Edison's arm gave me another, tighter, squeeze. "You deserved it too, Lenny."
"Not every girl gets to be that lucky, Edison. That's not how the world works."
"No, it's not," He agreed. "And every man like the ones you have known who drops the ball with these little girls makes a generation of women who aren't able to tell another one of them from the ones who are happy to pick up the ball. So you don't even bother trying to tell us apart. "
"It's easier to never get romantic ideas in your head like that, Edison. If there's one thing I have seen over and over in my life, it's that you should never put your trust in someone else. They'll drop it. They drop it every single time."
His free hand moved, reaching for mine, sliding his palm against mine. It was so much bigger, his fingers inches longer, his palm another half a hand bigger than mine. The skin was calloused in spots too, the pads under his fingers and down on the lower right side.
And as I was marveling at these little things, his fingers shifted, moving between mine, then curling, holding on tight. Almost too tight.
"I've got a good grip, Lenny."
Those were the last words he spoke before slowly drifting off to sleep, still holding my hand.
And they were words that kept me awake for at least another hour, rolling over and over, until letters I had known since I was four suddenly looked like hieroglyphics, until the sounds I had rolled off my tongue countless times sounded a lot like a foreign language.
I rolled them around until they became something else entirely.
Because the words kept at face value, with the vehemence in which he said them, well, I almost could let myself believe he meant it.
—
I woke up to something tickling my nose.
And it took me an unfathomably long time to realize that that was unusual.
I was a heavy sleeper and hard-waker so even as I swatted at the thing doing the tickling, and something attached to the thing made a low, rumbling chuckle noise at my sleepy growl, it didn't quite click that someone was tickling my nose, and that no one should have been tickling my nose because no one was ever in my place.
In fact, I didn't actually start to genuinely be awake until the fingers drifted from my nose to trace my lips, and that very sweet, very chaste contact sent a surge of desire between my legs.
Then I became acutely aware of the fact that I was somehow naked, though I never slept that way, the sheets bunched up around my waist, my bare breasts exposed to the cool air, nipples hard.
"What..." I hissed, completely awake in a blink, shooting up in the bed on an inward gasp.
"Easy," Edison's voice called, soothing, but also amused. When my head whipped in his direction, he was sitting at the very edge of the mattress, showered, judging by his damp hair, and redressed in his usual all black. "Been trying to wake you up for five minutes," he informed me, clearly amused by that fact. "Figure you're not used to waking up in a strange place, so I'll let it slide this once. But the next time, I am waking you up in a fuckuva more fun way."
Even just the idea of that made my walls tighten. "Nuh-uh," he said, seeming to pick up on my reaction. "Not this morning. This morning, I have chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream, potatoes, and coffee to buy you."
Lips curving up as I scooted closer, reaching out to run my hand up his thigh, I countered, "I can do without pancakes. Come back to bed..."
He was shaking his head even before I finished speaking. "Nope." My hand shifted inward, gliding over the crotch of his jeans. "Fuck," he growled, and I thought I had him. But then his hand closed over mine, his fingers lacing inward. "I got a promise to keep," he told me, shrugging.
I felt my brows drawing together. "You're going to turn down sex for a promise?"
"Can fuck you another time, Lenny. But I only got one chance to keep my first promise to you."
"It's a silly-" I started, but he cut me off.
"It's not silly. It's fucking important because it proves that if I am this dedicated to a minor promise, that I will move mountains to keep the big ones."
There was a tightening sensation in my chest that I didn't have a name for, but it felt important.
Sensing a shift, and maybe not wanting me to overthink it, he gave my hand a squeeze, and when my eyes met his again, they were dancing. "If you eat fast, I'll take you back to your place... and eat you slow."
There was no stopping the smile that pulled at my lips at that. "Well, I think I can make that happen."
"Alright, get dressed," he said, giving my hand a squeeze before releasing it to point to a folded pile of my clothes.
I reached for them, finding a dryer sheet between my pants and shirt. "Did you wash them?"
"I get up early," was the only explanation I got as he moved toward the door that led to the hall. "I gotta go talk to the prez for a few. Just come on out when you're ready."
I waited for him to close the door fully then hopped up, making my way to the bathroom where I found an extra towel, and a toothbrush still in the wrapping. I decided against the shower, brushed my teeth, finger-combed my hair, then got into my clothes that were still slightly warm from the dryer. I made my way out into the hall, hearing a chorus of male voices, some of which I recognized from the night before. Most prominently, I could hear Adler's distinctive accent, likely saying something characteristically sarcastic. I could hear Edison as well, talking to someone with a deep, smooth voice.
"Couple hours."
"And I told you I needed you here."
Uh-oh.
He was in trouble.
"Reign, everyone else is—"
"Doing what they're supposed to."
Maybe he wanted to keep his promise, but I didn't want him to get into trouble with an outlaw biker president to make it happen.
"Hey," I called, making all the heads in the room - several more than were there the night before - turn to me. "It's okay. You can get me pancakes some other morning," I said, and found that I actually meant it. I was willing to do more overnights with him.
The man Edison had been talking to - Reign - turned to me, his light green eyes assessing. Even if I didn't know he was the president, I would have guessed it. It was in the laid-back ease with which he carried himself mixed with a seemingly unshakable confidence, and more than a pinch of danger.
"He's supposed to be buying you pancakes?" he asked, the phrase seeming ridiculous coming from a man such as him. But he still seemed to be able to do so without losing any of his edge.
"Chocolate chip," I agreed. "With whipped cream," I added, not sure why I did so. I wasn't one for embellishing. I usually kept things as short and sour as possible.
"Don't mind me picturing you licking that whipped cream off a finger," Adler commented, still in cuffs, but looking just as relaxed about it as he had been the night before.
Reign considered me for another second, then looked back at Edison. "You get your woman her fuckin' pancakes, then you get your ass back here."
"Got it," Edison agreed, holding out an arm that I found myself walking into, despite the crowd, despite the fact that I had never walked with a man whose arm was around my shoulders, despite me knowing deep down that this was never going to last.
"You shouldn't get yourself into trouble because of me," I told him as he led me over to his bike.
"It's fine. Reign is just on high alert."
Right.
Because a couple years ago, it was all over the papers.
Dozens of men slain.
Right there in their own clubhouse.
It was non-stop bar room talk at Meryl's for six months after.
"Is there something going on that..."
"Everything is fine," he assured me, handing me a helmet, then climbing on his bike.
That being that, I climbed on as well.
And Edison brought me to a brunch place that was all pink and white, making him in all his manly glory stand out all the more.
"Thought you wanted cho
colate chip pancakes," he said, leaning back in the booth, smiling over his mug of coffee as I reached across the table to snag another bite of his Nutella ones. I had eaten more than he had at this point.
"That was because I didn't know Nutella pancakes existed," I told him as I snagged some of his hashbrowns as well.
"How long has it been since you've been to a breakfast place?"
I shrugged at that, reaching for my orange juice. "Six months, give or take."
Letha had wanted to treat me.
She had been unusually detached, slow to smile.
I should have known, damnit.
I should have fucking said something.
But I thought it was just the week.
Jake had died the year before.
We had been closing in on the anniversary.
I couldn't have known.
"That's a dark mood, love," Edison observed, uncomfortably good at reading me.
"Bad memory," I admitted, wanting to be honest, but also make it clear that I didn't want to talk about it.
Of course I didn't.
No one wanted to think about the last time they saw their sister conscious, breathing on her own, talking, walking.
Before she threw herself off a three-story building.
And everything, everything changed.
"Someday, maybe you'll tell me."
"Someday, maybe I will," I allowed, it being as close as I could get to saying that maybe I even wanted that, to tell someone, to lessen the burden slightly.
"So," he said, putting his cup down, spreading his arms down on the table top.
"So?" I parroted, finally putting my fork down, admiring that while my eyes and tongue wanted more, my stomach was threatening to pop the button of my jeans.
"You done fighting me?"
"Fighting you on what?"
"This," he said, waving a hand between us.
"Edison," I started.
"Oh, I know that voice. That is your 'I'm about to say something about not being the kind of woman who gets involved in any permanent capacity' voice."
"Oh, wow, it has its whole own voice?" I asked, smirking because I was uncomfortable with how accurate he was.
"I'm not asking you to change who you are, Lenny. I like what I have gotten to see so far. All I am asking is that you let me see more. And, well, keep fucking you," he added, wholly unconcerned with people at the other tables overhearing.
"I'm definitely down with the fucking," I agreed, voice much lower than his had been. I might have had a mouth like a sailor, but the woman one table over had a little blonde girl in a tutu that reminded me so much of Letha at her age that I instinctively had that urge to protect her innocent ears like I had been with my own sister.
"I can compromise. Fucking with overnights."
"What, exactly, do you think you will accomplish by sleeping over?"
"Well, there's the obvious benefit of being able to fuck you at night and in the morning."
"Clearly," I agreed, lips curving upward slightly.
"And you might get used to having me around. Maybe if you get used to having me around, you can open up more." When I didn't immediately answer, taking my coffee to drink as the waitress cleared the table, he leaned slightly forward on the table. "I'm just asking that you give it a try, love. That's it."
"I guess I can give it a shot."
And from then on, I did.
I tried.
As much as I knew how to.
Sometimes it was easy.
Like when we got back to my apartment, and he slammed me back against the inside of my door, dragged down my pants and panties just enough to give him access, then feasted on me like breakfast just didn't quite hit the spot.
Other times, it felt forced, felt a bit like what it was - trying.
The next three nights, coming home after my shift then getting a text or call asking me to come over.
It was so foreign to me. Not necessarily the booty-call aspect, since I had had a fuck-buddy situation or two in my life, but because I knew if I went there, he was going to have me stay.
The first night, I'd refused.
One overnight was enough, I felt, for a two-day period.
I had gotten out of the shower to my phone screaming on my bed.
When I sat down to answer, Edison's voice was a low, sexy growl. "Slide your hand down and touch your pussy," he demanded, and I could hear the barely-contained desire in his voice. The image of him across town with his cock in his hand was enough to send desire flooding through me in an instant.
Then I did something I never did.
I did what a man told me to do.
Afterward, the conversation somehow ended up on movies, and I learned that prior to ten years ago, Edison knew nothing about American movies. He'd never seen the classics like Die Hard, Rocky, or even The Breakfast Club, and had never known the disgusting childhood delicacies like Hi C, Lunchables, or French Toast Crunch.
"Why not just have real French toast?" he'd asked, sounding confused.
"Because I was eight and not allowed to use the stove yet," I told him with an eye roll even though he couldn't see. "Besides, it doesn't actually taste like French toast. Kind of like how Cookie Crisp doesn't actually taste like cookies."
"Never had that either," he admitted.
"You've been deprived. Or, you know, had a mother who actually gave a shit about you," I said, meaning to keep it light, but he took the topic of conversation and picked it up, telling me about his mother who sounded like she did, of course, love him a hell of a lot more than my mother loved me. Though she'd died when he was young, and his voice went uncommonly guarded around that part, which, well, was something I understood too much to push, even if maybe I wanted to.
The following night, twenty bucks of a "finder's fee" in my pocket from Meryl because yet another trip had been made from a Henchmen to the store, this time to load up on beer, and not Pabst or Natty Ice, but actually the stuff that didn't taste like piss in a can, and therefore cost more, I made my way to the food store, then over to the compound where Edison met me inside the door, and I held out dinner.
A box of French Toast Crunch and a box of Cookie Crisp, along with a gallon of milk.
And the laugh he let out, and the light in his eyes at my idea made a strange, tingly sensation spread across my chest.
And I figured maybe trying wasn't so bad after all. He'd fucked me in the shower that night from behind, whispering something low and filthy-sounding in Romanian, something that sent shivers through my belly - and lower - until a screaming orgasm crashed through me, echoing off the tiles in the shower. He kept thrusting too, repeating something over and over that I couldn't understand but for some reason sounded a lot like praise as he found his own orgasm, then pulled me back against his chest until my newfound aftershocks subsided.
The next morning, knowing he was an early riser, and not wanting to have to answer questions about where I was heading, I got up early.
But already, his side of the bed was empty.
I rushed to get ready, trying to limit the amount of time he would have to answer questions.
But when he walked in with egg and cheese bagels with coffee from She's Bean Around - a luxury I only allowed myself on holidays or my birthday - and found me looking ready to bolt, a darkness came over his eyes that looked a lot like disappointment.
And, maybe for the first time with a man, I really, really didn't like seeing it there.
"I have an... appointment today, but I have a little bit," I told him, forcing a small smile that seemed to take a little of the tension out of his shoulders.
He wanted me to try.
And I was.
But this was maybe the first time I got to see that he too was trying.
I wasn't delusional.
He was an outlaw biker.
He had a voice that liquified panties within a mile around.
He had a dark and dangerous and sexy as all fuck vibe to him.
<
br /> He could have, and likely had, enjoyed way more than his fair share of women. Casually. Because that was the lifestyle he lived in. Guns, money, drinking, danger, and chicks.
That didn't bother me.
Every woman in his past was part of the reason he was who he was; they had to be alright with me.
Because I was really starting to appreciate who he was.
But because I knew what his lifestyle was like, I knew that this - whatever this thing was between us - was as new to him as it was to me.
We were both clumsy pioneers, exploring, trying to find our footing in a new landscape.
Edison, well, he was much more sure-footed than I was.
And, sure, maybe he came more prepared for the task, maybe his bag was full of provisions and safety nets and a compass navigating his way.
I was not so lucky, and I felt like I was constantly tripping, falling on my face.
But Edison?
Yeah, he was pulling both our weights.
And since I knew this was as new to him as it was to me, that said he was really trying.
And he needed to know I wasn't shoving that in his face.
"Thanks for this," I told him, meaning it, as I took a long, sip of the best coffee in town, moving to sit on the bed, and he joined me, spreading out the food, holding up the ketchup packet with a question in his eye.
"Duh," I said with an eye roll, snatching it away from him, nipping the corner, and spreading it on my food, then reaching for the salt as well. "Stop silently judging me," I commanded, feeling his eyes on me as he simply bit into his as-is.
"Watched you put ketchup on breakfast potatoes, love. I don't think anything is going to shock me now."
"No? Wait til you see what I put on mac & cheese," I said, smiling as I lifted my sandwich. "Hint, it is a red condiment."
"Lenny, that's just wrong," he declared, shaking his head at me.
And it was light.
It was easy.
It took no effort to enjoy breakfast with him, to small talk, to just be a normal fucking human being for a little bit.
I liked it.
I liked it more than I should have, more than was likely healthy so soon.
But I wasn't going to over-think it and spoil it.
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