“Any of them in this bed?” Tack asked.

“No.”

“Then what do you care?”

Good point.

“Only two people who matter are in this bed right now,” he told me, making my heart flutter. “This is your life, your body. Not theirs.”

Well, I couldn’t argue with that.

Tack kept talking, “I’ll take you to my guy, have him sketch somethin’ out. You like it, you get it. It isn’t your gig, don’t get it. I’m tellin’ you what I want. That don’t mean you gotta do it.”

Well, that was nice.

“Okay,” I said quietly.

“Now what do you want?”

I stared.

Then I started to ask, “Are you saying, I mean… are you going to get –?”

“Not tomorrow. Not next week. But this keeps on like it is, Red, it’ll happen. Absolutely.”

I felt my body melt underneath his.

That meant the world to me. The absolute world and I had no idea why.

It just did.

“So, I get your ink, what do you want?” he pressed.

My hands slid up his back, one going in to his chest and up to wrap around the side of his neck and I answered softly, “I don’t know.”

“Link with Tabby’s, under my pec, on my ribs,” he decided.

Link with Tabby’s. His daughter. His beloved daughter.

Close to his heart.

Tears instantly filled my eyes and I dipped my chin and turned my head to the side in a ridiculous and futile effort to hide my emotion.

And I knew the effort was futile when Tack’s sweet whisper came at me.

“Baby, look at me.”

“My turn to make breakfast,” I said but my voice was wobbly.

“Tyra, baby,” he was still whispering and his hand wrapped around my jaw, forcing me to face him so the tears slid out the sides of my eyes, along my temples and into my hair.

“Inexplicable hangover crying jag,” I lied stupidly and futilely. “It happens all the time.”

“Bullshit, Red, you been hungover around me more than once and you have not cried.”

“You’re still getting to know me. I keep drinking like I am, you’ll see it.”

He ignored my idiocy and stated, “That meant somethin’ to you.”

I took a shaky breath in through my nostrils but didn’t reply.

“It means somethin’ to you,” he mostly repeated.

I licked my lips and still didn’t reply.

Tack’s thumb moved out to glide along my lips and his face dipped close.

“Admit it, baby, that means somethin’ to you.”

I pulled in breath through my nose again and whispered against his thumb, “No,” and his eyes flashed but I kept going. “It means everything.”

His thumb pressed into my lips as did all of his fingers along my jaw and his eyes shifted to heated and intense.

“Fuck, came three times last night, built seven in you and now I’m gotta fuck you again,” he muttered, his thumb sweeping away and his lips getting closer.

“Tack, you don’t –”

“Shut up, Red,” he said against my lips, “I’m gonna kiss you. Then you’re gonna sit on my face. Then I’m gonna fuck you on your knees and imagine my mark on you. Don’t got time for your games.”

My games?

“Tack!” I snapped. “I’m not playing any –!”

I didn’t finish. His head slanted and he kissed me. Then he deviated from his plan, yanked off my cami and spent some time at my breasts. Then he pulled me over him, tugged off my panties, yanked me down on his mouth and ate me. Then he fucked me from behind, his hands spanning the area just above my ass, under my waist, his thumbs meeting in the middle, his fingertips at my hips.

And during it I decided I was definitely a tattoo person.

Absolutely.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Later

“Don’t worry, Cherry, I’ll get the pig.”

This was Brick accepting the task of finding the pig Chaos was going to roast the next Saturday.

“He always gets the pig,” Hound muttered, grinning at Dog who was grinning back. This told me they were sharing an inside joke. I knew they’d explain if they intended to, they always did, or didn’t as the case may be.

This time they didn’t for no further words were spoken about getting the pig. And seeing as it was a whole pig and that whole pig was a dead pig that would be roasted, I really didn’t want to know how Brick got his hands on it.

I was in my office at Ride’s garage. It was Friday after the Saturday morning that Tack and I had our discussion about tattoos. My office was now filled with rough and tumble bikers. Brick, Dog, Hound and Boz to be exact.

Like the mechanics and body shop guys, members of Chaos hanging in my office was not unheard of. Shortly after Tack officially declared me his woman, this began to happen. It wasn’t frequent. It wasn’t rare. And the boys who came to hang included what I’d discovered was my man’s inner sanctum, in other words, the guys who were closest to him, Dog and Brick (who Tack himself told me were his lieutenants), Hop, Hound and Boz. But I also got visits from all the members of Chaos including the three recruits, Roscoe, Tug and Shy.

Surprisingly it further included the two bikers that Tack confirmed at my question were dissenters but who were back in the fold now that they had to band together against the common enemy of the Russian mob, Arlo and High.

Arlo and High hanging with me at the office wasn’t only surprising because they were the two men I had more than once seen having what appeared to be unhappy conversations with Tack. It was surprising as well because they didn’t seem the type to hang out with a woman and shoot the shit seeing as they were scarier than the other guys. By that I meant scary in a dangerous, menacing way and not just a general, dangerous, rough and tumble biker way. And lastly, this was surprising because, although none of the boys were gentlemen, Arlo and High treated me in a casual, friendly biker way exactly like the others albeit they were more serious and less fun-loving. Nevertheless, the point was made. Whatever beef they had with Tack and/or the direction of the Club was not directed at me.

I’d talked with Tack about this and he wasn’t surprised.

“Like it or not, babe,” he’d started, going what he called gentle-like and I knew he was having a mind to my soft spot with what he was gearing up to tell me. In other words, I wouldn’t like it much. “Chaos, fuck, most MCs, women don’t factor. Only men are members, only men make the decisions. A member takes a woman on, she’s got the protection of the Club. She’s a good woman, she can earn the respect of the men. But she won’t have a say, ever.”

I had nodded and made no response. He was right to go gentle since I didn’t much like what he was saying. But although I didn’t like the information he was sharing, it didn’t surprise me.

Tack kept talking.

“But if a man claims a woman, she’s in the fold and even if she hasn’t yet earned it, they’ll show her respect because doin’ that shows their brother respect. All the men, including Arlo and High, are showin’ me respect by gettin’ to know you.”

That made sense.

“They’re also feelin’ you out,” Tack continued. “Says a lot about a man, the woman he chooses, for a lot of reasons. One ‘a those is it’s the way of the world that men talk to their women. Only men can be brothers but not a one of us is stupid enough to think if a woman has claim to a man’s dick, she’s doesn’t also got time to whisper shit in his ear. They take her shit in, it can sway how he behaves during sit downs. So, with you havin’ my dick and my ear, they’re gettin’ the lay of the land. “

Again, that made sense.

Though his use of the word “shit” as pertains to a woman’s point-of-view didn’t make me feel melty and squishy.

Tack wasn’t done.

“That said, she doesn’t earn their respect, they’ll make the show but in reality, she won’t get it. A brother, they’ll respect always no matter his choice in women unless that woman guides him to doin’ something seriously fucked up. They get you’re my woman now but the last one they didn’t like all that much. Naomi wasn’t popular. The brotherhood is all-important. She made me miserable and she made my kids miserable which made me more miserable. They didn’t like that. And her shit reflected on me and I didn’t like that. She also turned into a bitch and no one likes a bitch. And last, there was a sect of brothers who were on a certain path, a path she didn’t agree with and made that clear. This made that path a fuckuva lot less easy and it was already serious as shit.”

Oh boy.

“And what was that path?” I asked cautiously.

“You knowin’ about that path is for later,” he answered immediately.

I accepted that because I trusted him to give it to me later. I also accepted it because he explained what was happening gentle-like, telling me stuff many women would find hard to deal with or even abhorrent. But it was him and his world. To live in his world, I had to know it, he shared it and he did it honestly but carefully with a mind to my response. So I decided not to press.

Though, I had to admit, time was passing. We’d been “official” now for a month. In that time, although there were times when I went to bed without him, I never woke up without him. Most nights we had dinner together, usually at his house because that was where the kids were. Naomi was laying low. Lanie and Elliott had settled in wherever they were (and I didn’t know where they were, I just knew they were both still alive and breathing). I was getting to know and like his kids more and more. And life was settling. It wasn’t a pattern, Tack didn’t do patterns. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t settled.