by Mia Malone
“Sleeping.”
Ice leaned forward suddenly and narrowed his icy blue eyes, only to close them and press his lips together.
“The hell?” Black grunted.
“You have a hickey.”
“How long is this unfunny joking-session gonna go on?
Ice opened his eyes, and they were full of laughter.
“Until that hickey has faded, unless you get a new one in which case, it starts up again.”
“Shit.”
Ice didn’t crack any more jokes, and they moved on to spending time eating whatever was left from previous dinners in his parents’ fridge.
Then Black figured he should go and wake Cas up and discovered that she’d left his bed and his house. She had also left her own cabin, and after asking around, he found her with Ronnie in the kitchen behind the bar where she was stirring an enormous pot full of something that smelled pretty damned great.
He was summarily shooed out of the kitchen and informed that dinner would be served on his front porch sometime in the late afternoon.
It was, and everyone else seemed to have been informed about this fact too.
“Lot of people here,” Black muttered and looked at a few of the men in the club as they calmly came walking, each carrying an empty plate and a chair.
“Your woman says she’ll cook, we all show, Black.”
Black turned and looked at Brooks who was digging into what he’d shared was his third helping of food.
“Huh?”
“They spread the word. Bring your own plate and booze. A chair if you need one. Ronnie has baked bread since lunchtime and Cas...” Brooks waved his hand over his plate. “Fucking fantastic. Not sure what she’s got in it and I do not care.” He filled his mouth with an enormous forkful and mumbled around it, “Fucking fantastic.”
Black sniffed the air, saw the line next to the pot and walked inside to grab a bowl and a fork.
“Move,” he grunted and skipped the line.
“Hey!”
“You’re all on your second serving,” Black snorted and held his clean bowl up to indicate that he hadn’t even started.
Then he filled his bowl, grabbed a couple of slices of Ronnie’s bread which he knew from experience would be fantastic, and walked off to sit down next to Cas.
“Hey,” she murmured. “I saved some inside. Wasn’t sure if you’d –”
“You invited some people.”
“Yeah,” she said with a soft sigh. “Special occasion.”
He put some food in his mouth, chewed and couldn’t hold back a moan when the flavors hit him. It was thick and rich, and there was a salty tone that blended with the meat and –
Then her words registered.
“Special occasion?”
“Yes.”
He looked down on the stew, took another mouthful and knew what she’d done.
“Babe,” he said. “You used all the pancetta for this stew, didn’t you?”
“Ragú,” she corrected him. “And yes, I did.”
“Why?”
“You know...”
He waited, and when she didn’t elaborate, he nudged her and murmured, “I actually don’t know.”
“Ria,” she sighed. “Desideria. Italian to the bone and all about family. But she couldn’t have children, and she loved Ben, which meant she was also living in a country that wasn’t her own. So, every time something she deemed was a special occasion happened, she cooked up a storm and invited all the neighbors to show up. And they did. Because of who she was, and the mood she created...” Cas grinned and nodded toward his now almost empty bowl. “And for her food.”
“What was a special occasion to her?” Black asked, touched by the way Cas had learned that a family wasn’t only about blood.
A family was something you created any way you could, and filled with the people you loved.
Growing up in Thor, surrounded by the community his parents had created, he’d always known that, and taken it a little for granted, so seeing the men in the club and their women scattered around the yard was a familiar sight. Some had brought their kids, and there were a few dogs bouncing around, chasing a ball. There was a couple of recruits sitting to the side, scarfing down food and looking like they belonged when most of them came from places they’d left as soon as they could and without looking back.
Over the crowd, his eyes met his father’s, and he got a barely-there nod.
“Anything was a special occasion to Ria,” Cas said. “Good grades, the first day of spring...” She chuckled and added, “Not so fun when I got my first period, and all the neighbors knew.”
Black barked out a quick laugh and scraped up the last from his bowl with a piece of bread.
“And today?” he asked, but he knew.
“You know,” she said, and a soft blush crept up her cheeks.
He leaned in close and breathed into her ear, “Yeah, Cassandra. I know.”
“Black...”
“Yeah.”
“Did you like the ragú?” she asked, and he blinked.
“Have you lost your mind?” he asked bluntly, and turned his bowl to show her how he’d wiped it clean. “Fuck, yes.”
“Do you want to make sure I have a reason to cook it again?”
Her eyes were soft, but there was something else in them that made his breath stumble. There was a promise of many more special occasions, and he knew that for the first time in his life, he’d met someone who could mean something.
“Yeah, baby,” he murmured and leaned in to kiss her. “I really would like to provide that reason at the earliest available opportunity.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
He grinned at her, and then he walked over to fill his bowl again, and while he did, he saw her move around among people who were eating, or just being lazy in the early evening sun.
There was good food on his porch and laughter in the air, and she’d be in his bed again that night.
Life was pretty damned good.
***
Black gathered up his tools and straightened when he heard steps approaching and turned to watch Cas walk through the doors. She was in a short skirt and a tight top, and he sighed.
“Babe,” he muttered. “Told you to stop doing that.”
“Huh?” she mumbled and continued sorting through the envelopes in her hand.
“Cassandra.”
She froze and turned to look at him.
Oh, yeah. She recognized that voice.
“Seriously?” she breathed out. “It’s ten-thirty in the morning.”
He glanced down at her chest and grinned.
She might pretend she was surprised, but her nipples were hard, so he was pretty sure she didn’t mind.
“You don’t want me to get hard then don’t wear that.”
“Wear what?”
“Clothes.”
“Black,” she said and pouted. “Would you be less hard if I didn’t wear clothes at all?”
That was a reasonable question and one which she knew the answer to.
“Probably not,” he conceded.
“What are you doing here?”
He stretched a hand out and opened the door to the laundry room.
It didn’t snag or make any funky sounds.
“You fixed the door,” she said, and he got that fucking beautiful smile.
The one that made him a sappy fool who fixed old goddamned doors when he really should have sorted out an old goddamned Honda.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said, dropped the envelopes on the reception desk, and walked up to him.
The kiss he got was brief and sweet, which was appropriate because they were in the Lodge and guests could come strolling.
“Babe, he murmured against her lips. “I’m not a flowery guy, so there won’t be buckets of roses coming your way. This,” he nodded toward the door, “This I can do, though.”
&n
bsp; Then he was pulled into the laundry room, the door was closed and locked, and she started working on his belt.
“Cas...”
“I’m just giving you what you would have gotten if you brought flowers,” she said and put her hands inside his briefs.
“Flowers would have gotten me a blow-job?” he murmured and closed his eyes when she went down on her knees.
“I like roses.”
“Roses would have gotten me a blow job?” he amended his question and looked down at her as she started stroking him.
“I keep telling you, Einar...” she pulled at his jeans and briefs to get them out of the way, “If your dick were smaller it would be. What you’ll get is mostly a tip-job.”
He snorted out a chuckle because this he’d heard several times before in the past couple of weeks.
“Babe,” he said, but it ended on a hiss when she took the tip in question into her mouth.
He quickly decided that it wasn’t going to be any job at all, and pulled her up to her feet, turned her and pressed her torso down on the counter where they folded sheets and towels.
“Don’t rip my –”
“Too late,” he muttered and positioned himself.
When he’d used the tip of his cock to tease her until she was breathing hoarsely and pushing back at him impatiently, he slid inside.
“Yeah,” he groaned and leaned forward to use his taller frame to hold her in place. She moaned softly, and he nipped her earlobe. “Fucking beautiful, Cassie.”
Then he started moving.
***
Cassandra
We’d been lovers for a month.
I’d never in my life imagined how it could be, and I still stopped to stare at him sometimes, which made me feel silly, but I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t just the sex, although that part was pretty awesome. We made love pretty much around the clock, or in Black’s eloquent words, “Fucked like bunnies,” and I knew that part of why we did was because it was new.
But mostly it was because it was us.
Being with Black was easy, and it shouldn’t be. Neither of us had had any long-term relationship in a lot of years and we’d just slid into a life together in a way that I hadn’t expected, considering the failed marriages we had in our pasts.
He hadn’t talked much about his ex, and I hadn’t asked because the time hadn’t seemed right, but the others had shared their view of Leeanne. Ronnie had been the most vocal, her opinion was not a favorable one in any way, and based on some of the stories she’d shared, I was pretty sure Black’s ex-wife was the kind of woman I would not enjoy ever meeting.
He had not enjoyed meeting my ex, which he had done when we went down to Colorado so I could hold my daughter who finally had returned from Europe.
Bill had stared at Black and stammered something about being happy to meet him.
Black had stared at Bill and said absolutely nothing at all.
Then Desi started laughing and put her arms around Black.
“Hey,” she whispered.
“Hey there, sweetheart,” he murmured without taking his eyes from Bill.
“You can’t kill him,” my daughter mumbled into his chest.
“Pretty sure it would be justified,” Black muttered, and Desi started laughing again.
I wasn’t entirely sure he was joking, so my own laughter was slightly hysterical. Then I pulled them away, waved at a pale Bill, and we went out for dinner.
Since I’d sublet my part of the duplex, we stayed in the hotel I’d managed, and I thought the female part of my former staff would pass out when they saw Black. And I got a silly high five from Jennie in the reception while he was bringing in our bags.
We only went back to the house to help Desi pull what she wanted to bring to college out of the attic where we’d put most of our personal stuff. Black carried boxes with us, but then he disappeared. I frowned while I lugged a big suitcase down the stairs, but my eyes almost popped out of my head when I heard loud laughter from the yard and saw Black sitting in a deck chair, calmly sipping on a beer while two young and very, very gay men fawned over him. And giggled loudly at everything he said.
We had been invited to dinner, it seemed, and had apparently already accepted, so we ended up having a sweet evening on my back porch. And I got a couple more high-fives when we left, and they didn’t even try to hide them from Black who just shrugged and let them kiss his cheek.
“I don’t know why you’re so surprised, babe,” he said when we drove back to the hotel. “I might be a small-town guy, but I’m not stupid and not an ass.”
Bill held a very firm view on relationships, which according to him should be within the boundaries of marriage and preferably between a man and woman. I’d called him borderline homophobic back when we still laughed together, and he was.
“But you’re a biker,” I said stupidly and stared at him while he laughed in my face.
“You don’t think there are gay bikers?” he asked when he’d calmed down, and went on to share, “There are, Cas, and at least one of them is a member of Thor.”
“Really? Who?”
“Guess?”
I thought about the men and grinned at Black.
“I don’t know, but it isn’t Brooks.”
“It could be.”
“Heh, no. The fact that he has to adjust his crotch every time he looks at Ronnie is pretty much a dead giveaway that it isn’t.”
I’d asked Ronnie about that, but she had shrugged it off and started talking about other things. I’d let her because I’d seen the flash of hurt in her eyes.
“Ronnie? Seriously?”
“Yup.”
“Huh.”
“Guess you don’t know everything,” I smirked. “So, tell me. Who is gay?”
“Downer.”
My mouth fell open, and I stared at him.
Downer was huge, tattooed, pierced, and one of the burliest bikers I’d ever seen in my life. He was thirty-something, drank hard and I’d seen him push the others around more than once.
“Seriously?”
“Do you care?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. “But he’s such a guy.”
“Such a gay,” Black corrected me calmly.
Our eyes met, and I couldn’t hold my laughter back.
“God,” I snorted. “I really don’t care, Black. It’s just that any gay man I’ve ever met has been like the ones we had dinner with.”
“Any gay man who wanted you to think about how he has sex has been like the ones we had dinner with, babe. All the other gay men you’ve met are just men who happen to like other men and don’t really see why it’s any of your business.”
I thought about that for a second and cringed.
“I feel stupid,” I mumbled.
“Why?”
“I don’t want to be that woman who doesn’t understand and who treats people like shit.”
“Are you going to treat Downer differently?”
“Of course not.”
“Not even if I tell you he got his nick because he likes to go do –”
“Oh, God.”
He grinned and took my hand as we walked into the hotel.
“Did not need that visual,” I said primly while we waited for the elevator.
“I needed to give it to you,” he said.
“Not gonna make me go down on you in a while.”
“Bet you will.”
I lost that bet less than half an hour later.
The next day we took my daughter to Portland, got her settled into her room, and Black handed me tissues half the way back to Rogan. Then Desi called and shared how she loved her roommate, the college, the town and everything about her life, so I calmed down and was smiling again when we drove into the compound to continue with the easy life we’d settled into.
And then we had our first fight.
Or, our first fight since we started sleeping together anyway.
It was a short one, and it star
ted when Black loudly, angrily, and in a speech liberally peppered with crude words, informed me that women did not touch his grill. And if they touched his grill, they did not burn themselves on it. And if they burned themselves on it, they should call him. And when they called him, they should –
“Fuck you,” I snapped at this stage and walked over to my cabin, where I hadn’t slept in a month.
The place looked like a mess, so I cleaned it up and shared with the vacuum cleaner what I thought about his behavior. I kicked the wall a few times, but calmed down while I worked, so I was about to go over to the bar and whine in Ronnie’s face for a while when Black suddenly marched in and threw a pizza-box on the coffee table.
“Sit down and eat. The damned burgers are burned.”
I blinked and stared at him.
“Black –”
“I was pissed, but it passed. Let me take a look at your arm, babe.”
“What?”
“I’m pretty sure it isn’t lost on you that I have a temper, so if you run around my grill, burning your goddamned arm, then I’m gonna yell some.”
“I –”
“Babe. It also isn’t lost on me that you’ve got pretty well-developed ability to yell right back at me.”
“But –”
“You don’t walk away,” he growled, and my brows went up. “I get pissed. You get pissed. We fight. What we don’t do is walk away. We’re in a fight you can’t handle then you tell me, and I’ll back the fuck off, but Cas, baby. You know me. I won’t ever hurt you.”
I blinked again and thought about what he just said.
“Okay,” I said when he kept watching me.
“Okay,” he echoed.
He’d been pissed, and it had passed. I’d been pissed too, but I wasn’t anymore.
And Black was right. We both had tempers, so this was probably not the last time we yelled at each other. The thought of that didn’t bother me, and I really liked what he’d said about not walking away.
Bill had walked away, I realized. When I got upset, he’d just gone silent, and walked off to do something in the garden, or turn on the TV. I suddenly realized that his way of dealing with shit had hurt more than Black’s shouts.
“Did you bring beer?” I asked.
“Get some napkins, babe,” Black said. “I put a six-pack outside the door.”
“You put –”