BENT AT THE ALTAR

by Claire St. Rose

  He carried her directly to her room, flipped the linens back, and placed her in the bed. He kissed her on the forehead, because it seemed like the fatherly thing to do, then covered her tiny body. He didn’t know about the door, so he split the difference between open and closed by closing it half-way.

  “You okay?” he asked as he stepped into Stella’s room.

  “Yeah. Just tired,” she said as her head popped through the opening on the sleep shirt.

  “You’re sure? You seemed upset about the money at the diner.”

  She shook her head. “No, everything is fine. Thank you, though. That was very generous. Weren’t you going to watch her sleep or something?”

  “Yeah, but I wanted to check on you first. I won’t be long.”

  He stepped out of the room and moved silently to Katrina’s bed. After a moment his eyes adjusted to the gloom and he could see her clearly with the light from the window. He stood watching her sleep, a stupid grin on his face he could vanish for only a few moments at a time. He sensed Stella step up beside him, and he took that as his cue to leave, but before he did, he put his arm around her waist and pulled her in close. He held her a moment, then released her and they snuck out of the room, Stella pushing Katrina’s door close until there was just a crack remaining.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She didn’t want to be alone and craved the contact of another person. “Do you want to stay?”

  He paused, wondering if it was trap, then decided she deserved an honest answer. “Yes.”

  She gave him a ghost of a smile, then took his hand and tugged him toward her room.

  “Go ahead. I need to lock the door.” When he arrived in her room a moment later, she was settling in, still in her shirt. He turned out the lamp, undressed in the dark, then slid between the sheets, the linens feeling deliciously cool.

  She rolled over and kissed him. “Just hold me, okay? I’m too tired for anything else.”

  He smiled at the exhaustion in her voice, but said nothing as he gently urged her to lay on him. She snuggled in close with a sigh and he felt her relax into sleep almost immediately. He was a bit disappointed they weren’t going to make love, but the feeling soon passed. She was still in his arms, and that was enough for now. Her slow steady breathing quickly began to lull him to sleep, the lack of sleep last night catching up with him as well. He took a deep breath, allowing the sleep to claim him, a small smile still on his lips.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Birds were singing, and bright sunlight streamed through the window. Stella groaned as she stretched, pulling herself out of sleep, then flipping her phone over to shut up the damnable birds.

  “Good morning,” Gabriel muttered.

  “Good morning,” she mumbled in return. It was Saturday, and though she had to work in the bakery, at least she didn’t have to work at the diner tonight. She stretched again until she thought her bones would creak, then rolled over to face him. She’d slept the sleep of the dead last night, remembering nothing after snuggling into Gabriel’s arms, and as she snuggled in again, he surrounded her in is arms.

  “This is nice,” she murmured.

  “Yes it is,” he agreed.

  She knew if she lay there very long she would go back to sleep, but she had a few moments and she intended to milk them for all they were worth. “I’m glad you stayed last night.”

  “Me too.”

  She slid her hand down his body, her eyes still closed, smiling when she felt his hardness. “Too bad we don’t have time to do something about that.”

  “Maybe later,” he murmured as she softly caressed him, making him ache for her.

  She released him, her soft caresses of his manhood starting to turn her on. “Maybe. Were you disappointed about last night?”

  “Yes and no. Yes, I wanted to make love to you, but no, I wasn’t disappointed. I thought I was leaving, remember?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t want to be alone last night.”

  He caressed her back. “I didn’t either.”

  She yawned again, then rose to kiss him. She intended it to be a quick good morning kiss, but the kiss took on a life of its own, and when she pulled back, she sighed in disappointment. “I have to get up.”

  He gave her a light and playful swat on the butt. “Yes you do, so you will stop teasing me. What will Katrina eat for breakfast?”

  “She likes scrambled eggs and toast.”

  “Oh…uh…”

  She giggled at his obvious reluctance. “She’ll also eat the same cereal I ate yesterday, so long as she has toast. You can at least make toast, right?”

  He grinned in embarrassment that he was so useless. “I think I can manage that. I think I can figure out the eggs, too, maybe.”

  She stroked his cock again. “I guess you can’t be good at everything, and I can cook.”

  He pulled her hand away. “Get your shower, then you can teach me to make eggs so the next time I’ll know how. I can make coffee, though.”

  She gave him another quick kiss. “Okay, but I don’t have enough eggs for everyone,” she said as tumbled out of bed. “Tomorrow is grocery day.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll just have coffee for breakfast.”

  As she stripped out of her shirt he admired her form, hungering to touch her. “You should eat breakfast to set a good example for Katrina.”

  He didn’t know if she was teasing or not, so he decided to be safe. “Okay. I’ll have a bowl of cereal, then.”

  She nodded then strode around the bed, pressing her naked body to his and pulling his lips down for a long and lingering kiss. She slowly pulled back, watching his eyes. “I know what I want for breakfast, but we don’t have time.” She smiled at him as his eyes crinkled with a grin. “Make coffee. I’ll grab a bath, get Katrina up, then show you how to scramble eggs. Are you going to shower?”

  “No. I’m just going to get nasty working at the clubhouse. I’ll shower before I meet you at the diner.”

  “No diner tonight. Sunday morning until two. But then I’m off until Tuesday morning.”

  “What time do you get off, then?”

  “Eight. Why?”

  “Let me take you out to dinner?”

  “Gabriel, I don’t know. I don’t see enough of Katrina as it is.”

  “Bring her along. Connie, too, if you want. When was the last time someone treated you and Katrina to dinner?”

  She smiled. “It’s been a while.”

  “It’s settled, then. Will Katrina eat Italian?”

  “She likes spaghetti.”

  “How does Mosconi’s sound?”

  “That sound great, if we can get in.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  ***

  Twenty minutes later Stella stepped into the kitchen holding a sleepy looking Katrina. “Good morning Katrina,” he said as he handed Stella a coffee with milk and sugar this time.

  “Morning,” Katrina mumbled, rubbing her eye with a small hand.

  Stella and Gabriel grinned at each other in surprise that she actually answered this time. “You want eggs for breakfast?” he asked, trying to keep the momentum going.

  “Mm-hmm,” she nodded.

  “You want to watch your mommy teach me how to make eggs?”

  She nodded again.

  “You need a small pan, from down there,” Stella instructed, nodding with her head, “and five eggs.”

  Katrina watched with rapt attention as Stella walked him through the process of making eggs. He assumed that you just cracked the eggs into a pan and stirred them around with some salt until they were cooked, but Stella had him whipping them in a bowl with milk first, then adding a healthy pat of butter to the pan. As he stirred he added salt, pepper and a sprinkle of shredded cheese.

  As the eggs cooked, she told him when to start the toast, a breakfast requirement as far as Katrina was concerned. He managed to get the eggs cooked and on the table, and the toast buttered, with minimal mess.

  “Can
you say thank you?” Stella suggested as Gabriel put her plate of eggs with a slice of buttered toast, cut on the diagonal, in front of her.

  “Thank you,” she said as she picked up the toast and bit into it.

  He slid a plate with the bulk of the eggs in front of Stella and then poured up a bowl of cereal for himself before adding a splash of milk.

  “Not bad,” Stella said with an approving nod before offering him a forkful of her eggs to taste. “You like them?” she asked Katrina.

  “Good!” Katrina chirped before stuffing a spoonful into her mouth.

  “Katrina approved,” Stella teased. “You’re an expert now.”

  He thought he would hate cooking, and probably would if he were cooking just for himself. It was so easy to just run out and buy something he didn’t see the need to stand in front of a stove, but having Katrina say he eggs were good made him grin and want to cook something else for her. “Eggs and toast. I think I can handle that now.”

  “That’s good,” Stella purred in a way that made his cock twitch.

  ***

  They finished breakfast, Katrina eating all her toast but leaving a bite or two of eggs behind. As the women got ready to travel, he cleaned up, scrubbing the dishes with a handled brush before putting them in the dishwasher. She would probably have to rearrange the stuff later, but he got them all in there.

  “Let me know if Connie is going to join us, okay?” he said as he gave her a quick kiss at the door. “I’m going to make reservations for four, at 8:30. Does that give you enough time?”

  “Make it 8:45, so I have time to come home and change.”

  He nodded and kissed her again. “8:45 it is. I have to go, but I’ll be waiting for you right here.”

  This time she kissed him. “I’ll see you.”

  ***

  “You’re in a good mood,” Scratch said as he and Royal wrestled the power auger. They were making holes for the fence that was going up. Hammer and Doc were coming along behind them, setting posts and making them true, while Moose, Goon, Jaunt, Blade, Hot Rod and Scratch were mixing and pouring concrete. It was an all hands on deck project and they were kicking ass. By the time they had dug the last hole, the concrete would be set enough on the first holes to start installing the aluminum fencing.

  “I am.”

  “Got laid last night, huh?”

  Royal chuckled, digging in as the auger tried to twist out of his hands. “Actually no, but I had breakfast with my daughter this morning.”

  Scratch stared at him over the top of the roaring machine. “Are you shitting me? You have a daughter? Since when?”

  “Since three years ago. I didn’t even know until day before yesterday.”

  “That’s some shit! Are you okay?”

  Royal released the throttle on the auger and the bit stopped. The tape they had wrapped around the shaft was even with the ground. They worked the auger a bit, lifting the dirt out of the hole, then carried it to the next flag and started it digging.

  “Yeah. Pretty excited, actually,” he said with a big grin. “Katrina Violet, and she just beautiful. She’s mine and Stella’s.”

  “That’s the chick at the diner, the one you still have the hots for, right?”

  “It’s more than that, man. I still love her. I’d forgotten how much I do love her.”

  “So are you fucking her again?”

  Royal bit down on his annoyance, knowing Scratch didn’t mean anything by his comment. “We’re trying to work it out, yes.”

  He grinned. “I hope it works out for you, brother. I really do.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. They may be a little rough around the edges sometimes, but his brothers were all good men, and he liked them. “So do I, brother. So do I.”

  ***

  “I think we’re done, brothers,” Royal said as he poked at the still slightly soft concrete with his finger. The concrete hadn’t dried as fast as he’d hoped and he was afraid they would twist the posts out of true if they started attaching the fencing. After they’d dug the last hole, he and Scratch had spent their time moving fence sections into place so they would be ready to start in the morning, then helping set the last poles.

  Doc twisted back and forth to ease the tension in his back. “I say we take tomorrow off. Even if we get the fencing up, the gate won’t be installed until sometime next week. We’ve been kicking ass for a week now. I need a break. I’ve been too tired to fuck the old lady and she’s starting to get pissed. I’m not like you young bulls. I can’t work all day and then fuck all night. I can only do one or the other.”

  “Works for me,” Royal agreed. If he didn’t have to work tomorrow, then maybe he could do something with Stella and Katrina.

  Doc nodded in Royal’s direction. “Yeah. Go do something with your daughter. Once we get this place whipped into shape, bring her around so we can see her.”

  Royal couldn’t stop smiling. He’d taken a load of shit all afternoon about suddenly having a daughter, the brothers wondering aloud after all the fucking he’d done how many other kids he had he didn’t know about. After the teasing was done, though, they’d been uniformly supportive.

  “Yeah, well, she’s not sure about me yet. I have a lot of work to do.”

  “Just turn on that Royal charm. You get her mother on your side, she’ll come around,” Hammer teased.

  “Working on it,” Royal replied, not telling them he was taking them all out for dinner.

  Doc clapped his hands together. “Let’s get the fuck out of her before I get any stiffer.”

  “That should make your old lady happy,” Hot Rod needled.

  “Yours, too,” Doc replied with a nasty grin as the rest of the brothers laughed.

  ***

  “My, don’t you clean up nice,” Stella said as she stepped out of her car. Gabriel was standing there wearing a sport coat, casual pants with pleats, and a pair of loafers, looking like he’d just stepped out of men’s catalog.

  “I didn’t think they would appreciate the leather and the colors.”

  She grinned and gave him a quick kiss before trotting up the steps to her apartment. “Do we have reservations?”

  “We do.”

  “I need to hurry,” she said as she opened the door and hurried into her bedroom. “No peeking!” she teased as she shut the door.

  He sat on the couch, thumbing through his phone, until he heard the door open. Stella stepped out wearing a rich purple dress with a deep scoop neck that showed off her breasts perfectly without being tacky. The dressed stopped just above her knee and clung to her in all the right ways.

  “Holy shit!” he breathed just loud enough for her to hear.

  She cocked her leg into a cheesecake pose. “What do you think?”

  “I think I’m underdressed!”

  She smiled and moved over to kiss him gently on the lips. “You’re sweet. We need to go or we’re going to be late.”

  It was a tight squeeze, getting all four of them into Stella’s Civic, but they managed, and arrived at Mosconi’s with less than five minutes to spare. They were ushered almost immediately to the table, and Gabriel smiled to himself as all the men watched Stella sway through the restaurant.

  The meal started out a little uncomfortable, but as it continued the tension between Gabriel and Connie began to abate.

  “Mommy,” Katrina said pulling at Stella’s arm. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “I’ll take her,” Connie offered.

  “I’ve got her,” Stella said, pushing back from the table. “I have to go anyway.”

  Connie snorted out a laugh. “That’s why I offered.”

  “I’ll stay here,” Gabriel offered helpfully as all three women rose.

  “He’s certainly changed,” Connie said softly as they waited on Katrina. “He was always polite, but he always seemed like he felt like he had something to prove. Now he doesn’t act that way.”

  “So you noticed it, too?”

  “Yes.�
��

  Stella shook her head. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Connie shrugged and patted Stella on the hand. “Do what feels right.”

  Stella nodded then smiled, but didn’t mention he’d spent the last two nights in her bed. That’s what felt right. “That’s what I’m trying to do. He’s not making it easy, though. He’s being so thoughtful and sweet. I didn’t tell you, but he left me a $500 tip last night. I mean, I know it wasn’t actually a tip, but he really seems to want to help and be part of Katrina’s life.”