Blood in the Water (Kairos) (5 page)

“Go on.  There’s a room cleared in back for you two.  Moira knows which one.”  Terry nodded at the doorway which led from the main room of the clubhouse to a corridor which ran almost the full length of the building and granted access to several dorm rooms.  Some rooms were usually in permanent use by unattached members of the club, but at least one was always kept empty for use in case of whatever.  Samuel pushed away from the bar, kissed each of his children on their foreheads and left them in the company of the family that was the club before following his wife away from the chattering masses.

The volume level diminished as soon as they were through the doorway.  Moira paused expectantly before him, but Samuel moved her on with a slight push in the small of her back.  He didn’t trust himself to speak, or to touch her more than that.  He’d locked a tight fist round his control and if he let it go before they were behind a locked door there was a good chance that at all the people back in the main room would at least be witness to the audio of them coupling here on the corridor floor.

Moira seemed to catch onto his dilemma and hurried along.  All the doors looked exactly alike, all painted a shade of forest green that was different from the dark blue Samuel remembered, but Moira knew which one she was aiming for and fumbled a key into the lock of one.  Samuel followed her through, almost pushing her into the room.  He took a beat to take in the arrangement of the furniture, namely the location of the bed, while Moira locked the door, and then he was on her, pushing her against the wooden frame, devouring her with his hands and his mouth, reveling in the rediscovery of the taste of her, of the feel of the curves of her body.

The quiet in the room was so complete that Samuel felt deafened by it after the cacophony in the other room.  It took him a moment to register the breathless moans coming from his wife, and another moment to realize the bestial grunts he could hear were coming from himself.  There were no words, no need of them, and no use for them.  Moira was pushing at his shoulders.  His lust was on the edge of becoming rage at the thought she might deny him, until he comprehended that she intended for him to take her place against the door. 

He tripped around her, crashing backwards, just barely keeping his feet under the onslaught of pure need, unable to process her intentions until
Oh Dear God!
  She was on her knees and she was freeing him from his jeans and
Jesus H Christ in Heaven
he was in her mouth.  It was hot and wet and more, much more than he could stand.  He was coming in body-wracking pulses before he could finish threading his hands into her hair.  His knees buckled and he sagged, only just keeping from sliding to the floor in an orgasmic puddle.  Samuel realized he had his eyes squeezed shut.  When he opened them, Moira was sitting back on her heels, smiling up at him with a grin that would have made Lucifer proud, delicately wiping the corner of her lips with a manicured fingertip.

“Welcome home, cher.”

“Jesus... God.   I’m... sorry....”  He stuttered between pants.

Moira laughed a sultry sound that he felt in his balls.  His cock began to twitch and harden again.  He hadn’t felt this randy since puberty hit.

“Fuck I love you, cher.”  He pulled her up from her knees and buried his hands in her hair and his tongue in her mouth, walking her backwards until her legs hit the edge of the bed.  She allowed herself to fall onto the covers, her arms outspread, before he could push her down. 

The look in her eyes had darkened substantially.  “It’s been six long years, cher.”

Samuel’s small brain had taken over again, robbing him of the higher cognitive power necessary for coherent speech.  He fell onto his wife.  She was wearing a dress, the detail of which had completely evaded him other than the fleeting thought that it looked like a huge, stiff t-shirt and hid everything good about her body, was completely inappropriate for getting on the back of his bike in and was going to be burnt at the earliest opportunity.  He bunched the material up around her waist and discovered the primary reason for her choice of outfit. She wasn’t wearing any underwear.  Samuel paused just long enough to look his wife in the eye and beg forgiveness before he stabbed into her, fast and completely until he was enveloped in her body.  Surrounded by that lush wet heat, his composure gave out and he dropped his forehead to her shoulder, sobs shaking him through to the marrow of his bones.

She was murmuring in his ear, but it took him some minutes to be able to hear the words that she was repeating.

“There, there, cher.  Nothing to be sorry for.  I needed you too.  Still do.”

Her words began to penetrate the fog in his head about the same time that Samuel’s body telegraphed the message that she was flexing against him.  That brought with it the realization of the sensation that she was slick and wet and that he hadn’t hurt her with the brutality of his need.  He tried to make words, to tell her how much he loved her, how much he needed her, how much he was thankful for her, but they got crowded and stuck in his throat until they came out all jumbled together as a grunt. 

So instead he showed her how much he’d missed her, how much he needed her.  He pulled out and slammed back into her, wrenching a moan from both of them.  The satin heat of her pussy was almost too much.  Determined that he wasn’t just going to use her for his own satisfaction again this night, Samuel slid his hand between them, finding her clit with an ease that belied the time they’d spent apart.  His body, acting on instinct honed through the years spent together before this separation, took over.  He found the rhythm and the angle that had Moira screaming his name, her nails buried in the leather of the kutte he was still wearing as her body spasmed around his, robbing him of reality once more in a flash of white light.

When he settled back to his body the strength seeped out of his arms and Samuel collapsed onto his wife’s heaving chest before rolling over to give her space to draw breath.  The feel of pulling out of her luscious body wrenched another moan from him.  He didn’t want to lose that feeling, not ever again.

Moira’s laughter startled him out of his relaxed fugue.  “Cher, you better be plannin’ on workin’ on your stamina.”

“Cheeky bitch.”  He made a halfhearted swat in her direction.  The muscles in his body were still refusing to act as one organism.

“Don’t worry, cher, we have the rest of our lives.”

“Damn right. I ain’t goin’ back Moira.  I won’t ever spend years away from you or the kids again.

His wife rolled onto her side, without bothering to straighten her dress, and placed her palm in the center of his chest.  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, cher.  I know what this life is.  Knew what it was when I signed up for it.  You can’t give me guarantees like that and I won’t ask for them.”

Samuel didn’t answer, he couldn’t.  He didn’t intend to retract his vow or amend it, so anything he might have said would have been a lie, and this wasn’t a time for lies.  He turned onto his side to face his wife.  He traced the line of her cheek and jaw then turned his hand to brush the backs of his fingers down her throat.  When he reached the collar of that hideous dress, some god-awful mustard color, he gave it a tug and grinned.

“Cher, you know I hate this?”  His voice was hoarse and he coughed to try and clear it a little.

“It served a purpose.  It don’t crease either.”

Moira returned his grin and then rolled off the bed.  She pulled the hem of the dress straight and hunted for shoes that Samuel hadn’t known she’d lost.  Having found her footwear and slipped it on, Moira disappeared into the small bathroom the adjoined the room.  Samuel flipped to his back and stared at the ceiling, listening to the water running and simply letting his mind be blank for a few moments.  The draft cooling his cock forced him to stand and tuck himself back into his jeans.  He was sticky and it was uncomfortable, but he liked the feeling, liked the idea of walking around with his wife still on him.  His knees still felt a little shaky.

There was a mirror hanging on the wall opposite the bed over flimsy desk.  Samuel examined his reflection, looking for traces of lipstick and seeing his black hair, threaded with some grey, more than he remembered, waving back over his ears.  It had been a while since he’d last had it cut in prison.  They only seemed to have two grades of tools, rusty and rustier.  A decent haircut was definitely high on his list of things to accomplish within the next few days.  Some quirk of genetics between his dark hair and brown eyes and Moira’s red hair and green eyes had produced two blonde, blue-eyed children.  Dean had inherited his father’s quick-to-tan skin while Ashleigh had inherited her mother’s porcelain perfection.  Samuel thought a lesser man might have been made insecure by the lack of physical resemblance in his progeny, but the shape if not the color of their features and their attitudes and mannerisms were equal mixes of him and his wife.  There was no doubt at all whose children they were.

When Moira emerged from the bathroom, he slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her against his chest for a deep, lingering kiss.  They couldn’t abandon the kids out in the middle of the party all night.  The adults would fully understand if he and Moira weren’t seen for another twenty-four hours or so, but Ashleigh and Dean deserved his attention too.  He fully intended to pick up where he’d left off with his wife as soon as they were home.  But for now, they needed to return to the celebrations in his honor.

Tomorrow he would ride and reconnect some more with his family, and then it would be back to business.  He’d been gone from his seat at the head of the table too long.  Terry wanted him back. His brothers wanted him back.  He wanted to be back.  He was ready.  He had returned to the bosom of his family, his whole family.  For now, life was about living.  He’d spent six years reflecting, examining, deconstructing; now it was time to immerse himself in the thick of it, to grab life with both hands and wrap it around him.  This was his life, it was good, it would be good, and it would get better.  There was action on the horizon.  The deal with the Rojas family needed life breathed into it now that he was on the outside and he was ready to start the CPR.

1999

“Happy Birthday, baby bird.”  Her daddy slung his arm around her shoulder and pulled her into a one-armed hug as he carried on shucking the pancakes he was making in the griddle pan.  She kissed him on the cheek and let him get back to the cooking.

“Happy Birthday, Tinky.”  Her brother sputtered around a mouthful of pancakes.  Her daddy must be on his second batch already.  That didn’t mean she was late, just that Dean had gotten there first.

Using the nickname earned him a clip around the back of his head from her mama, who was putting a fresh carton of juice on the kitchen island.  Ashleigh crossed to the cupboard to retrieve a glass.

“Happy Birthday, sweetheart...”  Her mama’s smile faded only a little as she cut herself off before she said anything else, sighed and carried on with her next breakfast task. 

It was the boots.  Ashleigh knew it was about the boots.   Her mama hated her wearing these battered old engineer boots that she’d found at a tabletop sale to school, but they were comfy and she could go pretty much anywhere in them.  Considering her momma’s own outrageous shoe collection it was no surprise that the mottled and chapped brown leather affronted her.  Ashleigh was used to it; she didn’t take offence.  At least her mama had stopped commenting on the rest of her outfit choices. 

Ashleigh preferred baggy combat trousers, a beater and one of her dad’s flannel work shirts above anything remotely involving tailoring or, God forbid, Lycra.   The big trend at school was tiny, little, plaid, pleated skirts and knee-high, white socks with little, shiny, plastic rucksacks that looked like they’d been shrunk in the wash.  No way was Ashleigh wearing that crap.  Half the girls looked like they belonged in the clubhouse on a Friday night.  She didn’t follow a trend.  She wasn’t truly grunge and with her blonde hair, blue eyes and minimal makeup she was leagues away from the kids who played at being Goths.  She didn’t want the attention that came with fitting into a clique; she just wanted to be herself.  Her dad raised his eyebrows when he realized she’d “borrowed” another one of his shirts, but they both knew he’d be a whole lot more upset if she wore what passed for trendy, so he said nothing; or at least, not much.

“’Tween you and your brother, baby bird, I ain’t gonna have a whole lotta clothes left.”  Ashleigh looked over and realized Dean had “borrowed” one of their dad’s shirts too.

Ashleigh shrugged, “I can go for the catholic school girl hooker look if you prefer?”

“None doin’, baby bird.  You carry on stealin’ my shirts.”  Her dad grinned at her.

“Are you gonna... what’re you plannin’ on.... “Ashleigh had to laugh at her mama’s stuttering.  She knew damn well what her mama was trying to get at.  She really honestly didn’t mind because she appreciated that her mama was trying not to foist her own sense of fashion on her - failing, but trying nonetheless.

“Spit it out, Mama.”

Her mama gave her a withering look.  “Are you plannin’ on wearin’ somethin’ for your party tonight that won’t have your Aunt Dolly on my back about how I’m lettin’ you turn into a complete savage?”

Ashleigh settled herself on a stool at the island opposite her brother with the plate, cutlery and glass that she’d collected.  Her father came over with a plate stacked with fresh pancakes and placed it on the counter in between Ashleigh and Dean.  Ashleigh swatted her brother’s hand away when he tried to pull the plate towards him.

“I was thinkin’ of wearin’ that little brown dress.  You know, the one Aunt Dolly thought maybe signaled the second comin’ of Christ when I pulled it off the rail?”

She saw her daddy raise his brows in question at her mama.  He hadn’t seen the dress yet.  She knew Uncle Terry made fun all the time of how her daddy was going to be spending more time in prison after he pulled his shotgun on some poor boy looking at his daughter.  And since Ashleigh hadn’t been on any dates yet, her daddy was thinking he might make it to her eighteenth birthday without being charged with murder.  She could see that now he was getting a little worried, probably because she’d described the dress as ‘little’.  Her mama was wearing a big smile of relief, though.

“That’ll be just fine, sweetheart.  You might want to put your black jacket over it, though, for the clubhouse.”

The dress was dark chocolate velvet.  It was cut like a t-shirt around the neck with little cap sleeves.  It barely even showed her collar bones let alone any cleavage, but it was short, several inches above her knees, and only just long enough to be decent.  It flared from the hip, which saved it from looking completely slutty, but it needed a bit more coverage for the clubhouse in party mode.  She was the President’s daughter, she was very definitely off limits and very definitely jail-bait; but the booze and the weed would be in full swing regardless of the fact that it was effectively her birthday party and since there would likely be visitors it wouldn’t do for anyone to get confused.

At least she’d managed to talk everyone out of throwing a huge party for her; and by everyone she meant her mama and Aunt Dolly.  Her daddy had looked kind of relieved.   He seemed a little sad, too, but if he was sorry for her that she wasn’t getting a party, he respected her decision and didn’t say anything.  Ashleigh figured her mama knew what her reasons were, reading between the lines of the spiel she’d given them about not being into that sort of thing and finding the one-upmanship consumerism of massive Sweet Sixteen celebrations morally offensive. 

Aunt Dolly had been mortified.  Ashleigh thought maybe Aunt Dolly had been planning a party for her for this birthday since the day she’d been born.  Aunt Dolly didn’t seem to cotton to the way that Ashleigh had been talking her way out of birthday parties for years.  Dean never had the same hassle.  Probably because he had a small circle of friends at school and he had been happy to throw ideas like paintballing or go-karting in the way of celebrations at their mama.  Aunt Dolly, however, still continued to ask when Ashleigh was going to try out for the cheer team.  Yeah, like that would ever happen.  Being part of the cheer squad was pretty much Ashleigh’s idea of one of the lower circles of hell.

Ashleigh didn’t have any friends at school, except Jason, and he was as much of the club as she was.  His daddy had sat at the table with her daddy for just as long.  As she was buried so deeply within the club, it wouldn’t have been a surprise to a lot of people, a lot of civilian people at least, if she’d have gone off the rails, but Ashleigh knew better.  There wouldn’t be one person in the club, even the fucking Prospects most likely, not on her case in a heartbeat if she did anything out of line.  She couldn’t get away with squat in this goddamn town without her parents finding out.  They were okay about a lot of stuff, and that gave her enough room to breathe, but if she ever got caught shoplifting like Tanya had been last semester or cut class and got drunk in the bayou and nearly drowned like Melody had, she’d be on lockdown for months.

Ashleigh didn’t give a shit about fitting in at high school.  The ‘cool’ kids bored her.  They talked about TV shows that Ashleigh found absolutely mind-numbing, and they wouldn’t read anything unless it was Cosmo or Vogue.  They were completely culturally vapid, in her opinion.  Not that she considered herself anything special, but she took an interest.  She liked to know stuff, to understand it and she liked to be aware of things like local politics.  The popular crowd at school didn’t even seem to give a shit where their oxygen came from unless Greenpeace were the in-thing that week.  She didn’t give a shit at all that they didn’t like her.  She didn’t need them.  She had the club.  Whatever happened in her life she would always have the club. 

High school was temporary, her family, the whole extended chaos of it, was permanent.  All she had to do was survive the next two years.  There was no way in heaven or earth or in any place in between that her parents would let her drop out, not that she wanted to, but some days it was a damn attractive option.  She could not wait for graduation day.  There had been a lot of good times in her life so far, but Ashleigh was pretty certain that graduation day, the relief of never having to set foot inside that building ever again, was going to be high up on her list of incredible days.  It wasn’t enough to put her off college, but she sure hoped that college wouldn’t be exactly like high school or she was going to have to alter some major life decisions.  She wanted to work with animals.  She wanted to be married with a family, as well.  It was conventional shit, but she knew it would be what made her happy, it was in her genetics.  Despite all those years her daddy had been away, she wanted to be just like her parents.

Jason was planning to join the Navy out of high school.  He wanted to see the world and there was next to no chance he’d ever be able to afford to do that if he stayed in Absolution.  He planned to become a Marine and let the US Government pay for his travel.  He was a lot less bothered than Ashleigh was that it meant that people would be shooting at him.  Ashleigh knew that the club would be just as proud of him joining the military as they would be if he decided to Prospect, but her parents would be far happier that he had a good, solid, civilian job if he ever made good on those promises he’d been half-making to her lately.  Knowing that her parents would be letting loose at her party and drinking and relaxing more than they usually did, Jason had told her that he had something planned for them for the night of her birthday party, an after party, a celebration involving just the two of them.  Ashleigh found it hard to concentrate on every day stuff when she thought about that.  She was nervous, scared and excited all over every time she let her mind wander over what it might be like.

Trying to ignore that strange tingling that she felt whenever she thought of Jason Palmer and the ‘gift’ he had planned for her, Ashleigh finished eating her breakfast, rinsed her plates and put them in the dishwasher.  She gave each of her parents a kiss on the cheek before following her brother upstairs.  She needed to grab her school bag and get going or they’d miss the bus.