Pure Iron

by Bargo, Holly

  “No,” Mick said. “Touch her and I’ll kill you.”

  “Hey, man, it’s not like you and the Iceman haven’t shared girls before,” Angelo intervened with forced amiability. “But I’m sure he’ll understand that a wife is off limits.”

  Kristof merely shrugged. Davis dope-slapped him on the back of the head.

  “Don’t cause a rift over some pussy,” Jack said, sotto voce.

  Mick’s fist landed hard on the tabletop. He leaned forward and said, “Sonia’s my wife and you’ll treat her with respect.”

  Sonia was still getting over the revelation that her husband and the blonde pervert had shared women. He had a strong sexual appetite. Was that what he wanted, a ménage a trois? With the way the hand at her hip was flexing, she thought that it wouldn’t take much for him to throw her skirt up over her head, bend her over, and claim her in front of his band just to ensure they knew she belonged to him. She hoped he wouldn’t do that.

  Davis raised his hands, palms held out, and said, “Hey, man, we get it. It’s just unusual, you know?”

  “Since when is getting married unusual?”

  “Since it’s you who got married,” Angelo said candidly. “You’re almost as much of a whore as Jack there.”

  Jack just grinned, green eyes twinkling. He had two interests: music and fucking. It was toss-up as to which he liked more and was better skilled at performing. Unfortunately, only the one offered a legal way to make a living in forty-nine states.

  “Mick,” Sonia said softly. He did not hear her. She tugged on his sleeve and said his name again. He gave her his attention.

  “What is it, babe?”

  “This isn’t going well. Why don’t I collect our baggage and head to the airport? You can meet me there.”

  “No.”

  “Mick, I don’t want to come between you and your band. They’re your family.”

  “No.”

  “I think it’s best that I give you all a little space right now, Mick.”

  Sonia could see the indecision in Mick’s eyes. He wanted her beside him, yet he also wanted his band’s support. She glanced at the men seated around the table, their corner of the restaurant practically oozing testosterone. She looked around the table. Kristof’s inscrutable expression could best be described as stony or cold. He did not seem hostile, but neither did she see any welcome. Jack’s gaze showed lascivious interest, his focus continually dropping to her chest. Angelo’s expression revealed a touch of distress that she assigned to the new antipathy between the band’s lead guitarist and the bass guitarist and maybe even the horn player. Davis maintained a genial expression, but she could not tell whether it was genuine or a mask. From his posture, she rather thought that it was a mask.

  “Stay. Please,” Angelo said, breaking the silence around the table. He stood and extended a hand toward her. “We’ve been around groupies so long we’ve forgotten how to be polite.” He glared at Kris and Jack and added, “We’ll make an effort, won’t we, guys?”

  Jack grinned again and thrust out his hand. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Hendriksen,” he drawled, exaggerating his southern accent.

  The man’s charming absurdity drew a reluctant smile from Sonia and she shook his hand.

  “You might not want to touch thabluet,” Angelo warned with a grin. “You don’t know where that’s been.”

  “Fuck you,” Jack said without heat even as he pulled a trial size bottle of hand sanitizer from his pocket, held it up, and wagged it.

  “Germaphobe,” Davis said with a mocking little smile.

  “Kris, make nice with Mick’s wife,” Angelo ordered.

  The blond Viking shrugged his massive shoulders, nodded curtly, and grunted. Sonia nodded back and turned her attention to darkly handsome Angelo, who flashed her a brilliant smile that made his chocolate eyes sparkle. Seated at the end of the table, he rose and walked around to buss her cheek. Mick’s arm, wrapped around her waist, tugged her more snugly against his side in a blatant display of possession.

  “Anyone Mick loves I’m sure to love, too,” he whispered. Loudly enough to be heard by everyone at the table, he said, “Welcome to the band. Now tell us about yourself.”

  “Hands off my wife,” Mick said, although there was no anger in his voice. After all, it was Angelo, who had a thing for tall, stacked brunettes, not slender blondes.

  “Er …” Sonia stammered, not sure where to begin. After all, she knew that the men at the table weren’t anxious to hear about her life, likes, and dislikes. The invitation was surely rhetorical. She swallowed and tried again. “I’m a chef. I’m actually taking a vacation in Monterrey where I met Mick.”

  “You still hanging out at the beach cottage?” Davis asked, his deep voice hardly more than a rumble like faraway thunder.

  “Yeah. It’s peaceful. Quiet.”

  “What’s that smile on your face for, Sonia?” Angelo inquired, eyes twinkling.

  She shook her head, blushed, and said, “Because it wasn’t peace and quiet that brought Mick and me together.”

  “Oh?”

  Mick chuckled, his body relaxing as the mood at the table changed. Thank God for Angelo, who’d always had a knack for putting people at ease. He often served as the band’s peacemaker and occasionally as their conscience.

  “Sonia’s roommate is rather loud and enthusiastic,” he explained, the inflection and tone of his words magnifying the innuendo. “I invited Sonia over to escape it.”

  “And have their own little party,” Jack said under his voice, but not low enough for Kris to avoid hearing. The big man coughed back a laugh.

  Sonia’s cheeks reddened again.

  “How far does that blush go?” Jack asked, one eyebrow raised in inquiry. His frank perusal of her made her blush even hotter. Of course. Mick flung a warning glare at his bandmate.

  “So, what have you been working on?” Davis asked. He turned his attention briefly to Sonia and explained, “Mick’s our composer. The rest of us just play and sing, but Mick’s our poet laureate.”

  She nodded and asked, “How did you come up with the name Iron Falcon?”

  “Bluebird of Happiness wasn’t sufficiently macho,” Angelo quipped, drawing a giggle from her. “Actually, we started as a tribute band playing Eagles’ songs. But anything with ‘eagle’ in it was just too copycat. So Jack,” he nodded toward the other man, “came up with ‘falcon.’”

  “And the ‘iron’ part?”

  “Our first agent told us that we had to have thick hides and iron constitutions to survive in this business. We put ‘iron’ with ‘falcon’ and the rest is history.”

  Sonia nodded, liking the evolution of the band’s name. It reminded her of one of her dad’s favorite groups: Airplane, then Jefferson Airplane, then Jefferson Starship, then just Starship.

  Suddenly it occurred to her that the bar was curiously free of fans. She looked around and realized that no one was really paying them any attention.

  “There’s a bigger name than us here,” Angelo said quietly.

  She tilted her head to one side.

  “We don’t mind. It gives us a reprieve.”

  As he spoke there was a surge of people from the other side of the night club.

  “Looks like our reprieve is over, guys,” Mick said. “Come out to the cottage and I’ll show you those tunes I’ve been working on.” He paused then said, “Call first.”

  The other four men grinned widely. Sonia blushed again.

  Chapter 6

  Penny squealed, jumped up from the lap upon which she was sitting, and raced over to Sonia to throw her arms around her roommate.

  “You’re back! Where have you been! Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”

  Sonia looked around the messy living room. Beer and soda cans, wrappers, open bags of chips, and … was that a used condom? Oh, ewww. And there were a couple more.

  Sonia choked back bile as she detached Penny’s arms and took a couple of steps ba
ckward. Penny needed a shower. Badly.

  “Hi, Penny,” she greeted her childhood friend and wondered just what the hell had happened to her. “You seem to have kept yourself occupied.”

  “Oh, I’ll tidy up later,” Penny said blithely. “I called your parents, I was that worried.”

  “You called them two days after I’d left,” Sonia pointed out coolly.

  “Really? It was two days? Wow, time flies.”

  Sonia looked, really looked, at her old friend and noticed the sharpness of her cheekbones, the red-rimmed nostrils, the almost feverish brightness to her eyes, the too-thin body. She looked back at Mick, who gave her a tiny nod.

  She took a deep breath, and wished she hadn’t because something smelled truly foul. “Penny, I’m going to collect my stuff and leave. I can’t stay in this pigsty and you can’t stay here without me, because it’s my name on the rental agreement.”

  “But, what about this mess?” Penny complained with a frown, because she’d obviously expected Sonia to clean it despite her promise to “tidy up.”

  “I’m not your maid. And I’m going to hold you responsible for paying for cleaning and repairs,” Sonia said. She sighed and took her friend’s suspiciously sticky hand and forced herself to clasp it. “Penny, you need help. If you want it, I’ll do whatever I can to help you. But I can’t be around you when you’re like this.”

  The other woman laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. “Oh, little miss goody two-shoes graduates from her hoity-toity college and can’t be bothered to mingle with the little people anymore?” She spat, the phlegm landing wetly on the floor too near Sonia’s sandal. “I have no money, little miss rich bitch. And I’m tired of being your charity case.”

  Sonia flinched from the venom in her erstwhile friend’s voice. She opened her mouth to speak, but Mick gently drew her away toward her former room. Which was trashed. Her clothes lay in soiled heaps, some garments obviously torn. Shards of broken glass and the pungent smell of perfume continued the story of angry destruction. Her suitcase sat open and filled with garbage. Her Kindle lay on the dresser, its screen shattered.

  “Three days,” she whispered. “I was gone three days.”

  Mick wrapped an arm around her and walked her toward the back door. They passed through the kitchen where a naked couple fornicated while another man wearing only a pair of socks inhaled white powder through a small straw.

  “We’ll replace your clothes and reader,” he said gently.

  She nodded and turned her face away. Shrieks, coarse laughs, loud cheers, and grunts rose in chorus from the living room. Apparently, Penny was resuming whatever she’d left off doing when Sonia returned to their vacation cottage. Mitch hurried her away from the orgy. He escorted her to his cottage, which suddenly wasn’t far enough away.

  “I’ll call the police to get evict her and her friends,” he said.

  Sonia shook her head and said sadly, “No, don’t do that. She was my friend once.”

  He took her shoulders in his hands. “Sweetheart, she’s higher than a kite and God knows what she’s been taking. I’ve seen what drugs can do. She won’t leave until she’s forced to do so and there might not be a house left when she’s finished with it.”

  He glanced back at the cottage. “That could have been me. That was Davis’ mother.”

  Sonia’s gaze flew up from the floor in surprise.

  “Yeah, his mom was a crack whore.”

  Sonia’s gaze lowered again. Yes, she supposed, he did know of that which he spoke. “Okay,” she said in an almost inaudible tone, “Call the police.”

  He nodded and pressed a kiss to the top of your head. “Penny will hate you for this, but—if she ever gets clean—she’ll thank you after that.”

  She sighed. Mick pulled out his cell phone, looked up the non-emergency number for the local police, and called in the offense. He asked them not to come with lights and sirens blaring.

  They watched from the window as two patrol cars pulled up quietly. Four officers exercised stealth as they exited the vehicles.

  “I should let them in,” Sonia said nervously.

  “You don’t need to do that, babe.”

  “Yeah, I do. It’s my rental and I’m the one who can open the door for them without their needing an invitation.”

  “I don’t think they really need an invitation.”

  Sonia frowned with indecision, then nodded to herself and said, “It’s the right thing to do.”

  “Then I’m with you, babe.”

  She smiled at his support and walked toward the nearest officer.

  “Officer?” she called. He either did not hear her or simply ignored her. So she called again, “Officer?”

  With a slight grimace of annoyance, he lifted his face to meet her gaze and replied, “Yes, miss?”

  “We’re the ones who called about the drug use in the house. Er … it’s my rental.” She reached back and Mick grasped her hand.

  “And you called why?”

  “I—we—” she gestured to her husband “—went to Las Vegas for three days and when we returned today, this was going on. I won’t be party to illegal drugs.”

  The policeman nodded, skepticism written on his face as he eyed the tattooed young man standing behind the young woman who addressed him so earnestly.

  “Er … since it’s my rental, I can let you guys in quietly so the people in side can’t run away as easily,” she suggested.

  “We appreciate that, miss.”

  She walked forward, but the officer hadn’t finished speaking.

  “But we’ll handle this,” he concluded. He gestured to two officers who walked behind the cottage to catch those who would try to flee through the back door. Mick put a hand on Sonia’s shoulder and drew her backward as the police officers got into position. He walked her back to the front porch and they watched as one officer flung the front door open and shouted, “Police! Everyone, on the floor!”

  They heard the crash of furniture, the sharp breaking of glass, some screams and shouts and foul profanity. In short order, three more patrol cars pulled in front of the cottage and soon the back seats of all five vehicles were filled with handcuffed people in various states of dress (or undress), most of whom went without a struggle. Penny looked up as she was roughly escorted to a car and saw Sonia and Mick standing on the porch.

  “I’ll get you back for this, you bitch!” she bellowed. Spittle flew from her mouth. “I’ll kill you!”

  One of the officers approached them. “You said you’re the renter of record for the property?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’ll need to get your statement.”

  “Of course. Can we do that tomorrow morning, please?”

  The policeman agreed. “Come by the station at nine o’clock. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  “Thank you, officer,” she said faintly. She sniffled and a tear trickled down her cheek.

  “I’ve known her since we were little kids,” Sonia wept softly, burying her face in his chest. ”We celebrated almost every milestone in our lives together. I don’t know what happened to her, why she got like that.”

  “Drugs take hold of some people like that,” Mick said. “It consumes them, eats their souls.”

  “I’ll have to call her parents and let them know what I’ve done to her.”

  Mick put his other hand on her shoulder, turned her around to face him, and shook her a little. “You did nothing to her. She did this to herself.”

  “They won’t see it that way.”

  “That’s their problem, sweetheart. You didn’t stick that needle in her arm or blow that cocaine up her nose. Penny is responsible for her actions and the consequences, not you.”

  She nodded, because what else was she going to do? Insist on taking responsibility for Penny’s actions? Even she felt like she should have done something to prevent that disaster, she knew that she could not accept responsibility for someone else’s actions. She hated when mind and heart disa
greed so strongly.

  Wait … needles?

  Mick watched the expressions flit across her face and correctly read them.

  “I saw the tracks on her arms,” he answered her unasked question.

  “How could I have missed that?” she whispered.

  Mick drew her into his embrace and rested his chin on her head. “You’re too close and you weren’t looking for it,” he said, gently absolving her of perceived blame. Sonia relaxed into his hold and wrapped her arms around his waist to hug him back. They stood like that for a long moment.

  “Come on, baby, let’s go to bed.”

  Mick fought back his body’s predictable reaction to her warm body pressed against his, to the opportunity afforded by a comfortable mattress and hours to spend alone with his wife. Yeah, he really wanted to bury himself so deeply inside her that he’d never find his way back out, but she did not need that right then. He wasn’t such a dickhead as to be unable to figure that out. And he wasn’t an animal who could not control himself, particularly after implying just minutes ago that each person was responsible for his or her actions.

  He listened as she went through her evening ablutions and gathered her close when she snuggled into the bed next to him. He closed his eyes and concentrated on calming his body, forcing himself to breathe slowly. Sleep gradually overtook Sonia and she relaxed completely. Mick found himself gently stroking his hand down her side and over the curve of her hip, long strokes gliding down her body as though he were petting a big cat. He found it surprisingly comforting to touch her in that manner. Maybe there was more to this marriage thing than he thought.

  Sonia woke in the early dawn, pale light just beginning to illuminate the sky but not yet casting color into the world. She lay, feeling comfortable and cherished and very, very warm cuddled next to Mick. His muscle-roped arm draped over her, the long-fingered hand splayed over her butt.

  She took the opportunity to look at him, really look. His shoulder length hair was mussed and tangled, falling over the high forehead and sharp cheekbones. The thin nostrils of his narrow, aquiline nose flared gently with each breath. His mouth was wide and mobile, with thin lips that she knew were unexpectedly soft. Thick, dark stubble blurred the clean line of his jaw. She raised a hand and lightly ran her fingertips over his stubbled cheek and along his jaw. She caressed him again, fingertips brushing over his mouth, that talented mouth that had introduced her to so much pleasure and could sing such beautiful songs.