by Mia Malone
The bar was completely silent as we glared at each other, and then he suddenly grinned.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” I said and started backing away.
His hands came up again to grab the back of my thighs, high enough to make his thumbs graze my butt. This made my private parts quiver, and even as I glared at him again, I decided that once he let go of me, I’d go straight home and dig out the vibrator I hadn’t used once since I got to Wilhelmine.
“Let go of me. You need to go to the hospital.”
“You’re a nurse?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “One that’s not registered in this state.”
“Who gives a shit?” he retorted. “Stitch me up.”
“I –”
“Either you stitch me up or Grand Canyon it is.”
I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. He’d ruin his fantastic face? Out of ridiculous stubbornness?
“Just do the stitches, Lee,” Jenny said calmly. “I’ve known the idiot all my life, and if you don’t, he’ll just tape it up himself.”
My head whipped around, and I watched in silence as she started pulling out what I needed.
Jesus. I’d had an administrative position for years, but what the hell. If I could decorate a cake after all the time that had passed since I left my hometown, I could probably stitch a rude badass up too.
Seven stitches later, I knew that I had not lost my needle-skills. The wound was neatly held together with a line of tiny stitches. He’d get a scar, but it should be a thin line only, and it’d probably make him look even more badass. If possible.
“There,” I said with a nod. He got up and went behind the bar, pulling off his shirt as he walked. My throat immediately dried up, so the snap in my voice was ruined by a slight hoarseness when I instructed him, “Try not to get the wound…”
He raised his head again after splashing several handfuls of water on it to clean away the rest of the blood.
“Wet,” I finished lamely.
He grinned and caught the towel Jenny’s brother threw at him, and I got momentarily sidetracked by his seriously ripped chest when he moved. For someone his age to look like that wasn’t fair, I thought, and knew that, yeah. I would totally go home and reacquaint myself with my vibrator. When he dabbed the wound carelessly, I swallowed the crude protest which was on the tip of my tongue and turned to Jenny.
“Well, this has been an unexpected evening, Jenny. I guess I’m good to drive after all so I’ll just…” I trailed off and indicated the street outside with a feeble wave of my hand.
“We had four shots,” Jenny reminded me.
“They wore off,” I muttered.
The tall man who had barged in last of the badass bunch cleared his throat, and moved his shirt to the side, showing a flat belly beneath a dark blue tee. His jeans were held up by a really cool black belt with something printed on it.
And a badge was clipped to that belt.
“You’re going to arrest me?” I asked incredulously.
“For fixing Gibson’s thick head?” he asked and answered his own question immediately. “Nope.” Then he grinned. “I can’t let you drive after four shots, though. My car’s right outside, I’ll get you home.”
“No,” Gibson said.
I turned to stare at him.
“What?” I asked.
“Give me a sec and I’ll –”
“Need both of you here,” a drop-dead beautiful man suddenly said. “Joke, get her home.”
No. No, no, no.
I did not want to be in a car with Joke either and searched desperately for a way out of the whole mess I’d put myself in. If I had just kept my mouth shut I could have walked away, waving and smiling and getting in my car to drive to Alaska.
Then salvation came walking along the sidewalk with two boxes of pizza.
“Jonah!” I squealed.
My rush to get my purse was slightly embarrassing, but I was not prepared to miss this opportunity to get home without having to put my behind in a car belonging to either of the men watching me in surprise. I saw Jonah through the window and he was talking to someone, so I made myself walk back to Jenny, studiously keeping my eyes away from the group of men, which was not an easy feat because they were tall, and kind of badassy. And there.
“It was so nice to meet you, Jenny. We must do it again sometime?” I chirped.
Like next year? Or never?
“I’ll call you,” she said and I smiled.
Then I walked briskly toward the door only to halt because Joke was suddenly waiting to hold it open for me. As I passed him, he put an arm in front of me and leaned down.
“I know who you are, babe.”
“What?” I asked.
“Wanted to hook up with you, so I looked at you more than the others did. You’ve shifted a lot of weight, too much if you ask me, but I recognize you.”
I stared at him, my mind going completely blank.
“It was just stupid shit. We didn’t mean it, and I’m sorry you heard.”
I kept staring at him.
“It didn’t mean anything,” he repeated.
“It’s okay,” I said, and it wasn’t a total lie.
It had been rude, and I’d felt bad at the time, but they’d in a way shaken me up enough to start changing who I was. Over the past months I’d come to the slightly uncomfortable realization that I hadn’t actually liked who I’d been, so perhaps they’d even done me a favor?
I wasn’t going to tell them that, though.
“You should tell Gib.”
Oh, no. I would never, ever exchange a single word with that man again.
“If I don’t?” I said quietly.
“I will.”
“Whatever,” I said and saw how Jonah put the pizza boxes in the back of his car.
Without another word, I walked off, waving and calling out to my landlord. As I knew he would, he went with me to pick up the groceries which I had left in my car all evening, and then he brought me home.
After unpacking, I moved around restlessly in the house.
Then I turned on the TV.
I made a cup of tea which I didn’t drink and left standing on the scraggly old coffee table.
Then I turned off the TV and stared at the dark screen for a while.
“Fuck it,” I muttered finally and walked into my bedroom.
I tried to make it last, but it built ridiculously fast, and I moaned quietly as I slid the vibrator through my wet folds. Waves of hot pleasure rushed through me, and then I came, harder than I had in a very long time, and through my orgasm, the only thing on my mind was a short beard, a seriously ripped chest, and a pair of silvery gray eyes.
Chapter Three
Gibson
He followed her with his eyes until she disappeared and then he grinned.
“Gib,” Joke said. “Got a thing you need to know.”
“What?”
“Remember a few months back? We went skiing, all of us.”
Gibson blinked and focused on his friend instead of the woman whose ass he’d just had his hands on. Or his thumbs close to, anyway.
“Sure.”
“Went to a bar, had to fight off a group of barracudas to get out of there.”
“Yeah?”
“One of those women left early.”
Gibson’s face hardened. It wasn’t a great memory because he’d blurted out some shit, and he didn’t remember exactly what, but it hadn’t been particularly nice. He’d barely glanced at the woman, so he hadn’t meant it and certainly hadn’t meant for the poor thing to hear him. Since he’d been rude, he’d been on his way to apologize when the woman had rushed out of there. Her friends had been under the incredibly misguided belief that he and Joke had been on their way over to flirt with them, and it had taken almost half an hour to get away.
“Yeah,” he said, wondering where Joke was going with his commen
ts.
“You called her mousey.”
“So?”
“And Grandma Myrtle,” Jenny cut in, and Gibson felt his brows go way up on his forehead.
Oh, fuck.
“How would you know?” he asked, narrowing his brows which made him wince.
He hoped Joke had had a small stroke and unexpectedly told his sister about the evening, even though it would mean he’d have to kick his friend around some, just on principle.
“Because Myrtle just stitched your brow together.”
Shit.
There was a short silence, and then Paddy started laughing.
None of the others did, and neither did Gibson. He turned to Jenny.
“She told you?”
“Yes,” Jenny said sourly. “I mentioned Joke, and she recognized the name from your lovely little conversation outside the restroom in a bar where anyone could hear you. She was freaked out enough to leave.”
“Leave?” Gib asked, not at all liking that option.
“This bar. Wilhelmine. The cabin she just rented for the next twelve months. Leave-leave.”
Shit.
“You talk her down?”
“Yeah, buddy,” Jenny said. “You owe me because I totally did.”
“Thanks,” he muttered.
“Oh, I did so not do it for you. She’s clever and funny, and I really like her. How would I know you’d walk in and suddenly become one gigantic erection?”
Gibson had to fight to keep his eyes from glancing down at his crotch. She was right, his dick had gone from attentive to rock hard the second he’d had his hands on her legs to pull her closer. He wasn’t a small man so there wasn’t much he could do to hide it, although he hadn’t expected anyone to actually comment on it.
“Jesus, Sis,” Joke grunted. “A little respect for your brother’s sensitive feelings would be nice.”
“What? You want me to pretend I don’t see how his dick’s almost popping the buttons on those jeans?”
Gibson shoved the blood-stained shirt over his head and let it hang loosely over his apparently offensive crotch.
“Better like that?” he asked.
“Yes,” Jenny said primly. “Thank you.”
“What’s her name?”
“Charlene.”
It didn’t suit her at all, he thought. It sounded prim and prissy. “Like Grandma Myrtle,” a small voice whispered in his head, and he winced.
“I call her Lee,” Jenny added.
“Huh,” Gibson grunted.
Lee. Yeah, that was better. Much better.
“What the hell happened to change her so much?”
“Her story to share, if and when she so wishes.”
“Jenny.”
“Gibson.”
“Jenny.”
“Joke.”
“Jenn –”
“Cut it,” Jenny snapped when Paddy tried to get involved. “I’m not going to stand here and gossip with you girls. I’m going back to close up the restaurant where Lee, by the way, made Maddie Alvarez a very, very happy woman earlier today.” She whirled around and marched toward the door, giving Gibson a smug smile over her shoulder. “You should apologize, Gibson. Profusely.”
“Jenny,” Gibson called out when she was almost by the door. “She here alone?”
Her face softened, and the smug smile turned gentle.
“Yeah, Gib. She’s here alone.”
“Where does she live?”
“Not saying,” she retorted. “Paddy will be the first to know I suspect.”
The door closed with a soft thud.
“What?” Paddy said.
He was the one most women gushed over, and always had been. As a teenager, his angel-face had lured girls go with him to the campground to make out, and Gibson bet he could still get women to go there with him if he wanted, even if his thick, curly hair had gone almost entirely gray and his lanky build looked more skinny than athletic these days.
Gib had never resented his buddy’s success with the ladies, and there had been enough women for all of them when they’d wanted it. Gib had been married twice though, and both marriages had been spectacularly stupid endeavors, so they had been godawful, but he’d been faithful for as long as they lasted. He’d gotten his three boys out of the experiences, and that made them impossible to regret, even if both women were people he hoped he’d never have to lay eyes on ever again. He was pretty sure they felt the same way about him, and he probably deserved at least part of that. Probably.
So, why would Paddy know where she – ah. Of course. Jonah Anderson.
“Is she out of her fucking mind?” he growled.
“What?” Paddy repeated.
“My guess? She rented Jonah’s old cabin, and he’s suckered her into renovating it. Jenny will get her to call you,” he pointed to Paddy, “to do some of the work.”
“I won’t mind at all,” Paddy said sweetly. “She’s cute. I wasn’t the one calling her Myrtle, so she might like me better than you.”
“Fuck you,” Gibson grunted.
“Ladies,” Mac said. “I’m finding the gossip-session hilarious, but someone broke into your home, Gib. We should focus on that instead of your dick.”
A couple of grunts acknowledged the correctness of his statement, in the way only men who’d been friends for as long as they could remember could communicate. For the next hours they went through everything that had happened, and when the officers had left Gibson’s house, they went through it one more time.
It seemed like a stupid, random break-in, something that didn’t sit well at all with Gibson. He’d been on the force for years, before retiring five years earlier, and he had been exceptionally good at his job. He knew well that stupid and random shit in a very small town in the mountains more often than not was a cover for something else entirely. Besides, no one broke into Gibson Ward’s home. No one. This was something every petty criminal in the entire state would know not to do, so the whole event didn’t sit well at all with him.
The others agreed, and while they were doing a second walkthrough of the house, Paddy started calling the MC’s to see if anyone wanted to own up to what had happened.
It was late when they finally decided to call it a night, and they were nowhere nearer any answers. The mood in the bar had been light, but as the night progressed, their faces hardened. All the presidents Paddy called assured him that they were not involved and that their members wouldn’t disrespect Gibson in any way. Paddy went out on the back porch to call a few contacts that Mac couldn’t know about on account of him having that pesky badge clipped to his belt, and they all gave the same answers. They were not involved and promised unanimously to keep their ears to the ground and let him know what they found out, probably to prevent Gibson Ward from coming after them, looking for answers.
“No one knows a fucking shit,” Paddy grunted. “I’m going home. Have to get some shut-eye.”
“Yeah,” Joke agreed. “I’ll have to check in on Oak.”
Gibson walked them out and sighed when he surveyed the makeshift repair they’d made to his front door. Mac and Joke left in Mac’s car, but Paddy stayed behind, watching their taillights disappear around the corner.
“Gib?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s with the woman?”
Gibson didn’t even pretend to not understand. They’d all grown up together, but he and Paddy were close, always had been.
“Don’t know, Padraig,” he said quietly. “Looked at her sitting there, laughing with Jenny, and that smile just shot straight to my dick. Got my hands on her legs and Jenny wasn’t wrong about the buttons. Thought they’d pop right open.”
Paddy grinned at him and wiggled his brows.
“She kept her cool. Did good work on your brow.”
“Yeah?”
“Jenny liked her.”
“You cottoned on to that too? That was strange.”
“Not my woman, Pad.”
“She will be.”
Gibson thought about that for a few seconds, and then he grinned.
“I called her Grandma Myrtle, for fuck’s sake. Not sure I’ll make my way around that.”
Their deep laughter rumbled through the night as they slapped each other’s backs.
When the lights from Paddy’s car had disappeared, Gibson whistled for his dog to stop sniffing the bushes, and they went inside. The black dog immediately went to his usual corner of the couch and started snoring, but Gibson was restless.
He turned on the TV.
Then he walked into the kitchen to get a beer, which he didn’t open and left standing on the coffee table.
Then he turned off the TV and stared at the blank screen for a while.
“Fuck it,” he muttered and walked into his bedroom, got out of his jeans and shirt, and contemplated taking a shower but remembered with a grin how a small woman had snapped at him to not get the stitches wet.
There was one thing he wanted to get wet and he knew what that was, he thought as he propped a couple of pillows up and leaned back on the headboard.
“Jesus,” he grunted as he slowly pulled down his briefs and released his aching cock.
He was fifty-five years old and had a hard-on the likes he hadn’t had in many years. It wasn’t as if he was having problems in that area, far from it, but it built slower these days. It didn’t just happen, not like it had when he saw her. Lee.
And he couldn’t remember the last time his dick had been so hard it hurt.
He moved one hand to slowly caress his balls, rolling and tugging until he couldn’t stop himself from using the other hand to get himself off, but doing it slowly, thinking about Lee with her soft hair and wide mouth. How would it feel to have that mouth on his cock? He was an in-charge kind of guy both in and out of bed, and liked to call the shots on what would happen, so he’d have her on her knees in front of him, with one of his hands in her hair, guiding her pace. Her soft eyes would be on him while he slowly thrust in and out of her mouth. She’d be naked, and when he told her, she’d put one hand between her legs, using two fingers to work herself as he took hold of her head with both hands.