Dream & Dare (22 page)

He drew his fingers along a silvery line down her belly. She had been upset, at first, that carrying Connor had left her with stretch marks, but he loved these faint lines. She had grown their child inside her, and nothing that had happened since could take that fact, that astounding feat, away from her. She was a mother, the mother of his child. She always would be, and the lines Connor had left behind marked that truth.

She was shaking, her eyes closed and her breathing slow and full of effort. Hoosier cupped her face in his hands. “Bibi, look at me.” She opened her eyes, and he said, “I won’t hurt you.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I know.” Then the corners of her gorgeous, full mouth turned up in a hesitant smile. “That’s what you said to me our first night. Remember?”

He did remember. He remembered riding her back to her shitty apartment, and then standing outside, next to his bike, his body thrumming. He remembered looking down into her face, past that mask of dark makeup, and seeing youth and innocence and keen wit—and beauty that had made him ache. That still made him ache.

“I remember. I’m so sorry it wasn’t true.”

Her shaking body calmed, and she brought her hand up and laid it on his cheek, over his beard. “It was, Hooj. You’ve never hurt me. Not you.”

He could still hear her words the night she’d left him. Then, she had blamed him. And he deserved the blame. But she had forgiven him, and he set aside his guilt, at least for now.

Leaving her panties on, he picked her up again and carried her to their bed. After he laid her down, setting her head gently on her pillows, he stepped back and rid himself of his clothes as quickly as he could. She watched him, her focus complete. When he was stripped bare, he went around the bed and lay down at her side, and he pulled her close, into his arms. And then, for a moment, he simply held her and enjoyed the touch of their bare bodies entwined again after months.

When he felt her relax with him, her body becoming soft and yielding, he moved his hands over her, stroking slowly over the curves and planes he knew and loved so well. He meant to keep her feeling safe, to ease her back to him, but each sweep of his palms over her body helped him, too. The months without this, without being able to love her completely, had been eternal, and he gave himself over to a careful elation.

She moaned quietly and hooked her leg over his, and he took that invitation and rolled her to her back, pressing his weight onto hers. Tucking his face into the join of her neck and shoulder, he breathed in her scent, his hands still moving, one caressing her thigh, her side, her belly, the other tangled in her long, silky hair, holding her head to his.

Her hands came up and twisted into his hair, and he lifted his head so that he could see her face. She smiled, and a tear slid from the corner of her eye, making a shiny track down her temple. He wiped it with his thumb, but he didn’t ask if she was okay. She had said she wanted this, and he wouldn’t question it. He would trust her to tell him what she wanted.

He kissed her, and she canted her head and opened her mouth, tightening the seal between them. With that, she told him all he needed to know, and he brought up all of his need and desire and sent it to her in that kiss. He kissed her until her body moved under his, heaving with her erratic breaths. Then he released her mouth with a groan and eased himself down her body to her breasts. He licked and suckled a nipple, and his heart raced as the soft flesh puckered against his tongue.

Encouraged by her responsiveness, his own long-thwarted need riding him hard now, he smoothed his hand over her hip and inward, sliding his fingers through the soft hair of her bush and downward, between her legs, over her clit, between her folds. She gasped and twitched, going tense, and he stilled his hand.

But she was wet. She was so perfectly, alluringly, thrillingly wet. Letting go of her breast, he met her eyes again. Watching her intently, he moved his fingers, teasing lightly over the most sensitive part of her. She was shaking again, and there was fear in her eyes. But she gave him a tender smile, and he felt her love more in that smile than he had since he’d packed Connor into the truck all those months ago and driven away, unknowingly, from the life he’d had, the life he’d loved.

“Come back to me, Bibi.” His voice rasped over his dry throat. “Let me bring you back.”

Still smiling, still fearful, she spread her legs, and he shifted and eased into her.

If he’d let himself go, he would have come right then, before he was even fully seated inside her, and not simply because he’d been celibate for so many months. The explosive emotion of this act, having her again, not just her body but her complete trust, her reliance on him—it meant everything. It meant they would survive this. More than that—they would live again, have a life, make a future.

He laid his forehead on her shoulder and rocked inside her, gently, slowly, and she held him as he held her. The love they made was quiet and unhurried. Eventually, though Bibi hadn’t come, Hoosier could no longer control his body’s demand. When he reached his finish, he let his body rest on hers, and they stayed like that, cheek to cheek, their tears mingling.

At his ear, Bibi whispered, “I love you, Hooj.”

“Love you better, Cheeks.”

~oOo~

Hoosier parked the wrecker in the Emergency Room parking lot, and before he could kill the engine, Blue was out the passenger door and running toward the ER entrance.

“Blue! Easy, brother,” Hoosier called, hurrying after him. Blue in a frenzy could easily lead to property damage at least.

He caught up with him at the reception desk, where Blue was already shouting at the poor man behind it. “JUST LET ME FUCKIN’ SEE MY WIFE!”

Hoosier went to his friend’s side and pushed him a step back. To the receptionist, he said, “Margot Fordham. This is Alan, her husband.”

The receptionist looked warily at Blue and said, “I just need ID, and I can direct you back.”

Blue snarled incoherently, and Hoosier turned to him and slammed his hand down on his friend’s shoulder. “Blue, get a lid on. You’re gonna get yourself thrown out before you get back there.”

As Blue swore and fumbled for his wallet, his fingers tangling in its chain, Hoosier felt an awkward hand on his back. He turned and found Bibi, holding Connor’s hand and cradling a sleeping, four-month-old Serenity in her other arm. She’d pulled on his work shirt with the Serenity hand.

He hugged her around the kids. “God, baby. You’re okay?”

“I told you on the phone, Hooj. Yeah. We’re okay.” She met Blue’s eyes. “Margot’s okay, too, Blue. She’s just gettin’ a few stitches.”

“Motherfucker put hands on her. I’m gonna mount those hands on a plaque and hang ‘em over the fireplace.”

Hoosier looked down to see Connor goggling at his Uncle Blue. “Jesus, Blue. Watch your mouth.”

Before Blue could respond, the receptionist said, “Treatment room 4. Just through the doors and straight ahead, on your right.” He hit a button or something behind the desk, and the double doors swung open.

Blue brushed his hand over his daughter’s small head, nodded at Hoosier and Bibi, and went back to find his wife.

Hoosier took Connor’s hand from Bibi, and then he led his family to an unpopulated corner of the waiting room. Once they were seated, and Bibi had handed Connor his Game Boy, Hoosier took her chin between his thumb and forefinger. She looked pale and freaked, but in control. Strong. She’d come so far in the past six months. He had his Bibi back, and even this hadn’t rocked her. “Tell me everything. From the beginning.”

“We took the kids to that indoor playground that just opened up. The one over on La Brea?” She smiled at Connor, who was ignoring her, completely engrossed in catching Pokémon or something. “He had a great time, and there’s even a little infant and toddler area, so the baby was entertained, too. It was fun.”

Rubbing the baby’s back, Bibi took a deep breath. So did Hoosier; he was feeling impatient, but he’d asked for everything from the beginning, and Bibi needed to frame the story. “On the way home, Serenity had a poop explosion. Even Connor was complainin’ about the stench. Margot needed gas, so we pulled into the Chevron. I took the kids back to the ladies’ while she filled up. When I got back, Margot was kneelin’ on the ground by the pumps, holdin’ her face, and the van was gone.”

All the ways this could have gone so much worse spiraled in his head. Carjacking had become some kind of twisted fad in the past couple of years, and they were often a lot more violent than a punch to the face. Cars had been jacked with kids strapped in the back. Drivers had been killed. Passengers had been abducted.

He wiped his hands up and down over his face. “Thank God you’re okay. You are okay?”

“Hooj, I said. I’m okay. The kids are okay. And Margot’s just rattled and a little sore. We were lucky.”

He smiled and picked up his son, setting him on his lap. “Yeah. We were.”

~oOo~

The Chevron station had security cameras. Blue went to Vulture and asked for help, and while the LAPD was still twiddling its thumbs, gathering evidence and tossing it in a heap with the rest of the cases they didn’t give a shit about, the club found Margot’s van and the carjacker.

When the intel came in verified, Hoosier stood at his workstation and watched as most of the men working shrugged on their kuttes and followed Blue and Vulture out to right the wrong done to Blue’s old lady.

Every couple of months, Vulture offered Hoosier a patch. The offer was always the same: no prospect period. Full membership from day one, a simple patch-over. He had been VP of the Desert Blades, and Vulture respected his experience. And Hoosier respected Vulture more than he ever had Chuck. Chuck was smart, but he was short-sighted and self-interested. He’d never had a woman or a family, and he had no regard at all for club members who did.

That was, Hoosier thought, why, of all the Blades, only he and Blue had had old ladies or children. Chuck actively discouraged patches from becoming family men. The club was family, period, and only patches were club.

Vulture, on the other hand, was a widower with four daughters. Though his club were true outlaws, knee-deep in violence, they also understood family in a way Hoosier respected. Working for more than a year at Cali Classics, he’d seen the bond and brotherhood of the patches, and he’d known deep envy.

Watching them all drop everything to avenge a harm done to an old lady, Hoosier’s envy was literally painful. It was more than envy. It was loss.

But he’d never risk losing Bibi’s trust by going back to the world that had taken so much from her. Blue insisted—and Vulture did, too—that a legit life was not any safer for family than an outlaw life, that, in fact, they were safer in the bosom of the club, under the protection of their reputation. Their infamy, even. He knew it was true. As the patches rolled out on their mission of retaliation, he remembered that justice was swifter and clearer in the outlaw world, too.

But he couldn’t even bring it up to Bibi. How could she ever understand those truths, when the Blades had brought danger into her house and then left her to suffer for days?

Alone in the shop, he turned back to the bike and to the work he could do.

~oOo~

He didn’t have to bring it up. Bibi did.

A week after the club had exacted vengeance on the carjacker, late in the evening, Hoosier came into the living room and sat down next to Bibi on the piano bench. She was moving her fingers over the keys without striking them, making a silent song. He put his hand on her thigh and squeezed.

“You okay, Cheeks?” Usually when she sat at the piano like this, she was feeling pensive.

“Do you want to take a patch, Hooj?” She didn’t look away from the keys, didn’t stop the rhythmic dance of her fingers.

His heart stopped, then thudded in his chest. “What?”