A Christmas to Remember (9 page)

That day, he’d set about building a friendship with me, taking care of me during the single-most toughest time in my life and bringing me back to the me I’d lost somewhere along the way.

And, in the end, giving me him, the best gift I’d ever received, even better than the sapphire earrings right then in my ears. Since those were the absolute bomb that was saying something.

This must have shown on my face because Shy suddenly folded his body to rest a hip on the couch beside me. He leaned in and his hand came to my jaw.

“What’s on your mind, Tabby?”

“You,” I whispered, “and Christmas candy wrappers.”

I knew it hit him when his eyes flashed and he moved. Getting off the couch, he bent and shoved one arm under me at my waist, one at the back of my knees, and he lifted me into his arms.

He didn’t go in for the kiss when he had me up and pivoted toward the hall that led to the bedroom.

I did.

So my mouth was on his, my tongue in his mouth, when my back hit our bed and Shy landed on me.

The minute he did, I put a foot to the bed, bucked my hips and rolled him, going with him, not breaking the kiss. But once I had him where I wanted him, I lifted up and yanked off my sweater.

The room was dark and it was clear Shy didn’t like it that way. That was why I felt his hands span my ribs as he sat up, twisting us. He took one hand away to reach to the lamp and he turned it on. Then both his arms curled around me tight and I was again back to the bed with my man on me.

He didn’t delay in burying his face in my neck, working there then working his way down to drift his lips across the edge of my lacy red bra.

When his lips hit the valley between my breasts and started gliding up the other side, I liked it so much I slid my fingers in his hair to hold him to me. He went up my other breast then he went back down and my belly flipped when he kept going down my midriff, down my stomach, to stop and roll his tongue around my navel. Then down he went where he brushed his lips along the waistband of my jeans.

Oh yes.

I felt a surge of heat between my legs as his lips disappeared.

Oh no.

I lifted up on my elbows to watch as he tugged off my boots and my socks.

Then he gained his feet at the side of the bed and pulled off his thermal.

I felt a nag of disappointment seeing as I wanted to do that, but it was only a nag seeing as he exposed the planes and hollows of his chest and abs.

My mouth watered and my hands went to the buttons on my jeans.

Shy’s green eyes watched my hands work even as his fingers did the same on his jeans.

My eyes dropped there and I hurried up.

I got my jeans over my ankles and Shy was back. Better yet, when he came back he was naked.

I loved his hair, how thick it was, how long, how soft, but when his mouth was again on mine, I didn’t go for his hair. Squirming under him, I fed on him through touch, running my fingers everywhere I could reach, wanting to go slow but liking what I felt too much to pull that off.

So I gave up and took all I could get as fast as I could get it.

Shy returned this favor, but he was able to go slow.

Agonizingly slow.

Which made me even more fevered to get
more.

Finally, I felt Shy’s hands on the sides of my hips, his pinkie and ring fingers pressing into my panties and tugging them down.

I didn’t care what his intentions were, mostly because I knew they were going to be good. So I moaned against his tongue a second before I lost it and his lips again trailed down my body as his fingers dragged my panties down my legs.

He had them over my ankles, then he wrapped his hands around those ankles and pulled them apart.

That was when I knew what I was going to get.

And I couldn’t wait.

“Baby,” I breathed.

That was all I could get out before my legs were over his shoulders and his mouth was on me.

My back arced from the bed, my heels dug into his lats, and I drove my hips up into his mouth as he worked me there.

God, so beautiful.

Every time, so damned beautiful.

With nowhere else for them to go where I might want them to be, I slid my fingers back into his hair to hold him to me as the whimpers and soft cries glided up my throat and he built it. Slow at first, then making it roar higher and higher until I was panting and whimpering and my fingers were fisted in his hair.

It was coming. Another Christmas present. Not as good as the earrings but
far
from shabby.

Suddenly, his mouth was gone from between my legs and his lips were kissing my belly.

I lifted my head and whispered my plea. “Don’t stop.”

His head came up, his eyes locking on mine even as he slid further up my body. I watched him drop to kiss the skin over my ribs and I liked that. It was sweet.

But I wanted his mouth back between my legs.

Or something else a whole lot better.

“Baby,” I begged.

He lifted his head and his eyes caught mine again.

“Wanna watch,” he murmured, and his words and what they meant slithered through me, leaving me trembling.

Then his fingers were between my legs, toying, playing, again creating beauty.

My lips parted and my hips moved as Shy rested his chin against my midriff, his eyes still locked to my face, and he built it again for me. Higher, God, so high, it was searing through me.

“Shy,” I breathed, one of my knees cocking reflexively, closing over to trap his hand there as my back arched off the bed and it burned through me.

In the throes of my orgasm, I felt him push my legs apart roughly and then he was there, driving inside me, hard, fast, deep, God, so,
so deep.

He pulled my legs around him but it was me who wound my arms around him, holding him tight with one arm at his shoulders, clasping his hips with my legs, gliding one hand down his spine to curl my fingers and hold fast to his ass.

“Mouth, Tabby,” Shy ordered and I tipped my chin down, my first orgasm drifting away, Shy’s cock driving in, his mouth claiming mine. His tongue thrusting inside started the next one building.

One of his forearms was planted in the bed; he shoved his other hand under me and cupped his hand on my ass like mine was on his. But mine was grasping him, encouraging him to take me harder, rougher, faster. His was yanking me up so he could take me harder, faster, rougher.

Oh God.

Beautiful.

Amazing.

It was going to happen again.

I tore my mouth from his and shoved my face in his neck.

Shy’s thrusts increased in pace and velvet brutality as his arm in the bed moved to become fingers in my hair and he tugged back.

“Show me,” he demanded.

“Baby,” I whimpered, trying to focus on his face.

“Hold it,” he ordered.

Oh God.

He liked us to come together.

But I wasn’t sure I could give him that this time (then again, I never was and it was hit and miss if I did).

“Shy, honey, I—”

He kept pounding as he growled, “Hold it, Tabby.”

“God,” I panted, my limbs tightening around him, I slid my arm from around his shoulders to cup his jaw as our eyes locked and he drove deep.

I wasn’t going to be able to hold it.

“Shy—”

“Hold it, baby.”

“I—”

His mouth came to mine and his rumbled, “
Hold it,
” drove down my throat.

I slid my thumb over his lips, his tongue came out and touched the pad and I liked that so damned much, my back left the bed, arching into him.

The movement of his hips went out of control.

“Now, honey. Give that to me,” he groaned.

Thank God.

I let go and gave it to him.

He sucked my thumb in his mouth and when he did, what was scorching through me ratcheted up about five levels and
blistered
through me.

His neck bent and I slid my thumb out of his mouth and my fingers into his hair as he thrust deep through his climax and buried his face in my neck.

I held on and took it.

Gladly.

Finally he stilled, buried deep, connected to me.

As my breath left me and Shy’s started to come more easily, I turned my head, closed my eyes and took him in. All of him. Everything. All of it mine. His weight. His solidness. His smell. The feel of his hair curling around his neck and tickling my nose. The exquisite tenderness between my legs. The even more exquisite feeling of Shy connected to me.

I memorized it even though I knew this was my life. This man and me. My bed being our bed. My home being wherever he might be. His love represented in the posts through my ears, precious stones on the lobe, a symbol of everything he felt for me.

It was a good life.

The best.

And I didn’t have to memorize it because in a myriad of ways, it was every day for me.

But I still did. I’d learned to burn the precious memories into my brain.

So I burned that deep into me.

“Clean you up,” he murmured against my skin. “Then I gotta crash, honey.” He lifted his head and caught my eyes. “I’m wiped.”

“I’ll go clean up,” I offered, something I didn’t do often seeing as Shy liked washing himself from me.

“No.”

That was it.
No.

See? Shy liked doing it.

He gently pulled out, kissed the underside of my jaw, my chest, then rolled off the bed. But I knew he didn’t lie when he said he was wiped because usually he took his time, but this time, although he was his usual tender and sweet, he didn’t linger.

As he moved back to the bathroom to get rid of the washcloth, I moved under the covers and threw his side back, waiting for him.

He slid in and reached out to turn off the light before he turned to me. He gathered me in his arms and pulled my front to his. I tangled my legs with his and pressed both hands into his chest, feeling his warmth, his strength, as he shifted to snuggle us even closer.

Oh… so…
totally
loved my man.

I felt his body ease and my body eased into his.

I knew he was drifting into sleep so I lifted my chin and kissed the base of his throat, about to say my last Merry Christmas and my goodnight.

But Shy beat me to it.

“Thank you for a great Christmas, Tabby.”

His voice was thick and I closed my eyes at the emotion sitting deep in every syllable.

It said everything, and with Shy, everything was always
everything.

I didn’t know how to tell him that. I didn’t know how to explain what having his everything meant to me. I didn’t know how to tell him how much I treasured giving him his first great Christmas in years. I didn’t know how to tell him what a gift it was that it was me who got to give him everything.

I just knew one thing.

So I said that.

“Every year, baby.”

His cell rang and Parker “Shy” Cage opened his eyes.

He was on his back in his bed in his room at the Chaos Motorcycle Club’s Compound. The lights were still on and he was buried under a small pile of women. One was tucked up against his side, her leg thrown over his thighs, her arm over his middle. The other was upside down, tucked to his other side, her knee in his stomach, her arm over his calves.

Both were naked.

“Shit,” he muttered, twisting with difficulty under his fence of limbs. He reached out to his phone.

He checked the display, his brows drew together at the “unknown caller” he saw on the screen as he touched his thumb to it to take the call.

“Yo,” he said into the phone.

“Shy?” a woman asked, she sounded weird, far away, quiet.

“You got me,” he answered.

“It’s Tabby.”

He shot to sitting in bed, limbs flying and they weren’t his.

“Listen, I’m sorry,” her voice caught like she was trying to stop crying or, maybe, hyperventilating, then she whispered, “So, so sorry but I’m in a jam. I think I might even be kinda… um, in trouble.”

“Where are you?” he barked into the phone, rolling over the woman at his side and finding his feet.

“I… I… well, I was with this old friend and we were. Damn, um…” she stammered as Shy balanced the phone between ear and shoulder and tugged on his jeans.

“Babe, where are you?” he repeated.

“In a bathroom,” she told him, as he tagged a tee off the floor and straightened, waiting for her to say more.

When she didn’t, gently, he prompted, “I kinda need to know where that bathroom is, sugar.”

“I, uh… this guy is… um, I didn’t know it, obviously, but I think he’s—” another hitch in her breath before she whispered so low he barely heard “—a bad dude.”

Fuck.

Shit.

Fuck
.

He nabbed his boots off the floor and sat on the bed to yank them on with his socks, asking, “Do I need backup?”

“I don’t want anyone…” she paused. “Please, don’t tell anyone. Just… can you please just text me when you’re here? I’ll stay in the bathroom, put my phone on vibrate so no one will hear, and I’ll crawl out the window when you get here.”

“Tab, no one is gonna think shit. Just give me the lay of the land. Are you in danger?”

“I’ll crawl out the window.”

He gentled his voice further and stopped putting on his boots to give her his full attention.

“Tabby, baby, are you in danger?”

“I… well, I don’t know really. There’s a lot of drugs and I saw some, well, a lot of guns.”

Shit.

“Address, honey,” he urged, and she gave it to him.

Then she said, “Don’t tell anyone, please. Just text.”

“I’ll give you that if you keep me notified and often. Text me. Just an ‘I’m okay’ every minute or so. I don’t get one, I’ll know you’re not and I’m bringin’ in the boys.”

“I can do that,” she agreed.

“Right, hang tight, I’ll be there.”

“Uh… thanks, Shy.”

“Anytime, Tab. Yeah?”

He waited, and it felt like years before she whispered, “Yeah.”

He disconnected, pulled on his last boot, and stood, tugging on his tee as he turned to his bed. One of the women was up on an elbow and blinking at him. The other was still out.

As he found his knife in the nightstand and shoved the sheath into his belt, he ordered, “Get her ass up. Both of you need to get dressed and get gone.” He reached into the nightstand and grabbed his gun, shoving it into the back waistband of his jeans and pulling his tee over it. “You got fifteen minutes to get out. You’re not gone by the time I get back, I will not be happy.”

“Sure thing, babe,” the awake one muttered. She lifted a hand to shove at the hip of her friend.

Jesus.

Slicing a glance through them he knew he was done. Some of the brothers, a lot older than him, enjoyed as much as they could get, however that came, and they didn’t limit it to two pieces of ass.

He’d had that ride and often.

It hit him right then it went nowhere.

He’d never, not once, walked up to a woman who looked lost without him and became found the second she saw him. Who leaned into him the minute he touched her. Who made him laugh so hard, his head jerked back with it. Whose mouth he could take and the world melted away for him just as he made that same shit happen for her.

And he would not get that if he kept this shit up.

He jogged through the Compound to his bike and rode with his cell in his hand.

She texted,
I’m okay
, and Shy took in a calming breath and turned his eyes back to the road.

She texted again. This time,
I’m still okay
, and, getting closer to her, Shy felt his jaw begin to relax.

A few minutes later she texted again. This time it was
I’m still okay but this bathroom is seriously gross
.

When Shy got that, after his eyes went back to the road, he was flat-out smiling.

She kept texting her ongoing condition of
okay
, with a running commentary of how much she disliked her current location, until he was outside the house. He turned off his bike and scanned. Lights on in a front room, another one beaming from a small window at the opposite side at the back. The bathroom.

He bent his head to the phone and texted,
Outside, baby
.

Seconds later he saw a bare foot coming out the small window and another one, then legs. He kicked down the stand, swung off his bike, and jogged through the dark up the side of the house.

He caught her legs and tugged her out the rest of the way, putting her on her feet.

She tipped her head back to him, her face pale in the dark.

“Thanks,” she said softly.

He, unfortunately, did not have all night to look in her shadowed but beautiful face. He had no idea what he was dealing with. He had to get them out of there.

He took her hand and muttered, “Let’s go.”

She nodded and jogged beside him, her hand in his, her shoes dangling from her other hand. He swung on his bike, she swung on behind him. A child born to the life, she wrapped her arms around him without hesitation.

He felt her tits pressed to his back and closed his eyes.

Then he opened them and asked, “Where you wanna go?”

“I need a drink,” she replied.

“Bar or Compound?” he offered, knowing what she’d pick. She never came to the Compound anymore.

“Compound,” she surprised him by answering.

Thank Christ he kicked those bitches out. He just hoped they followed orders.

He rode to the Compound, parked outside, and felt the loss when she pulled away and swung off. He lifted a hand to hold her steady as she bent to slide on her heels, then he took her hand and walked her into the Compound.

Luckily, it was deserted. Hopefully, his room was too. He didn’t need one of those bitches wandering out and fucking Tab’s night even worse.

“Grab a stool, babe. I’ll get you a drink,” he muttered, shifting her hand and arm out to lead her to the outside of the bar while he moved inside.

Tabby, he noted, took direction. She rounded the curve of the bar and took a stool.

Shy moved around the back of it and asked, “What’re you drinking?”

“What gets you drunk the fastest?” she asked back, and he stopped, turned, put his hands on the bar and locked eyes on her.

“What kind of trouble did I pull you out of?” he asked quietly.

“None, now that I’m out that window,” she answered quietly.

“You know those people?” he asked.

She shrugged and looked down at her hands on the bar. “An old friend. High school. Just her. The others…” She trailed off on another shrug.

Shy looked at her hands.

They were visibly shaking.

“Tequila,” he stated, and her eyes came to his.

“What?”

“Gets you drunk fast.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

He grabbed the bottle and put it in front of her.

She looked down at it then up at him, and her head tipped to the side when he didn’t move.

“Glasses?” she prompted.

He tagged the bottle, unscrewed the top, lifted it to his lips and took a pull. When he was done, he dropped his arm and extended it to her.

“You can’t get drunk fast, you’re fuckin’ with glasses,” he informed her.

The tip of her tongue came out to wet her upper lip and Jesus, he forgot how cute that was.

Luckily, she took his mind off her tongue when she took the bottle, stared at it a beat then put it to her lips and threw back a slug.

The bottle came down with Tabby spluttering and Shy reached for it.

Through a grin, he advised, “You may be drinking direct, sugar, but you still gotta drink smart.”

“Right,” she breathed out like her throat was on fire.

He put the bottle to his lips and took another drag before he put it to the bar.

Tabby wrapped her hand around it, lifted it, and sucked some back, but this time she did it smart and her hand with the bottle came down slowly, although she was still breathing kind of heavy.

When she recovered, he leaned into his forearms on the bar and asked softly, “You wanna talk?”

“No,” she answered sharply, her eyes narrowing, the sorrow shifting through them slicing through his gut. She lifted the bottle, took another drink before locking her gaze with his. “I don’t wanna talk. I don’t wanna share my feelings. I don’t wanna
get it out
. I wanna
get drunk
.”

She didn’t leave any lines to read through, she said it plain, so he gave her that out.

“Right, so we gonna do that, you sittin’ there sluggin’ it back and me standin’ here watchin’ you, or are we gonna do something? Like play pool.”

“I rock at pool,” she informed him.

“Babe, I’ll wipe the floor with you.”

“No way,” she scoffed.

“Totally,” he said through a grin.

“You’re so sure, darlin’, we’ll make it interesting,” she offered.

“I’m up for that,” he agreed. “I win, you make me cookies. You win, you pick.”

He barely finished speaking before she gave him a gift the likes he’d never had in his entire fucking life.

The pale moved out of her features as pink hit her cheeks, life shot into her eyes, making them vibrant, their startling color rocking him to his fucking core before she bested all that shit and burst out laughing.

He had no idea what he did, what he said, but whatever it was, he’d do it and say it over and over until he took his last breath just so he could watch her laugh.

He didn’t say a word when her laughter turned to chuckles and continued his silence, his eyes on her.

When she caught him looking at her, she explained, “My cooking, hit and miss. Sometimes, it’s brilliant. Sometimes, it’s…” she grinned “…
not
. Baking is the same. I just can’t seem to get the hang of it. I don’t even have that”—she lifted up her fingers to do air quotation marks—“
signature dish
that comes out great every time. I don’t know what it is about me. Dad and Rush, even Tyra, they rock in the kitchen. Me, no.” She leaned in. “
Totally
no. So I was laughing because anyone who knows me would not think cookies from me would be a good deal for a bet. Truth is, they could be awesome but they could also seriously suck.”

“How ’bout I take my chances?” he suggested.

She shrugged, still grinning. “Your funeral.”

Her words made Shy tense, and the pink slid out of her cheeks, the life started seeping out of her eyes.

“Drink,” he ordered quickly.

“What?” she whispered, and he reached out and slid the tequila to her.

“Drink. Now. Suck it back, babe. Do it thinkin’ what you get if you win.”

She nodded, grabbed the bottle, took a slug, and dropped it to the bar with a crash, letting out a totally fucking cute “Ah” before she declared, “You change my oil.”

His brows shot up. “That’s it?”

“I need my oil changed and it costs, like, thirty dollars. I can buy a lot of stuff with thirty dollars. A lot of stuff
I want
. I don’t want
oil
. My car does but I don’t.”

“Tabby, sugar, your dad part-owns the most kick-ass garage this side of the Mississippi and most of the other side, and you’re paying for oil changes?”

Her eyes slid away and he knew why.

Fuck.

She was doing it to avoid him. Still.

Serious as shit, this had to stop.

So he was going to stop it.

“We play pool and we get drunk and we enjoy it, that’s our plan, so let’s get this shit out of the way,” he stated. Her eyes slid back to him and he said flat out, “I fucked up. It was huge. It was a long time ago but it marked you. You were right. I was a dick. I made assumptions, they were wrong and I acted on ’em and I shouldn’t have and that was more wrong. I wish you would have found the time to get in my face about it years ago so we could have had it out, but that’s done. When you did get in my face about it, I should have sorted my shit, found you, and apologized. I didn’t do that either. I’d like to know why you dialed my number tonight, but if you don’t wanna share that shit, that’s cool too. I’ll just say, babe, I’m glad you did. You need a safe place just to forget shit and escape, I’ll give it to you. Tonight. Tomorrow. Next week. Next month. That safe place is me, Tabby. But I don’t want that old shit haunting this. Ghosts haunt until you get rid of them. Let’s get rid of that fuckin’ ghost and move on so I can beat your ass at pool.”

As he spoke, he saw the tears pool in her eyes but he kept going, and when he stopped he didn’t move even though it nearly killed him. Not to touch her, even her hand. Not to give her something.

It killed.

Before he lost the fight to hold back, she whispered, “You are never gonna beat my ass at pool.”

That was when he grinned, leaned forward, and wrapped his hand around hers sitting on the bar.

“Get ready to have your ass kicked,” he said softly.

“Oil changes for a year,” she returned softly.

“You got it but cookies for a year,” he shot back.