Epilogue
Garrett
Calli arches her back and lets out a little moan and I have to look up from what I’m doing. This woman is beautiful, and I’ll never tire of watching her. Or tracing the lines of her perfect skin with my hands, tongue, or eyes.
Having her lying in my bed is still a novelty, one I can’t say I don’t enjoy. And not only when we’re fucking. Which we do a lot. Sleeping beside her settles me in a way I’ve never experienced.
She squints one eye open and finds me instantly. “Again?” she mumbles.
“What can I say,” I smirk. “I need to practice my skills.”
“You don’t need practice,” she stretches and brushes some hair off her cheek. “You’re at the top of your field.”
I let out a laugh. “You can’t rest on thoughts like that, Vixen. You should never stop trying to better yourself.”
Calli rolls onto her side and props her chin up, her elbow pressed into the mattress.
“Shit,” I sit up. “Don’t move.”
“Garrett,” she sighs.
I swipe over to a clean page and prop my foot on the end of the bed so I can use my knee as a rest for the sketch pad. She’s right though, she’s the perfect muse.
Calli is a good girl, as ever, and stays still as I sketch her. This is the second pad I’ve filled with drawings of her.
This one can never fall into the hands of another living person. I’d have to kill them.
She sits for fifteen minutes before her arm drops and she rolls onto her stomach.
“I need the bathroom.”
“Fine. I can finish it from memory,” I smirk at her, then watch as she glides gracefully off my bed.
As she passes, she brushes her hand over my shoulder and peeks at the drawing. Her soft smile tells me she likes it. What’s not to like? While she’s gone, I continue the sketch, adding shading where it needs to be based on the light source. I pay extra close attention to the slope of her breast. Even when drawing her, they get special treatment.
A text rudely interrupts my concentration. It’s been a while and Calli hasn’t come back. She’s probably making breakfast. She spends a lot of time here. It’s easy enough when she lives across the hall.
Yeah, that happened. When she moved back to Baltimore, she was anxious about going to her apartment.
Caleb doesn’t live in the building anymore. He moved to campus housing, on polite, yet insistent persuasion of the Blackhawk Disciples. With neither of us ready to move in together, I offered my second apartment.
It shocked the shit out of everyone finding out I own the building. Even Phoenix didn’t know. I never gave an explanation about why I’d kept it a secret. When Calli agreed, I cleared out all the equipment so she could make the place her own.
We’re in separate apartments, but she’s only across the hall. That suits me fine. Lucky calls us both delusional. Saying it’s one big building so we do live together. Neither Calli nor I comment on that. We like what we have.
Phoenix:
Your client is here.
Phoenix :
Stop fucking Calli get down here and do your job
Phoenix:
If she is making waffles ask her if I can please have some
Phoenix:
Shane said him too
I snort a laugh. I know my appointment book, my first client isn’t due for another three hours. I deliberately booked it that way. Calli is going to San Antonio for a few days and I intend to make the most of our time before she leaves.
A few months ago, I would have kicked Phoenix’s ass for a comment like that about Calli. I’ve got a reputation to maintain after all. As far as everyone else is concerned, I’ve not changed a bit since officially dating Calli.
She’s the only one who sees the other side of me, and that is the way it’s going to stay. Her friends ask her how she puts up with my surliness. She won’t tell them how we are in private either.
Calli loves the whole idea of them wondering how we don’t kill each other. Although she admitted everyone knows I’ve got dick piercings, which is kind of off-putting.
I guess everyone knowing her nipples are pierced means we’re even.
The smell of the waffles hits me before I even make it to the kitchen. Fuck, she’s wearing one of my T-shirts. A smaller one that barely covers her ass, while cooking breakfast for my staff. There is an entire stack of them ready to go.
How did I end up here?
I lost my shit when I found out she’d gone back to Texas. It was a real head fuck to deal with. On the one hand, she was going back to follow her dream, to finish the job she started, doing what she had always loved. Together with getting away from the terrifying ordeal she went through at her apartment.
Which also meant getting away from me. I warred with myself for weeks about what to do. She had every right to hate me, and for a while, I didn’t know if that was how she felt about me.
Sin wouldn’t give me her number. Lucky didn’t have it. I only believed that because she was so sad about it. Sin kept Lucky updated. Which meant it didn’t take long for me to get it out of her. I knew where she was and that she was safe, and doing well.
It stung like hell. If ever there was a way for an asshole like me to admit his true feelings, it was having the person you want, need , the most walking away.
When it got to the point of losing my shit, even Phoenix begged Sin to give me something. It was begrudging, but she met me and mentioned Calli was intending to come back, or at least that was what Sin believed.
I let her have the time to figure things out. Which also gave me the time to figure out my own shit. If Calli was going to be mine, and my arrogant ass believed from the start she would, then I needed to be a better man.
Cutting ties with the Disciples was something I had to do. Not just for Calli. For me. Nero summoned me to his house two days after what went down at Calli’s.
To this day, he hasn’t told me what got Dutton on the Disciples radar, but he uncovered his involvement in Gwen’s death while doing it. Nero was one of the few people who knew I’d been searching for the man who killed my sister. When he figured out Dutton was the one who did it, he knew I had to be told.
Looking back on the situation through a sane lens, I’m grateful Nero kept him from me. Killing someone would be a black stain on my heart I could never get over. Calli didn’t deserve to be stuck with a man who had that kind of darkness inside of him.
Dutton is dead. Nero told me that at least. The issue with the club was not something he needed to be put down for. He did it for me. Which shocked the hell out of me.
Turns out Dutton was a college student, and got chatting to Gwen at a campus bar. He followed her home. Gwen had no idea, she never let him in, he broke in. My sister fought. Hard. But he still took her life. And I’m not mad about the thought of him lying in some unknown hole in the ground.
He suffered the wrath of a motorcycle club who hated violence against women, especially a member of their club’s family.
I sat with that for a few days, before I went back to tattooing. Gwen got her vengeance, it wouldn’t bring her back, but it gave me some peace.
“Phoenix and Shane are going to lose their shit,” I nod to the stack.
She smiles over her shoulder then sets out more waffles.
Cold waffles are a thing, right? They are in my book. I stalk up behind her and she jumps when I wrap my arm around her waist, pressing my face into the side of her neck.
“Garrett,” she tries to sound as if she wants me to let her go.
I know better. She doesn’t protest when I turn off the burner. This is what I like about my girl. She loves her friends, would do anything for them and she’s become a part of the Blackhawk family.
But she loves me more.
Okay, neither of us have said the words aloud, but we don’t need to. I will do it. But like I always tell her, actions really do speak louder than words.
Which I waste no time showing her as I lift up the hem of the T-shirt and press my fingers to her clit. Calli tilts her head back to rest on my shoulder while I work two fingers inside her. I’ll never tire of this, of the sounds she makes, and the greedy way her pussy clamps on my fingers.
I can’t wait to get my dick inside of her. Not until she comes all over my hand first. I’m well versed in everything Calli and while I pump my fingers faster, I slide my other hand under the top and tug on the rings through her nipples.
She’s been wearing the heart and arrow jewelry I had made for her. There is a diamond on the point of the arrow. They look perfect on her, sparkling beside those tantalizing pink nipples.
Calli tried to make me return them when she realized they were genuine diamonds. Damn no. They look too good on her and they’re wide enough for my little finger to slip through, making it easier to tug.
As I knew it would, it sets her off. I push into her body, my fingers don’t stop moving until she’s ridden the wave and her body collapses against me. Calli doesn’t flinch when I trail my fingers over her lips, then capture them with mine, tasting her cum between our lips and tongues.
She turns in my arms and wraps hers around my neck, a replete, lustful look in her eyes. As she toys with the hair at the nape of my neck, I squeeze her ass.
“How do you want me to fuck you, Vixen?” My voice is deep and husky. “On your knees, or bent over the counter?”
“Who says we can’t do both?” she gives me a sassy look.
“Definitely not me,” I kiss her, then step back.
She doesn’t need any encouragement to drop to her knees in front of me.
It’s another hour before we go downstairs, because Calli wants to make a new batch of waffles for everyone. And I enjoy watching her make them. She’s used to me getting out my sketchpad to draw her and never complains.
After she’s handed out the waffles Calli stands behind the counter chatting with Lucky. Shane is fully engrossed in shoveling as many waffles into his face as he can manage.
“Where’s Sumner?” I ask.
Phoenix has a woman sitting for him, he’s tattooing the front of her foot. Painful as hell, but it looks like she’s asleep. Women sit much better than men. Ask any tattoo artist, women are built different.
Things have cooled between Phoenix and Lucky. They have their usual banter but they’re not doing the double dating thing anymore. Especially now that Phoenix has been seeing the same woman for a few weeks. For the serial monogamist in our friend group, it says a lot that they’ve been hanging out so much.
I leave it up to Calli and Katja to handle Lucky’s thoughts on it. So far, nothing has blown up.
“He went to get some food," Phoenix answers. "Greasy food as he put it.”
“Late night again?”
“Yup. With his cousin.”
“How long is this cousin staying?” I ask, irritated.
Sumner comes to work and gets the job done, I’ve got no complaints about him. All the drinking and lack of sleep lately can only go on so long before it affects his ability to tattoo.
“He’s going tonight. This was their last big blow out. Cut him some slack, G. He hasn’t seen his family in over a year.”
He gets a grunt instead of an answer. I'll have a word with Sumner when he gets back. I go over to my station to get ready for my client but change the music before I settle in. Lucky whines, but I’ve had enough Harry Styles to last me a lifetime in the ten minutes I’ve been down here.
Everything settles and Calli comes over to say goodbye. She’s going to get ready for her flight. She leans over my shoulder and kisses me. I’ll see her before she goes, but never say no to a kiss.
When she walks away, I get a full-frontal view of Shane and his big ass cheesy grin.
“Unless you want to lose your tongue, I’d suggest you keep whatever you’re going to say to yourself.”
If anything, his smile gets wider, but wisely he keeps his thoughts inside.
A customer opens the door and steps inside. Before the door can close the sound of screeching tires draws all our attention. Then a dull thud, followed by a bang.
“What the fuck?” Phoenix sets the tattoo gun down and gets to his feet.
Shane runs to the window with Lucky behind him. I pull back the door and go outside. People are gathering around a car that has smashed into a parked one. A woman has gotten out, disorientated and panicked.
More people are gathering a little further away. Oh fuck, there is a body on the floor. She’s hit someone.
“Shit,” Phoenix says from behind me. “Lucky grab the first aid,” he yells into the shop. “Think we might need the defibrillator?” he asks.
“I fucking hope not.”
“Oh no! Oh my God, did I hit someone? Is he okay?”
Phoenix and I look at one another and split apart, he goes to calm the woman, I head for the person she hit. It’s only when the crowd clears a little to let me pass I see the person on the floor.
“Fuck,” I fall down beside him and press my hands to his neck.
There is blood all over his face and his arm is bent at an odd angle. There is a pulse, thank fuck. I lean over him and tap his cheek.
“Sumner. Can you hear me?”