“Honestly? I don’t know.” I looked at the broken screen of the front door and took in the uneven front porch. “I hate this place,” I said, and I meant it. There were very few things in the world I could say I honestly hated, and that poor excuse for a home, which held nothing but bad stacked on top of bad, was one of them.

“I know you do,” Bear said, grabbing my hand and dragging me off the bike. I took off my helmet and set it on the seat next to his. “When you told me about Rage suggesting that you two burn it down, you seemed to like that idea.” He shrugged. “So let’s fucking do it.”

“What?” I asked turning to him and searching his face for any signs of a joke.

There weren’t any.

“This is your idea of normal?” I asked, suddenly feeling the heaviness start to lift off my shoulders.

Bear lit a cigarette and tossed me the lighter, which I caught in my right hand. “Yeah,” he said, taking a drag and blowing the smoke out through his nose. Smoking isn’t supposed to be sexy, but holy mother of sin did Bear look hot doing it. “You know. A little lunch. A little fooling around. A little arson. It may not be normal, baby, but I’m thinking we shouldn’t use that word when it comes to us. ’Cause I’m thinking normal ain’t something the two of us are ever gonna be.” He was unusually quiet for a second, looking to the house and then back to me. “Let me ask you something, Ti.”

“Yeah?” I asked as he came to stand in front of me.

“Is that what you want? Normal?” he asked, scratching the shaved part of his head with the heel of his hand that held his cigarette.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t even know what normal is.”

He pointed to the house. “I imagine that it’s a house with a picket fence where the woman has dinner on the table every night at six thirty, and a man who is never late to eat that dinner and always places his napkin on his lap.”

I scoffed at the idea. “I hate to tell you, Bear, but your idea of normal is like the fifties. Also, it’s kind of sexist, and that entire scenario sounds really fucking boring.”

“You know what I mean. I can’t give you that. I don’t even know what that looks like,” Bear said, a crack of vulnerability breaking through the surface. “So tell me what you want. Be honest, because this might be the only time I ever ask you.”

I shrugged because the answer was an easy one. “You. I want you.”

Bear stubbed out his cigarette in the dirt and looked up to meet my gaze. “I’m no good for you, Ti.”

The words rang in between my ears and bounced around in my brain, yet no matter how many times I registered what he’d just said, I still couldn’t believe what I’d heard. “No good for me?” I asked. Heat crept up my throat as I stalked toward Bear, staring him down with everything I had in my little pink head. “Don’t you think I’m the one who gets to decide what’s good for me and what’s bad for me? And why is good or bad even a factor? Good, bad, right, wrong. How about I’m a fucking adult, and the only person who needs to be good for me, is me. You’re the man I love.” I pushed against his chest. Hard. But he stood firm, his face expressionless. “You may not make me a better person, but you make me the me I want to be.”

I turned around and Bear’s arms came around my waist, pulling me back against him. “That’s the last time I want to talk about that, okay?” I asked, in a much softer tone, now that Bear’s beard tickled my temple and neck and I was surrounded by the comfort of his strong tattooed arms.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, his deep voice rumbling against my throat as he used every bit of his southern drawl to do that thing he does when he says something and my point goes out the window.

“You know you lay on your accent thicker when you’re trying to be sexy, right?” I asked, turning in his arms, asking him a question I knew he already knew the answer to.

“Oh, baby,” he said, with a crooked smile. “I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about.” His lips came down on mine in a kiss that was not meant to be anything more than a kiss, but still had me quivering and the hairs on my arms standing on end. I fit perfectly in his arms.

Surrounded.

Safe.

Loved.

“What do things look like from here?” I asked after he’d pulled back. I looked out into the grove, the trees were tangled with one another. The rotting oranges no longer smelled as the earth absorbed them. “With us.”

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Bear asked, knocking on the top of my head.

“I just… I mean.” I took a deep breath. “The entire time I’ve been with you, you weren’t the Prez of an MC. You were just Bear. I don’t know a lot about club life, what’s involved or where I fit into all of that. So I just wanted to know, you know…what happens to us?” My confidence from only a few moments earlier faded quickly leaving me squirming in his grip, but he held me even tighter.

“Ti, nothing happens to us.”

“Oh,” I said, my heart sinking, my grip around his neck loosening.

“No.” Bear rolled his eyes. “I meant that nothing changes. It’s still me and you, baby.”

I didn’t say anything. I knew I would learn what being an old lady was all about, but I didn’t want to disappoint Bear in the process. “I just don’t know a lot about the lifestyle. Or about my place in it.”

Bear smiled and ran his thumb over my bottom lip. “That one’s easy. Your place is right here by my side. All the other shit you’ll learn. I’ll tell you something. A lot of guys in the Bastards kept their biker life and their family life separate, almost like they were two different people. Wives at home, whores in the club. I know how it feels to be a biker, and not a man. I know how it feels when you find the person who makes you realize you can be both. I don’t want to be two people.” He sighed. “For a while there, I didn’t have you or a club, and now I’ve got both of you, and I’m not keeping nothing separate and I’m not hiding you away. You’re it for me, baby. We’re family. Me, you, King, Ray, their crazy-ass kids, and now my brothers.”

“It’s all that simple, huh?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“I’m not gonna lie to you. There will be times I won’t be able to tell you shit. Certain secrets are kept only between brothers. But if I can’t tell you shit, then I’ll just tell you I can’t,” Bear said. “I’ll be as honest as I can and I expect the same from you.”

“Okay,” I agreed. Simple enough.

“I promise I won’t shut you out. Not now. Not ever. Not gonna lose you again.” He tipped my chin up so he could look me in the eyes when he said, “You’re mine.”

“And you’re mine,” I said. Bear closed his eyes like I’d just hit him with something hard and when he opened them again, they were the color of the clear sky overhead.

“I think what I was just trying to tell you is that it’s okay now, you know. You’ve protected me. You’ve already fulfilled a promise that you never meant to keep. I don’t want to hold you back. You’ve got your club. You’ve got your brothers. I’m safe. It’s okay. No matter what you want to do,” I said, needing him to know that his obligation to me was over. If he wanted to let me go it would hurt. It would be something I’d never recover from.