From the sounds Flick made, I knew she was close, and I couldn’t wait to feel her grip and squeeze my cock. That was going to be epic and I knew when I finally pumped my seed into her, I’d be the one to struggle to stay upright. She moaned loudly and I placed my hand over her mouth, she was only a step away from screaming and that would definitely wake the kids. “Hush, baby.”
Her muffled reply of, “Coming,” breathed against my palm as I started to follow her. That sensation, unlike anything else on this earth, zipped and zinged from somewhere deep, electrified my spine and tugged deep inside my balls. I juddered and jolted as I emptied my load deep inside her, wondering if not for the first time, whether she was on the pill, then immediately shaking it off. I couldn’t give a fuck. If I knocked her up, it was just another reason to fight on for the life I wanted with her. Another reason not to let the demons of my past win.
I ate breakfast with the kids and Flick, knowing I had to do something I never thought I would ever be doing.
Making plans.
Preparing.
Putting steps and measures in place that would keep them safe and provided for, in case the phone calls continued and turned out to be more than the crazy coincidence I’d already convinced myself they weren’t.
“You coming to watch the school show, Unca Beckett?”
“When is it?”
Lila looked at Flick unsure. “Next Wednesday, honey,” she whispered.
“It’s next Wednesday.”
“Then I’ll be there.”
As least I hoped I would.
“Yes!” My niece fist bumped the air. “I’m a streetlamp,” she continued, proud as punch.
With a furrowed brow, I looked at Flick. “She’s a what now?”
“A streetlamp. I light the way for the people on the march.”
“A streetlamp?”
“Honey, could we have a word?” Flick sensed my initial confusion rapidly head towards anger. If that fucking school were messing with her because of Ben’s bitch of a teacher, I’d burn the fucking place to the ground. I followed Flick to bottom of the stairs. “A fucking streetlamp?”
“Shush!”
“They’d best not be fucking with her.”
Flick glared at me. “They’re not. She’s…oh God, I can’t believe I’m gonna say this… an awful actress.” A snort bubbled up from inside her and she covered her mouth to stop herself from laughing.
“Babe, that girl is pure drama, how bad can she be?”
I breathed in the scent of my woman as she came closer and began to whisper, “First she was in the march, but that didn’t work, she kept goose-stepping like a member of the third Reich and knocked the other kids over, just way too enthusiastic. Then they made her a cop, arresting the marchers, and she nearly broke some kid’s arm pretending to cuff him, again, too enthusiastic. Her last-ditch attempt was when they made her a peace dove at the end of the march, but there wasn’t enough action, so she began to make the drama up. So, for the sake of the school production she’s been sidelined, although I still foresee the unexpected, so be prepared.”
“They tell you all a’that?”
Flick snorted again. “Course they didn’t, it was fun watching them put a bow on that shit, so her unconventional, new blood biker family understood it wasn’t personal.”
This time I snorted. “Bet they fucking did.”
Flick smiled fondly. “You know, she’s just like Tracey, has to be the center of attention and in the thick of things.”
My heart warmed a little until I realized that the kids and my sister’s death was probably how the agency found me again and decided to make an approach. They’d see that as a weakness. When they loosened my leash and sleepered me, I did my best to disappear. It was unthinkable to think they’d put a watch on my family members to see if they could smoke me out of the happy life I was trying to build for myself.
“Where did you go?”
I snapped back from the place in my head where everything was clicking into place and plausibly making sense. “Nowhere, gotta run.” I leaned over and kissed her. “Might be late, gotta talk to Wolf about a job. Eat without me if the kids get hungry and I’ll have a plate of leftovers. Later, Kiddos,” I shouted. As they shouted back, I snuck another kiss, totally unable to leave her alone, deciding to slip my tongue in her mouth and then regretting it because even something that simple made me hard.
“A word, brother?”
Almost everyone had left. We’d had a busy day thankfully; it meant my brain couldn’t run away with itself too much.
“As your friend, employer, or president?” Wolf asked, sizing up my mood.
“All of them.”
He took my reply on board as his face set, readying itself for any possible scenario, because with any member of this close-knit family, it could literally be anything.
“What’s going on here?” Wave appeared out of nowhere.
“Fuck, thought you’d left.”
“Was just about to, but this looks more interesting.”
Wolf looked between the two us. “Need me to order him to leave?”
It would have been easier to say yes, but the more people that could keep an eye on Flick the better. “He can stay.”
Silence fell over the three of us as I inhaled and began. “I think my past is about to come get me.”
Wolf froze, while Wave muttered. “What? The… agency?”
It reminded me that only Wolf knew what I’d really been up to. I didn’t want him to know any more than he already did, but right now, the least I could do was come clean with the other brother who had come to mean a lot to me.
But that was just too dangerous, for him.
“Wave, there’s stuff about my time in the army that you can’t know about, ever.” He opened his mouth to argue, tell me he could be discreet and while I didn’t doubt it for one minute, sometimes the risk was just too great. “You have to trust me, if you don’t, and you make me tell you, Malia and your baby girl become a target.”
Malia’s safety, his daughter’s safety trumped everything, like it absolutely should, and he conceded with a nod.
“Come get you how?” Wolf asked, wanting us to get back to specifics, he too had a family, but he also had a club, a business, and the brotherhood of the Black Sentinels MC to protect.
“Strange calls, dead air calls, people asking after me. Too much coincidence to ignore.”
Wolf sighed, telling me he knew I was right. “There was always a chance this might happen.”
He was always the voice of reason. “I know.” I swallowed, my throat feeling like it was lined with shards of glass. “Just never expected to have a couple of kids in my care and an old lady.”
Wave smiled. “Rumor mill is true then.”
“You mean Malia.”
“And Gigi, and Angel,” Wolf confirmed. They both smiled, and I ignored it, this shit was fucking serious, we weren’t here to paint each other’s nails and braid our hair.
“Look, I fucked up, it was stupid of me to get involved with her, but I’m in deep now.” I got more smiles and it pissed me off further. “Fuck, concentrate. I’m going to have to tell her things, prep her.”
Wolf interrupted me. “You think she’ll run?”
“Flick’ll stay wherever the kids are, but she may run with them when I’ve finished talking to her.”
“She won’t.” Wave shook his head.
“Agreed,” Wolf backed him up.
“Then I might have to make her go, and take the fucking kids with her. It could be the only way to keep her out of this.”
“That would be a mistake,” Wolf butted in again.
Followed by, “Don’t be a dick,” from Wave. Words I’d said to him many a time while he was getting his shit together with Malia.
“Listen, if I have to go away for a bit, I want your word that you’ll keep her safe, all of them. I’ll make sure she’s taken care of along with the kids, but I want the club to keep her safe
and keep her in the family.”
“You sound like you don’t expect to make it back.” I ignored Wave and from the look on his face, he understood pretty quickly that that was a real possibility.
“Done.” Wolf confirmed. “You have my word.” I let loose the breath I’d been holding now truly understanding just how much Flick and the kids had become a part of them and their lives too, as she had mine. “One condition.”
“Name it, Prez.”
“You tell me before you go. No fucking surprise exits.”
“I will if I can. If I can’t I’ll be in touch first chance I get.”
We all walked away from the autoshop, uncertainty clouding my future with them. But I knew like Flick, I’d work hard to keep her in my life and do exactly the same with my brothers.
When I arrived home, I snuck into the garage, pulled back the tarp covering my old faithful chest of tricks and set about pulling out the gear they wouldn’t supply me with. I had to be the one to look after me, because they’d proved once before that my life was theirs to play with and I was completely dispensable until they needed me.
Flick
I felt nervous and I had no idea why. I wondered what my nerves were trying to tell me, but then I realized, it wasn’t that they were trying to tell me something, it was that they were trying to prepare me for something.
Things had been going great, or so I thought, better than great, I’d go so far as to say toe-curlingly fucking fantastic, so much so, I was starting to believe what we had was real.
Then my nerves kicked in.
It was odd, he was here, but somewhere else at the same time.
At least fifty times a day I managed to convince myself that he was definitely going through this because of the kids, and on a more than a few nights, I’d made up my mind to ask him. But then the kids went to bed and we were alone together in his bedroom, he looked at me like I was his world, the center of absolutely everything and I backed down. Maybe this was the first time I was experiencing the different personalities he often referred to. I got Shadow during the day, watchful, mysterious, almost protective but preoccupied, and at night, he was the man I’d dreamed of, Beckett Hope. A generous, thoughtful, and amazing lover. Caring and settled, at peace with his lot in life.
The landline rang again that night during dinner and Lila was already sprinting towards it, she was going through a play receptionist phase at the moment, having spent a few hours sat behind my desk at the center, you know, clicking on pens, stapling nothing and twirling on the office chair. Her natural progression was to go for the phone.
“Leave it, Lila,” Beckett grumbled from the table.
“But—”
“We’re eating dinner, kid.” He wasn’t harsh about it, but still, he managed to extinguish the light in her eyes by stopping her fun.
The phone stopped, we returned to eating and I kept a careful eye on him. One more thing about Beckett’s character was his unpredictability.
“How was your day?” I asked.
“Usual.”
I’d also learned really quickly that one-word answers meant his mind was definitely elsewhere.
“How was your day, Flick?” I mumbled sarcastically, causing him to look at me, proving he was kind of here with us after all. “It was also usual, Beckett, thanks for asking.” My inner bitch was lacing up her shoes, getting ready to dance with him. This on off mood that had a hold of him couldn’t continue, it was setting me on edge more than I usually was with him, and it wasn’t the good kind of edge. The one that could go from verbally sparring and taking the piss, to ripping each other’s clothes off and getting rid of the tension that way.
“Sorry, babe.” His acceptance apology threw me.
No.
That wasn’t good, or what I needed, I didn’t know how to handle a Shadow that was man enough to accept when he was wrong. The way he also followed it up with a smile also told me he knew he’d got to me, freaked me out.
The shrill of the phone disrupted us and the cloud of whatever the hell was up with him, snapped back into place as Lila bounced, literally bounced, praying to be released from the table to go and perfect her telephone answering voice. Beckett ignored her, while Ben scooped up pasta, completely oblivious to the atmosphere that shrouded Beckett like a force field lately.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! I’ll get it.” I raised from my chair, as Beckett narrowly missed his opportunity to grab me and keep me there. I knew then that whatever was going on in his head was linked to the call I’d answered nearly a week ago, where the odd voice had asked about him. I hated that he’d been stewing on that, but now I had an in, a place to start my questioning.
“Flick! Leave it!”
By the time I got to the phone, he was only a pace behind me, but still not close enough to stop me from picking it up and answering, “Hello?”
Dead air. Dammit, I hadn’t thought this through at all.
“Hello!” I shouted intensely.
“Lord above, Felicity, quit your yellin’”
“Gran?” Shadow’s frame sagged with relief, but he still didn’t leave my side. “It’s my gran,” I told him, but he still didn’t get the message that there was no need to stand on protective duty while I talked to her.
“And?” he mouthed.
My irritation ratcheted up a notch. “And what?”
“Why’s she calling?”
“Hello?” Gran’s voice bellowed out from the receiver I still held in my hand.
“Sorry, Gran,” I glared at my sentry on guard, still insistent on staying. “Beckett is being an irritant.”
My Gran chuckled down the phone. “That could mean any one of a million things where that boy is concerned.”
I snorted. Beckett wasn’t a boy the last time she called him that after Tracey’s funeral. And from what I’d seen, felt, and experienced, he most definitely wasn’t a boy now. No ‘boy’ knew how to sex you to within an inch of hyperventilation and screaming.
“I’m coming for a visit.” She coughed, caused me to hold the phone handset away from my ear, while I rubbed at it wondering if she’d busted my ear drum.
“Uh…” That could not happen. She could not see me co-habiting with Beckett, I hadn’t even told my mom and dad what I was in the middle of yet.
Before I could utter any more nonsense, the handset was snatched from my grasp.
“It’d be nice to see you, Gran, but with the kids and Flick, I don’t have any room.” Thank God, for the first time Beckett reading my mind proved useful. “But my brother Gears does, big old house out in the sticks, I’ll talk to him.”
“Beckett,” I hissed, feeling the need to clock him over the head with the damn phone handset.
“When you coming?” he continued, ignoring the death stare I gave him and like usual, he ignored that. “Alright, see you then, hope you like a hog roast, we’ll be having one to welcome you to the family at the club.”
“Beckett!” This time there was no hissing or whispering.
“Later, Gran.”
He replaced the handset, effectively ending the call, my call, a call I wouldn’t have had if I’d listened to him in the first place and ignored the damn thing when it rang. “What the hell was that? She’s my Gran. I think I decide if she comes to visit, and I didn’t get to say bye.”
Beckett went to step away. “You were just lining yourself up for an argument.”
“With Gran? No, she’d have understood.”
“I meant with me. You’ve got that shimmer about you.”
I looked down at myself wondering if I was covered in Lila’s glitter.
“The shimmer that’s really a vibration, one that says your bitchy side is gearing up to spar.” I slammed my hands on my hips. “See?”
“Listen, asshole, I wasn’t gearing up for anything until you started being all,” I waved my arms around, “assholey!” Beckett smiled at me and I realized that we hadn’t had this in a while. Things had been cozy, normal, perfect. M
aybe that’s what had him in a tizzy. “Gran doesn’t know about us. My folks don’t know about us. You’re gonna have to keep your hands to yourself while she’s here.” The silence lasted approximately three seconds before he burst out laughing, while I was totally serious. “I mean it!”
“Babe, I only have to crook my finger and you come running, shedding clothes like your skin’s on fire.”
My eyes went as wide as saucers and my mouth did that goldfish thing. He loved the fact that he’d rendered me completely speechless.
“This how you wanna play it? See if I’m wrong.”
“I don’t think so, I don’t want to strip for such a… a… urgh! You drive me insane.”
“Don’t worry, we don’t have long to test your patience, she’ll be here midday tomorrow.” I opened my mouth to argue again, before he stopped me. “Be thankful I suggested she stay with Gears, Gigi, and their lot, with her in the next room to us she’d be under no illusion about what’s happening between us.”
I wanted to ask what was happening between us, I’d been pondering that for so long now it was a wonder my brain hadn’t given up from complete over thinking, but instead I said, “You’re such a fucking asshole, Beckett Hope.”
Once more, he knew he’d got me again, “And you wouldn’t have me any other way, baby.” With an enforced kiss that involved more tongue than was necessary, he swanned off back to the kids at the dinner table, announcing that Gran was coming to stay, and we were going to have a party.
Gran arrived as scheduled, and I was on the edge of my nerves immediately. Would she spot that things had changed between me and Beckett?
He gave her the grand tour of the house after he’d collected her from the bus station and then we got on our way to Gears and Gigi’s place. Gran being gran, was totally gutted that the party wasn’t at the clubhouse, but Beckett told her that next time she came, he’d make sure she got a tequila at the clubhouse bar. My gran always had been a cheeky one; she ruled the roost at bridge club and pretty much kept my parents young. They were forever getting her out of strife, she’d lived in an assisted living complex for a while now and it was becoming a twice-yearly occurrence where they rang my dad and threatened to kick her out.
Flick (The Black Sentinels MC Book 4) Page 14
