17. Born that Way
17
BORN THAT WAY
Hugger
“ Babe ,” he warned, his voice guttural.
Diana , kneeling between his spread thighs, his legs bent at the knees, his head and shoulders against her headboard so he could watch, kept blowing him.
If forced to make a choice, say, with a gun to his head, that he’d only have her mouth or her pussy for the rest of his life, he’d pick her pussy.
But it’d be a tough decision.
“ Di ,” he grunted when he felt his balls draw up.
He was about to blow.
She slid him out, he got her eyes, but her tight little fist around his dick kept pumping him, and she used the nails of her other hand to drag them down his inner thigh.
This meant he closed his own eyes, dug his head into her headboard and shot all over his stomach.
She milked the last gushes out with a gentler hand, and he was far from over it when she landed on him like she wasn’t bothered the least about lying on a puddle of cum.
He forced himself to focus on her and saw her smiling huge.
“ Well , that was fun,” she said.
Hugger grunted again, but it was just a sound, no words this time.
“ I’m glad I did my hair yesterday so I’d have an extra half an hour to go down on you this morning,” she shared.
He’d woken rough, as normal, but got over it pretty damn quick when Diana went at him right away.
He was back to rough, and more, realizing he had a woman on his hands who was chipper in the morning.
Not to mention thrilled she got to give him a blowjob.
“ Give me a second to recover, and I’ll return the favor,” he mumbled.
“ That’s not necessary.”
He squeezed her with his arms. “ Babe , I come, you come.”
“ Is that a rule?”
“ It is for me. For us.”
“ I overwhelmingly accept this as a rule for us, though with caveats, like rainchecks when I have to get up and get ready for work.”
“ I thought you could pretty much come and go as you please.”
“ I like to be disciplined about it so if Annie tunes into the real world, she doesn’t think I’m taking advantage.”
He rolled her, stating, “ You’re gonna be late today.”
“ Harlan .”
He slid his fingers between her legs.
“ Harlan ,” she whispered.
He smiled.
Then he kissed her.
Then he went about negating any bullshit about rainchecks.
* * *
Hugger was in his chair at the window, he had his phone out, and he was looking at the careers page of the Denver Art Museum .
They had three openings.
None of them in Di’s field.
Di had finished with the painting the day before, and now she was sitting at the big table in the middle of the space, bent over a tiny square of wood, peering through a big stationary magnifying glass, working on it with some brushes.
It was mid-morning.
And this was when Annie wandered in.
She stopped, looked at Di , then to Hugger , then to Di , and Hugger , back to Di .
Di’s head came up, and when Annie just stood there, she called, “ Hey , Annie .”
“ Hey .” She took another step in. “ Is your father okay?”
Hugger straightened, taking his feet from the sill.
“ I think so,” Diana said slowly. “ Why do you ask?”
“ You said there was some threat.”
Hugger relaxed.
Seemed it took approximately twenty-seven hours for Annie to process shit.
“ We’re just being cautious,” Di told her. “ Everything should be fine and Hugger won’t have to be with me every day.”
Annie looked to Hugger . “ Are you a professional bodyguard?”
“ No , I’m a biker.”
Annie nodded like this made perfect sense to her.
She then looked to Diana . “ I’m having brunch this Sunday . Would you and your bodyguard like to come?”
Hugger did not miss the Oh shit! look on Di’s face before she hid it and said, “ Full disclosure, Annie . Hugger is also my guy.”
Annie appeared confused. “ Your guy?”
“ My boyfriend,” Diana explained.
They hadn’t had that conversation, but it was good to know she knew where they were at.
Annie’s gaze drifted to him. “ Oh , how lovely. You’re looking out for your girlfriend.”
“ Yeah ,” he said.
“ Very gallant of you,” Annie remarked.
“ Thanks ,” he replied.
“ Do you like brunches?” Annie queried.
“ I’ve never been to one,” he said.
Annie’s eyes got about two times bigger than her round lenses. “ Really ?”
“ Really .”
“ Never ?” she pushed.
“ Bikers aren’t big on brunches,” Diana butted in.
“ Well then, you must come. You’re missing out.” She turned to Diana . “ My place. Ten . See you then,” she said like they wouldn’t be working in the same building for the next two days.
And with that, she wandered out.
Hugger looked to Di . “ What was that ‘oh shit’ look you had when she invited us to brunch?”
Di glanced at the door then waved her hand at him in a come here gesture.
He hauled his ass out of his chair and went there.
“ Three possibilities,” she whispered like Annie might overhear. “ She’ll remember she asked people to brunch, and when we all show at ten o’clock, she’ll be prepared to host a brunch. Or , she’ll remember, just too late, so we’ll all sit around for two hours while she prepares brunch. And we’ll all do that constantly reminding her she might want to go back to the kitchen and finish what she started. Or , she’ll totally forget, we’ll show, and she won’t be there because she decided to spend the day in Sedona .”
He grinned at her. “ This doesn’t surprise me.”
“ There is a fourth possibility, that being we’ll show to find she burned her house down while preparing brunch.”
He laughed softly before he said, “ We’ll go prepared and have donuts before.”
“ You’re good with brunch with Annie ?”
He needed to un-narrow his world, and he was starting now.
“ Sure , why wouldn’t I be?”
“ Because she’s Annie , and she might forget who you are by Sunday .”
He laughed again, bent to touch his mouth to hers, and when he pulled away, said, “ I’ll weather that blow if it happens.”
She smiled brightly up at him, and damn, but he liked her smile.
“ See things have progressed while I been away.”
They both turned to see Big Petey strolling into Di’s workshop.
“ Petey !” Diana cried, like he’d been away years, not days.
She got up from her chair and raced around the table to throw her arms around him.
Hugger watched Pete’s eyes close as he enveloped her with his arms and gave her a tight hug.
When they broke, Di asked, “ How’ve you been keeping?”
“ I ain’t been eatin’ as good, that’s for sure.”
“ So obviously that means you’re coming over for dinner,” Diana stated.
Hugger wanted some just them time when she wasn’t at work or getting over dealing with heavy shit.
But for both Pete and Di , he’d deal with it.
Pete gave him a glance, and when Hugger gave him a nod, he turned back to Diana .
“ Sounds good.”
“ Awesome ,” she gushed.
“ Here to check in and give you two an update.”
“ Let me drag another chair over,” Di said.
“ Don’t you move,” Hugger ordered.
Di looked to him.
But Hugger just walked to his chair, dragged it over, her chair, and rolled it over, and the chair behind her desk, and he rolled that over too.
They sat and Pete launched in.
“ Resurrection has some assets that are good with findin’ shit out. And they found some shit out. Part of that was Imran put Esad’s and his bros’ asses on a plane to Costa Rica two days after Maddy took herself to the hospital. Imran himself jumped bail four days ago, and he went to Bolivia . Costa Rica has an extradition treaty with the States . Bolivia does too, just not a functioning one.”
Diana sat back in her chair. “ They ran?”
Pete nodded. “ There’s reasons they ran. Feds are deep into this trafficking ring. So deep, Maddy’s statements were just icing on a cake they been baking. Could be weeks, or maybe just days, before they moved in with warrants. Esad’s involvement in this, something they already knew about, turned them on to Imran , and they started gathering shit on him too. They know they all fled, so they stepped up shit and did a series of raids yesterday. Rounded up a lot of Imran’s army he left behind, not to mention a bunch of other stuff that means he best keep his ass in South America or it’ll get nailed.”
“ What does this mean?” Di asked.
“ It means Imran is one stone-cold motherfucker, because it’s clear his boy isn’t the brightest bulb in the box, and either the cops, or Resurrection , are gonna track his ass down. And if it’s the cops, they’ll haul it back here and none of them are gonna breathe free air for the rest of their lives.” Pete sucked in a breath and further shared, “ They found the other girls. There were three. And they got no one threatening them to talk smack to the police, so they’re singing. Esad and his boys are fucked.”
“ So Imran’s …what? Sacrificing his son?” Di asked.
“ Ain’t gonna let his boy lead anyone to him. Easier to go on your own. Less expensive too,” Big Petey said.
“ I really don’t care what happens to Esad , but if you consider minimum accepted parenting protocols, that’s gross,” Diana declared.
Both Hugger and Big Petey chuckled.
“ That all you got?” Hugger asked.
Big Petey nodded but said, “ Rush wants us to stay down here on Di and Armitage . They haven’t rounded up the entire army and Rush wants to make sure it’s all good before he pulls us.”
Diana was smiling, but she had nothing to worry about.
Until he nailed things down with her as to where they were at, and where they were going, he wasn’t going anywhere.
Big Petey kept talking.
“ Rush is chatting with Lee , and Lee is chatting with Mace , who’s keeping on top of all of this. Mace’s crew down here is new, but they’re making some inroads, got some informants, and he thinks they’ll know if Imran left anyone with any orders we won’t like.”
“ Good ,” Hugger muttered.
“ Who’s Lee ?” Diana asked.
“ Lee Nightingale ,” Pete said. “ The firm that Mace runs down here is called Nightingale Investigations and Security . Mace is a partner, and they got three offices in three states.”
“ Ah ,” she murmured.
“ Good you’re here,” Hugger said. “ You can hang with Di while I run an errand.”
“ I can also run the errand for you,” Matchmaker Pete offered.
He loved the man, but he wasn’t going to task him with buying condoms.
“ I gotta do this myself,” he said. Then requested, “ Walk me to my bike?”
Big Petey pushed out of his chair saying, “ Sure thing.”
Hugger got out of his own, rolled it back behind Di’s desk, and she was standing with Pete when he returned.
He dropped a kiss on her hair and earned her tipping her head back to catch his gaze.
“ Get a mondo box. Mondo ,” she instructed.
He grinned at her again, dropped another kiss, this one on her lips, then he turned to Pete , who was watching them, grinning himself, and they strolled out.
He waited until they were standing by his bike before he started.
“ Got shit I gotta work out with the Club ,” he announced.
“ Right ,” Big Petey replied, regarding him intently.
“ Tack’s been callin’ me.”
“ That’s because I told him it’s time you worked your shit out with the Club .”
Hugger crossed his arms on his chest.
“ Don’t be pissed at me,” Pete ordered. “ You’re there now so you know it’s time.”
He couldn’t argue that.
“ I see you and Di got yourselves sorted,” Pete observed.
“ We do,” Hugger confirmed. “ Though there are issues.”
“ Those being?”
“ Man , I don’t gotta say them because they’re obvious.”
“ Since I asked, you can take it that they aren’t.”
“ She’s got a master’s degree. She’s traveled to places like Lucerne . She’s got a good life here.”
Big Petey narrowed his gaze on Hugger . “ You not been payin’ attention, son?”
“ Pete —”
“ Lanie owns the top advertising firm in Denver . Millie owns the top party-planning company.”
“ Pete —”
“ Georgie’s an award-winning journalist,” Pete kept at him.
“ Yeah , and Hop , High and Dutch got a lot more to offer than I do,” Hugger shot back.
Big Petey was getting mad. “ How’s that work out, Hug ?”
“ I …”
Hugger shut his mouth because he didn’t know what to say.
“ Yeah , that’s about how it works out,” Big Petey bit off and stepped closer. “ Listen , Hug , love isn’t a weight. One person doesn’t get into it with more on their side of the scale so the other has to catch up. Love just is . It’s the air we breathe. It’s the beat of a heart. You fall in love with a woman, the only thing that’s important that you got to offer is you , and if she doesn’t take you as you are, then she isn’t the woman you should give your love.”
Hugger had nothing to say to that.
Big Petey got even closer.
“ Lanie loves Hop because Lanie loves Hop . Millie fell in love with High the first night she met him. Georgie and Dutch were livin’ together before you could blink. Joker and Carrie fell in love in high school, were torn apart, and now they got five kids.”
“ Joker is genius at building a chopper or anything with an engine,” Hugger reminded him.
“ Carrie don’t love Joker because he builds killer cars and bikes. Joke could dig graves for a living, and he’d be her life.”
This was completely true.
Hugger’s gaze drifted to the window he sat at in Di’s studio.
“ I’ll tell you something, brother,” Big Petey said, regaining his attention. “ There’s a lot that goes into making us who we are. Yeah , part of it is our parents, and I don’t think I’ll get an argument from you that you had the best mom on the planet.”
“ You won’t get an argument with me on that,” Hugger said low.
Pete nodded once. “ Yup . And she provided the guidance to make you the man you are. And we can just say that woman had more than enough of putting up with men, so she knew how to guide you to be the best you could be. You took it from there. And I can guaran-damn-tee you, that woman in there”—he jabbed a finger at Di’s workshop—“sees every lesson Jackie taught you, every gift Jackie gave you, everything you sucked up from the life you led so you could give good to the woman you claimed as yours. And Di wants that, and she wouldn’t care if you dug graves either. She just wants you .”
Hugger suddenly realized he was having trouble breathing.
“ I’ll tell you one more thing before I go back to your girl,” Big Petey stated. “ If I hear you even remotely runnin’ yourself down to me, I’m an old bastard, but I’ll find it in me to kick your ass. I get you. I get what you gotta work out. I get that you gotta get past that and I’m pissed as shit I didn’t push it so you could get past it a lot earlier than right now. But you’ll get past it, with your Club at your back, because you got him in you, but you’ll learn you are not him .”
You are not him .
Yeah , fuck.
He couldn’t breathe.
Pete wasn’t done.
“ Di doesn’t care what books you’ve read or what countries you’ve visited or what job you do. She cares that you ran the vacuum. She cares that you made her dad safe. She cares that you made her safe. She cares that you held her when she lost Maddy . She cares about the way you look at her, you treat her, and you touch her. That’s all she cares about. You’ve known her a week and she knows you better than you know yourself, brother. You can decide to stay home while she gallivants around the world, but she’ll always come home to you and be happy as fuck she did.”
Hugger stood still as Pete got up on his toes to get right in his face.
“ Pay attention, son, she’s been givin’ you that from the very beginning. Don’t put your own damned self in the place of missing it, which might mean you’ll miss out on the best thing that’s ever come into your life, because I promise you, you’ll hate yourself for the rest of it if you do.”
“ Relax , Pete . I already decided I’ll do whatever it takes to make Di mine.”
Big Petey rolled back on his feet and muttered, “ Well , all right.”
“ Do me a favor and look after her so I can buy us a mondo-sized box of condoms.”
Pete narrowed annoyed eyes at him, then blew out a breath.
After that, the man turned and stomped back to Di’s workshop.
Hugger got on his bike and rode to a CVS he’d noticed while taking Di to work.
Before he went in, he pulled out his phone and texted Di to see if she needed anything.
He’d nabbed the prophylactics and was heading to the cashier when she texted back Twizzlers cherry licorice bites .
This text meant he was smiling, even after he’d cashed out.
He was on his bike, ready to start it up and roll out, when the urge hit him.
It was the type of urge that had only hit him once before, last night when he didn’t know what to do to help Di .
But now he had time.
His first instinct was to fight it.
His second was to set it aside and think about it later.
His last was to just fucking do it.
So he called Dutch .
“ Yo , Hug ,” Dutch answered. “ All good?”
“ Yeah , Pete’s with Di and I’m running an errand, but you got a second?”
“ Got lots of ’em. Jag and Coe are on the dad and I’m kicking back at the rental until you get home with Diana . Then I’ll be keeping an eye on the complex. What’s up?”
“ You and Georgie hooked up fast and put down roots just as fast.”
“ Yeah .”
“ How’d you…” Jesus , this was tough. “ How’d you know with her?”
Dutch chuckled and said, “ Man , at first, I didn’t. She was a major bitch when I met her. Then she wasn’t, and I said some stupid shit and nearly blew it. But then she was just her, and I just knew.”
“ That was it?”
“ You know Georgie ?”
He did.
And yeah, she was a damn fine woman.
“ I see your point,” he muttered.
“ Not lost on any of us you got your eye on Diana ,” Dutch said leadingly.
“ She’s problematic in the sense she gives everything she’s got to pretty much everyone she knows.”
“ Sounds like a match.”
Hugger stared at his fuel tank as he asked, “ What ?”
“ You’re the first to volunteer on missions. You’re the first in to open the store. You’re the first to raise your hand when someone needs something covered. Hop said we gave you the wrong Club name. He said we shoulda called you Shaky , since that’s the opposite of Steady .”
Hugger lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck, which was getting scorched by the sun, but that wasn’t the heat that was concerning him.
That heat was happening in his gut.
“ Hug ?” Dutch called.
“ You know who my dad is?” he asked abruptly.
“ No ,” Dutch replied. “ I know whose seed made you. I also know he wasn’t even close to bein’ your dad.”
“ I still was made from his seed.”
“ Brother , you know Joker’s story. Now , is Joke one thing like that shitheel who made him?”
Fuck .
“ No ,” Hugger pushed out.
“ And word got out about what Core grew up with, what happened, what his dad did. Core veered hard off the righteous path, but he pulled out all the stops to drag himself back. Hellen thinks he hangs the moon and ushers in the sun. He strayed, but he got his shit tight and earned the love of a good woman and lives a life doing good things for people who need it. In the end, he’s not one thing like the seed that made him.”
Hugger knew Hardcore’s story too.
And again.
Fuck .
“ Listen ,” Dutch said. “ You need to talk to Tack .”
“ I’m gonna.”
“ Right , then in the meantime, don’t let that shit stand in the way when you find what you want. Hell , when you find what you deserve, man. Just don’t.”
“ She lives in a different state, brother.”
“ I’d follow Georgie to Kazakhstan if she had to move there for a posting, and I don’t even know where Kazakhstan is.”
Hugger chuckled, but he was surprised at hearing this.
“ You would?”
“ Definitely .”
“ What about the Club ?”
“ Club’s not going anywhere. My patch will still stand. I’d just be wearing it in Kazakhstan .”
At that, Hugger felt the sun scorching at his neck and he wondered if he could put up with it for a long haul.
“ Thanks , Dutch . This was cool.”
“ Anytime , you hear that?’
“ Yeah .”
“ No really, Hug . You hear that?”
The heat came back to his gut and his voice was low when he said, “ Yeah , Dutch . I heard it.”
“ You got a lotta love, brother. You just gotta open yourself up to us giving it.”
That was when Hugger dropped his head.
And he repeated, “ Yeah .”
“ Good to let you go?”
Hugger lifted his head. “ Come up for dinner if you’re patrolling the complex. Diana would be pissed you were close and she didn’t feed you.”
“ Tell me the time, I’ll be there.”
“ Gotcha . Later , brother. And thanks again.”
“ My pleasure. See you tonight.”
They disconnected, and before he could talk himself out of it, he made another call.
He put the phone to his ear, listened to it ring twice, and then he heard the connection.
“ About time,” Tack said.
“ I need something, brother, but I don’t know what I need,” Hugger admitted.
“ You good with me seein’ to that with your brothers?”
“ No , but it’s time.”
“ Why the no?”
Because he was shit scared, that was why.
“ It’s about her and you. Jackie and Harlan ,” Tack’s gravelly voice growled. “ It has never been about him. You were legacy because you were Jackie’s , Hugger . Now when you get home, that will be confirmed. I’ll sort it. You got me?”
You were legacy because you were Jackie’s .
“ I was legacy because of Ma ?”
“ You’re ours, Hug . Born that way.”
Ours .
Born that way .
“ You got me?” Tack repeated.
“ I’m gonna be down here awhile,” he warned Tack .
“ Yeah . Pete said you’re connecting with Diana . Glad for you, brother. ’ Bout time on that too. You got a lot of good to give a woman.”
Okay , he had to end this because it was messing with his head.
Sure , that was happening in good ways.
But Hugger was discovering a man could take only so much good at once.
Especially if he wasn’t used to it.
And he was living right in it with Di . It was all around him all the time, so he could say now it was getting to be too much.
“ Bring her up. Introduce her to the family,” Tack urged. “ And we’ll sort this shit out so you can let it go.”
“ Right .”
“ Right .”
“ Man , I just…” Goddamn it. “ I never thanked you for lookin’ out for Ma . Back when and Chaos paying for her medical shit when she got sick.”
“ Appreciate the gratitude, Hugger , but I see we been fallin’ down on the job. You don’t thank family for taking care of family. Now , win your woman and bring her up here so the other women can perform the initiation ceremony. Just be aware she’ll go back with about fifty pairs of shoes.”
A bark of laughter escaped Hugger because he had not missed the old ladies, all of them, liked their shoes.
“ I don’t think she’ll mind.”
“ They don’t.”
“ I don’t think I’ll mind.”
“ I hear you. Red in her skirts and heels do things to my dick even after I gave her two kids and got well over a decade in with her.”
“ Good to know.”
“ You find the right one, that never goes away. It might mellow for a spell. There’ll be highs and lows you gotta ride. But one way or another, it doesn’t go away.”
“ Good to know that too.”
“ We good?” Tack asked.
“ Always ,” Hugger answered.
“ Remember that, because it’s the bottom-line truth,” Tack stated.
Then he hung up.
Hugger shoved his phone in his back pocket.
Then he fired up his bike, backed out, and rode to Di’s workshop so he could hand over her licorice.