“I’ve made plans with Nora to actually go to the mall that weekend, so I need to skip this trip, but I hope I get invited on another one.”
“You will. We usually plan this out farther in advance, but we had an opportunity for a low-cost charter, so we took it.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Frost
Our three days in Canada rejuvenated my soul. Orange Crush had permanently joined us, which meant Birmingham had three bears, and all of them went, along with a few wolves, and me. One of the prospects was a wolverine, and he expressed an interest, but Mad Dog told him this trip was only for patched members. I had a feeling I understood his reasoning, but it was too bad — we could’ve used a prospect to act as gofer.
As it turned out, none of the ol’ladies went, so it worked out that Cheyenne couldn’t come. We were in our animal forms most of our time in Canada, though we spent one afternoon watching a game, drinking beer, and eating steaks.
The trip home on Monday, we loaded the plane with beer and played poker most of the way home. I love my brothers. I’d missed them while I’d won Cheyenne over, and I didn’t regret the time at all because it had to be done, but I was so glad I didn’t have to choose between them anymore.
Tuesday, Gil stopped by my office unannounced. I walked to the lobby so I could escort him back — we don’t let people roam our halls unattended.
“What can I do for you?” I asked as I closed the door and motioned towards one of my seats. If it was business, I’d sit behind my desk. Personal, and I’d sit in one of the guest chairs.
“I’m buying Nora a car for Christmas,” he started. I grabbed two beers from my fridge, handed him one, and sat across from him in a guest chair.
“Any chance you have someone in your bike shop who can look one over for me, once I find something suitable in my price range?”
“Yeah. We’re set up to work on cars. We don’t advertise it, but we have two bays for them, and the software access for most manufacturers. What kind of car are you looking at?”
“If it were my choice, it’d be a full-sized truck, but she wants something cute. I’m thinking maybe a Jeep Wrangler, preferably a low mileage one that isn’t too old.”
“I approve, and I think she’ll like it. I’ll tell my people to keep an ear out for one that might be for sale, and I’ll give Gears in the bike shop a heads up to expect a call from you. Ask for him, and he’ll take care of you. I’ll try to make it by if I can.”
“Shy said the family portion of your Thanksgiving would’ve been fine for the kids. I guess I just want to tell you that I knew it would be, but I didn’t personally want to go, and I wanted to spend the day with them. The same will be true for Christmas, but for other parties, I’ll be open to letting them go in the future.”
“I’m sure they’ll enjoy themselves. We have organized paintball wars, and I have a feeling all three of your kids will have a blast.”
“I’m planning to bid a few of the jobs coming up. If you have any information that will help me figure the cost, I’d appreciate it.”
He wanted me to tell him what to bid in order to win, or how to word it in order to beat the other painting firms. He wasn’t going to like my answer — I was comfortable with the painting firm we usually work with, and I wasn’t planning to change that.
I tried to be tactful. “I was pleased with the work you did on the old-folks home, but you know the only reason you won the bid was because we needed someone capable of handling those murals and the other faux specifications.”
“I’ve apologized for my actions on the jobsite. It was unprofessional and it won’t happen again.”
“Water under the bridge. We’re past that. You understand that I’m the manager here, not the owner. It’s true I’m on the board of directors for the corporation, but I have to act in the best interests of the company.” I sighed and gave it to him straight. “You didn’t win a lot of friends the one time you came to our clubhouse. You acted like an elite pack wolf. No one said anything to you about it because they knew I was happy you let the kids come. If you’re the low bidder, I’ll award it to you, but I can’t help you get there.”
“And if Cheyenne asks?”
“Same answer. The club knows you handle the crews and she works on her own. It’s no secret we help a particular electrical firm out because the owner is related to one of our members, and because they do an excellent job. We can depend on them.”
He sat back. Putting distance between us. “I hope we proved we’re dependable. I’ll work on the rest.”
“There’s plenty of work out there right now. You don’t need us, do you?” Every contractor and subcontractor I knew was turning away three times as much work as they could handle.
“You paid on time. The site was safe and orderly. Neither of those things can be said about most of the other general contractors.”
“What’s unsafe?”
“Looters and thieves are a real problem on many sites, but scaffolding is being put together from pieces never meant to be put together, and with so many sites and so few inspectors, it’s easier to ignore OSHA rules.”
“You’ll let me know if you have concerns about Cheyenne’s safety?”
Everything about his expression spoke truth when he said, “Absolutely.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Frost
Cheyenne’s house looked like something out of a magazine, with a different themed Christmas tree in nearly every room, lots of evergreen boughs used as decoration, and who knew pinecones and candles could be so festive? In some rooms, it was just the outdoors brought inside. In other rooms, the pinecones were painted gold, with miles of burgundy ribbon tied into beautiful bows.
I took a picture of her den and asked Mad Dog it if would be okay for me to ask her to do that treatment to the clubhouse. He asked her to get with the other ol’ladies, and they chased us out one Tuesday morning, so they could work in peace. Mad Dog stayed to supervise because there are rules about that kind of thing, but we all knew he wasn’t going to tell them what to do.
And that was fine. It was good to have ol’ladies trying to run roughshod over us again.
Christmas in the makeshift clubhouse the year before had been sad for me. So empty, it just reminded me of everyone we’d lost. Time has a way of healing those wounds, though, and our Christmas Eve party was one of celebration, this year. We were in our new clubhouse, we had more members, more prospects, and more ol’ladies.
Cheyenne and I went back to her place after the party, so we could awaken and exchange gifts at her house Christmas morning.
What do you buy the woman who has everything? I opted for a wine refrigerator, the fancy kind with the glass door, and I selected three dozen different wines to stock it with. Okay, so Ember and Sophia helped me with the wine choices, but I researched a few bottles as well.
And then I opened my gift from her, and emotions I didn’t know I could have slammed into me. Each chess piece had details I’d have never thought to include. Motorcycles, bikers. The knight was my motorcycle from the tank forwards — not just any bike, but mine. The bishop’s top part was my helmet. A detailed owl wearing a crown was on top of the king, and a lynx’s head with a crown on it made up the top of the queen.
I was so fucking glad we hadn’t done this in front of the kids, because my emotions swelled into my throat and pushed tears into my eyes. Not out of them, mind you, but into them.
Cheyenne
I know you aren’t supposed to compare gifts, but everyone does, right? I spent a hundred dollars on him and he only spent forty on me. No one admits to it, but a helluva lot of math happens on Christmas morning.
But there was no way to use math to compare our gifts to each other. I mean, sure, dollar wise, I spent a few thousand on his gift and he probably spent around six thousand on mine because some of the bottles he bought me cost in the hundreds of dollars. Each.
But I almost made him cry. Frost. The man whose name says more about his emotions th
an they do about his inner animal. I’d walked away from the club because I’d been convinced his icy walls would never come down, and on Christmas morning, he had tears in his eyes from so much emotion.
It made me offer something I hadn’t planned, but it felt right.
So, while he helped me prepare Christmas dinner, I told him, “I think it’s time you moved more things in. I have a huge walk-in closet that isn’t being used.” I took a breath. “I don’t know what else you might want to bring over from your house, but that’s a conversation we should probably have. Furniture or doodads or whatever. Tools. Kitchen stuff.”
“I’ve missed having my home office. I’d like to move it here, if you’re asking me to make this a permanent move. Maybe the guest bedroom at the back of the house — the one with a balcony? Otherwise, while I have some small things I’d like to bring, none of my furniture is that important to me. If there are pieces you want, we can move them.” He stopped mashing the potatoes and turned to me. “I never thought I’d move into a woman’s house and give my house up, but I’ll do it for you, even though your motherfucking ex-husband lives next door, because I love you more than I ever expected to love anyone. Ever.”
And then, after delivering a little soliloquy that had me in tears, he went back to mashing the potatoes — as if he’d just talked to me about next week’s fucking weather.
I stopped his hands, pulled them from his work, and wrapped my arms around his neck. He finally seemed to understand what I needed, and he encapsulated me in his embrace. I melted into him and breathed him in. His energy, his love, his heartbeat.
“I love you, too, Frost. More than I ever thought I’d love anyone.”
I wanted to say more, but I didn’t know how to tell him how far into my heart he was, how much I needed him in my life, how much I missed him when we were apart.
He held me in the strength and warmth of his embrace until I pulled away, and then he kissed my forehead and went back to mashing the potatoes.
Somehow, we had dinner on the table when Gil and the kids arrived at noon. We exchanged presents, ate our Christmas feast, went out back and used my shooting range a while, and then went inside to play video games. And yes, it’s totally fucked up to have your ex-husband and your boyfriend both over to your house for Christmas dinner, but it’s what the kids needed, and it worked.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Frost
I told my brothers during church that I’d be giving Cheyenne her prop vest during our New Year’s Eve party, and they all seemed happy to hear the news.
“About damned time, brother,” seemed to be the general consensus.
I took a breath and asked for what I really needed from them. “Can we vote now, so I can take her to the spa’s dungeon New Year’s Day if she accepts the vest from me?”
By unanimous vote, they said I could.
As Banshee, she’d known about the dungeon, but she’d been blindfolded for the trip there and back, so she didn’t know where it was. As my ol’lady, complete with prop vest and a confidence vote, she’d know where it was, which meant she’d figure out the workin’ girls at the spa used it. If she spilled the information, that would be on me, but I still couldn’t tell her certain secrets unless the club okayed it.
I’d given her lots of orgasms Christmas night, and then broke the news to her just before midnight that she wasn’t going to have another orgasm the rest of the year — and had told her seconds before allowing the one I’d been edging her towards.
Yes, it was cruel, and yes, I’d fucked her and played with her another two hours without allowing her release, because the idea of edging and denying her for a whole week made me harder than fucking diamonds.
Cheyenne
Three days after Christmas, I went home early and tried my damnedest to have an orgasm, but it was hopeless. I put a butt plug in, smashed my nipples flat with the hateful clamps from Home Depot, and used my most intense vibrator, and I got so fucking close I could taste it, but my body simply wouldn’t go over the edge.
Later, when I had to admit how hard I’d tried — because Frost knew something was up the second he walked in the door — he didn’t spank me or belt me, as I’d assumed he would.
Looking back, I’d have rather been beaten black and blue than have the conversation we had, but I also know he was exactly right.
“You’re better at the couple thing than me. You’ve been married, and I assume it wasn’t all bad. The two of you still respect each other.” He poured two glasses of milk and motioned for me to sit across from him at the table. “Sex is an important part of our relationship. For us, I thought that meant edging and denial was also important, but this has to be the two of us deciding what works for us. If something isn’t working for you, anything, we need to talk about that. Do you need me to help you learn how to orgasm on your own? Do you want to do away with this aspect of our sex life?”
The question made me freeze. I’m pretty sure my heart stopped beating a few seconds.
Would our relationship be the same if I could orgasm whenever I wanted?
No, it wouldn’t. The thought scared me. I loved Frost, and I loved the give and take of our interactions. He supported my work, he supported my relationship with my ex-husband’s kids and he was forming his own with them, and he took charge when we had sex.
I shook my head. “I don’t know how to answer that. This week has been hell, and I thought the answer would’ve been yes, but...” I sat back and stared at my milk. “I don’t know.”
I’d tried normal sex and it hadn’t worked. Whatever Frost did just flat out worked for me. Would we fuck everything up if we took that away?
“I need you in my life,” he said, his eyes a deeper blue than I was used to seeing them. “I need us to figure out how to make this work. Relationships are a two-way street. If something isn’t working for you, we should talk about it. It concerns me that you went behind my back.”
“I’m being honest with you, Frost. I was frustrated. I tried. Now we’re talking.” Fuck, this felt too much like a teenager being scolded, and yet, I also knew he was right. I should’ve talked to him before I tried to get myself off.
I sighed. “I know you think this is about trust, and maybe it is, but that wasn’t how it felt. This isn’t like me lying, or even omitting. I got frustrated and I tried to get myself off. It wasn’t like I was trying to keep it from you. I knew you’d know and ask me about it, and I knew I’d tell you the truth.” I met his gaze and tried to put my thoughts together enough to form a sentence about them. “I love you. No one’s ever had this kind of power over me before. It’s frustrating, and it’s hard. A whole week without an orgasm, when you’re edging me a dozen times a day? I can’t ignore it or downplay how big of a deal it is anymore.”
“Do you want me to help you learn to orgasm without me ordering you to?”
“Yes and no.”
He smirked and then took a drink of milk to try to cover it up.
“Fuck, you can be an asshole sometimes. Okay, so you’re right — this is our dynamic. It’s who we are, and we run the risk of changing it if we fuck with it.”
“And yet, if it this isn’t working for you, we’ll have to fuck with it.”
No smirk this time. No smug attitude. Just the bare facts. I had to either accept his power over me in this or reject it.
“I love you.”
“And I love you, which is why I’m leaving this decision up to you. If it isn’t working for you, we have to change it.”
“How would you do that?”
“Decrease the amount of pain you get over time, and give you a trigger besides my voice. You’ll have to help come up with it, and we’ll work on it, but it isn’t going to happen overnight. It took months for us to program you to need pain, it’ll take longer for me to program you not to need it.” He ran his finger through the condensation on the outside of his glass. “There’s a reason pain works for you so well. I have a feeling your orgasms are more i
ntense now than they were before we conditioned you with it. They’ll go back to what they were, or they might be a little less than they were, but I’m fairly certain I can condition you back to it.”
I sat back and crossed my arms. He was fucking right. I’d never had explosive orgasms before. I mean, I’d come. I’d found release, and I thought it’d been good, but now that I’d had earth shattering orgasms, could I ever be happy with mere good again?
“Go take a shower or a bath and think about it,” he said. “You have permission to masturbate if you want. Whatever you need to do in order to make your decision. I’ll be in the den playing a video game. If you decide you want me to teach you to get yourself off, come sit beside me.”
He sat a little taller and his voice did that thing it does when he’s being bossy. Just the tone had my clit throbbing. “If you decide we need to continue as we are, come to me naked and kneel at my feet. Either way, I’ll stop and save the game when I reach a point it’ll let me, and then we’ll talk.”
Frost
I figured there was an eighty-percent chance she’d decide to keep the status quo, and a twenty percent chance she’d want to learn to get herself off.
She was going to try to bargain, though. “Let’s keep it the way it is, but you can’t deny me for more than a day or two.”
And that was going to be what we really needed to talk about.
Power exchange.
I hadn’t made it formal, before. I’d pulled it out when she was in the mood for it, and let it slide into the background when she wasn’t.
And that’d been fine. As long as it worked, there was no need in taking it to the next step.
Clearly, it wasn’t going to work anymore, and this was why I’d ordered her to kneel in front of me if she decided to let me keep control of her orgasms. If that was her choice, we needed rules, and she was going to have to submit to them — not because I said so, but because she needed the structure. Cheyenne was a natural submissive, but I wasn’t going to convince her of it.
Frost (Rolling Thunder MC Birmingham Book 3) Page 16