by Isabel Wroth
He walked with her through the big, green, growing mess of Ever’s nursery and he could practically feel Athena vibrating beside him with happiness. She loved it, this total temple to hippiness, the smell of compost and fertilizer, which turned his stomach. But she was totally in her element, and he’d known she would be. He’d known this place would call to her and maybe interest her to the point of putting it on her column of reasons to stay. Probably made him a selfish bastard, but he wasn’t playing fair, he was playing for keeps. He was playing dirty. “This place is amazing.” She sighed, skipping like a little girl over to some flowers to sniff and sigh again with bliss. “I’m sure Ever will be glad to know you give Never Ever Land, the stamp of approval.”
“Mommy lookit! A doggie!”
Athena jumped towards the sound of that voice, and looked a little freaked out by the tiny girl in a cute red dress with a mess of dark curls bouncing in time with her leaping run straight towards Cruncher. “Penni! No!” Her mom was running after her, terror stark on her features, but Penni was already giggling and getting her face licked off by Cruncher. “It’s okay, he loves kids, and not as afternoon snacks.” Athena assured the mother, but the woman snatched her daughter up and scowled harshly at Athena, “You should put a muzzle on that thing, god, what kind of person are you to let a pit bull run around where children are playing?” Before Athena could respond, before he could, Ever walked up, “Is there a problem?”
She glared at the woman being nasty to Athena. The woman repeated her earlier accusation, and Ever looked down at Cruncher, who was looking very confused as to why his new friend wasn’t within reach anymore. “Yeah, because clearly he’s a man eater, running amok, frothing at the mouth. Did he scare you, shortie?” Ever asked the little girl, who looked nervously at her mom, before answering. “No, he just gave me kisses.”
“He does that. Do me a favor, huh kid? Go over there to that lady with the apron on, she’s got candy and I need to talk to your mama.”
“OKAY!” Penni screeched, thrashing until her mom put her down, and the second she was out of ear shot, Ever let the woman have it. “Check your shit, bitch. You’re worried about man eating dogs, keep a better fuckin eye on your daughter. Clearly, this dog has better manners than you, and the sign clearly states on the front gate, dogs are welcome so long as they’re on a leash. He’s on a leash. If you have a problem with that, feel free not to bring your business here.”
Impressed, he watched the woman turn an embarrassed shade of red, turn on her heel and march off to collect her daughter. “I’m sorry, Crunchie. Some people just have no taste.” Ever said, bending awkwardly to smooch on Cruncher. “And I got someone who sooo, wants to meet you.” Cruncher perked, and Ever stood up to link her arm with Athena’s and drew her forward. “I’ve been telling Squatch, all about Cruncher, he’s so excited.” Athena blinked a bit rapidly, “Squatch?” Ever nodded brightly and lifted her fingers to her mouth to whistle sharply. A few seconds later a floppy eared golden retriever came hauling ass through the fields towards them, and Cruncher started barking, bouncing in place happily. “Raid told me that Crunchie lost a buddy, and Squatch is starting to dry hump Roar’s last nerve. Won’t leave him or Lyon alone while Roar’s trying to put the kid down for his naps. So, I thought while you’re here, you might do me a solid and let the boys play together, so that Roar and I can nap while the kid naps.” While Athena introduced Cruncher to Squatch, Ever looked at him sideways and shot him a wink. Looks like he wasn’t the only one playing dirty.
FIFTEEN
“Raid!” He laughed, fucking her like his life depended on it, loving every ripple, every hungry tug of her greedy little pussy sucking on his cock. He had her ass in his hands, her legs wrapped around his waist, loving how she tried to writhe and get closer, but pinned against the headboard like she was, she had zero leverage to do anything but take him. “I want it, Athena, give it to me,” She wailed as she came, such a gorgeous sound, and fuck it felt good, pouring his balls out inside her. Holding her while she shuddered and whimpered softly, gasping for air against his throat. He’d had her every night for the past three days, every day, whenever he could get her alone long enough to get her naked, and it still wasn’t enough.
She had fun with Ripley and Ever, and when she’d come back it had been with a happy smile on her face. She’d come home with an honest to god basket full of stuff from a farmers market that the girls had taken her to. She’d gotten herbs and oils and stuff that put this look in her eye he hadn’t seen yet, ingredients to make bread, which had been the shit, but what had not been the shit was this kick she was on with kale. She’d been insisting on putting that shit with everything, in, everything.
Which had led to them arguing, her insisting he needed it, him insisting he didn’t need shit that tasted like dirt, which had led to him ending the argument by dragging her to the bedroom. And now they were here, quivering together in the aftermath. “I’m not…eating…kale.” He panted out, grinning when she burst out laughing and hugged her arms tight around his shoulders. “Yeah, you are. I’ll just get better at making it not taste like dirt.”
“Babe, if you can still talk, I did something wrong.”
“Wrong? Noooo. But if you want to shut me up, you go right ahead.”
He laughed and rolled with her, curling up with her in the middle of the bed, afternoon sunlight filtering through the window. He was tired, but he didn’t want to miss a second of this, of being with her. He swirled his fingers around her hips, traced every bump of her spine and memorized the texture of her skin, turned his nose to her hair and memorized the smell of her, and how it felt against his face, the feel of her heart beat, pounding under his hand. “I got a call while I was out.” She murmured, turning her cheek to his chest while she traced his very first battle scar, right under his heart. “From?” He asked, figuring she’d said something because she wanted him to know. “My realtor, someone made an offer on my house.” He closed his eyes and tried to keep the glee out of his voice. “A good one, or one you can pass on?”
“A good one. A really good one.”
“That’s great, sweetheart.” He murmured, when he wanted to demand to know if she was going to take it. “It is. I took it, their offer. It means I can open a shop here,”
He fought to take it easy and not flip her over to crush her to him and howl like a beast that she wanted to stay here. Hard fight, even harder to keep his voice calm and even, “So you’ve decided to stay?” She made a soft sound and tilted her head back over his arm, smiling sleepily up at him. “It means I sold my house, or I’m in the process of it. I’m going to have to go back and pack up my things, my shop, my old life. And then…”
“Then?”
“Yeah. I decided to move here. Feels right.”
He ducked his head and took her mouth soft, wondering if the surgery they’d done to fix his spine had done something to his dick, because he’d never recovered so fast after an orgasm like he’d just had. Yet here he was, dick hard enough to drive nails, wanting back inside Athena’s tight little pussy. “You know what else feels right?” He asked, without taking his mouth off hers, tasting her laughter while he kept her wrapped up in his arms and rolled her back over onto her back, “Not napping in the wet spot?” He smacked her thigh for that, hitching it over his elbow and groaning when he pushed back inside her, “Wise ass,” He grunted, feeling her entire body convulse and tremble under him when his dick nudged at her cervix. His girl liked it deep, liked that pleasure pain, the kind that got him off just as hard as her. “Love how right it feels, buried balls deep in you.”
“Raid,”
“Definitely feels right, you moaning my name like that. Do it again,”
He gave his hips a twist, rubbing the head of his dick right over her sweet spot, watching her from inches away as the pleasure pulsed through her. She moaned his name, again and again, and it was fucking sweet. “So I guess you’re pleased with my decision,” She slurred a few hours later,
SIXTEEN
It turned out to be quite the ordeal, way more than she’d anticipated, to get all her shit packed up in the house and sell everything at the shop so that she didn’t have to haul that and store it somewhere until she could open up another one. Though, from how things were looking, Ever and Ripley were going to start fighting over who would get to have her stuff at their businesses. Ever had offered her a studio, a workshop really, where everything she dried, powdered, melted and blended could be made. Ripley had offered her product shelves and clients ready to buy her products, immediately.
Yesterday she’d asked them to compromise.
She’d make her stuff at Never Ever Land, using the nursery and its supplies as her main source of ingredients, selling only by special request, and the apothecary on site would become all hers. Transplanting Athena’s Apothecary, from Nevada to Texas, and use Ripley’s shop as her main storefront hub to sell the candles and beauty products Ripley special ordered.
This was after she’d had to leave both Cruncher, and Raid, in Texas. Raid had refused to let her take Cruncher on an airplane, their initial plan having been that Ruckus would dog sit for her, and they would fly back to Nevada together to pack her up. But some shit had gone down with the club, and Raid had been obviously torn. She’d told him to stay and take care of it, whatever IT was, and come out when he’d gotten his stuff handled. They talked every day, sometimes twice a day, sometimes for hours, sometimes only for a few minutes, but she loved hearing his deep voice on the phone, waking her up or sending her to sleep. It was crazy just how badly she missed him.
She’d just sat down at the counter, Athena’s Apothecary, 95% sold out, someone was even coming tomorrow to buy up her product shelves, since the ones Ever had for her were way cooler. She was packing up her empty tincture bottles, and what remained of her glass candle cups. Ever had a hook up with a local artist that blew some amazing glass, and would be her go to from now on for specialty glass jars for certain things…it seemed like she was really making the right move. Wherever I May Roam, started blasting from her cell phone, making an immediate smile bust across her face. “Hey, you.” She greeted, able to hear Raid’s answering smile when he replied, “Hey, baby. The movers Nasa lined up were supposed to come put your shit from the house in that Pod thing, did they do a good job?”
She smiled and moved around the store, mentally taking an inventory of what she had left to sell. But mostly she was just too jittery and flush with adrenaline to sit still. Getting to speak to him, like some goofy teenager talking to her crush. “They came, they loaded, and all that’s left in the house is an air-mat and the furniture the new owners asked to buy. The store is nearly sold out, so I expect by the end of next week everything will be loaded up and on its way.”
“Glad as fuck to hear that. Roar says Ever is vicariously nesting through you, apparently kid number two has got her on more of a Susie Homemaking rampage than last time. She’s got her people at the nursery digging a special trench or something just for your herbs and shit.”
She opened her mouth to respond, on the verge of laughter, when she heard something in the background that killed her giddiness.
Paging Dr. Yu-Speight, Dr. Yu-Speight your two thirty is here.
“Babe? You still there?” Raid asked, and she took a second to keep herself from flying off the handle. There was no reason for that, there was a good explanation for why the doctor who’d performed Raid’s experimental surgery was being paged in the background, surely. “Are you at the hospital?” He cleared his throat uncomfortably, and she felt a rather sickening churn of disappointment and worry, roll up her body like a heatwave. “I’m fine, just needed to take care of some shit.”
She rolled her lips together, pursed them, ran her fingertip over the top of one of the empty product shelves and counted to ten. “In Virginia?” She was rather surprised by how she managed to keep her tone and her words calm, when she was feeling anything but. “Yeah, I-“
“Was this the ‘club shit’ you were needing to take care of?”
“Part of it, had this appointment, and shit for the club to do up here, killin two birds with one stone.”
“Uh hu. So you’ve had this appointment to see the doctor who performed your experimental surgery, long enough to have mentioned it, but didn’t. Is that right?”
He sighed again, heavily, and because she couldn’t see his face, all she could hear was the exasperation. She considered for a moment that she might be blowing this out of proportion, internally, but seeing as how she’d committed enough to making a life that involved him in a major way, she was pretty fucking pissed off that the tone of his sigh was put upon. Like she was being unreasonable and naggy. “You’d have worried, and wanted to come, instead of going home to deal with your house and the shop. Ever’s got Cruncher, took him over there to get some shit and he raised hell when I tried to put him back in the truck, so she just said to leave him be. And she’s putting kale in his eggs every morning, I checked.”
She heard herself make a strangled little sound, and fought not to blow her stack and scream at him over the phone like a child throwing a tantrum. Uncle John had called her ‘Hopper’ for a reason. She jumped up and down when she got mad. Raid wouldn’t be able to see her do it, but he would hear the thumping and how out of breath she got, and that would probably be worse. He’d ask her what she was doing, then she’d have to explain, and the power of her mad on would lose its potency. “Of course I’d worry, I give a shit about what’s going on with you, and you left my dog without telling-“
“Raid! Hey gorgeous, I’m off in an hour and I’m ready to go when you are.”
There was no mistaking the lust, the eagerness and the familiarity in the female voice that called out to her man, and the sound of it was like a fist to the belly. He must have covered the receiver, because all she heard was his muffled response, and then the crystal clear sound of him saying her name, using that tone men used when they’d just been caught doing something worthy of a kick in the balls. Tears sprang to her eyes immediately, and she refused to let him have that from her. “I’ve got to go, customer just walked in.” She hung up before he could say anything else. Before she could hear that other woman’s voice again.
Anger.
Hurt.
Confusion.
Frustration.
Jealousy.
Inadequacy.
More hurt.
The cocktail was toxic.
She might have let him explain, probably would have believed whatever his explanation was, if he’d told her about the trip to Virginia in the first place. But he hadn’t, and probably wouldn’t have had to scramble for that bullshit excuse about not wanting to worry her or keep her from getting on with her move, if not for that intercom page. He’d have gone up there, taken care of his business, and come back to her, probably pleased as shit to have gotten away with it. Whatever, or whoever, IT was. He called her back almost as soon as she’d ended the call, but she declined it and turned the phone off. She had shit to pack. Yeah, she’d committed to moving, but right now, she wasn’t sure if Austin was going to be her final destination.
SEVENTEEN
He snarled out a string of vicious curses when Athena’s phone went to voicemail for the twentieth time in a fucking row. That, was going to earn her a seriously spanked ass once he got his hands on her. If he got them on her ever again. He knew what it must have sounded like to hear mother fucking Shirley, shaking her tits at him, after just learning he’d kept a secret from her and used the sacrosanct, Club Business isn’t Your Business, rule as an excuse for not telling her the truth. Yeah, he was on club business, sort of. It was his personal business, technically their business, seeing as how he was up here because Nasa had finally come back with the name of the person responsible for making his letters, and Athena’s letters disappear.
That, he could have, and obviously should have told her about. Fuck, he should have told her about the doctor’s appointment too, but truthfully he’d been worried about how it was going to go, having been feeling random numbness on and off for the last few weeks. And he hadn’t wanted to say anything, or risk having her fly off the handle. Or flown up here with him and sat beside him while the doctor gave him the news. She’d have been all over it, right there with him, and now standing here in the fucking hallway alone, missing her, wanting her snuggled up against him, wanting her hair in his face, smelling that rosewood and geranium scent she wore almost all the time now, needing it to push back the scent of disinfectant and death. Needing her, to keep him from revisiting the last year he’d spent in this fucking place, he seriously wished he’d just fucking told her, and not been such a pussy. His balls were sweating with how nervous he was to walk into that office, to have to go through all the tests and come out here alone…“Raid?”
He snapped back from kicking his own ass, feeling his skin crawl when Shirley put her hand on his chest, seriously being all kinds of inappropriate, rubbing her fingers into his shirt and shit. He put his phone back in his pocket and removed her hand, leaning into her and squeezing her wrist hard enough to get his point across. He’d intended to get her out of the hospital and away from the cameras everywhere, but after how shit had just gone down, he needed an outlet for his fear. His anger. “You, are in deep shit.” She blinked, tugging on her wrist, giving him these huge doe eyes, like he was going to fall for that shit. “Raid, you’re hurting my wrist-“ She whimpered, playing the sweet little damsel, just for him. Barf. “You’re lucky I don’t break it.”
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