What does Lost look like under his clothes?
I’ll probably never find out.
At the age of fifty-three, life has been cruel enough to present me with a man that for the first time ever makes me understand the sexual attraction I’ve read about in books. But the problem is, I’d been honest when I told him, I’d not be able to separate my emotions from any physical activity. If I’m going to risk my heart, it will be with a man who’s prepared to give a relationship a try, not who’s trying something new for one or two nights.
And what was that strange enigmatic statement, that it would be me who’d be the one to end it. Why? What’s he hiding?
He’s right in that we should go slow, but we haven’t got time. Unless, I stay. Problem is, it wouldn’t be just me facing the music.
“I don’t know what to do,” I tell him at last. “Alder left my son for dead; he deserves death himself for that.” I turn to look at him so he can appreciate the honesty in my eyes, letting him see I’d kill the man with my own bare hands if it were possible. “I’m just scared to stay. Alder’s powerful. We don’t know where he is, where he’d be coming from, let alone what he actually wants. If I stay and take him on, someone else may get hurt.”
His eyes sharpen. “What exactly are we talking about here, Patsy?”
I take in a lungful of the sweet fresh air. “Dan can stay. Alder isn’t looking for him. I trust you, Lost. You can keep an eye out for him, and he could build a new life here. I could go, Alder would lose my trail. Problem over.”
He growls. “Problem far from over. You’d lose both your kids.”
“But they’ll be safe. And that’s all that matters.”
“If you go, you’ll hurt. If you go…” He breaks off.
“If I go, what?”
“Forget it.” He shakes his head dismissively.
“Forget what? What is it, Lost?”
Suddenly he stalks toward me. “If you go, I’ll fucking hurt. For years I thought I didn’t want or need another woman in my life until I met you and that got knocked on the head. I want you, Patsy, I’ve told you that. But not just for one night. I want to take you out, date you, get to know you and then, if you agree, take you to my bed and fuck you the way you deserve. I want to discover how you taste on my tongue, the sounds you make when you come. I want your thighs squeezing my head. I want you to come over and over again, and then, only then, will I feed my cock into your pussy and feel you clamp down and orgasm over my dick making me lose control too.”
My eyes widen in desire and shock as he spouts promises in words no man has ever used in front of me before.
Phil had never gone down on me. My only knowledge of the act is hearing people talk, reading posts which made me giggle on social media, or from books. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d feel about participating in that act until Lost mentioned doing those things to me. While mentally I hadn’t leaped on board, apparently my body already has as my legs have pressed together.
I’d married Phil when I was twenty-six years old, after he’d taken my virginity and gave me Beth in return. Sex was okay, enough not to object when Phil was in the mood, but not earth-shattering either, just something to do before you fell asleep at night. The picture Lost is painting, well, I haven’t felt my stomach clench this way in years, if ever, and I can feel myself becoming wet. I want that. Shouldn’t I, as a woman, experience sex like Lost’s describing just once in my life? Before I’m an old hag and it’s too late.
As if he knows I’m weakening, he tells me again, “I want you, Patsy. I can’t remember when I ever fuckin’ wanted a woman so much.”
I’m completely lost for words. The image he’s placed in my head of him and me, naked in bed, is seriously affecting my brain-to-mouth coordination.
“Too much,” he murmurs as though to himself. “Knew I’d fuck this up.” He shrugs and walks back to his bike. He leans over it for a moment, his hands on the seat, his arms rigid and head bowed. He breathes in a deep breath, then glances back. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”
I know he’s misunderstood. Running over to him, I take hold of his arm. “It’s not you. It’s not what you said. Lost. If I could, I’d stay with you. You’re attracted to me, and heaven help me, but I’m attracted to you. I want, God, do I want everything you said. But we can’t start anything. It’s wrong timing. If Alder didn’t know where I was…”
“You’d stay?” He raises an eyebrow. “If Alder wasn’t in the picture, you’d consider staying with me?”
Again I gaze at his face, reading honesty there, and decide to be truthful in return. “If Alder hadn’t reared his head, I’d be more cautious than I am. And you, I suspect, wouldn’t have come on so strong to me.” I pause and look back over the Pacific again. “It’s like people heading off to war. Making decisions, wanting to act in the now in case they don’t get that chance again.”
He smirks. “Do you want to act in the now, Patsy?”
For once in my life, I’m tempted to take the chance. If I didn’t, would I regret it all my life? “If,” I put an emphasis on the word, “if I were staying, I might. My children are grown. I can’t live my life based around them anymore, it wouldn’t be fair to them.” My arms automatically wrap around me. “It’s a scary thought, Lost. I was burned, badly, by Phil. He was so charming when we met, I thought I’d won the jackpot.” I try to find the words to explain why I was ever taken in by the man. “I was never the popular girl. I was shy and nervous, so I wasn’t asked out by many boys. I didn’t go to college, instead I worked a number of low-paying jobs. Like Beth, I still lived at home with my mom. My dad had died when I was young.”
“Your mom still alive?”
“She died shortly before Connor was born. She was in a car crash.”
“I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. The loss of the best confidant in my life was still hard to come to terms with. “I’d had a good relationship with her, just like the one I had with Beth. Mom had always told me of the great love she’d shared with my father, and in some ways I think she was my role model, and I wanted to duplicate how she’d lived. So, if a man asked me out, I was always trying to see if he could be the love of my life. I never found him.”
“How the fuck did you end up with a man like Phil?”
“Partly me, partly him. He was the most charming man I’d ever met, Lost. Confident, funny, he made me feel like I was the centre of his world. Until he took my virginity.”
His eyes widen. “Are you saying you’ve only ever been with one man?”
“Sad, isn’t it? But yes. I’d been cautious until I met him, more cautious after.”
He shakes his head and heaves a sigh. “Why the fuck did you marry him, Patsy?”
“Because I fell pregnant. It was a shock for both of us, but he stepped up to do the right thing. At the time, he was establishing his position as an accountant and it helped him to have stability at home, made him seem more reliable or something.” I turn away from him, my mind going back to the past. “He wasn’t my dad.” I give a mirthless laugh. “The charming man I’d first met wasn’t the one I ended up with. He always knew better than everyone, and certainly better than me. He was egotistical. Everything was about him and how clever he was. He could be cruel without trying.”
“But you stayed with him?”
“I was his wife. I had Beth. It’s what you do, isn’t it? Try to make your marriage work. He didn’t want more kids, but Connor came along anyway. I suppose it was having a baby again that occupied my time, and I didn’t pay attention to how he was changing and what he was becoming. He’d always been secretive, but it had gotten worse. He’d become shifty, and I knew he was spending more money than we had coming in. That’s when I suspected. When the cops turned up, I knew.”
“That’s when you left him?”
I nod. “I took my opportunity, Lost. I took advantage of a man when he was down. He’d been money laundering. Somehow he’d gotten away with it and wasn’t ch
arged, but he lost his job, and the police were just waiting for him to step out of line. It was his moment of weakness, and I took it. Whether I’d ever truly loved him, there was nothing left at that point. I couldn’t live with a man who I was certain would go to prison at any time. I was going to end up alone and wanted that to be on my terms. So, I asked him to leave.”
“And he did?” Lost’s voice has changed, has become hardened. “Did he suggest he could change?”
“I didn’t give him the chance.” I think back, trying to find something to justify what I’d done. All the arguments we’d had. His promises that I hadn’t believed, his vows to go straight. “I couldn’t, Lost. I may not have been in love with the man, but I would have stood by him if he’d lost his job through no fault of his own. He hated that I didn’t support him and that I didn’t stand up for him. He thought that’s what I should have done because his ring was on my finger. But I had to look after myself, and my children.”
A shuttered look comes over Lost’s eyes. Something I’ve said has resonated with him. “You had to look out for yourself,” he says, quietly, his body tense. Then he snaps. “He spiralled downward after that? Did you ever think that had you supported him, he might not have gone totally bad? That you might have been a stabilising influence on him?”
“Lost?” I’m confused. Why does he sound like he’s taking my ex’s side? “I spent years turning a blind eye to his behaviour as I was trying to make our marriage work. He was always on his downward spiral, as you call it, but he was getting worse. He didn’t care who he hurt, only how much he could get away with. He was the only thing that mattered in his world.”
Lost is shaking his head, and I notice his body looks tense. He’s viewing the scenery but clearly not seeing it.
“Lost…?”
“We better get back.”
The man who’d brought me here has disappeared, and a stranger is standing in his place. The man who’d said things to me which caused a visceral reaction, who’d made me feel desired for the first time in my life is gone. Phil had tried, of course, that’s how he got me into his bed. While it hadn’t been earth-shattering, it hadn’t been terrible, so I’d kept going back. But he’d never spoken to me the way Lost had. Somehow, with him, I’d known it wouldn’t be sex with the lights off.
Now he’s changed. It’s clear he doesn’t want me. How can a man switch on and switch off in the blink of an eye? It sounds like he blames me. But I did nothing wrong. He hadn’t been there, hadn’t seen the cruelty that was always there, hidden just below the surface. Phil had managed to keep it under wraps, but I’d seen enough to not want to be in the vicinity once he let the monster out.
Like a wounded animal I try to defend myself. “Phil wasn’t a good man. If I hadn’t had fallen pregnant, I’d never have married him. But I turned a blind eye to all that as marriage was expected, wasn’t it? He was already bad, Lost. I didn’t make him that way. All the signs were there, and then he met Alder… It was him he was laundering money for.”
“Maybe if you’d fuckin’ tried harder, you could have stopped him.”
The air resonates with the sound of my hand slapping his face.
Lost’s face has gone completely blank as my hand covers my mouth. I have just hit the president of a one-percenter motorcycle club. Is he going to retaliate?
Time seems to stretch as I wait to see what Lost will do.
Eventually the statue in front of me comes to life. He turns and walks to his bike, with a terse instruction thrown over his shoulder.
“Get on.”
I do. I look down to see if there is something to hold on to with my hands, but while he must be furious, he still cares about my safety as he reaches back, takes hold of my wrists and pulls my arms firmly around his waist.
Even before the engine roars to life, I can feel his body vibrating.
Any joy in the ride is completely gone. The miles back seem twice as long as they had on the journey here, and there’s only one thought in my head. I’m glad I didn’t let things go further with Lost. He’s obviously not that man I was beginning to fall for.
Why had the man shown me something I wanted to reach out for and grab with both hands, then almost immediately snatched it back?
Chapter Fifteen
Lost
I’ve fucked up.
Should have fucking expected it.
“Whisky. No not a fuckin’ glass, the bottle.” I hold out my hand to Wrangler who looks startled at my tone of voice, me being a man who can usually hold on to his temper.
Taking it, shaking my head at the glass, I stomp across the clubroom and ascend the stairs. When I reach my room, I enter, close the door behind me then turn the key in the lock.
Damn it!
That ride back had been awful, the worst of my life. Neither I nor my passenger wanted to be there, or be forced into such close proximity. On my part, I hadn’t been able to get back fast enough, but some sense I hadn’t completely lost had made me drive carefully, knowing I had a new passenger behind me.
She’d hit me for fuck’s sake.
Raising the bottle to my lips, I take a long swig.
Told you you’d fuck up. You always do. You ruin everything you touch. This is only the start of it. Soon the club will see you for the fraud that you are. You smell that? That’s the skin on your back charring as they burn that tattoo off.
“Get out of my head!” I roar, throwing myself on my bed. I’m still holding the bottle and it spills.
Great. Now I’m covered in whisky. Luckily, there’s still enough left in the bottle. I take another swig.
I could scream at the universe I’m not going to fuck up, but no one would believe me. Because I do, and I always did.
How could everything have gone to shit?
One minute, I thought I was persuading Patsy to stay. She’d been unable to hide her arousal at the dirty talk I threw at her when I hadn’t held back exactly what I’d do to her if I had her in my bed. Her expressive eyes had showed almost every thought. When at first I’d heard I’d only be the second man to ever have her, I was going to make sure I’d be her last. It was on my lips to beg her to give us a chance, to stay in San Diego.
Then she had to tell me about that asshole of an ex. He was evil, twisted. I know that. Yet the way she was describing her marriage, particularly the end of it, pushed every button I had.
Patsy’s not Kim.
But she’d sounded like her. She’d even admitted she’d kicked a man who was down.
She’d made it sound as though Phil Foster had been like me, oblivious to how his marriage actually was. When he’d needed support, he’d been offered none either.
A woman doesn’t make a man good, her absence doesn’t make a man bad.
But it can destroy him.
I gave my all to Kim and our marriage. We didn’t have kids, thank fuck for that, but we had a nice house, we weren’t hard up. I was the man who brought flowers home for no reason other than to see a smile on her face. I was the man who never left the toilet seat up, always looking to her comfort and happiness. Looking back, I was the one trying.
It hadn’t mattered. Kim’s lips curving up was the only thanks I needed.
Expected to be late home for dinner? I’d arrange to bring takeout back or surprise her by booking a table at her favourite restaurant even if I was exhausted from a long working day, tired from building up my business and looking after the livelihoods of those depending on me for their wages.
A party out with her friends? I’d never missed those, even though they were tedious, and I found it hard to talk to some of her acquaintances, finding them pretentious. It made her happy and that was all I wanted.
I supported her when she got bored with her job, quit it, and took time to find what she really wanted to do with her life. Charity work? Well, I worked harder to make up for us losing her wages.
New bed? New couch? New curtains for the house? Again, I just put more hours in. I fucking loved tha
t woman. Why else did I exist other than to ensure her contentment?
Until I fucked up. Until I needed her support. Until I needed her to be my rock. When I looked for understanding, I got blame. When I asked her for help, she refused me.
It was then I found out what she truly thought of me. I’d been her mistake; she should never have married me. I could never give her what she would want, even if she gave me time to get back on my feet. Asking her to get a paying job to help out? I had to have been kidding.
I fought, God, how I’d fought for the marriage I thought we’d had, only to find it had all been smoke and mirrors.
I’d fought for my business, fought to keep our home. The last straw came when we lost the house, that’s when I lost her as well. And, of course, I lost my last available money. Her comfort had to be assured, didn’t it, her lawyers had asked me. I think the colloquial saying is that she took me to the cleaners, but I didn’t resent her. Not then. She blamed me and she was right. I’d fucked up her life.
I gave her everything I had left.
I had nothing.
I was standing, one hand on the seat of my motorcycle, the last thing I owned apart from the clothes on my back. The car had gone with my wife, but not the bike she tried to make me sell. Something in me made me hang on to it.
Automatically I turned out my pockets.
A wallet, empty of bills, a few odd coins, and bits of plastic which would no longer be accepted, a few receipts and a pen.
I could write a will.
Being Lost: Satan's Devils MC San Diego #1 Page 16
