by Oakes, Tara
His eyebrows shoot up and he watches amused as I move behind the bar to grab a dishtowel and begin wiping at the drying maple syrup all over me.
“The fuck happened to you? You smell like Goddamned Aunt Jemima.”
Vince’s smart-ass comment earns a round of laughter from the nearby brothers. I shut each and every one of them up with nothing more than a look.
A look that lets them know just how dangerously close they are to a beat down.
A look that let’s them know I’m in no mood to be fucked with.
Many of them nervously busy themselves with sipping on bottles or averting eye contact.
I angrily take off my cut and throw it at the nearest prospect.
“Clean it,” I order. He obeys, disappearing with the vest.
“Well?” my president repeats his unanswered question.
I grab the nearby bottle of Jack and swig from it. “Your daughter. That’s what happened.”
Vince breathes deep, as Jay can’t help himself and busts out laughing, spraying his beer across the room.
“Let’s talk in private,” the older man suggests.
I take the bottle of Jack with me.
I’m gonna need it.
~*~
Vince leans back in his chair, balancing it on the two back legs, clasping his hands behind his head.
“I’m in a bad spot here, Clink,” he starts. “You know I think of you as a son, a brother. And I respect you. Now, I know shit between a brother and his Ol’ lady is for the two to work out between themselves… but this is a unique situation.”
I’ll say.
I take a swig of the strong whiskey in my hand.
“You know her better than I do,” his face falls at his realization, “but, judging from…” he eyes the mess splattered on my shirt, “that… I’d say she’s very similar to me.”
I take another swig.
“I know that if I were in a position like her, I probably wouldn’t take very well to you throwin’ yourself in my face right now. So, I’m goin’ to ask you to use some better judgment. For everybody’s safety.”
Another swig.
“You left her in a bad way, brother. One that I’m not so sure she’s out of yet. If there’s one thing the Cauley’s are pretty good at… it’s self-destruction. I don’t need nothin’ pushin’ her over the edge, you get me?”
A slow, drawn-out sip.
“She fucked up, you fucked up… hell, I’ve fucked up. No one’s innocent in this here situation. But, cooler heads need to prevail. If she’s not capable of doin’ that right now, then I need you to step in and do it for the both of you.”
One more swig.
“She’s a grown woman. One that has proven she’s willing to go to any lengths to get what she wants. If that’s you… then she’ll come around.” He swallows hard. “If not… then I need to know that you’re gonna do the right thing and walk away.”
I tilt the almost emptied bottle once more and gulp deep.
“I know that’s not our code, not our way. But… I need to contain this shit as much as I can. I need to know you’re not gonna make this more difficult than it already has the potential to be. I have a lot to make up for with her… I’m not going to risk her bolting to get the hell away from you, losing the chance to do just that.”
I finish the bottle.
I feel the warmth trickle and spread outward from my throat and deep into the far recesses of my body. My lips, my tongue, begin to tingle and are curiously close to going numb.
My president watches me for a reaction. When he doesn’t get the exact one he’s looking for- an agreement- he settles instead for a lack of a disagreement.
I feel my eyelids growing heavy, and closing, only to have me fight against it to try to focus on the old man.
“All right, then. Good talk.”
He claps the tabletop with his open palms lightly and stands. He’s almost out of the boardroom when I’m able to gather the strength and balance to stand. I can’t seem to command my hand to let go of the emptied glass bottle I’m clasping, and so I take it with me as I drag my feet down the hallway, bouncing into walls like a goddamned ping-pong ball until I reach the door to the first crash room I find.
I trip over my own foot and land in the middle of the thin, worn mattress, unable to adjust myself as most of my lower-half hangs over the bed’s edge. My mouth is slightly open, refusing to close, and so I make good use of it and breathe heavily through it.
The last thing I hear is the heavy thudding of the thick-bottomed bottle dropping to the wood floor.
But the last thing I see? The last thing I see is her face.
CHAPTER SIX
“Right there,” she gasped. “A little to the left. Wait… right, more to the right.” Her shoulders flattened out and sunken into the mattress as she moaned out.
“Harder... deeper…” the instructions kept coming. “Oh my God… that feels so good, baby.”
Didn’t I know it.
I concentrated on the tight little area that made her moan loudest. I felt her body turn to Jell-o under my touch.
“Hold on. Not so hard. A little less… but more, too.”
I pulled my hands back. “You gonna write me a fuckin’ manual, babe? Just be still and relax.”
I grabbed some more lotion from the plastic dispenser pump on the bedside table. Rubbing them together, the lubricant sloshed through my palms and worked through my fingers, heating up before I returned to massaging her bare back.
She’d been so busy these last few days with extra shifts down at the hospital that we hadn’t seen much of each other even though she’d all but moved in. With a little in break in club business that night, I thought I’d surprise her with a little take-out from her favorite Thai place, some candles… and a massage.
First for her… but eventually for me, too. The best massage she could give me… massaging my dick deep enough to release tension from every muscle in my body like only she could.
Her silky skin moved effortlessly beneath my hands as I kneaded and caressed her tired muscles. Every time I got a little too close to her slender sides, she would tense up and giggle, wiggling beneath me as I straddled her upper thighs.
I had stripped her naked nearly the moment she walked through the door, followed by allowing her to return the favor. Both completely naked, my position, playing masseur, allowed my swollen dick to rest comfortably on her plump, juicy ass. The sensual movements made by my body every time I slid forward to run my hands up her back was inadvertently stroking my cock between the cleft of her tantalizing ass cheeks.
It started out as a nice little surprise, but I quickly found that my body was growing far more excited than I had intended early on in the night.
“I know what you’re doing,” she laughed. “I can feel it. I knew you had ulterior motives.”
I continued to massage myself with her flesh, working my way deeper into the ravine.
“Oh yeah?” I moved my hands, massaging what was left of the fragrant lotion down to the small of her back, kneading circles in the hollow of the indent where her back melded into her ass with my thumbs.
She nodded her head. “Yup. But, baby… it’s gonna take a lot more than dinner and candles to get what you’re tryin’ to get.”
My fingers got busy trying to convince her otherwise, but the foreplay needed to convince her to take that next step with me wasn’t compatible with the growing erection already threatening to shower itself across her lotion-glistened back.
Next time…
I decided to deepen the massage, to give my woman the “happy ending” she deserved.
“Mmm,” she moaned loudly as we rocked forward together.
I slapped the palm of my hand flat on the cushion of her ass, the target was just begging for the roughened touch.
She breathed deep and dug herself in even deeper, thrusting back into me, showing just how rough she was looking to play. She’s a rare bird, my girl. Gentle and s
eductive enough to make me want to do things like cuddle and spoon and shit. But other times… man, other times she could get me so fucking hot that I doubted I’d ever be able to ease the burn I had for her.
That night she was giving me all the signs that she was just as pumped, literally, as I was, thrusting to satisfy her as best I could. I folded over her, taking hold of the long, lustrous, hair jostling around with her frenzied movements. Each hand took hold and reined her in, steering and controlling her, and we synced. She took each movement, every ounce of momentum eagerly as I rode her.
It was a delicate dynamic, as the fierce woman beneath me was as feisty and independent as they came. Dominating and bridling that fierceness was a challenge that thankfully didn’t take me long to master.
Her soft grunting gave voice to the excitement, coming together to form the words she spoke.
“Faster,” she begged.
And I obliged.
~*~
Whoa!
The hard floor races up to meet me and I feel the painful thud as it jolts me awake. The harshest impact is on my very erect dick as it bends to the will of the flat wooden surface.
Ah fuck! Tthat hurts.
I manage to crawl up to my knees and grit my teeth through the pain as I curse myself for waking just before the best part of the dream. Not a night has gone by without her invading any bit of peace most people would find in their sleep.
The outcome is always the same. I’m left practically foaming at the mouth with a raging hard-on for the one thing I can’t have right now. And, thanks to the clumsy Jack Daniels hangover, I’ve got a bruised cock to go with it.
I can handle my liquor. Always could.
But drinking the amount I did, as quickly as I did, in the fury that was me earlier today… it wasn’t good. And now I’ve got the damaged dick, the bruised ego and the stink of an Eggo waffle to show for it.
I stumble my sluggish feet toward the small bathroom to take care of at least the latter part of my situation, rinsing the sticky mess from my skin. Enough time has passed since waking in my stupor to reflect on the series of events that landed me in the predicament I’m now in.
It all comes back to the hotshot doctor, the asshole who had the audacity to put his hands on my property. That’s what initially set me off. The games Charlie was playing didn’t help, but I know we can straighten this shit out face-to-face.
She’s hurt, pissed, hell probably even furious at me. I feel the same way about her right now. That’s what’s dangerous about the kind of love we got. When it’s good, it’s off the fuckin’ charts good. But when it’s bad… it’s nuclear.
I just need to sit her ass down and get through the hard shit we’ve got to face before seeing if we can get past it. It ain’t gonna be fun. It sure as shit ain’t gonna be pretty. But… it’s gotta happen.
Yesterday didn’t go like I planned, but I’m not letting shit get off course. If that fuckin’ doctor gets in my way again… I’ll kill him, not just fuck with his pretty little car.
~*~
CHARLIE
My hand moves down to the keys in the ignition once more, tempted to turn the engine and get the hell out of here. But, something stops me. Again.
I don’t have much time, having left the hospital on my meal break, knowing it would be the only time I could slip away from T.J.
What the hell am I doing here?
After everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, one thing keeps coming to the forefront.
Brendan.
If Clink’s back in town, then that means Brendan could be here, too. I tried to distract myself every which way I could, but nothing worked.
The possibility of seeing him again, of telling him I loved him and I missed him, of explaining why I just suddenly wasn’t there for him… those were the driving forces behind getting me here, parked across the street from Clink’s house.
I’m not ready to see his dad, to deal with any of that right now… I don’t know if I’ll ever be. One thing I do know for sure, though, is that I can’t bear to have that little boy think he was abandoned by another person or to blame himself in any way for our little “family” being broken up.
I only have an hour for my dinner break and I’ve already wasted fifteen minutes of it driving over here and fighting against myself about what to do next. It’s nearly eleven at night and I know he’s asleep by now, but I just can’t concentrate on anything without at least knowing for sure if he was here.
The lights are off, unlike Clink, since he’s usually a night owl. The truck is missing from the driveway, and that strange bike I saw him on this morning is nowhere to be seen.
My stomach is dangerously close to dropping, just waiting for me to accept the fact that… he’s not in there.
I abandon the keys to rummage blindly through my purse for the little bottle. The quiet of the dark is broken by the plastic rattling before my fingers find what they seek.
I don’t have a drink with me but I’ve gotten accustomed to swallowing the pills dry. They have a wicked aftertaste but it hasn’t stopped me yet. With Dr. Walker, er… Harris, believing my story about my previous pills not taking care of the pain, I find that these new pills he’s prescribed are way stronger and unfortunately taste worse than the last.
With the prescription filled almost immediately after I left him this morning, I’ve been careful not to go through them too quickly, knowing that it’s going to be more and more difficult to procure the next batch.
Just as I decide I can’t bear to watch the childless house any longer and turn the key to head back to the hospital for the second half of my shift, the telltale grumbling of a powerful tailpipe can be heard in the distance growing near. It’s speed is faster than I realized because it drives past my parked car almost immediately after I recognize it, pulling right into… Clink’s driveway.
Shit! It’s him.
It’s him.
I become disoriented as my blood pressure drops instantly, afraid of being caught… afraid he’s recognized my car in the dark as he drove by. My foot slams on the gas pedal and my trusty Jeep lurches forward with an unexpected amount of inertia.
As if the screeching wheels weren’t enough to capture his attention as he dismounts and shakes off his helmet, the crashing metal sounds of the garbage cans I crash into seal the deal.
I close my eyes and mutter the foulest curse words under my breath at my own stupidity. I’m trapped in a pile of large aluminum trashcans that have probably awakened the entire neighborhood as they still continue to rattle and roll around from the impact.
I can see their shadows in the dark even without my headlights on. Shaking my head, I command myself to regain some sort of focus to complete the task of shifting into reverse to make my escape.
Once I’ve recovered enough to take hold of the gearshift, I hear the high-pitched creaking of the metal hinges and whip my neck to face the car door.
“What the hell are you tryin’ to do? Kill yourself?” Clink yells as he reaches over me and somehow finds the ignition in the dark, ripping the keys from it.
It’s all happening so fast and I try my best to process it all. His words. The crash. The sounds. The feel of his body briskly rushing past mine as my flesh instantly recognizes his and screams internally for more. The scent of the well-worn leather mixed with the crispness of the night on him from his ride. I feel my eyes roll back at the overwhelming concoction of all these things.
“Charlie!”
I feel him shaking my shoulders harshly, with the keys in his hand rattling from the force. I snap awake, unaware that I even fazed out.
“Hmm?” I hear myself and it’s like everything has suddenly switched to slow motion as my reply is never ending.
His fingers now press into the skin above and below my eyes, pushing to open the lids wide.
“Babe?” he asks. “You high?”
The syllables seem to stretch themselves and echo, ringing in my eardrums while I t
ranslate and decipher their meaning. It doesn’t come easily and I find myself struggling to comprehend their meaning.
I breathe deep and move my head to be free of his touch. It burns. That’s what’s doing this to me… he is.
Amazingly, somehow able to control motor functions, I address him for the first time since begging him not to leave my side nearly two weeks ago.
“G- get off of me you asshole!” I swing my arm wildly and make contact with his neck, hard, pushing him away.
I feel my head wobble, angled down in the general area as I fumble with the buckle to the seatbelt. Clink attempts to assist but every move he makes is somehow an outward attack and I fight him off.
The tight pressure across my chest disappears at the release of the safety device and I lurch forward out of the car. His large, strong, hands save me from contact with asphalt but I resist them once I’m standing on my own two feet.
I stumble backward, away from him, as my feet clumsily search for stability.
“What did you take, Charlie?”
I hold up my hand as he begins to approach and it works. He stops. With a blink of my eye there is now two of him, so I hold out both hands, wildly blinking each eye from one to the other.
How did he do that?
“D-don’t come any closer. Either of you,” I feel the paranoia growing with my rapidly beating heart rate.
“I’m not going to ask again. Tell me!”
The both of them lunge forward, a coordinated attack as I leave his question unanswered. The cross-body purse, somehow magically still draped around my shoulders, is taken forcefully by my assailants.
He’s strong, but I put up the best fight I can, clawing and grasping to no avail.
Contents are thrown out as he searches. My compact, my lip-gloss, my hairbrush, they all litter the pavement by our feet as he continues to search.
I hear the rattling of the pills against the confines of their plastic walls and know he’s found it.
