Elle’s solid. Always has been. She doesn’t see it, or doesn’t want to see it, but she’s a lot like her old man in that way. A man like me needs solid. My life demands it, and fuck if I won’t flip shit upside down to get a little taste of a woman as solid as Elle. And the first step to solid with Elle is fixing this clusterfuck she’s gotten herself into. The club is gonna have a fucking field day with this shit, but it’s going to come out and the sooner the better.
“Fucking pussy,” I mutter to myself as I pull my mobile out of my front pocket, bring up my contacts, and press the big green button on the touch screen under PRES-MOBILE. I should have made this call before we even left California, but I’ve been trying to work it out in my head. At first, I told myself I’d call when we crossed the Nevada border. Then it was when we stop for the night. I haven’t found a place for us to stop yet, but I can’t keep pulling it off.
“Stone,” Pops says as he answers the call.
“I’m gonna be tied up for the next few days, Pops. Gonna have to miss Church,” I say as casually as I can. Brothers need a damn good reason for missing Church, and I have one. I just can’t tell Pres what it is right now.
“You gonna explain that?”
“When I get back. You know how life with the in-laws can get.” Talking business over the phone is a good way to end up in San Quentin, so we use a code that seems inconsistent to outsiders but makes sense to us. The in-laws is the code we use to describe club-related business that’s not directly related to one of our customers or jobs. It should be enough to keep Pops off my nuts for the time being.
“See that you do,” he says, and the call ends. Without the luxury of a face-to-face, he can’t do or say shit right now without compromising the security measures we put in place.
Elle jerks awake beside me and blinks rapidly. She stretches her long, fine-as-fuck legs out as much as she can and looks over at me with tired eyes. Her nose is screwed up, and she’s eyeing me like she’s trying to work something out in her head.
“Either you’re thinking about sucking my dick, or you got something to say I’m not gonna like.” I flash her a wide grin that I’m not certain she can even see. “If you wanna suck my dick, baby, you don’t have to ask.”
The cab fills with the sound of her laughter. She throws her head back and holds her stomach as she gasps for breath through her chuckles. In between her breath-taking laughter, she smiles and says, “I’ll let you ride me bare before you get my mouth around your dick.”
I raise an eyebrow and wait for her to explain. A minute or so passes while she gets comfortable expanding on her comment. She seems caught off guard, like she didn’t really mean to say it.
“Sucking a guy’s dick is intimate. It’s in your mouth, all up in your face, and it doesn’t do a whole lot for women. Men don’t get that. They just want women to drop to their knees and do as they’re told.”
“My dick in your pussy isn’t intimate?”
“It’s not the same,” she says quietly. Her eyes shift to the road, and she stares out into the dark, barren landscape. I want to argue with her, but I decide to hold off when a lit-up billboard comes into view advertising a budget motel with vacancies just off the next exit. If we’re going to have a conversation about her sucking my dick, I at least want to do it horizontal and naked.
She doesn’t say another word as I pull off the highway and into the motel parking lot. I got all kinds of shit running through my head that’s pissing me off. What the fuck did Grady do to her that’s fucked her up this much?
Fucking asshole.
I park the truck, unbuckle myself and then my girl. She shifts toward the door and moves to open it while muttering, “I’ll get us a room.”
“Gimme a minute first,” I say and hook a hand around her neck, pulling her face into mine. She twists in her seat and stares at me blankly. “Whatever Grady did to you was fucked, and I know you don’t want that again.”
She sucks in a deep breath and stills, like I hit her right in the gut or something.
“Since you seem to know me so well, why don’t you tell me what you think I want?”
“You want me. Because with me, you get to run your shit and I’ll run mine. Swear to Christ, babe, I’ll watch your six, but I’ll never cage you in. I’m good for you because I’m gonna keep true to what you need and not that bullshit fantasy you think you want.”