Her curves were made to take my muscle.
Her body was made to fit with mine.
There is such a thing as destiny.
There is such a thing as fate.
There is such a thing as forever.
“Forever,” I mutter as I grab her ass firmly and buck my hips like a stallion, driving my cock so deep into her I feel it opening up new space, claiming new territory, claiming all her territory. “I’ve waited forever for you, Amy. Forever for this.”
I know I’m not making any sense, but I don’t give a fuck. I know this is all probably an overreaction to being around a woman after ten long years around a bunch of hairy goons, but it sure as hell feels like it’s more.
It sure as hell feels like it’s the real thing.
My balls tighten just as the thought swirls through my frazzled brain, and then I’m coming like a volcano, my thick cock flexed and shooting a torrent of my seed into Amy’s warm pussy, blasting it so deep that her eyes roll up in her head as she comes again for me, her orgasm rocking both our bodies as I pump everything I have into her.
She’s overflowing down my shaft, dripping down my balls, and still I can’t stop. It’s like I really have been saving ten years of my seed for her womb, and I grit my teeth as my heavy balls deliver another load into Amy like they’re drawing from a bottomless well. I can’t see shit, and I feel a wild grin all over my face as images of Amy round and pregnant float past my mind as if the act of filling her is drawing pictures in my head. It really feels like my whole life has suddenly come together, like I’ve been redeemed, like the universe has forgiven me for what I did ten years ago.
Then a chill passes through me as Amy collapses against my heaving chest, looks up into my eyes, smiles through trembling lips. And suddenly I’m scared. Terrified. Vulnerable.
Fuck, I think as I kiss her lips and hold her tight, that chill taking deeper root. She doesn’t know shit about me. She doesn’t know what I did ten years ago. What if she can’t live with it when she finds out? What if she sees me for the monster I once was? What if she turns around and walks away?
And that chill keeps getting darker as I hold her tighter, grip her ass hard, run my fingers up along her crack as I wonder if maybe the monster in me isn’t quite dead, maybe the beast I was ten years ago hasn’t been tamed, might never be tamed. So what do I do? What the fuck do I do?
I run my hand up along the small of her back as my jaw clenches, my eyes narrow. I know what to do. There’s only one thing to do. She’s mine, and everything else has to fall into place around that indisputable fact. If I still am a monster, she needs to know it. She needs to accept it. She needs to love it.
And now that chill turns to confidence as I look upon Amy’s face and acknowledge that I’m never letting go of this woman. She’s going to bear my children. She’s going to be my wife. And she’s going to have to come to terms with the man I am.
“Listen, Amy,” I whisper as I rub her back and lean in close. “You need to know something about me. You need to understand that I’m . . . I’m not a good man. I did something ten years ago that can’t be taken back. Can’t be redeemed.”
She blinks as her big brown eyes slowly come back into focus. “You served your sentence, didn’t you? That means you’ve redeemed yourself in the eyes of the law. That’s how justice works, Angus. Whatever you did is in the past. You need to let it go.”
I smile and shake my head. Shit, I think. She’s so fucking sweet and innocent. She has no idea, does she? No goddamn idea.
“Maybe this was a mistake,” I whisper, forcing the words out—words that I don’t believe. I know this isn’t a mistake. But I need to let her make an informed choice, don’t I? Isn’t that the right thing to do? Isn’t that what a man does?
“A little late for that, don’t you think?” she whispers back, looking down between our naked bodies. She gasps at the sight of my thick cock still halfway inside her, shining with our combined juices, still dripping semen into her depths. “Um, yeah. It’s a bit late for that.”
“What are you two doing in there?” comes my aunt’s muffled voice through the walls, over the strange old music. The timing is just fucking perfect, and I just snort and shake my head at that crafty old creature. I can hear the humor in her tone, sense that she’s taking some perverse delight in knowing exactly what we’re doing in here. Fuck, I wonder if she’ll just stroll in here with a cigarette between her lips, a glass of wine in her hand. Wouldn’t be the first time she messed with my life, would it?
Anger rises up in me as a memory from long ago drifts into my head. It’s my aunt talking to my mother, the two of them young and beautiful. I was just a kid, but I remember Aunt Raff handing my mother a long, thin cigarette, coaxing her to put it to her lips, whispering that she needed a little bit of rebellion in her life, a little bit of naughtiness, a bit of darkness.
I don’t know why that memory of the two sisters is coming back to me now, after all these years in the recesses of my mind. In a way it’s pretty fucking innocent, isn’t it? Two young sisters in Australia reveling in the naughtiness of a secret cigarette? It’s not like it’s Aunt Raff’s fault that my mother got the short end of the stick, that Aunt Raff is merrily smoking away into her twilight years while my mother was cut down in her prime, the cancer eating her up from the inside out, dimming her light before my fucking eyes, killing my innocence even as it killed my mother.
Aunt Raff doesn’t call out again, and I feel Amy relax in my arms and giggle like she knows the old scamp is teasing us. But then Amy sees the look in my eyes and frowns.
“What is it, Angus? she says. “What’re you thinking?”
I blink as I swallow hard and look into her big brown eyes. Again it hits me that I don’t know this woman but for some reason I want to open up to her, to let out feelings that I didn’t even know I’d bottled up for years. Fuck, what’ll she think of me if I start babbling about some random memory from childhood? What’ll she think of me if I tell her what I did ten years ago? What’ll she think of me if—
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispers, her voice trembling as she reaches up and touches my face, runs her soft hands through my rough beard. “None of it matters. You can tell me anything you want. Or you can tell me nothing at all. I’ll never ask again. Our lives start here, Angus. Here and now. Our forever starts here. New and fresh.”
It takes me a moment for her words to register, for me to understand what she means, for me to come to terms with the simple, beautiful truth that this woman has chosen to accept me for who I am before she even knows who I am!
“I don’t deserve you,” I whisper, exhaling and shaking my head. “And you sure as hell don’t deserve a broke-ass ex-con with no future.” I shake my head again. “The best thing I can do for you is turn around and walk away, Amy.”
“You do that and I’ll call your parole officer,” she says, forcing a smile as I see a flash of panic in those brown eyes. “They’ll hunt you down and bring you back to me.”
I snort and kiss her forehead as she burrows into me like a little girl. Like my girl. All fucking mine.
We stand together in the warm kitchen, the aroma of food and sex heavy in the air. It smells like home, it occurs to me as I smile and smell her hair. Not a home from my past. A home from my future.
And then I draw back from her like I’ve been struck by lightning. Or maybe struck by something else.
Struck by love.
Instant and overwhelming.
Undeniable and inexplicable.
Real as fuck.
True as hell.
A moment later I’ve reached from my crumpled jeans and pulled out the one thing that’s as pure and real as what I feel for this woman. And then I’m on my knees before her, holding my grandmother’s diamond ring up, my lips parting as I prepare to ask the question that’s going to seal this deal before she
wises up to how crazy this is.
But then I hear the kitchen door open, and I smell the telltale aroma of those long, thin cigarettes. I also hear a click.
Metallic and unmistakable.
Chilling and deadly.
It’s the click of a handgun being cocked.
“I’ll take that, little Angus,” comes Aunt Raff’s whisper, low and hoarse, cold as death. “Along with everything else that you inherited when I was cut out of the will, stripped of what was rightfully mine. Mine, you hear? All mine!”
5
AMY
“All mine,” Mrs. Raff says through those thin lips that smiled at me for years from her porch. Those gray eyes of hers are cold, and I almost rub my own eyes to make sure I’m not hallucinating. There always was a sharpness that lay beneath her soft exterior, but this . . . this is fucking insane!
“OK, I’m just gonna . . .” I start to say, almost kicking myself for talking. But I can’t help it. My big mouth opens when I’m nervous. Or when shit’s happening that can’t be real. Maybe hearing my own voice grounds me or something.
“You’ll do nothing unless I say so,” Mrs. Raff barks at me, her gun trained on Angus with a steady hand as she looks at me with a focus that freezes me. Finally I just nod and cover my breasts, suddenly conscious of my nakedness.
Angus steps in front of me immediately, and I almost relax for a moment.
But then my whole world explodes in a burst of flame and smoke.
“Angus!” I scream as he roars in pain, the bullet hitting him in the shoulder and spinning his massive body almost all the way around. But he grits his teeth and doesn’t go down, instead standing tall like a freakin’ wall of hard muscle.
I can tell that he’s about to leap at his aunt, go for broke, do what it takes to save me even if he’s put down like a dog in the process. But then I see movement from the other side of the room, and I see Mr. Raff, the quiet old man holding a shotgun that’s pointed right at my face!
“Down, little Angus,” Mrs. Raff says. “You can’t stop this. What you can do is save her. Hell, maybe you can even save yourself.” She smiles as Angus staggers back, his eyes wild with pain, his head whipping back and forth between his aunt and uncle who’ve got us dead in their sights from two angles. “You know, Amy,” she says, shaking her head and smiling at me. “Maybe there really is such a thing as fate. We really weren’t planning for you to be here, but it works out so much better now that you are here. Make it look like a good ol' conspiracy to commit murder. Don’t you agree, honey?” She glances at her husband, who nods his head. I’ve never heard the man say a word, it now occurs to me. Maybe he doesn’t have a tongue. Maybe Mrs. Raff cut it off and ate it. Sure. That makes about as much sense as anything else in my life right now.
Suddenly I’m angry at my own mom. If she hadn’t cancelled on me, I wouldn’t be here. But the anger doesn’t last, because when I see Angus standing before me, bleeding but upright, his back to me but every ounce of his attention on me, I decide that there’s no other place I’d rather be than here. I was destined to be here. Fated to be here.
And you know what?
I’m grateful to be here.
Joyful to be here.
Thankful to be here.
After all, it’s Thanksgiving, isn’t it?
“The turkey’s ready,” I say suddenly, forcing a bright smile as I nod earnestly at Mrs. Raff and then glance over at Mr. Raff. “Shall we eat before it gets cold?”
Mrs. Raff blinks like the question just messed her up, like she’s wondering (just like I am . . .) if this shit is real or not. And so I just push on. I say fuck it and just keep babbling. After all, if we’re about to be executed by a crazy old couple, I might as well serve up a good meal before the tongueless Mr. Raff blows my boobs away with his old musket.
“It took a bit longer than planned,” I say loudly as I turn towards the oven and bend over. I’m naked as the day I was born, but this manic feeling is kicking aside any and all self-consciousness. If anything I feel confident as hell. Sure of myself in the craziest way. My man is shot and bleeding, and I’ve got to step up and stall for time, give fate a chance to step back in and get me and Angus to our happily ever after.
Even if our happily ever after is in the ever-after . . .
I hear Mr. Raff cock his shotgun as I pull the oven door open, but Mrs. Raff clucks her tongue like a chicken, perhaps just in time to stop him from putting a load of buckshot into my bare bottom. I almost laugh at the thought, and I feel myself getting almost slap-happy as I let go of any hope that we’re gonna make it out of here alive.
“Yes,” comes Mrs. Raff’s voice, low and unsure at first before rising in pitch, gaining strength, getting louder as she repeats the word like her record-player just got stuck. “Yes. Yes. Yes! Why not! Haha! Why the hell not! What kind of a host would I be if I killed you both before Thanksgiving dinner?”
“A very bad host,” I say as I put on oven mitts and pull the steaming hot, well-glazed, perfectly cooked turkey out of the oven. Slowly I turn to Mrs. Raff, feeling like I’m in a surreal dream as I stand there naked with oven mitts and an overstuffed, honey-glazed turkey that actually smells really fucking delicious. “Your mother would be very disappointed in you.”
Mrs. Raff cocks her head like what I just said hit home, touched something inside her, something that tells me this game isn’t over, that maybe it’s only just beginning, that if I play it right then maybe our happily-ever-after will be in this life and not just the afterlife.
And so I take a deep breath, glancing over at Angus and exhaling when I see that he’s breathing with a calmness that tells me his wound isn’t mortal, that he’s in control, that he’s with me. It also tells me that he understands what I’m doing, that I’m taking over the game, and that he’s gonna play along as we board the crazy-train to our always, to our forever, to our happy ending.
6
ANGUS
“She was never happy with me. Never forgave me,” Aunt Raff is saying as she lights another cigarette and blows a puff of white smoke across the dinner table. “Not even at the end. The end is when you’re supposed to forgive and forget, you know.”
“I know,” says Amy, glancing at me and at my bleeding arm with some concern before turning back to Aunt Raff and nodding earnestly like she gives a shit what this crazy old psycho is saying.
Aunt Raff is talking about her mother—my grandmother. I remember the woman—shit, maybe I remember her more than I remember Aunt Raff and my own mother! But it was all so fucking long ago. So much has happened since then.
I look over at Amy as the pain clears my head like a knife cutting away outer skin on something, revealing the fresh, clean insides. A part of me is waiting for an opportunity to pounce on my aunt and uncle, protect my woman, finish this once and for all. I don’t even wanna think about how it would look to the cops—after all, I just got released on parole!
One look at silent Uncle Raff and the way he’s got that shotgun still pointed at Amy sends both anger and fear through my hard body. I want to kill the old bastard. But I don’t dare even look at him funny, just in case he pulls that fucking trigger. As for Aunt Raff . . . well, she’s waving her gun around like a magic wand as she babbles on about how her mommy didn’t love her or some shit.
I sense Amy sending me furtive looks, and I take a deep breath as I tell myself I need to trust her, that right now violence is not the solution to this problem. If I could trade my life for Amy’s, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But it’s not that simple, is it?
“Forgiveness isn’t that simple, Mrs. Raff,” Amy is saying as I finally focus back on what’s going on in the room. “I’m still pissed off with my own mom about like twenty things dating all the back to grade school! And she’s still pissed off with me about a hundred things!”
Aunt Raff cackles with laughter, raising both her hands, a ciga
rette in one, a gun in the other. Then she surveys the food-laden table and smiles. “Who’s carving the turkey?” she says, still smiling as if she’s actually having fun.
“I am,” I say grimly, taking a breath and sucking back the pain as I stand up and lean over the glistening turkey. I feel everyone tense up, and I smile to myself as I slowly reach for the carving knife. Then I glance over at Uncle Raff, raising an eyebrow as I point the knife at him. “Unless you want to do it, Uncle Raff. You’re the man of the house, after all.”
Aunt Raff squeals with laughter, and I wonder if she’s gonna start shooting into the ceiling like this is a saloon in the Wild West. “Oh, that’s a good one, Angus! You always were the clown of the family. Little Angus and his antics!”
“Angus and his antics?” says Amy quickly, leaning forward and taking a sip of water. “Oooh, tell me more!”
“Well,” says Aunt Raff, her gray eyes shining as she gets taken back to what I suppose was a happier time—a time when we weren’t all trying to figure out how to kill each other. “There was this one time little Angus stole a joey from a ‘roo and came running into the house to proudly show his mom that he had a baby too.”
“A joey’s a baby kangaroo,” I say with a sheepish grin when I see Amy’s confused expression. I start to carve the turkey, pushing the fork into its moist flesh, driving the sharp knife down with ease. The aroma of garlic salt and glaze, seasoning and stuffing, wild rice and pumpkin pie comes to me as I lean over the table, and for a moment the whole scene almost feels like a real family dinner, like a real Thanksgiving dinner, like a real . . . family?
“Wait, you kidnapped a baby kangaroo?!” Amy cries out, covering her mouth and widening her eyes. I can tell she’s not just faking it anymore. She’s getting pulled into this strange mood that’s lighthearted and joyous with a dark undercurrent flowing beneath the surface like a secret river, a volcano simmering towards the blow. “Aren’t mama kangaroos dangerous?”
Taken on Thanksgiving Page 3
