Towles (Brothers of Chaos MC #3)

1. April

1

April

I saw him standing by his bike as I was leaving the hospital. He reminded me of the man I’d just left on the third floor of the psyche ward. Anger spilled from every word I could hear him speak. Everything I knew from psychiatry told me I shouldn’t be attracted to the man, but when the universe dropped something onto my lap, I didn’t walk away from it. I embraced it. I doubted any woman would pass up embracing the man I watched.

He wore tight jeans torn at the knees, a leather vest with Brothers of Chaos on the back, and Pine Bluff, Arkansas below that. A shiny, dangling chain clipped to his belt hung from a wallet in his back pocket. I couldn’t help concentrating on the large arms bulging from the white tee he wore beneath the vest, his tanned skin deliciously radiant against the white sleeves. My entire profession told me to walk to my car, get in, leave, and not look back. I didn’t plan on listening to my profession because my profession didn’t know the things I’d been through .

His dark hair, cut semi-military-like, stood on end and refused to move in the sharp wind blowing through Pine Bluff. He turned away from the others, and I saw his face for the first time. He looked young enough to be my son if I had one. Those features made me feel old, even at thirty-five. His thin, sharp nose sat above dimples that belonged to a high school boy. The young man looked my way, and I pretended to fish something from my purse. One of the men next to him laughed. He did not. He had something on his mind.

Pain resonated on his boyish yet manly face, like maybe he came to see someone in the hospital—someone not doing well. He walked away from his friends toward the hospital, and I covered the ring on my finger. Why? I was happily married. I moved my hand, but it didn’t matter because he had completely ignored my presence.

One of the men called him back, and he turned, slinging his leg over the monster-sized bike and straddling the seat the way I wanted to straddle his waist. His shoulders stretched, and the tee threatened to rip as he reached for the handlebars. He looked too young for the bike, though his body commanded the beast like a ship’s captain. He squeezed the handles, and the veins in his biceps threatened to break through his dark skin.

I stood next to an ambulance and looked like a woman whose life had ended with marriage. I pulled myself together and started across the parking lot, stepping out of the way when a truckload of construction workers darted recklessly past. All the parking spaces except for one were full. The young biker and his friends blocked the only open space and didn’t look interested in moving.

The young God-like man climbed off his bike when the truck bumper edged in his direction. I considered recording the scene but didn’t want to get caught by men who had no interest in being recorded. The man driving flicked a cigarette out the window and said something I couldn’t hear. The construction workers laughed and jumped from the truck. None were as big as my young God, but there were more of them than the bikers. My counseling side told me to step forward and help de-escalate the situation. My brain told me not to step between the two groups of people.

The other two bikers remained seated. Were they scared? I watched the young biker—much younger than his two friends—approach the workers. He towered over the six men. I dipped into my purse again when he seemed to look in my direction.

The workers sized him up. If they were thinking of fighting, none made a move suggesting they thought winning might be an option. The young man’s expression never changed. His body remained relaxed and calm. Did he not think a fight was coming his way? No. He had an unwavering confidence in his ability to defend himself.

One of the workers said something, and the others laughed yet again. They pointed at my man-child, but again, they didn’t move. The workers had gotten out, thinking they were the predators. That quickly changed. My boy had never been prey, except with women like myself. I laughed at myself for thinking a man like him would ever be attracted to a woman like me. We didn’t match.

The leader of the workers said something to the dark-haired, statuesque man. He didn’t reply. His eyes said nothing. His face remained expressionless changed expressions. There was a dare, of course. I think he wanted all six to make the first move.

Two young nurses walked by and gawked at the young biker, whispering to each other what they would do to the man. I couldn’t agree more with what they said.

Man-child reached into his back pocket, the pockets covering an ass I yearned to grab. He pulled on fingerless gloves and shrugged. The other bikers shook their heads. One of the bikers seemed to warn the construction workers. He waved them back to their truck, but they didn’t listen. That was a male problem.

I’d dealt with a lot of angry men in my life. Virtually none of them had the kind of confidence man-child showed. Testosterone practically jumped from his skin and sat on his shoulders, waiting for a chance to join the coming fray.

One of the workers stepped back when the man-child said something. I moved between cars, working closer to where they all stood. I wanted to hear his voice, imagining it deep and emerging from his soul. I wanted to hear his voice in my ear, whispering profound and sensual words.

Nervousness filled the air, and the workers retreated a few steps. What kind of man could look at six other men and make them move away? The kind of man who knew exactly what he wanted and took it without question. Man-child had no doubt he could send the six men to the hospital for treatment. I think he wanted that. It would give him a reprieve from whatever weighed on his mind. Men like him saw violence as a way to deal with the hand life had dealt them.

The workers considered their predicament. They could climb back in their truck and park somewhere else or stay there and test the man in front of them. Against everything I’d learned and taught in my profession, I quietly hoped they would test man-child.

The other two bikers climbed off their bikes and stood. Man-child held out a hand for them to stay back.

The workers took several steps back, never turning, not wanting to lose eye contact with the man-child. The workers’ leader apologized, his voice squeaky and too small for his fat body. I heard him admit to a severe lapse in judgment and finally recognized it.

Man-child put his right fist in his left hand and pushed. Muscles bulged. I spent an entire career talking men out of violence, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to see a fight from start to finish. To cheer on man-child as he punched the six workers one at a time. I felt no shame for wanting this to happen.

Man-child spoke again, and the men nodded. It appeared the men had hope, a way out of getting their asses kicked. Like clowns in a small car, the workers somehow piled back into the beat-up truck and pulled away, their lives still intact.

The man-child stood his ground despite the truck driving right by him. He watched the workers, and the workers watched him. I couldn’t help but be disappointed that I didn’t see him in action.

After the truck passed between us, I found us staring right at each other. The stare lasted several seconds. The other two bikers joined him. They spoke to each other, voices deep and gruff. All three had eyes on me. If they decided to come at me, I didn’t have enough time to get away.

The two bikers and the man-child watched the truck leave the parking lot. The man greedily taking my attention clapped the other bikers on the shoulders, and they laughed deeply, music to my ears. My heart slowed, and I took a deep breath, though neither did anything to calm my nerves or the growing need between my legs.

I dropped my keys, and the men turned away. From this distance, I could not see the color of his eyes but imagined deep and blue, the kind of eyes that made other men cower and make women wet, especially this one.

They walked toward the hospital, man-child stoically in the lead, a biker on each side. I wanted to run to him and offer help, but he ignored my existence and passed within ten feet. I smelled leather and bikes and testosterone. Why couldn’t those smells be on me? Because men like him didn’t go after women like me .

Disappointment and sadness sealed my feet to the pavement. I finally tore my eyes away when they entered the hospital, and the doors shut him off from my world. I took a deep breath and grabbed the keys, dreading the same feeling that grew inside me every day on my way home.

The hot air inside the Mercedes did little to help calm the mess the man had created in my head. I started the car and turned on the air, spreading my legs, desperately trying to cool the growing heat and need.

The parking lot faded as I pulled down the road, watching through the mirror. An image of a man-child formed, and he stayed at the forefront of my mind the entire trip home.

When I pulled into our Danvers neighborhood house, Paul’s car sat in the garage. The two-story, multi-million dollar home put us where he wanted us to be. Most of Pine Bluff’s elite lived in Danvers. Most of the houses were run by nannies because the men were rich, and the wives left in the mornings for breakfast with the girls, then spent an hour at hot yoga before pastries at the club and an afternoon by the pool. When most wives got home, nannies had snacks ready for the kids arriving home from school.

Paul and I were a bit different. He wanted a wife that stayed home and rubbed shoulders with the other wives. He had the mindset of his grandfather, expecting dinner on the table and my ass in the bed. Ten years his junior, I wanted a career, and besides, the intrigue of an older man wore off long ago. To keep the peace, I played the role of a happy wife.

“Lovely, I’m home.” He preferred words like lovely and mon amour. He preferred to use ma cherie. I longed for the informal, hey, baby .

I pulled the casserole made by the housekeeper earlier in the day from the refrigerator and popped it into the oven. I assumed Paul was sitting in his office, reading the news or watching the stock market. Paul claimed he loved the housekeeper’s cooking. If he were honest, the food rarely tasted good and only made us hungrier closer to bedtime.

Paul worked from home, making his office his kingdom. The dark cherry wood and black furniture needed a woman’s touch, but he refused, claiming the room was exactly what every successful man needed. He sat in the office chair when we “needed” to talk, looking across his desk at an intended subordinate. I hated the room and the false sense of empowerment that it gave Paul.

Paul and I met ten years ago at a Denver convention center. I was the young psychiatric graduate, and he was the businessman sitting at the hotel bar nursing a drink and watching me through the mirror behind the bar. College boys did nothing for me back then. Seeing this older man’s staring eyes gave me a Sleeping Beauty complex; the prince finally came to take me away. I fell for the black, product-filled hair and lightly graying temples. I fell for the fitted suit and the presence of a manliness that didn’t exist among my peers. I learned too late that the manliness was fake.

He knew these things and milked them every day of our marriage. I thought he could show me the world outside the bedroom and teach me things inside the bedroom I never thought possible. Older men were the teachers of younger women, right?

Those things were true with most older men, but Paul was different. Lucky me.

“Ma cherie,” Paul said, smiling from behind a computer screen, sitting in his leather chair, the self-proclaimed business god. He was in the same chair this morning when I left. Like every other time I came home, I moved behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder for him to pat. No kiss. No hug. If days of romance had ever come, I would now say they were gone. The leather chair smell was a reminder of the man-child’s leather vest.

Paul understood the stock market but not women. He understood numbers, not clits. Instead of pushing his keyboard aside and bending me over the desk, he pointed to the stock ticker on the screen. I compartmentalized and moved to the desk’s front, getting down on my knees. The entire front center of the desk was open, so he could stretch his legs without scooting back away from the desk.

Because Paul refused to share in any fantasy, especially mine, I had to create them on my own. I pretended we were at a posh dinner, the lights low. At only five-three, crawling under the desk was a cinch.

Paul said anal sex belonged in porn movies, not in our bedroom. Telling me we couldn’t do it led to a fantasy I knew I could never have. Under the desk, I freed Paul’s cock, and a series of sighs and whimpers erupted. The stock market didn’t close for another fifteen minutes. The market was up more than he was.

I put him in my mouth until the floppiness left and the hard-on came. I crawled away and then backed under the desk, hoping he’d grab my hair like the reins on a horse. He did not. I pulled my skirt up and shoved my thongs to my knees.

Paul’s cock bounced from one cheek to the other but never explored between them. Disappointment killed my soul. I reached between my legs and found my clit, man-child on my mind, and between my legs. I moaned and eventually came with the stock market closing bell ringing loudly above. Such was my life.

I crawled forward and turned, heading back under the desk, tasting Paul’s cock. He leaned back in the chair and rested his hands on the chair’s arms instead of on my head—more disappointment .

This was my weakness. I took what I could get from Paul, but something was better than nothing with this man. I sucked him harder, using my tongue’s tip along the underside, careful no teeth were involved. And then it happened. No surprises with Paul. When he felt as if he would come, he pushed me away and used his hand to finish. Devastated, I sat back and watched him spray the hardwood floor.

His orgasm was over in a heartbeat, and his cock went limp just as quickly. I stared at the glistening semen on the floor, and tears flowed.

Before standing, I wiped away the tears. I didn’t count on him pleasing me the way I wanted to please him. Only on the days when the stock market lost did I win. He took out his disappointment on me in the bedroom, the only time he ever fucked me like a real man.

“Are you okay, ma cherie?” He asked suspiciously. A handkerchief stuck to his hand, and he pulled it away. Paul always kept a handkerchief in his office to clean up his messes. He reached out, urging me around the desk. “Tonight, when we retire to bed, ma cherie. I will please you. ” Another of his lies.

Paul kissed my hand, not bothering to put his lips on mine. I didn’t doubt that he loved me, but the love was too similar to how two friends who lived in separate places loved each other. He explained his love as existential. I explained it as empty, though I never told him that. It would hurt his feelings and make him question his standing in the circles we ran.

Once upon a time, I explained consummate love to Paul, and he acknowledged the conversation. I left the conversation where I started—lost. That evening, I looked in the mirror and explained to the woman staring back at me that she had everything most other couples we knew wanted. The woman acknowledged the conversation because her training called for her to do that .

I left Paul to his stock market and semen-covered handkerchief and went to the kitchen, the place Paul had specially designed when he bought the house. It had everything I needed. The house had everything I needed—according to Paul. In truth, the house was just a house, not a home.

We sat at opposite ends of the table, Paul explaining his next business trip while staring at his phone. I pleaded with my eyes for him to drop everything and fuck me on the table. His eyes remained on his phone, and he never saw the begging stare.

Paul listened to the Los Angeles Dodgers game on the radio in the den, and I spent two and a half hours watching him. At that time, I decided I didn’t love Paul anymore. He offered nothing but a roof over my head. I gave him the good girl that his parents told him he needed. Marry the woman fresh out of college. Train her to be a good, obedient wife. That’s what he did.

My next thoughts were spurred by the man-child I’d watched earlier in the day. I saw freedom in the young man’s life. Though he looked educated, his education had not trapped him into a life of boredom like so many graduates I knew—me, for one. I remembered how he gripped the handlebars of his monster bike and how his forearms and biceps bulged beneath the God-like grip. I wanted to know what it felt like to have hands like those around my hips. I wanted to experience manly confidence instead of Paul’s “I’m the best stock broker in the world” confidence.

Paul promptly went to bed at nine and fell asleep by nine-fifteen, as he did every night. Tomorrow began an entire week of me being alone in a house I always felt alone in. With Paul sleeping, I went downstairs to his perfectly designed, cherry wood office and sat in the leather chair that reminded me of man-child. I propped my feet on the desk and spread my legs, nudging the laptop away. The screen came to life, and I clicked on the Internet. A porn site opened in the browser, and I watched the last clip Paul watched.

Tears filled my eyes, but I came before the six-minute clip ended, feeling the warm juices as they ran beneath my ass, some of which spilled over Paul’s left-behind semen. I closed the laptop and stood. The leather chair glistened like a new blanket of snow. It was one of the few times my juices mixed with Paul’s semen. For the first time in our ten-year marriage, I hated the man. I wanted someone like man-child. Hell, I wanted man-child, though I thought I’d never see him again. That’s the way the universe treated me.

I walked from Paul’s office and gave the universe the finger. Fuck it, and fuck Paul. I wanted more out of life, but those things weren’t coming for me. I had to find them. Paul kissed my forehead the following day and left for his Seattle trip. Neither of our lives would ever be the same.