Page 65 of Brother In Arms

Chapter 23

Rush

“Hey, you guys okay?” my twin’s voice startled us and I looked over.

“Yeah. Yeah, man, I think we are. Babe, I’d like you to meet my twin, Nox.”

“Oh!” Bailey sounded startled but she smiled and it transformed her whole face, despite her damp lashes. “Hi, I’m Bailey,” she said and held out her hand. Nox gave it a shake and smiled back.

“You two look like shit; no offense. Seriously, you should get a nap. Dragon’s orders, actually. He wants everyone rested for your big family meeting.” Nox made a face and Bailey laughed a bit nervously.

“Um…”

“Shit, man. I gotta finish this door and –”

“Later; Reave and Trig already headed out to Bailey’s farm, Data too. You guys go in, get some sleep, fuck, do whatever you’re gonna do, but no one wants to see your asses until some kind of rest happens.” When we didn’t move right away Nox rolled his eyes and said, “Seriously, bro. Your girl looks like hell. Get some sleep, honey. You need it.”

“Close up the shop for me?” I asked and Nox nodded. “Thanks, bro.”

I held Bailey close and guided her to the outbuilding that housed my room asking her, “Ready to see how the other half lives?”

She smiled a bit wanly, and said to me, “I’m ready to see how my other half lives.”

Chills. Motherfucking chills. I tightened my arm around her shoulder and leaned over kissing the side of her head. I wanted her in my bed, between my sheets, her body twined around mine. I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to hold her, and I wanted to move inside her slowly and savor that shit. I knew when I’d left her place last night that it wasn’t the end; that I would see her again, but I didn’t know what form or shape that meeting would take. I hadn’t expected tears. I hadn’t expected she would come to me or so soon.

It was everything I ever wanted, a strong, beautiful, funny, and committed woman who wanted me, flaws and all. That was intense. The fact that I was definitely in love with her back was just mind blowing. I seriously never thought in a million years it would happen to me but here we were…

I opened the door to the outbuilding for her, the outside walls made from cinderblock like the main clubhouse, the roof sheeted with tin. It was long and held doors down both sides. A lot fewer than what’d been here before, which had been cells for the old juvie facility. We’d completely gutted the place when we’d first got here and built it out the way we wanted it. First thing we’d done was put a roof on the building, then completely knocked out the interior walls and re-studded, partitioning out the new rooms.

I was telling Bailey about it as I led her to my room. “We tore out all of the existing plumbing and electrical, put a bathroom at either end of the hall.” I opened up the bathroom door at this end and told her, “The other bathroom is on the opposite end opposite side of the hall from this one.”

“Reminds me a little bit of a locker room’s kind of vibe.”

“Yeah, we went for efficiency over style, that’s for sure.” Each bathroom in the outbuilding had three showerheads in a very gym-like setup with drains set into the tile floor. On the other side of them, there were three bathroom stalls and against the back wall as you walked in, two urinals. To the right, just through the door, was a pair of sinks with a mirror over it. I grinned wryly and said, “Have to admit, I like your bathroom better.”

“It’s nice in here for what it was meant to be,” she hugged me tight around the waist and I smiled pulling the door shut.

“Come on, my room’s up here.” I opened up the door for her and let her go through and she just stopped about half a step inside. It made me smile knowing what it was that stopped her. I had a king sized bed taking up the majority of the room, but what stopped her was the rustic head and footboard. I’d used a light, honey colored mesquite to do it and it’d turned out pretty fantastic. The headboard carved in a desert scene of saguaro cactus over a rock landscape, surrounded by a different, but prettier cactus flower than the saguaro produced.

The flowers I’d modeled? The ones I’d carved into the headboard and footboard of this piece, had come from a much smaller and much spinier cactus I’d found growing in a pot outside Mel’s old place. They’d had wide centers and the layered petals, white towards the center and a light, dusky pink toward the outer, delicately curved to a point petals had captured my attention like no other. I just knew I had to do something with them and so I’d created this piece. Probably one of the most labor intensive I’d ever done. Hundreds of hours had gone into this bed, and I didn’t regret any minute of it.

Bailey went to it, her gait slow, and touched the footboard, running fingertips along the top of the satiny wood, her eyes wandering the landscape in front of her.

“It’s so beautiful,” she murmured.

“Eh, it was the only way to bring home with me… I miss AZ sometimes. It’s a different kind of beautiful out there.”

“I can see that,” she murmured.

I pulled back the corner of the native blankets piled on the bed revealing the black sheets under them and said, “Sit.”

She did and I knelt in front of her, cupping one heel of her boot with my hand and the other behind her knee to steady her lower leg. I pulled off her boots and set about getting her naked. I was serious about everything I’d listed earlier and it all started with getting us both naked.

“There’s something about taking a woman to your bed when you’re a man,” I murmured.

“Yeah?” she asked, a little breathy as I carefully pulled off her clothing a piece at a time.

“Since I built it, I’ve never had a woman in this bed,” I confessed. “Fucked plenty, sure, but never in this bed. We’ve got general purpose rooms around this place for that.”

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