Center of Gravity (Marauders Book 3) (31 page)

“Yes.” I gave Joshua a little kiss and handed him back to Violet. “My place or your place?”

It was meant as a joke, but he took me to my place. While we were in the car, I massaged my leg a little. It had gotten pretty stiff while I was sitting with Joshua in my lap. Probably because I had been terrified I would drop him the entire time.

“Is it getting worse?” Mitch asked when he noticed what I was doing.

“A little. It’s not too bad, though.”

“What did they say about that?”

“It might get really bad.” I took his hand. “You might have to carry me around all the time.”

“Not that I’d mind, but is that true?”

It was worse than it had been, but it was easier to handle the extra pain, since they’d said it was unlikely that it would be permanent. Part of the problem was of course also that I weighed more now than I used to, but hopefully I’d be able to lose most of the extra weight quickly once Sprout was born. At the same time, the pain had a purpose again, so I wasn’t as bothered by it.

“Not the carrying around, but it might get pretty bad. I’ll be fine, though.”

“Sure you will, Gimp, and I’ll carry you around if that’s what it takes.”

-o0o-

I woke up the next morning when Mitch started massaging my leg. I tried to pull him in for a kiss, but he wouldn’t let me.

“Nah, nah, Gimp. I’m gonna make damn sure you do this every morning and night from now on, just to make sure.”

“So no more sex?”

“Sure, I’ll fuck you silly, too, but not until after we’ve done this.”

One thing I had noticed was that since that first night back together, neither of us had uttered those three little words again. I had a feeling that the reason he hadn’t said them again was the same reason I hadn’t—it seemed too soon. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him, but everything was so damn rushed as it was, and I wanted to keep something I could save for a while.

“I’m working late today, think you can pick me up?” I asked.

He’d said he didn’t want me to go by bus or just generally wander around alone.

“Yup, give me a call.” He was still kneading my leg, and leaned over to kiss my belly. “And I’m taking your toy box with me today.”

“What if I don’t tell you where it is?”

“I’m a pretty sharp guy, Gimp. I think I’ll be able to find it.”

He was. That was another thing I’d realized when we started to truly talk about things—he was wicked smart. Not that I’d ever thought he was stupid, but when he went on about computer stuff, numbers, finances, and such, I realized that he was really damn sharp, and that when his dad called him ‘genius’ it wasn’t just a thing he said. I’d asked Mitch about it, but he just shrugged, and when I asked him if he’d ever done an IQ test, he gave me a long speech about why those were so fucking ridiculous and didn’t say anything about a person. It made me wonder if he’d had one and had been disappointed, or if it really was what he thought. I was leaning towards the latter.

So finding my toy box wouldn’t be that hard for him.

I finished and went into the shower. When I got back out to the kitchen for breakfast, I was surprised to find Irina there. She hadn’t been home when we’d arrived the night before. At least I hoped she hadn’t. What really shocked me was the discussion the two of them were having.

“You can come by and have a look. There’s no hurry.” Mitch smiled when he saw me. “At least I don’t think there is—we’re not gonna move in together yet, are we?”

“Uh, what are you talking about?”

“I was saying that it would be very empty when you leave,” Irina explained. “This place is much too big for one person, but I don’t want to sell it, either. That’s why I stayed for years, but if you two are looking for a place, you could take this, and I can find something else. That way it stays in the family.”

“What?”

“Your parents and Irina want it to stay in the family,” Mitch explained slowly as if I was an idiot. “That’s why Irina has kept the place even when she was living alone. I told her she could have a look at my place.”

“So… you’d move here, and she’d take your apartment?”

“Unless it would be strange for you to live in the apartment you were born in,” Mitch said with a wink. “I wouldn’t mind. It’s a great apartment.”

It was, and it was big with four bedrooms. One of them was a practice room now, and the room next to the master bedroom had been the nursery when I was born. The room I had now had been Irina’s then, since it was slightly more private with the door directly out to the hallway, and it had a walk-in closet. I loved the apartment, but I hadn’t thought for a second Irina had been thinking about moving from it.

“Why?” I finally asked her.

“It’s a good home for a family, but it’s just sad for an old spinster,” she smiled. “And there is no way in hell I’m going to live with the two of you. Besides, I’d like a new place, something of my own. I’ve never truly had that. This was always
the family’s
even if I lived here alone.”

I looked at Mitch. “You’d be okay with that?”

“Yeah,” he looked around. “I might wanna fix a few things, but Irina said that would be okay.”

“Can we keep the pictures in the practice room?”

There were loads of old pictures of the people who had lived in the apartment over the years, and I loved it. It was hard for me to look at them now, since I was dancing on most of those pictures, but I didn’t want to remove them. The rule had always been that only pictures of a person while they lived in the apartment could go up on that wall.

“She already told me that those had to stay, and that we had to add to them.”

“And you’re okay with that? A full wall full of dancers?”

“Yeah. I’ll add some cool pictures of me, just to even it out.” He came up and put his hands on my bump. “It’s not gonna happen yet, there’s no hurry, but it’s something worth considering. And it saves me from mowing a fucking lawn.”

“Like you’d mow a lawn. You’d put a prospect on it.”

“Girl is learning,” he said with a kiss.

-o0o-

It was the morning of the day he was leaving, and I’d managed to completely ignore any worries I had about him going. Not so much that he’d cheat, to my own surprise, but that something would happen to him. I didn’t know the details, as per usual, but I assumed the trip wasn’t just to see the Amsterdam sights.

It had been a great week, and even if I still thought he might eventually get bored with me, I knew for sure I’d never be bored with him. I couldn’t keep up with him or his brain! He’d spent twenty minutes trying to explain the theory of relativity for me the night before, and eventually I’d just laughed. I had no idea what he was talking about; the only reason I hadn’t flunked physics in high school was because Lisa’d helped me.

I was a bit miffed, though, since I’d woken up in an empty bed, and I’d really been hoping I’d get some before he left, so I went downstairs to find him.

“When are you leaving for the airport?” I asked as I poured myself a cup of coffee.

“In two hours,” he mumbled as he leaned against my back and trapped me against the counter. “Did you do your stuff?”

He’d been very firm on that since he’d realized that me being pregnant would make the leg worse.

“Yes.”

He held up something in front of me, and it took me a while to recognize it. It was the pink, egg-shaped bullet vibrator Lisa had pushed into my bag the first time I was at the sex shop.

“This was still in the box, with no batteries in the remote. Did you get it on first or the second visit?”

“The first,” I admitted.

“I cannot fucking believe you never told me you had one of these.”

“I’d honestly forgotten. I’ve never used it.”

“Baby, you will never forget having one of these, and you will use it again,” he whispered. “Now, relax.”

I could hear it starting to vibrate, and I thought he was going to turn me around, but he just pressed his chest harder against my back to keep me in place. His first move really surprised me, because while he kissed down the side of my neck, he gently circled my nipples with it.

“Oh!”

He chuckled and kept kissing me while he played with it all over my breasts. I hadn’t even thought about using it that way. I just barely noticed when he started removing my clothes, and when it finally touched my clit, I moaned out loud.

“Lean your elbows on the counter, Baby,” he said, and I did. “Spread your legs.”

He kept playing with it on and around my clit for a long time. Never holding it too tightly against me, but rather the opposite—as if he was just teasing me. His other hand was stroking my sides, my back, and moved around to tease my nipples.

“Please,” I eventually said. “No more teasing.”

“Okay.” He gave me a light kiss between my shoulder blades, and I thought he’d finally come inside, but instead he pushed the vibrator inside of me. My eyes flew open in shock when it suddenly started to vibrate a lot harder. He was holding his hand over my opening to keep it in there while his thumb gently stroked my clit. “Clench around it to keep it in there.”

I did, and it made me feel the vibrations even more. I dropped my head against the counter.

“Oh shit, Mitch.”

“Good?”

“Yes.”

His hands were all over me, along with his mouth, and he kept whispering in my ear. It took me a while to even register the words, but I smiled when I did. He was basically just telling me how much he’d miss me, and what parts of me he thought were extra sexy.

Then I felt him prodding against my opening. “You need to be really still, Baby. Don’t move against me, just stay still.”

He obviously didn’t trust that I would, because he kept a firm hand on my neck while he gently pressed inside me. Just the tip, but he groaned when he felt the vibrations from the egg against his glans.

“Oh, fuck, that’s good. Don’t move, Anna.”

It was just shallow, slow movements, but in combination with the vibrations it was still so good, and I rapidly came closer, but I’d always thought the best part of coming was how hard he pounded into me when I did.

“Mitch, please,” I groaned. “I want all of you.”

“Fuck.” He pulled out of me, and took out the vibrator and then thrust into me with full force just as he pressed it against my clit. “Hold the vibrator, babe. Play with it.”

I did, and his arm came around my chest to pull me up against him while he played with my nipple. I moved the vibrator further down, just to see how he’d react, and when I held it against his balls, he
growled
into my ear, but I knew he liked it because he slowed down a little to make sure I could keep it there.

“I’m so close,” I mumbled.

“Wait.” He pulled out of me, turned me around and lifted me up, just to lay me down on the kitchen table and slam into me again. “I wanna see you. Now you can come,” he smiled.

And I did.

I just barely managed to open my eyes in time to see him come just after me.

He was resting on his hands above me, panting, and I sat up to give him a kiss.

“Definitely won’t forget I have it,” I murmured.

He chuckled. “Bet you won’t. Come on, I want one more round before I have to leave.”

He lifted me up and carried me up stairs after making sure I had the bullet vibrator and the remote control with me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Stoned As Fuck

-o0o-

Amsterdam was
awesome
! That was the only word Mitch could think of, but then he was stoned out of his fucking mind. He was standing next to an equally stoned Mac, and they were staring at the row of slim, high buildings.

Everyone had warned them, starting with Pico and Eagle. Then the president of the Amsterdam charter of the Smiling Ghouls, Daan, had explained that the pot in Holland sometimes contained over twenty percent THC, compared to the around ten they often had in the US. Most of the Marauders had laughed and said they got the good shit from the cartel, and when they arrived at the first coffee shop, they’d asked for the more expensive, stronger stuff.

That entire experience, going into a coffee shop, had been weird. Daan had introduced them to the guy in the shop and told him the Marauders were their guests, and they were welcome to whatever they wanted. But just the absurdness of being handed a fucking weed and hash
menu
had been mind-blowing. It wasn’t as if any of them kept their smoking a secret, but sitting at a café, having a coffee while doing it was just… absurd. Then it hit, and he’d stared at Mac, and they’d started laughing like maniacs at the same time.

Eventually he’d turned to Daan and asked him in a low voice, “How can I get this shit to the US for personal use?”

“We’ll figure something out,” Daan had answered with a laugh.

Bull was sitting opposite him and he’d eaten a space cake twenty minutes earlier, and now he was smiling like a moron. “I love this country.”

When Mitch and Mac both got the munchies, they stepped outside, and the first place they saw was a pancake house that served pancakes with everything sweet a customer could possibly want on them.

“A bridge,” Mac muttered. “Fuck, the canals are a problem. I’m gonna fall into one.”

The thought of that made Mitch giggle and, while trying to calm down, he’d looked up at the house, and that was where they were standing now. Because he was pretty sure it was leaning out towards the street—a lot! And it wasn’t because he was stoned.

All the houses he’d seen so far were narrow as fuck, rarely more than twenty feet, but after having been inside a few, he realized they were usually pretty deep.

He picked up the phone and called Anna.

“Babe, I miss you.”

“Miss you, too.”

“I’m looking at this house, and it’s seriously leaning.” He looked around. “Fuck, almost all of them are leaning.”

“How stoned are you?”
she asked with a laugh.

“Stoned as fuck! But honestly, they are.”

“I know they are. Did you call just to tell me that?”

“Yeah, and that I miss you. I’m gonna take you here. It’s beautiful!”

“I know, Mitch. I’ve been there, but I’d like to go with you some day.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before I left?”

“I just didn’t think about it. I used to travel a lot. It’s in the middle of the night here, honey. Think you can call me later or tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Sorry, baby. Talk to you soon.” He looked at Mac and shook his head with a laugh. “I need to eat.”

-o0o-

The next day, they were in the Amsterdam Ghouls’ chapel, and Mitch had decided to try to keep the smoking to a nighttime thing, because the high had lasted for a long time, and he’d been completely lost, but he’d loved it.

When Daan started speaking, he initially turned towards Chucky.

“I’m gonna direct a lot of what I’m saying to the presidents of the border charters. This is not meant as disrespect, but it’s a lot of practical issues, and it’s their reactions and questions I’m mostly interested in.”

Daan’s English was very good. In fact, almost everyone in Holland was very good at English. They had an accent, but the grammar and vocabulary was impressive. Mitch’d had no problem with making himself understood anywhere.

“I understand,” Chucky said with a nod.

“I’ll give you all a quick background first,” Daan began. “I know you’ve done some checking, and my men met most of you when they visited, so you know the basics.”

“Yes,” Chucky nodded.

“So some of you have already heard what I’ll tell you, but I’m gonna do the full thing anyway. Just so nothing is unclear.” Daan put out his smoke and took a sip from his beer before he started. “Amsterdam is pretty much the hub for all things smuggled into Europe. It’s not just drugs and shit, but
everything
. A lot of electronics, clothes, regular smokes, and even food. And as far as the legal diamond trading goes, Amsterdam is basically what New York is on the other side of the Atlantic. I’ve talked to Brick and Chucky, and I know they’ve forwarded the info to the cartel. What we want is uncut diamonds. Amsterdam is known for their long tradition of diamond cutting, so we’re gonna keep that part here.”

“Probably smart,” Brick said. “Adds to the legitimacy of the product if it’s been cut here.”

“That was our thought, too.” He gave Brick an appreciative nod.

“Not that it’s our business, but it could be, how are you spreading this through the rest of Europe?”

“The diamonds will be turned legit here, so that’s not a problem. We get them here and sell them. The pot will be moved to our other charters. But that’s not a problem either, as long as we stay within the EU.”

“They told us,” Brick chuckled. “No customs in the EU.”

“No,” Daan smiled. “EU ensures free movement of goods, service, capital, and persons. Keeping us crooks fed since 1993.” He held up his beer in a toast with a smile.

“From what I understand,” Chucky said once the laughter settled, “this will mean we’re muling a lot more than we are now.
Big
quantities. We’ve been talking about adding to our legal businesses, and going into trucks. We’re gonna have to start that up and keep it legit for a while. The law will be all over our ass for the first few months. We’ve been looking into it, and if we start now, it should be okay to go by the time our cooperation is up to full speed.”

“That’s a good plan. We have something similar, and I’ll send you some blue prints of good ways to rebuild trucks and containers with secret compartments.”

Mitch was pretty impressed with the courtesy they were shown. They hadn’t been with these guys for long, but so far he had a much better impression of the Dutch part of the Smiling Ghouls than he’d had with US guys. These guys were in control and very professional. They knew what they were doing and gave a very serious impression. A slightly scary impression, but a serious one nonetheless. This deal was important to them, and they’d made an effort to make it work.

He knew that the main parts of how the deal would work had already been set when Pico and Eagle were in the US, so this was just to finalize the last few things, and also to make sure they all knew each other. The idea was that first shipment would leave the US early in August, three months later, and then a few of the presidents and VPs from the Marauders would fly over and receive the shipment with the Smiling Ghouls, to finally follow them as they moved it. It was a gesture from the Ghouls’ side to show that they trusted them—Mitch liked it.

“I want this to be a close cooperation, not just you handing over your stuff to us. I want us to work together, because we both have experience in different areas. Yours is transport and ours is mainly selling,” Daan explained. “We have similar arrangements with other suppliers, and it has worked well. When we go into business with someone, it’s for the long run. We chose to turn to you, because from what we can see, you do things for the long run as well.”

The Marauders nodded in agreement, because that was how they did business. They rarely made quick deals, and they’d been working with the cartel for almost twenty years. This was a big decision for them, which was why they had been taking it really slow. After meeting the Dutch guys, Mitch was less anxious about it. He was still anxious, but not as much as he had been.

“What we will be demanding is that we, as your biggest customer, are your priority,” Daan continued. “I don’t want to hear that you’ve cut down on a shipment to us to supply someone else. If you have a problem, you give us a call and we talk—we’re not unreasonable—but we need a steady supply.”

“That goes both ways,” Brick answered. “If you’re our biggest customer, you don’t go back on an order. If we get you the goods you want, you pay us. I don’t want to hear about your business being slow because that’s not my problem. But just like you said, give us a call, we’re not unreasonable, either.”

“Good,” Daan said, and he did seem to mean that. It wasn’t a sarcastic ‘good.’

“What I’m wondering is if pot and diamonds are going to be enough, or if you’re going to start adding to that?” Chucky asked. “With very few exceptions, we’ve stuck to those two. It’s for a reason, and we don’t have any interest in anything else.
Or
if you’re really going to need pot in the long run. You have a pretty neat set up here with pot, and you grow it yourself, so why do you need our stuff?”

“Your pot will almost solely be for re-distribution. You have some good strands, but the main bulk is pretty shit compared to our stuff.” He smiled and looked around the table. “After last night, I’m sure you can all agree with me on that. But we have cheap crap in the coffee shops, too. Most of it as the pre-rolled joints we sell to clueless tourists. It’ll get them high, but not much more than that. But we have limited resource and a high demand from the rest of Europe, so that’s why we need more. Since we at the same time were looking for a diamond distributor, it seemed like a good idea to contact you guys. This isn’t about switching distributor, it’s about getting into a new businesses, and we have distributors for the other things we need, so we won’t need it from you.”

That actually did make sense to Mitch. It was one distribution chain to set up instead of two, and probably the main reason why the Marauders had been their choice. It was also an opportunity to get in contact with the cartel; Mitch was pretty sure the Ghouls were interested in selling guns to them. That wasn’t their problem, though, and he was pretty sure it wouldn’t become their problem either.

-o0o-

Three days later, Mitch was still madly in love with Nederwiet and Amsterdam. He’d heard about how things worked in Amsterdam, but he’d still been shocked when he walked into an alley full of display windows and realized there were women in most of them—lightly dressed women.

Bull had immediately gone into one of them, and they hadn’t seen him again that night. Mitch couldn’t blame him; the women were hot. Most of them looked pretty fucking bored, though, and a lot of them were talking on the phone while glaring at the people walking by. It sort of felt like a zoo, but instead of kids looking at monkeys, it was drunk middle-aged men looking at women.

The next day Bull had been eager to go to a few museums, which had highly shocked
everyone
, but it turned out one of the prostitutes had informed him about a couple of sex museums and a torture museum. Eagle had obviously been to all of those, and he went with them. Bull’s only comment was that Wrench would’ve loved those places, and they’d had a hard time getting him to move from a display case with the Pear of Anguish. The Torture Museum was a small, cramped museum with narrow hallways, and Bull was pretty much filling it up, stopping others from being able to pass him. Mitch had also been worried that Bull was going to try to steal it.

After two museums, Mac and Mitch left the others and went to a coffee shop instead, and it was just the two of them for the rest of the day. Usually, whenever they went somewhere, Mitch didn’t hang out with Mac, simply since Mac didn’t drink much and definitely didn’t hunt for pussy. But this time Mitch was sort of in the same position, and it was quite nice to hang out. It wasn’t as if they didn’t usually see each other often, but it had been three days straight with him, and it had been great.

They walked back to the clubhouse. The Smiling Ghouls had offered them bikes, but after the first attempt at riding in Amsterdam, Mitch had thought it best to not try again and definitely not while stoned. The traffic was insane, and the roads about as narrow as the houses.

Their dad was sitting outside the clubhouse and got up to meet them.

“Need you two for a while. Daan gave us a room so we could talk. The others are waiting.”

“You could’ve called,” Mitch said.

“Wasn’t any hurry. Daan brought some of his hookers and Nederwiet here. No one minded waiting.”

“I bet,” Mac chuckled.

It took them a while to collect all of them, and Tommy, Mace, and Sisco were zipping up their pants with big grins when they came walking into the room.

“You really picked the wrong time to get back with Swan,” Sisco smiled when he sat down. “They got some Class-A hookers.”

“Yeah,” Mitch muttered, but he honestly didn’t care. “So what’s up?” he asked Chucky and his dad.

“Brick here told me that you, and some of the others, had some concerns about the relationship between the Europeans and the Americans. The same concerns have been raised in Englewood, and I think it a few of the other charters.” He looked at the two other presidents at the table, and both of them nodded. It was the mother charter and the border clubs who’d been invited, which were the charters the Greenville Marauders worked closest with. “First off I wanna hear what you have to say about this club.”