Fifty-Nine
His patience was wearing thin.
He didn't even know what he thought he could gain from sticking around. He couldn't fucking stand Stella and her obvious lust for power, and Alyssa wasn't much better with her incessant whining about her husband. He didn't give two shits about any of them. His only connection to this place had been well and truly severed. The brother he'd never managed to be truly close to was dead and gone, any chance of reconciliation ripped away.
Theirs had always been a complex relationship, ever since they were kids. He didn't like to admit, even to himself, that he had always secretly longed for that approval. The needy little brother dismissed by his indifferent elder sibling. But even as that inner desire to be closer persisted, being made to feel irrelevant actually only made that festering resentment grow.
He was the one with the good job, the comfortable life, money, respect, status – why the hell should he care what that deadbeat thought? Running with some half-assed gang of wannabe bikers, nothing more than a common fucking criminal … And not even a very good one.
Shane's jaw clenched, his grip on his phone tightening involuntarily.
No wonder Mack had ended up dead. His own sheer recklessness and incompetence had probably made it all but inevitable.
His was still his brother though. His flesh and blood.
He couldn't let his murder lie.
Trying to control his racing mind, he focused his attention back on the screen, his thumb flicking through images in a bid to let them fill his thoughts and push aside those of his brother's body in a pool of blood.
Smiling faces stared back at him from the screen, one in particular recurring over and over. He knew every detail of that face, that body. Intimately. He remembered vividly how it felt to have that soft skin under his hands, to trace over it with his fingertips, his lips, his tongue.
He could practically taste her just thinking about it.
He loathed social media himself, dismissing it as a vacuous waste of time – a vanity project he had no interest in participating in. Curiosity had got the better of him though, and her privacy settings posed little obstacle. Once his mind was made up that he wanted to gain a window into her new life, it was simple. Just harvest a picture of an old mutual college acquaintance who also didn't seem to buy into cultivating much of an online presence, from some small-town online news article about charity fundraising or shit like that, create a profile, send the follow request, and then wait.
Boom. Barely twenty-four hours later, an acceptance, a casual message from her with vague long-time-no-see pleasantries, and that was it. It probably never crossed her mind again, but there it was laid out before him – her life without him.
She didn't post a lot, but had clearly had the account a long time. It irked him to see there was no trace of their previous connection, deep as it had run. He had never paid attention to what she posted online while they were together, but he had to assume there would once have been at least some evidence of their relationship. That she could erase it just like that, as if it had never happened, rankled at him.
But it was the more recent photos that he'd taken to pouring over, as if searching for some sign, though of what he was unsure. The pictures of her posing happily with her brother at the opening of his new gym was like salt in his wounds. Their closeness had always been something he felt resentful of. Threatened by even.
And that picture of her with some attractive blonde woman …
He couldn't deny the flare of lust, even as it made him furious to think of her going out dressed like that. On someone else, the skimpy gold dress would probably have looked trashy as hell, but she did pull it off, he had to admit. Still, he hated to think of the attention it would draw, the message it would send. She looked like every man's wet dream. She didn't need to do that. Didn't need to dress like a slut to get noticed.
Not when she had his full and undivided attention, if only she would acknowledge it.
That fucking dress. His licked his dry lips as he stared at her staring back at him from the screen. The shimmering sequins barely covered her ass, exposing firm thighs, long legs that seemed to go on forever. The daring neckline plunged between her breasts, a path his tongue had been denied access to for far too long, and he shifted uncomfortably as he leaned back against the pillows and let his imagination take over.
His hand would never make up for the feel of hers, but it tightened around his stiffening cock all the same. How he'd relish that moment she would free him from his boxers and take him in her mouth. Not so damn innocent when she was happily sucking him off, or letting him take her from behind on the floor of his apartment like a bitch in heat, the carpet burning her knees.
That conflict always surged within him though.
He couldn't resist her like that, naked and willing, her wet cunt gripping his cock like a vise, her soft moans and skin meeting skin all he could hear – that and his heart hammering in his chest and in his ears – making him thrust harder and deeper, spurring him on until they were both breathless and covered in sweat and the growing ache low in his belly and groin would build and build and build …
"F-Fuck …" he ground out, biting his lip as he tried to draw this out, slowing the fist pumping the length of his erect cock, only for his hips to take over, bucking into his hand and seeking that friction as if by instinct.
His eyes had drifted closed, but he forced them open again and focused on the latest picture – laugher on that smiling face, sunglasses pushed up into her hair, the fullness of her tits on display in a simple bikini. He imagined pulling those thin straps down her lightly tanned shoulders, her hand stroking him instead of his as he got his mouth on her dusky nipples, licking, suckling, biting.
In his mind, his brewing climax would mark her as his, sending his hot cum spurting over the toned stomach that may have been cut off in the picture but was there when he closed his eyes, right down to that dumb little tattoo on her ribs. He hated tattoos, especially on women. Thought they looked cheap. But that was okay, he could overlook one little flaw, when she was otherwise perfect. He'd say one thing for her relationship with that damn brother of hers – his career had resulted in her always keeping in great shape. Those pert tits, that flat stomach and tight ass … She always looked good on his arm. Why the hell would she give up the chance to get back everything they had?
He pushed that thought out of his mind, letting his eyes close again so he could concentrate enough to almost feel her, his grip tightening as he stroked himself harder, lost in memories of thrusting inside her, fucking her over and over in their bed, wanting to hear her moan his name again. Because, as far as he was concerned, she was and always would be one thing. His.
"Oh fuuuck," he groaned, his head falling back against the pillows as his whole body tensed, his balls tightening almost painfully, and he finally came hard in his hand and over his own stomach, her name dragged from his lips. "Fuck, Eden …"
His breathing was still ragged when he glanced back at the phone still gripped in his other hand, even as it lay limp on top of the covers of the bed. A new post, one that quickly made his jaw clench and his eyes widen. Because now he knew exactly where she was.
Just not who the fuck that was with her.
"Chibs won't think it's disrespectful," Eden laughed. "And if he does, I'll be cross with him. I can hug my friends. I can definitely hug my little brother."
"I'm still just a prospect protecting the president's old lady though," Charlie said anxiously. "There are rules, Eden. It's a club thing. If I wasn't a prospect, maybe it'd be different, but …"
"Ugh, fine," she sighed, her finger hovering over the delete button before finally pressing it and then holding up her phone so he could see. "See? Gone. I still think you worry too much. It was just a nice shot of us having a laugh in the sun, no big deal."
"Sorry," the young man offered sheepishly, raking a hand through his surf-tousled mop of hair. "Maybe I'm being dumb."
"Well, yes," Eden shrugged, with a little smile. "But I suppose I get it. It's fine, Charlie. I'm keeping the picture though – it's a nice one."
"Okay," he relented, averting his gaze a little awkwardly. "Uh, hey, do you think it would be okay if maybe you could send it to me? I don't have a lot of pictures of family and stuff and-"
"Oh, Charlie, of course! And do you know what? We can take lots of pictures and make a whole album – some of our trip, some back home. It'll be great!"
"That would be cool," he nodded, before a thought struck him. "Chibs won't kill me if he sees this on my phone, will he?"
"No, Charlie, he won't," Eden sighed patiently. "It's just an innocent picture. No harm done, I promise."
Was he the reason she wouldn't respond to his calls, his messages?
He'd been stunned to finally get a strange tone on the other end of the line and a mechanical voice telling him the number was no longer in use. He'd been convinced she just needed time, that she would see sense in the end and give him another chance.
Her reaction to how he'd handled things had been hysterical, she was bound to see that now that it had all blown over and she was in the clear. If anything, he'd done her a favour really. How would it have looked for her to be planning a damn wedding when she had the death of a child hanging over her head?
And in all the confusion, if he'd sought solace in the bed of that doe-eyed little nurse who'd been lusting after him for months, who could blame him? He'd had more than enough pressure on his shoulders trying to impress his bosses without adding Eden's drama into the equation. He was only fucking human.
He was prepared to let her feel like he had been the bad guy, if only she'd let him make amends. And couldn't she see how that would help her? By his side, as his wife, all that unpleasant business could truly be left behind. They could start afresh, build the lives they'd always dreamed of together.
So who the fuck was this guy spending time with her at her mom's, of all fucking places?
He looked too young for her for a start, like he could be in some godawful boyband, but there could be no denying the bright smiles on both their faces as she leaned her head on his shoulder and saluted the camera with her cocktail. That fucking bastard must have thought all his Christmases had come at once, Shane grimaced.
His fists clenched at the thought of them together. Of her in anyone's bed but his. She was his.
He'd make her see that if it was the last thing he did.
A thought occurred to him and he flicked through the images swiftly, looking for any sign of the same guy, any clue as to who he might be. There was nothing obvious though. She'd definitely not been posting much … Then, when he tried to return to the image that had caught him so off-guard, it had gone. Disappeared, just like that.
He froze, wondering what that meant, feeling somehow as if he'd been caught. Did she know that he was watching, that he could see whatever she posted? Did deleting the offending image point to guilt, a sign that she knew she was in the wrong, hurting him like that?
He had so many goddamn questions. Maybe it was time to get some answers.
