by Paula Cox
“Aren’t you that happy now?” Slick asks, once we’ve put the photographs away.
“I’m happy,” I say. “When I’m with Charlotte, I’m happy. And when I’m with you, I’m happy. But it seems the world doesn’t want us to be together.”
“Your dad, you mean,” Slick says. “Grizzly confuses the fuck out of me. He took me in after my father died. He knew I’d never find my mom, knew she was a hooker who ran to hook someplace else after she had me. Knew all this, took me in. Good—damn good of him. And then, when I’ve done more for the club than any man, decides that he can’t have me near his daughter and locks me up.”
“He’s over-protective,” I say. “He’s been like that ever since I hit puberty. Even now I have Charlotte, he seems to think that I’ve never been with a man. He thinks that I’ll break like glass if anybody touches me. It drives me crazy that he doesn’t trust you, of all people. He must know that Charlotte is your daughter. He has to. I don’t get how he could look at her and think anything else. And yet he acts as though the father is a complete mystery. It pisses me the hell off.”
“Me, too.” Slick kisses me on the forehead. “I brought you here for a reason, Brat. I brought you here ’cause I wanted to tell you . . .” He trails off. I hear him swallow, a loud gulp of nerves.
“Go on,” I urge, looking up at him, at his serious face, his deep wells of eyes, his clenched jaw. His hair hangs just over his eyes. I brush it away, and then run my hand through his hair, all the way down to his neck. He grins. “You really know how to relax a man, Brat.”
“Tell me,” I say. “You don’t have to be afraid, Slick. You don’t have to be afraid that you’re not good enough for us.”
He flinches, looks away, studying the dirt track. “That’s exactly what I’m scared of,” he mutters. “You said you loved me, a couple of months back—”
“I do,” I say, without a shred of doubt in my voice, “and I always have.”
“I don’t know if you’d love me if you saw me back in Seattle. And the most fucked part is I still don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Let me ask you a couple of questions,” I say, “and then let me decide.”
“Okay . . .” He looks at me questioningly.
“Did you hurt any children?”
“No,” he says, confused.
“Did you hurt any women?”
“No.” Firmer now.
“When you hurt men, was it them or you—if you didn’t fight, would you have been killed?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Did you hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it when it was your choice?”
“No.”
“Did you rape anybody?”
“What the fuck—no.”
“Was there a way out, but instead you chose to hurt people?”
“If there was a way out, I never would’a touched a single goddamn person,” he says fiercely.
“Then whatever you did,” I say, “I don’t care. You’re still my Slick. Where it matters, you’re still the kid from those photographs. So you’ve been roughed up a little around the edges. So what? We all have.”
“Not like me,” Slick mutters. “I was bathed in blood, Brat, fuckin’ bathed in the shit.”
“And you came out on the other side.” I climb to my knees, bring my mouth close to his ear. “You came out the other side. You’re here, with me. This night is all that exists. This moment is all that matters. You’re home, Slick; this track is our home. This—”
“I love you more than I can say,” he interrupts, sounding surprised by the admission. Not surprised that he loves me, but surprised that he’s told me. “I always have, Brat. I loved you since that night we made Charlotte, but even before that, as your friend. I’ve always loved you in one way or another, and you’ll always be the only woman for me. The rest of ’em can go to hell, for all I care. All I need is you and Charlotte. That’s all I want.”
“Do you really mean that?” I realize that tears are sliding down my cheeks, salty on my lips.
“Yes,” he says. “Course I mean it.”
“I’ve always thought you loved me,” I say. “That night we shared—it was special. We were closer than any first-time lovers. It was the best night of my life. And you know I love you; there has never been anybody else for me but you, Slick.”
He turns his face to mine, his breath warm against the coolness of the night, and looks deeply into my eyes. “So we’re in love,” he says, smirking, that old cocky smirk, a smirk that has infuriated me and captivated me in equal measure over the years. “What’re we gonna do about it?”
Before I can reply, he kisses me. It is different to any other time we have kissed. He kisses me softly, so softly that at first I wonder if this is the same Slick. Then it hits me; we are closer now than we have ever been before. His lips brush mine, but then passion takes him, and he grabs my shoulders and kisses me powerfully. I bring my hands to his hair, pulling him closer, hungry for the kiss, losing myself in it. We devour each other, taking in each other’s love, each other’s pain, each other’s longing. For a long time, we kiss, faces flushed, aching. And then I reach down and press my hand against the front of his jeans. He is hard, urgently hard, so hard that when I unbutton his jeans and pull them down below his balls, his cock springs up covered in pre-come. I break off the kiss and look down at it.
“Fuck,” I moan, the length of it, the thickness, driving me wild after two months without it. “Fuck, Slick.”
“Come here,” he says.
He lays me on my back, and then pulls down my pants and my underwear in one quick motion, revealing my naked pussy, my naked legs. The air pricks my skin, but soon Slick is leaning over me, his lips pressed against mine once again. I run my hand all over his body. As we kiss, shift, his cock brushes up against my clit. I gasp, opening my mouth so that our teeth click together. Slick, reading my body like he’s been able to do since the first time we were together, reaches down and guides his cock to my clit, rubbing the helmet against it. There’s something wildly dirty about it, having his cock just pressed against my clit, so close to my hole and yet not inside of me.
“Oh, fuck,” I moan, as the pleasure begins to mount. He rubs my clit quicker, pressing his cock against it harder. I’ve never done this before: never thought to do this. The pleasure takes me by complete surprise, as he rubs up and down, circles it, and then, finally, pushes down so hard on it that I let my head fall back and moan loudly in euphoria, gazing up at the stars. But the stars are blurred by my vision. All I see is a sheet of distorted light set within blackness. “I’m nearly—” I can hardly believe it. But that’s how powerful my lust is.
He brings his face close to my ear and whispers: “Do it, Brat. Come for me, Brat. Do it. Do it.”
Warm, tickling breaths, cock pressed against my clit, emotions whirring madly in my chest, heightening it all . . .
“I—ah—I—”
The orgasm is somehow soft, velvety, like a slow gentle ride down a river of pleasure. I close my eyes against the starlight and moan out into the night like I’m singing a song. Slick keeps rubbing against me, as though we are two teenagers who are forbidden to have sex, but want the pleasure anyway. He keeps rubbing, and my pussy twists with the pleasure, my body growing warm with it, my hands clawing at his hair. And then, it passes, and I am left satisfied and yet at the same time hungry for more.
I move my hands down to his hips, and pull. Slick doesn’t need to be told twice; he’s as horny as I am, perhaps more. He slides his cock down from my clit to my hole, and then arches his back as he thrusts deep inside of me, all in one quick movement. I gasp, let out a cry, and then my pussy spreads hotly for him, and at once I begin to move up and down. But Slick reaches down, grabs me by the shoulders, and pulls me up, all whilst he’s inside of me. Before I know what he’s going for, he’s done it, and we’re sitting opposite each other, straddling each other, me on top of him, him deeper inside of me than I knew he could get, somewhere near
my belly.
We begin rocking together slowly, back and forth, eyes locked on each other, as much love as pleasure moving between us with each movement. He moves his hands beneath my shirt, bracing my bare back, spreading goosebumps all over my body with his touch. I sit down, over and over, on his cock, burying him within me down to his balls. We moan in unison, surprisingly soft moans, passionate moans, the moans of lovers instead of just people fucking.
I see the pleasure in his face, in the way his lips twitch, in his eyes, getting wider, as though amazed by what we are doing. I feel the same; there is a connection between us. He shifts, and I shift. He thrusts, and I angle my hips so that he slides right into my sweet spot. I grip his shoulders and sit up, high, and then sit down with all the strength in my thighs. He gasps, and I giggle.
“I love you, Sky,” I moan, knowing that it’s a risk. Slick has always been a man’s man, a hard man; even as a boy, he was like that. It might be a turn off for him, for it to be this emotional.
But he just reaches around, grabs my ass cheeks, and then drives into me so hard I let out a scream which echoes around the mountains. “I love you, Brat.”
Grabbing my ass, he slides into me, sensually, deeply, until I feel another orgasm coming, hot, burning, and the heat and the burning is in my chest, as well. The emotion and the pleasure in my pussy combine, each making the other larger, each making the other more intense. I love him the more he thrusts into me, and the thrusts feel more pleasurable the more he loves me. I sit down, again, again, taking in the pleasure, until I feel it building to breaking point, until I feel the lips of my pussy tingling like a feather is being trailed across them, until I feel my hole going tight around him. I kiss him, and that seals it; the orgasm breaks upon me like waves breaking upon a beach, slow yet powerful. I force myself not to close my eyes. I ride the orgasm as I look into his sky-blues, my pussy burning with the heat of a thousand fires, raging beneath me, his body suddenly hot to the touch, his lips scorching into my lips as he kiss. Aching for him, I release all over his cock, my come sliding down the shaft and onto his balls. I arch my back, driving my hips down, sitting once more as another wave breaks upon the beach.
“Oh, fuck,” Slick whispers, and I know he’s about to come.
I grip his face in my hands—my hands trembling with the ecstasy of the moment—and stare into eyes I have dream of my entire life as he comes inside of me. Gazing at each other, euphoria takes us both, throws us about, my pussy burning as his cock pulses and wilts. I’m still coming as he finishes, both of us burning with pleasure as one. And then, after what feels like an eternity spent within each other’s embrace, we fall into each other, my lips on his neck, his hand stroking my hair.
“This was the best night of my life,” I whisper, kissing his neck.
“Mine, too,” he says. And I know he means it.
Chapter Eighteen
Bri
I wake up to the sound of Slick whispering my name. In the sky, birds tweet, and far away car engines growl toward the city. I don’t open my eyes at first, enjoying the way the sun shines through my closed eyelids, enjoying the way Slick sounds when he says my name. I imagine I am in bed on a lazy Sunday morning and Slick is waking me for breakfast, Charlotte already in the living room, playing, reading, and soon we’ll go out there and play with her and read to her. And then I’ll make us bacon, and Slick will call me Brat and pat me on the ass and we’ll laugh and then go for a walk and—
I open my eyes.
“Morning,” Slick says. “I reckon it’s time we got you back.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, though the last thing I want to do is face Heather. “You’re probably right.”
He offers me his hand and then helps me to my feet. As we walk back toward the bike, I ask, “What’s your plan, Slick? About the club, I mean.” In the night, it was like we could forget about everything real, everything that got in the way of us. Now, in the fresh light of day, that’s much harder. Reality seeps in at the edges; it has to be faced.
“Honestly, Brat, I don’t have one,” he says. “I’ve got no goddamn idea what I’m gonna do. They’re gonna be lookin’ for me, I know that much. And I ain’t runnin’. That’d mean leaving you and Charlotte, and that ain’t happening. So what?” He shrugged. “Looks like I’m a courier without a road to ride.”
“Maybe you should run,” I say, when we’re at the bike. I see Slick has put the photo box in the storage compartment.
“It’s for you,” he says, seeing me looking.
“Something to remember us by?”
“I ain’t running,” he says.
“Then what . . . Wait a second.”
An idea occurs to me. It’s dangerous, and relies on Heather, and Dad, being reasonable for once. It will mean that I have to be as convincing as I’ve ever been in my life. But if I make it clear that I won’t budge, it might work. And might is better than anything we have right now.
When I tell Slick, he shrugs. “Give it a go, if you want,” he says. “But I won’t hold my breath.”
He climbs onto the bike, nods at the leather and the helmet, and waits. “Drop me down the street,” I say, before climbing on behind him. “They might have Heather’s place staked out.”
“Yeah, most likely,” Slick replies. “My own damn club, staking me out, after all I’ve done for ’em. Clint really has twisted the bastards. Hell, Grizzly has twisted himself.”
“You’re right,” I say, hugging close to him. “Dad has made a mistake, the way he’s treated you. Hopefully he’ll see that.”
“Yeah.” Clint kicks the bike to a low growl. “Right.”
We leave the dirt track, and the wonderful memories, behind us.
When Slick drops me off at the end of the street and I’ve handed him his jacket and his helmet, we kiss briefly. Then I ask, “How will I reach you?”
“Wait a sec.” He reaches into the jacket pocket and takes out a pen and scrap of paper, and then scrawls down a phone number. “We used to use this for drops, back when I was a courier. It’s a payphone. When you wanna reach me, dial it, let it ring twice, and then hang up. Then dial it again and let it ring until I answer.”
“Why not just let it ring?” I ask, taking the number.
“’Cause the club might still use this phone,” he says. “Don’t wanna risk it.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath, looking at him as he shrugs his jacket on, as sexy as ever, as captivating as ever. “I hope this works.”
He doesn’t look hopeful, just stares at me for a long time. As he gazes at me, all I can think about is climbing onto the back of his bike and riding with him to someplace far away, taking Charlotte and just escaping. It’s a thought that has reoccurred countless times since we’ve been apart, and something both of us know can never happen. We have too much holding us to Denver. Slick would never leave his father’s club. And I could never take Charlotte away from Dad. We’re the only family he has left.
“Alright,” Slick says, pulling his helmet on. “It’s time to ride. S’you soon, Brat.”
“See you soon,” I say, swallowing nervously.
Slick rides away. I walk down the street towards Heather’s apartment building. The street is alive with people heading to work. I see an old lady shooting me a dirty look over her long, crooked nose; she’s seen me with Slick and doesn’t approve, apparently. The whole world doesn’t improve of me and Slick. Everybody wants us to just give up. But we won’t. After last night, I know we never can. It was too special. We were too close. How could I go back to some other man after what we shared? How could I pretend to be happy without anybody but him?
Walking up the stairs to Heather’s apartment feels like the long walk to the gallows, except that I have something worse waiting for me at the end of it than a noose: Heather’s fearsome anger, her righteous outrage. When I walk through the door, I hear Heather pacing up and down, her feet clopping on the floor. When I walk around the corner, I see her wringing her hands, her hair a
mess, her face bright red. She wheels on me, lip curling over her teeth. I feel like a teenager when she asks me the age-old question, the question Dad asked me countless times when I was a kid.
“Where have you been, young lady?”
I tell her, as I sit on the couch, about sneaking out to see Slick, about being with him, about loving him. In the other room, Charlotte is playing with her toys. I can hear her sweet giggling noises. After I’ve told her, I interrupt her from unleashing on me to go into the bedroom and see Charlotte, giving her a kiss on the head and making sure she’s okay. Then I return to the living room, to find Heather once again pacing, once again wringing her hands. She’s tried to smooth out her hair but has only succeeded in smoothing more kinks into it. She tries to smooth it out a second time, and only succeeds in making her hair more bush-like. She gives up, makes a loud huffing sound, drops onto the couch, and folds her arms.
