Coyote Lee Read online

  “Cash me out…hurry.” When he got his card back, he pushed his way through the crowd toward the door. He had to keep reminding himself that the woman wasn’t Dallas. He’d had five or six shots, on an empty stomach, and he’d finished a flask of whiskey before he’d left his house earlier. He didn’t feel drunk often, but that night, his head was swimming. He pushed out the door and stopped and looked around. It took his eyes a few minutes to adjust to the bright lights in the parking lot and when they did, he found the woman…and the man. He had his back to him, but Coyote could see the woman’s face. The man had her backed up against a van and she didn’t look happy. Telling himself again she wasn’t Dallas and he shouldn’t get involved, he made his way toward them. Coyote was a few steps away when he heard the woman say:

  “Chris, stop it! I told you, we’re not getting back together and we’re definitely not doing that anymore.”

  “Aw, come on, baby. We don’t have to get back together…just give me that sweet pussy one more time.” Coyote could see the man’s hand snaking up underneath her blouse and that was when he put his hand on the other man’s shoulder and spun him around.

  “What the fuck? Who the fuck are you?”

  “Your worst fucking nightmare if you don’t get your hands off the lady.”

  “It’s okay, I’ve got this,” the girl said.

  “Who is this, Talia? Some guy you were fucking behind my back?”

  Coyote grabbed the guy by the front of his shirt. He was a big guy, but Coyote had no fear, especially when he was drunk. “Come on, guys, don’t do this,” Talia said.

  “Shut the fuck up!” the guy barked over his shoulder. That was when Coyote punched him for the first time. Coyote let go of his shirt and the guy stumbled backwards, almost tripping over a cement parking block, but righting himself quickly and coming back at Coyote. The girl tried to stop him by stepping in between them. The big guy knocked her out of the way and she went down. That pissed Coyote off even more and the two men both started throwing punches. Coyote was definitely the more skilled fighter, but the other guy was getting in a few good licks, probably because Coyote’s reflexes were slowed, thanks to the whiskey. He had a bloody nose and lip by the time he backed the other guy into the van and unleashed on him. Blood and spit and sweat were flying and the girl was crying and still trying to pull them apart.

  “Hey!” A security officer suddenly materialized. “I’m calling the cops.” Coyote stopped throwing punches then. He didn’t need that shit. They were already on the line with the cops thanks to the shit that went down with Soto and Chavez. Coyote held up his hands and said:

  “Just defending the lady’s honor.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what either of you are doing. You got two minutes to clear out or I’m calling the cops.” Coyote looked at “Chris.” He was doubled over and blood was dripping from his face onto the pavement. He looked at Talia then. She was crying and shaking. She was either a nervous wreck, cold, or both.

  “Shit. Hey.” He put his hand on Chris’s shoulder. The other man knocked it off. “Fuck you then, I was gonna help you, man.”

  “Leave me the fuck alone,” Chris grunted. He looked over at Talia then and said, “Bitch.” Coyote didn’t even think. His right fist flew out to meet the side of the other man’s face and before he hit the ground, Coyote had a hold of the girl’s hand and was pulling her through the parking lot. When they got to his bike she said:

  “No. My car’s right there, come on. I’ll bring you back for your bike later.” Coyote was going to argue with her but he could see Chris out cold on the ground and the security officer on the phone. He followed Talia to a little green Toyota and got in the passenger seat. He was impressed with her driving skills as he watched her throw it into gear and tear out of the parking lot. They were almost to the freeway when they could see the lights and hear the sirens coming their way. She took her foot off the accelerator and pulled to the right as the cops and ambulance passed them. Once they were back on the road she said, “We can hang out at my house for a while until that shit dies down and I’ll take you back to your bike.”

  Coyote suddenly thought about Colleen. What the fuck was he doing? His answer was that he was just hiding out for a while…he hadn’t done anything wrong, nothing to hurt Colleen. He was just going to hang out for a while…and that was it. No harm done. “Okay,” he finally said. “Thanks.”

  16

  Coyote stood behind Talia as she opened the door to her little house. The whole time he was thinking about how badly he wanted to touch her, and the whole time he was reminding himself that he couldn’t. As soon as the door swung in, he stepped in behind her and she set down her purse and keys as she closed the door. Coyote’s brain shut down right then, and before another second passed, he had her back against the door and his hands underneath her shirt. Their lips met, and the kiss was hot enough to burn down the house. He unbuckled her bra and she undid his pants. His hands were on her bare breasts; they felt so fucking good. He began to caress them while kissing down to her neck and ignoring the pain in his busted lip. Suddenly her hand was down inside his jeans and wrapped around his aching cock. He sucked in a hard breath and she began to slide her soft hand up and down his shaft.

  Coyote let go of one breast and used that hand to hike up her skirt. She was stroking him, making him even harder…his cock was throbbing against her palm. When he finally found her panties, they were soaked, and he worked his fingers up underneath them, finding her clit right away. She cried out when he touched it and as he began manipulating it with his fingers, she almost dropped to her knees. Coyote took her other arm out of her blouse and used it to pull her in tightly against him and hold her up. He continued working her clit and she gasped and moaned and rubbed her body against him. After a few seconds his hand was soaked. He pulled it out and said, “Bedroom.”

  She was panting, hard, but she took his hand with a shaky one of her own and led him down a short hallway. Once inside the bedroom, less than six feet from the bed, he had to get the clothes off her. He began to pull at them, awkwardly. She smiled and stepped back, pulling her shirt over her head and letting her bra fall off her arms to the floor. “Fuck…you’re gorgeous,” he whispered. With the smile still on her pretty lips, she unzipped the skirt and let it fall to the floor. She stepped out of it and Coyote put his hands on her hips, lowering the soaked panties himself, down over her thighs and calves until he made it to the sexy red shoes. She lifted one foot and then the other and before he tossed the panties aside, he brought them to his face and inhaled her desire.

  “Now you,” she said. While Coyote stripped off his clothes, she went over to the bed and took off her shoes. He was undressed in seconds and he met her at the bed. He started to push her back but she wrapped her hand around his rock-hard cock again and bent her head forward. Her tongue came out and she licked around the head of it.

  “Fuck,” he whispered again, just as she opened her lips and began to suck him in, an inch at a time. He put his hands in her silky blonde hair and held on tight as she started to slide his cock in and out of her mouth, between her lips, against her hot tongue, all the way to the back of her throat. Coyote’s head was back and his eyes were rolled back into his head as she sucked him, licked him, and made him feel like his body was about to turn to ashes as the fire burned hotter inside of him. He let her suck him for a long time. It felt so good to just not think about any fucking thing other than how good she was making him feel. There was something nagging on the periphery…what he was doing, he knew wasn’t right…but fuck, it felt so damned good…He finally couldn’t take it any longer. He pulled back and said, “Get up on the bed, baby…on your knees.” She did what he asked, baring her gorgeous, full cheeks to him. He didn’t get up on the bed. Instead, he pulled her back toward him and he lined his cock up with that sweet, hot pussy and pushed forward. “Oh, Jesus!” She cried out something unintelligible. Fuck, she felt good.

  Coyote grabbed her hips and bega
n to move in and out of her tight pussy. She was wrapped around his shaft…so fucking tight, so wet…and then she started talking, and God, it was hot. “Oh, that’s so good. Fuck, you feel so good. Oh yeah, fuck me harder…please…”

  Coyote left one hand on her hip and used it to pull her back and push her forward. The other hand reached around and covered her breast. He began to roll her nipple between his fingers, pulling and pinching at it, loving the way she sighed and moaned as he did. He pushed harder and she ground her hips back into him and wiggled that sweet ass into him. He fucked her harder, pulled more harshly at her nipple, made her gasp and cry out more and then all of a sudden she screamed, dropped her head to the bed, pushed her hips back into him hard, and he actually felt her orgasm as it rushed out all over his throbbing cock.

  Coyote didn’t know what came over him, he was so excited…more excited than he’d been in a really long time. He let go of her breast and slid his hand up to her throat. He just rested it there at first, but the closer he got to his own orgasm, the more he began to squeeze. She didn’t object…on the contrary, it seemed to excite her even more. He held her throat and began to pound into her, wildly. He could feel his orgasm building. He could feel it in every part of his body. He gripped her throat tighter and closed his eyes and let his body explode. Those few seconds as he came were the best that he had felt in a very long time. But as soon as he finished…the very second he emptied himself inside of her…that nagging feeling became Colleen’s face. Almost ten years he had managed to be a good man, the man she deserved, or at least some semblance of it, and he’d just fucking blown it, in one night.

  He let himself slide out of Talia and after a minute, while he stood and stared at the wall in front of him and wondered what to do next, she rolled over onto her back. He was looking down at her pretty, smiling face and he realized that he had just cheated her as well. All those years he hated what Doc did to Dallas, and look at him now. “You okay?” she asked, sitting up.

  He took a step back as she reached for him and said, “I’m sorry, Talia.”

  She looked confused. “Sorry? For?”

  He reached down for his shirt. He couldn’t look at her. He cussed himself for being a fucking coward. “You got any whiskey?”

  “No,” she said. He could see her pulling the comforter up out of the corner of his eye and wrapping herself in it. She was suddenly ashamed to be naked, because he was acting like an ass. He forced himself to look up at her and said:

  “Talia, I’m married. I have a kid. I’ve never cheated on her before…I love her. Fuck, I’m sorry.” He knew he was babbling and as he went on. Talia sat there and looked at him like he was crazy. “I’m so fucking sorry. I shouldn’t have ever been here. I should have told you before…no, I shouldn’t have done this at all—fuck. I’m sorry.”

  Talia slowly slid to the edge of the bed and stood up. “I’m going to use the restroom and get dressed, and then I’ll take you back to the bar.” She turned toward the bathroom and he said:

  “Talia, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said, softly. “I’m fine.” It was only minutes later when she came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and went inside the little closet. Coyote was dressed and putting on his boots. When Talia came out of the closet, she had on a pair of sweats and tennis shoes. “You going to be okay to drive home now?” she asked. Coyote’s chest hurt even more when he realized that she was still worrying about him, after he’d been such an ass.

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

  She nodded, and they silently went out to the car. The drive to the bar was silent as well, but when they got into the parking lot he said, “You have a pen and paper?”

  “In the glove compartment.” He opened it and took out a little notepad. He wrote his name on it, realizing only then that he had never shared it with her. Under his name he wrote the address of the club and his office phone number. He knew he was taking a risk, but maybe at that point he’d already decided he was telling his wife anyway.

  “Please call me if that guy bothers you again.”

  She looked at the paper. “Coyote…let’s just call this what it was, a one-night stand. It was great. I’m sorry about not asking you before we…”

  “Huh-uh. You got nothing to be sorry for. I’m the asshole here. Please forgive me, and please call if you need me.” He got out of the car then, not knowing that when she did get a hold of him again, almost ten years later…it would change his life, again.

  17

  “Hey, Boss, you okay?” Coyote was sitting behind the shop, in the golf cart. It had to be two, maybe three in the morning. He was holding the letter Colleen had shoved in his face, but he’d only skimmed through it at the house. Since then, he hadn’t been able to get the other thing she had to talk to him about off his mind long enough to concentrate on what was in the letter. That was where Bruf found him. He’d found Bruf about a year earlier, nearly beaten to death and dumped in an alley in town.

  “Yep. What are you doing out here?”

  “I was up at the gate and I thought I saw some movement over here so I came to check it out.”

  “Oh, it was just me.” Coyote took a swig from his flask. He was more than half drunk and not even thinking about the fact that he was supposed to leave for Boston at dawn. He thought Bruf would go back up to the gate, but instead, he pulled up a five-gallon container and sat down.

  “Wolf says you’re going to Boston in the morning.”

  “Yep.” Shit. Now he was thinking about it. Too much to fucking process in one night.

  “I was thinking, Boss. The guys said you were going out there alone…but maybe I could ride with you, you know, just as a backup, in case anything happened.”

  Coyote looked at the boy. He was a man, really. He had been in the army for two years already…and judging by what he had told Coyote about where and how he had grown up…he was mature beyond his years. But he couldn’t take the young prospect with him. His son would never forgive him if he did since he’d already told Wolf he couldn’t go. “I appreciate it,” he said, concentrating hard on not slurring his speech. “But no. I have to do this on my own.”

  Bruf stood up and put his hands in his pockets. “Okay, I understand. There’s one more thing, Boss.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ediger is moving guns through our territory.” Ediger was Bruf’s brother. Bruf didn’t have any contact with him, since he was the one that had Bruf almost beaten to death…and he was the leader of a group of off-the-grid Aryan brothers. At least, that’s what Bruf told Coyote. Somehow, though, the boy still always knew what was going on up on that hill, and he kept Coyote well-informed about it.

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow morning. Sorry for the late notice, but…well, there was just so much going on when I heard last night…” As a prospect, Bruf wasn’t allowed to attend church. But Coyote didn’t doubt the boy got an earful of the pissed-off brothers when it was over the night before.

  “Shit. Do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Lock the gates for now. Nobody should be going in or out this early anyway. Then go and wake up Manson. Tell him what you told me and tell him to take Crow and Wolf and Python with him.” That was all the instruction Manson would need. Coyote didn’t want problems with the brotherhood in the hills. They had the firepower to annihilate the city if they wanted to. But he couldn’t let Ediger trample on their territory either, or he’d take advantage of that, and so would every other club in the area once word got out. Manson would know how to handle it. Coyote trusted him with all of their lives.

  “Sure, Boss.” Bruf started to walk toward the clubhouse and Coyote said:

  “Bruf!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t tell my son, but be ready to saddle up by seven.” It was dark, so the boy’s face was hard to see, but Coyote thought he saw a little grin.

  “You got it, Boss.” Coyote watched him go and then his mind went back to h
is wife and their conversation earlier.

  “Dying? What the fuck do you mean, you’re dying?”

  “Never mind,” she said, “I’m just being dramatic.”

  “The fuck you are. What’s going on, Colleen?”

  “What does it matter? You’ll be free to fuck whoever you want when I’m gone!” Coyote had never seen her like that. She was almost venomous.

  “It was ten years ago, damn it! I’m fucking sorry still—I’m sorry. Can we talk about you now? Fucking tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’ve been sicker than I let on to you…for months now. The doctor did some blood tests and then about two weeks ago he had me come in for a bone marrow test. I have leukemia, Xander.”

  “Leukemia? Like cancer?”

  She snorted. “Yeah, exactly like cancer.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody knows. I just do.”

  “What are they going to do?”

  “I don’t know. He was talking about all kinds of things, but I wasn’t really listening. He referred me to an oncologist. I see him next week.”

  “We’ll take you to San Francisco,” he said. “To UCSF. I heard they have the best research facilities there.”

  “I’ll talk to the oncologist first and see what he says. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

  Coyote had stood up and she said, “Huh-uh. I don’t want to sleep with you tonight.”

  “How the fuck are you going to dump something like this on me and then just go to bed and leave me to wonder what the hell is going on? Colleen, you said you were dying.”

  “The disease is already at stage III. It’s very likely that they won’t be able to get it all even with the chemo and radiation. I’m going to fight because I want to see my son married and my grandchildren someday. But I’m not sure where you and I are in this, Xander.”

  “Why? Because of this?” He held up the letter. “It was ten years ago!”