“There it is,” he muttered, then his lips crushed mine and his tongue slid into my mouth.

God, he tasted good. I forgot how good. So good, he tasted great.

My thighs tightened against his hips, his finger met his thumb at my nipple and rolled. I felt a rush of heat between my legs. The rush was so strong I moaned into his mouth and arched into his hand as my tongue tangled with his and my arms slid to lock around his shoulders.

“Dad! Tyra!” Tabby shouted. “Someone’s at the door!”

Tack’s fingers stopped rolling, his hand curled warm around my breast and his mouth broke from mine to growl, “No fuckin’ way.”

“Should I answer it?” Tabby called, sounding closer.

“Ye…” my voice broke, I cleared my throat and shouted, “Yeah, honey, go ahead. I’ll be right out.”

“Fuck,” Tack clipped and I opened my eyes to see his were drilling into mine. “We’re not done,” he announced.

“Um… I need to go see who’s at the door.”

His fingers tensed on my breast and he growled, “Yeah, but we’re not done.”

“Um…”

“You’ll see who’s at the door then we’re finishing.”

I bit my lip.

“With me?” he demanded to know.

I stopped biting my lip to mumble, “Uh…”

Suddenly his thumb swept my sensitized nipple, my lips parted and my eyes drifted halfway shut.

“You’re with me,” he murmured, I snapped my eyes all the way open just in time to catch his grin.

Then his fingers were righting my bra, his hand was out of my top, his body was off mine and I was out of my bed and on my feet.

I wobbled slightly since my knees were not ready to take on my weight and Tack’s arm went around my belly. He pulled my back to the front of his body, partly to hold me steady and partly to march me to the door with his face in my neck, against which he ordered, “Be quick gettin’ rid of ‘em.”

“Tack –”

His arm around my belly gave me a squeeze and his teeth lightly nipped the skin at my neck.

My legs wobbled again.

“Quick,” he commanded on a low rumble.

“Okay,” I whispered.

He held me close but reached beyond me and opened my bedroom door.

Chapter Nine

I Can’t Keep Up

I walked connected to Tack with his arm around my middle all the way down the hall. I was freaking out and I didn’t want to like it but there was something about feeling his hard body and the power that naturally emanated from it surrounding me as we moved. He was not someone I felt safe with, at least this was what my mind told me, but my body felt something different.

I’d rather cut off my own arm than ever hurt you.

His words came to me, words I missed when he said them, and they filled my head so full, when we made it out of the hall into the living room, I had to blink my eyes to clear my mind.

Then I stared at Lanie’s fiancé Elliott standing in my living room with Rush and Tabby. The movie was on pause and there was no Lanie in sight.

Weird. Elliott never came over by himself.

“You know this guy?” Tack’s voice rumbled in my ear both audibly and physically.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Hey, Elliott,” I called, smiling at him.

“Hey, uh… Tyra,” Elliott replied, his eyes, for some bizarre reason, darting back and forth repeatedly from Tack to me.

Well, maybe it wasn’t bizarre. Tack was a badass biker who was holding me and Elliott knew me pretty well so he knew I wasn’t seeing a badass biker. He also probably got the lowdown from Lanie about Tack because I was pretty sure she told him everything. So he was probably surprised I was standing there in Tack’s arm with two teenagers in my living room that could not be mistaken as the fruit of anyone else’s loins but Tack’s.

Still, it was bizarre the way he was doing it because it didn’t seem like surprise or shock.

It seemed like fear.

Elliott was not tall, he was five foot seven and Lanie was five foot nine. Elliott had thinning blond hair and a receding hairline. Lanie had thick, lustrous, long dark hair akin to Tabby’s. Elliott had a paunch and a weak chin. Lanie was slim and svelte, a human hanger, no tits or ass, amazing bone structure, beautiful green eyes and she was pure elegance from top-to-toe. Lanie was a human goddess. Elliott was nowhere near a human god.

But Elliott was brilliant, a genius and not one of those socially awkward or arrogant geniuses. He was easy to talk to. He was funny. He was sweet. He was thoughtful. He was generous and he was kind. He never missed Lanie’s birthday and always bought her the perfect present, not always something expensive, but always something she wanted or something meaningful. Ditto with anniversaries. She said he made her laugh. She said he listened when she had a bad day. She said he held her when they slept. And she said she knew beyond any doubt she was the most important thing in the world to him. So Goddess Lanie saw beyond Elliott’s looks and he became the most important thing in the world to her.

They were a love match. Surprising to some, I was sure, but real. And because he made my best friend happy, I adored him.

“What’s up?” I asked, moving forward only to be tugged back, again bizarrely, into Tack’s body. This was bizarre not because he was holding me, which, I was getting, he intended to do whenever the hell he felt like it. No, it was bizarre how he was doing it.

In the hall, his natural badassness made me feel casually safe.

Right now, his tight hold and the feel of his hard body, statue-still and weirdly alert at my back, made me feel he was intentionally keeping me safe.

What on earth?

“Uh… I was wondering –” Elliott started.

“Is Lanie here?” I asked because I didn’t want Lanie there. I was a little panicked that she’d come storming in at any moment, see Tack, see his kids, see the evidence of fajitas and the movie and lose her mind.

Lanie might be pure elegance from top-to-toe but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be pure drama and when Lanie let it rip, watch out.

“No,” Eliott replied, his eyes went over my shoulder and up and he asked, “Can I uh… Kane… er, Mr. Allen, can I talk to you?”

I stared at Elliott wondering what he was on about and who he was talking to.

Elliott’s eyes flitted to me then back to Tack when he finished, “Alone.”

That was when my body went statute-still.

It stayed statue-still for approximately a nanosecond before I heard Tack say to Elliott, “Don’t move,” then he turned me around, let me go, grabbed my hand and I found myself tugged down the hall. Then I found myself in my room and the door was again closed.

I tipped my head back to stare up at Tack.

“How do you know that guy?” he asked.

“He’s my best friend’s fiancé,” I answered.

Tack looked down to the floor and muttered, “Fuck.”

Okay, now he was scaring me again but for a different reason.

“What?” I whispered.

His head came up and his eyes caught mine. “I’m gonna take him out to the back deck. When I do that, I need you to promise me you’ll stay in the living room with my kids and you won’t listen. Can you promise me that, Tyra?”

Ohmigod! What was going on?

“Why?” I breathed.

“Promise me.”

I leaned in and put a hand to his chest. “Why?” I repeated.

His hand curled around the back of my neck and his face dipped close. “I’ll explain why later if you promise me now, baby,” he said gently.

I stared into his eyes as fear filled my heart. Then, for some crazy reason, I nodded.

“Words, baby, give me the words,” he demanded.

“I promise,” I whispered.

His head tilted, his mouth touched mine, he let my neck go and grabbed my hand again. Two seconds later we were in the living room.

“Back deck,” Tack growled then he prowled to the kitchen and disappeared, Elliott following him and the whole time he did, he avoided my eyes.

I heard the door slam and my body jumped when I did.

“You okay, Tyra?” Rush asked quietly, my eyes slid to him and it was then I realized I was trembling.

“Yeah, honey, I’m fine,” I lied and threw him a fake smile. “That movie just freaked me out a bit and your Dad was um… helping me out with that.” I kept lying.

“Yeah, bet he was,” Tabby said on a giggle then collapsed in a full body plop on my couch.

But Rush didn’t move. He studied me like his father had a tendency to do and I guessed he didn’t buy the fake smile or the lies. I didn’t have time to consider the fact that Rush was seventeen, nearly eighteen, and astute. Something bad was happening and I only had time to consider that. So I curled into the armchair Tack had vacated and after a moment’s hesitation and further study of me, Rush stretched out on the floor again and started the movie. We watched perhaps five minutes of it before we heard the backdoor open.

I jumped out of the chair and Rush paused the movie like he’d been listening for the door too. I was on my feet and Rush was at my side by the time Elliott and Tack reentered the room.

Elliott came straight to me and grabbed my upper arms. I felt Rush close to my side but all I could see was Elliott’s pale, plainly freaked way the hell out face and panicked eyes.

“Don’t tell Lanie,” he begged on a whisper.

“Get your hands off her,” I heard Tack growl and felt Rush get closer and Tack closing in but I only had eyes for Elliott.

“Don’t tell her what?” I whispered.

“Don’t tell her,” he pleaded.

“Man, what did I say?” Tack bit out and Elliott’s head jerked to the side and up.