Her fingers tightened painfully in my hair. Her eyes left mine to roll back and her sweet breasts lifted as her body arched back. For a moment she was completely still. Locked up. Seized tight.
Then with a sharp wail, her body shook violently beneath me. Squeezing me deep inside as she cried out and bucked against me.
It was incredibly beautiful to watch. I was lost. I wanted it burned into my brain, never to forget this moment and this vision. I wanted to draw it out, to live it over and over. But one more tight grip of her wet pussy tore away the last shred of control I had, and I let it all go inside her.
I felt like I had poured out my soul.
I held her tightly, wanting to keep her close to my heart as her breathing slowed and she came back down to earth. She buried her face against my chest, hiding her vulnerability, but I could feel it. The frail hold on her emotion was evident with every shaky breath she took, every faint tremor that pulsed through her. I wanted her to stay in the moment. I needed her to stay in the moment.
“I love you, Denny,” she whispered.
“I love you, Fliss,” I breathed out. “My wife.”
We started being truly honest, for once. With ourselves and with each other. We explored this fragile, tenuous bond of love. It was the best couple weeks of my life.
Then I got a call from Frank, and he did not sound happy. Apparently Larry had pushed for a second marriage fraud interview, and it was scheduled for the following day. This was NOT a good sign. Frank suggested I call a lawyer.
So I did.
And Fliss called her dad.
“There are just too many circumstances I don’t buy into, Mr. Byrne.”
Larry the fuckhead was doing his bad cop routine again. Threatening Fliss, promising she might be okay if we would just told the truth, but they would likely hold me for deportation.
If we didn’t tell the truth, though, they would charge her as well. It could mean federal prison.
The lawyer had arrived not five minutes after we did, but, no matter what he said, Larry didn’t budge. He seemed to think he really had us now.
“You see there’s this little technicality I can throw down,” Larry said. “Your student visa was only good for six months following your time at Tech. And you haven’t been a student at Tech for quite some time, Mr. Byrne.”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with now,” I said, trying to remain calm, but losing the battle with my temper. “My passport is renewed. I’m here legally now.”
“But it does have something to do with now,” Larry replied. “You overstayed a previous visa. That’s a big no-no. Technically, it makes you ineligible for your immigration visa.”
Fliss was standing by my side, but suddenly weaved, looking pale and unsteady.
“Oh God,” she gasped.
“Mrs. Byrne,” Frank said, “you look like you need to sit down.”
She was practically hyperventilating, terrified, and clutching my arm fervently.
“They can’t take you away from me,” she whispered in shock. “Denny, they can’t take you.”
“Mrs. Byrne?” the lawyer asked. “Do you need a doctor? You really don’t look well.”
Right then, Fliss’ dad stormed in with Brannon and Sophie hot on his heels. He looked about ready to tear Larry a new arsehole when he saw the pallor and fear on Fliss’ face.
“Now sheriff,” Larry began, “there’s no reason to—”
“What the hell have you done to my daughter?” Fliss’ da raged.
“I’m alright,” Fliss promised. “I just felt a little faint for a minute there.”
“Maybe you should go to the walk-in clinic or something,” Sophie suggested, kneeling by the chair Fliss had sunk into.
“No, I want to stay here. It’s okay. I don’t feel very well, but I need to stay here.”
“When is the last time you’ve eaten?” I asked, knowing full well that she hadn’t touched her breakfast. She had been entirely too nervous to eat. For that matter, I don’t think she ate dinner the night before either. She was nearing twenty-four hours with no food, and she was kind of a tiny thing. Not a lot of fat stores to go on.
“Do you want me to go get you a sandwich or something?” Sophie asked. “Maybe you need a little food to settle your stomach.”
“I can’t…” Fliss replied weakly with a shake of her head.
“Maybe crackers, something,” Sophie suggested. “I can run down to the drugstore on the corner. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
“Get her some Coke or 7-Up,” I suggested.
Fliss looked up at me sadly. “Nanny’s cure-all,” she sniffed, and I pulled her tightly against my chest.
Sophie took off in a heartbeat to run down to the corner. Just as they were getting ready to take Fliss and me into separate interview rooms once again, Sophie returned with a small paper bag and a bottle of Coke. She handed it to Fliss who pulled out a small package of saltines, then looked in the bag and eyed Sophie warily.
Sophie shrugged, and Fliss glanced over at me just as Larry urged me into the room and closed the door behind us.
More questions… and more after that. Larry was pretty sure he was going to bury me, and possibly take Fliss down too.
“Where do you keep the spare toilet paper?” he asked.
I was stumped. These stupid arse questions were starting to get to me. “Well,” I answered, “we used to just keep the whole package up on the back of the jacks, but since Fliss moved in, I’m not entirely sure.”
“On the back of the what?”
“The jacks… the toilet. But it just occurred to me that Fliss has gone and decorated the bathroom lately, so I don’t know where she’s got it at this point.”
Larry frowned while Frank actually smiled. I took it as a good sign.
“How many brothers and sisters does your spouse have?” Larry asked.
“None. She was very young when her ma died and her da never remarried.”
“How well do you know her father?”
“Well enough to be scared shitless of him, but I respect him. And I think we’ve gotten past his initial hatred of me.”
“And why would he hate you?”
I shook my head like the question he had asked was completely ludicrous. “I married his daughter.”
Larry frowned again, and looked back at his sheet. “What color are your wife’s pajamas?”
“Seriously? If you were married to a hot little thing like my wife, would you really want her wearing pajamas?”
I had been trying. I really had. But I was so over this shit, especially now that Fliss and I had things kind of worked out. And I was worried about my wife, knowing she was probably sitting out there twisting her fingers together until we were done.
“Frank,” Larry finally said after giving me a long, hard stare-down, “will you go get Mrs. Byrne?”
Frank barely had the door open before Fliss was through it and sitting in the chair by my side. The others followed her into the room, with her father standing along the back wall of the office, Brannon beside him, and Sophie behind Fliss. Fliss was still a little-peaked looking, looking even more pale than she had been before I’d come in here.
I grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight, leaning a little closer to whisper in her ear. “Did you drink some flat Coke?”
She shot me a look, half horrified and half amused, before she offered me an anxious smile that made me even more nervous.
“The fact is,” Larry began, “I think this marriage is fraudulent, so I intend to start the deportation process.”
“No,” Fliss cried, shooting up out of her chair and leaning over the desk, “you can’t do that. You can’t.”
I stood as well, pulling her back to put my arm around her.
“I can, and I will,” Larry replied.
“Sir—” Frank began.
“Mr. Byrne,” Larry cut him off, sternly ignoring his subordinate, “I’m afraid you’ll be staying here tonight. For the next c
ouple nights, actually, until we have everything in order to send you home.”
“No,” Fliss shouted again, “wait, I have to—”
I wrapped her in my arms and pressed her head against my chest, hushing her. “Stop, Fliss. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“But Denny—” she cried, struggling against me.
“I don’t know what else to do. I’ll go back to Ireland and file paperwork from there. We’ll do it, we will keep pushing for it.”
“I don’t want to be away from you,” Fliss argued passionately.
“Then come with me. Stay there with me in Dublin until we can get it to go through.”
“But wait, Denny—”
“It might take a few years, but we can be together. I don’t need anything else. I don’t even need Montana if I have you. All I want is to be with you.”
“It would actually help your case, too,” Frank suggested, much to the chagrin of Larry. “The longer you’re married, the less likely immigration is to think it’s a sham.”
Fliss shook her head and looked up to me.
“It might be the best way to do this, Fliss,” I said.
“No,” she argued.
“I don’t know what else to do,” I groaned. “I’m not going to let them take you down for this.”
“Denny, I’m pregnant.”
Everyone froze except Sophie who squealed loudly, running over to hug Fliss.
Fliss’ dad looked at me in a way that damn near had me begging for immigration to throw me in jail. A nice poke up the arse by some big manky fucker in the clink was likely way more pleasant than what he was thinking of doing to me at the moment.
“Are you sure it’s his?” Larry scowled at Fliss. “I’ve heard about some of the perverse shit that goes on at that house.”
“Absolutely,” Fliss spat back at him.
“Ya probably shouldn’t be saying shite like that about my wife,” I growled.
“Or my daughter,” Sheriff Williams said.
I was exceedingly grateful that he seemed to be backing me instead of still looking like he wanted to murder me in my sleep. I glanced up at him to see his fury trained on Larry now. Looking back to Larry, I puffed out my chest a little.
For once in my life, I had the law on my side. And he was a big, scary guy.
“Especially with her da here,” I scoffed. “Have ya not seen the fella?”
Larry had grown a little pale when Fliss’ da spoke, and, as the cold fury radiated out from the bulky form at my back, he actually looked a bit scared.
“So it was positive?” Sophie whispered.
Fliss looked at her a bit stunned and nodded.
“What was positive?” I asked.
“The pregnancy test,” Sophie grinned.
I shook my head. “What pregnancy test?”
“The one Fliss just took in the bathroom.”
I felt all the blood rush from my brain. I had halfway wondered if it was a ruse. Something to buy more time. But it was starting to seem like maybe…
Utterly gobsmacked, Larry loosened his hold on me and I pulled away to stand before my wife.
“Fliss?”
“When we got back from Ireland, with everything going on, I missed my regular appointment. I rescheduled, and got in right before the party where we got into that big fight,” she said quietly. “Then we made up.”
I cupped her cheek, gazing down at her. “We made up very well, mind you.” I couldn’t help the smile dazedly spreading across my face. “For days.”
“I didn’t even think about it at the time, but it was right after my appointment, so the shot… well, I guess it wasn’t effective yet.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a long, purple pregnancy test.
“I’m gonna be a da,” I breathed.
Fliss looked over at Frank and Larry. “So don’t take him away from me. I need him.”
“Jaysus, Fliss, is this real?” I whispered it. Truthfully, I don’t think I could have actually spoken aloud around the huge lump in my throat, but I also meant this to be for her ears only. “You’re not slaggin’ me are ya?”
“No,” she smiled slightly, “I’m not slaggin’ ya.” Then she suddenly looked completely freaked, her eyes teared up, and her brow furrowed with sudden apprehension. “Oh my God, you don’t want kids. We’ve never talked about it… Oh God.”
She was about to go off her nut. So I stopped her the best way I knew how.
I kissed her.
Deep. Thorough. Putting every ounce of love I felt into touching my lips to hers. Her arms slowly crept up my shoulders until she was clutching me to her, pressing her sexy little body up against me. The world around us disappeared for a moment as she kissed me back.
Her eyes fluttered open as I lifted my head. “Are you okay with this?” she asked.
“More than okay,” I said back, my voice cracking with a hoarse emotion. “Feckin’ hell… a baby… yours and mine. Really?”
She began to nod, and I kissed her again.
Somewhere around us, I faintly heard Larry mention something about DNA testing. A thick growl from Fliss’ dad, followed by the lawyer going on and on and on, finally seemed to shut him up.
I couldn’t focus on anything, though, but my wife in my arms and knowing the two of us had inadvertently created something spectacular. Together. Knowing the love which had sprouted all those years ago, sometimes frail but always true, had been tested and denied for too long. It was finally going to bloom.
The ghosts of the past had faded. Our guilt and pain had run its course, always to be a part of us but no longer dictating our life together.
“Frank,” I heard Larry say as I held Fliss tightly in my arms, “take Mr. Byrne’s passport and stamp the son-of-a-bitch. I give up. I’ll approve the damn green card.”
“You know, you’ve met them before,” I said as Fliss fidgeted in her seat.
“I know,” she replied, “but that was sort of under false pretense.”
“False pretenses? You say that like you didn’t plan on staying married to me.”
“Okay, so maybe I met them while I had you under false pretenses, because I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell you I wanted to stay married.”
“Well, I can pretty much guarantee my nanny, who already thinks you hung the moon, will love you even more because you gave her this little guy.”
Fliss looked over at me and caressed the little dark head that rest on my shoulder. Our son. Just over a year old in his little baby Bangin’ Mofos t-shirt. Brown hair and green eyes, just like me.
Even Larry the fuckhead at immigration had said so when we went in to file paperwork to remove the ‘conditional’ from my permanent residency. A couple more months, and I would be golden.
Fliss and I had moved out of the Mofo house, something we both kinda felt was necessary since Eoghan was on the way. All the guys agreed… a baby might be a chick magnet, but it could also be one hell of a cock blocker. While they were all about being great ‘uncles,’ none of them wanted to hear a snapper crying while they were knocking knickers in the other room.
Didn’t seem to slow things down much for Fliss and I, though. Eoghan was a right heavy sleeper.
We found a place that had a big shop out back, just outside of Ophir towards Butte. It made Fliss’ commute just a little easier, and it had a good-sized shop behind it for my welding.
Being legal had its perks. Without having to fly under the radar, my small business really began to take off. I was contracted to do a fair amount of sheet metal work for Brannon, and through a combination of word-of-mouth and a little advertising, I kept very busy.
But I made sure I wasn’t too busy to let my artistic side out. More customers in my welding shop proved to bring more attention to my metal sculpture. Before long, I was being commissioned to do things in the community, and then even a little farther – a fountain in front of the First Bank of Ophir led to a gate for a botanical garden on the way to Helena. The gate
led to a memorial for the last wave of miners who went underground before they were all sent to Berkeley Pit.
One of which was Eoghan Williams, Fliss’ grampa.
And, even though things were busy and crazy, I still had my Mofos. We still played at the Copperline on weekends, leaving little Eoghan with Fliss’ dad so she could join me. Like a weekly date night… every Friday and Saturday.
Fliss played the groupie right amazing. She was just wild enough yet to polish me off out behind the bar during a break. Or to tease me and rile me up throughout the night where I could barely sing, wanting only to drag her out to the truck for a savage ride.
The only problem there was I wanted to go all sappy and sing about love and fidelity after a quick and torrid release during a show. But I had a way of doing just that, yet keeping the Bangin’ Mofos bangin.’
Much to the chagrin of Fliss, who was pure mortified the first time I played it, it sort of became known as the Denny-just-got-some-out-back-during-the-break song. Because I couldn’t help it. As cheesy and corny and ridiculous as it seemed, it was the first song to come to my mind every single time.
So after finding sheer heaven on the break, led to it by my wife’s hands and mouth and sweet little pussy, I’d put on my best I’m-man-enough-for-this-shit face, and the guys and I would totally bang out Top Of the World.
And we rocked the feckin’ song.
The first time, Fliss about died. As I began to sing, she looked utterly gobsmacked, then went pure scarlet and laughed all at once as I pointed her out in the crowd. And by the end of the song, she had climbed up on stage to lay one on me.
After which, we very quickly took another break.
So, for the most part, life was going well. I had my very own personal groupie who was also an incredible wife to me and mother to our child. It was fascinating, too, watching Eoghan pass all those little baby milestones.
Watching him was endlessly entertaining. His smile. His laugh. They way he’d studiously pick up crisps with his little thumb and forefinger. He was even calling me ‘da’ which damn near brought me to tears when I realized he was doing it intentionally, in no small part due to Fliss’ encouragement.
Wild Irish Envy (Copperline #2) Page 22
