“Hot,” he muttered when his lips detached from mine.
I slid down and rested my cheek against his shoulder. His hand moved to draw random patterns on my behind. My hand came up and I traced the Gear on his pectoral.
“Do you have a tattoo for Tatiana?” I asked.
His answer was to lift his right arm. I shifted to look, and using his other hand, he pointed at a coil of barbed wire that started at his wrist and snaked through all the tattoos up his arm to end piercing the tail of the snake.
“That’s Tatie,” he stated then went back to his random patterns on my bottom.
I was surprised so I lifted my head. “Tatie is barbed wire?”
His eyes caught mine. “My girl binds me, keeps me straight, keeps me clean and keeps me loyal to the mission.”
The mission?
What mission?
“Sorry?” I whispered.
He studied me a moment.
Then he asked, “You good with the groupies?”
This question confused me, so I repeated, “Sorry?”
He stopped drawing with his fingers and cupped my behind.
“The groupies, babe. You good with that?”
Something about the way he was looking at me, his hand holding me, the feel of his body under mine, made me understand this was an important question.
I just didn’t understand the question.
“I don’t understand what you’re asking me, West,” I whispered.
“Lotta women, lotta people, Toots, see what’s goin’ on out there and judge. My people like to have a good time and they like to spend their time with people who like to have a good time. No hang-ups. No judgments. Booze, and a lot of it. Food, and they don’t count calories. Shots. Grass. Shouting. Laughin’ hard. Fightin’ when they get drunk and stupid. And fuckin’ anything that presses up against them. You got a problem with that?”
I did if he was the one that was doing the last and it wasn’t me pressed up against him, but being a full-fledged biker babe now, I knew I couldn’t tell him that.
I actually couldn’t even think of it, because I was still not at one with it.
So I was ignoring it.
Instead, I said, “I might have missed it, but I didn’t see a van filled with bound and gagged groupies who were then forced to smoke pot and drink vodka straight from the bottle. But I was pretty into my cheeseburger, seeing as it was tasty. Did I miss that while I was eating my burger?”
He stared at me a second before his lips twitched and he said, “No.”
“Then no, I don’t have a problem with it.”
He studied me again while his hand came up and tucked hair behind my ear, moving to my jaw where his thumb came out and swept my lower lip.
And then he said, “I don’t wanna do this.”
I blinked at the change in his voice.
That change didn’t bode good tidings.
“Do what?” I asked.
“Hand you somethin’, straight up, that might make you stop lookin’ at me like you’re lookin’ at me right now.”
I felt my body tense.
“Buck—”
“But you want it.”
I wanted it?
Wanted what?
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I told him.
“I see it.”
“See what?”
“You lookin’ at the pictures in my bedroom, Toots, I see it.”
What?
I pushed up to an elbow in the bed, but kept looking down at him, and his hand dropped from my face.
“Buck, you aren’t making any sense.”
He ignored me.
“You’re just not askin’ for it, because you know, I give it to you, it might fuck what we have, you and me.”
Oh God.
Somehow the evening had taken a drastic turn.
I didn’t want to turn with it.
I really didn’t.
But I loved this man, I wanted a future with him.
So I had to.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
He kept talking like I didn’t speak.
“But I’m gonna give it to you, Toots. Give it to you, but remind you, this is where you are, and this is where you’re gonna be. No matter what.”
Oh God.
I was not a huge fan of when he talked like that.
“Buck—”
He cut me off.
And gave it to me.
“My father’s in prison. Has been, in and out, for decades. Lotsa shit, most of it no big deal, stretches were not long. But it kept happening, which meant he had a record, a long one. So, when the Club got in a situation where the other guys didn’t come out of it too good, he was sent up for a stretch, and now he probably won’t ever again see freedom.”
My body went solid and I felt my eyes grow wide.
“What?” I whispered.
“I go visit him. Even when you’ve been with me. I just don’t tell you where I’m goin’.”
Oh God.
“Loved him,” he stated. “Still do. Good man, great fuckin’ dad. Taught me everything I needed to know. Led me to me. He was Aces. And that was because his dad was Aces. Granddad was one of the founding members. I grew up in the life, never knew a time when I ever questioned the life was for me. I had a dirt bike when I was twelve. Got my first Harley at seventeen. Big family, with the Club, Mom, my sisters, brother, it was good. Knew where I was goin’. Never had a time when I didn’t know who I was gonna be.”