Sweet Dreams

  “Anything,” I whispered and it was the truth.

  “Put up with my shit.”

  “Yes,” I breathed, rolling my finger.

  “Take care of my kid.”

  “Yes.”

  “Take care of my house.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Eat you how I want, fuck you how I want, sweet, hard, dirty.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll get dirty for me?” he asked.

  It was building and I wasn’t paying attention to what I was saying.

  Therefore I promised, “Anything, Tate.”

  But that wasn’t a lie either.

  He started moving faster, going deeper.

  “Then you’re gonna come for me, Laurie.”

  He was right. I was.

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  “Say it,” he demanded, going faster, beginning to pound.

  “I’m going to come for you, baby.”

  “No, honey, say it.”

  My eyes opened, looked directly into his and I knew what he meant.

  “I love you, Tate,” I whispered against his mouth.

  Definitely pounding now, his hands pulling my hips in to meet his thrusts and I heard the whimper slide out of me as it built higher.

  “Say it again,” he growled.

  “I love you,” I repeated.

  “Again,” he demanded but I couldn’t. It was happening.

  “Baby –” I moaned.

  “Fuckin’ say it,” he commanded, pounding hard now, exquisite and it hit me.

  “I love you,” I whispered on a hitched breath and he knew what that meant, he’d heard it enough times and his mouth opened over mine, taking my cry.

  I was still coming when his teeth bit my bottom lip, his hips drove into mine and he growled, “Love you too, baby. Christ,” he clipped, the power behind his thrusts building even higher. “Fuck, but I love you.”

  His mouth opened over mine, his tongue invaded and then he groaned deep into my throat, his hips bucking hard, pounding me into the tile as he came.

  He held me aloft as we both came down but his mouth left mine to trail down to my neck and his cock moved slow again, gliding in and out. I wrapped both my arms tight around him and held on.

  He loved me. Tatum Jackson, ex-football star, ex-cop and current badass bounty hunter hot guy loved me.

  He loved me.

  I closed my eyes and smiled.

  “Feel safe, baby?” he asked my neck.

  “Yeah, Captain,” I answered, holding tighter with all my limbs.

  He slid in and stayed there, I opened my eyes and his head came up so he could look into them.

  “So my good girl’s gonna get dirty for me?” he asked, his lips slightly turned up at the ends.

  I pulled back, stupidly, since I was tight to the wall and had nowhere to go. He felt and it and pressed deeper into me, his lips turning up more.

  I bit my lip, let it go and mumbled, “Um…”

  “Don’t worry, Ace, I’ll break you in easy.”

  I’d thought about the stuff we’d already done. None of it was dirty, exactly, but a lot of it was wild and out of control so I wondered what dirty would entail.

  “Maybe you should explain dirty,” I suggested.

  “More fun to show you.”

  “Tate –”

  He stopped me speaking by touching his mouth to mine.

  Then he said, “You can trust me Laurie.” His voice got deeper, that growl vibrating through it. “Swear to God, baby, there will never be a time when you can’t. Yeah?”

  I looked at his face. He wasn’t smiling anymore, not even a hint of it. This was important. He was serious.

  “Yes,” I answered softly which earned me another light kiss.

  He slid out and dropped me to my feet. Then he turned me to the spray, my back to him, his face went into my neck and his arms went around me, one going south, his fingers gently invading to wash me clean.

  We got out, toweled off and I lotioned because I was in Colorado and as exhausted, and sated, as I was, there was no way I was missing lotioning. Tate ran his hands through his hair. I combed mine. We brushed our teeth standing together at the sink. Tate left the bathroom while I moisturized. I walked into the bedroom, around the bed to the closet. I grabbed undies and a shelf bra camisole, pulled the towel from around me, tugged them on and met him in bed.

  “My hair’s going to be a rat’s nest tomorrow, sleeping on it wet,” I stated inanely because what did you do after you had fantastic sex in the shower all the while sharing avowals of love with a badass biker?

  Tate turned out the light and then turned to me, pulling me face to face.

  “Lucky that’s an easy fix, Ace.”

  “It means you can’t look at me first thing in the morning,” I informed him and he burst out laughing and pulled me deeper into his arms.

  I snuggled into his chest, Tate kissed the top of my head.

  “Wiped, Ace,” he muttered.

  “Okay,” I muttered back.

  “Sweet dreams, baby,” he whispered.

  “You too, Captain,” I whispered back.

  And for the first time, even after what had transpired that day and that night and three refills of diet pop, I fell asleep before Tate.

  * * * * *

  My body jolted and I came awake when I heard the noise.

  My eyes opened and I saw Tate’s back in the moonlight. I was snuggled up to him, my arm draped around his waist.

  I came up on an elbow at the same time Tate did. We both looked over our shoulders to the window.

  Another rap sounded on it and I could see the pale knuckles and the ghostly pale face surrounded by dark hair that almost, but not quite, faded with the night.

  Neeta.

  “You have got to be… fuckin’… shittin’… me,” Tate whispered slowly as we both lay there, looking over our shoulders at the window.

  “I think, since we have curtains,” I whispered back, “we might want to remember to use them.”

  “Tate!” she shouted and her voice shouting my man’s name in the middle of the night while she was standing out on his deck after she made his life a living hell because he believed in her, he wanted to guide her back to herself and she didn’t let him; after she touched Jonas the way she did; after guessing that she didn’t touch him much better his whole life either physically or emotionally; after the night we had, Sunny in the hospital, Shambles in shambles; after the last few months of topsy-turvy road guiding us to each other – I lost it.

  I crawled over Tate and out of the bed. I felt his fingers try to grasp hold of my hips but I was on the move and on a mission and they slid right off.

  “Ace, let me deal with this,” Tate said and I heard him moving but I went right to the closet, my mind buzzing with Brad, with Neeta, with my Dad’s heart attack, with Tonia dead, with Bubba off fishing – I was focused. That focus was on the fact that I could not take one more thing and I was absolutely not going to allow Tate to take anymore.

  My hands searched through my clothes in the dark closet, I felt a pair of shorts and I dragged them on then exited the closet buttoning and zipping them.

  “Dammit, Lauren,” Tate clipped, I heard him behind me but I was on the move, going faster, darting down the hall.

  I stopped at the sliding glass door to switch on the light and I saw Neeta outside by the door. My hand went to the lock on the door and I slid it down.

  “I said, let me deal with it,” Tate was right behind me.

  I whirled, my shoulder glancing off his bare chest, the deep recesses of my mind noticing he was wearing jeans but I was intent and nothing, not even big, bad Tate was going to stop me.

  “You are not going to deal with one more thing from that woman!” I declared rather loudly.

  I turned back and threw open the door.

  “You want this?” I announced to Neeta the second my foot hit the wood of the deck. “You got it!”

&nbsp
; Her upper body listed forward. “Bring it on, bitch,” she slurred and I was pulled up short with taking my second step toward her when Tate’s open hand planted itself in my chest and his other arm came up and hit the advancing Neeta in hers.

  She fell back a step then two then hit the railing and stopped. When she did she looked to her left and right with confusion as if she didn’t know where she was.

  I stilled and stared.

  Tate sensed my stillness, dropped his hand and studied Neeta.

  “You blitzed?” he asked in disbelief and her head tilted back but it took it a long time to do this. Once it did, it took even longer for her to focus on him.

  Then she said, “Whas it to you?”

  Tate’s head turned to look at the drive. I followed the direction of his gaze and noted that Neeta’s car, top still down, headlights still on, driver’s side door open, interior lights on was beeping because she left the keys in the ignition. She also parked with her bumper butting a tree across Tate’s drive.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered.

  She’d driven there hammered.

  My eyes went back to her and before I could speak, Tate did.

  “You drove here drunk?” he asked.

  “Got things to say to you,” she answered.

  “You drove here drunk?” Tate repeated, his voice lowering to a growl.

  “Gimme Jonas,” she slurred.

  Tate had his side to her but he turned fully to face her and I felt those sparks of fury flash off him.

  “Let’s forget for a second you coulda hurt someone else, you coulda hurt you. What’s Jonas gonna do without a Mom?” Tate asked.

  She waved a hand in the air and said breezily, “Relax, I’m fine.”

  “You’re plastered,” Tate returned.

  She dropped her hand, her eyes narrowed, she leaned forward clumsily and stated, “I’m fine.”

  Tate leaned forward too. “And I asked a fuckin’ question. You’re not much of a Mom but you’re still his goddamned Mom. He loses you, no matter you’re shit at bein’ a mother, it’d mark him. Fuck,” he hissed. “Neeta, you know that better than anyone.”

  She leaned back too far, hitting the railing again and she snapped, “Fuck you!”

  I was done and therefore I stepped forward to stand by Tate.

  “It’s been too long,” I started.

  “Ace, let me fuckin’ –”

  I talked over him. “You don’t get that excuse anymore. Your Mom’s been gone too long, you can’t use losing her to behave this way.”

  “Wad d’you know ‘bout it?” she sneered.

  “Not one thing,” I replied. “My Mom’s still alive so I grew up with her around to teach me how to be a good person. So let me educate you on how to be a good person, Neeta, something I suspect from what people say about her, your mother taught you before she passed but you forgot.”

  “Don’t choo talk about my Mom!” she yelled.

  I ignored her. “You don’t take your pain out on anyone but especially not the people you love. Never do that. Not ever.”

  “Piss off.”

  “You lost the world,” I shot back. “I can’t imagine, I don’t want to and I dread they day I will. But she left you with gifts and you squandered every one of them.”

  “She left me with shit,” Neeta hissed.

  “She left you with your looks, you’re beautiful. She left you with a good Dad, a gentle brother, a kind aunt who stepped up –”

  “Lauren the good,” she leaned forward again and spat. “You think you can win them? Take them all away from me? My friends? My family? My man? No fuckin’ way.” She shook her head, suddenly grinning drunkenly. “They’ll be back. They always come back.”

  “Not this time, Neet,” Tate stated and she swiveled her head to look up at him.

  “Yeah,” she was still grinning, sure of herself in her inebriation, “right.”

  “I’m in love with Laurie,” Tate announced and the smile dissolved from her face. It seemed to take a long time to do it, almost as if she didn’t comprehend, she couldn’t wrap her mind around this concept. As the smile evaporated, her face went slack.

  “The fuck you say,” she whispered.

  “Her car’s in my garage, her clothes in my closet and they’re gonna stay there. Jonas digs her. You don’t shape your shit up, I’ll make it so you’re a bad memory and the only Mom he knows is Laurie.”

  “The fuck you say,” she whispered again.

  Tate’s arm slid around my shoulders and he pulled me into his side. I wrapped my arm around his waist, turned my front into his side and then wrapped my other arm around his stomach, holding him close but loose, natural, casual, exactly how I fit at his side.

  “You had him so he could be a tool to manipulate me,” Tate stated. “Fought with that knowledge for awhile, couldn’t believe it, even of you. But today you proved it. You don’t get your head outta your ass, you’ll lose him.”

  She wasn’t listening. Her eyes had glued on our stance, our closeness, moving slowly from my arms around his middle to his around my shoulders.

  Then her eyes went to him. “You love her?”

  “Outside Jonas, she’s the best goddamned thing to ever happen to me.”

  I held my breath at this announcement, my stomach doing a little flip, but Neeta slid slightly to the side along the railing as if inching toward escape.

  “No,” she breathed.

  “Oh yeah,” he returned.

  “I gave you Jonas,” she reminded him softly.

  “Yeah, woulda thanked you, minute I saw him bawlin’ in the nursery. Since then you used him to make life a livin’ hell so now, knowin’ you have no good in you and knowin’ he’s all about good, I take total credit.”

  “He’s ours.” She reached an arm out to him. “We made him.”

  “You carried him but, lucky for Jonas, he’s all about Brenda, about Pop, about Dad and about me and he didn’t get even a trace of you. He’s all that but I brought out the good in him. He puts up with you and that’s it.”

  “We made him,” she repeated, dropping her arm but leaning toward Tate.

  “For you he was the result of an orgasm. For me, he jumpstarted my world. We made him, yeah, but I claim him.”

  She closed her eyes tight and when she opened them, I knew her tactics had changed.

  “You could show me –” she entreated.

  “Tried to do that, Neet, never took hold.”

  “I could be –” she went on.

  “Tried to find out what you could be too, you never let go of who you are and I want nothin’ to do with that.”

  Her eyes slid to me then back to Tate. “But you love me.”

  “Never loved you, Neet. Thought I did, now I know what it feels like, know I didn’t.”

  She winced, her eyes closing again, her head moving to the side and down. She lifted a hand to the railing as if to hold herself up.

  “Callin’ Wood to come get you, take your ass wherever he wants but you’re leavin’ here and you’re not comin’ back. You come back, I call the cops. I’m not steppin’ out on this deck again when your feet are on it,” Tate finished with her and looked down at me. “Babe, go to her car, she left her keys in the ignition. Get ‘em, yeah?”

  I nodded, let him go and moved away.

  Neeta didn’t move a muscle to stop me. By the time I got to her car, pulled the key out of the ignition, figured out how to turn off the headlights, closed the door and returned to the deck, Tate was there, his phone to his ear. Neeta was now sitting on the deck, her knees curled into her chest, her arms wrapped around, the picture of pathetic but, studying her, I could call up not even a hint of compassion.

  “Wood?” Tate said into the phone. “Sorry, bud, but Neeta’s at my place. She’s smashed and drove her car up here. I want her gone. Either you get her or I call the Station. You comin’?” He paused and held his hand out to me for the keys. I dropped them in his hand as he said, “Right. Later.” He
flipped his phone closed, his arm curled around me again, bringing my front to his side but his eyes went down to Neeta. “Wood’ll be here to take care of your shit… again.”

  “Don’t got nothin’,” she told her knees, beginning to rock.

  I wanted to feel sorry for her, even tried to call it up, but after what she did that day, the other night and that Tate and I were standing out in the dark on his deck dealing with her again, I couldn’t.

  Therefore, I said to her, “That’s because you threw it all away.”

  She didn’t even look up at me when she repeated, “Don’t got nothin’.”

  I opened my mouth to repeat myself too but Tate’s arm gave me a squeeze.

  “Gonna be a bit before Wood gets here, Ace, and seen this before. Save yourself the hassle of watchin’ her feel sorry for herself. Go to bed. I’ll be in after Wood gets here.”

  I looked up at him, my arms around him getting tighter.

  “I’ll stay with you,” I said.

  “Ace, she’s gonna sit there, whine and convince herself life just sucks rather than her doin’ shit to make it suck. Trust me, it ain’t interesting.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” I repeated.

  “Baby –”

  “Captain,” I cut him off and then used words he used on me. “Shut it.”

  His mouth twitched then his arm curled me closer, he bent his head and he kissed me lightly.

  “See you’re comin’ into your inner biker babe,” he muttered.

  I smiled up at him. “Yes, well… I’m learning.”

  “Then I’m fucked,” he muttered teasingly.

  “Mm. Maybe tomorrow,” I muttered back and he chuckled.

  “That’s what I wanted from you,” Neeta whispered and both Tate and I looked down at her. “That’s all I ever wanted from you. Why couldn’t you be that way with me?”

  “You missed it, Neet. Too focused on latchin’ onto my dick to lead me around by it, you missed it.”

  “You never gave me that. It was always Tate and Neet, the wild ones,” she replied. “I thought you wanted it like that.”

  “Like I said, you weren’t payin’ attention,” Tate returned.

  Her eyes stayed locked on him then she turned her head away, pressed her cheek to her knee and kept rocking.