Chapter Three
Gibson
He followed her with his eyes until she disappeared and then he grinned.
“Gib,” Joke said. “Got a thing you need to know.”
“What?”
“Remember a few months back? We went skiing, all of us.”
Gibson blinked and focused on his friend instead of the woman whose ass he’d just had his hands on. Or his thumbs close to, anyway.
“Sure.”
“Went to a bar, had to fight off a group of barracudas to get out of there.”
“Yeah?”
“One of those women left early.”
Gibson’s face hardened. It wasn’t a great memory because he’d blurted out some shit, and he didn’t remember exactly what, but it hadn’t been particularly nice. He’d barely glanced at the woman, so he hadn’t meant it and certainly hadn’t meant for the poor thing to hear him. Since he’d been rude, he’d been on his way to apologize when the woman had rushed out of there. Her friends had been under the incredibly misguided belief that he and Joke had been on their way over to flirt with them, and it had taken almost half an hour to get away.
“Yeah,” he said, wondering where Joke was going with his comments.
“You called her mousey.”
“So?”
“And Grandma Myrtle,” Jenny cut in, and Gibson felt his brows go way up on his forehead.
Oh, fuck.
“How would you know?” he asked, narrowing his brows which made him wince.
He hoped Joke had had a small stroke and unexpectedly told his sister about the evening, even though it would mean he’d have to kick his friend around some, just on principle.
“Because Myrtle just stitched your brow together.”
Shit.
There was a short silence, and then Paddy started laughing.
None of the others did, and neither did Gibson. He turned to Jenny.
“She told you?”
“Yes,” Jenny said sourly. “I mentioned Joke, and she recognized the name from your lovely little conversation outside the restroom in a bar where anyone could hear you. She was freaked out enough to leave.”
“Leave?” Gib asked, not at all liking that option.
“This bar. Wilhelmine. The cabin she just rented for the next twelve months. Leave-leave.”
Shit.
“You talk her down?”
“Yeah, buddy,” Jenny said. “You owe me because I totally did.”
“Thanks,” he muttered.
“Oh, I did so not do it for you. She’s clever and funny, and I really like her. How would I know you’d walk in and suddenly become one gigantic erection?”
Gibson had to fight to keep his eyes from glancing down at his crotch. She was right, his dick had gone from attentive to rock hard the second he’d had his hands on her legs to pull her closer. He wasn’t a small man so there wasn’t much he could do to hide it, although he hadn’t expected anyone to actually comment on it.
“Jesus, Sis,” Joke grunted. “A little respect for your brother’s sensitive feelings would be nice.”
“What? You want me to pretend I don’t see how his dick’s almost popping the buttons on those jeans?”
Gibson shoved the blood-stained shirt over his head and let it hang loosely over his apparently offensive crotch.
“Better like that?” he asked.
“Yes,” Jenny said primly. “Thank you.”
“What’s her name?”
“Charlene.”
It didn’t suit her at all, he thought. It sounded prim and prissy. “Like Grandma Myrtle,” a small voice whispered in his head, and he winced.
“I call her Lee,” Jenny added.
“Huh,” Gibson grunted.
Lee. Yeah, that was better. Much better.
“What the hell happened to change her so much?”
“Her story to share, if and when she so wishes.”
“Jenny.”
“Gibson.”
“Jenny.”
“Joke.”
“Jenn –”
“Cut it,” Jenny snapped when Paddy tried to get involved. “I’m not going to stand here and gossip with you girls. I’m going back to close up the restaurant where Lee, by the way, made Maddie Alvarez a very, very happy woman earlier today.” She whirled around and marched toward the door, giving Gibson a smug smile over her shoulder. “You should apologize, Gibson. Profusely.”
“Jenny,” Gibson called out when she was almost by the door. “She here alone?”
Her face softened, and the smug smile turned gentle.
“Yeah, Gib. She’s here alone.”
“Where does she live?”
“Not saying,” she retorted. “Paddy will be the first to know I suspect.”
The door closed with a soft thud.
“What?” Paddy said.
He was the one most women gushed over, and always had been. As a teenager, his angel-face had lured girls go with him to the campground to make out, and Gibson bet he could still get women to go there with him if he wanted, even if his thick, curly hair had gone almost entirely gray and his lanky build looked more skinny than athletic these days.
Gib had never resented his buddy’s success with the ladies, and there had been enough women for all of them when they’d wanted it. Gib had been married twice though, and both marriages had been spectacularly stupid endeavors, so they had been godawful, but he’d been faithful for as long as they lasted. He’d gotten his three boys out of the experiences, and that made them impossible to regret, even if both women were people he hoped he’d never have to lay eyes on ever again. He was pretty sure they felt the same way about him, and he probably deserved at least part of that. Probably.
So, why would Paddy know where she – ah. Of course. Jonah Anderson.
“Is she out of her fucking mind?” he growled.
“What?” Paddy repeated.
“My guess? She rented Jonah’s old cabin, and he’s suckered her into renovating it. Jenny will get her to call you,” he pointed to Paddy, “to do some of the work.”
“I won’t mind at all,” Paddy said sweetly. “She’s cute. I wasn’t the one calling her Myrtle, so she might like me better than you.”
“Fuck you,” Gibson grunted.
“Ladies,” Mac said. “I’m finding the gossip-session hilarious, but someone broke into your home, Gib. We should focus on that instead of your dick.”
A couple of grunts acknowledged the correctness of his statement, in the way only men who’d been friends for as long as they could remember could communicate. For the next hours they went through everything that had happened, and when the officers had left Gibson’s house, they went through it one more time.
It seemed like a stupid, random break-in, something that didn’t sit well at all with Gibson. He’d been on the force for years, before retiring five years earlier, and he had been exceptionally good at his job. He knew well that stupid and random shit in a very small town in the mountains more often than not was a cover for something else entirely. Besides, no one broke into Gibson Ward’s home. No one. This was something every petty criminal in the entire state would know not to do, so the whole event didn’t sit well at all with him.
The others agreed, and while they were doing a second walkthrough of the house, Paddy started calling the MC’s to see if anyone wanted to own up to what had happened.
It was late when they finally decided to call it a night, and they were nowhere nearer any answers. The mood in the bar had been light, but as the night progressed, their faces hardened. All the presidents Paddy called assured him that they were not involved and that their members wouldn’t disrespect Gibson in any way. Paddy went out on the back porch to call a few contacts that Mac couldn’t know about on account of him having that pesky badge clipped to his belt, and they all gave the same answers. They were not involved and promised unanimously to keep their ears to the ground and let him know what they found out, probably to prevent Gibson Ward from coming after them, looking for answers.
“No one knows a fucking shit,” Paddy grunted. “I’m going home. Have to get some shut-eye.”
“Yeah,” Joke agreed. “I’ll have to check in on Oak.”
Gibson walked them out and sighed when he surveyed the makeshift repair they’d made to his front door. Mac and Joke left in Mac’s car, but Paddy stayed behind, watching their taillights disappear around the corner.
“Gib?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s with the woman?”
Gibson didn’t even pretend to not understand. They’d all grown up together, but he and Paddy were close, always had been.
“Don’t know, Padraig,” he said quietly. “Looked at her sitting there, laughing with Jenny, and that smile just shot straight to my dick. Got my hands on her legs and Jenny wasn’t wrong about the buttons. Thought they’d pop right open.”
Paddy grinned at him and wiggled his brows.
“She kept her cool. Did good work on your brow.”
“Yeah?”
“Jenny liked her.”
“You cottoned on to that too? That was strange.”
“Yeah. Jenny who doesn’t have girlfriends, not since…” Paddy winced, and restarted, “Strange to hear Jen admit out loud that she liked your woman.”
“Not my woman, Pad.”
“She will be.”
Gibson thought about that for a few seconds, and then he grinned.
“I called her Grandma Myrtle, for fuck’s sake. Not sure I’ll make my way around that.”
Their deep laughter rumbled through the night as they slapped each other’s backs.
When the lights from Paddy’s car had disappeared, Gibson whistled for his dog to stop sniffing the bushes, and they went inside. The black dog immediately went to his usual corner of the couch and started snoring, but Gibson was restless.
He turned on the TV.
Then he walked into the kitchen to get a beer, which he didn’t open and left standing on the coffee table.
Then he turned off the TV and stared at the blank screen for a while.
“Fuck it,” he muttered and walked into his bedroom, got out of his jeans and shirt, and contemplated taking a shower but remembered with a grin how a small woman had snapped at him to not get the stitches wet.
There was one thing he wanted to get wet and he knew what that was, he thought as he propped a couple of pillows up and leaned back on the headboard.
“Jesus,” he grunted as he slowly pulled down his briefs and released his aching cock.
He was fifty-five years old and had a hard-on the likes he hadn’t had in many years. It wasn’t as if he was having problems in that area, far from it, but it built slower these days. It didn’t just happen, not like it had when he saw her. Lee.
And he couldn’t remember the last time his dick had been so hard it hurt.
He moved one hand to slowly caress his balls, rolling and tugging until he couldn’t stop himself from using the other hand to get himself off, but doing it slowly, thinking about Lee with her soft hair and wide mouth. How would it feel to have that mouth on his cock? He was an in-charge kind of guy both in and out of bed, and liked to call the shots on what would happen, so he’d have her on her knees in front of him, with one of his hands in her hair, guiding her pace. Her soft eyes would be on him while he slowly thrust in and out of her mouth. She’d be naked, and when he told her, she’d put one hand between her legs, using two fingers to work herself as he took hold of her head with both hands.
That thought almost made him lose his control, and he let go of his cock, not willing to let it be over just yet. He waited until his breaths had slowed down a little, and started again, remembering her legs and how they’d felt under his hands. How he’d pull them wide apart as he slid inside her. How he’d pound into her again and again until she screamed under him.
He paused again, still hanging on the sharp edge between lazy pleasure and the throbbing waves of orgasm. When he put his hand back on his cock he knew he couldn’t hold back much longer, and started pumping harder, bucking his hips into his fist, grunting with every stroke.
When it hit him, he tilted his head back and groaned so loudly it was almost a shout, seeing her big brown eyes in front of him as he came all over his stomach. The pleasure went on long enough to make his voice hoarse and shaky. He looked down at himself, realizing his vision was still blurry and his heart beat so hard he could feel it in his whole body.
“Jesus,” he murmured again.
So, he’d fucked up with her. Acted like a dick. He’d have to find a way to get around that because just thinking about her had given him the best sex he’d had in years.