Patriot Read online

  How we went from where we were to here is nothing short of a miracle. She should hate my guts and be running away.

  But here we are.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and uttered the first words.

  “It was in Ramadi in the last few months of my deployment.”

  Once I got those words out, the rest became a little bit easier. Barely.

  “A couple of weeks prior, a minor skirmish had broken out in Ramadi with the enemy lobbing a couple of grenades in our direction after we hit a small IED. We suffered no casualties and no damage other than some ascetic damage to one of our tanks, but it was very clear that the enemy had intended to do something more. Our commanding officer, when we saw him, was furious.”

  As the memories of such an event came to mind—seeing the CO throw a binder of notes in frustration, pounding the table with his fists—it was so obvious what parts were a sign of what was to come and what parts were genuine. It only added to the frustration and the sort of self-crucifixion I was doing, but with the story started, I would not quit telling it.

  “The CO enacted a plan to launch a counterstrike on a stronghold of the enemy. For a variety of reasons, it felt a little stupid and unnecessary. The enemy made its mark striking at us in these guerrilla-style attacks all the time. If they could have won a traditional war, then we would not have overrun Iraq as quickly as we did. These little skirmishes shouldn’t have distracted us from the main goal But in any case, I was a soldier, and he was the commanding officer. It was not my job to question orders, it was my job to follow them.”

  Left unsaid, of course, was that that was true only once the orders had been finalized. Everyone thought the military was just a guy with buzzed gray hair yelling at guys with buzzed black and blonde hair, but it was much more dynamic than that. Leaders who just yelled and didn’t allow for questions were the type of leaders who didn’t last very long.

  “We rolled out to the site, and... the details don’t matter.”

  That was true. I could have gone into detail about how we intended to strike the base and how many men we had and what sort of assets we had with us, but that would all fly over the head of Kaitlyn. And in any case, it wasn’t why I had PTSD.

  “What does matter is that I was in the rear, and my friends were in the front, and they walked in and got killed.”

  The words came out much more dispassionately than I thought they would have. I guess I was just numb. I guess the incident had hurt me so much that I just didn’t think of it any other way anymore. It just had happened.

  “We eventually evacuated, and by the time we got back...”

  Suddenly, somehow, at this moment, I began to feel emotional. Maybe it was because this was where the parallels between the past and the present were so strong and so ugly. I didn’t know, someone with a therapist’s background could better understand.

  “The CO had been...”

  I shook my head. Kaitlyn placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. I didn’t want to admit that it somehow gave me the strength to keep going, but it did make me feel more supported.

  “He’d been arrested for treason,” I said.

  And with that, my eyes began to water, and the first tears fell.

  “The betrayal shook me to the fucking core,” I said. “I lost my ability to trust at all. My two best friends were among the dead. I lost my faith in the United States military. My CO was eventually put to death, but it didn’t bring back my friends. Nothing will.”

  And now came the part of the story that was probably going to scare Kaitlyn away forever, but there was nothing to be done about that. She’d wanted to know the story? She was going to get every detail.

  “When I returned to my wife, I had lost my faith in faithfulness. I didn’t cheat on her, but I distanced myself from her. I got cold. I got rude. If she said she was going to the grocery store for half an hour, and she showed up thirty-five minutes later, I’d think she was delayed by hooking up with someone at the grocery store. It was all bullshit, of course, but I couldn’t handle it. At first, I kept these thoughts inside, but over time...”

  I shook my head in disgust at myself.

  “I got help, and yeah, it worked a bit, but it was too late. Jennifer divorced me and left me, and I didn’t blame her or feel mad even the day of. Granted, this was years ago, so I’d like to think we’re both in better places now, but I haven’t spoken to her since the day the courts made it official, and I don’t have a desire to.”

  It was like I was back all those years ago, witnessing the judge declare us divorced and Jennifer walking out, barely looking at me—but I got a glimpse enough to see how much hurt I had caused her.

  “And now, here I am,” I said. “I’m able to hide the trauma of that story pretty well, frankly. You probably never guessed it at first. And that’s because I fought like hell to hide it not just from others but from myself. Lane’s my best friend in the whole world right now, and even he doesn’t know the whole story.”

  Finally, the perception of reality and reality itself had merged into one.

  “I don’t want Lane thinking I don’t trust him, because after all these years, after all the hell I’ve been through, I finally feel like I’m in a spot where I can begin to trust again. But...”

  It’s not my place to share club business here. I will not tell Kaitlyn like Lane told Angela. Even if we were married, that’s not my job.

  But, then again, I guess this is just proof that no one but me will ever truly know the whole story—from the day of the initial skirmish up to the present betrayal. This is my burden, my cross, my hardship to carry for the rest of my life. It’s my experience to see my superiors betray me for personal gain.

  Shit, what if Lane is the rat?

  I vigorously shook my head at that notion. That was fucking impossible. Axle was... no. Butch, Father Marcellus, Red Raven, one of the club members...

  Who betrayed you in Ramadi? One of your peers? Or your CO?

  I was starting to fear that I was beginning to lose my mind.

  “Thank you for sharing that with me,” Kaitlyn said. “You want to go home? This place will only make you more stressed. Devon will take care of the wounded, and Lane will handle the rest. Everyone who needs intensive care has got it. No one else will die here tonight.”

  Lane... He could be the fucking spy… If so…

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  But I only agreed to leave because I didn’t feel like I had a firm grasp of reality at the shop.

  Shit, I wasn’t sure I had a firm grasp on anything these days.

  Kaitlyn

  This is the time to do it.

  This is the time to tell your story.

  He shared his. You share yours.

  As I drove my car with Michael in the front seat, recovering from the revelations that he had told me, I was reduced to silence. I didn’t know if that was what was best, but it seemed to be the only thing to keep Michael steady. Still, I worried that the silence was just allowing him to dwell in the darkness of what had happened before.

  If it was true that this was the first time he’d told the story to anyone, then maybe it was a necessity for him to have silence. Maybe this quiet peace that he was having, away from the club, away from the chaos, was what he needed to begin to heal.

  Hell if I knew. I was a nurse, not a shrink. I could help him take meds or know what would be good for an infection, but I wasn’t great at helping him find the answers to his emotional peace. I couldn’t even help myself with that.

  I started to doubt if telling him the story of Kristina and Jason was appropriate. Would it be as if I was trying to steal his thunder and one-up him? Or would it show that I was vulnerable and open?

  I had no idea.

  Amazing how, in the hospital, I could be on top of things and feel like I really, truly understood what my patients needed and what sort of comfort they needed, but as soon as I got out
of that context...

  Maybe that’s why I had scolded Devon so hard. I was being so rude to her to ensure that it made me look really bad if I ever took on this kind of work. It was a weird form of self-protection, or perhaps self-sabotage, to guarantee that I wouldn’t run into the same problem.

  In any case, these thoughts cycled through my head all the way home. When we got to my place, Michael got out without waiting for me and went to my front door, briskly walking there. I guess he just wanted peace, and I expected him to just head straight for the couch.

  He did.

  But he didn’t collapse in exhaustion. He stood stiff and rigid. He looked like he needed a hug.

  I went over, held him in my arms, and pulled him in tight. He did the same to me, and I knew right then that it was the appropriate time to tell him the story. He needed me to hear his story, but I needed him to hear my story. Call it a trade of necessity.

  “I don’t mean to overshadow your story,” I said. “But, there’s something in my past you need to know. Something you need to be aware of to know why I have such doubt and disgust with bikers.”

  And so, just as I had mentally played the story in my head every time I looked at the photos in my room, I replayed the story of Jason and Kristina to Michael. I had to give him credit—he listened closely and with an open mind, just as I hoped that I had. He didn’t suddenly get angry and announce he’d seek vengeance, nor did he seem bored or disinterested in the story. He didn’t seem bothered that I was sharing mine right after his; if anything, he seemed relieved to not be the only one suffering.

  I wasn’t as sad or heartbroken as Michael was in sharing my story, but that was only because I could still do something about it—I could still see Jason suffer the consequences. I didn’t know that I had it in my heart to say that I wanted to see Jason killed, but I could definitely say that if that did happen, I wouldn’t exactly mourn his loss. Not that I’m sure that’ll bring me peace.

  “And so that’s why, whenever you or any of the other Reapers come asking for my help at the hospital, it’s not just an ethical concern, though that certainly plays a part in it,” I said. “It’s because whenever I see any of you as bikers and not as men, I see Jason. I see the man that murdered my sister. When you’re in the hospital bed, I just see a patient. But as soon as you walk out and get on that bike, you’re a murderer to me. Well, almost all of you.”

  I cleared my throat.

  “Somehow, you’re different, Michael. I don’t know how to explain it. By all accounts, you should be the same thing to me. But there’s something about your demeanor and personality that I just knew, even the first time I met you outside the hospital, that you were different. Maybe I’ll be taken for a fool, and I’ll be wrong. But right now?”

  Michael just smiled. He put his hand on mine and folded his fingers into my own. I didn’t fight back—in fact, I welcomed it.

  “Kind of a miracle we’re hanging out, huh?” he said. “We’re two broken people who have all the reason in the world not to trust anyone else, and yet here we are, spending time in your place. In fact, you probably don’t even fully trust me since I asked you to work as a medic. Not saying that accusingly or judgmentally, just stating the fact.”

  I laughed and leaned my head on his shoulder.

  “I have a guarded trust for Michael, the person, and that’s who I see when I’m talking with you. I don’t see Michael the biker, Michael the soldier, or anyone else, and trust me when I say you don’t want me to start seeing that. Because I won’t see you at all if that’s what I have to see.”

  “I guess that’s fair,” he said. “It probably didn’t help matters when you saw one of your friends working with us.”

  Not in the slightest. Devon working for the Black Reapers and potentially working for the Fallen Saints was a dangerous, deadly game. If she was working for two factions that hated each other, then one of them—the Saints, let’s be honest—was going to try and make her pay for balancing her working time.

  That struck some serious fear into me that history could repeat itself.

  “Devon... Devon has always done what she’s wanted,” I said, hoping to keep the conversation light. “If she chose to help you, then I can only hope that you’re paying her a good amount.”

  “We are,” Michael said. “I’ll let you ask her for how much.”

  It didn’t matter to me.

  “So then if you aren’t going to get on our payroll,” he said. “Why did you help?”

  It was a question that wasn’t nearly as complex as Michael might have suspected.

  “I knew someone needed help, and I felt obliged to come and do it as I can,” I said. “It’s the Good Samaritan in me, I suppose. If I see someone that needs help, I’ll give it to them. Doesn’t mean if I get a phone call, I’ll come over immediately. And it doesn’t mean I’m going to stand by my phone every night waiting for someone to call, but if I’m there... why not?”

  I ended my words with a gentle smile that Michael reciprocated. For a brief moment, I considered the need to warn Michael that Devon might have been splitting her time with both clubs.

  But his gaze locked onto me so deeply and so passionately that I knew that there was no saying anything else. The next thing to escape my breath was not going to be a sentence or even any coherent words. It was...

  He leaned forward and started to close his eyes. Was this really happening? Here, now?

  And why did it feel so right?

  The questions ended as I closed my eyes. I knew it felt right. Michael really was different. There was no way I’d be able to articulate why in this current situation, but I knew he was.

  And when his lips gently pressed on mine, and his hands went to my lower back, pulling my body against his, all rational and coherent thought when right out the window. I couldn’t hold back anymore. My desire for him had apparently been much stronger than I had ever let on to myself. Now that the barrier of physical contact like this had fallen, it was like everything else was falling to the wayside.

  I straddled him. I could feel him getting hard through his jeans, his hard cock pressed against my own jeans making me grind my hips into his. Our kissing went from lips to tongue. My hands explored his hard body, going everywhere from his lean but hard shoulders to his firm six-pack to his soft face.

  I wanted all of it. I had all of it. I was going to touch all of it.

  He leaned forward and kissed my neck, and I lost all control. I reached under his shirt and started to claw my hands around his hips, reaching for his member. I didn’t know who was going to make the first bold move, but I had a feeling—

  His hands reached up under my shirt and undid my bra. My breasts free, his hands reached in front and squeezed.

  “Oh, fuck, Michael,” I breathlessly moaned.

  I could no longer help it. I got off him so I could better reach for him and slid my hand under his jeans. What I felt was hard, thick, and long, and I imagined him being inside of me, filling me and making me orgasm.

  Fuck, just the thought of it…

  He breathlessly uttered my name, the very sound heightening my arousal to the point of needing to get off. He pushed forward and pressed me down on the couch, laying me on my back. Now it was his turn for his hand to go under my pants. I felt his fingers crawl forward, massaging my clit before going inside of me. Every “step” of his fingers made me arch my hips and gasp in pleasure. I found his cock inside his pants and began stroking mindlessly, unable to concentrate as Michael pleasured me.

  “Michael, yes...”

  My gasps became stilted as he put two fingers inside of me and curled. I hadn’t thought that the mere act of fingering would work at getting me to climax so quickly, but the passion and the heat of the moment was undeniable. I genuinely could not resist the feeling that I was getting from him. I might have held back on the bike, but here, now, with fire burning between us, I could not stop myself from reaching climax.

  How he was doing this, ho
w he was getting me off in a way I hadn’t gotten off since fooling around in high school, was beyond me. There was something very skillful in the pace and method with which he moved. Michael really was different. There were just no better words to describe it.

  “Ah!” I cried out when he got me right to the point of no return.

  His thumb pressed down on top of my groin, his middle and ring finger worked inside of me, and his other two fingers spread against the crevice between my sex and my legs. He knew exactly what he was doing.

  And when it happened, my hips quivered and bounced up and down on that couch, shaking like a bull trying to buck its rider. I let out a loud cry at first, one that slowly dissolved into pleasant laughter as the come down swept through me. I just felt so damn good… I felt light as a feather. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “That hasn’t happened since I was a teenager,” I said, grasping at his face. “Oh my fucking God, Michael.”

  I moved up to kiss him. It was like having dessert after an incredible meal.

  But this kiss wasn’t enough.

  I wanted more. I wanted to see him pleased as I had been pleased.

  With force probably far more aggressive than he was expecting, I shoved him to the couch. I kissed him on the lips and neck, making my way down his body. When I got to his jeans, I unbuttoned them and removed them, then hovered over his boxers, grinding on him a bit, taking a minute to imagine what sex with him would actually be like. I didn’t know if we’d get that far tonight, if only because I was going to make him come right now, but just thinking about it… oh, fucking yes.

  Slowly, very slowly, I moved his boxers back and took a second to admire his cock. I took it in my hands, gently stroked, and watched with delight as he squirmed.

  “Oh, fuck,” he said.

  “Yeah, funny how that feels when you’re the one getting pleased, huh?” I said with a smirk.

  I was in complete control of him right now, and I was in absolutely no rush to finish the job.

  I scooted my hips back so I could lie on the far end of the couch. I then moved my tongue toward the base of his cock and licked slowly, very slowly, to the tip, trying to get a sense of what part of it most pleased him and what part most aroused him. It became very evident very fast that he was a tip guy, the kind that would be in pleasure to the point of pain when his tip was aroused and toyed with. I wasn’t evil, so I didn’t abuse it, but I certainly now had the insight on how to make him come if I had to.