Author's Note: Thanks to those still reading - do feel free to let me know what you think! :)
Seven
By three in the morning, Chibs was sprawled on his back on top of one of the picnic tables outside in the comparatively cool night air, looking up at the stars and assessing the evening's events.
At some point, he'd loosened the thin gray scarf knotted around his neck and his shirt was more than half unbuttoned, his once neatly slicked back hair a dishevelled mess. He and TO had been forced to drag Happy out of a brawl that had apparently started over some dig about his mom, while a cat-fight over Christ knows what had raised merry hell inside. The latter had only ended when Lyla's successor in the director's chair at Red Woody – a platinum blonde with a short fuse called Felicity, who still went by her screen name 'Flick' Devine - had nailed a croweater with an impressive right hook to the face and trailed two of her girls out by their cheap extensions.
It was no big deal, not even close in the face of all the clusterfucks they had faced as a club in their time, just more evidence of all the day-to-day shit they looked to him to somehow keep in check. He'd never thought that would be his role. Had assumed he'd be Jax's right-hand until … Well, until he either checked out at the hands of their enemies, or years of hard living finally caught up with him. He'd never thought he'd be the one left behind to pick up the pieces.
Burned down to the butt, his cigarette dangled from his fingertips neglected. He hadn't gone back inside, probably pissing as golden a chance as he was ever likely to get with Eden into the wind. He couldn't help thinking it was probably for the best though. He doubted either of them needed that kind of complication in their life …
"Filip?"
He sat up at the soft, tentative call, stubbing out what was left of his smoke on the sole of his boot and raking a hand through his hair. "Uh, hey."
"Sorry, didn't mean to disturb you. I … thought I should at least say goodnight," Eden said quietly. "Seth's gonna be pretty pissed if I'm dead on my feet for the fights …"
"You good for a lift home?"
"Oh, I can just call a cab or something."
"It's pretty late – you could just crash here. Get ya a room, make sure no one bothers ya," Chibs shrugged. "Presidential perk."
"There many of those?"
"Less than you'd think," he said wryly, thinking of all the responsibilities piled up at his door. "Come on."
So much for his early night.
Shoulders slumped, Seth wiped a hand over his face as he padded back to bed from the kitchen with a glass of water he hadn't even really wanted. Still, it had given him an excuse to drag himself up, telling himself he definitely wasn't checking up on Eden. The fact he noticed her bedroom door was still open, giving away that she hadn't come home, was purely coincidence.
He knew it was ridiculous. Eden was a grown-ass woman who was long past needing anyone keeping tabs on her. The fact she was even back living with him in the first place was purely so they could both get back on their feet. Strictly temporary. But, after everything that had happened …
She could be thirty-five or sixty-five – she'd always be his baby sister. And she'd been through some seriously dark shit. He supposed they both had. Prison hadn't exactly been a walk in the park. He never wanted her to know just how bad that whole experience had been though.
The guilt over him ending up inside in the first place was bad enough, no matter how often he told her to stop beating herself up. She didn't need to know the details. The beatdowns in the yard, the shiv that had slashed his chest when it could so easily have been his throat, the list went on and on. She didn't need to be thinking about any of it, not when she'd already been struggling to get her life back together.
He couldn't work out if her agreeing to hang out at one of Samcro's parties was a step forward or a step back. Getting out, having fun, that was one thing. Drinking herself into oblivion with a bunch of bikers was another.
But again, she was a big girl. He wasn't trying to be her keeper. He just worried. After everything, after almost losing her, how could he do anything else?
"Is this your room?" Eden asked curiously, looking around the surprisingly comfortable space the Scotsman had shown her. With its big double bed heaped with blankets, clothes thrown over a battered armchair in the corner and personal effects cluttering the nightstands, it was decidedly lived in, but didn't actually smell like a locker room or frat house, as she had to admit she'd feared.
"When I crash here, aye," Chibs nodded, although he knew it was more often than not these days. He'd barely seen the inside of his own small home since taking over the gavel, preferring to keep his mind focused on the club and its future, rather than risk dwelling on its ghosts any more than he had to. "Fresh sheets, promise. Can't say it'll be too quiet out in the clubhouse, but give it another hour and most o' them'll crash and burn."
The party, now well into the early hours of the morning, had taken on a decidedly chaotic turn. Everyone was long past hammered, a crowd had gathered outside to holler on those indulging in a bloody bare-knuckle fight, a particularly popular sweetbutt was getting fucked right on the pool table …
A bit of shit-kicking and general debauchery was a far-cry from cartels and coke and killings though. It didn't take a president to deal with clubhouse clean-ups. So, for once, Chibs could let his attention … wander.
And he'd done just that as he reached for the hand of his wide-eyed, flushed companion, keeping her close behind him as he'd shouldered his way to the bar and then finally down the quieter corridor behind it to the room that was always his for the taking.
"Make yourself at home," he added now. "If you lock the door, no one'll disturb ya."
"Yeah?" Eden said, still feeling the buzz from all the alcohol, biting her lower lip thoughtfully. "In that case …"
She reached around him and slowly turned the key in the lock, making him raise his eyebrows in question.
"You should stay. I'd feel bad kicking you out of your own room," she murmured, rising up on tiptoe to graze her lips softly against his, with a pseudo-innocent look that made Chibs inwardly groan.
He felt his self-control melt away even as his mouth claimed hers in a long searing kiss, his work-roughened hands cupping her face as he pulled away to consider her, his eyes roving over her before he kissed her again.
"Beautiful," Chibs mumbled roughly, his forehead resting gently against hers between kisses and his hands slipping to her ass to pull her in close. "You have no fuckin' idea what you're doin' to me, love."
"You're giving me a fair idea," she said wryly, pressed tight against him as she was, and making him chuckle as he realised how true that was before reluctantly pulling away and taking a deep breath as he tried to wrestle his baser desires back down into submission.
"You're dead on your feet," he said, inwardly kicking himself for putting the brakes on whatever was happening here, but realising she had to be both exhausted and pretty drunk by now. The last thing he wanted was to be the cause of regret on that pretty face.
"Sorry," Eden managed, trying to smother a sudden yawn with her hand, the long night really starting to crash in on her now she was faced with the prospect of a comfortable bed.
"Don't gotta apologise," Chibs grinned, reaching out to smooth a stray lock of hair back from her face and planting a little kiss on her forehead. "Here, got a t-shirt you can sleep in …"
He was trying to be as much of a gentleman as he felt could reasonably be expected under the circumstances, but watching her slip out of her outfit and into the black Samcro t-shirt he'd offered her was just too good an opportunity to miss and she laughed lightly at him, blushing under the heat of his gaze.
"What can I say? Yer a sight for sore eyes, lass," he said, from where he'd sprawled back against the pillows, an arm tucked behind his head.
"And you're over-dressed, Filip," she noted. "I mean, you really should get some rest too. Big day tomorrow."
"That is true," he drawled, getting up to strip to his boxers even as she crawled beneath the covers to wait for him to join her – and finding her already more than half asleep when he did. She looked so peaceful that he didn't even have the heart to curse his luck.
"G'night, darlin'," Chibs murmured softly, taken aback when she shifted sleepily into his arms, but happy to oblige as her head pillowed comfortably on his chest.
"Night, Filip."
Despite the late night, the first streaks of soft dawn light coming through a crack in the curtains woke Chibs and he almost groaned until he became aware of his surroundings and remembered the unexpected company sharing his bed. Eden was sprawled on her front by his side, his t-shirt oversized on her and falling off one lightly tanned shoulder that he couldn't resist kissing softly.
She stirred, heaving a little contented sigh as her eyes fluttered open. "Time's it?" she mumbled, throwing an arm over her face to block the light.
"Too early," Chibs supplied, his voice still thick with sleep. "Sorry, pet, didn't mean to wake ya."
"S'okay," Eden murmured, letting her arm curl lazily around his shoulders as he leaned over her to get a look at the time on the small digital clock by her side of the bed.
"Yeah?" he asked, his voice low and rough. The level of temptation as he gazed down at her, considering all the elements that added up to make this a bad idea, was quickly proving just too much for his already stretched resolve and he gently nuzzled a soft kiss and then another into the crook of her neck. "This okay too?"
"Mmhmm," she sighed, letting his mouth find hers, her lips parting under his. She could feel his warm hand caressing a path up her bare leg, trailing from knee to thigh and his touch pulled her a little further from sleep. Their slow kisses deepened, growing a little more urgent as his hand eased its way under her borrowed shirt.
He couldn't hold back a growl when he found her wet for him. "Shit, darlin' …" he managed, now fully awake and pulling aside the covers to get them out of the way.
His strong fingers hooked into the sides of her panties and slowly eased them down her legs, before he wasted no time lapping at her core with his tongue and making her gasp.
"Filip …"
His name falling from her lips only urged him on and he held her in place with one hand flattened on her stomach as his mouth ravaged her pussy, making her hips buck towards him.
"Oh god," she gasped, her hands in his hair and her eyes drifting closed again, as she focused on the waves of pleasure assaulting her body. "Please …"
He didn't even bother getting the t-shirt off her, quite liking the sight of her in his clothes, even if he was looking forward to getting her naked further down the line. But for now, shedding his boxers and grabbing a condom from the nightstand, all he wanted was to be buried inside her.
He shifted to kiss her throat again and then her ear, biting gently at the lobe. "You sure, pet?" Chibs asked roughly, already pressed thick and hard between her legs.
Thank fuck she nodded.
