Page 35 of Nave (Henchmen MC: Next Generation #14)

She pushed me back until I moved flat on the floor, looking up at her as she climbed over me. Reaching down, she fisted my cock as she straddled me, holding me where she needed me, then sliding quickly down. She threw her head back and moaned as I filled her.

“Fuck,” I groaned, sucking in a deep breath as her pussy tightened around my cock.

Her eyes slid open, gaze finding mine, and the hunger there had my own need growing.

Luckily for the both of us, Lolly wasn’t in a slow, soft, explorative mood.

She rode me hard and fast as our breaths grew ragged and sweat prickled.

Then, with a strangled cry, she came, taking me with her.

She came over me then, her face nestled in my neck as my arms started to slide up and down her back.

“I needed that,” she admitted.

“Me too.”

Lost in the moment, neither of us knew it was the night our family grew by one.

Lolly - 10 years

“You might not want to—” I started to warn my son as he tried to pick up a hen who was not feeling it. “Never mind,” I mumbled to myself as the rooster came out of nowhere and started chasing our boy around like a man on a mission.

“Mama!” he squealed, running toward me with the roo right on his heels. I snatched him up and placed him on top of the table, much to the bird’s chagrin.

“He’s mean,” my son declared with a pout.

“That’s not fair,” Nave said, coming over with our toddler on his hip. “He was protecting his girl. That’s what he’s supposed to do. And you’re not supposed to put your hands on anything that doesn’t want to be touched, right?”

“Now you won’t do it again,” our eldest said, nodding her blonde head to emphasize her point.

She was a staunch defender of the small, weak, hurt, or downtrodden. Especially when it came to animals. And she was constantly annoyed with her little brother for not being as gentle or empathetic as she was. She once cried for an hour when he (unknowingly) stepped on a beetle.

I saw a lot of both of us in our daughter.

Yes, of course, she couldn’t look like Nave.

But she did favor me in the looks departement.

Same kind of build, same light hair. That said, she had so much of Nave in her that I immediately believed that DNA didn’t matter nearly as much as environment.

She was patient, calm, and generous. She always looked for ways to help. And she loved helping in the kitchen.

Our son? He was rough and energetic and dove first into things without giving them much forethought, much like a lot of his uncles. But he was still as sweet as could be with our senior dogs. And he always had his baby brother’s back.

We hadn’t told the kids about their soon-to-be sister. But I knew without a doubt that her big siblings would be her biggest champions.

“I have your mozzarella,” Ariah declared, coming out of her home.

It was different.

A lot around the homestead was.

Kit and Ariah’s lives had moved forward just like everyone else’s. They met men, fell in love, started new families. Their former tiny homes reflected that growth with several expansions each.

But some things never changed.

The orchard, the fields, the animals, and the goodies we all snuck over to mooch off them.

Like Ariah’s mozzarella when we were having a homemade pizza night at Lazarus and Bethany’s house.

“You are a goddess among women,” I said, taking the cooler from her.

“Yeah, I know,” she said, smiling. “I saw you getting chased,” she said, looking at our son.

“He shouldn’t have tried to pick up the chicken,” our girl said, her chin lifting.

“True. But sometimes we have to learn things like that through experience,” Ariah said. “Did he get you?” she asked our boy.

“No.”

“Okay. Good. Do you want to try to make nice with all of them? We can feed them bugs.”

“ Real bugs?” he asked, immediately on board.

“Well, they’re dead, but yes,” Ariah said, offering her hand, and our son was quick to jump down and go with her.

“I don’t like the bugs,” our girl said, her cute nose wrinkling up.

There’d been a time when she was a toddler and absolutely lost her mind when her hands or shirt got dirty that Nave and I worried that the issues with dirt might have been genetic. But after a quick consult with a psychiatrist, we’d carefully done some exposure therapy and overcome the issue.

She wasn’t grossed out at the idea of how dirty bugs were; she morally objected to feeding bugs to animals. She was currently off of meat for the same reason. And Nave and I were very thankful for the selection of vegan “meats” the grocery store had to offer.

“Hold up, I’m coming!” Kit called, rushing up with her pale lilac hair flowing behind a pretty pink bandana she had on. A basket filled with various veggies and herbs. “I got some herbs and veggies for your pizza night: basil, of course, some oregano, cilantro, onion, pepper, and some mushrooms!”

“Finally!” I said, excited for her, knowing how much they’d struggled to get that particular crop to grow in the area.

“Right? Sure, we had to build a freaking mushroom shed to make it happen, but now we have all kinds of mushrooms growing. More stuff for the farm stand. Are you going to put veggies on your pizza?” Kit asked our girl.

She tried not to let her face scrunch up. “Maybe.”

She absolutely would not.

“Kind of hard to be a vegetarian if you don’t eat veggies, babe,” Kit said, mussing up her hair. “Take the basket. Drop it off next time you visit.”

“Mom!” our son yelled, running up so fast he tripped over his constantly untied shoes, dropped to his knees, then rushed to his feet again.

“How did the chickens like the worms?”

“One of them ate a horse fly!” he said, his eyes huge. “It was awesome!”

“As someone who has been bitten by one of those jerks,” Ariah said, “it was pretty awesome.”

“We get flies in the house sometimes,” our boy declared.

“Nice try, kid,” Nave said. “We’re not getting a house chicken.”

“Lizards eat bugs,” he said, making his eyes all big, looking super innocent.

It was moments like that when we saw the genius hidden behind all the outward crazy.

The kid had been dropping hints about getting a damn reptile for months.

But since children couldn’t be trusted to take care of pets, and neither Nave nor I was all that fond of the idea of feeding a lizard live bugs, we were leaning toward staying a dog family.

“Speaking of bugs,” Kit said, shooting us a smirk. She was a mom herself. She knew how important a change in conversation was at times. “I can expect you to come and check on the monarchs the day after tomorrow, right?” she asked the kids.

That got a lot of enthusiasm. And I couldn’t help but love how much my kids adored the homestead.

Sure, it had only been my home for a very short period of time, but it had left such an impact.

This place, these women, they had been such an integral part of my healing.

I was so glad my kids could find their own appreciation of it.

We had so much to offer our kids.

And I would be eternally grateful for this big, crazy, amazing family we got to be a part of.

“Ready to go see Grandma and Grandpa?” I asked, needing both myself, Nave, Kit, and Ariah to corral the kids into the car.

“What’s that look?” Nave asked when we got to Lazarus and Bethany’s house.

“What do you think about ditching the kids with your parents, getting takeout, and eating in bed in a quiet house?”

“I think that’s just another reason I married you,” he said, reaching for my hand and giving it a kiss.

Nave - 20 years

“Turn on the news,” Dezi said as soon as I answered the phone.

Lolly looked over at me, brows pinched as I reached for the remote to turn it on.

“What the fuck?” I murmured.

“Thought you’d want to know,” Dezi said before ending the call.

The news reporter stood on the edge of the highway, a microphone to her face.

“Fire crews responded early Tuesday morning to a massive blaze that consumed a glass house estate deep in the woods just behind me here, completely destroying the remote home.

‘The house itself was a total loss,’ said Fire Chief Ned Wilson. ‘But interestingly, the fire did not spread into the adjacent woods. That’s unusual for a structure fire of this size, especially given the proximity of the trees.’

“Officials confirmed no injuries were reported. The property was vacant at the time.

“The cause of the fire is under investigation, though authorities said they have no suspects at this time. Investigators are working to determine why the blaze remained confined to the house rather than spreading into the heavily wooded acreage nearby.

“For now, the remains of the glass house stand as a blackened skeleton, a stark contrast to the untouched greenery around it.

“This is Angela Tipper, Channel 12 News.”

“Holy shit,” Lolly gasped, glancing over at me.

But my gaze had slid from the TV toward the doorway to the kitchen. Where our eldest was leaning, a spoon stuck in the pint of cookie dough ice cream, her head cocked to the side, her familiar eyes holding a wholly unfamiliar look.

She’d showered each day since that night she came home, smelling like a bonfire, but I swear I could still smell the smoke clinging to her hair when she moved past me.

It was just a few months ago that Lolly and I had sat her down to tell her about Lolly’s past. About her father, who she’d always known was dead, but whose past we’d protected her from.

But she was an adult now.

She was smart.

She had questions.

And she had the dogged determination to get answers.

So we decided to finally give them to her.

She’d been upset, of course, for what her mom had gone through, for the monster her biological father was. But as far as we could tell, she’d processed it, she’d moved on from it.

Apparently, we’d really miscalculated there.

“Funny, isn’t it?” she said, pushing off the doorjamb, “that the fire knew just where to stop, so no innocents got hurt?”

With that, she walked down the hall to her bedroom, leaving me and her mother stunned into a long silence.

“What the hell?” Lolly said, glancing over at me. “She’s our calm, rational, stable kid.”

“Honestly, seems like she made a calm and rational plan. The stable part is debatable, though.”

“Do you think there’s a chance they could find her out?”

“I think if there is anyone in the world who can make sure they don’t, it’s you,” I said, slipping an arm around her.

“True,” she agreed, exhaling hard as she rested her head on my shoulder.

“How do you feel about it?”

“Honestly? Relieved. I always kind of hated the idea of someone coming across the place and seeing the same opportunity that Ben saw. Though, I’m not sure how I feel about my daughter being an arsonist.”

“I mean, she’s a club princess,” I reasoned. “There’s not a fully stable one of them.”

“That’s always kind of what I loved best about them,” Lolly agreed. “And it is the first time she’s ever done anything even remotely dangerous.”

“We should be impressed at her ambition and talent.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Lolly said with a laugh.

“She loves you so much that she wanted to destroy the place that caused you so much pain. She’s a great kid. We can be proud.”

“Yeah,” Lolly agreed. “We did good with her.”

The rumble of a motorcycle peeling up to the house, driven by someone who was absolutely not supposed to be operating the bike, had us both sighing.

“Now with that one, I’m not so sure,” I said, getting a laugh out of my wife.

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