“Friend.”
Her brows raised. “You’re angry that he saved a friend’s life?”
She’d done a good job of making her point. She did a better job of causing me to realize how shallow I’d been. I felt small. Miniscule was more like it. “I’m angry about the mess,” I murmured.
She chuckled. “Look around you, Goose. You don’t have loose ends. You’ve got to be in control of everything. Look at your flowers. Meticulously placed. Meticulously pruned. Everything within your control is in order. Neat. Tidy. In its place. Not everyone is like you. Some people leave their dirty clothes on the floor or have dirty dishes in the sink. They don’t pay their bills on time. Their lawns are overgrown, and their beds aren’t made. That doesn’t make them bad people. It just makes them different than you. Your friend has strengths so valuable that he saved someone’s life. He did what the club asked of him. He used his strength. Now, you do what the club asks of you. Use your strength. Clean up the fucking mess, Goose.”
She was good. Really good. I felt like shit. Not about Cash’s mess, but about how I’d reacted to my responsibility.
“Yeah, you’re right.” I let out a long sigh. “It’s just frustrating.”
“My guess is if he saved a life, he put his own at risk, huh? When he made this mess?”
I nodded. “He sure did.”
“I bet he said the same thing when that happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just frustrating,” she said, mockingly.
After reasoning with Ally, I felt like a turd for feeling the way I felt. She was right. The club relied on each of us to do what we did best. I needed to clean up the mess and be grateful while I did so that I had a brother as courageous and brave as Cash.
“You’re good for me,” I said.
“How so?”
“I’ve been the club’s voice of reason for years. I’ve never had anyone be mine, though,” I explained. “I guess that someone is you.”
“I’ll be your Huckleberry,” she said, quoting Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday from the movie “Tombstone.”
I grinned. I was in over my head.
My only hope was that I didn’t drown.
24
Ally
Goose’s cleanup job was less that twelve hours away. He was anxious. I had my suspicions as to what he was going to be involved in. I couldn’t say I’d be excited about it, either. I hoped for nothing more than his safe return home.
Staying with Goose filled me with the same sense of belonging I had when I lived with my father during his last stages of being ill. I wanted the experience to continue, but it was coming to a close, instead. I realized when I left that my feeling of belonging would fade. Saddened by that knowledge, I wanted the night to end with a bang for the sake of both of us.
I poked a shrimp with the tines of my fork and swirled it around in the film of garlic butter that covered my plate. Without looking up, I made my declaration. “I wanna fuck.”
“Right now?” he asked, his tone laced with a hint of sarcasm.
“No,” I said flatly. “After we eat would be fine.”
He chuckled. “Where’d that come from?”
“It’s our last night staying here together.” I shrugged. “I want to end it on a memorable note.”
“It’s not our last night here,” he explained. “This is only the beginning.”
I stifled my excitement. “It is?”
“It is.” He laced his fingers together. “As far as I’m concerned, anyway.”
I poked the shrimp in my mouth. “I’ll probably go with whatever you recommend.”
He cocked a playful eyebrow. “Probably?”
I speared another shrimp and then met his gaze. “Yeah. Probably.”
His fingers were still intertwined. His lips had thinned. Not a tremendous amount, but enough that they weren’t as full and luscious as normal.
“Is something bothering you?” I asked.
He jutted out his bottom lip and shook his head. “Nope.”
He was in deep thought about something, and it was troubling him. I shifted my eyes to my food and finished eating. When I looked up, his fork dangled loosely from his fingertips. He was staring blankly at the space behind me.
“Talk to me, Goose,” I said. “This will never work if we don’t keep an active line of communication between us.”
His eyes came into focus. He blinked and then met my gaze. “It’s been nice having you stay here. It’s just. I want this to work out. That’s all. I like having you here.”
I warm feeling filled me. “I like being here. Is that all that’s bothering you?”
He nodded. “I think so.”
“Well,” I said. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
He didn’t. He and I had real potential. We each had areas we needed to improve upon. If we were honest with each other—and with ourselves—about everything in our lives, we could go the distance.
That I was sure of.
He reached for his plate and stood.
I did the same. “The shrimp were great. So was the steak.”
Behind me, dishes clattered. Then. A pause. “Thank you.”
I turned around. Dressed in his typical attire of jeans, boots, and a tee shirt, it would stand to reason that he looked the way he always did. He didn’t. At least I saw him differently. He was taller. More attractive. His features were sharper. His lean, muscular structure was more defined.
Something was wrong with me. He’d already explained that we were only beginning. That there was more on the horizon. Yet, I didn’t want him to leave. I couldn’t spend a night without him. I could. I didn’t want to.
He glanced over his shoulder. His eyes gestured to the plate I held. “Will you hand me that? Please?”
Completely lost, I did as he asked.
While I gawked, he rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher. He turned around. I was still staring. At nothing in particular, really. Just him. All of him.
He gave me a kiss. A good one. My legs went wobbly.
“Let’s go the bedroom,” I said. “I don’t want to fuck in the kitchen.”
He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me again. This time, it was like the kiss on the roof. Our first kiss.
The hem of my dress raised. His hands cupped the bottom of my butt. Gripping my cheeks firmly, he spread them apart as the kiss continued. I felt myself open, like a flower.
I moaned into his mouth
There was a long list of things I’d told myself I wanted to do the next time we embraced in a passionate kiss. Places I wanted to touch him. How I wanted to hold him in my arms.
I did none of them. My mind raced with ideas, but I was so lost in what he was doing to me that I couldn’t send a signal from my brain to a single one of my extremities.
His kiss—and his hands—had rendered me useless.
A finger entered me. Then, another. Using both hands, he opened me wide. I pulled my mouth away from his.
He opened his eyes. I peered into them. His desires were clear. He wanted me as bad as I wanted him.
“I want to fuck,” I murmured. “Right now.”
He gave me a puzzled look. “In the kitchen?”
The previous locations of my various sexual adventures were limited to seedy motels, cars, and the occasional pickup truck. Fucking in Goose’s bed became a guilty pleasure. Sex on a soft mattress while wrapped in 1,800 thread count sheets separated my former life from my new one. I liked that.
Now, I was so sexually frustrated I didn’t need clean sheets or a bedroom. I needed sex. Any way I could get it.
I glanced around. Goose’s kitchen was as spotless as the rest of his home. It would rival a hospital operating room in cleanliness. The island’s white countertop glistened. It was the perfect place.
“On the island,” I breathed. “Is it clean enough for you?”
He slipped his arm behind my knees and lifted me from my feet. “It is.”
One side of his mouth smiled. “I like it that you care.”
“I don’t,” I admitted. “Right now, I’d let you fuck me just about anywhere.”
Chuckling, he carried me to the island. He laid me on it. “Don’t move.”
I had no intention of moving. In fact, had he not carried me, I would have been reduced to crawling. The kiss—and everything that came with it—left me with shaking legs.
“Okay,” I said.
I watched while he got undressed. He tossed his boots aside. His shirt followed. I felt that I should do the same but opted to grant his request and not move.
He wasn’t swollen from head to toe in bulging muscles, nor did he have an abdomen chiseled of stone. He had the body of a long-distance runner. Lean, athletic, and free of any artificial enhancements.
His jeans came off last. Dragging his thumbs along his hips, he took his boxers with them in one shove. His erection pointed skyward.
I wanted him so badly, I ached. I started to disrobe.
His jaw tightened. “Don’t. Move.”
My pussy tingled. Apparently, I liked being told what to do. When it came to sex, anyway. He climbed onto the end of the island.
He tossed my panties onto the floor. Then my dress. My bra. Eager with anticipation, I hooked my heels on the edges of the countertop.
He wedged his hips between my thighs. With his hands on either side of me, his chest hovered over mine.
“I want to feel you against me,” he said. “On my skin. Nothing between us”
I swallowed the ball of anticipation that was quickly rising in my throat. “Me, too.”
With our eyes locked, he entered me with care. He lowered his chest to mine.
It could have been the excitement of fucking in the kitchen. Me becoming accustomed to his size. My eager mental and physical states. Heck, all those things could have contributed.
It was different.
Velvety smooth.
His entire length slid in and out without sending splinters of pain shooting through me. Each careful stroke brought a rush of euphoria with it. One after the other, they continued, like the waves that washed ashore along the beach.
Our eyes met. He pressed his mouth to mine.
He kissed me passionately. I sank my fingertips into the taut muscles in his back. The waves that rushed through me grew larger. Rhythmically pounding ashore against the surface of my soul, each took me closer to the edge of the cliff of ecstasy where I’d been teetering.
For an immeasurable length of time, we kissed, our bodies grinding against one another the entire while.
His pace remained predictable. One. Two. Three.
One. Two Three.
My body tensed. It was coming, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.
He pulled his mouth from mine, but only for an instant. “Ready?”
He must have sensed it. Further proof that we were connected by much more than our naked flesh.
I nodded. “Uh huh.”
One. Two. Three.
One. Two. Three.
One. Two.
A tsunami came crashing ashore, stripping me of my ability to resist. I relaxed and allowed it to wash through me.
He pressed his mouth to mine.
While we were locked in another passionate kiss, my muscles tensed and released repeatedly. He sank his teeth into my lower lip. His girth swelled, causing me to shudder and shake.
The orgasm came rushing through me, etching its way into my memory bank as it shook every muscle in my body. At the height of my climax, he arched his back and let out a groan from deep within his soul.
When he erupted inside me, he filled me with hope.
Although his orgasm ended, mine continued, decreasing in strength as time passed. When it ended, I was staring mindlessly at the ceiling.
He withdrew himself and rolled onto his side, beside me. “Holy. Shit. I thought my head was going to explode.”
I wanted to comment, but I couldn’t assemble a meaningful sentence. It often happened when I was filled with emotion. Upon coming to my senses, I tilted my head to the side. “I think I went blank there for a minute.”
His eyes were fixed on the ceiling. “Your mind?”
I nodded. “I couldn’t think or talk or anything. It happens sometimes. Rendered speechless, or whatever you call it.”
“Can you think now?”
“Kind of. I don’t want to do algebra or anything, though.”
“But you can think, right?”
“Uh huh. Just keep it simple.”
“Okay. Think about this.” He tilted his head to the side. “Coming back and staying after I get back.”
“For how long?”
“As long as you want.”
My mind escaped me. I stared back at him like a fool.
He lifted his head and looked me in the eyes. “Ally?”
The staring continued. Responding wasn’t an option. I managed to offer him a smile.
He kissed me. “Did your mind go blank again?”
I nodded.
He grinned. “I like that I can do that to you.”
Yeah. Me, too.
25
Goose
The ‘kiln’ operation ended up being nothing short of a fucking disaster. Unbeknownst to us, we had to remove the body parts from the concrete encasement that surrounded them. “It turns everything to ashes” didn’t mean everything.
“Fucker don’t look too bad for being dead three months,” Crip said with a laugh. “Concrete bath did him good. This shit’s all got to be chipped off, though.”
“The retention of moisture slows the decay process,” Tito explained. “It’s the opposite of mummification, which is removing the moisture, but it prevents immediate decay.”
Kneeling in front of a piece of concrete with a hammer and chisel, Crip shot Tito a quick glare and then looked at Baker. “He’s the club Brainiac?”
“He is,” Baker admitted.
“We don’t have one of those,” Crip said with a laugh. “But we’ve got one that writes fucking romance novels. Isn’t that some crazy shit?”
“Holy shit,” I exclaimed. “Is he the guy that had the book turned into a movie?”
Crip nodded. “That’d be him.”
“And you guys are the club in the movie?”
“Loosely based on the truth,” Crip said, tossing the remnants of a foot into the kiln as he responded. “That’s what they called it. But, yeah. They’d be us.”
“That was a good fucking movie.”
“Enjoyed it myself,” Crip said.
I felt that I was in the midst of a celebrity. One that wasn’t opposed to chiseling body parts from concrete with one hand while drinking a bottle of beer with the other.
After adding the last body part into the oven, Crip cleaned up the concrete, dust included, and tossed everything into the oven. Leaning against the handle of the broom, he looked at Baker.
“Those may or may not turn to ash,” he said. “Depends on who you ask.”
“It will,” Tito said matter-of-factly.
Crip gave him a look. “It will what?”
“The concrete will turn to ash.”
“According to who?” Crip asked.
“Scientific fact,” Tito replied. “Concrete begins to break down at eight hundred degrees Celsius. At one thousand degrees Celsius, depending on the aggregate, it will turn to ash. There wasn’t any aggregate in the mix used, therefore this will turn to ash at between eight hundred and one thousand degrees.”
Crip glanced at Baker. “Jesus. Is this fucker for real?”
“He declined a scholarship to MIT,” Baker said. “Fucker’s a walking Google.”
“Well, Brainiac, that’s all fine and fuckin’ dandy.” Crip closed the lid to the kiln and padlocked it. “But I don’t know what temperature our little pressure cooker gets up to.”
“Roughly thirteen hundred degrees, Celsius,” Tito declared.
Crip cocked an eyebr
ow. “According to who?”
“The manufacturer’s label states it’s a cone 10,” Tito replied. “Cone 10 kilns operate at two thousand three-hundred-and forty-five-degrees Fahrenheit, which is roughly thirteen hundred degrees Celsius.”
Crip shifted his eyes to Baker. “Might get irritating listening to this fucker after a bit, but I can see where he’d come in handy for some shit, huh?”
Baker laughed. “He’s handy for some things, yeah.”
“Thanks, Baker,” Tito said with a laugh.
Tito’s heart was as soft as a teddy bear, but he had the temperament of a badger. His dry sense of humor and willingness to challenge Cash on any and everything made being in his presence entertaining.
“Are we done here?” Baker asked.
“Unless you want to stick around and watch him bake, I think we’re done,” Crip responded. He glanced through the doors of the clubhouse, toward the outside parking area. “Want to tell me why the three of you are rattling around in a cage on a sunny Sunday afternoon?”
“Cash and Reno took his truck to the IHOP off the 5,” Baker said. “We’re picking them up there.”
Crip cocked an eyebrow. “Want to tell me why the five of you are rattling around in a cage on a sunny Sunday afternoon?”
“We’re headed to a job,” Baker said. “It’s a five-hour drive.”
“Banks are closed,” Crip said with a laugh. “You fellas doing liquor stores now?”
I chuckled. “I’ll retire before I’m reduced to that.”
Crip extended his hand. “I’ll stop asking.”
I shook his hand. He glanced at the kiln. “You want me to dump that shit it an urn, or just sprinkle it out in the ocean amongst a school of dolphins while the sun sets?”
“Pod,” Tito said. “Groups of dolphins are a pod.”
Crip shot Tito a glare, and then glanced at Baker. “Yeah, he’d get real old real fuckin’ quick around here.”
“Until you need to hack into the FBI’s mainframe,” Tito said. “Then, he comes in real handy real fuckin’ quick.”
“FBI?” Crip’s eyes narrowed. “No shit?”
Tito grinned and offered his hand. “I appreciate the help. Let me know if you ever need anything. I mean it.”
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