Page 71 of Devil's Dilemma

I, too, pull myself up so I’m kneeling. “Wearefriends,” I cry out.

“But I want fuckin’ more,” he suddenly roars. Then comes back over, his palms landing on the bed either side of me. “I’ll say this once, then never refer to it again. I fuckin’ want you. I want the whole package, sweetheart. I want to have this baby with you, to have you as my wife and the kid as my son. I want everything.”

My eyes go wide.

He gives an abrupt nod, stands and takes the few strides that take him to the door. He pauses only to say, “If you need me, I’ll be in Skull’s room.”

“Wait!”

His back turned in my direction, his hand waves by his side. “Nah, Mel. I don’t need platitudes. Shouldn’t have laid that on you. It’s not your problem, okay? It’s mine. I just need you to decide whether you still want me in your life when you know how I really feel about you.”

“You feel about me the same way I feel about you, Pyro.”

As he goes completely still, I move off the bed and slowly cross the room, each pace even like a hunter stalking prey, as if a sudden move may cause him to flee. “I haven’t wanted to let you know because I didn’t want to scare you away. If friendship was all you could offer, I was going to accept that. But I want you. All of you.”

He still doesn’t turn. “You’ve had a shock today, Mel. A shock no woman should have. If you’d been faced with his corpse, it could have had no greater effect on you. You’re probably not thinking straight, and I’m not going to take advantage of that.”

“I’ve been feeling this way for a while now. It didn’t seem right, so I tried to fight it. I should have been grieving for what I’d lost, not wanting someone else. My feelings for you gradually changed until every time you left, I wanted you to kiss me properly, not just that peck to my forehead. I chickened out, but so often I wanted to raise my lips to yours.”

I’ve reached him now. Putting my hands around his waist, I lean my head against his cut. “Yes, I’m emotional right now. I can’t think straight about anything. But this isn’t an impulsive reaction tonight. If,” I swallow hard, “if you meant what you said, I can conquer anything with you beside me.”

He takes a deep breath then shudders. “I want to feel your lips too. Mel, you can stay here tonight. I’ll hold you in my arms, though,” he gives a snort, “if we’re that close I won’t be able to hide the effect you have on me. I’m just warning you. No, let me finish. I’ll hold you, but nothing more. Don’t want to leap into something you might regret. Moving from being friends to being in a relationship will take some adjustment. Something that could be good is worth waiting and working for. We’ll take this slow while we’ve got this shit storm to work through.”

He makes sense. Getting physical with another man while Skull’s reared his head is perhaps not the best thing to do. Though I feel no sense of loyalty toward the man who left me thinking he was dead, there hasn’t been any sort of closure. Just a gradual acceptance that he was never coming back, and now I don’t want him to.

But I’ve a niggling worry. “What if we can’t sort things out? What if we can’t find him?”

Now he turns, taking me in his arms, holding me close to him like he has so many times before. “Let’s take this one step at a time. We don’t find Skull? We decide what we’ll do then. Don’t think any of us have really got our heads around the fact he’s not dead.” He places his fingers under my chin. “Give me those lips now, darlin’.”

I need no further encouragement.

As our mouths move together I get the impression that the adjustment from friends to lovers isn’t going to be hard at all, once we’ve got everything straight in our heads. There are a few seconds of awkwardness, when he moves one way, me the other, then our bodies work out what to do, and we start learning a dance which I hope will become familiar over time. His taste is perfect, his movements sure and certain, until all too soon he groans into my mouth and pulls away.

The reason is clear as he grits his teeth and reaches down to adjust himself in his jeans. “That’s why we’ve not kissed before woman.” He grins self-deprecatingly. “Knew you’d make me as hard as fuckin’ steel.”

“There is one way to take our minds off everything,” I offer, biting my lip suggestively.

“Nope. Told you how this is going to play out.” His head tilts to the side. “Don’t doubt how much I’d like to fuck, to make love to you. But the timing has got to be right. Don’t want you having any doubts. Don’t want any guilty thoughts in your head when you meet face-to-face with Skull. Want you to meet him with your conscience clear.”

“What if we don’t find him, or it takes months?”

He shakes his head. “I might have patience, but not a lot. Not waiting that long, darlin’. I promise you that. Now, before you can tempt me further, what say we show our faces downstairs and see if Prez has gotten the green light from Red.”

Now I’m biting my lip for another reason. “They’re all going to be looking at me, aren’t they, Ro? The woman whose old man has come back from the dead.”

“Nah. You’ve got to remember, that’s our brother we’re talking about. Sure, he was your old man, but he wore our patch and fuckin’ disrespected it.That’swhat they’re most worried about.”

I suppose he’s right.

I’m still anxious as I descend the stairs with him.

When I ascended them earlier I was in a hell of a state. I couldn’t help it, even though I knew my distress couldn’t be good for the baby. But slowly the shock began to wear off. Now I’m ready to start dealing instead of reacting. As Pyro slips his large hand around mine allowing me to take comfort from his fingers, I acknowledge I’m feeling more positive now I know he’s going to be there for me in every way.

My baby will have a father. Getting to know him slowly has shown me I couldn’t have chosen better. Along with my disbelief that Skull’s alive, and at the slap-in-the-face rejection that came along with that knowledge, I’ve now got something to look forward to. Starting a new life with Pyro.

It’s just going to have to wait until we can put the old one fully behind us.

“Well, lookie here. What have we got?” Beef comes over and slaps Pyro’s back. He looks pointedly down at our joined hands. “Bout fuckin’ time, Brother.”

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