Chapter 9 #2
After her, one woman kind of rolls into the next, and they all get blurred in my memory, as Toni probably will eventually.
It’s one of the cold, hard facts of life.
But not yet. Even now, as I sit, enjoying the starlit sky, a cool breeze, almost cold at this elevation, blowing around my face, my cock hardens at the memory of the woman I’d so recently had in my bed.
Breathing in, I realise I still have the scent of her pussy on my face, not having taken the time to wash.
Fuck, how long is it going to be until I’m inside her again?
Ace might be on to something. He wants us to get together. And I like Toni well enough. We’re compatible in bed… Is she old lady material? Hmm.
I stretch, the action initiating a wide yawn. I swing my leg over my bike and return to the compound, with thoughts of Toni going around my head. I go to the bed that still smells of her, and in the morning when I wake, my first thoughts summon up the image of her sucking my cock.
Leaning back, I link my hands behind my head and rest on them, closing my eyes as I remember the details. She took all I had to give her and left me wanting more…
I come to with a laugh, glance at my phone, and realise I must have fallen back asleep, as it’s almost noon now.
Maybe I’m getting old – a good fucking, a good ride on my bike, left me so exhausted I overslept.
This is something I won’t be admitting to my brothers, not my lack of stamina, but my body’s obvious need for sleep after.
My forty-two years are definitely creeping up on me.
I have no inclination to go downstairs and face Trixie, knowing I handled last night’s situation badly.
Only once had I ever raised my hand to a woman, yet the thought of her disrespecting Toni almost had me going for the club girl, driven not only by anger, but by my own fucked-up feelings.
Maybe I wouldn’t have stopped, if it hadn’t been for Tempest. Thank fuck he’d been there.
He’s bound to have ratted on my strange behaviour, and bunch of nosy assholes that they are, they’re bound to want to know what she said to upset me.
And me admitting I was defending Toni’s honour?
Well, that might lead them to start adding two and two together and coming up with an answer, even one I’m not sure of yet.
Instead, I shower, dress, then slip out. Taking my bike, I stop at a diner. When I switch off my engine, I check my cell, and find I had a message while I was riding.
Toni: Back home. Already miss you and Ace
Freak: Miss you too
I’m smiling as I order lunch, then take my time eating. I calculate when Ace will be home from school, and head over to my ma’s to be there to greet him.
I arrive a few minutes early.
“She gone?”
Though I’ve assured Ma I’ve had Toni checked out, and that the facts confirm her story, Ma’s still on the fence about her. Unable to put that down to anything other than her being possessive about her son and grandchild, I don’t snipe when I answer her.
“Yeah, she caught an early plane.” Not sure how this is going to be received, I add, “Toni wants Ace to go and stay with her. I’m thinking this coming weekend.”
“It’s too soon.” She immediately dismisses the notion.
“Ma.” I sigh heavily. “Ace adores her.” And I like her. I keep that part to myself. “She’s his aunt, the only connection he’s got to his mother.”
“His mother, who tried to kill him,” she snaps back.
Again, an exasperated rush of air leaves my mouth. “Toni shows no sign of having a mental illness, and even Pippa can find no medical records showing she’s ever been diagnosed with one.” I get up closer to her. “Do you think for a moment I’d put my son in danger?”
“I think you might be led by your dick and not your brain,” she’s quick to retort. Then, she prods that dreaded finger into my chest. “You like her, I can see that. She’s won over both my son and grandson. But don’t you think it’s too fast? Give it a few months before you let him go stay with her.”
Crossing the kitchen to where she’s standing by the stove, I give her a hug. “Old woman, you’re still looking for reds under the bed.”
Never one to freely give or receive physical affection, she shrugs me off. “I didn’t get to be seventy without knowing how to be cautious.”
There’s the sound of the key turning in the lock on the front door. It can only mean one thing. Ace is home.
Ma looks at me, waving a wooden spoon in her hand. “You’re going to tell him, aren’t you?” My face gives her the answer. She turns back to stirring whatever she has in the pot, mumbling something about “bloody fools and how they won’t be told.”
Ignoring her, I go to meet Ace, who’s leaving his shoes alongside my boots just inside the door. He slips his bookbag off his shoulder and allows it to fall to the floor.
When he catches my eye, his face is pinched. “She went home, didn’t she?”
“Sure, Bud. You knew she was leaving.”
With a grimace, he tells me, “I know, but I kinda hoped you’d persuade her to stay.” His eyes look up at me. “You could do with a proper girlfriend. I think she’s just right for you.”
Chuckling, I give him the truth. Club secrets I withhold from him, but in everything else, I try to be honest. “I’m starting to think so, too, kid. But I only met her a few days ago. Not long enough for either of us to commit to anything serious. And remember, her life’s in Flagstaff.”
“We could go live with her,” he replies with a stubborn set to his jaw.
I sigh heavily. “And leave your nana and the club? Nah, not going to happen. I’m a King, and I’ll always be one.”
Ace is far from stupid, and his brain works in a logical way.
But even he can let his emotions overrule him, especially when a situation is beyond his control.
I’m not expecting a meltdown, but it breaks my heart to see him fidget as his brain tries to balance two absolutes that can’t be made to add up.
I can’t move, and he can’t expect her to either.
Before he distresses himself, I lean against the wall and fold my arms. “I just might have a solution.”
The optimism on his face strikes a chord in my dark soul, especially since his goals align with mine.
He said I should make her my girlfriend.
Fuck that, I’m far too old. If she’s going to be mine, I can’t go into it half-hearted.
She wouldn’t upend her comfortable existence if I wasn’t all in.
The sensible course is to take the time to get to know each other better, and that can’t be done over the phone.
“Flagstaff’s not that far away. A four- to five-hour drive. How about we go visit her this weekend?”
His mouth gapes as though he’s a fish gasping for air, then he punches me in the arm, the weight of his blow reminding me he’s not a little boy any longer.
“Then why the fuck didn’t you start with that, Dad?
” I kid you not, he does a little jig of excitement.
“This weekend? Really? I’ll get to stay with her. ”
“Language, Ace!” my ma yells from the kitchen.
“Sorry, Nana,” Ace yells back, sheepishly.
I’m still stuck on the previous conversation. “We,” I correct him.
While, unlike Ma, I don’t think I ought to wait months before I trust Toni alone with Ace, I’m not stupid enough to let my fifteen-year-old son stay in a strange house with a woman who, however nice she seems, and however well she takes my cock, is still too much of an unknown.
If she wants Ace to stay, then she’ll have to make room for both of us.
And if that’s in her bed, so much the better.
Of course, I’ve got an ulterior motive. So shoot me.