Bones by the Wood (28 page)

She sighed.  “I should get back out there.  I don’t know about you, but I could eat a horse.  I’m guessin’ the others’ll be gettin’ a little peckish, too.”

“You’ve done good this weekend, sweetheart.” Dizzy said as he brushed her bangs away from her eyes.

Thea hitched one shoulder, as much of a shrug as she could manage.  “Well, I’m not exactly used to cookin’ for an army, but no one complained.”

“Not what I meant.  You’ve had a lot to deal with, the kinda stuff most people on the street can’t even imagine.  You didn’t let any of it beat you down.”

“It wasn’t a walk in the park, but what else can you do? It wasn’t all gonna go away just ‘cause I curled up in a corner and cried.”

“Some people would’ve.”  Dizzy shifted, bringing their bodies closer again.  Thea luxuriated in the warmth of skin against skin.

“Hidin’ from my shit never occurs to me until afterwards.  I’m stupid that way.”

“Not stupid.  Brave,” he rumbled before kissing her to the point that she didn’t care if everyone beyond the door had resorted to eating each other in a mass zombie-fest.

When they paused to breathe she murmured, “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”  He grinned against her lips.

“No, not for that, well, not only.  For what you did.  It cost you, to keep us safe.”  Dizzy was going to say something and Thea thought she knew what it was, so hurried on, “I know you needed to do it anyway, but thank you all the same.”

Dizzy brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek.  “I’ll keep you safe, sweetheart, both of you.  You’re part of this family now,” he kissed her gently, almost chastely, “with me.”

Thea was beginning to feel overwhelmed, and they were in danger of not making it out of bed before night fell, but a chill chased over her skin again and she used that as the incentive to rise and dress.  At first, Dizzy lay back on the bed and simply watched her move about the room, which was distracting in itself, but eventually he swung off the bed and found some clothes, pausing every now and then to distract Thea some more with a touch or a kiss.

As they left the room, she nearly paused, unsure about how she felt about the majority of the people in the building probably knowing exactly where she’d been for the last however long and who she’d been with, but she swiftly decide that she refused to be embarrassed about that, unless maybe Josh made some sort of comment about it.

When they reached the main room, Dizzy pressed a kiss to her forehead before heading over to Cage.  Thea found Annelle and Dana in the kitchen where they’d already started the meal preparations.  Thea immediately pitched right in, not realizing she was humming a tune until Annelle called her out on it. 

When she sat down to eat with Josh, Dizzy joined them.  Josh was full of his opinion that Shaggy and Ferret were better pool tutors than Thea, even if they did argue most of the time.  Once the men had eaten their fill, they disappeared, at Dizzy’s signal, into their private room.  It was almost an hour before the re-emerged.  When they did, Dizzy sought her out to let her know that they were heading to the garage to do some legitimate work, but they let Josh tag along with them all the same.

Thea spent the afternoon avoiding Annelle’s questions.   She didn’t mind talking to her, but she didn’t want to discuss what had happened, what was happening, in this building where god knew what set of ears might be nearby.  Her personal mother hen would have to wait for the gossip.

All the women pitched in again to prepare the evening meal, and afterwards the atmosphere developed into a genial family carnival.  Again, it was tamer than Thea knew it could be, although couples did disappear discreetly every so often, but it was good, comfortable, familiar and easy.  Even with some of the attitude problems she’d encountered over the past couple of days, there was no tension.  There was no way Lucy and Britney were lining up to be Besties with her, but they weren’t holding a grudge at that immediate moment.

It was late when Josh began to nod off while waiting for his turn on the Xbox.  Thea checked with Dizzy and then put her son to bed in Dizzy’s room.  Feeling exhausted herself, mentally as well as physically, she curled up on top of the covers behind him and fell into a deep sleep.  She was roused sometime later when the door opened and Dizzy entered, but she didn’t jump; she’d been expecting him.  As on the first night, he stripped to his jeans and thermal and then joined them on the bed.  But again instead of pulling her to him, he moved up next to her, throwing his arm over her and Josh.   Thea felt his lips against her neck, but he didn’t tease her, he only placed a brief kiss on a spot that Thea hadn’t known was quite so sensitive until his lips pressed against it.  Feeling completely worn out, Thea fell asleep, cocooned in protective affection.

The advantage of having the dorm room at the end of the corridor was that there was only one shared wall.  That meant
not having to listen to two sets of fucking on a rowdy night.  The disadvantage was that being at the end of the building and having the external wall resulted in having the only dorm room with a window.  Dizzy kept the heavy blind shut, but the small window was above the bed, and short of bricking it up, there was no way to stop sunlight filtering down onto the pillow.  Normally, it wouldn’t have been a problem; he was usually up with, or before, the sun, but today he wanted to linger, and the spears of light were keeping him the fuck awake.

He did a quick mental check.  Monday, yeah, he was fairly sure it was Monday.  Had it really only been Friday that all this shit had started going down?  Seemed like it should’ve taken longer.  It had been a busy weekend, out and out warfare on a Mexican drug lord, down one brother, up one.... old lady, family?  There were no labels being flung about yet, but Thea wasn’t a one-time deal for him, and if she was seriously coming to Louisiana with him, well, that pretty much said it all.

He felt Thea shift under his arm and knew that the intrusive day was waking her, too.  She stretched, which pushed her back against his body.  He felt a little numb down one side, the result of not having moved at all in his sleep, but even with that handicap he responded to what he knew now was in front of him.  Jesus, but she had been worth waiting for.  That simmering attraction that had smoldered a little more every time they’d come across each other had blown up like a landmine.

Trouble was, it wasn’t just her in front of him at the moment.  Dizzy didn’t think Josh was awake, but there was no way he was feeling the kid’s mother up while he was in the same bed, well, not much anyway.  He slid the arm currently lying over both Thea and Josh back until he could slide his palm over Thea’s waist and onto her stomach.  She’d only taken off her sneakers and socks before curling up on the bed, so she was still wearing her jeans and t-shirt.  Dizzy thought it was a pretty effective way, under the circumstances, of giving her kid some space to be a little grown up, even though they had to share a room.  He’d pretty much followed her example and kept his jeans on, although he was shirtless, knowing that he would have gotten too hot in the night being so close to another body.

Dizzy slipped his hand under the hem of Thea’s t-shirt and rubbed it slowly over her so soft skin, just above the waist band of her jeans, low on her belly.  He’d noticed the thin, silvery stretch marks there, the only sign that she’d ever carried a human being inside her.  It was strange to think of her as a mama.  It wasn’t strange when Josh was around, she was very definitely maternal around him, but she seemed so young to have a kid his age.  It seemed to Dizzy like she should just be starting out on that journey, not be halfway through it, but he didn’t like to dwell on that, for many reasons.  Thea turned onto her back, and he edged over to make room for her, but he didn’t still his hand as it rubbed her skin.  She did that; once she was settled, she wrapped her hand around his wrist and held it steady.

“Right place, wrong time.”  She was speaking so quietly it was almost as if she mouthed the words.  He wouldn’t have made them out if he hadn’t been lying next to her.

“I know, sweetheart.  Don’t worry.  Just teasin’.”  But he still slipped his fingers under the waistband.  Thea tightened her hold on his wrist, but he noticed that she didn’t immediately pull his hand away.  His cock began to fill out beyond the semi-hardness that it had already achieved.  He had to remind himself that there was someone else in the bed, her kid no less.

He tried to pick a banal thought to concentrate on, rather than thinking abut what he wanted to do to the responsive body lying in front of him, because Josh began to stir. 

Despite him being bleary eyed and blatantly not a morning person, Thea managed to get Josh washed and changed.  As soon as he was done in the bathroom, Dizzy took his turn.  Not least because he had a raging hard-on that needed some TLC.  He was about to take matters in hand, when he heard Thea’s voice from the next room.  He hadn’t thought that he’d left the bathroom door ajar, but he could just make out what she was saying above the noise of the running water.

“Don’t wake anyone up that’s asleep. I’ll be through in a minute. I’m gonna wait and wash up first.”

He lazily stroked his cock as he listened to the main door opening and closing and wondered if he’d heard right.  The door to the bathroom opened fully, confirming that yes, indeed he had.  A moment later, the glass door to the cubicle opened, and Thea stepped into the cramped space.  She’d bundled that uncontrollable hair on top of her head.  There was barely room to move with two of them in the small space, but that was no bad thing. 

She pressed herself against his body and nudged his hand out of the way, taking over from him and settling into a steady rhythm.  Dizzy edged them around until he could put one palm on the tiled wall behind her.  One of them was going to need to keep steady or he suspected there was a chance they’d end up crashing through the glass.  As she worked his solid shaft, he stroked down her body, taking a moment to flick the pierced nipple that seemed to have the effect of a turbo charge on her arousal.  There was something about the feel of that metal bar through the nub of tender flesh and the smooth coldness of the balls either side of it that had an effect on him, too, and his hips began to move in time to the tempo that Thea’s hand was setting. 

He didn’t kiss her, although they were close enough that they almost were.  Their mouths hovered over each other, sharing gasped breaths.  Dizzy pressed Thea a little more into the cold tile before he slipped his fingers between her thighs.  He headed straight to his target, pushing two fingers into her and plunged them in and out of her wet flesh as he worked her clit with his thumb.  There was something intensely erotic about the way that they weren’t kissing, but were so close.  His skin was heated from more than just the hot water, and the same applied to the woman trembling with lust in front of him.

As Thea increased the pace of her stroking, Dizzy curled his fingers inside her slick sheath.  Her movements became erratic and she writhed on his hand.  Fuck, that was hot. He debated just pulling her leg up on his hip and burying his cock in that slippery sweet pussy.  It’d be a risk, he wasn’t intending on taking a break to get some protection, but right then it seemed like the best idea ever to simply plunge into her.  He moved his fingers even faster with the intent of getting her to the point of no return, then maybe she wouldn’t slap him for being such a fool, or at least not until after the deed was done.

But then she was coming, panting and wet and slick and grinding onto his palm, and fuck but it was hot to feel that.  As she started to relax after her orgasm, Dizzy just cupped her pulsing flesh not wanting to miss one beat of the aftershocks of her pleasure, but his hand tightened again when Thea upped the speed of her fist and added a little twist every time she got to the head.  Oh, that was all sorts of interesting.  The weight in his gut was building and building and then he was coming, grunting like an animal and shooting spunk up the wall by the side of her hip.

“Mornin’, cowboy.”  She smiled, kissed his cheek, and left the cubicle as suddenly as she’d entered it.  Dizzy was almost too weak in the knees from the intensity of his pleasure, and too disoriented from Thea’s abrupt exit, to finish washing himself.

He didn’t linger.  He’d lost all enthusiasm for being under the spray alone as soon as Thea had gone.   He was toweling his hair dry as he walked into the bedroom.  He found her sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling her sneakers on. 

He was debating pushing her back down onto the bed and getting a little... revenge wasn’t quite the right word... asserting himself a little, maybe, when she looked up.