~ Barbara ~
Ace and the other men came from around the back of the building. Barbara gave him the once-over with a critical eye, only to realize the handsome biker didn’t have a scratch on him.
Shifting her eyes to his friend, he looked tired but not beaten up. Letting out a shaky breath, she was relieved to discover that they were really just sparring instead of beating the crap out of each other.
Ace dropped down in the seat beside her and snagged a chip off her plate. “Are you makin’ friends and influencin’ people out here today?”
“Not really. They’ve been real nice to me, especially Tiffany.”
“Yeah, she’s all right.”
Tiffany’s playful voice interjected, “Hey, I’m sitting right here listening to you damn me with faint praise. I saved you when you were on the path of self-destruction. Can’t I at least get an upgrade to a real nice or fantastic person?”
Shooting Tiffany a smile, Ace grabbed Barbara’s hand. “Are you ready to rest, angel?”
Heat curled in her stomach at the thought of cuddling up with him. “Yes. I’m more than ready.”
Standing, he pulled her to her feet. “C’mon, I’ll get you settled in. Ryder will see to your students.”
Since they were all grown adults that had chosen to come to the clubhouse, Barbara tried not to be overly focused on them. Instead, she allowed Ace to lead her into the building.
“Want a nightcap?”
“Gosh, that would be so nice,” she told him. After a day like today, she needed a little something extra to help calm her nerves.
“What’ll you have?”
She gave it some thought. “Appletini?”
Ace smiled. “You got it, angel.”
Barbara slid onto a barstool as Ace jumped behind the bar, washed his hands in a tiny sink, and began mixing drinks like a demon. He slid a candy-apple-red martini in front of her moments later.
“I thought Appletini’s were green,” she pointed out.
“Try it, beautiful.” He looked pretty damn sure of himself, sparking her curiosity.
Lifting it to her lips, Barbara took a sip. As soon as the liquid hit her tongue, her eyes rolled back in her head as the different flavors hit her taste buds and the slow, warm burn of alcohol slid down her throat. “That’s absolutely fantastic,” she praised, aware that her voice had turned husky with pleasure. “You are drink-mixing god.”
A slight smile curved his lips. “Thanks for sayin’.”
“Do you mind if I ask what Tiffany meant about saving you?”
Leaning over the counter, he casually dropped a bright-red cherry into her glass. “Remember when I told you that I went on a bit of a vendetta after I got out of lockdown?”
“You weren’t thinking straight and were out for revenge over your brother, until you discovered what he’d done,” she recalled.
“Tiffany’s old man, Ryder, was the girl’s brother.”
Barbara’s mouth fell open. “Ryder killed your brother?”
“I suspect, knowing Ryder like I do, he meant to beat the shit out of him. Hell, maybe he intended to kill him, I can’t know for sure. Anyway, my brother pulled a knife, and he wouldn’t stand down. When the smoke cleared, Ryder was standing over my brother’s corpse.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” She truly meant it. His brother didn’t sound like a good person at all, but she imagined losing family, especially a twin, had to be pretty painful.
“My brother was messed up from the time he was born,” Ace said dismissively. “I couldn’t help him, and the struggle blinded me to how evil he could be.”
Rubbing his arm soothingly, Barbara murmured, “You can’t blame yourself for the things he chose to do.”
“Most of my scars are from him. Did you know that?”
She thought of how many she’d seen on the small amount of skin she’d perused during their one-and-only intimate encounter and was horrified. “Sweet Jesus, I didn’t know that.” Bringing her hand up to caress the long scar running down the side of his temple, over his cheek, and down his neck, she tried to remember where it ended.
“Want to hear the part that I just can’t get over?”
Nodding, she waited for him to speak.
“I was so hypervigilant and worried about what he was going to do to me next, I didn’t see that it wasn’t only me he tormented. He jabbed me, scratched me with things, and burned me with a lighter for fun. When he did shit like that, we’d fight. I thought of it as more of an ongoing minor irritation than something I considered life-threatening.”
Her hand slid down to his shoulder, feeling pain in her chest for what he’d gone through. “No one deserves to be treated that way, especially not someone as nice as you.”
“Well, I ain’t nice, but I was confused back then. You see, because my mother never showed any signs of being hurt by him, I thought it was something that only happened between the two of us. Looking back at it now, I can see that he mentally abused her and physically abused me.”
“You can’t know that for sure.”
“My mother wasn’t strong like you, angel. She was emotionally fragile. My dad was always gone, and the stress of life finally got to be too much for her. One day she just mentally checked out. She’d just sit there day after day with that dead look in her eyes.”
“How is that your brother’s fault?”
Ace sighed. “I believe that every time she got herself together and was coming out of it, he intentionally did something to trigger her. I can remember one time when I thought she was getting better. I came home and he had her sitting outside near the fire pit. He’d gotten her a stick and crammed a marshmallow on the end.”
“That sounds like maybe he was trying to encourage her to participate and be happy,” Barbara said, not understanding where he was going with this. She wasn’t prepared for what he said next.
“He was sitting across from her by the fire pit, skinning our family dog.”
Oh God. Barbara struggled not to display the full range of emotions playing through her mind. “I don’t even have words,” she managed weakly. It was heart-wrenching to hear about Ace’s life growing up. With his father never being around, his mother being emotionally unavailable, and his brother being an abusive psycho, it made her wonder if the man had ever been truly loved a day in his life.
Ace continued, “Even then I didn’t get it. I just thought he was being a little shit. We had the granddaddy of fights that night.”
“Your mother didn’t try to stop you two from fighting?”
“She sat right there roasting that marshmallow with a blank look on her face, until I came back out hours later and put her to bed. Looking back, it kills me to think of what he might have done to keep her like that.”
Barbara could see just how much responsibility for his brother’s behavior he’d taken onto himself, and it had to stop. “The evil he did was on him, not you. No one ever assigned you to be your brother’s keeper, Jeremy. We’ve all heard stories about the good and bad twin. I don’t know why your brother was born broken, but I know you’re nothing like him. There’s an innate goodness in you. Whether or not you see it, it’s clear as day to me.”
A shadow passed behind Ace’s eyes. “If I really were a good guy, I would have taken him out when we were kids. I could have saved my mother, little Rose, and every other person he tormented when I was locked up.”
“Do you even hear yourself? You’re sitting here thinking you should have killed your brother when you were kids. No good can come of that kind of thinking.”
“I know, but I just can’t accept that I allowed him to hurt so many people, all the while thinking it was only me.”
“I believe when people are trapped in overwhelming situations, they aren’t able to reliably process all the details. When I was married, I tricked myself into believing David loved me because he was nice to me, bought me expensive gifts, and seemed to enjoy taking me out. After four or five affairs, I realized he just wanted me in his life for image control. He liked others seeing his pretty, socially adept wife. I was an accessory, meant to make him look good, like the little fake handkerchief he puts in his breast pocket.”
“It’s called a pocket square.”
“What?”
Grinning, Ace took a sip of her drink. “The little silk handkerchief is called a pocket square. They’re for showing, not for blowing.”
Smothering back a laugh, she tilted the glass in the opposite direction, taking another sip while he held the delicate stem between two fingers. “Yep, that’s me. I was simply a coordinating accessory to make his presentation complete when he was navigating important social situations. I feel ignorant for thinking he actually loved me. People like David and your brother aren’t like the rest of us. We have to learn that by trial and error. It’s a tough lesson to learn.”
His eyes flashed up to hers. “I never thought about it that way.”
Cupping his handsome, scarred face in her hands, Barbara kissed him on the lips. “Don’t carry all your brother’s sins around in your heart and head for the rest of your life. You deserve a little peace from all that.”
His expression turned soft. “I honestly don’t deserve you.”
“You know what Shakespeare said.”
“Troubles come not single spies but in battalions?”
She grinned. “He did say that. You really know your Shakespeare.”
“Like I already said, I read a lot when I was in lockup.”
“Well, William Shakespeare also said that if we use every man as he deserves, who shall escape whipping?”
“I guess he was pointing out that no one’s perfect,” Ace surmised.
Somehow, quoting Shakespeare while having her hands on his face shifted the darkness of the moment to something approaching intimate.
Rubbing one thumb over his bottom lip, she murmured, “Then again, he never met you. You’re totally my idea of perfect.”
“Bet you say that to all the guys.” His sexy smile made her girl parts flare to life.
“Please tell me that we’re having sex tonight.”
Ace’s expression lit up. “You want to have some sex with me?”
“Did you miss the part about me thinking you’re perfect?”
Picking up the cherry in her glass by the stem, he brought it to her lips. Parting her lips, Barbara allowed him to slide it into her mouth. Closing her teeth slightly, she waited for him to pull the stem. The intensity of his gaze as he watched her chew made her feel crazy things.
“Fuck, you are one sexy woman.”
She smiling, swallowing the cherry. “Another?”
Without looking away from her, he groped around in his little chilled metal dispenser for another and brought it to her lips. Wrapping her hand around his wrist, she used her other hand to take the cherry from him. Bringing it to his lips, they repeated the whole scenario, only in reverse. Tossing the stem onto the bar, she looked down at his hand. “Your fingers are stained red.”
“I’ve been handling cherries.”
Not taking her eyes off his, she brought his finger to her mouth. He swallowed thickly, as he watched her suck his finger. She swirled her tongue around his thick digit, just like she wanted to do to his cock. That concept wasn’t lost on him.
Hooking his finger behind her lower teeth, he pulled her gently forward. When their mouths collided, white-hot need pulsated through her entire body. Ace was a damned good kisser and those hot lips were making her wild. Sliding her fingers through his hair, she practically climbed over the bar to get more of him, vaguely aware that he was shoving the items on bar to the side.
The next thing she knew, he’d lifted her out of her seat, dragged her over the bar, and was walking off with her. That he could manage all that so gracefully and without breaking their kiss was nothing short of amazing. Barbara liked everything about this man. His casual dress, open honesty, and protective nature got to her like nobody’s business.
And now he was about to get to her in ways, she suspected, that no other man ever had.