by Mia Malone
“Oh, God,” she breathed.
“There’s no rush,” he murmured, moving gently in and out. “Love the feel of your pussy. Love how you squeeze me when you come. Wanna make it happen one more time.”
“Padraig,” she breathed pulled his head down to kiss him.
It took him some time, but he got her there, and when she was breathing as heavily as he did, he started bucking into her faster, harder, teasing her clit until she was whimpering again.
“Yeah,” he rasped out. “Fuck, yeah, Jen. One more.”
“Oh, God,” she wailed.
He got up on his knees taking her with him and turned toward the wall next to the bed, pressing her against it and pounding into her. He was going to come, and he wanted her with him, but it hit him so hard he couldn’t hold back.
“Ah, fuck, coming,” he groaned and planted himself deep as he poured himself into her.
“God,” she gasped, and he felt her pussy squeeze his cock as another orgasm hit her.
“Jenny,” he said hoarsely, pulled back and thrust one more time, all the while looking straight into her beautiful eyes.
Then the poster hanging next to the bed fell off the wall, crashed into the floor, and broken glass spread out all over the room.
***
Jenny
I walked into the kitchen and saw a small glass with a single rose standing on the counter. Next to it was a piece of paper. It wasn't a fancy card, just a paper ripped out of a notebook, and I recognized the handwriting immediately.
“Good morning, baby-girl. Thank you for the best weekend in a very, very long time. Missed you like fuck last night so tonight you’re at my place. With a bag. P”
My heart stuttered, and I stared at it.
Oh, my God. Even though he hated early mornings, he’d somehow gotten into the diner before I did, to leave me a flower and the sweetest note I’d ever seen. Even if it included the f-bomb.
We’d come back home late in the afternoon the day before, after spending the day with the Wolves. Paddy had started the day sitting down with Doug to talk about something which made both men look seriously unhappy. My day had started with me talking to some of the women about replacing a poster, which made them laugh so hard I thought they'd fall over. Apparently, the walls were pretty well insulated, or else they were just nice, so no one had heard our morning activities, but quite a few of the ones who had stayed over stopped by the door while I was sweeping up the glass. I was sure there was quite a lot of grinning going on behind my back.
Doug laughed too, and he did it straight in my face. Then he laughed straight in Paddy’s face. Then he refused to let us replace the poster and shared that it would go back up without the glass, as a commemoration of this day. Then he pushed Paddy back when he got angry, but after some shoving and generally juvenile behavior, we had a late lunch, which stretched out well into the afternoon.
When we got back home, we stood on my doorstep, and I didn't want the day to end, but it had to. I had to check in on the diner and do some prep for the next day, and he'd have to do the same for his business. He'd want to talk to the others about what Doug had shared, and we were both tired. I shared this, and he sighed but agreed, and I watched him roar down the street and turn the corner to his house. It was so close, I heard when he turned off the bike before I went inside.
I had missed him too, but I had also wondered what would happen next. Doug had seen us as a couple, so perhaps this was it. Maybe he'd want to move on now that we'd had a weekend together. I'd tried to convince myself we'd have a little while longer, failed at it, and had not slept well.
And then I walked into my kitchen and found a rose and the sweetest note.
“Hey,” I heard Lee say softly behind me.
I turned to look at her and felt my lips tremble. Then I promptly burst into tears.
“Jenny, what happened?” she called out as she rushed over to wrap her arms around me. “I thought it –” She tightened her hold on me, and restarted, “Paddy and the boys had a pow-wow at our place yesterday, and I didn't talk to him but –”
“I love him,” I whispered into her hair.
I couldn’t hold it all in any longer. I’d done it all my life and I just couldn’t. And Lee was a friend in a way I’d never had before, so I leaned into her, and the words poured out of me before I could stop myself.
“I thought I’d just be casual about this, but I’ve loved him my whole life, Lee. I can’t remember not loving him. First, it was just like a small child. Then like a young girl. Then… like a teenager, who grew into an adult. Always. And I messed it all up.”
I was sobbing while I spoke, so I wasn't sure I made any sense, but she held me, and the way her hands moved over my back was soothing, so I went on.
“I thought maybe he just needed to grow up a little. There were all these girls, and I thought if I just waited a little he'd –” I sniffled and moved away. “God, I need paper.”
Then I blew my nose and tried to get a grip, but she pulled me right back into her strong arms.
“Tell me,” she whispered calmly. “Then we deal.”
Oh, God. The tears came again, but I pushed them back and sighed.
“His dad got sick, and he worked all the time, and then Grandma died, and it was so hard. I loved her and missed her, and this place took everything out of me. Joke was fighting to get Oak on its feet. We had so much fun, but it was hard. Then it seemed to ease off, and I thought I'd just go after him. He fucked everyone, Lee, so why not me?”
My breath hitched, and I swallowed.
“Why not indeed,” she said, and her voice was harder than I’d ever heard it before.
“And then Marybeth got pregnant. I thought I’d die. He told the boys first, and Mac told Corinne. She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but she called me. I giggled with her and talked about what everyone would say and if they’d get married. Then I hung up, and I thought I’d die. And then I made the worst mistake of my life.”
I pulled back and looked at her, needing to see her eyes when I told her what a stupid fool I’d been.
“I made Martin propose the next day.”
“Of course you did,” she said calmly.
“What?”
“Why wouldn’t you? That friggin’ idiot humps everything that moves, knocks one of his millions of girlfriends up and you are supposed to do what? Sit around all in your lonesomeness and wait until you’re a spinster? Fuck that.”
I blinked.
“Oh, Lee,” I said, trying to hide how her words made my belly turn into mush.
She’d jumped right in and defended my stupid, idiotic decision.
“I don’t like Paddy right now, Jen.”
“She tricked him,” I whispered. “You can’t tell anyone, but he said Gib knows.”
“What?”
Then I shamelessly told her everything Paddy had told me, about Marybeth, and his celibacy, and everything that had happened over the weekend. She asked a few questions, but mostly she just listened as I got everything off my chest.
And then we stood there in silence.
“I loved him all my life, but I messed up. If I hadn’t married Martin, then maybe –”
“Maybe-schmaybe.”
“What?”
“Oh, Jenny. Of course, you love him. And maybe you should have made different choices. Maybe he should have. And maybe he’d been run over by a car at the age of thirty. Does it really matter anymore?”
I blinked. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected her to say, but it sure as hell wasn’t that Paddy might have been hit by a car.
“What I mean is, it’s done. And here you are, with a choice to make.”
“A choice?”
She smiled a little and put a hand on my shoulder.
“You can cling to the past and tell yourself that life would have been so good if everything would just have lined up exactly right. Or you can live here and now, knowing that the life you have it’s good, and enjoy what yo
u have while you have it.”
I thought about that for a while, and the more I thought about her words, the more I realized how right she was.
“Thank you, Lee,” I whispered. “For giving me those words, and because you’re right. I won’t cling to the past. But most of all because I have never had a friend like you in my whole life.”
“You were friends with Paddy’s sister.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I liked her. We had fun. But Corinne was easy…” I trailed off and tried to find the right words. “I don’t mean stupid, because she wasn’t. Or foolish because she wasn’t that either. But she was… adaptable? Amenable? She agreed with everyone. She was so sweet, and I loved her, but I couldn’t for the life of me get what Mac of all people saw in her. You’d tell her the moon was purple and she’d nod and smile, knowing it was wrong but so eager to make you happy.”
“Jenny, why were you friends with her?” she asked, and by the way her eyes had narrowed, I knew I had to tell her that too.
“Not to be close to him. I was that anyway,” I shared. “But, Lee. Everyone else was either doing him or wanted to do him or wanted to do him again.”
“Jenny, he was what? Twenty? Of course they –”
“I know. I knew then too, but I couldn’t listen to them. I couldn’t be friends with someone who one day would call me and share the length of his dick.”
She smiled a little.
“I get that.”
“Then you came along, and you didn’t even see it.”
“See what?”
“His beauty.”
“I saw it, honey, I just didn't find it all that exciting.”
“Everyone else did.”
“They probably didn’t, but I get why you thought so. Still think so. And for the record, Jenny, he is stunning, even at fifty-five. I see it.”
We stood in silence for a while and then she murmured, “What are you going to do now?”
“I thought we'd just have a fling. Figured it'd be… I don't know. Fun? I'd have a little time with him, and we'd sleep together for a while.”
“So, why don’t you?”
I blinked.
“But –” I didn't know what to say, so I closed my mouth again.
Could it be that easy?
“Can I read the note?”
I pushed the paper toward her.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed. “No wonder you cried.”
“Exactly,” I murmured, ripped off some more paper from the dispenser on the wall, blew my nose again, and looked around the kitchen.
We'd have to get started, or breakfast would be seriously late.
“You should talk to him, Jen. About Martin. Why you married him… but mostly about what kind of man he was.”
“Not yet. I’m not sure what he’ll say.”
“For what it’s worth, Jenny. That note is written by a man who has feelings for someone. You get that, right?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know what kind of feelings.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“What does that mean?”
“Go to his place tonight. Get in his bed. Do what two healthy adults do. Repeatedly. And fall asleep next to him. Then you’ll have breakfast, go to work, come back and repeat. Either you fall into a routine you like, and you keep doing that, or you don’t, and you break it off.”
“As easy as that?”
“Yes and no. He might not fall in love with you, which will suck. But really? You could be the one who backs away from him. He’s the Paddy you’ve known all your life, but you don’t know him. Not like you’re getting to know him now. He could throw boogers on the floor or something. So, don’t create problems that don’t exist, Jenny. You’ve already started something. Just take him for a test ride and see where it leads.”
Throw what on the floor?
“Lee…”
“You did the nasty in a way that shook down a poster from the wall at the Wolves’ compound, so I think it’s safe to say he wants you. Just hold on to the saddle horn and enjoy the ride.”
I stared at her.
“Lee, your analogies still suck.”
“I know,” she said with a grin. “But you have a smile in your eyes, and we need to get cracking on breakfast, so they work, don’t they?”
I started laughing, and while we prepared eggs and bacon and biscuits, I thought about what she'd said. I hadn’t lied when I told her how grateful I was to have her in my life. I’d panicked, but she’d calmed me down with her usual mix of compassion and laughter, and she was right. I’d enjoy the time I had with Paddy, and maybe it would last. Not forever because it wasn’t who he was, but for a while, at least.
Then I shared all the things about the party I’d skipped in my hysterical summary earlier.
“Hey, Jenny!” she called out when I was on my way to unlock the front door. “Those wolverine-parties seem fun. You think they’d let Gibson and me come?”
Oh, God. If Paddy had managed to crush a guy’s nose within half an hour, what would Gibson do?
“I hope not,” I called back and chuckled when I heard her happy laughter from the kitchen.
Chapter Seven
Padraig
He woke up early for what probably was the first time in his whole damned life and couldn’t go back to sleep. One night with Jenny in his arms and the bed felt empty when he’d slept alone in it for most of his life without a single fucking problem.
Then he got up, made coffee and sat in the kitchen, watching the sunrise. Planning.
Or trying to plan but the only thing he could come up with was the same stupid plan he’d started out with, which was to get her into his bed that night, and then somehow keep her there, which wasn’t much of a plan. He made her laugh, though, and the sex was spectacular, so he’d work with that. His hard-working Jenny who never cut herself any slack had gone with Lee to get pampered, and he liked the results of it a hell of a lot, so he’d drive her there himself if she wanted to go again. Then he suddenly knew what he’d do.
On his way to the office at an hour which was nothing but ungodly, and with a silent apology to his neighbor, he cut off a single rose. Then he picked the lock to the back door and put the rose and a note in her kitchen. She didn’t have much romance in her life, and he wasn’t sure if what he'd written was all that romantic, but it was the best he could come up with. He'd work on that too. And make sure she got better locks. There was likely not anyone living in Wilhelmine who would risk the wrath of the whole county and break into Jenny’s, but there were morons everywhere so there were no guarantees, and he’d send someone over to change the rickety old shit she had on her doors.
The office was its usual mayhem, and he thought for the millionth time that he needed some kind of general manager. He liked the construction part, creating the quotations and doing the bidding. He hated keeping an eye on payroll and general expenses and couldn’t care less about the damned tax-reports his accountant put on his table.
When he was done for the day, he went to Mac’s to meet up with the others. He needed to let them know Doug had called to confirm that Muerta had indeed rented a house where it looked like they'd set up their base and the house was right over the border from Wilhelmine county into the Wolves’ territory. Everything had been done by the book, and the law had no grounds to interfere with their legitimate business, so they had no other choice but to wait for the fuckers to fuck up, which they would.
“Doug must be losing his shit,” Joke grunted.
“He’s holding it together. Got eyes on the house,” Paddy said and turned to Mac, “Told him I’d ask you to have a cruiser pass by every now and then. Nothing that rattles them, just letting them know we know they’re there and we’re watching.”
“Makes sense. You got it,” Mac said calmly.
Paddy sighed and pulled his hand through his hair. Jenny was right, he needed a hair-cut. Or maybe he’d just let it grow a little? It had been longer when he was young, and he’d liked i
t. And so had Jenny.
“Heard you were brawling this weekend,” Gibson said calmly.
Fuck it. Jenny had talked to Lee. And Lee had apparently not hesitated to call Gib.
“Really?” Day said and straightened.
“Fucker who Gibson took out at Oak a while back,” Paddy muttered. “Put his arm around Jen and wouldn’t let go. Pissed me off.”
“Lee said that Jenny said that you pushed him into a wall and broke his nose,” Gibson shared.
“What are you, fifteen?” Paddy said, feeling a little bit stupid about how he’d lost his temper.
“She said it sounded really cool,” Gibson went on in a mock-girly voice.
That’s when they started laughing at him because they were apparently goddamned teenagers still. He couldn’t hold back his own grin, though, and told them what had happened, which made laughter erupt a-fucking-gain.
Then Mac got a call and had to rush off, calling out to them to lock up when they left. Joke murmured something about deliveries and the need to shower before working, and Day went with him. Paddy was locking the door behind himself and Gibson when his phone beeped.
“I’ll bring dinner. Seven ok?”
Jenny.
He smiled as he replied that he’d get ice-cream for dessert on his way home and he’d see her later.
“I read somewhere that double condoms help. Makes you less sensitive or whatever the hell.”
He turned slowly toward Gibson knowing exactly what his friend meant, and that Jenny had unloaded her weekend on Lee, not keeping any details to herself.
Gib’s face was blank although his tee was moving a little at the waist, and then he couldn't hold his laughter back.
“Jesus,” Paddy snorted. “It was…”
“Humiliating?”
“Gib –”
“Pathetic?”
Paddy stopped laughing and looked at his friend.
“I was gonna say amazing,” he said quietly and with a crooked grin.
That turned Gibson’s teasing laughter into the same crooked grin.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re okay?” Gibson asked, narrowing his eyes a little and watching him intently.
