Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Dark
With fingers threaded behind my head, I pace Iris’s front yard. It’s early. Too early to be here. I know I shouldn’t have come, but I tossed and turned all night, and I just need to be close. Even if that means stomping a path through her grass.
I heard through Pops that Kali and Cell came by last night to see her, and I wanna ask how it went. Hopefully, it wasn’t too awkward. If it was, I’ll apologize and somehow make it right. Then again, knowin’ Kali, I’m sure they’re best friends now. My ex has that effect on most people she meets.
Fuck.
I hope they like each other.
I hope she slept well her first night.
I hope she isn’t pissed I ran outta here yesterday like a little bitch.
I don’t do this…Like women. Not that I hate women. I don’t. I love them. What I mean is… Fuck… I’m messin’ this all up.
Let me start again.
I scrub a hand down my face and blow out a harsh breath.
Women have always happened to me.
Ugh.
No. That sounds even worse.
Rewind.
The first woman I ever loved, I loved a long goddamn time, even after I fucked things up.
Even when I did jobs for the club that required me to bed other women.
Or let them suck me off. Or finger them.
Or in Pen’s case, marry them. You get the gist. There’s no reason to rehash that shit.
Sure, the orgasms were nice, and the company wasn’t all that bad, but I wasn’t in it...
emotionally. All this shit inside me was always Kali’s.
I got good at faking love with other women, which wasn’t fair to them.
Especially not to Abby, who accidentally got knocked up, which put us in a whole other fucking nightmare that ended my marriage and got me Lily, and all that shit you already know.
My point is… Women were there, not because I chose them. My job demanded it. Sure, that sounds like a cop-out, and maybe it is, but that’s how I’ve always viewed it. I had a part to play, money to make, people to impress, and I was damn good at it.
All the while, I had Kali. My wife. The mother of my sons. A good woman. A solid woman. She was there when I got home. She made me forget all the bad shit I’d done. The people I killed. The women I fucked. She was the balm to my soul.
Our relationship wasn’t fast and furious.
Sure, I thought she was cute all those years ago, and I still do. But our relationship wasn’t nerves and butterflies. It didn’t have me pacing her front yard.
Do you see where I’m goin’ with this?
I dunno what this is with Iris.
It could be nothing.
But… Damn… It doesn’t feel like nothing.
“Dark, what are you doing here?” Iris’s delicious morning voice croaks from her front step, where she stands barefoot, in the cutest fucking pajamas with opossums printed on them.
She rubs the sleep from her eyes and yawns. Stretching her arms up, a small strip of her stomach shows, and her heavy tits lift with the movement.
I get hard.
Again.
Fuck. She’s gorgeous.
The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
Those mismatched eyes blink at me like an adorable owl. Her head cocks to the side, and out pops a grin.
My heart punches my sternum.
“Hi.” I wave like a moron.
She chuckles. It’s tinkly and cute, and my dick gets all the harder.
When I don’t say anything else, because I don’t have an excuse for why I’m here, or why I have a bag of bagels and cream cheese in the saddlebag of my bike.
Or donuts. Or five kinds of juice. Yes, five.
Along with a thermos of coffee. Plus, a variety of granola bars and two breakfast sandwiches, one with bacon, the other with sausage.
Yeah. When I don’t have an explanation for all that, I just stand in her yard as she turns around, and her sexy ass jiggles.
For half a beat, I’m ass-matized before she disappears inside, but leaves the door open for me. That’s what it’s for, right?
For me to come in.
Shit.
Rushing to my bike, I dig the food and drinks out of my saddlebags and rush to her front door, where I stop at the threshold. “Iris?”
“I’m in the kitchen.”
A wave of relief washes over me as I follow her voice to find her rinsing a glass in the sink.
I set the bags on the counter, dig everything out, and turn her kitchen into a half-assed breakfast buffet, all the while Iris watches me. I sense her attention searing into the side of my face as I uncap the coffee and dump the handful of creamer cups and packets of sugar beside the thermos.
Once I’m through, I step back.
“You brought breakfast?”
“Yeah.” I shrug like it’s no big deal. “I figured you’d need to eat.”
“No chopsticks?” She winks as she picks up the sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich, unwraps it, and takes a bite.
I almost come.
Yeah. I’ve got big fucking issues.
Needing to get whatever the hell is going on with me under control, I force a smile, hitch my thumb toward the bathroom, and see myself there, to have a strong talkin’ to with my dick.
As soon as I shut the door and lock it, I rip my belt open, undo my pants, and pull my wet-tipped cock from its confines of my boxers. Then I slap his head. Hard.
“Stop it,” I whisper-hiss, and the bastard replies with a gush of precum that drips down the tip that I have to catch before it falls on the floor, and Iris slips on it.
Using a wad of toilet paper, I clean up what I can, but it does nothing to make him go down. If anything, being freed from his prison has him ready to party, and my balls ache with the need to release.
Christ. I can’t believe I’m about to do this.
Shame spirals through my gut as I step forward, rest one hand on the counter, hang my head, and jack off. I make it quick. Fast and furious. I tug him harder than normal because I’m angry and sexually frustrated and embarrassed by his reaction.
It’s not like I didn’t masturbate when I got back from the bar last night. I did.
I’m not a teenager anymore. I’m old. Old dicks shouldn’t be actin’ like this.
Grittin’ my teeth, I get through it one tug at a time, and even though I don’t want to, I think of Iris.
Fucking her. No. Eating her sweet pussy.
Sucking her tits. Kissing her. The thought of my mouth on hers pushes me over the edge.
Cum bathes my palm as a low, hungry moan forces its way from my soul, and I black out for half a moment before I clean up, wash my hands, and return to the kitchen, with one less erection, but a whole new level of guilt. For doing that here. In her bathroom.
I grab the extra sandwich and tear into it for something to do.
Iris leans against the counter, watching me with those all-knowing, soul-stealing eyes, sipping coffee.
“What?” I mumble around a bite.
“You’re a ball of nervous energy.”
I swallow my mouthful. “It’s that obvious?”
A short laugh bursts from her throat, and Iris’s eyes light up as she says, “Oh. Yeah. I watched you pace my front yard for a good five minutes. You were mumbling to yourself.”
With the sandwich poised at my lips, I sigh. “You really shouldn’t let me into your house. You need to tell me to leave you alone.”
“Why?”
“Because… you… You make my dick hard, and we’re friends, and I just… I just jacked off in your bathroom. I didn’t want to.”
Her lip twitches as if she’s trying not to laugh. “You didn’t want to jack off in my bathroom, but you did?”
“Fuck…” A tinge of embarrassment consumes my cheeks, and I stare up at the ceiling. “Listen. I’m…”
“Going to take me shopping for furniture today,” Iris says in an upbeat, sweet tone that is not right for this conversation.
I snap my attention to her. “Iris. Christ, you’re not listening to me. You turn me on. I violated your bathroom.”
Pushing off the counter, she sets her empty mug in the sink and shrugs. “And? Did you try to have sex with me?”
“No,” I growl, offended she’d even bring it up. “I’m your friend. Th… I wouldn’t do that.” I would never ever, ever fucking touch her without her permission, and I’d kill anyone who even looked at her the wrong way.
“Exactly.” Iris nods as if I replied the way she expected me to.
“You wouldn’t do that…” Her eyes stray to the counter still full of food.
“Thank you for the breakfast. I’m gonna go get dressed, and you can drive my truck around for us to get some furniture today.
Unless you have something else planned?”
This woman…
“No. I…” I fumble as she, in that same upbeat tone, cuts in.
“Would love to take me shopping?” Iris’s beautiful smile gives me pause. I soak it in. My jumbled emotions calm, and for the first time since I arrived, I breathe a whole lot easier.
“Yeah. Of course, sweetheart, I’d love that.”
“Then I’ll be ready in ten minutes. Brown or blonde?” she asks, about to exit the kitchen.
“You don’t need to wear a wig. You look gorgeous without one.”
She beams at me. “Thank you. But I… I’m more comfortable in public this way.”
“Fair enough.” I nod in understanding. “Do you have anything long and maybe brownish-red?”
“Like an auburn? I think so.”