Chapter 11

Some men dream of being a hero. Others relive it in their nightmares.

-Steel’s secret thoughts

Steel

“Yeah?” I answered.

I didn’t have to look at the screen to know who it was. Lizzibeth didn’t miss a chance to call and rail me in the morning.

“Who was that?”

I looked down at the head that was resting on my chest and grinned.

“That was Winnie. What do you want?”

“Winnie?” she sneered. “Just who the hell is Winnie?”

I didn’t know what exactly Winnie was to me, so I chose not to answer.

“Is there a reason you’re calling me?”

“You…you…you’re already seeing someone else?”

That was about the time that Winnie started to run her hand in circles along the hair on my chest. Her fingers started to graze my nipples with each pass, and, surprisingly, she was making me hard just by that touch alone.

My nipples weren’t sensitive…at least I hadn’t thought they were.

Now…with her. Apparently, they were.

“Lizzibeth, we’ve been over for almost a year. And, to be honest, it was a moment of stupidity on my part for marrying you in the first place. I never loved you…I just loved the idea of you.”

That’s when Winnie started to silently laugh into my chest, her face against the left side of my chest, her mouth inches away from my nipple.

I could feel her hot breath brushing against it, and my cock stiffened even further.

“I cannot believe you,” she hissed. “I cannot. I can’t.”

I refrained from telling her that those two things were the exact same thing. She’d basically just repeated the same thing three times.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, not sounding sincere in the least. “What do you need?”

I might as well listen to her at this point.

She hissed.

“I’m not believin’ that you’re truly sorry, but whatever.” She growled, sounding super pissed.

“I don’t really know what you want me to say here,” I said. “We’re divorced. You continue to call my son, as well as the other members of the MC all the fuckin’ time.”

“Because you won’t answer the phone!” she all but yelled.

“I won’t answer the phone because I don’t want to talk to you.”

Her screech made me pull the phone away from my ear slightly, and that’s when Winnie crawled up my body and then planted a wet one directly on my lips.

“What was that?”

I could hear Lizzibeth screaming through the phone an arm’s length away.

I sighed and placed the phone back to my ear, despite Winnie being on top of me.

She was running her lips down the length of my jaw, then even farther down my neck to my collarbone.

All the while she let her pussy—her bare pussy—rub against me.

“I’m sorry, what did you ask?”

“You’re in bed with her, aren’t you?” she hissed.

“I fail to see how that’s any of your business,” I murmured. “Now, either tell me why you called, or hang up. It’s as simple as that.”

She made a sound in her throat that even I knew was full of frustration.

Then she started to laugh, making me curious as to what she would say next.

“Well, have fun telling her that you’re still married,” she hissed. “And good luck getting an easy divorce this time like you did last time. I no longer feel bad for what I did. Not with you cheating on me, also. It ain’t gonna happen.”

She hung up moments later, and I suddenly realized just why, exactly, Lizzi had been calling as much as she had.

To tell me that we were still married.

I felt like I was going to throw up.

Being married meant a lot of things.

Sort of like she still had access to my property. She still had access to half my money—which wasn’t a lot, but it was all I had.

It also meant that the tempting morsel that was on my chest, frozen with her mouth next to my ear—exactly where my phone had previously been resting—would have to wait.

I couldn’t have sex with her now that I knew I was still married.

That went against every moral code that I possessed.

Until I found out whether this was true or false, I had to wait…didn’t I?

Just how, exactly, did that shit happen?

Winnie pulled back and stared into my eyes. The black-out curtains that were covering the windows were doing a piss poor job of what they were designed to do.

“You’re still married?”

I let the phone drop from my ear and let it fall to the bed where I tried to breathe deeply to get my anger under control.

“Yeah,” I growled. “Or so she says. But lying wasn’t really one of Lizzi’s problems. She was always upfront with her desires. Such as, she told me point blank that she was going to cheat. I’d thought she was joking. She wasn’t.”

“Well, shit.” She sighed. “Does this mean I can’t do you?”

I started to laugh, and it was a surprise. After the news that Lizzibeth had just shared, I didn’t think I’d be laughing again…ever.

“Yeah, until I figure this out…this means I can’t do you.”

“Well…shit.”

***

At the end of the day, I looked up from loading the boat to see Winnie carefully making her way up the length of the boat, holding on with one hand while she looked down with the other.

These last three days had gone by so well that I questioned why I’d ever told her she couldn’t come.

She’d been monumental in making this rescue operation work as well as it had this week.

She’d given a man CPR. She’d helped a woman having a diabetic episode. She’d even held babies while mothers tried to catch a breather.

And I’d fucked her.

I’d. Fucked. Her.

Oh, and I wanted to fuck her again.

A lot.

But until I figured out this shit with Lizzibeth, that wasn’t going to happen.

“You okay?”

Winnie looked up and smiled.

“I’m great. I haven’t been able to walk for long periods of time without my cane in months. I don’t know if it’s the water helping me or what, but it’s nice to be able to stand without also looking for places to sit in case of an emergency,” she answered, making her way to my side.

I looped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her to my side as I continued to tighten the boat’s tether to the trailer.

“You want to stop to eat now, or get out of here first?”

She pursed her lips. “I’m thinking we get out of the city first. There’s only so many places open, and there’s always a line. If we’re going to wait anyway, we might as well make headway toward home first.”

I agreed, but I wanted to make sure. “Sounds good.”

After saying goodbye to the other volunteer police officers, firefighters and medics that had come down and been in our small rescue convoy, we left.

We didn’t say a word until we were well outside of the flooded portions of the state.

“You okay?”

Winnie’s words had me glancing at her in surprise.

“What?”

“I said are you okay?”

I frowned.

“I’m fine, other than the obvious.”

“And what’s the obvious?” she pushed.

“The obvious being that Lizzibeth and I had a full annulment,” I continued. “We were married for two weeks before she told me that she wasn’t a monogamous kind of person.”

Winnie blinked. “You’re shitting me.”

“’Fraid not.” I rolled my eyes. “My kid doesn’t know this story, so if you happen to speak to him about it, don’t share this part.” I gave her a wry grin. “She literally told me she was going out on a date while I was on shift, and I didn’t believe her. Not until I went into a restaurant to grab a burger during my lunch and found her giggling and laughing, then kissing a man that wasn’t me.”

“So you divorced her?”

“I thought I did,” I confirmed. “I met with a lawyer, we filed it. I signed the papers. She signed the papers. Then the papers were turned in to the county.”

“So what happened?” She twirled a stray piece of hair that had fallen from her bun.

“What happened?” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I left a message for my lawyer. He’s an old friend of mine from the military. Todd said that he would look into it, but hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”

“It’s only been a half a day.”

“It has,” I agreed.

“I…”

My phone rang, and I hit the answer button on the console. Todd’s voice filled the speakers.

“Hey, man,” Todd said.

“Todd,” I murmured. “I was just talking about you.”

“Thought I felt my ears burning.” He chuckled. “Hey, did you get my message?”

“Nuh-uh,” I said. “Though I’ve been in a bad area. I’m down south helping out—or was helping out—with the flooding. They had two cell towers go down. What did you have to say?”

“The annulment was denied because apparently the judge had seen you drink before, and he decided that you couldn’t be under the influence of alcohol since it could cloud your judgment. And, apparently, with his denial of the annulment, he sent out certified papers to your place and they were signed for by you.”

I winced. “I thought they were the annulment papers. Not papers that said that the annulment was denied.”

“Anyway,” Todd went on. “It was suggested that you file for divorce, which was explained in the papers you received. You had ten days, I believe he said, to file for divorce or the divorce would be dropped off the docket.”

“Fuck.”

“Yep. So, you want me to file for the divorce?”

I snorted. “Yeah, I do.”

“Okay,” he said. “I already had all the paperwork drawn up on my part. The only problem is that with divorce, you also have to divide up your assets.”

“Our assets,” I said carefully.

“Yes,” he said. “Anything you bought together while you were married, you have to divide up. Any vehicles, property, or belongings. If she’s willing, you can settle this without problem. She signs, you sign. Easy as that. But from what you told me earlier, she probably won’t be as willing to do that as she might’ve once been.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been ignoring her for weeks.”

Todd had the decency to quiet his guffaw of laughter by covering the phone, at least.

“Well, stop ignoring her. Try to get her to settle out of court. You know I’ll drive over for this if it comes to it, but my wife’s been sick the last two weeks, and I’d like to not come down if I don’t have to.”

“I’ll try my best, but it’s probably not going to work that way. She was pissed at me.”

I looked over at the reason she was pissed at me and winked.

Winnie rolled her eyes.

“Well, I’ll file it in the morning. If all goes well, you can have it done within a few weeks.”

A few weeks.

I looked back at the woman occupying my passenger seat.

I could make it a few weeks…right?

Yeah, I heard the universe laughing, too.