by Lena Pierce
Cary’s face lightens. “Really? I mean, it doesn’t sound like you to let someone else take control … Are you sure you can handle it?”
“It wasn’t easy to say yes,” Griz admits. “Even under the threat of someone shooting up my club like some gangster movie.” He chuckles.
“That doesn’t sound like a hard choice to me,” she says.
“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” he answers. “But you’ve always been the sane one.”
Cary turns her attention to me, her eyes scrutinizing every inch of my face. “So you’re the missing girl. All holed up with my asshole brother all this time? Hope he was nice. He can be a real prick sometimes.”
“He was good,” I answer, feeling my cheeks go hot as I blush. “Yes. I’m the missing girl. Found again.”
“Are you okay?” she asks, gesturing to my multiple injuries.
“I’m healing,” I say. “Griz took good care of me.”
Griz makes a noise. “I was ready to tear the place apart because there was very little I could do to help.”
“Are you two … together, then?” she asks. “This isn’t like Stockholm Syndrome or some other weird shit, right?”
“No, no,” I say, putting up my hands and shaking my head. “No. Not like that at all.”
“We are together,” Griz says, so definitively that it makes my heart leap in my chest. “In spite of all the bullshit.”
Cary stands. “Well, I guess I’m happy for you, then.”
The bus pulls up, then, and Griz gets up to join his sister. As they wander down to the sidewalk, a tiny girl with long dark hair steps off the bus, her shoes bright red and her backpack bright blue. She is, quite possibly, the cutest kid I’ve ever seen. Not that I’m surprised, since her father is so damn handsome.
She squeals when she sees her dad, her little face splitting in half with a wide smile as she runs to him. He picks her up, showering her with kisses, pulling her into a long hug. This is a side of him I obviously haven’t seen. I have to fight back big ugly tears as I watch, because it’s dawning on me what he’s given up in order to keep his club running and keep her safe at the same time. I, at least, had my father in my life. He was a bossy sonofabitch who wouldn’t give me any freedom, but at least I had him.
They head to the house, Griz carrying the little girl as if she weighs nothing. It’s very modern inside, for as simple as it is on the outside. Small, maybe, with a formal living room that leads into a kitchen. The colors are bright and the furniture is simple and understated, but decidedly expensive looking.
I follow them inside, not sure what to do as Shannon chatters about her first few days of first grade. She talks about her teacher and the new pet their classroom is getting. It’s a moment before the little girl notices me. Her eyes go wide when she does.
“Hey, you’re the pretty lady I saw on the TV!” she exclaims. “I told Daddy to rescue you. Did he rescue you?”
“He did,” I say, giving her a tearful smile. “I’m Tanner.”
The little girl wiggles around until Griz puts her down. She runs over to me and holds out a hand for me to shake. “I’m Shannon.”
We shake hands and I drop to my knees so I can be at eye level with this little beauty.
“Did the bad guys do that to you?” she asks, touching the scrapes on my face, the fading bruises on my neck.
“They did,” I answer. “But they can’t hurt me anymore.”
“That’s good. You’re like a princess. My daddy is the prince who rides in and saves you from a dragon.” She makes a sour face. “Though I guess princesses can save themselves sometimes.”
I laugh, “Yes, sometimes they can, that’s for sure. And sometimes they save the prince, how about that?”
“Sometimes dumb-butt princes need someone to save them,” Cary agrees. She looks at me with a shrug, “As you can see, she’s becoming a bit of a feminist lately.”
Griz rolls his eyes and mutters, “Great, three of you now.”
“Hmm,” Shannon grunts, thinking on this idea. “Well, I’m hungry. What’s for snack?”
Cary laughs and says, “I think Dad can figure it out. I’ve got to run back to the hospital to cover another shift. I’ll call Marisol on the way and let her know she doesn’t need to come by today.”
We settle into the afternoon, as I get to know little Shannon. She’s not a fan of pink, apparently, because she feels it is too gender specific. She enjoys princess movies but only the ones with strong princesses, not weak ones. When I ask her which are which, she gives me a long lecture on how Mulan, Tiana, and Moana are much better than Cinderella and Snow White. Her logic is actually really good and I sort of forget I’m talking to a kid who’s barely going to be six years old.
“She might be a genius,” I whisper to Griz at one point in the day.
“Yeah,” he agrees, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’m really in for it, huh?”
Shannon accepts me so easily, like she’s just been waiting for her father to find someone. She mentions, more than once, that she’s never met any of her father’s friends. She asks if I’ll be coming back around more.
Griz clears his throat at this. “Well, how would you feel about that?” he asks.
“Good,” she says. “I mean, she can come over all the time. That would be fine.”
“Well, then, I think it’s time to tell you that Tanner and I are together, like a couple,” Griz says.
“Are you getting married?” she asks innocently.
I laugh. Griz frowns.
“We’ll talk about that later,” Griz says. “But for now, we need to talk about maybe us living here as a family together. How would you feel about that?”
Shannon squeals and jumps into her father’s embrace. He smiles. A real, wide, dazzling smile that stops my breath.
“I’ll take that to mean you’re okay with it?” he asks, laughing.
“Yes! Yes!” she squeals again. “Oh, my goodness, Daddy! I can’t wait to tell Aunt Cary!”
“Well, let me talk to her first, okay?” he says gently. “We have some adult things to figure out together. Okay?”
“Okay. And can we get a puppy? Or a kitten? “
“One step at a time,” he says.
She skips off, talking to herself about having a mom and a dad. I find myself watching her with my hand over my heart. When I come back to reality, I find Griz staring at me, a nervous expression on his face.
“What?” he asks.
“I’ve just never seen you like this,” I say. “And Shannon … she’s beautiful.”
“She is,” he says, his expression shuttering. “She looks so much like her mother.”
I wander over to him, folding into his embrace. “I’m not trying to replace someone you loved,” I say. “I want her to know who her mother was.”
Griz takes a long time to respond. “I can’t tell her that her mother was a prostitute, Tanner.”
“No,” I agree, “but you can tell her that her mother was beautiful and that she made you push to work harder, to be a leader. You can tell her that her mother was loved very much. It’s okay to talk about Giselle, Griz. She deserves to be remembered, if only because you loved her. Shannon needs to know that.”
“I’ve tried very hard not to think about her for a long time.”
“I know.”
He pulls away to look at me. “I don’t like lying, Tanner. I’m nothing if not honest, probably to a fault. And I don’t like lying to your father about this marriage that didn’t happen.”
I open my mouth. Shut it again. I know he understands that I did it to keep my father from marrying me off to Kit. But he’s also really irritated that we’ve had to keep up this lie.
He bites his bottom lip. “This is so crazy,” he says.
“Do you still want me to stay with you?” I ask, not sure what he’s trying to tell me. “I mean, I know this is fast. I can tell my dad the truth, go back to the Grave Robbers while you and I figure things out.”
“No,” he says.
“No?” I ask.
“No, I mean … I want you to stay. I wouldn’t have said anything to Shannon if I didn’t. And yes, it’s fast, but I want it. All of it. And I don’t want to be a liar, so I think, maybe, we should make this official.” He gives me a shy grin, another expression I’ve never seen on him before. “If you want?”
I feel myself smirking, giving him a bemused look. “I guess I’m not getting it?”
He falls to one knee, pulling out a ring from his pocket. “Tanner, will you marry me for real?”
I nod, tears starting instantly. My “yes” comes out more of a croak than anything. Griz puts the simple engagement ring on my finger, stands, and pulls me to him, his mouth on mine instantly.
We kiss and kiss, until an impatient little noise interrupts. Shannon stands in the doorway with a flabbergasted look on her little face. “What are you two doing? Makin’ babies?”
I laugh out loud and Griz just rolls his eyes. “That is not how babies are made,” he scolds. “We’re just kissing.”
“Well, it looks gross. And messy.” She sticks her tongue out and says, “Let’s get pizza for dinner and eat it on the couch and watch a movie, ’kay?”
He agrees and when she wanders into the living room to pick a movie, he says, “Full-time parenting, here we come. I think it will be worse than the club.”
“You’re used to being the boss,” I say. “This will be an adjustment.”
“I am the boss,” he growls.
“If you say so.”
I leave him grumbling about definitely still being the boss as he dials for pizza.
This is going to be fun.
Epilogue
Griz
My wife sits down on the beach, her long legs stretched out in the sand, gorgeous face tilted up to the sun.
We did the paperwork at the courthouse back home just a few days ago, six months after I proposed. It was too damn long, in my opinion. Once I asked the question, once I put that ring on her finger, I was ready. It was real for me. But she wanted to give me time to settle in to this new life we’ve created together.
First, we had to merge the Chained Angels with the Grave Robbers. I lost a few more guys, which wasn’t unexpected. They simply did not agree with my leadership style and sure as hell didn’t want to see the club under new management. I told them not to let the door hit them on the way out; I’ve got no room in my club for guys who want violence for violence’s sake and neither does Draven.
Speaking of which, It took some major adjustment to fall in line under Draven Williams. It’s not that he’s not a good man; he is. But he’s bullheaded and, I’m told, I’m bullheaded, and that means we butted horns a few times before we came to agreement on how to proceed. Also, he’s Tanner’s father and I’m screwing his daughter, so that makes for some weird family dynamics at times.
I did retain the Chained Angels’ headquarters, which will serve as a secondary club station, under my control and continued ownership. Draven’s HQ remains his. We’ve created new colors to add to our kuttes, showing the merger but allowing us to keep our individual identities. It’s a good compromise, more than I deserve, really.
Spike’s death haunts me. I think about him more than I’d care to admit. When I named him my vice president, he was cocky for sure, but I liked his bravado. We were trying to build something new, and I needed someone more reckless than I was. I had calmed down a lot once Giselle and I got serious, even more so once I knew she was pregnant. Spike never minded leading deals and shakedowns. He was vicious and, frankly, a really good negotiator. I needed him in the first few years, because I was grieving Giselle and if I’d gone out in his place, I’d have killed a lot of people.
He was a friend, for a while. And then he wasn’t. It feels like my responsibility, not just his death, but the way he was living his life there at the end. I wasn’t paying attention. I wasn’t stopping him from going down the rabbit hole. Who the fuck knows if I could’ve changed anything for him, but I should’ve tried. Addiction is a nasty disease and while we certainly risk getting close to it, with some of the business we do, I never expected one of my top guys to succumb the way he did.
Putting him in his grave feels like a betrayal, but I’d do it again to save Tanner. And even though she, of all people, has the most right to hate him, she’s been the one telling me to forgive myself, to forgive him, to move on.
Tanner. She turns and smiles at me where I sit under an umbrella, reading a textbook. Yes, a fucking textbook because my old ass is starting to take business classes. I can’t have my old lady being more educated than I am. Plus, I want to make good on getting that gym up and running. She’s studying for the personal training exam, and I’m eyeballing locations. It’s going to be a good distraction, a legit venture that will not have the feds eyeballing me.
She waves for me to join her, so I mark my place and shuffle through the sand, plopping down next to her, pulling her into my body. She’s warm from the sun.
“How’s the studying?” she asks.
“I feel old,” I admit.
“You are old,” she says.
“Call me old one more time, I dare you.”
“You’re old,” she says, grinning wickedly.
I pull her over my knee as she squeals. I move her bathing suit bottom to the side, exposing her round ass cheek, smacking it playfully as she squirms.
There’s no one out here. I made sure we had private beach for a mile when I booked this trip. It’s nothing for me to lie back and let her crawl up to sitting, her face mock offended at my display of dominance, her ass still hanging out the back of her bottoms.
“Spanking, Griz?” she scolds. “Really?”
“I like it as a behavioral tool, yes,” I answer, my arms behind my head.
“I’m not a child,” she says.
“You are most certainly not,” I say. “Thank God.”
“Why thank God?” she asks.
“Because I want to do very bad things to you and it would make me beyond perverted to want you the way I do if you were a child.”
Her whole body blushes at the comment. It still shocks me to see her blush like that, after all we’ve been through, all we’ve done. All the times I‘ve told her how much she affects me, how much I love her. I hope she blushes like that twenty years from now.
“What is it you want to do with me?” she asks, her voice husky.
“Feeling adventurous?” I ask with a wink.
“Maybe,” she says. “Maybe I need a glass of wine first, though, after looking at your expression.”
I laugh and help her to her feet, following.
“That can be arranged, Mrs. Grisham.”
# # #
Tanner
“I love you,” I say, moaning as the sweet wine coats my tongue. “This is so fucking good.”
“Easy to please,” he says, sipping his own wine. “And a cheap date.”
“Who you callin’ cheap, brother?” she asks, laughing.
We’re in the hot tub of the way-too-huge beach rental he procured for our honeymoon. I’m on his lap, straddling him as I sip the cold, sweet, bubbly, summery Moscato. We’ve already enjoyed an amazing lobster dinner as, I’ve discovered, Griz is an amazing cook. Who knew?
“So, earlier, you asked if I was feeling adventurous,” I say, grinding on his lap, kissing his neck. “Whatcha got in mind?”
“Eager, are we?” he asks, smirking.
“Always eager to have you inside me,” I say in his ear, giving it a lick.
He groans and stands, holding me against him, the water sliding off of both of us as we drip our way in to the house. He deposits me, still wet, on the kitchen table.
My bikini is gone in an instant and I shiver, having gone from the hot water to the cool, evening air. My nipples are hard nubs, my breasts creamy and white where my tan doesn’t touch them. Griz takes one nipple between his fingers, the other into his mouth. I arch into
him, loving everything he does to my body. Every touch, every kiss, every lick goes straight to my core.
He makes his way slowly down my body, his mouth stopping at my belly button, his teeth grazing my pelvic bones, driving me crazy. When he kisses my sex, he starts outside, licking at my folds, only parting them once he’s sure I’m crazy for him. His tongue works my clit, then down to my pussy, into the hole, his fingers following.