Tattered & Torn

by A. J. Downey

Bam! Bam! Bam!

  I jumped and cried out, slapping a hand over my mouth to quell the short terrified sound.

  “Shelly it’s Blue!” a strange voice I’d never heard called out from the kitchen door. I dropped the remote into the recliner and breathed out. Blue never really talked so it could be him… I went to the kitchen and pulled a big blade from the butcher’s block on the counter, holding it the way Reaver taught me. I jerked back the blue and white gingham curtain over the kitchen door’s window and let out a breath, shoulders dropping.

  Blue regarded me plaintively through the glass. I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door, he stepped into the kitchen and eyed the butcher’s knife along my forearm. He raised his eyebrow and smirked at me which earned him a scowl.

  “What?” I demanded. He raised a shoulder indelicately and dropped it.

  “Ghost isn’t here,” I said and put the knife away. Blue ran a hand through his light brown hair and blinked like he was willing me to just get it. I rolled my eyes in exasperation.

  “What? You here to babysit me?” he nodded and shifted slightly on his feet.

  “You can talk, you just did… so talk,” I folded my arms across my body and he gave my tits an appreciative once over where they rested above my arms.

  “I’m not club property anymore,” I said softly, and shifted on my own feet, uncomfortably.

  His dove gray eyes widened and his expression seemed a tad upset, he put up his hands and waved them like he was warding something off. “Didn’t mean it like that,” he said and I scraped my bottom lip between my teeth. He had a nice voice.

  “Sure you did. You all do.”

  He looked a bit dejected, “Yeah, you have a nice body and I’m male. Still, I should have had some fucking tact, you’re Ghost’s Old Lady,” It was the closest thing I was going to get to an apology and a pretty good one, so I nodded.

  “Thanks. So you’re here to babysit me huh?” He shrugged and a stubborn scowl crossed his features.

  “Can I use the bathroom?” he asked ignoring my question.

  “As long as you tell me what you’re doing here,” I crossed my arms and he stared at me with a similar look that Reaver got when he went all cold and scary, except Reaver was much, much better at it so I told him so.

  “Reaver is way better at the scary face and he’s my cousin, so how about we cut the bullshit, you tell me why you’re on babysitting duty and then you can go piss or whatever while I contemplate how hard I need to kick my Ol’ Man’s ass.” I raised my eyebrows.

  “Girls aren’t supposed to know we’re watching them,” he grunted.

  “Secret is safe with me, oh white knight. Why are we being watched?” he frowned, I sighed, “Fair enough, go do whatever it is you need to do and I’ll put on some coffee. Should have come in a lot sooner, its cold outside.” he nodded and went past me stopping at the mouth of the hallway.

  “First door on the left,” I said and with another nod he went in and flipped on the light. I started the coffee pot and after the first grunt and the hiss decided to see what was up for myself. He’d left the door open and was standing in the harsh bathroom light trying to peel a square of taped down gauze off his side. I sighed again and he jumped.

  “Let me have a look,” I said gently. He swallowed hard and nodded. The bandage wasn’t in the most convenient location for any do-it-yourself and it was soaked through pretty good. I got it off and saw a pretty decent stitch job, considering.

  “Doc do this for you?” I asked. He shook his head. I frowned. “Why didn’t you have Doc do it?” he gave a one shouldered shrug.

  “This looks pretty bad, were you with Ghost when it happened?” he shook his head.

  “Don’t talk much do you?” again he shook his head, “Lift your arm up?” I showed him what I wanted and he complied. I cleaned and dressed what looked like a pretty serious knife gash and he lowered his arm.

  “Wasn’t so bad was it?” he shook his head and picked up his shirt from the top of the closed lid of the toilet. It was a pretty decent stain in the side. I took it from him and put it in the sink.

  “I got it,” I pulled down the hydrogen peroxide and poured some on the fresh blood. It foamed like mad. Blue’s eyes got wide.

  “Take your cut, I’ll get this stain out and bring you one of Ghost’s shirts,” I told him. I wasn’t happy with having a babysitter but I was secretly grateful not to be alone in the house at the same time. I would grow accustomed to it with time but this was my first night alone and yeah, okay, I was a chicken shit, who was I kidding?

  I finished getting the majority of the blood out of Blue’s tee in the bathroom sink and threw the offending and peroxide soaked material into the washer. I went into the bedroom and found a black Jack Daniels tee shirt in one of Ghost’s drawers.

  “Here, use this one,” I said and held it out to him rubbing my eye. I was suddenly very tired. Blue stood up and shrugged out of his cut which he’d put on over his bare chest. He wasn’t bad to look at but he certainly wasn’t my Ghost. He pulled the tee on which was just a touch too snug through the shoulders and chest and a bit on the short side. Ghost was a large, looked like Blue took an XL. I smiled and laughed a little.

  “It’ll do for now. Coffee?” I asked. He nodded carefully.

  “You aren’t pissed,” he stated.

  I shrugged. “What’s the point of being pissed at you? It’d be like shooting the messenger. I’ve been around the club for a long time. You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t serious, at the same time I’m not an Old Lady like Ashton or Hayden who are new to the MC lifestyle,” he searched my face and nodded.

  “All the Old Ladies have a protective detail?” I asked. There was a slight flinching around his eyes, but other than that, no other tell or change in his expression to tell me anything. Time to work my hoodoo. I had a fifty-fifty shot at getting this right.

  “I see. Don’t let Chandra or Everett catch you. They’d be fucking pissed,” he pursed his lips and looked to the side like he was pissed, a classic ‘Fuck! She got me!’ expression. I laughed.

  “I told you, I’ve been around for a long time. Cream and sugar?” I asked.

  “Cream, no sugar,” he eyed me speculatively. I poured us coffee and motioned for the couch. He sat on it and I curled up in the recliner.

  “Let’s see what’s on,” I fished under me for the remote and turned on the television. It took a minute or two to find a happy medium but we finally settled on The Expendables movies.

  I must have fallen asleep because when I woke, it was to Ghost smoothing back my hair and the On Demand screen telling me all about the latest next big thing. I looked over at the couch and shifted. I was under the blanket from the back of the couch and Blue was gone, his coffee mug and mine had disappeared too.

  “Come on, Honey. Let’s go to bed,” Ghost kissed me and whatever I had been about to ask him flew out the window. I let my man take me to bed.

  Chapter 26

  Ghost…

  She was so beautiful, asleep in my tired old recliner when I got home. I stood there for I didn’t know how long and just looked at her. She was just so damned angelic when she slept it was hard to believe that when she was herself, when you took away all the sadness and doubt that she had just a little bit of devil hidden in those sapphire blue eyes. I let her sleep and went in and took a hot shower, remembering her admonition about coming to bed smelling like work. Fresh and clean I pulled on a pair of comfortable pajama bottoms and padded back down the hall.

  I didn’t want to scare her, I wasn’t really sure how to go about waking her, so I went with a gentle approach and figured if she swung on me I’d deal. I knelt down and smoothed her hair back off her forehead where it’d slipped down over one eye. She jerked, startling and brought her hands free from the throw but I was already talking. Low, like you would sooth a frightened animal or child,

  “Come on, Honey. Let’s go to bed,” I murmured and she looked up, her posture easing when she realized
it was me. I leaned forward and kissed her, and her arms twined around my shoulders. She sighed out against my mouth and I helped her to her feet. She plucked the remote from the recliner’s armrest and turned off the television and gave a long stretch full of feline grace. I had a sudden and extreme urge to run my hands over all that smooth skin exposed along her stomach and ribs where her tee rode up. One I would likely be acting on as soon as I had her in my bed.

  I drifted up the hall behind her, my hands resting lightly on her narrow hips, thumbs tracing lazy circles on her lower back, above the waistband of her leggings. We slipped through the portal of my bedroom door and I gently swung it shut behind us. It was dark, and I reluctantly let her go just long enough to switch on the bedside lamp. The room was instantaneously suffused with a warm golden glow, muted enough to remain relaxing but bright enough to easily see by.

  I turned and went back to her, she was smiling this tiny devilish smile and wasn’t shy or timid at all when I stepped into her personal space. My hands found her hips and I drew her tight against my body, her hands found my arms and smoothed up the outside, along the swell of my shoulders, sending an electric jolt coursing through my blood as her smooth fingertips traced either side of my neck before she captured the back of my head in her hands.

  She molded the front of her body tight to mine and kissed me back just as deeply as I kissed her and I felt such a fierce sense of pride in her that she would be willing to take back what was stolen from her because this time, right here, felt different than the other times we’d come together. It was like Shelly was more engaged, surer of herself, back to being bold and unafraid. She was the girl that had caught my attention and lit my very soul on fire from the moment I’d laid eyes on her that very first time all that time ago and so I let myself go, let myself be consumed and just barely had the forethought to tell her, “You need me to stop you tell me to stop,” before I let my body do all the rest of the talking for me, beginning with my hands.

  I smoothed my hands under her shirt, along her skin, pushing the cups of her bra out of my way so I could palm her breasts. She groaned into my mouth and I felt myself tent the front of my pajama bottoms that much more, which was suddenly an issue for me. The fact that there were this many clothes between my skin and hers was just totally unacceptable. I pulled up on her shirt to the point she had to raise her arms or she’d be trapped in it. She let me take it from her and drop it to the floor but that put a mild distance between us and I wanted her close.

  I pulled her body right up against mine and our mouths found each other again. God my girl could kiss, she was brilliant at it, her tongue stroking along mine, taking her time; the thing I was loving about her now was that she was just losing herself in it. Giving herself over to my hands on her skin, my kiss on her mouth, my body against hers.

  I went for her bra and undid the little hooks in the back, pulling it off her and letting it join her shirt on the floor. She immediately pressed tight against me and I loved the feel of all that warm satin flesh against mine. She didn’t so much as flinch when I went for the waist band of her leggings and I wasn’t exactly taking things slow, or gentle. I peeled both sides down, the material rolling down effortlessly and for once I used my shorter height to my advantage, breaking our mouths apart I trailed kisses and slight love bites down all that smooth and creamy skin.

  “This okay?” I growled and sank teeth into one of her perfect breasts, just enough to leave a slight imprint behind. Shelly gasped, her fingers which were threaded through the back of my hair, tightened against my scalp and pressed me in tighter against her.

  I chuckled darkly, “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” I murmured against her skin.

  “Just shut up and make me feel good,” she said, a wicked curve to her lips. I slapped her ass lightly through her lace panties and she gave a mock-indignant cry.

  “Any other time, any other place you can be mouthy, Sweetheart. It’s one of the things I love about you, but not right now and never this place. Okay?” my phrasing was a little off, as I took time out from my demand to kiss down the rest of her body, until I ended up on one knee in front of her. She looked down at me only slightly apprehensive and I met her jewel bright eyes with a steady gaze. She clasped her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded slowly.

  “You need me to stop, you say so.” I reminded her softly and she met my gaze with a much steadier resolve, nodding a bit more rapidly. I peeled the fabric of her leggings down her long and lovely legs and she stepped out of them obediently. I looked my fill, she was just so fucking stellar, before settling my gaze on those bright inquisitive eyes of hers again. I hooked my fingers in the waistband of her panties and drew them down her legs. Her fingertips lightly resting on my shoulders for balance as she stepped out of those too.

  “So fucking beautiful,” I breathed and pressed a kiss to her stomach, running fingertips from the inside of her ankle all the way up her leg. She shivered but it had absolutely nothing to do with the temperature and I smiled, letting my fingertips graze her most sensitive flesh.

  “God Ghost, yes,” she breathed, her eyes slipping closed. I nudged her thighs apart with my hands and she widened her stance. I slid my fingers back and forth along her opening before plunging two up inside her and her reactions were just so damned fine. Her head tipped back, her fingers digging into the tops of my shoulders she moaned as I worked those two fingers in and out of her, my thumb pressing and teasing her clit.

  Man it took everything I had to stay down. To make her come just once before I took her. I wanted to take her so bad. To have those long limbs wrapped around me to hold her close and breathe her in but I needed something baser and more primal than we’d done to date. It was taking a while to work her up but finally with a flick of my fingers and a swish of my thumb through her wet, she came apart, arching and crying out, legs trembling with the effort to hold herself up. I gave her a little helping hand, a little shove and with a short indignant cry she fell back onto the bed.

  She panted, and looked up at me with a fire in her eyes, and I gave her a feral grin in return. Fear flashed and was quickly overwhelmed by a determination and a trust and even though I didn’t have to I reminded her, I said low and harsh, “You need to stop, you just say so Baby Girl,” before I dropped my pajama bottoms. She pulled herself back onto the bed and crooked a finger at me, a darkness of her own filling her expression.

  “I don’t want to stop, come here,” she ordered, her voice husky and demanding. That was my girl.

  I joined her up on the bed and settled between her thighs, kissing her fiercely, teasing her and myself with some dry humping action. She made me feel like a fucking teenager again and it was just one more thing I loved about her. Well that and the way she writhed underneath me. Shelly, for having a toned runner’s physique, still managed to be all woman. She wasn’t flat as a board, no, she was sweet supple skin and mouthwatering lush curves. The girl managed to have a perfectly rounded ass and a pair of tits that were just a perfect overflowing handful for me.

  It had become entirely too easy to lose myself in her, to just give up all thought and just feel when we were like this. Just me and her, her and me and a seemingly inexhaustible amount of time with which to explore every inch, every bit… right down to the things that couldn’t be seen or touched or tasted in a physical sense.

  I locked hands with her, threading the fingers of my left hand through the spaces between her own, palms pressed seamlessly together and I slipped effortlessly into her, my cock sliding inside her sleek wet heat as if it were meant to be there all along. Shelly’s entire being arched off the bed and pressed into mine, meeting in the middle as I pressed deep, my body meeting flush to hers in every way that counted between two lovers.

  I kissed her lovingly and held her close before I started to move. She gripped my hand and turned those jewel bright eyes on me full force and I was so fucking lost in them, lost to her. This beautiful creature who had been in my thoughts, in my heart and
on my mind non-stop since the first time I’d ever laid eyes on her back in that club room just after I’d set myself up here.

  Shelly had tripped my trigger with her sheer force of will, her sass and her personality from the moment she first parted those gorgeous lips in my direction. I was slain, smitten, whatever you call it and despite my damned pride and both of our stubborn fucking attitude problems here we were and I was never letting her go again.

  “Harder, oh please Derek! Harder!” she gasped. I smiled and untangled my hand from hers, and reared up. I palmed her slender and delicate waist and gripped firmly, but not hard.

  “You tell me if it’s too much.” I reiterated and for the first time I deviated from just simply making love to her and I gave us what we both needed, a deep rough fuck and it was amazing. Shelly balled her fists in the comforter to either side of her lean hips and gasped deep and satisfied into the night, her eyes never leaving mine. I drove into her hard and fast and deep, the cadence of our uneven desperate breathing and the sharp report of my flesh meeting hers filling the bedroom, the entire experience was deep and erotic and just so damned fulfilling I couldn’t hold on. As soon as Shelly started to come around my cock I went with her, giving her two or three more sharp but uneven thrusts before collapsing on top of her.

  I pressed my ear to her chest between her breasts and listened to her frantic heartbeat and the cadence of her ragged breathing. Her fingers swept through my hair, combing it back from my forehead and the sensation made me shudder. She laughed and scratched her nails along my scalp and holy Jesus that felt good. I settled against her, crouched over her and just relaxed, enjoying being with her.

  “That was amazing,” she commented dryly when her breathing had calmed enough to allow for speech.

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “No don’t move!” she cried when I moved to get off of her. I was worried I’d been crushing her, but no dice. She gave a little wiggle beneath me to settle into the cloud of a mattress. We lay together for a long time just catching our breaths as I grew soft inside her.