Marlin's Faith: The Virtues Book II

by A. J. Downey

  Bobby had split off and pulled into a bar on the way back, so it was just me and her. I had a key though, so it was all good. Faith was looking out into the rows of trees, flanking one side of the house, a troubled and lost expression on her face when I turned back to her. I stood, waiting her out patiently, to collect her thoughts and to speak on it.

  “You know I can’t give you what Johnny has, right?” she said so faintly, I almost didn’t hear her.

  “What, Vi and Holden?”

  “Children, yes.”

  I pulled her by the wrist gently, until she turned and looked at me, but I kept pulling until her arms were settled around my waist and my arms were around her.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I love my niece and nephew to death, but Baby Girl, I’m the vice president of what is technically an outlaw motorcycle club. That doesn’t exactly make father of the year material.”

  “I know what you are, Marlin, I’m not talking about that though, I’m talking about me. Asking you if you’re sure, because I don’t know if I could live with it if one day you woke up and decided you wanted something I couldn’t give you and you pitched me –”

  I put a finger to her lips and smiled down at her and I knew it was a little sad. Shit, what she was sayin’ kind of hurt. That she would think of me that way… but I knew where this was coming from, and I knew it didn’t have so much to do with me as it did her and her insecurities.

  “Faith, if ever there comes a time you want a child, or that I want one for some god forsaken reason, we’ll talk about it. Just like we’re talkin’ now. I’ve never been much interested in bein’ a daddy, but if the urge suddenly decides to come on strong, there are a hell of a lot more ways to go about bein’ one than knocking my woman up.”

  Faith stared at me in silence, and I sighed out softly, “Shit, I meant adoption and that didn’t come out right. I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay, I understand… I don’t think it came from me right either.”

  I rested my forehead against hers and we just existed for long minutes, in each other’s space, each drawing comfort from the other.

  “It’s been a long day,” I murmured.

  “An unexpectedly busy one, too,” she agreed.

  “Can I please just take my woman upstairs and make love to her?”

  “I think I would like that,” she said softly.

  “Okay then.”

  Hand in hand I let us into the house and led her up the stairs. When we reached the bedroom, I shut the door behind us softly. When I turned, it was to the blue light of the moon illuminating one half of my girl’s face. Man, Faith was one of the most beautiful and ethereal lookin’ women I had ever seen. Like she’d been swimmin’ in the sea, tail and all and had done that miraculous change, walkin’ up onto shore.

  “You’re so fuckin’ beautiful to me it hurts sometimes,” I told her, and it was true.

  Her expression, her body language, softened. Tension easing from her shoulders and the tightness around her eyes and anxiety in her face melting away some. I went to her and kissed her gently, tracing light fingertips along the side of her neck.

  The clothes came off slowly, hands exploring and that was fine by me. I was in no rush and neither one of us had any place to be. I moved us over to the bed and laid her down, opting to kiss every inch of her supple skin while she fisted the sheets and arched to meet my touch, jerking back and giggling when I found a ticklish spot. I liked it when she did that, her smile and laugh infectious.

  I started with oral on her, having had sex a few times, this is what seemed to put her in a relaxed state enough to keep the memories at bay, holding her in the now. I wanted that for her. I wanted to keep her here, with me, until a time I could send her shooting into the stratosphere.

  My efforts paid off in that department, with a lingering swipe of my tongue, Faith’s spine arched, bowing impossibly, until not even the crown of her golden hair made contact with the mattress or pillows. She was drawn tight, like the skin of a drum, and let out the most beautiful, satisfying sound as her pussy milked my fingers in an even pulsating rhythm.

  I felt a savage victory over that, I’m not even going to lie.

  Chapter 44

  Faith

  I collapsed back to the bed, panting, fingers clutching the bottom sheet, tight. Marlin was laying butterfly kisses along my hip, up my flank before pausing to take one of my nipples into his mouth. I cried out again and writhed beneath him and felt him smile against my breast. He finished with his attentions there and laid his hands on my chest between them, resting his chin on them.

  “You good, Baby Girl?” he asked and I nodded, unsure of my ability to speak. “You want I should keep going?” he asked softly and I could see in his eyes that he really didn’t want to stop. That he would, when I know he was so obviously aroused, likely to the point of pain, touched me. I didn’t want him to stop, though, I wanted him to climb my body the rest of the way, I wanted him to kiss me and I wanted him inside me.

  I untangled my hands from the sheets and gestured for him to finish coming up here. He smiled at me, and placing his arms to either side of my body, complied, holding himself carefully off of me so as not to overwhelm me.

  Every little care he took towards my wellbeing like this, I noted it. Every time he gave me a nuanced look, checking on me, checking to see if this or that was alright, every time he kissed me with such reverent care, every time he stopped at the first sign of my distress, every time he’d squeezed my knee in reassurance, or kissed the hurt away, or touched me with the reverence he was showing me now… I fell more deeply in love with him.

  He lowered his lips to mine and gently slipped inside me, eliciting a deep, impassioned moan from me. I pushed at him and he smiled against my lips, turning with me, holding me close so that he lay on his back and I rose above him, his cock still seated deeply inside of me as I looked down at him from my perch along his body. I wanted to love him as thoroughly as he loved me, and I loved that he let me do it.

  I rose and fell gently along his length and loved it when his eyes drifted shut and he moaned, giving himself over to the sensations of our bodies meeting. I made love to him for a long time this way, until time melted and distorted in the haze of euphoria we shared and we either had to finish or Marlin had to take over, my legs trembled so badly from fatigue from the sustained, unfamiliar position I had them in.

  It ended up being the latter, Marlin sitting up and curving his strong arms behind my back. He lifted me and turned me without slipping free of my body, but still managed to not lean on one of my legs in the transition to where it felt like the bone very nearly bent. I loved that about him, so thoughtful and he thought of everything.

  He took over, and I closed my eyes, drowning willingly in the feeling of him moving above me and inside me. Relishing how the pleasurable glow of our lovemaking coalesced into sparks of energy, flowing through me and alighting on my skin. Glowing off and on like the random little fireflies in his parent’s back yard.

  When I came, it was with him, and it was, in fact, as if the earth moved. Like my axis reversed polarities and settled, just a little bit more, into who I had been before my trauma, only more like it settled into who I would be and it only had one word to apply to it: stronger.

  Marlin gathered me to him in the dark of the room, and we lay, pressed together, breathing heavy, safe in a world of our own making.

  “I love you, Faith,” he whispered when he’d caught his breath enough.

  “I love you, too.”

  It was nice, because in that moment of post lovemaking bliss, I felt it as sure as the sun would rise tomorrow… I was going to be okay. We were going to be okay.

  Here was a new beginning. One full of potential… one without end. Marlin hugged me tighter and placed a kiss against the top of my hair. I sighed out, and laid even more of my burden down.

  ***

  Three weeks later…

  “Are you looking up my skirt?” I asked laug
hing. Marlin caressed my calf, running his fingers lightly up behind my knee, taking the liberty of continuing all the way to my lower inner thigh. I shivered, and stilled on the ladder and he chuckled.

  “Maybe, but can you blame me?”

  “No, I suppose…” I trailed off, standing straighter at the roar of pipes growing closer. I started leaning this way and that, trying to see through the trees and Marlin laughed outright, Bobby with him.

  “Easy, Baby Girl; I don’t want you to fall, come down here.”

  I took a step or two down and Marlin gave a pull, with a surprised squeal, I fell into his arms. He laughed and kissed me, before setting me on my feet.

  “There you go!”

  We rushed back to the house and around front where Cutter, my sister, and the rest of The Kraken who had stayed in New Orleans were getting off their bikes.

  “Hope!”

  I ran to my sister and hugged her tightly. She looked surprised, bewildered even and hugged me back tightly.

  “Are you okay? I mean what happened?”

  “Calm down, Firefly! We’ll get to it.” Cutter wrapped an arm around my sister’s waist and hugged her into his side.

  “You are okay, right?” I asked her anxiously.

  She gave my hand a squeeze, “I will be after I get some real food,” she said and she was as closed off and shut down as I’d ever seen her, which meant that no, she wasn’t alright. I had only spent a night in that place and Hope had been with me… I can’t imagine what a month with no one familiar had been like.

  “Are you done?” I asked, and I was apprehensive, I mean, what if she had to go back?

  “Yep! All charges were dropped and the cops that picked you up are under some hardcore review,” Radar crowed.

  “So, what happened?” I asked.

  Cutter laughed, “I said we’d get to it! Relax Firefly, damn, although it’s good to see you bein’ you.” He winked at me and I blushed.

  “Can we call Charity? I mean, can she come home?” I asked. I’d talked to my younger sister more and more over the intervening weeks; the stronger I’d begun to feel, the more outgoing I’d begun to feel too. Hope had the shine of tears in her eyes and pulled me into a tight hug.

  “Yeah Bubbles, It’s time I had both my girls home,” she said. I couldn’t disagree with Hope. This was home, or Ft. Royal was anyways and she was right, I wanted all of us together again. It was past time.

  “So we can call her? Do you think she’ll be able to leave?”

  “Bubbles, this is Blossom we’re talking about here, you think anything is going to stop her? She’ll just outsmart them.”

  I nodded and hugged Hope again, and it felt like I was me, like we were a family again. Marlin smiled at me, pleased, from behind my sister’s back as he clasped hands with Cutter and pulled him in for a hug. Something passed between the two men in that enigmatic way that was between two brothers of the MC. As soon as he and Cutter had their bromantic moment, Marlin moved to greet the rest of the men… the rest of my extended new family.

  I smiled and couldn’t think of a time that I had ever truly felt like I was a part of something before, but it was true… This is where I belonged. Safe, happy, and loved.

  Epilogue

  Charity

  “Ack! God fucking damn it!” I went diving over the edge of my bed in my dorm room and snatched my buzzing phone off the nightstand.

  “Hello?”

  “Blossom!” My two sisters crowed into the phone and I held the phone away from my ear to keep from going deaf in it.

  “What?” I asked, laughing back. Faith is laughing… It’d been so long since I had heard that laugh. I missed my sister, both my sisters, with a fierce ache in the center of my chest.

  “When are you coming home?” Faith demanded, like she hadn’t been the one keeping me away. I rolled my eyes exasperated. Some things never change.

  I looked around my dorm room. I had six weeks of class left, but I really wanted to go. I did some quick math and sighed out.

  “I can be there in three, maybe four weeks?” I hazarded.

  “Will you be graduated?” Hope asked suspiciously.

  “Close enough, I’ll have all my classes done, all my credits in, and will just be waiting on my diploma in the mail.”

  “Charity…”

  “Oh, whatever Corporal Badass! I don’t need to walk down some stupid aisle and across some fucking stage, in front of a bunch of gawking people I don’t know, to feel like I accomplished what I did.”

  I heard a male voice that could have been Cutter or Marlin say “Damn!” on the other end of the line and Hope and Faith dissolved into peals of laughter, which made me laugh too.

  “By my estimation you have six weeks of classes left,” Hope said and I rolled my eyes.

  “Yeah, so what? I can do them in the time frame I gave you.”

  “Charity –”

  “I do what I want!” I said in a mock tough-guy tone; more laughter ensued. I’d never been one to take my oldest sister too seriously, Faith did and then some, covering us both on that front.

  “Fine, you do what you want and get your ass down here, with your diploma or I’m kickin’ your ass!” Hope said.

  “Aye, aye, Captain tight wad!” I crowed and I heard Cutter in the background say, “Hey! Watch it now.”

  It took a few minutes for the laughter to subside and for the three of us to get a grip and say goodbye. I smiled after I ended the call and breathed in deep and let it out.

  It was time for the three of us girls to inhabit the same space again… I couldn’t wait.

  Other books by A.J. Downey

  The Sacred Hearts MC

  1. Shattered & Scarred

  2. Broken & Burned

  3. Cracked & Crushed

  3.5. Masked & Miserable (a novella)

  4. Tattered & Torn

  5. Fractured & Formidable

  6. Damaged & Dangerous

  Get Biker Chicks on Amazon here

  Paranormal Romance

  I Am The Alpha (with Ryan Kells)

  Omega’s Run (with Ryan Kells)

  About the Author

  A.J. Downey is the internationally bestselling author of The Sacred Hearts Motorcycle Club romance series. She is a born and raised Seattle, WA Native. She finds inspiration from her surroundings, through the people she meets, and likely as a byproduct of way too much caffeine.

  She has lived many places and done many things, though mostly through her own imagination… An avid reader all of her life, it’s now her turn to try and give back a little, entertaining as she has been entertained. She lives in a small house in a small neighborhood with a larger than life fiancé and one cat.

  She blogs regularly at www.ajdowney.com. If you want the easy button digest, as well as a bunch of exclusive content you can’t get anywhere else, sign up for her mailing list right here.

  Published 2016 by Second Circle Press

  Book design by Lia Rees at Free Your Words

  Cover art and Virtues logo by Cover Your Dreams

  Text copyright © 2016 AJ Downey

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved