Aaron tore his gaze from Joker and looked at me. He then studied me for a moment that went on too long.
He did this taking in my hair, which was down and poofed out, I knew, because that was what happened when Joker played with it. And while we were lounging, Joker had been playing with it.
He also took in my cute top that was cream, mostly sheer, scoop necked, long sleeved, had little orange flowers on it with tiny green leaves and fit snugly over the tangerine cami I wore underneath. And he took in my beaten-up, faded green lowrider army pants that I got for a song at a thrift shop. They’d had a grease stain that I’d OxiCleaned, and now they were not beaten-up and stained gross but beaten-up and not-stained awesome.
It was not an outfit I would have worn in any of the years I was with him.
It was cute but it was edgy, not by choice, but because it was all I could afford.
I still liked it, and I liked it more now because it suited the new me.
Cute and edgy.
That was me.
Fortunately, before I had to prompt him to get his behind moving, he walked to me standing by the door.
It seemed he was going straight through the door but regrettably he stopped and looked down at me.
“We’re not done, Riss,” he said softly, his tone a tone I knew. It was the tone he used when he was trying to get something from me. Me to forgive him. Me to change into the dress he wanted me to wear to dinner with his parents and not the one I’d chosen. Me to come to bed so he could have sex with me.
The fact that he was using it now didn’t give me a good feeling.
“You and I will never be done,” he went on. “We both know that.”
He gave me the look with his interesting blue eyes that used to undo me but right then made me fight rolling my eyes before his perfectly formed lips twitched.
“Take care of yourself, honey,” he murmured, allowed his mouth to form a grin, then he walked through the door.
I shoved it closed behind him, locked it, turned to Joker and declared, “I would say it’s an understatement that it doesn’t excite me he’s found a different way to be annoying.”
Joker burst out laughing.
I watched him, liking it. I kept watching him, liking it more when Travis became mesmerized by Joker’s laughter before he decided to join in in his baby way by smacking his toy against Joker’s mouth.
Joker started chuckling and looked down at my son.
When he did, Travis went for the gusto by shoving the toy in his mouth at the same time he lurched up and tried to latch on to Joker’s mouth, thus slamming both his wet lips and the toy into Joker’s face.
“Come get your kid before he chews my lips off,” Joker said in a way garbled by toy and baby.
I did as not-quite-requested (but I decided to take it that way).
When I was again cuddling my son, I felt Joker’s hand on my hip and I lifted my eyes to his.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
“He intends to be more annoying,” I replied.
“Got that,” Joker stated. “So, you okay?”
I sighed.
Then I said, “I got through the other ways he’s been annoying. I’ll get through this.”
Joker squeezed my hip. “Yeah, Carrie. You will.”
I grinned at him as I leaned up and kissed his stubbly jaw.
Travis conked me in the head with his toy.
This made me laugh and give my attention back to my son. Which started me putting that scene with Aaron out of my head and doing what I should have been able to do ten minutes ago.
Welcome my son home. Give him a full tour of the house. And ended the tour with spending time with both my boys—my baby one and my biker one—in my new safe, clean, pretty house.
* * *
“He’s gonna try to win you back.”
It was that night. Travis was asleep. It was late. It was after the news. After making love with Joker in my bed. The baby monitor I had in storage but hadn’t had to use in months since Travis had slept in the same room in the apartment with me was on, its red light lit, and it was on the nightstand on Joker’s side, where my biker put it.
“Sweetie,” I whispered but said no more.
When it happened with Aaron, I didn’t want to think of it.
But I knew it immediately.
Aaron was intensely competitive. I’d noticed it all the way back in high school. I’d always disliked it, and that was the only thing I didn’t bury but let show. We’d even fought about it more than once.
I first started noticing it when the team lost a football game and Aaron would react to it in a way that was a little scary.
And not only me but his mother, who pretty much let her husband do whatever he wanted, would get agitated when father or son would challenge each other to anything. It could be a board game or a tennis match. They’d go at it, and each other, with a viciousness that was frightening.
Aaron’s father would taunt him anytime Aaron made a mistake, and I hated that.
But not as much as Aaron’s behavior. Aaron would rub it in whenever he got one over on his dad. I hated that too. It was relentless, he kept at it to the point it was cruel, and I always thought it said ugly things about him.
Heck, about the both of them.
I had no idea if Aaron’s behavior changed a few weeks ago because he knew I had a good attorney or because he saw me walking to my apartment with Joker.
Or if one led into the other.
I just knew that the landscape of my life was changing in a variety of ways, including whatever changes Aaron saw fit to force on it by any means available.
And seeing his ex-wife with another man had an effect I wouldn’t have guessed, considering the way he’d treated me. But I probably should have.
And as usual, I didn’t like it.
“Gonna do whatever he can to get you, and he’s gonna run his current bitch through the wringer to do it,” Joker informed me.
I sighed, lifted my cheek from where I was resting it on Joker’s chest, and found his eyes through the shadows.
“He and I are done,” I declared.
“Heard a lot of what you said when Travis and me weren’t in the room, Butterfly, so I know you’re into me.” I grinned through the dark but Joker kept going. “That’s not what bothers me. That jackhole is gonna run his bitch through the wringer, and he’s gonna do the same with you and your boy. Man like him doesn’t give a fuck about anything… but winning.”
“I know,” I said quietly.
“You gotta call Angie, tell her all that shit,” Joker advised.
“I will, tomorrow,” I promised.
“And you and her gotta come up with some way that’s gonna make it clear to him that whatever deal you strike about how you take care of your kid is it. Whatever he’s got in his head to do to try to best me, he’s gotta let it go.”
“I’ll mention that to Angie.”
I had hoped that would end it, but Joker kept at me.
“I know he was yours, you cared about him, you gave him years of your life, your hand, a kid, and I know he fucked you and you’re over it. But you gotta know, your ex was a massive dick in high school, and I’m thinkin’ maturity didn’t wean that outta him.”
“He was just—” I started, not in defense of Aaron, more in defense of why I’d put up with the way Aaron was.
“You weren’t around,” Joker interrupted me. “Lookin’ back, the real shit he pulled, the foul shit that was beyond the pale, Carrie, he pulled it only when you weren’t there to witness it. If you knew what that motherfucker was up to, you’d have gotten quit of him before you hit your sophomore year, and my guess is, he knew it.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Like what?” I asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Joker didn’t answer. “Hope the kids he pulled that crap on got over it. It was so brutal, they probably didn’t. But that’s not on you. Everyone knew you were cool. Everyone als
o knew he was not.”
“Did he… do anything to you?” I asked hesitantly.
“Tried,” Joker answered and I felt my body string tight. “Cornered me, but with bad timing. Had a neighbor, man’s still a friend, he drove up when they were settin’ up for their beatdown, your ex-motherfucker and five of his crew. Linus got outta his truck and shared some wisdom with them. He was an adult. He’s a big man. One look at him you know he can handle himself. And he’s got a way with words. The words he used made it clear, they fuck with me ever, they fuck with him, and the way he’d fuck back would be surprising.”
I was struggling with contradictory feelings of relief that Joker’s old neighbor had good timing and upset that Aaron and his friends had targeted Joker, so I didn’t get a reply in before Joker carried on.
“Wouldn’t have mattered if Linus hadn’t shown. I can take care of myself, and by that time had learned to take a beating.”
That didn’t make me feel any better.
Joker wasn’t quite finished.
“But other kids who didn’t have that, Neiland put the screws to ’em. There are bullies, and there are people like Neiland. He broke the mold of a bully. He was a tyrant. He was king of the school, liked his ass on that throne, and actively sought out ways to make sure no one would forget that was his place. He got off on admiration. He also got off on humiliation. Those he considered weak, he wanted them cowed. And he got that however he needed to get it with his crew of buddies who were nothing short of high school enforcers.”
“This is making me feel a little sick, Carson,” I told him the truth, my stomach beginning to roil with nausea.
He slid his hand up my back, to the side of my neck, the calluses catching on my skin, making it tingle in a way that was oddly soothing, probably because it was a part of him. Then he glided his fingers into my hair, and when he spoke again, his tone had gentled.
“Done now, baby, and I know I’m scarin’ you. It sucks I gotta do that. I can see you’re ready to fight, able to do it, got sass in you and fire, and you’re done with him. You make that clear. But I’m doin’ what I’m doin’ now ’cause I’m worried shit that’s been ugly is gonna get uglier. And you gotta toughen up, Carrie. ’Cause he doesn’t get what he wants and he doesn’t get the message this is a battle he should let go, he’s gonna come at you with all he’s got.”
“No,” I said softly. “He’s gonna come at you.”
That was the truth, and it made me feel worse.
“That, you don’t worry about,” Joker said.
“But,” my voice was pitched higher, “he’s got a lot of money and knows people in high—”
“You think anyone dicks with Chaos?”
I shut up because I had a feeling they didn’t. Or if they were stupid enough to try, they didn’t get very far.
I mean, all the guys were really nice to me because they were just plain really nice.
But still, each one of them was a little scary.
Including Joker.
“I’m Chaos. And, Butterfly, I claimed you, and you might not get this because we haven’t discussed it so I’ll make it clear now. Claimin’ you makes you Chaos too. The fight might get ugly, and you gotta be prepared for that. But the way you got your head sorted and the firepower you got at your back, you will never lose.”
“Ugh,” I muttered before shoving my face in the side of his neck, doing this because I had no reply. I knew he was right about the good but also about the bad.
I was glad I had him and his firepower, but I still wasn’t looking forward to whatever Aaron had up his sleeve.
Joker used his fingers in my hair to massage my scalp soothingly. Strangely, it did the trick. Even with all that we were discussing, just his fingers digging in firm but gentle were comforting.
So I relaxed against him.
“I might want to bronze that tire, but if I keep being a pain in your behind, you may wish it never existed,” I muttered against his skin.
“Look at me.”
My relaxed body instantly stiffened at the severity of his command.
It was not firm. It was beyond that. It was something I not only had never heard from him but I’d never heard at all.
It was meant to be obeyed.
Without question.
And I obeyed it.
Without question.
When he had my gaze through the shadows, his hand slid down, fingertips in my hair, palm to my ear, thumb digging into my cheekbone. It didn’t hurt, but it did convey a message.
The touch was an assertion. Another command. He said he’d claimed me, and that was a physical demonstration I knew in that instant I had to understand, do it completely and also without question.
I suddenly found it hard to breathe.
“I don’t know where this will lead,” he stated. “You and me and your boy. I know what we got. I know I like what we got. I know I wanna keep that strong and make it stronger. Shit happens. I hope like fuck it happens to us, we’ll fight through to the other side. But I know this and you gotta know it too. No matter what happens, I will never, not ever, not fuckin’ ever, Carissa, regret ridin’ down that shoulder to help you and your boy. It’s the best decision I ever made in my life, and I know that in a way I know I’ll feel that until the day I fuckin’ die.”
His thumb was still on my cheek so he felt the silent tear that fell from my eye and collided with it.
“You scared a’ that?” he asked harshly.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” I whispered huskily.
And it was. Excepting the first time I heard Travis cry, it absolutely was.
“Then you get me.” His voice was no longer harsh, but it was rough.
“I get you, sweetie.”
He pulled me down to kiss me.
That too was an assertion. Like his hand on me, his words to me, that moment in the dark in my bed, even with all we’d shared before, was the beginning and it was also an ending.
I was his, for certain, for sure, no matter what had gone before, it started right then.
I was Carson “Joker” Steele’s.
End of story.
He was mine too, but with a manly man biker, that was secondary. It went with the territory, hand in hand with him staking his claim.
This did not bother me. It didn’t trouble me. It didn’t annoy me.
It utterly thrilled me.
That might be wrong, but in that instant, for the first time in my life, I didn’t care if it was wrong. If it was wrong, I didn’t want to be right.
Joker shared all this with his mouth. He then broke the kiss, leaving me breathless, and tucked my face back into his neck.
“Now, baby, sleep,” he ordered thickly. “Even if you got the day off tomorrow, Travis’ll be up early and we got a day together with your boy in your new house. I don’t want you draggin’.”
I wanted to cry again. Cry with relief that life had brought this man to me. Cry with happiness that I’d made it through the thorny path that led away from him in high school but then led me right back.
I didn’t.
I snuggled closer, with my arm wrapped around him pulling him to me as I did, and I tipped my eyes over his throat to the red light lit on his nightstand. Where he’d put it. So, even though we slept cuddled, the baby monitor was still closer to him so he’d be sure to hear if Travis needed us.
Us.
Us.
That thought almost made me cry too.
But I didn’t.
Because it was done.
In that moment I knew it was finally over.
I’d lost Althea. I’d lost Mom. To deal with the pain and make sure I lost nothing else, I’d put blinders on, made my mistakes, and then my dream had died.
But now the loss was over.
The blinders were off.
And I had Travis.
Then I got Joker.
And he gave me Chaos.
So it was done.
I
was done losing.
And in being done, eyes open, facing ahead, back straight, head in the game, I was ready to win.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A Biker Named Joker
Carissa
EARLY THE NEXT afternoon, I was wandering the living room/dining room area, bouncing my son, who was bawling.
Joker walked in from the kitchen with a fresh soda in his hand and I stopped, looked to him, still bouncing, and declared, “I don’t get it. He’s had his nap, it was shorter than normal, but that’s never a big thing with him. Still, he woke up fussy. He ate his food then was cranky. But he’s had his food, his diaper is clean, he’s been bathed. He can get grouchy his first day back from his dad’s, but not like this.” I looked down at Travis and finished on a mutter, “Maybe he’s not feeling well. He’s got another tooth coming in. Maybe that’s it.”
Travis had no answer, except to keep crying loudly.
My head came up when I felt Joker get close.
“New place, Butterfly,” he said over Travis’s blubbering. “This time, he’s got more to get used to. New room. New space. Away from his dad’s.”
This made sense, and I wondered why I hadn’t thought of that.
Joker set his can on the dining room table, pulled my boy out of my arms, and walked away, also bouncing him.
I watched as he bent to Travis’s toy basket and picked it up. Then I watched as he came back and dumped the entire thing across the floor behind the couch.
At that, Travis jumped slightly in his arms, shoved his fist in his mouth, stopped bawling, started sniveling, and gave Joker’s actions his complete attention seeing as Travis was always up for making a mess of pretty much anything.
Joker crouched down and planted Travis’s baby booty on the floor next to the toys. When he had my son down, on the other side of the toys he dropped to his hip and stretched out on his side, long jeans-covered legs out, feet bare, faded black tee drawn tight across his chest, his upper body rested on a forearm.
I kept watching as Joker picked up a blue giraffe and poked Travis in the belly with it.
Travis took his hand from his mouth and pumped both his fists in the air at his sides before he went after the giraffe.