Page 43 of The B!tch is Bad

I realized I wanted to be a Bare Boner. They were family to me, more so than my real family had ever been. We were a clan, kith and kin, brothers in arms. They’d protected Patience with the richness of their very lives, and they barely knew her. They were all in the same boat as me. Birth families who abused, ignored, or deserted them and they’d created new, loving, and devoted families as a result.

I wanted this. I wanted to prospect for them, to clean their toilets and guard their rides, to go through the wringer and come out the other side clean as virgin silver. The eternal Dom as a power switcher, now that was something new. I grinned, imagining Patience ordering me to make her a Salty Dog. That would bring a whole new profound level to our age play, mixing it up.

Reaching the abandoned army airfield, we cruised past decrepit, empty airplane hangars boasting busted windows, rusted quonset huts, and ammo storage bunkers built into the ruby red, sandy earth like giant molehills. The road used for the Citadel, home of the Bare Bones’ construction outfit, took us down a corroded, potholed runway. I rode carefully so as not to bounce Patience too much. However, instead of going by the Citadel, I hung a right past the barracks to reach Wine on Main.

It was on the old Main Street, where regular enlisted men had lived in units known as Guadalcanal Village, playing sports on the dead, weedy turf. There was only one car in front of the wine bunker. Grace, the manager, who probably sat there all day reading Facebook and Reddit for lack of anything better to do.

“Whew!” Patience cried when she removed her helmet, shaking out her espresso hair. I wanted to eventually convince her to return to her natural blonde locks. “That was some ride!”

She was so spirited she took a handful of the front of my button-down and drew me to her. Fire danced in her eyes as though she was under a spell. “And you, my dear Zaddy. Having my legs wrapped around you almost made me come.”

Taking this as an invitation for a kiss, I swept in. I ran my lips across hers, and she was the one who plunged her tongue into my mouth. Like dipping her in a dance, I held her off the ground, lightly as the skimming of swallows.

In between sucking kisses, Patience smoothed her lush lips against mine, grinning. “We’re being filmed.”

I gasped and righted myself, eyes darting to the warehouse roofline. Yup, there was a security camera pointed at the parking lot. “Well,” I murmured, “that’s good.”

“You like being on film?” she teased.

“Just that they record all visitors.” I hated being so practical.

My everyday fixation made Patience stand upright, too. “Well. Let’s go see our storage bay.”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah. Let’s hope all that Ghost Riders is still there.”

“Not to mention the 1875 wine.”

I’d actually forgotten about that. Shit.

We didn’t have to pass by Grace’s office on our way to the second story bay, and we passed by dozens of smaller wine lockers. I rolled up the door to reveal our wine-stocked alley. It was individually armed, so I shut off the alarm. The overhead light revealed hundreds of bottles stored horizontally, their necks and burgundy foil displaying my Pictures of Lily brand.

Farther down, wooden cases stored other vintages. I tried to take the lid off a case and it wouldn’t budge.

“What in tarnation?” said Patience.

“Wait,” I said. Removing my swiss army knife from my jeans pocket, I pried the lid open. It had obviously been glued shut. When it creaked open, instead of twelve bottles of ’03 Ghost Riders Cab, six bottles of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill stood, staring at us like we were junkies.

Our hands dropped to our sides.