At Last

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  I hadn’t realized. Tommy asked me if I thought we needed to go to the hospital, but he never said, ‘Hey Doc, you look sick.’

  “Well, that tends to happen when you’re the hit in a hit and run. I’m better now, though. Thanks for your concern.”

  “Where were you heading?” he asks.

  “Jade and I were going to do a girls day in Nashville.” I swear I see every man in the forecourt cringe when I mention Nashville. What’s wrong with Nashville?

  “By yourself?” Bizarrely comes his next question.

  “Yes. Jade and I have traveled quite extensively by ourselves.” What? Because I’m a woman I can’t follow highway signs or a GPS? “And I want, no strike that, after today, I need a really good coffee. A Frappuccino.” To accentuate my need, I throw my hands out in front of me, then pull them back to hook my thumbs in my belt loops when the men laugh at me. I’m not being funny.

  “If you can give me about a half an hour, I’d be happy to take you.” Sly then surprisingly, generously offers.

  As if the universe wants to remind me how much I don’t understand men, or at the very least, a certain black-haired, goateed, tattooed man, Duke breaks from the group, still carrying Jade, to walk over to me.

  “Won’t be necessary, brother,” he says to Sly as he slides his arm between my arm and torso to hook around my waist, pulling me snug against his side.

  Some of the brothers smile, some stare down at their feet, shaking their heads. Sly simply answers, “Gotcha.”

  But I’m confused. Too confused to let it go. “Hey Prez, what’s going on here?”

  Instead of answering me, he hollers over to the brother called Crass, a new transfer from the Illinois chapter of the Lords. He came into the picture around the same time I did. The man Boss and Elise named their son Gunner after, I’d heard all about how he’d almost lost his life protecting Elise when she was being actively hunted by that biker, murderer and genuinely bad guy from a rival club, Houdini.

  I didn’t have to imagine, because I lived their surprise along with them, when he turned out to be Boss’s thought to be dead cousin, Logan Hollister a.k.a. the reason Livvy took off. Since he tried to kill Liv, too. And the nutcase is still out there somewhere, roaming free and able to strike again. He might even still be hanging around Thornbriar, if Elise’s feeling of being watched holds merit.

  Yes, so Duke calls out to Crass, “You call me with the estimate, yeah?” Though it’s formed as a question, it’s an order.

  “Sure thing, Prez. You got it.” Crass calls back from the backend of the flatbed where he examines my poor, banged-up Cherokee.

  Why call Duke and not me? It’s my Jeep. Curious and slightly aggrieved, I try to get him to talk to me. “Hey Prez…” Nothing. “Duke…” He continues to ignore me. Which means it’s time to try something new. “Chief?”

  Finally a reaction. “Chief?” he asks.

  “As in Commander in Chief. You know, because you’re the president.” That garners a laugh from the big guy.

  “Come on,” he whispers in my ear before he moves his lips to press a sweet kiss to the side of my jaw. Now he has me really confused. The man holds my daughter. His arm around my waist. And he kissed me in front of his brothers.

  Men.

  6.

  Duke

  “Alright, Doc. Let’s get you some coffee.” I give her arm a little squeeze to get her moving. She wants to argue, can see it written all over her gorgeous face.

  Though she don’t argue. She opens her mouth then closes it. Opens then closes it. Opens then closes it before giving up. “There’s no good coffee in town,” she finally settles on.

  “Thought we were headed for Nashville?”

  “Um…” Her heart-shaped lips press together.

  Is it bad how much I get off stumping her?

  “Tommy,” I call out. “We need Peaches’ booster in the back of my truck. Gotta get my girls something cold to drink.”

  Her feet stop abruptly as she turns her head to glare at me. “Your girls?”

  Tommy, the son of a bitch, just about busts a gut laughing, but he does it while walking the booster over to my truck. I can see why he’d find it funny and give him that play. Hell, if I wasn’t sitting in the middle of it, if it was one of the other brothers, I’d find the whole thing fucking hilarious.

  “Duke—Chief, when um… when did we become your girls?” she whispers.

  I set a drowsy Jade into the backseat and secure the seatbelt around her. I don’t bother to answer until her door is shut, and Tommy’s left us for his cruiser, out of earshot. Only then do I lay it out for the good doctor.

  “You crawl into any man’s lap at the hospital when your girl’s sick, and sleep there all night? Let ’em give your girl a nickname?” I ask, pulling a cigarette from the pack I keep in my front vest pocket and light it. Won’t be smoking while we drive, so I take the opportunity while I got it. Plus, it gives me something to do with my damn hands.

  “No,” she answers.

  “You let just any man come over and cook dinner for you and your girl? Watch movies?”

  “No.” She repeats herself, stronger this time.

  “You kiss any man the way you kissed me?”

  She throws silent attitude at me by folding her arms under her tits, but refuses to answer.

  So that’s when I go in for the death blow. “You let any man eat you out ’til you come so hard he could drown from your juices?”

  That got her. Those stunning jade green eyes of hers go wide. “I did not come that hard.” She protests.

  Yeah, she protests, but those wide eyes got heat behind ’em, and I stare, almost mesmerized by her chest raising and lowering from the shallow breaths she struggles to take. Caitlin knows what we shared that day, how wild she went that day. And from the hungry look she tries to hide, I know she remembers I’m the one who made her wild.

  “Doc, you did. And that’s what makes you my girls.”

  “But you left. No goodbye. You just left.”

  Why did I even bother to hope she’d let that slide, at least for now? I know I owe her an answer, an honest answer. “Listen honey, after what we did, what you gave me, had a lot to think about.”

  “You didn’t bother to say hi to me when I showed up here today. You didn’t say word one until Sly showed interest. Then you decide to piss in my corner?”

  “No, told you. Had a lot to think about. Sly sniffing around made me realize if I don’t claim what’s mine, someone else might try. And I can’t have that because I’ll kill any fucker who sniffs around you.”

  “Come on, Chief, be reasonable. You can’t—”

  “You let me in, Doc.” I tell her something she already damn well knows, take a long drag on my cigarette and blow the smoke away from her and the car. “You gave me the green light, which means we’re a go. Both know we been dancing around this shit for close to a year. You could’ve been a bitch when Jade got hurt, pushed me away. You didn’t. So yeah, I can and I will.” Then to drive my point home, I motion between her and Jade in the backseat. “My. Girls.”

  She swallows hard as her features soften. Those green gemstones focus solely on my tired eyes. “I have to admit,” she says, breaking out that damn sweet, shy disposition, which does all kinds ’a shit to my insides, cheeks blushing strawberry. “I like thinking of us as your girls. We haven’t been anyone’s girls in so long.”

  “You gonna keep staring at me or you gonna kiss your man?” Because I really need to feel those soft lips against mine. Now.

  She swallows hard a second time. “I’m going to kiss my man.” Then she presses into me, up on her tiptoes, because I’m so much taller. She tilts her head and covers her mouth over mine. Lips to lips. “You taste of tobacco and mint,” she says, still pressed against me.

  A taste I give her more of when I take over the kiss, first throwing the butt on the ground so I can wrap my arms around her neck, then shove my tongue in her mouth. My fingers, I twine thr
ough the hair at her nape. And… fuck me, she moans. Right there in the parking lot of Ellis Auto & Towing. I slide my hand from around her neck down to her sumptuous, rounded ass and press our bodies flush, grinding my pelvis against hers. It’s torture, but I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.

  “Ho-ly shit,” someone grumbles loudly. “I should’ve got there first.” Then I know it’s Sly who opened his yap, and laugh at my good fortune because yeah, he should’ve gone for it. He’d be dead because I would’ve gutted him. But at least he’d have died knowing how Doc smells up close and the taste of her lips. The feel of her body pressed in all the right places as she kisses with everything in her.

  She moves back only slightly from me and turns her head. “Caitlin,” she calls out for no apparent reason.

  “What?” He calls back.

  “Caitlin. You guys can call me Caitlin. That’s my name.”

  Right. Got it.

  “Alright Doc, now let’s get you some coffee.” It’s selfish, but I want her all to myself. The brothers can get comfortable calling her Caitlin later.

  “No good places in town,” she teases.

  “Thought we were headed for Nashville?” I play along.

  “Oh yeah, that’s right,” she says then presses another kiss against my mouth. “I could kiss you all day.” At first I think she’s being cute, but then, seeing the way she sucks in her bottom lip, biting down, I realize it was an accidental admission. One she really meant. Sly could’ve tried to get in there, but she’s mine all the way. Those words just proved it.

  “Caitlin,” I growl. “Get in the truck.” Because goddamn I want to taste her again, but I want to do it in a way we won’t be interrupted by one of my brothers.

  She hurries around the hood of my pickup to slide into the front seat, and automatically buckles herself in.

  I move with my head held high, shoulders back, not on top of the world—I own the fucking world—and fold in behind the steering wheel, crank the engine, then back out of the parking spot.

  After straightening out the frontend, I take her hand and move it to rest on my thigh, dangerously close to my dick. Part of me hopes she’ll take the initiative to move a little closer. Since she don’t, I press my hand over hers to keep it in place.

  And we drive.

  “You and Peaches eat barbeque?” I break the silence after a good twenty minutes of reliving that kiss and her sweet words over and over in my head. Feeling her hand in mine. The hum of the wheels rolling against the blacktop sound in the background.

  Instead of giving me an answer, she stares out her window and mumbles, almost a whisper, so I can’t fully understand her words. Then it clicks as I listen to the last of her thoughts. “…I’m his girl. I’m Duke Ellis’s girl.”

  I kind of snicker under my breath and give her hand another squeeze, not expecting that reaction. “Yeah, honey. You are.”

  That’s when she turns her head to look my way and blinks her eyes twice, as if to clear her mind. Or maybe realizing I’m in the cab with her, or hell, that she spoke out loud. “I… um… don’t really know what that entails. Does this mean we’re exclusive? Or um, am I expected to give up other men but I’m supposed to look the other way when you’ve got a taste for one of the pieces?”

  Fair enough question. Well, the first one, anyhow. I was married to Dawna for fucking years and never looked twice at a piece. Right up ’til the end. Even after she decided to stop the chemo that had made her so weak, it had been months since we’d been able to make love. Because with Dawna, it was always making love. She didn’t see the fun side of sex. The stress relief. The hot make up. She only wanted the intimacy. And because she was sick so much of our time together, I gave in and didn’t argue because I didn’t want to make her sicker.

  That’s how I’m about to answer when she goes on. “Maybe we should work out the logistics of this relationship before we get too far in it.”

  Doc ain’t sick, so I ain’t tiptoeing around her when I get pissed, and that last question of hers pissed me off. “I think you know the answer to that,” I tell her, thinking that’ll be the end of it. But no.

  “Okay,” she says. “Logistics take two. Is this an exclusive thing between us or—” Doc cuts herself off to look out the window again, watching the mountains whip past us. Then she finishes in a jumble of words, “orareyoustillseeingotherwomen?”

  “Come again?” I ask.

  “You heard me.” She fixates her glare on a small, nondescript green bug holding on for dear life to her side mirror, so not to look at me, and adds, “Never mind.”

  “No,” I answer.

  “No?” She repeats my answer. “No to which?”

  “No I’m not gonna answer ’til you look at me, and I can answer you properly.”

  First she peeks over her shoulder to check on a sleeping Peaches. Must be afternoon naptime. After letting out a slow breath, Caitlin gets it all off her chest. “Are you going to keep—um—being with the pieces or hot mamas?”

  “Being?” I grit my teeth to hold back the snicker that wants to erupt because her saying being is cute as hell. But I’m still pissed that she’d even ask. “No. I know how to be monogamous—and yeah, even know your four syllable words.”

  The woman starts to giggle. “Sorry, sorry… I know you’re serious. But I never thought you didn’t know multi-syllable words. Actually, you’ve always struck me as rather intelligent.”

  Even pissed, that gets her another hand squeeze. I like that she thinks I’m intelligent.

  “I guess I’m asking wrong,” she says. “What’s the difference between being your girl—” She bites her top lip and scrunches up her nose before we finally get to the crux of what’s crawled up her ass. “And being your old lady?”

  Right. This I can work with. “Seems I gotta explain a few things. You’re part of my girls because there’s two ’a you. And one ’a you’s a little girl. But you became my old lady to the brothers, to the club, when you leaned up on your tiptoes and shoved your tongue in my mouth. And before you open that mouth again, I got more to explain. You been mine since the hospital, but the boys didn’t know. Now they know. You don’t touch or flirt with other dick. Don’t let ’em touch or flirt with you. I don’t touch other pussy.”

  Predictably, she tries to talk, but ain’t through.

  “So to recap,” I say. “You’re my girls when I’m talking about you and Peaches. All other times, you’re my old lady. We’re exclusive. And honey, I’ll tell you now. I know you’re a doctor so you probably make good money. But I’m not just a man, I’m an old-fashioned type of man. And that means when we’re together, I pay. I don’t get driven around bitch.—”

  “Bitch?” she asks.

  “Yeah, babe, bitch. The bitch seat. Where the bitches sit, front passenger.”

  “Are you calling me a bitch?”

  “Not right now. But woman seat sounds ridiculous, so it’s bitch. And since I don’t ride it, that means I drive. We get there, we get in as deep as I think we have the potential to get, I’ll probably tell you shit. Pillow talk that stays between us. Only us. So Doc, you gotta remember I’m the president of an MC. That means I don’t get my balls busted in front of anyone, but especially the brothers. You got issue with something I’ve done or said, you do it at home. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” she replies quicker than I thought she would, and without a lick of apprehension.

  “Who are you, and what have you done with Doc?”

  She pulls her hand from under mine, on my thigh, to punch me in the shoulder. “Shut up,” she orders. But it’s a half-assed punch that lacks any heat.

  “Now we got that outta the way, we need to discuss something else. Gonna have to put me on the list to pick up Peaches at school. Emergencies. You might be on call. Need someone you can trust to help with her.”

  “Oh, um…okay.”

  “And Doc, no more trips just you and Peaches. I’ll once again reiterate, I’m the president of an MC. We got enemi
es. And Houdini, that fucker, is still out there. Word gets out I got an old lady, it might make you a person of interest, because I ain’t had an old lady since Dawna.”

  She gasps. “We won’t be safe? Jade won’t be safe?”

  “Honey, you and Peaches will be fine so long as you take a man with you when you leave town. Even to patients in the high country.”

  Her back snaps straight.

  “I can’t have men with me on house calls.”

  “They won’t come in, won’t get in the way. Just an escort, honey.” I try to reassure her, but this is something I can’t budge on.

  “Just an escort?” Caitlin repeats as a question. I nod. Then she thinks about it for a minute. “Sure. I guess I can do that.”

  “Piece of mind.” I tell her.

  With a chin dip, she places her hand back on my thigh. Though I scoop it up to kiss her knuckles, and then place it back, holding tight again. Then she sighs. “Peace of mind. I can give you that, Chief.” When she turns her head to face me, shit. Her smile. “Peace of mind for a new relationship,” she says. “Not too much to ask so long as the men stick to their boundaries. Maybe you can send Jesse along with us.”

  “The fuck?” I bark out, louder than I mean to. My grip on the steering wheel tightens to a stranglehold.

  “What? He’s cute, but he’s too young. Nothing says I can’t enjoy the view of my escort, right?”

  “You just ensured the fuckwad never gets his patch.”

  “No.” She gasps. “You can’t do that to him. He’s never—”

  I shut her up by pulling her neck close to me and kissing her hard and deep, never taking my eyes off the road.

  Two and a half hours after we left Thornbriar, I take the exit ramp from the interstate, taking us to a smaller two-lane highway. Right off the smaller highway, I turn to park in front of a dilapidated white chapel. And when I say dilapidated, I mean a beam in the roof needs to be propped and pieces of siding have been ripped off from age and weather. But we’re here for the big plumes of gray smoke rising from behind the chapel. Not because the place is on fire, because of the best damn barbeque in the state of Tennessee.