by Drew Elyse
What was I supposed to do?
“Yes, I’m in bed,” I finally said, making my voice husky in a way that felt ridiculous. If the times I’d had to speak to customers at the club the same way was any indication, it didn’t sound it.
“No,” Daz grumbled at me in response. “Not the fuckin’ performance. I could call one of those damn lines if I wanted that shit. I don’t want Cherry Pie. I want pure sugar.”
My breathing picked up as my body responded to the words, to that rolling growl of his voice, to the memories he was bringing back up. I was acutely aware of the fact that I was wet.
“You want to give it to me, don’t you?” Daz coaxed. “You want to play with your pussy and let me hear it all.”
Shit. I did. He was leading me down a path that was probably the last place I should have followed, but I was going along anyway.
“Yes.”
He groaned, and any of my lingering inhibition was gone. “Touch yourself.”
But I already was. My fingers sent riots of pleasure up my body as they trailed through the wetness. I rubbed my clit, remembering his wicked, skilled tongue there instead—wishing it was him giving me more pleasure than I could offer myself.
I must have made a sound, though I was too caught up to notice, because Daz’s voice was blistering in my ear as he bit off, “Fuck yeah, sugar. That’s it. Finger that wet cunt.”
There wasn’t even a thought of resisting. I plunged two fingers in, filling myself like he wanted.
“Oh God,” I cried.
“Shit. Fuck. Just hearing you is hot as fuck.” His voice kept pushing me higher. I could just hear the sound of motion, repetitive and rough. I could picture his hand wrapped around his cock, and my own arm moved faster.
It took me back to that night, when he’d knelt between my legs, working his cock while he played with me, making sure I was ready to take him. I wanted that, not my own fingers that suddenly seemed way less satisfying when they’d always done the job in the past.
“You gotta come, sugar,” Daz groaned into the line. “Can’t fuckin’ hold back. Wanna hear you when I get there.”
Oh my God. Those words shook me. They felt like a touch that went so much farther than what I was doing to myself. Suddenly, I was chasing the release that was right there, just out of reach.
“So close,” I gasped.
He groaned, sounding desperate, like he was barely keeping himself from that precipice I was just shy of. I pressed harder, circled faster, lost all sense of what noise I was making. All I cared about was the goal just within reach.
And then, all at once, it wasn’t on the horizon. It was crashing over me, my whole body succumbing to the feeling. It was only when my body started to relax that I realized I’d dropped the phone and my fingers were gripping onto my pillow instead.
I scrambled to pick it up, greeted with heavy breathing when I did. Instead of being the first to say something, I laid there staring into the semi-dark room.
Of course, Daz didn’t need me to speak up.
“You’re too sexy for real life. Christ, I need you under me again.”
It wasn’t flowery—not by a longshot. Still, I was feeling the need to agree. Taking his call definitively proved one thing: one night wasn’t going to be enough.
THREE WEEKS LATER
I carried a dead-to-the-world Owen while pulling the luggage cart behind me down the hotel hallway. Every couple feet, I glanced back to make sure Kate was still following. She was always trailing behind. Just like she had been through security and to our gate at the airport that morning. Just like she had been when we’d gotten off the plane and gone down to baggage claim. Just like she had been in the lobby of the hotel a few minutes ago while I checked them in.
She was following, expressionless and silent, like a fucking zombie. Just like she had been around the house since the funeral. That shit had been constant. Staring at walls, sitting through meals without touching her food, not even catching it half the time when I tried to talk to her. Even though she was a mess, at least she never neglected Owen. She waited until she knew I had him in hand.
I was willing to bear the burden. I could take care of my nephew and help around the house, but for how long? It had been nearly a month since we lost Joel. That wasn’t anywhere near long enough to be getting past it. God knew I wasn’t. But it had been long enough for her to at least have had some reaction. Even a crying, angry meltdown would have been better than what she’d been giving.
This closed-off, emotionless bullshit had me worried. Whether she showed it or not, I knew she was feeling this as hard as anyone. That she was locking herself down instead of letting it out seemed like a recipe for disaster.
Meanwhile, I was having to keep my shit together for her and Owen.
The only release I was getting at all was the couple times I’d called Avery in the middle of the night. And when I remembered that shit in the shower.
Christ, that woman was hot as hell even when I couldn’t see her.
“Is this it?” Kate finally asked in a quiet voice when I stopped at the door to their room.
A shitty part of me wanted to get short with her. She’d been right fucking beside me when the guy at the desk told us the room number. Better yet, why the hell else would I have been stopping?
I had to check that shit, though. She was suffering, probably in ways even I couldn’t imagine.
Biting back the prickle of irritation, I answered, “Yeah, Katie.”
She nodded absently and stepped ahead of me with the keycard to unlock the door. With nothing else to do, I took a look at her. She looked like crap. Pale, thin, circles under her eyes so dark, it looked like she’d lost a fight. I was going to get her settled, then grab enough food to make up for all the meals she’d been skipping.
I’d force feed her if I had to.
Joel would have.
Leaving the cart in the hall for a minute, I carried Owen in while Kate held the door. The room had one kind-sized bed. I didn’t bother asking before I laid him down. The little man was worn out. He’d been excited as hell by the whole adventure. He loved the moving sidewalk, seeing all the planes up close, and looking out the window the whole flight. It was cute, watching him look down at the world and not understand those little shapes were the same buildings that usually looked so big.
Kate had responded whenever he started one of his rambling, excited stream of words with “Momma.” The rest of the time, she just stared at the back of the seat in front of her.
“I’m guessing he’s down for the night,” I stated low, but didn’t bother whispering seeing as Owen had already slept through far more noise than that.
Kate didn’t respond, just moved around the room, taking it in without reaction. Then she sat herself on the end of the bed.
Without another word, I went to get the bags they’d brought with from the luggage cart and unloaded them in the room. The rest of their things would be arriving in the next week. I paid a team of movers to handle that shit. The next door neighbor was going to let them in in a couple days to get the last of the boxes out, then the lot was getting driven here for us.
In time, there would have to be decisions made about what to do with the house, the furniture, Kate and Owen’s lives that we’d all but uprooted. Those were choices I couldn’t make for them, though—no matter how much it seemed Kate wanted me to do just that. It was crazy enough that I’d packed them up to come to Hoffman, even temporarily.
It could have been that taking them away was a terrible plan that was going to backfire huge to start with. All I knew at the moment was Kate couldn’t function in that house. Joel was everywhere, and even in her near-comatose state, it was easy to see she was feeling that. There were times she’d walk into a room, notice something that had probably been there long enough it didn’t normally pull attention, and be overcome to the point of having to walk out again. She hadn’t been back in the bedroom they’d shared since the day of the funeral. She�
�d slept in the guest room while I took the couch.
Kate wasn’t going to be able to even begin to function somewhat normally while stuck in that house, and that was as bad for Owen as it was for her.
As for me, my life was in Hoffman. My job, my brothers, all my shit besides the quick suitcase that had been thrown together before Doc and I flew out to get to Kate’s side. I needed to get back, but I needed to take care of my family. The best solution I’d come to was to bring them home with me.
“Hopefully you’ll just be here one night, two max. Just got to get out to the house and set the two of you up,” I told Kate. I’d said it already several times over the last few days, but there was no telling what she was retaining and what shit just fell on deaf ears. This time, she at least looked my way, even if it was with lifeless eyes.
“What do you want for dinner?” I asked. “I can run out and bring something back, order room service, whatever.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Christ, I’d heard those words too many fucking times in the last few weeks. All I could think every time she said that shit was how neurotic Joel had always been about food. Lasting baggage from our childhood, I always guessed. It meant my brother had an obsession with making sure the people around him were well fed. He’d lose it seeing the way the woman he loved was wasting away.
“You know you gotta eat, Katie.”
I expected nothing. It was what I’d grown used to. I was shocked as shit when her jaw tensed.
“Just leave it alone,” she snapped.
Snapped.
It wasn’t what I wanted from her, and it didn’t seem like it was her dealing with Joel’s loss, but it was a reaction. It was a real, emotional reaction, not that monotone bullshit.
So I’d fucking take it.
“Fuck that. You need to eat. You’ve barely had an actual meal in days. You’re eating no matter what, so you might as well tell me what you’d like.”
Maybe pushing her at this juncture wasn’t a good idea. Maybe it wasn’t nice. I didn’t give a single fuck. I had the first sign of life out of her and I was going with it.
“I’m. Not. Hungry.”
“And I don’t fucking care. You’re eating. I’ll go to every place in town and bring you back enough food to feed my whole fuckin’ club if I have to.”
She shot to her feet, her hair flying out behind her. “No one asked you to take care of us!” she spat.
But she was wrong.
“We’re making up our wills,” Joel said, taking a drag off the cigar I got him. He’d quit smoking a long time ago. Kate hated the smell—at least, that was the excuse she gave to get him to quit a habit that could eventually take him from her too soon. This was a special occasion, though. She’d let it go.
A man didn’t welcome his first kid into the world every day.
“That’s some intense shit.”
Joel laughed. “Thanks for summing that up, bro.”
“Just saying. That’s grown up at a level I’m not even sure what to do with.”
I blew out a puff of smoke and watched it dissipate in the darkening yard.
“I’ve got a son now. Want to be sure he’ll be taken care of.”
Yeah, my brother having a kid was another level of adulthood I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around.
“We want to name you his guardian if something happens to us.”
My mind blanked so completely, it almost felt like dying. It was as if my brain had forgotten how to do even the basic shit to keep me alive.
It took me a solid minute to get myself together enough to speak after Joel dropped that bomb.
“Me?”
“It’d be you by default. Next of kin and all. Though, I guess they could try to contact our folks. Fuck knows what kind of response those cunts would give, but the state could try. Or we can make it real fucking simple and put it in writing that we want Owen with you.”
But why?
Me?
It was a miracle I could take care of myself, let alone a child.
“You’re sure?”
Joel chuckled. “Not really.” Asshole. “But you’re my brother. He’s your nephew. You might not take a lot of shit seriously, but I know if he needed you, you’d step up to the plate.”
My nephew. I still wasn’t used to the idea that I had him, that my brother and Kate brought this fucking miracle into the world.
If he ever needed me? Fuck yeah, I would do whatever I had to.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
Joel didn’t say anything for a bit while I grappled with the enormity of that.
Then, “Gotta ask something else of you.”
“Anything,” I told him honestly.
“I need to know if something happens to just me you’ll take care of them both.”
I didn’t even let my mind go there. It wasn’t in me to imagine a world without my brother in it. Still, I told him, meaning it down to my bones, “You know I would.”
“Yeah, I know you would.”
“You really believe that?” I asked Kate. “You really think he never asked me?”
Her whole body tightened, and I knew it was an effort to keep herself from falling apart at me mentioning Joel. She didn’t say anything, but it wasn’t because she was off in her head not listening.
“You might not want me to, but I have to. I have to because I love you and Owen. And I have to because I could never not do that for him.”
She lost the battle with her tears then. It was the first time in weeks she’d done so without hiding it. It fucking killed to see, but it had to happen.
I crossed the room and pulled her into my arms. “Let it out.”
“I…I’m…s-sorry,” she said.
I shushed her. “I know.”
Eventually, she got herself calm again. It made me anxious, but she still looked like the real Kate beneath the reddened eyes when she pulled away.
“Maybe pasta?” she finally suggested, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Yeah, babe. Pasta I can do.”
“Daz!”
I was barely over the threshold of the clubhouse before I heard that, and I had barely had time to brace before a very female body came barreling into me.
Ember hugged me like she hadn’t seen me in years, not like she’d been right there with me for the funeral. It was over the top, but after how hard things had been and that scene with Kate just hours ago, it was fucking welcome.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
She stepped back just in time for me to be pulled into another hug, this one awkward given the size of the very pregnant belly between us. Ash squeezed me tight all the same.
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there.”
Christ, this girl. She’d said that same shit repeatedly on the phone. As if I could be upset she didn’t travel when she’d be bringing a baby into the world any time now.
“Stop. How’s the second princess?” I ran a hand along her bump.
“Good. But don’t let Sketch hear you say that. He’s obstinate this has to be a boy. I think he doesn’t want to find out the sex because he’s afraid of the answer.”
Ember laughed. “With Emmy already running around ready to break hearts and cause chaos, can you blame him?”
There were enough Disciples around to deal with the shit storm Emmy would no doubt brew up when she was older and started—I hated to even think of it—dating. But I didn’t get a chance to reply because Ham and Max came in behind me.
For the next several minutes, I was fussed over by the girls while Jager, Ham, and Stone got their own assurances I was all right. I’d started to wonder where Sketch was with his extremely pregnant woman there when he came into the room with a very sleepy looking Emmy in his arms.
At least, she looked sleepy—until she caught sight of me.
“Uncle Daz!” she squealed, practically diving out of her dad’s arms and running right to me. I knelt down to catch her and she threw her arms, one still holding the stuff
ed bear I’d gotten her for her last birthday, around my neck.
Getting back up, I held the precious girl tight.
Ash smiled at her daughter’s back, then looked up to me. “She hasn’t put Bear down since you left.”
Bear was the stuffed animal I’d gotten her a few months ago for her fifth birthday. I’d found out they made a little Harley-Davidson jacket at Build-a-Bear and had to get it for my girl, then told her he needed a road name like the rest of us. She decided on Bear. It wasn’t inspired, but she was five.
“I missed you,” Emmy murmured into my neck.
“And I missed you, princess.”
I’d missed all of this. I hadn’t realized how badly I’d needed it until then.
I was one beer in—after everyone let me sit down and grab one—when the door opened and Quinn stomped in. Ace followed behind her a second later, having to catch the door before it closed on him.
Shit, female in a fit.
“Babe,” Ace called after her, doing a piss poor job at keeping the amusement out of his voice.
“No. I’m not talking to you,” she snapped, moving farther into the room and noticing everyone’s eyes were on her. Usually, that kind of attention wasn’t in her comfort zone. Whatever Ace had done meant she didn’t give that first fuck.
Instead, she marched right over to Sketch, who obviously knew something given the grin the brother was sporting.
“And you!” Quinn kept sassing. “It’s one thing for him to do a foolish thing like that, but why did you let him?” Sketch opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off with an incensed, “You didn’t even just let him. You did it!”
Ace was still standing near the front door, grinning unrepentantly. It probably meant I was a dick, but I was enjoying the fuck out of the show she was putting on right along with him. After the last few weeks of quiet and misery, this was a welcome bit of drama. Not to mention, quiet Quinn throwing attitude around wasn’t intimidating—it was funny.
