Climbing Out (12 page)

“The man of your dreams.”

Fuck. Julian was here; it was too early for this shit. I liked the guy, but...yeah...he could be a bit much. I mean, there was no way in hell I’d ever say anything. The women loved him, and we’d—meaning me and Talon—get the shit kicked outta us if we ever tried to change him in any way. It wasn’t that we were worried they’d literally kick the shit out of us...it was more that we were concerned they’d cut us off from their pussies. That could never fuckin’ happen.

“Hello, sweetmeat!” he called through the door. I hurried to open it in case the neighbours thought I was havin’ it off with him. Very fuckin’ unlikely though—they knew I was here for my woman...but still.

Flicking the lock and opening the door, I was greeted by a grinning Julian and a quiet Mattie.

“Yo,” I said.

“Oooooh, look at you, beautiful.” My eyes went to Julian as he squealed this, just to make sure he was talking to my daughter and not me. Thank Christ, his excited face was directed at Swan. He clapped his hands out to her, and she was more than willing to be taken by him.

What was it with women and kids? They fuckin’ adored this guy.

He pushed his way in, and I had to back up or he would’ve rubbed himself against me. Mattie followed behind him and gave me an apologetic gaze, but anyone could see he also adored the guy—in more ways than one.

Something I would not even think about.

“Sorry to come by so early; is Deanna still in bed?” Mattie asked.

“Not anymore, with all the bloody noise.” She walked out of the hall and into the living room in hot fuckin’ short-shorts and a light blue tee. My dick strained to get to her.

“Oops. Sorry, blossom. I didn’t know you were in the room,” she said as she walked up to Swan in Julian’s arms and gave her a sweet peck on the cheek. Swan beamed up at her.

“Princess,” I growled. I wanted—no,
needed
—her mouth on me as soon as my eyes caught sight of her each morning.

With an eye roll, she walked over to me. I wrapped her up in my arms and kissed the fuck outta her. She was finally getting used to doin’ it in front of an audience.

She turned in my arms with a slight blush on her cheeks and met the guys’ gazes.

“You do know that we’re gay, right? So you don’t need to mark your territory in front of us,” Julian teased.

Deanna laughed. “He isn’t doing it for you; it’s what he wants, and if he doesn’t get a kiss every morning, he gets cranky.”

Mattie chuckled, and Julian smiled and said, “That is so awesome.”

“What are you guys doin’ here?” I left out
so fuckin’ early.

“We wanted to take Swan to see Zara and the kids. Is that okay?” Mattie asked.

Deanna looked up at me and raised her eyebrow. I shrugged. “If it’s okay with Swan,” I told the men.

“Do you wanna go, sweetheart?” Deanna asked her. Swan nodded. “Then you can go. Do you have a seat in the car for her? If not, you can borrow ours. She can’t go in a car without a seat; it’s unsafe...what?” she snapped at the end, after she noticed all of us smiling widely at her.

“Just happy to see you caring for Swan,” I said and then looked at Mattie, “And you can take my car.” I looked back down to Deanna, “We’re taking yours to the supermarket; we need shit for the house.”

“Oh, okay,” she mumbled.

“Great!” Julian grinned. “Let’s go get this monster organized for a day with her uncles, and then we’ll get out of your hair. I’m sure you’ll like that.” He chuckled when Deanna gave him the finger after Swan turned her head away.

“I’ll help,” she said and followed Julian to the hall door, no doubt heading up to Swan’s bedroom to get her dressed.

While they did that, Mattie and I went into the kitchen to shoot the shit about random stuff. Now
he
was more than normal, and very easy to get along with. Look, I didn’t give a fuck if a person was gay or anything, but sometimes Julian just shoved the fact in your face and flirted shamelessly; Mattie didn’t. He was quiet, and just sat back and watched what was goin’ on around him. I supposed Julian was damned lively enough for the both of them.

“Mattie,” Julian called from the front. I walked with him out into the living room to see Swan was now freshly dressed and lookin’ happy. I walked over, gave her a kiss on the cheek and said, “Be a good girl.”

“Oh, I will, but only if you kiss me.” Julian smiled.

Jesus.

“Never gonna happen, and you know if my daughter is harmed in any way in your care, I’ll come for blood.”

“Grady, stop it. She’ll be fine; won’t you, sweet girl?” Dee cooed and gave her a kiss on the cheek of her own. Swan nodded, waved and left along with a final farewell from both Mattie and Julian.

“You know, the more you cringe and react, he’ll keep being over the top,” Deanna explained as we watched them place Swan in my car.

“I highly doubt that. No one could knock that shit outta him; it’s just who he is.”

She laughed. “Yeah, that’s true. Now, are we going back to bed to fuck?” She turned in my arms and raised her chin to look up at me with hooded eyes.

My hands went to her arse and I gave it a pinch. She hit me in the ribs. “I’d love to be buried inside of you right now, but we gotta go do some shopping. After we get home though, there will be nothing to stop me from having my cock in you.”

She rolled her eyes. “You say such sweet things.”

I chuckled. “And you love it.” Her eyes turned serious as soon as ‘love’ left my lips. I wanted more than anything to tell her I loved her with everything I had, but we just weren’t ready yet.

She closed her eyes, smiled, and then whispered, “Maybe.” With that, she moved from my arms and stalked into the kitchen, her hips swaying in a way that had my cock hardening once again.

We weren’t ready yet, but it was coming soon. Very fuckin’ soon.

Deanna

––––––––

I
could not believe I was in a supermarket, with my man, shopping like some average Joe. It shocked the shit out of me that he wanted to go food shopping with me in the first place. Though, I knew as soon as I saw him walkin’ down the aisles pushing a trolley, the sight would make me wet and I’d want to jump his bones. And it did. My hard, grey-eyed man with salt-and-pepper hair, tattooed arms, wearing biker boots, jeans and a black tee looked more than fuckin’ hot in a supermarket pushing a trolley and collecting food to feed his family.

I went up behind him while he studied a package of pasta, wrapped my arms around his waist and stood on my tippy-toes to whisper in his ear, “I am so wet and ready for you; it’s ridiculous.”

A soft growl erupted from his chest. “Do not fuck with me right now or I’ll take you on the floor right here and right now. I don’t give a fuck who watches.” His lips crashed down onto mine. I hated public displays of affection, but when it came to Grady, I didn’t give a fuck.

“Deanna?” I heard over my shoulder. I was pissed someone had interrupted our make-out session, but when I turned around my stomach dropped, and I knew some shit was about to go down. There stood one of my exes, Nate Derick. He and I went out for six months just before Zara and her stuff went down. I broke it off with him because he wanted to get serious and I didn’t. There was also the fact he wasn’t that great in bed, but I wasn’t a big enough bitch to say anything. He still looked good with his sandy-coloured hair, dark blue eyes, and his tall, slim body. He wore black trousers and a white shirt, dressed to impress like usual, and I supposed he had to for his job as the owner of a car dealership.

“Nate, um...hi,” I said.

“It’s great to see you, Deanna. I’ve been thinking about you heaps.”
Oh, shit
. I felt Grady tense behind me. “Who’s this? Your dad?”
Oh, fuck.
“Hi, I’m Nate, Deanna’s ex...for now.” He grinned and then held out his hand to Grady, who stood as still as a statue behind me.

“Are you fuckin’ shittin’ me?” Grady growled low and deep.

Nate straightened, put his hand down at his side—
thank God or he would have lost it
—and with a puzzled look, he asked, “About what?”

Instead of answering, Grady glanced down at me and asked, “Is this dickhead for real?”

I licked my lips.

“Excuse me, but what is your problem?” Nate snapped.

Holy crap.

Grady took a step forward, bringing me with him because I stood in front of him. “My problem, assface, is that you have the balls to ask if I’m her daddy when I was not even a second ago sucking her face and she was enjoying every minute of it. Now, did that look to you like I’m her fuckin’ father?”

“Well, I just presumed you could have been an affectionate family, because it didn’t make sense to me that Deanna would be interested in someone so old, when she could have someone like me.”

Jesus Christ.
Blood was about to be spilt.

Grady’s eyes widened, turned to me and he barked, “And you let this fuckhead inside of you?” He seemed sick by the idea.

“Do
not
look at me like that, Grady Daniels. God knows where your cock has been, so don’t fuckin’ start judging me,” I snapped with my hands on my hips, glaring up at him. How dare he?

“Deanna, I’m sure you can do better than this; this guy isn’t worth it,” Nate said from behind me. I felt him take a step closer and place a hand on my arm. “I’ll get you out of here, if you like.”

I closed my eyes as soon as a vicious hiss started coming from the direction of my furious biker boyfriend. “You take your goddamn hand off my woman or I will kill you.”

“Who in the hell do you think you are?” Nate spat.

“You’ll soon fuckin’ find out
if
you do not remove your hand.”

I’d had enough. We were starting to attract attention—okay, I was being naïve; we attracted attention as soon as Grady bellowed out that first time.

I shrugged out of Nate’s hold, turned and leaned my back against Grady. Even if he had pissed me right the fuck off, there was no way I was letting some guy from my past look down on him or speak to him like shit, because Grady was my future.

“Nate, you need to get lost. You knew Grady wasn’t my father, but you had to come over and act all tough and big to see if you could win me over. What you don’t know is that Grady may be an arse and piss me the hell off, but I care for him. He is more of a man than you could ever be.” He went to argue, but seriously, enough was enough. I held up my hand in front of me. “Don’t. I really don’t want to hear anything else from you. You need to leave.”

He glared. “Deanna, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ll regret going with him and not walking out with me. One day you’ll come crawling back, and I don’t know if I’ll want you then.”

This guy was deluded. I hadn’t seen him in for-fucking-ever, and now he wants to cause this shit? What in the hell had come over him? I knew he never liked to lose, but this was plain stupid.

I sighed and decided to play dirty to get this jerk away from me. “Nate, I never did introduce you to my man...who gives me orgasm after orgasm. Nate, meet Griz, the Vice President of the Hawks Motorcycle Club.”

His eyes widened, his face visibly paling in front of us. I heard Grady chuckle behind me. Nate took a step back, and then another.

“I-I...”

“Yeah, fuck off, dickhead, and if you ever sniff around my woman again, you’ll pay the price,” Griz growled, not caring if anyone around us heard him.

Nate spun around and stalked off. I was surprised I didn’t see a wet patch on his pants; I was sure he’d shit himself.

Grady pulled my back closer to his front with an arm around my waist, and with his head on my shoulder, he uttered, “Bloody idiot.”

I stepped away, turned around and glared. “Grab what we need for now. I want to leave.”

He looked shocked by my hard tone. “Princess?”

“I do not want to have this conversation at the fuckin’ supermarket in front of everyone. I want to go home.”

“Fine.”

I knew by his sharp tone that he thought he’d done nothing wrong, but he had; I was pissed enough to know he had. Sure, Nate was a dick, but I didn’t need it thrown in my face that he had been inside of me in front of not only Nate, but other people as well. We both had people in our past I was sure we regretted, but the way Grady said it was as though I was scum. He was disgusted by it, and that fuckin’ hurt.

So as soon as we got home, after a silent ride in the car the whole way, I let him have it, and his reply was, “I didn’t like the fucker calling me your daddy. What did you expect from me, to let it slide?”

“No, of course not, but that’s not the point, Grady,” I said as I slammed food away in the cupboards and fridge with force. “Yes, he pissed you off, and yes, he said you looked older than me. I wouldn’t care if you punched him in the face for it. What I do care about is that you got jealous over the little—yes, younger than you—prick enough to take it out on me in front of said little prick and other people. I don’t throw your past in your face, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do it to me. Ever. If you’re jealous, use it in another way. Show them that you have me. Show them I’m
yours
now. Mark your territory. Show them why I’m with you.”