There were also two cool light fixtures hanging down, matching sconces on the wall, and gray velvet couches facing each other she probably got from that Z Gallerie place. Two armchairs pointed at the TV rounded out the place that someone (not him) would probably describe as azure or something, but they were a kickass blue. There was a square coffee table in the middle.
Toss pillows.
Nice fifty-five-inch TV on the wall. A low modular cabinet under it that had an Xbox, but other than that, nothing in it but what looked like sponges or something, painted silver.
It felt like it wasn’t a living room in Aurora, Colorado, but in a house at the beach.
It was clean.
It was classy.
It was calming.
It had personality.
And it was obviously the only room in the house she’d had the time, or the money, to really put herself into.
But Janna had concentrated on it, and he had a feeling now that it looked like it was done, she’d probably move on to another room when she had the cash.
Patient.
Smart.
Hopeful.
Beck stood there not knowing what to feel.
He’d grown up in a decent place, but his mom and dad struggled. They both worked a lot, but with two growing boys and a factory that sustained the distant suburban Denver town constantly changing hands and eventually closing down, it wasn’t easy.
He’d never had velvet couches.
He’d never had personality.
His father was a presence in the house, not a force.
His mother tolerated her husband, raised her sons and ran her house and sons like she was a single mother, and the idea of silver sponges (or whatever) that had no purpose and were a little weird (but Beck had to admit they looked cool), would not cross her mind.
He did not think of his place with Rosalie.
But if he’d thought about it, he’d realize she brought her life to it, not adding anything from their lives together. And he’d brought shit. So when she’d left him, she’d taken it all.
And if he’d thought on it, he’d realize they’d always been temporary. She’d always had her foot aimed to walk out the door.
Now he knew that wasn’t about Rose still being in love with Shy Cage.
It was that he never gave enough of himself for her to fully give herself to him.
And somewhere in her, she knew she deserved better.
She’d been right.
Now he had a bed. A couch. A TV. A set of plates and forks, knives and spoons he got at Walmart. And an overflowing trash bin since he always ate takeout.
He had shit before he had Rosie.
He had shit now.
Except when he was with Janna.
He turned the corner and saw Janna standing at the stove wearing a tight, little cami with tiny pink flowers on it and short, pink pajama shorts with a little frill at the edge.
She curled that mass of blonde hair so that now, in the morning, after sleeping and fucking, it was a messy mane of curls and tangles that dropped down in a V nearly to her waist at the back.
Her profile was makeup free.
She had the top of her hair pulled back in a little pony that made her look like Pebbles Flintstone, except hotter.
And the toes on her bare feet were painted an insanely girlie shade of pink.
His cock started to get hard.
Something pulled in his chest.
It was the smell of bacon, as it would do, that cut through.
“Babe, you shouldn’t make me breakfast.”
She turned her head, got that melty look and a smile, and replied, “Good morning, honey.”
Beck ignored the melty look.
“I gotta be at work at six thirty. You don’t.”
“It’s a trek into Denver.”
“It’s five o’clock in the morning.”
“So?”
“When do you normally get up?”
She looked to the skillet.
Right.
It was time.
It was time months ago.
Now, those legs, that Pebbles hair, her living room, the toothbrush, her going for a deep kiss, bacon . . .
It was definitely time.
“We don’t have this.”
She jerked her head to face his way again, emotions chasing across her expression until she settled on just one, and that one was a look he’d never seen.
Stubborn.
It was cute.
Fuck.
Her eyes scanned him up and down and she retorted, “Funny. It looks like we do.”
“Janna—” he started, beginning to move into the kitchen.
“Beck,” she snapped, making him stop.
She’d never snapped at him.
Never showed backbone.
That was hot too.
They held each other’s eyes.
And as they did, he decided to use this to his advantage.
“Okay, if we do, you had another bad dream last night. Wouldn’t tell me what that shit was about. Didn’t tell me about it when you had one before. So if we got this, tell me what it was about.”
The stubborn shifted out of her face. It closed right down. And she looked back to the skillet.
“Janna,” he growled.
She slid the skillet off the burner and turned full body to him, announcing, “You don’t trust yourself with me.”
Beck stood frozen still.
She wasn’t done.
“You’re the gentlest man I’ve ever met.”
“I am not that,” he bit out.
“No. You weren’t. Now, you are.”
He did not believe that.
She couldn’t believe that.
And if she did, he really had to end this.
“We’re not doin’ this. Any of this,” he stated, throwing out a hand to indicate the food cooking on the stove as well as her.
And them.
“You start to trust yourself with me, Beck, I’ll start to trust you and tell you about my dream,” she said quietly.
He did not process the fact that Janna, his sweet, timid Janna (not his, but his, Christ) was using emotional extortion to get what she wanted because he focused on one thing.
She said dream.
Not dreams.
She was not someone who was afflicted with bad dreams.
It was one dream.
And his gut was telling him there was something there he had to pull out.
“Babe, you got somethin’ fuckin’ with your head, you need to let it out.”
“Beck, you’re a good guy. You’re a smart guy. You’re a sweet guy,” she returned.
He was not good.
He was all kinds of stupid.
And he was far from sweet.
He didn’t get a chance to challenge her.
She kept talking, gentling her tone.
“Saying all that, I don’t want to sound mean, but you really need to learn some self-awareness, honey.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Ask yourself, why do you care I have bad dreams?”
And again, he froze solid.
Fucking fuck, but he was giving himself away.
“If all you want is a guaranteed uh . . . lay . . .”
She couldn’t even say “lay” without hesitating.
How did she work on a porn set?
“ . . . you wouldn’t care about my dream.”
“A guy would have to be a real tool not to give a shit the woman he’s banging has a dream so bad it jerks her awake.”
“Yes, well. Progress. At least you realize you’re not a real tool.” With that, she turned to the stove, picked up a red scraper, put the skillet back to the burner (she was making eggs) and started scraping, saying, “Now sit down. I’ll bring you your coffee.”
“I can get my own coffee,” he grunted.
She turned her head and shot a smile at him.
Shit, she was playi
ng him.
With all that hair, those shorts, those pink toes, velvet couches, food and sweetness, she was fucking playing him.
Beck moved to the cabinet to get a mug, muttering, “Don’t read anything into this.”
“Oh, I won’t,” she said to the eggs. “Like I won’t read anything into you coming back to me again and again for months.”
Right.
He was done.
He pulled the mug down and turned to her, a lot closer in her small kitchen, which was a much more dangerous position for him, but he couldn’t let that in.
Because he knew he’d been fucking shit up since the minute he realized she was not with him for some fucked-up reason. But instead, she was a good woman who thought she’d found herself a good man.
“Why’d you start with me?”
“Because you’re handsome.”
“Janna, I’m carved up.”
She turned to him again, handle of the skillet in her hand, eyes to the scar that still had a lot of angry red slashing across his face.
But when she’d met him, it had only been months since he’d earned it and back then, it was a fuckuva lot uglier.
“Everyone’s carved up, Beck. Somehow,” she said softly. “You can just see one of yours.”
Oh shit.
His gut tightened up.
“And how are you carved up?” he asked.
“You keep forgetting to pretend you don’t care.”
He put the mug down on the counter, clipping. “Janna, this isn’t a game.”
“No, you’re right.”
“I’m protecting you from me, you know it, and you need to let me.”
She tipped her head to the side and some of that fantastic hair fell down her arm.
Shit.
“Are you gonna hurt me?”
“Yes.”
She blinked.
“I got that in me, babe, and you know that too,” he reminded her.
“You won’t hurt me,” she whispered.
“I bet Rosalie thought that too,” he returned.
She flinched.
He’d never brought Rosalie up.
He’d never brought it up.
He kept at her.
He had to.
“You wanna serve me breakfast now?”
“Beck—”
“Tell me about your dream,” he demanded.
“Come for dinner tonight, spend the night, and I’ll tell you tomorrow during breakfast,” she shot back.
“Janna, you need to look out for yourself,” he growled.
She lifted her chin. “You’re not going to hurt me, Beck.”
“One way or another, that’s gonna happen.”
“It isn’t.”
“Why are you with me?”
“Spend the weekend with me and I’ll tell you Monday.”
“Goddammit, Janna.”
She leaned toward him and there was a mix of desperation and determination on her face.
“I’m not giving up on you, Beck,” she snapped.
He again stood still.
His mother gave up on him at around two, probably before, he just didn’t have much cognition before that.
Rosalie worked hard at it, but he made her give up on him in the worst way he could do that.
But he’d given up on himself way before that.
“You’re gonna give it, I’m gonna take it and use it and eventually let it go,” he bit out, low and ugly.
“I’ll take that chance,” she replied.
“You’re bein’ stupid,” he told her.
“It’s not the first time,” she returned. “Now get your coffee. Breakfast is done and I don’t want it getting cold.”
And there was another new thing.
Boss.
He liked it.
So it gutted him.
She scooted past him to the table where, when he shifted to watch her go, he saw there were plates and forks already laid out. A stack of toast on the table. Jelly and butter. And a paper-lined plate piled with bacon.
Goddammit.
“I wanna look after you,” he said quietly.
She stopped scraping eggs onto a plate but stayed bent over it, only tilting her head back to face his way.
“I know,” she whispered, that melt in her eyes that he felt in his chest. “Get your coffee, honey.”
“Be smart, baby,” he whispered back.
“I am.”
“You know I’m gonna have to end this,” he warned her.
“I’ll take that chance.”
“For fuck’s sake, sweetheart. Why?”
She straightened, gave him the blast of her full attention, and laid it out.
“Because you make me happy.”
Shit.
Fuck.
Christ.
Nothing else would do it.
But that did it.
Fuck.
That did it.
“Come have breakfast,” she urged.
Since he was stupid and weak and selfish and fucked up, Beck turned to her coffeepot, poured himself some joe, then walked to the table to sit in front of a plate full of eggs, serve himself some bacon and toast.
And he had breakfast.
With his woman.
Naomi
“Call me, you stupid, fucking motherfucker!” she shouted into her phone.
She stabbed the screen, threw the phone down on the dinged table in front of her and glared at it.
“Dumbfuck. Asshole. See who’ll suck your cock now, motherfucker,” she ranted at her phone. “Scrape off Naomi before she’s done with you, earn yourself a world of hurt, dickhead.”
She slammed back into the chair she had been sitting in and looked out the grimy window of the motel she was in outside Thornton.
How had this happened?
How had this fucking happened?
Her shit, and there wasn’t much of it, was in a storage garage in Boulder.
And her ass was in a hotel because, after Spooks kicked her out, she didn’t have anywhere to go or anyone who would take her in.
This was the only place she could afford, it was a shithole, and it was a killer commute to work in Boulder every day, where she made dick and was paying through the nose in gas to get there.
She needed an apartment.
She had to have a deposit for an apartment.
She snatched up her phone, ran her thumb over it, checked her bank balance.
It would cut. And she’d have to move her own shit, no way she could afford movers.
And she didn’t have anyone to help.
But as much of a shithole as this was, it was eating away at her green.
She had to get out.
Spooks was not taking her back, that much was clear. He wouldn’t even take her calls. So she had to cut her losses with that.
She was stuck.
“How did this fucked-up shit happen?” she snapped, still glaring at her phone.
She needed to get her shit together. Get to work.
She didn’t.
She went to her voicemail. Scrolled through all the marketing messages (stupid motherfuckers), the only ones she got. She found the single voicemail not from a marketing person. One from months ago.
She hit play and speaker.
“Naomi,” his gravelly voice came at her, “Tack. You’re gonna hear about Natalie. Other shit’s goin’ down. It isn’t pretty. You gotta get your ass down to Denver. Chaos will cover you, you have to take leave from work. We’ll put you in a safe house. You’ll have our protection. Détente, Naomi, until this shit is handled. I’m not sure what’s gonna give with this, but I got a feeling it’s gonna get worse before it gets better and I want my children’s mother covered. Call me. We’ll set up a time to meet.” Pause. “Don’t be stubborn, woman. Take care of yourself. If not for you, for Rush, and any feeling you got for Tabby.”
The voicemail ended.
I want my children’s mother covered.
Like
she cared dick what he wanted.
Stupid, fucking Tack, her ex, fucked shit up again.
He just had to clean up that Club.
He just had to oust Crank.
He couldn’t just take the huge piles of dough they were making off guns and drugs and broads and sit pretty.
Nooooo.
Not high and mighty Kane “Tack” Allen.
He had to have something good and right to offer his fucking children.
God, but she’d hoped he’d fall flat on his face. She’d soooo fucking hoped that Club would implode and kick his ass out.
But no.
Oh nooooo.
They now had Ride Auto Supply stores and garages in five cities. People actually thought it was cool just to hang there. Cool to buy their air filters and anti-freeze from a member of the Chaos MC. No one in Denver or Fort Fun or C Springs or Boulder or Grand Junction got their wiper blades anywhere else. It was whacked.
And they’d found that brother, the one called Joker, who was a master at custom bike and muscle car design. Got themselves a spread in a goddamn, up-its-own-ass magazine, for fuck’s sake. In it, a picture of all the brothers spread out around a kickass chopper, looking badass and total cool.
They were making money hand over fist with that shit.
No guns. No whores. No dope.
Clean and clear and good and right.
Fuck.
He’d worked hard at it. Earned it through sweat and blood and loss and brotherhood.
And he and that skank were up in their mountain home, raising two boys, that bitch shimmying around Ride in her tight skirts like she ran the fucking joint.
That was Naomi’s.
It should have all been hers.
Now Chew—that asswipe piece of shit . . .
She bet Tack didn’t see that asshole coming.
Then again, Naomi wouldn’t have called that either. Never would have thought Chew would have the balls for it.
She was wrong.
And the only thing that made her lips twitch was that Tack hadn’t called it.
But now women were getting dead.
Reb.
That bitch was hard as nails and about as fun to be around as typhoid, so Naomi liked her.
Shot in the face.
By Chew.
Jesus.
Naomi closed her eyes but opened them again when her ex-husband filled her vision.
She remembered.
She remembered the beginning. Seeing him. That ass. Those blue eyes.
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