Moose Chapter 2
When I woke up the following day, I felt rested. I wasn’t awake long before Shain texted me.
Shain: Breakfast is in the clubhouse. Better get it before it’s gone.
Me: Be right there. Save me some.
I was putting on my socks and boots when she answered.
Shain: Why should I?
Me: Brat. Daredevil needs to spank you more.
Shain: Oh yeah! And then he can give me the (eggplant emoji)
Me: Never mind. Forget I said that. (vomiting emoji)
Shain: (crying laugh emoji)
I blame her for my use of emojis. She’d gotten me into the habit of using them.
Walking into the common room a few minutes later, I was amazed the noise hadn’t awakened me. It was full of people, and the smell of bacon and more permeated the air, making my stomach growl. Heading into the kitchen, I found silver pans filled with food. They had it set up like they did at a buffet, with the burners under them to keep the food warm.
There were scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, diced potatoes, pancakes, toast, and pastries. Coffee and orange juice were available for drinking. If you wanted something different, you’d have to make it yourself. No one was complaining. I filled a plate, poured coffee, and took them to a table. Digging in, I savored every bite. Without Shain around, I didn’t get home-cooked meals like I used to. I could cook, but it wasn’t anything like she made. My mom had taught her.
Thinking of it made me miss Mom. She lived in Ohio with her sister. It had been almost a year since I saw her. She’d moved there a couple of years after Dad died. She’d waited until Shain was eighteen before going. It wasn’t because she hated the club. It was due to missing him so much and finding the memories painful. She visited occasionally. In between, we’d gone to see her there. We understood her heartache.
Dad had been gone for a long time. I wished Mom would find someone to spend the remainder of her life with. She was only sixty, but I didn’t know if it would happen. That wasn’t too old to find companionship, despite what she said when we suggested it. My parents had been in love up until the day Dad died. Shain and Daredevil reminded me of them. Too bad I wasn’t as lucky. I somehow doubted I’d ever be like them.
An arm came around my neck from behind, and a kiss landed on my cheek. The shampoo smell told me who it was, but I wanted to pay her back for her text, so I pretended not to know.
“I sure hope you’re that smoking hot piece of ass I had last night,” I said. I didn’t say it loud enough for the older kids to hear.
My reward was a shriek, followed by a smack to the back of my head and then retching sounds. “I can’t believe you! Disgusting. Don’t you dare say that.” Shain huffed in my ear.
I turned to grin at her. Daredevil was standing next to her, laughing.
“I’ll never repeat it if you never imply you and that one have sex.”
“I should take your food away,” she threatened as she grabbed my plate. I slapped her hand and chased it with a fork, but she snatched it back.
“Do that, and you’ll have a stump,” I warned her. Daredevil dropped into a chair next to me.
“You two remind me of my brothers, sister, and me.”
“I don’t know if we’re that bad. Speaking of his brothers and sister, wait until you meet them, Moose. They’re so funny,” she said as she sat on his lap.
“When did you meet them?”
“Well, I haven’t met his brothers and sister in person, but we’ve had several video chats. His mom and dad were out here a couple of weeks ago. They’re amazing. You’ll love them. They remind me of your mom and dad. I wish the others could’ve come, but Diego, Marco, and Renzo stayed in Florida to run the family construction business, and Micaela had to work. She plans to stay a month with us when she comes for the wedding. To do that, she had to stay and work her butt off. Did I tell you she’s a photographer and doing our wedding pictures as our gift? Her pictures are beautiful.”
I let her tell me all about her future in-laws. I was happy she liked them. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than hating your partner’s family unless it was them hating you. That would be my luck if I ever found someone.
While I was finishing eating, I discovered the whole club had taken today off, and others would take the first few days of next week off as well. Some were on vacation until we went back to Nebraska. With us there, the travel for some to Frisco, and then our return stay, they wanted to spend time with us.
“They didn’t have to do that, but it’ll be great to hang out. What did the station say about you taking a week off now and then turning around and taking more off in two months?”
“They were fine with it. I’ve been working a ton of overtime these last few months for them. People have been out sick and taking vacation. They’re not mad,” she said.
“What she means is they’re terrified to piss her off. She works more overtime than anyone else there. Add to that the fact she’s a paramedic, and they’ll bend over backward if she asks. I told her after the wedding, she needed to slow it down. Let the others do their part. When she gets pregnant, they won’t have a choice,” Daredevil added.
I was just taking a sip of coffee. I choked and had to pound on my chest to clear it. My voice was hoarse when I replied, “Pregnant?”
“Yes, you heard right. Pregnant. We want a family, and there’s no reason for us to wait. I stopped taking my birth control last week. If it goes as we hope, I’ll be pregnant and maybe even have a baby by Christmas,” she said with a smile.
“You’re too young to have babies,” I said.
“Moose, I’ll be twenty-nine soon. That’s more than old enough. Don’t you want to be an uncle?”
“I’d love to, but aren’t you two rushing it? Shouldn’t you wait and settle into married life first?”
“We want babies now, and so do his parents. Heck, the whole family does. Don’t you think I’ll make a good mom?” Shain asked. I heard the fear in her voice.
I reached over and brought her close for a one-armed hug. She remained on Daredevil’s lap. “You’ll make a fantastic mom, Shain. I’ve never doubted that. I guess I still want to see you as seven years old. You should be playing with your dolls and having pretend tea parties.”
She brightened up and then laughed. “Only if I can get you and the others to wear those boas and tiaras again and sip from plastic cups of pretend tea with your pinkies in the air.”
“Hush your mouth. We should’ve smothered you when we had the chance,” I grumbled. I didn’t care who knew I’d played dress-up with her when she was little. Hell, the whole club, at one point or the other, did things they’d never admit to make her happy over the years.
She kissed my cheek while Daredevil added a comment. “ Mon Reve , Moose can play those with our daughter or daughters. But when they do, we’ll take pictures and frame them.” He grinned.
“Hey, I can handle it. Wait. You’ll be doing it, too, and a lot more.”
“I grew up with a sister. I know what they get us to do, but I’ll gladly do it.”
After making that clear, we hung out talking until after I finished my breakfast and coffee. It wasn’t more than an hour after all of us were fed that we headed to the gym for the strength challenge.
I wasn’t prepared for the number of old ladies who came to watch. The kids who didn’t require supervision constantly went to play in another section of the gym, while those who did remained with their moms or were close to them.
We stripped down to our jeans. There were several pieces of weight-lifting equipment with various amounts of weight to be lifted. We received catcalls, shouts of encouragement, heckling, and laughter as we all did our best to lift the maximum amount of weight we could. It took us two hours before we finally called it quits. Everyone had done an impressive job, but I was shocked at what Trident did. I knew he was still in shape, but I didn’t expect him to outlift so many younger men. I wanted to be him when I was his age.
Being Trident, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut and had to torment Sin. He was standing next to him with an arm around Sara. He smirked as he said out loud, “Hell yeah, I stay in shape. How else do you think I can twist this woman into a pretzel and have kinky, wall sex all the time? Those books aren’t all fiction.”
Sin’s groan was long and loud as he closed his eyes and wiped his hand down his face. When he opened them, he glared at Trident. “I swear to God, that’s it. You’re gone. Mom, accept it. He’s not coming back from Frisco. You’ll have to embrace being a widow again. And there won’t be a third one. I’m locking you up.”
“Good luck, you’re gonna need it,” a wily-looking Trident said.
“Sin, I love you, but if you kill my old man, you’ll be the one to disappear, which means it leaves Trident to help me and Lyric raise your kids. Do you want that?” Sara asked calmly with a quirk of her eyebrow.
“Hell no! He’s not corrupting my kids any more than he already does. Goddamn it,” Sin muttered as he stomped off. Laughter followed him.
“Do they ever stop?” I asked Shain and Daredevil.
“Nope. They have it down. The reality is Sin has always looked up to Trident. He just had a shock when he joined and fell for Sara. Trident and Sin know each other well, meaning he knows Trident’s sexual preferences. It was hard for him to reconcile that his mom was doing those things with Trident. They both get mileage out of it, and we benefit by being entertained,” Daredevil explained.
“That’s for damn sure,” Boomer said. Being one of the Infidels, he’d know.
“Okay, I figure there’s more you want me to do. Let me go shower, and I’ll meet you at your trailer, say in twenty?” I asked Shain. They both nodded, so I didn’t linger. I was sweaty and stank. As I went to my room to shower, I wondered what else they had in store for us today.
???
Yesterday was a relaxed day spent doing whatever we wanted with friends. It was nice. Most of the clubs in our area were one-percenters, and while we weren’t at war with them, we didn’t hang out either. My relaxed state of mind was leaking away the closer we got to Frisco. We’d left the clubhouse at two in the afternoon. With it taking not even two hours to get to the hotel where the event was, we’d be there in plenty of time to get settled in, help Sara set up her table, have dinner, and then attend her informal gathering. Yeah, don’t ask me how, but somehow, we were talked into attending it by Sara and the other women. They swore it would help to whip the attendees into a frenzy. There was this tiny part of me that wondered if the women were playing us and this was going to be a dud. If so, I’d spank Shain’s ass.
The traffic became significantly heavier the closer we got to Dallas. I was extra alert to the idiots driving cages. They were on their stupid phones or just daydreaming, making it extra dangerous for riders. Being in a large group helped make us more noticeable. If I needed extra help, I had a leather get-back whip on my brake lever, which you could also attach to your clutch lever.
It was a three-foot hand-braided whip with a quick-release clip that I could release to use by hand if needed. On the end were several leather strips with pieces of metal attached. Mine were shaped like skulls. You used them to hit the side of a vehicle coming in too close to prevent a collision. Hitting the side of their car or truck scared the assholes into paying attention. The air from riding made it stream out automatically. A guy who wasn’t paying attention wandered too close to my bike, and it hit his door. He startled and then glared at me. I grinned and gave him the finger. He moved to the farthest lane he could get to.
Pulling into the event hotel, I was impressed by the place. It was all windows and rose over fifteen stories up. It was modern and upscale. I snickered, thinking what they’d think when a bunch of bikers came waltzing in. I doubted we were their usual customer. Finding parking took time, and we had to split up, but eventually, we did. Grabbing my bag from the back of my seat, I locked up my bike and flung it over my shoulder.
I followed the crowd into the lobby. Yep, I was right. We got a lot of attention, but not all the kind I expected. Sure, some staff and guests eyed us as if they thought we were there to rob them. I wanted to yell, hands in the air, but I didn’t—no need to go to jail in Texas. However, numerous people watched us with interest and awe. They were ninety-nine percent women of all ages. I wondered if they might be the readers we’d heard about.
Check-in took a while with so many people. We single guys doubled up on the rooms. We’d asked for double beds, but we would’ve made do if there had been only singles. It wasn’t as if we hadn’t done it before. I was rooming with Fender. After getting our room keys, we headed up to check out the room and chill for a bit. Then we’d meet later to have dinner and get Sara set if she needed help.
The room was clean and modern. The amenities weren’t anything to sneeze at when I reviewed them. Fender bounced on the bed. “Hot damn, this will give lots of bounce. Can’t wait.”
“If you bring a woman back here and keep me up all night, I swear to God, I’ll smother your ass. Go to her room,” I growled.
“Ah, come on, don’t tell me you won’t be looking for a bit of companionship. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and we’ll get two up here. That could be fun,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
It wasn’t that we had never fucked in the same room, at the same time, or together with a woman, but I wasn’t feeling it. Waving him off, I stretched out on the bed. He was right. It was comfortable.
It wasn’t long before he was hounding me to explore the hotel with him. Groaning, I got up and went with him. If I didn’t, he’d annoy the shit out of me. The amenities I read about turned out to be even better. I could see myself hanging outside in the area where they had firepits. If I were a swimmer, the pool in summer would be great. There was a rooftop terrace and a couple of bars. We got a couple of beers at one of those before returning to our room.
The entire time we were wandering around, women watched us and whispered behind their hands. I waited to see if anyone would get up the nerve to approach, but they didn’t. Flipping on the television, we watched a show about fabrication. When it finished, it was time to meet the others for dinner. Sara knew of a restaurant she liked within walking distance, and we were going there.
We met up in the lobby. When we were all accounted for, we headed down the street. It wasn’t fully dark yet, but the temperature had cooled off. It wasn’t as cold as we had in Nebraska. Here, it usually stayed in the mid-forties to the low-fifties, and it would hit seventy or above during the day. I had no objections to the weather, but I still wouldn’t move here.
I was thankful it wasn’t some ritzy place that required you to dress up. If it had, they’d be out of luck. The ladies were dressed nicely, but even they had on their property cuts. We guys wore our usual shirts, jeans, boots, and cuts.
Since our party was one of twenty-five, Sara had made a reservation. Two long rows of tables had been set up together. They ran down the middle of the dining room area, meaning we were the center of attention for everyone else eating there. They were sadly mistaken if someone thought that would stifle us or make us quiet and sweet talkers. We didn’t go totally rude and crude, but we laughed, joked, and sometimes got spirited.
We weren’t asked to quiet down or leave, so I counted that a win. The food was also more than decent, so I understood why Sara liked this place. After filling our bellies and drinking, it was time to return to the hotel so Sara could set up.
Authors could set up their displays the night before from eight-thirty to eleven or the morning of the event starting at six. I didn’t blame her for wanting to do it tonight. While we were out to dinner, there was an event dinner. Lyric asked Sara why she didn’t go to that. She said she wanted to spend it with us, and the informal meet-and-greet she planned to have after setting up with some friends and readers was more her thing. I was relieved. Something told me if she had attended it, we would’ve been roped into attending, too.
Only a couple of us were needed to help unload her books and paraphernalia, so the rest headed outside to the area with the firepits. We wanted to claim the area before someone else did. The weather was nice. Drinks were brought out. Those who came in vehicles had brought coolers rather than spend a fortune at the bars. I wouldn’t call us cheap. We were merely frugal.
As the evening passed, Sara and those who helped her joined us. Then, women began to creep over to speak to her. Sara would then introduce us. Before we knew it, there was a massive gathering outside. Everywhere you turned, there was talk of books, people, and more.
One of the things that blew my mind was how they spoke of the characters like they were real people. At first, I wondered who they were talking about, that they all knew. After catching on, I listened to what was said about them and the books. I wasn’t telling anyone, but the more I heard, the more I wanted to read Sara’s writing. It sounded like it was some hot, kinky shit. Damn, it seemed women were kinkier than most let on, or at least those into MC, mayhem, and Mafia books were.
As they relaxed, the women became bolder, and those of us without an old lady were hit on. I had no objections to a woman coming on to me, and neither did the others. They wanted to know what kind of bikes we rode, if they could see them, and if we’d take them on a ride in a couple of cases.
We were okay with everything except the rides. I explained why I wouldn’t do that for the woman who had asked me. She was disappointed, but she didn’t push me. Other topics of conversation were how we ended up in a club, and they wanted to see and touch our tattoos. They found them fascinating. Some asked how badly they hurt to get them.
Eventually, we called it a night. I watched as several of the single ones left with a woman. Fender had one hanging off his arm. He glanced over at me. I knew what was coming. I sighed when he walked over.
“She’s sharing a room with a couple of other women, so we can’t go there. She’s not opposed to a threesome,” he told me hopefully.
Rather than jumping at the chance, I shook my head. I’d already turned down a woman who offered me a chance to warm her bed. “I’m not feeling it. If you don’t take all night, go for it. But she needs to be out by one, or you find another place to screw.”
“Not a problem. Thanks, brother,” he said, giving me a fist bump.
As he hurried off with her, I was stuck. What should I do for the next couple of hours? The rest of our group was heading to bed or to do other extracurricular activities. No way would I ask if I could hang out in Daredevil and Shain’s room. I knew what they had planned from how they gazed at each other. Calling out a good night to everyone, I walked off.
I wandered the hotel until I ended up at one of the bars. It had a few people in there, but not enough to be crowded. Slipping onto a stool at the bar, I ordered a drink from the bartender when he came over. I hadn’t had much outside, and I was a long way from drunk. There was an MMA fight on the television over the bar, so I settled back to watch it as I enjoyed my beer.
I’d watched it for about fifteen minutes when the stool beside me was taken. Glancing over, I noted it was a woman. She was dressed to catch attention in a short skirt, heels, and a low-cut top. She smiled at me. I gave her a chin lift and turned my attention back to the fight. While she was attractive and doable, I wasn’t interested. I could tell by her outfit and welcoming smile that she was on the prowl.
The bartender came traipsing over with a big smile on his face. I listened to him turn on the charm. He wasn’t bad-looking, so I bet he got lots of action here, especially after the women had a few drinks. I let their conversation roll over me. I wasn’t paying close attention, but I heard enough. He tried his hardest to get her to hang out until the bar closed. She didn’t say no, but her tone told me she wasn’t entirely down with his idea. Another customer called him away. As soon as he was gone, a hand landed on my arm.
Now, I can be a total dick and often was, but even I tried not to be one to women, not unless they deserved it. It was my mom’s hand in raising me that prevented that, along with the ass beating my dad would’ve given me. “Excuse me, but I have to ask. Are you here for the book event tomorrow?” she asked.
“I am. You?”
“I am. I come to these a couple of times a year. I love all kinds of books, but my favorite ones are those about bikers. I’m so thrilled to get to meet a real-life one. Tell me, is it like what I read? It would be so exciting to be free and do whatever you want. You can party and have fun. There are no rules. And to have a big, sexy biker like yourself? Mmm, sign me up,” she said huskily.
Her eyes were broadcasting her desire. She wanted a piece of me. I wasn’t sure if any biker would do, but since I was the one there, she was casting out her lures to have the two of us get naked and sweaty. Typically, I’d be all over it. Thinking of all the guys getting their cocks wet while I sat here had me reconsidering my earlier stance to pass it up.
I was opening my mouth to suggest we could get better acquainted when I heard a snort from behind us and a muttered, “Of course, he’ll say yes to that.”
The voice belonged to a woman. I turned to ask her what her issue was, but all I saw was the back of her as she walked away and out the door. The sight of her backside made me forget about the woman next to me. I was smacked with desire, and it was for the woman leaving who had bountiful curves, an ass to die for, and long, curly black hair almost to her waist. Just like that, I lost all interest in the one beside me.
“Handsome, why don’t we get out of here? I have a room upstairs and no roommate. We can go there,” the other woman said. She was trying to sound sultry, but it came across as desperate.
I stood. She wiggled off the stool to her feet with a smile. That turned into a frown when I let her know my decision. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. Enjoy tomorrow. It was nice meeting you. Maybe you should talk to the bartender. He seemed interested.”
I turned my back to her and walked off. I was almost sprinting for the door. I wanted to catch the woman who’d just left. I heard the other one huff and say, “What the hell? What an asshole.”
Getting out of there, I was disappointed not to see the vision I saw leaving anywhere. How had she disappeared so fast? I kept a lookout for her. I didn’t stop until I made it to my room. Checking the time, I saw it was after one. Fender better be done, or else. A hard knock on the door was all the warning I gave him before I opened it.
The bastard was sitting in bed with a satisfied grin on his face. The smell of sex was heavy in the room. I waved my hand in front of my face. “Fuck, couldn’t you at least open a window or something? Air it out in here while I shower. I don’t want to smell that all night.”
He laughed as I grabbed a pair of shorts and entered the bathroom. I shut the door. As I showered, I tried not to dwell on my disappointment. Why should I be? For all I knew, the woman was ugly as a mud fence and would scare small children. It was better that I hadn’t found her.