CHAPTER THIRTEEN
-:- DALLAS -:-
When we finally arrive back at the apartment, we are both exhausted.
It isn’t just physical either. The recon on the farm was a mental high, and then getting caught by Target and Chaos, although a good thing as it happened, was another drain on the mind.
Hardest of all for Cork was getting reamed by Axel.
I have to say I’m proud of him. He hasn’t complained once.
That man brings out the worst in me, I think to myself.
I feel I can take on the world with him by my side.
I need to curb my rebelliousness when I’m around him, though.
It was me who dragged him out of the Range to follow that guy.
It was me who encouraged him to recon the farm, and I’ve walked away both times unscathed, as it were.
“Dallas…How much do you like the place where you live?” Cork is sitting at the kitchen table nursing a mug of coffee.
“It’s okay. I haven’t done much to it because it’s a rental, but it’s a nice place in a pleasant area. Why do you ask?”
“Just thinking out loud I guess. I think I’m going to look at what’s available on the real estate market. Building on the compound means we’d get to design our own place, but it would be on the compound. Near the clubhouse. Close to any shit that went down.”
“Also protected from any shit that went down,” I add.
“True, but things have been fairly quiet for a while now. Being a respectable MC has its benefits.”
Cork is looking a little glassy-eyed and off in La La Land. “Where are you going with this train of thought, Cork? You’ve lost me I’m afraid.” I sit opposite him, as we’re not getting settled for a nap, by the looks of things.
“You remember when you said you couldn’t remember the last time a man made you breakfast?” Cork comments.
“I remember. You said I should go to the clubhouse and get breakfast from Meat. A very firm putdown, if ever I heard one.”
“Well, I’ve since ‘rethought’ that idea. I want to be that man…I am going to be that man…If any man is going to make you breakfast, it’s going to be me.” Cork then takes another swig of his coffee as though he’s just told me we’ve run out of milk or something.
“Erm, exactly what is it you are saying?” I watch his face closely. If this is some kind of joke or anything but what I think it is, he is going to die a long, slow, painful death, over the years to come.
“I’m saying that you’re my ol’ lady. Wife, if that’s what you want.
You’re no longer available, off-the-market, not single.
Your dating app profile is closed, deleted, no longer functional.
You are officially the property of Cork, brother of the Raging Barons MC.
Engaged, affianced, a bride-to-be, no longer a Miss…
” Running around the table I push him away from the table so I can sit on his lap.
Throwing my arms around him, I kiss the hell out of him.
Coming up for air eventually, I look him in the eye. “I didn’t think you’d ever get the message, read the memo, take the hint…”
“I was a little slow on the uptake, I admit, but once you broke through my masculine, macho-ivity, I was all for the idea.”
“Macho-ivity? Is that even a thing?” I laugh as I try to imagine what that would look like.
“You would have seen it if they’d let me interrogate our prisoner. I would have broken him with a look!” He says this in a deep rumbling voice, and it gives me goosebumps.
“Oh, goodness me, sir,” I say in my best costume drama voice. “Take me to bed and break me with your macho-ivity!”
Slipping from the chair, Cork carries me bridal style to the bedroom where he throws me on the bed and spends the next two hours ‘breaking me’ in so many positions that I lose count of how many orgasms I have.
By the time we fall asleep exhausted, I can vouch for his macho-ivity being a wonderful thing.
Waking up, I feel a warm body next to me and it all comes flooding back. My body aches, but it is a glorious ache. Rolling off Cork’s chest onto my back, I stretch and moan as I haven’t felt like this ever. I’ve had what I thought was good sex, but I see now that it was just adequate sex.
“I need a hot shower to get these muscles working again. I hope this is going to be a regular part of our daily routine from now on?” I grin at him as I begin to slide over him so I can use the bathroom.
“That, my lady, was just a taste of things to come,” he booms in his deep rumbly voice.
“Keep talking like that, and you may have to join me in the shower, good sir.”
“Call me when you’re in and I’ll be happy to soap your back.”
Leaping from the bed, I tell him to give me five minutes and then rush into the bathroom. Better than his word, he soaps me all over and not just my back.
Driving back to the clubhouse, I bring up the conversation of housing once again.
“I like the idea of designing our own house. If you’re not keen on being on the compound, perhaps we could find a plot of land and still do our own thing?”
“I guess we’ll need a good-sized plot. Enough for stables and stuff.
You’ll want your horse as the kids will all want horses from an early age.
I’ll need somewhere to keep my vehicles.
Don’t think I’ll be a horsey kinda guy, somehow.
” I look at him to see if he’s joking around, but he looks deadly serious.
“How many kids are you thinking of? I like a good round number, so maybe six. Three of each, if you can manage that?” I laugh.
“Six I can manage, the ‘three of each’ may be in the lap of the gods.” He grins at me and I grin back. I am so damn happy right now.
Pulling up in front of the clubhouse, I see Raven’s truck.
She sure seems to be getting some use out of it lately.
Parking beside it, I can’t help but appreciate the paintwork once again.
I’ll have to have a word with the guys at Hot Hogs and see what they can do with mine.
It will have to be something with horses, of course.
Entering the common room, I see Raven at a table with her man, Grease.
What names some of these brothers have. Seeing me, she waves me over.
Giving Cork a peck on the cheek, I join them.
I know Cork wants to catch up with Meat to see what he found out from the guy from the ranch. He’ll give me the gossip later.
“You’ve been in trouble again, we hear. What is it with you two?” Raven asks as she sits up against Grease, his arm draped across her shoulders.
“It wasn’t trouble, per se. We just went a little rogue. We heard forty-eight hours mentioned and thought that was a little too long before doing a recon of the ranch we found. Only we bumped into Target and Chaos while we were there.” I throw the comment out off-handedly.
“Oh, no you didn’t. No one bumps into Target and Chaos when they are on a mission. Those two could sneak up on the ghost of a ninja, they are so good.” Grease looks at me like I’m a child.
“Well, maybe ‘bumped’ isn’t the right word.” I squint at Grease, and he ignores me completely.
Raven gives Grease a playful elbow, but he doesn’t flinch. “Play nice with Dallas, Grease. She’s new to all of you guys, don’t forget. She’ll soon learn now that she and Cork are sorted out.”
“What does ‘sorted out’ mean?” I ask her.
“You’ve obviously got your point across to him finally, and you have definitely cemented that with doing the dirty deed.” Raven wriggles her eyebrows knowingly.
“How can you possibly know that?” I splutter.
“Oh, Dallas, please. Don’t even try to deny it.
The way you two walked in together? Only after having sex does a couple walk in as comfortable with each other as you two just did.
Furthermore, you walk like you’ve just done a weekend of barrel racing with a dose of bull riding thrown in.
” Even Grease nods at that statement, and I blush furiously.
Looking away from her to hide my embarrassment, it only gets worse when everyone I look at either grins, raises a glass or just smiles knowingly.
“Let’s go do some lasso training since you’re here. Is Cora here too?” Trying to deflect attention from myself, Raven just laughs.
“We don’t have any steers prepared, but I can certainly do with some practice at twirling the loop.” Looking up, she gives Grease a kiss and then slips out from under his arm.
I grab a rope from my truck, and when I turn to ask Raven if she needs one, I see her take one from her truck bed.
“We all have our own now, Dallas. At some point in the future, when we are all proficient, there will have to be a contest to see who’s best. I bet there will be blood spilled that day, but Winter will win.
She is so fiercely competitive and so damn good at everything she turns her hand to.
I wouldn’t mind betting she’s your equal, at least, by the time that day comes.
” Raven gives me a look that says I’d better get some practice in myself before we move around to the back of the clubhouse.
For the next thirty minutes or so, we take turns at being the steer, and by the time we call it a day, Raven is twirling and throwing much better. We’re just enjoying a chat on the bench by the kitchen door when Cork appears.
“You wanna eat here or pick up Chinese on the way home?” The words are no sooner out of his mouth when a shadow appears behind him. There’s a loud grunt, and Cork flies past as Meat gives him a mighty shove between his shoulder blades.
“I guess you’re eating here, or you never eat here again!” Raven states as she watches Cork get up and dust himself down.
The evening meal is delicious and thankfully uneventful. Cork and Meat chat throughout, chat and grunt at least, so I guess there’s no hard feelings over Cork’s earlier comment.
Driving home, Cork gives me a filtered version of the interrogation Meat performed on the ranch guy. I expect to hear some gory details, but all I get is the information that was gleaned from the guy.
“The thugs are all from the city. They are criminals in the city just as much as they are in outlying towns, apparently.
They make a buck any way they can without having to work too hard to get it.
Robbery, burglary, carjacking, extortion, protection rackets.
You name it, they are into it somewhere.
Our man in the shed was boasting about how well off they were financially.
“One of them stumbled across Barons Bordeaux and figured it was easy to replicate because it was moonshine. Although this would be the most demanding thing they’d taken on, the profits that they were expecting would far outweigh the effort involved.
They stole a still from a warehouse supplier, along with a few hundred bottles, to get them started and forced a printer to make up a few thousand labels of a fictitious brand.
” Cork pauses as we wait at some lights and continues as we drive off.
“They had the ranch already, as they had been operating in the area when they stumbled on the Bordeaux, so setting themselves up was simple enough. What beats me is how they expected to meet the demand they were expecting. They thought it would net them enough never to have to be criminals again. It doesn’t make sense that they think they could produce that much moonshine with only one still and keep it up continuously.
They haven’t considered the cost of ingredients or the fact that the government would soon pick up on their buying such large amounts of said ingredients without a business or tax bill either.
I helped Meat when he first came up with the idea for the Bordeaux and believe me, it was tough going just to make enough for a few evenings at the club! ”
“It all sounds like someone had the idea in an ivory tower, yet didn’t think it through each process to me. It’s how a lot of businesses fail, never mind criminal plots.” I shake my head at the scale of their foolishness.