I Will Revel in Glory

by Stunich, C. M.

  “Hey, Beast,” I start, dropping my chin back down. “Do you have fireflies in Tennessee?”

  He looks over at me, his mouth shifting up into a gentle smile.

  “Lightning bugs?” he queries, and then his smile turns into something of a grin. “Sure do. The bugs in the Smoky Mountains make pretty, synchronized light shows; they flash in unison.” He taps his fingers against the side of his beer bottle. “I was thinkin’ we could pay my family a visit after the baby is born, just to show off a little.”

  “I’d like that,” I say, glancing over at Grainger to gauge his reaction. He seems fairly neutral toward the idea. Crown, on the other hand, is frowning hard. Sin just sips his beer, and I can’t seem to get a read on him either way. “All of us or …?”

  They all turn to look at me. I like that, when their collective attention is on me and me alone. It makes me feel safe, powerful, wanted.

  “Your choice, darlin’,” Beast continues, standing up and taking his beer with him. “I’mma shower before our guests arrive. I stink to high heaven.” He takes off, and I watch him go, hesitating for just a second.

  “Go on, we all know where your dirty ass mind has gone to,” Grainger growls out, taking another sip of his beer. “Just don’t forget to service the rest of your poor, blue-balled husbands.”

  “Oh please,” I spit back at him, using my straw to flick orange juice his way. “As if you don’t get fucked at least every other day, sometimes more than that.” I stand up and shove my empty glass toward him. “For being an ass, you can clean this up.”

  I take off after Beast, slipping into the downstairs shower just in time to find him naked and waiting for me. He’s leaning back against the bathroom counter, palms flat for support. I very carefully close the door behind me and tuck some hair behind my ear.

  “You know I love you, hun,” he drawls out at me, and I swear, that sound goes straight to my nipples, turning them into hard, pert points and flooding my core with even more heat. Not that I needed it: seeing all four guys sweaty and shirtless and covered in dirt just about made me come right then and there. “You don’t have to come in here and offer yourself up to me.”

  “Oh, I know that,” I tell him, putting my arms around his strong neck and kissing that warm, sultry mouth of his. “But I want to. I’ll die if I have to get through an entire dinner with people without getting fucked first.”

  He laughs, the sound feathering against my lips before I kiss him again, slowly working my mouth down to his neck, his chest, teasing one of his nipples with my tongue. I continue licking and kissing and laving him until I get down to his waiting erection.

  I’m not kidding when I say he has a huge goddamn cock. It’s so big that when I curl my fingers around the base of him, they don’t meet up. Down here on my knees, it’s hard to imagine that he fits inside of me the way he does, as if we were made for each other.

  Then again, I feel like that with every single one of the guys.

  “Damn it, Gidge,” he murmurs, kneading my scalp with his strong fingers. “Not sure how I feel about this, my pregnant wife suckin’ me off like this …”

  “Shush,” I breathe, darting my tongue out to tease his tip. He lets out a long exhale as I lick down his length, paying special attention to his balls before lifting my head back up. When I go to put him in my mouth, I have to really stretch my jaw to make him fit. Even then, it’s almost uncomfortable. I can only do it for a second, sliding down and then back up again, releasing his shaft with a gasping breath.

  “Oh fuck,” he groans, removing his hand from my hair and putting it back on the counter so that he can curve his fingers around the countertop. “That feels too damn good.”

  “It should,” I whisper, letting the heat of my words and breath tease the glistening wet head of his dick. “It takes some effort, husband. You’re huge, you know that?”

  He looks down at me with that perfect blue gaze of his, and for a while, it’s just us in that bathroom. Just me and him. There are no bad memories or flashes of blood and fire. That’s what I like best about these men; they’re all-consuming. But in a good way.

  They make me feel … human.

  I work Beast with my mouth and tongue until my jaw is sore, and I’m sneaking a hand between my thighs to pleasure myself. He doesn’t like that. He ends up reaching down and hauling me to my feet, turning me around and bending me over the countertop.

  I brace myself with my hands against the edges of the sink as he undoes my shorts, wrenches them down my hips, and slides his huge, wet cock into me. I’m so turned-on by that point that he only stretches me a little, just enough to leave this kiss of delicious invasion as he rocks his hips into me. Deep and hard and slow.

  I end up lifting my head so that I can look at him in the mirror, and we stare at each other while he works my body with his. This time, when I sneak a hand between my legs, he allows it, and I work my clit with vigorous, circular motions until I’m contracting around him and milking his body with my cunt.

  Beast groans and pounds into me, enjoying the ride before his own climax hits and he’s filling me up with the heat of his own pleasure.

  We relax there for a few minutes before he pulls out and helps me into the shower, gently cleaning me with a warm washcloth and washing my hair for me. Can I say how amazing it is, to have this huge man, the enforcer of the Death by Daybreak Motorcycle Club, using honey-scented shampoo and conditioner to wash my hair?

  I love it.

  I love all of this.

  Them, our house, our new life, our future.

  If I think about it like that, I feel lucky.

  If I think about the past … well, I try not to let it haunt me. If I do think about it, I try to force myself to conjure up pleasant memories instead. It’s not easy, and I’m not very good at it yet, but I’m trying.

  “Alright wife, out,” Beast commands, drying me off and then leaving with a towel wrapped around his hips to fetch us both a change of clothes.

  Once I’m fully dressed and my hair and makeup are done, I grab Queenie’s cookbook from Beast’s nightstand drawer, and I open up to one of her recipes. I’m supposed to be making mashed potatoes, mac ‘n’ cheese, and potato salad to go with the barbecued fare that Grainger is cooking up on the grill outside.

  He comes in about halfway through me fucking up the noodles for the mac ‘n’ cheese—why are they so slimy?!—and heaves a tired sigh.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” he says, moving over to me and pushing me gently away from the pot on the stove. “You’re as bad as your mother when it comes to cooking. Stick to killing people and sucking dick, huh? You’re good at those things.”

  I kick him right in the ass. No joke. I actually lift my leg up and nail him in his hard cheeks, and he growls at me.

  “You. Out. Now.”

  I listen, but only because I’m relieved not to have to cook anything. It’s been well-established at this point that I suck, but I keep trying anyway. When I glance back however, I see that Grainger is peeking into Queenie’s notes to see how she did things.

  That makes me happy in a way that I can’t explain, like she’s still here even though she’s not.

  A knock on the door drags me out of my reverie, and I move over to open it, finding my poor, grieving mother waiting on the doorstep.

  “Nellie,” I say, feeling my throat get tight with emotion again. I blame the pregnancy hormones for that shit. I’m not really this soft, I swear it. “Mom.”

  Her blue eyes fill with tears, and she leans in to give me a huge hug, one that’s bigger and tighter and more real than any she’s ever given me before. Somehow, even though I know things are tough for her, that we haven’t seen the end of her deep melancholy, it heals my broken heart a little.

  “Gidge,” she sniffs, and I don’t correct her. I decide that, for once, I’ll let this one slide. “I’m happy to be home.”

  Even though this isn’t nor has ever been her home, I know what she means.

/>   Back in the fold of the life, in the club, surrounded by extended family.

  “Come with me,” I say, taking her hand and leading her into the house and down the hall, past Grainger who calls out a mumbled greeting. We head outside, and I get her seated at the table, offering her up a soda and sitting beside her. Sin, Beast, and Crown make excuses to give us some space. “Talk to me.”

  Nellie looks around in awe for a moment before she turns her gaze to mine and takes my hand between two of hers.

  “I miss him,” she says, tears building up in her blue gaze and then falling down her face in big, salty droplets. “I miss him, baby, and you look just like him. You look just like your daddy.”

  And then we’re both crying, and I’m hugging her, and night is falling and the Edison bulbs are twinkling and somehow, even though I know it isn’t possible, I feel like Cat is watching us. That he’s smiling. That even after the tortured life he lived, he’s found peace.

  Here, in this yard, with my mom and, later, our guests, I feel like I find peace, too.

  One second, one minute, one day at a time.

  While I’m working on, you know, growing a kid, I focus on getting my GED. I guess I must be smart as hell (I already knew that) because it’s easy as fuck. Once I have it, I’m not even sure I know what to do with it.

  In the end, I decide to stay on the compound, taking up part-time work in the garage fixing up bikes. That only lasts so long because I get huge. My belly is plump and round, and I end up spending more time at the farmhouse, sitting in the backyard and staring up at the trees with the sunshine on my face. I read a lot of books out there, too. All kinds. Fiction, non-fiction, whatever.

  The club wives—spearheaded by Nellie—host me this huge, horrible, over-the-top baby shower that I hate every second of. Before that though, they host a small wedding for René and Nellie that takes place in the same church where I married Beast, where she married Cat. I even have her old wedding dress dry-cleaned so that she can wear it again.

  After that … I have to face the reality of my predicament.

  Birth.

  I have to give birth.

  And you know that? It’s fucking disgusting. It isn’t pretty or magical or anything like that, but at the end, I get a tiny baby girl who has a dark swatch of hair on her head and a face that somehow reminds me of Cat even if I know it’s all bullshit.

  Because I’m apparently sentimental and not very creative, I name the baby Katrina. Kat, for short. I must be a goddamn masochist.

  The guys were all in agreement, too, which I appreciated. Not that it matters because I would’ve named my baby whatever the hell I wanted anyway.

  They all take to being dads in a way that’s actually not all that surprising to me. Walking in and seeing any one of them holding the baby in their arms, cradled against their leather cuts, makes my ovaries go crazy.

  I have a bad feeling about that. Like, how many goddamn kids am I going to end up with?

  As time passes, and the six of us—plus Fem and sometimes Nellie—morph into a beautiful, cohesive family unit, I start to notice something.

  “Katrina came from Colton’s balls,” I say one night when we’re sitting in the living room, and the kid is asleep. It’s become obvious at this point. Not sure if it’s her nose or her mouth that really gives it away, but I can tell. My daughter, of course, has the same red-brown eyes and dark hair that I have, that Cat had, that Gaz had. It’s in our blood, our wicked, wicked blood that I both hope and fear that she’s inherited.

  If she’s as wild and untamed as I am, then I feel sorry for her already.

  “Bullshit,” Grainger growls out, pouring a Scotch and then handing it over to me. I’m twenty-one now, so I can drink legally. Cool. Thanks US government for your permission. Not that I haven’t been drinking for fucking years at that point. “I don’t see it. How do you figure?”

  I just give him a look, leaning back on the couch with my dog curled up by my side, Sin seated next to us. He’s smirking already and pretending to hide it as he takes a sip of his drink.

  “Guess I just had the youngest sperm, so it took, you know?” he says with an insufferably smug chuckle. He glances over at me, and my breath catches, my lower stomach muscles tightening. It’s not just his silver eyes or his now black and green faux-hawk, it’s something else. A dark memory of him tying me up with a belt and fucking me from behind in the basement of my Gram’s house during a mafia attack.

  That’s how we conceived our kid.

  Yep.

  Sounds about right.

  I sip my Scotch and enjoy the burn as Grainger narrows his eyes on the pair of us.

  “You know what,” he says as Beast and Crown finally get home after a long day, the front door slamming shut behind them, their boots loud on the hall floor as they make their way into the living room to join us. “If you think that’s the case, then I want a DNA test. That way we can plan for the next one.”

  “Pardon?” Beast purrs, moving over to get a glass of Scotch for himself. “We talkin’ about having another kid already?”

  “Uh, it’s my body, so I’ll decide that, thank you very much.” I move to lift my drink to my lips when I notice Crown staring at me. Right after Katrina was born, he took me to a fancy five-star restaurant, got down on one knee, and presented me with his aunt’s ring while asking me to marry him in front of a bunch of annoying strangers. I said yes, and they all clapped and cheered which was irritating as fuck.

  I pretend to examine the ring instead of looking at his face. We had a wedding in the church, too, just like I did with Beast. I’m sure I’ll end up having two more weddings with Sin and Grainger, but I doubt either of them would want to use the stuffy church. Maybe … Vegas or something? We can’t get married on paper, but we can walk down the aisle with Elvis or some shit.

  “If we’re talking about making new babies …” Crown starts, trailing off before he moves over to get his own drink. “You promised me: within five years, everything in your power.”

  “Why are we even talkin’ about this?” Beast queries, turning back around to study me and Sin.

  “Because we can all tell that Katrina came from me,” Sin offers up, and the self-satisfied expression on his face makes me want to deny it. But I can’t. Because it’s true, goddamn it. “You guys better get cracking before your balls shrivel up. Aren’t you like, forty or something?” He teases Beast who narrows his blue eyes on him.

  He’ll be thirty-seven this year, but that’s nowhere near old. We’ve got time. I grin and down the rest of my drink, pausing when I hear a small voice calling for me from up the stairs.

  I put my glass down and head up to grab my daughter, lifting her into my arms as she rubs her fists against her eyes and blinks at me. We look at each other, and she smiles because she knows what the sound of boots downstairs means.

  It means one or more of the dads are home. That’s what we call them in the plural, the dads. When she wants one of them specifically, she just says Daddy Crown, Daddy Cade, Daddy Colton, or Daddy Beast. It’s a mix of real names and club names, but it works.

  I don’t know what we’ll tell her when she gets older. I guess if she gives a shit, we can say she came from Sin’s balls and be done with it. Doesn’t matter to me.

  I take her downstairs and we put on our favorite song—December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)—dancing together while the men watch us with love brimming in their eyes. Once Katrina goes to bed, that love turns to lust, and I bend my ass right over that couch arm.

  I welcome the four of them to fuck me, just the way I like, and sometimes, if we’ve all had enough alcohol, we go to bed together. It’s rare, but nice, to have them touching me at the same time, inside of me at the same time.

  When that happens, I can feel it, that kiss of dark magic in the world that only we can conjure up, a troupe of demons, of hedonistic bastards, leather-bound outlaws, lovers, parents, a family.

  All of those things are true together, regardless
of their contradictions.

  And it’s more than I ever could’ve allowed myself to dream.

  Seven years after Cat’s death …

  When Katrina was maybe one at the most, the guys worked together with the club and figured out a way to put me on salary. I deserve it, considering I’m the one who has to deal with the Grey Wolfe Mafia.

  Grey and I are the only people in the world who could keep up this sort of peaceful arrangement for so long. One, because we’re both ruthless as fuck. After Crown took over as president, we rooted out the remaining rats in the club, lined them up, and put them in a hole.

  Grey did the same on his side.

  Things have been relatively easy between our two groups ever since for the second reason behind our success: we’re friends. We love each other. We are each other’s hard lines.

  Because of all that, I also have my own bike.

  Now, I still ride behind Beast during official events, and I only wear his jacket on the compound, but sometimes, when we take road trips, I’ll switch it up. I’ll wear Crown’s jacket one day, Sin’s the next, Grainger’s after that. It’s sacrilegious in club culture, but I’ve never cared about any of that. We’ve been sinners from the get-go, so what does it matter?

  Anyway, on the third Friday of every month, I attend a ‘Pilates class’.

  I know, I know, it doesn’t seem right. Gidget Kesselring taking a Pilates class? The fuck is that?

  But wait for it.

  Just wait.

  I climb on my bike, yank my helmet on, and head into town with all four boys. Nellie watches the kids (Kat and our four-year-old son, Avery—Crown’s bio kid) back at the farmhouse with René and Fem by her side. As much as I dislike leaving the kids there without one of us for protection, it has to happen this way.

  I’ve had hits put out on me before, assassination attempts. Grey, too. But what did we expect, that just because we were at peace, that others wouldn’t seek to manipulate or exploit that?