked on a quiet question, deadpanned with no expression on her face.

  ‘When I get home, I guess,’ he’d reply, trying to harden his heart against the accusation that was never offered by her in either word or tone, but had been very apparent in her eyes.

  And his heart remembered the rest. The way she’d lay back down on the bed, her back toward him as she’d murmur, ‘be safe, honey. And come home to me, okay?’

  Now he recognized what that must have cost her. Cost his girl as she watched him leave her side never knowing if her man would come back.

  But he hadn’t seen it then.

  Hadn’t recognized that every time he left her, she counted it as a goodbye of the long variety.

  As in the totally gone arena.

  That was until she piled herself, all her mis-matched suitcases and duffle-bags into her tiny Corolla the morning after one of their last and most devastating fights.

  The one where he hadn’t recognized that his words of, ‘if you think that your pussy is better than any other Honeys…’ was the clincher in severing his marriage.

  Christ almighty!

  How could he have been so completely and totally fucking stupid?

  Been so callused in hurting the one girl that had ruled his world?

  But she’d shown him. Shown him in no uncertain terms when he’d arrived home that next day to find her leaning against her Corolla.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ she’d announced with no expression on her beautiful face and an unfocused gaze. ‘You were right. The Hellions will either make or break you. Well, they’ve broken me, Stan.’ She’d focused in on his eyes before continuing with a gaze that had shrunk his balls to the size of pebbles. “I’m done.”

  ‘Err…’ he’d started, but she’d cut him off in his stutter.

  Casting her eyes over the street that they’d lived on, she again brought her green eyes to his. ‘This isn’t me. It isn’t what I wanted nor what we talked about having. I love you and all, but I gotta go.’

  He’d tried to work it, attempted to put the fear of god into her by iss
uing some half-assed ultimatum, which according to her was when he’d told her to consider herself dead to him. He still wasn’t sure about that but he knew his words hadn’t had made one motherfucking, goddamned bit of difference.

  Not to her leaving.

  Not even to her expression as she’d stared at him.

  Taking the two steps to meet him on the sidewalk, Dory had grabbed his t-shirt on either side. ‘I’ll always love you, Stan. You are my heart. But this just isn’t my life.’ And after kissing him in the sweetest kiss she’d ever delivered, Dory had turned and went to the driver’s door of the car. ‘Take care, honey.’

  And before he could even rally, before he could even react, Dory was gone.

  He’d been served the divorce papers less than two weeks after she’d left.

  For Stan, life as he’d known it, had joyously planned it out, was over.

  It was at that moment Bishop, the smart-mouthed, devil-may-care fully developed man made his way into the world to replace the smart-assed youth. A fully grown man who carried only pieces of his heart.

  Receiving those papers so soon after she left, he decided in his thirty-eighth year, had been the motherfucking worst day of his entire, miserably short life.

  Chapter Six

  I pushed open the screen door with my foot, carefully balancing two glasses of ice tea as I went out to the front porch. J.R. was pushing the lawn mower as he did every Sunday morning in the summer, studiously strafing the machine in straight overlapping lines. The ice clinked as I set the tumblers down on a side table before the smell of grass hit my nose. It was an aroma I loved, the smell of freshly cut greening reminding me of girlhood summers, of indolent days where my biggest problems were in deciding what to do and who to do it with.

  The motor cut off and I turned just as J.R. cleared the stairs, swiping at the wet hair on his forehead. “Thanks, Mom,” he offered before dropping into one of the chairs that dotted our wide porch. I caught a whiff of male sweat and turned my head to hide my smile. He’s growing up so fast, I found myself thinking. Too, too fast. But I kept my thoughts to myself, knowing he wouldn’t appreciate my sentiment. J.R. had let me know on many occasions that he was impatient to grow up.