Page 123 of Iron

“Why did you hide it from me?” I asked, my mind still trying to process it all.

“Because I knew you’d want to come check on me and I couldn’t have that. Not for a few days.” I guessed I needed him to spell it out because I wasn’t understanding. “Knew I couldn’t be around you and keep my hands to myself.”

I couldn’t say anything back but I did let a tiny smile slip out.

“Thank you,” I said low so that only he would hear.

My hands moved to his face, his beard cradled in my palms.

Then I kissed him to show him how much it meant to me.

It was time to let go of the hang-ups that I held on to.

Iron had showed me over and over again that he wanted me in his life for a long time to come. I might have had trouble admitting it at first, but I wanted the same.

Iron

“Do you ever think of going home?” I asked Petra as we lay in my bed naked and sweaty.

Her head turned so she could look into my eyes.

“If you mean back to Slovenia, then, no. I lost all sense of home that night. I don’t even think of this place as home.” There wasn’t a hint of sadness or anger in her tone. She meant those words and whatever ties she might have had to the country, she severed the moment she left.

“Sometimes home isn’t necessarily a place,” I told her, my fingers running over her hair.

“Hmm,” she replied and her eyes slid away from mine. She might not get it right now, but I knew she’d be thinking about it. And if I was lucky, she’d realize that she did have a home. It was me. It was the people that filled the Gilded Rose. It was even the club.

“How did the Gilded Rose come about?”

It took me a couple of years to finally ask about this one. I knew Petra wasn’t someone you could push and I had no clue how she would react to my questions.

“I’m not going to pretend that I know what it’s like to go through what you went through, but I guess I imagine anything having to do with sex would be the last thing they’d want to be surrounded by,” I said softly, then placed a kiss on her forehead.

Her head lightly nodded, her hair tickling my shoulder with the movement.

I hoped she would open up to me. I knew many things about her, but there were a few pieces of the puzzle that were still blank.

“When I was in high school all the girls were talking about how they were having sex with their boyfriends. I never really had any friends, but I would overhear things.” Her shoulders shrugged and I got the feeling like she wasn’t trying to overhear shit, she just couldn’t get away from it. “They always sounded happy and excited about it, but it was the look in their eyes that told their disappointment.”

I chuckled.

“Yeah, high school boys can be dicks. They don’t know what they’re doing and only care about themselves. Some learn, and some don’t take the time to.” I remembered back to my high school days. Even I had my moments early on. But I was one of them that learned. And now I loved the fuck out of pleasin’ a woman. One woman in particular.

“Yes,” she said in a tone that said she’d figured that much out already. “Right before I graduated, I took one of the football players up on his offer to sleep with me. I believe there was a bet to see who could have the Ice Queen first. It made no difference to me.”

I could tell in her tone it was the truth. Even if she came off as if it didn’t matter to her, it bothered the fuck out of me. I wanted to ask her their names but I knew it wouldn’t make a difference now.

“He had me over when his parents were out of town. I went for a few reasons. One of them was that I wanted to know what it was like. Maybe even wanted to feel some sort of normalcy. But I also wanted to see if it made me any different.”

I didn’t ask her to explain because I knew what she meant by that. I wondered how long she searched for something that made her feel. All the places she looked to bring some sort of emotion into her soul. And I also wanted to know at what point did she finally give up and just accept that she was the way she was.

“And did you find the answers you were lookin’ for?” I asked.

“Yes, and no. But I did find some things that I wasn’t even looking for.”

“And that was?”

“When I removed my clothes, there was a look of disgust on his face,” she told me in a tone that held no emotion. “I decided then and there that I would always cover up my scars. I wasn’t ashamed of them. I actually didn’t have any feelings toward them whatsoever. But it was clear that I had to hide them if I wanted to make the other person more comfortable.”