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“I’ve thought about it, yes,” I say into the phone. I’m trying to sound bored and unaffected but, truthfully, I probably just sound tired.
“And you’ve come to your senses about merging our two clubs?” Drew asks on the other end of the line.
“I don’t know,” I say. “What if I haven’t, as you’ve said, come to my senses?”
“Well,” Drew says, “Then I’ll have forty guys there to take threefold what you’ve taken from me. You’ll be first on deck. My daughter will become a widow. Your club will still end up in ruins.”
“Drew, you know I respect you. I respect the process. I’d never have authorized this bullshit Spree pulled off,” I say. “I’m asking you to think rationally about this.”
“I do understand, but a leader takes responsibility for all of his brothers. Spree was yours to control. You did not. He is now gone, and you have to pay a price for his actions. I’m the one damaged here. Two guys down, one of them my second in command. My daughter claimed, when I had planned a union for her here. These are losses, Grisham. Pay the price.”
“I’ve worked hard to build this,” I say. “I made a choice when I shot my weapon at Spree. I gave you restitution by ending a life.”
“I know, boy. I know,” he says, and I can hear in his voice that he gets it. “This life is hard work. Leadership is full of choices and some of them are shitty, but right. And the next choice you need to make is to say yes to what I’m offering. There don’t need to be more bloodshed. I know you don’t want it, and neither do I. So let me take this off your plate. I can help you save face by putting you in a second position and if things work out, you’ll be back in the top spot when I retire. I can give you time with Tanzie, with your daughter. You can make the club part time, whatever.”
The thought sounds good. Take what I’ve built, make it stronger by merging the clubs. More time with Shannon. More freedom to explore other interests. The club won’t have to be my number one priority all the time. Tanzie will be safe. I can be with her. For real.
“I’m still thinking about it. Seriously thinking about it, because it’s a totally fair deal. I just ... need to talk to some of my guys,” I say.
“Forty-eight more hours,” he says sharply. “And how’s my daughter?”
“Better,” I say. “I never left her side. She looks worse for the wear but she’ll be fine.”
“Do you love her?” he asks.
“Does it matter at this point?” I counter. “You were going to marry her to someone she had no interest in.”
“She would’ve been safe. He would’ve treated her like a queen,” Drew says.
“I disagree,” Grisham says.
“So you do love her, then?” Drew asks.
It’s so hard for me to admit feelings. To anyone. When Giselle died, I felt like I’d never even feel again, let alone feel something like love. My head tells me it’s too soon—I barely know this girl. This woman. But I feel ... something. A flicker of hope, maybe. A familiarity. A comfort. A chemistry.
I mean, I’m not going to write a sonnet or any silly shit like that, but I do care. I do want her.
“I care for her, yes.” I admit.
“That’s a start,” he says. “Thank you.”
As I hang up, Tanzie comes to where I sit by the window, lowering herself onto my lap. Her long blonde hair hangs around her shoulders. Her brown eyes are wide in her thin face. Her lips are pink and succulent. I can’t help but kiss her. I kiss her like a man who’s found water in the desert.
Kissing isn’t enough, though. I spin her around so she straddles me. I need her to feel the hardness of my cock between her legs. I need the press of her perfect tits against my chest. I need all that hair in my hands. I’ve been so careful with her since she’s been back. She looked so frail and damaged and I felt so, so guilty. Tanzie Williams would not have been hurt if she hadn’t come into my life.
The flipside, of course, is that I know she wasn’t happy there. She was afraid of what it would mean for her to marry Kit. She wasn’t interested in him at all. It makes me want to punch a hole in the wall to think of his hands on her. If he wasn’t dead already, I might just kill him anyway.
I’m brought back to reality, back to sanity, as she presses against me, her hips moving on my lap. Her tongue searches mine and her moans become more intense, more wanting. Tanzie is a vocal lover, and I find her sex sounds extra motivating. My hands are on the back of her head, holding her lips to mine as my tongue explores her mouth.
I should be careful with her. She’s bruised and broken and scarred. But I suddenly want her so badly that I can hardly control myself. I want to claim her again and again. I’m suddenly feral.
I pick her up and take her back to the bed, divesting her of the T-shirt she wears, worshipping those lovely breasts with my hands, my mouth. I slip my pants off and push those tits together, slipping between them before bringing the tip to her lips. She parts, gladly taking me in, her moans so sexy as she opens her throat, letting me thrust, her tongue working magic and her hands caressing my balls.
I swear I’ll explode. I want to. I want to see my cum on her tits and face. That’s what a claiming is, my mark all over her. But I also want more of her. I want my face as far up her sweet pussy as I can get it. I want her wet and wild and undulating through a chorus of orgasms that make her forget her own name. I want to be balls deep inside of her, sweaty and angry and pushing so hard she might crack in half.
As I go to pull out, she grabs my ass, forcing me to stay, She wants to give this gift, and it only takes a glance at her gorgeous mouth around my hard rod to get me closer. She takes it, so gorgeous, her grunts and moans surrounding me in a symphony of pleasure. I pull out only as I burst, spraying my pleasure all over her neck and breasts and belly.
“You’re mine,” I growl. “You hear me?”
She whimpers pleasurably, wiping my cum all over her body, lifting her fingers to her lips to experience my taste.
I move down her body, kissing her, tasting myself on her skin. She wraps her legs around my waist, her arms around my neck. We kiss for so long as I recover and when we can’t stand it anymore, she unwraps and puts her hands above her head, inviting me to worship at her altar.
Because I love the way her nipples pucker, I start there, but my hands soon find her wet, soft lips beneath her tiny, silk panties and I stroke, finding her clit, then her sweet hole, where I insert two fingers. She arches to meet me, a moan escaping those perfect lips. As the pace increases, she pushes right back against me, so slick and wet and wanting. She lifts her legs so that her ass is in the air, my fingers getting deeper entry as I punish her with the speed of my thrusts.
Her orgasm rips through her and she stops breathing as her pussy tightens around my fingers so intensely that it feels I might not be able to retrieve them.
“Fuck, baby,” I breathe. “Your pussy feels so good. You feel so good. So wet. Come again for me.”
She cries out and her head thrashes back and forth as her pleasure goes on and on, the longest orgasm I’ve ever seen a woman experience. I just keep thrusting in and out, finally desperate for her, dropping further down, ripping her panties from her body, causing her to cry out in shock. I dive in, my tongue joining my fingers, working her clit as it pulsates, enlarged, a second wave of release taking control of her.
Her eyes roll back in her head and her mouth opens, her tongue darting out to wet her gorgeous lips. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life as this woman coming. I could watch it all day. I feel kind of awestruck, frankly, ready to come again just from watching it.
When she finally calms, her eyes focus on my face and a wide, natural smile brightens her face.
“Good?” I ask.
“You’re smiling,” she says. “Oh, my god. I’ve literally never seen you smile.”
“You’re gorgeous,” I say, moving up, my ready cock finding its place at her entrance.
“I’m going to hate myself for saying this later, but I think I love you,” she says.
I feel my face splitting into what’s probably a teenage-looking, shit-eating grin. It’s a stupid feeling, so I bury my face in her neck and my cock in her pussy. She cries out, scratching her nails along my back in a way that makes me forget everything else in my life at that moment.
I can’t say it back. Not just yet. But damn, it makes me feel good to hear it.
*
