Page 136 of Bronco

I spank her ass and she yelps as I bring my fingers to her mouth and tell her to suck.

She groans and I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of her hair as I inhale. “You’re so fuckin’ perfect.”

“I love the ink,” she whispers when I pull my fingers from her mouth. She turns in my arms. “I love I have a piece of you now.”

“You’ll always have a piece of me, sugar.”

There’s no other place I want to be, aside from in her arms.

Three months later…

“Torin, pass the mash potatoes, sweetie,” my mom says as we sit around the table in my apartment. I do as she says, glancing sideways at Amber as she smiles at me.

My mom loves Amber. In fact, in the three days she’s already been here, the two have been inseparable. I know Amber misses her mom who she lost at an early age, so when Mom asked her if she’d like to have a girls’ day out of shopping and lunch, I’ve never seen her so excited. Even if my mom does tellembarrassing stories about me, I don’t care if it’s my girl's smile I get to see at the end of it.

Amber moved in a month ago, and we’ve been redecorating and making it a little less ‘bachelor pad’ and more ‘happy couple.’ New furniture was high on the agenda, including a bed, couch and turning one of the spare bedrooms into a mini library, just like the one Amber had at her house. I know how much it meant to her, so I got the Ikea bookshelves she loves so much, and put them together one day while she was at work. Fuck me if that shit is a bitch to figure out. Reading is something Amber enjoys, and while we still have our monthly book club, I really just read the books so I can hear her talk about what she liked and didn't like. Granted, I don’t always read the books, or I skip to the smutty parts, but Amber still won’t let me near her with a cucumber.

“This is delicious, sweetie,” Mom says, tucking into the roast chicken we prepared. Mom is traditional on Sundays, and what Mama says goes.

“It’s so good,” Olive agrees, stabbing a carrot like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. I know she’s giving Titan food under the table, and he’d do just about anything for chicken.

Erica smiles across at her daughter. “We’re lucky to have such amazing people in our lives.”

My mom smiles in return, patting Erica on the hand.

Well, things certainly turned around for the better. Erica got a job pretty quickly as a teacher’s aide, and she wants to finish her qualifications and teach kindergarten. It may be a while before the club gets their money back, but Erica has started a payment plan, and took on some night shifts at the Whiskey Shack Grill for some extra money. We love having Olive whenever we can. Since Erica was happy to take over the lease on Amber’s place, everything has worked out for the best. And I have my girl in my arms every single night.

Vincent is in jail, and will be for a very long time, along with Steven and several other men from the cult. They’ll get what they fucking deserve one way or the other, and frankly, I don’t have any sympathy. The sad fact is, not all of the women were like Amber and Erica and wanted to leave. They’re so brainwashed that they’ll likely stay where they are and try to rebuild their lives, or move on to another cult, probably with similar values to the one they were in because they don’t know any better. My blood boils when I think about Amber’s forced marriage and how young she was. The fucker is lucky he got caught by the cops, because what I did to that fuck face Oswald would be nothing compared to the hours I’d make Vincent suffer. Jail is too good for a sack of shit like him.

“You’ll all have to come out to my home sometime,” Mom says. “Get all that city grit out of your hair. It’ll be fun.”

Mom’s in her element, of course, because she knows Amber is the real deal. Not only have I never brought a woman home to meet my mom before, but she’s heard all about Amber for years when we were best friends.

The conversation we had when we were alone went something like this…

“I told you to follow your heart a long time ago,” she tells me, slapping me upside the head.

“Ow Mom, what was that for?”

“She could’ve been snapped up by any eligible bachelor in all this time. You have to pay better attention to your intuition. Maybe you need to unblock those chakras?”

I roll my eyes. “Ma, my chakras are fine. We found each other, didn’t we?”

Her face softens “I suppose that’s true, but I brought a rose quartz bracelet for Amber to wear, it’ll help keep your love strong and grounded. Unconditional love will open up those chakras in no time at all.”

Mom doesn’t worry if Amber may not want to wear gaudy, chunky jewelry; the thought wouldn’t cross her mind. “They’re open, Mom, trust me. We’ve already declared our feelings for one another.”

She stops what she’s doing, her eyes brimming with tears. “You’ve said ‘I love you’?”

I take a breath. I’m not usually one to confess my feelings, especially to my mom, but I thought it might keep her off my back. “I’ve always loved her,” I say simply. “It’s just expanded now, that’s all.”

She envelopes me in a big hug that I didn’t see coming, and I squeeze her back. “I’m so happy.”

“I’m very happy, too,” I confess. “Like you once told me: good things come to those who wait.”

She pulls back, wiping her tears. “Right, but don’t be so slow next time. You want to keep that girl, Torin, you’ve got to dig deep and give her all you’ve got. Promise me.”

I smile down at the tiny woman who could kill a man at ten paces. “I promise. Now pull yourself together. Amber will be here soon and she can’t wait to meet you…”

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