Slam (The Brazen Bulls MC #3)

by Susan Fanetti

  “Fuck yeah.” Maverick growled at her ear, meeting her hips with ever-increasing vigor. “Come all over me. Drench my cock. That’s it, that’s it, that’s—fuck!”

  In the middle of her climax, Maverick hit his, and they froze together, rigid and throbbing, until Jenny thought she’d pass out. It let her go at last, and she drew in a wild gulp of air.

  Resting on her back, Maverick chuckled. She felt it vibrate through his cock, inside her. “Damn, babe.”

  Wrung out, twitches of enduring ecstasy still moving through her, Jenny smiled and sighed. “That was amazing.” A little yawn rolled up her throat, and she almost managed to hold it back.

  Maverick pulled out. “Nope. Don’t you fall asleep on me.” Before she could decide whether she had the will to stand up straight, he swept her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. “I’m not done with you yet. I got all damn night, and I’m gonna use it. I’m gonna knock you up tonight or die trying.”

  He swung around and carried her to the bed. Jenny giggled when he dropped her on the mattress.

  Then he followed, settling himself between her legs. His arms hooked around her thighs, and his mouth descended to her pussy, still swollen and thrumming. When he sucked her clit between his lips, she was wide awake again.

  ~oOo~

  Even after multiple orgasms and hours of lovemaking, Jenny couldn’t sleep. Maverick slumbered peacefully behind her, his body curved protectively around hers, but Jenny’s eyes and mind were wide open.

  Unlike most of her sleepless nights these past four years, she wasn’t worried, or scared, or depressed. This wakefulness was brisk and alive. She was excited. Hopeful. In love. Happy.

  Everything would be the way it was supposed to be. She and Maverick had worked it out together, made their way together, and she could believe in that. She could trust it.

  How could she sleep when she was so close to everything she wanted?

  Dawn had brightened the sky, so there was no point trying anymore. Carefully, she eased from Maverick’s embrace, pulling her pillow down so his arm would wrap around it—an old trick from before, to keep him asleep when she needed to get out of bed.

  He sighed heavily, almost a purr, and settled again.

  Grabbing his t-shirt from the floor, she pulled it over her head. It skimmed her mid-thigh, practically modest, but she got a fresh pair of panties out anyway and stepped into them. A sidelong glance in her mirror showed the braid of the day before to have become a frayed, snarled rope, so she combed her fingers through the mess until it was smooth enough that she could catch it back with a butterfly clip. Presentable, she went out to start the morning.

  First, she checked on Kelsey, who’d turned around in her bed. Her head was pressed against the footboard, and she was curled in her little ball, but facedown, with her butt in the air, in a preschool parody of her preferred infant sleeping position. Mr. Teapot, a floppy, spotted dog, strangled in the crook of her arm.

  Jenny stood and watched her girl sleep. In that little bed was the only good thing her life had held for more than four years. The reason she was still alive, the reason she’d kept fighting, was that child—as frustrating and terrifying and infuriating as she was delightful and sweet and inspiring, and absolutely perfect.

  If she’d allowed Maverick to have that strength, if she’d stayed with him, supported him, let him look forward to days like this, when he’d be with them, would his time in prison have been something he could talk about? Would he have fewer scars?

  He wasn’t a man who let the past chew on him. He never had been, but he’d never had to avoid it, either. The past had simply been what it was, and he always focused on moving through the present toward the future.

  She would never ask him to talk about things he needed to lock away, but she knew him, and his need to lock the last four years away spoke loud and long about how bad prison must have been. He had scars she couldn’t see.

  She bore some responsibility for that. It wasn’t her fault that he’d been arrested, that he’d done time, but it was her fault that he’d done it alone, that he hadn’t had Kelsey to keep him strong.

  With a sigh, she closed her daughter’s door. As she stood before her father’s, she heard his machines, making the sounds of his wakefulness. Normally, unless there was trouble, she left him alone and let Carlena handle him when she came on shift at nine, but on this morning, feeling happy and melancholy at the same time, she pushed his door open.

  He was awake, trying to fuss with his CPAP machine. His motor skills weren’t good enough to take it off; all he could do was slap himself in the head, and get increasingly agitated about it.

  “Dad, calm down.” She went in and pushed the button on his bed to raise the head. He couldn’t breathe without help when he lay flat, and he couldn’t sleep when he sat up. Once he was safely elevated, she turned off the CPAP and took the mask off his face. “There. Better?”

  “Jen.” Sometimes he could nod, but she hadn’t heard him say ‘yes’ or any version of it since he’d been hurt. ‘No,’ he had down, and a couple of other words. Her name had come to stand for everything else.

  “Good morning. Carlena won’t be here for a while yet. You want me to turn on your TV?” He had a small set that they’d set up on a wall shelf for him. His room was almost indistinguishable from a hospital room.

  “No.”

  “Okay.” She patted his hand and turned, meaning to go. An impulse stopped her, and she turned back. “I have something to tell you, Dad.”

  He had the mental capacity of a six-year-old, they said. Not much older than Kelsey. The same age Jenny had been when her mother had died. Would he understand? Would it be better not to tell him, to simply move him and explain when it was all done?

  She didn’t know. But the need to tell him had come on her with force. Was it malice? Did she mean it to hurt him? Searching her heart, she didn’t think so. With Maverick back and their future on track, she didn’t feel her old pettiness for her father. He’d been mean and erratic, but even if that was still in him, he was harmless now. He’d be harmless forever now. And he’d always been sad. Always broken.

  It wasn’t malice, but she didn’t know if it was right. The words simply needed to be said.

  “Daddy.” She hadn’t called him Daddy in twenty years. “Some big changes are happening. Maverick and I are together again, and we’re going to make a family with Kelsey.”

  He grunted, and his hand slammed at the side rail.

  “I know you’re afraid of him.”

  “No!”

  She was upsetting him, but now that she’d started, she couldn’t just leave that news out there on its own. “Okay. Well, I know you don’t like him. I understand. So we’re going to find you a good place to live. A place that’ll take care of you better and give you a bigger life than this little house.”

  “Jen! Jen!”

  She smoothed her hand over his stubbly, fleshy cheek. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be good. The way it’s supposed to be.”

  He grunted again, and his face went red.

  “Jen.”

  At Maverick’s voice, Jenny spun around, feeling strangely guilty and protective. He stood in the doorway, wearing only his jeans, his hair up at all ends. She’d done that, raking her fingers through it again and again.

  Her father grunted again, angrily. She patted his hand again. “It’s going to be okay, Dad. I promise. I’ll check in on you later, after I get Kelse moving.” She turned the television on and put it on the ABC channel, so Good Morning America would play when seven o’clock rolled around. He liked that show. For now, he could watch the farm report.

  When she went to the door, Maverick was staring at her father. Silently. Icily. She grabbed his arm, pulled him out of the room, and closed the door

  The sooner these two men never had to see each other again, the better.

  “Pisses me off to hear you call him ‘Daddy.’ That’s what Kelse calls me.”

&nb
sp; She cupped his cheeks in her hands. His stubble had turned into a beard. “I haven’t called him that since I was little. It just came out. And he is my father.”

  His lip curled in disdain. “Biologically, yeah. But that man was never a father to you.”

  Maverick was wrong, actually. It would have been easier if her father had never been a father to her, if he’d never been her Daddy, if he’d never shown her love or affection, or remorse. But he had. She’d spent her whole life trying to be good enough to deserve only that part of him and not the other.

  December 1976

  Mrs. Turner stared out the window over her kitchen sink. “Looks like your daddy’s home, sugar. How about you pick out some cookies, and you can take ‘em back over with you.”

  The Turner’s funny kitchen table—shiny red and white and sparkles, with drawers in it—was strewn with Christmas cookies, cooling on racks and arrayed on trays. It was Christmas break at school, so Jenny spent whole days next door, not just the afternoons until her daddy came and took her to the bar and made her stay in the back.

  Ever since her mommy had done the bad thing and gotten herself killed, Jenny had to go to the bar with her daddy when she couldn’t stay next door. She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t always just stay next door, but she couldn’t. When she’d asked Mr. Turner, he’d told her to ask Mrs. Turner. When she’d asked Mrs. Turner, she’d said her daddy had his reasons. When she’d asked her daddy, he’d told her to shut up.

  So when he came and took her to the bar, she went. Sometimes, when the sun was out and there weren’t many people there, he’d let her stay up front and spin around on the bar stools or play with the bowling machine. But when it got dark outside, and crowded inside, she had to go in the back and stay there.

  She hated being in the back. It smelled funny, and there were long shadows in all the corners. And sometimes there were rats, but she wasn’t supposed to say that. There was an old recliner back there by Daddy’s desk, and she was supposed to do her homework, eat her sandwich from the deli down the street, and go to sleep, but it was hard to sleep when maybe a rat would come out. If she was sleeping, it could get on her face, and they had sharp little feet like tiny, bony hands with claws.

  She liked it better when she could stay next door. Mrs. Turner made good food for supper and had little pink glass bowls for ice cream or pudding for dessert, and Mr. Turner let her read the funny pages of his paper. They had a girl named Rhona, but Rhona was a Big Girl, in high school, and she didn’t pay much attention to Jenny—or her parents. She spent a lot of time upstairs, in her room. When the phone rang, it was usually for Rhona.

  On this day, Mrs. Turner and Jenny had made pretty green cookies that looked like wreaths and pushed Red Hots in while they were still soft and hot, to look like berries. And Santas with red sugar sprinkles and Christmas trees with green sugar sprinkles. And chocolate balls covered in something like white fur. Coco-nut. She didn’t like those. The coco-nut tasted funny and stuck on her tongue.

  Mrs. Turner brought over a big plastic tub that used to be for margarine. “Come on, sugar. Pick your cookies. You want to be ready when your daddy comes over. He don’t like to wait.”

  She plucked up the two wreaths she thought were prettiest. The Red Hots were exactly even, and the red hadn’t smeared on the green. She chose some Santas and Christmas trees, too, but not the coco-nut ones. She selected each cookie carefully and set it in the bowl. While Mrs. Turner put the lid on, Jenny went to the front hall and got her coat off the hook.

  Her daddy knocked on the back door as she came into the kitchen, and she went and opened it. When she saw him, she got scared. His hair was messy, and his eyes were droopy. It was hard to be good enough when he looked like that.

  “Let’s go, Jenny.” His breath smelled like booze. When she was little, she used to think of it as grownup soda, but now she was older and she knew it was booze, like at the bar.

  Mrs. Turner came up behind her and set her hand on Jenny’s shoulder. “Jen was a very good girl today, Earl. She helped me bake cookies, and she cleaned up.”

  He nodded, but he didn’t look up at Mrs. Turner or Jenny. He just stood on the little back stoop, one step down, and waited, rocking a little. It was cold, but he wasn’t wearing a coat.

  “Let’s go.”

  Mrs. Turner’s hand didn’t move from Jenny’s shoulder. It squeezed more tightly instead. “We’re happy to keep her the night, if you’d like.”

  “It’s Christmas Eve. I want her home.”

  “Of course you do.” Mrs. Turner crouched at Jenny’s side and gave her a quick hug. “Merry Christmas, sugar. You have a good day tomorrow. Come on over later, and see what Santa might’ve left at our house.”

  Jenny didn’t believe in Santa anymore. Not since the first Christmas after her mommy got herself killed. But Mrs. Turner was nice, and Jenny didn’t want her to be sad like she’d been, so she didn’t tell her that Santa was a damn lie.

  Her daddy held out his hand. “Don’t meddle, Elma. I got it handled.”

  Mrs. Turner stood up. “Alright, then. Merry Christmas, Earl.”

  Jenny’s daddy made a weird noise and yanked her out of the house and down the porch steps.

  When they got into their own kitchen, her daddy snatched the big margarine tub from her hands. “What’s this?”

  “Cookies. We made cookies today, and I picked out the best ones for you.”

  He tore off the plastic lid and tossed it away. It flew across the room like a Frisbee. Rooting through the tub, he plucked out one cookie after another, tossing them away, one by one. They dropped to the floor and cracked into pieces and crumbles. One of the green wreaths landed, and two of its Red Hots fell off and rolled away.

  When the tub was empty, he tossed that away, too. Jenny stood, still wearing her coat—creamy fur with a big hood and pretty sewing up the front, the prettiest coat in the world, which her daddy had given her for her birthday—and stared at the cookies all over the floor.

  Her daddy went to the cabinet and pulled down a bottle of booze. As he walked out of the kitchen, he grumbled, “Clean that fuckin’ mess up.”

  ~oOo~

  “JENNIFER!”

  Jenny jumped at the slurred shout.

  “JENNIFER MAE WAGNER! GET YOUR ASS IN HERE!”

  It was going to be bad, but it was worse not to come when she was called. She set her Nancy Drew book aside and left her room.

  He was standing in the kitchen. Barely standing. More like slumping. He was barefoot, and he’d taken off his shirt and wore only his sleeveless t-shirt, slouching halfway out of his pants. The buckle of his belt gleamed in the light from the lamp hanging over the table. His eyes were red, and his cheeks were wet, but he didn’t look sad. Maybe he’d been sad before, but now he was mad.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  He pointed at a little red dot on the kitchen floor. A Red Hot. She must have missed it when she’d swept up the cookies. It was squashed flat; he must have stepped on it.

  She didn’t answer.

  “I asked you a fuckin’ question.”

  “It’s a Red Hot. From the cookies. I’m sorry, Daddy. I thought I cleaned everything up. I tried to do a good job.”

  “But you didn’t, did you? You left food on the floor like a fuckin’ slob. Get over here and pick it up. Hands and knees. Get down close and make fuckin’ sure.”

  She went and got on her knees. The candy had squished into bits when he’d stepped on it, but she stay on her knees until she had all the pieces cupped in her hand, even the ones the size of a speck of dust. When she had them all, she got up and took them to the plastic trash bin by the door.

  She’d done the best job she could, but it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t good enough. She knew that because she heard the faint jingle and the terrible whoosh of his belt being unfastened and pulled from his pants.

  “Daddy, I’m sorry. I really did try to do it good. I tried to do what you said.”

  �
�Get over here and touch your toes, Jennifer. It’s time to take your punishment.”

  Jenny went and touched her toes. It didn’t matter that it was Christmas Eve. Santa was a damn lie.

  ~oOo~

  Later that night, Jenny woke with a start and a squeal.

  “Shhh, shhh, shhh. It’s just me, Twinkle.” Her daddy lifted her from the bed, bringing her quilt with her. He cradled her in his arms and tucked the quilt around her. Her bottom was still sore from her punishment, but her daddy was holding her tightly, snugly, and humming, so she didn’t mind the discomfort. “Let’s go outside—it’s Christmas and it’s snowing!”

  He carried her into the living room and grabbed the old crocheted afghan from the sofa, and then he carried her through the house, to the back, and onto the screened-in porch. He sat on the rusty metal glider, holding her to his chest, and looked out at the falling snow.

  Jenny was cold, but her daddy wanted to hold her, and she wanted to make him happy. She wanted to be good enough that he’d always be like this. So she tried not to shiver, and she snuggled down deep under the quilt that had been on her bed. She tucked her head under his chin. He still smelled like booze, and cigarettes, and his aftershave.

  He squeezed her tight. “We don’t need nothin’ else, do we, Twinkle? You and me and nothin’ else.”

  Jenny snuggled closer. If they could be like this all the time, she didn’t think they would need anything else.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  November had come in gloomy, cold, and rainy, with several days in a row of heavy clouds and intermittent storms, occasionally threatening to freeze. But on the day Maverick finally got his family right, the sun broke through and warmed the air, like Nature herself celebrated with them.

  They’d started early, the very next morning after they got Earl moved into the nursing home. When they’d begun planning, Maverick had thought there wouldn’t be much to move—he had furniture for most of the rooms already, and he’d figured that Jenny wouldn’t want her father’s crap—but he’d been wrong. She’d wanted most of the kitchen, and everything from the dining room, which had been her mother’s, and her grandmother’s before that, and all of Kelsey’s things, of course, and...a lot. He hadn’t considered that, as unhappy as she’d been in that house, it had still been her home. She was in those walls as much as Earl was. And Kelsey had known no other home.