by April Lust
“What did you do for the money?”
“Nothing, Mom.” She didn’t need to know about that. “He’s doing it because he loves me, and he wants to help make your life better. More comfortable. And he knows how much it means to me to be sure you have round-the-clock care. He doesn’t have any ulterior motives.”
She stared at me for a long time, and I forced myself to return her stare. I wouldn’t avert my eyes, as though I was ashamed. I wasn’t ashamed of anything I had done, not if it meant being able to take care of her.
“Do you think you’ll be with him for a long time?”
“For the rest of my life, if he wants me.”
“Do you think he does?”
“I do.” I gasped and turned to find Dane standing in the doorway. “I’m sorry,” he said, looking at the floor. “I didn’t want to interrupt, but I got up and heard what you two were talking about. Mrs. Adams, I don’t want you to think that I’m doing this because Michelle did something for me. It’s not like that at all. I have the money. And to be honest…I haven’t always been a good person. I wanna make up for that. If you’d let me, I would appreciate it.”
Tears filled my eyes. I looked at Mom, who looked across the room at him.
“Sit with me for a minute,” she said. “And Michelle can call the hospital to set things up.”
I looked at Dane, who nodded, and I hurried from the room. Now that the day had finally come, it seemed too good to be true. I ran downstairs to call the hospital, and they said they would send an ambulance to pick her up after referring her to the hospice.
By the time I got back upstairs, I heard laughter coming from Mom’s room. I could hardly believe it, but when I stood in the doorway, there was no doubting it. There was Dane, sitting on the edge of Mom’s bed—not the chair beside it, but on the bed itself—holding Mom’s hand as they spoke. The two of them were laughing at some joke I had clearly missed.
“I’m sorry, am I interrupting?” I wasn’t irritated. Far from it. It was the biggest relief I could imagine, seeing the two of them getting along so well. I should have known Mom would like him. She had always been a sucker for a pair of blue eyes, and Dane’s were the bluest I had ever seen.
“Your mom is telling me stories about you when you were a little kid,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. Now that the Gareth problem was put to rest, I noticed how much calmer and even younger he appeared. Like he didn’t have as much to worry about anymore.
“Great. I can’t wait to get teased endlessly.” I couldn’t keep the smile from my face, no matter how embarrassing it was to have my mother tell stories. I could tell she was happy to do it. When I sat beside the two of them, Mom’s beaming smile told me everything I needed to know. I wasn’t sure what they had said to each other when I was downstairs, but whatever it was gave Mom a measure of peace.
The three of us sat there, just like that, until the ambulance came.
###
“Are you sure you wanna come back to my place? Wouldn’t you be more comfortable at home?”
I shook my head. “Besides, my things are still at your place. Purse, phone, that stuff. They might come in handy someday.” I grinned. I couldn’t help smiling, laughing, grinning for seemingly no reason. Anybody who didn’t know me or what I had been through with Mom would think I was a heartless bitch, just glad to get her sick mother out of her hair. Nothing could have been further from the truth, of course. I was glad to know she was taken care of finally. There was a light at the end of the tunnel.
As we rode to his house from the hospice center, I rested my cheek against his broad back. It really had been a good day. Nobody looked forward to sending a loved one to hospice—it was a very end-of-the-road type of move—but I had come to terms with Mom’s impending death a long time before that. It was all a matter of making her comfortable, of ushering her out with a little dignity and grace. The nurses all seemed lovely, and Mom’s room was cozy and clean. I could rest easy for the first time in months.
And it was all because of the man whose waist my arms were wrapped around. He was the one making it all possible. I could never thank him enough, I was sure. He hadn’t just given me money. Then again, he knew that. He loved me enough to understand.
When we pulled up at his little house, I had the strangest feeling of coming home. I didn’t share it with him, since I didn’t want to give him any ideas that I was going off the rails. We had just said the “L” word only twenty-four hours earlier. He didn’t need to think I was going crazy and already planning on moving in.
“Are you sure you really wanna be here?” He looked nervous.
“Why wouldn’t I?” I sat up on the sofa, having flopped down as soon as I walked through the door.
“Isn’t this where it all happened?”
I felt a chill run through me, and I wrapped my arms around myself to ward it off. “Well, I hadn’t thought about it until you just mentioned it.”
His face went red. “Sorry. That was a bonehead move.”
“It’s all right,” I assured him. “And to answer your question, I don’t feel weird being here. Yeah, it’s not the happiest memory of my life, but I know you’ll protect me.”
“Even though I failed before?” He didn’t look at me when he said it, but I heard the pain in his voice. I stood and crossed the room to take him in my arms.
“You didn’t fail. I don’t blame you. I blame the Reign of Chaos. Not you, not Pete or Joe. It wasn’t your fault. And they didn’t hurt me. Okay?” I looked him square in the eye, so he would know I meant business.
Instead of answering, he took my face in his hands and kissed me. I sighed, surrendering to him. With everything over and nothing else to worry about for a little while, it was easy to remember what I’d been missing: him. I wanted him. I needed to be with him, to confirm everything we had whispered to each other in the darkness in my room. How we loved each other. How we wanted to be together, even if it meant blending our different worlds. Wasn’t that what everybody did when they met somebody new? Not many people had the ability to be with a person who was just like them—and who would want to be?
And so when Dane carried me up the stairs to his room and lowered me to the bed with more gentleness than I could bear, I gave myself fully to him. He would never know how fully, how completely, I was committing myself to him in those moments together.
I pulled the t-shirt over my head, and kicked off my shoes while he stripped down to his underwear. My heart raced in anticipation of what was to come, and I bit my lip as I watched him reveal his beautiful body to me. The thick shoulders and arms, the rippling abs, the tight butt and toned legs, heavy with muscle. He lowered himself beside me, on his good arm, and touched his lips to mine. I sprang to life like he had flipped a switch somewhere inside me.
I laced my fingers behind his neck and pulled him closer, almost jerking him to me, and he laughed though our mouths were still joined. I couldn’t help it—I needed him so desperately. It was all still so new to me, and I loved him and needed to be with him in the worst way.
He slowed me down, always knowing better, stroking my cheek with his fingers. Fingers which then trailed down my throat. I tilted my head back, eager for more. His touch was like fire. His fingers went lower, down my chest, then over my breasts through the lacy cups of my bra. My nipples stood out beneath them, and he flicked them gently before moving on.
Then he was at my waist, my stomach, around to my hips. He wrapped his fingers around the waistband of my leggings, pulling them down. I lifted my hips to help before settling back against the bed with a sigh. Still he kissed me, slowly, sensuously, taking his time, building my passion inch by inch. We were in no hurry, I realized. We had nowhere else to be. He could go slow, and it would be that much better when I finally exploded. When his tongue touched my lips, flicking over them before dipping into my mouth, I moaned uncontrollably.
Meanwhile, his hand danced over my legs, then across from hip to hip, just over the cotton pan
ties I wore but never getting close to the apex of my thighs. I broke the kiss, moaning, gasping, begging for him to touch me. I burned, ached. It hurt, I needed him so much. He nudged my legs apart with his hand and I gladly opened them.
He rubbed his hand over my mound, and I rolled my hips in circles to meet his touch. I couldn’t help grinding against him, needing more and more, wanting to fall over the edge into oblivion. I closed my eyes, rolling my head to the side, as he nibbled my throat.
“Yes…yes…more, please…” I whispered. I wasn’t used to speaking up, asking for what I needed, but I was so desperate I would have done anything. All the tension of the past two days built up inside me and I needed to release it.
He stopped rubbing, and I whimpered, jerking my hips up to catch any pressure I could get from his hand. Instead of giving me more, he pulled my panties off with one smooth move. I gasped and moaned in relief.
He picked up one of my legs and put it over his shoulder, giving him access to all of me. He ran his hand through my cleft, over and over, dipping into my folds. Teasing me. He wouldn’t go near my button, and I ached for him to.
“Please,” I whimpered, then gasped as he ran a finger around my opening. I arched my back until I was nearly off the bed, sensation tearing through me. He slid that finger inside, then a second one, slowly pumping them in and out of me as he kissed his way down my body. I was lost by then, totally overwhelmed, moving my body against him. I lost the ability to think. I could only feel, and I wanted more.
His thumb brushed against me, the little bundle of nerves that throbbed and burned between my legs. I cried out in satisfaction as he stroked it while his fingers still worked in and out of my thigh sheath.
I urged him on, more and more, working my hips in circles. I felt my muscles tightening around him as my orgasm approached, and I screamed when it finally slammed into me with the force of a freight train. I thought I might break into a million pieces.
He held me as the pleasure worked its way through my body, leaving me breathless and trembling in its wake. I whimpered, curling up next to him, needing him to love me through it until I finished. I felt so open, so vulnerable. I’d never felt that way before, even after the first time we were together.
“Are you all right?” He kissed my forehead.
“Better than all right.” I replied, meeting his mouth with my own. His hardness pressed against me, telling me how much he needed me. As much as I needed him still. I would never get enough. I touched him there, sliding my hand between us. He was hot and rigid. He groaned when I slipped my hand into the slit in the shorts, touching his hot smoothness. I stroked him as we kissed, listening as his breathing came harder and faster. He met my strokes with his hips, thrusting into my hand.
“I want you,” he growled, his voice ragged.
“Yes.” It was all I could say, all I needed to say.
I opened my legs wider to him, holding out my arms. Wanting him where he belonged. With me, inside me, while I held him so close. I knew what it was like to feel whole when we were together like that. When he settled in and positioned himself against me, I kept my eyes wide open and trained on his face. I watched as his expression changed when he broke the plane of my body and entered me. I saw my bliss reflected there.
He started slow, and I let him control the pace. It was enough for me to hold him and love him, touching him everywhere my hands could reach. I loved his body, and worshipped it once I knew it was all mine.
He balanced on his uninjured arm while he roamed my body with the other hand. He touched me just as I touched him—with a sense of wonder, and lust, and ownership. I gasped when he stroked my breast, ran his fingertips down my side, dug his fingers into my hip. He rode me gently, and I sensed he was barely holding himself back.
I pulled him to me for a kiss, then let my mouth roam him. He tasted like nothing I’d ever enjoyed before—sweet and salty at once—and I couldn’t get enough. I licked and sucked at him, biting gently until he groaned and gasped. I pulled him in for another kiss, and another, as he rocked us both closer to the height of pleasure.
“I love you,” he whispered, still moving back and forth inside me. “I love you.”
“I love you.” I held his head in my hands and kissed his cheeks, his nose, his forehead, his eyelids, his chin. Then I focused on his mouth, and our tongues danced together to match the way our bodies did the same. I thought my heart might burst with joy.
I quickened, and he followed me. We moved faster, harder, my arms and legs moving over him, gripping him, touching every part of him. I jerked my hips up to meet him, plating my feet on the bed to give myself better leverage and thrusting upward. He moaned, going even faster to match my motions. My body sang as I got closer to climax, and the harder he moved, the closer I got.
“Yes! Yes! Oh, Dane!” I closed my eyes and threw back my head as the first shockwaves rushed over me, rolling over me like waves in the ocean, holding me under. Pleasure filled me, surrounded me. I trembled, holding him close. A few moments and he joined me, crying out against my neck as he exploded.
I could hardly believe it. He was mine, and I was his, and if I got my wish, we would be doing that together for the rest of our lives. I sure couldn’t imagine ever being with anybody else.
Epilogue
“I’m only running a little late,” Dane said. “I’ll be home in ten minutes.”
“All right,” I said. “Not much later than that, though. Dinner will only keep for so long.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go out tonight? I mean, we can always put the food in the fridge, right? We’ll have it tomorrow.”
“Nah. I’d rather it just be you and me tonight.”
“But cooking dinner on your anniversary?”
“I told you it’s fine.” I couldn’t help smiling. “Now get off the phone and get on the road, Mr. Turner.”
“Fine, Mrs. Turner. Be there soon.”
I hung up, still smiling, and put the finishing touches on the chicken parmesan before sliding the fried cutlets into the oven to finish cooking in their tomato sauce and cheese. I slid the pasta from its box into the boiling water on the stove. Everything was going according to schedule.
It still felt strange sometimes, cooking dinner for my husband in my childhood home. It had been a year, and there were still times when I felt the need to pinch myself so I’d know it was all real. It had meant so much to me that Dane had agreed to live there, rather than living at his house or another house of our own. His was only a rental anyway, so it wasn’t as though he had to go through the hassle of selling it. Rather than selling my mother’s home, which in the months after her death in the hospice seemed impossible, he agreed that we should settle in and make it our own.
We had made it our own, too—well, I had. He still wasn’t much for interior decorating, and I knew he never would be. He was smart enough to acquiesce to my wishes, except when he strongly disagreed with something I wanted. At least I’d managed to get him to start picking up after himself. No more pizza boxes all over the house.
It was an adjustment for both of us, one we still worked on. All couples did, not just two people who came from such opposite worlds. We had a strong foundation of love to build on, which was a good start. Everything else was background noise as far as I was concerned.
It had taken me a little time to get used to the club. Not to the people in it—I liked them all and appreciated everything they’d done to rescue me from Gareth. They were all good people, like Dane, if a little rough around the edges. It was cute, actually, watching them try to control their language around me. They had enough respect for me and my husband to do that. After a year of marriage, I’d cooked more food for them than I could remember, and hosted them around my dining room tables countless times.
They were a family, and I was part of it. What a strange concept, but there was something to be said for that family structure. They all had my back, and I cared about all of them. They needed a goo
d woman in their lives. I would be that woman by proxy until their old ladies came along.
An old lady. It made me laugh whenever I thought about my title. I was the old lady of the club’s president. The First Lady, as I called myself in my head. Bizarre. Women like me weren’t supposed to be involved with motorcycle clubs, but there I was, in the middle of it.
When Dane walked through the front door, I was just putting the finishing touches on our meal. “Just in time!” I called out, smiling as he walked into the kitchen. He still had a way about him, a certain way of looking at me that took my breath away. I knew one year wasn’t long to be married and that, God willing, we had a lot of years ahead of us. I hoped my heart still gave a little flutter after five, fifteen, twenty more years.
He presented me with a bouquet of red roses, which I ooh’d and ahh’d over before putting them in a vase and sitting them in the middle of the dining room table.
