Steel Country Boxset

by Fields, MJ

  My mouth fills. Dear Lord, I’m salivating.

  I swallow quickly and try to make myself step back, but I can’t. I just...can’t.

  “No buts. No maybes. Thought we both could use a release. Pretty sure that’s what you said. Not looking for anything more.”

  “Okay,” she says, swallowing hard.

  I know exactly how she feels.

  She drops to her knees.

  “No need—aw, fuck,” he hisses as she takes him in her mouth.

  And now, now I do step back. No need to see that.

  I look at my truck, which is too close to them yet too far away from me to get to unnoticed. I then look at my phone to see the time. It’s nearly two-thirty in the morning. Dad will start to worry soon.

  Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

  I step back farther and lean against the door, deciding to wait them out. Although it’s been a couple years, I do recall blowjobs lasting longer than sex, but sex never really lasted that long.

  My phone spouts off my father’s ringtone, “He’s no ordinary man, so let’s give him a hand, ’cause everything he’s done for us, he’s done for love.”

  I reach into my pocket and quickly pull it out, hitting the mute button on the side. Busted. I have no choice but to head to my truck now.

  I avoid looking anywhere but straight ahead. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

  I reach in the front pocket of my oversized vintage Gucci, monogrammed with Mom’s initials, M.F., Madeline Fairbanks. Her parents gave it to her when she graduated high school. Dad gave it to me when I did.

  In the process of trying to dig for my keys, I drop my phone. I squat down to feel blindly for my phone when I hear a car start and see headlights shining. Fortunate for me, I see my phone. Unfortunately for me, I can also be seen.

  My phone sounds off Dad’s ringtone again, and I grab it and answer, staying crouched down, mortified that I’m in this situation,

  “Sorry, I dropped my phone. I’ll be home soon,” I tell my dad.

  “Blue with you?” he asks.

  “Nope, but I’m on my way.”

  “You okay, Mandee?”

  “Yes, of course I’m okay. See you soon.”

  I hang up then lean back against the tire, covering my face with my phone and trying to gather the nerve to stand up and get the hell out of here. That’s when I hear gravel crunching and the sound of footsteps getting closer. I sigh when the brown work boots stop steps from me and look up.

  He’s lit up by the light casting down on him, and I can see a smirk playing on the corner of his beautiful full lips. I can’t help smiling back, but I have to look down.

  When he huffs a chuckle and squats down in front of me, I look back up at him and shrug. He holds out his hand to me, and I’m confused as to why.

  “That one is my dad?” he asks, reaching for my phone.

  “Well, it was, but he’s not on the phone anymore,” I say as he takes it from me.

  He smirks. “The song.”

  I feel my skin flush with further embarrassment. “Oh right. Yeah, my ringtone.” I feel so stupid. He was talking about the song title.

  “He worried about you?”

  I nod as he thumbs through my phone.

  “Why?”

  I shrug again.

  He hands me back my phone, then stands as he takes my hand and pulls me up. Now he takes my purse and looks through it, pulling out my keys as if he knew exactly what I was looking for. He hits the unlock, opens the door, and then gestures for me to get in. So, I do.

  When I think he’s going to shut the door, he instead leans against it, crosses his arms in front of his broad chest, and looks at me for long enough that I feel more uncomfortable.

  “You and Phoenix, you’re friends?” His question takes the awkward out of what transpired.

  “She’s my best friend.”

  He sighs. “So, you tell each other everything?”

  “Yes, but I won’t tell her about that girl,” I assure him. “And I’m really sorry about your separation. I hope...” The smile spreading across his face stops me.

  “Sweetheart, since you and I already have a secret, and well, I have a feeling you need a man like me to help you understand men like me—”

  “Men like you?”

  “Men who want be honest, but honesty isn’t something taken well by women like her.”

  “Women like her?” I ask, still confused.

  He blows out a semi-frustrated breath. “You’re definitely a different breed.”

  I look down again, embarrassed, and he reaches out, cupping my chin. His hands are rough, callused, but his touch is gentle.

  He turns me to look up at him. “Women like her, they want to fuck,” he begins. The way he says fuck makes me feel like a million wild horses are galloping toward me. It’s intense, scary, yet beautiful. “But they want shit that some men aren’t capable of giving.”

  “Men like you?” I ask.

  He slowly strokes his thumb down my jawline as he looks at my face, not my eyes. “Men who have no desire to stay in one place for long enough to fuck up a good girl’s heart.”

  “But you’re married,” I remind him.

  He takes his hand away from my face and smirks as he looks at me, shaking his head. “No, sweetheart, I’m not. But if I got a girl who wants to fuck and I’m in need of a release, it’s easier to tell her I am. That way, she doesn’t get all those fairy tale notions running around in her head.”

  “Fairy tales?”

  “Happily ever afters don’t happen for men like me.”

  “But they could.”

  He reaches out again, and I wait to feel his rough, hot hands on my face again, but then he pulls back and shakes his head. “No, sweetheart, not when I don’t want one.”

  I want to ask why, but he distracts me when he winks as he pushes himself off the door, grabs the doorframe, and then ducks his head just inside the cab of the truck.

  “So, Mandee, we have two secrets now. Can I trust you to keep them?”

  I nod.

  “Even from Phoenix, your best friend?” he asks, eyes narrowing a little.

  “Well...” I shrug. “I guess you and I are friends now, so sure.”

  To that, he lets out a full-out belly laugh, and I can’t help laughing myself.

  “Christ, you’re adorable.”

  “You, too.”

  “I’m adorable?” He laughs some more.

  “Is it okay to say that? I mean, now that we’re friends with secrets and all?”

  “Sure thing, sweetheart. Just consider me a basic bitch stuck in this body,” he says, still smiling, but it’s a different kind of smile; less amused, more intense.

  “As your friend, I should point out that it’s a nice body to be stuck in,” I say, trying to put the light back in his laugh. It works.

  He turns to walk away then looks back. “Hey, Mandee?”

  I wait for him to continue.

  “See you around.” He winks, then turns around and walks away.

  I sigh as I sit back in my seat, allowing myself just a moment to enjoy and relish in the fact that Grayson Falcon wants to be my friend. Even more importantly, I feel comfortable enough to allow it.

  He gave me all those feelings I felt years ago, but now I realize it was with the desired outcome that the man would fall for me and love me the way Dad did Mom. What was so very different about him was...everything.

  I smile as I take my keys off the dash where he left them and start up my Chevy.

  As I put it in reverse, I watch him pull out onto the road on a black and chrome Harley Davidson. Dangerous, sexy, the type of man every father warns his daughter about, yet he didn’t even try anything with me. What he did was make me feel uncomfortably...comfortable.

  I laugh at this feeling, one that takes hold of my old thoughts, feelings, my emotional and physical reaction to men like him. Well, sort of like him. Regardless, he’s all those boys I allowed to lead me to think could love me, f
ill the emptiness of her loss, who truly wanted to use me, yet he didn’t even try.

  Grayson had used that girl, but he was mostly honest with her. Well, in the way he said he had to be. I’ve seen it enough to know he’s not wrong in his way of dealing with things. No promises, no leading her on—none.

  Pulling out onto the road, going in the opposite direction he went, I think about how Phoenix would have reacted to him. She would have shredded him with her brutal honesty in her feelings for men like him in a way I admire.

  But in my experiences, I’m not much different for the boys who I allowed myself to believe wanted what I did. In the heat of the moment, in a moment of want, need, passion, feelings, words, emotions are not always real, but not really lies. One of my many therapists told me that it took me some time, but now I understand.

  Not all people are the same, and as hurt as I always was by them, nothing compared to the night I realized there was far worse than that type of man.

  Driving home, I allow myself to think about his hands and the way they felt on me, the way he caught me when I fell, the intensity of his gaze, all so intense. Then I think of Blue, and even though I do feel slightly guilty that I am practically daydreaming about Grayson Falcon, it’s just that—a daydream, a fantasy.

  I will never fall for a man like that again.

  Blue is safe. Blue makes me feel safe. I like safe. And as important as my feeling safe is, my father needs to feel the same.

  After all he’s gone through—mom dying and the incident at school—I want him, the man who is everything to me, to have that peace, because as the song says, “That one is my dad.”

  Chapter Three

  Bacon and Bedtime

  Grayson

  Climbing up a ladder in the dark, into the tree fort I started building when I was a hell of a lot younger and smaller, and might I add, not sporting a fucking hard-on, is damn difficult.

  That girl, Mandee, is fucking amazing. She’s every damn country boy’s fantasy. Her eyes, brown with light flecks of yellow, like fucking ambers simmering in a campfire after hours of blazing. Her lips, Christ, the ones on her perfect face are plump and juicy, a nice deep red, like the side of an old barn. Can’t even begin to imagine what her pussy lips are like. Her round ass, handfuls of perky big tits...I groan out loud thinking about what her nipples would look like and taste like as I flop down on the old mattress, on my back of course. Otherwise, I’d bust my dick in half. She’s so fucking sexy.

  That girl, Mandee, is so fucking sweet. Too damn sweet. Swear to God above, my teeth ache just thinking of her. Watched her all night, too. That will be my hell when I fucking die—watching an angel like her, hard as steel, unable to touch her.

  That girl, Mandee, makes people think there is good on a much grander scale than humanly possible. Aside from her physical appearance, I watched nearly everyone in that bar watch her. They watched in a way one would watch a child. Even the boyfriend looks at her like it’s his damn job to look after her.

  The old lady, the one with the poofy hair, I felt her watching me. And after the smile came the stern look of warning, then a smile again. Swear to fuck, the woodland animals in these parts would follow her around if she was to wander in.

  And lastly, that girl, Mandee, is friends with my soon-to-be sister-in-law Phoenix. And Phoenix is a tiny, little Asian, which would lead one to think submissive, demure, and dainty, but underneath all that stereotypical bullshit, swear to God, she has nunchucks and is probably a much different stereotypical kind of the Asian persuasion. She’s a fucking ninja warrior who would sooner cut the balls off a man like me than to look at me for more than two seconds. But, my balls are safe, because I am Grayson fucking Falcon, master of hiding all the shit I must to survive this fucking life.

  When I was younger, I was a scared little shit. Now that things in my past are making sense, I’m not afraid of a damn thing, except that my dysfunctional functioning family will uncover further secrets that will blow us all to hell. Then again, I watched my brother Gage throw a rock that killed a man and held that secret for years.

  Recently, I found out the reason Gage threw that rock was because the old fuck who worked for our family in Portugal was raping and molesting our other brother Garrett. That chain of events caused even more events to take place. Like Garrett knocking up a girl, Juliana, who he loved, yet none of us knew, and then he ran for six years. We recently found out he was under the assumption that everyone thought he was a weak-ass bitch for what happened to him. No one did. No one ever would.

  Gage ended up in bed with Juliana and thought he knocked her up, so he married her and raised our nephew Brandon as his. It was later found out that Brandon wasn’t his. Then, not until three years later, did the truth about Garrett came out.

  No one knew about Garrett and Juliana, even though Garrett, in his broken ass way, thought Gage knew and just didn’t think Garrett was strong enough to raise his own kid and did it all out of pity. He was wrong.

  Somehow, Mags, our nanny, the woman who is more of a mother to us than our own, wove her magic and helped guide them all to heal. And they have. It’s fucking crazy.

  Am I happy? Yes, sure am. But I’m waiting for that other shoe to drop, and it will, in time. Right now, I’m going to hang out and enjoy this place. The place we all went to, to escape hell. The only place where life was normal, here at Lake Hopatcong.

  Right now, I can breathe, they can breathe, and things seem to be on the right path. However, I remember once upon a fucking time when the world was thought to be flat, too. Hell, I can easily let myself believe that is true. I mean, fuck, that girl, Mandee, she made me want to believe it. But I’m not naive.

  I consider briefly that maybe she is Karma’s way of teaching me a lesson. One that I will ignore because I don’t believe in Karma. God Himself put enough people on earth that are pieces of shit. He certainly wouldn’t need to subcontract a bitch like Karma.

  As I look down at my dick, it’s still hanging hard, knowing her, that girl, Mandee, is around the corner. Even picturing her in my mind when that blonde chick was attempting to suck my cock, I couldn’t fucking finish. Clearly, shit’s not right in the world. I’m not too damn pleased about it, either. I fuck what I want to fuck, and what I want to fuck wants to fuck me. No games, only one little lie I tell in an effort to keep them focused on no chance of a fairy tale. That right there makes me the anti-Prince Charming. Funny that women seem to like that.

  First time I said I was separated yet loved my girl, I was one thousand percent sure it wasn’t going to end well. I was wrong. Within seconds. I was balls deep in a woman who knew damn well she needed to come as badly as I did. She was face down, ass in the air, and like all the rest, I was picturing the first chick that had gotten me hard.

  I lean against the wall, all two-by-fours and most not straight, looking out the little window at the Lake. I pop my buttons with my free hand and grip my dick as I stare out at the spot where I watched a girl get almost naked, from this very spot.

  I was a late bloomer. Never had wet dreams, never even had dreams. Always nightmares until the day that almost naked girl in white panties and bra came walking out of the water, hands in her hair, wringing it out while facing the sun.

  Still not sure if it was real or imagined, but that girl, that vision, looked like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  I watched her dive off the little floating dock I half-assed constructed and was under water much longer than I was comfortable with before she finally emerged. She stood up in the water and walked toward the shore, her chin tipped up to the sun. She looked like hope personified.

  Insta-hard-on. Not that I would ever admit it, but it scared the shit out of me even though it felt good.

  Not that anyone wants their mom popping in their head when they get hard, but it fucking happened. I remembered Mom being on a bender. American chocolate was her drug of choice. Mags always sent it in care packages. We would get toys, and Mom would get
chocolate. We were never to touch the shit. It was hers.

  She always cried in the bathroom, always in private. I happened to notice, though I’m not sure anyone else did. One day, she cried a lot. For hours, I sat outside the bathroom, worried about her. When she came out, her makeup was perfect and she didn’t look sad, but her smile was telling. She reached down, grabbed my hand, and pulled me up. I went out on the sun porch with her, where we drank grownup tea, and I got my first taste of chocolate.

  “Daddy hates chocolate,” she told me, then handed me a piece. “Shh, our secret.”

  After that, I was addicted. Stole boxes of it from time to time.

  That night, I got up for water and heard Mom crying again. This time it was in her room.

  The door was cracked, so I peeked in and saw Dad kissing her and whispering, “I love you. Only you.”

  He was touching her everywhere. Her tears gave way to a different look, one I had never seen. Eventually, she was kissing him back, telling him she loved him.

  “What are you doing?” Gage whispered, startling me.

  “Mom was sad. Now she’s not,” I told him as he dragged me by my hand away from the door.

  “Because they’re having sex,” he scolded me. “Private things, Gray.”

  “What’s sex?” I asked him.

  “It’s...” He stops at the kitchen sink and scratches his head. “Adult stuff.”

  “Why is it adult stuff?” I asked. “And what’s it for?”

  “It’s for adults.” He sighed, getting a glass down from the cupboard. “And it means we’ll probably have another brother soon.”

  “That’s why she’s happy?” I asked.

  “Probably happy ’cause it feels good.” He shook his head.

  “What feels good?” I asked.

  “Boners feel good, Gray. When you wake up and your willy’s hard? That feeling, but for girls. Now drink your water and go to bed, will ya?”

  “Is Dad’s willy hard?” I asked.

  “Gray, I’m serious, no more questions. Drink, bed, got it?”

  I never knew what the fuck he was talking about because I slept like shit or maybe it was because I was nervous most of my fucking life. Whatever the case, I was a really late bloomer.