Bones by the Wood (34 page)

Dizzy carried Josh up the stairs with the boy’s head laid on his shoulder and his skinny arms and legs wrapped around him like a monkey.  There was something in that, something so trusting despite the boy’s age, that it gave Dizzy a cramp in his chest.  It was a feeling that had come and gone more than once during the day.

Thea went ahead and opened the door and prepared his room.  They put him down fully dressed, pausing only to remove his shoes and socks.  There didn’t seem to be much point in disturbing him further, so they covered him with his blankets and left him to sleep.

Out in the kitchen area, Thea pulled a couple of bottles of beer out of the refrigerator.  Dizzy realized she must have bought them for him, because not once in all the week that he’d been coming here had she had alcohol in the house. It didn’t seem to be a thing for her, and she’d said that she didn’t have anything against drinking.  Dizzy guessed she just didn’t like to drink alone, and she’d been working every night this week so far.  He guessed she didn’t get the chance to kick back and relax at home with a beer or a glass of wine much, either.

Dizzy took a swallow of his beer, damn near downed half the bottle, but found he wasn’t thirsty for the rest when he watched Thea’s throat work as she took her own long pull of her drink.  She still had a faint purpling bruise on the side of her neck that was his fault, but then he had a matching one, and since he’d taken some real shit off the guys when they’d seen it, he didn’t feel overly guilty about having marked her like a sappy thirteen-year-old.

Thea put her own bottle down on the countertop and looked at him seriously.  “How were you plannin’ to get back to your place?”

“I’ll walk over.”  It was a ways, but he wouldn’t take the truck.  He didn’t want to make it harder for her to take it back, and she’d need it in the morning to get Josh to school.

“No.”

“Huh?”

“You’re not walkin’.  Don’t go.  Stay.  I’ll drive... we can drive, over in the mornin’ after we’ve taken Josh to school.”

“You sure you’re alright with that?  Are you sure Josh will be?”  The idea of being able to simply sleep with Thea, in a bed, excited Dizzy a lot, but he didn’t want to push her to do something she wasn’t ready for yet.

“To be honest, after today, I think he’d be disappointed if you weren’t here. He likes you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.  He’s a good kid.”

“I don’t want him hurt, Dizz.”  Dizzy thought he caught fear shaded with resignation in her expression.

“I told you, that’s not what I’m tryin’ to do here.  We may be movin’ fast, sweetheart, but I think we’re movin’ in the right direction.”

“Yeah.  I think so, too.”  Thea paused and looked over her shoulder, out of one of the windows, out into the night, before she turned back to him.  “Dizzy, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”  He couldn’t think why she’d feel the need to apologize.

“For bein’ an ungrateful bitch this mornin’.  Thank you for everythin’, the car, the day, Josh, everythin’.”

“My pleasure, sweetheart.  I like to see you both happy.”  Something in his chest expanded at the innocence of her thanks. 

A tear slid out of the corner of one of Thea’s eyes, which scared Dizzy.  He couldn’t figure out why she was crying.  He wrapped her in his arms and brushed it away with the backs of his fingers.  “Sweetheart?”

She leaned into his touch.  “Sorry... I’m just... I’m not used to this.  I’m not used to bein’ looked after.  We’ve been on our own a long while.”

“You’re not on your own anymore, sweetheart.”

He leant down and kissed her, tasting the lingering malt of the beer on her lips and tongue as he tried to show her how much she’d come to mean to him.

Thea looped her arms around his neck and pressed herself along his body, and Jesus, but that felt good, to have her warm and willing in his arms.  He wanted more of that.  He wanted to feel her skin sliding against his.  He wanted to be inside her.

Ordinarily he would have had no qualms about taking her on the rickety table in his urgency, but he didn’t want to risk Josh waking up.  Thea seemed to have the same idea because she broke the kiss and led him to her room.

They helped each other out of a lot of their clothing.  They got distracted a fair bit in the process, but Dizzy was adamant he wanted to feel very inch of Thea naked against him that night.

After they had lay down on the bed, Thea tried to pull him over her, but he had other ideas.  He slid down her body until he was lying between her thighs.  Dizzy wrapped his hands around them to keep her still and laved his tongue along the full length of her sweet pussy.  He tightened his grip when she nearly came off the bed, and she flailed as he licked and suckled until she suddenly went very still.  When he looked up her body, she’d wrapped her arms over her head around a pillow.  She was watching him, but her teeth were set in her lip, which was turning white under the pressure as she fought not to cry out.  Dizzy grinned. He wanted to see if he could make her scream.  Stupid it may be, and it defeated the object of trying to be quiet at all, but he took it as a personal challenge.

With that in mind, he set back in, drinking her down as her juices flooded his mouth.  He didn’t do this often, didn’t do it at all with the club girls, so it’d been a while, but from the breathless moans that Thea was making, Dizzy guessed he wasn’t too rusty.  He was caught up, enjoying the taste of her, the smell.  He was lost in her body, but he felt it when the muscles in her thighs went taught.  He glanced up.  She had the pillow over her face now, so he backed off.  She dropped the pillow and looked at him with furious disbelief, which only made him laugh all the harder.  He saw her jerk and released one thigh in time to bat away the pillow as she threw it at his head. 

“That’s better, sweetheart.  Keep watchin’.”

He returned to his duties and was merciless in his attentions.  He crossed one forearm over her hips to hold her down, and as he set back in with his mouth, he slipped two fingers into her hot sheath, mimicking the action he intended to make with his cock later.

“Dizz.   Dizzy, please... Dizzy... Please....”

She was breathy and growing louder, but he didn’t care.  The sound of her begging, pleading lit a fire in his cock.  He sucked firmly at her clit, rolling his tongue over the sensitized nub over and over, really having to work to hold her still as he fucked her with his fingers.

As her body tightened under his hands and mouth, and started to throb as her orgasm rolled over her, Thea let out one startled cry, which she managed to bite back not quite in time.  He stayed on her, continuing to drink her, play with her, as that sweet slick flesh pulsed under his tongue and around his hand.  Only when she pushed at his head did he let up.

He crawled up and over her, ready to sink into her.  His balls felt about set to burst.

“You bastard.  We could’ve woken...”

He cut her off by driving his cock into her, right to the hilt.  She was tight and dripping wet and so hot that his eyes rolled back in his head.  He pulled out swiftly and completely.

“Jesus.  You take a risk.”  Her voice was hoarse and it made his cock pulse and his chest swell to hear it.

Thea reached over to the nightstand.  She’d started keeping a box of condoms there, which was good, because she made him crazy foolish and if he’d had to find his jeans and dig through the pockets he might have taken the chance rather than be parted from her for a minute.

She dressed him, which was sweet torture in itself, feeling those slim fingers roll the cold latex over his solid cock.  It jerked in her hands, as impatient as he was.  And then he was sliding into her.  Every effect was blunted by the rubber, but that was no bad thing because he’d like as not have come in three thrusts otherwise

Normally, he liked to hold himself over her.  He enjoyed holding himself up, away from her so that he could see the flush rising over her skin as she came, so that he could see her eyes, the way her face changed when she got close.  But not tonight. Tonight he wanted to be close, to be a part of her.

Their bodies slid over, around each other as they moved together.  He caught her eyes, and she seemed to sense the connection he wanted because she didn’t look away.  Over and over he pushed into her, staring into her eyes all the time. His world narrowed down into that abyss of perfect blue and he began to feel that he might be drowning, but he didn’t want to come up for air.  He was content to sink down, down into her eyes as he sank over and over into her body.  She had her legs wrapped around his hips and her arms wrapped around his back, her nails digging into his shoulders, and all of it was part of the undertow that had caught him.

When he felt her begin to tighten again around him, he let loose the leash on his own need, his own pleasure, but he wouldn’t look away, wouldn’t let her look away, as they rode the crest of the powerful orgasm together.

He held himself still, not wanting to break the connection they’d forged, until another single tear rolled out of the corner of her eye.  Twice he’d made her tearful this night, but he thought he understood, he was feeling pretty affected himself.  He brushed the tear away as he had the other and that small touch broke the spell, or at least changed it, so that they could move.

He didn’t want to, but necessity being the master, made him pull out of her.  Losing that heat was like a blow, and he heard Thea feel that, too. He dealt with the condom in the small wastebasket she kept in the corner of the room.  By the time he came back to the bed she’d wriggled under the covers and she held them up in invitation for him to join her.  He slid into the bed next to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders so that he could pull her head down onto his chest.  She came willingly, docilely, and let him pet her hair until they both fell asleep.

Her birthday gift had at least solved the conundrum of how she and Josh were going to get to Louisiana.  Thea had to admit it was a good feeling, driving a vehicle that didn’t seem to have a personal vendetta against her.  Her old car would probably have broken down before they got to the state border, hell, before they’d even gotten out of Ravensbridge, just to spite her.  This new truck was a sweet drive.  Dizzy had said it wasn’t a Bugatti, but it might as well have been, in Thea’s view.

Dizzy and every other member of the club, including Nut, were astride their bikes.  Most of the I-10 was two lanes.  Thea didn’t know if they cared about the rest of the scarce traffic on the road, but they had arranged themselves in formation in front of the truck, leaving the other lane free.  Dizzy stayed at the front of the pack.  The others seemed to have a fairly fluid arrangement behind him, except for Nut, who was very definitely staying at the back.  There was plenty of room, but it still made Thea nervous.  She really didn’t want to hit any of them.  It would be embarrassing at the very least if she wiped out an outlaw MC charter, having pressed the wrong pedal or some other dumb shit like that.  And it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility, because this was the furthest from home she’d driven in years.

Josh was beside her in the passenger seat.  He was alternately buzzing with excitement at the opportunity to spend so much time with the men he now called friends, and subdued with nervousness about being in a strange place with what would most likely be a lot of strange people.  Dizzy’s Stetson was in the middle of the back seat.  Thea felt a little insane for even thinking it, but having his hat there made it feel like he was riding with them.

Thea stifled a yawn and reached to the cup-holder under the dash for the most recently opened can of liquid sugar and caffeine that she’d been mainlining all morning.  She was running on less than three hours sleep and energy drinks at the moment, in order for them to be able to arrive in time for the early afternoon ceremony.  She couldn’t even complain, because Dizzy would only remind her that they’d had the option to travel down the night before.

But Thea had been adamant about not missing more shifts than absolutely necessary, and she hadn’t considered a leisurely drive during normal waking hours absolutely necessary.  Right away, Dizzy had virtually interrogated her about what was going on at work.  She should have known that he’d have latched on to her reticence and evasiveness and that he’d figure out something was wrong.