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.
It had all been tequila and downing beers and smoking weed and fucking each other blind and good times and crazy parties and piles of money.
And then . . .
She would never forget, not ever, the look on that man’s face when she’d told him she was carrying Rush.
God.
Joy.
Pure joy.
And when she’d pushed their son out?
Fuck.
Really, she’d lost him then. The minute he held Rush in his arms.
But then came Tabitha.
More joy.
Even Tabitha coming right after Tack’s sister ODed. ODed under his watch.
But a little girl?
Tack was lost.
Lost to Naomi forever.
She remembered.
She remembered calling his name when he first held his baby girl, his fingers wrapped around her little baby throat like it was him making her pulse beat, not Naomi who gave that kid life.
He didn’t even look at her.
It was like she’d disappeared.
He was lost.
He had his son and he had his baby girl, and so he had it all.
Where was she in that mix?
She’d wanted what she should get.
His cock, his attention (all of it) and his money.
Really, kids grew up. Moved out.
It was her that should be his life.
Her.
But it wasn’t her. It was his kids. His little girl. Cleaning up the Club. Taking over.
He just couldn’t rest easy and let things lie.
It had been good. Fucking great.