Resonance (Marauders #4) (20 page)

“Come on, honey,” he mumbled next to my ear, giving it a quick lick. “You feel fantastic like this, with nothing between us. I wanna feel you come over my dick. And I wanna feel it more than once tonight.”

“Shit,” I groaned when I felt it coming, grabbing ahold of my body, and flooding me. “So close.”

“That’s my girl,” he panted, and fucked me even harder.

“Let go,” I hissed, and when he released my hair, I fell back to my hands.

With a renewed grip of my hips, he started fucking me while simultaneously pulling me over his dick. I pushed my face into a pillow and screamed into it when I came.

Tommy slowed down, and when I could breathe again, he pulled me with him to lay on our sides, him spooning me and still inside me.

“So I’m
your
girl?” I asked in a hoarse voice.

“Hell, yeah,” he answered and kiss my shoulder. “All mine.”

“You know I’m not gonna let you mark me with a tattoo,” I said. Tommy knew how I felt about tattoos. I didn’t mind him having them, even if I was glad he didn’t have as many as most of the others in the club, but I didn’t want one of my own. And if I, for some reason, would want a tattoo, one to mark me as his
old lady
or whatever wouldn’t be the one I would chose. “Just so you know.”

“No need,” he mumbled and slowly started moving his hips again with a content groan. “Already marked you.”

“What?” I asked just half-aware of what we were talking about.

“Here,” he said and stroked my stretch marks. “I did those, so consider yourself marked as my girl. Think we’ll add to them, too. Gonna give you loads of baby scars, Munchkin. Gonna keep knocking you up as often as you’ll let me.”

That would explain why he liked them, and even if I’d never been bothered by them, his comment made me like them better. And his comment about keeping me knocked up made me moan.

“Yeah?” I panted. “Big family?”

“Huge,” he mumbled and held me closer. “It’ll be fucking fantastic.”

I turned around and nestled myself into his arms. I wanted to ask him if he was worried about the next day, but at the same time I didn’t want to make him think about it. I stroked his cheek and gave his lips a peck.

“I love you.”

“Love you, too, Munchkin.” He kissed my forehead before pushing me to my back, getting on top of me. “We’re not done yet.”

“Okay,” I laughed. “Sorry. You sure you don’t need sleep?”

“Fuck sleep. I can sleep afterwards.” He pushed inside me again. “I’m gonna make sure my girl is sated and keep her mind off tomorrow as much as possible.

~oOo~

TOMMY WAS KNEELING ON the floor in the hospital room he’d been assigned before the surgery, and he was holding Felix as tightly as he could without risking hurting him. He was just about to let go when Felix started sobbing.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he mumbled. “It’ll be okay, Champ.”

“I’m really, really scared now,” Felix whispered.

“I know. I’m scared, too.”

“You are?”

“Yeah.” He gave Felix’s cheek a kiss. “Mommy will be with you, and I’ll see you as soon as they let me.”

“Who’s gonna to be with you?”

“Grandma and the guys from the club. I won’t be alone.”

“I’ll send Mommy to you when I’m not as scared anymore,” Felix said and wiped his nose. “It might take a while.”

“That’s okay, kid. I think she would rather be with you, anyway, and we’ll all be together soon.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

“In the same house?”

“In the same house.”

He was fully prepared to make that promise because he wasn’t going to let any one of them go. Not a chance in hell. They were going to do this, and when he got better, he’d get them the best fucking house he could afford. He was going to keep his family close and his kid healthy. They were gonna make it.

“I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too, Champ. So much. I’ll think about you the entire time.”

“Until you see me again?”

“Until then. Remember that. Whenever you think about me, I’m thinking about you, too.”

Felix nodded and finally let go. “All the time?”

“Yup,” Tommy answered and tapped his chest. “You’ll be right here.”

He stood up and watched Leah take Felix’s hand, but Billie was waiting behind, and as soon as they were out the door, she grabbed his cheeks and kissed him.

“I’ll see you,” she said. “And I love you.”

“Love you. Take care of him.”

“You know I will.”

“I know,” he smiled and nodded towards the door. “Now go. They said they had some good pills for me once you’d left.”

“You’ll get the good stuff. That nurse is crushing on you badly.”

“It’s ‘cause I’m giving my kidney to a kid. Chicks dig that.”

“Yes, we do,” Billie smiled. She leaned against his chest. “You better come back to me.”

“Won’t be able to keep me away. Now go. He needs you more than I do, and I don’t want to have a boner when she comes back with the pills. She might do nasty things with me when I’m asleep if she sees the size of my dick.”

“Love you,” Billie said and slowly started backing up towards the door. She had tears in her eyes. “You know, you’ll get a mark for Felix now, too. We’ll both have scars for him.”

He hadn’t thought of that, and he really liked it. He swallowed and took a deep breath.

“I love you, Billie Jensen.”

“And I love you, Tommy Miles,” she smiled, and then she left.

Tommy sat down on the gurney and took another deep breath. It was a strange mix of emotions inside of him. He was scared, but not at all for himself. He was terrified that something would go wrong with Felix’s surgery and that he’d just hugged his kid for the last time. It wasn’t likely, but not completely unthinkable, and as opposed to the case with most kidney transplants, they were taking out Felix’s own kidneys. That wasn’t common procedure. It wasn’t a big thing, but still an increased risk. Tommy had discovered that he hated hearing the words ‘increased risk’ when it involved his son.

He looked up when the door opened, but it wasn’t the cute nurse, it was Brick.

“If anyone asks, I’m your dad.”

“Okay, Daddy.”

“I figured the others would be with the kid, and that you might want some company.”

Tommy smiled. “Yeah. You might scare the cute nurse, though.”

“There’s a cute nurse?” Brick asked and sat down with his eyes on the door. “How cute?”

“She’s not Mel.”

“There’s only one of Mel,” Brick chuckled. “Which might not be a bad thing. Not sure the world is ready for another Mel.”

“Shouldn’t have knocked her up. That baby girl of yours is a Mel in waiting.” Tommy noticed Brick looking at his hands, and he stopped twisting them. He hadn’t even been aware that he was. “If something happens—” he started.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Brick interrupted him. “You’re at one of the best hospitals in the fucking state. They know what they’re doing.”

“I know, but
if
, you’ll make sure they’re safe?”

“I swear on my patch I’ll take care of your family. But no matter what fucking god is watching over us, there is no one sadistic enough to kill a man when he’s saving his kid’s life the way you’re doing. I refuse to believe that’s even a possibility.”

“I don’t know, I’ve seen evidence of some really sadistic shit.”

They sat in silence until the cute nurse came and gave him the pills. She told him Brick could stay for another five minutes before they had to start prepping Tommy for surgery.

Tommy felt his pulse slowing when the pills started to take effect, and he soon started feeling great. Really fucking awesome and calm. By the time the nurse came back, he felt like a million bucks.

“We need to take your son to prepare him for the surgery,” she said to Brick. “You can wait with the others in the family room. It will take about three hours.”

Brick nodded with a chuckle and leaned over the gurney, and Tommy realized he had some trouble seeing him. He was just a blur.

“I’ve always known you had a good heart, but I don’t think I’ve ever been so proud to know a man,” Brick said with a smile. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Tommy was trying to figure out if it was the pills, or if Brick had actually said that.

He was lucid enough to recognize the surgeon, but he couldn’t remember his name. They’d met a number of times, and the man had explained the surgery and what he could expect afterwards in great detail. He’d been surprisingly funny, too. First time they met, he’d said to Tommy that he thought it was just good form to meet a man before he stuck his fingers into him.

“Mr. Miles, we’re going to sedate you, and when you wake up, you’ll have one kidney less. You okay with that?”

“As long as the kidney is in my boy in the next room, I’m fine with it.”

“I’ll make sure of that,” he laughed. “I want you to count backwards from twenty.”

“Twenty, nineteen,” Tommy started and took a deep breath. “Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, fifteen…”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

You Can Ask

~oOo~

PAIN WAS RADIATING FROM his left side and managed to reach every fucking part of his body. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t, and instead some weird sound came out of his mouth.

“I pressed the button for you,” Billie said. “I’m putting it in your hand so you can administer it by yourself. Okay?”

He nodded. “Water,” he managed to say.

“No water, but they left some ice for you to suck on.”

He didn’t care where the liquid came from as long as he got some, and when he felt the ice against his lips, he opened up his mouth.

“Felix?”

“He’s still in surgery. They’ll come and get me when they’re taking him into ICU. They said your surgery went very well, your kidney was a prime specimen, and so far Felix’s surgery is going well, too.”

He opened his eyes and looked at Billie. She had her blonde hair up in a messy ponytail, and she looked tired. He would’ve liked to reach out for her, but he had a feeling the pain would be excruciating if he moved even the slightest.

“Good.”

“I’ve got some great news. Your dad has come alive, and he’s currently becoming best buddies with my dad again.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” he warned her, but it felt good to hear Brick was still around. “Make sure I’m kept informed about Felix.”

“I will. You know I will.” She gently stroked his hand. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

“Go back to sleep. I’ll make sure someone is here when you wake up again.”

He nodded, and even if he didn’t want to fall asleep, he still did. It was impossible to stay awake.

*

The next time Tommy woke up, Brick was sleeping in the chair Billie had been in earlier. That time he just pressed a few times on the button in his hand and fell right back asleep.

*

The third time, Leah was there. She got up as soon as she saw him moving.

“Hey, Felix’s operation was a success. Everything went well.”

“Good. Ice,” he groaned while pressing the button in his hand. He relaxed when he felt the morphine working. “Billie?”

“She’s with him.”

For a selfish moment he wanted Billie with him instead. He’d given his fucking kidney to the kid, could he at least have Billie with him for a few minutes? Then he snapped back to the present and opened his eyes.

“How is he? How is he doing?”

“Think you know that better than I do,” Leah answered with a smile.

Fucking hell, he didn’t want to imagine Felix in the same amount of pain as he was in.

*

The fourth time was the first time he felt lucid. There was still pain, but a push on the button soon took the edge off.

Brick looked up from the paper he was reading.

“Hey, kid. You with me this time?”

“Think you’re taking your fake identity a bit too serious if you’re calling me
kid
.”

“Yeah. All the cute nurses are fawning over how well I’ve raised my son. You had a hard-on in your sleep and I think one of them almost came in her panties. Fair warning: they’re mumbling about sponge baths. Should clear that with your woman.”

Tommy chuckled, but it died the second he felt how much that hurt, and he groaned. “Don’t make me laugh.”

“Felix is doing well. No sign of rejection so far.” Brick chuckled a little when he said it, as if he could hear himself how strange the doctor lingo sounded coming from his mouth. “But I don’t know if that would be noticed yet.”

“It could, but it could happen any time in the next three months. Or after that. No way of knowing, but I think the first few days are important.” He tried to sit up, but gave up on that idea immediately. “How many times have I woken up?”

“A few. Mostly just rambling and pressing that button before falling asleep. That the good stuff?”

“Morphine. They’ll let me have this for a day or two.”

“Better make good use of it.”

“How long since the surgery?” he asked.

“Ten hours,” Brick answered.

“Awesome. They wanted me up and walking within twelve to fourteen.” He decided to make another attempt at sitting up. It hurt like hell, and he felt like crying, but he didn’t give in, and soon he was sitting up. When he looked up, Brick was studying him. “No fucking sponge baths. They’ll have their fun when they take out the catheter.”

“I’ll make sure of it.”

*

The next day, they lured him to walk by telling him he could go and see Felix if he could get to the wheelchair outside his room by himself. It wasn’t many steps, and he made it with some effort, and Leah pushed him into Felix’s room in the wheelchair.

“Daddy,” Felix said with a big smile, but he looked tired, too. “I have your kidney.”

“Yeah? How’s that working out for you?”

“Pretty damn good, so far,” Billie answered.

“They say I might be able to try chocolate soon,” Felix said. “I’ve always wanted to try chocolate.”

“That sounds awesome.” Tommy rolled his wheelchair up to the bed. “Maybe we can celebrate when we both get out of here.”

Felix nodded eagerly, and then reached for Tommy’s hand. He took it and gave it a kiss. It felt good to finally see him,
feel
him, to not just hear about he was doing.

“Does it hurt?” Felix asked.

“Yeah, but I’ll live. You?”

“A little, but they say it will be better soon.”

*

By the third day, he could get up and walk to the bathroom to pee by himself. It hurt like fuck, and it took him fucking forever, but he did it. There was no way in hell he’d spend more than a week at the hospital.

~oOo~

IT WAS THE MIDDLE of the night when I walked through the hallway from Felix’s to Tommy’s room. Brick was sleeping in the chair, and I woke him up.

“You should get home and get some sleep,” I said.

“Just got here,” he said and sat up. “Wanna get a coffee with me?”

“Sure,” I answered after a look at Tommy. “Think he’ll live even if he wakes up alone.”

“He was awake when I got here, so he’ll be out for a while longer.”

Brick directed me to a couch in the waiting room. A few minutes later, he came back with two cups of coffee, a small bag of chips, and a Mounds chocolate bar.

“Chocolate or chips?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter. We can share both.”

He sat down and put the bag on the table after opening it.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“Better than I’ve ever done at a hospital stay,” I answered. “This time there’s more of an end to it. Or at least a new beginning.”

I hadn’t talked much to Brick until then. He’d spent a lot of time at the hospital, and I was touched by the gesture.

“Can I ask you something?”

“You can ask,” he smiled.

“I’m… struggling with the family relations in the club. Mitch is your son?”

“Yeah. Mitch and Mac are my sons. Dawg, the guy with all the tattoos up his neck, is married to my wife’s sister, Edie. And Mac, my oldest son, is married to Bear’s daughter, Violet. Those are the only blood relatives, but everyone is family.” He looked at me. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You can ask,” I answered in return, and Brick laughed with a nod.

“Touché. Why didn’t you tell him about Felix?”

I think my normal response would probably have been that it wasn’t any of Brick’s business, but it was either the relief of the surgery having been done, the intimacy of sitting at a hospital in the middle of the night with someone who’d been there almost as much as I had, or just the kind of man Brick was. He was like Dad. Some people you just got the feeling that whatever you told them was in private if they deemed it private. This was private. The only one who could have any interest in it was Tommy, and he already knew. It could simply be that I needed to redeem myself to a man I was starting to respect. Or just to someone, anyone, who didn’t really know me and could give me an honest judgment of my behavior.

“I don’t know how much you know.”

“I know he was your brother’s childhood friend. They served together, and your brother died. After his funeral you had sex, and then you showed up at our clubhouse to talk to him. That’s about it.”

“Sounds like a pretty complete account of what happened,” I said and took a sip of the coffee.

“Maybe, but you can boil down any story into just a few sentences. A beast captures a man. When his daughter comes to save him, the beast says the dad can go if the daughter marries him, so she agrees. It’s an account of the facts, but it leaves out a few important things.”

“Beauty and the Beast?” I had to ask. That was, if not the last story I’d expected, then at least pretty far down the list.

“My daughter’s favorite when she was a kid. Made me watch it a million fucking times. She still watches it when she feels blue, and even if she feels forced to point out the flawed feminism these days, she still cries.”

“You have a daughter, too?”

“Yeah,” he answered with a big, proud smile. “Eliza. She’s just like her mother.”

“So she’s Mel’s, but the boys…?”

“From a previous marriage,” he confirmed. Mel had seemed to be a little young to be Mitch and Mac’s mother. It was probably possible, but it just didn’t seem likely. “Now it’s your turn. You tell me about you.”

“I’m not sure where to start,” I said and looked down into the coffee cup, as if I’d find any answers in there. “I’m from a military family, as I’m sure you’ve discovered by now. I’ve wanted to serve since I was able to form a conscious opinion. Tommy’s dad and my dad served together a few times. We moved around a lot, but we always kept in contact with them. A few years after Tommy’s dad died, he came to live with us.”

“Why?”

“That’s not my story,” I answered. I was prepared to tell Brick my secrets, but if Tommy hadn’t told Brick about his parents, it wasn’t something
I
should tell
his
friends.

“Fair enough.”

“I signed up with the Navy when I was eighteen. I loved boot camp. I didn’t think it was very hard work or demanding, but Dad had drill exercises with us in the back yard, and he’s known as a tough son of a bitch.”

“You don’t say,” Brick chuckled. “I would’ve never guessed.”

“I ended up on an aircraft carrier—”

“As a yellow shirt.”

And I was almost flattered he remembered, but then I realized that Brick probably remembered most things he heard about the people around the club.

“It wasn’t that simple. I had to work my ass off to get that yellow shirt.”

I wasn’t the first woman who’d earned the yellow shirt, but there weren’t many before me. As much as the Navy encouraged women to apply for positions, there was still the part where you had to prove to your fellow soldiers that you’d earned that position, and that acceptance was a little harder to get when you were a woman. But I’d managed that, too. I’d fit in with the team, and we’d had a working, efficient relationship when we were on duty. And a good relationship off duty, too. We’d had a lot of fun.

“Then my rotation put me on shore tour. The rotation means I have a certain time on a ship, followed by a shore tour, so I moved and had a new officer. He flirted with me, but I didn’t think much about it. Then it got worse, and he
happened
to show up everywhere I was and…” That was when I had started to feel uncomfortable. I’d felt chased, hunted almost. “He… raped one of the other girls. We soon found out that there had been rumors about him before.”

“Did she report him?”

“Yes. It didn’t help, but the other guys were great. They couldn’t actually
do
anything without getting into shitloads of trouble themselves, but… they were great. They did what little they could.”

“I guess that just beating the guy up wasn’t an option?”

“No. I contemplated a few things, though.”

That wasn’t something I’d thought about until after he’d raped me, though. Flight deck is considered the most dangerous work place in the world, and the shore tour environment wasn’t that much better. It would’ve been perfectly possible to cause an accident and watch him die, but I didn’t. I wanted to, good lord I wanted to, but I didn’t want to risk anyone else’s life in the process.

“So what did they do?”

“They tried to watch over me and the other women he was showing an… interest in.”

I was still in contact with a few of those guys, and despite what happened, I felt that I owed them. They’d been great, and even more great afterwards. They’d been there for me however they could. I had blamed a lot of people and institutions for what had happened, but not them.