Nitro & Tatum Ten Years Later
Nitro & Tatum
10 Years Later
(this takes place a year after Battle Hearts)
Nitro’s POV
6:05 a.m.
“Vegas.” I curve my hand over my wife’s hip as I press my lips to the back of her neck. When she wakes, I ask, “What time do you have to leave this morning?”
“By eight.” Her husky early morning voice weaves itself over my body, reaching for my dick in the way I like first thing. If I could live every minute of my life in this early morning time, I would. There’s not much better than this time of the day with Tatum. “I take it you’ve got plans for me filling that head of yours,” she says as she rolls over to face me.
I find her eyes, settling there for a moment. Ten years of looking into this woman’s eyes isn’t long enough. Hell, even if it had been ten decades, it wouldn’t be enough. “I’ve always got plans for you filling my head.”
She smiles, moving her body against mine and bringing her lips closer. “Tell me about today’s plan.”
I grip her leg and pull it over mine. “My plans don’t involve talking, Vegas,” I growl as my lips crash down onto hers.
Tatum is my safe harbour, and her mouth is the first thing I seek when I’ve been away from her like I have been this past week. When I arrived home in the early hours of the morning, I had to restrain myself from waking her. She’s been working too many hours lately and I found her sprawled across our bed just after two a.m., laptop open beside her. She was sleeping soundly. Her face was pure beauty and I could just make out her features in the moonlight that filtered through the window. Her blonde hair was splayed across her pillow, spilling onto her tattooed shoulder. The same pale light illuminated her soft lips which had begged me to kiss them. Take them. Do what I wanted with them.
She’d told me to wake her when I got home, but I let her sleep. Now that I have my hands and mouth on her, I’m almost certain that what I want to do to her won’t be what I actually do to her. A week without Tatum is too fucking long. I doubt my ability to take my time with her.
I kiss her thoroughly.
Deeply.
Like a starved man.
The sounds she makes while I do that are sounds I’ve missed this last week.
When I move on top of her, she wraps her legs around my body. Tightly. Her fingers dig into my neck. Her tongue lets me know how fucking much she’s into this kiss. And when she steals her mouth from mine to utter my name, I reclaim those lips faster than I ever have.
I spend far longer with her mouth than usual. Usually, I’m more impatient for her pussy. Today, I need these promises of connection.
When I’m done with her lips, I kiss my way down her throat to her tits and as I suck a nipple into my mouth, I find her eyes.
She arches her back and watches silently while I dedicate time to both her breasts before saying, “I need you to fuck me.”
“I’m getting there.”
She grasps my shoulder, her nails almost piercing my skin. “Get there faster.”
Fuck, I love it when she’s this turned on. This demanding. I grind my dick against her. “You missed me, Vegas?”
“Nitro.” It’s almost a beg. “I need you now.” And there’s her desperate need for me. The need I know I could never live without again.
“Fuck,” I growl, not wasting another second. I’ve got my hands on her legs before she can catch up and am spreading them wide as she buries her fingers in my hair. A moment later, I get my first taste of her in a week and fuck if it doesn’t mess with every thought in my head. It’s the exact same effect Tatum has had on me since the first time I had her.
“I’m not letting you go away ever again,” she says while I give her my tongue. While she grips my hair like she really won’t ever let go.
“That’s gonna be hard. I’m only back for two nights this time.”
Her fingers squeeze around my hair, pulling it. I barely notice the pain that causes because I fucking live for any pain like this that Tatum delivers. “Since when?”
I run my tongue from one end of her cunt to the other before lifting my face to meet her gaze. “You knew this was likely.”
Displeasure creases her features. “What I know is that King is working you too hard.”
“Yeah, and you also knew I probably wouldn’t be home for long.”
“Why does it have to always be you who goes? King’s got a club full of guys to choose from.”
“You know why it’s me.”
Since we’ve had this conversation twice already this month, and since she does know why I have to go, she doesn’t argue with me. Instead, she exhales a long, frustrated breath and grumbles, “King’s fucking with me.”
My lip twitches. “You gonna tell him that the next time you see him?” I don’t doubt it; these two have had some stand-up arguments over the last decade thanks to Tatum’s refusal to take what he dishes out if she doesn’t agree with it.
She arches her brows at my amusement. “You know I will. I’ll also send him the bill for the new vibrator I’ll be buying.”
I move back up her body and kiss her, long and deep, before saying, “You already own four vibrators.”
Her brows arch higher, challenging me to argue with whatever she’s about to say. “And soon, I’ll own five.”
I want to continue arguing with her just to get her really worked up, but our conversation is interrupted by a text that comes in for her from my niece. Tatum has six different text tones set on her phone to differentiate between me, Renee, Dustin, Marilyn, Monroe and everyone else. This particular tone is Renee’s.
When she leans across to reach for her phone, I say, “Leave it.”
“Renee never calls this early. It must be important.”
She’s right, so I don’t argue even though the last thing I want is for anyone to cut in on my time with her.
A moment later, she frowns as she reads the text.
“What is it?” I ask.
She shows me the message. “Something is very wrong.”
I read the text.
Renee: Tell me you’re awake. I’m in the middle of something and need you.
Now, it’s my turn to frown. Tatum’s right again. Out of all my family members, Renee is the least likely to send a message like that. She’s the calm, logical, ordered one. The word she uses to describe herself is tidy. A tidy mind, a tidy home, a tidy person. Not once in her twenty-seven years has she used the words “I’m in the middle of something and need you.”
I jab at Tatum’s phone to call Renee, at which point Tatum pulls the phone out of my hand.
“No,” she says to me while putting the phone to her ear. “You’re not handling this.” At my furrowed brow, she elaborates, “Something tells me a degree of softness is going to be required for this, and while you’re capable of many things, softness isn’t one of those things.”
“I give you soft all the fucking time.”
“You tone yourself down for me, which is a hell of a long way from what I think Renee might need today. I—” She stops talking abruptly when Renee answers the call.
I can’t make out what my niece says because she’s talking faster than I’ve ever heard her talk and sounds hysterical. Tatum has a short conversation with her trying to calm her down. They don’t get into what’s going on with Renee because Tatum isn’t successful in quieting her panic. When she tells Renee she’s coming over, Renee turns silent immediately and then I hear clearly her ragged “Thank you.”
“Fuck,” Tatum says to me, eyes wide while she sits in the bed for a minute after the call. “I swear I will draw blood if someone has fucked with her.”
My chest tightens at the thought. “You and me both,” I say darkly.
My wife sits quietly for another few seconds staring at me. She knows the lengths I will go to if anyone hurts any family member of mine.
She breathes out a long breath before sitting forward up onto her knees, curling her hand around my neck, and pressing her lips to mine for one last kiss before saying, “Tell me you’re not working today.”
After a decade with her, I can read Tatum’s mind. “If you’re planning on coming home to fuck me after you’ve seen Renee, then I’m not working today.”
“That was the right answer. And if King should call and ask you to do anything for him, I hope you know the right answer would be no.”
I watch her dress in her favoured jeans and black tank top, tracking her ass every step of the way as she moves towards the bedroom door to leave. “Vegas.”
She slows and turns back to me, waiting for whatever I’m about to say. Ten years with me and she has a fair idea of what that will be. The heat in her eyes gives that away.
“I hope you know what a week without you means.”
She doesn’t respond in any way except to pin her gaze to mine for a long minute. The way her chest rises and falls as her breathing picks up tells me everything I need to know.
My wife wants what I want just as much as I do.
***
Nitro’s POV
8:15 a.m.
Tatum: Renee is having a moment. This may take longer than I thought.
Nitro: What kind of moment?
She switches from texting to a call, which I answer immediately. “What’s going on?” I ask.
“I’m going to put you on speaker so Renee can tell you herself.”
There’s silence for a beat and then my niece says, “Congratulations. You’re going to be a great uncle or whatever it’s called when your niece has a baby. And prepare yourself to take me in because Greg is probably going to leave me now that I’m pregnant.”
I frown at what she says as well as the level of stress I can hear in her voice. This is so unlike Renee who is always calm, always in control. “Greg’s not going to leave you.”
She doesn’t respond to that. Instead, she carries on like she didn’t hear a word of what I said. “This is all Roe’s fault, FYI. She got me drunk and I forgot to take my birth control. After my husband leaves me, and I lose my job, and I birth a baby I have no clue what to do with, and I have to throw my twenty-year plan out the window and figure out how to write a new one that includes said baby and no income to speak of, I will be moving in with you and Tatum. You guys will feed us, clothe us, shelter us, and do anything else that babies require, and if any of your people bring Jäger near me again, I will pour it all down your throats until you choke on it.”
I like Renee’s husband but that fucking twenty-year plan of his needs to be trashed.
“Greg’s not going to leave you,” Tatum says softly.
“He is!” Renee’s voice turns into a high-pitched wail. “When he gets home from Melbourne tonight, he’s not even going to unpack his suitcase after I give him the news.”
“Right,” Tatum says in her take-charge tone. “I’m going to make you a coffee and then we’re going to talk. And I’m going to remind you of just who your husband is.”
“I know exactly who my husband is,” Renee says.
“I think you’ve forgotten,” Tatum says, “because if you did know, you’d know there is no way Greg Washington would ever walk out on his pregnant wife. He’s the same as Nitro and would never abandon the woman he loves.”
“You don’t know him like I do,” Renee says. “You don’t know how committed he is to that fucking plan of his.”
This is the first time I’ve ever heard Renee say anything negative about their plan. “I thought you were all in on the plan,” I say.
“I’m all in on my marriage. I’m all in on my career. I’m all in on paying off this house and building a life with Greg. But that plan needs to be torn up because it fucking keeps me awake at night.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because it’s so fucking stressful worrying over whether we’ll hit every date we’ve scheduled things for. There are barely any allowances built into it for when situations arise that will push things back.”
“Like a baby,” Tatum says gently.
“Yes!” I hear terror in Renee’s voice. “Like a baby!”
“Do you want this baby?” I ask.
The terror clings to her voice. “That’s not the right question, Nitro.”
“It is the right question,” I argue.
“No, I can think of a thousand questions you should be asking me, and that is not one of them.”
“You answer that question,” I say, “and then you go from there. And Tatum and I are right here with you when you go from there. Just like Greg will be too.”
She exhales a long breath and since my niece is practically my daughter, I know what that sigh means. She’s in turmoil and the only person who’ll be able to calm her will be her husband. Greg might drive me crazy with that life plan of his, but he treats Renee like a queen and always knows exactly what she needs to make it through her days.
“Your plan is out the window,” I say with determination because this conversation needs to be moved along. “It’s time for a new plan.”
When the only response I get is another long exhale, I continue, “You and Greg want a family, Renee. That was in the plan. Two kids. A dog. Maybe a cat. Definitely not any birds or fish if I remember correctly. You built your house with all those bedrooms for those children. And you both work your asses off for that size backyard so you can fit a pool in there one day for those two kids. This baby is wanted. You don’t need a fucking plan to tell you that.”
“You say that like it’s so easy,” Renee mutters. “Life isn’t that easy.”
“Life’s never fucking easy. All we can do is roll with it. Shit happens, plans change, we figure it out. Together.” I pause. “And Greg’s not going anywhere. He may never let you drink with Monroe again, but I know he won’t leave you.”
“Nitro’s right,” Tatum says. “Let’s get some coffee in you and start working this out.”
“Do you need me?” I ask.
“No,” Renee says emphatically, like that’s the worst idea she’s ever heard. “I need someone who can tread lightly for this.”
Before I can argue with her over the fact I can tread lightly when needed, Tatum says, “I’ll call you when I’m on my way home to see where you are.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Vegas.”
“I might be here for a while.”
“I’ve got nowhere to be but here.”
“Okay,” she says, and I don’t miss the way her voice changes slightly. The way that tells me she knows exactly what thoughts are running through my head. “I’ll see you later.”
The call ends, leaving me alone with the kind of thoughts that will make the hours until Tatum gets home some long fucking hours.
***
Tatum’s POV
11:20 a.m.
Tatum: I’m leaving Renee’s now, but something’s come up at work that I can’t leave for anyone else to deal with. I’m sorry but I’ll probably be another couple of hours.
Nitro’s going to be pissed about me working today. I know he’s forced himself to be more patient than he prefers over the last few weeks while my workload has tripled. Today may be the day he finally has his say over it.
Ever since the day seven years ago when I started my own business helping women who are in trouble with the law, he has supported me. While Nitro can be bossy when he wants to be, he has never tried to boss me into making different life choices. He encourages me in every way possible, even when that involves long hours away from him. But today, I know he wants time with me and a lot of it. When he calls just after I send the text, I answer immediately.
“Hey,” I say softly. “I’m sorry I have to work.”
“Don’t apologise. You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do. But when you get home this afternoon, your phone gets turned off. You do whatever you need to do to make that happen. I need my wife.”
What he’s saying is, “delegate the fuck out of your work for the rest of the weekend.” He’s saying that because I’m not good at delegating, and if I was, he would see a lot more of me.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bossy man?”
“Vegas.” He says this in a low growl, one I’ve heard hundreds of times during our marriage. And one I don’t ever need an interpreter for. I can push my husband further than anyone can, but on this, I’ve pushed him to his limit.
“My phone will be turned off before I step foot inside our house.” It’s a promise I intend to keep because I want what Nitro wants today just as much as he does. I want to submit to him and everything he wants to do to me.
***
Nitro’s POV
5:30 p.m.
This day has turned into the longest fucking day of this year so far. The fact I’m not at home with Tatum has put me in a filthy mood. However, when my president calls and tells me to be somewhere, there’s no choice to be made, so here we are.
King called just after one p.m. and detailed a problem that he and I had to sort out before it became a massive fucking headache for the entire club. It involved tracking down a guy who has complicated shit for the club and making it clear he’s no longer welcome in Sydney. We should have been finished hours ago, but the asshole was elusive, and we’ve only just gotten word from Devil as to his current whereabouts. We’re heading there now but have had to make a stop at King’s place, which is only fucking slowing us down more.
“Nitro,” Lily says with a smile as I follow King into their kitchen. “Tatum’s out the back.” At my frown, because I thought Tatum was at home, she adds, “She dropped over to return a dress she borrowed.”
I leave King and head out to the back deck to find my wife. She’s on her phone with her back to me while she gazes out over King’s backyard and carries on a conversation. By the sounds of it, she’s talking with her assistant.
My eyes are drawn to her ass while I close the distance between us. Always to her ass. My hands and mouth know every curve of it by memory.
She ends her call and turns while I’m dedicating time to her body. When my gaze meets hers a moment later, the heat blazing from her eyes tells me she wants my hands on her as much as I want them there.
“Are you finished with King?” she asks as I wrap an arm around her waist and pull her close.
Brushing my lips across hers, I shake my head. “Not yet. It’ll probably be another couple of hours before we’re finished.”
Her hands rest on my ass, and she gives me those beautiful eyes of hers. “I’m not working for even a minute tomorrow.”
Fuck, I could take these kinds of promises from her every day and die a happy man. I bend my mouth to her ear. “I hope you’re ready for a long night.”
She presses herself against me, tracing her finger across my lips. “I’ve spent days thinking about this mouth. And your tongue. I hope you’re planning on using it inside me.”
“Fuck,” I rasp, my dick far too fucking hard for her right now. “This filthy mouth of yours will get you in trouble one day.”
A hint of a sexy smile ghosts across her face. “I hope so, champ.”
Fuck.
Tatum doesn’t call me that very often anymore, and every time she does, it stirs shit up in my chest. It makes me remember the first time she ever called me that. That day all those years ago in the hospital after I rid the earth of Joseph. It makes me remember the fear I felt that I would lose her.
I’ve spent a decade keeping her safe and I’ll spend the rest of my life continuing to do that. Some days, when the grime of the world comes a little too close for comfort like it has this week, the urgency I feel to keep her from harm fuels me. It takes over every thought I have and feeds my beast. This is the real reason King always takes me with him when the club has dirty business to take care of. The reason why I end up being away from Tatum more than I would prefer. It’s because of that darkness that lives deep inside me, always ready to do whatever the club needs.
Wanting to shift the conversation, I ask, “How’s Renee?”
At this question, her smile takes over her face. “She’s having a baby.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
Still smiling, she glides her hands to my stomach and grips my shirt. “We’re gonna be grandparents.”
At that, I laugh. Tatum never wanted children, the same as I didn’t, yet we’ve done more parenting of Renee than her mother has. Marilyn has done the best she could, but at the end of the day, she just doesn’t have the capacity that Tatum and I do.
I know that Tatum has loved every minute of parenting Renee as much as I have, but now I see just how deep that love is. Her eyes hold a mixture of love and maternal softness unlike anything I’ve ever seen in her.
“Yeah, Vegas, we’re gonna be grandparents.”
Tears glisten in her eyes as she grips my shirt harder and searches my eyes silently for a long moment. Finally, she blinks them away and says, “You need to figure out how to build a treehouse.”
“Because?”
“Well, do you really think Greg has it in him to build one? The guy might be one of the best lawyers I know, but those hands of his are not made for hammers and nails.”
She’s not wrong, but there’s something else here. I can hear it in her voice. “Why a treehouse? The kid won’t need one for years.”
She takes her time before saying softly, “I never had a treehouse as a child and it’s all I wanted. Our grandchildren need a treehouse.”
Fuck me, this woman is something else and I will never know what I did to deserve her.
I kiss her, taking my time with it, showing her how much I love her. When I let her go, I say, “Our grandchildren will have the best fucking treehouse there ever was.”
The door to the back deck slides open and King’s voice comes from behind me. “We need to go, brother.”
As he walks away, Tatum’s eyes hold mine, the lust in them undeniable. “Bring your fury with you tonight.”
She doesn’t need to ask twice. What my wife wants in the bedroom, she always gets.
***
Tatum’s POV
8:30 p.m.
The sound of Nitro’s bike pulling into our driveway causes a rush of desire to flood my veins. Hell, that need for him has been a living, breathing thing in my veins all day.
I leave the bedroom and make my way down the hallway towards him, sucking in a breath when I lay eyes on him.
He’s brought his fury.
And a whole lot of lust.
Nitro is a powerhouse of muscle. He always has been, but the last few years have seen even more muscle packed onto his body. My man is solid power and strength, and as he walks my way with that determined look in his eyes that always means I’m in for the best sex, I thank the universe for giving him to me. Not just because he knows all the ways I like to be fucked, but because he loves with every fibre in his being.
When his gaze drops to the black lacy cami top I chose for tonight, the appreciation that fills his face chases another rush of need for him through my entire body. Nitro knows exactly why I selected this cami, and I can read every thought now filling his mind. This top, with all its straps and buttons, was made for a man who likes to take his time removing his woman’s clothes with a knife.
He slows his approach, but only for a moment. Then, he’s got me over his shoulder as he strides into our bedroom and drops me on the bed.
The anticipation and thrill I feel is the same that I always feel whenever I know he’s going to use his knife. Over the years, I’ve come to love it as much as he does.
Nothing makes me submit to Nitro like his blade. And if anyone had suggested years ago that I would want to submit to my husband, I would have laughed in their face. But here we are, and my submission guarantees multiple orgasms unlike any I had before I learned the art of this.
“You brought your fury,” I whisper as he moves on top of me, nudging my legs wide with his knee.
He keeps his eyes firmly on mine while reaching down to his boot for his knife. “That’s what you asked for.” His voice is rough. Turned on. So fucking turned on.
The silver glint of the blade as he presses the tip of it to my chest makes me still. The fear that always lives inside me during our knife play roars to life and I lose myself in it. Nitro has all the control here and I trust him completely, but playing on the edge like this always has danger attached. One wrong move from me, and I could be in a world of pain. Drawing blood isn’t the goal for us, but it’s always a possibility.
And that’s where the thrill lives.
The possibility.
The danger.
The unpredictability.
I want every second of this with Nitro.
“Show me,” I beg as he runs the knife tip along the skin at the edge of my lacy top, over my breasts and in between each of the three tiny straps that run from the shoulder straps down to the centre of my cleavage.
The determined expression he’s wearing intensifies. “Tell me how you want me to fuck you.”
I hold my breath when he lightly drags the sharp edge of the knife over my breast. “I want you to forget you’re my husband. Forget you care about me. Forget that gentle even exists.”
He hisses his disapproval. Nitro doesn’t love it when I request this. He might bring his fury to our bedroom, but that doesn’t mean he ever forgets I’m the woman he loves. I sometimes want the kind of rough sex that strangers do best at, and when I ask him for that, I know he struggles.
I go against all my rules for when he has a knife to my skin, and I reach for him. Absolute stillness is best to ensure no blood is drawn, but a week without him means I’m desperate to touch him. “When I told you I want your fury, I meant I want all of it. I want you to lose yourself in me so I can lose myself completely in you.”
I see the battle he wages.
Asking him to do this is asking him to connect with a part of himself he doesn’t tend to share with me. The darker side he reserves for the club work he does. But tonight, I want all of him. I need all of him.
He slices one of the straps at my cleavage. Then, another. And another.
His pace picks up as he reaches his free hand down to undo the button on my jeans. A moment later, he’s got the zipper down and is ordering me to remove my jeans.
“Touch yourself,” he says while slicing another strap from my top.
I slide my hand into my panties and find my clit.
Nitro lifts the blade from my chest as he shifts his gaze to my pussy. He watches what I’m doing for a moment before bringing his knife to my panties and using the tip of it to push them down so he can see my fingers and pussy.
The low, guttural sound he makes when his eyes lock onto my clit is almost enough to make me come. I manage to hold my orgasm back, closing my eyes and arching my back while it teases my edge.
“I need your mouth on me.” The words breathe out of me desperately.
Nitro curls a hand around my wrist, stopping me from touching myself. He then slowly cuts my panties in half and pushes them out of the way before placing the knife on the bedside table and bending his mouth to my pussy.
He circles his tongue around my clit over and over. I watch until the pleasure is so great that all I can focus on is that. My eyes squeeze closed, my fingers dig into his hair, and the pleasure consumes me.
When he roughly shoves two fingers inside me a few minutes later, my back arches even more.
Fuck. Yes.
“You test me, Vegas,” he growls as he finger fucks me with all that fury of his.
My eyes flick open, and I find his wild eyes firmly on mine. “You won’t hurt me.”
“I fucking might.”
“I’ll tell you if you do, but you never have.”
He pulls his fingers out of me and moves so fast I struggle to keep up. A few moments later, he’s got his clothes off, he’s got me pinned under him, and he’s got one of my legs up over his shoulder. “I would never forgive myself if I hurt you.”
My breaths come fast as I stare up into the eyes of the man I love who is looking down at me with such a mixture of emotions. For a moment, I wonder if he’ll give me what I want. He always has in the past, but there’s something different about him tonight and I’m unsure which way he’ll go.
He wages a silent battle for a few moments before finally slamming his dick inside me and letting his fury take over completely.
I hold on tightly while he fucks me like he’s only here for his own pleasure.
I can’t get enough.
I fuck him back like I’m only here for my own pleasure.
I use his body just as much as he uses mine and I’m as rough with him as he is with me.
Nitro takes me to the edge over and over, and by the time we both orgasm, I’m so spent that it’s going to take me a while to recover.
I collapse into his arms, and he pulls me close. I don’t even have the energy to lift my face and look at him as I say, “Just so you know, you didn’t hurt me.”
“I better fucking not have,” he says roughly, his arm tightening around me.
The love I hear in his voice causes me to summon the energy to look at him. “You worry too much.”
“I’ll never stop worrying about you, Vegas.”
“I think being a grandfather will be good for you.”
He arches a brow. “Because?”
I smile and curve my leg over his. “Because it’ll give you someone else to focus all your worry on other than me. Maybe once you’re a grandfather, you’ll get better at fucking me because you won’t be worrying over me anymore.”
A look of exasperation fills his features, but I see the love behind it too. “You’ll be the fucking death of me.”
I’ve lost count of the number of times he’s said this to me during our marriage. It’s Nitro speak for “I fucking love you, woman.”
No one loves me as well as Nitro does.
Our first ten years together were the best ten years of my life, and I can’t wait to be loved by him for another ten.
I smile and curl myself deeper into his arms. “I love you too.”