In Dark Woods (Signal Bend Series #4.5) (4 page)

He pulled his hand away and held her. “Oh,
God
, yeah, that’s beautiful. Fuck, I love you.”

There was…something. She stopped, held still, trying to understand if…yes. Oh, yes! “Isaac. Love, you’re hard. Do you feel that?” She reached down under her ass and grabbed him over his sweats. He wasn’t the rigid steel she remembered, but he had himself a respectable boner. Shifting to straddle him, she asked, “Do you see this?”

He looked down at himself and grinned, “Well, damn.” Then he met Lilli’s eyes. “I want to be in you.”

She slid her hand into his sweats and wrapped around him. “Do you feel me?”

A cloud flitted through his eyes, but he didn’t lose the grin. “No. I don’t care. I want you to feel me. Put me in you. Come on baby, let me fuck you while I can. Who knows how long that’ll last or if it’ll ever happen again.”

He was right. Wasting not another second, she pulled him free of the sweats and sat down on him.

“Oh,
shit!
Oh, Isaac, oh,
shit!
You feel so good. So fucking good.” He did. She’d thought never to have it again, ever. She wanted to savor him, to remember this feeling, to take none of it for granted. As she gyrated on him, bringing him as deep as she could, she felt the bed changing positions. He was bringing the head down, until they were nearly flat on the bed.

“Lay over me, Sport. I want your tits in my mouth.”

Her body clenched at his words and she came down onto her elbows, bringing herself up so that her breasts hovered over his face. It meant that she couldn’t bring him as deep inside her—he was considerably taller than she was—but she would not deny him. And his cock was prodigious, so she didn’t lose all of him. She could still flex and shimmy and feel him, still hard, inside her.

He suckled her like a starving child, his hands tight around her breasts, holding them together so that he could move back and forth, sucking and licking and biting. He groaned and grunted and gasped. The feel of him, the need
in him, was fantastically hot, and she was going to come again, and hard again, maybe harder than before.

But she couldn’t get there. He had her hovering on the brink, about to explode, her body quivering with the need for release. But she needed his cock
—all of it. “Isaac,” she gasped. “I need you to fill me up. I need to sit down on you so I can go.”

Without a word, still suckling her madly, he let go with one hand, and the head of the bed began to rise again. When their position made him lose her breasts, he moved immediately to her mouth
, claiming her with avid ferocity, and she sat down hard on him and jerked her hips until she screamed and his arms locked around her. She dropped her head to his shoulder, sobbing, and he held her.

He didn’t ask if she was okay or why she was crying. He knew.
She knew that he knew.

When she was quiet and relaxed again, she felt his soft cock sliding
partially, awkwardly out of her. Reluctant to lose any connection of their bodies, she ignored it and stayed right where she was.

“I think I came, Lilli.”

She sat up and met his eyes, which were wide with pleased surprise. “What?”

“I’m not sure. I didn’t feel you on me.
God, it felt so good, just to be touching you. To have your tits in my mouth. Watching you come—fuck, that was intense. But I didn’t feel my cock. I felt it in my gut and in my chest.  I don’t know, but I think so.”

She smiled. “That’s awesome, love! Maybe it means—”

He cut her off. “Don’t. Don’t ruin it. I need it just to be what it was. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

He pulled her to lie on his chest again, and they were quiet for several minutes.

“Do you know what day today is?”

She’d been drifting on a cloud of a contentment she hadn’t felt in months. “Hmmm?”

“Do you know what today is?”

“Um, the twenty-first, I think.”

He chuckled. “Lilli. Happy anniversary.”

She sat up, appalled, and he finally slid out of her. “Oh, shit! I’m so sorry!”

“No, Sport. Don’t be sorry. I know why you’re not thinking about days and dates. I just wanted to say it. I love you so fuckin’ much. I’m only around because of you.”

“God, Isaac. I love you. Don’t you leave me.”

“No. I’m here. I’ll stay.”

She stayed on the bed with him, her naked body wound around him, until he was well asleep. Then she eased herself off the bed.

When she stood, she felt the drizzle of semen down her thigh, and her heart stopped.

SIX

Lilli wasn’t speaking to him, so they drove the
two hours back to Signal Bend in silence. She hadn’t been speaking to him for more than a week now. It wasn’t total silence; she spoke to convey information or to ask him what he needed. She was still taking care of him as carefully as ever. But she had pulled so far into herself she was practically an automaton.

When he’d told her what he’d done, she’d lost her mind. He’d never seen her so angry—and he’d seen her plenty angry in their two and a half years together. She’d flipped the fuck out, then she’d left. When she’d come bac
k, she was this silent cipher. For nearly two weeks.

But he’d been right. It fucking sucked, and losing the connection with her sucked more, but he’d been right.

It had all started right after New Year’s. Lilli had been home with Gia, and Isaac was in the rec room, just trying to find somewhere to be that wasn’t the four walls of his room. He’d had a frustrating therapy day. For the week or so before that, they’d all be frustrating therapy days, with no new progress—and that was still the case now. His legs were just fucking dead. He hadn’t had even another twitch of his cock since the night of their anniversary. And they’d messed around several times more. He couldn’t get enough of her. Without his cock, it didn’t feel the same, but it still got his heart pounding. He loved touching her so much. He loved making her come. He wanted more, but he’d take what he could.

And then this, and she’d pulled away.

Charlie, a young guy in his twenties, who’d been hurt waterskiing, was in the rec room that afternoon right after New Year’s. Isaac didn’t know Charlie well—he was younger and kind of a shithead for it, listening all the time to obnoxious, bass-heavy hip hop or what the fuck ever it was. Not a bad kid, just annoying. All the younger people in the rehab center hung out together. It had an irritating high school vibe to Isaac, and he tended to roll the other way when he saw them.

But on that day, they’d been having a party or something, and he’d been curious. So he’d gotten his Mountain Dew out of the machine and hung out for a minute, mainly because the only other thing he had to think about was his dead body, and puzzling out the reason for the cake on the table across the room was better than that.

It was a going-away party. Looked like Charlie was getting paroled. But the mood of the group was surprisingly somber. Isaac had shrugged and rolled on. But when he’d seen Charlie later, he’d asked.

He was leaving before his time was up, in the middle of his therapy, where he’d been making good, steady progress, because the money had run out. He’d talked about how expensive the center was and how his parents had bankrupted themselves keeping him here as long as they could.

Not once in the almost four months since the shooting had Isaac considered how they were paying for all this. His attention had simply been elsewhere. After talking to Charlie, it became just about all he could think about. And, unlike Charlie, he wasn’t making progress in therapy. He had stalled out.

He’d asked Lilli, and she’d shut him down completely. She hadn’t tried to lie—not her style—she’d just shut him the fuck down and wouldn’t even begin to talk about it. So, when she’d gone off to pick Gia up for the weekend, he’d
rolled himself to the center administrator’s office and asked her how much the place cost.

Holy fuck.

Then he’d called Show. He’d called to have him put Dom on it and find out for him how their finances were doing. Pretty bullshit that he had to ask the club hacker for information about his own goddamn money, but he’d planned to have that out with Lilli at a later date. First things first.

But he’d been able to tell right away that Show already knew. He knew, and Lilli knew he knew, and he’d promised her he wouldn’t say anything. Isaac understood all that within three sentences of Show’s tortured non-answer.

If he’d been in Signal Bend, and if he hadn’t been dead from the waist down, he’d have beaten his best friend into ground meat.

By the time that cal
l had ended, Isaac had the full, gloomy picture. He’d gone back to the administrator and ended his care, effective when whatever Lilli had already paid ran out.

And that was today.

His therapist told them that there was no point doing inpatient rehab at County at this point, since they didn’t offer the same services. He’d just be sitting in a hospital room most of the time. So he was going home, and Lilli would drive him to therapy three times a week, for three-hour sessions.

Nine hours of therapy a week. As opposed to the thirty he’d been getting—
three-hour sessions, twice a day, five days a week.

That was it. He was stuck in this chair for good.

But there was no other choice. He would not take his family into poverty and ruin. He would not.

And
fuck
Lilli for trying. If she wanted to ice him out, then fine, because he was plenty pissed himself. Trying to pile at his feet the financial destruction of their family, on top of the mountain of other shit he was to blame for. Just
fuck
her for it.

As she drove down their drive and he saw what awaited him
, he swore.

“Motherfucker. I said I didn’t want that shit. Mother
fucker
.”

“You need the ramp. The rest of it you can blame on the club. I told Show what you said. So did you. But maybe it’s time you stopped fucking hiding.”

She pulled up, threw the truck into park, and climbed out. Fuming, he sat where he was and waited—like he had a fucking choice—while she pulled the chair out of the back. Show was walking to his door, grinning. Son of a fucking bitch, this sucked.

Show opened the door. “Welcome home, boss.”

Isaac glared and said nothing. Lilli rolled his chair up, and he considered his options. He could grab the top of the doorframe and swing out, but the fucking truck was too fucking tall, and he’d have to drop down to the chair. If he missed, who knew what damage he’d do to himself—setting aside the humiliation.

“I got ya.” Show leaned in, ready to pick Isaac up. Oh, to hell with that bullshit.

“Back off, Show. I’ll work it out.”

He didn’t know how. They’d had a ramp at the center that brought the chair up to the height he needed so he could get in himself. That’s a ramp he’d have liked to have now. He sat there and tried to figure it out.

“So, you’re going to sit in the truck from now on? Should I bring out some bedding for you? Maybe a magazine?” If he’d thought Lilli was doing her ass-kicking bit, as she’d done often over the past months, trying to help him keep his head straight, he’d have made a snarky comeback and been fine. But considering the timbre of their relationship at the moment, he didn’t think that was what it was. He thought she was just being a bitch.

“You can fuck off.”

“Fine.” She threw her hands up and headed to the house. Show turned and watched her go. When he looked back at Isaac, his eyebrows were high. “This still about the money? You haven’t smoothed it out?”

“Just keep the fuck out of our business, asshole.”

Show’s face went dark. “You got it. You want help here or not?”

There was no way he was getting out of this fucking SUV on his own.

“Yeah. Fuck me sideways.”

Show picked Isaac up like a goddamn kid and set him in his chair.
Stowing his humiliation for later, when he was alone and could let it fuck him up good and hard, he rolled down the new, wide wood-slat walkway to the ramp that covered the porch steps leading to his house. All the Horde were there, lined up to greet him. And there was a bright vinyl banner hanging from the porch roof: WELCOME HOME, BOSS!

Boss. Right.

He stowed that, too, and faced the onslaught of leather kuttes with all the emotional fortitude and good grace he could muster.

~oOo~

Show and Shannon stayed on after the rest of the Horde had left. Shannon and Lilli were in the kitchen cleaning up. Gia was down for the night. Isaac sat in his wheelchair in his living room and stared at the fire. Show sat on the couch and was quiet.

He hated being home with a cold passion. Everything was wrong. His goddamn front door was wrong. They’d widened it to accommodate his fucking chair, and now there was a new door—a plain, fake wood
, steel core door with no glass—to replace the heavy oak door with beveled glass that had been there for decades—fuck, for centuries. Half their furniture, most of it made with his own two hands, was who knew where, so that he could get through the living room to the kitchen. And the bed, also made by his hand, was gone. In its place was a fucking hospital bed with that fucking leverage contraption dangling over it, and a plain twin mattress and frame at its side. For Lilli, he presumed.

It was all so goddamn wrong.

And that wasn’t even the worst part of the day, seeing his ancestral home torn up to serve his weakness. The worst part was the Horde presenting him with a new goddamn kutte. What the fuck was that, and why the fuck had Show okayed it?

His kutte had been ruined by the buckshot that had ruined his life. But he was trapped in a motherfucking wheelchair. He wasn’t Horde. He couldn’t be Horde. They should be looking to take his ink, not making a damn ceremony of handing him fresh leather.
With the President’s patch on it,
all shiny and white. Jesus motherfucking Christ. He turned from the fire and glared at it where it lay on the coffee table.

“Isaac. Are we gonna talk about any of it?”

For a while, Isaac ignored him. He didn’t want to hear Show’s measured, thoughtful wisdom about any of it. He didn’t want a cool head. He wanted to tear the world into shreds.

“I should burn that fucking kutte. It’s an offense.”

“No. It’s right. When you can ride, you’ll take your place at the head. Where you belong.”

“No. You’re President now. That patch should be yours. I’m out, Show. I’m not gettin’ out of this chair. And it’s like a goddamn knife in my chest to have that kutte laying there, reminding me what I lost.”

“You can’t find it again if you quit. You’re right that you won’t get out of there if you’re gonna pussy out and give up.”

Rage boiled up through Isaac’s veins. There was an empty glass on the table next to him. He grabbed it and slammed it on the edge of the table, breaking the top away in shards and leaving angry spikes of
heavy, bubbled amber glass. Without even a pause, he drove the glass, spikes first, into his dead right thigh.

Show had leapt up, and Lilli and Shannon had run to the doorway, at the sound of the glass breaking. Now he looked up at all three of them. “I am never getting out of this fucking chair. My legs are dead. This means nothing to me.” He pulled the glass out and slammed it back into his thigh.

“Christ, Isaac!” Show leapt forward and yanked the glass away.

Isaac was unmoved. “Take that fucking thing out of my house. And get rid of my goddamn bike. Sell it, burn it, use it for parts. I could not give less of a fuck.”

“Do what he says, Show.” Lilli’s voice was flat, and Isaac looked at her. She met his eyes and then turned around and walked away.

He turned back to the fire.

Ride or die.

He couldn’t ride.

~oOo~

Saying she had his first aid under control, Lilli sent Show and Shannon home right after that. Show rode Isaac’s bike away. Lilli came back in from the porch and stood at the entrance of the living room, her arms crossed.

“You want me to clean that up, or would you rather sit there and maybe bleed out? Your call.”

He took a deep breath—his lung power was a lot better these days—and found calm. The wounds in his leg were bleeding, but not gushing.

“What I really want is for you to stop shutting me out. I have enough shit, Sport. My head is packed full with it. I need us to figure ours out.”

She walked through the living room, past him
and into the kitchen without at word. He heard her rummaging around in there, and then she came back with scissors and the first aid kit. She knelt in front of him and began cutting the right leg of his sweatpants away.

“Throwing a tantrum because you’re stuck in that chair, when you’re the one who fucked up your chance to get out of it
, strikes me as epically childish, Isaac. I’m so pissed at you I can barely look at you.”

Rage spiking again, h
e pushed her away from him and tried to roll away. But there was no room to move around her. She had him trapped. He slammed his fists down onto the wheels of his chair. “Fuck you, Lilli. Fuck you for hiding that shit from me. And fuck you for making that decision without me. I have fucked things up enough. I won’t put us on the fucking street!”

She went back to work, cutting the
ruined part of his pants out in a large, uneven square. He looked down at the bare, bloody thigh. Skinny. Piece of fucking rotten meat. He’d done a decent number on it, leaving two overlapping rings of bloody gashes. A Venn diagram of impotent rage.