“Fuck,” Brock muttered as he put his head in his hands.
I didn’t enjoy seeing my brother suffer like this. If there was a way to retain the brotherhood without adding the violence, I not only would never leave the Savage Kings, I would take up the active mantle in supporting it.
But that was like saying if there was a way to eat donuts without getting fat, I would never stop eating donuts. It was impossible to separate the two; I couldn’t have the Savage Kings without having Anarchists who wanted to topple us. And so, before they’d ever get the chance to knock us over, I’d knock myself out.
I knew this wasn’t going to be secret for long. In fact, there was a decent chance news would spread before an hour had gone by. But once I left, Parker, Zane, Petey, and all of the rest of the Kings could say whatever they wanted. As long as it didn’t affect the bond that Brock and I had, then we were good.
“Do you really, really want to do this?” Brock said. “You know that leaving the club isn’t like canceling a newspaper subscription. It’s not that easy.”
“Yes, I am aware,” I said. “Brock, you know this isn’t a rash decision. You know it’s been on my mind for years now. I just wanted to see Vulture killed, and now that he has, well… I can’t really say it’s changed anything. If nothing else, it’s made me more certain of my desire to quit.”
“Fuck, I know, I know, it’s just… it’s going to be tough not having family in there, you know.”
That was the first thing Brock had said that actually made me feel a little sad to be leaving the club.
“I can see that you’re one hundred percent serious about it, so… well, you know that once you leave, you lose your Vice President privileges, right? And your voting privileges. You won’t be anything more than a common citizen to the club. And actually, you may get grief from the rest of the club as a result.”
“I’m aware.”
Again, it wasn’t like I hadn’t thought these things through.
“Look, we’re wasting time,” I said. “Just take my patch. I’ll walk out. I’ll meet you once a week or so for drinks or coffee, but I can’t be a part of this anymore.”
“And what are you going to do for work?” Brock said, desperately trying to salvage me. “You know we won’t be financially supporting you anymore. Your work for the club won’t be paid because, well, you won’t be in the club anymore and you won’t be doing work for us. It’s not like you have a college degree in your back pocket.”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” I admitted. “But I’ll figure it out. I just need to remove this so I have room to breathe.”
Brock cursed some more under his breath.
“I’m sorry, Landon, but I can’t do it. I can’t take the patch off of you. And I’m not going to ask anyone else to do it, either. You may be leaving, but that’s too much to ask of me. We’ve been through too much for me to remove the title from you.”
“Well, what can you do?” I said with a sigh. “I’m walking out of here in five minutes, Brock. And either you accept that and we can make peace, or I just leave my patch here and let the rest of the club figure it out.”
“You’re really going to fucking force my hand?”
But for whatever momentary anger Brock had, it quickly vanished.
“Why don’t we just do that,” Brock said, slowly coming around to an idea. “Leave your entire cut here. I’ll drop it somewhere where it looks like you just left it. And then I’ll say something. But I’m not going to make a scene while people are smart here.”
“Whatever makes you happy,” I said, even though I had to acknowledge it was kind of a smart decision.
With that, I took my cut off, feeling only the slightest hint of nostalgia, and handed it to Brock. Brock winced when I gave it to him, as if I had just handed him a boiling hot pan. He tucked it into his jeans and nodded to me.
“I’ll see you around, right?”
“Absolutely.”
But I had a feeling that even as I hugged him, even as I walked out the door, even as I hopped on my motorcycle, things were far from over. The club just had a way of sucking me in.
Present
“He accepted my decision. Eventually. Took him some time, but he came around to it.”
Caroline smiled at me as we headed to the beach. I could sense that she probably hadn’t thought I would have gone through it, but I doubted she understood everything. This was, after all, just our second real date, and the first one had only been yesterday—and I wasn’t sure I’d call it a worthy date for how it had ended.
Though we walked over to the beach in silence, it was the furthest thing from the silence that we’d had to deal with on the car ride home yesterday. We both had smiles on our faces. We held hands. The general voice in my head was not “why the fuck is all of this happening” but “I can’t believe this is all happening.”
“Now this is how you do a beach date,” I finally said as we leaned into each other, looking at a slightly cloudier sky than the night before. “Sorry about how last night ended, by the way.”
“No, I understand,” she said, although I suspected that was more of an immediate response than one where she literally meant what she said.
“I’ve done what I need to in order to make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” I said. “Now that I’m out of the club, I don’t think they’ll come calling for me any time soon. I mean, some of the club members might call me to either ask me to return or to give me shit, but they’re not going to call me about anything important. That, I am pretty sure of.”
“That’s great!”
“Yep. And now I can finally do what I’ve always wanted to do. Live my own life. Explore Romara. Explore the world. Find someone special.”
I said those last words as I squeezed her in from leaning into each other to a full-on embrace. I swayed with her gently, kissing the top of her head.
“I just feel lucky to have done so in Romara,” I said. “I didn’t think I’d ever do that. I was afraid I might have to go into Los Angeles or something. But luckily, I don’t think I’ll have to do that any time soon.”
“Well…”
Wait, what?
Caroline’s response was the worst realistic thing I could have heard. There were many other things she could have said that might have been biting and mean, but they would have been completely out of character. This, at face value, was not a good reaction.
“What’s going on?” I said. “Don’t tell me you aren’t serious about this.”
“It’s nothing like that,” she said, shaking her head. “No. It’s… well, this is going to sound ridiculous, so I’m just going to have to explain. It has to do with my parents.”
Far from being bothered by her potential interest in moving to Arizona to be near her parents, I found it admirable. My father and I didn’t have a bad relationship per se, but it was always understood that I had gotten most of my personality and genes from my mother. It was like a sports nut of a father having a son who wanted to do theatre; it was easier said than done to be the best father possible.
For the most part, I never thought of it as an issue, in part because my father understood where my true desires lay. But hearing Caroline speak, I began to wonder if maybe the reason I would salute her for going to Arizona was because I wanted her to have what I never had. I wasn’t even thinking in terms of her and I right now; I just wanted her to be happy.
“I know it’s new, and I know it may mean nothing. But it’s just stressful. I just got to Romara, and now there’s a good chance that I’ll either have to move to be near them, or I’ll live in Romara and be without them, and, oh, fuck—”
I pulled her in for what she needed most. A hug from someone who cared.
“You remember how yesterday, it felt like nothing else in the world mattered while we were on the beach?” I said. “If your parents aren’t moving tomorrow or next week, let’s just act like tonight is all there is. We’ll deal with that later.”
Or if I even would have joined.
“Sounds like a deal to me.”
And so it was for the next few hours of the night, we played boardwalk games, had two rounds of drinks each, and ate some delicious tacos. She got progressively more and more beautiful, and not just because her looks. Her presence, her spirit, and her happiness were the kind of thing my life had not had enough of in the Savage Kings.
I began to like her so much, in fact, that a part of me almost didn’t want to sleep with her. I didn’t want to be a savage, I wanted to be sweet. Of course, if the opportunity presented itself, I was going to do it. I wasn’t asexual or anything close to it; rather, I think the fact that that side existed at all was pretty telling.
It was only around two in the morning when we finally did home, but unlike yesterday, when we were both tired and the night had ended with a curt kiss and cheek turn, as soon as Caroline got off the bike in front of her apartment, I knew that festivities were just beginning. I wasn’t sure if we’d have sex, but I sure could tell that she wasn’t tired at all.
“So what now?” she said.
There was a glitter in her eye that told me if I wanted it, I just had to take it. She wasn’t going to say no.
“Well,” I said. “I could say a lot, but I think it might better if I show it.”
Before she could say anything, I went in for a kiss, a gentle, tender, and loving one…
… that quickly became passionate, touchy, and erotic. I was squeezing her ass, she was reaching for mine, and our mouths were fighting to get the other. I went for her neck, drawing a breathy growl from her. I went like this for a few seconds before she pulled away, yanked on my head, and took me up the stairs.
“You do that to me, there are going to be consequences,” she said.
Unlike the consequences of being in the Savage Kings, these were consequences I was more than happy to pay.
6
Caroline
It was really about half an hour after Landon had told me to be present that I knew I’d be open to sleeping with him.
But it wasn’t until he started to kiss me right outside of my apartment that my attitude shifted from “I’m open to it” to “I’m initiating it.” If I didn’t have sex with him after he kissed my neck, I probably would have soaked right through my panties and had an orgasm just from thinking about him, no touch necessary. Suffice to say, since I already had him in front of me, there was absolutely no reason for me to resort to that.
I bounded up the stairs, almost taking them two at a time, as Landon struggled to keep up. There was no way he was not as desperate as I was, but I think he was surprised by how horny I could be. Maybe in his head, he still envisioned me as the sweet girl from middle and high school.
I was still absolutely that girl. The cheerful demeanor that my parents had given me was still there. But this girl also had a strong, nearly insatiable sex drive that, once unlocked to a man, was almost never going to be satisfied. It had made many a man yearn to be with me a lot more, but for right now, the only one I was going to be with was behind me, trailing.
“Holy shit,” he said.
I didn’t say anything. The less that was said, the better. I fumbled for my keys, trying to find the right one to my apartment before I finally came across it. I jammed it in the lock, opened it, pressed the door open, and barely had the presence of mind to pull it out before I shut the door.
As soon as we were inside the room, I all but attacked Landon, pressing him up against the wall. The two of us took turns pressing the other back, our kissing unending and our hands exploring all over each other’s body, trying to measure up the other.
And I had to say, Landon sure measured up pretty well. I already had an idea for how he felt given our bike ride, but as my hands went up under his shirt and felt his abs and chest, I could tell he was easily going to be one of the most muscular men that I had slept with.
And then it became a race to see who could get to the other’s sex first, to see who could supply the pleasure first rather than receive.
I was unbuckling his belt and trying to unbutton his jeans. Landon, unfortunately, had an “advantage” over me—I just had on a skirt and some panties, which meant he didn’t have anything to remove. He simply lifted my skirt, brushed my soaked panties to the side, and pressed his fingers in me.
I moaned and tried to stay focused on getting his cock in my hands for some mindless stroking, but the immediate sensation was so great and so overwhelming it was pretty much impossible for me to focus. I tilted my head back and expose my neck for him to kiss me.
“Fuck, Landon…”
I’d waited over a decade for this moment, but fortunately, the moment not only was what I’d fantasized about it being through the years, it surpassed it. Landon the man was so much hotter and so much more unselfish than Landon the teenager.
Finally, I got something of my mind back when he stopped kissing me on the neck. My left hand tugged at his belt, ripping it off of his pants. The next step required a little more coordination and mandated I use both hands, but I really didn’t want to shift my body with the pleasure that Landon was giving me.
Luckily, he was a gentleman and helped me get his pants off. His cock sprung out of his pants as he shimmied them off, and I reached for it with my left hand, grabbing its thickness and hardness with delight. I was going to say that the sight made me even wetter and hornier, but it was pretty hard to top what Landon was doing to me with his fingers right now.
“Fucking take me, Landon,” I managed to gasp out. “Get inside of me.”
He stepped out of his jeans, briefly removed his fingers to grab a condom from his pants, and slid it on. I turned back to him, removing my top and bra, and wiggled my ass at him, begging for me to take him. He slapped me on the ass—hard—and asked if I liked it.
“I fucking love it,” I said breathlessly.
For a split second before he entered me, I could scarcely believe what we had turned into. Both of us were pretty mild-mannered and more exploratory than demanding; both of us tended to take our time rather grab things by the throat.
But in this case, Landon was literally grabbing me by the throat as he pushed me up into the wall.
“You’re going to fucking love this even more,” he growled as he entered me.
Boy, he wasn’t wrong in the slightest.
I arched my hips back slightly to give him a better angle, but he could have approached from any angle and my body would have been gushing with pleasure all over. I bit my lip, but it did little to stifle the moans that came as he thrusted into my body over and over again. There was almost nothing he could have done in that position that wouldn’t have felt good.
Of course, he went and made it even better by bitting into my neck. I was in such intense pleasure, and it was only being heightened as I closed my eyes. His hands went to my breasts, cupping and squeezing them as he pinned me against my body.
“Landon…”
I had more to say, but it got swept up in the pleasure that consumed my body.
That was really all I could say to describe the next few minutes from a physical perspective. The pleasure just overtook me, and it became impossible to say where it all came from or where it felt best. It just felt best all over.
But emotionally, I was falling more and more for Landon by the minute. It was hard to be contemplative and reflective with the arousal and fiery emotions that I felt, but in those few moments of calm where we switched positions or went somewhere else in the apartment, when I looked Landon in the eye, I saw someone I wanted around.
Whatever fears I might have had about having to leave him behind were vanishing. We’d find a way to make it work. And since he wasn’t in the Savage Kings club anymore, I didn’t have to worry about him encountering violence on the regular. Our lives would b
e so much more peaceful.
Well, once we finished the great sex we were having, that was. This sex could rock my world and my senses from now until dawn… and then just keep going right through what I was feeling.
When we finally got to the bedroom, only then did I get the sense that Landon was nearing climax. I had already come twice, once on the kitchen table, and once against a second wall. Both times, it felt like my legs were just going to turn into pudding as my entire body clenched around him. I didn’t know how Landon didn’t come with how tightly I was gripping him, other than to say that he must have been holding back in the hopes that I would get a third orgasm.
But by the time we were on the bed, he was near the release point, and I probably wasn’t helping by moving my hips on him to get him to come.
“Oh, fuck, fuck, Caroline…”
I closed my eyes and moved my hips on him even further. His words just became pure gibberish, more like grunts and groans than actual coherent thoughts, just seconds before his cock quivered. And when it did, he let out a roar of pleasure so good it made him lose his mind.
I wrapped my arms around him, intent on holding him close but also never letting him go. I wrapped my legs around him, keeping his hips in place. And my face buried into his neck.
When he did finish, he took a few seconds to recover. I gently stroked his back as he did, smiling like an idiot. Like I had noted before, it may have taken a decade for this to be realized, but it was a decade well worth waiting on.
“Hot damn,” he said.
“I’ll say,” I said with a giggle.
Then, with a groan, he slowly pulled out. The sliding was the last ounce of pleasure of this round, but we both knew it was far from the last pleasure we’d share.
“Well,” he said. “I can’t say that I’ve ever had anything quite so good. Holy shit.”
Fading Hope Page 3