Chapter 178: Cake and Ice Cream
*I’m going to punch the next asshole that fucking asks me about the damned date. – Werewolf*
There were more people for Friday night dinner than usual. Even members from the other clubhouses were there. After an hour, Nessie locked herself in the room with her latest novel. Around nine, Knuckles let himself into the room bringing a bowl of chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce.
“Hey babe.” He sat on the couch and held a spoon out to her. “Are you hiding from me too?”
“No. Not yet.” She said shifting so he could slide behind her and settle in the corner.
He kissed her neck before scooping up some ice cream. “The guys mean well. But we’re fucking idiots. Even more when it comes to our woman.”
“Yeh know that I can’t…”
“I know.” He said getting some cake. “Tell me about the stones.”
“Yeh know Stonehenge?” Nessie asked and he gave an mm-hmm around his cake. “It’s the most popular, but not the only one. One wasn’t far from where I lived. They call to me from time to time.”
“How?”
“Yeh ever get a feeling like yeh need to go somewhere or call someone?” he nodded as he continued to eat the cake.
“A lot like that.” She took a small bite of cake as she considered her words. “There are times when they will call and it’s a stronger pull. There are events that will make them sing.”
“What does that sound like?”
“Grams and Moira both described it as like a hum. And the more you ignore it, the more intense it becomes. Yeh ever seen the Harry Potter movies? Remember the red letter?”
“The howler?” Knuckles asked offering her a bite.
“Aye. It’s like that. Yeh ignore it and it gets worse.”
“But you’ve never heard them?”
“No. Not yet. But every so often, I feel a little pull. Like, someone pops in yeh head and yer like I really need to call them and then they just fade back to the back of yer mind.”
“Still there, just not as imposing as they were at that moment.”
“Exactly that. I know that when they sing to me, I have to go. And I have to go pure in mind, body and spirit.”
“So, no sex.”
“Aye. It’s one of the few things that we do that links all three together. I know it’s hard for yeh. And I would understand-"
“No.” he said bluntly.
“Knuckles. I know how men are.”
He sat the now empty bowl on the table and shifted them so that she straddled his lap and faced him.
“What do you know about men?”
“Yeh have needs. Yeh have appetites and desires. I’ve talked to the girls. I know that yeh've bedded more than one at a time. And sometimes yeh've bedded one, or two, with a brother.”
“I have.” He admitted. “I’m not going to lie to you, babe. I have thoroughly enjoyed my sex life since I was fifteen. The bike and the club cut pretty well guaranteed that if I wanted pussy, I was getting it.”
When she started to speak, he placed his finger on her lips. “Shhhh, let me finish. Since I kissed you as you were doing Celt’s wedding cake, I’ve wanted no one but you. No one.”
“You say that you know men. That we have needs and appetites that need to be seen to, taken care of. My biggest need that needs to be taken care of, is you. Only you.”
“That means that if you need to have that bed to yourself, I sleep here on the couch. If you tell me no sex until you have a ring on your finger and a piece of paper saying that I belong to you, I’ll tell you to pick a date. And if you say that we don’t do anything until the stones sing to you, then we don’t do anything until the stones sing to you.”
“Yer serious…”
He took Stephen’s chain off his neck and removed his mother’s wedding band. Knuckles then hooked the necklace back around his neck and held the ring between them.
“I promised Stephen that I would marry you with his ring, so I’ll offer you my mom’s ring now. It’s not some dramatic scene and there’s no dishwasher box, but I’m offering you my heart. Nessie, I love you. I probably have since before I met you. When you tell me that it’s time, I’m going to tell you to call the priest, call Trigg, hell call a judge.”
Nessie gave him a watery smile. “I just want a simple hand binding ceremony. I don’t need anything fancy. Just yeh, me and a priestess. I don’t need a dishwasher box, that makes no sense to me.”
He kissed her hard and deep as he slid the ring on her finger. “You ever hear how Celt proposed to Mia?”
She shook her head no and he chuckled. Then his face turned serious and he looked around, confused.
“Where are my kids?”
“Hiding in Toad’s office.”
“From you or all the kids?”
“Perhaps both?”
He gave a soft laugh. “I’ll go take care of my dirty dishes and get them. When I get back, we’ll go to bed.” He kissed her again and then pulled her close and whispered against her hair, “Tonight, I sleep with my future wife.”
