Ice (Thor Book 2) Read online

  ICE

  BY

  MIA MALONE

  Copyright © 2020 by Mia Malone

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  SHARING OR DOWNLOADING AN EBOOK WITHOUT PERMISSION IS EQUAL TO STEALING. SO PLEASE DON’T.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Books by Mia

  The Brothers series

  Gibson

  Padraig

  Joke

  Day

  Mac

  Waterfront series

  Waterfront Café

  Thor series

  Black

  Ice

  Dear reader –

  Can you be stuck for forever in something that wasn’t bad but still not that great, and then find something you never expected?

  I think so.

  I hope you enjoy Ice and Reena’s story.

  And as always; I rely on the reader community to spread the word about my books as they see fit, so if you like what I write - reviews are highly appreciated, and please tell your friends.

  Thank you for your support!

  XOXO/ Mia

  Chapter One

  Fucking finally

  Reena

  “Well, crap,” I mumbled and added on a sigh, “Okay.”

  I sat on the patio and looked out over the immaculately groomed back yard Harry liked to tell his colleagues he enjoyed puttering around in during his spare time.

  Except he didn’t have much spare time, hated any kind of outdoor activity, and preferred socializing with what I secretly thought was a circle of pretty shallow friends. The actual work in our yard was done mostly by me. The flower beds would need tending before the weather turned colder, and I wondered if Harry would do it or if he’d hire someone.

  A bird chirped as it flew off, and I followed it with my eyes while I let my mind drift to a statement made in a rough, deep voice.

  “This is my woman. I’m fifty-five years old, and I waited a very long time for her...”

  The words had echoed in my mind since that day when a tall man wearing a vest full of patches marched into my ER, aimed his dark eyes on me, and demanded that I look at him.

  Black.

  They all called him that, but I knew his name was Einar Hagen.

  I’d heard the other bikers talk about him and how he’d just replaced his father as president of a motorcycle club. There had been awe in their hushed voices when they spoke about how he’d roared down the roads from Washington state on his bike, making a seven-hour trip in four hours, and how he’d apparently become a stronger man when he met his woman.

  Cassandra Davis.

  Her soft smile and a pretty spectacular will to live had impressed me almost as much as her man did. I know they told Cassandra and Black that her recovery was remarkable, but they both shrugged it off. Black because he seemed to prefer pretending that she hadn't been a few seconds from dying, and Cassandra because she genuinely didn't care. She was alive and calmly moved on from what easily could have broken her.

  They acted as if they’d been together forever, so it surprised me when I heard that they’d been a couple for a few months only.

  “We aren’t married, but she’s mine. She won’t be with anyone else for the rest of her life.”

  Black had said that, and those words were also looping around endlessly in my mind.

  A soft evening breeze rushed through the trees, and I inhaled deeply, hoping that it would sweep away the ball of nerves from my belly.

  Black had thanked me for seeing him, and I had, but it hadn’t been in the way he meant it. He wanted me to look past the rough biker president and see the man who was scared for the woman he loved, and I had seen that.

  But I’d also seen a man who was willing to fight for his family, all the way to the end and no matter what it would cost him, so when I walked away to find out what was going on with Cassandra, it wasn’t because he loved her.

  It was because he was the kind of man who would sacrifice everything for someone he loved.

  I knew what that was like because I’d done it.

  It might have been the wrong thing to do, but I hadn’t had many options, and I’d been too young, and not stupid but so desperately afraid. And I’d been so, so grateful.

  That had been a long time ago, though.

  I sighed and raised an uncharacteristic middle of the week glass of ridiculously expensive Chablis from goddamned France. It had seemed fitting to open that bottle, but I really preferred a simple Pinot Grigio from California or if I felt like splurging, an excellent Italian red.

  The choices I made had been the right ones, and I didn’t regret them, but it hurt to think about how I’d moved through the years, assuming life simply was what it was. When Toby moved out, I should have had the courage to go too but hadn’t been able to come up with a good enough reason to leave.

  Now I had one echoing in my brain.

  “This is my woman.”

  I suddenly wanted to be someone’s woman.

  Harry wasn’t cruel or unreasonable. I wasn’t abused. But Black’s words had hit me like a kick in the gut.

  My life was simply a bland existence as I moved through life without really living it. When I thought about the past thirty years, I couldn’t quite figure out why Harry had offered to marry me. Back then, I simply assumed it was because he was kind, but now, I wasn’t so sure.

  It also wasn’t enough anymore. I’d assumed it was too late to want more, but then I saw Black and Cassandra and realized that the only time it was too late was when you gave up.

  “Hey.”

  I jumped when my husband spoke from the door behind me.

  “I’m leaving,” I said quietly without turning, and before I could start second-guessing my decision.

  “Corinne...” he said placatingly, suddenly using the name only used by patients in the hospital who read it off my tag where we weren’t allowed to use nicknames. I had been Reena to everyone else my whole life. “We should talk about this to make sure you have considered all aspects and know what you’re getting yourself into.”

  Had he always talked to me like that? As if I was a child?

  I’d been one when we met, or almost one anyway, but I wasn’t anymore. I was forty-seven goddamned years old, and most of the time, I both looked and felt a lot older.

  “I’m leaving,” I repeated. “Please, Harry... You know it’s the right thing for us both, and I should have done it years ago. Can’t we try to make this easy? Can’t we still be friends?”

  “Friends,” he snorted. “When I’ve given you everything, and you decide on a whim to throw it all away? I don’t think so.”

  It wasn’t a whim, and he hadn’t given me everything, but he had given me everything that mattered.

  “Okay,” I said quietly. “I will go and get my things.”

  “Your things?”

  “Yes?”

  “You have nothing here that I haven’t paid for, so technically, they’re my things.”

  Was he serious? He was going to keep my undies and make-up? The car I’d saved for so long to afford?

  “Harry, please. I meant my clothes and the car. You can keep the rest.”

  I didn’t wait for him to voice the protest I could see was on the tip of his tongue and walked inside to shove as much as possible into two big duffel bags I used when Toby and I went camping. I left the things I use
d on the few occasions I joined Harry for social events and knew I wouldn’t come back to get them.

  “Don’t come crawling when you need help, Reena. I won’t catch you one more time. Not when you deliberately throw away all that I’ve done for you.”

  I just glanced at the man I’d been married to for thirty-one years as I hauled my bags past him and out to my small car. Harry stood by the door and watched me load my things and throw my purse on the passenger seat. He scowled, but the hand he stretched out toward me shook a little.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I truly am grateful for everything, Harry.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll call you when I’ve settled in,” I said instead of answering because he knew.

  There was only one place I could go to, and I stopped in a half-empty parking lot at the shopping mall to pull out my phone. While I waited, I looked around at the familiar sight and sighed when I remembered buying baby-clothes there, and sneakers. And the argument we’d had about an ugly high-school graduation suit.

  “Hey,” a familiar voice murmured in my ear, and I closed my eyes in relief.

  “Can I sleep on your couch for a few days, baby?” I asked, trying hard to sound calm and not as if I was about to cry. “I’ve left Harry.”

  “Fucking finally.”

  “Tobias,” I chided. “Language.”

  I didn't mean it, and he knew the occasional f-bomb wouldn’t upset me. To my surprise, I suddenly chuckled, and then we agreed that I should pick up dinner on my way over. There was apparently road work on the highway, but I was in no hurry and took the long way around town, wondering what to do next and slowly letting it sink in that I could do anything I wanted.

  I’d always wanted a dog. I didn’t want to leave the mountains, but I could move somewhere else. Colorado perhaps? Or Wyoming?

  For so many years, I’d just let life pass me by, and in so many ways, I’d been stuck, but I wasn’t anymore.

  I was free.

  ***

  Ice

  There was a party going on, and everyone cheered when the curvy bar owner shimmied up and down along the leg of Downer, one of the members of Thor MC.

  “Go for it, Ronnie!” Cas called out, and another round of hoots erupted when Downer started swaying his hips.

  Ice leaned on the bar and watched his parents, brother, and extended family as they laughed and danced. The music was loud, and the scene familiar. The clientele at the bar was mostly good people, and the food was simple, but the drinks were above expectations for a biker joint. When anyone felt like it, the music was cranked up, and dancing commenced like it had this night. Over the years, he’d had so much fun in this unassuming place next to the Thor compound.

  So why the fuck was he restless and more than a little bored?

  He hadn’t gotten laid a while, and he’d stayed in his home in Rogan since his brother’s woman nearly got herself killed. Maybe it was time to hit the road again?

  “Hey there, handsome,” a voice said cheekily next to him, and he turned.

  “Hey,” he replied.

  The woman was at least fifteen years younger than his own fifty-five years, and she was pretty. Her red hair color was unmistakably from a bottle, but it was nicely done, and when she tossed the curls over her shoulder, he got a whiff of a slightly too heavy perfume. She was shorter than him in a way that gave him a good view of a cleavage she quite obviously wanted him to notice.

  “So...” she murmured and moved a little closer. “Wanna buy me a drink?”

  He was about to take her up on the offer so very clearly displayed in her eyes when he heard himself say, “Sure, darlin’, but I’m heading home in a sec, so you’ll have to find someone else to drink it with.”

  Her eyes widened, and she straightened.

  “What?”

  “Long day,” he lied.

  “You’re turning me down?”

  “I’m sure it won’t be hard for a pretty girl like you to find someone else to have fun with,” he said and had to stop himself from wincing.

  Why the heck did he suddenly sound like he was her damned uncle or something? She looked like a nice woman, so maybe he should stop being so damned cynical and stay and see what happened. Perhaps she would surprise him by not offering the predictable strip tease and ensuing blow job before they moved on to run through every position available to mankind. And a few from the animal kingdom.

  “But –”

  She frowned and looked to the side at a couple of women Ice recognized as regulars in the bar.

  “But, what?” he asked.

  “But everyone knows you’re a sure thing?”

  A what?

  “Everyone knows I’m a sure thing?” he echoed.

  She looked up at him with wide, astonished eyes, but must have seen how his anger started to build and took a small step back.

  “Or... yeah. Sorry, I must have –”

  She cut herself off and walked back to the group of women, and Ice let his eyes slide over her admittedly fantastic ass as she marched it across the bar.

  “She decided to pass?” Brooks, his brother’s Sergeant at Arms, asked with a grin.

  Black walked up to them with the same stupid grin on his face.

  “I passed,” Ice said.

  “What?”

  Ice stared at the men and wondered why the hell they looked as if someone had hit them repeatedly in the face with a wet cloth. Or something.

  “What, what?” he muttered.

  “You passed on that?” Brooks asked and twitched his head a little to the side to indicate the woman in question.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “What the fuck? Didn’t feel like it.”

  “Huh.”

  “Why are you pissed?” Black asked, and it wasn’t the first time in his life, Ice cursed having a twin who could read his mood and always in an accurate way.

  “Fuck off.”

  “No. Give.”

  Stubborn moron, Ice though but didn’t say because it wouldn’t help and would only get him punched somewhere.

  “She said everyone knows I’m a sure thing,” he muttered sourly.

  There was an astonished silence, and then Brooks cleared his throat.

  “Ice, man. Hate to break it to you, but you are.”

  What in the fuck?

  “Am not,” he said and realized he’d gone from sounding avuncular to behaving like a surly teenager.

  Since it was how he felt, he settled for scowling at Brooks, who started laughing.

  “Ice,” Black said. “When was the last time you turned someone down?”

  Ice stared at his brother and, fuck it. He couldn’t remember when that had happened, but surely he must have –

  “What are we talking about?”

  Well, shit. Why the hell did his goddamned mother have to butt into this particular conversation?

  Or any conversation, really.

  “How Ice is a sure thing,” Brooks said with a stupid wink, knowing well what he opened Ice up to with that comment.

  “Well, he is,” Gee Hagen said calmly. “I wouldn’t think there was much to talk about on that topic.”

  “Mom,” Ice growled.

  “Petter,” Gee responded calmly, but with an uncomfortable and very familiar bit of steel in her voice.

  Their eyes met, and after a few seconds, Ice backed down.

  “Can we talk about something else?” he muttered.

  “As long as you use condoms, yes we can,” his goddamned mother said happily. “Wouldn’t want you to need an appointment with a doctor because we all know what happens when you do.”

  “It was one time, more than fifteen years ago,” Ice snapped.

  The doc had been pretty, and once she’d given up on trying to convince him that he needed a cast for a tiny hairline crack in one of his fingers, they’d moved on to something which had him pressing her up against the door. Unfortunately, the waiting room had been
right outside, and one of his mother’s friends’ ass had been planted in a chair there.

  “I have no doubt it would happen again,” his goddamned mother said, and Ice felt his brows rise.

  Sure, he liked women and the feeling of a soft body next to his. Loved the sounds and that wash of heat when a woman came with his dick inside her, but it wasn’t as if he slept with every woman he met. Far from it, actually, which the grinning idiots around him didn’t seem to know. And so what if he took someone up on an offer freely given? It had been a while since he did, so there was no need to treat him like some kind of man-whore because he wasn’t one.

  Or was he?

  Everyone knew he was a sure thing, what the hell was that about?

  Brooks was suddenly laughing stupidly, and Ice thought his goddamned head would explode. How the hell had the evening escalated into this?

  It should have included a few beers and some laughs with his friends.

  There should not have been any discussions about his contraceptive preferences with his almost eighty years old mother.

  For once, he’d tell her to fuck off, and she’d be unhappy with that, but enough was en –

  “Outside.”

  Ice turned to look at Black and raised his brows. Yeah, his brother had taken over as president of Thor MC a while back, but surely that didn’t give him the right to orde –

  “You heard me,” Black added and fuck it how the idiot suddenly sounded exactly like their father.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yup.”

  Well goddamn it. Ice had no choice but to lower his brows and walk outside without another word.

  ***

  Reena

  “What are you going to do?”

  I looked at Toby and wondered how much I should tell him but decided quickly that saying nothing was my best option for the time being.

  “I’ll deal with Harry and the legal process around that, but then I’ll probably take some time off. Might go up toward the border for a week...”