Gator (8 page)

Gator froze.  He kept her hips pinned to the bed and lifted up on his elbows so he could look down at her.

“I will not stray from you Tiffany.  I know what babies mean, but it’s just you I want.”

“If that changes…”

“It won’t.”  He made his voice strong so she would believe him.

“But if it does, just tell me.  I’d rather know than feel stupid when I find out later.”

He moved within her and then stopped again.

“I promise.  But it won’t happen.  I expect the same promises from you.  I hate lies.  Hate everything that goes with them.  You want to fuck someone, you come out and say so.  I’ll see how to work it out for you, I won’t like it, but I won’t be made a fool either.”

He tried to get a handle on his anger.  She didn’t know about his past and she wouldn’t understand it right now, but his blood was boiling at the thought of anyone touching her now, after tonight it couldn’t happen.

“If I ever catch you or find out you’ve gone behind my back, I’ll kill him or her and I’ll make you watch.”

He pushed into her harder than he should have and she gasped, but he couldn’t help it, he was being burned by images from his past.  Being in this house wasn’t helping.  Ghosts were everywhere, calling him a fool. 

Blaming him…

He slammed into Naughty again and again and she took his rage and paid him for it.  Her nails dug into his back and her teeth bit into him wherever she could reach.

“Get it out baby.  Get it out and let it rest.”  She said when he finally collapsed on her again.

He heard Fox grumble about trying to sleep next to a porno set and he shook his head. 

“I’m sorry.”  He whispered as Naughty ran her fingers through his hair.  “You didn’t deserve that.”

She let out a breathless laugh.  “Why the hell not?  You know I’ve let out my own issues by riding your dick.  What’s the difference?”

“The difference is I can take it, I deserve it, you don’t.”  He felt like grit for treating her that way.

She wrapped him in her arms and kissed the top of his head.

“You didn’t hurt me.  That wasn’t the worst I’ve had, not even from you.  I don’t know why you are so upset by this.  I got off, I’m happy.”

“It’s this fucking house.  You don’t belong here among all these fucking ghosts.”

He felt her take a deep breath.  “Maybe you should tell me about them.”

15

Naughty sat on a blanket on a patch of green grass near the river, but not too close.  Gator had refused to talk about his ghosts in the house, to give them more power, so they had gotten up and taken a drive.  She was tired and the warm sun made her want to curl up and nap, but the look in Gator’s eyes chilled her until she broke out in goose bumps all over.

“Gator, please, just tell me.”  She begged, but he didn’t seem to know how to start.  “Pick one ghost to start with.”

He nodded. 

“Coraline.  I’ll start with her.”

Naughty watched Gator struggle with his thoughts as his jaw hardened.  He sniffed then and met her eyes.

“She was my little girl.” 

Naughty watched the man she loved, the man that was so strong, break in front of her eyes.  He was on his knees in front of her and he was just so broken.  His eyes filled with tears and he looked down at his hands and shook his head.

She reached out to him and pulled him to her.  He buried his head in her lap and sobbed out his grief.

“She don’ blame me like she should, but I can’t stop thinkin’ I could have done somethin’.  I can still see her pretty little curls shining in the sun like little golden rings.  She had big blue eyes too.  I knew she wasn’t mine since the day she was born, but I couldn’t make myself care.  She was like my own little angel that I could hold and love and she loved me back.”

Naughty just ran her fingers through his hair and let him pour out his heart as his tears dampened her thighs.

“Sylvie got pregnant not long after we got together and she insisted we get married.  My grandmother was wealthy and had a good name so I was acceptable, in name even if I wasn’t what her parents wanted in a son in law.  I married her without thought.  She was beautiful and I had seen her around a lot.  I couldn’t believe she would pick me.  She hadn’t though, she had picked my name to make her respectable and give her a reason to be pregnant.  She was fucking half the county.  I knew Coraline wasn’t mine and I finally figured out that she belonged to a lawyer who lived an hour away with his wife and three kids. He drove up twice a month to fuck Sylvie.  I knew it, but couldn’t admit that my wife was fucking around.”

He took a deep breath and sat up.  He grabbed a beer from the small cooler they’d brought with them and sat for a few moments just sipping and thinking.  Naughty stayed quiet and let him gather his thoughts.  She knew how hard this must be for him, she remembered pouring her heart out to him months ago.  He had listened and held her and it had been perfect.  She wanted to be that for him.

“Sylvie got furious when I didn’t react the way she wanted me to.  She accused me of not loving her, of not caring if another man fucked her… It was the first time I realized she wanted me to know, wanted it to hurt.  I lashed out.  Coraline was two and she was getting into everything.  I had to put a chain on the door so she wouldn’t get out and go down to the river, she loved the water and we had to watch her like a hawk.”  He met Naughty’s eyes.  “You can’t go in that water.”

Naughty nodded and offered him a small smile.  “I won’t.  I promise.”

He nodded, appeased and continued.  “I got mad.  I told her to fuck whoever she wanted and I’d do the same.  She went into a rage.  She screamed and threw things, but I didn’t care.  I was too mad and hurt to care.  I told her I wanted a divorce and left.  I just drove away with nothing but the clothes on my back.  I didn’t come back for a week.  The house was still a mess, broken shit everywhere.  I heard sounds from the bedroom and pushed the door open.  There was my wife, legs open wide while some red-haired chick ate her out and mouth open wide as the blonde lawyer fucked her face.  The room stank from sweat, weed, and too much booze, I didn’t even care.  All I could think of was my little girl.  I demanded to know where she was, but Sylvie just looked at me with wide, confused eyes. 
I thought she was with you. 
She said and reached for the lawyer’s cock again.”

Gator finished his beer as Naughty felt her heart break.  It couldn’t be.

“I found her little footprints by the river.”

“Oh my God.  Oh Gator.  Oh no, no, no.”  She couldn’t hold back her sob, but Gator didn’t notice, he was looking at the black water of the river.  He was seeing his ghosts.

“I lost it.  I tied Sylvie to a kitchen chair after I knocked the man out.  Drug the redhead down to the water and held her under until she stopped moving and left her to float away.  Then I did the same to the lawyer.  Sylvie screamed and raged, but no matter what she said or what she’d done, I couldn’t throw her in that water, so I cut her free.  She holds it over me, but there ain’t shit she can do, they were never found.  None of them were.”

Naughty should be horrified, but she wasn’t.  She was glad he’d killed them, they deserved worse.  She wanted to kill them all over by herself and she felt something hot and sickening growing in her gut, she recognized it, it was the same hate she felt for the kid that had killed Thomas.

“I had papers delivered to her.  She refused to sign.  I rode out and left it all behind.  I joined up with the club after a few years of driftin’ and dat is dat.”

“Is that all?  Is that the only ghost that haunts you here?”

He met her eyes.  “Dat should be enough, but no.  My brother is here too, cursing and spitting at me for being a good for nothin’, for not being there when he needed me to.  He died in an alley outside of Dallas years ago.  He’d wanted me to go with him, said there was money to be made, but I didn’t want to leave.  My mama was sick and she needed me.  I wasn’t there when he died.  That woman with the red hair and the lawyer, they are in that house, mocking me, laughing, always laughing.” 

He looked away and Naughty didn’t like it, she felt him holding something back.

“Tell me all of it, get it the fuck out of your head.”

“Thomas is there now too.”  He closed his eyes.  “Always accusing me of not keeping you safe, of not loving you enough.”

“Then that’s not my Thomas.”  She had held this back always, even from Gator.  She couldn’t say it out loud, couldn’t stand the look he would give her.

Then he was there, pulling her into his lap and kissing the side of her head.

“He was cheating on me.”  She whispered.  “He had been for years.  We were getting married, but he had a lover.  She was married too.  He had a couple of different women really.”  She let out a humorless laugh and wiped her face.  “I found out after he was killed.   One went in front of the cameras and claimed to be his girlfriend, then another, but the news reported about our wedding that was to take place in only a few days.  It was a scandal and a huge embarrassment.  Some of them tried to fight me for the money that was left, but we had joint accounts.  I just left.  The town I’d lived in my whole life was too painful to live in.  I disappeared.”

She wiped her face.  This wasn’t supposed to be about her!

“So that’s one less ghost, because Thomas didn’t really give a shit.  I was just the perfect stupid wife.”

He hugged her tightly.  “You are the perfect woman for me.  I love you.   Have never talked about any of this.”

“I am so sorry about your daughter.  So, so sorry.”  Tears still ran down her face.  How could any woman do that, just let her child disappear and not care?  “I swear I’ll be a good mama.  I swear it and this baby is yours.  I want you to know that.  I haven’t been with another man in a year.”

He pulled her over his lap so she faced him and cupped her cheeks.  “I know dat.  I know it.  Somehow I trust you, even when you don’ want me to know anything, I trust that you are doing right by me.”

Naughty wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder.

“I can’t stop feeling this bone deep hatred for that woman.”

“Dat makes two of us.”  Gator said as he stroked her back.  “You would have loved my Cora.  She was happy, like you were last night.  She liked pickles and loved chocolate milk.”

His breath hitched and Naughty held on harder.

“She liked it when I rode her on my shoulders.  She’d hold out her little arms like she was flying, she was fearless.  She called me Dada.  Dat bitch let my baby girl get out of the house because she was too busy to pay attention.  I wasn’t there.  I wasn’t there to stop her, to save her and she’s gone forever.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“So, I may be a little overprotective and I may get on your nerves.”

“You will be a loving father and I will try to understand.  We aren’t perfect, we never will be, but we will be there and anyone who fucks with our kids will pay.”

Gator looked at her like she hung the moon.  She was so mad she couldn’t think.  She wanted to rip Sylvie apart and throw her in the fucking river.

“Shhhh, easy love.  Nothing can bring her back.  We have to move on and live out our lives.  Took me years to see dat.”

Then he kissed her hard enough that she tasted copper in her mouth.  She understood though, the need to feel alive, to prove that the past hadn’t killed them too.

He tore at her clothes until she was naked in the late morning sun.  He tugged his pants off and she helped him with his shirt.  She knew how he felt, she felt it too.  She wanted to feel his skin against hers, feel him inside of her, giving her pleasure to drown out the pain.

Gator pulled her down on top of him and captured her tits in his hands.

“Ride me.  Ride me until I forget all this shit.”

She didn’t need an invitation.  She took him into her body with an easy slide and just sat with him filling her for a moment.  She loved the feeling of Gator inside her, nobody fit like Gator.  One hand left her tits and landed hard on her bare ass.

“Ride Naughty girl.  Fuck me mindless.”

And she did.  She buried her nails in his chest and rode him as hard as she could, mercilessly.

They were both breathing hard when they heard the roar of an engine, but neither cared, this mattered only this.

Gator growled when the motorcycle shut off, but Naughty didn’t stop.  She was so close her belly hurt.  Her head fell back and moaned his name as her body pulsed around him.  He followed her quickly.  She felt heated jets of his releasing pouring into her as she collapsed on his chest to be wrapped in his arms.  She felt him shift as if he reached for something, but she didn’t care, she was safe in his arms, always.

16

“One more step and I put a hole in your goddamned chest.”  Gator said as he held Naughty close.  He wanted to roll her under him, but then he’d have to take his eyes off the man who was eating her with his eyes.  For that alone he should shoot the fucker, but he wore a cut and didn’t look afraid in the least.

“I’ll take a piece of that if you’re through.”

Gator growled.  “Fuck off.” 

The fucker grinned like a Cheshire cat.

Naughty wiggled until she was able to crawl behind him and tug on a shirt.  She tossed his boxers over his limp dick and cursed.

“Sniper you asshole.  He could have shot you.  Don’t you have any sense at all?”

Gator watched Naughty getting dressed like she wasn’t worried about the man watching her.  He shook his head.  He had a hard time thinking after sex that good.  Sniper… yeah he knew that name.

“Fuck.  What are you doin’ here and why?”  Gator groaned.

“I’d appreciate it if you put your dick away man.”

“Makin’ you feel self-conscious?”  Gator asked with a grin.

“Makin’ me feel sorry for the lady.”  Sniper snorted.

“What do you say my Naughty girl?  Should we shoot him to be safe or hear him out?”

“Well, we could shoot him.”

Gator wanted to laugh.  His girl wouldn’t let him shoot anyone without a good reason, she was playing.  That meant she trusted Sniper.

“Alright.  The lady has spoken.”  Gator aimed at Sniper’s chest.  Neither Naughty nor Sniper seemed to be too worried.

“I’ve got a shit ton to say and I can’t say it out here.  We need to talk Gator and it’s not a pretty conversation.”

They rode back to Gator’s house.  He felt like he had crosshairs on his back and that was no good since Naughty rode behind him.

Fox pulled his gun the minute he spotted Sniper.  “What the fuck Gator?  He’s Phoenix.”

Sniper didn’t give the old man a second glance.  “Good, you know.  That will make it easier then.” 

His bright blue eyes met Gator’s and he nodded toward the door.

They all sat down in the living room.  Naughty knew the score so she made her way to the bathroom to take a shower.  Ginger made herself comfortable on the porch with a book she had found at the local drugstore.

“So the shit with Phoenix is real.  If it’s a question where my loyalties lie then call Preach.  He sent me out to Phoenix to keep an eye on things a while back.  I was a nobody so nobody looked twice at me.  I just sent my reports in when I could, like your girl.  She was my contact.  She knows I’m a good guy pretending to be a bad guy.”  He grinned a blinding smile.

“I think you’re full of shit.”  Fox spat, but Gator had seen the way Naughty acted.  She trusted this man.

“SO what you got to say?”  He said evenly.

“I was sent here to kill your girl Gator.”

Gator was out of his seat and across the room before anyone had time to blink.  His fist made contact with Snipers nose and blood sprayed across his face.

Fox tried to pull him off the man who refused to fight back, but Gator wasn’t having it.

“You will die for dis you fucker.”  Gator raged, but Naughty was beside him, on her knees with a towel around her dripping water all over.

“Gator stop.  Sniper won’t hurt me.  He wouldn’t have said anything if he’d meant to.  He could have picked me off while I rode your dick out there by the river.  You have to stop and listen.  Please.”

He tried to pull himself together, but he was in a rage.  Nobody threatened his family.

“Nobody threatens what’s mine and lives, nobody.”  He spat as he stood and paced to the door and back again.

Sniper held a towel to his nose and pulled himself to his feet.

“That’s good.  Guess I know then.”  His eyes landed on Naughty who still stood dripping and wrapped in a towel.

Gator growled.  “Yeah you know now and if you fucking touch her I’ll gut you like a fucking fish.”

Sniper held up his hands in surrender and fell heavily into a chair.

“Phoenix knows where you are.  They have friends down here.  I was sent to scout it out and see how hard it would be to get to her.  They don’t want to kill you or any of the brothers, not yet, but they see Naughty as a threat.  Apparently someone told them she knows more than she should and that she’d sleeping with Preach.  Somebody wants her out of the way, somebody from our home chapter.”

“Who?”  Fox growled.  “Who would want to take out Naughty?  She’s never done shit?”

“Hell if I know.  Could be an old lady, anybody that could say the right things.  Anybody have reason to hate her that much?  Whose old man is he fucking?”  Sniper eyed Fox closely.

“Naughty has been with me for a year.  She ain’t fuckin’ nobody’s old man anymore.”  Gator tossed at Sniper.

“Women hold a grudge.”  Sniper shrugged.  I could be wrong, just seems like if the mole was a brother we would be getting different information.”

That made sense.  A man wouldn’t be worrying too much over some stripper.  If a man had a problem with Naughty she would have disappeared.  Gator let his eyes settle on the woman rocking on the front porch, would Ginger do something like that after all this time?

“Don’t even go there Gator.  Gin didn’t have anything to do with this, why would she?”  Fox frowned, but Gator saw the questions in his eyes.  That wasn’t good.

“Doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that they are sending someone for her.  I will have to be here too and I’ll try to do what I can, but Preach said to make sure I’m not compromised, that means it’s on you to protect your girl.  If I’m told to shoot her, I’ll have to, this is all I can do to prevent that.”

Gator was going to catch on fire.  This couldn’t be happening.  How would they know where she was if the mole wasn’t Ginger, but then again, how would Ginger get any information and why would she want to?  If she’d wanted Naughty dead she could have just shot her and been done with it too.

“Doesn’t make sense for it to be Gin.  That bomb almost killed her.”  He said, reaching for logic.

“But it didn’t.”  Sniper put in.  “It wasn’t detonated until she was clear.”

Fox had his elbows resting on his knees now with his hands gripping the back of his head.  “No.  She wouldn’t do any of this shit. No.”

“You need to be really sure Fox.”  Gator said low.

“I need to get the hell out of here.”  Sniper stood.  “Guess if it’s her I’ll be dead by morning.”

He tipped his head and walked out the front door.

Shit was going to get real and fast.