Club Business
They came to me in a dream, and I could feel the flush of fever in my skin, as vividly as I could if I’d been awake. Perhaps I’d been trying too keenly to hold the images at bay during my waking life, or perhaps I was too desperate to avoid the stresses of my family life. Whatever it was, they came to me in sleep, together, and I opened for them like a lotus blossom, giving myself over to them completely and without any hesitation.
And they were themselves in the dream, not some vague facsimile or an anonymous face my psyche understands to be a known individual, but them: Lucas, lithe and sinewy, inked with tattoos but otherwise unblemished; Oliver, broad and large, finely sculpted in olive tones with dark, dark hair.
I don’t recall how it began — there wasn’t any sort of contrived beginning, any way my mind had twisted things to get them in the same room and on the same team — but there they were. They came to me naked, with purpose, and stripped me of my clothes with precise delicacy
And we were in a sort of no-man’s-land, a generic room that was somehow shapeless and formless, the edges of which were lost in shadow. Everything was soft and dim, and I felt their fingertips brushing lightly over my skin.
They didn’t speak to me, but laid me down on something soft and rich, like velvet. I could feel the warmth of their breath on my bared skin. Lucas kissed my mouth, and I felt the familiar softness of his early, tentative kisses. Oliver spread my thighs and put his lips to work lower, lower, lapping gently at the sensitive flesh between my legs. Lucas placed a hand on my breast and kneaded it gently, then more firmly, pinching a nipple between a thumb and index finger. Then Oliver’s tongue hit the spot and I arched my back, breaking away from Lucas’s kiss with a sharp little moan. He trailed a series of kisses down along the line of my neck and up over the slope of my breast, setting to work his tongue against my nipple.
I reached down and my hand found Lucas’s hardness. I curled my fingers around him and stroked him even as Oliver slid his tongue completely into the opening of my sex. I was warm and ready, and I scooted down a little as Oliver lifted his head and Lucas pulled slightly away.
Oliver shifted, hovering over me, and I could feel the head of his cock pressing to gain entry. He slid himself into me, burying the entirety of his considerable length deep within me. Lucas trailed his fingertips over my jaw and along my lips, and I nipped at his fingers to make him pause. He did, and I sucked on his thumb, trying to indicate that he should fill my mouth with himself.
Oliver began to move his hips back and forth in one fluid, luxurious movement, stretching me to capacity as he worked me, in and out. I felt the soft, warm flesh of the head of Lucas’s cock at the corner of my mouth, and I turned my head, extending my tongue to taste the familiar salt taste of him. He pressed past the barrier of my teeth and took up the cavern of my mouth; I ran my tongue along the base of his shaft, and reveled at the feeling of having them both inside of me.
I was overcome with my longing as their movements brought me closer and closer to the crux of my desire. Oliver’s thumb came to work the hard nucleus of my clitoris as he thrust in and out of my warm, wet sex; Lucas’s fingers worked the plush flesh of my breasts as I sucked down his shaft and teased the head of his manhood with a playful tongue. I wanted their completion, both of them, and my own. I wanted to feel them explode inside of me; I wanted to make the both of them mine.
Instead, I woke.
I woke in a sweaty tangle of bedsheets, as though I’d had some sort of fever dream. But the specters of my vision stayed with me, and I could almost still feel them inside me. I was frustrated, having been left so unsatisfied, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying in vain to hold onto the last vestiges of the dreamscape that had brought me so close to climax.
But it was to no avail. Try as I might, I could not bring the sweet vision back. So I thought about the dream, replaying the images I had received over and over on the screen behind my eyes. I tried to remember precisely how I felt the heat of the both of them on me, in me, and I trailed my fingers over the valley of my abdomen and underneath the elastic waistband of my pajama bottoms.
I found myself dripping with my lust, easily sliding two fingers inside of myself as I adjusted to get my other hand down my pants. That one I used to rub my clit, and I came quickly, fiercely, forcefully, the muscles of my sex clamping down around my thrusting fingers. I panted, sated, wanting to rejoin the reality of the dream instead of rise and participate in the reality of the waking world.
***
I showered, dressed, and went into my old room to fetch Jamie, who was sleeping later and longer than I had ever seen him sleep. Perhaps he had somehow internalized the atmosphere and had decided he simply wanted no part of it. I scooped him up into my arms and he made a few tiny noises of protest, but ultimately wrapped his small arms around my neck and clung to me as I brought him downstairs.
My mother had fetched up my old booster chair and set it at the kitchen table, so I plopped Jamie onto it, and he banged his little fists against the tabletop, ready to be fed. I poured some Cheerios into a bowl, sniffed the milk to ensure its quality, and — finding it lacking — placed the dry cereal in front of my son while I went about cutting up a banana. “Spoon?” Jamie demanded, and I obliged. A sippy cup of orange juice and a plate of sliced banana, and I was ready to focus my attention on the fundamentally necessary task of brewing a pot of coffee.
As the scent of coffee filled the air, I plucked the phone receiver out of its cradle, poised to dial my mother’s cell phone to ascertain the status of my stupid brother after his stupid beatdown, but I heard the front door open and darted out into the foyer.
Brian, with Lucas in tow. Brian had stitches under his eye, which was purple and swollen, and a series of cuts on his lip. He walked stiffly, as though he were nursing sore ribs, but was otherwise upright and smiling. Lucas bore a similarly relieved expression to be delivering an almost-good-as-new Brian Harrington home to his worried sister.
“Where’s Mom?” was my first question.
Brian shrugged. “Asleep, I imagine. We sent her home almost immediately after she arrived.” He eyed me sideways. “Which is why I wish you hadn’t called her at all. Unnecessary worry.”
“Unnecessary worry?” I shouted. “You’ve been missing for, like, a week, you insensitive fucking asshole.”
“Harper—” Lucas began to interject, but I turned on my heel and retreated into the kitchen, where Jamie was happily stuffing a piece of banana into his mouth.
“Is Daddy here?” he asked, and started to wiggle off of the booster seat. I hooked both hands under his armpits and hoisted him up before placing his feet on the floor so he could scamper off to Daddy and hug him with hands smeared with banana.
I heard Lucas shout, “Hey, buddy!” from the other room, and the general murmurings of Brian cooing over his handsome little nephew, but I simply stewed in silence over my mug of steaming black coffee.
After a stretch of silence, Brian and Lucas came into the kitchen, Jamie in Lucas’s arms. I was pleased to see that they were both looking rather contrite. “I’m sorry, Harper Grace,” Brian said. “I’m sorry I disappeared like that. I…”
“Where were you?” I demanded. “Seriously, Brian. Did you even know what was going on here? Do you have any idea how freaked out Mom has been?”
Brian glanced back at Lucas and bowed his head. Lucas cleared his throat and shifted Jamie from one hip to the other. “Look, Harper, I know you were worried, but—”
“But I wasn’t the only one to go on a bender, eh?” Brian arched his brows at me, and it became clear that Lucas had revealed some of my own irresponsibility.
“Yeah, but,” I stammered, “I was gone for like one night, not nearly a week, Brian.”
“I know,” he said, “and I’m sorry.”
“And you”—I turned my dagger-eyes on Lucas—“what business did you have putting him in the ring with Oliver? You knew he’d have his ass handed to him.”
>
“Hey—” Brian interjected.
“That’s club business,” Lucas said coolly, “and none of yours.” Jamie began to squirm in his arms, so Lucas put him on the floor and he ran over to me to cling to my legs. I intuitively reached down to brush my fingertips over his soft blond head.
“So basically, I’m never going to get a straight answer out of either of you.” I hated that I had brought my son back into this life of lies and violence, conceit and danger. I petted his head gently as he rolled my pajama pants between his little fingers.
“Look,” Brian offered, “I was angry after the attack. I was trying to track down the motherfucker who did this to our family, all right?” He paused and moved slowly toward the kitchen table, where he sat down next to Jamie’s spot, and helped himself to what remained of Jamie’s banana. “I didn’t tell anyone where I was going because, honestly, I was too caught up in it to stop to think that there were even other people in the world. I was blind with rage. And as for Lucas putting me in the ring—”
“Brian, don’t.”
“He put me in there because I asked him to.”
I blinked owlishly, glancing between the both of them. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Lucky told me who that guy was, that Oliver guy,” Brian said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, suddenly going quite cold. “Who is he?”
Lucas came forward, reaching out like he might touch me, but never actually making contact. “He’s the son,” Brian said, “Oliver is. The son of the man who killed our father.”
There was a hard pulse in my chest, like in an instant my heart had burst in my chest and its charred remains had dropped down into the pit of my stomach. “I don’t understand…,” I said lamely.
“Yes, you do,” Lucas quietly rejoined.
“But… he never said anything…”
“Well, and why would he?” Brian asked. “You were givin’ it away for free, why would he say anything?” So I could see that Lucas had shared more with my brother than was strictly necessary. I shot a nasty glance at both of them.
“Did he have anything to do with the attack?” I asked. Brian shrugged, and Lucas pointedly averted my gaze. “Did he?” I pressed.
Lucas sighed, finally lifting his eyes to meet mine. I saw him hesitate, but couldn’t read the cause of that hesitation. I looked him up and down, this man with whom I was most intimately familiar, who was at the same time a mysterious stranger to me. How odd that he could be both. “No,” he said at last, on the wings of a sigh. “No, I don’t believe he had anything to do with the attack.”
“Okay,” I said, swallowing down a bit of my trepidation. “Okay.”
“It seemed, from the conversations I had with him, that he had no real love for his father, that he wasn’t tied up with the IRA the way Tommy Flynn was. And anyway, his father must have known that we would take the debt out on his son, but he fled anyway. That speaks volumes of the type of relationship those two shared.”
I nodded slowly. “So, that’s why he’s being made to fight,” I murmured, finally piecing it all together. “He’s being made to fight because his father murdered mine.” The words were cold on my tongue like old coins, and just as bitter.
“Not exactly,” Lucas said, heaving a sigh. I knew he hated to tell me the truth about the goings-on of the Iron Banshees Motorcycle Club, but I was too deeply entrenched this time, too much a part of everything. This was no longer business, not even for Lucas. This was about family, and vengeance. “Tommy Flynn — that’s Oliver’s father — lost upwards of three hundred thousand dollars gambling on our fights,” he explained. “No small chunk of change.”
I balked. “How on earth did you let it get up that high?” I asked.
“He had been a bookie for us for a while,” Lucas continued. “He built up a long line of credit. We trusted him, we knew him. We’d worked with him for years. So, we figured he was good for whatever he owed, either in hard cash or in new business. But something happened, and he panicked. It was easy for him to get close, for his guys to get close, so he could attack your father.”
“He would’ve never seen it coming,” Brian muttered, hanging his head.
“No,” Lucas confirmed. “None of us did.”
I nodded slowly, feeling the chill of numbness set in. “I need to shower,” I muttered, “and get Jamie ready for the memorial.”
“I’ll take care of Jamie,” Lucas said.
“He doesn’t have a suit. I didn’t bring one.” I hadn’t thought to — I’d been certain my father would pull through. We’d all been certain he’d pull through. But he hadn’t. And today we were going to memorialize him, and cremate him, and tomorrow we were going to scatter his ashes.
“I’ll get him one,” Lucas said. “What do you say, buddy? Do you want to go shopping with Daddy?”
“Yeah!” Jamie shouted and bounced over to his father, hopping about in happy little circles. I smiled in spite of myself. He would have responded the same way even if Lucas had said something like, What do you, say, buddy? Do you want to have a root canal with Daddy?
I nodded, kissed my fingertips and pressed the kiss to the top of my son’s small head. “Thanks,” I said. Then, to Brian: “Go check on Mom, would you? Let her know you’re okay, and that you’re going to help with everything. Our job today is to let her drink as much as she wants.”
“Roger that,” Brian said, giving me a limp salute, and excused himself to make his stiff, uneasy way up the staircase. I turned to follow close on his heels, when Lucas’s voice stopped me:
“Harper.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m just… I’m sorry about how all of this has been going. I really am. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice flat. “I’m sorry, too.”
***
No part of me believed that the memorial was stipulated in any kind of pre-need my father may have filled out prior to his untimely death. It was too sterile, too clean, too organized. It was too much like other people’s memorial services. The Chenoweth Funeral Home was sleek, modern, minimalist. There were rows of side chairs in fake black leather, and small leather ottomans — square, with sharp corners and silver accents — that bore bouquets of white calla lilies in tall, thin vases.
The dozens of burly biker types, in their typical uniform of tee shirts or flannels, jeans, combat boots and leather kuttes, looked distinctly out of place, particularly interspersed as they were with friends of my mother. Her friends and acquaintances were all in black suits and dresses, and some of the women made quite a show of clutching their pearls, both proverbially and literally, at the sight of the bikers. I found it hard to believe that my mother’s social circles hadn’t known who and what my father was. But if they hadn’t before, they did now.
The framed photo of my father at the front of the room was a truly excellent one. It depicted him as he really was: handsome, a prominent jaw and strong brow, with warm eyes and a broad, dimpled smile, a fine full head of white hair, and broad shoulders, perpetually clad in the leather vest of his MC.
I stood frozen in the aisle as everyone filed in and took their seats, staring at that picture of my father. I didn’t really know him, if I was totally honest. At least, not very well. My memories of him growing up are fond, but few: he traipsed in and out of our lives at his leisure, always stopping to press a kiss to our foreheads on his way in or out. I know he loved us — he told us every chance he got. He just wasn’t around all that much.
And I’d never really understood why until I’d married Lucas. For the men of the Iron Banshees, the club came first, before friends, before lovers, even before blood. Add that to the ever-growing list of reasons why I left.
“Harper,” Lucas said, holding a freshly washed and suited Jamie. He looked so handsome in his little suit, and he was smiling, blissfully unaware of the solemnity of the day’s event.
“Thanks,” I whispered, not entirely sure as to why I was wh
ispering. “He looks great.”
“Doesn’t he? I’ll go take him to your mom. People are starting to take their seats.”
I nodded my thanks and watched them move down the aisle together, before he set Jamie down in a chair next to my mother and brother at the front of the room. I took in a deep breath and was about to join them when I felt a hand on my shoulder and whirled around.
Oliver.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, incredulous. He looked good — unlike Brian and Lucas, who were in their jeans and vests, Oliver had freshened up and put on a suit. His was black and pinstriped, with a grey shirt and a black, grey and gold striped tie.
“Came to pay my respects,” he said quietly. There was a shadow of subtle confusion across his eyes, and I realized that he had maybe only just put this all together. “Harper, I didn’t know,” he said. “I swear.”
“Didn’t know what, exactly?” I asked, crossing my arms in front of me. He was the enemy. Wasn’t he?
“Any of it.” He reached out and gripped my elbow, giving it a gentle squeeze. “First and foremost, I wasn’t a part of my dad’s… dealings. Any of them. I’ve not much love for him, see. And furthermore, after I found out what happened…” He withdrew his hand and shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “I didn’t know who you were. Not until yesterday, when I saw you leave with Brian. I didn’t know you were Old Pete’s daughter.” He paused, and swallowed hard, casting his gaze to the floor. “I didn’t know you were Lucas Whalen’s wife.”
“Ex-wife,” I said quickly. “Or, soon-to-be-ex-wife.”
“So you are still married, then?”
“Only technically.”
The room was beginning to quiet and I glanced toward my family at the front of the room. I moved to join them when I felt a tug on my arm. I turned back to face Oliver.
“I want to see you again,” he said quietly.
“Oliver…”
“Please. Just… tell me you’ll let me see you.”
“What’s the point?” I shrugged out of his grip and peered up at him. His eyes were full of pleading.
MC Fight Club: Iron Banshees: (Complete Series: Parts 1-5) An MC Fighter Menage Romance Page 6