by Naomi West
I ride through the town, down the highway, and then off into a quiet street where my apartment building is. I park just out front and then wait for her to climb off the bike behind me. We meet eyes when I climb off, Marilee giggling and me not sure how to look. I know I’ve got a big, dumb smile on my face, though. I feel as though my cheeks are going to burst from the effort of trying to contain it. She takes off the helmet and hands it to me.
“So, this is your place?” She nods at the building, a four-story place with red brickwork and a clean, modern look.
“This is my place,” I confirm.
“What an honor,” she says.
I offer her my hand. “Let me take you up, then, ma’am.”
“What a gentleman!”
She takes my hand and I lead her up to the apartment. Her hand is small and warm, a hand I’ve been waiting to touch for weeks. It sends tension all up my arm into my body, stirring my animal desires. Even now, after everything that just happened, I want to take her right away. I want to ravage her. But first I need to see about this baby business. Was that just something she said to shock her parents, or was it the truth? People say all sorts of shit when they’re in the heat of violence. Most of the time they don’t have a clue what’s coming out of their mouths. I remember once when Clint was convinced we were going to a baseball game after a shootout; he kept going on and on about it all the ride home.
I open the apartment door and she paces around, inspecting it, not that there’s much to inspect: a series of bare, clean rooms. The pale green walls are bare; the surfaces are clean and empty. The only signs that anybody lives here are the clothes in the corner and the widescreen TV.
“Wow,” she says, turning to me with a sideways smile. “You really know how to liven a place up.”
“I’m not much of a home decorator,” I agree. I go into the kitchen. “You want a drink? We have beer or water. Oh, shit.”
“Water.”
“Water.” I nod.
I take the drinks into the living room and the two of us sit down opposite the TV, both of us gazing into the reflection in the set for a few minutes of silence. She stretches her legs out, kicks off her shoes, and points her toes. She looks like a ballerina when she sits like that; she looks unbelievably sexy.
“I guess we should talk about the baby,” she says.
“Yeah. I reckon so.”
Another silence stretches. She turns to me, giggly. “I’ve never had this type of conversation before.”
“I hope not. That’d really be something, if you did. What’re you, 18?”
“And what are you, 35?”
“Goddamn, I’m 27.”
She kisses me on the side of the mouth, the sweetest feeling. “I’m just messing with you, tough guy. Let me tell you what happened.” She explains to me about the sickness and the test. “So you see, it seems pretty certain. There’s a baby in me, and I know it’s your baby because you’re the only person I’ve been with in ages.”
“My baby,” I repeat, the reality of it hard to grasp. It’s difficult to look at Marilee sitting there with her flat belly and understand that there’s a baby in there, a life that will one day be a small, clawing thing and then a kid and then a teenager and then a man or a woman. It makes no sense, a tiny little thing in that flat belly . . . Suddenly I’m in the bathroom, splashing water onto my face. My face feels too goddamn hot. There’s not enough air in here. Everything is close. The walls press in on me. I pace up and down the bathroom, rubbing the water into my face.
“Dusty?” Marilee stands at the door with a bag of frozen peas in her hand. “You said you were too hot.”
“Hot? Yeah. Shit. I am.”
I take the peas and press them against my face, savoring the ice which melts on my skin and drips down my cheeks and into my mouth. I sit on the toilet and stare at the floor for a long time, Marilee standing next to me with her hand on my back.
“I’ve been a loner for so long, Marilee,” I say. “All I’ve had to worry about is myself. I’ve got my brothers to worry about, but that ain’t the same, ’cause they’re men, and when it comes down to it, no outlawing man expects another to watch him the same way a man watches his woman and child. What if I hurt the kid when I hold him? What if he’s too delicate for me?”
“That’s a worry for another day,” she says, her hand a soothing balm on my shoulder. “And anyway, the fact that you even care this much proves that you’ll never hurt him. You’re not Greg, Dusty. You’ll never do anything like that to a child.”
“Not on purpose, but men’ve done plenty of evil shit by accident. I remember once Lex told me this story about another old fella from the club. This fella had been searching for some bastard who’d conned him for a couple of years. He found him eventually, did some nasty shit to him, shit I won’t go into. Anyway, it was only afterward that Lex’s friend found out he’d got the wrong guy. This man’d done jack shit to the club. What if I do something like that? I’ll try’n be good, but in the end I’ll cause more harm.”
“No.” Her voice is firm. She kneels down in front of me, tossing the peas aside and grasping my face with both her hands. She doesn’t look young or scared anymore. She looks powerful. “Listen to me. You’re a good man. You wouldn’t be worrying about all this stuff if you weren’t. You care, Dusty—”
“Good for me!” I snap, jumping to my feet. I go into the living room, keeping my back to her so that she can’t fight me with kindness. “What a good fuckin’ man I am! What a great fuckin’ guy! You wouldn’t believe some of the shit I’ve done. I’ve killed more men’n I can count. I’ve strung guys up. I’ve tortured them. I’ve done all sorts of shit for my club. And maybe it was all in wartime, and maybe it was all to men who knew the score, and maybe it was all justified, and blah-blah-fucking-blah. But do you really think a man like me ought to have a child? Can anything good come of that?”
“Stop this right now!” Her voice cuts through mine. She hops over the couch and bites her hands down on my shoulders, holding me in place. She’s far stronger than she looks. “Do you think I’m not scared? I’m terrified. I only found out earlier today. I can hardly believe it, either. There’s a baby in me. I don’t know how to react. But I know something for sure. I don’t even have to think about this. If you want to, you’ll be a great father. You’ll be our protector. You’ll do everything right . . . if you want to.”
I wish I could believe her. Her gray eyes hold so much emotion. I want to believe in it. I want to be the man who has a child and a woman and doesn’t spend all day every day worrying about them being wrenched away from him. There were a thousand pieces, a thousand bone-white pieces . . .
I bring my hands to my temples, pressing down on them firmly. “I see it every time I close my eyes,” I tell her. “It never goes away. I don’t wanna be a self-pitying asshole or anything like that. I really don’t. But it’s the truth. I close my eyes and I see it, her head exploding like a goddamn watermelon, and then I get to thinking about you and that baby and how easy it’d be for someone to just pull a trigger and—It’s no difficult thing, Marilee, to kill a person.”
She smooths her hands up my arm, holding onto my wrists. “You’re going to be a father. That’s just the fact. I’m not getting rid of this baby—”
“I’m not saying that.” I push her hands away and touch her belly. “When did I say that? I don’t want you to get rid of it. I’d never want that. I just want to . . . I’ll be there for the kid, and I’ll be there for you. I just can’t promise to be easy to deal with every day.”
She rolls her eyes, flutters her eyelashes, and all in all, casts one hell of a spell on me. “You don’t have to be easy to deal with. I’d never ask you to be that. I just want you to be here. That’s all.”
I massage her belly, lifting her shirt and rubbing the bare flesh. It’s still difficult to believe that there’s a kid in there somewhere, that there’s my kid in there. I fall to my knees and kiss her belly, once, twice, over an
d over, kissing it hard, kissing it so that she knows I’ll protect it, protect her. I grip her legs and tug her close to me, holding her in place. She moans, a singing moan, filling the bare apartment, decorating it with her pleasure.
I look up at her. “I’m here for you. I promise that. I promise that I’ll kill any bastard who tries to hurt you, and I promise that I’ll do all that parent shit, as much of it as I can. I can’t promise to breastfeed the little thing, though. I reckon that’s your department.”
She giggles, but she’s crying, too. I stand up and wipe the tears away. “I’m happy,” she whispers. “I’ve never cried from happiness before.”
“Neither have I.”
“You’re not crying,” she points out.
On the outside, I’m not, but inside I feel as though I am. My whole life has been repurposed in the space of a few hours. Everything has changed. Perhaps that’s the power of a child. A child has more power over a man than a bullet, a bike, an outlawing life. Now, when I think about the next few years, it isn’t the club I see. It’s Marilee and the kid.
I kiss away her tears. “You’ve done the impossible,” I say. “You’ve made me give a damn.”
She turns her head, intercepting my lips, pressing herself close against me. “Make love to me,” she whispers, her breath warm and inviting.
Chapter Seventeen
Marilee
He reaches down and grabs my ass, grabs it hard, and lifts me up so that I flip over his head. I let out a squeal, my world turned upside down. Then he carries me into the bedroom and throws me onto the bed. I giggle and roll over, staring up at him. He’s got a smile on his face as wide as mine. Both of us are grinning like crazy. We’re like little kids, finally allowed to go out and play.
When I turn to face him, he leaps on me, pushing me back onto the bed and grabbing my ass so hard it hurts. “Uh-uh,” he says. “Not until I say you can look.”
“You’re evil,” I say, turning to the sheets. “You’re the most evil man I’ve ever met.”
“Oh, I know.”
He pulls down my pants with surprising delicacy, slowly removing them, lifting my feet to when they bunch up near my ankles. Then he smooths his hands up my legs, going agonizingly slowly, taking almost a full minute just to stroke up from my feet to my knees. His hands are rough and strong, reminding me of his strength. I think about how he kicked the hell out of Greg not that long ago. He changed everything. He saved me. He saved Travis and Mom. He saved us all.
He pushes my flesh firmly, his calluses dragging along my skin. When he reaches my thighs, my body twinges with hunger. I need him to touch my pussy. It aches for him. My clit rubs raw against my panties. Everything tingles. Everything urges me to sit down, hard, on his hand.
But he’s in charge now. I can’t fight his strength. He massages my thighs, moving inch by torturous inch toward my crotch. I moan in anticipation, but also urgently. I want his touch, need his touch. For weeks now, I’ve fallen to sleep dreaming of his touch, his fingers, his tongue, his massive eleven-inch cock. Finally, he reaches my pussy; he presses down on my panties with his palm, leaning over me, bringing his mouth to my ear. Warm air tickles my earlobe.
“You have no damn idea how sexy you look right now,” he says.
“Touch me,” I whisper. “Touch me, Dusty.”
“Like this?” He pushes aside my panties and slides his middle finger inside of me, pressing his knuckles against my ass cheeks and forcing his finger deep, right up to my sweet spot. “Or like this?” He pushes another finger inside of me, two fingers pressed firm and deep.
“Yes! Yes!” I moan, my body erupting with instantaneous pleasure. My pussy was waiting for him. That’s clear just from the way he slides easily up inside of me, deeper and deeper, and there’s not even a moment of pain or discomfort. It’s all pleasure, unbelievable pleasure, unbearable pleasure. I close my legs on his fingers, tightening my pussy around him, rolling over and twitching my hips and letting out moan after singsong moan.
“I’m going to tease you until you almost come,” he tells me, whispering, his breath caressing me just as much as his fingers. “And then I’m going to fuck you and you’re going to come all over my cock.”
“Oh, fuck.” The heat is a pressure inside of me, pushing outward from my pussy, a ball of pressure that feels almost like a full bladder. “Dusty . . .”
But then I can’t say anything else, because he has me, has total control over me. He pushes another finger inside of me, which would be painful if I wasn’t so horny. But the way it is, I’m soaked for him, the walls of my pussy stinging like crazy. I press down on his fingers with my hips, using all the strength I can muster to encourage the pleasure. He breathes on my neck and rubs my pussy faster and faster, three fingers going crazy inside of me, the only sounds my moaning and the slick sound of flesh and wetness. He finger-fucks me, hard, fast, until I’m pushing my ass out and bucking up and down with the motion of his finger-fucking.
The pressure within me grows and grows until it feels as though it’s going to burst, any second now, any moment, burst and send orgiastic fragments surging through my body. And any second . . .
Then he removes his fingers and stands up, leaving me gasping in frustration, laughing madly at his twisted ploy. I roll over and stare up at him. He stands with his thumbs through his belt loops, grinning wickedly. “Do you want to fuck, Marilee?” he asks.
“You’re an evil man!” I exclaim.
Then I hop up to my knees and go to him, undoing his belt quickly and yanking his jeans down. His polearm cock springs up, clinging to his belt for a moment but then breaking free, eleven inches and rock-hard. I grab the base and then suck the tip, loving the growling sound he makes as I work it. I push my mouth down about three or four inches, but deep-throating Dusty would be impossible and, anyway, he seems to be enjoying this enough. I suck him hard and fast, cupping his balls, my body still aching with the withheld orgasm. As I suck him, I grind against the sheets, grinding my clit and my lips.
Dusty steps back, eyes like emeralds shining with hunger. “Get naked,” he says, and then he begins to do just that.
I strip quickly, eager to be with him, eager to feel the massive pleasure of the father of my child. I tear off my bikini bottoms and then pull my shirt and my bra over my head, kneeling up completely naked as he reveals his muscles and his scars and his tattoos, reminding me of just how dangerous he really is. He approaches me with the energy of a resting lion, each muscle tight and ready for action.
“Lie down,” he says, his voice a tone I can’t refuse.
I lie back on the bed, open my legs, and look up at him between my knees. He leans over me slowly, drawing out each movement. I can’t look away from his cock, the sheer size of it, the way it twitches and moves. He wants to be inside of me just as badly as I want him. I reach up when he gets to me, grab his face, and pull him down. Our lips meet in a frantic, stolen moment, tongues battling and teeth clicking. I move my hands down his back, scratching, blood beading. His back muscles shift under my touch like the movement of great waves. Then he breaks off the kiss and, holding himself up with one arm, reaches down and guides his cock to my pussy.
I open myself up to him, splitting my legs as wide as they’ll go, sitting down on him as he thrusts inside of me. My pussy is still full of pressure and heat from where he finger-fucked me and now that pressure and heat explodes almost at once. It’s too sexy, Dusty’s massive cock, it’s too naughty, it’s too steamy and hot and wet. I close my eyes, hardly able to believe what’s happening, as he slides slowly and deeply inside of me. No sooner has the tip of his cock touched my sweet spot than the orgasm tears through me, taking me by utter surprised. We haven’t even started to fuck properly yet!
I gasp and grab his shoulders, holding on as though he’s a life raft and I’m lost at sea. The orgasm travels at a ferocious speed through me, running rampant now that the pressure has been unleashed. It travels down my inner thighs and to my toes, makin
g me curl them, and into my belly: my belly most of all, where it spreads heat everywhere, filling me so that I feel like I could float away. He doesn’t pull out of me. He just holds his cock there, his body as still as a statue, a pose which is almost tantric.
I rub my hands up and down his arms, gripping them firmly. They’re like stone, carved, no give to them whatsoever. I push down with even more strength on his cock, using everything I have, pushing and writhing and gyrating atop him. The orgasm ends—no, it stretches, repeats, another wave of pleasure coursing through me. I squeeze down on his shoulders so hard that more blood beads, dripping down him and onto the bed. I force my eyes open and watch him watching me, those sea-green eyes locked on me in hunger and wonder as I writhe on his cock. Finally, the orgasm releases me, leaving me panting and exhausted and stunned at the sudden pleasure of it.
