Stoker's Serenity: The Virtues Book IV

by A. J. Downey

  “It’s six weeks from now, Labor Day weekend.”

  Serenity nodded. “I can try. Holiday weekends usually get the time-off requests filled fast, and there’s no guarantee even if I get it, that I won’t be called in last minute.”

  “That’s some bullshit.” Cutter raised an eyebrow.

  “That’s retail with Stalin as your manager.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Tell us about him,” Hope encouraged.

  “It’s a ‘her’, and I don’t know…”

  “You’re among friends, baby. Get it off your chest.” Cutter took a run at getting her to open up. I kissed her shoulder, a press of lips and she sighed.

  “She just took over. I don’t know what happened, but she showed up and…”

  Bitch sounded like a real piece of work. Serenity got done describing this new bitch’s first day in and I wanted to punch the cunt manager in the face – woman or not.

  “Should find a spot without cameras and punch her in the face the next time she talks to you that way,” Hope said decisively. “Pop her in the mouth once, they tend to watch it after that until they need a reminder down the line.”

  I chuckled and Serenity blushed furiously. “I don’t know that violence is the answer,” she said, cautiously.

  “Dog-eat-dog world out there, beautiful,” Cutter said, taking a pull off his bottle of beer. “We learned a long time ago the rules were made to keep us down and so we decided fuck the rules, right, boys?”

  A rowdy cheer went up and I laughed; it was true. We mostly colored inside citizen lines to keep it peaceful, but we weren’t above a little mayhem or retribution for things. Depended on how high the disrespect ran, and it sounded like my little orchid was taking it in spades where she worked.

  “The problem nowadays is that no one expects to get punched in the mouth for their disrespect. You don’t close it for them, they just think they can keep on keepin’ on runnin’ it.” Cutter said.

  “In my experience,” Serenity countered, “the more you try to fight back or argue poor treatment, the worse it gets…” She trailed off and wouldn’t look at any of us. I gave her a light squeeze and she bit her lips together. Hope and Cutter exchanged a glance with me, and I gave a slight nod.

  That was enough for now. I didn’t know, if we pushed it any farther, how she would react. I’d try getting more out of her later, but I wanted her to enjoy tonight.

  “Citizen’s folly,” Cutter said, then added directly, “I think we can just leave it at that, how about you?”

  “Agree to disagree?” she murmured.

  “Something like that.” He winked and she smiled.

  “So, you going to try and get that weekend off?” Hope asked.

  My little orchid nodded. “I’ll try.”

  “Excellent! We’d love to have you,” Cutter said.

  “Okay,” Serenity agreed and I nipped her shoulder. She gasped and looked down at me from where she was perched on my knee. I smiled up at her and encouraged her with my eyes to kiss me.

  She leaned down and did just that, and I was happy.

  21

  Serenity…

  We drank a little too much, but we were having fun. At least, I know I was having fun. Stoker’s hand was on my waist as we stood around the pool table, laughing and talking with his club’s vice president, Marlin, and his woman, Faith.

  She and I bonded a bit over our mutual anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders, but her story? Vastly more tragic than mine. It was a bit easier, opening up about mine, knowing how much worse her tale was, but I still didn’t go into great detail. I also didn’t expect her to. It was enough to know the damage was mutual, the symptoms of our disorders an almost perfect match.

  It was nice to know I wasn’t alone, when I had been for so very long.

  Stoker missed his final shot and straightened, crying, “Ahhh!”

  Marlin laughed and said, “Can’t win ‘em all, buddy. Rack ‘em up and I’ll let you redeem yourself.”

  Stoker bowed his head, chuckling and shook it saying, “Nah, man. It’s getting late. I think I’m gonna take my lady home for the night.”

  The way he said it, what he called me, ‘his lady’, sent a shiver of delight through me, which was quickly chased with a shot of desire for him. I smiled happily and hopped off the bar stool I was perched on, handing him my pool cue. He racked it alongside his on the wall and held out his hand to me.

  “You sure you’re good to ride?” Marlin asked, and I giggled.

  “We walked, so yeah, man, we’re good.”

  “The fuck, over? You walked your happy ass here when you got a perfectly good bike to ride in on? Somebody needs to pull your man card.

  ” Radar was laughing, wandering over from the dartboards. Stoker tucked me into his side and mock-laughed at Radar.

  “You’re not funny,” he said, deadpan, and Radar laughed at him in turn, for real this time.

  “I’m fuckin’ hilarious.”

  “And we’re fuckin’ outta here, so we can fuck,” Stoker shot back, and our section of the bar went up into a rowdy cheer.

  I blushed and hid my face against his leather vest as he steered us a bit unsteadily towards the door. He pulled it open and we walked out under the overhang ‒ to a wall of rain.

  “Well, shit,” he declared and I started laughing.

  I started laughing, and I couldn’t stop, and pretty soon, both of us were slain by a giant fit of giggles, that turned into kissing, that quickly turned passionate as he lifted me, my arms around his neck, his hands around my back and stepped us out into the downpour.

  I howled and laughed, full-bodied and filled with joy as he spun me around while we were soaked to the skin in seconds. I locked my mouth to his and he sat me on the trunk of a nearby car, his mouth feasting at mine, nipping my lips, his hand copping a feel of my left breast which made me groan into his mouth.

  “Hope you don’t like these,” he grunted, and before I knew it, his hand, that had drifted up my leg beneath my skirt, had tangled in the G-string panties I was wearing beneath my skirt. With a sharp jerk of his fist, the seams popped and the panties gave way on the one side.

  “Oh, my God!” I gasped and he took the hand from my breast and ripped the other side of my panties.

  “You’re not going to fuck me right here, are you?” I asked, and barely could hear myself over the dull roar of the rain falling around us.

  “Yep,” he grunted, going for his belt, pulling me to the edge of the trunk with his other arm.

  I was surprised to find my blood heat with want, the desire rising and boiling over in an effervescent rush of gooseflesh down my arms.

  I pulled him against me and asked mid-kiss, “Condom?”

  “Mm, grabbed one from the fishbowl on the way out,” he murmured and I laughed. I had noticed the fishbowl of condoms on the end of the bar right beside the door, but I hadn’t seen him grab one. He was crafty, and slick, and I loved that about him.

  I edged closer to him and we resumed kissing fervently, the rain pattering around us warm and full of life.

  “Not afraid of getting caught?” he asked.

  “I’ll just hide behind you, and not really, not if we hurry it up.”

  “What if I don’t want to hurry it up? What if I want to take you long and slow?” he asked, a teasing and seductive edge to his melodic voice.

  “Long and slow is for back at the house,” I said breathlessly, shoving myself against him as he stroked his cock between us, between my thighs, making himself ready. “Now shut up and fuck me,” I demanded, and he threw back his head and laughed.

  When he tipped it forward, he brought his mouth back to mine as he worked the condom he’d snagged out of the bowl out of its wrapper and rolled it on. I wiggled so my ass was half-hanging off the edge of the trunk of the car and he shoved his cock inside me, sharp and deep, my body not quite ready, stretching around him to take him in with an unhappy aching throb of protest.

  I moaned,
my arms going around his shoulders, holding myself close to him while he gripped my outer thighs and practically pulled me onto him with every thrust. The passion was real, reacting and burning hot like we were made of potassium, coming in contact with the rainfall around us.

  The orgasm that happened was incendiary and heightened by the risk that some old-timer, or one of his club could come outside any moment. Or, better yet, the owner of the car we were fucking on could come out to go home and…

  “Fuck, yes, Orchid!” Stoker groaned, and he shuddered against me, his fingers gripping my thighs with bruising force as he filled the condom inside of me.

  I groaned too; if I could have just held off for two seconds more, we could have come in unison.

  Damn.

  I would have liked that. For some reason, I would have liked that a lot. The intimacy of it appealed to me like no other. I would love that with him. God, I was pretty sure I just loved him at this point, the emotion strong as he held the condom on himself and pulled out. He stripped it off his softening cock and flung it down a storm drain while I pulled my skirt down over the tops of my thighs, the light material sticking to me and having none of it when it came to cooperating with me.

  I shivered, which had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with just how achingly unfulfilled I was feeling. I wanted him to take me home. I wanted to spend the rest of my night in his bed having sex every which way it was intended. Hard, soft, dirty, sensual… I was a glutton for it, all of a sudden.

  “You okay?” he asked, helping me down off of the car once he was, ah, put away.

  “Better than okay whenever I’m with you,” I confessed.

  “Right on, I like it!” His chest swelled with pride and he put an arm around my shoulders as we set off in the direction of home. Well, his home… I didn’t want to get ahead of myself but who knew? Maybe someday.

  The weekdays dragged and the weekends flew by and I was so close to the long weekend, the trip with Stoker and his club, that I could taste it. It was my Friday, we were supposed to leave as soon as Stoker picked me up from work, and the second hand seemed to be ticking over like it was the minute hand on the clock.

  I was sweating bullets. Our manager had been by squawking a few times about the schedule and I just knew she was about to screw me out of my already-approved time off.

  Not today, Satan, I thought at her. Not today.

  Oh, but it was going to be today…

  “Serena,” she called out, and she had never, not once, gotten my name correct since I had initially corrected her. In an attempt to just not make waves I had never bothered to correct her again. I ground my teeth and plastered on my most genuine looking fake smile.

  “Yes, Lydia?”

  “You’re going to have to come in tomorrow,” she said, with a nasty little smirk.

  “I’m sorry,” I said in an attempt to stand my ground. “I can’t. I’ll be out of state; you approved the vacation time over six weeks ago.”

  “I approved it, yes, but now I’m canceling it.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but it wasn’t my voice that spoke.

  “You can’t do that, and if you do, she quits and we sue.”

  I blinked and craned my neck way back as Stoker’s hands fell onto my shoulders.

  “Hey, Orchid.”

  “You don’t show up tomorrow, you’re fired, and that’s final,” Lydia glared at me. “And just who are you?” she demanded.

  “Stoker, and ‘Lydia Farminger’ isn’t the name you started out with, is it?” Lydia’s mouth dropped open and Stoker gave her a nasty little smile. “Ah, yeah. Didn’t expect anyone would do any digging on you, did you?”

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Just watch,” he said, low, for my benefit only, his thumbs digging gently into my shoulders.

  I swallowed hard. I couldn’t play fast and loose with my job, it was the only one I had and what if I couldn’t get another right away? I couldn’t do that to Mrs. Sedgwick. I lived paycheck to paycheck and barely managed to keep a couple hundred dollars in savings. What was he doing?

  I stood frozen as a few of my co-workers drifted near and Stoker tore my manager to shreds.

  “No, you got married. Your real name – or maiden name if you like, is Lydia Caruthers. Your sister was Caroline Caruthers.”

  I jerked slightly in his grasp and he firmed up his grip on my shoulders.

  Caroline Caruthers had bullied me all through junior high and high school… She’d made my life a living hell and looking at Lydia now, I could see the resemblance. A lot of the things Caroline had done were so cruel I’d blocked them out. She’d been one of the first killed in Kyle’s rampage and despite how poorly her sister had treated me, despite how her sister was attempting to treat me now, my heart went out to Lydia. Were it not for Stoker calling her out, I probably never would have seen it, guessed, or known.

  “How dare you,” Lydia seethed.

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to get you in trouble,” I said. “Far from it. I would, however, like to go on my vacation, that you approved, and when I get back, I would like to see if we can come to a working arrangement that we can both live with.”

  “Nah,” Stoker said. “You’re going on your vacation, an email’s already been sent to HR. Let them deal with her. We’ll send another when we leave, I’m tired of bitches like these taking shit out on you that was outside your control. Come on, Orchid. Let’s go, you’re off work.”

  I didn’t know whether to be mad or relieved that it was out of my hands… I’d always secretly wished someone would take it out of my hands, would stand up for me and give me the breathing room I needed, but at the same time, I felt like I should have been careful what I wished for. I tried to be kind, and this was no exception – what Stoker had suggested he’d done sounded cold, calculating, and borderline cruel.

  It was hard standing there watching Lydia glare at me through angry unshed tears, but Stoker was right – I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t known, so why was I still being punished for it all at every turn? I just wanted to live my life, make ends meet, and carve out the tiniest bit of happiness for myself.

  “Clean out your locker,” Lydia said coldly.

  “I’m sorry, but I’ll do that if and when HR tells me to,” I stated.

  One of my co-workers crowed, “Alright!”

  Megan rushed forward and thrust my purse into my hands, and Stoker murmured, “Let’s go. We’ll sort it out when we get back.”

  I was sort of shell-shocked and nodded my head, feeling a little bobble-headed as he turned me and, arm around my shoulders, led me out of the store and out into the mall. As soon as I stepped out of the giant archway into the high-ceilinged thoroughfare of the mall, I let out an explosive breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, and the trembling started.

  Adrenaline. The adrenaline is wearing off.

  I think it was the first of any kind of confrontation I’d been in where I felt I may have just come out on top. Usually I lost, and lost badly, even though I never instigated anything. A good confrontation had always just left me emotionally wrecked and in tears. A bad one had left me on the floor in various stages of broken or bleeding.

  This was different, but my body and mind couldn’t seem to handle it, and the tears and emotional wreckage were threatening to wash in with tsunami force.

  We needed to leave. I needed to go outside, and I couldn’t let anyone see.

  “Hang on, Orchid. Almost there,” he crooned as we walked briskly out to where my car was parked.

  “Were you being serious about the emails?” I asked.

  “As a heart attack, baby. I had Radar hack your shit and Hope helped write it. I knew this bitch was going to try something after everything you’ve told me these last few weeks. My timing was fucking impeccable today, though. Coming up on you right as she tried to spring it.”

  “I am so going to lose my job,” I said shaky.

 
“No, you’re not, and if you do, who fucking cares?” he demanded as we breezed out the doors into the oppressively hot Florida summer day.

  I stopped, rearing up short.

  “I care!” I cried. “I lose my job, I’ll lose my home, and Mrs. Sedgwick depends on me and –”

  “Stop, baby. Easy, now.” He pulled me into his arms and I gave a panicked, broken little sob.

  “I love you,” he murmured and I froze.

  “What?” I jerked back in his grasp and looked up at him. “What did you just say?” I couldn’t believe that I’d heard him right.

  “I said, I love you… and I’m not going to let anything else bad happen to you if I can help it. I’m sick and tired of people handing you this raw deal and yeah, I’m even a little mad, a little disappointed in you for just taking it but, babe, I think that’s honestly because no one ever gave you the notion that you actually could stand up for yourself, let alone taught you how.”

  “You love me?” I whispered in awe. I was thoroughly stuck on that one point, and for me, it was a really big one. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone other than Linny told me those three little words, let alone meant it as fervently as Stoker did. I mean, I could see it in the depths of his kind liquid dark eyes as he smiled down at me and smoothed some of my dark hair out of my face.

  “I do,” he said, and I bit my lips together and tried very hard not to cry for a very different reason.

  I lost, and Stoker, chuckling, pulled me in and held me tight against his chest as I sniffled against his vest in the bright sunshine and oppressive humidity surrounding us.

  “Come on, everybody’s waiting outside your place to make this ride,” he murmured, and I nodded and got myself together. He followed me home, and sure enough, when I went to turn into my garage, my street was lined with motorcycles and several of the men and women of the Kraken were sitting on the steps or standing around on my landlady’s front porch while she poured them all glasses of sweet tea and they chatted.