“However fast you wanna take this,” I remind her.
I serve us both up steak, sausage, and a side of greens, ushering her to the dining room table next to the kitchen.
“You found your robe again,” I observe, grateful in a way. Saving me from being distracted by her body.
“Fits like a glove,” she says, smiling, and I feel my chest swell when I see how small she looks in my robe. How perfect she looks wearing my things.
“Let’s eat,” I announce, and we both dive in, not minding the other at all.
I never knew how alone I’d been all these years until she came into my life, and I don’t think she knows just how much she completes this house.
How much she completes me.
Chapter Seven
Rose
It’s the perfect night, and not one I expected as my first away from home.
Thorn doesn’t pressure me, not even a hint of taking things further than a steak dinner and the hot bath he’s run for me.
He seems content to just watch over me, making sure I have everything a girl could ever want or need.
But my need for him is growing by the second.
At which point did I say I didn’t need him inside of me?
Maybe I’m an idiot, or maybe I’ve just stumbled on the only gentleman left alive on this earth.
The thought makes me smile as I lay, half asleep, hearing him cooking us both breakfast the next morning after having again tucked me into bed with no strings attached.
I know he hasn’t slept much either, the sensation of being watched over while I slept is strong by the time I make my to the kitchen, rubbing sleep from my eyes.
Feeling them grow wide once I see Thorn is wearing nothing but his boxer briefs.
“How’d you sleep?” he asks, his mouth curling into a smile while my eyes dance over his tattoos.
I’ve felt his body against mine but seeing the color, the words, and the stories I know they tell complete the man somehow.
“I think you know how I slept,” I tease him, daring to get close enough for him to lean over for a kiss.
My hand tracing the words across his chest once he pulls me closer. Spelling it out to myself. Feeling my heart pound harder once I see all the roses around the words.
His Rose.
“An angel always with me…” I muse to myself, gasping with a start once his hand grips my finger.
“Angel from the past?” I ask him, feeling my finger pulling back. Wondering just how much there is in Thorn’s past. If there was someone else at some point.
“Only since yesterday,” he says almost shyly. Beaming once I let my fingers retrace the script across his huge chest, his own breath catching once I trace the outline of one of the roses.
My own chest is thickening under one of his shirts I’ve found and decided to wear instead of his robe.
“I like you better in my clothes,” he practically growls, brushing himself against me enough so I can feel just how much he approves before I look down.
He’s all man down there. No doubt about it, and I feel that sudden, primal urge again.
To what?
To do what I’ve only ever dreamed of with a man, least of all a man like Thorn.
To be his rose.
“I thought today, we could head back to your place. Get anything you need to pick up. If your dad’s not there of course,” he adds, a matter of fact.
The sound of his knife buttering hot toast is like a buzz saw after my silent shock.
“You want me to what?” I exclaim, not believing my ears.
He frowns one brow lifting.
“I figured you won’t be going home to stay, not for a while at least. If you stay with me, you’ll need some stuff. Besides, I’d like to have a snoop around, see just how deep your old man’s got himself into,”
He’s so factual.
Clinical.
Professional.
It makes me wonder if all the other stuff’ just been a blind so he can-
He moves over to me, forgetting about breakfast, coffee. Everything.
“Sorry, Rose. I’m just trying to help,” he murmurs.
“We can leave it a day or two, you can hang here and wear nothing but my shirts and the smell of my skin if you want?”
He gives me a look that suggests that’s exactly what he wants.
But I know he’s right.
I can’t go home to stay, and I can’t sit around here without my own things.
“I meant what I said, Rose. The Men of Valor MC, we can help. I can help. But we need to do things, and we need to do them fast if we’re to protect your dad,” he adds firmly.
I feel my head nodding, suddenly feeling cold until he embraces me.
“We’ll help him, Rose. I know he’s not a bad man. Just in with a bad crowd,” he murmurs.