“Harder,” she said, and he closed his eyes.
“Damn, it gets better every time you say that,” he hissed. He gripped her waist more firmly and started to move harder and faster. “God,” he groaned and fell over her, landing on his hands, while pounding into her.
She was almost there, but didn’t want to rush it, so she grabbed his wrists and held on to him. To get him even closer to her, she wrapped her legs around him. She realized that this was the feeling people had when they said they wanted someone under their skin. It was as if he couldn’t be close enough to her, and she didn’t want to let go. Not even when he moved his hand to tease her clit. She held on to his wrist and felt his muscles play in her hand as he played her.
And then she felt it in her stomach and the inside of her thighs, and she tilted her head back and her hips slightly up to get him even further inside. When he grabbed her hair and kissed her hard, that was it. She came, and if he hadn’t been covering her mouth, it would’ve been one of the loudest orgasm screams in her life so far. At the same time, Mace’s pounding got erratic and even harder.
He threw up his head, and timed with his thrusts, he kept saying, “Fuck, oh fuck, god, fuck,” almost as a chant until he came. Seeing and feeling him lose control like that for the first time since they started was enough to prolong her own orgasm.
They were both soaked in sweat, trying to catch their breath. She flinched when he slipped out of her and experimentally wiggled her ass to see how she was doing.
“You okay?” Mace asked; his voice muffled from the mattress he was still face down on.
“Yes. Hard to breathe,” she admitted and pushed on him a little to get him to roll off.
“Sorry,” he groaned and rolled over to his back. “Fuck, that was so good.”
He pulled off the condom and threw it in the bin. Kathleen was pretty sure he’d put it there just so he wouldn’t have to get out of bed every time they’d had sex, but she didn’t care. He was the only one who came into her bedroom anyway. He pulled her closer and put both his arms around her, holding her to his chest.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Might be a few days before we can do it again.”
Mace laughed and gave the top of her head a kiss. “We can save it for special occasions. Seriously, I think I’m done for tonight. Can’t fucking remember the last time I came that hard.”
“Think I’m done, too.”
Mace grabbed her chin and tilted her head back, and she was taken aback by the look on his face. It was so tender, and she’d never seen that on him before.
“Sure you’re okay?” he asked. “It got a bit out of hand there at the end.”
“I liked that,” she smiled. “Don’t worry, but thanks for making sure.”
“Wanna make sure you’re up for it again.”
“So it’s not really concern, you just want to make sure you get more of it?” she asked with a smile.
“Naw, you’re my woman, I want my woman to feel that she can trust me with things like this. Don’t want to hurt you—unless you ask for it.”
Kathleen smiled, and he stroked his thumb over her lower lip. She’d noticed a shift between them and they’d slipped into a new phase. She’d always felt at ease with Mace, but now there was a new level of comfort and tenderness there, too. When she felt his hand against his chin, she leaned against it.
“I guess your first time wasn’t that great,” she said.
“I thought it was pretty fucking awesome, but I doubt the girl was that impressed.”
“Did you make it up to her?”
“Probably not. Took me a while to figure out all the parts on a woman’s body.”
She scooted closer and gave him a kiss. “Think you got that covered now.”
“Seems like I do.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
I’m Sober
o0o
MACE HALTED IN THE doorway to his Ma’s room and stared at the scene in front of him. Kathleen was in there, and she laughed in a way he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her laugh, and his Ma smiled widely.
“Do I even wanna know?” he asked to get their attention.
“No,” Kathleen answered while drying her eyes. “You don’t. I might tell you one day, though.”
“You’re feeding her ammunition, aren’t you?” he asked his mother and gave her a kiss. “Not sure I like that.”
“Luckily, I don’t need your approval for what I do,” she answered and pointed at the pitcher on her nightstand. “I need some water.”
“I have to go,” Kathleen said and grabbed her bag. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
“Give me a kiss,” Pam said with a big smile. When Kathleen leaned over her and kissed her cheek, Pam patted her cheek. “I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
Mace caught Kathleen when she passed him. “Got one for me?”
“Yes,” she smiled and they kissed.
With a ‘bye’ to his Ma, Kathleen left, and Mace hesitantly sat down next to the bed.
“So, how often does she visit?”
“She hasn’t told you?”
“No. It must have slipped her mind,” Mace said.
“She comes by to entertain an old woman at her lunch sometimes. That’s all, Vince. She tells me about the assholes in Washington, and I tell her about the assholes in Greenville. She can tell a story.”
“It’s her job.”
“And she can listen.”
“Also her job,” Mace pointed out.
Pamela studied him. “Are you angry?”
“No. Surprised, I think. She said she’d visit you again, I just didn’t think it was a regular thing.” He took her hand. “I’m not angry.”
He wasn’t angry, but he wondered why Kathleen hadn’t mentioned it, so later that night he asked. Actually, it was pretty much the first thing he brought up after he’d arrived at her place, and she smiled at him.
“I probably should’ve mentioned it.”
“Probably.”
“I’m sorry. I just… I went by one day at lunch, and that’s how it started. She’s not very impressed with the food there, so a couple of times a week I bring her something to eat and we gossip.” Kathleen stepped closer. “Not about you, though. We don’t talk about you. And I do some chores for her. Or excursions, as she calls them.”
“Excursions?” Mace asked because he was surprised.
His mom had done those when they were kids. Or at least what she’d called ‘excursions.’ They’d left the house and went somewhere. When he got older he realized that she had just needed to see something different than the house and the grocery store. She’d packed the car and taken off. Sometimes just a short trip, but other times they’d were gone for the full day. If it was the weekend, his dad would come with them. He couldn’t remember his dad ever being upset that the excursions sometimes meant he didn’t get dinner, but it could have something to do with the very full freezer.
Mace had held his parents marriage as something to strive for when he was younger, but when he reached his teens he’d started to wonder if they had a good marriage or if they just couldn’t bother to look for something else. If for no other reason than that his parents never even seemed to talk to each other. Six months after his dad had died, he’d asked his mom what she missed the most, and the answer surprised him. “I miss our bed talks. Every night we went to bed and talked for an hour or two—about everything. I miss talking to him.”
He’d had absolutely no idea about that, and he’d realized that no one ever knew what someone else’s marriage was really like. A marriage—or any relationship—was something that was just between the two people in it, and they were the only ones who knew what it was about and what happened in it. It had become even more clear when he’d realized that he and Kathleen were in a relationship. From the outside it probably didn’t look like much, they barely even touched, but in private she was already someone who knew sides of him that no one had before.
“Excursions,” Kathleen
confirmed. “Last week I went to the old church. She wanted to know if they were still waving snakes around. They still do.”
Mace was still trying to decide whether he liked that Kathleen and his mom were getting closer, or if it felt like an intrusion. Maybe he just wished she’d told him about it.
“Anything else?”
“Leaving flowers on your dad’s grave, looking at a painting at a museum in Phoenix, and I read to her. We honestly haven’t talked much about you.”
“Okay,” Mace said after hesitating for a while.
“I should’ve said something. I just… It was just visits and getting to know her. I like her a lot. I kind of envy you,” she added with a smile. “Must’ve been pretty great to have her as a mom.”
“Yeah,” Mace agreed. “We did those excursions when I was a kid. She called them that then, too. She packed Vic and me into the car and took us somewhere. Usually she just wanted to show us something. It was probably that she wanted to get out of the house.”
“She told me. She said she liked being a housewife, but sometimes she needed to get out.” Kathleen took his hand. “Are we okay?”
“Yeah.” Mace thought about it. She’d simply been spending time with his mom, and he had a feeling she’d kept her entertained. Judging by how they were laughing when he’d seen them earlier that day, they enjoyed each other’s company, and it would be pretty fucking petty of him to be pissed at a woman for making his dying mom feel better. “Think we’re better than okay.”
“Okay. You can meet my mom and become friends if you want. It’s easy. A bottle of whiskey and you’re her BFF.”
“I think I’ll skip that.”
Kathleen laughed and gave him a kiss. “Probably better that way.”
Even if she hadn’t talked much more about her family after the first time, they were mentioned now and then, and if he pieced the pictures together he got the impression that Kathleen had been alone most of her life. It didn’t seem like she’d ever had a lot of people around her, but it also seemed like it didn’t matter much to her. He sometimes wondered if it was because she’d been forced to accept it as a child, or if it simply was her personality by nature. She didn’t seem uncomfortable around people, though, and she’d been with him to a few more family dinners. He kind of wanted her to take the next step, though, because he wanted her to know for sure what she was getting herself into.
“I have church tomorrow. Wanna come by the clubhouse afterwards?”
“Think they’d be okay with that?” she asked with her lopsided smile.
“Do they have any reason to worry?”
“No. You and I know that, but I’m not so sure they do.”
“They trust me, and I have a room there.”
“Oh, wow. You sure know how to charm a woman,” she laughed.
“Enough to get into your pants. I’ll ask a few of the old ladies to be there, too. Just stick to them.”
“I can do that.” She held up the menus. “I’m fed up with all of these. Wanna find a new place in Phoenix?”
o0o
“We’re gonna have to have a big meet to make the decision,” Brick said, “but I think we all know that it’s going to be these four clubs, with a possibility of a fifth.”
They’d ventured into one of those discussions where Mace stopped paying attention. Obviously he paid attention to what clubs they were thinking about patching over, but as far as he could see, they’d pretty much agreed on all that. It was just about formalities, and the procedure for getting it done had been the same since the damn club started in the Seventies. The clubs would be prospecting clubs for a minimum of a year, usually longer than that. The big difference compared to anything they’d done before was that they were taking on four—or possibly five—of them at the same time, which was why they’d picked clubs they had worked with previously. It had been one of the criteria. Another, more unofficial, criterion had been that they wanted clubs with veteran members because they needed people with real combat experience. The Marauders had veteran members, just like most biker clubs, they just didn’t have many in Greenville. Tommy was actually the only one, and it was more than likely that the border clubs would be among those attacked. Depending on who attacked, obviously. If the US Ghouls attacked, the closest clubs—which were the new clubs—would be their first target, so it had been decided they needed to be able to deal with real combat.
“Where are we having the big meet?” Bull asked.
“Emporia, a few weeks from now, and we’ve got a run next week.”
This was around the time when Mace started paying attention again, just so he knew when and where he was supposed to leave. Sisco would remind him, but he still liked to not look too fucking surprised when he did. Also, he had to let Kathleen know. So far him going on runs hadn’t been much of a problem, though. He told her, she shrugged, and he called her while he was away. It was pretty nice to have someone to come home to. In general, a lot of things with Kathleen were just fucking great, so great that he hadn’t been to his house other than to pick up the mail since they’d hooked up again.
He knew she was waiting out in the bar, but Sisco stopped him before he exited the chapel.
“Quick word,” Sisco said.
When he looked outside, he saw Kathleen by a table with Edie and Mel, so he assumed she was okay for the moment.
“Is that a beer?” Sisco asked with a surprised voice, and she did have a bottle of beer in front of her. “I thought she didn’t drink.”
“If she’s starting, this would be a good moment,” Mace shrugged, but he was wondering how bad it was if she was drinking. “If this isn’t extremely fucking important, I should probably go and talk to her.”
“Yeah, we can do it tomorrow,” Sisco said. “Go save her before she hits the Tequila.”
Mace laughed and crossed the bar to get to her. She gave him a crooked smile when she saw him.
“Beer?” he asked.
“I cleaned out a bottle and poured Coke in it.
“Why?” he asked and took the bottle from her to taste, and it was Coke.
“Everyone kept asking if I didn’t want something stronger to drink. Old trick, and it’s actually the first time since college I’ve had to use it. There’s a lot of focus on alcohol here.”
Both Mel and Edie laughed at that. He leaned closer to Kathleen to make sure she was the only one who could hear him.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Is that an actual fine or one of those ‘fines’ you give me just before we start arguing?”
“An actual fine,” she laughed. “You don’t have to watch over me.”
“What if I want to?”
“Then go get a beer and come have a sit with me.”
He did, and Brick and Dawg soon joined them along with some of the others. A few hours later, when the panties started to come off the sweetbutts, Kathleen leaned closer to him.
“Any chance you can show me your room before the porn show starts? I’m sober, you know.”
“The main reason we stay the night is that we’re usually too damn drunk to drive home,” he said. “So we can leave if you want to.”
“No. I wanna see your room. Just promise me there’s coffee in the morning.”
“There’s coffee in the morning,” he confirmed and stood up. She took the hand he was offering her, and he pulled her closer. “Am I unusually horny, or are you sexier than usual today?”
“I’ve made an effort,” she smiled.
“I’m honored. And I like it.”
“Wait until you see me naked.”
He was looking forward to that, and he led her to his dorm as quickly as possible. Neither he nor Kathleen were patient people, and getting rid of the clothes was usually done as quickly as possible to get to the good parts. A lot of the time when they were at her place, which was most of the time, they didn’t bother with wearing clothes at all, or underwear at the most.
“Mind if I do
it?” he asked against her lips when she started unbuttoning her pants.
“You want to undress me?” she asked with a cocked eyebrow.
“Yeah,” he answered. “That okay?”
“That’s okay,” she smiled. “If I can undress you afterwards. No pushing me down on the bed and taking me.”
“Deal.”
He did it slowly, and he made sure to kiss her everywhere. Once all the clothes were off, he took a step back and smiled.
“Damn.”
With a smile in return, she turned around full circle, and then she licked her lips. “My turn.”
“I wasn’t done.”
“Yes, you were. My turn.”
“Okay, just be careful with the cut.”
“I know. Don’t you think I’ve noticed it’s the only thing you bother to hang carefully before tearing off the rest of your clothes?” Kathleen took it off and hung it over the closest chair. “I have to ask, that you took me here, should I read something into that?”
“Maybe,” he said and held up his arms so she could take off his t-shirt. He groaned when she licked his nipples. “But also because I wanted you to see it.”
“Hmmm,” she mumbled, as she kissed him over his shoulder blades before she moved to stand in front of him. “Why?”
“Why what?” he asked because he was finding it increasingly hard to follow the conversation they were having.
“Why did you want me to see it?”
“Rather have you see it now and get pissed, than later. If you got pissed, that is. You seem okay with it.”
“It was pretty much what I expected,” she said and took a step forward and started to unbutton his jeans. He was down to his briefs when Kathleen got down on her knees in front of him with a big smile on her lips. With her hands on his hips, she looked up at him. “Not sure I’ve told you, but I think you’re really fucking sexy,” she said.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “Can I push you down on the bed now?”
“No,” she said and pulled down his underwear. “You’re gonna have to stand up a little longer.”
When her warm mouth engulfed his dick, he grabbed a firm hold of the chair next to him to make sure his knees didn’t go out from under him.
Speed of Light (Marauders #3.5) Page 15