Wolf

 

 

My eyes feel like sandpaper against my heavy lids as I stare off into the distance and see nothing, not the trees or the birds, not even the blue sky that’s always held my attention.

I see nothing but Lori’s tear-stained cheeks and the desperation she showed me when she finally shoved me away and ordered me to leave. I didn’t want to go. God, I wanted to stay and have her tell me that it would all be okay.

And yet I did leave because I was hurting her and I couldn’t stand seeing her pain a moment longer. It hit me when I walked out and drove away that she was right.

I was hurting her more by trying to love her than I had when she thought I didn’t.

“You look like hell.”

Turning, I see Lyon and Bear coming my way, their expressions grim when they spot the bottle in my fist and take in the beard growth that’s been two days in coming.

Okay, so, it hasn’t been all that long since I left Lori in Texas and had to force myself to stay away, but it feels like a lifetime! It feels like I’ve spent years in my solitude, and it isn’t a joke, spending two sleepless days and nights going over that look in her eyes.

“You went to see her?”

“Yeah.”

“And?”

And I ate her out and tried to possess her body after I stood in her house and watched her kiss another man. I was so jealous and desperate that I went to lengths no decent man would have, to try and own her again.

I shouldn’t have touched her, should have used the true emotions I felt to get her back. Instead, I was my usual bastard self, trying to break her down because I was in a spin after seeing her with that asshole.

“And nothing. She cut me loose,” I mutter, drinking deep and growling when Bear grabs my whiskey and takes a deep drag, keeping the bottle in his clenched fist.

“I told you she wasn’t just hanging around here waiting on your dumb ass.”

Yeah, he did, and he also told me just how well she was doing without me, which kind of sparked this fire in me to come home and stake my claim. The asshole fed me just enough information to have me panicked and on the first flight home, my resignation not even official before I ran out of there.

“Yeah, but you didn’t tell me she was seeing some idiot, playing tonsil hockey and making goo-goo eyes at him!” I snarl, clenching my fist so hard my knuckles pop.

“You said you didn’t want to know. You said you were moving on,” he points out reasonably, making me snarl louder because he knows it’s not true and the ass is playing with me.

“So, she was kissing that Robechaux? Well, good for her,” Lyon laughs. “She deserves a shot at happiness, and I’ve met him. He’s good people.”

“Shut up.”

“Nope. Not gonna comply just because it hurts your feelings to hear it. You messed up big time, brother, and you lost. I warned you before you left.”

Yep. And I left anyway, thinking that chasing my dreams would make things easier and that I would forget her. I didn’t though, did I? Distance and time only made me want her more, and after the last time we talked, I finally felt something while bombs were going off around me and bullets were winging my way.

I felt honest fear that I’d die and never see Lori again. For me, that was telling because, as I’ve said, I have spent years not feeling fear or anything more than passing affection for anyone. My family have been the only people I’ve cared about and loved. Lori is the first woman I ever thought about and feared never seeing again.

The fear…it was alien, but I reveled in it because it was something. Something I thought was a good start that would magically open the door to my heart.

That lock is still firmly in place, and it scares me, but I also know that I’ve come farther than I have ever been, and that must mean something! Lori must mean something, right?

“I haven’t lost yet, Lyon,” I snarl, snatching my bottle back with a warning growl when Bear tries to keep it.

“Hhhm. Sorry, but I think you have. Danny tell you she’s bringing her boyfriend to your party?” he taunts, laughing at my dark glare.

“She’s just trying to keep something between us. She doesn’t love him.”

“And you’d know this how?” Bear asks.

“She hasn’t slept with him.”

“Aaah, but she’s kissed him, and for our Lori, that is a big step.”

“Shut up.”

Jesus, I still remember the way she looked with her full lips open and flowering beneath his, and it makes my gut sour knowing that some other man had his hands and mouth on her. She’s mine! She’s mine, and she will stay that way even if New Orleans has to have an unsolved murder on their books.

“Drowning yourself in booze and licking your wounds isn’t going to help you, Wolf.”

“Lyon—”

“He’s right. You’ve been back two days, and all you’ve accomplished is a drinking binge that is driving Pop nuts and this moping shit that makes poor Ma tear at her hair. It’s pathetic.”

“Oh? And what the hell do you think you looked like when you were mooning over Danny?” I yell, drinking with a shudder just to show him that I can.

“Like a drunk asshole with no self-respect,” he laughs, turning my gut. “You were the one who pulled me out of it and sent my ass down to Hawaii, so you know better than I do just how useless it was drowning my sorrows.”

Sorrows? I don’t have sorrows. That’s the problem. I feel nothing but anger and a desperation that leaves me reeling. I’ve been trying, willing myself to feel something else, but it’s just not there.

“I don’t feel anything,” I say eventually, my tone dead as I drink and look into the distance, my sight going dark when the burn doesn’t do a thing for me.

What the hell is the use of drinking if it just makes me tired?

“What?” Bear asks after a long silence in which I don’t elaborate.

“I don’t feel anything. The closest I’ve come to real emotion in eight years is anger and some fear on my last mission. I thought…I was so sure that it was good because it was the first time in years that I’ve felt anything, any fear. But nothing.”

They share a look, and I get the confusion they feel when all I can do is shrug and try to explain it as best as I can.

“After Sparrow, it hurt so much I thought I was going to go crazy. So, I pushed it all away because I had to keep going. Pretty soon, I would wake up and go the whole day without feeling anything, and then…then it was just…nothing. I felt nothing. I didn’t care. I didn’t hurt. I wasn’t afraid. I just didn’t feel anymore. All those women? I was desperate to want them and feel more than lust.”

“Nothing?” Lyon asks, sounding incredulous.

“Nothing.”

“But your last mission?” Bear prods.

“We were holed up in a village, surrounded by insurgents, and it was…it was hard, man. I really thought we weren’t going to make it out of there, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Debilitating fear that I wouldn’t make it out.”

I still remember the shakes I got and the way I second-guessed every move I made, in direct contrast to the way I’d just walked into danger before.

It was surreal and frightening and exhilarating.

“Christ! The first time in eight years? What about the Roussou deal three years ago when we flew down to Cuba and had to meet those evil bastards? I was shitting bricks, man,” Bear yells.

“Nada.”

“Jesus. Eight years?”

“Yep. And then Lori was here, and I wanted her so much, man. It was like I was feeling the sun on my face again. Suddenly I wasn’t seeing everything in black and white and all this cold greyness like before, and I thought, she’s the one. The stupid fucking story about the curse must be true.”

My laugh is dark and without a trace of humor when I look at them both and take another drink.

“I want to love her! She’s everything I could have dreamed I wanted. She’s strong and fearless, and she doesn’t back down. She’s sweet, and dammit, she’s so beautiful I want her all the time.”

“So, then, you love her,” Lyon huffs, making me smile.

He’s so black and white, this guy, and I love him for it. To Lyon, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a fucking duck. I believed the same thing with Lori until she looked at me and said those three words and all I felt was victory.

No answering love, no overwhelming joy that she feels that way. Just smug, expected victory. I hate myself for it and despise the knowledge that Lori was partly right; I did revel in her fall because it made me feel stronger knowing that a woman like her could look at me and love what she saw.

“I want to, but I feel…”

“Nothing. Shit, man, shit. What are you gonna do?” Bear asks.

“I don’t know. I’ve been to a shrink. The colonel insisted on a psych evaluation when I bugged out, and I’ve had all these deep in-depth talks with some of my friends, but that’s it. Nothing. Until the fear.”

“That’s a good sign though, right?” Lyon asks hopefully. “It’s a start.”

“What good’s it doing me though if my woman is sucking face with some other man, if I can’t tell her what she wants to hear? She’ll move on fully if I can’t pony up, and I can’t even blame her for it.”

I’m at a loss here and ready to rip my hair out when not only Lynx and Hawk arrive to join the conversation but also Jake and Brass too. They all join in, no fucking boundaries these assholes, and I’m bombarded by advice from all sides.

“It’s simple. Just tell yourself you feel it, and it will come,” Jake mumbles, downing a beer after Hawk comes back out with a cooler of beer and lunch, on orders from Ma to eat.

“You’re an idiot.”

“No, really. I told myself I’m cool with my Tanya having a baby even when I knew it would be hard for her, and before I knew it, I was happy when my boy was born.”

“You also had your dick taken care of so your wife doesn’t have another kid. Told her that yet?” Brass taunts, getting a glare in return.

“I will, as soon as she stops telling me she wants another kid,” he mutters. “Don’t judge me, assholes. Just wait until you have to watch the woman you love push another human out of her body. She screamed so hard I almost passed out. And that was just labor. When Frankie came out, it was…terrifying.”

Bear’s face goes pale.

“Dammit, that’s not necessary.”

“Point is that we lie to ourselves, to those we love, and to our enemies, but at the end of the day, all you have to do to make it is push through. You went through a trauma. No, man, hear me out before you get all macho on me. You went through a huge trauma alone for months and had to find a way to survive for your family. They’re here now, alive and whole and on the other side of a grief that should have killed them. Look at what you all have accomplished, and know that you don’t need to push anymore. You’re free.”

Jake’s words have us all stilling, and I turn to look at Bear, my brother, my leader. For the first time, I see his eyes mist and I feel…brotherhood. With all these men sitting around me and sharing their stories, I look at my brothers and don’t feel like the odd man out.

Hell, this shit is pansy-ass and for females, but I can’t deny that looking at them, feeling the memories wing through, is good. I finally see them, and I know that, no matter what I felt or went through, they traveled that same road, just walked it differently.

“Shit, man, you should be like a guru or something,” I mutter, clearing my throat.

“So! You ready to take this bull by the horns and ride the shit out of him? You only get seconds on the clock, bro. Make them count.”

I will, I think, grinning like a lunatic. Lori, baby, I know how to ride.

“Okay, but what about her moving on and that swinging dick she’s got sniffing after her ass. I saw the way she was with him, man, and it doesn’t look good. The last time I saw her, I was an asshole and she told me to get out of her life, that she’s moved on.”

“So, move with her! Are you slow-witted, Wylder? Women aren’t all that complicated despite what we all say. They need love and faithfulness and the knowledge that, no matter what, they’re your everything. It’s simple, really. Make her feel wanted and beautiful, and she’ll look at you. Make her feel like she’s your sun and moon, and she’ll let you into her orbit. Give her love, and she’ll be yours forever,” Brass says with a scowl when Hawk oooohs and Lynx throws him kisses.

I can so do some of that, I think, ignoring for a moment that the love thing has never been an issue but for my own lack of feeling. Surely I can get to that place where I feel it. All I need is time, and I will have time, even if I have to play dirty.

“She’ll bring him to the party.”

“Yep. Sounds about right. So, be a good host, and show her that you’re not an asshole.”

“Bear, man, the guy will be lucky if I don’t rip his territory-encroaching tongue out of his head. You think I can smile and be civil?” I ask with surprise and a lot of annoyance.

It took a lot for me to drive home the other night and not track his ass down for a murdering. You all can thank my ma for the morals she raised me with or I’d have used all that skill I learned as a murderous gangster to dismember him after a long drawn-out death.

“You’re right. What was I thinking? Wolf, the minute she shows up with him, please prove what an animal you are and tear him limb from limb. That’ll really impress her and make her want to be with you. Just prove exactly how unfeeling you are, to drive it all home,” he snorts, rolling his eyes.

“You’re such a prick.”

“But a prick that’s right. You know how we played shit when we were the Wylder outfit. You play the game.”

“This isn’t a game! That woman is mine. It took me a while to see it, but now that I do, I can’t lose her. I won’t play games with her ever again, Bear. I need her trust,” I say softly, my intentions for once honorable.

I don’t want a win because I cheated or manipulated her. I want her to look at me and choose me, the way I choose her. Maybe if she does, maybe then this coldness will disappear and I can live again.

“I don’t want you to lie, Wolf. Just be real and use it to your advantage. This guy will get nasty when he sees you sniffing, so don’t get all up in his face like you would. Show her that you’re not just a feelingless thug with a chip on his shoulder, and she’ll see the man she fell for. You weren’t lying when you showed her that side of you, Wolf. That guy is you. It always was you. Be him again and you stand a chance.”

Maybe. But what if she hates me so much she doesn’t even want that guy anymore?

No! No, that can’t be true. I remember her responses when I made love to her with my mouth. She was wild for me, untamed, and so mine I almost came in my pants when she climaxed on my face.

That woman is still mine, no matter how hard she wants to cut loose from me. I’m her anchor. I am hers, and she is mine.

“Tell me what’s been going on with her,” I say after we’re all silent for long moments, Lyon’s faraway look giving me pause before I turn away to contemplate my own life.

“She started having these attacks, like real-time replay of what she felt when she was kidnapped. Numbness. Cold. Breathing difficulties. She was practically a shut-in before she called me. It’s taken months of therapy for her to work through it, but she has. She’s doing much better now,” Bear says softly, looking back at the house when the porch door creaks and his wife comes waddling out.

Swear to God, I love that woman, but she’s already so big I have a feeling I’ll be scraping my brother off the delivery room floor when more than one kid pops out of her.

Hearing about Lori’s troubles makes me feel guilty though, and I feel my heart give a tug when it occurs to me that she spent weeks with me without feeling any of it. Somehow, I am responsible for that too. I just know it.

“Hey, guys. Mom said to tell y’all she’s making ribs gumbo for dinner and you need to go get your girls and that grandbaby of hers,” she laughs, seeing Jake’s eyes sparkle with love.

“God, I love your mom, man. My mom never gave me shit. And she hasn’t seen Franco but for that one time we took him to meet her.”

“That’s cause your mom’s an idiot who can’t love anyone but herself. My ma is golden,” Lynx drawls, getting a hear, hear!

We split up and make our way into the house just as the sun starts lowering slowly, and I realize we’ve been out there talking for hours. I feel good though and even manage a smile for Ma before going up to shower and change, my mind clear of anything but the coming days and my seduction of Lori.