He caught me almost all the way up the first flight and I thought he’d lift me up and carry me to our bed but he didn’t. He turned me, planted my ass on a stair, my panties were gone in a whoosh then his big body was on me, his mouth on mine, his tongue in my mouth.
I circled him with all four limbs.
Then my skirt was up to my ribs, my legs were over his shoulders and his mouth between my legs. My man was hungry, having waited a long time for his celebration feast, he was going to enjoy it.
Lucky for me, I got to too.
And I did, it was the hardest, longest, most intense orgasm he’d ever given me, which was to say, I ever had, and he’d given me some hard, long, intense, brilliant ones.
It was so good, he had an arm around my hips lifting me up, his other hand in the step for leverage and I was taking his cock before I’d come down and knew it was happening.
He alternately assaulted my mouth with his or his lips brushed mine as he held my eyes while he thrust deep inside me and I held on, limbs tight, lifting my hips with every drive in order to give him more.
Then, suddenly, we were up, still connected, he moved up the last steps but planted me on the floor in the hallway, his hips moving faster, harder, his cock going deeper as I watched his eyes burn, felt our quick breaths mix, my legs locking him to me, my hands wandering under his tee on his hot skin.
I felt him, I loved every inch of him on me and in me but his eyes held me enthralled.
“Love you, Ty,” I breathed, staring into his eyes. “Every inch of you, baby, everything that is you.”
He didn’t speak; he rarely did when he was inside me or just having sex with me. He just thrust harder, each now coming with a grunt, his eyes hotter, with desire but it was more, in those beautiful eyes, shining clear was not only the triumph he was sharing with me but also all that he felt for me.
And they were locked to mine, giving me something precious.
Then I lost them as his head jerked back when he came then almost instantly fell forward and his face disappeared in my neck.
And I knew he’d come hard too.
But that was only part of the reason I held him close and tight in all four limbs.
And we would guess though never know for sure but that was when my husband planted our daughter inside of me.
Chapter Twenty
Sunshine
Two days later…
It was ten thirty when it happened.
I was in the salon and it was Tuesday. My Monday had been busy acquiring blank DVDs, burning a shitload of them and driving around distributing sick-ass sex tapes to Ty’s lawyer and our friends and expressing one to Angel.
In doing this, I got to meet Nina’s husband and Ty’s friend, Holden “Max” Maxwell, a tall, built, seriously hot mountain man with a great smile and a weirdly protective but definitely sweet and attentively affectionate manner around his wife and, upon meeting him, being around the two of them together for ten minutes and with all my recent experience, I mentally kicked myself for not moving to Colorado years ago.
But the day had gone by without incident which was good. We’d had enough the day before. We could use a slow day in our ongoing drama.
Tuesday was always a big day for Carnal Spa but then again, every day was now since Dominic added his new services. But that morning seemed more so.
Dominic had a lady in his chair he was doing a cut on while he had another lady in foils, her hair cooking while she was gabbing to Jazz, our nail technician who was working on a client. Kayeleen had a cut in her chair. The back rooms were full. Dominic had been right to take the risk and add actual spa treatments, biker babes and mountain women embraced them wholeheartedly. The massage therapist had a client on her table and there was another woman getting a facial. Kayeleen’s next up, Stockard, was twenty minutes early and drifting. She’d been in before so I’d met her and the last time she was in, she was also twenty minutes early and she was this way because she liked to gossip, which was what she was doing.
I’d just rung up some product a woman had popped in to buy. I was dealing with her credit card receipt as she said her farewells and wandered to the door so I was looking down at my desk when I heard her surprised gasp.
I looked up at the sound and saw her standing in the opened door looking out of it and up, her mouth open. I couldn’t see what she was looking at, the blinds at the windows were fully closed, it was late August but the heat was already on the day, burning intense in preparation for Indian summer. Whoever or whatever she was looking at was out on the sidewalk standing by the window.
Suddenly, her body jerked, she nodded, muttered, “Sorry, excuse me,” and scuttled out the door.
Approximately point two five seconds later, Ty filled it.
I stared and vaguely felt the buzz change in the room considering it was filled with women and a gay guy. Ty naturally had that affect on women and gay guys, of course, but everyone knew what was going down with him, he had never visited me in the salon, he was all man in coveralls half hanging down and a wife beater streaked with black marks in a purple beauty salon that had zero masculinity in it, his mood invaded the room the instant he appeared in the door and that mood controlled it.
The whole room.
I just stared at him because I didn’t understand his mood, I’d never felt it before. Since I came back after our thing, he played his cards face up on the table. I knew what he was thinking because he shared it in a multitude of ways, on his face, with words. He didn’t hide from me anymore. He might hide from the world but not from his wife.
And he wasn’t hiding now, though his eyes were intense but his face was blank. It was his aura that was speaking for him.
I just had no idea what it was saying.
And I had little time to figure it out. His long legs ate the distance from the door into the salon, rounding my receptionist desk and I kept my eyes on him the whole way, swiveling my chair as he moved to me.
Then I sat in it when he was in my space, my head bent way back, my back pressed deep into the chair to keep my eyes locked with his.
Then he bent and I was up, I heard gasps at the movement but could only feel surprise. One of his arms wrapped around my ass, the other one slanted across my back, his fingers driving into my hair, cupping my head then he slammed my mouth down on his and he kissed me.
Automatically, my legs circled his hips, my arms his shoulders and for two seconds I contemplated the fact that out of the blue my husband walked into my place of work, lifted me into his arms and was giving me an intense kiss that spoke volumes and in that two seconds I heard a woman whisper, “Ohmigod,” and Dominic mutter, “Now that is hot.”
But that was all that filtered in before Ty’s kiss swept me away, deep, hot, tongues tangling, his arms holding me so tight they were crushing me to him, the kiss so intense the world melted away.
Then his hand fisted in my hair, gently tugged back and I lost his mouth but gained his eyes when I opened mine.
And it was then he whispered, “Just got a call from Nina. The California Attorney General overturned my conviction. The Governor himself is issuing a public apology today and opening discussion about restitution. IA in LA last night arrested Eugene Fuller and Chet Palmer at the same time LAPD did a sweep of their dealers and raids of their storage facilities.”
He stopped speaking and I did nothing but stare.
So he went on to whisper, “It’s done, mama. I’m clear.”
I still did nothing but stare and I did this even as my throat closed and my vision decreased because my eyes were watery.
“Baby,” Ty whispered, his arms giving me a squeeze. “It’s done and there’s no going back. The gun used to commit the crime I went down for surfaced two weeks ago when a gang banger got arrested while carrying that gun. Its ownership was traced back to Palmer who had it in his possession when that murder was committed, this from a witness who owns a gun shop and regularly rents him an alley where he said, when Palmer wen
t in for target practice until six months ago, he always used that gun. A solid alibi and no access to the murder weapon. It’s done. I’m clear.”
I continued to stare then it happened.
The sob tore through me making my body jerk violently and filling the room which, upon hearing it, went completely silent.
Then I shoved my face deep in my husband’s neck, tightened my arms and legs around him and burst out crying.
I felt his head turn and heard, “Mama,” murmured in my ear and then I reared back, eyes fuzzy, cheeks wet, my head shot up and jerked from side to side.
Then I shouted, “The California Governor is issuing a public apology for wrongly convicting my man!”
Then another sob tore out of my throat and I shoved my face back in Ty’s neck as his arms tensed around me, his body shook with what had to be silent laughter and the salon filled with cheers and whoops.
I didn’t cheer or whoop. I held tight to my husband, my body convulsing with my emotion, my husband holding me tight right back.
Then I felt his head turn again and in my ear I heard, “Mama, get a handle on it.”
I reared back, tried and failed to focus on his face and snapped, “No! No fucking way! This feels too good. I’m never getting a handle on this!”
Then I shoved my face back in this neck and kept right on crying.
“Ohmigod! We need champagne! We need champagne right now!” Dominic was shouting and I heard movement around me including the cash register opening. “Stockard, girl, get your booty over here. Take this. Go down to liquor store. Get champagne, not the California kind, the French kind. From the chill cabinet. Stop by the grocery store to get cups, I don’t care if they’re Dixie cups, just get lots of them. Jazz, finish her off later and run down to the garage, get those boys in their coveralls down here. We gotta celebrate!”
Through this, I kept crying.
Then I heard Ty whisper, “Not sure how I feel about celebratin’ with a gay guy and a bunch of pussy in a salon and, babe, equally unsure how Wood’s boys are gonna feel about it.”
To that, I again jerked back and informed him, “They’re gonna have to suck it up.”
He stared in my eyes as I blinked the wetness out.
And when I finally (kinda) focused on him, I saw he was smiling, white, huge, beautiful and right there for the world to see.
And seeing that smile, I burst back into tears.
* * * * *
Forty-five minutes later…
The party had begun in earnest in Dominic’s spa.
Someone bought pre-prepared deli trays from the grocery store. More champagne was carted in with the addition of beers. Shambles hoofed it down to the salon and added a tray of just-out-of-the-oven chocolate and butterscotch chip cookies.
Jim-Billy was there as were Krystal and Laurie. The boys from the garage were there and this included Pop and Wood, Stella hanging back to hold down the fort in the office. Maggie showed about five minutes after Wood got there. Ned and Betty arrived ten minutes after Maggie.
Dominic, Kayeleen and Jazz were working and socializing which meant they were working slowly.
No one cared. If they had to wait an extra half an hour to sit in a chair, they could do it with a Dixie cup of champagne in their hand and a kickass cookie.
The rough guy mechanics, by the way, gave not one shit they were drinking champagne or they were doing it with a bunch of pussy and a gay guy. I had a feeling this partly had to do with deli trays, cookies and the fact that it was one of them who brought the beer. Though I had a feeling it was mostly to do with Ty.
I was sitting in Ty’s lap in my chair behind the receptionist desk, sipping champagne, a perma-smile on my face, talking to Jim-Billy, Betty and Krystal who were all hanging over the high counter of my desk at the same time I was wondering at the state of my mascara when Tate and Deke walked in.
I felt my heart skip then stutter when I saw their faces. I also felt Ty’s body tense under mine.
They only had eyes for Ty and, like Ty when he walked in, I couldn’t read their faces but I felt their vibe and I didn’t get it.
I didn’t get it until they walked straight up to the counter at my desk, Betty, Jim-Billy and Krystal peeling back to give them space and Tate started speaking.
“At nine o’clock this morning, a tri-county police task force marched into the Carnal Police Department, seized all records and arrested all the officers on duty excepting Frank Dolinski and Chace Keaton. Mick Shaughnessy and his boys from Gnaw Bone were tasked with rounding up those not on duty and it’s been reported that Mick himself took Arnie Fuller into custody fifteen minutes ago.”
I stared at Tate, my mouth hanging open.
Ty said nothing and since I was staring at Tate I could only assume he was too (though his mouth was probably not hanging open).
Then I heard Dominic shout, “We need more champagne!”
And it was at that, I watched Tatum Jackson grin.
* * * * *
Ty
Eleven and a half hours later…
Ty stood leaning against the Snake which was parked on the lookout off the mountain road that was a winding seven miles up from Tate Jackson’s house.
His eyes were on Carnal sitting below in the valley, lit up in the dark night, the flickering lights sending a hazy glow into the velvet of the midnight sky and the dark, near-black blue of the mountains.
He’d never, not once, spent time reflecting on his place of birth. It was what it was, as good a base as any.
With five years of very little to do but think; it was not lost on him that he’d spent a great deal of his life aimless, breathing, moving, earning and winning money to acquire things and partaking in all the pussy that caught his liking that was thrown his way. He fucked who he fucked when he felt like it, treated them well enough but when he was done, he always walked away and didn’t think about them. He was where he was when he was there doing whatever he was doing at the time.
He had no plan. He had no passion.
Tuku would be pissed.
And he had always been alone. It had never bothered him, he’d never thought of that either. Like everything else in his life, it was what it was.
But after today, experiencing the euphoria of a town released from subjugation and the righting of the wrong done to one of their own, he realized that when he felt he was at his most alone, he was not. He belonged to Carnal, they’d never turned their back on him, they’d just been powerless, less than Ty but powerless all the same. He’d simply been so absorbed in his shit storm, he didn’t recognize it.
And that day, Carnal had stopped becoming the place he’d been born and where he stayed just because he stayed. It became home and he realized it always was.
But amongst those who made their home there along with Ty, there were some who not only didn’t turn their back but did more.
And he heard the Harley pipes of one of them as the bike approached.
Tate rolled the bike to a halt six feet away, shut it down, threw his leg over and walked to Ty, stopping three feet away. Ty could see his eyes on him but he could also feel them.
“Brother, it’s nearly eleven; why the fuck do you want to meet me up here alone? Where’s Lexie?”
“My wife is passed out and she ain’t gonna move for about ten hours,” Ty replied low and quiet. “Maybe twelve. She doesn’t even know I’m gone.”
Ty watched Tate grin slowly as he accurately deduced the meaning of Ty’s words.
Ty didn’t grin. He looked around his friend to the town.
Reading the mood, Tate fell silent for some time, shifting his body, turning his eyes to the town then he spoke softly, “Asked Laurie to marry me, right here.”
“Good spot for that,” Ty said to the view.
“Her last birthday, I brought her up here last thing just like that night,” Tate went on then, “Asked her to marry me on her birthday, decided last year this was where she’d end every one of them from now on.” br />
Ty didn’t respond. Tate being a romantic was surprising but not that surprising. He was married to a good-looking, kind-hearted woman. You didn’t win that kind of woman and keep her as happy as Laurie obviously was without treating her right.
Tate fell silent for another length of time and when he was done with silence, he turned back to face Ty and started, “Ty –”
Ty cut him off by slicing his eyes to him.
“Years ago, you weren’t ready to give up. I was buried under shit, couldn’t see my way clear of it. So deep under, couldn’t even hear you. Even if I could, I wouldn’t listen. My power was stripped; I was pissed, in pain and both made me stupid.” He held Tate’s eyes and whispered, “Shoulda listened.”
Tate shook his head. “Don’t go there, brother, you’re free, look forward and rejoice, do not look back and despair.”
“That isn’t what this is about, Tate. I feel no pain. Not anymore. That doesn’t mean the journey wasn’t torture but it led me to Lexie so I can live with that. What I need you to get is that you were right, I was wrong and you deserve to know that.”
“You don’t have to tell me this, Ty,” Tate said softly.
“Yes, I do, Tate,” Ty replied softly.
“Okay, then, you do,” Tate returned. “But, you will remember, I was in that pit of snakes and I shoulda done something about that years ago. I didn’t and you went down.”
“You hold no responsibility for what happened to me.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“Brother, you had a son you needed to look after and pain in the ass pussy who was making your life a misery,” Ty reminded him. “You had things you needed to see to and they were priorities. When you got out, they’d never done anything as bad as they did to me. You couldn’t foresee how bad it would get. But you tried to deal with it then and I pulled you back. That is what this is about.”
Tate fell silent.
Ty didn’t.
“Since the day I was released, you knocked yourself out. You had my back, you took care of Lexie when we had our thing then you did what you could to help me sort that. It’s important to me that you know I’m grateful. I’ve been tryin’ to figure out how I can show how much but, keep thinkin’ on it, nothin’ comes to mind and I know why. I get it. You’re a man who has everything so there is no way to show that appreciation because there is nothing I can hand you that you want or need. And I get that because I am now that same man. So the only thing I can give you are words and, my guess is, that’ll be enough. If it isn’t, you name it and it’s yours.”