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“Here’s to us,” he says as we clink glasses and knock it back.
“Another?” I ask in a voice made husky by the liquor.
“Yeah.” He grins, then slams the second shot as I sip mine. He rolls the empty glass between the magnificent fingers that just moments ago were inside me.
I have a realization as my eyes crawl over him. “I’ve never seen you naked.”
He laughs. “I haven’t seen you stripped down either.” He walks his fingers across the desk then slides them over my breast. Of course, my nipple peaks. “Should we rectify that?”
Oh, I want to. I so want to. “Yes. I want to see everything.”
He whips his T-shirt over his head and my eyes feast on his body. Tattoos—skulls, snakes, weapons, & roses riddle his slightly furred torso. And his nipples, oh my god…. Rings of gold, exactly like his penis piercing, wink at me. “You are so hot,” I say on a weak breath as I tug one of the rings.
He catches my hand and moves it away from his chest. “You up for another fuck already, baby? ‘cause if you keep doin’ that, you’ll get one.”
My pussy burns at the thought of my teeth tugging those piercings while he impales me with his cock, but my body cries out for mercy. I find myself blushing as I admit, “I might need a small intermission.”
He crosses his arms, drawing my eyes to his magnificent bi-ceps. Maybe if we go slow, carefully. But no. We’ll start that way and then combust. There’s nothing gentle about my man and my body pulses at the thought.
He laughs like he knows what I’m thinking. “We’ll have a lifetime, gorgeous.”
“Yeah,” I sigh, taking a sip of scotch. “I want a big wedding. Designer gown, white roses, white everything. My mom will want that too.”
He frowns and I think we’re about to have our first fight, but he surprises me by saying, “Then I better meet the parents.”
I can’t contain the brilliant smile that forms on my lips. This man, my man, isn’t afraid of anything including walking into a den of vipers. “Yeah. I guess you should. And I’d like to meet your family too.”
“It’s just me and my old man,” he replies as his eyes stroke over me. It’s not a smouldering gaze though. I see the doubt in the furrow of his forehead, the small frown on his lips. “Me and him, we’re not your people.”
“You are my people, lover,” I tell him and then punctuate it with a whiskey-flavoured kiss. “You are the only people I want.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
Trigger
Ipark my bike on the concrete pavement of the driveway of my dad’s house in Reno. There are ancient cracks in it, weeds claiming them, a mirror of the overgrown yard, all dandelions and junk. The house that I grew up in is a shack surrounded by other shacks in a part of Reno that no one gives a fuck about. Didn’t matter then and it don’t matter now.
I never had much when I was a kid except a few friends and parents that didn’t hate me. I had a superman complex back then, always thinkin’ I could help change the shit area we lived in. I thought I’d become a lawyer or advocate or something, but after mom offed herself when I was fifteen, me and the old man kinda fell apart. Dad quit talkin’ and I lost interest in tryin’ to save the world. We both started drinking more than we should. I was into the soft drugs, and finally dropped out of school at 17. Rocky and I were friends at the time and as soon as he got vested, he sponsored me. The Jury straightened me out and I straightened my dad out.
The old man’s sittin’ in his usual chair on the porch as I approach. It’s an old recliner, the once black leather so faded in places it looks like a jersey cow. I offer him money to replace it, offer to move him into a better neighbourhood, but he says, “I was born here and I’m gonna die here. I never took handouts from anyone and I’m not about to start.”
He lives on a government pension that keeps him in groceries and beer. Keeps his clunker of a car runnin’ and insured, lets him drink with his friends at the neighborhood pub once a week.
He never wants anything from me except new shoes, which I get him for his birthday, Father’s Day, and Christmas. “A man’s gotta have good shoes,” he says whenever one of those days rolls around.
“Hey,” I say as I amble up to the porch with my fingers tucked into the top of my jean pockets. With all the shit that’s been going down with the Jury, I haven’t seen him in a while.
He nods at me. “Beer’s in the fridge. Grab me one while you’re in there.”
I step inside the time capsule that I grew up in. Dad keeps it neat, but there’s dust everywhere and the floor needs sweeping. He won’t let me hire him a housekeeper and I don’t do that kind of domestic shit for anyone. He wouldn’t let me anyway.
The fridge is empty except for beer, cream for his coffee, and leftover lasagna, the kind from the freezer that you stick in a microwave. He never was a cook – that was mom’s job. After she died, the frozen food section of the supermarket became our hunting grounds.
I grab two Buds and head back outside, handing him one and then popping the top on mine as I sit down gingerly in a weather-beaten lawn chair. I’m not a lightweight and the rusted legs protest.
“Cheers, my boy,” dad says as he raises his can in the air and we clink them together, then take a long draught. We’re father and son, there’s no doubt, although it’s hard to tell since I’m covered in ink and hair. He’s got a couple of small tats, a grizzled shadow of a beard and short grey hair that’s starting to fall out. It bodes well for me in terms of keeping my fur cap for another 30 plus years. He’s 62 but looks older. Life’s been hard on him.
I pull a smoke from my pack, offer him one, which he takes, then I light both.
