by Zoey Parker
I started to really need to come again.
“Ja—! Uhn—uhn—hn, Ja—” I couldn’t even say his name.
“Come on, baby, get there.”
I think I cried out helplessly, needfully. The position was amazing, but my arms were not wanting to support me any longer and I was struggling.
“I got you, baby. Hold on.”
And he flipped us again. This time, doggie style. I just about cried with relief, collapsing my upper body onto the bed and raising my ass to welcome him in from behind.
“Oh, yeah, Ellie. Gorgeous.”
He found his way inside again easily, holding my hips in his big hands, and with a more firm sense of control over our motions and the pumping action, he quickly brought me back to the edge of oblivion. He was driving fast and hard, grunting. I was gasping and mewling and desperate for release. Then he gave my clit his fingers again, and that was it.
I was gone into the sea of stars and nirvana.
As if from far away, I felt him drive only a few times more, and heard his final roar of release. Then he, too, collapsed, his arms on either side of me, his body stretched on top of my back.
It took us both several long moments to come back, and when we did, he rolled us both together onto our sides, so that he didn’t have to disengage immediately, but he was no longer putting all his weight on me.
After some time had passed, and we were both breathing evenly again, he whispered, “Don’t move” in my ear, disengaged from me, and got up briefly to get rid of the condom.
When he came back, he had brought a damp washcloth to clean me up. I don’t know where he picked up that idea, because in my experience, men only did that in romance novels. But he really did that. Could he get any better?
Apparently, yes. He climbed back into bed and re-spooned me. We just breathed, for several beautiful, long minutes.
And as I drifted off to sleep, I thought, in the back of my mind, that maybe this could be a real marriage. Maybe we were meant to be. Maybe he was my One.
When I woke up the next morning, he wasn’t there. But he had left a note on the pillow, and I smiled as I unfolded it, thinking it sweet of him not to wake me when he had to get up early.
Then I read the note.
Sorry. It won’t happen again. Promise. – J.
Chapter 19
Jack
I was living in hell. The past few days, I was spending most of my time at the shop or at the MC compound. I’d been drinking at night, trying not to think, and my days were spent suffering from the constant hangover.
It had only been two weeks, and I wasn’t sure if I could survive another five and a half months doing the same thing. But I couldn’t think of a better way to deal.
Obviously, I was avoiding going home, doing my best to steer clear of Ellie.
That night of our wedding was probably the single best night of my life.
Knowing that it was a one-off, that it would never be repeated—not any single part of it—that sucked balls.
What made it even worse was that thinking about her, looking at her, and knowing she was near had me in a constant state of semi- to full-on arousal. I had quickly realized that it was far healthier for me to avoid her and stay away from the house. I figured it was only for six months; I could do it.
There were several issues at stake, from my perspective. First and foremost, as my hard dick was an undeniably insistent motherfucker, was the sex issue. If I wasn’t going to have sex with Ellie, should I try to ease my constant hard-on with some other chick?
I considered looking to any of the variety of club bunnies to scratch my itch and unload my cock and blue balls. The bunnies were easy, readily available, and usually drama-free options.
But the thought of being with anyone not Ellie was strangely unappealing. It wasn’t about any traditional don’t-cheat-on-your-wife thing—though cheating had never been a part of who I was.
I never attached, so I could never be accused of cheating. I didn’t lie about it. Lying is work. I just preferred my freedom, lived moment-to-moment how I wanted, and made no promises to any woman. Life was easier that way.
But I had made promises to Ellie. And I’d broken the most important one once already. I swore—to her in the note, and to myself in my mind, on a daily basis—that I wouldn’t break it again.
The promise I had made to her in the wedding vows—I couldn’t make up my mind about how serious I was going to be about that. There was a case to be made that, since we both agreed not to sleep with each other, we should both be free to sleep with other people, if we so chose.
And that thought pissed me right, the fuck, off. The idea of her being with another man—that was unacceptable. My blood boiled just at the thought.
In fairness, I figured I ought not to consider being with another woman, and that I should make my thoughts on this issue explicitly understood by Ellie, ASAP. My MC brothers would have laughed at me if they knew I was seriously considering six months of celibacy—which is not something I had ever practiced or experienced before.
But fuck that. This was not about my rep or about what happened in MC culture. What it boiled down to was that I didn’t want Ellie to be with another man, and I myself didn’t want another woman—not any other woman.
Truth.
So, it looked like it would be celibacy for the next five and a half months.
I could do it. I could. But it sure as hell was not going to be fun.
Considering my acute reaction to Ellie every time I got near her, the obvious conclusion was that it was best I steer clear of her until the six months were over, and she got her money and we could both move on.
That was the mission.
Whenever I did happen to cross paths with her, going back to the house for clothes or something, it was awkward as hell. It was exactly what we were aiming not to deal with, thus the agreement not to complicate things with sex. Before I had gone and fucked it all up on our wedding night.
It was the best worst mistake I’d ever made.
But I was paying for it ever since—and would be, for who knew how long. That cost might go on for years: a forever-awkward tension between myself and little Peter’s mama.
Jeezus, is this what it was like to be a baby-daddy who split with his baby-mama? How many families went through this shit? Fuck. Avoiding this mess had been the whole purpose of the agreement.
Now that I had already gone and fucked it up, there was a part of me that tried to argue that continuing to fuck it up—and thereby, continuing to get to fuck the delectable, beautiful, insanely hot woman I wanted—would be no worse than what I had already done, so why not continue the course, at least for the six months we were going to remain married?
There was actually a line of sense in there. It was buried, but it was in there.
But I knew that wasn’t what Ellie wanted. She wanted nothing more to do with me. She’d made that much very clear, with her silent censure. Crystal.
I had no idea what had been going through Ellie’s mind in the couple of weeks since the explosion. —And yeah, that was what I was calling it. It seemed apt.
Now, she barely spoke to me. She walked around me as if she were on eggshells. She rarely looked me in the eye. She wasn’t rude, but she was short with the small talk, which suited me just as well, too. And she had stopped smiling at me altogether.
When she blushed—which still happened—I knew it wasn’t something she could control. Then she’d avoid eye contact that much more, and she got a fierce look on her face, like she was angry with herself. I could hardly blame her. I had a similar problem, but mine was only slightly easier to hide under cover of untucked shirts.
All in all, it was a fucking miserable situation.
# # #
“Jack-o, man, you got a call! Line two, it’s Ellie!” Trini’s voice was like a drill in my skull. —But wait, Ellie was calling me? Shit, something had to be wrong. She wouldn’t be calling me otherwise. I knew that in my
gut.
I picked up, fast as. “Ellie? What’s wrong?”
“He’s gone. Peter’s gone! I don’t know wher—“
“What the fuck do you mean, Peter’s gone? How can—“
“I don’t know! He’s not here! I put him down an hour ago, then was doing laundry and cleaning up, and I came back in here, and—“
“Is he crawling yet? Did he start? Did you look in the closet, in the hall—“
“Jack! No! He’s gone! As in, he’s not in his basket, he’s not in the bed, he’s not in the hou—“
“Well where the fuck could he—“
“Stop yelling at me! Jack, please. Help me find my baby. Just, help me—“
“Stay there. I’m coming. Be there in five.”
As I grabbed my keys and wallet from my desk, I yelled out to Grath, who had obviously overheard and was already at my office door, looking like he was about to bust some balls, “I’m going back to the house. Ellie’s totally freaked. Peter’s missing. Call the boys, get ’em over there. If Peter’s been taken, we ride. Can’t think but it must be McAfee. We gotta canvas, or something.”
“On it.” And he was gone.
I ran out the door to my bike, and I made it home in four.
Chapter 20
Ellie
I’d never in my life been so scared. Twenty-six hours, and nothing. Not a peep. No baby sounds, no cries, no gurgles, no groans. No Peter. I was about to rip my hair out and absolutely lose my fucking mind.
The whole MC was out in force—and had been, ever since yesterday, when they all came pouring into the front yard, about ten to fifteen minutes after I had first called Jack at the shop. They all came running, like Peter was their own. That still amazed me. But I didn’t get lost in that thought—the crushing reality of my baby missing from the house, from my life, took priority over anything else that was going on.
I was a mess—all anxiety mixed with zombie, going through the motions because there was nothing else I could do. I wasn’t mindfully present. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, could barely answer questions.
Every time the phone rang, I jumped. Every time I heard a bike or a car pull up, I ran to the door, throwing it open, hoping against hope that it would be someone—anyone—with news of my baby, of where he was, how he was, when I would have him back.
Nothing. Not a goddamned peep.
We all figured it had to have been psycho Brian who had taken my baby, when I was in the laundry area inside the garage. It was the only rationale that made sense of Peter’s absence.
We told the cops, when they came yesterday, the whole sordid story. It took freaking forever to tell, and they were here about five hours making sure they were getting all the details, and dusting my room and the doors to the house and all over the place for any fingerprints that Brian might have left, just to confirm it was him.
All that time, and I was about crawling out of my skin. Brian—presuming it was him—had my baby. Peter was not well, he needed me. He needed me to eat. He needed me to watch over him, he needed me to love him, to always be there for him, and he didn’t have me now. He had crazy-as-fuck Brian McAfee, who didn’t know about Peter’s special needs as a preemie with a heart condition. He didn’t know what signs or symptoms to look for should Peter grow ill. He didn’t know my baby, he didn’t love my baby. What kind of care could he possibly be giving to Peter? Oh, God—was Peter still even…
No. I cut myself off from any such thoughts. Peter was alive. He had to be. I’d know, somehow, in my heart, if he wasn’t. Right?
These thoughts had been tumbling around and around in my head, non-stop, since I first discovered that my little bean was gone, and they showed no signs of abating or stopping.
The phone had been ringing a lot, with MC guys calling in, checking up on me, and to see if we had heard anything yet. Of course, we hadn’t. They were all on the roads, searching as best they could for any signs of Brian’s last known vehicle as listed with state records in Oregon. I didn’t think that was going to do any good, but there was little else to go on.
Brian, being an outdoor enthusiast, was a seasoned camper and hiker. He was a mountain biker. He was very fit. He had been off-radar for many months between when Keith died and the day he showed up and threw the rock through Jack’s window. He could have made a base camp literally anywhere in Arizona, or in New Mexico, or…anywhere.
I had no idea where my baby was. Or if he was being cared for. Or if…
I forced myself to stop the whirl of thoughts as they descended again. The cops were looking. The MC was looking. An Amber Alert had gone out yesterday, and people everywhere were looking. I had to believe that someone, somewhere, had seen Brian, seen something. And that soon I would have my baby back.
My world had become a nightmare, and there was no waking up.
# # #
“Ellie, your phone is ringing, hon. Here you go.” Holly brought it over to me on the couch—I must have left it on the counter in the kitchen. I wasn’t processing everything like I normally would. I felt dissociated from the outside world, from the people around me, from everything. All I could think about was Peter.
“Ellie, pick up the call. It says ‘Caller: Unknown’. It might be the guy. Answer it.”
I shook my head, clearing out the cobwebs, and looked at the phone. She was absolutely right, and suddenly my mind snapped to and I swiped right to accept the call.
“Hello?”
“Say my name.”
I barely recognized the voice at all, but I knew it was Brian. It had to be. The only person calling my cell phone was Jack, and his name showed up as a contact.
“Brian.” I barely had a voice, I was so nervous. It came out almost like a whisper.
“I knew you would know it was me. I knew you would. Come back to me, Ellie. You have to, now.”
“Where’s Peter? Where’s my baby, Brian?” My voice got stronger. I could do this.
“That baby cries a lot, Ellie. How do you stand it? Do you really want a baby that cries so much?”
Was he nuts?—Oh, crap, yes, of course he was. What the hell kind of a person asks a mother if she wants her baby, just because he cries? …Then I realized: at least Brian was referring to Peter in the present tense. That gave me hope that—at least, so far—Peter was okay.
“Brian, tell me where you are, where Peter is. I need my baby. I just want my baby back.” I knew I was crying; I’d been crying so much, it felt like I’d never stop. It garbled my voice some, and I knew Brian could hear it. A part of me hated giving that to him, the knowledge that he hurt me, that he had made me cry. But the bigger part of me just felt so much loss, so much emptiness, that I was powerless to control the sobs.
“I need you to come to me, Ellie. You have to come to me. Alone. Just you. And finally it will just be us. Don’t bring any of those people. That man that you’ve been living with. Don’t bring him, Ellie. I’m warning you. You come alone, and I’ll take you to your screamin’ kid. And we’ll see what we want to do with him then. But you bring anybody—anybody—with you, and you won’t like what’s gonna happen. You hear me?”
“Yes. Yes, okay. I hear you. I should come alone. Where do you want me to go, to meet you? Where are you?”
“Chiricahua. You gotta get to the Echo Canyon trailhead. Then start on the trail. I’ll find you there. And remember, Ellie, you come alone. Or I swear, you won’t have a baby to worry about any more.”
And he hung up.
Chapter 21
Jack
We all headed straight to Chiricahua from wherever we were on the road, without passing Go and without collecting two hundred dollars.
I got there about the same time Ellie did—she took my truck, in which I had secured Peter’s infant seat weeks ago to keep her from ever using the deathtrap piece of shit she had been driving. I’d actually been closer to the park than most since I’d been scouring the south side of Tucson and the desert surrounding, and I could maneuver faster on
the bike. I wanted to get maps and the lay of the land as soon as fucking possible, to start to formulate a plan for taking this asshole down.
As an MC, it was SOP to have a messaging system that spread word of marching orders to every member in quick time. So my brothers all turned on a dime, and were all arriving en masse, the only stragglers being those who had been on the north side of the city, and those further upstate. But they were on their way, too. All in.
Many of them had stopped along the way to fill up paniers with water bottles and snacks, trail mixes and bars, in preparation for whatever time we would spend in the park. The Arizona sun is a fierce bitch, and we would all need both sustenance and water to function for any amount of time spent there. My boys came ready, and brought enough for Ellie and myself and anyone else who may not have thought to pause in the rush to get there.
