Chapter Fourteen: ASAP
"I'd like you and Tig to have the house, our wedding present to you," Gemma murmured and laid her hand on Rosamund's shoulder.
"You can't do that," Rosamund immediately protested. "That's way too much," she added before Gemma squeezed her shoulder, interrupting her.
"I love Tig, but you've saved him, he was spiraling away from everyone, ready to burn out. You brought him back to life baby."
As Rosamund was still processing, Gemma patted her hand. "I won't take no for an answer, you'll learn that about me sweetheart," she added with a wink.
Rosamund smiled in wordless bewilderment as she followed Gemma back out to the living room.
The day passed easily for the quartet, Rosamund found herself lounging around most of the day, her need for sleep greater than she'd realized.
Mid-afternoon, Tig came back inside from smoking out by the van with Juice to find Rosamund curled up under a bright orange blanket, watching a popular home show. Tig hovered in the doorway and watched Rosamund's lips pull into a peculiar smile as she watched the brunette baking goddess pull a sheet of piping hot cinnamon rolls from the oven and drown them in a sugary glaze.
"What are ya thinking about baby?" Tig asked as he walked further into the room.
Rosamund looked up and gave him a lazy, embarrassed smile. "It's dumb," she murmured.
"Can I join ya under there?" Tig asked.
Rosamund nodded as Tig slipped behind her on the sofa and molded her back against his body. "Tell me what made you smile," Tig murmured as he pressed his lips to her ear, each word delivered on a hot exhale.
"I was just thinking about how different my life is now, not scheduled."
"What would you be doing today?" Tig asked as he tightened his arms around her.
Rosamund sighed, "let's see, today would be economics, French and organic chemistry in the evening."
Tig didn't know exactly what to say. "What about the next day?"
Rosamund shifted to a more comfortable position, causing the curve of her bottom to rub against the front of his body. He stifled a groan as she continued. "The hardest day of the week by far, molecular biology all morning and psychology for the better half of the afternoon."
"Tell me how you spent the remaining days," he demanded and smoothed his hand down the front of her body and cupped her intimacy through her thin, cotton pants. Tig pulsed his hand over her feminine softness as Rosamund outlined every day of her former life, every moment of her past existence as a plaything and decorative ornament whose beauty was exploited to leverage money and power for Hale.
As Rosamund described each day of her until very recently scheduled existence of rotating lessons on anatomy, physiology, and linguistics to culinary and the arts, back at Gemma's childhood home, Clay's phone rang. On the other end was one of the spies carefully placed along the interstate at truck stops and gas stations.
The caller who was vaguely familiar to Clay from another MC, reported that Salazar and his murderous convoy was about an hour out of landing on the doorstep.
Clay grumbled his thanks for the update and ended the call as everyone under Nate Maddock's former roof, checked their firepower and positions before waiting for their special delivery.
As Clay lit a phallic imported cigar, back at the safe house that Marcus had sourced, Tig buried his face in the warm curve of Rosamund's neck and pressed his lips over the thudding pulse in the side of her throat.
"Ya wanna get out of here?" Tig growled against her bare flesh, his hot exhale making her shiver.
"Where do you want to go?" she asked on a chuckle, not even knowing exactly where they were in the state, let alone where the nearest attraction or coffee shop was.
"Upstairs," he was quick to reply.
"Yes," she was just as fast to say.
They moved in unison from the couch and up the stairs before locking themselves in one of the two bedrooms.
Tig knew that despite Rosamund's heated reciprocated touch, shared exhales, and breathless pants that she must still be an emotional buoy in category five waters.
He wanted to fuck her through every stage of grief.
Rosamund happened to be looking at Tig's face the moment his own suppressed emotions, fragmented his pleasure. She saw a peek of his pain.
"What is it?" she murmured as she settled her palms on his chest and smoothed a hand up to trace along his jaw.
Tig shrugged noncommittally and smiled, stacking a brick wall back in front of his feelings.
"I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and find you gone," he admitted.
"You still can't think I'm trying to get to Canada?" she asked on a chuckle.
Tig shook his head, "no, but uh, I don't think I'm going to feel secure until everything settles down and we're married," he admitted.
"Did Gemma talk to you about her house too?"
Tig's eyes widened as Rosamund told him about Gemma's wedding gift.
"What do ya think?" Tig asked.
"It's so generous, I don't understand why."
Tig pretended not to hear her and poured all his attention into pulling at her clothes.
Rosamund let Tig pull her clothes off to land softly on the floor until she remained standing in a plain grey bra and matching panties.
"Take that off," Tig growled on a husky melody as he dropped a hand to fumble at his zipper and tug his cock free. Rosamund reached up between her shoulder blades and unhooked her bra, letting it join the rest of her clothes on the floor.
Tig moved with startling agility and gripped her hips, spinning her towards him as he settled on the edge of the mattress. He tugged Rosamund onto his lap, her thighs falling to either side of his hips as he slipped his hands between them, gripping his cock and yanking her panties to the side.
He dragged the glossy head of his cock that glistened with pre-cum along her slit, teasing past her pink pussy lips, eager to bury himself in her tight, wet center.
"I'll marry you today if possible," Rosamund whispered as he tried to force his cock into her tightness, stretching her with his impossible hardness.
"You will?" Tig asked with astonishing rawness, his voice hollow.
Rosamund nodded as Tig filled her until he was stopped by their intimate flesh kissing. He tightened his grip on her waist as he enthusiastically fucked her, the length of his cock rubbed raw by the elastic seam of her panties with each thrust.
She had to lean forward and press her hands against his chest, splaying her fingers wide as he squeezed her hips hard enough to burst the capillary beds under her bare skin, changing the sharpness of the angle as he filled her.
Rosamund's breasts brushed against his face as he pulled her closer, making her practically shout in startled surprise as his rhythmically stabbing cock hit places and stimulated nerves inside of her body that she never knew existed.
Tig had no stamina and came quickly, adding a fair amount of assertion to his final thrusts as his cock spasmed inside her, coating her intimate walls with his hot stickiness.
Rosamund slipped her arms to lock around his neck and clung closely to him as they both caught their breath. She pressed her lips to the side of his neck before speaking. "Gemma said you were spiraling, burning out. What did she mean?"
Tig opened his mouth to speak but couldn't find his words and instead squeezed her closer, eliminating any space between them. In the wake of her question, he was suddenly inundated with the sensory remembrance of Dawn burning to death in front of him, the instant fracture he had felt throughout both hemispheres of his brain.
Tig tightened his arms around her, unable to find his words, turning his face to bury it in the flushed skin of her neck.
Rosamund smoothed a hand through his thick, glossy hair as his cock continued to steadily soften before it completely slipped from her. "Talk to me," she murmured.
"I had to watch my daughter die," Tig started and adjusted his grip before he confessed to Rosamund every last moment of Dawn's life. He described her cries of agony and the smell of her burning flesh forever searing into his brain's memory center.
Rosamund let Tig talk until he began to trail off, his hands resuming their urgent touch on her body. "I can't lose you," he whispered, his voice saturated with vulnerability.
"You won't," she murmured as Tig pulled her down to the top of the mattress, pulling her body underneath him.
"Promise?" he asked raggedly as he danced his fingertips up the front of her body and gripped her chin.
Rosamund nodded, "I promise," she murmured as he traced around her lips, her exhale hot against the rough pads of his fingertips.
Rosamund moaned as Tig nudged her thighs further apart, slipping a hand up the inside of her thigh to tease the shell-pink folds of her pussy, seeking her tight center. "Tell me that again," he growled on a broken wheeze as he began to pump a couple fingers into her opening, fucking her wetness as he continued, knowing he had finished too fast for her to feel much pleasure.
"I promise," Rosamund gasped as her hands scrabbled on the caps of his shoulders, sliding down to grip the outside of his upper arms as he worked the dense cluster of nerves inside her until her cunt was clutching at his fingers. He chuckled in a way that made her feel more exposed than she was as her pussy flooded his fingers with wetness, milking her pleasure from her with his deeply invasive touch.
"Get dressed," Tig growled as he dropped his face over hers. "Let's go get married," he added, their lips a breath away from touching.