The Way Home (Lights of Peril)

by Unknown

  I glance quickly over at Ace who looks to be sleeping soundly, “Fine, whatever. I don’t care. Not a problem. I don’t mind. Whatever needs done.” I’m running my mouth in nervousness and saying stupid words in agreement. If I tell Mace how well I sleep when Ace, or anyone, is in the other room, she will twist it in her mind, as always, and push me forward again, before I’m ready.

  Damn, my girl is quick. Before I even turn to put my stuff down on the counter, she’s at me.

  “Okay Sadey, Shame and I will go … leaving you and Ace … alone … ya know to sleep … that’s all.” She winks at me and turns back to Shame who is now coming to me with a scowl.

  Hell, why am I in trouble? I didn’t say it, she did.

  “Mace, damn it, knock that shit off. I talked to Ace about all the shit that went down here tonight. I tried to anyway, but he’s got something going and he’s not budging. All he wants is Sadey safe. He’s on duty tonight. Now woman, can we go home, please? Had a shit evening and have shit to do tomorrow, but before that I…”

  “Hell, no. Shut up. Stop talking. Get your shit and go. Not that I’m not jealous that Mace is getting sex regularly, but I can’t sit here and listen to you describe it. God, just go.”

  Shame smiles, looks at Mace with those God damn silver-sex eyes of his, and one look, just one, is all that it takes. She follows him out, only to look back at me with a knowing smirk. The woman is the size of a damn house and she still looks forward to him making her ass ‘pink.’ Lucky bitch.

  I’ve locked up the house, double checking everything, yet again. I indulge myself for a moment or two and look at Ace sleeping on my couch, in my home. I’m remembering times when he and I would make out wherever we could find a quiet place. Not just the night Mace busted us half undressed, in a car at the club, but the other times; at my house when she was with Greyson or at her Mom’s. I remember the way Ace would kiss me.

  There is only one speed for him and it is slow and seductive, never rushed or pushing for more than I offer. Aside from our recent escapade on the porch, I don’t remember what it was like to have a man touch me, really touch me. Every time I feel myself start longing for it again, the guilt takes over and I drop the uninvited thought immediately. I still feel like I’m cheating on my dead husband.

  Ace needs a blanket or he will freeze in here tonight. I keep the house cool to avoid Patrick from getting too warm as he sleeps under the mountain of cuddle blankets I put around him. I pull off the blanket that was laying on the recliner that Shame had used and cover Ace. As he dreams I study his features uninterrupted. He looks even sweeter with his eyes closed. His dimple is at rest, but overall Ace honestly looks lost.

  He’s lying flat on his back, his forearm resting over his eyes. The muscles in his arms and chest are flexing, but his steady breathing tells me how relaxed he is in slumber. I start to move the blanket up to his mid-section and I tuck it around him, taking my time to touch his hard stomach and abs. The man has turned into a powerhouse since last I saw him. I feel him shift under my fingers, so I chance a glance at his face. He hasn’t moved his arm from his eyes, but his breathes aren’t steady anymore. I’ve woken him. Shit.

  “Bug, what are you doing?” His sleepy voice is low and raspy.

  Yep, he’s awake and I’ve not yet taken my damn hands off his person. They are still lingering near the hem of his shirt. I’m about to fuck this friendship up, but it’s been a hellevua day and I want to be wrapped in someone’s arms. “I’m just covering you up. You’ve got to be getting cold.”

  “No, baby, I’m not cold. You want to lay down here? I can move over, make you comfortable.”

  The television is still the only light in the room. Under the cloak of darkness I find bravery. I crawl into his waiting warmth as he moves onto his side into the back of the couch. I can smell him, and I remember his scent from our times before. I shift myself so we’re spooning and I’m not surprised that he always feels comfortable with me, to just pull my body to his front as he rests his arm around my waist.

  “Are you tired? I don’t want to keep you up.” I feel bad about waking him, but I don’t want to sleep.

  “Shhh. I’m not tired anymore. I’m going to hold you. You need this.” Another man telling me what I need.

  I don’t respond because any type of denial that I could conjure would be a lie. I’m quiet for a few minutes, hoping he believes I’ve dozed off. I haven’t, though. I can’t. I’m enjoying this. I’m owning this moment and making it mine. Nearly every memory I have of Ace is logged in my mind as pre-Hem. I need post-Hem memories now; I’ve been living in limbo.

  “You’re overthinking. Just stop.” He moves his hand up my side. My arm is lying on my hip, allowing access to my chest. He stops just under my breast and runs his thumb against the bottom of it through the thin material of my shirt, back and forth. I’m blushing. Not because he’s doing anything I don’t want him to do, but because I’m incredibly turned on.

  “Sadey, stop thinking. You know I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. I came back to see you. I meant what I said the other night. I love you.”

  As soon as he moves his hand from my breast to my face, I feel the absence. He uses his palm to turn my head up to him and he kisses me. He’s using his tongue against my lip again, licking it back and forth. He’s asking for entrance and I want this, so I open in response. Jesus, this beautiful man can kiss. Hard, calloused hands begin to explore my body. I’m starved for this, I’ve thought about it in the back of my mind, wondering what it would be like to be with another man, completely.

  I’m not without fear, though. What if another man is never enough? My body only responds, moves, and explodes for Hem. No wait, my body responded, moved, and exploded for Hem. Hem is gone. He left me.

  Gently, Ace starts unbuttoning my shirt one button at a time. He’s using the same slow, seductive pace as his tongue does, as it glides in and out of my mouth. I feel the stubble on his jaw from two days without shaving. He’s all man right now, and he makes me feel like the most beautiful woman alive. I haven’t felt like that since making love to Hem the night before he…

  “Sadey bug, please, just stop with your worry. I won’t hurt you.”

  Those words of encouragement make me focus on this moment with him. I turn my body around, and as I do, it pushes his hand into my breast and he moves the cup up and massages my nipple with his gentleness. My breath quickens and I find the courage to lift his shirt so I can explore his young, hard, and protective body.

  He’s added more ink and piercings since I was last with him like this. For once, I wish the lights were on. I want to see what he’s added and be able to look at all of him while discovering him again.

  I need help to keep my memory off the only man I’ve ever given myself to. I want to be able to see who is in front of me right now, alive. I’m forcing out the image of someone who is looking at me from a closed door that I can’t go through yet, and hopefully won’t until I’m old and have lived happily for a long time.

  Letting go of all thoughts now, I allow myself to be lost in the moment. Patrick is safe at Peril, safer than he would be if he were here. I’m relaxed after the drinks at Shell Horn’s. Nothing is holding me back so I release myself from the memory of Hem long enough to embrace this. I am giving myself to Ace.

  I start to take off his leather belt, anticipating for him to stop me. Ace has one hand on my back, pushing me into him, and the other is clenching my breast causing me to gasp, though not from pain.

  Once my hand makes its way inside his jeans, I feel him pulse and flex to my touch. He shifts his hips forward so that my grasp becomes tighter and I oblige him by running my hands up and down his shaft at a quickened pace. I feel the head of his cock and I know he’s turned on, the dew on my fingertips evidence of his absolute surrender.

  “Ace…”

  I want to tell him to touch me, anywhere and everywhere. Before I can, he has moved his mouth to my neck and he’s biting and sucking the
skin below my ear. My only response to this is to push my hand further into his jeans. At the same time I’m moving my hips to the rhythm of his, silently asking more.

  “Ace, hey...” I want him to move us to my bedroom. I know he won’t deny us this and I’m not going to fool myself, trying to hide how much I want him.

  He’s not responding to my words, he just continues to use my own body against me. His hands are rubbing me inside my jeans now, I’m wet and should be utterly humiliated, but I’m not. The only thing I feel right now is wanting.

  “Sadey, are you sure? This isn’t just about sex, is it? I don’t want to be in someone’s shadow. I don’t know if I could do that again. I feel like I’ve lost you so many times before.”

  He’s pouring water on this. Cold fuckin’ water.

  Son of a bitch.

  “There is someone else there waiting on me to let you go.”

  Fuck.

  Now, Hem? You’re coming to me, now?

  I halt my hands progress. Ace tenses. He can feel my conflict before I’ve even delivered the verdict. He knows me and knows how hard it has been for me to move on because of all my nightmares, but he doesn’t know about the living ones. The voice I long for, wait for, and respond to with my eyes wide open. He doesn’t know that for the last six months I’ve been losing my mind, piece by painful piece.

  “You’re right. Ace, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  I start to push him off me, but he holds tight. He moves his hand from my chest and the other from of my jeans, then covers my bare breast by closing my shirt. He’s so close to my face I can feel his breathing against my hair.

  “Not ready. I knew this. I feared this. There won’t be another chance, Sade. I’m going back. I don’t know when exactly, but I think it’s time I go, maybe sooner than later.”

  His words score me. I don’t want him to go just because I’m not ready to let him make me his. Sex has never been just sex for me. I never slept with anyone before Hem, so I’m nervous and scared to give myself away again, only out of it to be broken, again.

  He is moving my hair from my face, pulling it away from of my neck and moving it down my back, as I look at him face to face, eye to eye.

  “I told Mace the last night I was here, the night of Hem’s proposal, I couldn’t stay and watch you with him, but, Sadey, now you’re not with Hem. Even though you’re not, he’s still with you.”

  What? Mace knew this whole time why he left? She knew and didn’t tell me how he felt. I let him touch me. I climaxed at his hand, and I let my guard down. I’m fuckin’ furious.

  “No, please, don’t go. Don’t just leave me again because I’m not prepared. It isn’t all you Ace. I’m just not ready. You have to believe that. Please tell me you believe it. You mean a lot to me. I trust you. I’ve always trusted you.”

  He strengthens his grasp around my waist with one hand, holding me tight against his body. The other hand guides my head, tucking it under his chin. His legs are wrapped around me securely, embracing me to him.

  I can feel him capturing this moment, holding it in a freeze frame, as if he will never get another picture like it.

  “Bug, I’m not leaving because of you. I just need to go back.” After he confirms what he said a few minutes before, I’m left thinking. My mind is left to replay the events of the last few days. I don’t sleep at all after that. I’m awake so long that I watch the sun arise, still enveloped in his arms.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Love always hangs up behind the bathroom door. It smells like Lysol. To hell with love. Love is making me happy and then going off to sleep with your mouth open while I lie awake all night afraid to say my prayers even because I know I have no right to anymore. Love is all the dirty little tricks you taught me that you probably got out of some book. All right. I'm through with you and I'm through with love."

  -Ernest Hemingway

  “All of these, too. They all need a good washing. I’m running out of time here. Work faster, people. Ryder is coming soon, I can feel it. When I woke up this morning, my back felt like it had been slammed against a wall, and not in that good, hot, sexy, satisfying way that Shame likes, either.” She’s dancing around back and forth, from one foot to the other. Good grief, woman, use the toilet.

  Mace is frantic. She’s nesting. She called a gathering of all the girls to help her with the remaining tasks of getting Ryder’s home ready. She hasn’t left her house in four days, the night she left me with Ace at mine.

  She and I had it out the next day after Ace left. I am still livid with her for not telling me about how he felt and the actual reason why he left all of us. I hardly gave her a chance to give me her reasons for doing it. I wouldn’t have heard them at that point anyway, so I cut her off, using my words to hurt her.

  It’s a rare event that I’m so pissed at Mace I can’t look at her, but that definitely qualified as one. After taking an entire day without her so I could think, she sent me a string of jabbering text messages, telling me how sorry she was and that she didn’t want to ruin my wedding plans, then my wedding, then my honeymoon, etc. etc. She said there just wasn’t a good time to break it that it was me he was leaving, not anyone else, just me. She didn’t want to put all that on my shoulders.

  I still refused to talk to her. After another day of pondering her excuses, while still pissed at her, I answered her invitation to come and get her shit straight for the baby’s sake, not hers. So here I am, with all the girls, gathered around trying to settle her nerves and prepare her for motherhood.

  “Have you talked to Ace? He’s broken and he’s not talking about it.” Cherry looks directly at me with her questioning glare.

  Her words trickle with cynicism and her look of disdain matches it. She’s pissed and she doesn’t even know the whole damn story. She’s actually trying me without evidence, because I couldn’t, and I didn’t, sleep with Ace.

  “No, I haven’t talked to him. Sorry.” She’s not getting any more out of me than that. If he wants to tell her, fine. They are tight, but I’m not going to open that up and listen to her verdict of me through her uniformed and biased eyes.

  “Where the hell is Mace? She was just here. Where did she run off to now? She’s supposed to be helping us work over all this crap and she’s vanished, probably napping again.” Alright April, we can see that this isn’t your cup of ‘Jo.

  April has made it clear that domestic duties aren’t her strong suit. Granted she loves kids. Well, she loves Patrick. She doesn’t participate in cleanup of the spoils, though. Just stay and play, that’s all she’s in for. Diapers changed, laundry done, meals cooked, and toy clean-up are not on her route. If she and Honor ever get really serious, he’s going to have to understand he’s gotta wear the apron. He won’t like that. He’s sweet, but he’s not about to be neutered for any woman. I could be wrong.

  As I’m listening to April complain about having to fold and put away more clothes than ‘any biker child needs’, I hear a cell phone ringing. No one here at this table is moving from their resting spots to get it, so I start to look around and notice it is none other than our hostess’ phone.

  Caller ID says Shame, and here we are at round five. Keeping in mind the man has already called four times since the cavalry arrived, checking to see if his woman is feeling okay, I answer with patience.

  “Hello.” Simple, easy.

  “Hello, beautiful girl. You still sore from last night?” Raspy, sexy.

  How did my best friend capture this man’s heart again? Just those few words prove to anyone that he’s only hers, forever.

  “Thanks Shame, but if Mace hears you say that to me, she’s going to gut you.” Sarcasm drips with every word.

  I hear him smile into the phone seconds before I see Mace approaching us in the living room from wherever she’s been. Her face is wrinkled in pain. She’s gripping her stomach and she’s starting to bend over and moan. I’m well aware what is happening. I’ve been through it, and although I should interj
ect, I don’t want to panic Shame or any of the girls.

  “Guys, I think something is wrong.” Her face is pale. She’s looking at me for help, but I have no idea how to help her until I calm her enough that I can tell her and Shame with certainty that their boy is on his way to meet them. She’s not due for another two weeks.

  I want to laugh out loud because I just caught sight of her maternity pants. They are a dripping mess and she’s trailing water from the bathroom into the kitchen as her shoes squeak with every step. Oh yeah, I think I can tell him now.

  “Sadey, what’s wrong? Are you still there? Is that Mace? Is she alright? Sadey, damn it, fuckin’ talk to me.”

  Let’s rip the band aid off, quick.

  “Shame, your girl just blew out her cork and she’s a dripping mess. Let’s go, Ryder is ready to meet his Daddy.” Shame doesn’t even say goodbye, I just hear a click and the line goes dead. So, the madness begins.

  The waiting room of hospitals are so morose. I need a break from all of them; Mace, Shame, and the new bundle of friggin’ joy.

  Ryder is a nine pound seven ounce parcel of Shame Carrick. He’s a hefty boy. The child also has a set of lungs that Mace had to have blessed him with and now a headache has overwhelmed me.

  I need a few quiet minutes to myself to calm my nerves and keep my head from exploding. Seeing Ryder makes me miss Patrick and I need to call my mom to make sure he’s doing alright over there.

  My quiet time is short lived as I see Ace walking straight towards me. Damn, I don’t want to deal with him right now. Please, please, please, someone make the madness stop. My best friend just delivered, I haven’t seen my son all day, and since he’s gone with my parents, I’m going home alone. I do not need the extra chore of dealing with Ace.

  He doesn’t wait around for small talk, just hits me with his news, “Sade, I know you don’t want to see me, that you’re upset about what I said, you know, about Hem. I’m in a bit of a hurry, but wanted to see you before I left. I’m taking off tomorrow, early.”