I watched the ground pass us by, enraptured by the idea of nothing surrounding me.
Sean’s body wiggled, and I held on even tighter as he came to a stop not at the front of the lot like some of the first ones in, but at the back.
He backed in, just like he always did, and made me smile into his leather vest.
“Shut up,” he rumbled the moment he’d kicked down the stand and shut the bike off.
I grinned huge as I reached for my helmet, pulling it off of my head and saying a quick thank you to whoever had designed it. My helmet was the cutest thing I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t believe that Sean had picked it out for me, all by himself.
“Legs Jell-O?” someone asked from beside me.
I turned to find Imogen and Aaron pulling into a parking spot directly next to ours.
“Yes,” I said to Imogen. “I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t support my weight if I tried to stand right now.”
Imogen reached her arms up high over her head, and Aaron chose that moment to drop down and blow a raspberry on her exposed belly.
Imogen laughed and brought her elbows down to protect herself, but only succeeded in elbowing Aaron in the neck, causing him to whine.
“Oww!” he fake cried.
I rolled my eyes and went to step forward, only for my leg to go out from beneath me.
Lucky for me, Sean was there to catch me. And catch me he did.
Then he went even further and pulled me straight into his arms.
I stayed there for a few long seconds, basking in the feel of his arms around my shoulders, before turning slightly in his arms to look up at him.
“This isn’t a good idea,” I told him. “I’m the queen of bad ideas.”
His grin was wicked.
“If you’re the queen, I’m the king.”
And that was that.
He turned me in his arms, looped one arm around my waist to help me, and then started strolling with me to the front door of the smokehouse.
And it really was a smokehouse.
“Wow!” I hesitated, looking around at the huge room that was in front of us.
It was nothing but display cases. The food in the display cases was in order. Alligator. Antelope. Chicken. Elk. Moose. Pork. Venison.
And that was only a fraction of what was there. There were literally hundreds of different types of meats.
“Can you eat here?” I questioned, my eyes taking in all the display cases.
“I think so,” he said, sounding unsure. “But I’m only looking for a bathroom.”
I looked at him. “You need to go to the bathroom?”
He looked at me.
“No. But I know when you are on shift for more than three hours, you change your bag. So I’m finding you a bathroom so that you can do that.”
He really was a lot more comfortable with the fact that I had a colostomy than I was, that was for sure.
He didn’t seem weirded out about it in the least, and I actually found that quite sexy.
I was also appreciative.
“I think it’s back there,” someone said from behind us.
I turned to find a large biker standing there. His eyes were on me, and he was staring at me like he’d seen a ghost.
“Thanks,” I said, smiling at the big man. “I appreciate it.”
With that, I squeezed Sean’s hand, shouldered my bag more comfortably across my shoulders, and headed in the direction the man had pointed.
Unlucky for me, there was only one bathroom for the women, and one for the men, so I had to wait for a few minutes while the woman ahead of me finished.
And in that time, the big biker who’d directed me to the bathroom showed up at my back.
“Did you enjoy the ride?”
I tried not to flinch at the smell of alcohol that wafted off of the man.
“Yes,” I said, bidding the door to open faster. “I did, thank you.”
Why was there only one women’s bathroom? For real, this was ridiculous.
There was now a line at my back, and the majority of them were women.
This would be fun…not.
“You have the prettiest blonde hair,” the man said at my back. “Do you mind if I touch it?”
I smiled at him. “I don’t like my hair to be touched, thanks. My man gets pretty jealous.”
“Your man doesn’t have a property vest on you, so he must not be your man,” the biker countered, reaching forward.
Before he could get his hand to my hair, though, the bathroom door opened, and the woman that’d been holding up the line spilled out.
She looked green around the gills, and I wondered if she’d been puking in here, and would need it soon.
Hopefully not.
Though I’d gotten fast at changing my bags, I wasn’t a master at it. It took time that I didn’t always have, and in this instance, with all those ladies waiting outside, I knew I’d make a muck of it.
It all went smoothly and I finished as fast as I could. Though I still guessed it was longer than anyone would’ve imagined.
Thankfully, there was a commotion in the hallway, and when I came out, they were all focused on the big biker rather than me.
The unfortunate thing was that he was bowing his chest up to Sean, who was trying to get into the bathroom behind the biker that was barring his way.
“Get the fuck out of the way, man. I have to take a piss.”
“No,” Big Biker, BB for short, denied. “You don’t deserve to use the restroom.”
He didn’t deserve to use the restroom? What the fuck?
“You can use the women’s,” I drawled, trying to break the heated discussion I could see on the road to deterioration. “I’m all done.”
Sean’s eyes didn’t come off of BB, but BB’s eyes turned to me.
“Darlin’,” BB drawled. “I would love to come in there with you.”
BB wasn’t hard on the eyes. He was tall, six foot or so. Brown hair, brown eyes, a long angular nose. Bushy eyebrows and a beard that was actually quite pleasant.
What wasn’t pleasant was the vibe I was getting off of the man.
He just rubbed me the wrong way, and I didn’t want to go anywhere near him.
“No thank you,” I said, slipping around the men. “Sean, come with me.”
Sean didn’t budge until I was past him. The moment I was, he started backing away.
As I turned and moved toward the end of the hall, I was unsurprised to find the rest of the Dixie Wardens at our backs. During the ride, they’d always been close. And thank God they were now, too.
Because I was fairly sure it would only take a single word from BB and Sean would lose it.
My fear-filled eyes latched onto Big Papa, Sean’s father, and I gestured with my eyes and head for him to get his ass in gear.
His mouth twitched and his eyes warmed.
He did follow directions, though.
With a few steps in our direction, he broke the spell with one growled word.
“Sean.”
Sean twitched, backed up, and then turned to the side so he could see his father.
I flinched.
Not only could his father see his face, but I could, too. And it was terrible.
He was angry. Very angry.
And his hands were clenched so tightly into fists that they were bloodless.
Something terrible was going on behind those eyes, and I knew that it couldn’t be just about fighting with that man. And if it had been, there’d been more said than just the words I’d heard after coming out of the bathroom.
“Sean?”
Sean’s eyes, filled with anger, turned to me.
It took him all of three seconds before he closed his eyes, seemed to come to some sort of understanding, and took a step forward.
Only to come up short when BB decided to take his drunk ass a step too far and launch himself at Sean.
<
br /> Sean didn’t even hesitate.
One second he was walking away, and the next he was hammering a vicious punch into BB’s face.
BB went down like a stone, right at Sean’s feet. He was out like a freakin’ light.
The men around us, as well as the women still standing in the bathroom line, stared in stunned silence for all of five seconds before cheers erupted.
“He’s drunk,” one said.
“He better be drunk. Even I wouldn’t mess with a man that big,” another added.
“That rocker on the man’s back was enough to deter me from doing anything,” one more butted in.
I stared at Sean as he angrily stomped away, pushing through his own brothers and not saying a word as he went.
“Uhh,” I hesitated.
Imogen held out her hand, and I walked forward.
She tagged me around the wrist and pulled me to Tally, who was trying really hard not to smile.
Tally started giggling.
“I’ve never seen him that mad!”
“Tommy would be mad as hell, too, had he said words about you like that man said about Naomi,” Imogen whispered.
“I thought he was going to do a lot worse than just hit him,” Verity added in her two cents. “Did you hear that part about BB and Sean sharing her?”
I shivered.
“Let me guess,” I said slowly. “The man said stuff about me and Sean freaked out.”
Imogen nodded. “Sort of. He got all quiet first. Then when he tried to go into the bathroom, and you showed, the man’s eyes went all creepy like and Sean told him to ‘be careful.’” She stopped. “You know the rest.”
I didn’t bother asking what was said by BB. It was likely vulgar and it was best that I kept myself ignorant.
“Do you remember four years ago when Sean got pissed over that man stealing his seat in the bar, and then one thing led to another and Sean punched the guy like he just did a few minutes ago?” Tommy Tom asked Truth at my back.
I turned my head and studied Tommy Tom.
“It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen,” Truth nodded. “One single punch to the jaw, and the man was out exactly like that. It’s good to see he didn’t lose his touch when he left the Marines.”
I looked at Tommy Tom in confusion.
He noticed and started to explain.
“Sean used to be one of those Body Bearers for the Marines. They called him Beast while he was doing that. He was freakin’ jacked,” Tommy Tom explained. “He’s actually slimmed down a lot since he got out of the Corps.”
The man was bigger?
Jesus. He was already hard as a rock everywhere. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what he looked like bigger.
“What’s so special about being a Body Bearer for the Marines?” Imogen asked.
A man piped in that was beside us.
His biker patch said ‘Griffin.’
“Because those guys are fuckin’ beasts,” Griffin said from where he was leaning against the wall in the hallway. “All other branches of the military use eight pall bearers for a funeral service. The Marines only use six. They carry the casket at elbow height, and they lift it to eye level and hold it there before it’s lowered into the ground. They’re not allowed to breathe out of their mouths. They’re in perfect presentation at all times. Normally, that means they're out in the heat and sunshine, full fucking dress uniform.”
That did sound hard.
“They really are pretty fuckin’ awesome. And well respected. They train in a goddamned basement for hours a day to make it look perfect when they were at a Marine’s funeral.”
That sounded depressing, and actually kind of dedicated.
Hell, I was lying. That showed a lot of dedication.
Dedication that I sure as hell didn’t have.
I didn’t work out.
I should, but I didn’t.
Why? Because working out made my boobs bounce so hard that they hurt, my legs shook, and my head throbbed.
Why work out when it hurt that much?
“Oh, shit.”
I turned my head in the direction of the ‘oh shit’ and found Tommy Tom staring at something straight ahead.
My eyes automatically went in that direction to find Sean, his arms crossed and his jaw clenched, staring down at a woman with a blank expression on his face.
The woman, however, didn’t have a blank expression.
She was talking animatedly to him. Her arms were waving, and she was poking him in the chest every so often.
“Who’s that?” Imogen asked, stopping at my side.
I moved until I was nearly touching the glass that was separating the inside from the outside, and watched.
“That’s his ex-wife,” Truth grumbled. “She’s the one that left him while he was deployed.”
That was enough to get me moving.
One second I was inside and the next I was outside, heading in the direction of Sean with an angry scowl on my face.
“I don’t know what the big deal was. We were eighteen.”
I stopped at Sean’s back.
The woman apparently didn’t see me because she continued spewing her mouth.
“That was over fifteen years ago. Working on twenty,” the woman continued. “And, honestly, I was scared. I didn’t know if you were going to make it home and that scared the crap out of me.”
Sean didn’t say anything still.
So I chose that moment to wrap my arms around him from behind, locking my hands together right under his pecs.
The woman stopped mid-sentence as she saw my arms wind around Sean, and I smiled into his back.
Sean’s massive hand—the same one that I’d seen put an IV into a six-week-old baby only four days before—wrapped around my wrist and held on tight.
I nuzzled my cheek against his back wondering if it would be okay to do this while naked, and waited for the woman to continue her rant.
She didn’t.
Instead, the silence surrounded us, and I sighed.
Moving from where I was, I walked around the left side of Sean’s body.
A, because the woman was standing to his right. And B, because Sean didn’t let go of my wrist, forcing me to walk one way only.
“Hello,” I said with false cheer. “Who are you?”
The woman, a blonde in her mid-thirties, stared at me with annoyance on her face.
“I’m Falon.”
I blinked.
“I’m Naomi, nice to meet you!”
The false cheer in my voice had Sean drawing me into his chest, his hand squeezing my hip tightly.
“You’re the bitch that took twenty minutes in the bathroom.”
I looked at her.
“Yep, that’s me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re a fucking bitch.”
“That’s enough,” Sean said. “Was there a reason that you’re talking to me?”
Falon took in my face and body, lingering slightly on where Sean’s hands were wrapped around my hip, and she curled a lip up at me.
“I…”
“Woman, don’t you know when to quit?” a big biker walked up to her side, wrapped one beefy hand around her upper arm, and pulled her away.
All the while she bitched at the man.
“That was fun,” I chirped.
Sean looked down at me.
“You didn’t spend twenty minutes in the bathroom. More like eight,” he rumbled.
My mouth twitched.
“I like you,” I blurted.
His eyes took in my face. My eyes. My hair that was still in a mess at the top of my head, and grinned.
“That’s fuckin’ awesome, because I like you, too,” he hesitated, bending down low so I could hear exactly what he had to say without all the ears surrounding us listening in. “And I plan to show you all the ways that I like you if you’ll let me.”
Bef
ore I could reply, he leaned back, captured my hand, and led us back over to where the Dixie Wardens were huddled in a circle, talking about this year’s election.
***
Three and a half hours later I had a belly full of smoked meat, water, and cheesecake.
I’d changed my bag, used the restroom once more, and was sitting on the back of Sean’s bike, waiting for him to join me.
I was sitting there talking to Imogen next to me when the drunk biker, who was even drunker now, stumbled toward his bike.
BB had a black eye, a bruised cheek, nose, and chin. The entire side of his face looked like he’d rubbed himself down in black war paint.
I knew better, though.
It was a bruise from Sean’s fist hitting his face.
Wincing, I returned my eyes back to Imogen, dismissing him almost before he’d registered on my brain.
The less attention he received, the less power he had over the situation.
“My ass hurts already,” Imogen groaned. “I don’t know how they turned a usual thirty-minute ride into a three-hour ride.”
“All I hear is bitch, bitch, bitch,” Aaron teased as he walked up, Sean at his side. “Would it kill you to say something positive for once?”
Imogen’s lips twitched as her eyes narrowed.
“No, probably not,” she said teasingly. “Is this kind of like giving positive reinforcement instead of negative?” She tapped her lip with her finger.
“Kind of like saying, ‘you performed oral sex well, and you have quite a bit of skill at kissing’, instead of saying ‘you have a small wiener and I can’t feel it when it’s inside of me?’”
Sean, Aaron, and Imogen looked at me like I’d shocked them.
“What?”
Imogen burst out into peals of giggles, while Sean rolled his eyes and handed me my helmet. “Helmet up, girl.”
I did, a small smile on my face as I did.
By the time I had it situated and my hair tucked underneath it, as good as I could get it, Sean was in place in front of me, his hard ass sucked in tight to the inside of my thighs.
We were one of the lasts to take off while Sean waited for Aaron, who also waited for his wife to get her giggles under control.
And by the time we took off, we were one of five left in the parking lot.
Big Papa, Tommy Tom, and Jessie James had already eased out onto the road, fully expecting us to catch up.
I'm Only Here for the Beard Page 6
