“Tack –”
“You admitted it.”
“Tack, please –”
“You were drunk, wet, hot and way the fuck turned on but you still admitted it.”
I did and the way he was looking at me, his blue eyes drilling into mine, I couldn’t deny it.
And also, it was true.
Damn.
“I’m in no state so can we not talk about this?” I requested.
“Yeah, we can not talk about this. Just want it confirmed you get that you gave that to me.”
“I get that I gave that to you,” I whispered, powerless to do anything but.
“Okay, baby, then now I’ll confirm that you get what it means to me.”
I stayed silent and stared.
Tack didn’t stay silent.
“Seen a lot, done a lot, met a lot of people. Most of ‘em, I like. Some of ‘em, I don’t. Some of ‘em, I hate. But did so much and knew so many, the unexpected is rare. I color your world, you give me the unexpected. We’re now totally balanced, Red. You didn’t know it but you had the upper hand. Now I know what I give you, it means as much as what you give me, we’re on the same level. And I like it like that.”
He was kind of freaking me out.
And, contradictorily, he was kind of not.
Either way, I couldn’t deal with this hungover.
“Stop talking, Tack.”
“I will when you assure me you took in what I said.”
“I took in what you said,” I replied quietly.
“Are you processing it?”
“I’m hungover, Tack.”
“You got the day to process it. You also got the day to get over that hangover. Tabby says she’s cookin’ tonight which means you’re on the back of my bike tonight and spendin’ the night at my place.”
My heart was pumping fast and my stomach was roiling.
“You’re talking about food again, Tack.”
“Pack a bag.”
“Okay.”
“No, I mean pack a bag.”
I blinked.
Then I asked, “Pardon?”
“You’re gonna be spendin’ lots of nights in my bed in the mountains, babe. Come equipped to do that. I’ll load the saddlebags on the bike.”
My mind was whirling.
“Tyra, did you hear me?”
“Saddlebags. Come equipped. Tabby making dinner. I heard.”
“Good.”
“Coffee, Tack.”
“Right.”
“And aspirin.”
“You got it, baby.”
He touched his mouth to mine and I concentrated on not hurling as he rolled and angled out of bed making it shift and sway in a way that was supremely nauseating. When he was out, I rolled to my side, shoving my hands under my cheek and concentrated on his fantastic body as he yanked on his jeans finding this helped you forget you were hungover, if only for seconds. Still, it worked.
What worked better was, once he had his jeans on, him turning to the bed, bending over, putting a hand into it, arm straight, other arm stretched to me so his hand could come to his jaw and his thumb could sweep the apple of my cheek.
Yes, during that maneuver, I totally forgot I was hungover.
Then he moved away and was at the door when he stopped and his eyes came to me.
At the look in them, I braced.
“You have no clue,” he whispered.
“No clue about what?” I whispered back.
“What you handed me last night.”
I took in a deep breath and asked softly, “What did I hand you, honey?”
“What’s lyin’ in that bed.”
That was when I stopped breathing.
“I claimed it,” he went on. “But last night you gave it to me. Gift’s given, no takin’ it back. You get that, Tyra?”
“I think so,” I whispered.
“Get that, baby, it’s important.”
I didn’t have it in me to do anything but nod.
He took in my nod. Then his eyes shifted down my body in the bed.
When they came back to my face, he said gently “Coffee and aspirin,” and he disappeared.
I rolled to my back, ignored my queasy stomach and fuzzy head and stared at the ceiling, replaying last night.
It was awesome, from start to finish. I was losing Lanie which sucked and I hoped she came back soon. But last night, I gained an entire posse and that felt good.
And knowing Tack didn’t mind having more kids, actually wanted them was way better.
Then I replayed that morning.
It was awesome too. Most definitely.
“Roller coasters aren’t so bad,” I whispered to the ceiling.
Then I smiled.
* * * * *
Five hours later, I was at Ulta buying stuff to take up to Tack’s when my phone rang in my purse. I yanked it out, looked at the display, grinned, took the call and put the phone to my ear.
“Hey honey,” I said softly, grabbing a bottle of my shampoo.
“Like that,” Tack’s gravelly voice came at me. Then he asked, “How you doin’?”
“Not great but better. I’m at Ulta getting supplies for your bathroom.”
“Good, baby,” he said softly in a way that communicated he liked that too then he carried on, “Be by around five.”
“Right.”
“Later, babe.”
“Tack?” I called quickly to catch him before he disconnected.
“Yeah?”
I looked at my shampoo bottle.
Then I said, “My shampoo bottle is bright orange.”
“Say again?”
“My shampoo bottle is bright orange.”
“Right. And you’re tellin’ me this because…?” he trailed off.
“Because I’ve been using this brand of shampoo for years and I never really noticed what color the bottle was. Not once.” I drew in breath. “Until you.”
Silence then a soft, very sweet, “Darlin’.”
“See you at five, honey.”
Again sweet, “Five, babe.”
“Later.”
“Later.”
We disconnected.
I reached and grabbed a bottle of conditioner.
Same style bottle as the shampoo but it was beige.
It was the lettering that was bright orange.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cool Whip
“Bye!” I shouted, standing outside Tack’s front door, Tack behind me, his arm tight around my chest and I was waving away Dog and Sheila, the last of Chaos to leave our impromptu Friday night party at Tack’s place.
Sheila, who I loved and who was on the back of Dog’s bike, shifted to lift her arm to wave back.
“Later!” I yelled as they made their way down Tack’s lane.
It was three weeks since I told Tack, drunk and turned on, that he colored my world and then confirmed it, hungover and with my wits about me, while standing in Ulta holding a shampoo bottle.
Three great weeks.
I didn’t screw up at work (much).
No one had been kidnapped.
Naomi had been laying low.
Lanie and Elliott were somewhere Tack assured me was safe and we still had our secure phones so I could talk to her.
After I sent my e-mail to Aunt Bette giving her the news that Tack and I worked it out, neither she nor Uncle Marsh lost their minds.
And Kane “Tack” Allen had proved he could handle me with care which further proved he was absolutely, without a doubt, my dream man.
Now it was now. I was at Tack’s. Tab and Rush were out, Tabby at a party and she was spending the night with a girlfriend. Rush was on a date which was a double feature at the drive-in and he wouldn’t be home until late.
Hop, Brick, Dog, Boz and Hound, all members of Chaos, and their women had come up. We drank beer. We shot tequila. We ate chips out of the bag (I didn’t even put them in bowls!). We dipped those chips in jars of store bought dip that
I also didn’t put in bowls. We laughed. We played music loud. Some of the boys and girls smoked pot though Tack didn’t and they didn’t press it on me. I thought that was cool since I was riding a happy vibe and didn’t want to discover the consequences of saying no to a high biker. And the night ended when most of the couples started making out (yes, even Tack and me) so Tack gave the sign that the party was over (he did this by announcing, “The party’s over”) and the boys loaded the girls up on their bikes.
It was a blast!
Now it was late and Chaos was gone and I was standing outside Tack’s wondering when I became the woman who would serve chips in a bag and then make out relatively hot and heavy with her man with a bunch of bikers and their babes in attendance.
Then I quit wondering because I was tipsy, happy, Chaos was gone and the real party could commence.
When Dog and Sheila disappeared, Tack released my chest but grabbed my hand and tugged me into the house. Then he shut the door and locked it.
This done, he turned me into his arms.
“You drunk?” he asked a question he knew the answer to, grinning his sexy grin down at me.
“Yep,” I answered, rounding him with my arms, leaning into him and allowing his sexy grin to do a number on me.
“How drunk?” he asked, still grinning down at me and I rolled up on my toes, pressing close and holding him tight.
“Smashed.”
“Good,” he muttered, let me go but grabbed my hand again and dragged me to the refrigerator.
There, I watched him open the door and tag a tub of Cool Whip.
“What’s that for?” I asked as he closed the door.
His eyes came to me.
Looking in his eyes, I knew what the Cool Whip was for.
Then I got a top-to-toe tingle that I fancied shimmered straight off my skin.
I grinned.
Tack didn’t grin. He tugged on my arm and dragged me down the hall to his bedroom.
Dinner was chips and dip, beer and tequila and good company.
Dessert was Cool Whip and Tack.
In other words, dessert was the bomb!
* * * * *
I woke naked, draped over Tack, smelling the musk of him I loved, feeling sluggish, mildly hungover and definitely sated.
I didn’t know the time since Tack didn’t have an alarm clock.
“Babe, I get up when I get up. Don’t need a machine tellin’ me what to do.” This was Tack’s explanation of not having an alarm clock and seeing as he was an early riser, it worked for me as when he rose, he saw to it I did too. Therefore, I couldn’t find out the time.
I did know the sun was shining bright but since it was Colorado in August this could mean anything.
I also knew it was Saturday so whatever time it was, it didn’t matter.
I lifted my head and saw my man was sleeping. As in out.
This wasn’t surprising. He drank a lot of beer, shot a lot of tequila and ended the night energetically in a sex marathon that lasted a long, long time where he insisted on doing all the work.
But I was up in a way I knew I was up. Not to mention, I had to go to the bathroom.
So, carefully, so as not to wake him, I slid away and rolled off the bed. Rooting around on the floor which now included a tangle of my clothes, I found a camisole that I’d worn to bed a couple of nights before for approximately ten minutes before Tack took it off. Then I went to my bag in the corner, rooted through that and grabbed a new pair of undies before I picked my way through the clothes on the floor on my way to the bathroom.
I did my business, put on my undies and cami, washed my face, brushed my teeth and flossed. After I was done rinsing my toothbrush and was putting it in the holder with Tack’s, my eyes caught my reflection in the big mirror that spanned the long vanity and I went still.
My belly had never been concave but it had been (mostly) flat. Now it was slightly rounded. My hips were never slim but they were now more rounded. My breasts were clearly fuller and straining the camisole.
I knew it by the way my clothes were fitting but I didn’t really pay any mind to it.
Now I saw it. I was gaining weight.
Three weeks of eating whatever I wanted, that was bound to happen. But I didn’t think of it, not once, until then.
I was deciding no more chips and dip and definitely no more beer when my mind moved over last night. Tack’s mouth on me, his tongue, his hands, the way he rolled me, shifted me, hauled me, tossed me around the bed. His focus solely on me. The looks on his face, the heat in his eyes, the noises he made.
Not to mention the Cool Whip. We went through the whole tub.
My eyes went over my body in the mirror and I thought of Gwen, who was definitely curvy and even Naomi, who was curvier.
Tack liked it like that.
I put my hands flat on my belly and slid them across to my hips, back to my belly, up my midriff to my breasts.
As I did, I was thinking I liked it like that too.
And I definitely liked Cool Whip.
My eyes caught their reflection in the mirror and I grinned.
Then I wandered back out of the bathroom and stopped at the side of the bed.
Tack had turned to his side, one arm thrown out, his other hand stuffed under the pillow under his head.
My eyes drifted over him.
He had the tattoo of a dragon taking up the whole of his upper right arm, its scaled, taloned feet slithering down the inside of his upper forearm. The tattoo curved around his bicep, over his shoulder and even up his neck. I’d asked why he got it and he’d explained it was because of Naomi. She told him when he got angry, he breathed fire. She was not wrong. Luckily, that tat was cool as all hell so even if it held nuances of his time with Naomi, that didn’t shadow its coolness.
I could also mostly see the tattoo on his bicep on his inner left arm. Swirling and spiking curlicues around the word “Cole”. The curlicues were so intricate, you actually had to study it to find Rush’s name in their midst (I knew this because I’d done it). He told me he got that because his bicep rested close to his heart. The same style curlicues around the mostly hidden word “Tabitha” was on his heart so no explanation necessary about that one.
Jutting up the wrist on his outer left forearm was another design, not in curlicues. It included wings, smoke, fire and parts of a motorcycle around four words randomly inked into the design, “Wind”, “Fire”, “Ride” and “Free”. Those words, he told me, were essentially Chaos’s motto. When a recruit was taken fully into the fold, they got the Chaos emblem emblazoned on their back and they also each had their own tattoo of their own design somewhere on their body that contained those words.
And last, all around the curve of his left shoulder was a kickass design that included a hooded skull and a set of scales. I had asked but he hadn’t explained that one to me.
That tattoo, as with a number of other things, Tack wanted to share, “later.”
I didn’t press. I was enjoying the now. And I knew, when he was ready, Tack would give me later.
Studying my man in bed, his tats on display, the sheet resting at his hip, his hard, defined muscles and the power of him at rest, his hair a mess, some of it falling over his forehead, he looked such that any woman, no matter their bent, would take a walk on the wild side if this was what she got to wake up to.
And she’d stay.
On that thought, I put a knee to the bed and Tack’s sapphire eyes opened, his head turned on the pillow and those eyes locked sleepily on me.
“Come ‘ere,” he muttered, his voice deeper, rougher, even in a mutter rumbling over my skin.
I went there, moving on my knees into the bed as he pulled partially up, his hands coming out to me and grasping my hips. He rolled to his back and I swung a leg over to straddle him. His hands slid down then up so they were warm against the skin on the inside hem of my cami and his eyes moved over me.
My eyes moved over his tats and I was thinking that b
eyond anything on this earth, I wanted me to be inked somewhere permanent on his skin. And not like Naomi, an admittedly kickass dragon but one that laid testimony to the fact she pissed him off so bad he breathed fire.
One like Rush and Tabby’s that was beautiful, it’s meaning hidden to anyone but Tack or someone who he allowed close enough to study it long enough to find out.
“Baby,” he whispered and my eyes moved from Tabby’s name to his.
“I’m gaining weight,” I announced and his fingers gave me a squeeze.
“Yeah,” he agreed but said no more.
“I keep going, I’ll need to buy more clothes.”
“So buy more clothes.”
There it was. Not, “Stop drinking beer,” not, “Quit eating the Big Grab of chips with lunch and dipping into the boys’ donut stash” but, “Buy more clothes.”
He didn’t care.
Good.
I bent over him and put my hand to his chest, my eyes dropping there and to watch my finger tracing the curlicue where Tabby’s name was written. While I did this, his hands slid up my cami and moved soothingly over the skin of my sides and back.
“You hungover?” he asked, my eyes went back to his, I shook my head but said, “A little bit. You?”
He shook his head.
My hand slid up his chest, his neck to his jaw and my thumb moved over his stubble on its path to glide along the edge of his goatee where my eyes had dropped to watch.
“You okay?” Tack asked and I looked back at him.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“You’re quiet,” he observed.
“I want to be inked on you,” I blurted.
Yes, I blurted that. Right out.
His hands went completely still.
Damn.
We were having fun. It was easy. It was good. No, it was great. We were in that time when we were getting to know each other, enjoying it, seeing how we fit into each other’s lives.
But it was too new, too soon for something that heavy.
Panicking, I blathered, “I mean… I don’t know, not now –”
I stopped speaking when his fingers tensed into my skin so hard they dug into my flesh. Then I was flying through the air as he lifted and rolled so I landed on my back with Tack on top of me and between my legs.