“You make your pop proud?”
She tried to pull her hand away from the heat of his chest, from the smooth skin beneath her palm, but he forced her to keep it there. Where she could feel his steady and strong heartbeat.
“If you expect me to tell you a story where I start crying because I was chasing my father’s love, you won’t get that from me.”
She didn’t follow her path to achieve her father’s love, she always had it. She could be serving ice cream at a Baskin-Robbins for minimum wage and, as long as she was still a contributing member of society, he wouldn’t care. He’d love her just the same. So would her mother.
She knew she was damn lucky. Luckier than most. She had definitely won the great parents lottery.
“He was proud,” Rook answered for her.
“Yes. More than proud of my decisions. But he didn’t want to pressure me. He wanted it to be my choice. Honestly, he’s the best dad ever. Right next to my uncle. My grandparents were awesome and passed that gene down to their sons, who passed it down to my brother and my cousins.”
She knew Rook’s gruff and rough-around-the-edges father was also an original member of the Blood Fury MC back in the day when it was an outlaw club. She had heard that Dutch had raised his sons practically on his own, but she wondered about his mother.
Was the lack of a mother in his life the reason he ended up in jail or prison all those times? Had it been some sort of acting out?
It didn’t matter. They hadn’t met on eHarmony. This wasn’t a date. They also weren’t planning on dating. She didn’t need to know the intimate details of his life and he didn’t need to know hers.
Getting more deeply involved with him would make an already complicated situation that much worse.
Anyway, it was time for him to leave. “Okay, I need sleep.”
“Soon. Ain’t done with you yet.”
“Rook, I really need sleep.”
“Gonna get some, when I’m done with you.”
“Why do you get to decide when you’re done with me?”
“Didn’t hear you complainin’ while I ate your pussy.”
She slapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh God. Here we go again.”
“Didn’t hear you complainin’ while I fucked you.”
She moved to quickly straddle his lap, “Shut up,” and crushed her mouth to his.
That kept him quiet for quite a while.
And, of course, the lack of sleep ended up being worth it.
Chapter Seventeen
For the last seven weeks they’d fallen into a pattern.
He’d show up around seven a.m., slide naked into her bed, and wait for her to drag her ass through the door after finishing her shift.
They’d fuck, shower, then he went to work while she went to sleep. On her nights off he would show up in the middle of the night and leave early in the morning, usually by five, to head back to the bunkhouse and crawl into his bed to make it seem like he’d slept there all night. This way no one would question his whereabouts.
Luckily, he’d only been busted a couple of times sneaking in through the rear door of the bunkhouse, thinking everyone was crashed in their bunks.
One time by Scar restlessly prowling the corridor. Another time by Easy.
Easy caught him because he’d been shuttling some chick out the back door while Rook was coming in. After two wordless chin lifts, each found their own beds and never brought it up in conversation.
Their activity, besides sex, for the last few weeks basically came down to Jet and him hiding and keeping secrets.
Rook had to hide where he went and who he was with from his brotherhood.
Jet had to hide who was sleeping in her bed and sliding between her thighs from her fellow pigs and family.
What she didn’t hide was the fact she was paranoid. Truthfully, so was he. But not enough to stop using the key she had hidden for him in one of those fake fucking rocks by the door.
But it sucked.
They couldn’t go anywhere. They couldn’t be seen together. He had to sneak into her apartment before light or after dark and leave the same way.
He couldn’t park the old Honda, or whatever car he could get his hands on, next to hers. He had to park it down the street in front of a neighbor’s house no matter how cold, wet or snowy it was. He had trekked through it all like the goddamn mailman with an important package to deliver. Of course, that package was in his pants.
He’d gotten to the point he’d wear a hoodie so he could hide his head. Sometimes he’d even wrap a scarf he’d pilfered from Reilly around the bottom half of his face. And he never wore his colors.
He could get away not being recognized now because it was winter. Once the weather changed, he had no idea what he’d do. If this thing they were doing even lasted that long.