But when Dutch was eighteen and Jag sixteen and Hound had taken them out for a burger like he did on more than the rare occasion, Jag had been in a shitty mood, Dutch had been quiet, and when he’d coaxed it out of them, they’d shared, “Mom’s bangin’ some loser.”
That had cut him but he hadn’t let it show. He’d just had to dig deep to find some glad to give Keely that she was taking care of business and find a way to try to talk her boys around to that way of thinking.
When he took the boys to the firing range a couple months later, though, Jag was all smiles, happy his mother had, “Scraped that loser off.”
So as much as it sucked, as gorgeous as she was, as much as she had to give, that her not getting it regular was a goddamn waste, at least she got some.
But he was wondering if getting that four years ago was the last she got.
Because the woman had stamina. He’d found it tough to keep up.
And now he was drained dry.
As he had these thoughts, she whipped her head around, her hair flying and gliding and he looked into her brown eyes.
“I have to go,” she muttered.
Oh yeah.
Christ yeah.
She had to go.
“This didn’t happen,” he said.
Her eyebrows twitched before she asked, “It didn’t?”
“Babe,” he grunted.
He said no more.
But he didn’t have to.
She might have lost her old man seventeen years ago and she’d embraced that choker she wore, but she was an old lady through and through. She knew this would tear the Club apart and put Hound in a serious situation he might not find a way out of.
He just had to hope she had enough feeling for him she wouldn’t take it to that place.
Her lips curved up right before she slid up so she was not at an angle, but full out on top of him, her face in his.
He had fucked her repeatedly, ate her the same, spanked her, got blown by her, but in all that, except for the first one she’d laid on him, he’d not kissed her.
His chest heated with her face that close, her mouth that close, that look a look he hadn’t seen on her face in years that close.
“You’re a fantastic fuck, Hound.”
“Glad I could be of service,” he muttered.
Her smile got bigger.
Then her eyes dropped to his mouth and she murmured, “Mama’s feelin’ naughty, she knows where to go.”
He rolled his eyes back to the ceiling because he was drained dry, and still the bitch could make his cock twitch.
He felt her soft body shaking on his with her quiet laughter.
“Hound,” she called.
He looked at her to see she was not laughing anymore.
“This is our secret,” she said quietly.
“Obliged,” he replied.
Then she blindsided him.
“I need you to bring me my checks, baby,” she whispered.
Even as he put his hands to the sides of her waist and dug his fingers in, he returned, “That’s not a good idea, Keely.”
“I need you, Hound.”
He had nothing left, so he dug deep and didn’t let it show on his face how much that meant when he said, “You don’t need me when you got Chaos.”
“You know I need you, Hound. You. You know why. You know how it is with us.”
He did not.
“Don’t pull away from me,” she finished.
“Woman—”
Both her hands grabbed his cheeks and she got deeper in his face.
“You’re mine and you know it. You’re all I have left. Don’t take that away from me.”
This was about Black.
However she had it fucked up in her head, somehow, this was about Black.
He should set her straight about that, bring her the checks, make sure she knew he was there, he had her back, but do it in a way she knew he wasn’t there to tap her ass when she needed an orgasm.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t capable of finding the way to do that when she was naked on top of him, also naked in his bed.
“You’re rich as fuck, baby, hire a house cleaner,” she said when he didn’t respond.
“This place is a shithole, Keely, and it’s not my dirt that’s making it that. You don’t hire a cleaner to scrub down an outhouse.”
Her head tipped to the side. “It’s your home.”
“It’s a shithole where I crash and watch TV every once in a while.”
“Then find someplace nicer. You got the money. A pad where you’d like to hang and keep nice.”
He was not moving.
He had a reason to stay and until that reason was no longer, he was staying.
And no matter he spent the last four hours fucking and getting fucked by Keely Black, a dream he’d dreamed for twenty years, she didn’t have a right to understand that.
“Babe, you wrung my balls dry. I don’t even think I got the energy to lift my head from this pillow. I definitely don’t have the energy to spar with you about somethin’ stupid like where I crash, which don’t mean dick. Give a man a break.”
That brought back her smile.
He’d seen zero of those in seventeen years.
And it sucked just how damn good it felt having it back.
“Right, I’ll quit busting your balls . . . this time. But when I come back, honey, you best have clean sheets.”
His fingers dug in again. “You’re not comin’ back, Keely.”
Her head tipped to the side again. “I’m not?”
“No. It was fuckin’ great, but all the same it was still fuckin’ stupid.”
“I’m focusing on the fucking great part,” she told him.
“Keely, do not fuck with me, with this, with where we’re at, which I’m takin’ from shit you’re sayin’ means as much to you as it does me. It was great, babe. Fantastic. Fucking spectacular. But it’s a one-time thing. I’ll bring you your checks. You got me. You’ll never lose me. Your boys are so deep in my heart I’d take a bullet for them. But this, what we did, is done. You with me?”
That was when it happened.
That was when Keely kissed him again.
Not deep or long, but it was wet. She touched her tongue to his, giving him a hint of her nectar even as he still had the taste of her pussy on his tongue.
Then she pulled away.
“Okay, Hound,” she whispered. “Whatever you say.”
He rounded her with his arms, allowed himself to give her a hug with a squeeze, then he rolled her off him and rolled the other way.
He hauled his ass out of bed, muttering, “Get rid of this condom and then I’ll get your clothes.”
She said nothing.
But by the time he got out of the bathroom, his bed was empty.
He found his jeans, tugged them on and stalked down the hall.
She was pulling her hair out of the back of her top, but was otherwise fully dressed except her shoes and jacket, when he hit his living room.
It was not lost on him that the bone choker had not moved from her neck the whole time they were fucking.
No, and just looking at it right then made him want his face in her neck, her ass in his hands, and his dick buried in her up to the hilt.
She slid her feet into her shoes, swinging her jacket on at the same time, before she tossed a big smile his way.
“See ya later, cowboy,” she said as she walked to his door.
He crossed his arms on his chest.
She looked down at his chest and smirked.
“Best tats in the Club,” she whispered, her hand on his doorknob. “Walking work of art.”
He tensed his jaw so he wouldn’t rush her, nab her and chain her to his bed.
Her gaze lifted to his. “Now I know that’s more ways than one.”
“Stop bein’ a pain in my ass,” he grunted.
“Pain’s in my ass, cowboy,” she shot back still smiling, but it went another way and he felt
that way drive up his balls. “And I like it like that.”
With that excellent parting shot, she disappeared out his door.
Hound growled at it.
Then he went to it, locked it and walked right back down the hall.
He couldn’t even look at his bed with its sheets that were fucked up and not from him sleeping in them.
So he turned his back on it and fell to it.
He swiped his face with his hands, and when he was done doing that, he kept them there.
“Fuck me, that was a huge fuckup,” he muttered into his palms.
This was true.
It was also the best four hours of his life.
Bar none.
The next day, after taking care of his usual morning business, Hound did not strip his bed and wash his sheets.
Oh no.
Fuck no.
He went to the store and spent five hundred dollars on a new set.
A Woman Who Loves You
The morning after he bought his sheets, Hound’s alarm clock sounded.
He did not hit snooze.
He turned it off, rolled out of bed, went to his bathroom, took a piss, washed his hands, brushed his teeth, splashed water on his face and under his pits then he went back into his bedroom to pull on some jeans, a tee, some socks and his boots.
He headed out, nabbed his keys, unlocked his door, walked through it and down the hall to the door beside his.
He didn’t hesitate to insert the key in the three different locks, open them and let himself in.
He also didn’t hesitate to walk across the stuffed-full room that was a lot cleaner than his because he did pay a house cleaner to come in to that pad once a week, dust, vacuum, mop, clean the bathrooms, change the sheets and take out and bring back the laundry.
Hound didn’t hesitate at all on his way to his morning location where he journeyed every day, but he did stop at the door that was cracked open. The door to the bedroom that shared a wall with his living room.
He knocked on the jamb.
“You up?” he called.
He got the usual answer, “Yes, sweetheart.”
Hound pushed the door open and further didn’t hesitate to stroll right in, his eyes to the woman in the bed.
“Yo,” he greeted, smiling at her.
She smiled back.
He stopped at the side of her bed.
“What we doin’ this mornin’?” he asked.
“Shower, motek. Okay?”
He nodded. Reaching to the side to grab her walker, he positioned it how she needed it then he moved how he needed to move, pulling down the covers and carefully taking hold of the frail, thin body in its granny nightie.
With practice, they went through the motions until she had her slippers on and her hands firm on the walker.
He turned from her and let her shuffle her way toward the bathroom as he walked right to it.
He checked the angle of the showerhead, the seat in the bath, not that they would ever change position since him and her cleaner were the only ones to touch either, but that needed to be like it needed to be so Hound never failed to check it.
He also checked the towels and moved her shit from where it was out of the way to where she’d need to grab it when the time came.
She came in behind him and he helped her get into position. With practice, he was able to look away even as he pulled up her nightie and yanked down her granny panties that she insisted be put on over the adult diaper she wore.
“Good?” he muttered when he had her as she needed to be.
“Thanks, sweetie,” she whispered.
Grasping his forearms as hard as she could, which was feeble, he twisted his hands to hold hers as gentle as he could and still do the job that needed to get done. He held her steady while she slowly aimed her ass at the john.
Once she hit it, not looking at her, he walked out, closing the door behind him in a way that it was still open a crack.
He had never made his bed. Even when he’d changed his sheets the day before, he put them on, tossed the comforter on top and that was it.
Every day, he made Jean’s.
“Done, Shepherd!” she called.
He threw a pillow to the headboard and walked back to the bathroom.
He left her where she was and turned on the shower so it’d be nice and hot when he got her in there.
And then they danced the dance they’d been dancing every morning for years after he had grabbed a towel and handed it to her.
He never caught a look and by the time he lifted her scrawny body up, she had the towel down her front.
It got totally wet, but he’d bought her a shit ton of them so they could go through three or four, or however many they needed, so she could have her modesty and her shower.
“Shout out, beautiful, yeah?” he told her, still not looking at her and moving to the door.
“Of course,” she murmured.
He closed it to its crack and moved in the kitchen.
He made coffee and checked her pill case. Then her pill stash. She was getting low on a few so he wrote that on her grocery list, saw the list was getting long, so he yanked it off and shoved it in his back pocket.
He looked to her easy chair, saw she’d dropped a book to the floor, so he knew she was done with it. This meant he went to the stack he organized for her in the way she wanted it and did the rotation in order that she had a big pile so that she’d always have one to read close at hand, even if she finished one or started three she didn’t like the way they were going.
He checked her bottle of Baileys and saw she was good with that but made a mental note to stock her up. He cleared the area, set it up for the day including filling the water pitcher, putting out a glass for that, her squat glass for her Baileys when that time came, and then he went back to her room.
Fresh granny panties. Fresh diaper. Bra. Housecoat.
With timing borne of practice, he’d sorted all that shit right when he heard her call him.
Back to the bathroom, she was sopping wet, sitting on her bath seat, the towel held over her front, blinking up at him. Every morning she took her shower, the most precious thing he’d ever seen.
Except maybe Jagger, years ago, a mini-biker wearing his mom’s purple bandana.
Hound set her stuff for the day aside but in reach, turned off the shower, got a fresh towel and they went through the rigmarole that meant she and Hound got her dressed, she powdered, put on her Chanel No. 5, he did up her bra and got her bottom half sorted and then she shuffled out behind him with her walker to her easy chair.
He was in the kitchen starting breakfast.
Two eggs over easy, not a lot of salt, liberal pepper. Two pieces of toast, half burnt and slathered in butter. With that he either opened a tin of some fish that smelled foul or gave her a couple of strips of brined salmon.
He got that shit started and moved to her chair with her coffee and her pills.
She set the comb she was pulling through her wet hair aside as he poured her first glass of water that day, and after she had a sip of coffee and set the cup away, he handed her the pills and glass.
“My sweet boy,” she muttered, took them, downed her pills and set the glass on one of the two crowded tables that flanked her chair in order to go back to her coffee.
Hound returned to the kitchen that was, like his, open to the living room.
“Gonna do a shop,” he called from there.
“Am I low?” she asked.
“Coupla things.” He smiled and knew she could hear it in his voice when he said, “Though, not the Baileys.”
“Well, thank goodness for that,” she said before he heard the TV go on and a morning program started sounding.
“You down on magazines?” he asked.
“Gotta get my gossip, Shepherd,” she answered.
That meant yes.
He let the eggs cook, the toast toast, and dug out the shopping list to add Baileys and gossip rags to it so he
didn’t forget.
He shoved it back.
“What’s on for your day?” she asked.
Do her shopping. Run her errands. Come back and get her lunch. Then continue to attempt to hunt down a maniac, and if that proved futile as it had done for the last months, recon the maniac’s minions so Hound could find the weak link, and as he was doing that, try not to ride to Keely’s, rush her to her bed and fuck her brains out.
“Gonna work in the shop,” he told her.
“That sounds fun.”
Except for when he took her to the doctor, the dentist, or the synagogue on Yom Kippur, Passover, Rosh Hashanah and days like that, she didn’t leave that apartment.
So anything for Jean sounded fun.
After he flipped the eggs, he took the coffeepot out to her and warmed up her cup.
“Thank you, motek,” she murmured.
He bent and kissed the top of her wet hair.
Then he went and made up the plate for her breakfast.
He moved the TV tray in front of her before he set it down with napkin and cutlery and returned to the kitchen to get his own coffee.
After he grabbed his mug, he moved back to Jean and sprawled on her couch.
He took a sip and muttered, “Need to call that woman to get her in to do your hair.”
She swallowed some egg and replied, “Probably time.”
“Want her to do your nails and feet too?” he asked.
“I like that,” she told him something he knew.
“I’ll sort it then.”
While he was taking another sip, suddenly, her gaze came to him.
“I heard a woman shouting in your apartment the other night.”
Goddamn fuck.
“Do you have a girl?” she asked.
“Jean—” Hound started, shifting in the couch.
“You need a girl, Shepherd,” she whispered. “Why a handsome, sweet boy like you doesn’t have one, I really never understood. One that shouts at you about scaring her to death, now that we’ll need to talk about.”
She wouldn’t understand why he was alone because to her he was a sweet boy and to the world he absolutely was not.
But also, she didn’t know he’d been in love with a woman he couldn’t have since he was eighteen.
The woman who’d been shouting at him.
“She sounded very upset,” Jean remarked to her eggs and salmon.