Page 6 of Ironside
“You never told me that.”
“Well,” Pepper hedged. “At the time, you were coming to terms with your diagnosis and processing everything. I didn’t want to brag that I’d banged a biker when you were…”
She trailed off, but she didn’t need to finish. I got the picture.
“Pepper, please don’t feel like you have to hide things from me just because of my diagnosis.”
Her eyes softened with sympathy.
“I know. And for the record, I hated keeping it from you. Listen, if you really like Ironside, you should go out with him. Be careful, of course, but have fun. It’s about time you stopped being such a good girl for once and unleashed your wild side a bit more.”
I scoffed with amusement and took a bite of my pizza.
“I don’t have a wild side.”
Pepper cast a coy glance at me.
“The right guy might coax it out of you.”
I went quiet and my smile faltered. Did the right guy even exist? Was I ready to open myself up to Ironside and risk rejection again? What if I told him everything about my diagnosis and my struggle to have sex and he turned me down just like every other guy I’d dated before?
“Hey,” Pepper said softly, pulling me from my thoughts.
I glanced up to meet her gaze.
“You deserve someone who loves and cares for you, Lena,” she said. “Diagnosis and all.”
I leaned my shoulder against hers, grateful for her encouragement and support.
“If he dumps me, will you be waiting on standby to cheer me up with pizza?”
“And dessert, my little porcini,” Pepper replied. “Lots and lots of dessert.”
Chapter three
Ironside
I couldn’t wait to visit The Bellflower again and get back to Lena. That pretty pink blush in her cheeks and the sparkle in her green eyes had taken hold of me to the point that I couldn’t think of anything else except her.
If I just wanted sex, there were a handful of bunnies who regularly drifted in and out of the clubhouse who would happily volunteer. And we had our fair share of good times.
But this was different. This was…
A nagging voice in the back of my mind knew exactly what I was feeling right now. I’d experienced it before, with my ex-fiancee, Denise. The one and only woman I had ever proposed to in my life.
And that went down in flames.
I shook my head, pushing my plate of half-eaten breakfast away. Suddenly, I didn’t have much of an appetite.
Denise had been my world, my everything. Before her, I dated around, but nothing serious. Then we met and it was an instant explosion of chemistry.
I really thought we would be together forever. When I proposed, and she said yes, I saw my future laid out before me so clearly. I could picture it—building a home together, raising a family, growing old side by side. Denise would settle into club life, teasing my brothers like they were her siblings, and wearing my cut withProperty of Ironsideacross the back.
Three months into our engagement, Denise got cold feet.
The next thing I knew, I woke up to find that she left my engagement ring on my nightstand, with a note, explaining that she simply didn’t love me enough to make it work. She packed up and slipped out in the middle of the night. And I never saw her again.
Dumping my breakfast scraps in the garbage, I braced my hands on the sink, blowing out a breath to steady myself.
