by V. Theia
Oh, well that’s no big deal, she mentally eye rolled, approaching the beast like it was a hissing cobra. Good thing she was wearing Roux’s circulation cutting jeans.
She got her leg over…just.
The machine was big and taller than expected.
When her butt was perched, Tait unexpectedly reached back and pulled her into him, closer than she was comfortable with, squashing the dress between them. Then she tentatively laid her hands on his leather jacket. “Gonna have to hold tighter than that, babe. Or you’ll fall off.”
“Oh, my God, Tait. Can we not talk about me flying off this thing at high speed? I’m already a wreck.”
She thought she heard him chuckle but the engine drowned out the noise.
When it rumbled beneath her, she instantly latched on as tight as she could, her face went into his back and she could honestly say she didn’t open her eyes again until he stopped the bike sometime later.
“Well?”
“Terrifying,” she breathed, “wait, this isn’t the bus station. Where are we?”
“My place.”
Oh.
She didn’t hesitate in scrambling off the back of the bike, even when her legs wobbled a little and Tait caught her by the elbow. She was looking up at the three-story red brick building with the wide windows.
“Do you have nice neighbors?”
He strode forward and started hitting numbers on a keypad discreetly hidden inside a metal box. Unable to help herself, she shuffled her feet and moved to his shoulder. It seemed a bit security conscious for this kind of building. In New York—Manhattan especially, even the higher end apartment buildings didn’t come with an electronic keypad to get inside.
“No neighbors. The building is mine. I didn’t want to have to deal with assholes being loud all night long.”
Something warmed in her chest to hear that.
Not because it meant Tait must make good money, she wasn’t a gold-digger as she’d heard people whisper about her. She liked money just fine, didn’t everyone? But it wasn’t her sole reason for her decisions.
But it meant he’d made something of his life. To hear his family talk about him, it was as if Tait had joined a cult.
She didn’t know the biker way of life, save for what she’d seen this past week, but if it made him happy and he was successful too, then she was super happy for him.
Not everyone got to choose what they did with their own lives.
“You coming inside or going to gather wool here on the doorstep?” She caught him watching her.
She smiled and moved her feet, following him inside.
He didn’t have an elevator so they walked up the three flights to his top floor and he again opened his front door by entering a sequence of numbers on a pad and then used a key to unlock three locks.
“Is it a dangerous neighborhood, is that the reason for the security?”
“Nah. I’m a biker…was a biker.”
She didn’t understand what his job had to do with it. “What do you mean?”
“We have enemies. Had, I had enemies.” He amended for the second time, but she didn’t have time to question that, not when he strode inside the exquisite loft apartment, tossing his keys on a table.
“It smells a bit musty. I’ll crack some windows. I haven’t been home in a while.”
She didn’t care about the smell, as she watched him do just that, pulling blinds up, he let the light in and it gave her a better view of the place.
It had exposed red brick inside too. No white, boring walls for Tait. The furniture looked brand new. Gray couches and a low table in the middle, on top of a big fluffy rug. Underneath that was wood flooring. Select pieces of art hung on the walls, she smiled to see a vintage picture of his favorite baseball team he used to be nuts about when he was a kid.
It was good to see some things didn’t change.
Dumping her stuff on the floor, Penelope advanced inside.
She loved the openness of his loft. The windows showed a view of the opposite building complex. And the kitchen was modern with all black appliances and white cabinets and countertops.
“You have a really great home, Tait.”
He cut a glance over his shoulder in the process of shrugging out of his jacket. She couldn’t determine what the look meant, only that it tightened her stomach muscles.
She twisted her fingers together in front of her.
“It’s a place to live,” he rumbled. “You hungry?”
“God, yes.” She said enthusiastically. If there was one thing Penelope loved to do with exuberance, it was to eat. “I guess we should talk, I should talk, but can we do it while we eat something? I haven’t had anything since this morning.”
His brows fell over his moody eyes.
She seriously appreciated this new badass look of his. She hadn’t laid eyes on him forever. The last time she saw him, it was at a birthday party and he was clean shaven, in a shirt and blazer. This version of Tait was so far different, she couldn’t stop looking at him.
“The Diablos didn’t feed you?”
“Oh, yeah, they did. Roux was really great.”
“You and her got friendly?”
She trailed him to the kitchen. He opened a drawer and grabbed a fistful of takeout menus.
“Axel put her on babysitting duty. She made sure I was fine; she gave me these clothes.” She pulled at the jean leg self-consciously, knowing she was bulging out of them practically. Roux was a willowy rock chick goddess and Penelope…was not.
Tait cracked a half grin, “Yeah, I wondered at the wardrobe, not your style, little girl. Not a hint of pink anywhere.”
Penelope tipped up her chin at his mocking.
“I haven’t worn pink since I was a kid.” She lied. She liked pink, so what. “They’re a bit tight, but I like them.”
She’d have to think about that soon, money didn’t just fall out of the sky directly into her purse and seeing as how her father had cut off the credit cards and had her account frozen, she was without funds to even buy panties.
It was the first time in her adult life she was walking around with her ass bare. Feeling exposed, for more than one reason, she slipped onto one of the high bar stools and tucked her feet on the rung.
“I’m fucking starving.” He tossed all the menus in front of her, “pick whatever you want and call it in while I grab a shower, I stink and need to sluice it off.”
There was a lot of options in front of her, she worried her lip and her brows folded in, concentrating.
“It’s not a hard decision,” Tait said from the doorway. Now he’d dropped his jacket, she saw his t-shirt formed to his torso like a second skin and she wasn’t hating the view. Especially when his jeans also sat nicely on his waist, flush to his flat belly and encased his long legs perfectly. “Just get whatever you want. Put in a double order of maple bacon pancakes for me and some curly fries.”
“You’re going to eat curly fries and pancakes together?”
“Yeah. Tell them to put extra crumbled bacon on top. I won’t be long.” With a last look, he turned and strode off through the only hallway, yanking his shirt off from the scruff of his neck, she assumed it led to a bathroom and bedroom.
She was dying to have a look around, but it wasn’t very proper of her to be intrusive.
You basically told the guy you wanted to live with him, that’s not proper either, Penelope.
“Oh, shut up,” she muttered and started to pour over the menus.
She went with a club sandwich for herself and ordered Tait his weird combination.
He was freshly washed and dressed in different clothes, with his dark locks wet and scraped back off his face when he came back.
He looked amazing.
Jesus.
She thought maybe she wouldn’t have feelings for him once she got a decent look at him. She thought maybe they’d develop a friendship, but that was going to be next to impossible if the boiling blood through her veins was a
ny indicator.
Lust. That’s what it was.
She’d never felt it this strongly before and for a girl with her track record with men, that came as somewhat of a surprise.
She cleared the frog from her throat and dropped her eyes from his face, choosing to look at his shoulder instead, which was no better really, not when she could see the outline of his glorious collar bone through the gray cotton.
“They said about thirty minutes.”
“That’s fine. It’ll give us time to talk.”
“Oh.” She’d forgotten that.
“You can explain everything, Poppy.” He leaned both hands on the counter in front of her. Making strong veins prominent in his forearms and the backs of his hands.
Lord above, Tait was masculine as hell.
“What made you go to the Diablos compound, the fuck were you doing in a wedding gown and why have you run away from home? To come to me, of all people.”
It was that last part that hurt her the most.
It seemed the boy who broke her heart all those years ago still had the ability to put cracks in the beating organ.
SIX
“Possession is nine tenths of the biker law.” - Texas
It wasn’t hard to take in how nervous she was the way her eyes wouldn’t land on him for more than a second.
He’d never been a scary guy and considering the circumstances, he hadn’t been mean to her, so it was either her nature or what she was going to tell him.
“Poppy, I just bought you from a MC, whatever shit you have to say, can’t be all that bad after that.”
Her eyes went comically wide.
“Bought me! I wasn’t even for sale.” She burst out with a hitch to her tone that was husky and offended all rolled into one. “Any decent person would have directed another person to their right destination had they been lost.”
“MC’s aren’t decent people.”
“That much I am now aware of, Tait. Buying me. Hmph.” Her eyes blazed, so she did have a little spunk in her, interesting.
“Well I can’t pay you back, so you’re out of pocket. You should have just left me there. They would have tossed me out eventually when they knew I was worth nothing.”
At this her voice cracked a little.
“I’m completely worthless to anyone.”
Before Texas could even touch on that, she lifted her gaze. “Why did it take you so long to come and…buy me? I thought you worked at that other MC place? No one told me you were coming; they didn’t even know your name.”
“They know me as Texas.”
“Texas?”
“Yeah, my road name. A name given by the MC I was a member of.”
“Was?”
That conversation he didn’t touch.
“I haven’t lived here for a while, Poppy, it’s why this place smells unlived in. I was traveling and got word from an old friend about you. It took me a few days to drive from South Carolina.”
“Oh.” And then. “I’m sorry, I just assumed you would be here. God, I’m so sorry to disrupt your life like this. I overheard your brother saying you lived in Colorado and he mentioned the Renegade Souls.”
His twin. Another untouchable subject. His jaw tightened at the thought of Malachai.
He had so many wavering emotions concerning him, that Texas wouldn’t even know how to unpack all that garbage.
He missed his twin, some days it felt like a part of himself was cut out of his torso.
“We’re not talking about me. Start with you rocking up to the Diablos in a wedding gown.”
“That’s easy enough, I suppose. It was my wedding day.”
Something like disturbance tickled in the back of his brain and he didn’t know why.
He’d guessed that much.
Or she’d been in one of those fancy wedding gown stores and ran out without paying. Rich chicks were always being arrested on the news for shoplifting.
“Before or after the ceremony?”
“Very much before. It should never have gotten that far. I didn’t want to marry Ronnie, not really.”
Again, so many questions started banging through Texas’ brain, but he shelved them all, in favor of what was more important.
“So you did a runaway bride act. Why come here?”
The frown became more prominent on her face and he suddenly felt bad for sounding harsh, but it was baffling to him.
They were never close… not really.
They knew each other because they were always at the same events.
He hadn’t thought about her in years just because he closed off that part of his life the moment he bought a motorcycle and drove across country aimlessly until he found Rider and the rest.
The very idea that Texas wanted to be his own man and not become a dull as fuck accountant in the family business meant he became dead to his whole family the moment he left. The nail in the coffin was to assume they could dictate his life in the same way they did with Malachai.
Of course, their golden boy couldn’t do no wrong.
He became a high ranking cop. Married the princess. Lived miserably ever after.
He could tell their parents some home truths about that whole fairy tale and blow that out of the water if he was cruel enough.
“Well?”
“You were the first person I thought of.”
Surprise stung his nose.
“You don’t have friends?”
She scoffed and twisted her fingers together, nervously. “Of course I have friends, Tait. I just don’t have friends who would side with me. They all love Ronnie; thought I’d made it big by marrying him. You know how it is, the only ambition a girl of Harrison wants is the eligible man, the car and the endless credit card.”
“This guy couldn’t give you that?”
“I don’t care about those things. I made a mistake, so I left. He’ll thank me one day when he’s married to someone who can love him back.”
“Ronnie…” a memory unlocked from Texas’ head and he rumbled a laugh. “Don’t tell me it’s Ronnie Pitstop?” That lanky drivel of piss was a few years younger than Texas and Mal, and about as annoying as a tick on the cock.
She nodded and Texas’ laugh couldn’t be held back.
“Poppy…” he went right on laughing, resting on the island top. “Your married name would have been Penelope Pitstop. You would have had to take up wacky racing and wearing pink all the time.”
She had a twitch to her bare lips. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I went through that for six months already from everyone. I told him I couldn’t take his name, that did not go over well with daddy.”
“You were together for six months?”
She shook her head. “Just over a year. He proposed six months ago on vacation.”
He ruminated on that with a low, almost silent hum.
She was saved another grilling when the buzzer made her jump.
“Relax, it’s the food. I’ll run down and grab it. You want to get plates out. They’re in the left cabinet.”
His belly was already growling like a bear as he came back carrying the paper sack full of steaming food to see her arranging plates, napkins and cutlery on the island top. He didn’t even know he owned napkins and he rarely had company over so he didn’t figure a woman had bought them.
Maybe Zara. She liked doing small things for the brothers.
His chest burned. Only, he wasn’t a brother any longer. He wouldn’t get those sweet touches from his prez’s old lady.
“You didn’t have to do fancy, it’s just takeout.”
She turned a blush on him, “sorry, I can put them away.”
“No, it’s fine. Sit, we can talk and eat.”
“There’s not much else to tell you, Tait. I was getting married, changed my mind and ended up here, went to the wrong motorcycle place, had to be bought. I need a place to hang for a while, you know that already.”
“We’re not exactly friends, Poppy.” He pointed out, eati
ng directly from the Styrofoam container. The bacon and maple syrup exploded on his tongue and he moaned appreciatively. He could eat these things day and night. “How would it look to your fiancé if you shacked up with me.”
What the fuck.
He was actually considering letting her?
Texas was not a roommate kind of guy.
Not a woman with gorgeous tits roommate especially.
He had a girlfriend, maybe five years ago. His attempt at getting over Addison and all those fucked up twisted feelings he had for his brother’s wife.
The girlfriend had wanted to move in after four months and that was the beginning of the end for Texas. That relationship went down in flames soon after.
He liked peace and quiet and knowing when he came through his own front door, he was blessedly alone.
He chose that.
Or so he told himself.
“That’s over.”
“Did you tell him that?”
She picked and poked at the sandwich, hardly eating a crumb. He took a handful of his fries, seeing as how they’d overfilled the bag, and dumped them on the plate next to the sandwich. “Eat,” he issued gruffly.
“I think my running off the way I did is clue enough that we’re over.”
“Penelope, seriously? The guy deserves to hear the words.”
“Well excuse me, I was held captive all week, listening to men have sex and drink themselves stupid and wearing clothes that aren’t mine and knowing no one would come and help me, I haven’t had time to think about Ronnie’s feelings, okay?”
The louder she got, the quicker fat tears filled her eyes and starting to plop down her cheeks.
Long ago, he faced another crying woman, but she was vindictive and calculating and the tears were probably squeezed out on cue.
He didn’t think Penelope had that kind of acting in her. And for a woman who didn’t know the MC ways of life, even a woman who did, being held in that way, even treated fairly and unharmed, he could see it had been rough on her.
He let her cry it out.
“He doesn’t even like me like that, Tait. He was marrying me to get a better position with daddy’s hedge fund company.”
Eyebrows fell over his forehead. “He tell you that?”