Page 7 of The Loves We Lost

We say our goodbyes, and I look at the manuscript. Where did I leave it? I scan along the lines.

Looking down, I see her do as I ask. The feel of the back of her throat tightening around my cock feels so good, but it’s the mascara-filled tears that stain her cheeks as she does so that—

Right. Vengeance was getting some deepthroat action.

Which is so much more than I’ve seen in years.

3

BATES

“This is fucked up,” Vex says a week later, looking over my shoulder as I stare at Viola’s author profile. He’s set me up with all the social media apps that Viola is on.

And I’ve set up a profile for myself as a woman called Sophia.

Hence Vex’s discomfort with the whole situation.

“It’s only catfishing if you intend to continue a relationship under false pretenses,” I say. Plus, it’s not my fault I haven’t been able to get her out of my mind, and I’m shit at installing things on my phone.

“Dude, that’s the loosest possible definition of catfishing. You are absolutely creating a false profile to lure this woman to talk to you online without her knowing that it’s you.”

“Okay, so my moral fiber may be lacking in this situation. But I gotta know the answer to my question.”

Vex moves back to his spot behind the screens he constantly monitors to keep the Iron Outlaws safe. “You gonna tell me what the question is?”

I shake my head. “Nope.”

I follow Viola on all the apps we’ve set up. There’s all kinds of shit on them. It looks like the book she wrote about us spawned a whole set of books. She’s made up a motorcycle club and an Irish mob that, if I understand it right according to the online summaries, hate each other. Which is kinda how Spark met Iris.

There are seventeen books. Three different chapters of the club.

There are also pictures of her. She’s changed, yet she hasn’t. She’s still fucking beautiful. A little older, a little curvier. Still short. I used to love the way she tucked up against my side when we were watching movies or walking down the street.

We didn’t have two cents to rub together. But we were happy as fuck.

Now it looks like she’s doing better, I guess. There are pictures of her in different places, signing books, with lines of people waiting to get her autograph.

One day, I’m gonna write an opus that’ll be as famous asPride and Prejudice.

She told me that one night when we’d gone fishing and camped out for the night. I told her she could be anything she wanted to be and write anything she wanted to write. I’d believed in her wholeheartedly from the day she’d served me my coffee in a drive-through in Bethlehem.

Maybe that was why it hurt so fucking much that she’d rejected me—because she didn’t believe in me in the same way. To allow me to be anyone I wanted, to do anything I wanted.

“If this is another stalker situation like Spark, I’m out,” Vex says, raising his hands.

“It’s not. I know her. Vi Graydon. Once. A long time ago.”

“Fuck me. I just realized. She’s got the same last name as you. Is she family? Wait. Is she yourwife?”

The shock in Vex’s words burn like a hot brand to the chest. “She’s neither.” Because when I asked her, she said no.

“Okay. Well. My work here is done, so get your ass out of my office.”

Both our phones vibrate at the same time.

“Church. Now,” Vex says.

Contacting Viola will have to wait. It doesn’t take long for everyone to assemble, but I take the time to get Noah, the new prospect behind the bar, to make me a coffee. Weapons and phones are left outside. Only the brotherhood is inside. Not even Catalina, a former assassin from an enemy club and highest-ranking woman in the Iron Outlaws’ hierarchy, is invited to this one.