16. Best Thing I Ever Did

16

BEST THING I EVER DID

Hugger

When they returned to her pad that night, Di was definitely in another mood.

But this time, she wasn’t talking.

All the way home, up the elevator and into her place, she was silent.

Hugger stopped at her kitchen bar, threw her keys on it, and watched as she walked right to her bedroom, her movements stiff and jerky.

He saw the lights go on in there.

Hugger really wanted to call Joker , or Shy , Dutch or Jag and ask what to do when your woman just got emotionally gutted from belly to gullet. They’d all been through it, some worse than others, but they had.

He didn’t have time to do that.

As ever, he was on his own. This time, he was trying to figure out how to be there for her now.

After Di had her crying jag on her dad’s chest, there were only two further sticky moments during dinner.

The first came when Di took off to fix her face, leaving Hugger alone with Armitage .

The man didn’t beat around the bush.

“ You the reason why I have bikers following me everywhere?”

In order to provide visible presence, his brothers had decided not to go stealthy, but it was still interesting Armitage noticed.

“ Di was worried for your safety after you kicked Babi? to the curb,” he explained. “ So I got my brothers to give you some cover.”

That openly mollified him, the same with pleasing him, which Hugger thought was a shocker. Though , considering what it said was that his daughter was worried about him, it made sense.

“ Are you in a Club ?” Armitage asked.

“ Yeah . Look it up. Chaos MC . We own and operate Ride Auto Supply Stores and our garage does custom builds. You can find an article in Wilde and Hay about our Club and builds. It’s still on their website. Also got a documentary about our history. It’s streaming. It’s called Blood , Guts and Brotherhood .”

“ That’s forthcoming.”

“ Got nothin’ to hide.”

Armitage glanced in the direction Di had gone, then came back to Hugger .

“ You seem to care deeply for her.”

Without hesitation, Hugger gave Diana’s father the fullness of it.

“ My ma did the best she could do, but we didn’t have it great. So with all she is and all she gives, Diana is the best thing that’s ever happened to me in my life.”

Armitage stared at him for several long beats before he confessed, “ I did wrong by her.”

“ You mean not telling her about her mother?”

“ No , something else.”

Hugger made an educated guess. “ You mean not handlin’ it like you should when she got hurt.”

“ That ,” Armitage forced out in a strangled voice.

“ Man , if you don’t know your daughter’s got a heart of gold by now, start paying attention. I don’t know what went down because I asked her not to tell me before I met you seein’ as I didn’t want to hate your guts before that happened. What I know is, she’s here now. She misses you. So fix it. And advice, you’re not gonna do that if you act like she’s a guest in her father’s house.”

“ Of course,” Armitage murmured, his attention acute on Hugger , sizing him up with this new information, before he jerked up his chin to indicate Di was returning.

The second sticky part happened twenty minutes later, when a huge-ass order of Indian food showed. Apparently , it was all Di’s favorites and from Di’s favorite Indian joint.

She nearly lost it again, having this demonstration her dad remembered something that mattered to her, but she held it together.

They ate it around the kitchen island, like family, not in the dining room, even though Hugger saw the table was set.

Di relaxed and caught up with her dad.

There was a lot they talked about that made Hugger feel out of place.

They were both highly educated and well-traveled, with Armitage sharing he continued to tour the world the years Di wasn’t in his life, hitting Sweden , Poland , Australia , New Zealand , South Korea and Japan .

Di told him all about her internship in London and her “museum vacations” to Washington DC , New York City , Chicago and Los Angeles , and her “beach vacations” to St . Thomas and Aruba .

Hugger didn’t have a lot to offer, and fortunately, they were so into catching up, that was neither noticed nor expected.

Though Di , being Di , made sure he wasn’t left out, touching him, smiling at him, leaning in to bump him with her shoulder to indicate she hadn’t forgotten he was there and making sure his plate was piled high.

They ate a gut-busting amount of food, and Armitage still unearthed a caramel apple pie he’d bought that made Di sniffle, telling Hugger that was another favorite, but again she held it together.

She said she was going to host her dad for their next dinner, and Armitage jumped right on that.

They set it for the next Wednesday .

The mood came over her the minute they hit the car.

And now he had to do something about it.

He just had no clue what.

He walked down the hall to her bedroom just in time to see her standing on her side of the bed, her phone to her ear, obviously in the middle of leaving her mother a message.

“…acting like a child. Stop pouting. I had dinner with Dad tonight, and you and I have something important to talk about. Call me .”

She stabbed her screen then looked at Hugger .

“ I’m such an idiot,” she decreed.

Shit , he was glad she was talking.

Even so, he didn’t like what she was saying.

“ You are not,” he growled.

“ All my life, I’ve been ignoring what a spoiled brat she is.”

“ She’s your ma. That’s shit you don’t notice.”

“ Well , Dad wasn’t like that. Nic wasn’t like that. So how didn’t I notice?”

“ Because she’s your ma.”

She stared at him a beat before she teetered, landing face first in the bed.

Christ , the last few weeks she’d been put through the gamut of emotions.

And still, she could be cute.

He toed off his boots before he got in the bed on the other side, claimed her under her arms and hauled her up to his side.

He then went still when Diana shifted so she was on her hip and she could flip off her pumps. She then immediately shifted again so she was straddling his hips, collapsed her chest on his and dug her forehead into his neck.

“ There’s more with Dad ,” she announced. “ Stuff we have to talk through. But I think I’m getting it.”

“ Getting what?”

“ Why it felt like he was so hard on me. Okay , not felt like, he was hard on me. But maybe he was like that so I wouldn’t turn out like Mom .”

Hugger had his fingers wrapped around her waist. She felt too good astride him, her weight on him, her smell everywhere. All of that was so fantastic he didn’t trust himself to move his hands.

So he kept them where they were and asked, “ How was he hard on you?”

She pushed up so she was resting her forearms in his chest, which wasn’t better or worse on the effect she was having on his cock, though now he could see her beautiful face and fantastic hair, and that was definitely worse.

Fuck , he had to get his shit tight. She was going through something and all he could think about was banging her.

“ I had to get good grades, as in, a B was unacceptable,” she said. “ Extracurricular activities, and a lot of them, so I could have a well-rounded experience in school and didn’t ‘waste my time,’ Dad’s words, on something useless like TV . I had chores around the house. I had a reading list that was not school mandated, but Dad mandated. He opened a joint checking account for me when I was sixteen, and I had to keep it balanced monthly and show him my work. He had firm opinions about how I wore my hair, and my clothes, lecturing about how they represented me, but also him. He was also pretty intense about me not gaining weight. He’s a fit guy, and into healthy living, and he pressed that on me in a big way.”

Listening to all of this, Hugger treaded cautiously. “ So , essentially, he was a dad.”

“ It was a lot, Hugger , and maybe as a man, he didn’t get how being judgy about how a girl ate and her weight and appearance are really, really not good things. But more, I never got a ‘well-done.’ It was more, ‘okay, you did that, this is what you need to learn next.’ His disappointment was pretty extreme when I put a foot wrong, and he didn’t hesitate to share it. It felt like he wanted me to be a Stepford kid. Part of it was suffocating, most of it was that it sucks to disappoint your dad.”

She shut her mouth with a snap and her eyes got big.

She explained this by saying hurriedly, “ This must all sound pretty stupid to someone like you.”

He didn’t get what she was saying. “ Why ?”

“ I had a dad who gave a shit and maybe was a little too tough on me, probably because he didn’t want me to grow up spoiled and so selfish, it was more important for me to get my hooks in a rich man who would take care of me as I wished to be taken care of, than it was to retain custody of my only child. And you haven’t shared, but you must have?—”

Hugger’s fingers moved, not of their volition, and they did this to dig into her flesh.

“ Your mom gave up custody of you?”

“ Yeah . From the beginning, Dad had full custody, and she didn’t fight it. And when she met Rick , she moved to Idaho to be with him.”

Hugger tried to digest that.

He couldn’t digest it.

He then tried to come to terms with it, because that had to have destroyed Diana when it happened.

It was impossible to come to terms with and he hoped like fuck he never met her mother.

“ Harlan ,” Di called.

“ Against all the odds, my ma kept firm hold on me,” he told her. “ We were never rolling in it, but I always had a roof over my head, and it was a decent one, food in my belly, and plenty of it, and clothes on my back, and she made a big deal out of getting me new at the beginning of each school year and tripling down on that at Christmas and my birthday. No kid in school ever knew what my mother did, and they never knew we didn’t have a lot. She made it that way, so people wouldn’t think shit and kids wouldn’t be assholes to me. She let me go only when she was dead, and she didn’t even want to do that. She died with her hand in mine, too weak to curl her fingers around, but she was still holding on. And her last words on this Earth were, ‘ Best thing I ever did was you.’”

He watched bright hit her eyes, and she whispered, “ Those were her last words?”

“ Lookin ’ me right in the eye until the light blinked out in hers.”

She pushed up so she could drop her forehead to his. “ Oh , Hugger .”

Fuck .

Fuck .

That felt good.

All his life, they’d been alone…

He’d been alone when he lost her.

He wasn’t alone now.

Fuck .

“ You are, you know,” she said.

His voice sounded funny, scratchy and strange, when he asked, “ I am what?”

“ The best.”

Fuck .

It was wrong, it wasn’t the time, but Jesus , he had to kiss her.

He was wrong. It was the time, because Di kissed him.

He’d thought a lot about it, too much, but he knew their first time he wanted to take it slow, lead them both to savoring it, making it a memory that lasted forever.

The instant his tongue touched hers, that plan flew out the window.

He rolled her to her back and he couldn’t seem to get enough of her. His hands were everywhere, his mouth devouring hers.

She met him with intensity and exceeded it, heaving to push him to his back so she was on top again, breaking the kiss, lifting up and yanking off her top.

She was wearing a little black pushup bra, no frills, but the swells of her tits over the top of her bra made his dick jerk.

He sat up and went after her neck with his lips, down her chest, as she went after the buttons on his shirt.

He was nearly to her tit, intent to take the nipple through her bra (before he took off her bra) when she pushed him to his back and bent to his chest, shoving his shirt aside, scraping her fingers through the hair, finding his nipple with her mouth.

He wasn’t sensitive there, but he felt it, it felt good, and it felt even better when she kept using her nails as she trailed her lips down, down, until she was edging the waistband of his jeans with her tongue and going for his fly with her fingers.

Oh no.

Hell no.

He got first taste.

She cried out in surprise and excitement when he lifted her clean off him and tossed her to her back, and he felt the sound she made in his dick too.

Then he got out of bed, tugged his shirt off his shoulders, heard her gasp, took hold of her ankles, dragged her to him and heard her gasp again.

With her green gaze searing into him, he went after her belt, her button, her fly, and dragged her pants and panties down her legs.

Seeing her, mostly bare for him, he almost came in his jeans.

“ Harlan ,” she breathed.

He dropped to his knees beside the bed, hauled her ass to the edge of it, pitched one of her thighs over his shoulder, the other one, heard her whimper, saw her pretty, slick, pink pussy right there for him.

And he buried his face in it.

Christ , heaven.

If he was in his right mind, no matter how wet he found her when his mouth hit her, he would have given her a lot more foreplay before this point.

But the instant she felt his touch there, she arched her back, digging her pussy into his mouth, her heels into his back, and she moaned, so he took a break from licking to smile against her cunt, because she was right there with him.

Always , Di was right there with him.

Hugger learned quick that he could eat her for a lifetime and not get bored, especially after she clenched her hand in his hair to hold him to her.

He knew she was about to go with the noises she made, the way she was clenching and unclenching her fist in his hair, the way she was ramming her pussy into his face and wriggling.

So he got to his feet.

“ Harlan !” she gasped.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his arm, bent to yank off his socks, pulled out his wallet and grabbed a condom. He tossed the wallet on the nightstand, clasping the edge of the condom packet in his teeth as he went after his jeans, his focus on Diana . Her face flushed. Her hair all over the white covers. Her eyes hot, her lids heavy.

She was life. She was heart. She was goodness. She was everything, ready and primed and waiting for him in her bed, her eyes locked to his.

That was, they were locked to his before he pulled his down jeans, then they were locked to his dick.

Her face got pinker, her eyes got hotter, she started to move, and he grunted, “ Don’t even think about it.”

She stopped, and her gaze was even hotter.

Done with the condom, Hugger bent and wrapped an arm around her, digging the sweet little intake of breath he heard when he pulled her deeper into bed.

Having her where he wanted her, he settled into her. He curved one of her legs around his ass, the other around his thigh, took hold of his dick and guided it to her.

“ We doin’ this, baby?” he whispered against her lips.

“ If we don’t do it right now , I think I’ll never forgive you.”

He smiled and nudged her opening with the tip.

“ Stop playing, Hugger ,” she ordered.

“ You gotta have time to adjust,” he explained.

“ I got an eyeful, honey. I know that. But I’m tougher than you think.”

He knew she was tough, but he was never going to be the one to make her be that way.

He gave her an inch and saw her eyes round then get lazy.

“ Nice ,” she whispered.

She said it, but he felt it.

He gave her another inch, and, Christ , she was tight and so hot, it was killing him to go slow.

“ Nicer , honey.” She was still whispering, her hands roaming and desperate on his heated skin.

He gave her another inch.

She whimpered, and he got her nails.

Fuck yeah.

“ You with me?” he groaned.

“ Oh yeah,” she gasped. “ More , Hugger .”

Slowly , he slid all the way in to the root.

She was correct.

Oh yeah .

“ Good ?” he grunted.

“ Great ,” she breathed.

He kissed her, and he’d wanted to slow things down, give it to her long and good, but she tangled her tongue with his, the kiss went wild, her hands and nails on him were wilder, her legs tightened on a demand, and she gave him no choice but to bang the fuck out of her.

So he did.

She got off on it, arching and grasping and scratching.

He got off on it because he’d been right.

She was everything.

Proving that, Diana came loud against his mouth, doing it clutching a fistful of his hair, a handful of his ass and her pussy around his dick.

He came quiet, groaning into her neck and pumping hard into her cunt.

It was quiet because it was the biggest load he’d ever shot, the longest he’d ever gone, and the sweetest he’d ever had, and his body needed the energy to give it to him.

He had just enough presence of mind to keep his weight in his forearms as he collapsed on her.

And he knew he was done.

This was it.

She was it.

He might not have much to offer, but even if it killed him, he’d find a way to hand her the world.

“ Okay , that was…” He felt her chest expand with a big breath. “ Freaking fantastic .”

He lifted his head to look down at her, cheeks still flushed, lips swollen, eyes hazy.

Damn , she was perfect.

“ I wanted to go slower our first time,” he shared.

“ For heaven’s sake, why?”

He felt his lips curl up even as he explained, “ I wanted to make love, not bang.”

“ Making love is for movies and romance novels. Banging is where it’s at .”

Still buried inside her, he burst out laughing.

He’d never done that with a woman, and it felt phenomenal.

“ Your beard and the head you give, baby,” she purred, running her fingers through his hair before she scraped her nails through his beard. “ Damn .”

“ You a blow-by-blow after type of girl?” he teased.

“ Not until now. But I think we should go over every second of that and how awesome it was so we’re sure to commit it to memory.”

Fuck him, he was laughing again.

But he didn’t need to go over it.

He’d remember every second until he died.

“ I’m losin’ you,” he murmured, brushed his lips against hers, and went on, “ Gonna go deal with this rubber and be back.”

She nodded.

He kissed her, meaning it to be quick and light.

Instead , they made out and it took a while for him to disengage and hit the bathroom.

When he came out, she had his shirt on, drawn end over end at her front, and she was sitting cross legged in the middle of the bed.

He stopped dead on sight of her.

In his shirt, in her fancy duds, in her cute little sleep shorts, all made up, makeup-free or slime all over her face, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

Though , he really fucking dug her in his shirt.

Her eyes roved over him.

His did over her.

And yeah.

Fuck yeah.

Whatever it took, Diana Armitage was gonna be his woman.

Hugger came unstuck and moved the rest of the way to the bed, pulling the covers down. Di adjusted as he did, so when he got in, she could tuck herself to him, and he could yank the bedding over them.

“ Fuck hair looks good on you, babe,” he observed.

She giggled, actually girlie giggled, and rubbed her face in the hair on his chest.

Totally everything.

She lifted her head and said, “ It does on you too.”

His response to that was tugging his shirt up at her back and clamping a hand on her ass.

Then he got serious.

“ How you feelin’?”

“ Exceptional . Awesome . Amazing . Fantastic . Do you need more adjectives?”

He couldn’t stop himself smiling at her, but he had to say, “ I mean about the other shit.”

Another big breath where her tits dug into him, something that felt really fucking nice, and she let it out, saying, “ It’ll be interesting to hear what Mom has to say about lying to me my entire life. But I think tonight actually went well, especially after Dad stopped acting like the Princess of Wales was over for a martini, and it became a family night.”

So he called that right.

Good .

“ And it might have been a bumpy ride, but the ride I got after dinner totally made up for it,” she added.

He couldn’t stop his chuckle, either.

And he felt relief, because it seemed he’d played it right.

“ How many condoms do you have?” she asked.

“ Only that one.”

Her lips turned down. “ This is not good hot-biker-guy planning, Hugger McCain .”

“ I’ll swing by a CVS tomorrow.”

“ What are we gonna do until then?”

At that, he burst out laughing.

Then he rolled her to her back and murmured, “ We’ll figure it out.”

“ I’m one hundred percent certain we will,” she whispered, slipping her arms around his neck.

He kissed her.

Di , being Di , gave it right back.

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