Wild Fire: A Chaos Novella Read online

  “Right, because I took diet pills, mainlined Red Bull, and when I could get my hands on it, snorted coke.”

  Dutch heard Georgie’s hissed-in breath.

  This right before she asked, “That’s why you do coke?”

  “I don’t do it all the time because I can’t afford it. But I’m not Mom. I don’t have the will-power to starve myself my whole life so I don’t commit the unforgivable sin of being over a size six.”

  “Yes, but you started hiding you were using,” Georgie pointed out.

  “Yeah, because you gave me so much shit about it,” Carolyn shot back.

  “Okay, but seriously. Nobody gives a crap about weight anymore,” Georgie stated.

  “Wrong, girl. You don’t give a crap. Do you think I’d snag half the guys I snag if I let myself look like you?”

  Dutch reentered the conversation.

  “Yes.”

  Carolyn’s body jerked and she looked at him.

  “Some guys like thin girls. Some guys like curvy girls. Some guys like girls who don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks, are smart, hilarious, gorgeous and have weird obsessions with their cats. Jagger wasn’t into you because you’re skinny. In fact, you’re not his type for that reason. He was into you because you knew how to have fun. But the point is, mostly guys like girls who have it together and aren’t headcases about stupid shit like that.”

  Carolyn said not a word, just stared at him.

  So Dutch kept at it.

  “But the bottom line in any scenario, if you’re with anyone, man or woman, who your body size matters more than who the person you are is, it’s you who should think they’re not worth it and scrape them off,” Dutch advised, and finished, “Including if that person’s your mother.”

  Now Carolyn stared at him, her mouth hanging open.

  They had a day, just them, if they could get shot of this woman, so Dutch moved to end it.

  “Now you’re blaming your mother. You’re a grown-ass woman, Carolyn. Take some fuckin’ responsibility. Call your father. Consign your shit. Stop doin’ coke, for fuck’s sake, to stay skinny. And introduce yourself to yourself. I’ve been around you a lot. All this shit aside, you’re worth knowin’.”

  When Carolyn didn’t reply, Georgie came to Dutch’s side, leaned into it, he slid an arm around her shoulders, she slid both hers around his middle, and she said to her sister, “Talk to Dad. He’s going to help. If he doesn’t, you can’t stay at my place. I won’t give you any money. But I’ll ask around. I’m pretty sure I can find you someplace to crash for a few weeks. But in that time, you have to unload some of your designer stuff and get yourself ahead.”

  “What’ll I do with my furniture?” Carolyn asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ll intervene with Dad. Maybe he can put it in his basement or something.”

  Carolyn shook her head, looked away.

  When she looked back, she said, “I’ll talk to Dad.”

  Thank Christ.

  “I love you and I hate this is happening to you just as I’m glad it is because I want you to get beyond this,” Georgie told her. “It worries me to death. Dad’s freaked out. And Mother is Mother, but I bet she’s freaked too. Enough. For you and for us.”

  Carolyn stared at her sister a beat, before she pushed out, “I’ve been a bitch.”

  “Stop bein’ that, sort your shit, and it’s all gonna be good,” Dutch told her.

  Her eyes hit him and lit.

  “Do you think Jag—?”

  He shook his head and ended that before she started it.

  “You two are done. There’s no goin’ back. It’s not about a grudge. It’s about trust. And shitting on family. You broke the first, and worse, committed the cardinal sin of doin’ the last. He’s gone for you.”

  “He’s a good guy,” Carolyn said softly.

  “Yeah,” Dutch agreed to the obvious.

  “Like you,” she murmured, pulled in another big breath, her eyes shifting between them again, before she settled on Georgie and something else hit her face, something he’d never seen.

  But it was the something Georgiana knew was there, buried until then, but not gone.

  Carolyn’s life was in the toilet.

  But she knew her sister was happy.

  So she was happy for her sister.

  Carolyn again spoke.

  “I’ll call Dad. I’ll let you know if he’s not being cool. Then I’ll call you.”

  “Call me anytime, Caro, don’t forget the part about me loving you. We’ll do lunch or dinner, and for that, I’ll buy.”

  One side of Carolyn’s lips went up and she said, “You’re such a bitch because you’ve always been so cool.”

  Hearing that, Dutch was about to lose it when Georgie replied, “You’re such a bitch because you’ve always been such a free spirit. It’s annoying.”

  “You’re annoying.”

  “Your face is annoying.”

  “Your face is obsessed with a cat.”

  “Your face needs an ice cream sundae.”

  “Got that right, sister.”

  After Carolyn said that, they both started cackling.

  Jesus Christ.

  Were they serious?

  “Come here,” Georgie bid, breaking from Dutch to go to her sister.

  They were serious.

  They hugged.

  And didn’t let go.

  He heard Georgie whisper, “Dad’s gonna take you in.”

  “I know, but bluh, he watches so much football and Michelle fusses.”

  “She wants us to like her.”

  “She’s been around two decades, we like her already, geez.”

  “Just be cool.”

  “You be cool.”

  “I’m always cool.”

  “Annoying.”

  Fortunately, this sister shit didn’t go on a lot longer, and after Carolyn apologized again for the day before, and interrupting them that morning, Georgiana got her out the door.

  And as Dutch watched this, he thanked fuck he had two brothers.

  When Georgiana shut the door on her sister and turned to him, he asked, “You all right?”

  She took one skipping-running step to him, another, then she body-slammed him and curved her arms around.

  He did the same with his arms around her.

  “She’s gonna be okay,” she said, smiling brightly up at him.

  “Yeah,” he murmured, taking that in, feeling it filling his chest, knowing that was all he needed to get through this day.

  Hell, probably the next week.

  “It’s gonna suck for her huge, though, because Dad is the consummate NFL junkie and Michelle totally fusses.”

  “You’re gorgeous, you know,” he decreed.

  She blinked, her chin jerking back, before she asked, “What?”

  “You’re gorgeous. Beautiful. Great face. Great hair. Great body. Perfect skin. You know that, don’t you?”

  She melted into him and said, “I feel I must inform you, Dutch Black, that although you have a body carved by God himself, so beautiful it makes me salivate, my down-with-the-patriarchy days, which, mind you, are not over, include me being not down with the patriarchy-led gazillion-dollar diet and workout industry. Which I will allow, some of them actually strive toward offering humans an avenue to a healthy lifestyle. But especially with the diet industry, it feeds on insecurity and the media’s utterly impossible-to-achieve version of beauty, making fat white cats big bucks. So since I was about twelve, I considered my curves a badge of honor.”

  “Good.”

  “Though, it’s sweet of you to say.”

  “Pointing out, God carved your body too.”

  Another blink and chin jerk and then a smile and a soft, “Yeah.”

  “Do you need coffee?”

  “I’m only about to die without it.”

  Shit.

  Georgie and her quick mouth.

  Fuck, he dug this woman.

  To share that, he brushe
d a kiss on her lips, let her go, and finally went and poured them both some joe.

  * * * *

  Dutch drove them home from the fancy-dinner part of their marathon date mildly pissed.

  And since he was, he got into that.

  “You did that on purpose.”

  “Mm,” she hummed.

  “Mm?” he asked.

  “I did tell you,” she reminded him.

  “No man likes a tease.”

  She let out a giggle he’d never heard before, it was feminine and hot, and he became less mildly pissed and more just straight-up pissed.

  “It’s not about the tease,” she educated. “It’s delayed gratification which I’ll remind you again was your idea.”

  “That right there,” he stated. “Retaliation.”

  She said nothing.

  He remembered their conversation of the night before.

  “Cerebral and long-lasting,” he grunted.

  She giggled again and he got why he felt that in his dick.

  Because it was the auditory sound of her got-your-cock look.

  She slid a hand on his thigh, stopping way too close to his cock, and told him, “We’re almost home. So your torture is almost over. And so is mine.”

  Torture was a good word for it.

  Her.

  In that red dress.

  Short, mid-thigh, fitted skirt. Sleeves that came down to just under her elbow.

  All that relatively modest.

  It was the cleavage.

  A scalloped, semi-wide v-line that went all the way down to her midriff.

  You could see a lot full-on, but if you caught a view from the side.

  Fuck.

  Which meant her gorgeous tits had been in his face all night.

  He didn’t even taste his steak.

  And if it wasn’t for her dark hair tumbling down her back and all over her shoulders, lush with curls. The red lip she gave him that reminded him how those felt wrapped around his dick. Her heavily made-up eyes that made her look sultry—because it was the classy, glamorous kind, not the trashy, overdone kind—he wouldn’t have looked at anything else.

  And he barely thought of anything else but how many ways he was going to fuck her that night.

  If asked, he would have called it that he would hook up with a woman in the life. Like Snap did with Rosalie. Rosie’s dad was a biker, she knew their world and didn’t want to leave it.

  He did not suspect he’d find someone like Tack found with Tyra or Hop found with Lanie, or even Joke found with Carissa.

  He got his own version of that.

  Rosalie could get dolled up and it’d be hot, in an objective way from Dutch’s point of view.

  But she wouldn’t be caught dead in a dress that hinted at professional, was demure in almost every way, but in truth, was designed to drive a man out of his mind.

  “If I had to endure the torture for days, you can do it for one dinner,” she declared.

  “Babe, since we started to get busy, you’ve had five orgasms, sucked me off three times and got me off with a hand job. You’ve hardly gone wanting.”

  “Mm,” she hummed again, squeezing his thigh.

  He realized talking about this shit wasn’t helping.

  He caught her hand when it shifted dangerously, and when he did, she said, “You give good date, Dutch Black.”

  “I don’t know how you can think that. You turned me into that loser who can’t stop staring at a woman’s tits.”

  “Honey.”

  At her tone, horrified and remorseful, he glanced at her.

  Which instantly turned him the latter.

  “Babe, it wasn’t that bad,” he somewhat lied.

  “I think you need to know something,” she told him.

  “What?”

  “That’s the best date I’ve ever been on.”

  This, “What?” was surprised.

  “You know, I’ve got a mirror, so I know conventionally, with the symmetry of my face and the thickness of my hair and whatnot, I’m considered attractive.”

  Suddenly, at her detached and impartial assessment of her own looks, he wanted to laugh.

  He didn’t and she kept going.

  “That said, every girl who goes on a date with a guy she really, really,” she squeezed his hand, “likes, wants that guy to stare at her through the date like he can barely control himself from pouncing on her. Not only is it sexy as hell, it feels unbelievably nice.”

  “Glad you enjoyed yourself,” he muttered.

  “Sorry you didn’t,” she said. “That sucks.”

  Well, shit.

  “Georgiana.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll remember you sitting across from me in that red dress and how proud I felt that you were right there, with me, and you’d end the night in my bed and I’d end it in you, for the rest of my life.”

  “Dutch,” she whispered.

  “So don’t listen to my bullshit. I’m just impatient to get you home.”

  “Then hurry,” she urged.

  He was not about to get in a wreck that would end a fantastic day in blood and trauma, so he did not hurry.

  He didn’t go slow either.

  And outside Carolyn showing, and maybe even partially because of Carolyn showing and how that eased the mental load for Georgie, it had been a fantastic day.

  They’d fooled around in bed all day, whispering to each other and dozing between times, getting out of it only to grab food and when it came time to get ready to go out to dinner.

  Georgiana told him about her mother, who was definitely a mother. A woman who sounded dedicated to nothing but striving to mold her girls into physical perfection that would attract a man in a way he would not get shot of her.

  Not surprisingly, that meant they had a strained relationship that included what amounted to duty visits and texts only, with the occasional dinner thrown in and the obligatory rotation of holidays between her and Georgie’s dad.

  Dutch told her how Hound was his dad without being his dad, this not about blood, but about not hooking up with his mom until a few years ago.

  She told him she was uncertain about the crime beat, because it required a fair amount of aggression and legwork, and she wanted something that was more about face-to-face interaction and research.

  He admitted working in the shop wasn’t so bad, but there had been something about doing what he did for Carlyle that meant something to him and he’d have to think about that and what it meant because Chaos wasn’t about that. Not anymore. Every brother either worked the shop or worked in the garage. But Dutch was not into builds, or cars, though he was into bikes but only in the sense of riding them and knowing what he had to know to keep his running.

  They’d also had the necessary conversation about birth control.

  She told him she was on the Pill, hadn’t been “active” in a while, but she didn’t take anyone ungloved when she was. And he shared he never went in ungloved. When she learned that, she told him when they got there that night, she wanted nothing in between.

  That was the obvious choice for him too, but he pushed the discussion so he could make certain she was totally on board with that.

  She was.

  He still was uncertain.

  Until she said, “It’s a matter of trust, Dutch.”

  That said it all.

  She trusted him.

  He trusted her.

  And that ended that particular discussion.

  It was easy, their flow. Even when he got into the difficult shit, like where he was going in his life, it was effortless to give her that. Look in her eyes, their limbs entwined, no judgment, Georgie not jumping in to suggest shit or say things to make him process it when he wasn’t ready.

  So yeah.

  It had been a fantastic day, discovering time with Georgie was that good when there wasn’t drama swirling with Georgiana proving she wasn’t only gorgeous, but good in a crisis, had a crazy-awesome head on her shoulder
s and a spectacular sense of humor.

  And on these thoughts, it was not a surprise to him that he could no longer see her in that dress with her beside him in his truck, her coat on, but still, when he pulled in his drive beside her Subaru, he had his door open before he had the ignition shut off.

  Georgie wasn’t fucking around either. When he met her at the hood of his truck, she practically ran on her gold stilettos beside him, holding his hand, to get to his side door.

  He knew Murtagh was well and truly his boy when the cat came to the doorway to the mudroom, let out a truncated, “Mur—?” but at one look at them, he turned around and moseyed off.

  When their coats were on hooks and Georgie had thrown her gold bag to the counter, their knuckles slammed together as each sought the other’s hand.

  He shot her a grin.

  She returned it.

  He enfolded her fingers in his, and even if she was jogging behind him to keep up with his long strides, he did not adjust those strides as he pulled her to his bedroom.

  No way he was having her fully for the first time without being able to see, so he wasted the time it took to hit the light.

  When he turned to her, she had her hands at the back of her neck to undo her zipper.

  “You take off that dress, you wait until tomorrow for my dick,” he growled.

  Her arms instantly dropped.

  Yeah.

  She knew when to give over.

  And that scored right through his cock.

  “Turn around,” he ordered.

  She didn’t delay.

  He moved in behind her and put his hands to her hips.

  “Pull your hair aside,” he demanded.

  She didn’t delay with that either.

  He went in and kissed the exposed side of her neck.

  Just with that, she shivered.

  “Dutch.”

  His name trembled.

  That went through his cock too.

  All of it did.

  Working the area under her ear with his lips, teeth and tongue, he took his time moving one hand up her back to the zip.

  He also took his time sliding it down.

  “Dutch.”

  That was a plea.

  Inside her dress, he ran his hands up her skin on either side until he got to her shoulders.

  He shoved the dress off and she instantly shimmied it down until it hit the floor.

  Dutch turned her then and looked at her.