Page 16

Tank

“ H ow in the fuck did you get here? And what’s on your jeans?” Rhodie asks as he hands Chomper off to Dex who juggles the poor little guy before getting a good handle on him.

Rhodie strides to his Ol Lady and doesn’t even wait for her to answer his questions, just cups her cheeks and starts devouring her face. Tav is doing much the same, on a gentler level, his hand cupping Blanche’s small bump.

He pulls back then repeats Rhodie’s question. “How the fuck did you get here?”

“In Chewy’s new ride,” Blanche replies, rolling her eyes.

“What!?” Rhodie, Gus and Jules all yell.

“Yeah! Come see it. I also have a little surprise in there for you all,” She waves us all to follow her and we trickle out.

Mira’s hand bumps against mine and I take it in my larger, rougher one. Real smooth like. She beams up at me and I hold her gaze, drowning in her emerald depths, until we’re interrupted by a mechanical whirring sound.

“Is that a lift?” Mira’s confused face watches as Chewy slowly descends to the ground on what looks to be a wheelchair hoist.

“Behold! My new ride. Isn’t she magnificent? And look! We can move bikes, pianos,” She gives the crowd a wink, “bodies,”

As soon as the words leave her mouth we all see the man slumped to the ground behind her on an awkward angle.

“Chewy, who the fuck is that?” Gus asks, a pained look on his face.

“This is Morc. Or the Maui Orc guy that had that stuff sent to Mira.” She gives him a swift kick when he starts to whine.

I flick my gaze to Mira, trying to do a check in to make sure she’s OK with what’s going on. I mean, most normal people wouldn’t be. They’d get one whiff of this and bail out. I’m half expecting that to be the case but when I glance at her I see…excitement. Her eyes are wide and there’s a smile playing on her lips.

“You kidnapped the kidnapper!” She claps a little.

“Uno reverse motherfucker!” Pops crows, high fiving the girl gang.

Marx holds his hand out to Gus who hands him an antacid. He throws it back and takes a deep breath. “Men, you know what to do. Chewy and Blanche, debrief stat.”

They nod, snuggle into their men and wander into the clubhouse, Takoda and Rider escorting Morc.

“This is so cool. Like can you believe those little ladies uno reversed their kidnapper? Like how the heck is that even possible? One of them is pregnant! That’s total girl power right there, pow, pow!” Mira starts punching the air and giggling and I can’t take my eyes off her.

How in the fuck my stoic ass has gotten this far with her is beyond me. I’m boring. Too quiet, too focussed, too inflexible, too messed up for someone this vibrant. I mean, if my parents couldn’t even be bothered with me, why would this colorful creature?

“You’re thinking,” she glides her pointer finger over the pinched skin between my brows.

“I’m always thinking.”

“Maybe just feel.” She smiles softly then presses a feather light kiss to my lips, pulling back too soon. “Come on, I wanna hear the girl power story. Then I’m gonna emulate it and hopefully not get arrested. That’s always a possibility you know.” She tugs on my hand and I follow her into the common room.

It’s silent. Gus is pinching the bridge of his nose and Marx has his head down, no doubt psyching himself up for some fucked up story. “What happened?”

Blanche and Chewy look at each other, from their positions on their Ol Men’s laps.

“We wanted to have a word with Whitney,” Blanche hedges.

“And then?” Marx presses.

Blanche tries to share a look with Chewy, but Chewy is looking elsewhere, tapping her fingers. This usually means she’s put together something in her mind, or she’s coming up with a not so honest story.

“And then we saw the guy she was with. The one that’s now in the Rev Room,” Chewy casually throws a thumb over her shoulder, accidentally jabbing Rhodie with it.

“And how did you go from having a word with Whitney and then being kidnapped? Hmm?”

“Oh for shit’s sake,” Blanche throws her hands up, “Whitney was there with Morc and some other gross, damp looking guy. We got ourselves kidnapped, Whitney went off with the grossy and then we got unkidnapped. We-” Blanche points between her and Chewy, “are badass bitches who can handle ourselves. We caught a bad guy and we found out some stuff.” Blanche crosses her arms over her chest and harrumphs, Tav burying his nose in her hair, his shoulders vibrating until Blanche spins in his arms and gives him a look that could shrivel a man’s balls.

Marx lets out a long sigh, “I’m not saying you two can’t look after yourselves. But you need to remember that you both are family, and when shit like this goes down it worries us all. Same as if one of the brothers was out there somewhere without us knowing. Just, try not to do it again, OK?”

Blanche’s face softens and she nods at the same time Chewy mumbles, “I can’t promise anything.”

Mira snorts, her hand pumping mine a couple of times. I pump hers back and also try to hide my smirk. I glance at Mira at the same time she side eyes me and I have to look away before I get the giggles. What the hell have I become? Happy? Giggly? Smiley? I shake my head to clear it and tune back into what the girls have found out.

“There’s nothing much in the van. Just some fast food wrappers and his employee badge to some funeral home in Ironwood.” Blanche says.

“Wait, what’s the name of the funeral home?” Nitro asks.

“Willow and Iron Funeral Home.”

“He’s our man. I’m sure if we show Flora a picture of him she’ll recognize him as the Orc guy,” Gus comments.

“He also has the opportunity to acquire the parts he’s sending to Mira.” Savage adds.

“I don’t think it’s him,” Chewy states, matter of factly, her fingers tapping quicker.

“What the hell do you mean it isn’t him?” Rhodie looks at the top of her head, puzzled look on his face.

“I don’t think it’s him either,” Mira pipes up. She looks around the room before turning to look at me. I love when she addresses me and me alone, no one else. I’m sure a whore for her attention and I don’t give a shit. “I have very few male readers,” her eyes dart to the Pres before landing on me again, “It doesn’t make sense that it would be him.”

“Unless he’s obsessed with you,” Dex offers, causing a growl to escape me.

Mira grins up at me and pats my chest, snorting, “Nope, that’s not a thing.”

Marx looks thoughtful for a moment, before turning back to Chewy. “Why do you think he’s not the guy?”

“Same reason as Mira. And he said ‘she isn’t paying me enough for this shit’. When we asked why he was working for Whitney in the first place, he said he wasn’t. Someone else is pulling the strings, and it’s a woman.”

“You know, there is one very fun, very fast way to find out,” Pops says in a bored voice.

“Rev Room?” Chewy asks, her face filled with hope.

“What’s the Rev Room?” Mira whispers, leaning into me. Her warm breath teases my Adam’s Apple and I have to fight to stay focused.

“Um, it’s where Chewy likes to interrogate people. The Ol Ladies all chill out in here so you’ll be in good company,” I smile gently down at her and hope like hell she accepts that her place is here, in the nice warm common room that won’t be filled with a grown man’s screams for mercy.

“Oh I like the sound of that! I think I really need to see this place for research.” She nods seriously.

“Doll, that’s a no can do. It’s not because you’re a woman or anything like that, but it’s for plausible deniability. We need to keep it strictly on a need to know basis.”

“Will the Tombs’ be in there?”

“Well, yeah, but they’ve been doing this shit for a long time. They may be a little different, but they’ve worked with the best of them, CIA, FBI, they know how to lock things down.”

“And you don’t think I can?” She turns to look at me front on, and I can see the confusion, and maybe even hurt in her beautiful green eyes.

“That’s not it, Doll.” I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly, gathering my thoughts. Mira waits patiently, as always. “I know you write torture and murder and all manner of horrific things, but writing it and seeing it happen to a real life person, hearing their cries and screams, is not something that you can ever forget. It’ll take a piece of you and I can’t have that. I love you exactly as you are, kind, funny, a little ridiculous and a lot clever.” My big ham-sized fists, as she calls them, reach to cup her face, my thumbs grazing over the plump apples of her cheeks. “You’re light Mira, in a world full of shade. Am I an asshole for wanting to keep you that way?”

Her eyes dart between mine, looking for the lie and finding none. A small smile plays on her lips, then grows in size, “Did you just say that you love me, Tyson Jingleheimer Schmidt?”

Laughter bubbles up in my chest and I set it free, tipping my head back, causing my brothers to throw me a few shocked looks. “That is most definitely not my name, Doll,”

She shrugs one shoulder, “Sounded good to me,”

Her eyes twinkle and I gently press a kiss to her plump pink lips, lingering for a moment. “I meant every word I said.”

She lets out a gentle sigh, then turns to the room, jolting when she sees that everyone has been watching the whole exchange. “Um, hi,” She sing songs and waves awkwardly. “Cover me,” she hisses at me. “On the count of three we’ll slowly edge to the doorway, escape all the eyes on us,” she frantically whispers.

“You know we can hear you, right?” Rider asks, a cocky grin on his face.

“No! You didn’t hear anything!” Mira yells, pointing in his direction then letting her finger glide around the room at the shit eating grins on everyone’s faces.

“Another brother bites the dust,” Fox laments, shaking his head.

Mira lets out a huff and speeds up her shuffling, her grip on my cut dragging me backwards in tiny increments because I’m a big, heavy fucker.

“Rev Room brother?” Marx asks, lips twitching.

“I think I’ll sit this one out Pres.”

“Fair enough. Have a good night.” He nods once. “You have a good night too, Mira,” he calls loudly.

Mira lets out a meep and scurries down the hall, leaving me to chuckle at her plump ass running away from me.

Mira

I race down the hall, burst into Tyson’s room and throw myself on the bed. The thought of suffocation rolls through my mind but then I remember that I want to live a long, healthy life with the man who said he loves me so my self preservation kicks in and I make a little breathing hole. Although I do lament the fact that I don’t have a blowhole. That would make this wallowing a little easier.

A warm hand lands on my back and Tyson does that thing where he pets me like I’m a massive cat. “You alright babe? You know there’s nothing to be embarrassed of, right? Rhodie and Chewy are always eating each other’s faces. So are the other couples. It’s no big deal.”

I roll my face sideways on the covers so one eye can peer up at his stupid handsome face. “I just didn’t realize we were hard launching anything. Or that we even were anything. I’m me, and you’re you, all perfect and hard and strong and silent and that jawline, I swear to god that jawline could cut cheese. Argh!”

Tyson gathers his thoughts a moment, then I feel his large hands under my armpits and in one swift move he scoops me up and plops me sitting up on the bed. “Alright, there’s a couple of things in that sentence that we need to address. First off, this is most definitely something. Or at least I hope it is. Do, um, do you want it to be something?”

“God yes! So much that it makes my heart feel like it’s beating out of my chest every time I see you. Which is all the time because my eyes find you as soon as you walk in. It’s like I can’t help but seek you out.” I blow out a breath and peek at him.

He’s beaming at me with his stupidly hot smile. “Well, that’s good seeing as I hard launched us, as you called it.” he runs a finger down my cheek. “Good, that’s sorted. Which brings me to my next point. The way you think about me is the same way I think about you. You’re perfect and loud and fun and curvy and so fucking beautiful it takes my breath away. The way you seek me out is the same way I seek you out. I know when you’re in a room because my heart settles, as if it knows my other half is near.”

I blink the moisture from my eyes, trying not to sob with happiness, fear still gripping me. “What if you get sick of me? Get sick of my voice and my chaos? What if I’m not enough for you? We’re polar opposites!”

“Yeah, we are. But I also know, in here,” He taps his giant fist to his chest, “That you, my beautiful hurricane, are my perfect counterpoint. The other half to my soul. The part of me that is outgoing and funny and light and bright, that part of me is in you.”

He smiles gently as I cup his face, pressing a kiss to my palm before leaning into it. I listen to him, as I always have, and let my fears fall away. “You, Tyson, are the other half of me. The calm, quiet, steady half of me.” I lick my dry lips, swallowing and making sure I have his full attention. “I love you.”

His lips crash into mine, nipping and sipping, licking and tasting, devouring me and my words. His hands gently push through my curls, cupping the back of my head, tilting me at just the perfect angle for him, for us. I grind up against him, the hips circling with need. I’m not even sure how we ended up with me on my back, Tyson between my splayed legs but I’m not complaining. I need this man, like I need air.

My hands explore his thick body, the heat of his skin almost scorching as I run my hands up under his clothing trying to get his shirt off. Without taking his lips off me he leans back, first divesting himself of his cut, then breaking our contact long enough to grip his shirt behind his neck and tug it off. Fuck that’s hot! That’s right Nana, I had to say it. No other words would suffice.

Taking his lead I quickly and unsexily strip off my shirt and bra, then grab him and pull him on top of me, wanting to feel him, skin to skin.

“Fuck baby, you’re so soft, so sweet, so fucking perfect,” he mumbles as he kisses down the column of my neck. I angle my head to give him more access, nipping at the skin of his shoulder when he hits a particularly sensitive spot.

My hussy hips are grinding against his denim clad length and I whimper with need.

“I’ve got you, I’ve always got you,” Tyson pops the button on my jeans, pulls the zipper down excruciatingly slowly and then grips the waistband of my jeans, ready to tug them down.

“Tank!” A hard bang on the door jolts me out of my sex haze. “Need you brother!”

“No no no no!” I sob, “I was this close to having a real life man inside my vajayjay! Go away whoever you are!”

“Ahhh sorry?”

Knowing that they won’t go away and now I wont find my peak I let myself flop backwards, Tyson rolling onto his back beside me. I whine, my body in a fog of unorgasmed lust, my core on fire and clenching for something that I can’t have. I want to beat my fists on the bed, but that isn’t a very grown woman thing to do, so instead I pout.

Tyson lets out a rough growl and then jackknifes up distracting me from my thoughts because who can even do that from lying flat? Not me, that’s for sure.

“Sorry baby, I know you are hurting for me, but duty calls,” He presses a rough kiss to my lips and gets to his feet, pulling on his shirt and cut, shoving his rainbow covered toes into his boots.

I huff out a sigh and pull on a top, whispering an apology to my girls. They’re sad they’re not out in the open having fun with Tyson anymore.

“Tank! We got trouble!”

We share a look and then both run out the door, down the hall into chaos.