“Put him out of your mind. Relax. We’ll talk, have some fun, and I’ll get to know all of you Lefevre women,” I told her.
She rocked her head back and forth on my chest. “I don’t understand him. He’s acting like a totally different person than the man I’ve worked with for over a year. He cornered me at work the last two days, and now this. What’s wrong with him?” she muttered.
“Come on, Meadow. He’s going crazy because he knows you and Iceman are attracted to each other. You can feel it, even if you two act cool. He wants to be Iceman, and the thought of never getting a chance with you is eating him up,” Aspen explained.
“And that makes him dangerous. You need to watch your back with him. Never be alone with him, and watch your surroundings. Have your gun ready at all times,” Sage added.
I scanned all of them. Meadow had raised her head. They all wore stern expressions. There was more to these Lefevre sisters than I knew. It made me itch to dig and find more. I liked that they carried guns, but I wondered why. I might like to command in the bedroom and when it comes to issues of safety and health, but I needed a woman who was strong and wouldn’t take shit, not even from me. With my family history, it was crucial.
“I get it. I do. It just hurts to think he’s turned from a friend to this. Anyway, I’m tired of talking about Scott Harrison. I’m starving, and that pizza smells so good.”
“It’s from our favorite place, too,” Sage said excitedly.
Just like that, the women went to gather plates, napkins, and drinks. While they did, I hung up my cut and took off my boots. It was loud, slightly chaotic, and fun as we got situated and the boxes were opened. I’d brought two extra large meat lovers, an order of breadsticks, and a large order of hot wings with the usual carrots, celery, and dipping sauce. I had both blue cheese and ranch.
“You didn’t need to get this much. We’ll never eat it all,” Meadow told me.
“What we don’t eat tonight can be leftovers for lunch or whatever tomorrow. Pizza is even better the next day,” I told them.
“Wait. Do you warm it up or eat it cold from the fridge?” Aspen asked suddenly, pausing before taking a bite.
“What kind of heathen do you think I am? I eat it cold.” I pretended to gasp at her question.
She smiled and looked over at her older sister. “He gets a point for that. If he said he heated it, I don’t know if you two could date. He’d never fit in,” she teased. Or I hoped she was teasing. It was hard to tell by her expression.
I playfully tossed a scrunched-up napkin at her, and it bounced off her nose just as she took a bite of a breadstick. This made her sisters and me laugh. I enjoyed the hell out of our dinner. It was so much fun to sit like a family and talk, joke, and laugh. Sure, I did it with the club, but this was the more intimate kind of family setting. One I was finding I’d do anything to have, but only if it was with Meadow and her impish sisters.
We sat there for almost an hour eating and talking about our day, and then Aspen and Sage cleaned up the mess while their sister and I went to sit in the living room. We were on the couch with the stereo playing. That was another thing. Our taste in music overall was very similar, with a few outliers. When they were done, the twins came to stand in front of us. They were smirking.
“Everything is clean and put away, Meadow. Iceman, thank you for not only dinner but all the leftovers and for a fun time,” Sage said first.
“Now, we’re going to our room to study and watch some television, and then we’re getting ready for bed. Meadow, if he gets out of hand, come get us, and we’ll help throw him out. However, if you like how he’s acting, we’ll be in our room with our earplugs in, just in case things get loud,” Aspen added.
Meadow gasped as I chuckled. The two grinned at us, then each other, and skipped down the hall, holding hands like little kids. I couldn’t help it. I had to laugh. “Oh my God, they’re slightly crazy, aren’t they? I love it. Do they have boyfriends?”
Meadow was rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “I think it’s more than slightly. And no, they don’t have boyfriends. Luckily, they haven’t met anyone who interests them overall. They’ve gone out on occasional dates, but the guys either go away when they don’t want to be their girlfriends or won’t sleep with them, or they become friends.”
“Hmm, so they’re like their older sister. No one is going to win the Lefevre sisters without putting in effort and laying it on the line. Good to know. They look so much like you. We need to put guards on them. No punk-ass shitheads are getting them.”
She moved to straddle my lap. Her hands came up, and she ran them up to remove my light gray skull cap. I wore one during the fall and winter and sometimes forgot to take it off. She removed it and ran her fingers through the sides and the top of my hair. She was smiling.
“Saying things like that, Jake Newman, will earn you more points and a blowjob,” she whispered naughtily.
There was nothing I wanted more than to take her to her bedroom and have her suck my cock while I ate her pussy. And if she wanted more, I’d give it to her. However, before we did that, we had serious business to talk about first.
“Babe, hang onto that thought because I want to do that. However, we need to talk about what I brought up last night—my dominance and how you didn’t feel too happy about it. We need to clear the air about that and maybe a few other things. I think we should know what we’re getting in each other. Although, in your case, I feel I know, and there’s nothing that scares me.”
“Not even my worthless parents? I know we have to talk. Since you said what you just did, I guess I should explain more about them. They aren’t in our lives or very rarely when they flutter through this area. They’ll pop in like we should be thrilled to see them. They stay around for a week or two, and then they’re gone.
“I’ve raised my sisters all my life, even when our parents were around. They left them at sixteen. Their excuse was they were old enough and adults. They said the girls could take care of themselves. I called bullshit, and I moved them into my place. It was a one-bedroom. We made due for a few months until we found this place. Anyway, I’m bringing it up because even if they are adults, my sisters are like my kids. I’ll always watch out for them and have them as close as I can, Jake. If you and I are together, I’m a package deal. Can you handle that?”
Her fingers kneaded my scalp, and it felt so damn good, but I ignored it as I answered her. “Nothing you said about your sisters and you is a surprise to me. I know that you’ll always look out for them and want them close. I have no problem with it. And with me, you get the added eyes and protection of the entire club. As for your parents, hopefully, they’ll fall off the face of the planet and won’t ever come back. They won’t appreciate my words for them if they do show up. Who the hell can do that to their kids? But I guess all kinds make shitty parents. At least yours is nothing like what mine were, or at least my dad, mostly.”
I hated to talk about my earlier life, but if she was mine, then she deserved to know. I paused for a moment to get my emotions under control at the thought of him. I always became instantly infuriated at the thought of my dad.
“Jake, it’s clear from your body tension and expression that you had a bad childhood. If you don’t feel like talking about it, don’t,” she murmured.
“Thank you, baby, but you should know this. I didn’t have parents who would win any prizes. My mom wasn’t terrible. She was just a quiet ghost. When Dad was around, she tried to stay hidden and didn’t speak. When he wasn’t, she’d try to connect a tad with me, but by the time I was old enough to get my own breakfast and myself off to school, she stopped even that. I was six, I think.
“The real issue wasn’t her. It was him. On one hand, I couldn’t blame her for checking out, but on the other, I blamed her for not standing up to him and protecting us. My dad was an abusive bastard, Meadow. He mainly beat my mother. She had to do everything his way. She had no autonomy and wasn’t allowed to make a decision. But he’d beat her for not doing those things he told her to do to his satisfaction. It was a no-win situation with him.”
She stiffened. I knew exactly where her mind went.
“You’re thinking of what I said about in the bedroom. We’ll get to it, but I swear, my need to be in control there isn’t the same. When it came to my dad and me, he’d take a belt to me, slap, punch, or even kick me if I irritated him or got in his way. But it was never like he did with her. When I got older, I think I was fourteen, it changed. He tried to sit me down so he could tell and show me how to treat a woman so she didn’t get the upper hand. When he started berating and abusing Mom, I jumped up and told him he wasn’t a man. That he was a fucking coward, and I’d never be like him.”
“What did he do?” she asked fearfully.
“He beat me so bad I spent three days in the hospital. And before you ask, no one went after him for abuse because my mom denied it. Said I got jumped by a bunch of boys, and it was dark, so I had no clue who they were. God, I half hated her for doing that. It was the same shit she’d do whenever he got too out of control and she had to see a doctor. It was always the lame excuse that she fell or ran into something. I didn’t bother to contradict her. When I returned home, Dad and I more or less avoided each other as much as we could, but it would still happen once in a while, and we’d get into it.”
“Where are they now? Do you still have contact with at least your mom? Is she with him?” Meadow asked anxiously.
“Just listen. So, this went on for another three years. During that time, I shot up, gained my height, and always worked out. I packed on muscle. It got to the point that I was as big as him. However, Dad was constantly beating on Mom or someone smaller than him. He didn’t hone his fighting skills. I did. He relied on his bullying tactics and yelling. I fought not only boys larger than me, but I took on men. I was doing it by then for money, not that he knew it. I got my ass beat a lot at first, but eventually, I began to win. Finally, I became almost undefeatable.
“Then, one night, I came home, and he was angry about his dinner being five minutes late. He was screaming at her, throwing his plate, and I knew the beating was coming. I got between them. It had been a while since he and I had fought. He came at me, and I took him on. It was brutal, but in the end, he was the one unconscious on the floor, not me. I tried to get her to pack so we’d leave. She was too scared, and she couldn’t move or decide because she was so used to him making every decision for her. I attempted to carry her out of there, but when I did, she screamed and threw a fit, so I put her down.
“I decided to call the cops, but he’d torn the phone out of the wall, and we didn’t have cell phones back then. I urged her to come with me to make the call, but she wouldn’t. So I tied him up and told her to go to the bedroom and stay there until I came back. Then, I ran to the nearest neighbor, which was half a mile down the road. We lived in the country.
“The wife was home and let me in. She called the cops, and we told the person on the line what had happened. After we hung up, I told the wife that I had to go back because of Mom. She begged me to stay and wait for the police, but I knew my mom would be scared and confused, so I said no. I ran back home. As I got into the yard, I heard a gunshot.”
Meadow gasped, and her hands flew to her mouth. Her beautiful, mismatched eyes were glassy with tears. “Oh God, no,” she moaned.
“God wasn’t there that night. I got inside to find my dad standing over my mom’s body in the kitchen, where I’d left him tied up. She’d been shot in the chest and was dead. The rope I used to tie him up was cut and on the floor with the kitchen knife next to the pieces. From what the cops later pieced together, they believe he woke up, started yelling, ordering her around, and told her to cut him loose, and she did. After she did, he got his gun from the closet and shot her. I have no doubt he was coming to hunt me next.”
“What did you do?” Meadow whispered.
“I went crazy, and I charged him. We fought, and there was a helluva fight. He wasn’t in the best shape, so I was able to get the gun away from him. I tossed it out in the yard. I screamed at him, and he yelled about how she deserved it, and I wasn’t a man. He told me that your woman was to bow down to you. If she wouldn’t, you made her. We were arguing when he somehow grabbed the knife off the floor and came at me. I grabbed his arm, and we wrestled. I was concentrating on him so much I didn’t know the police had arrived and were yelling at us to come out. Suddenly, they came storming into the house. At that exact moment, the knife ended up in my dad’s gut. He was screaming about how I’d killed my mom and tried to kill him.”
“Did they believe him?”
“They might’ve, but the neighbor lady had followed me, and though she hadn’t come inside, she stood outside and watched. She heard everything he said, and she knew he did it.”
“Please tell me he died.”
“Nope. He did go to prison for second-degree murder. They said it wasn’t premeditated. That’s where he’s been for the past fifteen years. I hope he dies there. I wait every year to get the notification he has, but so far, I haven’t gotten that lucky. So you see, my parents are far worse than yours. Are you able to handle being with a man who has that blood in his veins?”
I tacked on the last part because I realized, as I recounted it to her, that she deserved not to take the risk, although I’d worked hard never to be like my dad. If she said she’d be mine despite it, I would have a safety net in place. Bull and the rest of my brothers were it. If there were ever a trace of me harming her or our children, they’d take my ass out permanently. I’d told Bull my history when I asked to join, and I made him swear, if he saw me turning into my old man, to kill me. He promised he would.
“Do you ever want to beat or hurt women or men? Have you raised your hand to a woman? Or slapped, kicked, punched, or hit a child? Do you have the urge to inflict pain and kill anyone?” she asked.
I recoiled. “Fuck no! But if I did, I wouldn’t be here. My club would’ve killed my ass. They promised me. I want to protect and shield. It was that tendency that earned me this bullet scar and the one on my thigh. I’ve spent years in counseling to understand myself and my parents. I know what to watch for and how not to react. I’ve worked on not reacting to my anger. I refocus it the majority of the time. It was one of the things that earned me the road name Iceman. They like to say I have ice water in my veins. That nothing gets to me. Apparently, I seem to have more of my mother in me in some ways than him. I can’t see myself ever hurting you or if we have kids, them, Meadow, but if I did, you would simply go to Bull or one of the others and tell them what I did. They’d make you safe.”
She raised herself so her mouth could meet mine. She kissed me, and it was a slow, passionate one that left me off-kilter when she was done. “Jake, if you tried to hurt me, our children, or my sisters, then Bull and the guys wouldn’t need to kill you. I probably would do it myself. Or if I didn’t. I’d leave and never come back.”
“No, don’t leave. If I got like that, like him, I’d come after you. Have the club take care of it. Don’t take chances. And when I was gone, they’d still look out for you.”
“Please, we have to stop talking like this. You’re not him. I won’t have to kill you or have you killed. I need you to explain where your need for control in the bedroom comes from and what it entails.”
“Believe it or not, it’s to make me and my partner feel secure. If I ensure your pleasure, then it amplifies mine. I get to care for you. Yes, it’s mostly in my way, but it would always be to please you. Before you, I did it without the additional piece of my partner being anyone I cared about other than as a human being. I didn’t love them or want them forever. In your case, I want you, and I’ll do almost anything to have you, but I want to make sure you’re safe, content, and everything else. I don’t know if that makes sense or not. My therapist explained it better.”
“Do you still see this therapist?” she asked.
“Only if I feel I need to.”
“Tell me what you would do in the bedroom,” she demanded.
“I’d tell you maybe what to wear or not wear. Dictate the positions I wanted. I’d tell you what things we were going to do. If toys are to be used, I’d want to pick them out.”
“So you do everything, and I just lay there and let you do it,” she said flatly. She went to move away from me, but I grasped her hips. I shook my head.
“No, never that. I’d want you active. The more you do as I ask, the more reward via pleasure I’ll give you. You can ask if there’s something you want to do. Or if there’s something you don’t like, then you can tell me, and I won’t force you to do it. The more in control I feel, the more easily I can relax and bring you satisfaction and pleasure, which in return gives those to me.”
“You said I’d be rewarded. What if I didn’t do as you said? What kind of punishments will you use?” she asked.
“It’s not like that with me. I don’t do the punishments and rewards. I simply do the reward part. If you don’t do it, then we both go without or have sex, but maybe don’t get as big of a high out of it. I don’t have whips and other stuff I want to use on you. I’m not opposed to spanking, but the sensual kind. Teasing you and prolonging your orgasm or denying it so you get off even harder, yes. Leaving you hurting and in need all night and not letting you come, no. I’m not like my brother Payne who’s into some sadistic shit, although it’s much less with Jayla.”
“What?” she gasped.
“Yep. But she’s a masochist to a degree, so it works for them. They belong to a kink club in Nashville called the House of Lustz. Sometimes, they go there to play.” I knew neither cared if anyone in the club knew about their likes. They freely talked about them to people if they wanted to listen.
“No way. I can’t see Jayla having sex in front of a bunch of people, Jake.”
“They don’t do that. They do watch others have sex and do demonstrations, but they play in a private room. No way would Payne let others see Jayla naked. He’s very possessive of her. Something he never was before he met her.”
“Have you ever been to this club?”
“I have not. I admit, I’ve been curious, but it didn’t feel right to go there without someone special who would go with me.”
“Would you go with me if I said I wanted to go?”
“Yes, if you truly did and would be okay with it.” I felt a flutter of excitement in my gut at the thought.
“Hmm, we’ll have to see. Alright, you’ve given me a lot to think about, Jake. I know it wasn’t easy, so thank you for sharing all that with me. Is there anything else you think we should talk about tonight?”
I couldn’t tell if she was handling it exceptionally well or was holding back until I was gone, at which point she’d refuse to see me again.
“I know I gave you a ton to consider, and you need time. Just remember everything you knew about me before tonight and weigh it against what I told you. I’ll head out so you can think. Will you please let me know when you’ve decided? If you have more questions, call me. I’ll answer them no matter what.”
“Is there a reason you’re trying to run out of here? I thought you told me to hold on to a thought earlier. Did you forget or decide you didn’t want it after all?” she asked.
I stared at her as if struck mute. My brain didn’t want to believe what it heard. It took me a couple of seconds to croak out a response. “You want me to stay? What about what I told you? Thinking it over? Deciding if you can take a chance with me?”
“I might not know everything about you or even known you for long, Jake, but I feel it to my soul that there’s no way you’re like your fucking father. He’s a monster. And while your mom was weak and should’ve not only protected herself but you, I’m not weak. I can stand up for myself. I’ve been fighting, taking care of, and protecting myself and my sisters since their birth. I know when and how to stay and fight or when to walk the fuck away. Honestly, I get tired of always being the one to make decisions and be the strong one who controls it all. I won’t know until we get more into the sexual side of our relationship if I can handle you being in control most of the time, but I’m willing to try.”
“And I’m willing to tone it down if that’s what makes you happier. It’s about making you feel the most pleasure, safety, and happiness. If that’s what it takes, I’ll be less controlling in the bedroom.”
“But I don’t want you to sacrifice your satisfaction or any of that for me,” she warned.
“It won’t. Jesus, I can’t believe you’re willing to do this after all that. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
I grabbed her ass cheeks and raised her by them so I could capture her mouth. She greedily kissed me back. It was a mutual frenzy that overtook both of us. When we had to take a break to catch our breaths, I stood up with her in my arms. I was taking her to her room to have her uphold her earlier promise. I walked down the hallway. I knew where the bathroom, the twin’s room, and the laundry were, so the only other door had to be her bedroom and bathroom. I was more anxious tonight. This would impact our lives, and I just hoped it would be positive. I’d let her see more of me.