Tugging her back to the very edge of the bed, he guided himself into her dripping wet, searing heat and, her hips clutched firmly in his hands, he yanked her backwards as he thrust toward her, setting a frenetic, punishing pace. They grunted together every time their bodies collided, and he could feel the walls of her sheath contracting and pulsing around him faster and faster. She put one of her hands between her thighs to work her own clit, but he was jealous of that, wanted to be solely responsible for all her pleasure, finally again to be the one who could get her off, and he wrapped her ponytail around his fist and snatched her up off the bed with such force that her body hitting his knocked the wind out of them both.
Her whole body now at his mercy, he clutched a breast in one hand took her clit between the fingers of the other, and tucked his face in the crook of her shoulder, breathing her in, tasting her sweat and her scent as he thrust and pinched and rolled and rubbed. Her hands covered his and encouraged him to go harder, faster.
“More, more, more,” she chanted, and he gave her more and more.
She came with a guttural scream—God, he missed her screams—her pussy clenching, her clit throbbing, and then he shoved her back to all fours, took her hips in his hands again, and pounded into her until he was shouting “Fuck! Fuck! Lilli!” And they both collapsed forward onto the bed.
They lay there, face to face, him half on her, their legs dangling half off the bed. Lilli opened her eyes.
Isaac smiled. “Missed that, gotta say.”
She smiled back. The smile became a grin. The grin began to beam, and then she was laughing—a full-throated, raunchy sound. “I love you, Isaac Lunden. I fuckin’ love you.”
Now he was home.
~oOo~
In the afternoon, Lilli drove over to Show and Shannon’s to pick up the kids, and Isaac, not yet ready again for more people than Lilli, Gia, and Bo, stayed home and wandered around, reacquainting himself with the house he’d grown up in. Kodi had decided that he was okay, and the dog padded after him, allowing Isaac to ruffle his grizzled head. He’d been only a pup when Isaac had left, not even a year old. Now, for such a big dog—Lilli said he weighed about a buck-fifty—he was old.
They went out into the yard, and Isaac marveled at the changes there. Inside, much was the same. A few pieces of furniture had been rearranged, but for the most part, the first floor looked as he remembered. The kids’ rooms upstairs were a lot different, but, then, so were the kids. He’d left a kindergartener and a preschooler and had come home to two middle-schoolers.
Outside, though, everything was different. The barn had been refurbished and now housed four horses and a pony. Lilli’s kitchen garden had tripled in size. The flower beds that she’d been developing for years were now well established and looked to be practically self-sustaining. Except for the kitchen garden, his grandmother’s rose garden, which was twice the size he’d remembered, and some decorative beds, most of what Lilli had done was native planting, and those plants flourished. The yard he’d neglected for all the years he’d lived here alone, and that his father had neglected for years before that, was a fantastic riot of color and scent.
In addition to the storage and tool sheds, and the barn, and the garage, and his woodshop—which he wasn’t ready to think about yet—there were two new outbuildings, including a treehouse, well built into a big old oak at the side of the house. That hurt Isaac a little—a lot, really—because he’d planned to build one for them but had wanted to wait until Gia was a little older. Then he’d gone away. What had been erected—by the Horde, he was sure—was a good, strong house, but his hands had not built it.
The other building was Bo’s schoolroom, a little house, painted a cheery blue with a bright red, glass-paned door and two big windows on either side. Isaac went into it now, Kodi at his heel. It was a good room, about ten by ten, the floor clean, unvarnished planks. The interior walls were drywalled and painted with chalkboard paint, on which Bo had drawn the repetitive, intricate patterns he seemed to want to draw all the time.
One wall was all shelves, cabinets, and cubbies, filled with books and supplies. Along another wall was a cheap loveseat that looked like it might fold out. A big dog bed lay on the floor at its side. A long bulletin board hung on another wall. In the middle of the room was a round, white table and four bright red plastic chairs.
He was not shocked at all to see that Lilli had gone all out. All out was pretty much her only speed.
One thing he had not needed to worry about while he was away was the family’s finances. The B&B was doing great and had started to make a real profit as the tide for Signal Bend had really turned. The exurbs had finally spread out far enough from the Greater St. Louis Area that the people who wanted some room and some quiet but still needed to work in St. Louis, or at least St. Louis County, had been pushed out their way, facing a two-hour morning commute at best. Isaac wasn’t sure he liked that—he’d liked being remote and ignored—but it didn’t much matter how he felt about it. It was done. Signal Bend was prospering.
That meant that the B&B was prospering. And Valhalla Vin. And Tasha’s clinic. And the reestablished Signal Bend Construction. The club was still the town’s de facto police force, contracted by the business owners to maintain order. As a member of the Horde, Isaac had been pulling in his share of its profits, though it was a lesser share than he would have had as President, lesser even than he would pull in now, as an active, working member of the club. But between Lilli’s income and his, his family was secure. Legitimate business had made them more secure, in more ways, than outlaw work ever had.
So far, the town had managed to maintain the balance between prosperity and selling out. There was no Starbucks, no McDonald’s, no Walmart. There was the IGA and Marie’s. And there were a couple of new, independently-owned restaurants and shops. A bookstore, too. He hadn’t seen any of this yet, but Lilli had kept him apprised as the changes had been happening. Reading and hearing about them and making the differences happen in his mental image of his home were two different things, though, and he felt some trepidation about going into town.
Speaking of trepidation, there was only one building he hadn’t checked out, only one place in his home. Not entirely understanding why the thought of opening his woodshop made the acid in his stomach roil, he turned in the middle of Bo’s schoolroom, intent on climbing that hurdle.
Bo was standing in the doorway.
“Oh. Hey, little man. I didn’t hear you guys get back.” He looked around and realized that Kodi wasn’t in the room with him, either. He’d really gotten lost in his thoughts.
“I like your school. Is it okay that I’m in here?”
Bo nodded.
“Did you have fun at Uncle Show’s?” There were so many children in the family now who didn’t know him. Loki. Millie and Joey—his godchildren. Badger and Adrienne’s three little ones: Henry, Megan, and Caroline.
His own son.
Bo nodded again in answer to his question. Isaac tried something and asked a question that couldn’t be answered with a simple gesture. “What did you do?”
Bo shrugged. Well, okay. That gesture covered just about everything, he supposed.
“Hey. Have you ever been in my woodshop?” He knew the answer. No one had since the last time he’d been in it himself. For Lilli, the shop had become a sacred place, left to wait for him, unchanged.
Bo shook his head.
“Would you like to?”
An emphatic nod, complete with wide eyes. Isaac felt something there. Not a connection, not yet, but something.
“Okay. Let’s do it, then.” They left the room and crossed the yard, Isaac pulling his keys from his pocket as they went. Even putting keys in his pocket, and his wallet, on its chain, had been an event worthy of a missed heartbeat or two. Hooking Mjölnir around his neck and wrapping his cuffs around his wrists this morning had put a lump in his throat. Sliding his wedding ring on his finger had been damn near a religious experience.
&nb
sp; The lock was stiff, but he worked the key patiently, and the hasp released. The door squeaked open, and Isaac reached in to hit the lights.
The aroma of wood shavings and stain and polyurethane that had pervaded this space for years was still there, muted by the smell of still, stale air and accrued dust, but strong enough to ease an ache in his heart.
“Will you help me get the windows open, so we can air the room out?” He knew to ask complete questions that had clear answers. Lilli had written a lot about Bo in her letters.
Bo nodded, and they opened up the room.
There was a lot of dust, but it didn’t matter. Isaac could feel his heart slowing, his frantic head settling. Here was something that had not changed. Here was nothing but familiarity, of the best sort, a space that had always given him joy and comfort. A retreat. He went to his work table and put his hand on his lathe. Then he stroked it. Why the fuck had he been anxious about coming in here?
Because he’d been afraid it, too, would have become different, even locked away as it had been.
Bo moved around the room, his eyes wide. He touched everything. Every dusty gewgaw and knickknack Isaac had stored for the next art fair, all the stores of wood, the cans of stain, the tools, the supplies, the projects. Isaac thought he might have literally touched every single thing. And he stood at the table and just watched, waiting to see if Bo would seek him out in any way.
When he got to the racks of gouges, Isaac had to stop him. “Hey, Bo. Don’t touch those. They’re sharp.” Bo turned and finally looked at him, and Isaac had an idea. His boy loved patterns. A gouge could make a pattern in wood.
“Would you like to see how they work?”
Bo nodded, and Isaac went to his pegboard and pulled two pairs of goggles off the wall. “You have to wear a pair of these. Will you?”
A nod, and Isaac handed him a pair. Then he went to his wood stock and found a thee-inch diameter dowel that hadn’t dried out too much. He pulled a few different gouges from the racks and brought everything to the lathe.
After carefully explaining safety rules and describing what a lathe did, he hooked a leather apron over Bo’s neck and set him back a step. “Hands in your pockets, little man.” Bo did as he was told, and Isaac chucked the dowel and started the lathe.
Bo watched, rapt, as Isaac shaped the wood. He didn’t work with any kind of purpose except to keep his kid interested, but when he shot a glance or two Bo’s way, he realized that the spinning of the dowel, the movement of the gouge and the way the wood was shaped, rather than the shape itself, was what had his interest.
When the dowel was turned from one end to the other with undulating shapes, Isaac turned off the lathe. Bo didn’t move. Isaac released the wood and held it out to him, but Bo didn’t take it. Instead, his face obscured by the goggles, he looked up, his eyes not quite meeting Isaac’s.
“C-can. Can. I try?”
The sound of his son’s voice, something he’d lost for years, dug deeply at him. With one brief thought to what Lilli would say about letting their ten-year-old son play with a wood lathe, Isaac smiled. He was about to answer in the affirmative when he remembered that Bo responded to quid pro quo. “If you will sit and have a conversation with me for fifteen minutes after supper tonight, then yes. You can try.”
Bo eyed him suspiciously. “How long. How long…can I try?”
Isaac got it. Okay. He could work this way to get Bo back. “Do you know what a conversation is?”
Bo nodded.
“Tell me.”
“When one person…says something and…the other person says something back.”
“Back and forth like that, right?”
Bo nodded. Isaac was going to have to remember not to use yes/no questions.
“Okay. For fifteen minutes of conversation with me after supper, you can try the lathe for fifteen minutes. Deal?” He held out his hand.
Bo considered. “Deal.” And they shook on it.
~oOo~
The first Friday back in the clubhouse felt surreal to Isaac. With SBC a going business, Show at the helm, the lot and building were hopping in ways he hadn’t seen in…ever. Not even when SBC had been running before. It wasn’t a big company, just doing home builds and renovations, but they were fully staffed and had a full complement of equipment.
The Horde itself was bigger and more robust than it had been in years, with Show, Len, Badger, Nolan, Dom, Double A, Tommy, Thumper, Kellen, Saxon, Mel, Cox, and Darwin—and Isaac—now taking seats, filling the table he’d made. Zeke had had a fatal heart attack two years back. His big, red chopper had joined the row of quiet warriors that still guarded the bays. Isaac had never met Saxon, Mel, Cox, or Darwin before they’d been standing outside the bus station—or, anyway, they’d been young kids and mostly outside his notice before he’d left. They all still seemed impossibly young, but they were clearly comfortable at the table.
Tonight, his first night back in the Keep, was Isaac’s official welcome home, and the old ladies and kids were arriving for a supper after the meeting and before the real party started. Show had told him that Horde parties were again a thing of legend. With so much young blood at the table, there was more of everything, and some Fridays the place about burst at the seams. Tuck and Rose Olsen had started taking Friday nights off, closing up the bar, leaving the night to the Horde. They were pushing or past seventy, and glad for the break.
It all made Isaac’s mind boggle and his bones feel old. But for now, before the meeting, things were fairly quiet. Just women getting ready, Prospects—he’d have to learn their names—stocking the bar, and Horde draining the stock.
Len came and sat next to him at the bar. “How you holdin’ up, brother?”
“Good. It’s been a strange week.”
“Yeah. It’s been pushing on a month for me, and it’s still strange. Good, but…strange.”
“Yeah. Like the Twilight Zone version of everything.”
Len just nodded and tossed back a shot of Jack. “Show talk to you yet?”
Isaac and Show had talked several times. Almost daily. But not of anything that seemed particularly significant.
“You mean about taking on a crew?” Show had asked him to lead an interior construction crew. Most of the Horde were on the SBC payroll, and Isaac needed a day job for his parole. He was still getting used to not leading the club. It had been years since he had, but in a way, it felt like it had been only a few days. He might as well have been cryogenically frozen since the day he’d gone away.
“Nah. I’ll let him tell you.”
“Okay.” Curious, but not about to push the point, he lifted his glass toward the top of Len’s head and changed the subject. “You left some fuzz.” For years before prison, Len had kept his head smoothly shaved. In prison, he’d let his hair grow to a few inches’ length. Now, he had a tightly cropped pate, but not baby-smooth. A dust of grey over his head.
“Tash likes it.” He laughed. “It’s easier, too.”
“You think we can relax yet?” He’d been struggling to lose the sense of self-guarding that was an imperative inside—and had been part of his previous life in Signal Bend, too.
“I do. Look around, Isaac.” Len had finally stopped calling him ‘boss.’ “Our family is safe. Straight money is comin’ in. Our town is solid. There’s no need to cross the line, so we’re good. We can rest. It’s time to rest. Enjoy life while we can still ride our road.”
Isaac nodded and waved his empty glass at a Prospect. This one had some bird name. Budgie? Robin?
“Another for me, too, Parrot.”
Ah. Parrot. Stupid fucking name. He wondered whose idea that had been.
As he took a swig from his glass, he looked over to watch the club girls—so much young booty around. Damn. He felt like a grandpa. Yeah, he’d like to rest and enjoy his life. Ride until his back finally gave it up. Fuck Lilli as long as he could get hard. Ride horses with Gia. Work wood with Bo. Live his life.
“Talk to you, Is
aac?” Show had come up on Isaac’s other side.
“Sure, boss.”
Show shook his head. “Don’t do that.” He turned to the Prospect. “Parrot—just a Bud.”
As Show sat next to Isaac, Len got up. “See you in the Keep, brothers. I’m gonna find my old lady.”
When they were essentially alone, at the bar, anyway, Show said. “Been workin’ on something, and I want your vote on it.”
“Okay.”
Show turned away from Isaac and stared at his new bottle of Bud. “In the Keep, tonight, I’m passing the gavel.”
Rage Isaac stormed into his head, making his eyes pulse. “What the fuck? Show, you son of a—”
Show held up his hand, turning again to face Isaac straight on. “Hold on and listen. I’m passing to Badge. He’s already talked to the officers he wants. It’s known that this has been a plan. The vote’ll go the right way. But you’re a fuckin’ legend around here, and if you balk, that could send the vote sideways. I don’t want that to happen. I want to take a seat next to you. That’s where I belong. If you want the gavel back, I’d take that seat next to you. The one I had. And not one vote would go against you. Badge wouldn’t want it if you did. If you want the gavel, it’s yours. Do you?”
Isaac swallowed down his Jack and waved Parrot away when he came back to refill. He thought about that. Did he want to lead again? Was he fit? He’d asked himself that question over and over during the dark years. He’d always had the full faith and trust of his club. He’d never made a unilateral decision. And yet he had led them into mayhem. Whether he had done so as a good leader or not was irrelevant to Isaac. He had been the vanguard, and they had swum in blood.
It was more than that, though. He didn’t know the town like he had. He didn’t even know the club like he had. Everything was different, and he wasn’t sure yet where he fit. He couldn’t lead from a place of disorientation.
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