by Hart, Eve R.
“Now, it’s your turn. Tell me.”
I sighed as my head turned away from him. He began running his hand over my hair as I watched the silent images flicker on the TV. Some men were fighting and I didn’t try to place the show I was viewing, I wouldn’t have had even the faintest of clues.
“I was fourteen. Three men broke into our home. It was dark outside but I was still awake. My father died that night and I…”
How did you tell someone what you had to go through? I didn’t like to bring up those memories because it always made me wonder too many things. It didn’t make me sad. It didn’t make me angry. It didn’t even make me scared. I felt nothing when I looked back and saw that night play out in my mind. And maybe in a way, that did scare me. Or at least it should have.
“They took what they wanted. I was too weak to fight them off. They left that night taking my father’s life with them and a part of me I knew I’d never get back. Then later, they took my mom’s life too.”
If Iron was dissatisfied with my answer he didn’t make it known. I didn’t care either way, that was all he was going to get. There wasn’t more to tell about that night, not really. Everything else was just details and even I wasn’t cold enough to know that people couldn’t handle them.
We stayed there for a long time, his fingers in my hair, his warm, muscled thigh warming the side of my face.
I started to drift off and I didn’t fight it.
It wasn’t long before I felt him lift me up and carry me to the bed. Every part of me felt drained and not once did I try to snap myself away.
“I still think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,” he whispered as he settled himself behind me, plastering his front to my back.
Beautiful wasn’t a word I would have used to describe myself. It wasn’t that I thought I was ugly, I simply didn’t think of it either way.
However, there was something weird that fluttered through me as his words floated into my ear.
Instead of figuring it out, I let myself drift off with the warmth of his body surrounding me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Iron
After I checked myself in the mirror one last time, I snatched up my keys and walked out of my apartment.
I was still unsure of everything.
I’d never gone this far for a woman before and I wasn’t really sure why I was doing it now.
Maybe that wasn’t entirely true.
I didn’t even think I was really aware of what was going on when I had stood in the bathroom ready to turn on the water for the shower.
This was important to Petra, so I wanted to show her that it was important to me, too. And yeah, she hadn’t come out and said that it was important to her, but that was the thing with Petra, she didn’t say that sort of shit out loud.
Her request had come in the form of a text a few days ago.
I am attending a wedding. I need a plus one.
Petra didn’t need anything. Not like that, anyway. So instead of calling her and telling her that it was better to ask me than demand, I told her I could make myself free for it. But I wasn’t stupid, I knew this was a big step for her. I also knew Petra wasn’t the wedding type, so this must have been someone really important to her. I told myself that I wouldn’t let her down.
She later said that I could wear whatever I wanted. I was sure she expected me to show up in a tee and jeans. I thought about it. I did. It was what I was comfortable in, after all. And since Petra was Petra, I knew she truly meant that it didn’t matter to her what I wore. She didn’t play games and she was the type of woman that said ‘fuck it’ in her head if someone didn’t approve.
I resisted the urge to rub my face as I jogged down the stairs. I knew there was no way I was getting out unseen, so I gave a mental shrug as I hit the last step.
“Holy Shit!” Sketch called out causing the ten or so brothers around to turn my way. “Fancy as fuck, Prez!”
I chuckled and shook my head at him.
“Wow,” Bridget chimed in. “Who knew you had a mouth under all that face-fuzz.”
My head fell back as I barked out a laugh. She was smiling, so I knew she was just messing with me.
“Look okay, darlin’?” I asked her.
“I don’t think we can call you grandpa anymore.” She gave me a cheesy wink.
I laughed again.
“Well, okay then.” I turned to Lake and Brand. “I’m out for the night. Need anything, call Mase.”
“You got it, Prez,” Brand said and his face still held a look of shock.
Without another word, I walked out the back to my bike.
I rode through town and when I reached Petra’s building, I pulled around back and parked in the garage beside her car. I figured she’d want to take her wheels and she’d want to drive them too. I wasn’t going to argue with her. Sometimes it was best to save the fight for a bigger battle.
I let myself in and used the fingerprint scanner to open the doors to her penthouse.
Her heels came clicking from my left the moment I stepped out of the elevator.
My jaw nearly fell open when she came into view. On any day, Petra was immaculately stunning. But today she’d gone above and beyond.
Her hair was pulled back off to one side of her neck and curled in big curls. Her makeup was perfect as usual, her bright red lips drawing my attention right away. I trampled down the urge to pull her in and kiss those plump lips. Dangling diamonds hung from her ears and matched the necklace that hung between her very visible cleavage.
Her dress was silver and went down to the floor. It fit her like a glove and the slit ran nearly all the way up to her hip. And the split between her breasts was just on the slutty side of classy. There was really no other way to describe it.
My eyes moved back to her face to see her blinking at me.
I couldn’t read her reaction. Not even a little bit. I would have said that she had been shocked but I didn’t think that was it.
She almost seemed confused as her head slightly cocked to the side and those cold blue eyes roamed over my face.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said to me.
I wasn’t really sure how to react to that. She hadn’t said that I didn’t have to do that. She made a statement as if she disapproved of me doing it. Yeah, I was confused as fuck.
I cleared my throat before I attempted to speak.
“I thought I’d clean up a little for this.” For you. But I wasn’t going to say that. Mostly because I knew she didn’t want to hear it.
“I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“I know.” I blew out a frustrated breath and scratched at the much shorter hair covering my jaw. It wasn’t like I had shaved it all off. I just trimmed it. You know, a lot. I knew she sometimes liked to draw her fingers through my beard and maybe I should have thought about it a little more before I started cuttin’. But there was still plenty there to tickle her fingertips. Not enough for her to grab, but my chin wouldn’t mind the break.
She made a strange noise in the back of her throat. Almost like she was disgusted.
“Well, you can’t fix it now. We should go,” she said as she moved to the elevator, snagging a silver clutch off of the arm of the couch as she walked.
I blew out a harsh breath.
I followed behind her thinking it was best if I let it go.
But as the doors closed behind us, I couldn’t.
“Need you to know one thing, Pet,” I said as I gripped her hip and pinned her to the back mirrored wall of the moving box. Her head tilted to the side as she pinned me with a warning look. “You didn’t ask me to do this. I get that. I’m not saying you did. But I did do it. I did it for myself and for you. Because I know you’d never say it, but I get how much this means to you. Just like I know how much these girls mean to you. I get it because I feel the same about my boys. So, yeah, I get this is a big fuckin’ deal to you. And I wanted to show you that I care too.”
“Why?” she aske
d like she didn’t understand what the fuck was going on here.
Petra wasn’t dumb. She might have been a little emotionally off but that wasn’t because she didn’t feel. It was because she kept her feelings closed down. She didn’t hide them. Instead, she chose to make them invisible. Chose to cut them off before they blossomed into something more.
She needed the words.
So I was going to give them to her.
Loud and fuckin’ clear.
“Because I care about you. A whole fuckin’ lot, Pet.”
Her eyes narrowed like she couldn’t understand why I would care about her.
“Yeah, I love to fuck you,” I went on. “Love it so much that I haven’t been with anyone while I’ve been with you. Don’t even want to. Even though you keep me at a distance and toss me crumbs when it works for you. I take it because when I’m not here with you, I think about you more than just to get myself off. Hear me?”
Her painted mouth parted as she blinked at me.
She didn’t say anything but that one little movement let me know she was hearing me alright.
The elevator stopped moving. The doors opened then closed and we remained still.
“So, here’s what’s gonna happen.” I held her eyes as I kept on talking. “I’m going to tell you how fuckin’ beautiful you look and you’re going to smile at me, say thank you, and then tell me how motherfuckin’ dashing I look. Then you’re going to take that sweet little hand of yours and touch my face because you need to feel what I’ve done for this moment. You’re going to acknowledge it and then you’re going to press those luscious lips against mine because I’ve been dying to have them on me since I saw you.”
There was something that happened the moment my words sunk into her pretty little head. I couldn’t begin to explain it, but a part of her that I’d never seen kicked on.
“Petra,” I said, my face moving closer to hers as I breathed out the next words. “You look sexy as hell tonight.”
I raised a brow at her and waited. Ball was in her court. She had a choice to smirk and watch it roll to a stop, or melt and hit it back to me.
I honestly wasn’t sure which one she would choose.
“Iron,” she said my name with almost a sense of relief like she couldn’t believe that I was here and I was real. And I sure as hell didn’t hate hearing it spill from her lips like that. I held my reaction back because if I knew anything, I knew that Petra would clam up if I showed how much it meant to me. “Thank you. You look very handsome.”
She gave me a small upturn of her lips as her hand came up to cradle the side of my face, her thumb rubbing back and forth over my neatly trimmed beard.
Then her lips pressed against mine. I didn’t care if we were going to be late. Fuck it. I kissed the hell out of her until she relaxed into my arms a bit. I knew that was as much as I was going to get.
“Now we can go,” I said as my hand slipped into hers.
“You can grow it back, right?” she asked and I could hear the teasing in her tone.
“For you, I will do anything. Think we’ve both seen that by now.”
I hit the button to open the doors then walked out with her right behind me.
This woman was going to be the death of me. Just didn’t know how my end was going to be. Would she cut me down until there wasn’t anything left to cut, or would I suffocate in the parts of her she wanted to show me but didn’t know how?
We pulled up in front of an old, plantation style house. It was a little big to really be called a house but I guessed that didn’t matter. Petra drove around until she found a space way out of the way where there weren’t any other cars around. I figured she had her reasons, so I didn’t ask. And I had some tiny clue that it didn’t have a damn thing to do with her being worried about her car getting dinged. Yeah, I was curious as hell, but I figured… all in good time.
I was still figuring out the inner workings of Petra. I would have bet that I could have lived a thousand lifetimes and never get every piece of the puzzle in place.
“Take off your jacket,” she said as her eyes darted around the area outside of the car.
“Um, what?”
“Take off the jacket. And the tie, too.” She paused and looked me over with a quick glance. “Do you have a shirt under that?” Her fingers did a wiggle thing in the direction of my button-up shirt.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Lose the button-up shirt too, then.”
With a shake of my head and huffed-out breath, I did as she said.
I’d dressed up for her and if she wanted me to ditch the fancy shit, then I was going to.
I carefully placed the clothes onto the backseat, folding them in a way that I hoped they wouldn’t get wrinkled in case she changed her mind at some point.
“Come,” she commanded as she popped open the door.
She tried her best to take hurried steps and walk in front of me. I didn’t think she was even aware that she was doing it. There was something up with her. Almost like she was on edge or something. But she hid it well.
I caught up with her and slid my hand into hers. Her steps faltered slightly as she glanced down at our joined hands like she didn’t understand what was going on.
She didn’t let go and she didn’t ask why I’d done it, so I took it as a good thing.
I followed her lead as she walked around the house.
I didn’t bother mentioning that everyone else was walking in through the front door.
We walked along the path lined with huge trees. No one even noticed we were there.
Suddenly, she stopped and stood beside a huge oak tree. I couldn’t even imagine how old it must have been. The branches spanned out wide and moss dripped from its limbs.
People began to take their seats and I realize that we would not be doing the same.
“Why back here?” I asked in a low voice. Not sure why because there was no one even close for me to disturb.
“This is the best view. And fewer people,” she said as her eyes scanned the crowd.
The music started but my eyes were on Petra the entire time. We were too far away to hear the vows that were spoken and I wondered if that bothered her.
There was a small flicker of her lips like a smile was trying its hardest to break free. I turned my head then and took in the couple on display. My eyes narrowed, trying to see them clearly.
I could only see the bride’s profile and part of that was cut off by the groom. But I was pretty sure I’d recognized her.
I’d never been introduced to Petra’s girls, as she called them, but I knew I’d seen the one gettin’ hitched. It had been a while but I’d never forget the fear and panic in Petra’s eyes as Cable carried the redhead out of Petra’s fucked up building.
“She’s one of yours?” I asked even though I was pretty sure of the answer.
“She was…”
Yeah, I didn’t imagine she’d keep up that job after committing her life to one person. Then again, maybe they were both into that kind of thing. Hey, I wasn’t one to judge.
“How many of your clients are here?” I asked because I was more curious than anything.
Her eyes didn’t even scan over the crowd before she gave her answer.
“Five.”
Yeah, there were some big names out in those seats. I couldn’t tell you which ones used Petra’s services though. And I didn’t care enough to ask. I wasn’t going to get in her business because I knew it was hers to handle.
“How many former ones?”
“Two,” she said and this time her eyes did move to look at someone sitting in the crowd. “And another formal girl. But I don’t really count her like the others.”
“What’s that mean?”
Her head turned as she looked at me.
“She was never meant to be one of my girls. She was desperate for money, out of options, and… sad. I only gave her one client and I knew…”
“Knew what, Pet?” I asked as I crowded he
r back and spoke into her ear.
I couldn’t tell you how much I loved that she was nearly as tall as me. Even out of her heels she was the perfect height. It made moments like this so easy. I didn’t have to duck down to whisper into her ear. And when her head fell back to lean against my shoulder without her losing her line of sight, I realized that it was just another thing that made us perfect together.
“I knew that they were what each other needed.” There was almost happiness in her tone as she spoke the words.
And that had a damn smile spreading across my face.
There weren’t many things that Petra let herself care about. Anyone could see that. That said, there were also things she cared a whole hell of a lot about and she would make it her goal to protect and see them happy.
“You believe in love, Pet?” I asked her. I didn’t expect a normal answer but I could read between her lines well enough by now.
“No. I believe that some people are better paired together than others.”
I smiled. How could I not? It was pretty much what I figured would come out of her.
“I don’t understand why people cry at weddings,” she said out of nowhere. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” I said with a small chuckle. I wasn’t being mean or even teasing her.
“It’s done now,” she said once the bride and groom shared a kiss sealing their union. “We can go.”
She didn’t even wait for me to respond before she was making her way back to the car.
“We’re not going to the reception?” I asked really confused. “You don’t want to congratulate them and wish them well and shit?”
“No,” she said but didn’t slow down. “Why would I? They know that I approve. I was the one that let him in that room when it wasn’t his time.”
There was so much in what she’d just told me but I couldn’t even begin to grasp the meaning of any of it.
“Alright.” I blew out a breath as I matched her long, hurried steps. “Well, I thought I was gonna get to eat and I’m fuckin’ starved.”
I let it hang there hoping she’d take my hint and let me know it was a good idea, in her own way, of course.
