Pony Rides Fast (Razor's Edge MC #4)

1

“Come on, you fucking pussies!  Push!”

The two men on the bar groaned and strained and
sweated.  Both wore jeans and were stripped to the waist, showing off their impressive physiques.  Both were face down in the plank position, lowering themselves and raising themselves to the shouted counts of the other people in the bar.

“I said, push, you little sissy bitches!”

It was Griz that was shouting at them, big, tall,
bearded Griz, who was normally pretty quiet but occasionally, like now, he got fired up and was then anything but quiet.  His shouts, in turn, fired up the crowd in the bar as well, and their shouted counts of the competitor’s push-ups got louder in response. 

Piper shook her head with a smile as she drew a beer for one of the MC brothers.  She had been
working as a bartender at the MC clubhouse for a while, now, and had gotten used to these kinds of testosterone-fueled shenanigans on the part of the
brothers. 

In fact, she had formed more than a little appreciation for them, especially when it involved two hot guys stripping down to the waist and seeing who could do the most push-ups.  Nothing wrong with a little entertainment while she worked.

On her left, was Jocko, the club’s resident man-whore.  Piper had been in the building for less than three minutes before Jocko had laid down his flirting
game with her.  Piper had never been a big fan of being the latest on the carousel ride of women, though, and had shrugged off his advances quickly. 

Not that he was hard on the eyes.  A competitive MMA fighter, he was all corded muscle and rippling abs, looking like he might have been part jungle cat, the way his muscles moved with an easy grace.

On Piper’s right was Pony, the club prospect.  A former US Army Ranger, he, too, was a physical specimen, with the kind of body you’d expect to see on an Olympic athlete.  He’d caught her eye almost
right away, with his chiseled jaw and classic all-American good looks.  He was the kind of guy that looked like he was most at ease outdoors, splitting wood or playing minor league baseball.

Most of the time, he moved with an easy, quiet,
laid-back confidence, but now, he was all business, knocking out push-ups with grim determination as he and Jocko locked eyes as they strained to out-do each other.  Pony had a fire in his eyes in that moment that, Piper had to admit, gave her more than a little thrill.

If she was being honest, the whole thing was giving
her more than a little thrill.  There was something about watching two athletic men going head-to-head like this, right in front of her, almost close enough to touch.  Both of their lean bodies were slicked with a light sheen of sweat, and both men were breathing heavily with exertion on every push-up.

All of that raw, masculine energy, washing her over
like a wave.  There were worse ways to spend an evening.

It was all pretty much night and day from what she’d
been used to before working here.  In fact, if someone had told her a few years ago, while she was finishing her degree in Accounting, that this was where she was going to end up, she would’ve said they were crazy.  But she had to admit, watching hot outlaws do shirtless pushups on the bar in front of her was a hell of a lot more diverting than Profit and Loss statements.

To her disappointment, the contest ended.  Jocko got stuck about a quarter of the way up, his corded arms trembling, and finally collapsed down to the bar, while Pony pushed his way up and then lowered himself back down with control.

“Son of a bitch,” Jocko said, breathing heavily.  “I’ll get you next time.”

“Probably,” Pony said, and the two of them bumped
fists and slapped each other on the back.

I guess the show’s over, Piper thought with a sigh, watching as Pony pulled a T-shirt on over his sweat-slicked torso.

Even before Pony had his shirt back on, one of the
other MC brothers was congratulating him.

“See, dude?” he said. “I knew you would win.  One hundred and eight.  You’re an animal!”

Pony was still breathing heavily from the competition.  “Thanks, Devil.”

“Thank you, dude.  I just made a hundred bucks betting on you.”

“A hundred?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Pony said.  “Then you can buy me this beer.”

“Oh, there, did you see what he did there, Pippen?”
Devil said.

“Piper,” she said.

“Right, right.  Piper.   See what he did there,
Piper?”

You mean get me wanting to have all his babies by doing shirtless pushups in front of me?  is what she thought, but what she said was, “I did, Devil.”

Devil.  This must’ve been the hundredth time he’d called her by the wrong name.  Every time, she corrected him, and every time, he did it again.

It was one of the little quirks that made Devil, Devil.  They each had them, the brothers of the MC, and Piper filed them all away in her brain as a matter of course.

Ever since she’d started working here in the
clubhouse bar, she’d made it a point to learn as much about each of the brothers as she could.  The club president was Boomer, tall, older, bearded. 
He was currently stuck in a wheelchair as the consequence of a drive by shooting from a rival gang a few months earlier. 

Then there was Griz, Boomer’s son, the big bearded
sergeant at arms, and Wyatt, an adopted son of Boomer’s, and the club VP.  Wyatt was the clever one, the one who people came to when a problem needed to be solved.  Boomer was the coach, but Wyatt was the quarterback of this team. 

Then Devil, the wild child who either could not or
would not get her name right, always moving and always up to something that might or might not make everything in the immediate vicinity catch on
fire.  There were others, as well, and Piper did her best to memorize all of their names and personalities and favorite drinks.  It was all a part of her job.

Including getting to know Pony as much as humanly
possible.  At least, that was what she told herself as an excuse to spend as much time with him as she could without it looking weird.

Devil wandered off to collect on his bet while Piper
drew Pony’s beer out of the tap.  She did her best not to glance out of the corner of her eye at how Pony’s muscles filled out his tight shirt.

“One hundred and eight pushups, hunh?” she said. “You didn’t want to make it an even hundred and ten?”

“Didn’t want to show off,” Pony said.

“Right.  Wouldn’t want to do that.  I guess they had you do a lot of pushups in the Rangers?”

“You remembered.”

“About your being in the Rangers?  I did.” 

“Yeah, well, shit can get really boring on deployment,” Pony said.  “Like, painfully boring.  So push-up contests were a pretty common way to pass the time.”

Piper was trying to come up with a sassy comment
about better ways to pass the time when her phone buzzed in her back pocket.  She checked it while sliding Pony his beer with her free hand.

It was her sister, Carly, texting her.  She was the other thing that had been on Piper’s mind lately, constantly pushing in on her thoughts.

Carly, all of twenty years old and still in college.  She’d never been in trouble a day in her life, until just before Piper got this job at the MC. 

Then, Piper had gotten the news.  Carly had been arrested at school, at an off-campus party. 

Piper hadn’t been able to believe her ears.  Perfect little Carly, never ever so much as had detention once in high school Carly, wouldn’t know how to commit a crime even if she wanted to Carly?  Caught not only with fentanyl pills, but so many fentanyl pills that she was being hit with a felony charge?  

It didn’t make any sense.  Carly, for her part, swore up and down that the pills weren’t hers, and that she had no idea where they had come from.  But the arresting officer had been clear in his report.  He’d found the pills on Carly while busting the party.

It was a disaster in the making.  The kind of thing that could derail a young woman’s life and put her on the wrong track on a permanent basis.

Now she was out on bail and staying at Piper’s place
as a condition of her release.  Every day, Piper bounced back and forth between trying to figure out how her sister had screwed up so hard while also trying to sort out how she could get her out of it.

For now, though, she had to keep her mind on what she was doing.   So she texted back be home a little late tonight and tucked her phone back into her pocket.

“Something important?” Pony asked.

Piper shook her head.  “Just my sister.  She’s, uh, home from college.”

It was close enough to the truth.  Piper didn’t want to get into the details of her sister’s arrest or bail or any other part of it.

“So your sister is a college girl, hunh?”

“That’s right.  I was, too, you know.”

Pony seemed surprised.  “Really?  What did you study?”

“Guess.”

“Ah, shit,” he said, furrowing his brow.  “Um…Religious studies.”

“Very funny.”

“So what was it?”

“Accounting.”

Now he really looked surprised.  “Seriously?”

“What?”

“No, nothing,” he said.  “I figured it would be Physical Therapy, maybe, or something sporty and active.”

“Oh, Accounting can be quite vigorous, I assure you.”

“Really?”

“No,” Piper said. “Not really.  It’s super boring.  It’s exactly as boring as you think it is.”

“How the hell did you end up tending bar here?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

She needed to change the subject.  The last thing she wanted right now was to get into a deep dive into her personal life.  Besides, it was always best to stay at least a little mysterious to the guy you wanted to impress.

“What’s that scar?” Piper asked.

“Which scar?” Pony said.

“The one on your hand.”

“Oh,” Pony said, looking down at his left hand.  “That one.”

Piper waited for more words to come out of him, and
when they didn’t come, she said, “Is that the whole answer?  That one?”

“Well, you know,” he said, staring down at the
scar.  “Indiscretions of youth.”

Once again, no more words came out, and Piper figured that was as much as she was going to get out of him on the subject.

It looked like she wasn’t the only one being
mysterious.  Piper was just trying to figure out how to wrestle more information out of her mysterious Army Ranger-become-outlaw biker when her phone buzzed insistently yet again. 

She glanced at it.  This text she couldn’t ignore.

“Your sister again?” Pony asked.

Definitely not.  Piper read through the text more carefully, and then tucked away her phone and grabbed her purse from under the bar.

“I have to take off,” Piper said.  “I’ve got a secret meeting to get to.”

Pony said, “Really?”

“No,” Piper said with a grin. “I’m meeting my dad.  But secret meeting sounds more exciting.”

“Your dad, hunh?” Pony said.  “Then I guess I don’t have to be jealous.”

Piper tried and failed to hide her grin at the
obvious flirtation.  Be cool, Piper, be cool, she kept telling herself as she collected her purse from beneath the bar.  No grinning like an idiot in front of the cute guy.

“See you later,” she said, forcing herself to avoid
sounding like a giddy little groupie as she left the noisy bar behind her and steeped out into the cool night air.

Once she was outside, she climbed on her motorcycle, a Yamaha YZF-R7.  It was a street racing
bike, nothing like the heavy Harley cruisers that all the MC brothers rode, and they never let her forget it.  Every day, at least one of them would poke fun at her for zipping around her little crotch rocket speedster.

Whatever.  She knew that, with as long as she’d been riding, she could probably take any of them in a race if it came to it.  Harleys had their charm and their swagger, no doubt, but for sheer speed and
maneuverability, her little street bike had them all beat.

She remembered her parents thinking she was nuts when she’d bought her first bike.  Too
dangerous, too unpredictable, too easy to get hurt.  They’d never understood the thrill of the wind blowing past you, the feel of the road right there beneath you, the raw and unfiltered experience of flying through the air with nothing between you and
the world.

Everything seemed right when she was on her
bike.  Sane.  There was a rhythm to it, like the rhythm her life had fallen into.  Predictable.  Understandable.

Until now.  Now, it seemed like her life had become a crazy, chaotic mess, with this new gig at the MC and her sister getting arrested.  Everything felt out of control.

She leaned into her bike as she took a curve on the
back roads leading into town.  This, at least, she could control.  Her motorcycle.  It would respond as it always did, and as much time as she spent on it, Piper had complete confidence that she could make her bike do just about anything she wanted. 

As much as she wanted to forget the world and lose
herself to the ride, the world kept pushing back in around the edges of her mind.  She really needed this bartending thing at the MC to work out. 

Lately, she’d been letting herself get caught up in
the romance of it all.  Working around outlaw bikers who gave zero fucks what the world thought of them, letting her wild side out as much as she liked.

And, in the process, flirting harder and harder with
Pony.  Was that a mistake?  Was she letting the thrill of being around bad boys all day alter her judgement?

After all, Pony might not be the man she wanted him
to be.  That she imagined him to be.  That could just be her hormones talking.  It was almost certainly a bad idea to pursue anything with him, especially as much as she needed this bartending job to work
out right now.  That sort of involvement could derail her already complicated life.

Now she was in the lights and traffic of town, and
slowed both her motorcycle and her thoughts so she could navigate the streets.  She needed to keep her head on straight.

She spotted the flower shop where she was supposed to have her little secret meeting and slowed down, looking around for a suitable
parking spot.  Piper looped around the block twice before she found a spot a little ways down the street from the shop and pulled in.

She left her helmet on as she made her way down the street, and only took it off once she was inside the flower shop.  A quick look around told her that the place was nearly empty, with only the cashier and the man she was here to meet.

There he was, casually browsing the shelves, the man she called her father.  Even this late in the evening, he was still wearing his suit and tie.  She was pretty sure he slept in it.

“Piper,” he said, smiling and beaming once he saw
her. “So good to see you.”

“You too, Dad,” she said.

He gave her a big hug, then stepped back and looked her over as if to check for hidden damages.

“Have you been taking care of yourself?” he said.

“Always do.”

“It’s been too long,” he said.

“You always say that.”

“Because it’s always true.  I worry about you, you know.”

“I know,” Piper said.  “But everything’s fine. Really.”

He looked around the shop, once again seeming like he was looking for hidden damages or maybe wayward leaks or some other gremlin that might be lurking in the shadows.  Always on high alert.  Always looking for signs of hidden trouble.

“Come on over here,” he finally said. “There’s
something I want to show you.”

“Sir?” the cashier said. “We’re closing in ten
minutes.”

“Okay, thanks. I just want to get my daughter
something quick.”

He led her over to a part of the store that was about
as far from the cash register and the cashier as they could get and still physically be inside the store.  The entire way there, he ambled slowly, chattering away about some vase that he’d seen that he thought would really spruce up her living room with the right flowers inside of it.

“Gee thanks, Dad,” Piper said.

Once they were far away from the cash register, he
looked around carefully again, up the aisle, down, then up on his toes to look over the shelves.  He didn’t speak until he’d looked in every possible direction around them.

“All right,” he said once he seemed satisfied.  “There’s nobody else in the store.  The cashier won’t be able to hear us from over there.” 

“As long as we keep our voices down,” Piper said.

He looked at her carefully.  “You’re sure you weren’t followed?”

“I wasn’t followed.” 

He nodded. “Then we’re all clear.”

Even as he said the words, his overly concerned
expression melted away, the upraised eyebrows and wrinkled brow returning to neutral. His entire posture began to change; the shoulders came back, the spine got straight, and he went from a slightly bent-over, kindly father to an all-business supervisor in the manner of seconds. 

“Very well, then,” he finally said. “What is your report, Special Agent Marino?”