Chapter 8
E WAN
Earlier
Not sharing the space with that woman is a big relief. What a walking tease she is. Does she know what she can do to a man’s body? Does she?
I still get shots of wicked pleasure through my bones at the memory of her sitting on my lap, ahem, my package. I swear I didn’t want it to grow into a menace under her round perfect ass.
And I thought about all the bad things I’d done in my life. It worked to some degree, but she wasn’t stupid.
She knew what I was packing in my scratchy pants.
She knew that if we were in a different setting, under different circumstances, and alone , I would’ve cleared the table with a sweep of my hand, lift her up, plop her down, legs up in the air, and ram my flesh into her so I could extinguish the fire consuming me.
She must be aware we can’t be in the same room without something bad or good––depending on how you look at it––happening.
There’s no sharing names with her or seeing her again.
It’s not safe for a thousand reasons.
It’s not wise either.
And yet, as I run my fingers through my hair and check myself in the mirror, a smirk tugs at my lips, but I instantly dismiss the idea.
No fucking way.
Miss Scarlett is little Colley’s teacher.
Elisa would give me an earful if I tried to lay a finger on his favorite teacher and not because she was Margot’s sister.
But because she’d hate the idea that I touched the woman and wasn’t serious about her.
If you asked Elisa, she’d say I needed a woman in my life to give me balance, soften me, and sometimes, pull me back from being hard on Ezra.
She said it many times after her sister’s passing.
Long after my late wife had turned into a beautiful memory, and I could think of her with soothing nostalgia as the grieving time was way in the past.
Margot would have agreed with her statement, she also said.
I know all that.
Margot wouldn’t want me to be an emotional drifter, someone who avoids touching anyone’s life in a meaningful way.
But Margot couldn’t possibly imagine I’m not the man she fell in love with, and the crack her death put in my soul is still with me because it couldn’t be remedied.
I fill it with nonsense. With crime. With anguish. With moments when I go out there in the world and do anything in a man’s power to forget about who I am.
And who I was.
Elisa wanted me to do a lot of things, but none of them came to fruition. And her anger would be justified if I were to mess with her son’s teacher.
She knows how damaged I am. And she knows how hard we try to at least protect families like hers and keep them away from a life of crime.
My brothers and I have sworn off women after we lost family members in an ambush.
My parents and wife had been gunned down.
A life of crime had caught up with us, and while we swore revenge and got it, we couldn’t bring what we had lost back.
So much for not living a life of crime, which was my father’s dream for all of us.
His death signaled the end of an era, yet unfortunately, my parents’ death pushed us, me and my brothers, Callan, Alistair, and Duncan, back into the dungeons of death.
We’re not proud of what we do, and we still lead with a semblance of respectability in our lives––we have legal enterprises that come with lawyers and accountants and taxes that are timely paid––a smoke screen if you will.
Behind all that, we hide our thuggish ways.
So Elisa would be right to harass me into giving up on the idea of Scarlett or taking my time and figuring out if I could do more with this woman.
No fucking way.
I’m not doing that.
I’ll never go down the aisle with someone else.
I’ll never have a mafia wife.
I’ll never put anyone’s life at risk.
These people are not signing up for it.
Margot and Elisa hadn’t been part of this life in the beginning. Elisa was a teen when I met her older sister, and Margot knew better, but she did it anyway. I was honest with her and told her who I was.
I was also young. Too young. And I thought that if you were young and bold and daring, you could make things happen.
You could bend life to the shape you wanted.
Boy, was I wrong?
In hindsight, I don’t regret the life I had with her.
We had it good for as long as it had lasted, and that’s precisely why I don’t want that kind of pain in my life again.
I like the pain that I know.
The one fading in the background.
The one I wear with pride.
The one that has become a part of who I am.
So, no more getting-serious-with-anyone stuff for me.
I’m done.
My smirk dies out, and a layer of ice grows over my eyes as I pick up my duffel bag and exit the bathroom.
Once I set foot in the hallway, I notice the light above the exit door in the back. A short walk from there, I could be in my truck, heading home.
Not my Long Island home. I rarely go there. That’s a place for ghosts.
Despite taking ownership of that house after Margot had passed, I never lived comfortably in there.
It’s just too cold in that house, even for me, who I love cold. And I’m not talking about the air temperature.
Yeah, I could go.
Leave.
Where the fuck should I go?
Christmas is around the corner, and things get weird for me this time of year.
It’s the time you count your blessings, hug your loved ones, and hope for better things in the coming year.
I could go to a motel. There’s a nice place about half an hour from here. I know the owner. He knows me.
Or I could drive back to Manhattan.
The only place I wouldn’t go to is the bar I spent the evening in. I can’t have another woman coming on to me like that blonde.
I’m too wired up to handle anything like that well.
With that being said, my legs surprise me when, instead of turning left toward that back door, they move to the right and carry me to the event room.
What the fuck am I doing?
Do I want to see Miss Scarlett again?
No way in hell.
The only way I’m seeing that woman again is if she’s naked in front of me and scolds me because I didn’t do my homework.
I almost laugh, which is a rare occurrence these days, and as I near the door––she’s probably gone by now––I think twice about seeing her again.
And then I stop.
I’ll fuck her tonight if I don’t pull away from her right now. Like right the fucking now. Sighing with frustration, I give up on the idea of her and walk to the back of the building.
I push the door open and make a beeline for the truck, pretending I didn’t notice that the only other car in the parking lot is hers.
It must be hers.
So, she’s still here. Maybe she’s watching me leaving just about now.
I pick up the pace, holding onto my determination to make it to my car, leave her and her little world––I don’t need to ruin––behind, and find something else or someone else to do this evening.
Moments later, the truck roars under my firm foot, and I slowly steer it out of the parking lot, unease licking at my resolve.
Maybe I should make sure she gets home safe.
Or maybe I should stay in my lane and let her be other people’s problem. Maybe she has a boyfriend.
If she does, he doesn’t fuck her well, or her sweat wouldn’t smell like need.
Maybe she has a ton of contenders and doesn’t like them. Who wouldn’t want to love, pamper, and care for someone like her?
My ideation runs amok as I do my best not to entirely talk myself out of her.
Frustrated, I reach for my phone and check for any new messages before sliding it back into my pocket.
I relish these rare moments when not much happens.
Although, I can’t ignore that Callan and I haven’t talked in a while. I miss when the four of us were a riot, and our lives were enmeshed together.
We keep in touch and discuss business, but for the most part, we live our personal lives separately.
Life hasn’t been the same these past few years.
We make do.
That’s all we do.
I glance in the rearview mirror.
The windows are still lit, and the only car in the front of the building is hidden in the dark. It’s getting harder to see it through the thick fog that wraps around the trees.
Oops.
The headlights of that car just came on.
My heart races, which makes me reconsider giving up on having this woman.
It’s still a big fat no, but I frequently glance in my rearview mirror, driving my truck slowly.
Edging closer to the point when I can’t see her anymore compels me to hit the brakes and wait.
My truck purrs hoarsely as I try to figure out why it’s taking her so much time to pull away.
I check the area and back up a little to get a better view of her.
Even more helpful seems the small clearing I spot on the side of the road. I back up even more and tuck myself between the clusters of trees. And then, I look again.
Eventually, she gets moving.
What was the hold up? Did she get a phone call? Maybe her angry boyfriend asked her to quickly come home and warm his dick for him.
I feel like breaking someone’s neck.
It's a good thing that I have a son.
I’m still protective of him, to his dismay. But can you imagine having a daughter? I’d be a menace to anyone daring to look her way.
I am a menace, anyway.
I turn my engine off and relax in my seat, watching my sweet Scarlett pull out of the parking lot like a little old lady.
“Careful, baby. You don’t want to break one of those sexy heels…” I murmur, watching like a creepy stalker how the woman rolls her car to the secondary road.
Something’s wrong with that car.
No one’s driving that slowly. Not even someone as sexyas her, sporting fuck me heels and having a snowy road ahead of her.
Somehow, she makes her to the road, and I crane my neck to see her coming.
For the most part, I see nothing behind the glowing headlights, but when she unknowingly rolls past me, I get a glimpse of her concentrated face behind the wheel, her eyes trained on the road.
My body warms at the idea of her, and I tense up like I urgently need to have her, which is sort of old news.
I won’t have her.
No way.
Frozen in my seat, I stare at the little cloud of light moving through the wooden area. Suddenly, her vehicle picks up speed, and before I know it, it starts waving across the road and coming to a forced stop, going entirely dark.
“Oh, you fucking nasty fate. You’re such a little dick,” I mutter, jolting out of my frozen state, starting my truck and veering in that direction.
I hope she’s all right, or I would never forgive myself for giving up on her so soon.