Chapter 33: Wolf.e: Chapter 32

I shut the water off as she comes down from the high of her orgasm and the water runs cold over my back. Cracking the shower door, I slip a thick towel around Brinley’s shoulders then wrap one around my own waist.

Brinley’s room is dark and quiet when we enter. She shivers as she sits down on the bed. Picking up my t-shirt, she tosses it over her head and reaches into a drawer, pulling out a pair of panties that look like little shorts. They cover only about a third of her perfect ass, and unbelievably I’m already thinking of taking her again.

“You look dangerous in my shirt.”

“It’s warm and I want to study the ink on your skin without one.”

I raise an eyebrow. “If you’re going to study me, I’m gonna need a drink.”

“All I have is my father’s old bourbon collection. It’s still locked in the cabinet in the den. Two rooms down.”

I nod. I noticed the space earlier but there’s no need to remind her I memorized every step of this place during my search for her.

“He saved it in that dark room for a special occasion and never even opened it,” she says as I make my way out of the room.

“Sad, if you ask me. Waste of a good scotch,” I tell her.

“Agreed,” she says, following.

The den is dark when I enter. I flick on a lamp that sits under a big picture window. It’s an old library of sorts with black out drapes. I pull them back, the moonlight and her vast property fills my sight. There’s an old desk on one wall, it looks antique and expensive, and a wall-to-wall liquor cabinet. Chalked full.

“Key’s in the second drawer.” Brinley enters behind me.

I fish the key out and unlock the cabinet, pulling out a forty-year-old Boralini scotch that must be worth ten thousand dollars.

“I don’t believe in special occasions,” I tell her as I pop the cork and swirl the bottle.

Brinley shoots me a smirk. I don’t think she intends to be sexy, but she is. She has this whole freshly fucked glow about her. Her hair is still damp and her face is free of any makeup. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on, and she doesn’t even realize it.

“Neither do I, so… bottoms up?” she asks, making her way to an open shelf and grabbing two crystal glasses down.

I tip it back, drinking it straight from the bottle in a twelve-ounce curl.

“My dad is probably rolling over in his grave.” She giggles as she watches me swallow.

Fuck me, that’s good.

“What happened to them?” I sit in a leather chair in front of an old stone fireplace, genuinely curious and still surprised I care. She sits in the one across from mine and we face each other at arm’s length.

“My dad died when I was eighteen, I’d just left for college. He went to work that morning—he was a lawyer,” she tells me. “Although, you probably know that.”

I shake my head. “Never went further than their names and that they’re no longer alive,” I tell her honestly. “Once I knew they were dead, there was no reason for me to keep learning about them.”

She nods and leans forward to take the bottle. “That makes sense,” she says.

I toy with her for a beat just to see the spark in her eyes. I hold the bottle tight and don’t let her have it for a few seconds. The look of determination I’m starting to crave comes out and I let her have the scotch as a reward.

“He was in the middle of his second meeting of the day and he just died. Massive heart attack. He was only forty-eight,” she says. “I hadn’t seen him in a month, and oddly enough, I didn’t really know him, even though I spent my whole life with him. My mother died two years ago from a short battle with cancer.”

I listen as she speaks because I want to drink in her every expression. The way the light reflects off her silky skin, the wave that takes hold of her hair as it dries. Her lips moving as she talks—every single part of her is perfection.

“He always wanted me to be something he wasn’t able to be growing up. He sent me to the best schools, I sang with the worship team at our church.” She grins “That’s where I met Lay.”

I grab the bottle back from her and take another big swig.

“And now look at you, here with me, and she’s married to my Sgt at Arms.”

“But where did that wholesome life get either of my parents?” Brinley asks as she pulls the bottle from me. “Both dead before they were fifty-five? A boring marriage. I never even saw them have a single affectionate moment. They had their dinner parties and school events and social status. Their country club, church life. They had all this”—she waves a hand around the stately room—“but they had nothing. I didn’t know them, and they didn’t know me. They thought they knew who I was and vice versa, but I learned more about them going through their things when they died than I ever did while they were living,” she says, handing me the bottle back.

I reach out to pull it from her but wrap my hand around hers at the same time pulling her forward, she comes with it into my lap. I slide a hand up her thigh and it wakes my cock where she rests against me. I struggle as I watch her, fighting the urge to get used to her when I know where my club life could lead her.

I’ve always heard of an instant connection, the immediate, unspeakable draw to someone. Fucking Ax talks about it all the time. I just never in a million years thought I’d experience it.

I take a sip as Brinley trails a finger down my bare chest over the ink, her eyes focus taking it in. The lyrics and quotes mixed with vines and the club insignia, a reaper in chains, numbers, and phrases that remind me of my time overseas, my mother, men I’ve known that have died. It’s an eclectic blend. When you’re covering most of your skin, you have room to be creative.

“Are these bullet holes?” she asks as her finger runs over the raised skin.

“Yes.” I take another drink.

“From your time as a marine?”

“One of them, yes,” I answer.

She nods but doesn’t question the other and takes the bottle from me and I wonder what it takes for her to get good and drunk. This scotch is potent—my guess is not much.

“Were you afraid when you went overseas?”

I keep my gaze on her while I take my sip.

“Mason said you went three times,” Brinley admits with a shrug while she fluffs her long hair around her shoulders.

“No, I wasn’t scared,” I answer.

“Not at all?”

“No. There’s no point in being afraid. It doesn’t change the outcome,” I say simply. “Everything dies.”

‘That’s not true,” she says, a coy little smile lining her face.

I study her for a beat.

“Everything dies,” I reiterate.

“Love doesn’t,” she says with a wistful little grin.

I make a pfft kind of sound and run a hand through my hair.

“This is real life, not the writings of Fitzgerald.” My brow knots as I watch the way her blue eyes hold the lamplight.

“You read those classics?”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t believe in love? Fate?”

“They aren’t real. I’ve studied how the mind works for a long time.” I twist a piece of Brinley’s hair between my fingers, and she moves against me, her ass taunting my cock to go again. “They’re what we use to give ourselves false hope that true happiness actually exists. As long as you understand it isn’t reality, you can still enjoy them.”

Brinley smiles. “Do you not have faith in anything at all? That someone is watching over you?” she asks, running a finger around the scar I earned on my ribs when a fence ripped me open in Iraq.

I look up at her and run a hand through my hair.

“I have no faith in anything but myself,” I say.

“That’s a grim existence,” she comments, her words starting to string together a little. She shifts her weight in my lap and her ass offers my cock a hit of friction. Having her in my lap is so foreign to me. I’ve fucked a lot of women, so many that I’ve lost count, but human connection is something that feels new. Brinley continues to run her finger over the swirls in the vines on my skin, I don’t hate it.

“When I was thick in the middle of my second tour, I got trapped in a cave filled to my waist with water. There were ten of us. We were heading to capture an operative for an ISIS leader,” I tell her, watching her fingers skim my skin. “It was a trap and there were landmines under the water. Six of my men died. I thought I was dead. I carried a nineteen-year-old boy out on my shoulder. We left part of his legs in the cave. I still hear his screams every fucking day. I watched small children scream in horror as they watched their parents die, I stopped countless women from being raped—by both fucked up American soldiers and their own people. I watched a five-year-old girl have her arm and leg blown off at the hands of a car bomber. Yet pedophiles and murderers rot in jail cells until they’re ninety when there are many more fitting ways they could be made to suffer. There is no God. There is no reason for anything. People die every day and life just goes on.”

Brinley looks at me with a scrutiny I don’t understand, it’s not a judging glance but the look of a woman trying to understand who I am.

“Is that why your cut says Solider of Bedlam? It’s the military men that wear that?” she asks.

“No, you earn that a different way,” I tell her, not offering any more explanation.

She must sense I’m not willing to talk about it because she changes the subject.

“You must have faith in your country if you fought for it.”

I take another drink; this conversation is getting a little too heavy.

“I don’t have faith in my country, I care greatly about it, there’s a difference.”

“One isn’t the other?” Brinley asks, taking another sip.

“Not even close,” I tell her

“Everyone has faith in something.” She says nothing else as I watch a rosy glow creep over her cheeks.

“Enough liquor, you’ll be sick,” I tell her. “It’s old, it’ll hit you all at once.”

Miraculously, she listens and hands me back the now half empty bottle.

“You were saying you have no faith…” She smirks.

“So many died. So many fought. Gave this government their all. Only to come home to nothing. No help, permanently damaged—either mentally or physically, most of the time, both. Their government was nowhere to be found. They turned to drugs.” I hesitate then add, “It’s why we do what we do.”

“Which is?” she asks and for some reason I’ll never understand, I tell her.

“We help the addicts. The forgotten people. People don’t realize the government helps cartels bring the drugs into this country, they create the addicts. They don’t make it easy for people to get sober. They actually provide help for them to stay addicts. We fund clinics, and we help bring in the medications they need to help people get clean. Cheaper drugs for them means they can help more people get clean.”

“Black market drugs?” Brinley asks. Smart girl. I remind myself, as crazy as it seems, I’ve only known this woman a week and a half. I look at her, still hesitant.

“I watched you murder a man,” she scoffs. “I know where he’s buried. I’m dead either way if I say anything, so what difference does it make if you tell me?” she asks with a cocky little tipsy grin.

I take my final swig. I lift her warm body off me and set her in the other chair then re-cork the bottle before I place it back in the cabinet and lock it.

“Yes, black market drugs. Methadone mostly, we supply it at a heavily discount price, it makes it more affordable for the clinics. The more they can get, the more people they can help. We also help bring in more addiction services counselors. We’ve helped fund and open four clinics in Atlanta this year alone, in the hardest hit neighborhoods. DOS doesn’t like our business. Less addicts on the street, more watchful eyes on their corners equals less profits for them.” I look out the window at the nothingness of her yard.

“There are a lot of soldiers turned addicts, chasing away the demons they adopted through the shit they were forced to endure.” I shrug. “It’s the only way I feel like I can help.”

“I’ve never thought about doing something illegal for the greater good. Growing up, things were always black and white. Wrong was wrong and right was right.” Brinley watches me, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“And now, how do you feel?” I ask, genuinely interested in her vision of me.

She rises and comes toward me, wrapping her arms around my waist, she reaches up on her tip toes and kisses the scruff of my jaw.

“Humbled. Mistaken.” she answers honestly, and a weird twisting feeling settles in my chest.

“Then you understand why I do what I do?” I ask, wondering why the fuck I care what she thinks.

Brinley nods. “I think so. You’re kind of like a scarier version of Robin Hood?” she asks with a little smirk.

I detach her arms from my waist and head to her bedroom. She follows silently on bare feet behind me.

“I have very selfish interests in this business. It pays really fuckin’ well, but if I can help people that need it, I will,” I say simply as I push her door open and turn on the lamp beside her bed.

“Does it ever bother you? Doing what you do illegally?” she asks.

“No. There’s no better way.” I grin. “And I may care about my country, but I fucking hate the government. I sleep just fine at night, little hummingbird, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Brinley yawns and crawls up into her bed. I stare down, watching her tuck herself in as she pulls off my shirt and looks at me, assuming I’ll follow her almost naked body into bed. The weight of both her beauty and her expectation of whatever this is, hits me and I’m not prepared for it. It settles like a rock in my chest.

I freeze at the side of her bed as the vision of the last woman I thought I could protect floods my mind. The way she looked while the life drained from her eyes.

I sober right the fuck up. I don’t care about people for a reason. My world isn’t the type that supports whatever is happening between us. I don’t know what it is, but I know I’m not Ax, I’m not some lovesick fucking goon, and I’ve just told a woman I don’t really know way too much about my business. Just like I warn my men, I’m letting pussy cloud my judgement.

I pick my shirt up off her bed and toss it on over my head and see the look in her eye, the one that questions if I’m just going to leave her here. If I was a good man I wouldn’t, but I’m not.

“Remember to be smart, little bird. Remember whether I’m with you every second or not, I still own you,” is the only warning I offer her before turning to head down the stairs.

I pull the front door shut and step out into the night. I press the lock button on the keypad and don’t look back.

Right now, I need the clarity that only an intense session with my heavy bag and some target practice can offer me.