by Susan Stoker
His words were enough to push her over the edge, and every muscle in Wendy’s body tightened as she came. Hard. She heard Aspen talking in the background, but couldn’t focus on his words. All she could do was feel and experience the utter bliss that momentarily took over her body.
When she came back to herself, Wendy realized she’d dropped the phone and she could still hear Aspen talking. She quickly fumbled with it and put it to her ear again.
“…come that hard in a long time.”
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I dropped the phone. What?”
“I said I haven’t come that hard in a long time.”
“You came too?”
“Fuck yeah,” Aspen said in a low, gravelly voice that made her nipples tighten once more. “Hearing you moaning in my ear, and knowing you trusted me enough to let go and make yourself come while you were on the phone with me, was more than enough to send me over with you.”
“Aspen,” she murmured, curling onto her side and pulling the comforter tight around her.
“I wish I was there to cuddle with you.”
“How do you know I’m cuddling?” Wendy asked.
“Because I heard the sheets rustling, and because if I was there with you, you’d definitely be cuddling. I’d get behind you and wrap you in my arms as we both came down from our orgasmic highs.”
Wendy sighed. “That sounds nice.”
“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?” After a moment of silence, Aspen said, “I’m going to let you go, sweetheart. I have a mess to clean up here and you need to get some sleep. You have your alarm set?”
“Yeah, but it’s not like I’ll actually get up when it goes off.”
Aspen chuckled. “Things will be interesting with us since I’m a morning person.”
“Just don’t make me get up when you leave and we’ll be good,” Wendy retorted.
“Deal. Sleep well, Wendy. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Tell Jackson I’m looking forward to meeting his girl and seeing her play.”
“I will. Bye.”
“Bye, sweetheart.”
Wendy clicked off her phone and thought about what they’d done. She supposed she should be embarrassed about it, but she simply couldn’t be. Aspen was amazing, and he’d made the entire experience easy and sexy at the same time. She hated that she couldn’t see him until Tuesday. She’d just have to make do with talking over the phone.
The thought went through her head that if they lived together, she’d be able to see him every night no matter what their schedules were like, but she dismissed the idea immediately. It was way too frickin’ early to be thinking about moving in together. He didn’t know that she was probably wanted by the California police, or that she was younger than he thought she was.
Frustrated, Wendy closed her eyes. It wasn’t as if Aspen was going to ask her to move in anytime soon. What man would want a woman and her kid brother moving in?
A little voice inside said that Aspen would welcome them both with open arms, but she ignored it.
“One day at a time,” she whispered into her empty room. “Don’t put the cart before the horse.” She racked her brain to think of any more idioms, but couldn’t. “He might not even want to be with you once he finds out what you did.”
And with that depressing thought, Wendy closed her eyes, and her exhausted and physically sated body eventually fell asleep.
Chapter Eleven
“I appreciate you coming tonight,” Jackson told Blade the following Tuesday as he pulled into the parking lot at the high school. He’d picked up Jackson and Wendy at their apartment fifteen minutes ago and announced that he was driving.
Wendy didn’t seem to care, which Blade was grateful for. Her driving was all right, but the one time she’d insisted on driving and he relented, he’d held his breath the entire trip, wondering if they’d make it to wherever they were going because her car was obviously on its last leg.
“No problem,” Blade told him. “I’m looking forward to meeting Jenny, and the fact that I get to spend time with you and your sister is a bonus.”
The teenager smiled at him from the backseat. “And one of your friends is coming too?”
“Yup. Fletch and his wife, Emily, and their seven-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Annie. And if you happen to mention her age, make sure you add on that half year, because she’s very particular about that.”
He looked over at Wendy and saw that she was smiling. Ever since they’d both gotten off while they were on the phone, she’d acted shy, as if she wasn’t sure what they’d done was acceptable. When he got her alone later, he’d make sure she knew it absolutely was, and that she had nothing to be ashamed, shy, or worried about.
“Is this the girl with the tank?” Jackson asked.
“The one and the same. We all helped Fletch make it and she spends hours in the thing, tooling around their yard. She talks to herself the entire time, telling stories, starring herself as the heroine and her boyfriend as the hero in whatever scenario she’s thought up. It’s super adorable.”
“Her boyfriend?” Wendy asked.
Blade nodded. “Yup. His name is Frankie, and lives out in California. Annie’s declared she’s going to marry him someday. She is definitely going to be a handful when she’s a teenager.”
“Hopefully not like Wen was when she was fifteen,” Jackson said with a laugh.
Out of the corner of his eye, Blade saw Wendy tense in her seat, but before he could say anything, Jackson was continuing his teasing.
“You snuck out so many times, sis, I thought Mom and Dad were going to nail your window shut. Remember that one time you came home at two in the morning drunk? I was up because I was sick, and you stumbled into the house. I thought Mom was going to have a heart attack. You just smirked and told them to lighten up. You were at some boy’s house—I don’t remember his name now—the whole time. That didn’t make them feel any better.” Jackson laughed at his recounting of the situation.
“Ha, ha,” Wendy said, with almost no inflection in her voice. “You always were a brat, spying on me all the time.”
Blade reached over and grabbed Wendy’s hand, holding it on his leg. He could feel her trembling and knew he needed to change the subject, quick.
He opened his mouth to tell the siblings another story about Annie…when something caught his attention across the street.
It was a group of three trucks. They were parked with their lights on. It was late enough, and dark enough, that Blade couldn’t make out the license plates or tell how many people were in each truck.
Blade pulled the Jeep into a parking space and looked back at Jackson. He gestured to the trucks with his head and asked, “That them?”
Jackson’s face lost all humor and he nodded. “Yeah. That’s where they like to hang out.”
“Wendy, go inside with Jackson. I’m going to talk to them.”
“No!” Wendy said, gripping his leg where her hand was resting. “First, it’s stupid to confront them by yourself. And two, let’s just go and enjoy the play.”
Blade clenched his teeth. He could handle himself with the punks, even if there were several of them. But Wendy didn’t know that because he hadn’t told her what he did in the Army. Hadn’t told her he’d killed people with his bare hands. Hadn’t told her that he’d been trained to fight up to five men at the same time. Hadn’t told her he was one of the most lethal and powerful fighting machines the Army had, with or without his knives.
He took a deep breath and looked into the rearview mirror at Jackson. The boy was alternating between looking at the thugs and his sister. Blade could tell he was torn between wanting to confront the bullies with him and making a run for it.
It was then that Blade realized the guys had probably been harassing Jackson far more than he’d shared with his sister.
Making a mental note to meet with Jackson and start his self-defense lessons sooner rather than later, Blade said, “Okay, sweetheart. We’ll go inside.”
�
��Thank you,” she said quietly. “I know you want to teach them a lesson, but I haven’t seen you in several days and I’d prefer not to have to clean up blood right before a nice relaxing night of watching my brother’s girlfriend wow us with her Ursula impression.”
Blade couldn’t help but smile. He ran a finger down her nose playfully. “Got it. No blood. Come on, let’s go see if Fletch and his family are here yet.”
They exited the Jeep and quickly walked toward the front doors of the school. Blade looked back once, but no one got out of the trucks and they didn’t make any move toward the school.
Breathing a sigh of relief—and frustration that he couldn’t deal with the punks—Blade held the door open for Wendy and nodded at Jackson reassuringly as he entered the building.
“Blade!”
He turned and saw Fletch standing off to the side with Emily and Annie. Emily looked as beautiful as ever. She had one hand resting on her rounded belly and was smiling down at Annie.
The little girl saw them and came running over. She flung her arms around Blade’s waist and said dramatically, “Thank goodness you’re here! We’ve been waiting for-ev-er! There’ve been hundreds of people going inside and Daddy Fletch wouldn’t let us go in until you got here. I bet all the goodest seats are probably taken by now!”
“Hi, Annie,” Blade said, smirking at her dramatics. “Would you like to meet my friend and her brother?”
Her head popped up and she turned to face Wendy and Jackson. “Yeah! Any friend of yours is a friend of mine.”
“Annie, this is Wendy, and her brother—”
“Jack. This is Jack,” Wendy interrupted.
Blade nodded subtly at her. He understood. He was going to introduce him as Jackson. He’d been around Wendy and her brother so much, he’d gotten used to calling the teenager Jackson, not Jack.
Making a mental note to have a serious talk with Wendy soon, he continued the introductions.
“Jack, Wendy, this little sprite is Annie.”
Jackson, proving he was one day going to be an awesome father, squatted down on his haunches and held out a hand. “Hi, Annie. I hear that you’re seven-and-a-half. You’re practically a grown-up.”
Annie beamed at him and shook his hand enthusiastically. “I am! And I’m in the second grade, but I can read on a fifth-grade level. I’m learning sign language because my boyfriend is deaf and I’m getting really good at it. I tried to tell Mommy I should just skip the other grades, but she won’t let me because I have to learn math and history and science stuff. Ugh.”
“Math is fun,” Jackson told her.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “No, it’s not.”
“I’ll have to tell you what my robotics club is making sometime. We use math to get everything just right. But maybe it’s over your head anyway…” He let his voice trail off and stood.
Annie tugged on his shirt. “No, tell me! I’m not that tall, but it’s not over my head. Tellmetellmetellmetellme!”
Blade loved the tinkle of Wendy’s laughter next to him. How anyone could be in a bad mood around Annie or resist her, he had no clue.
“Okay, but you have to keep it hush-hush,” Jackson said, pretending to look around to see if anyone was listening.
Annie mock-zipped her mouth closed and threw away the key.
“We’re making a robotic arm.”
Annie’s eyes got big. “Like for a person?”
“Yup. And it’s going to be able to be moved when the person wearing it simply thinks about moving it. It’s super cool.”
“Fish needs that!” Annie declared. Then turned and yelled at her parents, “Jack is making an arm for Fish!”
“We’re right here,” Emily said. “There’s no need to yell.”
“So much for her keeping it hush-hush,” Wendy whispered to Blade.
He smirked.
“Oh!” Annie said in surprise, not having seen her parents come closer as she was talking to Jack. “Daddy, Jack is making an arm in his robot class and Fish needs an arm. They need to get together. Make it happen!”
It was Blade’s turn to lean into Wendy and whisper, “She’s a little demanding.”
Wendy smiled. “All seven-year-olds are.”
“Seven-and-a-half,” Blade reminded her.
He loved the happiness and humor he saw in Wendy’s eyes. He turned to his friend. “Fletch, I’d like for you to meet Wendy Tucker and her brother, Jack. Wendy, this is Fletch and his wife, Emily.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Emily said, shaking Wendy’s hand.
“Same,” she replied.
Fletch shook both Wendy and Jackson’s hands and smiled at them. “We’ve heard a lot about you,” he said.
“Fletch,” Blade warned.
The other man held up his hands in capitulation. “I’ll be good.”
“Uh, thanks,” Wendy said.
“So, your girlfriend is going to be playing Ursula tonight?” Emily asked Jack.
Blade saw the teenager’s chest inflate with pride. “Yeah. And she’s good. Really good. She’s only a freshman, but I have no doubt that if she wants to be an actress when she gets older, she could. Although she says she wants to get her degree in chemistry and not major in drama in college. So, we’ll see.”
“Ursula!” Annie cried excitedly. Then began to sing “Poor Unfortunate Souls” at the top of her lungs.
Fletch reached out and put a hand over Annie’s mouth, chuckling. “How about we save that for the actors on the stage, huh, squirt?”
Annie laughed and nodded. Fletch removed his hand and put it on his daughter’s shoulder.
“Can we go in now and get seats?” the little girl asked. “Canwecanwecanwe?”
“You guys ready?” Fletch asked.
“How about we let the girls go in and find us some seats,” Blade said, catching Fletch’s eye and giving him a chin lift.
Fletch immediately understood that Blade wanted to talk to him about something and agreed. “Sounds good. Go on, Annie, find the best seats in the house and we’ll be in there in a second.”
“Aspen?” Wendy asked with a hand on his arm.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I just want to talk to Fletch for a second. Go on in.”
She frowned a little, but nodded.
Blade leaned down and kissed her on the lips lightly. “Thank you,” he said softly.
Wendy squeezed his arm, then followed the excited Annie and her mother toward the entrance to the theater.
“What’s up?” Fletch asked as soon as they were out of earshot.
Blade gestured to Jackson. “The guys I told you about, who are harassing Jack and others here at the school?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re across the street in the parking lot right now.”
Fletch’s jaw tightened and he looked toward the front doors. “The trucks with their lights on,” Fletch concluded. After Blade and Jack nodded, he said, “We going over there to confront them?”
Blade’s lips quirked upward. “I told Wendy that I wouldn’t.”
“You told her you wouldn’t right then,” Jackson cut in. “What if we went out during intermission?”
“Smart kid,” Fletch observed. “Blade?”
Blade looked at Jackson. He looked stressed. Not only had he brought his sister to watch his very new girlfriend perform, he now had to worry about the bullies who’d been on his ass. He understood that the teen would do whatever it took to get them to back off, but for some reason, Blade hesitated. Finally, he said, “I think getting into an altercation in the middle of your girlfriend’s play isn’t the best idea.”
Jackson’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I guess.”
“I’m sorry you’re going through this,” Blade told the boy. “It’s not right or cool. You’ve got a lot of pressure on you to protect Jenny and the others, while at the same time keeping yourself safe. I’m sorry I haven’t reached out before now to start those self-defense lessons. We’ll do that this weekend if y
ou have the time.”
“Saturday, me and Wen are celebrating her birthday,” Jackson said.
“That’s right. What about Friday after school? Your sister is working at the call center, isn’t she? What if we did it then?”
“That should work. I have a robotics club meeting, but we’ll be done by four,” Jackson said eagerly.
“Great. You think the guys’ll want to come help?” Blade asked Fletch.
“Absolutely.”
“Perfect. We’ll talk to your sister and see if that’ll work. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And after the performance is over tonight, we’ll all walk out together just in case those assholes want to try something. Yeah?”
Jackson’s shoulders dropped even more with the release in tension. “Thanks.”
“Anytime. I gave you my number and told you to call if you needed anything. I was serious about that. Any. Time. Got me?” Blade asked.
“Yeah. I appreciate it. Wendy’s awesome, but she literally can’t do anything about this. We both know it, and it sucks. If you can help me figure out what to do if they decide to jump me and my friends one day, I’d appreciate it.”
“Violence doesn’t solve problems,” Fletch pointed out. “But when you don’t have a choice, it can help get you out of a dangerous situation long enough to get help.”
Jackson nodded then turned to Blade again. “Wendy’s amazing. She gave up literally everything to look after me. I’d do the same for her, no questions asked. I like you, Aspen. Thank you for treating her right. She needs someone to look after her for once in her life.”
Blade knew there was a lot about the siblings’ situation that he didn’t know yet, but he’d never doubted their close bond. “She’s a hard person to look after, but I’m giving it my best shot,” he told the teenager.
“Don’t give up on her,” Jackson said. “She has reason to be tight-lipped about a lot of stuff.”
Blade nodded. Getting confirmation that something big was up with Wendy was good. He just wished she would trust him enough to share what that something was. He could help her, he knew it. But not if he didn’t know what was up.
