Chapter 1

“He’s here.”

Lucas Whalen exhaled a thick plume of smoke and stabbed his cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray on the table in front of him. He gave a barely perceptible nod of his head, and the doors were flung wide, granting admittance to three men, two of whom were dragging in the third.

Lucas rose to his feet and tugged the black leather kutte over his shoulders. There were two patches on the worn old vest that set his apart from the rest of the members of the Iron Banshees Motorcycle Club: the most important in this particular moment was the one that read “Vice President”.

“Where do you want him, Lucky?” Asked Fitz, his Sergeant at Arms, essentially his right-hand man. Flanking their new guest was a prospect, much more brawn than brain, much more bite than bark.

“He can have a seat,” Lucas said, crossing his arms over the broad expanse of his chest. He regarded the man with cool curiosity as he was deposited, rather unceremoniously, into a chair in front of Lucas. The man had been roughed up a little—nothing too extreme, but at the first opportunity he got, he leaned forward and spat blood onto the concrete floor at his feet. “Oliver Flynn,” said Lucas, steadying himself a few feet in front of the man, “Our paths finally cross.”

“Would that it were under more fortuitous circumstances.” Oliver’s manner of speech had the gentle lilt of a person who was born in Ireland, but raised in the states, a mere shadow of his father’s more aggressive brogue. And his father was precisely why young Oliver was sitting in that seat to begin with.

“Yeah,” Lucas agreed, shifting his weight to fall into an easy lean against the table at his side. “I know this isn’t exactly your fight.”

“But I’m here to clean it up anyway, aren’t I?”

Lucas looked past Oliver and glanced between Fitz and the Prospect, a cant of his chin indicating that he wished to be left alone with their guest. The two men obliged, and a little of the electricity went out of the air with them. Oliver relaxed against the back of the chair into which he’d been deposited.

“Sins of the father, and all that,” Lucas grimly intoned, fishing a half-crushed pack of Camels from the back pocket of his jeans.

“Aye,” Oliver agreed, leaning forward so that his elbows rested on his knees. “How is old Pete, anyway?”

“He’s stable, I think. Took one’a those bullets in the chest, collapsed a lung. So he’s on a ventilator, in and out of consciousness. But it looks like me might pull through.” Lucas placed the cigarette between his lips and plucked a tarnished silver zippo from the pocket of his kutte. He lit the cigarette, inhaled, exhaled. “And that is very good news for you and your old man.”

“Why don’t you just take your pound of flesh and be done with it?” Oliver had expected the Banshees to come for him, as soon as he’d gotten wind of the attack on Old Pete Harrington, Lucas’s father-in-law, and the President of the Iron Banshees Motorcycle Club. He’d been perturbed, but not exactly surprised, to learn that the perpetrator of the attack had been his own father, Tommy Flynn. Not that he’d deign to bash Old Pete’s skull in himself, no: had one of his ex-IRA cronies do it, no doubt. Tommy Flynn insisted that he was absolutely not part of an organized crime ring. But when push came to shove, they seemed pretty organized to Oliver.

“I’m not here to rough you up, Oliver,” Lucas said, “I’m not gonna kill you. I’m not gonna lay a finger on you.”

Oliver quirked a brow in question. “What d’ya want with me, then?”

“What do you know about Tommy Flynn’s attack on my father?”

Oliver shrugged and leaned back in the metal folding chair. “Next to nothing. Don’t know if you heard, but my Da an’ me, we aren’t exactly…close.” To put it mildly.

“The Banshees run a bit of a…. an underground competition, shall we say, where we pitch two men—fine athletes—against each other for sport. Then, our guests are free to place wagers on the fighters.”

“Spit shine a turd, it’s still shit,” Oliver said with a grin, which Lucas immediately mirrored.

“Yeah, it’s cage fighting. Bloody, brutal shit, but turns a good profit. So, your father was a regular around the ring. Lost a lot of his own money, lost a lot of other people’s money. He knew we were gonna come after him for what he owed, knew that he was facing a truly savage beatdown, and tried to disband our entire organization in one fell swoop, rather than pay what he owed, or take what was coming to him.”

“Yeah. Sounds like my Da.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“Not a clue. I imagine he high-tailed it across the pond as soon as he heard Old Pete was still breathing.” Tommy Flynn’s connections to the crime syndicates in Ireland ran deep. Oliver guessed he’d have rather an easy time of hiding out there forever if he needed to. But someone had to pay; someone always had to pay.

“That’s what we figured.” Lucas tapped the end of his cigarette and let the ash scatter over the blood on the concrete floor at their feet. “So that’s where you come in.”

“Listen, Lucas, if I had the kinda money Tommy owes, I’d just give it to you. But I don’t.”

“I know, man,” Lucas said, and his green eyes softened. Oliver found himself realizing that he actually kind of liked this crazy son of a bitch. “So we’re gonna take it from you in trade.”

“Trade?” Oliver worked construction. He wondered if Lucas Whalen needed any walls demolished.

“Yeah,” he said. “How good are you in a fight?”

~ * ~

I swore I would never return to Hollybrook, swore my son wouldn’t grow up with the constant threat of violence hanging over his head, as I had. I swore left and right that I would protect him from that world and clawed my way up and out of it, swearing, swearing I would never come back.

But when my mother called me in the middle of the night, her voice tremulous with fear and rage, how could I refuse her?

“Mama, what happened?” I asked, propping myself up on my elbow, still hazy with sleep.

“Your father was attacked,” she said, and I could hear her struggling to keep the tears at bay.

“What?” I snapped to, immediately awake, and switched on the bedside lamp. “Where is he now?”

“He’s in surgery,” she said, and took in three deep breaths before continuing. “I can’t get ahold of your brother, and I’m all alone here, and I can’t—” There was a crack in her voice, and I was already out of the bed and fishing my ratty old suitcase out of the closet.

“Mama, I’m on my way, ok? I’m coming now. I can be there in six hours.”

I packed quickly, deciding to bring almost all of the clothing I owned, since I had no idea how long I’d be staying in Hollybrook, how long my father’s recovery would take—if he recovered at all. I paused by the vanity mirror and gazed at my reflection: rested, healthy, the three years I’d spent away from my hometown had done wonders for me. My hair was ink black and lustrous, without the streaks of neon pinks and purples of my misspent youth. My eyes were bright and clear, a limpid blue that was free of bloodshot vines, something I could not have boasted as recently as two years ago. My skin was pale and milky, unblemished by bruises, scrapes, scabs, burns. Sure, I’d put on some weight after Jamie was born, but I thought I wore it well, in my breasts, hips and ass, though I’d long ago given up on the dream of ever fitting into my skinny pre-pregnancy jeans.

I packed all of Jamie’s things as well, toys, clothes and all, and loaded up our well-loved pickup before rousing him from his slumber.

He stared up at me with sleepy blue eyes, his blond hair sticking up in all directions, and reached for me. I hoisted him up into my arms and rocked him gently.

“We’re going to visit grandma and grandpa,” I whispered as I pressed a kiss to the crown of his head. But he was already asleep again by the time I strapped him into the car seat.

I drove through the rest of the night and into the morning, arriving in Hollybrook at a little after ten. I cut through the familiar streets, past the strip mall where I’d spent most of my free teenage hours, up by the high school where I’d been entirely passed over for homecoming queen, and through the town’s main thoroughfare, directly to St. Agnus Hospital.

With Jamie in my arms, and my purse slung over my shoulder, I pushed my way through the small crowd of nurses and orderlies, to the waiting area of the ICU. I saw my mom’s small, grey head resting on a set of large shoulders, clad in black leather. I stopped dead in my tracks, staring at the back of this familiar head. I knew for certain that I would see Lucas Whalen when I was in town, but I hadn’t expected it to be so soon. I found myself wishing I’d taken a moment to glimpse myself in the rearview mirror, maybe bother to put on a little lip gloss. But it was too late, because Jamie began to squirm and make small, baby noises in my arms, and the sound immediately caught his attention.

He turned, jostling my mother as he did so, and they both looked back at me.

“Oh, Harper,” my mom said, rising to her feet and coming immediately over to me, wrapping her arms around me and her grandson at the same time. “I’m so glad you came.”

“Of course I came, Mama,” I said, and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Any news?”

She shook her head. “He’s not out of surgery yet.”

Lucas rose then, uncoiling to his full, considerable height, and was approaching, a pair of bright emerald eyes darting between me and Jamie. They had the same flaxen hair, like fresh hewn corn, though Lucas’s was short and well kept, and Jamie’s was a mass of curls and tangles.

“Lucas just came to sit with me a while,” my mother said, by way of explanation. I proffered a thin-lipped smile. Lucas wore no discernible expression that I could read, simply locked those cat eyes on me like he was afraid I might disappear at any moment. And I might.

“You look good, Harper,” he said, his voice low and rough from too many cigarettes. “Christ,” he reached out for Jamie and took him into his arms. “He got so big.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, rubbing Jamie’s back as Lucas cradled him. Seeing Lucas hold Jamie, my heart dropped into the pit of my stomach. And whether it was the exhaustion or the stress from the drive, I couldn’t say, but tears began to well in my eyes. Lucas looked good holding our son. “He looks more and more like you every single day.”

“Poor kid got my hair,” he said, smiling. “Hey buddy.” He kissed Jamie’s cheek, and Jamie smiled in a vague sort of way that indicated he didn’t exactly know who this strange man, his father, was, but he didn’t altogether mind the attention. Jamie wiped absently at his cheek where his father’s lips had touched him, and it made Lucas laugh.

“How have you been, Lucky?” I asked, trying to avert my attention from the flood of emotion I was feeling at seeing him again. It was stupid, I reasoned, just leftover nostalgic nonsense from a past life. It didn’t mean anything.

“Seen better days,” he said, “what with all this shit with old Pete. I’m sorry, by the way.”

I arched a shoulder in a shrug. “I knew this life had consequences, and so did he.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s why we left,” I said, looking him directly in the eye. I wasn’t exactly the kind of girl to pull any punches. “Because I didn’t need my son to see his father kill himself.”

“First of all, he’s our son, not just your son. And secondly, I would never kill myself, but plenty of people would line up to do it for me.”

“And that is precisely my point.” Jamie began to fuss, and Lucas set him down on the linoleum floor so that he could run into my mother’s open arms. I watched her rock him gently from side to side, humming the same little nameless tune she hummed to me when I was small.

“I don’t want to argue about this, Harper,” he said, rather more sternly than I thought was strictly necessary. “You made your choice—I have no intention of trying to change your mind.”

“Well. Good.”

“But,” He said, pointing one long finger at me, “I do think it’s been too long between visits, too long between phone calls, or even a goddamned e-mail with a new picture.” His voice was raised, agitated. “I’m his father, whether you like it or not.”

“Don’t yell at me, Lucas, not right now.” He took in a deep breath, as though he were going to pick a fight, but something he saw in me stopped him, and all the air went out of him. He dropped his hand so it smacked against his leg.

“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He pulled me into his arms then, and I stiffened at his touch. But when I laid my cheek against his chest, all the fight went out of me and I relaxed into him, breathing in his familiar scent: sweat and sage, cigarettes and leather. I hadn’t left him for lack of love, not even close.

He rested his chin on the top of my head and hugged me like he didn’t care if we stayed like that all day long. “Come on,” he finally said, “Angie’s got Jamie. Let’s go get a cup of shitty hospital coffee.”

How easy it was to be back in his company. Too easy. In fact, it put me on alert, how natural it felt to walk in step beside him, with his loping gate that belied an old injury to his left knee. He’d fallen off his bike once, went skidding across an intersection, and his slight limp was all that remained of that incident. I’d been there, in the same hospital, when he’d come out of surgery, bleary and good-humored. He had taken my hand, and the heart monitor had picked up its pace when he touched me. “That machine,” he’d slurred, “is telling you how much I love you.” He’d been 18 then, three years before he’d patched into the Iron Banshees, five before I’d gotten pregnant with Jamie, six before I’d left him, and Hollybrook, in the dust.

He guided me to a table in the hospital cafeteria, his hand on the small of my back, and I took a seat while he went to fetch us two Styrofoam cups full of the inky black swill they had the nerve to call coffee. We both drank it anyway, casting furtive smiles at one another over the rising steam.

“So,” he said, breaking the silence, “What have you been doing with yourself lately?”

“Nothing glamorous,” I replied, shrugging. “I work at a diner. I’m trying to finish up nursing school, but I can only really take one class at a time, so it’s taking me a while. I don’t like to leave Jamie on his own too much, and with work…” another shrug. I felt like I had to justify my entire life to this man, since he’d offered me one on a silver platter and I’d left it behind.

“Well, whatever you’re doing, it agrees with you.” He grinned at me then, and I rolled my eyes at his lame attempt at flirtation.

“Well, thanks,” I said. “You look good, too.” And he did, though he needed a shave. I reached out and grazed his stubble with my fingertips, and he caught my hand in his. Something in his demeanor shifted, and he locked his eyes on me with an overwhelming intensity.

“Come back,” he said. I froze for a moment, but ultimately jerked my hand away.

“What?”

“You heard me. Come back. I want you close, and my son.” He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table and reached out for me again. I pulled away.

“You want me close, or you want me back?” I asked, canting my head to the side, a gesture that sent a few locks of black hair into my line of vision. I swept them aside, my gaze never wavering. He was silent. “Or, is there someone else, now?”

“No one serious,” he said. “Come back.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. You can, and you should.” He took a sip from his cup, his knee bouncing rapidly up and down. I watched him fidget, and I could tell he was feeling for a cigarette. “That boy needs a father. And, frankly, a mother who is around a little more often than it sounds like you are.”

“I’m around plenty. We get by just fine, thank you.” And we did. Mostly.

“You don’t need to be away as much as you are. You don’t need to work at a diner—what do you do with the money I send you every month?”

“I put it in a college fund for Jamie.”

“That’s goddamned stupid, Harper,” he said with a shake of his head. “Why won’t you let me take care of you?”

“Because I don’t want your blood money, Lucas.” Now I was the one who was raising my voice. “I left because I don’t want to be a part of the drugs and the guns and the fighting and the violence. I left because I don’t want Jamie to be exposed to that shit. I want a better life for him than the ones we had growing up.”

“We were born into this world, Harper,” he said, his voice free of vitriol but full of a sort of sad resignation. “And, like it or not, so was he. The Banshees? That’s his legacy, too.”

“Fuck the Banshees,” I said, rising to my feet. “The Banshees are why my father is in the ICU, why my brother has done hard time. The Banshees nearly got you killed once, too, in case you don’t remember, and for what? You have legitimate businesses, but that’s not enough for you, is it? Or do you just prefer the thrill of working outside the confines of the law?”

“Harper—”

“No. I don’t care what it is. All I know is that I want no part of it.” He leaned back, a move that dared me to leave before he was finished talking to me. And he wasn’t used to people not towing the line. But I wasn’t his any longer, so I turned on my heel and left him with two tepid cups of bad coffee on the table in front of him.

~ * ~

When afternoon turned into evening, I told my mother that I needed to take Jamie home to sleep, and she agreed, pressing her house keys into my hands even as she resumed her seat in the hospital waiting room.

It was strange to return to my childhood home: I put Jamie down in my old twin bed, and he drifted off without a fuss. Keeping the door cracked so that I might hear any squeal of objection from my son, I began to unpack my sizable bag into the chest of drawers in the guest room.

The room had been redone since I’d last visited and was nicely appointed with a queen-sized brass bed and new forest green velvet drapes that would block all of the sunlight out when drawn. The accompanying bathroom had also been redone, in fine white marble with brass fixtures, a jacuzzi tub and separate steam shower. I decided to take a bath to scrub away the scent of death and peroxide that seemed to permeate my skin from hours spent in a hospital, and turned on the faucet, relaxing immediately upon hearing the sound of running water.

I stripped off the ratty tee shirt and faded jeans I’d worn since I’d driven down, and examined my body in the mirror: Shapely, yes, with full, round breasts and wide hips, but I was perturbed to see that I’d softened somewhat around the middle. Still, I was not altogether displeased with my reflection, and gazed at myself from the side as well, noting how my ass, though sizable, was perky and smooth.

I drew my hair up into a high, messy bun and shed my bra and panties, moaning audibly as I lowered myself into the water. I delighted in the pleasant, tingling sensation of the too-hot bath and leaned back against the ceramic of the tub, dipping lower so only my neck and face were exposed.

There was a dial on the side of the tub, and when I turned it on, the jets around the side began to run, making the bathtub into a bubbling cauldron. I smiled and leaned forward, letting one of the jets shoot water against the small of my back. I shifted, dropping a few lavender bath beads into the water and inhaled deeply, trying my best to put concerns about my father out of my mind.

Instead, my brain turned to thoughts of Lucas, how good he looked, how his limp gave him a sort of swagger. I had been in the habit of forcing him out of my mind, despite the fact that I saw him in my son’s hair and in the gentle slope of his small nose. But now…

I allowed my knees to part, inviting one of the jets to shoot toward my pelvis. Scooting down slightly, the pressure of the water gently massaged my sex, and I was reminded of precisely how long it had been since I’d had a man between my thighs. I slide a hand up over the slope of one breast, past a nipple hardened by the sudden attention to the more sensitive areas of my body, and along the valley of my abdomen. Finally, my finger came to rest on the pith of my clitoris, and I thought of Lucas.

Lucas.

I had been nineteen when I married him, our lust for one another insatiable, even after we found out that I was pregnant. As I rubbed myself into wet arousal, I remembered a particularly hot event from our torrid history. We had been young, too young to drink, but we were at a bar where a punk band was playing. Clad in a torn tee shirt a denim mini skirt, I recalled how Lucas had come up behind me at the bar and slid his hand between my legs.

“Lucas,” I had begun to protest, half turning. But he pressed a kiss to my temple and turned me back toward the bar.

“Look at them,” he growled into my ear. “They’re all looking at the band. No one is looking at you.” He pushed my panties aside and slid a finger into me, thrusting gently to the knuckle. “But they should be.”

I thought of that night as my breathing began to quicken; I thought of how I was always wet for him, always ready for him to take me; I thought of how I’d wanted him to fuck me in the bar that night, not caring whether or not anyone had seen. I moved my hand faster and faster under the water, until I could feel my orgasm begin to build in the pit of my stomach. Lucas, my Lucas—

But then I heard the front door open and close, and snapped out of my reverie. I was flushed from the water and from my fantasy, but I drained the tub and toweled off all the same, donning a terrycloth robe so that I could head down the stairs.

In the living room was my mother, and Lucas.

“Hey,” I said, tugging the robe more tightly around me, “How’d you get in—mom gave me the keys.”

“Yeah, I kept my spare set,” Lucas replied, grinning a lopsided little grin.

“And I’m glad he did, too,” mom said, plucking her clip-on earrings off her ears. “I wasn’t sure whether or not you’d still be awake.”

“Any news on Dad?” I asked, falling into a lean against the doorway. Mom just shook her head, and I noticed for the first time how much she’d aged since I saw her last. She was still beautiful—I had her dark hair, her blue eyes—but there were fine lines around those eyes, and streaks of white in that once onyx-black hair.

“I just came home to take a shower and change my clothes,” she insisted, heading toward the staircase. “I’m turning right back around again.”

“You should get a few hours rest, Angie,” Lucas said. “The doctor agrees with me.”

“I don’t want him to be alone in there,” she said, pausing on the bottom stair but not turning back to look at us. “He shouldn’t be alone.”

“He’s not alone. Fitz and the prospect are with him. And I’ve sent some of the other guys to track down Brian.” My brother, missing in action, as always. I saw my mom bob her head once in a nod as she began to head up the stairs, and I was hoping it was a nod of concession. But that woman was as stubborn as an ox, so she would likely just change and take a cab back to the hospital if she had to.

“Thanks for bringing her home,” I said, not looking Lucas in the eye.

“Let’s get a drink,” he said by way of a reply.

“Lucky…”

“Come on.” He reached out and tucked an errant lock of hair behind my ear, canting his head to the side as he forced me to make eye contact with him.

“Jamie’s asleep, and my mom wants to go back to the hospital.”

“One drink, I promise. I want to show you something.”

~ * ~

It was weird to see Lucas behind the wheel of a pick-up truck, since everyone who knew him was so used to seeing him astride his Harley Davidson Dyna Street Bob, custom finished with matte black paint and two wailing banshees airbrushed on the sides. He even seemed fidgety in the truck, like he didn’t quite know how to sit. He slung his elbow out the window and drove with his right hand. A few times he caught me casting furtive glances in his direction, or perhaps he was simply caught casting furtive glances in mine, and when he pulled into a packed dirt parking lot, he paused when he turned off the ignition.

“Are we…here?” I asked, peering around him to a flashing neon sign on the front of a rather plain-looking brick building: The Golden Harp.

“It’s not…” he hesitated, his gaze locking on mine, “it’s not quite finished yet…? I mean, it is, but it’s…I’m still working on it, and I had hoped I’d have a little more time before showing it to you.”

“What is it…?”

“It’s your bar.”

I furrowed my brow and opened the door to the truck, hopping down and coming around to get a better look at the place. There wasn’t much to see out front: a red brick face, green roof, two large picture windows that depicted a warm, if common, scene. And the neon sign that flashed The Golden Harp in bright yellow.

“What do you mean, ‘my bar’?” I asked, and he placed a gentle hand on the small of my back to urge me forward. He opened the door for me, and we were met by the happy din of a well-served patronage. It was a cozy little dive with low-hanging green glass lamps, a pool table and a couple of dart boards. The room was half full, and boasted considerably more men than women, most of whom wore the same black leather vest that Lucas wore, marking them as members of the Iron Banshees. And that meant I knew most of them as well.

“Harper Grace!” Came a shout, accompanied by a friendly cheer. I smiled, waggling my fingers in greeting to these men that had watched me grow up. These were my father’s friends and colleagues, my brother’s closest compatriots, my husband’s family. Ex. Ex-husband. Or, very nearly ex—all I had to do was file the paperwork.

There was a gin gimlet on the end of the bar for me before I even had the chance to order it, and I couldn’t help but grin as I hopped up onto a bar stool. I sipped happily as the members of the MC came over one by one, pressing kisses to my cheek, clapping me on the shoulder, expressing concern about my father, telling me how good it was to see me home again. Lucas watched them file up, smiling, like he’d found the missing piece to a puzzle, and he could finally see the whole image. For my part, I shrank under the weight of so much attention.

After the commotion had calmed down somewhat, Lucas reached over the bar to help himself to a beer and slid onto the stool beside mine. “This is one of our—how did you put it?—legitimate businesses.” He grinned and took a drink. “I opened it about a year ago, but the deed is in your name.”

“Mine?” I quirked a brow. “Why?”

“You know, just in case anything should happen, I wanted to make sure you and Jamie were taken care of.” He leaned in, peering at me through a forest of thick, yellow lashes, and brushed the back of his knuckles over the flushed skin of my cheek. “I know why you left, and I get it. I do. But I still—”

The back door burst open then, granting admittance to a very large, shirtless man with a deep and bloody laceration over his right eye. And that wasn’t his only injury: his chest bore a number of bruises at various stages of healing, and his left elbow was scabbed over, as though he had been dragged across the floor on it. Even as battered as he was, there was something magnetic about him, as though he commanded the attention of everyone in his immediate vicinity. His hair was a rich mahogany brown, his eyes were the color of a glass of sherry. And I got a good look at him because he was headed straight for us.

“Whalen,” he said, and Lucas turned to look at him.

“Oliver?” Lucas said, rising to his feet. “The hell are you doin’, man?”

“I agreed to fight,” he said, “but no one told me anything about throwing matches.”

“Lucas?” I asked. “What is this?”

“Give me a minute, Harper,” Lucas said, and gripped the man’s arm as he directed him toward the back of the bar. I jumped off of my seat and followed. The three of us escaped into the back room of the bar, which was essentially just cold concrete and a folding card table and metal chairs. A naked bulb hung from the ceiling and cast a sort of sickly yellow glow over everything. The man—Oliver—wiped at the blood on his face and his hand came away red.

“What the hell is this about, Oliver?” Lucas demanded, his arms crossed in front of him. “You can’t just come barging into a place of business and start screaming about this shit.”

“I agreed to pay off Tommy Flynn’s debt. But I’m not here to let some half-wit beat on me. You want me in that ring, I fight until I can’t stand up anymore.” Oliver glanced at me, then, registering my presence of the first time.

“You do what I tell you to do,” Lucas insisted. “If Fitz says throw a fight, you throw it. In fact, if any of the banshees tell you to throw a fight, you fucking throw it. Understand? You’re here to pay off a debt, nothing more, nothing less.”

“I won’t do it. You’ll have to fuckin’ kill me.” He wiped at the blood again, and I gave a shake of my head.

“Don’t be stupid,” I said. I couldn’t help myself. If looks could kill, the one Lucas shot at me would have knocked me dead. “Throw it if they tell you to throw it. Because they will kill you.” I knew they would. I’d seen it. “And that cut is gonna need stitches.”

“We don’t have time to get him stitched up, he’s got another fight in half an hour,” Lucas said, pacing the length of the small room.

“Do you have a first aid kit?” I asked, rolling up the sleeves of my sweatshirt. Lucas bobbed his head in a nod. “Well, go get it for me.”

He hesitated, but ultimately excused himself, and I was alone with the bleeding, shirtless brute. “Sit down,” I said, and he complied, dumping himself onto one of the folding chairs like an old sack of potatoes. I bent forward and peered intently at his face, assessing the damage. It was deep and had hit a major vein in his forehead. He must have been feeling lightheaded, from all the blood he’d lost.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” He asked, and I noted the gentle lilt to his manner of speech.

“Harper,” I said. “And don’t call me sweetheart.”

“I’m Oliver. What’s a nice girl like you doin’ in a place like this?” I rolled my eyes, tugging down one of my sweatshirt sleeves and pressing it against his forehead in an attempt to stem the bleeding.

“I’m not such a nice girl. And if you don’t quit being so goddamned smarmy, I’m just gonna let this bleed until you pass out.” He smiled up at me then, a bright, earnest thing that lit up his entire face. I found myself smiling back.

Lucas returned with the first aid kit, and I set to work laying out my supplies on the card table. It looked like he even had a needle and some sutures.

“So you can patch me up, eh, doc?” He asked and I arched one shoulder in a shrug.

“I could, but it’ll leave one hell of a scar. I’m no plastic surgeon.”

“Leave a scar. Women like scars.”

“Do they?”

I tugged my sweatshirt off over my head, wiping gently at his forehead with the previously unsoiled sleeve, and began to disinfect the area. Oliver winced; I smiled.

“So,” I said, “you can take a beating, but you can’t handle a little hydrogen peroxide?”

“Apparently.” I dried the skin around the cut and examined it closely, trying to ensure that no foreign materials had made their way into the wound. Leaning in that close to him, I could smell the sweat and the subtle pulse of endorphins and adrenaline that radiated from his glistening skin.

“You should come watch me fight some time,” he said as I leaned in with the needle and sutures. “I’m actually quite good.”

“Calm down, champ,” Lucas said, a distinctive edge to his voice. “You’ve only had two fights.”

“Yeah, but they were good fights,” Oliver said, tensing as I pierced his epidermis, as gently and deftly as I could. But the fact of the matter was that I had only ever practiced this move on models, or on pieces of fruit. Not a fact I was going to share with my erstwhile patient.

“The first one was good,” Lucas begrudgingly agreed, “but you were supposed to fucking throw the second one. I don’t think you understand the kind of take we were banking on.”

“You conscripted me to win fights,” Oliver said. “That’s what I’ll do.”

“Stop talking,” I said. “Both of you.”

I worked slowly, but diligently, and after a long stretch of silence between the two men and myself, I tied off the suture, cut its end, and put a bandage over the whole thing. “Have a professional look at that, but it should keep your blood on the inside for the time being.”

“Thanks, love,” Oliver said, and rose to his feet. He was stiff, I could tell, but his muscles rolled and flexed under skin that had almost no fat on it whatsoever. Something about him was magnetic, and I wanted to stay close. Lucas, of course, had other ideas.

“Come on, Harper,” Lucky said, “I’ll take you home.”

~ * ~

Lucas held my bloodied sweatshirt as we headed back to the pick-up truck. I couldn’t help but scoff. “So,” I said, climbing into the passenger’s seat, “my bar is connected to your underground fight club, or whatever.”

“It isn’t a fight club, Harper,” Lucas grumbled, suddenly looking and sounding incredibly tired. He turned on the ignition and headed back toward my mother’s house.

“Well, then what is it? Because it seemed to me like you took me out tonight to try to prove that you’d, like, gone all legit. But it’s just the same old crap with you, isn’t it?” I shook my head and crossed my arms under my breasts, turning away from him to peer out the window as my hometown passed by outside.

“The bar is a legitimate business,” Lucas said. “And it isn’t the club’s only venture. We have a lot in the works.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, Harper. That’s a fucking fact. What, you think we want to be criminals?” I turned to look at him then and could not help but smile a manic sort of smile.

“Yes, Lucas. Yes. That is exactly what I think. I think you want to be criminals—I think you love being criminals.”

“We don’t love being criminals—”

“You do, I can tell. You don’t need the money from your, what even is it? Your cage matches?”

“It’s just underground MMA, that’s all. It’s unregulated, that’s all it means.” He pulled over to the side of the road and looked me square in the eye. “Why do you think we do what we do, huh? Any of the Banshees. Why do you think we do it?”

“Because you were all born into it. Because you don’t know anything else.” I turned away from him and peered out the window into the empty blackness of late evening. The town was small and there wasn’t a lot of light pollution, so from where I was sitting, we could have been the only two people in the universe.

“We do it, Harper,” he murmured mildly, “because there are people we love, who count on us. And, frankly, the legitimate businesses just don’t make us enough money to take care of them all.”

“You mean me and Jamie. You blame me and Jamie for your sordid life of crime.” I glared at him, though whether or not he could see my expression in the darkness was anyone’s guess.

“No, that isn’t…” he sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger as though he had gotten a terrible headache. "I just want to make sure you're taken care of.”

"I told you before, I don't want your blood money. Jamie and I are fine. We've been fine. I can get by.”

"Don't you get it? I don't want you to just get by." He reached for me in the darkness then, he took my hand. I don't know why I didn't pull away, but I didn't; I let him lace his fingers with mine. "I want you to have every goddamn thing in the world.”

I stared at him as my eyes adjusted to the relative darkness, and I could just barely make out his fine Romanesque features. I remembered so clearly what it was like to fall in love with him, like I just fallen in love with him, like our whole lives were still ahead of us. His eyes were green and gold like a nebula, a swirling miasma of constellations. I knew now why I had stayed away so long: to be in his presence was to have all of my senses utterly overwhelmed.

"Come back." I pursed my lips, and gave a shake of my head, but he wasn't listening. He tugged me toward him until he could hook an arm around my waist and draw me fully into his chest. I didn't resist him then—I couldn't. I had used up all of my willpower staying away from him in the first place. Now that I was home, I was his.

"Lucas," he lifted a finger to my lips to silence me. I peered up into those eyes that I loved so well, and he bent his head forward until his lips met mine. His hands came up to my face then, and she cradled it gently as the kiss grew in intensity. My fingers gripped the front of his shirt, and I realized somewhere in the back of my mind, that I had been excited by the bit of violence I witnessed. And what did that say about me? Perhaps there really was no room to judge Lucas. Perhaps, somewhere in the deepest part of myself, I was just like him.

Kissing him felt like coming home. I pulled away ever so briefly to tug my tank top off over my head, and before I even tossed it aside, his hands found my breasts. He cupped them tenderly at first, then, in a burst of brutish force, tore my bra away to expose my hardened nipples to the cool evening air. Leaning down, he took one nipple into his mouth, flicking it gently with his tongue. I moaned and tossed my head back so that my hair tickled the skin between my shoulder blades. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew this was a terrible idea. I knew that being with him in this way would make leaving him all the harder. And leave him I would.

His fingers fumbled then with the button of my jeans, so I reached down to assist him, wriggling free of the tight denim. I kicked my way out of my sneakers and sat on the seat in front of him clad only in my panties while he remained fully clothed. I relished his eyes on me, reveled in the hungry expression he wore on his face, like a jungle cat stalking his prey.

"Spread your legs.” And I don't know what it was that made me obey, but I did as he bid me. When I spread my thighs, he reached forward pushed my panties aside, one finger probing my entrance. "You're already wet for me.”

"Yes. Always." He shoved his finger deep into me then, eliciting a moan from behind my lips. Although it was cramped in the truck, he maneuvered himself on top of me. I could feel the evidence of his arousal pressing against my thigh as one finger, and then two, slid in and out of my wet and swollen sex.

"Do you want me to fuck you?" He kissed me again, his tongue finding mine, exploring the cavern of my mouth. But this was all familiar. Nothing could be more natural then for a wife to lay with her husband, right?

“Yes,” came my breathless reply—I wanted him in a base, animalistic way, and my desire pulsed between my legs. He drew his fingers out of me and licked them clean, humming his delight at my taste. I grinned, abashed, and reached out to undo the button on his jeans and tug the zipper down. He lifted himself off of me then and opened the driver’s side door of the truck, climbing out. I lifted my head to watch him, worried he would put a stop to our entire escapade, but instead he tugged me toward him so that I was laying on the seat underneath the steering wheel, my legs hanging out of the open door. He turned me over so that my face was pressed against the old, worn vinyl of the seat, and I could feel him run his hands up the backs of my thighs. He yanked my panties down over my ass until they slid past my knees, and he forced my legs wider apart so that I was completely exposed to him.

The head of his cock found my slick, waiting opening and he thrust himself into me, filling me up with the full length of his manhood. I let out a cry, and heard him grunt as well, a noise that almost sounded like relief, the kind of sigh that coming home after a long day of work might elicit. I smiled and gripped the seatbelt buckle as he began to buck his hips, pulling out and then plunging himself as deeply into my pussy as he could manage.

“Harder,” I murmured, and he obliged, grabbing my hips and fucking me with fervor. His body slammed against mine, our skin slick with sweat and friction, and he reached forward to curl his fingers around my throat. He squeezed: not enough to cut off my air supply, but enough to show me how fully he possessed me.

All at once, he let out a cry and bent over me so that his forehead came to rest on the back of my shoulder. I could feel his cock throb as he came inside me, and I thrilled at the sensation.

A few sets of headlights passed us, me naked and bent over with Lucas’ softening prick still inside of me. Finally, he pulled away and I could feel his hot come dripping down my thighs.

“I missed you,” he gently intoned, and I stood up and turned around to face him. He picked my clothes up for me from where they’d landed—on the ground, on the steering wheel, on the dashboard—and handed them to me. He leaned forward and kissed me, a sweet, sensuous kiss that said more about how he felt for me than anything else could.

I put my clothes down and hopped up onto the seat. “I’m not done with you yet,” I said, and he smirked as I put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him down to his knees in front of me.

“Someone will see you,” he said as I slung my legs over his shoulders.

“Let them watch,” I replied.

I gasped when his deft little tongue touched my clit and sighed when he penetrated me with two fingers. Even after the years apart, he knew how to work my body, and it wasn’t long before I felt my orgasm begin to build. I opened my eyes and looked down the length of my body to watch him lick my pussy. With his brows raised, he looked up at me, sending a shiver down my spine even as the muscles in my cunt began to contract with my orgasm. I let out a cry and reached down to tangle my fingers in his hair. He carefully withdrew his fingers, pressed a kiss to my pubic mound and stood up again, peering down at me.

“God damn,” he growled appreciatively, and reached up to slide his two dripping wet fingers into my mouth. I licked our juices off of them and felt warm under the blanket of his esteem. “You are so fucking beautiful,” he said.

~ * ~

Dressed and on the road again, we went back to being Lucas and Harper, the separated lovers with the three-year-old son and the complicated history, and we didn’t say much when he pulled into the driveway of my parent’s house.

“Well,” I said lamely, as I opened the door and climbed out of the truck. I left my bloody sweatshirt, deciding I didn’t need to dwell on the bizarre evening after it was over. Except, perhaps, for the moment Lucas and I were joined again.

“I’ll walk you to the door,” he said, and followed me up the cobblestone pathway to the main entrance of the house.

“Thanks for…” I began, and tilted my head to the side, peering up at him, “the orgasm.”

He laughed and drew me into a hug, rocking me gently back and forth. “Any time,” he said. “Really. Truly. Any time.”

When I opened the door to the house, I immediately saw my mother sitting on the stairs in the dim light of the foyer. Lucas peered around me curiously, and stepped into the house behind me, immediately sensing something wasn’t right.

“Mama?” I said, and she looked up at me with blue eyes ringed in red from weeping. “What’s the matter?”

She sniffled and pressed a wadded-up tissue to her nose. “Your father is dead,” was all she could manage to say.

I felt my heart drop into the pit of my stomach, felt the world seize up and freeze around me. I was anchored to nothing; I felt like the earth might shake me loose and I would go flying up into the outer atmosphere. But Lucas took my hand and weighed me back down again, and when I looked at him, I saw my own pain and fear and panic and grief reflected back at me. I had lost my father, yes. But he had lost a friend, a colleague and a father as well. But more than that, the passing of Peter Harrington meant something much bigger for Lucas Whalen: it meant that Lucas was now the President of the Iron Banshees.