I needed to do this with Buck, whatever it was going to be, get my stuff and go to Seattle.
And then back to my vow of no more men…
Ever.
“I need to finish it with him,” I whispered.
I whispered that, barely able to get it out, even in a whisper.
Because it had to be said, I didn’t want to finish things with Buck.
However, with what he said to me, what he thought of me, I needed to.
And now that this was happening, I also realized that Tia was right.
I needed my things.
Like that little girl I was with her crappy stuff in her crappy little suitcase, I needed to hold on to everything I had because I had no idea what was around the corner, so I had to keep what I’d earned close.
You never knew when you’d get more.
All you knew was that you couldn’t afford to lose what you had.
“Sweetheart—”
“I need to do this.”
He stared into my eyes and I stared into his.
It hit me that his eyes were ones I could stare into a long time and never, never get bored.
But that was for a different woman.
Not the woman that was me.
Nope, it would seem the good stuff was never for the woman that was me.
I just hoped, whoever that woman turned out to be, she knew she was lucky.
“Then do it,” he said gently.
I nodded, inhaled through my nose, he let me go, and I walked to the door.
I opened it to see the snake coiled out there, ready to strike.
Now, if you asked me to tell you the top five things I thought West Hardy would do when I opened the door to a police detective’s apartment, what he did was not one of those five things.
It wouldn’t have been in the top ten.
Or even twenty.
Maybe even thirty.
And this was because what he did was immediately dip a shoulder, plant it in my stomach, wrap his arm around the backs of my thighs, heft me up and stalk away.
“Oh my God!” I heard Tia scream.
“Buck!” I shouted.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” I heard Rayne clip.
“Buck!” I repeated on a shout.
“Shut it, Toots,” Buck growled and stalked down the stairs that led up to Rayne Scott’s apartment.
“Put me down!” I yelled.
“Shut it,” he clipped.
“Put her down!” Tia yelled, and I knew she was chasing after us.
Buck planted me on my feet by his bike.
I took a step away, and he hooked an arm around my waist and hauled me to his body.
With that done, he turned his head to Tia.
“Shit, babe,” he said. “I got everyone I know in fifty states lookin’ for your girl, you’re out one night, and there she fuckin’ is.”
Was he for real?
I pushed against his arm. “Let me go.”
His angry eyes sliced to me.
“You’re on the back of my bike.”
“Let me go!” I yelled.
“Hardy, let her go,” Rayne stated.
He and Superman Damian were also there.
Fantastic.
“Do me a favor,” Buck said to Tia, ignoring Rayne. “Get her purse.”
“Are you nuts?” Tia screeched, the last word so high it was a wonder all the glass in Rayne Scott’s very nice apartment complex didn’t explode.
“Let me go!” I shouted, pulling against Buck’s arm, and he looked back down at me.
“You’re in love with me,” he declared.
“Not anymore,” I shot back.
“Darlin’, you can’t fall outta love in one night.”
“Why not?” I returned. “I fell into it in one night.”
Buck blinked slowly.
Then he grinned.
All his anger gone.
Vanished—poof!— in one second.
Then, because the universe hated me, his other arm closed around me, he bent his head and he kissed me.
That’s right.
He kissed me
Long, hard, deep and open-mouthed.
And weak, stupid me, I let him.
When his mouth released mine, I was holding on to his shoulders and it was me who was blinking, and I did it so much I finally blinked sense into myself.
“Let me go,” I whispered.
“I was a dick,” he whispered back.
“Yes, that’s why you need to let me go.”
“Clara, baby, I’ve told you, I’m not lettin’ you go.”
“You were mean to me.”
“You pissed me off.”
“So?”
“You told me you were okay with me fuckin’ other women.”
“I did not!” I snapped. “I told you that’s the way the biker babes told me I was supposed to be.”
“Yeah, babe, and that was fucked.”
“Gotta say, I like this guy’s style,” Superman Damian put in at this point.
“Damian!” Tia shrieked.
“Tia, honey, look at him. He’s into her,” Damian replied.
“I don’t care! You don’t carry a woman out of an apartment. That’s crazy!”
“I’ve carried you places,” Damian returned.
“Yes, but I was bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds.”
Multiple?
Damian looked at Buck. “Bro, you want me to shoot her? It’ll help you get an in with her best friend.”
“Pass,” Buck replied, sounding amused.
Amused!
“Oh my God,” Tia muttered, glaring at Damian.
“Is this really happening?” I asked Rayne.
Rayne shook his head, but he answered, “Yes.”
God!
I looked back at Buck and yelled, “Let me go!”
“Babe,” was his response.
Ugh!
“She wants you to let her go!” Tia shouted.
“Honey, look at her,” Damian urged. “Your friend spent all night crying about this guy.”
On no.
Was it that obvious?
“And?” Tia shot back.
Darn.
It was that obvious.
“Tia, beautiful,” Damian said quietly, snaking an arm around her waist and pulling her close. “Look at her. She’s right where she wants to be.”
I glared at Damian.
Tia studied me.
“Do you mind?” Buck requested, then finished, “Privacy.”
“Fuckin’ hell,” Rayne muttered.
Tia kept studying me.
I kept glaring at Damian.
Damian drew her back, murmuring, “Let’s go.”
Tia looked at him, then at me, then she made her decision.
“I’ll be right upstairs.”
I turned my glare to her.
She pulled in her lips and bit them as Damian moved her to the stairs.
Rayne didn’t move.
He planted his fists on his hips and his eyes were locked on me.
“Scott, you need to find your own woman,” Buck stated.
Rayne’s eyes cut to him, and he clipped, “Bite me.”
Then he looked at me again and his gaze dropped to Buck’s arms around me. A muscle jumped in his cheek and his gaze came back to mine.
Then he made a decision.
“It doesn’t go your way, sweetheart, all you gotta do is yell.”
Fantastic.
Even the police were deserting me.
I didn’t respond because I didn’t get a chance. Rayne turned and jogged up the stairs.
When he disappeared from sight, I kept my attention on the stairs.
Buck’s hand cupped the side of my face and forced it forward just as he tipped it back and dipped his close.
“You been cryin’?” he asked gently.
“No.”
His eyes roamed my face then caught mine again before he whispered, “Liar.”<
br />
“Buck, seriously, let me go.”
“I was a dick.”
“You already said that.”
“Now you need to get over it and get your ass on the back of my bike.”
He wasn’t annoying.
He was infuriating!
“You said some mean things.”
“And you already said that.”
“They were mean, Buck, awful. Below the belt. You accused me of using you.”
His arms got tighter and his face got closer.
“Clara, baby, we were havin’ a good night. No,” he shook his head once, “not a good night, a fuckin’ great one.”
I felt my chest get tight.
He was right. We were.
The best.
Making love. Sharing souls. Accepting each other just as we were.
The kind of night that changed lives and altered worlds.
“Then Nails crashes our party and you lose it and tell me you love me in the middle of a rant at the same time tellin’ me you’re okay with me fuckin’ other women,” Buck regrettably continued.
“I didn’t actually say that, Buck. I was ranting because I didn’t want to say it.”
“Yeah, babe, but look at it this way. Last night, I gave you me. You didn’t ask for it, but I gave it to you. And when I did, you didn’t fuckin’ hesitate with showin’ me that givin’ you me was as important to you as it was to me. And you said words to me, Toots, words that meant a fuckin’ lot. Words that, if you were in my bed, on my bike, believin’ in me the way you do, would mean I’d have had the balls to move on what Aces was doin’ and I’d have done that a long time ago. Then, not an hour later, you’re tellin’ me you’re happy to give pieces of me away. Important pieces. That pissed me off, Clara. The things you said, the way you were, that meant somethin’ to me, and then you gave it away.”
“I didn’t,” I whispered.
“I took it that way,” he pointed out the obvious.
“You were wrong,” I told him.
“Yeah, I was. And I got pissed and said some shit that was jacked because of it.”
“Stuff comes out when you’re angry, honest stuff, and that tells me somewhere in the back of your head you think I’ve been using you.”
“Stuff comes out when you’re angry, Clara, stupid, jacked-up stuff that you say just because you’re angry and you don’t mean a fuckin’ word. You hurt and then, no matter it’s wrong, you can’t stop yourself. You hurt so much, you wanna strike back.”
Darn, he was right.
And I’d hurt him.
I’d hurt him by accusing him of cheating on me.
Worse, saying I was okay with that. Okay with him giving away pieces of himself that belonged to me.
They belonged to me.
If he said that to me, if he told me, even in the beginning, he was okay with me playing the field, giving myself to someone else, that would have gutted me.
Definitely now.
Yeah.
Darn.
He was right.
I pulled in my lips, bit them, and pushed my cheek against his hand to look away as the tears stung my eyes.
“Baby, look at me,” he whispered.
“No.”
“Clara, honey, fuckin’ look at me.”
I shook my head and inhaled sharply through my nose to control the tears.
Then I felt his mouth at my ear.
“You’re not reading me again,” he whispered there.
I let my lips go and clenched my teeth.
He went on, “You think I’d get that pissed if I didn’t love you too?”
At his words, my eyes instantly unfocused and my body went statue still.
His arm around me got even tighter and his lips moved to the skin of my neck where he said, “Clara, I love you.”
I remained statue still.
His hand at my jaw tensed. “Toots, baby, please, for fuck’s sake, look at me.”
My head turned, his lifted, and I looked at him.
“You love me?” I whispered.
His thumb swept my cheekbone.
“Yeah,” he whispered back.
“When?” I asked.
“What?”
“When did you know you loved me?”
His thumb moved to sweep my bottom lip when he replied, “When you were pullin’ back Tatie’s hair when she was pukin’ in the toilet.”
Seriously?
“That’s gross,” I declared.
He grinned a small grin. “Babe, you were lookin’ after my girl even after she’d been a bitch to you.” His head dropped, he touched his mouth to mine before lifting it again and saying quietly, “You look after everyone. Savin’ Jimbo a cupcake and chattin’ with Gear on the deck and doin’ somethin’ with Tatie’s space so she feels at home when she’s at home and makin’ Minnie feel important by listenin’ to her babble about her biker babe shit. But only I get to look after you.”
Oh dear.
That felt nice.
It felt nicer, how much he paid attention.
I closed my eyes and whispered, “West.”
“Get on the back of my bike, babe.”
I opened my eyes and noted quietly, “You have a really, really foul temper, Buck. It comes out physically and it comes out verbally, and I get understanding a person and how they react to things, adjusting your behavior when you can and letting them be who they are. But I cannot live with the worry I’m going to do something and you’re going to strike, poisoning me or us with your anger.”
“Then I’ll get a lock on it.”
I was again blinking rapidly.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“You’re right. I let loose and it isn’t cool. Think you get from what you saw of her, the scar I got that’s a constant reminder, that Kristy, when she blows, she’s worse than me. A lot worse. Grab a knife and carve your anger into someone worse. I learned through years with her, you’re backed against a wall in a relationship, a family is at stake, you fight fire with fire, babe. You are not that. You are not Kristy. I haven’t had a long-term situation since her. And I’ve never had a long-term situation without her. And then I got one and I didn’t adjust. I was asking you to adjust, and I didn’t do it. Now, I’ll do it.”
He'd mentioned just last night that he’d been nineteen when he met her.
Still, really, a boy.
And all he knew was her.
And now…me.
I wanted to believe what he said.
I really, really did.
However.
“Easy as that?” I asked quietly.
“No. Figure I’ll fuck up again. But you gotta know, a man gets his head straight real fuckin’ fast when his woman gets the look on her face I planted on yours and she runs away from him, disappearing in the night. I gave you the worst in me, and right after I did, you told me nothin’ I could do would ever make you look at me differently. And not an hour passed, and I did somethin’ ugly that made you look at me differently.”
Yes.
He really paid attention.
“That tat I got?” he asked.
“What?” I asked back when he said no more.
“That tat I got, Clara. The one that says, ‘never again?’”
I nodded.
“That is about never letting a woman treat me like shit like Kristy did. Dragging our kids down with it. Imploding our family because she wants what she wants and nothin’ else matters. Now it’s also about never forgetting that look on your face, baby. Watchin’ your hair fly as you ran away from me. I will never…”
Abruptly, he shook his head before he dipped his face closer to mine.
And when he spoke again, his voice was low and coarse.
“Ever, darlin’, forget that. And I’ll never make you feel that way again. Thinking about it now, feels like I got a knife in my gut, but this time, it was me that drove it there.”
I didn’t want him to feel that.
In fact, I wanted to t
ake that feeling away.
All that he was feeling because he wasn’t hiding any of it.
And it meant the world to have it, a precious gift, even if it was difficult watching him experience it.
But we still had something to go over.
“And if I stand in your way, will—?”
“Honey, I see somethin’ else happenin’ here. I keep tellin’ you to read me, and straight up, you gotta learn to do that. But I also gotta use my words. I’ll start now. If you did not think that day and the time after I was not runnin’ scared, you need to pay a fuckuva lot more attention.”
Running scared?
Buck?
“Wh-what?” I stammered.
“You were distant from me all day because I marked you, and I spent all day tryin’ to figure out how I could make you trust me again. Talked to Ink about it. Chap. You’re at home with my baby girl and my son, you and my boy lookin’ out for Tatie after what happened to her. I was out tryin’ to figure out how I could erase what I did to you. I get home, you’re on the phone, you let me kiss your nose, then you don’t even come out and say hey. You go right to bed with my girl.”
That day…
After Tatie was hurt.
He was…
“You were out…talking to the guys…about how to—?”
His eyes got a look I’d seen in them only once before.
When he’d seen the bruise on my shoulder.
Anguish.
Oh my God.
“Clara, I marked you. Think about it. Think about bein’ so out-of-your-brain pissed, you did something that hurt me.”
I flinched.
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“You talked to Ink and Chap about it?” I asked softly.
“Mistake. I told him, Ink was so pissed at me, I thought he’d throw down. And Chap was so disappointed in me, I thought he’d kick my ass out of his house. But he didn’t. He sat me down and said I had to do my time. I had to sort my shit and do my time. I had to remind you why you were there, get my shit straight so it never happened again and do my time.”
“Do your time?”
“However long it took to make you trust me again. And babe, we’ll just say a few of the boys heard you screamin’ at me then saw you run outta the Dive last night, and by the time I hit the bar, I had so many angry faces up in mine, I had no hope of followin’ you.”
Wow.
“Wow,” I whispered.
“They dig you,” he muttered.
They dug me.
And suddenly, I was reading Buck.
Reading and reading and reading.
Still Standing Page 37