Edison (The Henchmen MC 10)

"Is there something going on that..."

"Everything is fine," he assured me, handing me a helmet, then climbing on his bike.

That being that, I climbed on as well.

And Edison brought me to a brunch place that was all pink and white, making him in all his manly glory stand out all the more.

"Thought you wanted chocolate chip pancakes," he said, leaning back in the booth, smiling over his mug of coffee as I reached across the table to snag another bite of his Nutella ones. I had eaten more than he had at this point.

"That was because I didn't know Nutella pancakes existed," I told him as I snagged some of his hashbrowns as well.

"How long has it been since you've been to a breakfast place?"

I shrugged at that, reaching for my orange juice. "Six months, give or take."

Letha had wanted to treat me.

She had been unusually detached, slow to smile.

I should have known, damnit.

I should have fucking said something.

But I thought it was just the week.

Jake had died the year before.

We had been closing in on the anniversary.

I couldn't have known.

"That's a dark mood, love," Edison observed, uncomfortably good at reading me.

"Bad memory," I admitted, wanting to be honest, but also make it clear that I didn't want to talk about it.

Of course I didn't.

No one wanted to think about the last time they saw their sister conscious, breathing on her own, talking, walking.

Before she threw herself off a three-story building.

And everything, everything changed.

"Someday, maybe you'll tell me."

"Someday, maybe I will," I allowed, it being as close as I could get to saying that maybe I even wanted that, to tell someone, to lessen the burden slightly.

"So," he said, putting his cup down, spreading his arms down on the table top.

"So?" I parroted, finally putting my fork down, admiring that while my eyes and tongue wanted more, my stomach was threatening to pop the button of my jeans.

"You done fighting me?"

"Fighting you on what?"

"This," he said, waving a hand between us.

"Edison," I started.

"Oh, I know that voice. That is your 'I'm about to say something about not being the kind of woman who gets involved in any permanent capacity' voice."

"Oh, wow, it has its whole own voice?" I asked, smirking because I was uncomfortable with how accurate he was.

"I'm not asking you to change who you are, Lenny. I like what I have gotten to see so far. All I am asking is that you let me see more. And, well, keep fucking you," he added, wholly unconcerned with people at the other tables overhearing.

"I'm definitely down with the fucking," I agreed, voice much lower than his had been. I might have had a mouth like a sailor, but the woman one table over had a little blonde girl in a tutu that reminded me so much of Letha at her age that I instinctively had that urge to protect her innocent ears like I had been with my own sister.

"I can compromise. Fucking with overnights."

"What, exactly, do you think you will accomplish by sleeping over?"

"Well, there's the obvious benefit of being able to fuck you at night and in the morning."

"Clearly," I agreed, lips curving upward slightly.

"And you might get used to having me around. Maybe if you get used to having me around, you can open up more." When I didn't immediately answer, taking my coffee to drink as the waitress cleared the table, he leaned slightly forward on the table. "I'm just asking that you give it a try, love. That's it."

"I guess I can give it a shot."

And from then on, I did.

I tried.

As much as I knew how to.

Sometimes it was easy.

Like when we got back to my apartment, and he slammed me back against the inside of my door, dragged down my pants and panties just enough to give him access, then feasted on me like breakfast just didn't quite hit the spot.

Other times, it felt forced, felt a bit like what it was - trying.

The next three nights, coming home after my shift then getting a text or call asking me to come over.

It was so foreign to me. Not necessarily the booty-call aspect, since I had had a fuck-buddy situation or two in my life, but because I knew if I went there, he was going to have me stay.

The first night, I'd refused.

One overnight was enough, I felt, for a two-day period.

I had gotten out of the shower to my phone screaming on my bed.

When I sat down to answer, Edison's voice was a low, sexy growl. "Slide your hand down and touch your pussy," he demanded, and I could hear the barely-contained desire in his voice. The image of him across town with his cock in his hand was enough to send desire flooding through me in an instant.

Then I did something I never did.