Scar

I didn't have the best time waiting for evening to roll around. All the ways in which I hate my brother rolled in my head like a very detailed and vivid movie, and nothing I did paused it. Today started out fantastic, but it might not end that way, not at the rate my dark rage is multiplying. He's within my reach again, I can get him this time, but I won't be calm again until that happens. I should stay calm for Lynn, I know that, but it's a very distant consideration right now.

Doc got fresh with me over the state of my wound, bitching about how I, of all people, should know about infection. It almost came to blows, would've if he hadn't backed down just in time. I do know all about infections, the thing on my face is worse than it might've been because the cut got infected before it healed. Just one more reason why Reaper will die soon.

But all that raging shit in my mind quieted down as I watched Lynn exit the animal hospital. Didn’t think that was possible, but it’s more or less silent now that we're sitting in this dimly lit Chinese restaurant, because she was in the mood for dumplings. She's happy because her dog is getting better, and I'm happy because I get to sit at a table with her and watch her eat. It's not an experience I usually have with women. But it's something I've always had with Lynn. Pretty much all we had, but I’m planning on that changing tonight.

She's the reason I didn't go after Reaper sooner while I was in Illinois. Somehow, it was hard to focus on killing him when I had her to visit everyday. The night he left, I had the choice of going after him or saving her. I made the right choice. And I'm getting my second chance with him soon, so all is right with the world.

"You don't like the dumplings?" she asks, looking way more dejected than she should over the fact that I forgot to finish my plate, while I was watching her.

"They're good, but I'm sure you'll be tastier," I tell her and grin. She blushes so hard I can see it clearly despite the dim light in here.

I don't feel bad about making her uncomfortable, and she's not freezing up like the first time we had dinner and I said something along those lines. Now that she's given me the green light, I'm having trouble reining myself back in. And the longer I stare at her the worse I want to see all of her.

"I…I…I don't know—" she starts stammering, but I'll have none of that anymore. I know she wants to fuck, and that I’m the guy she wants to do it with. It's clear from her fluttering eyelashes and her blushes, and the way she presses herself against me when we kiss, not to mention the way she keeps checking me out when she thinks I can't see.

"No need to know," I tell her. "Just finish your food so we can get outta here. Then you'll find out."

She blushes again, but picks up the chopsticks, then starts telling me about her dog again, which I guess is a good sign, since she's neither freezing up nor starting another conversation about those Spawn maggots. I start eating too.

Doc gave me a couple of injections when he checked my wound after we cleared up how fresh he can get with me and when. I suspect one of the injections was a pain killer, because my arm was throbbing all the time before, but I can barely feel the dog bite now. Or maybe that's also from having Lynn close, and the prospect of seeing her naked very soon. She's like a pretty little painkiller, as far as I'm concerned. Better than a painkiller.

I came up with the perfect spot to take her. It's a safe house on the edge of town, one of a couple kept supplied and empty should shit ever hit the fan and MC members had to leave town in a hurry. It's never happened yet, so no one ever uses the safe houses. I got the keys from Fuse whose job it is to oversee them, though with him in charge I'm afraid of the state I'll find it in. But the keys are burning too big a hole in my pocket for me to spend a lot of time worrying about it.

"Did you have any pets growing up?" she asks, still not done with her food.

"Sure," I say. "I had a couple of dogs and we always had a bunch of cats around, because my mom would feed anything that walked by. She even fed raccoons and shit."

She was the exact opposite of my dad when it came to almost everything, including caring for animals. My dad liked killing them and she liked taking care of them. But she stopped feeding the cats once she realized what usually happened to the ones that wouldn't come back. Just one more thing Reggie never answered for, but he's gonna now.

"Sometimes, I'd like to go and visit home," she says. "Do you ever go back?"

I shrug. "Nothing much for me there. My parents are both dead, their house is gone, and my brother's in jail."

I was sure I told her all this back then, but maybe I didn't, since I don't think she's faking that sad slash surprised look on her face.

"I'm sorry," she says and finally picks up the last dumpling from the bamboo container in the center of the table.

"Don't be. My mother didn't speak much, and my father was an asshole most of the time," I say and I wasn't gonna go on, but Reggie's just been too close to the surface of my thoughts tonight, so maybe it's better I get him out before me and Lynn are completely alone together.

"And my brother gave me this to remember him by for the rest of my life," I say and point at my scar, which makes her gasp and drop the dumpling from between her chopsticks. I never told her that story, or anything about my brother, I'm sure of that. Pure pity is in her eyes now and avoiding that is the reason I never talk much about Reggie. I certainly didn't want to see it in hers.

"Don't worry about it," I say. "It happened a long time ago, and he'll get his eventually."

She was struggling to finds some words to say, but as soon as I said that she froze up. Definitely not what I was going for. I can't hide my hatred of Reggie when I talk about him, so I shouldn't have talked about him.

"You ready to go or what?" I ask and wave to our waitress who's just passing without waiting for her reply.

That's enough feeling bad for one day. It's time to feel good. And if how it is when I'm with her normally is any indication, fucking her will be out of this world amazing.

She doesn't say anything as I pay for the dinner, just smiles congenially to the waitress. But her steps are shaky and slow as we exit, and she's practically dragging her feet once we're on the sidewalk.

No one's ever accused me of being a sensitive man and been right, but I know something's wrong and I know all those, "I don't knows" of hers before were referring to this part of our date.

I stop to wait for her, take her hand and pull her to me. She places her hands on my waist and looks up at me with a mixture of fear and hope I've only ever seen once before—in the eyes of the doe I killed.

"Where are we going?" she asks.

"There's this lovely house on the edge of town, where I thought we could go spend the night," I say with a grin. "You know, to avoid sleeping in the barn again."

She tenses in my arms, but doesn't move away, her body still pressed against mine as her eyes—and her whole face, for that matter—go through a bunch of conflicting shit. I see fear in people’s faces often, so I recognize that and there's plenty of it. But there's other things as well, so it doesn't piss me off quite as much as it might normally.

"I…I…" she starts stuttering again.

"Just say it, Lynn," I interrupt and she tenses some more, her eyes growing harder, probably to match mine.

"What if I say I'm not ready?" she asks, and sure it's a question, but it's also a statement of fact and I hear that loud and clear. And if she were any other woman, I'd be having a different reaction right now.

Because on top of all those highlights of my past my brain's been showing me all day, I really hoped Lynn would be more willing to make the evening and night worth forgetting everything else for. But she's not ready. That's just fucking perfect. But OK.

"So that's what you're saying?" I ask to make sure. Even though I already know.

She lets go of my waist.

"I'm not ready," she says in a quiet voice. "Can we just talk?"

We've done a lot of talking already. Maybe not tonight, but back then. I was hoping we were done with that for tonight, but then again…

"Sure, Lynn, if that's what you need," I say before the idea to do it even fully forms in my head. No one's ever accused me of being mindful of the needs of others and been right either.

"But it's not what you need," she says quietly. "Or want."

I hold her tighter because she's starting to back away from me, and I can't let her slip from my arms. Not again. Not ever.

"To tell you the truth, yeah, I want you. That much you already figured out," I say and smile at her, because her face is so damn stony and serious, it's unnerving. "If you were any other woman, we'd be done by now, because I'm usually not very interested in talking."

It's the truth too. Not that I ever looked for women to talk to. I looked for women to fuck. And with the ones I found, the talking usually consisted of them either crooning like young girls, or cracking jokes about my ugly scar to piss me off, so I'd hate fuck them. There was no need for it. Rough and hard always came naturally to me, and I'm always happy to oblige.

"But you're different," I add, since even though she's perfectly still, that's flight in her eyes. "I always liked talking to you. Why'd you think I did so much of it?"

I grin, but she frowns back. "Not tonight you didn't."

"I got some news today," I say. "But seeing you tonight made it all better."

"Right, and now I'm playing hard to get and pissing you off, is that it?"

I shrug, but don't say anything, because she's completely right. She feels so damn good in my arms and she looks and smells so damn good, and I will never get enough of just looking at her, and I'm about to fuck everything up for the second time with her, if I don't find the right thing to say. She's already moving away from me again.

"I thought a lot about tonight too. I thought about it all day and that was probably a mistake, but I couldn't stop thinking about it," she says once she reaches the point where my arms are preventing her from stepping away any further. I don't release her and she doesn't try to break through, but it's an awkward position.

"I was hurt very badly by those men you saved me from," she says more quietly than before. Here we go again. But I’ll hear her out.

"So badly, I couldn't have sex afterwards,” she continues. “It was a choice and a necessity for me. And I thought, I truly believed and I really hoped I could break through that for you…to be with you. I wanted to be with you back then, and when you showed up now, I couldn't believe it, but nothing had changed. I still wanted to be with you. So I thought I'd try, but—"

"That's a lot of talking, Lynn," I say and chuckle although almost none of what she's saying makes me happy. The fact that she wanted me to fuck her back then does, and that's about it.

"You should've asked me out then," she says. "I would've said yes. And then I'd have given you what you want. But now—"

"Are you saying it's never gonna happen?" I ask, beating her to saying it, because I don't want to hear it from her mouth.

She looks into my eyes, but doesn't speak. I take that as a, "No" and pull her closer again.

"Lynn, you're too damn gorgeous and sweet and good to kiss to waste on just talking and thinking about," I say and grin. "I made that mistake the first time around and I'm not making it again."

She frowns at me like I've said the wrong thing again, but I have more to say.

"I get that you went through hell, but you know what, fuck them, fuck all those assholes. Don't let them keep ruining your life more than a decade later. There's almost none of them left to blame anyway." There's at least one more left, and he's getting his shortly, but she doesn't need to know that right now.

She relaxes in my arms and there’s more fire than fear and sadness in her eyes now. The fighting kind.

"It's not about how hard you get hit, it's about how much you can take and keep going," I add, borrowing some of my father's wisdom, but paraphrasing so it's fit for her ears. I hope it makes as much sense to her as it does to me, since this is that key piece of advice I've gotten that always keeps me moving forward. She seems to be getting it, her eyes softening like she's once again thinking about doing it with me.

"So unless you say you wanna just go home and forget all about tonight, I'm gonna kiss you now," I say and she smiles, parts her lips but doesn't say anything.

I kiss her before she can think of something to say. She kisses me back. And with all the talking and remembering we did just now—and that I've been doing all day— I'm imagining us kissing on that dark parking lot behind the diner she worked at. Or on those rocks by the river where I had plans to take her after our first date, since it was a hot summer that year and she said she liked swimming.

She's holding onto me tight now, her whole body pressed against mine so completely I can feel the hard nubs of her nipples against my chest, so whatever she's about to say, as she pulls away from the kiss and looks up at me, won't be bad news, I'm sure of it.

"Is it really that simple?" she asks. "Just say fuck it and move on?"

I shrug as best I can with her standing so close and get a nice treat of her nipples rubbing against me.

"Life's real short, Lynn, and we already missed a lot of it," I say.

"What if I can't?" she says. "I still have nightmares about it."

"I have nightmares too, so fucking what? That's just dreams," I say. "In real life, it's gonna be so good."

I'm tripping over my words, but I think she knows what I mean. She's not saying anything though, and I can't read a damn thing from the look in her eyes.

"My nightmares sometimes come when I'm awake," she whispers.

I'm all out of sage advice. "Just go for it. You can always stop me, though I hope you won't."

Hell, I'm not sure she can stop me, but I think she needs to hear it, and I know I'll try my hardest to stop if she wants.

"OK," she finally whispers.

"Alright, let's go then," I say and waste no time releasing her, though I keep my arm wrapped around her shoulders.

I feel as excited as I did the first time a girl agreed to get naked with me back when I was a teenager. More so, since I waited for Lynn way longer than for that first one—my whole life, it seems right now— and I always wanted Lynn more than I ever wanted any other woman.