by Jessie Cooke
When he got restless, he got up and wandered over to the play area, where several toddlers were climbing on the little playground and sliding down the plastic slide. One kid, with dishwater-brown hair and the biggest blue eyes that Maz had ever seen, was sitting alone in the corner, building something out of blocks. Maz went over and looked down at the house or whatever it was the kid was building and said, “Good work, almost looks ready to move into.” The kid, probably three or four, was staring up at the big biker. He didn’t look scared, but he wasn’t returning Maz’s smile. He almost seemed to be inspecting him. Maz squatted down so that he wasn’t so much bigger than the little boy, put out his hand, and said, “Hi, I’m Maz. What’s your name?”
A pretty little red-haired girl appeared next to them suddenly and said, “That’s Zander, he doesn’t talk.”
He doesn’t talk? Maz wondered what was wrong with him. He was about to stand up when he felt the little boy’s tiny, soft hand slip into his. Maz smiled at him again and shook his hand. “I’m happy to meet you, Zander.” He looked at the little red-haired girl then and said, “And what’s your name?”
“I’m Susie.” He smiled.
Maz looked back down at the little boy and Zander looked away quickly, almost like the smile embarrassed him. Maz ruffled his messy hair and back to the red-haired girl he said, “Are you Susie Marshall?”
She smiled. “Yeah, Dax is my dad and Angel is my mom. I used to have a different mom and dad, but they went to heaven. My daddy Dax let Zander stay here because they didn’t know where his daddy was. He’s staying at my house now until his mommy gets back.”
“Where’s his mommy?” Susie shrugged. Maz looked back down at the boy and said:
“Well, at least Susie can vouch for the fact that you couldn’t have ended up with two better people to look after you.”
“I help too.”
Maz smiled at the girl. “I’ll bet you do. He’s lucky to have you all.” Maz stood up and realized that Garrett was suddenly looming over him. “Jesus,” he said, putting his hand over his heart. “You scared the piss…shit…damn…” He sighed and looked down at Susie. “I’m sorry for the language.” She giggled and said:
“I’ve heard worse.” She put out her hand in front of the boy and said, “Come on, Zander, Mom says we have to go eat lunch in the kitchen.”
Maz watched the kids go, still feeling bad for the quiet little boy. “You Westside guys are a little jumpy, huh?” Garrett said with a laugh.
“When you suddenly realize the Incredible fucking Hulk is looking over your shoulder.” Maz smiled and put out his hand. “How the fuck are you? And what are you doing here? Last I heard you were back in Vegas.”
“I’m still doing the nomad thing. Dax calls, I come.”
“Well, it’s good to see you, man. How’s the family?”
“They’re fantastic. I miss the hell out of them when I’m on the road, but I think they secretly enjoy the break,” he said with a laugh. “What about you? Got yourself an old lady and a couple kids yet?”
Maz smiled as he thought about Marissa. “Got one I’m just about to give my patch to. It’s just been so fucking busy I haven’t found the right time yet, but she’s a keeper.”
“Good to hear, man…it changes your life when you have someone to live for besides yourself.”
Maz nodded, “That it does. Hey, speaking of having someone to live for…I haven’t seen Jammer, is he back?”
Garrett shook his head. “Nah, he’s still holed up out there in NOLA with some club called the Jokers.”
“Yeah, I know those guys well. They’re good people at heart, but…well, let’s just say Blackheart takes his 1% patch literally. They do what they want; luckily for the residents close by, most of them do have a conscience and most of them grew up around there, so they do more for the community than they do against it. I can’t vouch for their behavior when they head out into the city,” Maz said with a laugh. He sighed then and said, “I’m not sure they’re what Jammer needs right now. I was hoping he’d head back here.”
“Dax said he’s pretty messed up.”
“Yeah. I think he’s one straw away from a complete breakdown, but I’m no psychiatrist, so what do I know?”
“You seemed to get a reaction out of Zander,” Garrett said. “Maybe you missed your calling.”
“Ah, he just shook my hand.”
“If you knew this kid, you’d know that was monumental – and he smiled too. I’ve been here for three days and that’s the first time I saw him do that. Susie is the only one he’ll let touch him without freaking out. Angel and Dax took him in, but he literally screams his head off if they try to touch him. Poor Susie is like a little nanny most of the time; she helps him do everything even when Angel doesn’t ask for help, just because she doesn’t want to hear the kid scream.”
“Wow,” Maz said, raising an eyebrow. “Poor kid…makes you wonder what the hell happened to him to make him that way.”
Garrett shoved his hands in his pocket and nodded. “You know, I gave up my…former business…” Garrett was a contract killer for his former club and rumor had it that he did a job or two for the Skulls as well. After he met Paige, the love of his life, he retired from that business…at least the fulltime aspect of it. “But people who would do anything to a kid that would traumatize them that much…they aren’t hardly worth the cost of the ammo in my mind.”
“I agree,” Maz said. He didn’t know much about kids, but he knew that a four-year-old who didn’t speak or want to be touched had been through some pretty bad shit. “How did he end up here?”
Garrett looked around to make sure they were alone before he said, “Story I got is that he belongs to Jammer’s old lady.”
“Fuck…Kiera? I was told he was in Maryland with his dad. Where’s his old man?”
Garrett shook his head. “Hunter’s on it, that’s why he’s not here. Hunter’s the one that found him. He went to the last known on the father just because Dax was worried about the Nikkas and retaliation. When he got there, he found the kid, but not the father.”
“Son of a bitch. He was alone?”
“No, but Hunter said the kid was outside when he showed up, in the front yard, alone. There was a woman inside, torn-up-looking, track marks on her arms. She had no idea where the dad was, said he left two weeks ago and it was a good thing Hunter showed up because she was sick of taking care of the kid. Hunter said the place was a sty and the kid was filthy. Looked like he’d been feeding himself, cereal, peanut butter, whatever he could reach…sickening.” Maz realized once again just how lucky he was that Ronnie Lane hadn’t kept him, and how lucky Marissa was that Rhonda Williams had found her. It was still so strange to believe that she was the same person. He guessed the lesson there was that people really are capable of change.
“Angel got the court to give them temporary custody and she took the kid to the pediatrician. He was a little undernourished and had lice and some weird skin rashes, but overall, healthy…thank God. They did a bunch of tests to try to find out why he doesn’t talk. Doctor says it’s nothing physical…most likely neglect or trauma.” Maz’s heart hurt for the little guy, but knowing he was with Dax and Angel made him feel better. Whatever had hurt him was out of his life and Susie looked like proof to Maz that the charismatic MC president and his ex-cop, criminal defense attorney, drop-dead gorgeous old lady were going to be a much better alternative.
He shot the shit with Garrett for a while and was shooting a game of pool with Dax’s brother Gunner and one of the prospects when he looked up and saw Ransom following a busty redhead up the stairs. He smiled and wished Marissa were there. The snake tried to come alive just thinking about her and he had to mentally crack it over the head. Trying to come up with a subject that would help the situation he asked Gunner:
“You still fighting?”
“Hell, yeah,” Gunner said. Maz always found it so funny that the kid looked so much like Dax, only with dark skin and long
, black dreads. He had those blue eyes, though, and because of his dark skin they almost shone. “I’m off to Vegas as soon as shit settles around here. Jacob’s got a fight set up for me in about twelve weeks, but I’d like to get out there as soon as I can and let him whip me back into shape…I’ve kind of been slipping.”
“Yep,” the prospect said. “Even I could kick his ass these days.” Gunner laughed and put an arm around the younger man’s neck. They wrestled to the ground and grappled for a while before tiring of that and going back to their game of pool. Maz was thinking about heading upstairs to call Marissa before bed when he felt a tug on his pants. He looked down and a pair of giant blue eyes were staring up at him.
“Hey, little man, what’s up?” Zander held his hand up and Maz took it. He led him over to where his blocks were, let go of Maz’s hand, and sat down. When Maz didn’t sit too, he tugged on his jeans again. Maz smiled and sat down next to the boy. Zander handed him a block and motioned at the house. Maz hadn’t played with blocks since he was a little boy. He placed the block tentatively on top of a pile of three that Zander already had set up. It started to topple over and when Maz tried to catch it with his big hand, he knocked over a whole pile of them. “Oh, shit!” Maz’s hand flew up over his mouth and suddenly he heard a beautiful sound…the little boy was laughing.
An entire room full of bikers and old ladies, people that might be in the middle of a gunfight tomorrow, stopped what they were doing and turned their attention toward Maz and Zander. The sound of the little boy’s laughter made Maz’s heart swell and if the looks on everyone else’s faces were any indication, it did theirs too. Zander suddenly realized everyone was looking at him and he stopped laughing, put his little head down, and went to work rebuilding the house. Maz went to work on it with him and even though his legs were going to sleep from the way he was sitting on them, his back hurt from the three-day ride, his ass was tired, and his brain was exhausted, he didn’t get up until Susie came to get the little boy, telling him it was time to go to bed. When Zander looked up at him, it was at that moment that Maz realized soulmates weren’t just men and women who find each other and fall in love. For some reason, this little boy recognized his soul and he felt like he could see Zander’s too.
Zander stood up with Susie but before he left the room, he dropped her hand and put his little arms around Maz’s neck. Maz hugged him back and the tears that he didn’t cry the night that he and Marissa had the talk with Rhonda threatened to overwhelm him in a room full of bikers. He needn’t have worried about that, though. When Zander let go of him and Maz looked up, he saw tears swimming in Dax Marshall’s eyes. Dax nodded at Maz and Maz nodded back. Neither man said anything. Zander had said everything that needed to be said with his heart.
30
Maz had imagined earlier in the evening that when he went to bed that night and called Marissa, they might have a little phone sex. Three days without her was pushing it and the snake was getting restless. But as it turned out, he’d started talking about Zander and he realized twenty minutes into the phone call that was all he’d talked about.
“I’m sorry, baby. What the hell is wrong with me? I have this sexy, gorgeous woman on the phone and I’m going on and on about a rugrat.” He heard her sniffle and he said, “Oh no, baby! Are you crying? What’s wrong? I’m sorry.”
Marissa laughed, but he could tell by the sound of it that it was through her tears. “What are you sorry for?”
“Whatever I said to make you cry.”
“They’re not sad tears. They’re happy ones. It’s just that every single day…every minute…when I’m with you or talking to you, I discover something new. You’re like an onion.”
He laughed at that. “Hmm, not sure whether to be impressed or insulted by that analogy.”
She giggled. “It’s a good thing. I just mean that you have so many layers. I’ve never met anyone with so many layers before. Every time I peel one off, I think it’s the last one…and then you spend twenty minutes talking about a little boy and I can feel how happy it made you to spend time with him. On the surface you’re this big, bad biker, but underneath…”
“Don’t say it, baby. I’m not soft in the middle.”
She laughed again. “That’s not a bad thing.”
“It is if you’re a big, bad biker,” he said with a chuckle. “Although I did see Dax Marshall with tears in his eyes earlier. That was something most people…at least living people…can’t say they’ve ever seen.”
“I’d like to meet Dax someday; he sounds like an onion too.”
Maz laughed out loud at that. “Okay, baby, but please don’t tell him that when you do meet him, okay?”
“Okay, I promise to act completely intimidated,” she said, facetiously.
“Good, thank you. You wanna have a FaceTime quickie before I go to sleep?”
“Oh! I didn’t even think about how late it is there already.”
“It’s actually still early in MC time. Most of the guys are still downstairs partying…and some are in their rooms having private parties. I must be getting old; it’s not appealing to me the way it used to.”
“Right, you’re a ripe old twenty-nine. We’ll have to put you in a home for retired bikers soon.”
“I’ll be thirty in a month.”
“We’ll have to have a big party.”
“Just you and me and the snake.”
She giggled. “Gregor can’t come?”
“You can come, and I can come…we two will be the only ones coming at my birthday bash. But…if Gregor is in the mood, he can join the FaceTime party tonight.”
“He’s always in the mood,” she said. “Let me put on something sexy for you and I’ll call you right back.”
While Maz waited for her to call, he stripped off his clothes and lay back down on the bed. He switched on the light next to the bed and within a few minutes his phone was buzzing with a FaceTime call from his lady. He answered it and there she was, her beautiful face smiling at him. “Hello, mon amour,” he said.
“Hello, gorgeous. God, I knew I missed you but somehow seeing you makes it worse.”
He nodded. “I know. Let me see the rest of you.”
She smiled. “So impatient, but okay…I bought this yesterday, just for you.” She set the phone down on her nightstand and lay on her side on the bed. Maz felt his heart speed up and all the blood from his head racing down south. She was wearing a pink negligee. It was made out of some kind of stretchy material and in a weave so that there were diamond shaped holes in it that showed her beautiful skin. It covered her breasts…but barely…and her nipples were pressed into it, hard and round. It went up and disappeared around the back of her neck on top. The bottom of it was even more interesting. It was almost like a one-piece bathing suit, cut high up on her thighs. When she turned over, he thought he was having a heart attack. The back was just not there at all. The strap at the top was invisible underneath her hair and he assumed the bottom was a thong…but all he could see was her beautiful, round ass. His cock was throbbing and he had to reach down and give it a rub. “Je n’ai jamais rien vu d’aussi beau.”
She turned back to face the camera and smiled. “In English?”
“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” he said. He watched as her eyes roamed down his body. He could almost feel the heat of them through the miles and the phone.
“You should see my view.”
He chuckled. “Thank you, baby, but I like mine much better.” She sat up suddenly, pressing her arms together as she did and pushing up her breasts. His mouth was literally watering. He wanted to bury his face between them so badly. She put her back up against the headboard of her bed, turning the phone toward her so that he could see. “Where’s Gregor?” he asked.
“I’m not sure if we’ll need him or not,” she said, running her hands down the front of her body, stopping to rub her palms against her hard nipples. “He’s standing by, just in case.”
“Lucky guy,
” Maz said, taking his erection in his hand and watching closely as she cupped each breast and lifted them so they swelled over the top of the thin material she was wearing and the nipples landed in one of the diamond-cut openings. He groaned, and she smiled and moved her fingers to those delicious nipples and began to pinch and roll them between a thumb and forefinger. The more excited he got watching her, the more she seemed to get into it. She brought her hand to her mouth, licked her fingers, and then returned them to her nipples. She continued to pinch and pull on them while Maz lazily stroked the snake and imagined his lips wrapped around them. He noticed that she had begun to rock her hips and he knew her pussy was getting wet, probably tingling. She let go of one of her breasts and her fingers walked down her stomach, landing on her mound. He watched closely as she used one finger to move the delicate material out of the way and dipped a finger in between the folds of her pussy. She whimpered, and he groaned. “Oh, baby…I wish that was my finger. Are you wet for me?”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, nodding and adding a second finger, rubbing them both up and down her slit. “So wet. I wish you were here too…so bad.” He stroked a little harder and faster as he watched her play with her pussy, slathering her juices all over her pussy lips and then bringing her fingers to her mouth and doing the same there. She licked them and then once again put them down between her legs, this time finding her swollen clit. As she began to rub that, she let her legs fall open even wider so he had a perfect view. Her sighs and whimpers and moans went right through him and his cock ached to be there, in her mouth or between her legs. God, he loved fucking her.
She had her eyes closed now, but she smiled at him and whispered, “I wish your face was right here, between my legs. I love the way you lick my pussy.”
