Stay Vertical

by Layla Wolfe

  Lytton bore this all stoically for the honor of being allowed to wear a cut with the Bare Bones rocker. He had decided to join his brother’s club with his sponsorship, but as predicted, he had to start at the bottom like everyone else had once upon a time. I had to admit, he looked hella smoking hot in the cut, usually wearing it over his white wifebeater. With that stylized eagle draped over his shoulder, his sleepy, dark-lined eyes, and his lush mane of hair, I’d never seen a man I wanted as much.

  Another Prospect, Kneecap, got up from his table and took Lytton’s arm. “It’s okay, Driving Hawk. Today’s your old lady’s party. I’ll get them their beers.”

  “And clean up the puke?” Lytton asked.

  Kneecap said, “Oh, I think the puke’s fictional.”

  “Says who?” quipped Ford, and everyone roared with glee, including Lytton. He really was being a good sport about the whole thing, especially for a guy whose complete title was Dr. Driving Hawk, PhD. This doctor washed brother’s bikes, fetched their coffee, and stood in line for them, and he bore it all very well. Of course, nobody really took advantage of the situation, knowing Lytton was the President’s brother, and grew the ever-popular marijuana that was making The Joint System the richest dispensary in Arizona.

  Lytton reached down a hand for me. “I’d like a few minutes alone with the party girl.”

  The catcalls were different now, ranging from,

  “Get a wet one, Driving Hawk!” to

  “Do a squeeze and a squirt!” and

  “Put your tool in her shed, Lyt!” That one, of course, was Toby.

  I was getting used to shit like this, though, and I knew I looked hotter than I had in months as I headed toward the back rooms, rocking my leathers. If ever there was a time to wear them, it was today, the day I got those damned arch bars off and started feeling good about myself again.

  Lytton took me to one of the back rooms. I presumed this had been a patch member’s room in the old days when he told me,

  “This was Ford’s little cubicle before he hooked up with your sister. Look. Corny poster.”

  “Some things never change,” I said, nodding at the AC/DC poster behind some boxes of ketchup and mustard packs.

  But he didn’t laugh as heavily as he could have at the embarrassing poster, so I knew something was up. This put me on the defensive, especially when he backed me up against the wall, running one forearm against it next to my head. When he covered me like this with his tall, lanky body, I always felt smaller, more feminine and helpless.

  He tipped my chin up so I had to look him in the eyes. “Little June bug,” he said seriously. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, but I know you haven’t been feeling well, with those grills all over your teeth.”

  “To say the least.” I smiled widely. I liked smiling now that I wouldn’t blind him with my metallic chompers.

  He brushed a butterfly kiss to my forehead. “Little one, you know that I don’t care where this road is leading, as long as I’m riding with you.”

  He had said that a few times before. I figured he’d gotten it from a coffee cup. “Yes.”

  “Well, I hope to fucking hell you feel the same. Together we’re growing the best damned medicine Arizona has ever seen, and we’re not poisoning anyone with pesticides, and we’re mellowing people out, one toke at a time.”

  “Oh, yes.” It was such a great feeling to once again be working for a venture I could completely get behind morally. It was just icing on the cake that it was also making us some serious Benjamins.

  “I was running around with a chip on my shoulder, bitter as hell, feeling misunderstood, an outcast, a renegade, until I met you. Only now is everything coming together, making sense. Little one, now I’ve got family for the first time in my life. I had Toby and Helium Head before, but now I’ve got you, Ford, Madison, Speed, Turk, all my new brothers and sisters. I’ve got you to thank for that. I finally fit in somewhere. I’m not destined to roam the planet as some disgraced fallen rebel.”

  During the last part of this lovely speech, he reached into a pocket of his cut. Blood practically curdled in my veins when I realized what he was up to.

  I mean, it’s something a girl looks forward to her entire life. And I never wanted it more than I wanted it with Lytton. But it’s such a major life’s decision, such a shock to the system, such a change to the status quo. I was terrified when he took that ring box out, and I barely glanced at the chocolate diamond—framed with, as it turned out, deep rich rubies. The room started actually spinning and I think it was only later that I pieced together what he must’ve said.

  “June Shellmound. You are the love of my life. I want to be here for you through thick and thin, to be your rock, your savior, your support. I want to obey you as much as I want you to obey me. I want to ride, eat, and sleep with you. We’re never going to stop riding when we get old together. It takes more love to share the saddle than to share the bed, and we’ve got both in spades. June Shellmound, would you do me the honor of becoming June Driving Hawk?”

  I was so aghast, I actually forget the next few minutes. I heard words and remember Lytton’s blurry face, and he put some ring onto my finger so I must’ve said yes. But damn, I was in such shock I was probably on the verge of fainting like a Victorian lady.

  “Mungu moja,” I whispered. One God.

  EPILOGUE

  LYTTON

  Lytton had been waiting a long time to claim June.

  Sure, she wore the diamond and garnet choker he’d given her. Several garnets made teardrops, symbolic of the hell they’d been through to be together. But Lytton felt he’d wised up and progressed far in the past several months. He found himself wanting more, surprising even himself.

  He had designed his new house with June in mind. He’d been holding himself back from her, waiting to see how she reacted to the trauma she’d endured. He didn’t want to throw anything too major at her while she was still recuperating from her ordeal. Being close physically had resumed at a snail’s pace, of course. For the first few weeks, Lytton just being there had been tense enough, probably for both of them. After all, he was the one moronic enough to harbor Iso at his ranch while the psycho hid from a murder rap.

  Lytton couldn’t escape the guilt. Ford even tried making him feel better by bringing up theories, like he couldn’t have known Iso was a pervert who would cross the line with someone’s old lady. Or he thought June had left the ranch when he did—he had no way of knowing she’d go back for the phone that Iso had stolen.

  None of this shit soothed him, and Lytton was on pins and needles the first few weeks until June assured him she didn’t hold anything against him. Slowly, bit by bit the guilt eased off. Lytton’s first job was to gut the play room and put all the furniture in storage. When it became obvious Toby didn’t even like sleeping in the house, that was when Lytton went ahead with the plan that had been in the back of his head for a long fucking time. He bought ten acres closer down to Pure and Easy off Highway 17. He grabbed an architect he was already pals with and had designed a five bedroom house in the Arts and Crafts style he knew June adored.

  But Lytton hadn’t asked her to move in. Not even when she accepted the hydraulic job at Leaves of Grass, no, she drove herself back to Ford’s house after work every day because he didn’t dare ask her to spend the night. That old shitty house would be good enough for daytime offices, but Lytton couldn’t wait to put it in his rearview. Now it looked just like some nerdy “incubator” where adult children played video games and threw pizza upside-down on the floor. Typical of a bunch of bachelors, there was always a carton of spoiled milk in the fridge, no toilet paper on the roll, and a stripper pole in the play room. It was time to leave all that behind.

  They hadn’t even fucked. Lytton couldn’t bring himself to infringe on her space in that way. He’d gone from being an overbearing, aggressive Dom who could care less about the woman’s orgasms to a sensitive, caring lover who only cared about her orgasms. At least, June’s. B
ecause her mouth was out of bounds for now, Lytton had spent the last weeks muff diving and honing his fur smoking skills, as Toby would say. It was an area of expertise he’d been lacking, and now he was pretty good, if he did say so himself. He could bring June off in two minutes flat, if he didn’t want to draw it out longer.

  Now that metal was off her teeth, it was time to push his luck a bit farther. He’d been keyed up about this for weeks. His normally unflappable spirit was suddenly wracked with nerves when it came time to recite his planned speech. “It takes more love to share the saddle than to share the bed, and we’ve got both in spades. June Shellmound, would you do me the honor of becoming June Driving Hawk?”

  Had the words actually come out of his mouth? Lytton wasn’t sure. She just stared up at him with those round doll’s eyes, so Lytton slipped the ring on her finger. It struck him that this was presumptuous. She hadn’t uttered a word other than to whisper a few things in Swahili. But she allowed him to slide the ring on—Madison had helped him find the ring size by borrowing one June wasn’t using from her room at Ford’s.

  Lytton took a big bite from the side of her throat, right above her collar. Splaying his hands around her waist, he pressed his torso to hers. His prick was up like a gavel, pulsating against her belly, and he sucked a bruising kiss on her neck, branding her.

  “Oh, Lytton,” she sighed, like the wind through electrical wires. She uttered a few entire sentences in Swahili—it was such a musical language—while he ground his cock against her.

  It took him awhile to realize he hadn’t received an answer from her. Lust was sucking up the logical, left side of his brain. Undulating his spine like a stretching cat on a fence, Lytton obscenely swiveled his packed crotch against June’s pubic bone. She cradled the back of his skull, weaving her fingers through his damp hair, urging him on.

  Yanking down the neckline of her mesh tank, Lytton slurped up a stiff nipple. He loved it when her pert boobs popped out of her push-up bra. He’d been thinking for a long time about having Knoxie ink her breast with some Apache symbol. Now he lovingly tongued the luscious globe while expertly unbuckling her chaps.

  June squeezed a handful of his hair. “Lytton…my sleek, dark stallion…I’m ready for you to take me. I’m wide open, hungry for you…I want you to be my husband, now and forever…”

  That did it. That pushed Lytton over the edge, and he found himself eagerly lapping at her tit while jerking her jeans down to her knees like some fucking animal. “You’re killing me, little one,” he murmured, acting fast, as though she might change her mind. “You smell like powder, you’re innocent, angelic and devilish all at the same time.” He ran his tongue up the underside of her jaw, velvety as cream.

  June squirmed, assisting him in shoving her panties over her ass. “I’ve loved you since you first stormed into the Citadel, Lytton.” When he pulled back to look at her, her face was lopsided with desire, twisted by a new sort of lust he’d never seen in her before. She held his skull between her palms and said earnestly, “I was afraid to want you too much, because everything I’ve ever wanted has been taken from me. I had no childhood at all. I was forced to grow up too soon. My brother and sister were pitted against me. I had to go halfway around the world to find a satisfying occupation. Now I came home and ran into you. I was so afraid the second I wanted you, you’d go away. You’d be even farther from my reach, even harder to catch. I was afraid to tell you that I love you.”

  Lytton almost felt selfish, trying to slide his hands around her bare ass and carry her to a box of A-1 sauce bottles. Almost selfish. He did it, anyway, setting her cowboy-booted feet on the floor and turning her to face the wall. He smoothed his palms over the soft contour of her hip. “Don’t you worry about a thing, lady. I’m not fucking going anywhere. You’re moving in with me as soon as we cut the ribbon on that house and baptize it. You can design the whole garden. Make it look like a fucking Kenyan savannah if you want.”

  June fairly purred with pleasure as he fondled a boob from behind. With his other hand he unfastened his belt buckle and jeans buttons, giving his cock freedom to slap up against her ass. She had lost a lot of weight during her recovery. Her rib bones, when she leaned forward with her hands against the wall like this, stuck out like The Bare Bones of the patch on the back of his cut. He had taught Toby how to make her smoothies in their blender at Leaves of Grass—he couldn’t be there that often, since there was a buttload of work to be done at the dispensary. But either Toby had fallen down on the job or the smoothies were made of air. He made a mental note to feed her peanut butter smoothies from now on.

  She wiggled her bony hips and did shoulder shrugs, preparing for his invasion. “Do me, Lytton. I haven’t felt your cock inside of me in so long. I’m yours, heart and soul.”

  Swiping two fingers across her slit, Lytton found her slimy and ready for him. He eased his erection inside of her slick channel, his balls clamoring for release after the enforced chastity of the past couple months. He’d have to take it slow, so he reached around and rubbed her pussy lips together. June hissed like a slowly leaking tire, and he knew he’d hit the right spot. He was getting good at this.

  He hadn’t had a chance to feel her pussy coming around his cock, so he worked her clit with the skill of a master chemist. Soon she was pounding her palm against the greasy wall and keening like a banshee. If they hadn’t been blasting The Allman Brothers in the restaurant, her cries would have been the main attraction in The Bum Steer.

  In fact, the throbbing bass line that vibrated the walls also resonated through Lytton’s balls. He tried to focus on pleasuring June’s bulging clit, but his balls were thrumming with an eagerness to match June’s ecstasy. Lytton wasn’t sure if he could hold out. Not only had he been celibate, he hadn’t even been shining his pole that much. Getting the dispensary up to par with the new organic product and getting June trained in the intricacies of a pot farm had Lytton falling into bed at night, asleep before his head hit the pillow.

  He was barely moving inside of her searing hot cunt, but he couldn’t stop the surge. He diddled her faster, hoping for a mutual explosion, and he was rewarded when she arched her back and froze, her inner pussy clamping down around him.

  Mungu moja, did she come for a long, long time. He splashed his load against her cervix, spasming methodically while a wave of blissful shivers erected his nipples, making his cock jump. June was still contracting violently around his dick when he was pretty much done. He could stand, relax, and watch the beautiful show, his penis still jerking inside of her every time her walls constricted around it.

  She let out a loud groan and suddenly seemed about to slide down the wall. Lytton gripped her around the ribcage. “Ah! Oh, ah!” She reached around and slapped her own ass, as though it’d gone to sleep, so Lytton helped her. He slapped it, too, his prick leaping inside of her heat. When she looked over her shoulder at him, his heart was wrenched with love. Even disheveled, just fucked, with her eyeliner smeared, she was the most adorable woman he’d ever seen. She looked even better wearing his ring.

  A sudden rap at the door made them jump, but they stayed speared together like two dogs. They both whipped their heads to look at the door, but whoever it was wasn’t about to let manners stop them from barging in. Lytton rolled his eyes. Typical. Especially now that he was a Prospect for The Bare Bones.

  Almost predictably, it was Ford. He barely glanced at them, as though he’d caught them playing a hand of Old Maid. This time Ford wanted to bother June. “June, your sister wants you for something urgently out in the bar.”

  They both stood up straight, but Lytton’s prick still throbbed inside of his fiancée. “All right,” said Lytton, “but let my fiancée get herself put back together.” He finally detached from the woman, puffed with manly pride at his still-stiff cock that bobbed in midair.

  “Fiancée!” Ford cried. “Holy shit! Welcome to the family, little June. Well, that’s some fucking good news in a day that really needs good news.�
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  “What do you mean?” asked June, stuffing her boobs back into their cage.

  “Oh, nothing. Just that things have been so black, so dour lately. This is fucking good news indeed. Where are you having the wedding?”

  Lytton said, “We barely discussed it, as you can see.” Something occurred to him. “I hope you don’t mind if Tobiah is my best man.”

  “Of course not. You’ve been brothers since the short pants days. Hell, as far as Toby’s fashion sense is concerned, he’s still in the short pants days.”

  Everyone chuckled, thinking about Toby’s floodwater pants, and Lytton kissed June goodbye. Now it was appropriate to pack his cock back inside his jeans. It seemed Ford had something more to say to him. Ford seemed uncomfortable, so it might be something sappy he was trying to say.

  He started out, “I was going to do this anyway, but…Here.”

  Lytton accepted the item from Ford before he knew what it was. Oh. It was a patch for his cut, a “Filthy Few” patch. “As you probably know, Prospects don’t need this patch to become fully patched. I just know you earned it. We haven’t talked about Isosceles Weaver since that day I drove the eighteen-wheeler away, but I know you earned this. You did it to avenge June, you did it for yourself, but you also did it to show unity with us, with The Bare Bones. We all appreciate it.”

  That tractor-trailer had turned up abandoned at the bottom of Tollhouse Draw on the way to Lake No. 1 and the Cutlass clubhouse. An anonymous call from a burner phone had alerted cops to its presence. They had found Iso’s body in the driver’s seat, and a shitfaced passed-out Truitt in the passenger seat holding the Sig Sauer outfitted with a silencer. Losing the piece was a small price to pay for setting up The Cutlasses. Iso’s prints were all over the place as being the driver of the heroin shipment, so a RICO investigation had been opened into The Cutlasses. They’d be under the microscope now, and wouldn’t have time to fuck with The Bare Bones. Apparently Truitt had taken so many roofies, his claim that he’d been framed was completely disregarded. His story was as full of holes as the Albert Hall. The Mexican trucker had apparently run off somewhere between P & E and Tollhouse Draw. He was never heard from again.