8. Oz
8
OZ
T he need to turn my truck around and drive straight back to her burns inside my chest. I’ve never had a problem leaving a woman before. Hell, half the time I’m watching the clock and counting down the appropriate hour after sex when it’s okay to get dressed and leave without making me look like a jackass or her look like a whore. But with Etta, if I never left our bed again, I’d be happy as long as she was in it with me.
Some of the anxiety I’d felt when I’d gotten back to base and realized she hadn’t texted me has abated, but a fresh worry has quickly taken its place. I was mean to her when we were kids. No, I was more than mean, I was cruel. I don’t have an excuse. Being an angry kid doesn’t justify me bullying a little girl years younger than me.
I know she wants me, even though she’s trying to hide it. It’s obvious that she’s as consumed with me as I am with her, but she’s scared of me too. I can see it in her eyes. She might be looking at a fifteen-year-older version of me, but sometimes I know she’s seeing the kid who destroyed her things and called her names.
I don’t know how to make this better. How do you even start to make up for the fucked-up stuff you did as a kid? The only thing I can think to do is to bind her to me so tightly she forgets what I did back then. I plan to show her over and over that the only things I want to do now are to love, worship, and breed her.
Pride swells in my chest when I think about the fact that right now my baby could be sparking to life inside her womb. A tiny little version of me and her combined. I can’t fucking wait to watch her belly swell and her tiny little tits fill with milk.
My mouth waters as I wonder what her milk will taste like. I wonder if she’ll let me steal a little. My dick hardens and my balls ache as I fantasize about how it’ll feel to push my dick into her, feeling her pregnant belly between us while I suckle the milk straight from her tits.
When I slow to a stop behind Danny’s car, I turn off the engine, then sit for a moment, pulling my cell from my pocket and opening up an app I installed while Etta was in the shower for the second time this morning.
She’s going to kill me when she realizes that I put a tracking app on her cell, but I don’t care. I hid it inside a folder she’d got on her home screen that was full of rarely used apps, including games, an investment banking app, and several yoga workout program apps, so it’s doubtful she’ll find it for a while, if ever.
I’m not trying to keep track of her whereabouts; I just want to have the ability to find her if she runs from me. Hopefully she won’t, but the annoyingly observant voice at the back of my head says there’s a chance that the echoing trauma of our shared past will overwhelm her view of the future I can see so clearly ahead for us.
If she finds the app, she’ll be able to track me too, because apparently I’m an equal opportunity stalker, but I plan to be wherever she is, so I doubt there will ever be a time that she’s searching for me and I’m not right next to her.
When the app opens, I see the little blue dot that indicates her location flashing inside of my house. Relieved, I close it down, then open Google and search for the Rockhead Point Courthouse web page. It only takes me a minute to find the marriage license form and fill out all of my details. But when it comes to Etta’s, I stumble to a stop. I don’t remember her birthday or her middle name.
For a moment, I consider texting her, but I don’t want to have to lie to her if she asks why I need the information, so instead I do something that I haven’t done in fifteen years. I call my dad.
“Oscar?” Dad answers on the first ring.
“Hi, Dad.”
“What’s the matter? Has something happened? Are you okay?” he asks so quickly the words almost jumble together.
“Nothing’s happened, everything is fine.”
“Oh.” The word bursts from him in a panicked huff.
“Henrietta has decided to move in with me permanently, and I need to add her to my insurance. There isn’t great cell service at my house, and I’m at work, so I can’t go ask her. But I need to know her middle name and her date of birth.”
“Oh,” Dad says, his voice now jovial and excited. “Well, I think that’s just wonderful. Mom has been so worried about her moving all the way across the country to a new town where the only person she knows is that odd girl she used to work with.”
“Her middle name and date of birth,” I prompt, swallowing back the urge to tell him that his wife is most definitely not my mom.
“Oh yes, of course. Her middle name is Jayne and her date of birth is May 16, 1999.”
“Perfect, thanks, Dad.”
“Mom is going to be just over the moon. I think this calls for a vacation. I’ll round up your brothers and sister, and we’ll come and visit you both. Oh, my goodness, Mom is just going to lose it having all her kids together again,” Dad gushes, his ridiculous insistence that Maureen is in any way a parent to me or that their kids are my relatives in anything more than name, making me want to snap and snarl and rage at his fucking relentless presumption. But instead, I swallow back my annoyance.
“I have to get back to work. I can’t take any time off right now, and I know Henrietta is going to be busy getting the shop up and running.”
“Okay, son, well, maybe we can plan something in a couple of months’ time. I’m sure if you put in a vacation request, your supervisor can’t deny it. Of course, if you’d gone into insurance with me, instead of becoming a firefighter, you’d have been running your own office by now, and you could take off as much paid vacation time as you’d have liked.”
“I’ll speak to you later, Dad,” I say through gritted teeth.
“By—”
I end the call before he can even finish the word. Closing my eyes, I force myself to calm down by replaying the memory of Etta beneath me, my dick slamming into her and filling her with my cum over and over until I can relax my jaw enough to unclamp my teeth.
Speaking with my dad never fails to rile me up, but I can’t let him bother me when I have more important things to deal with. Opening my eyes, I exhale a long breath, then add Etta’s middle name and date of birth into the form and hit submit. After I’ve paid the admin fee, I book a slot with the judge, then slip from the truck and head back into work.
Base is empty except for Knight and Anders, who are in the kitchen prepping dinner.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Anders asks.
“The boss sent me home for a few hours, I had some personal shit to sort out,” I tell him.
“Does your personal stuff have anything to do with the woman you brought back to your house three days ago?” Knight asks, continuing to chop veggies without turning to look at me.
“How the fuck…” I trail off.
“You have a woman at your place?” Anders asks, clearly shocked.
“I have my woman at my place,” I correct him.
“ Your woman,” Anders says.
“ My woman,” I agree.
“Well, okay then.” He nods. “When do we get to meet her?”
“You can come to the wedding if you want.” I shrug, crossing to the kitchen to see what they’re making.
“You don’t want us to meet her?” Anders chuckles. “Worried she’ll like one of us better?”
“Oh, I know she’ll probably like one of you better, doesn’t mean I’ll let any of you fuckers take her from me,” I growl angrily.
“Dude, chill,” Anders says, lifting his hands up in a placating gesture. “None of us would mess with your woman, I was kidding.”
“When is the wedding?” Knight asks in his typical, blunt Knight way.
“Wednesday.”
“Wednesday?” Anders cries, dropping the spoon he’s using to stir something in a pan to the counter with a clatter and spinning around to face me. “Are you trying to be funny?” he demands.
“I don’t see what’s funny about him getting married,” Knight says, still happily slicing onions and peppers.
“Oz, is this a joke? Because there’s no way you’re marrying a woman you’ve known for a couple of days,” Anders says, his expression outraged.
“I never said I’d only known her for a couple of days.”
“So how long have you known her then?” he asks, narrowing his eyes at me.
“The first time I met her was about eighteen years ago.”
His mouth falls open, and he stares at me. “You’re getting married on Wednesday? That’s the day after tomorrow. What’s the rush?”
“She’s pregnant.”
Twisting his head to the side, he turns back to look at me, his brow furrowed. “What? How did you get her pregnant in three days when you’ve spent most of that time here?”
Instead of answering, I smirk, and he rolls his eyes. “Is she pregnant with someone else’s kid?” he asks.
A growl slips from my lips.
“I’m not saying that the kid wouldn’t be yours once it was here, I have first-hand knowledge that DNA does not make a difference to being a parent. I’m simply asking if her baby is…biologically yours,” he says carefully.
“Considering I’ve fucked enough cum into her to keep her pregnant for the next ten years, it damn well better be mine.”
Sighing, Anders rubs at his temples. “Dude, I fucking love you, but I do not want to explain how babies are made. If she only got here three days ago and she’s already pregnant, then that kid does not share your DNA, unless you two have been fucking for longer than that.”
“Fine,” I huff. “Maybe I’m not one hundred percent sure she’s pregnant yet, but if she’s not, I plan to get her there as fast as fucking possible. Bred or not, I’m still marrying her.”
For a long, stilted moment, no one speaks.
“Congratulations, I’d love to come to your wedding. Also, there are a lot of articles on the internet about the most successful positions to use when trying to get pregnant. If your wife isn’t pregnant yet, I’d suggest you read them,” Knight says matter-of-factly, turning a burner on and adding oil to a pan.
“Knight, for fuck’s sake, have you two been drinking the same Kool-Aid?” Anders asks, clearly outraged. “Knight thinks he’s met his woman, he just hasn’t told her she’s his yet, and now Oz is getting married to a woman he’s doing his best to get pregnant. What the actual fuck is going on here?”
Shrugging, I reach around Knight and grab a carrot. Taking a bite, I crunch it between my teeth. “When you know, you know. I’m not going to sit around with my thumb in my ass. She’s mine, so I’m making her mine in every way possible as quickly as possible.”
“My woman isn’t here, when she gets here, I’ll let her know,” Knight says, like it’s as simple as that. Three days ago, I would have called him a fool. Now I nod, because now that I have Etta, it makes complete sense.
“Jesus-fucking-Christ,” Anders curses, tipping his head back like he’s looking to the heavens for patience. When he straightens, he looks at me. “Right, you first. What’s your girl’s name?”
“Etta.”
“Etta…as in Henrietta…as in your stepsister?” Anders asks, his eyes wide.
“She’s not my stepsister, but yes. She prefers to be called Etta now. She’s going to be working with Betty in her new tattoo studio. Her and Octy are friends, and she moved to town intending to share an apartment with her. Obviously she’ll be living with me now. It’d make sense for Octy to move in with one of us, then she’s close to Etta and the Barnetts too. I was going to ask Danny?—”
“She can move in with me,” Knight interrupts.
“Really?” I ask. “I figured you’d…prefer your own space.”
“She can move in with me, I have the space,” Knight says, his tone the same as normal, although his shoulders seem tense.
“If you’re sure, that’d be great, I’ll drop Etta a text and let her know.”
“Octavia isn’t in Rockhead Point at the moment, though, is she?” he asks.
“No, she went back to Rapid City to pack up her stuff, Etta said she was supposed to be getting back in about a week or so,” I tell him.
“Perhaps if Etta could send me Octavia’s number, we could make arrangements for when she arrives,” he says, but there’s something a little different about his voice. His tone is usually so steady that it’s almost robotic, but right now he sounds…odd.
“Sure, I’ll ask her for it,” I say.
Nodding, he goes back to adding veggies to the pan like nothing has happened, and I brush away his odd behavior as just Knight being Knight.
“I…” Anders starts, then trails off like he has nothing to say. “You’re hooking up with your stepsister?” he finally asks.
“She’s not my stepsister, and we’re not hooking up. She’s the daughter of my dad’s wife and we’re getting married and she’s pregnant with my kid.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Anders hisses. “I need to avoid the Barnetts.”
“Why?” Knight asks.
“Because all of this love at first sight bullshit is their fault. Seven attractive, straight dudes go caveman and claim their women the moment they see them, and now everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. I’m happy to stay single, me and my right hand are more than happy together, thank you very much.”
“Dude, you have no idea what you’re missing out on,” I tell him, sighing happily.
“So, Etta,” he says, waiting for me to fill in the huge gaps.
“What about her?”
“She’s a few years younger than you, right?”
“Four years, she’s twenty-six now. But she’s fucking tiny, like a strong wind could knock her over. I don’t think she eats enough; she barely nibbles at her food. She’s fucking beautiful, though, she has this candy pink hair, and she’s quiet, like shy quiet. She’s pretty pissed at me, though,” I confess.
“Oh yeah, why?” Anders asks, turning back to the stove and adding hamburger to a pan, the scent of meat filling the air as it starts to brown.
“I was an angry kid, but it turns out she was my main target. She reminded me of some pretty mean fucking stuff I did to her.”
“But that was all, what…fifteen years ago, you said before?”
“Yeah. She called me her bogeyman and her monster under the bed. I was an asshole to her. To be honest, I’d forgotten most of the stuff she said I did, but she hasn’t. I’ve got a lot of stuff to make up for.”
“And she wants a baby?” he asks, his brows furrowed in consternation.
“I can’t wait to see her pregnant,” I growl, avoiding his question as I fidget, my dick swelling just at the thought of how sexy she’ll be with a beach-ball belly and full tits.
Before Anders has a chance to say anything else, the door opens, and the rest of the team march into the mess hall.
“How’d it go, Boss?” Anders asks.
“Pretty easy one, small kitchen fire down in town. There was a bit of damage, but no one was hurt,” Buck reports. “Everything okay with you, Oz?”
“Everything’s great. thanks, Boss,” I tell him.
The next couple of hours pass in a blur. We get to work cleaning off all of the kits, and before I know it, Anders is calling everyone into dinner. I’ve fought the urge to obsessively check my cell for messages from her, but I asked her for pictures of her playing with her little clit, and I’m not sure how I’ll keep myself at work if I know she’s taking her pleasure without me, even if I’m the one who ordered her to do it.
Anticipation thrums through me, but I force myself to wait as I wash my hands in the restroom. Once I’m done, I slide my hand into my pants and pull out my cell. Holding my breath, I bring the screen to life and find…nothing.
What the fuck? She knows the rules, she knows I expect her to text me, yet once again, I have nothing. Anger blooms to life inside of me, but I swallow it down, trying and failing to calm my temper. Typing out a message, I hit send, then suck in a shallow breath.
Me : It’s dinner time, Little One. Where are my pics?
Staring at my cell, I will the two ticks to turn blue, but after several seconds, they’re still clear, and the sight of the unread message only heightens my ire. A more rational person would wait, give her a chance to see and reply to my message, but I’m not fucking rational. I haven’t been since the moment I saw her step off that fucking bus. I am very, very, very fucking irrational about my woman, so I pull up her contact and hit call.
She answers on the sixth ring, just as I was about to end the call and dial her again.
“Hello.”
“Oz?” she questions like she wasn’t expecting me.
“Who the fuck else would it be?” I snap.
“Wait, let me go somewhere quieter, I can’t hear you,” she says, and I notice for the first time the amount of noise in the background. Where the fuck could she be that’d be that noisy? And why the fuck isn’t she at home, where she’s supposed to be?
“Hello,” she says a moment later.
“Where the fuck are you?” I demand.
“I’m at Betty’s.”
“What the fuck are you doing there?” I know I’m behaving like an asshole, but I don’t want her at Betty’s place. I want her in my bed, with her fingers rubbing at her clit while I listen to the sounds of her ragged breaths.
“Betty invited me to meet her family and have dinner with them.”
“Fuck,” I hiss under my breath. “You didn’t text me,” I protest weakly.
“I haven’t eaten yet,” she says, and I can almost hear the apology in her voice.
“You didn’t tell me your plans,” I say, trying and failing not to sound like a controlling dick.
“Did I need to?”
“Yes,” I snap, even though I’m more than aware I’m being an asshole.
She doesn’t reply, and I slap my hand against my head and sigh. “I thought you’d be home. I thought we could talk a little.”
“We are talking,” she says, her voice small.
“I was hoping for a slightly more naked chat,” I say, trying to lighten the sour mood I’ve created with my caveman attitude. “I don’t want to share you, you’re mine.”
“Oz, we need to talk?—”
Cutting her off, I growl. “There’s nothing to talk about. You’re mine, Etta. Mine to keep, mine to breed, mine forever.”
“That’s—”
I cut her off again. “Enough,” I snarl, immediately silencing her. “Go eat, tell the Barnetts I said hello, then call me when you get home.”
“Okay,” she says, her voice meek and sad. I fucking hate the sound of it and the knowledge that I’m being the monster she knows me to be, but I can’t help it. I can’t let her try to argue about us not being an us when I’m not there to remind her why we’re so good together.
“Behave,” I tell her.
“Bye, Oz.”
Ending the call, I stare down at my cell, once again fighting the urge to go to her, but as much as I wish I could, I can’t leave work again just because I’m being a pussy. Once I have my ring on her finger, this will be easier, but I still type out a message to Beau, just in case they have a full house of people the way they usually do.
Me: Hey Beau, the Barnett curse struck again. Etta’s mine. Make sure that anyone who looks at her knows. Oz.
His reply is almost instant.
Beau: Got it. Does she know?
Me: She’s aware.
Beau: Congratulations.
Me: Thanks.
Some of my anger fades, but a fresh bout of anxiety fills me at the realization that I won’t get to see her again until Wednesday morning. She needs me, and I need her, and another full day without her sounds like fucking hell. Maybe Knight has the right idea about retiring once he claims his woman, because being with Etta full-time sounds fucking incredible.
Once dinner has been served, we sit down and talk through the call out the guys went to this morning and the search and rescue call Anders, Knight, and I were part of yesterday. Mealtimes are always a chance for us to debrief about each rescue we attend and talk about any issues we had or anything we think we may need to train more on. Other people might prefer to decompress, but we’re always striving to improve, and when people’s lives are at risk, being the best is always what we’re aiming for.
The rest of the evening is quiet, and as my teammates start to head for the bunk room to sleep, I step outside into the crisp evening air. Pulling up Etta’s number, I hit dial and wait for her to answer.
“Hello,” she says sleepily.
“Hey,” I say, relaxing at the sound of her voice.
“What time is it?”
“Were you asleep?” I ask.
“Mm-hmm,” she mumbles.
“I’m sorry, Little One, I didn’t mean to wake you up. Go back to sleep, I’ll speak to you in the morning.”
She makes a soft, sleepy purr of agreement, but she doesn’t end the call, and I find myself slipping into one of the Adirondack chairs outside the building and listening to the sound of her breathing.
Just when I think she’s asleep, she speaks.
“Oz.”
“Yeah.”
“I really don’t want to want you,” she whispers.
“I’m not sorry that you do.”
“I thought about running,” she confesses, her voice so quiet I can barely hear her.
“You did?” I can’t help the lethal steel that fills my voice.
“I planned to ask Betty to take me down into town.”
“But you didn’t?”
“No,” she whispers. “I didn’t.”
“Good.”
“That’s it?”
“What did you think I’d say?”
“I thought you’d be angry.”
“If I’d had to hunt you down, I’d have been furious, but you didn’t run.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t,” she confesses on a whimper.
“You didn’t leave, because you know you’re mine, don’t you, Little One?”
“You’re my monster.” The words sound like they’re wrenched from the depths of her soul.
“Completely, undeniably yours, your monster, your man—just yours,” I agree.
“Good night, Oz.”
“Good night, Etta,” I purr, smiling as I end the call and head back inside.