by Jc Emery
“You ever play Street’Opoly?” Grady leans in and asks me.
“What?” I ask. I’ve heard of a lot of different versions of the game before, even one that could be totally customized, but never Street’Opoly.
“Well, you’re about to be schooled,” he says. He takes a pull of his beer and gives me a sly smile. The attention makes me blush, but after last night, it probably shouldn’t. Clearing my throat and tucking my hair behind my ears, I smile wide up at him. He smiles back broadly, the lines around his mouth and eyes deepening. He truly is gorgeous in a way that is all man and muscle and arrogance.
“You think you can teach me a thing or two?” I say in a low and breathy voice. My heart rate spikes, and I flush all over.
“Baby, I’ll teach you things that are illegal in nine states,” he whispers. Cheyenne makes a gagging noise from my other side. I glance at his lips then up at his eyes and back to his lips. My nerves have disappeared and in their place is pure, unadulterated lust. He dives in for a quick kiss and then pulls away like nothing happened.
“Well,” I say lowly while trying to clear my throat, “you can try, but you’re going to have to do it as something aside from the ship. I already called that piece.”
“My house, my rules, my ship,” he says. I feel his arm move behind me. The adult, mature Holly wants to think he’s making a move and wrapping me in his strong embrace, but the kid in me recognizes this move. It’s the same one my older brother, Theo, used when we were kids and he wanted to get his hands on something I had. Back then, Theo, Mindy, and I were inseparable. I may have fallen for this trick a few times when I was little, but Mindy and I soon learned the art of the hand-off. In my experience, every girl who’s had to deal with an overbearing male in her life knows about the hand-off.
I take a chance, lean in toward Grady, and blow out a shaky breath. His arm pauses for a brief second, and I pounce, grabbing the ship from the table and handing it off to Cheyenne. Like a pro, she grabs the ship, hops out of her chair, and runs around the table to Lisa, who is dumping wings out of the plastic bags and into a glass bowl.
“That’s fucked,” Grady says and leans against the back of his chair. He takes a pull of his beer and shakes his head. “You’re supposed to be on my team, Chey!”
“Ha! You grounded me last month for being like ten minutes late for curfew. You’re on your own, dude,” she says. He grumbles something about an hour and fickle memories, but doesn’t make a stink out of it.
Lisa and Cheyenne bring bowls of wings and dip to the table, along with empty plates and a lot of napkins. I finish off my coffee and opt for a Coke before we dig into dinner. The entire experience of sitting around the kitchen table with this family makes me yearn for something like this for myself—a group of people so tightly-knit that they can tease one another and even argue, but it’s all in good fun. I don’t doubt that, like any other family, they fight and have their differences, but they’re all just so relaxed around each other. I can’t imagine Cheyenne doing anything that would truly shame her father. I wonder what it must be like, to know that kind of love and devotion.
Dinner ends and, as the game begins, Grady lays out the rules of Street’Opoly for me. Cheyenne and Lisa object to playing his way, but he ignores them and breezes through his explanation. In some twisted way, Street’Opoly has the extra element of gang involvement. Apparently nobody ever chooses the iron or the thimble, so he puts them to use to represent two different street gangs that seek to control the game board. The best way to protect yourself from the damage they can do to your houses and hotels is to pay one of the gangs for protection, but that gang has to make sure they can keep you safe; a task which is apparently quite difficult during times of war between the thimble gang and the iron gang. Truth be told, by the time he and Cheyenne were done explaining the rules, I thought they both needed to be committed. As if the game doesn’t have enough rules, now I have to worry about The Thimbles street gang—which Grady represents—devaluing my properties. Since I snubbed Grady’s gang, he’s sworn to target me. Cheyenne runs The Irons street gang and promises me I’ll be safe. The very fact that I’m genuinely worried about an attack from The Thimbles as we start to play is ridiculous, and I mentally take note that if Grady and Cheyenne need to be committed, I ought to just book myself a neighboring room as well. Only, I think I’d like that almost as much as sharing a padded room with Grady.
Only Lisa refuses to pay street protection. I don’t know how that works, but she’s confident that she can handle herself. The one thing that this crazy version of Monopoly buys me is the opportunity to hear Grady talk. Every time I ask a question, he goes to answer, but then Cheyenne cuts him off, then he cuts her off, and they end up in some kind of bickering contest until Lisa steals a move when it’s not her turn and they notice her little dog is progressing on the board out of order. They don’t fight it, but it does stop them from nit-picking about why the other person is wrong.
I’m the biggest idiot in the world. In the three hours it takes us to play the game, I fall completely and totally in lust with Grady. It comes on so strong and immediate that it reminds me of my first kiss in ninth grade, and the first time a boy told me he loved me. It’s like being slapped across the face and punched in the gut, and it’s nothing like any lust I’ve felt before. It’s terrifying and exciting, and when Grady leans back in his chair and tosses an arm over my shoulders, I actually feel like I want to throw up. He’s so much of what I’ve always wanted in a man—strong, caring, protective, playful—and the more time I spend with him, the deeper I’m going to get. But it can’t be more than lust, a primal desire to be part of his world, even a little bit, because love doesn’t happen this quickly.
I barely know him, but I’m looking to change that. I know the important things. He loves his daughter and is respectful to his mom. He’s a big, scary outlaw biker who can frighten me into submission, and who’s made up his own twisted version of a board game that he apparently plays with his daughter often. He’s gone out of his way to help and protect me, even though I’m not technically his responsibility. And I’ve lost my marbles because I’m going out of my way to defend him. And he gives fantastic orgasms. That alone qualifies him for obsession status.
He did get me into these messes, but he could be a real bastard and leave me to suffer the wrath of his enemies and he done with it. His hands and the club’s hands would be clean of it if he’d just let that mafia guy take me out. And I wouldn’t be the kind of person who thought about things like how to take somebody out and keep your hands clean if it weren’t for Grady and his club. But even knowing this, I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to lose the bickering and the excitement and the way his heavy arm rests on my shoulders. Even if it is temporary, I’m part of something real, and I like it. I more than like it, but I don’t let myself go there.
Grady catches me staring at him a little too long and raises his eyebrows in question. A smile tugs at my lips. I raise my eyebrows in response, trying in vain to mimic the half-hearted scowl he’s sporting. He hooks his foot around the front leg of my chair and, with the help of his arm around my shoulder, he tugs me closer and places a kiss on top of my head. I flush with anticipation of where this is going and hope that I’m not a complete idiot for thinking we could be something.
“You fit in here,” he says. “You fit in with me—with us. We don’t fit in anywhere, either. So we fit in together.”
And just like that, I’m a goner.
Chapter 21
BY THE TIME the game is over, both Cheyenne and Lisa can’t stop yawning. I think Lisa won, but I’m not entirely certain. All I know is that I definitely lost. Cheyenne is mumbling incoherent things about taking down The Thimbles street gang with a series of federal charges. I try to ask her what kind of sentence The Thimbles would get for that, but she replies with something about shooting bunnies. Lisa stands from the table, stretches her back out, and pats Cheyenne on the back. “Time for bed.” They leave abruptly and when
they’re out of earshot, I turn in my seat and ask Grady, “Should I be worried that your daughter is talking about shooting bunnies?”
“Nah,” he says as he finishes off his fifth beer since dinner. “The bunnies deserve it.” My eyes widen and I can’t find anything to say. What the hell does that even mean anyway?
Suddenly, being alone with Grady is too much. I want this. It just makes me nervous. I hop out of my seat and collect the bowls and plates from around the table. In the kitchen, I set them in the sink and get to rinsing them off in preparation to put them in the dishwasher. Grady follows behind and dumps the empty beer cans into the recycling bin. He hovers over my shoulder as I scrub the dishes free of food particles. Warm breath heats the back of my neck sending a shiver down my spine. He lifts my hair, drops it over the front of my shoulder, and presses the front of his body into my back.
“What are you doing?” I whisper. I don’t want him to stop. Feeling his body pressed into mine, trapping me between him and the counter, makes me think I could be agreeable to just about anything—things I probably shouldn't agree to. Like going to bed with him. But he is and I am, so I can’t think straight enough to wonder how insane I am. I want him, I know that. I want him more than I’ve wanted anything in a long time.
“Getting you to cooperate so I can fuck you. Don’t think I forgot what you look like as you come.” He drags his hand up the center of my spine all the way to the base of my neck. His touch is gentle. It makes me want to tell him everything about myself. His proximity is much too close– it is unnerving. I am already in way too deep for my liking. It can't be healthy for me to be this obsessed with him. I guess it's just been so long since I've been in any kind of relationship that I forgot how these things work. I force myself to be here and in the moment, and not too much in my own head. “Where do you want me to fuck you?”
Turning off the water and using my hands as leverage against the edge of the counter, I take a deep breath and let my head fall back against his chest.
"Are you always this bossy, and does it actually work for you?" I ask.
"I'm the one asking questions here," he says. His hand comes around from the back of my neck and trails effortlessly across my collarbone and down my forearm. “I asked where you want me to fuck you.”
"Is that how it usually works for you with women?"
"I don't normally do a lot of talking with women," he says. "Don't usually care what they have to say." I'm not exactly surprised, but maybe a little disappointed. It's easy to forget who he is, and what he does when he's sitting around playing a children's game with his daughter and mother on a Friday night.
"What makes me different?" I ask. Immediately I regret the question. It is stupid of me to ask, to even think that there is a difference.
“Everything, or maybe nothing. Maybe it was just the timing and the situation, but I think we got something here. Something I ain't had in a damn long time,” he confesses. I don't really know what he means by that, or maybe I do, and I just don't want to admit it to myself. Last night and even during the game tonight, being with him seemed like a great idea. But I know so little about him that it’s scary how little I care what big, awful things I could uncover.
“Listen, I don't do sappy shit," he says. He brings his arms up and rests his hands on the edge of the counter. “But I like you. I want to see where this goes.”
Looking down at his large, rough hands, I think that maybe this could work. He's being direct with me and verbalizing what he wants, and I have a feeling that he doesn't do that with a lot of women. He strikes me as more of a do now and reap the consequences later kind of guy. Only, as silly as it sounds, I don't really know how to be in a relationship. If that's what he even means. I'm probably suffering from some sort of PTSD, or some Florence Nightingale kind of crap that makes me think that everything that is actually a really horrible idea might be good idea. But I've been down the rabbit hole of insanity before, and last time it was alcohol fueled and drug-enabled. I don't have that excuse this time.
"Mindy’s an addict and an alcoholic," I say. I shouldn't be sharing this with him. It's really none of his business, but if I want to keep this, whatever this is, I should start by being honest and letting him in on this part of my life. "You asked why I don't drink, and that's why. I followed her into oblivion and I don’t like who I am when I’m not sober."
I have never willingly shared that with anyone. It’s Mindy’s story to tell, not mine. We went through all that crap together. Only, when I was ready to move on, Mindy wasn’t. “I tried to help her. I enabled her, ended up dropping out of college because of it. It was a hard two years that I don’t wish to repeat.”
"Few months back, my best friend died. It tore me up. Tore Chey up, too. That’s why her grades suck. I wasn’t tuned in enough to notice and when you called me out on it, it only pissed me off." I don't say anything out loud because it seems pretty obvious that there's nothing I can say that he would appreciate. Instead, I opt for hoping that the more I share, the more he'll share.
"Every man I’ve ever dated is a tool,” I admit.
“I’m a tool,” he says.
“No doubt,” I whisper.
Grady reaches out with his thumb and caresses my knuckles. I let my eyes fall closed and the rest of my body sink against his. I never talk about what went bad with me and Mindy because it's still too painful to recall. His left arm lifts off of the counter and curls around my waist. He sucks in a deep breath at the top of my head and releases it slowly. His body grows stiff in every way imaginable.
I take my free arm and place it over his arm at my waist and squeeze. Gooseflesh appears all over my skin. He places a kiss to the back my head and then another to the shell of my ear. I have now had his lips on the back of my neck, the back of my head, and on my ear. And while each kiss is better than the last, they aren't enough.
"Kiss me," I whisper. It worked well for me the last time, so I go with it.
"I'll do more than that. I'll suck on your tits," he says. His hand at my waist travels up and ghosts across my nipple. His words are so crude that I should be offended, but they have the exact opposite effect. An overwhelming need overtakes me. "And eat your pussy."
The same hand drops to the crotch of my jeans where he drags his finger down my center. My body involuntarily locks into place and my breathing ceases for the few moments it takes my brain to process what he's doing. It doesn't matter how much attention I pay to myself, it's never the same alone as it is with a partner. Last night was proof of that.
"And I'll fuck you until you beg me to stop." He presses his hardened dick into my back to emphasize his point. I have to force my muscles to loosen and to remind myself to breathe. If ever my heart were on the verge of giving out, now would be it.
"I don't do casual," I say. Even now, in this moment, I try not to forget all the strides I've made the last few years in order to get myself back on track. Step four. The moral inventory. I've never done casual sex very well. Being with somebody intimately always leaves me expecting more, and there was a time when I took whatever they were willing to give. But I can't be that person anymore, and damn the stupid steps because they make me say and do things I would rather not– honest things. I never should have let Mindy convince me to do them with her.
"I can't do casual," he says. "My life, the club, Chey… everything. We are either strangers who fuck or you are my woman. There is no in between bullshit about dating multiple people, seeing if it's a good fit, and all that stupid yuppie shit." His words take me by surprise. A man like him, I expected some criticism for my position. I've been on an emotional cliff all night, in danger of falling into an abyss of feelings I'm not ready for. And like everything in life, I see it coming. I'm losing my footing and then before I know it, I've fallen so hard that I don't think I'll ever recover. Lust, love. Whatever you call it, I don't care anymore. This is like falling into the best thing you didn't even know existed until you almost passed it by.
"Being your woman, is that what you call being your Old Lady?"
"Not exactly. I tell my brothers that you're with me and they will treat you like family. But, being an Old Lady only happens if the club unanimously votes you in. We won't even consider taking a vote until a brother has been with his bitch for at least 18 months. It's an honor to be voted in." I don't ask what the point of being voted in is because I'm totally distracted by his use of the word bitch. I really hate that word. As scary and foreign as all of this is, it's my life for the foreseeable future. I'll brush up on motorcycle club lingo at a later date.
“I don’t like that word,” I say. He tenses behind me, but says nothing.
“It’s the way I talk. It’s just a word,” he says lowly. But it’s not just a word to me and it grates on my damn nerves every single times he uses it.
“You’re asking me to accept so much about your world, plus the danger I’ve already been dragged into. Why can’t you just honor this one request?”
“I’m not used to the give and take of relationships, but I’ll try,” he says.
“Fair enough,” I say, giving in.
Taking my hand, he leads me out of the kitchen and through the living room, then down a flight of stairs. We move slowly in absolutely no rush. My body buzzes in nervous anticipation the further we get into the house. At the bottom of the stairs is a rec room on the left, surrounded by large single-pane windows. On the right is a short hall with two doors. We walk through the first door and step into a dark, masculine room. Grady flips one of the four switches on the wall and soft lights illuminate the room in a warm glow. The walls are gray and the carpet is a worn Berber. The furniture is mismatched and aged, though sturdy to the eye.
He shuts the door behind us and moves to place his hands on my hips. My breath hitches as he runs his hands under my shirt and drags it upward. We undress one another slowly, taking our time. First it’s his cut and then his shirt. My pants and bra follow along with his jeans and socks. Soon, we’re in nothing but our underwear.
