by Jenika Snow
Tally looked at Naggie and curled her lip. “This, coming from a dyke.”
He expected Naggie to launch herself at Tally, but all she did was laugh. “Sticks and stones and all that bullshit, bitch. At least I don’t have to resort to dressing in underwear in public just for a little attention.”
Tally’s face started taking on a red hue, and she made an outraged sound. “These are the people you associate with, Cadeon?” Tally asked in a high-pitched voice. “I have never been so insulted in my life.”
Naggie snorted. “You must not get out much then.”
Cadeon looked at Naggie and then at Stella and didn’t stop the grin that spread. “Yeah, I hang around some pretty fucking incredible company.” He started chuckling harder when Tally narrowed her eyes. “Look, I have tried not to be an asshole every time you’ve come on to me and I’ve kept you back. I really have, Tally, but this is the very last time I’m going to tell you, and maybe this time it’ll actually sink in.” He took a step toward her and said in a very low voice, “I have a woman, a damn good one at that, and she is the one I love.”
Tally’s eyes widened, and she snapped her head toward Stella. His girl had a surprised look on her face too, and although she knew he cared about her, no doubt hearing him say he loved her was a shock. He knew he had always loved her, but he had just been too fucking deep in his own shit to let those emotions out.
Tally made an angry sound and tightened her hand on the strap of her purse. “If you want that—” She narrowed her eyes at Stella. “—then your loss.” Without saying anything else, she turned and headed for the front door. Tally went to pass Stella, but his girl refused to move for her. They stared at each other for several seconds, and Stella had more of a curious expression on her face than one of being threatened.
Tally gave a mixture of a laugh and snort. When Stella was clearly not going to move out of the way, Tally walked around her with a huff. If Tally thought Stella was some pushover bimbo, she was clearly getting an eye-opening. That had him chuckling harder, because his woman was tough as nails and all his.
Once Tally was out of the shop, there was a second of silence that passed between the three of them. They glanced at one another.
“Wow.” Stella glanced out the front door. “What a bitch.” There was surprise on her face when she turned to them again. “I take it she was one of yours, Cadeon?” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him, yet there was no jealousy or anger but more disbelief in her expression.
Naggie started laughing, and he glanced over at her, but she had her gaze on Stella. “Girl, that wasn’t one of his, but a hanger who wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Naggie said and wiped the tears from her eyes as her laughter died down. “I like your spunk though.” She looked at Cadeon. “I’d love to stay and experience more of your crazy-ass life”—she glanced at Stella—“no offense”—she looked back at Cadeon again—“but I’m out of here. I should have kicked that skinny bitch’s ass.” She turned and grabbed her purse and without waiting for him to reply showed herself out.
Stella shook her head and turned to look out the window, but Cadeon could hear the soft laughter coming from her. “She called me a fat bitch.”
“Baby—”
Stella started chuckling and shook her head. “You would have thought she could come up with something not so high-schoolish.” She started laughing again, harder this time. “It might have hurt my feelings if I didn’t love the way I look.”
Cadeon grinned and walked over to her until there was hardly any space separating them. “And I fucking love your body too.” He moved his hands along her curvy sides and felt his cock harden instantly, as it always did whenever he was in her presence.
She stared up at him, but there was this question in her eyes.
“Yeah, baby, I really fucking meant it when I said I love you.” He cupped her cheek and leaned down to kiss her. “I think I’ve always loved you, even from that first time I saw you walk into the clubhouse when I was giving your old man some ink. But I buried that shit deep, and I know it was because I was afraid of how it made me feel.”
“This whole situation feels surreal.” She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against his chest.
“Yeah, it sure as hell does, but doesn’t it feel good and perfect?”
She opened her eyes and leaned back enough that she could look into his. “Yeah, it really does. We should have had sex three years ago, and all this time wouldn’t have been wasted.” He heard the teasing note in her voice, and then she grinned.
“Baby, it wasn’t the sex that made me finally realize I didn’t want anyone else but you. It was the closeness of being with you, the way you touched me and spoke to me, and the fact that my dumb, stubborn ass finally realized I couldn’t stand to be away from you.” He rubbed his thumb along the lush mound of her bottom lip. “Does it scare you that everything is moving quickly?”
It took her a moment to answer. “Everything isn’t moving quickly, Cadeon. In fact, it seems like it’s taken years to get to this point.”
He grinned and chuckled softly. Yeah, literally and figuratively. But he was going to make up for that, and he was going to use the rest of his life to show her how much she meant to him.
Epilogue
One month later
The music in the clubhouse was loud and vicious. Her father and Booshie were at the bar speaking with Cadeon. She told the guys not to bother him about ink just because he was at the clubhouse. He didn’t work constantly, but the guys seemed to think that whenever they saw Cadeon, it was tattoo discussion time.
That was better than acting grumpy around Cadeon, which they had when their relationship had come out in the open.
She watched as Booshie pulled up the sleeve of his T-shirt and turned to the side so Scars and Cadeon could see his muscular bicep. She couldn’t hear what they said, being this far from the bar or with the music so loud. She knew enough by watching Booshie move his hand up and down over his arm that he was talking about getting more ink.
Stella brought her beer to her mouth and took a long drink. Things were going especially well since she and Cadeon decided to give this relationship a go. The guys had given him a hard time at first, but she knew that if she was happy, they were happy.
She heard them say that enough times. Even if they acted like big, bad biker dudes, they had hearts of gold and protected what they thought of as theirs. Her father could be cranky about it at times and give Cadeon a hard time, but she could see on his face that he was okay with what was happening between them deep down.
“Hey, girl.” Diamond, an old lady for one of the more seasoned members, walked up to her and grinned. “You doing okay?”
Stella nodded. Diamond had been with the club since Stella was a little girl, but she hardly came to the actual clubhouse. After raising three boys who followed in the biker father’s footsteps, Diamond was now enjoying the freedom of being on the back of her man’s bike. But the years and a hard life showed on the older woman’s face in the form of deep lines and wrinkles.
“Your man treating you good?”
“You know it. You think I’d put up with bullshit?”
Diamond started laughing and slapped her black leather chap-covered thigh. “Yeah, I know you ain’t some woman to put up with any man’s shit.” Diamond grinned again and reached inside her leather jacket for a cigarette.
There was a loud crash, and Diamond turned to the side. Stella could see the back of her jacket. It read PROPERTY OF RAZOR.
“Damn drunken fools.” There was a round of laughter as the guys kicked away the broken pieces of glass that now littered the ground. Diamond turned back around. “You take care, honey.” And then Diamond was moving toward the intoxicated bikers, ready to give them hell.
Over the last month, things had been running smoothly. She and Cadeon were taking things slow, enjoying their time with each other and not rushing into anything. Yeah, they already had sex—too many times
to count in the last month, in fact—but being together physically was one way to show each other how they felt.
Did she love him? Yes, she did a lot, and she knew he loved her too by the way he touched her and told her there would never be another woman for him. Although Tally acted like the jealous ex-girlfriend, she had surprisingly left things alone, but that might’ve had something to do with the fact that when they had seen her at the bar a week after the tattoo shop incident, she was hanging off two guys.
Yeah, seemed she moved on pretty quickly, especially when those two guys she had been all over were brothers and owned their own construction business in Reckless. Tally forgot all about how much she “wanted” Cadeon when a little money was flashed in her face.
“Hey, baby.”
She hadn’t even realized Cadeon moved away from the bar and was standing behind her until she heard his deep voice and felt his warm breath on the nape of her neck. He wrapped his arms around her, kissed her on the side of the neck.
“I think I’m ready to get out of here so you and me can spend some quality time together.” His breath smelled faintly of the beer he had been drinking and the spearmint gum he had chewed earlier, and she instantly became aroused.
She smiled, even though he couldn’t see her. “I think your definition of quality time is not cuddling on the couch.” She turned her head so she could see him.
“You aren’t even the cuddling and spooning type.”
That had her laughing. “No, I guess I’m not.”
He grinned and cupped the side of her face. Once his lips pressed to hers, she felt everything inside her light up as if a fuse had been lit. “Now, how about we go back to my place and cuddle in a very different kind of way,” he murmured against her mouth, and although she might have laughed at his choice of words, right now, all she felt was immense heat.
Without speaking, because she didn’t know what to say anyway, Stella nodded. The world around her was sometimes violent, always filled with demanding alpha men, and was not flowers and candy. It seemed she picked a guy who was cut from the same mold as the men she had grown up around.
But despite those characteristics that some might find undesirable, Stella knew it was those hardened men—ones like the Vicious Bastards and Cadeon—who knew what love, safety, and protecting what was theirs really meant. And Stella was a very lucky woman to be surrounded and loved by them.
About the Author
Find Jenika at:
www.JenikaSnow.com
[email protected]