Center of Gravity (Marauders Book 3) (21 page)

He stared at me for a few seconds, then picked me up and walked further into the dark alley while kissing me. Unfortunately it was a full-length dress, so he had some problems getting it out of the way and my panties off.

“Fuck!” he grumbled. “How long is this fucking dress?”

“Long.”

“Like trying to unwrap a gift with too much damn paper.”

“Well, in Russia people give gifts after midnight on New Year’s Eve.”

He laughed, got a condom from his jeans pocket, and unbuttoned his jeans. “I’m gonna freeze my ass off.”

“We could just go to the clubhouse,” I teased and tried to get out of his grip.

“No fucking way,” he countered, and grabbed my ass to lift me up again. “I want my gift. Move the dress out of the way.”

I did, and then reached down to steer him right. We groaned in unison when he slipped inside.

“See,” he mumbled and kissed me. “There’s a little perv in you.”

“A gimp perv,” I moaned as he began to thrust with relentless speed. It made him laugh, and I leaned my head on his shoulder.

“Lips, baby,” he said a few moments later without missing a beat. “Give me some lips.”

I came not long after while sucking on his tongue, and I felt him harden inside of me. With a long groan, muffled by my lips, he came. It had been quick, a real quickie in an alley in central Greenville. I’d honestly never done anything like it, and when he gently put me back on the ground I laughed. He picked up my cane and handed it to me while laughing and shaking his head.

“You are one crazy chick.”

“Didn’t hear you protesting.”

“No fucking way,” he shook his head again and buttoned up his jeans. “And the rest of the night, I’m gonna keep in mind that you’re not wearing any panties.”

I looked at my panties lying in the dirt on the ground.

“Yeah, I’m not putting those back on.”

When we got to the clubhouse, Brick came and met us by the door while Mitch helped me take off my coat.

“Hey, darlin’,” he said with a smile and gave my cheek a kiss. “Good to see you again. I take it you had a nice walk here?”

I wasn’t sure what to say, and quickly decided to ignore the last part of his greeting. “Good to see you, too, Mr. Baxter.”

He stared at me for a few seconds, then he laughed. He had a great, burly laugh that came from deep down in his chest. It was the kind of laugh that forced a smile out of you no matter how uncomfortable you felt.

“Mr. Baxter? I like her,” he said to Mitch. “Gotta say, darlin’, you’re classin’ up the place with your dress. Think that’s the fanciest dress ever seen the inside of this clubhouse.”

I looked down at my black dress and kept smiling. It seemed very unlikely that it was meant as an insult, or even a complaint. “I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment,” I finally said.

“Smart girl.” Brick turned his attention to Mitch. “I
really
like her. Why haven’t you brought her around for a family dinner yet?”

Before Mitch had time to answer, Brick took off, and he was laughing again.

“So…” I started and cleared my throat. “That nickname wouldn’t come from ‘as subtle as a brick?’”

“Yeah.” Mitch looked extremely uncomfortable.

“You know what, I’ll just go see if I can find Lisa or Violet.”

“Do that. I’ll find you later.”

It didn’t take me long to find Violet. She was very easy to spot with her bright violet hair.

“Hi,” I said when I sat down next to her. “There’s a lot of people here.”

“I know. Hence me sitting in the corner,” she smiled.

“Where’s Joshua?”

“Mel and April are the designated babysitters, so all the kids have been dropped off there.”

“April?”

“My dad’s… girlfriend, I guess you’d call it.” She laughed a little. “Just sounds a bit odd. Especially when I talk about my husband and my dad’s girlfriend.”

“That… does sound a bit odd. Yes.”

We didn’t get to talk long before Sisco sat down with us, and he immediately started flirting with me. Not in a creepy way, though. Considering how he now and then glanced in Mitch’s direction, I assumed it was more to wind him up than actually trying to win me over.

“Shouldn’t you be getting head in a corner somewhere?” Violet asked him, and I almost choked on my beer.

“Who are you and what the fuck happened to the blushing girl you used to be?” Sisco said to Violet with a laugh. “And I already had one.”

“You’re making Anna blush,” she pointed out, but I shook my head.

“It was more you making me blush, to be honest.”

“See? A woman wearing a dress like that is a classy woman, so you don’t talk about head or anal sex around them,” he said. I didn’t just blush at that, I laughed out loud, too.

“Jesus!” I exclaimed. “Let me know if you plan on doing that out here, so I can leave first.”

“I will,” Sisco smiled. “How’s the sturdy fella?” he asked Violet.

“He’s good,” she answered. “Sturdy and calm.”

When Lisa came walking towards us, Sisco stood up and gave me a wink before turning to Violet again.

“Let me know when you’ve got an opening for that ink we talked about.”

“Sisco,” Lisa beamed. “Just the man I was looking for.”

“Gotta go, doc,” he said. “Catch you later, Swan,” he continued with wink at me before taking off.

“Okay,” Lisa said, and she looked slightly deflated.

“Uh,” I started once he was gone. “Am I missing something?”

“He’s a stubborn ass, and I’m done,” she muttered.

I looked at the big, longhaired biker who was tearing through the clubhouse as if hunted by demons. I tried to figure out how old he was, but it wasn’t easy with any of these guys. I guessed he was at least fifteen years older than Lisa, probably twenty.

“Really?” I said and stared at Lisa.

“It’s a long story, and I’m not going to think about it. Let’s get drunk.” She turned to Violet. “And that includes you!”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

What Did You Do?

-o0o-

Mitch had Joshua on his arm when he went to open the door. Anna was on the other side, and she gave him a nervous smile.

“I hope this isn’t because you think I’ll be of any kind of help,” she said with a worried expression as she walked inside. “Because I really don’t know anything about babies.”

“No. It’s about crossing it off the list,” he answered. “Besides, they’ll be home soon. Don’t think Vi can be away from him for more than a few hours.”

Mitch hadn’t seen Anna since the morning after New Year’s Eve, five days earlier, since her parents hadn’t left until earlier that day.

The visit before that, when she’d needed to get away from her family, had been a surprise, and he’d figured some shooting might calm her down. It always calmed him down. When she’d totally freaked out, he’d decided that pushing her into doing something was probably just stupid, but she’d done it, and towards the end she’d seemed to at least be okay with it. She was pretty shit, though, but he hadn’t told her that.

The expression she was sporting at the moment was very much the same as the one at the shooting range, but instead of a gun she was staring at Joshua, and Mitch contained his laugh.

“He’s a baby. He sleeps, screams, shits, and eats. Nothing to be afraid of.”

“It’s the two in the middle that I find scary.”

“You’re already intimidating a full-grown woman, Cue Ball. You’re gonna be an awesome guy,” he said and looked at Joshua. “Although, she’s a gimp, so I’m not sure it counts.”

Anna jabbed him on the arm and laughed. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and even if she’d looked great in her New Year’s Eve dress, this was how he liked her the best. Apart from naked, of course… Or wet in the shower, and now he had a boner. Which was a bit weird when he was holding a baby, so he quickly stopped thinking about her naked.

Anna was back to staring at Joshua with a terrified expression. Mitch pointed at the couch.

“Sit down so you can hold him. I need to fix him a bottle.”

“You’re leaving me with him?” she asked with wide eyes. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen. You’ll be fine.”

She sat down, and he put Joshua in her arms. On his way to the kitchen, Mitch turned around to look at her. She still looked pretty freaked out, but it looked as if she was starting to relax. He smiled at her, but she was completely lost in Joshua, which was pretty sweet, so he continued to get the bottle Vi had left in the fridge.

He’d tried to be an adult about it when she’d talked about breast milk, but he’d finally cracked up and started laughing. She’d called him ‘the most immature almost thirty-year-old man on the planet,’ to which he’d objected—he was not ‘almost thirty.’ When he’d asked her how she got the milk out of her boobs, Mac had cracked up, too, and Vi had just shaken her head and told Joshua that both his dad and uncle were immature idiots.

When he came back out to the living room, Anna was talking to Joshua in Russian. He still found Russian so extremely hot; he fucking loved it when she mumbled things in his ear while he was fucking her. She looked up at him and smiled. The smile died when he handed her the bottle, though.

“I’m not sure how to do that.”

“Put it in his mouth, he’ll figure out the rest.”

He watched Anna feed Joshua, still talking to him in Russian.

“What are you saying?” he finally had to ask.

“I’m telling him the story about the fiddle-playing soldier.”

“The one you and Irina talked about?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t you do that in English, so I can hear it, too?”

“No. It works better in Russian.” She gave him the empty bottle. “And now?”

Mitch took a baby blanket, threw it over his shoulder, and took Joshua from Anna.

“What’s with the blanket?”

“He’s gonna throw up.”

She watched them curiously, and when Joshua burped and, as always, threw up, she made a disgusted face.

“Seems like a waste of resources.” She leaned back. “And now?”

“Now he sleeps.”

“I have to say, this babysitting doesn’t seem like a lot of work. I think the girls in my class were highly overpaid.”

“Wait until he starts walking.”

He remembered babysitting Eliza; that had been a lot of work. She was butt-fucking crazy by the time she turned a year old. And loud! Also, like a fucking monkey, she’d climbed everywhere. He had to admit, though, she was the cutest kid he’d ever seen.

He looked down at Joshua, whose eyelids were already heavy, and he was about to fall asleep. Of all the kids Mitch had been with as babies, Joshua was by far the calmest and nicest—possibly also the chubbiest.

“Looks like I got out of the diaper change,” Anna said with a smile.

“For now.” When he looked up at her, her eyes were fixed on Joshua. “You okay with your parents leaving?”

“Yeah. We talked a lot, some of it good. They freaked a little when I told them where I’d spent the New Year’s Eve night, and with whom, but I think we were okay by the time they left.” She rolled her eyes. “The words ‘those Baxter boys’ and ‘that MC club’ were mentioned more than once, though.”

“Those Baxter boys?” he laughed.

“Yeah, you two were pretty infamous at school. At least you were.”

“Ahh, yes, I was. I was bored.”

“Bored?”

“I’m easily bored.”

She didn’t answer, just nodded, and he wondered what that was about. Then she looked back up and gave him strange smile. She leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Think he’ll manage to keep you busy,” she said with a nod to Joshua.

“Yes, he will,” he agreed. “This is my little dude.”

After Mac and Vi returned home, he took Anna to his place. They had dinner, watched a move, and she fell asleep on his couch. So he carried her up to bed, helped her get undressed, and lay down next to her—just looking at her.

He’d figured out a few things over the Christmas holiday. He was madly in love with her, and it was probably the first time since his early teens he was in love with someone. But he also knew that Anna was so lost in her own shit that if he told her now, she’d panic. She wasn’t ready for anything like that. The chick hardly knew who she was anymore, and she’d had her entire life—or at least what she thought was her entire life—smashed to pieces. The way he figured it, the only thing he could do for now was to be there for her, not push, and let her figure things out on her own.

On the plus side, she was much more relaxed these days than she’d been just two months earlier when they started this… thing. She laughed a lot more, and the fact that she came to him when she was upset said something. She was comfortable with him, and that was enough for him because it meant she’d stick around.

-o0o-

She called him two weeks later and said she’d had a shit day and that shooting might help. He started laughing, and he was pretty sure she was close to hanging up on him by the time he managed to collect himself.

“There’s a party at the clubhouse later, but we can swing by the shooting range before that.” He got up and borrowed the key to his dad’s truck and wave towards Mel to make sure she saw him take it. “Want me to pick you up?”

“I’m at home.”

He still hadn’t figured out her schedule. Most often she worked late evenings, and she had weird days off, and then there were days like this, when she started work in the morning and was done around two. But no matter the hours she worked, they managed to see each other most days, pretty much every day, and he’d somehow turned into Mac and went home after the church on Fridays.

The thing with the Dutch Smiling Ghouls club was ticking along, and it had been decided that they were going to Amsterdam later that year to meet up with them. They were meeting the US branch first, though. There was still some bullshit about where the meet was going to happen, but Mitch assumed it would be in Englewood with the mother charter.

Hump was still gone, and nothing had happened since the murder besides sporadic and pathetic hacking attempts. They hadn’t managed to find a single trace of him, and that alone was suspicious as fuck. Hump was obviously doing his best to stay under the radar. The cops had been taking it easy when it came to the murder. Apparently even cops celebrated Christmas.

“So what happened for you to have a day shitty enough to want to use a gun, Mrs. Pacifist?” he asked when she opened the door.

“Miss,” she growled and picked up her jacket and handbag. “I’m a
miss.
”

“Yeah, I know, and we’re gonna see that in a few minutes on the shooting range.” He stepped aside, and as she passed him, she hit him with the cane. “What the fuck! Did you just hit me with your cane?”

“It’s the privilege of old hags and gimps,” she said and gave him a smile. “You’re having a party on a Tuesday?”

“Dawg’s birthday,” he explained, but it didn’t escape him that she still hadn’t told him what had happened to get her pissed.

She did a little better with the shooting, but frankly not that much better. She didn’t even seem to care if she hit or missed the target, and most of the time it was like she wasn’t even bothering to aim. It didn’t matter; she was still sexy as hell. He lifted the ear protector covering her ear.

“Ever fucked in a truck?”

“I’ve had sex in a car,” she tried.

“Not the same. Ready to go?”

She put the gun on the table in front of them, turned around, and nodded with a smile.

“I haven’t seen you shoot. You mock me, but I’m not sure you’re all that much better than me at this.”

Just to show off, he didn’t let go of her when he picked up the gun, fired the remaining shots, and then winked at her.

“Turned on?” he asked.

“I’m a pacifist, you know.”

“Between the shooting and the cane bashing, you could’ve fooled me.” He leaned down and kissed her. “Come on, might not have turned you on, but I’m very ready, so I think I can get you going.”

On their way back, he turned onto a small desert road, and pacifist or not, she was very ready. When she sat down on his dick with a satisfied groan, he grabbed hold of her hips. He’d unbuttoned her shirt earlier and tried to move a bra cup to the side with his mouth.

“Help me out here, babe,” he mumbled, still trying to see the awesome nipples he knew were hiding under her bra. “I want a taste.”

She pushed it to the side, and he knew he was grinning like an idiot. He gave her knuckles, still holding the bra, a kiss before giving her nipple a quick lick. Then he gently blew on it to see it pebble before he took it into his mouth. She groaned and pushed down on him even harder.

“Mitch,” she mumbled. “This list has transformed from ‘things I couldn’t do because I was a dancer’ to ‘things I haven’t done,’ and now I think it’s just things you want to do with me.”

He let go of her nipple and looked at her. “That a problem?”

“No,” she smiled. “Not at all. Unless it’s me stealing stuff.”

“Shoplifting, baby,” he said and groaned when she rolled her hips. “Just shoplifting.”

He wasn’t able to convince her to go to the party with him, though. She had loads of excuses, including not having a gift. So he warned her that Eliza had a birthday the next week, he wanted her to come, and that his baby sister was a crazy feminist who’d written an essay about the role of women in ballet. He left it to her to figure out what to give a girl like that for her fifteenth birthday.

She did, however, tell him that the main reason she was pissed that day was that some customers had told her she didn’t know the first thing about culture. To his amusement, she’d snapped and told them she’d been a principal dancer at the New York City Ballet and had culture coming out of her ass. He thought it was kind of funny but took care not to laugh out loud.

The weekend after, they did the full-day-in-bed thing. They stayed naked most of the day, ordered in pizza and ate it in bed, talked, and had sex. It was amazing, and she agreed that they should do that at least once a month. If she could get something other than pizza because it was not one of the things she’d missed due to dancing, it was because she thought it was disgusting. When she suggested sushi, he protested, though. It had to be something greasy, and when she asked why, he showed her by licking all the grease off her.

She came to Eliza’s birthday party and gave her a book,
Scheherazade Goes West
. He’d taken a look at the index, and the chapters had names like ‘Intelligence versus Beauty,’ ‘Sex in the Western Harem,’ and ‘Size 6: The Western Women’s Harem.’ He’d known Eliza would love it.

At the end of January, Anna was going to New York for a long weekend to meet old friends. He thought it was a good idea and possibly a way for her to get some closure. She spent the last night before she left with him, and he realized that since Christmas they hadn’t spent many nights apart.

He kissed her goodbye in the morning, and she said she’d call when she got back. He’d bitten his tongue dozens of times in the last few weeks not to tell her he was insanely in love with her, that he couldn’t get enough of her, and that he wanted them to just fucking admit they weren’t just fuck buddies—she was his girlfriend. But he didn’t. She kissed him goodbye, he watched her get into the elevator and wave at him with a big smile, and that was it. Besides a text to let him know she’d arrived safely, he didn’t hear from her again. When he called, she didn’t answer or declined his calls. No answers on texts either. Dead silence. Nothing.