“For what, sweet cheeks?” he whispers to me.
“For helping me feel again,” I reply.
“My pleasure, always.”
Chapter 11
Ghost
Her thanking me for helping her feel something makes me puff my chest out in pride. Knowing I’ve done this for her brings out a side of self-gratification within me. I lean over for a soft, quick peck on the lips letting her know what her words mean to me. She’s so beautiful it takes my breath away as she gives me an award-winning smile in return.
“Sweet cheeks, I think we should have that talk you were wantin’ before I get different ideas in my head,” I tell her.
“Right—so, the girls and I were talking…”
I interrupt her with, “Oh shit, that’s always trouble right there.” She slaps me in the bicep and shushes me. I laugh at that, it’s cute her telling me in her own way to quiet down and let her talk. Did I just think cute? I hope my brothers never hear of this, they’ll definitely be revoking my man card.
“Don’t laugh at me Ghost,” she admonishes me.
“Brady,” I tell her.
“Huh?” she asks me.
“My name, it’s Brady and that’s what I want you to call me when we’re alone,” I tell her in all seriousness. I’d love to hear my given name come off those lips.
“Brady…I like it,” she says with all the honesty I can tell she feels.
“I love hearing my name on those lips, sweet cheeks.”
“Feels good knowing your name…Brady.”
“Continue,” I tell her.
“Anyways—like I was saying, the girls and I were talking and they reminded me that in my journey of finding out what I want out of life I could do that with you at my side You know, helping me along the way. That putting you and I on hold will do nothing but delay the inevitable.” I make a mental note to give each of those women a huge hug when I see them next.
“Ya,” I manage to croak out in my excitement.
“Yes, really.”
“So, making sure I’m hearin’ you right, you are willing to give me—us, a real shot at a relationship? Now, not later, am I getting that right?”
“That’s exactly it, though, Brady?”
“Ya sweet cheeks?”
“I’m not ready for sex yet…is that a deal breaker for you?”
“No,” comes out of my mouth before I even have a second to contemplate it. I’ve gone the past six months taking care of myself, what’s a little while longer going to hurt? I’m a man, I don’t need to be led by my dick. I can control myself, to an extent. Meaning, I know as a man how to take care of an immediate need on my own. I want what my brothers have, and I want it with Bristol. However long it takes, I can deal.
“It will happen Brady, I just want you to be a little patient with me for a little longer…okay?”
“As long as I have you at the end of the day, I can wait however long you need me to. I do have one condition, though.”
“What would that be?” she asks, fearing what I have to say is a deal breaker. It won’t be, I won’t let it be.
“I want to sleep in the same bed with you, every night. No exceptions, I want to feel you next to me as I sleep every single night.”
“Just sleeping for now?”
“Just sleeping, with you sharing my space. Every day, no give or take or compromises. We share space and grow from there. You game?”
“I think I can handle that.”
“Good, let’s move your stuff in here for now. I still want you next to me even though we’re not in our new place yet.” Not giving her a chance to refuse me, I get up and head out the door. My destination is her room and grabbing her stuff.
Chapter 12
Bristol
The next two months fly by, sleeping in Brady’s arms every night is starting to weigh on my libido, heavily. I feel like I’m suffering the female version of blue balls I hear the men talking about when their women deny them. It’s not a fun feeling and the no sex thing is something I am revisiting every time he holds me in bed when we sleep. I love the feeling I get every night while he holds me close. I’ve never been cuddled before and it has my heart pitter pattering. I now understand completely the meaning of butterflies in your stomach.
The day has come that we help our friends make their move for their new beginning. I’m both sad and excited for them all. The girls have been online looking for houses near the new clubhouse and have found several to tour, they don’t want to be living at the clubhouse and I can’t really blame them for that. With me helping them find their homes I have found something that I enjoy. Real estate, I think that’s what I want to do with my future. Brady has helped me find a real estate school that I will start attending three short months from now.
My excitement has rubbed off on him and he’s helping me purchase books and materials I will need for my classes. He even went with me while I enrolled, being very supportive of me and asking questions I would’ve never dreamed of asking. I’m feeling good about where my life is taking me, and having him beside me, encouraging me is beyond my wildest dreams come true. Getting on the back of Brady’s bike for the first time has my nerves jittery. I’ve seen all the other women do it so I’m trying not to let him know how nervous I actually am. My man, however, knows me well and takes my chin in his fingers forcing me to look at him.
“The hardest part about this,” he says waving over his bike, “Is that you have to trust me. Do you trust me, sweet cheeks?”
“With my life,” I tell him honestly.
“Then you’ve got this, put your feet here,” he points to the pegs sticking out, “And don’t touch the pipes. They get hot not long after we’ve been riding. Hold onto me and lean with me when I do. Not too much, just let your body flow with mine.”
He mounts his bike and holds out his hand to assist me getting on. I take his hand and swing my right leg over and sit directly behind him. He grabs my hips and pulls me closer to him so I’m right up against his back. There is no space between us, I feel the excitement bubble deep in my belly as he hands me my helmet. I look at it as if it’s a foreign object, I get the gist of what to do but I’m worried I’ll do it wrong.
Wasp walks up to us and says, “Here, let me help ya out there.” And he adjusts my straps and gets my helmet on tight so that there isn’t any give or take. “Perfect fit,” he says and walks away before I get a chance to thank him. I look over and Ash winks at me in approval. I feel pride swell within me that I’ve been completely accepted by each and every one of them. “Let’s do this,” he yells at the boys. I jump at the sudden noise that surrounds everyone starting up their own bikes.
As we get into a formation that you can tell has been practiced many times over, we start heading out. There are some bikes in front of the moving trucks and some behind. We are behind Wasp who is up front along with Tic, Kori, Kid—and Ryder, who’re riding solo with their women driving the moving trucks, with kids in tow. Tarzan is right behind Tic, and Travler and Tumbler are following directly behind Kid and Ryder. The rest of the men are in the back of the moving trucks. I get a sense of pride as I realize we are protecting the kids that are in the moving trucks. These men amaze me each and every day and I’m so honored to have them in my life.
It takes us a little over two and a half hours to make it to Templeton. It’s a beautiful older town and I can see why they wanted to start a charter here. There are so many historical buildings on Main Street it makes you feel like you’ve traveled back in time to the 1900’s. There is even a saloon in town and it looks just as you’d imagine one would in the Wild West. We pull up to an old bank and it’s just as historic as the rest of the buildings in town. You can feel the excitement of the brothers rubbing off one another as we pull up. It’s still early on a Saturday morning and there are men here working on a fence. It looks really expensive and very impenetrable. It looks to be ten feet tall with scary looking spikes on the top.
I take a closer
look at the gate and I can see it’s on hinges to swing open and shut, but I also see an electric panel being installed. I guess the reason for it is so the fence swings open and shut manually as well as electronically if the electricity goes out. That’s a great idea, I’d hate to be either locked in or locked out in case a really bad storm comes through and knocks the power out. The one at our compound is all manual, someone has to stand at the gate and let people in and out. They’ve made some really great progress on getting the gate set up, I heard some of the brothers talking and learned that they only started working on it yesterday. I thought it would take weeks to get it done, however there are a lot of men here working on it. They must’ve wanted it done quickly.
I come out of my musings when I feel Brady tap me on my thigh indicating he wants me to get off so he can back his bike up. I see the women have parked the moving trucks off to the side to make room for all of the guys to be able to park their bikes safely against the building. Stepping off the bike I walk over to the girls and help them unload the kids. It’s an issue at first seeing as my butt is asleep as well as my legs. Not wanting to look like a fool I force myself to walk as evenly as possible so no one knows my predicament. How embarrassing would that be to fall flat on my ass in front of everyone?
Ghost
We get the women and kids in the compound and settled, then get the trucks backed in where they’re easier to unload. I look over as I’m carrying in a couple of boxes and see Bristol playing with her niece and nephew. Jake and Jayna are eating up her attention and it makes my mind wander to seeing her playing with our own children someday. Kids, something I never imagined in my life until Bristol became a permanent fixture. She makes me want things I never knew I wanted. I almost had all of that once, before I allowed some bitch to take me for a ride. After that, I never imagined having a woman—let alone children. Bristol swept in like a strong tornado knocking me off my feet. Thinking about it, I realize I wouldn’t change a damn thing. It’s funny how one small woman can come in and change my outlook on my future.
“No, no Jakie,” I hear her say, “Don’t pull your sister’s hair buddy.” I look over and sure enough Jake has a handful of Jayna’s hair and she’s yelling at him in her sweet baby babble. I watch as she delicately removes Jake’s hands from his sister’s hair.
“Jake,” Kid booms out, “Leave your sister alone kiddo. We don’t hurt Janie buddy, we protect her,” he says as he goes over to assist his cousin with his kids. You can see the love he has for his kids burning in his eyes, it’s a sight to behold. He lifts his son up as I listen to Jake get on to his dad for forcing him away from his musings.
“Da, Da, da, ma, ma, ba, ba,” Jake tells his dad as he slaps his face, with force an almost one-year old shouldn’t possess. I can see now that one’s gonna be a fighter.
I laugh to myself thinking how his poor momma and dad are going to have their hands full with those two. “Let’s go guys,” Wasp yells out. “We’ve got furniture being delivered in a couple of hours and we need these moving trucks out of the way,” he says over his shoulder as he goes out the front door. He’s right though, the furniture we ordered for the clubhouse should be arriving soon and we need this stuff unloaded. At least the company delivering the furniture comes with its own form of manual labor, I’m getting too old for this shit. We all jump on the band wagon and get a move on. For the next two hours, all of the brothers are busy unloading and bumping into each other as the Ol’ ladies direct us on where the boxes and furniture go. I’m glad this old bank comes with several elevators—my body would be hurting even more if I had to climb flights of stairs.
We finally have the box trucks unloaded and moved just in time for the movers to take over.
Chapter 13
Bristol
After the movers left, the guys called a meeting and the girls and I went around and made beds. Furniture was all in place and there were certain boxes labeled for use at the clubhouse, the rest were marked for when they found their permanent residences. Those boxes have been pushed to the side and we begin to unpack the things they’ll be using while here. My niece and nephew will have the room adjoining their parents. I volunteer to unpack their boxes so Riley can concentrate on hers and Kid’s belongings.
There are two beds to make, two dressers and two toy boxes for me to fill. I’ve not ever been around little kids so this is more fun for me than work. I decide to start with their beds, Jayna has a really cute princess bedding set and Jake has a Harley bed set. It’s the classic orange and black, you can definitely tell Kid had a hand in picking out his set. I get their beds made and decide to tackle their boxes of clothes labeled ‘clubhouse’. Forty-five minutes later I have their dressers filled and move on to the toy boxes which match their beds.
Do kids really need so many toys? There are two boxes per kid labeled clubhouse—it makes me curious if they’ve saved any for their home. I open their toy boxes up and notice they are deeper than they appear from the outside so I set to my tasks of putting the toys away. I manage to fit them all in the boxes, to my utter shock and amazement. Since I’m finished, I check the time on my phone and notice I’ve been in here nearly two hours. I can’t imagine Riley having to do all of this on her own, she would’ve been busy doing their room and the kids for at least two days. I didn’t see any of the kids’ bathroom stuff so I’m assuming she’ll be putting that away in their bathroom.
I go back to check on her and notice she’s now busy in the bathroom, all of her bedroom boxes are unpacked and broken down. I run back to the kids’ room to break down their boxes and add them to her growing pile. Picking them up I go back and when I make it back with my arms full I notice she’s done. “Finished already?” I ask her.
“Yep, I’ve had to get fast at doing anything since having the twins. I only get so much time before they need something. Did you manage to finish already?” she asks me.
“All done,” I tell her.
“Great, I need to go see how Kori’s doing with all of the kids. It’s hard to imagine she’s not wanting to pull her hair out by now,” Riley tells me.
“Are you kidding me? She lives for this kind of shit.”
“That she does, thanks for all of the help with the kids’ belongings.”
“No problem, let’s go see if the guys are done with their meeting yet or not,” I tell her.
“Lead the way.”
Ghost
As soon as the movers leave, Wasp calls a meeting. I’m exhausted beyond belief and all I want to do is grab a beer and chill with my girl. As with all good things, this will have to wait till later. Wasp and Kid sit at the head of the table with their VPs beside them. We all grab a seat where we can and none of us worry about seating placements. Usually, there is assigned seating that goes in order of your position in the club. Right now, that’s not an issue seeing as there are two clubs trying to sit at the same table.
“This is an informal meeting,” Wasp tells us, “We just wanted to have one last get together before we head back home. I want to wish all of the brothers staying good luck and we’re all here for any questions you may have about your new positions. We don’t plan on havin’ you guys fly blind here. We want you to know you can call us anytime about anything you may not be sure about, need an ear to listen, or wantin’ some suggestions on situations. Seein’ as this is now Kid’s club I’m going to pass this meeting on to him.”
“First, I want to say, to my guys, thank you for agreeing to begin anew with Ryder and myself. Your loyalty and appreciation are to be commended. Transferring with us and uprooting your life is an act of brotherhood to beat all others as far as I’m concerned. You’re giving us your trust, and we promise to do everything in our power to make you proud as your President and VP. To my brothers who’ve helped us with the move and everything you’ve done to make this transition easy on us, I want you to know how much we appreciate you. I have big plans for this club and Ragers. The faith you have all given me is not one I take lightly.�
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The next hour or so we talk over the plans Kid has and I’m impressed. He really does have his head screwed on right and is more than ready to take on this responsibility and is anxious to prove himself to us. I can’t wait to see where he and Ryder take this club. I’m proud of the men they’ve become and I know King is looking down on his son with delight. We are moving forward with his dreams for his club that he had before he died. The Templeton charter is in good hands. We can all move forward and know that our future is looking good.
Taken by Temptation: Rage Ryders MC Page 5
