Stand (The Brazen Bulls MC Book 7)

by Susan Fanetti

  She played with the diamond ring on her finger. “No. I think I’d be less scared if I were. But I want us, for as long as I can have us. I want it all.”

  “So do I.” He kissed her head and turned back to the road.

  They drove on for ten minutes or so in silence. Then he made another turn, into a quiet neighborhood. They were southeast of Tulsa, just outside the city. “Where are we going?”

  He grinned. “I already told you.”

  “No, you did not. What do you want to show me?”

  They pulled up at a stop sign, and Cecily sat forward, trying to see what she could see, in the dark and the light sleet that had started since he’d picked her up at Aunt Mad and Unc…at Aunt Mad’s house. The trunk and back seat of his car were full of her things.

  She hadn’t wanted to leave her alone there, but Maddie had basically shoved her out the door. She wanted to be alone. Cecily knew the feeling. She also knew how dangerous indulging it could be.

  Caleb made a left turn, and they were on a dark street of wide, sloping lawns and ranch houses perched atop them. It was a lot like Aunt Mo and Uncle Brian’s neighborhood in Bixby, but down a few tax brackets. She didn’t know anyone who lived around here.

  He pulled into the driveway of a dark house and killed the engine.

  “Okay, enough. What the fuck are you doing, Caleb?”

  “You know Tyra?”

  Yeah, she knew Tyra. A sweetbutt who’d been around the clubhouse for something like ten years. “Is this her house?”

  “No. I don’t know where she lives. But her brother is a real estate agent. Did you know that?”

  “No. Why would I?”

  “Well, anyway. The club helps him out sometimes, moving shit into and out of houses or whatever. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is I asked him to find us a place. He said it wasn’t easy, what we wanted, but this place right here is about to go on the market. It needs a lot of work—Ciss, I mean a lot of work—but it’s cheap and it’s got a great piece of land, an acre and a half, and I thought we could make it what we want it to be.”

  She ducked down and peered through the window, trying to see the house in the dark. All she saw was a shadow of a shape. A ranch house. “Okay…but why are we here now?”

  “He gave me the code to the lockbox. We can go in. I filled the cooler in the trunk with beer and fried chicken. Let’s have a picnic and look around.”

  “You made a picnic? You’re adorable.”

  He tugged lightly on her hair. “I thought we established a long time ago that ‘adorable’ is not a compliment to a grown man.”

  “Well, stop being so adorable, then.”

  ~oOo~

  On the outside, it was just a plain ranch house. They’d parked in front of a two-car garage and walked up a curved sidewalk to a slab porch and a solid slab door with some beveled trim work. Caleb pushed the buttons on the realtor lockbox and freed the house key, and they went in.

  It smelled terrible. Like mildew and stale air, and something coppery and dark. Caleb flipped on the hall light.

  The entry opened onto the living room, and Cecily gasped. The room had been gutted. No floor, just concrete—so no basement here, then—and no walls, just studs. Even the ceiling was down to the studs. A big, pale brick fireplace with a prodigious hearth stood awkwardly in the shadows amidst all that emptiness, like the last guest at a party.

  She laughed. “Jesus. Did somebody get killed in here or something?”

  Caleb didn’t laugh—or answer.

  “Oh my God, Cay. Somebody did get killed in here. Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Murder-suicide. Shotgun. Six months ago.”

  If she’d been drinking, she’d have done a spit take. In its place, she simply guffawed. “You’re crazy. No.”

  Before she could turn back to the door, he grabbed her hand. “Wait, Ciss. Look. Yeah, people died bloody right here. But so what? Seems like everywhere I go, somebody’s died where I stand. I don’t know these people. Their deaths won’t haunt me. And…this probably sounds fucked, but it’s comforting, somehow.”

  “Yeah, that’s fucked. Comforting how?”

  “What happened here, I looked up the story. He was a welder, and she was a secretary. They had two dogs, little poodles. Married eleven years. Long history of domestic disturbance calls. In the last of those disturbances, he shot her, then did himself. Ate the gun and blew his head all over the room.”

  “Jesus. And that’s comforting?”

  “No, but…” He clawed a hand through his hair and stared at the barren living room. “They were just Joe and Jane Citizen. They weren’t outlaws. The shit we live through is bad, but it’s not like people aren’t out in the ‘normal’ world killing each other every fucking day. The Bulls, I understand us. The violence that comes our way, it’s different.”

  “What happened to my dad wasn’t different. What Griffin did was like this. Rage.”

  “You’re right.” He came to her and pulled her close. “I think that’s why it tore everybody up so bad. Because that’s not who we are. It’s who this guy was, but it isn’t us. The club fucked up bad in ’98, and let everybody who got hurt down. But we see that, we feel it. We still do, and it won’t happen again. Living here, we can do the same thing to this house. Build over a bad thing and make it good. Plus, Ciss. They’re only asking fifty-five for this place. The land is worth almost twice that.”

  Laughing, she set her arms on his shoulders and played with his hair. “You do that all the time.”

  His smile reflected her laughter. “What?”

  “Make a big, beautiful speech and land it with some totally prosaic observation.”

  “Prosaic?”

  “Ordinary.”

  “Ah. Did it convince you?”

  “You want us to live in a murder house. I’m gonna need some more convincing.”

  “Let me put it this way. All Native people live in a murder house. Our blood is soaked six feet deep into every square inch of this country.”

  “Whoa. Way to turbocharge a point. Not a prosaic observation.”

  He shrugged. “History is everywhere. Better to stand tall and overcome it than try to run and let it roll over you.” With a grin that let her know he understood what he was doing, he added, “You need to see the sunporch—it’s fucking awesome!”

  She laughed and let him pull her down the corridor, past the gutted room of somebody else’s horror, to a dated but very ordinary kitchen and out the back door.

  The sunporch was fucking awesome.

  ~oOo~

  The owners—Joe Citizen’s brother in Iowa—were ‘highly motivated,’ as were Caleb and Cecily. They had possession of the house in a couple weeks, took a few days to turn the murder room back into a living room, with fresh carpet and sheetrock, and were ready to move in within a month of their adorable, semi-creepy picnic.

  The picnic had been semi-creepy. Fucking on the fucking awesome sunporch had been fucking awesome.

  Honestly, take away the gruesome history and the obvious fact that Mr. and Mrs. Citizen had lacked the taste, or the money, or both, to keep the place up nicely, and it was a great house. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a big, sunny kitchen, a window seat in the dining room that looked out on the wide, tree-filled property, the fireplace in the murder room, the spacious garage, and a big shed in the back yard. The neighbors were quiet and at a healthy distance. It was a home for a growing family.

  She supposed they’d have to stop calling it the murder room when there were kids running around, but until then, she and Caleb both thought it was amusing. Talk about gallows humor.

  Cecily had never really been into decorating or home improvement, but she liked the idea of fixing the place up. Her first project, as soon as they took possession, had been to repaint the brick fireplace, which had been painted before and then covered in flat grey primer, probably to cover up…anyway. She painted the bricks a bright, fresh, shiny white, and the mantel barn red, and
it set off the new light grey walls and Berber carpet just right.

  The rest of the house had tacky fake-wood paneling and brown sculpted carpet, except the bathrooms and kitchen, which had white vinyl flooring meant to look like porcelain tiles and doing that job badly. The bathrooms had fake-tile paneling. The kitchen walls were papered with roosters and tractors and smiling suns.

  Caleb had not been kidding when he said the house needed a lot of work. It had what her mother had called, with faux enthusiasm, ‘good bones,’ but its flesh was saggy as hell.

  But that sunporch. Holy shit. Almost the whole length of the long house, and fifteen feet deep, it had a simple redwood plank floor and fully screened walls. It was a new addition and still smelled like cut wood. And it looked out onto that rolling yard covered in trees. Fucking awesome.

  ~oOo~

  Caleb came into the kitchen from the back yard and scooted around her array of paint cans and ladders and roller pans.

  “Don’t step in the paint! I spilled some on that tarp over there.”

  “You are a fucking slob, baby. Jesus.”

  She brought her arm down with the roller and tried to stretch out her neck and shoulders. And back. Painting ceilings was no fun at all. But they were trying to get at least the kitchen and outside to be decent before they moved their shit in tomorrow. “The creative mind is chaotic. Deal with it. How’s it looking out there?”

  “Two poodles make an insane amount of shit. But it’s all cleaned up, and I trimmed back those shrubs on the back fence, too. That was a hell of a thing. I don’t know what they are. They’re bright red and real pretty, but they have thorns two inches long. I’m going to call them Cissy bushes.”

  “Uh!” She stuck her fingers in the roller pan and flicked white ceiling paint in his face. “Asshole!”

  “I can’t believe you fucking did that!” He wiped at his face like it had been only water she’d hit him with, and smeared white across his cheeks, over his nose.

  Cecily laughed and flicked him again.

  “Well, see, now they’re going to have to gut the kitchen, too, because you’re about to be horribly murdered.”

  He grabbed her around the waist and yanked her off the ladder. She squealed and tried to hold on, but only succeeded in pulling the ladder over. The nearly full roller pan crashed to the floor and sent white paint everywhere.

  She still had hold of the roller, though, and she shoved it in his face.

  “Oh, baby,” he sputtered, snatching the roller from her. “Oh, you’re going to pay.”

  Laughing so hard she could barely breathe, Cecily scrambled through the paint-soaked tarps and tried to get to her feet, but Caleb landed on her with some kind of flying wrestling move. He straddled her and flipped her over.

  She fought, but he held her fast, white paint smeared over his face, his hair fallen from its braid and hanging loose, streaked with white. God, he was so hot. She squirmed again, arching her chest toward him, and his brows went up. He wedged her arms along her sides, so that her whole body was trapped between his legs and his hands were free.

  “How should I make you pay?” He grabbed her ratty old blouse at the placket and ripped it open. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and he plucked at her nipples. He’d said many times that he loved how prominent her nipples were. She hated it. Guys tended to say and do all kinds of gross shit when a woman walked by them with her nipples showing through basically any clothing thinner than a down parka. It was like walking around with a permission slip on her chest: Please feel free to grab, strange man I’ve never seen before. I’m obviously desperate to get fucked any way I can, because there could be no other possible reason my nipples are visible.

  Right now, of course, she was actually was very obviously desperate to get fucked. When she gasped and sighed, trembling at the touch, Caleb stopped.

  “No, that’s not right. Maybe this.” He leaned forward and sucked a nipple between his teeth. Biting down just beyond gently, he sat back, pulling her nipple up.

  “Oh! Oh fuck! Yes!”

  He let her go. “Nope.” Leaning over her, he reached for a trim brush that had fallen from the ladder. He swirled it in a puddle of white paint—holy fuck, the mess they were making—and brought it to her chest.

  “Caleb…”

  He grinned, and drew the brush over a nipple, so that only the very tips of the bristles teased her skin. The sucking bite had brought all the nerves in her breast up to the front row, and that light, cool, wet touch made her muscles clench and her pussy soak.

  “Caleb!” She squirmed again, wanting to be free to touch him back.

  But he was enjoying himself way too much. With that cheap brush and the spilled paint, he drew patterns over her breasts, her belly, up her neck, over her face. Sitting on top of her, holding her still, smiling a beautiful, hungry smile, he painted and painted until Cecily was wild with need.

  Finally, he set the brush aside and pulled his hoodie off, tossing it away, not caring if it landed in paint. There was his beautiful chest, pale bronze, her name inked over his heart, and an Osage name he’d given her, one that meant ‘Fire in My Hand.’

  “I’m going to fuck you now, iňloňka.”

  “Thank fucking God! But don’t get paint in me.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  Laughing, he eased his legs around her, and she pulled her arms free and shoved her sweatpants and panties down, kicking them away.

  He stood up, which was the entirely wrong direction. “Hold on. I need to get my wallet.”

  “No. No.”

  “No?”

  “No. This is our house. We want a family, right? Let’s try to make it now, right at the start.” When he just stood there, staring down at her, she got nervous. “Why are you staring at me? You do want a family, right?”

  “Yeah, Ciss. I do. I’m just thinking how perfect you are.”

  She laughed. “You’re nuts. I’m a trash fire.”

  “No. You’re my fire.” He shed his jeans and boots and came back down, into the wild mess they’d made, on the floor of their own kitchen.

  He pushed into her, and “Oh God!” The slick, hot feel of him!

  “Jesus, baby, shit, that’s good.” He thrust again. “Oh fuck. God, you’re on fire.”

  Caleb never talked during sex. Or made almost any noise at all. But this, just them, for the first time, nothing between them, this was transcendent. Cecily wrapped her painted body around his and thrust with him, drawing him deeper, finding his mouth with hers.

  She was normally loud, but no sound or words were there, only feeling, deep and penetrating, consuming.

  “Oh my God, Ciss,” he panted in time with his thrusts, her flexes, their rocking together. “This is…what the hell.”

  She held on and drove against him, faster, faster, faster. Harder.

  His hands scrabbled at the slick tarps as he tried to find better leverage to keep up with her. Each rock of her hips or thrust of his pulled a rough, pained grunt from his chest. Finally, he grabbed her in his paint-slicked hands and sat back on his knees, lifting her and dropping her, again and again, until her climax ran her over and dragged her voice up, and she screamed, an undulating, wailing scream that rolled with every slam of their bodies together.

  “Fuck!” He yelled. “Fuck! I’m—fuck!” He closed her in a vise of a clench and ground his shouts down into a long groan. His body twitched and flinched, and Cecily held on, biting down on his shoulder, as his orgasm kept the last throes of hers rolling through her.

  When it was over, neither moved or spoke. Now virtually covered in white paint, they were an alabaster sculpture of erotic love sated.

  “Holy fuck,” he finally gasped. “Holy fuck. That was…Jesus.”

  She chuckled on his shoulder. “Did you see God?”

  Leaning back, he brushed her hair from her face. “I didn’t see anybody but you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Caleb had heard the distinctive creak and rock of his
brother’s pickup as it pulled into the driveway, but that had been a few minutes ago. He went to the front window of the murder room and pushed the new white curtains back.

  The pickup was parked on the driveway, still idling. White plumes rose up from the exhaust, at a consistency and quantity that told Caleb the oil pan was leaking again. In a family of men who could do just about anything inside the house or out of it, he was the only one with any aptitude under a hood. Apparently, now that Caleb lived in Tulsa, Levi was letting the truck fall apart. Probably still pouting.