Have Gun, Will Travel (The Bare Bones MC #5)(62)
As he oiled her calves and as far up on her thighs as he dared, Sax recited. He had only halfway memorized his speech—he was basically winging it, being accustomed to this sort of thing. “I pledge my insight and wisdom, my property, and my shelter to you. I will guide you, defend you, and meet all your needs.” He oiled her neck, her hands, and her face, showing attention to the details of her fingers.
Now Lytton handed Sax the collar he’d taken back from Bee for the ceremony. This wouldn’t be her everyday, nursery collar. He’d given her a much plainer one for that. This was her dress-up collar, embedded with fire opals, garnets, turquoise, and banded pink rhodochrosite like candy. “With this collar I bind you as my own, my property, my soul. You give these things to me of your own free will. You know what this collar represents. You freely give me everything you possess.”
“Yes,” Bee said in a small, chaste voice. “I do.”
As Sax fastened the collar behind her neck, he kissed her. The kiss was almost chaste too, and the room full of bikers erupted in a hearty cheer. In addition to the top Pure and Easy officers, the abovementioned allergic men, and Faux Pas, Gollywow, Wild Man, members of the Flagstaff chapter were here too, the few who remained after Leo had gone into the WITSEC program. Sax’s son Harte and his sometime lover Dayton Navarro stood on opposite sides of the room. After the ceremony, Harte was heading out to “find himself” on a road trip with one of Sax’s geology assistants. Fred Birdseye had stayed on as Veep once Leo had vanished, pledging his loyalty to the new Veep, Sax Saxonberg.
After Sax’s beatdown in the Citadel parking lot, Leo’s cover had finally been blown. On the surface, Leo been indicted on a racketeering charge, but Harte had gone to see him after he’d been transported to the U.S. Marshal Service, along with his extremely pissed-off wife Lulu. Leo admitted to Harte that WITSEC was his next destination, and that he’d been cooperating with law enforcement. He’d been secretly taping Flagstaff’s church meetings. Agents from the Department of Health had raided the P and E nail salon as well as a dozen others used as money laundering fronts for Tormenta and Leo. The fate of the unpaid or underpaid women was not known.
How Sax wished he could’ve been a fly on the wall for that meeting between Leo and Harte. Leo had evidently assured Harte he had not turned anyone else in and once he was gone, the persecution would cease. But Sax didn’t trust a word that scumbucket had to say, so he was on pins and needles in that regard, too. Panhead and Baron Funkhauser would never be returned to them. They may as well be dead, for all practical purposes. Saying “Well, my betrayal ends here” didn’t erase all that had gone before. Sax just regretted he hadn’t been able to burn off Leo’s backpack before he vanished.
“I’ve never been to as many weddings as I’ve been to in the past couple months,” raved the club’s lawyer, Slushy. He had brought Yvonne Serpico, Roman’s mother, after marrying her again to make sure it was fully legal after all.
“Oh,” said Bee modestly, “this isn’t a legally binding wedding. Just a bondage collaring ceremony.”
“‘Just’?” mocked Sax good naturedly.
“Looked more real than our ceremony,” said Slushy. “We just went to Vegas and were married by a James Brown impersonator.”
Yvonne frowned. “But it was legal.”
“Oh, yeah, sure! Sweetheart,” Slushy assured his bride.
The tattoo artist Knoxie was the next to congratulate the couple. He was owner and operator of The Missing Ink on Bargain Boulevard, not far from the Box of Rocks. “Your wrists, please.”
Obediently, Sax and Bee stuck out their inner wrists for Knoxie to examine. He’d just done the ink job the day before, so the pictures were still slightly red and puffy. Bee’s wrist had a door key on a chain. On Sax’s inner wrist, the chain continued, and led to a lock. It was symbolic on many levels.
“Beautiful job,” said Sax. “As usual.”
Bee said, “Now you need to do those gems on his scapula. I choose purple fluorite, but Sax says it’s too ordinary. He wants something rarer, like diop—diop—”
“Dioptase.” Sax could’ve picked any number of even rarer gems to be inked on his back, but rare gems were usually ugly. He was planning on giving Bee a tanzanite engagement ring.
“You’ll have to give me photos,” said Knoxie.
Someone opened Ford’s office door and an enormous brown shaggy puppy streaked in. Sax grinned as his new dog made a beeline right for Santiago Slayer. Slayer may have lost part of his ear at the hands of Tormenta—he was an especially avid dart player over at The Drawing Board these days—but the vivid white slash across his handsome Latin face had made him even more irresistible to women, it seemed. Sax was trying to convince the playboy bounty hunter to stay, to contract for his chapter on a permanent basis. Slayer insisted he was an adventurer, a “pilgrim on the hazardous landscape of life.” “One small club is not enough to contain my big personality.”
“Ah, mierde, that dog is trying to kill me!” cried Slayer as the large puppy jumped up on his lap. She must have been cruising around the revetment area because she left two dusty red paw prints on the crotch of his white slacks.
“She likes you,” Sax pointed out.
“Ah, ah!” lamented Slayer as the toddler Scruffy leaped over and over, his lap now an impressionistic painting of paws. “I like dogs. Just not the ones that are the Terror of Tinytown!”