Blue Colla Make Ya Holla

by Laramie Briscoe

  Jessica’s mouth tilted in a grin. “Looks like we didn’t have to wait long.”

  Turning around in her seat, Bianca saw the guys walking their way. It took her a minute to focus, but she finally did successfully and sat back to watch the other couples. Tyler walked into the place like he owned it, heading for his lady like it was his mission in life. Layne shared a hot little grin with Jessica; promises of dirty things were behind those eyes that sometimes flashed with fear and anger, but that promise was enough to make Jessica squirm in her seat. B could see it out of the corner of her eye. And then there was Jagger. Instead of being amused like the rest of them appeared to be, he looked put out, just like he had every other time she’d asked him to do something with her for the past few months.

  “Sorry to ruin your afternoon,” she verbally poked at him. This was the old Bianca coming through, the one who didn’t smile and go with the flow just to keep the peace.

  “Get your stuff, you’re making me run behind.” His tone was rude, his face was hard, and the grim set of his lips told her that he wasn’t playing around.

  She wanted to ask him what she was making him late for. Why did it matter so much when obviously he was doing something he didn’t want her to know about? Tilting her chin up in defiance, she turned her back on him. “I’d rather call a cab than go home with you. Leave me the fuck alone.”

  *

  Where was the young girl who hadn’t wanted to cause issues? The one who had only wanted to spend time with him? Why was Bianca testing his patience? Jagger was not in the mood for this. He had places to be at certain times, and if he wasn’t there to get what he needed to get, he wouldn’t be paid.

  “Not only do I not have time for your shit, I’m not in the mood for it either.”

  He knew that his voice was harsh, he knew he was treating her badly, but he only needed a few more days. Just a few more days, and God, he was so tired. The long nights were really beginning to take their toll on him. Being an asshole wasn’t his normal MO, but it’s what he appeared to default to when he was exhausted.

  “I wouldn’t want to put you in or out of a mood,” she was saying as she pushed her blonde hair over her shoulder.

  Trying to be nice, he held out his hand to her. “Can we not make a scene, please?”

  Glancing over to her left, she saw the girls who had been at Walker’s Wheels the day before. “Don’t want to disappoint your adoring public?” she asked, the liquor loosening her lips.

  He watched as she threw some money on the table, grabbed her purse, and made her way out of the establishment. When he looked around, everyone was staring openly at him. It made him uncomfortable, and he did what he always did when he was uncomfortable—he pulled his cut closer to his body and retreated further into himself. Knowing that he had to catch up with Bianca, he hustled outside and saw her at the door of her Mustang.

  *

  “Shit.” Bianca leaned her forehead against the roof of the car when she tried for the third time to put her key in the door. Like most things in her life, something was broken. This time it was the key fob that allowed her to unlock the door.

  “Let me help you.”

  The tone he used wasn’t the smart-ass one he’d used in the restaurant. This one said he was counting in his head in order not to lose his cool with her. It was patient in the way a parent losing their cool was patient. It made her even madder. “I don’t need or want your help.”

  He rolled his eyes because he knew she couldn’t see him. “Stop being so fucking stubborn, B, and let me help you. I’m not the enemy here.”

  Closing her eyes, she gathered all of her strength and turned around to face him. “Oh really? What are you then, because you sure as fuck aren’t acting like my boyfriend either. So, I wonder, what does that make me? A wife without the ring? We’ve settled in a nice little routine haven’t we?”

  Anger coursed through Jagger, unchecked. She had unknowingly hit on a hot button. These were the kinds of words his mother had said to his father when they thought no one was listening. To know that their relationship had turned into this turned him inside out. It was ridiculous. Reaching behind her, he popped the door open.

  “It wasn’t even fucking locked, B. Get in, climb over the console, and buckle up. We’re going home.”

  The old B was tired and half-way passed out. All she could do was scowl and then follow his instructions, but she promised herself that once she was awake and sober there would be hell to pay.

  Chapter Three

  ‡

  Jagger breathed a sigh of relief when Bianca finally gave into the effects of the alcohol and passed out in the passenger seat. He no longer had to listen to the silence buzzing in his ears; it no longer had to be so painfully awkward. He fought with himself, wondering if he should tell her what he was doing, wondering if he should ruin the surprise. They were open in most of their relationship, but sometimes, he had things that he couldn’t or didn’t want tell her, and this was one of them. He wanted so badly to see the surprise on her face, to hear the catch in her breath that he knew would be there when he was finally able to let her in on the secret. He’d worked so hard to make it this far, and he didn’t want to give up now.

  A part of him wanted to tell her; he hated to be at odds with Bianca, absolutely hated it. She was his best friend, his lover, and she deserved the best of everything. She was his reason for living, his reason for keeping this secret. If she could just hang on for a few more days, everything would be ready for him to be completely truthful with her. He wasn’t sure she could wait though. He wasn’t sure they could wait. He was afraid his good intentions were going to blow up in his face.

  Rolling his head on his shoulders to relieve some of his tension, he drummed a beat on the steering wheel and turned the radio up. A Brantley Gilbert song came on and he had to grin. So many people compared him to the singer, and he knew that his B loved her B. Singing along, he felt the tension start to leave his body. There were three ways he dealt with the tension that sometimes gripped him tightly: riding his bike for pleasure, singing to a crowd, and burying himself balls deep in his girl. Unfortunately his day job and his night hustle were taking up all of his time. He hadn’t done any of the above in a very long time. It was almost enough to drive him completely over the edge. Pulling up to their apartment, he glanced over at her, not wanting to wake her.

  He was sick of arguing, and the more he tried to keep from her, the more they argued. It tore him apart, ripped his stomach to shreds. He wasn’t used to arguing with her; they had their tiffs, but they wouldn’t normally go to bed angry with one another. That was something his parents had done, something they’d used to punish one another. It was something he’d told himself he’d never do once he found the right woman. They had gone to bed angry three nights this week.

  “Jagger?”

  He jumped, not having realized she’d woken up. “Yeah?”

  She sniffed, running her hands over her cheeks. “What’s going on with us?”

  The tone she used gutted him, and he almost broke his promise to himself in that moment. “Nothin’, sweetheart, nothin’. There’s just some things I can’t tell you right now.” He ran a hand over his couple of days’ worth of beard growth. “Trust me when I say I would never do anything to hurt you.”

  Pushing her blonde hair back from her face, she shook her head as her bottom lip protruded out. It wasn’t a pout, it was a firm measure to try to hold in the emotions that were threatening to spill forth. “You’re hurting me now because I don’t know what you’re doing, and until you can be honest with me, I don’t think you should stay here.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” He felt like he’d said those words in an overabundance over the last few weeks. People were losing their minds.

  “No.” She shook her head, feeling sober, even after all the alcohol she’d consumed. Her moods were all over the place, sad one minute, pissed the next. She didn’t know how to process any of it. This, however,
seemed like the easiest way to get him to leave her alone. “In fact, give me my keys, right now.”

  “You’re not doing this to me,” he growled, jerking the keys from the ignition. “I’ve about had it up to here,” he pointed to his head, “with you and your being a brat. There are things I can’t tell you, and you act like I’m ruining your life.”

  “Well I have had it up to there with you, John Edward,” she spat.

  Using his given name was a low blow, and they both knew it. He hated it, hated everything that it represented. He sat back against the seat, breathing slowly as he tried to get his anger under control. Being tired and pissed were not a good combination for him, and he would hurt himself before he hurt her, but they had never fought like this before. They usually weren’t the couple to count on low blows and name calling in order to win arguments. They weren’t juvenile.

  Bianca waited for a few seconds and then under her breath mumbled, fucking typical, before yanking the door open and heading up the steps that he’d fixed with Tyler when he’d first come to live with her. She got to the top and realized that he still had the keys in the car. “Great.” She ran her hands through her hair as she boosted herself up on the railing to get the spare they had hidden inside the gutter.

  As she climbed down, she saw that he still sat in the car. “Sleep down there for all I care,” she yelled down, not caring who could hear her. She was completely over this, and all she wanted to do was get away from him for a little while. Unlocking the door, she glanced back at him one more time. The need to flip him the finger was there—but again, that wasn’t how they did things. Instead she gave him a fake smile and a little wave.

  With a satisfying slam, she shut the door to the apartment and marched to the shower. She needed to think, and the shower was the best place to do it.

  Chapter Four

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  Bianca stayed in the shower until her fingers pruned and the water ran cold. Considering the water heater that fed their apartment was old, it probably wasn’t as long as it could have been, but it was long enough to give her a clearer head. As she turned the faucet off and stepped out, wrapping a towel around her body, she listened for sounds that Jagger had come into the apartment and wasn’t still sitting outside in her car. Never before had they had an argument where she sent him away, but the feelings coursing through her weren’t good. The way he made her feel wasn’t good. That was a revelation, because no matter how much they hadn’t seen eye-to-eye in the past, he’d always made her feel like she was the most important thing in the world to him. That feeling was no longer in the pit of her stomach.

  She opened the bathroom door slowly, looking around for the man who’d become such a fixture in her home and in her life over the past couple of years. When she didn’t see him, her heart dropped. She hadn’t expected him to take her seriously. It was stupid, she knew, but she expected him to understand she was doing this for the attention. Just like children at school who acted out—bad attention was better than none at all.

  Crocodile tears fell again, and she had to hold her arms across her stomach to hold in sobs as she made her way into the bedroom.

  “Please stop crying. I can’t take it.”

  Her scream could probably be heard across the street, but she hadn’t expected him to be sitting on the bed. He’d scared her to death, especially when she’d been successfully wallowing in her misery. He had laid his cut on the dresser and taken off his motorcycle boots. If they weren’t in conflict with one another, it struck her just how normal this scene would be on any other given night.

  “You’re the reason I’m crying,” she argued.

  He took a deep breath, mentally counting to try not to lose his cool with her. As sick as she was of everything, he was just as sick of it. Only a few weeks, was that how long it took to unravel everything they’d worked so hard for? It all seemed so tenuous, and that scared the shit out of him. “What’s wrong with us?”

  “You.” She pointed her finger at him. “You don’t touch me anymore, you don’t even act interested. Do I disgust you?”

  “Goddamnit Bianca,” he roared, leaping up from the bed and stalking the few steps it took to stand in front of her. “Not everything is always about you. The reasons for my actions don’t always concern you.” Except this time they did, and he didn’t want to be honest, especially if she were having second thoughts about them. His plan would be shot to hell.

  “At one time I was your top priority,” she yelled right back at him.

  “You wanna be my top priority? Then you can be my top priority.” He advanced on her, turning her so that he was pushing her towards the bed. It had been weeks, and his body hummed with the knowledge of what he was about to do.

  “Jagger,” Bianca breathed as he got all up in her space, holding her neck with his hands. She fisted his shirt into hers and pulled him closer to her. “I want this.” She closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see the anger in his. “However you wanna give it to me, I want this.” She swallowed roughly against the lump in her throat.

  He would hate himself in the morning, he knew this. Hell, he would probably hate himself in a few hours, but he needed her, anyway he could get her. Gone were all the reasons he needed to keep her at arm’s length for the next few days, gone were the secrets that he couldn’t wait to tell her. In this moment, he was a man in need of his woman.

  Usually he asked for permission; this time he didn’t as he reached up and untucked the towel she had secured at her chest. Her skin, still wet from the shower, glistened in the soft glow of the bedroom. Because it was almost summer and in the early evening, the sun had yet to set, and it cast an ethereal look around the room. Letting the towel drop, his eyes feasted on her body.

  She stood before him unashamed, not bothering to cover her body. They had been together long enough that there was no reason for her to be embarrassed; she knew what she wanted, and she wasn’t afraid to take it. In the bedroom, the two of them were equals. It didn’t matter what was going on outside of this room. Sliding her hands down his shirt, she gripped the waistband of his jeans, only stopping when her fingers met each other at the buckle of his belt.

  “It’s yours, babe. Take it if you want it,” he told her, kissing her on the forehead before moving his hands to cup the back of her neck, pushing her head back so that he could bury his lips in the curve of her neck. Lightly, he nipped with his teeth, appreciating her deep inhale of breath every time he did so.

  *

  This was the Jagger she knew and loved. Even angry he was going to give her what she asked of him. She was sick and tired of wondering if he wanted her or not. It wasn’t in her to lie back and wonder, and that’s what she had been doing for far too long.

  “What are you waiting on? Come and get me.”

  “This time, baby doll, you come and get me.”

  Chapter Five

  ‡

  There was no mistaking the challenge in Jagger’s voice. She knew she’d set herself up for this, making demands and telling him that she felt rejected and neglected. With shaking hands she reached down and grasped the hem of his shirt, lifting it over ab muscles that had grown tighter and more defined in the past couple of weeks. Again, it made her question what he was doing at night, without her. Shaking her head, she told herself that those thoughts had no home here. They had no business being in these special moments with one another.

  “I’m here,” he told her, grasping her chin and pulling her back to him.

  Her mind had wandered too long, and she realized if this night was like any of the previous ones of the past few weeks, she didn’t have much time with him. Grasping him around the waist, she pulled him to her with enough force that he stumbled. “And I’m here.” She stood on tiptoe to connect their lips. “I don’t know where you’re going at night, but you better remember who you have at home.”

  The words were spoken a breath above a whisper before she attacked him. Removing her hands from his waist, she burrowed
them into his hair, grasping the ends and manipulating his mouth how she wanted it, taking control against the strong pull that he normally had over her.

  Putting her hands back at his waistband, she yanked the edges of the belt apart and unbuttoned his jeans, pushing them down past his hips. With more force than she meant to use, she pushed him back against the bed. Refusing to be pushed to his back, he sat on the edge, motioning for her to come closer to him.

  “I’m in charge here, remember?” she whispered as she straddled his hips.

  “You might be in charge, but I can give you what you want and need,” he whispered right back as he claimed her lips and without preamble ran his fingers along her core, coating them with the moisture that had already gathered. Both of them moaned as he shoved those fingers deep inside her body. “Fuck, you’re tight.” He breathed heavily, smearing his lips down her neck.

  Bianca tried unsuccessfully not to rock her hips against him, not to pant as he curled his fingers inside her. None of it worked; her hips were rocking and her breath was coming in huge gasps. “It’s because my boyfriend refuses to fuck me.” She grinned at him, throwing her head back as he sped up and let his mouth take the peak of her breast.

  If he were honest with himself, Jagger had missed this more than anything. This was the most intimate relationship he had ever had, and he missed being with Bianca, he missed the way he felt close to her after she gave her body and pleasure over to him. It was more than anything he’d ever hoped for in his life, and she did it without question. He felt like an ass that he seemed to be pissing it away.

  “Hey.” She grabbed his head. “Don’t let any crazy thoughts in this moment.”

  He nodded; she was right. They couldn’t let anything come into these moments together. If they did, then they really were on the verge of ending. Grasping her hips, he pulled her down onto his length, shivering as he felt her body tighten against his. Being inside her was like coming home; it made him want to shout out to the world and cry at the same time. Nothing in his life had ever made him feel like this. He felt her nails score his shoulders as she picked up her pace. He wondered if it would always be like this, and as he felt his body speeding towards the finish line, he knew that it always would.