by Bijou Hunter
Dropping my bag on the full-size bed, I turn to her and smile. “You have a really swanky house.”
Cricket stares at me for nearly a minute, and I don’t dare look away. In the smooth, shaded lighting, her eyes look like melted chocolate, and I have a craving for sweets.
“I need to pee,” she says, spinning around and hurrying down the hall away from me.
I follow her until reaching the family room with its spiffy little beige fireplace in the corner. I sit on the rusty-brown couch and spread my arms along the back. Inhaling the scent of cider, I imagine Cricket in her home with her dogs. I even picture how she’ll look with her round belly just before our baby comes into this world.
I’m still grinning to myself when Cricket reappears with her dogs close behind. I half expect them to knock her down, but she glides around them easily.
“Sorry. Whenever I get nervous lately, my bladder acts up.”
“Why get nervous with me?” I ask in a soft voice.
“Why not? I plan for nothing and always expect the worst. That way life is full of fun surprises.”
Cricket sits on the other end of the couch, pulls her knees to her chest and smiles at me. “This is my home.”
“How new is it?”
“Two years.”
“Feels lived in.”
“I didn’t want something cold like a model home or a hotel. I wanted warmth since I’ve never lived on my own before. Even after picking everything, I still didn’t like being alone. Now I guess I won’t be alone for a long time,” she says and pats her stomach.
“No, I don’t suspect you will.”
Her gaze locks onto mine before she says, “You should understand something about me. I’m a package deal with Chipper. With my entire family, really, but he and I are tight. Unhealthy tight. Like we’re a step away from incest tight. In fact, people often thought we might be pounding hips, and we admittedly encouraged that thinking with some idiots. It was fun to mess with them, but that’s not the point. The point is Chipper is my best friend, and he’s my brother, and you’ll need to get along with him even when he’s awful.”
“I get it. My stepmom, Justice, is freaky tight with her sisters. Sometimes, it seems like they share a brain and the oldest, Journey, keeps it half of the time with the younger two fighting over what’s left. People often find them obnoxious, but family can be thicker than blood. Sometimes, it’s like fricking concrete.”
Cricket smiles and relaxes her legs. “Just to be clear, though, Chipper and I aren’t into each other sex-wise. I need to double down on that fact.”
“Understood.”
“I just wanted to make it clear because I noticed how you were looking at Chipper last night as if maybe punching him was on your to-do list.”
Smiling at how possessive I’d felt when I saw her with Chipper, I explain, “I didn’t know he was your brother. I figured he was a friend or even a boyfriend.”
“Makes sense, but don’t throw punches with my family. They’re a violent bunch. My mom scratches like a rabid cat.”
“Do you remember what I told you about my mom?”
“She was the bitch, right?”
“Yeah, and she’s out of my life. The rest of my family remains really tight. They’re not all violent, but the men lean that way while the women will kill you with cattiness.”
Cricket’s smile fades, and she looks around nervously. Before I can ask what’s bothering her, her gaze finds me again.
“I really like you,” she says and exhales uneasily, “and I want these things to work out. I asked you to come here, and I was so impulsive. I wanted you to get to know the real me, but this isn’t me. You're getting to know this unhinged, emotional side of me. Plus, I don't like change, and I don't want things to be different.”
Cricket pauses and tugs her legs back to her chest. “Then I think about how I really like you, and I don't want things to end. But I don’t want things to change for my family or your family. I don’t know how we can make things work. Do we even make sense? Normally, I’d have Bianca Bella to keep me sane, but she’s passed out asleep or dead. I should probably check on her, but I can’t think straight. I'm making these decisions where I want you to see me at my best but this isn’t close to my best, and now I'm regretting having you stay here.”
Cricket’s nerves can’t be swayed by fancy words. Or maybe they can, but my usual sweet-talking self is at a loss. I use my lips in another way and kiss her until she stops frowning and starts moaning. Even though only a short-term solution, it works like a charm.
CRICKET
Poet’s lips steal away my fears, but I can’t walk around the rest of my life attached to his face. Unfortunately, every time I pull away my lips to smile at him, my worries resurface. Finally, I force our lips apart and try to think straight.
“What if the only connection we have is sex?” I whisper as if I’m a teenager with a boy who’s snuck into my room. Well, I assume this is how that would feel. In reality, no boy without a death wish would ever sneak into Angus Hayes’s home.
“We have a connection right here,” he says and strokes my bloated stomach.
“What if something happens to the baby? We’re strangers who just happen to have a kid cooking.”
“You’re thinking a lot right now,” he says and strokes my cheek. “You were less stressed when we met, and you were in a more stressful situation then. Is this what you mean about not being the usual you?”
“I’m spoiled in White Horse. These hormones, though, make me paranoid. I second-guess everything. It’s why I took so long to tell you I was pregnant. I read that a lot of miscarriages happen in the first three months, so I waited until I was far enough along. The real me would have texted you and everyone else and maybe had one of those skywriting planes announce my pregnancy to the world. Now I worry that I ate too many eggs and our baby will be born with a weird head.”
“Is that egg-equals-weird-head thing a real thing?”
“I don’t know. I can search online and see.”
“I doubt it. Justice and her sisters were pregnant a lot, and I don’t remember them having trouble with eggs.”
“Do any of their kids have weird heads?” I ask and scoot closer on the couch.
“No, but they are weird. I don’t think their weirdness is related to their mothers’ egg consumptions, though.”
Relaxing my head against the back of my couch, I smile. “I’m losing my mind a little, but I’m glad you’re here.”
Poet smiles in a way that makes me turn into giddy pudding. I lean forward and crawl into his lap.
“I know it makes sense to get to know each other without sex involved,” I say while nuzzling his throat. “However, let’s be honest here. My sex on the brain won’t go away until the itch is well scratched.”
“You’ve hidden your need well,” he says, and we glance between our bodies where my crotch does the tango with his. “Here’s the thing, Cricket. I’m sleepy from my crap night at the hotel,” he adds, and I immediately assume I won’t get my itch dealt with soon. “With you gyrating against my impressive erection, I don’t want to think about anything beyond how we ought to fuck away your worries before I nap.”
Studying his handsome face, I love how effortlessly sexy he is in every situation. “Life really is simple when you put it that way.”
My arms wrap around his neck while my hips move a bit faster. The hardness hidden under his jeans makes me moan into Poet’s mouth, and I’m about ready to run into my bedroom and strip naked.
Then Queen Cock Block arrives to block my access to Poet’s cock.
“I dreamed I was married to Pickles,” Bianca Bella announces, appearing from the hallway with half-open eyes, “and we had a big fight and he kicked me out of his tent. I was like super homeless at that point, and I wasn’t sure you’d let me move back in here after I ditched you for Pickles.”
“If you keep interrupting my make-out sessions, I can imagine a future where you sl
eep outside.”
Bianca Bella doesn’t stop shuffling, and I hear her in the kitchen pouring a cup of coffee. Sliding off Poet, I take his hand and tug him into a standing position.
“Good to see she’s alive,” I tell him. “Now allow me to show you my bedroom.”
Poet’s smile never wavers. Even in a new situation with strangers, he rolls with every punch like a fucking champ. Not only does this coolness make him super shitting sexy. It also assures me he’ll handle himself easy-peasy when Hayes invariably makes an appearance.
POET
Cricket’s dogs howl whenever she does, making a quiet quickie out of the question. They sit outside the closed door while their animated owner bounces enthusiastically on my cock. She’s so loud that I can’t help laughing when she calls me a roadwhore during an orgasm. Or maybe she’s the roadwhore. All I know is Cricket is overjoyed to have my cock inside her again.
“My nipples are so sensitive,” she moans and traps my hands against her tits. “These hormones aren’t all bad.”
“Glad you approve.”
Cricket leans down and kisses me. Her gentle lips contradict the frenzied movements of the rest of her body. My hands slide from her ample chest to her back and press her against me. She fits my body perfectly, and I don’t doubt for a second that Cricket was made specifically for me.
After she comes so hard that I can’t help doing the same, I crash into a blissful sleep. I open my eyes twenty minutes later to find Cricket curled up next to me. Her sweaty body relaxes me more than any sleeping pill.
My eyes occasionally flutter open in reaction to unfamiliar noises, though Cricket’s place is quieter than my trailer. I hear dogs barking, and Lobo’s voice is deep as hell. Someone rings a bell, I think, but the thick walls muffle every noise.
I finally wake for real when Cricket crawls out of bed to use the bathroom. Sitting up, I wait for her to return while rubbing my eyes. I take in the sight of the chandelier over the bed and the pale-green walls covered in an artsy patchwork design. Even though none of it fits my taste, the room suits the rest of the house’s eclectic style.
“You don’t have to get up,” Cricket says on her way back to bed. She stops to slide an oversized, man’s shirt over her head. Once she crawls into bed next to me, Cricket notices my frown. “What?”
“Whose shirt is that?”
“Chipper’s. I stole it a few years ago because it’s really soft and he was on my last nerve. So far, he hasn’t noticed, so don’t snitch me out.”
“My lips are zipped.”
Cricket tests out my statement by kissing me and my lips open immediately. She smiles at my hand placement under her shirt and settles down next to me on the bed.
“You’ll meet Candy and Hayes soon. No way Bianca Bella didn’t rat me out to Chipper who would instantly rat me out to our mom who spends all her time babbling to her man. Yeah, they’ll casually show up and meet you by dusk.”
“I’m not worried.”
“Hayes is a scary guy,” she says and furrows her pretty brow.
“I’ve known my share of those.”
“He’s not just scary like dangerous, but he’s the size of a mountain.”
“I saw a picture in the living room of you standing with your family. I couldn’t see much detail, but I did notice a guy standing over you like a mountain.”
“My real dad is a pussy. Toby Eddison is weak and whiny, and Chipper refuses to deal with him at all. Hayes, though, is a badass and a little weird, and he’s like the father I was born to have, you know?”
“I promise I’ll do my best to make a good impression.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Then why do you look worried?”
“He’s protective, and he can sometimes go overboard with being protective.”
“Did he beat up your boyfriends in the past?”
Cricket shakes her head and runs a finger over my right nipple. “No. They were all pussies, and he scared them with only a look. But once there was a guy who hassled me, and Hayes took it very personally. Like I would have been happy to have the asshole fired, but Hayes insists his enemies bleed, and he views anyone who messes with his family as an enemy.”
Holding my gaze, she continues in a somber tone, “I need you to take my words seriously. If we ever have problems, you know like we fight or break up, and you see Hayes show up, you’re going to want to run. Don’t wait to see his mood. Just run like the wind, Poet. I don’t care how tough you are. Worry about your manhood another day and run like a little bitch if you see him coming. Promise me that, okay?”
“Sure. I’m a huge pussy, so running away like one will be super easy for me,” I mutter, having never run from a threat in my life. “So how did the guy hassle you?”
“It was a traffic stop. Something minor like me going seventy in a sixty-five-mile zone. Just a ticket, but the cop was an asshole. He wanted me to roll down the window, and I’d only do it a crack. It was cold, and I didn’t know this guy. Him having a badge didn’t mean he was safe. I handed him my license and registration through the window’s crack. I didn’t even ask why I was stopped. I figured he’d write the reason on the ticket and I’d pay it. Easy enough, but he really wanted me to roll down my window.”
“Why?”
“I told you. He was an asshole,” she grumbles like I ought to understand how people don’t need more of a reason. “See, he’d asked me to do something, and I hadn’t obeyed like a meek bitch. That meant I was pissing on his authority. I think he didn’t like how I wasn’t worried about the ticket either. Like I didn’t whine about it or cry or use my feminine wiles to get out of it. I mean it was a ticket, and I’m not poor, so whatever, but he wouldn’t stop asking me to roll the window down.”
“Are the cops around here assholes like that a lot?”
“Not to me, but I’m protected, you know? I live in a nice area, and cops don’t normally hassle people who can hassle them back. Like I have a friend named Chevelle, and she got hassled by a cop in the next town over. He didn’t like how she was filming him arrest another person. He gave her a lot of grief and made threats, but the other cops got him to focus elsewhere, and it was over.”
Cricket rests on her back, and I notice how her hands instinctively caress her stomach.
“Except Chevelle isn’t just a random chick. Her dad works for Hayes, and her family is tight with the biker club in this area. So anyway, that cop got fired because you can’t hassle people who are protected. He just didn’t realize that Chevelle was special, and he crossed a line. The other cops knew who she was and they played it smart, and their lives are just peachy keen. It’s like that everywhere. Some people get stepped on, some people don’t. I’m one who usually doesn’t get stepped on, but this was a cop from another area, and he didn’t care who I was. He just wanted me to roll down the fucking window.”
“And you didn’t want to.”
“It was like twenty fucking degrees out,” Cricket growls, and I smile at how quickly her temper appears, “and he was yelling at me. So, no, I didn’t want to open the window and allow a screaming cop to, what? I mean what could he do with the window all the way down that he couldn’t do with it open a crack? He had my license. I wasn’t going to speed away. Right then, he just seemed to hate me. Like I was the worst person he ever met, and if I didn’t roll down the window, he couldn’t survive another fucking second. I, of course, hated him too at that point, and I wasn’t rolling down my fucking window. It was a standoff, and I knew what was coming next, and I let it happen. Mostly because I’ve never been great at respecting authority. It’s why I was homeschooled, and why I work for Hayes. I don’t want a bossman with his foot up my ass.”
Rolling off the bed, she leans down to retrieve her bra from the floor. “Another cop showed up right around the time the asshole smashed my window with his baton. They got me out of the car and arrested me for resisting arrest. I got cuffed, and we headed down to the station. The entire time, I’m waitin
g to make my call. It’s the psycho in me that could barely wait for the guy to get fired. I knew Hayes would make calls. People like him know people in power. That’s what they do at the top of the pyramid. They make deals. The charges were dropped, and I didn’t even get my ticket, which was dumb since I was speeding. Then my car got fixed, and the cop got fired. He learned that his badge made him higher up on the pyramid than average people but not higher than me. A learning experience if you will.”
“But Hayes required more punishment for the guy who hassled his princess,” I say, stretching in bed before finally making my tired body get up.
“Yeah. It’s weird how a person with a home, friends, and family can just disappear into thin air, yet people get over it pretty quickly. I mean those close to the person probably suffer every day, but the world moves on fucking quick. It makes sense when there are billions of people in the world, so one disappearance doesn’t break society. But still. It was a wake-up call for me that we’re all on borrowed time.”
“That’s deep.”
“That’s when I decided to start helping out Pickles,” she says while giving up on her bra. “Out of billions of people, he matters to so few, but he does matter to me, and I pretend that’s enough.”
“Well, I don’t want you worrying about me pissing off Hayes. For one thing, I know my way around dangerous men with hair-trigger tempers. Plus, I don’t see you and me breaking up. All these months since our single night together, I never stopped thinking about you,” I say, pausing when Cricket gives me an amazing smile. “I never looked at another woman. No one else would do. A part of me knew you’d return to me, and here I am naked in your bed. I have a way of knowing these things.”
Cricket straddles me and covers my lips with hers. I adjust so my lips are in charge. She hesitates, maybe thinking of wrestling me for control. Possibly my hands gripping her tits distract her from a power struggle. I’m fairly certain I’ve won another round of wonderful fucking. Then her phone rings followed by the dogs barking and that damn bell chimes again.
