Data…

Dragon opened the door and came in, Mali behind him, her dark eyes curious, her expression as guarded as I’d ever seen it. I could see the wheels and gears turning and clicking along behind her eyes and had to hand it to D. Whatever he’d said was making her think, but also, she was a little more relaxed, less stand-offish. She moved like a cat, gliding rather than walking with that feline grace and I had to smile.

I’d carried a torch for her since about forever and it looked like neither time nor distance had changed that much. I let my gaze wander over her, checking her out, making sure she was okay, even as she did the same to me. Questions floated up behind her eyes and I gave her a slight chin lift. I’d answer what I could, but there were some things that were strictly club business and I’d already set my brothers on edge with this. I wasn’t about to betray them, or her, but asking for trust from either side at this point was probably going to be asking a lot.

“All right, decision made… Data, you find out what’s what and if’n you can’t, well, then, time for plan B as much as we don’t like it.”

“I like plan B, can we just skip to plan B?” Reaver asked, and he was bouncing on the balls of his feet again.

Dragon shook his head, “We don’t have any idea what it is we’re playin’ at. Plan A first; I’ll let you fill yer lady friend in. You two get some sleep and gimme a call tomorrow on the burner.”

“Will do,” I said and Dragon nodded.

“Come on, boys.”

The men made to follow him out and Trigger turned, “Text me when you wake up, I’ll bring some of Sunshine’s cookin’,” he declared and I smiled.

“Thanks, I really appreciate that, man.”

“No problem,” he said and the door swung shut behind them. I turned to Mali as the bikes roared down the drive and up the country road back to the highway. She was standing there, staring back at me, a fine tremble in her hands the only clue that she wasn’t any kind of calm. Her eyes were frantically bouncing over me and I felt my shoulders drop. I went over to her and pulled her into a hug. She hugged me back, her long, elegant fingers digging into the shoulders of my leather jacket, kneading like a nervous cat; feeling for any hurts or damage.

“I’m okay,” I whispered into her hair and she shook her head.

“Kyle, they’re the Sacred Hearts,” she said voice strained and I curved my arms around her body, my hand finding the back of her head, kneading the tension at the base of her skull, playing along either side of the back of her neck.

“They aren’t the club they used to be when we were kids, Mali.”

…but we still hold onto the reputation. I thought to myself. I could understand her fear. Just because we weren’t bad, didn’t mean we weren’t bad-asses. She rested her forehead against my shoulder and took some deep and even breaths.

“So what happens now?” she asked.

“Thought you wanted that hot bath and I believe I owe you my miracle cure for a hard ride.”

“Look around, the place isn’t exactly equipped for luxury… or indoor plumbing.”

“Ehhh, you’d be surprised.”

I took her hand and led her to the third of the shop curtained off, over by the back door leading out. The guys had strung up curtains from the track in the ceiling. The thick canvas they’d used was probably painter’s drop cloth once upon a time, given the amount of spatter and staining on it. I whisked it down the rail, revealing the setup behind it, which granted, wasn’t pretty by any means, but it was functional.

“Is that what I think it is?” she asked and I laughed to myself.

“Ah, if you’re thinking it’s a horse trough, you’d be right. One of the brothers works out on a thoroughbred ranch that his ol’ lady owns. My guess is they donated to the cause.”

“It’s fucking huge,” she said and she wasn’t wrong. It was more like half the size of one of those above-ground outdoor swimming pools than it was bath tub sized. Pill-shaped, it could easily fit three adults comfortably, but then again, I had a suspicion that was my brothers’ goal… insightful bastards.

“They jerry-rigged the water supply, so hot water here,” I turned the one tap and the water rushed forth, loud against the aluminum bottom of the trough, “and cold over here.” I twisted a completely separate tap, cold water pouring from a different spigot.

“Who cares?” she asked, a little dumbfounded, “It’s hot and we can be clean… maybe your new friends aren’t as big a dicks as I thought.”

I smiled to myself and chuckled. Mali, always had a way with words and was twice the guy of most guys we hung around growing up. Although, with a daddy like hers, she’d had to be tough. I sighed and turned back to her from leaning over the trough.

She had a weird look on her face I couldn’t place, staring at the water filling the tub and finally she broke her gaze away from the flowing tap and rising steam to look at me, her expression guarded.

“So what’s this miracle cure?” she asked.

I held up a finger, “Ah, be right back.”

I went over to my packs, her eyes following me curiously, and dug around until I found the citrus/mint, muscle-relaxing bath bomb that I didn’t know about anyone else, but I swore by it. I also dug out a package of Epsom salts pausing to look at the trough, thought better of it, and pulled out two of each.

“Seriously?” she asked as I upended the first package of Epsom salts.

“Shut up and try it before you start with your snark,” I said grinning to take any bite out of it. I handed her a bath bomb and she peeled the sticker and started unwrapping the orange foil around it.

I finished with the salt and peeled mine out of the foil and dropped it in along with hers, the water much less loud now that the trough had filled by about a foot. She shook her head eyes a little wide as she watched them bob and fizz, the water turning milky and opaque.

“I’ll give you some privacy,” I said wiping my hand off on my jeans after testing the temp. Dragon had warned me that the hot water had been turned up hot so it wouldn’t take forever and to use more cold to balance it out.

“Get in with me,” she said and I blinked.

“What?”

“What?” she echoed, “The thing is big enough to fit six of me,” she exaggerated, “and it’s not like you haven’t seen it all before. You’ve seen one you’ve seen ‘em all, and besides…”

I waved her off and tried not to fucking blush. It’d been a long time ago and we weren’t rowdy teens anymore.

“Fine,” I said because I would be lying if I tried to play coy. I was hot, tired, and dirty and weary from the road, so if it got us into the bed across the shop faster, I was all for it. I was fucking tired.

Mali, as fearless as ever, deftly stripped down and I followed suit. It wasn’t like I had anything to be ashamed of. I’d been working on my body quite a bit the last few years, deciding after our club had been raided by a rival outfit that I couldn’t hide behind anyone. I needed to be as fit and ready as the next guy.

She got into the water and sank into it and I followed, opposite her. The trough was so big that we had to extend our legs all the way and point our feet just so that our toes would brush… which, like the dorks we are, we did. When they successfully touched we laughed and the oppressive atmosphere that had always accompanied any dealings at Point Nowhere lifted.

I didn’t think the trough had filled as much as it had but when we got in, the displacement caused the water to rise by quite a bit. It wasn’t all that high on me, but it was enough to just barely brush the underside of Mali’s breasts. She’d filled out there, too and the fact that each one of her dusky nipples was graced with a silver barbell went straight to my prick. I was glad as hell that the water was murky, clouded with salts and the baking soda fizz of the bath bombs we’d dropped in.

She smiled at me and it was wan with remembrance. As a small mercy, she drew her knees to her chest, covering those tantalizing drops of silver to either side of each pert nipple and I felt like my brain could maybe function again to concentrate on what she was saying.

“Remember all those times we went skinny dipping at the quarry?” she asked. I laughed. It had become our new favorite pastime the summer she’d disappeared. Mostly because of how hot and miserably humid it had been. Anytime you’d stepped outside it was like you were trying to breathe someone’s bathwater. Speaking of which… I reached over and twisted the taps on the spigots providing our bathwater shut. The cold water first, so that the heat would stay a little longer.

I spoke honestly when I said, “To be honest, what I remember the most about the quarry was how hard I had to hide my erection from you.”

She laughed and it was a good sound. I leaned back against the side of the aluminum trough and stretched out, putting my arms up to lay along the sides, lounging and finally trying to relax. After the row with the Suicide Kings, I learned how fleeting the chances to relax could be. You had to take them when you could get them between fires you were running to put out. Then again, that was also the nature of my business in security and private investigative work, too.

“What about now?” she asked, and it wasn’t coy. Mali didn’t do coy, she did frank. Mixed with her curiosity, it was something else. Of course, me being me, I said the first thing that came to mind. I was always really good about misplacing my filter when I was around her. She was the kind of person that you just didn’t need it, and if you tried to tiptoe or beat around the bush with her, all you were likely to do was put her off or make her suspicious.

“You’re probably twice as beautiful now as you were then, so yeah…” I cleared my throat and shifted slightly uncomfortable with the turn in the conversation. “I’m hard.”

She put her arms down and scooted closer. I blinked and froze as she moved through the water, crawling towards me, and oh, shit… that was hot. I felt my mouth go dry, my pulse leaping in the side of my neck, the shock of her dark, almond eyes raking over me that way left me reeling.

She settled on my lap and my hands traitorously drifted to her hips beneath the murky, citrus scented water. The softness of her skin under my hands, her warmth, and her heat so close… it was like a shock to the system. I felt like my heart was slamming against the inside of the center of my chest, trying to escape, to go to her, which was only fitting as it didn’t matter time or distance, it had always been hers.

“Why did you come for me?” she asked, breath soft against my lips, eyes locked on mine, her intensity somewhere out of left field. I swallowed, and a strangled sound escaped my lips but I couldn’t make words. Not with her this close, the heat of her sex mere inches from my own. She settled in my lap completely and I sucked in a sharp breath as the lips of her pussy wrapped around my cock. Not penetrating, not yet… but not exactly dry humping either. No, she was much too wet for that, even with the water rinsing vital natural lubricant away.

“Loyalty?” she asked lips against my ear, her hips grinding her sex against mine, sliding her body tantalizingly along my shaft.

“Oh it’s an ‘l’ word, all right, but that’s not it,” I growled back. I kneaded her hips, fingers flexing, pressing her back and forth to cause more of that delicious friction that I was now suddenly craving like a starved man.

She chuckled darkly by my ear and nipped it lightly, drawing back to look at me. Her eyes were intense, roving over my face as if committing every line to memory, as if she would never see it again. Not happening, not on my watch. We swore when we were kids we were going to grow old together, and I aimed to make that a reality.

I brought my hands up from the water and cupped her face, drawing her down to me, her lips to mine. She opened to me, her breath rushing out in a shuddering sigh and I felt mine echo in relief. Our tongues twisted and dance, carefully, slowly, each of us savoring this moment, this first kiss, over twenty years in the making.

She drew back enough to look at me and demanded gently, “Why didn’t you stop looking? Why did you come for me?”

I smiled and said, “Because, I love you.”

She closed her eyes, soaking in the words and slid my cock inside her, taking me in one long, damning stroke.

There wasn’t any way I was letting her go now.