Backdraft…

“Park downstairs, come inside with me,” she said and though it wasn’t in the form of a question, she was asking, her stormy gray-blue eyes sparkling, yet her mannerisms shy. Her hand was wrapped around two of my fingers and she was swinging our arms back and forth playfully. She didn’t want me to say no, and I didn’t want to, but I had a club meeting to get to and work the next day.

“I’ve got a club meet to get to, babe, or believe me I would.”

She stuck out her lower lip into a pout and said, “I’ll put you on the permanent guest list, all you have to do is show your ID at the front desk and your parking ticket. They’ll validate it for you and send you up.”

“Full-access pass,” I said with a grin. “Guess I gave it to you good.”

She laughed and I swear to God, it was one of the best sounds I’d ever heard. I pulled her closer and leaned way over to keep her away from the hot pipes. She let me kiss her and sighed against my mouth like she’d come home; it had nothing to do with the fact we were parked in front of her building, either.

“Fuck,” I muttered against her lips. “I’ll be back after the meeting. I’ve got to be at work by one, though."

She leaned back and frowned, “In the morning?”

I laughed a little. “In the afternoon.”

She smiled and nodded. “I think I can manage to let you go.”

“You’re a better person than I am,” I told her. She smiled and shook her head.

“Somehow, I really doubt that. You’re the real hero, I just write books.”

“Have to agree to disagree there, babe.”

She glowed a little, thriving with the use of the endearment and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that Lil was pretty love-starved. Maybe that’s why she wrote it so well. Dream about having something long enough and you become more than an expert at it. It made me sad for her. I could tell by her reluctance to ever talk about it that she hadn’t had the easiest time growing up, that there was a little more to it than her proclamation that she’d been raised by her boozer of a mom in a single-parent household.

I didn’t pry, though. I didn’t want to see the sadness flicker through her eyes like lightning on the horizon because that flicker seemed to take forever to go away once it made an appearance.

Still, despite my best intentions on that front, that flicker was there anyway. The memory of it was hanging around like an old ghost, despite her efforts to hide it as she stepped back after one last kiss to let me fire up my bike to head over to the 10-13. I blew her a kiss and she walked backwards to the lobby door. I waited until she was safely at the security desk, talking with the guard there, before I pulled away.

I breezed into the back room reserved for our meetings and private parties once I reached the bar. For once, it looked like the majority of us were here. Actually, all of us were. That was a rarity due to the conflicting job schedules, and especially rare for Narcos and Driller, yet here they were.

“You’re late,” Skids declared and I smiled, I couldn’t help myself.

“Got a good reason for that; I swear it.”

I dropped into the empty seat next to Youngblood who clapped me on the back. Oz leaned back in his chair, tipping the front two legs off the floor, but it was Golden who said what Oz was clearly thinking.

“This, I gotta hear.”

“Probably best before y’all see it on the news,” I said.

“News?” Reflash asked.

“Yeah, I was up in New York last night attending a movie premier.”

“You totally hooked up with that author chick my Aly Cat’s nuts for, didn’t you?” Yale demanded, grinning.

“Actually,” I said, “I don’t think it’s as blasé as that. I really dig Lil and I think it’s going somewhere solid.”

“No fucking joke?” Youngblood asked, “How the fuck am I the last one to hear about this shit?”

“You’ve been busy, man.” Which was the god’s honest truth. He’d been working a triple homicide, an ugly one.

“Yeah, that,” he said dispassionately. “Looks to be a murder-suicide after all. The lab said it’s the only trajectory that makes sense for the dad.” He shook his head. “Been spending two weeks chasing a fucking ghost.”

“Shit, that sucks,” Poe said and I agreed.

“Enough time for that later,” Skids called from the head of the table, waving us down.

“Whatcha got, Boss?” Driller called down from the end.

“Want to get started on the Christmas run,” he said and for a while it was business as usual; spitballing ideas back and forth to make this year’s upcoming Christmas toy drive and charity run one to remember. We did it every year, the ICPD and ICFD working together with our club taking point and organizing it. We even cooperated with the Blue Templars. They were another “law-abiding” cop club, and yeah, I put air quotes around ‘law-abiding’. They may have been cops, but they were dirty as fuck. Unfortunately, they were also slicker than owl-shit and IAB still hadn’t been able to pin those assholes the fuck down.

It was an ongoing bone of contention between our club, the Blue Templars, and the Indigo City police department’s higher-ups. The Blue Templar’s bullshit was constantly bringing trouble and scrutiny to our door that we didn’t deserve. Then again, all motorcycle clubs were alike, right? Fucking stereotypes.

The meetup wrapped and guys got up to get to work or head off to do whatever, except for Youngblood. He turned to me and raised an eyebrow and I laughed.

“I want to stay and talk about her,” I said.

“But?” he asked with a slow grin.

“But I need to get back to her.”

“Oh, my man, dinner at my place,” he said, pulling out his phone.

I brought out mine, we looked at calendars and set a date a few weeks from now when our schedules looked like they were finally going to match up.

“You seem happy,” he said, and I nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am. She’s nothing like Torrid, man. She’s special. She’s everything. I don’t really know how to describe it.”

Youngblood shrugged and said, “You ain’t gotta, I’ve got Chrissy, remember? I know exactly what you’re talking about, Brother.”

I smiled and nodded, pushing to my feet.

“You bring her by here in a couple of weeks if you can. Break the ice before Chrissy and I have you over.”

I grinned and said, “Barring any disasters, yeah. Should be able to make that work.” I held out a hand and he grasped it, arm-wrestle style and pulled me in. We clapped each other on the back and stepped back.

“Don’t fuckin’ curse yourself, now.”

Another exchange of laughter, and to help him through his bout of superstition, I knocked on the tabletop before heading out into the rest of the restaurant and bar. I waved at the guys hanging around and made my way out to a chorus of ribbing. Youngblood had my back and shut them up as I stepped out into the deepening twilight.

I rode back to Lil’s and down into the garage, taking a parking ticket. The elevator from the visitor level spilled me out into the lobby and I took the ticket to security and let them know who I was and all that jazz. They let me through the fancy electronic turnstile-thing and scanned a badge against the elevator bank to send me up to Lil’s floor.

“Thanks, man,” I said, and he handed me back my validated parking ticket. I gave him a little salute with it and stepped onto the elevator, putting the ticket into my wallet.

“Hold that for me, would you please?” a voice called out and I stuck my arm out to keep the doors from closing.

“Thank you,” the man said and I looked up, right into the unfortunately-familiar face of the douchebag that’d tricked Lil into being his side chick before humiliating her at the 10-13.

His loss, your treasure, I thought to myself, but it didn’t ease my wanting to punch him in his face.

I gave him a tight-lipped smile and said, “No problem.”

“Do I know you?” he asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“Nope.” I stuffed my hands in my jeans pockets, shoulders tense under his scrutiny. The doors had finished sliding shut and he scanned a badge on the inside scanner of the car. Floor twenty-one lit up.

“Ah,” he said nodding. Good for him, he’d figured it out.

“You live here now?” I asked casually.

“Yes, with my fiancée.”

“Lil know?”

“Ah, no. I haven’t spoken to her.”

“Keep it that way,” I said shortly and he blinked, taken aback.

The rest of the ride to his floor went by in a tense silence, and when the doors swished open, he paused, as if he were going to say something. I gave him a cold look and he seemed to think better of whatever it was and stepped off.

I struggled with how I was going to tell her. I mean, she deserved to know rather than to just be blindsided by this asshole in the lobby with his girl. Come to think of it, his girl deserved better than that too, but she wasn’t my concern as much as Lil, and I honestly didn’t know how to even let his woman know what was up. That was a dilemma in and of itself. Having been on the receiving end of that shit, I knew it didn’t feel good, but I was still glad my fire bros had told me.

“What a shit-show,” I muttered, and the elevator opened up on Lil’s floor. I went to her door and took a deep breath, and knocked.

The smile she opened it with was enough to knock me off my damn feet and just about all thoughts of that asshole disappeared. Hell, I might have even felt something along the lines of a little secret gratitude. She was the one for me, and him fucking it up put us together. So while I still wanted to kill him, I was also kind of grateful, in a fucked-up and twisted sense of ironic fate.

“I missed you,” I said and stepped across the threshold, shutting the door before one of the cats could bolt.

“Really?” she asked, like she almost couldn’t believe it.

Fuck it. I pulled her close and kissed her soundly until the tension in her body from the sudden action eased and she melted against my chest. I smoothed my hands over the satin of her robe and her arms went around my neck. She pressed her body close to mine and I came unglued, for all the best reasons this time.

“I’m taking you to bed,” I growled and she smiled.

“You know where it is.” The way she said it, there wasn’t anything demure about it.

She yelped and let out a joyous laugh as I picked her up in a fireman’s carry and strode down the hall toward her bedroom. The first time I had walked in here she’d been asleep in my arms and I had nearly dropped her, no joke, from how amazing the room was.

Hell, I was turned on just thinking about making love to her in that bed, suspended as it was halfway between floor and ceiling, on its platform. Her bedroom, unlike the rest of the apartment, was two stories and yet remained floor-to-ceiling glass. Her bed, king-sized, was suspended on a cement platform half way between floor and ceiling, two short flights of steel, glass, and cement stairs leading up to it and the two nightstands to either side. The bed itself was a picture in peach and cream satin, a sharp contrast to the cement and steel surrounding it. I carried her up those two flights and set her on her feet in the plush white faux-fur area rug that sprawled beneath the bed.

She laughed and reached up for me to come down, closing the gap between our mouths. I kissed her and she kissed me back and fuck, I was fired up. I made short work of our clothes, hers a hell of a lot easier than mine, that light satin robe and the long satin-and-lace nightgown that clung to her soft curves. She matched the bedroom, I realized, and that made me smile.

She worked so hard at looking so put-together, but I knew that she didn’t feel that way. I also knew that feeling, and that she was honestly way more put-together and awesome at holding it together than she gave herself credit for. She was a strong woman, and she needed to be, if this whole thing was going to work. Loving a man in my line of work could be nerve-wracking and hard. I knew she could handle it. She’d already handled so much, given our conversations about her mother and what the douchebag I’d encountered on the elevator had done to her confidence and self-esteem.

I put one arm around her and with the other, flung the comforter back on the bed so I could turn and lay her down.

My beautiful girl thought of everything, there were already condoms on her bedside table. More of them with her author logo on them. I chuckled and didn’t go for them immediately. I wanted to taste every inch of her first. I got her onto the bed properly and covered her body with mine, starting with her mouth, her hands holding my face, smoothing down my neck, over my shoulders in a firm, but light, touch.

I loved how she seemed to appreciate my body with those touches. Exploring, but at the same time, each movement reverent, in that exploration raised my skin in goosebumps after their sweep, every hair standing on end. God, the things she did to me, my cock was throbbing and aching to be inside of her but not yet. I didn’t anticipate I would last long this first go, so I was determined to make her come with my mouth before I even tried anything that could set me off.

I trailed kisses and light flicks of my tongue all down her body, paying special attention to the pert globes of her breasts, the most perfect natural set of tits I had ever seen on a woman. She was so soft and warm, the satin sheets so slick under my knees as I worked my way closer to the petals of her sex.

Her scent perfumed the air around us, which was another thing; I’d never encountered a woman whose very smell set me off the way hers did. She was absolutely divine, a mix of earthy herbal scent mixed with something floral, almost fruity.

Her skin was petal-soft beneath my hands and lips. All of the contrasting sensations make my cock weep with pre-cum and my body tense as I refused to do what it wanted and instead focused on making her feel everything that I was and then some.

I stared up at her from between her thighs and she stared back. Desire flickered in those stormy gray-blue eyes of hers like heat lightning and I felt a feral smile overtake my lips as I slid a finger inside her hot, wet, and waiting depths. She fell back onto the mattress and let out a throaty moan. I put my tongue against her body and crooked the finger inside her toward her roof and she took off like a shot, hips rising off the bed, writhing against my hand and mouth. I chuckled against her and she gasped and bucked a little harder this time, but that didn’t bother me. I just put my free arm over her hips and pressed her back down.

She still tried to writhe but was held suitably still and I continued my attentions, reveling in her bright, clean taste and her soft little whimpering moans.

One of the things I loved about her the most when it came to sex was how much of an enthusiastic participant she was. When things got real and she let down her barriers, she moved, she lost her shyness and the cool, calm front she put on when the clothes were on and was pretty much the definition of ‘angel in the streets and a siren in the sheets’, or however that phrase went.

She let her hands glide over her skin, her body move, and really got into it, which I loved. When she stiffened, and her body pulled taut as if drawn by strings, it was pure magic for me. Her pussy crushed down around my finger and her orgasm milked it for all it was worth and I loved it. I couldn’t get enough of it, and I was pretty excited to see if I could get another one out of her before I got my own.

I let her lay, chest heaving, in the center of her bed, languid, her body loose and liquid, like she was barely contained by her own skin, which honestly, she really wasn’t. She almost glowed with real light as she basked in the afterglow and I felt my own chest swell and puff up with more than a little pride that I did that for her. That I was the one here, loving her into such a state, and that I would be the one to do it again ‒ as soon as I got this fucking condom on.

She smiled at me and reached out a hand lazily to draw me back to the bed and I smiled and took it, my cock screaming for some relief, even as my heart nearly burst from a happiness I think was safe to say I’d never really fully immersed myself in before.

“God, you’re fucking unreal,” I growled and covered her body with my own, her mouth with my own, as she giggled into it and wrapped herself around me. I loved her so much in that moment I wished it could be a permanent thing. Her and me like this, all the air we needed to breathe, the water we needed to drink, the food we needed to eat a thing of the past. I swear, I could subsist on her and her alone. She was that incredible.