by V. Theia
Not like it’s the first time it’s happened.
He gets drunk and then horny, so he fucks. Then Arson is lucky if he remembered the chick’s name in the morning.
“Looks like someone had a good time,” remarked Danny, a smile on his face when Arson glanced up. Danny pointed to his own cheek. “You have pink lipstick here.”
Without a word, he scrubbed the shame off his cheek.
“Don’t let me keep you, pastor.” He said.
“You okay, man?”
This was where Arson would laugh it off, paste on a smile and give his generic bullshit answer that he was great. He’d been doing the same routine for so long now that the words were right there on the tip of his tongue and yet … he couldn’t get them through his lips.
The lies wouldn’t come, and he started to sweat, though the cold howled through his body. He glanced up at the religious man and saw something in those blue eyes.
A truth. An understanding.
The whole of Arson’s head started to buzz.
“I don’t know.” He answered with a croak. “I don’t fucking know.”
The pastor shifted his body and sat at the side of Arson. “That’s good.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. Saying you don’t know is better than saying yes when you know it isn’t.”
There was silence.
A lot of silence.
“My best friend nearly died, and I wasn’t there. Tag could’ve died and where the fuck was I? I don’t even know.”
“Yeah, I heard it was a bad fight. How is he now?”
“They had to fix his cheek.”
Birds sang nearby, he could hear traffic, but the loudest noise came from Arson’s own head. Urging him to go and get a drink.
One more isn’t gonna hurt. Make it feel right again.
“What brings you here, Arson?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I woke up here. It’s what I do. I’m a fuck up.”
Arson was grateful for Danny not giving him pity.
“Why don’t you come inside out of the cold. My wife insists that there’s nothing tea and toast can’t fix. You’ll notice the doorstep thick measure of Nutella she heaps on hers.”
If only Arson could be fixed with a piece of toast.
He started to refuse but the other man got in his face in that kind fucker way Danny had about himself. It was almost as if divine intervention was yanking on Arson, except he didn’t believe in any of that mumbo jumbo shit.
“You don’t know it now, Arson, but you’re at the right place.”
“Don’t get offended, Danny, but I’m not into finding Jesus.”
Danny smiled, unbothered by the religious rejection. “No, but you found an addict who can help you if you need it. If not, there’s tea and toast and a warm place to sit for a while with no judgement.”
The pastor was an addict?
Danny confirmed with a smile. “I go to NA every week, sometimes twice if I need it. The demon never climbs off my back but it’s bearable now.”
“You?”
Danny inclined his head. “It can happen to anyone, man. I asked for help and help was there.”
Shit.
If addiction had gotten hold of a man like Danny, then Arson stood no chance.
He wasn’t good or righteous. He wasn’t one of those who deserved a second chance.
It was obvious he needed a bottle and a body and then his addictions would make him stop shaking.
“Arson, are you okay?” The man asked again and this time, clarity hit, and Arson realized what he was saying.
They met eyes and the weight of the world rested on Arson’s shoulders before he answered.
“No.”
Danny smiled and rested a hand on Arson’s arm. “Come on inside for tea and toast.”
Tea and toast.
He’d remember those words.
Even on the days that blacked out.
Tomorrow.
The day after.
The one after that.
When his memories became sketchy. He remembered tea and toast with a good man and his wife.
And the help he desperately needed.
TWENTY-FIVE
“Keys to the kingdom and to his love.” - Roux
“Miss. Tucker, I’m going to need a decision, this apartment has a lot of interest.” The realtor informed, as Roux walked around the open plan living room again.
She loved the balcony and she’d been keen only days ago to sign a lease but now something felt not right.
“Yeah, give me a minute,” she responded and stepped out onto the second floor balcony that overlooked Armado Springs. Pulling her phone from her back pocket, she hit the number and listened to it ringing. He picked up after three.
“Hey, Cookie. What’s up, baby?”
“I want to live with you.”
Roux was never about beating around the bush but even those words came as a shock to her too. She’d semi been thinking about it, wanting it for a long time. Why did she apply for an apartment when all she wanted to do was be with Tad?
“Thaddeus? Did I lose you?”
“No, I’m here, baby.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Come to my place now.”
“What? Aren’t you going to answer?” Her forehead wrinkled and she toyed nervously with the row of ear piercings.
Maybe he wasn’t ready.
They’d only officially started to date, even though she’d felt like she’d been his for four years already.
“Cookie, if you wanna say that to me, you say it to my face, not over the phone. Come to my place, I’m at home.”
“Oh.” Air whooshed out of her. “But it’ll take me a while to get there, can’t you say something? I’m viewing a rental right now, but I want to live with you.”
“Roux,” he growled and sent tremors and grins through her.
God, he was fucking bossy.
Why she liked it, she didn’t know.
“Fine. I’m hungry, I need to stop for a waffle cone first.”
“Straight here, Cookie.” The bossy bastard demanded and then he hung up.
He hung up on her!
Roux and her rumbling belly drove the few blocks. Her hunger was forgotten when his front door opened even before she’d switched off the engine.
Those eyes. God, staring through to her soul and her gaze swept him up and down, lazy and starved. He always looked good in whatever he wore. Roux was a typical biker girl when the sight of denim and thick boots did it for her. But the relaxed look of jeans held tight to his lean hips and a sleeveless muscle shirt clinging to his torso ramped up her temperature in seconds as she took the slow walk up the pathway toward him.
“Hey,” she smiled.
He didn’t smile back.
He was too busy eyeing her up and down when he shackled her wrist, pulling her inside, she went along with a grin.
Her medical man was so intense sometimes, and she loved that she got to see this side of him. He dropped her arm and stalked through the house.
Roux dumped her purse and jacket on the floor and Tad turned to stare at the mess. “You’re gonna have to learn to be less messy if you’re moving in, Cookie.” He declared and stole the air from her lungs.
Not allowing her shocked feet to stop moving, she advanced forward in front of him. Roux half smiled and slid her hands around his waist, feeling him tremble when her fingers sneaked beneath his shirt to rest on his waist. “Am I moving in?”
At first, Tad didn’t touch her. Big fucking tease.
His head hung down over his neck and a lock of hair was unruly on top of his head making him even sexier than usual. Then his hands took hold of her upper arms and drew her in, so they were belly to belly.
“Because I already told the realtor no on that apartment. I mean it was nice, had a cool balcony I could see myself eating breakfast on and I loved the bathtub.”
“Roux…”
“But it didn’
t have you there. And I want to live in a place that has you in it. I want to eat breakfast with you and wake up next to you.”
Was she convincing him?
“So, you should say yes.”
“It depends.”
Roux blinked, unable to read what he was thinking. She couldn’t tell if his straight face meant he was happy or trying to let her down gently.
He better not even try because she’s known how to shoot a gun since she was six.
Realistically, what happened recently showed she did not do good with dead bodies. And she didn’t want to kill him…per say… but if he refused her, well… Roux might have to rough him up.
She’d nurse him back to health, after he groveled a lot.
“Depends on what? I’d be a fantastic girlfriend to live with, don’t even suggest I wouldn’t be. All the sex should be enough to convince you.”
She was ready to erupt into an almighty temper if he went on looking at her without saying anything. Fine, if he didn’t want her living with him, she’d get a place on the edge of Denver, make him travel an hour away to see her. See how he liked that.
Then he smiled and she felt herself wilt and sag into him, her hands sneaking further around his waist.
“I can see all those cogs turning in your beautiful head. Were you killing me?”
“Maybe. Now tell me what you’re thinking.” She pinched his non-existent body fat and he grinned wider, leaned down to kiss her lips.
“As I said, you moving in all depends.”
“Oh, my god, Thaddeus. Tell me what. I mean, you’re getting the better end of this deal. You get me, in your bed, in your kitchen, in your living room, every single day. You should be begging me.”
His expression was one of male satisfaction and heat.
It never took much to rile Roux and when she got going…
He kissed her again and once more she wilted. Dammit.
“I think if a woman wants to live with me.”
“Me. Not a woman, not any other fucking woman.” She hissed and Tad full out laughed. “Fuck, you’re a wild thing, aren’t you? As I said, if a woman wants to live with me, I think she needs to tell me she loves me first.”
Oh…
Well…
Oh…
The smugness etched into his perfect face was one of sheer male pleasure.
Roux tipped her head back when he cupped each side of her head and brought her within a breath’s distance. “Do you want me to live here with you, Thaddeus?” She whispered.
“More than anything.”
When she went up on her tiptoes, Tad leaned down further, and she nuzzled her nose along his. “I’ve been so crazily in love with you for a long time. Now can I please move all my crap in and make a mess of your gorgeous house?”
The smile to cross his face was one of abstract beauty. And that was weird to think that a man was beautiful, but as he smiled, there was no other word for it.
She felt soft and mushy when she’d never felt soft and mushy before. Except when she watched certain episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but who wouldn’t have a feeling when Joyce died?
“Ah, Roux, baby.” Lips as smooth as silk brushed against hers and she reached up for more, to get a deeper kiss from him but he pulled back. “I’ve loved you for thousands of minutes and millions of seconds and I want to fuck you in every room and on every surface.”
“What a poet.” She laughed, clinging her hands around his thick neck. Tad palmed her butt and lifted her into the air until she latched her limbs around him. He set her down on the spotlessly clean kitchen counter.
“Now, what you said about me not being messy…” she bit her lower lip, not even trying to suppress her grin.
Tad groaned and nuzzled her neck. God, his stubble felt amazing.
“I’ll tidy your shit up after you.”
“You will? You want to live with me?”
“Roux.” That’s it. Only her name and it was everything. “I wanted you even when I shouldn’t. Would have packed up all your stuff on day two and got you here if I could.”
Roux’s veins expanded too tight with excitement and she clasped onto his hair, feeling all too much all at once.
The notion of living with him started as a little worm in her brain as she looked around apartments. She wanted independence, sure. But she also wanted to be with her man. It felt like a waste already the years behind them, she didn’t want to waste more by living a year in an apartment and then moving in. To Roux’s way of logic, she was cutting out the middle part. It was genius, really.
“I want to live with you too.”
The kiss that followed was what sex movies were made of.
It curled her toes and put a barrage of hormones through the center of her body until she was moaning into his mouth.
He whispered her name like a sinner would inside of a catholic church. The shiver of his deep timber went through her.
There was only one thing to do.
“I want you,” she told him and then went full on attack mode. First by going after his tongue inside his mouth while her hands fought to rip his shirt off. “Thaddeus,” she huffed, struggling to get the tight cotton over his glorious man boobs, “get with it and help me.”
“Oh, I think you’re doing fine, Cookie.” He swept her off the counter, thank fuck for that. The journey to the bedroom jostled her but she managed to keep her lips attached to his, swallowing his grunts, but Roux was not a quitter and she stayed on him like glue.
“Tell me again,” he growled flattening her to the bed, he came down on top of her, “tell me, Roux.”
“I love you so much.”
“Yeah, you do.” Devastating lips moved over her neck, causing her to cling and whine for more. She vined her legs and pumped up with the use of her glute muscles. “Who do you belong to?”
More kisses. More sucks. More eye flickering pleasure.
“I’m a modern woman, Thaddeus,” she tried to insist, but the whimpering moan when he latched onto a boob and sucked hard kind of undermined her female authority. Especially when she started to rip the hair from his scalp. “Oh, god.”
Instead of more delicious boob kisses, he detached and tipped up her chin.
Oh, he looked like a warrior ready to do some heavy damage and her pussy fluttered.
“Such a modern woman, I’m gonna be fucking running around after you, aren’t I, baby? Gonna have me so pussy whipped as soon as I get you under my roof and in my bed. Whatever you want, you know I’m gonna get.” Well… that didn’t sound too bad, she thought, her grin turning nuclear and she kissed him until her lungs protested. “Who do you belong to, Roux?”
She answered like a dreamy bitch, lack of oxygen, no doubt. “You. You, you, you.”
“Fucking A, baby.”
She’d seen the look of longing on his face so many times, but this was different. Tad looking at her felt different and it filled her with something she didn’t know she’d been looking for.
Happiness.
“Did you say you loved me?” She asked in a low voice, her fingers touching over his face. He kissed those fingers and settled on top of her.
“More than anything, I love you.”
“Okay, good. Now you can fuck me, then we’ll go and get my stuff, yeah?”
He started laughing even as he stripped her naked then sat back on his heels.
He was gorgeous.
His cock was beautiful, and his smile was hers.
She rolled up to her knees and full on flung herself at him and pinned him to the bed and went to town kissing him.
“I’ll fuck you, Roux,” he told her sexy-like as he slid a hand between her legs and dipped into her wetness. His lips molested her neck. “Then we’ll cart all your shit over… but…”
She blinked. But what? “But what?”
His smile was downright wicked and a turn on. “I get to tell your dad.”
Oh, shit.
Roux didn’t worry about that p
otential conflict for the next few hours.
Not while Tad was banging her brains out and whispering all kinds of hot things in her ear while he glided in and out of her.
Such as how he’d make breakfast every morning.
“I like toasted bagels,” she wheezed between finger fucks.
“I know.”
And how he’d run her baths.
“I like them scalding hot with bubbles.”
“Got it, now shut up, Roux, let me fuck you.”
“Oh, okay.” Her mouth skimmed his smile.
And then he whispered how he’d fuck her night and day whenever she wanted his dick.
Then his invasion was steady, so thick, and perfect.
She already loved living with him, and she didn’t even have a key yet.
TWENTY-SIX
“Bang, bang, birthday.” - Butcher
After all their lovemaking and talking, they didn’t actually go to pack up Roux’s life that night.
Axel always made a big thing of her birthday, so she decided she’d do it the day after.
It was a good idea not to cause a fight, which would cut into her gift opening time, because Roux did love getting gifts. Besides Christmas, it was her favorite time of the year. Her biker family might drive her up the wall with their oversized egos and misogynistic logic, but they were not stingy on gifts.
It wasn’t the prospect of letting her dad know she was leaving him that roused Roux from a dead sleep. Her bed was big and white, both the bedspread and the frame. On any given night she could starfish easily. Only, something had awoken her, she was sure she’d felt the bed depress on one side.
About to burrow deeper into the warmth and hope to find a new dirty dream about Tad, an itch tickled her nose and she swatted, only to touch a hand!
Roux almost screamed her head off if not for the hand covering her mouth as she catapulted up in bed but fell back to the pillow when another hand cupped the back of her head gently and came down with her. “Shhh, baby. It’s me.” Tad husked near her ear, removing the hand, calm returning to her frantic body.
“Oh, my god.” She whispered. “I nearly judo throat punched you, Tad.”
The asshole chuckled and rained kisses over her face. “Of course, you did, my killer Cookie.”