“Sit,” he says, tipping his chin in the direction of the barstools that butt up against the island.
I reach for a cigarette from the top pocket of my shirt and light it. King paces for a moment. “Been thinking about yesterday. You and the Irish chick.”
“Iris?” I say.
“You got that shit in check?”
“If this is about that neo-Nazi scum . . . Look, they were bothering her.”
King leans back against the wall and crosses his arms. “I’m sure life is fucking bothering her, the weather probably bothers her, traffic on a Wednesday morning bothers her . . . but she’s not your responsibility.”
I stand, no longer wanting the pie, and place it back in the fridge. “I know that. But if they were bothering Gwen, you—”
“I’d kill them, because Gwen is my fucking sister. She’s Clutch’s old lady. She’s got the protection of the club. You don’t start a fight with the far-right for some chick who doesn’t mean anything to us.”
Internally, his words fuel an anger so explosive I can barely contain it. I take a long inhale, letting the nicotine fill my veins.
And that is what scares me most. Because she’s coming to mean fucking everything to me. I blow out a breath. Hard.
Then I school my reaction, bring it back under control, rein everything in, and take another inhale of my cigarette. “Maybe that’s the difference between you and me. There’s a reason you picked me for sergeant at arms. Protecting people is all I’ve ever known or attempted to be good at. I can’t just turn a blind eye like you can.”
Not that I’m always good at it.
“I’m gonna ask you this once. You fucking Iris?”
I shake my head and scoff. “I am most definitely not fucking Iris.”
I’m pissed he asked the question that way. Because while I’m not sure what Iris and I are beyond a clusterfuck waiting to happen, I hate the idea that all we could be is boiled down to a four-letter expletive. But it gave me the opportunity to answer truthfully. I don’t want to lie to my prez, but I will if I have to.
King holds my gaze for a minute, scanning for any hint of deceit, but he isn’t going to find any, because I didn’t lie.
I haven’t fucked Iris.
Yet.
Shit. No, maybe not ever. Who the fuck knows.
I clearly need a long ride. Like a couple of days.
“I’m gonna ride on after we’re done tonight. Clear my head.”
King nods. “Sounds like a good idea. Don’t go so far you can’t get back if I need you. And be back within a week.”
An hour later, King, Saint, a prospect called Kieran, and I are on the road; two hours after that, we’re parked up in Bethlehem leaving Kieran with our bikes.
Thankful for the cool October weather, I tug my hair up underneath my beanie.
We’re south of the Lehigh River, on the boundary of Fountain Hill and Sayre Park, where the properties have a little more land. The neighborhood looks nice enough.
“Which one is the truck registered to?” I whisper
“Number forty-eight.” King tips his chin up the hill. In the dark, it’s hard to see too far ahead. Leaving the bikes was a good idea. It’s so fucking quiet here that I hear the occasional drone of a TV playing as I walk by the houses.
When we finally find the truck, the house appears empty. Lights are off, no TV or anything playing inside. Saint and King creep around back while I get busy placing the tracking device in the wheel arch, just above the rim—the second one I placed tonight. Once I’m confident it’s secured, I head around back.
King shakes his head. “Nothing to see, but no way in. The house is almost too secure for a neighborhood like this.”
He points to the back door. It has a reinforced wrought iron gate locked across it. And there are bars on the lower windows.
Not usually the sign of a friendly homeowner.
I hoped to be able to break in.
Saint walks across the lawn from an outbuilding. “Nothing,” he says.
“We should get out of here,” King says.
I consider bailing on my plans. I think about driving back to Asbury Park to see Iris, but I need to prove to myself I’m cool not being around her, because I don’t want to have to choose between her and my club. I take one look at my bike and know I need to head out.
King notices. “Ride well, brother.”
I nod, climb on my bike, and tear away.
I head north. It’s already late. After midnight. Around four in the morning, when my eyes are starting to burn with the effort of staying awake, I find a motel and grab a room on the ground floor where I can lock my bike up just beneath the window of my room.
I’m too tired to do much beyond strip and fall into bed.
But even as I close my eyes. I think of Iris.
I think of that pretty dress with the deep V she wore to have breakfast with her friend, the way the hem skimmed her thighs and showed off the narrowest part of her waist. I never realized I have a kink for dominating someone so much smaller than me, but it’s all I can think about. How narrow her waist will feel in my hands and how her breasts won’t fill my palms. I wonder how tight her pussy will be around my dick.
Within minutes, I’m hard.
I know I won’t sleep comfortably until I take care of it. After sliding my hand beneath the covers, I grip my dick and close my eyes. I start to think about Iris naked, but I keep losing the image. Instead of the sexy visual of her crawling up my torso, sitting up, and lowering herself onto my dick, the image shifts.
She’s laughing, twirling in that fucking dress, her curls bouncing around. The skirt lifts high enough so I can just catch a glimpse of her panties.
White cotton.
“Fucking knew it,” I mutter.
She’s dancing to a country song.
I slide my hand back and forth, widening the fantasy. I’m sitting in a booth in a dark corner, watching her. She knows I’m there, but she’s pretending she doesn’t.
Fuck, my balls start to tighten.
Finally, she turns to me. “I miss you, Spark,” she says, before running to me and jumping into my lap.
And without even thinking anything remotely sexual, I come beneath the cheap hotel sheets as I imagine holding her tight in my arms.
10
IRIS
“Miss O’Connor, why is water see-through?” Thema asks as she tugs on her coat.
My head is pounding. The children have been loud today. It’s windy outside, and a kindergarten teacher I worked with on one of my college teaching assignments said the energy of windy weather gets inside the kids and turns them into dervishes. But I take a deep breath. Only a few more minutes, and I can limp home, have soup for dinner, and then be in bed by eight. “That’s a great question. It’s transparent. And it’s because water has no color.”
“Why does it have no color? Because I’ve seen the ocean, and it looks blue or green.”
I swear to God, most days I love having Thema in my class. Her curiosity and intelligence are a powerful combination in a young girl. I’m determined to nurture it. But today, I just want a dark room and my bed before this headache turns into a migraine. I already have the twitch in my eyes that sometimes happens when one is brewing.