“Morning, mama,” a deep, sleepy voice growled even as I felt a large, warm hand reach around my waist, slide up my ribcage in order to capture my breast, a thumb zeroing in on my nipple.
I wiggled my butt in reply, not yet wanting to open my eyes but to simply enjoy the sexy sensations while still half asleep before I had to begin my day. A day that we’d been planning for weeks and was bound to be more than busy.
At my involuntary squirm, I became aware of another feeling. One along the lines of soft velvet over steel insinuating itself on the skin that was exposed by my twisted nightgown that had, as usual, moved up around my waist while I’d slumbered.
“Love your sleepy smell, Dore,” he murmured against the back of my neck, the warmth of his breath only adding to the heat he was building with only the smallest of moves. Actions that were growing more focused as I shifted towards wakefulness. “Christ, you’re sexy.”
You’d have thought I would’ve been used to it by then, that Stan’s initiation of morning sex would’ve just been part and parcel of my morning routine. But it wasn’t and I hoped I never took it for granted. Not after thirteen years of missing it. In gratitude, I squirmed again and did a lazy turn over onto my stomach as I stretched my hands to the headboard.
“Oh yeah,” he breathed, following my movement as he pressed against my back and placed his thighs between mine. “Up on your knees a bit more, babe. Yeah. Fuck! That’s it, give me that beautiful ass…”
With my face still pressed into the pillow but with my eyes still closed, I caught myself smiling. His nasty talk while in the throes of desire still thrilled me and I, for one, counted is as part of our foreplay although with a teenager in the house, we tried really hard to keep our bed doings quiet. At least when J.R. was around. But it was difficult since our first marriage had educated us on each other’s bodies and our second had only perfected that knowledge.
He slid his long, firm member along the length of my slit, catching and rubbing himself on my clit before pulling back. A move that not only had me grinding myself back against him but moaning in frustration at his teasing play. And true to form, Stan performed that same action again, only pausing to caress my pleasure point with his helmet. “My wife likes that, doesn’t she?”
In answer, I reached between my legs and captured his dick in my palm, aiming him towards where my body demanded he be. With a chuckle, he allowed me to guide him to my opening and without delay I felt him ease himself inside slowly, gliding as he filled me. And as he pushed in further, he let go a long, low, deep growl that held the edges of satisfaction in its tone. “But this is my favorite, babe. The best fucking feeling in the world.”
I couldn’t disagree but I needed him to move, to work his magic in me as only he knew how to do. It wasn’t only the back and forth, the entry and then the not quite exiting of his flesh in mine that created the miasma of sensations but the angle of it as he rubbed over my g-spot as his hips slewed. And as ever when we were in that position, Stan slid a hand down and around in order to engage my clit in our fun.
“Harder, honey!” I whispered on a voice that was rough from both what I was feeling and from being my first words of the day. He went further up on his knees, dragging me with him by a hand on each of my hipbones. And with the slight change in position as well as him driving into me with more power, my body began sprinting towards goal, finding me mindless with the sparks of pleasure that were consuming me one cell at a time. As I crested, everything within me stilled in order to better experience that brief hesitation, that micro-second of being suspended before the euphoria of my bliss imploded from within, shattering me into tiny pieces that glittered behind my eyelids. A delight so complete, so gratifying that I couldn’t do anything but bite my pillow in order not to scream its beauty to the heavens.
Stan hit his only a couple of strokes later, stiffening before releasing another low, deep growl as I felt him plant himself deep, pulsating against the walls of my sex that held him in their depths. He released the grip he had on my hips and curled himself over my back, holding most of his weight on his elbows that he’d planted into the mattress next to my shoulders. “The best, babe,” he murmured thickly into my neck. “Sex with you has always been the absolute fucking best.”
I raised my head and turned my neck so I could share the first kiss of the day with my husband, as well as to avoid speaking. Because sex with Stan, while usually great, had gone a little off-track for a while back in the six months that we’d tried to make a baby. Six long months where joining with my beautiful man had become a duty instead of a pleasure. Where the thermometer ruled whether or not we could take to our marriage bed in order to expand our little family of three.
But it wasn’t to be.
When I’d gone to the doctor to see if there was a problem, he’d called both me and Stan into his office to carefully explain the risks of both carrying and then delivering a peri-menopausal baby. When pressed, the doctor had said that yes, there were drugs that could be used for both fertility and during gestation, but then he listed the side-effects. A long, long list of things that could happen, could go wrong and ended his speech with the disclaimer that there were still no guarantees of success.
Stan and I had sat in his truck at the medical center for a good thirty minutes afterward, him just holding me as I cried, rubbing my back and reminding me we already had one good kid, a great one, which was more than a lot of people had.
But I don’t think my husband had understood the full of it, not really. The doctor hadn’t just told us we should stop trying, but he had in essence said I was too old to carry another child. That my body had already begun its countdown towards menopause and I was closer to an old lady than a young ripe woman. So my tears were not only because we couldn’t have another baby but were also to mourn my youth. And to the thirteen years we’d lost by being apart.
Not even a couple of weeks later, Stan had announced he was getting a vasectomy citing that he wanted me off the pill. It seemed my husband had done a bit of research on his own and discovered that even birth-control pills wrecked havoc with a woman’s ‘aging’ system. Something he wasn’t willing for me to ‘mess’ with as he called it. I simply called him a bastard without bothering to explain.
So after recuperating approximately four days into what was supposed to have been a week-long ban on sex, we went back at it like bunnies, again finding the joy in our coupling. One that hadn’t lessened in the years since.
“So what time do you want me to bring J.R. to the compound?” Stan asked, sliding out of my body and to the side, fluffing the blankets and rearranging them over us as he moved.
I sighed and turned to sit up, twisting from the waist in order to glance at him. “The plan has changed again. As far as I know, Rinse is picking him up. I told him to get J.R. there by eleven-thirty.”
Stan frowned and rubbed a hand over his head before using it to run down the length of his braid. We’d had more than a few discussions about me cutting it. He wanted it shorter, closer to the style he sported back in the day. But I fought against such a travesty by just giving him a flat-out ‘no’, unwilling to let him know how sexy I found it when he let me slip the band off the end and allowed it to fall around us as he took me. Stan didn’t know that I’d discovered I was the only woman who had the pleasure of seeing it unbound, who’d felt its silken length on her breasts and thighs. A fact that only added to my excitement when it happened. “I know it’s his party, mama, but I’m getting pretty fucking tired of him calling the shots for the damn thing.”
I couldn’t help my grin. J.R. at sixteen was now as tall as his father, a fact that thrilled our son to no end. But I’d seen the way the two of them had been going toe-to-toe more often as J.R. started exerting his independence, trying to wrest the reins of his life from me and his dad as all teenagers did. I didn’t know if it was because Stan came into J.R.’s boyhood so late or if it was because my husband kept close those he considered most dear, but he didn�
�t care for our kid’s insistence on autonomy. Not at all.
“He’s just a year younger than you were when we met,” I reminded him, coming to my feet and heading towards the bathroom. “From what I remember, you pretty much didn’t like being told what to do at that age either.”
Glancing at Stan, I saw him glaring at the ceiling before I closed the bathroom door. “Still doesn’t fucking make it right!” I heard him say on a shout said loud enough to for me and probably our neighbors to hear. I rolled my eyes as I took care of business and tried to keep my sigh to myself.
It was gonna be a long day.
*.*.*.*.*
I parked in the big Hellion parking lot, idly noting the cars and bikes that were already in attendance. When we’d first planned on giving J.R. a party for his sixteenth birthday, Stan and I talked about keeping it small. Just a few of J.R.’s closest friends and their girls as we bar-b-qued on the deck just off the kitchen that the club had given us as a first re-anniversary gift.
But that guest list had grown substantially. To the point there was no way our place would hold all the families that wanted to participate in our boy’s celebration. So we’d had no choice but to hold it at the Hellion compound, which was not only large enough for all the guests but had enough parking for everyone as well.
A venue I would never, ever have even considered when Stan and I first remarried.
But I’d softened considerably towards the club after carefully seeing how very much the Hellions had changed in the years I’d been away. Sure, they were still big, bad-ass bikers that lived their lives by their own code, had their own way of handling things that were sometimes well and away outside the lines of polite society. But Trey ruled with an iron hand, keeping much of the club business within the lines of the law and the members under his rule in check.
“Hey, Dory!” Chuckie called from across the forecourt and as I slid out of my SUV. I watched as he came towards me. “Can I give you a hand?”
I nodded, not only in response to Chuckie’s question but also in agreement with my thoughts. Yeah, the club had changed. But the biggest part that had settled both me and my heart had been with their attitude adjustment towards women. I’d never, not once in the time I’d been back around them, been treated with anything other than the utmost respect. “That’d be great. Although I think I might’ve overdone it with the decorations.”
“A dude only turns sixteen once,” Chuckie shot back with a smile and a shrug as he went to open my tailgate.
I heard the creak of the clubhouse door and saw Carly and Jillian coming my way, smiling huge. “Namaste, bitch! Need some help?”
“Thanks!” I shaded my eyes and took in the two Honeys as they sashayed their way towards me. How they managed to walk in such high-heels that were currently paired with short-shorts was still a mystery to me. “I appreciate you coming early. There’s just so much to do to get ready…”
“Don’t sweat it, pretty girl,” Jillian said, giving me a hug before reaching for a banker’s box marked ‘decorations’.
“Always willing to help out one of our own,” Carly murmured after giving me a squeeze. I watched as she looped a crap-load of carrier bags on both wrists. “Chuckie and Sierra got here first. She’s already got the meat going in that special marinade shit she does.”
“Carmi and Lock said they couldn’t get here until ten,” the tall auburn-haired beauty continued, her voice not sounding strained in the least in spite of the heavy load she was carrying. “The other Honeys said they’ll arrive later, that it’ll be closer to eleven because of the kids.”
I nodded and grabbed a stack of stuff to carry before Chuckie moved towards the remaining bags and boxes. “I’ll bring in the rest,” He assured me with a wink. “What time will Bishop get here?”
“He was just waiting on Dare to arrive when I left. They were going to the storage place and should be here shortly,” I answered over my shoulder as I followed the undulating but thankfully fully-covered butts of Carly and Jill as they stepped back to the clubhouse where Sierra was thoughtfully holding the door open.
I leaned into Sierra as I passed in order to accept a hug from Chuckie’s new young wife. Both Hellion and Honey alike had been surprised when the former marine had brought a civilian to a bar-be-que for the first time and even more so when he’d popped a ring on her finger after only six months. But the fact that she, like me, hadn’t become a bona-fide Honey hadn’t fazed anyone a bit.
“What’s the latest head-count?” Sierra asked, taking a couple of my bags to ease the load.
I rolled my eyes. What had started out as a small party of maybe ten teenagers had expanded considerably. “Close to seventy-five.”
“Now that’s a fucking party!” Carly whooped before shooting her by then empty arms over her head, her hands locked in the position of rock-horns.
I turned so I could back my way through the swinging café doors into the kitchen, my eyes worriedly going around the ‘bar’ area of the clubhouse hoping that we’d found away to accommodate everyone. It’d been Stan who’d pointed out the advantages of basically having two parties going at the same time with the teenagers and younger Hellions in the forecourt while the others, especially those with small children, partied in the clubhouse.
“But we’ll fucking be working the grill outside, mama. That’ll give the brothers an excuse to keep an eye on all the motherfucking hormonal doings.” I’d just stared at Stan after he’d spoken until he’d had the grace to look away as if he also remembered how we’d snuck from more than one Hellion party for our own bit of ‘hormonal’ fun as teenagers. “But I’ll have the bros do random sweeps of the equipment shed, just in case,” he’d uttered before turning away.
We’d just unloaded all the bags and boxes, had just started sorting through what decorations needed to be inside and which ones to hang around the driveway when I heard the pipes of two more bikes pull in.
“It’s Dare and Bish,” Jilly announced from her place at the sink, her eyes trained on the window. “Ooh, and here comes Mel and Lulu.”
Carly, who had an armload of banners, went to look over Jilly’s shoulder. “Shit, look at her! Five months along and you can’t see any trace of her bump!”
“But her heels are lower,” Sierra offered.
I glanced out the window in order to throw in my two-cents. “As is her neckline.”
We all loved Lulu, loved her vivacious sweetness but we each, in our own way, had a little bit of a problem with how pulled together the woman always appeared. And as we’d followed her pregnancy on her blog (which was ridiculously titled, ‘Life with Lulu’) we’d all found a reason to grumble. More to the point, if she hadn’t been so good-hearted and so much fun, we’d hate her freaking guts.
I saw Julie emerge from the backseat and noticed the girl had grown another couple of inches. Where Lulu was stunning with her perfect grooming and rockabilly clothes, her sister-in-law Julie was simply beautiful at only fourteen. J.R. had first pitched a bitch when I’d added her name to the ‘teenager’ side of the list but had calmed considerably after Dallas had explained that she would be acting as baby-sitter to the toddlers. One I knew would find the young woman considerably richer before the night was through.
“Does anyone know if number one was redone?” I asked the group who were still glued to the window. I was referring to the need to have one of the back rooms converted into something more kid friendly.
“It’s wall to wall cribs and playpens with a rocking chair and a changing table.” Sierra shot me a glance before turning to pull a big pot from beneath the butcher block island in the middle of the kitchen. “They even have two monitors and checked all the handsets to ensure they work.”
“What’d you wanna bet they fucking leave that room set up that way?” Carly smirked, making her own way from the window and heading towards the swinging doors. “It used to be just a Hellion playroom and then it went to bunk beds. Now it’s filled with kid shit!” She started laug
hing as she aimed her butt at the doors. “Just you wait! As the Hellions age out, it’ll change to wheelchairs, walkers and those potty-chairs on wheels!”
The kitchen resounded with the sounds of laughter and which didn’t seem to die out as more and more people begin to arrive all hoping to ‘help out’ before the main event. But to my mind it was so the Hellion brothers could check out the bike that Stan had refurbished for our boy. J.R. actually already had his license since, on his fifteenth birthday, his present had been in the form of payment of his state approved Driver’s Education Course. And our son had absolutely aced both the written and road test, one that had performed on one of his dad’s favorite bikes. The conclusion of which only gave Stan more bragging rights, declaring to anyone who’d listen that even Bishop had failed on his first attempt to become street legal.
So I’d had no trouble agreeing J.R. was ready for his first set of wheels. My only caveat was that our boy needed a job in order to kick in for fifty percent of the insurance. And that meant I lost my shop’s Saturday helper as J.R. went to work part-time at Hellion Construction.
As the men went around to the side of the building to where J.R.’s new bike was hidden, out by where the laundry room was situated, their women and kids came into the clubhouse. Which had the noise level increasing until the rafters were almost shaking.
Every time I left the kitchen to set up tray after tray of chips and dip, veggie crudités or teriyaki skewers, I was greeted with tiny voices yelling, ‘unt Doree!’. Even Dallas and Trey’s little Mary, the not quite a year old who’d been named after Dallas’s mom, would scream and wave her chubby little arms from her walker as I entered the big room. With her big chocolate-brown eyes and jet-black curls, she was a little temptress, but especially loud when around Silo and Shelly’s spritely Sarah was around. A bossy, wild child of a girl who was only pushing two, but thought she was Julie’s age.
I smiled and acknowledged the attention each and every time it was given although in that instance, I felt my heart hitch as I wished that Dallas’s mom had been around to meet her namesake. But she’d had a massive heart attack almost a month to the day after Trey and Dallas had finally married in a ceremony that brides all over Missoula were still trying to emulate two years later. Miller, Dallas’s dad, had fallen into a deep, deep funk that had lasted until he too had passed a few months later. The doctor had listed the cause of death as heart failure because he’d said that it was the closest to what had actually happened: that Miller had just died of a broken heart.
Checkmate With Bishop: A Hellions MC Novel Page 30
