Chapter 9
WHEN YOUR DATING COACH IS A GRANDMA WIELDING A VIbrATOR
CANDYMAN
“What’s the long face for, C?”
I look up at Nana and smile. Nana is at the clubhouse often.
The boys have all adopted her. She livens the place up.
Some of the club girls don’t like her, but since she calls them on their shit, that’s to be expected.
They all give her a wide berth because they know we claim her as family.
To me, she’s the only person I’ve let into my heart besides my club brothers.
I mean, I respect her granddaughter, Georgia.
She’s Griff’s old lady, and she’s a good woman.
I’d lay down my life for her because she’s club now.
Still, she doesn’t know the real me. Very few people do.
A couple of the club guys, and now Nana.
That’s about it. I will say I’ve been more real with Izzy than I have with anyone else.
We’ve been talking on the phone every night for almost two weeks now.
She’s going home in two days. Just two. I’ve already rented a hotel room nearby, and the two of us are going to spend time together.
I’m getting off every night to my hand and her sweet moans.
She’s doing the same, but to say I’m tired of not actually having her in my arms is a huge understatement.
For her part, Izzy is still saying this is only a friends-with-benefits kind of arrangement.
I’m going along with it because I don’t want her to turn me away.
I’m working hard to get into her heart, though. I’m not going to give up easily.
Hell, every second I spend with her makes me feel even more certain that Izzy is my future.
It apparently is just going to take longer than I’d like to convince her of the same.
I’m excited to be meeting up with her. I’m not planning on letting her leave my side while I’m there.
I don’t know how she wants to explain me always by her side and I also don’t give a fuck.
I’d tell any of them I’m claiming her as mine.
The only thing that stops me is I know she’d have a shit fit.
“What do you mean, Nana?”
“Boy, don’t play with me. It’d take a fool not to see you have something weighing on your shoulders. Now, tell me what’s going on behind those blue eyes that would melt the clothes off a nun?”
I laugh, shaking my head. Nana is a pistol. If she had been younger—and I hadn’t met Izzy—I would have tried to claim her as mine. She’s that special. Unfortunately, she’s over forty years too old for me—hell, maybe fifty.
“I’ve got women trouble, Nana.”
“That’s because you’re looking for a woman too young,” she says with a wink. “You need an older, more mature woman.”
I grin at her. “Have anyone in mind, Nana?”
“Maybe,” she purrs, making me laugh harder.
“Don’t let this get out, Nana, because it might destroy my street cred, but I’m not sure I’m man enough to handle you.”
“That was my poor Patrick’s issue. I think I just plumb wore out his heart. He tried to keep up with my needs, but it was a struggle,” she murmurs.
I shake my head. She’s probably not joking. “Nana—”
“Don’t get me wrong. The man was magic, but one time wore him out.
Sometimes he’d make sure I’d get a second—or fall asleep trying.
I finally just resorted to this fancy purple thing I saw in one of those lifestyle catalogs I get in the mail.
It wasn’t as good, but then a girl has to do what a girl has to do.
You know how it goes. Still, we had a good marriage, and I’ve missed him every day. ”
“He was a lucky man, Nana,” I say sincerely.
“I was the lucky one,” she says, and a small tear slides down the corner of her eye. She wipes it away with the back of her hand, pasting on a happy smile. “Enough about my Patrick. Tell me about this woman who has captured my boy’s attention.”
I grin. She’s basically adopted me, and I’m not going to pretend I’m not happy about it—I am. “Isolde—though everyone but me calls her Izzy. She’s really special, Nana.”
She studies me for a minute and leans closer, her eyes never leaving mine. “Are you judging that by your love sausage or your brain?”
I was taking a drink of my beer when she asked her question and hearing her refer to my dick as a love sausage has me choking. I cough and heave, trying to clear my airway. For a second, I thought I might die before I could finally draw clean air in.
“What the fuck, Nana?” I cough and splutter.
“Well,” she drawls, “which one is it?”
I curse under my breath, wiping my mouth with my arm. “Both,” I answer honestly.
“Both?” she parrots, like she doesn’t believe me in the slightest.
“Both. She’s an amazing woman. She’s studying to be a surgeon. She’s smart and funny. Izzy doesn’t take shit from anyone either. She’s amazing,” I answer, sounding like a lovestruck teen.
“All that and gorgeous too?” she asks with a sly smile.
“Yeah, fucking spectacularly gorgeous,” I confirm.
“No way an old woman can compete with that,” she replies with a wink.
“I couldn’t handle you, Nana.”
“Probably not. Tell me, boy, if you’re so smitten with her, then why haven’t you locked her down already?”
“Lock her down? Nana, I think you’ve officially got the biker lingo down,” I murmur.
She gives me a look as her hand moves down over the leather cut that we gave her.
The patch reads, Hot Nana. There’s another patch below that declaring her property of the Kings of Anarchy.
She loved it. She’s traded in the bun she used to wear in her beautiful silver hair and now makes one lone braid down her back. She really is a hell of a woman.
“I think I fit right in. Just like my Georgie,” she says, watching me carefully.
I reach over and hug her, gently pulling her to me.
“You do, Nana. All of us are glad you and Brushes are here.” Brushes is what we call Griff’s old lady, Georgia.
She’s the one doing all the murals at the clubhouse and has kind of brought us all together.
We’re a family now. Before Grifter, Brushes, and Nana, that wasn’t true.
It was so bad that some of us thought of leaving the club.
Now? It’s home. I’m hoping it’s a place that Izzy will love to be part of.
“Then, take my advice now, boy. Don’t be skittish around her. Let her know she’s yours.”
“I’ve tried, but honestly, Isolde is skittish. Her mind is on her education. I’m not sure she wants a relationship, so I’m fighting an uphill battle.”
“So? Just give her what she wants until she wants the same thing as you,” Nana says, like it’s the simplest thing ever.
“What does that mean exactly?” I ask. “′Cause I have to tell you, as weird as it sounds, I’m not looking forward to being a fuckbuddy to the woman I want on the back of my bike.”
It’s annoying even saying that out loud. It makes my fucking skin crawl. I want everything from Izzy. I want her on my bike. I want her belly stretched with our child. Fuck, anything and everything is what I want with Izzy by my side.
“Do you have so little confidence in yourself that you don’t think you’re capable of tying that woman to you by showing her the man in her bed is not only all she could ever want, but the best she will ever find?
” She makes a tsking noise and shakes her head at me.
“I guess I have more confidence in you than you have in yourself, C. That’s disappointing. ”
“Isolde is not like other women. I don’t think she can be swayed by great sex, Nana.”
“Bullshit. If it has feeling in it, a woman can always be swayed by great sex. If she knows you care, trust me, you’ll eventually beat her walls down—or at least ram them enough her brain short circuits and she gives in.
” Holy fuck. What Nana just said not only gives me hope, but it makes my cock wake up.
There’s nothing more I want than ramming Izzy.
Nana looks at me knowingly. “I see that light is finally on in that pretty boy head of yours. Get to work, C. If you want this woman, then stop acting like a pansy and claim her.”
With that, she turns around as if she’s dismissing me.
“Hey, wait. Where are you going?” I ask.
“I’ve got Bingo, son. Grifter’s already outside waiting on me. It’s good for my street cred to have sexy bikers dropping me off,” she shares.
“Bye, Nana.”
“Bye, C. Get to work. If you let her get away, I’m gonna be disappointed. Don’t let that happen.”
I watch her walk away, feeling like I always do when it comes to Nana.
Happy, worried, and more than a little terrified.
She’s a hell of a woman.