Chapter 13 #2
“Okay,” Malcolm said without any more argument. There was a pause, like he was thinking about saying something else, but he just cleared his throat and said, “Thank you. I’ll talk to you later?”
“You can count on it.”
“Bye, Bull.”
“Bye, baby boy.”
After they hung up, Bull sat in his truck for a few more minutes, thinking about that day at the department store when he’d found the asshole grabbing Malcolm to stop him from leaving and accusing him of only thinking of himself.
Just the memory lit a fire in Bull’s belly, a remembered surge of violent rage, one he didn’t think would get extinguished until he put his fist through Evan Kerr’s face.
“So I walk into my house, just covered in filth from this jobsite. Everything from drywall dust to insulation to probably actual shit from whatever animals had been living in this house.”
Bull wrinkled his nose, grateful he didn’t have Tank’s job.
The big biker worked on the demolition crew for a large renovation and development company and had shared a few entertaining stories about things he and his crew had found in abandoned houses now that they were finished working for the day on Marv’s place.
Just the idea of being covered in all that stuff made Bull’s skin itch.
He wasn’t sure how Tank handled it, but he claimed he loved it.
That getting to take a sledgehammer to counters and cabinets and walls had become one of his favorite things.
“I’m about to make a beeline for the bathroom so I can shower and then decide if I want to just burn these clothes or try and salvage them.
And there, laid across my new kitchen table…
” He paused for dramatic effect, his lightly tanned skin flushed from the hard work and the four beers he’d consumed.
It was the most animated Bull had ever seen him, and with each bottle of beer he drank, his Southern accent thickened.
“…is Ollie’s naked body, red ass fully on display, as he scrolled on his phone. ”
He and the guys around him all laughed; even Ollie’s stone-faced fiancé, Six, chuckled where he sat next to Tank.
They’d finished working on laying the flooring an hour ago and had migrated outside to relax in the mild late-afternoon sun, a little impressed Marv had enough lawn chairs for them to sit on.
Tank and Six were opposite Bull in their makeshift circle, and his brother was on his left.
Houston, who’d arrived not long after Bull had that morning, was on the other side of Marv, his wide chest on full display after stripping off his shirt hours ago.
On Bull’s right was the MC’s secretary, Rooster, his long brown hair pulled up in a messy bun.
He and Tank had both ridden with Six and so had taken advantage of the beer Marv had brought out a couple of hours ago when work was starting to slow down as they got tired.
Bull slowly nursed his second bottle, knowing it would be his last one. The last thing he wanted was to get shitfaced and end up sleeping on the newly installed floor in his brother’s empty living room instead of in his comfortable bed with his boy’s naked body sprawled on top of him.
“I stand there for a second,” Tank continues, shaking his head, “just staring at this boy’s ass, wondering what in the fuck is going on and why are his cheeks candy-apple red.”
Six cleared his throat, drawing Bull’s and Tank’s attention to him.
Tank just rolled his eyes and finished off the bottle in his hand, setting it in the grass next to him before clapping Six on the shoulder. “Bull’s cool. He gets it.”
When everyone in the circle turned to look at him, Bull raised his eyebrows, not sure exactly what he was supposed to be getting . He rewound what Tank had said in his head, and then it hit him.
He shifted in his seat, face warming, but that was probably from sitting in the sun for so long. “Um, yeah, I get it.”
Marv snorted into his bottle of water, so Bull swung a leg at him. He could have at least vouched for him in front of his club friends.
Six continued to study him for a second, like he was deciding if Bull had passed some test or not, then nodded at Tank. “Go ahead.”
Tank smiled at Bull, then picked up where he’d left off, like there hadn’t been an interruption.
“And then in walks my husband, also naked and with a bottle of aloe. He barely even glances at me as he says hello before squirting some on Ollie’s ass and starts rubbing it in, right there on the kitchen table. ”
“The new kitchen table,” Houston clarified, head tipped back and eyes shut but a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Yes! Barely had it a week, and Ollie’s dick print was on it.” Tank shook his head, chuckling. “I thought I’d walked into a fucking porno or something. I swear, those two… absolutely no boundaries with each other.”
Six smiled at his bottle of water, like he was remembering something good. The only time he saw that look on his face, it had to do with Ollie, so Bull had to wonder what all was being edited out of the story.
“One time, Ollie kidnapped Emmett,” Rooster started to say, grinning widely.
“Wait.” All eyes turned to him again, and Bull almost didn’t continue, but his curiosity got the better of him. “Why was Ollie at your house getting aloe’d by your husband? And, um, why was CJ also naked?”
“Better question, when isn’t CJ naked,” Rooster said under his breath as he leaned forward to snag another beer from the dwindling supply in the center.
Tank waved a hand in the air. “He always is when he’s at home.”
Bull’s eyes flared open before he could stop himself from reacting, and he could feel his cheeks heating. He wasn’t a prude by any measure, but he hadn’t been expecting to hear that answer.
Fuck, what if Malcolm did that?
The idea of his boy walking around his house naked and available to him whenever he wanted a taste excited him more than was appropriate in front of his own fucking brother.
But knowing that Tank’s husband hung out at their house naked? That flustered him a little.
Tank smirked but didn’t tease him about his reaction. “And apparently, Ollie had gotten into some trouble before coming over. CJ told me later that Ollie had been extra dramatic about how much his ass was burning, so he’d offered the aloe.”
Everyone turned to look at Six, waiting to see if he’d share what his boy had done to warrant such a hard punishment.
Six shrugged. “He tried to leave while I was in the shower.”
That was all he said, like that was an acceptable reason to spank your partner’s ass until it was bright red and burning. Bull supposed it was for them. He wouldn’t mind getting his hands on Malcolm’s ass for fun, but not to that extreme or to punish him.
“Oh shit, I remember that day,” Houston said, sitting upright and slapping his knee.
“You guys should have seen it. I’m sitting at a table talking to a prospective new Prospect, and I see Ollie on his way out, so I wave, but that boy didn’t even make it to the door before a dripping wet Six came thundering down the steps and through the clubhouse.
I thought for sure his towel was going to hit the floor he was moving so fast.”
“And Tomas wonders why we can’t hang on to Prospects,” Marv said quietly.
“He hollered goodbye through the door,” Six said as they all chuckled at the visual of the stoic Enforcer running down his errant sub. “He knows that’s not acceptable.”
“Aw, because he didn’t kiss you goodbye?” Tank asked, and Rooster made kissy faces at Six.
Bull almost choked on his drink, beer burning his nose. He wiped at his face as Marv laughed at him.
“That and he didn’t make sure I heard him,” Six said calmly, unbothered by the teasing.
“I’m kind of surprised you went after him,” Marv said, peeling the wrapper off his bottle.
When the mood shifted immediately, everyone quieting and looking at Six to see how he’d react, Marv glanced up and made a face.
“I just mean because you let that boy get away with murder. You all do. Those subs run the clubhouse.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Houston said, still side-eyeing Six.
“CJ and I don’t even live there anymore,” Tank argued.
“Emmett is too sweet to get into any real trouble,” Rooster claimed.
Six’s jaw tightened as he stared Marv down for a long, tense moment.
Bull shifted in his seat, wondering if he was going to get his ass beat trying to defend his big brother.
He might be bigger than Six, but that man had experience and a streak of violence in him Bull didn’t want to fuck with if he could help it.
Sighing, Marv held his hands up, palms facing Six. His tattoo sleeves were on full display in his black tank top. “Jesus, man, don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
“Remember when you told me I let CJ get away with too much?” Tank said to Six, obviously trying to diffuse the situation.
Six ignored him, keeping his mismatched eyes on Marv. “I thought I knew what I wanted before I met Ollie. Now, I’d cut off my own hands before doing anything to dull his light.”
“Shit,” Houston said, relaxing back in his chair and tipping his face up to the sun once more. “That was fucking beautiful, man.”
Clearing his throat, Bull turned to his brother. “So are you going to be super strict with the camp counselor?”
Marv whipped his head around to glare at him. “He’s the activities director, and I told you, nothing’s going on.”
“Wait,” Rooster said, face scrunching in confusion. “Are you talking about Foster ?”
Sighing, Marv rubbed a hand down his face, then up through his messy curls. “Yes, that is his name. Yes, that’s who he’s talking about. No, there’s nothing going on between us. That would be wildly inappropriate.”
“Wildly inappropriate,” Tank mocked him, snorting. “More inappropriate than me stalking my prison pen pal or Six hooking up with a guy he met on a DV call?”
“Or me hooking up with the kid brother of my best friend from high school?” Rooster added.
“I have to sit this round out,” Houston said, waving a hand without looking at any of them. “There was nothing wrong with how I met Kenneth… unless you count following him into a parking garage at night and eavesdropping on his phone call with his sister.”
Bull covered his mouth to muffle his laughter.
“What I meant to say,” Marv said, enunciating each word, a touch of pink highlighting the kind of cheekbones some people would kill for, “was that I’m not interested in him, so it doesn’t matter if it’s appropriate or not.”
“I’m not buying it,” Tank said, then turned to Six. “You?”
One corner of Six’s mouth tipped up, and he shook his head. “Not a word.”
Draining the last of his bottle, Bull chuckled and set it on the ground. When he glanced up, Marv was smiling at him.
This wouldn’t be good.
“Speaking of inappropriate, let’s talk about how Bull’s fucking one of his straight employees.”
Shit. He should have seen that coming.