Children of Fire (Complete)

thirty-five

Gideon

Tuesday morning I woke up to the feeling of Emerson's bare skin draped over my legs and chest. She was curled up against me, and I somehow had tangled my fingers in her hair throughout the night. I hadn't woken up next to many women, and I damn sure didn't sleep next to them without getting a sexual favor or two in return, but with Emerson it was different. We spent the rest of our night, well into the early morning talking about everything that was on our minds. She told me that she was happy to be able to confide in Kya now that she knew she was staying, and my ego was proud that she would have a friend other than Killian to spend time with now, I knew there was nothing there anymore just by the way she would breathe my name when I kissed her neck, but I couldn't help the jealousy that coursed through me when I saw them spending time together.

She also told me that she planned on staying with Kya for a few weeks until she found a more permanent living arrangement. Part of me wanted to beg her to stay here with me, but I couldn't ask that of her. Not now, when our...relationship, or whatever we were calling it was in the early stages. So, I let go of my pride and told her I would help her move her things in if she needed me to. She narrowed her eyes at me and realization hit me, I forgot she had destroyed pretty much everything she left behind. Well, I'd just have to take her shopping to get more things, I liked spending my money on her. It was nice to have someone other than myself to spend it on, I had saved up quite a bit. I wasn't a needy man who wanted materialistic possessions, all I needed was my club, a few beers, a couple of joints, and Emerson.

I found my eyes wandering over Emerson's body, thanking God silently for the creation that was her. I traced the tips of my fingers over the tattoos on her thighs, so consumed in my thoughts of her that I barely heard the phone ringing on my nightstand. I picked it up and held it to my ear, doing my best to speak low so I didn't wake her up. "What?"

"Just wondering if you were going to do your fucking job today or play house in your bedroom?" Ray's voice asked from the other end of the phone. Damnit, he sure did know how to make me feel guilty for trying to do something even remotely normal. "Get up, we've got a meeting today. I'm tired of pushing the same shit, we need more income. Especially if we're going to be able to deliver this shipment to Callahan this weekend." He had a point, though. I couldn't lay here any longer and pretend that there wasn't already a world of shit brewing for me.

Now that we had officially purchased the building, our next step was to start designing and getting it ready for business. I had hired a team of specialists to decorate it, and was working on getting Emerson and Kya trained as soon as possible, but I wanted to allow them to finish out the week at the Hideout so they would have some money saved up for now. On top of that, we were still dealing with the expansion of our less savory business endeavors. Mark was ready to give us new product, and the club was more than willing to start pushing more than just cocaine to our customers, and if the club voted on that then I had no choice but to play along and do my best to make sure that we prospered.

We were also still planning out our revenge on Piniero and his crew, this was certainly the longest time we had gone without retaliating when something or someone threatened the lives of our club, but we had to play this smart. We didn't want them to expect us, because we wanted to prove that we were smarter than they were. Not to mention, we still didn't have any lead on who it was that kept randomly showing up at his warehouse. We also were still dealing with the loss of our explosives and guns-- it had also been quite sometime since that incident, but I had yet to find any solid evidence that Callahan was behind it. Ray agreed that we should just take the loss and do our best to get our stocks back up, and as much as I hated to admit that he was right, I did. I didn't like getting in bed with the enemy, but expanding our business with Mark was Callahan's idea, and it had already made us more than enough cash to make up for the stolen goods.