by Cat Porter
He turned his head, gesturing at the sign. “Toadstool Geological Park - Oglala National Grassland”
We rode over a stretch of well kept dirt road, and in no time Finger parked his bike at the turn of the loop trail, and we got off. He immediately took my hand in his large one, keeping me close. Following the signs, we hiked on a dirt trail leading through the ancient riverbed that meandered and twisted. Tufts of grass and brush sprouted the occasional yellow wildflower. Rising before us were unusual rock formations and huge bluffs—an incredible strata of color and texture.
“This is thirty-million years worth of lava ash and sandstone,” Finger said.
People milled around the great stones. A family with two teenagers talked excitedly about having seen animal fossil remains, and an elderly couple with walking poles and protective hats read from a guidebook admiring Nature’s sculpture. And what stones they were—great mushroom-like formations, unlikely swirls and chunks of rock seemingly teetering on pillars at odd angles.
“Wow.” I snapped photos with my phone. “Thus the toadstool.”
“Yeah. A real walk back through time, huh?”
“It’s amazing.”
I took in the vista. A stark wilderness. Remote, desolate even.
He rubbed a hand across his chin. “I like coming here. Clears the mind.”
I winked at him. “I can see the appeal for you. Do they know how these formations came to be? They’re so unusual.”
His lips tipped up. “This is all slow erosion. There are layers of soft clay which erodes away under layers of the hard sandstone, and that creates the strange shapes.”
“It’s strange all right. Even ugly. They look like the building blocks of a prehistoric monster.”
He laughed. “I like that.”
“That strangeness makes them beautiful, though. Wonder what they’ll be like in another couple thousand years.”
His long gaze clung to the big toadstool, unmoving.
I put away my phone. “You come here a lot, don’t you?”
“I do. Here, I get away from the noise. There’s something still yet not still about this place. The light’s always changing, making you discover something new, different. Things get put into a better place when I come here. I sit on a bluff, take in the endless view. Sometimes a mountain sheep wanders by.”
“Oh, what are they like?”
“They have these curled horns like rams. I’ve seen them once up on bluffs watching the sunset. You don’t see them too often, but when you do, it’s pretty cool. They’re kind of majestic actually. Not your run of the mill sheep.” An almost boyish, uncertain look swept over his features, and my heart swelled. There was something shy about him sharing his fondness for this land with me, for the simple private pleasures he treasured. A gift.
I took his hand. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
He dug a boot in the dirt. “I thought you might like it.”
“I do like it. I’d like to come back again with you and see a sunset.”
“Can’t beat the pink and purple sky out here.” He squeezed my hand.
“We’re definitely coming back soon.”
The lines of his face tightened suddenly. “Babe, I realize we aren’t the same people we used to be. We’ll be learning new shit about each other and maybe we’ll like it, maybe we won’t, and it’ll take some getting used to. It’ll take patience. Respect.” The sunlight gleamed off his sunglasses. “Right now, I need to know that from here on in, you and me in each other’s arms is at the end of every one of my days.”
My insides fluttered, and I stood up on my toes and kissed him. “I need that too.”
“Want you with me, baby.” He gently brushed my lips with his. “I don’t care much for my apartment in Elk. It’s not a home for us, and I don’t want to bring you there. You’ve got your store and your house in Meager. We can make it our home too.”
Our home.
My heart skipped a beat. He’d brought me here to his special place to declare himself, make a pledge.
He took me in his arms and held me. The sound of the breeze whipping around us, the crush of his body filled my senses. I kissed his scarred cheek. “I want that too.”
He took in a sharp breath. “Let’s go to the club.”
“Let’s go,” I replied.
He slung an arm around my shoulders, and we headed back to his bike.
We got to Elk within the hour and drove through the gates of the Flames of Hell MC. He parked at the head of a long line of Harleys. My stomach tightened as he shut down the bike, and we snapped off our helmets. This was his territory, his realm.
And now it was mine.
We got off his bike, and my knees wobbled as I handed him my helmet. He pulled me close, throwing an arm over my shoulders. That familiar scent of metal, cedar, and sweat filled my nostrils, and the tension evaporated from my muscles. I slid an arm around his waist, his skin warm, taut muscles moving under my fingertips. Mumbled hellos and looks. Shouted greetings. He ushered me inside his clubhouse.
In the large common room I recognized a very pregnant Nina, Butler’s ex and now Catch’s old lady.
“Lenore!” She hugged me.
I pulled back and admired her swollen belly. “Look at you.”
“Ready to pop,” said Nina. “Get him out of me already.”
“A boy?” I asked.
“Yeah, a boy.” Catch whooped behind her, planting a kiss on the side of his old lady’s face. “Hey, Lenore.”
“Hey, Catch.”
“So.” Catch licked his lips, his eyes racing from me to Finger and back again. “You guys good?”
Nina snorted, elbowing her old man in the belly.
“We’re good,” I said. “Real good.”
“Excellent.” He beamed a look at his President. He cared about his mentor a great deal, and I liked that. Finger only raised his sunglasses over his head, giving Catch a lift of his chin.
“Holy shit. It’s you?” came a strong female voice accompanied by the stomping of heavy boot heels.
A woman my age if not older with blond and brunette ombré hair and flashing eyes stood before me. I knew her. She was one of my very favorite customers. “Krystal?”
She grinned. “Lenore, Lenore, Lenore, Queen Bee of Undies and Naughty Goodness.”
Krystal shopped at my store on her birthday every year, splurging on herself. Bright, opinionated, snarky, strong-willed, take-no-shit Krystal.
“I didn’t know you were—”
“When in other club territory, I keep that shit to myself. Welcome to the Flames, babe.” She pulled me in a big hug. “I’m that troll’s old lady.” She gestured at the Flame who stood with Finger, winking at him. He blew her a kiss. “Drac VP” was patched on his colors.
“Whoa, babe.” Drac saluted me, his thick, dark eyebrows climbing his forehead, a grin splitting his pale face. “I’m one of your biggest fans.”
Finger punched him in the chest with the side of his fist. “Easy.”
Krystal put an arm through mine. “Thrilled to have you here, hon. Thrilled.”
70
Later that day in my office, Drac and Slade and I reviewed the new additions to our club. All the remaining chapters of the Broken Blades had come under my control and been patched in as Flames of Hell. Pick had traveled to each one and made the case for joining me. They had no alternative really. They’d agreed, and the takeover was now done.
Butler had been right about Pick. I showed him trust and respect to get the job done with his brothers, and he got it done. No moaning, no games. I offered him the presidency of the new chapter of the Flames I’d set up in southern Nebraska, and he agreed.
My phone rang. Lenox, the national Sergeant at Arms in Ohio.
“Yeah?”
“Finger, I got news,” he sai
d.
“What news?”
“We would’ve called you in, but things have been happening real fast—Cooper and Reich, you getting the Blades in. We need a national president.”
“So elect one.”
“We want you.”
“Me?”
“Can’t come as a surprise, bro.”
But it did.
I hadn’t been shooting for the throne all this time. I’d wanted justice served. I’d wanted my island kingdom to be prosperous and protected. That was my focus.
Full command.
I closed my eyes and took in a long, slow breath.
“Finger. You there?”
“Yeah.”
“Unanimous, man. Get your ass up here.”
I got my ass to Ohio, my old lady at my side, and after the “election,” I was sworn in as National President of the Flames of Hell MC.
Having checked in at the airport for our flight back to Nebraska, we went through security and headed to our gate. I wasn’t a fan of flying, but it was winter, and you couldn’t ride in the Midwest through to the Great Plains this time of year. The snow and ice were incredible.
“I need a chai latte,” said Lenore, tugging me toward an overpriced coffee bar chain.
“A what?”
“It’s like a—”
“Hold on, I have a better idea.” I tugged her hand in the opposite direction of the coffee joint. Past the doughnut chain, past the newspaper and magazine shop.
There it was. I’d spotted the place earlier.
Lenore squeezed my hand. “A photo booth?”
Two teenage girls giggled over their strip of photos by the side of the booth. I ushered Lenore inside and put her in my lap as she slid the curtain closed. We put in the money and I held her tight against me.
“You are too much,” she said, kissing my cheek, smoothing the edge of my beard down with her hand.
“Kiss me,” I breathed.
She stuck her tongue out at me instead, and I laughed, doing the same, our tongues touching as we cracked up. The camera clicked. We made faces at each other. Click. We made faces at the camera. Click. We kissed deep. Click. And we laughed harder.
The strip of pics dropped in the slot, and Lenore immediately picked it up. “Look at that. Oh, look at that.” Her grin dropped, her bottom lip quivered, and she pressed her face in my chest, clinging to me, taking shuddery breaths.
I wrapped my arms around her, kissing the top of her head. “Yeah, that one we keep.”
71
“I want us to get married.”
Her head turned toward me, her eyes blinked open. “Seriously?”
I sat up on our bed. Yeah, it was our bed now. I’d ordered a new mattress and had it delivered. She hadn’t said a word. Then she went out and bought four new sets of sheets, new pillows, a quilt, and a down comforter.
“I want us to have the whole fucking package,” I said. “I’ve always wanted it with you.”
She stilled.
I waited.
Gently, I nudged her hip with my knee. “You going to say something?”
“By ‘whole fucking package’ do you mean a limo, a photographer, color coordinated flowers, a buffet reception?”
“Fuck no.”
She let out a soft laugh.
“Babe, I’m still waiting for your answer.”
“I’ve always wanted it with you too.” She held my gaze. “Let’s do it in the old church in Meager.”
“A church?”
“It’s a blessing thing. Grace and Lock got married there and baptized their baby there too. Trust me on this.”
“Whatever you want, Sunshine.”
“That’s what I want. You know what else I want?”
“Name it.”
“Your mouth all over me. Again.”
“You’re such a horn dog.”
“Just like you.”
I brushed my lips over an eclipsing sun tattoo on her back, raising myself up over her prone body on the bed, swiping away her hair. “Where to begin?”
“Surprise me.” She wiggled her beautiful bare ass at me, her back muscles flexing. Her bare back. A woman’s naked back was a sensual secret revealed. Long smooth curves, strong plains, my vulnerable, powerful woman.
Every moment. Cherish every moment.
I bent my head and licked a trail down her spine, zigzagging my tongue over the thorny vine on her hips and lower back. Goosebumps rose on her skin, and she let out a soft moan. My teeth sank over a plump cheek, and she gasped. I kneaded her cheeks and jerked up her hips, opening her legs wider, licking up the tatted chain of small J’s up her thigh. Leaning over her, I pushed my thumb between her parted lips.
“Suck it.”
She took my thumb in her, squirming in my tight hold as my cock stroked up and down her wet heat. Taking my thumb from her mouth, I slid it inside her cunt, thrusting and rolling as I gripped her ass.
Her head twisted in the pillow, her fingers digging in the sheets. “Ah, fuck.”
I released her just as she was about to come. “Get up, grab the headboard,” I muttered.
Groaning, she raised herself up and did as I said, one knee down, her other foot planted on the mattress. I slid underneath her and grabbed hold of her ass and pulled her over me, rubbing her pussy back and forth over my hungry mouth.
She cried out. “That fucking beard of yours is like nothing else.”
I edged her. Three times. I knew all the signs her flesh gave. I knew.
“Finger…dammit!”
“Not letting you blow yet,” I said in between long licks. “Breathe, babe.” Her damp thighs finally relaxed.
Two more rounds later, a growl rising in my throat, I slapped an ass cheek, holding it firm and her eyes shot to mine, her moan filling the room. “Sixty-nine this bitch, and then you come all over me.”
She turned quickly, her hair flying, and I guided her legs. She swallowed my throbbing cock in her eager mouth.
“Fuck!” I gritted out. Raising my head, I pressed the pad of my tongue over her clit and suckled it, and she ground over me wildly, shuddering, coming on my face. I held onto her, thrusting my cock deep, my own explosion fierce.
Every. Moment.
I got myself new tats. A huge flaming blue “Z” inked on the base of my neck, meeting the “S” that had been inscribed at the top of my spine years ago. I added the letters for the rest of her name. Now the full “Serena” was on me, meeting the Z over the red flames of my club that flared over my back.
“Oh, Justin,” she breathed, a hand tracing up my spine.
“We deserve that upright Z, baby.”
She wrapped her arms around my waist, her face pressed into my back.
The wedding was on.
Lenore got a date set with the pastor of that church in Meager. We would wait a month for Beck’s tour and a couple other gigs he had in LA to be finished. Lenore immediately got to work on making her own dress. Her girlfriends threw her a bridal shower, a ladies night at the Tingle where her good friend Cassandra worked.
“You sure you don’t mind, honey?” She batted thick false eyelashes at me as she headed out the door on super high heels with an equally glammed up Tania who’d arrived to pick her up.
“Knock yourselves out,” I replied, giving her hand a kiss.
Butler, Boner, Drac, and Lock grumbled from the couches where we watched a not so exciting football game over too many pizzas. Four hours later, we picked up our women from the Tingle, and they were all sloshed. The minute I got her home, she pushed me into an armchair in the living room.
“Sit right there.” She started to dance to the music playing in her mind. She was inspired, peeling off her clothes one slinky piece at a time.
“Oh, you hot woman, look at you…”
I slid a hand around a thigh.
“No, no, no.” She wagged a finger at me, licking her lips.
“No? What do have in mind, wild thing?”
She let out a throaty giggle. “You touch yourself. I wanna see.”
I did as requested. Her dance moves began to slow down as my hand sped up.
Wearing only a corset, her beautiful full tits tumbling out, she teetered back to the sofa opposite me, and in a firm, sure voice which only made my cock harder, she said, “Get over here. Now.”
I got over there, put my knees on the sofa and yanked her up against me, and she gasped loudly. Her back to my chest, my one hand cuffed her neck and my other held her arms, pinning them behind her. “This what you want, Sunshine? Huh?” I drove inside her. “This?”
She let out a series of harsh moans. “Yes, yes.”
I thrust hard and fast, holding her tight against me. “I’ll give it to you, baby. I’ll give it to you.”
And then she let out a long, rich laugh.
My favorite sound in the whole world.
72
The next morning I got up early, Lenore still in a full, deep sleep beside me. I had an idea. My old lady wanted a church wedding, so I’d make it the best experience for her. Memorable. She needed beautiful souvenirs of our good times to keep forever, and I was going to do everything I could to make that happen for her. I headed to the Garden Center in Pine Needle.
Gail was at the front desk going over folders stuffed with orders, bills, and delivery slips. Steve and Tim were moving big planters into neat rows at the other end of the store.
I’d seen right through Gail’s bright smile the second she’d looked up and laid eyes on me. It was a bit too forced; it was tired. Something was wrong.
“Hi, Finger. How are you? Getting ready for the big day?” She pushed the folders to the side. “Lenore and I went over the details for her bouquet and a few flower arrangements for the dinner party afterward.”
