Page 5 of Ironside
After a minute or two to recover, I straightened up and inhaled a steadying breath.
“But I can’t—you know—be intimate. So it would be pointless. And if you had seen the way this guy was looking at me, Pepper, you would know it was very obvious sex was on his mind.”
A shiver rippled down my spine when I thought about his breath against my ear and the whiskey-rough grit in his voice when he spoke.
Pepper shook her head. She’d been there for me through thick and thin, ever since we met in our first year of highschool. She was the boisterous extrovert who adopted my quiet, awkward introverted self and solemnly swore that we were best friends for life now.
Years later, our friendship was still solid as a rock.
She knew all about my struggles since my diagnosis. Going through physical therapy for my pelvic floor. Trying—and failing—to loosen up with dilators.
But she was determined to make sure I didn’t give up. I had to keep trying.
“Lena, my darling little porcini,” she said with all the patience in the world. “You have wanted to fall madly in love for as long as I’ve known you. What if this man is The One?”
I wrinkled my nose.
“I still don’t know how I feel about you calling meporcini.”
She waved off my protest.
“Would you like it better if I called youmy darling little tomatoto match that endearing shade of red in your cheeks?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Never mind. I guess I’ll be your little mushroom forever.”
Pepper beamed and slid her chair closer to mine until we were shoulder to shoulder, side by side.
“That’s what I thought. Now, tell me more about your man.”
“He’s not my man.”
“Not yet,” she replied. “What’s his name? What does he do for a living? Is he a doctor? A lawyer? A rich billionaire from the big city?”
I snorted with amusement, plucking a piece of crispy pepperoni off my pizza. I popped it in my mouth.
“His name is Reuben, but he goes by Ironside. And he…actually, I don’t know what he does for a living. But he’s a biker, like your cousin, Luca. They’re in the same club.”
Pepper hummed.
“Interesting. I never would have guessed you might get starry-eyed over a biker. Especially someone from The Reckless Order. A lot of them are on the wrong side of the law, and proud of it. That’s not exactly your type.”
“So, you’re saying I should keep my distance and stay away.”
She shook her head.
“Absolutely not. If I did that, it would make me a hypocrite since I slept with one of them.”
My eyes widened.
“You didwhat?”
Pepper shushed me.
“Don’t broadcast it to the whole damn town, Lena. For God’s sake. It was Saturday night, I had a few drinks, and he was just…delicious. Tattoos, muscles, with a dash of dark and broody vibes. So, we hooked up, but we went our separate ways in the morning.”
I frowned, trying to calculate when this would have happened.
