Chapter Seventeen
Cassie
I backhand my forehead as more sweat runs down, preventing it from going into my eyes. I am so in the zone I don’t notice anyone is there until they step up onto the side of the treadmill and reach for the controls.
Whipping off my headphones, I stare at Waverley. She lowers the settings, so the track slows down, enough that I have to stop running.
“You’ve been going hell for leather on this for nearly twenty minutes now. I’m no personal trainer, or expert but I’m sure you’re going to hurt yourself. Cool down, take a shower then step into my office.”
My heart is pounding dangerously fast, she isn’t wrong. I already feel the burn in my calves and shins, I’m really going to feel this tomorrow. Waverley presses a towel into my hand and then she heads off back to her office.
The gym is quiet, Waverley lets her friends use it out of hours, but I rarely take her up on the offer given it’s far from home.
After the week I’ve had this seemed like the best place to go to work off some steam. Metaphorically running away from my shit. I didn’t get anywhere other than causing myself physical pain, getting soaked in sweat which is gross, and I’m still in the same position I was when I started.
The showers here are heavenly, perfect water pressure and I turn the heat up enough that I can just about stand it, then switch the dial to cold to shock the shit out of myself.
Once I’m dried and dressed and my hair reasonably damp enough to get away with, I find my way to her office. The whole gym is swanky and modern with state-of-the-art equipment, but she’s given it a feminine touch in her office to break up some of the harsh lines, glass and industrial feel.
Waverley finishes up what she is doing on the computer while I take a seat and drink the bottle of water she left out for me.
Part of me wants to leave, deal with this shit myself but I’ve not managed to do that for the past twenty-four hours.
I have got to get this off my chest. Waverley is the only one who will understand.
After she’s finished up, she sits a few places away from me on the couch and puts her feet up on the coffee table, settling in because she knows this is going to be something serious.
“I had sex.”
Her brow lifts but she doesn’t ask who with. It’s written all over her face though. She’s wrong, partly. Wave has wanted me to get with Eli for months. She better buckle up.
“With Mace.”
Her mouth forms a small O, then she clamps her lips together.
“How did that happen? I mean, I understand why. Mace is a whole lot of something hot and sexy.” She laughs at the look I give her.
“What? I have eyes and he has that whole quiet, brooding protectiveness about him that makes him ten time more attractive, but I’m perfectly happy with my own sexy protector. Go on.”
“I gave him a ride home the night his bike got trashed, when I was supposed to be spending the night at your place, but you ditched me for your giant boobed friend and her need to get with a biker. Did she by the way?”
“No. And I said I was sorry about that. I thought you’d take the out and go home. Alone. I never expected that would happen. How did you end up driving him home?”
“He wasn’t going back to Stroudsburg, he was staying at a friend’s house near my place.” Wave waits me out. She’s good at this. “I needed the bathroom after a long drive and drinking wine, and when I came out, he was waiting. Like you said he’s a whole lot of… something.”
“You had sex. It happens like that sometimes,” she smirks.
“Not to me. I have more self-control,” I mutter, then get up to grab another water from her mini fridge, my throat is parched. “It was over fast, and I got out of there.”
“It was bad?”
“Oh, fuck no. It was hot. Mace knows what he’s doing, let’s leave it at that.”
“Okay, I don’t need all the details. What’s got you this worked up tonight?”
“You know me, I don’t do serious.”
“Yes, you don’t need a man, not even a really good one.” Her implication makes my cheeks flush but only because I know what is coming.
“Yesterday I had to meet Mace about something your dad has me doing,” I sip the water and eye her but again she holds her tongue.
What I do for her dad is strictly off limits and she knows I will never talk about it.
“I didn’t go there with the intention of doing it again.
My treacherous body didn’t get the memo. ”
Wave laughs under her breath. “The good dick effect.”
“Something like that, or plain stupidity. So we went back to my place, but a complication occurred.”
“Cassie, as much as I love a good story, this isn’t one of your closing arguments where you need to lead me to the conclusion.”
“Eli was at my apartment when we got there.”
She is busting to say something about that, so much so she slaps a hand over her mouth, making me roll my eyes. What I am not going to tell her is what happened in the garage with Eli. I’m still trying to wrap my head around what he said that night and how it contradicted his actions last night.
He hit a nerve, a really big one. As much as I tried not to replay everything he said to me, it’s been on repeat. I’ve always known the kind of man Eli is, despite his darker side in the bedroom. He deserves better than me, he deserves someone who can give him what he craves. I can’t do that.
Even if part of me wants to. Pushing him away was the only option. Except I didn’t do that, I was falling into his eyes, into his words and then he had to go and mention Mace and the hurt and distance he created in the way he stepped back literally lanced my chest.
He walked away from me, and it shocked me that I wanted to call him back, to tell him that he’s right, I did feel something that night, something that hasn’t gone away. It’s not in me to give him what he wants, not because of who he is, because of what he represents.
So I go and give it to Mace. That’s different, I tell myself for the millionth time. But is it? This is why I need to get it off my chest to someone who understands the place I’m at. It wasn’t too long ago Waverley despised everything to do with the club. So much so, she ran away for five years.
“There are reasons why he was there, but that isn’t relevant.”
“Considering Handlebar has wanted to get with you for months,” she stops. “Okay, I promised I won’t go there. Continue.”
“I still can’t make sense of what happened next.”
“Oh shit, did they fight?”
“It started off like that, I had to get between them.” Jesus what an understatement that is. “Mace was pissed because he was being cock blocked and Eli was mad that Mace was there. It was a mess. I thought things were going to get broken. Turns out… that was me.”
“What are you saying? Did they hurt you?”
“Not in the way you’re thinking.”
“Both of them!” she sits forward, finally reading between the lines. When I nod, she slams back on the sofa, her mouth open and closing like a fish.
“Yeah, who knew either one of them would share.”
“You had sex with Eli and Mace?”
“Shout it louder for the people walking by to hear.”
“There is no one here. Cassie, you cannot ask me not to freak the fuck out when you tell me you fucked not one but two bikers. And one of them was Handlebar,” she quietens and her face grows contemplative. “I never thought he would do that.”
“You and me both. It wasn’t as simple as him giving in and letting Mace get what he came there for. He took control, of everything, including Mace.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Sorry, Eli is the kind of man who likes to dominate. Just shut up and let me finish before I realize this isn’t what I do and walk out of here leaving you guessing,” I cut off whatever she was going to say about learning that side of Handlebar.
“You don’t want to know what I’d be guessing.”
“He was into it, part of it. It was only afterwards when they left I realized what Eli did.”
And that was what made me mad and confused and even more stunned it even happened. I explain what I mean, without too much detail, how Eli allowed Mace to be there, but he didn’t let him fuck me. He manipulated the situation, so he got what he wanted, and Mace only felt like he had.
Although I’m pretty sure Mace figured that out too, eventually. Not that he didn’t get anything out of it, or it all unlocked some kink of my own I didn’t know I wanted, or would ever actually do.
At the time, Eli’s dirty words, and how he helped me suck Mace’s dick before fucking me senseless, was too much for me to think of anything else. Then Mace coming up behind me, all that hard muscle, his lips and his fingers in my ass, while I was riding Eli.
It caused my brain to malfunction, and the orgasm was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
“You’re blushing.”
“I’m fucking burning up,” I say, fanning my face. Wave smiles, then we both laugh. “Okay, it’s not funny. I don’t know what to do.”
“Seems like fun was had all around. It can’t happen again?”
“Eli probably lost his shit when he left and Mace figuring out how he actually did technically get cock blocked means he’ll be pissed too.”
“Who knew Handlebar was so underhand, yet generous.”
“That’s one way to look at it. I’m starting to doubt myself, Wave. I mean, here I am wanting to see how much more I can handle and they’re likely to beat the shit out of each other if they’re in the same room.”
“That could be kind of hot.”
“Would it hurt you to be serious?”
“I am,” she sighs and sits forward. “You need to talk to them.”
“No thanks.”
Although I don’t have much choice. Not given I need them to do this thing for King. There is no choice, I need to see them.
“Well, you have two options. You either get over it and move on, do what you have to do for dad. Or you talk it out, feel them out, or up,” she grins. “And see if they want to do it again. Do you want to do it again?”
“No,” I shout. “I don’t know. Maybe… It was hot,” I admit.
“How do you know what to do?” she asks. “Like, who goes where?”