Mackie's Men (22 page)

She hugged him tight to her chest one more time and kissed the top of his head. “Not to be mean here, but if you could take some of your weight off my chest, I might be able to breathe. I love to have you in this position, but it’s not the most comfortable.”

He lifted his head with a lazy smile and propped his chest up on his arms before bending his head to give each nipple a slow lick and quick kiss. Her legs unhooked at the ankles and fell off to the sides as he sat up and continued to look his fill of the satisfied beauty lying there splayed in such an abandoned way.

“Lady, if you have a hope of getting lunch today, you’ll get me motivated to move so you can get dressed, because seeing you like this, after what we just shared, is no motivation to leave here. I could make love to you all day.”

Darryl wasn’t sure what to do with two half starved kids like these were, so he told them to pack light for a couple of days, they were going home with him. He wasn’t about to stay overnight in their place, and he figured they could use some attention and definitely new clothes. Maybe if he was lucky the guys would be receptive to taking the kids under their wings. He could think of several less than savory people to introduce them to. The situation at the farmhouse might be awkward for everyone, but what could it hurt to keep the kids for the short time his old man was in the hospital. One thing was certain, he wasn’t about to give them to their mother without a fight.

He walked outside after sliding the heavy pizza on the table for them to eat their fill. It pissed him off when Eddy waited until his sister grabbed two pieces and the kid stared at him waiting until he pulled a slice off for himself. He could tell the boy was used to waiting for whatever was left and it made him want to strangle his mother. The fridge had a tub of butter substitute, a shelf full of liquor and beer, and a carton of eggs with two left inside of the cardboard. He began opening drawers and cabinet doors to see what the kids normally ate, but the pitiful amount of food wouldn’t feed two growing kids for more than a few hours.

“Okay, I can see the money your father has given your mom hasn’t been going to his kids, so where has it been going? I’m not trying to humiliate the two of you, but this is not at all what I’d imagined, so eat your fill, and you don’t have to be polite about it.” He poured tall glasses of cola from the cold two liter the delivery boy had brought with the pizza, and passed them to the kids.

“I’m going outside to make a call and if you finish eating before I get back, go pack for a couple of days, bring anything you don’t want left behind because once DE gets out, you’ll be living with him permanently.” Eddy started to talk but Darryl held up his finger at the boy. “I said you won’t be coming back and don’t fuckin’ argue with me, eat. I’ll be right back.”

He heard a soft giggle from Ginny, but acted like he hadn’t heard her and walked out to the step to sit and stare at his phone for a few minutes. He found his lawyer’s number. He happened to be in the same partnership with Liam’s family of lawyers, and was put right through. Once Shaun Betts was informed of what Darryl wanted, he tried to talk him out of it, but Darryl insisted and Shaun told him to wait at the house with the kids.

“We have to have documentation, Darryl, we can’t just grab the kids because their mother is in jail. Remember the term Due Process? You have to prove the case first, and as long as the boy who let you into the house is a resident, we can get the right people over there, give me an hour and I’ll call you back.”

He hated to make the next call, but John would just have to suck it up. He needed the SUV to move the kids out, and John could get his head out of his formulas and shit to come over here and help. He didn’t talk to John, the message he left was short and he hoped the genius took the time to check his messages before he left the lab for the day.

His next call was to Liam, and when he answered, Darryl was so grateful that he had someone to talk to about the situation, he poured the story out as fast and as emotionless as he could manage. The rage he felt inside wasn’t just directed at the kids’ parents, he was pissed at himself, and guilt wasn’t something he liked to feel.

Mackie put clean sheets on the beds the teens would be using, and offered to leave before they got there. “They won’t understand this arrangement, and I don’t know much about teenagers, but I’m pretty sure they would be confused if the three of you started kissing me whenever the whim took you, and you know I’m right, so stop shaking your head like that.”

Liam grinned at her and crooked his finger. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”

She had her turn at shaking her head. “Oh no you don’t, big guy, I saw what you had to show me this morning, and as impressive as it is, I don’t want the kiddies seeing it or my bare ass.”

He laughed out loud. “Dammit, that is not what I want to show you, right now that is. You can see that anytime you like, you have my permission to molest me at anytime you feel the urge. All I ask is that you restrain your urges when my grandmother is around, it would encourage her into telling anyone in earshot of her exploits as a dancer, and it’s fine to read in history books, but listening to your grandma saying that stuff is unsettling. She’d probably tell you about forgetting to put her “lacies” back on after her encounter with Sinatra, or the time a jealous rival put hot pepper juice in the rinse water of her ladies undergarments.”

Mackie was holding a hand over her mouth to keep from shouting in laughter and fist pumping the air in solidarity with grandma.

“Oh sure, you can laugh, but don’t do that in front of Grandmother, she would tell you how each time she would perspire while dancing, the pepper juice would leech into the sweat and cause a burning so badly that she couldn’t wear clothing for a week afterwards. The old girl has no filter, she tells my father that she’s earned her right to say what she wants to say.”

He took her hand in his and began towing her toward the back door. “Come on, you’ll enjoy this, and unless you insist, you get to keep your clothes on.”

They went out to the barn and she followed him up the rough hewn steps into the loft. There was a huge apartment on the other side of the thick wooden door he pushed her through, and she turned in a circle to take it all in. Modern appliances were featured in the kitchen area, and the open space of kitchen, dining room, and living room were all visible from any spot in the room. Three doors on the left side of the loft were bedrooms and a large bathroom, all had the doors open, and the place featured canister sky lighting to save on energy throughout.

She looked at Liam, and he grinned. “I told you there was no need to panic. Darryl and the kids can take over the house, and the rest of us can enjoy the quiet if we need it.”

She explored the place and turned around to say, “I love it, and you’d better watch out, if the kids are adventurous, they’ll be the ones taking this place over and we’ll all be shuttled off to the big house.”

She considered his smile for a minute and remembered something she’d heard about teenagers. “I think we need to go back to the grocery store before they get here, I don’t know much about kids like I said, but I remember being told that they’ll eat anything that doesn’t crawl away and isn’t nailed down. I didn’t see milk or cereal or—”

He interrupted her list with his lips on hers, and when he drew back he pulled her by the hand back to the stairs. “Then by all means, let’s run to the store, from what John said it’s an interesting place to go, and I’ve been wanting to see what it’s like.”

She was stunned, neither man had been in a grocery store? “Okay, maybe it’s just me here, but why haven’t you shopped for food before? I don’t see a housekeeper, and yet there was food when we got here, someone had to have brought that in.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Mackie, we phone the local store and everything is delivered while we’re here. In town, Dorian or one of the housekeepers does the shopping. I’m too busy most of the time, and Darryl went once and brought back nothing but meat and salad stuff. He doesn’t keep that body by eating what the rest of us enjoy. I admit, I work out, and have to watch what I eat at times because I’ve got a sweet tooth, and John is like me. Darryl usually throws out the junk food and we have to hide it so he can’t.”

He took her teasing him well considering. Mackie had a bit of fun ragging on him, being the tough executive who made underlings tremble in their wingtips, but “has to hide the good stuff from the mean old health food nut”.

When he threatened to spank her, Mackie stuck out her tongue and laughed harder. “I’m a bit big to be spanked, and with the padding I have, you’ll feel the sting in your hand worse than I would on my ass.”

His answering grin made her blush. “Sugar, the point of a spanking to a woman like you wouldn’t be to give you pain, I’d do it to give you pleasure, there’s something about a nice pink cheeked, freshly spanked ass that makes a man want to sink his cock slow and deep, so you just keep up the teasing, and I’ll keep counting the smacks I owe you.”

She shifted in the seat and thought about what he said. Honesty made her reply in a matter of fact voice, and he nodded his head as she spoke. “I don’t know how I would take something like that. I might hurt you if I felt pain or threatened. When I said that I can kill a man with one hand, I wasn’t joking. I’d hate to end up with you dead, or in the emergency room, when all you were doing was playing or trying to give me the pleasure you’re talking about.”

He could see that she was serious and didn’t discount her fears for his safety. “Thank you for the heads up, sugar, but I’d cut off my hand before I hurt you, anything like that would be something we can discuss and maybe in time you will feel comfortable enough to talk about the marks on your back. I won’t ask you about them, and I’ll be sure to tell the others you don’t want to talk about it. You have all of our secrets, and I hope sooner than later you can trust us with yours.”

He pulled into the supermarket parking lot. “Now, let’s go inside, and you can show me what a great thing grocery shopping is.” He parked the silver sports car in the back row of the lot, and they walked into the store hand in hand.

By the time they unloaded the groceries into the car, Mackie had three bags across her legs and two under them. The little car was fun to drive, impressive normally for its high performance engineering, but they found it wasn’t built for a trip to the market during such an epic purchase.

The SUV was sitting out in front of the house when they got back and Darryl introduced the teens as he handed them bags of groceries from Mackie’s lap. “This is Mackie, and she doesn’t take smart assed shit from anyone, even me, so watch your mouths around her and she might let you live to enjoy getting to know her. Remind me to tell you about the cool stuff she can do, and the best part is I know she can do them because we all saw her do it.”

What astonished her more than the words of praise was his lip-lock and, when she opened her eyes after he let her go, to see grins on the faces of the teenagers kept her wondering what he’d told them. Just to teach him a lesson, she punched him in the gut, and smiled when the girl’s eyes widened and the boy shouted in laughter. Darryl’s hand went to his midsection and he shot her a hurt look. “Did I hurt your feelings? I’m sorry.”

She turned to the kids and held out her hand attempting to establish a friendly attitude. “Your brother is a strange duck, but I like him so I let him live because for some reason, I think I might like to get to know him better.”

Ginny turned away from her hand, but Eddy came right up to her and grinned. “I see that you know how bossy my brother can be, it’s about time someone gave him a good smackdown, I just met him and I’ve wanted to punch him at least four times.” He took the bags from her hands and kept talking, “You are a tall drink of water, aren’t you? He told us you were all good n’ stuff, but he didn’t tell me that he had such a beauty stashed away up here.”

Eddy kept chatting her up and she grinned at the young man with the charm of an established teen heart throb. All the time she listened to his elaborate compliments, she thought he would be a boy the girls would fight over, once his body filled out to match his looks. She shot Darryl and Liam a look as she walked next to her new fan. Liam was rolling his eyes, and Darryl was scowling. She laughed out loud at those looks, and since Eddy thought she was laughing at one of his corny jokes, the kid puffed up his chest and tried for another laugh with yet another outrageous compliment. She was glad when they got into the house.