“Why would you need to ask him?” he asked. “It’s your house.”
“Because we have plans,” I answered. “I’m making him dinner right now, and it’s rude to change plans at the last second or force someone to spend time with someone they might not wish to spend time with after they’ve had a long day at work.”
“You do know he belongs to a motorcycle gang,” Aaron suddenly informed me, and my head jerked as frost formed all over my skin.
“I do,” I said slowly. “However, it’s a club, not a gang,” I corrected. “Though, what I’d like to know is how you know.”
“Were you meaning to keep that from me?” he asked.
“I wasn’t. It’s just that Joker really isn’t your business,” I shared.
“He spends time with my wife and son.”
“Your ex-wife, Aaron,” I corrected again. “And yes, he spends time with your son. So does Tory. Shall we go over Tory versus Joker, or did I make my point the last time?”
“That might factor if Tory was going to be in my life for very much longer.”
I drew in a hissed breath.
There was the answer about Tory.
“This isn’t you, Carissa, spending time with some guy in a biker gang,” he told me.
“You don’t know me,” I whispered. “We spent a decade together, and in that time you didn’t make the effort to know me.”
“I certainly didn’t, if you’re the kind of woman who thinks it’s okay to expose her child to a biker gang.”
“Club,” I snapped.
“Whatever,” he snapped back.
All right.
I was done treading cautiously.
“It’s not whatever. It’s important,” I educated him. “And further, in not taking the time to get to know me, you failed to learn that I’m not stupid. I may have done stupid things because I loved you, but I’m not stupid. And not being stupid, I know this is a threat.”
“Riss—”
I cut him off.
“You’re looking into me. I don’t like that, Aaron. It’s invasive and insulting and ultimately will be destructive. I’ll tell you now, I’d like very much if we can move beyond what’s happened between us to build a relationship that’s considerate of each other in order to provide a healthy upbringing for our son. That’s what I’d like.”
I took in a quick breath and before he could say anything—because I had a lot to say he needed to hear—I continued.
“Until I can get on my feet in order to take care of Travis financially, I’d also like your financial assistance. It won’t be decades. It’ll be until I can get an education to build a career where I can make more money. And further, while he’s still so very young, I’d like for him to have a more stable home life rather than being passed back and forth every week. And as his mother, I believe that time should be spent with me. In order to give him time to do something crucial in his life, bond with his father, I’m willing to give you days, evenings, et cetera, with your son so you can continue to do that. That’s what I want from you. All I want from you.”
I drew in another swift breath and launched right back in.
“What I don’t want is to fight with you. I don’t want Travis to grow up with two parents who hate each other, who are always battling and bickering. That would not be good for our son. As he grows, as I get on my feet, I’ll be less dependent on your financial assistance and he’ll need more time with his father. If we can get to a place where we can make these decisions and instigate these changes when they’re needed without tearing into each other, Travis will benefit. But I’ll say, if you fight me, I’ll fight back. And if you fight me, Aaron, it will tell me precisely how you feel, not only about me, but about your duties as father to our son.”
I pulled in more breath and finished, giving it to him completely in the hopes that for once in his life he’d care what I had to say and listen to me.
“The idea of us getting back together, Aaron, honestly, I don’t want to hurt you. I know you might not believe that but it’s true. However, we’re over. You didn’t hurt me. You destroyed me. I picked myself up, put myself back together, and came out of that stronger, seeing the mistakes I made in the past. I’m delighted that from the love we once had we made a son we both adore. But there is no longer anything there. I have a man in my life I’m coming to care about enormously. He treats me well, and he’s falling in love with our boy. Truthfully, if you care about me at all, you not only will allow me to have that but want it for me. And with that, this conversation is over. I just ask that you please think on all I’ve said. And I ask you, when you bring Travis back to me on Monday, that you also bring my things. Now, have a good evening.”
With that, not knowing if it was the right thing to do not to let him get a word in, and concerned it wasn’t, I disconnected the call.
I put the phone down not only uneasy about essentially hanging up on Aaron and how he’d react to that, but downright worried about that entire conversation.
He might or might not be breaking up with Tory (but it seemed he was).
He might or might not after I’d said my piece wish to get back with me.
But he also might be saying these things to buy time to look into me in order to come to our meeting, or to court, with whatever ammunition he felt he needed, dragging in anyone he felt would aid his cause, and at his sole discretion dragging down everyone that he felt he could use to get what he wanted.
I looked around my lovely kitchen, which I’d yet to really take in.
It was at least three times the size of the kitchen at my old apartment, and in that moment I realized it wasn’t a lot smaller than the kitchen I had in the house I’d lived in with Aaron.
A house his parents bought us for our wedding. A house I hadn’t even viewed before it was given to me as a big surprise present with all the fanfare his father made of it as we stood on the dance floor at our reception with him and his wife making the grand announcement. And after we returned from Massachusetts, I was moved into it.
I wandered out of the kitchen, into the dining room/living room and gazed around.
My furniture fit here. The furniture I’d picked that was attractive and welcoming and comfortable, it fit in this house.
Perfectly.
Like I’d bought it for right here.
This was my place.
This was me.
I moved to the big picture window by the dining room table and looked out.
Big lawn. Room for kids to play. Same in the back with a nice deck. A place to grill out. A place to relax.
Quiet neighborhood.
I waited and watched and I did this for a while.
Only two cars drove down the street. They didn’t race down it. They didn’t have blaring music. They drove sedately through a safe, quiet, family neighborhood.
“This is my place. This is me,” I whispered.
I was where I needed to be for my son.
But also for me.
I had the man I needed to have who loved my son.
But also he was falling in love with me.
Aaron was going to pull out all the stops.
And he was going to ruin everything.
I heard the back door open just as I focused on a sign in the yard at a house across the street.
“Carrie, water’s boiling,” Joker called.
“Can you turn it off?” I called back, my eyes glued to that sign.
Seconds passed.
“Hey,” I heard.
“Hey,” I replied, eyes to that sign.
I felt him get close. I felt his hand light on the small of my back. I felt his heat. I felt his strength.
“Hey,” he said softly, one syllable, one word repeated, but the change in tone said everything.
“The house across the street is for rent,” I told him, staring at that sign.
“Yeah?” he asked gently.
“We should talk to Mrs. Heely. See if she wants to move. Get her out of
that place,” I told him.
“Carrie.”
“Yes?”
“Look at me, Butterfly.”
I tore my gaze from the sign and looked up at him.
He also looked at me.
“Fuck, baby, what happened?”
“Aaron is investigating me.”
His jaw clenched.
“He knows you belong to Chaos,” I told him.
“I’m not hidin’ that, nor would I ever hide that,” he told me.
“I know,” I whispered.
He stared at me. He did this for a while, his hand on my back, light, not claiming like he usually touched me.
Just there.
Suddenly he announced, “Fought the underground fight circuit.”
I blinked.
Then I asked, “What?”
“Illegal fights, illegal betting. Did it for years. Never got caught. Made a shit ton of money. All cash. Didn’t pay taxes on it and won’t if I don’t have to.”
I stared.
Joker kept talking.
“Didn’t live a quiet life, but never did anything really stupid and never got caught doin’ the semi-stupid stuff I did do. In other words, I don’t have a rap sheet, Carissa.”
“I… okay,” I replied.
“I’ve done drugs,” he went on, and my head jerked. “Smoked pot. Snorted coke. Nothin’ else. Don’t mind the mellow of a joint but didn’t like the high of blow. But as a fighter, neither did good things for me, so I stopped doin’ that shit a long time ago.”
I was faintly shaking my head as I repeated, “Okay.”
“Chaos has been a clean club for over a decade,” he kept going. “Not a single member has been taken in for anything more than misdemeanors. Drunk and disorderly, that kinda shit. There are boys who got sheets, but nothin’ serious. Not for a long fuckin’ time.”
With that, it started dawning on me, and what was dawning on me also started warming me.
“Okay, Joker,” I whispered.
“And what I didn’t give you a coupla nights ago,” he carried on, “was somethin’ I knew would freak you and somethin’ I knew the Club would have in hand. That bein’ an informant for Chaos, a woman, a former prostitute, was murdered. She was not killed by the guy who has an issue with the Club. She was killed by a weasel with a grudge. It shits me to have to tell you this because I wanted to protect you from it, but you gotta have it all just in case that jackhole gets it. She had words carved in her skin, one was Chaos and the other was my name because she was my snitch.”
“Oh my gosh,” I breathed, feeling my eyes grow round.
“She wasn’t a good woman but she tried to do good by the Club, even if in doin’ it, she got paid for it. That was her world and that’s the way it needed to be. But she’s dead and she’ll be avenged. The Club will see to that, but they won’t see to it directly. The way it’s done will never color the Club.”
I turned to him, putting a hand to his stomach, feeling all he was giving me, why he was giving it to me, warm me with a heat that sunk straight into my bones.
“Joker—”
“That’s it,” he stated. “That’s all of me. Or all of me that could hurt you and Travis. Now, straight up, if you needed me to leave the Club ’cause you think that would make your case stronger, I’ll tell you, I’d consider it. But that’d say somethin’ about you. Somethin’ about what you think of my brothers, who are me. And in the end, I know it would fuck with me, which would fuck with us. So I can’t give that to you, Carrie.”
“I—”
“But I will walk away.”
My body locked.
He kept talking.
“It’ll kill me. I want you in my life. I want your son in my life. I like what we got, and I like the idea of where we’re going, what we’re building. Never dreamed in my life. But now I dream of that. Givin’ it to you. Givin’ you your Candy. And more. Havin’ that for me. But for you and your boy, you need me to, I’ll walk away.”
No.
No, no, no!
“You were a fighter?” I asked hoarsely, emotion clogging my throat, needing to ask that because I couldn’t even think of how he finished all he had to give me.
“Had a father beat on me,” he answered and I fought my flinch. “Had to let that go. Had to get it out. So I did.”
“A woman was murdered?” I went on.
“Yeah. And I won’t know who or how or when, but if the man responsible bites it, I’ll know why.”
I fell silent.
His hand left me.
I felt bereft.
“Carissa, if this has to happen, it’s gotta happen now,” he declared. “You need this done, I gotta walk out the door. You give me more of you, more of Trav, make that decision later, you’ll strip somethin’ off of me that’ll never heal.”
“If you walk away from me, you’d kill me.”
His head jerked.
But I wasn’t done.
“And if you ever turn your back on the Club, I’d never forgive you, Carson Steele.”
Joker stood there, completely still, and stared at me.
“Aaron is going to do everything he can to ruin everything,” I told him. “And he might succeed. That frightens me. No, it terrifies me, because I don’t want to go through it again. But this time, I don’t want to put you or anyone else I care about through it. That said, whatever he takes, wherever I land the next time, and the next, and maybe even the next, I’ll survive, just as long as I still have Travis and just as long as I still have you.”
I got my last word out and then I had my back to the floor and Joker was on me.
He was tugging at my clothes.
I returned the gesture.
Desperate, breathing heavily, clothes flying, lips dragging, mouths connecting, tongues tasting, hands roaming, nails scratching, fingers tangling, we went at each other, Joker on top, me on top, and back, and again, until I could take no more.
“Condom, baby,” I breathed my plea.
He reached out and dragged his jeans our way.
“Back, spread, hold for me, Carrie,” he ordered.
I rolled off him to my back and did as he asked.
He rolled on the condom and wasted no time covering me.
But as frantic as it was getting to that point, right then, his body on mine, my legs circling his hips, my arms curved up his back, hands splayed on his shoulder blades, his eyes locked to mine, his weight in one forearm, the other arm under me, wrapped around my waist, I felt the tip and then he slid in slowly.
My lips parted as I took him inch by inch until he was buried completely.
“So fuckin’ pretty,” he murmured, gaze still on me.
I closed my eyes.
I was in love.
I opened them and whispered, “Please, please, don’t ever mention leaving me again.”
His response was to dip his head and slide his nose along mine as he groaned, “I won’t, Butterfly.”
“Ever, Carson. Promise me.”
“Promise, baby.”
I touched my lips to his. “Thank you, sweetie.”
He slanted his head and kissed me.
Then as slowly as he entered me, he made love to me, on the floor by the dining room set.
Necessarily, of course, it ended up faster, harder, breathtaking, overwhelming.
Astounding.
And after, lying on my back on the floor under Joker feeling my climax leave me as his weight and warmth pressed into me, his breaths feathering against my neck, it came to me again.
This was my place.
This was me.
This was precisely where I was meant to be.
“Did you turn off the water?” I asked.
Joker’s body moved sharply with his short, startled laugh.
Then he lifted his head, looked me in the eyes, and answered, “Yeah, Carrie.”
“Good,” I mumbled.
His hand came up and he brushed some curls away from my forehead before h
e said, “We’re gonna be okay.”
I nodded.
“It’s all gonna be okay, baby,” he whispered.
I stared into his eyes and I knew it would.
I knew it.
Because I knew, lying there on the floor with Joker still inside me, his weight bearing into me, this was his place.
And like me, he liked his place.
So he’d never leave.
Joker
The next day, Joker waited a long time, leaning against his bike next to the black Lexus SUV.
Eventually he showed.
Walking to his car from the courthouse, the fucker clocked him, stopped, took out his phone, and shot a picture of Joker.
Joker didn’t move.
He knew what the jackhole would do next.
Aaron Neiland was not a man to let the opportunity for a confrontation slide.
So he did what Joker knew he’d do.
He walked right up to Joker and declared, “You can’t intimidate me.”
“She’s happy.”
The man went stock-still.
“Unless you’re on the phone fuckin’ with her head, or after, when you get in there and I got work to do to sort her out, she’s happy. She’s the mother of your kid, man, you should want that for her. She hasn’t had a lot of it in her life, but now she’s got steady. She’s got peace. Leave her be and give her that.”
“She deserves better,” Neiland retorted.
“You’re right,” Joker agreed. “You had your shot and you tore her up. Now she’s found better.”
Neiland’s upper lip lifted in a sneer. “Are you saying you’re better than me?”
“I’m sayin’ for Carissa I am.”
He shook his head. “Unbelievable that you’ve convinced yourself of that.”
“No,” Joker returned. “What’s unbelievable is that you two made a kid. You made a fuckin’ miracle, man, and doin’ it, you assumed a responsibility. And the mother of that kid has lost her little sister. Her mother. The man she loved cheated on her, kicked her out of his bed, his house, put another woman in it, forced her to live in a shit place that wasn’t safe for her or their baby, and he can stand there thinkin’ he’s better for her than me. That is unbelievable.”
Unable to counter that point, he turned away, “I’m not talking to you about my family.”
It was too important so Joker didn’t let it go. “All I’m askin’ is for you to let her be happy.”