Motorcycle Man (43 page)

“Yeah.”

“So?”

I fell silent.

Tack rode my silence for half a minute then he ended it.

“Red, I know you don’t want me to bring her up at all, ‘specially not in this bed, but BeeBee’s –”

At his words I decided it was time.

So it was me who started laying it out.

“You mistook me yesterday,” I stated, interrupting him. “That wasn’t about me thinking you’d do what Hop did. That was about me confronting something that was shocking and difficult to process. It was unfortunate you called seconds after it happened when I’d had no time to think about it. But then you pushed me on it when I tried not to talk about it and I had no choice but to process it on the spot, not on my time. So I did what I do. I got pissed about it.” I took in a breath and finished quietly, “You shouldn’t have pushed me, Tack.”

His hand moved to my cheek so his thumb could glide along my lips the entire time his eyes didn’t leave mine but he didn’t say a word.

That, I supposed, was an apology but it also wasn’t.

So be it.

I kept talking.

“I grew up in Ozzie and Harriet’s house. My Mom’s a homemaker and bakes pies. We went to church every Sunday. My Dad believes in God, the sanctity of marriage, football and shoot ‘em ups, in that order. I might have broken free from something that wasn’t entirely me to live my own life but I have never, nor did I ever expect, to see two people having sex right before my eyes. That was shocking. I didn’t know what to do with it.”

“From here on in, darlin’, you go to my room in the Compound only with me.”

“It’s too late, Tack. What was seen cannot be unseen.”

“Red –”

“
And it was
her.
” I felt his body still as I felt the sting of tears in my nose and I took in a deep breath to control them before I went on, “You don’t get how big that was, that it was her, because I didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“That I fell in love with you during tequila and roast pork sandwiches.”

His big frame gave a small jerk, his eyes flashed and his fingers tensed on my face but I kept going.

“It’s stupid, ridiculous actually, I know it. And I don’t care since I also know deep in my heart that it happened. Black and white, my whole life it seems I lived in black and white. I met you, suddenly all around me there was color.” I sucked in breath and whispered, “Then you kicked me out of bed.”

His face went soft, his eyes went warm and his head dipped closer to me as he growled a low, rough, quiet, “Baby.”

I shook my head. “I fell in love with you and you didn’t let me spend the night. You didn’t even kiss me good-bye. And a day later, I saw you with her and you’d spent the night with her and you were kissing her good-bye.”

“Fuckin’ Christ, baby,” he whispered, his hand flattening against the side of my head.

“
That didn’t sting, Tack, it
hurt.
”

“Tyra, darlin’, I had no clue.”

“I know you didn’t. That doesn’t mean that wasn’t what I was feeling. And seeing her yesterday at all, much less what I saw, was going to be unpleasant. Circumstances and her being her just made it worse.”

“She’s gone.”

I nodded my head. “Yeah. But what’s done can’t be undone either.”

“Tyra –”

“I’ve had five lovers.”

Tack blinked and his head went back slightly.

Then he asked, “What?”

“Five. Carefully chosen. Men I could work with. Men I thought, since I knew they weren’t perfect, they would become that.”

“No one’s perfect, baby,” he interjected.

“Please listen to me,” I whispered and he slightly lifted his chin to communicate he acquiesced to my request so I continued. “I promised myself, as a little girl, that I would settle for nothing less than my dream man. Nothing less. It was crazy. I’ve thought on it and I don’t even know why I vowed that to myself. I just did. Girls do that, sure. Then the reality of life seeps in and they get over it. I never did. My dream man or nothing. So I looked for him my whole life. I was going to live that dream, I would settle for nothing less. So I had nothing until that night at Ride when I met you.”

I felt more of his heavy weight settle into me and his thumb swept my jaw as he whispered, “Red –”

“
And I know you think I’m vulnerable, Tack. And I know you understand you have to teach me how to live in your world. But I’m not so stupid as to be partying with a bunch of rough and tumble bikers in the forecourt of a garage, drinking tequila and getting laid and through that convince myself the man I’m with is perfect, the man I’d been looking for, my dream man because I’m desperate to find him or the sex was great or I was drunk. The perfect I was looking for wasn’t
perfection.
The perfect I was looking for was
the one.
And he was you.”

His hand pressed in as he murmured, “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, baby.”

“Then you kicked me out of your bed without even a kiss good-bye.”

“Christ, baby,” he growled.

“
And then you were a jerk. And I couldn’t believe I was so wrong about you. Then you weren’t a jerk. Then you were again. And, looking back, I didn’t know I was doing it but I’ll admit right now that you’re right. I was playing games. I was doing it because I was testing you because if I was going to settle on
the one
I had to be sure he was…
the one.
”

“Tyra –”

“You passed,” I whispered and his eyes heated as his face got closer, his hand shifting to cup my jaw and I finished, “Then last night, you failed.”

His head jerked back.

“What?”

“You put your hand to my throat and shoved me against the wall.”

“Tyra –”

“
I’ll accept beer and tequila and eating chips out of a bag and dip out of jars and ten pounds of extra weight,” I told him. “I’ll accept people smoking pot and making out hot and heavy all around me. I’ll even do it, if I’m in the mood. Though maybe not the pot,” I carried on. “I’ll accept your brothers getting their rocks off whenever they want with whoever they want because that’s the way of your world and also, because you’re right, it’s none of my business. And lastly, having had time to think about it, it’s the way of
any
world. Men cheat, women do too. It happens everywhere, not just with bikers. Though, I must say, I don’t ever want to see it again in the flesh,” I shared and kept going. “And I’ll accept essentially being a second class citizen in your biker world but only if I’m treated with respect to my face and that shit does not come home. I’ll even accept rivers of blood because a man like you has to do what you have to do and part of the reason why you were the one is because you’re a man like you.”

I pulled in breath, held his eyes and finished.

“What I will not accept is being shoved against the wall, a car or even a pillow with your hand at my throat.”

To this, he replied immediately, “But your pulse is there, baby.”

My head jerked and I felt my brows shoot together because his soft response was not anywhere near what I expected.

“Pardon?” I whispered.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

“That isn’t the point.”

“Yeah, darlin’, it is. Now answer, did I hurt you?”

“No,” I whispered.

“And I won’t,” he replied. “Ever,” he went on firmly. “Not like that,” he concluded.

“Tack –”

“Found my sister dead. OD.”

I blinked in shock at his words, the change in subject and, well, his freaking words!

Then I whispered, “What?”

“
Dead. It was me who was with her, me who found her. Felt her throat, no pulse. I gotta tell you, Red, there is nothin’, not one thing in the world worse than puttin’ your hand to the throat of someone you love and… feelin’…
nothin’.
”

Oh my God.

“Tack –” I breathed.

“Rush was already born before she died but first thing I did when Tab was born was wrap my fingers around her throat to feel her pulse.”

Oh God.

“Handsome –” I whispered.

But my time to talk was done.

I knew this when Tack kept talking.

“I grew up in the life. My Dad was in a Club. His was different than Chaos. Started by veterans. Pissed. Jacked up. They had their reasons and I don’t got their experiences so I don’t judge. But his Club was about brotherhood, the end. Not country, not blood, but loyalty to your brothers. They thought country fucked them over so that no longer factored. Blood came second place but only if the biker was the kind of man where his old lady or kid meant somethin’ to him. And they weren’t about freedom to live your life the way you want even if that way is raisin’ hell. They were radicals. They were into anything and everything, serious, whacked out shit, all of it. And everything they did was to fuck The Man.” His eyes held mine, they were intense, drilling into mine and his lips kept speaking. “And, ‘cause ‘a that shit, my Dad’s doin’ a long fuckin’ stretch, life for double homicide.”

Ohmigod!

“Yeah,” he muttered, watching me closely. “That a good thing to share when you’re gettin’ to know a sweet, feisty woman who you know’s gonna mean something to you?”

Oh
God!

“Honey –”

“My Dad,” he cut me off, “was about the brotherhood, not blood. Spent my life watchin’ him knock my mother around. Spent my life knowin’ he fucked around on her whenever he wanted, wherever he wanted and he did not give one shit that she or his kids knew. Spent that time vowin’, I got a good woman, which my Mom was in the beginning, that I would never, not ever, do that shit.”

His eyes were hard, resolute and I kept silent because I figured it was now “later” so I had to take what was coming to me.

And I wanted it.

So I kept quiet and took it.

“Got an older brother,” he kept going. “He hit eighteen, he joined the Air Force. Got the fuck out. Dad was in prison by then and Mom had convinced herself she wasn’t worth shit so she just kept hookin’ up with shitheel biker after shitheel biker that treated her like Dad or worse. Don’t blame my brother for gettin’ the fuck out. Do blame him for never turnin’ back. Didn’t hear from him then, don’t now, don’t even know where the fuck he is. He left me and Kimmy to that. By the time I was free, I just wanted out so bad, I couldn’t see anything else. So I got on my Dad’s old Harley, took off and left her to that too.”

He was still struggling with that decision, it was clear on his face. He wasn’t hiding it from me. And it hurt to witness.

So I slid my hands up, wrapped my fingers around his neck and whispered, “Baby.”

Tack was in the zone because he showed no response that I’d even spoken and kept talking.

“Searchin’, that was what I was doin’. Pissed off at the world ‘cause ‘a my shitty life, scared as shit I had my Dad in me, searchin’ for somethin’ that would prove that wrong, lead me to a better life. Somethin’ to do to get that poison out of my system. Somewhere where I belonged. Found Chaos. Back then, they were a good Club, about livin’ life, havin’ a good time doin’ it and raisin’ hell, all of which I wanted, the last I needed. They sold pot. They had the garage as a front. And they were about the brotherhood but also blood and country. Not a lot of places in this world you can ride free and do the shit we liked to do. America is one of them. They appreciated that. That isn’t to say that they abided by all her laws but that was their choice and it was a choice they could take because we live in America.”

He pulled in breath and was talking quieter when he spoke again.

“But the first Chaos party I went to, old ladies were there, kids. Later ones, yeah, they got rowdy and shit went down but that first one was about family. I liked that. I liked the way the brothers were with their women, their kids. I liked the shit they had to say about what the Club was about, what the brotherhood meant. So I found where I belonged and became a recruit.”

“I’m glad you found that, handsome,” I said softly.

“Me too,” he agreed. “But then I got my cut and was let into the way the Club was goin’ and I was in, no goin’ back even if I really didn’t fuckin’ agree with the path they’d turned down. They kept goin’, meant I was followin’ in my father’s footsteps. But these were my brothers. So I kept my mouth shut, did my bit but planned for the future, talked the Club into explorin’ different avenues while they made their way down that path, just in case they got their shit together and veered off. Didn’t work but I kept at it, met Naomi, got her knocked up with Rush, married her ass and she got what she wanted. She was born an old lady. She loved the life. She bullshitted me, a miracle how she could do that while suckin’ my cock, as I told her where I felt the Club should be and she said she was with me all the way. She knew before she got deep into it with me where my mind was at and she threw her hat in my ring. And when Kimmy died, she knew I’d come back full of fire to make that change and she acted like I never fuckin’ told her when practically every night I’d talk about it, in our bed before we went to sleep. She liked drippin’ in the rose gold I could give her ‘cause ‘a what the Club was into. She liked havin’ a decent house because she didn’t grow up in one. She liked quiet, she liked the flow, she did not have what it takes to stand by her man. A follower needs one kind of woman in his bed, a leader another. She’s the woman of a follower. She mighta thought she had what it took or even hoped she did but she didn’t. She only had what it takes to hold him down. And that has not changed. Her old man Pipe used to be a decent guy. He’s just weaker than me. She didn’t delay in draggin’ his ass down, he didn’t fight it, that’s where he is and, unless he gets shot of her ass, that’s where he’ll always be.”