Behold the Stars

by Fanetti, Susan

  He didn’t believe that. He knew they couldn’t—and wouldn’t—just abandon their lives and the people who counted on them, but he needed her to know where she ranked. “You’re all I want, Lilli. A life with you. It’s all I want.”

  “Isaac.” A cloud passed through her eyes. He didn’t want that.

  “Okay. I just love the fuck out of you, Lilli Accardo.”

  She smiled brightly. Her name was important to her, something she shared with the father she’d loved so much, and she didn’t get to hear it often. “And I love you.” She leaned her forehead on his.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Now, I really, really, really need a shower.” Lilli leaned back and grinned at her man. She felt worlds better about things than she had last night. She’d let things fester. All of this—this life she was making, this relationship—it was all new, untraveled territory for her, and she wasn’t trusting herself the way she should. She wasn’t trusting Isaac the way she should. Or she hadn’t been.

  It was him, too. He knew what he wanted; she was still fumbling. He was used to getting what he wanted, so as much as he was trying to stay out of her way, he was a willful man. She didn’t think everything would be rosy because they’d talked once. But she felt understood, and that was a start.

  “You want company in that shower?” He wiggled his dark brows at her, his green eyes glinting.

  “Nope. I think I’m doing this one solo, thanks.” It was a thing with them, this shower dance. She preferred to shower alone, unless the shower was intended to be strictly recreational. He preferred to be with her wherever she was naked. He gave her the space she wanted, but he always asked.

  Now, he sighed. “Fine. Your loss. Hey—I have an idea for today. You want to go to Springfield, check out some furniture stores?”

  That caught her off guard. “What?”

  “You were saying last night that Lunden asses have been stinking up the furniture around here forever, and you’re right. Some of that stuff is eighty or a hundred years old. It’s not there because I like it, Sport. It’s there because I’m fuckin’ lazy. I’m sure we could sell it—hell, maybe I’ll just donate it to the Main Street shops. In fact, that’s what I’ll do. But you and I should pick out shit we like. What do you say? Wanna go shopping with me today?”

  Lilli grinned. That actually sounded like fun. She’d never really been furniture shopping, and apparently, neither had Isaac. But the timing was terrible, she thought. “Can you leave town? With all this shit going down with Ellis and the Northsiders?”

  “We’ve got scheduled patrols, and the town’s on alert. Springfield’s not all that far, and there’s some business I need to do there anyway. I was going to send Len, but I’ll go instead. Show will be in charge, and even if trouble comes up, we can get back to deal with it.”

  “You sure? Isaac—”

  He put his hands around her face. She loved the feel of them, big and rough, the hands of a man who used them. And he really knew how to use them. “Baby, we’ve been through hell. We’ll go through more before this is through. Let’s take a day.”

  Lilli put her hands over his. The last time they’d gone away, to a weekend art show in Tulsa, where Isaac sold his woodworking, they’d grown closer.

  And the day after they’d gotten back, Lilli had almost died.

  “Okay, love. Let’s go shopping.”

  ~oOo~

  Before they left, Lilli got in contact with Rick, her best hacker friend, who’d been instrumental in her dealing with Ray Hobson. She hooked him up with Bart, and, when she was satisfied that they were set up to work together on the Ellis problem, and Isaac had made the arrangements he needed to make to be gone for the day, they set off to shop for furniture.

  They took his big, aging black and silver pickup into Springfield. It always soured Isaac’s mood to drive what he called a cage, and the ride was quieter than Lilli would have liked, considering that this was mainly supposed to be a day off for them. For about half an hour, the only voices in the car belonged to The Allman Brothers, wailing mournfully from the speakers. Lilli’s musical taste tended toward punk, so her patience with the music was short.

  She looked over at him. He was lost in thought, his right wrist resting on the top of the steering wheel, his left arm propped on the door, his left hand rubbing over his beard. She knew he had a lot weighing him down—the responsibility for an entire town lay on his shoulders. Lilli hated that the town was saving itself by cooking and selling crystal. Isaac hated it, too. It was a nasty thing, and it made Isaac and the Horde, and Signal Bend itself, vulnerable to nasty men like this Lawrence Ellis. She wanted to help them find another way. She knew there had to be another way. But first, they had to turn Ellis away.

  As Lilli watched, Isaac, still far off in his own head, sighed heavily. She almost said something to break his reverie, but then she had another idea. The truck was old enough that it had a bench front seat. She undid her seatbelt and slid closer to him, laying her hand on his thigh. Coming back to earth, he turned and smiled at her.

  “Hey, Sport. What—did you miss me, all the way over on the other side of the cab?” Taking the wheel in his left hand, he hooked his right arm over her shoulder and pulled her close.

  “Something like that. You look like a man in dire need of something to take his mind off it all.” He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt—he never did. She took hold of his belt buckle and popped it open. Then she unbuttoned his jeans and pulled his cock out. It was swelling before she’d gotten her hand on it, and it was full and huge and hard by the time she had it out and bent her head toward it.

  He was surprised, but he didn’t stop her. “What—baby…oh, fuck.”

  After pressing a gentle kiss to his tip, she took his cock into her mouth, relaxing her throat and getting him as deep as she could. She wrapped her hand around the base of his shaft, so that she was touching, stimulating, all of him at once. He groaned roughly and shifted in his seat, lengthening his lap and easing her access to him. She released her grip around his base and slid her hand into his jeans to caress and squeeze his balls.

  “Holy Jesus fuck, baby. Oh, God.” Over her head, she felt him move the steering wheel. He was changing lanes to the far right. He’d slowed down some, probably now within spitting distance of the speed limit—which Isaac considered a friendly suggestion more than a law.

  Sucking firmly, she drew her mouth back up his full length; then, when he was out, she ran her tongue all over him, flicking over his glans with the point of her tongue, flattening it out and drawing it up and down his length. He groaned again, and the truck shimmied a little. Maybe it wouldn’t be a great idea to draw this out much longer.

  Changing her position on the seat, she pulled her left hand from between them and wrapped it around his cock. She sucked him into her mouth again, and now, with one hand around his base, the other massaging his balls, and her mouth and tongue drawing him in, she set her task to getting him off, hard and fast.

  “Gah—fuck!! Baby, fuck!” he yelled, the sound bouncing off the glass surrounding them. His right hand clamped down around her neck. When she felt his body go taut, his hand curling tightly around her neck and throat, she sped up, sucking and licking, rubbing and squeezing, until he shouted unintelligibly and shot a stream of hot seed down her throat. She stayed on him, swallowing, until he was twitching spastically, and she felt him soften just barely.

  Sitting back, she tucked him gently away and closed up his jeans and belt. When she looked up, he was staring at her with wonder. She grinned. “So…we there yet?”

  “Jesus Christ, woman. I fuckin’ love you.”

  ~oOo~

  With Isaac in a much more relaxed mood, the rest of the ride passed pleasantly. They talked about what kinds of furniture they might be looking for. Lilli suggested that they not look only for furniture, but smaller things, like curtains and linens. He was amenable. Lilli smiled, feeling fairly certain that, just then, Isaac would be amenable to absolutely any su
ggestion she might have about anything.

  When they got to Springfield, a community too big to be rightly called a town, but too small to be really considered a city, Isaac told her he wanted to deal with his business first. He didn’t seem inclined to tell her what that business was, and Lilli didn’t ask, both because she was naturally disinclined to pry and because she’d come to understand the way the MC world worked, and that she was not entitled to full disclosure. He dropped her off at a little bookshop in a strip mall, and Lilli went in to kill some time.

  Wandering in bookstores, especially little used bookshops like this one, made Lilli feel close to her dad. As a student of languages, she was an avid reader. It was something she’d shared with him. She had a trove of wonderful memories about her dad and his books—knocking quietly on his study door, hearing his welcome, poring through his shelves to choose something new to read. Or the times when he’d find her, book in hand, and suggest she read it so they could talk about it. When she got older, sometimes it would be her doing the suggesting.

  Her father could be a hard, uncompromising man. She knew it was true, and she saw it sometimes in the way he dealt with others. She saw it in the way he erased her mother from their memories after her suicide. But never with Lilli. With his daughter, he was gentle and loving, always. His expectations were high, and his rules firm, but even as strong-willed as Lilli was, she’d never felt a need to rebel against him. They were always a team. Losing him had left her unmoored.

  In a storage locker in California, all of her father’s books, and hers, were closed up in boxes stacked to the rafters. Their books and not much else. She hadn’t wanted almost anything from that house after her father died. She had not seen the books in ten years, since she’d filled the boxes and taped them shut. It occurred to her that she might arrange to have them shipped to Signal Bend, to Isaac’s—their—house. If she was settling in, she could have her father’s books.

  Isaac was going to have to build more bookcases.

  She’d been in the shop for about two hours and was leafing through a decorating book from the 1950s when she heard Isaac come up behind her. He had a distinctive sound—the soft crinkle of his leather kutte, the vague metallic jingle of his wallet chain, the hefty chunk of his boots. She smiled as he put his hands on her waist and squeezed. His mouth at her ear, he whispered. “Hey, Sport.”

  “Hey yourself. Business handled?”

  “You bet. Whatcha reading?” He looked over her shoulder at the vintage decorating book. “Baby, if that’s your style, we can leave everything like it is.”

  She laughed. “No, I don’t think it’s my style. But the book is cool—historically speaking. I think I’m gonna buy it.” She turned and added it to the stack she’d accrued. He eyed it skeptically.

  “Damn, Sport. Good thing I didn’t leave you alone longer.” He picked up the double stack—only about twenty books—and they walked to the front counter.

  ~oOo~

  “What about this? I like the leather, and the lines are clean. I don’t like all the puffy crap.” Lilli ran her hands along the back of a long, black leather sofa with squared-off angles.

  Isaac eyed it critically. “The puffy crap is what makes a couch comfortable. You know, for sitting.” He sat down. “I don’t know, Sport. We’d need pillows or something on it if we wanted to lie down, and I hate those pussy little pillows.”

  Lilli sat next to him. The sofa seemed perfectly comfortable to her, and she liked the way it looked. She could imagine it in the room. “I can’t believe that a man who’s been sitting on a broken-down, wood-frame sofa for all this time is being so picky. Absolutely any sofa in here would be more comfortable than what’s in the living room now.”

  He stood and waved her off the sofa, too. She knew what he was going to do; he’d been doing it with every piece of furniture they’d looked at, and then he’d put the kibosh on every piece of furniture they’d looked at. She rolled her eyes and stood back. The sofa in question was arranged with other pieces—a matching chair, a cocktail table, end tables with lamps—for display. Isaac pulled the cocktail table away and turned the sofa over, lifting it clean off the floor and setting it back down, to examine its underside. Damn, he was strong. Lilli felt a nice little tingle in her nethers.

  “Jesus Christ. What a piece of shit. Lilli, the damn thing is stapled together. Staples! No way we’re spending a thousand bucks on trash like this.”

  The salesman—Ron was his name—who’d accosted them as soon as they’d come into the store and who’d since been becoming increasingly agitated by Isaac’s behavior, trotted over to them again. “Sir, please. Please. I have to ask you, again, to stop doing that.”

  Isaac stood to his full height, which was considerably higher than Ron could even reach. Ron stepped back, his retail indignation quelled by his fear of the huge biker looming over him. “Buddy, I know why you don’t want me looking, because this shit is shit, but I’m not buying anything without knowing how it’s made. We need furniture, so we have to shop. Go on now; I’ll put it back the way I found it.” Then he did exactly that, lifting the sofa and turning it over. Ron swallowed at the demonstration of strength and scurried off with a muttered, “Let me know if you need anything.”

  Isaac brushed his hands. “Good. Got rid of him.”

  “You enjoy that, did you?” He answered Lilli’s question with a grin and a wink.

  She stepped up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Seriously, love. We’re not going to find anything that’s made as well as you could make it. You’re an artisan. This is mass produced stuff.”

  “That’s the problem then, isn’t it? I should make it. What they charge for this crap is fuckin’ offensive. I could make a couch like that, with good hardwood instead of this pine crap, and true joints, and premium leather, for half as much.”

  “In what spare time are you going to make all this furniture? You already have orders to fill.”

  “If you can live with the Lunden ass furniture for a while longer, I will find the time, Sport. I will build anything you want. But please let’s not spend our money on this shit.”

  She loved the idea of the house being filled even more than it already was with Isaac’s woodwork. For that, she thought she could be patient. “Okay. Let’s shop for curtains and paint, though, okay? I have an idea for the kitchen.”

  ~oOo~

  They found a home and bath superstore, and Lilli loved that place. They filled two carts, with new curtains for the living room, the kitchen, and the dining room (a room that never got used, but had beautiful furniture in it already); new towels for the bathroom; and a lot of new cookware. Most of what was in the kitchen now, though interesting and quirky, was not very functional. Isaac, not being a cook, hadn’t noticed. They also picked up some storage pieces so that Lilli could better organize cabinets and closets. Enjoying herself immensely, she realized that she felt like she was outfitting her own house. The thought made her feel light.

  Their last stop was a paint store. Lilli wanted to redecorate the kitchen. She was surprised when Isaac started to resist. They were standing at the paint sample display, and Lilli was describing what she wanted to do. The kitchen was an old farmhouse kitchen, and she wasn’t planning to gut it and start over, but she’d had some ideas about making it fresher.

  Isaac listened, but Lilli could see he didn’t like the idea. She continued describing it, though, and then, when she was done, he said, “I like the strawberries—my grandma…” Then, he shook his head a bit and said, “You know what? Forget that. Sounds beautiful. What do we need?”

  God, he was trying so hard. He was talking about the strawberry-print fabric on the open-frame cabinet doors. Lilli thought it was quaint, but it was badly faded and frayed. She wanted to repaint the cabinets black and do a funky fabric in a bright color, like orange or grass green. She was finding her way, though, never having thought about decorating with any kind of focus before. She knew that Isaac’s grandma was someo
ne who’d been good to him, and that had been rare in his family. The fabric had to go—it was practically decomposing—but she had an idea.

  “What if we paint the cabinets dark green and find a new fabric with strawberries. It could be like an homage to your grandma.”

  He grinned. “That’s okay?”

  “Sure. I don’t want to make your house my house. I want to make it our house.”

  “That’s what I want, Sport. Ours.” He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her in for a brief but intense kiss. Then they picked out new paint cards and went to have their colors mixed.

  Not long later, they loaded the truck with the last of their purchases, and Isaac secured everything in the bed, while Lilli rolled the cart to the parking lot corral. They were headed to a late lunch, or early dinner, next, and then back home. As she approached the truck, Isaac’s burner rang. He answered it as they climbed into the cab.

  “Yeah, Show. S’up?” Within a few seconds, something about Isaac changed—he grew tense—and Lilli’s attention to his call sharpened.

  “Fuck! Is he…oh, fuck, Show. I’m there as fast as I can. Oh, fuck…yeah, just go. Get everybody. I’m comin’.”

  He turned to Lilli, his face livid with shock, rage, and grief. “Will’s dead. His place was torched. It’s a fuckin’ inferno. We gotta get back, and now.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Isaac tore down Will’s long gravel drive, kicking up rocks and dirt in a wild plume behind his Ford. Lilli was braced on the passenger side, one arm locked against the window, her other hand on the dash, as the truck bounced crazily, but he wasn’t about to slow down. Black smoke rose up before them in several thick columns, and the air already shimmered. They came over the last rise, and he felt sick. He was too late. They were all too late. Jesus. Will.