“Honestly, I think it might get even better than it is now for you, but on the whole, that’s probably how it feels for most people.”
“It’s nice,” he said with a big smile and looked at me. “Better than I thought it would be.”
I took his hand. “I’ll be looking at houses for us tomorrow.”
“Yeah?”
“Yup. I don’t know if I’ll find one, but at least you know we’re looking for real. That it’s getting closer.”
Felix’s feet started swinging again, and he looked over the yard with a big smile.
oOo
TOMMY WAS SITTING AT a picnic table with Brick and Mitch, while watching the others work in the garage.
“The one kidney thing, how does that affect you?” Brick asked.
“Not much. Need to be a bit more careful with the one I have, but in general not at all.”
“So no fighting?”
Tommy turned his head to look at Brick, but he wasn’t looking back, and Tommy’s stomach turned. “What are you saying?”
Was Brick going to try to bench him completely from club business, or just fucking kick him out?
“I was thinking about the ring. If you could go up in the ring?”
“Yeah. What the fuck is this about?”
Brick finally turned towards him, and he shook his head. “Nothing like that. I know you’ll do what’s needed. I just wanted to know if it could be a problem if I sent you up in the ring with someone.”
“No. It’s not like I’ve been careful with my kidneys so far, and they’ve survived just fine. What’s going on?”
“Roach. When you’re fully healed, I want you to take him up in the ring. Test him out, see if he’s really as experienced as Veetor made it sound. Try to piss him off. I wanna see how he reacts.”
“What did he say about him?” Mitch asked. “I’ve done some searches, but I didn’t find a lot on him. Some shit from when he was a minor, but that’s about it. Couldn’t even find any school records.”
“He’s a street kid. His parents died when he was eight and his sister thirteen. When Social Services tried to separate them, they took off and managed to stay away. Guess it’s not hard to disappear in New York.”
“That why they call him ‘cockroach’?” Tommy asked.
“Yeah, uncanny survival instincts, apparently. He said we might need someone like that, and that he’s good with a gun and really good at hand-to-hand combat. Guess he had to learn those things. I want you to test him. Both in the ring, but what he’s like with a gun, too, and if he can take orders.”
“Sure.”
“Not now. You can wait a while. Doesn’t matter yet, and we’ll see how he makes it as a bouncer, too. Might have some work for you tomorrow, though.”
“What?”
“We’re gonna go and have a talk to our favorite detective—Gordon,” Mitch answered with a big smile.
Mitch really, really hated Detective Gordon. Along with his partner, Evans, he’d given Mitch a hard time about a couple of murders that later turned out to be on Hump, not that the cops knew that. A little later, Gordon had realized that Mitch wasn’t really the kind of person you wanted to mess with, since he was a very good hacker. Tommy could use a computer to find porn and pay his bills, but that was about it. He’d never been interested in them. But for Mitch, there weren’t any limitations to what he could find or get access to with a computer. And in the twenty-first century, everything a person was could be found in computer systems.
So, Mitch had found out everything he could about Gordon, which included an affair with Evans and some serious gambling addiction problems—he was about to lose his house at the time—and these days they went to Gordon if they wanted to know what the law was up to. They paid him for it, not so much because they thought the guy deserved money, but because every dollar he accepted gave them more power over him.
“What is it we want?” Tommy asked.
Not that it really mattered, he’d do it anyway, but he’d noticed that he wasn’t as satisfied with need-to-know anymore. Having people outside the club to protect meant he needed to know what was going on.
“We want to know if they’ve taken notice or an interest in our patch-overs, how they’re connecting that to our visit in Amsterdam, and just generally what they’re up to, if anything, when it comes to us.”
“What time?”
“Lunch. Just get here by eleven.”
When he came home—or not home, but to the Jensens’—he went into the kitchen and found Leah cooking and Felix sitting on the bench watching her. Felix smiled when he saw him.
“Mommy’s gonna go look at houses tomorrow.”
He assumed that she’d talked to her parents, and for a second he wondered if he was in trouble. He’d thought she’d totally overreacted when it came to telling Clyde and Leah, but she knew them better than he did. When he looked at Leah, she gave him a smile, so she wasn’t about to stab him, at least. Or at least not in front of Felix.
He picked up Felix.
“Is that so?”
“And she said she’d pick a house that was close to a school, and that I maybe could start a regular school this fall. Like normal kids.”
“That sounds great. You’ll do great in school, just like your uncle Zach did. Have you had water?”
There were still some diet restrictions for Felix—no added salt, low fat, lean meats—and some things he needed to avoid since they interfered with his immunosuppression medication, but it was a lot less than it used to be. His appetite was increasing, and Tommy was convinced it had as much to do with how much better the food was as the fact that he was feeling better. There would be even fewer restrictions later on, but he’d still have to be careful, and he had to make sure he stayed hydrated. It wasn’t just about the kidney, though. His stomach wasn’t used to a lot of the food since he’d been on a diet since he was two. Staying hydrated was currently the biggest problem, and they all tried to remind him to drink water.
“Yes,” he answered with an annoyed voice. “In the new house, will I have a normal room?”
“What do you mean?”
“No hospital stuff, just a normal room?”
He gave Felix’s cheek a kiss. “How about this, we’ll fix your room together, so you get exactly the kind of room you want?”
“Yeah?”
“You know there’s things we’ll have to keep an eye on, but I’ll make sure none of that is in your room. How does that sound?”
“Good,” Felix smiled.
He put Felix down and went up to Billie’s room for a shower before dinner.
Afterwards, while he was standing in front of the mirror, he drew his fingertips along the scar from the surgery. Felix was fascinated by it, and sometimes he wanted to see it. He would pull up his own shirt so he could compare the scars. Tommy had never been embarrassed about any of his scars, even felt some pride in some of them, but not as proud as he was of the scar from where they took out his kidney and gave it to his boy. He’d lost weight, and he’d probably lose more, but he didn’t care. It was worth it, and he’d get it back.
The doctors had been slightly surprised by how fast he was recovering, but he knew his body. He’d come back from worse, so he knew the different kinds of pain, when he could push himself, and when he was at risk of hurting himself. The pain wasn’t a problem for him; he could deal with pain. What he couldn’t deal with was sitting around and waiting.
“It makes you even sexier,” Billie said from where she was standing in the door, and he wondered how long she’d been standing there.
“Hey,” he said and reached for his t-shirt, slightly embarrassed that she’d caught him admiring his own body—or rather, the scar.
Billie came up to him and took the t-shirt from him. She slid her fingertips over the scar and reached up for a kiss. She was wearing her sweats, so he assumed she’d been working out in the basement.
“Did you wash properly?” she asked.
“What? Why are you asking?”
“Because I need a shower, and I thought that you might be willing to come with me.”
Instead of answering, he pulled off his boxer briefs and went back into the bathroom. Billie wasn’t far behind, and he pulled her into the shower with him.
“Want me to help you wash?” he asked. “Or I can just stand over here and look at you? That would be just as awesome.”
With a smile, she handed him a shampoo bottle. “I’d like you to help. I like your hands on me.”
“Yeah?” he asked as he took a step towards here. “Where?”
“Everywhere. Wherever you wanna touch me, I’m fine with it.”
He squeezed some shampoo into his hand, but quickly concluded that she probably needed more shampoo for her long hair than he did for his short. After putting the bottle back on the shelf, he pulled her out of the running water and started massaging it into her hair. She smiled widely, and he remembered how much she used to like it when Leah brushed her hair when she was a kid. She’d never been very cuddly or much for touching in general, but she’d always loved it when someone played with her hair.
“I’m not sure I’m doing this right,” he admitted.
He’d had a buzz cut his entire life, so he didn’t know the first thing about washing longer hair. He was willing to give it a try, though, and despite getting his fingers tangled in her long threads, she was nice enough to not complain.
“This is good.”
“Think I need more practice at this,” he mumbled and gave her a kiss.
“Maybe a little,” she agreed. “But I’m up for it. I like this.”
“If it gets me into a shower with you, I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it in no time.”
“Think you’ll do great with the rest of me, though,” she said, and handed him the soap.
Eagerly, he lathered up his hands and reached for her. Sliding his hands over her breasts and down over her marks—or his marks—he decided that the feeling of her wet, soapy body was possibly the best feeling he’d ever experienced, and her low groan suggested she thought it felt pretty damn good, too.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said and took a step closer to her to wash her back. The position meant he was close enough for her to feel his very hard dick against her. “I love you, Billie.”
“I love you, too,” she hummed. “Don’t stop.”
He let her rinse it all off and made sure it was all gone from his own hands, too, before he gently pushed her against the wall. Standing close to her, to make sure he could feel her wet naked body against him, he reached down to the apex of her legs and stroked her soft curls until he found her nub.
“Kiss me,” she said, and he leaned down, giving her a soft kiss before nibbling her lower lip. “God.”
The water was cascading down his back, and his front was firmly pressed against Billie’s body. She felt so good against him, just like she always did. Tommy found it unlikely that he’d ever get enough of her.
“Conditioner,” he said, and laughed when she groaned in frustration.
As he applied the conditioner, he couldn’t take his eyes off her face. The soft roundness of her jaw and chin, her wide mouth with a top and bottom lip that were equally full and in the same light pink shade as her nipples, and her slightly curved and quite wide nose. When she opened her eyes, he smiled.
“Sometimes when I look at you, I can’t understand why I wasn’t in love with you before,” he said. “It seems strange, and sometimes when I remember things from back then, they seem so different now. Not necessarily in bad way, but different. Like I’ve been missing the obvious for years.”
“I know what you mean.” She stepped into the water and bent her head back to rinse out the conditioner.
“So you feel the same?” he asked when she was done.
“Yeah. I know I wasn’t in love with you then, but it feels like I should’ve been.”
“Well, you know what they say, you grow wiser with age.” He held her flush against his body. “Besides, I didn’t know what you felt like, or even what you looked like naked.”
“Mmm,” she hummed against his chest. “True.”
Holding her hair, he tilted her hair back and kissed her, but this time he didn’t stop. He kept tasting her, licking into her mouth to feel her tongue against his, and sucking on her lips. When he lifted her up, she wrapped her legs around his hips, and slowly stroked her mound against his dick. He moved over to hold her against the wall. This was probably something he shouldn’t be doing, but as long she didn’t think about it, he wouldn’t mention it either. It didn’t hurt—much. Not enough for him to stop anyway.
“Steer me in,” he mumbled, and groaned with impatience when she, instead of doing what he’d asked, kept rubbing her wet slit over his dick. “Please, babe.”
She let out a muffled cry when he sank into her fully in one thrust. Her tight, wet channel flexed around his dick as he let her adjust to him.
“Move,” she finally mumbled. “Fuck me.”
“Shit, Munchkin,” he groaned. “You can’t say things like that the first five minutes while I’m inside of you.”
He started slowly, rocking carefully into her to feel as much of her as possible, but it soon felt impossible to not slam himself into her as deep as he could go with each thrust, and he moved away from the wall. He needed his own weight to keep her in place without hurting himself, and he needed to fuck her properly.
“What?” she groaned. “Where are you going?”
“Putting you on the counter. I like to fuck you when you’re sitting on things,” he answered as he carefully stepped out of the shower and took the few steps needed to be able to seat her.
They were both dripping all over the floor, but right then he didn’t care. He wanted to come. It felt like he’d been needing it since the failed attempt to get some when they woke up that morning and Felix ran in and jumped on their bed. Still, it was just a question of time before someone came looking for them, since they’d start missing them at the dinner table soon, and he wasn’t gonna be interrupted twice in one day.
When Billie bit down on his shoulder and let out a muffled cry, he pulled her closer, and buried himself in her.
“Damn, you feel perfect around me,” he mumbled. “I’m close.”
He felt his balls tighten right along with Billie, who was still muffling her ever-increasing cries against his shoulder. With a firm grip around her waist, and the other hand at the back of her head, he slammed into her the last few times until he emptied himself inside of her with a restrained groan.
Then he stood still, hugging her closely and feeling her pulsate around his dick for a while before leaning back to see her face.
“Love you,” he said.
“Love you, too,” she smiled. “Think I need to rinse off again.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, and pulled out of her before helping her down from the counter. “Think I’ll need that, too. Then we should probably head downstairs.”
“What is it with us and bathrooms?” Billie asked once they were back in the shower.
“It’s not just bathrooms.”
“There’s been a lot of bathrooms.”
He pulled her closer and gave her a kiss. “It’ll change when we have a bedroom in our own house. And I think it’s all those half-dressed quick fucks. I like you naked, and that’s why I want to take any chance I can to see you. Hence the bathrooms.”
“Okay.” She smiled and put her arms around his neck, and he loved feeling her naked body against his—he couldn’t get enough of it. “Think I’m starting to look forward to living with you.”
“You’re just after my body,” he chuckled. “You love it.”
“You’re the one who just said you wanted to see me naked as much as possible. Besides, I admit it because you have a nice body, and a very nice cock.”
“All yours, baby,” he said smacked her ass. “Get out of the shower and get dressed before we get stuck
in here for another half hour. That ass is perfection.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Two and a Half Minutes
oOo
WHEN TOMMY ENTERED THE kitchen, Felix was the only one in there. He was sitting by the table having his breakfast with a big smile. It was fascinating to see how the kid ‘discovered’ eating when it had become something that wasn’t as rigorously controlled. Tommy knew that Billie and Leah had done what they could to not make it into a big deal, but it had been anyway. It wasn’t like they could hide from Felix that his food wasn’t the same as theirs, or how they had to keep control over everything he put in his mouth. Even if there were still restrictions, it wasn’t anything close to what it used to be, and Felix’s food had a lot more taste than it used to. Tastes he really seemed to enjoy.
Something else Tommy had noticed was that they were close in a new way after the surgery—a very special way. He hadn’t known Felix for long, but they’d managed to establish some kind of relationship fairly quickly, probably because they both made an effort, but what they had now felt like something unique. He’d literally given a part of himself to Felix, and that felt… huge.
He leaned over him and gave his cheek a kiss.
“Hey, Champ. How are you?”
“Good,” Felix answered with a big smile. “I’m having chocolate milk.”
“Tasty?”
“Yes! I can only have one glass, but Mommy said I can have another tomorrow, too.”
“Sounds awesome. Any other plans for today?”
Felix shook his head. “Can we work on your bike when you get back?”
“Absolutely,” Tommy answered.
Mac and Mitch had often talked about how they remembered working with Brick on his bike, and he knew Dawg was doing it with his kids, too. He wanted those memories for Felix; it was something just for the two of them, and it had been since the first time they’d done it.
“Think Mommy will let me ride with you soon?” he asked.
Resonance (Marauders #4) Page 23