Full Force on Tammy

by Milana Cheers

  She slaps me.

  I smile.

  “You deserved that,” she says.

  “I’ll see you for breakfast.”

  “I’m off tomorrow,” she throws over her shoulder as she walks to her car.

  “Then I’m coming over tonight.”

  She stops dead in her tracks. “I won’t open the door, Reed. I mean it. It doesn’t matter if you lived around here or not, I don’t know you, and I have kids.”

  She asked about me. Ha! I’m stacking up all kinds of points here. “You’ll open the door and your legs.”

  Her eyes narrow over the roof of her car. “You must’ve left your manners when you first rode out of Wyoming. Pick them back up now that you’re in town, then get on your way.”

  “I ain’t going anywhere, and you don’t want my manners. I know what you want, and I’m bringing it with me tonight.” What is it? My dick. Better show up with something in my hands other than my dick.

  Tammy shows me her middle finger, and I feel like a boy again. Chuckling, I get in my truck, then wait for her to pull out so I can follow. I start the engine. Nothing happens. I try again. Nothing. Dead battery. I lock eyes on the target, who’s riding away, then get out of the truck, sprinting to catch up with her, but she’s already on the street.

  Out here, there’s little to no traffic, and as Tammy steps on the gas, I start sprinting down the road after her, only then realizing that a civilian—you know, a normal person—would’ve called AAA or some such to have someone look at the battery or at the very least find someone with jumper cables. But not me. The target went out of sight, and I couldn’t let her slip away. I’m never gonna fit back into society. Never. But I sure as fuck can try, only not today. Today I’m in pursuit of a target who’s currently watching me in her rearview mirror.

  I don’t wave her down. If she wanted to stop, she would’ve, and if she’s trying to see how long I’m gonna chase her, she’ll get to meet Reed Persistence MacLoyd. Gonna tag endurance to that name too. I take her watching me as a challenge and calculate the mileage back to town, start pacing myself, and notice she slows down too. She won’t stop, but she lets me run after the damn car. Oh Tammy, I’m gonna bend you over my knee for this. You just wait for it, Kitten.

  So a few miles in, I’m conserving my breath, factoring in the dropping temperatures as we near late afternoon and how those temperatures affect my rapid oxygen intake while I’m running down the middle of the road after a car filled with three females, two of whom are kids, thinking that if I was back in California, someone would’ve already called the cops. Another great thing about Wyoming? The local sheriff was my best friend in high school, and I called in before I came down. Didn’t want him to worry about a bunch of ex-special ops on bikes showing up and disrupting the daily sounds of chirping birds and the quiet chatter of the townspeople.

  Like how they’re doing right now in the opposite lane. My team approaches on bikes, probably heading out to do recon on the houses we bought, while I’m running after a car. They ride in a triangle formation with Dawson in the lead, and he passes me by, along with Mason and Rich, and I’m thinking I’m good when Senator’s face turns my way, then back at the road. His head jerks back to me. The bike swerves, but he catches it right before he falls and just as he zips past me.

  They keep riding, but sure enough, I hear a single Harley roaring behind me.

  Dawson catches up to me, watching the road and glancing at me at the same time.

  “Hey, Cap,” he says.

  I nod.

  “How’s it going?”

  I nod again. I have nothing to say for myself. Nothing.

  “Whatcha doing?”

  “Pursuing the target,” I answer as firmly as possible without sounding like I’m out of breath and out of my mind. I need to conserve my energy, and I don’t know why he’s making me talk now.

  “You wanna ride?”

  “Nope. I’m on foot.”

  “Cap, we need to talk.”

  I nod. He’s gonna call our collective shrink and do a group session where we all stare at the dude while he tries to get words out of us. I’m not talking about this situation either, but Dawson believes having the shrink ask the right questions makes us at the very least think about the answers if not talk about them.

  He salutes me and turns the bike around, and I continue running four more miles.

  Tammy pulls up to her driveway, and I salute her as I move toward the motel, where I collapse on the bed nearly dead from exhaustion. Damn. Tammy was harder to pursue than an Afghan terrorist on the run up the mountain. They’re on foot, and it’s an even playing field, whereas she one-upped me with the car.

  As I drift to sleep, instead of seeing severed arms and legs, explosions, and hostile crowded streets with women covered in burkas I normally see when I close my eyes, Melany’s and Reagan’s smiling faces sitting in the back of Tammy’s car watching me run flash before me. I nap like the boy I once was, back before I took up duties I don’t regret executing for my country. Still, something gave, and I’m here to gain it back. A good quiet life with a woman. Already got two kids. Like I said, all kinds of potential here.

  Chapter 6

  Chewing and gulping noises awaken me, and I roll over in bed, aware my team is back and trying to be quiet while I sleep. We gotta get into those homes pronto. Not only because we’ll all start rubbing each other the wrong way in a few days in these cramped conditions and shitty beds, but also because I need to secure a house I can take Tammy to so I can show her I’m staying for good.

  I get out of bed and head for the bathroom to take a leak, but someone’s in there, and I’m annoyed already. Four dudes sharing a tiny room and a tiny bathroom is not ideal and not something we wanna be doing in the US. It’s fine when we’re out for a tour or missions, but once we hit the free land, we want all the luxuries too.

  Dawson hands me a piece of pizza. Pepperoni. I used to eat pepperoni pizza, but after having sudzuk—a spicy sausage—in Beirut—I get bacon bits and sausage in the States to try to replicate the great taste. I shake my head no, then see they brought enough to last us for three meals. Senator comes out of the bathroom, and I go in to take a leak and think through my next steps. Decision-making comes easy, and I settle on a choice for the night, exit, and grab my jacket.

  “Wooo, Cap. Where’re you going?”

  “Tammy’s.” Dawson and Senator exchange looks. I roll my eyes. “What?”

  “We saw the homes. Took pictures.” Dawson hands me his phone, and I scroll until I get to my house, which is tucked away on a corner lot alone and looking like the million I paid for it from my last cut of the mercenary work. Big job with bad people, but fuck, they paid well.

  Tammy’s gonna give me a baby when she sees this. “Nice,” I say and hand him back the phone.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “The Suit got a better offer.”

  Fuck. “The Suit from the diner right?”

  “Yeah, blue suit, nice haircut.”

  “Navy-blue suit,” Senator comments.

  We ignore him because nobody gives a crap about that much detail but him.

  “Do we have a name?”

  “Blake Adams. Runs out of Chicago.” He wags his eyebrows because he knows what I’m thinking. We have influential ties in Chicago that can change his mind.

  “And the buyer’s name?”

  “Not yet, and Senator is working on it because it’s not a paper trail.”

  “Wait, he got a better offer on all our houses or some?”

  “Just yours.”

  “My luck.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re gonna pull out if he sells yours so that’s another card we could play. So I’m gonna see about meeting with him after I call the Chicago contact.”

  The Chicago contact is a woman named Ivana who hired us for an extraction job overseas and that girl knows everything that happens in Chicago. It is my opinion she controls most of what happens and how it pla
ys out. If the Suit is from Chicago, she’d know him as they’d likely roll in the same circles. Luxury, prestige, five-hundred-dollar haircuts. I can go to Garry’s down the street for twenty and a shave if he’s feeling generous. The rich just like to throw money away.

  “Did you get the keys from him?”

  “None of us would take the keys until your house’s key is in the basket. Right now, it’s not.”

  “Oh, he’ll sell me that house. I’ll sit down with him.”

  “Cap, let me talk to him,” Senator says.

  “Nah, I got this.”

  “Remember that we’re gonna be living here, so we can’t work like we would out in the wild. Just because she’s waiting on him, it doesn’t mean she’s crushing on him or vice versa. Just wanna point that out.”

  No comment. I shrug on my jacket.

  “He’s connected in Chicago,” Mason says.

  “And I care because…?”

  “Same connections as us, so we have to play nice or it could get ugly real fast.”

  “Got it.” I stick my hands into my pockets and bump into plastic boxes. I pull out toy poodles with pink bows and hold one in each hand. “I’m gonna go to jail for stealing toys.”

  “Why would you steal toys?” Dawson asks. He’s definitely calling the shrink.

  “Tammy’s got two girls. Duh. I bought them toys, and she has to play nice now.”

  “That’s a dirty tactic, Cap. Bribing the kids is the dirtiest of all dirties.”

  I wink. “Whatever it takes.” I grab two boxes of pizza and open them. Ham and pineapple, two combinations on a pizza I wouldn’t eat unless I was in a Pakistani prison and they haven’t fed me for thirty days, but hey, maybe Tammy will eat it. I grab my phone, prepare to dial, realize I don’t have her number.

  Senator spits out the digits off the top of his head.

  Do you see why my men are the best? Do you? They are. “Thanks, man,” I say when Tammy answers.

  “What kind of pizza you like?” I ask.

  “Hi, Reed.”

  “Hi.” I roll my eyes. Why do we need to say hi or hello or hey or good morning when that crap is self-explanatory? Why can’t we all just shoot for the point of the conversation and end it in five seconds? “What kind of pizza you like?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Because I don’t want to come over empty-handed.”

  “You’re not coming over, Reed.”

  She knows I’m coming. “What kind of pizza is it, Tammy?”

  “Ham and pineapple.”

  “Good. See ya soon.”

  “Bring beer, but nothing for my girls, or I swear I’ll shoot you on the doorstep.” She hangs up.

  I grin wide and look at the guys, my dick getting hard at what she said. “She wants to shoot me.”

  “I’m calling the shrink.”

  “Bye!”

  It’s hard for me to sit still. I’ve been that way since I was a child. I was always on the move, and in high school, I stayed there all day and late into the night practicing either football or baseball, sometimes even basketball before riding my bicycle home. That one spring after I stole the Mustang, my dad let me drive his car even though I didn’t have a permit. The sheriff knew but looked the other way, and with the car, I moved faster from point A to point B and stayed up longer practicing.

  The wind blowing in my face reminds me to enjoy the moment. I force myself to slow down, inhale a lungful of fresh air. Instead of prowling to her house, I stroll, letting my mind drift away even if only for a few minutes so I don’t walk into her house with an aggressive, agitated energy because someone outbid me on the house last minute, and the Suit wants to pull the keys right out from under my nose.

  If he succeeds, it will mean another few weeks of living in the cramped motel room and engaging in a back-and-forth with Tammy convincing her that I’m staying for good. I’ll have to prove I’m settling down here. She won’t let me near the kids if I don’t, and I’m a bastard for forcing my way into her life with nothing to show her that would make her feel more comfortable with me. She’ll have to trust me, which is a stretch since she doesn’t know me.

  At the door, I shake off my worries about the house and knock with the pack of beer ’cause I don’t have a spare hand. Beside me, I notice an old metal swing, same model as the one I remember from my parents’ house out here. It needs a paint job, but this metal piece is sturdy and can survive for generations. When my parents left, they didn’t take theirs with them.

  I knock again. “Open up, Tammy.”

  The door opens a tiny bit, and I stop myself before barging in when I look down and see a small blue eye peek up through the opening.

  “Hey, you,” I say.

  “Hey, Barbie man.”

  I swallow the reply and lift the pizza boxes. “Pizza man tonight.” Tits man too, but I can’t say that.

  The eye widens, the door swings open, and I’m in. As I stand inside Tammy’s house, I feel like Alexander the Great after conquering Persia. Mighty as fuck. The man never lost a battle, and I ain’t gonna lose one either. Not that Tammy understands I think of her as land to conquer, but it is what it is.

  I look around the place in search of my throne. Brown suede couch. I plop my ass on it, throw the pizza on the coffee table, get a beer, and lift my feet. Nestling on the plush couch, I wiggle my ass and lean back, throwing an arm up beside me. Gonna watch… I frown at the TV. Disney channel.

  The girls kneel at the table, grab a slice each, open their little mouths, and are about to bite down on slices of pizza dripping grease between their fingers when Tammy comes in wearing a pink robe and a pink towel. She rubs her wet hair. She’s naked under that robe. In my brain, I’m already sucking her tits while she rides my cock right here on the couch.

  “No food in the living room,” she says. “Beer goes in the fridge. Take your shoes off, Reed, you’re not in the bar. I’ll be right back.”

  The girls groan and walk to another room. Groaning too, I bring the beer and pizza and sit with them in the room they clearly use for formal occasions. There’s a fancy chandelier and a bunch of crystal crap in the cabinet. I’m not formal or a guest, no matter how Tammy feels about my coming over. Soon enough, I’m gonna have my face inside her pussy, and that’s as informal as it gets.

  I sit with the girls and drink my beer, watching them a little, trying to figure out how to tell them apart besides their clothes and attitudes. One is more assertive than the other, the leader and the follower. Their ranking is clear to me, but I’m having a hard time telling them apart.

  “You’re staring,” the leader tells me.

  “I’m trying to tell you apart.”

  “This is my sister Melany, and I’m Reagan.”

  “Reed,” I introduce myself and extend a hand. They clasp it at the same time, shake it.

  “Thank you for the toys. Aunt Tammy is upset with you, but we’re not.”

  I reach into my pockets and put the poodles on the table. “They forgot to bag this stuff, so I had to go back.” Shit. The man’s truck. “Excuse me.” I pull up my phone and text Dawson about the truck. He’ll return it for me.

  “Aunt Tammy says you’re a war hero,” Reagan says.

  More asking around about me. Maybe Tammy googled me or she just asked the old man at the store. What was his name again? Marty, I believe. “I’m just a Barbie man.”

  The girls giggle. “Melany called you that,” Reagan says.

  Melany smiles, a little shy, and speaks for the first time. “I have a birthmark here”—she points under her chin—“and my nose is longer. Also, the gap between my eyes is more narrow than Reagan’s.”

  “Narrower,” Tammy says and joins us. She glances at me and reaches under the table to squeeze my knee.

  Okay, what’s that mean? On the field, we use gestures and hand signals all the time, but I don’t know what this means. I squeeze her thigh, linger there, and Tammy stops eating to give me a look of warning, then sco
ots away in her chair.

  I have no idea what we’re doing here. You touch me, and I touch you more, no? Domestic life is like being thrown into the Amazon rainforest with a backpack, a piece of dry cheese, and a canister of water I know won’t last more than a week if I ration.

  I’m gonna take clues from these seven-year-olds. They know everything, and they eat like some of my men, polishing off the entire large pizza between the two of them. Tammy ate one piece. I had none. I’ll eat pussy later.

  Chapter 7

  Tammy

  Ever since Reed came over, I’ve both dreaded and looked forward to the moment the girls fell asleep. Ten times I wanted to ask him to leave, but didn’t have it in me, not because I couldn’t be rude, but because I didn’t know what to make of the butterflies in my belly. This man ran seven miles after my car. What kind of man does that?

  Not to mention having a man in this house feels right, and that’s scary because Reed could bail one day, leaving me dragging my heart around town for everyone to see. I also couldn’t do it to my girls. While I believe in parenting in pairs, I wouldn’t bring just anyone here. Not that I brought him here in the first place. He barged in here without even asking for permission. That’s another thing about this man.

  I finally know what it’s like to be chased by a dominant man, one who knows what he wants and takes charge of a situation, does things he’ll ask permission for later. Men like him don’t come around too often, no matter what my novels say. I’m a romantic at heart, which is why I read romance books with alpha males who come and take over things that have been piling up for the heroine. As a single parent of twin girls, I’ve got a lot of work that never gets done. At least today I shaved my legs and pussy and…well, I guess I know where this is going.

  At the very least, I’ll finally get some alpha dick. I doubt Reed is here to paint the house or fix the shed in the back, to get up with the girls at the crack of dawn and make them breakfast, to take them to school, to babysit, to shovel snow. He’s here to get laid, maybe for one night, a few nights, a month even, then he’ll be gone. It’s fine. I need to get laid too, so win-win for both of us.