“He did good,” Raven said. “That kid was like a freight train, though.”
I snorted and dropped my hand to her head.
“The best players are,” I agreed. “Alright, Nathan! Get ‘er done, boy!”
Nathan nodded his head, something that hit me straight in the heart.
Seeing him doing that was nearly breathtaking as I recalled a vision of his father doing much the same thing.
Nathan took a couple of practice swings.
“Swing for the fence, Nate!” Raven yelled.
I didn’t have any doubt in my mind that the kid would—he was his father’s son, after all.
My head tilted back as I let my eyes drift up to the painted white sign on the fence.
There were names of each and every kid that ever hit a homerun, and on the very top was Nathan’s biological father, Darren Cox.
“What are you looking at?” Raven asked curiously.
I pointed up.
“That’s Darren, Nathan’s dad,” I told her. “He was the first kid to hit an out-of-the park, over-the-fence home run.”
“Seriously?” she asked. “That’s pretty awesome.”
It was. I’d worked my ass off endlessly to try to get my name up there, and never accomplished it, not even when I was older.
Darren, though, had his name on each and every field from little league all the way up to his high school baseball team.
“Catcher, you ready?” the umpire asked Reggie.
“Yes, Sir,” Reggie answered cutely.
Hannah snickered at my back.
“What?” I asked her.
“Your manners are coming out in her,” she answered. “Raven, has he gotten on to you yet about eating?”
Raven leaned forward, practically laying across my lap, so she could see Hannah.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered as if I couldn’t hear her. “He’s terrible. Elbows, Raven. Don’t you know how to use a fork, Raven? Close your mouth, Raven, nobody wants to see your food.”
So, poor table manners were a pet peeve of mine, sue me.
Hannah and Raven took turns trading lines that I apparently said but couldn’t remember saying, so I placed my hand on the hem of Raven’s shorts and started to slide them upwards.
She instantly stopped what she was doing and sat back down again.
Hannah, none the wiser, pointed.
“Ball!” the umpire yelled.
Nathan looked back at me, and I nodded my head at him before I glared at the coach.
This was becoming an every game occurrence between the coach and my kid.
The coach, Jobert Clay, graduated with me.
He hated my guts, and apparently, that hate not only still burned all these years later, it apparently crossed over generations and translated to my kid.
The coach caught my glare and returned it full force before tossing the ball once more at my kid, narrowly missing his body with the ball.
The ball wasn’t one of the soft ones like last year. No, this one was a fucking hard ball, and that mother fucker was throwing it at my kid’s body.
I stood up, dislodging my hands from Raven’s body, and started down the bleachers until my hands curled around the chain link fence.
Jobert, the stupid fucker, sneered at me before rearing back to throw it, and I knew he was about to hit my kid.
“Back up, Kid,” I said to Nathan.
He obeyed immediately and stepped out of the batter box just as the ball sailed by his head.
“You fucker,” I said, shaking the chain link fence in front of me. “I’m going to kill you.”
With just one look on Jobert’s part, I started walking around the fence and turned into the Rocker’s dugout.
Once I made it out onto the field, Jobert stood up from his knee and glared.
“You can’t be on the field,” he informed me haughtily.
I looked over at the umpire. “You have any problem with me pitching to my kid?”
The umpire’s face went to the tattoo on my forearm, then raised his arm to show me his Marine Corps. “None at all.”
I grinned and held my hand out for the ball that the umpire picked up.
“Excuse me,” I shouldered Jobert to the side.
He moved, but just barely and was still crowding me on the mound.
“You’ll have to move out of the way, Coach. Can’t have two pitchers on the field,” the umpire urged Jobert to move with a sweep of his hand.
Jobert, the loser, growled under his breath and jogged to the dugout where he took a seat with a harrumph.
I grinned and turned back to my kid.
“You ready, boy?” I asked him.
He nodded enthusiastically and squared his shoulders before stepping back into the batter’s box.
“Ready, Dad.”
Pride filled my throat as I tossed the ball to him like I did any other time we practiced.
It wasn’t a bitch throw, either.
It was a real one.
Sure, I didn’t put as much heat on it as I could have, but it wasn’t a pitch any other kid could hit.
Nathan swung and missed, and little Miss Reggie caught the ball like a pro and threw it back.
Uncle Wolf didn’t raise no slackers.
Nathan looked at me, grinned as he took his place once again, and then nodded his head.
I threw the next one, and knew instantly that he’d hit it.
What I didn’t expect was for my nearly six-year-old son to hit a home fucking run.
It sailed just barely over the back fence, but it went, and it counted.
Mother fucker, but did it count.
Chapter 19
There’s nothing like taking your bra off when you walk in your door after a long hard day of having boobs.
-Raven’s secret thoughts
Raven
“I had a really great time with you ladies,” I said to the room full of women.
Lenore waved her hand as if to clear away my words.
“We enjoyed getting to spend some time with you again,” Lenore replied as she leaned forward. “But we all have a burning question to ask you.”
I blinked, then tilted my head slightly. “What?”
“Does Wolf really have as naughty a personality as he comes off as having?” Annie asked. “He’s always so dark and standoffish. Like Mig used to be, but way worse.”
I smiled at her.
“Wolf isn’t dark. He just doesn’t talk unless he wants to,” I explained. “Engage him in a conversation, and see what comes of it. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.”
“I don’t think Wolf could disappoint anyone,” Tasha put in. “He gave me a ride once. I felt like I was cheating on my man just by having my arms around him.”
I laughed then.
Yeah, Wolf was beautiful. He was also taken. Very, very taken.
And a tingle of jealousy rolled up my spine at hearing all the stories that were floating around that surrounded my man and his good intentions.
“Do you need any help taking these to the car?” I asked Freya.
Freya shook her head. “No. I have a man for that. Although, I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“That’s because the men are having a powwow on the porch with someone.”
I blinked, surprised by that.
“I thought that they were meeting at the clubhouse,” I said. “That’s what I heard Wolf say to whomever he was speaking to on the phone earlier when they called.”
“Something happened,” Annie said as she licked the rest of the salt off her margarita glass. “I saw them with their heads pressed together. Then some man showed up.”
A burning feeling started to tickle my belly.
“What’d the man look like?” I asked, standing up.
“Tall, dark. Bright white smile and brown eyes. Brown hair. Black clothes. Couldn’t tell much more than that because they dis
appeared around the side of the house when they saw me snooping,” Tasha grinned unrepentantly.
“You should’ve been more covert about it,” Kitt, Core’s wife, said. “How do you think I know the things I do?”
“Because you fuck the answers out of your man, that’s how,” Tasha said. “My man, however, knows the importance of keeping his trap shut.”
Kitt snorted. “You’re full of shit. Just last week you told me that you heard Wolf enjoyed spanking and tying people up from Core. I know for a fact that Wolf didn’t just offer that information up to anyone and everyone that wanted to know.”
I gritted my teeth at the irrational surge of jealousy that rocketed through me at knowing that these women knew about Wolf’s kinks.
“I also heard that Core told you about Lenore being pregnant,” Kitt said.
I sighed and stood up.
“Be right back. Have to pee,” I told them and darted out of the door of Freya and Ridley’s living room.
I stopped at the bathroom and did my business before sneaking out of the bathroom so they wouldn’t hear me go. Then hurried to the backdoor and slipped outside.
I peered around the corner, and I could tell instantly that my attempt to be quiet had not gone unseen.
Mainly because the moment I poked my head around, Wolf’s big ass body was just there, stopping me.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m trying to see who you’re hiding out here,” I said. “What are you doing here anyway? I thought y’all were going to the clubhouse.”
“We were, but then something came up,” he said.
“What came up?” I asked.
“The water, which somehow managed to untie our boats that are now nowhere to be found. Hence, why we’re here,” he explained with a grin on his face.
I pursed my lips.
“Good enough,” I said. “But what are you hiding?”
“That would be me,” a familiar voice said, whipping my head around to my back so fast that I likely sustained whiplash.
“What are you doing here?” I snarled.
“Now, is that any way to talk to your brother?” he teased.
I bared my teeth at him.
“I don’t have a brother,” I said stubbornly.
Okay, I really did have a brother, but this man wasn’t him.
Not anymore, at least.
He lost the right to that title the day he left me to join the military and didn’t look back.
True, I’d been ten at the time, but it still left a lasting impression on me.
He’d been my rock, my everything, and he’d left me in that shitty assed foster home without a backwards glance.
I didn’t care if he tried to come back years later, which happened to be around the time that Wolf came into my life.
It was too little too late, and I didn’t care what kind of good excuses he had. The only thing in my mind that could logically explain his distance from me was death, and by the looks of him, he was most certainly not dead.
“I’m going to go back inside,” I said to no one in particular. “Have fun discussing whatever it is you’re discussing.”
With that, I went back inside, and didn’t spare my ex-brother another glance.
***
“Alright,” Wolf said the moment he came back into the bedroom we were now sharing at his house. “Tell me what the hell is going on with you and your brother and don’t leave a goddamn thing out.”
I lifted my lip up in a silent snarl before totally ignoring the statement.
“Did you get Nathan settled back at Nancy’s?” I tried to divert his attention.
When I saw his look that clearly said it wasn’t going to work, I lifted my shirt up and over my head.
His eyes zeroed in on my breasts, his pupils dilating as his breathing started to increase.
I’d give him credit, though. The man had control.
Wolf turned his back on me and lifted his own shirt, tossing it to the floor at his feet.
I walked around him, picked up his shirt, and then walked both his and mine to the hamper that was about two feet in front of him.
“Nathan’s currently asleep in his bed, and Nancy was about to follow him as soon as I left,” he said to my back. “What are you doing?”
His question sounded strained, but I didn’t chance a look behind me. I didn’t want to run out of courage. If I got a good look at his face, at his worry for me and the situation he’d inadvertently placed me in by getting involved in something that was sure to piss off the man, whomever he was, then I’d lose the courage.
Pushing down my panties, I presented him with my naked back; the only thing blocking his view of the split between my ass cheeks was my hair.
My hair was down and curly, a small section of it hanging down to my front while the other part went in any and all directions around my head.
“I don’t want to talk about anything right now,” I said, turning around and presenting him with my front.
His eyes zeroed in on my belly.
“When,” he took a large step forward, “did you get that?”
Then, suddenly, Wolfgang Amsel was on his knees at my feet.
His large, tanned hands spanned my hips, his fingers digging into the flesh above my butt, and he stared, eyes transfixed on the newest addition to my ink.
It’d hurt like the dickens to get, too.
His thumbs swept forward, just barely caressing the clear covering over my tattoo.
“You tattooed my name on your body,” he said gruffly. “Holy fucking shit.”
I smiled.
“I wasn’t originally going to go in there to do that,” I told him bluntly. “Originally, it was going to be a phoenix, but when I got there, the words just sort of fell out of my mouth.”
“I like it,” he said, a surge of possessiveness tinging his words.
I grinned.
“How did you know what it said?” I asked him. “The guy said you couldn’t really tell.”
He looked up at me like I’d just asked him the stupidest question ever.
“I’ve been spelling my name for thirty some odd years. I’m pretty sure I can spot when my fuckin’ name’s been inked into my woman’s skin,” he muttered.
Then he leaned down and pressed a kiss right above my pubic bone.
His prickly beard mingled with the hairs covering my mound, and I felt a surge of pleasure as I saw how the hairs mingled, becoming one.
“I love you, you know,” Wolf admitted. “Fucking loved you for forever.”
Something in my belly loosened.
“I left because it was too hard to watch you with another woman,” I blurted.
His eyes moved to my face, and I instantly missed the feel of his beard so close to me.
“You what?” he asked in surprise.
“I left,” I repeated, “I left because I couldn’t stand seeing you with Hannah. Y’all had an instant family, and it was tearing me apart.”
He dropped his forehead to my belly.
“I broke up with her that night.”
The words hit me like a ton of bricks, and suddenly anger poured through my system.
“You what?” I yelled, my arms going up above my head. “What the hell?”
He sat back on his heels. However, that was only because the push to his shoulders practically forced him away from me. He would’ve gone further had he not been as quick as he was.
“What?” he asked in confusion. “What’d I say?”
“I make fucking googly eyes at you for months, and nothing. Then I freakin’ throw in the towel, and you decide to break up with her?” I was yelling now, full out.
I didn’t care, though.
Wolf didn’t have any neighbors, and with Nathan at his grandmother’s there was nothing and nobody to upset but him with my words.
“What the fuck?” Wolf stood to his feet, both plante
d apart and ready for whatever came at him. “I didn’t think you’d freakin’ disappear off the face of the Earth. I gave you my number, and practically told you to call me the moment you got to where you were going. I honestly thought I’d be able to find you faster than I did.”
“You didn’t find me at all!” I yelled, repeating his earlier words. “Before you brought me back, you flat out told me that you couldn’t find me.”
He nodded his head.
“That’s true,” he admitted. “However, that was only by me asking my sister. I was giving you time.”
“Time for what?” I crossed my arms over my chest, tired of feeling them flop around every time I moved my hands. “Me to forget you?”
He was on me before I could react.
One second he was standing across the room from me, and the next he was in my space, his face inches from mine.
His beard tickled my chest, and I refused to react, even though everything inside of me urged me to stroke his beard.
Damn his magical bearded powers against my hormones!
“You’ll never forget me. I won’t let you.” He turned me until I was flattened against the bed, his hips pinning mine to the bed, and his strong thighs parting my legs for him to fall in between.
I gasped when I felt his hard body press against me.
Everything, even the inside of his thighs, were hard. His strong, muscular jaw. His tight, forearms that were planted on either side of my head, and his bearded mouth that started to run down the tops of my shoulders.
I weakened even more.
“You wanna know why you’ll never forget me?” he rasped, letting the stiff point of his tongue trail along the outer shell of my ear.
“Why?” I pushed my booty up, glad now that I was naked.
Expedience was crucial, especially when I was about to come despite the only contact I had from him was with his hard cock along the length of my ass.
“Because I won’t let you. Every time you even seem like you’re forgetting me, I’m going to show you, just like I’m about to do, just what you’ll be missing by me not being there. I’m going to give you everything I have to give, and then I’m going to pull out more. I’m going to drown you in me, and make it physically impossible for you to ever leave me.” He lifted my hips and lined his cock up with my entrance. “You’re mine just as I’m yours, and I’ll never let you forget that. Not for the next hundred years.”
Rusty Nail Page 17
