I trailed my tongue behind his ear then whispered my suggestion there, “Maybe I’ll get some toys so I can take care of business while you’re recuperating.”

His head jerked back and mine fell to the pillow.

“Fuck that,” he stated.

I suppressed a grin.

Tack pulled out and my lips parted at the loss of him.

“Get cleaned up,” he ordered.

“For what?” I asked. “I like you inside me.”

“Babe, you know I don’t go down on you after I’ve come inside you. Get cleaned up.”

Excellent.

I grinned at him.

He scowled at my grin.

Then he muttered, “Wears me out.”

He was so full of it.

I took a leg from around him, planted my foot in the bed, rolled him to his back and I did all this while kissing him hard, wet and long.

When I was done, I lifted my head and whispered, “I’ll go get cleaned up.”

“Hurry, babe,” he ordered.

The kiss worked. Then again, I knew it worked because I ended it when his fingers dug in my ass which I’d learned was a sign Tack liked what he was getting.

Then again, my man always liked what I gave him.

So I gave him another grin.

Then I hurried.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Battle Scars

“Red.”

The door to the garage just opened and I hadn’t even got my head up to look that direction before I heard Tack’s gravelly voice say my name.

“Yeah, handsome?” I asked his head which was the only thing shoved through the door.

“Come into the garage,” he ordered and disappeared.

I got up, smoothed my tight skirt down my thighs and walked on my spike-heeled pumps around my desk to the door to the garage.

I did this happily, deciding not to get uppity about his order. And I did this mostly because we’d had a great night the night before and I was still riding that high.

It was Wednesday, two and a half weeks after the drama with Tabby and, fortunately, not much had happened. Or it had, just that all of it was good.

The hog roast had been a blast.

The trip down memory lane, tequila-infused sex-a-thon in Tack’s room at the Compound during/after was even better.

And last Saturday, Tack had driven his big Ford Expedition down the mountain to my house, Rush and Tabby trailing in Rush’s car. Once there, we’d loaded up a bunch of my stuff so I could move in with them.

Earlier in the week, while eating a dinner Tack wisely cooked (buttering them up, not, in the end, that they needed to be buttered) but before my introduction to the TV show Justified (and the dude who played the lead reminded me a lot of Shy, or at least his body did, and, incidentally the show was also good), Tack had shared the news I was moving in. Rush and Tabby, to my relief but not surprise, declared this “the shit”. Thus the five minute family meeting was over and the TV watching commenced.

Tack had ordered the recruits to move my furniture and anything else I didn’t take up the mountain to a storage unit. I was going to sift through it. Tack and I would decide what to switch out, what to add and what to get rid of. In the meantime, we were renting out my house and Tack declared we’d put it on the market, “When you’re ready, darlin’.”

I thought it was cool he didn’t rush me into this. Not that I needed an out. Just that things were happening fast. It felt less fast and more in my control knowing my house was still there. I was never going to move back, I loved my house but I loved Tack more and his house in the mountains was awesome. But at least the hold on my past was still in my grip and it was up to me when I was ready to let go.

I talked regularly to Lanie and she reported she and Elliott were doing “just fine”. She didn’t give a lot of detail on what they were doing but I guessed this was a Tack edict and this lack of information would keep me safe. I guessed this, I didn’t like this but I also didn’t question it. I had niggles of worry about it but my friend sounded happy. On my part, I shared with Lanie that I’d successfully helped her Mom with canceling all their wedding plans which was some serious work but it was also all done.

“And, maybe, soon, we’ll be home,” Lanie had said the last time I talked to her.

I figured this was an unintentional share of intel on the state of Operation Rivers of Blood but I didn’t ask, not her or Tack. I just hoped she was right.

Aunt Bette, on the other hand, hoped I knew what I was doing. This she shared in her last e-mail which was in response to the one where I told her I was moving in with Tack.

Since I suspected Aunt Bette shared, this also got me a phone call from my mother who told me, “We’re coming out soon, your Dad and I, to meet your new young man.”

For a variety of reasons, it was pretty hilarious she referred to Tack as my “young man” but I didn’t tell her this. I just told her flat out what she’d find when she and Dad got to Denver.

“He’s one of those Harley Davidson people?” she asked in a horrified voice.

I visualized her clutching her dress, her mind filled with thoughts of Tack wearing leathers and eating with a huge-ass hunting knife at the same time it was panicking about how she’d break the dire news to my Dad.

Though, one thing Tack had going for him, he worked with his hands.

“He’s that,” I confirmed to my mother and kept going. “He’s also handsome. He’s responsible. He’s devoted. He’s a good Dad. He’s unbelievably smart. And he loves me.” I paused. “A lot.”

“And you?” Mom asked softly.

“He’s everything I ever wanted,” I answered not softly.

“On a Harley Davidson?” Mom asked and I smiled.

“On a Harley,” I replied and it was then my voice got soft. “Give him a chance, Mom. I warn you, he won’t care what you think of him. He is who he is and that’s it. But he loves me, he takes care of me, he’s a good man and I love him. And if you give him a chance and don’t give into preconceived notions, you’ll like him too.”

Mom hesitated then asked, “He has kids?”

I told her all about Rush and Tabby which got me talking more about Tack and when I was done she was silent.

“Mom?” I called.

“You do love him,” she whispered.

One could say my apple fell far from their tree. Even so, they loved me, I loved them and my Mom knew me.

“Yeah,” I whispered back.

“We’ll come with open minds,” she declared.