31
Lexi
Two weeks later, we left for Atlanta the second I got out of class on a Friday, with the hope we could make it to Texas and Sparkie’s house before traffic was terrible.
And he still hadn’t told me exactly what happened to send him to jail. When I’d pointed it out to him the day before, he’d just said, “Sparkie will tell you whatever she thinks is appropriate, and I don’t mind you knowing, but I’m never going to speak the words out loud. There are people who know what happened, but I’ve never told anyone and I don’t see that changin’.”
I’m not sure what kind of house I expected them to live in, but it wasn’t the upper-middle-class home in the middle of a super-nice neighborhood I saw when we parked.
However, everything fell into place when we walked in and the place looked like Alabama and Texas had argued over how to decorate a house, and Alabama had won, but then Texas had secretly accessorized — complete with what I hoped was an armadillo statue in the corner, but worried it used to be alive and had been visited upon by an evil taxidermist. And I say evil because it wasn’t one armadillo, it was two, and they appeared to be having sex.
Bubbles laughed when he saw what I was looking at. “That’s new. Sparkie’ll find a way to send it to the garage. You aren’t likely to see it again.”
“The hell she won’t. I won those armadillos in a card game and I couldn’t be prouder. It’s too humid in the garage for them. She sends them outa the house and she’ll feel my cattle prod in places she don’t want to.”
I felt my eyes go wide, but I couldn’t stop them.
“Don’t look at me all bug-eyed, darlin’,” Texas said with a smirk. “We all heard you gettin’ your little bottom spanked. You know the drill.”
“Watch your mouth!” Sparkie said, coming down the steps. “She may not know about the many perverted uses of electricity! She’s still a baby!”
I looked at Bubbles in alarm, but he only grinned and kissed my forehead. “It’s kind of crazy here. You’ll get used to it.” He stepped forward, smothered Texas in a hug, and told him, “It’s good to be home.” He was gentler when he hugged Sparkie, but I still saw the emotion. “Miss you guys, but I had to make the move.”
“We know you did,” Sparkie told him, rubbing his back. “We’re due at the clubhouse in an hour and a half. Take your stuff upstairs and get settled in. We have all weekend to catch up, and Lexi’s probably tired — she isn’t used to long rides yet.”
I really wasn’t. My hips were sore, and my lower back was stiff. When the club rides, they stop a lot, and they take it easy, and there usually aren’t a million huge tractor-trailer-trucks barreling all around us. I hadn’t enjoyed the ride down at all.
Bubbles looked at me and back to Sparkie. “We’ll leave early enough Sunday we can take old-forty-one back up. I was in a hurry to get here, but we might’ve been better in the truck.”
I stretched out on the bed while Bubbles went to the bathroom, and I must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, he was waking me with a glass of Coke and a straw.
He’d bought me this light-clock thing at home. The light started coming on gradually, and took thirty minutes to light the room before the sound went off. I was usually awake before the sound, but the trick was, he’d put it across the room, so I had to get up to turn it off before the horrid sound shrilled through the room. Once I got used to it, waking up wasn’t so bad. I mean, I still hated having to get up, but it brought me out of sleep slowly instead of just jarring me from somewhere else.
But now, I felt as if I’d been jarred awake, and I couldn’t even figure out where we were.
He put the straw in my mouth and said, “Drink, sweetheart. You’ll be okay. Give it a minute.”
Sure enough, a few minutes later everything came into focus. I looked at the clock, then found the mirror and looked at my hair. It was a mess, and so was my makeup. “How much time do I have?”
“Twenty-five minutes.”
I nodded. “It’ll be tight, but I should be able to make it. Sorry I fell asleep.”
“No, you needed it, and we’ll be out late tonight. The party’s to welcome me home and for everyone to meet you, so we won’t be able to leave early. You slept an hour, and you needed the rest.”
My heart sank into my gut. “Are you happy in Chattanooga? Are you going to want to move back here?”
“I’m happy wherever you are, Half-pint. Your sister’s in Chattanooga and I know how close you are. I moved up there because I didn’t fit here anymore. Too much had changed, and I kept trying to make it the same in my head. Lots of my friends had started a new chapter, so it made sense to follow them. This is my old home, Chattanooga’s my new one. I’m gonna want to visit my old one, but I live in the new one. Now, stop worryin’ and get your ass ready.”
“My ass is ready, it’s my hair and face that aren’t.”
Our evening was crazy and hectic, but I already knew enough people so it wasn’t like I walked in a stranger. I had fun, and I was so far past drunk when we left, Bubbles asked someone to take me home in their car. He put me in, followed us on his bike, and then carried me upstairs at Texas and Sparkie’s house.
Parts of Friday night are hazy, but nothing can make me forget the wild fuck Bubbles gave me when he finally got me to bed.
I don’t usually get hangovers, but I wasn’t up for breakfast Saturday morning. No headache, and I never puked, but that’s only because I didn’t have anything on my stomach to come up. Sparkie made me some ginger tea, and it actually helped.
Texas and Bubbles got dressed and left, and Bubbles didn’t tell me where they were going when I asked — just kissed me, told me to behave, and he was out the door. I looked at Sparkie in bewilderment, and she smiled. “It’s just you and me today, and I’m lookin’ forward to it. I’m sorry your sister couldn’t make the trip down.”
Bubbles had told me I could talk to Sparkie about anything, so I took a breath and told her what I hadn’t had the nerve to talk to the ol’ladies in Chattanooga about.
“When my family comes to Atlanta, we stay with our friends in The Bluff.”
I waited for her to take in what I was saying. The Bluff is Atlanta’s heaviest crime district, and where people go to buy drugs.
Sparkie gave a slow nod, putting it all together. “Makes sense. I know who and what your mother is. She’s worked her way up so the cartel trusts her, and there’s no tellin’ how high her contacts go. She’s been in the business forever, so everyone trusts her.” She looked at me a few seconds. “Any conflicts of interest I need to know about?”
I shook my head. “I’m not in the family business, but my mama and sister are black, and I may be able to pass for white, but I feel black. I grew up black. Last night, listening to the club talk about the war brewing over territories, it kinda sounded like a black versus white thing, and even though the MC has had problems with the Playas at home, I’ve never felt like it was about skin color up there.”
“It’s about alliances, and it’s too bad Atlanta alliances so often break down by race, but they do. We have every major race except Asian in our local chapter, and that’s only because we’ve never had one prospect in. No one’s ever turned away because of race, and with the changes Razor and Matty brought to Chattanooga, and now with Bud and Nickie…” She stopped abruptly and seemed to change directions. “We’ve accepted you. You’re one of us no matter what race you decide to identify as.”
She leaned forward and put her hand on my knee. “Leave your phone up here. We need to go to the basement to have a talk.”
Something didn’t sound right about that, but she gave me a stern look when I didn’t comply, and said, “No electronic devices for the conversation we’re about to have. I know Brain takes care of everyone’s phones up there like Shadow does for us, but we all know there’s always a chance someone’s listenin’ in.”
I put my phone beside hers and followed her down some stairs, through a large den, into a bedroom, into a closet, and then into a gun safe hidden behind the back wall of the closet.
Gun safe isn’t the right word. This was an entire room full of guns and ammo. Sparkie pushed the door closed and nodded towards the chairs around the worktable in the center of the room. “I have music playing outside the room, and no one can hear us in here — even if the FBI is parked outside the house with all their toys, they can’t hear into this room.”
She took a breath, looked at her nails, rubbed what looked like a rough spot, and started her story.
“One of the sweetbutts was raped by…” She sighed. “It’s a long story. The short version is that it was her neighbor’s son, and he’d been in prison a while and just got out. He saw her, wanted her, raped her. She ended up in the hospital, which meant cops, but there was plenty of evidence to convict him.” She fiddled with her nails again before she went on. “The one time we needed the criminal justice system to work, it didn’t. His lawyer got some of the evidence thrown out, and then the arresting officer got fired for bein’ on the take, and the whole thing got dropped. We didn’t even know he’d been released, and he went home and raped her again. Nearly killed her.”
She stared at the table a good two minutes, but I gave her time. Finally she asked, “Do you know what the enforcer’s job is?”
I shrugged. “No one’s ever defined it for me, but I’ve been around…” It wouldn’t do for me to compare the MC to a gang. I started over. “I assume they do whatever it takes to enforce the word of the president, or to enforce whatever the club votes on.” I remembered that Bash seemed to be the lead scary guy, and added, “Or to follow through on whatever the Sergeant-at-Arms says needs to be done.”
“Smart girl. The club voted the man had to die. Bubbles was burying the body when…” Her shoulders slumped. “Just a fluke. A team from the tech college in town was testing a new drone they were designing for the military — super quiet with night vision and infrared. They got perfect images of Bubbles with the body, and of the MC’s van and license tag. He heard something, but it was a half-mile away — and so quiet he thought it was farther away. The team submitted the footage to the police.”
“I found news articles online, but they didn’t mention the fact the man had raped someone.”
“The judge suppressed that, somethin’ about not demonizin’ the victim. It came out in court even though it wasn’t supposed to, but it never made it into the news.” She blew out a breath. “The attorney came up with a plan to say Bubbles had gone to the man’s house to have a talk with him about the second rape, found him dead, and then worried the cops would try to say Bubbles killed him, so he decided to bury the body and disappear him, because no one would be surprised about the asshole deciding to leave town after he raped again.”
Her voice became more matter-of-fact. “There’s no statute of limitations on murder, and the way the judge ruled, they could try him again if more facts come to light. Ain’t supposed to work that way, but the law is stacked against...” She gave a bitter laugh. “I’m preachin’ to the choir, ain’t I?”
I shrugged. “What happened to his parents?”
“His dad was in the military. Killed in the whole Beirut mess while Bubbles was still a baby. His mom was human, but an uncle took over the wolf stuff and worked the boy through his first year after he changed.” She shrugged. “He did a good job. We didn’t have to help him control his wolf too much. Mainly just needed to aim him in the right direction. The, ummm… supernatural leader in Atlanta…” She stopped and took a breath. “He tried to send Bubbles to the local Alpha, but Bubbles’ uncle had been so adamant about him never joining the Pack, the boy kept runnin’ away, which is how he ended up with us.”
“Why didn’t the uncle take him in?”
She gave me a piercing look. “This is where things get fucked up, and the truth is, we don’t have all the answers. His mom was shot, his uncle disappeared, and a mentor from his school was brutally tortured and murdered. We were told to leave it alone lest we bring down attention on the boy. Bubbles also wanted it left alone. Bud started looking into it and was approached by high level supernatural…” She shrugged. “Stuff you don’t know yet, so let’s just say we don’t know and can’t find out.”
She sat back and seemed to shake the energy of that time off. “We’re invited to Bud and Nickie’s for dinner this evenin’, and those two are kinkier than you probably want to know. Nickie’s a switch, which in this case means she’s submissive to Bud but needs to be Dominant to someone else. They have a houseboy who’s usually naked and has to do everything Nickie tells him to do. She puts this little cage on his tiny little cock so he can’t get hard. I’m used to it, but if I tell her I think you’re too young to deal, she’ll dress him like a butler. Up to you.”
I shook my head. “I’m trying to keep everyone from seein’ me as a little kid. I know I’m short, but I’m a woman.”
“You’re more a woman than most nineteen-year-olds, but you’re still a babe in the woods, darlin’. I’ll tell Nickie I think you’ll be fine.
She ran a fingernail over the surface of the table. She had more to tell me and was hesitating. I was nervous as fuck in this room and trying to play it off, but she wasn’t helping. I don’t think she meant to set me on edge, but she did.
“Bud and Duke want me to talk to you about your mom and her contacts.” She stopped fucking with the table and met my gaze. “Jiminy wants a meet with you. He went through Duke to set it, because the club claims you, but it’s clear Jiminy thinks your mother’s claim to you is stronger than the MC’s.”
“Why isn’t Bubbles tellin’ me this?”
“Good question. Keep that mindset and you’re gonna be fine. Bubbles isn’t telling you because Duke hasn’t told him yet. Duke needs a game plan ready to go when he brings Bubbles in, so we can give him something to do. You have to know how easily things could blow up if Bubbles decides to confront the wrong people while he’s tryin’ to keep you safe.”
I nodded. The situation would go to shit in a hurry.
When she didn’t say anything else, I sat back in my chair, trying to pretend I was chill. “I know Pebbles and Gen are friends, so I assumed I wouldn’t be asked to betray anyone in Mama’s organization. Just as I won’t disclose anything I’ve learned about the club, I’m not going to talk about my mama’s people, either.”
She sighed. “The Switzerland tactic isn’t going to work.”
“Yeah, it will.” She’d pissed me off, and I have no reason why that made me feel the need to talk like a Playa, but it did. “My mama and her bidness partner sell to the red and the blue in Chatt-town. She ain’t affiliated with no one ’cept herself. She get it from the cartel and break it down to sell however the order come in. You gotta give up at least fi’teen grand to buy from Jiminy, and ain’t many people up fo’ dat. Mamma and her man do, and she might sell a five G bundle they’ll repackage theyself, or she might prepare it for street sales and wholesale a batch to a team of dealers. They all buy from her, but I ain’t tellin’ you nuthin’ you don’t know.”
She breathed in. Blew out. Scenting me. “Okay, so you can talk ghetto. What are you trying to prove, Lexi?”
I met her gaze and didn’t look away. “That’s who I am. It’s how I grew up. I tried to tell you earlier — I might be able to pass for white, but it ain’t who I am on the inside. My whole life’s been a battle of how black I am or I’m not. Don’t try to make me prove I’m more white than black, ’cause I ain’t.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Us against them, in this case, has more to do with us keepin’ our people safe and nothin’ about color. We have workin’ girls here, just like your sister, and some months we spend a shit-ton of time escortin’ them to and from work to keep them safe. That ain’t a problem for your sister, but things are different down here.” She shook her head again, looked away, and looked back. “Territory fights are more intense here, and it’s constantly changing’. It is us against them, especially in Atlanta, and you’re going to have to choose where your loyalties lie.”
“That’s easy — Bubbles gets my loyalty, but that don’t equal me ratting on my mama and her people.”
“I hear the truth in your words, and I understand you believe what you say, but it isn’t going to be that easy.”
I scooted my chair back, but her hands were on my arms before I could stand, and she was strong.
“I’m not questioning your loyalty, I’m trying to prepare you for what’s coming. Bubbles may not have come out of my body, but I still consider him my son. Please don’t break his heart.”
“Let go of me.”
She did, and I stood. “Thanks for bringing this up. I didn’t know I needed to talk to him about it. Now I do. I’d like to go back aboveground now.”
Her smile seemed genuine, but I was still on edge. “I see why he’s fallen in love with you. We have a shootin’ range down here if you want to play with some of our toys, or I can take you back upstairs. Your choice.”
“Toys?”
She grinned. “An AK, an FN, a shotgun that holds forty-one rounds. We have fun toys.”
I shook my head. “How do ya’ll qualify as foster parents?”
Her laugh filled the room. “We don’t officially own any weapons, and no one’s ever found our secret stash. The wall we went through takes us into rooms buried under the backyard. The blueprints for the house show all the public rooms without unused space.”
I wanted to play with the shotgun but didn’t want to use up so much ammo.
Somehow, she knew my thoughts. Again. “We reload our own shotgun shells, else we’d go broke practicin’ with the shotgun. Don’t worry ’bout the cost of ammo. If you want to shoot it, you should.”
I did, and the adrenaline rush of popping off a shotgun so many times in a row, one after another, was exhilarating. I went through three full loads and had a blast, because their firing range has the little targets that pop up all over the place. It was serious fun.
I’ve shot an FN before and I don’t care for them. The ammo is long and skinny, and was designed solely to penetrate armor. Also, the ammo is damned expensive. I saw Sparkie take note that it was the only gun she offered that I didn’t fire, but she didn’t ask why.
On the way back upstairs a few hours later, she said, “You know your guns.”
I didn’t respond. I’d just shown her I did. Finally, she came out and asked her question. “Does your mom handle the gun end of Jiminy’s sales, too? Or just the drugs?”
I considered my answer, and waited until we were back in her kitchen with the sunlight streaming in before I responded. “I’ll talk to Bubbles about my mama, but I don’t think I want to talk about her to anyone else right now.”
She seemed to analyze me, much as Bubbles sometimes does, for a good ten seconds. Finally, she said, “I hope that works out for you. I don’t think it will, but it’s a good starting point while you’re figuring out how to straddle this barbed wire fence you’re tryin’ to balance on.”
I’d worn dark colors the night before, but today I was wearing light blue jeans with bling on the sides, a white belt low on my hips, a lavender shirt tucked in, and a pink and purple jacket over the top. When we made it to Bud and Nickie’s house, Nickie rubbed her hands on my jacket while she hugged me, and said, “Blossom fits you well, little Lexi. Come inside and get drunk with us.”
I was glad Sparkie had prepared me for the naked man with a little cage on his dick, but I still couldn’t help but stare. When Nickie saw my interest, she made him come show me how the cock cage stayed on, and had him bend over and spread his cheeks so I could see how fat his butt plug was.
The man spent most of the time making sure we had hot cheese to dip chips and other goodies in, and that we didn’t run out of the tiny little burritos. He mixed margaritas and made sure no one had an empty glass without another right beside it, full and ready to drink — and he was so formal despite the fact he was naked.
When Bubbles arrived hours later, I was far past drunk, but the other ol’ladies were too.
Not surprisingly, he picked me up and sat in my spot, with me in his lap. “You’re drunk, Half-pint.”
“I’m so far past drunk, I’m not sure you can call this drunk.”
He looked around before focusing on me again. “Please tell me you shot the guns before you got drunk?”
“OH! Have you ever shot a shotgun with a forty-one round chamber? O.M.G. It was so much fun!”
He looked to Sparkie, who told him, “Dead sober while she shot. The drinkin’ happened later.”
“Did you know Nickie writes kinky sex books?” I meant to whisper it, but it came out louder than I intended.
He laughed, kissed my forehead, and looked to Nickie. “You been educatin’ my Half-pint?”
“She wanted to watch me whip my boy, but then decided she needed your permission before she should watch. However, we convinced her watching a video of it was just like watchin’ porn, and she says you’ve never told her she can’t watch porn.”
Bubbles
Lexi’s look was both innocent and scandalized, and I couldn’t help my laugh. I found her nipple through her shirt and bra, and squeezed hard enough to get her attention, but she was drunker than I realized so I squeezed a little harder and finally got the gasp I’d been looking for.
“Watchin’s fine, but no touching. Ever.”
I let go of her nipple and bopped her nose. “Good. You’re mine. I’m thinkin’ maybe you need to wear a plug the next time you come to Nickie’s though, just so you don’t forget.”
The scent of her arousal blossomed around us and my dick started to fill. I closed my eyes and willed it to stay as it was, but it wasn’t gonna cooperate. I looked around, found Bud standing in the doorway, watching, and met his gaze.
“Lexi and I are gonna take a walk through your little garden. We’ll be back.”
He laughed. “First door on the right at the top of the steps — make yourself at home. I understand she’s a screamer, and we don’t need the neighbors to hear it in the backyard.”
I stood with her still in my arms, walked up the steps, into the first door on the right, settled her on her feet where she could hold onto the bed for balance, pushed her jeans to mid-thigh, leaned her over the bed, and sank into her sweet, sweet, pussy from behind. She was drunk and horny, and foreplay would’ve just annoyed her, which was a good thing because I needed to be inside her.
I pulled out, pushed in farther than I probably should’ve, and my drunk-as-fuck little Half-pint went off like fireworks, jerking and shuddering, screaming and begging. Her muscles contracted and rippled around my cock, squeezing me until I had to grab for control. My hips took over and I plowed the fuck out of her, and still, she screamed for more. I went fatter, and fatter, and fatter, until my front was slamming into her bottom, and her orgasm never faltered, but seemed to keep ramping her higher and higher.
And I busted a nut in her in less than five minutes
But I wanted to see what else I could get away with, so I sat on the bed, pulled her ass over my lap, gave her soft spanks, then harder, and harder, until she was begging for more — and then I fucked her again.