This actually was real.
This was the real thing.
This was it.
This was love.
I was in love with a biker.
I was now, truly, officially a biker babe.
Oh God!
How did I go from not knowing if I wanted this life to falling in love with the president of an MC?
He gave me another squeeze.
“Do we have a deal?” he prompted, clearly not having any clue about the turmoil of my thoughts.
I couldn’t speak, so I nodded.
“Good, then lay another one on me, babe, I got shit to do.”
“Buck.”
“What?”
I stared at him, warmth and sweetness rushing through me, and accompanying it was fear.
I was falling in love with him.
But right then, after being kidnapped, after finding out things were very not good with Tia, I couldn’t hack it if he wasn’t doing the same with me.
That being falling in love.
He’d said I took care of his house, his office, his kids, his sexual needs and his towels.
He did not say I held a place in his heart.
So to his question, I only had one reply.
“Nothing,” I whispered, got on my toes and laid another one on him.
25
A Man with Vision
My head jerked around when I heard the crash and Buck’s hand slid down to cup the cheek of my behind.
“It’s okay, baby,” he murmured. “They’re just gettin’ rowdy.”
I looked down and relaxed into him.
More aptly, he meant rowdier, but I didn’t have it in me to correct him.
We’d just had sex, good sex, amazing sex in his room in the Dive.
It was good being there with him, even though the room was no less filthy.
It felt nostalgic in a happy way because this was where it all began.
This room.
This bed.
This was where I started to fall in love with him.
It had been three weeks since I realized I was taking the fall, the day I’d learned about Tia.
And in those three weeks, I’d fought it, feared it.
But I fell.
It was done.
A fait accompli.
I was in love with West Hardy.
Nothing had happened in those three weeks except life. I did not get kidnapped. No one attacked one of his children. No angry fathers showed up on the doorstep.
Although Buck had filed custody proceedings and Kristy took her anger about this out on Tatiana, and, I was suspecting (even though he didn’t say anything, keeping a stiff upper lip for his sister and his dad, and me too), Gear, she, nor Knuckles roared up the drive itching for a fight.
Tatiana and Gear were coping at home.
Tatiana because, for the first time ever, outside of her brother, she had a listening ear, and in the life stakes for Tatie, I was a double threat. I had the heretofore unknown capacity to talk sense into a sixteen-year-old girl and I had all the time she needed to listen.
But Debbie, Minnie, Lorie, and Pinky were also checking in, texting her, sending her funny gifs or hilarious TikToks.
All of this just letting her know she wasn’t alone. She might be far away, but at home, she was missed and loved.
And lastly, there had been no news (that I knew) about Tia.
However, I had started my period and finished it. Lefty had told me the delay was likely due to stress. And now I was on the pill.
But that was all that had happened. The big news in life, a custody feud and the end of a pregnancy scare.
The rest was just work…food…family…friends…sex…Buck…life.
And outside of the nagging worry I tried not to feel (and failed) about Tia, life was good.
Now it was a Thursday, and for some reason the members decided to throw one of their big parties.
This was, I’d learned from the girls, something they did often.
The party could be about anything or nothing. It could have a theme, like beer and brats with the old ladies bringing side dishes and desserts, or it could be a free-for-all, like delivered pizza and brothers riding out and bringing back half a dozen kegs.
Whatever it was, the word got out, and everyone they knew (and everyone who everyone they knew) came, got drunk, ate what was on offer, drank from a keg (or the endless supply of booze from behind the bar), listened to music inside and outside and got rowdy.
Buck and I had been out there for hours.
This time, it was about Chap’s “world-famous, double-trouble cheeseburgers,” which probably weren’t world famous, but I’d found they were exceptional. Meat smooshed with Worcestershire sauce, sprinkled with Lawry’s seasoning salt, grilled to perfection, and you had no choice but to have the double. Because one had a slice of melted cheddar and one had a slice of melted swiss.
The result was sublime.
I also found that partying with the Aces was brilliant.
I drank beer, ate a delicious burger, shot tequila, gabbed and laughed with everyone, because I knew practically everyone, and they knew me, and I played several games of pool very badly.