“You back me up a lot,” I observed and his brows drew together.

“Say again?”

“You back me up a lot.”

His head tilted slightly to the side but he didn’t reply.

I gave examples, “In my office, last night in this room, just now down the hall and, um… also in this room.”

“Yeah?”

“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 ha**ng s*x 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 f**kin’ 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.”