Excerpt from Silver Biker

“Ranger.” The call of my biker name forces me to look up. “I think this one’s for you.”

Justice is the president of our non-official club, and he’s also become a true friend. His silver-topped head tips toward the front of the bar, and I squint. The brightness of blond hair from yards away beckons like a beacon across a lake, but I can’t make out the rest of her. She hesitantly stands before the front door, as though she isn’t certain she should be here. Perhaps she’s wondering how she got here.

Join the club, sister.

Then again, don’t. Whoever she is, from this distance, I can tell she doesn’t have a stitch of biker babe in her. Something just doesn’t feel right about her and tells me I’m correct in my assessment.

“Nope. Not my type,” I say to my friend, turning my gaze back to him and then offering a kiss to the jaw of the woman on my lap. Justice snorts and shakes his head slowly side to side. His arms cross over his solid body. He’s been acting all kinds of weird over the past few months. I’d tease him it’s old age, but I know the real source of his content. He’s getting his dick dipped on the regular to one woman, in particular, and it’s mellowing him. He’s in love.

I shiver with the thought. I’d been there once—only once—then I lost it all.

Maybe the chick by the door is lost. It happens on occasion. Someone’s driving toward Blue Ridge, up here in the Smoky Mountains of Georgia, and gets turned around because of a lack of GPS. She hasn’t quite made it to town and doesn’t realize she’s only fifteen minutes outside of it. 

Keep going, honey, I want to holler. You’ll get wherever you’re going soon enough.

Blue Ridge is my hometown. Born and bred here, I knew I’d spend my entire life near this place. After what happened, I’ll never leave. Never.

“Wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Justice interjects, responding to my statement about type and pulling me back to the present with a deep chuckle. The lost woman finally walks to the edge of the bar and pauses at the structure. It spans the length of one wall. The rest of the room has tables scattered here and there. I’m sitting near the pool tables toward the back of the place. I’d just won a game, and somehow, the woman on my lap is my prize.

I’m not getting laid, but I’ll be getting long overdue head. 

“What do you know?” I snap at my leader although it comes out more a slur. I’m feeling good, really relaxed. I’d like to think the ease will allow me to stick my dick in someone random, but I know it won’t. This bird on my lap could sing pretty, smell sweet, and tease me in all the right ways, and I still won’t be going where I can’t bring myself to go.

It isn’t that I can’t get it up. It’s that I don’t think I deserve to sample the pleasure.

“Ranger, you’re asking for trouble.” The tone of Justice’s voice raises the hackles on the back of my neck. With my hair shorn short to my scalp, highlighting the hints of silver I’ve become speckled with, it doesn’t take much for those fine locks to prickle. His voice has me on edge.

“Trouble is my middle name.” I snort.

“Peach is your middle name,” a sweet Georgian voice purrs, and I choke on air. Justice steps aside to offer me a better view of the woman speaking.

What the fuck?

“You’re a peach,” I retort, squinting at the figure who has moved closer to my perch without me noticing her. The comeback is intended to be flippant and flirty, but my tongue swells the second I’ve said it. The air around me stills. The woman on my lap feels like the weight of the mountains. I only have eyes for the woman standing two feet away from me.

Can this day get any worse?

With blond hair bright as lemonade, sapphire blue eyes, and a body like an hourglass, I can’t believe I didn’t recognize her at first. However, I am drunk. Or I was. I’m sobering up real fast. My leg begins to bounce, making the woman on my lap jiggle, and she lets loose a vibrating giggle, drawing awkward attention to herself. She sounds like a child on a kiddie ride, only I’m not offering free trips on the James Express.

“Peach,” I whisper, not certain the nickname leaves my lips. Continuing to stare at the woman watching me, I can’t believe she’s standing before me. Is she real? She’s still so fucking beautiful. The glare in her eyes assures me she’s very real, and she’s staring daggers at the woman sitting on my thighs.

In a show of possessiveness and bitchiness to the max, the biker babe kisses my jaw, licking along the hard edge and scraping her tongue against the silvery stubble. Her eyes remain on the peach before me.

Fuck.

“James.” The blond bombshell speaks. I’d recognize her voice anywhere. I hear it nightly in my dreams, reaching out for it to drown out the other noises that haunt me. 

The screams. The scraping. The silence afterward.

“Evelyn.” Her name is sharper on my tongue than I intend. I’m pissed she didn’t call this year. She owes me every May. She promised.

“You gonna join us tonight, honey?” The biddy on my lap teases the female before me who looks ready to stake me on a skewer and roast me over a fire.

Good, let her be angry. Let her be anything other than emotionless.

It was all your fault, my conscience reminds me.

I sit taller in my seat, shifting the woman on my thighs who has a firm grip on my neck at this point.

“No, I don’t think I’ll be joining you this evening.” Evelyn’s sharp tone displays how unimpressed she is with this situation. Once upon a time, she was impressed with me, though. She thought I was the shit, and she was my sweet peach. 

James and his Giant Peach. My mother loved the irony of it.

“Evie,” I hiss. Her nickname falls on deaf ears as the beauty gives me her back and walks away. My eyes follow the retreat of her firm ass—still tight—in skinny jeans. My mouth waters and my insides stir in a way they haven’t for years. Justice steps back with a broad step at her retreat. He stood beside her, ever the protector of the underdog, although I’m not certain who’s the underdog in this scenario—her or me.

As she walks away, the soles of her shoes clack on the tile like the ticking of a stopwatch, and I release the air in my lungs in relief. Or is it frustration? Maybe it’s fear. 

“Who was that?” Trixie-Trudy-Tabby asks, her voice incredulous at the sway of hips walking away from me once again.

I answer on an exhale.
​
“My wife.”

MEET AUTHOR L.B. DUNBAR

L.B. Dunbar has an over-active imagination. To her benefit, such creativity has led to over thirty romance novels, including those offering a second chance at love over 40. Her signature works include the #sexysilverfoxes collection of mature males and feisty vixens ready for romance in their prime years. She’s also written stories of small-town romance (Heart Collection), rock star mayhem (The Legendary Rock Stars Series), and a twist on intrigue and redemption (Redemption Island Duet). She’s had several alter egos including elda lore, a writer of romantic magical realism through mythological retellings (Modern Descendants). In another life, she wanted to be an anthropologist and journalist. Instead, she was a middle school language arts teacher. The greatest story in her life is with the one and only, and their four grown children.

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The History in Us is the newest release from L.B. Dunbar.  This powerful, emotional standalone might be just what you are looking for.  Read an excerpt and download your copy! 

The History in Us excerpt  ©2017 L.B. Dunbar
 
“History is his story.” He paused to raise a hand. “And before you feminists go crazy, I do believe there should be a her-story, and feel free to continue the tradition of writing them.”
The class chuckled again.
“On the note of women and emotion…” He paused to wiggle his brows over his rimmed glasses to show he meant no offense. “Emotion needs to be in your writing. I want you to learn something about this amazing city, but don’t just spew facts at me. Make a story of the history.”
He paused again for effect and Nate raised his hand.
“Are you saying to make something up?”
“No,” Wayne clarified. “I’m saying take a journey, make a discovery, add emotion. Someone help me here.” His eyes roamed the classroom, and to my surprise, Katie volunteered.
“You need to write from your head and your heart.” She tapped her chest as she spoke passionately. She seemed too young to know of anything heartfelt—disappointment, death, drama—but then I was reminded of her comments about feeling caged, and not for the first time, I wondered what she meant. She was still a kid in my head, but as my eyes roamed over her body—supple curves, firm, handful breasts, and a dip to her waist—I saw before me someone too sensual to be a child. Then my eyes flicked to her lips. Remembering our kiss, I no longer had thoughts of her as innocent. Her mouth responding to mine the other night told me without words that she was all woman.
I tapped a pencil against my thigh, shifting side to side in the rotating chair. It was a nervous habit. I needed to stay in motion. Keep moving or you’re dead, General told us. The words echoed in my head at the most inopportune time.
“Emotions are linked to feelings,” Katie continued, nearly taking over the class. “In our hearts. It’s not a sensation, like one of the five senses, but something inside us. Invisible. Imaginative.” Her hand flattened on her chest, covering her heart and I envisioned the beat under her skin. My own raced in response to her words. “We feel emotions. We touch things. There is a difference, but we easily mix the two. Touch is a sensation. However, touch can be confused for emotion as well.”
Her face pinked as she rambled, but she’d captivated our small classroom. I noticed several guys sit forward, shifting their feet under their desks. Bastards. I sensed what the sound of her words did to their bodies. It was having the same effect on me. Her lashes lowered, embarrassed she’d said too much, revealed something of herself.
“Can you give me an example?” Wayne asked.
“I was touched by his thoughtfulness,” Katie said, her eyes shooting to mine. An awkward silence filled the classroom.
“Get in touch with your emotions,” another student interjected.
“Exactly,” Katie smiled shyly, twisting in her desk to face the attractive, bobbed-blonde, and pleased that another person understood her. Katie nodded, her forehead wrinkling. “It's like when someone says I'll be in touch. What does that mean?” Her voice growing in exasperation “Touch what?” she blurted. Her sweet voice grew husky, without realizing the sexual innuendo. Or maybe it was just me, and a growing imagination of things I wished to do to Katie. Either way, I couldn’t look at her again, sensing her eyes questioning me. I nodded my head as if I agreed with her example and then I re-considered. Did she want me to touch her again? Does she know what she said? A shaky hand came to my forehead and I rubbed at the wrinkled skin, pressing in a growing headache. It wasn’t only the head on my shoulders that ached, and I sat up straighter at her question.
“Let's keep in touch. Does that mean keep touching me?” A male student mumbled, and a few students tittered like middle schoolers. Katie smiled weakly at the boy, and something happened to me. I didn’t like it, not one bit. Without warrant or reason, my gut clenched. Katie's face pinked and my dick flinched firmer in my jeans. Whoa, settle there, big guy. My lower region read too much into the word play, and my fist wanted to connect with the jerk egging Katie on. His eyes glazed as he looked at her.
“Exactly,” Katie said. “It's confusing, so don’t be cliché.” She placed her palms flat on the student desk. For some reason, I noticed her short, pink finger nails. I sensed Wayne was about to speak when Katie continued.
“I palmed the smoothness of the hard surface.”
Fuck me. My fingers dug deeper at my forehead. The tapping pencil halted. Her palm slid over the solid, flat top of the desk before dragging to the edge, curling around the tip.
“My hand cupped the ridged curve.”
I swallowed hard and wiped a drop of sweat forming on my brow. Another student coughed, sitting forward to disguise his own growing boner. Putz. Wayne gasped beside me. Easy old man.
Pink-painted fingernails reached for the support, holding up the writing surface. My heart raced in anticipation of what she might say next.
“My fingers stroked the pole.”
I heard someone groan and noticed Nate slip lower in his seat in the back corner. Visions of her touching me, clawing me tenderly with those pink nails, made my skin prickle. I angled my elbow to rest on my thigh, struggling to contain the pressure in my jeans.
“This is touch.” She paused. “It’s sensation. It’s sensual. What we, as writers, need to do is to get in touch”—she narrowed her eyes at the student next to her—“with our emotions. How does the experience feel? In here.” Her fist beat above her left breast.
“That felt good to me,” Nate commented and another student choke-coughed. The desire to pummel each of the males suddenly dreaming of her naked struck me, but I couldn't move because two blue eyes pinned me to my seat. Innocent and embarrassed by Nate’s remarks, she closed her eyes and clenched her fist again.
“Yes, well that was an enlightening explanation of emotion separate from sensation.” Wayne coughed. “And the point is to try to get in touch”—he winced—“with the emotion of the past. Remember history defined people, their attitudes and their actions. But history can shift. One choice can change everything.”
Katie’s eyes avoided mine. I spun the chair and wheeled myself to the front of the room, needing the moment to block the class from my thoughts and settle my dick. I was not in touch with my own emotions, let alone interpreting those of others. My emotions left when Alicia left. They exited my life when Trent did. They said goodbye when my mother said those words, but the sapphire stare burning a hole in my back told me otherwise. My emotions warned me I'd feel something for Katie, and it would involve more than touching her skin.

MORE ABOUT THE HISTORY IN US

​Are you a hero yet? 
Her words rang in my head.
I wanted to be. 
For you, I want to be, I told her in my dream, the dream where she kissed me again.

A hero-worthy kiss.

Stay safe, she had said. Come back to me.
My lips tingled. 
The brush of hers over mine 
a memory held in the blackest of nights, 
the hottest of desert days, 
and the cold-evil hell of war against hidden enemies.

I wanted another chance to taste those lips, 
melt them against mine, 
and mold her body to me.
I wanted to live.
For Katie.

Avid drinker of Coca-Cola, L.B. Dunbar loves the sweet things in life. Her affair with all things romantic began with her first book at the tender age of six: Goldilocks and the Three Bears. One can never forget her first! From there, the reading journey includes a deep love of fairy tales, medieval knights, regency debauchery, and alpha males. She loves a deep belly laugh and a strong hug. Occasionally, she has the energy of a Jack Russell terrier. Accused, yes, that’s the correct word, of having an over active imagination; to her benefit, such an imagination works well. Author of over a dozen novels, she’s created small town worlds, rock star mayhem, and MMA chaos. Her other duties in life include: mother to four growing children and wife to the one and only.

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