Madeline Sheehan - Unattainable

The two men stared at each other until Cage broke the silence. “Yeah,” he said. “Thank you.”

Deuce waved him off. “Get the fuck outta here.”

Rolling his eyes, Cage turned to leave.

“One last thing.”

Cage turned around.

“Don’t let that one catch you stickin’ your shit where it don’t belong. She’s damn crazy and she’ll fuckin’ shoot your ass.”

Cage blew out a noisy, amused breath. “Don’t fuckin’ worry about that. I ain’t you.”

“In that case,” Deuce shot back. “Best stake out that territory right the fuck now instead of waitin’ like I did. Worst fuckin’ mistake I ever made.”

• • •

Deuce’s loud laughter followed Cage into the hallway where I was waiting for him. I took the silly smile on his face as a good sign. Despite how sick he’d been, he looked better than he had in days.

“Good talk?” I asked.

He didn’t respond, just continued to advance on me until we were nose to nose.

I raised my eyebrows. “Uh, not a good talk?”

“Marry me,” he said quietly.

Two words. Two stupid words and my stomach burst into a thousand butterflies, retarded butterflies who didn’t have a clue where they were going and were bumping into one another like drunken bumper car drivers.

“No!” I shouted, and was about to shove him off me when he caught my wrists and quickly backed me up against the wall.

“Marry me,” he repeated.

“Hell no,” I said firmly, sounding a lot calmer than I felt.

“Gimme one good reason why the fuck not?” he demanded.

I stared up at him, my heart pounding, feeling like at any moment it was going to pound its way straight out of my chest and fall to the floor where it would flop around like a dying fish.

“’Cause the way I’m seein’ it is unless you plan on runnin’ away again or gettin’ with some other asshole, you’re mine and I’m about ready to let the whole damn world know it.”

My already clammy body broke out in a cold sweat.

“You gonna run again, Tegen?”

I shook my head.

“My dick enough for you?”

I nodded.

He glared at me. “Then what’s the fuckin’ problem?”

What was the problem? What was the fucking problem, exactly? I wracked my brain searching for the problem and came up empty.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

His lips split into a smile and dimples popped out everywhere. I lost what little breath I had left inside my lungs. “Teacup,” he whispered. “If you ain’t got a problem, then fuckin’ marry me.”

That’s when I realized what my problem was.

I didn’t have a problem. Not a single one.

Standing here in front of me was the one and only man I’d ever loved, loving me back, asking me to marry him. To spend the rest of my life with him and only him, because he loved me just that fucking much, so fucking much he wanted me to be his wife.

My eyes filled. That was my problem. I didn’t have one. I’d spent my entire life surrounded by problems, wishing and aching for things I knew would never happen.

But they had. And now my poor mind didn’t know what to do with itself.

Blinking caused tears to spill over and run down my cheeks and then Cage was there kissing them away almost as fast as I was producing them.

“Marry me,” he said, pressing his lips, wet with my tears, against my mouth.

My mouth opened and Cage’s tongue took advantage and shot inside.

“Marry me,” he mumbled as he kissed me, refusing to let me answer, kissing me harder each time I tried to pull away from him. “Marry me, Teacup.”

“Okay,” I said breathlessly, threading my fingers through his hair as I kissed him back with equal ferociousness.

Cage went still and with my head in his hands, pushed me away from him.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Okay,” I said, pulling him back to me. “But I don’t want a big stupid ring like Danny’s.”

“Shut up,” he muttered.

“No, I’m serious, Cage. I don’t—”

Cage’s mouth crashed down again on mine and I didn’t have much of a choice.

I shut right the fuck up.

“Family dinners give me a headache,” I complained.

Ignoring me, Cage held his hand out. With an exasperated sigh, I handed him my helmet and he placed it on the seat of his bike.

“Don’t ignore me,” I warned. “I hate it and I’ll punch you in the balls if you keep it up, you know I will.”

Grinning, Cage grabbed my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. “I’m not ignorin’ you, Teacup,” he said as he pulled me up the driveway. “I’m just choosin’ not to fight today.”

The front door swung open just as Cage reached for it and Cox stood in the entranceway grinning at us.

“What are you so fuckin’ happy about?” Cage asked, shoving him out of our way and yanking me inside.

“Fuckin’ blow jobs, brother,” Cox said, still grinning like a jackass. “Kami just blew my damn brains out in the hall closet.”

I rolled my eyes even as Cage burst out laughing. “Explains why you’re so fuckin’ stupid,” Cage said. “Don’t got much brains to begin with.”

“No fuckin’ way,” Cox called out from behind us. “You ain’t gonna ruin my good mood.”

“Coming through!”

Cage and I quickly stepped out of Ivy’s way as she came barreling through the foyer, pushing her little brother on his toddler riding toy. Damon, with his chubby arms in the air and a dimpled smile on his face, squealed as they blasted past us.

“Ivy Olivia!” Eva yelled, storming after them. “Are you trying to kill your brother?”

“Yes!” Ivy yelled back.

Inside the kitchen, Cage let go of me and gave me a gentle shove toward the refrigerator. “Beer, babe,” he said, slapping my ass before he headed in Ripper and Deuce’s direction.

Scowling, I stomped off across the linoleum. If I didn’t love him so much, I might actually kill him one of these days. Ours wasn’t a sugar-coated relationship. We fought more than we didn’t, the majority of our sex life consisted of half-out-of-our-mind, angry make-up sex, and we still could never agree on anything. Nothing. Zilch.

Except for one thing.

That we drove each other crazy. Yeah, and that we loved each other. There was that.

He was overbearing, bossy, and demonstrative. He liked to order me around, literally push me around all the while acting like he didn’t see why I got so upset about it.

But at the same time, he also had to put up with my vicious temper, my manic mood swings, and my tendency to both speak and act before thinking.

I decided early on I should look into anger management before I even thought of having children. As it was, half the crap in our house was broken because I’d either thrown it at Cage or kicked the living shit out of it.

But for some reason, unknown to me and more than likely anyone who came within a mile of Cage and me, it worked.

Or, at least, it had been working for the past seven months. The future remained unknown. I could always head back to my mother’s place in San Francisco. Which I would. Especially if Cage kept demanding I be his beer wench.

Married or not, Cage did not own me.

I don’t care if the four letters, C-A-G-E, which had been tattooed around my left ring finger the night he married me, suggested otherwise.

“It is not the same fuckin’ thing!” Deuce yelled as I crossed the kitchen, holding Cage’s bottle of beer like a baseball I was about to whip at him.

Cage gaped at his father. “Are you fuckin’ kiddin’ me, you motherfuckin’ hypocrite?”

“Now what?” I asked Ripper who stood a few feet from father and son, smirking.

“They started goin’ at it ’bout an upcomin’ job and I made the mistake of tellin’ ’em how alike they fuckin’ sounded. Started up a new round of bullshit.”

Cage’s head whipped left and he glared at Ripper. “I am nothin’ like him.”

Deuce’s beer slammed down on the counter. “No fuckin’ shit!” he yelled. “If you were, you wouldn’t be havin’ so much fuckin’ trouble out in Oakland!”

Cage’s nostrils began to flare. “Who the fuck said I was havin’ trouble?” he demanded. “Just ’cause I ain’t doin’ shit your way doesn’t mean I’m doin’ it wrong!”

Deuce’s nostrils began flaring as well. “Get your damn head outta your ass, boy. You keep this stupid shit up, I’m gonna promise you right the fuck now, I ain’t ever gonna die. I’m gonna live for-fuckin’-ever just to make sure you don’t run my damn club into the ground.”

Cage glared at his father, and unsurprisingly, Deuce glared right back at him.

Ripper burst out laughing and both Cage and Deuce turned their glares on him. Clutching his abdomen, Ripper doubled over, laughing harder.

“You should see your faces,” he gasped between laughs. “You two fuckers look exactly the same. Fuckin’…priceless.”

“Shut up,” Deuce growled at the same time as Cage muttered, “Asshole.”

They turned their glares back on each other.

Exasperated, I shoved Cage’s beer at his chest, gave him a mock curtsy while flipping him off, before whirling around and quickly exiting the kitchen. Three morons in one room was just too much moron for me to handle.

“Give it back! Moooooooooooooommmmm! Devin won’t give it back!”

My back hit the stair railing as Devin came running by me, laughing hysterically, closely followed by his little brother. When they’d disappeared into the living room, the coat closet door opened and Kami peeked her head out.

“Was that one of mine?” she whispered, looking around the foyer.

“Kami, get out of the damn closet!” Eva snapped. “And put some clothes on!” Holding a red-faced and crying Damon in her arms, she paused in front of me. “Hey, Tegen,” she said. “When did you get here?”