“Thank you,” I whispered, feeling my lips quivering again.
“Those words are nice, gorgeous, and I appreciate them, but you got nothin’ to thank me for. You take care of my girl, my house, my business, and you take care of me. Deal was, you take care of me, I take care of you, and that’s all I’m doin’.”
“I don’t take care of you,” I said quietly.
“Baby, I got clean towels I didn’t have to clean. I can see the floor in my bedroom. You fall asleep with your hair all over my lap. My daughter finally has someone she can trust. My son can settle in knowin’ his old man is not home by himself when they leave me, but he has someone with him he digs having around. Every person I employ and every brother who swings into Ace comes in with a smile on their face ’cause they got coffee, cupcakes and you to look forward to. And they know what they ordered will be in the warehouse and their paycheck will come on time. You give it to me regular and each time is sweet. And a good life for you revolves around Pop-Tarts. You don’t get it, but that’s takin’ care of me, Toots.”
“Oh,” I whispered.
He smiled before he whispered back, “Yeah, oh.”
I dropped my head, turned it, pressed my cheek to his chest and moved my arms from around his shoulders to lock them around his waist.
Buck let me hug him for a while before he spoke.
“Be happy to spend all day standin’ in the sunshine with you pressed up to me, Toots, but a fuckwit kidnapped my woman and I gotta do something about that.”
Oh dear.
I tipped my head back to look at him.
“He didn’t hurt me, just, um…tasered me and tied me up, and he scared me and, um…creeped me out. He called me ‘pretty-pretty,’ and I think he enjoyed it when I got upset about Tia. And then he told me he wanted me to be his girlfriend, but it was my choice. I walked, or kind of ran out of there and no one tried to stop me.”
After I finished, I wondered what on earth I was thinking, sharing all of that with West Hardy.
I knew better than that.
And because I did, I was holding a snake in my arms and I was going to have to learn how to be a charmer pretty danged quick.
“He tased you?”
Uh-oh.
“Um…” I mumbled.
“Fuckin’ shit,” he muttered, tensing his arms around me.
“Buck—” I started but stopped when his arms tensed again.
“Babe, I’ll share ’cause you’ll worry if I don’t. An asshole like Esposito, middle management who thinks he’s bigger than he is and his bullshit is pissin’ off the big man, I can ride in, beat the shit out of and leave unconscious. The Bosnians, no. The Bosnians require planning. I’m not gonna ride in, backed by my boys, and beat the shit outta Babic, not if I don’t want C4 blowin’ up Ace and everything around it, mine and my boys’ garroted bodies lying in the Dive before the explosives are triggered.”
I sucked in a shocked breath, and he kept talking.
“So, I plan, and we take care a’ this shit so it won’t blow back. And we will take care of this shit so it won’t blow back. But you, you got a brother at your side whenever I’m not.”
Not that again.
“Buck—” I started but stopped when his arms tensed again, this time squeezing the breath out of me.
“Clara, babe, do not even think about tryin’ to discuss this shit with me.”
“Okay,” I wheezed immediately, and he loosened his arms so I kept talking, normally this time. “But before you go, can we make another deal?”
“Depends on the deal.”
Figured.
“I want to know what you know about Tia, and I want to know it when you find out about it. But I don’t want to know the possible results of taking on the Bosnians.”
“You can’t have the first, you got the last.”
My brows rose and I asked, “Pardon?”
“You like your car, you like your job, you like my kids, you like my house and you like sharin’ my bed. I keep you in the know as nothin’ or somethin’ that makes you cry with your face planted in my chest rolls in, babe, you likin’ that shit dims and you walk around under a cloud. Let me deal with the cloud. You need to know, I’ll tell you. Until then, darlin’, my meaning in life is, you live in the sunshine.”
Oh God.
It was happening.
God!
Let me deal with the cloud.
I stared up at him, knowing it was happening.
My meaning in life…
You live in the sunshine.
I was falling in love with West Hardy.
And I knew what this feeling was, and it wasn’t what Rogan led me to believe was real and then walked all over.