I Don't Dance (Freebirds Book 6) (3 page)

James had helped set up the room with us, and played his role well, but I didn’t blame him for wanting to get home now.

The others were staying with me, though. We’d head out after we got something to eat and start the long drive from New Mexico to Oklahoma, where I’d finally get to see my girl after nine long months.

“We should go to McDonalds. Do you know how much I just want a shitty hamburger?” Jack asked from his position on the bed.

Jack was another member of our unit. He was the stoic one.

The one we knew had something traumatizing happen to him.

Not that we’d force him to talk about it. If he wanted to get that off his chest, we’d always be there to listen. However, we all had our fair share of tragedies. We were a bunch of broken people, but we were still standing.

I looked over at him and smiled.

A hamburger sounded fucking amazing. “Let’s do it.”

“I’d rather Taco Bell,” a voice from my opposite side said.

I turned to find Dougie laying down on the bed next to me, still dressed fully in his dusty BDUs and sweatshirt.

He was waiting for his turn in line for the shower, and it showed.

But, like the rest of us, we were so happy to be back on American soil that it wasn’t necessary to wipe the dust of the Iraq desert off just yet.
A
s long as the ground we were standing on was ours, and not a foreign country’s, the rest didn’t matter.

James came out of the bathroom wearing jeans, and bringing the steam of an extremely hot shower with him.

“Hey, asshole. You better have left some hot water, or I’ll kick your fuckin’ ass,” Max growled from the corner of the room where he was standing up from the chair he’d been occupying.

James shrugged. “Oops,” he grinned unrepentantly.

Max cursed and launched himself at James who braced himself for the impact. They hit and then went down.

Dougie sat up, stripped off his shirt and boots, and walked calmly into the bathroom and shut the door.

Sam and Jack laughed, while I could only shake my head.

Amateurs.

Two hours later, we were all packed into a Chevrolet Suburban that we’d rented and headed east. The time and miles couldn’t go by any slower.

Chapter 4

If I’m still able to walk to the kitchen after sex…you don’t deserve a sandwich.

-E-card

Blaine

“Mom, someone’s at the door, but I have cheese ball all over my hands!” I yelled.

“Got it honey,” my mom replied excitedly.

I looked at the entrance to the hallway that led to the front door with amusement.

My mother was such a nut.

A few days ago, when I’d told her that Elliott’s parents didn’t have anywhere to go this morning, she’d immediately invited them over for our annual Christmas brunch.

They’d accepted happily, which I’d known they would.

They were alone and missing Elliott just like I was; it just seemed right to commiserate together.

Clark and Lois were two peas in a pod.

I’d thought that no one could match my parents’ love for each other, but when I’d met Clark and Lois, they showed me how wrong I was.

“How ya doin’ pip?” Clark asked as he made his way into the kitchen.

He made my heart clench as I saw him.

He looked so much like Elliott that it hurt.

Around six foot, muscled, but not too much so. Lean hips, blonde hair, baby blue eyes, and a killer grin.

The only difference between the two of them was the sign of age on Clark’s face.

Laugh lines around his mouth; slight crow’s feet around his eyes.

That was it. The only differences.

“Hey, Superman. How ya’ doing this morning?” I asked.

I’d been calling Clark Superman since the moment I’d met him.

With him and Lois’ name being the same as Superman and his woman, it only seemed fitting.

He grinned Elliott’s grin at me and wrapped me in a tight side hug while he looked at the mess I had in front of me. “What’s that?”

“A cheese ball,” I said.

“Looks like puke rolled up into a ball,” he observed.

I giggled.

Clark owned his own concrete company. He had a crew full of men, and they didn’t have filters on their mouths, which sometimes spilled over into their daily lives.

“There’s coffee in the pot if you want some,” I informed him as I finished shaping my ball of puke...I mean cheese…and washed my hands.

He gladly accepted my offer, “Thanks.”

We wound up in the living room a little over an hour later as we watched the Christmas parade on TV.

“Do y’all want to open presents?” My mother asked.

My father shook his head. “No.”

My father was a Scrooge. He hated Christmas. Mostly it was because my mother went above and beyond for Christmas, and my father was required to put every single piece of ‘Christmas Shit,’ as he liked to call it, out.

“Oh!” Lois cried. “I left ours in the car, let me go get them.”

“No,” I stood. “I’ll go get them. Where are they?”

She was holding my mom’s gift to me in her lap as she inspected each tiny panel of cloth.

My mom had made me a memory quilt of old clothing of mine and Elliott’s. She’d spend nearly a year picking out colors, and stealing our clothes, to make the perfect blanket.

I absolutely
loved
it.

I’d use it every night until Elliott got home.

“They’re in the back seat. It’s unlocked,” she said absently.

I stood and made my way to the door, shivering slightly as I opened it, and slipped outside without my coat or shoes.

The cold seeped into my bare feet as soon as I stepped out, and I trembled slightly.

I rolled my eyes when I saw that Clark had bought a new truck.

The man got a new one every year around Christmas, according to Elliott.

I walked down my parents’ driveway, turned to the street, and then froze when I saw what was standing there.

He’d been hidden by the large bush at the end of the driveway, and I hadn’t seen him until my feet hit the asphalt of the road.

“Elliott,” I breathed, and then I was running.

Elliott

“When’s she going to come outside? I’m starving,” Dougie whined.

He was upset that the mother of his child had his daughter for Christmas, and he was taking it out on everyone else but the woman who deserved the shit mood he was in.

I looked over at the exasperating ass
beside me. “When she comes outside.”

“Seriously, did your mom give the signal like you told her to?” Dougie kept pushing.

I silenced him with a look, but he just grinned.

Asshole.

“The door’s opened,” Jack mumbled from his position in the front seat. I looked over at him with his eyes closed, and wondered how he could even tell.

“Stay here for a few,” I instructed as I opened the backdoor and jumped out.

My feet hit the ground with only a whisper of sound, and I closed the door quietly, waiting for her to go to my dad’s truck that was parked in front of ours.

It felt like for-fucking-ever before she finally made it to the end of the drive.

She was wearing the same pajamas she’d been wearing last night.

Red and white skintight pajamas.

She told me in a letter last week that she’d found them for half price in the kid’s section at Target. I’d thought that she was talking about footed pajamas, but these were just adorable. And, for some reason, incredibly sexy.

The thin stretchy material cupped her ass like a second skin, and from here I was fairly sure she couldn’t be wearing underwear because I couldn’t see any lines.

Her top looked about as good as her ass except I could tell she was wearing a bra, which, for some reason, was heartbreaking.

Her mid-back length strawberry blonde hair was tied back in a loose ponytail over her right shoulder, and she had a red and green striped ribbon in her hair at the top to hold her bangs back.

Her face was void of makeup, and her toes were bare, despite the zero degree temperatures and wind chill.

It took her long moments to finally turn my way, but when she did, she froze.

Then she screamed and started running towards me.

A smile split my face wide, and it was all I could do to stay in place and not run towards her, too.

Putting one foot back to brace, I opened my arms just in time for her to launch herself in them and hit me with all the might a hundred and ten pound person could muster.

Her legs went around my waist, feet locking behind my back.

Her strong arms encircled my neck, and she buried her sobbing face into the crook as she shook with the force of her tears.

“You’re home,” she whispered.

My eyes closed and I breathed her in.

She smelled like coffee and cinnamon roasted walnuts, which meant she’d cheated and already opened one of my Christmas presents to her.

“Hey, baby,” I said into Blaine’s hair. “I had to keep my promise,” I declared.

She turned her head, but left it on my chest, breaking my heart with the sight of her tears. “What promise?”

Grinning at her like a fool, I said, “Dancing with you. I made a promise, and I plan to keep it.”

“This is the best Christmas present ever!” She declared loudly, lifting her head out of my neck, finally letting me see her eyes.

They were still streaming tears, but they were full of happiness.

I grinned. “I guess you were fooled by my faux hotel room?”

She mock glared at me, but couldn’t hold it for long. “I’m
so
going to kick your ass.”

The thought was laughable, yet she looked completely serious.

“Is that right?” I teased.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Yep. I’ve got other plans for your ass in the near future; you’re lucky.”

“You know I don’t swing that side of the fence,” I said as I started walking towards the front door where our parents were patiently waiting for us.

She laughed. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“What the hell are you still wearing those pajamas for?” I whispered into her hair.

She felt so good in my arms. Like the missing piece to my puzzle. It’d been a miserable nine months, but I was here now, and I would be for another four months, at least.

My plans for the next few months?

Sex.

Lots and lots of sex.

We didn’t even make it into our apartment before I divested her of her shirt.

Shivers danced down her spine as my bearded face connected with the smooth line of her jaw, and traveled down the curve of her neck.

“Elliott,” she gasped, taking a fistful of hair and yanking on it to get me to disengage.

I was a starving man, though.

Didn’t she know how much I wanted her? How very much I needed her? How long I’ve waited to have her again?

Nine goddamn months.

Nine long, lonely months of nothing for company but my hand.

My dick missed her.

Somehow I managed to get the keys out of Blaine’s bottomless pit of a purse, and into the lock, all while I devoured her neck and shoulder.

Her hands stayed clutched to my hair, pulling me closer while she ground her pussy all over the front of my jeans.

The jeans were new, and had no give in them, making it an uncomfortable sensation for my overly excited cock that hadn’t felt its favorite plaything up against it in nearly a year.

The memory of her was two hundred and seventy days of torture.

Sweet torture.

“Elliott,” she groaned, moving her mouth down to my throat and sucking lightly. “We need to get inside before you get into trouble for indecent exposure.”

My hand around her ass tightened, and I physically restrained myself from going any further.

I stepped back away from her, or at least tried to, but her legs wouldn’t let me go.

“You’ve got to work with me honey,” I rasped.

She smiled. “Open the damn door, Elliott. I’ve been away from you for too long to let you go now.”

I smiled, hoisted her up high on my chest and pinned her against the door, trying once again to get the goddamned door open.

She distracted me extremely well, though.

The feel of her soft, strong fingers massaging my scalp, scratching it lightly with her long fingernails.

She knew how much I loved that.

I groaned in bliss.

My lips ran along her ribs, soft against soft, as I was
finally
able to get the door knob turned.

I didn’t make it far inside, though.

Two steps in, I kicked the door closed with a bone jarring rattle, and dropped down to my knees all in one motion.

One fist planted down into the carpet, holding me steady while I let her feel the weight of me.

My hard cock dug into her pubic bone, and her hands lifted up until they clutched the coffee table’s metal legs.

She gasped, giving me the sound I’d so desperately wanted to hear again, and I was lost.

I lifted up only long enough to yank the pajamas from her legs, and her panties followed only seconds after.

“You feel so sweet,” I said as I settled back between her thighs.

She grinned, and moved her hands to the bottom of my shirt, yanking it out of my pants, up, and over my head.

I had to catch myself on one hand after she took the other out from under me with her exuberance, but it only added to our need.

My hands went to the bra holding her boobs in place, and I yanked it roughly down, exposing the most beautiful breasts I’d ever seen.

Her nipples were dark, perfectly round buds that begged for my attention.

And who was I to refuse?

I was a man, after all, with nine months of pent up sexual need for her.

My wife was in front of me. Underneath of me. Giving herself to me.

And I wasted no time latching onto one taut nipple and pulling it deep into my mouth, causing her to cry out in surprise.

My hand, the one not planted beside her, traveled down, working the belt on my jeans and unbuttoning the snap, all the while my knuckles rubbed enticingly against her pussy.